The tears slipped from Emma’s eyes at the little man’s tone. Her face was as tranquil as it was sorrowing, and, as she answered, there was no bitterness in her voice and no fretfulness or rebellion in gesture or look. She did not feel bound to exhibit spirit in his presence. “O Jerry,” she said, “I think I do. But I can’t stay fit for him when I live with thieves who rob him. I’m glad he got the blast ef I have to get low-toned; he’ll be nearer a mate for me.”
Jerry stayed on and helped her. He packed away the white dress; he was used to handling things that were sacred to the memory of a happy past, and began to pull Emma’s house to pieces as only a woman could be expected to do. Martha Long came in; she was sewing as she walked. She was a brisk woman, and got through half her work on the wing.
“God’s name!” she said to Black, “what’s come to Emma? She looks hurt, and white as a death-sheet.”
Jerry told her what had happened, and Martha, without a word, went over and took both the girl’s hands in hers and pressed them to her sides; she never lost hold of her sewing, and presently set to work again.
“Well,” she half screamed in indignation, “of all the poison toads and irregular vipers in the world and out of it, I guess Quarry’s the lowest down. He’s a dirt-mean man! I suppose you’ll move out, and take the yeller house on the Pastures. There ain’t no one in it since last May, and it has a porch. You won’t stay there long,” Martha said with conviction. “Your kind don’t keep to no rent-free Stonepastures. You’ll come back to the town, and the crowd’ll cheer you—you’ll see.”
“Well,” Emma replied, “I’m going this afternoon.”
Accordingly, at five, or a little later, Jerry brought a funeral carriage By the Bridge, and old Butte and Emma and Jerry and Martha carried Jarlsen on a shake-down along the Tracks. The sun, as Jerry observed, was “leanin’ pretty near the west line,” and the sky was bright above the Stonepastures. It had cleared in the early afternoon, and all the odours, bad and good, seemed flying about, riding on the cool breezes that swept over the Tracks. The high-standing ripe grasses caught the level shafts of sun and bowed before the wind, glorified in the bright light. Jarlsen questioned them about his removal, but gave no evidence that he heard their replies except once, when he said that Emma “sounded” tired. But his voice died away in groanings, and he could not answer their other questions. Emma felt that he heard her voice and did not distinguish the words.
Jerry felt so too. He reminded Emma of the blind man in the Testament. “He seen the men first as trees,” he said, “even when he was cured with grace, and not with herbs and ointment and such; he didn’t get clear vision right away.”
Emma felt happier than she had thought possible. She ran back into the yard and slipped off her shoe. “I’ll get the favour of home for him,” she thought.
But while the handful of mould was still in her hand she put her shoe on again. “I’d liefer shake off the dust from my feet,” she said; “this ain’t no home to get the favour from.”