San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1891-10-08

y
brawling woman He gave his old
horse Il smart smack with the whip that
made him leap in ungainly, rheumatic
fashion, and Hannah turned quickly and |
entered her house. standing for a mo- |
lnent by the open door with the apron |
still thrown over her head, while her |
tkrclt seemed torn by hard, dry sobs. |
Not patient woman was Hannah Fear |
ing, and strong. too, in all her feelings
n good mater and an ardent lover. Her
husbands people called her proud, and
Joel said she was obstinate and self
willed ana as vicious as his old Gcindle
cow. But Joel WAS known TO be noto-
rious falsifer, so that his opinion did not
count for much in Lttleteld. joel nat
urally abhorred that type of woman, and
had chosen for his helpmeet one Of the
meek and colorless ones Of the earth.
Hannah was standing in her spotless
little kitchen, where the range fire blaZed
fercely, for it was ironing day, and
great pile of folded clothes lay in the
basket and the table stood ready with
its snowy ironing cloth. The things
must be done up ard carried home be-
fore dark, for Judge Bright's new shirts
were in demand for his journey to
Washington and Mrs. Price needed her
baby things-wonderful caps and bibs
and frocks and slips. 1t was Mrs. Prices
first, and, us everybody knows, the first
always gets more RULES and frills and
puffs and fine embroidery than those
that come later.
But Hannah let her irons get over
heated as she stood there with the dry
sobs suddenly shaking her breast and
her brown, sinewy hand clinched on the
edge of the table. All the past had come
rolling upon her like a torrent, and it
would have way, for in a nature like
Hannah's there are crises like sudden
thunder showers that clear the air, and
when they had passed the bright sun
shone, the heavens were blue overhead,
and she put forth those great strokes of
work for which she was famous among
her neighbors. Every muscle was tense
| and strung to the utmost, and her skirts
sounded like the breeZes in n sail as she
passed back and forth from the stove to
the ironing table, and laid out the dainty
white things on the clothes frames smell
| ing of new grass and sweet like the
breath Of country clover,
But an encounter with Joel generally
did stir up the bitter waters in Han
nah's soul. 1t took her back to the time
after Anson's death when her brother
in-law put III his heavy claim for debt
and she had signed away her rights,
though she felt morally sure the claim
had been paid, but with her confused
head and all the dull, stupid grief that
weighed upon her from the suddenness
| of the blow, she could never clearly re-
member what Arson had told her about
the note. and the acknowledgment of
payment and all his other papers had
strangely disappeared. She had lain
| awake nights trying i'll vain to catch up
| the floating threads of memory, and it
was in her daZed, hopeless state that
she had signed a release to her claim on
| the old farm. Then the anguish all
came back of the time when she first
knew that her little home in Littlefeld
was mortgaged up to its full value and
must be sold on foreclosure sale, and
she and her two children would be
turned into the street. She had humbIed
herself and gone on her knees to Joel,
but he had refused to help her.
He had called Arson improyident and
| careless about his affairs, and said he
| had no ready money to throw after that
| which his brother had already squan-
| dered He had had dealings with An
| son and had not come out unscathed in
his transactions with his brother, so he
| said, as he looked on his sister-in-law's
distress with cold, unsympathetic eye.
| She was the kind of woman he hated,
and partly, too he feared her, for the
| sharpness Of her sarcasm could always
put to fight his wits and make him play
q sorry part. SO he DuttOned his long
pockets and determined, as he profanely
said, to let Providence take its course,
If his sister-in-law came to eat grass,
after the manner Of a wicked king of
old, would it not be a Just punishment
| for her pride and stubborn independence
of character, her putting away OF good
counsel and refusal to look up to those
better and wiser than herself?
But poor Hannah was nos brought
down to eat the grass of the field rs
special warning to an obdurate and stiff
neclIed generation. 1t happened in that
terribly cold week after her husbands
funeral. when she sat dumb and stricken
with her children gathered close under
her wing by the scant fire in her kitchen
stove, that help had come, heaven sent,
as Hannah ever after believed, for she,
too, was religious, butin a different way