“Just what I told my wife all through,” he said. “I knew you’d hang out!”
Eli’s jury was excused for the rest of the day, and by noon he was in his own village, relieved, too, of his most pressing burden: for George Cahoon had met him on the road, and told him that he was not going to the West, after all, for the present, and should not need his money. But, as he turned the bend of the road and neared his house, he felt a rising fear that some disturbing rumor might have reached his wife about his action on the jury. And, to his distress and amazement, there she was, sitting in a chair at the door.
“Lizzie!” he said, “what does this mean? Are you crazy?”
“I’ll tell you what it means,” she said, as she stood up with a little smile and clasped her hands behind her. “This morning, it got around and came to me that you was standing out all alone for John Wood, and that the talk was that they’d be down on you, and drive you out of town, and that everybody pitied me—pitied me! And when I heard that, I thought I’d see! And my strength seemed to come all back, and I got right up, and dressed myself. And what’s more, I’m going to get well now!”
And she did.
YOUNG STRONG OF “THE CLARION.”
By Milicent Washburn Shinn.