The Mountain Girl

Excerpt: ...as she replied. "No, Frale. I go there evenings when I'm not too tired. I've been going there ever since you left to-" Pg 156 "That doctah, he's be'n castin' a spell on you, Cass. I kin see hit-how you walkin' off an' nevah 'low me to touch you. Ye hain't said howd'y to me nor how you glad I come. You like a col' white drift o' snow blowin' on ahead o' me. You hain't no human girl like you used to be. I got somethin' to put a spell on him, too, ef he don't watch out." He spoke in his mild, low-voiced drawl, but he kept close to her side, and she could hear his breathing, quick and panting. She felt as if a tiger were keeping pace with her, and she knew the sinister meaning beneath his words. She knew that all she could do now was to take him back to his promise and hold him to it. "There's no such thing as spell casting, Frale. You know that, and you have my promise and I have yours. Have you forgot? Talking that way seems like you have forgot." She walked on rapidly, taking him nearer and nearer their home, and in her haste she stumbled. In an instant his arm was thrown around her, holding her on her feet. "Look at you now, like to fall cl'ar headlong, runnin' that-a-way to get shet o' me. 'Pears like you mad that I come." He held her back, and they went slowly, but he did not release her, nor did she struggle futilely against his strength, knowing it wiser to continue calmly leading him on; but she could not reply. The start of her fall and her wildly beating heart rendered her breathless and weak. "I tell you that thar doctah man, he have put a spell on you. He done drawed you up thar to hear to him. I seed you lookin' like he'd done drawed yuer soul outen yuer body. I have heard o' sech. He's be'n down to Bishop Towahs', too, whar I be'n workin' at. I seed him watchin' me like he come to spy on me, an' he no sooner gone than I seed that thar Giles Teasley sneakin' 'long the fence lookin' over an' searchin' eve'y place like he war...