"I used to be," the young woman answered. "I married a Lawson—Sam
Lawson—awhile back."
"Oh yes, I forgot that. I’d heard it, too, of course, but it slipped my
memory. I’m a Hemingway, from over in Murray County—Jane Hemingway. I
used to be acquainted with your pa. Is he handy?"
"Yes, he was here just a minute ago," Ann Boyd’s daughter answered.
"He’s around at his hay-stack pulling down some roughness for the cow.
Go in and take a seat and I’ll call him. Lay your bonnet on the bed and
make yourself at home."
Jane went into the cabin, the walls of which were unlined, being only
the bare logs with the bark on them. The cracks where the logs failed to
fit closely together were filled with the red clay from the hills
around. There was not a picture in sight, not an ornament on the crude
board shelf over the rugged mud-and-stone fireplace. From wooden pegs
driven in auger-holes in the walls hung the young bride’s meagre finery,
in company with what was evidently her husband’s best suit of clothes
and hat. Beneath them, on the floor, stood a pair of new woman’s shoes,
dwarfed by contrast to a heavier and larger masculine pair. Jane sat
down, rolling her bonnet in her stiff fingers. The chair she sat on was
evidently of home make, for the rockers were unevenly sawed, and, on the
unplaned boards of the floor, it had a joggling, noisy motion when in
use. There were two beds in the room, made of rough, pine planks. The
coverings of the beds were not in order and the pillows were soiled.
"If she’d ’a’ stayed on with Ann she would ’a’ made a better
house-keeper than that," Jane mused. "She’s a sight, too, with her hair
uncombed and dress so untidy so soon after the honeymoon. I can see now
that her and Ann never would get on together. Anybody could take one
look at that girl and see she’s selfish. I wonder what that fellow ever
saw in her?"
There was a sound of voices outside. With a start, Jane drew herself
erect. The carpet-bag on her knees threatened to fall, and she lowered
it to the floor. Her ordeal was before her.
"Why, howdy do?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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