Arizona republican., 1911-11-09

Publishing Coz
There was no reply, only the whip
| of icy rain upon his aching flesh, the
multitudinous wild voices of the tenn
| pest, the goblin laugh of the water as
it sucked holloway away down the
gorge Battered and bleeding, he
CROPPED about until at last he found
his old mate, pinned down by timbers
| against whose rude bulk his frantic
efforts were futile. He found a shred
of what had been their bedding, with
which he hid her poor face from the
sky; and working by intermittent
flashes of the electric blade, he man.
aged to shelter the unconscious woman
from the storms full strength fury
now abating. Then he was off, max
ing what Roadway he could up the
mountain to their sons house.
The cove was strewn with woods
wreck. All the sky resounded like one
huge war-gong. At first the wind, like
a current of fluid blackness, cut the
breath from his nostrils. The rain
was driven in his face. lifted and
waved up and down in sheeted squalls.
For a long time he feared each step
would be his last. But imperceptibly
the hammering of the thunders gave
way; the swelling uproar slowly sank
and changed, like an orchestral COM
bination, from the strife of the wind
to a drowning, steady pour of rain.
1t was growing colder every minute.
He won each foot of ground by sep
arate effort; he slipped on the winter
sodden leaves, fell sprawling on rocks,
stumbled over logs all fallen one way,
and upwrenched roots straddling high
where the path had run the day be-
| fore. Through it all he toiled pain
| fully, seeking help TO bring his wife
| under shelter. Strange fancies drifted
| through his diZZied braini Would We
roma be willing to receive help from
| her son? Would she be carried to the
| house of that daughter-in-law against
whom she held herself implacable?
When father and Son returned,
stumbling down the cove together, they
| thought at first that a dead body lay
pinned under the wreckage of the old
| home. So it was with unseeing eyes
| and a stilled voice which could not be
| raised in protest that Verona Brymer
came into her sons house. And thus
| for days she lay there barely con-
| scious. glad, in a numb. animal fash
| ion, of her daughter-in-law's tender
ministrations and nursing. But when
| she came back to life, and recognized
what fate had done to her, her soul
was one pool of bitterness. They had
arried her into Jensy's house-that
| house she had vowed never to enter.
| The threshold she had forbidden this
woman 10 cross was a tossing bit of
| drift somewhere down the creek which
had floated jamb and Intel of her door
| toward the Tennessee, carried chips
and splinters of it no doubt into the
Mississippi and toward the great Gulf,
cradle of storms. She was lying on
| Jensy's bed: the food that nourished
| her Jensy cooked; the hands that ten
| ded On her were Jensy's.
And the unwelcome daughter-in-law
was not long left in doubt as to her
feelings. The flashing glance from
those stern old eyes, the demand for
Aaron's hand instead of hers, swift
inquiry as TO the whereabouts of her
various belongings, this taught Jensy
where she stood and brought her 10
keeping herself and the baby in the
outer room away from the invalid.
An injudicious visitor, from time to
time, added details to the story that
Aaron had told and Verona had lis
tened to with incredulous ears. There
was word of broken saucers and bat
tered milk bucket found in the far
fields; of shreds of cotton, the very
lining of her poor home nest. fringing
the branches of forest trees. Her
wash tubs and Aaron's fences, wrought
so toilsomely out of stark timber,
would never be seen again.
After the storm came truthful, Glenn
ent spring weather. Old Verona,
growing better. lay all day, propped in
her bed. gazing quietly out of the open
window. Aaron would bring her
breakfast and put everything to her
hand; then he must go down with
Harvey to where they were rebuilding
the old home Neighbors helped; the
old man was still too crippled to be
of much use, and Verona sternly babe
him come back in time to wait upon
her with dinner, since she Stunned the
favors of those detested hands that
cooked the food. She could not him
der her own recovery, could not help
gaining strength; but she was furious
that she must be here and alive at all
Inly she ragged at the storm, at nature,
at herself at Jensy.
1t added poignancy to her sufferings
that she knew, as the warm April days
followed each other toward May, how
every old mother in the country was
hunting through a collection OF bak-
ing-powder cans and broken coffee pots
for saved garden seed, or running out
to look for eggs where the hens cack-
led in the log barn. Here she lay de-
fraude6 Of the usefulness that had
been hers since she could remember.
That woman out there kept the child
away from her, would not even offer
her the smallest task of knitting or
sewing. Life was pushing forward
without her. The chirping Of newly
Matched "weedies" filled the yard;
treetoads sang by night long-trilled.
cool nocturne; wrens building under
the porch caves twittered a sunshiny
MARBLE for each hour of the day. The