Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1921-11-25

AAAS 6lCoI duO WhuOAhCoo
smothered me. l imagined that l could
hear voices calling to me, saying
"'Cain! Cainp
"They came from the laurel thickets,
from the trees overhead, from the
ground, from everywhere. You see,
wasn't all bad, even in my wildcats
days. Then thought of the law, and
| ran. ..
But the cry Of child from the
cabin | was leaving halted me before
had gone thirty yards. David More
lands wife had left him with a baby
only a few weeks old, which l didn't
| pay any particular attention to until
that morning, that black morning. At
that time there was no other house
for miles around. l couldn't leave the
child there to die Of starvation, after
killing its father. So I went back and
got the baby, and all it's clothing, and
took it away with me. left it at
farmhouse down in the lowland, and
went to another city, and started life
afresh.
"But later I married, and shortly
after that / went to the farmer and
persuaded him to let me adopt the
child. l brought it up as my own, and
educated it, as sort Of compensation.
And l came to love it. But it was
years before my wife loved it. She
didn't like children then. But she does
now. She is paying now, and | am
paying. Don't you understand, Bill
don't you understands
There was a choke in his voice to-
ward the last. Bill Dale went to his
feet. His eyes were wide, but he did
not seem unhappy; and for that Eliza
beth was grateful. John Moreand sat
as still, with his bearded, viking face
as expressionless as though he had
known it all along.
"And so l really am in my own
country" cried Bill Dale. II am a
Moreland, and the Morelands really
are my own people,"
"Yes, you are in your own country,
and you are a Moreland-and your
baby name was David" said John K.
Dale.
1t was then that John Moreland
spoke.
bill, when l fust seed you, you
made me think O. my brother the day
he was married. I amt never fo'got
that l sartainly amt surprised none
at all. We didn't know about the
baby. Cherokee Joe told me the baby
had died"
"And now, son." pleaded old Dale,
his voice breaking, "say that you for
give me-"
Bill Dale, David Moreland's boy,
knelt beside the old sheepskin-lined
rocker, took the old coal kings hand
In both his own and bent his head
over it.
"Its all right" he said thickly. "It's
all right"
Elizabeth Littleford arose and stole
blindly out of the house. Her foot
steps led her, quite without her real
izing where she was going, across the
meadow and to the river above the
blown-down sycamore. And there on
that sacred spot, where she had first
felt her heart leap at the sound of
Bill Dale's voice, she sank down in
a heap in the snow and cried, and
cried.
Twilight was gathering rapidly, but
she did not notice it. She did no.
notice, either, that the air was grow
ing steadily colder with the apprOa:h n
nf hn tn inhf har
warm sun was shining above In a
bright blue vault; to her the spirit Of
summer was everywhere; in her ears
there was the liquid song of a meadow
lark, the sweet twittering Of wood
thrushes, the low humming of wild
bees. The pouring of the crystal wa
ters between the two boulders above
the pool made music to her, and blend
ed with it she seemed to hear the voice
Of big, clean, strong man
II was thinking Of the difference be-
tween you and some other women
know"
Then a ray Of hope shone into her
heart. Bill Dale was really More
land and, therefore, Of the hill blood
even as she was Of the hill blood, and
that should make them more nearly
equal. She told herself that he wouldn't
be so apt to condemn her for being
able to take a human life easily as
one Of another blood would be; he
would be more apt to understand. And
yet, the women he had known were
gentle, tender and refined, like, for in
stance, Patricia McLaurin. Soon the
ray of hope died within her, and she
bent her head and sobbed again.
One Of her bare hands began to
grope idly in the snow at her side, and
she did not feel the cold. Suddenly
she realized that her hand was full
of shavings, whittlings. Some man
had been sitting there whiting with
a pocket knife-it must have been a
man, for who ever heard of a woman
whiting? She felt In the snow with
both hands, and found more whittlings
there were bushels of whittlings, it
seemed to her, lying there under the
snow.
Then she wondered-wondered who