t, as if lately released from a sorely cramped state; Ollie, with
little fleeting dreams in her pretty, shallow head, was believed by the
women of the neighborhood to be in the way of realizing on Isom's
expectations of an heir. It was a little fiction that had taken its
beginning from Sol Greening's early talk, and owing to that rumor the
coroner had been gentle with her beyond the inclination of his heart.
The young widow smiled as she lay on her pillow and thought of the
little intimate touches of tenderness which this baseless rumor had made
her the beneficiary of at her neighbor's hands. She was selfish enough
to take advantage of their mistaken kindnesses and to surrender to their
vigorous elbows the work below stairs. That was her day of freedom; it
was her dawn of peace.
It was pleasant to have come through stress and hardship to this restful
eddy in the storm of life; to have faced peril and disgrace and come
away still clean in the eyes of men. Ollie was content with things as
they were, as the evening shadows closed the door upon the events of
that trying day.
Quite different was the case of Sarah Newbolt, once more back in her
poor shelter, nested in bramble and clambering vine. She was dazed, the
song was gone out of her heart. She was bereaved, and her lips were
moving in endless repetition of supplication to the Almighty for the
safety and restoration of her son.
What was this grim thing of which they had accused her Joe? She could
not yet get to the bottom of it, she could not understand how men could
be so warped and blind. Why, Joe had told them how it happened, he had
explained it as clear as well water, but they didn't believe him. She
went out and sat on the porch to think it out, if possible, and come to
some way of helping Joe. There was not a friend to turn to, not a
counselor to lean upon.
She never had felt it lonely in the old place before, for there was
companionship even in the memory of her dead, but this evening as she
sat on the porch, the familiar objects in the yard growing dim through
the oncoming night, the hollowness of desolation was there. Joe was in
prison. The neighbors had refused to believe the word of her boy. There
was nobody to help him but her. The hand of everybody else was against
him. She had delivered him into bondage and brought this trouble to him,
and now she must stir herself to set him free.
"It's all my own doin's," said she in unsparing reproach. "My
|