“Let no one, nothing, come between us, dear son, and may Heaven bless my boy.
“Your devoted Mother.”
He read the letter again. Getting up he studied the ground between his feet for an answer. Then looking up, he kissed the little note, put it into his pocket and walked away towards the sick-room.
“Yes, I will go. But—not—now,” he said, as he went.
CHAPTER X
Through the Ever Changing Scenes
The days following the rescue of Gena Filson and the period of her convalescence were trying ones for the humble folks of Blood Camp. Without exception, every man from the bottom of his heart was glad that the fingers of the law had finally reached out and taken hold upon old Jase Dillenburger. Yet, for fear, not a man had given expression to the fact to his next neighbor.
When the news came from the sick-room, telling of the change for the better, the convalescence period, then the long suspense which had held the little hamlet in awful dread so long was broken. Darkness dispersed, and the people of Blood Camp adjusted themselves to the new conditions, and turned again to honest toil with contented minds and grateful hearts.
Since Paul Waffington had again taken his leave, the courts had decreed and ordered that the cabin and three acres of land that belonged to old Jase Dillenburger should pass to Gena Filson, and forthwith appointed Slade Pemberton her guardian and administrator.
Slade Pemberton was a hard man of the hills. He had about “held his own” or “kept even,” as he would say, selling goods in Blood Camp, and perhaps, he had been niggardly with it. He invariably tied the twenty-five-cent bag of brown sugar at the top with about an inch of cotton string, instead of wrapping the bag with the string, as is the custom, thereby saving a few inches of wrapping-string. But with Slade Pemberton twenty inches of cotton string saved was twenty inches made. More than one mother in Blood Camp could testify that his pound was short and his yard niggardly.
Still Slade Pemberton was the store-keeper, and the people looked up to him in a way, and respected him. Since good luck had favored him somewhat lately, and he had been able to settle his back accounts with his dealers in the cities and thereby reopen his store for business, he had tried ever so hard to deal justly with all. But Slade Pemberton found it hard, even a strain upon him, to put more than thirty-five and one-half inches in his yard. But recently he had attended a few sessions of the Sunday-school “Jist to hear the tunes—not to take part,” as he said. But the tunes seemed to have done him good. The Sunday-school, the new adjustment of life in Blood Camp, and one other great fact—the fact that he was now the guardian of Gena Filson—all seemed to take hold upon him until the little spark of good that was in him flamed up and found expression in deeds of kindness.