“You haven’t fallen out with Mrs. Day?” Helen put in quickly.
Kate shook her head.
“No one falls out with Mrs. Day,” she said quietly. “Mrs. Day does the falling out. It isn’t only Mrs. Day, it’s—it’s everybody. I think the whole village is—is mad.” She turned back from the window and returned to her seat. But she did not sit down. She stood resting her folded arms on its back and leaned upon it. “They’re all mad. Everybody. I’m mad.” She glanced from one to the other, smiling in the sanest fashion, but behind her smile was obvious anxiety and trouble. “They’ve practically decided to cut down the old pine.”
Bill sat up. He laughed at the tone of her announcement.
But Helen gasped.
“The old pine?” She had caught some of her sister’s alarm.
Kate nodded.
“You can laugh, Bill,” she cried. “That’s what they’re all doing. They’re laughing at—the old superstition. But—it’s not a laughing matter to folks who think right along the lines of the essence of our human natures, which is superstition. The worst of it is I’ve brought it about. I told the meeting about a stupid argument about the building of the church which Billy and Dy had. Billy wants the tree for a ridge pole, because the church is disproportionately long. Well, I told the folks because I thought they wouldn’t hear of the tree being cut. But Mrs. Day rounded on me, and the meeting followed her like a flock of sheep. Still, I wasn’t done by that. I’ve been canvassing the village since, and, would you believe it, they all say it’s a good job to cut the tree down. Maybe it’ll rid the place of its evil influence, and so rid us of the attentions of the police. I tell you, Billy and Dy are perfect fools, and the folks are all mad. And I’m the greatest idiot ever escaped a home for imbeciles. There! That’s how I feel. It’s—it’s scandalous.”
Bill laughed good-naturedly.
“Say, cheer up, Kate,” he cried. “You surely don’t need to worry any. It can’t hurt you. Besides——.” He broke off abruptly, and, sitting up, looked out of the window. “Say, here comes Fyles.” He almost leaped out of his seat.