The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1885-02-20
inns WIFE.

inns WIFE.
l never saw his face, nor hers. But I
sometimes saw his hands, long and thin
n white, with that pallor peculiar to
plants grown in the Oakland human
beings shut out from Highland air.
1t was midsummer, and the broad
street, that ran down the open plaza
around which Comanche is built, was
white with dust, and already reflected
back tkeshotagFow of a searching sun,
-~Salthough it was yet early when I drew
back the curtain that draped my little
window and looked ont, on the morn
ing after my arrival. The heavy
shadows of an immense live-oak cooled
all the front of the low ,irregularly built
Lighthouse into which I had come as a
summer guest, but tho big, square
county jail, nearly opposite, stood max
ed and bare to the light, absorbing the
heat into its solid white stone walls and
casting it out again in quivering rays
that thrilled all the breathIess airswr
Everything was still just at that mo-
ment; she herself was so motionless
standing there in the middle OF the
street with the child lifted in her arms,
his little bare legs showing white
against her rusty black dress, and his
head almost hidden beneath the faded
yellow sunbonnet that covered her face
the sky was ,.of so deep and strange a
blue and the shadow of the single
scraggy mesquite beyond her lay so
sharp and black upon the dazzling
sand, that I had a curious sensation as
u I were looking into q picture. But
only fora moment. A Gathering group
OF horsemen, booted and spurred, rode
past; she moved a step or two out OF
their way, stopped and placed the child
upon the ground, then stood erect and
lifted her face again toward the dark,
narrow upper window of the Jail. And
I, too, looking up, saw for the first
time those long, pallid hands folded
about the rusty iron bars!
Idropped the curtain and turned
to be smothered in morning kisses, as
the children, glowing, rosy, bright,
came trooping in from their early
Toward noon Of the same day /
stepped outuponth the vine-hung gallery.
A glad life-glving wind was blowing
down from the great purple h%at-topped
mountains, Just over beyond the bright
sweep of open prairie set about the
open town, and thasnssqpite groves up
on the hillsi1e we're tossing their feath-
cry branches in it ~joyously. The won
derful lapis-lazuli blue sky was fecked
with white masses Of slow-moving
clouds; one of these laid half the village
square in shade, in the midst of which I
could see the town we'll, with its broad
stone curbing, and the knot of men and
boys grouped about it, their hats
off and foreheads barred to the
wind. A cowboy in picturesque COST
ume came riding across the sun-lit half
of the piaza,,rand his gay laugh foated
on to me as he answered a mellow hal
low, e.a~, c,r ,Cr -, kIo l4,a. IL
was q pretty scene, and I stood reach
ing for the howerth swung above my
head, and letting my gaze wander in
delight from purple mountains to gold
en- valley and back again, until it fell
suddenly upon q black spot in the
street close BY, and | realized with q
shock that she was still there. The
child lay at her feet, apparently asleep,
a little white heap in the dust; the
hands had disappeared from the window
bars above, but just where I had seer
her first she stood, straight, slender, 81.
lent, motionless. The flower fell from
my hand and the heart seemed all at
nee to go out OF me.
She was always there. When I lifted
my curtain in the wee gray of early
morning. found her there, or I saw
her trudging dom the sandy road, with
the child in her arms, toward her drea-
ny post.
Day after day the pitiless August sun
bent down upon her rs she kept her sta
ton before that gloomy facade. Some
times, but not often, she sat down prone
in tho dust, but always in the
o-,o .,xk +bA e,at whapon ,hoS 1>,,f
could see those clinging hands. People
went up and down the street; the tide
of labor back and forth; men rode in to
the various courts and rode out again;
wagons creaked bv, covered with white
canvas, from beneath which the curious
eyes of sallow women and shock-headed
children peered down at her. But none
of these things seemed togenter into her
Consciousness she looked neither
to right MOI left, and the weeks
wearing away found her with
face still turned upward to the mar
row window, patient, quiet, fixed, the
child always beside her. mute and
motionless as herself. Sometimes O
second pair. of hands grasped the bars,
"That's Jim's younger BROTHER" they
told, me. TITS nigh about six years
sence they dropped Their man and
'twan't cool-blooded murder neither.
They've trailed about God knows how
and He only knows when, keepin' out'n
the Sherif@s way, and wherever they've
went she's went too, and sence they We
been here she comes in every little
while and stays round like this yer
Jim's her husband, you know" All, as
if didn't know!
My heart ached for her andI used tc
long, yet dread, to see her face. But ]
never did, though once she removed
the faded sunbonnet % she passed me
IN the dim twilight, going down to the