The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1917-12-28
CHAPTER III.
Marthy Buries Her Dead and Greets
Her Nephew.

4 S3tioS FicT GCdQ anu vi SSe'
Her Nephew.
Ease did not move or give his Gus
tomary, querulous grunt when Mar
thy nudged him at daylight, ont
morning in mid April. Marthy gave an
other poke with her elbow and lay still
numbed by sudden dread. She moved
cautiously out of the bed and hall
: across the cramped room before she
turned her head toward him. Then she
stood still and looked and looked, heI
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 harsher out
line than ever She dressed with slow,
heavy movements and went out and fed
the stock. In stolid 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 coffeepot
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 pair of busy robins
who had chosen a convenient crotch for
their nest Finally she rose stiffiy, 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 off 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 tie wall Marthy
began to dig, setting her broad, fiat foot
uncompromisingly upon the shoulder OF
the shovel and sending it deep into the
yellow soil. She worked slowly and
did everything else. When she had dug
down as deep as she could and still
N image to climb out and had the hole
wide enough and long enough, she got |
awkwardly to the grassy surface and |
sat for long while upon a 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
up the slope, wheeling Jase's
body before her on the creaky, home
made wheelbarrow. In the same harsh,
primitive manner in which they both
had lived Marthy 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-
ing away from that grave. She broke
off 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,
staring down at the grave and at the
lodding pink blossoms.
Billy Louise rode singing down the I
ocky trail through the deep, narrow
Jorge to where the hawthorn and choke
berries hid the opening to the cove
From there to the pink drift of peach I
loom against the dull brown of the 6
huff Blue galloped angrily, leaving s
eep, black prints in the soft green of I
lpon Marthy, just as she was knocking s
he yellow clay of the grave from her s
rrigating shovel against the pole fence +
t her pigpen. Y
t"Why, Marthyp Once before in her
lie Billy Louise had seen Marthy's chin s
like that and big, slow tears a
liding down the network of lines on a
Iarthy's leathery cheeks. With q a
ainfuI slump her spirits went heavy d
18th her sympathy. "Marthyp O
She knew without a word of expla-
alton just what had happened. From I,
[arthy's bent shoulders she knew and h
rom her tear stained face and from a
le yellow soil clinging still to the 3
novel in her hand. The wide eyes of
lily Louise sent seeking glances up II
Re slope where the soil was yellow; II
ent to the long, raw ridge under the II
all, with the peach blossoms standing II
tifully awry upon the western end. II
er eyes filled with tears. "Oh, Mar II
vi When was itY Z