Argosy, Vol. 123, No. 2 — page 31: what you’re looking at

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

THE LITFLE BLUE BOX. charms for her, Suddenly her rage blazed teward Amy. “ Yow’re always around. when he comes in!” Her voice rose, trembling a little. Amy looked at her soberly. That was the worst of the hussy—or one of the many worst things. She did not melt and weep. Rhoda Barker had made soft women go limp as dish-rags under her wrath, but Amy was not soft. ‘“T don’t try to be,” replied the girl. It was that sober steadiness, as yet free from anger, that drove Rhoda to a complete loss of self-control, For- long, uncertain months she had kept herself bottled up. “You lie! You little snake!”’ Fhe of Amy Barker jerked as she straightened up from her work and faced her stepmother. She was now thoroughly angry, but her anger showed itself mainly a@ lifting of the head, an air of aloofness that fired Rhoda more than a screamed insult. | ‘You haven’t any right te talk te me like that. Ive never done a thing to get Martin Hewes. I knew you want him.”’ “Who told you I wanted him?” de- manded Mrs. Barker, and then her voice went into a sneer. ‘Scouring pans! That’s a pretty thing excuse to be m the kitchen this afternoon, when you kmew he’d come im to wash up.” | “Tt’s work yeu won’t do.” “Vowre damned right. | won’t do. it!” Rhoda dropped: back ten years, to the life from which Herman Barker had married her. ‘I worked eight er nine years for your father, and what did he leave me when he died? Nothing but this farm that I can’t sell, with you tied to it, and a good crop of whiskers. H ld known the old bird didn’t have a stocking full of money I'd never left. the city. 1 was a fool, all right!” “My father was. the fool!” Amy began te put the pans away quietly enough, but Rhoda knew that she had struck home. “ And you got what you deserved. Marry Martin Hewes if a can fool him. I won’t stand in your way..: Fhere was a sting in that, but Mrs. Barker managed to make herself rest on her victory. She knew she had pierced the reserve of the girl, and the knowledge L165 comforted her for the moment. She drove herself out of the house with a force that left. the door reverberating behind her— into the spring sunshine and out behind the hay barn, where her trembling legs let her down. upon a flat rock. : Something had to be done. Herman Barker had left her his farm, in trust, with the stipulation that she must provide for Amy. The. girl didn’t know hew to do anything in particular, and she had to stay until she got married. Even Rhoda, with confidence in her wits and good looks and a. considerable experience with the world, had to stay. In a year and a half of widow- hood—deadly dull, respectable widowhood —she had not been able to get money enough ahead te break loose and try her luck in the city. Then, following a lout who knew barely enough to do. the work, came Martin Hewes. Here was oppor- tunity—a man who was a farmhand only on his. way up to prosperity. But whatever he was. Rhoda Barker loved. him. She suspected that Amy loved him, toa. Underneath her smile and her quietness the girl was a rock. Martin Hewes was a rock. Rhoda Barker knew that she could break herself beating against either one of them. But there were other ways to deai with rocks. She could handle Martin— if she had him alone. Amy was the ob- stacle. She must be chipped—melted— worn— The clenched hands of the woman struck down upon her lap in a. gesture of impo- tence. One of them hit against the box in her apron pocket. She took it out, having forgotten for a moment what oe had put there. Poison! . There Gad been a time, at the end of her first year of disappointed widow- hood, when she had thought of killing herself. But she was too much alive for that. Now, for the first time, she connected the arsenic definitely in her mind with Amy. Death! That would take the little devil out of the road. once and for all! She put this thought away with genuine horror. Murder was a terrible thing. It wasn’t safe, and she wouldn’t think of it, anyway. She wished Amy were .dead, and she could think with pleasure of her as COmiclbooks C©