Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories

								

blow yer whole blame' horspittle into eternity!"
"Pop!" Sally pleaded, "Pop!"
But his emotions were at high tide and he did not heed her. Pushing her
roughly aside, he strode back to the entrance hall, and was about to
pick up his carpet sack when his gaze was suddenly arrested by the great
marble figure that bends its thorn-crowned head in pity over the unhappy
and the pain-racked mortals that pass beneath its outstretched hands.
"You ain't goin' to leave me like this, Pop?" begged Sally. "Ef you take
it so hard, I'll go back, an' I'll go willin'. Jus' say the word, Pop,
an' I'll go!"
The old mountaineer's one hand closed on the girl's bony arm in a tight
clasp, his shoulders heaved, and his massive features worked, but his
gaze never left the calm, pitying face of the Saviour overhead. He had
followed his child without a tremor into the Valley of the Shadow of
Death, but at the entrance of this new life, where he must let her go
alone, his courage failed and his spirit faltered. His dominant will,
hitherto the only law he knew, was in mortal combat with a new and
unknown force that for the first time had entered his life.
For several minutes he stood thus, his conflicting passions swaying him,
as opposing gales shake a giant forest tree. Then he resolutely loosened
his grip on the girl's arm and taking up his burden, without a word or a
backward glance, set his face toward the hills, leaving an awkward,
wistful girl watching him with her tears only half obscuring the vision
that was already dawning for her.

HOODOOED

Gordon Lee Surrender Jones lay upon what he confidently claimed to be
his death-bed. Now and again he glanced furtively at the cabin door and
listened. Being assured that nobody was coming, he cautiously extricated
a large black foot from the bedclothes, and, holding it near the candle,
laboriously tied a red string about one of his toes. He was a powerful
negro, with a close-cropped bullet-head, a massive bulldog jaw, and a
pair of incongruously gentle and credulous eyes.
According to his own diagnosis, he was suffering from "asmy, bronketers,
pneumony, grip, diabeters, and old age." The last affliction was hardly
possible, as Gordon Lee was probably born during the last days of the
Civil War, though he might have been eighty, for all he knew to the
contrary. In addition to his acknowledged ailments, there was one he
cherished in secret. It was by far the most mysterious and deadly of the
lot, a malady to be pondered on in the dark watches of the night, to be
treated with weird rites and ceremonies, and to be cured only by some
specialist versed in the deepest lore of witchcraft; for Gordon Lee knew
beyond the faintest shadow of a doubt that a hoodoo had been laid upon
him.
Of course, like most of his race, he had had experiences in this line
before; but this was different. In fact, it was no less a calamity than
a cricket in his leg. Just how the cricket got into his leg was a matter