The Pardon Of Becky Day
THE PARDON OF BECKY Twenty-four hours
- By John Play tricks, Jr.
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"Mind! Do you want a dying woman'due south expletive?" by Blendon Campbell is in the public domain.
The missionary was young and she was from the N. Her brows were straight, her nose was rather high, and her optics were clear and grayness. The upper lip of her little oral cavity was so curt that the teeth but under it were never quite concealed. It was the oral cavity of a child and it gave the face, with all its forcefulness and high purpose, a peculiar pathos that no soul in that lilliputian mountain boondocks had the power to see or feel. A yellowish mule was hitched to the rickety argue in front of her and she stood on the stoop of a little white frame-house with an elm switch between her teeth and gloves on her hands, which were white and looked potent. The mule wore a man'due south saddle, merely no matter-the streets were full of yellow pools, the mud was talocrural joint-deep, and she was on her manner to the sick-bed of Becky Day.
There was a alluvion that morn. All the preceding day the rains had drenched the high slopes unceasingly. That dark, the pelting-articulate forks of the Kentucky got yellow and rose high, and now they crashed together around the town and, afterwards a heaving conflict, started the river on one quivering, majestic sweep to the body of water.
Nobody gave mind that the girl rode a mule or that the saddle was not her ain, and both facts she herself apace forgot. This one-half log, half frame house on a corner had stood a siege once. She could still encounter bullet holes nigh the door. Through this window, a revenue officer from the Blue Grass had got a bullet in the shoulder from a garden in the rear. Standing in the post-office door only simply one month before, she herself had seen children scurrying like rabbits through the back-one thousand fences, men running silently here and at that place, men dodging into doorways, fire flashing in the street and from every house-and not a audio but the cleft of pistol and Winchester; for the mount men deal expiry in all the terrible silence of expiry. And at present a preacher with a long scar across his forehead had come to the one little church building in the place and the fervor of organized religion was struggling with feudal hate for possession of the town. To the girl, who saw a symbol in every mood of the earth, the passions of these primitive people were similar the treacherous streams of the uplands-now tranquility as sunny skies and now clashing together with merely little less fury and with much more noise. And the roar of the flood above the wind that belatedly afternoon was the wrath of the Father, that with the peace of the Son and so long on world, such things all the same could be. Again trouble was threatening and that day even she knew that trouble might come, only she rode without fear, for she went when and where she pleased every bit whatsoever woman tin can, throughout the Cumberland, without insult or harm.
At the cease of the street were two houses that seemed to front each other with unmistakable enmity. In them were ii men who had wounded each other only the day before, and who that twenty-four hours would lead the factions, if the old feud broke loose over again. One house was close to the frothing hem of the overflowing-a log-hut with a shed of rough boards for a kitchen-the habitation of Becky Day.
The other was across the way and was framed and smartly painted. On the steps sabbatum a adult female with her head blank and her hands under her apron-widow of the Marcum whose death from a bullet i month before had broken the long truce of the feud. A groaning expletive was growled from the window every bit the girl drew near, and she knew it came from a wounded Marcum who had lately come up back from the West to avenge his brother's decease.
"Why don't you go over to see your neighbor?" The girl's clear optics gave no hint that she knew-as she well did-the trouble between the houses, and the widow stared in sheer anaesthesia, for mountaineers practise not talk with strangers of the quarrels betwixt them.
"I have nothin' to do with such every bit her," she said, sullenly; "she ain't the kind-"
"Don't!" said the daughter, with a flush, "she's dying."
"Dyin?"
"Yes." With the word the girl sprang from the mule and threw the reins over the pale of the fence in front end of the log-hut across the way. In the doorway she turned as though she would speak to the woman on the steps again, but a tall man with a black beard appeared in the depression door of the kitchen-shed.
"How is your-how is Mrs. Day?"
"Mighty puny this mornin'-Becky is."
The girl slipped into the dark room. On a disordered, pillowless bed lay a white face up with eyes closed and oral cavity slightly open. Nearly the bed was a low wood fire. On the hearth were several thick cups filled with herbs and heavy fluids and covered with tarpaulin, for Becky's "human" was a teamster. With a few touches of the girl'southward quick easily, the covers of the bed were smoothen, and the woman'southward eyes rested on the girl'southward own cloak. With her ain handkerchief she brushed the decease-damp from the forehead that already seemed growing cold. At her starting time bear upon, the woman's eyelids opened and dropped together once again. Her lips moved, but no sound came from them.
In a moment the ashes disappeared, the hearth was make clean and the burn was blazing. Every time the girl passed the window she saw the widow across the way staring difficult at the hut. When she took the ashes into the street, the adult female spoke to her.
"I can't go to see Becky-she hates me."
"With expert reason."
The answer came with a clear sharpness that fabricated the widow offset and redden angrily; only the girl walked straight to the gate, her optics afire with all the courage that the mountain adult female knew and however with some other courage to which the archaic creature was a stranger-a courage that made the widow lower her own eyes and twist her easily under her apron.
"I want you to come up and enquire Becky to forgive you."
The woman stared and laughed.
"Forgive me? Becky forgive me? She wouldn't-an' I don't desire her-" She could non wait upwardly into the girl's eyes; just she pulled a pipe from under the apron, laid it down with a trembling manus and began to stone slightly.
The girl leaned beyond the gate.
"Look at me!" she said, sharply. The woman raised her eyes, swerved them in one case, and then in spite of herself, held them steady.
"Heed! Do you want a dying woman's curse?"
Information technology was a directly thrust to the core of a superstitious middle and a spasm of terror crossed the adult female'due south face. She began to wring her easily.
"Come on!" said the girl, sternly, and turned, without looking back, until she reached the door of the hut, where she beckoned and stood waiting, while the woman started slowly and helplessly from the steps, still wringing her hands. Inside, behind her, the wounded Marcum, who had been listening, raised himself on one elbow and looked after her through the window.
"She can't come up in-non while I'm in here."
The girl turned quickly. Information technology was Dave Twenty-four hour period, the teamster, in the kitchen door, and his face looked blacker than his bristles.
"Oh!" she said, simply, as though hurt, and and so with a dignity that surprised her, the teamster turned and strode towards the back door.
"Merely I can git out, I reckon," he said, and he never looked at the widow who had stopped, frightened, at the gate.
"Oh, I can't-I can't!" she said, and her vocalisation bankrupt; but the daughter gently pushed her to the door, where she stopped once again, leaning against the lintel. Across the mode, the wounded Marcum, with a scowl of wonder, crawled out of his bed and started painfully to the door. The girl saw him and her heart beat fast.
Inside, Becky lay with closed optics. She stirred uneasily, as though she felt some hated presence, but her eyes stayed fast, for the presence of Death in the room was stronger still.
"Becky!" At the broken weep, Becky'southward eyes flashed wide and burn broke through the haze that had gathered in them.
"I desire ye ter fergive me, Becky."
The optics burned steadily for a long time. For ii days she had not spoken, but her vocalization came at present, as though from the grave.
"Y'all!" she said, and, over again, with torturing scorn, "You!" And then she smiled, for she knew why her enemy was there, and her hour of triumph was come. The girl moved swiftly to the window-she could encounter the wounded Marcum slowly crossing the street, pistol in hand.
"What'd I ever do to you?"
"Nothin', Becky, nothin.'."
Becky laughed harshly. "You tin tell the truth-tin't ye-to a dyin' woman?"
"Fergive me, Becky!"
A scowling face, tortured with pain, was thrust into the window.
"Sh-h!" whispered the girl, imperiously, and the man lifted his heavy eyes, dropped one elbow on the window-sill and waited.
"You tuk Jim from me!"
The widow covered her face with her hands, and the Marcum at the window-brother to Jim, who was dead-lowered at her, listening keenly.
"An' you lot got him by lyin' 'bout me. You lot tuk him past lyin' 'bout me-didn't ye? Didn't ye?" she repeated, fiercely, and her voice would have wrung the truth from a stone.
"Yes-Becky-yeah!"
"You lot hear?" cried Becky, turning her optics to the girl.
"You made him believe an' made e'er'torso, you could, believe that I was-was bad." Her breath got curt, just the terrible arraignment went on.
"You started this war. My brother wouldn't 'a' shot Jim Marcum if it hadn't been fer y'all. You killed Jim-your own married man-an' yous killed me. An' now you desire me to fergive you-y'all!" She raised her right mitt equally though with information technology she would hurl the curse behind her lips, and the widow, with a weep, sprang for the bony fingers, catching them in her own hand and falling over on her knees at the bedside.
"Don't, Becky, don't-don't-don't
In that location was a slight rustle at the back window. At the other, a pistol flashed into sight and dropped again below the sill. Turning, the daughter saw Dave's bushy blackness caput-he, too, with one elbow on the sill and the other hand out of sight.
"Shame!" she said, looking from one to the other of the two men, who had learned, at last, the bottom truth of the feud; so she defenseless the sick adult female'southward other hand and spoke quickly.
"Hush, Becky," she said; and at the affect of her mitt and the sound of her vocalism, Becky looked confusedly at her and let her upraised hand sink back to the bed. The widow stared swiftly from Jim'southward brother, at 1 window, to Dave Day at the other, and hid her face on her arms.
"Remember, Becky-how can you await forgiveness in another earth, unless you forgive in this?"
The woman'south brow knitted and she lay tranquility. Like the widow who held her hand, the dying woman believed, with never the shadow of a incertitude, that somewhere above the stars, a living God reigned in a heaven of never-ending happiness; that somewhere below the globe a personal devil gloated over souls in eternal torture; that whether she went above, or below, hung solely on her terminal hr of contrition; and that in heaven or hell she would know those whom she might meet as surely as she had known them on earth. By and by her face softened and she drew a long breath.
"Jim was a proficient man," she said. And and then later a moment:
"An' I was a good woman"-she turned her eyes towards the girl-"until Jim married her. I didn't keer later on that." Then she got calm, and while she spoke to the widow, she looked at the girl.
"Will you git upward in church an' say before everybody that y'all knew I was good when you said I was bad-that yous lied almost me?"
"Yes-aye." However Becky looked at the girl, who stooped over again.
"She will, Becky, I know she will. Won't you forgive her and leave peace behind you? Dave and Jim'due south blood brother are here-make them shake easily. Won't you-won't you?" she asked, turning from one to the other.
Both men were silent.
"Won't yous?" she repeated, looking at Jim'south blood brother.
"I've got nothin' agin Dave. I always thought that she"-he did not phone call his brother'due south married woman past proper noun-"caused all this trouble. I've nothin' agin Dave."
The girl turned. "Won't you, Dave?"
"I'm waitin' to hear whut Becky says."
Becky was listening, though her optics were closed. Her brows knitted painfully. It was a difficult compromise that she was asked to make between mortal hate and a honey that was more than mortal, simply the Plea that has stood between them for nearly 20 centuries prevailed, and the girl knew that the end of the feud was near.
Becky nodded.
"Yes, I fergive her, an' I want 'em to shake hands."
Simply not once did she turn her eyes to the woman whom she forgave, and the hand that the widow held gave back no answering pressure. The faces at the windows disappeared, and she motioned for the girl to have her weeping enemy away.
She did not open up her eyes when the girl came dorsum, merely her lips moved and the girl aptitude above her.
"I know whar Jim is."
From somewhere outside came Dave's cough, and the dying woman turned her head as though she were reminded of something she had quite forgotten. And so, straightway, she forgot over again.
The voice of the alluvion had deepened. A smile came to Becky's lips-a faint, terrible grin of triumph. The girl bent depression and, with a startled face up, shrank back.
"An' I'll-git-thar-get-go."
With that whisper went Becky's last breath, merely the grinning was there, even when her lips were common cold.
- by John Fob, Jr.
"Mind! Practise you desire a dying woman's curse?" past Blendon Campbell is in the public domain.
The missionary was young and she was from the North. Her brows were straight, her nose was rather high, and her eyes were clear and grayness. The upper lip of her piffling mouth was so short that the teeth just under it were never quite curtained. It was the mouth of a child and it gave the face up, with all its strength and high purpose, a peculiar pathos that no soul in that footling mount boondocks had the power to see or experience. A yellow mule was hitched to the rickety fence in front of her and she stood on the stoop of a little white frame-house with an elm switch between her teeth and gloves on her hands, which were white and looked strong. The mule wore a man's saddle, but no matter-the streets were full of yellowish pools, the mud was ankle-deep, and she was on her manner to the sick-bed of Becky Solar day.
There was a flood that morning. All the preceding day the rains had drenched the high slopes unceasingly. That night, the pelting-clear forks of the Kentucky got xanthous and rose high, and at present they crashed together around the town and, after a heaving disharmonize, started the river on i quivering, regal sweep to the bounding main.
Nobody gave heed that the daughter rode a mule or that the saddle was not her ain, and both facts she herself apace forgot. This one-half log, half frame house on a corner had stood a siege once. She could withal see bullet holes about the door. Through this window, a revenue officeholder from the Blue Grass had got a bullet in the shoulder from a garden in the rear. Standing in the post-office door only just one calendar month before, she herself had seen children scurrying like rabbits through the dorsum-yard fences, men running silently here and in that location, men dodging into doorways, fire flashing in the street and from every business firm-and non a sound but the crack of pistol and Winchester; for the mount men deal expiry in all the terrible silence of death. And at present a preacher with a long scar across his forehead had come to the i little church in the place and the fervor of religion was struggling with feudal hate for possession of the town. To the daughter, who saw a symbol in every mood of the earth, the passions of these archaic people were like the treacherous streams of the uplands-at present tranquillity as sunny skies and now clashing together with but little less fury and with much more noise. And the roar of the alluvion to a higher place the wind that late afternoon was the wrath of the Father, that with the peace of the Son and so long on earth, such things still could be. Once again trouble was threatening and that day even she knew that problem might come, merely she rode without fright, for she went when and where she pleased as any adult female can, throughout the Cumberland, without insult or harm.
At the stop of the street were two houses that seemed to front each other with unmistakable enmity. In them were two men who had wounded each other only the day earlier, and who that day would lead the factions, if the old feud broke loose once again. One house was shut to the frothing hem of the overflowing-a log-hut with a shed of rough boards for a kitchen-the habitation of Becky Day.
The other was beyond the fashion and was framed and smartly painted. On the steps sat a woman with her head blank and her hands under her apron-widow of the Marcum whose death from a bullet i month earlier had broken the long truce of the feud. A groaning curse was growled from the window as the girl drew near, and she knew it came from a wounded Marcum who had lately come up back from the West to avenge his brother's death.
"Why don't you go over to see your neighbor?" The daughter'south clear eyes gave no hint that she knew-as she well did-the trouble between the houses, and the widow stared in sheer amazement, for mountaineers do not talk with strangers of the quarrels between them.
"I have nothin' to do with such as her," she said, sullenly; "she ain't the kind-"
"Don't!" said the girl, with a flush, "she's dying."
"Dyin?"
"Yep." With the word the girl sprang from the mule and threw the reins over the pale of the fence in front of the log-hut across the way. In the doorway she turned as though she would speak to the woman on the steps again, simply a alpine man with a black beard appeared in the depression door of the kitchen-shed.
"How is your-how is Mrs. Solar day?"
"Mighty puny this mornin'-Becky is."
The girl slipped into the dark room. On a disordered, pillowless bed lay a white face with optics closed and mouth slightly open up. Well-nigh the bed was a low wood fire. On the hearth were several thick cups filled with herbs and heavy fluids and covered with tarpaulin, for Becky'southward "man" was a teamster. With a few touches of the girl's quick hands, the covers of the bed were smooth, and the woman's eyes rested on the girl's own cloak. With her ain handkerchief she brushed the expiry-clammy from the forehead that already seemed growing cold. At her kickoff touch, the adult female's eyelids opened and dropped together again. Her lips moved, but no sound came from them.
In a moment the ashes disappeared, the hearth was make clean and the fire was blazing. Every time the girl passed the window she saw the widow across the way staring difficult at the hut. When she took the ashes into the street, the woman spoke to her.
"I can't become to run into Becky-she hates me."
"With good reason."
The answer came with a clear sharpness that made the widow start and redden angrily; but the girl walked straight to the gate, her eyes ablaze with all the backbone that the mountain woman knew and still with another courage to which the primitive fauna was a stranger-a courage that made the widow lower her own eyes and twist her easily under her frock.
"I want you to come and ask Becky to forgive yous."
The woman stared and laughed.
"Forgive me? Becky forgive me? She wouldn't-an' I don't want her-" She could not wait up into the girl's optics; merely she pulled a pipage from nether the apron, laid it down with a trembling paw and began to rock slightly.
The girl leaned across the gate.
"Look at me!" she said, sharply. The adult female raised her eyes, swerved them one time, and then in spite of herself, held them steady.
"Listen! Do you want a dying adult female'south curse?"
It was a direct thrust to the core of a superstitious heart and a spasm of terror crossed the woman's face. She began to wring her hands.
"Come on!" said the daughter, sternly, and turned, without looking dorsum, until she reached the door of the hut, where she beckoned and stood waiting, while the woman started slowly and helplessly from the steps, still wringing her easily. Within, behind her, the wounded Marcum, who had been listening, raised himself on one elbow and looked after her through the window.
"She can't come in-not while I'grand in here."
The girl turned quickly. It was Dave Twenty-four hours, the teamster, in the kitchen door, and his face looked blacker than his beard.
"Oh!" she said, merely, as though hurt, and then with a dignity that surprised her, the teamster turned and strode towards the back door.
"Just I can git out, I reckon," he said, and he never looked at the widow who had stopped, frightened, at the gate.
"Oh, I tin can't-I tin can't!" she said, and her voice broke; just the daughter gently pushed her to the door, where she stopped once more, leaning confronting the lintel. Across the mode, the wounded Marcum, with a scowl of wonder, crawled out of his bed and started painfully to the door. The girl saw him and her heart beat out fast.
Inside, Becky lay with closed eyes. She stirred uneasily, as though she felt some hated presence, but her optics stayed fast, for the presence of Death in the room was stronger notwithstanding.
"Becky!" At the broken weep, Becky's eyes flashed broad and fire broke through the brume that had gathered in them.
"I want ye ter fergive me, Becky."
The eyes burned steadily for a long fourth dimension. For 2 days she had not spoken, but her vocalization came now, every bit though from the grave.
"Yous!" she said, and, once more, with torturing scorn, "You!" And then she smiled, for she knew why her enemy was there, and her hour of triumph was come. The daughter moved swiftly to the window-she could see the wounded Marcum slowly crossing the street, pistol in manus.
"What'd I e'er do to you?"
"Nothin', Becky, nothin.'."
Becky laughed harshly. "You can tell the truth-tin can't ye-to a dyin' woman?"
"Fergive me, Becky!"
A scowling confront, tortured with pain, was thrust into the window.
"Sh-h!" whispered the daughter, imperiously, and the man lifted his heavy eyes, dropped one elbow on the window-sill and waited.
"You tuk Jim from me!"
The widow covered her face with her easily, and the Marcum at the window-brother to Jim, who was expressionless-lowered at her, listening keenly.
"An' you got him by lyin' 'bout me. You tuk him by lyin' 'bout me-didn't ye? Didn't ye?" she repeated, fiercely, and her voice would have wrung the truth from a stone.
"Yes-Becky-yes!"
"You hear?" cried Becky, turning her optics to the daughter.
"You made him believe an' made e'er'body, you could, believe that I was-was bad." Her breath got short, simply the terrible arraignment went on.
"Y'all started this war. My brother wouldn't 'a' shot Jim Marcum if information technology hadn't been fer you. You lot killed Jim-your ain husband-an' yous killed me. An' now you want me to fergive you-y'all!" She raised her right hand as though with information technology she would hurl the curse behind her lips, and the widow, with a cry, sprang for the bony fingers, catching them in her ain paw and falling over on her knees at the bedside.
"Don't, Becky, don't-don't-don't
There was a slight rustle at the dorsum window. At the other, a pistol flashed into sight and dropped again beneath the sill. Turning, the girl saw Dave's bushy black caput-he, too, with one elbow on the sill and the other hand out of sight.
"Shame!" she said, looking from one to the other of the two men, who had learned, at last, the bottom truth of the feud; and and then she caught the sick adult female'due south other hand and spoke quickly.
"Hush, Becky," she said; and at the affect of her hand and the audio of her vocalism, Becky looked confusedly at her and let her upraised paw sink back to the bed. The widow stared swiftly from Jim's blood brother, at one window, to Dave 24-hour interval at the other, and hid her face on her arms.
"Call back, Becky-how tin can you expect forgiveness in another world, unless you lot forgive in this?"
The woman'due south forehead knitted and she lay quiet. Similar the widow who held her mitt, the dying woman believed, with never the shadow of a doubt, that somewhere above the stars, a living God reigned in a heaven of never-catastrophe happiness; that somewhere beneath the earth a personal devil gloated over souls in eternal torture; that whether she went in a higher place, or below, hung solely on her last hour of contrition; and that in heaven or hell she would know those whom she might run into equally surely as she had known them on earth. Past and by her face softened and she drew a long breath.
"Jim was a good human being," she said. And then after a moment:
"An' I was a good woman"-she turned her eyes towards the girl-"until Jim married her. I didn't keer after that." Then she got calm, and while she spoke to the widow, she looked at the daughter.
"Volition yous git upwardly in church an' say before everybody that you knew I was adept when you lot said I was bad-that yous lied about me?"
"Yes-yep." Still Becky looked at the girl, who stooped again.
"She will, Becky, I know she will. Won't you forgive her and leave peace backside y'all? Dave and Jim's blood brother are here-make them milk shake hands. Won't you-won't you lot?" she asked, turning from i to the other.
Both men were silent.
"Won't you?" she repeated, looking at Jim's brother.
"I've got nothin' agin Dave. I always idea that she"-he did not call his blood brother'southward wife by name-"caused all this problem. I've nothin' agin Dave."
The girl turned. "Won't you, Dave?"
"I'chiliad waitin' to hear whut Becky says."
Becky was listening, though her eyes were closed. Her brows knitted painfully. It was a hard compromise that she was asked to make between mortal hate and a love that was more mortal, only the Plea that has stood between them for nearly twenty centuries prevailed, and the girl knew that the finish of the feud was nigh.
Becky nodded.
"Yeah, I fergive her, an' I want 'em to milk shake easily."
But non one time did she plough her eyes to the woman whom she forgave, and the hand that the widow held gave back no answering pressure level. The faces at the windows disappeared, and she motioned for the girl to take her weeping enemy away.
She did not open her eyes when the girl came back, merely her lips moved and the daughter bent above her.
"I know whar Jim is."
From somewhere outside came Dave'south cough, and the dying woman turned her caput as though she were reminded of something she had quite forgotten. Then, straightway, she forgot once more.
The vocalism of the inundation had deepened. A smile came to Becky's lips-a faint, terrible grin of triumph. The girl bent depression and, with a startled confront, shrank back.
"An' I'll-git-thar-first."
With that whisper went Becky's last jiff, just the grinning was there, even when her lips were cold.
Grade:ix
The missionary was young and she was from the N. Her brows were straight, her olfactory organ was rather high, and her optics were clear and greyness. The upper lip of her footling oral cavity was so brusque that the teeth just nether information technology were never quite concealed. Information technology was the mouth of a child and it gave the face, with all its strength and high purpose, a peculiar pathos that no soul in that footling mountain town had the power to see or feel. A yellowish mule was hitched to the rickety argue in front of her and she stood on the stoop of a trivial white frame-house with an elm switch betwixt her teeth and gloves on her hands, which were white and looked strong. The mule wore a man'southward saddle, merely no affair-the streets were full of yellowish pools, the mud was ankle-deep, and she was on her way to the sick-bed of Becky Day.
At that place was a flood that morning. All the preceding twenty-four hour period the rains had drenched the loftier slopes unceasingly. That nighttime, the rain-clear forks of the Kentucky got yellowish and rose high, and now they crashed together around the town and, later a heaving conflict, started the river on ane quivering, imperial sweep to the sea.
Nobody gave heed that the girl rode a mule or that the saddle was not her own, and both facts she herself rapidly forgot. This one-half log, half frame house on a corner had stood a siege once. She could even so meet bullet holes about the door. Through this window, a revenue officer from the Blue Grass had got a bullet in the shoulder from a garden in the rear. Standing in the postal service-part door simply merely one month before, she herself had seen children scurrying like rabbits through the back-yard fences, men running silently here and there, men dodging into doorways, fire flashing in the street and from every house-and not a sound just the fissure of pistol and Winchester; for the mountain men deal death in all the terrible silence of decease. And now a preacher with a long scar across his forehead had come up to the i little church building in the identify and the fervor of religion was struggling with feudal hate for possession of the boondocks. To the girl, who saw a symbol in every mood of the earth, the passions of these primitive people were like the treacherous streams of the uplands-at present quiet as sunny skies and now ambivalent together with only footling less fury and with much more noise. And the roar of the flood above the current of air that late afternoon was the wrath of the Father, that with the peace of the Son and then long on earth, such things still could be. Once more than trouble was threatening and that day fifty-fifty she knew that problem might come, just she rode without fear, for she went when and where she pleased every bit any woman can, throughout the Cumberland, without insult or harm.
At the cease of the street were 2 houses that seemed to front each other with unmistakable enmity. In them were two men who had wounded each other only the day earlier, and who that twenty-four hours would pb the factions, if the old feud bankrupt loose over again. Ane house was close to the frothing hem of the overflowing-a log-hut with a shed of rough boards for a kitchen-the home of Becky Mean solar day.
The other was across the way and was framed and smartly painted. On the steps sabbatum a woman with her head bare and her hands nether her apron-widow of the Marcum whose death from a bullet one calendar month before had broken the long truce of the feud. A groaning curse was growled from the window equally the daughter drew near, and she knew information technology came from a wounded Marcum who had lately come up back from the West to avenge his brother'southward death.
"Why don't you get over to run into your neighbor?" The daughter'southward clear eyes gave no hint that she knew-as she well did-the trouble between the houses, and the widow stared in sheer amazement, for mountaineers do not talk with strangers of the quarrels between them.
"I have nothin' to do with such as her," she said, sullenly; "she own't the kind-"
"Don't!" said the daughter, with a flush, "she's dying."
"Dyin?"
"Yes." With the word the girl sprang from the mule and threw the reins over the stake of the fence in forepart of the log-hut across the way. In the doorway she turned as though she would speak to the adult female on the steps once again, but a tall human with a blackness beard appeared in the low door of the kitchen-shed.
"How is your-how is Mrs. Mean solar day?"
"Mighty puny this mornin'-Becky is."
The girl slipped into the night room. On a disordered, pillowless bed lay a white face with eyes closed and mouth slightly open. Almost the bed was a low wood fire. On the hearth were several thick cups filled with herbs and heavy fluids and covered with tarpaulin, for Becky's "man" was a teamster. With a few touches of the girl'southward quick easily, the covers of the bed were smooth, and the woman'due south eyes rested on the daughter's ain cloak. With her own handkerchief she brushed the death-damp from the forehead that already seemed growing cold. At her outset touch, the woman's eyelids opened and dropped together again. Her lips moved, but no sound came from them.
In a moment the ashes disappeared, the hearth was clean and the fire was blazing. Every fourth dimension the girl passed the window she saw the widow across the way staring hard at the hut. When she took the ashes into the street, the woman spoke to her.
"I can't become to run into Becky-she hates me."
"With good reason."
The answer came with a clear sharpness that made the widow outset and redden angrily; merely the daughter walked straight to the gate, her optics ablaze with all the backbone that the mountain woman knew and notwithstanding with another backbone to which the primitive animal was a stranger-a courage that made the widow lower her own optics and twist her easily under her frock.
"I want yous to come and ask Becky to forgive you."
The woman stared and laughed.
"Forgive me? Becky forgive me? She wouldn't-an' I don't want her-" She could non look up into the girl's eyes; but she pulled a pipe from under the apron, laid it down with a trembling hand and began to rock slightly.
The daughter leaned across the gate.
"Look at me!" she said, sharply. The woman raised her eyes, swerved them once, and and so in spite of herself, held them steady.
"Mind! Practice you desire a dying woman's curse?"
Information technology was a directly thrust to the core of a superstitious centre and a spasm of terror crossed the woman's face. She began to wring her hands.
"Come on!" said the girl, sternly, and turned, without looking back, until she reached the door of the hut, where she beckoned and stood waiting, while the woman started slowly and helplessly from the steps, all the same wringing her hands. Inside, behind her, the wounded Marcum, who had been listening, raised himself on 1 elbow and looked after her through the window.
"She can't come up in-non while I'm in hither."
The girl turned quickly. It was Dave Day, the teamster, in the kitchen door, and his face looked blacker than his bristles.
"Oh!" she said, simply, as though hurt, so with a dignity that surprised her, the teamster turned and strode towards the dorsum door.
"But I tin can git out, I reckon," he said, and he never looked at the widow who had stopped, frightened, at the gate.
"Oh, I tin can't-I can't!" she said, and her vocalism broke; only the girl gently pushed her to the door, where she stopped again, leaning confronting the lintel. Across the way, the wounded Marcum, with a scowl of wonder, crawled out of his bed and started painfully to the door. The girl saw him and her heart vanquish fast.
Inside, Becky lay with airtight eyes. She stirred uneasily, equally though she felt some hated presence, simply her eyes stayed fast, for the presence of Death in the room was stronger still.
"Becky!" At the broken cry, Becky'due south eyes flashed wide and fire broke through the brume that had gathered in them.
"I want ye ter fergive me, Becky."
The optics burned steadily for a long time. For two days she had not spoken, only her voice came now, equally though from the grave.
"Yous!" she said, and, again, with torturing scorn, "You!" And then she smiled, for she knew why her enemy was there, and her hour of triumph was come. The daughter moved swiftly to the window-she could run across the wounded Marcum slowly crossing the street, pistol in paw.
"What'd I ever practice to you?"
"Nothin', Becky, nothin.'."
Becky laughed harshly. "You can tell the truth-can't ye-to a dyin' adult female?"
"Fergive me, Becky!"
A scowling confront, tortured with pain, was thrust into the window.
"Sh-h!" whispered the girl, imperiously, and the human being lifted his heavy eyes, dropped one elbow on the window-sill and waited.
"You tuk Jim from me!"
The widow covered her face with her hands, and the Marcum at the window-brother to Jim, who was dead-lowered at her, listening keenly.
"An' you got him by lyin' 'bout me. Yous tuk him by lyin' 'bout me-didn't ye? Didn't ye?" she repeated, fiercely, and her vox would accept wrung the truth from a stone.
"Yes-Becky-yes!"
"You hear?" cried Becky, turning her eyes to the girl.
"You made him believe an' made e'er'trunk, you could, believe that I was-was bad." Her breath got short, but the terrible arraignment went on.
"You started this war. My brother wouldn't 'a' shot Jim Marcum if information technology hadn't been fer you. You lot killed Jim-your own married man-an' you killed me. An' now you want me to fergive you lot-you!" She raised her correct hand every bit though with it she would hurl the curse behind her lips, and the widow, with a cry, sprang for the bony fingers, catching them in her own hand and falling over on her knees at the bedside.
"Don't, Becky, don't-don't-don't
At that place was a slight rustle at the back window. At the other, a pistol flashed into sight and dropped again below the sill. Turning, the girl saw Dave's bushy black caput-he, also, with 1 elbow on the sill and the other hand out of sight.
"Shame!" she said, looking from one to the other of the ii men, who had learned, at last, the bottom truth of the feud; and then she caught the ill adult female'southward other hand and spoke quickly.
"Hush, Becky," she said; and at the touch of her hand and the audio of her vox, Becky looked confusedly at her and let her upraised hand sink back to the bed. The widow stared swiftly from Jim's blood brother, at one window, to Dave Day at the other, and hid her face up on her artillery.
"Remember, Becky-how tin can you wait forgiveness in another world, unless you forgive in this?"
The adult female'due south brow knitted and she lay tranquility. Like the widow who held her hand, the dying adult female believed, with never the shadow of a doubt, that somewhere to a higher place the stars, a living God reigned in a sky of never-ending happiness; that somewhere beneath the earth a personal devil gloated over souls in eternal torture; that whether she went above, or below, hung solely on her last 60 minutes of contrition; and that in sky or hell she would know those whom she might meet as surely as she had known them on earth. By and by her face softened and she drew a long jiff.
"Jim was a good man," she said. And and then after a moment:
"An' I was a good woman"-she turned her eyes towards the daughter-"until Jim married her. I didn't keer after that." So she got calm, and while she spoke to the widow, she looked at the daughter.
"Will you git up in church an' say before everybody that you knew I was good when yous said I was bad-that you lied nigh me?"
"Yes-yes." Even so Becky looked at the girl, who stooped again.
"She will, Becky, I know she volition. Won't you forgive her and leave peace behind you? Dave and Jim'south blood brother are here-make them milkshake hands. Won't you-won't you?" she asked, turning from one to the other.
Both men were silent.
"Won't you?" she repeated, looking at Jim'southward brother.
"I've got nothin' adverse Dave. I always thought that she"-he did not phone call his brother'southward married woman by name-"acquired all this trouble. I've nothin' agin Dave."
The girl turned. "Won't you, Dave?"
"I'm waitin' to hear whut Becky says."
Becky was listening, though her optics were closed. Her brows knitted painfully. It was a hard compromise that she was asked to make between mortal hate and a love that was more than than mortal, simply the Plea that has stood between them for nearly twenty centuries prevailed, and the daughter knew that the stop of the feud was near.
Becky nodded.
"Yes, I fergive her, an' I want 'em to shake hands."
But not once did she turn her eyes to the woman whom she forgave, and the hand that the widow held gave back no answering force per unit area. The faces at the windows disappeared, and she motioned for the girl to accept her weeping enemy abroad.
She did not open her optics when the girl came back, merely her lips moved and the girl bent above her.
"I know whar Jim is."
From somewhere outside came Dave's cough, and the dying woman turned her head as though she were reminded of something she had quite forgotten. Then, straightway, she forgot again.
The vocalization of the overflowing had deepened. A smile came to Becky's lips-a faint, terrible smile of triumph. The daughter bent low and, with a startled face, shrank back.
"An' I'll-git-thar-first."
With that whisper went Becky'south terminal breath, just the smile was there, even when her lips were cold.
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The Pardon Of Becky Day,
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