Westerfelt Part 1

Westerfelt.

by Will N. Harben.

Chapter I

They had had a quilting at the house of the two sisters that day. Six or seven women of the neighborhood, of middle age or older, had been in to sew on the glaring, varicolored square. All day long they had thrust their needles up and down and gossiped in their slow, insinuating way, pausing only at noon to move their chairs to the dinner-table, where they sat with the same set curves to their backs.

The sun had gone down behind the mountain and the workers had departed, some traversing the fields and others disappearing by invisible paths in the near-by wood. The two sisters had taken the finished quilt from its wooden frame, and were carefully ironing out the wrinkles preparatory to adding it to the useless stack of its kind in the corner of the room.

"I believe, as I'm alive, that it's the purtiest one yet," remarked Mrs. Slogan. "Leastwise, I hain't seed narry one to beat it. Folks talks mightily about Mis' Lithic.u.m's last one, but I never did have any use fer yaller buff, spliced in with indigo an' deep red. I wisht they was goin' to have the Fair this year; ef I didn't send this un I'm a liar."

Mrs. Slogan was a childless married woman of past sixty. Her sister, Mrs. Dawson, had the softer face of the two, which, perhaps, was due to her having suffered much and to the companionship of a daughter whom she loved. She was shorter than her sister by several inches, and had a small, wrinkled face, thin, gray hair, and a decided stoop. Some people said she had acquired the stoop in bending so constantly over her husband's bed during his last protracted illness. Others affirmed that her sister was slowly nagging the life out of her, and simply because she had been blessed with that which had been denied her--a daughter. Be this as it may, everybody who knew Mrs. Slogan knew that she never lost an opportunity to find fault with the girl, who was considered quite pretty and had really a gentle, lovable disposition.

"Whar's Sally?" asked Mrs. Slogan, when she had laid the quilt away.

"I don't know whar she is," answered Mrs. Dawson. "I reckon she'll be in directly."

"I'll be bound you don't know whar she is," retorted the other, with asperity; "you never keep a eye on 'er. Ef you'd a-watched 'er better an' kept 'er more at home thar never would 'a' been the talk that's now goin' about an' makin' you an' her the laughin'-stock of the settlement. I told you all along that John Westerfelt never had marryin' in the back o' his head, an' only come to see her beca'se she was sech a fool about 'im."

"I seed 'er down the meadow branch just now," broke in her husband, who sat smoking his clay pipe on the door-step. "She was hard at it, pickin' flowers as usual. I swear I never seed the like. That gal certainly takes the rag off'n the bush. I believe she'd let 'possum an' taters git cold to pick a daisy. But what's the talk?" he ended, as he turned his head and looked at his wife, who really was the source of all his information.

"Why," replied Mrs. Slogan, with undisguised satisfaction in her tone, "Mis' Simpkins says Westerfelt is goin' with Ab Lithic.u.m's daughter Lizzie."

"Well," said Slogan, with a short, gurgling laugh, "what's wrong with that? A feller as well fixed as Westerfelt is ort to be allowed to look around a little, as folks say in town when they are a-tradin'.

Lord, sometimes I lie awake at night thinkin' what a good time I mought 'a' had an' what I mought 'a' run across ef I hadn't been in sech a blamed fool hurry! Lawsy me, I seed a deef an' dumb woman in town t'other day, and, for a wonder, she wasn't married, nur never had been!

I jest looked at that woman an' my mouth fairly watered."

"Yo're a born fool," snorted Mrs. Slogan.

"What's that got to do with John Wester--"

"Sh--" broke in Mrs. Dawson. "I heer Sally a-comin'."

"But I _want_ 'er to heer me," cried the woman appealed to, just as the subject of the conversation entered the room from the pa.s.sage which connected the two parts of the house. "It'll do 'er good, I hope, to know folks think she has made sech a goose of 'erse'f."

"What have I done now, Aunt Clarissa?" sighed the frail-looking girl, as she took off her sun-bonnet and stood in the centre of the room, holding a bunch of wild flowers and delicate maiden-hair fern leaves in her hand.

"Why, John Westerfelt has done you exactly as he has many a other gal,"

was the bolt the woman hurled. "He's settin' up to Lizzie Lithic.u.m like a house afire. I don't know but I'm glad of it, too, fer I've told you time an' time agin that he didn't care a hill o' beans fer no gal, but was out o' sight out o' mind with one as soon as another un struck his fancy."

Sally became deathly pale as she turned to the bed in one of the corners of the room and laid her flowers down. She was silent for several minutes. All the others were watching her. Even her mother seemed to have resigned her to the rude method of awakening which suited her sister's heartless mood. At first it looked as if Sally were going to ignore the thrust, but they soon discovered their mistake, for she suddenly turned upon them with a look on her rigid face they had never seen there before. It was as if youth had gone from it, leaving only its ashes.

"I don't believe one word of it," she said, firmly. "I don't believe it. I wouldn't believe it was anything but your mean meddling if you swore it."

"Did you ever!" gasped Mrs. Slogan; "after all the advice I've give the foolish girl!"

"Well, I reckon that's beca'se you don't want to believe it, Sally,"

said Slogan, without any intention of abetting his wife. "I don't want to take sides in yore disputes, but Westerfelt certainly is settin'

square up to Ab's daughter. I seed 'em takin' a ride in his new hug-me-tight buggy yesterday. She's been off to Cartersville, you know, an' has come back with dead loads o' finery. They say she's l'arned to play 'Dixie' on a pyanner an' reads a new novel every week.

Ab's awfully tickled about it. Down at the store t'other day, when Westerfelt rid by on his prancin' hoss, Clem Dill said: 'Ab, I reckon it won't be long 'fore you move over on yore son-in-law's big farm,'

an' Ab laughed so hard he let the tobacco juice run down on his shirt.

"'Liz 'll manage his case,' sez he. 'Westerfelt may fly around the whole caboodle of 'em, but when Liz gits 'er head set she cuts a wide swathe an' never strikes a snag ur stump, an' cleans out the fence-corners as smooth as a parlor floor.'"

Sally bent down over her uncle; her face was slowly hardening into conviction. When she spoke her voice had lost its ring of defiance and got its strength of utterance only from sheer despair.

"You saw them in his new buggy, Uncle Peter," she asked, "taking a ride--are you sure?"

Peter Slogan dropped his eyes; he seemed to realize the force of the blow he had helped to deal, and made no answer.

Mrs. Slogan laughed out triumphantly as she stooped to put her smoothing-iron down on the hearth.

"Ride together!" she exclaimed. "As ef that was all! Why, he's been goin' thar twice an' three times a week regular. Jest as he begun taperin' off with you he tapered on with her. I don't reckon you hardly remember when he come heer last, do you? Ab Lithic.u.m's as big a fool as yore mother was in not callin' a halt. Jest let a man have a little property, an' be a peg or two higher as to family connections, an' he kin ride dry-shod over a whole community. He's goin' thar to-night. Mis' Simpkins was at Lithic.u.m's when a n.i.g.g.e.r fetched the note. Lizzie was axin' 'er what to put on. She's got a sight o' duds.

They say it's jest old dresses that her cousins in town got tired o'

wearin', but they are ahead o' anything in the finery line out heer."

A look of wretched conviction stamped itself on the girl's delicate features. Slowly she turned to pick up her flowers, and went with them to the mantel-piece. There was an empty vase half filled with water, and into it she tried to place the stems, but they seemed hard to manage in her quivering fingers, and she finally took the flowers to her own room across the pa.s.sage. They heard the sagging door sc.r.a.pe the floor as she closed it after her.

"Now, I reckon you two are satisfied," said Mrs. Dawson, bitterly.

"Narry one of you hain't one bit o' feelin' ur pity."

Mrs. Slogan shrugged her shoulders, and Peter looked up regretfully, and then with downcast eyes continued to pull silently at his pipe.

"I jest did what I ort to 'a' done," said Mrs. Slogan. "She ort to know the truth, an' I tol' 'er."

"You could 'a' gone about it in a more human way," sighed Mrs. Dawson.

"The Lord knows the child's had enough to worry 'er, anyway. She's been troubled fer the last week about him not comin' like he used to, an' she'd a-knowed the truth soon enough."

An hour later supper was served, and though her aunt called to her that it was on the table, Sally Dawson did not appear, so the meal pa.s.sed in unusual silence. The Slogans ate with their habitual zest, but the little bent widow only munched a piece of bread and daintily sipped her cup of b.u.t.termilk.

Presently they heard the rasping sound of Sally's door as it was drawn open, and then they saw her go through the pa.s.sage and step down into the yard. Rising quickly, Mrs. Dawson went to the door and looked out.

She descried her daughter making her way hastily towards the gate.

"Sally!" cried out the old woman, her thin voice cracking on its too high key, "Sally, wait thar fer me! Stop, I say!"

The girl turned and waited for her mother to approach through the half-darkness, her face averted towards the road.

"Sally, whar have you started?"

The girl did not move as she answered:

"Nowhere, mother; I--"

The old woman put out her bony hand and laid it on the girl's arm.

"Sally, you are not a-tellin' me the truth. You are a-goin' to try to see John Westerfelt."

"Well, what if I am, mother?"