HfraB
 
 SALLY SALT
 
 UNIV. OF CALIF. LIBRARY. WW
 
 ' Bcrta will carry you like a bird."
 
 SALLY SALT 
 
 By 
 
 MRS. WILSON WOODROW 
 
 Author ef 
 
 THE SILVER BUTTERFLY 
 TKIi BEAUTY 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 
 DAVID ROBINSON 
 
 SYNDICATE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK LONDON
 
 COPYRIGHT 1912 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 1 THE SYMPHONY OF DAY . . . 1 
 
 II AN OLD, NEW DREAM ...... 18 
 
 III A CLOUD IN THE SKY 34 
 
 IV BEYOND THE HILLS 4$ 
 
 V ON THE KNEES OF THE GODS 67 
 
 VI A WILE OF SATAN 79 
 
 VII MRS. KURD GOES HALVES 94 
 
 VIII STREATHAM TELLS A STORY 109 
 
 IX MORE OF HILDA'S SECRET 130 
 
 X HIRED MAN OR HUSBAND? .... 145 
 
 XI MRS. HILL FREES HER MIND .... 162 
 
 XII MRS. KURD'S NEXT MOVE 179 
 
 XIII TIGHTENING THE SCREWS 196 
 
 XIV BESIDE THE POPPY TENTS . . . ,210 
 XV WHISPERS AND GLIMPSES 221 
 
 XVI AUTUMN WITHOUT ANTHONY 235 
 
 XVII HILDA MAKES CONFESSION .... 253 
 
 XVIII THE QUEST OF THE ROAD 267 
 
 XIX ANTHONY'S STRANGE LETTER . . . 283 
 
 XX LUCY TAKES COURAGE . . . 297 
 
 XXI DAUGHTER OF DREAMS 312 
 
 XXII THE HUNT FOR GRISSOM 324 
 
 XXIII ANTHONY COMES HOME ....*. 339 
 
 2134014
 
 SALLY SALT
 
 SALLY SALT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE SYMPHONY OF DAY 
 
 IT was barely dawn when Sally Salt walked across 
 the fields. A dim, gray world still in its night- 
 dream lay all about her. Trees and hills were color- 
 less spaces of shadow, meadows sweeping in every 
 direction were colorless spaces of light ; and through 
 the waiting silence of the earth consciousness wak- 
 ing, but not yet sentient the musical, monotonous 
 ripple of the river reached her, unchanging, un- 
 hurrying, unresting timeless. The same to-day as 
 a million years ago, and the same through to-mor- 
 row's million years. 
 
 On its brink Sally paused and lifted her face, for 
 a wind, fresh with the purity of the dawn, had be- 
 gun to blow, the shadows and half-tones merged 
 
 i
 
 2 SALLY SALT 
 
 into a clear, cold spread of light where every tree 
 and every leaf on the tree was defined against a sky 
 changing like an opal. A bird soared from the 
 wheat, singing; the sun rose from the hills; the 
 fields of young corn became vividly green, the wheat- 
 fields yellow. Sally stood gazing over those wide 
 lagoons of grain until a stronger gust blew from the 
 sunrise and they rippled into beautiful brown 
 shadows, then she bent her head a little and seemed 
 to listen. 
 
 The air was full of countless, mingling sounds; 
 the whir of grasshopper wings, the twittering of 
 little birds, the soft, immaterial presence of the 
 wind, stealing through the corn and fattening grain 
 with creeping feet and caressing hands and singing 
 its faint, sighing song. It was the tuning up of an 
 innumerable orchestra for the glorious Symphony 
 of Day. 
 
 And Sally, as she stood on the river's brim, the 
 waves of the cockle-starred wheat flowing up to her, 
 encompassing her waist high, was herself the epit- 
 ome of the harvest. She stood straight as an 
 Indian, a woman a little above medium height with 
 a deep chest and slender hips. Her red hair was
 
 THE SYMPHONY OF DAY 3 
 
 held in a great loop high on her head, and her skin 
 was tanned to a lovely, mellow brown with a stain 
 of crimson on either cheek, rich and dusky as the 
 bloom of a peach. Her blue eyes were at once 
 shrewd and reckless and warmly, deeply loving, 
 while the prodigal curves of her red mouth were 
 stayed at the corners by sharply defined dimples of 
 laughter. 
 
 The tuning was over, the first movement of the 
 symphony had begun, and Sally drew a long breath 
 and wakened like the earth, her mother. The sun 
 rose in her eyes; a song swelled in her heart; her 
 lips parted in a smile; the summer seemed to glow 
 through her. 
 
 "He's walking down some road that leads to me 
 now," she murmured. "Maybe it will be to-day, 
 maybe it will be to-morrow ; but it's got to be soon ; 
 the wheat's ripe." 
 
 She drew a head of the harsh, bearded grain lov- 
 ingly through her fingers ; then she threw back her 
 head and held out her arms : 
 
 "I'm hearing your footsteps, Anthony; they're 
 echoing in my heart." 
 
 Then, sighing and smiling, she went her way,
 
 4 SALLY SALT 
 
 across her fields, across the broad, white turnpike, 
 through the orchard toward the house, which 
 showed in glimpses through the trees; a rambling, 
 gray farm-house with wide porches. As Sally's in- 
 clination prompted, she added to it a wing, a room 
 or a bow-window ; but now, in midsummer, its irreg- 
 ularities were softened, almost concealed, by the 
 vines in whidi it was embowered. From the green 
 lawn-spaces before it rose some noble old trees, with 
 long, drooping branches, while at the side, between 
 the house and the orchard, lay an old-fashioned 
 garden, bright with flowers. 
 
 As Sally came up the path, a little, faded, elderly 
 woman, who sat in a rocking-chair on the porch, 
 leaned forward and peered curiously through the 
 vines. 
 
 "Why, Mis' Salt," she cried in a thin, quavering 
 voice. "Where you been? It's 'most breakfast 
 time." 
 
 "I hope so," said Sally heartily. "Please, Mrs. 
 Nesbit, tell Aunt Mandy to hurry it up. I'm 
 hungry." 
 
 As Mrs. Nesbit passed through the widely opened 
 hall door into the house, drawing her crocheted
 
 THE SYMPHONY OF DAY 5 
 
 shawl more closely about her, a gay voice called 
 "Sally" from an upper window and light feet came 
 running down the stairs. Two sleek, lazy cats, 
 sleeping in the sun, rose, arched their backs and 
 yawned; an old dog ran about the corner of the 
 house and down the path, wagging his tail in wel- 
 come. All was life and stir and movement; Sally 
 had come. 
 
 The possessor of the gay voice and flying feet 
 sped across the porch and over the lawn. "A sheaf 
 of letters for you, Sally!" cried Lucy Parrish, as 
 dainty as a peach blossom, as flitting and airy as a 
 humming-bird, twenty-four years old and looking 
 sixteen this morning in her pink muslin frock with 
 her dark hair hanging in a plait down her back. 
 Born in the middle-west, the only daughter of 
 wealthy parents, she had, while scampering over the 
 continent a few years before with a chaperon only 
 a shade less volatile than herself, met young Parrish, 
 also an American, and with more money than was 
 good for him. They had been married in London 
 a month or two later without the customary con- 
 sultation of friends. On the whole, the marriage 
 had been more successful than Lucy's relatives had
 
 6 SALLY SALT 
 
 sighingly and head-shakingly predicted ; but as they 
 continued to point out, not without a show of rea- 
 son, this incursion into matrimony was of a too 
 brief duration (young Parrish had died within a 
 twelvemonth) adequately to refute their pessimistic 
 prophecies. Lucy had now, quite unexpectedly and 
 for the first time, after her usual fashion of adopt- 
 ing an idea and acting upon it simultaneously, re- 
 turned to her home in the neighboring town of 
 Yoctangee. Her parents were absent, traveling in 
 Europe she was fully cognizant of this fact, by 
 the way, but it was lacking in significance until she 
 saw the unoccupied, boarded-up house, with shut- 
 tered windows like blank, unseeing eyes, and barred 
 door inhospitably refusing her shelter. Then, in a 
 panic, she sought her old friend, Sally Salt, the 
 mistress of "Buckeye Farms," and arranged to 
 spend the summer with her. 
 
 "You are not the only one who has letters," said 
 Lucy gloomily, as Sally caught at the six or seven 
 envelopes and ran over them, quick as a gambler 
 shuffles cards, her glance devouring each postmark 
 and inscription, her irradiation in eclipse, as no 
 rubber-stamped, unfamiliar name suggested a pos-
 
 THE SYMPHONY OF DAY 7 
 
 sible, paradisical village where lingered the one from 
 whom she desired words the one who, by merely 
 scrawling characters upon an envelope, characters 
 tersely proclaiming her name and post-office, could 
 cause her eyes to gleam, her heart to beat wildly, 
 her strong brown hands to tremble. 
 
 "I've had a letter from Anne Heath," continued 
 Lucy, her tone expressing an aggrieved protest 
 against what she evidently regarded as a sky-filling 
 tragedy. 
 
 "Oh, Anne!" Sally turned from disappointment 
 and resolutely considered the tragedy, but with in- 
 different tolerance. "Anne's all right, except she's 
 older than the hills and thinks she knows everything 
 in heaven or earth. It's her last year in college. 
 But let her come. Why not?" 
 
 "I knew you would say that. You have no sym- 
 pathy in your soul ; and yet think of it. Think of 
 my only brother having a daughter like Anne! 
 People do not know that he is nearly twenty years 
 older than I, and she is my niece my niece, and 1 
 not twenty-five ! You know that she carefully, very 
 carefully, never fails to call me 'aunt/ and still 
 you are not sorry for me." Lucy threw out her
 
 8 SALLY SALT 
 
 hands as if casting to the winds this statement so 
 incredible that her mind refused to harbor it. 
 
 "Not a mite," affirmed Sally tranquilly. "I'm 
 not sorry for any one who isn't blind or sick-a-bed ; 
 and what you need, Lucy Parrish, is no petting nor 
 coddling, but a good shaking. Young " 
 
 "Young!" interrupted Lucy scornfully. "Twen- 
 ty-five is not so very young " 
 
 "Young," repeated Sally firmly, "and rich and a 
 pretty doll," glancing down affectionately at the 
 charming figure beside her. "Oh, if you expect to 
 get any sympathy out of me, you'll have to search 
 some time, and if you do find any, you'll have to 
 jerk it up by the roots when I'm napping. I won't 
 give you any, I know; and as for that lonely bee 
 you've had lately, I'm afraid it will have to sting 
 you pretty hard before you are willing to shake it 
 out of your bonnet." 
 
 "But I am lonely, Sally." Lucy was indignant 
 that doubt should be cast upon the existence of her 
 crumpled roselcaf . "Look at me ! All alone in the 
 world with Anne for my only relative, on this side 
 of the ocean, anyway. If it wasn't for you, I'd 
 die."
 
 THE SYMPHONY OF DAY 9 
 
 "I guess so!" remarked Sally dryly. "That bee 
 once got stuck tight in my bonnet. I too had only 
 been married a short time when Henry, my husband, 
 died. Well, I had enough the farm he left me and 
 the farm father had left me, so I didn't have any- 
 thing to worry about. But I was young and ter- 
 ribly lonely, and every time I would look in the 
 glass that bee would buzz louder and louder, and 
 he'd say: 'What's the use of looking like peaches 
 and cream if there's no one to tell you so? What's 
 the use of being young and a woman if there's no 
 one to love you ?' ' 
 
 Lucy, wistfully dejected, with drooping mouth 
 and eyes fixed on the low, blue line of distant hills, 
 nodded full appreciation of the lonely bee's disturb- 
 ing sentiments. 
 
 "Well," continued Sally, "it was just about that 
 time that Clarence and his mother wanted to get 
 summer boarding, and at first it seemed an answer 
 to prayer. I was so tired of my own society that I 
 would almost have welcomed the devil. So they 
 came and you observe that Mrs. Nesbit is still 
 with me." 
 
 "Oh, Sally! You have never told me about
 
 io SALLY SALT 
 
 Clarence. What was he like?" Lucy sank down 
 on a grass plot between two beds of Madonna lilies 
 and tried to pull Sally down beside her. But Sally 
 protested. 
 
 "Now, child, I've got no time to spin yarns for 
 you. It's a big world, Lucy, and there's a lot to do 
 in it ; but I must say that at this minute I don't know 
 that I could put the time in any better than doing a 
 little weeding right here in your heart and soul. 
 Hand me that trowel, though; I might as well be 
 bedding a few geraniums at the same time," her eye 
 falling upon a neat row of flowering crimson and 
 pink plants ready to set out. 
 
 "But tell me about Clarence." Lucy was appar- 
 ently alarmed at the prospect of a soul-weeding. 
 
 "H'm, Clarence! Oh, yes, Clarence." Sally 
 dug vigorously in the yielding earth. "Well, he 
 wrote nature poems and essays. The essays always 
 began, 'I noticed to-day from my study windows 
 that the patch of snow on Farmer Allen's field has 
 melted, and that the willows along the river are 
 assuming,' et cetera. And the verses were always 
 about dryads of the leafy woods harkening to the 
 pipes of Pan. Then Clarence birded, too."
 
 THE SYMPHONY OF DAY 11 
 
 "He what?" 
 
 "Birded. He used to sling a field-glass over his 
 shoulders, stuff his pockets full of note-books and 
 take a camera ; and then we'd go out and sit as still 
 as mice on the hillside, and presently he'd lift his 
 glass and say: 'H-s-ss-h! There's a scarlet tan- 
 ager flying through the blue,' or 'Ss-h, in yonder 
 thicket is a speckled thrush. Wait till I look at my 
 notes.' Then he'd take his books out of his pockets 
 and turn over the leaves, and finally announce as 
 important as a robin that's found a worm in the 
 asphalt : 'That speckled thrush is three days earlier 
 than usual.' 
 
 "Why, Lucy," Sally paused carefully to lower the 
 roots of the geranium into the hole she had just pre- 
 pared, "I'd got positively ashamed of the way we 
 used to follow up those poor, inoffensive birds. 
 Clarence never showed the least respect for their 
 privacy. And he was always frightening them off 
 their nests about hatching time by snapping his 
 camera at them." 
 
 "Horrid thing !" commented Lucy indignantly. 
 
 "The artistic temperament." Sally packed the 
 earth loosely about her plant. "I believe that is
 
 12 SALLY SALT 
 
 what they call it. I've never been able to discover 
 rightly just what it is ; but I know from the experi- 
 ence I've had with several friends who claimed to be 
 afflicted with it that it goes with a powerful appe- 
 tite. Clarence would sit at the table with a black 
 silk necktie flowing from a low-necked shirt and 
 he'd be reading away so's he wouldn't know if you 
 dropped the stove-lid on the cat, and all the while 
 he'd be sort of idly conveying to his mouth cup after 
 cup of coffee and more muffins than Aunt Mandy 
 could well bake. But in spite of his appetite he was 
 very sickly, and I was so sorry for him that we al- 
 most got engaged. 
 
 "You see, Lucy, I was a regular 'Miss Busy' in 
 those days. Am still, I suppose ; but then I was one 
 of those smart, capable, do-it-all girls who always 
 take up with the poor, weak brother. Finally Clar- 
 ence got really sick, and his mother, you know," 
 with a backward nod at the little old lady swaying 
 to and fro behind the vines on the porch, "his mother 
 had no force, so I nursed him to the end. Funny 
 thing, he always seemed actually pleased at his being 
 so delicate regarded it as a sure proof of genius. 
 There were times on his death-bed," Sally spoke
 
 THE SYMPHONY OF DAY 13 
 
 almost pensively, "when I literally ached to spank 
 Clarence." 
 
 "Why, Sally Salt!" Lucy's tones were faintly 
 scandalized. "Didn't you nurse him to the very 
 last?" 
 
 "Please God, I did," said Sally simply. "If you 
 saw a little sick kitten crawling around so weak on 
 its paws that it could hardly stand steady, wouldn't 
 you tend it some? Of course. Here, hand me that 
 portulaca, Lucy. Funny thing. I never was one 
 to moon over books, but the winter Clarence was 
 sick I took to novels as some people do to drink. 
 You see, he needed a good deal of care, and my rest 
 at night was considerably broken. Before that, 
 when I chose a story, it would be about a sweet, 
 titled young girl who moved continually through 
 pleasures and palaces; but that winter I craved 
 stories about smugglers and burglars and murderers 
 any one who was taking a risk." 
 
 "How very different he must have been from 
 Anthony Streatham." Lucy's gaze reflected the 
 blank innocence of the skies above her; her voice 
 held only a reflective and impersonal comparison, 
 and yet, at the mention of that name, Sally's glance
 
 14 SALLY SALT 
 
 was not more quick than the deeper peach-dye on 
 her cheek. 
 
 "Of course." There was a touch of red-haired 
 asperity in Sally's voice. "But," more mildly won- 
 dering, "how did you happen to think of him ?" 
 
 Lucy Parrish was equally casual. "I do not 
 know, I am sure. It is about time for him to come, 
 isn't it ?" pulling up grass-blades and weaving them 
 between her fingers. 
 
 Sally paused in her digging and looked up at the 
 waving green branches above her head. "If I could 
 tell you why that bird is hopping from bough to 
 bough, I'd feel competent to prophesy some of An- 
 thony Streatham's movements." 
 
 "He is certainly unexpected. That is a part of 
 his charm, I suppose," agreed Lucy. "But to go 
 back to Clarence." Oh, the dew- washed innocence 
 of her tone, the skyey blankness of her eyes ! "After 
 it was all over, didn't you get lonely again, Sally, 
 and feel the need of companionship ?" 
 
 Sally Salt had risen to her feet and was shaking 
 the earth from her blue gown, and now she paused 
 to look down at her companion with a warm, humor- 
 ous scorn. Did this amateur Diana, all pink ribbons
 
 15 
 
 and white embroideries, lying along the ground like 
 a peach petal, with demure, lowered lashes, hope to 
 trap her, Sally, in nets as frail and obvious as her 
 woven grasses ? 
 
 "Child, it's buzzing," she warned. "That lonely 
 bee's buzzing loud. What you want to do is to get 
 busy. Now, for my part, I have no time to sit on 
 stiles and wish some one would come along and love 
 me. I've got plenty to love, and plenty of work to 
 do, and I guess that's a plenty for me. I've got 
 everything living on this place to look after. I've 
 got to get the best yield out of every foot of land on 
 these farms, and what's more, I've got to treat the 
 land so's it will want to give its best. 
 
 "I ever get lonely!" Sally Salt stood superbly 
 upright and tossed her head, shining like red gold in 
 the sunshine. "Spend my time studying to please a 
 man !" But the fervor and conviction of the senti- 
 ment was not corroborated by her voice. Her gaze 
 dreamed for a moment on the dim blue hills, and 
 she did not meet Lucy Parrish's suddenly uplifted 
 eyes. 
 
 "But you like men. You know you do." Now 
 that she had ceased to probe, perhaps had discovered
 
 16 SALLY SALT 
 
 what she wished to know, the careful indifference of 
 Lucy's voice gave way to a natural gaiety. She 
 abandoned her lolling pose and smoothed out her 
 peach-petal muslins. 
 
 "Of course I like men," averred Sally stoutly. 
 "They live sensible lives and get to know something. 
 I enjoy having them about; but marriage is differ- 
 ent. It's too intimate, and there are very few people 
 who can emerge from an intimacy with even a de- 
 cent respect for each other. And then it's the 
 dickens of a bore to be always trying to please some 
 one. Now, Lucy Parrish, do you think I would 
 ever try to melt myself down and run myself over 
 into another mold for the benefit of any man on 
 earth? No," with an individual upward toss of the 
 chin, "I'm going to live. I'm going to follow any 
 crazy idea that comes into my head. I'm going to 
 be free." 
 
 "So am I !" affirmed Lucy with ardor. 
 
 "You!" Sally's incredulity was explosive. 
 "What about John Witherspoon ?" 
 
 "John Witherspoon!" It was Lucy who was 
 now aflame with indignation. "He^ has nothing to 
 say in the matter. Why should he have ? Just be-
 
 THE SYMPHONY OF DAY 17 
 
 cause he has always lived in Yoctangee and took it 
 into his head to fall in love with me when he was a 
 young man in college and I was a little girl in a pink 
 bonnet, asleep in church, do I have to marry him? 
 It would be much more suitable for you to do so, 
 Sally; you are nearer his age, and then your farms 
 adjoin." 
 
 "He evidently prefers twenty-four to thirty-two," 
 said Sally equably, "and anyway, he wouldn't have 
 me as a present. Truth is that he's so responsible 
 and safe and sure that he bores himself to death. 
 He wants the excitement of chasing a worthless 
 little will-o'-the-wisp like you and climbing out of 
 the bogs that you lead him into." 
 
 Before Lucy could answer, a tall mulatto woman 
 with a red and yellow bandanna twisted about her 
 head appeared on the porch. 
 
 "Miss Sally," she called, "you an' Miss Lucy 
 bettah stop your all confabulatin' an' be comin' in if 
 you wants any breakfast. It's been ready dish yer 
 ten minutes."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 AN OLD, NEW DREAM 
 
 IT was noon that day when a stranger paused at 
 Sally's gate and leaned for a moment upon it, 
 gazing appreciatively at the embowered house, the 
 green lawns and flowered garden spaces. He was a 
 tall, thin, loosely-built fellow in a flannel shirt and 
 gray trousers, a gray coat thrown over one arm. 
 He had evidently walked many a mile, as the dust 
 on his heavy shoes indicated, yet he bore no trace 
 of fatigue in this moment of relaxation ; rather, his 
 attitude bespoke a contented languor, as if he had 
 at last reached journey's end. 
 
 He drew a long breath and leaned more heavily 
 on the gate. "The hunter home from the hill, the 
 sailor home from the sea," he murmured, his eyes 
 still dwelling affectionately upon this scene, of in- 
 closed seclusion, steeped in sunshine, dappled with 
 shade, lying in the noonday calm as if in a golden 
 
 18
 
 AN OLD, NEW DREAM 19 
 
 dream. They were eyes which shone oddly light 
 in his deeply tanned face, which was darker by 
 many shades than his sunburned hair. Gray eyes 
 the clear, cool gray of water flowing under a 
 sunless sky light, candid, amused in a chance 
 encounter; but in those periods of silence which An- 
 thony Streatham never hesitated to permit himself 
 in whatever company he might be, they clouded, 
 became remote, almost hooded, as if by the exercise 
 of will, he screened his thought with the veil of im- 
 penetrability. 
 
 This contradictory impression of the eyes was 
 borne out in all the other features of his face. The 
 line of the cheek was long, suggestive of the oval, 
 but this was corrected by the straight, square chin. 
 The nose, delicate, arched, was usually pronounced 
 acquiline by those who failed to notice that it was 
 almost coarsely blunted at the tip, a bit of modeling 
 at variance with its thin, fine bridge. The mouth 
 was meditative, even melancholy in repose, yet the 
 curves of laughter etched their creases deeply about 
 the corners of the lips and almost obliterated the 
 compressed line of scholarly asceticism. 
 
 The soul of good fellowship, delighting in all
 
 20 SALLY SALT 
 
 kinds and conditions of men, Streatham had, in his 
 freest, blandest moments of hobnob, a quick fash- 
 ion of narrowing his eyelids, a slight, impatient 
 twist of his shoulders, as if he resented the least 
 encroachment upon his preserves of personality, re- 
 fused even the soft fetters of friendship and as- 
 serted an irritable and wilful freedom. And yet, 
 all these contradictions of manner and expression 
 endeared even while they disturbed and troubled. 
 They resolved themselves into a part of his inherent 
 and individual charm the charm of the giver who, 
 if asked to go a mile, would willingly go twain and 
 enliven the way with a jest and a song, who would 
 give his "cloak also" and forget, even while shiv- 
 ering in the blast, that he had ever possessed one; 
 the charm of the Gipsy who knows the green aisles 
 and camp-fires of many a forest; of the wastrel of 
 the night who sees his visions of the day burst into 
 flowers of flame against the city sky ; of the scholar 
 who loves learning and delights in all quaint and 
 curious knowledge; of the stroller through life's 
 bazaar who sees behind every curtain the eternal 
 romance pink almond blossoms drifting on the
 
 AN OLD, NEW DREAM 21 
 
 falling fountain, the tinkling guitar, and Fatima of 
 the languorous eyes. An eager stroller, with ever 
 quickened interests, and yet a weary one withal, for 
 ever on the jeweled enamels of the bazaar he saw the 
 vitreous stains of corrosion, the moth that ate its 
 way through the pomegranate-bloom embroideries; 
 and no matter who set forth the wares, he dis- 
 cerned for ever the skull behind the mask, and bar- 
 tered with the grizzly shade of disillusion. 
 
 But apparently satisfied with his leisurely survey 
 of house and garden, he finally opened the gate and 
 sauntered down the path. His far-sighted, observ- 
 ing eyes had evidently caught a glimpse of Sally's 
 gown through the trees, for he turned undeviatingly 
 toward the garden and followed its labyrinthine 
 walks as if they had long been familiar. 
 
 Sally, who had been at work in her shade gar- 
 den, as she called the tree-thatched, ferny space 
 where the light-shunning flowers grew, rose to her 
 feet at the sound of his footfalls. She listened a 
 moment and then moved forward a few, involun- 
 tary steps, pushing back the hair from her brows. 
 She had passed out into the sunlight and it dazzled 
 her eyes; she put up both hands to shield them. It
 
 22 SALLY SALT 
 
 was characteristic of both of them that she did not 
 put out her hand in greeting and neither did he 
 offer his. 
 
 "The fields are white," said Anthony in a low, 
 rapid voice, with a stammer in it, "I hope the la- 
 borers are few." 
 
 Sally laughed. The joy that always lay in her 
 laughter rang deep and full, as if it rose from some 
 unfathomable and unfailing spring, whose heart 
 was peace, whose bubbles were mirth. 
 
 "Funny thing," she said innocently, "there always 
 seems to be a vacant place about the time you come. 
 Your room's ready." Then she wrinkled up her 
 nose, "Aunt Mandy's frying chicken ; there are new 
 peas, new beans, new beets, new everything, and all 
 the crispy salad leaves that you love. There are 
 berries and melons and cherry pie. I don't believe 
 you have had anything to eat." 
 
 "Oh, Sally, s stop," he stammered. "Of course, 
 this is a dream, the same delightful old dream that 
 I've dreamed for the last three years and hope to 
 go on dreaming for ever. But one moment, let me 
 look at you. Oh, Sally, my poor eyes have been 
 failing for a sight of you." He threw himself on the
 
 AN OLD, NEW DREAM 23 
 
 grass and drawing a case from the pocket of his 
 coat, lighted a cigarette. 
 
 Sally, meanwhile, had seated herself upon a cir- 
 cular wooden bench built about a great beach tree; 
 her red head was thrown back against the smooth 
 trunk and her hands were folded loosely in her lap. 
 The noon sun filtered through the dense growth of 
 leaves above her and fell in bubbles of light over her 
 soft, tanned throat and blue cotton gown, and 
 spangled with gold the violet shadow of the long, 
 drooping branches which almost swept the ground. 
 
 "Yes, this is a dream," mused Streatham. "Sally, 
 not long ago, in the course of my wanderings, I 
 paused at the home of another widow; still young, 
 well-dowered, handsome, and she entertained me 
 with sprightly conversation. She said : 'Here is 
 Smith's last new novel. Have you read Jones' 
 charming volume of essays?' She had spread a 
 table with new books, she offered me mental husks 
 and I, as usual, was physically hungry." 
 
 "Another one of your flirtations?" There was a 
 faint chill in her voice. 
 
 "No, Sally dear," in gentle reproof, "but to be 
 strictly honest, it might have been, if I could have
 
 24 SALLY SALT 
 
 succeeded in convincing her that she alone could 
 reform me; or, to put it more accurately, if she 
 could have succeeded in convincing herself that she 
 might possibly achieve that crowning glory of her 
 sex snatch a brand from the burning. Yes, I an 
 convinced that if she could really have believed that 
 she could transform me from an eager back-fence 
 prowler, with dark alleys to thread and a world of 
 alluring ash-cans to explore, she might have been 
 induced to return my affection." 
 
 "That's an idea all women get in their heads some 
 time," said Sally, "preachers and women. They 
 like to dangle the souls they've saved as an Indian 
 dangles scalps. Truth is, no one ever saved any one 
 else's soul. It's a job every man is expected to at- 
 tend to for himself. But it's one we're all mighty 
 fond of shirking. It's a lot easier and more excit- 
 ing to fish for the mote in your brother's eye than 
 to get a derrick and crowbar and a few utensils 
 like that and go earnestly to work to dislodge the 
 beam in your own. 
 
 "There are half a dozen farmers about here 
 whose farms are mortgaged to the hilt, but they're 
 always ready to lean over my fence half the day,
 
 AN OLD, NEW DREAM 25 
 
 if necessary, and tell me how I'm mismanaging my 
 land. And there's plenty of women who can't raise 
 a crop of chickweed in their gardens, ready to stand 
 at my gate and sigh and shake their heads and tell 
 me what a pity it is that I've got slugs on my roses, 
 and how spindling my geraniums look, and what 
 a dreadful extravagance and waste of money my 
 garden is anyway. But there, I'm running on as 
 usual, about nothing at all. What is more to the 
 point is, what have you been doing for a year?" 
 
 He flicked the ashes from his cigarette. "Chas- 
 ing life." 
 
 Sally bit through a blade of grass, looking at him 
 meditatively, almost curiously. 
 
 "Why do you chase her round and round in a 
 circle? She's always right at hand." 
 
 "Oh, no, she isn't. She's a butterfly who flutters 
 her bright wings in the sunshine just ahead of me, 
 always out of reach, just ahead, just around the 
 corner, so near that I can touch her, but never quite 
 grasp her. Sometimes I think that I seize and hold 
 her fast, but when I finally and cautiously open my 
 fingers clutched so tightly over my treasure, I find 
 a dull moth, or worse still, a caterpillar."
 
 26 SALLY SALT 
 
 There was silence between them for a moment, 
 while Streatham blew smoke among the ferns and 
 watched it curl up through their fronds. 
 
 "Whom have you with you now ?" he said at last. 
 "You always have some one, you know." 
 
 "Lucy Parrish," began Sally. 
 
 "Pretty Lucy, with the inevitable and worthy 
 Witherspoon for a background !" 
 
 Sally nodded. "She's nearly in tears because 
 Anne threatens to come." 
 
 "The estimable Anne," he lazily commented. 
 "Well, Anne wouldn't be so bad if she had any 
 temperament." 
 
 "Oh, Anne's a good girl according to her lights," 
 defended Sally. "She isn't very interesting " 
 
 "No one is very interesting," he interrupted, "un- 
 less he or she has a brilliant capacity for making 
 mistakes. If Eve had resembled Anne, we should 
 all still be in the Garden of Eden. Consider, Sally; 
 if Anne had been Eve what would she have done 
 when the serpent offered her the apple?" 
 
 There were deep glints of fun in Sally's eyes, 
 but she answered without hesitation, "She would 
 have said, 'No, I thank you, I was told not to eat
 
 AN OLD, NEW DREAM 27 
 
 the fruit of that tree,' and she'd have gone on feed- 
 ing the animals as conscientiously as you please, 
 with never a thought of that fascinating serpent 
 coiling himself around that tree, the better to show 
 off the spangles on him." 
 
 Their laughter mingled and swelled. 
 
 "But Lucy Parrish and Anne!" said Streatham. 
 "That doesn't sound like the assortment of the im- 
 becile and the invalided which usually cluster about 
 you. What is it the pious call them God's poor?" 
 
 "God doesn't know anything about them," Sally 
 stoutly affirmed. "He never made them. They are 
 entirely the work of man." 
 
 "You believe in putting the blame where it be- 
 longs, do you not, Sally? And how is my little 
 friend, Harris Hurd?" 
 
 A shade passed over Sally's face. "Oh, I'm both- 
 ering a lot about Harris! The little fellow was 
 bitten by a dog the other day, a poor, little, lost, 
 frightened dog. They shot it without waiting to see 
 whether anything was the matter with it or not ; and 
 all these idiotic people for miles around are predict- 
 ing all sorts of horrible things that will happen to 
 Harris. I've prayed every day that a saving circus
 
 28 SALLY SALT 
 
 would come along and take their minds off the 
 child." 
 
 "I'm sorry to hear this." There was real con- 
 cern in Anthony's voice. "We must do something 
 about it. Good Lord!" he said below his breath, 
 suddenly raising himself upon his elbow, "who is 
 that that man, out there in the road? Quick, 
 Sally." 
 
 Sally looked up hastily. "Oh, that is a man by 
 the name of Grissom, who has been about here 
 lately." 
 
 Strolling along the roadside, unconscious of their 
 observation, was the man who had excited Streat- 
 ham's immediate interest. Not the usual passer-by 
 of the country road, in all certainty. As seen in the 
 glare of this high, noonday sun, he was a thick-set, 
 muscular fellow, with a coarse, handsome face, 
 vivid in coloring, but impassive in expression ; bold, 
 dark, keen eyes, lips set in a straight, thin line and 
 clothes of a late and pronounced style. An unmis- 
 takable type; at once the hunter and the hunted, 
 whose lair is in the populous and indifferent heart 
 of great cities, and whose jungle paths are streets
 
 AN OLD, NEW DREAM 29 
 
 roaring with traffic, and echoing with the eternal, 
 unceasing footfalls of many passers-by. 
 
 In that great jungle heart, where daily a thousand 
 eyes fall upon him, and a thousand hands would 
 clutch if they but knew, one might fancy that he 
 could know no security; but the city is his refuge. 
 He seeks it with the instinct for protection of those 
 birds and insects which are so perfectly adapted to 
 their environment, that their hues simulate the tree 
 trunks, the grasses they crouch among, the check- 
 ered light and shade falling on the hillside. And 
 this man was so essentially urban, so of the town 
 in certain localities, that he would there pass un- 
 noticed. But in the country he detached himself 
 from the landscape and loomed colossal and sharply 
 defined on every horizon. 
 
 "Yes, that is Grissom," said Sally, leaning for- 
 ward to make sure. "What he wants here, I don't 
 know. From present indications, it looks as if it 
 might be Hilda Kurd." 
 
 "Hilda Hurd !" Streatham exclaimed, abandoning 
 his lazy attitude. "Oh, that will never do !" 
 
 "It certainly will not," she averred. "But why
 
 30 SALLY SALT 
 
 did you ask about him as you did? Do you know 
 him?" 
 
 He looked at her for a moment a little strangely, 
 an odd smile flickering about the corners of his 
 mouth. "I fancy," he said deliberately, "that we 
 have met. I think that on more than one occasion 
 we have both been among those present. What a 
 problem it all is, anyway!" 
 
 "The problem that confronts you now/' said 
 Sally coolly, "is that we are going to begin to cut 
 wheat this afternoon. You might as well be getting 
 ready to work." 
 
 "My first day," he reproached her, "and such a 
 hot one, too. What are you going to do ?" 
 
 "Oh, I shall be there, too," said Sally. "I'm go- 
 ing to drive a reaper. But come, you must have 
 food." 
 
 All the long afternoon Streatham worked in the 
 yellow wheat-fields under the burning sun; until at 
 evening Sally gave her final orders to her men 
 about the morrow, beckoned him, and they started 
 together across a clover-field. They crushed the 
 lush leaves under their feet as they walked, the air 
 was full of the fresh, sweet fragrance of the pink
 
 AN OLD, NEW DREAM 31 
 
 clover heads, the sun was slowly sinking behind the 
 low-lying hills, and stretched over the fields in long, 
 level bars. Some of Sally's Alderney cows, sleek, 
 dun-colored creatures, walked past them down a 
 narrow lane between two fields. 
 
 "Aren't they pretty?" said Sally lovingly, lean- 
 ing against a fence post covered with delicate flut- 
 ings of pale green and orange lichens. 
 
 "Sally, I wish I could paint. I always wish I 
 could paint when I look at you," stammered An- 
 thony. "Hebe!" 
 
 "Do you?" asked Sally idly. Her eyes were first 
 on the other side of the lane, where the wind gently 
 stirred the broad, shining blades of corn. The 
 sun was sinking very low behind the hills, and 
 soft, purple hazes were beginning to float over the 
 fields. 
 
 "Sally," whispered Streatham breathlessly. 
 
 She turned and for one long moment they looked 
 deep into each other's eyes, that full gaze of self- 
 revelation, glorying in its emotion, leaping to the 
 full expression of it. For that one moment they 
 stood thus, their eyes revealing, questioning, then 
 Streatham's arms were about her, his lips on hers.
 
 32 SALLY SALT 
 
 "It's an old, new dream come true. I I love you, 
 Sally." 
 
 And Sally, the world forgetting, the music of the 
 spheres in her soul, the fields grown dim before her 
 eyes, had thrown her arms about his neck and 
 pressed her cheek closely against his. 
 
 Across the meadows there rose and fell the sound 
 of singing; a far call of melody, as if blown from 
 the heart of sunset, crystal-clear, unearthly, sweet 
 as the horns of elf-land. And Sally felt Streatham 
 start and listen. He lifted his head, his arms re- 
 laxed their clasp of her. 
 
 "It is Hilda Hurd, singing," she said. 
 
 "It's a skylark. 'Hail to thee, blythe spirit/ " 
 he muttered. "What a quality disembodied, lyri- 
 cal!" His arms had fallen. All of his senses 
 seemed concentrated into hearing, so intensely he 
 listened. There was a strange, rapt look on his 
 face, as if at the sound of Hilda's singing, some se- 
 cret, unsuspected spring within him had been 
 touched and he had followed, without hindrance, 
 that call of melody across the shadowy, impassable 
 barriers of a thousand worlds to the heart of the
 
 AN OLD, NEW DREAM 33 
 
 sunset, where light was glory, and falling waters 
 were shaken with music, and stars were flowers. 
 
 "She has stopped." Was there satisfaction in 
 Sally's tones? "Come. It grows late. Why, An- 
 thony, you look," in puzzled laughter, "you look 
 like Rip Van Winkle just wakened from sleep.'''
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A CLOUD IN THE SKY 
 
 HERE ain't a day passes that Mrs. Salt 
 don't shame me some way." Mrs. Nesbit in 
 her usual chair upon the porch anxiously smoothed 
 her figured silk gown and lifted faded, aggrieved 
 eyes to her intimate friend and gossip, Mrs. Hill, a 
 tall, stout, unwieldy woman in a black and purple 
 print dress, swinging slowly, ponderously back and 
 forth in a rocking-chair. Cold, inquisitive eyes 
 shone in her large ruddy face, and she pursed a 
 sanctimoniously held mouth and nodded emphati- 
 cally. 
 
 "Sometimes," Mrs. Nesbit continued in her high, 
 shrill voice, encouraged by this expression of sym- 
 pathy, "I feel as if her goings on was more than I 
 could bear. I've always lived respectable. My 
 folks had money. Why, my mother never went 
 without a silk dress to wear on her back of a Sun- 
 
 34
 
 A CLOUD IN TBE SKY 35 
 
 day. And it seems hard, yes, it does, that I got to 
 spend my last days with some one like Sally Salt. 
 Why, Mis' Hill," fingering a hair brooch at her 
 throat as if to see that it was still in place, "just 
 last Sunday, when everybody was driving along the 
 road to church, she walked out as bold as you please 
 with a fishing-rod over her shoulder, going a-fish- 
 ing." She glanced up at her companion out of the 
 corner of her eye with the hurried, furtive glance 
 of some small, timid animal. 
 
 Mrs. Hill sighed heavily and again pursed her 
 mouth. "I put it all down to her not bein' a per- 
 fesser," was her dictum. "Now down to the mis- 
 sionary meeting the other day she sent in a whole 
 box full of clothes. They was nice, I'm bound to 
 say it," impartially, "and the ladies was pleased. 
 Then one of those women, Mrs. Jim Hopkins, of 
 course, she kept going on about how good Sally 
 Salt was and how kind and how there wasn't no- 
 body in distress that she didn't try to help, until I 
 was given courage to speak right up. I says, 'Yes, 
 she does do kind-appearing things, but what good 
 are they going to do her on the awful day of judg- 
 ment? You ladies seem to forget that she ain't
 
 36 SALLY SALT 
 
 never accepted religion. It ain't so bad for a man, 
 but when a woman can't be reached by grace ' ' : 
 
 She slowly shook her head as she contemplated 
 this ultimate possibility beyond words. Then, still 
 gazing into the pit, so to speak, her expression was 
 gradually mollified. The vision spectacular of the 
 final triumph of justice, including wailing, gnash- 
 ing of teeth and the burning of tares, promised a 
 comforting balance of the scales. Fired by zeal, 
 she turned her beetling gaze upon her friend. "Mis' 
 Nesbit, I don't see how you settle it with your con- 
 science to stay here." 
 
 "I I often feel that way myself," faltered her 
 companion, twisting a carnelian ring upon her fin- 
 ger. "I once went so far as to speak to Preacher 
 Ward about it, and he argued with me to stay, 'spe- 
 cially since I didn't have no place else to go, bein' 
 as all my folks is dead. He says, 'You got a good, 
 comfortable home here; You can do as you please, 
 and Mis' Salt's as good to you as if you was her 
 own mother. I don't think you got any call to com- 
 plain, 'specially, as you ain't got any real claim on 
 Mis' Salt.' 
 
 "Oh, he spoke real harsh to me, Mis' Hill. Why,
 
 A CLOUD IN THE SKY 37 
 
 my feelings was so hurt that I took to my bed and 
 cried steady for two whole days." 
 
 "I always said he wasn't fitten for the place." 
 Mrs. Hill's simplest utterances had the quality of a 
 pronunciamento. "He ain't the true sperrit of love. 
 I hope you spoke right up to him, Mis' Nesbit." 
 
 ' 'Deed I did." Two bright spots of color glowed 
 on the faded cheeks. "I told him I felt I had a per- 
 fect right here, that Sally was 'most engaged to my 
 son Clarence, who died in this house, and that made 
 the place sacred to me; but," her complaining little 
 bleat ending in a gasp, "it's awful hard sometimes. 
 Just look at them lazy cats, five and six of them 
 sunning themselves on the front porch like it be- 
 longed to them and dogs chasing all over the place !" 
 
 "And don't forget" Mrs. Hill was not one to 
 forbear piling Ossa on Pelion "and don't forget 
 all the trash she's liable to pick right up off the road 
 and bring in, so's you never know whether you're 
 
 sleeping under the roof with a murderer or an 
 
 i 
 
 escaped lunatic." 
 
 Mrs. Nesbit shuddered, but her mind was still too 
 much occupied with Sally's detestable pets fully to 
 contemplate this suggested possibility.
 
 38 SALLY SALT 
 
 "One day," she shrilled on complainingly, monot- 
 onously as a cicada at noontide, "after I found one 
 cat asleep on my bed, and was kept awake the whole 
 night by another jumping in and out of the window, 
 I got my spunk up, and I says, 'Sally, if you had 
 any respect for me, Clarence's mother, you wouldn't 
 ask me to live in a house that's 'most like a institu- 
 tion. Why, if my mother thought I was livin' in 
 such a place, she'd turn in her grave.' She was a 
 terrible proud woman, Mis' Hill, and no one had a 
 better right. She was born a Hoskins. But Sally, 
 she didn't pay no more attention to me than she does 
 to anybody, just laughed and teased me." 
 
 Mrs. Hill shook her head. "As I come past the 
 orchard, I saw Sally and Lucy Parrish and a man. 
 He was lying on the ground under the trees, and I 
 couldn't see him very good, but it didn't look like 
 John Witherspoon. I suspicioned that it was that 
 Streatham that comes here every summer. It's 
 about time for him, ain't it?" 
 
 "He came yesterday," replied Mrs. Nesbit. "I 
 will say for him that he is quite the gentleman." 
 
 "I'm the last one to hear gossip, let alone repeat- 
 ing it," Mrs. Hill arched her chest virtuously, "but
 
 A CLOUD IN THE SKY 39 
 
 all the ladies at the missionary society seemed to be 
 talking about them." 
 
 "She's got a plenty beaux," admitted Mrs. Nes- 
 bit vaguely. 
 
 "Huh! Course she's got 'em, thick as flies 
 around molasses; but I ask you this," folding her 
 arms across her bosom, "how many do you think 
 she'd have if she was as poor as you and me? If 
 Sally Salt hadn't her good big farms, how many 
 men do you think would be clustering about ?" 
 
 "I don't think many," doubted Mrs. Nesbit. "I 
 don't think gentlemen, as a rule, fall in love with 
 ladies so much like themselves." She smoothed 
 back her hair consciously. "Who's that coming in 
 the gate?" 
 
 Both women craned their necks to see, but the 
 girl who had slipped through the gate, after one 
 hesitating glance toward the house, a glance which 
 discerned the two occupants of the porch, hastily 
 sought shelter behind a group of shrubbery and 
 trees, and, with the idea of concealment evidently in 
 mind, made her way toward the orchard as rapidly 
 as her circuitous path permitted. 
 
 In the center of a little clearing in the orchard,
 
 40 SALLY SALT 
 
 Sally stood in a pool of morning sunlight, hatless, 
 her blue cotton gown open at the throat as if her 
 vitality craved and exulted in its warmth and splen- 
 dor. On the brink of shadow, Lucy Parrish, deli- 
 cately tinted, daintily modeled the embodiment of 
 Spring at its exquisite, fugitive perihelion faced 
 her, only to be dominated and eclipsed by the sum- 
 mer of Sally. 
 
 At least, that would have been the general opin- 
 ion ; but one man would have stoutly held out 
 against it for ever. That was John Witherspoon, 
 who lay along the grass at Lucy's feet, and like her- 
 self well within the zone of grateful shade. He was 
 a tall, well set-up man nearer forty than thirty, with 
 brown, smooth hair beginning to show gray, and 
 calm, sincere brown eyes which looked out pleas- 
 antly upon the world. One glance was usually suf- 
 ficient to convince most persons that he was one of 
 the most likable and dependable of human beings. 
 
 Sally was casting screenings in broad, sweeping 
 handfuls from a pan held in the crotch of her arm 
 to a great flock of industriously pecking chickens, 
 snow-white Leghorns, gray speckled Plymouth 
 Rocks, buff cochin-chinas, while tiny yellow and
 
 A CLOUD IN THE SKY 41 
 
 white chicks struggled through the long, seeding 
 grass in obedience to a motherly cluck, and fluttered 
 their bidding wings about a platter of warm corn- 
 meal mush at her feet. 
 
 Anthony had perched himself in a crotch of a 
 tree, and choosing to play the part of sister Anne 
 in her watchtower, was announcing the cloud of 
 dust and the flock of sheep in their chronological or- 
 der with dramatic fervor. 
 
 "Here's a beautiful cloud of dust," he announced. 
 "Alas! it resolves itself into a lady whom I remem- 
 ber perfectly, but whose name I can not now re- 
 call." 
 
 Lucy languidly turned her head. "It is Mrs. 
 Meecham," she said. 
 
 "Mary Meecham," commented Sally. "Mary is 
 literally swamped in marriage. She used to be very 
 fond of games, and as girls, she and I were always 
 playing checkers or backgammon or chess. Well, 
 the other day I went to see her, and noticed the 
 chessmen on the what-not looking kind of lonesome 
 and dusty. So I said on the spur of the moment, 
 'Come on, Mary, let's have a game for the sake of 
 old times.' 'No,' she shook her head, 'Albert doesn't
 
 42 SALLY SALT 
 
 care for games. He thinks they are a foolish waste 
 of time, so I've given them up/ 
 
 "That's the way most women do and they don't 
 get a mite of credit for it. In most cases Albert 
 isn't even aware of the burnt offering." 
 
 "Oh, Sally, Sally," sighed Streatham, "here comes 
 David Pearson riding along on his old brown nag. 
 His mouth has a grimmer set than it ever had be- 
 fore; he would willingly convince you of the error 
 of your views and the proper place of woman in the 
 home. 
 
 "By Jove !" he exclaimed, "play make-believe long 
 enough and it's sure to come true. Here's some one 
 coming in the gate. Why, I believe it is Hilda 
 Hurd. Yes, it is. Sister Anne must now descend 
 from the tower, passing as she does so from one 
 incarnation to another, progressing from the infe- 
 rior feminine thought to the superior masculine, and 
 as Anthony Streatham, greet the what shall we 
 call her elusive Hilda." 
 
 Sally's face had clouded a little. "I can call pub- 
 licans and sinners 'brother' without a qualm," she 
 remarked abruptly, "but fools bother me." 
 
 "She evidently means you, Lucy," said Anthony,
 
 A CLOUD IN THE SKY 43 
 
 "for manifestly I can not run the 'pub' where sin- 
 ners congregate, and wear motley at the same time." 
 
 Witherspoon laughed. "You're too modest, 
 Tony," he said lazily. "We who know you believe 
 that you are quite capable of playing all three parts, 
 publican, sinner and fool." 
 
 "Has Hilda done anything with her lovely voice, 
 Sally?" asked Lucy, before Streatham could an- 
 swer. 
 
 "No, the mother won't hear of her leaving home 
 to study." 
 
 "But we ought all to do something about it, really, 
 we ought "Lucy spoke with conviction "such a 
 voice as that shouldn't be lost here in the country." 
 
 "Well, I can't do anything about Hilda's voice 
 now, not this morning. Harris is occupying my 
 thoughts at present, and something must be wrong 
 with him. Look how Hilda is hurrying." 
 
 Indeed Hilda was almost running. She had come 
 across the green, old orchard, between the rows of 
 gnarled, bent trees with their low boughs thickly 
 rosetted with gray, green leaves and hung with 
 green globes of fruit beginning to show faint, red 
 stripings. But now, as she reached the little group,
 
 44 SALLY SALT 
 
 she paused warily on the very edge of a pool of sun- 
 light and drew back a little into the dim, pleasant 
 seclusion of shadow. 
 
 A little, pleased smile dimpled her cheek for the 
 moment at Anthony's greeting, and then she turned 
 anxious, frightened eyes to Sally. She was a slen- 
 der, tall creature with an appealing face full of 
 pathetic charm. Her hair was of an ashen fairness, 
 her eyes were wide and blue, the features delicate 
 and indecisive, and the skin was of the exquisite, 
 pale, pinkish yellow of the tea-rose. There was 
 nothing distinct nor definite about her beauty. It 
 stole upon the beholder now and again in a wistful 
 glance; it revealed itself unexpectedly in her mo- 
 ments of pensive reverie, and even expressed itself 
 in the soft, fluttering vagueness of her manner, or 
 the tender, longing appeal of her smile. 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Salt," she cried as she came near, 
 hands on her panting chest, her flute-like voice 
 broken by emotion, "won't you please come and see 
 if you can do any good? Harris has been crying 
 all morning for you, and mother wouldn't send. 
 They are trying all kinds of remedies on him, and
 
 A CLOUD IN THE SKY 45 
 
 people are driving in from miles around and sitting 
 on the porch." 
 
 Sally's glance flamed ; then, as suddenly, her face 
 set, revealing its square, indomitable outline. "An- 
 thony, you had better come with me," she said 
 decisively. "You're more popular there than I. 
 Lucy, you tell Wilmerdine to get the little room next 
 to mine ready for Harris." Her orders were sharp 
 and crisp. "Come, Hilda, I'll go with you now." 
 
 "No, no, no!" the girl shrank and wavered. 
 "Please do not. I wouldn't have any one know I'd 
 come for all the world. I'll run across lots and join 
 father down in the meadow. You won't tell I 
 came, will you, Mrs. Salt?" 
 
 "My patience, no," said Sally, but with impa- 
 tience. "Go the back way, front way, any way you 
 want." She strode herself, with the free move- 
 ments of a winged goddess of Victory, hatless, out 
 on the dusty highway in the glare of the hot, high 
 sun.
 
 BEYOND THE HILLS 
 
 A) Sally and Streatham took to the highway, 
 Hilda Hurd ran like a fawn across the or- 
 chard and out through the meadows. She skimmed 
 a field or two without pausing for breath, skirted 
 the back of a house, and finally joined an old man 
 who stood with his arms folded on a stake-and-rider 
 fence. A strong resemblance proved to the most 
 casual observer the relation existing between them, 
 that of father and daughter. His features were 
 more delicately and decisively cut than hers, but this 
 may have been due to the fact that hers were blurred 
 in the soft and indefinite outlines of youth, still 
 innocent of the sharp chiselings of time and experi- 
 ence. 
 
 His hair, thick and white, was tossed back from 
 his brow, a long white beard swept his chest, 
 prophet-wise, and his eyes, wide and vague as 
 
 46
 
 BEYOND THE HILLS 47 
 
 Hilda's own, with the same oddly luminous quality, 
 were fixed on the low line of hills, unsubstantial, 
 almost floating in their pearly hazes of distance. 
 Both face and figure showed a finish, almost a fas- 
 tidiousness of modeling which his coarse clothes 
 could not conceal, nor the evidences of toil oblit- 
 erate. 
 
 Years before, his young imagination inflamed by 
 Horace Greeley's advice, he had adventured from 
 New England, to seek that vast and virgin land of 
 opportunity the West. But while crossing the 
 hills of the middle country he had made one of the 
 occasional and leisurely halts with which it had 
 pleased him to break his journey from its start. 
 This time it was at the cabin of a "mountaineer," 
 and, lingering there a few days, he had fallen in 
 love with the handsome dark-eyed daughter of 
 shiftless, illiterate parents. 
 
 The capital which Hurd possessed to invest in 
 life consisted of his striking good looks, some edu- 
 cation, and a little money, the latter an unguarded 
 and undefended treasure, a honeycomb gnawed by 
 the foes of his own household. And these foes 
 were a childlike credulity, an open hand for all who
 
 48 SALLY SALT 
 
 asked, and an implicit and obstinate following of 
 his most fantastic impulses. As for the girl, she 
 was just a degree above one of the most definitely 
 defined castes in America poor white trash but 
 she was handsome, she was vigorous, she was ambi- 
 tious, a quality alien to her class and people, and 
 probably bequeathed to her by some remote pro- 
 genitor; and~sRe sawln this weak, beautiful, dreamy 
 youth an opportunity more golden and concrete 
 than any he had visioned in his splendid, romantic 
 West. 
 
 Her conquest was an easy one. For the first 
 time he encountered in visible form the dream of 
 man woman, the world's desire. In that first 
 ecstasy of meeting, he crowned her with stars and 
 wreathed her with the scarlet blossoms of his young 
 heart; but not for long. For him the Venusberg 
 was the most illusory pageatnt of this world which 
 he had known always, though still vaguely and in- 
 articulately, as the valley of illusion. 
 
 His marriage was inevitable, and barely accom- 
 plished when his wife persuaded him to renounce 
 his further adventuring and to journey no further 
 in search of a land of snow-capped mountains of
 
 BEYOND THE HILLS 49 
 
 gold, of fertile, illimitable plains, of eternal sum- 
 mer, and wonderful painted fruits, with the smiling 
 Pacific Ocean purring at its shores. She knew of 
 rich bottom lands, of farms of an excellent yield 
 nearer home. So they journeyed to a neighboring 
 state, the money was invested in the ground she 
 coveted, and Maria Hurd prepared to enjoy the long, 
 fat years stretching before her, to give free rein 
 to her ambition, to acquire, to hoard, and to extend 
 her holdings ; but as those eagerly anticipated years 
 went on she was forced to reckon, ever more bit- 
 terly, her gain as loss. She learned to know that 
 the strength of the weak, the defense of the defense- 
 less, often lies in a peculiar elusiveness. So, she 
 found it. Hurd, her man of straw, had a pith to 
 him which rendered him more unresponsive to her 
 influence than a strong and positive nature could 
 possibly have been. That conflict of strength with 
 strength would have meant, from the outset, the 
 clash of wills and the gradual capitulation of the re- 
 sisting one to the more imperious and powerful 
 force; but in this case the will was not resisted, it 
 was evaded, and Mrs. Hurd found that she might 
 as well try to mold water, to break the bending
 
 50 SALLY SALT 
 
 withe, to order the wind, as to manage her husband. 
 The real strength of his nature, more or less qui- 
 escent and hidden in youth, but which was destined 
 inevitably to leaven the whole lump of him, was 
 mysticism. He was past his wife's crude compre- 
 hension, as well as her patience. Gradually, and 
 with increasing resentment, she grew to regard him 
 as not only shiftless, but, as she expressed it, half- 
 cracked, and to put him to what poor uses she could. 
 
 But even so, they failed to prosper. Kurd, who 
 had in some way succeeded in retaining his property 
 in his own hands, occasionally took a keen and dis- 
 astrous interest in various land deals, trades and 
 bargains. 
 
 This morning, however, he did not turn from his 
 rapt contemplation of the far horizon as Hilda 
 halted beside him, one hand upon her panting chest. 
 
 "Mrs. Salt will soon be here, father," she cried. 
 "She and Mr. Streatham came the roadway." 
 
 Her father did not answer nor give any indication 
 of having heard her. His gaze remained fixed on 
 the hills. 
 
 "Did you ever get to studying about what lies 
 beyond the things you see, Hilda?" he asked.
 
 BEYOND THE HILLS 51 
 
 "Those hills, do you mean ?" She looked at him 
 in surprise. "Why, you know what is behind them, 
 father, as well as you know what is on this side." 
 
 "I don't mean that," he said patiently. "What is 
 the matter with you, Hilda ? You are usually quick 
 enough to understand. I mean what is beyond 
 that, and then what is beyond that. What is al- 
 ways behind that which you can see and know. 
 That is the thing that keeps me guessing all the 
 time." 
 
 But Hilda could not soar with him above the dust 
 of earth, not now, at all events, when her heart was 
 torn with anxiety. The strongest need of her na- 
 ture was to minister to those she loved. Having, 
 as her mother frequently and scornfully phrased h, 
 "taken after her father," she was inefficient in 
 Martha-like service and was yet ignorant that Mary 
 had anything to give, so that her soul, troubled by 
 her ineptness, a subject for frequent discussion 
 and habitual reminder, quaked and feared and 
 leaned heavily upon the strength of others. 
 
 "But, father," her voice was not impatient, only 
 plaintive, as with detaining, drawing hands upon his 
 sleeve she strove to recall him from his far world
 
 52 SALLY SALT 
 
 of dreams, "father, what are we going to do about 
 Harris if Mrs. Salt isn't successful? Mr. Gris- 
 som," a delicate flush rising on her cheek, "has tried 
 and tried, but it's no use." 
 
 "Oh, Harris !" He pulled his arm away as if her 
 touch stung him, and drew his toil-worn hand across 
 his brow, a shiver of pain contracting his sensitive 
 face. "You know as well as I do, Hilda, that we 
 can't do a thing." He twitched his shoulders in 
 irritable shame. "Why," with a touch of violence, 
 "don't you let me get away and forget it ?" 
 
 "I wish you would take me with you," she said 
 forlornly. 
 
 He looked at her in wonder, even a faint con- 
 tempt. "Anybody can go that's a mind to," he said. 
 "It's a free country. I've got no keys to it. That's 
 it, Hilda; it's free." His eyes shone with a peculiar 
 inward light ; his face was irradiated. "And there's 
 everything in it. Why, Hilda, I can spend all day 
 picturing just what might be behind that one lone 
 hill yonder." 
 
 His daughter gazed at him with a wistful, half- 
 proud expression, but almost for the first time with- 
 out a spontaneous and understanding sympathy.
 
 BEYOND THE HILLS 53 
 
 Usually she was his joyous and eager companion in 
 what was to both of them the realm of the real. 
 To-day she could not journey with him. She shook 
 her head dejectedly, one or two tears ran down her 
 cheeks, but she wiped them away, and after a mo- 
 ment or two of her usual indecision walked toward 
 the house. 
 
 The Hurd home was an humble and unpretentious 
 one, set in the midst ,of a beautiful and fertile coun- 
 try. Back of it rolled the low hills and before it 
 stretched broad, well-tilled fields, now ripening for 
 the harvest. The house itself was a one-story cot- 
 tage, with a sagging porch running the length of it. 
 A group of men and women sat on the one low step 
 of the porch, for the most part silent, although there 
 was an occasional effort at more or less laconic 
 conversation. 
 
 "Has he begun to bark yet ?" a woman in a calico 
 wrapper and a slat sunbonnet asked presently. 
 
 "No," said one of the men, looking up and shift- 
 ing his quid of tobacco to the other side of his 
 mouth ; "but he's refused water twice this morning." 
 
 "Is that so?" Eagerness colored the woman's 
 drawling tones. "Well, I guess he'll be beginning
 
 54 SALLY SALT 
 
 soon, so we might as well wait. My ! The neigh- 
 bors have turned out, haven't they? Look at that 
 string of buggies hitched to the fence ! Well," with 
 a long sigh, "I s'pose it ain't no more'n right that we 
 should stand by each other at such a time, and show 
 sympathy." 
 
 "That's right," agreed one of the men heavily. 
 "But it's harvesting you know. I hope he won't 
 keep us all day." 
 
 "Say!" The woman shielded her eyes with her 
 hand. "That surely ain't Hurd down there by the 
 lot?" 
 
 "Yes, it is." The man spoke contemptuously. 
 "What'd you expect? He ain't got no more sense 
 of hospitality nor what's fit and proper than a year- 
 lin' colt." 
 
 "Who's this comin' down the road?" the woman 
 asked. "The sun's in my eyes, and I can't see for 
 the dazzle." 
 
 He ran his thumb over the stick he had been whit- 
 tling, as if to test its smoothness, and then looked 
 up. "Blest if it ain't Sally Salt; and, yes, I do 
 believe she's got that Streatham with her." 
 
 "What's she up to now ?" wondered the woman.
 
 BEYOND THE HILLS 55 
 
 "Lord knows," piously. "And I guess she keeps 
 Him puzzling most of the time," he chuckled under 
 his breath. 
 
 Grissom, who had been standing with his back to 
 the paling gate, stood aside at the sound of foot- 
 steps, then, turning, gave a slight start as he beheld 
 Sally and Streatham. 
 
 The two men regarded each other fixedly for a 
 moment, a strange smile on each face. 
 
 "Ah Grissom," said Anthony, halting an appre- 
 ciable second before the name. "How did you hap- 
 pen to discover this out-of-the-way corner of the 
 world?" 
 
 The other had recovered himself by this time, and 
 spoke with a touch of defiance. 
 
 "Think I heard you mention it once, if I'm not 
 mistaken," he replied, "as a nice, quiet place to take 
 a rest." 
 
 In the meantime Sally, oblivious to the interlude, 
 had pushed on through the gate. 
 
 "Good Heavens !" She turned to Grissom, as the 
 three walked together up the path bordered by 
 Hilda's flowers. "Look at all these people!" 
 
 "Yes," he replied, "they've been driving up for
 
 56 SALLY SALT 
 
 hours. Personally, I haven't been able to do a 
 thing; but I'll back you up, Mrs. Salt, to any extent, 
 if that will be the least assistance." 
 
 "It may be," said Sally serenely. She viewed the 
 group on the porch with a sort of laughing scorn, 
 nodded to them, and then passed on, without knock- 
 ing, into a low, narrow room. It was illy lighted 
 by one small window, and, coming in from the broad 
 sunshine, Sally for a moment or two could distin- 
 guish nothing, but as her eyes became accustomed to 
 the shadow she could see that it was rilled with 
 women and a few men. In the center of the group, 
 with a clear space around him, sat a slight, delicate 
 lad of ten or eleven years. His face was very pale, 
 his mouth drooped piteously, and there was an ex- 
 pression of terror in his eyes. He turned his head 
 a little as Sally entered, and the expression of satis- 
 faction which had dawned on his face at the sight of 
 her deepened to happiness when Streatham followed 
 her. 
 
 "Tony!" he cried in shrill, tremulous joy, and 
 stretched out his arms. 
 
 As if summoned by those childish tones, a woman 
 came forward from a doorway at the back. She
 
 BEYOND THE HILLS 57 
 
 was tall and large of frame, taller than Sally, and 
 her face was like granite, set and square. Her 
 smooth, perfectly unwrinkled skin showed none of 
 the etchings of age, but had retained a noticeably 
 firm texture, indicating her impassive disposition. 
 The dark hair was, in contrast, thickly sprinkled 
 with gray, and the eyes were black, murky and un- 
 fathomable. Her voice was as suave and smooth as 
 her slow smile, but it held none of the refinement 
 that was inherent in the tones of both Hilda and her 
 father. 
 
 Sally, and indeed most of those present, had a 
 sense of something lacking or missing about Mrs. 
 Hurd. She did not seem entirely to complete the 
 outlines of their customary mental picture of her, 
 and few of them paused to consider that this was 
 due to the absence of "Trip," an aged, woolly, black 
 dog, and her invariable companion. He was the 
 only object for which she ever showed the least af- 
 fection, and was now securely locked up, lest an 
 over-wrought public sentiment, at present inimical 
 to dogs, might demand his sacrifice. 
 
 "Howdy, Mis' Salt," she said civilly. "Won't 
 you take a chair?"
 
 58 SALLY SALT 
 
 "No, I thank you, Mrs. Kurd. I just stopped for 
 a moment." 
 
 "Thank you, Mis' Salt. My neighbors certainly 
 have been kind; but seeing that I've always had to 
 bear my burdens and responsibilities alone, I guess I 
 can keep on doing it to the end. I ain't much 
 afraid of responsibilities." She spoke with meek hu- 
 mility. 
 
 The conversation was polite, apparently friendly ; 
 yet the stolid, weary, sallow people leaned forward 
 expectantly. The atmosphere was charged with 
 electricity. It was combat now, and every spectator 
 responded to this new demand upon their waiting 
 interest. For the moment the cause of contention, 
 the pale, delicate boy, was forgotten. The pro- 
 longed, fluctuating excitement of waiting for the 
 manifestation of symptoms which should thrill them 
 to the center of their sordid beings and afford them 
 infinite opportunities thereafter for dramatic recital 
 and portrayal was, for the moment, eclipsed by the 
 cyclonic Sally, who had more than once hurled her- 
 self menacingly, even devastatingly, across their 
 skies. 
 
 But the irresistible force met the immovable body,
 
 BEYOND THE HILLS 59 
 
 and in the first clash the irresistible force proved 
 unequal. Mrs. Hurd had the advantage. It was 
 hot, high impetuosity against unyielding imperturb- 
 ability. Sally lost ground inevitably, for she lost 
 her temper. It would have served her cause better 
 could she have played the diplomat ; but she was of 
 the soldierly temperament, and went bluntly to the 
 heart of the matter. 
 
 "Mrs. Hurd," Sally's voice rang positively, "I 
 want Harris to come to me for a few days. It is 
 absolutely necessary to get him away from here." 
 She looked in bright scorn over the group. "All 
 this noise and excitement is enough to throw a per- 
 fectly well child into convulsions." 
 
 There was a slight, quizzical contraction of 
 Streatham's brow; he gave a faint, characteristic 
 twitch of his shoulders, as if too late he realized 
 that he and not Sally should have managed this 
 affair. He had been kneeling on the floor beside 
 Harris, talking to him and examining the wound 
 upon his leg. Now he looked up with his most in- 
 gratiating and winning smile. 
 
 "The wound really amounts to nothing, Mrs. 
 Hurd," he said, "but, after all, a little change
 
 60 SALLY SALT 
 
 wouldn't be a bad thing. It's good for all of us 
 now and then." 
 
 "Ah, yes, let him come to my house for a few 
 days," urged Sally, who had realized too late that 
 high authority and command were not methods 
 which could prevail with Mrs. Hurd. 
 
 The woman looked from Sally to Streatham and 
 back again. There was no change in her set face, 
 but there was the swiftly extinguished flash of a 
 hard triumph in her murky eyes. 
 
 "Well, he can't go," she said, with a sort of pas- 
 sive definiteness. "He's my child, and I have a 
 right to his last moments." 
 
 "But there need be no last moments, Mrs. Hurd," 
 Sally of the high command still controlled herself 
 to plead. 
 
 "Oh, mother, let me go!" Harris lifted his voice 
 in timid, childish appeal. 
 
 At the sound of the unmistakable longing in his 
 tone, her face set more grimly than ever, but she 
 made no answer to his plaint, nor did she reply to 
 Sally directly. "Nobody shall deprive me of my 
 child at such a time as this," she spoke without pas- 
 sion, but with an impersonal, fanatic force.
 
 BEYOND THE HILLS 61 
 
 Audible approval of this sentiment rippled 
 through the room. 
 
 "See," one of the women spoke up eagerly, "he 
 can't even look at that pan of water. He keeps a- 
 turning his head further and further away from it, 
 as if something was drawing him." 
 
 "That's so," a man corroborated her. 
 
 "Fools!" breathed Sally, with sapphire lightnings 
 of the eyes. 
 
 "That's my brother, Mis' Salt," Mrs. Kurd's 
 voice was lifted in humble reproof, "and he's acting 
 according to his lights." 
 
 "I'm sure of it," Streatham spoke with cheerful 
 haste, before Sally could reply. "But Harris and I 
 are planning to go fishing. We promise to bring 
 you a string of fresh fish every morning. Ah, 
 come, Mrs. Hurd, do not deprive us of that pleas- 
 ure." Anthony was to his utmost persuasive. 
 
 Maria Hurd looked at him steadily, with no ex- 
 pression in her unreadable eyes, and yet there was 
 apparent a firmer set to the jaw. Then, after her 
 fashion, she dropped her eyelids. 
 
 "You may mean kind, Mr. Streatham, and Mrs. 
 Salt may mean kind," submissively, "but if it's the
 
 62 SALLY SALT 
 
 Lord's will for my child to get well, he'll get well, 
 and if it's the Lord's will for him to die, he's goin' 
 to do it under his own mother's roof and under his 
 own mother's care." 
 
 Streatham turned away with a slight, hopeless 
 shrug of the shoulders. But Sally was not yet dis- 
 couraged. She was looking beyond them all intro- 
 spectively, her sight turned inward, and meanwhile 
 she bit her red lower lip. She realized with a dis- 
 gusted impatience of her own blundering that she 
 had made a mistake in her approach of Mrs. Kurd, 
 but she still did not contemplate failure. It was as 
 impossible for her to leave that boy in that house as 
 it would have been to abandon a kitten starving by 
 the wayside, or a fledgling fallen from the nest. 
 She was of the soldierly temperament, true, but she 
 was also a woman. Therefore the arts of the diplo- 
 mat were not altogether unknown to her, and she 
 meant to reach Maria Kurd, but how, how ? 
 
 She bent her eyes upon the sister who so mightily 
 withstood her. Mrs. Hurd stood calm, indifferent 
 of scrutiny, her eyes, as usual, cast down, and 
 Sally's glance tore at her, keen to miss no meaning 
 expressed by the flesh. She knew, intrepid Sally,
 
 BEYOND THE HILLS 63 
 
 that she must agree with her adversary quickly, that 
 she must pierce this hard impassivity to the very 
 springs of motive, and while she scanned and studied 
 she marshalled in her mind and pieced together all 
 that she had ever heard or known of Maria Hurd. 
 She remembered ah, it came, the clue for which 
 she had been waiting! Her nostrils quivered, her 
 eyes widened for the fraction of a second. 
 
 "Mrs. Hurd," she said, "will you come out into 
 the kitchen with me a moment ? I want to speak to 
 you alone." 
 
 She led the way herself through the open door 
 and down a step or two into a small, neat kitchen. 
 The older woman hesitated a moment, and then she 
 followed her willingly. More pleadings? Well, it 
 was good to see this proud, successful Sally Salt 
 vainly abase herself. 
 
 Sally closed the door carefully, thus shutting out 
 the eager peering faces behind them. 
 
 "Now we can talk," she said with a sigh of relief. 
 "Look here, Mrs. Hurd ! Harris isn't going to die. 
 Let him come and visit me for a week or two." 
 
 And now Mrs. Hurd stood no longer with broad 
 calm eyelids lowered, but gave Sally Salt the full
 
 64 SALLY SALT 
 
 benefit of her inscrutable gaze. To do her justice, 
 the woman had been perfectly sincere in her use of 
 primitive remedies, and in her belief that Harris 
 was better at home than among other surroundings ; 
 but, in spite of her unyielding attitude, she was yet 
 more or less impressed by Streatham's opinion that 
 the boy's injury was slight and that he was not in 
 the danger her neighbors and friends would have 
 her believe, and this morning her opposition to 
 Streatham and his suggestions had really been op- 
 position to the opulently arrogant Sally Salt. 
 
 So now the moment was doubly sweet and must 
 be prolonged. Sally Salt should beg and beg, and in 
 vain. So she shook her head without speaking, yet 
 not too decisively. Imperious, imperial Sally must 
 be kept on her knees, figuratively at any rate ; must 
 plead further. 
 
 But to plead wearied Sally. She took or she let 
 alone. It was the moment for trumps. She played 
 them. Her voice was as crisp as a flail. 
 
 "Let me take Harris with me this morning, and 
 I'll give you twenty-five dollars." 
 
 At her words Mrs. Kurd's whole face changed. 
 The fixed, immobile mask broke up, melted, flowed 

 
 BEYOND THE HILLS 65 
 
 into expressive life, repulsive in manifestation, but 
 vital at last. Under the domination of her secret 
 passion, her tall figure became supple and subtle ; it 
 leaned, yearned toward Sally; the long, fleshy fin- 
 gers curved inward and clutched. A moment of 
 revelation of her hidden and consuming hunger, 
 then she regained her immobile, granite, self-con- 
 trol. 
 
 "Thank you kindly, Mrs. Salt, but I couldn't 
 think of it for a minute." She shook her head. 
 
 Sally waited. 
 
 "Of course," Mrs. Hurd twisted the corner of her 
 apron, "unless you get the doctor to take all respon- 
 sibility, and tell folks that he literally ordered Har- 
 ris off." 
 
 "Oh, he will," Sally assured her easily, "and you 
 can tell them that he ordered and I coaxed until you 
 just had to give in." 
 
 "M-m-m." Mrs. Hurd was a picture of meek 
 resignation. "But not for twenty-five, Mrs. Salt. 
 That wouldn't " 
 
 Sally was ruthless. "That or nothing," airily. 
 "You can't raise me that way. Twenty-five or 
 nothing."
 
 66 SALLY SALT 
 
 The adversary sighed. She recognized defeat, 
 and wasted no time in debate. "And the money, 
 Mrs. Salt?" the finger-tips curled involuntarily, de- 
 sire flamed in her eyes. "Do I get it right off ?" 
 
 "This minute." Sally lifted the skirt of her gown 
 and from a pocket in her petticoat took out a flat, 
 brown pocket-book. "There," "counting out the 
 bills. "Now for Harris."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 ON THE KNEES OF THE GODS 
 
 . NESBIT and Mrs. Hill sat upon the 
 porch patiently awaiting Sally's return. 
 They were quite capable of sitting there indefinitely, 
 if there was even a faint show of a bit of news. 
 
 They were, however, rewarded before noon by 
 seeing Sally and Harris and Grissom drive up. 
 Grissom had calmly borrowed an old white horse 
 and an equally ancient buggy of Mr. Hurd, and 
 Sally had gratefully accepted this means of convey- 
 ance rather than expose Harris to the glare of the 
 noonday sun. Although the little boy shrank nerv- 
 ously against her and clutched tight both her gown 
 and her hand, his face had lost something of its 
 pallor and its piteous expression of fright. 
 
 "There," said Sally, after she had thanked Gris- 
 som and she and the child had passed through the 
 gate, "now run, play and explore. See, here is one 
 of my kittens," picking up a little gray fluff-ball. 
 
 67
 
 68 SALLY SALT 
 
 "It has a hurt paw, and can't walk about and see 
 things. Suppose you carry it about to get the air, 
 and when you both get tired of that, come back to 
 me and we will find something else to amuse us." 
 She placed the kitten carefully in his arms, and he 
 started off on his journey of inspection. 
 
 "How d' do, Mrs. Salt?" Mrs. Hill spoke with a 
 punctilious politeness which conveyed, without sub- 
 tlety, a reproof. "Isn't that little Harris Kurd?" 
 
 "It is," said Sally laconically. 
 
 "Well," Mrs. Hill settled herself in her chair, "I 
 stopped in there this morning, just to show that I 
 thought of them. It's been a solemn time for Har- 
 ris and his family, and the neighbors certainly did 
 show their sympathy. Everybody seemed to feel 
 that it was their plain duty to go and help the Hurds 
 bear their burdens." 
 
 "I assure you they were doing it," said Sally 
 dryly. "Oh," rising impatiently, "half the mischief 
 in the world is caused by the missionary spirit, and 
 most times it's just plain meddling. It's a blessed 
 privilege to bear your own troubles; it's the only 
 way to learn anything, and I'll thank any one to 
 leave me and my troubles alone."
 
 ON THE KNEES OF THE GODS 69 
 
 "Ain't you peppery, though!" commented Mrs. 
 Hill. 
 
 "Sally, Sally, you, who were born for deeds of 
 mercy, to talk so," laughed Lucy Fairish, who had 
 just strolled up. 
 
 "It's my form of dissipation," groaned Sally. "I 
 suppose I hate the meddling spirit so because I've 
 got it. Makes me think of my old grandmother. 
 She was a lively old lady, spry as a cricket, and al- 
 ways managing and bossing her own and every one 
 else's affairs; but when she got to be about eighty 
 years old she said that she had lived a long time, and 
 that she had always observed that those who re- 
 ceived special consideration in this world were 
 those who reached out and grabbed it. She said 
 that she had* always missed the petting and the cod- 
 dling the weak sister gets, because she had spent 
 most of her life in the engine-room oiling the ma- 
 chinery, and it got so that everybody finally took it 
 as a matter of course that the engine-room was just 
 about the fitting place for her, and that the wheels 
 went round without friction because it was their 
 nature to, and no one even gave her credit for the 
 free use of oil.
 
 70 SALLY SALT 
 
 "But she said my grandmother did that it's a 
 law of human nature that every one has to go off on 
 a spree now and then. She said, 'I don't care what 
 kind of a spree it is, whether liquor or religion, an 
 orgie's an orgie; and the orgie I want is the satis- 
 faction of seeing folks wait a bit on me before I die.' 
 So she took to her bed, saying she was old and 
 weak and had earned a rest, and she guessed her 
 time had come, and she'd probably be bedridden 
 and helpless for the rest of the little life that re- 
 mained. But, goodness, how she made them work! 
 She kept one of her daughters that had been used to 
 sitting all day in a chair and just about embroider- 
 ing her life away, reading hymns and novels to her 
 all day long; and another one, that was continually 
 gadding about, she kept running up and down stairs 
 bringing her this and that from morning to night. 
 They tried every way in the world to rouse her. 
 One of the girls would say, 'Mother, the house needs 
 cleaning dreadfully,' or 'Somebody ought to be mak- 
 ing the jelly,' but the old soul never turned a hair. 
 'I can't be bothered with such perishing matters,' 
 she'd say; 'I got my immortal soul to think of.' 
 And the preacher would tiptoe in and pray, and
 
 ON THE KNEES OF THE GODS 71 
 
 friends would bring her the news and a little jelly, 
 and she said for the first time in her life she felt 
 important. 
 
 "Well, house-cleaning, or bad cooks, or moths in 
 the carpet, couldn't feaze her ; but at last something 
 did. She said to her daughter one day, 'What's 
 that I smell ?' 
 
 " 'It's the wood fire that's been built in the back 
 yard so's we can boil the soft soap.' 
 
 " 'Who's a-stirring of it ?' said my grandmother. 
 
 " 'Henry,' answered her daughter, mentioning the 
 handy man. 
 
 " 'Oh, Lord !' groaned my grandmother, 'and he'? 
 no more use than my foot. Raise me up on some 
 pillows so's I can see how it's going,' she ordered. 
 
 "Well, the next thing they heard was a scream 
 'He's letting it boil over !' and before they knew it 
 my grandmother had streaked down those stairs in 
 her nightgown and was out stirring the soap. 
 
 "Of course, after that she couldn't take to her bed 
 again. It was the engine-room and oil-can for hers. 
 So," concluded Sally, smiling down humorously at 
 Lucy Parrish, "you see, I come naturally by my 
 bossing. Why, here's Harris again !"
 
 72 SALLY SALT 
 
 The little boy ran down the path to her and hid 
 his face in her dress, shaking with nervous fright. 
 Sally stooped and put her arms about him. "I smell 
 cookies in the oven," she cried, sniffing the air. 
 "Let's go and see if Aunt Mandy hasn't some ready 
 for us lovely little brown ones. Come on, Lucy, 
 we are going to play for the rest of the day." 
 
 Mrs. Nesbit clutched Mrs. Hill's knee. "Did you 
 see him?" her teeth chattered. "And she brought 
 that child here with no thought of me. How how 
 soon, Hetty Hill, how soon do you think he'll begin 
 to bite?" 
 
 "From the looks of him, I should say any minute." 
 Mrs. Hill rose and seized firmly a large black um- 
 brella which she carried as a protection against the 
 sun. "I'd try not to be too friendly with him if I 
 was you. They say they often turn on their best 
 and dearest, and yet you can't tell. I've heard just 
 as many tales about their taking spite out on those 
 that don't notice them. You can't tell about it; 
 you've just got to leave it in the hands of the Lord. 
 Who's that a-coming?" looking down the road. 
 "Oh, it's that Streatham. I never did have any use 
 for him, so I guess I'll get out of the way quick.
 
 ON THE KNEES OF THE GODS 73 
 
 Why do you suppose he didn't drive home with 
 Mrs. Salt?" 
 
 Streatham indeed had been loitering by the way 
 for purposes of his own. He had remained at the 
 Kurds' for a season, talking to old Mr. Hurd, and 
 had then slowly sauntered along the highroad, quite 
 aimlessly to all appearance. Half-way to Buckeye 
 Farms he had thrown himself under a large tree 
 and lay there in the shade, gazing about him with 
 contented and lazily observant eyes. There he lay, 
 enjoying the panorama of nature, until old Fanny, 
 the Hurd horse, ambled into sight. Then Anthony 
 rose and, playfully imitating the manner of the 
 professional highwayman, held up the conveyance, 
 and, inviting Grissom to take him a drive, stepped 
 into the old buggy while it was still moving. 
 
 Grissom laughed a little, grimly, cynically, amus- 
 edly and comprehendingly. "I bet I can guess 
 why," he said. 
 
 "You're so modest," remarked Anthony. "You 
 always think people have some ulterior reason for 
 seeking your society. It was, I remember, a marked 
 trait of yours even in boyhood." 
 
 "I've had reason to think so," grinned the other
 
 74 SALLY SALT 
 
 man, although still grimly. "But what's the use, 
 now, Streatham? In the first place, it's none of 
 your business, although I know that that fact won't 
 keep you from meddling in anything you choose." 
 
 "Why should you wish to deprive me of the exer- 
 cise of my profession ?" said Tony sadly, "especially 
 when it's the only one I've got. And you must ad- 
 mit that my meddling is ever actuated by a desire 
 to do good to others." 
 
 "It looks as if you were about to depart from that 
 straight and narrow path in this instance, then." 
 The other man spoke dryly. 
 
 "Again you do me wrong. To tell the truth, I 
 don't care for anything that hasn't a spice of danger 
 in it, and I've lived long enough to know that the 
 most dangerous thing in the world is to meddle in 
 other people's affairs, especially when you're trying 
 to do them good. Can't you see, then, the almost 
 irresistible fascination it has for me and the value 
 of my present renunciation?" 
 
 Grissom gave him a long and rather puzzled look. 
 "Then what is your game? If you're not here to 
 
 "Rescue Red-Riding-Hood from the wolf/' sup-
 
 ON THE KNEES OF THE GODS 75 
 
 plemented Anthony. "No, that wouldn't interest 
 me. For all I know it might be one of those 
 matches made in heaven." 
 
 "But that's your game, Tony; you can't throw me 
 off the scent, or pretend it isn't. I've got intuitions ; 
 have to have 'em in my line. I suppose that's the 
 objection my calling? Isn't that the name the 
 preachers give their trade?" with another of his 
 mirthless smiles. 
 
 "Well," Streatham had been occupied in getting a 
 light for his cigarette, in spite of a rather strong 
 breeze, and, having succeeded, he leaned back and 
 again gave his mind to the subject in hand, "admit- 
 ting that that is my game, I am not playing it from 
 the conventional and usual motives that you are 
 mentally imputing-to me." 
 
 "What other motive could there be ?" asked Gris- 
 som with the slightest of sneers. 
 
 "Oh, bah! Don't talk rot. What does interest 
 me is this: Can the waste of a rare and lovely 
 thing be prevented ? Is such a thing possible in this 
 world of chance and mischance? There's a won- 
 derful career stretching before this country Red- 
 Riding-Hood. She has a voice of a quality that's
 
 76 SALLY SALT 
 
 known only to the angels in Heaven, and there is 
 some strange temperament behind it. I can not tell 
 what is is, Grissom; I can never define it even to 
 myself, hard as I've tried. It escapes me. It will 
 escape you. But what will be left of that voice and 
 that career if you drag her through the mud?" 
 
 "Another jeer at my calling," with his harsh 
 laugh. "And I thought your objections were not 
 the usual and conventional ones." 
 
 "Bosh. I care nothing about the ethics or philos- 
 ophy of this thing, Griscom; I'm discussing prac- 
 tical issues. I've got a belief don't know whether 
 there's anything in it or not that a great gift al- 
 ways carries with it its terrible first commandment. 
 It speaks insistently to its possessor, Thou shalt 
 have no other gods before me. You must worship 
 me, love me wholly, serve me entirely. Seek your 
 happiness in other paths, and I send my lightnings 
 upon you, starve you, burn you, freeze you.' I be- 
 lieve that any one who has a voice like Hilda Kurd's 
 must crave more than anything else the perfect ex- 
 pression of it. You know that your er calling is 
 fraught with peculiar dangers; an accident disas- 
 trous to your career may occur at any moment.
 
 ON THE KNEES OF THE GODS 77 
 
 Then what about her career? The woman who 
 lives with you and cares for you, no matter if she 
 condones your method of life or even approves of it, 
 is nevertheless under the strain of a ceaseless fear 
 and anxiety, and when you consider what that 
 would mean to a nature so abnormally sensitive as 
 Hilda's " Anthony flicked his cigarette into the 
 roadside and turned heatedly to his companion. 
 "By God, man, who are you to deny the world the 
 joy of that voice? Association with you, Grissom, 
 can't help but take the unearthly, sexless rapture 
 out of it." 
 
 Grissom also turned. There was one swift, dan- 
 gerous gleam in his eye ; then his face set like stone. 
 "Look here, Streatham," he said, "that's all right 
 enough, and maybe true enough ; but you're no fool 
 and you're no hypocrite. Neither am I. Now, I've 
 thought about everything you've said, a good deal 
 longer and a good deal harder than you ever have. 
 But she will probably fall in love with some one. 
 She will probably marry some one. Then why not 
 me ? You know I don't think that I am any worse 
 than most of our prominent citizens, or even than 
 the average business man; and, cards on the table,
 
 78 SALLY SALT 
 
 Streatham, I love her and she loves me. Now, what 
 are you going to do about it ?" 
 
 "Nothing. Not a damn thing, Grissom. It's on 
 the knees of the gods now. Pull up old Fanny and 
 let me get out."
 
 A WILE OF SATAN 
 
 is coming; she's quite sure of it this 
 time," said Lucy Parrish, walking into Sally's 
 kitchen the next morning. Sally was making jam 
 in the big, cheerful room with east windows which 
 admitted great patches of sunlight. 
 
 To think of Sally was to picture her moving in 
 sunlight, encompassed in its glow and radiance. 
 Her kitchen was her pride ; it had need to be large 
 and well-equipped, fitted with all modern and labor- 
 saving devices, for it fed many in the course of a 
 year. 
 
 Wherever it was possible Sally had white tilings, 
 and wherever it was possible she had copper vessels, 
 and the sunshine dazzled over the floor and white 
 copper-hung walls and over Sally's copper head and 
 white dress, and threw into splendid ebony relief 
 the figure of "Aunt Mandy," with her red and yel- 
 low bandana twisted about her head. She was 
 
 79
 
 8o SALLY SALT 
 
 standing by a table kneading- bread and crooning 
 camp-meeting songs under her breath, while Sally 
 bent over a great kettle of jam on the stove. 
 
 Through the open window came in wafts the 
 faint, pungent breath of thyme, for the kitchen 
 looked out upon its garden of supplies parsley- 
 bordered beds of aromatic herbs, the clear little 
 artificial stream, its sides bordered with cress, 
 wonderful blue-green cabbage heads, rows of spring- 
 ing corn, tomatoes turning red in the midsummer 
 sun, bean vines in long festoons over their poles. 
 
 "What is it ?" said Sally absently. 
 
 "Anne really wants to come," repeated Lucy, ag- 
 grieved that her tidings of woe should be so indiffer- 
 ently received. 
 
 "Well, let her come." Sally continued to skim 
 her kettle of black, bubbling fluid, puffing out its 
 rich fragrance in gusts of steam. "Harris is all 
 right this morning, and that's such a relief that I 
 could welcome the devil himself." 
 
 "The devil would be a lot more interesting than 
 Anne." Lucy's tone was still disconsolate. "I 
 could forgive her anything but her cheerfulness at 
 the breakfast table."
 
 A WILE OF SATAN 81 
 
 "The breakfast table's a mighty good place to 
 keep quiet at," said Sally absently, leaning over her 
 bubbling pot. "There's more murder committed in 
 the heart at the breakfast table than anywhere else. 
 It takes a strong constitution to stand up under toe 
 much cheerfulness at the wrong time." 
 
 "But can I not write her that she mustn't come 
 now?" pleaded Lucy, "that Mr. Streatham is here 
 now, and consequently there will be no room for 
 her?" 
 
 "You can do as you please," said Sally, never lift- 
 ing her eyes from the pot, although a deep flush, the 
 flush which the mention of Streatham's name always 
 caused, spread even to her brow. "Ah !" with evi- 
 dent relief as the door slowly opened and there 
 peeped in a pretty mulatto girl, Aunt Mandy's 
 daughter, and a maid in the house. She was a small 
 creature, with an exquisite figure and a bewitching 
 face, demurely daredevil ; her skin like cream, deep- 
 ened to a sweep of warm, dusky shadows about the 
 long odalisque eyes and in the faint hollows of her 
 throat; her mouth was as full and scarlet as a 
 pomegranate flower, and her coarse, heavy hair lay 
 about her head in black, shining waves.
 
 82 SALLY SALT 
 
 As she had nothing to say, apparently, Sally 
 asked, with the touch of relief still lingering in her 
 tones : "What is it, Wilmerdine ?" 
 
 "Nothin' 'tall, Miss Sally," she drawled in her 
 soft voice. "I just wanted to speak to mothah." 
 
 "I don' want nothin' to say to you," returned 
 Aunt Mandy with cold obduracy, "a gal dat's actin' 
 like you is !" 
 
 "What's Wilmerdine doing now?" asked Sally 
 with an indulgent smile 
 
 "W'at she doin' now? Wat she doin' now? 
 Ain't she always in mischief?" asked her mother 
 shrilly. "Well, now's de worst yit. She's done 
 took up with Uncle Poodle, dat's w'at." 
 
 "Uncle Poodle ! What on earth do you mean ?" 
 Sally straightened up and ceased to give the jam her 
 earnest scrutiny, transferring it instead to the pretty, 
 sulky creature lounging in the door. "Why, Uncle 
 Poodle is at least sixty-five years old !" 
 
 "That's it!" said her mother still more wrath- 
 fully. "Here you, Blossom !" aiming an ineffectual 
 kick at a fleeing gray cat. "I'll break a broomstick 
 over yo' back 'fore yo' know whar you at. Yas'm. 
 Here she's got her pick of all de young fellows
 
 A WILE OF SATAN 83 
 
 around. Smaht, likely boys, an' she drap de whole 
 of dem to run after a old wuthless ape like Uncle 
 Poodle." 
 
 "Uncle Poodle !" The jam boiled over, but Sally 
 stood transfixed, spoon in air. Before her eyes 
 rose the vision of Uncle Poodle, old, ugly, bent with 
 rheumatism, ever grumbling, playing Corydon to 
 this airy Phyllis. 
 
 "She natchally can't let nothin' in trousers alone, 
 dat girl!" Aunt Mandy threw another baleful 
 glance at Wilmerdine, who, with shoulders raised 
 and a half-deprecating, half -sullen smile at the cor- 
 ners of her mouth, still leaned against the lintel. 
 "Blossom ain't de only one dat'll have a touch of de 
 stick across dar shoulders," threateningly. "I ain't 
 raised dat gal right, Miss Sally, an' I's a-payin' for 
 it. Ain't you seen how de beds is half made and 
 de rooms half swep'? Dat's her. An' ain't you 
 seen how de gyarden look, de flowers not half 
 watered, de grass dryin' up? 'Cause why? 'Cause 
 every time Uncle Poodle try to work, she's a-callin' 
 to him and a-chasin' him. My Lawd !" with a 
 vicious slap at the mass of puffy white dough on the 
 board.
 
 84 SALLY SALT 
 
 Sally had by this time regained her composure. 
 "What's the attraction, Wilmerdine?" she asked 
 briskly. 
 
 The girl looked at her, a slow gleam in her eyes, 
 as if laughter lurked somewhere behind the surface. 
 
 "He's got somethin' the boys ain't got, Miss Sally. 
 'Sperience." 
 
 " 'Sperience !" broke in her mother hotly. 
 " 'Sperience in rheumatics and shirkin' his work." 
 
 "And does he return your your interest?" Sally 
 again assiduously skimmed the jam. 
 
 Wilmerdine looked down and then up. "No'm, 
 he ain't," a secretive, conscious, triumphant smile 
 about her lips, the gleam in her eye feminine, in- 
 scrutable, deepening. "That is, he ain't yet." 
 
 "Wilmerdine !" Sally reproved now, "why are you 
 trying to turn his poor old head and make him un- 
 happy? I never thought you capable of such van- 
 ity. Why, it's wicked." 
 
 Wilmerdine, petted and unused to reproach, 
 pouted. For the first time she essayed a defense. 
 "It ain't vanity, Miss Sally. But Uncle Poodle, he 
 ain't never speak to me, or so much as look at me, 
 and when I try jus' to say a word to him in passin'
 
 A WILE OF SATAN 85 
 
 now an' then, he jus' look over my head an' say, 
 'Go 'long, gal. You ain't nothin' but a wile of 
 Satan.' That's what he call me, Miss Sally, an' I 
 ain't goin' to have nobody speakin' to me that way. 
 I'm goin' to show him." 
 
 "And when you do turn his head, which is exactly 
 what you set out to do," Sally spoke plainly, "what 
 then?" 
 
 But Wilmerdine shrugged her shoulders irrespon- 
 sibly. That was for the gods to settle. 
 
 While Sally had lent ear to Aunt Mandy's com- 
 plaints and exhorted Wilmerdine, Lucy Parrish had 
 slipped through the door and into the kitchen gar- 
 den, and thence had wandered on through Sally's 
 bright beds of flowers, and it was there that John 
 Witherspoon, who had come riding down the road 
 from his own adjacent property, found her. 
 
 "You look like a peach blossom in that pink 
 frock," he said as he stood, tall and sedate, awaiting 
 her between two great tubs of blooming oleander, 
 which, in a way, marked the entrance to the garden. 
 "But your face is a study for Melancholia. What 
 is it?" 
 
 "Anne," said Lucy tragically. "She's coming,
 
 86 SALLY SALT 
 
 and Sally won't say she shan't. If I'm a study for 
 Melancholia, it's Anne, and and other things." 
 
 The garden afforded delightfully cool spaces, and 
 it was in these shaded alleys that Lucy and Wither- 
 spoon loitered, where the trees spread a dome of 
 green, sun-transparent, above them, and the emerald 
 moss unrolled its encroaching velvet carpet over the 
 damp paths. On either side there were ferns and 
 those flowers which bloom and grow in cathedral 
 seclusion. Out where the sunlight fell intermit- 
 tently the day-lilies spread their broad, shining 
 leaves, the long, pointed white buds gleaming 
 through them like snow, and fuchsias swung their 
 richly-hued bells, purple and scarlet; but entirely 
 beyond the shade, free of it, were courts and mazes 
 of color, poppies that pitched their crinkled, silken 
 tents of a day; nasturtiums, flame and gold and 
 scarlet Parsees worshipping the sun and reflecting 
 its glow ; geraniums, heliotrope and mignonette, and 
 beyond them, in the aristocratic reserve and seclu- 
 sion they prefer, roses, a garden of them. 
 
 "Now, tell me," said Witherspoon, pausing in the 
 path, "why you look a little sad and pale this morn- 
 ing. That is not all Anne?"
 
 A WILE OF SATAN 87 
 
 "It's my frock ; pink takes the color out of me," 
 began Lucy bravely; then her lip trembled, a tear 
 stood in the depths of her dark eye, "Life wears 
 on me," she said, lifting her childish gaze to his. 
 "It seems so so monotonous." 
 
 "Monotonous! With Mrs. Salt?" he exclaimed. 
 
 "Oh, Sally! Sally's a strong breeze that blows 
 from the north, south, east and west ; but she's oh, 
 she's a she." Lucy sighed again. "You remember 
 Kipling, don't you? 'A woman is only a woman; 
 but a good cigar is a smoke.' Well, I want what- 
 ever is the symbolic equivalent of a smoke. It 
 means to me all the things I've missed in life. 
 Why, I've never had any of the experiences most 
 girls have. I was barely out of my teens when I 
 was married. He was nice and kind and took me 
 about the world and gave me a lot of pretty things 
 and then died and left me a load of money and you 
 my trustee. Oh, I know I ought to be ashamed of 
 myself, ever to grumble. Sally tells me so, fre- 
 quently. I dare say," she admitted candidly, "the 
 truth of the matter is that I have too much time on 
 my hands." 
 
 "In other words," looking down at her tenderly
 
 88 SALLY SALT 
 
 and laughingly, "you are badly in need of an interest 
 in life." 
 
 "Just so," she assented eagerly, her mercurial 
 temperament responding to the suggestion in flushed 
 cheek and sparkling eyes, "but it must be a nice in- 
 terest, not just a plain, ordinary one, but a vivid, 
 iridescent one, with lots of color and excitement." 
 
 "A romance," he suggested. 
 
 Lucy caught at the words. "That's it. A ro- 
 mance. I'm twenty-five years old, and I've never 
 had one in my life, anything even approaching one. 
 But," with a suddenly falling face, "you can't 
 have a romance without a man, and there are no men 
 here." 
 
 "There is myself," said Witherspoon modestly. 
 
 "You?" To Lucy's annoyance her eyes faltered 
 and fell, her laughter rang false. "But that is im- 
 possible. You are my trustee." 
 
 "You say it as if you meant executioner." With- 
 erspoon could not keep the amusement out of his 
 tones, and yet his smile was rueful. 
 
 "Nonsense !" Lucy endeavored to explain. "You 
 catch up one's words so. But you must admit there 
 doesn't seem anything very romantic about a trustee.
 
 A WILE OF SATAN 89 
 
 Jow," petulantly, "stop laughing. You have no 
 right to take things personally. I am speaking of 
 a trustee in his official capacity." 
 
 "How does an executor seem to you?" asked 
 Witherspoon. They had left the shaded alleys now 
 and were strolling through the sun-lighted, deli- 
 ciously fragrant rose-garden. Lucy had unfurled 
 a sun-shade, pink as the petals which strewed the 
 path. 
 
 "Oh, an executor ! Well, purely in his official ca- 
 pacity you mustn't take this in a personal sense, re- 
 member he seems a sort of cross between an uncle 
 and a private detective." 
 
 "Have I impressed you that way?" the amuse- 
 ment in Witherspoon's tones was almost obliterated 
 by anxiety and dismay. 
 
 "Oh, don't be absurd. Of course not. I was 
 speaking of trustees in their official capacity, you 
 remember." 
 
 They had reached an old rustic seat at the end of 
 the garden, and now they sat down. Lucy tilted her 
 sunshade over her shoulder so that it cast rose re- 
 flections over her gown and face, the wind blew 
 among the roses, scattering the petals over the grass,
 
 po SALLY SALT 
 
 blowing eddies of white and pink and crimson at 
 their feet. 
 
 "''Look here, Lucy Parrish," said Witherspoon, as 
 if just struck with a .new idea, "as a trustee, who is 
 really a more decent creature than you imagine, my 
 aim is to gratify your wishes as far as possible. 
 Now you are longing for romance. So since the 
 circumstances of the case prevent your having a real 
 romance, why not amuse yourself with an imitation 
 one. Pretend for the next few months that you are 
 living a romance and that I am the hero of it." 
 
 Lucy, eternally feminine, with the heart of youth, 
 looked at him as a child gazes at one who has pro- 
 posed a new and fascinating game. 
 
 "But I have known you so well and so long. 
 Would it be possible?" she doubted naively sincere. 
 
 "Oh, quite simple, truly," Witherspoon's tone was 
 gravely reassuring. "You have only to pretend 
 hard enough. I know I'm rather old, almost forty, 
 and a little stiff in the joints for a Romeo, but I 
 haven't forgotten all the rules of the game, believe 
 me." 
 
 "But it mustn't be any staid, middle-aged ro- 
 mance," insisted Lucy anxiously. "I want the fool-
 
 A WILE OF SATAN 91 
 
 ish, delightful kind that Anne would want if she 
 were anywhere near her own age." 
 
 "I understand," he again reassured her, and Lucy, 
 since she did not look up, saw neither the laughter 
 nor the tenderness of his eyes. "Who is that?" he 
 leaned forward, hearing the click of the gate. 
 
 Lucy, too, bent forward. "Oh, it is Hilda! She 
 has come to see Harris. Is that that Grissom man 
 with her?" 
 
 "Yes, and not a proper companion for her, I'm 
 sure, by Jove ! He does look a bad customer that 
 fellow." 
 
 Hilda lingered at the gate, wavering back and 
 forth, uncertain in her anxiety to go and her desire 
 to remain. And Grissom, who stood on the outside 
 of the closed gate, resting his arms nonchalantly on 
 the top bar of it, while he held an earnest conversa- 
 tion with the girl, was surely the antithesis of her 
 ethereal, wind-flower beauty. 
 
 Now, although she had advanced and retreated, 
 and looked up and down, and shaken her head in 
 dissent and nodded it in affirmation, he had not 
 changed his position, nor withdrawn his eyes from 
 her face, until he succeeded in winning from her the
 
 92 SALLY SALT 
 
 answer he desired. Then he lifted his hat in punc- 
 tilious courtesy, replaced it and turned to go. 
 
 Little Harris had by this time seen his sister, and 
 he ran down the path to meet her, flying a kite be- 
 hind him. Hilda stooped and put her arms about 
 him, kissing him, and laughing and crying over him 
 at the same time. Then together they walked to the 
 kitchen. 
 
 "Good morning, Hilda," called Sally, who was 
 filling jar after jar with rich jam, so fragrant that a 
 bee or two had buzzed through the window in an ad- 
 venturous quest for this new and delicious odor. 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Salt!" she cried, "isn't it splendid to 
 see Harris as he is this morning?" 
 
 "Indeed it is, Hilda. By the way, you had com- 
 pany as far as the gate, didn't you ?" 
 
 Hilda's eyes wide and luminous met Sally's tran- 
 quilly. "Yes, Mr. Grissom. He was telling me that 
 he's going away for a few days." 
 
 Sally straightened herself up from the jam-pots. 
 
 "You're a pretty girl, Hilda," she said, coolly 
 surveying the fawn-like creature from head to foot, 
 "an awfully pretty girl. You can pick and choose, 
 if you want to marry; but don't be economical in
 
 A WILE OF SATAN 93 
 
 your beaux. Have all you want about you, but don't 
 confine yourself to one, yet a while. I just saw the 
 other day a terrible example of the senselessness of 
 economizing. Now, I stopped in to see Susan Fink 
 a minute, and I was no sooner seated than she asked 
 me what was my especial economy. I told her I 
 hadn't any. I was entirely too busy to economize. 
 Once begin that sort of thing and it gets such a hold 
 on you that you can't think of, nor do anything else. 
 You just spend all your time studying about that. 
 Now, there's Susan Fink. If the angel Gabriel 
 would offer her a corner lot in Heaven, she would 
 say: 'I haven't got time to listen to you. I've got 
 to study how to get a patch on this old, worn-out 
 apron, so's it will last a week or two longer !' Oh !" 
 Sally was her impatient self now, tossing her red 
 head. "People are always drawing long faces and 
 saying that other people don't know the value of 
 money. There's such a thing as having entirely too 
 much reverence for a dollar. We worship it a lot 
 more than we ever do God. But it's just the same 
 with men. Have all the beaux you want, Hilda, 
 but don't get economical about them. It don't pay 
 to be stingy in that respect."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 MRS. KURD GOES HALVES 
 
 TWILIGHT was dropping blue veils over the 
 hillsides, and the white mists wavering up 
 from the valleys met and mingled and melted into 
 that mysterious and light-holding gray which lies 
 between the afterglow of sunset and the dense black- 
 ness of night; a solemn and tender shadow which 
 blurs the color and outline of beauty, effacing the 
 cruder graces that the inner and spiritual meaning 
 may be manifest ; and which also enfolds the sordid 
 and commonplace until the whole landscape becomes 
 a monotone suggesting loveliness without contrast. 
 Hilda Hurd was out in the soft dusk watering 
 her flowers, making endless journeys to an old 
 wooden pump at the side of the house, and return- 
 ing with her watering-pot running over, for her 
 flowers drank water thirstily during these days of 
 hot July sunshine. She was singing half under her 
 
 94
 
 MRS. HURD GOES HALVES 95 
 
 breath, as she worked, a curious little minor song 
 with a soft, reiterated, falling refrain. Mrs. Kurd, 
 a composed, almost granite figure, sat in a large 
 creaking rocking-chair on the porch, resting after 
 her day's toil, while Mr. Kurd, always restless as 
 night drew on, wandered up and down the road. 
 He finally disappeared, and Hilda, among her tall, 
 velvet-petaled hollyhocks, after casting an anxious 
 glance about for him, paused and listened intently, 
 peering down the highway. Satisfied, apparently, 
 she stood irresolute for a moment, and then, as if 
 going for another pail of water, picked up the rusty 
 pot and walked swiftly and quietly behind the house. 
 From the clump of trees opposite the garden, 
 which stretched away into a belt of woodland, there 
 came at rhythmic intervals wafts of cooler air, as 
 if the earth were breathing out again the freshness 
 of the morning; now and again a bird woke and 
 twittered sleepily, the croak of frogs in a meadow 
 pond rose clear and shrill, the night-blooming flow- 
 ers, beloved of the moths, began to open their starry- 
 cups, and now Mrs. Hurd was the only human figure 
 in the landscape, gazing before her with ruminative, 
 inscrutable eyes as if engrossed in some inward cal-
 
 96 SALLY SALT 
 
 culations, unmindful of the mystic moment when 
 day gives full place to night, and gathering her 
 half-lights and gleams, speeds to a further dawn. 
 
 Presently the gate clicked, and the solitary woman 
 of the porch bent forward to see who was the occa- 
 sion of this notification of arrival ; and then a slow, 
 satisfied smile spread over her features. Leisurely, 
 big of frame, the county sheriff, Jake Washburne, 
 took the narrow way between Hilda's flowers, which 
 he so far overtopped as not to see them, a stolid, 
 powerful, heavily-built man, with a broad, deeply- 
 tanned face, small, quick-moving blue eyes and a 
 mouth thin as a gash. 
 
 "Good evening, Mrs. Hurd." He sat down heav- 
 ily on the steps without awaiting a request to do so. 
 
 "Good evening, Jake," with as much cordiality as 
 it was possible for her to express. "Here, take a 
 chair. Don't sit down there." 
 
 "This is good enough for me," he said indiffer- 
 ently. "I don't want a chair. Where's Hilda?" 
 
 Mrs. Hurd looked about her, surprised not to see 
 that the girl still watered her flowers. "Why, she 
 was here just a minute ago. She can't be far. Shall 
 I go and look for her?" half rising.
 
 MRS. KURD GOES HALVES 97 
 
 "No," he shook his head. "Wait a minute." He 
 sat in silence for a few seconds, then drawing a 
 cigar from his pocket, he bit the end off of it, and 
 forgetting to light it, sat twisting it about in his 
 fingers, as if engrossed in some new thought. At 
 last, recalled to himself, he drew a match from his 
 pocket and lighted the cigar and puffed at it two or 
 three times, as if not fully ready to speak. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mrs. Hurd waited, manifesting no 
 impatience. Mrs. Hurd had not an impatient na- 
 ture. She could always afford to wait. 
 
 "No," he took up the thread of the conversation 
 where it had broken off after this period of cogita- 
 tion on his part and acquiescence on hers. "Don't 
 call her. It's better not. I came on purpose to see 
 you to-night, not her. That's unusual, ain't it?" 
 with a short laugh. 
 
 Mrs. Hurd smiled quietly and smoothed out her 
 apron, but said nothing. Why even momentarily 
 deflect the course of a confidence or a revelation 
 by an excursion into the vague inanities of polite- 
 ness? 
 
 "Yes," he took his cigar from his mouth and 
 spit on the ground. "Yes, I'm glad Hilda ain't
 
 98 SALLY SALT 
 
 around. It gives me a chance to talk over some 
 things with you that have got to be talked over." 
 
 Mrs. Hurd continued to smooth her apron. Her 
 eyelids were lowered, her mouth complaisant. In 
 effect, she purred. A homely group in a humble, 
 even sordid, environment, and yet it stood for an 
 eternal, human picture, a mother bending ear to the 
 hopes and fears of the eligible suitor; the priestess 
 of a daughter's destinies, with the symbolic fan in 
 one hand and the vessel of cold water in the other, 
 ready at once to fan the flame of his ardor, if neces- 
 sary, or to quench it should it flare to such high con- 
 fidence as to threaten indifference. 
 
 "Yes," and honey and butter melted together in 
 her tones, "yes, Jake." 
 
 He puffed exasperatingly at his cigar, trying even 
 her patience. He was only quick when his hand was 
 on the trigger. At last he removed the cigar from 
 his mouth and glanced cautiously about him. "Mrs. 
 Hurd," carefully lowering his voice, "where's Gris- 
 som?" 
 
 It took a good deal to startle Mrs. Hurd, but so 
 sharp and unexpected was the question, so obvious 
 was its effect of some sinister and underlying mean-
 
 MRS. KURD GOES HALVES 99 
 
 ing, that it might be said she almost jerked from her 
 attitude of ear-bending, maternal solicitude, to one 
 of startled and alert attention with its immediate 
 and skilfully suppressed hint of "on guard" about it. 
 
 "Grissom?" she repeated, her suave and stony self 
 again. "Of course, you mean Grissom that takes 
 his meals with us. There ain't any other, I guess, 
 around here anyways. Why, he's off somewheres 
 for a day or so. He'll be back Tuesday." 
 
 "Sure?" the question was as sharp as the report 
 of a pistol. 
 
 "Of course." She looked at him curiously. 
 "Didn't Hilda get a letter, this morning, saying so?" 
 
 "And he said he'd sure be back on Tuesday?" 
 with an increasing and eager insistence. "He didn't 
 have any suspicions ?" 
 
 "Suspicions ?" she repeated. "Do you mean about 
 you and Hilda?" 
 
 "Lord, no !" with a gesture of impatience. "What 
 do I care what he thinks about that? Look here, 
 Mrs. Hurd," he put his hand in the breast pocket of 
 his coat and withdrew it empty, "I couldn't show 
 you in this light," he glanced up at the moon, which 
 was just rising, a great yellow disc above the trees.
 
 TOO SALLY SALT 
 
 "Let's see, can you bring a candle out here? And 
 say, Mrs. Hurd," as she got up from her chair, 
 "just look about a little, will you, and make sure 
 that Hilda's no place about ; and if she is can't you 
 send her over to a neighbor's a minute on some little 
 errand or another?" 
 
 Mrs. Hurd nodded without speaking and went 
 into the house. For a moment or 'two her heavy 
 voice might be heard calling : "Hilda ! Hilda !" but 
 there was no response. Then she tried the fasten- 
 ings of some of the windows, closed a door or so 
 and reappeared, holding a lighted candle in a black 
 tin candle-stick. She was shielding the flame with 
 one hand and it threw white, sharply defined reflec- 
 tions on her impenetrable, cold face and across 
 murky eyes. 
 
 Washburne made a place for her on the step be- 
 side him and she sat down, holding the candle in 
 her lap, still carefully shielding the veering flame. 
 
 With another glance behind him toward the open 
 door at his back, he again thrust his hand into the 
 inner pocket of his coat and drew out a folded news- 
 paper. Slowly, he unfolded it, and then by the light 
 of the candle he pointed out to the woman beside
 
 MRS. KURD GOES HALVES 101 
 
 him a smudged half-tone, which might easily pass 
 for a portrait of Grissom. 
 
 "What do you think of that?" he asked triumph- 
 antly. 
 
 She bent above the paper and studied it in every 
 line before she answered. "That's him, sure," she 
 lifted her head and spoke with final conviction. 
 "But, Jake, what does it mean? What's he been 
 doin' so big that he's got his picture in the papers ?" 
 
 "Nothin' very strange about that," Washburne 
 spoke with a rough indifference plainly affected, 
 "seein' as he's one of the best-known green-goods 
 men in the country. Why, he's just gold-bricked 
 a rich farmer in Missouri, him and a pal of his. Got 
 fifteen thousand dollars out of the old man. Ac- 
 cording to account, he seems to be a general, all- 
 round, high-class crook. What was that ?" he cried 
 sharply, his eyes on the open door yawning black in 
 the whitewashed wall. 
 
 "What?" she asked impatiently, half-rising. 
 
 "A kind of a long sigh. Made me shiver. Sure 
 there's no one there?" 
 
 "Sure!" her impatience more marked. "Wasn't I 
 all over the house? The windows and the back
 
 102 SALLY SALT 
 
 doors are all locked. No one can get in without 
 my hearing them. I'll go and look again, if you say 
 so, but it's the wind, I tell you." 
 
 "There ain't a breath stirring," he affirmed in- 
 credulously. "No, it wasn't that. Oh, well, I guess 
 'twas nothing, after all." 
 
 "Of course," she agreed contemptuously. "But 
 do go on." 
 
 "Well, to-day I got a letter from the chief of 
 police up in the city, saying they had reason to sus- 
 pect that Grissom was somewhere about in this local- 
 ity, and giving a description of him that fitted him 
 to a T." 
 
 Mrs. Hurd still continued to study the news- 
 paper portrait. "It says here that his name's Curtis 
 Hammond." 
 
 "Just so," he replied in tones of easy sophistry. 
 "You don't suppose Grissom's his real name? He's 
 sure to have a baker's dozen of 'em. But it's him. 
 You can bet your last dollar on that. All you got 
 to do is to look at him to know he's a crook. Of 
 course, feeling as I do to Hilda, it wouldn't have 
 done for me to mix in before, with nothing to back 
 me up," deprecatingly, "but I always felt, Mrs.
 
 MRS. KURD GOES HALVES 103 
 
 Kurd," now in tones of admonition, superior, easy, 
 "that you weren't right in takin' him in like you did 
 and lettin' Hilda see so much of him. I don't sup- 
 pose his flashiness made much impression on her. 
 Hilda ain't that kind. Still, it was taking a risk. 
 Yes," shaking his head as if over danger averted by 
 the merest scratch, "it was certainly taking a risk. 
 What did you know about him ?" 
 
 ' She glanced at him sidewise out of her dull, con- 
 templative eyes, as if his moralizing roused in her 
 a sort of slow, indifferent scorn. "What did I know 
 about him? Nothing except that he put up his 
 money; that's about the only recommendation that 
 particularly interests me." For a moment she 
 studied the moon-lighted path before her, her jaws 
 working slowly, as if she chewed her words before 
 uttering them, then she turned on him, a flush on 
 her cheek and a smoldering fury in her eyes. 
 
 "What's the matter with you, anyhow, Jake 
 Washburne?" and all the sleekness that usually oiled 
 her voice had vanished. The tones were harsh and 
 sharp as a bark, malevolent as a snarl. "Just because 
 because you're jealous of Hilda with Grissom, 
 you go hunting up crazy resemblances in the news-
 
 104 SALLY SALT 
 
 papers. Hilda !" This sordid and brutalized Mar- 
 tha flung out her whole, secret, invincible contempt 
 for the Mary she had borne. "What you or Gris- 
 som either see in her ! " She stopped abruptly, re- 
 stored to caution. "Look here, Jake," her voice 
 again showed the use of oil, it was explanatory, in- 
 gratiating, "you know as well as anybody what I've 
 had to do on this farm; I'm not only the head, but 
 the hands of it You know what a daft fool Kurd 
 is, and as for Hilda," again she checked herself, 
 "Hilda ain't much more than a child. Well, you 
 know that besides the farm, I make something tak- 
 ing in mealers. My cooking's well known, and if I 
 do say it myself, it deserves it; but of all the sum- 
 mer folks that's ever taken their meals with me, no 
 one has ever paid me the prices that Grissom has. 
 City prices, Jake, city prices!" There was pathos 
 in her voice. "And then you come " her accents 
 broke in bitterness. 
 
 "Wait a minute," said Washburne, spreading out 
 a hand toward her, explanatory, soothing, almost 
 shaking concessions from his broad fingers and 
 great flat palm, "there's a reward offered. If this
 
 MRS. HURD GOES HALVES 105 
 
 is the man, and of course it is, and I can get him, 
 and of course I can, I get the reward." 
 
 "A reward!" Mrs. Kurd, who had descended 
 into the grave, arose to new and vital life. "A re- 
 ward!" she cried, "a reward, Jake!" Her long, 
 fleshy ringers closed over his arm, pressing deeply 
 into his hard muscles. "How much?" 
 
 This was Washburne's moment, and he allowed 
 no undue haste to destroy the fine flavor of it. He 
 cast his eyes moonward and appeared to calculate, 
 while the clutching fingers on his arm increased 
 their tension. "Let me see," he dragged each 
 word to its full length, "why it's just twenty- 
 five hundred dollars." He endeavored to keep his 
 voice down to matter-of-fact level, but it broke its 
 tether in spite of him and soared. 
 
 "What!" it was a low, almost breathless gasp 
 from his companion, "twenty-five hundred dollars !" 
 The sum received from her its due meed of rever- 
 ence. Then its contemplation stirred cupidity and 
 cupidity induced action. "Give me that paper!" 
 She almost tore it from his hands and desperately 
 scanned it.
 
 io6 SALLY SALT 
 
 "And you're going to get that money?" Her 
 eyes held a fierce awe. 
 
 "I was calculating to. That's always allowing 
 that things go right," falling into the racial super- 
 stitious deference to the powers of darkness. But 
 in spite of this propitiatory humbleness, his voice 
 sang triumph. 
 
 The smooth, cold surface of her face broke a lit- 
 tle and hardened again. It was as if she had re- 
 pressed a smile. 
 
 "Oh, I guess not, Jake, I guess not," and mild 
 and soothing as her voice was, it held the cold steel 
 of conviction which sent a chill of apprehension 
 over him. "I guess it ain't feasible. Hilda's the 
 only one that knows his address, and if she should 
 suspect that you're after him, and a reward, she'd 
 have word to him before you know it." 
 
 He gave one brief, contemptuous chuckle and 
 looked at her with surprised amusement. Was this 
 the woman that a moment before had almost fright- 
 ened him? Why, she was straw. "You can't play 
 any games like that," he said coolly. "Neither you 
 nor Hilda will ever have a chance to get word to 
 him. You'll both be watched from the minute I
 
 MRS. HURD GOES HALVES 107 
 
 leave here. I planned for that. I got a man wait- 
 ing to go on duty, down the road a piece." He 
 jerked head and thumb in the same direction. 
 
 Mrs. Hurd pressed her lips together and brooded 
 moodily for a moment. Then her face lightened 
 and she smiled benignly on him. 
 
 "How do you think Hilda will feel toward you, 
 Jake, when she learns that you trapped Grissom and 
 took the reward ? Hilda likes Grissom mighty well. 
 Don't make any mistakes about that, Jake." She 
 softly patted his arm. 
 
 He looked at her a moment without any particu- 
 lar expression on his face, studied the woman with 
 whom he had to deal and the question between them, 
 turning both over in his mind as he chewed a fresh 
 cigar. 
 
 "How's Hilda going to know anything about the 
 reward?" he asked. 
 
 "Because I shall tell her all about it, Jake." Her 
 smile made her cheeks look like thick, wrinkled 
 cream. 
 
 Washburne rested his elbow on his knee, propped 
 his chin on his hand and gave the moon his keenest 
 Scrutiny.
 
 io8 SALLY SALT 
 
 "Supposing," he said at last, "that you and I do 
 the trick. You keep Hilda in the dark about it as 
 much as possible, and if she does find out anything 
 make it seem like it was a sad duty forced on. me by 
 my position. It's got to look like I was acting re- 
 luctant." 
 
 "Yes, Jake," gently, "I understand. And we go 
 halves on the reward." 
 
 "Halves!" he repeated blankly. 
 
 "Yes, halves," the iron broke through the smooth 
 texture of the velvet now. "And I want your agree- 
 ment to that in writing to-morrow morning, Jake. 
 Don't make any mistake about it ; it's halves or noth- 
 ing."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 STREATHAM TELLS A STORY 
 
 E~JCY PARRISH ran down the path to meet 
 Witherspoon at the gate. The great yellow 
 moon was sailing through a sky mysteriously blue, 
 the air was sweet with all manner of night frag- 
 rances; but it was the face of tragedy that Lucy 
 lifted to his. 
 
 "Anne's here," she announced without the for- 
 mality of a greeting. 
 
 "Anne?" even the composed Witherspoon looked 
 blank. "When did she come?" 
 
 "This evening. And now," Lucy was almost in 
 tears, "we can't have any more fun playing at ro- 
 mance. She'll know. Some way or other, she will 
 discover it. She always finds out things, that is, 
 things you are particularly anxious that she 
 shouldn't." 
 
 Witherspoon pondered. Inspiration came. "But 
 109
 
 I io SALLY SALT 
 
 don't you see,"* taking her hands in his, "that that 
 adds just the proper element to the romance. It 
 makes it twice as interesting if we have to elude her, 
 throw her off the track all the time. Why, Anne, 
 for purposes of romance, can be any number of per- 
 sons ; the duenna who must be evaded, the tyrannical 
 relative who seeks to part us oh, all of the well- 
 known fictional characters. Truly, Lucy, I see pos- 
 sibilities in the situation." 
 
 Lucy brightened with one of the lightning changes 
 of her mercurial temperament. "I hadn't thought 
 of that," she cried. 
 
 "Aunt Lucy! Aunt Lucy!" a voice from the 
 porch. 
 
 Lucy crouched against the gate-post. "H-s-sh! 
 h-s-sh, don't answer," she whispered. "But she will 
 come anyway. She'll find us," despairingly. 
 
 "She will not if we are not here," said Wither- 
 spoon decidedly. "Come," with another inspiration. 
 Witherspoon always rose to executive heights under 
 stress of emergency. "Come, we'll row up the 
 river." 
 
 "And get some water-lily buds!" cried Lucy 
 eagerly, slipping through the gate. "And then I can
 
 STREATHAM TELLS A STORY in 
 
 see the lovely things open in the sunshine to-morrow 
 morning!" 
 
 They took a narrow path along the edge of a field 
 of whispering, rustling corn, and then, when With- 
 erspoon had unmoored the boat, floated out on the 
 moon-lighted river. 
 
 "Oh!" said Lucy with a sigh of content, settling 
 herself back comfortably against the cushions, "this 
 is delightful. What do you suppose Sally and An- 
 thony Streatham are doing this evening?" 
 
 "Sitting on the porch, probably, or in the garden. 
 They are living the real romance, not playing at it" 
 A shadow fell across Witherspoon's face. 
 
 "But this is the real romance," expostulated Lucy, 
 "the beautiful moonlight, and the water all flooded 
 with it, and the deep, mysterious shadows on the 
 banks. If only " Her face fell a little. 
 
 "What ?" asked Witherspoon. 
 
 She hesitated. 
 
 "If only I were a more romantic figure. Do not 
 be afraid to say it, Lucy. But do you not see, my 
 dear, that here, as in the case of Anne, you have to 
 exercise your imagination ? Our romance is largely 
 constructive. It isn't exactly spontaneous, you
 
 H2 SVLLY SALT 
 
 know, because it involves the will to be romantic. 
 Therefore, the more you use your imaginative fancy 
 the better. Now, you've simply got to see me as a 
 romantic object, no matter what your reason tells 
 you." 
 
 "It wasn't that so much," Lucy hastened to ex- 
 plain, "as that it seemed only half a feast. Here is 
 moonlight and a boat, and I look rather nice, do I 
 not, with this mantilla over my head ?" 
 
 "And I only am out of the picture," said Wither- 
 spoon, with a touch of his dry, quiet humor. 
 
 "But you're not," quickly denying his statement. 
 "You're quite in it. You look so dark and distin- 
 guished and reserved." 
 
 "Thank you," he managed to achieve a bow. 
 "Then what is bothering you? What is lacking of 
 a whole feast ?" 
 
 "Several things. Music, and " 
 
 "But, Lucy, I couldn't touch the lute and row too. 
 And if I sang it would drive all thoughts of romance 
 out of your head." 
 
 "But poetry." Lucy advanced this tentatively. 
 "You could recite things." 
 
 "Mm-m." He rowed silently for a few minutes.
 
 STREATHAM TELLS A STORY 113 
 
 "Go on," urged Lucy encouragingly. "You have 
 such a lovely, deep voice, that I am sure you recite 
 beautifully." 
 
 "But I don't know anything," said Witherspoon. 
 "I can't think of a thing." 
 
 "Oh, but there are such lots of things," sighed 
 Lucy. "The Last Ride Together, or By the Fireside, 
 or some of the Sonnets from the Portuguese, the 
 one beginning 'How do I love thee? Let me count 
 the ways.' ' 
 
 Witherspoon shook his head. "I can't do it, 
 Lucy. I don't know any poetry. I," desperately, 
 "always hated it ; and now I can't think of a thing 
 but Woodman, spare that tree!" 
 
 Meanwhile, as Witherspoon had predicted, while 
 he rowed Lucy through the moon-flood, Streatham 
 and Sally sat on the porch together ; the rest of the 
 household had gone within, and Streatham sat on 
 the step below Sally, with his cheek aga'inst her arm. 
 For a few minutes there had been an unusual silence 
 between them, and then he lifted his head, sniffing 
 the odor shaken from the insignificant green bells of 
 a night-blooming jasmine by a wandering breeze. 
 
 "Sally, what is that fragrance, blown straight in
 
 H4 SALLY SALT 
 
 from dreamland, which, combined with your pres- 
 ence, makes me realize that, as Em-Emerson says, 
 'Life is an ecstasy, or it is nothing' ? It is an ecstasy 
 to-night. Look at the moonflowers opening their 
 big white cups like angels' trumpets. S-Sally, 
 darling," with a long sigh of content, "this is one of 
 those seasons that only say, 'Live and rejoice.' ' 
 
 "But all seasons say that," returned Sally simply. 
 "To live is to rejoice." 
 
 "Ah, Sally," he caught her hand and ardently 
 pressed his cheek to it, "that is what distinguishes 
 you from the rest of this dolorous world which takes 
 such pride in its dolor. It's the joy in you, Sally - 
 the joy that springs from some inner, inexhaustible 
 source, from the deep hidden founts of being, some 
 unspoilable harmony of nature." 
 
 "Everybody would be as happy as I am," said 
 Sally, "if they were equally well and strong and had 
 as much to interest them." 
 
 "Do not dream it." He shook his head positively. 
 "It's not a matter of a strong body ; it's the eternal 
 health and youth of the spirit expressing itself." 
 
 "Tony, you use a lot of big words," Sally an- 
 nounced from her higher position on the top step,
 
 STREATHAM TELLS A STORY 115 
 
 her chin comfortably cupped in her hands. "But 
 the real reason that so many people don't enjoy life 
 is because they're always planning to do so. Pru- 
 dence and forehandedness have been so drilled into 
 us that we don't dare enjoy ourselves until every 
 detail is arranged so that we may do it properly, and 
 then we don't care anything about it. It makes me 
 think of the time I went to Europe. I, too, would 
 be forehanded and prudent. Everything was all 
 planned on schedules, and it came out just as it was 
 planned. And, Tony, the horror of that visit hangs 
 over me yet. I had arranged just what I was to 
 admire and enjoy, and when the time actually ar- 
 rived to do so I'd feel like a clam, or as if I were 
 dead and looking on a scene which held no further 
 interest for me. Then I'd stick the spurs deep into 
 my poor paralyzed emotions, but even that wouldn't 
 draw blood just a little water." She grimaced at 
 the remembrance, and then joined in Streatham's 
 laughter. 
 
 "I do not believe you," he insisted obstinately. 
 "Nothing could damp your ardor. Why, Sally, 
 your joy is a crucible, and into it I cast all my cyn- 
 icisms and unbeliefs, evil thoughts and deeds, and
 
 3i6 SALLY SALT 
 
 behold, they are transmuted, glorified into the most 
 beautiful and enduring illusions." 
 
 "Where did you collect all those cynicisms and 
 unbeliefs, Anthony?" she asked. She lifted her 
 chin from her hands and looked at him earnestly, 
 interestedly. "Be frank, for once, if you can, and 
 tell me something about yourself." 
 
 "Psyche !" he murmured, his mouth twisted in its 
 most whimsical, cynical smile. "Bah! the drop of 
 oil fell on my nose," wrinkling it up and rubbing it 
 violently. "And it burns, Sally, it burns." 
 
 "What are you talking about?" She looked at 
 him perplexedly. "Oh, you're trying to torment me. 
 Your eyes have that Satanic gleam in them which 
 always comes when you try to tease and mystify 
 people. But, Anthony, seriously, although you talk, 
 talk all the time, you never really tell anything about 
 yourself. Think of it! You have been coming 
 here for three years, and I know very little more 
 about you than I did the first day." 
 
 "Thank you." He drew off from her and pulled 
 an imaginary forelock. "You remove far from me 
 the taint of provincialism. In the world, Sally, the 
 really cosmopolitan world, people never talk of the
 
 STREATHAM TELLS A STORY 117 
 
 vain and passing illusion of their outer lives. And 
 you know the inner me, Sally." 
 
 "Do I ? In your own words, Tony, do not dream 
 it. But your silence on that one subject, yourself 
 goodness knows you're not silent on anything else 
 is uncanny. It makes you seem so mysterious. 
 Didn't you ever have a mother, Anthony, or a 
 home?" 
 
 "'Oh fair, green-girdled mother of mine'!" a 
 little bitter, far-away smile on his lips, "early, I 
 sought that fair, green-girdled mother of mine, 
 'mother and lover of men, the sea.' And for a home 
 why, my home is in your heart, Sally." 
 
 She smiled her warm, enfolding smile. "But a 
 real home, Anthony; didn't you ever have one? 
 Don't you ever want one ?" Pity and incomprehen- 
 sion mingled in the tones of Sally, born home- 
 maker. 
 
 In the moonlight she could plainly see his eyes, 
 eager, tired, restless, and the lines seemed to deepen 
 in his haggard face a face as fascinating and 
 changeful as that of the only mother he claimed. 
 
 "Oh, Sally, you do not begin to know the vaga- 
 bond call of the blood," stammering in his rapid
 
 Ii8 SALLY SALT 
 
 speech, as he always did when interested or excited. 
 "You've never known the irresistible lure of life, the 
 curiosity that stings, the zest that burns. Life's a 
 cruel mistress and a sweet one, sweeter than honey. 
 She'll mock and flout you for many a mile, and then 
 she'll relent and walk with you a bit, and slip her 
 hand in yours, and throw her silvery mist of en- 
 chantment over all the earth. Sometimes she sings 
 her siren song of far waters, and no matter where 
 you are you've got to go, and then, when she's got 
 you out of sight of land she'll toss you a whiff of 
 balsam, a breath cf pine, and there's nothing but the 
 woods for you, and you follow her there. But after 
 a while she makes you feel the nightmare of the 
 forest silence, the horror of isolation, until you 
 sicken for cities and men and women, the lights and 
 music, the talk of the studios ; and it's up and away 
 again." 
 
 "And yet, to stay-at-homes like me I really be- 
 lieve that life offers more than to gadabouts like 
 you," said Sally shrewdly. 
 
 "No matter how much it offers, you know before- 
 hand what the offering will be," he asserted; "a 
 damning fact, for, Sally, when I can predict with
 
 STREATHAM TELLS A STORY 119 
 
 certainty what life will offer at the very ultimate of 
 abundance, life has nothing to offer. There must 
 be infinite expectation and no limitation, no ties that 
 bind." 
 
 "But" began Sally. 
 
 "Now, stop arguing." He was weary of the sub- 
 ject; his mood had changed, and he shook his 
 cigarette at her admonishingly. "We'll be quarrel- 
 ing presently. By the way, where is that bright 
 ornament of the home circle, Ham I mean Gris- 
 som? I have not observed him communing with 
 nature about here for a day or two." 
 
 "I don't know," replied Sally. "I haven't heard 
 anything about him." 
 
 "How does Grissom impress you, Sally? A 
 fine, imposing man, eh?" 
 
 Sally sniffed contemptuously. "A fine, imposing 
 er er what do you call them? A fine, impos- 
 ing confidence man." 
 
 Streatham drew back a little in evident surprise. 
 Then he cocked his head on one side and looked at 
 her with a sort of astonished amusement. "Clever 
 Sally!" His eyes were shining. "Well, it takes 
 that kind to get the big money. Those who are in
 
 120 SALLY SALT 
 
 effect, solid, substantial, business men, plausible, con- 
 vincing, even hypnotic, yes decidedly hypnotic. 
 
 "Speaking of such things, there was a funny game 
 played on an old farmer in the the West, not long 
 ago." He laughed in irrepressible amusement, but 
 underlying the mirth, and qualifying it, were other 
 emotions which infused it with a touch of resent- 
 ment, a hint of chagrin. 
 
 "It happened this way I saw it all in the pa- 
 pers : A man like Grissom went to a country town, 
 remained long enough to get a good idea of the 
 standing, characteristics and all that of the various 
 members of the community. Then he hired a con- 
 veyance and drove to the home of a wealthy old 
 farmer who lived several miles in the country. Ar- 
 riving at his destination, he introduced himself to the 
 old fellow as a relative of the richest and most influ- 
 ential families in the town, and said that he was 
 visiting them for the present, with the end in view 
 of buying a farm in the locality. The farmer saw 
 his great business opportunity, and after some con- 
 versation, in which this man like Grissom we'll call 
 him Grissom for convenience succeeded in convinc- 
 ing him of his importance in the business world and
 
 STREATHAM TELLS A STORY 121 
 
 the value of his vast holdings, they started out to- 
 gether to look over one of the old man's most valu- 
 able pieces of property. 
 
 "As they were 'viewing the landscape o'er' a sew- 
 ing-machine agent happened along. He was one of 
 these audacious, impudent Smart Alecks, who, when 
 they see two or three gathered together, simply have 
 to butt in, an undesired but talkative third. Imagine 
 this kind of a fellow, Sally long, lean, lantern- 
 jawed, a Yankee twang, chewing gum every minute 
 and talking at the same time, always talking, talking 
 himself to skin and bone, and every one else off the 
 earth." Streatham was in the full tide of his story 
 now, and impersonating all the different characters 
 in turn, helping out his stammering speech with 
 plentiful gesture. "By a dint of cheeky questioning 
 the agent quickly made out Grissom's intention of 
 buying a farm, and, without regard to the feelings 
 of the old farmer, began belittling the property be- 
 fore them, asserting bumptiously that he, personally, 
 was in the way of securing better land at a better 
 figure. This naturally nettled the old farmer, and 
 he and the sewing-machine agent were soon in a 
 row, a fine, hot altercation.
 
 122 SALLY SALT 
 
 "At its height the agent, swaggering, bragging, 
 loud-mouthed, pulled a big roll of bills out of his 
 pocket and offered to back up his pretensions by bet- 
 ting on the matter; flourished the roll under the 
 farmer's nose, counted out the bills, five thousand 
 dollars, boasting that he carried about with him more 
 money than the farmer could raise. 
 
 "None of these nice little banderillos missed their 
 aim; all of them stuck in the farmer's hide, just 
 where they were meant to stick ; but now the fanner 
 Was goaded to the point where he retorted that he 
 was not in the habit of carrying all he had around 
 with him, but if he were in town at his bank he could 
 raise twice that amount in ten minutes. The agent 
 sneers and at this point Grissom steps in with his 
 little oil-can. He takes the old man aside, and after 
 remarking that his time is too valuable to be wasted 
 this way he says impatiently : 'This impudent, 
 worthless fellow needs a lesson. Why don't you 
 take him up? It's a sure thing for you. I'll drive 
 to town with you and you get the money. He can't 
 back down now; he's gone too far, and it's making 
 five thousand dollars without turning over your 
 hand. It's like picking gold off the bushes/
 
 STREATHAM TELLS A STORY 123 
 
 "The farmer thinks this is a good plan, and they 
 start off, the sewing-machine agent promising to 
 await their return, and hurling taunts after them; 
 and on that drive, Sally, dear, all of Grissom's 
 trained abilities, his consummate knowledge of the 
 whole wide range of human weaknesses, come into 
 play. The farmer is as a musical instrument to 
 him, and he sweeps the strings with a master hand, 
 evoking what strains he will. He dazzles, flatters, 
 encourages the old man; praises his cleverness, and 
 excites his cupidity, and mark this well, Sally 
 never fails to give him the strong, recurring, positive 
 suggestion that he must mention this matter to no 
 one, that it would excite endless gossip, and would 
 look very badly for any one so prominently con- 
 nected with the church as the old farmer is to be in- 
 volved in a betting transaction, and he, Grissom, 
 would be personally deeply chagrined if such a re- 
 port were circulated about him. 
 
 "Well, to make a long story short, the farmer 
 drew the money and drove back with Grissom. The 
 sewing-machine agent awaited them, sitting on the 
 fence, swinging his long legs and chewing gum. 
 His fleers and jeers were still on tap, running as
 
 124 SALLY SALT 
 
 freely and freshly as water from a spigot. Then, 
 after some preliminary arrangement, he placed his 
 five thousand dollars in a small tin box which Gris- 
 som held ; the farmer laid his ten atop of it. Gris- 
 som turned the key ancf then handed it, the key, to 
 the sewing-machine agent, and placed the box in the 
 farmer's hands. Then the old man drove to town 
 alone to place the precious box in a safety deposit 
 box, and Grissom and the sewing-machine agent 
 drove off in the opposite direction to look at the 
 farm on which the agent had the option. On Mon- 
 day this was Saturday morning Grissom's opin- 
 ion and that of several competent judges of land 
 were to be taken, and the money would then go to 
 the man whose claim to the most valuable land was 
 upheld." 
 
 Here Streatham paused dramatically. 
 
 "Well," said Sally. "Well, I don't see if the 
 farmer's land was the best, and he had the box with 
 the money in it " 
 
 "That's the point, Sally. Did he have the box 
 with the money in it ? When he broke open the box 
 Monday morning, no bank-notes began to sing
 
 STREATHAM TELLS A STORY 125 
 
 their crisp, rustling little song. The box held only 
 worthless pieces of paper." 
 
 "Sleight of hand !" cried Sally, illuminated. "And 
 didn't they get the men?" 
 
 It was a warm night, but a little breeze from the 
 river swept over the garden, and Streatham shivered 
 involuntarily. "Not yet, 1 believe. They are still 
 at large," he answered. 
 
 "Oh, what a shame !" 
 
 He looked up at her quickly, but the moor had 
 gone under a cloud, and she could not see his eyes. 
 
 "I don't like that story." Sally stured restlessly 
 in her chair. "It's a horrid story; all about a low 
 trick of wicked men, and you, Anthony," petulantly, 
 accusingly, "tell it as if it amused you, as if well, 
 as if you put yourself in their places and knew how 
 they felt. I hate it. I wish Hark !" She stopped 
 and bent forward, listening. "Is that some one com- 
 ing up the path ?" 
 
 Streatham lifted himself from his lounging posi- 
 tion and peered across the white patch of moonlight 
 into the scented dark. "Yes ; it's a woman !" 
 
 "Hilda Kurd, as I live !" exclaimed Sally. "What 
 under the sun can she want at this time of night?"
 
 126 SALLY SALT 
 
 From the shadow, fragile, ethereal as a spirit of 
 the moonlight, Hilda drifted toward them. 
 
 "Is that you, Hilda?" called Sally. 
 
 "Yes, Mrs. Salt," was the faint, fluttering re- 
 sponse. 
 
 "What is it? Anything wrong?" Sally's full 
 tones promised sympathy, comfort, immediate help. 
 
 "No; oh, no. I just came to ask about Harris. 
 I," she drew her hand vaguely across her brow, "felt 
 worried about him." 
 
 "Harris !" Sally was astonished, even faintly im- 
 patient. "D^ar me, he's all right. He's been in 
 bed for two hours, after the happiest kind of a day." 
 Then, struck by the weary way the girl leaned 
 against the post, drawing deep, fluttering breaths, as 
 if she had run all the way : "Hilda, has anything 
 frightened you?" Again sympathy warmed her 
 voice. 
 
 "No, Mrs. Salt." The reply was so low that it 
 was scarcely audible. "I just stopped a moment. I 
 must be getting back." 
 
 Sally, bewildered Sally, cudgeled her brains. 
 What did this strange girl want ? For what was she 
 waiting? "Hilda," she said, acting on what seemed
 
 STREATHAM TELLS A STORY 127 
 
 to her to be a sudden inspiration, "Hilda, would you 
 like to see me alone?" 
 
 But this suggestion served only to increase Hilda's 
 alarm and confusion. "Oh, no. Please, please do 
 not put yourself out at all, Mrs. Salt. I just ran in 
 a minute to see how Harris was I was passing 
 but since he is all right, I must hurry home. It is 
 late " She paused helplessly ; her nervous fingers 
 tore at a leaf she had plucked from the vine. "I I 
 did get a little frightened coming here," the effort 
 to speak was manifest, " if Mr. Streatham " 
 
 "I was just about to insist on walking back with 
 you." Streatham's voice came pleasantly out of the 
 darkness in which he stood. "I shouldn't think of 
 allowing you to go home alone." 
 
 With a murmur of thanks almost inarticulate, 
 Hilda took one or two hasty steps down the path 
 and then wavered. "Good night, Mrs. Salt." 
 
 "Good night," said Sally coldly. She sat for a 
 moment as if petrified, then, as their footsteps died 
 away, she rose and went up-stairs to her room. 
 There she hesitated a moment, only a moment, for 
 Sally's hesitations were brief, then crossed the floor 
 and, drawing aside the curtain, glanced from the
 
 128 SALLY SALT 
 
 window. Upon the road, fully revealed in the high, 
 white light, Hilda and Anthony walked slowly, deep 
 in conversation, and Sally noticed that Anthony's 
 head was bent as if to catch every word ; that occa- 
 sionally he interrupted her, as if with rapid, excited 
 interrogations; and that presently Hilda wavered 
 and stumbled, and he threw a quick arm about her, 
 and thus they stood for a moment, she leaning heav- 
 ily upon him, he apparently soothing and encourag- 
 ing, until she had gained sufficient strength to 
 walk on. 
 
 "Thank you," said Anne, as she and Sally sat 
 alone at the breakfast table. "I did not sleep quite 
 as well as usual ; my rest was twice broken. Once 
 about three o'clock, when Mr. Streatham led a horse 
 from the stable and down through the meadow. It 
 looked quite mysterious, although, I dare say, was 
 really commonplace if one but knew his motive." 
 
 Sally's coffee was half way to her mouth. She 
 held it suspended in air for a second, and then put it 
 down untasted. 
 
 "Why don't you ask him what the motive was ?" 
 she said.
 
 STREATHAM TELLS A STORY 129 
 
 Anne shrugged her shoulders. "Mr. Streatham 
 is so very peculiar, and almost rude if one evinces 
 even a polite interest in his affairs, that I think I 
 prefer to let the matter remain a mystery."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 MORE OF HILDA'S SECRET 
 
 SUNDAY morning, with the unmistakable Sun- 
 day atmosphere. The very landscape reflects 
 the prevailing relaxation, the sigh of relief that goes 
 up from the world heart, that the world's machinery 
 temporarily ceases and that, for one day, at least, 
 the noisy whirring of the wheels is silenced. Then 
 through the calm, there steals the voice of this 
 seventh daughter who sits aloof from her six hus- 
 tling sisters and murmurs: "Come ye apart. Give 
 me this hour and I will lead you where peace floweth 
 as a river, vision for you the city which 'lieth four- 
 square with the twelve jeweled and mighty gates.' ' 
 And this especial Sunday morning was a type of 
 the perfect day, wide, white and sun-filled, when 
 the wind seems to sigh more softly, the bees to hum 
 more drowsily and the whole earth to lie in a soft 
 axid happy dream. 
 
 130
 
 MORE OF HILDA'S SECRET 131 
 
 Most of Sally's family, in fact all of them, were 
 gathered upon her broad, vine-shaded porch. Little 
 Harris, his recent nightmare forgotten, tumbled 
 among the cats. Lucy Parrish, in pale blue and a froth 
 of white lace, was looking over some papers and 
 magazines with Withe rspoon, who had early made 
 his appearance, determined to lose no moments in 
 a strenuous campaign conducted along the lines of 
 conventional and calculated romance. Mrs. Nesbit 
 was in an attitude of excited expectancy. She wore 
 a new, white-striped heliotrope gown and a white 
 lace bonnet trimmed with sprays of heliotrope, 
 which Lucy Parrish had recently purchased for her 
 in town at Sally's request. Her gloves, much too 
 long in the fingers, she smoothed nervously as she 
 sat carefully erect, so as not to disarrange one fold 
 of her gown; and so keenly anxious was she that 
 the perfect equilibrium of her bonnet should be 
 maintained that although Lucy Parrish had securely 
 moored it to her hair with the necessary pins, she 
 yet sat with stiffly poised head and upraised eye- 
 brows, waiting with the fire of excitement burning 
 in her eyes for Uncle Poodle to drive up with the 
 surrey to convey her to church, for Mrs. Hill, as
 
 132 SALLY SALT 
 
 well as others, had not yet seen her mid-summer 
 splendors. The only bar to her complete happiness 
 was the proximity of little Harris, who occasionally 
 rolled too near her feet to please her, causing her to 
 shiver afresh each time, for she still viewed him 
 with apprehension. 
 
 Streatham, intuitive Streatham, had been regard- 
 ing her quizzically for some time and now he voiced 
 his sentiments with apparent spontaneity, choosing, 
 perhaps, the very phraseology which would most ap- 
 peal to her. 
 
 "I think, Mrs. Nesbit," slowly, to give the com- 
 pliment due weight, "that I have never seen so be- 
 coming a bonnet on a lady." 
 
 Mrs. Nesbit flushed with pride; unmistakably, 
 she bridled. "My folks always had taste," she said. 
 "My son was a poet, an' one of my brothers was a 
 sculptor, not professional, you know, but just on 
 the side. He messed in clay from morning till night 
 and was never so happy as when doing it, but," 
 shaking her head regretfully, "he didn't get the 
 proper encouragement from his wife. She was a 
 Hallet, you know, and they was all hard-working 
 folks with no appreciation. Well, once he made a
 
 MORE OF HILDA'S SECRET 133 
 
 bust of her. It looked so much like her as never 
 was, too, and he kept it for a surprise for her birth- 
 day. You see, he was out of a job at the time, and 
 he just didn't see his way to get another; so he took 
 the time she thought he was looking around for 
 work and put it in on the bust, working on it on the 
 sly out in the barn. Then, on her birthday, he had 
 a unveiling of it. All the relatives was there, and 
 my son Clarence read a poem, and then my brother, 
 he took the mosquito netting off the bust, and when 
 she saw it, what do you think his wife did? Oh, 
 that was about the worst thing that ever happened," 
 she shivered slightly at the remembrance, "in our 
 family. Why," lowering her voice, "she looked at 
 it a minute and never said a word, and then she 
 walked out of the room and come back with a 
 hatchet, and still without one word, she smashed the 
 whole thing to bits." 
 
 "Interesting!" murmured Streatham thought- 
 fully, "a survival of the iconoclastic spirit roused to 
 action by the personal impulse." 
 
 "I guess so," Mrs. Nesbit agreed vaguely, "must 
 have been something like that." 
 
 "Anthony, behave," murmured Sally under her
 
 134 SALLY SALT 
 
 breath, "I hate you when you play with people. She 
 thinks you're sympathizing with her." 
 
 "So I am," averred Streatham, turning to this 
 white-clad, red-haired, brown-skinned Sally, and 
 speaking in a tone that Mrs. Nesbit could not hear, 
 "but you only see one side of the question, the 
 woman side. To her, the main facts of life are 
 children and she seeks proper shelter for them, food 
 for them, clothes for them and a decent appearance 
 before the world. The husband is the mill which 
 must grind out the grist whether there is any water 
 to turn the wheel or not. That is his sole business 
 in life. But think of him, poor ineffective dreamer, 
 haunted by the vision, chained to the sordidly mun- 
 dane, dismayed and overwhelmed by the respon- 
 sibilities he has acquired. An equal tragedy for 
 both man and woman, I admit; but for me, the 
 weight of pathos tips the scales on his side. She 
 had, at least, the consciousness of her own strength 
 of purpose, and a sure aim with the hatchet to con- 
 sole her." 
 
 "What a pity that she entirely failed to grasp the 
 art impulse which he struggled to express," re- 
 marked Anne as she rose from her chair and entered
 
 MORE OF HILDA'S SECRET 135 
 
 the house. It would be impossible to contemplate 
 Anne "saying" things; she invariably "remarked," 
 and she never got beyond the zone of commonplaces 
 and platitudes. Streatham always maintained that 
 this was the curse the wicked fairy had bestowed 
 upon her in the cradle, and her manner of stating 
 the obvious, didactically excluding all other con- 
 clusions, made him long to smite her. He frequently 
 confided to Sally that he never could hear Anne 
 "converse" without feeling an itching in his right 
 palm. He voiced this same impulse now. 
 
 "Oh, she's not bad," returned Sally, whose nerves 
 were not on the surface, "and she's rather pretty, 
 too." 
 
 "Rather pretty !" Anthony sulked irritably. "Oh, 
 you women! If one of you has what you call 'a 
 figure,' or fine hair, or a smooth skin, you pronounce 
 her beautiful. You see nothing but surfaces; 
 whereas, real beauty lies in unexpected intimations 
 and revelations; a turn of the head, a momentary 
 glance, a smile, expressing itself eternally in its sug- 
 gestion of lovely and mysterious things. And 
 Anne," with increasing irritation, "Anne suggests 
 nothing so much as a plain brick wall. Of course,"
 
 136 SALLY SALT 
 
 as if conceding a point, "all beauty does not lie in 
 half-revelations. There's your kind, for instance 
 w why, why, Sally," edging nearer to her until his 
 sun-bleached hair almost lay against her knee, and 
 speaking in his ardent, stammering whisper, "in 
 that severe, white, Sunday morning frock and those 
 smart, buckled shoes which Lucy Parrish bought 
 for you," shrewdly, "or you'd never have them, 
 you're as patently beautiful as the sunshine. You're 
 like a whole meadow of buttercups. But I I don't 
 love you when you tell me that Anne's pretty. It 
 it's feminine of you, almost c catty." 
 
 He was as irritably, perversely in earnest as if 
 some vital question were at stake, and he sulked and 
 glowered distastefully at Anne, who had returned 
 and now sat perfectly erect and calm in her high- 
 backed chair reading what he felt convinced was 
 some instructive and profitable work. 
 
 But in spite of his animadversions and to do her 
 full justice, Anne was not lacking in a certain sort 
 of good looks, although it must be said that she 
 prided herself less on being handsome than in mani- 
 festing a robust wholesomeness. "Wholesome," 
 and "robust" were two of the most hard-worked
 
 MORE OF HILDA'S SECRET 137 
 
 words in Anne's vocabulary and the two which, 
 perhaps with the exception of "uplift," caused 
 Streatham the most acute anguish. 
 
 But to leave the mental Anne for the moment and 
 regard the physical she was a rather tall, squarely 
 built young woman, clumsily built on the whole, 
 especially about the wrists and ankles. Her scant, 
 dark hair was drawn plainly back from her brow, 
 and it grew in such a fashion that it parted here and 
 there, showing paths of very white scalp in strong 
 contrast to her firm, red cheeks. A naturally inquir- 
 ing expression was accentuated by eye-glasses, and 
 her mouth was small and tight, with a pointed chin. 
 Essentially methodical, she had arranged for every 
 day a schedule of her hours from which she never 
 on any occasion permitted herself the slightest de- 
 viation; thus, according to Streatham, successfully 
 reducing life to clockwork. 
 
 "She's all tangled up in the limitations of time 
 and space," he complained ; "she's made of exist- 
 ence such a dead, mechanical thing that she's in a 
 network of hours and minutes." 
 
 He was whispering all this to Sally, his stammer 
 increased by irritation.
 
 138 SALLY SALT 
 
 "Oh, leave poor Anne alone," she cried with im- 
 patient good nature, "and stop disturbing me." For 
 Sally was occupied in opening and glancing over a 
 batch of letters which had arrived the evening be- 
 fore and which she had reserved for her Sunday 
 morning's leisure. Most of them were from per- 
 sons desirous of spending the summer with her; but 
 this was a privilege Sally accorded to few. 
 
 " 'A lady who wants to rest and do her summer 
 reading.' ' She leisurely scanned the page before 
 her. "What's the difference between summer and 
 winter reading, Anthony? Oh, I see her," without 
 waiting for his explanation, "with a whole row of 
 imposing-looking books that she'll never peep into; 
 and when she's ready to leave and take up her win- 
 ter reading, whatever that may be, she'll present me 
 with one of Mrs. Humphrey Ward's novels. I won- 
 der why, when the cultured ladies want to get the 
 heathen interested in intellectual things, they always 
 begin with Mrs. Humphrey Ward ? 
 
 "Here's another," she had run over a half a 
 dozen in the meantime. "H'm, h'm, 'My doctor 
 considers me in a serious condition and wishes me 
 to go to some quiet place where I may build up
 
 139 
 
 complete nervous breakdown !' Oh, Lord !" groaned 
 Sally, "she can't come here. I know what we 
 would have all summer all the great specialists in 
 the country consulted; but none of them could tell 
 what ailed her, and one of them thought her case so 
 remarkable that he wrote it up for the medical 
 journals and it was copied all over the world, and 
 then, when she finally and inevitably ended in the 
 hospital, the doctors and nurses united in saying that 
 she was the bravest woman they ever did see. And, 
 of course, since then, she is not able to bear the 
 least excitement or exertion," freely translating into 
 her own words as she went along. "I know, I know, 
 same old thing. About all she can do is to play 
 bridge all day and all night." 
 
 Just as Anne was turning surprised eyes on Sally, 
 preparatory to lifting an admonishing voice, Uncle 
 Poodle drove up to the gate, severe, solemn, raven- 
 like in black, Sunday garments, while beside him 
 languished and pouted and dimpled and sparkled 
 Wilmerdine, who had announced her audacious and 
 unprecedented intention of going to church. Uncle 
 Poodle, without even a glance at the starched, pink 
 lawn prettiness at his side, handed her the lines im-
 
 HO SALLY SALT 
 
 personally, while he rheumatically descended to as- 
 sist Mrs. Nesbit into the place of state on the back 
 seat of the conveyance, as apparently oblivious of 
 Wilmerdine's coquetries as a rock in the ocean to 
 the froth foaming about it. 
 
 Mrs. Nesbit in a fresh flutter of excitement pre- 
 pared to meet a congregation of collective eyes, 
 resolving itself finally into the one, severe, disap- 
 proving yet withal grudgingly admiring gaze of 
 Mrs. Hill. 
 
 "You're sure, Mis' Salt," she pleaded tremu- 
 lously, just as she stepped into the carriage, "you're 
 sure that it all ain't too frivolous?" 
 
 Reassured, her wavering confidence restored by 
 Sally's positive opinion and Streatham's fluently 
 expressed compliments, she drove off, fortified, for 
 a time at least, against even the cold scrutiny of the 
 individual Hill eye. 
 
 For a season after her departure, there was si- 
 lence on the porch, broken only by the low murmur 
 of the voices of Lucy Parrish and Witherspoon 
 from their vine-shaded retreat, until Harris Hurd 
 sat upright, pushed aside his "Sunday supplements" 
 and three or four sprawling cats, and jumping to
 
 MORE OF HILDA'S SECRET 141 
 
 his feet with a shout of joy, ran down the path to 
 meet Hilda, who had just opened the gate; and 
 Sally, looking up to see the girl advancing through 
 the sunlight and the flowers, was aware of a curious 
 sense of waiting; a submerged but struggling con- 
 sciousness seemed to warn her that a moment of 
 destiny was at hand; one of those strange, fateful 
 seasons when having eyes we see, and in that brief 
 flash of clearer vision we are permitted to look upon 
 the web weaving ; to see, but never, despite the pas- 
 sion of desire that may shake our hearts, to lay 
 hands upon the loom. 
 
 And as Hilda stood before Sally with her little 
 brother's arms about her waist, his dark head 
 pressed against her shoulder, the sunlight shim- 
 mered a moment in Sally's eyes, and not Hilda, but 
 Atropos, moved through the sun-mist, herself fate 
 impelled and ready with those inevitable scissors to 
 cut the golden thread of life and love. 
 
 "Good morning, Hilda," her own voice, its usual, 
 every-day cheerfulness unmarred, rang oddly in her 
 ear. "Anything particular this morning, or did you 
 just want to see Harris?" 
 
 "Just to see Harris, Mrs. Salt." Her lids fell,
 
 142 SALLY SALT 
 
 and Sally noticed the up-sweep of the dark brown 
 lashes on her tea-rose cheek. "And and mother 
 wishes to know if you will send him home to-mor- 
 row, she needs him." 
 
 "Certainly." But at this undesired concession 
 Harris turned from Hilda to throw himself on 
 Sally's lap and beg for a longer stay. 
 
 Sally laughed, delighted with his display of af- 
 fection and began playfully to argue with him, re- 
 warding his cajoleries with promises of frequent 
 repetitions of his visit; and still laughing, suddenly 
 lifted humorous eyes from him to see that Hilda's 
 glance hung upon Streatham, pale, insistent, implor- 
 ing, her lips, too, moved slightly, almost imper- 
 ceptibly, in some significant phrase meant for him 
 alone. 
 
 For Sally, there was a moment of sudden, deep 
 shock, as if every drop of blood in her body receded 
 upon her heart. She caught her breath quickly and 
 looked at Streatham; but in the act of lighting a 
 cigarette, he returned the surprised, demanding, sus- 
 spicious question of her gaze with an expression so 
 inscrutable and unconscious, so absolutely and ad-
 
 MORE OF HILDA'S SECRET 143 
 
 mirably innocent, that the emotion she suffered was 
 increased by a violent flare of resentment. 
 
 So Sally, enmeshed in bewilderment, was merely 
 thrown back on herself. "What was the meaning 
 of this newly discovered matter; these evidences of 
 a secret understanding existing between Anthony 
 and Hilda Hurd? Why, she had supposed that he 
 barely knew the girl. Were they, with their glances 
 and their unintelligible, whispered phrases, all their 
 mysteries, but gathering up the threads of previous 
 summers? And how should Streatham dare insult 
 her intelligence with his innocent assumptions ? To 
 fancy he could deceive her by turning a mask-face 
 of mildly inquiring eyes and unreadable mouth to 
 her suspicions? And Hilda! she looked at the girl, 
 stooping now above her brother, cheek pressed 
 against his, whispering endearments in his ear. 
 
 And Hilda lifted her head and met the full impact 
 of that glance. It struck her like a blow. Her 
 color wavered and faded, her eyes fell, the corners 
 of her mouth dropped in a pitiful quiver, "I must 
 go," her confusion overwhelming her, "I must go." 
 
 "Hilda Hurd might be almost pretty, if she were
 
 144 SALLY SALT 
 
 not so so delicate in appearance," announced Anne, 
 looking up from her book and watching the girl, 
 who, with drooping head, had turned into the road- 
 way. 
 
 "Pretty!" Streatham ceased to blow wreaths of 
 smoke into the heart of a great, blue clematis flower 
 and lazily turned his head. "Did you say pretty?" 
 
 "Why ? Do you not think so ?" Anne was alert 
 in a minute, ready to discuss the question in detail. 
 
 He did not answer, perhaps from sheer perversity 
 and because he knew that nothing would annoy her 
 so much, or perhaps because he did not hear her. 
 His head was lifted, his eyes, unseeing, were fast- 
 ened on the blue hills ; but again he seemed to listen, 
 to concentrate every faculty in listening as if once 
 more there had fallen across his spirit that far call 
 from the sunset, the crystal-clear, soaring, unearthly 
 sweet sound of Hilda's singing.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 HIRED MAN OR HUSBAND? 
 
 THE afternoon was hot and humid. The sun 
 shone through a watery mist and a hot, im- 
 palpable steam seemed to rise from the baked earth. 
 Streatham was standing at the gate, looking up and 
 down the highway, when Sally rode up. "Come on," 
 she cried at the sight of him, "saddle one of the 
 horses. I've got to ride over to West's for some 
 more hands. Hurry." 
 
 Sally both rode and drove good horses. She was 
 mounted now on a slender thoroughbred, with rest- 
 less eyes and nervous ears, and it fretted and 
 pranced about like a ballet dancer. She wore a 
 short riding-skirt, a blouse open at the throat, and, 
 as usual, she was hatless. Her red hair curled in 
 tendrils about the nape of her neck, a neck like a 
 smooth, brown column, polished as marble, with 
 tiny beads of sweat where the hair began to grow 
 and in the faint hollow at the base of the throat.
 
 i 4 6 SALLY SALT 
 
 "Aren't you rather reckless, starting out now, 
 Sally?" asked Streatham, as he cantered around 
 from the stable, after saddling a horse. "Look at 
 the thunder-caps on the horizon." He pointed to 
 white, rolling tips of cloud on the sullen gray bank 
 low on the sky and black in the sunlight. 
 
 "I know," said Sally, squinting her eye at the 
 piled-up masses of storm, "I know, but I think we 
 can make it. I've just got to have some more men, 
 and I don't believe it's going to storm before we can 
 get back." 
 
 "Optimistic Sally ! You may be right. I'm will- 
 ing to sacrifice conviction to courtesy and admit that 
 you probably are, but, nevertheless, I'm also willing 
 to wager that we get a very thorough drenching." 
 
 "I don't believe it," contended Sally obstinately, 
 "and anyway, we're on two pretty fast horses, but 
 yielding to your opinion, Anthony, we'll make a 
 sprint for it." 
 
 The turnpike stretched its burning length, white 
 and interminable before them; the golden billows of 
 wheat alternated with far-stretching rows of young, 
 half-grown corn, a sharp, metallic green luster on 
 their broad blades; these, in turn, were broken by
 
 HIRED MAN OR HUSBAND? 147 
 
 patches of woodland which afforded a grateful if 
 momentary shade; but so rapidly did Sally and 
 Streatham ride that the landscape appeared a swiftly 
 shifting panorama of blended greens and yellows 
 under a sullen sky. 
 
 Finally, with a sigh of relief, they turned their 
 horses' heads down a shaded lane which led them 
 eventually into the river road, a rough wagon trail, 
 winding through the trees. The clouds were rolling 
 up ever more rapidly and the sunshine was now 
 quite obscured. The woods were dim in the strange 
 leaf-dusk, green and solemn, and the ceaseless whis- 
 perings of the forest had fallen to an uncanny quiet. 
 
 In spite of these presages of storm, Sally and 
 Streatham had to let the tired horses walk and cool 
 off a bit, for the road was rocky and uncertain, 
 winding unevenly through a thick growth of small- 
 leaved elms, genial, graceful maples, and cotton- 
 woods with their huge, spotted, smooth trunks ; and 
 the path was further impeded by rank, lush weeds, 
 growing as high as the saddle girths and starred 
 with tiny, jewel-like flowers. The air became every 
 moment more still in the mystical, almost sentient 
 silencing and deadening of every sound to the storm-
 
 148 SALLY SALT 
 
 hush, as if the earth were consciously obeying some 
 high command to listen and wait; only the river 
 was exempt, for its rippling, eternal monotone, its 
 lulling, unruffled, silver singing grew louder and 
 louder, ever increasing in volume. At last, to 
 Streatham's relief Sally, if she felt any, made no 
 sign they reached their destination. 
 
 Hidden deep in the woods was a board shack 
 roughly put together and containing two or three 
 rooms, with a small, illy-contrived window or so, 
 and a little to the rear, an outside pantry, containing 
 cooking utensils and provisions ; but no one was in 
 sight, and although a thin spiral of smoke curled 
 from the rude chimney of the cabin, there was no 
 further sign of occupancy. 
 
 Sally rode up to one of the windows and peered 
 in and then shook her head. "No one here," she 
 murmured. For a moment her mouth drooped per- 
 plexedly, and then she put her fingers to her mouth 
 and blew a long whistle. It was answered immedi- 
 ately from the rocks below, and presently a man, a 
 rough enough looking fellow, stumbled up the cliffs 
 and announced that he and his companions were 
 fishing on the rocks below. He evidently acted as
 
 HIRED MAN OR HUSBAND? 149 
 
 spokesman for the rest, for after a few moments' 
 conversation, Sally engaged four of them, striking 
 an apparently satisfactory bargain, but concluding 
 negotiations too late to avoid the storm, which was 
 already breaking. 
 
 She refused to listen to either the men or Streat- 
 ham, who urged her to wait, but insisted with her 
 usual confidence and impetuosity that they would do 
 better to reach the open than in remaining in the 
 woods. Scarcely had they turned their horses' 
 heads, however, before they were, as she expressed 
 it, in the thick of it. For a few moments there was 
 the constant jagged flare of lightning and the heavy, 
 accompanying boom of thunder and her horse be- 
 came almost unmanageable, leaping and rearing in a 
 nervous panic. 
 
 "Hurry, hurry !" cried Streatham, trying to raise 
 his voice so that he could be heard, "we must get 
 out of these woods and into the open. Use the 
 whip, Sally," 
 
 She nodded. Her eyes were brilliant with excite- 
 ment, the color was deep in her cheeks. They raced 
 on, the poor beasts stumbling, plunging, almost mad 
 with fright, until, at last, they gained the clearing
 
 150 SALLY SALT 
 
 again and turned into a broad, unfenced meadow. 
 Here the horses stood trembling, taking the long 
 slant of the rain. The thunder still rolled and rum- 
 bled about them, but the lightning was not so con- 
 tinuous, and Sally lifted her face to the heavy patter 
 of the shower and laughed aloud at the sullen gray 
 sky. 
 
 "Oh, I love it!" she cried. "God gets tired of 
 these simpering days of sunshine and He gives us 
 storms; rain to wash the dust off the world, and 
 wind to lift up our souls and blow the cobwebs out 
 of our brains. Oh, I love it ! I love to live !" 
 
 There was the deep glint of a smile in Streatham's 
 eyes as he looked at her. Her restless, tormented 
 horse was standing quietly enough now, like a 
 brown statue, with head sunk almost to knees, and 
 Sally sat laughing, the wet coils of her hair flattened 
 to her head, her water-soaked garments clinging 
 about her, showing every strong, symmetrical curve 
 and muscle, the rain following the oval of her cheek 
 and running in tiny rivulets down her neck. 
 
 "You've never really lived, S Sally, because 
 you've never really loved. You d don't know any- 
 thing about it," Streatham answered.
 
 HIRED MAN OR HUSBAND? 151 
 
 The wonder was now that the color in Sally's 
 cheeks did not dry the raindrops on them. 
 
 "I !" with a fine, scornful carelessness, "I've never 
 really lived! Why, I live every day to the tips of 
 my fingers, and I love everything that lives." 
 
 "Even me, Sally," whispered Streatham, "even 
 me?" 
 
 Her lips curled, her full mouth expressing such 
 generous scorn, so delightfully exaggerated, that 
 Anthony laughed aloud. 
 
 "You! I wish you could see yourself, with all 
 that straw-colored thatch plastered into your eyes. 
 You're a fine sight ! Come, the rain is over, we can 
 go home. Come !" She leaned over and patted her 
 horse's neck, and they turned out into the road, 
 hard and beaten now, all its pillars of cloud laid, 
 and unsuspected, rocky little gullies revealed. The 
 flat surface of the sky was broken and opaline with 
 color, and the gray, which a few moments before 
 had appeared so solid and even, was only a tattered 
 and trailing curtain, inadequately concealing the 
 colors of the sunset courts. The wet leaves twinkled 
 with raindrops, and the corn blades gleamed a 
 brighter and harder green than ever.
 
 152 SALLY SALT 
 
 "Sally," asked Streatham, without any particular 
 relevance they rode slowly now "do you know 
 that man is a dreamer of dreams, that he clings pas- 
 sionately to his illusions; in other words, he blows 
 soap-bubbles from the cradle to the grave, and then, 
 childlike, tries to clutch them ; and when one breaks, 
 when they all break, he keeps on blowing in the 
 hope, nay, in the belief that some day he will 
 achieve one glorious, iridescent bubble, finger-proof, 
 rain-proof, fragile as mist, indestructible as asbes- 
 tos; and he promises himself that he will tie a string 
 to it carefully, fastening the other end about his 
 heart, and preserve it for ever, an unfailing joy. 
 Now, one of the greatest of his illusions is woman, 
 his ideal of her, that fugitive but ever present illu- 
 sion, the lady of the dreams of men." 
 
 "Woman has some illusions, too," remarked Sally 
 dryly. 
 
 "Assuredly she has," he readily agreed. "One of 
 them is that she thinks she has been badly treated 
 for centuries. It is the pathetic pose of the cat with 
 her paw on the mouse, who tells her friends that 
 they can not conceive the sufferings she has endured 
 from that wretched, squeaking animal."
 
 HIRED MAN OR HUSBAND? 153 
 
 Sally laughed in spite of herself. "Anthony, you 
 just love to philosophize about women. That shows 
 how much your mind runs on them." 
 
 "Of course," Streatham admitted coolly. "Wom- 
 an is the most interesting creature in the world. 
 She affects your imagination and haunts your peace- 
 ful hours. One moment she is a clinging darling 
 who looks to you for strength, sanity and judgment. 
 She trespasses on your time and takes possession of 
 your dreams. But you that's me, Sally have a 
 man's work to do in the world, so you sternly banish 
 her and retire to the realms of pure reason. But 
 does she leave you alone? Never. She obtrudes 
 herself there and poses as a psychological puzzle, a 
 being in the throes of evolution, who fascinates you 
 with the problem of the free woman." 
 
 "Free! Freedom!" Sally drew a long breath. 
 "That's the best thing in life, Anthony. We didn't 
 mention it when we were speaking of life the other 
 night." 
 
 "Oh, life! The jade!" He brought his crop 
 down smartly on his leg, a shadow falling across his 
 eyes. "How she mocks you !" 
 "Oh, don't begin that !" There was a sharp note
 
 154 SALLY SALT 
 
 of impatience in Sally's Voice. "Look ! We are at 
 home. I'll race you to the stable." 
 
 Streatham won by a neck in the brief dash before 
 them, and, after leaving the horses in the care of 
 one of the men, they sauntered through the garden 
 on their way to the house. But although they had 
 both been soaked to the skin, and even to the casual 
 observer were in sad need of a change of clothing, 
 they came but slowly up the wet paths. 
 
 The last long arrows of sunset were splintering 
 against the trees ; every blade of grass offered dia- 
 monds to any wandering, jewel-loving fairy. The 
 flowers sprang more radiantly from the invigorated 
 earth, with the clean, rejoicing freshness they always 
 wear after a rain, and the mingled fragrances of 
 Sally's garden permeated the damp air with more 
 individual and penetrating odors. The birds twit- 
 tered and fluttered on the boughs, and now and 
 again the drops from the trees were shaken heavily 
 on Streatham's head ; but this sun-splashed interlude 
 of rejoicing was brief ; the somber rain curtain, re- 
 paired, renovated and whole, was again veiling the 
 splendors of the sun-courts, and the gray lady of 
 twilight was slipping over the fields and through the
 
 HIRED MAN OR HUSBAND? 155 
 
 trees toward them, bringing in both hands moods of 
 delicate contemplation, of communion and revela- 
 tion, that the heart would never trust the lips to 
 voice in the less intimate glow of noonday. 
 
 Streatham's hand had involuntarily sought Sally's 
 and their steps moved in slow unison. 
 
 "Anthony," she shifted her eyes squarely to his, 
 "do you care to tell me why Hilda Kurd came here 
 to see you, night before last ?" 
 
 Streatham looked steadily at the last bars of gold 
 in the sky, frowning a bit meanwhile. Then he 
 shook his head with a whimsical twist of his mouth. 
 "No," he said, "I don't believe I do." He tightened 
 his fingers around Sally's as he spoke, frustrating 
 their evident withdrawal. 
 
 "And I suppose you don't care to tell me," she 
 went on, "why, at three o'clock the same night, you 
 went down to the stable, saddled my mare, Berta, 
 without so much as a 'by your leave' to me, led her 
 down through the meadow as stealthily as if you 
 were a smuggler, and never showed up again until 
 six o'clock in the morning, when you brought her 
 in blown and in a lather of sweat ?" 
 
 "Dear me, Sherlock! How did you discover all
 
 156 SALLY SALT 
 
 this?" Streatham spoke in an affected surprise 
 which but half -concealed his real amazement. "No," 
 looking up at her like a naughty school-boy, "I'm 
 afraid I shall have to keep the guilty secret. Did I 
 ever happen to tell you, Sally, how my uncle Peter- 
 son happened to leave my father a thousand dollars 
 in his will? No? 'Oh, you must know that! 
 Funny thing !' ' He mimicked her so audaciously 
 to her face that, unwillingly, she paid him the trib- 
 ute of involuntary if slightly discomfited laughter. 
 
 "My father," Streatham continued, "when he was 
 a young man, went to visit my uncle Peterson. The 
 first evening of his arrival a number of my uncle's 
 cronies happened in, according to their custom, and 
 sat about the great wood fire, smoking their pipes and 
 sipping their hot toddy, and as argument and discus- 
 sion waxed warm each man emphasized his state- 
 ments by seizing the poker and vigorously poking 
 and prodding the fire. My father sat, during the 
 evening, an almost silent listener, vastly delighted 
 with the charm of their conversation and the range 
 of their information, but, with the modesty proper 
 in so young a man, taking small part in the discus-
 
 HIRED MAN OR HUSBAND? 157 
 
 sion. At last they all departed, and my uncle Peter- 
 son signified his intention of going to bed, making 
 various preparations for the night, such as winding 
 the clock, putting out the cat and banking the em- 
 bers. 
 
 " 'Good night, sir,' said my father, taking note of 
 these signs. 'I have greatly enjoyed this evening, 
 and trust that I shall greatly profit by it.' 
 
 " 'You will, sir,' said my uncle, with a meaning 
 my father did not then understand. Then he seized 
 the young man's hand and shook it, adding impul- 
 sively: 'I thank thee, friend, that thou hast not 
 once offered to poke my fire.' And, mark this well, 
 Sally, when he died, several years later, he left my 
 father a thousand dollars." 
 
 Sally tossed her head, her brow haughty, her color 
 warm. "I don't want to poke your fire. I've 
 enough fire of my own to poke to supply me with an 
 interest in life. Really, Anthony, I can mind my 
 own business, if it's strictly necessary." 
 
 "Sally, darling! loveliest, most wonderful, ador- 
 able Sally !" The gray curtain had completely fallen 
 now, and his arms were about her. "Kiss me,
 
 158 SALLY SALT 
 
 Sally. Oh, Sally!" as she resolutely averted her 
 head, "h-how can you be so unkind ?" 
 
 And then Sally of the melting heart made one of 
 her impulsive turns and cast her arms about his 
 neck and locked her fingers together, and, holding 
 him in that circle of love, answered him from her 
 soul the eternal feminine in her striving to bind 
 and to hold. 
 
 "Then you will never go away any more? You 
 won't be starting as soon as the corn cutting is over? 
 Oh, for two years, how I have hated to see you go ! 
 Now you'll stay." 
 
 "Stay !" He drew back a little and looked at her 
 strangely. "I can't stay ; I've got to go on." 
 
 It was her turn now to draw back from him. 
 "Why?" she asked, and he smiled at the familiar, 
 imperative, incisive note of her voice. 
 
 "I couldn't live off you," he said bruskly. "Sit 
 here by your fire all winter and read the New York 
 Tribune and the Farmers' Almanac, and go out 
 occasionally into the cow yard and peer up at the 
 sky to see what kind of a day to-morrow would be ?" 
 
 Sally tossed her head contemptuously at this cari-
 
 HIRED MAN OR HUSBAND? 159 
 
 cature of what his days with her would be. "Why ?" 
 she persisted. 
 
 He kissed a red curl on her temple. "Because I 
 want to keep the dream ; to come back to you. 'It's 
 under the world, and over the world, and back again 
 to you.' " 
 
 "I wonder," there was curiosity in her tone, "why 
 you don't ask me to go with you ?" 
 
 He laughed. "To my life, the life of a tramp 
 and a vagrant? That's all I am, Sally, just a 
 tramp. Sometimes I get dead broke, and then I 
 write something, enough to start me off on my 
 travels. It's here to-day and there to-morrow. It's 
 color and change, and a certain amount of hardship. 
 Sometimes a bit of excitement and danger, enough 
 to spice things. It's swinging around the circle of 
 the year and living on the thought of the harvest." 
 
 "And you think I'd stand that?" Her eyes 
 blazed. "You think I'd sit here through the long 
 winters and flatten my nose all day long against the 
 window-panes, and run every time I heard a step 
 outside, and stand sighing at the door, and look up 
 and down the road to see if you're coming?"
 
 160 SALLY SALT 
 
 "I've told you that I want to come back to you." 
 
 "And so you can." Sally was still aflame. "So 
 you can. You can come back just as often as you 
 please as my " 
 
 " husband," he whispered, and kissed her again. 
 
 " as my hired man." 
 
 He laughed at her quickness and audacity, but 
 there was vexation in his mirth. "Woman! 
 Woman ! You want to keep your own freedom and 
 clip my wings. If I remain here, I should be, in 
 fact, your hired man, nothing more, while you would 
 live your life as you please." 
 
 "I wouldn't," said Sally. "You've no right to 
 assume such a thing. You've no call to say it. 
 You'd be free to come and go as you pleased. I've 
 lived too much to meddle with other people." 
 
 "Then what?" 
 
 "Why," turning on him with sudden passion, deep 
 sparkles of fire in her reckless eyes, "you would 
 never have thought and planned for your freedom 
 and me too, if you really loved me." 
 
 "H-how do you know, Sally ?" 
 
 Her defiant eyes softened suddenly. "Because,"
 
 HIRED MAN OR HUSBAND? 161 
 
 her hands pressed to her heart and a thrilling ca- 
 dence in her voice, "because I love you." 
 
 "Ah-h-h !" He caught her again. 
 
 But she pushed his arms away with an impatient 
 gesture. "I don't permit my hired man to touch 
 me." She was half the length of the path ahead 
 of him. 
 
 "Oh, you red-haired vixen! You flaming sun- 
 set!" as he caught up with her. 
 
 "But you will marry me, nevertheless," the whim- 
 sical, devil-may-care gleam in his eyes. "You would 
 never let possibilities of of future travel come be- 
 tween us." He paused before the world "travel," 
 and then chose it as if it gave him a sardonic amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 She looked at him, and even in the dusk he saw a 
 shadow like a veil across her eyes. "There's more 
 than that between us, Anthony," she said, and the 
 color, life and buoyancy had for once gone from her 
 voice, "more than that."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 MRS. HILL FREES HER MIND 
 
 MRS. HILL closed Sally Salt's gate carefully 
 behind her and puffed slowly up the path. 
 Her figure resembled nothing so much as a tightly 
 stuffed pillow, but her shadow, which preceded her 
 owing to the position of the early afternoon sun, 
 was elongated to a pleasing attenuation, and Mrs. 
 Hill, choosing to regard it as a correctly outlined 
 silhouette, viewed it with a complacent pride. 
 
 She wore her usual costume, a black print gown 
 with white spots, a small black cape ever slipping 
 from her ample shoulders, an invariable black bon- 
 net, which changed from straw to felt as winter 
 followed summer, but which, despite alterations of 
 material, ever preserved an uncompromising struc- 
 tural identity, and through the medium of dejected 
 and wilted trimming proclaimed the humility its 
 wearer professed. 
 
 162
 
 MRS. HILL FREES HER MIND 163 
 
 Mrs. Nesbit, leaning forward to peer, after her 
 fashion, through the vines of the porch, watched the 
 
 stately approach of her friend with an expression of 
 
 i 
 
 timid pleasure mingled with apprehension pleasure 
 that the monotony of her rocking-chair meditations 
 was about to be interrupted, and apprehension of 
 the rebuke which she felt instinctively was in store 
 for her, for Mrs. Hill had so far vouchsafed no 
 comment on the new lilac silk gown or on the helio- 
 trope bonnet, a delay which, as Mrs. Nesbit was 
 well aware, presaged evil, perhaps a season of 
 biblical invective, for Mrs. Hill was famed as a 
 student of the Scriptures, could supply even the 
 preacher with a quotation, giving chapter and verse 
 at a moment's notice, and was especially conversant 
 with those prophets of a nerve-shivering and blast- 
 ing eloquence. 
 
 But her treasures of vituperation had remained 
 stored for a day or two now, and Mrs. Nesbit's in- 
 ward quakings were painfully increased by this 
 ominous silence. The two had met, as usual, after 
 church the preceding Sunday, and Mrs. Hill had so 
 far condescended as to permit herself to be driven 
 home in Sally's carriage, but after one swift, cold
 
 164 SALLY SALT 
 
 glance at her friend's "purple and pride" she had 
 steadfastly fixed her eyes on some point far beyond 
 the fluttering little lady beside her, and had dis- 
 coursed weightily on topics suitable to the day the 
 sermon, its inadequacies, obscurities and decline 
 from sound doctrine ; next, a numbering of the con- 
 gregation and a lively discussion of possible motives 
 prompting the absence of this one and the presence 
 of that; and third, a comprehensive analysis of the 
 delinquencies of every attendant. 
 
 Thus, absorbing herself in these time-honored 
 and conventional themes, she entirely ignored Mrs. 
 Nesbit's frequent attempts to draw attention to her 
 finery and her mouse-like and tremulous nibbles at 
 the subject uppermost in her thoughts. 
 
 This suspense had caused Mrs. Nesbit one or two 
 sleepless nights, for she fully recognized in the light 
 of past experience that the subject was merely de- 
 ferred and must sooner or later come up between 
 them. 
 
 Now, as Mrs. Hill slowly and ponderously swung 
 herself up the steps, her face glowing red with her 
 exertions, the little woman behind the vines began 
 to twitter salutations and questions and irrelevant
 
 MRS. HILL FREES HER MIND 165 
 
 remarks, with some idea of placating the offended 
 gods of friendship; but the futility of this procedure 
 was demonstrated by Mrs. Hill's unmoved de- 
 meanor, for she made no response whatever unless 
 certain sounds between a grunt and a groan might be 
 so construed. Sinking heavily into a rocking-chair, 
 she untied her bonnet strings, flung them over her 
 shoulders, and, accepting a hastily proffered palm- 
 leaf fan with another groaning sigh, waved it 
 solemnly to and fro. 
 
 "I came around by Ellen Potter's this morning," 
 she announced. "She's terrible upset, and no won- 
 der. Her best umberel is gone." 
 
 "You don't say !" exclaimed Mrs. Nesbit eagerly. 
 "Her umberel ! Pity sakes ! Of course, you mean 
 the one with the silver handle that her sister sent 
 her from the city ?" 
 
 Mrs. Hill nodded twice, three times. "She says 
 it was solid silver," her tones shaded darkly with 
 doubt and suspicion, "but before even her nearest 
 and dearest got a squint at it she covered it over 
 with black silk, made a little sheath just to fit it, so's 
 it wouldn't tarnish, she says. Well, maybe," again 
 the shading. "Still," with a large firmness, "I al-
 
 1 66 SALLY SALT 
 
 ways found Mrs. Potter truthful, I must say that. 
 But folks is up to all kinds of tricks these days," 
 shaking her head ruefully over a degenerate world. 
 "You see, the missionary society met there yester- 
 day afternoon, and Mrs. Potter says that when she 
 was cleaning up and getting ready for them she put 
 that umberel with her own hands, in the southeast 
 corner of the parlor, where it always stands, and she 
 never thought of missing it until this morning. 
 When I left there, about an hour ago, she was tying 
 on her bonnet to make a house-to-house canvass to 
 see if any one of the ladies might have carried it off 
 by mistake." For the first time she bent her gaze 
 upon Mrs. Nesbit. "I told her I saw you going off 
 home with an umberel tucked under your arm." 
 
 "Course I did," cried the little woman, straight- 
 ening up in her chair and acquiring a spine, tempo- 
 rarily, at least. "Course I did," two scarlet spots 
 glowing in her cheeks, "and 'twas my very own that 
 Sally gave me last Christmas. It has an ivory 
 handle, handsomer than any Mrs. Potter's got the 
 money to buy, and I don't think, Hetty Hill," sniff- 
 ing audibly, her eyes filling with ready tears, "that 
 you had any call to go and throw suspicion on me to
 
 MRS. HILL FREES HER MIND 167 
 
 Ellen Potter. It don't seem the part of true friend- 
 ship to me." 
 
 "I did my duty as I saw it," returned Mrs. Hill 
 callously; "duty's no respecter of persons. If con- 
 science is clear, there's nothing to fear. That's a 
 good thing to remember, and easy, too, by reason of 
 rhyming. Where is Mrs. Salt to-day?" 
 
 "How should I know?" Mrs. Nesbit's tones 
 still showed a trace of injury. "In the fields, I sup- 
 pose." 
 
 "Hmmm! With that Streatham, I suppose." 
 
 "I suppose so," replied Mrs. Nesbit vaguely. 
 "Why, ain't that them now?" 
 
 Mrs. Hill leaned forward, her hands on her knees 
 and gazed down the narrowing perspective of 
 shaded path into the sun-flooded, flower-grown 
 spaces of the garden. "No, it's John Witherspoon 
 and Lucy Parrish." 
 
 "So it is," with reviving animation. "Looks kind 
 of pretty, don't it? A-throwing flowers at each 
 other, and him a-chasing her around the paths." 
 
 Mrs. Hill gave a backward and dissenting jerk of 
 
 the head. "Maybe it looks pretty to you, Melinda, 
 
 .and others like you, but I tell you it looks mighty
 
 168 SALLY SALT 
 
 different to any one whose thoughts is taken with 
 the serious side of life." She gazed again down the 
 sun-dappled path where Lucy stood laughing into 
 Witherspoon's eyes, and slowly shook her head back 
 and forth. " 'Weep and howl, ye rich men,' " she 
 repeated unctuously. "Yes, and there's another 
 mighty true saying, 'You can't touch pitch and not 
 be defiled.' That was brought home to me Sunday, 
 Melinda," turning about and facing the shrinking 
 figure in the chair with a cold and steady regard. 
 "Living among those that makes perishing vanities 
 like clothes their idols with feet of clay, is going to 
 tell on any one, church member or not, sooner or 
 later. That was certainly showed me Sunday; it 
 certainly was," repeating the words with a slow and 
 solemn emphasis. 
 
 Mrs. Nesbit fluttered her wings desperately in 
 the effort to escape, but, as inevitably as the silly 
 moth, she flew straight into the flame. It seemed to 
 her that, entirely without her own volition, she 
 heard herself asking the question she would have 
 gone far to avoid. "H-how ?" 
 
 Mrs. Hill busied herself for a moment in adjust- 
 ing a bonnet pin. She was as unhasting, as unpity-
 
 MRS. HILL FREES HER MIND 169 
 
 ing as fate. "We're a plain congregation of plain 
 people," she said at last, sententiously, "and there 
 was plenty among us Sunday that found lilac silk 
 dresses and white bonnets all covered with heliotrope 
 flowers so out of place as to be laughable. I saw 
 more than one, Sunday, with their handkerchiefs 
 and hymn-books up to their faces, and some of the 
 younger ones couldn't help snickering outright." 
 
 This was the thumb-screws with a vengeance. It 
 may be assumed that when the peacock, spreading 
 arrogantly his gorgeous plumage, is censured for 
 vanity he receives the rebuke either with indifferent 
 scorn or mock humility; but when he learns that a 
 jeering world, oblivious to the beauty of his feath- 
 ers, is absorbed in the amused contemplation of his 
 ungainly feet, his point of view changes with great 
 rapidity. 
 
 So Mrs. Nesbit. Much as her timorous soul had 
 quaked at the thought of the inevitable reckoning, 
 she was nevertheless prepared for it, but to learn 
 that instead of exciting awed comment she had 
 served as food for laughter stirred her swift, emo- 
 tional anger. 
 "I don't care!" she cried passionately. "I don't
 
 1 70 SALLY SALT 
 
 care if they did! Mean old things! If they 
 laughed it was just because they were envious. I 
 know 'em all. And nobody, I don't care who, can 
 say that my gown and my bunnit wasn't pretty." 
 
 Mrs. Hill was quite unmoved. "Pretty enough," 
 she admitted grudgingly, "but was they in accord- 
 ance with a church member, not to speak of a 
 woman of your age? Fine feathers don't always 
 make fine birds, especially if the birds has wrinkles 
 and gray hairs, Melinda; then they just seem to 
 show 'em up. Every time I stole a glance at you 
 yesterday morning you were either looking at your 
 gloves or straightening your sleeves, or putting a 
 hand up to settle your bonnet; but how much did 
 you hear of the sermon? That's what I'm asking 
 you ; how much did you hear of the ser- 
 mon?" 
 
 Mrs. Nesbit cowered at this inquisitorial question. 
 "I I " she began, when there was a saving click 
 of the gate, and Mrs. Hill's attention was riveted 
 on Sally and Streatham, who entered together. 
 
 They were laughing as they came up the path, 
 and Sally, as usual, was tossing her hatless red head 
 in the sunshine. It was noontide, hot and high, the
 
 MRS. HILL FREES HER MIND 171 
 
 benediction of the blue and cloudless sky upon a 
 sun-warmed and basking earth. 
 
 "I don't like that Streatham," remarked Mrs. 
 Hill, disfavor in her glance, as the two turned 
 toward the garden and joined Witherspoon and 
 Lucy. "Here he is currying favor with Sally Salt, 
 all on account of her rich farms, and acting like his 
 heart's set on her, and all the time he's carrying on 
 with Hilda Kurd." 
 
 "Hilda Hurd !" echoed Mrs. Nesbit weakly. 
 
 Mrs. Hill nodded solemnly. Then, cautiously 
 drawing her chair nearer Mrs. Nesbit: "It's only 
 been a few nights back that he was seen walking 
 down the road with his arm around Hilda and in the 
 bright moonlight, too. And that's really the thing 
 I came to see you about. It ain't right that Mrs. 
 Salt should be left in ignorance of this matter, and 
 you're the one to tell her." 
 
 "Me!" Mrs. Nesbit's voice ran the gamut of 
 horror and incredulity. She fumbled for her hand- 
 kerchief. 
 
 "Yes, you," affirmed her mentor strongly, now on 
 her feet and tying her bonnet strings. "When duty 
 calls, you got to answer, no matter what happens.
 
 172 SALLY SALT 
 
 Right's right, and there's nothing for you to do, 
 Mrs. Nesbit, but to tell Mrs. Salt what you've 
 heard, being particular, of course, not to mention 
 where you heard it. But it's your duty to tell her, 
 no matter what happens to you, even if she should 
 put you right out in the road. Right's right." She 
 grasped her black cotton umbrella and slowly de- 
 scended the steps sidewise, testing her weight care- 
 fully on one foot before she ventured to put forth 
 the other. 
 
 "Well, good-by," she called back over her shoul- 
 der from the last step. "We've had a nice morning, 
 ain't we? I guess I'll stop in at Ellen Potter's and 
 see if she had any luck about her umberel." 
 
 But the huddled figure on the porch made no re- 
 sponse. She was gazing at a fixed spot, hypnotized 
 by the mental picture of herself sitting out in the 
 roadside on her little trunk. 
 
 "Poor little Nesbit !" said Sally, lifting her head 
 from the cup of one of her tall white lilies long 
 enough to observe the departure of Mrs. Hill, strid- 
 ing sturdily, as one who had given his message with- 
 out fear or favor, and the contrasting limpness of 
 Mrs. Nesbit.
 
 MRS. HILL FREES HER MIND 173 
 
 Sally was on her knees before a great clump of 
 lilies, adoring them, rapturously inhaling their fra- 
 grance, caressing their shining leaves. 
 
 "S-she looks as if she needed a nurse," said 
 Streatham, his eyes upon Mrs. Nesbit. "The 
 r-really g-good missionary is usually a trained in- 
 quisitor. Soul-doctors and body-doctors may be 
 roughly divided into two classes: the suave and the 
 brutal. Mrs. Hill, now, I should put in the latter 
 class. She s-scorns the methods of modern sur- 
 gery, the kind anesthetic, and removes the mote 
 from her brother's eye with a good old-fashioned 
 pruning hook. Efficacious, no doubt, but a little 
 rough on the victim." 
 
 "One of us really ought to go and administer first 
 aid to the injured, I suppose," said Lucy Parrish, 
 making, however, no effort to do so. 
 
 "That is what I wanted to do in the south field a 
 bit ago," said Streatham in an aggrieved tone, "but 
 I wasn't allowed to do so." 
 
 "Indeed, no," said Sally heartily. "John," ap- 
 pealing to Witherspoon, "what do you think hap- 
 pened? One of the reapers broke down, and I 
 'immediately saw, not only in Anthony's eyes, but in
 
 174 SALLY SALT 
 
 the eyes of every man in that field, that gleam that 
 always comes when they think that they are going to 
 get a chance to tinker at a piece of machinery. The 
 clumsier the man and the more intricate and deli- 
 cate the machinery the more his fingers itch to get 
 at it. It is always so. A man never sees the least 
 thing out of order that he doesn't say, 'I can mend 
 that for you in a jiffy; just hand it over to me,' and 
 something that might be set right in no time by a 
 skilled worker is thus hopelessly ruined. I knew 
 the other men wouldn't dare touch that reaper while 
 I sent for a machinist, but I couldn't trust Anthony, 
 so I told him dinner was ready. Seeing that he was 
 under the influence of one passion, I threw another 
 into the field and watched them fight it out. Hun- 
 ger conquered ; but you should have seen the way his 
 feet dragged." 
 
 "B-but," argued Streatham, "don't you see that 
 we should be commended, not blamed, nor held up 
 to ridicule? It's a left-over impulse from the age 
 of chivalry. Then we wandered about redressing 
 the wrongs of unhappy maidens. Now the unhappy 
 maidens are fully capable of adjusting their own
 
 MRS. HILL FREES HER MIND 175 
 
 wrongs, and nothing is left for us to adjust but 
 machinery." 
 
 "Speaking of adjustment," Sally broke in, "I 
 suppose I really should go and set poor little Nesbit 
 straight. She looks as if her brains were scrambled 
 eggs." 
 
 "No," Anthony protested, "come down to the 
 barn instead, and see the new fox terrier puppies. 
 Mrs. Nesbit is an india-rubber butterfly. She al- 
 ways looks crumbled to powder after Mrs. Hill has 
 taken a turn at breaking her on the wheel, but you 
 know that she's as good as new in an hour or so, and 
 anxious to be broken all over again. The people 
 who are born to be imposed on in this world are 
 always aggrieved when they're not. Come and see 
 the puppies, Sally." 
 
 Sally was not difficult to persuade, and she and 
 Streatham strolled off together, Lucy and Wither- 
 spoon preferring the cool seclusion of the garden. 
 
 As Sally and Anthony passed the kitchen windows 
 the most delightful and appetizing odors were 
 wafted to them, and Aunt Mandy thrust out her 
 turbaned head.
 
 176 SALLY SALT 
 
 "Don 5 you be fixin' to keep Miss Sally down dere 
 too long, Mr. Anthony, playin' wid dem worthless 
 lil' pup-holm's. I goin' to dish up dinner in 'bout a 
 minute, and there's some tings you always got yo' 
 mouf set for, Mr. Anthony. How 'bout roas' 
 chicken, an' co'n puddin', an' sweet taters baked 
 wid sugar, an' lima beans fresh from de gyarden? 
 He, he, he!" Her sides shook with laughter as 
 Anthony went through a pantomime of ecstasy at 
 the mention of each separate dish. "Oh, Miss 
 Sally!" lifting her voice as they sauntered on, "ef 
 you sees dat Wilmerdine loiterin' round anywheres, 
 you send her right home, double quick, please 
 ma'am." 
 
 "If my eyes don't deceive me," remarked Sally, a 
 moment later, "that is Wilmerdine now, pirouetting 
 before Uncle Poodle and reinforced by all the 
 puppies. Why can't she leave that poor old man 
 alone?" 
 
 "But you must admit," urged Streatham, "that 
 Uncle Poodle does not seem particularly affected bv 
 the pirouetting, although, to speak impartially, I 
 can not believe that such superlative indifference is 
 genuine."
 
 MRS. HILL FREES HER MIND 177 
 
 "If it isn't the real thing, it's a mighty good imi- 
 tation," said Sally dryly. 
 
 Streatham burst out laughing, the low, almost 
 soundless laughter in which he expressed his mirth. 
 
 "Sally, look; he might be one of the three mon- 
 keys of Nikko, from his pose and appearance, see- 
 ing no evil, hearing no evil and speaking no evil." 
 
 In truth, Uncle Poodle might have been a gro- 
 tesque image carved in ebony guarding the entrance 
 to Sally's kitchen garden. He leaned upon one of 
 the posts of the little paling gate, a small, bent 
 figure, with short bowed legs and enormously long 
 arms. His face, as always, wore an expression of 
 almost incredible solemnity, and his brooding, mel- 
 ancholy eyes were lifted unwinkingly to the brilliant 
 Sky. 
 
 Before him Wilmerdine, a thistledown for light- 
 ness and grace, ran races and frolicked with four fat 
 little fox terrier puppies. Her heavy, coarse, black 
 hair had become loosened and hung low on her 
 shoulders, and the lovely cream of her cheeks was 
 stained a deep crimson. When she occasionally 
 varied her pretty play by dropping upon the ground 
 f.nd letting the puppies overrun and tumble over her,
 
 178 SALLY SALT 
 
 her crisp pink frock spread about her like the petals 
 of a hibiscus flower. 
 
 At the sound of Sally's and Streatham's voices 
 Uncle Poodle dropped his gaze until it rested upon 
 them, or rather upon the tops of their heads, for 
 never did he permit it to fall so low as Wilmerdine. 
 
 " 'Scuse me, Miss Sally," he said, advancing with 
 a profound bow, " 'scuse me, Mr. Anthony, but I 
 ain't satisfied wid de way de tomatoses is lookin', 
 Miss Sally, an' ef it wouldn't disturb you none, 
 could you pleas'n stop an' look at 'em, an' den we 
 might be concoctin' some way to kin' o' brace 'em 
 up an' have 'em seem perter?" 
 
 "All right, Uncle Poodle." Sally caught one of 
 the puppies as it made a rush at her ankles, and held 
 it up against her face. "The darling ! Look, Tony, 
 he's dragging my hair down with his little teeth. 
 I'll be right out after dinner, Uncle Poodle, before I 
 go to the fields, and we'll decide on the particular 
 kind of a bracer the tomatoes need."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 MRS. HURD'S NEXT MOVE 
 
 TRUE to her word, as soon as Sally had fin- 
 ished her midday dinner she sauntered down 
 through her kitchen garden to observe her drooping 
 tomato vines. Now and then she stooped and 
 plucked a sprig of thyme or summer savory and 
 nibbled it as she walked ; but the even rows of well- 
 cared-for vegetables on either side of the path did 
 not receive anything like the full share of her at- 
 tention. 
 
 Sally was by nature an optimist. To worry re- 
 quired an effort on her part, and yet she had received 
 a shock on the previous Sunday from which even 
 her joyous and soaring nature had not fully recov- 
 ered. The discovery of some secret understanding 
 between Anthony and Hilda, the girl's mysterious 
 visits, the peculiar embarrassment of her manner 
 these had caused Sally some sleepless hours of puz- 
 
 179
 
 i8o SALLY SALT 
 
 zled cogitation. But, imperious even with herself, 
 she had resolutely put these things from her, and 
 had refused to descend either to the level of petty 
 suspicion or of a more degrading jealousy. And 
 very widely she would have opened her eyes at the 
 mention of the latter word in connection with her 
 own emotions very widely indeed. 
 
 She was singularly free from any taint of vanity, 
 but had any one ventured to hint to her of the possi- 
 bility of her being jealous of Hilda, she would have 
 burst into a peal of rich and ringing laughter, en- 
 tirely unfeigned and natural, her blue eyes twink- 
 ling with mirth and gleaming with just one deep 
 spark of fire. Jealous of Hilda ! The rose jealous 
 of the thistledown? Wine of water? The sun of 
 the moon ? 
 
 Nevertheless, although she had not permitted her- 
 self to show the least difference in her manner 
 toward Anthony, she was deeply hurt by his refusal 
 to admit her to his confidence. Now, as her mind 
 reverted to it, a little frown deepened between her 
 brows. Why had he withheld it? Oh, nagging 
 Kid insistent question ! Why ? 
 
 The slight crunch of gravel, an approaching foot-
 
 MRS. KURD'S NEXT MOVE 181 
 
 step, recalled her to herself, and she lifted her eyes 
 to see the tall figure of Mrs. Hurd, with the in- 
 evitable Trip at her heels, proceeding slowly up the 
 walk from the lower end of the garden. 
 
 "What on earth can she want?" muttered Sally 
 vexedly, and, instead of advancing hospitably to 
 meet her visitor, stood perfectly still, her level and 
 slightly questioning gaze requesting very plainly 
 the reason for the intrusion. The bean vines, twin- 
 ing in luxuriant wreaths and festoons over their tall 
 poles and waving flaunting little tendrils from the 
 summits, made a fluttering and effective background 
 for Sally's copper hair and blue cotton frock. 
 
 Mrs. Kurd's advance was not rapid. Her move- 
 ments were always slow and heavy, and in the pres- 
 ent instance she apparently saw no occasion for 
 haste. Her face in the depths of her black slat sun- 
 bonnet was as expressionless as ever, set in its usual 
 granite calm, and yet, as she looked up to see Sally 
 a picture painted in the pure pigments of nature, in 
 living and brilliant colors, Sally, vital as the earth, 
 with her red gold hair and the unquenchable joy of 
 her spirit, sparkling, leaping, laughing in her blue 
 eyes there was a sudden gleam of triumph in Maria
 
 182 SALLY SALT 
 
 Kurd's inscrutable face, as if at last the opportunity 
 had come to assuage her raw resentment, hidden, 
 but ever rankling, that this impetuous, arrogant 
 Sally Salt had discovered the secret passion of her 
 soul, that passion whose roots had twisted and 
 wound themselves through her nature, absorbing all 
 generous impulses and nourishing only the one mon- 
 strous and poisonous blossom love of money. 
 
 "Good day, Mrs. Salt," she said as she drew near, 
 her voice more humbly suave than ever. "I just 
 thought I'd step over for Harris, and save you the 
 trouble of sending him home. I'm kindly obliged 
 to you, Mrs. Salt, for the trouble you've taken about 
 that child. I see now that it was all for the best 
 that he came to you." 
 
 "Trouble!" laughed Sally carelessly. "He's a 
 joy. I wish you would let me have him all the 
 time." 
 
 Maria Kurd's eyelids drooped. "I'm sorry, Mrs. 
 Salt, but I couldn't do that. I need him at home 
 just now to help me. I need him particularly just 
 now." The words were spoken with a peculiar 
 emphasis, an underlying meaning which arrested 
 Sally's wondering and indifferent attention, but for
 
 MRS. KURD'S NEXT MOVE 183 
 
 the moment only. A little silence fell between the 
 two, and then Mrs. Hurd drew a long breath and 
 cast a quick, furtive glance at Sally. 
 
 "You see, a good deal that's been coming to me's 
 likely to be cut off." 
 
 "How's that?" asked Sally idly. She was look- 
 ing at Trip, and her mouth twitched involuntarily. 
 How uncannily that mongrel cur suggested his mis- 
 tress! He had the same heavy slowness of move- 
 ment, the same unreadable eyes, and the same suave 
 and yet commanding humility of bearing. A little 
 shiver ran down her spine. They were two black 
 blots on the sunlight. Shadows, both of them, and 
 the human suggestion of shadow ever carries with it 
 something sinister and chilling. 
 
 "Well, you see," Mrs. Hurd paused and looked 
 cautiously about her, "there is no one here to over- 
 hear us, is there, Mrs. Salt? This is particularly 
 confidential." 
 
 "Oh, there's no one around." Sally spoke in 
 half -tolerant, half -impatient amusement at her com- 
 panion's air of mystery. "They say that walls have 
 ears, but I never heard that vegetables have." 
 
 Both tone and words brought a quick but almost
 
 i84 SALLY SALT 
 
 immediately suppressed flash to Mrs. Kurd's eyes, 
 a tinge of color to her cheeks, but her tone, lower 
 and more deprecating than ever, seemed to belie the 
 menace of her words. 
 
 "I guess before I've finished, Mrs. Salt, you'll be 
 as anxious as I am now that there sha'n't be any one 
 listening around. You know Mr. Grissom that's 
 been taking his meals with us right along ?" 
 
 Sally nodded, and now she bent her gaze more in- 
 tently upon her uninvited guest. 
 
 "Well," continued Mrs. Kurd, "it looks as if he'd 
 got into some sort of trouble. Jake Washburne, he 
 brought me this paper the other evening." She 
 drew a tightly folded newspaper from her pocket. 
 "Will you read this article, Mrs. Salt?" opening the 
 paper and indicating certain heavy head-lines with 
 her long, fleshy forefinger. 
 
 Sally uttered an exclamation of surprise at the 
 pictured face of Grissom, and ran her eye quickly 
 down the column. 
 
 "Good heavens! A confidence man! Just as I 
 well, you can't be accused of entertaining" an angel 
 unawares, can you, Mrs. Hurd ?" 
 
 At her bantering tone Maria Kurd's nostrils con-
 
 MRS. HURD'S NEXT MOVE 185 
 
 tracted slightly, and two white dints showed them- 
 selves in the corners of her mouth. 
 
 "Oh, I guess I ain't the only one." She spoke 
 with a deadly and ominous meaning. "But," 
 quickly recovering herself, "I guess there's no doubt 
 but what it's Grissom. You see, Jake, he's been in 
 correspondence with the heads of the police, and he 
 thinks he's got Mr. Grissom sure." 
 
 "Has he been arrested?" asked Sally. 
 
 "No'm, not yet. You see, he went away a day 
 or two before Take got on to all this, and he won't 
 be back till well, a few days. Then Jake will get 
 him the minute he strikes the place." 
 
 "Then Hilda!" cried Sally, a sudden light 
 breaking upon her. 
 
 "Hilda!" repeated the girl's mother contemptu- 
 ously. "Hilda knows nothing of all this." 
 
 "Then what !" Sally stopped short, withheld 
 from further speech by some curious intuition which 
 she could not have explained even to herself. 
 
 "Oh, you thought that since Jake is so struck on 
 Hilda, he would naturally tell her first?" Mrs. 
 Hurd answered Sally's broken interrogation with a 
 question. "No, he's got too much sense for that,
 
 i86 SALLY SALT 
 
 even if he is in love with her. You can't count on 
 Hilda. There's no dependence to be placed on her. 
 It was her mother he came to see for once," with a 
 sort of grim humor, "and he told me all about it 
 Sunday evening, sitting on our porch in the moon- 
 light while Hilda had mooned off somewhere, as 
 usual; with her father, most likely. .So I thought 
 I'd come to see you to-day." 
 
 Her voice was now so pregnant with meaning that 
 it would seem as if the most indifferent and absent- 
 minded of listeners must perforce be struck by it; 
 but to Sally it conveyed nothing. Indeed', she 
 scarcely heard it. She was thinking rapidly, ab- 
 sorbedly, piecing the events of the last few days 
 together in her mind, and so admirably did the 
 pieces fit, that with her mental patchwork came a 
 sense of buoyant relief. It was all perfectly clear 
 now. Hilda had evidently overheard the conversa- 
 tion between her mother and Washburne, and in her 
 anxiety to help Grissom had turned to Anthony for 
 assistance. That accounted for her agitation, her 
 peculiar conduct on Sunday night. Yes, that was 
 it. Almost distraught by the danger which threat- 
 ened Grissom, she had come to Anthony to unbur*
 
 MRS. KURD'S NEXT MOVE 187 
 
 den her mind, and he, out of the kindness of his 
 heart, had first calmed her fears and then had ridden 
 off at midnight to send a message of warning to 
 her lover. 
 
 Sally breathed a long sigh and looked up with 
 ecstatic eyes at the sapphire sky. The whole hide- 
 ous prison of her doubts fell in ruins about her, 
 leaving her gloriously free. She looked abroad 
 over wood and field, every shade of green melting 
 through all gradations of tone and blending har- 
 moniously to a full vitality of color in the amber 
 light. Sally felt as if she were in a wide, fathom- 
 less ocean of sunlight, a tideless, peaceful sea which 
 rose as high as her heart and flooded it with hap- 
 piness. 
 
 She understood now why Anthony had refused 
 her his confidence. It was Hilda's secret he was 
 keeping, not his own. 
 
 "I thought I'd better come to see you to-day, all 
 things considered." Mrs. Hurd's menacing, patient 
 voice broke through her dreaming. 
 
 "That was kind," murmured Sally, and turned 
 gay eyes upon her visitor. As she did so it sud- 
 denly seemed to her that the golden glory of the day
 
 1 88 SALLY SALT 
 
 was dimmed ; again that little chill ran over her, and 
 she shivered slightly. That black figure, imper- 
 turbable, waiting, with granite pale face and im- 
 penetrable eyes, was like some great raven, an 
 image of doom and foreboding in the gold-green 
 sparkle of the garden. 
 
 "What is it you want with me, Mrs. Kurd?" 
 Sally spoke with an imperious change of tone. "I 
 should now be in the fields." 
 
 Maria Hurd laughed, a single harsh croak. "I 
 guess you'll be more interested in what I've got to 
 say, Mrs. Salt, than in anything that's going on in 
 the fields." 
 
 "I !" with a haughty, backward toss of her head. 
 "What is the meaning of this? Come, Mrs. Hurd," 
 her impatience beginning to be touched with be- 
 wilderment, "do tell me what it is you have to say." 
 
 The shadowiest of smiles flickered over Mrs. 
 Kurd's face. "You didn't read that article in the 
 paper careful. Neither did Jake Washburne." 
 There was a touch of contempt in her tones. "Read 
 it over again, this part, and read it careful." She 
 came close to Sally and pointed out the paragraph 
 which she wished her to read.
 
 MRS. KURD'S NEXT MOVE 189 
 
 And Sally read : 
 
 "No photograph is obtainable of Grissom's ac- 
 complice, who seems to be an unknown quantity in 
 police annals, but from the most accurate descrip- 
 tion of him which could be secured, he appears to 
 have been a tall, loose- jointed fellow with blue-gray 
 eyes, a tanned face and light hair." 
 
 The paper was crumpled fiercely in Sally's hand. 
 Her whole body seemed for a moment to shrink and 
 to gather itself together with tense force, as if to 
 withstand a blow. Then, by an effort of will, the 
 muscles relaxed, she lifted her eyes, gleaming blue 
 as the sea in her pallid face, and steadily, defiantly 
 met the hard, gloating triumph of the other woman's 
 gaze. 
 
 "Well, what of it? Why do you show this to 
 me?" Her cool surprise was almost natural. 
 
 "Kind o' funny, ain't it," Mrs. Kurd's tones ex- 
 
 * 
 
 pressed an innocent wonder, "that the description of 
 Grissom's accomplice should fit Mr. Streatham like 
 a glove? Kind of funny, too, that they should both 
 be here at the same time. I remember," reminis- 
 cently, "the day that Mr. Streatham got here. Gris- 
 sbm came in to dinner in a great state. 'I've just
 
 190 SALLY SALT 
 
 seen a stranger at Mrs. Salt's,' he said. 'I wonder 
 if you know who he is ?' 
 
 " 'Oh, that must be Mr. Streatham/ I said, setting 
 his dinner before him ; 'he comes every year for the 
 harvesting.' 
 
 " 'Streatham !' he says, and then laughs. 'Strea- 
 tham!' he repeats, as if the name was kind of fa- 
 miliar. 'I thought I couldn't be mistaken.' 
 
 " 'Do you know him ?' I asks, struck by something 
 in his tone. 
 
 " 'Know him !' he laughs again, 'know Tony ! I 
 guess I do. I know him of old.' That's what he 
 said. Of course, Mrs. Salt, it may not mean any- 
 thing, and again it may mean a good deal. I've 
 been studying' considerably about my duty in this 
 matter." 
 
 "Shut up!" said Sally, her patience at breaking 
 point, her voice ringing with anger and pain. "Why 
 have you come to me with this? What is it you 
 want now ?" 
 
 Trip stirred, half rose, and then, in obedience to 
 a slight motion of his mistress' hand, lay down 
 again. "Money," said Mrs. Kurd softly, and with 
 a sententiousness equal to Sally's own. "You see,
 
 /MRS. KURD'S NEXT MOVE 191 
 
 Mrs. Salt, you're so free-handed and generous," sh$ 
 faltered, actually quailing before the lightning of 
 Sally's eyes, and then, with a faint, scornful smile 
 at her temporary weakness, went on, "and you see, 
 Jake Washburne didn't half read that article; his 
 mind was so taken up with the idea of finding Gris- 
 som and claiming that reward that he couldn't take 
 in anything else. Of course, he may read it over 
 again and take notice of the description of Mr. 
 Streath " she stopped under another blazing glance 
 and carefully amended her speech, "of the descrip- 
 tion that seems to fit Mr. Streatham, but Jake is 
 slow-witted, and he'd never think of fitting it to Mr. 
 Streatham, who comes here year after year and is 
 known to be a particular friend of yours. No, there 
 isn't one cha'nce in a thousand that Jake would ever 
 think of it himself." Then slowly, that Sally might 
 grasp the full import of every word : "Certainly I'd 
 be the last to point it out to him, unless I suddenly 
 felt it my duty. You see, Mrs. Salt, my conscience 
 might get to troubling me at any time. Well," after 
 a moment or two of waiting silence, which Sally did 
 not break, "I must be going. You'll want a little 
 time to think about this and to talk it over with Mr.
 
 192 SALLY SALT 
 
 Streatham, so I'll stop in again later, and we'll see 
 what arrangements can be made. Come on, Trip." 
 
 They moved away together down the path, the 
 dog following his mistress with an exact reproduc- 
 tion of her peculiar clumsiness of motion. 
 
 "Sally! Sa-al-ly!" Lucy Parrish's voice float- 
 ing through the garden aroused her, standing like a 
 statue, her fingers clutching the paper, her eyes star- 
 ing before her, motionless, almost breathless, in a 
 trance of pain which subdued and benumbed all her 
 alert senses. So she had stood for the last ten min- 
 utes, and so she might have continued to stand for 
 an even longer period had not Lucy's high, clear 
 voice, growing nearer every moment, roused her 
 from this nightmare catalepsy. 
 
 Awake, alarmed, she started forward and, follow- 
 ing her immediate and primitive instinct, looked 
 about her for some place to hide. The garden, 
 broad and open, afforded her no shelter, so, taking 
 the path recently traversed by Mrs. Kurd and Trip, 
 she ran down it and, following the first turning, dis- 
 appeared into a dense growth of trees which sep- 
 arated the garden from the fields beyond. 
 
 Once safe in that cool, dusk green refuge, so kind
 
 MRS. KURD'S NEXT MOVE 193 
 
 and shielding, her strength deserted her, her whole 
 body trembled, a mist swam before her eyes, her 
 knees gave way under her, she stumbled, almost re- 
 gained her footing, and then fell heavily to the 
 ground. It had required all the effort of which she 
 was capable to maintain her self-control before Mrs. 
 Kurd, and now, in the moment of complete reaction, 
 mental and physical, she was bankrupt of the sus- 
 taining forces of will and energy. 
 
 For a time, as she lay there, her mind was a blank. 
 She was conscious only of the fluttering of her 
 pulses, the throbbing in her ears, and then agitating 
 thoughts, like dark clouds succeeding dark clouds, 
 began to press upon her and trouble her mind. 
 
 What unbelievable hints and innuendoes had Mrs. 
 Kurd been pouring into her ears! Aspersions 
 against Anthony? The baseless scandals of a cruel 
 and scheming woman, who saw evil everywhere and 
 in everything! Why should she have been so af- 
 fected by lies ? Lies ! How foolish of her to have 
 been so influenced by anything that woman could 
 have said. No wonder that there seemed to be 
 black clouds all about her, that they seemed to suc- 
 ceed one another in rolling masses before her eyes.
 
 194 SALLY SALT 
 
 She would lift her head above them and breathe a 
 purer air. Then she fell back again and moaned at 
 the quick needle-thrust, the recurring, piercing stab 
 of suspicion. 
 
 She lived over again that hour or two with An- 
 thony on the moonlighted porch, the night fra- 
 grances blown to them on every breath of wind and 
 the moonflowers unfolding their white cups all about 
 them. She recalled the amusement, the abandon, 
 the inimitable mimicry with which he had told the 
 story of the swindle. How perfectly he had por- 
 trayed the sewing-machine agent! With what as- 
 sured strokes he had painted the whole picture ! 
 
 And she! What did she really know of him, of 
 his manner of life? Nothing, thanks to his peculiar 
 reserve and the mystery in which he enveloped his 
 actions. 
 
 She pressed her hands to her head, the battle 
 within rent and tore her, but the gallant little army 
 of refutations and hopes and beliefs was gradually 
 overcome, beaten back and put to flight by the in- 
 creasing hordes of thronging and sinister doubts. 
 This cloud of witnesses pressing about her was
 
 MRS. KURD'S NEXT MOVE 195 
 
 augmented and reinforced until it extended to 
 her furthermost horizon. 
 
 Worn, spent, she acknowledged defeat. It was 
 true ! Oh, it was true ! She buried her face in the 
 cool, dark grass, and the tears she wept blinded her 
 eyes with their torrent and scalded them with their 
 bitterness.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 TIGHTENING THE SCREWS 
 
 EACH hour of the afternoon as it struck was a 
 herald announcing some new revelation of 
 beauty, the imperceptible but perpetual shifting of 
 light ever giving new values to the picture of 
 meadows and fields and distant hills, values which 
 could only be estimated by the rhythmical markings 
 of time. 
 
 Three o'clock the sun still broadly high, mid- 
 afternoon at the zenith of its golden opulence, 
 earth in a motionless dream in an enchanted atmos- 
 phere of strained honey. 
 
 Four o'clock thin amethyst hazes on the hills, 
 violet black shadows tapering longer every minute 
 and encroaching further on the sun's cloth of gold. 
 
 Five o'clock a breeze from the river, the earth 
 draws long, awakening breaths, the trees flutter 
 their leaves against a sun-rayed background and 
 
 196
 
 TIGHTENING THE SCREWS 197 
 
 their shadows are as long and pointed as if elms and 
 oaks and maples were all firs. 
 
 Six o'clock the hills are outlined with a rim of 
 gold, the sky has changed from sapphire to pale 
 green and rose, the flowers lift up their drooping 
 heads to drink in the indescribable and reviving 
 freshness of the air, and give out all the richness 
 of their perfume, not that faint, evanescent incense 
 with which they welcomed the dawn, but the last 
 essence of fragrance which the burning sun has 
 drawn from their very hearts. 
 
 And all through the glorious pageant of the hours 
 Sally had lain where she had thrown herself in the 
 cloister of shadow of the encircling trees, her head 
 pillowed on her arm. As it neared sundown the 
 noisy birds had filled the branches and chattered 
 and flown back and forth, but Sally had not even 
 turned her prone head to look at them. Gradually 
 the long arrows of the sun, which pierced the soft, 
 green gloom, dazzled over her head and splintered 
 themselves against the tree trunks no longer; the 
 birds were quiet, barely giving a sleepy twitter now 
 and then ; the sun sank, draining the world of color, 
 and the dusk was dim in Sally's refuge.
 
 i 9 8 SALLY SALT 
 
 "Sally, Sally," it was not Lucy Parrish this time, 
 but Streatham, calling her very softly. A quiver of 
 pain and apprehension passed over her and then she 
 crouched lower, hardly breathing, praying that he 
 .might not see her; but he drew nearer, continuing 
 to call, and presently entered the circle of her con- 
 cealing trees. 
 
 Humiliation surged over her, this proud Sally. 
 She was about to be discovered in her defeated mo- 
 ment, crushed, beaten to earth. She could not bear 
 it, she, who had always met the foe with head up, 
 defiant. She was on her feet in a minute, but she 
 had lain so long upon the ground that her limbs 
 were numb and stiff and now she swayed slightly 
 and caught at the low-hanging branch of a tree for 
 momentary support. 
 
 "Sally !" Streatham held her close in his arms, his 
 voice quick with ready sympathy. "Sally, what 
 is it?" 
 
 She fell limply against him. Here was strength 
 and comfort. Her whole sick heart and tired body 
 ached and craved them. Then she repudiated them 
 at the price. She turned her head aside and pushed 
 him from her.
 
 TIGHTENING THE SCREWS 199 
 
 "Sally, ah, Sally, what is it ?" His voice was full 
 of the tenderest concern. 
 
 But she could only shake her head mutely, and 
 his quick eye, roving about, saw the newspaper on 
 the ground. He snatched it up, ran his eye over the 
 columns, threw one glance at her averted face, gave 
 a long, low whistle and then fell to reading the 
 marked and head-lined article with undeniable in- 
 tensity and concentration. It was difficult to de- 
 cipher the words in the growing twilight, and he 
 stepped to a little opening between the trees where 
 the evening light fell more clearly. Sally, feeling 
 still the necessity of support, had thrown an arm 
 about a tree trunk and stood with her head pressed 
 against the rough bark, her eyes gazing listlessly be- 
 fore her. 
 
 Streatham carefully read the whole article to its 
 conclusion and then with a shrug .of the shoulders 
 looked at her with a strained yet whimsical twist to 
 the mouth. "So this is what has taken the color 
 out of you! Why," drawing nearer to her, "tears 
 have washed you as white as a ghost. Why?" 
 There was a genuine surprise in his voice. 
 . There was a faint return of spirit in the way
 
 200 SALLY SALT 
 
 Sally's chin was flung up. "Isn't that enough to 
 make me pale?" she cried. 
 
 "This!" He laughed contemptuously, incredu- 
 lously, and struck the paper sharply with his fingers. 
 "This? Why?" 
 
 "Have you read it through?" She stood free 
 from her support now, her eyes fixed steadily on his 
 face. 
 
 "Naturally," he returned coolly, his glance un- 
 wavering, but that meant nothing to her. There re- 
 mained with her the stabbing remembrance of other 
 direct glances, frank and free, given in moments of 
 almost ostensible concealment, but she did not notice 
 that his smile, in spite of its whimsicality, held a 
 touch of pain. "You must have observed that it 
 has very fully occupied my attention for the last 
 five minutes; but you seem to have discovered in it 
 something I have overlooked. What is it?" He 
 had dropped the carelessness of his tone; it rang 
 now a sharp challenge. 
 
 "What do I make of it? Oh, Anthony, what's 
 the use?" Her voice broke in a sob. "What should 
 I make of it but one thing?" 
 
 "Yes, and that one thing?" Into his glance there
 
 TIGHTENING THE SCREWS 201 
 
 had suddenly flashed something acute and penetrat- 
 ing, something as high and haughty as Sally's own 
 spirit, that met her on her own ground and gave no 
 quarter. 
 
 "Oh, why do you make me explain what you 
 know so well?" she cried impatiently, resentful of 
 fresh suffering. "I know now why Hilda Hurd 
 came after you the other evening, all of a tremble 
 and frightened as a mouse which has just managed 
 to escape the paw of a cat. She had overheard this 
 whole affair of Grissom and the old farmer dis- 
 cussed by Jake Washburne and her mother, and in- 
 tent on warning Grissom, she had turned to you as 
 the one person who could help her. Naturally, you 
 promised her your assistance and late that night 
 rode off to send Grissom a message." 
 
 "Wise Sally, and quite correct, too. You are 
 even more of a Sherlock than I thought." His voice 
 was gently bantering. It seemed to her that his eyes 
 were full of sardonic flickers. "But since all that 
 is nicely explained, what is there in this article 
 which has caused you to suffer as you evidently have 
 been suffering?" As he said these last words the 
 lightness faded from his tones, leaving only a deep
 
 202 SALLY SALT 
 
 tenderness, a tenderness which was. yet infused with 
 something both stern and insistent. 
 
 "How can you ask me that ; I almost said, how 
 dare you?" she cried angrily. "Did you read the 
 description of his his accomplice?" The word 
 broke explosively from her lips. 
 
 He glanced down at the paper again. "Light 
 hair, blue-gray eyes, tall, um-m-m. Might do for a 
 portrait, a newspaper pen portrait of me, might it 
 not, Sally darling?" His whole face brimmed with 
 laughter, his teasing, diabolic mirth with its sugges- 
 tions of audacious mockery and reckless humor. 
 
 "If you laugh at me like that I'll I'll " she 
 drew one quick breath and then hurled a torrent of 
 words at him from a choking throat. "Do you 
 think that I would pay any attention to that descrip- 
 tion, would even consider it for a moment? Never, 
 if you had not told me that story the other night, 
 the whole story that is written out there in full in 
 that paper. And, oh, Anthony," it was an exceed- 
 ingly bitter cry, "if you hadn't told it as if you had 
 lived it all before! I felt it at the time. It made 
 me restless and unhappy. I did not know why then, 
 but I know now. And I've been lying here for
 
 TIGHTENING THE SCREWS 203 
 
 hours, trying to find excuses for you, trying to sat- 
 isfy myself with some explanation that would really 
 explain. I tried to think that truly you had read the 
 story in a newspaper, and the drama of it appealed 
 to you so that you, being a born actor, couldn't help 
 acting it out ; but you didn't tell it that way. That 
 explanation and the way you told it wouldn't fit. 
 And then I tried to think that Grissom had told you 
 about it and that it had so tickled that odd sense of 
 humor of yours that you couldn't help telling me, 
 but I knew in my heart all the time that no man 
 would tell another a funny story which might land 
 him in the penitentiary. Oh, Anthony," every fiber 
 of her pleaded with him, her whole being hung on 
 the question, "how did you know that wretched 
 story so well?" 
 
 In the growing twilight his face looked strangely 
 troubled. All of its ironical amusement had van- 
 ished, his haggard face was drawn, his gaze melan- 
 choly, and, as he continued to hold her eyes, a faint, 
 'wistful smile crept about his lips. "Ah, Sally," 
 there was a deep thrill of love and tenderness in his 
 voice, he drew nearer as if he would clasp her in 
 his arms. Then as she started back and turned
 
 204 SALLY SALT 
 
 from him, "Sally," sharply, "you have just asked 
 me what I meant, now I ask you the same question. 
 Tell me, do you really, really believe this of me?" 
 His tone was harshly incredulous. 
 
 "What else can I do?" she cried desperately. 
 
 "Then you do believe it?" The incredulity deep- 
 ened to sheer wonder. 
 
 She twisted her hands together and looked about 
 her with anguished eyes, but before she could an- 
 swer him his eyes fell again on the newspaper and 
 he asked quickly, "By the way, how did you get that 
 paper?" 
 
 "Mrs. Kurd brought it to me." Her hesitating 
 whisper was almost inaudible. 
 
 "Mrs. Hurd?" he repeated in puzzled incompre- 
 hension. "Mrs. Hurd ! And why should she ?" 
 
 Two or three minutes passed before Sally an- 
 swered. If she told him that Mrs. Hurd also sus- 
 pected him, he would probably see the advisability 
 of acknowledging his guilt to her, Sally, and then 
 arrange some way to keep the Hurd woman's mouth 
 closed, and Sally did not want a confession gained 
 in that way. She could insure Mrs. Kurd's silence 
 without his intervention.
 
 TIGHTENING THE SCREWS 205 
 
 "Mrs. Hurd," she said at last, "oh, she she 
 seemed bothered about losing Mr. Grissom as a 
 boarder." 
 
 He nodded. The explanation was quite adequate. 
 At the sight of the paper he had a moment of 
 wonder, but his curiosity, briefly acute, was easily 
 satisfied. His mind returned at once to a far more 
 important theme, Sally's attitude toward himself. 
 
 A silence fell between them, a silence which after 
 a few minutes she felt unendurable. 
 
 "Oh, Anthony," she cried from her soul's depths, 
 "if you would only explain, if you would only swear 
 to me." 
 
 "And I will not." The words were as crisp as if 
 clipped by a machine. All the perverseness, the 
 unfathomable reserve, the peculiar reticence of 
 Streatham came to the surface. "I will not." 
 
 Sally's head went flinging up like that of a rest- 
 less, mettlesome horse. "Then the sooner you go 
 the better." 
 
 Anthony merely shrugged his shoulders again at 
 this, a shrug that was almost a wince, and the little 
 smile that came and then went, was like a quick 
 grimace of pain ; but he said nothing, giving her time
 
 206 SALLY SALT 
 
 for one of her sudden repentances. The sun had 
 dropped sharply behind the hills, the long, gray 
 shadows mingled and melted into twilight. 
 
 Anthony stepped across the grassy space which 
 separated them and clasped Sally's hands in his. 
 "You would not turn me out, would you, Sally ?" 
 
 Her chin still up, her lips compressed, eyelashes 
 on cheek, she nodded mutely. 
 
 Then she felt the hands that held hers tremble. 
 "You're turning me out then, Sally, out of your 
 heart and your home. Is it true, is it possible ?" 
 
 "I begged you, Anthony, I beg you again to prove 
 your innocence." The words came with difficulty, 
 as if from a parched throat. 
 
 "I would never have called you a faithless gen- 
 eration, Sally, seeking a sign." Beneath his half- 
 jesting words was a reproach so deep that it lost 
 itself in wonder. "It isn't true," he whispered, after 
 a moment's silence. "It isn't true." He affirmed it 
 more strongly, lifting his drawn face to the pale 
 opal of the sky. "Sally fail me! Sally fail any 
 one! Never." 
 
 "I only ask such a little thing, Anthony." Her 
 speech was hoarse and broken, she could barely
 
 TIGHTENING THE SCREWS 207 
 
 form the words. "I only beg you to prove to me " 
 she could go no further, her throat felt paralyzed. 
 
 Streatham did not answer and again silence fell 
 between them. At last it was broken by him. "She's 
 turned me off," he whispered stammeringly, "so 
 there's nothing to do but go." He started a pace or 
 two and then turning, caught her tightly in his arms. 
 "Darling Sally, Sally of my heart!" He pressed 
 his cheek against hers and kissed again and again 
 the loose, waving hair about her brow. 
 
 "I know what I am, worse even than you think 
 me, Sally, but you are not hard and cold and sus- 
 picious, and it's a lie if you seem so. You are warm 
 and sweet and loving to the core, and it's a lie if 
 you seem otherwise. Do you think that you are 
 really driving me off, Sally? Never, I will never 
 admit it. I'm going because I choose to go." He 
 kissed her again, her eyelids, her mouth, her hair. 
 "Then good-by. I'm leaving you, remember. 
 Good-by. When you write and tell me that you, 
 too, know that you never doubted me, never asked 
 for a sign, then I'll come back to you ; across the 
 sea, across the world, back from hell to you, Sally." 
 
 He loosed his arms and abruptly left her. She
 
 208 SALLY SALT 
 
 heard the crackle of little dry twigs under his feet, 
 the sound growing fainter as he went steadily on, 
 and Sally listened with strained and unbelieving 
 ears. It wasn't true. It couldn't be. In a moment 
 he would turn those dear, individual, gray shoulders 
 and come back to her and tell her that it was all a 
 phase of nightmare, the hideous delusion of a hide- 
 ous dream. 
 
 So she waited; the brief, gray hour of twilight 
 waned and night closed about her, black and hot 
 and breathless. Then the wind began to blow, long 
 gusts from the river, laden with all the lush rank 
 smell of the weeds, the strange musk of the tasseled 
 corn. 
 
 At last, some half-conscious impulse urged her to 
 go home. The porch was deserted, the creak of 
 Mrs. Nesbit's rocking-chair was silenced. She had 
 gone to bed. The flutter of Lucy Parrish's white 
 gown might be seen in the garden, but Anne, like 
 Mrs. Nesbit, had retired. There was, however, a 
 figure in black, calm, patient as fate, sitting on the 
 steps, and curled at her feet something that re- 
 sembled a motionless black mat, but which stirred 
 and growled deeply in its throat as Sally drew near.
 
 TIGHTENING THE SCREWS 209 
 
 "Good evening, Mrs. Salt." Mrs. Hurd rose to 
 her feet. "I have been waiting some time, but then," 
 meekly, "I haven't minded that. It's been a rest 
 to me." 
 
 "Has it?" said Sally dully. "Well, what do you 
 want now?" 
 
 "The same little matter we were talking about at 
 noon, Mrs. Salt. I'm sorry to hurry you, but things 
 have got to be settled quick. If Jake has got to be 
 told, it must be at once." 
 
 "I suppose so," returned Sally, more dully still, 
 and dimly wondering why it was so hard to form 
 sentences, and why her voice, like her feet, seemed 
 to stumble. "How much do you want ?" 
 
 "Five hund " began Mrs. Hurd, and then see- 
 ing Sally's condition of absolute mental apathy, 
 quickly changed and pressed her advantage. "A 
 thousand," she said smoothly. 
 
 "Very well, I'll give you a check to-morrow." 
 Sally passed on into the houses
 
 BESIDE THE POPPY TENTS 
 
 MRS. NESBIT clutched Lucy Parrish's frock 
 as that nimble- footed young woman ran 
 across the porch. Lucy represented motion to her, 
 she was always fleeing some one of Mrs. Nesbit's 
 little group, Mrs. Hill or Mrs. Potter or Anne, 
 Anne, who was willing to sit all day long on the 
 porch and showed no disposition to philander, as 
 Mrs. Nesbit expressed it. 
 
 "Lucy," quavered the little woman, holding her 
 captive firmly by the skirt, "don't always be in such 
 a hurry. A rolling stone gathers no moss, 'mem- 
 ber." 
 
 "I do not want to gather moss," said Lucy with 
 a grimace, "I want to gather roses while I may, for 
 time is still a-flying. 'Gather ye rose-buds while 
 ye may,' " she sang, and Witherspoon, hearing her 
 clear, joyous voice, high and lilting as a bird's, 
 
 210 
 
 \
 
 BESIDE THE POPPY TENTS 211 
 
 turned in his meditative pacing and awaited her, 
 standing with folded arms in the flower-bright glory 
 of the garden, but although Lucy's feet danced a 
 restless measure, Mrs. Nesbit did not relax her 
 clutch. 
 
 "Lucy," she continued in a loud whisper, "there's 
 several things I got to talk to you about and I got 
 to talk them out right now." 
 
 "But dear Mrs. Nesbit, I haven't a minute," 
 coaxed Lucy, casting a glance of compunction at 
 the patient figure of Witherspoon. Had he not 
 paced every path of the garden a hundred times 
 within the last half three-quarters of an hour, 
 while she had been trying this and that effect in hair 
 dressing? Then there was the changing of a rose 
 gown for a blue, and after viewing that in the mir- 
 ror viewing it ! Rather, bringing the most com- 
 prehensive study to bear on it from every angle, 
 only to discard it for a white frock. Next the ques- 
 tion of the proper ornaments had occupied her un- 
 divided attention, and she had seen her couch strewn 
 with a dozen hats before finally selecting one. 
 
 "Lucy, child," Mrs. Nesbit's voice was placating, 
 the honeyed, intimate tones of one about to bespeak
 
 212 SALLY SALT 
 
 the good offices of another, "now, Lucy, you see 
 my!" breaking off in artless admiration, "how 
 pretty you do look, child !" Then becoming alarmed 
 at her prisoner's growing impatience, "You see, 
 Lucy, Hetty Hill, she's just been here and she's 
 portioning out the donations for the festival that 
 our church is having next week, and she thinks I 
 ought to give more than any other lady, just because 
 I live with Sally, and," lowering her voice and 
 throwing a careful glance about her, "she scolded 
 me something awful, oh, something awful, Lucy, 
 because I hadn't told Sally how folks were talking 
 because Anthony Streatham had been seen walking 
 with his arm around Hilda Hurd the other night. 
 And she frightened me so, Lucy, that what do you 
 think I did?" 
 
 Lucy filled up a doleful pause by properly ask- 
 ing, "What?" 
 
 Mrs. Nesbit carefully unfolded a clean handker- 
 chief and wiped her faded eyes. "I got all rattled, 
 and I first told Sally about how folks were talking 
 about Anthony and Hilda, and then I told her what 
 Hetty Hill had said about my contribution to the 
 festival. And Sally!" Mrs. Nesbit lifted her hands
 
 BESIDE THE POPPY TENTS 213 
 
 and solemnly shook her head back and forth, "my 
 land, Lucy! Sally just carried on high, said she 
 wouldn't have Aunt Mandy baking up cakes for 
 two or three days for a lot of scandal mongers to 
 eat. That they could whistle for their donations 
 and that the devil could fly away with Mrs. Hill, 
 only he wouldn't because he didn't want any rivals 
 and she was a bigger mischief-maker than himself. 
 Oh, 'twas awful ! 
 
 "Why, Lucy, Sally don't seem to see how that sets 
 me in others' eyes. It's like making me an object 
 of charity. Of course, folks know I consent to live 
 with Sally on account of my son, and, as more than 
 one has said to me, that Sally Salt can't begin to 
 calkilate what my blameless life and standing in the 
 church has done for her, acting any way she's a 
 mind to and at any time she's a mind to. Of 
 course," sniffing once or twice, "folks know 'way 
 back in their minds that it's Aunt Mandy that bakes 
 the cakes, and that it's Sally's flour and eggs and 
 sugar that goes into them, but they never remember 
 those things unless they're thrown in their faces. 
 
 "And the worst is, Lucy, that Hetty Hill is com- 
 ing back here this afternoon to see what I'll give,
 
 214 SALLY SALT 
 
 and unless something's done quick, I got to tell her 
 that Sally won't allow me to donate anything; and 
 then," in a rising wail, "folks will know for sure 
 that I can't go into the kitchen and tell that high- 
 handed, worthless Aunt Mandy to bake cakes for 
 me, that she won't take her orders from me, and 
 me a Hoskins." Again she shook out the careful 
 folds of her handkerchief and applied it to her eyes. 
 "And her a coon," she added as an afterthought. 
 
 Anne, who had been reading in a shaded corner 
 at the far end of the porch, had sauntered nearer, 
 the better to hear, and now, after thrusting one 
 finger in the large, statistical-looking volume she 
 carried to mark the place, she voiced her opinion 
 before Lucy could get in a word. 
 
 "It does seem hard," she said with a sort of di- 
 dactic sympathy, "and I think that you, Mrs. Nes- 
 bit, did quite right. Painful as she may find this 
 horrid matter of Mr. Streatham and Hilda Hurd, it 
 is better that Mrs. Salt should know it." 
 
 "Bosh!" Lucy commented explosively. "The 
 idea of that old wretch of a Mrs. Hill trying to 
 make a mountain out of a mole-hill, and you and 
 Mrs. Nesbit aiding and abetting her. Mr. Streat-
 
 BESIDE , THE POPPY TENTS 215 
 
 ham never had his arm within a mile of Hilda Kurd, 
 unless he picked her up when she fell down." 
 
 Anne lifted her brows with a faint, incredulous 
 smile. "But is it a mole-hill, my dear Aunt Lucy ?" 
 She always argued firmly but pleasantly. "Are you 
 not looking at the matter from, a rather prejudiced 
 as well as from a lax moral standpoint? Is it not, 
 after all, a matter that Mrs. Salt should know, and, 
 having been informed, most tactfully, I am sure, 
 was it either kind or generous of her to take the at- 
 titude she has on this matter of the donation?" 
 
 "For heaven's sake, Anne," began Lucy, and then 
 stopped, wisely remembering that Anne was not 
 only capable of spending a whole day in the discus- 
 sion of some perfectly trivial matter, but quite will- 
 ing to do so, so avoiding danger, she turned to the 
 small, woeful figure in the chair and gave her an 
 admonishing, comforting pat on the shoulder. "Now, 
 Mrs. Nesbit, you know as well as I do that every- 
 thing will be all right. Stop worrying at once. You 
 will have all the cakes you want, and you can prom- 
 ise just as many as you please to Mrs. Hill when 
 she comes spying around again. Oh, I must go!" 
 and stirred to fresh compunction by another glance
 
 216 SALLY SALT 
 
 at Witherspoon's waiting and ever-patient figure, 
 she flew down the steps around a turn in the path 
 and into Sally's arms. 
 
 And Sally was pale under all her tan, and about 
 all the upward curves of her laughing, reckless 
 mouth were tiny lines, the etchings of pain, but her 
 head was carried as proudly high and her blue eyes 
 were as undaunted as ever. 
 
 "I was coming to rescue you, child. I saw that 
 Mrs. Nesbit was deep in her tale of woe. It was 
 the cakes, I suppose? Ridiculous!" in answer to 
 Lucy's nod. "She knows that she can have all the 
 cakes she wants and that she is going to have them. 
 I wonder why poor little lost cats like Nesbit like 
 to imagine themselves more wretched and mal- 
 treated than they are ? There seems to be some law 
 about it. They love to lap up a saucer of cream 
 and then lie on the warm hearth and luxuriously 
 picture the back fence in sleet and snow as an ever- 
 present possibility." 
 
 "Oh, I do not mind her, it's Anne," said Lucy im- 
 patiently. 
 
 "Anne ! Oh, Anne would stir up the angels them- 
 selves in no time. Poor Anne, she hasn't learned
 
 BESIDE THE POPPY TENTS 217 
 
 that the kingdom of heaven is more a matter of dis- 
 position than morals. And some of us know it and 
 can't act on it." 
 
 "The kingdom of heaven!" repeated Lucy dream- 
 ily, "I wonder if it isn't down there in the garden. 
 Look, Sally, how the great, wide, happy sun shines 
 on the little, lovely, happy flowers !" 
 
 "It's never lo, here, or lo, there, Lucy, though it 
 sometimes seems so. It's always right here, in our 
 hearts, love and peace and joy and forgiveness, and 
 some of us can't forgive." It was the first time 
 Lucy had ever heard even a tinge of bitterness in 
 Sally's tone. 
 
 "How can you love a piece of furniture?" Lucy 
 was still petulant. "Anne has about as much life 
 and emotion as a a chair. That is it. She is 
 just like a chair. She sits up perfectly straight and 
 is nicely varnished and you can not forget that she 
 is always there. And she has a chair's irritating 
 way of always planting herself right in your path, 
 so that you can not fail to stumble over it. Calling 
 me 'aunt,' indeed!" 
 
 "Well, here is John Witherspoon. Tell him all 
 about it," laughed Sally. "He won't call you 'aunt*
 
 218 SALLY SALT 
 
 or 'sister' or anything irritating, I know; but dear 
 me, I've no time to be pottering about here with you 
 two when I should be in half a dozen different 
 places." 
 
 She turned away, walking without apparent haste 
 and yet covering the ground very quickly with her 
 long, swinging stride. And Lucy and Witherspoon, 
 following their idle mood, wandered farther into 
 the mazes of the garden, down to the sun-warmed 
 courts of color where the poppies were spreading 
 their scarlet and white and pink tents of a day. 
 Their petals, like silken banners proclaiming the 
 presence of the dark nepenthe at their hearts ; occa- 
 sionally, loosened by the soft, midsummer wind, 
 these fluttered in the air a moment and then fell to 
 the ground, eternal symbols of the brilliant dreams 
 which float on the tide of sleep. 
 
 "They last such a little while, such a little day," 
 sighed Lucy. "Ah, why must everything beautiful 
 be so brief youth and love and romance?" 
 
 "You are wrong, Lucy," said Witherspoon slowly. 
 "To have seen the glamour, to have felt the beauty, 
 that is eternal, that is the real romance." 
 
 "It seems to me that some of the real romance has
 
 BESIDE THE POPPY TENTS 219 
 
 gone," said Lucy slowly, "and Sally will not let me 
 sympathize with her for a minute. I do not dare 
 assume that there is anything out of the ordinary 
 in Mr. Streatham rushing off like this, and I know 
 that she will never tell me what has come between 
 them." 
 
 Witherspoon did not seem especially affected by 
 her emotion, a fact which caused Lucy a rather 
 pouting surprise. "Sally didn't say good-by to him. 
 She was not even in the house when he left, and 
 yet, and yet I know that she feels it all dreadfully." 
 
 Witherspoon pondered for a time, gazing at her 
 earnestly the while. "Lucy," he said finally, "do 
 you not think a secret, a real secret between you and 
 me, would add zest to the romance?" 
 
 Lucy clapped her hands delightedly. "It is just, 
 just what we need. Whoever heard of a romance 
 without the accompanying secret? Oh, do you 
 really know one?" 
 
 "Indeed, I do, but I'm wondering whether I ought 
 to let this tyrannical romance dictate to me. I'm 
 wondering whether I have any right to tell you." 
 He spoke so seriously that Lucy's curiosity was 
 Stirred to the depths.
 
 220 SALLY SALT 
 
 "But," she argued quickly, "isn't it your first 
 duty to be true to the romance? Do you think it is 
 fair to evade any of its responsibilities or to break 
 even the least of the rules of the game after you 
 have solemnly undertaken them?" 
 
 "This is a more serious matter," he contended. 
 "I doubt very much and yet " 
 
 Lucy ceased to argue. "Please," she coaxed, her 
 hand on his sleeve, "I've an ambition. I want to 
 show you how beautifully I can keep a secret." 
 
 And Witherspoon, perhaps over-ready Wither- 
 spoon, capitulated. "Lucy, I fear that I'm a poor 
 old dotard of a Don Quixote, but I can not resist 
 my Dulcinea." 
 
 "Lucy Parrish and John Witherspoon must have 
 something awful important to talk about," an- 
 nounced Mrs. Nesbit from her rocking-chair half 
 an hour later. "They been walking up and down, 
 up and down, with their heads together like they 
 was planning a murder or an elopement."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 WHISPERS AND GLIMPSES 
 
 IT was Friday, the day upon which Grissom had 
 said he would return. Since early morning, 
 Mrs. Kurd had watched and waited for him, and 
 now it was evening, and she sat, as usual after her 
 day's work, in her chair on the porch. Trip was in 
 his customary place at her feet, his head on his out- 
 stretched paws, his eyes brooding, watchful. Hilda, 
 as was her wont, after sundown, watered her flow- 
 ers, crooning one of her low little songs as she did 
 so, and Mr. Hurd tramped up and down the road 
 before the house, oblivious of its clouds of dust, his 
 face uplifted to the sky. 
 
 For once Mrs. Kurd's face showed some expres- 
 sion. It was pale and slightly drawn and her eyes 
 had a curious, eager stare as she continually watched 
 the road. Where was Grissom? Oh, where was 
 Grissom? And, since the last train had passed ten 
 minutes ago and Grissom had not appeared, where 
 
 221
 
 222 SALLY SALT 
 
 was Washburne? She tried to nurse the hope that 
 the sheriff had intercepted his man farther up the 
 road, but she had little belief in this possibility. For 
 the first time in her remembrance she could not com- 
 pose herself at will to her motionless and emotion- 
 less calm and await with patience the course of 
 events. 
 
 Trip, too, seemed to feel the influence of her anx- 
 ious spirit, for he began to stir about, now rising, 
 turning himself in the smallest possible space and 
 down at her feet again. A moment's apparent sleep, 
 then he would lift his head suddenly, his nose 
 twitching, and get up to choose another spot, not 
 two feet away. 
 
 At last the woman so grimly waiting started for- 
 ward and lifted her hand to shield her eyes. Was 
 it? No. Yes, it was Washburne. It was difficult 
 to be quite sure at once, because of the sunset dazzle 
 behind him, but convinced that it was really he, Mrs. 
 Hurd was quick in action. 
 
 "Hilda," she called, "Hilda," and as the girl came 
 near, watering pot in hand, "I wish you would go 
 over to Mrs. Hill's and get me a quart of new milk, 
 and go the back way, Hilda."
 
 WHISPERS AND GLIMPSES 223 
 
 "Yes, mother." Hilda, too, must have seen the 
 approaching visitor, for she vanished about the 
 house with an almost incredible rapidity, just before 
 she disappeared, casting a frightened glance at 
 Washburne, who was at that moment passing 
 through the gate. But her exceeding alacrity to do 
 her mother's bidding was unnecessary. He did not 
 see her. His manner was preoccupied, his head 
 bent; he brushed against Mr. Hurd at the gate and 
 barely stopped to speak to him. 
 
 "Howdy, Mrs. Hurd ?" he said surlily as he drew 
 near the porch. She had risen as had Trip also, and 
 both stood awaiting him with somber, asking eyes. 
 
 "Where is he, Jake?" Her tones were tense with 
 anxiety. 
 
 "I don't know," gruffly, sitting down heavily on 
 the step of the porch and drawing a cigar from his 
 pocket. "I got one comfort, though," with a burst 
 of coarse, unmirthful laughter. "I know that you 
 don't know anything more about him than I do." 
 
 "That's God's truth, Jake." 
 
 "Oh, it ain't because you tell me so that I believe 
 you, but because I've got the means of knowing," 
 he replied with indifferent brutality. "Well," at-
 
 224 SALLY SALT 
 
 tempting to view the matter philosophically, "I sup- 
 pose it's a case of his waiting over a day or so for 
 some reason or other. No use our getting discour- 
 aged yet- There's only one chance in a million of 
 his having got wind of anything. He'll be along 
 yet, you'll see." 
 
 "I suppose so," she agreed, "but it's kind of dis- 
 appointing." 
 
 "Yes," he assented, lighting his cigar and then 
 grinding the charred match viciously into the 
 ground with his heel, "you bet it is." 
 
 There was silence for a few minutes, then he 
 glanced about him. 
 
 "Where's Hilda?" 
 
 "I sent her over to Mrs. Hill's on an errand when 
 I saw you coming. You'll wait, won't you ?" 
 
 "Might as well. Nothing else to do," moodily. 
 "Well," blowing out a great cloud of smoke and 
 watching it float away in long spirals, "you been 
 visiting Sally Salt considerable in the last day or 
 two, haven't you? I didn't know that you and she 
 were so thick." 
 
 She shot a quick, keen glance at him and slightly 
 compressed her lips, but it took more than that to
 
 WHISPERS AND GLIMPSES 225 
 
 shake her iron self-control. It was a second or two 
 before she Answered him, and then she spoke care- 
 lessly enough. 
 
 "Didn't you? Oh, me and Mrs. Salt have always 
 been good friends. She's kind of keen on Harris, 
 wants to adopt him and all that." 
 
 "Uh-huh," he responded uninterestedly ; his curi- 
 osity, not his suspicions had been stirred, and the 
 former emotion was easily allayed. "Well," his 
 mind returning to the one theme which occupied it, 
 "there's nothing to do but wait, I guess." 
 
 For a time they sat without further speech, he, 
 leaning inertly against the unpainted pillar of the 
 porch, smoking and watching with knitted brows the 
 smoke wreaths waver and shift about him, and she, 
 swinging back and forth in her rocking-chair and 
 gazing steadily before her with her brooding, con- 
 centrated gaze. 
 
 At last, across the silence of the twilight there 
 swelled the rising and falling cadences of Hilda's 
 'singing. Clear as the call of a lark, fresh and pure 
 as a mountain spring, it poured out as unconsciously 
 and naturally as a bird's song, and Washburne lifted 
 his head to listen.
 
 226 SALLY SALT 
 
 "Say, ain't that pretty," he said with the largest 
 measure of animation that he could compass. "I 
 never heard anything just like it." 
 
 Mrs. Kurd looked at him incredulously and then 
 with a certain slow contempt, "I don't see anything 
 very remarkable in it," she said. "There's folks 
 goes raving over Hilda's singing. I guess they 
 wouldn't if they had to hear as much of it as I do. 
 Well," rising, "I'll be going in, now she's here to 
 entertain you. Let me know the minute you hear 
 anything, Jake." 
 
 "All right. Howdy, Hilda?" 
 
 The girl returned his greeting listlessly. Her 
 singing had ceased and her step had lagged at the 
 sight of him, but although his eyes had been upon 
 her from the moment she had entered the garden 
 gate, these signs of the esteem in which she held him 
 conveyed nothing to his slow intelligence and dull 
 sensibilities, occupied solely with the esteem in 
 which he held her, and the desire of possession 
 which her wind-flower grace a'roused in him. 
 Neither did he notice that she sat down as far away 
 from him as the narrow limits of the porch per- 
 mitted.
 
 WHISPERS AND GLIMPSES 227 
 
 "It's a nice evening," she said. There was a sort 
 of timid and resigned patience in both face and 
 voice, as if she shrank from even a mental contact 
 with him, but since it must be, she bore it with what 
 grace of fortitude she could command. 
 
 "Sort of," he replied. "Say, Hilda," bending 
 nearer and taking the cigar from his mouth, "I don't 
 want to talk to you about weather and things like 
 that. I guess you understand that by this time; if 
 you don't you ought to," with a short laugh. "Of 
 course, I know that you've got a kind of a shy dis- 
 position and all that, and I've always respected it, 
 haven't I? But the time's come for you to know, if 
 you don't already know, how much I think of you. 
 Well, now don't you be getting frightened and try- 
 ing to run away," he caught her hand as she half 
 rose. "And it ain't any use trying to put me off any 
 longer, either," in answer to her faint, confused 
 protests. "You know how long I've been thinking 
 of you. Now, I want you to marry me, Hilda, and 
 marry me soon. What's the use of waiting any 
 longer?" 
 
 He laid his hand over hers and Hilda winced and 
 shrank visibly as she shook it off.
 
 228 SALLY SALT 
 
 "I I couldn't, Jake." She had drawn almost 
 shudderingly away from him, her face pale, her eyes 
 dilating. "I couldn't." 
 
 "You mean that you want more time ?" 
 
 "It isn't, it isn't just that," her voice was so low 
 and trembling that he bent nearer to hear her, "it's 
 that I can't marry you at all, Jake." 
 
 "Why not?" he asked harshly. 
 
 "Because I just don't don't love you." 
 
 "I guess you mean you don't know your own 
 mind." He strove to speak easily, but disappoint- 
 ment grated through his tones. "You're pretty 
 young yet." 
 
 "No, no," she was all eagerness now, and leaned 
 forward, anxious to make herself clear. "I do know 
 my own mind, but " she stopped abruptly. 
 
 "You only think you do," he replied. "I guess 
 that's it. Why, Hilda, I don't want to brag, but 
 what are you looking for? I know girls get fool 
 notions into their heads, but I don't see for the life 
 of me what you want." There was a masculine 
 wonder in his tones. "I'm well to do, Hilda, well 
 fixed in the world. You won't have to drudge and 
 slave if you marry me. No, sir, I don't want that
 
 WHISPERS AND GLIMPSES 229 
 
 kind of a wife. You can have your hired girl and 
 your silk dresses and we'll take a trip now and then. 
 Hmmm," looking up contemptuously at the small 
 house. "You certainly ain't got much here, nor," 
 with an equally scornful glance at Mr. Hurd, who 
 was still pacing up and down the road, "you ain't 
 got much to look forward to. Come on, Hilda," 
 bending still nearer and coaxing her as one would a 
 child. "You couldn't do better. I'm something 
 of a catch. Why," throwing out his chest and 
 speaking with robust conceit, "there ain't a girl in 
 this county and several others who wouldn't pretty 
 near jump out of her skin at the thought of getting 
 me. And I'm mighty fond of you, Hilda. Don't 
 you make any mistake about that, little girl. Here," 
 his face close to hers, "lift up that pretty head of 
 yours and give me a kiss and we'll call it a bargain." 
 
 But Hilda shrank still farther away from him 
 and burying her face in her hands, fell to weeping. 
 "I don't want to marry you," she cried. "Oh, why 
 won't you understand ? I don't want to marry any 
 one." Her words were almost inaudible because of 
 her sobs. 
 
 With a muttered exclamation, Washburne turned
 
 230 SALLY SALT 
 
 from her and sat savagely chewing the end of his 
 cigar and gazing before him in a state of somber 
 irritation, but gradually his expression cleared. 
 That any one could seriously reject him, such an 
 ona as Hilda, at any rate, was. out of the question, 
 beyond belief; and, as he continued to view the 
 matter from this standpoint, his perplexity gradu- 
 ally gave way to tenderness. 
 
 "There, there, little girl, there's nothing to cry 
 about, Lord knows. 'Cause you don't want to 
 marry anybody, or you think you don't. That's 
 the girl of it. Now, there ain't any hurry, Hilda, 
 nobody is going to hurry you. And I want you to 
 remember this, your ma's got no say in the matter, 
 so you don't have to pay a mite of attention to any- 
 thing she says. All you got to do, Hilda, is to know 
 that I'm behind you. So it's a bargain. You ain't 
 going to be worried or bothered about it, but when 
 we get good and ready, you and I are going to get 
 married, and, in the meantime," with a smile of con- 
 scious self-appreciation as the result of his diplo- 
 macy, "we'll kind of begin to make plans about the 
 new house I'm going to build before long. None of 
 your cheap little shanties," with another contemptu-
 
 WHISPERS AND GLIMPSES 231 
 
 ous glance at Hilda's home, "but a fine, substantial 
 house." 
 
 She lifted her tear-wet face desperately to his. 
 "Oh, Jake, you must understand. I can not ever 
 marry you," she cried. 
 
 The thick layers of his arrogant self-conceit were 
 at last pierced by the wild sincerity of her tone. His 
 whole manner changed in an instant. 
 
 "And why not?" he cried roughly. He thrust his 
 chin into her face, his eyes blazing. "Is it because 
 of that Grissom? Say," he caught her roughly by 
 the shoulder, "are you in love with him? Because 
 if you are " he broke off threateningly. 
 
 "No, no, I'm not, I'm not !" she gasped, and thor- 
 oughly frightened, the delicately poised balance of 
 her nature completely upset, fell to a more tempestu- 
 ous and bitter weeping. 
 
 "Oh, Lord !" he groaned, "don't begin that." He 
 stood up and, thrusting his hands deep into his 
 pockets, scowled anxiously down upon her. "Say, 
 Hilda, Hilda, stop it," he begged "It's all right. I 
 didn't mean to frighten you. Say, don't cry that 
 way." He leaned over and patted her down-bent 
 head with his great hand, but at his touch she sprang
 
 232 SALLY SALT 
 
 to her feet and shrank more visibly than ever from 
 him. 
 
 "Why, why," her voice so shaken by her emotion 
 as to be almost indistinguishable, "why does every- 
 body think every girl wants to get married? I do 
 not. Father understands, but he's the only one in 
 all the world who does." 
 
 "What's the use of acting that way?" growled 
 Washburne, but all of his rude efforts at consola- 
 tion proving unsuccessful, he stood about rather 
 helplessly for a few moments and then, deeming it 
 the part of wisdom to postpone his wooing until a 
 more convenient season, he shrugged his shoulders 
 awkwardly once or twice, muttered some inaudible 
 excuses and strode off into the darkness. 
 
 Hilda sat, a huddled shape in the gloom, still 
 shaken by an occasional sob, her elbows on her 
 knees, her chin cupped in her hands. At last her 
 father wandered up the path, his hands behind him, 
 his head uplifted. 
 
 "Father, father!" she caught quickly at his coat 
 as he passed. 
 
 "Why, Hilda !" he exclaimed. "You not in bed 
 yet?" He let his hand rest for a moment on her
 
 WHISPERS AND GLIMPSES 233 
 
 hair, then sat down beside her on the stoop. "You 
 like the night, too, don't you, Hilda ?" 
 
 "I love it," she said dreamily. "It always makes 
 me want to sing. I want to get away in some wide 
 meadow and send my voice up to the brightest star 
 I can see. I like to think it reaches it." 
 
 "Maybe it does," he said simply. "Things are 
 nearer at night. In the daytime you can always see 
 horizons, the end of things, but at night a star that 
 you can see is a good deal nearer than the garden 
 gate yonder that you can not see. And just think, 
 Hilda, all around us are worlds and worlds that you 
 can't see, but that are really just as near us as yonder 
 star or as this morning-glory vine on the porch." 
 
 Hilda nestled her head against his shoulder with 
 a contented sigh. "I don't always know what you 
 mean, father, but I like to hear it. Do you ever get 
 lonely in your world, father?" 
 
 "No," he shook his head, "not lonely, but a little 
 a little puzzled and impatient now and then. Did 
 you ever hear anything that was so beautiful that 
 it was like nothing else you ever dreamed of, Hilda, 
 and while you held your breath to listen, it was 
 gone ? That's the way it is with me. I hear whis-
 
 234 SALLY SALT 
 
 pers, whispers of wonderful things, and sometimes 
 I see them, just a glimpse, and then they are gone. 
 They are the real things, Hilda, and the only real 
 things. But why do I see in part and hear in part ? 
 Why can I not see them wholly? That is what I 
 can't understand." 
 
 "The real things!" she repeated. "Oh, I know 
 what you mean. To me, they are the little songs 
 that come to me when I am all alone." 
 
 "Yes," he said, "and you can hear whispers of 
 the real worlds and you can see glimpses of them, 
 but you can never really live in them until you know 
 the secret. I've learned that, Hilda. There's some 
 secret of life, that the world has lost or forgotten, 
 but I've got to find it, Hilda, I've got to find it." 
 
 "Will it not come to us when we're ready for it," 
 she asked, "just as my little songs come? Just as 
 love comes? Sometimes for days I'll be thinking 
 about one and it won't have any shape or music, 
 and then, some day when I won't be thinking about 
 it at all, I'll begin to sing it; words and music, it 
 will all be there." 
 
 "Maybe it will," he agreed hopefully. "Maybe it 
 will."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 AUTUMN WITHOUT ANTHONY 
 
 AUNT MANDY," said Sally, as she stood in 
 her kitchen one morning, "may I ask why you 
 are throwing the pots and pans around at such a 
 rate ? Anybody might think a cyclone had struck us." 
 
 There was another violent rattling of Sally's 
 pewter and copper vessels before Aunt Mandy saw 
 fit to answer, then she shook her turbaned head 
 ominously and shot out her lower jaw. 
 
 "I tell yo' what it is, Miss Sally, I stood dish yer 
 nonsense ob Wilmerdine's just about as long as I 
 gwine to. No, somepin's got to be done, an'," with 
 portentous nods, "I jus* about decided what it's 
 gwine to be." 
 
 "Yes?" said Sally, who was stirring a great bowl 
 oi spice cake. "Well, on what line are you going to 
 fight it out ?" 
 
 "I ain't quite ready to specify dat yet, even to 
 235
 
 236 SALLY SALT 
 
 you," replied Aunt Mandy with importance, "but 
 dere is one thing dat I knows mighty well, and dat 
 is dis : I ain't one of dese yer ol'-fashioned mothahs 
 dat's goin' to let a good fo' nothin' piece ob trash 
 like Wilmerdine bring my gray hairs in sorrow to 
 de grave. No, ma'am," with emphasis, "dese yer 
 kids dey grow up an' dey think dey can teach dere 
 po' ol' mothahs a few wrinkles, but dat ain't de way 
 I am. I ain't dat resignated. Wilmerdine's goin' 
 to have de surprise ob her life, Miss Sally, Wilmer- 
 dine's goin' to have dat overweanering pride of 
 her'n humbled in de dust." 
 
 "Oh, come now, Aunt Mandy," expostulated 
 Sally, "you mustn't be too hard on Wilmerdine. 
 What do you propose to do ?" She spoke with some 
 anxiety. 
 
 But Aunt Mandy only tossed her head and in- 
 dulged in a series of chuckles. "Don't you get to 
 worryin' none, Miss Sally, I ain't goin' to lift a 
 finger agin her, but Wilmerdine's gwine to get a 
 lesson dat she shell remember for de rest ob her 
 natchal life." 
 
 "You will have to begin soon then," remarked 
 Sally, "because it has struck me lately that Uncle
 
 AUTUMN WITHOUT ANTHONY 237 
 
 Poodle is not quite so indifferent as he once was. I 
 really think that maybe he is at last beginning to 
 take notice." 
 
 "Huh !" Aunt Mandy tossed her head scornfully. 
 "Don't let dat bothah you all for a minute, Miss 
 Sally. Dat's just de man ob him. Dat won't las' 
 long." Her mirth, gasping and wheezing, almost 
 overcame her. 
 
 A sudden gust of wind swept through the kitchen. 
 "It looks to me," said Sally, "as if we were going 
 to have quite a touch of cool weather." 
 
 "Praise Gawd, I hope so." Aunt Mandy squinted 
 her eyes at the sky. "All the better fo' me an' what 
 I got on my hands. My Lawd, Miss Sally, whar 
 Mis' Nesbit an' dat ol' Mis' Fuss-budget ob a Mis' 
 Hill pacin' to dis mornin' ?" 
 
 "They're making for the garden," replied Sally, 
 also glancing through the window. 
 
 Mrs. Nesbit, muffled in shawls, moved along by 
 the side of the more ponderous and self-reliant Mrs. 
 Hill. At the entrance to the garden Mrs. Hill 
 paused and gazed about her with lack-luster eye and 
 pursed mouth. 
 
 "It's awful pretty, ain't it?" ventured Mrs. Nes-
 
 238 SALLY SALT 
 
 bit timidly. "I always think a September garden's 
 about the prettiest thing anybody can see." 
 
 "Humph!" Mrs. Hill gazed grudgingly about 
 her. "It looks that way now, but next week or 
 maybe sooner, to-morrow or to-day, there'll come a 
 frost and these flowers that seem so bright and gay 
 now will all be withered and gone, just wilted down 
 to nothing. And since they are so soon to perish, 
 Mis' Nesbit, supposin' you get me a spade and a 
 little covered basket and I'll dig some of 'em up and 
 try to save them." 
 
 Mrs. Nesbit hesitated visibly. "I don't know if 
 that would be right. Don't you think we'd better 
 ask Sally before we go to digging up her flowers ?" 
 
 Mrs. Hill paused in the path and gazed at her 
 companion with a sort of large, exasperated sur- 
 prise. "Ain't you got any rights here at all after all 
 the years you been doing Mis' Salt a favor by living 
 with her?" she demanded. "Can't you even walk 
 in the garden and pick a posy when you want to 
 without her coming down on you ?" 
 
 Mrs. Nesbit's face flushed and her chin trembled. 
 "I can pick all the posies I like and you know it, 
 Hetty Hill, but it's different when it comes to spad-
 
 AUTUMN WITHOUT ANTHONY 239 
 
 ing Sally's flowers up by the roots and carrying 
 them off and never saying 'by your leave' to her." 
 
 Mrs. Hill's brow beetled, a deeper red crept up her 
 cheek, and then she looked down upon her com- 
 panion with a smile of pity and tolerance. "Can't 
 you ever see things straight?" She spoke as one 
 whose patience was worn thin by another's stupidly 
 persistent lack of comprehension. "You act like I 
 was trying to steal some of Mrs. Salt's flowers. I 
 sometimes wonder, Mrs. Nesbit, that I stay friends 
 with you at all, the way you go on, and I wouldn't, 
 let me tell you that, I wouldn't if it wasn't for the 
 Christian charity that's in me. Taking Mrs. Salt's 
 flowers without her leave, indeed! Why, I wonder 
 that you've got the face to stand there and look me 
 in the eye. Humph ! Why, if I could go down and 
 buy out all Jim Simpson's conservatory, the same as 
 Sally Salt does, don't you think I'd get a handsomer 
 lot of flowers than these? Since I got to explain 
 things to you, Melinda, like you was two years old, 
 you might just as well understand, once and for all, 
 that all I was trying to do was to help Mrs. Salt 
 out. Look at these geraniums now, all crowded to- 
 gether, so not one of 'em could put out a new shoot
 
 240 SALLY SALT 
 
 if they tried. And here I was willing to take my 
 time and help Mrs. Salt by thinning them out a little, 
 and because it would be a sin to throw away good 
 geraniums, I was also willing to go to the trouble 
 of taking them home and looking after them. And 
 then what happens? You go flying off the handle 
 and the same as tell me that I'm a thief !" 
 
 She had now successfully reduced Mrs. Nesbit to 
 the state that that little creature was usually in at 
 the close of one of her visits, mental confusion and 
 outward and visible tears. 
 
 "I don't think you got any call to talk so to me, 
 Hetty Hill," Mrs. Nesbit began with her invariable 
 reproach, "and Lucy Parrish, she was saying only 
 yesterday that instead of your visits cheering me up 
 they always left me as unhappy as could be." 
 
 "Lucy Parrish!" repeated Mrs. Hill with fine 
 scorn, "Lucy Parrish ! She's a nice one to talk. Lucy 
 Parrish had better keep a mighty still tongue in her 
 head. Folks are talking good and plenty about her 
 and John Witherspoon. John Witherspoon has al- 
 ways stood well in this community and been re- 
 spected until lately, and some of the goings-on!" 
 Mrs. Hill shut her mouth very tight and slowly
 
 AUTUMN WITHOUT ANTHONY 241 
 
 shook her head back and forth. "Well, that's all I 
 got to say. I'm going now. You, Melinda Nesbit, 
 that I always thought was one of the best friends 
 that I had in the world, have not only called me a 
 thief when I came to pay a friendly call, but have 
 also informed me that I have been made a subject of 
 gossip, and that you're willing to sit by the hour and 
 listen to anything that a feather-headed piece of ex- 
 travagance has got to say about me. Oh, well! I 
 guess there's nothing more to be said. I'll be going 
 now and for good." 
 
 Mrs. Nesbit plucked at her dress. "No, Hetty 
 Hill, you don't need to go on like that, and you 
 know it. Lucy didn't really say anything, and 
 and Hetty, instead of carrying home some flowers 
 your ownself, if you'll just wait, I'll ask Sally if 
 she won't send you over a real, big basket of nice 
 plants to-morrow." 
 
 Mrs. Hill showed faint signs of becoming molli- 
 fied. "Maybe I was hasty," she admitted gener- 
 ously. "But you should be more careful of what 
 you say, Melinda. I don't for a minute believe that 
 you mean all your biting speeches, but you should 
 try an d be more tactful."
 
 242 SALLY SALT 
 
 "I know," murmured Mrs. Nesbit humbly, "and I 
 am trying." 
 
 "Yes, and I know it ain't so easy for you, living 
 with Sally Salt," Mrs. Hill conceded, "and you're 
 the kind, Melinda, that lets her carry on as she 
 pleases, ride over you rough shod if she's a mind to, 
 and you never say one single word. Now, if it was 
 me" 
 
 They were opposite the porch by this time, and, 
 arrested by a slight terrified movement on the part 
 of Mrs. Nesbit, Mrs. Hill suddenly lifted her eyes 
 to find Sally's gaze, intensely blue and full of a 
 merciless mirth, fixed upon her. 
 
 "Now, really, what would you do, Mrs. Hill?" 
 Sally had finished her spice cake, turned the baking 
 of it over to Aunt Mandy, and hand in hand with 
 Harris Hurd, who in some way managed to spend 
 the greater part of his days with her, had sought the 
 porch. She sat, as usual, on the top step in the full 
 glow of the sunshine, the center of a happy family 
 group of cats and dogs and Harris. 
 
 Mrs. Hill stopped short, made a hasty step for- 
 ward, as if to stand not upon the order of her go- 
 ing; and then, recovering herself, stood enwrapped
 
 AUTUMN WITHOUT ANTHONY 243 
 
 in that remote and Buddhistic calm which was so 
 unnerving to Mrs. Nesbit. 
 
 "Dear me, is that you, Mrs. Salt?" she exclaimed 
 with admirably simulated surprise. "It seems to 
 me that I understood you weren't at home." She 
 cast an inquiring look at Mrs. Nesbit which made 
 the little creature quail. 
 
 "So you thought it was a good time for the dis- 
 cussion of my tyrannies." 
 
 "Your tyrannies!" uncomprehendingly. "You 
 only heard the beginning of what I was saying, 
 Mrs. Salt, and the beginning of anything is no clue 
 to the ending. If you'd a waited, you'd a probably 
 heard something very different from what you ex- 
 pected." Mrs. Hill never hesitated to take higher 
 ground than her accusers, no matter how difficult 
 it might be to scramble there. "I think what you 
 overheard, Mrs. Salt, was my saying to Melinda 
 here that you sometimes seemed kind of rough shod, 
 and that you sometimes seemed kind of peppery, 
 that there was folks that even went so far as to say 
 so, though for my part, I'd never seen anything of 
 it; and if you'd only waited a minute, you'd a heard 
 me begging Melinda not to listen to everything this
 
 244 SALLY SALT 
 
 person or that person says, but to show a sperrit of 
 love, always to show a sperrit of love." Mrs. Hill's 
 voice soared and sank in her public utterance sing- 
 song. "That's what we need, that's what we want," 
 fervently, "that's what we got to show out in our 
 lives." She closed her eyes, folded her hands and 
 swayed slowly back and forth in a sort of an ecstatic 
 trance. After a moment or two of this rapt medita- 
 tion, she opened them again, and descended to more 
 commonplace conversational levels. 
 
 "I was a-going to speak to-night in prayer meet- 
 ing, felt it was about time to speak a word in season, 
 here a little, and there a little, and I didn't know 
 what subject to choose, and here it is right to my 
 hand, the sperrit of love." 
 
 She waited a moment or two for a word of ap- 
 proval from Sally, but as none came, she adopted 
 the easy, casual manner of the welcome visitor and 
 sat down on the second step from the ground, heav- 
 ily, it is true, and as she did so thrusting out one 
 mastodonic leg and both arms in the effort to pre- 
 serve her balance. 
 
 "That's a nice dog you've got there. What's his 
 name?" she asked amiably. "A pretty cat, too!
 
 AUTUMN WITHOUT ANTHONY 245 
 
 Well, it's pleasant to have pets around, if you can 
 afford to feed 'em." 
 
 "Harris," said Sally lazily, "don't bestow all your 
 cookies on the dogs, give some to Mrs. Hill." 
 
 "Thank you kindly, Harris." Mrs. Hill regarded 
 the thing proffered rather than the manner in which 
 the offering was directed toward herself, and care- 
 fully selected two of the brownest and crispest 
 cookies on the plate. "I think the last time I had 
 the pleasure of eating any of your cake, Mrs. Salt, 
 was down to Preacher's the other day. 
 
 " 'Mrs. Salt will do anything for me except come 
 to hear me preach,' he says in his kind of joking 
 way. 'She sends her choicest flowers to the church 
 every Sunday, a wagon-load if we want 'em; she 
 keeps us supplied with fresh fruit and vegetables, 
 and it's always something nice to eat and something 
 nice to weaf for the wife and children.' 
 
 " 'Well,' I says very quiet, but I thought the time 
 was ripe for saying it, 'well, Preacher, since Mrs. 
 Salt has taken the stand that she won't come to hear 
 your expositions from the pulpit, why some folks 
 would be too proud to accept clothes for their backs 
 and food for their mouths,' and I told him further
 
 246 SALLY SALT 
 
 that if he really trusted the Lord, he'd take no 
 thought for the morrow. Then his wife she started 
 right in. My! That woman has a tongue. You 
 mark my words. Every charge he gets by his word- 
 painting she'll lose for him by hers." 
 
 "You never miss a chance to make others happy, 
 do you, Mrs. Hill?" idly interrupted Sally. 
 
 "I ain't so particular about their being happy, that 
 ain't what we're in the world for, but," modestly, 
 "I do try to make 'em better." 
 
 "Then you ought to be the happiest person on 
 earth. I really believe that the greatest thing in the 
 world is always to feel dead sure that you're right." 
 Sally spoke with a sort of passionate weariness. 
 
 It was unnoticed by Mrs. Hill, delicate shades of 
 meaning;, nuances of color in tone were lost upon 
 her. Words were words. A primrose by the river's 
 brim was to her emphatically a simple prjjnrose, and 
 since it was a mere wild flower and therefore cheap, 
 it was an object more to be ignored than admired. 
 
 "Oh, no," she refused the laurel. "I don't know 
 as I'd be claiming to be always right." 
 
 "Why not?" asked Sally. "Claim it all, Mrs.
 
 AUTUMN WITHOUT ANTHONY 247 
 
 Hill, claim it all. There's nothing to hinder you, 
 certainly not yourself." 
 
 Her visitor smiled and accepted the tribute with 
 complacence. "I hope not. I'd hate to stand in my 
 own light. "Well," she rose to her feet, assisted by 
 her umbrella, "I guess I'd better be going." 
 
 Sally, her head thrown back against a pillar of the 
 porch, gazed far beyond the departing guest, her 
 glance plunging into the very heart of the Septem- 
 ber splendor. So she sat dreaming. Harris lay, with 
 his head on her knee, munching cookies. A great, 
 pampered silver-gray cat was curled up in her lap, 
 another, a tortoise shell, at her feet was engaged in 
 contemptuous conversation by a collie, who testified 
 his disapproval of her by punctuating her haughty 
 disdain with occasional short, sharp barks, threaten- 
 ing in character, but entirely failing in intimidating 
 effect. A golden brown Irish setter lay with his 
 nose on Sally's other knee, turning watchful eyes 
 on the indifferent, napping fluff of silver so near 
 him and most loving eyes upon his mistress. 
 
 But Sally was not even half -conscious of any of 
 them. This was autumn, the season when she and
 
 248 SALLY SALT 
 
 Anthony had been happiest, the season which they 
 had regarded as especially their own, when together 
 they had gathered great clusters of grapes, dusky 
 with purple bloom against their dark leaves, peaches 
 and apples reddening more deeply every hour, the 
 air rich with the musk of ripening fruit, the tang 
 of cider; the year drawing to a golden completion, 
 mellow, warm, as if the earth had treasured all the 
 sunshine of the months in her heart and was now 
 radiating it. 
 
 How she and Anthony had loved it! Free and 
 careless, they had wandered through those sumptu- 
 ous courts of September, unabashed, with heads up, 
 laughing, rejoicing at the dazzle and glamour and 
 magic of it. How the autumn had welcomed them ! 
 Cloth of gold for their feet to tread; banners of 
 color flung to every breeze. The imperial purples! 
 The kingly scarlets! 
 
 Ah, he and she had sighed deep, laughed free, 
 been happy from opal dawn to violet night, when 
 the harvest moon, "an orbed maiden, with white 
 fire laden" had stood for a moment on the crest of 
 the low, dark hills and then floated upward through 
 the infinite, blue ether. Sally could hear quite
 
 AUTUMN WITHOUT ANTHONY 249 
 
 plainly Anthony's voice apostrophizing her, that 
 halting, hesitating voice, which could yet express all 
 rich and sweet and plaintive cadences of sound : 
 
 " 'Oh, moon, pale siren, with wild eyes drinking 
 The light of the sun as she sweepeth by 
 
 I am asking my heart if you pity or cherish 
 The souls that you witch with the harvest call, 
 
 If the dream must die when the dreamer perish, 
 If it be idle to dream at all ?' " 
 
 Almost she stretched out her arms, almost she 
 cried, "Ah, let the world with its beggarly standards, 
 its petty activities, its wearisome routines, its little 
 worship of hours and days go, but leave me my 
 dreams." She looked out over her garden, and 
 again Time was not. Again Anthony stood there 
 with her, again he laughed at her and accused her 
 of being a miser, of trying to steal all the color of 
 the earth and sky and hoard it in her garden patch. 
 The glow of it blended to a vital harmony, organ 
 tones, strong and deep; scarlet salvias, masses of 
 golden-glow, rows and rows of purple asters. 
 
 "Sally," Harris' voice, small and aggrieved, broke
 
 250 SALLY SALT 
 
 through her dreaming ; "Sally, I've asked you about 
 a hundred times, 'When will Mr. Streatham come 
 again?'" 
 
 "He's here," she murmured, "here always. He 
 never has gone, never can go." 
 
 Anne strolled up the path, a sunshade over her 
 head. "Dear me," she said, "this is quite unusual 
 to see you idle, Mrs. Salt, and not in the fields or 
 breaking one of the horses." 
 
 "Occasionally I think," laconically. 
 
 "Do you ever read?" asked Anne. "I should 
 think that you would find it a great rest and recrea- 
 tion in your busy life." 
 
 "Why should I play with other people's toys when 
 I've got my own?" demanded Sally. "Why do I 
 want to read other people's descriptions of life when 
 I can live myself? And I've lived !" How she threw 
 her head up ! "And I will live. Not all the rain that 
 ever fell can make me forget one hour of sunshine. 
 I'll tell you what you had better do with all your 
 dull, self -improving days, Anne, you throw them 
 all on the scrap-heap of the world. Then live, give. 
 It's all the same. It's only when we hold on to our 
 pitiful rags of egotism, that we call self-respect and
 
 AUTUMN WITHOUT ANTHONY 251, 
 
 proper dignity and all that sort of thing that we 
 starve and freeze, and the more we wrap ourselves 
 in them the colder and hungrier we get. Throw 
 them away, Anne, and love down to the last cell of 
 your heart, laugh from some inexhaustible spring of 
 joy, suffer to the final throb of anguish, but don't 
 whine. That's living. That's all that's worth 
 while." 
 
 But Anne's spine had stiffened, Anne's mouth had 
 pinched. "That sort of philosophy is the result of 
 hours of idle dreaming. If one took your advice 
 literally, how could one ever improve or progress?" 
 
 "Why not?" asked Sally. "Surely there is more 
 than one road to perfection, and who shall say which 
 is the best way. Funny thing, Anne, you make me 
 think of old Mrs. Hobson. She set out early in life 
 to live by line, rule and plummet. Method was her 
 god, system represented to her the whole of the 
 moral creed. She was continually saying, 'There's 
 only one way to do a thing, and that's the right way.' 
 The most awful thing that she could say about any- 
 body was that they had no sense of responsibility. 
 Sick or well she did her duty by every one about her 
 so thoroughly that she swept all the joy out of their
 
 252 SALLY SALT 
 
 lives: She had a way of putting her foot down and 
 saying, 'I wouldn't put up with this or that in a man, 
 husband or no husband.' And surely Mr. Hobson 
 looked as if she lived up to it. He finally disap- 
 peared, just walked off and was never heard of again 
 after he had stood about fifteen years of it. The 
 rest of the family, boys and girls, are poor, spiritless 
 creatures with just about enough life left in them to 
 crawl about and not enough ever to hustle or really 
 do anything. There isn't one of them that could 
 possibly act on their own initiative, they had that all 
 trained out of them. She was great in the training 
 of children. 
 
 "That's the reason I spoil you so, Harris, as Anne 
 evidently thinks; spoiling is good for some people, 
 and you're one of them. But if you pull Silver's tail 
 once again, I'm going to kiss you twenty times, and 
 you know how you hate kisses, you boy-creature! 
 Come on now, let's go and get some eggs for Aunt 
 Mandy."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 HILDA MAKES CONFESSION 
 
 IF alternate love and longing, anger, regret and 
 resentment, had written certain lines about 
 Sally's mouth and eyes, many conflicting and equally 
 poignant emotions had not spared their fine etchings 
 on Mrs. Hurd's remarkably unwrinkled counte- 
 nance. 
 
 Each day of the departing summer had seemed to 
 drag. The corn gave out its rich odors, the weeds 
 grew more lush and springing, though soon to feel 
 the first sharp blades of the frost, the hazes on the 
 hills became every day more purple, the cobwebs 
 began to float across the paths, but although Maria 
 Kurd waited and watched as might a deserted 
 maiden for her lover, Grissom did not come, and this 
 month or two of anxious waiting had begun to tell 
 even upon one so calm and impassive in tempera- 
 ment as Maria Hurd. Every day the slight pucker- 
 
 253
 
 254 SALLY SALT 
 
 ing about the eyes and the faint drawn look about 
 the mouth became more visible. 
 
 One morning as she moved about the kitchen, 
 ostensibly occupied with household duties, she con- 
 tinually halted at the window or the open door to 
 i 
 
 cast a sharp and more or less anxious glance at Mr. 
 Hurd, who sat upon the porch looking over a bundle 
 of letters and newspapers which had arrived a short 
 time before. The letters had aroused her curiosity, 
 and in some indefinable way, her suspicions; but 
 when she had questioned him two or three times in 
 regard to their contents and received only absent and 
 unsatisfactory answers, she decided to await a more 
 convenient season. 
 
 Presently her attention was arrested by a peculiar 
 sound, something between an exclamation, a gasp, 
 and a rattle in the throat. She turned quickly and 
 ran out upon the porch. 
 
 "What's the matter?" she cried. 
 
 He did not answer her but sat staring at the hills 
 as if for the first time he did not see them. His 
 mouth had fallen slightly open and his face showed 
 a bluish pallor. The' paper was crumpled sharply in 
 his hands, the letters had slipped to the ground.
 
 HILDA MAKES CONFESSION 255 
 
 "What's the matter?" she repeated sharply. 
 
 He looked up rather wildly and ran his trembling 
 fingers through his hair. "The matter," he mut- 
 tered. "Oh, oh, " he groped for some explanation. 
 
 For another moment she surveyed him steadily 
 and then sat down on the step. 
 
 "Something's happened," she announced. "Oh, 
 you needn't be moving your head around nor half 
 getting up as if to go away. Something's happened 
 and you might as well tell me what it is." 
 
 Mr. Hurd rarely had any conversation with his 
 wife and as rarely looked at her. When he did so 
 it was with a manifest and shrinking distaste ; it was 
 evident now in his averted glance, his involuntary 
 effort to escape. 
 
 "It is my own affair," making an ineffective effort 
 to recover his dignity. 
 
 "Your own affair!" she repeated with slow, un- 
 mixed scorn. "I'd like to know what affairs you 
 got and how you'd manage 'em if you had any. 
 What are all those letters about ?" 
 
 He moistened his lips once or twice. "Some in- 
 vestments I made," he muttered. 
 
 "Investments! You!" She looked at him now
 
 256 SALLY SALT 
 
 more closely and curiously. She had long regarded 
 him as half cracked, to use her own phraseology, 
 but now it struck her that whatever wits he had pos- 
 sessed had completely deserted him. 
 
 He looked at her in piteous fashion and essayed 
 to speak, but no words came ; his gaze wandered be- 
 yond her, dwelling on the broad, rolling landscape, 
 and gradually his whole expression underwent a 
 marked and subtle change. His eyes no longer 
 seemed sad and faded and old; they had regained 
 their peculiar introspective, luminous glow; his 
 figure straightened, he threw back his shoulders, 
 taking a deep breath, and his hands ceased to 
 tremble. 
 
 "You're always talking about money," he said, 
 "and throwing it up to me that I didn't have the 
 faculty of making it, so I began to think about it, 
 too. I began to think that if we had money, we 
 wouldn't be tied down here, that we could travel, 
 see the deserts and oceans, and the mosques and 
 temples and ruins and wonderful cities, and the 
 mountains all covered with snow, and I got to think- 
 ing about it more and more, things kind of taking 
 possession of me, you know, and to studying about
 
 HILDA MAKES CONFESSION 257 
 
 ttie way to make money, and then one day I saw an 
 advertisement in the paper, an advertisement of a 
 gold mine. It was a sure thing, way up in Alaska, 
 and if you could buy a few shares it would be like 
 an income coming in to you all the time, every year 
 more and more. So I wrote to the firm that adver- 
 tised it, and the letters I got from them were very 
 convincing, very convincing indeed. They gave the 
 whole history of the thing, and showed just why 
 they needed the money now for development or they 
 wouldn't let one share go out of their hands, and 
 then they explained how nobody who came forward 
 and took some shares could possibly lose. Well, 
 there was some money of mine in the bank " 
 
 "What!" she cried, leaning forward, her eyes 
 narrowing until they seemed a mere line of hard 
 metallic glitter, her face set in tense lines. "You 
 mean to say that you drew money out of the bank 
 and sent it off without consulting me !" She looked 
 at him unbelievingly. "No, you never did that." 
 
 "Yes, I did," he said simply. "And then, when I 
 opened the paper this morning, I saw that the police 
 had got after that firm, the firm I sent my money 
 to, but they evidently suspected some move like that
 
 258 SALLY SALT 
 
 and got away, for the police didn't find anything but 
 empty offices. So I suppose the money's gone." 
 Again he seemed to droop and shrink. 
 
 "Oh, my Lord !" The woman lifted her clenched 
 hands and shook them above her head, and the 
 gleam which shot from her narrowed eyes was still 
 unrelentingly upon him, piercingly penetrating as a 
 dagger thrust, burning as coals of fire. He writhed 
 under it. 
 
 "What have I got to be punished for this way?" 
 her harsh voice vibrating with long-repressed emo- 
 tion. "What have I ever done ? I've worked hard 
 ever since I can remember, just to get along, just to 
 be somebody in the world. That's all I ever cared 
 about. And then I met you and was taken in by 
 you. I was young and I was caught by your queer 
 talk and your handsome face. You had a little 
 money, and I thought from your fine talk that you'd 
 make a lot more, that you'd be somebody in the 
 world. And, oh, Lord! Look at what I got! 
 Look at what I've had all these years! I hadn't 
 been married to yon very long before I learned about 
 what I had to expect that you were good for noth- 
 ing on God's earth but to sit and dream. Put you
 
 HILDA MAKES CONFESSION 259 
 
 to plowing, and like as not you'd be sitting on the 
 plow in the middle of a field, you and the horses both 
 dreaming. And save money! You got no more 
 idea of saving than a tree has when it's losing its 
 leaves in the fall. I'm all that stands between this 
 family and starvation, and sooner or later they can 
 starve as far as I am concerned. I'll never take the 
 little that Fve saved here and saved there to keep 
 food in their mouths and a roof over their heads. I 
 know that. Oh," in another burst of exasperation, 
 "if I could just get rid of all of you and have a little 
 house all to myself, where I could save and plan and 
 manage just as I'd like ! And I will, too ! I will !" 
 
 Without another glance at her husband, she rose 
 and walked into the house. A door was heard to 
 slam, and it was understood by those of her house- 
 hold, versed in her ways, that she had retired to her 
 own chamber for a season, as was her wont when in 
 one of her black moods. 
 
 It was two or three hours before she emerged, and 
 then she entered the kitchen, tied on a discarded 
 apron, and resumed her various customary activities 
 as if nothing had occurred to disturb the routine of 
 her day. Her face had resumed its usual calm, im-
 
 26o SALLY SALT 
 
 passive expression, but there was a new light of de- 
 termination in her eyes. 
 
 Hilda stood by the window, she had looked up 
 when her mother entered, and then turned again to 
 watch the bees drifting over the morning-glories 
 which clustered about the frame Idly she leaned 
 there, watching the delicate color trumpets expand 
 in the sunshine She had begun to sing a few mo- 
 ments before, half under her breath, but had grad- 
 ually gone on until, forgetful of herself, she had let 
 out her voice to its full volume As she trilled 
 happily on some especially high note, her mother, 
 who had been casting glances at her full of a somber 
 irritation, began a great clatter of dishes, exclaiming 
 at the same time in deep, peremptory tones 
 
 "Hilda, I wish you would shut up!" 
 
 Hilda started violently, threw a half-frightened 
 glance at her mother, and ceased in the middle of a 
 trill, then made a movement as if to leave the room, 
 but Mrs. Hurd intercepted her. 
 
 "Hilda," she said suavely, yet with that deep, 
 harsh note of a new and sinister determination run- 
 ning through her voice, "Hilda, I been pretty pa- 
 tient. I can wait as good as anybody in the world,
 
 HILDA MAKES CONFESSION 261 
 
 and I find that it usually pays me to be patient ; but 
 there's a matter that's got to be settled between you 
 and me, and I guess now is as good a time as any to 
 talk it over. I've been thinking considerably lately, 
 and it strikes me that a guess I've got is pretty 
 nearly correct." 
 
 The girl did not speak, merely shrank back more 
 dosely against the window-sill and elapsed her 
 hands tightly with a quick involuntary motion upon 
 her breast. 
 
 "Now, one of the things I want to know," her 
 mother's voice went on evenly, "is why you never 
 hear from Grissom?" 
 
 Hilda shivered slightly at the mention of his 
 name, the soft tea-rose color left her cheek, but she 
 shook her head without answering. 
 
 "Oh, it doesn't do any good to shake your head 
 and not answer me, because I mean to find out," 
 said Maria Hurd, "and you'll gain nothing by being 
 obstinate. Now answer me. Why did Grissom 
 never come back, and why do you never hear from 
 him?" 
 
 But Hilda did not answer ; merely closed her lips 
 and gazed far above her mother's head. Her eyes
 
 262 SALLY SALT 
 
 were luminous with some high resolve, but her lips 
 trembled a little. 
 
 Her mother walked over and in her usual leis- 
 urely fashion locked the door and put the key in her 
 pocket. She knew the nature with which she had 
 to deal, and this was not the first time that this sort 
 of a scene had been enacted between them. 
 
 "Come, Hilda," she said, "you'd better answer 
 quick; there's no use in wasting time." 
 
 The girl made no answer beyond another shake of 
 the head. Then slowly and steadily she was put 
 under fire. Again and again she was asked the 
 question in the same monotonous, implacable voice. 
 Again and again she refused to answer. 
 
 An hour ticked by, two hours, and Hilda began to 
 show the strain. The color glowed brilliantly in 
 her cheeks and ears, and pulsed up and down her 
 neck. She became as tense as a highly keyed violin ; 
 her hands began to tremble, and then her whole 
 body. 
 
 Two hours and a half. The whole delicate bal- 
 ance of her nature gave way. She turned at bay, 
 her face aflame, her eyes sparkling with fire. 
 
 "If you want to know !" she cried, her voice high
 
 HILDA MAKES CONFESSION 263 
 
 and shrill and triumphant, "if you want to know, 
 I'll tell you now, when it can't help either you or 
 Jake Washburne to know. I overheard you and 
 Jake talking the night you planned, oh, God ! planned 
 to sell Mr. Grissom for money not because either 
 of you cared whether what he had done was right 
 or wrong, but because you wanted the money. That 
 was all either of you thought of in your cruel, 
 wicked, grasping hearts. But I overheard, yes, I 
 did, and I stole out and sent word to him, and now 
 he is safe from you, safe, and you'll never get your 
 money. Never!" 
 
 Mrs. Kurd stood as if petrified, her face growing 
 whiter and whiter, her chest heaving in long breaths. 
 
 "You overheard Jake and me," she said at last, as 
 if it were entirely beyond her power to grasp that 
 fact in itself, as if there were no possibility of its 
 having reached her ears correctly, "and you went 
 off by yourself and warned Grissom, sent word to 
 him not to come back." She spoke the words as if 
 they were incredible, beyond belief. For a few 
 silent moments she surveyed her daughter from un- 
 der frowning brows, curiously, uncomprehendingly, 
 as if she had really never seen her before.
 
 264 SALLY SALT 
 
 "You heard Jake say there was twenty-five hun- 
 dred dollars in it, twelve hundred and fifty dollars 
 apiece, and sure money, and yet you crept off and 
 warned Grissom!" Then suddenly her slow, in- 
 credulous tone was merged in a furious utterance. 
 
 "You stole it! That's what you've done stole 
 it from me, your mother!" The dead white of her 
 face was tinged with a faint, creeping purple; her 
 voice was raucous, and she put her hand to her 
 throat, as if she felt it become constricted through 
 the violence of her emotions. 
 
 "Now, let me tell you, you can't do such things. 
 You think I'm going to slave and cook for you, and 
 buy the very clothes that's on your back, to have 
 you steal twelve hundred dollars from me?" Her 
 whole figure went flaccid and seemed to bow and 
 cringe before the sum. 
 
 "Twelve hundred dollars snatched right out of 
 my hand by a worthless !" Her voice broke in a 
 kind of choking snarl. Then she restrained herself 
 by a supreme effort of will. 
 
 "You may think you're grown up, Hilda fine 
 and grown up, after the smart trick you've played, 
 but you'll find out different. Oh, what have I
 
 HILDA MAKES CONFESSION 265 
 
 done!" she lifted her hands and shook them in a 
 frenzy, "that I should be the mother of such a whey- 
 faced fool ! It's plain to be seen where you get your 
 craziness, from that daft father of yours. Oh, to 
 think of the years that I've borne with you both, 
 worked and slaved and toiled for you ! And what 
 have I ever got out of either of you? Have you 
 ever been anything but a drag and a burden on me ? 
 But I've stood it as long as I'm going to. Do you 
 hear?" There was a still and dreadful menace in 
 her voice. She walked over, and, unlocking the 
 door, threw it wide. "The only reason I've kept 
 you around was because of the looks of the thing, 
 but that's past now that's past for ever since you 
 stole from me stole twelve hundred and fifty dol- 
 lars! You!" 
 
 She continued to regard her daughter with the 
 same odd incredulity, as if Hilda were a thing too 
 monstrous and impossible to be believed in. And, 
 as she gazed, some violent yet still convulsion of 
 nature seemed to be taking place in her. The purple 
 which had faintly tinged her face now surged up it 
 in a purple tide; for a second she swayed back and 
 forth, clenching and unclenching her hand, and then
 
 266 SALLY SALT 
 
 she sprang at the girl with the hoarse, snarling cry 
 of some wild animal. 
 
 "Get out ! get out ! and never let me see your face 
 again ! Get out before I drive you out !" 
 
 The words came through her constricted throat 
 with difficulty, but all the pent-up antagonism of a 
 lifetime was in her voice. 
 
 Hilda shrank and cowered. To her excited 
 vision her mother suddenly towered above her. She 
 was like some baffled beast of the jungle, her lips 
 slathered with foam, her great arms stretched out- 
 ward as if to seize her prey, her fleshy fingers turned 
 in like curving claws. And Hilda fled like a fawn 
 before a tigress, and heard, as she ran through the 
 garden and down toward the meadows, the heavy 
 slam of a door behind her.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE QUEST OF THE ROAD 
 
 OVERPOWERED by terror, Hilda had run on 
 and on, not even consciously noting the direc- 
 tion she was taking, until at last, from sheer in- 
 ability to run longer, she stopped, and, panting for 
 breath, looked dazedly about her. She was in the 
 heart of a great corn-field, beneath a lowering sky. 
 The corn shocks encompassed her and seemed to 
 radiate in every direction from the point on which 
 she stood. On and on they stretched, their long, 
 unbroken rows savagely yellow under the rolling 
 clouds, blue-black above the distant hills. 
 
 Hilda stood for a moment gazing wildly about 
 her, drawing long, convulsive, sobbing breaths, and 
 then, following some instinctive impulse to seek 
 shelter, she sank down beside one of the corn shocks 
 and crouched forlornly against it. The wind rustled 
 the dry leaves of the corn, the whole field was full 
 
 267
 
 268 SALLY SALT 
 
 of arid, eery whispers, but Hilda did not hear them. 
 All about her, strewn over the brown earth, were 
 great pumpkins, and a flock of blackbirds, glistening 
 metallically, walked mincingly among them, but she 
 did not see them. No plan for the immediate future 
 came to her; she was incapable of any concentrated 
 thought, and merely cowered there in a maze of be- 
 wilderment and dull misery. 
 
 Finally some far-off sound attracted her atten- 
 tion, and involuntarily she lifted her head to listen. 
 Faint and far away there came to her the sound of 
 her own name. "Hilda! Hilda!" a plaintive, qua- 
 vering note of anxiety and helplessness. Hilda's 
 mental processes were so disorganized that she 
 might have heard many repetitions of her name in 
 an unfamiliar voice and paid no heed to them, but 
 now her heart, her sore and aching heart, responded 
 at once to that anguished appeal. She sprang to her 
 feet and looked about her. At first she could see 
 nothing, but, gazing steadily in the direction of the 
 repeated call, she saw her father surmount a little 
 knoll and stand peering eagerly over the field. He 
 was hatless, and his long black coat and white beard 
 were blowing in the wind. Hilda stumbled over the
 
 THE QUEST OF THE ROAD 269 
 
 field toward him, longing to reassure and comfort 
 and solace him. 
 
 "Father! father!" she cried high and clear, and 
 he, hearing and seeing her, began also to run. 
 When they met, with a little cry of joy he folded her 
 tightly in his arms. 
 
 "Hilda, my little Hilda," he crooned over her, 
 and rocked her back and forth, "I didn't know 
 where you had gone, and I've looked for you so 
 long. She," he shuddered, "she told me she had 
 driven you out, and I came, too. I I only waited 
 to put on my Sunday coat, Hilda." 
 
 She laughed a little weeping laugh of tender 
 amusement. "But you forgot your hat, father," 
 she said, and pressed her cheek more deeply into his 
 shoulder. 
 
 "We've, we've been turned out, Hilda." He 
 strove to speak seriously, but there was a sort of 
 excited joy in his voice and manner. 
 
 "Oh, father, you too!" she cried, and, clasping 
 him closer still, fell to an almost hysterical sobbing. 
 
 He tenderly stroked her hair. "Don't cry, 
 Hilda," soothingly, "my little honey. There, there. 
 You'll never be turned out by your father, Hilda,
 
 270 SALLY SALT 
 
 and Hilda Hilda, look up here." There was a 
 furtive, wavering smile on his thin lips, a shy ex- 
 ultation in his eyes, as if he were about to tell her 
 some wonderful secret. "The world's all before us, 
 Hilda." 
 
 The world! Hilda lifted her head and looked 
 about her. Long rows of corn shocks under a dark, 
 bending sky; the trees upholding their high au- 
 tumnal torches on the far hillsides, and beyond them 
 miles of forest gloom, and then more unending corn 
 fields and waste brown meadows. "The world's a 
 long way off, father." 
 
 He shook his head. To his brooding gaze the 
 towers and castles of his eternal city of romance 
 shone fair before his eyes. He caught the nearer 
 
 
 
 gleam of its beauty in the fugitive shimmer of sun- 
 light that broke through the clouds and played for a 
 moment about them. 
 
 "Why, the city is quite near, Hilda," he said im- 
 patiently, "not a long distance by rail, and if we 
 should walk " 
 
 But the timid spirit of Hilda, more practical, be- 
 cause more feminine, protested. "What shall we 
 do after we get there?" she asked ptteously.
 
 THE QUEST OF THE ROAD 271 
 
 He looked at her in surprise, as if perplexed at 
 her stupidity. "Why, there's plenty to do in the 
 city," he replied, an answer which, however vague 
 to another, was yet completely satisfactory to him- 
 self. "Come on, Hilda," 
 
 Her spirit was only a little, only a very little, more 
 practical than his own, so, with no more thought of 
 further protestation, she turned and they started off 
 together. The old man's gaze was almost ecstatic 
 as he swept the landscape. "Do you remember 
 what the Lord said to Moses, Hilda ? 'Go forward !' 
 Well, the Lord speaks to us now the same as He did 
 then." 
 
 "Yes, father," she answered obediently, trudging 
 beside him. 
 
 "The shortest way to the city is by the river 
 road," said the old man. "It will take about three 
 days of steady walking, Hilda. We shall have fine 
 weather," buoyantly, although there was nothing in 
 the signs of the sky to presage any such a condition, 
 "and people along the way will give us something to 
 eat and let us sleep in their barns." His eyes 
 glowed with the light of adventure. "Ah, Hilda," 
 his eager stride took him a foot or two ahead or her,
 
 272 SALLY SALT 
 
 the words were blown back over his shoulder to her, 
 "we're going there, out into the world that I have 
 always dreamed about, but I never could get away 
 from here before, and now, at last, I'm going to find 
 out what lies beyond the hills." 
 
 And Hilda's heart, too, began to rise, and, harp 
 that she was, she vibrated in unison with the strong 
 hand that swept the strings. Under the stimulus of 
 his words she, too, felt the glow and excitement that 
 the thought of those beckoning, twinkling lights of 
 the distant city aroused. 
 
 As they turned into the river road Hilda pointed 
 out to her father the many signs of warning to 
 trespassers. 
 
 "It is John Witherspoon's land," he replied. "He 
 probably wishes to preserve the quail." 
 
 The blue-black clouds so long massed on the hori- 
 zon were now rolling overhead; the storm was im- 
 minent ; it was a matter of a few moments before it 
 was upon them; but the thick growth of the trees 
 broke the long sweep of the rising wind, and in the 
 woods it was like a low, monotonous sob. 
 
 "I hear some one coming," said Hilda suddenly, 
 pausing and glancing about her.
 
 THE QUEST OF THE ROAD 273 
 
 "Do you?" said her father. "No doubt." He, 
 too, stopped and waited, listening. 
 
 There was the faint sound of dry leaves and 
 twigs crackling under an advancing footfall; nearer 
 it came, and then, turning the angle of the road, 
 appeared Anthony Streatham. He did not at first 
 see the old man and the girl. He was whistling 
 softly, his eyes bent on the ground. In one hand he 
 held a rod, and in the other a string of fish, gleam- 
 ing silver. 
 
 He started involuntarily at the sight of the in- 
 truders, twisted his mouth in a vexed grimace, and 
 then, with a characteristic shrug of the shoulders, 
 fatalistically accepting the inevitable, and at the 
 same time disclaiming all responsibility and shifting 
 it to the knees of the gods, where it belonged, he 
 greeted them with his delightful smile. 
 
 But Hilda stared at him as one raised from the 
 dead. "Why," she stammered, "why, when did you 
 come back, Mr. Streatham?" 
 
 "Ah, that is a long story. Tell me first," he said, 
 to gain time, "what you two are doing here so far 
 from home, and at this hour in the evening?" 
 
 Hilda's head sank shamedly, and the deep color
 
 274 SALLY SALT 
 
 tinged even her brow ; but Mr. Kurd drew himself 
 up magnificently. "My daughter and, I are about to 
 travel; in fact, we are going to the city." 
 
 "But you are not walking ?" 
 
 "We thought of doing so ; it seemed the pleasanter 
 way," said Mr. Kurd. 
 
 Anthony's eyebrows and shoulders went up im- 
 perceptibly, but, as ever, he was quick to take his 
 cue. 
 
 "Ah, the quest of the open road!" he said pleas- 
 antly. "There is nothing like it. Under those cir- 
 cumstances, I shall insist on your making the first 
 break in your journey by taking supper with me and 
 stopping the night. Yonder, through the trees, is 
 my lodge in the wilderness." 
 
 He indicated a little cabin, half hidden by trees, 
 and standing on the rocky ledge above the river. It 
 was the same hut to which he and Sally had ridden 
 months before in her search for more laborers the 
 same, but vastly improved. 
 
 Hilda and her father, entering the low door, 
 broke into simultaneous exclamations of pleasure. 
 The place was neat and shipshape to a degree, clean 
 as a pin, and with an odd sort of attractiveness. A
 
 THE QUEST OF THE ROAD 275 
 
 little fire of logs burned on the hearth. There was 
 a table with books, a couch covered with a bright 
 Navajo blanket and some pillows, even a small 
 piano, and on the rough walls pine branches, the 
 green tracery of beauty, permeating the air with 
 their faint, aromatic fragrance. 
 
 "Here, Hilda." Streatham had drawn a large 
 chair near the fire, and with a fleeting glance of 
 gratitude Hilda sank wearily into it. Her fair head 
 fell back among the pillows ; her lashes lay long on 
 her cheeks; there were deep bluish shadows about 
 her eyes. 
 
 Anthony busied himself for a moment or two 
 lighting a lamp. "Now, Mr. Kurd, here are some 
 books and papers, if you care to look them over 
 while I get supper." 
 
 Hilda half rose as if to offer her assistance, but 
 Streatham laid a hand on her shoulder and pressed 
 her gently back into her chair. "No, Hilda ; remem- 
 ber that to-night you are my guest, and that I am 
 your humble servitor, and later, just to gratify a 
 certain absurd sense of honesty which I see lurking 
 in your eyes, you shall pay for your supper, oh lady 
 of the silver voice. Now I shall go to my little
 
 276 SALLY SALT 
 
 kitchen here in the rear, and you are not to peep; 
 you are to do nothing until you are summoned." 
 
 Hilda, pale Hilda, could hardly murmur her grat- 
 itude, and Anthony vanished into the kitchen, not to 
 appear again until he stood in the doorway, half an 
 hour later, with the odors of coffee and frying fish 
 wafting pleasantly about him, and, flourishing a 
 fork with a grand air, announced that supper was 
 served. 
 
 Among his various accomplishments, he had car- 
 ried the art of cookery to a high degree of perfec- 
 tion, but his conversation did more to revive and 
 restore Hilda than food. In listening to his jests 
 and banter she forgot the tragedy of the morning; 
 and then she relied instinctively on the strength and 
 judgment which would devise comfort for them, 
 would save them, although she would not have ad- 
 mitted this intuitive conclusion even to herself, from 
 the pitfalls of her father's star-gazing optimism. 
 
 Streatham accepted readily enough her offer of 
 assistance after supper. He intended by a few ju- 
 dicious questions to discover the cause of the Hurd 
 exodus not a difficult matter, as it proved. He 
 was one of the few people to whom Hilda could
 
 THE QUEST OF THE ROAD 277 
 
 always talk freely, and now she hastened to pour 
 forth her confidence. 
 
 He lifted his shoulders higher about the ears than 
 he usually managed to do in a shrug, and twisted his 
 mouth almost up to one eye. As Sally had once 
 said, when nothing else happened the Hurds were 
 sure to. This was a situation, he reflected, which 
 he would certainly not have gone on winged feet to 
 meet, but since it had come to him there was nothing 
 to do but accept it, at least for the present. 
 
 "Hilda," he said, "you can not journey to town 
 with your father. I am sorry to destroy his and 
 incidentally your dreams of strolling along the sun- 
 lit roads, while the farmers en route chain up the 
 dog at the sight of you and rush out to meet you 
 with flagons of milk in one hand and bread and 
 honey in the other, and of sleeping in fragrant straw 
 beside blossoming hedge-rows beneath the golden 
 moon; but I'm afraid your journey ends here, 
 Hilda." 
 
 She shook her head, a slight disappointed droop 
 to her mouth. "Father will go on now," she said, 
 "now that he really can, that there is nothing to stop 
 him."
 
 278 SALLY SALT 
 
 "I shall stop him. If I let him go, I'd be as 
 morally responsible as a mother who would put a 
 new-born babe to sleep on a railway track/' 
 
 "He will go," she insisted. 
 
 Anthony lifted his eyebrows almost to the roots 
 of his hair. "Father will be managed," he said 
 gently. "Hilda, you've never seen a play, have you ? 
 You shall see one now. Come, you shall have what 
 will appear to you the large easy chair by the fire, 
 but which is in reality the stage box; and you shall 
 see, without any preliminary bursts from the or- 
 chestra, the curtain rise on 'The Management of 
 Father.' " 
 
 Hilda laughed irrepressibly, but her eyes were 
 puzzled. "I hardly ever understand you, Mr. 
 Streatham, but what you say always makes me 
 laugh. I like the sound of it." 
 
 He stopped and looked at her closely from under 
 his eyebrows, nodding his head the while. "That is 
 you," he said. "Hilda, I have discovered you. You 
 take in everything by the sound. You see nothing. 
 You have ears and a voice, but no eyes. But come, 
 the curtain rises. ' 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, 
 good mother.' 'On such a night, Jessica.' '
 
 THE QUEST OF THE ROAD 279 
 
 Mr. Hurd sat reading by the light of the lamp, 
 completely absorbed in his book. He put it down 
 with some reluctance when Hilda and Anthony 
 finally made their presence knovyn to him. "A beau- 
 tiful book," he said wistfully, "a very beautiful 
 book. I am afraid I shall not have time to finish it, 
 however. We must get an early start to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 "Ah," said Anthony, leaning forward, as if the 
 matter had just occurred to him, "that is a question 
 I. wish to discuss with you. Let us, tiresomely, I 
 admit, descend to practicalities. Here are three of 
 us whom chance has brought together. You two 
 are going on to town. I would gladly go with you, 
 but my travels have taught me that he who would 
 pass through the world easily must have a passport 
 in the shape of a coin always ready. Now, when I 
 start out to do a thing, build a fire, for instance, I 
 don't want to be hampered every minute for lack of 
 wood ; and, comrades on the road, there is my entire 
 capital." He threw on the table a handful of silver. 
 
 Mr. Hurd, involuntarily following his example, 
 searched in his pockets, and then searched again. 
 At last he looked up with an expression of surprise
 
 28o SALLY SALT 
 
 not unmingled with sheepishness. c 'Why, why, I 
 had some money, several dollars, I think. Why, 
 Hilda" 
 
 "Yes, father, but you changed your coat." 
 He drew his long-tailed, old-fashioned coat about 
 him and looked down at it in a puzzled sort of way. 
 "Why, so I did, Hilda, so I did." 
 
 "That settles it." Anthony rubbed his chin and 
 smiled at Hilda, "There will be no play. I am 
 sorry to disappoint you, my child, but the curtain is 
 rung down before it goes up, to speak the ancient 
 Celtic tongue. That is usually the way. Destiny 
 will decide most of our problems for us if we will 
 only let her. Now, the state of my exchequer, at 
 present, entirely precludes the idea of my financing 
 this Argonautic expedition. Then' this is the situ- 
 ation." He addressed his remarks now exclusively 
 to Mr. Hurd, speaking with convincing gravity. "I 
 know the city thoroughly, and if I could accompany 
 you on your journey I could act admirably as your 
 guide; "but, owing to the slimness of my purse, it is 
 impossible for me to go now. I am here, I should 
 explain, to do some special writing. Witherspoon 
 Jent me this cottage that I might have the necessary
 
 THE QUEST OF THE ROAD 281 
 
 seclusion, and for the next few weeks I must keep 
 at it very steadily ; consequently, it would be a tre- 
 mendous help to me if you and Hilda would consent 
 to remain here temporarily. Hilda shall take care 
 of the household duties," there was a faint twinkle 
 in Anthony's eyes, "and you can assist me in the 
 heavier tasks, hewing the wood and carrying water ; 
 and then I shall write, and you shall read, and I hope 
 that there will be many times when we may con- 
 verse. How does it strike you?" 
 
 Mr. Hurd leaned his head on his hand and con- 
 sidered, his eyes fixed on the fire. Some of their 
 luminous glow had vanished. He was very tired, 
 and the city of his dreams was a long way off. He 
 hated to defer his quest of life by even an hour; 
 nevertheless, he could not conceal the fact that his 
 pleasure would be greatly enhanced by the society 
 of this cheery, congenial companion, this man who 
 knew the purlieus of the world. 
 
 "It would certainly delay us a little in our jour- 
 'ney," he hesitated. 
 
 "But not for long, father." The light had re- 
 turned to Hilda's eyes, the color to her cheeks. She 
 laid one hand appealingly on his knee. "Just for a
 
 282 SALLY SALT 
 
 little while, and Mr. Streatham will go with us 
 then." 
 
 Again the old man looked about him; he was 
 tired, tireder than he had thought, and here was 
 peace and comfort, and books, and the companion- 
 ship of this delightful scamp. The ivory towers 
 and purple distances, the roaring streets all dusk 
 and spangled with lights, grew a little dimmer. He 
 laid his white head back against the chair. "I have 
 an idea," he said to Anthony, "that in this instance 
 your wisdom exceeds mine." 
 
 Hilda smiled at him radiantly. 
 
 "Now, Hilda," said Streatham, "pay for your 
 supper. Sing."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 ANTHONY'S STRANGE LETTER 
 
 AJNT MANDY," asked Sally, one morning, 
 "how does it happen that every time I enter 
 the kitchen I meet Uncle Poodle either coming in or 
 going out, or else comfortably ensconced by the 
 stove. Have you at last given your consent to Wil- 
 merdine's wooing?" 
 
 "Lawd! Miss Sally, you go on." Aunt Mandy 
 waved a dish towel in the air and chuckled, well 
 pleased. "Didn't I tole you dat I had my own plan 
 fo' de subduin' of Wilmerdine? Jus' 'cause I spile 
 dat girl, an' you spile her, an' she grows up so purty 
 an' have so many beaux dat her haid is clean turned 
 around on her shoulders, is dat any reason we all 
 got to keep on spilin' her? No'm, no ma'am!" em- 
 phatically. "I was certainly one of dese yer po' 
 dotin' mothahs, jus' like hundreds of othahs, pleased 
 as Punch to see Wilmerdine queenin' it over a lot 
 
 283
 
 284 SALLY SALT 
 
 of nice, likely boys. But when I saw her startin' in 
 after Uncle Poodle, why, dat was de cuff on de ear 
 dat wake dis sleepin' princess right up. For I saw 
 then dat she had not growed beyond a mothah's 
 love an' care. 
 
 "Well, I give de mattah considerable study, Miss 
 Sally, an' I come to dis conclusion. Blossom !" she 
 broke off to address her large gray cat, "ef you can't 
 keep from gettin' under my feet, I'm goin' to break 
 dis yer broomstick over yo' back. Now yo' mind. 
 I was tellin' yo', Miss Sally, dat I come to dis con- 
 clusion: Uncle Poodle, self -respectable as he is, 
 an' proud of his position of bein' one of de bes' ex- 
 horters in de chu'ch, is only a man at bes', jus' like 
 a mouse is only a mouse, an' no mattah how smart 
 and quick on his foots he is, sooner or later de cat 
 dat's watchin' him's goin' to get him. Den," she 
 paused dramatically, "I jus' walked in myself." 
 
 "No!" cried Sally, flatteringly impressed by this 
 evidence of strategic genius. "Who ever heard of 
 such a thing ?" She burst into a peal of laughter. 
 
 "Dat's right," affirmed Aunt Mandy proudly. 
 "Ain't yo' noticed how I been settin' up to him? 
 He is fond of a dish of bacon an' greens cooked jus*
 
 ANTHONY'S STRANGE LETTER 285 
 
 so, an' a cup of coffee he do dearly love. So when 
 I see him comin' up from de gyarden, kin' o' hot 
 an' tired wid weedin' or hoein' or such like, I'd 
 station myself in de window wid a steamin' coffee 
 pot held kind o' absent-like in one hand, an' den he'd 
 kind o' sniff an' go slow, an' I'd say, as surprised 
 as yo' please, 'Oh, Uncle Poodle, is dat you ? I was 
 jus' pourin' myself a cup o' coffee; won't yo' jine 
 me?' Well, once here, wid a plate o' batter cakes 
 before him, an' no stint of butter an' molasses, he 
 wasn't in no hurry to leave, I can tell you dat, Miss 
 Sally. An' bimeby, when he'd et through dis or dat 
 knick-knack, he'd be ready to talk, an' we'd begin 
 on de chu'ch, discussin' or disputin' how dis or dat 
 difficulty is goin' to be met an' dat expense faced. 
 All such subjects, yo' know, dat his mind's full of, 
 an' dat Wilmerdine ain't got no grasp on at all. 
 Why, dat man has set here by de hour in de even- 
 in's, relatin' his speritual experiences an' cogitatin' 
 on dis brothah or dat sistah dat has backslid in 
 ways dat it ain't fitten fo' no young girl like Wii- 
 merdine to be discussin'. 
 
 "When Wilmerdine see how things is goin', she 
 kin' o' open her eyes, I can tell you. Dat girl, she
 
 286 SALLY SALT 
 
 thinks she know it all, Miss Sally, 'cause she ain't 
 never had no trouble in twistin' every boy she meet 
 around her fingers; but she findin' out now how. lit- 
 tle she really know ob de world. She thought all 
 she got to do to catch any man was to roll her big 
 eyes at him, an' when she see Uncle Poodle was 
 payin' no 'tention to her tricks, why, she kin' o' 
 console herself wid de reflection dat Uncle Poodle 
 was so old and pious dat he couldn't set up to any- 
 body; but it seems like her po' ol' mothah was di- 
 vinely app'inted to show her different. 
 
 "Why, Miss Sally, yesterday, when Uncle Poodle 
 was a-settin' here by de stove samplin' some plum 
 pie dat I had jus' turned out, an' kin' o' sippin' at a 
 glass ob milk dat was more'n half cream, I could see 
 in his eyes dat he was turnin' over an' over in his 
 mind ef he wouldn't be askin' me to marry him." 
 
 "Marry him!" echoed Sally dazedly. "Aunt 
 Mandy, you wouldn't think of such a thing." 
 
 " 'Deed, no, Miss Sally. I'm too old to bother 
 my head 'bout any man. I past de time when I'm 
 willin' to caper an' keep 'em in a good humor an' 
 feed 'em up. No, ma'am. I wants to set down by 
 de stove when my work's done an' smoke my pipe
 
 ANTHONY'S STRANGE LETTER 287 
 
 an' doze. Me an' Blossom was talkin' things over 
 las' night. I says, 'Blossom, what kin' ob a fool do 
 yo' think I'd be to undertake the care ob any rheu- 
 matic ol' niggah at my time of life?' an' Blossom 
 she look up at me an' kin' o' wink her eye and den 
 shet 'em tight again, an' fold her paws under her 
 an' doze. No, ma'am; my days of botherin' wid 
 de men folks is over, an' I'm glad of it, too." 
 
 "I can see that Wilmerdine looks at you with a 
 new respect," said Sally. 
 
 "She'd better." Aunt Mandy chuckled afresh. 
 
 At this moment Wilmerdine entered and an- 
 nounced to Sally that Mr. Witherspoon wished to 
 see her, and Sally went out on the porch, where 
 Witherspoon stood on the step awaiting her, his 
 horse's bridle over his arm. It struck Sally that he 
 looked a little constrained, and his manner, in a 
 way, bore out his appearance. 
 
 "Good morning," she said. "Are you and Lucy 
 off for a ride?" 
 
 "Yes, I am waiting for her." 
 
 "One is always waiting for Lucy," laughed Sally. 
 "But we have to admit that when she does appear 
 the results justify the delay."
 
 288 SALLY SALT 
 
 "But, after all," Witherspoon said, "it was you I 
 particularly wished to see." The constraint which 
 she had felt so unmistakably was visible now in his 
 voice. It was almost embarrassed. 
 
 "Me !" cried Sally, opening her eyes. 
 
 "Yes." He searched in his pocket a moment. 
 "I have something for you, a letter which was in- 
 closed in one I received." 
 
 Sally grew white under all her tan. Slowly she 
 stretched out her hand. "Please give it to me," she 
 said, and turning, without even a word of thanks, 
 left him. 
 
 Down through her summer garden she went, a 
 waste and desolate place, its glory departed, its color 
 and perfume but a memory. One day they had 
 flung their challenge of beauty at the sunlight, and 
 the next they were fallen under the blight of frost, 
 ready for Uncle Poodle's scythe and pruning-hook. 
 The brown beds and trim paths were all in their 
 decorous and depressing winter order, and Sally 
 passed rapidly through them down to her sheltered 
 and still splendid chrysanthemum borders, the won- 
 derful gardens of autumn. She sat down on a 
 seat under a maple tree; the gold and flame of its
 
 ANTHONY'S STRANGE LETTER 289 
 
 leaves fell softly through the air; the dreamy late 
 October sunshine lay on her red hair, and there she 
 opened and read Streatham's letter. 
 
 So he was on the other side of the world ! It was 
 a long letter. Some of the paragraphs were writ- 
 ten at sea, some were from Paris, one or two from 
 London, and one was from Rome. He had written 
 exactly as if they had never parted, as if she had 
 never driven him from her. 
 
 "Sally of my heart, is it really true that I am here 
 and you are there? Incredible! Away from you 
 now, when 'the days take on a mellower tint, and 
 the apple at last hangs really finished and indolent 
 ripe on the tree' ? Again I say, incredible ! 
 
 "I was dowered at birth with the wanderlust, but 
 do you know, in its last analysis, what the wander- 
 lust really is? It is the imperative, overwhelming 
 desire to get away from 'here.' It doesn't really 
 matter in the least where 'here' happens to be; the 
 wanderlust is an unspeakable longing to get away 
 from it. And now that I am here and ready to start 
 off at a moment's notice for that vanishing 'there,' 
 with which I never seem to catch up, and which, 
 like to-morrow, is always beyond me, I discover
 
 290 SALLY SALT 
 
 hourly what I have always known from the first 
 minute I saw you that all I really want in the 
 world is to be with you, you, Sally darling, with 
 you, where 'here' and 'there' meet. 'Oh, love and 
 summer, you are in the dreams and in me.' 
 
 "When are you going to send for me, Sally? 
 Soon, soon " 
 
 She dropped the letter and clenched her teeth. "I 
 can't I can't bear it !" she cried. "As if you had 
 done nothing! As if you were forgiving me, and 
 overlooking my conduct! As if I had sent you 
 away for a mere whim!" 
 
 She was pale no longer ; the high, hot color flamed 
 in her cheeks ; her eyes flashed. She read no more, 
 but, folding the letter, thrust it in the bosom of her 
 gown and strode up toward the house, frowning, 
 muttering, flushing and paling in a fine temper, in 
 short. 
 
 Upon the porch were a little group of three Mrs. 
 Nesbit, Mrs. Hill and Anne all sitting with their 
 heads together in the full tide of a discussion, so 
 earnest and absorbed that an observer would have 
 been justified in predicting the element of scandal. 
 
 Mrs. Hill had flung her bonnet strings back over
 
 ANTHONY'S STRANGE LETTER 291 
 
 her shoulders, and had now firmly grasped her um- 
 brella. There was an air of almost majestic im- 
 portance about her, a zest, an eagerness, as if one 
 who, having been long compelled to make the most 
 of what little she had spread the butter thin, in 
 fact had at last not only a plenitude of butter, but 
 was also prepared to dispense jam with a generous 
 hand. And she held her audience, there was no 
 doubt of that. Mrs. Nesbit, huddled in shawls and 
 with a crochetted white and pink fascinator thrown 
 over her head, its point dangling over her nose, was 
 leaning forward with a sort of frightened eager- 
 ness. Anne sat uncompromisingly upright, the 
 slight frown upon her brow negatived by the faintly 
 complacent and superior smile upon her lips. 
 
 As an experienced purveyor of news, Mrs. Hill 
 was not one to hurl down the bone and then watch 
 the dogs worry it. That is, to phrase it in the lan- 
 guage of the drawing-room, she did not announce 
 her knowledge and then listen, well content, to the 
 endless discussion of it from those to whom she 
 proffered it. Far from it. Her methods were 
 more subtle, more civilized, even cultivated. She 
 tempted the palate, disdaining no humble little appe-
 
 292 SALLY SALT 
 
 tizers; then, through the lighter courses of soup, 
 fish, an entree or so, she led up to her piece dc 
 resistance, the solid, substantial roast. 
 
 On ascending the steps to the porch, where Mrs. 
 Nesbit sat sunning herself in the mild, pale sun- 
 shine for an hour or two, and, because October had 
 reached its end, had wrapped herself in shawls, and 
 where Anne sat beside her, making some notes on a 
 volume she held in hand, she had accepted the offer 
 of a chair, refused to go indoors, untied her bonnet 
 strings, and panted a moment or two before essay- 
 ing any continuous conversation. 
 
 "Yes, it's a nice morning," in response to Mrs. 
 Nesbit's timid bleat in praise of the day, "but it 
 ain't seasonable, and it ain't healthy. Keeps on 
 like this, we'll have a green Christmas, and," with a 
 long-drawn sigh, "you know what that means a 
 fat churchyard. Well," with another long sigh, "I 
 guess, whether Christmas is green or white, the 
 churchyard won't be so slim this year. One of the 
 Smith twins is down with scarlet fever, a bad case, 
 they say, and I stopped to talk to Mrs. Potter a 
 minute at her gate, and she says her cough's worse 
 than it's been for twenty years. She says if it's like
 
 ANTHONY'S STRANGE LETTER 293 
 
 'tis now, what will it be in February and March? 
 I didn't tell her so, but she needn't bother her head 
 about February or March. She won't last that long. 
 She had to hold on to the gate posts while she was 
 talking to me. You never heard a more rattling 
 cough, Melinda." 
 
 "Is that so?" said Mrs. Nesbit "Why, I must 
 get right over to see her." 
 
 "Yes, Melinda, go," replied Mrs. Hill, "and I'd 
 advise you to go soon. Had you heard that that 
 Jennison girl, the oldest one, was going into a de- 
 cline ? I thought if I felt pretty good I'd walk over 
 this afternoon and take a look at her. Hm-m, what 
 makes you look so peaked, Melinda ?" 
 
 "Me?" Mrs. Nesbit's nerves were not proof 
 against the question and the cold steady searchlight 
 of Mrs. Hill's glance, which seemed to discover an 
 organic weakness wherever she gazed. "I I never 
 felt better in my life." 
 
 "You'd ought to take care of yourself," said Mrs. 
 Hill in calm, unconvinced tones. "I don't think 
 I've ever seen you look any worse. A tonic might 
 help, but I dunno," shaking her head lugubriously. 
 "Well, you ain't the only one that's got troubles.
 
 294 SALLY SALT 
 
 I stopped to see Mrs. Hurd a minute, and it seems 
 she's all alone there with Harris. Hilda and her 
 father gone traipsin' off somewhere, and just to 
 show you what that poor woman has to put up with, 
 Mrs. Nesbit, they never even told her they meant to 
 go, and she's no idea on earth where they've gone. 
 Oh, they're the crazy pair. I tell you, Melinda, no- 
 body knows what that poor woman's had to put up 
 with. She's quiet and ain't got much to say for 
 herself, and folks ain't really never stopped to think 
 of all she's bore. It's pretty hard sometimes to just 
 be a poor, weak woman and to have to depend on a 
 critter like Hurd." 
 
 "But surely," interposed Anne, "she has never 
 attempted to depend on Mr. Hurd, a strong, capable 
 woman like herself." 
 
 "He's her husband, ain't he?" said Mrs. Hill 
 coldly, "and who else has a woman got to depend 
 on? Mighty queer things happen around here, I 
 can tell you that." She had at last arrived at the 
 roast. "But I guess this here Streatham business is 
 about the queerest of all." 
 
 "Streatham !" Mrs. Nesbit and Anne both echoed 
 her words simultaneously, and Sally paused in the
 
 ANTHONY'S STRANGE LETTER 295 
 
 path below at the sound of their voices. Then, all 
 aflame as she was, she walked up the steps and stood 
 directly before Mrs. Hill, her head thrown back, and 
 her blue glance shining burningly through her half- 
 closed lids. 
 
 "What about Mr. Streatham, Mrs. Hill? What 
 interesting bit of gossip do you know now about 
 him?" 
 
 "Good morning, Mrs. Salt." Mrs. Hill was ever 
 mindful of her manners. "It's a pleasant morning, 
 isn't it? t Oh, about Mr. Streatham. I was as sur- 
 prised as ever was when I heard yesterday that he 
 hadn't ever gone away after all." 
 
 "What !" Sally was off guard now, bending for- 
 ward, lips, eyes, whole eager face questioning, never 
 attempting to conceal her passionate interest. 
 
 "Just that. He ain't ever gone away." 
 
 "But he has," asseverated Sally Salt. "What do 
 you mean by saying such a thing?" 
 
 Mrs. Hill drew her cape about her with dignity. 
 "I'm saying nothing but what I know," she replied 
 with an icy positiveness. "One of the boys has 
 been nutting, and he says he's seen Streatham more 
 than once in John Witherspoon's woods; that he's
 
 296 SALLY SALT 
 
 living there in that little cabin on the river, and that 
 he's been there right along. Why, I supposed you 
 knew it all the time, Mrs. Salt." 
 
 "It's a lie," said Sally obstinately, and walked 
 blindly into the house. 
 
 In the seclusion of her own room, the door se- 
 curely locked against all possible intruders, she sank 
 down into a chair, trembling, sobbing. What did 
 this mean? This new development of a tortur- 
 ing situation. Oh, it was true. She didn't doubt 
 it. It was exactly like Anthony. She drew the 
 letter from her bosom, her half-unread letter, and 
 tore it to tatters, drawing deep, sobbing breaths the 
 while, and blindly scattered the pieces all over the 
 room. 
 
 "Liar!" she cried with explosive anguish. "Oh, 
 Anthony, you liar!"
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 LUCY TAKES COURAGE 
 
 THE days of the long and lovely autumn were 
 shortening, darkening, and ever more obvi- 
 ously assuming the dull and sober livery of winter. 
 Indian Summer, her heart of fire bedreamed in 
 opaline hazes, had been succeeded by the gusts and 
 snow-flakes of Squaw Winter, and Lucy Parrish 
 still lingered with Sally. Anne had made a reluc- 
 tant departure, but Lucy resolutely refused to ac- 
 company her, and, to do Lucy justice, it was not 
 alone the glamour of her play romance which held 
 her, although Sally had accused her of it more than 
 once. 
 
 "You, Lucy," she said to her on one occasion, 
 "may in the course of time exhibit all the signs of 
 old age, but you will never really grow up. You 
 will always stay in the make-believe age, a pretty 
 
 297
 
 298 SALLY SALT 
 
 little girl in a white embroidered frock and a blue 
 sash." 
 
 "Sally," replied Lucy with some heat, "do you 
 know that you always say anything you please to 
 me, and probably always will? Yes, you do; and 
 if you want to explore the most secret corners of my 
 soul, you just throw open the door without even 
 knocking and walk in, look around, and make any 
 comments you like on the furniture and decorations. 
 Yes, you do. Do not attempt to deny it. And I 
 permit it, and never think of retaliating. I do not 
 dare, any more than the rest of the world, to ques- 
 tion you about your private affairs. But, Sally," 
 slipping an arm through Sally's and rubbing her 
 cheek up and down the shoulder of her taller friend, 
 "Sally, I'm going to take my courage in my hands, 
 no matter what the consequence may be." Lucy's 
 voice was small and cajoling, and hardly indicative 
 of the robust and heroic qualities she was claiming. 
 "I know you think me a feather-head, but I've got 
 some sense in certain directions, and Sally, I want 
 to know one or two things." 
 
 "You do?" Sally smiled indulgently down upon
 
 LUCY TAKES COURAGE 299 
 
 her. "Must be something awfully important. 
 What is it?" 
 
 "First," Lucy took the courage she claimed for 
 herself in both hands, "I want to know why that 
 awful Mrs. Kurd is always snooping about here? 
 Oh, Sally, it's no use your turning your head away 
 and shaking me off like that ; and you needn't walk 
 away either, because I'll follow you, and ask you un- 
 til you tell me. What is it? What does she want?" 
 
 But Sally was not thrusting the question aside in 
 the cavalier manner Lucy had feared. After the 
 first involuntary start of surprise, she had gazed 
 rather frowningly before her, apparently weighing 
 a matter which had occupied much of her thought. 
 
 "I wish you hadn't asked me that, Lucy," she said 
 at last, "and yet I do not know what to do. I am 
 troubled more than I can tell you. As for Mrs. 
 Hurd, I should put a stop at once to her coming 
 here. She is getting too outrageous, and yet, how 
 can I?" 
 
 Lucy threw a sympathetic arm about her. "What 
 is it, Sally dear? Tell me all about it." And Sally, 
 who had been finding almost unbearable the strain
 
 300 SALLY SALT 
 
 of doubt and pain and Mrs. Kurd's increasing and 
 arbitrary demands for money, always more money, 
 felt it a relief to pour into Lucy's ears the whole 
 wretched story. 
 
 "But, Sally," cried her confidant, interrupting her 
 in her last broken phrases, "why should you try to 
 keep Mrs. Hurd quiet? Surely you could never 
 believe such a thing of Mr. Streatham. It is all a 
 horrible, wicked lie, of course." 
 
 "Lucy," Sally exclaimed, turning on her suddenly 
 and looking at her fixedly, "do you mean to say you 
 don't believe it?" 
 
 "Indeed I do not," Lucy indignantly averred. 
 "Nothing could ever make me believe it. Oh, 
 Sally, how could you how could you? You love 
 him, and I do not, and yet you could believe this of 
 him, and I never, never could." 
 
 "You don't know all the circumstances." Sally's 
 voice was muffled, broken. It was foreign to her to 
 plead or explain. 
 
 "No, I do not know all the circumstances, and I 
 do not want to. They would make no difference to 
 me, who am only his friend." Lucy was merciless, 
 all fiery indignation.
 
 LUCY TAKES COURAGE 301 
 
 "But Lucy, you know how odd he is, how differ- 
 ent from any one else." 
 
 "I know he is odd." Lucy's tone indicated that 
 this was the limit of her concession. 
 
 "You know his queer, capricious humor. Don't 
 you see that it is just the sort of an adventure that 
 a man like himself might indulge in? Suppose he 
 had told you, Lucy, the whole story as he told it to 
 me, two or three days before Mrs. Kurd brought 
 the newspaper. Suppose he had told it to you as if 
 he had lived it, really taken part in it, and as if he 
 were rather angry and disgusted with the remem- 
 brance of it, and yet amused by it? Oh, Lucy, 
 don't you see ?" 
 
 "No, I do not see, for one moment." Lucy's 
 soft, dimpled mouth was set in obstinate lines. "The 
 whole thing, Sally, is that you are such a boss. You 
 are so used to managing your own affairs and every 
 one else's, carrying everything before you in a high- 
 handed way, deciding things in a minute, and then 
 going ahead on the assumption that you couldn't 
 possibly make a mistake or be wrong; and you've 
 followed your usual methods in this matter." Lucy 
 had let herself go in the ardor of her championship.
 
 302 SALLY SALT 
 
 "In talking to Anthony Streatham, you probably 
 took it for granted that he was guilty. Oh, yes, 
 you did. I can see it from what you have told me, 
 and you tried to boss him, of course. That was a 
 very dangerous game to try with him, Sally, because 
 you can't do it. For all his queer ways, he's got 
 more brains and better judgment than you have, 
 and he's got a better heart than you have, for he's 
 kind and tolerant, and you've behaved like a perfect 
 b-brute." She paused at last, principally from lack 
 of breath, and Sally turned such stricken eyes upon 
 her, such a drawn and appalled face, that indigna- 
 tion gave place to compunction, and compunction to 
 remorseful sympathy in Lucy's heart in less than 
 the twinkling of an eye. 
 
 "Oh, it is I I who am the brute," she wept. 
 "Oh, my poor Sally!" She cast a protecting arm 
 about her pale and silent companion. "How could 
 I how could I hurt you so ? My poor Sally ! Oh, 
 I wouldn't have thought it of him." 
 
 "Him !" Sally threw off Lucy's arm and twitched 
 impatiently. "What do you mean ?" 
 
 "Why, I shouldn't ever have dreamed that he 
 would do such a thing."
 
 LUCY TAKES COURAGE 303 
 
 "Then all I have to say is that you are very easily 
 convinced." Sally lifted her head now, the old 
 sapphire lightning in her eyes, the rich color rising 
 in her cheeks. "You began by probing into my af- 
 fairs, by asserting your undying loyalty to Anthony 
 Streatham. Then I endeavored to explain a little 
 the reason for my feelings, and you blamed me 
 furiously; and then in the next breath you whirl 
 about and begin to accuse Anthony. It takes very 
 little evidence to convince you." 
 
 Lucy sat gazing at her with staring, incredulous 
 eyes and unbelieving ears. 
 
 And Sally lifted her passionate gaze to the sky. 
 "Isn't there any loyalty in the world?" she cried. 
 "Poor Tony, even those who call themselves your 
 best friends one moment are ready to turn against 
 you the next !" 
 
 Lucy's heart was broken. Sobbing bitterly, but 
 without a word, she left the house and ran down the 
 paths of the waste and desolate garden to the or- 
 chard. There she sat on the log of an apple tree, 
 which had fallen a night or two before in a storm, 
 and wept luxuriously, until the click of the gate and 
 the appearance of Witherspoon constrained her care-
 
 304 SALLY SALT 
 
 fully and finally to wipe her eyes and fumble hastily 
 in the little gold box dangling from her waist for a 
 mirror and powder-puff. 
 
 But nevertheless his love-quickened eyes took im- 
 mediate note of the traces of her recent volcanic 
 emotion. "Lucy, Lucy!" He caught her hands in 
 his and bent solicitously above her. "What is it? 
 What has happened?" 
 
 At the sympathy in his voice the tears were ready 
 to start again, but Lucy, mindful of reddened eye- 
 lids, made a brave effort to repress them. "I'm 
 going home." In spite of herself her voice trem- 
 bled. "I'm going home. Sally has been saying all 
 sorts of things to me, and I'm going back to town 
 to-day, even if I have to spend the winter with 
 Anne. That will show you how dreadful it has 
 been." 
 
 "Lucy dear," he shook her gently by the shoul- 
 ders, "what is all this? Try and tell me just as 
 clearly as you can, and do not get agitated." 
 
 And Lucy, eager to be comforted, nestled closer to 
 him and began: "I've been suspecting for some 
 time that that horrid old black raven of a Mrs. Kurd 
 was coming here for no good, so to-day I sum-
 
 LUCY TAKES COURAGE 305 
 
 moned up courage to ask Sally what it all meant, 
 and she told me that weeks ago, before Anthony 
 left, Mrs. Kurd had shown her a newspaper contain- 
 ing a description and photograph of the man Gris- 
 som, and the description of his accomplice served 
 very well for Anthony, and Mrs. Kurd threatened 
 to point out this resemblance to the sheriff unless 
 Sally paid her a large sum of money, and Sally did 
 so, and now she's been coming about here every few 
 days trying to extort more." 
 
 "Great Heavens!" said Witherspoon. "Great 
 Heavens, Lucy, is this really true?" 
 
 Lucy nodded. "And the worst of it is that Sally 
 believes him guilty, and told him so, and that is why 
 he went away." 
 
 "Indeed!" Witherspoon spoke curtly. "That 
 explains many things. Indeed !" 
 
 "And when I defended him it made her angry, 
 and when I agreed with her that things did look 
 yjry much against him it made her angrier still," 
 complained Lucy. 
 
 But for once in his life Witherspoon scarcely 
 heard her. He was pondering deeply. "I think, in 
 this case," he said at last, "that I shall act on my
 
 306 SALLY SALT 
 
 own initiative. Yes, I think I shall go to Sally at 
 once. It will be all right, Lucy. Do not worry. 
 There are some things I can set straight, I am sure. 
 You will not mind my leaving you, for I must see 
 her immediately." 
 
 "No; go, go!" Lucy gave him a little push. 
 "If it is in your power to make any of these crooked 
 things a little straighter, for goodness' sake make 
 haste to do it." 
 
 Witherspoon found Sally in her sitting-room, be- 
 fore her desk, but neither writing nor looking over 
 her papers. Instead, she sat with her elbows 
 propped on the open leaf, her chin sunk in her 
 hands, staring absently and unseeingly at the rows 
 of pigeonholes before her. She looked up quickly 
 as Witherspoon entered, and then dropped her eyes 
 and shielded the side of her face nearest the light 
 with her hand, as if to conceal from him all traces 
 of her recent emotion. 
 
 "Oh, good morning," she said. "Won't you sit 
 down ?" 
 
 "Mrs. Salt," said Witherspoon, standing beside 
 the desk and speaking without preamble, "I have
 
 LUCY TAKES COURAGE 307 
 
 just left Lucy, and she has told me of your recent 
 conversation " 
 
 "Naturally," Sally interrupted him, laughing, al- 
 though her laughter sounded a little forced. "I 
 was starting after her to comfort her and receive 
 her forgiveness a few moments ago, when Aunt 
 Mandy mentioned that she had seen you riding by. 
 Then I knew that Lucy had all the comfort she 
 needed." 
 
 Witherspoon waited until she had finished. "Lucy 
 has also told me of Mrs. Hurd's attempts to extort 
 money from you." He spoke as if he were merely 
 finishing his original sentence, and had not noticed 
 Sally's interruption. "In view of this fact, I am 
 going to act on my own initiative and without wait- 
 ing to consult my friend Streatham." 
 
 Sally's eyes were fastened upon him, holding him 
 with their intense question, but she did not speak. 
 
 "You have been paying out this money to Mrs. 
 Hurd quite unnecessarily." Witherspoon's voice 
 was cool, unimpassioned, as if merely stating a 
 business fact, and yet to Sally's ears it seemed in- 
 fused with a certain sternness.
 
 308 SALLY SALT 
 
 "What what do you mean?" She half rose, 
 her hands gripping the sides of the desk. 
 
 "You have been blaming Streatham unjustly." 
 He was implacable. 
 
 She shivered as if she had been struck. "Oh," it 
 was a deep-breathed interrogation, "do you mean 
 it ? Is it true ? And Anthony was not " 
 
 "Perfectly true." His words were crisp as a 
 flail. "It happens to be a brother of Streatham's 
 who is implicated in this matter a younger brother, 
 a wild scamp of a fellow, mad as a March hare. 
 Old Anthony is as tame as a cart horse in compari- 
 son. Just before he came here for the harvest 
 Anthony had succeeded in getting this boy out of 
 the country. The fellow is not utterly bad, just 
 wild and erratic. At least that is Tony's idea of 
 him," he added with a rather grim smile. "I admit 
 that it may be colored by affectionate prejudice." 
 
 Sally's pride was bowed in the dust; she covered 
 her face with her hands. "Oh, Tony, Tony! To 
 think that I have doubted you !" It was the cry of 
 her soul. "Lucy was right. It's my horrible way 
 of jumping at conclusions, of always being dead 
 sure I'm right. And I failed him when I should
 
 LUCY TAKES COURAGE 309 
 
 have trusted and believed. And then " she went 
 on, eager to confess, to show to the full her self- 
 abasement, "when Mrs. Hill told me a few days 
 ago that he had been right here all the time, in your 
 little cabin on the river road, I was furious, because 
 I had just half read his letter you had given me; and 
 instead of seeing it as a characteristic bit of his 
 queer humor a little fantastic it is sometimes, you 
 know, John why, I simply raged. I felt that it 
 insulted my intelligence. And since then I've been 
 trying to forgi/e him. Think of it! I fell so low 
 as that putting myself on a pedestal and trying to 
 realize that he was a poor, moralless creature, and 
 that it was my duty to forgive him. It's it's wor- 
 thy of Mrs. Hill or Anne. I've always known that 
 only vile-minded people had moral standards. He 
 hasn't any, thank God. He's far, far above them. 
 He's just kind and loving and tolerant. He would 
 never put on any one the indignity of forgiving 
 them. He'd never think that any one could or 
 would wrong him, or that anybody needed to be for- 
 given." 
 
 Sally's red head, carried so proudly in storm and 
 sunshine, was bowed now. She had bent it upon
 
 310 SALLY SALT 
 
 her arms outflung upon the desk; but again she 
 lifted her streaming blue eyes to Witherspoon's. 
 
 "Tell me," she besought him, "what I must do. 
 May I go to him, there in his little cottage, and tell 
 him how humbled, how ashamed I am?" 
 
 Witherspoon hesitated a moment. "Would it 
 not be best for me to carry a note from you ? You 
 do not want others to know of this matter, which 
 lies only between you two." 
 
 "Others? What do you mean?" she exclaimed 
 in a puzzled voice. 
 
 "The Kurds," he replied, after his laconic fashion. 
 
 "The Kurds!" She was calm, ominously calm, 
 in a moment, her voice ringing with a deep note of 
 inquiry. 
 
 "Yes, Hilda and her father. They had some 
 difficulty at home, and were wandering about with- 
 out any very definite idea of what they were going 
 to do, when Tony ran across them and took them 
 in." 
 
 There was silence for a moment or two. "How 
 long have they been there?" Her voice was low 
 and controlled. 
 
 "Two or three weeks, I believe."
 
 LUCY TAKES COURAGE 311 
 
 Again there was silence. Sally was recalling the 
 first evening when Streatham had told her that he 
 loved her, when, the world forgetting, they two had 
 stood gazing into each other's eyes, and then across 
 the meadows had come that far call of melody, 
 Hilda singing, and Anthony had forgotten her, 
 Sally, forgotten everything to listen. 
 
 "Shall I take him a note or a verbal message from 
 you?" asked Witherspoon, finally breaking the 
 silence. 
 
 Her hair had been drawn back meekly plain, but 
 now it seemed to crinkle and wave out from her 
 brow in red, rebellious tendrils; her eyes were like 
 blue steel played upon by a lambent flame; Wither- 
 spoon blinked under their momentary glance. 
 
 "Neither!" she cried, and, slamming up the leaf 
 of her desk, without excuse or apology flashed out 
 of the room.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 DAUGHTER OF DREAMS 
 
 IT was the twilight hour, the early dusk of a 
 winter afternoon. Without, desolate, dim and 
 cold enough, but within Streatham's cabin, warm 
 and cozy, the fire of logs illuminated the shadows 
 which gathered more densely in the corners of the 
 room. An hour for reflection, meditation, dreams. 
 Hilda had curled up in a chair before the hearth, 
 gazing at the leaping, intermittent flames, and 
 Streatham had, as it grew too dim to write, left his 
 manuscript on a table before the window and seated 
 himself at the piano, where he sat playing in a sort 
 of reverie, drifting inconsequently from one thing 
 to another. 
 
 Presently he asked, without turning about: 
 "Hilda, what are you thinking of ?" 
 
 "I'm seeing pictures," she answered. "I always 
 see such beautiful pictures when you play. Just 
 
 312
 
 DAUGHTER OF DREAMS 313 
 
 now there were lovely ones. At first everything 
 was dark, and then I saw a beautiful color like vio- 
 lets in the dusk, and then moonlight, pale, golden 
 moonlight on the water, and then you changed ; you 
 didn't play the music the river sings any more, nor 
 the music the wind sighs in the trees, but something 
 gayer. Then I could see the fairies, little blue and 
 white and pink and green fairies dancing." 
 
 "Ah, Hilda, what a daughter of dreams you are !" 
 He left the piano and, taking a chair opposite her, 
 rested his arm upon the table and leaned his cheek 
 upon his hand. The gleam of th'e firelight, instead 
 of softening the lines of his face, seemed to throw 
 into relief and to accentuate its haggard wanness. 
 All the illusion of soft shadow and ruddy glow could 
 not conceal the fact that his cheeks and temples had 
 hollowed almost startlingly, that his eyes were very 
 weary, and, in spite of the interest he was manifest- 
 ing now, there was a tired ring in his voice. 
 
 "Tell me," he continued, his gaze upon her, "what 
 you would rather do than anything else in the 
 world." 
 
 "What do I want more than anything in the 
 world?" she pondered. "Oh, more than anything
 
 314 SALLY SALT 
 
 else, I want to sing. There isn't anything else," she 
 said simply. 
 
 "Ah, the artist's desire for recognition!" he 
 mused. "You want to sing to great audiences, to 
 know that you 'are delighting thousands, to hear the 
 thunders of applause. Is that what intoxicates your 
 imagination?" 
 
 She twisted her fingers together and looked a little 
 unhappy. He who always understood had in some 
 way failed. "Not just that," she murmured. 
 "Ah," she sighed impatiently again, "it's so hard 
 to say things, to explain. I never could talk very 
 easily, but, Mr. Streatham, I can't help singing. 
 I'm only alive when I'm singing. It's this way: 
 When I'm not singing I'm just dull Hilda, very shy, 
 and afraid of everybody, and there's a kind of a 
 sadness and a jar. Oh, it's like discord, but when 
 I'm singing, that all melts away, that sadness, and 
 there's a wonderful sense of warmth and color. I'm 
 happy, there's nothing in all the world that I fear, 
 and a sense of power comes to me, as if it were 
 flowing through me. It's it's as if I were saying: 
 'Now I shall reach something.' I don't just throw 
 my voice into the empty air; I send it to some one
 
 DAUGHTER OF DREAMS 315 
 
 that I know is waiting and listening for it. Maybe 
 some one that I shall never see, but some one thou- 
 sands of miles away who is waiting for it. I say : 
 'Go, little song, and make some one who is sad 
 happy and glad.' That is when I feel bright and 
 merry. And sometimes I know I just know, Mr. 
 Streatham that the power in my voice, the little 
 wings that lift it higher and higher, goes to some 
 suffering person, a sick child, perhaps, and makes 
 them well again," 
 
 Anthony looked at her long and unobserved, for 
 she had spoken with her gaze upon the flames, and 
 still held it there. 
 
 "Oh, daughter of dreams," he muttered at last, so 
 low that she could not catch his words, "why were 
 you ever sent to tread the Via Crucis, I wonder ? 
 
 "Hilda," he said a few moments later, "you must 
 not think me impertinent if I talk to you about your- 
 self. I do not mean it so. It is only that I want to 
 help you, and I don't want to meddle. God forbid !" 
 He twitched his eyebrows and shoulders irritably. 
 
 "Impertinent?" she said wonderingly. "That's 
 funny. I don't believe you could be, Mr. Streat- 
 ham."
 
 316 SALLY SALT 
 
 Streatham had been filling his pipe in a lesiurely 
 fashion, and now he leaned forward and lighted it 
 with a splinter of wood which he thrust into the 
 flame. "It is very evident, Hilda," he remarked, 
 "that the earth is not your mother, and that you 
 have no very ardent yearnings for the 'life of fruit 
 and corn.' The stars and the mountain peaks for 
 you ; isn't it so ? You have a fine, aspiring taste for 
 the inaccessible." 
 
 He smoked and meditated for a season. "Hilda," 
 he said finally and with decision, "it's got to be done 
 some way or another." 
 
 "What?" she asked. 
 
 "This : You shall go to the city of romance with 
 your father several cities of romance, and you 
 shall have your voice cultivated. My knowledge of 
 life prevents me from rushing headlong into rash 
 prediction. I have met the unexpected just turning 
 the corner on too many different occasions; but, 
 nevertheless, I think it would take a string of adjec- 
 tives a yard long to describe your future. It will, I 
 am convinced, be a most adjectivey, future nice, 
 glittery, spangly adjectives. And you won't care a 
 rap about them.
 
 DAUGHTER OF DREAMS 317 
 
 "Think of it ! when there are so many who would 
 be drunk with delight at the thought of getting even 
 a tiny slice of such a future as yours. But there 
 you'll stand, right in the middle of your future, 
 Hilda, with the treasure of earth heaped about your 
 feet, and you'll be encrusted with cobwebby laces 
 and hung with jewels. And there you'll stand, 
 quite unconscious of them, with your wistful, 
 dreaming eyes fixed on the cold, cold stars, and the 
 snow-covered mountain peaks, so difficult and dis- 
 tant. And every one will want to shake you ex- 
 cept myself. 
 
 "But not I." As he sat gazing at her the under- 
 standing sympathy in his eyes deepened and changed 
 until at last it became a yearning spiritual hunger. 
 The fascination which her strange, mystical nature 
 had always exercised for him had never been more 
 potent. All the dreamer, the adventurer who longed 
 to explore untrodden paths and fare forth on an un- 
 known quest rose from some submerged depths of 
 his nature and claimed him. He heard again that 
 far, clear call of melody across the sunset fields and 
 the soul of him rose up to answer her. For a mo- 
 ment or through uncounted eons he seemed to be
 
 318 SALLY SALT 
 
 following her through worlds beyond worlds of 
 light and beauty. 
 
 And then a great log fell apart, scattering the em- 
 bers and sending up a shower of sparks, and he was 
 back again in the familiar world of every day. She 
 was merely quaint, childlike Hilda sitting opposite 
 to him on the hearth, and more than ever was he 
 conscious of the unassuaged longing of his tired 
 heart for his beloved, human Sally. 
 
 "No," he said taking up the conversation again, 
 "I will understand in a way and sympathize, but not 
 the rest. Believe me, they will want to shake you." 
 
 "Will they?" she laughed. 
 
 "Of course they will. Are they not all sensible 
 men and women, especially women? I wonder, 
 Hilda, why every one prides himself more on pos- 
 sessing common sense than on genius, or a great and 
 tender heart, or any of man's more pleasing attri- 
 butes. Common sense. Faugh ! It's the deadliest 
 of the seven deadly virtues. 
 
 "Tell me, Hilda," he said suddenly, "did you 
 did you ever really care for Grissom?" 
 
 Her delicate face flushed crimson. "I I 
 thought so once," she answered in a low voice, "but
 
 DAUGHTER OF DREAMS 319 
 
 when I learned about about the way he lived, I 
 couldn't care about him any more. I felt sorry for 
 him, but I couldn't love him." 
 
 Anthony nodded without speaking, but presently 
 he began again : 
 
 "Ah, Hilda, you are a wonderful listener. Silence 
 and a sympathetic understanding, what more could 
 one ask of a listener? And in this firelit, twilight 
 hour, I could give you the freedom of the city of my 
 mind and heart. And that is almost an impossibility 
 with me, child. Any sign of the interest that verges 
 on curiosity, and there is very little interest that does 
 not, and all the gates clang to on the instant and are 
 fast locked by a combination which even I do not 
 understand. Hilda, I will give my brother my cloak 
 also; if it amused me to let him smite one cheek, I 
 should probably offer him the other. I can even 
 fancy myself giving my body to be burned, but my 
 individuality is my own. Man or woman infringes 
 on that at his peril, I can not answer a personal ques- 
 tion ; it is not a case of will not, but can not. But, 
 listen to me now. I am sitting here talking like a 
 garrulous old woman. What is that ?" He roused 
 himself to listen.
 
 320 SALLY SALT 
 
 There was the sound of voices and footfalls with- 
 out. 
 
 . "It is father and Mr. Witherspoon," said Hilda, 
 and hastened to open the door. There was a trace 
 of excitement in Mr. Hurd's manner, but Wither- 
 spoon looked grave and a bit worried. Streatham 
 threw a fresh log on the fire. "You'll stay for sup- 
 per, Witherspoon," he said. "You've got to." 
 
 Witherspoon looked up to shake his head dissent- 
 ingly and then, apparently struck by something in 
 his friend's appearance, continued to regard him 
 steadily for a moment or so, the gravity of his ex- 
 pression deepening. 
 
 "What's the matter, Anthony?" he said in a low 
 voice. "You look anything but fit. Are your visit- 
 ors too much for you ? I rather feared they would 
 be. We must make some other arrangements at 
 once." 
 
 "No, oh no." Streatham passed his hand across 
 his brow. "It isn't that. Lord knows just what it 
 is. Winter coming on, I dare say. It's nothing 
 anyway. I'm all right, only I feel tired, deucedly 
 tired." 
 
 The two men had withdrawn a little from Hilda
 
 DAUGHTER OF DREAMS 321 
 
 and her father as they talked, and now Witherspoon 
 drummed moodily on the window-pane. 
 
 "I think it's a great deal more to the point to ask 
 what's the matter with you, Witherspoon?" said 
 Anthony with a short laugh, but eying the other 
 man keenly. "You certainly are wearing a rueful 
 countenance. What is the matter?" 
 
 "Lots of things." Witherspoon's tone was as 
 moody as his face. "The worst of them is, that that 
 scoundrel of a Grissom is back here again." 
 
 "Good Lord !" Anthony started back, his apathy 
 gone. "When? Where? How do you know ?" 
 
 "Saw him," said Witherspoon. "Hurd and I met 
 him up near my house. That's the magnet that's 
 drawn him, I imagine," indicating Hilda with a 
 backward jerk of the head. "I told him just what 
 he might expect. He's a yellow dog, of course, so 
 I think he will be off without delay. I hope so, be- 
 cause if Washburne gets an inkling of his being 
 here, why, the game's up, as far as Grissom is con- 
 'cerned." 
 
 ' 'A fool there was,' " murmured Streatham cyn- 
 ically. "Think of a captain of industry, or shall we 
 say, Chevalier d' Indus trie, like Grissom in hopeless
 
 322 SALLY SALT 
 
 thrall to a poor little homespun daughter of dreams 
 with her eyes fixed on the stars and the mountain 
 peaks." 
 
 "Tony ! Where are you galloping to now, on that 
 knock-kneed old Pegasus of yours?" Witherspoon 
 was half laughing, half impatient. 
 
 "I'm back to earth again. My Pegasus can't stay 
 up long ; he gets blind staggers in the air and tumbles 
 down very soon. But truly, John, I hope you im- 
 pressed on Grissom the imperative and immediate 
 necessity of clearing out." 
 
 "I tried to," replied Witherspoon, "but Mr. Kurd 
 and himself had some conversation together. It 
 might be a good plan to find out just what it per- 
 tained to." 
 
 "I know without asking," Anthony twisted his 
 mouth humorously. "It dealt with the unexplored 
 countries within the boundaries of the fourth di- 
 mension, and kindred topics, all of immense interest 
 to Grissom." 
 
 "No doubt," laughed Witherspoon. "Good 
 Heavens! It's as dark as pitch; I must be off." 
 
 "I'll accompany you through the woods to keep
 
 DAUGHTER OF DREAMS 323 
 
 the bears away," said Streatham, catching up his 
 cap and coat. 
 
 Hilda had evidently been repressing some emo- 
 tion as long as Streatham and Witherspoon were 
 in the room, but now she turned and caught her 
 father by the coat 
 
 "But you didn't tell him that I was here?" 
 
 Her father laid his hand upon her hair. "There 
 is no occasion for agitation, Hilda," he said rather 
 rebukingly. "What else was there to do? He asked 
 about you and asked where we were, if if not at 
 our former home, and I explained that we were 
 stopping here a few days before continuing our 
 journey." 
 
 Hilda turned from him and buried her face in 
 her hands. "Oh, what, what have you done?" she 
 murmured helplessly.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE HUNT FOR GRISSOM 
 
 IT was the next afternoon after the conversation 
 with Witherspoon before any of the members of 
 her household saw Sally again. Lucy, especially, 
 had felt some anxiety when her friend failed to 
 make her usual early morning appearance, and had 
 sent Wilmerdine to make some inquiries ; but in re- 
 sponse to her knock Sally had informed her that she 
 was to carry word to Mrs. Parrish that Mrs. Salt 
 was quite well, but did not wish to be disturbed on 
 any account. With that word, Lucy was forced to 
 content herself. 
 
 At the mid-day dinner, however, Sally appeared, 
 looking much as usual. Whatever torm and stress 
 she had known, her superb health was proof against 
 any very noticeable ravages, and cold water is a 
 wonderful factor in obliterating any traces of a 
 sleepless night. 
 
 324
 
 THE HUNT FOR GRISSOM 325 
 
 After dinner they sat about the fire which burned 
 cheerily in Sally's sitting-room. The day was 
 bright but chilly, and Sally felt a languid disinclina- 
 tion to move about. Mrs. Nesbit sat monotonously 
 clicking her knitting needles; Lucy read. The 
 warmth, the soothing atmosphere, all induced a 
 drowsiness in Sally. She settled her red head com- 
 fortably against the back of her chair and closed 
 her eyes only to open them again with a start. Lucy 
 had jumped to her feet and run to the window, and 
 Mrs. Nesbit had ceased to knit and begun to tremble. 
 
 "Dear me!" cried Sally, "what a clatter of hoofs! 
 And what does it mean? And all those shouts!" 
 
 "A lot of men and boys rushing by," said Lucy 
 from her post at the window. "What can it mean?" 
 
 "I hope it isn't an earthquake," said Mrs. Nesbit 
 fervently. 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed Lucy, "now we shall know. 
 Here is Mrs. Hill just coming through the gate." 
 
 Mrs. Hill was, indeed, making such haste as her 
 bulk permitted. Her skirts were caught up firmly 
 on either side, her bonnet was canted in close prox- 
 imity to one ear, and her face was scarlet from her 
 exertions, for had she not abandoned her usual
 
 326 SALLY SALT 
 
 slow and stately progress in the endeavor to be the 
 first to bear the tidings of some unusual occurrence ? 
 
 For the first time, in all probability, she found 
 herself welcomed by Lucy and Sally. Lucy, in 
 fact, ran and opened the door in her eagerness to 
 admit her. 
 
 "What is it, Mrs. Hill?" she cried. "I am sure 
 you must know." 
 
 But the visitor was, for the moment, past speech. 
 She could only puff and pant and gasp, but after 
 comfortably ensconcing herself in an easy chair, 
 and untying her bonnet strings and casting them 
 over her shoulders with her habitual gesture, she 
 found voice. 
 
 "There's something awful going on," she an- 
 nounced to her waiting auditors, who leaned for- 
 ward, their eyes fixed on her face, "and I just can't 
 find out what I don't know what it can possibly 
 be, but the road's full of men and boys on foot and 
 horseback, and Jake Washburne's just careering 
 around." 
 
 "But couldn't you hear what it was?" pouted 
 Lucy. "I didn't know anything ever escaped you, 
 Mrs. Hill."
 
 THE HUNT FOR GRISSOM 327 
 
 "Few things do," responded that lady signifi- 
 cantly, "but," and her mien was somewhat crest- 
 fallen, "I couldn't get any satisfaction out of those 
 crazy men. I even caught one or two of them as 
 they passed me, but they only mumbled something 
 and jerked themselves away." 
 
 "I've got to find out what it is," said Sally, roused 
 to interest. "Wilmerdine," to that maiden, who 
 had just entered to put another log on the fire, "go 
 and tell some one at the stables to saddle Berta for 
 me." The light had returned to her eyes, the color 
 to her cheeks, at the anticipation of action. "Think 
 of it, Mrs. Hill! I shall have the news before you 
 will. But cheer up. It will be the first time on rec- 
 ord. " 
 
 "Oh, but Sally," remonstrated Lucy, "you 
 haven't an idea what it is. There may be danger. 
 Anyway, you know how nervous Berta is ; and she's 
 so fresh. You haven't had her out for several 
 days. Do let us wait patiently. What is the use 
 of rushing about?" 
 
 "Bah!" returned Sally, her eyes sparkling, "sit 
 here in the house when there's something going on, 
 something to do, perhaps?
 
 328 SALLY SALT 
 
 " 'A short life in the saddle, Lord, 
 Not a long life by the fire.' 
 
 Anything is better than that. Well, Wilmerdine ?" 
 
 "There ain't a man on the place, Miss Sally, not 
 even a stable-boy." Wilmerdine's eyes were rolling 
 with the importance of her message. 
 
 "Humph! It is time I was stirring." Sally 
 lifted her eyebrows. "I'll just saddle Berta my- 
 self." 
 
 It was the work of a few moments to buckle a 
 saddle on Berta and then swing herself into it. As 
 she turned out into the road she saw that it was 
 almost deserted. This fact in itself surprised her. 
 Her first idea was that there was a fire on one of 
 the farms about her, but, scan the horizon as she 
 would in every direction, she saw no traces of 
 smoke. As she drew near the Hurd cottage she 
 discerned the tall, dark figure of Mrs. Hurd stand- 
 ing at the gate, the inevitable Trip beside her. Her 
 hand shielded her eyes as she looked up and down 
 the road. Her glance, her whole figure expressed 
 a sort of tense and dreadful expectation. 
 
 "What's going on?" said Sally curtly, reining in
 
 THE HUNT FOR GRISSOM 329 
 
 Berta, who pranced and pirouetted like a ballet 
 dancer. 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Salt!" Mrs. Kurd's eyes might be 
 avid, almost burning, her whole figure might be 
 tense, but her voice was as suavely calm as ever. 
 "I'm afraid there's going to be some trouble," she 
 said, shaking her head. 
 
 "You mean you're afraid there's not going to 
 be some trouble," commented Sally to herself 
 shrewdly. 
 
 "You see," continued Mrs. Hurd, "Grissom's 
 been here again, and Jake Washburne's out for 
 him. Oh, he can't get away this time." 
 
 "Here!" cried Sally unbelievingly. "Here? 
 Why on earth has he come back ?" 
 
 "I don't know," replied Mrs. Hurd, meekly lick- 
 ing her lips in a kind of awful joy. 
 
 "Which way did they go?" asked Sally sharply. 
 "Oh, I see," as two or three horsemen turned into 
 the road ahead of her at full gallop. 
 
 Without a further word or glance at Mrs. Hurd, 
 she was off again like a shot. As Lucy had timidly 
 stated, Berta was fresh, and Sally turned toward 
 the hills, riding like the wind in pursuit of the
 
 330 SALLY SALT 
 
 sheriff. Occasionally she drew up a moment to get 
 what information she could, in the main from 
 women standing at their gates, as to the direction he 
 had taken, and then, with a word to Berta, she was 
 away again. 
 
 And Sally rode with a high heart. She and 
 Berta were one in the delirious joy of wild and 
 rapid movement in that mad race against time. As 
 Berta spurned the commonplace earth with her 
 dainty, flying, careless hoofs, striking sparks when 
 she deigned to touch it, Sally, exultant, felt herself 
 lifted above the dust of the world. Did she not see 
 fields and woods and hamlets flow past her? The 
 earth ran like a river, and she and Berta cut the 
 wind like an arrow. Regret, sorrow, heartache 
 were all forgotten. Everything was forgotten. She 
 felt as a bird, knowing only the rapture of flight. 
 The blue sky above her, the yellow road before her, 
 and she poised between them, free, unlimited, cleav- 
 ing the wind, and a part of it a thing of the air, 
 bodyless, unfettered. 
 
 "Berta! Berta!!" she cried. "We could give 
 them a day's start on their old plow horses and beat
 
 THE HUNT FOR GRISSOM 331 
 
 them to the goal. What show have they against 
 your little quicksilver hoofs, you thoroughbred?" 
 
 And now they had reached the hills, and Berta 
 began to slow down and pick her way with a saga- 
 cious and dainty precision. The roads were rough, 
 often mere wagon trails, and full of ruts. At last, 
 at the entrance of a deep gully, the mare stopped 
 and, lifting her delicate head, appeared to listen. 
 Sally, too, bent her ear and also listened intently. 
 It seemed to her that she heard a shout or two just 
 beyond the hills which rose steeply from one side of 
 them. And then her attention was arrested by a 
 much nearer sound. She turned her eyes quickly 
 in the direction from whence it came. There was a 
 rustling in the bushes, the sound of broken branches, 
 and Grissom stumbled out, his clothes torn, his hat 
 gone, his face a dull, sickly yellow from terror. 
 
 "Mrs. Salt !" he gasped, staggering down the road 
 toward her. "Mrs. Salt, you're a kind woman. 
 Oh, for God's sake, save me! There's a mob of, 
 them. You know what a mob is. They'll lynch 
 me, sure!" 
 
 Sally was on the ground in a minuteT "They
 
 332 SALLY SALT 
 
 will if they can get you, but not while I'm here," 
 she cried. "Up with you. Berta will carry you 
 like a bird. Let me think a second," as he scram- 
 bled into the saddle. "Where are they? Right 
 over there ?" She pointed toward the hill. 
 
 "Yes, a mob of them. My God !" He was shak- 
 ing like a jelly. 
 
 "Ride through this gully," speaking with her 
 usual authoritative decision, "until you see a road 
 leading to the left. Then follow it. It will take 
 you to the village of Wheaton. There tell the sta- 
 tion agent that you have been working on Mrs. 
 Salt's farm and that she sent you to catch the train. 
 You are going to town on a special errand for her. 
 Leave the mare with him and tell him that I will 
 send for her this evening. Berta is all right, but 
 don't pull too hard on her mouth. Now be off." 
 
 Bending low in the saddle, and with some half- 
 choked thanks murmured through his chattering 
 teeth, he was gone. Sally watched him until he 
 was out of sight, and then again listened a moment 
 to catch the direction whence came the shouting and 
 noise. It seemed to be all concentrated in one 
 locality instead of intermittent and scattering, as it
 
 THE HUNT FOR GRISSOM 333 
 
 had been previously. She hurried up the ascent, 
 and as she reached the top she saw that the long 
 downward slope was crowded with men and boys, 
 standing as if they had suddenly been arrested in 
 their upward rush and were awed and overcome by 
 some unexpected occurrence. In the center of this 
 wide human circle, and where the hillside fell into 
 a little cup, Sally saw a man lying, while Wash- 
 burne and one or two of his deputies bent above 
 him. On the mad, unthinking onrush of passion a 
 halt had been called. A hush had fallen. The 
 progress of the mob, irresistible, uncalculating, in- 
 stinctive, had been stayed by a power they could not 
 comprehend. The men and boys on the outskirts 
 of the circle were retreating, literally melting away 
 with white, scared faces, impressed with some in- 
 definable sense of disaster. 
 
 Sally stood for a moment on the crest of the hill 
 above them. The low afternoon sun shone like a 
 great, transparent red globe through the black 
 branches of the leafless trees. In that still strong 
 but cold light the faces of the men assumed a cer- 
 tain ghastly and unreal pallor, and their figures 
 seemed to stand out as if silhouetted against the sad,
 
 334 SALLY SALT 
 
 austere hills. It was but a second that Sally gazed 
 down upon them, and then she flew down the slope. 
 Her hair had become loosened during her ride, and 
 had slipped half-way down her back. 
 
 "What are you doing here, Sally Salt?" called 
 one old man. 
 
 Sally stopped a little above them on the hillside. 
 
 "Not what you are, Rufe Eaton/' she called back. 
 Then, as she looked over the group, her face sud- 
 denly went a deadly white, her eyes shot sparks of 
 fire. 
 
 "Out for a man-hunt, aren't you, all of you? 
 Oh, it's fine sport, big game, isn't it?" High and 
 clear rang her stinging tones. 
 
 "We're out in the cause of justice, Sally Salt," 
 called back the man. "We're helping the sheriff, 
 and pertecting our homes from criminals." 
 
 "A lot you care about the crime !" scoffed Sally. 
 "There's mighty few of you here that wouldn't be 
 guilty of as bad or worse if you only had the chance 
 and the brains. I know you all, every man of you. 
 You want the excitement of a man-hunt. That's all 
 a mob ever does want. You want to go crazy with 
 brutal passion, be drunk with it, and then justify
 
 THE HUNT FOR GRISSOM 335 
 
 yourselves with the plea of righteous indignation. 
 Ugh ! You make me so tired, and I'll bet you make 
 God tired!" 
 
 "Why don't you mind your own business, Sally 
 Salt?" 
 
 "It isn't enough for me," she bantered sweetly, 
 "so I'm kind enough to manage yours, too." 
 
 "I'd like to see you prevent the cause of justice," 
 called another man from the center of the group. 
 "We're out for Grissom, the thief, and we're going 
 to get him, and what's more, we're going to string 
 him up to the nearest tree. And if you don't keep 
 out of this you may get yourself jostled some." 
 
 As he finished there rose a murmur from the 
 crowd, low, swelling in volume, ominous, implac- 
 able, and the mass heaved heavily forward as one 
 man. 
 
 "And I'd like to see you try, Jack Wade !" called 
 back Sally undaunted. "Just go ahead and do it, 
 and to-morrow I'll be after the lot of you like a 
 whirlwind. I'll foreclose the mortgages I hold on 
 your patches of ground. I'll see that you pay back 
 the money most of you owe me, or I'll attach every- 
 thing you've got to attach. When I get through
 
 336 SALLY SALT 
 
 with you all, you'll look like the years the locusts 
 have eaten." 
 
 Man gazed at man, the pale glance of consterna- 
 tion. Their fingers curved. How gladly they 
 would have choked this Sally Salt, standing there, 
 arrogant, red-headed, damnably successful, shame- 
 lessly, wantonly dangling their common family 
 skeleton before their eyes. There was no gainsay- 
 ing her threat. Each man read its verity in the 
 other's averted gaze. She could put most of them 
 out in the roadside if she were so minded. But 
 would she? Gazing up at her where she stood 
 poised like some splendid avenging Victory, each 
 man realized with a sinking sensation that she prob- 
 ably would. 
 
 "Now, don't give me any back talk. Go home, 
 all of you!" She waved them back with hot, im- 
 perious impatience, and with growls, imprecations, 
 muttered threats, assertions of independence, they 
 dispersed, moving in moody groups in the direction 
 which led to their various homes. 
 
 Then Sally hastened down the hill to the sheriff, 
 who still bent his ear against the prone man's heart. 
 She cast but one glance at this old man., who lay
 
 THE HUNT FOR GRISSOM 337 
 
 with ghastly face and closed eyes, and then dropped 
 on her knees beside him. "Oh," she breathed across 
 him, "it is Mr. Hurd ! What does this mean ?" 
 
 "It means," said Washburne, with a hoarse effort 
 to speak calmly, "that for some crazy reason the 
 old man put on Grissom's coat and hat and led us a 
 chase. Threw us clear off the track. I wouldn't 
 have thought he was that smart." 
 
 "But what is it?" faltered Sally. "Why is he 
 lying here ?" 
 
 "Shot," said Washburne. "I'm afraid he's done 
 for. I did it," in a dry whisper. He tore up a 
 handful of grass and threw it from him. "Hilda 
 will never " His voice broke. 
 
 "Has any one gone for a doctor?" 
 
 "I sent one of my men," Washburne replied. 
 "There's nothing to do till he comes. You won't 
 need me, and, by God, I can't stay here to see him 
 die." He flung himself into the trees. 
 
 There was silence for a time, and then the old 
 man lifted his wonderful, luminous eyes to hers. 
 He began to speak ; his voice was a little stronger. 
 
 "I don't have to travel to find out what lies be- 
 yond the hills. I know now, at last." His glance
 
 338 SALLY SALT 
 
 held some radiant realization; his voice, feeble, 
 gasping, failing, sang a paean of triumph. 
 
 "When I found they were after Grissom, I 
 wanted to help him. I had to help him, for I had 
 fold him where Hilda was. I didn't care for Gris- 
 som I never thought much about him, but when 
 he was in danger, when it came to me that I could 
 save him, why, everything was changed. In giving 
 all I had, I found everything. It was as if I had 
 touched a spring and a door opened into the world 
 that I had only seen in glimpses. It was like going 
 from shadow into sunlight. And I knew at last 
 what lay beyond the hills. Sally Salt," his voice 
 was weaker, but his eyes gazed past her into those 
 worlds whose shining portals opened so easily at the 
 sesame "sacrifice," "what lies beyond the hills is 
 love love, that lies above and about and beyond 
 everything. That is all there is." 
 
 And, having preached his gospel to the only liv- 
 ing creature near him, and given as freely as he had 
 received, albeit painfully and with effort, the old 
 seeker presently set forth on his farther quest.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 ANTHONY COMES HOME 
 
 LUCY and John Witherspoon walked, as had been 
 their wont for many months, up and down the 
 garden paths. The paths, as well as the flower 
 beds, were covered with snow, the sky was dull and 
 leaden, and an east wind blew piercingly and sang 
 an eery and desolate song through the shrubbery. 
 
 Witherspoon looked down a bit anxiously at 
 Lucy. She was so muffled in furs that only the tip 
 of her nose and her eyes were visible ; nevertheless, 
 the wind was incredibly penetrating. "Sure you're 
 not cold ?" he asked for perhaps the twentieth time. 
 
 "Sure, sure, sure," she insisted merrily, "and 
 even if I were I would prefer it to the warm fire- 
 s : de, for Mrs. Nesbit is sitting on one side of the 
 hearth and Mrs. Hill on the other, and they are 
 having an undisturbed feast of little cakes and 
 coffee, and gossip is flowing like wine. They were 
 
 339
 
 340 SALLY SALT 
 
 talking symptoms and scandal when I left, and by 
 this time they have probably buried every man of 
 us. Oh, John," she shivered and slipped her hand 
 through his arm, "I simply can not listen to them 
 when Anthony is lying so ill. Is he any better this 
 afternoon?" 
 
 "I'm afraid not," said Witherspoon gravely. 
 
 "So many unhappy things have happened since 
 last summer," said Lucy in a mournful little voice 
 that sounded as if tears were very near the surface. 
 
 "And not the least of them, to me," Witherspoon 
 looked down at her with a tender, half-sorry smile, 
 "is that you've abandoned our little romance, thrown 
 it aside as you used to throw your dolls away as 
 soon as you had licked the paint off their cheeks 
 and jerked off their wigs and punched them with the 
 scissors to see if they were stuffed with sawdust." 
 
 "You always laughed at me then," interpolated 
 Lucy. 
 
 "But you see I do not laugh now. You see, it is 
 my doll, my most cherished doll, in this instance." 
 
 "But John," Lucy's pretty eyes were rather round 
 and shocked, "it would have been heartless for us 
 to have kept on playing when there has been this
 
 ANTHONY COMES HOME 341 
 
 sorrow old Mr. Kurd's tragic death, Anthony's 
 illness, and Sally's grief." 
 
 "So it has been only play, a pastime to you?" 
 and, half-laughing as his voice was, it was still half- 
 sorry. 
 
 There was no answer, but in the little line of 
 cheek that showed just above her nose and below 
 her eyes there was a stain of crimson. "You 
 you " she was obviously embarrassed, "the last 
 time we played " she checked herself with a quick 
 look at him, "the last time we were in the ro- 
 mance " She paused and wrinkled her brow in 
 the frantic effort to remember; then illumination 
 came, a lightning-flash, and she buried her nose in 
 her muff. 
 
 "Yes, the last time," Witherspoon had the air of 
 kindly refreshing her memory, "I was pleading for 
 a kiss, and you pretended to be terribly shocked, and 
 ran up-stairs, and just as I was feeling enormously 
 depressed, you put your head out of the window 
 and mocked me. You said : 
 
 40 
 
 " 'Fain would I climb but that I fear to fall ; 
 If thy heart fail thee, do not climb at all.' "
 
 342 SALLY SALT 
 
 "Yes, and you called back that not to climb would 
 be an admission of heart-failure, and you began to 
 climb up the porch, and Mrs. Hill came in the gate 
 and saw you." 
 
 "My grandmother taught me to knit when I was 
 a boy," said Witherspoon with apparent irrelevance, 
 "and I know that you must always take up a 
 dropped stitch." 
 
 Before Lucy grasped the import of his words, he 
 stooped and gently kissed the visible rim of cheek 
 just below the eye. 
 
 A blast more bitter and piercing than all the icy 
 winds of that chilling afternoon blew from the 
 sullen skies, but neither Lucy nor Witherspoon 
 knew it. She only pressed her cheek more deeply 
 into his shoulder, and he 'kissed her eyes this time. 
 
 "Why, John," Lucy lifted her head and gazed 
 about her wonderingly, "how much more beautiful 
 the garden looks now than it did in summer. Then 
 it was full of lilies and roses and butterflies, and 
 commonplace things, and now, look at the beautiful, 
 smooth, white snow, and the lovely bare, black 
 shrubbery." She gazed about her with eyes that 
 proclaimed her the discoverer of a new world.
 
 ANTHONY COMES HOME 343 
 
 "And look at the sky, Lucy." Witherspoon's 
 voice exceeded hers in sincerity and enthusiasm. "I 
 never saw such an exquisite gray. And what de- 
 licious air!" 
 
 "Ah, yes." Lucy's tone was one of complete 
 satisfaction with the existing order. "The winter 
 world is the real world of romance. And, dear 
 John, how much better the real is than the play 
 romance !" 
 
 "And wasn't the play romance the least bit real 
 to you?" asked Witherspoon. "It was all real to 
 me." 
 
 "Certainly it was real," said Lucy promptly, "only 
 
 i 
 this is realer." 
 
 Streatham was indeed very ill. It had been de- 
 cided that it were better not to attempt to move him 
 from the cabin, so he lay there, surrounded by every 
 comfort which Sally could devise, and she and 
 Hilda nursed him. 
 
 Sally had naturally assumed charge of every- 
 thing. She would inevitably have done so under 
 any circumstances, but in this case it was necessary. 
 There was no other alternative. Hilda endeavored
 
 344 SALLY SALT 
 
 to help her, to assist her in every possible way. She 
 was so anxious to do just as she was told, so obedi- 
 ent and tractable, and so conspicuously, even bril- 
 liantly inefficient, that Sally's small endowment of 
 patience was almost spent. More and more fre- 
 quently she suggested to Hilda that it were the part 
 of wisdom for her to rest and husband her strength. 
 More and more she relied upon the deft and skilful 
 and silent Wilmerdine for assistance; and Hilda, 
 quite speechless for the most part, with wistful, 
 appealing eyes, would, upon finding this or that 
 little duty delegated to Wilmerdine, attempt some 
 new task and prove more obviously than ever her 
 almost pathetic ineptitude. 
 
 Sally had grown so used to seeing her creep about, 
 silent, humble, almost apathetic, that one morning, 
 when Hilda beckoned her from the sick chamber, 
 she was so surprised at this evidence of initiative 
 that she merely motioned Wilmerdine to take her 
 place by Anthony's bedside and followed Hilda into 
 the little kitchen. There she looked about her, ex- 
 pecting to see some sign of disaster and to hear a 
 confession of Hilda's latest blunder. But, thanks 
 to Wilmerdine, everything was in spotless order; 
 the room was warm and bright, a good fire burned,
 
 ANTHONY COMES HOME 345 
 
 for it was very cold without, and the tea-kettle hissed 
 pleasantly upon the stove. 
 
 Sally looked at Hilda with some surprise, and 
 then looked again; for there was in her bearing a 
 subtle but undoubted change. Ever since her 
 father's death and the beginning of Anthony's ill- 
 ness she had conveyed the impression of some sad 
 and drooping flower. Everything about her had 
 drooped head, eyelids, mouth, shoulders; but now 
 her shoulders were straight, her head uplifted. It 
 was as if she had been refreshed by some revivify- 
 ing and potent ichor. She looked at Sally, and in 
 that glance was something so remote and yes, 
 authoritative, that a queer little chill ran down over 
 her listener. 
 
 "I've been all wrong, Mrs. Salt," said the girl 
 simply and directly. "I haven't been doing right, 
 and I know it now. I woke up early this morning, 
 long before it was light, and it came to me all at 
 once ; I don't know how, but it was all clear to me. 
 I ve been trying to help him get well, trying to help 
 you nurse him, trying to do everything in your way. 
 And you see how useless I've been. I've just broken 
 and spoiled everything I touched. That is because 
 I wasn't trying to help in my own way. You can
 
 346 SALLY SALT 
 
 do all these things that I can't because it's your way. 
 You can make him comfortable and give him the 
 nursing he needs, and I can not. But," and there 
 came a radiance to her face, a light in her eyes, "I 
 can do something for him that you can't do." 
 
 The sincerity of her tone, the joy in her face, 
 precluded doubt. Sally leaned forward and clasped 
 her hands. "Oh, Hilda, what?" she besought. 
 "His fever is higher; he is certainly worse. What 
 can you do?" 
 
 "I can sing," said Hilda with a solemn fervor. 
 "Oh, why haven't I thought of it before! Why? 
 Because I was trying to be some one else, and I'm 
 only Hilda, who can do just one thing." 
 
 "Oh." There was a blank and bitter disappoint- 
 ment in Sally's voice. Her hands fell at her side. 
 "Oh, yes, you might soothe him, if he were able to 
 bear it." 
 
 Hilda shook her head and smiled a faint, high 
 smile of undaunted assurance. "You don't under- 
 stand," she began. 
 
 Wilmerdine appeared noiselessly in the doorway. 
 "I guess you better come in to Mr. Anthony, Miss 
 Sally; he's getting awful restless." 
 
 Sally breathed a conscience-stricken exclamation,
 
 ANTHONY COMES HOME 347 
 
 and would have hastened in to Anthony's chamber, 
 but Hilda was before her. "I will go," she said. 
 ''Please wait here." She closed the door between 
 them. 
 
 Sally stood irresolute, striving to comprehend 
 this new Hilda and understand her strange attitude. 
 And while she hesitated she became aware of a 
 silence which seemed to have fallen over the house, 
 a silence which yet seemed to hold the beat of 
 mighty wings. Then there rose the sound of 
 Hilda's singing, low, pure, as if it flowed from some 
 infinite ocean of peace, tideless, serene, deep upon 
 deeps of calm ; and then, from the heart of that un- 
 fathomable and boundless peace, there rose and 
 swelled a new note, a high command of life. It 
 was like chimes of silver bells, ringing, swinging 
 from some cloud-built tower of Heaven. Free 
 from all stain of earth, unscorched by any knowl- 
 edge of grief or sin, Hilda's voice on wings of joy 
 floated upward through all light and touched the 
 mountain peaks and stars. 
 
 And Sally listened, awed, believing. All about 
 her, through the cabin, she still felt the beat of 
 wings. Ah, this was no place for her, who had de- 
 manded pi oof before she would believe and forgive.
 
 348 SALLY SALT 
 
 Let her take herself and her doubts away. What 
 place had she among cherubim and seraphim ? How 
 could she bring her gift to the altar, who had only 
 forgiven when the certainty of Anthony's innocence 
 had been forced upon her? 
 
 Throwing a heavy cloak about her, she stole from 
 the house and into the forest. The snow covered 
 the ground. The trees, bare, bereft of their leaves, 
 stretched away in every direction, brown at hand, 
 mere purple shadows in the distance. The instinct 
 to be near Anthony prevented her from wandering 
 far away from the cabin, so, folding her cloak 
 more closely about her, she sat down upon a fallen 
 log. 
 
 The awe lingered with her, and the mighty wings 
 still seemed to encompass her. She looked up at 
 the smooth, bare branches above her head. If 
 Hilda had sung out there as she had sung yonder 
 to Anthony, would not those could not those naked 
 boughs have burst into bud and blossom at that call 
 of life? Would not the Spring have smiled where 
 Winter frowned so austerely? Almost she be- 
 lieved it. 
 
 How long she sat there she did not know, but at
 
 ANTHONY COMES HOME 349 
 
 last she heard her name, and looked up to see Hilda 
 running toward her. 
 
 "His fever is gone. He has slept a long time, and 
 now he is conscious and asking for you," panted 
 the girl, her face radiant. 
 
 Together they hastened to the cabin; but it was 
 Sally alone who entered Streatham's chamber. 
 
 "Sally," he murmured, his eyes seeking hers. 
 
 She dropped beside the bed and, lifting his hand, 
 laid her cheek against it; her eyes were wet with 
 tears. 
 
 "I'm back from a far country, Sally," with his 
 old whimsical twisted smile. 
 
 "You shall always go here, there, everywhere you 
 please!" she cried, throwing her arms about him. 
 "I'm tired of trying to boss people." 
 
 "Sure of it, S Sally?" How his eyes laughed! 
 "But don't send me away soon. Let me stay with 
 you here a long time. I've been so tired, Sally," he 
 nestled his head more deeply in the hollow of her 
 arm, "and you're so maternal." 
 
 THE END
 
 A 000110706 9