So she watched for a chance to send
a letter that she had carefully and painfully written.
"I'm to Miss Lois Ann's in Devil-may-come Hollow. I'm trusting and
loving you, but Miss Lois Ann--don't believe! So please, Mister Man
come and tell her and then go back and I will wait--most truly
Your Nella-Rose."
then she crossed the name out and scribbled "Your doney-gal."
It was early in the third week that Bill Trim came whistling down the
trail, on a cold, bitterly cold, November morning. He bore a load of
"grateful gifts" to Lois Ann from men and women whom she had succoured
in times of need and who always remembered her, practically, when winter
"set."
Bill was a half-wit but as strong as an ox; and, once set upon a task,
managed it in a way that had given him a secure position in the
community. He carried mail into the remotest districts--when there was
any to carry. He "toted" heavy loads and gathered gossip and spilled it
liberally. He was impersonal, ignorant, and illiterate, but he did his
poor best and grovelled at the feet of any one who showed him the least
affection. He was horribly afraid of Lois Ann for no reason that he
could have given; he was afraid of her eyes--her thin, claw-like hands.
As he now delivered the bundles he had for her he accepted the food she
gave and then darted away to eat it in comfort beyond the reach of those
glances he dreaded.
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