CHAPTER 31.
THE WESTWARD WAY
Mother Turner was sitting in the porch with old Jack at her feet whenChad and Dixie came to the gate--her bonnet off, her eyes turned towardthe West. The stillness of death lay over the place, and over thestrong old face some preternatural sorrow. She did not rise when shesaw Chad, she did not speak when he spoke. She turned merely and lookedat him with a look of helpless suffering. She knew the question thatwas on his lips, for she dumbly motioned toward the door and then puther trembling hands on the railing of the porch and bent her face downon them. With sickening fear, Chad stepped on the threshold--cap inhand--and old Jack followed, whimpering. As his eyes grew accustomed tothe dark interior, he could see a sheeted form on a bed in the cornerand, on the pillow, a white face.
"Melissa!" he called, brokenly. A groan from the porch answered him,and, as Chad dropped to his knees, the old woman sobbed aloud.
In low tones, as though in fear they might disturb the dead girl'ssleep, the two talked on the porch. Brokenly, the old woman told Chadhow the girl had sickened and suffered with never a word of complaint.How, all through the war, she had fought his battles so fiercely thatno one dared attack him in her hearing. How, sick as she was, she hadgone, that night, to save his life. How she had nearly died from theresult of cold and exposure and was never the same afterward. How sheworked in the house and in the garden to keep their bodies and soulstogether, after the old hunter was shot down and her boys were gone tothe war. How she had learned the story of Chad's mother from old NathanCherry's daughter and how, when the old woman forbade her going to theBluegrass, she had slipped away and gone afoot to clear his name. Andthen the old woman led Chad to where once had grown the rose-bush hehad brought Melissa from the Bluegrass, and pointed silently to a boxthat seemed to have been pressed a few inches into the soft earth, andwhen Chad lifted it, he saw under it the imprint of a human foot--hisown, made that morning when he held out a rose-leaf to her and she hadstruck it from his hand and turned him, as an enemy, from her door.
Chad silently went inside and threw open the window to let the lastsunlight in: and he sat there, with his face as changeless as the stillface on the pillow, sat there until the sun went down and the darknesscame in and closed softly about her. She had died, the old woman said,with his name on her lips.
. . . . .
Dolph and Rube had come back and they would take good care of the oldmother until the end of her days. But, Jack--what should be done withJack? The old dog could follow him no longer. He could live hardly morethan another year, and the old mother wanted him--to remind her, shesaid, of Chad and of Melissa, who had loved him. He patted his faithfulold friend tenderly and, when he mounted Dixie, late the nextafternoon, Jack started to follow him.
"No, Jack," said Chad, and he rode on, with his eyes blurred. On thetop of the steep mountain he dismounted, to let his horse rest amoment, and sat on a log, looking toward the sun. He could not go backto Margaret and happiness--not now. It seemed hardly fair to the deadgirl down in the valley. He would send Margaret word, and she wouldunderstand.
Once again he was starting his life over afresh, with his old capital,a strong body and a stout heart. In his breast still burned the spiritthat had led his race to the land, had wrenched it from savage and fromking, had made it the high temple of Liberty for the worship offreemen--the Kingdom Come for the oppressed of the earth--and, himselfthe unconscious Shepherd of that Spirit, he was going to help carry itsideals across a continent Westward to another sea and on--who knows--tothe gates of the rising sun. An eagle swept over his head, as he rose,and the soft patter of feet sounded behind him. It was Jack trottingafter him. He stooped and took the old dog in his arms.
"Go back home, Jack!" he said.
Without a whimper, old Jack slowly wheeled, but he stopped and turnedagain and sat on his haunches--looking back.
"Go home, Jack!" Again the old dog trotted down the path and once morehe turned.
"Home, Jack!" said Chad.
The eagle was a dim, black speck in the band of yellow that lay overthe rim of the sinking sun, and after its flight, horse and rider tookthe westward way.
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