The Wiving of Lance Cleaverage

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MacGowan Alice. The Wiving of Lance Cleaverage

CHAPTER I. A PAIR OF HAGGARDS

CHAPTER II. THE UP-SITTING

CHAPTER III. THE BURYING

CHAPTER IV. A DANCE AND A SERENADE

CHAPTER V. THE ASKING

CHAPTER VI. THE WEDDING

CHAPTER VII. LANCE'S LAUREL

CHAPTER VIII. THE INFARE

CHAPTER IX. THE INTERLOPER

CHAPTER X. POVERTY PRIDE

CHAPTER XI. LONG SWEETENIN'

CHAPTER XII. WHAT SHALL HE HAVE WHO KILLED THE DEER?

CHAPTER XIII. BROKEN CHORDS

CHAPTER XIV. ROXY GRIEVER'S GUEST

CHAPTER XV. THE STUBBORN HEART

CHAPTER XVI. LANCE CLEAVERAGE'S SON

CHAPTER XVII. THE COASTS OF THE ISLAND

CHAPTER XVIII. THE HEGIRA

CHAPTER XIX. CALLISTA CLEAVERAGE GOES HOME

CHAPTER XX. DRAWN BLANK

CHAPTER XXI. FLENTON HANDS

CHAPTER XXII. THE SPEECH OF PEOPLE

CHAPTER XXIII. BUCK FUSON'S IDEA

CHAPTER XXIV. SILENCED

CHAPTER XXV. THE FLIGHT

CHAPTER XXVI. ROXY GRIEVER

CHAPTER XXVII. IN HIDING

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE SHERIFF SCORES

CHAPTER XXIX. THE ISLAND AT LAST

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GRANNY YEARWOOD – the grandmother of Flenton Hands and his sisters – was dead. The work-hardened old body had parted with its flame of life reluctantly; for nearly a year she had been declining toward the end; and during the last months the family had cared for her almost day and night. They were worn out with the toil of it before she herself wore out. But now it was all over. The first outburst of noisy lamentation, which is fairly conventional in the Southern mountains, was past. The corpse had been decently composed on a rude plank scaffold, while Octavia Gentry and Roxy Griever took charge of the household and began to order things in that curious half-ecclesiastical fashion which follows the footsteps of death.

It was near noon, and Octavia dished up the dinner, while Roxy paid more attention to the impending funeral arrangements. Before the meal was over, young people began to come in, though none could quite say how they had received word. The girls made proffer of assistance, and swiftly the table was cleared away, the dishes washed, and the house and surroundings put in immaculate order. Work in the fields was stopped, that messengers might be sent, one on horseback to notify distant-dwelling kin, another with a wagon to buy the coffin down in Hepzibah, a third afoot to arrange with the strong young men of the family connection about helping to dig the grave. All the flowers in the dooryard were gathered and laid round the corpse. The withered old face was covered with a damp cloth, and then a borrowed sheet was drawn smoothly over the whole mound. The Widow Griever was so deeply versed in the etiquette of such occasions, and so satisfyingly exacting on all points, as to make an undertaker even more highly superfluous than he would usually have been among those simple folk. What with garments and accessories she had brought from her own scant widow's wardrobe, and articles hastily borrowed from the nearer neighbors, she managed inside of two hours to have Little Liza and her two sisters – the mother of the family was dead some years ago – clad in black and seated in state inferior only to that of the dead.

.....

"Yes, indeed, hit will that, Sister Griever," her listener assented, a good deal impressed. "Is these sorter round things – "

"Them's the loaves an' fishes," Roxy hastened to elucidate. "They ain't so very well done, ye see. I was a-workin' on them when I hearn that Granny Yearwood was about to go, an' I hurried 'em up, 'caze I'd promised her that I'd spread the quilt over her when she was laid out. You he'p me with it now, Miz. Gentry, and we'll fold it back this-a-way so as not to show the part that ain't done."

.....