Page:Weird Tales v01n01 (1923-03).djvu/158

Rh it harder, too. Never thought her an' Jed would have any children."

"Things do need reddin' up pretty considerable," spoke Mrs. Collins, picked up some odds and ends of clothing from a corner, where they had lain as long enough to accumulate a coating of acrid dust.

"My jes' look at the linin' in this firebox! How d'you ever spose Mamie managed to cook on it?"

"Must have been pretty hard. She didn't have things fixed as handy as some of the rest of us, even. You see, they didn't have much money to spend on things. Farmin' in Kansas ain't been a payin' business the last few years. When 'tain't too wet, it's too dry, or too hot, or too cold, or somethin'."

Yes, it seems like there's always somethin'. There—I've got that sweepin' done. We'll let Selina scrub, while we fix up the front room."

The two women opened the door into the "front" room. The blinds were tightly drawn and the musty odor testified to its lengthy isolation.

MY LAND! look at that, will you?"

Mrs. Prentis pointed to a cheap colored glass on the center-table, which held a pitiful little bouquet of one immortelle, six pale spears of a rank grass and a carefully-cut-out letterhead of a printed spray of orange blossoms.

"Who'd a thought of tryin' to make a bouquet out o'that? I remember when we were back in Tennessee, that Mamie was always findin' the first deer's tongues and other kinds of little early flowers. Us big girls always helped fill her little hands. Seemed like she never could get all she wanted. An' then think of livin' out here where there ain't water enough for things that has to have it, let alone flowers. Why, I remember one summer when we even saved the dishwater to use several times, and fed it to the pigs 'cause water was so scarce."

"Yes: the way farmer's wives have to worry 'long, 'tain't much wonder so many of 'en go crazy. I read in th' paper that was 'round a bundle that come from the store that a bigger part of farmers' wives went crazy than any other kind of women."

"Yes, I've heard that too. Let's jes' step in an' pick up in the bedroom and then sweep both these rooms out together. The wind's in th' right direction."

"Yes, you come with me. We—we could get done sooner, workin' together." "That must be the pallet an' this th' pillow. They say the baby had been dead for several hours when Jed found it."

"Yes, an' Mamie settin' out there in the barn door, with her head in her lap. Not cryin' nor nothin'."

The two women hesitated, lingered at their task. Something kept them from moving the things that the coroner had kept in so rigidly exact a position.

"Yes; there's somethin' mighty queer about it. My land, jes' think, she might be—HUNG!" in a hoarse whisper.

Both faces blanched at the hitherto unspoken possibility. A woman—neighbor and friend, and the childhood acquaintance of one of them—was imprisoned on the charge of killing her baby.

They felt that they ought to have a feeling of horror. It was a terrible crime, with seemingly only one explanation, but to both there arose visions of the unexpected satisfying of the craving mother heart of the work-worn farm drudge; of her seeming happiness and joy at the little cuddling head in the hollow of her arm and the soft lips on the breast, as the little form was held tightly to its mother's bosom.

"I don't care what the coroner's jury said, I don't believe Mamie could 'a' done it. But still—if she didn't, who did?"

"Yes, an' then, if she didn't do it, why don't she say so? She knows they might hang her."

"They say she ain't said one word since Jed found her out there in the barn door. My land, but ain't it hot?"

"Yes, there bein' no trees 'round here, jes' seems like the sun bakes right through the roof. Well, we might as well begin to pick up. The funeral's