Part 22 (2/2)
Yesterday he was only Bill Frost, a tenant of rented land, filling an office that was only a name; this morning he was Constable Bill Frost, with the power and dignity of the State of Missouri behind him, guarding a house of mystery and death. Law and authority had transformed him overnight, settling upon him as the spirit used to come upon the prophets in the good old days.
Bill had only to stretch out his arm, and strong men would fall back, pale and awed, away from the wall of the house; he had but to caution them in a low word to keep hands off everything, to be instantly obeyed.
They drew away into the yard and stood in low-voiced groups, the process of thought momentarily stunned by this terrible thing.
”Ain't it awful?” a graybeard would whisper to a stripling youth.
”Ain't it terrible?” would come the reply.
”Well, well, well! Old Isom!”
That was as far as any of them could go. Then they would walk softly, scarcely breathing, to the window and peep in again.
Joe, unhailed and undisturbed, was spinning out his sleep. Mrs. Greening brought coffee and refreshments for the young widow from her own kitchen across the road, and the sun rose and drove the mists out of the hollows, as a shepherd drives his flocks out to graze upon the hill.
As Sol Greening hitched his horse to the Widow Newbolt's fence, he heard her singing with long-drawn quavers and lingering semibreves:
_There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuel's veins...._
She appeared at the kitchen door, a pan in her hand, a flock of expectant chickens craning their necks to see what she had to offer, at the instant that Sol came around the corner of the house. She all but let the pan fall in her amazement, and the song was cut off between her lips in the middle of a word, for it was not more than six o'clock, uncommonly early for visitors.
”Mercy me, Sol Greening, you give me an awful jump!” said she.
”Well, I didn't aim to,” said Sol, turning over in his mind the speech that he had drawn up in the last uninterrupted stage of his journey over.
Mrs. Newbolt looked at him sharply, turning her head a little with a quick, pert movement, not unlike one of her hens.
”Is anybody sick over your way?” she asked.
She could not account for the early visit in any other manner. People commonly came for her at all hours of the day and night when there was somebody sick and in need of a herb-wise nurse. She had helped a great many of the young ones of that community into the world, and she had eased the pains of many old ones who were quitting it. So she thought that Greening's visit must have something to do with either life or death.
”No, n.o.body just azackly sick,” dodged Greening.
”Well, laws my soul, you make a mighty mystery over it! What's the matter--can't you talk?”
”But I can't say, Missis Newbolt, that everybody's just azackly well,”
said he.
”Some of your folks?”
”No, not none of mine,” said Sol.
”Then whose?” she inquired impatiently.
”Isom's,” said he.
”You don't mean my Joe?” she asked slowly, a shadow of pain drawing her face.
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