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Show El CHAPTER XV Continued 1& Jasper hurried In after Abral. : "What la it, Jasper?" Cynthia cried. "Jasper 1 Tell me! What Is It?" Jasper was getting the lantern from the medicine-room, very calm. "1 don't know," he said. "The Finemare's down there In a hot shiver. She's been running hard. The bridle's gone and the saddle's slipped'. "But how would she get through the mill gate, Jasper?" "How do I know?" They were already al-ready going through the door. Cynthia Cyn-thia In a panic of fear seized a Bhawl and ran after them. "Wait, Jasper! Wait! I'm coming, com-ing, too," she cried. "No, you're not!" Jasper shouted. "You stay right here and look after things till we get back." It was so sudden and imperative that it halted her on the porch. "That mare's run three or four miles," he was still shouting from the yard. ''We'll get back as soon as we can." Jasper fed the FInemare and quieted qui-eted her In the stall while Abral got the saddle mules, and then they rode fast down Wolfpen. Cynthia, alone, watched the jostling lantern disappear in the cold night Then she turned and went back through the yard to the square of light in the open door. "Women always must sit and wait and suffer while the menfolk get relief in doing something," she sobbed at the door. The house was deathly silent. She dropped into the chair by the smoldering logs and began the long waiting. Time was no longer going on. It was waiting with her. Cynthia, yearning yearn-ing for it to move on, felt the hysteria hys-teria of being Imprisoned in an arrested ar-rested moment which would not end. She paced the floor, pushing against it. She put a log on the Are, watching it burn without exploding ex-ploding the stopped Instant of time. "How does a body live in eternity?" She stood tn the open door looking look-ing at the mass of Cranesnest, a little blacker than the dark. She imagined each possible accident that could happen, enacting It sharply in her mind, shuddering at it, dismissing It, creating another in Its place. She filled the sputtering sputter-ing teakettle which had boiled dry In the motionless time of the waiting. wait-ing. It continued for three hours. Cynthia Cyn-thia felt that more hours had passed by her in this one lone evening eve-ning than had gone through Wolf-pen Wolf-pen since April of a year ago. Then, SV'fefc ft! MB' a I issi vi m, liiji Nt Mm "Women Always Must Sit and Wait and Suffer." when she thought she could abide it no longer without screaming and running after Jasper and Abral, Abral came out of the dark end of the moment and, wearily proceeded by his voice muttering, "The yellow, yel-low, stump-squattin' devils." "What is It, Ab:al? Tell me what happened," she cried. But Abral was almost Incoherent, and she had la put it together piece by piece, disengaging the words of Abral from the thoughts worn deep Into her own mind by three hours of repetition: finding the bridle caught on the latch in the gate by the mill where the FInemare had got through; the search up Gannon Creek road; stopping at Castle's Place and John sarins, "Sure, boys. I heard that hoss go by running fast and light-footed, but I Just didn't think any more about It"; searching up Gannon to Ferguson's and George saying, "I heard a horse go by earlier In the evening but I didn't pay no attention to it hardly. Was that Sparrel's mare? It wouldn't hardly have throwed Sparrel"; the growing body of men searching on up the creek toward Stepstone. Among the great stones by the cliff at the upper ford where the bridle trail branches off for Pike-ville, Pike-ville, they found Sparrel Pattern crumpled up In the sand. His boots still glistened with the wet from the ford. He lay on his right side, his left leg hent, his right hand clutching at the small pebbles. His head was crushed and fallen on the sand. Under the pale light of the lanterns shone sand crystals clinging cling-ing to the blood on his forehead above the dead eyes and in his hair. Tbey carried him over to Ferguson's Fergu-son's place for the night Jasper would stay there and ride over for Jesse and the girls at daybreak. She seemed not to be hearing Abral's words now, only looking at the fire unseeing, feeling herself being crushed to death among the stones while a lantern beam fell on the sand glints in the blood. It was too much after the house alone, waiting. She collapsed Into the chair and burled her face deep in both hands and cried; not hearing Abral saying, "The stump-squattin' cowardly devils. Waylaying him, knocking In his head from behind." They laid Sparrel among the sandstones on Cranesnest Shelf. The crowd of people was so great that it filled the house, the yard and the barn-lot. All down Wolfpen as far as the mill those who felt themselves them-selves strangers stood in little groups paying respect to Sparrel Pattern. Doug Mason came as far as the bend below the orchard, and sat there on his mule, the handless arm thrust into his coat, and the sightless sight-less eye turned aside, watching them bear Cynthia's father up the path. The people wept Lucy and Jenny cried from the house to the grave. Cynthia had wept in the night. Sparrel's voice was stopped and his feet were still, the medicine-room was empty, the desk by the mantel was closed and the ledger ledg-er was ended. There could be no more grief now, only the lonely and silent and fruitless ache of the days and the nights after the people were gone away. Cynthia felt through the first days that this sorrow could not be eased. She dreamed it at night seeing her father not Sparrel and yet her father fa-ther among the stones which were both the stones at the upper ford and those on Cranesnest Shelf. It came over her in the daytime when, forgetting it for a time, she would feel a wondering unhappiness for an Instant before there burst upon her the full weight of the sorrow. And yet the grief did mysteriously mysterious-ly lose its sharpness under the compulsion com-pulsion of dally living and working, the finality of the past event and the gradual reassertlon of young life. Jesse stayed on restlessly at the house for a few days and then went back to his law. Jenny stayed on for two nights, crying, and then went back to Horsepen Branch. Abral went again to Dry Creek where the first March rains were flooding the dam for driving the logs. Jasper rode over to town with Jesse, and when he returned he mentioned that he was marrying Jane in a few weeks now. Lucy stayed on through the week, but Cynthia could not determine whether wheth-er it was better or worse to have her In the house talking. She would hide herself away from Lucy and go over it all in her mind: the Joy of the spring before Sheilenberger came, the foreboding when Sparrel sold the land, the wonder of Heuben Warren on that afternoon with a compass on his arm, the slow and sinister way the outside world had pushed into Dry Creek and then reached out for Doug Mason, for her mother Julia, for the father Sparrel, for the old way of life Wolfpen had known so long. She thought of the brutal Irrevocability Ir-revocability of the blunt stone on her father's skull in the hands of wicked men. And nothing to do about It except wait for Sheriff Hatler to find the murderer and kill him under the law while her father met the dissolution on Cranesnest. Now they were both gone and Jasper Jas-per would bring Jane Burden to this place in Julia's stead. In Cynthia's stead. Surely it was all done now. She wondered whether Reuben were still out In the hills and where, and If he knew. And while she was yet wondering wonder-ing he came. It was late afternoon on a warm d;iy In March a week after the burial of Sparrel. There was a moist wind In the hollow with the breath of spring In It. and the sun almost ready to move the col orless days ouc of the hills, foreseeing fore-seeing April on its slow way up from the south. Cynthia was bending over a skillet skill-et with an iron spoon in her hand when she heard the gate click. She laid the spoon on the back of the stove before she went to the door to see who it could be. She stood transformed in the doorway looking at him, not daring to believe it was Ueuben, thinking he must be far away at the other end of the river. She was wordless before him in her Joy. For one brief instant she looked down reflectively at her dress to make sure she was not reliving re-living those humiliating moments of the late spring, hot burned, weeping, weep-ing, spattered with corn-meaL But she was cool and unhurried, and the tan dress was clean and fresh. Eeu-ben Eeu-ben saw at once that under the responsibility re-sponsibility and sorrow of the months she had grown in character charac-ter and loveliness. She was a woman wom-an and not a child, but it was the woman the girl of the summer had portended. They looked at each other in complete com-plete silence and without movement move-ment Then Cynthia stepped through her transfiguration down to the povch, and Eeuben came to her with his eyes shining. She felt herself swept toward him, and away from grief. "Eeuben 1" "Cynthia 1". Then she gave him her hand, bringing the moment back from this exalted reach to the more familiar plane where human beings meet in speech. "You know?" she said. "Yes, Cynthia. I am sorry." "How did you learn?" "It was in the paper at home day before yesterday, I started as soon as I heard." "I am glad you came, Reuben." "I wish I could have come sooner." Lucy had come in haste to the kitchen and then to the door. "Cynthia, "Cyn-thia, I smell supper. . . . Oh!" The beautiful moment of their meeting was ended. The coming of Reuben seemed to break into the fixed mood of solemnity so-lemnity that had settled over the house since Sparrel's death. Sometimes Some-times at the supper, without forgetting forget-ting the dead, they almost recaptured recap-tured the excitement of the spring before. And after they had talked over in hushed words all the story of the past weeks, it did not seem inappropriate to think of themselves them-selves and to mention other places. The sun continued through the following day, the warmth flowing down the hollows. "It begins to have a touch of spring," Reuben said. "You said you would come back in the spring." "Yes. Let's walk a little way." "Up to the rock by the sycamore," syca-more," she suggested. They went by the desolate garden gar-den which had been full of Julia's flowers last July, and came to the stone where they had first sat together. to-gether. The sun lay warm on the stone. The brown pods on the sycamore syc-amore tree jangled In the wind at the end of yellowing limbs barren of leaves. "It seems like she ought to be there In the garden," Reuben said. "You thought that, too?" Cynthia cried. "Yes. I have thought of this place often," he said. "I have not been here since," she said, "but I have thought myself here. Do you believe some places like this get to be a part of of what two people are to each other?" "Yes, Cynthia. This place will always be you and me." She looked full at him seriously for an Instant, knowing by -his voice and his eyes that they were speaking speak-ing the same language In the same world. She had never before, even in her dreams of Lady Arabella and the pear tree, been more radiant, radi-ant, as though this moment were the appointed one for the unfolding of the essential woman out of sorrow sor-row Into happiness. They were leaning against the stone, silent. He slipped his arm around her waist She did not withhold herself, and she was half startled at the thought of her forwardness. He held her left hand In his, and with his right hand she brushed at the moss on the stone. She felt herself being be-ing reborn, almost trembling and In awe before the smile of God which changed the world so soon since yesterday. "It's wonderful to see you again," Reuben said. "I've stood on a ridge waltlug for the ax-men to clear a line through the brush and heard the doves make that lonesome sound and I thought about you up here on Wolfpen. I have wanted you." She surrendered to her joy without with-out speaking, watching the sun on the top of Cranesnest, listening to his voice and making her own unspoken un-spoken words. "You've had a lot of trouble," he said. "I've thought about that So many things can happen all of a sudden." "Yes," she said finally, "things you don't ever dream could happen." "I think you've about had your share now, Cynthia." She had never talked to anyone of her grief. Now she was overcome over-come by the moment by her feelings feel-ings and his sympathy, and she unloosed un-loosed to him all that had been tight in her heart so long: the sickness sick-ness and quick death of Julia. Sparrel's wordless unhappiness and growing concern over Pry Creek. Pong Mason. Jesse's going away, giving up the Institute to look after thin?, the break-up of t'ne pi.-n-e. and Jasper's appro:ie!iii:g marriage. As she talked, she drew nearer to him' and it was wonderful to her to feel the miracle of the burden lifting and the heart being purged of its heaviness. Reuben put his hand on her cheek, pulling her face gently to confront his own. There were tears in her eyes. His arm tightened around her. It did not seem forward to her now to be in his arms in this hollow. The growth of their affection had been constant in the months of separation and needed only this brief intimacy to reveal Itself full blown. "Cynthia," he said. She looked at him. "I've been thinking and making a lot of plans since I left here." He hesitated an instant looking into her eyes. Then he continued: "There's two or three years of work down in Boyd and the neighboring neigh-boring counties just surveying the land the Iron works companies are buying up. Thty're putting up another an-other blast furnace and a nail mill. I do nearly all the field work now. And Catlettsburg is a pretty place. After you pass the center of town and the stores you come to a wide street with sidewalks and trees and nice houses in big yards. Then the hill begins, not a high hill, just a river hill. And about half-way np there is a little house in a cherry and apple orchard with a garden behind it. It's painted white and has a wide porch and there are three sets of steps up from the ' Aft,A He Kissed Her. street You look right out over the town and the treetops to the Ohio river and where the Big Sandy comes around West Virginia, and across to the farms in Ohio all the way back to the hills. You can see the big boats on the river, and the little ones on the Big Sandy and the rafts that come floating down both rivers. There's new steam ferry to South Point and a. new wharf. You can see the trains going go-ing up to Richardson and down to Ashland and Cincinnati. It's not like here on Wolfpen, but it is a nice place." "It sounds like a right nice place Does somebody live In It?" "Eight now some people live in It, but next month they're going to move to a place over in Coalgrove in Ohio where he's going to work, and then It will be empty." She was trying to picture this place and all the bustling life it looked out upon, laying it in her mind's eye beside the quiet and seclusion se-clusion of Wolfpen where she had spent her life, "Cynthia." She blotted out everything else and looked up into his eyes. "I love you more than anything. Will you do me the honor to be my wife and come down there and live with me?" It wasn't that she was surprised or actually taken unawares. It was Just the hearing of it A warm flush overspread her face. She dropped her eyes to the moss on the stone and then lifted them beyond be-yond it through the bare sycamore limbs to the cloud fluff above the Pinnacle golden In the sun. "Will you?" he said. "Yes, Reuben, if you want me to," she said. "When?" "April." He kissed her, holding her tight In his arms, and it was natural and inevitable like a curled wave forming form-ing far out under the sky and moving mov-ing always shoreward till it breaks at last on the rim of warm sand. "I love you more than anything," he said. "And I love you, Reuben." Every burden oppressive to men, commanding pity for their unhappy lot, writing the marks of goffering below their eyes, and warping the lines about their month, was removed re-moved from them as they walked slowly down the hollow while the sun was hurrying out of the valley in Its endless flight before the stars. And through their eyes made bright by the high passion of their hope, the world was a new and beautiful place wherein no sorrow and no failure could ever Intrude (TO BE COXTIXCED) |