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Updated: May 23, 2025
"No," returned Mavity Bence, with unwonted firmness, as she put the newcomer into the slip intended for her own son. "No, Laurelly, these clothes ain't loaned to you. I give 'em to this child. I'm a widder, and I never look to wed again, becaze Pap he has to have somebody to do for him, an' he'd just about tear up the ground if I was to name sech a thing.
"And then if any ketchin' disease does break out, like the dipthery did last year," Mavity Bence said one evening as she walked home with Johnnie, "hit's sartin shore to go through 'em like it would go through a family." Johnnie looked curiously at the dirty yards with their debris of lard buckets and tin cans. Space air, earth and sky was cheap and plentiful in the mountains.
Oh, yes, he did; and Pap's got his pieces of ore upstairs in a bandanner; and him and Shade Buckheath aims to git it away from you-all and oh, I don't know what!" There fell a long silence. At last Johnnie's voice broke it, asking very low: "Did they how was Uncle Pros hurt?" "Neither of 'em touched him," Mavity hastened to assure her.
Her hand was forever at her side, where she had a stitch-like pain, that she called "a jumpin' misery." Even broad, seasoned Mavity Bence grew pallid and gaunt. Only Pap Himes thrived. His trouble was rheumatism, and the hot days were his best.
"Reddin' up things, Aunt Mavity?" she asked, adding, "If I had time I'd come in and help you." "I was just puttin' away what I've got left that belonged to Lou," said the woman, sitting suddenly down on the bed and gazing up into the bright face above her with a sort of appeal. Johnnie noticed then that Mrs. Bence had a pair of cheap slippers in her lap.
She wished to get the little packet into which she had made Gray's letters months ago, dreading to look even at the folded outsides of them, tucking them away on the high shelf of her dress-closet at the Pap Himes boarding-house, and trying to forget them. Nobody would know where to look but herself. She got permission from Mavity to go upstairs.
Aunt Mavity can have some help in the house there's always a girl or two breaking down in the mills, who would be glad to have a chance at housework for a while." Now Pros looked all about him, and seemed in no haste to begin, though Gray knew well there was something on his mind. Finally Stoddard observed, smiling: "You're the very man I wanted to see, Uncle Pros.
"Yes, honey, yes, Johnnie," came the eager, humble reply. "I'll do just like you say. Shan't nobody find out from me. Johnnie " there was a pause "Johnnie, Pap and Shade didn't get off as soon as they expected. Something was the matter with the machine, I believe. They ain't been gone to exceed a quarter of an hour. I I thought maybe you'd like to know." "Thank you, Aunt Mavity," said Johnnie.
I must make myself worthy of him before I let him take me for his own." She thrust the letters into the breast-pocket of her coat and ran downstairs. Mavity Bence stood in the hall, plainly awaiting her. "Honey," she began fondly, "I've been putting away Pap's things to-day jest like you oncet found me putting away Lou's. I came on this here."
"Please don't, Shade," remonstrated the girl, walking on fast, despite the oppressive heat of the evening. "I wish you wouldn't speak of it to me any more; and I can't go walking with you this way. I have obliged to help Aunt Mavity; and every minute of time I get from that, and my work, I'm putting in on my books and reading."
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