"Oh, nothing!" Ann said, and she sat down heavily in her chair and tightly locked her calloused hands in front of her.
[XI]
The continuous dry weather during the month of June had caused many springs and a few wells to become dry, and the women of that section found it difficult to get sufficient soft water for the washing of clothes. Mrs. Hemingway, whose own well was fed from a vein of limestone water too hard to be of much use in that way, remembered a certain rock-bottom pool in a shaded nook at the foot of the rugged hill back of her house where at all times of the year a quantity of soft, clear water was to be found; so thither, with a great bundle of household linen tied up in a sheet, she went one morning shortly after breakfast.
Her secret ailment had not seemed to improve under the constant application of the peddler's medicine, and, as her doubts of ultimate recovery increased correspondingly, her strength seemed to wane. Hence she paused many times on the way to the pool to rest. Finally arriving at the spot and lowering her burden, she met a great and irritating surprise, for, bending over a tub at the edge of the pool, and quite in command of the only desirable space for the placing of tubs and the sunning of articles, was Ann Boyd. Their eyes met in a stare of indecision like that of two wild animals meeting in a forest, and there was a moment's preliminary silence. It was broken by an angry outburst from the new-comer. "Huh!" she grunted, "you here?"
It was quickly echoed by a satisfied laugh from the depths of Ann's sun-bonnet. "You bet, old lady, I've beat you to the tank. You've toted your load here for nothing. You might go down-stream a few miles and find a hole good enough for your few dirty rags. I've used about all this up. It's getting too muddy to do any good, but I've got about all I want."
"This land isn't yours," Jane Hemingway asserted, almost frothing at the mouth. "It belongs to Jim Sansom."
"Jim may hold deeds to it," Ann laughed again, "but he's too poor to fence it in. I reckon it's public property, or you wouldn't have lugged that dirty load all the way through the broiling sun on that weak back of yours."
Jane Hemingway stood panting over her big snowball. She had nothing to say. She could not find a use for her tongue. Through her long siege of underhand warfare against the woman at the tub she had wisely avoided a direct clash with Ann's eye, tongue, or muscle. She was more afraid of those things to-day than she had ever been. A chill of strange terror had gone through her, too, at the mention of her weak back. That the peddler had told Ann about the cancer she now felt was more likely than ever. Without a word, Jane bent to lift her bundle, but her enemy, dashing the water from her big, crinkled hands, had advanced towards her.
"You just wait a minute," Ann said, sharply, her great eyes flashing, her hands resting on her stocky hips. "I've got something to say to you, and I'm glad to get this chance. What I've got to hurl in your death-marked face, Jane Hemingway, isn't for other ears. It's for your own rotting soul. Now, you listen!"
Jane Hemingway gasped. "Death-marked face," the root of her paralyzed tongue seemed to articulate to the wolf-pack of fears within her. Her thin legs began to shake, and, to disguise the weakness from her antagonist's lynx eyes, she sank down upon her bundle. It yielded even to her slight weight, and her sharp knees rose to a level with her chin.