The Coolidge examiner., 1931-10-09
will be verv famonn AaA -,

| n
wrenched from her like a cry.
They will tell stories about Yan.
cery until he will grow into leg
end. He will be part of the history
of the Southwest. They will re.
member him and write about him
when all these mealy-faced cover
nors are dead and gone and forgot
ten. They will tell the little chill,
dren about him, and they will dis
pute about him-he did this, he did
that; he was like this. he was like
that You will see."
Sabra thought of her own chill
dren, who knew so little of their
rather. Donna, a thin secretive
child OF almost seven now, with
dark, straight black hair and a
sallow skin like Yancey's; Gin, al
most thirteen, moody, charming,
imaginative. Donna was more like
her grandmother Felice Venable
than her own mother; Gin re-
| sembled Yancey so strongly in
mood, manner, and emotions as TO
have almost no trace of Sabra. She
wondered, with a pang, if she had
failed to impress herself on them
because of her absorption in the
town, in the newspaper, in the re-
solve to succeed. She got out a
photograph of Yancey that she had
hidden away because to see it was
to feel a stab of pain, and had it
framed, and hung it on the wall
where the children conld see it
daily.
Your father" Sabra would be-
gin, courageOusly, resolved to make
him live again in the minds of the
children. Donna was not especially
| interested. Cim said, Il know it,"
and capped her story with tale of
his own in which Yancey's feat Of
| derringdo Outrivaled any swash-
buckling escapade of D'Artagnan.
"Oh, but Cim, that's not true!
You mustn't believe stories like
that about your father"
1T is true. Isaiah told me.
guess he ought to know" And then
the question she dreaded. "When
are Isaiah and father coming
back?"
She could answer, somehow, eva
sively, about Yancey, for her in
stinct concerning him was sure and
strong. But at the fate that had
overtaken the negro boy she cow
| cred, afraid even to face the
thought of it. For the thing that
had happened TO the black boy was
so dreadful, so remOrSeless that
when the truth of it came to Sabra
she felt all this little world of pro-
priety, of middle-class Middle West
convention that she had built up
| about her turning to ashes under
| the sudden flaring fire of hidden
savagery. She tried never TO think
of 1t, but sometimes, at night, the
hideous thing took possession of
her. and she was swept by such
horror that she crouched there un-
der the bedclothes, clammy and
shivering with the sweat of utter
fear. Her hatred of the Indians
now amounted TO an ObseSsiOn.
1t was in the fourth year of Yam
cey's absence that, coming sudden
ly and silently into the kitchen
from the newspaper office. where
she had been busy as usual, she
saw her Indian maid twisted in
cOntOrtion in front of the table
where she had been at work. Her
face was grotesque, was wet. with
agony. 1t was the agony which
only one Kind of pain can bring to
woman's face. The Indian girl
was in the pangs of childbirth.
Even as she saw her Sabra realized
that something about her had
vaguely disturbed her in the past
few weeks. Yet she had not known.
had not dreamed of this. The loose
garment which the CIR! always
wore-the erect dignity of her In
dian carriage-tbc stoiciSm of her
rdce-had served to keep secret her
condition She had had, too. Sabra
now realized in a flash. way of
being out of the room when her
mistress was in it; busy in the
pantry when Sabra was in the
kitchen: busy in the kitchen when
Sabra was in the dining room; in
and out like dark. swift shadow.
"Aritai Here. Come. Lie down.
III send for your father-your
mother" Her father was Big
Knee. well known and something of
power in the Usage tribe. OF the
tribal officers he was one of the
eight members of the council and
as such was part of the tribes gov
erning body.
Dreadful as the look on Arita's
face had been, it was now comfort
ed almost beyond recognition. No!
MOI" she broke into d storm Of
pleading in her own tongue. Her
eyes were black pools of agony.
Sabra had never thought that one
of pure Indian blood would thus
give way to any emotion before
white person.
She put the girl to bed. She sent
Isaiah for Doctor Valiant, who
luckily was in town and sober. He
went to work quietly, efficiently,
aided by Sabra, making the best of
such crude necessities as came
to hand. The girl made no outcry.
Her eyes were a dull, dead black;
her face was rigid. Sabra, passing
| from the kitchen to the girls bed
room with hot water, cloths, blan-
kets, saw Isaiah crouched in a cor