"YOU," says my sister Ouachita, p'inting a accusing finger at me, "ought a be shot for the way you treat Glory McGraw!"
"Don't mention that gal's name to me," I says bitterly. "I don't
want to hear nothin' about her. Don't talk to me about her--why you
think I ain't treated her right?"
"Well," says Ouachita, "after they brung you back from Chawed Ear
lookin' like you'd been through a sorghum mill, Glory come right over
when she heered you was hurt. And what did you do when she come
through the door?"
"I didn't do nothin'," I says. "What'd I do?"
"You turnt over towards the wall," says Ouachita, "and you says, says you: 'Git that woman outa here; she's come to t'ant me in my helpless condition!'"
"Well, she did!" I said fiercely.
"She didn't!" says Ouachita. "When she heered you say them words, she turnt pale, and she turnt around and walked outa the cabin with her head up in the air, not sayin' a word. And she ain't been back since."
"Well, I don't want her to," I says. "She come over here jest to
gloat on my misery."
"I don't believe no such," says Ouachita. "First thing she says, was: 'Is Breckinridge hurt bad?' And she didn't say it in no gloatin' way. She come over here to help you, I bet, and you talked to her like that! You ought to be ashamed."
"You mind yore own business," I advised her, and got up and got
outa the cabin to get some peace and quiet.
I went towards the creek aiming to do a little fishing. My laig
had knit proper and quick, and that had been the only thing which had
kept me laid up. On my way to the creek I got to thinking over what
Ouachita had said, and I thought, well, maybe I was a mite hasty. Maybe Glory did repent of her treatment of me when I was laying wounded. Maybe I ought not to of spoke so bitterly.
I thought, it's no more'n my neighborly duty to go over and thank
Glory for coming over to see me, and tell her I didn't mean what I
said. I'd tell her I was delirious and thought it was Ellen Reynolds. After all, I was a man with a great, big, generous, forgiving heart, and if forgiving Glory McGraw was going to brighten her life, why, I warn't one to begrudge it. So I headed for the McGraw cabin--a trail I hadn't took since the day I shot up Mister Wilkinson.
I went afoot because I wanted to give my laig plenty of exercise
now it was healed. And I hadn't gone more'n halfway when I met the gal
I was looking for. She was riding her bay mare, and we met face to
face right spang in the middle of the trail. I taken off my Stetson
and says: "Howdy, Glory. You warn't by any chance headin' for my
cabin?"
"And why should I be headin' for yore cabin, Mister Elkins?" she
said as stiff and cold as a frozen bowie knife.
"Well," I said, kinda abashed, "well--uh--that is, Glory, I jest
want to thank you for droppin' in to see about me when I was laid up, and--"
"I didn't," she snapped. "I jest come to borrer some salt. I
didn't even know you'd been hurt."
"What you want to talk like that for, Glory?" I protested. "I
didn't aim to hurt yore feelin's. Fact is, I war delirious, and
thought you was somebody else--"
"Ellen Reynolds, maybe?" says she sneeringly. "Or was she already
there, holdin' yore hand? Oh, no! I'd plumb forgot! She was gittin'
married to Jim Braxton about that time! Too bad, Breckinridge! But
cheer up! Ellen's got a little sister which'll be growed up in a few
years. Maybe you can git her--if some Braxton don't beat you to her."
"To hell with the Braxtons and the Reynolds too!" I roared, seeing
red again. "And you can go along with 'em, far's I'm consarned! I was
right! Ouachita's a fool, sayin' you was sorry for me. You jest come
over there to gloat over me when I was laid up!"
"I didn't!" she says, in a changed voice.
"You did, too!" I says bitterly. "You go yore way and I'll go
mine. You think I cain't git me no woman, just because you and Ellen
Reynolds turned me down. Well, you-all ain't the only women they is! I
ain't goin' to marry no gal on Bear Creek! I'm goin' to git me a town-
gal!"
"A town-gal wouldn't look at a hillbilly like you!" she sneered.