The Shield of Silence | Page 8

"fotch."
"How you know, child, I is goin' to fotch--anything?" Jed's spine was
affecting his moral fibre.
Mary gave her elfish laugh. She rarely smiled, and her laugh was a
mere sound--not harsh, but mirthless.
"I know!" she said, "and it came--no matter what it is on The Ship, and
I 'low it will go--on The Ship."
"Gawd A'mighty!" Jed burst out, "you make me creep like I had
pneumonia fever." With this Jed turned to The Rock and confronted
The Ship.
"Gawd!" he murmured, "I sho' am anxious and trubbled."
Then he turned, mounted the step of the creaky carriage, and gave his
whip that peculiar twist that only a born master of horses ever can.
It was like Jed to do that which he was ordained to do promptly.
Mary watched him out of sight and then went indoors. She was
depressed and nervous; her keen ear had heard much not intended for
her to hear, but not enough to control the imagination that was fired by
superstition.
"A happening" was looming near. Something grave threatened. The
evil crew of The Ship was but biding its time to strike, and Mary
thrilled and feared at once.
The bread, as Mary sniffed, was ready to be taken from the oven. The
first loaf was poised nicely on the girl's towel-covered hand when a

dark, bent old woman drifted, rather than walked, into the sunny
kitchen. She came noiselessly like a shadow; she was dirty and in rags;
she looked, all but her eyes, as if she might be a hundred years old, but
her eyes held so much fire and undying youth that they were terrible set
in the crinkled, rust-coloured face.
"I want her!" The words, spoken close to her shoulder caused Mary to
drop the loaf and turn in affright.
"I want--her!"
"Gawd! Aunt Becky!" gasped Mary, dropping, like a cloak, the thin
veneer of all that Ridge House had done for her. "Gawd! Aunt Becky, I
done thought you was--dead and all. I ain't seen you in ages. Won't you
set?"
The woman stretched a claw-like hand forth and laid it on the shoulder
of the girl.
"Don't you argify with me--Mary Allan. I want her."
There seemed to be no doubt in Mary's mind as to whom Aunt Becky
wanted.
"Sister Angela is at prayer, Aunt Becky," she whispered, trying to
escape from the clutch upon her shoulder.
"Mary Allan--go tell her I want her. Go!" There was that in Becky's
tone that commanded obedience. Mary started to the hall, her feet
clattering as she ran toward the chapel on the floor above.
Becky followed, more slowly. She got as far as the opened door of the
living room, then she paused, glanced about, and went in.
There are some rooms that repel; others that seem to rush forward with
warm welcome. The living room at Ridge House was one that made a
stranger feel as if he had long been expected and desired. It was not
unfamiliar to the old woman who now entered it. Through the windows

she had often held silent and unsuspected vigil. It was her way to know
the trails over which she might be called to travel and since that day,
three years before, when Sister Angela had met her on the road and
made her startling proposition, Becky had subconsciously known that,
in due time, she would be compelled to accept what then she had so
angrily refused.
On that first encounter Sister Angela had said:
"They tell me that you have a little granddaughter--a very pretty child."
"Yo' mean Zalie?" Becky was on her guard.
"I did not know her name. How old is she?"
"Nigh onter fifteen." The strange eyes were holding Sister Angela's
calm gaze--the old woman was awaiting the time to spring.
"It is wrong to keep a young girl on that lonely peak away from
everyone, as I am told that you do. Won't you let her come to Ridge
House? We will teach her--fit her for some useful work."
Sister Angela at that time did not know her neighbours as well as she
later learned to know them. Becky came nearer, and her thin lips curled
back from her toothless jaws.
"You-all keep yo' hands off Zalie an' me! I kin larn my gal all she needs
to know. All other larnin' would harm her, and no Popish folk ain't
going to tech what's mine."
So that was what kept them apart!
Sister Angela drew back. For a moment she did not understand; then
she smiled and bent nearer.
"You think us Catholics? We are not; but if we were it would be just
the same. We are friendly women who really want to be neighbourly
and helpful."

"You all tote a cross!" Becky was