“Tell her I am not going,” said Westerfelt, sharply.  “I am not going.”

“Oh, you ain’t!” Lithicum looked his surprise both at the decision and at the unaccountable coldness of the young man’s manner, which he had not noticed till now.  “Well, so long, Mr. Westerfelt, I reckon you know yore own business, but I ’lowed everybody would turn out, through respect to all concerned, if nothin’ else.”

“I am not going; it is impossible for me to go,” answered Westerfelt, and he turned abruptly into the house.

Alone in his room, Westerfelt took Sally Dawson’s last letter from his pocket and read it again.  Then he lighted a match and started to burn it, but some inward fear seemed to check him, and the match burned down to his rigid fingers and went out.  “No,” he said, “that would be cowardly.  I shall keep it always, to remind me of my hellish mistake.  Great God! the idea of my going to her funeral in a red wagon with Lizzie Lithicum—­Lizzie Lithicum!”

The next morning, as he was returning from the post-office, Westerfelt met Peter Slogan riding to a field he had rented down the road, and which he was getting ready for cotton-planting.  Slogan was astride of his bony horse, which was already clad in shuck collar and clanking harness, and carried on his shoulder a cumbersome plough-stock.

“Well,” he smiled, reining in as he caught Westerfelt’s eye, “I ’lowed hard work in the sun would do more to git the kinks out’n me after all the trouble at my house than anything else.”

“How is Mrs. Dawson?” ventured Westerfelt.

“You’d better ax me how she ain’t,” retorted Slogan, shrugging his shoulders.  “I could tell you a sight easier.  She’s turned into a regular hell-cat.  I thought her an’ my wife was bad enough ’fore the trouble, but it’s wuss now.  The ol’ woman has left us.”

“Left you?” repeated Westerfelt.  “What do you mean?”

“Why, she says she won’t sleep an’ eat in the same house with my wife, beca’se she give Sally advice, an’—­an’ one thing or nuther.  The ol’ woman has bought ‘er some second-hand cookin’ utensils—­a oven an’ a skillet an’ a cup an’ a plate or two, an’ has moved ‘er bed an’ cheer into the Hilgard cabin down below us.  She slept thar last night.  It looks powerful like she’s wrong in the upper-story.  At fust she was all yells an’ fury, but now she jest sulks an’ hain’t got one word to say to nobody.  I went down thar last night an’ tried to call ’er to the door, but she wouldn’t stir a peg.  As soon as she heerd me at the fence she blowed out ‘er light an’ wouldn’t let on no more’n ef I was a dog a-barkin’.  Now, I hold that she hain’t got no call to treat me that away.  I never tuck no hand in ‘er disputes with my wife, an’ ef hard things has been said about Sally, why they never come from me.  Lord, I’ve got plenty else to think about besides gals an’ women.  I think I’m on track o’ the skunk ’at stole my axe.”