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Updated: May 26, 2025
The red dyed her face and neck at his words and look. For a desperate moment she took counsel with herself. Then she lifted her head and looked squarely in Buckheath's face. "Oh, that's what has been the matter with you all this time, is it?" she inquired. "Well, I'm glad you spoke and relieved your mind." Then she went on evenly, "Mr.
Her pride in Johnnie made her miss the look of rage that settled on Buckheath's face at her announcement. The young fellow was glad when Pap Himes began to speak growlingly. "Yes, an' if she was my gal I'd talk to her with a hickory about that there business. A gal that ain't too old to carry on that-a-way ain't too old to take a whippin' for it. Huh!"
Johnnie had sight of Mandy Meacham, fixing eyes of terrified admiration upon her; then she nodded in reply to Shade Buckheath's angry stare, and a rattle of wheels apprized her that a carriage was passing on the other side. This vehicle contained the entire Hardwick family, with Lydia Sessions turning long to look her incredulous amazement back at them from her seat beside her brother-in-law.
She was not without a healthy young woman's relish for this sort of admiration; but Shade Buckheath's proposal came with so little grace, in such almost sinister form, that she scarcely recognized it. "Yes, if we're going to wed," reiterated Buckheath sullenly. "I'm willin' to have you." Johnnie's tense, almost tragic manner relaxed. She laughed suddenly.
At that instant she had sight of Shade Buckheath's dark face in the entry. She got to her feet. "I beg your pardon," she said wanly, "I think there is some one out there that I ought to speak to."
Johnnie went and knelt by the lounge. With deft, careful fingers she lifted the wet cloths above the bruised forehead. The hurt looked old. No blood was flowing, and she wondered a little. Catching Shade Buckheath's eye fixed on her from outside the window, she beckoned him in and asked him to tell her exactly how the trouble came about.
"She did get it up!" he returned in Buckheath's face. "You liar! You're a-aimin' to steal it from her. You filed out the pieces like she told you to, and when you found it would work, you tried to get a patent on it for yo'se'f. Yes, sir, I'm onto you!" Shade looked over his shoulder. The girls had forsaken the steps.
"For God's sake, what's the matter with you?" inquired Shade Buckheath's voice harshly. The old man gulped down his grief and made his communication in a few hurried sentences. "An' he'll do it," Pap concluded. "He's jest big enough fool for anything. Ain't you heard of his scheme for having the hands make the money in the mill?" A man like that'll do anything.
She laughed up at him, and Buckheath's emotional nature answered with a dull anger, which was his only reply to her attraction. "I was going to invite you to go to a dance in at Watauga, Saturday night," he said sullenly; "but I reckon if you're tired all the time, you don't want to go." He had hoped and expected that she would say she was not too tired to go anywhere that he wished her to.
"I think this thing'll work now for a spell, anyhow," Shade Buckheath's voice sounded sharply from the road behind them. "Are you afraid to attempt it, Miss Sessions?" the young man called to his companion. "If you are, we'll walk up, I'll telephone at the house for a trap and we'll drive back: Buckheath will take the machine in for us."
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