The Sherrods

by George Barr McCutcheon

They were desperately poor, but they made no complaint. The vigor of life was theirs, and they sang as they suffered, looking forward with bright, confident eyes to the East of their dreams, in which their sun of fortune was to rise.

Justine was to have the school another year, beginning in October, after a six-months' vacation. Jud's pride revolted at first against this decision of hers, but she overcame every argument, and he loved her more than ever for the share she was taking in the dull battle against poverty. The land he tilled was not fertile; it had been overworked for years. The crops were growing thinner; the timber was slowly falling beneath the stove-wood ax; the meadow plot was almost barren of grass. It was not a productive "thirty," and they knew it. There was a bare existence in it when crops were good, but there was, as yet, no mortgage to face. Jud owned a team of horses, and Justine two cows and a dozen hogs. They had no other vehicle than a farm wagon, old and rattling. When they went to the village it was in this wagon; when to church, they walked, although the distance was two miles, so tender was their pride.

Little Justine was the politic one. Jud was proud, and was ever ready to resent the kindly offices of neighbors. Had it been left to him, young Henry Bossman would have been summarily dismissed when he offered to help Jud stack the hay, "jes' fer ole times' sake." It was Justine who welcomed poor, awkward Henry, and it was she who sent him away rejoicing over a good deed, determined to help "Jud and Justine ever' time he had a chanst."

It was she who accepted the proffer to thrash their thirty acres of wheat, free of charge, from David Strong, stopping off one day as his separator and engine passed by. She thanked him so graciously that he went his way wondering whether he was indebted to them or they to him. When Harve Crose offered to get their mail at the crossroads post-office every day and leave it at the cottage gate as he rode by, she thanked him so beautifully that he felt as though she ought to scold him when he was late on rare occasions. Doc Ramsey, the man who was knocked down by 'Gene Crawley at the toll-gate one night, helped Jud build a rail fence over half a mile long, and said he "guessed he'd call it square if Jud 'd give him that picter he drawed of Justine summer 'fore las'. Kinder like to have that picter, 'y ginger; skeer the rats away with," ending with a roar of apologetic laughter at his homely excuse.

'Gene Crawley was never to be seen in the little lane. Sullen and savage, he frequented the toll-gate, but not so much as formerly. He drank more than ever, and it was said that Martin Grimes had taken him out of jail twice at the county seat, both times on a charge of "drunk and disorderly conduct." It seemed that he avoided all possible chance of meeting Jud and his wife. Curious people speculated on the outcome of his increasing moroseness, and not a few saw something tragic in the scowl that seldom left his swarthy brow.

For many weeks after her marriage Justine dreamed of the fierce eyes and the desperate threats of this lover, and the only bar to complete happiness was the fear that 'Gene Crawley would some day wreak vengeance upon her husband. As the weeks wore away, this fear dwindled, until now she felt secure in the hope that he had forgotten her. And yet, when his name was mentioned in her presence, she could not restrain the sudden leaping of her heart or the troubled look that widened her tender brown eyes. When Jud bitterly alluded to him and assured her, with more or less boyish braggadocio, that he would whip him if he ever so much as spoke to her or him again, she felt a dread that seemed almost a presentiment of evil. She did not fear Crawley for herself, but for Jud.

'Gene's boast before the men at the toll-gate created a sensation in the usually unruffled community. The blow that felled Doc Ramsey was universally condemned, yet no man had the courage to take to task the man who delivered it. The story of his mad declaration concerning Justine spread like wildfire. Of course, no one believed that his boast could be carried out, or attempted, for that matter; but, as gossip traveled, the substance of his vow increased. Within a week the tale had grown in vileness until Crawley was credited with having given utterance to the most unheard-of assertions. Black and foul as his actual words had been, they were tame and weak in comparison with the things the honest farmers and their wives convinced themselves and others that he had said.

In the course of time the incident which made historical her wedding night reached the ears of Justine Sherrod. She had seen 'Gene but two or three times in the four months that intervened between that time and the day on which she heard the wretched story from Mrs. Hardesty—an honest soul who had heard 'Gene's words plainly, and was therefore qualified to exaggerate if she saw fit. Once the girl passed him in the lane near the toll-gate. He was leaning on the fence at the roadside as she passed. She had seen him looking at her hungrily as she approached, but when she lifted her eyes again, his broad back was toward her and he was looking across the fields. There was something foreboding in the strong shoulders and corded brown arms that bore down upon the fence in an evident effort at self-control. She felt the panic which makes one wish to fly from an unknown danger. Not daring to look back, she walked swiftly by, possessed of the fear that he was following, that he was ready to clutch her from behind. But he stood there until she turned into the gate a half mile down the lane.

It remained for Mrs. Hardesty to tell Justine the story. The bony wife of the toll-gate keeper carried her busy presence up to the cottage one afternoon late in September, and found the young wife resting after a hard, hot ironing. Her pretty face was warm and rosy, her strong arms were bare to the shoulder, her full, deep breast was heaving wearily beneath the loose blue-and-white figured calico. As Mrs. Hardesty came up the path from the gate she could not resist saying to herself, as she looked admiringly but with womanly envy upon the straight figure leaning against the door-casing, fanning a hot face with an old newspaper:

"I don' blame 'Gene Crawley er enny other man fer wantin' to have her. They ain't no one like her in the hull State, er this country, either, fer that matter."