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Scheaffer, C. Gibson (ed.) / Wisconsin literary magazine
Volume XXVI, Number 3 (March 1927)
Fist, Gladys
The unwalked way, pp. 19-24
Page 19
THE UNWALKED WAY By GLADYS FIST "rELLA, finish pressin' your dress in a hurry. It's nearly time for them pills I got this morning. I can't reach my water." Della violently snapped the cord from the iron and jerked her dress from the brown, scorched board. Try- ing to do anything for herself was hopeless; she might as well quit. She had not time to lengthen her dress, much less press it. "I'm comin', Grandma. It isn't time for that medicine anyway; you're only to have it every hour." Hurriedly running the back of her hand over her lip she wiped tiny glistening beads of perspiration from it; her lip always perspired when she was tired or nervous. The perspira- tion felt cool and sticky on her hand and made prickly sensations run through her body. "Della! Come on! If you'd stop moonin' and thinkin' of Joe, you'd do something." Della felt her face grow hot. Joe! Mooning! Thinking! She had not been thinking of him-consciously at least. His vision though was always with her; Joe, with his red hair and hungry blue eyes; Joe, with the fine golden hair on his hands. Her grand- mother did not even want her to think about him, God, not even think. She could not have him; he said that he could not marry her as long as the old woman was dependent on her. Her grandmother didn't realize that she was dependent, that she was drag- ging Della away from life; no, her grandmother never questioned her own belief that the duty of the young was to care for the old; she did not think that Della was sacrificing for her; she was so enveloped in old age that youth to her was nothing more than a convenient automaton by which her own comfort was made se- cure. The old woman, ever sympa- thizing with the "pains God had la- bored her with," had been swallowed into the immensity she had made of them-nothing else existed save the pills and Della, both of them only for her. "Are you comin' ?" The voice, heavy with tears, fell about Della. "Yes, Grandma, I'm here now. I've got to find them first; you've got so many boxes and bottles, it's hard to find the right one. Here they are." Della stepped into the darkened room; it reeked of candle-tallow, drugs, and body. She stepped out of her slip- pers; she had never been allowed to walk on the carpet with her shoes on, neither had any one else except the Doctor. Mrs. Grunden had her reason-a reason almost as old as the carpet; she had bought it twenty-five years ago. Mr. Grunden had stepped on it after cleaning and greasing the carriage; the rug was smudged and greasy; a big spot blackened its pink- ness. Mrs. Grunden had not spoken to Henry for two days; she was hurt and silent, but when Henry had died a year later, (he left her nothing but three children, a melancholy voice of resignation, and a fishing rod) the formerly odious spot became sacred, and the rug was revered. No one could step on it; it lay soft, and pink, and a little black on the floor in the front room. The coffin had rested on the spot-now it was twice hallowed. When Mrs. Grunden took sick she wanted the rug near her; she thought that it brought her in closer contact with "poor dead Henry." She had de- bated with herself whether or not she would be committing a sacrilege in giving the rug over to common use. She had decided to compromise by having the rug in her room, but al- lowing no one who had shoes on to step on it excepting the Doctor. The Doctor would not have been allowed to either had he not known Henry, "and set up with him the fearful night he had died." "Della, that spot," Mrs. Grunden's voice trembled with superstitious fright. [19]
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