CHAPTER XVIII

As she walked on Mary was glad that Frazier had been called away before he had asked her whither she was going, for she did not want him to know that she had decided to call at Tobe Keith's home and inquire personally about his condition. It struck her as being incongruous that she was already keeping things from the man she might eventually marry. And at this moment various thoughts of Charles fairly besieged her brain. Somehow she could not imagine herself keeping any vital thing from him. How strange, and he such a new friend! She found herself blushing, she knew not why. What was it about the man that appealed to her so strongly? Was it the mystery that constantly enveloped him, and out of which had come such a stream of generous acts, or was it the constant heart-hungry and lonely look of the man who certainly was out of his natural sphere as a common laborer?

Her way took her through the poorest section of the little town. Small houses, some having only two and three rooms each, bordered the rugged, unpaved little streets. Part of the section was known as the "Negro Settlement," and there stood a little steepled church, with green blinds, the walls of which, in default of paint, had received frequent coatings of whitewash at the hands of the swarthy devotees. She had no trouble in finding her way, for she already had a general idea of where the mother of the wounded man lived, and only had to ask as to the particular house.

"Can you tell me where Mr. Keith lives?" she inquired of a little negro boy amusing himself in a swing.

"You mean the man that was kilt?" the child asked, blandly, as he halted himself by thrusting his bare feet down on the ground.

"The man that was—hurt," Mary corrected, shuddering over the way the boy had put his reply.

"De las' house at the end er de street, on dis yer side. You cayn't miss it. Miz' Keith got grape-vines in 'er front yard, en' er goat en' chickens en' ducks."

She found it without trouble. The house had four small rooms and a crude lean-to shed which served as a kitchen. A slender, thin woman of the lowest class of whites, about fifty years of age, scantily attired in a plain print skirt and a waist of white cotton material, her iron-gray hair plastered down on the sides of her face from a straight part in the middle of her head and drawn to a small doughnut-shaped knot behind, sat in the doorway smoking a clay pipe with a reed stem. As Mary arrived at the little gate, which was kept closed by a rope fastened to a stake and from which hung a brick for a weight, she looked up, drew her coarsely shod feet under her, and took the pipe from her mouth. She must have recognized the visitor, for she contracted her thin brows and allowed a sullen, resentful expression to spread over her wrinkled face and tighten the muscles of her lips.

"May I come in, Mrs. Keith?" Mary asked, holding the gate partly open and dubiously waiting for a response.

The pipe was clutched more firmly and the woman stared straight at her. "You may come in if you want to," was the caustic answer. "We don't keep no bitin' dog. I didn't 'low the likes of you would want to come, after what's happened, but if you do I can't hinder you an' Tobe hain't able to prevent it, nuther."

"Who is it, mother?" came a faint voice from within the house.

"Never mind, sonny, who it is," the old woman called back. "I'll tell you after awhile. Remember what the doctor said, that you must not get excited an' lift your fever."

There was silence in the room behind the grim sentinel at the door, and Mary lowered her voice almost to a whisper.

"Perhaps I'd better go away, Mrs. Keith," she faltered. "I thought I might see you alone. That's why I came. I don't want to disturb your son—I wouldn't, for all the world. Mrs. Keith, I am unhappy over this, too."

"Huh! I don't see nothin' fer you to be upset over!" sneered the old woman. "Your brothers lit out fer new fields an' pastures with money to pay expenses with, like all highfalutin folks manage to git, while us pore scrub stock o' whites has to suffer, like Tobe is thar on his back, unable to move, an' with barely enough t' eat except what neighbors send in."

No seat was offered the visitor; the speaker grimly kept her chair, her stiff knees parted for the reception between them of her two gnarled rebellious hands and the clay pipe.

"I came to ask—I had to come," Mary faltered, her sweet face whitened by the rising terrors within her. "I came to see if any arrangements are being made to—to—I understand the doctors advise your son's removal to Atlanta, and—"

"They advise anything to shuffle the blame off their own shoulders," blurted out the stubborn woman. "They see they ain't able to do nothing, an' they want my boy to die some'r's else, to save the county the expense of—of—" and she choked down a sob, a dry, alien thing in her scrawny neck. "I don't believe he'll ever be sent, so I don't. Sis Latimer, my cousin, a preacher's wife, has traipsed over two counties, tryin' to raise the four hundred dollars, and now says it can't be done. That was the last straw to Tobe. He lay thar, after she left, an' I heard 'im cryin' under the sheet, to keep me from hearin' him. He says he hain't got nothin' ag'in' your two brothers now. He says they was all to blame, an' if they hadn't been drunk an' gamblin' it wouldn't 'a' happened. Tobe's a odd boy—he forgives in a minute; but I hain't that way. I know how your brothers felt. They looked on my boy like dirt under their feet because you folks used to own niggers and live so high in your fine house with underlings to run an' fetch for you at every call. Kenneth Rowland would have thought a second time before pullin' down on a feller in his own set. Oh, I heard the filthy name he called Tobe, an' I didn't blame my boy for hittin' him, as they say he did, smack on the jaw. A blow with the bare hand, after a word like that is passed, doesn't justify the use of a gun while another feller is pinnin' a man's arms down at his side so he can't budge an inch. I'll tell you what you may not know, an' that is that if my boy does die them two whelps will be hunted down and strung up by the neck till they are dead, dead, dead! Thar never was a plainer case o' murder—cold-blooded murder. They say—folks say your brothers are livin' like lords in the West on money sent to 'em by rich kin to escape disgrace. The sheriff said so hisse'f, an' he ort to know. He's jest waitin' to see what comes o' Tobe. Your turn an' your stiff-backed, haughty old daddy's is comin', my fine young lady."

The faint voice was heard protesting from the interior of the house, and Mrs. Keith rose and stalked to the bed on which the wounded man lay. He said something in a low, guarded tone and Mary heard his mother answer:

"I wouldn't do that if I was you, honey. Let 'er go on. I can't stan' the sight of 'er, after what has happened. She looks so uppity, in 'er fine clothes an' white skin not touched by the sun, while me an' you—"

The man's voice broke in, plaintively rumbling, as if from a great distance. He must have been insisting on some point to be gained, for he continued talking, now and then coughing and spitting audibly.

"Well, well," Mrs. Keith exclaimed, "I'll tell 'er. I think it is foolish, but I'll tell 'er. Do you want me to comb your head a little an' spruce you up some?"

He evidently did, for Mary was kept waiting ten minutes longer. Then the sullen virago appeared in the doorway. "Tobe wants you to come in and see 'im," she reluctantly announced.

Despite the feeling that she was unwelcomed by the woman, Mary saw no alternative but to go in. She regretted it the instant her eyes fell on the wasted form on the unkempt bed and beheld the eager orbs peering at her from deep, dark sockets beneath shaggy brows. The room seemed to swing around her, the crude board floor to rise and fall like the waves of a rocking sea, the bed to float like a raft holding a starving derelict. Grasping the back of a chair for support, Mary leaned on it for a moment, and then, slightly recovering, she sat down, wondering if she could possibly bear the impending ordeal.

"I'm glad you thought enough o' me to come, Miss Mary," Tobe began, in the instinctive tone of respect that his class had for hers, "an' I want to say something to you." He hesitated and lifted his eyes to his mother, who was standing at the foot of his bed. "Ma," he said, "will you please go out a little while—just a little while?"

"Me! Why, I'd like to know?" she fiercely demanded. "Surely you hain't got no secrets from me?"

"I hain't got no secrets, but I want to talk free an' easy like to Miss Mary, an' somehow when you stan' lookin' like that an' thinkin' what I know you are thinkin'—well, I just can't talk, that's all."

"Humph! I say! Well, this is a pretty come-off!" Mrs. Keith fairly quivered with suppressed rage. "Can't talk before me, eh? An' me your mother at that. Well, well, I won't hender you, though you know the doctor told me to keep you perfectly quiet, an' here you are—Well, well, I'll go; if you feel that-away I'll go! A mother's feelings is never paid attention to nohow."

Mary tried to protest, but could think of nothing to say under the circumstances; besides, the angry woman was already whirling away. Mary heard her treading the creaking boards of the adjoining room.

"Please move your chair up a little mite closer," Tobe requested. "I've got just so much wind, an' no more, an' I can talk easier when you are close to me."

She obeyed, feeling like an inanimate thing pushed forward by some designing force. His thin hand lay within her reach. It was a repulsive object, and yet the same force directed her to take it; she did so, and with the act all her fears, all her timidity, left her. She pressed it gently; she leaned forward and stroked it almost caressingly with her other hand. Tears welled up in her eyes; they broke their bounds and fell upon her hands and his. He stared in slow astonishment, his lower lip quivered; he closed his great, somnolent eyes as if to give himself up to the dreamlike ecstasy of the moment. She saw his breast shaking, his throat moving as if he were swallowing rising sobs. Silence fell, broken only by the creaking boards in the next room, the clucking of a busy hen in the yard, the chirping of little chickens, the thwacking of an ax at a wood-pile not far away. Tobe turned his face from her. She saw him stealthily wiping his eyes on a soiled handkerchief.

"I'm gittin' to be a fool, a babyish fool," he said, presently. "Lyin' here like this is calculated to make a feller that-away, an' you bein' so kind an' gentle, too, is—is sorter surprisin'. A sick man can hear a lot o' ridiculous things when he is down like this. You see, I'm surrounded mostly by women, an' they chatter a lot. Anyways, you hain't nothin' like most of 'em say you are—too proud an' stuck up even to inquire about a feller in my fix. Yes, I'm glad you come, so I am. I hain't heard anything lately but revenge! revenge! revenge! The idle women that huddle about me through the day talk hate from morning to night. They got Ma at it; she hain't that-away as a general thing. I wanted to see you. I've seen you at a distance an' always wanted to get a closer look. They all say you are pretty, an' so you are. By all odds, I should count you the prettiest young lady in this part o' the country. I know I hain't never seed one that could hold a candle to you. I want to talk to you about Ken an' Martin. Miss Mary, them boys hain't bad at heart. La! I used to love 'em both, an' they liked me, too! It was just rot-gut liquor. Mart didn't mean no harm by holdin' me when that scrimmage begun, an' Ken may have thought he saw a knife in my hand that I was about to stab into Martin. I understand that's what he claimed before they made off to the West, an' it all may be so, for a drunk feller will think all sorts o' things. I wanted to see you because, if I do peg out—an' it looks like I'm goin' to—I want you to write this to the boys. I want you to tell 'em, Miss Mary, that you saw me an' that Tobe Keith said he didn't bear no ill-will an' died without hard feelin's. Tell 'em, too, that I said I hoped they would show the law a clean pair o' heels, for it looks like they will have trouble if they are fetched back here. Oh, I'm sorry for 'em! I saw, while I was lyin' thar, how sorry them boys looked when they saw what had happened. It sobered 'em in a minute, an' they would have stayed to help me if their friends hadn't got scared an' told 'em to run, that the sheriff was comin', an' the like."

"You mustn't say you are going to die, Tobe," Mary faltered, huskily, still gently stroking his hand. Beads of perspiration were on his sallow brow, and with her handkerchief she wiped them away. "The doctors say that if you go to Atlanta, to Doctor Elliot's sanatorium, he can—"

"I've given that up." He smiled faintly. "The money ain't in sight an' never will be. Besides, they only want to experiment on me. I know my condition better than they do. Surgical skill may be all right in many such cases, but mine has stood too long. I hain't afeard to die, Miss Mary, but I am sorry my going will be so serious for Ken an' Martin. Do you know, I was to blame chiefly. I was the one that furnished the whisky for that racket. I got it from a moonshiner I know. That is between you an' me, Miss Mary, for I broke the law when I went to his secret still an' got it without reportin' him."