"Lance sent you this," he said. "He never had time to write any letter. My son Lance is a mighty poor correspondent at the best; but he sent you this, and he bade Sylvane to tell you that you was to buy what you needed at Derf's store, an' that he'd hope to send you money from time to time as you should have use for it."
Callista looked on the ground and said nothing. And so it was settled. The comfortable, new, well-fitted home at the head of Lance's Laurel was closed, and Callista lived in the shabby, ruinous dwelling of her father-in-law. The help that she could offer in the way of provisions was welcome. To Roxy Griever, she had always been an ideal, a pattern of perfection, and now they made a sort of queen of her. The widow begrudged her nothing and waited on her hand and foot. Polly followed her around and served her eagerly, admiringly; but most astonishing of all, Mary Ann Martha would be good for her, and was ready to do anything to attract her notice. Sometimes Callista seemed to want the child with her; and sometimes when the little girl looked at her with Lance's eyes, and spoke out suddenly in his defiant fashion, Callista would wince as though she had been struck at, and send Mary Ann Martha away almost harshly.
CHAPTER XV.
THE STUBBORN HEART.
CALLISTA never referred to what Kimbro Cleaverage had told her; but she presently began, of necessity, to buy some things at the store for her own use, where she had formerly purchased only that which would make good her stay with her father-in-law.
The wild, cool, shower-dashed, sun-dappled, sweet-scented, growing days of spring followed each other, passing into weeks, months, until midsummer, with its pause in rural life, was come. Octavia Gentry, who was a little out of health, had sent word again and again that she wanted Callista to come home. It was a Sunday morning in the deep calm of July when she finally came over herself to the Cleaverage place to try to fetch her daughter.
The thrush's song that waked Callista that morning at sunrise, rang as keenly cool as ever; but the frogs were silenced, and the whirr of the "dry-fly" was heard everywhere instead. Gloss of honey-dew was on the oak and hickory leaves, and the blue air veiling the forest shadows spoke of late summer. The morning was languid with heat; the breakfast smoke had risen straight into 224 the dawn, and the day burnt its way forward without dew or breeze; hills velvet-blue, clouds motionless over the motionless tree-tops, toned with mellow atmospheric tints that were yet not the haze that would follow in autumn. One or two neighbors had strolled in, and about mid-forenoon Ajax Gentry and his daughter-in-law drove up in the buckboard and old Kimbro and Sylvane went out trying to pretend surprise, yet Callista knew all the time that the meeting had been arranged—that her people were expected.
"Honey!" Her mother took her into a reproachful embrace, and then held her back and looked at her, tears streaming down her face, "honey—I've come for you. Me and gran'pappy is a-goin' to take you right home with us when we go this evenin'. Git your things a-ready. Me with but one child on this earth, and her a-lookin' forward to what you air, and to stay with—well, of course, not strangers—but with other folks!"
But Octavia Gentry's pleadings were hushed in her throat—the preacher's tall old gray mule and dilapidated wagon was seen stopping at the gate. He had not been expected, and his arrival brought a sense of apprehension—almost of dismay. Every one dreaded lest the dour old man comment openly and bitterly upon the pitiful state of Callista's affairs. Not often had he been known to spare the "I told you so." Drumright had brought his wife and brood of younger children, and from the moment of their 225 advent the house was vocal with them from end to end. Elvira Drumright inevitably reminded one of a small clucking hen with a train of piping chickens after her. The deep male note was missing in the whiffle of sound that fretted Callista's ear; after unhitching the preacher's mule and turning him in the lot, the men had loitered—no doubt because of a lingering dread of the women's activities in the house—to lean against trees and the fences, talking of neighborhood matters. Some of the elders sauntered over to inspect a wrongly dished wheel on a new wagon, and talked for twenty minutes of this phenomenon alone. They were joined here by Flenton Hands, who came riding down the road, and went so wistfully slow as he passed the place that Kimbro could not forbear to hail him and bid him light and come in.