Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/269

 the door that Grace had made for Fawnie—jelly that enclosed a cluster of California grapes. Derek was miserable. Full of shame he strode up and down the room, eyeing the jelly as it quivered on the dark blue plate. "This will never do, Buckskin," he groaned. "This will have to stop. I've simply got to tell. There's no getting out of it. Buckskin—d'you hear? I've got to tell that you and I are just batching it."

He and Buckskin ate the jelly.

One morning Bill Rain asked Derek to go up to the shack. His father was anxious to see him. Derek found the sick man lying on the floor behind the stove. A quilt was wrapped about him and his stockinged feet projected into the middle of the room.

He had grown terribly emaciated, a bright fever spot burned on either cheek, his hollow eyes sparkled with pain and hatred.

"My old woman and my son don't mind if I die here," he said. "I been tellin' them for weeks to fetch you up to see me. I got to get to the hospital at Yeoland for an operation or I die here. You see that, Mr. Vale. You pay my way and I work for you when I am well—yes—my fingers to the bone—yes—till I fall in my tracks. I'm a strong man, I tell you, no poor rat like that Bill—but this pain's killin' me. Oh, send me to the hospital, Mr. Vale, and I work for you till your farm's the finest in the country. Oh, this awful pain!"

"Don't worry any more," soothed Vale. "I'll send Bill with you today. You'll be all right." Outside he said to Bill sternly: "Why didn't you let me know your father was in this state? I thought he was getting better."

"Well, maw and me kept thinkin' he would git better, but he's worse. He's like a crazy man sometimes. He