Polly remembered that homeward ride to her dying day, for it was the first time in her defrauded life that she had been brought face to face with a great passion whose very crudeness added to its strength. Tobe had held himself with grim, fearful ardor to his labor, while his stubborn aching heart yearned for one word of reconciliation from Mary. His mother had written strange, slighting things relating to the blighting factory life that Tobe abhorred, and he had waited and Mary had suffered in silence. Before the train reached Gainesville Tobe’s busy brain had evolved a plan which he confided to Polly while they stood on the station platform waiting for the country stage which was to take Tobe up to Lumpkin that very afternoon.
“I’ll be down by noon tomorrer, sure,” was his parting promise.
Polly paid a brief visit to Mary’s shack when she reached Factory Row, fearing to stay long lest her secret should escape her eager lips. She was tired, she explained so tersely that the sick girl felt hurt and neglected. The following day Polly appeared at sunrise.
“I don’t aim to work today,” she announced, “so I may as well set with you, Mary. You jest lemme fix you up on the porch where you can git the air while I red up the house a bit.”
Mary was too listless to object, so she dragged herself out to the narrow porch where the warm spring sunshine drenched the rough boards with a golden flood, upon which the blossomed torches of the cypress vine made small, dancing shadows.
“Ain’t it a turrible pretty day!” Polly exclaimed glowingly. “Makes me think of way up in Lumpkin, don’t it you?”
“I jest can’t bear to think of it at all!” Mary wailed, with a yearning glance toward the far, golden hills.
“I’ll bet the honeysuckles is jest thick all over them river hills by now. Don’t you rec’lect how blue the bottoms looked along about this time when the dog vi’lets is out full?”
“It’s time to lay off the cotton fields,” Mary murmured. “Polly, if anything should happen to me, you’ll see that the chillun keeps together at the poor farm, won’t you?”
“Shucks, you’re goin’ to get well—that’s what’s goin’ to happen to you, Mary Lomux. Now lie still and rest while I straighten up the house.”