Will Andres was as true and square
and white a man as ever lived and Nelly was just as good a woman as he was
a man. They and my wife and I were more like brothers and sisters than
most folks who are actually blood kin.
"One day, along toward sundown, about a month before Sibyl was born, Nelly
heard the dogs barking and went to see what was up. There stood Myra
Willard at the gate--like she'd dropped out of the sky. Where she came
from God only knows--except that she'd walked from some station on the
railroad over toward the pass. She was just about all in; and, of course,
Nelly had her into the house and was fixing her up in no time. She wanted
to work, but admitted that she had never done much housework. She said,
straight out, that they should never know more about her than they knew,
then; but insisted that she was not a bad woman. At first, Will and I were
against it for, of course, it was easy to see that she was trying to get
away from something. But the women--Nelly and my wife--somehow, believed
in her, and--with the baby due to arrive in a month and any kind of help
hard to get--they carried the day. Well, sir, she made good. If twenty
years acquaintance goes for anything, she's one of God's own kind, and I
don't care a damn what her history is.
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