Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/163

 greens from her garden. Haws, chinquapins and persimmons were ripe. Hickory nuts and walnuts were falling. She had laid in a supply of dry field peas and potatoes and rice and corn before July went off, and now she swapped her fattened pig in the pen with Andrew for a fresh piece of meat every week.

The Quarter people came and went, back and forth, to church, to meeting at Maum Hannah's house, to Grab-All for rations, to dances and birth-night suppers, living their lives happily; but Mary stayed alone, sitting by her fire, staring at nothing, creeping like an old woman about the house, or out into the yard, down to the spring for water, then back again, dull, lonely, sorrowful. The cabin was tiresome but she lacked energy and desire to leave it for some more cheerful place.

Balked of what mattered most on earth to her, she grieved and pined until all her strength was drained and misery had her numbed. For a while she met with sympathy and pity. She could hear the other women discussing her trouble, pitying her, wondering what would become of her. Nobody ever came right out and asked her what she would do, but they all sighed with sympathy whenever they came near her. "I too sorry for you, Si May-e," they'd say. "Dat