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George’s Wife
by
“Abner–in jail!” she exclaimed, in a dazed way. “What did he do? Abner always seemed so straight.”
“Oh, he sloped with a thousand dollars of the railway people’s money. They caught him, and he got seven years.”
“He was married, wasn’t he?” she asked, in a low voice.
“Yes, to Phenie Tyson. There’s no children, so she’s all right, and divorce is cheap over in the States, where she is now.”
“Phenie Tyson didn’t marry Abner because he was a saint, but because he was a man, I suppose,” she replied, gravely. “And the old folks?”
“Both dead. What Abner done sent the old man to his grave. But Abner’s mother died a year before.”
“What Abner done killed his father,” said Abel Baragar, with dry emphasis. “Phenie Tyson was extravagant–wanted this and that, and nothin’ was too good for her. Abner spoilt his life gettin’ her what she wanted; and it broke old Ezra Lumley’s heart.”
George’s wife looked at him for a moment with her eyes screwed up, and then she laughed softly. “My, it’s curious how some folks go up and some go down! It must be lonely for Phenie waiting all these years for Abner to get free…. I had the happiest time in my life at Lumley’s. I was getting better of my–cold. While I was there I got lots of strength stored up, to last me many a year when I needed it; and, then, George and I were married at Lumley’s!”
Aunt Kate came slowly over with the boy and laid a hand on Cassy’s shoulder, for there was an undercurrent to the conversation which boded no good. The very first words uttered had plunged Abel Baragar and his son’s wife into the midst of the difficulty which she had hoped might, after all, be avoided.
“Come, and I’ll show you your room, Cassy,” she said. “It faces south, and you’ll get the sun all day. It’s like a sun-parlor. We’re going to have supper in a couple of hours, and you must rest some first. Is the house warm enough for you?”
The little, garish woman did not reply directly, but shook back her red hair and caught her boy to her breast and kissed him; then she said, in that staccato manner which had given her words on the stage such point and emphasis: “Oh, this house is a’most too warm for me, Aunt Kate!”
Then she moved toward the door with the grave, kindly old woman, her son’s hand in her own.
“You can see the Lumleys’ place from your window, Cassy,” said Black Andy, grimly. “We got a mortgage on it, and foreclosed it, and it’s ours now; and Jerry Lumley’s stock-riding for us. Anyhow, he’s better off than Abner, or Abner’s wife.”
Cassy turned at the door and faced him. Instinctively she caught at some latent conflict with old Abel Baragar in what Black Andy had said, and her face softened, for it suddenly flashed into her mind that he was not against her.
“I’m glad to be back West,” she said. “It meant a lot to me when I was at Lumley’s.” She coughed a little again, but turned to the door with a laugh.
“How long have you come to stay here–out West?” asked the old man, furtively.
“Oh, there’s plenty of time to think of that!” she answered, brusquely, and she heard Black Andy laugh derisively as the door closed behind her.
* * * * *
In a blaze of joy the sun swept down behind the southern hills, and the windows of Lumley’s house at the Forks, catching the oblique rays, glittered and shone like flaming silver. Nothing of life showed, save the cattle here and there, creeping away to the shelter of the foothills for the night. The white, placid snow made a coverlet as wide as the vision of the eye, save where spruce and cedar trees gave a touch of warmth and refuge here and there. A wonderful, buoyant peace seemed to rest upon the wide, silent expanse. The birds of song were gone South over the hills, and the living wild things of the prairies had stolen into winter-quarters. Yet, as Cassy Mavor looked out upon the exquisite beauty of the scene, upon the splendid outspanning of the sun along the hills, the deep plangent blue of the sky and the thrilling light, she saw a world in agony and she heard the moans of the afflicted. The sun shone bright on the windows of Lumley’s house, but she could hear the crying of Abner’s wife, and of old Ezra and Eliza Lumley, when their children were stricken or shamed; when Abel Baragar drew tighter and tighter the chains of the mortgage, which at last made them tenants in the house once their own. Only eight years ago, and all this had happened. And what had not happened to her, too, in those eight years!