“Don’t think that I ain’t willin’ for you to have the home-place like pa wanted you to, Indie,” said the thin, tired voice that was fast wearing into silence, “’cause I am. It’s no more ’n right after all you’ve done for me ’n pa. The t’others has all got homes o’ their own an’ you ain’t got nobody to fall back on. But, Indie, promise me you won’t close the door agin poor Tom if he should come back. Give him shelter an’ welcome for my sake, won’t you?”

Indie promised solemnly. Her thoughts went back to one still, tranquil night years before, when the doors of that same home had been closed against the wayward son by the father who vowed never to look upon his boy’s face again. The mother—a frail, submissive, toil-worn woman—had mourned in secret, but her prayers had been unanswered.

“You’ve been dreadful good to us,” the dying voice murmured; “I hope the Lord will make it up to you somehow, Indie. Do you reckon the girls will git here ’fore I die?”

“Yes, Aunt Viney, I really b’lieve they will. But you go to sleep if you can. I’ll wake you as soon as they git here.”

By and by the sick woman fell into a gentle doze that deepened into the sleep that knows no earthly waking. The married daughters came too late, but if they were greatly grieved over their mother’s death they made little outward sign. They stayed at the home place for two days, during which the will was read. It deeded all that remained of the Pasely farm, that had been divided and subdivided to supply marriage portions for four, to Indie, in consideration of her faithful services for the old folks.

“Maybe you can ketch Lem Powers with this bait,” was Louise’s spiteful comment, after the reading was over. “Everyone knows you always wanted him bad enough.”

Mary, the eldest cousin, laughed dryly. “Indie can’t complain of the way our folks treated her,” she said with ill-concealed bitterness. “This farm is worth a thousand dollars above the mortgage money. It ain’t many poor relations that has property like this left to ’em.”

“I guess Indie knows that she didn’t come by it plum honest,” the third cousin remarked. “She knowed how to work around the old folks so’s to git ’em to leave her what they had. Well, we ain’t the kind to make trouble even if we have been wronged.”

When they had gone, Indie abandoned herself to a passion of helpless, piteous grief. She recalled one cruel hour long ago when her cousin Louise had accused her of caring, unasked, for friendly, pleasant Lem Powers, whose off-hand calls on the family stood out in Indie’s memory as the brightest events of her lonely, toilful life. Indie was twenty-three and plain, for the flower-like prettiness of her early childhood had long since succumbed to the triple blight of care and drudgery and loneliness. It had been known among her neighbors and acquaintances that Indie, at the age of eighteen, had never been “spoke for,” wherefore she had meekly accepted the stigma of spinsterhood that comes very early to the Southern country girl and had withdrawn from the mild frivolities of youth to become a household drudge in her uncle’s family in order that her cousins might have more leisure and freedom. After the death of her hard-working uncle, she had stayed with her ailing aunt while the girls married and left her.

“I wisht I’d died instid of Aunt Viney,” Indie sobbed in utter loneliness.

For two years Indie lived quietly and comfortably in the old home, paying her simple expenses by raising garden truck for the town hotel. Then a letter came from Tom’s widow imploring his people to send her enough money to defray Tom’s funeral expenses to avert his threatened burial in the potter’s field. It was a pathetic appeal, involving the brief story of Tom’s struggles, how he had worked his way with his little family from Texas to the old home state, where he had obtained employment in a factory. He had met his death through a boiler explosion the day before the letter was written. Tom had always hoped for a reconciliation in spite of his father’s unyielding hardness, the widow wrote. In conclusion, she begged his people not to allow his body to be consigned to a nameless grave.

Indie went straight to Mr. Griggs, the real estate agent, who held the four-hundred-dollar mortgage on her farm, and asked him to lend her a hundred dollars. He refused gently but firmly.

“Why, Indie, by the time you sell that farm it may not be worth five hundred dollars in all,” he said. “The interest on the mortgage is about due now and here you are wanting to borrow more!”

“It’s for a particular purpose that can’t wait a day,” Indie told him anxiously, trembling in every nerve with the fear of disappointment.

“I can’t help that. Business is business you know, and every man must look out for his own interests. There is only one way to get that money and that is to sell the place as it stands before the debts eat it up completely. I know a party that would buy, probably.”

“Oh, I couldn’t sell the only home I’ve got,” Indie said piteously.

“It’ll come to that in the end, anyhow,” Griggs answered indifferently. “My advice is to get rid of it now, while there is a few dollars in it for you. Anyway, you can’t raise that hundred you want any other way. If I was in your place I’d sell and go down to Birmingham and get work in the factory, where you’ll make something besides a mere living.”

Indie’s heart almost stopped beating at the very thought of leaving the old familiar haunts for a strange city. Yet, Tom must have a decent burial at any cost to herself.

“What could you get for the farm?” Indie asked huskily.

“Eight or nine hundred I reckon.”

“Could you let me have the hundred right now if I agree to sell the place?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll sell—because I’ve got to have that money right off.”

Indie hurried home and began to put things to rights. She packed up her personal belongings and moved all her humble furniture into one room, where it could be easily got at in case she should send for it a little later, if she were fortunate enough to secure steady work in the factory which Mr. Griggs had referred to. He had even given her a clipping from the Sunday paper containing an advertisement calling for twenty new hands, “experience not necessary.”

Indie was sweeping the back yard when some one strode up the pebbled walk with brisk, business-like steps, which she mistook for Mr. Griggs’s walk, for he had promised to stop in on his homeward way. But it was not the agent. It was Indie’s old friend Lem Powers, whom she had so timidly avoided for years. His broad-brimmed hat was turned up squarely in front, framing his dark, strong, sunny face in a sort of a rough halo.

“Evenin’, Indie,” said he, with a tug at his up-standing hat-brim. “Do you happen to have a wrench about the place? My buggy wheel’s locked an’ I ain’t got no tools with me.”

Indie shook down her sleeves hurriedly, keenly conscious of her unpleasing appearance. “Won’t you set down while I hunt up the wrench?” she asked, nodding toward the veranda bench. “I’ve done packed up everything, but I can find the wrench easy’s not.”

“Packed up!” the young man echoed in blank astonishment, with a sweeping glance at the denuded premises. “Why, you don’t aim to move, do you?”

“I expect to leave Shallow Ford to-morrer mornin’,” Indie answered solemnly.

“You don’t say so? Goin’ to live with your cousins?”

“No, oh no,” Indie answered quickly, with a dry smile. “None of them ain’t never asked me to live with ’em, and even if they had I wouldn’t go.”

“I didn’t know you had other kin.”

“I ain’t. I aim to go to Birmingham to work in the factory. I seen a advertisement callin’ for twenty new hands and I thought it would be a good chance to get started.”

“Whatever put that idee into your head, I’d like to know? I don’t b’lieve you’ll like the work one bit, Indie,” the young man said with grim conviction. “It ain’t healthy, to begin with. Don’t you rec’lect how pale an’ peekedy them Baldwins looked when they come back here on a visit after havin’ worked in the thread factory down at Birmingham? They didn’t have the sperit of a jack rabbit between ’em, an’ their ways was plum changed too—sorter forrard like. You won’t like the sort of company they keep, Indie.”

“I’ve got to go now,” said Indie, doggedly, “cause I’ve done put the place for sale. Mr Griggs thinks he can sell it without any trouble.”

“He may. Indie, is it on account of the mortgage you’re leavin’?”

Indie shook her head. She could not tell Lem her real motive.

“’Cause if it is,” said Lem, earnestly, “I’d be only too glad to stand good for the debt if you’ll let me.”

Indie’s pale face reddened painfully, and her head went back an inch or two, for she had her pride in spite of her helplessness. “I couldn’t ever raise enough truck to pay off the debt, anyhow,” she answered coldly.

“You could rent the place an’ pay off that way. I do wish you would let your old friends do a little something for you, Indie,” he pleaded, growing red and embarrassed under her increasing coldness.

“It’s too late to rent now, ’cause it’s way past corn-plantin’ time,” Indie objected, “an there ain’t nothin started but two acres o’ roastin’ ears an’ some garden truck.”

“I should think you’d hate to leave the old place,” Lem observed, letting his bright gaze wander over the green pasture strip and the narrow creek bottoms where the young corn waved idly in the evening breeze.

Indie’s thin face clouded with the shadow of regret, but she made no reply, for she would not have admitted, on pain of death, that her heart ached with the pathos of renunciation.

“Ain’t there nary thing I can do for you, Indie?” Lem asked, after an awkward pause, in what seemed to the listener a very off-hand, indifferent voice.

“No thanky. There ain’t a thing to do but to take the cow over to board with the Bankses. Seems like I can’t bear the thoughts of sellin’ her to out-an’-out strangers, so I thought I’d board her till some of the neighbors gits ready to buy her. Miss Clayton’s goin’ to keep Billy for me till I get settled, so’s I can take him.”

Billy, the big tortoise-shell cat that purred on the door step, lifted his head at the sound of his own name and blinked contentedly, whereupon Lem stooped and stroked his glossy fur. “I guess Billy’ll miss you if no one else does,” he remarked dryly.

Then he rose and held out a big brown hand. “Well, good-bye, Indie, an’ good luck to you,” said he. “If ever I can do anything for you, let me know, will you?”

“Good-bye,” said Indie gravely.

Indie went away the next morning—a morning full of balm and peace. Fresh, fragrant winds scattered the rose petals thickly over her shoulders as she hurried down the garden path to meet the stage. She did not trust herself to glance back, for some strange, dumb emotion tugged at her heart-strings and soundless voices called to her out of the sweet silence that enveloped earth and sky.

She shivered as she entered the hot, sultry, dust-laden train with its burden of dull, spiritless travelers. “It must be the air,” she murmured to herself as she sank into a seat. “These cars is awful clost with the sun beatin’ down on ’em an no air stirrin’. Now, if a body was at home they could open the doors an’ winders an’ set in the shade.”

“Home! Home! Home!” said the swiftly revolving wheels that bore her relentlessly away from the old, sweetly familiar scenes toward an unknown, lonely future. She watched the green fields and woods that whirled past the windows until they grew less and less frequent, with dingy little stations squatted between them. The landscape changed and the car grew hotter and the smoke thicker, for the train was approaching the factory district of Birmingham, the Alabama metropolis. Children, with unclean, pallid, faces, stared up at the car windows as the train pulled through their grimy quarters, and men in blackened, greasy clothes lounged along the tracks in the occasional shade of a sweltering brick wall.

Indie found the squalid home of Tom’s widow after much patient wandering about the uneven, unswept streets. Many minutes passed before her ring was answered; then a white-faced woman opened the door a very little way. Yes, she was Mrs. Pasely. Did anyone want to see her?

“I am Tom’s cousin, Indie,” the caller announced simply. “I’ve brung the money for Tom’s funeral.”

The widow cried a little at first while she told Indie of Tom’s tragic death, but her mind was too absorbingly occupied over the funeral to permit of the luxury of self-pity. She dressed hurriedly and went out to communicate with the undertaker, leaving Indie with the children, three little, frail, colorless, old-young beings, who reminded Indie of cellar-grown plants. The widow was not long away; late that afternoon the two women and their three charges followed Tom’s remains to consecrated ground.

“I never can tell you how thankful I am,” was all Mrs. Pasely said to Indie concerning her sacrifice, “for now I feel at rest about poor Tom bein’ laid away like he ought to be. If the baby was just well I’d try to start out an’ make a livin’ and do my best without Tom,” she added mournfully, “but it seems like I ain’t got no heart to do nothin’ while he’s so weak and puny. He ain’t been to say real well since we left Texas, where we lived right out in the country. I’ve tried everything I could think of but nothin’ don’t do him no good as I can see. The doctor says he won’t never git well till I take him back to the country, an maybe not then. Me’n Minnie’s got promise of work in the factory next week, but if little Tom ain’t no better I can’t leave him with jest Jim to look after him. If we only could git back to Texas agin we’d all git well an’ stout, an’ I wouldn’t care if we was poor. All I care about is for little Tom to git well.”

Oh, if she could only take them all back to the farm with her, thought Indie. A great wave of home longing surged through her heart as she thought of the peace and beauty of the deserted home. She knew just where the shadows of noontide lay darkest over the old rose-bordered yard—knew that the back veranda where she always ate her simple midday meals with Billy purring at her feet was just then in the thickest shadow of the china-berry trees, and that all was still and sweet and tranquil in that far-off haven of rest. Instead of factory walls there were green, blossomed hedges; instead of the strident clamor of motor cars and mill gongs there was a ceaseless chorus of song birds, and instead of the hot, smoke-tainted air of the city, there was the fine, earthy fragrance of the good sweet soil that lay fallow while so many weary toilers sweltered in their city prisons.

Indie made Tom’s widow understand the whole situation, then she offered herself in any capacity that could serve little Tom, who had the look that she dimly remembered in young Tom when she first went to live with his parents. Indie would take work in the factory as she had planned to do and board with Tom’s widow to help along all she could, or she would take them all back to the farm and work very hard to make a mere living while little Tom had a chance for his life.

“Why, I’d be willin’ to work day an’ night on a farm!” the widow answered earnestly. “I’m jest plum certain Tom will git well way off there in the country. Oh, do take us back with you! Me’n Minnie an’ Jim can make a real good crop between us. You’ll see!”

That was what Indie wanted. She would sacrifice the last thing that remained to her—her pride—and ask Lem to help her by standing good for the hundred-dollar note, and far the rest she would work as she had never worked before.

“We’ll go tomorrow,” Indie announced. “You git right to work packin’ up what you want to take.”

The world was aflame with the splendid fires of sunset when the little party alighted before the farm gate on the following evening. “I’m real glad it’s light enough for you to see the flowers an’ things,” said Indie, as she led the way up the rose-bordered walk that seemed to greet her with sweet familiarity. “Good thing I left the key under the porch steps right where I could find it handy. There, now walk right in an’ set down, while I kindle a fire an’ git some supper.”

She had bought a few eatables the last thing before leaving Birmingham, which she speedily converted into a tempting meal. Her guests rewarded her industry to a gratifying degree, even to little Tom, who seemed to have acquired a good appetite which delighted his frail, worried mother beyond bounds. “He ain’t et like that in I dunno when!” she exclaimed with tears of joy.

It was close upon Indie’s usual bedtime when her ministration ended. She slipped out for a quiet rest on the front door-step to enjoy the peace and loveliness of the perfect spring night, but hardly had she seated herself when the garden gate creaked rustily and someone strode up the walk with heavy strides. At the sight of the dim figure on the step the intruder stopped precipitately.

“Who’s there?” asked a familiar voice.

Indie rose tremblingly. “It’s Indie Bright,” she answered. “Did you want to see me?”

“Indie!” exclaimed a voice so thrillingly joyous that the listener felt herself quiver from head to foot with a strange, inexplicable ecstasy.

“Ain’t it Lem Powers?” she asked. “Has anything happened?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” came the surprised answer. “I thought you was gone!”

Indie told her story briefly, carefully deflecting all merit from herself. “I’m real glad it happened that way,” she finished, “for I did hate to sell the old place.”

Lem drew a deep breath. “You’re jest five hours too late, Indie,” he said in a queer voice, “for the agent sold the farm this afternoon at four o’clock.”

Indie felt the solid earth recede beneath her. “Sold it!” she echoed fearsomely. “Oh, Lem, whatever shall I do!”

“I dunno. There ain’t no use in tryin’ to buy it back, ’cause the man that bought it won’t part with it for anything, except——”

He paused and went a step nearer. “Except you’ll give him what he’s always wanted—yourself. Indie, I never did want no other girl but you, an’ never will.”

Indie shrank away, but a strong, warm hand found hers in the shadow, while the low earnest voice went on to tell her of a miracle that thrilled every fibre of her being with unspeakable happiness.

“I aimed to ask you the day you told me about leavin’,” Lem confessed, “but by the way you talked I thought it wouldn’t be no use, so I bought the place hopin’ you’d want to come back some day.”

“Lem,” said Indie, after a long, happy silence, “I never had no idee that—that you ever wanted me. I thought it was Cousin Louise you wanted.”

“Louise—after I’d seen you!” Lem cried incredulously. “Why that would be like chosin’ a bit o’ glass instid of a real diamond. It was Louise as told me how you’d took a dredful dislike to me from the very first, an’ of course I couldn’t help but believe it by the way you always acted when I was around. I tell you, Indie, that made a heap o’ difference to me. I’d a done anything in the hull world for you an’ would yit if you’d only let me.”

Indie drew a deep breath that sounded strangely like a stifled sob. “Oh, Lem, that’s just the way I’ve always felt about you,” she confessed very softly and hesitatingly.

After a long, long while, during which the years and their burden of care and loneliness and heart-ache slipped away from Indie’s heart like an wornout garment, she drew her hands away from Lem’s close clasp. “You’d better go now, Lem,” she said very gently, “’cause it’s gitting late an’ I don’t want to wake the folks up after they’ve got to sleep.”

“All right, Indie. I’ll be back tomorrow to see about putting in a late crop o’ corn for Tom’s folks to work out. We’ll jest let ’em keep the place free of rent for a while an’ see to it that they make enough to keep ’em. You can look after ’em all you want to, for it ain’t but a little piece from our place over here. Good night, Indie.”

Indie lingered in the soft, starry dusk for a few moments after Lem had gone, to gloat over her great happiness; and presently something dark and small scuttled out of the lilac hedge and bounded into her lap with a mew of welcome. It was Billy, quivering with elation and delight.

Indie caught her pet to her breast with a cry of rapture. “Oh, Billy, Billy, ain’t it lovely to be home again!”