He started at that. “Oh, no, honey,” he protested, “you can’t do that. You can’t go back there now. You know how it is—how they’ll treat you. You can’t live there now.”
“I can live anywhere now,” she answered. “I’ve found myself now. All my life I’ve been scared of folks. You know how it was. But not now: I’m free of ’em all at last. I got to go back there. It’s my home. It’s where I belong, where I can be square with the world. Oh,” she cried, “what does it matter to me where I live, when you—when you—Oh, honey,” she broke down, “what will they do to you?”
“Never mind! Never mind! It’s all right now. I can stand it now,” he consoled her. “But how will you live at Hart’s Run? Will they—will folks buy from you now?”
She laughed a little at that. “Oh, they’ll buy, all right,” she reassured him. “Maybe they’ll put me out of the church; but I trim hats too well, an’ know too much about fixing clothes for ’em not to come to the store.”
They began after that to consider their plans, bravely and calmly making arrangements for a speedy departure. It was still very early, and together they fell to work packing up all their small belongings. There was not much to pack: only a few clothes, the rosebud cups, and some extra housekeeping utensils that they had had to buy. These all went easily into her suit-case and his trunk, which she was to take with her. When the packing was finished he went out, arranged to have the trunk sent for later, saw their landlord and settled for the rent, explaining his sudden departure by saying he had to answer his draft call.
When he returned, breakfast was ready. Julie had even made waffles for their last meal together.
He sat down and forced himself to eat to please her, but she could scarcely touch anything.
“You better try to eat a little bit,” he urged. “There now, have some of this plateful of waffles. I can’t eat ’em all, honey.”
She looked at him a moment, her face quivering. “I—I got something in my throat—seems like I can’t swaller past it,” she got out, snatching at that wisp of whimsicality to cover the nakedness of their tragedy.
But on the whole the breakfast was a brave, almost a gay, meal. They were both setting forth upon desperate paths of life and, knowing this, they were keyed up and excited by the adventure of it, and in themselves they knew as well a steady self-confidence that had never been theirs before.