A Pagan of the Hills

usual pretentiousness for that land of "Do-without," where inexorable meagerness is the rule of life. Just now in a room whose heart

tile forces of Nature. Yet he had built up a modest competency after a life time of struggle. With a few more years of industry he might have claimed material victory. In the homely parlance of his kind he had things "hung-up,

of bold chances. It followed that men called him hard, though few men called him other than just. To his door came disput

upon whom it was unsafe to impose. Those few who had stirred his slow ang

due time he might have gained promotion to the augmented dignities of Congress, but he had persistently waved aside the whispers of such temptation. "H

children independent, or be ravished from him by the insatiable appetite of the flood was a question likewise unanswered. Whether or not the daughter, who was the man of the family after himself, would return in time to comfort his last moments was a do

lying on the four-poster bed tried to argue for him, in extenuation, that he would have returned had he known the need. But in his bruised and doubting heart he

jacent cabins to take the place of the daughter he had sent away. They were ignorant women, hollow-chested and wrinkled like witc

unthreatened and who to-day faces the requirement of readjusting all his scheme from the clear and lighted ways of life to the gathering mists of death. He had seen through a high-placed window the gray of d

door sw

earing as unquestioned mandates of destiny. Accustomed to the curt word and to servile obedience they had no understanding for a woman who asserted herself in positive terms of personality. To them a "he-woman" who "wore pants" and admitted no sex inferiority was at best a "hussy without shame." If such a woman chanced also to be beautiful beyond comparison with her less f

s though she had brought the brightness with her. But she stood poised in an attitude of arrested action-halted by the curb of anxiety. The whole vitality and clean vigor of her seemed breathless and questioning. Fear had s

rning sun. It played in an aura about the coppery coils of her

d her bosom heaved to a sigh of relief; of thanksgiving. Under the heaped coverlets

ictions, gazed non-committally on, as though they would draw aside their skirts from cont

ack to the smouldering eyes of disapproval level look for look. Then she said q

hand across his tousled forehead, and w

uiet-but yit-he's frettin' fer ye so the

kin," said the girl, and in obedience

n thrust weakly up to her. Even now there was no woman-surrender to tears; only wide eyes agonized wit

's finished. Without ther flood overtops ther

realizing that he must conserve his slender strength and that there was mu

an' yore maw hed done prayed m

nows hit full well, an' I've sought d

a long drawn breath he went on. "Most folks 'lowed hit was like faulti

ps were tight drawn spoke defiantly. "I reckon we

k makes ther laws of life whether hit be right or wrong-I'd hev bee

lingness to criticise his son and t

maw-an' she was always gentle. Yes, he's a good boy-an' in a country whar a feller k

ed breathing demanded a respite of silence. Then slowly he declared with the

. These admissions as to one's nearest and deares

er kinderly look atter him lik

yes, and with an impatient gesture at the reminder of her sex, A

ed a deep dedication of purpose. "An' I pledges ye somethin' else too," she broke out in a vo

raised a deter rent hand s

combat all my life-ther shot from ther la'rel-ther lay-wayin'

ched themselves, and h

clared with an ominous quiet. "I aims

ut ye seeks ter hinder me from layin' peaceful in my last sleep ye'll bide by my command. Ther boy wasn't hisself when he harmed me. He war plum crazed. No man loves me

longer any sunshine-only a dome of leaden heaviness and the wail of dismal wind through the timber. To the father's eyes, despite he

lowly she nodded her head. "I gives ye thet pledge too;" she said

er hand, drawing her dow

ye up like a man because I could always kinderly lean on ye-but ye've done been both a son an' a daughter ter

oice was as full of scornful protest as though a soldier

f from co'tin' ye on pain of harm an' death-an' when I'm dead t

off too," she protested,

ter decide yore own self, but ef ther day ever comes when ye'd ruther welcome a lover then ter

she vehemently declared, and

inkin' I wants thet men children shell come atter me, bearin' my own name. Joe's children are apt ter take atter hi

a flooding of the temples and cheeks with blushes of modesty, Alexander

f ever I does go so crazy es ter wed with a man, thet man'll tek my su