Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1918-01-04

memory. 1t was q night OF swapping
fire in the cook stove that hot water
might be always ready; of tireless
struggle with the pain that came and
tortured, retired sullenly from Billy
Louise's stubborn fighting with poul-
tees and turpentine cloths n every
homely remedy she had eyer heard of,
and came again just when she thought
she had won the fight.
There was no time to give thought to
the trouble that had ridden home with
her, though its presence was like a
black shadow behind her while she
worked and went to and fro between
bedroom and kitchen and fought that
tearing pain.
She met the dawn hollow eyed and
so tired she could not worry very much
about anything. Her mother slept I'M
easily to prove that the battle had not
gone altogether against the girl who
had fought the night through. She had
her reward in full measure when the
doctor came, in the heat of noon, and
after terrible minutes of suspense for
Billy Louise while he counted pulse
and TOOK temperature and studied
symptoms, told her that she had done
well and hat she and her homely poul-
tees had held back tragedy from that
house.
Billy Louise lay down upon the couch
out on the back porch and slept heav-
lily for three hours, while Phoebe and
the doctor watched over her mother.
She woke with a start. She had been
dreaming, and the dream had taken
from her cheeks what little color her
night vigil had left. She had dreamed
were hunting him for what he had done
at that corral. The corral seemed the
center of a fight between Ward and the
men. She dreamed that he came to
her and that she must hide him away
and save him. But though she took
him to a cave, which was secret enough
for her purpose, yet she could not feel
that he was safe even there. There
was something-some mi
Billy Louise went softly into the
house, tiptoed to the door of her moth
er's room and saw that she lay quiet,
with her eyes closed. Beside the win
dow the doctor sat with his spectacles
far down toward the end of his nose,
reading a pale green pamphlet that he
must have brought in his pocket. Phoe-
be was down by the creek washing
clothes in the shade of a willow clump.
She went into her own room, still
walking on her toes. In her trunk was
a blue plush box of the kind that is
given to one at Christmas. 1t was fad
ed and the clasp was showing brassy
at the edges. Sitting upon her bed with
the box In her lap Billy Louise paved
hastily in the tumble of keepsakes 1t
held; an eagles claw which she meant
some time to have mounted for a
brooch; three or four arrowheads of
the shiny, black stuff which the Indians
were said to have brought from Vel
lowstone park; a knot of green ribbon
which she had worn to a st. Patrick's
day dance in Boise; rattlesnake rattles
of all sizes; several folded clippings
verses that had caught her fancy and
had been put away and forgotten; an
amber bead she had found once. She
turned the box upside down in her lap
and shook it. 1t must be there-the
thing she sought, the thing that had
troubled her most in her dream; the
thing that was a menace while it ex-
listed. 1t vas at the very bottom OF
the box, caught in a r She took
it out with fingers that trembled, crum-
pied it into a little ball so that she
could not read what it said, straight
ened it Immediately and read it re-
~luctantly from the beginning to the end
where the last word was clipped short
with hasty scissors. A paragraph cur
from a newspaper it was; yellow an1
frayed from contact with other objects,
telling of things
Billy Louise bit her lips until Trey
hurt, but she could not keep back the
tears that came hot and singing while
she read. She slid the little heap of
odds and ends to the middle of the bed,
crushed the clipping into her palm and
went out stealthily into the immaculate
kitchen. AS If she were being spied
upon she went cautiously to the stove,
lifted a lid and dropped the clipping in
where the wood blazed the brightest.
She watched it flare and become moth
ing-not even a pinch of ashes; the
clipping was not very large. When it
was gone she put the lid back and
went tiptoeing to the door. Then she
ran.
Phoebe was down by the creek, so
Billy Louise went to the stable,
through that and on beyond, still run
ming. Farther down was a grassy
nooR-on beyond the road. She went
there and hid behind the willows,
where she could cry and no n be the
wiser. But she could not cry the ache
out of her heart nor the rebellion
against the hurt that life had given
her. If she could only have burned
memory when she burned that clip
ping! She could still believe and be