She was late already, as she knew, but was moved to go to see her father's sleeping-place. She went slowly between the graves, carefully avoiding treading on any of them. Her father had told her of the ill-luck that follows the foot that treads upon a grave and the hand that casts away bread. By what fearful sacrilege had this woman purchased her fate?
Her eyes were clearing now; and as she stood beside her father's grave, she looked upon it steadily enough. She felt a rapt sense of his presence—he had been very good to her in his absent-minded way. If he had lived! The woman found herself grateful that he died before. She rested her thoughts here to ask herself a question: If her father had lived, would she have lost herself? She held her breath for an instant—then turned and sped from his grave. She felt that her gaze defiled it—for, throbbing in each artery, tingling through every vein, poisoning her heart, she felt her whole being rise to affirm its shame—to give the damning answer "Yes" to that poignant self-interrogation.
She was certainly late that morning, and Mrs. Deans met her with flushed face and angry eyes.
"Well, this is a nice time of day! 'Laziness is much worth when it's well guided.' It would seem to me, Myron Holder, as if you'd try to make some return for the favors I've shown you, and what I've done for you, and what I've put up with. Time and time again, I've said to myself, says I, 'Let her go—what's the good of her? What's the good of keeping a dog and doing your own barking?' But being sorry for you, I never said nothing. But now, I tell you, Myron Holder, this thing's got to quit—either you can come here in decent time, or you can stay home!" Then, in a more insulting tone of voice, she asked: "What time did ye start this morning? I'll ask your grandmother. Pretty doings these, loitering along the roads! I'd have thought you'd had enough of that. Well, don't look at me like that! You're too good to be spoken to, I suppose; it's a pity you didn't do some blushing before now! It's rather late in the day for such delikit feelings—you what? Stopped in the graveyard? I wouldn't wonder, nothing more likely; were you alone? Well 'twasn't your fault, if you were. I guess Jed Holder thinks himself lucky to be rid of the world and such doings as yours. Poor Jed! Little did he know what shame he was leaving behind him. How your grandmother stands it and how she abides that brat, I can't see. One thing I've always said: 'Don't bring me no such brats as them, for I won't be concerned with no such doings!' But there, what's the use of talking? I never say nothing, but I think a lot. I guess your mother must have been a beauty from all I hear tell. Certainly you didn't get your bad blood off Jed Holder, and you must have took it somewhere. 'Like mother, like child'—well—none of such worry for me!" Then, stepping aside suddenly, and thus clearing the passage she had hitherto barred, she went on: "What are you standing looking at? Ain't you going to scrub to-day, or are you come visiting? I'm sorry if you have"—here a fine sarcasm echoed in her tone—"because I can't go and set down and entertain you, for I have my bread and butter to earn. But don't mind me—go right into the setting-room and make yourself at home."
Myron having availed herself of the first opportunity to move from under Mrs. Deans' insulting glances, had already divested herself of her sunbonnet, and was getting cloths and water for her scrubbing. Soon she escaped from Mrs. Deans' eyes, but the sound of her jibing tongue came harshly to her in every pause of her work.
The forenoon passed. After dinner the hired man brought the newspaper in and gave it to Mrs. Deans. She looked at the price of butter and eggs, and passed it to her husband.
He sat blinking by the half-open window: upon the window-sill was a bottle of sarsaparilla, a patch-work pin-cushion, and two or three potatoes Homer Wilson had brought to the Deans as samples—he being agent for a seedsman. Mrs. Deans brought out a big canvas-bag of carpet-balls, and, placing two chairs back to back, began winding the balls into huge skeins. She was going to dye them. Mrs. Deans worked away with her hanks, tying them carefully in separate strands, so that they would dye equally. Mr. Deans read his paper, its leaves rustling in his tremulous fingers. The sound of Myron Holder's scrubbing came raspingly through the air. The bound girl was out in the "yard" raking together dead leaves, bits of old bones, and emptied sarsaparilla bottles, making it tidy for the summer.
"Well, Jane!" ejaculated Henry Deans, in a tone of pleased surprise, "who d'ye think's dead?"
"Who? Old Mrs. White? Is it her? Or Mrs. Warner's sister up in Ovid? She was took terrible bad a week ago Friday. It's young Emmons! I know it! But say, isn't he owing for that last cord of wood? I never seen anything like it, the way people cheat! It's something awful! But I'll have that four dollars, though, out of Mame Emmons. If she can afford flannel at fifty cents a yard (and Ann White saw her pricing it), she can afford to pay her debts. Well, them Emmonses always was shiftless, but——"
"It ain't Emmons, though Homer Wilson says he looks most terrible bad; it's Follett!"