The Shield of Silence | Page 9

interested.
"Yes. We bear the cross--it is a symbol of what we try to do--you need
not be afraid of us, and if there is ever a time when you need us--come
to Ridge House."
After that Becky had apparently disappeared, but often and often when
the night was stormy, or dark, she had walked stealthily down the trail
and taken her place by the windows of Ridge House. She knew the
sunny, orderly kitchen in which such strange food was prepared; she
knew the long, narrow dining room with its quaint carvings and painted
words on walls and fireplace; she knew the tiny room where the Sisters
knelt and sang. One or two of the tunes ran in Becky's brain like
haunting undercurrents; but best of all, Becky knew the living room
upon whose generous hearth the fire burned from early autumn until the
bloom of dogwood, azalea, and laurel filled the space from which the
ashes were reluctantly swept. Every rug and chair and couch was
familiar to the burning eyes. The rows of bookshelves, the long, narrow
table and--The Picture on the Wall!
To that picture Becky went now. She had never been able to see it
distinctly from any window. It was the Good Shepherd. The noble,
patient face bent over the child on the man's breast had power to still
Becky's distraught mind. She could not understand, but a groping of
that part of her that could still feel and suffer reached the underlying
suggestion of the artist. Here was someone who was doing what, in a
vague and bungling way, Becky herself had always wanted to
do--shield the young, helpless thing that belonged to her.
The old face twitched and the soiled, crinkled arms--so empty and
yearning--hugged the trembling body. And so Sister Angela found her.
The three years since Angela had seen Becky Adams had taught her
much of her people--she called them her people, now.
"I am so glad to see you, Aunt Becky," she said, smiling and pointing
to a chair by the hearth, quite in an easy way. "Are you tired after your
long walk?"

"Sorter." Becky came over to the chair and sank into it. Then she said
abruptly: "Zalie's gone!"
The brief statement had power to visualize the young creature as
Angela had once seen her: pretty as the flower whose name she bore, a
little shy thing with hungry, half-afraid eyes.
"Is she--dead?" Sister Angela's gaze grew deep and sympathetic.
"Not 'zactly--not daid--jes now." Poor Becky, breaking through her
own reserve and agony, made a pitiful appeal.
"She has--gone away? With whom?" Sister Angela began to
comprehend and she lowered her voice, bending toward Becky.
"She ain't gone with any one--she didn't have ter--but she'll fotch up
with someone fore long. She's gone to larn--she got the call, same as all
her kin--it's the curse!"
Now that the wall of reserve was down the pent waters rushed through
and they came on the fanciful, dramatic words peculiar to Becky and
her kind. Angela did not interrupt--she waited while the old, stifled
voice ran on:
"I had to larn, and I went far and saw sights, and when it was larned I
cum back, with Zalie's mother rolled up like she was a bundle. The old
cabin was empty 'cept for wild things as found shelter there--me and
her settled down and no one found out for some time, and then it didn't
matter!
"Zalie's mother, she had to larn and she went with a man as helped her
larn powerful quick. He don killed my gal by his ways an' he left her to
die. It was a stranger as brought Zalie to me, and then I set myself to
the task of keeping her from the curse--but she got the call and she
went! I can see her"--here the strange eyes looked as the eyes of a seer
look--they were following the girl on the "larnin' way"; the tired voice
trailed sadly--"I can see how she went. It was nearing morning and all
the moonlight that the night had left was piled like mist down in the

Gap. Her head was up and she had her hands out--sorter feelin', feelin',
and she would laugh--oh! she would laugh--and then she'd catch the
scent, and be off! Oh! my Gawd, my Gawd!"
Becky swayed back and forth and moaned softly as one does who has
emptied his soul and waits.
Sister Angela got up and bent over the old woman, her thin white hand
on the crouching back.
"When did this happen?" she asked.
"Mos' a year back!"
"And you have only come now to tell me? Why did you wait?"
"Twasn't no use coming before--but now, I 'low she's coming back,
same as all us does, after the larnin'!