Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/136



passed, then Sunday. All the excursion people were back home except July and Cinder and nobody knew what had become of them or where they had gone. Mary was so miserable she scarcely knew what to do. She could not sleep all night for listening and hoping and praying to God for her July's return. Maybe he got left and would get a boat from somebody and manage to row home up the river. Her eyes burned with gazing so hard and so long out of the window, scanning the road, the fields, the whole countryside, looking for him, for some message from him. But none came.

All day long she had fidgeted about the house, then outside in the yard; feeding the chickens, watering the cow and staking her in a fresh place to graze, carrying a pail of meal mixed with water to the hog in the pen, trying to make the dragging hours go by. The heart in her breast felt dead and cold, and she moved about with slow heavy steps. Her eyes would do nothing but drain out water, drop after drop.

Everybody else was stirring around talking