Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 12, 1927 — page 138: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

132 hang the imminence of disaster. They were as children cowering before storm clouds that had suddenly risen to blot out the sunshine. “‘You’d best tell your pa the whole story, just as it happened,” Jennie Mason said. As she spoke, Jimmie heard the same clanging that he had heard that day when he rode out of the valley. It seemed ironical. His father was exactly as he had left him; as cold as the very steel he struck, as ada- mant as the alkali of the valley, as unre- lenting as the winter wind. The clanging seemed to the lad a chorus of failure and suddenly he wanted more than anything else a reconciliation with his father! “ He won’t believe,” he said slowly; can’t think nothin’ good o’ me, ma!” “You better tell him, anyhow.” “ T will.” Jimmie rose from the table with the words and walked slowly to the door that looked out over the valley. Down by the yellow stream he saw his father again. How familiar the garments the man wore! How identical with his memory were the huge, stooped shoulders, the broad back, the gestures of the great hands as the man worked. Jimmie felt that the man was deliberately keeping his face turned away after the manner of one whose mind is made up to resistance, but who seeks ad- vantage in postponing the clash until his own good time. ‘The lad turned to his mother. “ll tell him the truth if he wants to listen,” he said steadily. “ I'll do that fer you an’ Betty. But I ain’t goin’ to try to make him listen—I ain’t goin’ to have him disbelievin’ what I say more’n once!” Jennie Mason walked toward him, rest- ed her lumpy, toil-twisted fingers on his arms. To Jimmie she seemed to have at- tained a greater stature than ever before. He sensed a strange power in her as she spoke. “ My little baby!” she crooned to him. “ Just my little baby—that’s all you are, Jimmie. Growed up a mite, bigger, strong- er, older—but my little baby jest the same! * he _ Every day you’re growin’ more an’ more like eS ss Z ” ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, bound to inactivity by unbreakable fetters, the sound of Mason’s footsteps came to them. The man was returning to the house. CHAPTER XXVIII. ALKALI . HEY stood together as he entered the door. Jennie Mason had again thrust herself between the two just as she had on that terrible occasion when Mason had struck her the blow intended for his son. It was a tableau of expectancy; a stilling of emotions that must rise instantly to meet whatever fate dictated. In the flashing instant of his first direct glance at his father, Jimmie saw that the man had changed but little. His beard was a trifle more shaggy and here and there silver ran through it attesting the encroach- ment of the years, Perhaps the shoulders were a trifle more stooped, the odor of earth a little more noticeable. The eyes of the man were still bright, still carried the steel-like glint he remembered and the jaw, dominant even through the whiskers that wreathed it, evidenced the same dogged obstinacy. It was clear to them all that Mason’s surprise at finding Jimmie there was feigned. Jimmie rather felt that whatever his father did would be deliberate, the result of careful planning as he had w orked down by the stream. Mason stood a moment in the door. Then, with the air of one who tolerates infinite persecution at the hands of the unworthy, he walked ponderously to the table and drew his heavy chair close. While the others stood very still, he lifted his pipe, knocked the dottle from it on the hearthstone, and kicked the burned tobacco into the embers. “He better be comin’ in soon, ma,” he said casually. “I’m near out 0’ smokin’.” Farcial as it was, pretense as the entire affair showed itself to be, it was, neverthe- less, a masterly manner of thrusting the burden onto the opposing forces. Mason’s actions placed the brunt of the meeting on Jimmie and his mother and Betty. Sens- ing this, Jimmie rose to the occasion. © “Hello, pa,’ he said evenly, “I reckon Bape didn’t see me. = | — Lp . Re ay as Tae = —- rae ae $ Oo 3 sina ca ae com