While her clothes were really better than when I had
first seen her, she had a beggarly appearance that, coupled with her
look of dejection and misery, went to my heart--she was naturally so
bright and saucy. She looked like a girl who had gone out into the
weather and lived exposed to it until she had tanned and bleached and
weathered and worn like a storm-beaten and discouraged bird with its
plumage soiled and soaked and its spirit broken. And over it all hung
the cloud of impending maternity--a cloud which should display the
rainbow of hope. But with her there was only a lurid light which is more
awful than darkness.
I could not talk with her. I could only give her directions and lend her
aid. I tried putting her on the horse behind me, but he would not carry
double; so I put her in the saddle and walked by or ahead of the horse,
over the blackened and ashy prairie, lit up by the red glare of the
fire, and dotted here and there with little smokes which marked where
there were coals, the remains of vegetable matter which burned more
slowly than the dry grass. She said nothing; but two or three times she
gave a distressed little moan as if she were in pain; but this she
checked as if by an effort.
When we reached the end of the slew, we turned south and crossed the
creek just above the pond which we called Plum Pudd'n' Pond, from the
number of bitterns that lived there. It disappeared when I drained the
marsh in the 'eighties.
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