Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 2 — page 128: what you’re looking at

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

310 time—you see how it might be, with folks I wa’n’t used to—in a court-room perhaps, sitting up there in front, with everybody staring at me—’. She wrung her hands. “ Oh, I don’t want people should think I’m trying to hide anything!” “You must forget about that part of it,” the minister urged her, “‘ and don’t say any more now, unless you feel that we can help ou.”’ “1 don’t dare wait!’’ she quavered. Then she looked helplessly around the room. “ Ain’t you got some sewing, Mrs. Grant? Nothing you’re particular about, but just some work I could have in my hands. I’m so used to it—’twould kind of steady me.” With a glance at her husband Mrs. Grant turned to the table. Folded away at the back of the drawer was a white dressing- sack she was making. She took it out now and brought it with her sewing-basket to the sofa. Hetty produced a thimble from her pocket. For a few minutes she bent her head over | her work, and when she began speaking again her voice was steadier. “TI don’t seem to remember much of what I said out there in the hall,’ she apologized, as she tried to thread her needle with shaking fingers. “I was all wrought up, and such times, if I can, I try to keep away from folks. It’s the same with Lucy. There’s that streak in the family ’way back, . and you can’t say we're hardly responsible. We’ve always known about it, and it’s been kind of frightening to think of. it hanging over us—coming nearer an’ nearer. It’s like great wings brushing across your face sometimes at night. When anything goes wrong, or worries us, we don’t seem able to throw it off like other people. Sometimes when a customer I’m sewing for ain’t satis- fied, or work’s slack and I can’t get any—”’ She fumbled blindly with the muslin in her lap, and her mouth quivered. “ Try to put all that out of your thoughts now, Hetty. It upsets you too much. Just tell us what happened yesterday. It’s your duty to clear others.” “I’m trying to tell it just as it was. But to make you understand I’ve got to go back to a time before you an’ Mrs. Grant come here. You'll see then how it started. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “Nathan Swain hadn’t been living here very long. His folks come from over Wardsboro way and they had money. I was twenty, an’ Lucy was a year an’ a half younger. We sang in the choir an’ went round some. I don’t suppose you’d ever be- lieve it now, but we was both of us kind of pretty. Lucy kept her looks longer than I did, because hard work and worrying about how to get along ages any one terrible. Nathan Swain got into the habit of coming to our house. At first we couldn’t make out which one of us he fancied, but after a while ‘twas plain enough. Of course I was flattered. Any girl would be. He was a cut above everybody else in the village. He’d traveled, and he was beginning to be looked up to. I thought there wa’n’t no- body like him. I gave him my whole heart. And then—”’ CHAPTER VI. THE SICKLE OF FATE. HE sat staring before her while the tears trickled down her cheeks. “And then he stopped coming! He never even told me why. It wa’n’t till long after that I found out. You see, his folks not living here, he hadn’t known about that — queer streak in our family ’way back. And somebody told him. I found out who ’twas. -*Twas Addie Winslow—Flora’s mother. Ad- die Pierce she was then. She wrote him a letter without signing her name, and made things out a good deal worse than they was. She’d never liked the idea of his noticing us. I don’t know what she hoped—she wa’n’t married then. But it almost killed me. ‘“T had to keep up, because there was Lucy to look after. She wa’n’t very strong. She’d always have to be taken care of, and when father died we were left with just the house. There wa’n’t hardly any money —an’ two of usso. I kept tellin’ myself I’d get over feeling it in time. Nathan couldn’t have cared for me much—I seen that clear enough. He went on scheming to get richer, an’ I worked out round by the day. ‘‘ Addie married a year or two later, and I made her wedding clothes. She didn’ comniclaooks COlini - me 4