The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-12-05
SARAH GEAKES PRAYER.
Ella Higginson.

lovers coat he will come back to her.
knew the superstition fingered along
the country side and 1 was sworn to find
it. But, like shy and rare flower, il
eluded search. The laborers and their
wives smoothed all intelligence out OF
their faces as soon as l began to hint at it.
But such is the way of them. They were
my good friends, but had no mind to help
me in this. Nobody who has not lived
long with them can divine the number OF
small incommunicable mysteries and racial
secrets chambered in their inner hearts
and guarded by their hospitable faces.
These alone the Celt withholds from the
Saxon and when he dies they are buried
with him.
A chance word or two of my old nurse,
| by chance caught in some Granny of a
| child's memory and recovered after many
days, told me that the charm was still
practiced by the woman folk, or had been
practiced not long before her death. So I
| began to hunt for it, and almost as soon
to believe the search hopeless. The new
generation of girls, with their smart
frocks, in fashion not more than six
months behind London, their board school
notions and their consuming ambition to
''look like a lady"-were these likely to
cherish local custom as primitive as the
long stone circles on the tors above? But
they were Cornish, and of that race it is
unwise to judge rashly. For years I had
never clew, and then, by Sheba farm, in
forsaken angle of the coast, surprised the
secret.
Sheba farm stands high above Ruan
sands, over which it's windows fame at
sunset. And | sat in the farm kitchen
drinking cider and eating potato cake,
while the farmers wife, Mrs. Bolverson,
obligingly attended to my coat, which had
just been soaked by thunder shower. 1t
was August, and already the sun beat out
again, fierce and strong. The bright drops
that gemmed the tamarisk bushes above
the wall of the town place were already
fading under its heat, and | heard the
voices of the harvesters up the lane as they
returned to the oat field whence the storm
had routed them. A bright parallelogram
stretched from the window across the
white kitchen table and reached the dim
hollow of the open fireplace. Mrs. Bolver-
son drew the towel horse, on which my
coat was stretched, between it and the
wood fire, which (as she heidi the sunshine
would put out.
"It's uncommonly kind of you, Mrs. Boil
verson," said |, as she turned one sleeve of
the coat toward the heat. "To be sure, if
the women in these parts would speak out,
some of them have done more than that
for the men with an old coat"
She dropped the sleeve, faced around and
eyed me.
"What do you know of that'" she asked
slowly and as if her chest frightened over
the words. She was a woman of fifty and
more, of fine figure but a worn face. Her
chief surviving beauty was pile Of light
golden hair, still lustrous as girls. Bat
her blue eyes-though now they narrowed
on me suspiciously-musth have looked out
magnificently in their day.
Il fancy" said l, meeting them frankly
enough, that what you know and don't
on that matter would make good deal"
She laughed harshly, almost savagely.
you'd better ask Sarah Geake, across
the coombe. She buried a mans clothes
one time-it might be worth your while to
ask her what came o. it,"
If you can imagine the glimnner of moon
light running up the blade of a rapier, you
may know the chill flame of spite and de-
spite that fickered in her eyes then as she
spoke.
81 take my OATH" whispered to myself,
''I'll act on the invitation"
The woman stood straight upright, with
her hands clasped behind her, before the
deal table. She gazed under lowered
brows, straight out of the window, and
following that gaze, l saw across the
coombe mean mud hut, with mud wall
around it, that looked upon Sheba farm
with the obtrusive humility of poor rela- |
ton.
"Does she-does Sarah Geake live down |
yonder!"
What is that to your" she inquired |
fercely, and then was silent for moment,
and added, with another short laugh, II |
reckon I'd like the question put to her; !
but doubt you've got the pluck"
'You shall see" said 1; and taking my
coat off the towel horse 1 slipped it on.
She did not turn-did not even move her |
head when l thanked her for the shelter |
and walked cut of the house.
could feel those steel blue eyes working
like gimlets into my back as / strobe down |
the hill and passed the wooden plank that /
lay across the stream at its foot. A climb |
of less than minute brought me to the
green gate in the wall of Sarah Geake's
garden patch; and here l took look back
ward and upward at Sheba. The sun lay
warm on it's white walls, and the whole
building shone against the burned hillside.
1t was too far away for me to spy Mrs.
Bolverson's blue print gown within the
kitchen window, but knew that she stood
there yet.
The sound of footstep made me turn.
A woman was coming around the corner of
the cottage with bundle of mint in her
hand
She looked at me, shook of bee that
had Numbered against her apron and
looked at me again-a brown woman, lean
and strongly made, with jet black eyes set
deep and glistening in an ugly face.
You want 10 know your ways" she
asked.
mo. came to see you, il your name is
Sarah Geake"
Sarah Ann Geake is my name. What st
WANT"
l took a sudden resolution to tell the
exact truth.
Mrs. Geake, the fact is / am curious
about ali old charm that was practiced in
these parts, as | know. till recently. The ,
charm Is this: When a woman guesses her
lover to be faithless TO her she buries suit
Of his old clothes 10 fetch him back TO her.
Mrs. Boiverson. up at Sheba yonders-
The old woman had opened her mouth
las know nowl 20 curse me. But as Mrs
Bolverson's name escaped me she turned ,
her back and walked straight 10 her door ;
and into tine kitchen. Her manner told
me that was expected 10 follow.
Bnt was not prepared for TIE face she
turned ON me in the shallow Of the kisepen.