Buck’s jaw fell. It was Mellie who suggested neuralgia.
“Tha’s hit, Miz Chunn, this yere neuralgatism. Hit keeps a-devilin’ around me wuss’n toothache.”
He had to take half a cup full of vile tasting “yarb” medicine, but he got away at last with his secret still undivulged. Fifty yards away he slewed round in his seat to call back with a fatuous smile, “I’ll sho’ly be back by evenin’, Miss Mellie—three o’clock at the furdest.” Fortunately Mrs. Chunn had returned to her soapmaking at the back door.
Mellie took the precaution to meet her messenger down the road lest he should blow up prematurely with his information in the presence of her stepmother. Buck fished, with much difficulty, a slip of paper and a quarter from the pocket of his jeans. The girl selected them from a promiscuous collection of buttons, strings, peppermints and chewing tobacco.
“This yere’s the place where Jed lives, leastways he useter,” pointing to the address on the slip—“’n it didn’t cost but six bits to put the piece in the paper. Hit’s done fixed to go ever week for a month.”
When Buck next went to town he carried with him a letter addressed to Jed Wilson, 99 Ranch, What Cheer, Texas. A copy of the Beebee Bee came back in his pocket. Mellie hid the paper hurriedly, and waited to look at it till she could get away to the shadows of the hickory lead at the edge of the bayou.
Among the advertisements she found what she was seeking. A chance copy of a New York paper, flung from a train window by a traveling man, had given her a model for her first appearance in type.
“If this should meet the eye of Jed he will know that the girl who hunted ’possums with him six years ago is in great need.”
Hughey pushed his curious wooing persistently. Nearly every evening now he squirted tobacco juice from the porch and bragged of himself and his possessions at Mellie via Mrs. Chunn. His greedy, cruel smile filled the girl with a sick fear. Divining the repulsion he inspired in her, he offered no chance to give expression to it. That the pressure of her environment would wear out her will he was confident, and he could afford to wait till he was sure before he punished her for her detestation of him. But he scored it up against her none the less.
His approaches were no more obtrusive than those of a spider, but they were just as certain. Mellie felt herself being taken for granted. He said no word of love and asked none of the privileges usually accorded the successful wooer. None the less he obsessed her every waking moment. She was never oblivious of the encroaching web he spun about her. The time came when he and Mrs. Chunn could discuss before her the details of his marriage to her without spoken protest on her part. She sat in an unconsenting silence that became passionate protest when she was alone with her stepmother.