Her way took her through the poorest section of the little town. Small houses, some having only two and three rooms each, bordered the rugged, unpaved little streets. Part of the section was known as the "Negro Settlement," and there stood a little steepled church, with green blinds, the walls of which, in default of paint, had received frequent coatings of whitewash at the hands of the swarthy devotees. She had no trouble in finding her way, for she already had a general idea of where the mother of the wounded man lived, and only had to ask as to the particular house.
"Can you tell me where Mr. Keith lives?" she inquired of a little negro boy amusing himself in a swing.
"You mean the man that was kilt?" the child asked, blandly, as he halted himself by thrusting his bare feet down on the ground.
"The man that was—hurt," Mary corrected, shuddering over the way the boy had put his reply.
"De las' house at the end er de street, on dis yer side. You cayn't miss it. Miz' Keith got grape-vines in 'er front yard, en' er goat en' chickens en' ducks."
She found it without trouble. The house had four small rooms and a crude lean-to shed which served as a kitchen. A slender, thin woman of the lowest class of whites, about fifty years of age, scantily attired in a plain print skirt and a waist of white cotton material, her iron-gray hair plastered down on the sides of her face from a straight part in the middle of her head and drawn to a small doughnut-shaped knot behind, sat in the doorway smoking a clay pipe with a reed stem. As Mary arrived at the little gate, which was kept closed by a rope fastened to a stake and from which hung a brick for a weight, she looked up, drew her coarsely shod feet under her, and took the pipe from her mouth. She must have recognized the visitor, for she contracted her thin brows and allowed a sullen, resentful expression to spread over her wrinkled face and tighten the muscles of her lips.
"May I come in, Mrs. Keith?" Mary asked, holding the gate partly open and dubiously waiting for a response.
The pipe was clutched more firmly and the woman stared straight at her. "You may come in if you want to," was the caustic answer. "We don't keep no bitin' dog. I didn't 'low the likes of you would want to come, after what's happened, but if you do I can't hinder you an' Tobe hain't able to prevent it, nuther."
"Who is it, mother?" came a faint voice from within the house.
"Never mind, sonny, who it is," the old woman called back. "I'll tell you after awhile. Remember what the doctor said, that you must not get excited an' lift your fever."