She strolled wretchedly within bounds, with a foreboding of
impending evil. She watched Lew in the garden; she got her aunt
to let her help with the churning--drive the dasher monotonously
up and down until the butter came; then she helped work the
butter, helped gather the vegetables for dinner, did everything
and anything to keep herself from thinking. Toward eleven
o'clock her Uncle Zeke appeared in the dining-room, called his
wife from the kitchen. Susan felt that at last something was to
happen. After a long time her aunt returned; there were all the
evidences of weeping in her face.
"You'd better go to your room and straighten it up," she said
without looking at the girl. "The thing has aired long enough,
I reckon. . . . And you'd better stay up there till I call you."
Susan had finished the room, was about to unpack the heavy-laden
shawl strap and shake the wrinkles out of the skirts, folded
away for two days now. She heard the sound of a horse's hoofs,
went to the window. A young man whom she recognized as one of
her Uncle Zeke's tenants was hitching to the horse block a
well-set-up young mare drawing a species of broad-seated
breaking sulky. He had a handsome common face, a wavy black
mustache. She remembered that his name was Ferguson--Jeb
Ferguson, and that he was working on shares what was known as
"the creek-bottom farm," which began about a mile and a half
away, straight down the pasture hollow.
Pages:
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166