“He was a graspin’ man and over-reached himself.”
The woman beside her sniffed reproachfully and glanced at the minister with sorrowful air. The man stirred uneasily and lifted a hand in expostulation.
“A daughter shouldn’t jedge. If you was enlightened by the spirit you would n’t be so lackin’ in Christian charity.”
She had endured much that long afternoon, and she raised her eyes now defiantly.
“I’ve done my duty by him—I’ve done my duty for twenty years without complainin’.”
“The pride of the onregenerate must be humbled,” returned the minister.
She vouchsafed no reply, and they went on in silence, the setting sun touching with softened light her worn face and tired eyes.
The sun was low in the western sky when the two women reached the small house, once white but now a dirty gray, with great yellow streaks following the lines of the overlapping clapboards. The black waters of the swiftly flowing river were flecked with red and gold under the level rays of the sun, the rounded hills on the other side of the stream were softly blue, toward the east a white fog was rising. A flock of wild geese high in the gray-blue sky was flying swiftly southward, spread out in a great straggling V. The mournful cry of their leader reached the two women faintly, the flight of the wild geese was an unfailing sign of approaching winter, and they watched the black lines of the flying fowls until they vanished in the southern sky, their weird cry growing fainter and sadder and finally dying away, leaving the swish of the river against its muddy bank the only sound which troubled the quiet of the autumn twilight. Two women with hushed voices and funereal faces waited inside the dingy front room of the house.
“It was a right smart gathering,” said one of them.
“I never see a finer,” said the other.