Bessie came back to herself with that sense of arriving, of having been infinitely away, with which one drops from abstraction.
Where had they been in that state of absent mind?
It was as if they had met out of time, space, matter.... And as she thought of his words, in the light of his eyes, pity too was qualified, and that without endangering helpfulness. He, too, had his balance of good. Yes, things squared in the end.
Her creed was quick. The scattered dandelion seed sprouted all around her.
PAP OVERHOLT
BY ALICE MACGOWAN
Up and down the long corn rows Pap Overholt guided the old mule and the small, rickety, inefficient plough, whose low handles bowed his tall, broad shoulders beneath the mild heat of a mountain June sun. As he went—ever with a furtive eye upon the cabin—he muttered to himself, shaking his head:
“Say I sha'n' do hit. Say he don't want me a-ploughin' his co'n. My law! Whut you gwine do? Thar's them chillen—thar's Huldy. They got to be fed—they 'bleeged to have meat and bread. Ef I don't—”
Again he lifted his apprehensive glance toward the cabin; and this time it encountered a figure stepping from the low doorway—a young fellow with an olive face, delicately cut features, black curling hair, the sleep still lingering in his dark eyes. He approached the fence—the sorry, broken fence,—put his hands upon it, and called sharply, “Pap!”