III
At Scatter the next morning Serena and I waited for the up-train to Beebread. A little mother and her big son were waiting for the down-train going east. Serena went over to the mother, who was Ann Lindsay, and they chatted softly. I kept aside, not precipitating an introduction. Was she not a nugatory survival, who, by all laws of fitness, ought to have been on the hill ’longside the others? But the “others” would have removed their dusty skirts; and Bake had said that Jenny would be good to her. That expectation was apparent, I thought, in her quiet assurance. And suddenly, unreasonably, I felt that her departure was a desertion.
I recalled the futile Angie Sue, the innocuous Herb and Sam, the negligible Rosie, and thought of Nathe with all his vital insistence buried so “proper” in an untended grave. Then I looked at big Bake, whose resolute posterity would shoulder through, undoubtedly, to the end of a needy world. Here, for the breath-time of earth, at least, Uncle Nathe might hold oblivion in check.
The whistle of the east-bound train blew, a mile away. I had overheard enough to know that Bake and his mother would leave the train at Carson and motor over the new highway, out and down to their lowland home—that highway, monstrously magical, so rapidly obliterating the Unakasia of my intimate care and delight. Within a few years, the ways and customs of Atlantis would not be more dim in time.
While the whistle of the train was still keen in the air, Elmer Jenkins walked on to the platform. He spied Baker Lindsay, and went to him at once.
“I saw you at the funeral yesterday,” he said.
“I saw you too,” said Bake, his smile implying that no one could have missed the master of ceremonies. Mr. Jenkins was pleased, and his glance of response included the pretty, white-haired woman at Bake’s side. When he was introduced, the lawyer would have offered his hand, but Ann, unfledged in new air, was too timid to note the gesture.
“I suppose you were out yesterday, Mrs. Lindsay,” he said, and she dropped a soft negative.
“Too bad you missed the ceremony! It was unusual in a district so remotely rural. I was glad to be instrumental in getting a good turn-out from the Carson lodge, though Mr. Ponder had not been in attendance for some years. These fine old mountaineers are passing—passing. It was a very interesting funeral. Very.”
“I reckon it was,” said Ann, as Bake, gently dominant, lifted her to the train.