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diff --git a/old/69369-0.txt b/old/69369-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index bca9da9..0000000 --- a/old/69369-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6505 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Deep channel, by Margaret Prescott -Montague - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Deep channel - -Author: Margaret Prescott Montague - -Release Date: November 16, 2022 [eBook #69369] - -Language: English - -Produced by: hekula03, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was - produced from images made available by the HathiTrust - Digital Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEEP CHANNEL *** - - - - - -DEEP CHANNEL - - - - - DEEP CHANNEL - - BY - MARGARET PRESCOTT MONTAGUE - - [Illustration] - - THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS - BOSTON - - - - - COPYRIGHT 1923 BY MARGARET PRESCOTT MONTAGUE - - - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - - - -DEEP CHANNEL - - - - -I - - -Where shall we pick up the thread of Julie Rose’s life? It runs, a -hidden strand, back and back into the past, crossed and recrossed by -the threads of other lives,--all weaving a pattern of humanity on an -unseen loom,--deflected sometimes by the pull of natures stronger than -her own, widened here and narrowed there by circumstance, winding -itself for the most part along the muddy streets of Hart’s Run, to the -shops on errands for her mother, to the schoolhouse, and on Sundays -to the Methodist church; sometimes, more rarely, running out of the -village by the main street, which so quickly turns itself into a rutty -highway, up the sides of the surrounding mountains on excursions for -chestnuts in the autumn, or for bloodroot and anemone blossoms in the -spring. - -Following the thread, one may see Julie Rose as a little girl--such -a meagre, anxious, and correct little girl!--out on the streets in -hood and little shawl in winter or in a checked wash-dress in summer, -weaving her pattern of life through the village. An uncertain pattern, -deflected as it is by the constant necessity for sudden crossings of -the street to avoid encounters which frighten her, yet at the same time -to give the impression that she changed her course for other reasons. -Here she crosses, one might suppose, to speak to old Mrs. Brewster; -in reality it is to escape a group of rough boys who would be sure to -taunt her, or even give her hair a jerk, did she dare to pass them. -There she recrosses, apparently to peep at a bed of zinnias but really -to avoid a cow, which, blocking the sidewalk, might swoop its horns -at her were she to face it. Always there is the fear and always the -compulsion of concealment, for worse even than being afraid is to have -one’s fear uncovered by the laughter of people. But though a little -nervous pulse flutters in her neck, and her eyes darken constantly with -apprehension, yet her whole face can light up amazingly whenever life -is gracious to her: when some one gives her a red apple, for instance, -or when her teacher is kind. - -One sees her conscientiously hopping over the mud puddles on the way -to school to avoid soiling her shoes and stockings, because that would -worry her mother; yet one may also see that a paper doll, whose pink -cheeks and blue eyes fill her with a maternal delight, is snuggled -under her shawl. Alas! at this point, following her thread of life, one -sees very distinctly the look in her eyes the day that Edward Black -snatched that paper doll away from her, and there before the whole -school at playtime wrenched its head off, and flung its decapitated -body into a snow-bank. That was a gray winter day with dirty yellowed -snow upon the ground and fresh flakes drifting down from a heavily -close and sullen sky. Julie is paralyzed when that big bully snatches -her doll, powerless to move or cry out; she can only stand and look, -her eyes wide and stricken, her hands clutched together. Not so -Henr’etta Wilkins, Julie’s deskmate. She flew at Edward Black, and -slapped him full and stingingly upon the face with her competent hand. -It was Henr’etta’s dramatic act which precipitated a general scuffle -and free fight among the children. They fought back and forth through -the snow and over the tattered remnants of the paper doll. Julie took -no part in the conflict, but under its cover her tension of horror -relaxed sufficiently for her to creep over and collect the torn bits -that had been her doll. The other children knocked her about as she did -so, and when she picked up the last bit, one of the big boys stepped -square upon her hand. But Julie hardly noticed that. In a daze, she -turned out of the school-yard and made for home, slipping and stumbling -through the snow, the fragments of the doll pressed tight against her -breast, and the forbidding sky hanging low upon her. - -At home she could only hold out the torn pieces dumbly to her mother. - -“What’s the matter, honey?” her mother cried, nervously. “Oh, what did -they do to its doll baby?” - -Then at last Julie could speak. “Edward Black did it!” she gasped. -“He--he tore her head right off and flung it in the snow. I couldn’t -stop him--I couldn’t do _anything_. I--couldn’t--” her voice squeaked -out impotently in a flood of tears. - -“Never mind! never mind! It shall have another doll baby,” her mother -comforted her. - -But a question struggled convulsively to the surface through Julie’s -sobs. “What--what made Ed act so mean? I wasn’t doing a thing. I was--I -was just standing there.” - -“I don’t know,” her mother shook her head with a helpless gesture. “I -don’t know. Folks do that way--I reckon it’s all you can expect in this -world.” - -“All you can expect in this world,” Julie repeated with a broken gasp. - -Afterward her mother bathed her face and hands, tied up her bruised -fingers, and giving her a cookie fresh and warm from the oven, made -her go back to school, for “What’ll folks think if you stay home?” she -said. “All the children will laugh at you.” - -So Julie went back, the cookie, fragrant and comforting, in her hand, -but a poignant disillusioned throb still in her heart, driven in so -deep that it was beyond the relief of tears; and the two phrases -her mother had used, “That’s all you can expect in this world,” and -“What’ll folks think?” turned themselves over and over, burrowing down -into her mind and intrenching themselves there. She took a little -tentative nibble of the cookie to comfort herself. It was good, very -good. - -Good? What did that remind Julie of? Oh, yes! Last Sunday’s Golden -Text: “Overcome evil with good.” Ed Black was certainly evil in Julie’s -eyes--then ought she to do good to him? A sudden idea jumped in her -mind, choking her and making her clutch her cookie fast. It was an -awful idea. She could not possibly do it. It would be a dreadful -thing to do. How all the children would laugh! But just because it -was so awful, and would bring public opinion so down on her, a stern -compulsion to do it seized her. - -A tyrant within rose up and challenged her: “You don’t dare to do it,” -the tyrant taunted. “All the children will laugh at you--you don’t -dare--” “I do dare! I do!” Julie cried back at the tyrant, a cold -perspiration breaking out. - -The bell was ringing for the afternoon session when she reached the -schoolhouse, and the children were flocking up the steps to the door. -Edward Black, big and untidy, stood on the top step. His hair was -tousled, his coat torn; his hands were chapped and grimy with dirt. -Through the parti-colored surge of children Julie pressed up to him, -and held out her cookie. - -“What’s that?” he demanded, bringing his scornful eyes down upon her. - -“A cookie,” Julie wavered. “It’s--it’s good.” - -“A cookie?” He snatched it from her. “Well, if you ain’t the _biggest_ -little fool! Look a’ here!” he shouted. “Look what Julie Rose give -me. A cookie! Haw! Haw! Haw!” He waved the gift for all to see, -and his hoarse mirth ran down the line of children, in surprise, -contemptuous laughter, and ejaculation. And only Julie’s shrinking and -inadequate little body stood between her soul and the stabs of the -other children’s derision. “Here--I don’t want anything from _you_!” -Edward cried, and flung the cookie in her face. It struck her cheek -and bounded from thence down to the dirty steps, where the oncoming -children kicked at it, deriding it and trampling it into a pulp with -the mud and snow on their shoes, while Edward Black went haw-hawing -loudly into school. - -“Julie! You are the biggest little idiot!” Henr’etta whispered, -sharply, when they were seated at their desks, and the school was -quieting down. “What in the name of common sense made you go and give -your cookie to that hateful piece when he’d been so mean to you?” - -“It--it was the text,” Julie stammered. - -“The text? What text? Quit shaking so, Julie! What text?” - -“Last Sunday’s,” Julie gasped. - -Henr’etta considered a moment. “Oh, that!” she said. “Well, you cer’nly -are a goody-goody.” - -“I’m not! I’m not!” Julie panted. “It wasn’t that--I--I had to do it.” - -“Why? Why did you have to? Quit shaking, I tell you!” - -“I had to because I was scared to,” Julie confessed miserably. - -But this was beyond Henr’etta’s comprehension. It was really beyond -Julie’s own. She did not know that she was already beginning to feel -herself caught in the terrifying net of her own fears, and had made a -futile leap for freedom. She only knew that something had made her do a -dreadful thing at which all the children had laughed, just as she had -known they would. - -“Oh here, don’t cry, Julie!” Henr’etta whispered hastily. “For the -mercy sakes! Don’t go and cry now, right before the whole school. Here, -look at the geography lesson--here, listen: ‘Principal rivers in West -Virginia’--Oh, for goodness sake!” - -For, despite the principal rivers, Julie had dropped her head upon the -desk in front of her, bursting into a flood of tears; and again the -eyes of all the school stabbed straight through her body, and down into -her soul. - - * * * * * - -One may also see this fragile thread of life running back into Julie’s -babyhood, mothered by her delicate and shrinking mother, and fathered -by her big blustering father. Those were the days when Mr. Rose kept a -small shop in the village, and when Julie’s earliest baby recollections -were concerned with the many-colored things in the shop, and the -mingled smell of raisins, tobacco, and peppermint candy, together with -the dreadful tradition that a witch lived in the ginger-cake barrel, -ready to snap out at a little girl who even so much as thought of -helping herself in passing. That appeared to be the reason for their -being called ginger-snaps. - -But big and boastful as her father was, he was not a success at -storekeeping, and by the time little Julie was five or six, her mother -was taking table boarders “to help out.” She had been a school-teacher -from one of the smaller cities in Virginia, and had trained herself to -a rather prim mode of speech. Julie usually spoke as she did, but in -moments of stress she was apt to break away to the mountain phraseology -of her father’s people. - -Julie’s father boasted largely of the things he meant to do in the -business way, but always as the table boarders increased, the customers -in the shop decreased, until finally, when Julie was ten or eleven, the -shop was closed altogether, and her father had gone across the State -line into West Virginia, to work in the lumber camps. There he made -good money, for people said that Emmet Rose was a mighty fine hand in -the woods; and he himself bragged that he could drop a tree within a -foot of any spot he named. Thereafter, with the money coming regularly -from the lumber camp, Mrs. Rose gave up most of the table boarders, and -so had leisure to do fancy sewing, and to make pretty, sober little -clothes for Julie. The stitches in them were exquisite and sincere, -but she never dressed Julie in bright colors. “No, I don’t like bright -colors,” she was wont to say. - -“But why, mother? Why?” Julie questioned. - -“They’re so gay--” her mother hesitated; “I--I don’t know, but someway -I don’t think they’re respectful to the Lord.” - -Thereafter Julie went in fear of a jealous surveillance from on high. -God became somewhat confused in her child mind with a chicken hawk. -“Grandmaw Rose,” who had a little farm on the top of Slatty Mountain, -said she didn’t hold with white chickens: they was too easy a mark -for the hawk. This seemed to accord with her mother’s fear of bright -colors. Apparently, up there in the wide stretches of the deep sky -that Julie had always liked, there lurked a terrifying Power that -might pounce dreadfully at any moment. Evidently the safest way to get -through life was to slip by as unnoticed as possible, clad, if one were -a chicken, in speckled gray feathers that faded easily from sight in -the grass; or; if one were a little girl, ordering one’s self in the -same humble and unobtrusive manner. - -Julie felt worried about her father, there was so little of the -discreet coloration about him. His necktie, when he wore one, could be -seen half a mile, an easy mark for hawk or deity. His friends described -him as a great big two-fisted Jim-bruiser of a man. He was boastful -and loud, and would come roaring down the river with the log drives in -spring, boisterous, gay, and apparently unafraid. During the summer -months, when he was in Hart’s Run, their reserved little house rocked -with his Homeric laughter, accompanying great stories of “Tony Beaver” -who lives up “Eel River,”--where all the impossible things of the West -Virginia lumber camps happen,--who is blood brother to “Paul Bunyan” -of the Northern woods and who owns a yoke of oxen so big it takes a -crow a week to wing the distance between the horns of one of them. But -just because of his recklessness and daring laughter, Julie adored her -father. Those were good days on the whole--her mother and herself snug -and well provided for in the village, building up a gentle home-life, -with the lumber-jack’s big personality off in the woods to roof it over -securely. - -But when Julie was sixteen, this period came to an abrupt end on a -day in the woods, when a tree which Emmet Rose was felling failed to -drop on the spot he had named, but fell instead upon him. They brought -him home, out of the woods, to Hart’s Run--a painful journey--by way -of tram cars and rough frozen roads with ice and skifts of snow in -the ruts, with Sam Fletcher, who drove, feeling in his own body every -dreadful jolt of the wagon; for, as he confided to his intimates, -if there was one thing he did naturally _de_spise, it was haulin’ a -crippled hand out of the woods. - -Julie and her mother were dazed by the shock. Their scared faces fell -into a mould of horror that did not lighten or relax when they spoke -or even when they tried to smile. Their little hands shook, but they -went on and did things efficiently and bravely. Emmet Rose watched them -sadly out of his big face that was gaunt and curiously stretched with -pain to a wider apprehension. Once when her mother was out of the room, -he put out his uninjured hand to Julie and spoke darkly. - -“It’s got me. I allus knew it would.” - -Julie’s heart jumped violently. “What’s got you, pappy, honey?” she -questioned, putting her hand in his. - -“Life,” he answered. “It’s got me down at last. I allus knew it would. -It gits every feller in the end. I stood up aginst it an’ fought it -like a two-fisted man, but it’s got me, an’ now I’ll jist have to lay -down on you women-folks. Don’t tell mammy--she’s scary enough anyhow.” - -This admission was the climax of terror to Julie. She had always -sheltered in her father’s loud confidence. To have him broken in body -was frightful enough; to see his broken spirit laid bare, to know that -always that sinister dread had lurked in the back of his mind, and that -all his big bluster was just a cloak for it, seemed to take the roof -from over her head, leaving her uncovered in a bleak world. Her heart -beat so fearfully that the thin material of her blouse fluttered up and -down. Nevertheless, she put her other hand, cold as it was, steadfastly -over her father’s. “Never mind, pappy, honey!” she said. “Never mind. -We’ll manage someway.” - -He looked dimly at her white face with the big eyes, and felt the -tremor of her fingers. - -“Poor Julie,” he said. “Poor little Julie. I kind of hate to have life -git a-hold of you.” - -But after all Emmet Rose did not have to “lay down” long on his -women-folks. A broken rib had pierced one lung, pneumonia set in, -and five days after they brought him out of the woods his great body -was stiff and tenantless, and Julie and her mother, two terrified -little people, were left alone. Yet, for all their fear, with a -dogged pertinacity they rebuilt their lives and struggled on, like a -chess-player, who having lost his best piece still fights on with what -the game has left to him. - -Later on, when death swooped again and her mother was gone, Julie, -frightened and alone, nevertheless rebuilt her life once more, and -went on spinning her web of existence, supported by dressmaking and -millinery which she had established in her father’s old shop, and -protected from being quite alone by Aunt Sadie Johnson who rented one -half of the house, and who was not Julie’s aunt at all, but was so old -a friend of her mother’s that Julie had always called her so. - -This is the thread of Julie Rose’s life, running on narrow and timorous -lines back into the past to her birth in Hart’s Run, and forward into -the future, at the command of existence; and all along its pathway of -the past and future one may see her small figure faring forth, as she -weaves her strand in the pattern of humanity. All of it is of interest -and of value in that pattern, but for the sake of winding some of the -thread into a ball of narrative, one must pick it up definitely at -one point and break off at another; therefore, to begin, let us pick -it up on a June night in the summer of 1918, the year that Julie was -thirty-two. - - - - -II - - -It was a soft and gracious evening early in the month. The dusk, -drenched by dew, which brought out the fragrance of locust blossoms, of -peonies, roses, and cut grass in the dooryards up and down the street, -fell over Hart’s Run in breath after breath of oncoming darkness, -obliterating the sordid aspect of the village--except where the -electric lights glaringly defied it--so that the cheap lines of the new -garage were gathered into obscurity, the telegraph poles disappeared, -and looking up one saw the wide, tumbled outline of mountains, with a -remote young moon sailing the sky. - -Some of the night’s fragrance drifted in through Julie’s back door, but -she was unconscious of its appeal, having gone into her shop to see if -everything was in order and safely locked up, before she started out -for the week-night prayer-meeting. - -She had already seen to everything once, but she returned nervously -this second time just to be quite sure that all was safe. Snapping on -the light, she stood a moment, and looked all about the neat little -place; then she stepped across and tried the handle of the door. She -was just turning away, when a sudden rasping noise jumped her heart -into her throat, and stiffened all the nerves at the back of her neck. -She stood transfixed, frozen with terror. She was all alone in her part -of the house. What could the noise be? A snake? Once, as a little girl, -she had almost stepped on a rattlesnake, and ever since any sudden -rasping sound threw her into an agony of fear. Again the sound broke -forth, constricting her with renewed terror. But now she realized that -it came from the old disused fireplace, and she knew distressfully well -what it was; though her fear left her, revulsion and discomfort took -its place. It was the chimney swallows. Their nest had come down and -the young birds were in the fireplace. Julie crept over, and pulling -forward the board screen which she had covered with wall paper, peered -into the hearth. There was only one, a naked little fledgling with -blind eyes and gaping mouth. The sight of it nauseated Julie, and yet -filled her with unhappy compassion. - -“Poor little thing! Poor little thing!” she shuddered. “What in the -world am I going to do with you?” - -“Julie! Aw, Julie!” a strident voice called all at once from the back -door, making Julie jump again. - -It was Mrs. Dolly Anderson, Julie knew. She had stopped on her way to -prayer-meeting. Julie wished she had not come until she had decided -what to do about the chimney-swallow. - -“Julie! Where are you?” the rasping voice persisted. Mrs. Anderson was -coming in through the back way, and was already in the kitchen. Julie -hastily replaced the screen, and met her at the shop door. - -“There you are, dearie,” the visitor proclaimed. “I been bawling my -head off for you. I come by to go with you to prayer meetin’--but you -look’s white as a sheet. What’s the matter?” - -“Nothing, I’m all right,” Julie said, nervously. - -“Something’s scared you,” the other stated, her stalwart figure -settling firmly back upon her heels, as she surveyed Julie with a -relentless stare. “I never knowed any person to get scared as easy as -you do, Julie. What’s happened now? I’ll bet a hopper-grass jumped -at you! Or,” with sudden elephantine playfulness, “I caught you up to -something you hadn’t ought to do. Now then!” she admonished, shaking -a stubby and roguish finger, and pouncing inexorably upon Julie’s -self-conscious look. “Tell its mammy what it’s been doin’.--Oh, for the -_mercy sake_! What’s _that_?” - -The young swallow had broken out stridently once more. - -“It’s a chimney-swallow,” Julie confessed. “I was just trying to think -what to do with it.” - -“Where is it--over in the fireplace?” Mrs. Anderson, with a tread that -made the boards complain under her, went over and pulled the screen -away, with large competent hands. “Ugh! How I despise little naked -birds!” she ejaculated. “Here, where’s the cat?” - -“Oh, I don’t want the cat to get it.” - -“Yes, you do. There ain’t a thing else to do. Here, kitty! Puss, puss, -puss!” - -“But I tell you I don’t want--” - -“Yes you do, too, Julie. Here, kitty, kitty! You _got_ to do it, Julie! -There ain’t another thing to do with ’em. Pus-sie! Puss, puss!” - -Julie’s big black cat came running in on soft eager feet. - -“Here, pussie!” Mrs. Anderson called. - -“No, don’t! Please don’t!” Julie begged. “Scat! scat out of here, -Blackie!” - -But as the cat paused in the doorway, looking uncertainly from one to -the other, half crouched, with green eyes glinting and tail lashing, -Mrs. Anderson dragged it forward by the scruff of the neck, and in an -instant the combination was effected. There was a pounce, a last shriek -of supreme agony from the fledgling, and with a growl the cat ran out -of the room, the bird in its mouth. - -Julie leaned against the counter, swallowing convulsively. - -“Julie! for mercy sake! you know that was the onliest thing to do. When -they come down the chimney like that, you just have to give ’em to the -cat. There ain’t another thing _to_ do.” - -“I--I might have tried to raise it,” Julie said, weakly. - -“No, you could not,” Mrs. Anderson retorted. “You don’t know what to -feed it; an’ even s’posing you did, you ain’t got time to waste pokin’ -fishin’ worms down a nasty little naked bird’s throat--specially now in -the war when our boys needs every single thing we can do for ’em.” - -“I know, but--” - -“Well, but what?” - -“It sounded so awful when the cat got it!” - -“Julie! I never did see any person take things as hard as you do. I -reckon it’s because you’re so thin. Just look at your arms!” Mrs. -Anderson took one of Julie’s hands, and pushed the loose sleeve up -above her elbow. “Looks about the size of a toothpick to me. If you -were fleshier, things wouldn’t get to you so quick. Look at me, now,” -she commanded, drawing up her frank proportions. “Things have to -go through about six inches of grease ’fore they can reach me. But -you--why you’re pretty near as naked to the world as that nasty little -chimney-swallow. You can’t go through life like that. Oh, it’s all -right for a real young girl, but you must be over thirty; it’s time you -was featherin’ up, dearie.” - -Julie snapped off the light in silence, and they passed out of the shop. - -“Well, I will say one thing for you, you always look s’ nice,” Mrs. -Anderson approved her, as they emerged from Julie’s side door and set -out together along the village street. “I never seen you when you -didn’t look like you’d stepped right out of a bandbox. That’s a mighty -cute little collar you got on, dearie,” she continued, fingering the -delicate ruffles at Julie’s neck. Julie was constantly at the mercy of -other women’s hands. Her smallness stirred their maternal instincts; -they were apt to stroke her and patronize her. “I declare, you don’t -seem like nothing but a doll baby to me,” her companion pursued, her -large damp hand giving Julie’s shoulder a final pat. “It beats me -why you never married, Julie.--Oh my Lord!” she broke off abruptly, -clapping her hand to her mouth. - -“What is it? What’s the matter?” Julie cried, in alarm. - -Mrs. Anderson performed some violent mouth-gymnastics behind her palm. -“It’s my teeth,” she explained, spasmodically, at last. “I can’t seem -to get used to this new set, an’ seems like they’re always a-bitin’ at -my tongue. I have to watch ’em all the time. An’ I’m mightily afraid -they’ll drop out in company some day.” She withdrew her hand at -length, and they started on again. “But as I say,” she continued, “I -don’t see why in the name of goodness you never married.” - -“I never wanted to marry,” Julie said hastily, an uncomfortable -restraint falling upon her. - -“Oh yes, that’s just what every old maid says, if you’ll excuse _me_,” -Mrs. Anderson retorted. - -“No--but it’s true; I mean it,” Julie protested. “I--I always just -hated the idea of getting married. It scares me to think of it.” - -They were passing under an electric light, and Mrs. Anderson looked -down at her curiously. “Well, now, ain’t that funny? I just believe -that’s so,” she stated. “An’ it ain’t for want of chances, neither. -There was Sam Dodson--he courted you, didn’t he?” - -Julie was silent, but in the street light Mrs. Anderson could see the -nervous self-consciousness of her face. - -“Oh, all right, don’t tell, then,” she continued. “But everybody knows -he did, an’ Pinckney Wayland, too--and wasn’t there a drummer feller -from Cincinnati? Why, Julie, you’ve had a heap of chances. Most people -would brag about ’em. Scary as you are, I’d think you’d want to be -married an’ have a man ’round to look after you--There! there, now!” -She stopped again, dramatically. - -“What is it? Your teeth?” Julie inquired, with concern. - -“No, but I got an idea. It’s come to me all of a sudden. I just believe -I’ll make a match between you and the new preacher. Now I think that’d -be real suitable. He’s about the right age for you, an’ maybe marrying -a widower like that wouldn’t scare you s’ much.” - -Julie quickened her pace nervously, walking with averted eyes. - -“Widowers, now,” Mrs. Anderson pursued, “They’re broke to double -harness already--they ain’t so hard to drive as a colt.” - -She suddenly collapsed in mirth. “’Magine you drivin’ a colt husband, -Julie!” she giggled. “Don’t walk so fast, dearie; you put me all out er -breath. Well, anyhow, I think widowers are real nice. I ain’t got one -thing against ’em. I just believe I’ll make the match between you and -Brother Seabrook. You like his looks all right, don’t you?” - -Julie had fallen into a frozen silence. But her companion was -inexorable. - -“Don’t you, dearie? Don’t you like his looks?” she persisted. - -“I--I haven’t thought anything about how he looks,” Julie stumbled, -unhappily. - -“I b’lieve he’d like you, too,” Mrs. Anderson went on. “Big men like -him are mighty apt to take to little scary women like you. An’ you’d -make him a real good wife, Julie. I will say for you, you’re ’bout the -best cook in town. You get that from your mother; she always set the -prettiest table--you recollect, Julie?” - -Again Julie was silent. The remembrance of her mother informed all her -life, but it was not possible for her to speak of it to Mrs. Anderson. - -“Well, of course Brother Seabrook would rather have you keepin’ his -house an’ raisin’ his children for him than that soured-faced old -aunt he’s got now. An’ you wouldn’t give him a speck er trouble; you -wouldn’t kick over the traces, would you? ’Magine you kickin’ over -anything, Julie!” Again Mrs. Anderson was convulsed with mirth, but -this time she was interrupted. “Oh, mercy! Them old teeth!” she cried, -clapping her hand to her mouth. “My! But they certainly did take a -spiteful nip at my tongue that time. Yes, sir,” she continued, “I’m -certainly goin’ to make that match if I live. I’ll commence right this -evenin’ by bringin’ you to his notice. I’ll tip him off to call on you -to pray.” - -“Oh, no!” Julie burst out. “Oh, please, Mrs. Anderson--please don’t do -anything like that! You know I never do lead in prayer. I can’t do it. -I never could. Brother Mead knew I couldn’t--and old Brother Johnston, -too--mother told them privately, and they never called on me. I’ll -do anything to help the church--anything I can. But I can’t lead in -prayer, Mrs. Anderson; you know I can’t! I never could.” - -“Well, now, it’s time you learned. You been a member in the Methodist -church too long not to be able to pray, Julie. Why, what’ll folks think -if it gets about you can’t pray? Why, prayer’s just the very foundation -of the church. What’s the matter?” - -Julie had stopped. “I’m not going to prayer-meeting this evening,” she -faltered. “I’ve got to go back. I--I don’t feel so very well.” - -Mrs. Anderson laid firm hands upon her. “That’s perfect nonsense,” -she cried. “You got to go. Why, this is Brother Seabrook’s first -prayer-meeting. Everybody’ll think it’s awful funny if you ain’t there -to welcome him.” - -“I’m not going,” Julie protested, trying to twist herself free of the -large hand on her wrist. “I--I--Oh, you know I can’t lead in prayer! -If he calls on me, I’ll not be able to say one word--an’ everybody’ll -laugh.” - -“Julie! You a Methodist an’ can’t pray?” - -“I’ll die if he calls on me,” Julie cried, on the verge of tears. - -“Oh, no, you won’t. Folks don’t die that easy. What’s the matter with -you, anyhow, Julie?” Mrs. Anderson interrupted herself suddenly. “Why, -now I come to recollect, I heard you pray once, an’ it was just grand. -It was the time we had that big revivalist here--remember? Why, you was -just wonderful that night.” - -“I know--I remember,” Julie returned hurriedly. “But that was -different. I was just carried away that night. Something got hold of -me--it sort of swept me out of myself. I--I wasn’t there that night. It -was his preaching, I reckon. It seemed to set me free.” She broke off, -a sudden bravery brought momentarily to her face by the remembrance. -“But--but that was different,” she hurried on. “I couldn’t do it now. -Please let me go.” - -But the other was inexorable. - -“You’ve prayed once an’ you can pray again,” she persisted. “An’ it -would be awful for you not to be there for Brother Seabrook’s first -prayer-meeting. If you struggle now, Julie, it’ll look like I was -draggin’ you to church, an’ what’ll folks think of that?” - -Julie knew, all through her sensitive being, just how it would look, -and so perforce she yielded. - -Fortunately, however, they were late, so that when they entered the -Sunday-School room, where the week-night services were held, all the -front benches were occupied and they were forced to slip into obscure -seats, near the door. Hidden away by a broad back in front of her, -Julie drew a breath of relief. The agitated beating of her heart -began to subside, and during the singing of the first hymn she even -dared to peep forth between the other worshipers, letting her eyes -rove over the familiar congregation, the plaster walls ornamented by -texts, the red runner of carpet in the aisle, and at last up to the -front where Brother Seabrook stood by the reading-table, his hymn book -stretched away from his farsighted eyes. He was a tall man, and big -in proportion. Breathlessly, overpoweringly big he seemed to Julie. A -personality that made her feel stifled. His hair was dark, and although -flecked with gray, still persisted in a tendency to curl. He had a -trick of smoothing it down fiercely from time to time. He smoothed it -now as he gave himself to the loud worship of song, his body swaying -slightly on his wide-planted legs, and his eyes, as round and dark and -almost as expressionless as shoe buttons, alternately dropped to pick -up a line of hymn and then raised to sweep over his flock. Peeping -forth at him, Julie heard again in her mind Mrs. Anderson’s bold voice -as she planned the match between Brother Seabrook and herself, and at -the remembrance she blushed. She felt the blush not only in her face -but all down into her very being. His eyes terrified her. Once, as she -watched him, they came full upon hers, roving down between the channel -of the people in front. She looked hastily away, but she knew he -had seen her, had marked where she was sitting; and the blush burned -through her more violently than ever. - -The hymn came to an end, and with a final smooth to his hair Brother -Seabrook spread his handkerchief on the floor, and dropped one knee -upon it in prayer. - -“Seems like he needn’t to be so scary about trustin’ both knees to our -floor,” Mrs. Anderson whispered resentfully to Julie, as they bent -forward. - -Brother Seabrook’s petition was an impassioned plea that his flock -might be instructed in prayer--all of them, even the least in their -midst--and here Mrs. Anderson dug her elbow into Julie’s ribs. Another -hymn followed, and as the congregation sang through “Take it to the -Lord in prayer,” Julie tried to fortify herself with the thought that -surely none of the women members would be called on at this very first -prayer-meeting. But when the hymn died away, Brother Seabrook shattered -this forlorn hope by booming out, “Sister Humphries, will you offer a -prayer?” Obediently, old Miss Mary Humphries, up at the front, bowed -her broad back to the burden. It was more than Julie could face. -He was calling on the women, and he had fixed his eyes upon her. It -was terrifying to leave. It was impossible to stay. She went. Mrs. -Anderson’s face was buried in her hands. She never knew when Julie -slipped from her side. None of the worshipers saw her go. She was so -far back that a stride or two brought her to the door. It was half -open, and she passed through it to freedom and safety, without a sound. - - - - -III - - -As Julie came forth from the Sunday-School room, breathless and -trembling, she paused a moment upon the steps, and there the deep -serenity of the night received her. She drew a long breath. Her heart -still pounded violently, but she had escaped: she was delivered. -Inside, Sister Humphries continued to pray, Brother Seabrook speeding -the petition upon its way with ejaculations of “Lord, grant it!” “Amen! -Amen!” Outside, the sweep of a starlighted sky covered the world. Julie -lingered upon the steps, her tense nerves relaxing gradually, as the -safety and reassurance outside wrapped her about. From some near garden -the fragrance of roses was borne to her by an idle breeze--a little -breeze which, having rendered this service, blew away thereafter into -the hills. The mountains were there, the stars, the night. - -On a sudden impulse she dropped down upon the top step. It half -frightened her to do so, because it would “look so funny” if anybody -should see her. But the church was a little distance back from the -street, and there appeared to be no passers-by. She clasped her hands -lightly around her knees, and leaned against a pillar. She had a -feeling of daring and adventure, and yet of utter security. She was -tired after her agitation, and the peace of the night received her, -like the safety of a deep harbor after a tumultuous sea. - -In the church they sang another hymn, and then Brother Seabrook fell -upon his sermon. His text was, “The truth shall make you free.” Julie -could hear every word, and yet she was completely detached. She -sat there sheltered from view, a very still little woman, with the -congregation just at her back, Brother Seabrook’s discourse pouring out -through the half-open door, and the night all about her, as though she -were an invisible soul swung between two worlds. Sometimes she listened -to the sermon, sometimes she merely let the stream of it flow by her -without bestirring her mind to detain the flotsam and jetsam of ideas. - -The wraith of a cloud sailed very softly through the sky, trailing -behind it a long wisp of vapor. It passed across the stars and was -gone. It was immensely tranquilizing. What did all the little hot -things of the world matter? Julie had half a mind to go back again into -church now and dare whatever might happen. But at the thought her heart -stirred and fluttered again. So she did not move, but continued to sit -there in the oasis of peace to which she had come. Her eyes were fixed -upon the infinite depth of the sky, piercing deeper and deeper into it, -until at last it seemed to her as though she were up there above the -hills, just below the pattern of stars. - -Suddenly, however, she was jerked violently to earth. Her name was -being spoken. She froze into a listening terror. Brother Seabrook’s -sermon had come to an end, and his voice resounded through the open -door: “I will ask Sister Julie Rose to offer the closing prayer,” it -said. - -Snatched back from the sky, Julie’s clasped hands flew spasmodically -up against her breast. Very stiffly she turned and peered over her -shoulder. It seemed to her that Brother Seabrook’s eyes must be staring -straight at her, but she was still alone, still safely hidden from the -congregation. - -“Sister, will you please lead us?” the voice insisted. A pause -followed, then the voice came again--“I thought I saw Sister Rose. Is -she not among us?” it demanded. - -Very stiffly and silently Julie arose, and tiptoeing down the steps, -fled away in a panic toward the safety of her own home. Hastening -desperately through the streets, in a few breathless moments she -reached the haven of her own back door. With hands that shook, she -inserted her key, and whisking inside, slammed the door and locked it. - -Safe within the shelter of her own home, her own roof to cover her and -her door fast locked against the outside world, she leaned against the -wall and panted. “Oh, you fool! You awful little fool!” she cried in -passionate self-contempt. “But--but I reckon I oughtn’t to say ‘fool,’” -she faltered. - -After a moment, she moved over and turned on the light, and then -snapped it off again and stood uncertainly in the dark. She was -dreadfully afraid some members of the congregation might stop to -question her about her strange disappearance; but if her house was in -darkness, they would conclude that she had gone to bed. - -This was a vain hope, however. She had not been home very long, sitting -cowering in the dark, when a sudden knock came, and a voice cried, -“Julie--Aw, Julie!” - -Julie waited a hesitant moment, but the voice came again and the knock -insisted. It was Mrs. Sam Wicket. When she called, people had to answer -and doors had to open. With fingers that were still tremulous, Julie -turned the key. Three faces peered in at her, sharp with inquiry, in -the flare of electricity that Julie turned on again. Mrs. Wicket had in -tow her old aunt, Mrs. Stover, and Miss Mary Humphries also. It was a -delegation of inquiry. - -“Well,” Mrs. Wicket announced. “I didn’t b’lieve you’d gone to bed this -early.” - -“Walk in,” Julie said, with dutiful hospitality, which was superfluous, -for, headed by Mrs. Wicket, the three were already trooping through to -the sitting-room. - -“Here, I can’t see a thing. Where’s that hateful button? There, now!” -Mrs. Wicket flooded the neat little room with light. “Now, then, Julie, -we stopped by to see what was the matter with you,” she announced. -She was a thin woman, with dark and snappy eyes, very precise in her -brown dress, to which there was not a superfluous ruffle, as there was -not an extra ounce of flesh on her spare body. “No’m, thank you, I -always prefer a stiff-backed chair; you take the rocker yourself,” she -interpolated to Miss Mary Humphries. - -Miss Mary sat down in the patent plush rocker,--one that Julie’s father -had bought in the old days,--and her square figure firmly established -there and her hands clasped upon her Gospel Hymn book, she stared at -Julie. “What made you slip away like that, Julie?” she demanded. - -“Was you feelin’ bad, honey?” old Mrs. Stover asked. She was a tired -old woman whose eighty years found it hard to keep up with her niece’s -forty-five energetic ones, but she was afraid to be left alone and so -was forced to trail feebly in the other’s wake. She gasped now as she -sank upon the sofa, her mouth open and tremulous, although she tried -every now and again to shut it. But uncertain and dim as her eyes were, -they were the only ones that held any comfort for Julie. “Was you -sick?” she repeated. - -But Mrs. Wicket, who never paid any attention to what her aunt said, -cut her short and demanded again, “What made you slip out of church -like that, Julie?” - -“I--I felt kind of funny,” Julie parried, her cheeks turning red. - -“Mrs. Anderson said you stole out like that because you were afraid -Brother Seabrook would call on you to pray,” Miss Humphries announced -heavily. - -“Mrs. Anderson’s right hot with you, Julie, for givin’ her the slip -like that,” Mrs. Wicket stated. - -Julie said nothing. She sat with tightly folded hands on her knees and -forced herself to look straight at first one inquisitor and then the -other, with what might appear to be an air of composure, although the -eyes seemed to bore into her soul, and to meet them squarely caused her -almost a physical discomfort. - -“Were you afraid he was going to call on you to pray, Julie?” Mrs. -Wicket repeated all over again. - -“Well--well, he did,--” Julie blundered--and knew at once that she was -lost. “That is--I--I was afraid he might,” she added, frightened into -the truth. - -Mrs. Wicket’s eyes snapped wide open. “Why, Julie,” she cried. “Why, -how on earth did you know he called on you?” - -But Miss Mary Humphries had been caught by the second part of Julie’s -statement. - -“Why, Julie, are you really afraid to pray in public?” she demanded. -“Why! I think that’s just awful.” Her blue eyes stared at Julie out of -her wide heavy face. - -“But what I want to know is, how on earth you knew Brother Seabrook -called on you,” Mrs. Wicket pursued. “Mrs. Anderson said you left -before the sermon.” - -Miss Mary, however, was not to be thrown off her line of inquiry. -“But, Julie! Not to be able to pray!” she expostulated. “Why, I can’t -recollect when I couldn’t pray in public.” - -“But how did Julie know she was called on?” Mrs. Wicket demanded. “It -wasn’t till after the sermon.” - -“In my family,” Miss Mary went on, heavily, “my father raised us up to -pray an’ give in experience whenever called on, and--” - -“How did you know, Julie?” - -“And,” Miss Mary drove straight on, not permitting Mrs. Wicket’s -excited interruption to throw her off the track, “and none of us ever -did think anything of leading in prayer.” - -“Well, now, that’s just it,” old Mrs. Stover suddenly came to the -surface long enough to remark. “Maybe if you’d’ve thought more of it, -it wouldn’t’ve come so easy to you. Some folks prays easy, an’ some -don’t. Julie, you look real tired. If I was you, I’d go right to bed, -an’ I’ll be over in the mornin’ to see how you air.” - -“Oh, thank you,” Julie said, catching gratefully at the one remark that -she dared to answer. “But I’ll not be here in the morning. I’m going to -Red River.” - -This announcement served as an unexpected reprieve. - -“Oh, you going to Red River?” “You goin’ there in the morning?” Mrs. -Wicket and Miss Mary exclaimed together, deflected from their other -lines of thought. - -“Yes, to do some shopping,” Julie nodded. And now she relaxed a little -inside herself, aware that the bait of Red River, which was the county -town and a shopping centre, would distract the others for at least a -little while. - -“Well, then, I certainly would be obliged if you’d do a little errand -for me,” Mrs. Wicket said. - -“An’ I’ll get you to attend to a little business of mine, too,” Miss -Mary added. - -“I’ll be real glad to do it,” Julie said, eagerly. - -Mrs. Wicket and Miss Mary proceeded at once to give her minute -directions for the carrying out of their desires, and Julie listened, -assenting and suggesting with the nervous ingratiation of a little dog, -which, having escaped a whipping, hopes to reinstate itself once more -in society. - -Having laid their shopping burdens on Julie’s shoulders, the visitors -rose at last to go. - -“Now, Julie,” Miss Mary charged, “don’t you go and let that smart -clerk in at Randal’s persuade you into buying any of that cheap piece -of goods. It ain’t the shade I want, and if they ain’t got anything -better, I’ll have to send off for it myself.” - -“And remember to see Mr. Winter himself in at Winter and White’s,” Mrs. -Wicket admonished her. - -They were outside in the garden now, starting down the little pathway. -Julie called a good-bye, and shut her door hastily. A window was open, -however, and halfway down the path she heard Mrs. Wicket exclaim, “Why, -there now! We never did find out how Julie knew Brother Seabrook called -on her.” - -“It’s awful, her being afraid to pray,” Miss Mary rejoined. “I ought to -go back an’ speak to her about it.” - -Here Julie snapped out the light. - -“There!” she heard old Mrs. Stover announce. “She’s goin’ to bed, like -I told her to!” - -“Well, it certainly was mighty funny, but I’ll find out all about it -to-morrow,” Mrs. Wicket said, as their heels clicked away down the -cement walk; and Julie knew that her having sat upon the church steps -would yet have to be faced and explained. - -“Oh, I _am_ such an idiot!” she broke out. And now the nervous tears -rushed forth, and she went about her preparations for bed, shaking -convulsively, wiping them away, and raging at herself. “You idiot! -You idiot!” she stormed. Even after the light was out and she was -stretched in bed, the devils of self-hatred continued to tear through -her. She tossed unhappily from one side to the other, going over and -over the whole miserable evening. Why had she run away? Why hadn’t she -stayed and faced it out? Oh, but she couldn’t pray--she just couldn’t! -Well then, if she had to go, why hadn’t she come straight home, instead -of lingering there on the steps? Of course that was a strange thing to -do. Of course people would think it funny if they knew. And they would -know. Mrs. Wicket would be sure to find it out, and sure to tell. Julie -writhed all through her thin body. - -“Oh, you little fool!” she gasped. “What business is it of Mrs. -Wicket’s what you do? Why can’t you stand up to her and make her mind -her own affairs! Everybody comes an’ bosses you. Mrs. Anderson gave the -little bird to the cat, and Mrs. Wicket and Miss Mary poking into all -you do, an’ you takin’ everything from ’em just because you’re scared -to look ’em in the face. Oh, you fool--you fool!--But I mustn’t go on -saying ‘fool’!” she wept. - -Her shyness, her reserve, and morbid self-consciousness wrapped -themselves about her, as intangible as spider webs, but as difficult -to break as forged iron. As the night wore on, her having sat upon the -church steps assumed an enormity out of all proportion to the fact. She -knew that this was an obsession, but all alone in the depths of her -self-distrust and sleeplessness, she could not break free from it. - -“Oh, what a fool I am to take things so hard!” she panted. “Now -everybody’ll know I’m afraid to pray in public. There won’t be one -person that goes to the Methodist church that won’t know it. Oh, you -silly idiot! Oh, how I hate you!” In a culminating burst of rage, she -turned over and set her teeth violently into her thin arm. - -The hours writhed away at last, and just before dawn she fell asleep, -but, even then she was not delivered. In her dreams she herself became -horribly confused with the little chimney-swallow, and Mrs. Anderson, -in the shape of Blackie the cat, pounced upon her. - -There was another cat also--this one with two heads; one head had the -snapping eyes of Mrs. Wicket, and the other the broad and stupid face -of Miss Mary Humphries. They gazed on her, and she heard them making a -dreadful play on words. - -“She can’t pray,” said the Miss Mary Humphries’ head. - -“If she can’t pray, she’s my prey,” said the Mrs. Anderson cat, and -opened her mouth. Julie saw the jaws, she saw the teeth, she saw the -red tongue curled back. In a moment everything else disappeared. In -all the world there was nothing but herself that was a little naked -bird, and that gaping mouth descending upon her. Closer and closer it -came, the tongue curled back, the white teeth in rows. It closed upon -her, and she shrieked, only she did not shriek in her own woman’s voice -but rather in that last agony that the fledgling emitted when Blackie -pounced. - -With a violent start, she awoke. It was early daylight and she was in -her own bed; but the dream was still upon her, and for a moment she -could not shake it off. It seemed as though somewhere in her sleep she -had doffed her humanity and for a moment had entered into and known the -agony of the captured bird, as though that agony were a real thing, -detached and tangible, left alive to blow about through the world and -fasten darkly upon any wayfarers of sleep. On the edge of waking, Julie -found the tears in her eyes. “Poor little bird! Poor little thing!” -she cried pitifully. - -Then she came to herself. The mystery of sleep withdrew, she slipped -back into her own personality, and knew that it was time for her to get -ready for her day in Red River. - - - - -IV - - -When Julie reached the station to take her train for Red River, she -found herself the only passenger from Hart’s Run. A couple of traveling -men, strangers to her, were walking up and down the platform in the -fresh morning air, pulling at their cigars, evidently content and -well-breakfasted by the hospitality of the Monroe House in the village. -The station master was also there. He was Edward Black, the same bully -who had torn Julie’s doll to pieces so long ago. He had grown into a -stout and flabby man, with small eyes set in so large an expanse of -face that one inevitably thought of his cheeks as jowls. He greeted her -with “Mornin’, Julie, goin’ away on Number Twelve?” - -“Just to Red River for the day,” she answered. “I hope Twelve’s on -time.” - -“Hope’s cheap,” Edward retorted. It was his custom not to give away -information in regard to the trains too easily. He liked to keep the -superior knowledge that his post gave him for the gratification of his -own vanity. - -Julie would have liked to slip away unnoticed into the station, but she -also wanted very much to know whether or not the train was on time, for -if it were hours late--as it sometimes was--she would not be able to -do much shopping in Red River, and so would put off her trip until the -next day. Therefore she mustered courage to put the question direct, -although she had a painfully acute inner remembrance of how very -forlorn her face had looked in the mirror that morning. - -“Is--is Twelve on time?” she asked. - -“Is--is Twelve on time,” he mimicked, and turned to wink at the near-by -drummers. But it was a wink misplaced. One of the men, who had been -teetering gayly up and down on the precarious footing of the iron -track, in sheer exuberance of health and the fine morning, turned a -sudden flaming red, and removed the cigar abruptly from his mouth. - -“The lady’s asked you if the train’s on time. You’re here to tell her!” -he blazed. - -In sulky surprise, Edward Black attempted to turn away as though called -by important business elsewhere, but the drummer came a stride nearer, -and curled his fists. - -“Tell her!” he commanded. - -“Yes, it’s on time,” Edward answered and made a sullen escape. - -The drummer turned to Julie, and swept off his hat. “Lady, your train’s -on time,” he announced. - -“Oh--oh, thank you!” Julie faltered, and retreated into the station in -an agony of embarrassment. - -As she fled, she heard the drummer comment to his friend, “Oh, Lord, -how I do hate that kind of a fat bully! I hope to heavens if I ever get -to France all the Germans’ll look just like him. If they do, I’ll not -have any trouble at all stickin’ bayonets into ’em.” - -Julie knew that the words were perfectly audible to Edward Black and -that he would not fail to pay her back for them. She still had her -ticket to buy, and when he opened the ticket window she approached in -apprehension. They were alone in the station. - -“Say, Julie, I got a joke on you,” he jeered. “Say, I know how you go -to prayer meetin’.” - -The color rushed into Julie’s face. - -“Say,” he pursued, watching her from under the drooped lids of his pig -eyes, “What was you doin’ sittin’ out on the church steps last night, -when everybody else was inside?” - -So Edward Black, of all people, had seen her! - -“Nothing--it wasn’t anything,” she stumbled, knowing that her voice -sounded frightened, and that her cheeks were blazing. - -“Oh, yes, it was nothin’! Nothin’ be dogged! Folks don’t turn red like -that over nothin’. Well, I’m goin’ to tell people how Julie Rose goes -to prayer-meeting!” - -But here Number Twelve whistled down the line--a clear burst of sound, -cutting joyously through the air. Edward Black had to supply Julie with -her ticket, and so she was delivered. - -It was on her way back from Red River that Julie first saw Timothy -Bixby. - -The shopping trips to Red River were always occasions of discomfort to -Julie. It was unnerving to her to be shaken out of her accustomed rut -of Hart’s Run. Out in the unfamiliar streets of the larger town, she -always felt strange and dreadfully conspicuous. Henr’etta Crossman, who -had been Henr’etta Wilkinson, Julie’s schoolmate in Hart’s Run, and -with whom Julie generally took dinner when she came to Red River, was -apt to call jovial attention to Julie’s unhappy self-consciousness. -“Come right in to its momma,” she would greet Julie, enfolding her -against her large bosom. “Nothing didn’t bite you comin’ up street, did -it!” - -A day in Red River spent in Henr’etta’s society left Julie limp, -crushed by the other’s exuberant self-confidence, with all the delicate -antennæ of her personality brushed aside, as a butterfly’s wing is -brushed by a too rough touch. - -The day in question was no exception. Indeed, after her wretched night, -Julie was more than ever drained of all vitality when she boarded the -afternoon train for Hart’s Run, squeezing herself and her bundles down -into a seat beside a fat woman with a bulging suit-case. “Henr’etta -certainly is kind,” she told herself wearily, “but someway, being -with her always makes me feel mighty small, she’s so big and sure of -herself. And Red River, too, it always makes me feel like I was out -naked in the world. Why,” she thought suddenly, “that’s just what Mrs. -Anderson said. She said I was pretty nigh as naked as that little bird, -and it’s just the truth!” - -Halfway down, all the seats on one side of the car were given over to -a detachment of men in khaki. They laughed and joked uproariously and -burst occasionally into war songs--“We won’t be back ’til it’s over, -over there,” and “Keep the home fires burning.” Men in khaki were new -and strange phenomena in Julie’s part of the world, and she looked at -them curiously. But she was so weary that even they could not engage -her interest for long, and closing her eyes, she let herself relax. She -could feel the big warm body of the woman beside her heave up and down -with each breath. The train was stuffy and hot, filled with disheveled -people and fretful children, and over all hung the smell of smoke and -cinders and peeled oranges; presently with closed eyes she went almost -to sleep in the weary atmosphere. The gray roar of the train pulsed in -her ears, making a swaying background of sound before which fantastic -thoughts on the verge of dreams spread themselves out. Suddenly, -however, against that curtain of sound a woman’s sharp voice detached -itself from the other noises and hung for a moment before Julie’s -consciousness, as distinct as words on a motion-picture screen. - -“Yes, it is in there,” the voice said. “It is, too! I put it there -myself just a while back!” - -Julie opened her eyes, and looking in the direction of the voice saw -Timothy Bixby for the first time. He was one seat ahead of her across -the aisle so that she had a clear view of him, a meagre little man, -fumbling anxiously through the contents of a suit-case, while a woman -in the same seat, her head against a pillow, watched him angrily. It -was the woman’s voice that had aroused Julie. - -“It _is_ there, too!” she repeated. “Oh, why in the name of common -sense can’t you ever find anything? Here--get out of the way!” - -She shoved the man aside, and stooping an instant, fished in the -suit-case, bringing to light a collapsible drinking-cup. - -“There! I told you it was there right along,” she announced, flouncing -back into her seat. “Now for mercy sake get me that water, so’s I can -take a tablet--my head’s just about to split open.” - -The little man took the cup in submissive silence and went forward to -the water cooler. Julie watched him go down the aisle. He had sandy -hair, and meek, rather drooping shoulders. His progress was zigzag, as -he clutched the back of first one seat and then another, tossed from -side to side by the speed of the train, which on a down grade now was -making up lost time. When, after filling the cup, he turned about, she -had a good view of him. He was about thirty years old, with a small -spare frame, deprecatory movements, and an anxious frown between his -blue eyes. He seemed to be trying desperately hard to cope with life, -with a kind of worried patience. But life was against him. Halfway down -the car, a small peripatetic child got in his way, and a lurch from the -train made him spill the water over its frock. - -“Aw--oh!” he cried, a little ejaculation of dismay, and turned -helplessly and unhappily to the mother. - -“I certainly am sorry, marm,” he apologized, while he fumbled for his -handkerchief to wipe the child’s frock. The mother paid no attention -whatever to him, but snatching her child to her, removed the small -spill of water as though her offspring had been marked by it for life. -He repeated, “I’m mighty sorry,” and continued to stand helplessly -by, but the woman would not give him even a glance of comfort or -forgiveness, so after another uncertain moment he went back for fresh -water. As he turned after refilling the cup and again came down the -aisle, he was forced to meet the eyes of all the passengers. The small -disaster had called momentary attention to him, marking him as it were -with an exclamation point, and everybody was staring. The soldiers -seized upon him as a butt for their wit. - -“Now then, George, steady! Whoa--up! Steady!” - -“Mind how you carry yer licker, son!” - -“Atta boy!” - -He advanced with averted eyes, apparently intent upon the cup, but -Julie could see the flush of painful color in his face. The soldiers -saw it too and jeered with renewed “Atta boy’s.” Julie knew exactly how -he felt. All at once, she knew it so hard, so violently, that suddenly -she seemed flowing out of herself to him with a sharp projection -of sympathy. He felt her eyes upon him, and just as he reached his -seat, looked up with a startled expression. There was a momentary -rush of contact between them, close, astonishing, almost suffocating -to Julie. An instant they were held in each other’s glance. Then he -turned away, and handed the cup to his companion. The woman accepted it -ungraciously, and putting a white tablet into her mouth, gulped it down -with a swallow of water. - -“I never did see anybody as awkward as you,” she said. “Spilling water -all over that child! Now for gracious sake, keep still an’ let me be -quiet a spell, and see ’f this tablet won’t help my headache some.” - -He said nothing, but readjusted her pillow for her, restored the -drinking-cup to the bag, and pushed the latter well over to his side to -make more room for her, although he was himself uncomfortably squeezed, -doing it all with that air of worried endeavor, as though Fate had -presented him with a portion of life bigger than he could manage. -He had also, Julie observed, a detached manner, a little as though -his whole self were not present. It was this aloofness that made her -comment inwardly, “Well, he certainly is good to that hateful sister -of his.” True, the woman did not look like his sister, but she could -not be his wife; surely, she thought, he would have had something -different, a fuller, more alive personality, to offer to his mate. - -After the suit-case was closed, he looked around again at Julie, but -she averted her eyes now, staring away out of the window, and would not -let herself glance again at him until the train was nearing Hart’s Run, -when she straightened up, and began to gather her bundles together. -Then she looked across the aisle, and saw that he and his companion -were also making preparations to leave the train. Their suit-case -was strapped; the woman had tidied herself up and put on her hat, -presenting now an appearance completely in accord with the prevailing -style; and when the conductor put his head into the train and shouted -“Hart’s Run, Hart’s Run,” they rose and moved out into the aisle. -Julie was just behind them as they approached the door. “Well, here we -are,” the man said, and both he and his companion stooped down to peer -through the windows at Hart’s Run, evidently seeing it for the first -time. - -“Well, ain’t it the awfulest little hole!” the woman ejaculated. - -“Oh, maybe it won’t be so bad,” he offered. - -By now they had all three moved out to the platform, waiting for the -train to come to a standstill, as the dingy little station slid to meet -them. - -“Maybe! maybe!” she snorted. “I’m about sick of maybe’s! You’ve been -maybe-ing all your life. I just bet before you were born somebody said, -‘Maybe it’ll be a boy,’ an’ that’s just what you are--a kind of a maybe -man.” She ended with a burst of laughter, pleased by her own wit. - -He made no retort, but Julie, who was standing close beside him now, -saw him wince, saw his lips twitch, and his hands tighten spasmodically -on the suit-case. For a moment he looked wildly about like a trapped -animal seeking escape. As he did so his eyes came full upon Julie’s -face. There was such a look of desperation, of trapped and impotent -despair in them, that a surge of rage leaped within, sweeping her -beyond all the small proprieties, so that she found herself whispering -breathlessly behind the woman’s back, “Oh, don’t mind, don’t mind so! I -understand--I understand!” - -He stared at her a startled, incredulous moment, the color coming up -in his face in flood after flood. - -The train jerked to a standstill. They were flung together unsteadily -for an instant, and then descended the steps. - -Julie did not linger. She did not look again at the little man, but -stepping past him and his companion, walked quickly along the station -platform. Her arms were full of bundles, but she was hardly conscious -of them, nor of her feet moving over the boards; the gust of her -rage blew her along with a sense of speed and lightness, almost as -though she were flying. It was glorious. It lifted her above herself. -It set her free. At that moment she was released from all the small -constrictions of her life, she was beyond fear of anything, or of any -person. Walking thus down the platform she encountered Edward Black. He -blocked her way with his great hectoring swagger. - -“Oh, I know somep’n, I know somep’n,” he sang. - -Julie stopped. She was so angry that her eyes glittered, and a flame -seemed to dart out of her white face. - -“What do you know?” she demanded. - -Edward was surprised and disconcerted. This was not the frightened -response he expected from his victim. “Oh, well, never mind,” he -muttered, and started to turn away, but Julie stepped quickly after him. - -“What do you know?” she repeated furiously. - -Again he backed away a step or two. It seemed to him that this enraged -little woman might fly at his throat. - -“Aw, I was just foolin’, Julie,” he said weakly. - -“You saw me sitting out on the church steps last night,” Julie stated -clearly and concisely. “Now, what of it?” - -“Nothing, Julie, nothing,” he repeated, still retreating sheepishly -before her, and uneasily aware that they were attracting attention from -the small group of station loafers. But Julie was swept above herself. -What people thought, or what they said was a thing beneath her feet -now. She did not even hear one of the loafers call out, “That’s right. -Miss Julie! Don’t take any foolishness off’n Ed! You got him on the run -now. Keep it up!” - -“I sat out on the steps because I wanted to,” she continued fiercely. -“And what I do is no concern of yours, nor of anybody else’s.” - -Edward Black fell away without another word, and Julie continued her -progress, still blown along by the gust of her rage. Presently she met -Bessie Randolph, who was the wife of Silas Randolph, the president of -the bank, a very important person in Hart’s Run. - -“See that couple there,” Mrs. Randolph said, joining Julie and pointing -out the small man and his companion, who had been met by Wilson McLane, -editor of the _Hart’s Run News_. “The man must be the new printer for -the _News_. Mr. McLane told me he was expecting him by this train. That -must be his wife with him.” - -“No, it’s his sister,” Julie corrected positively. She was not in the -habit of contradicting. - -“Oh, then you’re acquainted with them?” the other challenged. - -“I never saw them before, but I noticed them on the train, and I know -she’s his sister.” - -“Well, they don’t either of them look like much,” Mrs. Randolph said -with a careless dismissal. “Come on Julie, I’ll ride you home; my car’s -right here.” - -“I thank you,” Julie responded. “But I reckon I’ll walk.” - -Mrs. Randolph stared at her. People did not often so lightly refuse her -condescension. - -“You better ride with all those bundles,” she urged. - -“No--no thank you. I want the walk,” Julie answered. “And besides, I -don’t like automobiles. It scares me to ride in them.” - -For years Julie had been afraid of motors and for years she had tried -to conceal the fact. This was the first time that she had ever dared to -acknowledge it, much less to refuse an invitation from the elegant Mrs. -Randolph. But now she gave a little indifferent bow of refusal, and -went upon her way, still blown along by the gust of her anger, as she -saw again in remembrance the incident on the train platform. - -“That _hateful_ woman!” she stormed to herself, the sneer on the -woman’s face when she had called her companion a “maybe man” still -sharp before her mental vision. “The hateful piece!” She found she was -repeating over and over: “I know. I understand. I know. Oh, _don’t_ -take it so hard! I know how hateful folks are!--He’s as unfeathered -as I am,” she whispered to herself. “Things get at him just like they -do me, an’ he don’t know any better how to stand up against them. I -understand. I know how it is.--Well, anyhow,” she exulted, “I settled -that hateful Ed Black for once! Always picking on me. Tore my paper -doll up. Tramped on my cookie. Thought he could keep on bullyin’ me -forever, but I settled _him_ all right!” The careful speech her mother -had trained her to had slipped now, and she was reverting to the -mountain phraseology. - -“Julie! Oh, Julie, wait just a minute--I want to ask you about that -crêpe waist of mine.” It was one of Julie’s customers calling to her -from a porch. People were in the habit of stopping Julie as she passed -along the street, no matter in how much haste she might be, to have -her advice about old and decrepit clothes. Although she resented this, -Julie usually meekly responded--but not this time. - -“Bring your waist into the shop in the morning, and I’ll attend to it,” -she called back, continuing upon her way. - -She reached home, and unlocking her door, went into her bedroom, then -depositing her bundles, removed her hat before the mirror. The face -that looked at her was flushed and alive and recreated. It was not at -all the haunted and forlorn little countenance that the glass had given -back in the morning. Julie lingered a moment, staring at herself and -wondering. She was interrupted by Mrs. Sam Wicket who entered after a -preliminary knock. - -“You back, Julie?” she said. And after Julie had stated that she was -back, “Did you speak to Winter and White’s about the stove?” she -inquired. - -“I did,” Julie returned, “and they’ll write to you about it.” - -“Humph! Writin’ ain’t much good. Well, did you do that other little -errand for me? I ain’t got a second to stop; my light bread’s ready to -come out of the oven right this minute.” - -Julie fished out her especial package from the pile on the bed, and -handed it over to her. - -“Well, I certainly do thank you for all your trouble,” Mrs. Wicket -said, and was just turning away, when she paused, struck by a further -thought. “Oh, there!” she exclaimed. “What I wanted to ask you last -night was, how you knew Brother Seabrook called on you to pray?” - -“I was sitting just outside on the steps and heard him,” Julie returned -simply, looking straight at her. - -“You--you was sitting on the steps?” - -“Yes,” Julie proceeded. “I slipped out because I was afraid to be -called on, and after I got outside it was all so sweet and still, I -just sat down there for a little bit, till I heard him ask me to lead, -an’ then I came home.” - -“Well!” Mrs. Wicket ejaculated. She was speechless a moment. Then she -burst out. “Well, I think that was the funniest thing!” - -“Maybe it was,” Julie interrupted her, “but anyhow I did it.” - -“But Julie! Sitting outside on the church steps ’cause you’re afraid to -pray?” - -“Did you say your bread was in the oven?” Julie inquired. - -“Yes, my bread-rolls; yes, that’s right. I got to go.” Mrs. Wicket -turned away. “But I do think that’s mighty funny, Julie,” she called -back as she went down the walk. - -Julie shut her door and sat down in a chair. Suddenly she was -extraordinarily limp and exhausted. Her anger with its glorious -exaltation had evaporated, leaving her face to face with the appalling -things to which it had swept her. - -“Why, I told her--I just told her everything right out!” she whispered. -“She’ll tell everybody; they’ll all be talking about it now. An’ I was -short to Mrs. Silas Randolph, of all people! And look how I answered -Kitty Jeffers about her waist. They won’t either of ’em like it. -They’ll all be talking about me.” Then her relaxed mind gave back to -her--what she had not noticed at the time--the words of encouragement -the loafer at the station had cried to her: “That’s right, Julie; -don’t take any foolishness off’n Ed! You got him goin’ now!” Why--how -awful! Right out there on the station platform! How awful for her to -have laid herself open to such conspicuousness! She shuddered, all her -nerves tightening once more with self-consciousness, and her cheeks -burning. “Oh, what a fool you are! Oh, how they’ll talk about you! They -won’t any of ’em understand!” Glancing up, she saw her face again in -the mirror, and now it was the same white and anxious reflection that -had looked out at her in the morning. Something in its impotent appeal -brought back the look of unprotected despair in the face of the little -man on the train. “Oh, I understand, I do understand,” she burst out -passionately. “Don’t look that way, _don’t_ take it so hard! Folks -don’t understand, but I do!” And she hardly knew whether her words were -addressed to his tragedy or to her own. - - - - -V - - -It was two days afterward that Julie saw Mr. Bixby again. She knew his -name now. The _Hart’s Run News_ had announced that Mr. Timothy Bixby, -an expert printer and typesetter, had accepted the position left vacant -by the departure of Hobson Jones, who had left for Camp Lee to answer -his call to the colors. The _News_ added further, “We are glad to -welcome Mr. and Mrs. Bixby to our midst.” - -So that woman was his wife after all. - -Their next meeting occurred when Mr. Bixby made his way to Julie’s -little shop, sent by his wife to match some pink yarn for a sweater -she was knitting. It was just like her, Julie thought, to be knitting -a sweater for herself when all the rest of the women were at work on -khaki wool for the soldiers. And like her, too, to send her husband, -because she was ashamed to ask for it herself. Julie had time to -think of these things because she was busy at the hat counter with a -customer, and so had to let Maida Watkins, who sometimes helped her -out in the shop, wait on Mr. Bixby. - -“_Pink_ wool?” Maida demanded sharply, her cold young eyes piercing -him, and her teeth snapping together on her chewing-gum. Maida had been -expressing superiority, leisure, and indifference, as she stood behind -the counter, ruminating slowly upon her gum, the while she patted her -blond hair from time to time, or examined her polished nails; but when -Mr. Bixby entered, and holding out the sample made his timid request, -she shot “_Pink_ wool” at him, and clenched her teeth so tight on her -gum that the muscles stood out on either side of her jaws. The color -swept up uncomfortably to his eyes, making his face look blurred and -helpless. - -“Yes, marm, if you please, marm: to match this sample if you got it,” -he stammered. - -“No, we ain’t got it,” Maida returned, not even deigning to glance at -the wisp of yarn he proffered. “It’s only pro-Germans would keep pink -wool these days,” she informed him. After which she returned to her -haughty mastication, staring away out of the window over his head. - -It was here that Julie abruptly laid down the hat she had been -displaying and swept forward. She was animated by the same rage that -had assailed her before. As she passed Maida she glared at her. “Show -Miss Jenkins that sport hat,” she commanded; and Maida with a startled -and indignant toss of her blond puffs melted away to the obscurity of -the hat counter. - -Julie reached the open door just as Mr. Bixby was starting out of it. - -“I’m mighty sorry I haven’t got what you want, Mr. Bixby,” she said. “I -hope you’ll call again.” - -At her words he turned, and there was a sudden leap of surprise, of -recognition, and of release in his eyes. For an instant they stood and -looked at one another, the storm-tossed personalities of each finding -a harbor and refuge in the being of the other. He spoke first. “I--I -didn’t know,” he stumbled. “Is this your shop?” - -She nodded. “Yes, I live here.” - -But now she knew that Maida was turning to ask her something about -the hat she held, and she hastily snatched up the momentarily dropped -mantle of conventionality. - -“I’m mighty sorry we haven’t any pink wool, Mr. Bixby,” she repeated, -although she was aware that Maida was regarding her with outraged -contempt. - -He replied with a sudden surprising twist of whimsicality, an -unexpected twinkle in his blue eyes. - -“Oh, well,” he appealed, “ain’t it just like me to ask for pink wool a -war year? Ain’t it just the ornary kind of thing I would do?” - -He spoke as though she knew him quite well, and would understand -perfectly all the small disasters to which he was prone. - -“Oh, well,” she said, still offering consolation, “Of course, a man -couldn’t be expected to know how hard it is to get any kind of wool -these days. Why, the Red Cross Committee has even sent over to Winter’s -Gap to see if they can’t get some homespun. Winter’s Gap is in the back -part of the county away from the railroad, where some of the old folks -still spin,” she explained. - -“Is that so?” he said with interest. People were not usually interested -in Julie’s small remarks. “Well, I reckon I must be going,” he added, -conscious now of Maida’s severe eyes upon them. He made an uncertain -gesture toward his hat and turned away. As he raised his arm, Julie -caught sight of a rip in his sleeve. - -“I don’t see why in the name of goodness that woman can’t keep him -mended up!” her thoughts ejaculated angrily. - - - - -VI - - -The following Sunday after service, Julie was formally presented to Mr. -and Mrs. Bixby. - -She had gone to church in an agony of apprehension. Would Brother -Seabrook call on her again to pray? Or did he know now that she was -afraid? And did everybody else know? The thought made her feel like an -outcast, yet she was so terrified that she would have liked to go to -Brother Seabrook before church and beg him not to call upon her. She -pictured herself doing it; she even made up in her mind the words with -which to clothe her request; but in the end she could not bring herself -to do it. Instead, she went late and slipped into a back pew. He did -not call upon her, but all through the service she suffered an agony of -dread, and when it was over, and she rose with the rest to leave, she -felt as though every eye was fixed on her in contempt. - -Outside the church she encountered a little group of people who were -being introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Bixby. Mrs. Sam Wicket had taken -upon herself the responsibility of presenting the strangers to the -congregation. - -“Miss Rose, make you acquainted with Mis’ Bixby,” she said, catching -Julie by the arm as she came down the steps, and holding her firmly -before the other, as though she might otherwise escape. - -“Miss Rose, pleased to meet you,” the newcomer said; and Julie found -herself looking up into the face of Elizabeth Bixby, while their hands -touched for a moment. - -Dressed for her first public appearance in Hart’s Run, Mrs. Bixby -was at once more amiable and more overpowering than the cross and -disheveled woman whom Julie had seen on the train. An exotic perfume -new to the village hung about her. Her green silk dress shimmered in -the sun, her feet were squeezed into high-heeled pumps with flashing -buckles, while from her ears big green hoops depended, accentuating the -breadth and bold commonness of her face, and shaking and gleaming as -she turned her head from side to side. She was much taller than Julie, -so that she had to look down at her. - -“I recollect seeing you on the train, the day we got here,” she -announced. - -“And that’s Mr. Bixby,” Mrs. Wicket added--rather as an afterthought. - -Julie turned and looked into Timothy Bixby’s face as their hands came -together for the first time. His was cold from shyness, and Julie knew -that hers must feel the same way. Neither of them spoke. - -“You must excuse my husband,” Mrs. Bixby said with elaborate -jocularity. “The cat got his tongue when he was real little, an’ he’s -been dumb ever since.” - -The unhappy color suffused Mr. Bixby’s face, and letting go of Julie’s -hand, his glance sought the ground in confusion. Then suddenly he -raised his eyes and gazed straight at her. She saw his spirit, -desperate and impotent, like a caged wild animal, looking out at her. -The sight shook her once more with that familiar suffocating anger. - -“Oh, well,” she retorted boldly, “what people say isn’t really -anything. It’s what they are that matters. I’m not much of a hand for -talking myself. Maybe the same cat got my tongue.--Excuse me; I’ve got -to go back and speak to Brother Seabrook a minute,” she added suddenly. - -Julie reëntered the church and went hastily along the red-carpeted -aisle, and with every determined spring of her foot she said to -herself, “It’s got to stop--it’s just got to stop right now. Folks have -_got_ to let us alone.” - -Quickly and decisively she came straight up to Brother Seabrook and -paused in front of him. He was busy putting some papers together, -and everybody else had left the church. “Brother Seabrook,” she said -clearly, “I just came back to ask you--to _tell_ you--you mustn’t call -on me to pray.” - -Brother Seabrook looked down at her in surprise, his brows over his -shoe-button eyes going up protestingly. “Why, my sister, what is this?” -he cried. “Not call on you to pray?” - -“No, I can’t do it. I never could. My mother always explained to every -new minister that I couldn’t. But she’s dead now, so I’ve got to tell -you myself.” - -Her big gray eyes fringed by dark lashes looked straight up at him. -Her cheeks were slightly flushed. Her breath came quickly, making the -ruffles about her neck stir up and down. She was all of thirty-two, but -Brother Seabrook was nearing fifty, and was a widower. They were alone -in the church. - -He took her hand and held it in both of his large palms. - -“My sister, my little sister,” he said, “you must pray--all of my flock -must pray. Couldn’t you say one little prayer for me?” - -Julie jerked her hand free. - -“If I can’t do it for the Lord, I’m not likely to be able to do it -for you,” she retorted, and went lightly away down the church aisle -and out into the street, leaving him to turn a dusky red and swallow -convulsively. - -“There! That’s settled,” Julie said to herself, drawing a deep breath -and aware of an enormous content and elation. Her feet moved over the -ground with the flying swiftness that had borne her up the church -aisle. She was conscious of a beautiful elasticity and freedom, as -though a binding cord that had been twisted tighter and tighter to -constriction had suddenly snapped, giving her relief and air and -release into a beneficent world. It seemed to her she had never seen a -day so exquisite. The sun bent over her in floods of golden calm. The -mountains that encircled Hart’s Run, the blue sky and white drifting -June clouds were in themselves climaxes of ecstasy, and yet they were -more also, veilings of something hidden, enormous, and completely -satisfying. She stood still in the street a minute and gazed up to the -amazing blue of the sky, with the big puffs of silver clouds riding -it. “Oh, my Lord, how beautiful that sky is!” she whispered. “And it’s -always there,” she thought in astonishment; for it was as though she -were seeing it for the first time. “Why,” she thought suddenly, “Why, -it doesn’t make any difference whether I pray or don’t pray in public. -I don’t know why I ever worried about it or about what folks would -think. Oh, ain’t the sky beautiful!” she reiterated. - -She was a little behind the rest of the congregation, and as she made -her way homeward, small knots of people were all in front of her, -going slowly along. Julie was conscious of a very warm and friendly -outpouring toward them, but she was in no hurry to overtake any one. -For the moment she wanted to be alone, isolated in that enormous sense -of freedom, which only the sky was big enough to encompass. - -As she approached her own house, she saw that Mr. and Mrs. Bixby were -standing there in conversation with Mrs. Wicket. She quickened her -pace, feeling her ankles supple and swift at each step, and came up to -them in a little gust of eagerness. - -“Look at the sky,” she cried, waving her hand toward it. - -They all stopped talking and turned their faces up, tipping back on -their heels, and shading their eyes. - -“What is it? What do you see, Julie?” Mrs. Wicket demanded. - -“It’s so beautiful!” Julie cried. “So blue--and those big white clouds!” - -“Well, for mercy sake, is _that_ all!” the other ejaculated. “Why, I -thought it must be a flying machine.” - -“But it’s so beautiful!” Julie persisted, trying to draw them into her -elation. - -“I don’t care for that kind of a sky,” Mrs. Bixby said languidly. “It’s -mighty apt to bring a storm, and thunder always makes me s’ nervous.” - -Julie felt crushed, as though the sky were a hat which she had offered -for sale, but which both ladies had repudiated. - -Mr. Bixby essayed a timid assent. “It is beautiful,” he said, cocking -his head on one side to spy upward. “I don’t believe I ever saw it so -blue.” - -“I never saw how beautiful it is,” Julie said turning to him -involuntarily. “I’ve--I’ve--why it’s like I’d just seen it for the -first time.” - -He looked at her curiously, and started to speak, but Mrs. Wicket -interrupted. - -“Aw, Julie,” she said, “you’re so funny! But what I want to know is, -what you went back to speak to Brother Seabrook about.” - -“I went back to tell him he mustn’t call on me to pray,” Julie replied -simply. - -“You _did_? Well, I never!” Mrs. Wicket cried. “For mercy sake, Julie! -What’d he say?” - -“He didn’t say much. But he won’t ever call on me again.” - -“Can’t you pray, Miss Rose?” Elizabeth Bixby demanded. - -“No. That is, sometimes I can. I did once. But just to think of it now -makes me feel scared.” - -“Well, I never did hear of a person telling a preacher a thing like -that,” Elizabeth commented heavily. “That certainly is new to me. -Hart’s Run’s a funny little place, all right!” - -“That ain’t Hart’s Run,” Mrs. Wicket cried ruffling up in defense of -her native town, “that’s just Julie’s scariness. I don’t reckon there’s -another person in town would have had to tell Brother Seabrook such a -thing.” - -“Oh, do look at the sky,” Julie pleaded, still obsessed with the idea -that if they could only realize the enormous serene beauty overhead, -they would understand how little it mattered whether she was afraid to -pray or not. - -“Oh, for goodness sake, leave the sky alone!” Mrs. Wicket cried. “We -ain’t got anything to do with the sky. What I want to know is how in -the world you expect to be happy in heaven if you can’t pray. Why, I -just know heaven’s made up of prayer and praise.” - -Here Mr. Bixby cut in unexpectedly with the snatch of an old negro -spiritual:-- - - He’ben! He’ben! - E’vy’body talk about He’ben ain’t goin’ there! - -he sang. - -“Tim!” his wife flared up. “Now you’ll apologize right this minute to -Mrs. Wicket for that piece of impertinence,” she commanded. - -The color drove into his face up to his eyes; he hesitated. But Mrs. -Wicket, who had completely missed the significance of the words, said -politely, “Aw, that’s all right. Mis’ Bixby. I don’t object to singin’ -on Sunday s’long as it’s hymn tunes.” - -At this point Aunt Sadie Johnson came out on the little stoop in front -of her door and created a diversion. - -“Julie,” she said, “did you know Mr. and Mrs. Bixby was looking at my -upstairs rooms?” - -Julie did not know it, and was surprised. - -“Well, now, this is a real nice part of town for you all to locate in, -it’s so central,” Mrs. Wicket said. - -“I’m only considering them,” Elizabeth answered condescendingly. “They -ain’t really just what I want, but they seem to be about as good as -anything I can find in this place, so I reckon they’ll just have to do.” - -Julie saw Aunt Sadie flush. The words were an insult to both of them, -for though the rooms were Mrs. Johnson’s to rent if she pleased, -they were in Julie’s house. Mr. Bixby looked unhappy and apologetic, -but incapable of finding any way of relieving the situation. Julie’s -exaltation had all evaporated. She was back again in the dreadful -constriction of her small self. She had forced a door open for a -moment, and looked forth into a wider world roofed by an amazing sky, -but only Mr. Bixby would look at it. - -Now the door was banged shut again. - -“Well, I must go in and lay off my things,” she said, turning away -abruptly. - -Mrs. Bixby resented Julie’s not having expressed any interest over the -possibility of having her for a tenant, and shot a taunt at her as she -left. - -“Oh, how can you bear to leave that beautiful sky, Miss Rose?” she -cried. - -Julie’s momentary flare of spirit was gone. She could find no power to -retort, and turned away in silence. As she entered her door, she heard -Mrs. Bixby comment to Mrs. Wicket, “Well, she certainly does seem to be -a funny little thing.” - -“If that woman takes those rooms, if she’s right up there over my head -all the time, I’ll--I’ll _choke_ to death!” Julie cried to herself. -“She just stifles me so I can’t breathe! She stifles him, too.” - - - - -VII - - -All that Sunday Julie was haunted by the thought of Mr. and Mrs. -Bixby’s taking Aunt Sadie’s furnished rooms upstairs. They would all be -at very close quarters if they did. Julie kept the store and her three -neat little rooms at the back. The other half of the house she rented -to Aunt Sadie, who in turn rented out the upstairs floor as a small -furnished apartment. Two doors, one upstairs and one down, connected -the establishments. The one downstairs opened from Julie’s small hall -straight into Aunt Sadie’s sitting-room. The other was at the top of -Julie’s flight of stairs and gave on the rooms above. Neither of these -doors had ever been locked. Julie and Aunt Sadie were in the habit of -running unceremoniously in and out of one another’s quarters by way of -the downstairs door, and even the upstairs one Julie had always left -unfastened, in case the tenants above desired to come down through her -hall and so out to the side street. - -Julie was seized that afternoon with a panic over that door. - -She was in her sitting-room, seated by the window with her church paper -in her lap. The wind blew fitfully in, bringing her the scent of roses -from her little plot. She wanted to go out and work around the bushes, -but she did not think that was right on Sunday; so after drifting -discreetly about the garden, inspecting each plant and little clump of -blossoms, she had retired indoors, and settled herself with the _Sunday -Record_, which she subscribed to dutifully, and which she usually held -in her lap on Sabbath afternoons, but which she rarely read. - -She was half asleep over it now, when suddenly the thought of that -unlocked door at the head of her stairs leaped in her mind, startling -her broad awake. - -“Oh, my soul! That door’s unlocked,” she thought. She felt all at once -exposed, as though some one--Elizabeth Bixby, for instance--might run -unexpectedly in on her when she was undressed. - -“I got to lock it,” she breathed. “I got to lock it ’fore that woman -moves in. She’ll be runnin’ down on me every minute if I don’t.” - -She ran up the stairs and slammed the door shut; but when her hand -felt for the key, there was none in the lock. She jerked the door open -and looked on the other side; it was not there either. “My soul! The -key’s lost,” she cried in despair. “I got to find a key. I _got_ to -lock that door ’fore she gets here.” She hurried downstairs, and found -a box of odd keys; returning with them she began trying one after -another, haste and anxiety growing upon her, and her hand so unsteady -that the keys made a small chattering against the lock. At any moment -she felt the stillness of the rooms might dissolve and Elizabeth -Bixby’s crushing personality be upon her. Indeed, now she heard some -one coming up the outside stairway. Breathlessly she peeped forth -through the vista of rooms, and waited. But it was only Aunt Sadie’s -familiar gray head that came into view. She pushed upon the door, and -caught sight of Julie. - -“My lands! Is that you, Julie? Well, I thought I heard somebody up -here,” she cried. - -“Has that woman taken the rooms?” Julie demanded. - -“Yes, they plan to move in, in the mornin’. _Now_ what’s scared you, -Julie?” - -“I--I can’t find a key to this door,” Julie said weakly. - -“Well, what of that? It ain’t never been locked.” - -“I won’t have that Mrs. Bixby running down on me every minute,” Julie -cried hysterically. “She’ll be in and out of the store all the time; I -know she will. But I won’t _have_ her running down into my home place!” - -“Well,” Aunt Sadie said in her large and placid way, “I wouldn’t take -it as hard as all that, but I believe you’re about right. I’m not so -struck on the woman, myself. She’s a right airy piece. I hated to let -her have the rooms after the way she turned up her nose at ’em. But I -did want the money for the rent, and there really ain’t any other place -I know of in town for them to go to, and I felt sorry for that little -man. He’s a kind of pitiful little feller. It looks like he tries so -hard, an’ she just snaps him off every time.” - -“I can’t get a key to fit,” Julie said, going on desperately with her -attempt to lock the door. - -“Here, let’s see how this’ll do,” Aunt Sadie offered, taking a key -out of the closet door of the room they were in, and trying it in the -lock. “There now,” she said triumphantly as the key slipped into -place, “Now you go on out your side, and I’ll lock the door, and put -the key back in the closet here. When she comes she’ll find the door -fastened an’ never think to try to unlock it.” - -Julie withdrew reluctantly. Outside she waited until she heard the key -scrape in the lock. Then she tried the door, and being assured that it -was really secure, she went down the steps to her own demesne, with a -feeling of relief and safety. - - - - -VIII - - -The Bixbys moved into Aunt Sadie’s rooms the next day. The little -apartment was already furnished, so there was not a great deal -of moving to do: merely the carrying in of a couple of trunks, a -phonograph, and a suit-case. The windows and doors were all open, and -Julie down in her little shop could hear much of what went on overhead. -She heard Elizabeth calling out sharp directions to Mr. Bixby as he -staggered up the stairway under one of the trunks. Then he was sent off -to buy a broom and some extra cooking-utensils. He came back presently, -laden with all sorts of angular bundles; but he had evidently forgotten -something, for his wife’s voice was raised in complaint. Julie could -not often hear the exact words, and she almost never heard his answers. -She gathered that often he did not reply at all, for every now and then -Elizabeth would burst out, “_Answer_ me!” - -But at last they settled down and had dinner, after which Mr. Bixby -went off to the office of the _Hart’s Run News_; Elizabeth did some -ostentatious sweeping, and then the creaking tread of her footsteps -subsided. - -“She’s taking a rest now,” Julie told herself. “She’ll get up after a -little bit, and then she’ll dress herself and come down here.” - -It was curious how the whole morning, during all her accustomed duties -in the shop, Julie had been aware of all that took place upstairs. The -Bixbys’ activities ran in a disturbing undercurrent through all she -did. She was right in supposing that Elizabeth would come down to the -shop after she had had her nap. At about four o’clock Julie heard her -get up, and after moving about for some time, she started down her -outside stairs. Certain boards creaked in the floor above. And over her -head the heavy footsteps had gone back and forth, punctuated every now -and then by a cringing squeak. - -“I _must_ get those boards fixed,” Julie told herself. “I’ll go crazy -if that keeps up. I don’t know why I never noticed them when the -Edwardses were up there.” - -Realizing the impending encounter, Julie had made what defense she -could. She had carried out to her back rooms the two extra chairs she -usually kept in the shop, so that there was nowhere for a visitor to -sit down, and was herself safely tucked in behind her counter, sewing, -when Elizabeth entered. - -For her first visit the newcomer had made an elaborate toilet, -consisting of a pink summer dress, white shoes, pink silk stockings, a -string of white beads around her neck, and her face frankly made-up. -She was rested and refreshed by her nap, and was handsome in a large -self-confident way. - -She entered the shop with assurance, preceded by a wave of perfume. - -“Well, Miss Rose, here’s your new neighbor,” she announced. “I’ve got -my rooms fixed at last, an’ it took some straightening, let me tell -you! I suppose Mis’ Johnson thought she had everything clean, but poor -old soul, I reckon she can’t see so very good. An’ now I’ve come to -visit with you a spell. - -“Well,” she went on, sweeping her bold dark eyes condescendingly around -the shop, “you got a right nice place here. I wouldn’t have looked for -anything so nice in such a rotten little town.” - -Julie had gotten up as though to serve her, and stood waiting behind -the counter, but Elizabeth waved a protesting hand. “Oh don’t mind me. -I’ll just look about and make myself at home, and if I find anything -I like I’ll let you know. That’s a right pretty hat--that red one. -What’s the price of it?--Oh well,” she continued, after Julie had told -her, “I’ll wait a while. You’ll have to put it down ’fore the season’s -over. People ain’t payin’ much for hats a war year like this. It ain’t -patriotic. Besides it ain’t a style that would suit everybody. But it -looks good on me, don’t it? Red’s one of my best colors.” - -She put on the hat, and preened herself before Julie’s mirror. In her -pink dress, crowned by the red hat, she made a garish flash of color, -given back in duplicate from the mirror. Her overpowering personality -dominated the place. Julie had been working all day and was tired. -Glancing across, she saw her own sober little figure with its pale face -mirrored beside Elizabeth’s pink and red. For a moment she contemplated -the two figures side by side in sharp contrast, then she stooped to -her sewing once more. Elizabeth saw the reflections and laughed. “We -look kind of funny together, don’t we,” she said complacently. Then -she moved to get a better view of herself, and Julie’s reflection was -blotted out by her dominant pink. - -“You ain’t got your mirror in a very good light,” she informed Julie. -“If I was you, I’d hang it over on that side; and I’d get a better -one. This don’t make people look their best, an’ what you want in a -shop like this is a glass that’ll just make people look better’n they -ever looked in their lives before, so they’ll think, ‘My, ain’t that -hat becomin’!’ An’ then they’ll buy the hat, an’ never know it was the -mirror all the time. That’s the way to sell hats, dearie! Oh, I could -show you a heap about running your shop.” - -Julie said nothing, but went steadily on with her sewing, her needle -weaving deftly in and out of the soft blue material she was at work on; -but Elizabeth was too completely wrapped up in her own atmosphere to be -aware of the other’s unresponsiveness. - -“I always did know about hats,” she went on. “It seems like it’s a kind -of a gift with me. I can always tell what kind of a hat a person ought -to wear. Now you--you ought to wear something kind of startling to -bring you into view. If you don’t have it, you’re the kind of mousey -little woman that slips by without any one’s payin’ any attention. I -looked at you on Sunday, and I says, ‘That little woman kind of needs -something to bring her out. Now what is it?’ I says, sort of turning -you over in my mind, like you taste cake-batter to see what it needs. -And all at once it came to me: ‘It’s a hat,’ I says, ‘a cerise turban: -_that_ would do the trick.’ If folks didn’t notice a thing else about -you, they’d see that turban. You ain’t got just the color I had in -mind,” she went on, surveying the hat counter, “but,” taking up a green -turban, “this is kind of the shape I mean. Now if you had a piece of -cerise silk you could fix this right over for yourself. Lemme see how -it looks on you.” - -But Julie shrunk hastily away. “No, no thank you,” she said with that -quick breathlessness that was a nervous trick with her. “No, I never -wear cerise, and I don’t care for that shape on myself.” - -“Oh, all right then,” Elizabeth retorted, laying down the hat in a -pique. “You can suit yourself. I was just trying to show you how you -could attract a little attention. But you’re just like my husband; he -sort of wants to slink through the world without anybody noticing him. -I tell him a person would think he was a submarine, he’s so anxious to -have that ‘low visibility’ the papers are always talking about these -days. I declare, I’d like to put a cerise turban on _him_--a red hat -like what the Popes wear in the Catholic Church. Maybe he couldn’t get -by without folks seein’ that! ‘Look a’ here, Tim,’ I’m always sayin’ to -him, ‘What’s the matter with you? It ain’t going to kill you if folks -sees you. Come out into the open,’ I says. ‘You can’t hide behind _my_ -skirts all the time.’ But the more I talk at him, the more he goes in -the ground an’ pulls the hole in after him. I declare, I think it’ll be -a right good thing if the draft does take him.” - -“The draft?” Julie looked up quickly. - -“Mm--h’m,” Elizabeth nodded. “He’s liable to be called any time now. -He just took this little job here while he was waiting. That’s why I -didn’t bring any of my furniture with me. I got a nice house and a -lot of elegant furniture in Lynchburg where we was, an’ we’ll go back -there after the war. The paper he worked on there’s just suspended -for a while. The editor an’ owner’s both gone to the front. Well, you -don’t catch me stayin’ on here if Tim’s drafted. I’ll go on back to my -own home. I got plenty of friends there. But say--_he’ll_ make a great -soldier, won’t he? I always tell him Tim’s short for timid with him. -You can laugh if you want. I know just how funny he always strikes -folks.” - -“I--I don’t want to laugh,” Julie protested. “I--oh, I think the war’s -awful!” she burst out. “I don’t want to laugh over any one’s going.” - -“Oh, well,” Elizabeth said carelessly. “I wouldn’t be s’prised if the -war didn’t make a man out of him--the drill an’ all would be fine. But -I tell him he’d better mind out, or he’ll be the goat of the whole -camp.” - -Finding no chair to sit in, Elizabeth had been drifting about the -shop, inspecting one showcase after another; now she came to rest at -the counter behind which Julie was seated, and leaning nonchalantly -against it, she did what was to Julie an amazing thing. She opened -a gilt vanity-bag which she had been swinging, and taking from it a -cigarette case, selected one and proceeded to light it with a knowing -air. Julie knew, of course, that women did smoke cigarettes somewhere, -but she had never seen them do it, much less light one in her discreet -little shop. She was used to seeing the mountain women out in the -country smoke pipes; indeed, her own grandmother on her father’s side -had smoked and chewed as well. “But that’s different,” she told herself -now. Her grandmother’s corncob pipe before a stone hearth seemed wholly -in keeping with the old woman’s kerchief-covered head, her spinning -wheel, her loom, and patchwork quilts. Not so Elizabeth’s insolent -cigarette. That appeared to Julie an affront to her mother’s spirit, -which always seemed to her still hovering dimly in the background of -the little shop. She and her mother, living their gentle reserved -lives there together, had made up the atmosphere, the soul, of the -little establishment, pouring into it all the timid modesty, gentle -propriety, and sincerity of their own hearts. They had neither of them -had a brave or robust attitude toward life, but they had nevertheless -woven a pattern that was adorned with a thousand tendernesses toward -one another, with exquisite bits of understanding consideration, with -gentle courtesies and kindnesses toward their neighbors, and with a -careful honesty in all their dealings. Timid as they were, they yet -had wrought an unseen mesh of life that had a delicate beauty all its -own. And now to Julie, all that past that her mother and she had woven -together was outraged by Elizabeth’s cigarette. - -“I’ve got to stop her! She shan’t smoke here in my shop. What would -mother say?” she thought breathlessly to herself, trying to control -the tremor that ran through her hands, so that she might set even -stitches in her work. “I’ve _got_ to stop her! It’s my shop. She’s got -no business to smoke here. Why, I wouldn’t let my best friend smoke -here!” But though she protested these things to herself, Julie could -not whip her courage up to bringing them forth in spoken words, and -Elizabeth continued to puff out long blue columns of smoke, watching -them with satisfaction, while with an affected gesture, she flecked -her ashes here and there over the clean floor. She was in truth a -little disappointed that her cigarette had provoked no comment. She -had expected Julie at least to look startled, and was prepared to -defend herself with condescending patronage. Julie’s silence was -disconcerting, for Elizabeth possessed none of the spiritual antennæ -with which to sense another’s atmosphere if unexpressed by word or -gesture. She strolled back to the mirror, and under cover of patting -her hair into place peeped at Julie’s reflection to see if she was -being watched from behind her back. But Julie, whose weakness it was -to have antennæ far too sensitive to another’s atmosphere, knew what -Elizabeth expected, and kept her eyes resolutely upon the threading of -her needle. It was a little defiant clash between the two women, of -which Julie was fully aware, but which Elizabeth realized only from her -own standpoint. - -At this moment Aunt Sadie Johnson bustled into the shop, and having -none of Julie’s delicate hesitancy, exploded the hidden situation with -a startled exclamation. - -“Julie,” she began, “I just ran in to see if that white ruchin’ I -got you to order for me--Well, for the _mercy sake_!” she broke off, -suddenly catching sight of Elizabeth. “Well, my lands!” she continued, -staring frankly, and unafraid of drawing upon herself the full fire of -the cigarette. - -It was some such violent attention as this that Elizabeth had hoped for. - -“What’s the matter?” she inquired in her most superior manner. “Oh,” -feigning surprise, “my cigarette? Why surely, Mrs. Johnson, I’m not the -first woman you’ve seen smoke.” - -“That you ain’t!” Aunt Sadie retorted promptly. “I’ve seen a plenty of -’em do it.” - -Elizabeth was somewhat dashed, but she rallied as best she could. -“Well,” she said, “I’m glad Hart’s Run ain’t such a back number as not -to know that all the smart women smoke nowadays.” - -“Smart?” Aunt Sadie cried, and went off into billows of large mirth. -“Well, you may call ’em smart, but I dunno’s they look so stylish to -me. There’s old Betty Willets from off Rocky Ridge. She drives her old -wagon an’ broken-down horse into town, to collect the swill from folks’ -backyards to take up to her hog. She’s one of our smart smokers. An’ -they all smoke up Spitzer’s Holler--an’ chew too--they’re ’bout the -lowest-down lot of folks we have ’round here. Oh, no, you ain’t the -first I’ve seen smoke, not by a long sight. But it does look like a -pity for a right young woman like you to be smoking and chewin’--it’ll -just ruin your teeth.” - -“Chew?” cried Elizabeth wildly. “You don’t think I chew tobacco, do -you?” - -“Oh, don’t tell me!” Aunt Sadie returned. “I never saw a woman yet who -smoked, that she didn’t chew on the sly an’ dip snuff, too. Oh, I’d be -the last person in the world to say there was any real harm in it,” she -went on tolerantly, “with so many of our old folks still doin’ it; it’s -only that I always did think chewin’ an’ spittin’--” - -“I don’t chew!” Elizabeth cried furiously. “Of course I don’t! Who ever -heard of such a thing? Well, I’m going,” she announced, flouncing to -the door. “An’ I’ll say this, Miss Rose,” she added, “I don’t think -_you’re_ any too polite either to strangers. In all the time I’ve been -here, you’ve hardly said two words, and you haven’t so much as asked me -to take a chair.” Angry tears leaped in her eyes, and she flung herself -away out of the shop and up her own stairs. - -“Well, the poor thing,” Mrs. Johnson said. “I made her mad all right! I -reckon it was a sin, but I just couldn’t stand her airing ’round here -with that cigarette, an’ showings off to us moss-backs. What’d you let -her smoke in here for, Julie? You know your mother wouldn’t have liked -it.” - -“I didn’t know how to stop her,” Julie confessed helplessly. - -“Well, I stopped her all right!” Aunt Sadie returned, shaken again by -large laughter. “But ain’t the world funny, Julie? Here we’ve all come -to look down on smokin’, and feel sort of ashamed of the old women that -still do it, when along comes all the young smart Alecks, an’ says it’s -the thing to do, an’ if you don’t do it, it just shows you’re right -from the backwoods. Now ain’t that funny? If you just live long enough -in the world, you’ll see everything turned upside down! But I feel kind -of sorry for poor Mis’ Bixby,” she added tolerantly. - -“_Sorry_ for her?” Julie’s eyes opened in astonishment. - -“Yes,” the other nodded her large gray head. “Don’t you think it’s kind -of pitiful to see a grown person putting so much confidence in fine -clothes, and thinking she’s so grand showing off with a cigarette? -When you’ve been up against real life like I have, that kind of cheap -person seems right pitiful.” - -“She just stifles me,” Julie said. “She’s so--so big an’ satisfied with -herself.” - -“Oh, I don’t know’s she’s so satisfied with herself. She wants you to -think she is, an’ that’s why she tries to show off so.” - -“Well, all the same she does stifle me,” Julie repeated. - -“I reckon she does,” Aunt Sadie conceded, surveying Julie’s shrinking -make-up with her shrewd and kindly eyes. “She stifles you, honey, an’ -I b’lieve she’s just about choked that poor little husband of hers to -death.” - -“I don’t see why in the world he ever married her,” Julie said. - -“Who? That little Bixby? I’ll bet he never married _her_--she married -_him_.” - -“I b’lieve that’s true!” Julie cried with conviction. “Yes, I -just b’lieve that’s so.” Aunt Sadie’s statement seemed to her an -illuminating discovery. Of course that was it. None of his real self -had gone into the union; that accounted for his detached air, which had -made her suppose at first that they were brother and sister. - -“Of course it’s so,” Mrs. Johnson reaffirmed. “You’re so innocent, -Julie, you still think the man does all the courtin’; but I’ll bet poor -Bixby did mighty little. I wouldn’t wonder if she married him out of -spite. I’ll bet there was another she wanted an’ couldn’t get, so she -turned ’round an’ snapped up that little feller, just to show people -she could get a man if she wanted one.” - -“Well, anyway he isn’t all there,” Julie said absently, still pursuing -her own line of thought. - -Aunt Sadie was startled. “Why, what on earth do you mean? Why, Julie, -you don’t think he’s wanting, do you? He’s right nervous an’ scary -lookin’, I know, but I wouldn’t for a minute say he was feeble-minded.” - -“No, no, of course I don’t mean that!” Julie protested. - -“Well, I shouldn’t think you would. Why, he’s real smart in his trade. -I heard Mr. McLane bragging about him in the post office this morning. -He said they never did have such a good printer on the _News_ before. -Said he seemed to understand high-class printing better’n anybody he’d -ever known. No, whatever he is, he certainly ain’t feeble-minded.” - -“Oh, no, of course not,” Julie reiterated. “Of course I didn’t mean -that. I just meant she didn’t get the whole of him. She doesn’t own all -of him.” - -“Well, maybe so. I’m sure I hope so--the poor little feller,” Aunt -Sadie returned. - - - - -IX - - -The Bixbys settled themselves down in Mrs. Johnson’s rooms over Julie -Rose’s little shop, and thereafter the lives of these two new people -were constantly crossing the thread of Julie’s life, all of them -together weaving that unseen pattern in the garment of existence. - -Elizabeth Bixby and her landlady fell into an indifferent intimacy. -Aunt Sadie was a sociable person well up in her sixties. The immediate -pressure of life was over for her, except when some one of her -children, all of whom were married, needed her in an emergency. The -years had drifted her into a rather pleasant backwater where she had -leisure to look about her and to enjoy what small diversions Hart’s Run -had to offer. Her gray eyes, set in a broad, weather-beaten face, were -shrewd but tolerant. She viewed human nature clearly, but not unkindly. - -“You got to take people like you find ’em,” she was apt to state. Of -Elizabeth Bixby she said, “Oh, well, the poor thing, maybe I’d’ve put -a little more sweetening in, if I’d had the makin’ of her; but I didn’t -mix her batter, so it’s no concern of mine. I’m kind of sorry for her, -she craves so to have people notice her, an’ wants her own way so bad; -but she’s right good company, too, when everything’s going to suit -her.” Thus she explained their intimacy, and together they went almost -nightly to the moving pictures. - -Elizabeth was lonesome, and had a good deal of spare time to kill. Some -of it she killed in Aunt Sadie’s society. The rest she made away with -by lying in bed late,--Mr. Bixby always got his own breakfast,--by -fitful housekeeping, by gossip and cheap fiction, and by much attention -to her clothes. And all that she did went by to the blare of popular -songs ground out on her gramophone, for, as she told Aunt Sadie, “If -there’s one thing I hate more’n another it’s nothin’ doin’. I got to -have some kind of stir goin’ on all the time, if it’s nothin’ more’n -the gramophone.” - -Her uncertain and slovenly habits were the very antithesis of Julie’s -well-ordered and conscientious ones. At a certain early hour Julie -arose; at another certain hour she had her breakfast; and by another -her rooms were tidied and her shop open for the day. After the Bixbys -moved in, she became accustomed to hearing Mr. Bixby every morning at -a regular time getting his own breakfast; his habits, when they did -not depend on Elizabeth, were as methodical as her own. His breakfast -varied in time not more than five minutes from morning to morning, but -his dinner, which Elizabeth prepared, swung backward and forward across -the face of the clock. - -As Julie finished her own breakfast and started her house-cleaning -for the day, she was used now to hearing Mr. Bixby’s tiptoe footsteps -creeping about overhead. The footsteps were so timid, so stealthy, -that she guessed he went in terror of an outburst of irritability from -Elizabeth if he awakened her. He was not always successful in keeping -quiet. One morning there was a sudden clatter and crash of tinware, and -immediately on the heels of it, a flood of abuse from his wife. - -When Mr. Bixby came down the outside stairs that morning Julie was -sweeping her front steps. He paused after they had exchanged their -customary shy good morning. - -“I was mighty sorry I made all that racket right over your head just -now,” he apologized awkwardly. - -“Oh, that was all right,” she assured him quickly. “A person can’t help -pans falling down sometimes.” - -“It was the pie plates,” he confided. “Seems like they just stand -there on edge watching their chance to jump down on a feller, and they -ain’t never satisfied to let one of the bunch go alone, but all of ’em -got to rattle down together.” There was in his eyes now that rueful -twinkle which she had seen before. He offered it tentatively to her, a -deprecatory, whimsical comment on his own inaptitude. - -It was like a shy animal peeping forth from its hole, ready to whisk -away at the first unsympathetic gesture. - -Julie smiled. “Yes, I know,” she said, although she really had no -whimsical twist like that in her own make-up. When pie plates fell for -her, they fell, and there was no alleviating mirth about their descent. - -He still lingered, looking at her wistfully, relaxing his nerves in her -sympathetic atmosphere. - -The street was almost empty. The little gardens up and down it made -joyful bits of color, and the fresh morning air danced through the -shimmering trees, and twinkled its feet over the sparkling grass. -Here and there, spread on the small lawns, or depending from the -garden fences or from the branch of a shrub, spider webs showed their -lace, an ephemeral loveliness which would presently disappear as the -day advanced. For a time life seemed to turn a kindly side to them -both, and in the friendliness of each other’s presence, their real -personalities--which were usually as invisible as the gossamer webs -upon the grass--came forth in shy intercourse. - -“I’m mightily afraid I’ll disturb you in the mornings, stepping around -right over your head like that,” he confided. - -“Oh, no, you don’t,” she reassured him. “I’m always up and through my -breakfast before you commence, and I think it’s nice to hear other -folks stirring around and getting ready for the day, too.” - -“Well, I made stir enough this morning, didn’t I?” He laughed. Then -he was emboldened to a further confession. “I scared myself so bad I -didn’t have the nerve to go on and get my breakfast.” - -“Why! You haven’t had anything to eat?” she exclaimed. - -He flushed. “Oh, it’s all right. I’ll get me some coffee over at the -Monroe House. I didn’t want to disturb my wife again. She’s mighty -apt to have one of her bad headaches in the morning,” he said, -unconsciously revealing the real reason for his abandoning any further -attempt at breakfast. - -“I got some fresh coffee right on my stove this minute, an’ some hot -biscuits still in the oven. I’d be mighty glad to give you a bite,” she -offered impulsively. - -At that, a quick embarrassed flush mounted to his forehead. “I’m much -obliged,” he answered stiffly, “but I wouldn’t trouble you.” - -His embarrassment communicated itself to her, entrapping them both in -their frozen self-consciousness and destroying the little moment of -friendly spontaneity. - -“I must be going,” he said. - -“Well,” she answered awkwardly, “I’m sorry you won’t try my coffee.” - -For a moment more they lingered uncertainly, their real selves staring -forth wistfully through the formality that their conventional selves -were hastily assuming, like friendly children being dragged apart -by stiff grown-ups. Then she began to sweep again, and he, with a -constrained gesture toward his hat, went on his way. - - - - -X - - -Later in that month of June, Aunt Sadie Johnson gave a supper party. -She said it did look like she ought to do something for Mr. Seabrook: -which was merely a thin excuse, as she was a Presbyterian herself -and therefore owed no hospitality to the new Methodist minister. She -was, however, obsessed with the idea of finding a husband for Julie, -although she was not as frank about it as Mrs. Dolly Anderson. With -this in view, she had meant to ask only Julie and Brother Seabrook, but -Elizabeth Bixby got wind of the small festivity and saw to it that she -was included. - -“She invited herself: she didn’t get no bid from me,” Aunt Sadie told -Julie. “Oh, well, the poor thing, I reckon she’s lonesome, so we might -as well have her; an’ anyhow we’ll give that poor little Bixby man a -good feed for once in his life--good, that is, as Mr. Hoover’ll allow. -We’ll have waffles anyhow. I reckon we can use that much flour this -once, seein’ ’s I’ve eat almost nothing but corn bread all summer. -I’ll get you to come in early an’ make ’em, Julie; you make the best -waffles in town.” - -Julie had no desire to meet Brother Seabrook so intimately and so soon -again after her encounter with him in the church, but she could not -screw her courage up to explain the matter even to Aunt Sadie. She -blushed all over at the very thought of it now, merely in her own mind. -So there was no escape for her. Accordingly, on the night of the supper -she dressed early and went through to her hostess’s part of the house, -to help set the table and to beat up the waffles. - -“My, Julie! You look mighty nice in that little sprigged dress,” Aunt -Sadie hailed her. “That little touch of blue just suits you. It helps -to bring out the color of your eyes. I’ll bet your preacher takes -notice.” - -“Oh, no, he won’t!” Julie hastily replied. “That is,” she stammered, -flushing, “I hope he won’t.” - -“Oh, Julie, you’re so _young_,” Aunt Sadie told her tolerantly. “I -don’t know what it is about you--you ain’t really young no more, an’ -you don’t exactly look young; but someway you just seem to make every -one think of you as nothin’ but a child.” - -It was a rather disjointed supper party. Julie had to vibrate -constantly between kitchen and dining-room, serving the waffles, -and Mrs. Johnson was forever jumping up to hand somebody something. -Her idea of entertainment was to see that her guests were well fed, -over-fed,--stuffed, in fact,--and conversation was left to struggle -along as best it could. Little hopeful fragments of talk were started, -but constantly shattered by the necessity for serving a fresh batch -of waffles, or by her starting up to get out a glass of some new kind -of preserve. Brother Seabrook tried bravely to converse with his -hostess, but it was no easy matter. “Yes, yes,” she responded absently -to some promising remark, “Now do have one of Julie’s hot waffles, -Mr. Seabrook, they’re right fresh from the iron”; or, in sudden -accusation, “Why, Mr. Seabrook, you haven’t one thing on your plate!” -Valiantly as the poor man struggled to see the surface of his plate, -he never saw it, for always as he politely got through one mountain of -food, another avalanche descended upon it. He ate manfully, however, -replying as best he might to Elizabeth’s insistent talk, and trying -from time to time to drag Mr. Bixby into the stream of conversation, as -a small boy, not too happy in the swimming-hole, tries to urge other -tentative little boys upon the bank to “come on in.” But this Elizabeth -always circumvented. Whenever her husband essayed a plunge into the -talk, encouraged thereto by Brother Seabrook or in a moment of his -own unaided daring, she immediately chased him into silence with some -sharp retort. So for the most part he ate his supper without a word. He -ate it, too, as though he were very hungry. Unfortunately he told his -hostess that it was just about the best supper he ever did eat. He said -it in an aside, but Elizabeth overheard and paused just long enough in -something she was telling Brother Seabrook to pounce upon him with, -“Now _that’s_ a pretty thing to say, ain’t it! Like your own wife kep’ -you half starved!” - -After that Mr. Bixby fell out of the conversation altogether, only -raising his eyes from his plate to glance from time to time at Julie -as she came and went with her waffles. In her neat sprigged dress she -looked soft and gentle. Her face was a little flushed; one dark strand -of hair fell over her forehead, and when she turned to go back to the -kitchen, he could see that there were two little ringlets that made -curls at the nape of her neck. - -Waffle-making was an art with Julie. In the practice of it she even -forgot her usual feeling of constraint and breathlessness toward -Elizabeth, and served her as eagerly as the rest. In her unconscious -delight in doing a thing she loved to do and could do well, she -created a content and serenity that drew Mr. Bixby’s eyes continually -toward her, and also made the Reverend Mr. Seabrook, who appeared to -harbor no malice for that brief episode in the church, rather absent -to Elizabeth’s stream of talk. Elizabeth had come to the party intent -on making an impression, but much as her elaborate talk and dashing -costume thrust her into the foreground, she felt herself constantly in -danger of being swept away into the background every time that Julie -entered with fresh waffles. - -It was the summer of 1918, and naturally most of the fitful -conversation turned upon the war, although Elizabeth said flatly that -she was just sick to death of the hateful business; and Aunt Sadie -answered Brother Seabrook’s scraps of war news with, “Yes, yes--have -some preserves?” The reverend gentleman, however, was patriotic, and -would not be deflected from the subject. - -“Well,” Elizabeth said, at last, making the best of it, “my husband’s -liable to get his draft call most any time now. It’ll be right hard -on me, but if the country needs him, I’ll have to give him, I reckon. -Everybody’s got to do their bit.” - -She patted her hair and sighed, basking in her own nobility. - -Though Aunt Sadie tolerated Elizabeth, she was apt to flash out at her -every now and again. - -“_You_ give him?” she snorted. “Humph! that sounds mighty grand, but -believe _me_ if Uncle Sam wants him, he’ll take him all right, without -any giving on your part.” - -Elizabeth’s eyes glittered angrily. She did not quite dare to cross -swords with the older woman, so she turned upon her husband. - -“Well, he’ll make a great soldier, won’t he!” she jeered. - -“Why, I wouldn’t hardly think he was up to the standard height,” -Brother Seabrook said, running his eye appraisingly over Mr. Bixby. - -“Oh, it ain’t always the biggest men makes the best soldiers,” Mrs. -Johnson protested. - -They all fixed their scrutinizing eyes upon the little man, but none -of them spoke directly to him, unconsciously following the impersonal -attitude that Elizabeth had adopted. - -Julie was standing in the background, having just returned from the -kitchen. She had paused involuntarily when she heard Elizabeth’s remark -about Mr. Bixby’s being drafted, and her eyes went quickly to his face. -She saw his lips give that faint nervous twitch, and his face stiffen. -Then when they all turned their impersonal scrutiny upon him, as though -they were inspecting some curious specimen, she saw the unhappy crimson -flush up to his eyes. - -“What’s the matter with us?” Julie thought violently, unconsciously -classing herself with him. “Why can’t folks see us? We’re there just -like anybody else, but they always act like they didn’t see us. Someway -we stand outside of people’s minds, an’ have to wait for them to open -an’ let us in. And they never do.” - -Suddenly familiar words flashed upon her with such vividness as to -leave her giddy. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” She was aware -of so enormous an extension of understanding that the whole of it was -beyond her grasp, making her feel for an instant as though she reeled -into a larger world. She knew that it was just Mr. Bixby sitting there, -silent and embarrassed, shut away from life by the impersonal eyes upon -him; and yet in that moment of insight it seemed to her that the great -essence of humanity was there looking forth from the caged bars of the -little man’s face, waiting patiently, terribly, for an invitation to -enter. “I got to let him in--I _got_ to get the door open someway an’ -let him in!” she thought fiercely. She moved forward quickly, holding -out her plate of waffles. “Have a fresh waffle, Mr. Bixby,” she urged. -“These are nice and crisp. I’d like for _you_ to try one.” - -It was all perfectly simple and natural, and yet the slight emphasis -she laid upon the personal pronoun seemed to open the door for him that -he might emerge into the life of a real human being, set free from the -negative limbo to which the others had driven him. - -He looked up quickly and gladly into her face, with that look of -release and freedom, and the breaking of a constricting cord which she -had read in his expression before. - -“I thank you, I thank you, Miss Julie,” he said gratefully. It was -the first time he had dared the intimacy of her Christian name. He -helped himself, and, fortified by her creative touch, held the waffle -suspended upon his fork for a moment’s approving contemplation. - -“My!” he said, with the air of a connoisseur, “That’s about the finest -thing in the way of waffle-flesh I ever did see. I’d recommend you to -try one of this batch, Brother Seabrook,” he urged. - -“Well, I thought I was about done, but if you advise it, Brother -Bixby--” Brother Seabrook hesitated. - -“I don’t just advise you to take one, I prescribe it for your health,” -Mr. Bixby returned; at which every one laughed except Elizabeth, who -was furious over his being allowed any personality. - -But for the other two Julie had opened the door and let him in, so -that he emerged into their consciousness as some one to be taken into -account. Brother Seabrook fell into talk with him about the war, and -as to the possibility of his draft call, ignoring Elizabeth’s ruffled -attempts to draw the conversation back to herself. The supper came to -an end presently, and to Elizabeth’s chagrin, Mrs. Johnson accepted her -perfunctory offer to help with the dishes. - -“Yes,” she said, “you stay with me, Mis’ Bixby, an’ we’ll let Julie go -out to the porch an’ entertain the men-folks for a spell. She needs a -rest an’ cool-off ’fore we go to the show.” - -“Well, you picked a poor hand to help you,” Elizabeth said tartly. -“If there’s one thing I do despise, it’s dirty dishes. Here, Tim!” -she cried to her husband; and then, realizing that if she called him -back that would leave Brother Seabrook in a tête-à-tête with Julie, -she said, “Oh, well, go on then”; for she suspected in the minister -an interest in Julie which she resented. Her manœuvres were all so -obvious and usually so futile, that Julie, informed by that wider -understanding, felt a sudden pity for her. - -“I’ll stay and help you with the dishes,” she offered. - -But this Aunt Sadie would not allow. “No, you go on now, Julie; you’ve -done your bit. You go out on the porch an’ cool off,” she ordered. - -While the table was being cleared, Julie and the two men sat together -in the dusk of the side porch. Julie did not talk much. She did not -want to. She was slightly tired, and was content to listen to the -other two. She liked to hear Mr. Bixby. It was amazing how much he -found to say when the stifling incubus of Elizabeth was withdrawn. -For a time the talk was still about the war, but presently it drifted -away to other topics, and as that was left behind, Julie was conscious -that there appeared in his voice a note of relief and picking up of -interest. He talked more quickly and easily, describing the matter of -printing. His father, it appeared, had been a printer before him. He -had learned the trade from him. He said, “I like it.” He said that -over frequently in variations. “Somehow I like it. I like a good bit -of printing,” and “I liked it from the first, when I was just a kid.” -He made what he said interesting: so much so that Brother Seabrook was -glad to listen and said, “Well, well, is that so?” frequently. Neither -of the men spoke especially to Julie, yet she knew that they were both -aware of her presence, and stimulated by it. - -She liked sitting there in the dusk, making the background for their -conversation. She had a curious sense that something out of herself -flowed forth and made a successful medium for their talk. She knew that -if she had not been there Mr. Bixby could never have spoken so well and -so easily about his trade. Without the touch of her sympathy, together -with the mantle of the dusk, he could never have let so much of himself -appear; he would not have been interesting, and Brother Seabrook -would have seized the conversation and borne it away in his own large -declamatory tones. - -It was not long, however, before this little friendly interim was -broken. The other two reappeared, and Aunt Sadie hurried them all off -to the moving-picture theatre. There Elizabeth managed to secure the -seat next to Brother Seabrook, a manœuvre which Aunt Sadie was not -quick enough to frustrate. She would not, however, permit her guest of -honor to be snatched completely from her, and so squeezed herself down -firmly beside them, leaving Julie and Mr. Bixby to find seats together -elsewhere. - -The entertainment was preceded by a patriotic rally on behalf of one of -the Liberty Loans, and as Judge Dean--the main speaker of the evening, -who had come from Red River to address the Hart’s Run people--was -just beginning his speech, they hastily obliterated themselves in -back seats. They listened dutifully through the speech, and to the -subscribing for bonds which followed, although they took no part in it, -as Julie had already bought two bonds, and Mr. Bixby whispered that he -too was carrying about all he could manage. - -After the drive for the Loan was over, the lights were lowered, and -the moving pictures began; and as always in those summer days of 1918, -soldiers went marching by upon the screen. Soldiers drilling at Camp -Lee; running up the flag--for a moment Old Glory waved and rippled in -the wind before them, and the crowd went wild with applause; soldiers -on a transport; American soldiers marching through Paris. At the sight -of them and at the sound of the continuous applause, Julie felt the -man beside her stiffen. “I’m liable to get my call any time now,” he -whispered suddenly in the dimness. - -It was only what his wife had said at supper, but now it was different. -Then it had been an almost impersonal statement. Now his low voice made -it alive and real, an approaching event upon which a human being’s -whole life was hung. - -“You heard ’em speak of it at table?” he questioned. - -“Yes,” she nodded faintly. - -The light from the screen glimmered upon his face, and he looked and -looked at the men slipping by before him. Suddenly for Julie there -seemed to be nothing in the house save those marching figures, and his -white face watching them. She fixed her eyes upon them also and a twist -of horror shot through her. “Look at those men,” she thought. “Look at -all of them--those are all real men--they aren’t just pictures, they’re -real. Every soldier there is--or was--a real person. Oh, my Lord!” she -thought suddenly, “I wonder what they’re up against now.” - -At last the war pictures flashed out and a play began. Mr. Bixby drew -a deep breath and Julie felt him relax. He turned to her. “I--I was -mightily obliged to you,” he ventured, speaking softly. - -Julie knew what he meant, but she wondered if he was aware of what she -had done. - -“What for?” she questioned. - -“Why, _you_ know.” He seemed surprised that she should ask. “At supper, -for helping me out. I mean for sort of bringing me into things. After -what you did, they saw I was there. But--_you_ know,” he broke off. - -“Yes, I know,” she answered. - -“You’ve known right from the first,” he said, daring to speak in the -half obscuring dark. “When you’re there, I always know you understand. -She--I mean--” he cut himself off; “some people seem to sort of -strangle me. I don’t know how it is, but someway, I just can’t get to -the surface with them.” - -“Can’t get to the surface?” she asked quickly. - -“Yes. I mean, to get into the world at all. It was like I wasn’t all -in; they seem to slam a door in my face, an’ squeeze me out. I’m only -half alive with them. They go right along as though I wasn’t there. I -don’t know what it is.” He paused uncertainly, as though trying to -blaze a pathway of words through a maze of difficult and heretofore -unexpressed thoughts. “I reckon it’s my fault someway--I don’t know--or -maybe it’s because I’m insignificant-looking an’ small--though I’m -really only a little bit below average height--but folks go along an’ -don’t even seem to see me.” - -“I know: I understand,” she breathed. - -“Yes,” he whispered sharply, “you do know. That’s just it. You’ve -understood right from the first! There was never anybody else who ever -did.” - -“It’s--it’s the same with me,” she confessed, a thrill of emotion in -her voice. “That’s why I understand. Some folks just choke me--an’ -I--someway, I don’t know how to stand up against them.” - -“Ain’t that funny?” He spoke wonderingly. “Ain’t it funny? I thought I -was the only one in the world that way.” - -“I know. I thought that, too.” - -They spoke slowly, little pauses between each sentence, as they felt -their way on this dim pathway out toward each other. - -When suddenly the play came to an end, the theatre lights flashed up, -and they heard Elizabeth’s loud confident laugh, they were startled and -astray, as though they had come back into a strange world. - - - - -XI - - -That was a strained summer in Hart’s Run, an uneasy, nervous -war-summer, throwing the village people out of all their accustomed -ways, as they gave themselves to the business of war. Speakers were -sent to them for the various “drives,” from Red River and even -occasionally from Washington as well. Judge Dean spoke to them in his -soft slow voice--oratory strangely different and much more impressive -than the flamboyant outbursts of the ordinary campaign-days. “Strictly -speaking,” he said softly, “your country has no business at the present -time but the business of killing Huns; and strictly speaking, _you_ -have no business but the business of killing Huns.” - -What an amazing business for Hart’s Run! What had Hart’s Run, up to -1914, ever known about Huns? The nervous, high-strung days went by -with Red Cross work, patriotic rallies, the conservation of food, and -the tense reading of headlines. Long troop-trains went through Hart’s -Run by night and by day, and every now and again a little handful of -village men, and men from the surrounding country, left for Camp Lee. - -The business of killing Huns--an amazing business indeed for Julie -Rose! What did she know about Huns? She subscribed to the Liberty -Loans, she worked for the Red Cross, she saved food conscientiously, -and she listened to what others read out of the papers; but in truth -the war did not touch her very acutely. She did all her duty, and more. -She felt some of the horror of the war; but for the most part she -looked on as an outsider. So it always was with her. She had always -been an outsider--not quite in touch with the rest of the world. People -were constantly crowding her shy sensitive nature to one side. As a -child she had never been “in it” in the games at school, and now as a -grown person she was not in it with her country in this terrible game. -Perhaps because of this aloofness, which her timid nature had thrust -upon her, she did not now feel much of the intense patriotism that ran -through the country. That great uplifting thrill of close interest and -contact with other human beings that came to many at that time was -denied to Julie. She did all that was required of her; but she was -untouched by any rewarding flame of consecration. - -“It certainly is awful,” she said from time to time. But the awfulness -of the war had been going on since 1914, and the first edge of it was -gone. Yet sometimes the horror stuck its head out abruptly in their -very midst. It did for Julie on the day that she read in the _Hart’s -Run News_ of the death of John Webster in France. “One of our Stag -County young men,” the _News_ announced, “whose parents, Mr. and Mrs. -Otley Webster, are prominent citizens of Red River.” Why, yes; Julie -knew the Websters. She had met them once at Henr’etta’s, and Henr’etta -was always talking about Effie Webster--about her clothes, her car, how -stylish she was, and about her set of new china. Henr’etta had told -Julie about that china the last time she was in Red River. And now -Effie Webster’s boy was dead in France. Julie shivered, and thought -what awful deaths men had to die. She was rather accustomed to violent -death in the lumber camps, in the mining-fields west of Hart’s Run, -and on the railroads. Hadn’t her own father been killed by a falling -tree? Julie recalled his death with a quiver--that stretched look of -suffering, which had so widened and whitened his face. She was thinking -of these things a week or so after the supper party, sitting under the -light in her back room, knitting on a sweater, when Aunt Sadie came in -to her from the other side of the house. - -“Come on, Julie, let’s go to the picture show this evening,” she -suggested. - -“I can’t,” Julie returned. “I’ve got to get on with this Red Cross -sweater.” - -“Well,” the other sighed, “I reckon I oughtn’t to tempt you away from -your duty, with our men givin’ their lives over there. Ain’t it awful -about that Mrs. Webster’s boy!” - -“Awful,” Julie assented. - -“It’s the third one of our Stag County young men to go. That boy from -Whifen that was killed early in the war, an’ that young feller that was -in the Marines, and now Mrs. Webster’s son. They said when they got the -word his mother just fell right over on the floor, an’ was dead for -five hours. He was her only boy, and the baby child; an’ now him dead -’way off there--one of our men dead over in France--ain’t it awful?” - -“Yes, awful,” Julie repeated, hurrying nervously on with her knitting. - -“Well--and did you hear about the Chapin boy?” Aunt Sadie continued. - -“No. What about him? What Chapin boy?” Julie asked, startled. - -“Why, you know those Chapins that live out on the Easter Road, ’bout -five miles from town? It’s a little log-house, sits back from the road -in a right pretty yard.” - -“Oh, yes, I know. What about the boy?” Julie questioned. - -“Well, they had to send him back from camp. They couldn’t do one thing -with him. He just cried all the time.” - -“_Cried_ all the time?” - -“Um--’m.” Mrs. Johnson firmed her lips to a straight line, and nodded -her head up and down heavily. “Yes, they couldn’t do one thing with -him.” - -“But--but what was the matter with him?” Julie persisted. - -“I don’t know. He just cried all the time. Lost his nerve, I reckon. -They sent him back home. They said he wasn’t no good to them. His -father feels terrible; says he always was a nervous kind of a boy, an’ -his mother humored him along till she just ruined him.” - -“Oh, the poor boy!” Julie cried. - -“Well my Lord, Julie! Just s’pose all our men were like that; what -would Uncle Sam do?” - -“Oh, of course, I know. Only--how awful it was for him!” - -“Well, I’m mighty glad he ain’t _my_ son,” Aunt Sadie retorted. “It’ll -be a thing people’ll throw up against him all his life. Folks won’t -forget it in a hurry. Well,”--she dragged her large figure up out of -the plush rocker,--“If you won’t go with me to the picture show, I -reckon I’ll just have to go ask Mis’ Bixby; she’s better’n no company.” - -She went, and after a little Julie heard her and Elizabeth Bixby -setting forth. Julie sat on alone, knitting under the light, her mind -filled with distressful thoughts about the Chapin boy, who found camp -so awful and the prospect of death in France so overpowering, that he -could do nothing but cry. “How dreadful!” Julie thought. “What was the -matter with him? What made him go to pieces like that? Other men stood -up against it; what was the matter with the Chapin boy? Oh, the poor -boy! The poor thing! How frightful to give way like that, with all the -camp to see!” - -As far as she could remember, she had never talked to the Chapin boy -and had not seen him very often. She recalled him as a thin gangling -youth, with a prominent Adam’s apple and shallow, frightened blue eyes. -And now he was at home again with a disgrace like that. “Oh, the poor -boy!” she thought again, horrified at the spiritual collapse that would -make one’s pride and reserve go down and leave one exposed before the -whole world. “It’s just what I might do if I were a man--just the way I -might have acted. Oh, I’m glad I’m not a man!” she told herself. - -Suddenly in the stillness she heard a sharp sound in the hall. It -startled her so that her hands on the knitting-needles jumped together. -“Oh, what is that?” she thought. She listened rigidly a minute, and -heard a creaking on the stairway. With an effort, she wrenched herself -up, and stepping to the door pressed the electric button. As the light -flashed up in the hall, she saw Mr. Bixby’s white face looking down at -her from the stairway. - -“Oh, I scared you,” he said confusedly. “Don’t be scared; it’s just me. -I didn’t go to frighten you.” - -Julie looked up at him. “_You?_” she cried uncertainly. “Oh, it’s you!” - -They stared at each other a moment, and then she turned back into her -sitting-room. “Well,” she said, relieved, “I’m glad it’s you. I _was_ -scared. I didn’t know what to think.” - -He came down the stairs, still apologizing. “I’m sorry. I didn’t go to -frighten you. I was upstairs all alone--my wife’s gone to the show with -Mis’ Johnson--and I got to wondering where that door went to, an’ then, -just out of curiosity, I hunted round till I found a closet-key that -fitted it. But I’m mighty sorry I give you a start.” - -He had come into the little sitting-room now and was leaning over the -back of the red-plush rocker, looking down at her. She had returned to -her knitting under the light. “Oh, it’s all right; it isn’t anything. I -just get scared so easy,” she told him, still with a little tremor in -her voice. - -“Yes,” he said, “I know. Some of us do.” - -He still lingered, leaning on his arms over the back of the chair and -watching her knit. - -“Making a sweater?” he asked. - -“Yes, for the Red Cross.” She spread it out for him to see. - -“Well, the feller that gets it’ll be lucky,” he said. Still he did -not go; and in a moment he spoke again, feeling his way uncertainly. -“Speaking about being scared--I mean, you said you got scared easy?” - -“Yes, I do,” she answered, to help him out as he hesitated. “I’m awful -timid; sudden noises always make me jump.” - -“Yes, I know. And I was thinking how it was with that boy.” - -“What boy?” she asked. - -“The feller they had to send back from camp. Chapin, I think was the -name. You heard about him?” - -He waited, looking down at her. - -Suddenly Julie comprehended a strained anxiety in his tone, and her -heart began to beat quickly. - -“Yes, I heard,” she said, and kept her eyes down on her knitting now, -not to look too closely at him. - -“They said he just cried”--he swallowed nervously--“all the time in -camp. They said they couldn’t do a thing with him.” - -“I know; I heard.” Julie knit faster. - -“They said everybody’d laugh at him from now on,” he continued. - -Julie raised her eyes and looked straight up at him. “_I_ never will,” -she promised. - -He drew a free breath. He seemed to have been waiting for her to say -this. “I didn’t b’lieve you would,” he said. - -“I never will,” she answered faithfully again, as though making a -solemn compact with him. - -She saw his hands that clutched the back of the chair tremble slightly, -and a faint hot moisture broke out upon his forehead. Then he stooped -closer to her, daring all. - -“_She_ said--my wife said--that was just what I’d do in camp.” - -“You wouldn’t,” she cried sharply. “You wouldn’t! I know you wouldn’t.” - -“But--but I might,” he faltered, moistening his lips. “It’s--it’s just -what I might do.” - -“You would _not_!” Julie repeated violently, clutching her knitting so -tight that one of the bone needles snapped in two. - -“She said I would,” he persisted. “And then she went off to the show. I -was all alone. I got to studyin’ about it. I thought--I thought--” - -“I know,” she interjected quickly. “I know, I understand how it is.” - -He moistened his lips once more, and tried again. “And--and I thought -maybe she was right,” he got out at last. - -“She is not right. She isn’t!” - -“And everybody’s laughin’ at the Chapin boy--” - -“I’ll never laugh at him.” - -“An’ I thought--” He swallowed again. “I thought, ‘Maybe it’ll be _you_ -they’ll all be laughin’ at next week.’” He paused a moment. “And--and -now you know it all,” he ended. - -“I understand.” Julie’s eyes were suddenly full of tears, so that his -strained face, gazing hungrily down at her, was blurred through them. -“I know. I was sitting here thinking that, too. I was thinking, if I -was a man maybe that was just what I’d do. Maybe I wouldn’t stand up -against things any better than that Chapin boy.” - -“You? You thought that?” - -“Yes,” she nodded back at him. - -“Then you know,” he said, with a breath of relief. “I didn’t want any -one to laugh at him,” he went on. “Don’t laugh,” he pleaded, as though -now he were defending the Chapin boy to that cold outside world that -had laughed. “Maybe he just couldn’t help it, the poor feller! Life’s -mighty big for some folks--too big--bigger than a lot of us knows how -to stand up against. You don’t know how hard he tried; folks don’t know -how hard a person tries; but _you_ understand, Miss Rose?” He suddenly -broke off, his eyes coming back to her face. “You understand, Miss -Julie?” - -“Yes, I understand,” she answered faithfully. “An’ I know about life -being so big.” - -“It’s too big for some folks,” he said. “Well, I must go.” He drew -himself erect, and started toward the door; then he turned back. “Miss -Rose--Miss Julie,” he said, “I want to tell you--I didn’t tell you the -truth--I don’t have to tell you anything but what’s the truth. I opened -that door and found you on purpose. Of course I knew where it went. -I was sitting there all alone after what she said. And then someway I -_had_ to see if you were laughin’ like all the rest. Now you know--I -don’t have to tell you anything but what’s the truth.” He went then. -And presently Julie heard the door at the top of the steps shut and -locked, and the key withdrawn from the inside. - -Not long afterward Elizabeth Bixby and Aunt Sadie returned, and -presently upstairs Julie heard Elizabeth’s high voice taunting her -husband. The walls were thin, and certain words came vividly down to -her. “Oh, yes you would, too! You’d be just like him!” - -“That woman’s a devil. She’s just a devil!” Julie whispered to herself. - - - - -XII - - -That was the first time Mr. Bixby unlocked the door and came down -the stairway to Julie, but it was not the last. Almost every evening -Elizabeth and Aunt Sadie went out to the moving pictures, and there -was no one in the house except Mr. Bixby upstairs and Julie in her -sitting-room below. Two or three nights after his first appearance -he came again. This time he offered a small excuse. “Could I trouble -you to lend me a pair of big shears?” he asked awkwardly. But after -she found a pair and put them in his hands, he stood and looked at -them uncertainly as though he did not know what to do with them, then -suddenly he flushed and laid the scissors back on the centre table. - -“I wasn’t tellin’ you the truth,” he confessed abruptly. “I don’t need -your scissors. That wasn’t anything but just an excuse. But, someway I -can’t lie to you.” - -Julie looked straight up at him. “You don’t have to,” she said simply. -“You don’t ever have to tell me anything but what’s the truth.” - -With the words she came as it were into a place of peace. All the -whirling haste and nervous anxiety of her existence, all its terrors -and subterfuges, fell away, and left her still and secure. - -She saw the tension of his face relax also. - -“That’s so,” he said with quick relief. “That certainly is so, Miss -Julie. You’re one person I don’t have to try to fool.” - -He seated himself in the plush rocker easily and naturally. “All my -life,” he went on, “I’ve been pretendin’ things. Puttin’ up a front an’ -tryin’ to fool people into thinkin’ I’m something I ain’t.” - -“I know. I always do it, too,” she answered. “I reckon it’s mighty -foolish of us.” She looked at him out of her wide gray eyes which were -kindled now with the light of discovery. - -His face broke all at once into laughter. It was a whimsical trick -of his nature to experience a certain rueful mirth over his own -futilities. “Yes,” he assented, “it is foolish! But anyhow we don’t -have to do it with one another, do we,” he said, restating the fact. -“I’m kind of lonesome to-night, that was why I come down--I didn’t -really want the shears.” - -“I know. I understand,” she answered again. - -“My wife likes the movies. She goes to ’em ’most every night, but I -don’t care nothin’ about ’em. I don’t see what people finds in them.” - -“I don’t either,” she confessed. - -Thereafter they fell into easy and simple conversation. Indeed, why -should he not sit and talk a little while to her? He told her of the -small happenings of his day at the _News_ office and of the big and -terrible news of the world. He did not hasten to cover up any silence -with the clatter of talk. He spoke when he felt like it, sitting in the -plush rocker and watching her sew, and she replied--or was silent--as -she pleased. He stayed for a half-hour or so and then he rose. - -“Well, I reckon it’s time for me to tell you good-night,” he said, and -slipped away up the stairs without further comment. - -After that he came again and again. The house would be still,--as it -never was when Elizabeth’s noisy personality was at home,--Julie would -be sewing by her light, when she would hear the key turn in the lock -and his foot upon the stair. Once or twice he said, “I was kind of -lonesome; maybe you’ll let me sit here a spell,” but later he came -without even that preamble, simply saying, “Well, Miss Julie, here I -am,” and dropping into the plush rocker as though it were his place -that was waiting for him. At first his talk was only general news of -the day, but as their intimacy deepened they began to unfold themselves -to each other more and more. With all the rest of humanity they -continually had to pretend, dressing themselves in a garment of life -that was altogether too big for them. With others they were always on -the defensive, always erecting hasty barriers of reserve and shyness -behind which their sensitive personalities might retreat, but with each -other they were free; there they could be spontaneous and completely -true. Their real selves came forth and played about naturally and -easily in this intercourse of friendly comprehension. The key words of -their intimacy came to be, “I know, I understand,” spoken by her, or -“Yes, that’s the way it’s always been with me, too,” spoken by him. -If there fell a momentary constraint or embarrassment between them, -these words were all that were necessary to set them free again. And -in the finding of one another’s understanding they found themselves, -and a whole new world as well. This world emerged from under all the -difficulties and timidities of life as she had known it; from under the -strangled inhibitions from which he suffered. It was for them a world -that was large and beneficent, where they were big people who were -unafraid. It was difficult to put into words what they experienced, but -sometimes they groped about to find expression for it. - -“Ain’t it strange?” he said. “When I open that door and come down the -steps, it’s more than just a door opening. It’s--it’s something in -myself. I open the door, and I see you sitting there under the light, -and--someway--I find myself when I find you. It’s like when I was a kid -and used to be scared in the dark. We lived in the country then, and -sometimes they’d send me down to the stable on errands after nightfall. -Coming back, the dark’ud all close in on me. I’d be so scared, I’d -seem to be getting smaller and smaller an’ bein’ smothered. I’d run -an’ stumble over things. An’ then all at once, I’d see the light from -the kitchen, and folks moving about inside, and everything’d be all -right. The dark would kind of draw off. I’d open all up inside, like -I’d been set free. An’ that’s the way it is when I come down the steps -an’ see you sitting here. It’s like I’d come home. I’m a bigger person -down here in this sitting-room than I am anywhere else. I mean to say,” -he hesitated, turning the thought over, “there’s more of me here than -anywhere else.” - -“But it’s there all the time: I mean, what you really are is there, no -matter where you are,” she interrupted. - -“Maybe so, but it don’t come out other places. You’ve got the key, Miss -Julie. I’ve got the key to the door, but you’ve got the key to what I -am.” - -But for the most part they did not attempt to phrase it, accepting it -simply and easily. They had been cramped and terrified, constricted -into their smaller selves, by other people and by their own constrained -natures, and now this wider existence trembled into view: an existence -set free from fear, where they might be themselves and be happy; and -they seized upon it with avidity. - -They almost never spoke of Elizabeth. Julie never did, and he but -rarely. “My wife’s gone out with Mrs. Johnson. She’s crazy about the -movies,” he sometimes said. Once he said, “I offered to go with her, -but she said I wasn’t good enough company. She’d rather have anybody’s -company but mine.” - -“Well, if she leaves him every night like that, of course he’s -lonesome,” Julie thought sharply to herself. - -They did not meet thus a great number of times--not more than six or -seven, all told. They wondered over the miracle of their friendship -and they rejoiced in the new life that it brought to them, yet they -spoke no word of love to each other. But there fell at last an evening -when the summer night had come down over Hart’s Run; when children -in pretty, clean frocks called to one another through the dusk; when -lovers would have walked the street, if it had not been a war year, -with most of the young men gone; when the whole village was relaxed -and at ease; and when Julie, sitting sewing by her light, heard the -key scrape in the lock, the creak of footsteps on the stairs, and in a -moment looking up saw Mr. Bixby before her, but with a face so strange -and pinched that she cried out, “What is it? What’s happened?” - -He sat down in the rocker and looked at her for a dumb moment. Then he -spoke. - -“It’s come; my draft call’s come. I got to go.” - -“You got to go?” she whispered. - -“I just got it from the post office. I got to go in the mornin’. She’s -out--my wife’s out. I ain’t told her yet. I came to you, Miss Julie.” - -“You--you got to go in the morning,” she repeated blankly. Her work had -fallen in her lap, and the delicate folds were crumpled between her -clutched hands. - -He nodded. “I got to go. They drafted me.” - -Neither of them spoke for a moment. Julie swallowed spasmodically -once or twice, looking around the little room where their imprisoned -personalities had come together in the last weeks. Where they had found -one another, and in that finding had discovered their hidden selves. -Where their souls had ventured forth and found a whole new world -impinging marvelously upon their constricted everyday existence, and -where the timid and reserved room had taken on life from their life. - -“You’re going away?” she faltered again, knowing that this world was -falling to pieces. She felt herself beginning to tremble all over. - -“I got to go, honey,” he said, and stretched out his hand open to -her across the table. It was the first time he had used a term of -endearment--the first time he had stretched his hand to her. She -put her own swiftly into his. The two hands, small and thin, locked -together there upon the table. She did not look at him, she looked down -at their clasped hands in the light--hands that had miraculously found -each other out of all the tumult and terrors of life. Through the tears -that were beginning to burn into her eyes the hands looked dim and -uncertain. The trembling of her body ran down her arm into her fingers, -and communicated itself to his. A tremor shivered through their hands -as they clung together. - -“I--I _got_ to go, ain’t I, little honey?” - -There was a question in his tone now, and she looked up swiftly into -his face, the tears arrested and hanging upon her lashes. In his eyes -looking hungrily at her she read hesitation and dread. She forgot -herself in the realization of what was before him. - -“You’re afraid,” she said abruptly. - -His face flared darkly red, and he put his disengaged hand up before -his eyes. But in a moment he took it down and looked straight at her. - -“Yes, I am,” he said. “Look at me, honey, I don’t mind your knowin’ it. -I _want_ for you to know. I want you to know just all I am. You’re the -only person in all the world I could ever speak about it to, but I want -you to know just the onery little feller I am. You’re my mother, an’ my -sister--you’re what I am. I can’t keep nothing back from you. I want to -lay my heart right out for you to see.” - -“I know--I understand,” she whispered. She accepted his fear simply and -uncritically. - -His hand tightened upon hers desperately. “I’m just a coward, honey, -just yeller. I’m afraid of the other fellers; they’ll guy the life -out of me. I’ll be everybody’s goat, I know it. _She_ said I would, -an’ it’s so. Maybe--maybe I can’t stand up to it any better than that -Chapin boy. An’ I’m afraid of goin’ over an’ of gettin’ killed. I want -for you to know it _all_--all I am! But--but it ain’t the first time -I’ve stood up and made myself do things I was scared of. I’ve _got_ to -go. Oh, Lord! Maybe I’ll pull through all right!” - -“Why do you have to go?” Julie cried suddenly, violently. Then like -the breaking of a dam her words gushed out, tossing aside the mincing -phraseology of her mother’s training, and reverting to the tongue of -her mountain people. “What’s the world ever give you that you got to -stand up now an’ maybe be killed for it? What’s folks ever done for -you or for me that we got to please ’em now? Did they ever do anything -for you? They never done one thing for me! My mother an’ my father was -good to me--but they’re dead. An’ what’s other folks ever done for us? -Ain’t they always crowded us out into the cold an’ slammed the door in -our faces? They never let us in to life. They never even knowed we was -there. Or if they took notice of us, it was just to knock us out er the -road, er maybe stamp on us, or wrench us ’round the way they wanted us -to go.” - -“That’s God’s truth,” he said slowly. - -“Ain’t it always been so?” she rushed on. “Did they ever let you be a -real person? Wasn’t they always slappin’ you out into the cold? Even -when you was a child, did the other children ever let you in, an’ play -with you like they did one another? They never did me.” - -“They never did me either,” he answered. “I was the outsider. They -always picked on me.” - -“They tore my paper doll to pieces when I wasn’t doin’ one thing to -anybody, an’ all of ’em tramped it into the snow! Oh my God! It’s -been that way with both of us, always. All our lives we was pinched -an’ strangled, an’ thrown aside. They didn’t let us do any more’n -just cling to the edges of life. An’ then we found one another.” She -was crying now, and her words were cut in two by her gasping breath. -“We found one another--we found one another, an’ then we found life! -But _now_ they open the door and say, ‘Come on in.’ _Now_ they got a -use for you. _Now_ they’ll let you stand up an’ git killed for ’em. -They never opened the door to let you into life, but they’ve opened -it up wide for you for death! No,” she cried wildly, “_you_ don’t owe -folks nothin’! They never give us life--we’ve found life for ourselves -together! An’ now, just as we found it, they’d snatch hit away! You -don’t have to go! - -“You don’t _have_ to go, do you?” she repeated. - -He looked at her, dazzled by the flaming passion of her face. “We--we -could go away an’ hide somewheres together,” he ventured, uncertainly. - -She stared back at him. - -“What would they do to you if they caught you?” she demanded. - -“I dunno.” He shook his head. “But--if we went--it would--you know it -would break your life all to pieces. If anything was to happen to me, -you couldn’t come back here.” - -“I never had no life to break, ’til you came into it,” she cried. “I -never knew what life was. You’ve set me free! You’ve made me all I am. -We’ve made each other! Our life together--our love--it’s just all there -is! Oh God! Oh God!” she cried, “_Ain’t_ we got a right to it?” - -He bowed his head down upon their hands on the table. - -“My honey! My love! My little honey!” he cried. - - - - -XIII - - -The next morning Timothy Bixby left on the early train going east. - -Aunt Sadie came in and told Julie about it. - -“Well,” she announced, “Little Bixby’s gone. He got his draft call last -night, an’ he left on Number Three this morning. He’ll go to Camp Lee -like all the men from this section. I saw him when he left. Mis’ Bixby -wasn’t up. I declare, if he didn’t have to get his own breakfast this -very last morning! I told him he ought to go in and bid you good-bye, -but he said he was late. He really had a plenty time; he was just -makin’ up an excuse, ’cause he’s so bashful. I reckon you’ll just have -to excuse him, Julie. It seems funny to me that they’d want a little -scary feller like him.” - -“He’s not really so small,” Julie returned sharply. “He’s up to -standard height.” - -“I know he is, but someway a person always thinks of him as sort of -undersized. But I came in, Julie, to tell you something else. I’m goin’ -over to stay with Betty this afternoon.” - -Betty was Mrs. Johnson’s daughter, who was married and living some -twenty miles away in the country. - -“She’s sick, an’ the baby’s ailin’, an’ she can’t get any help over -there. I got a card in the morning’s mail asking me please to come, so -I’m going over there this evenin’. I wouldn’t be s’prised if I was away -for a couple of months. An’ Mis’ Bixby’s leavin’--” - -“When does she go?” Julie demanded. - -“She’s leavin’ on the night train. She’s going back to her home in -Lynchburg for a spell, and later maybe she’ll go to be near Camp Lee. -She says she’ll not go ’til they kind of get Mr. Bixby licked into -shape. She says she’ll be so ashamed of him at first. I think she’s -layin’ off to have a right good time. Ain’t that just like the woman? -But you’re goin’ to be all alone ’til I come back, Julie. You better -see to gettin’ somebody to stay with you.” - -“Oh, I’ll be all right,” Julie evaded. - -So the life that had informed Julie’s small establishment for the last -few weeks fell suddenly all to pieces. Mr. Bixby had gone. Aunt Sadie -left with her son-in-law in the afternoon, and Elizabeth took the -night train. She came in before she went to say good-bye to Julie. She -was dressed elaborately for her journey, and was in high spirits. - -“My! But I’m glad to be out of this rotten little town,” she announced. -“There ain’t anything I can do for Tim,” she went on, “so I might just -as well fly ’round an’ enjoy myself.” - -Here the car came which she had ordered to take her to the station, and -in the expansiveness of leave-taking she attempted to kiss Julie, but -Julie started back involuntarily. - -“What’s the matter? Did you think I was goin’ to bite you?” Elizabeth -demanded. - -“No, no--I--” - -“Oh, all right. Goodness knows I don’t want to kiss a person that don’t -want to kiss me. Well, I’m gone.” - -She went; and the next day Julie went also. She went in the early -morning when most of the people of the village were still asleep--when -lacy mists hung over the mountains, and all the flowers in her little -garden were drenched with summer dew. She went out of her side door, -locking it after her. In her garden she lingered a moment to pluck -a little nosegay of sweet peas and to touch the wet faces of the -other flowers with a caressing finger; then she went swiftly. She -went with no compunctions. “Ain’t I got a right to life?” she asked -herself fiercely. “Goodness knows we don’t owe folks anything. They -never did anything for us!” But though she went unhesitatingly she -could not bring herself to turn for a last look at the garden with -its row of sweet peas and nasturtiums, nor at the shop staring into -the street with its blank shuttered windows. Not for anything would -she have looked back at that side door. Somehow, as she went up the -street to the station, she visualized her mother’s figure standing -there following her with her eyes, as she had stood so often in life. -Julie knew she was not there; she knew she just imagined this vision; -yet not for worlds would she have turned to glance back. With her eyes -set steadily forward up the street, the picture of her mother standing -there in the doorway looking after her hung persistently in the back -of her mind. Her mother had worn very neat white aprons; they used to -stand out distinctly against the black of her dress when she stood in -the doorway, and sometimes the wind would flutter them a little. She -had a way of putting her hand up to shade her eyes as she looked and -looked after Julie. There was one point in the street where Julie had -been in the habit of turning to wave to her mother, and her mother used -to wave the hand that had been shading her eyes, and with that final -gesture turn back into the house. But Julie did not pause or turn at -this point to-day. Whispering defiantly, “Ain’t I got a right to my -life?” she went steadily on. - -So the remembered vision of her mother did not turn away, but continued -to stand there in the door, watching her go, with the hand still -shading the eyes. - - - - -XIV - - -At the Hart’s Run station Julie bought a ticket to Washington, but when -the train reached Gordonsville she slipped out of it unnoticed and, -buying another ticket, crossed the tracks and boarded the Richmond -train which was waiting there. At the station in Richmond, Timothy -Bixby met her. - -Thus, as easily almost as changing from one garment to another, Julie -Rose slipped out of all her established life. With that sudden violent -outcry, “What’s folks ever done for you or for me, that we got to -please ’em now!” she had burst open a door, through which she and -Timothy passed defiantly, finding themselves in a world where life -turned round and looked at them with apparent beneficence. In the -happiness of their companionship they drew long breaths of freedom; -and, relaxing into the recreating power of their love, they found -themselves and a confidence they had never known, so that for the first -time they faced their fellow beings without fear. - -His concern was all for her. When he met her that first afternoon at -the Richmond station, he insisted that she was tired and must have -supper at once before he took her to their rooms. Accordingly, they had -their first meal together in the station restaurant, a meal that in -spite of the city heat and the coming and going of hurried people, was -to Julie the most wonderful she had ever eaten. Afterward they boarded -a westbound street-car. - -“I’m afraid you’re going to find the city mighty hot after the -mountains,” he said anxiously. - -She did not answer, but she turned and looked at him, and words were -not necessary. What did heat or material discomfort matter to her then? - -The city was hot, tired, and flat after long weeks of summer; -disheveled and overgrown with extra population also, as were most -cities near any of the big training-camps, in that war year of 1918. - -“The rooms ain’t much, honey,” he apologized, as the car ground its way -west with jerks of stops and starts. “An’ they ain’t in a swell part of -town; but they’re the best I could do, an’--an’ I got something to show -you.” - -The rooms were in a part of the city made up almost entirely of blocks -of small frame houses, sheltering Richmond’s poorer inhabitants, who -spilled out of their front doors on to the little porches and into the -streets: the men in shirt sleeves, the women sometimes tidied for the -afternoons, sometimes still in the depression of wrappers that had been -worn through all the heat of the day. - -“You see it ain’t much--pretty hot, an’ cheap out this way,” he -apologized again as they got off the car and started along the street. - -She looked up at him as she had looked before. “Oh, Tim!” she cried; -and suddenly she laughed--a ripple of shy wild ecstasy. “Oh, Tim, -honey! How could anything like that matter now?” - -Looking at her, he caught the flaming happiness of her face, and -laughed too. “I know, I know,” he whispered. “An’ anyhow, I have got -something fine to show you,” he added. - -Though the streets were for the most part lined with small wooden -houses, there was an occasional more pretentious one of brick, and -sometimes a larger frame dwelling. It was in one of these last, a -double, three-storied house which accommodated several families and one -or two single lodgers, that Mr. Bixby had found an abode for them--a -sitting-room, a kitchen, and at the back a bedroom. The rooms were -close and the furniture was cheap and ugly, but what did that matter? -The porch outside was clothed with a cottage vine, a strip of zinnias -and cosmos marched in the tiny front-yard, and at the back was another -attempt at a flower bed. - -“Oh, Tim! Oh, Tim!” she cried. She stood in the middle of the small -domain and turned slowly about. “Oh, Tim! It’s _ours_!” The rooms -ceased thereat to be mere rooms; with that rush of emotion her heart -opened to them, they entered, and the place became her home. - -But he would not let her linger there now. Depositing her bags, he -urged her out again. “Come on,” he cried. “I got to show you ’fore it’s -too late.” - -He turned into a street running south, which after a few minutes’ -walk came to an end in a small bit of parkway where were a row of -benches and a stone balustrade. “There now! Look!” he cried. It was his -triumph. - -All the cheap sordidness of the city ended abruptly here. Beyond was -space--a deep drop to the stretches of the James River below. Overhead -was the infinite breadth and height of the sky, and far across the -river, whose tawny waters were tufted by little islands, were green -stretches of open country. - -He drew her down to a bench. “This is the jumping-off place,” he told -her. “I thought you could come here an’ kind of stretch and breathe -when things got too close on you back there in the streets.” - -It was amazing. The mean streets reached almost to them, fenced off -by just that little edge of open ground, yet all one had to do was to -turn the back upon them to enter another world, a place of space and -freedom, of green islands, clean air, the smell of the water, and the -yellow flow of it. Here, too, they found the secret places of their -own souls. The twilight and then the dark came slowly down. They sat -together upon the bench, their eyes rested by the open stretches before -them, their hands close clasped, their bodies touching, and their soft, -half-whispered words feeling out toward one another, as they brought -to light all the past tragedies of their lives, all their sorrowful -timidities. Here was one at last to whom everything might be told, who -would listen, who would perfectly understand. They paused often to say -in whispered wonder, “Why, I never told that to anyone before!” - -He told her there in halting phrases about his marriage. His disjointed -words only touched upon the high places, like a child skipping across -a brook on the stepping-stones. All the difficult everyday intercourse -with his wife that had followed their union was a dark flood he did not -dip into. What he did tell was enough for her to understand. - -“We lived in the same town together,” he said. “I’d known her always, -off an’ on. She was mighty handsome--big and full of life. Everybody -thought she was going to marry Warwick Preston. But I reckon they -quarreled or something. Anyhow, him and Ethel Dow ran off and got -married. She--Elizabeth--lived a few doors down the street from me. We -met one evening--she was mighty fine an’ big-lookin’. She asked me to -come an’ see her, an’ I went several evenin’s. One night she cried, an’ -said how lonesome she was. I was lonesome, too--” - -“I understand,” Julie cried hastily, and he went no further with his -explanation. They turned away from the unhappy past to the miracle of -the present. - -“We’re free! We’re free!” she exulted. “None of the little old fears -can hold us any more. We’ve found ourselves, honey! We’ve found one -another.” - -“It was you unlocked the door an’ set me free,” he burst out. “You’re -my sister an’ my mother! You’re all I am. Oh, my little honey! My love!” - -“I’m your sister an’ your mother--I’m the one that would die for you!” -she cried in answer. - -After that they needed no more words. Silence fell, and the dusk that -had faded now into dark, wrapped them close about. They sat thus for a -long time, but at last it was late, and rising they made their way hand -in hand like happy children back to the three little rooms that were -now their home. - - - - -XV - - -In the lodging-house in their new life together Julie and Mr. Bixby -passed as Mr. and Mrs. Freeman. It was Julie who named them. - -“An’ that’s the truth; we _are_ free. It isn’t any lie,” she pleaded. - -“It’s God’s truth,” he affirmed solemnly. - -They kept their own first names, for they both clung tenaciously to -the truth whenever it was possible. Indeed, they did not practise many -subterfuges nor make any very great effort at concealment. In this big -strange life of a city where neither of them had ever been before, -it did not seem likely that he would be traced, or that a country so -grimly occupied with war and great undertakings would pause long enough -in all the mad confusion to note that one inconspicuous man had failed -to appear at the place assigned to him. They were not worried either -about finances. They each had a small stock of ready money, and Julie -had a couple of Liberty Bonds which could be sold in case he found any -trouble in getting work. They had agreed that he must leave his bonds -for Elizabeth, although, as she had a small income of her own, she was -independent of his support. He found a position almost at once in a -printing establishment where war had left them short of men, and where -they welcomed his expert services. Julie planned to seek work also -later on, but for the present he entreated her not to. - -“No, take time just to be alive a while,” he begged. “Why, we’re almost -as new as Adam an’ Eve; all I want you to do is just to help me name -the animals.” - -“Name the animals!” she laughed, as no human being had ever laughed -before at his small whimsicalities. - -They were both released into a gayety and laughter of life that -heretofore had passed them by. Youth flowed back into Julie’s face, -and with it her lost prettiness--or perhaps a fresh prettiness which -even her youth had never known. Ordinarily the strangeness of their -new surroundings, with the inevitable publicity of the lodging-house, -would have terrified them both. But not now. As certain animals put -their young in the centre of the flock, and then in companionship face -the enemy boldly, so together they pooled their confessed weaknesses -and fears, and thus were able to turn an assured front to the rest of -the world. Their passion had released them. Heretofore they seemed -to themselves to be clinging merely to the edges of life, but now -they were at its flaming centre. Nay more, they were life itself; -and from the heart of it they looked forth at the rest of the world -with a fearless joy. Like children who make a tent out of a couple -of chairs roofed by an old shawl and, creeping under it, find an -enchanted world of their own, no matter what tragedies may be facing -the grown-up people around them, so under the grim roof of a world’s -war these two discovered a miraculous existence. After their long years -of repression, in this sudden release they were intoxicated with the -rapture of existence. For Julie the days flowed by in ecstasy, from -early morning when she arose and prepared his breakfast, on through all -the happy day as she attended to her small home tasks, and so to the -fall of evening which brought him home again--every moment was a golden -joy keyed to a hidden rhythm. Other people also became a delight to -her. With that one defiant and releasing cry of hers, she had defied -people, and found freedom; but now that she was free, she no longer -held any grudge against them. Indeed, one of the keenest delights in -her new existence was a fearless and easy intercourse with the rest of -the world. Her happiness and vividness of life was such that it could -not be contained within their own two personalities, but must flow -forth in a warm friendliness to all the people with whom she came in -contact--to the children in the street, the clerks in the shops and -at market, and to the other lodgers in the house. With these last she -found herself on friendly terms almost at once. - -They were ordinary enough people, but to Julie they seemed different -from any she had ever known. There was Mrs. Watkins, who had the rooms -across the hall from Julie on the first floor. She was a frail and -tired little woman, wilted by the heat, and burdened with the care of -four small children. She generally managed to get herself into a tidy -dress late in the afternoon, but most of the day she went about in a -wrapper, her hair in curl-papers, and her constant complaint, “My -Lord, _ain’t_ it hot!” To help her with her sewing for the children was -a delight to Julie. She did it so eagerly and so well, that even Mrs. -Watkins’ fretful discouragement was pierced by gratitude. - -“My, but you’re kind! Why, you couldn’t be kinder to me if you was my -own sister,” she burst out one day, as Julie held up a completed dress -with pretty summer ruffles. “I never did think I’d get that dress -finished for poor little Nell. Looks like the heat always drags me down -so--but you! Why, you ain’t been at it no time, an’ now it’s all done. -Nell!” she called out of the window into the hot street, “Nelly! run -here a second; momma’s got something to show you, dearie.” - -The little girl entered the cluttered bed-sitting-room, a languid and -pale little creature of eight years, but when Julie held up the little -frock before her, her eyes lighted with joy. - -“Oh, momma!” she breathed, turning to her mother. “Oh, it’s done, ain’t -it!” - -She seized the dress, and holding it up under her chin, danced away to -look at herself in the faded mirror. - -“Oh, momma! Let me wear it this evening,” she pleaded, turning about -from side to side, preening before the glass. - -“You better take time to thank Mis’ Freeman, ’stead er primpin’ like -that,” her mother admonished her. “She’s the one finished it for you, -she’s your friend.” - -“Thank you, thank you, marm,” the child said, turning toward Julie. -The words were constrained and inadequate, spoken in obedience to her -mother’s command; but as she stood there with the pink folds of the -frock caught close to her and her pinched face flushed with happiness, -she was a little point of color and joy that lighted up the discouraged -room and made her mother’s eyes linger upon her fondly a moment, then -turn for sympathetic understanding to Julie. - -“Look what else I got,” Julie said, and took a small package from her -workbasket. The child unwrapped it shyly and a bright pink ribbon -shimmered into view. - -“For my hair--to match the dress,” she breathed, and fell dumb with -happiness. - -“My, but you’re kind!” Mrs. Watkins exclaimed again. - -“Oh, it ain’t anything,” Julie deprecated. “I love to see children -in pretty clothes, an’ I like to sew. I used to do dressmaking up in -the country where I lived.” With the words, suddenly the sight of her -little shop in Hart’s Run staring with blank shuttered windows out upon -the street, with its nasturtiums and sweet peas in the side yard, rose -up in her mind and hung there a moment before it dissolved. It gave -Julie a sharp stab of unexpected wistfulness. - -“I had a little shop once--a millinery shop, where I did sewing, too,” -she confided. Somehow she felt she must speak of her home. It had come -to her as a shy child comes to its mother’s knee, and she must give -it some touch of recognition. “It was a shop in the front, and I had -my living rooms in behind, and a little garden on the side with sweet -peas and nasturtiums in it,” she went on, offering the inner vision -propitiation. - -“My! That must’ve been nice,” the other said. “You’d like that. My -Lord! Ain’t it hot! I wish’t I was in the country right this minute.” -She mopped her face with a dingy handkerchief. “What was the name of -the place?” - -“Oh, it’s just a little town up in the mountains,” Julie evaded. “You -wouldn’t ever have heard of it.” - -“What’s its name?” Mrs. Watkins persisted. “Maybe I have. I had a -brother used to be in the lumber business up in the western part of the -state.” - -“Its name--its name--” Julie hesitated. She found it extraordinarily -difficult to lie, and yet to speak the truth would be utter -recklessness. All the time the little shop which had been her home -seemed to hang there in her mind expectant, waiting to see whether she -would own or deny it. - -“Its name’s Red River,” she said at last, with an effort. Instantly -the picture of the shop broke and swirled away. “Oh, no, it isn’t! No, -it isn’t!” she corrected herself breathlessly, and completely reckless -now. “It’s Hart’s Run. Red River’s the county town. But it’s Hart’s -Run--Hart’s Run,” she cried, “where my home was.” - -Then, terrified by what she had done, her heart began to flutter -violently up and down and she looked wildly about for some means of -changing the conversation. As she did so she caught sight through the -window of a strange old woman going down the porch steps, and passing -uncertainly out into the street. - -“Oh, Mrs. Watkins,” Julie whispered, “look quick. Who is that old -woman?” - -Mrs. Watkins peeped out. “That? Oh, that’s the poor old soul lives all -by herself up on the third floor. She’s mighty peculiar. It’s Miss -Fogg.” - -“I’ve seen her several times, an’ meant to ask about her. What’s the -matter with her? She looks--she looks dreadful,” Julie cried, glad to -elaborate the subject, and hoping that the name she had spoken would be -overlooked. - -“Well, she’s mighty peculiar,” Mrs. Watkins repeated. “I reckon she -must be cracked.” - -“But she looks so strange, so--so awful,” Julie persisted. - -“Well, she’s really lookin’ better than usual right now. She has spells -when she don’t come out of her room for days together, when she don’t -even pretend to fix herself up. You think she’s awful looking now; but -you just ought to see her then. She just stays shut up in that room -and don’t see a soul except her canary bird, if you could call that -a soul--just for days. I don’t know what in the world she does with -herself--just sits an’ mopes, I reckon.” - -“But don’t people go in to see her, to see what’s the trouble?” - -“Oh, she don’t thank you to: she’s mighty peculiar, I tell you. An’ -proud--_who-ee!_ It’s enough to kill you with laughing, but that old -rag-bag that looks like she hadn’t washed herself for a week--she -thinks herself better’n anybody in this house. Wouldn’t that kill you? -That’s because she used to go out sewing for some of the grand people -here in town. That’s her trade--dressmaking.” - -“Oh, well, then she and I ought to get along,” Julie cried eagerly. -“I’ll go to see her. I hate to have any one look so awful.” - -“She won’t thank you an’ she won’t see you; she’ll just slam the door -in your face. She seems like she’s mighty suspicious of every one. She -won’t have a thing to do with anybody, I tell you.” - -“I’m going to see her just the same,” Julie persisted. “It’s awful--the -look in her face, I mean. It’s like she hadn’t a friend in the world.” - -“She won’t let anybody be friends with her, she’s so proud an’ touchy, -an’ so peculiar.” Mrs. Watkins hastened to defend the neighborliness of -the house. “People ain’t going to put up with it. Some of the ladies -she sewed for used to come to see her and bring her things, but she’s -so stand-offish even with them that they’ve about quit comin’.” - -“What does she live on?” Julie inquired. - -“Oh, she ain’t poor. She’s got some private means of her own. No, -ma’am, she ain’t poor.” - -“There’s something dreadful the matter with her,” Julie said -distressfully. “I met her one day on the porch and looked straight into -her eyes, and I never saw anything so--so awful looking.” - -“Well, there was a doctor once came to see her; one of the ladies -she used to sew for had him to come; an’ he said she was mighty bad -off; said she had some sort of melancholia, an’ it wasn’t really safe -to have her goin’ ’round loose; said she was liable to do something -terrible.” - -“What? What would she do?” Julie’s eyes widened with apprehension. - -“I dunno.” The other shook her head. “Maybe kill herself, or -something.” - -“How _awful_!” Julie gasped, appalled. “The poor, poor thing!” - -That night after supper, as they sat in the little park overhanging the -river, Julie confessed to Tim that she had told Mrs. Watkins she came -from Hart’s Run. - -“I don’t know how I ever came to do such a thing,” she said in a -frightened voice; “I didn’t mean to speak of it; I tried not to. I -tried my best to lie. An’ first I said ‘Red River,’ but right away I -changed it to ‘Hart’s Run.’ I had to. It seemed like I’d almost slapped -my home an’ all the days that were gone right in the face when I said -‘Red River.’ I oughtn’t to have said ‘Hart’s Run’--I know I oughtn’t -to. Oh, do you reckon it’s done any harm? Do you think we ought to move -away some place else?” - -“No--no. It’s all right. I don’t expect she even noticed,” he comforted -her. “It’s all right.” - -She was leaning against him, and he felt a tremor of fear shiver -through her. - -“My little honey, it’s all right,” he whispered, his arm tightening -round her. “It’s all right. I’m glad you said ‘Hart’s Run.’ I wouldn’t -have had you not to. Don’t get scared.” - -They were all alone on the lower terrace of the park. At their back -rose a steep bank. In front was the sheer drop to the river, overhung -by the wide soft spaces of the misty air. Their hands met in a tight -clasp, and for a moment they were silent in the ecstasy of their -complete trust in each other. But after a moment she spoke diffidently. - -“Tim, I got a notion about our--our happiness.” They never spoke of it -as love. “I want to tell you about it.” She had fallen into a little -trick of saying eagerly, “I want to tell you,” or “I want to tell you -all about it.” And always he answered, “Tell me, my little honey.” - -Since her mother’s death there had never been any one who had really -wanted to hear what she had to say, and even her mother had not wanted -it, had not understood, in the complete way that he did. Now, because -of his understanding, her thoughts poured themselves out in a manner -that astonished her. His creative sympathy made ideals and fancies, -which heretofore had been too deep or too elusive to be expressed, come -forth fleshed in words. - -“Tell me, my honey,” he said now. - -“Well, our happiness, Tim--it’s so--so alive, that it seems like it was -a real thing running through us, like the way sap runs up the trees -in spring. Oh, honey, ’til you came I was as dead as a winter branch, -an’ now it seems like I couldn’t hold all the happiness, all the life -that’s mine. I got to pour it out for other folks.” - -“What’s folks ever done for you, or for me, that you got to please ’em -now?” he said unexpectedly. - -She was startled, frightened by his quotation of her own words. “Oh, I -don’t feel that way now,” she cried. “I don’t feel it now that we got -each other, do you? Do you, Tim?” she questioned anxiously, trying to -read his face in the dusk. - -“No, I don’t now--now that we’re free,” he answered. “I know -something,” he announced suddenly. - -“What? What do you know?” - -“Oh, honey! It wa’n’t really the other folks kep’ us down. It was our -own selves, our scary selves that we couldn’t break free of.” - -She stared out into the wide dusk in amazement. “That’s the truth,” she -said at length, with deep conviction. “It’s just the truth. Nobody -to blame but our own little selves,” she repeated. “Nobody to blame, -not--Why, Tim, not even Elizabeth!” - -“No, not even her,” he nodded back. - -They were neither of them bitter people; and with this revelation all -their resentment towards the rest of the world melted away, leaving -their hearts clean-swept and trembling with reverence toward the great -happiness and emancipation that was theirs. - -“Oh, Tim, I _got_ to try an’ help people,” she whispered, presently. -“I’m so happy I got to pour some of it out for somebody. That’s why I -got to try an’ help that poor old Miss Fogg.” - -“Who’s Miss Fogg?” he questioned. - -“She’s that poor thing lives up on the third floor all to herself,” she -told him. “Sometimes she shuts herself in for days and days and won’t -see a soul, Mrs. Watkins was telling me. She’s awful to look at, just -awful. She’s--she’s--oh, Tim, she scares me! She’s what _I_ might have -grown into if you hadn’t come. I’ve got to help her! It seems like I -owe it to our happiness to try an’ make her happy, to pour life back -into her! Oh, honey, you don’t care if I take some of our happiness -and give it away, do you?” she cried suddenly, twisting off whimsically. - -“Take all you want of it.” He made a gay, large gesture of bestowal. -“There’ll always be a plenty to go round.” - -They broke into happy laughter together in the dusk. - -“Come on,” he proposed, jumping up. “Let’s go get us some ice cream.” - -So hand in hand, laughing softly together, they wandered away along the -summer street. - -There was just one incident that momentarily disturbed for Julie the -sheer felicity of that evening. As they approached Broad Street they -realized that the lifeless air, which was redolent of tobacco from the -factories farther down-town, and permeated as well with the smell of -the hot pavement, of fruit stands and grocery shops, or enlivened with -occasional whiffs of perfumery from a passing woman, was being lifted -and woven into rhythm by a band. At the sound children broke their -play and began to run, and grown people also stepped off their porches -and hastened toward the music. Julie and Tim ran with the rest of the -crowd, reaching the corner just as a detachment of marching men swung -by in rippling khaki lines. The crackle of clapping hands from the -small crowd which had assembled followed the strains of the band and -the stamp of the men’s feet, and, as the flag came swaying past, the -people cheered and cheered. Tim did not applaud. He stood very drawn -and still, his eyes fixed upon the marching men; and suddenly, as the -cheers broke out for the flag, he gripped Julie’s hand so violently -that a ring her mother had given her on her eighteenth birthday cut -sharply into her finger. She did not let herself wince, but she fixed -her eyes upon his face. Once she twitched his hand, but he did not stir -or turn from the soldiers. The detachment passed, the crowd began to -disperse, and the band grew faint in the distance, but still he stood -upon the curb, staring fixedly down the street. Julie gave his hand -another little frightened pull, but he only tightened his grip so that -the ring bit deeper into her flesh. - -“Oh, _Tim_!” she gasped involuntarily at the pain. “Oh, honey!” - -He started then and looked down at her as though coming back from far -away. “My honey,” he muttered absently. - -“Let’s go get our ice cream,” she pleaded. - -“Ice cream?” He paused. “Why, yes--sure.” - -He was awake now. The soldiers had disappeared down the street. His -spirit was back once more with hers, and the terror that had swooped -upon her lifted and blew away. - -The rest of the evening was unalloyed happiness. His gayety overflowed -almost boisterously. They had their ice cream, and then they went to a -moving picture that made them laugh immoderately. After that, in sheer -exuberance of life and joy they had more ice cream, and then at last, -replete with happiness, they wandered home through the silent streets. - - - - -XVI - - -It was not, however, an easy matter to make friends with old Miss -Fogg, as Julie discovered, in spite of her ardent longing to do so. -The next morning, full of friendly desire, she went up the stairs to -the bare third floor where the old woman had her room, and knocked -upon her door. There was no answer. The empty hall was deserted and -still save for the complaint of a few flies upon the dim unwashed -window at one end, which gave what little light there was. Behind the -closed door that faced her there was no sound. Julie waited there, the -bearer of a cup of life that was brimful and eager to pour itself out -in self-donation. A second time she knocked and waited, and finally a -third time. Then at last she heard a noise within the room. The bed -creaked, and footsteps came toward the door. The handle was turned and -old Miss Fogg looked forth. In spite of herself Julie fell back a step -or two. The old face staring out at her was so startling, so haggard, -so defiant, and so horrible with despair, that she was speechless -before it. For an instant the head was thrust out at her, its gray -unbrushed hair, its withered neck set in torn nightgown-ruffles, -looking like some grotesque despairing Jack-in-the-box. Then before -Julie could muster a word, the face was withdrawn, the door banged -shut, and the key twisted in the lock. - -Julie turned and fled down to her own room, her heart pounding, and her -knees rather weak beneath her. “But I will get in to her yet. I will, I -will!” she told herself. - -Later in the day she confessed her failure to Mrs. Watkins. - -“Well, didn’t I tell you that was just the way it would be?” the other -said, taking a gloomy satisfaction in the coming true of her prediction. - -“But I will get in to help her yet,” Julie persisted. “She scares me; -but I won’t let her shut herself up and suffer like that all alone. I -can’t bear to think of it: it hurts me all through.” - -“Well, she’s not the only one suffering these days,” Mrs. Watkins -returned sombrely. “Look at the awful things happening in Europe: young -men being killed, an’ children starving, an’ old folks driven out of -their homes.” Mrs. Watkins was holding her youngest child, a little -boy of two, in her arms and rocking as she spoke. - -“I know,” Julie assented, “but that’s ’way off there across the ocean; -Miss Fogg’s right here, right up over my head, suffering. The things -that are happenin’ over there don’t seem so close.” - -“Don’t it seem close when it’s our own men, our own boys, fightin’?” -Mrs. Watkins challenged. “My Lord! my youngest brother’s over there -right this minute! It don’t seem far away to _me_--nor to my mother.” - -“I know, I know,” Julie answered hastily, breathlessly. “I know; but--” - -“You’re lucky that your man don’t have to go. Why was it you said they -turned him down?” - -“It was--it was flat foot,” Julie said. She cleared her throat after -she had said it, swallowing nervously, her eyes fixed upon her sewing. - -“Well, if I was you, I’d be glad he had it,” Mrs. Watkins went on, -rocking her child in her arms. “I seen you in the crowd last night -watching the soldiers. You didn’t see me, but I was noticing Mr. -Freeman, an’ the way he looked after them men made me think he wished -he was with ’em.” - -“Oh, no, he doesn’t!” Julie protested sharply. - -“Well, he _looked_ like he did, an’ if I was you I’d be glad he had -that flat foot.” - -Julie did not reply. She went on earnestly setting the gathers she was -running, and scratching them into place with her needle, and did it -without looking up. - -“You’re lucky, an’ I’m lucky that my old man don’t have to go,” Mrs. -Watkins continued. “But look at my little sister-in-law. There’s my -brother had to leave her, an’ she lookin’ for her first baby any day, -an’ no more’n a child herself. No, I’m sorry for Miss Fogg. She is a -poor old derelict all right, but I don’t think of her first these days.” - -“I’m going to see her again to-morrow,” Julie said. “I’m going to get -in to see her yet. She’s got to let me in to help her.” - -The next morning Julie went to market early, and purchased a little -nosegay of summer flowers. She lingered some time in the cool shadow of -the arcade where the flower stalls were. It was pleasant to come out of -the dazzle of the street into the relief under the arches, where the -colored women sold herbs and simple flowers, gathered from the fields -or from their own small gardens outside the city. It was a place of -lovely color, refreshing the eye and enlightening the heart. Here were -pot marigolds, orange and yellow and straw color, all in a great basin -together, with an old black woman in a blue checked apron bending her -dark wrinkled face over them. There was a drift of white marguerites, -and again crimson and pink zinnias in stiff bunches. Beyond them a big -bunch of althea, goldenrod in yellow masses, and still farther on, with -a streak of sunlight falling over them, a tub of cosmos, the pink and -white blossoms feathered with the green of their foliage. The flowers -were up on stalls or down upon the floor in tubs and buckets in long -rainbows of color, with the dark faces of the Negro women beside them, -and every now and then some added flash of pink or blue from the bright -summer frock or parasol of a purchaser. - -Julie wished that Tim were there to share the delight with her. She -would have liked to stand and look across the flower stalls with him -beside her. It was hard to know what to buy, but at last she chose a -little bunch of blue nigella, “love-in-a-mist,” and made her way home. - -Later in the morning she ventured upstairs again and, holding the -flowers, which she had put into a glass of water, in one hand, she -knocked upon Miss Fogg’s door with the other and waited as before, -standing in the empty uncarpeted hall with her heart fluttering. - -There was no response to her knock; yet Julie could hear the sound of -some one stirring in the room. Again she knocked and again there was -no answer; yet Julie was sure that Miss Fogg was within. She waited a -moment more, and then turned the handle tentatively. To her surprise -the door was unlocked, and greatly daring, she pushed it open and -walked in. Her first impression was of the ill-smelling and wretchedly -untidy room; the next of old Miss Fogg standing by the side of her bed, -glaring at her with furious, sunken eyes. She had on a soiled and torn -nightgown, her gray hair fell wildly upon her neck, and her feet were -bare on the floor. - -“Oh--oh please excuse me,” Julie faltered. - -“An’ who might you be?” the old woman demanded in a cold fury. - -“I’m--I’m Julie--Julie Freeman,” Julie said hastily, getting her words -out as fast as possible before the storm broke. “I’m living here in -the house. I brought you some flowers. I thought--” - -“_You thought!_” the other screamed. “You thought nothin’! You wanted -to come pushin’ an’ pryin’ in here, sticking your nose where you got -no business, an’ nobody wants you, just so’s you could run out in the -street an’ tell everybody how old Miss Fogg lives!” - -“I didn’t, I didn’t!” Julie cried. “Of course I wouldn’t do such a -thing.” - -But in truth she was so painfully aware of the whole dreadful state of -the room that she dropped her eyes perforce before the faded glare of -the other’s, and found herself staring down at the bare old feet. - -“Yes,” the old woman cried shrilly. “Look at my feet! Look at ’em good! -Look at ’em, I tell you! An’ then run out an’ tell the world how you -found old Miss Fogg in her dirty nightgown an’ her bare feet! Yes, look -at ’em! Look at ’em, I tell you!” - -The distracted old creature began a sudden fantastic dance of rage and -mortification, standing first upon one foot, and then on the other, -while the free leg kicked defiantly out at Julie, the nightgown falling -back from the withered shin. “Yes, look at ’em,” she screamed. “Yes, -they’re dirty. Oh, my Lord! Go on, tell everybody what you seen!” - -“Oh, my dear, my dear,” Julie cried pitifully, “you know I didn’t come -for that! I--I just wanted to bring you these flowers. I’m so sorry.” -Her heart was jumping violently up and down; she wanted to turn and -flee; but she forced herself to stay. “She’s crazy,” she thought. “She -must be crazy. Oh, poor thing, poor thing! It was awful of me to push -in like this, but now I am in, I’ve got to stay an’ help her.” - -“Look, I brought you some flowers,” she repeated. “I came to make -friends.” - -“Friends!” the old woman shrieked at her. “_Friends!_ Oh, my God!” -But her rage and her wild dance had exhausted her, and she sank down -now upon the edge of the tumbled, unmade bed, trembling and shaken. -“Oh,” she moaned, “ain’t it a cruel thing that a person can’t be left -alone--not one minute--sick an’ miserable like I am! But strangers got -to come pushin’ an’ crowdin’ their way in here to stare at my dirt -an’ my rags! Take your eyes off my feet!” she broke out violently, -beginning once more to dance her feet up and down upon the floor, as -though shaking something off. “Take ’em off, I tell you--I feel ’em--I -feel ’em lookin’, burnin’ holes in my feet!” - -With shaking hands she dragged at her nightgown, endeavoring to pull it -down and cover her naked feet. But the material was old and rotten. It -gave way under the violence of her hands, and a long tear was wrenched -in it. For a moment old Miss Fogg stared at it, clutching the torn -stuff and peering stupidly at her bare old knees exposed by the rent. -Then she burst into impotent tears. “Look,” she wept. “Now just look -what I done to my gown!” All the rage and defiance were gone. She was -a despairing, helpless old woman weeping upon the edge of her bed, -incapable any more of coping with the difficulties of life. - -“Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!” she wept, her shoulders shaking convulsively -beneath her straggling hair. - -The tears leaped into Julie’s eyes. She came quickly and laid a tender -hand on her shoulder. - -“Never mind, never mind about your gown,” she comforted. “I’ll mend it -for you.” - -“It ain’t my gown,” the other wept. “It ain’t _just_ my gown! It’s--O -God Almighty! _It’s everything!_” - -“I know! I know!” Julie cried poignantly. “You’re sick. I understand.” - -“I’m crazy. I’m all in a kind of a daze.” The old woman wept -convulsively. “O God, what’s the matter with me? I can’t seem to find -myself.” - -She looked up at Julie, her mouth tremulous and her old eyes filmed -with despairing tears. - -“I can’t find myself, I--I b’lieve I’m crazy,” she repeated -desperately. “I can’t fix up no more. I ain’t got no heart left for -nothing.” She turned her head dumbly from side to side. “I know -everything’s dirty: it’s all in a mess. But I can’t fix up no more.” - -“You’re tired.” - -“Tired! I’m so tired I wish’t I was dead,” the other cried. - -“I know; I understand,” Julie’s tender hand still caressed her. “But -I’ve come to help you. I’m your friend. I’ll fix everything up for -you, an’ then you won’t feel so bad. Look at the flowers I brought -you.” - -She held the gay, alluring little nosegay out. The old woman took her -clinched hands down from her face, and stared dimly at it. Her cheeks -were smudged with tears, and she swallowed convulsively, like a child -when its storm of grief is past. - -“See,” Julie went on, her compassionate voice soothing her. “See, -honey, I got them in market for you this morning. Look how nice an’ -fresh they are.” - -The flowers with their blue blossoms peeping through the netted -greenery, like faces looking through latticed windows, seemed a -lodestone to draw the old creature’s attention away from her despair. -She put out one trembling finger and touched them uncertainly, and -although she did not speak, she let her gaze linger upon them. - -“Where shall I set them?” Julie questioned, now for the first time -daring to raise her eyes and look about the unhappy room. The whole -place was in disorder. Dust lay everywhere; clothes were upon the -floor and tumbled on chairs; the window was dim and smudged with dirt; -a sick canary bird drooped in its cage, and a geranium plant was -withered and dead in the window. The life had gone out of every small -attempt at homemaking. The curtains, which had once been clean and -festive, were soiled and torn now, and the white covers upon the bureau -were crumpled. The spirit in the old woman which should have informed -her dwelling place with life and cheer was as withered at its roots -as the geranium in the window. There was just one thing which caught -Julie’s eye amid all the squalor. That was the photograph of a young -girl on the mantel shelf. Unlike the rest, it was dusted and cared for. -The frame was bright and the glass clean. It appeared to stand as the -last pinnacle of hope, over which the despair that had engulfed the -rest of the room had not as yet surged. - -“Where shall I put the flowers?” Julie questioned again, and the -old woman raised her eyes and pointed to the picture. “There,” she -commanded. - -Julie stepped across and placed the nosegay before the picture. It was -that of a young girl, dressed in a fashion of some fifteen years ago. - -“What a pretty little girl,” she said. “Who is she?” - -Old Miss Fogg stared at the picture through dim eyes. “My little baby -child--all I got in the world,” she muttered at length and broke into -fresh tears. “She’s all the kin I got in the world, but she’s married -an’ gone, and I ain’t seen her for ten years,” she wept. “Oh, my baby, -my honey! Why don’t you come see your old Tannie no more? O Sweetness, -I want to see you so bad!” - -“You haven’t seen her for ten years!” Julie exclaimed. Instantly she -saw the thin old shoulders stiffen, and felt an unseen veil drawn. Miss -Fogg looked up in quick defiance, a crafty challenge in her eyes. - -“Who said she ain’t been to see me for ten years?” she demanded. - -“Why you said--” Julie faltered. - -“I ain’t said _nothing_!” the other stormed. “Folks tells lies. I don’t -know what’s got into people. They ain’t got no idea about the truth -no more. What business they got telling tales about my little honey, -saying she ain’t coming to see me no more? They don’t know,” she spoke -mysteriously, “but I’m expecting her most any day now. She’ll come to -me soon, my baby’ll come soon to her old Tannie.” Her tone changed, she -looked up at Julie, and spoke with a pathetic dignity, “I’m looking for -a visit from my little niece,” she said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if -she was to come to-day.” - -She made the statement defiantly, yet there lurked in her eyes an -anguish of entreaty that implored Julie to confirm her. - -“Why, yes, indeed!” Julie answered eagerly. “Why, yes, she’s liable to -come almost any day now.” - -“But she _don’t_ come! She don’t come! Oh, my baby! My honey! I want to -see you so bad!” Once more the old woman began to rock herself to and -fro hopelessly. - -“But she will come! She’ll come soon now,” Julie promised. - -Old Miss Fogg gazed up into her face, her mouth hanging open and -tremulous with eagerness, as she gathered encouragement from Julie’s -assurance. Then her eyes wandered away over the room. - -“But look!” she cried. “If she was to come, how’m I going to see her -in this pigsty? I ought to fix up; but I ain’t got the heart--I ain’t -even got the heart to wash my face,” she confessed looking at Julie -piteously, the slow impotent tears gathering in her eyes. - -“Never mind, never mind,” Julie comforted her quickly. “You don’t have -to worry. I’ll fix it all up for you. You lie down now,” she coaxed. -“Lie down and rest a while, an’ I’ll get things straight.” - -To her surprise the old woman yielded, and let herself be helped back -into bed, where exhausted by all her storms of emotion, she fell asleep -almost immediately. - -That was the beginning of Julie Rose’s friendship with old Miss Fogg. -Thereafter, as the days went by, tenderly, persistently, baffled -sometimes by the old woman’s outbreaks of rage and suspicion, or worse -still by the terrible inertia of depression which constantly settled -over her, Julie gradually won her way further and further with the -other, and by the sheer indomitable persistency of her compassion -managed to drag her back occasionally almost to the shore of normal -life. At least her room and her person were clean and in order, and -Julie saw to it that she had regular meals--dainty little lunches -cooked by herself. Sometimes she was rewarded by an outburst of -gratitude, that usually ended in tears. “You’re good!” the old woman -would cry seizing Julie’s hand convulsively. “I don’t know what you -want to be so good to a poor old wreck like me for.” - -But sometimes she pushed her food away, and refused to eat. “What’s -the use of eatin’?” she would weep. “Oh my Lord! What’s the use of -_anything_ in this world? Oh, I wish’t I was dead! But I ain’t even got -ambition enough to die!” - -Sometimes Julie coaxed her with flattery, into tidying herself up. -“That black dress certainly is a handsome piece of goods, and that gray -one, too,” she said. - -“Why, of course I got handsome clothes,” Miss Fogg retorted with a -proud jerk of her head. “Why, who do you take me for? I don’t belong -with all the common trash that lives in this house. I’ve sewed for all -the best people in town. I ain’t used to common people; I’m used to -quality. But these folks here--they’re as common as pig-tracks. You -don’t s’pose I’d run with them, do you? An’ I’ve always been used to -keeping myself nice an’ elegant. I wasn’t one to lay around in wrappers -all day. But now--Oh my Lord!” - -“Look,” Julie hastily interposed, forestalling the rising tears. “Just -see how nice you look with your hair fixed like I’ve done it to-day.” - -She held a mirror up, and Miss Fogg peered blindly at herself for a -moment in silence. But as she looked a dim satisfaction grew in her -face. - -“Why that looks real nice, don’t it?” she said, turning her head to one -side with self-conscious shyness. - -Indeed, with her indomitable persistency Julie had won out of this -human ruin some of the mellowed grace of a more fortunate old age. With -the creative power of her devotion she had gone forth into the dark -waters engulfing the old woman, had struggled there, and dragged her -back into life; and having won a precarious hold upon her affection, -she poured forth the overflowing joy of her heart in her service. - -Miss Fogg continued to stare at her reflection, her lip trembling -slightly. It seemed as though the vision of her past self was given -faintly back to her out of the mirror. She bent over and looked still -closer. “Why,” she said slowly, “that’s _me_--that’s the way I used -to be ’fore I lost my ambition.” She raised her eyes to Julie with -a faltering surprise. “Why,” she cried, “Why you’ve give me back to -myself.” - -She patted the ruffles at her neck, and smoothed her hair with a -fleeting return of vanity. - -“I was always a great hand to keep myself fixed up nice,” she boasted. -“An’ now you’ve put new life into me.” - -Julie looked at her suddenly, her eyes wide and shining. - -“That was what I came for,” she said solemnly. She took the old -withered hand and pressed it against her own breast that was so warm -and full of living happiness. “I came to bring you life,” she repeated. -“I have so much--I’m so happy, so alive! I want you to share it.” She -still pressed the withered hand against her breast with her warm and -eager ones. “It’s all here in my heart, all the happiness and the life -that any one in the world could need. It’s here for you. Don’t you feel -it running out to you?” - -It seemed to Julie in that moment of intense donation as though -indeed something out of her very heart rushed forth for the other’s -re-creation. Her eyes burning with an almost unearthly light, she gazed -down at the old woman and wrung a flickering response even out of that -half dead personality, so that she leaned her head against Julie’s -breast. “If anybody could put life into my old carcass, it would be -you,” she said. “You couldn’t be any sweeter to me if I was your own -mother.” - -“You _are_ my mother!” Julie cried passionately. “My mother, an’ my -sister, an’ my child!” With the words, something seemed to open within -her and she was conscious of so tremendous an inrush of life and -insight that she was half frightened and made giddy by the swirl of it. - -She tried to tell Tim about it that night after supper. “I don’t -know what it was,” she said, still half frightened, “but it was like -something broke inside of me. I wasn’t just myself any more. An’ when -I said that about her being my mother, it was _true_. An’ she was -more than that even: she was my very self. It was like--like--” she -hesitated; “like all my happiness and love had broke over and some of -it flowed into her. It did flow into her, some of me did spill over -into her. And just for a moment it was like the whole world was rushing -through me. I was down at the heart of all the world. At the red-hot -centre of us all. There wasn’t anybody so low I couldn’t understand -’em, or so high up my happiness couldn’t reach to them. We were all -brothers an’ sisters together there. Just for a minute--just for a -second, Tim, the whole world was running through me. My love--_our_ -love--had broken open the doors, an’ let in all the rest of the world. -But it--it scares me,” she faltered, gripping his hand tight. “It’s -like a channel had been plowed straight through me by a river in -freshet, an’ it’ll never close up.” - -“I know,” he returned, with the same awe. “I understand. I saw it, too.” - -“You saw it, too?” - -He nodded, looking at her strangely. “Yes, that time the soldiers -went by, an’ I stood on the side of the street an’ let them pass; an’ -another time too, when we were at the pictures, an’ there were American -boys goin’ up to the front. There was one--” - -But she would not let him finish. His look frightened her. It was -aloof and far away as it had been when he watched the line of marching -men go by. She caught his hand and began to talk very fast. - -“Oh, Tim,” she begged, “think of Miss Fogg! She’s getting better: I -know she is. She kissed my hand to-day an’ said I’d given her back -life.” - -“Julie--” he began again, but again she cut him short. - -“Think what our love’s done,” she persisted. “It’s given life to her: -it’s our love that’s done it.” - -His expression was still aloof, and he struggled once more to speak. -“Julie,” he began, but she would not have it. - -“Oh, Tim--honey! _Don’t!_” she begged; and with a little sob she buried -her face against his breast. He stooped and kissed her then, and said -no more. - - - - -XVII - - -As the days drifted by, it seemed indeed as though Julie’s passion -of loving service had worked a miracle in old Miss Fogg--that broken -vessel which life had cast upon the midden of the world. Her canary -bird, restored to life, sang in the window. The geranium was dead; but -Julie bought another, so the effect of the room was gay, with white -curtains blowing in the wind, the bird’s song, and the flower in the -sunshine. - -The room’s vigor and cleanliness inspired Miss Fogg to attempt mending -her clothes and putting them in order. - -“It would be a right funny thing,” she said, “if I couldn’t put my own -old duds to rights, me that always did the fine sewin’ for all the -swellest brides in town.” - -Her fits of depression and indifference persisted but, sustained by -Julie, she was more alive between the attacks, more able to look after -herself. - -One morning when Julie went up to her, she found the old woman, a -fantastic gingham cap upon her head, busy turning out all her drawers, -with a spasmodic energy. - -“I got to get everything straight--all nice and clean,” she announced. -“Wait,” she added. She tiptoed across to the door and closed it. -“Sh-sh!” she whispered. “There ain’t a soul in this house a person can -trust. They spy on me all the time. They peep at me over the transom -an’ spy in at the keyhole. Ain’t it just awful what some folks will do?” - -She stood close to Julie and spoke into her ear mysteriously. “Sh-sh! -there’s one of ’em at the keyhole now.” - -Julie went quickly over and threw wide the door. The hall was -completely empty. - -“There’s nobody there,” she said. “You just thought you heard somebody.” - -“Hm!” the old woman retorted scornfully but still whispering. “So _you_ -think; but they don’t fool me. They’re quick enough to jump away when -you open the door. I’ve quit doin’ _that_. I’m up to their tricks, an’ -I got a way to fool ’em all right.” - -Catching up an old spotted handkerchief, she hung it stealthily on the -handle of the door. “There, that’ll fix ’em!” she triumphed. “If they -want to peep, let ’em peep into that handkerchief. They’ll see all them -red spots, an’ then they’ll run out in the street an’ say, ‘Old Miss -Fogg’s done killed herself, an’ her blood’s all over the floor.’ That’d -be funny, wouldn’t it?” She gave a sudden crazy laugh. “I _kin_ kill -myself all right, but it won’t be none er their business if I do. It -won’t be their brains on the floor.” - -A shiver ran through Julie. - -The old woman sank down upon the edge of her bed and stared at the -floor. “That’s what comes of livin’ with common people,” she moaned. “I -ain’t used to common folks an’ I ain’t a-goin’ to start runnin’ with -’em now, me that’s sewed for all the best folks in town. I wouldn’t mix -with this common lot, not to save their souls I wouldn’t; an’ my little -baby child wouldn’t neither; she wouldn’t turn her hand over for er one -of ’em.” - -“Maybe your little niece will come soon,” Julie said catching at that -one bright hope. - -“Sh-sh!” the other commanded. Rising, she tiptoed over to the door -again and, raising the handkerchief, bent her old back and peeped out -through the keyhole. Then dropping it, she came back to Julie. “That -was what I wanted to tell you,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t be surprised -if she was to come soon now--real soon. I had a dream last night--I’m -mighty apt to have dreams when anything’s goin’ to happen--an’ the -dream said she was comin’ soon. That’s why I got to get everything -straight for her.” - -“I’ll help you!” Julie cried eagerly. “We’ll get everything all nice -before she comes.” - -Julie fell to work at once. The old woman attempted a fitful -assistance, but her burst of energy gave out before it had carried her -far, and soon she retired to the easy chair by the window, watching -Julie with dull eyes, or staring down at her lap and moaning, “Oh my -Lord, Oh my Lord!” from time to time. - -Julie was amazingly happy. So happy that she broke into little snatches -of song as she moved about the room, dusting and cleaning it, and -straightening the wild heap of garments in Miss Fogg’s drawers. So -happy that the moaning old woman crumpled up in her chair did not -seem repulsive to her, but rather, as always now, an outlet for the -abounding joy that surged through her. - -There was only one little rift the whole morning through. That was when -Julie essayed to open a small drawer in Miss Fogg’s bureau. She had -turned out and straightened all the others, but when she came to this -one it refused to open. Thinking it merely stuck, she tugged upon the -handles, but was stopped by a sudden cry, almost a scream, from the -old woman. “Leave that drawer alone, leave it alone, I tell you!” she -cried. Julie jumped round, startled. - -Miss Fogg had sprung to her feet, and was glaring at her. - -“Oh my Lord!” she cried, “Can’t you leave _nothing_ be?” - -“I’m sorry; I didn’t know it was locked,” Julie apologized hastily. - -“My Lord! Can’t I have _no_ place to myself no more?” the other -stormed, sinking down again and running her trembling hands wildly -through her hair. - -“I’m so sorry,” Julie pleaded again. “See, I’m not touching it. I won’t -touch it again.” - -But it took her some time to soothe Miss Fogg and to win her confidence -once more; and always afterward Julie was conscious of a certain -uneasiness on the old woman’s part whenever she came near that especial -drawer. - -But on the whole it was a happy and beautiful morning for Julie, and -even for Miss Fogg it held a faint return to life. - -Julie tried again that night to tell Tim what Miss Fogg meant to her. -It was a mystery that she could not quite explain to herself. She was -constantly drawn back to interpret it to him. - -“It’s like she was my child,” she said. “I’m giving her life. She’s -mine. Everybody’s forgotten her. Life’s forgot her, an’ gone on by; -but now I’ve come along, an’ brought some of it back to her. It’s like -all the sufferings of the world had got a-hold of my heart, an I _had_ -to go down into hell to drag folks out. It isn’t just that poor old -soul. She stands for all the rest: all of ’em that’s suffering. It’s -something bigger almost than I can feel, but it’s got a-hold of me, an’ -it’ll _never_ let me go. Oh, my honey! my love!” she burst out, holding -the lapels of his coat and staring up into his face. “You know what it -is! It’s our love gone beyond itself--beyond just us, an’ out into all -the world.” For a moment her eyes blazed up into his and her face was -a white flame, then he put his hand over the wide gaze and turned her -face against his breast pressing it there with both hands. - -“Little honey, don’t!” he cried. “You’re mine. Don’t slip away to all -the world.” - -It made Julie happy when anyone in the house commented upon Miss Fogg’s -improved condition. She was pleased when Mrs. Watkins said, “Well, you -certainly are the miracle-worker! Who ever would have thought you could -get that old soul to look so spruced up an’ reasonable. Why, she looks -almost like real folks now.” - -Mrs. Watkins was rocking back and forth in a chair which creaked -regularly as it struck a certain board in the floor, the while she -fanned herself and the baby in her arms with a frayed palm-leaf fan, -which she used also to emphasize her remarks. - -“She _is_ better, isn’t she?” Julie said, eager for more praise of her -creation. - -“She is that,” Mrs. Watkins assented cordially. “But it’s you that’s -done it.” She pointed the fan at Julie. “You mark what I say, it’s you -that’s put life into the old graveyard-deserter. She hasn’t got any -real life of her own: she’s just what you’ve made of her. You’ve put -life into her like a kid blowing up a toy balloon; but if you was to -quit blowing at her she’d go flat again, or maybe bust.” - -“I know,” Julie admitted uneasily. “That’s the reason I wish her niece -would come to her.” - -“Niece?” Mrs. Watkins swept a fly off the sleeping baby’s face and -paused, staring at Julie. “Niece?” she snorted. “I’m mighty doubtful -about any niece, myself.” - -“Why, she’s got a photograph on her mantel of a girl that she says is -her niece,” Julie cried. - -“Well, maybe she is. I don’t know for certain,” Mrs. Watkins returned, -still doubtfully. “I know the picture. Miss Fogg used to let me into -her room sometimes before she got so cranky an’ suspicious. An’ I know -she _says_ it’s her niece, but if it is, believe me, she certainly -don’t care one thing about her old aunt. Miss Fogg’s been in this house -for all the eight years I’ve been here--for all she thinks we’re so -common, she keeps a stayin’ with us--an’ I’ve never seen any niece -in all that time; an’ she don’t ever seem to have no letters, or word -of any kind from the niece--not even at Christmas--that I know of. -My, ain’t it hot!” she interpolated, putting up one languid hand and -plucking a wisp of hair back from her forehead. “I just b’lieve that -photograph’s a picture of some girl she used to sew for, and she likes -to b’lieve it’s kin to her, poor soul.” - -“Oh! it must be her niece,” Julie cried, distressfully. “It would be -awful if it weren’t. Why, she’s all poor old Miss Fogg has in the -world--the last straw of life that she clings to. It would be awful if -she didn’t have her!” - -“Well, I hope in my heart she has got a niece,” Mrs. Watkins returned. - -“She ought to be here,” Julie persisted. “She ought to come to Miss -Fogg, in case I have to leave.” - -“Why, you thinkin’ of goin’ away?” - -“No--Oh, no. Not really,” Julie evaded hastily, with that little -breathless catch in her voice which was characteristic of her under any -stress. “No. But I might.” - -“Well, it would be a sad day for everybody in this house if you was -to leave,” Mrs. Watkins said heartily. “You’ve got something about you -most people ain’t got. You’re so--so good.” - -Julie looked up, her eyes wide and horrified. - -“Oh--Oh, no! I’m not. Don’t say that,” she faltered blindly. - -It was after her talk with Mrs. Watkins that Julie made a fresh attempt -to get Miss Fogg to write to her niece. The old woman would never give -her either the niece’s name or her address. That and the locked drawer -in her bureau were the only things over which she evinced the secretive -suspicion toward Julie that she showed toward every one else. When -Julie tried again that afternoon to persuade her, she firmed her lips -obstinately. - -“I’ll write if I want, an’ I’ll not if I don’t,” she announced. - -“Look,” Julie coaxed. “See, I’ve brought you in ink and paper and -everything. See what nice paper this is.” - -Miss Fogg took the paper and inspected it critically. “That’s right -nice,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t write to her on any but the best -paper; she thinks a heap of having things stylish.” - -Julie drew up a table and spread the writing materials invitingly upon -it. - -“There now, just write her a few lines,” she begged. - -The old woman looked at all the preparation dimly, but presently she -really did pick up the pen, and squaring herself at the table made a -few trembling strokes. “My baby child,” she scrawled, the line running -slantingly down the paper. “My little baby,” she attempted again and -then, staring at the words, she broke down in tears. “I can’t do it,” -she wept. “I can’t. I can’t get beyond ‘My baby child.’ I just think of -her like that. She don’t seem to me like a grown person, an’ it’s all I -can think to say.” - -“That’s plenty: that’s all she’ll need,” Julie comforted her. “I’ll -write her a letter and tell her all about everything, and put in what -you’ve written.” - -“Well,” the old woman consented shakingly, “well, tell her--Oh, tell -her please to come! Tell her not to be mad at me.” And then all at once -the secret of the old woman’s heart burst forth. “She’s mad at me about -something. She won’t come. I’ve written and written--of course I have. -But she don’t even answer. She don’t send a word. She’s gone back on -me.” She looked up at Julie, her old face all distorted and twitching. -“Don’t tell--don’t you tell any of these onery folks--but she’s gone -back on me. She don’t ever write nor nothin’. Not even Christmas time. -I ain’t told on her. I’ve kep’ it all to myself, here in my breast--but -it’s erbout killed me. All I’ve got in the world! All--” The words fell -into sobs. - -“But she _will_ come now!” Julie promised with poignant sympathy. “She -just doesn’t understand. But I’ll write so she’ll see she must come.” - -“Well--you write,” the other agreed with a pathetic confidence in -Julie. “Maybe she’ll come for you. Tell her--Oh, tell her her old -Tannie is sick an’ wants her. ‘Tannie,’ that was what she always called -me: it was as near as she could come to saying ‘Aunt Annie’ when she -was little.” - -Julie did write. She did not know the niece’s name, and was afraid to -ask, dreading a return of that sly suspicious look that was always -brought out on Miss Fogg’s face when she questioned her too closely -about anything. So she began the letter “Madam,” and when she came to -the signing of her own name, she hesitated. She had never yet brought -herself to write, “Julie Freeman.” She had always managed in some way -to avoid doing so. For all that she had said that the name was no lie, -she could not make herself write it. But her own name she dared not -put. So in the end she signed it, “From a Friend.” - -She wrote urgently, and enclosed the sheet on which Miss Fogg’s -trembling words, “My baby child,” went slanting down the paper. Then -she sealed the envelope and stamped it. - -“Now then,” she said with an assumption of confidence that she did not -feel, “what’s her address?” - -To her despair she was met by the old crafty look in Miss Fogg’s eyes. - -“That’s all right--that’s all right,” the old woman said with dignity. -“Just lay it there, an’ I’ll back it when I git ready.” - -Julie was blank with disappointment, but it was useless to insist, so -she left the letter sealed and stamped and ready for the address. She -did not know it, but that night when all the house was quiet, old Miss -Fogg slipped out and, going secretly down a side street, posted the -letter which she had managed to address, after looking all about and up -and down to be sure that no one was spying at her. - - - - -XVIII - - -The summer days slipped by. The intense city heat of mid-August burned -itself up toward September. - -Old Miss Fogg waited and waited, but there came no answer to the -letter. Julie fought against the old woman’s despairing disappointment, -buoying her up with the power of her own spirit. She had often the -feeling that wide wings spread themselves, out of the sheer force of -her devotion, and bore that broken and defeated bit of old age up into -a sunny atmosphere. Then she would be rewarded for all her pains. A -faint flush would run into the old cheeks, she would look at Julie out -of clear eyes from which all the crafty despair was momentarily gone, -and which were almost as serene as the eyes of a happy child. It was -that look which was a reward for all Julie’s efforts. She was thinking -of it, hoping for it one day as she came along the street late in the -afternoon. She was to have a little party for Miss Fogg that evening. -The old woman was coming down to have supper with Julie and Tim and -perhaps, if they could coax her into it, to go to a moving picture -afterward. For the occasion Julie had done up one of Miss Fogg’s -white muslin waists for her, earlier in the afternoon. She had done -it with especial care, and was proud of her handiwork. She took it -upstairs, holding it daintily on a coat-hanger so as not to wrinkle its -perishable freshness, and displayed it to the old woman. Miss Fogg had -looked really pleased, and had promised to put it on. - -Julie was bringing home now a number of small packages for the supper -party. All the preparations filled her with an intensity of happiness. -So much so that merely doing them was not enough; she must sit down a -moment and think them all over. Accordingly, when she came to Monroe -Park on her homeward way, she sat down for a moment on one of its -benches. The park was shady, with the slanting green-gold light of -late afternoon sifting through the trees. Silver showers from the -fountain sprayed up and caught the sunlight, and groups of very small -children, looking almost unearthly in that glamour of green and gold -effulgence, ran and played upon the grass, or up and down the paths, -their laughter a whimsical undercurrent beneath the grown-up noises of -the city. - -Julie let her eyes rest happily upon them, while through her mind -there drifted one pleasant picture after another: Miss Fogg’s crisp -shirt-waist, the pleased look on her old face when Julie had brought it -to her; the purchasing of the materials for the party, all of which lay -now in her market basket beside her; the little basket itself, which -had been a gift from Tim, so neat and pretty with a gay pink pattern -woven into it. Then going forward she visualized the supper-table -spread with clean linen and set forth with her rosebud china, which -also had been a gift from Tim. Julie was an artist in homemaking, and -these small and happy things were the material of her art. Out of them -she was to weave a little supper which was for her almost as much a -creative act as is the composition of a symphony for a musician. In the -ardent contemplation of her small creation, she overflowed with joy. - -“Oh Lord, I’m so happy--so happy! I got to make a gift out of the -happiness!” - -She rose then and made her way home. Arrived there, she put her -bundles carefully away in their little makeshift ice-box, which Tim had -devised and which was really very successful, and then passed through -into the front room to look forth and see if he might by any chance be -coming. The shutters were drawn together to exclude the heat. Stooping, -she peeped through them and, in the bright sunlight without, saw a -figure coming up the walk, the sight of which made her suddenly fall -down upon her knees beneath the window sill, crouching close against -the wall. - -It was Elizabeth Bixby; and she was entering the house now. - -She came so close upon Julie’s entrance that it was impossible not to -suppose she had seen her and was following. Julie crouched helplessly -beneath the window. She wanted to run to the door and lock it fast, -but she felt powerless to move. She cowered in a heap upon the floor, -waiting for Elizabeth to enter and find her. - -“I must get up. I must stand up on my feet,” she kept thinking. But -still she did not rise. She felt utterly defenseless, utterly uncovered -and at the other’s mercy. - -If she could only have slipped across and locked the door, that would -have given her an instant’s pause to gather herself together before -Elizabeth’s entrance; but she could not move to do it. - -“I’ll stand up. I’ll stand right up on my feet and meet her as soon as -I hear her hand on the door,” she whispered to herself, every nerve in -her body keyed for the expected sound. - -But the sound did not come; a miracle happened; Elizabeth did not pause -at Julie’s door. Julie heard her enter, heard her ask Mrs. Watkins -some question, and then heard her feet beat a sharp patter along the -passage and upstairs. Had she made a mistake? Been directed to the -wrong room? Very slowly Julie relaxed and got upon her feet, her knees -weak beneath her. She crept across and turned the key in the lock at -last. Now there was a momentary barrier set between herself and that -hand upon the door which she felt sure must come. Then she sat down in -a chair and waited, her hands clinging tight together in her lap. She -waited a very long time, an hour at least it seemed, and, except for -an occasional shifting in her chair, a clasping and unclasping of her -hands, or a faint dumb turning of her head from side to side, she did -not stir. There was nothing she could do. She did not know where to -find Tim, even if she had dared to slip out and search for him. He had -told her he had some errands to do for the printer, and would probably -be a little late. She did not know by which street he would return. -There was nothing therefore to do but wait--wait for the footsteps -to come down from upstairs, or for Tim’s to come up the cement walk -outside. So she sat staring helplessly down at her clasped hands. She -looked at them so long and steadfastly that they seemed at last to be -detached from herself, not to be her hands any more, but to be separate -personalities, small personalities--little people clinging very tight -together there in the world of her lap, as though some disaster -menaced. She felt dimly sorry for them. - -At last she heard a door upstairs open--she was not sure which one it -was--and then the steps that she knew were Elizabeth Bixby’s came down -the stairs and down the hall. They would be at her door in an instant. -The two little personalities in her lap, that were made of her hands, -jumped desperately tight together. But again the feet did not pause, -but pattered definitely past and out into the street. Julie leaped up -and peered through the blinds. Perhaps she was mistaken: perhaps it was -not Elizabeth after all. But it was. She saw her face distinctly as she -went down the steps--and saw something else as well. Elizabeth had been -crying--was still wiping her eyes rather blindly. How strange that was! -What could have moved _her_ to tears? The surprise of this stayed for a -space the leap of relief over her departure; but in a moment it came, -and Julie relaxed all over as though a warm beneficent tide flowed -through her. Perhaps they were safe after all. Safe-- - -At this point there came an imperative knock and, when Julie forced -herself to go over and open the door, she found Mrs. Watkins there -eager with news. - -“Well, you was right after all!” she announced. “The miracle’s -happened. Miss Fogg’s niece’s been to see her--that was her just went -down the steps.” - -“_That?_” stammered Julie. “That--that lady that just went down the -steps--Miss Fogg’s niece?” - -Mrs. Watkins nodded. “M--h’m, that’s the wonderful niece. She asked me -did Miss Fogg live here, and when she went away she told me she was her -niece. She’s been upstairs with the old soul a right smart spell, an’ -I heard her tell her when she left she’d be back to see her again in -a couple of days. She said she was going to Camp Lee for a day or so. -When she left I seen she’d been cryin’.” - -“Yes,” Julie said, “I saw that, too.” - -“I reckon it must of upset her to find the old lady so bad off. Soon -as she’d gone I flew upstairs to see how the old soul was takin’ it. -But she’s got her door locked, an’ wouldn’t answer or let on she was -there when I called her name. Oh, I reckon I’m too common to hear about -the grand niece! But you go up, dearie, an’ hear the news. She’s your -baby--she’ll talk for you.” - -“I--I _can’t_!” Julie gasped and put her hand to her head. “I feel -so--Oh, I feel so bad,” she faltered. - -“Why, you do look real white!” Mrs. Watkins exclaimed with concern. -“What’s the matter? How do you feel bad?” - -Julie sat weakly down in a chair. “I--feel--shaky,” she got out -slowly, speaking with difficulty. - -“You lie right down, an’ don’t do a thing for a spell. I’ll bet it’s -the heat--you ain’t used to this city heat--an’ you seem to have a kind -of a nervous chill, too.” - -“I’m--I’m all right,” Julie got out, struggling to keep her teeth from -chattering. “I reckon it is the heat. I--Oh don’t--don’t bother. I’ll -just lie--down a little bit.” - -She went unsteadily over, Mrs. Watkins piloting her, and lay down -upon the sagging plush sofa, a sofa that had adjusted its spring to -accommodate the weight, and probably the sorrows also, of many human -beings before her. - -“Yes--now, that’s right,” Mrs. Watkins said, giving her a pat as she -settled a cushion for her. “What you want is to keep right still. Don’t -stir now. Just lay still an’ think about nice things. Think about Miss -Fogg’s niece bein’ here at last. Ain’t that a wonder? It ought to -please you, after you worked so hard to get her here.” - -Looking up at her from the sofa, Julie suddenly brought her hands tight -together, and burst into a high startling scream of laughter. - -“Why, so it was! It _was_ all my doing!” she gasped, shaken by one -shuddering gust of laughter after another. - -“What on earth ails you? That ain’t as funny as all that,” Mrs. Watkins -cried. “Hush, hush now! Hold on to yourself, Mis’ Freeman. Quit that! -You’ll be in hysterics d’rectly.” - -“No, no! It isn’t funny. I won’t laugh. I promise not to laugh,” Julie -gasped, biting her lips hard together between sentences, and fighting -to choke back the wild paroxysms. “I won’t laugh. And _she_ was crying! -I saw her crying! Oh--” The tension broke and she collapsed into a -flood of tears. - -“There now, that’s better.” Mrs. Watkins patted her shoulder. “Now -you’ll be all right in a little bit.” - -“I--I am all right,” Julie affirmed presently, pressing her hand -against her shaking mouth. “Don’t mind me--don’t. I--I just get this -way sometimes.” - -“We all do, us poor women--specially in this heat,” the other answered. -“You’ll be all right now the storm’s broke. Just lay right still. I’ll -be back in a little bit, an’ see if the clouds ain’t all gone, an’ the -rainbow come: maybe you’ll have found the pot of gold at the end of it -by then.” - -Mrs. Watkins went off, shutting the door after her, and Julie -was alone. She did not cry or laugh any more. She was very -tired--completely spent--and a little confused also, so that as she lay -there with closed eyes, what Mrs. Watkins had said as she went out kept -repeating itself through her mind. “The end of the rainbow! The end of -the rainbow!” - - - - -XIX - - -Tim found Julie still limp upon the sofa when he came home. She opened -her eyes and stared up at him. He knew at once that something was the -matter, and came quickly and knelt down beside her, laying his hands on -hers. - -“What is it? What’s happened?” - -“Elizabeth’s been here,” she answered, still lying helplessly on the -sofa and looking at him. - -“_Elizabeth?_” - -She told him then all about it. “I fell down under the window--I -couldn’t seem to stand up--but I would have stood up if she’d come -in--I would have, Tim--but she didn’t come.” - -“She didn’t come? Then she didn’t see you--she doesn’t know we’re here?” - -“No: it wasn’t for us she came. She’s Miss Fogg’s niece--the one she’s -always talked about. Oh, Tim, did you know? Did you know Elizabeth had -an old aunt?” - -He stared away out of the window a moment, searching his mind. “Yes, -she did speak once or twice of an aunt--but not often. She hadn’t seen -her for years. I never heard her right name. She called her by a baby -name.” - -“She called her ‘Tannie,’” Julie said. “It was short for ‘Aunt Annie.’” - -“Yes, that was it,” he nodded. - -They were silent, their eyes fixed upon each other’s face. - -“Oh, Tim, I did it!” Julie broke out. “I brought her right here. It was -me made Miss Fogg send the letter. I never rested ’til I got her to. I -worked and worked at her ’til I got it sent. I did it.” - -“Never mind, never mind, honey. You couldn’t know. How could you? It -was my fault, not recollecting. But she didn’t see you?” - -“No, she didn’t see me.” - -“Then it’s all right. We’ll leave here right away.” - -“Leave here?” Julie looked around the little room blankly. - -“Why, yes, honey. We got to leave. She’ll be coming back again.” - -“She won’t be back for a little bit,” Julie said. - -“How’s that? How do you know she won’t be back?” - -“Mrs. Watkins heard her say she was going away for a day or so.” - -“Going away? Where’s she going? Did she hear where she was going?” - -She was silent, looking at him. - -“Did she hear where she was going?” he persisted. - -“Camp Lee,” she answered at length. - -“_Camp Lee?_” - -She nodded. - -He turned his head away, a sudden spasm constricting his mouth. - -“Oh, my honey!” she broke out with a little sob, “I know--I understand -how you feel.” - -But this time he silenced her, turning her head against his shoulder -and pressing it there. “There! It’s all right. It’s all right. There -now.” He held her fast. And after a moment he said, “We’ll see about -moving right away.” - -“Oh, Tim, our home! Our little rooms where we’ve been so happy!” - -“I know--I know! But we’ll find another place,” he comforted her. - -She raised her head presently, and held him off. “But Tim, think of her -being Miss Fogg’s niece! Oh, I _hate_ that! Miss Fogg’s mine: she’s my -child. I made her. Elizabeth’s never done one thing for the poor old -woman; but I worked over her with all my heart. It’s true what Mrs. -Watkins said about my blowing the breath of life into her. That’s what -God did in the Bible for Adam. Oh, I oughtn’t to think such things--but -that’s the way I felt--something right out of myself went into that old -soul an’ gave her life. And all the time--all the time, she was _her_ -aunt!” She paused, but in a moment she spoke abruptly. “Tim, she was -crying when she went down the steps. What could have made her cry?” - -He shook his head. “I don’t know.” - -Again they were silent, looking into one another’s faces questioningly. -They were suddenly at sea in the wine-dark waters of life, swept from -all their moorings, confused and uncertain, and they looked at each -other in search of some fresh anchorage. The shadows were gathering in -the room now; it was almost dark; and at length he rose and lighted the -gas. - -“There! Now what about a little bite to eat?” - -It was an inspiration on his part. It brought her back to the reality -of the moment, comforting and restoring her as nothing else could have -done. In the simple preparations for the meal, their familiar happy -life flowed back upon them as though, after all, it was to continue. -They both clutched at it eagerly. It had seemed to be broken and gone; -but now in the laying of the table, the setting forth of the knives -and forks and dishes, here it was again, come back more alive, more -poignant than ever, as though some worker in the ground who thought -his mine exhausted had stumbled unexpectedly upon a vein of metal more -pure than all the rest. It was soul-restoring for them both. He helped -her, and she laughed a little with a shaken tender mirth at his way of -doing things. Together they placed Julie’s best cups upon the table, -the cups that he had given her, that had pink rosebuds flecked all -over them, and which meant more to her and to him than any other cups -could ever mean. The food, the daintily spread table, the knives and -forks, the little cups particularly, seemed all to embody and make real -their companionship, as though what was in their hearts, that vivid -and beautiful essence of their life together, had poured itself forth -materialized before their eyes in these familiar creatures, small and -endearing. But when the meal was all prepared, and the table spread, -Julie and Tim stood, hesitating. - -“I can’t go up and get her: I can’t go now,” Julie faltered. He knew -she meant Miss Fogg, for whom the party had been planned. - -“Oh, well, maybe she’ll come down of herself,” he answered. - -She brightened. “That’s so. Maybe she will. Let’s wait a little bit and -see.” - -They stood for a time with their hands on the backs of their chairs, -and surveyed the dainty repast. But nothing happened. - -“No, she won’t come by herself,” Julie said forlornly, at length. “I -know she won’t.” - -He caught the falling note in her voice, and his love hurried toward -her with words of protective tenderness. - -“Well, she’d come quick enough if she could just see how nice you’ve -got everything fixed for her,” he cried. “Just give a person one look -at this table, an’ I’ll bet you couldn’t drive ’em away from it with a -stick.” - -She looked up quickly and gratefully, a little laugh trembling on -her lips, and about to reply, when a sudden faint noise at the door -arrested her. Her nerves were on edge, and any noise now was startling. - -“Oh, Tim!” she breathed faintly, and wavered toward him. He was beside -her in a moment, his arm fast about her. So they faced the door and -waited. The sound came again, and with a little catch of breath Julie -whispered, “Look!” and pointed. A bit of white paper was creeping in -under the door-sill. They stood and watched it with fixed eyes. It came -in slowly, uncertainly, making a little scratching sound as it came. -A long black hairpin was being used to push it in: they saw the sharp -wire line of it dark against the white of the paper. Slowly, thoroughly -it came creeping under the door. Then with a final poke the hairpin was -withdrawn, and the paper lay there white upon the floor. A faint pause -followed, and then footsteps creaked away down the hall. - -Tim stooped quickly and snatched the paper up. It was a flimsy half -sheet, and was folded into a note. - -“What is it?” Julie faltered. Some words were scrawled on the outside. -It took a little time to puzzle them out. “Don’t read till I say when,” -they deciphered finally. - -“Oh, it’s Miss Fogg!” Julie cried with an unsteady laugh of relief. -“But what does she mean? How are we to know when she says ‘when’?” - -As the question died on her lips she was answered by the sudden -explosion of a pistol-shot. An instant of caught silence followed, and -then doors were banged open and people began to run through the house. -“_Miss Fogg!_” Julie screamed. She and Tim ran also, down the hall and -up the stairs. When they reached the place, the room was crowded full -of people. The locked drawer in her bureau was pulled open, and old -Miss Fogg lay on the floor, a pistol beside her, slipped out of her -dead hand. - -The people were talking disjointedly, crowding in, and one was stooping -down touching her. Their words came in confused ejaculation. “She’s -dead--just as dead as a nit!” “My Lord! what a sight!” “She done it -with that pistol.” “Don’t touch her. Don’t touch her, I say! She’s -dead, all right.” “But she wa’n’t dead when I got here; she give a -kind of a flop or two just as I got to the door.” “Well, she’s dead -now. The poor crazy old soul!” “She’s killed herself all right!” “Don’t -touch her, I say! Don’t! You got to let her lay like she is till the -coroner comes.” “Mind! you’re gettin’ your hands all into it.” “_My -Lord! What a sight!_” - -Julie took one look at the figure on the floor, at the old face, at the -gray hair that she had sometimes brushed, at the muslin waist she had -pressed so carefully, all streaked now--and something crashed within -her. She reeled against Tim. “Take me away--downstairs,” she panted. - -He supported her down the narrow steps, and back into their own rooms. -She sank on a chair. - -“Read her letter,” she commanded. - -He took the twist of paper and, unfolding it, puzzled over it for a -time in silence. “It’s mighty hard to read; it’s written so funny; -she’s left out a lot of words, and written some twice over, an’ all -running down on the paper,” he hesitated. - -“Read it, read it!” she cried. She was sitting bowed over, her elbows -on her knees, her face hidden in her hands. - -He read, picking the words out with difficulty. - -“It commences, ‘Dear’--just that: she forgot to put the rest, I reckon. -‘Dear, I can’t stand no more. My niece, my baby--baby,’ (she’s got -that twice over) ‘to see me to-day.’ (She’s left out something here) -‘trouble. She’s in awful trouble. Her husband’s left an’ gone with -another woman. She’s all broke up by it. My baby she cried and cried.’” - -He paused. - -“Don’t leave out anything: read it all--_all_,” she breathed from -behind her hands. - -He went on again: “‘An’ now the law’s lookin’ for him. My poor little -baby child! All I had. I can’t stand up against this trouble--disgrace. -People talk, always peeking and spying at you, an’ talk. I ain’t got no -more to live for now, an’ I don’t want to live--’” - -He hesitated. - -“All, Tim, _all_!” she cried out again. - -“‘Don’t want to live if there’s bad people in the world like what -took my baby’s husband. She was all I had to set my heart on. You -understand. You been good--good to me.’ (She’s got ‘good’ written twice -over, Julie.) ‘I take my pen in hand--these few lines. Don’t let any -one be blamed. Nobody to blame but that woman. You been good to me. I -thank you, an’ so no more at present from your poor old friend, Eliza -Annie Fogg.’” - -He dropped the paper, and turned to her. “Julie! Honey!” he cried. -“Julie, _don’t_ take it so hard! She was just a crazy old woman: -anything would have made her do it!” - -Julie raised her ghastly face, staring at him. “She was my child,” she -said, “and I’ve killed her. Oh, you don’t know; but she was like my own -child. She was in the dark, an’ sufferin’. I had so much happiness--I -thought it would give her life. Instead--” - -“Julie, she was crazy!” he pleaded. - -Her eyes, though she still stared at him, were remote, fixed upon an -inward picture. - -“Tim,” she said. “It was all over the clean waist I pressed for -her--all over it. I’ve killed her. And--and Elizabeth too, she was -crying.” - -“Elizabeth! _Her_ tears--” he broke in violently, but she silenced him. - -“No, don’t speak now; don’t. Let me alone. I’ve got to be by myself and -think it all out alone. I’ve got to think.” She rose unsteadily. - -She stood looking at him one moment more, dumbly, uncertainly, groping -perhaps to find something for his consolation, but she found nothing, -and in the end she evaded his outstretched arms, murmured blindly, -“I got to be alone--I got to think it all out,” and passed from the -kitchen and through to the dark of the sitting-room, where she shut the -door fast behind her. - -He sank down in a chair and sat on all alone in the room, where the -lights were bright and the supper still waited upon the table in -festive expectancy. Every now and then his eyes traveled around the -room with its air of frozen gayety, but always they returned to the -floor, and so he remained, his legs stretched out in front of him, his -hands driven into his pockets, and his head bowed. - -He sat there a long time until his legs grew stiff and went to sleep. -Then he stirred uneasily, drawing them in, and looking again at the -waiting meal. - -“I reckon I better eat something; it’s gettin’ late,” he whispered -to himself. He turned to the table and helped himself to some food -tentatively, but as he did so he caught sight of Julie’s apron where -it had fallen to the floor from its accustomed hook. - -“Honey, your apron’s on the floor,” he said. He rose stiffly and going -over picked up the checked gingham, but when he thought it was secure -on the hook it fell down in soft folds against him, and he clutched it -suddenly to his breast. “Honey! Julie! _Don’t_ take it so hard!” he -cried. After the apron was once more restored, he came back and looked -at the table and knew that it was impossible to eat. - -“I reckon I better clear things away,” he thought drearily. - -He began moving very quietly and carefully about the room, doing -everything as nearly as Julie would have done it as he could. He put -all the food away in the ice-box, folded up the linen, and set the -china in its place. But his hands were not very steady, and as he -picked up one of the rosebud cups, a sudden noise upstairs made him -start, and it fell out of his hands and crashed to the floor. “Aw--Oh! -I’ve broken your cup,” he cried in dismay. He stooped, and gathering -up all the pieces tried ineffectively to fit them together. “One of -your best cups, honey, you thought so much of: I’ve broke it,” he -confessed. Suddenly the edges he was trying to fit together blurred -in a dazzled line and the tears rushed into his eyes. He laid the -shattered pieces in a desolate pile on the table, and stumbling into a -chair, buried his head in his arms beside them. - -Later on, there was a knock at the door and the coroner came in to -ask for evidence. Tim gave him the note Miss Fogg had written Julie, -and the coroner, a rather sombre dark man with a sallow face and -outstanding ears set wide as though to catch every note of horror that -the world held, read it, holding it beneath the gas jet that made -shining lights on his hair, pausing every now and again to say, “What -do you make of that word?” - -“Well,” he said when he had puzzled it all out, “it’s suicide all -right, no question about that. Everybody in the house says the old soul -was more’n half cracked, anyhow. I reckon she’s had that pistol loaded -an’ handy for some time.” - -“She had it in that drawer she always kep’ locked,” Tim told him. -“Julie said there was one drawer she was always mighty oneasy about.” - -“Is that so?” said the other. - -“Yes, Julie said so.” - -“Who’s she? Is that your wife?” the coroner demanded. - -Tim hesitated. It seemed impossible even to say the little word, -“Yes.” But the coroner, busy folding up Miss Fogg’s note, labeling it -and tucking it away in his wallet, where no doubt it found itself in -company with many another pitiful disaster, appeared not to notice his -silence. - -“I’ve heard ’bout your wife,” he said. “Everybody says she was mighty -good to the old woman--seemed to put new life into her. Can I speak to -her?” - -“She’s feeling bad,” Tim hesitated. “She’s mightily upset. She ran -upstairs with everybody, and saw the poor old soul layin’ on the floor.” - -“Yes,” the coroner nodded, “right much of a mess, wa’n’t it? Liable to -upset anybody not used to viewin’ all kinds of remains, like I am.” - -“It was all over her clean waist,” Tim explained earnestly. “Julie just -ironed that waist for her--just a little bit before.” - -“I see,” said the coroner. “Perfectly natural she’s upset. Well, no -need to disturb her if she’s feeling bad. This note gives plenty of -evidence.” - -He turned to go, but Tim detained him with an eager hand upon his arm. - -“A crazy old woman like--like she was, would be mighty apt to commit -suicide, wouldn’t she? It would take less to make her do it than it -would for a person in good health?” he begged. “She’d do it easier than -most folks, wouldn’t she?” - -“Oh, yes, any little thing’d be liable to tip her over,” the -other assented. “This trouble now, what she speaks of here in the -letter--that other woman goin’ off with the niece’s husband--that was -all she needed: that did the trick for her, poor old soul. Well,” he -turned again to go, “no need to trouble your wife if she’s feelin’ bad. -Tell her she ought to feel good to think she was able to do so much for -the old lady.” - -With that he went, and Tim turned and saw Julie standing in the open -door with the dark of the sitting-room behind her, and knew that she -had heard what the coroner said. - -“Julie!” he cried. - -But she put up her hands, motioning him away as before, and without a -word turned back into the dark room, shutting the door between them. - -Tim sat on alone in the kitchen. As the hours passed slowly away, he -went on tiptoe several times to listen at the sitting-room door, and at -last, late in the night, as there was no sound, he turned the handle -and pushed the door open cautiously. But instantly she cried out in the -dark, “No, Tim, no!” - -So he shut the door again as softly as he had opened it, and after a -moment’s hesitation, stretched himself out upon the floor in front of -it. But after all, if she opened the door suddenly to come out, there -was danger that she might stumble over him and get a fall; so he rose -and at last went lonesomely into the bedroom and slipping off his -shoes, flung himself, all dressed as he was, upon the bed. - - - - -XX - - -In the early morning following that long night Julie came softly into -the bedroom and found Tim lying there asleep, all dressed as he had -flung himself upon the bed. He opened his eyes as she entered. - -“I--I broke one of your little cups last night, honey,” he said -confusedly, “one of your best ones. I certainly am sorry.” He sat up in -bed, staring at her in all the bleak tragedy of the gray dawn. - -“I broke your little best cup, an’ I reckon I’ve broke your heart, -too,” he said. - -She put out her hands swiftly and drew his head passionately close -against her breast, bowing her face down to it. - -“My love, my love!” she cried, stumbling and sobbing through the words. -“You _made_ all my heart--all my life--it was yours to break or do with -like you pleased.” - -For a time they clung together in tears. But at last he raised his head -and, putting one of his hands on each of her arms, looked curiously -into her eyes. The storm of her emotion was passed, and she was calm -now. She seemed changed also from the small woman of the day before. -Her spirit had withdrawn from the surface, and was gazing forth from -deeper levels of life. The expression of her eyes was wiser, steadier; -she even appeared physically larger, a stronger woman, than she had -been before. What encounters of the spirit had she faced alone through -all the dark of the night? - -In the long gaze that passed between them they were confronted by a -tremendous question. Each asked it silently of the other. Julie was the -first to answer. - -“Yes,” she nodded. “It’s come to an end, my honey. We got to part -now--’fore I kill somebody else.” - -“Julie, she was crazy!” he cried as before. - -But she brushed his words aside. “All night I’ve seen the blood on her -waist,” she said. “It mocked me. The two were right together: the clean -waist I was so proud with myself for fixin’ for her, an’ the spots of -her blood. They were like mouths laughing at me with the awfulest -laughter--red words hollerin’ out across the world, ‘Look! Look! Look -at the way Julie Rose gives life to folks!’ Tim, last night I went down -deep--I was shoved down into the deepest places--I see it all different -now--I’ve _got_ to stand square with folks now.” - -He nodded. “Yes, it’s come to that with both of us--Julie,” he burst -out, “I ain’t where I ought to be! When the soldiers went by in the -street, an’ that night when they showed the doughboys in France on the -screen, you didn’t notice, I reckon--” - -“I did. I did!” she broke in. “I’ve known all along how it was with -you, but I wouldn’t let you speak. God forgive me! I kept you from it. -I was scared.” - -“Well,” he went on. “That night when they showed our boys goin’ up to -the front, there was one little feller on the screen--a runty kind of -a little feller like me--an’ as he went by he turned so’s you saw his -full face. Julie, he looked straight at me; an’ something jumped in me -an’ sez, ‘That’s your brother. _Why ain’t you with him?_’” - -“I know, I know,” she cried poignantly. “Your brother! My sister! We -thought when we found ourselves we was all, but now we’ve caught a -sight of the other folks.” - -“So I got to go now,” he ended. “I’ll give myself up--” - -“Oh, honey! What will they do to you?” - -“I dunno. But I can stand up to it. I can stand it now. You’ve made a -man of me at last.” - -“Oh, my God!” she cried. “I didn’t. I tempted you away. I don’t know -what I’ve done to you. Without me you wouldn’t be in all this trouble.” - -He faced her steadily. “Without you I’d never have found myself, an’ -that’s God’s truth,” he said solemnly. “I’m your man, honey. You made -me. I was afraid of every one, picked on by every one, an’ then you -came along an’ set me free!” - -“Our love!” she cried. “It was that set us both free so’s we found -ourselves. But that ain’t all. Last night, Tim, I understood more. It -seemed like I was shoved right down into the heart of life. I had a -kind of a vision--maybe it was only a dream: I’d been asleep, I know. -I stayed awake ’til real late, just sitting there in the dark an’ -knowin’ what I’d done to her. It seemed like I’d go crazy; I couldn’t -cry; I thought my mind was about to split. An’ then at last I did: I -cried, an’ cried, though it didn’t do her no good. I kep’ thinkin’, -‘This don’t do her no good. My tears can’t help her any now.’ But they -helped me. My head stopped feelin’ so tight after that. The awful -splashes on her waist quit hollerin’ out, ‘Look! Look!,’ an’ at last I -dropped off into a doze; an’ when I waked up things was different. It -seemed like I’d shifted in deeper than I ever was before.” - -She brushed a dark strand of hair back from her brow, then she dropped -her hand to his and he held it fast, staring up into her face, whose -look of wider apprehension seemed reflected on his own as well. - -“It was like I’d been stretched,” she went on slowly, feeling for -words, “stretched into knowing bigger things, an’ shoved deep down -where you ain’t yourself alone, but where all the rest of the folks is, -too, all kind of bound together--all brothers an’ sisters--an’ where -nobody lives to theirselves, or dies to theirselves. An’--an’ _now_ I -got to stand straight with the world.” - -He nodded, “I know. I understand.” It was the old familiar phrase which -had linked them so close together. They were silent for a long moment, -drinking understanding and courage from one another’s eyes in the -communion of their spirits. - -He spoke at last. “I’ll go ’round to the police this mornin’ an’ turn -myself in. Or maybe it would be better to go straight to Camp Lee.” - -Her clasp upon his hand tightened, but she spoke steadily. “I’ll go -home to Hart’s Run.” - -He started at that. “Oh, no, honey,” he protested, “you can’t do that. -You can’t go back there now. You know how it is--how they’ll treat you. -You can’t live there now.” - -“I can live anywhere now,” she answered. “I’ve found myself now. All -my life I’ve been scared of folks. You know how it was. But not now: -I’m free of ’em all at last. I got to go back there. It’s my home. It’s -where I belong, where I can be square with the world. Oh,” she cried, -“what does it matter to me where _I_ live, when you--when you--Oh, -honey,” she broke down, “what will they do to you?” - -“Never mind! Never mind! It’s all right now. I can stand it now,” he -consoled her. “But how will you live at Hart’s Run? Will they--will -folks buy from you now?” - -She laughed a little at that. “Oh, they’ll buy, all right,” she -reassured him. “Maybe they’ll put me out of the church; but I trim hats -too well, an’ know too much about fixing clothes for ’em not to come to -the store.” - -They began after that to consider their plans, bravely and calmly -making arrangements for a speedy departure. It was still very early, -and together they fell to work packing up all their small belongings. -There was not much to pack: only a few clothes, the rosebud cups, and -some extra housekeeping utensils that they had had to buy. These all -went easily into her suit-case and his trunk, which she was to take -with her. When the packing was finished he went out, arranged to have -the trunk sent for later, saw their landlord and settled for the rent, -explaining his sudden departure by saying he had to answer his draft -call. - -When he returned, breakfast was ready. Julie had even made waffles for -their last meal together. - -He sat down and forced himself to eat to please her, but she could -scarcely touch anything. - -“You better try to eat a little bit,” he urged. “There now, have some -of this plateful of waffles. I can’t eat ’em all, honey.” - -She looked at him a moment, her face quivering. “I--I got something in -my throat--seems like I can’t swaller past it,” she got out, snatching -at that wisp of whimsicality to cover the nakedness of their tragedy. - -But on the whole the breakfast was a brave, almost a gay, meal. They -were both setting forth upon desperate paths of life and, knowing -this, they were keyed up and excited by the adventure of it, and in -themselves they knew as well a steady self-confidence that had never -been theirs before. - -They had agreed that for Tim to go to Camp Lee and give himself up -there would be the best plan; but after all, they were too late. As -they finished breakfast, they were startled by a sudden loud bang upon -their door. Their hands flew together and clutched fast for one moment -across the table, then he rose and threw the door wide. - -Two men in plain clothes burst in. - -“Here, what’s your name?” the foremost demanded, a big swaggering man -with the face of a bully. - -“Timothy Bixby,” Tim answered steadily. - -“Oh, it is, is it?” the man cried, a trifle taken aback. “This is your -mornin’ for tellin’ the truth, ain’t it? Well, Mr. Timothy Bixby, I -arrest you in the name of the law. See this?” He turned back his coat -lapel, and displayed a sheriff’s badge. “We’re the dog catchers, an’ -we’ve come for you--you damned yeller cur!” - -“I was just fixin’ to go to Camp Lee an’ give up,” Tim said. - -“Oh yes, you were,” the other jeered. “A hell of a lot you were!” - -“But he was! It’s the truth, he was!” Julie broke in. “He was just -gettin’ ready to go right this mornin’.” - -“Oh, yes, he was, I know mighty well he was!” the other repeated. “An’ -I know all about _you_, too!” - -“But it’s true. Honest it is! Honest!” Julie pleaded desperately, -turning helplessly to the other man, her eyes wide and sincere. - -“Never mind, never mind!” Tim cut in under his breath to her. “It -don’t matter, so long as _you_ know.” - -“Oh, well now, Sam, maybe he was,” the second man interposed -pacifically. - -“Maybe nuthin’!” the sheriff cut him off. “He’s had a whole two months -to git from Hart’s Run to Camp Lee, an’ you know traffic ain’t blocked -as bad as all that. An’ if it hadn’t of been for his wife catchin’ a -sight of him, he’d be hidin’ here still in this damned love-nest.” - -So Elizabeth had seen, after all! Their eyes turned swiftly to one -another at that. - -“Now then, be in a hurry,” the sheriff commanded. “I ain’t got time to -waste over you. Here--where’s your hat?” - -Julie went quickly and brought Tim’s hat, pressing it into his hands. -“My honey! My honey!” she breathed. - -But the sheriff cut in between them. “Here, none er that,” he cried, -jerking Tim away. - -“Take me! Take me, too!” Julie cried. “It was all my doing!” - -But she was brushed aside. - -“Git out of the way! We ain’t got nuthin’ to do with you,” the sheriff -said, pushing Tim toward the door. On the threshold, Tim paused and -twisted around to cry back, “It’s all right, Julie, it’s all right.” - -Then his captor thrust him savagely forth. - -The other man, glancing back at Julie, paused an instant, caught by the -anguish of her face. “Here, quick,” he whispered awkwardly, “ain’t you -got a token--a keepsake for him? Maybe I’ll git a chanst to slip it to -him.” - -She looked wildly about the room. What should she send him? She started -to take up the pieces of the broken cup, but her heart cried out, “No, -no, not that!” - -“Quick! Quick!” he urged her. “Your handkerchief?” - -But her handkerchief was all sodden with the tears they had shed -together. She shook her head dumbly. Hurried and confused, her mind -was blank. Her gaze fell to the breakfast table. There was a pile of -waffles still fresh and warm. To her dazed thought at that moment they -were not food, they were symbols of her heart. With a hand that shook -she caught up one and held it out mutely to the man. - -“No, no,” he whispered sharply, “think what you’re doing, woman. A -keepsake--a keepsake! Here--what about this?” - -He picked up a picture postcard from the mantelpiece. It was a -photograph of herself and Tim taken together. - -“Yes, yes,” she nodded gratefully. - -“I’ll slip it to him if I git the chanst,” he promised again. - -“What will they do to him?” Julie breathed. - -He shook his head. “I don’t know--I don’t know how bad he’s in.” - -“Will I know what happens?” she questioned. - -“You--you ain’t his wife, are you?” he asked uncertainly. - -“No,” she answered, her wide eyes looking at him unfalteringly. - -“The government only notifies the wife or next of kin,” he mumbled, as -though repeating a formula. - -“I’m goin’ back to Hart’s Run,” she told him simply. “If the law wants -me, too, I’ll be there. My name’s Julie Rose.” - -“Here, Jack, where in the hell are you?” the sheriff bawled from -outside. - -“Coming!” the lingerer cried, and went, slipping the postcard into his -pocket. - -Julie stumbled to the window and peered out. Tim was walking between -the two men. As they came to the corner where he had always turned to -wave a farewell to her, he paused now and half turning raised his hand, -but the sheriff struck it angrily down and thrust him on around the -corner out of sight. - -Julie stood a long time, her head pressed hard against the window -frame, her eyes fixed blankly on the street; but she knew that she must -face it sometime, and at last she jerked herself round, and, straining -back against the sill, let the empty desolation of the room rush over -her. - - - - -XXI - - -Julie awoke the next morning in the dim and early light and sat up in -her berth. She had slept so profoundly, swept down to such depths of -unconsciousness, that for a moment on awakening she appeared to have -drifted beyond all the moorings of her accustomed self, so that it took -her a few moments of uncertain staring at the swaying green curtains of -the berth and at the flickering light across the bedclothes, to realize -that she was on the train. “I’m going home,” she told herself at last. - -Yesterday, with all its complete shattering of her life in Richmond, -its agony of parting in the morning, and its long hot sufferings of the -ensuing day, was gone into the past, and this was to-morrow. - -The man had come for her trunk soon after Tim had been arrested, and -Julie had managed to slip away out of the house without having to face -a parting and explanation with any of her friends there. She had spent -most of the long, oppressive, and tragic day in the railway station, -chiefly because she did not know where else to go. It was a strained -and terrible time of waiting in heat, and confusion, and the weary -sordid smells of humanity traveling in hot weather. Every now and again -waves of hysteria swept over her, so that it was only by gripping -her hands very tight, and by staring resolutely at the moving people -before her, that she succeeded in keeping herself from breaking down -altogether there in the public waiting-room. But finally the afternoon -came, then twilight and supper; and then at last her train was made up, -and she could get on and go to bed in the sleeping-car where she had -been fortunate enough to secure a berth. She was so completely worn out -by the sleeplessness of the night before and by all she had suffered, -that--as soon as the train got under way and the intense city heat had -lessened as it took the cool open stretches of the country night--the -swaying of her berth, and the monotonous gray roar of the wheels, -broken only by an occasional hollow moment running through the pattern -of the gray roar as the train swept over a culvert, relaxed her all -over, lulling her down and down through hazy thoughts, dreams, and at -last into sleep and profound unconsciousness. - -Now it was morning; she was awake again and, sitting up in her berth, -looking at the light, she told herself, “I’m going home.” She realized -that the air was cool and fresh, almost sharp. Putting up the curtain, -she peeped out. The train was on an up-grade, pushing its way steadily -along through deep cuts which occasionally closed into tunnels, or -again running out into the open along the edges of hillsides, from the -steep drop of which one looked down into hollows and little valleys -filled with mists. - -“We’ve struck the mountains, I’ve come home!” she breathed. She clasped -her arms tight around her knees, and the long swell of a deep emotion -laid hold upon her. Somewhere in the profound sleep of the night the -tension of life had snapped, releasing her into something sure and -steadfast. Big things--pity, truth, love, mountains, God, the sky, -came shouldering boldly up through all the trivialities of life, and -gathered her into an enormous peace. “I’ve broke through, I’ve broke -through,” she whispered, “through into the big things. An’ _he’s_ -broke through, too! He’s safe, they can’t tetch him now--they can’t lay -the weight of a finger on him now. He’s out in the deep channel. He’s -safe in the Lord.” - -All her prim acquired English fell from her, and she turned back to the -phraseology of her mountain people. Her thoughts ran out in a medley of -confused, disjointed sentences, such as she had been accustomed to hear -in shouting revivals in her church: ejaculations, snatches of hymns, -remembered terms of the lumber camps--an overflowing of the spirit that -clothed itself in any words that came. - -“We’ve broke through, we’ve broke through,” she whispered that, over -and over. “O my Lord! We’ve broke through! Freedom--freedom! There -ain’t nothin’ big enough to hold it. ‘Shout, you mourners, you shall be -free’--free in the Lord! The deep channel! The deep channel! He’s safe -now, like I am! We ain’t hung up in the shallers no more--the jam’s -broke an’ we’re out in the deep channel of the river, traveling free in -the peace of the Lord.” - -An ecstasy of depths of peace and stillness engulfed her, a vision of -the enormousness and profundity of life which was God, so that the -tears ran down over her illumined face. - -“O my Lord!” she whispered, over and over, “O my Lord, you’ve fetched -us home! You’ve give us sight. We ain’t just ourselves no more. You’ve -showed us a vision of the other folks--my sister, my brother! An’ now -we’re free. There’s freedom in the world for the little scary folks -if they go down deep enough. We _are_ free!” she cried. “My love, my -honey, my dear love, we’re safe at last! We’re traveling free in the -vision of the Lord!” - -She stared out of the window at the long stretches of mountains and -valleys, with the sky above, and knew a deep kinship with them, as -well. “Freedom,” she thought. “Nothin’ can’t hold it all. Nothin’ kin -hold me. I kin stretch out all acrost the mountains, an’ lay down in -the sky, an’ I’m deep-rooted in the everlastin’ hills. O my Lord, O my -Lord!” The breathless ejaculations flowed away into complete silence, -where only the tears running from her closed eyes could express the -ecstasy of adoration that held her. - -She still inhabited the same small and meagre body, but the spirit that -flowed through her now was free of all the world, and with it came an -enormous outstretching compassion, understanding, and tenderness for -all suffering. - -An hour later she stepped off the train at Hart’s Run. It was a morning -in late September. An intense sparkling light fell over the world, -driving the mists away from the parti-colored hills, and disclosing the -immense dome of the blue sky. - -Gathering up her hand luggage, Julie walked lightly along the familiar -platform, her footsteps answering the rhythm of the words, “I’ve come -home, I’ve come home.” - -The first person to see her was Edward Black. He was pushing a -truckload of trunks, and when he caught sight of her he stopped dead -and half sat down upon the truck handles to gaze in stupefaction. - -“Julie Rose! _You_ back?” he cried. - -She met his eyes steadily, gazing forth at him from that deep centre of -herself. “Yes, Ed, I’m back. I’ve come home,” she answered. - -His first astonishment gave place then to a mean and taunting look. He -leered as she passed and said softly, “Well, I reckon you an’ Mis’ -Bixby’s husband had a high old time together.” - -But she went by untouched, the insult blowing past her as lightly as a -summer wind. The great experience through which she had passed had been -out in the deep channel of the spirit. How could Ed Black know anything -about it? How could any words of his even touch it, much less hurt her? -She looked full at him as she passed, and in that instant of detached -scrutiny she was conscious of a sudden stab of pity. For a moment she -knew the man for what he was--a poor mean nature, destined always to -inhabit the murky backwaters of life, incapable of ever striking out -into the clear depths of any great emotion--a crippled bit of humanity -never again to be afraid of or bullied by, only to be sorry for. “Poor -Ed,” she thought, as she went down the platform and turned along the -main street. The morning air touched her face refreshingly, there -were drifts of great white clouds in the sky, and the mountains--the -mountains that she had been born and brought up in! “I’ve come home, -I’ve come home!” she whispered again. - -Coming up the street a little in advance of her, she presently -perceived Brother Seabrook. He was pacing along abstractedly, his head -bent over his newspaper, which he had just secured from the post office -and which bore tall excited headlines about the war. A little distance -away, conscious that some one was approaching, he glanced up, saw her, -and stopped for one paralyzed instant. His hand went mechanically -toward his hat, but he checked it and, thrusting it into his breast -pocket, pretended to feel for something; then he faced abruptly round -and hastened in the opposite direction, as though suddenly reminded of -important business elsewhere. - -A little farther on Julie saw Mrs. Silas Randolph’s colored girl come -out in the street to cross to the meat market. Suddenly she also saw -Julie, and stopped in her tracks as had the others. She, however, -attempted no subterfuge for her astonishment, but stood frankly still -in the middle of the street, staring with her mouth open. Julie spoke -to her as she passed, but the girl did not respond; after one more -thorough stare, she turned and ran back across the street, stumbling -under the excitement and haste of her news, turning her head back every -now and again over her shoulder to be sure of what she had seen. - -Julie knew that she had raced back to tell her mistress of the return. -She knew that the latter would not believe her, but would run to the -window to peer out herself, and that, then catching unmistakable sight -of Julie, she would go to the phone and ring up different intimates to -impart the news to them, using cryptic sentences supposed to baffle -any eavesdropper on the wire. Julie knew that even now Mrs. Randolph’s -incredulous eyes were fixed upon her back as she continued along the -street. She knew her village, she knew what she had done and what she -would have to face, yet it could not break that high serenity in which -she moved. There was, too, a great peace in the thought that here all -was known. It was a part of her standing square with the world. There -would not be here any sudden pistol-shot, or the vision of an old woman -on the floor, brought to that end by what she had done. - -As she went along the street, she heard a little frightened mewing, -and looking down perceived a gray kitten backed against the palings of -one of the garden fences. It was very small and helpless, and in its -wide kitten-eyes was a passion of terror. It had been chased by dogs -and boys and rolled in the dust, and one little paw was bleeding. Its -agony, its baby helplessness, and soft hurt paw stabbed Julie with an -infinite compassion. - -She dropped her bag and stooped quickly down. - -“Poor little kitsy--poor little kitsy,” she murmured tenderly. The -little frightened creature squeezed itself harder than ever against -the fence, spitting helplessly at Julie’s hand and trying to strike -with its tiny paw. “Don’t be scared, kitsy--poor little kitsy, there -ain’t anything to be scared of--nothing to be scared of any more,” -Julie comforted it. She gathered the little trembling body up, pressing -it close to her warm neck; and so, with the kitten held against her -breast, she came at last to her own little shop. Suddenly, as she -looked at it staring out upon the street with its shuttered blank eyes, -something clutched her throat. For one sharp suffocating moment she -almost saw her mother stand there, her apron blowing in the wind as of -old. - -“_Mother!_ I’ve come home, I’ve come home,” she whispered breathlessly. - -The side gate to her garden was broken and hanging upon one hinge. A -cow had squeezed its way through, defiling the little cement walk, and -trampling over and ravishing her flower beds, so that there were only -a few broken chrysanthemums left. The house was completely deserted. -Evidently Aunt Sadie was still away with her daughter. - -Julie went up the walk and up the steps and, taking the key from her -bag, unlocked the door and threw it open. The cold musty smell of the -closed house rushed out to meet her, but she entered unhesitatingly. -In the kitchen she set down her bag and the little kitten, and went -about opening the windows and throwing shutters wide so that the sun -and fresh air flooded in. As she looked out from the front window of -her shop, she saw a woman walking down the middle of the street with a -white mask over her mouth. Julie stared at her for a moment. “So the -flu’s reached Hart’s Run,” she thought, and wondered how bad it was. - -She had not had any breakfast, and she went out and bought some -supplies at the grocery. A new clerk was there who did not know her. - -“Where’s Picket Forster?” she asked. - -“Over in France,” the new clerk returned briefly. - -Julie went back with her purchases and got herself some breakfast, and -was feeding the famished kitten, when the back door darkened and Mrs. -Dolly Anderson’s large figure towered above her. - -“_Well_,” she cried, her eyes snapping, “I never b’lieved ’em when they -said you was back.” - -“Yes, I’m back,” Julie returned simply. - -The other continued to stand and stare. “Where you been all this time?” -she demanded at length. - -“In Richmond,” Julie answered. - -“In Richmond? Well, there’s been a heap of talk goin’ the rounds about -you, Julie.” - -“I suppose there has,” Julie assented. She sat down and, taking the -kitten which was fed and comforted now, upon her knee, began to stroke -it softly. “Won’t you sit down?” she said politely. - -“No, I’ll not sit down,” Mrs. Anderson returned heavily, and remained -upon her feet. - -“Julie,” she said at length, “did you--did you--” she hesitated. - -“Did I go off with Mr. Bixby, you mean,” Julie answered steadily. “Yes, -I did. We’ve been together in Richmond for the last two months.” - -The other woman’s mouth dropped open. “An’ you _dare_ to come back here -to Hart’s Run an’ tell a tale like that?” she cried furiously. - -“I don’t dare not to. I want folks to know the truth.” - -“You _want_ ’em to know?” - -“Yes, I want to stand straight with the world.” - -“You _want_ ’em to know?” the other reiterated violently. “Well, upon -my soul! I don’t believe you’ve got one shred of decency left.” - -She glared at Julie, who made no retort but went on gently stroking the -kitten, which was curled on her knee, comforted now, and blowing an -occasional silver bubble as it purred. - -“_Quit_ foolin’ with that nasty little cat, an’ listen to me!” Mrs. -Anderson stormed. “What I want to know is how you ever come to do such -a thing--raised like you’ve been?” - -Julie looked at her out of still eyes. How had she come to do it? How -could she ever explain to Mrs. Anderson how it had happened? How could -she explain the long repression of soul that had led her and Timothy -Bixby to blow the lid off so violently at last? There were too many -fine shades of meaning in it for her ever to make the other understand. -In truth, she could hardly understand it herself. What had happened was -down so deep in the elemental things of life that she could not put it -into words. - -“I don’t think I could possibly tell you why we did it,” she answered -at length. “We cared for each other, but--but we parted as soon as we -saw it was wrong--that what we did was hurting other folks.” - -“You parted as soon as you knew it was wrong? You mean to say you -didn’t know right from the first that it was wrong to go off with -another woman’s husband--an’ him a draft dodger, too? Oh, you needn’t -come back to Hart’s Run an’ tell a tale like _that_, an’ expect decent -folks to go right along an’ treat you like nothing had happened. They -won’t do it, I tell you!” - -“I don’t expect them to,” Julie said. - -“Well, it’s lucky you don’t. Folks won’t stand for any such carryings -on. You’ll be put out of the church. Brother Seabrook’ll put you right -out--I know he will. I don’t see to save me how you dared to come back.” - -“Why, I _had_ to come back here,” Julie cried. “It’s my home--it’s -where I belong. Why, I’m rooted here.” - -“Well, folks ain’t goin’ to have one thing to do with you, I tell you! -I don’t know in my soul what I’m doin’ here right this minute! And -other folks ain’t goin’ to have _nothing_ to do with you.” - -“No, I reckon not,” Julie answered, “but here’s where I belong just the -same.” She looked away out of the window and rested her eyes on the -sweep of autumn hills surrounding the village--she who had been for -weeks in the city, and a flat country. “Maybe you’re right, an’ folks -won’t have anything more to do with me--but--but--the mountains are -here, an’ the sun’ll rise an’ set, an’ the snow come in the winter, an’ -the sap run in spring. It’s where I belong.” - -“_Julie Rose!_ Upon my word I just b’lieve you’ve lost your mind!” the -other broke in. - -“I’ve found my soul,” Julie interposed beneath her breath. - -“There you set, nursing that nasty cat, an’ not carin’ one thing what -people think.” - -“I care what God thinks.” - -“Well--you better be thinking about your sin then,” Mrs. Anderson -retorted. - -“My sin,” Julie repeated, and suddenly she saw an inward picture of old -Miss Fogg’s gray head upon the floor. “But--but God forgives sins!” she -cried poignantly. “He does forgive them. ‘A broken and a contrite heart -He will not despise’--the Bible says so!” - -“That’s all right about the Bible,” Mrs. Anderson cried savagely. “But -you ain’t livin’ in the Bible; you’re livin’ right here in Hart’s Run. -An’ I tell you Hart’s Run folks ain’t goin’ to stand for this: they’ll -put you out of the church--you see if they don’t.” - -“Will they put the Bible out, too?” A voice spoke suddenly behind them. - -Turning, they saw that Doctor Franklin had come in through the front -shop and was standing looking at them. He was a country doctor, -loose-limbed, gaunt, and gray, and old--a man born in Hart’s Run, who -had ridden all the roads about it from the old horseback days down to -Ford-car times--a man who knew intimately all the physical ills and -many of the mental and spiritual ones as well, in a radius of thirty -miles--old Doc’ Franklin--old Doc’ Franklin. When people were born -he was there, and when they died he was there, gaunt and quiet and -natural, very deeply rooted, patient, and unshaken, whether he watched -at the gates of birth or at the gates of death. - -They did not know how long he had been standing there. - -“Well, but look a-here, Doctor,” Mrs. Anderson protested. “Here’s Julie -Rose settin’ there foolin’ over that nasty little cat, an’ not caring -_one thing_ what folks thinks of her!” - -The doctor put out one long finger, and gently rubbed the kitten’s -little mouse-colored head. Fed and reassured, it looked up at him now -out of the blue loveliness of kitten-eyes, purring happily back and -forth, blowing out that occasional, impudent, and care-free bubble. - -“Well, that’s sort of like me,” he said. “Other folks have time to -calculate who can stay in the church, an’ who’s got to be put out--it’s -all too mixed up for me to know. All I know is I’ve got some mighty -sick patients up the Easter road, an’ I’ve got to dust out there an’ -see ’em.” - -Julie looked up into the weather-beaten old face above her. “Look at -the kitten’s paw,” she begged. “Is it broken?” - -He ran a thumb and forefinger lightly down the furry leg. “No, just a -bruise,” he said. “No, little cat, you’re all right,” he added for the -small patient’s benefit, giving another little tap on its head. “Julie, -have you got any fly-netting? That’s what I stopped for when I saw your -shop was open.” - -“How’s the flu, doctor?” Mrs. Anderson interposed. “Any fresh cases?” - -“Half a dozen, an’ not near enough people to nurse the sick ones,” he -answered. “The Chapin family’s the worst. The father died last night -and Mrs. Chapin and the boy are just as bad off as they can be--nobody -in the house to help, an’ the neighbors not doin’ as much as they might -on account of the boy’s record. Maybe I could get you to go out there -and lend a hand for a day or so,” he said, looking at Mrs. Anderson. - -“Not me,” she retorted promptly. “I’m scared to death of the flu--I’d -run a mile from it--an’ more’n that, I wouldn’t turn my hand over for -that boy after the way he disgraced the whole county in camp.” - -Julie put the kitten down and stood up. “I’ll go with you right away, -doctor,” she said. “I’ve got my things here in the suit-case, an’ I’ll -get the fly-netting.” - -He looked at her. “It’s hard work, Julie,” he said. “You’ve never been -very stout, you know. Do you reckon you can stand it?” - -“I can stand anything now,” she told him. - -“Things are in right much of a mess out there,” he hesitated. - -“Then that’s where I belong,” she answered. - - - - -XXII - - -The doctor took Julie in his old Ford car, along the Easter road out to -the Chapins. - -She sat beside him very relaxed and still, her hands lying loosely in -her lap. Her eyes were rested and refreshed by the September scenery; -by the tawny hills, black cloud-shadows blowing over them down into -the hollows and racing up the ridges, turning their colors dark for -a moment, and then giving them back to the sun; by the weathered -rail-fences on either side, with red blackberry leaves, asters, and -goldenrod snuggled against them; and by silver fluffs of milkweed pods -that the sun had ripened and burst, and that now the wind was tossing -to pieces to bear each little winged seed away on an adventure of life -of its own. - -The Easter road, white and dusty, led away in front of them, with -the mountains towering up on either side and above, the endless sky -bridging it over. - -There was still that wide sense of immensity and peace upon Julie, of -freedom, and of return, and the knowledge, also, that Tim had come into -the same deep serenity. - -“I’ve come home, I’ve come home”--the words went on saying themselves -over in her mind. - -Once, unconsciously, she spoke them half out-loud. “I’ve come home.” - -The old doctor looked down at her. He did not seem surprised. “Home’s a -good place to be,” he said. - -“It’s where I belong,” she replied. - -He nodded, “Yes,” again, his old brown hands on the wheel, turning it -deftly to avoid a sudden hump, his eyes upon the road ahead. Old Doc’ -Franklin, riding the roads of Stag County from horseback and saddlebag -days down to gasolene and Ford cars. Old Doc’ Franklin, riding the -roads of life down at the heart of the world; present in the great -moments of existence, in the agony of birth, in the hour of death; sent -for in haste and terror in the catastrophe of pain; forgotten in the -times of health. Old Doc’ Franklin--you don’t fool him and you don’t -shock him. Tolerant, elemental, undeceived, and faithful; familiar -alike with the ravings of delirium tremens and with the prayers of -dying saints; as uncritical of both as life itself, or the showers of -God--old Doc’ Franklin. He hadn’t made the world--not he. Why should he -judge or condemn? He helped people into life if they wished to come, -and he helped them out again when they had to go; but how they behaved -while here was none of his business. His job was to meet each need -that the day presented, patient, forbearing, pitiful, mending where he -could. Old Doc’ Franklin--gnarled, and weathered, and lined, like an -apple tree on a bleak hillside; but sound and deep-rooted still. - -Sitting beside him in his mud-splashed car, with the mountains on -either side, the sky above, and the road before them, Julie was almost -as simple, direct, and deep-rooted now as he was himself. Ahead, along -the Easter road, the Chapin man was dead, the mother and the son -desperately ill. Sorrow and disaster awaited them: suffering people and -a distracted house. Here was something that they might do, work for -them down at the heart of the world, work for them that was natural, -sincere, and pitiful. - -The doctor glanced down from time to time at Julie, looking at her -clear quiet profile. Once he asked, “What became of little Bixby?” - -She turned her still eyes upon him and answered simply, “They arrested -him for not answering his draft call. He was just fixing to give -himself up; they came before he could; but he’s all right.” - -“All right?” he asked. - -“Yes,” she nodded. “Things can’t get at him now like they used to. They -can’t touch him now--he’s safe, he’s found himself, he’s out in the -deep channel like I am.” - -A little later, the doctor brought his car to a standstill before the -Chapins’ dooryard. The log-house, small and weathered, looked peaceful -enough on the outside, with the September sun flowing over it, a white -chicken or two walking its grass, and little borders of late flowers -running down to the gate; but inside human beings were at grips with -death. - -Old Doc’ Franklin, long and awkward and loose-jointed, a little -tired-looking about the eyes, but still going, picked up his worn bag -and swung himself out. - -“Come on, Julie,” he said, “here’s our job.” - -Was it the old doctor, or was it life itself, holding out a hand to -Julie Rose, there at the end of the Easter road? - - - Printed by McGrath-Sherrill Press, Boston - Bound by Boston Bookbinding Co., Cambridge - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEEP CHANNEL *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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