Part 12

“Our love!” she cried. “It was that set us both free so’s we found ourselves. But that ain’t all. Last night, Tim, I understood more. It seemed like I was shoved right down into the heart of life. I had a kind of a vision--maybe it was only a dream: I’d been asleep, I know. I stayed awake ’til real late, just sitting there in the dark an’ knowin’ what I’d done to her. It seemed like I’d go crazy; I couldn’t cry; I thought my mind was about to split. An’ then at last I did: I cried, an’ cried, though it didn’t do her no good. I kep’ thinkin’, ‘This don’t do her no good. My tears can’t help her any now.’ But they helped me. My head stopped feelin’ so tight after that. The awful splashes on her waist quit hollerin’ out, ‘Look! Look!,’ an’ at last I dropped off into a doze; an’ when I waked up things was different. It seemed like I’d shifted in deeper than I ever was before.”

She brushed a dark strand of hair back from her brow, then she dropped her hand to his and he held it fast, staring up into her face, whose look of wider apprehension seemed reflected on his own as well.

“It was like I’d been stretched,” she went on slowly, feeling for words, “stretched into knowing bigger things, an’ shoved deep down where you ain’t yourself alone, but where all the rest of the folks is, too, all kind of bound together--all brothers an’ sisters--an’ where nobody lives to theirselves, or dies to theirselves. An’--an’ _now_ I got to stand straight with the world.”

He nodded, “I know. I understand.” It was the old familiar phrase which had linked them so close together. They were silent for a long moment, drinking understanding and courage from one another’s eyes in the communion of their spirits.

He spoke at last. “I’ll go ’round to the police this mornin’ an’ turn myself in. Or maybe it would be better to go straight to Camp Lee.”

Her clasp upon his hand tightened, but she spoke steadily. “I’ll go home to Hart’s Run.”

He started at that. “Oh, no, honey,” he protested, “you can’t do that. You can’t go back there now. You know how it is--how they’ll treat you. You can’t live there now.”

“I can live anywhere now,” she answered. “I’ve found myself now. All my life I’ve been scared of folks. You know how it was. But not now: I’m free of ’em all at last. I got to go back there. It’s my home. It’s where I belong, where I can be square with the world. Oh,” she cried, “what does it matter to me where _I_ live, when you--when you--Oh, honey,” she broke down, “what will they do to you?”

“Never mind! Never mind! It’s all right now. I can stand it now,” he consoled her. “But how will you live at Hart’s Run? Will they--will folks buy from you now?”

She laughed a little at that. “Oh, they’ll buy, all right,” she reassured him. “Maybe they’ll put me out of the church; but I trim hats too well, an’ know too much about fixing clothes for ’em not to come to the store.”

They began after that to consider their plans, bravely and calmly making arrangements for a speedy departure. It was still very early, and together they fell to work packing up all their small belongings. There was not much to pack: only a few clothes, the rosebud cups, and some extra housekeeping utensils that they had had to buy. These all went easily into her suit-case and his trunk, which she was to take with her. When the packing was finished he went out, arranged to have the trunk sent for later, saw their landlord and settled for the rent, explaining his sudden departure by saying he had to answer his draft call.

When he returned, breakfast was ready. Julie had even made waffles for their last meal together.

He sat down and forced himself to eat to please her, but she could scarcely touch anything.

“You better try to eat a little bit,” he urged. “There now, have some of this plateful of waffles. I can’t eat ’em all, honey.”

She looked at him a moment, her face quivering. “I--I got something in my throat--seems like I can’t swaller past it,” she got out, snatching at that wisp of whimsicality to cover the nakedness of their tragedy.

But on the whole the breakfast was a brave, almost a gay, meal. They were both setting forth upon desperate paths of life and, knowing this, they were keyed up and excited by the adventure of it, and in themselves they knew as well a steady self-confidence that had never been theirs before.

They had agreed that for Tim to go to Camp Lee and give himself up there would be the best plan; but after all, they were too late. As they finished breakfast, they were startled by a sudden loud bang upon their door. Their hands flew together and clutched fast for one moment across the table, then he rose and threw the door wide.

Two men in plain clothes burst in.

“Here, what’s your name?” the foremost demanded, a big swaggering man with the face of a bully.

“Timothy Bixby,” Tim answered steadily.

“Oh, it is, is it?” the man cried, a trifle taken aback. “This is your mornin’ for tellin’ the truth, ain’t it? Well, Mr. Timothy Bixby, I arrest you in the name of the law. See this?” He turned back his coat lapel, and displayed a sheriff’s badge. “We’re the dog catchers, an’ we’ve come for you--you damned yeller cur!”

“I was just fixin’ to go to Camp Lee an’ give up,” Tim said.

“Oh yes, you were,” the other jeered. “A hell of a lot you were!”

“But he was! It’s the truth, he was!” Julie broke in. “He was just gettin’ ready to go right this mornin’.”

“Oh, yes, he was, I know mighty well he was!” the other repeated. “An’ I know all about _you_, too!”

“But it’s true. Honest it is! Honest!” Julie pleaded desperately, turning helplessly to the other man, her eyes wide and sincere.

“Never mind, never mind!” Tim cut in under his breath to her. “It don’t matter, so long as _you_ know.”

“Oh, well now, Sam, maybe he was,” the second man interposed pacifically.

“Maybe nuthin’!” the sheriff cut him off. “He’s had a whole two months to git from Hart’s Run to Camp Lee, an’ you know traffic ain’t blocked as bad as all that. An’ if it hadn’t of been for his wife catchin’ a sight of him, he’d be hidin’ here still in this damned love-nest.”

So Elizabeth had seen, after all! Their eyes turned swiftly to one another at that.

“Now then, be in a hurry,” the sheriff commanded. “I ain’t got time to waste over you. Here--where’s your hat?”

Julie went quickly and brought Tim’s hat, pressing it into his hands. “My honey! My honey!” she breathed.

But the sheriff cut in between them. “Here, none er that,” he cried, jerking Tim away.

“Take me! Take me, too!” Julie cried. “It was all my doing!”

But she was brushed aside.

“Git out of the way! We ain’t got nuthin’ to do with you,” the sheriff said, pushing Tim toward the door. On the threshold, Tim paused and twisted around to cry back, “It’s all right, Julie, it’s all right.”

Then his captor thrust him savagely forth.

The other man, glancing back at Julie, paused an instant, caught by the anguish of her face. “Here, quick,” he whispered awkwardly, “ain’t you got a token--a keepsake for him? Maybe I’ll git a chanst to slip it to him.”

She looked wildly about the room. What should she send him? She started to take up the pieces of the broken cup, but her heart cried out, “No, no, not that!”

“Quick! Quick!” he urged her. “Your handkerchief?”

But her handkerchief was all sodden with the tears they had shed together. She shook her head dumbly. Hurried and confused, her mind was blank. Her gaze fell to the breakfast table. There was a pile of waffles still fresh and warm. To her dazed thought at that moment they were not food, they were symbols of her heart. With a hand that shook she caught up one and held it out mutely to the man.

“No, no,” he whispered sharply, “think what you’re doing, woman. A keepsake--a keepsake! Here--what about this?”

He picked up a picture postcard from the mantelpiece. It was a photograph of herself and Tim taken together.

“Yes, yes,” she nodded gratefully.

“I’ll slip it to him if I git the chanst,” he promised again.

“What will they do to him?” Julie breathed.

He shook his head. “I don’t know--I don’t know how bad he’s in.”

“Will I know what happens?” she questioned.

“You--you ain’t his wife, are you?” he asked uncertainly.

“No,” she answered, her wide eyes looking at him unfalteringly.

“The government only notifies the wife or next of kin,” he mumbled, as though repeating a formula.

“I’m goin’ back to Hart’s Run,” she told him simply. “If the law wants me, too, I’ll be there. My name’s Julie Rose.”

“Here, Jack, where in the hell are you?” the sheriff bawled from outside.

“Coming!” the lingerer cried, and went, slipping the postcard into his pocket.

Julie stumbled to the window and peered out. Tim was walking between the two men. As they came to the corner where he had always turned to wave a farewell to her, he paused now and half turning raised his hand, but the sheriff struck it angrily down and thrust him on around the corner out of sight.

Julie stood a long time, her head pressed hard against the window frame, her eyes fixed blankly on the street; but she knew that she must face it sometime, and at last she jerked herself round, and, straining back against the sill, let the empty desolation of the room rush over her.

XXI

Julie awoke the next morning in the dim and early light and sat up in her berth. She had slept so profoundly, swept down to such depths of unconsciousness, that for a moment on awakening she appeared to have drifted beyond all the moorings of her accustomed self, so that it took her a few moments of uncertain staring at the swaying green curtains of the berth and at the flickering light across the bedclothes, to realize that she was on the train. “I’m going home,” she told herself at last.

Yesterday, with all its complete shattering of her life in Richmond, its agony of parting in the morning, and its long hot sufferings of the ensuing day, was gone into the past, and this was to-morrow.

The man had come for her trunk soon after Tim had been arrested, and Julie had managed to slip away out of the house without having to face a parting and explanation with any of her friends there. She had spent most of the long, oppressive, and tragic day in the railway station, chiefly because she did not know where else to go. It was a strained and terrible time of waiting in heat, and confusion, and the weary sordid smells of humanity traveling in hot weather. Every now and again waves of hysteria swept over her, so that it was only by gripping her hands very tight, and by staring resolutely at the moving people before her, that she succeeded in keeping herself from breaking down altogether there in the public waiting-room. But finally the afternoon came, then twilight and supper; and then at last her train was made up, and she could get on and go to bed in the sleeping-car where she had been fortunate enough to secure a berth. She was so completely worn out by the sleeplessness of the night before and by all she had suffered, that--as soon as the train got under way and the intense city heat had lessened as it took the cool open stretches of the country night--the swaying of her berth, and the monotonous gray roar of the wheels, broken only by an occasional hollow moment running through the pattern of the gray roar as the train swept over a culvert, relaxed her all over, lulling her down and down through hazy thoughts, dreams, and at last into sleep and profound unconsciousness.

Now it was morning; she was awake again and, sitting up in her berth, looking at the light, she told herself, “I’m going home.” She realized that the air was cool and fresh, almost sharp. Putting up the curtain, she peeped out. The train was on an up-grade, pushing its way steadily along through deep cuts which occasionally closed into tunnels, or again running out into the open along the edges of hillsides, from the steep drop of which one looked down into hollows and little valleys filled with mists.

“We’ve struck the mountains, I’ve come home!” she breathed. She clasped her arms tight around her knees, and the long swell of a deep emotion laid hold upon her. Somewhere in the profound sleep of the night the tension of life had snapped, releasing her into something sure and steadfast. Big things--pity, truth, love, mountains, God, the sky, came shouldering boldly up through all the trivialities of life, and gathered her into an enormous peace. “I’ve broke through, I’ve broke through,” she whispered, “through into the big things. An’ _he’s_ broke through, too! He’s safe, they can’t tetch him now--they can’t lay the weight of a finger on him now. He’s out in the deep channel. He’s safe in the Lord.”

All her prim acquired English fell from her, and she turned back to the phraseology of her mountain people. Her thoughts ran out in a medley of confused, disjointed sentences, such as she had been accustomed to hear in shouting revivals in her church: ejaculations, snatches of hymns, remembered terms of the lumber camps--an overflowing of the spirit that clothed itself in any words that came.

“We’ve broke through, we’ve broke through,” she whispered that, over and over. “O my Lord! We’ve broke through! Freedom--freedom! There ain’t nothin’ big enough to hold it. ‘Shout, you mourners, you shall be free’--free in the Lord! The deep channel! The deep channel! He’s safe now, like I am! We ain’t hung up in the shallers no more--the jam’s broke an’ we’re out in the deep channel of the river, traveling free in the peace of the Lord.”

An ecstasy of depths of peace and stillness engulfed her, a vision of the enormousness and profundity of life which was God, so that the tears ran down over her illumined face.

“O my Lord!” she whispered, over and over, “O my Lord, you’ve fetched us home! You’ve give us sight. We ain’t just ourselves no more. You’ve showed us a vision of the other folks--my sister, my brother! An’ now we’re free. There’s freedom in the world for the little scary folks if they go down deep enough. We _are_ free!” she cried. “My love, my honey, my dear love, we’re safe at last! We’re traveling free in the vision of the Lord!”

She stared out of the window at the long stretches of mountains and valleys, with the sky above, and knew a deep kinship with them, as well. “Freedom,” she thought. “Nothin’ can’t hold it all. Nothin’ kin hold me. I kin stretch out all acrost the mountains, an’ lay down in the sky, an’ I’m deep-rooted in the everlastin’ hills. O my Lord, O my Lord!” The breathless ejaculations flowed away into complete silence, where only the tears running from her closed eyes could express the ecstasy of adoration that held her.

She still inhabited the same small and meagre body, but the spirit that flowed through her now was free of all the world, and with it came an enormous outstretching compassion, understanding, and tenderness for all suffering.

An hour later she stepped off the train at Hart’s Run. It was a morning in late September. An intense sparkling light fell over the world, driving the mists away from the parti-colored hills, and disclosing the immense dome of the blue sky.

Gathering up her hand luggage, Julie walked lightly along the familiar platform, her footsteps answering the rhythm of the words, “I’ve come home, I’ve come home.”

The first person to see her was Edward Black. He was pushing a truckload of trunks, and when he caught sight of her he stopped dead and half sat down upon the truck handles to gaze in stupefaction.

“Julie Rose! _You_ back?” he cried.

She met his eyes steadily, gazing forth at him from that deep centre of herself. “Yes, Ed, I’m back. I’ve come home,” she answered.

His first astonishment gave place then to a mean and taunting look. He leered as she passed and said softly, “Well, I reckon you an’ Mis’ Bixby’s husband had a high old time together.”

But she went by untouched, the insult blowing past her as lightly as a summer wind. The great experience through which she had passed had been out in the deep channel of the spirit. How could Ed Black know anything about it? How could any words of his even touch it, much less hurt her? She looked full at him as she passed, and in that instant of detached scrutiny she was conscious of a sudden stab of pity. For a moment she knew the man for what he was--a poor mean nature, destined always to inhabit the murky backwaters of life, incapable of ever striking out into the clear depths of any great emotion--a crippled bit of humanity never again to be afraid of or bullied by, only to be sorry for. “Poor Ed,” she thought, as she went down the platform and turned along the main street. The morning air touched her face refreshingly, there were drifts of great white clouds in the sky, and the mountains--the mountains that she had been born and brought up in! “I’ve come home, I’ve come home!” she whispered again.

Coming up the street a little in advance of her, she presently perceived Brother Seabrook. He was pacing along abstractedly, his head bent over his newspaper, which he had just secured from the post office and which bore tall excited headlines about the war. A little distance away, conscious that some one was approaching, he glanced up, saw her, and stopped for one paralyzed instant. His hand went mechanically toward his hat, but he checked it and, thrusting it into his breast pocket, pretended to feel for something; then he faced abruptly round and hastened in the opposite direction, as though suddenly reminded of important business elsewhere.

A little farther on Julie saw Mrs. Silas Randolph’s colored girl come out in the street to cross to the meat market. Suddenly she also saw Julie, and stopped in her tracks as had the others. She, however, attempted no subterfuge for her astonishment, but stood frankly still in the middle of the street, staring with her mouth open. Julie spoke to her as she passed, but the girl did not respond; after one more thorough stare, she turned and ran back across the street, stumbling under the excitement and haste of her news, turning her head back every now and again over her shoulder to be sure of what she had seen.

Julie knew that she had raced back to tell her mistress of the return. She knew that the latter would not believe her, but would run to the window to peer out herself, and that, then catching unmistakable sight of Julie, she would go to the phone and ring up different intimates to impart the news to them, using cryptic sentences supposed to baffle any eavesdropper on the wire. Julie knew that even now Mrs. Randolph’s incredulous eyes were fixed upon her back as she continued along the street. She knew her village, she knew what she had done and what she would have to face, yet it could not break that high serenity in which she moved. There was, too, a great peace in the thought that here all was known. It was a part of her standing square with the world. There would not be here any sudden pistol-shot, or the vision of an old woman on the floor, brought to that end by what she had done.

As she went along the street, she heard a little frightened mewing, and looking down perceived a gray kitten backed against the palings of one of the garden fences. It was very small and helpless, and in its wide kitten-eyes was a passion of terror. It had been chased by dogs and boys and rolled in the dust, and one little paw was bleeding. Its agony, its baby helplessness, and soft hurt paw stabbed Julie with an infinite compassion.

She dropped her bag and stooped quickly down.

“Poor little kitsy--poor little kitsy,” she murmured tenderly. The little frightened creature squeezed itself harder than ever against the fence, spitting helplessly at Julie’s hand and trying to strike with its tiny paw. “Don’t be scared, kitsy--poor little kitsy, there ain’t anything to be scared of--nothing to be scared of any more,” Julie comforted it. She gathered the little trembling body up, pressing it close to her warm neck; and so, with the kitten held against her breast, she came at last to her own little shop. Suddenly, as she looked at it staring out upon the street with its shuttered blank eyes, something clutched her throat. For one sharp suffocating moment she almost saw her mother stand there, her apron blowing in the wind as of old.

“_Mother!_ I’ve come home, I’ve come home,” she whispered breathlessly.

The side gate to her garden was broken and hanging upon one hinge. A cow had squeezed its way through, defiling the little cement walk, and trampling over and ravishing her flower beds, so that there were only a few broken chrysanthemums left. The house was completely deserted. Evidently Aunt Sadie was still away with her daughter.

Julie went up the walk and up the steps and, taking the key from her bag, unlocked the door and threw it open. The cold musty smell of the closed house rushed out to meet her, but she entered unhesitatingly. In the kitchen she set down her bag and the little kitten, and went about opening the windows and throwing shutters wide so that the sun and fresh air flooded in. As she looked out from the front window of her shop, she saw a woman walking down the middle of the street with a white mask over her mouth. Julie stared at her for a moment. “So the flu’s reached Hart’s Run,” she thought, and wondered how bad it was.

She had not had any breakfast, and she went out and bought some supplies at the grocery. A new clerk was there who did not know her.

“Where’s Picket Forster?” she asked.

“Over in France,” the new clerk returned briefly.

Julie went back with her purchases and got herself some breakfast, and was feeding the famished kitten, when the back door darkened and Mrs. Dolly Anderson’s large figure towered above her.

“_Well_,” she cried, her eyes snapping, “I never b’lieved ’em when they said you was back.”

“Yes, I’m back,” Julie returned simply.

The other continued to stand and stare. “Where you been all this time?” she demanded at length.

“In Richmond,” Julie answered.

“In Richmond? Well, there’s been a heap of talk goin’ the rounds about you, Julie.”

“I suppose there has,” Julie assented. She sat down and, taking the kitten which was fed and comforted now, upon her knee, began to stroke it softly. “Won’t you sit down?” she said politely.

“No, I’ll not sit down,” Mrs. Anderson returned heavily, and remained upon her feet.

“Julie,” she said at length, “did you--did you--” she hesitated.

“Did I go off with Mr. Bixby, you mean,” Julie answered steadily. “Yes, I did. We’ve been together in Richmond for the last two months.”

The other woman’s mouth dropped open. “An’ you _dare_ to come back here to Hart’s Run an’ tell a tale like that?” she cried furiously.

“I don’t dare not to. I want folks to know the truth.”

“You _want_ ’em to know?”

“Yes, I want to stand straight with the world.”

“You _want_ ’em to know?” the other reiterated violently. “Well, upon my soul! I don’t believe you’ve got one shred of decency left.”

She glared at Julie, who made no retort but went on gently stroking the kitten, which was curled on her knee, comforted now, and blowing an occasional silver bubble as it purred.

“_Quit_ foolin’ with that nasty little cat, an’ listen to me!” Mrs. Anderson stormed. “What I want to know is how you ever come to do such a thing--raised like you’ve been?”

Julie looked at her out of still eyes. How had she come to do it? How could she ever explain to Mrs. Anderson how it had happened? How could she explain the long repression of soul that had led her and Timothy Bixby to blow the lid off so violently at last? There were too many fine shades of meaning in it for her ever to make the other understand. In truth, she could hardly understand it herself. What had happened was down so deep in the elemental things of life that she could not put it into words.