diff options
Diffstat (limited to '36283.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 36283.txt | 7157 |
1 files changed, 7157 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/36283.txt b/36283.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9038707 --- /dev/null +++ b/36283.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7157 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Tobacco Tiller, by Sarah Bell Hackley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Tobacco Tiller + A Tale of the Kentucky Tobacco Fields + + +Author: Sarah Bell Hackley + + + +Release Date: May 30, 2011 [eBook #36283] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TOBACCO TILLER*** + + +E-text prepared by David Garcia, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made +available by Kentuckiana Digital Library (http://kdl.kyvl.org) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 36283-h.htm or 36283-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36283/36283-h/36283-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36283/36283-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Kentuckiana Digital Library. See + http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=kyetexts;cc=kyetexts;view=toc;idno=b92-126-29177664 + + + + + +THE TOBACCO TILLER + +A Tale of the Kentucky Tobacco Fields + +by + +SARAH BELL HACKLEY + + + + + + + +The C. M. Clark Publishing Company +Boston, Massachusetts +1909 + +Copyright, 1909. +By the C. M. Clark Publishing Co., +Boston, Massachusetts, +U. S. A. + +All Rights Reserved. + + + + +[Illustration: "I dunno but what we'd better move to Texas."] + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I--MR. DOGGETT AT HOME + + II--THE MYRTLE BUDS IN MISS LUCY'S GARDEN + + III--AT THE STRIPPING-HOUSE + + IV--A COMPACT + + V--A VISIT TO THE SEERESS + + VI--A NEIGHBORLY CALL + + VII--RIVALS + + VIII--AT THE TOBACCO BARN + + IX--"SURE SOME DISASTER HAS BEFELL" + + X--NIGHT RIDERS + + XI--MORE NIGHT RIDERS + + XII--THE MAD COW + + XIII--MR. DOGGETT'S ACQUISITION + + XIV--MR. DOGGETT LENDS A HAND + + XV--"WEEP NO MORE, MY LADY" + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + _"I dunno but what we'd better move to Texas"_ + + _"Hit's Jeremiah, my pet," she explained soothingly_ + + _"Mistu Linney, is 'oo lovin' Miss Luty?"_ + + _"Here's a letter, Lucy Ann," he sneered_ + + + + +FOREWORD + + +Behold, friend, a multitude traversing a road shaded at its edge by +mighty plants whose leaves are thick, broad, and rank in their +odor,--the nicotiana tabacum. Who are they of the multitude? + +They are those who have had to do with the making of the history of the +weed whose cousins are the thorn-apple, and the night-shade, from the +time its existence came to be known to the civilized nations. + +Listen, friend, to the roll-call. + +Ye whose bread was the banana,--whose garb was the sunshine,--whose gods +were worshiped in the smoke-cloud from the burning leaf of the +Petun,--whose weapons of war were arrows, poison-tipped in the oil of +tobacco,--ye red barbarians of Central America, of the off lying +islands, and of the farther northward country; ye from whom the world +learned to use tobacco,--answer to your names! + +Sir of the silken robe and waving plume,--dizzy with visions of the +wealth of the Montezumas to be conquered,--you who in the beginning of +the sixteenth century, presented the Indian weed to your Sovereign at +Madrid,--Fernando Cortez--answer to your name! + +Sir Frances Drake, the first son of Old England to look to the borders +of the Peaceful Ocean,--bring forward Ralph Lane, starving pearl-hunter +of Roanoke Island, whom you rescued. Answer, Lane, you who introduced +the Indian custom of "drinking tobacco" into your country! + +Noble prisoner of the Tower,--chivalrous subject of Her Sovereign +Majesty, Elizabeth, in whose honor was named the sunny land which grew +the herb of enchantment,--you who made the herb fashionable in +Britain,--Sir Walter Raleigh, answer to roll call! + +Silversmith, maker of the pipe of silver of the Queen's Favorite, and of +the scales that enabled him to ascertain the weight of the smoke of a +pipeful of tobacco, and win his majesty's wager,--answer to your name! + +You, whose name, by courtesy of the great Swedish student of nature, the +Indian's weed bears,--John Nicot, of the Country of Charlemagne, answer +roll-call! + +And you, Madame, of the day-fair face, and the night-black heart, wife +to one King, and mother to another,--huntress, builder of the +Tuileries,--you, at whose feet lie the victims of that mid-summer night +of horror, the eve of St. Bartholomew's Day,--you, Madame, first +snuff-taker of Europe, and christener of the Herbe de La +Reine,--Catherine de Medici,--murderess,--answer to roll-call! + +Mariners of the Mediterranean, Merchants of Venice, Genoan +tradesmen,--ye who enlightened the Levant, and the wide Continent to the +borders of the deepest ocean, as to the intoxicating delights of the +plant solanaceae,--your names are called! + +Hear all ye, who by might of Sovereign rule, of priestly power, and +example, have endeavored to drive the weed of the West from your +domains,--answer to your names! + +Unhappy prisoner of St. Helena, who in your day of power, secured to +your Government the exclusive right of making and selling +tobacco,--answer to your name! + +Governor of Virginia,--compelled to adjust the proportion between the +corn and the tobacco to be raised in the cleared lands,--when the +colonists, mad with thoughts of gold, neglected the culture of that +which they could eat, for that which they could sell,--Sir Thomas +Dale,--answer roll-call! + +Ye one hundred young women of "agreeable persons and respectable +character," whose over seas passage was paid with the tobacco of your +husbands-to-be,--answer to your names! + +All ye vast multitude concerned in the making of the past history of +tobacco,--answer to roll-call! + +They have answered, friend! they have passed beyond our vision, and yet +the tobacco shadowed highway is traversed by a great throng. + +Who are they? They are the present day consumers of the weed of the red +children of the woods,--they are the subjects of Edward, men of the +Fatherland, of France, of Spain, of the cold barren steppes of Russia, +of the parched plains of Africa, of the Americas, and the islands of the +seas; soldiers, sailors, civilians, barbarians, infidels, Christians, +the earth over, and their number is hundreds of millions! + +Tobacco! Tobacco for the millions of the past! Tobacco for the millions +of the present! Whence come the supplies for these? Whence come the +supplies for these? + +For a time, Virginia supplied the world, but the culture of the weed +spread with its use, until it came to be grown in many parts of the old +world. + +The United States, however, produces more tobacco than any other country +in the world, and of her great output,--Kentucky, possessed of the soil +combined with conditions of climate that makes good tobacco in greater +measure than any other of the States, raises more than one-third. + +Within Kentucky's borders, friend, the number of the agricultural folk +who depend for daily bread on crops of tobacco, is great. Every year's +August sees more than three hundred thousand of Kentucky's rich acres, +yellow green with the growing tobacco, and every year's March sees near +three hundred millions of pounds of matured tobacco sent away. + +The central and north central parts of the State, embracing the Blue +Grass region, wherein lies the home of the great Pacificator, is known +as the White Burley District, and is world-renowned for the quality and +quantity of the famous White Burley tobacco, largely used in the +domestic trade. Here this tobacco is produced at its best. + +In the western part of the State, the lands south-bounded by the waters +of the Cumberland, and over which, in the olden day, annual prairie +fires swept, are known as the Regie, or Dark Tobacco district, and here +are grown the dark heavy varieties of tobacco, adapted to the export +trade. + +A hard life the tobacco tiller's, friend. He who has not seen the +tobacco grown, can have no conception of the physical hardships endured, +the ceaseless toil, the care and the anxiety as to the likelihood of +failure, that enter into the growing of a tobacco crop. + +It is a crop that requires the very best quality of land on which to +cultivate it, and the most arduous of toil in its cultivation. Work may +be hard in another crop, but set the work necessary to raise any crop +beside the labor entailed in a tobacco crop--from its beginning until it +is ready for the manufacturer--and friend, it will be as the labor of +the little lad who digs a miniature trench in the beach sands, beside +the completed digging of the canal that will unite two oceans! + + + + +THE TOBACCO TILLER + + + + +CHAPTER I + +MR. DOGGETT AT HOME + + "Awake, awake my lyre, and tell thy silent master's humble tale." + + +"Dock and me went out this mornin' and scraped up about three +tablespoonfuls o' frost offen that plank a layin' right thar by the +fence,--yes, sir, three tablespoonfuls, nigh about. Ef we don't watch, +some o' our terbaccer's a goin' to git ketched a standin'. Frost a +holdin' off ontel the last o' September hain't seasonable. What you +thenk about hit, Mr. Brock?" + +The pale blue eyes, half-hidden by the bushy red side-burns that floated +wildly out on either side of Mr. Doggett's face, like sunburnt bunches +of broom sedge blown in a high wind, included all his audience with a +comprehensive beam of agreeability. Finally these pleasant eyes rested, +in the enforced deference due the most prosperous guest, on the +thick-set man with the hog-like neck, and the enormous mole, that stood, +sentinel-like beside the left nostril of his rose-colored, aquiline +nose. + +For reasons domestic and infantile, a portion of the Doggetts' Sunday's +company,--Susie Dutton and Hattie Leeds, the two daughters, and Lem and +Jim, the two married sons, the four spouses and the eight babes, had +taken a reluctant mid-afternoon departure. + +The unfettered guests, Mr. Nathan Lindsay, Gran'dad Doggett, who was +staying with his daughter, Lindy Gumm, over on the River,--and Mr. +Galvin Brock (he of the mole and the nose) who had been young Callie +Doggett's second husband, lingered. + +Mr. Lindsay, who held himself a step above the Doggetts, but was not +averse to a Sunday's visit to that hospitable household, had suggested +that it was warmer outdoors than in the house. The three guests, with +their host and his youngest son, sat in the pleasant warmth of the late +afternoon's sunshine, at the woodpile on the west side of the house. + +Mr. Brock's usual manner of answering a question was by an assenting or +dissenting grunt. This time, however, his mouth left its grim line an +instant. + +"If it keeps as dry as it is now," he observed, "nobody's tobaccer will +see a killin' frost unhoused." + +During the Civil War, Gran'dad Doggett, on account of what he called "a +leetle shootin' scrape, but nothin' criminal," had brought his young +family from Bell County, in the Kentucky Mountains, to the Blue Grass. +Before this flitting of necessity, he had been a Justice of the Peace, +which fact, ever afterward caused him to affect an air of conscious +superiority toward his son. + +"More than that, Ephriam," he remarked, corroborating Mr. Brock's +observation, "more than that, frost don't never kill in the dark o' the +moon. I'd 'a' thought in the thirty year you've been a raisin' +terbaccer, you'd 'a' learned that!" + +"That's right, old man, yes, sir"--Mr. Doggett's slow drawl was affable +in the extreme--"that's jest what I told the boys. A body hain't no use +to cross a bridge afore they gits to hit! Jim now, he wuz might' night' +wilted down along in July, afeerd the best part o' his crop wuz a +Frenchin', but hit growed off all right, and now hit's the best +terbaccer he's got! I'm afeerd he'll have too much fer his barn and +he'll want to put some in mine. + +"I says to Jim and Mr. Castle last week, 'I hain't a aimin' to let you +scrouge up and burn up my terbaccer.' Although a heap o' men, when they +are a leetle short o' room, they'll push up the sticks together, hit's a +poor way! Terbaccer'll rot, ef you crowd hit, ever' time. The rot'll +start up whar the stem jines the stalk, and hit'll drap off ef you don't +watch. + +"Yes, sir, Jim's got a fine crop. Ef he could save ever' leaf, he'd have +two thousand pounds to the acre, jest about. Some o' this farm's mighty +tired, but I 'low they hain't no sech land as them ten acres in the +world fer richness! + +"Although when I wuz in town on a Court day last--Monday wuz a week--a +Texas feller wuz a tellin' about how rich the ground is _thar_. He says +the crops thar is astoundin', the dirt is so rich; he says he raised one +punkin'--jest an ordinary sized one too, fer Texas,--and his old sow, +she made a bed in hit fer her peegs! Yes, sir!" + +Mrs. Doggett, a large, spare, and comely woman, with high cheek bones +and olive skin, lifted the battered zinc buckets she was filling with +chips. + +"Well, Eph," she vouchsafed, "ef that's the truth, I dunno but what we'd +better move to Texas. Ef anybody's any worse needin' a betterin' o' +their condition than us, I dunno who ner what hit is! Look at the house +we have to live in, will you, front and back! It'd be mighty late when +Mr. Castle'd durst offer to put _you_ in sech a house, wouldn't hit, Mr. +Brock? He knows better. He couldn't put hit off on none his terbaccer +men but Eph!" + +The house, had it been a thing of feeling, would have shrunk before the +scrutiny of the five pairs of eyes lifted to it, so disreputable was its +aspect. Panes were dropping from the time and weather-gnawed sash in the +windows of the two rooms below; rags stopped the holes in the one window +above that had a sash in it, and the lank old pine leaning over the +stone-paved walk that led to the little hingeless gate assisted a wide +board to keep the wind out of the other window. + +"Seems to me, Ephriam, Castle ort to pervide a better house fer ye, er +make out to fix up this un," quavered the old man. + +"He ort now, he ort," assented his son, "though he's been a promisin'--" + +"Promisin'll be all!" broke in Mrs. Doggett. "He's never kept nary +promise yit, about the house, ner nothin' else! But Eph, he'll jest stay +here and put in another three years a grubbin' canes and choppin' +roots--a clearin' up a thicket, and then git jest half the terbaccer he +raises on hit, like ever'body else does on ready-cleared land!" + +"The old lady, she's a poppin' hit to me and Mr. Castle, hain't she?" +Mr. Doggett smiled indulgently in the direction of Mrs. Doggett as she +went across the rotting planks that served for a back porch floor, with +her chips. "Although," he went on, "hit's might' night' the truth. Mr. +Castle is mighty close. + +"'Doggett,' he says, 'don't bring in nothin' but one cow and a horse er +two on me to pastur fer you,' and that's the way he talks, and me a +lookin' after his mar's and colts, and fixin' up his water-gaps, and all +sech like work outside the terbaccer crop, all the time, both afore and +sence he tuck to livin' in town. + +"I says to him one day--I says, 'Mr. Castle, here you are a gittin' rich +offen our work, able to have a conquick mansion, with burssels +cyarpetin', and a brick hin-house, and me and the boys is a workin' our +finger nails off, and in the house I have to live in I can't hardly find +a dry place to hang my hoe!' (And hit's the truth, yes, sir, though Mr. +Castle says sence terbaccer is so low, he has to make a livin' on his +other investments.) Mr. Castle, he never said nothin', jest tuck up my +hoe and went to lookin' at hit,--my old hoe thar I've used in the +terbaccer fer twenty-five year." + + +Mr. Doggett pointed to where against the side of the patched +weather-boarding hung a hand-made hoe, shining like polished silver, its +hickory handle worn to the hard glossiness of Japanese lacquer. + +"I says, 'Mr. Castle, ef that hoe could talk, hit'd tell o' enough sweat +to drownd a elephant in, and o' enough warrysome back-aches, and arm +j'int aches, and gineral _all-over_ aches to keep one them thar rest +cyores Joey wuz a readin' about, a runnin' at full blast fer all time to +come. Yes, sir, hit could! And, although a body has a heap to be +thankful fer anyhow, hit's mighty little I've got to show fer all that +sweat and them aches.' + +"Mr. Castle looked at me mighty hard; then he says, 'Doggett, you've had +a livin'.' 'Yes, sir,' I says, 'but Mr. Castle, I've had to git out and +sometimes work fer other people!'" + +"'Pears like to me, Ephriam, takin' your words fer what they're wuth, +movin'd be a good thing fer ye," suggested Gran'dad at this moment. + +"No, sir, I hain't a needin' none them way-off States," Mr. Doggett +shook his head emphatically: "thar's too many quair creeters in 'em fer +me. That feller Fletch Keerby I had a workin' fer me last spreng, him +and his brother Larkin, they lived out in Texas fer a while, and Fletch +he said one day they wuz goin' 'long together sommers, and on the way +they ketcht sight o' a beeg snake. Hit wuz fifteen foot long and beeg as +a post, and hit wuz layin' plumb acrost the road a sunnin'! Hit wuz one +them buoy instructors. + +"Keerby, he told me he says, 'Larkin, ef a feller had a kag o' damanite, +he'd be all right, but we hain't got hit, so what can we do? Hit won't +do to shoot him; I'm afeerd to, because ef we don't git _him_, he'll git +_us_!' Yes, sir, that's what he said. And Larkin he went and got a club +and slipped up on the snake and hit him back o' the head about eight +inches. Yes, sir! And that snake jest swapped eends! But he wuz dead, +yes, sir, he wuz dead. He wuz a instructor, a buoy instructor!" + +"Well, Ephriam," Gran'dad slapped the new gray jeans that covered his +thin legs, with a prolonged cackle of derisive mirth, "you wouldn't be +no fust rate hand to kerry on a funeral--you'd tickle the ondertaker. +They don't have none them buoys in Texas. They don't live nowhars but in +_Africy_!" + +Mr. Doggett rubbed his narrow forehead reflectively, ignoring the +correction. + +"Whar is hit them mare-maids lives, er is hit _marry-maids_? I fergit +the name. Keerby, he said he seed a pair o' 'em onct--in Floridy Gulf +hit must 'a' been. He said they had a woman head and a fish body hitched +onto hit somehow, and ever' scale on the fish part wuz as beeg as a +sasser, and a shinin' like the sun! He said he never looked at 'em +perticular _clos_, considerin' they wuzn't dressed fer company ner cold +weather, but they wuz ondoubtedly the purtiest creeters a body ever +seed!" + +"Did Keerby mention anytheng that _wuz_ dressed fer winter out thar?" +asked Gran'dad with a covert wink at Mr. Brock. + +"Well, Keerby, he said they wuz b'ars--them kind that'll hug like a +courtin' feller, and their meat's as sweet as a courtin' feller's +tongue. Keerby says you can p'intedly eat all the b'ar's fat you can git +around ef you pepper and salt hit right good, and instid o' sickenin' +you, hit'll fatten you." + +"Keerby'll never see as much b'ar's fat ner nothin' else as he can git +around!" jeered Gran'dad. + +"I'm afeerd he won't," agreed Mr. Doggett. "I'd 'a' kept him longer, he +had sech a good sleight at turnin' off work,--done more'n three thirds +o' the feedin' ginerally, and ever'theng else accordin'--but the old +lady 'lowed she wuzn't goin' to be et out o' house and home ef _I_ wuz. +Onct he et so long I thought I'd have to hitch up the team and pull him +away from the table." + +Dock, the twelve-year-old, small and scrawny, but tough as a hickory +withe, who had up to this time lain stretched on his front by a hollow +log, skilfully executing with his barlow a colony of ants as fast as +they crawled from the rotting section of buckeye, gave a wicked glance +at the slender and hollow-cheeked man of fifty sitting near him. + +"Mr. Lindsay, he ort to have some o' that b'ar's fat Keerby wuz a +tellin' about to make him sortie plump up and look purty to Miss Lucy." + +A slow red crept into Mr. Lindsay's sensitive face. + +"I don't reckon I need any bear's fat yit, Dock," his voice was low and +gentle: "My mother always told me whatever I done, never to starve a +woman, and I ain't ready to starve one yit, ef I could git one to have +me." + +Mrs. Doggett who had come out again with her improvised chip baskets, +turned toward him, her black eyes sparkling mischievously. + +"Now Mr. Lindsay, ef I wuz a single man like you, that'd been to Texas +and Missoury, and seed all over the country you might say,--a man that +knows how to keep on the good side o' women folks--a not a trackin' in +mud no time, ner never spittin' on the hearth, and always washin' his +feet at night in plowin'-time--I'd be plumb ashamed to say I couldn't +git no woman to have me! + +"Been here in this neighborhood might' night' six year, too, and hain't +never said nary word yit as anybody's ever heerd tell of, to keep Miss +Lucy Jeemes from settin' thar always with her pa and Miss Nancy! I thenk +hit's time he wuz doin' a little courtin' in that direction, don't you, +Mr. Brock?" + +The best beginning of a man's enmity is the suspicion that another man +has a better chance of the regard of a woman he has selected for his +own, and though Mr. Brock had sat during Mrs. Doggett's speech with +stern inscrutable face that conveyed no hint of his feelings, his heart +beat with angry tumult, and within its inmost chamber was born a lusty +beginning of hatred toward the pale man sitting on the beech log. + +Callie had been in her grave only six weeks, but when a man has been +twice married, and twice bereft, may he not, after six weeks, begin to +consider a third partner with propriety, if the consideration is done in +secret? And after the convenient pattern set by other widowers, Mr. +Brock had selected a neighbor, the kind-faced woman who had been a +ministering angel at the death beds of both his wives, for that third +partner. His pale grey eyes gave their sidewise glance at Mr. Lindsay. +The warm color on that gentleman's cheek irritated him strangely; he +rose precipitately, and with a mumbled word of farewell, took his +departure. + +"Mr. Brock got in a mighty hurry all to onct," said Mr. Doggett, gazing +in some wonderment after the departing figure: "I can't thenk what tuck +him off so suddent." + +After the departure of Mr. Lindsay and Gran'dad, a few minutes later, +Mr. Doggett, with a pleasing idea in his head, strolled out to the +barn-yard, where Mrs. Doggett milked the red muley. + +"Ann," he remarked, "I been a thenkin' about Mr. Lindsay a not havin' no +settled home, ner no nigh kin to take keer o' him, ef he ever wuz to git +down sick. Hit would be a sorter nice theng fer him and Miss Lucy Jeemes +to marry now, wouldn't hit?" + +Mrs. Doggett looked uncertain. + +"Maybe Miss Lucy wouldn't marry him, Eph," she advanced. "Sometimes I +thenk she's one o' them women that wouldn't marry any man." + +Mr. Doggett took a few steps out of range of the milker. + +"Don't you fool yourself, Ann," he chuckled, "thar's jest one woman in +the world that won't marry!" + +"Who is she?" Mrs. Doggett asked curiously. + +"She's a dead woman!" responded Mr. Doggett. + +"Aw, shet up, Eph!" Mrs. Doggett spoke with some acerbity. "You jest go +git me some stovewood, ef you want any supper tonight!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE MYRTLE BUDS IN MISS LUCY'S GARDEN + + "No spring or summer's beauty hath such grace, + As I have seen in one autumnal face." + + +For more than a half-hour old Milton James had limped up and down the +gravelled drive that led through the grove of poplars in front of the +lead-colored, one-and-a-half storied house that was his home, +alternately watching the fat old bay mare and three cows that pulled at +the fodder scattered in the pasture field over the fence, and the muddy +road that ran across the foot of the avenue and disappeared over the +hill beyond. + +"Lucy Ann beats ever'theng a stayin'," he muttered, irritably pulling at +his sparse white beard; "jest now in sight, and hit nigh twelve +o'clock!" + +The dark object at length resolved itself into an old-fashioned and much +mud-bespattered buggy, drawn by the counterpart of the bay in the +pasture, and driven by a woman in black. + +"Lucy Ann, don't drive ag'in the gate-post!" + +With a hand that slightly trembled, both from weakness and nervous +irritability, the tall old man, leaning on his stick, his bald head +shining in the December sun, held open the side gate of the yard, while +his daughter, measuring the space between the white-washed gate posts +with an anxious eye, drove cautiously in. + +To a person of fifty years, agility is ordinarily a stranger. Miss Lucy, +carefully protecting her new black etamine dress skirt from the wheel, +climbed slowly out of the buggy, and gathered up the numerous bundles +from the floor of the vehicle. Then, while her father fumbled with the +straps of the harness, she lingered for a moment, watching him. + +"Pa," she ventured in the apologetic manner of one who expects a rebuff, +"spose'n you let _me_ help take out old Maud. I'm afraid you'll hurt +your bad knee." + +"Naw, I won't," answered her father testily: "you'd better jest take +them thar bundles in the house, and put on your ever' day clothes and +holp Nancy about the dinner! Nancy's been a workin' hard all the time +you've been a gaddin' about town." + +When Miss Lucy came out of the front bedroom into the sitting-room +behind it, an imaginary speck of dust on a pane of glass in the door of +the tall cherry "press" filled with gay-colored dishes, caught her eye. +She rubbed the glass carefully with a corner of her apron, and catching +up the little hearth-broom, stooped to brush up a microscopic cinder +that had fallen from the grate on the green and red striped rag carpet. +Her sister greeted her with a look of reproach. + +"Do you think, Lucy, I ain't done no cleanin' up while you was gone?" +she asked. + +Both the Misses James were alike tall, but what was angularity in the +uncompromisingly erect figure of Miss Nancy, who had never known a sick +day, was slenderness and delicacy in her elder sister. Miss Nancy's +rugged face found no redeeming beauty in her eyes, which were gray and +cold as the foundation stones of the house, and carried in their depths +a perpetual look of rebuke to the world in general, and to her sister in +particular; but the irregularity of Miss Lucy's features seemed akin to +beauty in the light of her dark-blue eyes, shining with loving +kindness,--eyes that despite their owner's years, held a look of +singularly childlike innocence, and a sort of timidity that appeals to +the chivalry of men. + +According to Mrs. Doggett, the James' nearest neighbor, for whom +spinsterhood in one she did not admire required a just reproof, but in a +friend necessitated an explanation and an apology, "Miss Nancy's never +had any notice as I ever heerd tell of, but to the best o' my belief, +Miss Lucy'd 'a' been married long ago, ef hit hadn't 'a' been fer skeer +o' them old thengs,"--the "old thengs" in question being Miss Nancy and +her father. + +"How do you like Pa's overcoat, Nancy?" asked Miss Lucy, opening the +great bundle she had laid on the middle star of the sitting-room bed, +and holding up the garment. Miss Nancy looked at the neat gray beaver +with cold disapproval. + +"Why'n't you git black?" she demanded: "you wanted a black one, didn't +you, Pa?" + +The old man looked at the coat and then over his steel-rimmed spectacles +at his elder daughter whose hand went up to her face in a nervous, +defensive movement,--an acquired gesture that told of a life lived under +the lash of rebuke. + +"I taken this one, Pa, because I got it cheap; it was a young man's +overcoat, left over from last spring. Jest see how fine quality it is, +and Pa, I wisht you'd look at the linin'!" + +Mr. James fingered the soft nap of the garment, and examined its +handsome lining with reluctant eyes. + +"Yes," he admitted grudgingly, "hit _is_ fine quality. A blind hog will +stumble on an acorn sometimes!" + +Miss Lucy helped him into the coat. + +"Wall," he grumbled triumphantly, "I knowed thar'd be somethin' wrong. +Hit don't fit: I hain't a goin' to torment myse'f squez in sech tight +armholes as them is! You'll jest have to take hit back! Go to town one +day to git thengs,--go to town next day to swap 'em! I thenk next time +you start out to town, you'd better let Nancy--a person with some +jedgement, go with you to keep you from actin' like a chicken with hit's +head off!" + +"Ef you'd jest go along and try a coat on, Pa, like I want you to, you +might git a better fit and be better suited too," remonstrated Miss Lucy +mildly, although her lips trembled, as she carefully folded the coat, +and laid it on a bottom shelf of the press, and smoothed the wrinkle on +the bed where the bundle had lain. "And Pa," she added, "Brother and +Sister Avery's a comin' out this evenin' to stay all night. I told 'em +you'd be awful glad,--you got so lonesome a settin' 'round since you'd +had the rheumatism so bad and the doctor told you not to work any." + +"Why'n't you git some crackers, Lucy, ef you knowed comp'ny was comin'?" +asked Miss Nancy. "We won't have no time to bake no lightbread between +now and the time they git here, and we ought to have somethin' to eat +with the beef soup." + +"I did," replied Miss Lucy following her sister to the big, low-ceiled +kitchen whose woodwork, cupboard shelves, biscuit board, and puncheon +floor were alike white and immaculate with much scrubbing. Miss Nancy +emptied the sugar into its jar and poured out the crackers. + +"Why'n't you git square crackers?" she grumbled, as the round soda +biscuits rattled in the tin can. + +"They didn't have none, Nancy, where I took the butter, no kind but the +round ones," explained Miss Lucy: "I didn't have no time to go nowhere +else then, it was so late, and I had to go around through Plumville to +get the money the colored woman owed me on the last dress I made her. I +wanted to order that safety razor for Pa for Christmas, with the money." +She lowered her voice, so the old man, partially deaf, could not hear. +"Then I wouldn't go back through town; I thought I ought to save the +mare all the pullin' I could. The apples I took made a right heavy load +goin'--" + +"I don't thenk you tried to save her much," broke in her father tartly, +laying a scant armful of stovewood by the little cracked stove whose +high polish would have led even a stove-dealer to strike off ten years +from its real age: "that thar mar's mighty nigh into the thumps. I lay +you driv' her too fast!" + +"Why, Pa, I walked her all the way back from town." Miss Lucy's voice +was gently deprecative. + +"Wall, hit's a good theng you did, because she's got a shoe off, and her +foot's all turned up like a cheer rocker now." + +"The stock seems to be enjoyin' their stalks. Who foddered for you +today, Pa?" ventured Miss Lucy, thinking to divert his thoughts. + +"Whar's your mem'ry, Lucy Ann?" fretted Mr. James. "Didn't I go down to +Doggett's yistiddy and git Marshall to promise to come? He's the only +one o' the Doggetts that I can ever git to do anytheng fer me. He's been +about more'n the others, a workin' up thar in Ohawo, and he's learnt the +value of a promise. Old Man Doggett'll promise you anytheng when he +hain't got no notion he's goin' to have time to do hit,--he's so afeerd +o' bein' disagreeable, then he'll tell you he hated hit awful, but he +jest possible couldn't come!" + +"It's a pity more people ain't afraid of bein' disagreeable," thought +Miss Lucy with a sigh: "if they was, this'd be a pleasenter world." + +To Miss Lucy, the minister and his bride were creatures far above +ordinary clay. Months before his marriage, the young man, quite alone in +the world, had made the gentle Miss Lucy the confidant of his hopes and +fears, and the marriage of the handsome and magnetic young lover to the +pretty sweetheart, whose wealth and social position had threatened to be +unsurmountable barriers, was a romance dear to her heart. She went about +her work of preparing for the expected guests in a glow of pleasure, but +the charmed spell of her thoughts was presently broken by a call from +Miss Nancy in the kitchen. + +"Lucy Ann, I know you've done had time to change them spreads and shams, +and 'tain't no use a puttin' _all_ the ever'day thengs away! Mother used +to say, 'nobody can't put hand on nary ever'day towel when comp'ny's +around. Lucy's hid 'em all,' and hit looks like you're bent on keepin' +up your reputation. Come on here and bake them pies, ef you're a goin' +to!" + +Miss Lucy sighed, and went about the task of pie making with the ready +skill of one whose fingers had fashioned pastries before they measured +the length of the bowl of the spoon with which she mixed them. + +"Pa, I had a new boy to help me milk this evenin'." + +This bit of information imparted by Miss Lucy, when after the early +supper, while Miss Nancy attended to the dishes, she and her father sat +around the sitting-room grate with their guests, was met by an +infectious trill of laughter from the minister's wife. + +"O Glen," she gurgled, "you would have been a widower this evening if +the milk-bucket had not saved me! I went on the wrong side of Miss +Lucy's black cow and raised her ire. _She_ raised her _foot_, Miss Lucy +said, but I think it must have been her _feet_!" + +"I am afraid you won't do for a chore boy," laughed her husband, "if you +begin by antagonizing the cows. Have you in view any more suitable boy, +Miss Lucy?" + +The question of a small boy to be paid for his services in food and in +raiment, was a constant and unsettled one in the James family. Five +youths had been its portion in one year, and the last one had left by +the light of the moon two weeks before. + +"No," Miss Lucy looked away from her father as she spoke: "Cousin Becky +Willis told me where she thought I could get one, and I tried today, but +the childern are all goin' to school--" + +"Hit's hard to git a boy to stay," interrupted Mr. James, smiling +affably at the minister, "but I shan't let the girls do the work by +theirselves no way this winter. I've got the promise o' a mighty good +man." + +"Who've you got, Pa,--Mr. Lindsay?" hazarded Miss Nancy as she +economically extinguished the small lamp she had just brought in from +the kitchen, and slightly lowered the flame of the large one on the +mantel. + +"Yes, Lindsay," assented her father. A little pleased gasp escaped Miss +Lucy, but no one noticed it but little Mrs. Avery, sitting next her. + +"Lindsay, he come by here this mornin' a goin' to my nephew, Simeon +Willises, and stopped a few minutes. He's lookin' mighty puny: said he +hain't felt well all this fall, not sence he got p'izened with Paris +green in Archie Evans' terbaccer last August. Archie, he would have him +to spray fer him, wantin' a man o' jedgement to do hit. Lindsay's been +plumb laid up fer about two weeks, he said. I told him he ort to 'a' +come here and staid while he wuz laid up, but he's been a stayin' at +Doggett's. + +"He said he didn't allow to do no regular work this winter, and I put at +him to come and stay with us ontel spreng and holp the girls out. I told +him ef he'd jest come and stay, I'd give him his board, and his washin' +shouldn't cost him nary cent, and he agreed to breng his trunk and come +day after termorrer--Saturday. + +"Lindsay's a mighty fine man--raised down hyonder whar I wuz, in Wayne, +though I never knowed him ontel he come to Simeon's to work. He used to +keep store down thar ontel he got burnt out, and sence then he's been a +croppin' in terbaccer part the time, and part the time travellin' around +fer his health, helpin' folks with their farm work and terbaccer when he +feels like hit." + +"He's a mighty nice man," volunteered Miss Nancy: "Cousin Becky said +when he was workin' there, her stovewood box was always full, and when +she wanted to clean hit, she had to empty hit. They ain't many men +that'll do that!" + +Miss Lucy said nothing, and the lights were too low for the warm color +in her face to tell any tales. + +"Hit's a wonder, too," went on Miss Nancy, "he'd be so nice, bein' a +tobacco man: most them tobacco people are awful rough: they don't seem +to care for church goin' ner nothin' that way, and all their idy of +pleasure is crap shootin', and drinkin', and dancin' at them all-night +parties they have around among theirselves durin' the winter." + +"Mr. Lindsay ain't no regular tobacco man, Nancy; he jest learned how to +raise hit when he was stayin' in Fayette," corrected Miss Lucy. "And +besides," she remonstrated, flushing at her own temerity, "I don't think +you ought to blame the tobacco folks so much; they don't have much +chance to learn refinement and genteel ways, but they ain't all rough. +Mr. Doggett's folks are as polite as anybody. And as fer goin' to +church, I reckon ef me and you was to work in the tobacco all day ever' +Saturday, we wouldn't feel much like dressin' up on Sunday. Some of 'em +ain't got suitable clothes to wear to church neither, and sometimes they +have to work on Sunday, too." + +"It's hard for any one of us to put himself in a brother's place," +remarked the minister gently. Miss Nancy said no more, and Mr. James +resumed his theme. + +"Lindsay hain't no trouble to wait on nuther: he's jest as tidy as a +womern," he remarked, "and that's one reason I got him to come. I want +to spar' the girls all I can." + +"You are right, Brother James," commended the bride, dimpling +seductively, "they're so good to you! You are surely to be congratulated +for having two such good daughters to care for you." + +"Thar hain't no danger o' me a losin' 'em, nuther." Mr. James' tone was +confident. "I've allus been mighty good to 'em, and I've paid 'em fer +teckin' keer o' me!" + +Miss Lucy looked up from the sock she was knitting,--one of a dozen +pairs she had knit to pay for her winter hat. + +"Why, Pa," she protested mildly, "I've never saw any of the money you +ever give anybody for takin' care of you!" + +"Money fer takin' keer o' me?" cried the old man in a tone of surprise: +"I've been a feedin' you I reckon, and a feedin' you a mighty long time +too!" + +When the minister and his wife were safely upstairs in their room, her +clear, low laugh filled the little apartment. + +"I don't mean to be disrespectful," she cried out softly, "but Glen, I'm +worried about the pay those two women received for their trouble in +getting up that delicious supper!" + +"The pay?" The Reverend Avery's puzzled face sent his helpmeet off in +another gurgle of laughter. + +"Their food, Stupid," she railed softly, "what a high estimate our +brother must put on his '_feed_!'" + +"That isn't what's troubling me," responded the young man in mock +trepidation: "I'm worried lest when we are in a house of our own, I +shan't be able to come up to Miss Nancy's wood-box standard!" + +Miss Lucy crept cautiously to her bedroom on the ground floor, lighted +only by the moon. In the kitchen Miss Nancy took down the papers she had +hung the day before on the wall nails on which to hang her skillets and +pans, and replaced them with fresh papers, and laid the morning's sticks +in the stove by the light of the only lamp she would permit to be +lighted beside the one in the guest-chamber. Miss Lucy pressed her face +against the window and looked serenely out in the moonlit yard. + +"Them two are so happy together," she said to herself as a sound of +laughter came to her ears, "I wish--" + +A shade of regret saddened her face for an instant. + +"But a body has always got somethin' to be glad over," she mused: +"there's havin' _them_, such pleasant company, here tonight, and Pa and +Nancy so agreeable, and--and Mr. Lindsay a comin' to stay with us a +Saturday." + +The sudden warmth that came into her heart brought a faint heat to her +cheeks. She remembered something Mr. Lindsay had said to her when he sat +beside her in her buggy on the way to Callie Brock's burial, in the last +month of the summer. On that occasion, he had no way to go and some one +had pointed out to him a vacant seat in Miss Lucy's buggy. + +It was something about the loneliness of a man with no home ties, and +the look that accompanied the words was responsible, though Miss Lucy +did not realize it herself, for the various soft-hued and pretty +"remnants" she had bought and made into waists for everyday wear for +herself,--waists Miss Nancy supposed were long since sold to the negroes +in Plumville, to whose trade Miss Lucy catered. In reality they were +locked in Miss Lucy's trunk, away from chance of Miss Nancy's revilement +of their colors and rebukement of her for extravagance. Miss Nancy +herself wore prints, patched, and faded to a nondescript brown, for +everyday. + +Miss Lucy went to the end window of her room and looked wistfully out on +the coal-shed with its meager pile. + +"I wish," she said to herself, "considerin' we ain't got no wood hardly +on the place, Nancy and Pa'd agreed to get a little more coal, so's we +could have bigger fires when we are all a settin' around when the work's +done up, and could set up later of nights." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +AT THE STRIPPING-HOUSE + + "It is easy to tell the toiler + How best he can carry his pack: + But no one can rate a burden's weight + Until it has been on his back." + + +It was the last of January and every snow-laden twig in the little +thicket that fringed the brook back of the Castle barn that stood across +the road in front of the James dwelling, shimmered like an oriental +woman's tiara in the brilliant sunshine that suggested a not far distant +thaw. The thaw was not today however; the icy air nipped the fingers and +sent a trail of vapor after little Dock Doggett, carrying sticks of +tobacco from the south end of the barn to the stripping-house twenty +yards away. + +But the stripping-house stove was a dull red, and the atmosphere of the +room was eminently satisfactory to the strippers standing by the high +platform that ran the length of the house under the eight window sashes +ranged in a long single row. Four of Mr. Doggett's sons,--Jim, the +second married son, Jappy, Joe and Dock, who lived at home, and Bunch +Trisler, a short, trim, and amiable little man of thirty worked at the +stripping, while Gran'dad Doggett sat, an interested spectator, on a box +beside the stove. + +"I declare," Trisler remarked wearily, about two o'clock in the +afternoon, "my feet is plumb blistered a standin' so long!" + +"He wants a stool,--a cushion' stool like one them store counter stools, +Pap," grinned Dock facetiously. + +"We are sorry not to be able to accommodate you, Bunch," averred Mr. +Doggett, smiling, and his long hand dexterously lifted some leaves +Trisler had wrongly graded to their proper places on the platform along +the opposite side of the room where the stripped and tied "hands" were +placed: "but we jest possible couldn't. Thar hain't no room ner place +fer seats in a strippin'-house. Though ef you'd pay a leetle more +'tention to your fengers, so's not to git a green leaf in ever hand, +maybe hit'd draw your 'tention offen your feet. A man can't hardly study +about two thengs at the same time right handy, and we don't want people +a sayin' 'Bunch, he don't _strip_, he jest takes the terbaccer offen the +stalks!'" + +"How you thenk terbaccer prices'll be this time, Mr. Doggett?" queried +he of the sore feet after the laugh that went around had ended in a +titter from Dock. + +"Better'n they're been, I am in hopes," answered Mr. Doggett: "Mr. +Castle, he says sometimes, 'Less hold our terbaccer a while, Doggett,' +but hit looks like I'm jest bound to sell ever'time as soon as I git +done strippin', bein' in debt. A feller has to buy his flour and +groceries, and clothes, and most his meat on the credit, and ef I don't +pay up my store debt onct a year, the store-keeper, he can't credit me. +He has to live, too. And then, after ever'theng's counted in, I don't +have nary dollar left ahead. Hit's 'howdy money,--good-bye money,' with +me, when I sell my terbaccer, Bunch. The old lady blames me fer stickin' +to hit, but I don't know nothin' else but terbaccer. Been at hit so +long, I wouldn't know how to quit croppin'." + +"Prices don't come in a hundred miles o' the hard work that hit takes to +raise terbaccer," observed Bunch: "them buyers--" + +"Them buyin' companies does mighty curis and onreasonable," interrupted +Mr. Doggett. "Fer a long time now, they've been a sendin' out a agent er +two to each County, er givin' one man all the ground, say on one side +the pike, fer his territory, and orders not to go on t'other man's +ground. Ef your barn happens to be on the t'other side from him, hit's +the hardest matter in the world to git him to come anigh hit. A many a +time, Mr. Castle, he's had to go out on the pike, and bag, and persuade +a buyer to come and jest _look_ at the terbaccer. Sometimes he wouldn't +come neither, and a body'd jest have to buy hogsheads, and prize and +ship hit, and then maybe, after he'd went to the extry expense o' paying +fer prizin' and shippin' and ware-house charges after he got hit +shipped, he would git less'n somebody else got right here at home. + +"And some them buyers don't keer what they say to a body neither. Last +spreng wuz a year, when that thar man, Garred, wuz goin' 'round, he +acted as independent as a couple o' hounds settin' by a dead hoss, yes, +sir! + +"He called Mr. Castle and Mr. Evans a pair o' softheads because they +wuzn't willin' to sell at _his_ price at first askin', and when he come +through the barn thar, he 'lowed the crop looked mighty pore to him. I +says, 'Hain't thar somethin' the matter with your eyes, Mr. Garred? My +terbaccer looks mighty _good_ to men that raises hit: they say I +ginerally always beat 'em all in growin'!' + +"He never sampled none hardly, neither,--jest pertended to know what I +had without hardly lookin' at hit, and when he put his hand on my +_bright_ terbaccer, my _ceegar_ terbaccer, and I had some o' the +purtiest a body ever seed, he 'lowed hit wuz house-burnt! Said he smelt +the smoke whar we'd had fires in the barn a dryin' out the damp (and, ef +you remember, Bunch, we never had no rain the fall before). And he jest +offered me six cents fer my bright, and five cents fer the rest, tips, +flyin's, trash, and all, him to do the gradin'. You know, Bunch, that a +way I wouldn't 'a' had no bright to speak of! + +"I says 'I've got some mighty fine terbaccer, Mr. Garred, and five cents +is a mighty pore price, considerin'. Can't you do a leetle better fer +me?' Then he ast me ef I thought he wuz born yistiddy, er the day afore, +er wuz out a buyin' terbaccer fer his health, and jest ripped out the +cuss words. 'Anytheng over six cents fer your terbaccer'd be an +adstortionate price to pay,' he says: 'hit hain't worth no more, and I'd +see hell froze over before I'd pay you another cent!' + +"Then he 'lowed ef I didn't let him have hit, what wuz I goin' to do +with hit? Wuz I goin' to feed hit to my hogs, er make hit into pies fer +myse'f to eat? + +"Yes, sir, that's jest the way he talked, and t'other buyer, Bishop, a +buyin' the year before, wuz might' night' as insultin'. + +"When he wuz over at Archie Evans' terbaccer barn, he tuck out his gold +watch with jewels a stickin' up like rats' eyes in the back of hit, and +told the old Dutchman a croppin' with Mr. Evans, he'd give him jest +three minutes to come to his price. The old Dutchman says: 'Me and your +price can't agree dat queeck!' Bishop got mad and told him to go to +hell, but old Christenson, he don't git mad at nobody--he jest spoke up +and says: 'Dat is de first time I have efer been invited to your fader's +house, sir, but eef you vill come along vid me, ve vill go dere +togedder!' + +"Yes, sir, them buyers acts mighty quair. At them ware-houses they mix +the good crops they buy all through them that hain't as good. One year I +hauled the best crop I ever raised to a ware-house whar the old lady's +brother wuz a workin'. He said ever' time one the men'd come to a +pertic'lar extry good, bright hand, he'd say, 'Here's a hand o' Eph +Doggett's terbaccer!' + +"Yes, sir, and what you reckon I got fer that crop?" + +"I have no idy!" averred Bunch. + +"They jest give me seven cents fer hit, leavin' out two thousand pounds +they didn't give but five fer--and one pound wuz jest as good as +t'other. My brother-in-law said the reason the buyer done that, wuz he +wuz a _evenin'_ up, a makin' up offen me, fer bigger prices he give on +some other crops!" + +"Thenk you'll sell your terbaccer loose, and haul hit to a ware-house, +this time, er prize hit, and ship?" asked Bunch presently. + +"I dunno, Bunch." Mr. Doggett pulled his beard reflectively: "I dunno +hardly what to do. A feller's bound to go with his terbaccer whenever +the buyer sends word fer him to haul hit, and, no matter what sort o' +weather hit is, he's got to load his waggins--his and them he's +hired--and go. Ef he's got _fur_ to go, say thirty-five miles to a +ware-house, like me, two o'clock in the mornin'll ketch him a startin', +and I tell you, Bunch, ef the weather's dry, the terbaccer loses weight +ever' mile! Ef hit's windy, the wind jest whoops and tears the leaves, +and sucks the weight out scandalous: and ef a snow comes on, a body's +mules balls up, and they legs twists around 'tel thar's plumb danger o' +hockin' 'em. + +"And when you git to the ware-house long about night, the buyer jest as +apt as not, he won't weigh hit sometimes 'tel the next mornin', and by +then, hit won't be no heavier layin' loose on the waggins dryin' out. +Then a feller's got to pay fer stablin' and feed o' the teams, and hotel +bills fer him and his men, yes, sir! + +"And shippin' a body's terbaccer is about as onsatisfactory as sellin' +hit at the barn and haulin' hit to a ware-house: yes, sir, Bunch, a body +has to sell the best way they can, and has to take what they can git, +fer all their hard work! Although hit's plain to be seed, somethin's +wrong when a body has to sell to one man and then bag him to buy,--as I +wuz a sayin'--I'm a livin' in hopes us terbaccer fellers'll sometime git +prices that'll give us somethin' more'n a bare livin'." + +"What about the Equity Society that feller was a speakin' on here last +summer, a helpin' prices?" observed Bunch. + +"The Equity?" repeated Mr. Doggett. "Mr. Archie Evans--he's one o' them +Equity men. He kept that Equity speaker a week when he wuz in the +neighborhood a speakin'. Bedded him in one them gold-papered rooms, and +fed his hoss oats three times a day. He said, ef a cause wuz good and +jest, he wuz the man to holp in the h'istin' uv hit! I asked Mr. Evans +what the Equity wuz, and he said hit wuz a society with the objict to +git profitable prices fer thengs raised on the farm, garden and orchid. +He says he j'ined hit mainly because he saw hit had got so sober fellers +that put in ever' lick o' time they possible could a workin', couldn't +make enough to keep their famblys in anything that wuz any kin to +comfort. Yes, sir! + +"Mr. Evans, he says hit's the theng fer us terbaccer man to jine +hit,--ever' livin' soul of us, tenants and landowners, and jest hold our +terbaccer as hit says, ontel we git feefteen cents: quit a raisin' hit +one year, and we'd come out on top. + +"Them manufacturers used to give us somethin' like a livin' price, afore +they all j'ined together in one buyin' comp'ny and put the price down +jest as low as they wanted to, and they'd have to give us a livin' price +agin, yes, sir, to git us to raise hit. + +"Mr. Evans, he says, hit hain't no use to try to git the Gover'ment to +holp us out, by a takin' the rev'nue offen the terbaccer so we could +stem hit and twist hit and sell hit that away to anybody, jest as we +pleased. He says ever' time the terbaccer raisers has tried to git a law +takin' the tax off, them beeg manufacterer fellers has sot down on hit +so hard, hit jest died ez quick ez me er you would, ef a elephant wuz to +mistake us fer a cheer and set down on us! Yes, sir! + +"He says we've jest got to lay to them manufacterers by a holdin' our +terbaccer, and cuttin' out the raisin' o' hit: says them fellers of us +that's not a j'inin' the Equity, is jest a stavin' off the good day fer +all of us. Mr. Sam Nolan and Mr. Dick Leslie over here, they say thar +hain't no good in the Equity, but Mr. Evans, he says the reason they +talk that a way is: the buyin' Comp'ny, thenkin' 'em beeg fellers, and +influency, give 'em prices away up yonder on their terbaccer, so's +they'd talk agin the Equity! Yes, sir! + +"The comp'ny could easy do that, Bunch, and not feel hit. Jest thenk o' +a gittin' a dollar and a half a pound fer terbaccer! Hain't that what +_Black Jack_ sells at, Joey? + +"And all them fellers does to the terbaccer is jest to sweeten hit a +leetle, and put a leetle liquish in hit, and maybe a leetle opium, so as +to set the cravin' fer more on a feller that uses hit! + +"And talkin' about hard work, us fellers up here in the Blue Grass +ortn't to complain nigh as much as we do about havin' to be in the +terbaccer from one year's end to t'other, and jest gittin' a gnat's +livin' outen hit! Now down yonder in the Green River country, the Dark +Terbaccer country, whar they don't raise _nothin'_ but terbaccer (no +leetle corn patches to fall back on fer stock feed and bread, like we've +got) hit's wuss off with them fellers than with us. Hit's work all the +time reg'lar, and in the cuttin' and housin' time, hit's work day and +night too, come Sunday, come Monday! Fer they're jest bound to save hit, +hit bein' their whole livin'! + +"I've worked in the terbaccer from daylight to dark and hit rainin' hard +all day, wormin' and a suckerin', and expect to ag'in: I've worked on +Sunday considerable--planted on Sunday in a settin' season, and cut in a +press,--skeer o' frost er somethin', on Sundays, and _some nights_, but +my cousin, Columbus Skeens, down thar, he says Sunday is week day to +him, and the moon is the sun, all August and September nigh about. + +"And Columbus' women folks, they have to git out in the fields +considerable, too. + +"And yit Bunch, on account o' the dark terbaccer not brengin' as much as +our'n, they're wuss off than we are. One feller can't raise more'n four +acres o' terbaccer, ginerally, and he has to halve hit with the +land-owner, so ef he raises a thousand pounds to the acre, and gits +seven cents, he don't git but a hunderd and forty dollers fer his year's +work in terbaccer. Yes, sir! + +"And 'tain't been so long sence the buyers, when they all j'ined +together in one buyin' Comp'ny, pinched them fellers down thar in the +Black Patch down to _three_ cents, when their sellin' time come. +Somethin's wrong, Bunch. + +"Hit's jest as bad, I've heerd in some the Counties up naixt the Ohio +River, too. Columbus, he keeps a sayin' ef thengs don't git no better, +somethin's a goin' to happen down thar!" + +"Thar's already been thengs a happenin'," remarked Gran'dad, taking a +sudden interest in the conversation, "that is, in some parts o' the +State. I wuz a readin' yisterday about people a bein' turned back home +with waggin loads o' terbaccer the buyin' Comp'ny'd sneaked around and +bought,--terbaccer that was pooled in the Equity, and they had no right +to sell. And more than that, some barns o' pooled terbaccer, the buyin' +Company has persuaded some pore fellers with more emptiness in their +stomicks than brains in their heads, to sell to hit, has been burned +down, by what the papers calls 'night riders.'" + +"A heap a body sees in the papers hain't so, though," put in Mr. +Doggett. "That's the failin' o' human critters--they believe most +anything they see in print!" + +For an instant the silence in the stripping house was unbroken, except +for the soft swish of the tobacco leaves. + +Then Gran'dad, who was evidently not pleased with his son's comment on +the failings of a newspaper reader, spoke again. + +"How does hit happen, Ephriam, that Castle and Brock always git the +highest market price on the Louisville breaks, when they ship theirn and +yourn? Brock and Castle both says Brock's terbaccer sold yourn last +spreng." + +The red in Mr. Doggett's face deepened as Gran'dad flung out this taunt. + +Mr. Brock, at one time, before a spirit of moving, and losing, took +possession of him, had been a land-owner: he furnished his own teams +altogether in making his crop, and, contrary to usual custom, required +no advancement of money before the sale. In addition, he was not +troubled with humility. + +For these reasons, probably, he was held in greater respect than Mr. +Doggett, by their landlord. Then, too, Mr. Doggett was a good servant, +and perhaps Mr. Castle felt that it was not the part of wisdom to allow +an idea of his worth to get into his head, lest with this idea, an +aspiration to seek another master might also come. At any rate, his +long-continued and undue praise of Brock's tobacco, and unjust +disparagement of Doggett's, had set a thorn of dislike in the heart of +the latter gentleman toward his former son-in-law. + +"I've seed a heap worse terbaccer," Mr. Doggett informed his hearers, +when, after a moment of silence, his cheeks had paled to their normal +color; "but Mr. Brock's terbaccer wuz mighty sorry last year,--the +meanest crop he ever raised. We had a beeg frost in the spreng before he +raised that crop and hit ketched Brock. Reub, he went away that Sunday +mornin' to stay 'tel next day, and he told his pap afore he started, ef +hit got any colder afore night, to be _shore_ to kiver the beds over +with hempherds er straw er somethin'. Mr. Brock, he's mighty se'f +deceited, nobody can't tell him nothin'; he 'lowed the frost wuzn't +comin', but old Jack showed him, yes, sir. And he had to put in his crop +with mixed-up late plants, all the kind them that didn't know hit all, +wuz able to spare him. + +"And then he put too much Paris green on his terbaccer, which some men +will do, ef they hain't no more in love with work than Mr. Brock; +besides he hauled some o' his'n in, in sech a rush, and drug and beat +hit about ontel hit looked like hit had been lapped around a tree, and +part of his wuz shore house-burnt. Them September rains done fer him, +yes, sir. But mine wuz ever' stalk Stand-up Burley, and nigh about as +good as ever I raised, ef I do say hit myse'f. + +"The reason he got sech a price wuz the way he packed his hogsheads. You +know the inspector, he takes a jobber, and fishes out one hand down +about the middle o' the hogshead, and thar's whar Brock packs his +brightest terbaccer; although he denies hit, yes, sir. + +"Mr. Lindsay, he holped Brock strip last year, and pack, too. Mr. +Lindsay, he's got a good sleight at strippin' terbaccer: I've never seed +him put a leaf out o' place, even when I've been a carryin' fourteen +grades. He jest can't be beat in a strippin'-house. I'd back him ag'in +anybody you might breng, I don't keer who: but, as I wuz a sayin', Mr. +Lindsay, he told me, that's the way Brock packed his hogsheads. + +"And Mr. Brock, he nestes his too, when he sells hit loose. He nested +hit one year,--put all the bad in the middle o' his seven piles o' +bulked down--and Mr. Castle sold hit to a buyer, and agreed to let the +buyer prize hit in hogsheads at the barn, yes, sir. And afore the man +come, Brock had to rebulk the whole theng to keep from bein' ketcht up +with, yes, sir. I don't never nest none." + +"Tain't no penitentiary refence, Pap, to sorter put your best wher' +hit'll be saw first," remarked Jim Doggett, a tall man of twenty-eight. + +"Ephriam bein' possessed frum experience of information o' what hit +takes to constitute a penitentiary offence," gibed Gran'dad. + +"Sorter throwin' off on you, ain't he, Mr. Doggett?" Bunch palliated. + +"Yes, sir, Bunch," admitted Mr. Doggett pleasantly: "yes, sir, 'taint no +use denyin' hit, I've shore been to the pen." + +"Somethin' that happened a right smart while back when you'd had a dram +too much?" suggested Trisler, who was eager for the tale, in a tone of +apology. + +"Yes, sir, Bunch, you've hit the nail on the head. Hit wuz when I lived +in Bourbon, sixteen years ago, come two weeks afore Christmas." + +"I'd love to hear you tell hit," Bunch invited. + +"Hit's too late this evenin'": Mr. Doggett was mindful of the afternoon +slowness of Bunch's hands, when his ears were actively employed: "less +git done the terbaccer we got out, and come extry early in the mornin', +and I'll tell you how 'twuz." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A COMPACT + + "Come Philomenus: let us instant go, + O'erturn his bowers and lay his castle low." + + +Trisler did not make his appearance at the stripping-house the next +morning, but came limping in at noon, giving his sore feet as his excuse +for his failure to do a whole day's work. Late in the afternoon Mr. +Doggett's promise of the day before occurred to him, and he insisted on +its fulfillment. + +"I 'lowed hit'd 'a' went out o' your mind by this time, Bunch," +confessed Mr. Doggett, "but I reckon I'll have to tell you, bein's +you're so pressin'. + +"Hit wuz a Saturday night hit happened. The old lady and the chillern +(wuzn't none of 'em grown then), they went to bed _soon_, plumb wore out +from buryin' cabbage. Hit'd been a mighty reasonable fall--least cold +weather I ever seed up to that time, and we'd left the cabbage a +standin' 'tel then. I'd been to Paris a collectin' a leetle a man owed +me thar, and come home late: didn't git in ontel ten o'clock, me and the +old lady's cousin, Trosper Knuckles. + +"Trosper, he lived up on Maple Ridge, and seein' me passin', he hollered +to me to wait and he'd go home with me, which I did. Trosper wuz one +them kind o' fellers that'll hit the pike ever' time they git a new +shirt, jest to show hit off, and this time he'd sold his place fer seven +hunderd dollars more'n he give fer hit, and wuz jest on the p'int o' +movin', and he wuz crazy fer me and the old lady to hear about hit, +bein's we lived in another neighborhood. + +"We got in, two o' the hongriest fellers you ever seed. I says, +'Trosper, you jest go 'long into the kitchen while I 'tend to the hoss', +and when I come in, he'd done laid a few sticks on the coals and had a +good fire a goin'. The old lady, she'd set up victuals in the cupboard +fer me, and we got 'em out and et hearty. When we got through eatin', +Trosper, he tuck out a quart bottle, plumb full, and says, 'Eph, don't +that look somepin' like hit?' + +"I says, and I'd ort to 'a' knowed better, fer, though Trosper wuz a +good, clever feller, the cleverest feller you ever seed, sober, he wuz +mighty mean when he got a leetle too much, and he wuz one o' them kind +o' fellers that never stops when he gits a taste 'tel he does git too +much,--I says, 'Less have a taste, Trosper,' and he retcht up in the +cupboard, and got two leetle tumblers, er mugs they wuz, Lem and Jim's +Christmas mugs, and poured 'em about a quarter full, and we sot that fer +a good while a talkin',--him a pourin' out more and more ontell thar +wuzn't skeercely enough left in the bottle to keep the stopper damp! + +"The old lady says she waked up hearin' a mighty noise in the kitchen, +and Lem, and Jim, them and her, they run out (the kitchen wuz one them +old log ones built sorter off from the house) and the fust she heerd +when she got in the yard wuz two shots might' night' together, and when +the leetle fellers busted the door open, fust she seed wuz Trosper a +layin' crumpled up 'crost the hearth, a clinchin' a smokin' gun in his +stiffenin' hand, and me a standin' gazin' at him, a clinchin' a smokin' +gun in _my_ hand. + +"I never knowed how we got to fussin' ner nothin', but when I seed a +leetle ball o' white yarn that'd got knocked offen the fireboard, a +turnin' red whar somethin' creepin' acrost that old limestone +hearth-rock teched hit, and heerd the old lady screamin', I come sober +mighty quick, I tell you, Bunch, but hit wuz too late, then." + +A shade of burning regret crossed Mr. Doggett's face and some heavy +drops came on his forehead. + +"The jury jest give you four years, didn't they?" asked Bunch, speaking +in cheerful haste. + +"Six years wuz my sentence--fer manslaughter they sent me--but I jest +staid twenty months, and two weeks, and one day, up thar." + +"How'd you git off before your time wuz out?" asked Bunch, curiously. + +"They's a paper a hangin' on the wall at my house, got John Young +Brown's name to hit, and a eighteen carat gold seal on hit, that'd tell +you better'n I could ef you could see hit. The old lady, she would have +my pardon framed, bein's hit had a tasty and ornymental look. + +"I wuzn't at Frankfort more'n a month afore they made me a trusty, on +account o' purty behavior, the guards said, and afore long, Mr. +Miller--whar we'd been a livin' seven year, he got up a partition to git +me out, and I put in my application fer a pardon. The old lady and +Callie, and the boys, they worked and done tollable well them two year, +but hit wuz mighty hard on her and the leetle fellers--yes, sir, hit +wuz! + +"The Governor sometimes he'd walk through the pen, and onct, several +months after I'd put in my application, I ketcht him a lookin' at me, +like he wuz a sizin' me up--tryin' to make out the kind o' feller I +wuz--but he never said nary a word. + +"Then one day when we wuz in the cheer-factory a workin' whar the dust +wuz a flyin' like the pike onder a drove o' sheep in summer, a gyuard +come to me and says: 'You're wanted, Doggett, in the Governor's office,' +and he marched me up thar. Sorter oneasy I wuz, although I knowed I +hadn't done nothin'. Thar wuz a man settin' at a desk a writin', and +when he heerd me come in, he never turned his head, but jest said, 'Be +seated, Doggett.' I sot down and he writ, and he writ. Finally he turned +his whirlin'-cheer facin' me and begun a questionin' me, and a talkin' +to me jest like a father. + +"He says: 'Doggett, you're a free man now and I don't want you to never +do nothin' to lose your freedom ag'in. Don't you never let me peck up a +paper and see wher' you've been in some scrape that'll make people say, +Look at Doggett now: John Young Brown made a mistake when he pardoned +him!'" + +"And you've done like he told you, ain't you, Mr. Doggett?" Bunch +remarked in a tone of flattery, at this juncture. + +"Well, I hain't never kept no gun about me sence," Mr. Doggett agreed +with a half-smile. + +"Ner drunk none," suggested Gran'dad. + +Mr. Doggett grinned easily. "Well, Pap, I jest drink a leetle now and +then,--at Christmas times, and New Years, and Thanksgiving, and Fourth +o' July." + +"And at Ground-hog day, and old Abe Linkern's and George Washington's +birthdays in February, and at Deceration day in the spreng, and 'long +about Labor day in the fall, and between times whenever you're needin' a +leetle medicine, and whenever my darter Ann goes away visitin' fer a day +er two," amended Gran'dad, with a leer. + +"He don't git out and hoe, and cut cord wood, and do sech like work all +week, like an old feller o' your and my acquaintance, Gran'dad, and then +go up town ever' Friday evenin' and let them big lawyer fellers that +loves hit, git friendly with him, and git him to treat away ever' cent +o' his week's earnin's on 'em!" Jim, who never drank at all, spoke +pointedly. Gran'dad colored hotly. + +"This here room's hotter'n a ginger mill!" he stuttered, making a dash +at the door of the stove; but in his flurry the poker fell clattering. +Dock giggled disrespectfully at his crestfallen grandparent, but Bunch, +seeing the old man's discomfiture, hastened to change the subject. + +"How's Mr. Lindsay a gittin' along at Jeemeses now?" he asked. + +Bunch lived two miles away, but managed to keep in reasonable touch with +the affairs of the neighborhood on lower Silver Run creek. + +"Mighty well, hit 'pears to me!" Dock's wizened little face lighted up +knowingly. "He give Miss Lucy a purty box Chris'mus. Hit wuz a sortie +blue lookin' box--got a purty white-backed lookin'-glass (one them with +a handle you hold in your hand) and a white comb and bresh in hit!" + +"When a bacheler-man gits to givin' a lady Christmas presents," +sentiently remarked Gran'dad, who had recovered his equanimity, +"somethin's up besides cherity. Ef Miss Lucy'll have Lindsay, he'll have +her, I can tell that by his actions." + +"And ole Zeke, their ole shepherd," continued Dock, "he hain't been able +to walk none sence 'long in the summer, on account o' ole age. They kep' +him at the barn all the time, and he'd done quit barkin', but, sence Mr. +Lindsay's been thar, he's been a carryin' him to the yard in the +daytime, and puttin' him on a bed o' leaves in the corner whar the back +porch jines the front o' the house, and then a packin' him back to the +barn ag'in at night. Old Zeke's a barkin' peert ag'in, and Miss Lucy, +she says she jest knows he wouldn't 'a' never barked no more, hadn't 'a' +been fer Mr. Lindsay!" + +"I dunno as I'd keer to take that much trouble on myse'f to humor an old +wuthless dog," declared Gran'dad, "but I've knowed many a courtin' man +to do more worrisome thengs. Bein' in love'll make most ever' feller +tromple his own inclinations, ef hit'll pleasure her." + +"I dunno whuther Mr. Lindsay's in love er not," interposed Dock, "but +when I went up to Mr. Jeemeses, a Friday night, wuz a week, to take back +his shoe-last, and they wuz all a settin' in the settin'-room, Miss Lucy +wuz a braggin' about pickin' on some sence Mr. Lindsay's tuck all her +work away from her, and she didn't have to fetch in no coal, ner make +fires, ner feed the stock none, ner milk, and tellin' about Miss Nancy +never havin' to carry in a stick o' stove wood, ner cobs from the barn, +and hevin' the water allus ready drawed. Mr. Jeemes, he looked at Mr. +Lindsay as agreeable as Ma's old sow used to when she'd see Ma comin' +with a bucket o' slop, and he said: 'I dunno what we'll do to pay you, +Lindsay, fer the trouble you've been a takin' fer us, onless we pick you +out a sweetheart sommers. Don't you reckon maybe I could hunt up +somebody down hyonder that'd suit you?' + +"And Mr. Lindsay he answered Mr. Jeemes, but he looked straight acrost +the fire whar Miss Lucy wuz a knittin' on the other side o' the hearth, +and he said with his eyes sorter twinklin': 'Hain't ther' no nice woman +a livin' nowher' closter than Wayne, you could pick out fer me, Mr. +Jeemes?'" + +"What'd Miss Lucy do?" queried Bunch. + +"She didn't do nothin'," giggled Dock, "but jest pick up stitches hard +as she could, and her face wuz as red as one them pressed leaves they +got pinned over the fireboard." + +"What'd the old man say?" inquired Gran'dad. + +"He jest said, 'Well, I can't thenk of nary one jest now that I reckon +would suit you,' and jest then ole Zeke howled, and Mr. Lindsay went out +to pack him to the barn. I started with him, and Miss Lucy, she follered +him out to the aidge the porch with a lamp. 'Lemme hold a light fer you, +Mr. Lindsay,' she says, 'so you won't stumble over nothin',' and he +says, 'Thank you, Miss Lucy, I wisht you would,' and says right low, but +I heerd him, 'what makes you a allus thenkin' o' tryin' to do somebody +some good?'" + +"Well, now, hit wouldn't be nothin' out o' the way, ner no bad idy fer +them two to court now, would hit?" Mr. Doggett extended his +comprehensive smile, from Bunch at one end of the bench, to silent Joe +at the other. At that moment there was a rattle of the door latch, and +Mr. Brock looked hesitatingly in, his face red with cold. + +"Come in, come in, Mr. Brock. How you makin' hit?" + +Mr. Doggett's welcome was hearty: Joe placed a nail keg by the stove for +the new-comer who sat down without a word of thanks, and removing his +thick, black yarn gloves, shapeless as the foot of a cinnamon bear, held +his chilled fingers in the genial warmth of the hot stove. + +"We wuz jest a talkin' about old man Lindsay a settin' to Miss Lucy, Mr. +Brock," volunteered Mr. Doggett, hospitably hastening to put his guest +in the drift of the conversation. "Hit wouldn't be a bad idy now, would +hit? He could stay thar and run the place fer the old man." + +A close observer would have detected a deeper shade of red in the +rubicund face by the hot stove, but the strippers were too busy for more +than a casual glance at it: the stove pipe loomed between it and +Gran'dad, and Mr. Brock's grunt revealed neither pleasure nor +dissatisfaction. + +"Hit might not be a bad idy," hazarded Gran'dad, "but Nancy, she's got +to be reckoned with. My opinion is, she'll soon be a keekin' and a +keekin' high, ef thar's courtin' and she hain't in hit!" + +"Thar hain't nobody here that's heerd Nancy's opinion that I know of." +Mr. Doggett's tone was one of inquiry rather than assertion. + +"Henrietty, she sent me down to Miss Lucy's one day last week," +testified his son Jim: "Mr. Lindsay wuzn't at the house, and while I wuz +a waitin' on the porch (my feet wuz muddy) fer Miss Nancy to wrap up +some boneset fer me in the kitchen, I heerd Miss Nancy fling out: 'Lucy, +what you wearin' your Sunday shoes fer? You thenk Mr. Lindsay looks at +your feet all the time?' And Miss Lucy stuttered out, 'Why, Nancy, my +ever'days has got a hole in 'em, and hit's so cold I thought I'd put on +these 'tel I got a chance to go to town!' 'Why'n'y you patch 'em?' Miss +Nancy snapped, and then she come out with the stuff fer Henrietty." + +"'Twuz enough to show the way the wind'll blow, ef hit hain't a blowin' +that away now," chuckled Gran'dad. + +That evening, to Mr. Doggett's surprise, for Mr. Brock had claimed that +he was in a great hurry, and had only just stopped in a few minutes at +the stripping-house to warm, he accepted with unaccustomed alacrity Mr. +Doggett's invitation to go to the house with him, and remained and took +supper with the family, to the great satisfaction of Mrs. Doggett, who +held him in profoundest respect. Might he not be of possible future +benefit to little Lily Pearl, her grandchild, and his step-daughter, the +child of Callie's first husband? + +All the passionate regard Mrs. Doggett felt for her first-born, young +Callie Brock, at her death was transferred to Callie's child, the pale +Lily Pearl, blue of eye and confiding of nature, and in _her_ lay the +hope of Mrs. Doggett's heart. + +All her days, Mrs. Doggett had known poverty, and a social position that +was next the ground, but with an intensity, that, if secret, was all the +more fervent, she longed for wealth and social position,--not for +herself, for she knew that was impossible, but for Lily Pearl, which she +felt was within the bounds of reasonable hope. + +If, when Mr. Brock married again,--a contingency most likely,--he +married a good woman, higher socially than himself, and to his continued +interest in the child was added the interest of this good woman of Mrs. +Doggett's conception, might they not educate and accomplish Lily Pearl? + +And, might she not, in the possession of learning and social graces, +secure a husband among the well-to-do? + +To further the elevation of Lily Pearl, Mrs. Doggett would have made a +Juggernautian offering of herself, or would have sacrificed the +happiness, or the welfare of her dearest friend, not excepting even that +of Mr. Doggett. + +When Lily Pearl raised her plate at the supper table, a new silver +dollar glistened on the whiteness of the well-darned cloth, put on in +honor of the guest. + +"Ma," grinned Dock, "Mr. Brock says thar's more whar that dollar come +from." + +Mrs. Doggett's lean face fairly beamed. "Now hain't that nice?" she +cried: "Lily Pearl, child, wher's your manners?" + +But Lily Pearl was dumb in the contemplation of her treasure. + +"Lily Pearl wuz a sayin' yisterday, maybe she'd git ten cents fer her +hoss bones when the peddler come 'round, but now she can recruit 'em up +a while longer!" Mrs. Doggett smiled at Mr. Brock, then turned to her +husband with a countenance full of disparagement. + +"See that, Eph? The man that put that money thar, he hain't one o' them +that has to call on Castle fer money to live on while his crop's a +growin', and pay intrust on the money, a takin' up all his crop +aforehand! _He's_ got money in the bank, I'll warrant, hain't he, Mr. +Brock?" + +"I ain't a denyin' it," Mr. Brock answered her. + +"In the same bank Mr. Lindsay's got his'n?" asked Dock, innocently. + +"I don't know where Lindsay keeps his money, ef he's got any," Mr. Brock +answered shortly. "I hear, Mrs. Doggett, Lindsay's a settin' to Miss +Nancy James." + +"I dunno about that," objected Mrs. Doggett: "I'd thenk, though, Miss +Lucy'd look higher'n Mr. Lindsay,--him sorter delicate, and not well +off, and jest workin' around." + +"There's others that she could git I reckon," said Mr. Brock with a +meaning look. + +Into Mrs. Doggett's quick brain sprang the pleasing thought that Mr. +Brock was ready to marry again and himself wanted Miss Lucy,--a lady +whose father owned one hundred acres of land, and whom even the Castles +respected and occasionally visited. If Mr. Brock were to marry Miss +Lucy, Lily Pearl's fortune would be made! Mrs. Doggett's head swam with +delight. She returned Mr. Brock's look with a smile of encouragement. + +"You're right, Mr. Brock," she declared with emphasis: "Miss Nancy is of +a quair distant turn--one o' them kind that smiles about as often as a +cow--and ef she's ever had a beau, hit hain't never been found out on +her; but Miss Lucy, ef she _is_ older'n Miss Nancy, she's a heap +sightlier and agreeabler, and I know thar's men better off than Mr. +Lindsay that'd do _well_ to git her!" + +In the expression of her pleasure, she solicitously pressed the viands +on Mr. Brock. + +"Do eat somethin' more, Mr. Brock; you shorely can live fer one meal on +what I have to live on all the time, ef you'll jest eat enough o' hit! +Have another aig." + +"Eggs are high," remarked Mr. Brock as he lifted two poached eggs to his +plate. + +"Now, Mr. Brock, I don't disfurnish my fambly, let alone my comp'ny, to +sell a few aigs! Let me porch you another un: I'm afeerd them's too hard +b'iled fer you!" + +After supper, when the men gathered around the big wood fire in the +living-room Mr. Brock went back to the kitchen, ostensibly seeking a +match, really for a private word with Mrs. Doggett. + +"Lily Pearl ought to be a goin' to school before long," he suggested, as +he lighted his pipe: "and ef Reub and me had any housekeeper besides +that old darky, Jane Smick, she could stay at my house and go, as it's +closer to the school-house, and I'd put up the money for the teacher +when the pay school went on." + +"Lord, I wisht she could!" cried Mrs. Doggett. + +Mr. Brock reached up for his overcoat and his hat. + +"You hain't a goin', Mr. Brock? Lemme fix the lantern fer you, then; +hit's as dark as a dungeon out, and the moon won't be up fer an hour +yit!" + +Mr. Brock watched her fill the lantern contemplatively. + +"Mrs. Doggett," he brought himself to say, presently, "certain persons +talk against widowers marryin' again. You haven't got that kind of a +feelin' have you?" + +Mrs. Doggett held up the glass globe, clear and clean. + +"I'm one as'd never say a word ef a man'd jest marry the right kind o' +woman," she purred. + +"A widower I know has got his eye on a good woman, and he can git her he +thinks, if somebody else don't git too much encouragement from the +neighbors." + +"That somebody'll git none from a neighbor that _I_ can answer fer," +Mrs. Doggett assured him with a wink. + +Nameless and enigmatical as was the last of this conversation, these two +former law kinsman and kinswoman understood and appreciated. When Mr. +Brock stepped out in the yard, the lantern was not more cheerful than +his countenance in the darkness, and when Mrs. Doggett returned to the +bosom of her family, she wore the complacent look of the cat that has +just returned from the pigeon's nest. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A VISIT TO THE SEERESS + + "When things are come to the execution, there is no secrecy + comparable to celerity." + + +"Ef hit hain't done turned plumb warm ag'in! Lord, that jest suits me to +a T!" + +Quick changes come in the weather in Kentucky, and when, at four o'clock +the next morning after the visit of her whilom son-in-law, Mrs. Doggett +poked her head from the door over which the gaunt pine leaned, a +summer-like breeze met her thin cheek. + +She began her preparations for a journey with a rejoicing spirit, and by +the time the men arose, her gallon tin bucket of butter, and half-peck +basket of eggs were weighed, counted, and safely packed under the seat +of the rickety "no-topped" buggy that occupied the leaky shed,--formerly +the kitchen of the house; her kitchen that shone with cleanliness was +swept and dusted, and a hot breakfast of coffee, biscuit, and fried +slices of a shoulder of fresh pork, smoked on the green-figured +oil-cloth. + +"You're up a half-hour ahead o' time, hain't you, Ann?" mumbled Mr. +Doggett, with his face in the meal-sack towel which hung at the end of +the kitchen mantel. + +"Yes," assented Mrs. Doggett, "I am. I got to studdyin' in the night +about pore Bob Ed House. Susie said when Gil wuz over thar last week, +Bob Ed tuck a sinkin' spell, and they like to 'a' never brought him to! +Sometimes they'll live deceivin' with consumption, but he might drap off +any time and me never see him no more, so I tuck a notion I'd go today: +I been threatenin' to go long enough. Jest step out and ring the bell +fer me, will you?" + +The boys had come in from the barn lot, and were on the porch, but the +big farm bell that came to be her's when the Castles moved to town, and +which she had had hung in the top of the highest locust in her back +yard, was Mrs. Doggett's crowning glory of possessions; it gave her a +certain feeling of equality with "well-off" people, and she would have +sooner sat down to her table without plates, than to have omitted the +ringing of the bell. + +"Gona take Bob Ed anytheng to eat, Ma?" asked Dock, using a big biscuit +for a gravy swab. + +"I'm gona take him a sack o' sausage, and that squirrel Joey killed +yistiddy, to make him a nice stew, and considerin' I have to pass the +store, I thought I'd as well take my butter'n aigs. I've got ever'thing +ready in the buggy, and jest as soon as somebody gits Big Money hooked +up fer me, I'll be off. Hit's a good five miles over to Bob Ed's, hain't +hit, Eph?" + +"Six, nigh about," corrected her husband: "hit's a mile yonside town; +but, old lady," he looked at her in surprise, "hain't you a goin' to +take Lily Pearl?" + +Mrs. Doggett looked out of the window, contemplating the clear sky. + +"I'm afeerd we're a gona have fallin' weather afore I git back," she +averred: "and I wouldn't have Lily Pearl to git wet fer nothin'. She's +puned around so much lately, I 'lowed maybe the worms is sorter workin' +on her. You can take her over to the strippin'-house with you, and she +can take her doll quilt and piece on hit. + +"They's plenty victuals in the press,--I baked three dried apple pies +last night, and thar's stewed punkin, and a dish o' lye hominy, and a +cold hog's head, and sorghum molasses, and plenty milk and butter. The +corn-bread'll be cold by dinner, but I made dodgers, and put a whole lot +o' cracklin's in hit, so hit'd eat good, anyhow. Thar won't be nobody +here to ring the bell fer you, but you can hear Mrs. Bratcher's. Sence +we got ourn, she rings hern at half-past 'leven." + +At half-past six, Mr. Doggett held open the back gate for Mrs. Doggett's +exit. + +"Well, old lady," he congratulated her, "this time next year, you'll be +settin' on a different lookin' set o' wheels, ef them two peegs thar +keeps a growin' like they're a growin' now!" + +Mrs. Doggett looked proudly toward the hovel in the corner of the +yard--the habitation of her pet pigs, "Baby" and "Honey"--which together +with their progeny were dedicated to the cause of a new buggy. + +"Hain't they a growin'!" she agreed. "Eph, fer goodness sake, don't +fergit to slop 'em at dinner, and see the door is shet. Them smart +thengs, they know I'm a goin' away," she added, as a succession of +melancholy squeals came over the half door of the piggery. + +"Big Money," named by Lily Pearl, who heard her grandfather say when he +was a new acquisition, that he was "worth big money," was raw-boned and +angular, and his coat was an unbeauteous dirty white, but he was a horse +of spirit, and in a half hour's time, Mrs. Doggett had crossed the +pasture field, passed the rocky "dirt-road," and was well on her way on +the turnpike toward the store. + +The merchant was a slow clerk, and her trading occupied considerable +time, however, so that the two who purposed to accompany her on her +journey, had ample time to overtake her. When she came out on the +platform of the store-house, she was horrified to see two familiar +glossy-backed creatures rubbing against the rear wheels of her equipage. + +"Great day in the mornin'!" she exclaimed, "ef thar hain't my pigs! The +outdacious pieces has rooted their door open and trailed me down! The +wind shorely blowed the pastur gate open, and now what _am_ I to do?" + +"Better just let them follow you on, Mrs. Doggett," suggested the +pleasant-faced keeper of the store, "if you haven't far to go, and you +can shut them up until you get ready to go back home." + +"Oh, I hain't goin' but a little ways," lightly equivocated Mrs. +Doggett, "jest yonside the covered bridge, and I guess I can hold Big +Money to a walk, that fur." + +Once well past the bridge, seated in her present carriage, with her +future carriage tagging contentedly behind, Mrs. Doggett in real +vexation, drew rein to consider. Her intention had been to stop a few +minutes at the house of sickness, then to continue her travels two miles +further; but by leaving off her visit to the sick man, crossing the +river at a deep ford a hundred yards below the bridge, and driving over +a fearfully rocky and steep road, she could cut off three miles of the +way. + +"Now hain't that the awfulest fix a body ever wuz in!" + +She shook her fist at the two black scape-graces that had lain down +contentedly when she stopped. "Ef I wuz to go on by town, I wouldn't git +to whar I'm goin' by dinner, let alone reskin' bein' tuck up fer a +wanderer from the ejut-house! Ef I wuzn't afeerd o' them mean thengs a +drowndin' I'd cross the river and take the nigh cut to ole July's. I +b'leeve I'll resk hit anyhow!" + +She lifted the bundles to the seat beside her, and with shaking fingers +clutched the reins, and turned her horse down the steep slope into the +river. It was both wide and deep, and in her ignorance of the exact +ford, Mrs. Doggett drove a yard below it. The water rose in the bed of +the buggy, baptizing her feet: Big Money, when his front feet went down +in an unexpected hole, floundered momentarily, but in an instant, he +recovered himself and breasted the water gallantly. + +When, from the safety of the opposite bank, Mrs. Doggett dared to look +back, she was filled with new consternation. The pigs had not crossed, +but were running along the bank in evident search of a less watery +highway! + +"O mercy goodness!" she lamented, "a body can't have no luck, no how! +Now Hewitt Jefferson--a claimin' ever'theng that's loose--he'll come +along and swear they're his, and I'll never see 'em ag'in! I ought to +'a' tuck 'em back home anyhow!" + +In an agony of apprehension, she leaped from her vehicle from whose bed +the water was running off in streams. + +"Come on Baby! Come on Honey!" she pleaded shrilly: "come on to Mammy!" + +The pigs heard and, after a moment's hesitation, came to the edge of the +water, plunged in and swam across. When they crawled up the bank and +shook themselves, Mrs. Doggett, unmindful of their wet hides, hugged +them in her delight, climbed into her buggy, wiped her eyes, and +chirruped to Big Money. It was a long hard pull; the highway was a +succession of rocky ledges up hill a quarter of a mile, and down hill +there was more than a mile of the same rugged road. But the aged and +twine-mended harness had mercy on the shaken driver, and held together: +Big Money did his best, and the pigs climbed valiantly. + +Mrs. Doggett was quite herself again when the foot of the hill reached, +she came in sight of a mud-daubed log-cabin in the valley, with a mighty +clump of cedar trees a hundred yards to the left of it, and a section of +scattered beeches and undergrowth to the right. The hut was set quite in +the open, with no yard fence about it, and looked a lonely and +melancholy place. + +Hanging on the front wall of the cabin, under the newly-built lean-to +porch, with its pillars of cedar trunks, from the freshly cut knots of +which came a pungently sweet smell,--a long snake's "shed" dangled, and +beside it swung a dried beef's gall. + +In lieu of a porch floor, flat rocks were placed irregularly about. The +door of the cabin hung open, revealing walls papered with newspapers. A +corner cupboard occupied one corner of the room: a lounge covered with a +calico quilt, another, and, drawn up before the blazing wood fire, over +which smoked a steaming pot, were a wooden stool and a small table. A +little baking-oven, covered with live coals, sat on one end of the +hearth, and over everything was a decent air of cleanliness. + +As Mrs. Doggett neared the cabin, a fat old negress, wearing a faded +black calico mourning-dress, and carrying a bundle of sticks, came out +of the wood. This was July Pullins, whose living was her pension, and +whose pastime was fortune-telling. Her seamed light-brown face wrinkled +itself in smiles when she recognized her old acquaintance. + +"_Is_ dat you, Mis' Doggett?" she cried, as she waddled up. "I am shoah +a proud crittur to see you! Laws, I sees you ain't had no easy time a +gittin' heah!" she added in ready sympathy, noting Mrs. Doggett's wet +skirts, her sweating horse, and panting swine. + +"Law mercy, July, I hain't had sech a time sence I was borned!" +exclaimed Mrs. Doggett, and while old July unharnessed Big Money, and +blanketed him with an ancient linsey quilt, she related her trials. + +"I knows what you come for: you's worried about a marriage, and wants to +consultify me about hit, doan' you?" cackled July, as she helped her +guest unlace her wet shoes in front of the fire: "but wid yoah +p'mission, dat'll keep ontwell de last theng after dinner. I wants to +talk ober de news some wid you! Lawd, 'scuse me, Mis' Ann, heah I is, +settin' up, talkin' to white folks wid my head-rag on!" She lifted her +hand to pull the white rag from her wrapped hair, but Mrs. Doggett +interposed. + +"Now, Aunt July, let your head-rag alone! Eph says he can tell when +hit's comin' winter by _my head_. I take to wearin' a rag on my head in +the house then!" + +"Ef yoah foots and skeerts is done dry," remarked the old negress, +breaking a half pod of pepper from the string suspended from the end of +her mantel, "I'll set you a bite on de table." + +She lifted the lid of the boiling pot and dropped in the pepper pod with +a chuckle. "Heah my honeys, cool yoah moufs wid dis." + +"Man alive, Aunt July!" Mrs. Doggett's face assumed a look of horror. +"Ef you are a fortune-teller, you hain't tuck to eatin' cooked snakes, +have you?" + +"Mussy, no!" laughed Aunt July. "Them's chit'lin's--hog guts. Ain't you +never et none? I's plumb ashamed o' my poah eatin's, Mis' Ann," she went +on when she had spread the table with a piece of embroidered damask, and +set on a steaming bowl of the chitterlings, a pone of brown cornbread +from the oven, a pitcher of buttermilk, and a jar of blackberry jam from +the cupboard, and had poured coffee from a little pipkin: "but I ain't +got no flour this week. I got mighty little use for wheat-bread, myse'f, +but I loves to have hit for company! Set up, dough, and eat: hit'll take +de aidge offen yoah honger, and lay yoah stomach 'tel you git home: I'll +go corn de beasties." + +While she was engaged in feeding Big Money and the pigs, the mistress of +the house heard a shriek from within. Blowing like a scared sow, she +rushed to her guest. Mrs. Doggett stood in her stocking feet on the +stool. + +"I've put my foot on a snake!" she screeched: "hit's under the table! I +feel like I'm bit!" + +Aunt July reached under the table and, grinning, lifted out an enormous +brown toad. "Hit's Jeremiah, my pet," she explained soothingly: +"Jeremiah, hain't you 'shamed yo'se'f, skeerin' de lady!" + +[Illustration: "Hit's Jeremiah, my pet," she explained soothingly.] + +"Did you 'broider this cloth, Aunt July?" asked Mrs. Doggett when the +old negress was folding the cloth. + +"Naw'm, I wuz a field gal in de ole times: I nuvver larnt much o' de +needle. Dis heah kiver," she said oracularly, "_come_ to me! Hit used to +belong to a town lady what allus has a passel o' gal company a hankerin' +after dey fortunes!" + +"_I_ used to do 'broidery and all sech," sighed Mrs. Doggett. "I made +ever' thread o' my onderclothes 'broidered; but, after I married and got +to havin' chillern, I quit all nice work!" + +"You's had yoah sheer o' hard times wid work and young uns, ain't you?" +commiserated the old negress, with her eyes on Mrs. Doggett's long +slender hands, with their big veins, and curved thumbs. + +"Hain't I, though!" agreed Mrs. Doggett: "not two years between none o' +'em. I'd 'a' ruther had five pairs o' twins than ten chillern so clost +together, but I didn't have my ruthers. I used to have to put the bed +post on the baby's dress when I went to the spreng, to keep hit from +crawlin' in the fire, and lead the next youngest one with me! Law, +hain't chillern warryin' on a woman! + +"They plague a body worse'n the each a gittin' in thengs! 'Ma,' I'd say +when I used to go to my mother's, and she'd have to put up her aigs and +ever' theng out'n the way o' the chillern: 'Ma, I'd give anytheng ef my +chillern wuz all grown! I'd have so much more pleasure a visitin' you!' +And Ma'd say: 'Aw hush, Ann, they're a trompin' on your toes now, but +after a while they'll be a trompin' on your heart!' + +"But 'tain't turned out that way altogether with me. My boys hain't got +no education, nary un but Joey, and he used to slip off to school, and +learnt some. They all spent their school days in the terbaccer. I used +to bag Eph a many a time to quit raisin' hit, and let the chillern git +some schoolin', but he wouldn't, and ef I hadn't jest spread out and +nigh killed myse'f, a doin' all the work at the house myse'f, so's the +girls could go to school in the falls, they'd 'a' been like the boys. + +"Eph, he never insisted on the girls workin' none in the terbaccer like +a heap does, but pore Callie, she wuz the oldest of our chillern, and +she wanted to holp her pap when the others wuz little, and she'd work in +the patch in the summers, and after she quit goin' to school. And +gittin' wet all over ever' mornin' after the terbaccer got up, a wormin' +and a suckerin' while the dew wuz on, wuz the startin' o' the +consumption that killed her--I know hit wuz. + +"I used to say when she come in, sengin', makin' like she wuzn't tired +ner warried, so's not to pester me,--'Callie, child, I'm afeerd fer you +to git wet this away,'--but she'd jest say, 'Ma, I don't reckon hit'll +hurt me, and maybe ef we have a good crop this year I can save enough +from hirin' to git us a new sewin'-machine!' But we never have got able +to git no new machine yit, and Callie, my little Callie--" + +Mrs. Doggett's lips quivered and the tears streamed down her face. + +"Doan' grieve, Mis' Ann, honey, doan' grieve," besought old July, laying +a soothing hand on Mrs. Doggett's slender shaking shoulder,--a tear of +sympathy standing on each withered cheek: "de chile ain' seein' no moah +hard times, nuvver no moah." + +Mrs. Doggett wiped her eyes and cleared her throat. "Callie wuz my best +child, but my chillern are all good chillern, and," she added, a little +pathetic note of defiance as to the world's opinion in her voice, +"they've got pride about their clothes, and they know how to behave in +comp'ny, ef they hain't got schoolin',--though some the boys is learnin' +some sence they married: their wives is a teachin' 'em a little." + +"Well, anyway," broke in Aunt July, "dey's de mannerest boys I knows. +'Scuse me for sayin' so, Mis' Ann, 'foah you, but most dem ole 'baccer +folks, dey don't teach dey young uns _nothin'_. De old uns ain't got a +speck o' manners deyselves. Sometimes I passes 'em out on de road, and +dey'll be drunk, reelin' and a fallin' in fence corners. Dey'll holler +at me disrespectful like, 'How are you, honey? Hi da', granny!' I nuvver +'turns 'em no answer--jest looks t'other way. + +"But ef one yoah boys is out anywha' and don't see no moah o' me dan my +coat-tail, he'll holler at hit, and speak and axe me how I comes on, and +lif' his hat when he goes on, as respectful as you please; and de gals +is jest de same. How is de gals gittin' along now, Mis' Ann?" + +"The best kind, both of 'em!" replied Mrs. Doggett. "Johnny, Hattie's +man, he's a clerkin' in a store now, and gits her a heap o' new thengs. +Don't you thenk, he's got her a new orgin! Got hit cheap on account o' +one o' the peddlers bein' a little out o' prepare; but 'tain't one o' +them cheap orgins that don't sound no better'n a hog rubbin' agin a +splinter! Hattie can't play on hit, but then company can, and an orgin's +nice furnichur anyway." + +"Yes, 'tis dat!" agreed Aunt July. "I seed one when I wuz on my trip. I +reckon you ain't heerd 'bout me bein' on a trip 'foah Christmas? I rid' +on de cyar-train for de fust time!" + +"O mercy goodness, you know you didn't!" Mrs. Doggett gaped +incredulously. "Did you go to see your gran'chillern in Indianopolus?" + +A look of the liveliest scorn enveloped Aunt July. + +"What'd I go to see dem black rapscallions for? _Dey_ don't keer nothin' +for dey folks now,--done gone off after style and fast livin'! Last +spreng when dey pap, my Jimmy, wuz sick in town wid de typhoot fever, I +had a letter son't 'em, and Jimmy mout 'a' died and been th'owed to de +buzzards for all dem ciderette-smokin' clothes hosses keered. Dey nuvver +son't de scratch o' a pen p'int _den_ nor _sence_ to esquire about his +edition! + +"Naw'm! I went to see Bru'h. Bru'h, he'd been desistin' on me comin' for +a long time, but I wuz feerd--feerd de cyar-train. Dat big storm dey had +down da' las' Februray wuz a year, blowed down de meetin'-house,--de ole +one wha' Bru'h kep' his membership--plumb demoralized hit, hit bein' on +a hill top, and when dey got de shengles on dey new meetin'-house, Bru'h +writ me be shoah to come down, dey wuz gwine offer dey new church to de +Lawd, and gwine hold a big 'traction meetin' right after de +des'cration--and son't me a ticklet to come on. Jimmy--he desisted so, I +give up and went." + +"I do thenk!" ejaculated Mrs. Doggett. + +"Yes'm," continued Aunt July: "my cousin what sweeps at de depot-house, +he offered resist me on de cyar-train, bein's I's sorter stove up wid de +rheumaty, and can't clamb extry. When de cyar-train kim a steamin', a +tootin', and a cavortin' up, I looked 'round for de conductor man he +said would holp him resist me in de cyar-train; but I didn't see nobody +but a big soldier man and atween 'em, dey resisted me to climb de steps, +and den de Gineral, he toted in my cyarpet satchel. + +"Lawd, I wuz so skeered! My laigs give way and I sunk down on one de red +cordumeroy sofys, limber as a piece o' rennet what's been in soak. When +de startin'-out pull kim, I cotched hold dem wooden arms of de divan and +held on like a bull-dog to a hog's hind leg. Den de conductor man (him I +mistook for a Brigadier Gineral) axed me for my ticklet. + +"'Gineral,' I managed to sorter gasp out, dough my dry tongue wuz stuck +to de ruff o' my mouf, '_you_ kin look in my cyarpet-satchel, I dast +resk lettin' go!' + +"Den he say when we git to de next stop, he'll come back and I kin git +hit out myse'f. O mortal man, how I suffered in my mind whilst we wuz +flyin' along! Ever' onct in a while, I'd look out'n de winder and ef +you'll believe me, Mis' Ann, de cabbage heads in folks' patches we +passed didn't pear no bigger dan good-sizes marbles! De train run 'long +all right 'bout fifteen minutes, and my top insides 'gun to sorter ease +down out'n my swallow, when we kim to a bridge; den I seed a little +thread o' water 'way down below de trussle works. + +"Den a young man who had been doin' a power o' laughin' and talkin' to a +young gal settin' 'longside him on de sofy behind me, he axed de gal +didn't she know de bridge we wuz on been condemned as dangerous. I +'lowed ef dat wuz de trufe, we wuz gone den, shoah. I give one sque'l, +'good-bye, world!' Den I let go de sofy arms and slid down on de floah +and hid my head onder de sofy. + +"Terrectly de conductor man teched me on de shoulder. 'Aunty, are you +skeered?' he said. I wuz so bad off in my feelin's, I couldn't answer. +Den a nice white lady on de settee in front (she had on sech elegant +clo'se, I know she must 'a' been de richest woman dat ever wore a +dress!) she kim 'round and told me da' wouldn't nothin' hurt me, and +'suaded me to git upon de divan ag'in: den she tuck some lemon pie out'n +a little basket (de best pie I ever wrapped lip around), and I kindah +come to myse'f and wiped my eyes. And befoah I knowed hit, de sun wuz +nigh down, de conductor wuz a hollerin' out 'Mansfield!' and we wuz da'! + +"I wuz so happy I blowed out real hard, and I wuz mighty oneasy for fear +I'd busted de band o' my cashmere skeert, but de stitches helt tight. De +fust theng I done after I sot my foots on de firm groun' wuz to set my +cyarpet satchel down on de platform and feel o' my arms and laigs to see +ef dey wuz all da after dat forty miles churnin'. + +"'Thank de lawd, I's all heah!' I says sorter loud like, and den sich a +titterin' as come from dem cyar-train winders from dem young folks what +sot behind me, I nuvver heerd. I says, 'Missy be shamed! Who gwine +b'leeve but what de fust time _you_ rid' on de cyar-train, you felt to +see ef you wuz all da too!' And, ef you will b'leeve me Mis' Ann, de +tightness o' his skin wuz all dat kept dat young man settin by her from +bustin' hisse'f!" + +"The onmannerly theng!" scoffed Mrs. Doggett, sympathetically. "Some +them town folks is mighty biggety." + +The subject on her mind was pressing, and she hastened to lead up to it +by a judicious question. + +"Have any them town gals been out lately to find out about their +futures, Aunt July?" + +"Dat gal o' de widow Russell's--she wuz de last one out. Da's a new +young man what's come to de town, and she's got acquainted wid him at +one dem church s'ciety meetin's. I nuvver kin call de name right, so I +jest gives hit de _sound_, and lets hit go at dat--de Christian devil +s'ciety. I could see she'd be willin' to give all de shoes in her shop +for him. Her high-steppin' ma, dough, she said 'foah she'd see her gal +married to a poor man like him, she'd ruther see her dead, and buried in +de colored folks' graveyard, wid only one mouner to foller her to de +grave and dat one her mother, on foot a walkin'!" + +"Did the young lady go home satisfied with what she heerd from you?" +queried Mrs. Doggett. + +"Did de moon change las' month? Do de ground git wet when hit rain?" +laughed the old negress. + +"I got some terbaccer and a squirrel, and a sack o' sausage on the buggy +seat fer you, Aunt July: s'pose we breng 'em in, and then I'll git you +to tell me some thengs. Hit's gittin' late, and I'll have to git along +soon." + +"De weddin' trouble! Dat's hit--dat's hit!" nodded the old seeress, when +after a voluble flow of thanks for the presents, she brought out a +coffee-cup and peered solemnly at the grounds in its bottom. "I sees a +dark-haared woman, a kind woman, wid two beaux. One of 'em a slim man, +t'other un's a big man. De woman gwine marry one dem men, but not widout +de resistance o' a black-haared woman. Dis black-haared woman bound to +resist de makin' o' dis marriage. She jest _can't_ holp hit. A +brown-haared woman too, gwine resist de makin' o' de marriage. I sees +letters in de cup. Dar's gwine be found and handed over to de right +person a letter dat'll hasten de marriage." + +"Can you see which _one_ the men'll git the woman, Aunt July?" Mrs. +Doggett leaned forward eagerly. + +"De most worthy man--he gwine win her--dat man dat's travelled much, +dat's seed a heap o' de country, _he_'s de one!" + +"What will the black-haired woman have to do, Aunt July?" besought Mrs. +Doggett. + +"Why, she'll jes hab to keep her eyes open, and do what she kin. She'll +hab to walk and talk, and bofe bemean and brag! But she must be cunnun' +like de sarpent, and act quick like de sarpent, or what she tryin' to +breng about won't come to pass." + +"But hit _will_ come to pass, ef the woman acts right?" persisted Mrs. +Doggett. + +"Yes, I sees a marriage. I sees a man half distracted 'long 'bout de +time de blue grass gits ripe, but he'll git her, he'll git her. I sees a +couple standin' afore de preacher. He'll make her a good livin'." + +"Like he's done his wife afore this one?" suggested Mrs. Doggett, +hopefully. + +"I don't see no marriage befoah dis un," said July, vaguely: "de grounds +is too black to see back, but I see from de weddin'-day on, dey gwine +live in happiness and contempt!" + +Mrs. Doggett drove homeward in a state of ecstasy. In the prophetess' +vague words she saw the certain marriage of Miss Lucy James and Mr. +Galvin Brock. Of a surety Mr. Brock was the man who would "make a good +living" for her, and was he not the most worthy? Perhaps Mr. Lindsay had +travelled as much as Mr. Brock, but Mrs. Doggett cast this uneasy +thought aside. Surely Mr. Brock was the fortunate man. + +Mrs. Doggett reached her home in a drizzling rain: her bonnet was +drooping, and her vehicle, and dress were heavily splashed with mud, +when she drove slowly in the yard, the pigs trotting placidly behind. + +"How's Bob Ed?" asked Mr. Doggett as he assisted her to alight. + +"Now Eph," Mrs. Doggett's voice was full of remonstrance, "did you thenk +I wuz a goin' yonside town with them pigs a trailin' me?" + +"I hadn't missed them peegs: did they foller ye?" Mr. Doggett's grin +irritated Mrs. Doggett. + +"I reckon they _did_!" she complained, "and I jest had to creep! I wuz +afeerd ef I went through town they'd be picked up on Wild Cat Row, +maybe, so I jest went across the river to see old July Pullins, and tuck +the pigs with me." + +"Over that road? Well, I do know!" + +"Yes, over that road!" Mrs. Doggett jerked out resentfully: "and I had a +plumb skeer a comin' back. Don't you thenk, yonside the bridge, I met +one them aut'mobile waggins--a red painted one--the reddest theng this +side o' predition! Big Money, he 'lowed that horn the feller blowed when +he seed us, wuz old Gab'el's trump, I reckon. He come a one o' killin' +me! He tuck to backin', and ef that man hadn't jumped out and ketcht +holt the bridle, and helt him while t'other man driv' that red devil +past us, he'd 'a' backed plumb over into the river!" + +"Well, that wuz kind o' him!" remarked Mr. Doggett. + +"He wuz a mighty polite, takin' kind o' man," continued Mrs. Doggett. +"They must 'a' been a couple them Northern milli'n'ers out on a ja'nt. +They wuzn't our kind o' people. I wished I'd 'a' asked that un that helt +Big Money, who he wuz, but I wuz so pestered, hit never come in my mind +onct!" + +"I thought after you started, I'd ort to 'a' went with you," condoled +Mr. Doggett, "although the terbaccer needed me mighty bad; but you got +back all right fer all your trouble, ef I didn't go. A body has a heap +to be thankful fer, now don't they?" + +"Well hit hain't no matter now," Mrs. Doggett philosophized, taking off +her forlorn bonnet, "though ef I'd 'a' knew hit wuz a gona rain I +wouldn't 'a' went." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A NEIGHBORLY CALL + + "With the lips meanwhile she can honor it! Oil of flattery, the + best antifriction known, subdues all irregularities + whatsoever." + + +A slight stiffness of limb next morning held Mrs. Doggett an unwilling +prisoner in bed, until a somewhat later hour than she arose on the day +of her visit to the seeress, and by eight o'clock, when she had gotten +her morning's work done, the snow, which had begun to fall at daybreak, +was full six inches deep. + +The exigencies of the case, however, according to the seeress, permitted +no delay, and Mrs. Doggett's purpose was not to be thwarted by any sort +of weather, or sundry twinges in her joints. + +She slipped on an old pair of Mr. Doggett's brown woolen socks over her +Sunday shoes, tied her head carefully in a little gray breakfast shawl, +in lieu of the clover-stitched sun-bonnet (drooping on its nail from the +exposure of the day before), and wrapped herself in an old thick, black +"dolman." + +Lily Pearl seized the broom. + +"Lemme sweep you a little road out to the gate, Mammy!" + +"No honey, I don't want you to do that," her grandmother, who still +struggled with the hooks of the dolman, answered her. "Sweepin'll spread +your hands so's they won't look nice to play chunes on the orgin!" + +The child ran to her grandmother and buried her face, quivering with +ecstatic anticipation, in her neck. + +"Oh Mammy," she breathed, "_will_ I have a orgin to play on, sometime?" + +Mrs. Doggett forgot her hurry, and sat down with the child clasped close +in her arms. + +"Lord, yes, darlin'," she assured her, "and maybe a pieanner, too'll be +a settin' in t'other corner o' your parler. I don't never intend these +little hands shall ever tech a cow's teat, ner do nary theng that'll +rough 'em! I want 'em to be slim and delicate like them little bird +claws o' Mrs. Castle's, when you air a grown lady! You won't never thenk +hard o' Mammy when she wants you to wear your bonnet clost, and keep +your shoes on in summer, will you, honey? She don't want your feet to +never git big, and wants you to be raised white complected, agin the +time you git to wearin' silk dresses with trails on 'em ever' day!" + +Lily Pearl clasped the prospective "bird claws" in a thrill of delight. +"Will I have money to buy candy fer Dock and me, when I git big, Mammy?" +she queried hopefully. + +Mrs. Doggett smiled, as remembering her errand, she put the little girl +down. "Lord, yes, you'll be goin' 'round a tradin' in the stores, maybe +carryin' a roll o' bills so big a cow couldn't swaller 'em!" + +After cautioning the child to watch the fire until her return, with +skirts held well aloft, Mrs. Doggett took the path that led over the +hill a quarter of a mile to the James' house. + +To her infinite satisfaction, while she divested herself of her wraps +and her unconventional overshoes on Miss Nancy's kitchen hearth, where +that lady sat, with a pressing-board on her lap, and a basket of scraps +beside her, Mrs. Doggett learned that Miss Lucy had gone to town with +the marketing, and that Mr. Lindsay had ridden to the store, two miles +away, for the mail. + +"You ain't been up lately, Mrs. Doggett," Miss Nancy remarked, +reluctantly drawing her three flat-irons aside, so that her visitor +might share a portion of the meagre fire with them: "ain't you been +well?" + +"Me? No, I hain't been well. I been a complainin' ever sence Christmas, +from the top o' my head to the sole o' my foot. I thenk I must have bile +on the liver, I complain so much with a ketch in the back." + +"Mother used to use plasters for her back, sometimes," observed Miss +Nancy. + +"These here Polish plasters, I reckon," volunteered Mrs. Doggett: "I've +bought 'em too, but they never done _me_ no good. They's a new-fashioned +kind o' plasters, I fergit the name. They writ on and wanted Marshall +and Dock to be agents fer: I don't know how in the world they ever got +holt o' their names. I been aimin' to try _them_, but a heap o' them +remedies hain't nary bit o' count after you pay your money fer 'em. + +"Whenever I go up to Susy's, when the bell rings, me and her always +takes down the receiver, and evedraps the tillephorm, and last time I +wuz thar, I heerd Mrs. Fetter a 'phoamin' to Miss Maud Floss about +Bottum's medicine a bein' good rheumatiz medicine, and I got a little +bottle, and tuck hit jest as prompt as I could, and hit never done nary +bit o' good. I tuck hit by the directions, too. I dunno what causes me +to have the rheumatiz so, fer I always wear red flannel underwear next +to my skin, bein's hit's so good fer the rheumatiz." + +Miss Nancy was not patient with Mrs. Doggett's health history. + +"I heard Jim'd been complainin'," she cited without comment. + +"Yes, Jim's been broke out all over his body. It tarrified him awful fer +a while; he jest couldn't git nary minute o' rest ontel he got somethin' +from the doctor fer hit. The doctor said his blood was out o' fix. + +"He hadn't never been so bad off sence he quit killin' cats! He used to +love to kill cats, Miss Nancy, better'n _anytheng_! And he never had no +luck at nothin'. He tuck stomach trouble, and jest drinneled away to +nothin', and I jest made him quit killin' cats. Sence he's had this +eruptive spell, though, he's been a workin' all the time jest the same! +Seems like a body jest has to keep a goin', sick er well, ef they 'spect +to have anytheng!" + +"That's what I tell Lucy," Miss Nancy commented briefly, with +considerable emphasis. + +"I've got to do a big ir'nin' termorrer, fer though I wuzn't no ways +able," explained Mrs. Doggett, "I done a big washin' the first o' the +week. Ever' blessed theng wuz dirty. How many shirts you reckon I put +out?" + +"I have no idy," acknowledged Miss Nancy. + +"Twenty-five white shirts, besides three apiece o' their ever'days!" + +"That's a mighty big washin'," observed Miss Nancy, stooping to pick up +a piece of green cashmere. + + +"Now hain't hit?" Mrs. Doggett went on, in genial disregard of the +unbelief in her listener's tone: "but laws, that hain't nothin' to the +big washin's I done along in the early fall at terbaccer-cuttin' time. I +like to 'a' killed myse'f then. Their shirts and overhalls wuz all over +gum offen the terbaccer, the awfulest lookin' sights that ever you seed: +and I had to bile half the thengs in Jimpson leaf tea to git the stain +out'n 'em. And when they got through housin' the terbaccer, and I had +the beds to strip, and the bed clothes to wash, my clothes line wuz a +plumb sight to see!" + +Thinking her conversation on general topics had been of sufficient +length, Mrs. Doggett began adroitly to lead up to the object of her +visit, by a little judicious flattery. + +"You're a lookin' well, now, Miss Nancy"; she fastened her keen black +eyes on Miss Nancy's dun-colored hair and forbidding eyes: "me and Mr. +Brock wuz a talkin' about you night afore last, and I says: 'Actually +and candidly, Miss Nancy is the best lookin' and the finest lookin' of +any that family!'" + +Miss Nancy uttered no word to indicate that she heard this bare-faced +compliment, but the pleased red that crept slowly over her countenance +was sufficient encouragement for Mrs. Doggett. + +"Somebody wuz a tellin' me t'other day," she continued, "I believe hit +wuz Henrietty, Jim's wife,--that Mr. West'd tuck to lookin' around +ag'in, and he'd been a sendin' word he wanted to come to see you er Miss +Lucy." + +"Wantin'll be all then!" Miss Nancy gave a slight toss of her head. + +"I don't blame you fer sayin' that. As little a chunk as he is, and as +low to the ground, ef him and a fine tall woman like you wuz to walk in +church together, he'd look like a reticule a hangin' onto your arm." +Mrs. Doggett measured Miss Nancy's ungainly figure with an approving +eye. + +"More than that, ef looks wuz suitable," Miss Nancy spoke abruptly, "I +ain't a wantin' no widower with eight childern! When I marry, ef ever I +do, it'll be a man without a family, with a good home, and money, but I +ain't--" + +"You're satisfied like you are, hain't you?" broke in Mrs. Doggett. "You +hain't one o' them kind to jump off and marry jest to have hit said +you're married! A heap marries, a thenkin' ef they jest have a husband, +they'll never have need fer nothin' else, but when they're married, they +find they need ever'theng but the husband, and they don't need him at +all! I told 'em all t'other night, _you_ wuzn't a pickin', but ef you +wuz, hit'd be somebody like Vaughn Castle, er Frank Arnold, your cousin, +Effie Esther Willises' man,--not a man like,--" + +"Like who?" Miss Nancy looked up quickly. + +"Well, Miss Nancy, people will talk, you know, and when a single man's a +stayin' wher' thar's two ladies that hain't married, folks will connect +their names. Of course you wouldn't give no encouragement to sech as +him--" + +At Mrs. Doggett's tentative venture, the red blood came in a flood in +Miss Nancy's face, and spread from her faded brown calico collar to the +roots of the unlovely hair on her high forehead. + +"And, seein' no prospect of gittin' your notice, he turned wher' his +attentions wuz more welcomer," concluded her guest. + +"You're a talkin' about Lucy and Mr. Lindsay, ain't you?" jerked out +Miss Nancy, finally, when the tell-tale blush had partially faded. + +"Yes, I am," admitted Mrs. Doggett: "the talk is they're a courtin'." + +"I haven't saw no courtin' goin' on," insisted Miss Nancy in half +hopeful prevarication, "have you?" + +This was Mrs. Doggett's opportunity, eagerly seized. + +"Well, Miss Nancy," she answered, laying a propitiatory hand on Miss +Nancy's lap, "I'll tell you what little I know. As fur back as +August,--the day my pore Callie lay a corpse, Miss Lucy wuz at her +house, and Henrietty wuz thar, and Mr. Lindsay drapped in a few minutes. +Henrietty says they looked courty _then_. I asked Henrietty: 'Did they +say anytheng lovin', Henrietty?' 'No, Ma, I can't say that they did,' +she says: '_she_ set down on the aidge o' the bed, a pinkin' up like a +bashful young girl, and _he_ crossed over the room, and stood by her a +minute er two, and they talked about the weather and sech like.' + +"But Henrietty, she says they _looked_ love, to the best o' her belief, +and a body can might' nigh tell what's up by the way folks looks and +acts! And Gran'dad, _he_ says one day when him and Mr. Lindsay wuz in +town, they seed Miss Lucy a goin' in a store, and Mr. Lindsay pointed +towards her, and says: 'That's my woman, Gran'dad, ef I can git her!'" + +The knee on which Mrs. Doggett's fingers lay, stiffened, and its owner's +whole frame grew rigid under the intensity of her emotions at this +verification of her suspicions. + +"Maybe, they are a keepin' hit hid from you and your Pa, Miss Nancy," +Mrs. Doggett hazarded. "Mr. Lindsay is mighty sly: he knows you all know +he's a puny man--nigh as sickly as a consumptive, and hain't got nothin' +laid by!" + +"Lucy's weakly herse'f, and it'd be plumb foolish fer her to thenk about +marryin'!" Miss Nancy cried out sharply: "and ef she wuz to--to marry +old Lindsay, it'd be jest the settin' up of another poor-house, and the +County's got poor-houses a plenty now. Besides, Lucy owes it to me and +Pa to stay here!" + +"Well, yes, Miss Nancy," soothed Mrs. Doggett, "but your Pa's old, and +may be tuck any time! Ef Miss Lucy wuz persuaded now to look a little +higher--Mr. Brock, he hain't rich enough fer _you_, but he wouldn't be a +bad match fer Miss Lucy, considerin'. Miss Lucy's about fifteen years +older'n you, hain't she?" + +"Nine years, three months, and five days," corrected Miss Nancy. + +"Now Mr. Brock, he's got money laid up. He says sometimes Mr. Castle +when he's got all his'n invested er somethin', actually borry's from +him!" equivocated Mrs. Doggett. "And Mr. Brock's jest the best man in +his fambly: Evy and Reub jest worships him. And he's sech a good +pervider, and a high standin' man in the community, too." + +At that moment old Zeke barked: Miss Nancy stepped to the window. + +"Hit's Lucy a comin' down the lane," she informed Mrs. Doggett who had +arisen: "Zeke's saw the buggy." + +"Hain't that somebody on a hoss a ridin' 'longside the buggy?" Mrs. +Doggett peered close to the glass: "the snow is so blindin' a body can't +skeercely see." + +"Hit's Mr. Lindsay," answered Miss Nancy shortly, "a comin' from the +store." + +"Well, I got to go." Mrs. Doggett drew on her wraps. "Ef you're shore +you won't need 'em, I'll borry a couple your ir'ns fer termorrer." + +When the rider, and the driver reached the yard, Mr. Lindsay, innocent +of the two pairs of critical eyes that watched him from the kitchen +window, turned back the top of the buggy carefully, and with a hand that +all the hard work in the world could not make other than gentle, +assisted Miss Lucy to alight. + +"Jest watch him, will ye?" Mrs. Doggett inveighed: "a handlin' Miss Lucy +like she wuz aigs! Hain't he a puttin' on a good pious face, and him +what he is, now! You hain't heerd I reckon, about him a goin' to +Owensboro ever' onct in a while?" She lowered her voice to a meaning +whisper. + +"No!" Miss Nancy waited expectant. + +"Well, you've heerd tell o' married men with big famblies a passin' off +fer single men, hain't you, afore today, and ever' onct in a while a +sneakin' off to see their wife and childern?" With this last pointed +remark, Mrs. Doggett opened the side door of the kitchen. + +"No, thank you, Miss Nancy, I can't stay nary 'nother minute," she +declared in a tone of regret: "jest tell Miss Lucy fer me I'm still a +lookin' fer her, and both of you come down real soon!" The door closed +behind her, leaving Miss Nancy in anything but an amiable state of mind. +At the buggy-house in the corner of the back yard, Mrs. Doggett +encountered Mr. Lindsay putting away the buggy, and his saddle, and +greeted him effusively. + +"Eph's been a lookin' fer you down, Mr. Lindsay," she tendered him in +smiling farewell, as Mr. Lindsay courteously brushed the snow aside and +opened the gate for her, "but you're a flyin' too high fer us now, I +reckon!" + +Late that afternoon, when Mr. Lindsay took the milk-buckets from Miss +Lucy's hand, and went with her to the barn lot, to assist her at the +milking, as he had done each time since the beginning of his stay with +the Jameses, Miss Nancy stood looking after him with a rigid air of +offended propriety. Mrs. Doggett's whisper, suggesting vague +possibilities of evil, had been accepted with due allowance by Miss +Nancy, but for many days, a worm had found an abiding place in her +bosom, and the other information Mrs. Doggett had given her to which she +could give credence, fed this worm into a mighty thing that bit her +heart cruelly. + +She angrily watched Miss Lucy and her aid, as they moved about the +barn-yard, to the serious hindering of the supper preparations. On her +second unnecessary trip to the sitting-room, she threw the door open +wide. + +"Jest look!" she sneered. "Jest look, Pa! How does that look, him and +her out there a milkin' together? Ef I was you, Pa, I'd stop it!" + +"Hit _hain't_ modest lookin'," agreed the old man: "Lucy'd orter know +better'n to allow that. She'd aggervate the patience o' Job with her +foolishness. I sha'n't let her milk no more while he's here!" + +After that, the pleasure of the evenings spent around the sitting-room +fire was marred by the unpleasant insinuations directed at Mr. Lindsay +by Miss Nancy, and the covert stabs she inflicted on Miss Lucy. One +unusually cold evening Mr. Lindsay came in with a slight chill and +flushed cheeks. + +"Bein's hit's so cold, Mr. Lindsay, and you ain't well," remarked Miss +Lucy kindly, placing a smoothing-iron on the fender, "I'll heat this +iron for you to take to bed with you. Them upstairs rooms havin' no fire +in 'em, is awful chilly these nights." + +Presently Miss Nancy pushed the iron away from the fire. + +"You're jest a burnin' that ir'n up, Lucy Ann!" she scolded. + +Miss Lucy said nothing, but when Miss Nancy left the room a moment, +quietly put the iron nearer the fire again, and when her sister returned +and once more moved it away, she lifted it off the fender. + +"I'll jest take your iron to the kitchen, Mr. Lindsay," she said in a +low tone, "and get a flannel rag to wrap hit in,--that is," she looked +at him with apologetic eyes, "ef you are about ready for hit!" + +Mr. Lindsay arose and followed Miss Lucy to the kitchen. + +"Miss Lucy," he said gravely, "I see I'm a causin' trouble a stayin' +here: I'm a makin' a disturbance in the family." + +"Why no, Mr. Lindsay," Miss Lucy's voice shook in eager denial of his +assertion. "No, you ain't--you ain't a doin' nobody nothin' but good. We +all ain't been so happy sence Mother was taken away." + +"Miss Nancy," began Mr. Lindsay, but Miss Lucy interrupted him. + +"Don't you pay no 'tention to Nancy, Mr. Lindsay," she supplicated: +"Nancy, she has to work so hard, and she gits so tired and nervous: +Nancy don't mean no harm!" + +"You can't fool me, Miss Lucy," Mr. Lindsay's forehead knotted itself in +a frown. "I hain't blind and I hain't deef, and I can't holp seein' the +way she does, and a hearin' her bemean _you_ about me all the time +nearly. I don't want to make no disturbance, so I'll jest leave!" + +In the winter of the year before, an unusually severe winter, Miss Lucy +and Miss Nancy, without help (they could get none in the time of tobacco +stripping, and their father was not allowed to work by the doctor's +orders) had been compelled, with damp skirts, wet by the deep snows, and +fingers frosted by the cold, to feed the stock, hauling shocks of fodder +from the field. At Mr. Lindsay's words, Miss Lucy's hand went up to her +face in the familiar worried gesture, and a look of anxiety widened her +eyes. But it was not the thought of the work that brought a hoarse sob +to her throat. + +"O Mr. Lindsay," she begged with dry lips, "don't leave us! We can't do +without you. Don't leave us before spreng comes noway!" + +Mr. Lindsay took her cold hand and held it between his own, hot and +feverish. + +"Ef you feel that away about hit, Miss Lucy," he said soothingly, "I +reckon I can make out untel then." + +Miss Lucy hastily drew away her hand, stooped to wrap the iron that he +might not see the flood of joy in her face. + +The hall with the stairway that led to Mr. Lindsay's room, and the +sitting-room also, opened on the back porch. When they had crossed the +porch, Miss Lucy paused with one hand on the sitting-room doorknob. + +"I don't know how we can ever repay you, Mr. Lindsay, for your kindness +to us," she murmured, her face shining with something more than sweet +gratefulness. Miss Lucy did not know that her eyes held the dangerous +gift of personal speech. + +Because of what he read in the translucent blue eyes, Mr. Lindsay +suddenly became very bold. + +"I could tell you, Miss Lucy,"--mindful of the pair of sharp ears behind +the door, he lowered his voice--"I could tell you how you could repay me +for the little I've done for you, ef you'd listen to me!" + +But Miss Lucy had fled, and had closed the door softly behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +RIVALS + + "Every man in the time of courtship, puts on a behavior like my + correspondent's holiday suit!" + + +The month of February was bitterly cold, and a deep snow lay unmelted +for three weeks,--a condition of weather that seriously hindered +interchange of social calls on the Silver Run creek. The last Sunday +morning, however, brought a thaw that made it possible for the socially +inclined, comfortably to stir out. + +After the James' breakfast, Mr. Lindsay, according to his every Sunday's +custom between milking times, dressed himself in his best black suit and +his shining Sunday shoes, and with the more than a few white threads +that were beginning to come in his hair and mustache, decently colored, +and a suggestion of perfume about him, came into the sitting-room. + +Miss Nancy, whose Sabbath attire was a change from a soiled brown calico +to a similar unattractive clean one, professed to disapprove of this +Sunday's dressy toilet, and when her sister came into the kitchen, +dressed in a pretty maroon woolen house waist (one of the "remnant" +waists), her second-best black woolen skirt, and wearing her watch, with +its slender chain, and with the white threads in _her_ hair concealed in +a manner similar to Mr. Lindsay's, she raised her voice in sarcastic +reproof. + +"I see you've got on your red sack you thenk you look so purty in. The +idy of an old theng like you a wearin' _red_! And I see you've wore a +right smart of the gold off your Sunday specs too, a wearin' 'em ever' +day. You and him a dressin' up ever' Sunday, like you was a goin' to +church, when you know you ain't goin' to do nothin' but set around all +day, makes me plumb sick! And I'm jest a gittin' tired of all the piller +slips a bein' blacked up with hair dye, on account of two old fools a +bein' afraid of bein' thought as old as they are!" + +Miss Lucy turned a pained, guilty red. The little bottles she kept +hidden in her trunk were of recent acquisition, and she had thought +their work was as yet her own secret. Knowing it was useless to attempt +to defend herself, she put forth a plea for her friend. + +"Maybe Mr. Lindsay don't color his hair, Nancy,--hit's a mighty pretty +brown, and shines jest like Sister Isabinda's used to." + +"Maybe he don't," derided Miss Nancy: "but you jest tell him for me, +when he puts hit on in the dark or before daylight, to take a little +more pains, and don't come downstairs with hit smeared on slantways of +his mustache, not techin' the roots, and leavin' 'em white on one side, +and see what he says!" + +Miss Lucy did not wait to hear any more, but went quietly back to the +sitting-room where Mr. Lindsay sat alone. + +"I jest know hit's the nicest day for meetin'," she smiled: "ef the road +wasn't so rough a body could go! It'll be lonesome for you today, I'm +afraid, Mr. Lindsay, with jest us," she went on: "I wish somebody'd come +in to keep you company." + +Mr. Lindsay looked behind him, then moved his chair nearer Miss Lucy's +rocker. "I have all the company I want, Miss Lucy," he said in daring +tone, "all the company I want in this world is here by me!" + +Miss Lucy's eyes fell beneath the compelling power of the bright brown +ones opposite her, and a warm flush dyed her face. Mr. Lindsay waited +smiling for her to speak, but at this moment there came a knock, and Mr. +Galvin Brock, newly shaved, so highly collared that the linen cut +cruelly into the fat beneath his ears, and wearing a top coat, a gray +suit, gaiters, and glossy shoes that all bore the hall-mark of recent +purchase, came in. + +"Why, Mr. Brock!" stammered Miss Lucy, in her surprise and +embarrassment, giving the visitor a rather warmer welcome than she +intended,--"I am so glad you come, and Pa'll be awful glad to see you. I +was jest a tellin' Mr. Lindsay as you come in I wished somebody'd come +to keep _him_ company, too. Sunday is sech a long day when a body can't +git out to church. Lemme take your coat and hat, Mr. Brock, and you set +down in this rocker and warm your feet." + +Mr. Brock sat, the unexpectedly cordial reception filling his heart with +so much of satisfaction that the glow above the punishing neck linen +rivaled the crimson in his nose, which particular spot Mr. Lindsay +mentally stigmatized a "grog-blossom." On this occasion, the color of +the "grog-blossom" was deeper than usual, owing to the fact that the +owner of the nose was suffering from a cold which necessitated the +frequent display and desecration of a beautiful hemstitched China silk +handkerchief. + +After a few perfunctory words to the new-comer, Mr. Lindsay relapsed +into a moody silence, replying in monosyllables only, when any portion +of the morning's conversation, largely carried on by Mr. James in the +absence of Miss Lucy in the kitchen, chanced to be directed at him. In +the afternoon, when the family were all at liberty to entertain, Mr. +Brock, usually grumly taciturn, under the influence of Miss Lucy's +kindly interest which he mistook for admiration, became surprisingly +loquacious: it was Mr. Lindsay who sat afflicted of mien, maintaining +his morning's attitude of silent gloom. + +"Mr. Brock looks like a preacher, he's fixed up so fine today!" Miss +Lucy remarked, as she scrutinized the heavy chinchilla coat hanging on +the rack. "You must expect to come out mighty well on your tobacco, Mr. +Brock, ef you can take to wearin' such a fine overcoat as this, jest to +a neighbor's house. Ain't hit nice, Mr. Lindsay?" Mr. Lindsay's reply +was not audible. + +"I always come out tolerable well, Miss Lucy, and manage to have a +check-book ahead I can draw on," Mr. Brock avouched. + +"Castle offered to loan me some money along last spreng (as he does all +his tobacco men) ef I needed it, but I was proud to be able to say: 'Mr. +Castle, I can loan you some, ef you want it,' and I've had more offers +fer my tobacco this time, than I care to consider." + +"Castle says thar hain't but one terbaccer man in the County, Mr. Brock, +and he fetched _him_ over from Clarke," hinted Mr. James. + +Four years before, Mr. Brock had come at the Castle behest from Clarke +County. Mr. Brock smiled broadly. + +"I don't claim to be the only terbaccer man in the County," he +protested. + +"You wuz one the _big_ terbaccer men over thar, Castle says," went on +the old man: "he says him and his brother, Reed, come mighty nigh havin' +a fight over you when he fetched you over here. I told Castle when he +said that to me that you must have been a sort of a Hawkins Speed among +the terbaccer fellers over in Clarke. + +"You knowed that triflin' Hawkins, he moved out in Oklahomy, and got to +be a big feller. His Ma come back here and told hit that hit wuz a +common theng to see from fifteen to twenty men ride up in Hawkins' barn +lot ever' mornin' and h'ist theirselves up on the fence and set thar, +ever' man waitin' his turn to be advised by Hawkins in business +matters!" + +"Now Pa," protested Miss Lucy, "don't poke fun at company!" + +"I hain't, Lucy Ann, I'm entertainin',--that's more'n some o' the +crowd's a doin'," retorted Mr. James with a covert wink at Mr. Brock. + +Late in the afternoon, Mr. Brock suggested that his host show him his +new pigs. When the two men came back to the house, the old man wore a +look of ill humor that the subject under discussion (the pigs) did not +warrant, and an angry suspicion entered Mr. Lindsay's mind. + +"I do wish I could do somethin' for your cold, Mr. Brock," Miss Lucy +said solicitously, as that gentleman, preparing to leave them, indulged +in a rattling cough. "Ef you'll jest wait a minute, I'll hunt you up +some boneset, and Aunt Jane can make you some strong tea, jest before +you go to bed. Drink hit right hot and maybe hit'll break up your cold." + +With the pockets of the chinchilla bulging with the boneset, and his +mind at peace with the world, Mr. Brock stepped jauntily out to the road +at the foot of the lawn, but when he reached it, instead of going in the +direction of his home, unnoticed by any of the James household, he +turned and walked briskly down the path that led to the Doggetts. + +"Eph," Mrs. Doggett informed her husband when he came in about nine that +evening, having tarried until after supper at the home of his sister, +Mrs. Gumm: "Eph, Mr. Lindsay hain't got no chance with Miss Lucy James!" + +"How did you git that in your head, Ann?" + +"They wuz a person here this evenin' that saw another man there today, +and he says that the treatment Miss Lucy give that man wuz the kind o' +treatment a woman don't give nobody but a man she thenks is the greatest +feller on earth. Mr. Lindsay, he jest tucked his head after the man +come, like a whooped dog, the person said, and Miss Lucy never give +Lindsay nary look ner word o' notice the whole day! And when the other +man started, she told _him_ she wisht he'd come ever' Sunday,--said her +and Miss Nancy and their Pa jest set thar all day like three old owls a +wishin' somebody'd come to keep 'em comp'ny!" + +"Who told you all that, Ann,--did you git hit from Mr. Brock?" Mr. +Doggett inquired, as he wrestled with a tight sock. + +"From nobody else!" exulted Mrs. Doggett. "He's the man o' Miss Lucy's +choice!" + +"Now, old lady," cautioned Mr. Doggett, as he covered the fire, "don't +you let Mr. Brock pull the wool over your eyes! You never can tell what +a woman will do, ner a man neither fer that matter, but hit hain't best +to believe more'n a quarter o' what a courtin' feller'll tell about how +fur he's a beatin' another feller's time!" + +"I'm a goin' up to Jim Doggett's, Miss Lucy," Mr. Lindsay announced +coolly after the supper that evening,--"to set ontel bedtime, and I want +to ask you, ef you haven't got no objections, to jest leave the hall +door onlocked ontel I come back: I can git in then without disturbin' +anybody." + +"Why, Mr. Lindsay, of course I will," fluttered Miss Lucy, "but ef you +ain't a goin' to stay late, I'll set up and have a fire for you to warm +your feet by." + +"I thank you, Miss Lucy," Mr. Lindsay answered in the same frigidly +polite tones: "I won't be gone long, but I don't want to put nobody to +any trouble fer me, what time I'll be here. I wish you good evenin'." + +Miss Lucy stood in dumb wonderment on the porch until the splash of Mr. +Lindsay's feet in the melting snow no longer reached her ear. What was +the matter with him that he spoke to her as one stranger to another? + +Unheeding the mud puddles in which he set his feet, Mr. Lindsay neared +the tiny cottage Vaughn Castle furnished Jim Doggett. An owl quavered in +the top of one of the ragged elms, when he paused on the step to remove +his overshoes, and the bird's weird cry was not more despondent than the +silent wail of the man's heart. + +"She's a settin' there, now," he chafed, "a smilin' in the coals, a +thenkin' about old Brock!" But he was mistaken; Miss Lucy was crying in +her pillow. + +Jim and Henrietty made Mr. Lindsay kindly welcome, but the plump child +with the exquisitely molded features drew back the dainty chin that +reminded one of nothing so much as a rosy peach, and looked shyly at him +through the long curling black lashes of her dreamy brown eyes. + +"Have you gone back on me too, Katie?" Mr. Lindsay's look of reproach +brought the baby flying to his chair to crawl up in his lap. + +"Me love Missa Linney," she lisped: "is 'oo dot a pitty f'ower for +Tatie?" + +"You'll never lose out with Katie, Mr. Lindsay," laughed her father, as +the child began ecstatically to kiss the rose pictured on the bit of +pasteboard her friend fished from an inside pocket, "ef you keep on a +brengin' her flowers and picturs of flowers." + +"I didn't believe she'd go back on me too," Mr. Lindsay murmured, with +his cheek on the little one's red-brown hair. + +"Been anybody at your house today?" asked astute Henrietty. + +"Jest old man Brock." + +"Did he stay all day?" + +"Yes, staid until milkin' time." + +"Wuz he primped up?" persisted Henrietty, with a glance at Jim. + +"Yes, in an inch of his life," scoffed Mr. Lindsay, with the high collar +in mind: "ever'theng he had on, as fur as I could see, wuz new. Miss +Lucy," he concluded with burning sarcasm, "she told him he looked like a +preacher!" + +"Must 'a' been a courtin' rig," reflected Jim. + +"Well Jim," expostulated Henrietty, "and poor Callie not been in her +grave more'n six months! Ef I wuz Mr. Brock, I'd let my wife's tracks +rain out before I took to courtin'!" + +Mr. Lindsay laughed--a mirthless jeering laugh. + +"Miss Lucy didn't seem to make much o' his payin' sech disrespect to +Callie, a sparkin' around, the way she treated him today! Old Brock'll +never be tuck up fer bein' too sociable, but I wisht you could 'a' saw +him today, a makin' up to the old man and Miss Lucy,--a settin' about +with his lips primped up as innocent and delicate, like they'd never +shet over nothin' stronger'n buttermilk in his life. He's tuck a +cold--been over to Lexington this last week a layin' out drunk as is his +common habit when he goes off on them trips, in fact, hit's what he goes +fer,--and Miss Lucy wuz a honeyin' him up, a wishin' she could do +somethin' fer his cold, and a huntin' up hoarhound and dried stuffs fer +him to docter with. Made me sick!" + +"O Mr. Lindsay," placated Henrietty, "Miss Lucy thenks ever'body's all +right and good. I heerd Mrs. Preacher Avery a sayin' to her one day--and +she wuz jest a goin' by what Miss Lucy'd told her about 'em--'How +fortunate,' she says, 'Miss Lucy, that your brothers and sisters all +married good people, and in such good famblies!' + +"And that Grace that married the middle Jeemes boy, she's about as mean +a person as anybody is allowed to be, to keep a livin'! She treated me +and Jim's Ma, when we went to see Miss Lucy one day when she wuz a +visitin' there, like we wuzn't no better'n the dirt under her feet. +'Lucy,' she says, and Ma and me heerd her when we wuz leavin' the yard, +'do you allow those tobacco people--those tenant people, to call on +you?' + +"And another day she come down on the creek fishin'--her and them three +holy-terrer chillern o' hers, and they happened to throw in their lines +not fur from where me and Joey and little Katie wuz a fishin'. As soon +as she saw us she drawed in her line, and says: 'Come, children, less go +to a better place. I smell poor folks here!' Like poor people, ef they +have any pride about keepin' clean, smell any different from rich +folks!" + +"I reckon now," remarked Jim, dryly, "sence she's broke up her husband, +so he had to quit his store and go to clerkin' in a meat-shop, she don't +have to go outside her own door to 'smell poor folks'!" Henrietty +laughed. + + +"You see how hit is, Mr. Lindsay; you can't put no dependence on Miss +Lucy's estimate o' people." + +"And we oughtn't to blame her fer that," said Mr. Lindsay: "the charity +that 'thenks no evil' hain't so common in folks as to be a bad theng! +Miss Lucy, she's a Christian, ef there ever wuz one in Kentucky, I +reckon, and ef she wuz ever out o' humor I never knowed hit. But"--his +face darkened, and though his voice did not rise above its ordinary soft +murmur, there was a tremulous vibration in it that told that he was +fiercely moved--"she's mighty fooled in old Brock, ef she thenks he's +good!" + +"Hit's her cousin, Sim Willis, that's a makin' 'em thenk that," broke in +Jim. "He considers Brock all right, because they both vote the same +ticket, I reckon, and he hain't caught on yit to Brock's night habits." + +"Hit's a pity," continued Mr. Lindsay, "but what Miss Lucy knowed about +him a gittin' blind drunk in town a Christmas Eve, and a havin' to be +carried down to the cellar and laid there like a sack o' bran ontel +mornin'. + +"I wuz in town a gittin' ready to start out, and Reub Brock, he come to +me, a beggin' me to please come and holp him carry his pappy sommers. I +didn't want to, but I felt sorry fer Reub--him a puffin' and a +wheezin'--tryin' to git the old dead drunk fool off the sidewalk to +where he wouldn't be run over er freeze, so I tuck holt, and we got him +down in the cellar! Made me plumb sick a handlin' him!" + +"I'd jest tell Miss Lucy," suggested Jim. "What's the use in keepin' +back thengs a body ought to know?" + +"I hain't never told hit to nobody, on account o' Reub and Evy," +declared Mr. Lindsay. "Reub said, Christmas, 'Fer poor Mammy's sake, Mr. +Lindsay, don't tell on Pappy!' and I hain't up to this time. + +"I been a keepin' back more'n that too. The Jameses always set sech +store by old Brock, and he wuzn't a pesterin' me, but--" he rose and +threw on his coat, a hot and angry red flushing his face--"but now I +despise the old snivellin' hypocrite! My mother always taught me the sin +o' fightin', and I have tried to live at peace with ever'body like she +taught me to, but ef I'd 'a' been brung up to wipe out them that needs a +wipin' out, there wouldn't be no trace of old Brock in this vicinity +long! And I'm a goin' to let Miss Lucy James know how her new beau's +been in the habit o' conductin' himse'f, ef hit's the last act o' my +life!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +AT THE TOBACCO BARN + + "Farewell grief and welcome joy, + Ten thousand times therefore!" + + +"Got on your red waist ag'in this mornin', have you? Tuck to primpin' on +a week day fer old Lindsay, have you, and what does he keer fer you? And +ef he did, what is _he_ anyhow? I jest wisht you knowed somethin' I've +heard about him lately!" + +Miss Lucy's eyes, circled and swollen, told on Monday morning of a +troubled and sleepless night. She turned wearily away from Miss Nancy, +making no attempt at excuse for the new waist which she had thrust on +hastily in the darkness when she arose, too dispirited to care what she +put on. Mr. Lindsay, coming in at this moment, met Miss Lucy's look of +consternation with one of settled determination. + +Miss Nancy's last words (she never mumbled her speeches, but invariably +made them sharp and distinct) had reached him, and given his resolution +to speak to Miss Lucy at the earliest opportunity, a sudden impetus, +like that given a door that bursts open behind a fierce blast of wind. + +The little dairy under the harness-room was out of range of the kitchen +windows, and quite out of earshot. + +"Let me carry the milk down the milk-house steps fer you, Miss Lucy," he +suggested, as Miss Lucy attempted to lift one of the pails from the +table: "the wind's a blowin' turrible hard, and might blow you down with +them full buckets." But Miss Nancy forestalled him. + +"Me and Lucy together can git them two buckets safe in the milk-house, I +reckon, Mr. Lindsay. Ain't no use you a doin' ever'thing," she said, +with the handle of each tin pail in a tenacious grasp. + +"Open the milk-house door, Lucy." + +Mr. Lindsay, rebuffed, withdrew to the woodpile, defeated for the time, +but with purpose undaunted. Under cover of the stone walls of the dairy, +Miss Nancy further browbeat her sister. + +"Lucy, hain't you ashamed o' yourse'f a lettin' Lindsay foller you +around all the mornin'?" + +"He ain't been a follerin' me around, Nancy," faltered Miss Lucy. + +"He ain't?" Scorn gave Miss Nancy's voice a hoarse note. "I reckon +you're green enough to thenk, too, old Zeke's hind feet don't foller his +front ones when he's a walkin': but I ain't! See here, Lucy Ann, this +foolishness is got to be stopped. You don't want to have folks a talkin' +about you, do you?" + +Nothing to the sisters was more dreaded than to be "talked about." + +"Then you jest keep yourse'f out o' his way, 'tel he leaves here for +good, Wednesday. Termorrer is marketin' day, and the mud'll be dried +enough ef the wind keeps up fer you to go, and today you can jest git +ready and go up to Becky Willises, and stay all day." + +"Hit's sorter muddy for walkin', Nancy," objected Miss Lucy. + +"'Twon't hurt you: you can wear your gum shoes!" spouted Miss Nancy, +stamping up the rough stone steps. + +"I won't go to Becky's a cryin'," thought Miss Lucy, as she neared the +yard of Jim Doggett, beyond which, a few hundred yards, lay the house of +her cousin: "Becky'd ask so many questions! I believe I'll jest stop +here, and see Henrietty and little Katie." + +Henrietty greeted her with her hands in a bowl of bread-dough. Katie ran +to her with a little happy cry: "O Miss Lucy, I's dot somepin' show 'oo! +Tome wis me--I's dot somepin' show 'oo in the batter barn!" + +"Why, Katie, let Miss Lucy have time to take off her thengs!" +expostulated her mother. "Hit's puppies she's a talkin' about," she +explained: "I'm sortie feerd fer her to go out to the barn by herse'f, a +thenkin' a tier pole might fall on her. I've been skeered o' barns ever +sence that time Gil Dutton broke his knee all to pieces on account of a +tier pole made out of a wind-shook piece of timber a breakin' and +lettin' him fall, and she's jest crazy when anybody steps in to git 'em +to go with her." + +Miss Lucy, glad of an excuse to take her red eyes out of range of +Henrietty's keen ones, followed the eager child to the great barn on the +rise above the house. The heavy sliding doors at the north end refused +to move more than eight inches apart under Miss Lucy's nervous hand, but +little Katie pressed her fat body through the crevice, darted like a +sparrow half the length of the building, and squatted with a squeal of +rapture behind a high pile of sticks, heaped in careless fashion, after +the tobacco was lifted off them. Here, on the dirt floor, three brown +and white puppies crawled aimlessly over each other. + +"You want to git inside?" Miss Lucy felt her fingers gently removed, and +the door pushed back. She looked up to meet Mr. Lindsay's eyes fixed in +stern earnestness upon her. + +"You thought you'd run off from me, did you?" he queried abruptly: "I +'lowed when I saw you a startin' off in this wind that you'd had your +orders give you, and what I follered you wuz to find out ef you really +wanted to obey them orders and to git away from me." + +Miss Lucy backed inside the door and looked furtively about her. The +tobacco had all been taken down, stripped, and bulked down in a half +dozen long, high ricks, from "long red," to "green,"--ready for the +buyers' inspection, and the dusk of the empty spaces, from the +cypress-shingled roof, to the floor, covered with its confusion of +broken leaves, was only relieved by the sunlight that filtered in +between the outer planks of the barn. The wind rumbled around the barn, +and above its roar sounded the far off call of a crow, and the chugging +of a freight on the nearest railway, told of a not far distant rain. + +"You needn't be oneasy, Miss Lucy": Mr. Lindsay drew the doors together +softly. "There hain't nobody a watchin' us here, ner a listenin' as fur +as I know, and you are perfectly safe to talk. Ef you don't keer to have +me around no more, jest say so, and I'll go right back to the house, and +gether up my thengs, and leave now, instid of waitin' until the middle +o' the week." He paused, his tone of reckless indifference belied by his +grave face and appealing eyes. For once in her life, Miss Lucy was +forced out of her habitual indecision. + +"I--I--" she stammered, clasping and unclasping her hands, her eyes +following a dry tobacco leaf that a sudden gust whirled rattling by her +feet, "Mr. Lindsay, I hope I haven't never done anything to make you +thenk I don't want you around!" + +The tense cords at his temples relaxed slightly: he took a step nearer +her. "Then you don't believe nothin' ag'in me, and don't keer nothin' +fer old Brock?" + + +"Mr. Brock--why, Mr. Brock--he hasn't never said nothin' about me bein' +anything to him!" cried Miss Lucy in wonderment. + +"I know he hain't yit," he broke out tumultuously, "fer very shame, but +he wants to, and the way you treated him yisterday made me thenk maybe +you'd listen to what he's got to say--maybe you'd ruther have him around +than me!" + +"I jest treated him like I would Mr. Castle or any other of the +neighbors when they come in," defended Miss Lucy. + +Mr. Lindsay looked at her to assure himself there was no dissimulation +in her speech. "Yes, Miss Lucy," he went on, reassured, "but he hain't +one them kind o' men that'll take good treatment. Ef you jest treat him +with common politeness, he'll thenk you're a courtin' him! I could tell +you some thengs about old Brock that'd make you feel like leavin' the +room when he comes around, but considerin' you don't keer nothin' fer +him, hit's jest as well not to bother you with 'em. What I want to know +in particular is, do you keer anytheng fer _me_?" + +Miss Lucy, blushing furiously, looked wildly about her for a means of +escape. The moment she had longed for, for weeks, had come, but the +habit of fleeing from his presence, lest Miss Nancy should charge her +with forwardness, was strong. + +But Mr. Lindsay leaned against the fastening of the closed doors. "Jest +say 'No, I keer nothin' fer you,'" he prompted, "and Miss Lucy, I won't +keep you here a second longer!" + +"I--I--that ain't what I want to say!" Miss Lucy managed to gasp. + +What she did want to say must have been satisfactory, for thirty seconds +later her delicate cheek was reposing with no apparent discomfort on a +pocketful of nails on the front of a dingy yellow canvas working-coat, +her slender shoulders were encircled by a pair of canvas-covered arms, +and a brown, a very brown, head was bent down to hers. + +"Mistu Linney, is 'oo lovin' Miss Luty?" + +[Illustration: "Mistu Linney is oo lovin' Miss Luty?"] + +Miss Lucy's agility, considering her years, was something remarkable, +when her ears were electrified by this remark from little Katie, who +with a pup in the bend of each fat arm, stood gazing in innocent wonder +at her friends. Miss Lucy gave a little cry of consternation, but Mr. +Lindsay laughed, and placing an overturned box against one of the great +center beams of the barn, drew Miss Lucy to this improvised chair, sat +down beside her, and took the child and her dogs in his lap. + +"When we're married, Lucy," he said gaily, "we'll git Henrietty to let +Katie holp us keep house." + +"Oh, what will Pa and Nancy say?" moaned Miss Lucy, remembering her +tormentors. The happy glow in her face fled, leaving her very pale. At +this moment, the loud rumble of an empty farm-wagon, driven rapidly on +the road that passed the south end of the barn, ceased abruptly. + +"'Tain't what her and him says that matters to me," Mr. Lindsay soothed +her: "I reckon you and me are the next theng to old enough to know our +own business, ain't we?" + +"I know hit," Miss Lucy mourned, "but they worry me so. Ef you don't +keer, Mr.--Mr.--" + +"I'm _Nathan_ to you, Lucy," Mr. Lindsay corrected her tenderly. + +"I jest wanted to say I'd love to keep hit a secret a while any way. +'Twon't be no harm, will hit?" + +"Ef you want to, of course hit won't," Mr. Lindsay assured her +cheerfully. "I've been thenkin' about hit," he said after a moment, "and +I believe ef prices are anyways good this spreng, I'll go into tobacco +raisin' ag'in. Jest us two to live, a body might make a little somethin' +at hit. Next year I might fill a barn as big as this ef I had no bad +luck." + +Neither of them had observed the fact that the rumble of the passing +wagon had ceased when it reached the barn, nor did they notice the +shadow that at this moment fell across the light that came in between +two beech planks at the corner of the barn nearest them, made by the +pressing of a coarse ear to the fissure. The owner of the ear had caught +the sound of voices, and thinking he heard Miss Lucy speak, wished to +assure himself of the fact before entering the barn. + +"O Miss Luty," little Katie shrilled, "somebody's dot in de shunshine!" + +There was a hasty removal of the coarse ear from the timbers, and a +lusty cough, and just as the astonished pair of sitters within the barn +sprang to their feet, Mr. Brock's stolid face appeared in the doorway. + +"Mr. Castle asked me to keep a sharp lookout for night riders about the +barns, Miss Lucy," he said, breaking the embarrassed silence. "Mr. +Castle's mighty scarey, you know." + +Miss Lucy turned white and red, by turns, in an agony of embarrassment, +and remained dumb. Mr. Lindsay found his voice. + +"I ain't heard of no night riders a bein' out in the daytime, so far," +he offered, then added, turning to the door, unmindful of the entreaty +in Miss Lucy's eyes, "I guess I'll be goin', Miss Lucy: my work's a +waitin' fer me." + +"Little Katie--I come out here with her, Mr. Brock, to see the puppies, +and Mr. Lindsay he jest happened along, and opened the door fer us." + +Ladies do not usually sit on boxes in tobacco barns with their admirers, +and Miss Lucy trembled so she could hardly stand, in her attempt to +explain her presence in the barn with Mr. Lindsay. + +"You're a gittin' cold, Miss Lucy," Mr. Brock took pity on her confusion +and evident misery: "s'pose you take Katie on to the house. I'll be +gittin' along." + +Following her sister's directions, Miss Lucy came home in the dusk. Mr. +Lindsay accosted her as she passed through the barn lot where he was +milking. + + +"I hope you didn't thenk hard of me fer leavin' you so sudden this +mornin', Miss Lucy": his voice was tenderly apologetic, "but I 'lowed +you could explain better what you was a doin' in the barn, ef--ef--I +wasn't there." + +Miss Lucy smiled into his anxious eyes, a smile of trust and happiness. +"I knowed you was a tryin' to do the best you could fer me, and to keep +us from bein' talked about," she assured him sweetly, forgetting for +once her usual precautionary glance. + +Mr. Lindsay set the milk bucket down and came close to her. + +"There's somethin' of my mother's, I want you to have," he murmured, +looking down at her slender fingers: "I put hit in the little pink vase +on the mantel-piece, and when you go to the house, I wish you'd git +hit." + +Before Miss Lucy could answer, he added abruptly: "I hate to tell you, +Lucy, but there's somebody a holdin' the settin'-room door open. Jest +tell 'em ef they ask you anytheng that I wuz a askin' you ef old +Blackie'd fell off any in her milk. Hit don't look like she has, does +hit?" He held the half-filled milk bucket toward her. Miss Lucy shook +her head, and walked quickly to the house. + +"What on earth was you a talkin' to Mr. Lindsay about?" her sister asked +her as she came in. + +"About old Blackie," murmured Miss Lucy, obeying her mentor: "Mr. +Lindsay asked me ef I thought she was a fallin' off in her milk, and I +told him I didn't see that she was." + +"I think your tongue needs oilin', ef hit took you all that time to git +off them few words," Miss Nancy replied suspiciously. + +Miss Lucy did not reply to this taunt, but slipping out into the +kitchen, she hastily emptied the grounds from the coffee-pot into the +ashbarrel, and pouring several tablespoonfuls of coffee berries in the +hopper of the little coffee-mill, she carried it stealthily down into +the dairy, where the sound would not reach her sister's ears, and ground +the coffee quickly. + +"He loves his coffee strong," she whispered to herself, as she poured +the freshly ground coffee into the pot, with a look of determination +that sat oddly upon her: "and Nancy sha'n't give him weak stuff made out +of old grounds, tonight, nohow!" + +Miss Nancy took care that Miss Lucy had no more words alone with Mr. +Lindsay that evening, but when he took his lamp to retire, he found a +little twisted slip of paper on the middle step of the stairway, that he +read with satisfaction, and laid carefully in his pocket-book, while +Miss Lucy went to sleep with her hand closed on a worn chased ring +suspended about her neck with a little silken cord. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +"SURE SOME DISASTER HAS BEFELL" + + "The sun grew weary of guilding the palaces of Morad; the + clouds of sorrow gathered around his head, and the tempest of + hatred roared about his dwelling." + + +With March, spring descended abruptly in Kentucky. Before the end of the +second week, the rows of interwoven canes with the suggestion of green +at their feet, in the gardens of the Silver Run neighborhood, that told +that peas were up, were not the only signs of spring. + +The great rolling bluegrass fields had exchanged their nunlike drab +carpeting for one of a delicate green: the willows that fringed the +creek were lightly touched with emerald: in the maples alternating with +the willows, bees worked joyously: every red-bud tree on the wooded +cliffs wore a drapery of delicate pink, like a tinted bridal veil, and +on one side the little James farm, the rye in the last year's tobacco +field of Vaughn Castle, spread out like a lake with waters newly dyed +green. Even the all-winter bare back yard of the Ephriam Doggetts had +made an attempt at redeeming its appearance: the mallow and the dock had +begun to lift their heads, and next the fence, some sprigs of purple +henbit showed themselves. + +Mr. Lindsay had resumed his work of tobacco stripping in late +February--helping the belated tobacco-men, and afterward setting up hemp +for the weather belated hemp growers, staying from Saturday evening +until Sunday morning at the house of the always-open-door, and +turn-nobody-away Doggetts. + +One Sunday morning, he came into the house, a half dozen yellow jonquils +that bloomed under the ragged Althea bush, in a corner of the front +yard, in his hand. + +"Well, Marshall," he suggested, "suppose'n you git out the razors, and +let's me and you shave each other, and git ready to go to see our girls +this evenin'." + +Wisdom had whispered in the ears of Mr. Lindsay, and, following her +advice (though with reluctance) he had made no week day calls on the +James family since his departure. On both the Sundays that had passed, +however, he had called. The old man and Miss Nancy (her suspicions as to +his intentions allayed by his absence, and Miss Lucy's demeanor) had +treated him with cordiality: he had managed unobserved by them to +exchange delightfully satisfactory whispers with his betrothed, and +today he looked forward to a similar happy afternoon. + +The sunshine was no brighter than Mr. Lindsay's low cut shoes, when, +after Mrs. Doggett's early dinner, he and Marshall lifted the gate that +had no hinges: the dead autumn leaves in the ditch no browner than his +tidy mustache, and a faint odor of "white rose" trailed on the air +behind him. + +"How do we look, Ma?" invited Marshall pausing correctly to adjust the +bit of white in his breast pocket. + +"Mighty well--mighty well!" encouraged Mrs. Doggett: "are you both a +goin' the McLean road?" + +"Aw hush, Ann," interposed Mr. Doggett, "don't you know him and +Marshall's tracks wouldn't nary one fit t'other's? Ef McLean is a gray +lookin' house jest over the hill, Mr. Lindsay's a goin' to McLean!" + +Exactly three-quarters of an hour from the time of their vainglorious +departure, Mr. Lindsay walked into the Doggett kitchen and sat quietly +behind the stove, afflicted of mien and crestfallen to a degree. + +"What _is_ the matter with Mr. Lindsay?" thought Mrs. Doggett: but she +made no comment on his hasty return. "He won't do no talkin' 'tel he +gits good and ready," she argued. At four o'clock Joe came home from his +brother Lem's. + +"I want to git a horse, Joe, to fetch my trunk, and my valises, and my +enlarged picture away from old man Jameses," Mr. Lindsay said to him, +"and ef you know anybody's got one to spare, I wisht you'd tell me. I +tried to git one at Jim's and Willises, but Jim and Henrietty wuz gone, +and old man Willis wuz in town with his buggy mare." + +"What you wanter breng your trunk away on Sunday fer, Mr. Lindsay?" +wondered Joe. + +"I'll tell you, Joey, ef you'll git me a horse!" + +"Thar hain't nary bit o' use a huntin' up a hoss when you can jest kerry +them thengs down here, Mr. Lindsay," protested Mrs. Doggett: "They +hain't heavy and 'tain't fur. Eph, he'll be in d'rectly--he jest stepped +acrost the creek in Dock's boat, to look at Mr. Archie Evans' new +terbaccer barn--and he can holp you kerry one end o' the trunk, and one +valise, and Joey can kerry your ma's enlarged picture, and t'other +valise." + +When, an hour after, a baggage-laden procession came in at Mrs. +Doggett's front door, her curiosity had reached its utmost tension. + +"Set the thengs right down, Eph--you all," she cried: "you can take 'em +upstairs after supper. Mr. Lindsay looks plumb worried!" + +Mr. Lindsay looked at her dejectedly. "I am worried, Mrs. Doggett--I've +been treated bad--never wuz treated worse in my life, and onexpectedly +too, and by people I never done nothin' to in my life! Ever sence I left +the James, the old man has been a sendin' me word to come to see 'em--" + +"Yes, sir, he has," broke in Mr. Doggett: "hit's been 'tell Lindsay to +come up and set a while some night,' 'tell Lindsay to come,' ever' time +he sees me er the boys." + +"I went too, two Sundays, as you all know," went on Mr. Lindsay, "and +they treated me nice, and I thought I'd git the same treatment today, +but--" + +"You don't mean to say, Mr. Lindsay, they didn't treat you well, after +all that sendin' word fer you to come?" shrilled Mrs. Doggett. + +"I'll tell you how the old man done me," said Mr. Lindsay, bitterly. "I +seed him a standin' at the gate, and I thenks 'the pore old creeter's a +sunnin' his rheumatiz.' When I got up clost I says, 'Good evenin', Mr. +James,' but he never let on he heerd my 'good evenin'--jest begun on me. +'Sir,' he says, 'your trunk's here in my house, and I want you to take +hit away! I sent word to you as fur back as Friday to come and git hit, +and hit's here yit!' I says: 'Why, Mr. James, I hain't heerd nothin' of +hit!' 'Well you hear hit now,' he says: 'I want hit tuck away, and don't +you never come on my place ag'in, ner never speak another word to any o' +my family!'" + +Mrs. Doggett's heart beat with a throb of ecstasy. Surely old July's +words were coming true! Mr. Brock's rival was set aside: Mr. James had +"turned on him!" Mrs. Doggett was diplomatic; her face assumed a look of +indignant horror. + +"O mercy goodness, Mr. Lindsay!" she cried, "you know Mr. Jeemes never +said that!" + +"Yes, he did," went on Mr. Lindsay, "and when I told him I'd try to git +the thengs away Monday, he said like somethin' crazy: 'That trunk's got +to be tuck out before the sun sets, er I'll know the reason why!' I says +then: 'What have I done, Mr. James, that you're a talkin' to me this +away?' And he says: 'I din't need to smut my tongue with pertic'lers, +but you hain't no nice person--no fit person to be in no nice house with +nice people!' + +"I left him then, seein' he wuz jest bent on insultin' me. I tell you, +Uncle Eph, it made me feel bad to thenk I'd never done the old man a bit +o' harm in my life--never nothin' but kindness--and yit he'd talk to me +that away!" + +Mr. Lindsay, honest and as upright as one of the boulders that stand on +the granite-clad hills of his Scotch ancestors, and conscious of his +rectitude, flushed deeply as he spoke of the indignity that had been put +upon him. + +"I wouldn't 'a' thought hit o' him, no sir, I wouldn't!" murmured Mr. +Doggett, in amazement. + +"Hain't hit outdacious," execrated Mrs. Doggett, "him been here ever' +sence the flood might' night', and a talkin' that away?" + +"When I wuz up thar a Friday a helpin' him fix the yard fence whar Mr. +Castle's jinnies busted hit," Joey volunteered, "he said to me: 'Joey, +you take them old overhalls o' Lindsay's a hangin' thar in the shed, and +throw 'em in the creek! And tell him to send after the balance of his +old duds--I don't want him to come after 'em hisse'f, but send somebody +after 'em!'" + +"Why didn't you tell me, Joey, afore now?" Mr. Lindsay's voice was +mildly reproving. + +"I wuz a thenkin' about hit," answered Joey, "but I jest thought hit wuz +too mean to tell anybody, and ef he wanted to tell you, he might as well +do hit hisse'f." + +"What did the old man say when you went to fetch the trunk and thengs?" +asked Mrs. Doggett. + +"I couldn't git Uncle Eph ner Joey to go to the door," Mr. Lindsay said +aggrievedly, "and when Miss Lucy met me and I told her I'd come after my +trunk she looked surprised and said hit wuzn't in the way, and whyn't I +let hit stay? And ef I must take hit away, whyn't I wait 'tel a week +day? I told her her pa'd ordered hit to be tuck away before dark. 'Pa,' +she said, and hit wuz the first time I ever heerd her speak sharp to +him, 'what made you do that?' He never made her no answer--never invited +me to set down ner nothin'." + +"Wher' wuz Miss Nancy at?" queried Mrs. Doggett. + +"I never seen her, but when me and Joey wuz a packin' out the trunk and +thengs, poor Miss Lucy jest stood a lookin' at us, the tears a streamin' +down her face." The husky note in Mr. Lindsay's voice warned him to +silence. He reached out and taking the picture frame off the trunk, laid +it on his knees, and gazed soberly at the gentle face that looked out of +the frame. + +"I never fell out with nobody in my life," he went on presently, "and I +wuz plumb thunderstruck at the old man's conduct." + +"Maybe Miss Nancy er some person that wanted to git you in disfaver with +him, had somethin' to do with hit," suggested Mr. Doggett. + +"Aw hush, Eph," interrupted Mrs. Doggett, "you know they didn't!" + +Mr. Lindsay cogitated a moment. "I never knowed what kind o' people they +wuz ontel I went there and staid a while," he said, presently: "and I'll +jest tell you the truth, Uncle Eph, I found out two of 'em wuzn't the +kind o' people you can live with. I've been a holdin' back all the +meanness of old man James, but now hit's out and his daughter's too! +I've been around among a heap o' different people, but I've never seen a +woman as mean as Miss Nancy, and as fer him, he jest sets and studies up +meanness! I knowed he wuz fractious, old and childish, and I didn't want +to go there, but they kept at me ontel I went and done the work fer ten +weeks, and never charged 'em a cent--jest got my board and washin' fer +pay. + +"I allus thought Miss Nancy and Miss Lucy wuz one as good as t'other, +and when I first went there to stay, Miss Nancy couldn't 'a' been no +nicer to me, but jest in a little while--and I couldn't tell you the +reason to save my soul--she turned on me and treated me worse than a dog +all the time I stayed." + +"Miss Lucy is more pleasin' somehow'n Miss Nancy," observed Mr. Doggett. + +"Yes, they say she takes after her ma, a good woman. Miss Nancy is +strange ever' way," continued Mr. Lindsay, "she don't keer what she says +to a person to hurt his feelin's. She fusses at Miss Lucy all the time, +and Miss Lucy jest knuckles down to her, and sets under their abuse as +dumb as an oyster. She tried to keep hit hid from me how they done her, +but 'twuzn't no use. + +"And I couldn't do nothin' to _suit_ Miss Nancy neither. Ef I made a +fire in the stove, the sticks wouldn't be laid to suit her, and she'd +take 'em out and lay 'em in the fireplace, and make the fire over! Most +of the time she wuz so savin' o' wood, she wouldn't let Miss Lucy kindle +a fire in the fireplace in the kitchen at all, and the poor theng would +churn in that cold kitchen without a fire, all that cold weather! + +"When I first went there I kep' a wonderin' what made the old man +quarrel so much about hit a takin' so much feed fer 'that black cow and +calf,' and I come to find out they wuz Miss Lucy's! When he's able, he +walks around the pasture and never lets them two old mares o' his git +out o' his sight, and he feeds 'em twelve years o' corn at a time, and +never allows 'em to be drove out o' a walk, but he begrudges ever' bite +o' hay and corn that goes into the black cow and calf, and stints 'em +scandalous. I fed 'em a plentiful, when I wuz there. Miss Lucy wuz +mighty pleased how well they done. + +"And grudgin' feed hain't all: That old man hain't got an honest bone in +his body. Miss Lucy told me one day, in the last ten years, (sence her +ma died) that old man had tuck three of her hiefers and sold 'em and put +the money in his pocket! Miss Lucy she takes what money she makes +different ways, and buys ever'theng they need and use. Nancy puts the +money she makes in the bank fer herse'f. + +"Miss Lucy'd been a sewin' all fall fer niggers, and ef you'll believe +me, she tuck ever' cent o' that money to make the last payment on her +ma's tombstone! And at Christmas, she had three dollars left she wanted +to git Christmas presents with, and she laid hit on the mantel while she +wuz a gittin' ready to go to town, and that old man slyly put hit in his +pocket!" + +"Mr. Lindsay, you know he never done the pore creetur that away!" burst +out Mrs. Doggett. "Well, hain't the world a comin' on? I don't see how +hit can stand much longer! Hit's might' night' as wicked as 'twuz before +the flood! I don't see how you kep' quiet, a seein' sech doin's!" she +went on in a warm excess of pretended sympathy. Mr. Lindsay's eyes +flashed. + +"I couldn't hardly," he avowed, "after I seen that! And many a time +after that when I've heerd the old man a bemeanin' her--innocent +theng--my hands have jest itched, and I've jest set still sometimes a +clinchin' my finger nails into the palms o' my hands 'tel they bled, a +makin' myse'f remember he wuz a feeble old man, ef he wuz onjest and +cruel to _her_. + +"I done my best to sorter make up to Miss Lucy, while I wuz there fer +the way they wuz a doin' her, and Miss Nancy ketched on to hit. Then +ever' time me and Miss Lucy'd be a talkin' pleasant, she'd make signs to +the old man, like 'jest look at Lucy tryin' to court, won't you, Pa!' + +"One evenin' jest about dusk I went out in the hall, a startin' up +stairs to git my milkin' coat, and I accidentally met Miss Lucy in the +hall. Miss Nancy wuz on the porch, and she snarled out to the old man, +so loud I heerd her: 'How does that look, her in the hall with him, and +hit _dark_?' + +"When I come down stairs ag'in I says, 'Miss Nancy, you needn't 'a' been +skeered about Miss Lucy,--you don't thenk I'd eat her ef I happened to +ketch her by herse'f, do you?'" + +"Now, Mr. Lindsay," put in Mr. Doggett, "maybe 'tain't so much meanness +in the old man as you thenk. He hain't the worst man in the world when +all's said: I thenk he's got some mighty clever streaks." + +"I fail to see 'em," said Mrs. Doggett. + +"Well, yes, old lady, but' he's suffered a heap, and maybe his mind +hain't exactly all thar!" + +"Naw you needn't tell me that old creeter's anytheng but mean!" Mrs. +Doggett's voice was a snort of apparent jeering disbelief. "Old age and +disease hain't got nothin' to do with hit. That old man's inbred mean!" + +"I wonder what's the matter with Miss Nancy?" Dock ventured, raising his +tousled head off the bed. + +"I jest tell you, Mr. Lindsay," Mr. Doggett observed in a whisper to Mr. +Lindsay, "hit's jest as plain as the nose on a man's face, when all's +considered: Miss Nancy wuz a hankerin' to be Mrs. Lindsay--she wanted +you herse'f!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + +"NIGHT RIDERS" + + "A jest and by-word are they grown." + + +"O Ma! Come here, Ma, quick!" + +It was Monday morning, and this peremptory summons for Mrs. Doggett came +from the direction of the tobacco barn, in Joey's voice, hoarse and +unnatural. Mrs. Doggett's hands were in the bread-tray, but she tore the +dough from her fingers, and heedless of the milk pitcher that crashed to +the floor under the impetus of her rush, ran at top speed in the +direction of the call. + +"Lord, I jest know some of 'em's killed plumb dead!" she ejaculated as +she ran. "I didn't have bad dreams last night fer nothin'! I been a +lookin' fer them tier-poles to fall on some of 'em at feedin' time! I +told 'em a terbaccer barn wasn't no fitten place to stable hosses! They +ort to 'a' kept 'em a while longer in that old piece o' barn out here, +ef hit did leak!" + +Mrs. Doggett was suffering from a corn, which necessitated the use of a +carpet slipper. When she reached the middle of the plowed field, her +slipper came off, throwing her violently. She rose groaning, and with +her mouth full of dirt, but continued her run with unaccelerated speed. + +"What is the matter, Joey? Who's killed?" + +Mrs. Doggett's throat was dry with apprehension and fear when she +reached the barn, but she managed to gasp out the question. + +"Hain't nobody hurt, Ann." Mr. Doggett, pale and dazed, sitting flat on +the dirt floor inside the barn, his back to one of its pillars, answered +her in a voice that was weak and faint. "I bagged Joey not to holler and +skeer you, but he would do hit!" + +"Thar's what's the matter, Ma!" Joey, ashy white under his tan, pointed +to the wagon. On the side board was tacked a great sheet of white +wrapping paper covered with writing in big red letters. Against one of +the rear wheels leaned an enormous bundle of ten-foot switches, newly +cut from osage orange trees,--the wicked thorns left on, and the whole +bound with a piece of white cotton rope, ravelled at its end, and +saturated with blood. + +From the switches dangled a big bunch of matches, and a necklace made of +a twine string and two dozen loaded cartridges of thirty-eight caliber. +Mrs. Doggett looked at these menacing articles in amazement. + +"Whar'd that blood come from?" she gaped, "and who put them thengs +thar?" + +"Don't ast me ner Joey who put 'em thar," Mr. Doggett answered her, "all +we know is they're _thar_! When I fust come in, I ketched sight o' them +hedge switches, and them matches and ca'tridges layin' ag'in the waggin. +I says, 'Joey, come here!' Joey, he tuck up the paper and I seed a +change come over him. He turned pale and says, 'Pap, they're a gona git +you!'" + +"Hit's got 'Night Riders' signed to hit," Joey informed his mother, +pointing to the big printed words that adorned the lower part of the +paper. "And hit means they're a gona whoop Pap in a inch o' his life fer +a startin' to raise a terbaccer crop this year,--and ef a whoopin' don't +stop him, they're a gona tear up his waggin' and plows, and then burn up +the house! And ef he hain't burnt up, they're a gona shoot him!" + +"Man alive! You know that hain't so, Joey!" Mrs. Doggett's face would +have served for a model of unbelieving horror. + +"Jes' read the paper and see what hit says!" Joey spoke in the tone of +the convinced. + +Mrs. Doggett took a reluctant hold of the paper of warning. "You read +hit, Joey. I hain't got my specs." + +Joey obeyed. + + "Ephriam Doggett," the paper read, "you are hearbye notifide + not to plant, grow or cut a crop of tobaco this year, 1908. If + you do not obey this notification, you will be ferst, + whipt,--then if this does not convinse you, your tools and + farming impliments will be destroide: then your dwelling will + be burnt even with the grounde, and last, you will be riddeled + with bullits. In proof of your willingness to abide by these + orders, you will have your plant beds destroid by yourse'f or + somebody under your directions before our next vissit, which + will be soone. + + "NIGHT RIDERS." + +"Holy Powers!" quavered Mrs. Doggett. "Eph, I told you, you wuz a takin' +too much resk a puttin' out them plant beds! I felt like you wouldn't be +'lowed to raise no terbaccer!" + +"Why, Ann," Mr. Doggett remonstrated, "I didn't 'low thar'd be no night +ridin' across the River, away over here in the aidge o' the Burley, you +might call hit! Anyway, wouldn't hit be better fer a feller to have his +beds sowed and ready, ef he did git to raise a crop, than not to have no +plants ready?" + +"I guess you won't throw off no more now on the Texas kin fer writin' +all skeered up fer fear somepin'd be done to you!" Mrs. Doggett, when +fiercely moved, always maligned Mr. Doggett. + +"Eph, you wuz the very gentleman that said Uncle Josh had been a readin' +the papers, and a swallerin' all that wuz in 'em, like a duck a +swallerin' down dough!" + +"Well, a body wouldn't 'a' never thought hit!" Mr. Doggett rose weakly, +as unsteady on his feet, as a day old calf, and rubbed his forehead. +"We'd jest as well as go on and feed the hosses, Joey. Big Money's been +a nickerin' fer his breakfast fer an hour, and I'll need him to go to +town and see what Mr. Castle says. Mr. Castle told me a while back I +needn't to plant no terbaccer: he wuz afeerd I wouldn't git to raise +hit, and I ort to 'a' listened." + +At this moment there were four bursts of laughter from the roof of the +barn. The three on the floor looked up to see Jappy and Marshall, who +had not come home the evening before,--Dock, who was supposed to be yet +in bed, and Bunch Trisler, sitting in acrobatic fashion across the tier +poles, in a high state of glee. + +"Pap, who's a gona git you?" called out Dock, giving vent to a howl that +endangered the safety of his position. + +"'Some people swaller down ever' theng they see on a paper, like a duck +does dough,'" quoted Marshall, facetiously, as the four clambered down +from their perch. "We 'lowed they would when we fixed up that notus." + +Mr. Doggett and Joey grinned feebly as the perpetrators of the joke, +still laughing, swung themselves to the ground. But Mrs. Doggett was +full of reproach. + +"Whar'd that blood come from, I'd like to know?" she asked angrily. + +"That's my old Dominecker hin's blood, Ma," Dock informed her. "Me and +Bunch jeet killed her about a hour ago." + +Mrs. Doggett turned on Bunch. "You're a nice un, Bunch Trisler," she +inveighed. "You, a married man, with chillern, a puttin' up them boys to +play off sech a caper on their parents! Here I am, wore to a plumb +frazzle, a pullin' through that plowed ground, a runnin', thenkin' Eph, +er one the boys, wuz shore killed! You outdacious scamp, somepin will be +sent on you fer that!" + +"Don't be too hard on the boys, Ann," interposed Mr. Doggett, who had +partially regained his spirits: "they didn't mean no great harm,--jest +wanted to have a leetle fun, you might say." + +"Fun!" mimicked Mrs. Doggett. "I don't see no fun in no sich jokes, Eph +Doggett, ner nobody else would, with a quarter of a pint o' brains! A +little taste o' jail boardin'd improve the quality o' the little +spoonful you've got in your head, Bunch Trisler! Your recollection +shorely hain't good, er you'd remember about Jake Wilson a bein' give +nine months in jail fer playin' a night rider joke, er two, in _this_ +County!" + +"But, Ma," argued Dock, "this hain't like sendin' letters through the +Nuniter State's mail! And Jake wouldn't a never been done nothin' to, ef +he hadn't 'a' writ that letter fer that feller that 'tended like he +couldn't write,--that thar Gover'ment 'Tecter that wuz out a runnin' +down the feller that sent them night rider letters to the big men. This +hain't no sendin' through the mail!" + +"Hit's the same principle anyhow!" Mrs. Doggett contended, as she +started off, her progress somewhat impeded by the lack of one shoe, "and +hit ort to be paid with some them bread and water rations I've heerd +they have at the jail-houses! Joey and Eph can come to the house +d'reckly, when I ring the bell fer breakfas', but as fer the rest of +you, you c'n fill up on matches and ca'tridges and hedge tree bark fer +all I keer! Thar'll be nothin' on _my_ table for you!" + +"The old lady is some mad," apologized Mr. Doggett, "though a body +couldn't scurcely blame her, considerin'. I wuz myse'f ondoubtedly +skeered: hit sorter wilted me down. But, sence hit wuzn't nothin', I +don't see no use in takin' hit to heart. Hit makes a feller feel +powerful good to thenk thar hain't no night riders over here, though. A +body has a heap to be thankful fer, now, don't they?" + +"I declar!" said Mr. Doggett, that afternoon, "I thenk I'll go a +feeshin' this evenin': I believe I'll jest step down to the creek thar, +and try to pull me out a sucker! I've been feelin' so unnarved sence +this mornin' I hain't done no good at plowin'. Bein' pestered p'intedly +will cut a feller down!" + +"Yes, hit will," agreed Mrs. Doggett, "but I've got to hunt my old gray +turkey hin, I can't holp how bad I feel. She's plumb gone off, the pesky +theng! She's got hit in her mind not to lemme know whar she lays. You +jest keep one eye on the house while I'm gone, will you?" + +Miss Nancy James' largest yellow turkey hen, suffering from the same +mental aberration as the gray hen of Mrs. Doggett, held to her +determination to withhold a knowledge of the vicinity of her nest from +her mistress, with a tenacity worthy of a better cause: thus it happened +that Mrs. Doggett and Miss Nancy, in their search for their feathered +properties, met in the Castle pasture field, back of the Doggett house. + +"Actually and candidly, thar's more torment than profit in turkey +raisin', hain't thar?" Mrs. Doggett mopped her warm face with her +checked apron, and sank down beside Miss Nancy on the log which lay in +convenient nearness to the spot of their meeting. "I believe I'll jest +quit the turkeys and raise mostly chickens. Miss Nancy, do you reckon +you could swap me some settin's o' hin aigs,--some your black 'Nockers? +My aigs is good as any to sell, but Eph says I've kept my chickens so +long without no change of blood, they've got to be jest pincushions +trimmed in feathers, with darnin' needles stuck in 'em fer legs,--no +chickens at all!" + +Miss Nancy, who was wearing an unusual expression of satisfaction, +fanned herself with her faded sun-bonnet, and remarked that she would +have plenty of eggs by the end of the week. Mrs. Doggett made a +surreptitious four seconds study of Miss Nancy's contented countenance. + +"Mr. Lindsay," she remarked at the expiration of her scrutiny, "he's +tuck his thengs away from your house." + +"Yes, he has," said Miss Nancy in a noncommittal tone as she turned her +head away from Mrs. Doggett and jabbed with the dead iron-weed stalk she +had in her hand at an unoffending chickweed by her ragged shoe. + +"He talked like he'd been treated outdacious mean by you all!" + +Miss Nancy's face was still averted, but her ears turned crimson. + +"I dunno what we've done to him!" she exclaimed. + +"Well, he's a talkin' awful about you and your Pa anyway. He tuck you +and him both up last night, and throwed off on you scandalous. I said to +myse'f when he wuz a rantin', 'pore Miss Nancy, he hates her, the Lord +goodness!' He jest called you ever'theng his tongue could lay to. Says +you are a reg'lar rip-tearer, and fer all your pa jest sets and studies +up meanness, he can't turn a wheel to you, when you git on one them +highs o' your'n. He said ef your Ma'd 'a' saw fit to send you to the +ejut-house when you wuz a child, and 'a' never 'a' brung you away 'tel +you wuz a corpse, the world would 'a' had a little somethin' to be +thankful fer in his opinion. + +"I spoke up and says: 'Mr. Lindsay, you know you don't mean them thengs! +And he went on and said: 'Miss Lucy is as harmless as a rabbit, and +she's got the disposition of a forgivin' angel, but that old Nancy is as +bitter as quineirn and as ill as a copperhead! She's the devil's +half-sister, ef not more nigh kin.' + +"And he said you jest staid thar all the time, a reg'lar cock o' the +walk, and quarreled at Miss Lucy, and she had to mind you er you'd take +the place! And he said Miss Lucy'd fattened ever' little nigger in town, +tryin' to git a boy to stay to do your all's turns, and the reason none +wouldn't stay, you made the time so hot fer 'em, they couldn't stand +hit! + +"And when I wuz a wonderin' how many more mean thengs he wuz goin' to +say, he lit in on your _looks_." + +Here there was a complete annihilation of the unoffending chickweed. + +"He 'lowed," manufactured Mrs. Doggett, "that you wuz as ugly as the +devil before day, and as old-lookin' as I dunno what: said fer all you +wore big leather gloves night and day, your hands wuz as yaller as old +bacon rind, and your mouth looked like a hollyhock, and your eyes like +they wuz bound 'round with red thread! + +"I says, 'Mr. Lindsay, I'd hush!' But he went on: 'She's the tightest +human too, I ever knowed,--one o' them that'd skin a flea fer hit's hide +and taller, and then dry the meat fer the dogs!' Said he happened in at +your Pa's once when he wuz a workin' at Mr. Willises, and you had that +little fool nigger Lish down on the kitchen floor, a lickin' up a little +gob o' molasses he'd spilt, to save it!" + +"I never thought of sech a theng!" Miss Nancy burst out. + +"Well, that's _his_ tale," pacified Mrs. Doggett: "I know'd hit hadn't +no acquaintance with the truth, but I'm jest a tellin' you. He said Miss +Lucy'd put out nice bought Gran'pa tair soap fer him to wash his hands +with, and you'd hide hit away, and put out a spoonful er two o' lye soap +on a saucer." + +Miss Nancy's face was furiously flushed, and her eyes gleamed steely. + +"Did he tell any more lies on me?" she demanded, when Mrs. Doggett +paused for breath. + +"He said you bought a gobbler last year," went on her informer, in glib +prevarication, "from Miss Maude Floss, on condition ef anytheng happened +to her t'other one, you'd sell hit back to her, and hern died, and when +you let her have hit back, you charged her three cents a week fer all +the time you'd had hit, fer _turkey pasture_. + +"And he said after all he'd done fer you all, last winter, when he come +back on a friendly visit, he wuz ordered off the place. Then he lit out +on your Pa, and I never heerd the like in my life. + +"'Old Milton Jeemes,' he says, 'sets up to the world to be mighty +religious, but he hain't got no Christianity, jest hypocrites before +company. He's about as contrary and overbearin' as people gits to be in +this world, a hard old party, a kind of a dog-man.' + +"'He's a bloomin' fer hell,' he says, 'and hell's a gittin' ready fer +him right _now_!' + +"I says, 'Mr. Lindsay, somethin'll be sent on you fer that, and don't +you fergit hit!' And I thought to myse'f ef I hated anybody like that, +I'd have more respect'n to be a tryin' to talk to their daughter!" + +"Now wouldn't you?" fleered Miss Nancy: "wouldn't you?" + +"And talkin' about the brazen impudence o' men, he said: 'Ef I wuz to +take a notion to Miss Lucy, they wouldn't be nothin' in my way thar--the +old man couldn't keep her from havin' me--but I hain't tuck the notion +yit. As fer old Nance--'" Mrs. Doggett had reached the climax of her +narration, "'she'd jump at the chance o' me! Jest see how she does that +old bachelor cousin of Archy Evans that lives there. He comes to see old +man Jeemes sometimes, and you ort to see her fly about in her Sunday +dress, a sayin', "Now Mr. Whitley," jest as fine as a bird twitterin'. +She thenks he's got money.'" + +Miss Nancy could endure no more. + +"I've got to go!" she announced in a freezing voice, as she stalked off, +leaving all farewells unsaid. + +Mrs. Doggett looked after her with a pleased expression. + +"Ef ever Miss Lucy Jeemes gits sight o' Mr. Lindsay ag'in," she said +happily to herself, "hit'll be when Miss Nancy is a corpse, not before!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +"MORE NIGHT RIDERS" + + "Painful the task is I do, which to you I know must be + grievous." + + +One afternoon in the last week of March, Mr. Doggett came into his yard +with six mysterious envelopes in his hand. Mrs. Doggett pounced +curiously upon them. + +"Diamont dyes! What you gona color with all them, Eph? You must be a +thenkin' o' startin' up one them dyin' fact'rys!" + +Mr. Doggett grinned. "Them's Mr. Castle's pertection ag'in night riders, +Ann! He had the laugh on me when the boys skeered me, week afore last, +and now I got the laugh on him a leetle. He says, 'Doggett, hit looks so +bad, them beeg white beds a layin' right thar alongside the road. Ef +they wuz colored now, they wouldn't show nigh so plain!' + +"He 'lowed too, he didn't no ways expect no night riders in this County, +on account o' this not bein' a regular terbaccer County, and the Equity +not havin' tuck much holt here, but he'd feel safeter, ef them canvases +wuz dyed! Yes, sir, old lady, he's skeered some. Hit tickled me to hear +him talk, and I brung the dye along to please him, although I hain't no +notion thar's any need o' usin' hit. + +"Thar hain't no doubt about hit, though, a good many them Independent +raisers that's refused to sign the agreement not to raise no terbaccer +this year, _is_ a havin' their plant beds tore up and some their barns +burnt. Thar's a heap in the papers about hit, hain't thar, Mr. Lindsay?" +Mr. Doggett appealed to Mr. Lindsay who had just come in. + +Mr. Lindsay nodded. "I jest got a letter from my cousin over in +Woodford, tellin' about the night ridin' there. She says the people +there thenks the terbaccer trust is hirin' a good many tough fellers to +burn barns,--and a layin' hit on the Equity, a tryin' to destroy the +Equity's credit. He says the people think the trust men actually +destroyed some of their own ware-houses, jest to discredit the Equity." + +"Yes, sir," Mr. Doggett agreed, "and a heap o' the mischeef is a bein' +done by mean fellers that sees a chance to git in some spite work on +other fellers they are enemies to, without bein' cotched up with, like +hit wuz in time o' the war, when a heap o' devilment they never thought +o' doin', wuz laid on the soldiers! Hain't that so, Mr. Lindsay? You +remember them times, don't you?" + +Mr. Lindsay signified that he did. + +"Mr. Brock says that he don't believe they're a goin' to tech this +County," broke in Mrs. Doggett: "he says ef they do though, they'll have +to whoop him about three times a day before he'll quit! And, speakin' o' +angels,"--a look of intense pleasure enveloped Mrs. Doggett: "thar comes +Mr. Brock, now. And what's he fetchin'? Hit's a newspaper, hain't hit, +Eph?" + +Mr. Brock proved the bearer of bad news. A paragraph in a New York paper +he had gotten at the Castle house, stated that in Bracken County, +Kentucky, a tobacco planter had killed two negroes, and shot off both +arms of a white man who he had caught scraping his plant beds. The name +of the white man was given as Hancock Slemp, and the paper further +stated that he was in a precarious condition. Hancock Slemp was no other +than Mr. Doggett's brother-in-law, his sister's husband. + +Mrs. Doggett was much affected by the news, but Mr. Doggett suggested +that it might not be true. + +"Sence the boys fooled me, I jest don't know what to believe _is_ so!" +he exclaimed. "Do you reckon hit's so, Mr. Brock?" + +Mr. Brock did not know, but gave it as his opinion that it was true. + +"I wished I knowed," cried Mr. Doggett, sorely puzzled as to the proper +course of action. "Maybe I'd jest better go on over thar, anyway! Poor +Louizy, ef hit's _so_, she's pestered might' night' to death! Jest knock +me up a plateful o' victuals, Ann, and I'll throw on a clean shirt, and +jerk on my Sunday clothes, and Joey, he can take me to the train. I'll +jest stay a day er two, and the boys kin keep an eye on the plowin' and +thengs ontel I git back." + +Mrs. Doggett had made a fire in her stove, and cut a strip of bacon, +before she thought to ask, "How do people travel 'thout money, Eph?" + +Mr. Doggett's jaw fell. "I plumb fergot I never had nothin' left from +the terbaccer! And now, what am I to do? I sorter hate to ask Mr. Castle +to advance me any now, this early, on another crop that I might not git +to raise." + +Mr. Brock looked out of the window in a sudden strong interest in a bird +in a willow on the creek's bank, so that Mr. Doggett's look of appeal +was lost to him. Mr. Lindsay unfolded a worn leather pocket-book. + +"How much will your 'round trip ticket come to, Uncle Eph? I guess I can +fix you up." + +Within twenty minutes from the time of the reception of Mr. Brock's ill +tidings, Big Money was making quick application of his hoofs to the +turnpike leading to the railroad station from which Mr. Doggett was to +take the train. + +Rain set in on the morning after Mr. Doggett's departure on his visit of +consolation, and for a week, fell heavily at intervals, precluding all +possibility of plowing. In the afternoon sunshine of the eighth day, Mr. +Doggett returned, and walked home from the station, his face rivalling +the sun in its good cheer. + +Crossing a rye field, he came suddenly upon Mr. Lindsay, tacking slats +upon a strip of wire fencing,--an accommodation job, he had taken for +the man for whom he had been stripping tobacco. + +"I thought you had gone off for good, Uncle Eph," he greeted Mr. +Doggett, as warm, and blowing with exercise, his shoes and the bottoms +of his Sunday pantaloons muddy from road splashes, Mr. Doggett seated +himself on a weather-beaten "drag," lying alongside the fence. + +"How's your sister's man got?" + +"He wuz as well as common when I left. He brung me to the train," +answered Mr. Doggett. + +"You don't say!" Mr. Lindsay dropped his hammer. "I 'lowed he'd be dead +of blood poison by now, maybe, with his arms shot off that a way." + +Mr. Doggett grinned blithely. "He's all thar, Mr. Lindsay! Hain't nary +bit o' him missin', so fur as I could see, from his scelp lock, clean +down to his frost-bit toe-nail. Yes, sir, he's all thar. You see, he +wuzn't never shot at, let alone bein' hit. Hit wuz all a made-up tale! + +"Hancock says that the Equity men thar says that Terbaccer Company that +buys all our terbaccer, jest hires some sassy, no-count fellers that +hain't easy onless they're a lyin', to write made-up news. Yes, sir, +them's the fellers that's a puttin' in more'n three thirds o' the +killin's and barn-burnin's. + +"Hancock, he says thar is a right smart mischief a goin' on +though,--says folks' barns _has_ been burnt, yes, sir, and a good many +whooped too: but some o' this is bein' done, jest like I wuz a tellin' +you t'other day, by enemies--mean fellers that jest takes advantage o' +the times to git in their private spite and meanness and lay hit on the +night riders, yes, sir. + +"The beeg men in the Equity don't believe in night ridin', but jest in +_reasonin'_: but Hancock says him and them fellers that's done the +sweatin' in the terbaccer raisin' and is a holdin' out ag'in the trust, +they know a righteous purpose, and they hain't a goin' to 'low +theirselves to be beat by some few fool terbaccer raisers that don't +know enough to keep from aidin' and abettin' what's a holdin' 'em down. + +"Hancock says him and them fellers thar thenks like him, jest aims to +sp'ile the seed beds, and do a little skeerin', so the other fellers +that is so shortsighted, er stubborn, er selfish, they can't see the +benefit o' cuttin' out a crop, won't git to raise none." + +"I reckon Hancock and the rest of 'em ain't a livin' very high these +days," observed Mr. Lindsay. + +"No, sir, they hain't," Mr. Doggett agreed. "Hancock and most the +raisers in that County is jest got a little piece o' their own ground +(farms hain't beeg thar like they are in this County) but they hain't +got much else. Hancock never had no glass in his winders,--jest had a +slidin' board, and he never had no great thengs to eat while I wuz thar. +He says him and the rest of the County has been beat down to cornbread +and greens, but they are willin' to live on that, ef hit'll holp any, +ontel the trust's holt on 'em is broke. Yes, sir. + +"They're a goin' to have a parade some time this spreng, at Augusty, to +show they're a holdin' out, and Hancock, he says they're a goin' to +carry flags with 'Very little money, but plenty of cornbread and +greens!' writ on 'em. + +"Cornely, Hancock's girl, says she's a goin' to be in that parade ef she +has to go barefooted. She's been a wearin' a pair o' Hancock's old shoes +all winter, but they're about et into the uppers now! Hit's my belief, +they're plumb right, Mr. Lindsay, a tryin' to keep the crop down this +year. + +"And they've convinced a heap o' others, too, one way and another, yes, +sir. One man thar,--he's a goin' to be the biggest feller in the +parade,--they reasoned with him both before and after they whooped him. +He's convinced, yes, sir, and don't hold no gredge, neither. He says: +'Boys, you whooped me into this theng, but I like hit so well, you'll +have to whoop me out o' hit!'" + +"The night rider fellers didn't give you nary skeer, did they?" Mr. +Lindsay took a wire staple from between his teeth to ask. + +Mr. Doggett looked sheepishly down at the ground for a few minutes +before he answered. + +"The old lady--ef I wuz to tell you somethin', Mr. Lindsay," he +hazarded, "would you promise ferever to keep hit from the old lady?" + +After Mr. Lindsay's remark that he thought he could safely promise that, +Mr. Doggett took the precautionary measure of drawing his improvised +chair a little nearer. + +"Hit wuz away after ten when I got to the depot thar that evenin' I +went," he began, "and Hancock he lives five miles out, yes, sir. Hit wuz +so dark I wouldn't 'a' knew my own grandmother ef I'd 'a' met her, but I +got perticular diractions and 'lowed I could make out to find the way a +walkin'. + +"I'd got about two miles and a half out, nigh about, before I seed +anybody on the road: then I heerd a trompin' and made out a gang o' +about forty fellers a ridin'. They wuzn't carryin' no beeg lights,--jest +one er two lanterns wuz all--and ever' feller had a piece o' black cloth +acrost the top o' his face. + +"'Hello thar, Bud!' the foremost one hollered out to me when I sorter +aidged to one side the road,--'are you a goin' to raise a terbaccer crop +this year?' + +"I noticed some of 'em wuz a carryin' hoes and shovels, and one o' two +sacks o' somethin, besides some guns, but I wuz tuck so suddent I never +once thought what they wuz up to. + +"'Yes, sir' I says, 'I'm a aimin' to put in a right smart o' a crop.' + +"And, ef you'll believe hit, Mr. Lindsay, them words hadn't hardly left +my mouth before two o' them biggest fellers jumped off their hosses, and +grabbed me and tied my hands behind my back! + +"'I hain't got no money, boys!' I says, thenkin' maybe they wuz a Jesse +Jeemes gang. + +"'We don't keer nothin' about your money,' the leader in front, says, +'you'll jest come along with us, Bud, and we'll tend to you, after we +git through our work.' + +"They h'isted me on behind a little feller ridin' a big hoss, and I went +along with 'em. I didn't see nothin' else I could do, Mr. Lindsay. + +"They kep' the beeg road, I'd jedge fer about two miles acrost the +country, then all of 'em stopped by a awful beeg terbaccer bed, a layin' +sorter on a hill like. + +"'Less jest seed this one,' says one of the fellers carryin' a +sack.--'Jack Rout'd plant a dozen more beds, ef he knowed this one wuz +sp'ilt, and we'd as well save him that trouble.' + +"And, ef you'll believe hit, Mr. Lindsay, they skinned that canvas offen +that thar bed, sowed hit thick with grass seed, and put the canvas back +like hit wuz, before a body could ketch on to what they wuz a doin'! + +"Then they rid on purty fast 'tel they'd got clean out'n the +neighborhood. When they come to another beeg fine bed, the sassy little +feller I wuz a ridin' behind, he says: 'Less let Bud do some diggin' +here at this bed. He's a gittin' restless, havin' nothin' to do!' + +"The others all laughed, but they ondone my hands and give me a hoe and +a shevel, and told me what to do. The plants wuz all a comin' up so +nice,--I felt 'em when I run my hand over 'em--I jest plumb hated to +tech 'em, but thar wuzn't nothin' else fer me to do, Mr. Lindsay, but +jest do like they told me. + +"I dug a long hole, jest the length of a man, three feet deep, nigh +about, right in the middle o' the bed, and scraped off all the plants +that was left outside hit! + +"I wuz in a plumb muck o' sweat when I got through, hit bein' a warm +night, and me awful tired to begin with. They put up a head and +foot-stone, and writ somepin' on 'em about this hole a bein' the only +fitten place fer a man that wuz a goin' ag'in his neighbors fer the +trust. + +"The naixt bed we come to, them fellers _salted_. Yes, sir! The man +carryin' the salt sack says: 'Clover seed and hemp seed is too high fer +me to waste,--I jest brought the salt whar I had salted my hog meat +down!' + +"After we had rid over about feefteen miles o' ground, the ring-leader, +he says: 'We've been fur enough tonight, hain't we, boys? Less 'tend to +the pris'ner and go home.' + +"I'd been turrible warm up to this time, but when he said that, Mr. +Lindsay, I got as cold as a frog. + +"'Did we onderstand you to say you were a goin' to raise a crop o' +terbaccer this year?' he says. + +"'Yes, sir,' I says, and I own I wuz a shakin' so, Mr. Lindsay, my voice +wuzn't natural, 'I wuz a expectin' to!' + +"'He wuz expectin' to!' a man back in the crowd that hadn't done no +talkin', put in. 'Tie him up to that thar ellum thar, boys, and give him +about forty-nine!' + +"They drug me, a pullin' back like a hoss, and diggin' my feet in the +dirt worse'n a cat, to the tree, and while they wuz a tyin' me up, one +of 'em cut some long ellum switches. I seed I wuz in fer hit, and I +says: 'Boys, in my County, thar hain't nobody never had no orders not to +raise terbaccer.' + +"'Whar is your County?' the feller that advised whoopin' me, says. + +"'Hain't that you, Bud Baker, and don't you live in this County?' + +"I told 'em who I wuz, and whar I'd come from. Told 'em I wuz on my way +to see my brother-in-law, Hancock Slemp, that had accidentally got bad +hurt a night ridin'. Then they all laughed, and Hancock,--he wuz the +very one that wanted me whooped--he said he could 'a' keeked hisse'f fer +not a knowin' me. Said hit bein' so dark and him near sighted wuz the +main reason he didn't. Then they all 'lowed thar wuzn't another feller +so nigh like Bud Baker, in gineral build, in the State. + +"I tell you, they ontied me quick, and after we had rid back to +Hancock's house, I went to bed, and never waked up ontil ten naixt +mornin'! + +"Louizy, she wuz plumb proud I thought enough o' her to come to see her +in her trouble, she said, but considerin' thar wuzn't no trouble on +hand, she wuz glad to see me anyhow." + +"I reckon," mused Mr. Lindsay with a laugh, "hit couldn't be held ag'in +you, the part you took in night ridin' while you was there, considerin' +it wasn't of your own free will. Did Hancock do any more night ridin' +while you was there?" + + +"He wuz out some few nights," Mr. Doggett acknowledged. "The naixt night +after I got thar, his crowd went out, a layin' bundles o' switches ag'in +the doors o' some o' them hit had tore up the beds of, ez a sort o' +reminder o' what'd be did to 'em ef they put out any more beds. Yes, +sir. + +"They called out one beeg fat man,--might' night' ez beeg around ez one +them Archie Evans sycamores. An awful mean feller they said he wuz, and +well off too. They wanted to tell him to his face what they'd do ef he +didn't promise not to raise terbaccer. + +"A sort o' coward they said he wuz, Mr. Lindsay. He had the Gov'ner to +send him a lot o' them soldier boys to gyuard his premises. The night +Hancock and them went after him, his beeg gyuardin' army wuz a layin' +asleep in the terbaccer barn a mile from his house. One o' Hancock's men +scouted around and seed the soldiers wuz asleep, and come and told the +crowd. + +"The night ridin' fellers, they wuz all a carryin' guns er rifles, but +ever' feller wuz proud the gyuards wuz asleep. You see, nobody wanted to +hurt the boys. Little town fellers, most of 'em wuz--proud to git to +ride hoss back, and out fer a good time a coon huntin', smokin' +ceegerettes and gittin' drunk. Some o' 'em hadn't never been on a hoss +before they tuck to bein' gyuards! + +"The fat feller come to the door, his beeg jaws a swellin' up red, like +a turkey gobbler lookin' over a white sack o' meal. (He wuz in sich +haste he hadn't drawed on no day clothes.) + +"'Of course,' he says, 'I'm goin' to raise a tobacco crop this year. +Didn't I git sixteen cents fer all mine last year?' + +"'Yes, old elephant,' says Hancock, 'you did, and ever'body else around +you, with terbaccer jest as good and some of hit better'n yourn, got +_six_. What did the Trust's buyer promise you this year, ef you'd stand +ag'in the Equity, and keek hit all you could as you've been a +doin',--_eighteen_ cents, er _twenty_?' + +"'Exercise more jedgement in disposin' of your crop, ef you want to git +_my_ prices,' the fat man let out, mighty impudent, 'I'm a man of +jedgement!' + +"'We're men o' jedgement too,' Hancock says, 'but hit don't let us +honestly git livin' prices fer our terbaccer.' + +"'Ef you've got grievances ag'in the buyers, why don't you take 'em to +the Courts?' + +"'The Courts!' Hancock says,--'how long would hit be afore we'd git a +Court decision? Of course the Courts might decide in time to do our +great grandchildren jestice, but thar hain't no Methusalah strain in +none our blood jest at present. We'd have to _eat_ while we wuz a +waitin' fer the cases to be settled in Court! + +"'I reckon you want us to _keep on_ eatin' corn bread and greens ever' +day, and let you keep that hide of yours plumped out with pound cake, +turkey and ice cream, do you?' + +"'You can eat timothy fer all I keer!' he says, 'twon't cut no figger in +my terbaccer raisin'!' + +"'Naw, but _these_ will!' Hancock says, throwin' his bundle o' apple +tree switches on the ground,--he'd had 'em hid--'_these_ will! Ketch +him, boys!' + +"Hit tuck six o' the boys to pull him offen the verandy and git him +roped, he clawed and fit so. They never give him but feefteen licks! No, +sir. He give in uncommon quick,--his meat bein' some softer than his +temper. I'd jedge though, hit wuz the sight o' that thar bundle o' hedge +tree switches one the boys fetched and laid down in front o' him that +brung him to reason so soon. + +"He 'lowed when he ketched sight o' them, he wouldn't raise nary stalk +o' terbaccer, and he wouldn't keek the Equity nary 'nother keek, no sir! +And he meant hit too. Yes, sir, he wuz ez humble ez a toad when they +ontied him and give him a match and a ca'tridge and told him these wuz +souvernears o' the occasion. + +"I wuz so tickled when we rid off, I come nigh a fallin' off the hoss I +wuz a ridin'!" + +"Uncle Eph," said Mr. Lindsay, here, "you don't mean to tell me you was +out a night ridin' too, of your _own choice_?" + +Mr. Doggett colored as he realized his tongue slip had betrayed his +departure from the beaten path of virtue. + +"Don't never let the old lady and the boys, ner anybody else about here, +hear o' hit, Mr. Lindsay," he besought. "Hancock put at me so to go and +see a little o' the fun," he admitted reluctantly, "I went with him and +the boys a time er two!" + +"I guess you'll give up puttin' in a crop, now," Mr. Lindsay remarked, +picking up his tools to go. Mr. Doggett rose. + +"Well, no, sir. Ef I didn't raise, Mr. Castle'd git somebody else, so +what'd be the difference? Ef I wuz not to put in a crop the boys'd have +to light out and work in the mines maybe, or on the railroad, which is +mighty nigh shore death, yes, sir! Any word you want to send the +Jeemses, Mr. Lindsay?" + +Mr. Lindsay stiffened slightly, and there was a world of meaning in his +one word of answer, "No!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE MAD COW + + "No true love there can be, + Without its dread penalty, jealousy!" + + +A grateful odor from the white blooming wild cherry by the fence of the +James potato-lot, was wafted to Miss Lucy, as, with her milk-buckets she +came out into the dew-wet yard at five o'clock one morning well on +toward the end of May. But she was not cognizant of its sweetness. Her +face was pale, restless--harassed, as she paused a moment with her eyes +on the sloping plowed fields across the road. The tobacco barn of Castle +with its metal roof shimmered like silver in the bright sun: the fields +showed flecks of green on their raw brown,--the newly set tobacco. + +"I reckon he's a settin' tobacco, too, 'way down that away," she mused +sorrowfully, turning her face toward the north: "and maybe he'll +overwork and make hisse'f sick. I wisht I could hear from him some way. +I ain't heard sence Pa--sence Pa ordered him never to come about us any +more! Seems like he might write, but he's afraid of gittin' me in +trouble, I guess, ef he sent me a letter through the mail. Pa and +Nancy'd--" + +The spider curled on the web that hung from the top rail of the gate to +the post, felt a heavy drop on his back, and pirouetted away in fright. +But a long mournful bellow from beyond the barn prevented the fall of +any more drops on his web. + +"Poor old Belle! She must be a gittin' worse," thought Miss Lucy, +hurrying to the barn-lot, in which, the night before, she had left the +roan cow that for more than a week had drooped and languished. To her +surprise, the cow was pacing back and forth, restless as something +caged, while the other cattle in the adjoining grass field, clustered +not far from the boundary fence, regarding their sick mate in a +peculiar, half-fearful fashion. Miss Lucy set down her buckets, and flew +to the house. + +"O Pa!" she cried: "I wisht you'd come down to the barn a minute. Old +Belle's worse, I believe, and she's actin' so strange I am afraid to +milk the other cows in the lot with her!" + +"Aw, she won't hurt ye, Lucy," grumbled the old man, rising reluctantly. +"Have the mar's come up to be fed yit?" + +When Mr. James had seen the sick beast, he was much vexed. + +"The best cow on the place, exceptin' the one you claim, Lucy Ann, and +me not able to work with her! Now as soon as you git the milkin' done, +and eat, you go git old man Doggett. Maybe _he_ can do somethin' fer +her." + +Not for many weeks had Miss Lucy been allowed at the Doggetts. Mr. +Lindsay kept his trunk there, and came back occasionally. This Miss +Nancy knew, and though she was quite happy in the thought that Mr. +Lindsay, in his anger toward her father, had given up Miss Lucy, she +reasoned that if Miss Lucy were allowed to go to the Doggetts, it were +possible she might sometime see him there, and the spell of his anger +might be broken. So Mr. James, instructed by his youngest daughter, had +ordered Miss Lucy to keep away from the Doggetts. + +"People'll be a talkin' about you, Lucy Ann, ef you go there," they had +said, and Miss Lucy meekly accepted their dictum, and staid away. + +"I don't know ef there ever was a woman situated like me," she thought +to herself, as she ran down the familiar little path, "fifty years +old--afraid of her folks--afraid to do like she wants to!" + +A sob escaped her, a rebellious sob for the hard fate that rendered her +path of love, one so stony. + +"Jest look at these here plants, Ann. Ef I do say hit, I've got the +purtiest plant beds in the country, and I've seed all the beds around +whar they are a raisin' hit this year, and went to some purty night' +over the Kentucky River country! Jest let a feller have the weather to +sow his seed in February, and he'll shore have early plants!" + +Mr. Doggett, who might have posed for a member of the Grallatores +family, with his bare feet, and ungainly exposure of muddy red leg, +coming into the yard with a great basket of newly pulled tobacco plants, +was astonished to see Miss Lucy hurrying to meet him. + +"Why, yes, sir, Miss Lucy," he acquiesced, hastily brushing off a little +of the mud plastering from his lengthy stretch of blue overalls: "I'm +shorely one the busy ones: got up at three this mornin', and won't git +to tech bed 'tel nigh on to ten. Them two days' rain we had has give us +a plantin' season right. Thar's enough wet in the ground fer four days, +and ef we jest do the work, we'll have a fine set. + +"A body has a heap to be thankful fer, now don't they? Me and my hands, +we helped Jim a yistiddy and the day afore, and Jim and his hands is +holpin' _me_ today, aimin' to git done by termorrer, so's not to have to +do no Sunday plantin'." + +When Mr. Doggett paused for breath, Miss Lucy, who was listening in a +nervous tremor, jerked out her errand. Mr. Doggett's face fell. + +"I don't see how I kin jest possible spare the time. I'm a payin' the +hands eighteen cents a hour, and _I'm_ all the one thar is to keep 'em +in plants and time 'em. But I'll jest go anyhow fer a few minutes. A +body ortn't to be selfish, no, sir. I'll jest step over to the field and +take these plants to the boys. You jest tell your Pa I'll come right on. +Maybe I'll git thar time you do, hit's so nigh from the patch. Jest +speak to the old lady thar in the house,--maybe she'll try to hobble up +thar with you." + +The cow stood stolid and quiet, when the three reached the barn-yard, +unheeding the attentions of Miss Nancy and her father, who were trying +to persuade her to eat a steaming mash. + +"Hain't you no idy what ails her, Mr. Jeemes?" asked Mr. Doggett, +contemplating her heaving sides. + +"I dunno," replied Mr. James, "onless she's a runnin' mad. About three +weeks ago a strange dog come through the lot when Lucy Ann was a +milkin', and instid o' rockin' hit,--Lucy Ann, she run and climbed up in +the loft!" + +"Pa, I was afraid of hit!" Miss Lucy defended. "Hit was a frothin' at +hit's mouth," she explained to Mr. Doggett. + +"When Lucy Ann clumb down," went on the old man, "the dog wuzn't +nowher's in sight, and she couldn't tell whuther the cow wuz bit er +not." + +"Well, Mr. Jeemes": Mr. Doggett rubbed his mud-coated hands uncertainly +together, "I dunno what to tell you. She hain't got no holler-horn, ner +hain't down in her back, but I ondoubtedly believe she's in a dangerous +fix." + +"S'pose'n you send fer Mr. Brock, Mr. Jeemes," suggested Mrs. Doggett: +"_he'll_ know ef anybody does what to do fer her!" + +"That's right, Mr. Jeemes, yes, sir," affirmed Mr. Doggett: "Mr. Brock, +he's got so many hands, he jest oversees. He don't work none +hisse'f,--he don't have to work." + +If there was a suspicion of irony in Mr. Doggett's voice, it was veiled +from his hearers by the good-nature that habitually clothed his +utterances. + +"Yes, sir, Mr. Brock'll shorely be able to come, ef you send fer him, +and I'll jest git 'long back to the boys!" + +"I've got dinner to git," said Mrs. Doggett, as her husband disappeared +in the direction of his barefooted assistants, "and ef thar's one time +when men folks can lay in victuals faster'n another time, hit's at +plantin' season! Stoopin' over sorter stretches their insides I reckon. +And ef I didn't have dinner to git, thar'd be somethin' else to do. Whar +you keep house, thar's always somethin' to do, and that a whole heap of +hit! But I'll jest stay a while any way, and see how she gits." + +Miss Nancy was dispatched on old Maude, the fattest of the two fat mares +for Mr. Brock, with strict injunctions to ride slowly. + +Though she had only a quarter of a mile to go, it was a full half hour +before she returned with Mr. Brock, walking carefully and with mincing +steps (because of the mud, and the extreme tightness of a new pair of +summer tans), wearing his Sunday gray suit, a white shirt, collar, and +tie, and carrying a gallon bucket full of ripe strawberries. + +"I'd have been back sooner," explained Miss Nancy, "but Mr. Brock +wouldn't come until he changed his clothes, and I had to help old Jane +hunt their bottle of cow bitters." + +"Hain't them nice!" Mrs. Doggett sniffed Mr. Brock's offering of fruit, +in appreciation. "Miss Lucy, didn't I tell you, Mr. Brock was the nicest +man out?" + +"Hit's awful good of you, Mr. Brock, to breng 'em, and awful good of you +to come," Miss Lucy tendered. "Maybe you can do somethin' for Pa's poor +old cow!" + +During Miss Nancy's absence, the watchers had gotten the sick beast in +one of the double stalls, the inner of which was separated from the +outer stall by a long pole having one end caught over a hook. + +"Lucy Ann, take that bucket, and fill it with water and fetch that brass +kittle in the barn," ordered her father: "that cow ort to be watered." + +Miss Lucy drew a bucket of water from the cistern which covered with +loose planks, stood on the upper side of the barn, and carried the water +to the open door of the stall in which the cow stood quiet, with eyes +downcast, and feet spread apart. + +"I'll take the water in to her, Miss Lucy," volunteered Mr. Brock, +lifting the kettle. Mr. James objected. + +"The cow is used to Lucy, Mr. Brock, and she might show fight to you." + +Obedient to her father's wishes, Miss Lucy shrinkingly pushed the kettle +under the dividing pole, and poured the water into it, while Mr. Brock, +with prudent forethought, picked up a thick stick and took a position in +the doorway. + +Suddenly the animal, hearing the splash of water, turned and +unexpectedly lunged at the kettle. The dividing pole cracked under her +onslaught. Miss Lucy started back with a scream, and fell violently. Mr. +Brock thrust strongly at the cow as she rushed forward again, and the +creature reeled back on her haunches. Before she could recover herself +for another plunge, he had lifted Miss Lucy over the sill, and together, +Miss Nancy and Mrs. Doggett had slammed the door, and thrust its iron +bar in place. + +"Lord!" shuddered Mrs. Doggett, "that wuz a narrer call!" + +"Open the gate for me," wheezed the breathless Mr. Brock, staggering +along with his limp burden on whose forehead appeared a little blood, +trickling from a slight cut. "We'd better git her to the house quick!" + +Miss Lucy, laid on the sitting-room lounge, presently revived and feebly +murmured her distress at causing so much of trouble. + + +"Don't you thenk we'd better go back and doctor on the cow, Mr. +Brock--give her them bitters, er somethin'?" + +The old man's mind, his anxiety for his daughter relieved, presently +turned again to his barn-yard patient. + +"I'm afraid she's about past medicine," Mr. Brock regretted, placidly +seating himself. "If you wish it, though, I'll stay and take a look at +her ever' once and a while, and if there's no change by three o'clock, +and you wish it, I'll send home for my rifle to shoot the poor +creature." + +Mrs. Doggett bent reluctant eyes on the clock. + +"I'm bound to go," she declared,--"them hungry men--" + +"Mrs. Doggett, don't you want some cabbage plants? Pa said we was done +settin' yesterday," proffered Miss Lucy. Miss Nancy scowled. + +"You've surely forgot about Miss Maude Floss engagin' some last week, +Lucy," she reminded her. "But maybe she won't take 'em all," she +conciliated. + +"Cabbage!" Mrs. Doggett's voice rang out shrilly. "Miss Lucy, don't say +_cabbage_ to me! I hain't raised a stalk o' cabbage sence the summer Jim +and Henrietty married. That year the cabbage snake come a one o' killin' +us all! But hit shore wuz the cause o' Jim and Henrietty a marryin'." + +"Was hit?" asked Miss Lucy, innocently, while Mr. Brock smiled at her +over his former parent-in-law's head. Mrs. Doggett resumed her seat. + +"Hit wuz one them awful hot days in June, and Henrietty wuz a visitin' +my Hattie that day. Our cabbage wuz jest a comin' in, and late Meriller +cherries wuz turnin'--jest ripe enough to taste good, and we all et a +right smart o' cherries before dinner and we wuz all a talkin' about the +cabbage snake skeer, and about hit a sickenin' people nigh to death when +one got accidentally cooked with the cabbage. Eph, he didn't believe +thar wuz no pizen snake on cabbage, but I wuz sorter oneasy when I put +hit on the table,--the first mess we'd had. + +"Jim, he wuz a workin' in Cincinnati that summer. He wanted to see some +new people he said, and he seed enough of 'em. + +"'Ma,' he says when he come home, 'them people up thar is so distant a +turn, and so selfish, they never ask you to eat a meal o' victuals; and +they don't have no bread fitten to eat. I hain't ketched sight of a +hoe-cake o' corn bread, ner smelt a biscuit sence I've been gone!' + +"I set dinner on the table at twelve, and before the long hand drapped +to two, ever' soul of us but Eph wuz a doublin' up like figur' eights! +Eph, he don't never eat cabbage ner cherries. He het water fer us, and +doctered us up with mustard and red pepper, ontel we all got some +better, then he set off to the still-house to git a little whiskey fer +us. + +"While we wuz at our worst, Henrietty she crawled to the table and writ +a letter, and when Eph, he started she give hit to him to mail on the +road. Hit wuz her dyin' farewell to Jim, beggin' him to meet her in +heaven, ef she died! + +"Henrietty had been a lovin' Jim a long time, and though she wuz mighty +purty behaved--never runnin' after him ner nothin'--she told Hattie +onct, ef she didn't git to marry Jim, whoever married her would marry +her lovin' another man, and that man Jim Doggett! Jim, he never paid +much 'tention to Henrietty though--never tuck no holt on her. Seemed +like he fancied most any the other girls more, 'tel he got that letter. +Then he come home on the next Sunday excursion, and 'twuzn't no time +'tel they married! My belief is they wouldn't never 'a' married, ef hit +hadn't 'a' been fer the cabbage snake. + +"Mr. Castle, he read them Gover'ment disports, and said they wuzn't no +cabbage snake, but I pulled up ever' head and throwed 'em in the creek, +so's not to resk anytheng else gittin' pizened! I'm as bad about +cabbage, as Jim is about a black cat, and he wouldn't have a black cat +to save your life! I hain't raised nary head sence, ner I hain't a goin' +to!" + +"Ef that's the way you feel about hit, I wouldn't, Mrs. Doggett," said +Miss Lucy, kindly. + +"Did Mr. Doggett git back with the whiskey?" asked Mr. Brock, as Mrs. +Doggett once more arose to go. + +"He never got back 'tel midnight," she answered, "and I hain't never +tasted nary drap o' _that_ whiskey yit!" + + * * * * * + +A hundred times since Mr. Lindsay had been commanded to hold no further +communication with the James household, he had taken a pencil in his +fingers to write to Miss Lucy: a dozen times had walked as far toward +her home, as the great beech that stood by the dividing fence of James +and Castle: more than once he had set his foot on the mossy fence, but +every time, the wounded pride of his sensitive nature, whispering that +she ought to write or contrive to see him if she still loved him, held +his hand and stayed his foot. + +But his heart was not obedient to the pride that ruled his hand, and his +foot, and its daily cry refused to be stifled. Mrs. Doggett never failed +to wound him by her hints about Mr. Brock and Miss Lucy, but he could +not deprive himself of the uncertain consolation of hearing from her, +through the Doggetts. + +On the evening of this third day of the tobacco setting, Mr. Lindsay, +muddy, tired, and footsore, walked in at the Doggett back door. Mrs. +Doggett, for reasons, could have hugged herself when he appeared. Joey, +while his mother did her after-supper kitchen work, gave a skeleton-like +account of the excitement of the day to the new-comer, but Mrs. Doggett, +when she was free, repeated the tale with embellishments for his +benefit. + +"I jest wisht you could 'a' seed that pore old cow, Mr. Lindsay, after +she got to cuttin' up," she narrated gleefully. "After Mr. Brock come, +Miss Lucy, by the old man's directions, ondertuck to water her. I seed +Mr. Brock wuz uneasy, fer he picked up a old hickory hoe handle, and +follered Miss Lucy in the stall. The pore creeter no sooner ketcht sight +o' the water'n she tuck violent. She run at the brass kittle, and mashed +hit flat as a batty-cake, and ef Mr. Brock hadn't kep' her off Miss Lucy +with that stick, she'd 'a' horned her to death!" + +"Why didn't Brock water her hisse'f?" demanded Mr. Lindsay, indignantly. + +"He did want to: tuck the kittle in his hand to," defended Mrs. Doggett: +"but the old man--he's childish you know--he 'lowed that the cow, bein' +used to Miss Lucy, wouldn't hurt her. Mr. Brock, he gethered up Miss +Lucy when she fell, and got out o' the stable mighty quick, and 'twuz +all me and Miss Nancy could do to git the door shet and barred." + +"Wuz Miss Lucy hurt?" Mr. Lindsay was very white. + +"Naw, she wuz jest stunned and had a little scratch on the side o' her +forehead whar her head hit the wall. Mr. Brock, he 'peared desp'rit +oneasy about her, though. Kerried her ever' step o' the way to the house +in his arms hisse'f--wouldn't let nobody tech her to help him kerry her! +Watch out, Mr. Lindsay! Ef you don't quit a whittlin' so reckless, +you'll cut your hand! + +"Mr. Brock, he saved Miss Lucy's life shore, fer after they got out, the +cow's eyes turned right green, and glared like a tagger's, and she tried +to tear up ever'theng in sight! She tore down the rack, and bit the +trough, and hooked in the ground, and flung the stable dirt plumb to the +j'ist! Then she bawled and bawled the mournfulest you ever heerd! + +"I asked Mr. Brock what he thought ailded her, and he said she wuz shore +mad, and all he knowed to do fer her wuz to shoot her and put her out'n +her misery! She wuz a gittin' more furiouser all the time when I left." + +"Did Brock leave when you did?" asked Mr. Lindsay. + +"No, indeed--he staid to dinner. Miss Nancy and her Pa, they looked like +they wuz mighty pleased to have him! Miss Nancy, she went and killed a +spreng chicken (one them fine black 'Nockers she's so choice of) and +before I left she wuz a puttin' on some macaronian, and she knows how to +cook hit too! I et some up thar onct--the first I ever et--all cooked up +with aigs and cheese, and I thought hit wuz the best stuff I ever et. I +took out twice, and I thenks to myse'f, 'ef I wuz out behind the house, +I'd take all out!' + +"When I left, Miss Lucy wuz a layin' on the divan sorter shuck up and +weak, but talkin' to Mr. Brock cheerful. She wuz all over dirt when she +fell, but she put on a purty palish blue kimonian when she come to, and +Mr. Brock, he had on his good clothes, (actually wouldn't come down thar +'tel he put on his good clothes!) He wuz a takin' on about a pan o' +wonderin' Jews she had a hangin' in the winder, and a pale yaller tea +rose she'd got at the warm-house, a bein' so purty, 'as purty as their +owner,' he says." + +At this point Mrs. Doggett was so elated with the charm of the picture +that her imagination had painted, that she could not resist giving it an +additional touch. + +"And Miss Lucy," she added, "she told him to git the clothes bresh out'n +the press drawer, and bresh off the dust whar he had got hit on him at +the barn, and then he might have one her roses to put in his +button-hole." + +Mr. Lindsay's cheeks became a gray-white. "I wouldn't thenk a man'd have +much chance to be a primpin' up and visitin' on a rush time--a terbaccer +settin' season," he remarked icily. + +"Yes, sir, Mr. Lindsay, yes, sir,--croppin' and courtin' don't go +together right handy, do they?" Mr. Doggett agreed with Mr. Lindsay. + +At this moment, Dock, who had been so consumed with curiosity to know +the fate of the cow, that he had forced his weary feet to walk to the +James house, returned, bringing new information. + +"Mr. Brock, he went home long in the evenin' to git Reub's rifle," he +informed his questioners; "and when he come back 'bout an hour ago, he +shot the cow. He's thar now and says fer as many of us as hain't too +tired, to come up and help cut wood to burn the carkis. Says hit'll +spread the mad all over the country ef dogs git any of hit!" + +"I plumb hate to not go," remarked Mr. Doggett, rubbing one of his +stiffened lower limbs: "Joey, can't you and Roscoe, and some you young +fellers go and holp Mr. Brock out!" + +"Hit looks more like imperdence than anytheng else, fer him to ask +fellers as wore out as you all, to do any more work tonight! The theng +fer you all to do is to go to bed, and let him peel off them Sundays, +and be his own 'hewer o' wood,'" said Gran'dad, unfeelingly. Mr. Lindsay +smiled in the dim light of the small lamp, and gave Gran'dad's lean arm +a pinch of commendation. + +"That's right, Gran'dad," he said: "ef Miss Lucy's beau wants to raise +hisse'f in the estimation o' her family, by conductin' a cow-burnin' fer +'em, less don't bother him none; less jest let him have his cow-burnin', +and all the pleasure and honor there is in hit to hisse'f!" And every +tobacco-setter agreed. + +On his way to the tobacco field next morning, Dock made it convenient to +go by the way of the Jameses and the funeral pyre, and from him, Miss +Lucy learned that Mr. Lindsay had passed the night at the Doggetts. +Because of this information, she drove even more slowly than usual on +her way to town. + +"Perhaps," she thought hopefully, "he'll remember hit's my marketin' +day, and maybe he'll walk to town and overtake me, and ride 'long to +town with me. Hit surely wouldn't be no harm." + +She looked from the glass in the back curtain of her buggy. Nobody was +coming along the road toward her, but if her eyes and ears could have +pierced three miles, they would have seen a slender, brown-eyed man, +with a heart sore and full of rancor toward the world, going rapidly in +the opposite direction, and would have heard him saying,--his voice +wistful with the tears his pride would not allow his eyes to shed: + +"They've set her ag'in me, I reckon, and hit looks like she's got to +preferrin' Brock to me. Ef she has, she can have him; I won't stand in +her way! But I wouldn't have thought hit of her, no I wouldn't, and +hit's--O Lucy, hit's--hit's good bye to the home I laid out to have!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +MR. DOGGETT'S ACQUISITION + + "I am now in fortune's power, + He that is down can fall no lower." + + +"Fifty cents! I'm offered a half a dollar! Who'll make it three +quarters?" The eyes of the sheriff twinkled, despite his efforts toward +solemnity. It was the third Monday morning in August: he stood in front +of the Court-house door, facing a "court-day" crowd and conducted the +sale of Napper Dunaway, a gentleman afflicted with what the Court had +diagnosed to be a case of chronic leisure. + +Under the vagrancy law of the State, the remedy for this disease is the +enforced sale of the patient's services for a given time,--the purchaser +binding himself to furnish food, lodging, and medical attention to his +bondman during the term of his compelled servitude. + +The crowd pressed up for a nearer view of the young man, who, with a +soft white thumb caught in the button-hole of a pale blue negligee +shirt, worn in shirt-waist style, with a crimson silk tie, a tan belt, +and a pair of blue serge pantaloons, stood in nonchalant contemplation +of the church steeple across the street. + +"Who'll give me three quarters of a dollar?" repeated the sheriff. + +"I will: yes, sir, I'll make the bid seventy-five cents!" drawled a +new-comer, slightly out of breath from his hurry to reach the scene of +the sale. + +Every eye turned toward the advancer of the bid,--a long man, with a +wild red beard. For a few minutes, the bidding between Mr. Ephriam +Doggett and a derisive competitor advanced by cents, and half-cents, but +one dollar marked the end of the bids, and Mr. Doggett became, for the +space of ten months, Dunaway's legal owner. + +In the summers past, worms had been bad in the Kentucky tobacco fields, +but this year, they came in numbers like the Assyrian army: by the +middle of August, at the time of the leaving off of the spraying with +Paris green, Mr. Doggett was, according to the words of his mouth, "in a +tight place." + +"Hands" were at a premium: his sons, Marshall and Jappy, had a crop of +their own several miles off; Mr. Brock had slyly induced two of Mr. +Doggett's "promised" men to stop with him: Mr. Doggett's aids--Dock, +Joey, Gran'dad, the brothers, Bunch and Knox Trisler, and his cousins, +Roscoe and Ob Doggett, numbered but seven, when there should have been +ten, for the worming and the suckering. + +Something had to be done, and on court day, with his seven left behind +to do battle against the green army, Mr. Doggett went to town in search +of a "hand." He heard on the street of the vagrancy sale, and seized the +opportunity offered him to secure a free hireling. Time was precious to +Mr. Doggett, and fifteen minutes after his one dollar bill went into the +pocket of the County's representative, the new acquisition was seated +beside him behind the abbreviated tail of Big Money. + +"We'll go right on out," he said cheerfully to his purchase: "although," +he added thoughtfully, "I wuz on the p'int o' fergittin' hit--you'll +want to git your clothes. I'll jest drive by, and you can git 'em." + +At the door of the yellow cottage on a rear street, Dunaway pointed out +as the residence of his father-in-law, Mr. Doggett drew rein. This +building, for five months from the day of his marriage, had been +Dunaway's home, until his father-in-law, a one-armed pensioner, grew +tired of waiting for him to add a day to the six days of manual labor he +did during the term of his married life, and instituted vagrancy +proceedings. The hospitality of the Kentuckian is great and lasting, but +even gold will wear thin in time. + +"I reckon," delicately hinted Mr. Doggett, "considerin' you hain't +exactly in faver with your folks, _I'd_ better go in the house fer the +clothes." + +"You needn't say _clothes_ here," the peppery little man who answered +Mr. Doggett's knock informed him, when he had stated his business. "I'll +allow you to have them garments he's got coverin' his worthless hide, +but the others, they'll have to go to pay a little on what he's eat off +of me since Nan got took in last March! I feel sorry for you, man," he +concluded, dryly, "ef you are goin' to undertake to keep him fed. I +might have been able to put up with what he et at the table, but the +between-meal business of runnin' into victuals and eatin' was more than +my pension would stand up against!" + + +A suspicion that his hand was not going to be the gratuitous addition to +his laboring force he had supposed crossed Mr. Doggett's mind, and +somewhat ruefully he turned Big Money's head again in the direction of +the dry goods houses, and climbed out before the store of Jacob +Himmelstein. + +"I been a layin' off to drap in to see you, Mr. Himmelstein, yes, sir, I +have," Mr. Doggett mollified his Israelitish friend, whose first words +of greeting were gentle reproaches: "but I jest hain't possible had time +'tel today, and I come in to see ef you couldn't sorter holp me out. +Can't you gimme some barg'ins?" + +"Can I gif _you_ bargains, mine frient?" Mr. Himmelstein's upraised +hands spoke worlds of reproach: "I t'ought your memory vas goot!" + +"Thar's a kind o' fellers that won't buy nothin' onless might' night' +ever'body says they's gittin' a barg'in," pursued Mr. Doggett, "but I +hain't one o' them kind. I wish I wuz." + +"Ah, mine frient, you have been to buying elsewhere dan under de sign of +J. Himmelstein!" mourned that gentleman. + +Mr. Doggett told of his purchase of the morning, and of his garment +shortage, and received voluble assurance of Mr. Himmelstein's ability +and willingness to fit him out "sheap." + +After a half-hour's haggling, the question of everyday clothing was +settled in two pairs of azure cottonade "overhalls," three sky-colored +hickory shirts, two outfits of underwear, a buckeye hat, and socks +(three pairs for a nickel). + +"Forty cents seems a reasonable price fer these here jeans breeches," +Mr. Doggett mused, when he came to buy Dunaway's "Sunday" raiment: "but +hain't they a leetle short in the leg? Hit seems to me they won't more'n +hit him at the knees." + +"Dey'll be all right for fine wedder," Himmelstein assured him, hastily +wrapping up the doubtful pantaloons. + +"A hat and shoes," Mr. Doggett reflected: "I hain't able to lay out but +a doller er two more on him. I don't keer fer style fer him,--got +anytheng a leetle onfashionable in the way o' head and foot coverin's?" + +Mr. Himmelstein darted to a box in the extreme back part of his +establishment, and after some moment's digging in its depths, brought +out a flat derby of the style of twenty years past, and a pair of +"needle pointers," number twelves. + + +"If your man can vear dese," he inveigled Mr. Doggett, "you can haf de +great bargain for t'ree quarter of von dollar unt I t'row in de hat for +von nickel unt two dimes more." + +Mr. Doggett concluded to take the risk of their fitting, and had them +wrapped up. + +"Before we leave town," observed Dunaway, as Mr. Doggett took the reins, +"I'd like to tell you I'm about out of chewing tobacco. 'Lady Isabel' is +the brand I use." + +"What's the matter with long green?" Mr. Doggett's tone was persuasive. +"I've got a world o' that hanging up at home." + +Dunaway coughed apologetically. "My stomach is delicate," he declared +airily, "and anything but the Lady Isabel seems to irritate it." + +Mr. Doggett climbed to the pavement once more and three minutes later a +package of the "Lady Isabel" was added to the company of bundles under +the buggy's seat. + +Mr. Dunaway, on the drive, proved to be a most agreeable talker, oily of +tongue,--eloquently mendacious. He explained to Mr. Doggett the +circumstances that had brought him to his present state. His family was +one of wealth and high social position, he said, and he had never known +a care until the failure and death of his father. Since that time, +travelling with a party of surveyors in the Arkansas swamps, he had +contracted malaria, had drifted to Kentucky, and had married. Because of +his delicacy, his wife had persuaded her father to allow them to remain +with him for a while and the vagrancy proceedings were taken without +hint to him that the old gentleman was weary of his presence. He was +astounded at this cruel treatment, and could hardly believe that his two +trunks of clothing would be withheld from him. + +Mr. Doggett listened respectfully, with expressions of interest and +sympathy,--and drew his own conclusions. + +Mr. Dunaway's garments were neat in appearance, his face was newly +shaved, and the visible portions of his person were clean, but, mindful +of the suspicions that would be sure to arise in Mrs. Doggett's mind as +to the personal cleanliness of a gentleman convicted of vagrancy, unless +she had actual convincing evidence of the recent application of water to +his epidermis, Mr. Doggett stopped when they reached a covered bridge, +spanning a stream that crossed the road. + +"How'd you like to go in washin', Dunaway, bein's hit's so hot?" he +asked, as he hitched his horse to the roadside fence. "I b'leeve _I'll_ +go in!" + +Dunaway did not particularly relish the idea--it involved the +expenditure of some energy--but he politely refrained from objection, +and a few minutes later, he and his owner were disrobing behind a clump +of elders that hid one of the banks of the Silver Run about fifty yards +below the bridge. + +Mr. Dunaway was in the deep water, first, enjoying the cool splashing, +and swimming toward the bridge, before Mr. Doggett had divested himself +of half his garments. This was Mr. Doggett's opportunity. Dunaway had +laid his top shirt, his belt, tie, and shoes, apart from his other +garments, which fact saved them to him, for when he started in the +water, Mr. Doggett remembered other suspicions--unjust or +otherwise--that might enter Mrs. Doggett's mind,--suspicions as to +possible inhabitants of a vagrant's garments--and in his plunge, +accidentally caught his foot in the heap of clothes, sending them into +the deep water. + +When Dunaway came back to the clump of elders for his clothes, Mr. +Doggett was using the cake of laundry soap he held in his hand, in +vigorous applications. + +"I thought I'd wash my years and neck good while I wuz at hit, Dunaway," +he said: "the old lady's mighty perticular. S'pose'n you lay on a little +too, hit takes the pike dust off so slick!" + +When the two climbed out of the water, Dunaway gazed uncertainly at the +spot where had lain his trousers and underwear. + +"Where the--" he began. Mr. Doggett interrupted him. "Ef your breeches +and thengs hain't gone, Dunaway! That must 'a' been them I stumbled over +when I went in! My foot caught on somethin'--I wuz a lookin' at you +swimmin' off so peart--and I thought hit wuz a bunch o' grass er +somethin'!" + +"I guess they're in the bottom of some deep hole by this time," Dunaway +remarked in a tone of light regret. "And what am I to wear?" + +"Wear?" cried Mr. Doggett: "don't them thengs I got fer you come in +handy now? Jest put on a suit them new underin's and a pair them +overhalls, and one them hick'ry shirts, and you'll be ready to work in +the patch this evenin'!" + +It was twelve when Mr. Doggett reached home. "Jest step down in the +spreng thar on the creek bank," he said to Dunaway who complained of +thirst, "but don't knock over the old lady's milk jairs." + +After dinner, Mr. Doggett conducted his new man to the field. + +"I won't be hard on you this evenin', Dunaway, your fust day o' +wormin'," he avowed, as each man started his row: "I'll take a row and +sorter holp you in your'n too, onct in a while." + +Dunaway was quick and agile, and although the sweat poured into his +eyes, and his back ached with the unaccustomed stooping to lift the +leaves, he managed to do a fair amount of worm-killing. + +Dock or Gran'dad was usually sent to the spring for fresh water for the +toilers, but when about three o'clock, Dunaway offered to go, Mr. +Doggett made no objection. + +"The pore feller hain't seasoned yit," he conciliated Dock and Gran'dad, +for thus favoring the stranger, "and hit hain't no more'n jest to give +him a leetle breathin' spell." + +That evening, seven men (Bunch Trisler and his brother boarded at their +own home) very weary of eye, of back and of arm, soiled with dust, +perspiration, and tobacco gum--filed in, and immediately after supper, +five of them, including the worn and dejected Dunaway, climbed the steps +to their bedroom. Gran'dad rested a while in the sitting-room, +discussing Dunaway with his son and Mrs. Doggett, while Dock stretched +himself flat on the floor. + +To Mr. Doggett's enthusiastic congratulation of himself on the wisdom of +his purchase, Gran'dad remarked: + +"I dunno as I'd keer to own him: seems to me he'd be a slippery +possession." + +"Yes," broke in Mrs. Doggett, "about the time you git him clothed up fer +winter, he'll light out and that'll be the last you'll hear o' _him_!" + +"Why, Ann," Mr. Doggett obtruded, "I could excribe him over the +tillephorm, and could git him anywhar. He wouldn't have no chanst a +runnin'!" + +"He seems to be a mighty light eater," Gran'dad mused. "Wouldn't drink +no buttermilk tonight: said hit wuz too fillin'." + +"I bet he's a holdin' in," said Dock. + +"He tuck holt o' work well," said Mr. Doggett. "Got a good sleight at +suckerin', although I had to holp him some in his row a wormin'--him not +bein' broke into the work--so we'd come out ever' row together. He's +sorter green about hit. Told me he wisht I'd git him a pair o' gloves to +keep the gum offen his hands. I told him I jest couldn't possible do +hit,--he'd tear the leaves up in gloves." + +"He's green about a heap o' work," put in Dock: "he told me he'd been +all over the Nuniter States, and he'd never yit stuck job that wuz +heftier, ner killiner, ner back-breakin'er, ner disagreeabler than +wormin' and suckerin' terbaccer! I ast him wouldn't he holp me +milk,--_hit_ wuzn't no mean job, and he said he didn't know how to milk! +I told him I thought ever'body knowed how to milk, and he said he reckon +they ort ter ef they don't, and he'd git me to learn him when he wuzn't +so wore out." + +"Somethin's been in the milk jairs at the spreng," remarked Mrs. +Doggett, regretfully. "When I went to strain the milk a while ago, I +found two jairs o' fraish milk with ever' bit the cream skimmed off: +wuzn't _no_ cream on 'em--fraish mornin's milk--and the milk on one jair +wuz half down, like hit had been poured out into somethin'." + +A suspicion as to the receptacle into which the milk and cream had been +emptied, entered Mr. Doggett's mind, but he was discreet. + +"Maybe some Mr. Archie Evans' fox hounds done hit, Ann," he suggested, +maligning the innocent, "I heerd 'em out this evenin' about four +o'clock." + + +"But the leds wuz all on," objected Mrs. Doggett. + +"Well, maybe some the hands seed 'em off, and laid 'em back," persuaded +Mr. Doggett,--"Bunch er Knox when they went home." + +"Somethin's goin' with my aigs too," Mrs. Doggett further complained; +"not nary aig did I git at the barn this evenin', and been a gittin' +nineteen ever' day!" + +The next day, to Mr. Doggett's secret chagrin, the energy and initiative +of his new work-hand suffered a relapse: he complained that the sun +affected his malaria infested system, and insisted on short rests every +hour: he left suckers standing: he skipped worms: he came out many +minutes behind the other men with his row. + +The other hands enjoyed Mr. Doggett's discomfiture. Dunaway, working +without wages, they regarded as a grand joke,--something that distinctly +enlivened their hard toil, and they listened to his airy tales, and his +light flippant fun making with keen relish. + +"Darn that man Castle!" he inveighed in the middle of the afternoon, +clinching one grimy, gum-covered fist. "Darn all tobacco that grows +anyhow! I'd be happier in hell than I am here: I'll bet it's eighty per +cent. cooler down there any time than it is in a tobacco patch in +August!" + +"Hain't none of us disputin' your statements, Dunaway," chuckled +Gran'dad: "and ef you are a cravin' to git whar you claim thar's more +bliss in store fer you, than you're enjoyin' here, jest wet a few them +biggest leaves and lay 'em crost your chist and take a leetle nap, and +you'll wake up down thar!" + +Dunaway, however, declined to take this short cut to happiness. + +With Dunaway's slackness in field work, came a degree of facility at +table that surprised Mr. Doggett. While batting, and blinking his black +eyes, directing airily polite and delicately conciliatory speeches +toward Mrs. Doggett, and telling gay tales to interest the men,--not +seeming to gorge--he threw food into his mouth with the rapidity and +dexterity of the ant-eater at his repast. + +"I declare, Eph," remarked Mrs. Doggett, one evening after a few days of +the new hired man, "that crittur has shorely got the right name! He's +done away with more victuals in them four days sence he's been here +than'd lasted Lily Pearl a year! Ever' meal thar hain't been nary bite +o' bread left, and I've had to go and make up more bread before me and +Lily Pearl could eat!" + +"Thenk he eats as much as Keerby?" asked Mr. Doggett. + +"Keerby?" Mrs. Doggett's voice rose to a scornful screech. "When Keerby +put his feet onder our table, we wuz _hurt_, but when Dunaway puts them +long legs o' his'n onder our oil-cloth, we're might' night' ruined, I +tell you, Eph Doggett!" + +In the days that followed, to Mrs. Doggett's distress (for it made +serious inroads on her butter making), her cream was skimmed almost +daily, and on Wednesday morning of the second week of Dunaway's bondage, +when she went into her smoke-house to take down a large ham for cooking, +she found that the lean portion was completely hollowed out, not by +rats, but by a skilful pocket-knife. In addition, a dozen or more of the +large "hill onions," on which she had taken a premium at the County +fair, and which she took pride in showing visitors, were gone from their +shelf in the meat-house, and a full jar of honey, she had obtained from +the Evans beeyard, to use when her most honored guest (Mr. Brock) should +sit at her table, was eaten half-down! + +Full of wrathful suspicion, she locked her smoke-house in the daytime, +kept an eye on the milk at the spring, and sent Lily Pearl running to +the nests at every hen's cackle. + +Dunaway, during his ten days' stay in the Doggett household, had become +an intimate of Dock: the "hands," including Gran'dad and Joey, liked +him, like Desdemona the Moor, because of the tales he told, and his glib +pleasantries: even Mr. Doggett, despite the trouble to which he was put +to get his bondman to work any, fell under his charm. + +Not so Mrs. Doggett. After the between-meal pilfering of her provisions, +although she did not openly accuse Dunaway, her dislike and distrust of +him were glaringly apparent, and although he was unfailingly polite and +respectful to her, and adroitly concealed his enmity, he heartily +returned her dislike. + +Little Dock Doggett would have pressed through fire or an iron wall, had +there been an apple or a plum on the other side the flames or the metal: +he knew the whereabouts of every wild haw, (red or black), pawpaw, or +persimmon tree, or wild grape vine, in the neighborhood, and nobody's +fruit orchard or melon patch was immune from his visits. + +When the Castles moved to town, leaving Mr. Brock to occupy a portion of +their country residence, and in full and absolute control of their +strawberry beds, grape-arbors, and fruit-orchards, invasion of these +fruiteries was no longer easy. + +Dock had never liked Mr. Brock, and when his inner part began to cry for +fruit whose acquisition Mr. Brock's presence prevented, his hatred of +that gentleman became violent. + +Mr. Brock prided himself on an annual patch of fine melons, and at the +time of the coming of Dunaway, his melons were approaching maturity. +There was no other melon patch in the neighborhood, and for days, Dock's +dreams at night had been of nothing else. + +"I know whar thar's ripe mush and water millerns," he confided to +Dunaway, the next morning after Mrs. Doggett's securing of her +provisions against thieves. "A body has to go at night to git 'em +though, 'cause they're right next to a terbaccer patch whar the man is +workin' ever'day." Dock was an arrant coward at night. + +"If it's a partner you want," Dunaway grinned, "I'm your man!" + +Dock agreed that this was the desire of his heart, and a compact was +made for the evening. + +It rained the entire day through, but there was no cessation of work in +the tobacco-field of Ephriam Doggett: it was near the end of the week, +and Sunday--Sunday when suckers grow and worms eat as on a week day! + +As weary and besoaked as the Continental Army, on the Christmas night of +'76, the men trailed in at nightfall. They had been wet to the skin +since early morning, and as soon as hunger was satisfied, each, with two +exceptions, stumbled off to bed, to fall into the immediate sleep of +exhaustion. These exceptions were Dock and Dunaway, who, when the others +were safely asleep, stole out and took their well-lighted way (the moon +was full) to the hillside where, separated from the tobacco field by a +wire fence, lay Mr. Brock's water-melon patch. The dread wet day tobacco +patch weariness is a powerful thing, but the desire of the stomach for +the fruit of the vine is more mighty. + +Near a great stump in the middle of the patch grew a vine with which Mr. +Brock had taken the greatest pains in work and fertilization. The one +mighty melon he allowed to grow on this vine, he intended for a present, +and when it was about half developed, he had traced on its rind, with +the point of a pin, the inscription: "To Miss Lucy James, from her +friend, Galvin Brock." + +These letters had widened and healed with the growth of the melon, +until, in its maturity, they were like something done in crewel +embroidery. It looked an unique thing. Mr. Brock was proud of it to a +degree, and had planned on Sunday to take it to Miss Lucy. + +"Here's our melon!" cried Dunaway, thumping the prize gift. + +"Don't plunk right," objected Dock: "hit needs about one more day's sun: +less hunt another un." + +At that moment a sneeze betrayed to the raiders the approach of their +enemy. Mr. Brock, coming out to test the ripeness of his intended gift, +thought he saw two shapes by the big stump: he wheezed forward, but when +he reached the stump, no one was there, and the gate at the lower end of +the patch hung wide open. + +Dock and his assistant did not dare to make another venture that night, +but laid their plans for an invasion at a later hour on the following +evening. Fatigue was the portion next evening of Dunaway, who, under Mr. +Doggett's constant urging, did a fair day's work, and of Dock, who never +shirked in the tobacco patch, but ten o'clock found Dunaway gleefully +bearing the big melon ornamented with the words of presentation in the +direction of the gate of exit, and Dock, filling an empty flour sack +with cantaloupes. + +"Lay down that melon!" suddenly sounded gruffly on their ears, and a +thick-set man, brandishing a stout leather whip, emerged from the shadow +of a big walnut near the fence. + +"Lay down that melon, I tell you, or I'll smash you flat!" + +Something was smashed, but it was not the bondsman. Dunaway, cornered, +lifted the melon high, and dropped it heavily on a flat rock that lay +near the gate. It burst in a dozen pieces, and the sweet juice flew in +the face of the horrified Mr. Brock. + +That gentleman, enraged at this wanton destruction of Miss Lucy's +present, said something that would have fallen harshly on the lady's +ear, and rushed forward with his cowhide. But Dunaway had fled and Dock, +his booty cast aside, was making a wild dash toward the open gate. Fate, +in the shape of fatigue, retarded his movements; a tough vine tripped +him, and he fell. + +Before he could rise, the sole of a heavy foot was forcibly applied to +the rear side of his trousers, the lash of his pursuer had twice smote +his bare legs, and before he could reach the gate and safety, a half +dozen more mighty cuts were bestowed on those insignificant members that +Gran'dad called Dock's foot-handles. + +Early next morning, Mr. Brock appeared at Mr. Doggett's with anger +burning in his eyes. Mrs. Doggett was not at home, but Mr. Doggett had +remained at the house a few minutes behind his workmen, and into his +ears Mr. Brock poured his melon tale. Mr. Doggett was solicitously +sympathetic. + +"Who on earth you reckon 'twuz tuck your big millern, Mr. Brock?" he +asked wonderingly. + +"The man was nobody but that vagabond, Dunaway, you've got a workin' for +you, and the little feller with him, judgin' by his size, was _Dock_!" + +Mr. Doggett smiled. "Shorely, Mr. Brock, you are mistakened. We all +worked in the rain, day before yistiddy, and hit wuz all the boys could +do to git upstairs last night to bed, after they et, and I noticed Dock +wuz so stiffened up, he wuz walkin' lame this mornin'." + +"I saw a man's track in the mud by the gate this mornin'," said Mr. +Brock: "a pointed shoe track." + +Dunaway had reviled the long needle-pointed shoes, but his worn patent +leathers had come in pieces on the second day of his labors, and he had +been, perforce, to the great delight of the other men, obliged to put +the "new" shoes on to protect his feet from blistering and the dry +clods. + +"And," added Mr. Brock in fine scorn, "there's nobody in the County a +wearin' needle-pointed shoes at present, but your hireling. As for his +companion, I didn't see his face, for the cloud that came up over the +moon when I was close to him, and he got away before I could git my +hands on his collar, but an old cowhide in my hand came in close contact +with his legs. You never noticed any stripes on Dock's standards this +mornin' did you?" + +Mr. Doggett was much troubled. + +"I jest hate hit awful, Mr. Brock," he deplored, "ef _'twuz_ them. I +hain't never warned the boys ag'in goin' in millern patches, no, sir, I +hain't, although I ort to 'a' done hit, yes, sir. But I'll see they +don't go in yourn no more." + +"If I catch Dunaway in again," said Mr. Brock, thickly and with heat, as +he started homeward, "it certainly won't be good for _him_. I'll just +manage to get word to the sheriff down where he wintered, where he broke +jail without servin' out his time for indulgin' in some law breakin'!" + +Dock's legs, Mr. Doggett's public reproof, and the ungratified longing +in his stomach for melons, were still giving the boy trouble late +Saturday afternoon, after the flight of Friday evening. + +"Old devil!" Dock remarked to Dunaway as they went from the field +together, conversing of their enemy: "he's a layin' hisse'f out to +please the Jeemeses--sendin' 'em water-millerns and canterlopes, and +mush-millerns! He thenks he's a gittin' on with Miss Lucy, and I don't +b'lieve Miss Lucy'd give Mr. Lindsay's little fenger fer all old Galvin +Brock, ef Mr. Jeemes and Miss Nancy'd let her have Mr. Lindsay. I +b'lieve old Brock told old Mr. Jeemes some lies, anyway, on Mr. Lindsay! +And he couldn't let us jes' _taste_ one his old millerns! Old devil! +I'll stamp him yit!" + +"Consarn his old moley, red nose! I'll help you stamp him, Dock!" +offered Dunaway, mindful of possible weary days in a Mississippi jail. + +"Miss Lucy Jeemes used to give me pears sometimes; her'n is gittin' ripe +now," Dock remarked irrelevantly: "I believe I'll go up thar in the +mornin', ef Miss Nancy is gone to church (she's stingy), and git some. +Wanter go with me?" + +"I'd go in a minute," said Dunaway, "if it were not for the figure I cut +in the confounded short jeanses, and these blasted needle-pointers, and +that Noah's Ark derby!" + +"Ef I'll slip you out a pair o' Jappy's pants, and his last year's +Sunday slippers, and one of his white shirts and collars, and Joey's +cap, will you go?" asked Dock. + +"Sure!" agreed Dunaway. + +Dunaway had liked the gentle Mr. Lindsay, from their first meeting. From +Dock, he had learned of Mr. Lindsay's connection with the James family, +of the affair of the trunk, and of the interrupted winter's courtship. +He had discovered that Mrs. Doggett was espousing the cause of Brock, +had observed that Mr. Lindsay on his Saturday evening's visit, had +winced when she had prophesied that Mr. Brock would be married to Miss +Lucy before his tobacco was cured, and had resolved to help him when +opportunity offered itself. + +After Mrs. Doggett's application of locks to her food supplies, and +after Mr. Brock's threats became known to him, Dunaway had the incentive +of revengeful desires to stimulate him to aid Mr. Lindsay in the cause +of love. + +"My hair is a gittin' turrible long, Mr. Lindsay," Mr. Doggett remarked +on Sunday morning to his guest who, more pallid and worn than the week +before, had come on Saturday evening: "and your'n's might' night' long +enough to do up in a French twist: less git a pair clippers, and have a +hair cuttin'." + +"All right," agreed Mr. Lindsay, "I'll jest step over to Archie +Evans'--he's got ever'thing--and borry his. Anybody want to go with me?" + +Dunaway proffered his company immediately. + +"You're paler and thinner than you were this time last week," he +observed, on their way, "and hard work oughtn't to bleach you that way. +What's the matter? Sweetheart gone back on you?" + +Mr. Lindsay looked at him intently: but sympathetic interest alone was +expressed in the shining black eyes. + +"I dunno about _her_, Dunaway," he said, after a moment: "sometimes I +believe her folks have set her ag'in me, and turned her toward another +man, then ag'in I dunno whether I am right er not!" + +"I hear she's like an angel," reflected Dunaway. "You still think so +too, don't you?" + +"I don't deny I still thenk hit," confided Mr. Lindsay, "and I believe +she'd 'a' married me too," he added impulsively, "ef hit hadn't been fer +Galvin Brock lyin' about me to old Milton! Brock--maybe you don't know +hit--wants her hisse'f!" + +Dunaway declined entering the brick house of the Evans', but remained a +respectable distance out, in the field, giving "the confounded jeanses" +as his reason. His mind rapidly formulated a plan, on the way back to +the Doggett home. Dock impatiently awaited him at the woodpile. + +"I snooped up thar in Mr. Jeemeses pastur," he whispered, "and seed Miss +Nancy a startin' off to church--she's plumb out o' sight by now; now's +our time to go ast Miss Lucy fer them pears. I got them clothes ready on +the back side Mr. Jeemeses strawstack." + +The pear tree of Dock's admiration stood in the northeast corner of the +orchard, out of range of the porch, and next the garden, from which the +orchard was separated by a post-and-rail fence, easily climbed; along +the eastern side of the garden and orchard lay a picket fence, over +which leaned blackberry bushes on the orchard side, and golden rod on +the pasture field side. + +There was no opening into the pasture field from the orchard, but a +small gate led into the grass field from the garden. Miss Lucy James, +gathering green beans, looked up to see Dock, accompanied by a tall and +good-looking young man, in a neat shirt-waist costume, coming toward +her. + +"This is Ma's cousin, Alfred Bronston, Miss Lucy," said Dock (acting by +instructions) by way of introduction. "He's been a workin' fer us a +month. He's the one Mr. Lindsay thenks so much of." + +Miss Lucy's slim hand was very cold when she held it out to Dunaway. + +"How is Mr. Lindsay, Mr. Bronston?" she asked. "Have you saw him +lately?" + +"He's at our house today," answered Dunaway, "but I'm sorry to say, he +is not looking well." + +"He's awful puny lookin'," exaggerated Dock, still following previous +instructions: "Pap says he thenks he's goin' into a recline; his eyes is +all sunk in, and he's paler'n a taller candle, and jest wouldn't weigh +_nothin'_!" + +Miss Lucy's heart gave a great plunge, and seemed to stand still: her +hand lost its grasp of the basket--the beans were scattered. + +"Allow me to pick them up, Miss James," said courteous Dunaway, and the +knees of dudish Jappy's second best pantaloons went down in the dirt. + +"Me and Dun--my cousin--" ventured Dock,--"we wanted to git a few pears +to eat--jest a little taste, Miss Lucy." + +"Ef you'll empty the beans on the kitchen table for me, Dock," said Miss +Lucy, "you can gather some pears in the basket to take home with you." + +The words had scarcely left her lips, before Dock was opening the +kitchen door in joyful obedience. + +"Is what Dock says about Mr. Lindsay true, Mr. Bronston?" Miss Lucy's +voice trembled over the question. + +"Well," answered Dunaway, "when a man is in deep trouble, his bodily +health is bound to be disturbed, and Mr. Lindsay--" he paused as though +reluctant to go on. + +"What--what is he worryin' about?" fluttered Miss Lucy. + +Dunaway looked straight at her--an earnest, honest look. + +"You want me to tell you the truth, Miss James? He thinks he has lost +your love." + +When Dock came back, Miss Lucy pointed to the pear tree. + +"Jest go and help yourselves, Dock, you and your cousin: I--I've got to +git a little note ready, I want to send by you." + +It was many minutes before Miss Lucy, with her eyes suspiciously pink, +appeared under the pear tree with a sealed envelope of a delicate +lavender shade, in her hands, and the three, Dock, his "cousin" and the +basket were alike full. + +"Ef you could give this to him, without anybody seein' hit, I'd be +glad," faltered Miss Lucy, as Dunaway placed the envelope carefully in +the pocket of Jappy's white blouse. + +"Mr. Lindsay shall have this in his hands in a few minutes, and nobody +shall be the wiser," he assured her with a smile so full of good-will +and encouragement, that her heart lightened as she looked at him. + +When the two pear-bearers once more appeared at the Doggett home, +Dunaway wore his own clothes, and a bundle in a clump of briars awaited +a favorable opportunity to be conveyed to the house. + +All that afternoon, Mr. Lindsay sat leaning against the pine in the +front yard, with a glow in his face that told of a joyful heart within, +and when Lily Pearl's pet pig, his especial aversion, poked an inquiring +nose against the letter in his left hand, he gently patted the muddy +back with his right. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +MR. DOGGETT LENDS A HAND + + "He that is thy friend indeed, + He will help thee in thy need!" + + +Humming a joyous little song, Miss Lucy James came out of the garden +about ten o'clock on Monday morning, a day lily in one hand, a basket of +sage leaves in the other and the brightness of the morning in her face. + +"You, Lucy Ann, you come here!" Miss Nancy, standing on the back porch, +transfixed her sister with a glance so full of disgust and +censoriousness that Miss Lucy quivered. The old man stood by Miss Nancy, +with an unfolded sheet of lavender note paper in his hand. + +"Here's a letter, Lucy Ann," he sneered, waving the sheet before Miss +Lucy: "a letter a fool woman writ to Lindsay a yistiddy, tellin' him a +passel o' foolishness about her a thinkin' he'd give her up: and how +happy she is to know he's a lovin' her yit: and how proud she'd be to +see him again: and how 'feerd she's been he'd work too hard and maybe +git sick, and a rigamarole o' other sech stuff! And your name's to hit. +I wanter know, did you write hit?" + +[Illustration: "Here's a letter, Lucy Ann," he sneered.] + +The scorn in his voice burnt Miss Lucy's heart like a live coal: a +darkness came before her, and she clutched at a pillar of the porch to +steady herself, with fingers as cold and devoid of feeling as those of +the dead. Her silence aggravated the old man further. + +"So you're still a runnin' after that weakly critter, air ye?" he +sputtered, the paper shaking in his hands, "a man with one foot in the +grave, and hain't laid up a cent as fur as anybody knows! What can you +promise yourse'f a marryin' _him_?" + +Miss Lucy's stiff lips moved. "I--Pa--we could work!" + +"Work!" scoffed Mr. James, "a sickly ailin' theng like you, a talkin' +about workin' fer a livin'! Lindsay's a mighty fool ef he's willin' to +saddle hisse'f with sech a bundle o' doctor's bills as you! And hit +'pears like to me, hit's you a doin' the anglin' instid o' him, any way. +Hit's about the case with you of my grandfather's def'nition o' a +fisherman--a line and a pole, with a hook at one end and a fool at the +other. + +"And what'll you be a doin' ef he'll let you ketch him? You'll jest be a +draggin' around from cabin to cabin like them old Taylors,--you a +bar'foot, and him with a hog-jaw, and a skillet onder his arm! When you +wuz made, Lucy Ann, the sile you wuz made out of shorely wuzn't in no +condition to breng more'n a quarter crop o' brains!" + +Miss Lucy had covered her eyes with one delicate hand, but the tears +were creeping through her fingers. + +"Now Lucy Ann, you jest dry them eyes up and listen to Pa, and what he's +got to say!" Miss Nancy took hold of her sister's shoulder, and shook +her lightly. + +"Yes, you jest listen to me," commanded her father; "ef you hain't got +no head piece to speak of,--you've got a pair o' years I reckon. I've +done made my will, and give you your part along with the rest, but ef +you marry old Lindsay, I shall disinherit you! I shan't give you a +theng, and a poor off critter you'll be!" + +"Pa," quavered Miss Lucy, "a body can live on just a little." + +"Jest listen to that!" derided Miss Nancy. "Lucy's visited among them +terbaccer trash 'tel she's got jest like 'em. I'd hate to class myse'f +with sech! Mrs. Castle says some them terbaccer people ain't no better'n +niggers, and I believe her. I despise all old poor people, sech as old +Lindsay." + +"Nancy," remonstrated Miss Lucy, between sobs, "poverty is no sin." + +"Naw, but hit's a mighty inconvenient possession, as you'll find to your +sorrer, Lucy Ann," prophesied her parent. + +"And mighty little respect your selected husband's a showin' you," he +added, "a tearin' your love letter acrost and throwin' hit down in the +mud on the road fer anybody to pick up!" + +"Hit's mighty thankful you ought to be to Mr. Brock," broke in Miss +Nancy: "people are a scandalizin' you now, and tellin' you are meetin' +Lindsay out places, I hain't a doubt, and ef hit hadn't 'a' been fer +Brock a findin' that letter, and handin' hit to Pa to give to you, no +tellin' who would 'a' read hit! Ef you had any sense at all, Lucy Ann, +you'd quit runnin' like a skeered kitten ever' time Mr. Brock comes in! +You'd see which man hit is that keers anything for you, and let him do a +little proper courtin'!" + +Pinned to the lining of Miss Lucy's waist was a bit of paper that to her +was sufficient contradiction of her father's insinuations as to her +friend's lack of respect, and satisfactory proof of his regard,--a +little note that had been slipped into her hand late Sunday afternoon +when the youngest Doggett had come up on his monthly shoe-last borrowing +quest. + +In willing obedience to her father's commands, Miss Nancy wrote at his +dictation a number of letters to absent relatives, wielding a pen biased +to the limit of truth. Near the end of the week, the answers came, +rendering Miss Lucy who had not dared to write to defend her position, +wretchedly miserable. + +The youngest married sister's selfishly pathetic appeal was: "Lucy, for +my sake, stay at home, and help Nancy take care of Pa!" The reduced, +fine sister-in-law, with no desire to care for an aged parent-in-law, +counseled: "Lucy, whatever you do, don't marry and break up the home!" +The law student nephew wrote in half jest, half earnest, "Aunt Lucy, if +you were to marry, who'd be there to bake pies for me when I come to see +Grandpa? Aunt Nancy's pies are the limit!" The rich old aunt sent simply +a gilt-edged card bearing the inscription, "Honor thy father and thy +mother." + +On the evening of Friday, the day that the letters of advice came to the +James family, Dock Doggett went to return the borrowed shoe-last. He had +raised his hand to knock on the kitchen door, when a sound within of +some one violently sobbing, arrested him. He heard the rattle of a +dishpan on its nail, announcing the completion of the kitchen work of +the evening; then Miss Nancy's high voice raised itself. + +"Lucy, are you tryin' to melt yourse'f a cryin'? Hit's been nothin' but +cry, cry, ever' sence Mr. Brock found the letter you wrote to old +Lindsay, and now sence Aunt Mollie and the others have give you good +advice, you're worse'n ever. Pa's asleep, and I'm goin' upstairs to bed, +and ef you're bound to cry, you jest stay here in the kitchen where Pa +won't hear you and do your weepin'!" + +Dock waited until he heard the stair door shut Miss Nancy in her +bedroom, then knocked gently. + +Before he went home, Miss Lucy, desperate for sympathy, had told him of +the fate of her Sunday's letter, of her father's anger, and of her +unhappiness since. + +"If you see _him_, Dock," she besought when Dock took his leave, "tell +him not to be mad at me for not answerin' his letter: I'd love to answer +hit the best in the world, but--Tell him I say maybe I've done somethin' +wrong and the Lord's a holdin' happiness back from me because of that +sin. And tell him ef they won't let--ef I have to give him up, I'll +never fergit him while I live!" + +"I 'lowed they'd give out a marryin'," remarked Mr. Doggett, Sunday +morning at the breakfast table, when Dock, who found it impossible +longer to keep so interesting a a story to himself, had told Miss Lucy's +tale of the lost letter. "I hain't heerd Mr. Lindsay say but mighty +little about Miss Lucy, sence back in plowin' time, when the old man +ordered him to not set foot in the house no more. He's mighty proud and +he wuz so insulted, I 'lowed he'd never git over hit. Brock, he's been a +lottin' on standin' fust with Miss Lucy, hain't he, old lady? Hit's +cur'is how he got a holt o' old man Lindsay's letter, now, hain't hit? +Look's like a man'd teck better keer o' a love-letter than to be +drappin' hit in the road." + +Dunaway, between quick mouthfuls, looked keenly at Mrs. Doggett. The +morning was warm, but its heat was not responsible for the red spots +that burnt on her usually pale cheeks. + +"Hit's strange Mr. Lindsay didn't come in last night," went on Mr. +Doggett: "although he wuz like us I reckon--worked so late in the +terbaccer yisterday, he was jest too tired to possibly walk hit." + +"He'll be along this morning probably; let's go down to the creek to +meet him," suggested Dunaway. + +When Mr. Lindsay crossed the felled sycamore, that stretched across the +creek, which served when the riffle rocks were under water, for a +foot-bridge, he found his friends awaiting him. + +The smile with which he greeted them vanished, and his eyes hardened as +he listened to Dunaway's story of the letter. + +"That's the reason," he muttered, "I hain't got no letter from her this +week: I've been a lookin' ever' day, and a wonderin' why none never +come, and all the time the poor theng's been afeerd to write!" + +"Hain't she the feerdest and the tender-heartedest woman you ever seed?" +said Mr. Doggett. "Dock said he left her a cryin' t'other night like a +child lost from hits mother. And ever sence we've been a livin' here, +she's been a cryin', oft and on, over somethin'. Yes, sir! The wonder is +how any person can leak all the tears that she does, and be any juice +left in her. Accordin' to my calculatin', by this time, she ort to be a +lookin', after fifty years o' quiet weepin', and them last few days o' +tornader weepin' like one them dried Gypsum mummets Jim says he seed in +the Cincinnati amusin'-pen." + +"It looks like to me," remarked Dunaway, after a sudden, and to Mr. +Doggett, unaccountable burst of laughter, "a person of that age ought to +be able to take up for self some." + +"Hit does--but women folks is quair, Dunaway. Some of 'em will take any +sort and amount of abuse and say nothin', and some even won't take a +joke, no, sir. Hit's jest the way they're made. When I lived in Bourbon, +I knowed a man, Colonel Keys,--the butterest kind o' man in company you +ever seed; nobody wouldn't 'a' thought he wuz anytheng but purty behaved +in his fambly: but he wuz jest as rough thar as a hackle. His wife, +though, ef she ever said a word to lead folks to thenk he wuz anytheng +but plumb sugar to her, hit's yit to be heerd, and she's been dead +feefteen year. He got mad at her one day, and when she had her back +turned, he keecked her down the cellar steps, and the fall, hit broke +her false teeth, and she swallered 'em and never lived the year out, no, +sir! + +"You've heerd me talk about Lawyer Willie Wall over in Bourbon, hain't +you, Mr. Lindsay? Willie, he always said her bein' a woman that wouldn't +take a joke wuz what parted him and his wife. Willie, he killed some +rats, he'd caught in a cage rat-trap,--about a dozen, and skinned and +cleaned 'em right nice, and tuck 'em, and told his wife, they wuz young +squirrels, yes, sir! She fried 'em and they looked the nicest you ever +seed on the table. Willie, he wouldn't eat nary un, said he wuzn't +feelin' well, but she et one and a half, and then he told her what they +wuz! They wuz some that didn't blame her fer leavin' him, no, sir, but +he said he thought all women ought to be willin' to be joked now and +then! Women is cur'is, I tell you, Dunaway." + +"I wish," remarked Mr. Lindsay, who had paid but careless heed to Mr. +Doggett's recital, "somebody'd tell me how in the name o' sense Brock +got a holt o' her letter when I laid hit between the leaves o' my Bible, +and put the Book in the bottom of my trunk Sunday evenin' before I +left?" + +Dunaway shook his head. Mr. Doggett looked uneasy. + +"Are you plumb shore you put hit thar, Mr. Lindsay? Hit might be you +drapped hit out'n your pocket a climbin' the fence, yes, sir, hit +might." + +"I laid that letter in the Book of John, in the New Testament part of my +Bible," emphasized Mr. Lindsay, with some impatience. "Who knowed I had +the letter, besides you and Dock, anyway, Dunaway?" + +Dunaway, seated on the stump of the felled sycamore (he never stood when +he could sit) batted his eye in a wink that suggested many things. + +"A body ortn't to be too certain o' nothin', Mr. Lindsay, whar his +mem'ry is the only proof he's got--a feller is so liable to fergit," Mr. +Doggett hastened to say. "Now I knowed a young doctor over in Bourbon +that went back to his old boardin'-place the next day after he married, +and his bride wuz a settin' in her Ma's house whar they wuz goin' to +live, wonderin' why he didn't come home to supper. He forgot he wuz +married!" + +Mr. Lindsay laughed, but his laugh did not sound quite natural, and he +followed his friends to the house in a state of growing anger toward Mr. +Brock and one other to whom his suspicions most strongly pointed, his +whilom friend, Mrs. Doggett. + +Gran'dad sat propped up in a chair, with pillows, slightly pale from the +effects of a fall he had suffered the day before,--a fall that in no +wise had affected his tongue. + +"Well, Lindsay," he grinned, "I hear love-letters air so common with ye, +you throw 'em down in the highway!" + +Mr. Lindsay frowned heavily. "I never have throwed one in the road yit, +and whoever says I did--" + +"He belongs in the company o' them that 'shall have their part in the +lake which burneth with fire and brimstone,'" quoted Gran'dad, +interrupting him. + +"Hit don't seem to me that tellin' a leetle made up tale to holp hisse'f +along in courtin' would be accounted a crime on a feller," proffered his +son. + +"Mebbe the feller that's done hit wouldn't be accounted guilty of crime +in the Courts, Ephriam," sagely observed Gran'dad, "but he ort to be in +the pen on gineral principles anyhow!" + +"Ef hit's Mr. Brock you're a hintin' on," said Mrs. Doggett, "I've got +this to tell you: anybody that says a word ag'in Galvin Brock, may eat +dough that passes through my fingers, but he hain't no ways _welcome_ to +hit!" + +She spoke lightly, but the spark in her eyes belied the lightness of her +tones. Mr. Lindsay rose, and with the remark that it was time all +respectable people had on their Sunday clothes, went upstairs where his +wardrobe was kept. Dunaway and Dock followed him. + +When they came down they announced that the three of them were going to +Jim and Henrietty's to spend the day. + +"What wuz that you throwed out the winder, Dock, jest before you come +down?" queried his grandfather who sat facing the front window. "Hit +fell in that yaller rosey-bush." + +"Jes' my dirty clothes, Gran'dad," answered Dock, cheerfully, going out +to rescue the bundle. + +"Bein's the boys is all gone, Mr. Lindsay," Mr. Doggett reached for his +hat,--"and Dad liable to be a nappin', I'll git sorter lonesome. I +believe I'll jest step up to old man Jeemeses as you all go, fer a few +minutes, and see how he is." + +Dock and Dunaway had disappeared, but just before the older men came in +sight of the James house, they joined them, Dunaway clothed in the +shirt-waist costume of the Sunday before. + +Mr. Doggett gazed at Dunaway in his stylish habiliments, and opened his +mouth for remark, but thoughtfully and considerately closed it again. + +"I guess I'll have to leave you here," said Mr. Doggett, lifting the +latch of the gate in the high picket fence that ran along the back of +the James garden and orchard. Mr. Lindsay laid a detaining hand on Mr. +Doggett's shoulder. + +"Think you could talk to the old man and keep him settin' still there on +the back porch fer an hour er so, Uncle Eph?" + +Mr. Doggett smiled intelligently. "Ef hit will help you and her out +any," he declared, "I'll guarantee to entertain the old feller, until +livin' terbaccer worms quits a eatin'!" + +Mr. James roused himself from the nap into which he had fallen after +Miss Nancy had departed for church, and Miss Lucy had gone to the +kitchen, and welcomed his guest cordially. + +"All as well as common, yes, sir," assented Mr. Doggett, "but Dad. He +fell down the stair-steps a yistiddy and sprung his neck. He's not been +able to git about sence, and I'm afeerd he'll be laid up all week." + +"Old fellers will fall about," remarked Mr. James. + +"Yes, sir, they will. Although Dad's allus been so active, he fergits +age is a creepin' on him. Jappy, he takes after Dad,--jest as active as +a cat. He went to the skeetin'-rink about three weeks ago--the fust time +he ever wuz at the rink--and outdone all the skeeters. He said he wuz a +aimin' to try the next Saturday night they have hit, fer the ten doller +skeet-book. Ten dollers seems a heap o' money fer one book to +cost--although hit might be hit's got some kind o' gold er silver +claspin's er orniments on hit, yes, sir. + +"And what good hit'll do Jappy ef he wins hit, I don't see, considerin' +he can't read. I've allus been so busy, the boys hain't had no +schoolin', no, sir." + +"Joey can read, can't he?" asked his listener. + +"Yes, sir--Joey he takes to the book like a lawyer: reads might' nigh +ever' book er paper he can lay hand to. Joey, he says when he wuz up at +the Castle's a Sunday or two ago, Lisle, he took him in a room that the +four walls of, wuz jest one thickness o' books, and Lisle showed him a +book he wuz a larnin' in he called the _Latins_. Dad says hit 'pears +like he can't quote no scripture on the Latins. I told him they might +'a' lived in old Pharaoh's time, though that's jest my guess." + +"Thar's certain a lot of thengs in the world the most of us don't know +nothin' about," conceded Mr. James. + +"Yes, sir, that's jest what I wuz a tellin' the boys," went on Mr. +Doggett, and inserting his thumb and finger in his inside breast pocket, +he pulled out a dark object, the jaw tooth of a horse, and laid it on +his host's knee. It had belonged to old Powhatan, a racer buried in the +field many years before. + +"Here's somethin' I found out in the terbaccer t'other day, I fetched to +show you. I thought maybe hit belonged to one o' them creeters that +lived before the flood. I showed hit to Lisle Castle, and he said hit +wuz a mammon's tooth. I'd a tuck hit to Jedge Robbins,--he has a whole +room full o' sech, ef he hadn't 'a' died." + +"Who'd they app'int Jedge fer his successor?" inquired Mr. James. + +"Hain't you heerd?" Mr. Doggett seemed surprised: "they app'inted old +man Perry. Reckon they thought they'd drap a plum to Al's pap, +considerin' Al wuz so nigh a gittin' elected assessor last fall--but not +quite!" + +"And jest defeated by one vote," commented Mr. James. + +"Yes, sir," Mr. Doggett laughed, "and that vote wuz Dad's." + +"How come him to go ag'in Al? I 'lowed Dad wuz a Dimocrat." + +"He is, yes, sir, he is, but you know how Dad is. He jest can't possible +fergit an injury," confided Mr. Doggett. + +"The old man, him and Dock, they wuz a fishin' in old man Perry's pond +along two year ago, and they had ketched two as fine New Lights as ever +you seed, and sir, along comes Al Perry, that big-headed, gold-toothed +Al Perry (teeth ever' one plated over 'tel his mouth's a plumb gold +mine) and says: 'Gran'dad, throw them fish back: I want to stock the +pond with 'em!' + +"'Why, Al,' Dad says, 'they've been out so long they'll die anyway ef +I'd throw 'em back, but I'll give you half of 'em to eat!' + +"'No,' Al says, 'you've got to throw 'em back!' And, don't you know Al +made him throw 'em back! Why, they wuz might' night' the length o' my +arm! + +"That Al, he's a tough one. Dad turned to him when he heerd them fish +floppin' back 'mong them waterlilies, and says: 'Jest you wait, Al, 'tel +my time comes. I'll stamp you yit fer this!' And he shore did. Ever' one +of us voted fer Al fer Assessor but Dad. He voted fer Fant ag'in Al. +Yes, sir, Al wuz defeated by one vote, and that one wuz _Dad's_. + +"I told Dad I wouldn't 'a' done hit ef I'd 'a' been him, and I dunno as +hit done him any good. Al, he's jest schemy and smart and he couldn't +holp that streak o' stinginess--tuck after his pap. And a dollar looks +as big as a cart-wheel to him. You know old man Perry, don't you, Mr. +James?" + +"I thenk I've seed him," answered Mr. James. + +"Leetle low old feller--looks like he's walkin' 'round after a set o' +sandy whiskers. His whiskers are so big he looks like he's got a bushel +basket stuffed with cowhairs tied to his head! They used to tell a tale +on him about a couple o' mice makin' a nest in his beard, hit wuz so +thick, and nobody wouldn't 'a' never knowed they wuz in thar, ef they +hadn't 'a' heerd 'em a squealin'! + +"Old man Perry, and the boys got up a barbercue before the election to +sorter holp Al along on the votes. Ever'body wuz to bring provisions, +and would you b'lieve hit, old man Perry, afraid o' losin' a copper, +brought a pig ham, and a broken-legged drake, and him ownin' half the +county! + +"I used to hear the toll-gate keepers on the pikes a grumblin' about him +a allus goin' through the gates free, on account of allus carryin' bills +too big fer the keepers to change. He used to go through ever' gate fer +miles around in any direction and fla'nt his twenty dollar bills--but +they all got up to him finally, and got to keepin' money at the gates +jest fer him. I tell you, they busted them twenty doller bills, yes, +sir, they busted 'em! + +"Did ever you notice Mr. Jeemes," Mr. Doggett went on meditatively, +"hit's among the rich folks you find them o' the quairest ways? I've +seed a sight o' curi's rich people in my time, yes, sir. When I lived in +Bourbon, I seed somethin' done onct a body wouldn't thenk o' seein' in +any fambly, much less a rich one. + +"Me and Captain Theodore Murray wuz a drivin' some hogs to town, and on +the way we passed by John Sutherland's, his brother-in-law's place. Rich +John, they called him over thar whar he lived, hit looked like a little +town, fer the nigger cabins, and granaries, and stock barns, and all +sech. The County road hit run right along by one his barns. Old John, he +wuz out watchin' one the hired men diggin' a hole right on the slope +between the barn and the road. Captain Theodore, he says: 'What you +fixin' to bury, John, turnips? Sorter early, hain't hit?' Hit wuz in +September. + +"'John,' he says: 'No, we're a fixin' to bury Emily's baby!' Hit wuz the +week-old child o' his daughter that run off and married a soldier in the +standin' army. He wuz stationed away off sommers when hit died. + +"Captain Theodore, he rared back in his stirrups and he called out like +he wuz orderin' a company o' soldiers. + +"'Fill up that hole!' he says. 'Ef you haven't got a decent place to +bury that child, I'll buy a place, and give hit to you!' And he rid on +to town, and bought a lot in the cimetry. And, ef you'll b'lieve hit, +Mr. Jeemes, next day when they started to town to take the child to +hit's buryin'-place, old rich John tied the little coffin on behind a +buggy, and started to town at a brisk trot! And thar wuzn't a mourner a +follerin'. When he got along as fur as the store half-way to town, the +store-keeper thar hollered at him and told him his box wuz a slippin' +off, and ast him what he had in hit. I tell you, Mr. James, he wuz plumb +ashamed o' hollerin' so rough and keerless when he found out hit wuz +Mis' Emily's baby, and he come out and tied hit on good, and then John +cut up the horse and driv' on faster'n ever! Now would you 'a' thought +that o' rich people?" + +Mr. James' comments and his good-humor encouraged Mr. Doggett toward the +subject of most interest to him at that moment. + +"I tell you, Mr. Jeemes," he tendered, "a poor man don't have nigh the +temptations o' the rich fellers, and he can't afford so handy to be odd +and quair. As I wuz a tellin' Mr. Lindsay--" + +Mr. James put up an interruptive hand. "Don't mention that thar Lindsay +to me!" he growled. "He hain't wuth mentionin'! Though he let on to have +the reputation of an angel fer a mighty long time, when he come about +me, he made out to lower that reputation." + +"He never done nothin' wrong, did he, Mr. James?" placated Mr. Doggett. + +"Persuadin' a woman away from her duty to them as is her best friends, +to want to marry him, he's done _that_. All the winter he'd set around +the fire clost to Lucy Ann, a puttin' his hands over his mouth, a +talkin'; I couldn't hear a word, bein' deefer'n common last winter, but +I know now he wuz a courtin'--a talkin' love right onder my nose!" + +Mr. Doggett smiled conciliatingly. "Miss Lucy's bein' a nice woman, you +couldn't blame him, no, sir! And whar wuz the harm, Mr. Jeemes? Mr. +Lindsay--he's a nice man. They hain't a honester man in the world'n him, +Mr. Jeemes. Ef he hain't got but a dollar in the world, and owes hit to +you, you'll git hit. They hain't nigh enough o' them kind o' men in the +world. Whar's the harm o' him a talkin' pleasant to Miss Lucy?" + +"Whar's the harm!" fumed the old man. "Persuadin' Lucy to want to marry +a weakly man sixty-five year old and hain't saved up a cent, as fer as +anybody knows!" + +"He hain't more'n fifty, Mr. Jeemes," demurred Mr. Doggett gently, "and +he shore has got some money laid up. He told me hisse'f he had two +thousand dollers in the Owensboro bank. He showed me the bank book, yes, +sir. Hit wuz a paid up inshorance policy, er some sich, he'd tuck out, +and put thar along in the winter." + +"Well, I'll never believe hit 'til I see hit," said the old man, +contrarily: "and I don't put no confidence in his ability to make a +livin'." + +"Yes, sir," broke in Mr. Doggett, "but he's a fine terbaccer man, jest +can't be beat, and the workin'est feller I ever seed! He's aimin' to put +in a crop o' terbaccer next year." + +"I keer nothin' fer his aims," declared Mr. James, impatiently: "Lucy +sha'nt fling herse'f away on a poor man, ef I can keep her from hit! +What could she promise herse'f a weddin' poverty?" + +"Poverty is mighty mean company, yes, sir, but maybe ef Mr. Lindsay had +riches he'd have ondesirable qualities along with 'em, yes, sir. +Kentucky men hain't like Kentucky horses. No, sir; you jest can't +possible git holt o' a man with all the good qualities combined, fer men +don't have more'n half a dozen good qualities, none o' 'em! No, sir!" + +While Mr. Doggett on the back porch entertained Mr. James, Dock and +Dunaway, at the pear tree, and under the grape arbor, refreshed +themselves: and Mr. Lindsay, in the shadow of the goldenrods outside the +farthest corner of the orchard, sat on the turf, with one hand holding +tight a small one buried in the grass, and with the eloquence of +happiness, explained away the weary weeks of parting, of +misunderstanding and misery--the lost heaven of the year. + +"Jest go through the back gate o' the garden, Miss Lucy," Dock had +besought her in the kitchen, "and keep a goin' along the fence 'tel you +come to the far corner o' the orchid, and you'll find somethin' fer you +thar. I reckon you don't keer ef me and my cousin gits a pear er two to +take to Jim's little Katie, do you Miss Lucy?" + +Miss Lucy did not care. "I wonder why he didn't send me a letter by +Dock, instead of puttin' hit out there?" she murmured as she passed +slowly along the wall, searching the ground. Mr. Lindsay watched her +coming. + +"Lucy, what have they done to you?" he cried out sharply, and a mighty +wave of pitying love surged over him and sent him toward her with +outstretched arms. + +The bees that, regardless of Sunday, gathered sweets from the pale blue +aster blooms beside the goldenrods, went back to their hive many times: +Miss Nancy's chances for filling her jars with sweet pickled pears +steadily lessened, and the soft murmur of voices that came from the +goldenrod shaded corner went on and on. + +"You'll not fail me then, Lucy," the man said at last: "I can't have you +worried an hour longer than--" + +"They--they won't let me, Nathan," said Miss Lucy. "You'd just better go +away and forget me! I'm afraid--I'm afraid--" + +At this moment Dunaway raced past them, making quick time in the +direction of Jim Doggett's, but Dock paused in his flight. + +"She's a comin'!" he panted, jerking his thumb in the direction of the +road, "Miss Nancy! I seed her buggy out'n the top o' the pear tree, and +she's right at the yard!" + +Miss Lucy started up in dismay, a chalky whiteness spreading over her +face. Mr. Lindsay took one of her trembling hands. + + +"Remember!" he said meaningly. + +The latch of the yard gate rattled: Miss Lucy tried to pull away her +fingers, but his hand tightened its grip, and his other arm went around +her. + +"O Nathan," she gasped, frantic with fear, "go away! go away quick! Ef +Nancy was to see me out here with _you_--Don't Nathan!" + +A moment after, Miss Lucy, blushing furiously, sped through the garden, +trying to compose an explanation as to her rumpled hair, the fireless +stove, and the unstrung beans, lying wilting on the kitchen table, while +a determined man of fifty, with the stride of a boy, and a decidedly +youthful glow in his face, hurried toward the home of Jim and Henrietty +Doggett. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +"WEEP NO MORE, MY LADY" + + "God's in His Heaven, + All's right with the world." + + +The opportunity for speaking to her father alone, for which Miss Lucy +watched all Sunday afternoon after Mr. Doggett's departure, did not +present itself until after supper. Then, while Miss Nancy remained in +the kitchen for her half-hour's cleaning--an occupation in which she +would brook no assistance--Miss Lucy, tremulously resolute, hastened to +broach a subject that meant much to her dress-loving soul. + +"Pa," she murmured humbly, "you remember you helped Sister Isabindy, and +the others to git some nice clothes when they married: now, s'pose I was +to take a notion to marry, would you do the same by me?" + +The old man frowned impatiently. "I thought I'd made hit plain to you, +Lucy Ann," he reminded her, "that ef you wuz to marry, I'd cut you out +o' my will!" + +"I understood that, Pa," Miss Lucy explained with a look of pleading: +"but in case I was to git ready to marry, and would ask you to jest give +me a dollar or two to help pay for my dress, you'd say you would, +wouldn't you?" + +Mr. James looked at her as though he had not heard her aright. + +"What'd I say?" he jerked out, after a moment. "I'd say 'I shan't give +you nothin'.' Hain't I been a feedin' you longer'n I done any o' the +others?" + +Miss Lucy thought of the thirty-five years of uncomplaining toil for the +household,--her portion since her young womanhood: her heart quivered +with the injustice of her father's words, but she bit her trembling lip +and went on: "Anyway, Pa, ef I was to marry, I could take old Blackie, +couldn't I?" + +"Naw, you shouldn't take that cow! I need that cow." + +"But she's mine, Pa," persisted Miss Lucy, "and you sold her yearlin' +calf last spring and I--I--never got none of the money." + +"That don't make no difference," insisted her father, obstinately, "you +shouldn't have her!" + +On Monday morning Miss Lucy went to town with the marketing, and came +back with a silver gray costume--a dress of soft veiling, a gray silk +turban, a pair of dainty laced shoes, and a depleted purse. + +Miss Nancy sternly disapproved of her purchases. + +"What on earth made you git 'em, Lucy Ann?" she asked. "Hit's awful +early to be gittin' a new dress and hat, even ef they was suitable fer +winter." + +"Mr. Claine was a sellin' out his left over thengs at cost," replied +Miss Lucy, "and I thought I could wear 'em a good deal this fall, and +then have 'em ready for next spreng." + +"What did you git _gray_ fer?" demanded Miss Nancy: "the idy of an old +theng like you a wearin' gray!" + +An hour afterward, Miss Lucy sat in the sitting-room, hemming towels and +talking to her cousin, Simeon Willis, who had brought their mail from +the post-office: Mr. James was walking in the pasture field. Presently +Miss Nancy came hurriedly into the room. + +"What you got your new dress and shoes, and hat, and parasol, and +ever'theng laid out on the company-room bed fer, Lucy, like you was +ready to start somewheres?" she queried, irritably. "Look's like you'd +know enough to put 'em away where they wouldn't ketch dust!" + +"I'm a goin' to put 'em away after a while, Nancy," Miss Lucy flushed a +little as she met her sister's suspicious eyes: "I jest laid 'em out to +see how they looked. Any news, Simeon?" she asked to turn the subject. + +"Nothin' much," replied Mr. Willis: "I saw Lindsay in town. He's a goin' +to raise a crop of tobacco next year for Archie Evans. Told me this +mornin' he wuz a goin' to move his thengs there tomorrow in Archie's +house the carpenter's have jest got done--a mighty fancy little house it +is for a tenant house, too--and keep bachelor's hall, ef he couldn't do +no better. He was buyin' a cook-stove and a bed-stid and some cheers and +thengs today." + +Mr. Willis was not prepared for the result of this innocently imparted +information. + +Without comment, Miss Lucy quitted the room, and picking up her egg +basket, scurried off to the hens' nest at the barn. Miss Nancy sat +recklessly back on the bed whose smoothness had hitherto never been +disturbed in the daytime, and throwing her apron over her head, burst +into passionate weeping. Mr. Willis gaped. + +"What on earth is the matter with you, Nancy?" + +Miss Nancy dropped the apron from her face and groaned dismally. + +"I don't want to live--ef he--ef he--" + +"Ef he, what?" demanded her cousin, impatiently. + +"Marries!" screamed Miss Nancy. "Ef Lucy and him marries--I'm--I'm--a--a +goin' to take poison!" + +Mr. Willis looked at her in astonishment. "Aw shucks, Nancy," he +remarked, putting on his hat, "jest save your pizen for the rats. Lucy +hain't a goin' to marry, and ef she wuz married, what worse off'd you +be, I'd like to know? Unless," he added, under his breath, "unless you +wanted her man yourse'f." + +When Miss Lucy, ignorant of her sister's outburst, came back to count +her eggs into the brown-painted sugar-trough gourd in the sitting-room +closet, she expected Miss Nancy to say something about Mr. Lindsay, but +to her relief, a grumpy silence prevailed the rest of the afternoon. + +"I reckon I won't have nothin' else to worry me between now and +bedtime," thought Miss Lucy. But her congratulations were premature. +After supper, at the sound of a troubled outcry, Miss Nancy looked up to +see Miss Lucy standing in the doorway, shaking nervously, her face +whiter than the kitchen wall. + +"Nancy, have you been usin' some lye or somethin'?" She choked out the +question with difficulty. + +"I doctered a chicken this mornin' while you was gone, with some +carbolic acid," answered Miss Nancy, "and I might 'a' left a few dregs +in the cup." + +"Did you use the broke-handled teacup I wash my teeth in?" Miss Lucy's +voice rose to a wail. Miss Nancy reddened uncomfortably. + +"I ain't certain but what I did," she acknowledged. + +"O Nancy, whatever made you put hit back in the safe fer me to use?" + +Miss Nancy hastened to get a cup of warm water and the glycerine bottle, +but she did not express much sorrow for the accident. + +"There ain't no use in takin' on so, Lucy," she admonished her sister; +"looks like them few drops of carbolic mixed with water wouldn't hardly +burn your mouth, let alone poisonin' you." + +"My mouth ain't burnt to hurt," quavered the tearful victim, "but I'm +afraid my lower teeth's ruined: I run the brush over them before I +tasted hit!" + +Miss Lucy's first thought when the rain roused her from a troubled sleep +in the morning, was of her maltreated teeth. She felt of them with one +tentative forefinger. Four of them moved before her reluctant pressure. +"Ef hit hadn't 'a' happened jest _now_," she lamented: "but ever'theng +goes against me!" + +"Nancy," she announced with unwonted determination, after their +breakfast, "I'm a goin' to town today, and see ef the dentist can do +anytheng for my teeth." + +"'Twouldn't be no bad idy," admitted Miss Nancy, whose conscience, for +reasons known only to herself, had not been an easy one, for some hours: +"but whyn't you wait 'tel the soreness goes out of your mouth? Looks +like to me, most any day when 'tain't rainin' would do," she added, not +unkindly. Miss Lucy was not gifted at prevarication. + +"I'm--I'm afraid some more of 'em might git loose ef I wait," she +explained lamely. "Don't you thenk, Nancy, hit's a lightenin' up some in +the east?" + +Miss Nancy smiled grimly. "Ef you call a black cloud 'lightenin' up,' +hit's a lightenin' up!" + +To Miss Lucy's great disappointment, dusk only brought a cessation of +the steady down-pour. To go to town in the rain was to invite both +illness and Miss Nancy's suspicions, and her care was to avoid these +calamities. She remained at home. After another sleepless night, Miss +Lucy rejoiced to see Wednesday morning dawn clear, and as soon as her +nervous hands could harness the big bay, she started to town. + +But early as was Miss Lucy, there was on the road an earlier traveller +from the neighborhood of the Silver Run. Before she reached the turnpike +she overtook Dunaway, tramping along in the mud. She stopped old Ailsie +quickly. + +"Mr. Bronston, won't you get in and ride?" she invited him. "There's +plenty of room, and I'd be glad of your company." + +"Mr. Bronston" accepted her invitation with a smile, but as he climbed +gracefully in the buggy, he gave a deprecative wave of his hand: "These +everyday clothes of mine, which the mud compelled me to wear,"--he +indicated the short jeans pantaloons, and the long needle-pointers--"I +am afraid are not suitable to a lady's carriage, Miss James." + +Mrs. Doggett, in the rush of cooking for Mr. Doggett's force of tobacco +cutters, had not been able to compass laundry work for the space of two +weeks: both the bondman's pairs of overalls were in an oppressively +dirty condition, and on this, the first day Mr. Doggett had allowed him +to go to town, he was compelled to resort to his "Sunday" clothes. + +"Has Mr. Doggett got his tobacco all housed?" Miss Lucy inquired of him. + +"Every stalk is hanging in the barn, else I could not have gotten off +today," he told her in pleasant mendacity. In reality, Mr. Doggett had +many days more of cutting, but there was no cutting to be done until the +rain had dried off the tobacco, and Dunaway had promised to be back in +time for the morrow's work. + +Despite Miss Lucy's protestations, when they were about a quarter of a +mile from town, Dunaway insisted on alighting from the buggy, that she +might not be mortified in the town by having so clumsily garbed a +companion. He threw his bulky and evidently hastily-tied bundle over his +shoulder, thanked Miss Lucy effusively, and as she drove off tipped his +derby with grace. After driving a few hundred yards, Miss Lucy looked +back to remark the progress of "Mr. Bronston," but there was no longer +any such gentleman on the level stretch of "pike." + +It was nine o'clock when she presented herself at the office of Doctor +Everett Bell. + +"The four lower front teeth will certainly have to come out, Miss +James," he told her regretfully. Miss Lucy paled at this confirmation of +her fears. + +"I thought maybe you could tighten 'em some way for me, so they'd stay +in a while," she faltered. + +The dentist was young, sympathetic, accommodating and full of resource. +"I'll tell you what I'll do, Miss James," he said comfortingly, after a +half-moment's thought: "I'll tie them in with thread, so they'll stay in +a while, as they are." + +"Will they stay in a week?" asked Miss Lucy, hopefully. + +"Why, yes, three weeks," the young man assured her: "then come back to +me." + +A dance would better have suited Miss Lucy's feelings when she left Dr. +Bell's office, than the decorous walk to which she held her feet. In her +relief and happiness, she lingered an hour in town talking to her +acquaintances in the dry goods stores, and when, on getting into her +buggy, she was accosted by a black-veiled Sister of Charity, soliciting +aid for the Italian families suffering from an epidemic of typhoid +fever, in a mountain railroad town, her last twenty-five cents went into +the woman's black glove. + +She reached home, jaded but joyous, near one o'clock. Miss Nancy met her +with a lowering brow. + +"Now you're back from town at last, Lucy, you can light to and help me a +little," she informed Miss Lucy coming in from taking the horse to the +barn. + +"I'm so tired, Nancy, I 'lowed to rest some this evenin'." + +Miss Nancy's face stiffened. "Sunday jest gone, and you a talkin' about +restin' a weekday evenin'!" she derided. "Old body, you jest git to +work, and rake and clean up them leaves the wind's scattered over the +front yard, and when you git done that you jest heat some water and make +suds and wash them fall fly specks off the settin'-room winders, and the +glass in the door o' the press." + +Miss Lucy looked after her sister in dismay. "I'm afraid she's found out +somethin'," she said to herself: "anyway she's mad, and ef I don't help +her, she'll thenk I'm a restin' up fer somethin'. Ef she had jest only +took a cleanin' up spell some other day!" + +But there was no help for it. Miss Lucy put her aching feet in a pair of +old carpet slippers, and wearily struggled through her allotted tasks. + +With an aching back, she milked the cows in the dusk, and after a +pretense at eating supper, at six o'clock crept into bed in her room off +the sitting-room. + +At eight o'clock, she woke with a start of remembrance. Rising hastily, +she threw on a wrapper, and peeped cautiously into the sitting-room, +where her father slept. The old man breathed deeply. With a velvet +touch, she opened the door at the foot of the stairs that led up to Miss +Nancy's bedroom, and with a mighty sigh of thankfulness, listened to the +slow even breathing which proclaimed that Miss Nancy had been asleep at +least an hour. + +Miss Nancy never permitted but two lamps to be filled with oil: one of +these was in her room, the other on the sitting-room table by Mr. James' +bed. Miss Lucy, however, had a private illuminator of her own, a +purchase of the morning. + +She lighted her candle, and packed her trunk and a large valise with the +contents of her bureau drawers. The trunk, she locked; the valise, and a +little covered basket she carried noiselessly out to the drive and set +by one of the great poplars, carefully covering the basket with an old +rug. This done, she mounted the hall stairway to the company bedroom, +and began hurriedly to dress herself in the new clothes. She threw off +the carpet slippers, and reached under the breadths of the silver gray +skirt for her new shoes. They were not there, neither in the bureau +drawers, nor the closet,--nowhere in the room. In distressed wonder, she +went down stairs, and made a thorough search of her bedroom: but, to her +consternation, they were not there, and the second-best shoes she had +worn to town, and even her rough "everyday" shoes were gone! + +"Nancy must have hid 'em!" thought Miss Lucy, sitting weakly on the side +of her bed, "and what _will_ I do?" + +Tears sprang to her eyes, but she wiped them away and resuming the +carpet slippers, clothed herself in the new dress and hat, extinguished +her candle, and sat silent in the darkness by the window, listening +eagerly. The room was chilly, but her cheeks burnt with the flush of +excitement, and her hands were feverishly warm. + +At half-past ten, the end of a long fishing-pole tapped on the window. +In answer to this summons, Miss Lucy groped her way downstairs and out +into the yard. It was very dark, for there was no moon. A long hand shot +out from the darkness and caught her shaking arm, and a hoarsely +whispered drawl assured her cheerfully: + +"He's a waitin'--a waitin' in a buggy right down at the road, Miss Lucy, +and he sent me to fetch you. He wanted to come to the house to git you +hisse'f, but he's got a raisin' on his heel a tack made, and I told him +hit wuzn't no use to irrigate hit walkin' in them new shoes any more'n +was necessary. He's a wearin' patent leathers, and they're powerful +drawin' on a sore foot. I told him he ortn't to 'a' got that kind o' +shoes, but he 'lowed he wanted to honor you by wearin' what other +bridegrooms wears!" + +"I've got to git my valise, and basket, Mr. Doggett," whispered Miss +Lucy at the gate. + +"You jest hang on to my arm, Miss Lucy!" Mr. Doggett gathered up the +articles with a sweep of his right arm. "I'll 'tend to them satchels!" + +A few hurried steps brought them to the road. A hasty head was poked +from the waiting buggy, and a questioning face shone in the light of a +lantern. + +"Here she is, Mr. Lindsay! Here's your lady!" cried Mr. Doggett, in soft +reassurance, setting down his burdens to adjust the buggy's top. + +As Mr. Lindsay stepped out, his foot struck the covered basket. The lid +flew open: there was a scared spitting, and with a loud "miaouw," the +occupant of the basket extricated itself, ran a dozen yards up the road, +and climbed wildly upon the stone fence which bordered one side of the +highway. + +"Well I do say!" Mr. Doggett's eyes widened to their utmost. "I didn't +know you had a cat in thar, Miss Lucy! I 'lowed maybe hit wuz a Cubiun +parrit!" + +"O Nathan," faltered Miss Lucy, apologetically, "hit's the kitty you +give me, and I was afraid Nancy might--might kill her, ef I didn't take +her with me!" + +"All right," Mr. Lindsay smiled cheerfully: "I hain't never heerd o' no +cats goin' to a weddin' before to be saved from execution, but ef Uncle +Eph and me together can ketch her, she can go!" + +He crept cautiously up to the fence, and put out a propitiating hand. +Kitty was not to be propitiated, but bounced down, and fled farther up +the road, where she paused, a white spot in the darkness. + +"Jest git in, Mr. Lindsay," advised Mr. Doggett, "and drive erlong ontel +you git most to her, and Miss Lucy can sorter talk to her a leetle, and +maybe git her to come to the buggy." + +Mr. Doggett's advice proved good. This time, kitty, lured by the call of +her mistress, allowed herself to be caught and replaced in her +travelling-cage. + +"Bein's hit's so muddy, I'll jest walk to the pike," announced Mr. +Doggett, when the basket was safely stowed under the seat, "I'm afeerd +ef I wuz to git in now, hit might delay us some. Big Money, he hain't +lazy, but I have sometimes knowed him to take a notion to _bear easy on +a cold collar_." + +"Better let me do the walkin', Uncle Eph," protested Mr. Lindsay: "we +don't aim to let you make a plumb dog of yourse'f fer us." + +"Now, Mr. Lindsay," expostulated Mr. Doggett, "you hain't a talkin' o' +pullin' through the mud on that foot!" + +"I fergot my plagued foot." + +"Listen to him, Miss Lucy," chuckled Mr. Doggett. "Fergot a ready when +he got with you, and all the way up here, he wuz a frettin' over that +foot! I told him thar wuzn't nothin' so bad but what hit might be wuss! +I knowed a man that had a raisin' come in his _jaw_ the day of his +weddin': he couldn't open his mouth, and the weddin' had to be put off!" + +"Ain't he good to us, Nathan?" murmured Miss Lucy, from behind the thick +barege veil she had tied over the bridal hat to protect it from the +night dampness, as Mr. Doggett strode ahead with the lantern. + +"Whose buggy did you git?" she asked after a moment. + +Mr. Lindsay smiled wickedly in the darkness. "_I_ never got no +buggy--Uncle Eph--he got hit. This is Mrs. Doggett's new buggy she got +last week with her hogs (Johnny Leeds ordered hit fer her cheap), and +hit hain't been rid in before. She tuck some of her butter'n-aig money +and bought tarred paper to make a roof over hit, she's so choice of +hit." + +Miss Lucy gasped. "Hit's a wonder she'd a loaned hit!" + +The darkness again hid a grin, a still more wicked one. + +"She _never_ loaned hit. Uncle Eph slipped hit out after her office +hours--I mean after she was asleep." + +Miss Lucy looked uneasy. "Do you thenk hit's right fer us to be a ridin' +in hit?" + +"Don't give yourse'f no worry about that, my dear," said Mr. Lindsay +calmly: "she owes you that much on her account of stealin' your letter +out of my Bible Sunday week." + +At the juncture of the dirt road with the turnpike, Mr. Doggett cleaned +his boots carefully, climbed into the buggy, and shutting himself up +like a jackknife, with his knees touching his breast, seated himself on +the floor of the vehicle on a small box he drew from under the seat. + +"I'm afraid you ain't comfortable, Mr. Doggett," Miss Lucy protested. + +"S'pose'n you let me set on the box, Uncle Eph," proposed Mr. Lindsay: +"I take up some less room than you." + +"Keep your seat, Mr. Lindsay," insisted Mr. Doggett, gathering up the +reins: "this buggy top wuzn't built fer a man o' my height, and I do +better on the floor whar I can fold myse'f three times." + +"Hain't hit a gittin' _dark_!" murmured Miss Lucy fearfully, as the few +stars disappeared in a black cloud: "somebody might run into us on the +pike." + +"Hit's a comin' up a rain after a leetle," remarked Mr. Doggett: "but +don't you git oneasy, Miss Lucy: this here huntin' lantern Mr. Lindsay +borryed from Archie Evans, helt in front o' a buggy'll make t'other +feller on wheels thenk he's a meetin' a ottermobill', and he'll hug +t'other side the road. Now, Big Money, git 'long towards town!" + +"Big Money done mighty well over that mud we jest passed," complimented +Mr. Lindsay. + +Mr. Doggett's face beamed. "Now hain't he turned out well to be a +swapped-for plug? I'm a purty good jedge o' hosses, yes, sir! Anybody +can fool Lem with any old plug, ef hit's jest fat enough, but I can't be +fooled much. Marshall, he said when he seed the false tail they had tied +on this un come off jest after I left town the Court day I got +him--'Pap,' he said, 'you've got cheated! You'll have to sell that hoss +fer a song and seng hit yourse'f!' But old Big Money, he's turned out to +be a right peert old nag, yes, sir, a right peert old nag!" + +"We wouldn't be puttin' you to all this trouble, Mr. Doggett," regretted +Miss Lucy, presently, "ef Brother Avery hadn't moved to Lexington." + +"Hit hain't no trouble," protested Mr. Doggett, covertly feeling of one +knee to assure himself that it was not paralyzed--"I'm injoyin' hit!" + +"Whar are you goin' from Lexington?" he asked when he had, by a gentle +wriggle, slightly eased his position. + + +"We're a talkin' of goin' to visit Mr. Lindsay's nephew: hit's in +Owensboro, ain't hit, where he lives?" Miss Lucy turned to Mr. Lindsay. + +"Goin' to Owensboro, I reckon," answered the bridegroom, a perceptible +touch of sarcasm in his tone, "to see that wife and family some the good +people o' this neighborhood has saddled on to me!" + +Had there been sufficient light to distinguish facial tints, it would +have been observed that a shamed color sat upon Mr. Doggett's +countenance. + +"Now, Mr. Lindsay," he petitioned the unforgiving gentleman, "don't hold +that ag'in the old lady. She don't mean fer truth much over a quarter o' +what comes out'n her mouth. Me and her gits along mighty well, though, +considerin'. They say a man and his wife orter be _one_, and fer all +people passin' our house sometimes might thenk instid o' me and her +bein' one, we wuz half a dozen, we are _one_, and she's the one." + +"Why, Mr. Doggett," exclaimed Miss Lucy, "Mrs. Doggett thenks the world +of you!" + +"Yes, sir, Miss Lucy, although she hain't as foolish over me as a old +lady I used to know over in Bourbon. This old lady wouldn't let _her_ +husband out'n her sight, and when their spreng went dry one summer, and +they had to go a mile to git water, he used to carry a bucket o' water +on hossback on his head, and she'd be a settin' behind him on the hoss. +The fust time my old lady saw 'em a doin' that, she says to me, 'Eph +Doggett, a body never lives to be too old to learn--look, I've learned +_that_!'" + +As the lights of town met the travellers, Miss Lucy, who had for many +minutes been trying to muster up courage to tell of her shoeless +condition, burst out desperately: "O Nathan, I ain't got on no shoes! +Mine got--got _misplaced_ tonight, ever' pair, while I was takin' a nap, +and I--I--ain't got on nothin' but a pair of carpet slippers!" + +She did not add that they were a home-made pair, fashioned by Miss Nancy +out of an ancient and moth-eaten carpet satchel. + +"The dry goods stores, I'm afeerd, are all closed now," remarked Mr. +Lindsay: "maybe you can sorter hide your feet under your skirts, until +we git to Lexington," he added encouragingly. + +"I'll tell you what," suggested Mr. Doggett, "I seed some women's shoes +in Johnny Leeds' grocery store a leetle while back. Johnny he tole me +his boss keeps 'em to give fer prizes when a body's bought thirty +dollars wuth. Johnny, he sets up night' aver' night, 'tel twelve, and +I'll jest git him to onlock the store and fetch Miss Lucy out a pair o' +them!" + +"You jest hold the hoss, Mr. Lindsay." Mr. Doggett drew Big Money to a +standstill beside the depot platform. "I'll jest clip around to Johnny's +and be back inside o' ten minutes!" + +It was not until the ten minutes had lengthened themselves to +twenty-five, however, and the train was whistling at the first crossing, +that Mr. Doggett, his whiskers cutting the air like whips, and his +blowing rivalling the incoming engine's, reappeared, to find Mr. Lindsay +and Miss James, standing beside the buggy in a high state of nervous +tension. + +"Johnny," panted Mr. Doggett, "Johnny, he wuz in bed, but I h'isted him, +and we tore to the store, and," he thrust a slackly-tied +newspaper-wrapped bundle in Miss Lucy's trembling hands,--"here them +shoes is, Miss Lucy! You'll have to put 'em on after you git on the +cars!" + +Miss Lucy clutched the knobby bundle thankfully. "O Mr. Doggett," she +cried with shining eyes, "I can't never pay you for what you've done for +me!" + +"We'll never fergit you in the world, Uncle Eph, fer this night's work +fer us," declared Mr. Lindsay fervently, as he wrung Mr. Doggett's hand, +"and week after next, ef you'll say the word, I'm a goin' to cut the +stovewood, and she's a goin' to cook a big dinner fer you in our house!" + +"I'll be thar," promised Mr. Doggett, as Mr. Lindsay, bearing the +valise, quickly drew Miss Lucy, holding fast to the handle of the cat's +basket, and to the strings of the bundle to the steps of the rear coach. +"Ef ever you git in a tight place in your terbaccer, Mr. Lindsay, you +know who to send fer. Teck keer yourselves, and good luck go with you +ferever and ever!" + +Mr. Doggett turned to a tall lady in a black dress and flowing veil, the +only other passenger to take the midnight train. + +"Can I holp you to git on, Ma'am?" he asked her deferentially. The +Sister of Charity for it was she, laid her black-gloved hand in his, as +he started down the steps. + +"May God be with you, brother," she wished him devoutly, "and prosper +you in your life of toil!" + +When the train had thundered over ten miles of ties, Miss Lucy, +hesitating and blushing, unwrapped the Johnny Leeds shoes. + +Mr. Lindsay considerately walked to the water cooler in the opposite end +of the coach, and after getting a drink, sat down on the seat behind it, +that his intended bride might change her shoes without embarrassment. He +found himself facing the Sister of Charity. + +"It's beginning to rain. Had you observed it, sir?" the Sister said to +him, presently. + +"I hain't surprized," he answered her: "the clouds have been comin' up +fer a rain fer about two hours. Seems like I've seen you before, ma'am, +somewhere: your voice is familiar," he added, looking at her quickly and +sharply. + +The Sister deliberately winked at him. An amused light of recognition +came into his eyes: she saw it and bent toward him, whispering: "When +the mouse slips out of the trap, you're never the man to set the cat on +his trail, are you, Mr. Lindsay?" + +"Not I," Mr. Lindsay whispered back, a precaution which seemed wholly +unnecessary, since Miss Lucy, at the far end of the car, was busy over +her shoes, and the other two passengers, weary long-distance travellers, +their soft hats shading their faces, slept heavily. "I hain't blamin' +you fer wantin' to git away from the terbaccer patch jest now!" + +"You'd be less than human, if you did! God, man, what do they raise it +for? The world, and myself with it, would quit chewin' tomorrow, if I +had to raise its tobacco and mine. Mr. Long-beard assured me this +morning, we'd have less than eight more days of it, but _one_ more day +in that hell's vestibule would have been my finish, and I preferred +ignominious flight to pauper burial!" + +"So I see," grinned Mr. Lindsay, with his eyes on the kid buttoned +woman's shoe that protruded from the Sister's black skirts: "but where'd +you git them church clothes, Dunaway?" + +Mr. Dunaway indulged in another wink. "In the closet of an upstairs +bedroom not a thousand miles from Chicago," he cited oracularly, "there +were wont to hung the black garments of a mother, in mourning for a +daughter whose last name was not _Block_. They no longer hang there!" + +Mr. Lindsay's restrained laugh expressed both understanding and +enjoyment. + +"But the funds--the travelling funds?" he persisted. + +Dunaway grinned cheerfully. "I once knew a Sister of Charity, in one day +of soliciting aid for a town of fever-stricken dagoes (Italian workmen, +I should say), to collect enough, had it been applied to such a purpose, +to buy a ticket to Los Angeles." + +"When'll the mournin' rig quit hit's travels?" chuckled Mr. Lindsay. + +"'I could exscribe him over the tillephorm, and he wouldn't hev no +chance a runnin'!'" quoted Dunaway, irrelevantly. "Say, Mr. Lindsay, how +far is it from here to Kansas City? The telephone service doesn't claim +to be good over eight hundred miles, I believe." + +"No, hit don't," Mr. Lindsay answered him, "although hit won't be +necessary to go as a lady more'n a tenth that fur. But you hain't a +goin' to throw them cothes away, are you? _I've_ got a right to hold a +grudge agi'n her, ef anybody has, but I hain't a holdin' hit fur enough +to want to see her lose her wearin' thengs. The poor theng has to work +so hard for what few she has, and never sees a cent o' the terbaccer +money fer clothes. What's ag'in expressin' 'em back to her, onct you git +on male togs, Sister?" + +"Nothing!" Dunaway assured him. "How much are you willing to contribute +toward the good cause (of express charges), my brother?" + +Mr. Lindsay laid fifty cents in the palm of Mrs. Doggett's black glove. +"Be shore you send 'em, Dunaway," he whispered: "I've got to go back to +her; she'll be a wonderin'." + +A flicker of uneasiness passed over Dunaway's face, and the ghost of an +expression of shame came into his eyes. "You'll not tell her," he +petitioned: "I'm a true Catholic Sister to _her_! She gave me a quarter +this morning, besides--" + +"Do you thenk I haven't got any gratitude in me, Dunaway, after all +you've done fer us, that I couldn't do a turn fer you?" rebuked Mr. +Lindsay. "I give you my word, she'll never know from _me_!" + +"Who was that lady in mournin' you was a talkin' to, Nathan?" inquired +Miss Lucy, when Mr. Lindsay had resumed his seat beside her: "she makes +me thenk of a Sister of Charity I saw on the street today." + +"Hit's the same person," answered Mr. Lindsay: "he--she was a tellin' me +about them sick Italians, she'd been a collectin' fer." + +"I wisht you'd 'a' give her a little money, Nathan, ef you'd thought of +hit, to help those poor folks." + +"I give her fifty cents: hit certainly was fer a good cause," responded +Mr. Lindsay. + +"Ain't hit pleasin' to our Maker to be livin' sech a saintly life?" +whispered Miss Lucy, a little wistfully: "a body don't never have to +deceive ner nothin'. I believe, ef I hadn't seen you, Nathan, I'd love +to have been a nun or somethin'. They're always so good." + +"I am glad you ain't one, Lucy," murmured Mr. Lindsay, letting the arm +he had extended along the back of the seat, drop gently down in a more +comfortable position: "you're good enough for me!" + +When Mr. Doggett ceased staring after the outgoing train, the rain was +falling on him and dampening the splendors of the sow-and-pig purchased +buggy: there lay before him the long homeward drive, and the dreary +prospect of working until dawn, that the buggy might be washed clean, +and mounted on its pedestal once more, before the awakening of the "old +lady." But nothing could mar his serenity of mind, nor take the sunshine +of rejoicing for his friends' happiness out of his heart. + +"Mr Lindsay's sore heel'll pester him some when he goes to step out fer +the saremony," he mused, as he drove through the silent streets. "Miss +Lucy's teeth won't stay tied in but a week er so: Johnny Leeds' prize +shoes is sorter slazy and ill-fittin': the old man'll ondoubtedly cut +her out of his will, and, although I'm mighty hoped up about terbaccer +prices a goin' up reasonable, a body can't tell. But a body can't have +ever'theng like they want hit in this world, and they've got a heap to +be thankful fer, _anyhow_!" + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TOBACCO TILLER*** + + +******* This file should be named 36283.txt or 36283.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/6/2/8/36283 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + |