“Hush, Judy!” pleaded Auntie Sue. “Please don't, child!”
But the mountain girl rebelliously continued: “Look at me! Just look at me! If that there God of your'n is so all-fired good, what did He go an' let my pap git drunk for, an' beat me like he done when I was a baby, an' make me grow up all crooked like what I be? 'Good'? Hell! A dad burned ornery kind of a God I call Him!”
For some time, Auntie Sue did not speak, but stood with her face upturned to the sky. Then the low, gentle voice again broke the silence: “See, Judy, dear; the light is almost gone now, and there is not a cloud anywhere. Yesterday evening, you remember, we could not see the sunset at all, the clouds were so heavy and solid. The moon will be lovely to-night. I think I shall wait for it.”
“You-all best set down then,” said Judy, speaking again in her querulous, drawling monotone. “I'll fetch a chair.” She brought a comfortable rustic rocking-chair from the farther end of the porch; then disappeared into the house, to return a moment later with a heavy shawl. “Hit'll be a-turnin' cold directly, now the sun's plumb down,” she said, “an' you-all mustn't get to chillin', nohow.”
Auntie Sue thanked her with gentle courtesy, and, reaching up, caught the girl's hand as Judy was awkwardly arranging the wrap about the thin old shoulders. “Won't you bring a chair for yourself, and sit with me awhile, dear?” As she spoke, Auntie Sue patted the hard, bony hand caressingly.
But Judy pulled her hand away roughly, saying: “You-all ain't got no call ter do sich as that ter me. I'll set awhile with you but I ain't a-needin' no chair.” And with that, she seated herself on the floor, her back against the wall of the house.
The last of the evening was gone from the sky, now. The soft darkness of a clear, star-light night lay over the land. A gentle breeze stole over the mountains, rustled softly through the forest, and, drifting across the river, touched Auntie Sue's silvery hair.
Judy was first to break the silence: “I took notice neighbor Tom brung you-all a right smart bunch of letter mail this evenin',” she said, curiously.
There was a troubled note in Auntie Sue's gentle voice as she returned, “The letter from the bank did not come, Judy.”
“Hit didn't?”