The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1898-10-21
THE REDEEMING ACT.


bore the reputation Of arrant cow
arGice ever since he had crawled over
the side of the dugOut cradle to wallow
along with the underfOot world of the
white sand before his parents cabin
door. Though country born and bred,
a passing thunderstorm struck him
with terror, and the sight of the black
waters of the "crick" caused a remarka-
BILE agitation of the knees. He was a
coward, pure and simple. The bristling
of a coon routed him Internationally
and determined 'pOssum could rob the
hen roost before his very face. Indeed,
Dave was a coward, and his cousin, Sue
Spivey, laughed uproariously when the
poor fellow perpe&rated his initial and
only act of boasting. He had said to her
one day very solemnly and no doubt
sincerely:
Toe purtec yo' honah an happiness
I'd th'ow away my wuthless life"
Ordinarily Dawes speech was unpol-
ished and provincial, but on this occa-
sion it rose to the dignity of what he
felt the occasion demanded.
She knew full well his timorous dis
position, and would have thought it
safe to count on his poltroonery in any
event. But day was sadly near which
proved to her the full worth of the poor
fellows grandiloquent assertion.
Long before the late unpleasantness,
and until this day, Honeypath was only
a siding where occasional trains took
water and passed each other. Two or
three log shanties, without special pre-
tensions to any architectural dissimi-
larity, marked the site of the town,
distinguishing it from the vast area of
impenetrable swamp that backed it
and the arid waste of sandy bottom
through which the glistening, polished
rails of the grand trunk line writhcI
and simulated.
Dave was native of Honeypath and
lived with an aged father in one of the
shanties. Sue dwelt with her father in
another near by. Dawes father was
hot-blooded southerner, whose patriot
ism answered to the first call to arus,
but Dave was timid, fearful of the smell
of powder and refrained from action,
preferrirg to suffer the -opprobrious
epithets which were literally bestowed
upon him and the contempt of the coun-
try generally to facing he knew not
what horror upon the battlefield. He
was not a philosopher and could not
plead in extenuation of his neutrality
that the martial slaughter of his brother
man was crime and that the wholesale
sacrifice of human life was immoral
Dave was simply coward and ac-
cepted meekly the obloquy which the
condition imposed, not even the taunts
and cutting sarcasm of the pretty Sue
Spivey being able to rouse the instincts
of battle in his craven soul.
Before the strife was ended Sues
mother was gathered to her final rest,
being put out of sight in the little sand
graveyard, with only the comment of
the two remaining neighbors. And then
Dave and Sue toiled early and late in
order to wiring from the starving acres
an UNMARRIED livelihood of yams, corn
bread and bacon, more often the corn
bread without the establishment of po-
tatoes and bacon, particularly during
the weeks after a hungry foraging
party had passed that way.
One day Dave was working among
the young potato vines in an open arid
field behind the cabin, when Sue ran out
to him in troubled haste.
''Oh, Dave, I'm pow'ful skeered!" she
painted.
''Skeered o. what?" he asked, without
intermission of the bent labor.
"Some-some soldiers just went down
the road, an they spoke to me-sassy
like" She hesitated, and Dave looked
up to see her pretty face scarlet and her
brows bent together in angry lines.
swell, what did they all say ?" he de.
manded, in his accustomed slow drawl
after waiting in vain for her to pro
coed.
s'T1hey lowed they all was a-comin'
back"
'Who was they, anyhow?' he asked
uneasily. his face blanching in antici-
patton of the martial visit.
'.They was Mosby's men, 1 lowed, an
they was five of EN-"
sour fcllers?" little surprised and
Strengthening his back. Some on back
to the house, Sue." and shouldering his