"SUE DAWSON."
He refolded the letter, put it with quivering fingers back into its envelope, and then opened the newspaper and held it before his eyes. There was a clatter of dishes and pans in the back part of the house. A negro woman was out in the wood-yard, picking up chips and singing a low camp-meeting hymn. Now and then some one would tramp over the resounding floor, through the hall to the dining-room.
Harriet went to the door and closed it. Then she turned to him. The paper had slipped from his fingers and lay across his breast.
"What shall I get for your breakfast?" she asked. She moved round on the other side of the bed, wondering if it was the yellow morning light or his physical weakness that gave his face such a depressed, ghastly look.
"What did you say?" He stared at her absently.
"What would you like for breakfast?"
He looked towards his coat that hung on the foot of his bed.
"Don't bother about me; I'm going to get up."
"No, you must not." She caught his wrist. "Look how you are quivering; you ought not to have tried to read."
He raised the paper again, but it shook so that its rustling might have been heard across the room. She took it from him, and laid it on a chair by the bed. She looked away; the corners of his mouth were drawn down piteously and his lips were twitching.
"Please hand me my coat," he said.
"You are not going to get up?" She sat down on the bed and put her hand on his brow. Her face was soft and pleading. It held a sweetness, a womanly strength he longed to lean upon.
He caught her hand and held it nervously.
"I don't believe I've got a single friend on earth," he said. "I don't deserve any; I'm a bad man."
"Don't talk that way," she replied. There was something in his plaintive tone that seemed to touch her deeply, for she took his hand in both of hers and pressed it.
"I don't want to die, for your sake," he said, "for if I was to go under, it would be awkward for your—your friend. He might really have to swing for it."
She released his hand suddenly, a pained look in her face. "Did you want to put your letter in your coat pocket?" she asked.
"Yes."
She took the coat from a chair, gave it to him, and then went back to the fireplace. He thrust his hand into the pocket and took out Sally Dawson's last letter, and put it and her mother's into the same envelope. As he was putting them away he found in the same pocket a folded sheet of paper. He opened it. It was a letter from John Wambush to his son Toot. Then Westerfelt remembered the paper Harriet had picked up and given him in the street after the fight. Hardly knowing why he did so, he read it. It was as follows:
"DEAR TOOT,—Me an yore mother is miserable about you. We have prayed for yore reform day and night, but the Lord seems to have turned a deef ear to our petitions. We hardly ever see you now an we are afraid you are goin to git into serious trouble. We want you to give up moonshinin, quit drinkin an settle down. We both think if you would jest git you a good wife you would act better. I wish you would go an marry that girl at the hotel—you know who I mean. I am as sorry for her as I ever was for anybody, for she dont think you love her much. She told me all about it the night the revenue men give you sech a close shave. I was standin on the hotel porch when you driv the wagon up with the whiskey barrel on it an I heerd them a-lopin along the road after you. I thought it was all up with you for I knowed they could go faster than you. Then I seed her run out on the back porch an help you roll the whiskey in the kitchen an close the door. An when the officers com up you was a-settin on the empty wagon talkin to her as if nothin had happened. I heard all the lies she told em about seein another wagon go whizzin down the road an I thought it was a great pity for her to do it, but she was doin it for a man she loved an I wouldent hold that agin her. A woman that loves as hard as she does would do a sight wuss than that if it was necessary. After you loaded the whiskey back on the wagon and got away to the woods, I went round an told her what I had seed an she bust out cryin an throwed her arms round my neck an said she loved you better than she did her own life an that she never would love any other man as long as breeth was in her body. Son, that night she come as nigh beggin me to git you to marry her as a proud girl could, an when I left I promised her I would talk to you about it. She's a good girl, Toot, and it would make a man of you to marry her. I like her mighty well an so does yore mother. Please do come out home soon. It looks like a pity for you to be away so much when it worries yore ma like it does.
"Yore affectionate father,