``Tell that fellow he had better keep out of my way,'' he said to the woman, who understood, and wanted to say something, but not knowing how, nodded simply. In a few days the other children went back to the cabin, and day and night Grayson went to see the child, until it was out of danger, and afterwards.
It was not long before the women in town complained that the mother was ungrateful. When they sent things to eat to her the servant brought back word that she had called out, `` `Set them over thar,' without so much as a thanky.'' One message was that ``she didn' want no second-hand victuals from nobody's table.'' Somebody suggested sending the family to the poor-house.
The mother said ``she'd go out on her crutches and hoe corn fust, and that the people who talked 'bout sendin' her to the po'-house had better save their breath to make prayers with.'' One day she was hired to do some washing. The mistress of the house happened not to rise until ten o'clock. Next morning the mountain woman did not appear until that hour. ``She wasn't goin' to work a lick while that woman was a-layin' in bed,'' she said, frankly. And when the lady went down town, she too disappeared. Nor would she, she explained to Grayson, ``while that woman was a-struttin' the streets.''
After that, one by one, they let her alone, and the woman made not a word of complaint. Within a week she was working in the fields, when she should have been back in bed. The result was that the child sickened again.
The old look came back to its face, and Grayson was there night and day.
He was having trouble out in Kentucky about this time, and he went to the Blue Grass pretty often. Always, however, he left money with me to see that the child was properly buried if it should die while he was gone; and once he telegraphed to ask how it was. He said he was sometimes afraid to open my letters for fear that he should read that the baby was dead. The child knew Grayson's voice, his step. It would go to him from its own mother. When it was sickest and lying torpid it would move the instant he stepped into the room, and, when he spoke, would hold out its thin arms, without opening its eyes, and for hours Grayson would walk the floor with the troubled little baby over his shoulder. I thought several times it would die when, on one trip, Grayson was away for two weeks. One midnight, indeed, I found the mother moaning, and three female harpies about the cradle. The baby was dying this time, and I ran back for a flask of whiskey. Ten minutes late with the whiskey that night would have been too late. The baby got to know me and my voice during that fortnight, but it was still in danger when Grayson got back, and we went to see it together. It was very weak, and we both leaned over the cradle, from either side, and I saw the pity and affection--yes, hungry, half-shamed affection--in Grayson's face. The child opened its eyes, looked from one to the other, and held out its arms to ME. Grayson should have known that the child forgot--that it would forget its own mother. He turned sharply, and his face was a little pale. He gave something to the woman, and not till then did I notice that her soft black eyes never left him while he was in the cabin. The child got well; but Grayson never went to the shack again, and he said nothing when I came in one night and told him that some mountaineer --a long, dark fellow-had taken the woman, the children, and the household gods of the shack back into the mountains.
``They don't grieve long,'' I said, ``these people.''
But long afterwards I saw the woman again along the dusty road that leads into the Gap. She had heard over in the mountains that Grayson was dead, and had walked for two days to learn if it was true. I pointed back towards Bee Rock, and told her that he had fallen from a cliff back there. She did not move, nor did her look change. Moreover, she said nothing, and, being in a hurry, I had to ride on.
At the foot-bridge over Roaring Fork I looked back. The woman was still there, under the hot mid-day sun and in the dust of the road, motionless.
