Shoshone journal. [volume] (Shoshone, Idaho) 1884-1931, 1917-12-28
CHAPTER III.
marthy Buriss Her Dead and Grssts
Her Nephew.

Marthy Buriss Her Dead and Grsets
Her Nephew.
| 1ASE did not move or give his Gus
tomary, querulous grunt when Mar
thy nudged him at daylight, one
morning in mid April. Marthy gave an
other poke with her elbow and lay still,
numbed by a sudden dread She moved
cautiously out of the bed and half
across the cramped room before she
turned her bead toward him. Then she
stood still and looked and looked. her
hard face growing each moment more
pinched and stony and gray.
Jase had died while the coyotes were
yapping their dawn song up on the rim
of the cove. He lay rigid under the
coarse, gray blanket, the flesh Of his
face drawn close to the bones, his
skinny, gray beard tilted upward.
Marthy's jaw set into a harsher out
line than ever. She dressed with slow,
heavy movements and went out and fed
the stock. In stoid calm she did the
milking and turned out the cows into
the pasture. She gathered an apron
full Of chips and started fire, just as
she had done every morning for twenty
nine years, and she put the cOfeepot
on the greasy stove and boiled the brew
Of yesterday, which was also her habit.
She sat for some time with her head
leaning upon her grimy hand and stared
unseeingly out upon a peach tree in
full bloom and at a pair of busy robins
who had chosen q convenient crotch for
their nest. Finally she rose stifay, as
If she had grown older within the last
hour, and went outside TO the place
where she had been mending the irri-
eating ditch the day before. She knock
ed the wet sand on the shovel she had
left sticking in the soft bank and went
out OF the yard and up the slope toward
the rock wall.
On tiny, level place above the main
ditch and just under the wall Marthy
began to dig, setting her broad, fat foot
uncompromisingly upon the shoulder Of
the shovel and sending it deep into the
yellow soil She worked slowly and
methodically and steadily, just as abe
did everything else. When she had dug
down as deep as she could and still
manage TO climb out and had the hole
wide enough and long enough, she got
swkwardly to the grassy surface and
sat for a long while upon rock, star
ing dumbly at the gaunt, brown hills |
across the river.
She returned to the cabin at last, and, |
with the manner Of one who breads do |
ing what must be done, she went in |
where Jase lay stiff and cold under the |
blankets.
Early that afternoon Marthy went l
staggering up the slope, wheeling Jase's
body before her on the creaky, home
made wheelbarrov. In the same harsh,
primitive manner in which they both I
had lived Aarthy buried her dead And
though in life she had given him few
words save in command or upbraiding,
With never hint Of love to sweeten the
lays for either, yet she went whimper-
IF three branches Of precious peach
blossoms and carried them up the slope
She stuck them upright in the lumpy
oil over Jase's head and stood there
long while with tear streaked face,
taring down at the grave and at the
lodding pink blossoms
Billy Louise rode singing down the
ocky trail through the deep, narrow ,
orge to where the hawthorn and choke ,
herries hid the opening to the cove.
From there to the pink drift OF peach |
loom against the dull brown of the !
luff Blue galloped angrily, leaving !
eep, black prints in the soft green OF |
be meadow. So they came headlong r
pom Marthy, Just as she was knocking :
he yellow clay OF the grave from her :
shovel against the pole fence +
her pigpen- \
''Why, Marthy!" Once before in her
Re Billy Louise had seen Marthy's chin s
nivering like that and big, slow tears q
iding down the network of lines on q
arthy's leathery cheeks With a
iinfl slump her spirits went heavy II
18th her sympathy. ~Marthy r. q
She knew without a word of expla-
stion just what had happened. From rs
arthy's bent shoulders she knew and h,
ON her tear stained face and from 8,
e yellow soil clinging still to the NJ
ovel In her hand. The wide eyes OF
lily Louise sent seeking glances up TT
e slope where the soil WIS yellow;
mt to the long, wv ridge under the
Ill, with the peach blossoms standing II
ifully awry upon the western end. II
IT eyes filed with tears. ''Oh. Mar II
ri When was it," :
In the night, some time. guess"