The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1935-09-26
CHAPTER I

Line pot WHICH DOlleur,O over IudL Jay
in Hostile Valley had been years brew
ing; two years, or twenty, according
to the point of view. Hubby Ferrin
may have been it's chief Ingredient;
but Jenny Pierce had also a major
part in what ensued.
Jenny had never lived for long in
any other world than this deep glen.
1t was almost twenty years since her
father died; and her mother sold their
farm in Liberty and came, with Jenny
in her arms, to lodge here with old
Marin Pierce, who was Jenny's grand
mother.
Marin Pierce, before their coming,
dwelt alone, in one half of what had
been a farmhouse of some size, on the
old Haven place. The house itself was
built by her father long ago. When
he died, her brother Win, who had a
wandering foot, and who had never
spent more time here in the Valley
than he must, wished to sell; but
Marin Pierce would not.
81 was born in this house and I'm
mind to die here" she told him stout
ly. Half of it's mine, and half's yours.
You go on and sell your half if you
want; but I aim to go on living in
NINE"
But obviously 1t was impossible to
sell half of a house; and Win Haven
ragged at her obstinacy. She remained
mistaken, and the result was one of
those quarrels which become more bit
ter with years, which grow and thrive
on their own acrid juice. The house
and the farm they divided half and
half, by straight line drawn through
the very middle of the house itself !;
and since then, Marin Pierce kept rig
idly to her half-and her brother ma
liciously allowed his side Of the house
to molder and decay.
Jenny, as she grew older for a while
used to imagine dreadful things lurk-
ing in the other side-Niarm Pierce
called it the Win-side-of this strange
house divided; and when windows fell
out and doors sagged on their hinges,
she sometimes crept secretly into the
empty rooms to peer into Swallowed
corners, and start and run at the
squeak of a mouse. Till one morning,
thus venturing, she found Win Haven
himself in drunken sleep on the floor,
and fed in stark dismay, weeping with
fright, to her grandmother.
Good enough for you." Marin Pierce
told her sharply. you keep out of the
Win-side of the house after this. Let
L. L., Al ~ h; 80
if he's mind"
Thereafter, Jenny obeyed this in
junction, though she eventually lost
any particular fear of Win Haven. He
was a restless man, appearing and dis
appearing at long intervals, gone some
times for months, sometimes for years.
But always the day came when Jenny
and her grandmother heard some stir
of movement in the empty rooms so
close TO those in which their own lives
were lived and old Marin Pierce would
say tartly:
well, that Wins back again!"
Jenny sometimes encountered him.
He was already an old man, who grew
older; yet there was youth in him too,
and a vigorous spirit and a wise old
eye. Bleared sometimes, by the life he
led: leering sometimes with an appre-
ciative CLINT as he watched Jenny's
young beauty passing by. But wise
and keen for all of that. A man with
mirth and malice in him. Sometimes,
in his own side of the house, he sang
far into the night drunken, ribald
songs, for the sake of annoying Marin
Pierce with whom so long ago he had
quarreled.
But as the Win-side of the house
began to crumble. and the roof to leak.
and the windows to sag, he came less
often. There was no decent shelter In
the rotting rooms. Jenny and Marin
Pierce might forget him for months
on end.
The farm was remote, approached
by byway which led off the road
that ran up and down the Valley; but
even the Valley road itself was little
Travelled. AS long ago as Jenny's child
hood, the Valie~ Was 'l~0a dy a soil