Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/232

 clutched a little when she thought of him, but a woman's heart is a foolish thing.

She stepped carefully across a narrow log that bridged the sluice between the road and the blacksmith shop, a small, black, dilapidated house whose sloping, broken roof let the evil-smelling smoke inside trickle through. A wild plum thicket that straggled up close to one corner made a bold white splash of fragrant blooms right in the face of the smoky shop-door. A crape-myrtle's new leaves were scarlet and tender. Squirrels played in a tall hickory whose bright yellow tassels made a thin screen above the old shop's ugliness, and whenever a sudden light stir of wind freed some of the pretty bits they flitted airily down. Poor things. Their time was out.

Andrew, the blacksmith, was smoking, and his pipe smelled pleasant beside the stench of the coal which floated out through the door.

Mary tapped on the outside and called timidly, "Good mawnin, Cun: [Cousin] Andrew."

"Who dat?" came a quick answer, followed by a surprised and polite, "Why, how you do, Si May-e?"

Mary saw how his black eyes deepened as they fell on her with a hard fixed gaze trying to make out why she had come.