The young girl drew back her vail and a face of almost perfect beauty wuz disclosed, but white as death. The big dark eyes wuz full of sorrow and despair, sadder than tears. She simply said:
“I loved him––he was murdered––I have come to denounce his murderers.”
Her voice wuz low, but the words fell like drops of blood, so vivid, so full were they of the soul of her being.
“Yes,” sez Arvilly, “and you are his murderer. Not the Spaniards, not the foe of this govermunt that the poor young fellow tried with a boy’s warm-hearted patriotism to save. You murdered him.” She turned to let her companion speak agin, but the power to speak had gone from her; her slender figure swayed and Arvilly caught her in her strong arms. She had fainted almost away; she could say no more. But what more could she say to this govermunt.
“He was murdered––I loved him––I have come to denounce his murderers.”
Arvilly helped Waitstill down on a bench where she leaned back still and white most as if she wuz dead. But before Arvilly went out with Waitstill leanin’ on her arm, she turned and faced them dumb-foundered men once more:
“Who is accountable for the death of her lover?” pintin’ to the frail, droopin’ figger. “Who is accountable for the death of my husband? Who is accountable for the death and everlastin’ ruin of my son, my husband, my father and my lover? sez the millions of weepin’ wimmen in America that the Canteen and saloon have killed and ruined. These questions unanswered by you are echoin’ through the hull country demandin’ an answer. They sweep up aginst the hull framework of human laws made professedly to protect the people, aginst every voter in the land, aginst the rulers in Washington, D. C., aginst the Church of Christ––failing to git an answer from them they sweep up to God’s throne. There they will git a reply. Woe! woe! to you rulers who 100 deviseth iniquity to overthrow the people committed to your care.”
Arvilly then went out, leadin’ Waitstill, and when she come back to Jonesville she come with her, a patient mourner, good to everybody and goin’ out to day’s works for seventy-five cents a day, for she had no other way to live, for she wuzn’t strong enough then to go on with her nursing and she hadn’t a relation on earth, and the man our govermunt murdered in that Canteen represented all there wuz on this broad earth for her to love. They worshipped each other, and Waitstill is waitin’ till the time comes for her to die and meet the man she loved and lost, havin’ to live in the meantime, because she couldn’t stop breathin’ till her time come. So, as I say, she went out doin’ plain sewin’, beloved by all both great and small, but a mourner if there ever wuz one, lookin’ at his picture day in and day out, which she wears in her bosom in a locket––a handsome, manly face, took before our govermunt made a crazy lunatick and a murderer of him.
Jest as different from Arvilly as day is from night, but the cold hands of grief holds their hearts together and I spoze that she will always make it her home with Arvilly as long as she lives, she wants her to––that is, if the plan I have in my head and heart don’t amount to anything, but I hope for the land sake that it will, for as I’ve said many a time and gin hints to her, there never wuz two folks more made for each other than she and Elder White.