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A Division In The Coolly
by
He dragged one great maul of a fist free and drove it at the face beneath him. Jim saw it coming and turned his head. The blow fell on his neck and his carnivorous grin smoothed out as if sleep had suddenly fallen upon him. He drew a long, shuddering breath, his muscles quivered, and his clenched hands fell open.
Bill rose upon his knees and looked at him. A deep awe fell upon him. In the pause he heard the robins rioting from the trees in the lower valley, and the woodpecker cried resoundingly.
“You’ve killed him!” cried Ike, as he climbed hastily over the fence.
Bill did not reply. The men faced each other in solemn silence, all wish for murder going out of their hearts. The sobbing cry of the mourning dove, which they had been hearing all day, suddenly assumed new meaning.
“Ah, woe, woe is me!” it cried.
“Bring water!” shouted Ike, kneeling beside his brother.
Bill knelt there with him, while the rest dashed water upon Jim’s face.
At last he began to breathe like a fretful, waking child, and looking up into the scared faces above him, motioned the water away from him. The angry look came back into his face, but it was mixed with perplexity.
He touched his hand to his face and brought it down covered with blood. “How much am I hurt?” he said fiercely.
“Oh, nothing much,” Ike hastened to say; “it’s just a scratch.”
Jim struggled to his elbow and looked around him. It all seemed to come back to him. “Did he do it fair?” he demanded of his companions.
“Oh, yes; it was fair enough,” said Ike.
Jim looked at Jack. “That thing didn’t hit me with his axe, did he?”
Jack grinned. “No, but I was just a-goin’ to when Bill belted you one,” was the frank and convincing reply.
Jim got up slowly and faced Bill. “Well, that settles it; it’s all right! You’re a better man than I am. That’s all I’ve got to say.”
He climbed back over the fence and led the way down to dinner without looking back.
“What give ye that lick on the side o’ the head, Jim?” his wife asked, when he sat down at the dinner-table.
“Never you mind,” he replied surlily, but he added, “Ike’s axe come off, and give me a side-winder.”
Bill carefully removed all marks of his struggle and walked into dinner shamefacedly, all muscle gone out of his bulk of fat. His sudden return to primeval savagery grew monstrous in the cheerful kitchen, with its noise of hearty children, sizzling meat, and the clatter of dishes.
The stove was not drawing well and Sarah did not notice anything out of the way with Bill.
“I never see such a hateful thing in all my life,” she said, referring to the stove. “That rhubarb duff won’t be fit for a hog to eat; the undercrust ain’t baked the least bit yet, and I have had it in there since fifteen minutes after ‘leven.”
Bill said generously, “Oh, well, never mind, Serry; we’ll worry it down some way.”
V
All through July and August Mrs. Jim Harkey seemed to renew her endeavors to keep the sisters apart; she still carried spiteful tales to and fro, amplifying them with an irresistible histronic tendency. It had become a matter of self-exoneration with her then. She could not stop now without seeming to admit she had been mischief-making in the past. If the sisters should come together, her lies would instantly appear.
Emma grew morose, irritable, and melancholy; she was suffering for her sister’s wholesome presence, and yet, being under the dominion of the mischief-maker, dared not send word or even mention the name of her sister in the presence of the Harkeys.
Mrs. Jim came up to the house to stay as Emma got too ill to work, and took charge of the house. The children hated her fiercely, and there were noisy battles in the kitchen constantly wearing upon the nerves of the sick woman who lay in the restricted gloom of the sitting room bed-chamber, within hearing of every squall.