d been promised something, something fine--she couldn't
remember what, or who had promised it, but it had never been out of her
mind.

There was the ring, too. No woman in Indiana had the like of that. An
ugly thing, but very ancient and of pure gold. Once Tom had wanted to
sell it when he was hard-pressed back at Nolin Creek, but she had fought
for it like a tigress and scared the life out of Tom. Her grandfather
had left it her because she was his favourite and it had been her
grandmothers, and long ago had come from Europe. It was lucky, and
could cure rheumatism if worn next the heart in a skin bag.... All her
thoughts were suddenly set on the ring, her one poor shred of fortune.
She wanted to feel it on her finger, and press its cool gold with the
queer markings on her eyelids.

But Tom had gone away and she couldn't reach the trunk in the corner.
Tears trickled down her cheeks and through the mist of them she saw that
the boy Abe stood at the foot of the bed.

"Feelin' comfortabler?" he asked. He had a harsh untunable voice,
his father's, but harsher, and he spoke the drawling dialect of the
backwoods.

His figure stood in the light, so that the dying mother saw only its
outline. He was a boy about nine years old, but growing too fast,
so that he had lost the grace of childhood and was already lanky and
ungainly. As he turned his face crosswise to the light he revealed a
curiously rugged profile--a big nose springing sharply from the brow,
a thick underhung lower lip, and the beginning of a promising Adam's
apple. His stiff black hair fell round his great ears, which stood
out like the handles of a pitcher. He was barefoot, and wore a pair of
leather breeches and a ragged homespun shirt. Beyond doubt he was ugly.

He moved round to the right side of the bed where he was wholly in
shadow.

"My lines is settin' nicely," he said. "I'll have a fish for your
supper. And then I'm goin' to take dad's gun and fetch you a turkey. You
could eat a slice of a fat turkey, I reckon."

The woman did not answer, for she was thinking. This uncouth boy was the
son she had put her faith in. She loved him best of all things on earth,
but for the moment she saw him in the hard light of disillusionment.
A loutish backwoods child, like Dennis Hanks or Tom Sparrow or anybody
else. He had been a comfort to her, for he had been quick to learn and
had a strange womanish tenderness in his ways. But she was leaving him,
and he would