Once Hat surprised this look and shot a lightning glance from under her heavy black eyebrows to see if Judith was answering it. Reassured from this direction, she turned her bold eyes and cast a black look of uncontrollably furious jealousy at her husband who was now bending again over his tobacco.
So the little human comedy went on; and Judith, the only one who was not cherishing ulterior motives or covert suspicions, found her natural desire for companionship swamped in this heavy undertow of suspicion, greed, craftiness and lust. There is an idea existing in many minds that country folk are mostly simple, natural and spontaneous, living in the light of day and carrying their hearts on their sleeves. There is no more misleading fallacy. No decadent court riddled with lust of power, greed, vice, and intrigue, and falling to pieces of its own rottenness, ever moved under a thicker atmosphere than that which brooded over the little shanty where these four fresh-cheeked young country people stood stripping tobacco.
They sighed with relief when the long job was over and the tobacco was ready for market.
Tobacco was an unusually good crop that year and Jerry's half amounted to nearly two tons. In addition to his own tobacco, he was hauling a small crop for one of the neighbors, so his load was a heavy one. It was an exciting morning when the great, towering load stood outside the tobacco barn with four horses attached in the first gray glimmer of the dawn, and Jerry, perched on the high seat, cracked his whip over the four broad backs, and started out on the thirty mile trip to Lexington.
When he came home next day there was a check for three hundred and eighty-four dollars and seventy-six cents folded in the inside pocket of his coat. His tobacco had brought the high average of ten cents a pound. He had never been so proud and happy in his life as when he opened the check and spread it before Judith's delighted eyes. There was money to finish paying for the horses and money to put in the bank. His joy was marred only by the knowledge that Luke had averaged a cent a pound more for his crop, a knowledge which confirmed him in the suspicion that some of his finer grades had been stolen.
As Judith's waist measure increased, and it became apparent to everybody who saw her that she was with child, she became the recipient of the advice and confidence of all the women of the neighborhood. The confidences were many and varied; and the advice of one woman often flatly contradicted that of another. But they were all alike delivered with an air of conclusive authority. She found that when these women spoke to her about her pregnancy they adopted a manner almost identical with that which had revolted her in Hat: an air of great intimacy and secrecy, as though the subject was of such a private nature that it concerned only the talker and listener and brought the two together into a close and exclusive atmosphere. With this was combined a certain archness and playful levity which seemed to Judith the very soul of lewdness. Jerry's mother, Aunt Mary Blackford, a well meaning soul according to her lights, was one of the worst offenders; and she presumed upon her relationship, as relatives have a habit of doing. Judith grew to dread the approaches of these women as one loathes and dreads a pestilence. She resented their insinuating interference in a matter which she wished to concern only herself and Jerry; and the manner of their interfering seemed to her vile and disgusting.
After having endured several lengthy visits, she learned to lock the door and hide in the bedroom when she saw a female figure approaching over the brow of the hill. The visitor would try the door, and finding it locked would knock loudly and imperatively, then wait a short time and knock again. Having satisfied herself that there was no one at home, she would scrutinize the dooryard more or less closely, according to the extent of her curiosity, and at last turn away and plod up the hill again. Not until she was quite out of sight would Judith dare to open the door.
Sometimes, however, she was not fortunate enough to see the visitor in time to feign absence from home. This was the case one afternoon when Aunt Maggie Slatten, the mother of Hat, and of many other children, bore down upon her.
They had not long since finished dinner. Jerry had just left the house to go back to his spring plowing, for it was February, and Judith was washing the dishes, when the door was unexpectedly opened and disclosed Aunt Maggie occupying the major part of the door space. She heaved in and sat down heavily in a chair, which creaked at the onset of her tremendous weight.
"Land alive, Judy, it's a hard climb over them hills," she gasped, laboriously taking off her mud-encrusted overshoes and setting them under the stove to dry. "An' the roads is that deep in mud, a body kin hardly pull their feet along. But I hearn haow you was in the family way. An' knowin' it was your first an' haow you didn't have no mammy, I felt I jes had to come daown an' set with you a while. Well, an' haow air you a-feeling', Judy?"