The Hays free press. [volume], October 27, 1917, Magazine Section, Page 3, Image 11

About The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924

Image provided by: Kansas State Historical Society; Topeka, KS

                
t yet opened. On account of the
mndant fruit crop and the scarcity
help, the Ikivg mli
ither .
iy for
r pac
night, acompanied
snow.
by a flurry of
a son was Dora
Gus Havemann the
to Mr. and Mrs.
first of the week.
Dohydrates and used to produce :
in milk and as such together w
Ptejjapd,sJiylakegoQ(i.,roilk :
be
The Methodist ladies are to have a
rummage sale in the Ohio House Fri-
HOME CIRCLE MAGAZINE SECTION
not worth a dam' not a dam' to
nobody. You look like you' mammy's
relatifcs and they was all no good git
away, I tell you!" -
He roared ominously; for Seffy,
amazed . at this from his gentle old
.father, was looking straight up at him
out of a child's round eyes, his lips
parted, his throat exposed. Slowly, as
'his parent heaped contumely upon him,
his sensitive young face whitened, and
the light left it. Only, when his father
mentioned his mother's name, he said
with infinite softness:
"Why, pappy!"
But he stood without fear under the
great fist a3 he had often done.
"You hear! I told you to git away
or I'll smash your face in! I don't
want you no more. Go to your mammy's
relatifes out West" he laughed hor
.ridly "and see what they'll do for
you! You'll live on bread and water '
they ain't got nossing else! You'll work
all day and all night and you'll haf
no fun they don't know no better
go!"
"Yes," said Seffy, turning dumbly
away. .
. There was no doubt that he meant
to go now. His dumb acquiescence in
his sentence raised his father's wrath to
fury.
"Yas go, and be mighty quick
about it. I'm chust itching to smash
you. I'll nefer send for you if you rot
in the poorhouse. I'll nefer mention
you' name as long as I lif- no! I disown
you! Never let me see you' dam' face
again go!"
It was all so utterly unbelievable
that Seffy turned back. This raving
madman his jolly old father, who had
reverenced the memory of his mother
and had taught him to do so to men
tion her every time he prayed? The old
man had turned, but Seffy came close
and touched him gently. The caress
only maddened him. Seffy cowered at
the passion on the face of his father.
He raised his fist.
"Git out dam' you!" he shouted.
"If you don " But the boy could riot,
now.
The huge fist trembled on high a
moment, some instinct of sanity strug
gling to control it then it fell on
Seffy's upturned face.
He dropped among the clods his
pale hair mingling with the dust his
hands inertly outlying terror still
quivering in his lips andnostrils. Blood
slowly oozed from his mouth and
nose, and a livid red mark began to
grow upon the depression in his fore
head which the blow had made.
One moment two the old man
looked down at this. Then he under
stood that he had done it and with a
savage- animal-cry he swept the boy
into his arms. Seffy doubled inertly
upon him, as the dead do. His father
raced frenziedly home with him, leap
ing fences like a hound. He put him
upon the pretty white bed the boy
had been wont to make with such care
for himself. It was dainty and smooth
now. The blood dripped from Seffy's
face and from his own beard and stained
the white coverings. The sight was
full of horror! He staggered drunk enly
away. He looked hastily for his gun
meaning, perhaps, to kill himself. But
then it seemed to him that Seffy sighed.
He fell on his knees and agonized for
the life he thought he had taken. Then
he felt a pulse-beat. - With a hoarse cry .
he rushed out into the road, calling for
the doctor. Two people were coming
toward him. It was Sam and Sally,
returning from their marriage.
By what he saw on Old Baumgartner's
face and hands, Sam was sobered. Both
understood that they were approaching
some tragedy.
"Who?" asked Sally, suddenly ob
livious of Sam."
"Seffy."
"Sam!" she turned upon her hus
band with command. " Bring the
doctor!"
Sam went with satisfactory haste.
"Who hurt him?" asked Sally, as
if she were ready to slay him who did.
"I. I killed him- because he wouldn't
marry youl You wouldn't marry him!
Oh, you devil!"
It was at that instant that the great
change in Sally came. She. leaped be
fore him into the house and up to
Seffy's room. When the old man
slowly followed she was there with
eyes bent upon Seffy's bloody, uncon
scious face. So she kept her eyes. She
did not. speak. And when the doctor
came, she was still there as at first
unconscious as he, the doctor said.
He was not dead, and presently he
breathed again. But his eye3 remained
closed, and, late that night, when he
had drifted from unconsciousness into
deep sleep, they put out the light and
left him.
When they came again he had dis
appeared. CHAPTER XI.
WHEN SPRING CAME
That was a cold and lonely winter
for the old man. The bay mare stood
in the stable and whinnied for Seffy.
The old house was full of harsh echoes.
Its spirit seemed to have gone. Seffy's
father knew now what a rare thing" is
joy and what a joyous creature Seffy
had been.
The ground was hard to till. And
often he thought about what he had
said of Seffy's mother.
Then he would toil up the steep
stair to the garret he had become
Suite feeble and take out of an old
lerman chest a daguerreotype of her
with Seffv in her arms. And sometimes
he would cry over it until his beard
was wet.
"God bless you, my little boy,"
he would sometimes say, "that you
cared for her more than I did.
You nefer called her no names.
"I didn't know I could be so mean
to the dead who don't deserfe it,
and can't talk back. And, God-a'migh-ty!
If any one's to be called names,
it's me! not her nor you,- Seffy,
nor you! For I expect I'm a murderer!"
And sometimes, when his loneliness
was too hard to be borne, he would
go out and sit for hours and talk to
to the old bay mare! about Seffy.
He fancied she quite understood, and
I do, too.
When the spring came he plowed
alone. And this was hardest of all.
To plow, around and around his vast
fields with no one to meet in the other
furrow no one to talk, to smile, to
laugh to then, when .noon came, to
sit under the shade of some tree redolent
with memories of the pretty little boy,
where he and Seffy had sat, from his
childhood to his manhood, and eat the
food which choked!
Oh, if he could only have laughed
at himself, at Seffy, at the mare, at
anybody . or anything! If he could
only have laughed!
And he knew that every animal on
the place wondered and hungered for
little Sffy and questioned him with
pathetic eyes, while he, at first, guiltily
kept silent then tried to confess his
shame to them. '
"Yas,". he told the mare, "I done
it I struck him here, riht here! In
the face while his eyes was looking
in mine pleading and here was blood
and here and here and dust in his
hair and his eyes was closed and
when I run home wiss him hi3 legs
dangled like he was dead. -And he
crawled away somewheres to die
I don't know why they don't come and
hang me. I. haf told 'em all that I
killed him. But no one don't
arrest me."
CHAPTER XH.
THE KISS LIKE 8ETTT'8
One day he went up to the vine
covered house on the Hill of Delight
with a bundle of papers in his hand.
"See yere. Sally," he said senilely,
"yere's you papers. I gif up the
guardeenship. You ken git another
one if you not on age yit. I don't
keer a durn who. 1 m tired. If it
wasn't for you Seffy would be alife."
Sally drooped her head.
"Yes," she said, so humbly that he
relented a little. -
"I got to do it.' I ain't no account
no more. I ought to haf a guardeen
myself. And people's making such a
fuss you ain't treated us right no,
you ain't! I guess I had better not
be mixed in. They say that you
married a drunkard, and killed a man
and got to be a drunkard yourself.
But I know better 'bout one sing.
I killed him. Yit they say that you
married Sam chust to spite poor Seffy
- and yet lofing Sef. Oh, Sef Sef
why dind't she tell vou so!"
He went on heedlessly till he knew
that Sally was sobbing. He raised
her face and looked into it curiously
and saw for the first time that pathetic
wanness of which, also, people began
to talk.
"Sally," he said then, "you not
well?"
"Quite well," said Sally.
"Then you got trouble trouble,
too, Sally?''
"Oh, pappy," she pleaded breath
lessly, "don't you turn away from
mo, too. I have no one but you!
No. I have not treated you "right. But
oh, life is so hard to me!"
"No," he said, smoothing her hair
with his gnarled old hand. "I'fe had
my eyes turned within. But I didn't
know you had trouble. I heerd that
Sam had took to hard drinkin' and
I sought you didn't keer. You was
so rackless "
"Yes," she sighed, "I am reckless!
And yes I drink sometimes. But
it is that way I can forget."
" I don't turn ag'in' no one in trouble,
efen if they don't treat me right and
drink"
"Forgive me! Oh, forgive me pap
py! The suffering is mine!"
"Yas," he said, "yas don't cry.
But the suffering ain't all yourn."
"No, she said. "Not "all not all!"
"But Sally, if I take the papers
back, you won't drink no more? It
ain't nice efen if you air the wife of
a drunkard."
"No. If you will be my friend, I
will try to be what I would have been
as Seffy's wife!"
"It's a bargain and I'm sorry I
spoke so harsh, Sally. Mebby, mebby
God knows! we ken comfort -one
another . I Bally I need some one,
too"
"Yes! Will you let me? I will
have no friend but you!"
"Yas! And I won't have no friend
but you, Sally .'
" Will you let me kiss you?"
"Do you want to?" he cried trem
ulously. " Yes " whispered the girl.
"Me? Sally, lem me kiss youl"
She put up her lips almost solemnly
and with that their compact was
sealed.
CHAPTER XIII
ONE BLOW FOR THAT TO SEFFY
He took the papers home again,
and was very gentle with her afterward,
for the things which the world blamed
in her. His was the only real kindness
she knew. Her little canting world
had no pity" for her. But to her
drunken husband, in spite of all, she
. was a loyal wife, and the old man liked
her the better for it.
So it - came to pass that they two,
the bent old man and the girlish wife
of the drunkard, separated more and
more from the world and came more
and more together. And often they
were seen in the fields together and
walking along the roads arm in arm.
With Sallys little fortune at com
mand, Sam had gone rapidly to the
bad. And Sally came to know what
tears were, and that dreadful kind of
waiting which falls to the lot of such
women, the waiting for the fall of
a footstep which makes one shudder
yet rejoice.
They told her to get rid -of him," but
she shook her head and thought of the
inscription in her wedding ring.
After a while it was the gentle old
man who helped to make these vigils
less intolerable going away stealthily
by the back door when Sam's" unsteady
step was heard at the front ; an angel of
light if ever there was one in plowman's
jacket.
It fell grimly to his lot, too, to provide
for Sam by diminishing the little farm
he had longed and hoped for, acre by
acre. There was no contention be
tween them as to this. The young
wife's wishes were his law.
"He married me for that," said Sally,
the first time, "and I let him marry me
for that just for spite. Only no one
was spited but me but me well, he
shall have it all all" her voice broke
a little "all but the pasture-field
that no one shall have but you
or Seffy when I die."
Onlv once he interfered. Sam raised
his hand to strike her and he laid the
drunkard at his feet with a blow such
as he had struck but once before in his
life.
"I am her guardeen!" he cried as he
struck. "By the Lord, I'm her guar
deen I"
For a moment he gloated over the
prostrate brute. Then he stood up
trembling before Sally.
"Forgif me," he begged. "But 1
couldn't help it. It done itself. Mebfcy
God-a'mighty only knows! it was a
chance to efen up for the other one.
And yit it was a righteous blow yas,
it was a righteous blorc!"
Sally put her hands into his and sob
bed. "Yes," she' said. "You are the first
that ever saw "
" It was too late to stop. And before
it was done he knew that this was not a
new. experience to her, and that she
suffered it and was almost glad of it
for penance.
"By the Lord," cried the old man,
"if he efer strike you ag'in I'll kill him!"
"No," said Sally softly.
"Yas!" he insisted with some of his
old violence. ,
"No." she repeated sadly. "Because
it is all my fault all the shame the
shame because I deserve it! And
Thou thalt nol kill! You know tre
have tempers! And we have both used
them!"
He shuddered and thought of the
plowed field, with Seffy lying there.
"Good night!" he said with averted
face..
"I didn't mean that, pappy I didn't
mean that you killed him. He's no
dead. Pappy, kiss me good night!
And forgive me."
But this also made her dearer to him.
And so, little byjhttle, they drew closer
and closer, until a certain happiness
was his and a certain content hers.
Occasionally they laughed. But this was
not often. They were well satisfied to
sit before the winter fire, she with an
elbow on his knee, he with his rugged
hands in her hair. And after a while
she would ask him no more to kiss her
good night he did it as of right, and
very beautifully, on her hair so much
like Seffy, that first dear kis3 that it
made her sob! always.
"Just like Seffy!" she said the first
time and cried, pushing him out of the '
door when he would have asked a
question.
But he asked his question one day.
It was whether she had loved Seffy.
"Not until Seffy comes!" she cried.
"I won't answer."
"Sally," he said solemnly, "I killed
my little boy. He fa dead. I hurt him
I made him af eared of me he dragged
himself away to die, like wild animals
that air hurt by men. So you will have
to tell me."
"No no!" she begged. He is not
dead. And some day he will come back
to us you "
"Sally, you said 'us'?"
"Yea. Forgive me. I meant you.".
"Did you mean me?"
"Yes oh, yes!"
"Cross your breast!" :
She made this adjuration with a smile.
But when he had gone, she groveled i
on the floor and cried:
"Us ua us!" - rZZ
CHAPTER XTV. S
FOB eEFTT,8 BAXJC '
And ' so three nearly foux-r-Tesrs
passed land Sam was dead. . :::;' - f
I'appy, sne said alterward, you f
have been very good to me!" e--
t .j '