Cleveland County herald., 1920-10-14

houseboat the Iron n-Gray-Woman still lay back in the shaky rocking chair. Dipping the battered cup full of fresh water, the man stepped to her side.
 "Your cool drink, mother"
 The thin lids raised. The eyes she turned toward him must have been wonderfully beautiful in her day large and deep and lustrous The cough that wasted her breast seemed poWerless to dim their luster.
 The man crossed the cabin and laid his hand on the rumpled curtain over the doorway, about to return to his task of sharpening the fish spear
 Tt looks cool-and calm-up there
 He paused; glanced back over his shoulder at her, and waited for her to go on.
 "Is that a log house I see up there under the cliffs?"
 The floor of the houseboat creaked under the weight of him as i.e came to the window. He had to stoop low to bring his eyes level with the open ing.
 "A log house; old and empty"
 The Iron-GrayWoman sat musing a moment, her eyes astray among the trees holding languidly in the serene June afternoon.
 T wish 1 might live again upon the shore. The sun beats down so hot upon the houseboat, and I grow weary of the eternal throb of the river If could only live little while up there l should grow strong"
 And why not? It's empty, and no- body would care. In these deep woods there's nobody to care"
 A flicker of light crossed her face.
 "Fd get well up there, under the strong cliffs, with the cool spring so near. And I've lived so long-since you were q child in arms-On the river the Ohio; the White; the Wabash p
 Always, mother! Always the house. boat-drifting; drifting-and you so frail so beautiful!"
 The man left the window and knelt by the rocking chair The Iron-Gray- Woman saw the question in his eyes a hunger for some word out of the past: word that had never come. All his life she had kept it from him whatever it had been that happened back there behind the veil of her si- lenee that left him nameless; a river waif a nomad in an orderly world fisher of pearls pearlhunter. Her eyes came back and faltered over him. No longer a child; a boy-the reflec- tion startled her. A man knelt at her side-the question written big upon his face. And it was his right to know. Her head dropped back against the quilt that cushioned the chair. It's a solemn thing to be the mother of man-glorious but solemn.
 The lustrous eyes-brighter for the fever wasting them-came back to him after time. He saw q far-fung thoughtfulness in them; knew they had strayed into that past from which he was barred. The thin lips parted. The mans fingers curled tense upon the chair arm.
 ITO a city on the Wabash, in early days. came three families of Virginia's purest blood-my family, your fathers family. and the family of-of-another man."
 The Iron.Gray- Woman shuddered and was silent for a moment The man picked up wasted hand stroked 1t softly bets7een his own, and she went On, strained and slow, like one desperately nerved to a long-dreaded task
 My parents both died when I was so small that I can barely remember thenl4 leaving me, their only child, to the care of distant relative, great uncle of my fathers. This great-great- uncle-Well, as 1 look back upon my life 1 cannot remember that he ever gave me pleasant word
 My aunt was as different as dawn to dark. She was everything that he was not. A thousand times she loved my hurt away.
 "They had daughter, an only child, almost my age, and of the same name surname and all When uncle was away on business trips as he often was for weeks, it was like sunshine after rain. Such happy times! They are high among the few pleasant memories of my life.
 The IronGray Woman paused, her dark, deep eyes seeming to search back into the dead past, like traveller straining his gaze across a stretch of desert to wheree the oasis lies. The man shifted to his other knee and she went on.
 My aunt died when we were in our girlhood. After that-the gray days were ever more than the bright. A petulance settled deep upon my uncle. His best word was growl. The serv- ants moved about the house like silent shadows.
 Tn this same city upon the Wabash lived two other families, as I have told you-your fathers family and the family of-of-another man. Your father an0 this other man were both my sultors. But my uncle tried every means in his power to turn your fla ther away from me to my cousin