The Sherrods

by George Barr McCutcheon

On the day of Jud's departure she met 'Gene in the village. Her husband had made her happy with the renewed promise that she could come to him in the spring. Justine's heart was singing, her lips were burning with the warmth of his love. Bundled in shawls and blankets, she drove slowly from the village through the first vicious attacks of a blizzard. Her thoughts were of the handsome, well-dressed youth in the warm railway coach. She forgot the cold, blustery weather and saw only the bright garden of paradise which his love had created. Her heart sang with the memory of the past two days and nights spent with him.

Just as her old gray horse fumbled his way into the open lane at the edge of town, she saw a man plodding against the wind, not far ahead along the roadside. It was 'Gene and he was starting out upon a long walk to Martin Grimes's place. With a blow or two of the "gad," she urged the horse past him. The single glance she gave him showed his face red with the cold and his head bent against the wind. As she passed he looked up and spoke. "Howdy, Justine."

"Good evening, 'Gene," she replied, but she could hardly hear her own voice.

"It's a nasty drive you got ahead of you," he called.

"O, I'll soon be home," she responded, and he was left behind.

For half a mile there rang in her ears the accusing words: "It's a nasty drive you got ahead of you." What of the walk ahead of him? Now that she had grown calm she wondered how she could have passed him without asking him to ride home. He had been kind to her, after all; he had redeemed himself to some extent in the past few weeks and—he had not asked her for the ride as she had feared he would. She recalled his cheery greeting and his half-frozen face and then his anxiety concerning the discomfort ahead of her. By no sign did he show a desire to annoy her with his company. She looked back over the road. In the twilight, far behind, she saw him trudging along, a lonely figure against the sky.

"It's a shame to make him walk all the way home. He'll freeze, and I can just as well take him in as not," she said to herself, and pulled the horse to a standstill, resolved to wait for him. Then came the fear that some one might see him riding home with her. The country would wonder and would gossip. Unsophisticated country girl as she was, she knew and abhorred gossip. Once a good girl's name is coupled with that of a man in the country, the whole community shuns her; she is lost. In the country they never forget and they never investigate. Turning her face resolutely she whipped up, leaving him far behind.

While she was stabling her horse, by the light of a lantern, she found herself, amidst warm thoughts of Jud, reproaching herself for the unkindness to this man who hated her husband and who had sworn to be her undoing. She might have given him the ride, she argued against herself; it was so little to give and he was so cold. The blizzard was blowing in force by this time, and her conscience smote her fiercely as she thought of him forging along against its blasting chill. In the village Jud had purchased several suits of warm underclothes for her and she had placed the package in the seat beside her. Groceries and other necessaries were beneath the seat. To her dismay and grief, she found that the package had been in some manner jolted from the seat and was doubtless lost on the road, miles back.

The next morning saw the storm still raging. The night just past had been one of the most cruel the country had ever known. Her first thought was of her stock, then of 'Gene Crawley. Had he reached home safely or had he been frozen out there on the open road? A chill of fear and remorse seized her and she turned sick at heart. Jud would not have allowed the man to face such a storm, and if he were frozen no one would condemn her cruelty more bitterly than tender-hearted Jud.

She ran to the rear door of her house, from which Grimes's home on the hill could be seen, a mile away. The gust of wind drove the door open as she turned the knob. Something rolled against her feet. The lost bundle lay before her, left there in the night by—it could have been no other than 'Gene Crawley. It was a sob of honest thankfulness to the poor wretch she had spurned in the highway that came from her lips as she lifted the package and closed the door. For many minutes she stood by the window, clasping the bundle in her arms, looking out into the bleak morning. A feeling of relief surged up in the multitude of thoughts, and tears stood in her eyes. Not only had he braved the blizzard safely, hardily, but he had traveled a mile or more farther through the freezing night to deliver at her door the package she had lost from the seat that might have been shared with him.