The Ordway new era., 1916-12-15


quainted hyarabouts as further up
Tribulation. What manner O. lookin'
man air he?"
He don't look like nothin' much. "
replied his wife morosely. Hes Jest
an ornery-lookin' old man"
WHITTIER did he sot out ter go when
he left hyar?"
| The woman shook her head. then
grim flash of latent wrath broke in
her eyes.
I'll Jest let ye hev the truth.
stranger. Some trifin' fellers done
sa a'ntered past hyar with a jug Of
ticker. an thet fool Fletch hes jest
done follered 'em off. Thets all thar
is to hit. an he hain't got no license
ter ack thetaway nuther. reckon
by now he's a-layin' drunk some
whars."
For n moment there was silence,
through which drifted the distant
tinkle of cowbells down the creek.
Beyond the crests fingered only
lemon afterglow as relict of the dead
day. The brown, colorless man astride
his mule sat stupidity looking down at
the brown, colorless woman across the
stile. The waiting girl heard the
preacher inquiring which way the
master of the house had gone and
surmising that ''mebby he'd better set
out in search of him." the words
seemed to come from q great dis
tance. and her head swan giddily.
Then. overcome with disgust and
Ipa Holland tho
afterglow turn slowly to pale gray
and then to black. shot through with
orange spots. Then she grew sud-
denly Indifferent to the situation.
swayed in her saddle. and slipped
Imply to the ground.
The young woman who had come to
conquer the mountains and carry a
torch of enlightenment to their illit-
eracy had tainted from discourage
ment and weariness at the end of the
first days march.
The weariness which caused the
fainting spell must have heightened
its duration. for when Juanita's lashes
fiickered upward again and her brain
came gropingly back to consciousness
she was no longer by the stile.
She was lying in the smotherinS
softness Of a feather bed. On her pal
ate and tongue fingered an unfamiliar,
sweetish taste. while through her
veins she felt the coursing of warm
glow
Over her stood the woman who had
been across the stile when she tainted
her attitude anxiously watchful. In
one hand she held stone jug, and in
the other a gourd dipper. So that
accounted for the taste and the glow.
and as Juanita took in the circum-
stance she heard the high, nasal voice,
pitched none the less in tone of
kindly reinsurance.
Yen be spry as squirrel in a leetle
spell. honey. Don't fret yoreself none.
Ye war jest plumb tuckered out an
We swooned. I've been a rubin your
hands an a-pourin' a little white
Ticker down yore throat. Don't worrit
yoreself none. We're pore folks an
we haint got much but l reckon we
kin make out ter enjoy ye somehow" !"
The four walls of the cabin might
have been the rocky confines of a
CdNtlu, 81 lOI
they merge into the impalpable and
sooty murk that hung between them.
obliterating all remoter outline. Only
things in a narrow circle grew visible,
and at the center of this lighted area
was the slender figure of a girl hold
ing up lard taper, it's radius of light
yellow and flicksring.
AS the mountain girl felt the eyes
of the strange and, to her. wonderful
woman from the great, unknown
world on her. her own dark lashes
fell timidly and the hand that held
the taper trembled, while into her
cheeks crept carmine self-conscious-
ness. Juanita. for her part. sensed in
her veins a new and subtler glow than
that which the moonshine whisky had
quickened. The men and women of
the hills had made her heartsick with
their stolid and animallike coarseness
Now she saw a slender figure in which
the lines were yet transitory between
the straightness of the child and the
budding curves of womanhood
1t was to such children of the hills
as this that Juanita Holland was to
bring the new teachings. But even as
she smiled the child-for she seemed
to be only fifteen or sixteen-surren-
dered to her shyness and. thrusting
the taper into her mothers hand,
shrank out of sight in some shad.
owed corner Of the place.
Then Juanita's eyes occupied them
selves with what fragmentary details
the faint light revealed. The barrel
of a rife caught the weak flare and
glittered. The uncarpeted floor Of
rude puncheon slabs lay a thing Of
gaping cracks, and overhead there was
a vague feeling Of low rafters, from
which hung strings of ancient and