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diff --git a/75567-h/75567-h.htm b/75567-h/75567-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b39ff20 --- /dev/null +++ b/75567-h/75567-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8366 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Highland annals | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tiny {width: 10%; margin-left: 45%; margin-right: 45%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +td {padding-left: 0.5em;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} + +.pagenum { + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 17.5%; + margin-right: 17.5%; +} + +.x-ebookmaker .blockquot { + margin-left: 7.5%; + margin-right: 7.5%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + +.ph1 {text-align: center; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;} +.ph2 {text-align: center; font-size: xx-large; font-weight: bold;} + +div.titlepage {text-align: center; page-break-before: always; page-break-after: always;} +div.titlepage p {text-align: center; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: 2em;} + +.xxlarge {font-size: 200%;} +.xlarge {font-size: 150%;} +.large {font-size: 125%;} + +.x-ebookmaker .hide {display: none; visibility: hidden;} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +p.drop-cap { + text-indent: -0.35em; +} + +p.drop-cap:first-letter +{ + float: left; + margin: 0em 0.15em 0em 0em; + font-size: 250%; + line-height:0.85em; + text-indent: 0em; +} +.x-ebookmaker p.drop-cap { + text-indent: 0em; +} +.x-ebookmaker p.drop-cap:first-letter +{ + float: none; + margin: 0; + font-size: 100%; +} + + +.poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -2.5em; padding-left: 3em;} +.poetry .first {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:smaller; + margin-left: 17.5%; + margin-right: 17.5%; + padding: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; } + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75567 ***</div> + +<div class="figcenter hide"><img src="images/coversmall.jpg" width="450" alt=""></div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<p class="ph1">BY OLIVE TILFORD DARGAN</p> + +<p>HIGHLAND ANNALS<br> +LUTE AND FURROW<br> +THE MORTAL GODS AND OTHER PLAYS<br> +LORDS AND LOVERS AND OTHER DRAMAS<br> +THE CYCLE’S RIM<br> +THE PATH FLOWER AND OTHER VERSE</p> + +<hr class="tiny"> + +<p class="center">With Frederic Peterson</p> + +<p>THE FLUTTER OF THE GOLD LEAF AND OTHER PLAYS</p> + +<hr class="tiny"> + +<p class="center">CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS</p> +</div></div></div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h1>HIGHLAND ANNALS</h1> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/title_page.jpg" alt="title page"></div> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="titlepage"> +<p><span class="xxlarge">HIGHLAND<br> +ANNALS</span></p> + +<p><span class="xlarge"><i>By</i><br> +OLIVE<br> +TILFORD<br> +DARGAN</span></p> + +<p><span class="large">NEW YORK<br> +CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS<br> +1925</span></p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p><i>The first six of these sketches were published in</i> <span class="smcap">The Atlantic +Monthly</span>. <i>Number seven appeared in</i> <span class="smcap">The Reviewer</span>. <i>The author +thanks the editors of these magazines for permission to reprint.</i></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1925, by</span><br> +CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS</p> +<hr class="tiny"> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1919, 1924, by</span> THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY<br> +<span class="smcap">Copyright, April, 1925, by</span> THE REVIEWER</p> +<hr class="tiny"> +<p class="center">Printed in the United States of America</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/colophon.jpg" alt="publisher's logo"></div> +</div></div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + +<table> + +<tr><td class="tdr" colspan="3"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdr">I.</td><td> <i>About Granpap and Trees</i></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3"> 3</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdr">II.</td><td> <i>Coretta and Autumn</i></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_24"> 24</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdr">III.</td><td> <i>Serena and Wild Strawberries</i></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_54"> 54</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdr">IV.</td><td> <i>Sam</i></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_76"> 76</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdr">V.</td><td> <i>Evvie: Somewhat Married</i></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_107"> 107</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdr">VI.</td><td> <i>My Wild-Hog Claim: A Dubious Asset</i></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_138"> 138</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdr">VII.</td><td> <i>Serena Takes a Boarder</i></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_180"> 180</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdr">VIII.</td><td> <i>A Proper Funeral</i></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_229"> 229</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p class="ph2">HIGHLAND ANNALS</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="I">I<br> + +<small>ABOUT GRANPAP AND TREES</small></h2> +</div> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p class="drop-cap">GRANPAP accrued to me along with a farm in +the Unakas. When I learned that my inheritance +lay, or rather rose, in the Unakas, it at once +passed from prose to poetry. My hundred hills became +tipped with song, bloom calling to bloom from Three Pine +Point to Sunrise Spur, and Blackcap answering +from his hemlock shroud with a melodious shake that +did no harm to his hidden acres of anemone and trillium. +The laurel, polished as by the glance of a god, +drew a richer green from its storehouse across a paltry +breadth of sky, in the sun. The great chestnuts leafily +defied the blight that was creeping to their hearts. And +where the gray rocks pushed through the living emerald +of the mountain walls, they too seemed listeningly +alive, as if in wait for the key-word that would swing +them open on Persia magnificent; though they needed +to borrow no glamour of age from any part of the world. +Unakas! Spenser, under English beeches, rustled his +threefold coverlet of centuries, and began another<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span> +dream—dream of a region that was old to God before +Helvellyn rose or the Himalayas shone as the planet’s +crest.</p> + +<p>In the wake of a Muse so sure of foot, I entered my +forest a little stumblingly. The first cabin was Granpap +Merlin’s. His welcoming “Howdy” only slightly +interrupted his dinner of corn-pone and pickled beans. +But Poesy kept at my ear, swiftly picturing me fields +like blowing seas; gallant stalks with waving green +arms, and tassels flowing, silver, gold, and rose, in the +breath of July dawns. With a thrust into memory, she +brought up a rock maize-mill of my childhood, left by +the Indians in an abandoned cave; and chanted the +one magic line of Lanier’s poem. As for beans, I had +seen them in blossom, hiding their pinkness under round, +hugging leaves, and not even their passage through a +brine barrel could convert them into mere pabulum. +It was a fitting meal for a mountain seer.</p> + +<p>“Did you grow the corn that made the meal that +made that pone?” I asked, building Jack’s house in +the excitement of getting back to the land.</p> + +<p>“It growed itself. I planted it.”</p> + +<p>“And you ploughed the field that grew the corn, and +so forth?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span>“My mule, Tim, ploughed it. I ploughed Tim.”</p> + +<p>His face, like the broken corner of a boulder, did not +tell me whether he was simply, or contemptuously, +laconical.</p> + +<p>“This seems rather high for corn land,” I said, in the +tone of ownership. He must at least know that I had +read the Farmers’ Bulletins.</p> + +<p>“Wait till you see it growin’. The corn gets so onhandy +big and shady in Hawk Wing Cove, you can see +the lightnin’-bugs in thar by daylight. But ’tain’t +easy ploughin’. Twenty-five acres of straight up and +down.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’ve heard of that cove. From the head of it +one can see seven curves of the river.”</p> + +<p>“If you look from the door thar, you can see the +top of the ridge ’tween them two peaks.”</p> + +<p>I looked.</p> + +<p>“It must be glorious to make one’s bread up there.”</p> + +<p>“I never made bread up thar but once. I baked hoecakes +on a rock one day when Cyn sent me meal and +water for my dinner. I hadn’t left her any stove-wood, +an’ she had proper spirit, Cyn had,” he added, as if +his wife’s memory must be kept clear of blemish. “But +thar wa’n’t no glory in it, as I see.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>“I must go there the first thing. I don’t suppose +there are any snakes.”</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t see more’n two or three rattlers a year +now. Not much killin’.”</p> + +<p>His voice, like a retired general’s, was bored but +tolerant.</p> + +<p>“Rattlesnakes? In those pastures of heaven? Did +you ever kill one there?”</p> + +<p>“One? If they’d been fence-rails I could ’a’ put a +mule-proof fence around that field with all I’ve killed +in it.”</p> + +<p>I looked again at the line of pallid gold just showing +between two pointed barriers. It ebbed away, more +like a bridge to faith, or some such unsubstantiality, +than the trampled ground where man had battled for +his overlordship. I would go there, come to-morrow. +And I did. But what happens in aerial gardens must +have its own chapter and aureole.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Granpap’s toleration of me passed into liking very +slowly. His stolidity often brought my imagination +down as if it had struck a wall; and while I gathered up +the pieces, the wall would become human and wonder<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span> +why I had given such an invidious thrust. Naturally +the essence of comradeship eluded us for some time. +But finally he understood that my assaults were harmless; +that he merely happened to be on the horizon +when my enthusiasm was spraying the skies; and I +began to see that he was too much a part of Nature +to become consciously her note-book. He wore externality +as a tree wears its bark, receiving all winds with +passionless impartiality; but those winds of change +were his breath of life.</p> + +<p>One day I asked him if he did not sometimes feel +that he would like to live in a city.</p> + +<p>“No,” he said, “I have to stay whar thar’s somethin’ +happenin’.”</p> + +<p>Not an eyelash of me betrayed my glee. The least +sign of emotion, and the gates of confidence would be +snapped and sealed.</p> + +<p>“In a city,” he said, “you don’t have seasons—jest +weather.”</p> + +<p>In the cabin with him lived his son Sam, Sam’s +wife, Coretta, and their children. Once he returned +home after a night away, and was much puzzled on +learning of their “goin’s-on” in his absence. Cecil having +the earache, the father and mother had risen in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span> +the dead of night, built a fire, and administered the +usual remedy—warm rabbit’s oil poured into the ear. +So far granpap understood.</p> + +<p>“But how,” said he, “could they think the roosters +were crowin’ for daylight when it was only midnight—an’ +git breakfast too?”</p> + +<p>“But, granpap,” explained Coretta, “we had been +asleep for hours, and how could you ’a’ knowed the +time, with the night cloudy-gray, an’ no stars, an’ the +clock stopped?”</p> + +<p>“Kain’t you <i>feel</i> the time?” he asked, in concerned +surprise, as if she were pathetically deformed. And later +he said to me: “K’rettie kain’t feel the time at all. +I hope the little feller ain’t goin’ to take arter her.”</p> + +<p>“Cecil? Oh, no! He’s a Merlin. You can count on +that. Don’t you like the boy’s name, granpap?”</p> + +<p>He slowly cut a twig from the nearest dogwood and +peeled it carefully.</p> + +<p>“You noticed I never handle his name?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve noticed.”</p> + +<p>“K’rettie ain’t high-stocked with brains, but she’s +got enough fer a woman; an’ she’s not great on housekeepin’, +but ’tain’t every man can git hold of a woman +like Cyn was. I ain’t got nothin’ agin K’rettie but her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span> +namin’ the boy like that. He might as well be a furriner. +I counted on his bein’ named Dick,—Richard Merlin,—like +my father an’ grandfather, an’ my oldest brother +who was killed in the war. But this sissy name, it’s +bitterer’n this dogwood. I jest ain’t a-goin’ to say it.”</p> + +<p>He cut the twig into inch-long pieces and dropped +them into his pocket to be used as a substitute for +tobacco.</p> + +<p>That afternoon I remembered that I wanted to see +Coretta about making me a mattress of new splintered +shucks. I did not often seek Coretta. Married at fifteen, +at twenty-two she was the mother of four. If she +had taken her maternal honors lightly, as a child +should, I could have gone happily to and from her +presence. But she was determined “to do right by the +Lord’s gifts,” and her soft scramble for any crumbs of +wisdom that I inadvertently dropped usually hurried +my departure to a spot more suitable for meditation, +where I could wonder what I had said anyhow. I +should have liked to carry off Coretta’s children and +free her petunia-blue eyes from clouds; but I remembered +that I had once impulsively taken a broom from +a child who was struggling to use it, and then found +that I could not stay to do the child’s work. I really<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span> +had to be going. And four children might prove more +embarrassing than a broom. Four futures billowing to +seas, and my life already pinched for room! No; better +the hurried step and remote gaze as I passed.</p> + +<p>In the least matter of business, the Unakasian expects +to be approached by polite indirection. The more +you curve and circle, softly as an Indian in the enemy’s +woods, casually as a sparrow hops, the surer you may +be of attaining your object. A straight march to the +point, and you will find yourself gesturing to empty +air, so swiftly will he withdraw from negotiations; so +surely your breach of manners will be punished.</p> + +<p>In half an hour’s talk with Coretta, I came somewhat +hastily to the mattress, and she sat troubled. I could +safely begin on my home curve.</p> + +<p>“His name is Richard Cecil, isn’t it? Richard is a +fine old name. I suppose you’ll call him that when he +is older.”</p> + +<p>Her surprised eyes swam in the gauze-light of pathos +that I had learned to ignore.</p> + +<p>“Cecil is good enough for a little boy. But so many +famous men have been named Richard.”</p> + +<p>“What men?”</p> + +<p>“There was Richard Lovelace.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>“What did he do?”</p> + +<p>“He wrote poetry.”</p> + +<p>“Like you write?”</p> + +<p>“Yes—no—not exactly,” I hastened. “And there +was Richard Burbage, a great actor.”</p> + +<p>“One o’ them movie men?”</p> + +<p>“No, he played in great plays—not like you see +nowadays. And Richard Lion-Heart, a mighty king. +They buried him in that place I showed you the picture +of—Westminster Abbey,” I ventured, though I +had visions of his death in the arms of Saladin somewhere +beyond the Balkans.</p> + +<p>She was impressed, and I thrust on.</p> + +<p>“And Dick Turpin,—Richard Turpin,—who was +afraid of nothing.”</p> + +<p>“Did they bury him in the Abbey, too?”</p> + +<p>“No, but he died famously. Half of London went to +his—er—funeral.”</p> + +<p>She was silent a moment, and then said: “I’ll shore fix +that bed for you as soon as Sam can shuck out the corn.”</p> + +<p>With this grateful stab in my heart I left her; and +Katy went with me to relate a story her papa had +brought home. She pronounced “papa” as did all the +children, like the flower, poppy, with a soft trail at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span> +end, making a dear word more dear. Katy was eleven, +the daughter of Sam’s first wife.</p> + +<p>When war stretched a hand into the Unakas, and +one by one, then dozen by dozen, the young men began +to disappear, the people wondered more and more +what it was about. As a rule, they were not reached +by the daily papers which feed us truth and bathe us +in illumination; and Katy’s story showed how they had +adapted the chief argument that had sifted to them.</p> + +<p>“There was a cripple, and he was a German. He was +goin’ over to Briartown, and stopped at a man’s house. +The man and woman were gone to the store. The +childern were cookin’ some beans for dinner. The +cripple ast to stir the beans. An’ he put something +into the pot. Some powder or something. The woman +come home and the childern told her. The man come +home and the woman told him. They took up the +dinner and ast the German to set to the table. He took +a chair and passed the beans. Nobody took any. +Then the man said: ‘Have some beans yerself.’ But +the German said he wouldn’t choose any. Then the +man got his gun, and said: ‘You will eat them beans +or die.’ The German took some of the beans. And in +an hour his tongue was swelled out of his head.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>She paused, lifting anxious eyes, to know if I thought +the story was true.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Katy,” I answered unflinchingly. Could such +a climax be chance invention? A mere accident of art?</p> + +<p>“Papa says it is true, for he found a cripple on the +Briartown road one day an’ let him ride his horse for +a mile. He couldn’t speak plain like papa, an’ he knows +it was that German, but he don’t see how Abraham +Ludd and Jim Dow let him git by.”</p> + +<p>She was speaking of two neighbor boys in the service. +One had risen to a captaincy, the other had been decorated.</p> + +<p>“Jim Dow——”</p> + +<p>“Captain Dow, Katy,” said I.</p> + +<p>“He don’t write to Nellie Ludd any more.”</p> + +<p>“Did Nellie tell you?”</p> + +<p>“No, but she’s quit goin’ to the post-office. She’s +ashamed to ast an’ git nothin’ every time.”</p> + +<p>I wondered if that was why Nellie flitted so ghost-like +about the hills, as difficult to capture as a bird +fearing human hurt.</p> + +<p>About supper-time I again called at the cabin, and +as I sat by the superfluous fire, I heard Coretta say: +“Granpap, please pass the sorghum to little Dick.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>And granpap, like a stone image with a movable +arm, passed the sorghum.</p> + +<p>The full Southern moon was savagely vivid that +evening, devouring dreams as easily as it did the clouds +that saluted too familiarly; so I left the house by what +Sam called the stove-wood trail, a rear way softened +by a lane of shadows. What trips the eye will halt +the foot; and mine poised in air for a second or less +as I sighted a hemlock bough like laced jet against +the moon; as if Night, in defense, had thrown a torn +bit of her garment over the face of the usurper. When +I touched earth again, I was on new, mysterious ground, +so quickly are worlds created for us, the ramblers of +the universe, tenants insatiable. The mountains sat +about me, cloaked sages waiting my indiscretions. +Like the roll of a hidden sea, the valleys whispered +upward with the life that stirs by night, the smaller +wings, that dart fearlessly when the birds are asleep; +and the lithe, furry dwellers in secret that come out +of the earth to thread, more graceful than swimmers, +the channels of shadow. But that purring wave was +only the foam-flower of a vastly bedded silence; silence +in which Nature dreamed of a way to reconquer her +world and rule alone; while, against that dream,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span> +Beauty everywhere uncovered her soul. In behalf of +man, the first to divine her, the first to adore, she +arrayed her magic, invincible if so was his love. Everywhere +she shone; on the laurel shedding a vapor of +light, on the laps of the orange fungi with their creamy +apron cascades; on the roots of trees, and the rocks +that fed them endurance. Blue mosses, pale lichens, +grasses with heads of mauve and pearl, gleamed in the +unsubdued strips of golden light. The world of minute +things pressed as hugely significant as the solar system. +And as the sea, never hushed, the valley whisper +reached for an intangible shore. High above me there +was escape by way of a blue eternity, where two walls +of cloud parted to show a chasm of sky. Lower down +a mist wound reverently about a star, then crept +elfishly to the most portentous peak, hanging there +like a comic beard. While I waited its whim, a voice, +too fervently human, came through the clump of +bushes at my side. A second later, a tall figure bearing +an armful of fagots was checkered disappearingly +along the path toward the cabin.</p> + +<p>The next morning when I recalled the sounds I had +heard, and put them together understandingly, I had +this: “K’rettie can make ’most as good headcheese as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span> +ever Cyn could.” And I knew that in Merlin language +granpap had said: “My son’s wife, please God, is my +daughter.”</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>If tree-worship was ever the religion of any tribe, I +know that I am ancestrally bound to that folk. Once +an artist told me of his happy method of protecting +his wife, children, and friends from the outbursts incidental +to genius. He would go to the woods and beat +a tree until his symptomatic rage was exhausted. As +if a tree-beater and a wife-beater were not cousins +german in crime! And now I was going to steep my +soul more heinously. The oak boards of my cabin roof +had to be reinforced. I could not spend another winter +with the snows driving in on me. A “board-tree” had +to be felled before the sap was up; and on one of those +days which are claimed by both spring and winter, +but belong to neither, I set out with granpap, the most +skilful board-maker in the Unakas, to select a victim.</p> + +<p>“Now this white oak,” said granpap, pausing by a +giant that gazed reflectively over the valley, “will +make as good boards as you’d want to sleep under.”</p> + +<p>“But, granpap, don’t you see—we are interrupting +him.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>His eyes narrowed in the suspicious way of our first +acquaintance.</p> + +<p>“I mean he is sort of on duty here, as if the spirit +of the woods needed a sentry just at this place.”</p> + +<p>His glance became a cold squint, and I plunged for +a practical argument.</p> + +<p>“White oaks make good mast. We must think of the +hogs. There’ll be three new litters to feed next winter.”</p> + +<p>“I reckon you’re right,” he said, instantly at home. +“And yander at the head of Flume Cove is a black oak +that will make tollable boards if it don’t do better.”</p> + +<p>“A black oak? With all that green moss on it? And +look at the first branch. It has an elbow crooked round +a bellwood. Would you divorce such a pair? What God +hath joined, granpap.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it wouldn’t make prize boards anyhow,” he +said, moving on unregretfully.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a fear gripped me. We were nearing a +glen at whose door stood a tree which for me symbolized +the perfect life. I had often wondered why no +human being could achieve maturity so unblemished, +and I never passed it without a wave of happy solemnity +rolling over me. I began to talk about bee-trees, +the only subject on which granpap was excitable.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span> +Thickly, hurriedly, I developed a rapacious interest in +the wild bee and its hidden ways. And at the precise +moment when we passed the pride of my woods, granpap +was singsonging the lines which an old, old man +had taught his grandfather when a boy:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="first">“A swarm in May,</div> +<div class="verse">Count a dollar a day;</div> +<div class="verse">A swarm in June,</div> +<div class="verse">A silver spoon;</div> +<div class="verse">A swarm in July,</div> +<div class="verse">Not worth a house-fly.”</div> +</div></div> + +<p>I had lured him safely by, and we neared the road +again. His eye was on a tree with a long, perfect trunk, +but which slanted from the root up, leaning over the +road.</p> + +<p>“I might do with that,” said he. “It’s dangerous +thar anyway.”</p> + +<p>“Dangerous! Don’t you see how strong it is, and +how gently it leans over the road, like a great arm of +blessing? I’m so used to that tree I should feel sure of +accident overtaking me before I reached the village if +I didn’t pass under it.”</p> + +<p>Granpap halted. “I ain’t got time to waste corkusin’ +around like this. I’ll go to the new ground and do some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span> +grubbin’. Then to-morr’ I’ll git up early and find a +tree.”</p> + +<p>I was dismissed, conscience-free.</p> + +<p>Two warm days followed. On the second, I left my +desk, feeling sure that I could find a sourwood in leaf +on the south side of High Point. My path lay through +the glen. Nearing it, I heard alarming sounds of activity, +and running past the last obscuring half-acre of +rhododendrons, I looked ahead. The pride of my woods +measured his long trunk on the ground, half of his +broken arms digging helplessly into the earth, the other +half appealing to the winds, birds, and skies, that had +loved him, for some mitigation of his doom. Granpap’s +beaming face shone above the bleeding stump.</p> + +<p>“You oughter seen him fall! Just et up those little +chestnuts and poplars as he went down.”</p> + +<p>And I had thought I heard thunder. Had even +speculated on the peculiar crackling quality of the +vibrations.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know how I happened to miss it when we +were lookin’ around. Now we’ll get some <i>boards</i>.”</p> + +<p>A tightness of the throat kept me silent. Moreover, +I could not rebuke him. He was too happy. Here was +material worthy of his skill.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>“Sam is going to help me saw the cuts and make the +bolts,” he said. “Here he comes now.”</p> + +<p>I turned away. I was the primary cause of the murder, +but I could not stay to see the victim drawn and +quartered.</p> + +<p>A day or two later I had to carry a message to the +board-maker. I found him a little sad.</p> + +<p>“I’m gittin’ old,” he said. “These here boards are +the sorriest I ever made.”</p> + +<p>“But you’ve got a good pile of them, granpap.”</p> + +<p>“Them’s my splinters,” he said, with high contempt, +both for me and the boards. “That was the desaptivest +tree I ever cut. I bumbed on it as fur as I could reach +and it was plumb sound. But in choosin’ a board-tree +you’ve got to ’low so much for what you don’t see.”</p> + +<p>He sat down. Speech was coming on the tide of +injury.</p> + +<p>“A shore desaptive tree. Look at them cuts me and +Sam made. Half a day’s work wasted in ’em.”</p> + +<p>I looked at the great blocks and wondered how they +had cunningly escaped further mutilation. And though +I saw myself roofless for the next winter, I could not +repress an inward bubble over the tree’s revenge.</p> + +<p>“It had lost so many limbs when it was young and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span> +pushin’ up, that it was jest the snirliest tree I ever +saw.”</p> + +<p>“Snirly, granpap?”</p> + +<p>“Ay, it must ’a’ been an awful thrifty tree. Every +time a limb broke off it plumb healed up, an’ thar’s +eight and ten rings over some of the scars. Here I’ve +cut it down an’ split into it jest to find a lot of knot-holes +spilin’ my best boards. And it looked so purty +and straight.”</p> + +<p>He got up, adjusted his brake, which was the strong +fork of a limb chained to a log, fixed his bolt upright, +set his adze carefully, and with precise restraint evenly +separated a smooth, shining three-foot board from the +rest of the bolt. From the splitting wood came an odor +that must have been the essence of the forest condensed +for generations into its living vase.</p> + +<p>But granpap was not pleased with his work.</p> + +<p>“Did you see how tough that was? When I do git a +good board I have to tear it out. But it’s nateral for +the south side of a tree to be tough.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you mean the north side, granpap?”</p> + +<p>“No,” he said patiently. “It’s the sun that toughens +wood. You’ll see them bolts from the north side are +brickle.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>He balanced the board disapprovingly.</p> + +<p>“Look how narr’ it is. By the time I’ve sapped this +there won’t be enough of it left to turn a rain-drap.”</p> + +<p>He began to chip off the inch of white sap-wood +along the edge of the board.</p> + +<p>“I could ’a’ cast out the snirly blocks, but it was the +wind-shake that finally ruined me. I never counted on +a wind-shake in a tree as proud as that.”</p> + +<p>“Show me the wind-shake, granpap.”</p> + +<p>“Look at this block, here in the crosscut, an’ you’ll +see it. A wind-shake starts at the heart an’ twists +round and round, gettin’ bigger and bigger an’ breakin’ +the wood as it goes, till thar’s only enough left for +a little narr’ board ’tween the shake-rings and the +bark. Then sometimes, when the tree weaves in the +wind, you can hear it cry. If I’d ’a’ listened at this tree +in a high wind it couldn’t ’a’ fooled me. But they never +make no sign on the outside.”</p> + +<p>“Granpap,” I began slowly.</p> + +<p>He looked up, met my eyes, and laid down his axe.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think some people are like that?”</p> + +<p>I was trembling. If he failed me now, the line of +Merlin would be extinct. There would be no more seers +in the Unakas, or anywhere.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>“Ay,” he said. He still used the “ay” of Westmoreland +and the hills of Malvern. “Ay, Cyn was like that +after Ben got killed.”</p> + +<p>He thought my silence was the silence of sympathy, +and in alarm took up his axe.</p> + +<p>“’Tain’t no use to——”</p> + +<p>The axe finished the sentence, slicing a curl of white +sap-bark. But his face was a shade grayer. The tree +was avenged.</p> + +<p>I started on, thinking of all the Cyns and Bens I +had known; and of a gay friend, now fallen, who liked +to assure me that “A heart is known by the autopsy.” +My foot turned up a boss of sweet turf. A broken heart +makes as good loam as a sound one, I thought. And I +would have gone down the slope singing in the face +of a looming to-morrow, if only granpap had not been +standing so still.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">II<br> + +<small>CORETTA AND AUTUMN</small></h2> +</div> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p class="drop-cap">BY pleasant gradations the families on my farm +ceased to look upon me as a mere outsider occasionally +invading my own territory. Their boundaries +of courteous but impassable defense receded, until I +could sit by their fires without feeling that invisible +doors had been suddenly locked all about me. They +welcomed me without the reserve of a key in the +pocket. Coretta went so far as to say she did not care +how long I “stayed in”; and Coretta’s opinions always +echoed the hearth voice of the clan.</p> + +<p>But it was because of Coretta that I sometimes +looked at the horizon with the desire for flight upon +me. One delight of my life in the highlands was a release +from the clock. With prudent infrequency, I +could make the night my own. If the soul made imperial +clamor, it could be satisfied without damage to +worldly schedules. But as surely as I made the star-pointed +hours my mates of fortune, and saw them<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span> +paling off toward dawn, dropping into a sleep that I +meant should last until noon, just so surely an early +daylight voice would bring me tumbling from bed, +and down the crumpling and confining stairs, to unbar +the door and find out whose barn was burning, or +whose baby was “bad off.” Sometimes Sam, more often +Katy, would be smiling on the step. Coretta wanted to +borrow such or such an article for breakfast. It was always +something without which no mountain breakfast +could proceed, and the borrower, possessed of it, would +go blithely off, leaving me to a broken day.</p> + +<p>For months I tried to lead Coretta into the habit of +doing her borrowing the day before. “Come at midnight, +if you wish, but leave me my mornings.”</p> + +<p>She would promise; then it would happen again—the +violent waking, with its sequence of futile hours. +And she could not understand why her excuses, so confidently +proffered, did not satisfy me.</p> + +<p>“But I didn’t know the salt was out till I looked on +the shelf, an’ we couldn’t eat biscuits ’thout salt in +’em.”</p> + +<p>Or, “That man come after supper to see about sellin’ +the cow, an’ we talked so late I clean forgot we +didn’t have a speck o’ coffee for breakfast.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>Or, “I was sure there was sody enough to put in +the bread, an’ there was the box plumb empty.”</p> + +<p>Or, “Uncle Rann got in last night. We didn’t have +a dust o’ flour, an’ I couldn’t set him down to pone-bread +an’ him come all the way from Madison to see +us.”</p> + +<p>Once, after a particularly disastrous offense, she +showed a slight exasperation over my failure to get +her point of view.</p> + +<p>“But Sam <i>had</i> to git to the ploughin’ early, an’ you +only had to jest set an’ write!”</p> + +<p>That moment ended my vain rebellion. I accepted +fate and Coretta; which done, it was an easy matter +to become very fond of her. She had a bluebell prettiness +that never failed in any light or under any stress. +It seemed so fragile, that I was always expecting it to +vanish, or break into an untraceable legend of itself; but +it never did. One day, looking in at her kitchen door, I +thought of her as the fairy slave of a witch, made to +mix strange brews and perform rude incantations. +She was kneeling on the floor, before a pan of hog’s +feet newly scalded. A sausage-mill, screwed to the +table, betrayed its unfinished work. From the stove +came the hiss of a kettle of fat in danger of burning.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span> +A tub in the corner held partly washed clothes, drab +with grime. Children darted, dodged, and crawled. +And Sam, no doubt, was momentarily expected in to +a dinner yet uncooked. But Coretta lifted a face so unconsciously +and incongruously pleasing in its boudoir +daintiness, that I laughed aloud, and had to cover the +discourtesy with sudden interest in the baby’s attempt +to eat a bit of shiny matter picked from her continent +of discovery, the ash-pan. Coretta snatched the baby +and began to feed it in the way most fashionable where +milk-bottles are unknown.</p> + +<p>“If I could skip a year ’thout a baby, I b’lieve I +could ketch up with my work,” she said.</p> + +<p>But a cherishing squeeze of her offspring confessed +immediate repentance; and I had to remain dumb +before the sublimity of ignorance that accepted death +and birth alike as the will of God.</p> + +<p>Her own mind was making occult connections. “Did +you see the sign in the elements last night, Mis’ Dolly?”</p> + +<p>I had not seen.</p> + +<p>“It was jest after the rain stopped, an’ it was awful. +There was a great white cloud with red streaks like +blood runnin’ through it, an’ they ’most made letters. +Sam said he guessed it was Hebrew, like the Bible was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> +first wrote in, if we only had the preacher here to tell +us. Nothin’ ’s goin’ to keep me from meetin’ next +Sunday. I want to know if he read it an’ what it said. +It may have been a warnin’ to them people to stop +fightin’; but I reckon we all ort to be a little more keerful +about doin’ the Lord’s will.”</p> + +<p>I decided to defer any unorthodox suggestions, and +divagated with: “What’s the matter with Irma’s +nose?”</p> + +<p>“She fell out o’ bed an’ nearly broke it. I had a time +stoppin’ the blood. I was so scared at first I couldn’t +remember the verse in the Bible that stops it right off, +an’ I run aroun’ tryin’ everything else first. Then I +got the verse right, an’ her nose never bled another +drap.”</p> + +<p>“What verse is that, Coretta?”</p> + +<p>“The sixth verse of the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel. +Irmie never fell out of bed ’fore this, an’ it was time +she did. I was right glad of it after I remembered the +verse and got the blood stopped.”</p> + +<p>“Why glad, Coretta?”</p> + +<p>“You can’t raise a child that never falls out o’ bed. +They die shore. Didn’t you know that, Mis’ Dolly?”</p> + +<p>Her face was an eager flower, but what I saw was a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span> +glimpse of mediæval gates opening on time’s mossy +twilights. Was it possible to pass through with Coretta, +and look at the world with the eyes of a vanished age? +Hitherto she had turned to me for scant crumbs of +wisdom. Now she was aquiver with the reversal of +our rôles.</p> + +<p>“I’ve been afraid to tell you about sech things,” +she said. “Some people jest laf at ’em. I been so sorry +for you sometimes, doin’ things I knew were bad, an’ +I dasen’t tell you.”</p> + +<p>“What things, dear?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, like sowin’ that sage in the garden. You shore +have trouble if you sow sage. You have to get the +bunches an’ set ’em out, or else get some strange +woman ’at’s passin’ to sow it for you.”</p> + +<p>“But isn’t that unfair to her?”</p> + +<p>“No; she loses the trouble as soon as she crosses +water. She’d only have to cross the branch by the +spring an’ it ’ud be gone.”</p> + +<p>That was the beginning of my subversion, which +was soon alarmingly complete. If I had given Coretta +crumbs, she now spread me a banquet. Her store of +folk-wisdom fell upon me in showers that sometimes +took my breath. Many of her rituals were too complex<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span> +for memory here to set down, but she had scores +of briefer ones, such as her cure for a dog’s tendency +to vagabondage. With an auger greased with ’coon-oil +made from a ’coon <i>the dog had caught</i>, you bore a +hole in the gate-post. Then cut off a bit of the dog’s +tail and fasten it in the hole; but do not let him see +you. If he runs away after that, you can be sure he +was peekin’ from somewheres.</p> + +<p>She invited me to be present when granpap cured +his mule of the swinney. Part one: we poured cold +water on the mule’s shoulder, then rubbed it with a +flint-rock until it smoked. Part two: carefully directed +by Coretta, we laid the rock back where we had found +it, same side up, “an’ pineblank the same way.” And +we did indeed cure the mule.</p> + +<p>But her remedy for fever was perhaps the gem of +her store. You take fodder that has never been wet, +grasp all you can in your hand, cut it squarely off above +your hand, and squarely off below. Of the remainder +left in your grasp make a tea. This tea is an unfailing +cure for any kind of fever.</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you make it for Sam last year, Coretta?” +I asked.</p> + +<p>“We didn’t have any fodder that hadn’t been rained<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span> +on. That’s the trouble with that cure. You can’t git +fodder that hasn’t been wet. Every year I say I’ll cure +a bit in the dry, but I always forgit about it till it’s +too late.”</p> + +<p>She was as learned in signs as in cures. “There,” she +might say, “it’s goin’ to rain, an’ I’d laid out to wash +to-morrow!”</p> + +<p>“But the sky is clear, and there’s no wind from the +west.”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t you hear that rooster crow when he was +gettin’ up into the cedar? If a rooster crows as he goes +to his tree, his head’ll be wet ’fore he comes down. But +maybe,” she reflected, casting no doubt on the oracle, +“it’ll clear by sun-up, an’ I can wash anyhow.”</p> + +<p>Her world of signs and portents and conjurations +lay about her as familiar as her children’s faces, or the +grass before her door. It touched her at every point +and turn of her daily life. And then one day I impulsively +clashed through it and shook its foundations. +I was passing Sam’s cabin, when I saw, grouped at +the roadside spring, Coretta, the children, and a young +man who was holding the baby and lifting his shoe—yes, +lifting his <i>shoe</i> to the baby’s mouth!</p> + +<p>“Wait!” I cried, with a suddenness that made the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span> +strange young man drop the shoe, though luckily he +retained the baby.</p> + +<p>Coretta began to explain. “The baby’s got the +thrash, an’ I ain’t got time to take her all the way to +old Uncle Dean Larky’s for him to blow in her mouth.”</p> + +<p>“Blow in her mouth? That toothless old man!”</p> + +<p>“He’s got the power in his breath. Jest blows in her +mouth an’ says the three highest words in the Bible. +But I couldn’t go so fur, an’ I’ve been watchin’ for +Zeb Austin to pass. He’s black-eyed, you know.”</p> + +<p>I saw that the young man was black-eyed—at +that moment rather flashingly, hostilely black-eyed. +Whether a magician benignly engaged, or a fool caught +in his act, the interruption called for resentment.</p> + +<p>Coretta was still explaining. “If a baby’s got the +thrash, an’ a black-eyed man person gives her a drink out +of his right shoe, it’ll cure the worst case as ever was.”</p> + +<p>“Give me the baby,” said I.</p> + +<p>She was handed to me. I walked off, up the hill, +where I could get a view of the broad valley and a +sky clear with sunlight—as clear and welcome as +the dry light of science. Coretta followed.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter, Mis’ Dolly?”</p> + +<p>“Lies!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>“Don’t you believe it’ll cure her?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you believe—any o’ them things?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Give me my baby!”</p> + +<p>The arrogant world of mind, for all its embattled +glitter, surrendered to the physical fact of motherhood. +I gave her the baby.</p> + +<p>It was two weeks before I saw Coretta. The day was +warm; I had been circling about a hot stove for hours, +canning blueberries, and had thrown off my slippers +for stockinged comfort. Coretta came into the yard +just as I stepped to the door.</p> + +<p>“Don’t move,” she called, beginning to run. “Don’t +move till I git your shoes! Ever’ step you take is a +step in trouble.”</p> + +<p>Aghast, I obeyed her. When the shoes were brought, +and on my feet, she looked up triumphantly. “I <i>knew</i> +you wasn’t so unbelievin’ as you let on.”</p> + +<p>And my surprised and chastened soul agreed.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>One summer—it was a war summer—I thought +by personal effort and example to swell the national<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span> +harvest. I had suggested, advised, and implored. Now +I would dig and plant and water, hoping that a beneficent +contagion would transform my land from a wasteful +reproach to a prolific blessing. My ambitious programme +was interrupted midway by a distant call that +could not be denied, and I had been a forgetful time +away, when I realized, with aching insurrection, that +Autumn must be in the Unakas. In my weariness I +thought of her as a giant matron, seated amid her +peaks, with hair flowing like rivers of copper, and arms +stretched out with a vast tenderness to take even me +to her bosom. And I fled toward her, my heart and +mind exchanging jumbled murmurs of extenuation. Did +not the country need all its farmers?</p> + +<p>Coretta and her dancing youngsters did not meet +me as usual under the white oak half-way up the mountain. +I asked Serena, who joined me there, concerning +the omission, and from her discreet evasion I surmised +that a disclosure awaited me in Coretta’s trepidant +breast. It was several days in fledging. I ignored the +mystery, and plunged into the ardors of conservation. +It became quickly evident that my example was not +to be the little candle that far rebukes a wasteful +world. Coretta did not come near me; and one morning,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span> +when I saw Serena approaching, her radiance visible +a hundred yards away, I knew that only one thing +could give such a tinge of glory to her countenance. +She was coming to announce one of her sudden journeys. +Yes, Len had agreed for her to visit a sister who +lived sixty miles distant.</p> + +<p>“With everything to do?” I cried.</p> + +<p>“I can work harder after I come back. A ja’nt always +helps me.”</p> + +<p>That was true. She would look younger, by ten years, +on her return.</p> + +<p>“Can Len afford it now, Serena?”</p> + +<p>“I told him I’d git the money from you, an’ work it +out when I got back. I can put in several days ’fore +fodder-pullin’. I reckon you’ll be wantin’ some help +by that time,” she added, with a glance at the beans +and tomatoes in piles on the kitchen porch. By that +time, indeed!</p> + +<p>Her radiance began to fade. Was it possible I could +hesitate?</p> + +<p>“I told Len you’d never refused me <i>yit</i>.”</p> + +<p>With the money happily clutched, she turned a +shining back upon me.</p> + +<p>I started meekly to Coretta’s. But so many evidences<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span> +of neglect seen on the way brought me to her in +remonstrative mood.</p> + +<p>She was very busy sewing. The children were to have +new dresses. And in harvest-time!</p> + +<p>“I thought I should find you canning, Coretta.”</p> + +<p>“I ain’t got no heart this year,” she said.</p> + +<p>I tried to recall some of the mottoes of the period. +Every mouthful we save, and so forth. “And your +brother is over there, you know.”</p> + +<p>She dropped her head.</p> + +<p>“I see your beans are not picked yet.”</p> + +<p>“I jest ain’t got no heart.”</p> + +<p>“Is that why you didn’t keep the weeds out of my +garden?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mis’ Dolly.”</p> + +<p>“But I sent you the hat.”</p> + +<p>Her head went lower. I had, while away, spent half +of a much-needed day in search of a hat that would +withstand mountain wear and weather, yet be pretty +enough for Coretta’s taste.</p> + +<p>“And you let the pigs get to my potato-patch.”</p> + +<p>She turned to the machine. Well, it was my machine. +I looked at the gay pieces of gingham scattered about +and resolved to be drastic.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>“I’m going to have the machine brought home, Coretta. +You won’t have any time for sewing until you +get your fruit and vegetables put up.”</p> + +<p>She was dismayed. “Oh, I’ll never git ready!”</p> + +<p>“Ready for what?”</p> + +<p>“To go to the mills.”</p> + +<p>“The mills!”</p> + +<p>“We’re all goin’ to Georgia. Sam can git three dollars +a day there. Katy can keep house an’ tend to the +young-uns, an’ I’m goin’ to work, too. We can make +’tween five and six dollars a day. An’ I’ve got to have +the machine. How’ll I ever git their clo’es made?”</p> + +<p>She ran on, but I shrank aside, looking about me +and counting the curly heads. Our supreme judiciary +had that year annulled the law of the people for the +rescue of the child in the mills.</p> + +<p>“Coretta, you can’t take these babies——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I knowed you’d talk that way, but please don’t, +for we’ve got to go. The tickets have come, an’ we have +to use ’em inside o’ two weeks. I’m jest worn out +workin’ on the farm like a man, an’ in the house, too. +We’ll never git a start here.”</p> + +<p>I had no argument against the truth. Once I had +thought of making Sam the legal owner of that part<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span> +of the farm he was supposed to till, and had consulted +the village wise man about it.</p> + +<p>“Let me see,” he said: “Sam gets the full product +of his labor now, don’t he?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you read the book?”</p> + +<p>“Sure, I did! And you keep the place up? Pay for +fencin’, and the like?”</p> + +<p>I admitted it.</p> + +<p>“And the taxes?”</p> + +<p>“Of course.”</p> + +<p>“And he can’t make ends meet?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Well, if I was Sam, I’d injunct aginst any change +that ’ud saddle me with taxes and improvements.”</p> + +<p>So I had made no change. And I had no answer for +Coretta. She was still talking.</p> + +<p>“They’ll give us a good house at the mill, an’ furnish +it too.”</p> + +<p>“If you pay three times over in instalments.”</p> + +<p>“When I git enough for my house, I mean to move +back.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll never get it paid for, and if you leave they’ll +sell it to somebody else. They count on getting pay +from three families for every set of furniture they put +out,” I exaggerated stoutly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>“You needn’t talk like that, Mis’ Dolly,” she said, +with her face all protest. “I’ve got to go.”</p> + +<p>“Very well.” I rose, and started out. Spying the hat +that had cost me so much thought, I said: “You didn’t +like the hat?”</p> + +<p>Her face became an eager pink with satisfaction.</p> + +<p>“Shore I liked it! Everybody says it jest suits me. +I want everything <i>like that hat</i>!”</p> + +<p>So my success had defeated me. She had been seduced +by perfection. And I reflected, as I walked home, +that even if one ended in a morass, it was something +to follow the twinkling of a very little star. I had seen +in Coretta the flutter of a potentiality that would one +day redeem life from squalor and give the planet an +unquenchable glow.</p> + +<p>The first shock over, I could not stifle the thought +that the loss of Sam would be an excellent thing for +me. I could replace him with a man whose ideas of +farming were not inherited from his great-grandfather: +some one who would not make me poorer every year, +and keep my wits exercised on the problem of his family’s +support. And then, like the breaking of a soft +light, the thought stole upon me that I need never +again be roused from morning sleep to supply Coretta’s +breakfast omissions. Let her go her way. I would not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span> +expostulate; I would not persuade; I would not even +be sad. My pillow should be mine henceforth.</p> + +<p>But I took care to avoid the children. This seemed +necessary to the anticipated enjoyment of that pillow. +I kept away from Coretta’s cabin, and when I saw +bobbing curls nearing mine through the bushes, I had +sudden errands elsewhere.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>I had begun with the beans, fearing an early frost, +and remembering the many summer dawns I had preciously +invested in keeping the rows clean. They hung +in green multiplicity, in spite of the choking weeds +that had reared their heads high, unmolested by Coretta’s +hoe. In fact, there was a disconcerting abundance +all about me. Having set out to be an example +of thrift, opportunity hung from every bush.</p> + +<p>In this hand-to-hand engagement, I lost sight of +general aims and purposes. The fourteen points were +laid by for later digestion. My New York daily, ordered +for filing through a momentous period, served +excellently for wrapping winter stores. I did not quite +cease to look at the labor horizon for epochal phenomena; +but one day, after talking with a farmer on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span> +the relative value of two varieties of sweet potatoes, +the Texas White and Early Beauty, I found this pencilled +among my farm-notes: “The Bisbee deportation +is mealy for fall use, but the Soviets are the best winter +keepers.” Then I began to have misgivings; but I +crushed the seditious rumbling and kept on the path +indicated by the Department.</p> + +<p>Serena returned, but went at once, as I had known +she must, to the fodder-pulling, and I had only an +occasional friendly hand lent me for help. I had moved +my typewriter into the kitchen, thinking that odd +moments might go to the making of a masterpiece; +but if genius gave a surviving flutter, its tremolo was +drowned by the drums and tabors of conservation +pomp. To Nature’s tender surprises I became callous; +and for her beauty that challenged obviously, I could +say with Coretta that I had no heart.</p> + +<p>Coretta, who knew of old that I rather liked sunsets, +coming one day to borrow my last machine-needle, +called my attention to an aggressively colored +sky by saying it was like a pile of “greenlins an’ ’maters.” +(Greenlands and tomatoes—yes.) I assented so +readily that Coretta flushed with the success of her +venture in poetics.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>When she was gone, I reflectively picked a letter +from my batch of half-read mail. It began: “Your last +filled me with a veritable nostalgia for your mountain. +The odor of ripened grains and fruits and new-cut +wood overcomes me whenever I think of it. I see great +white clouds rearing their domes against a deep, blue +sky; and at my feet gentians star my way to you.”</p> + +<p>I dropped the letter. Where was Autumn? How had +I lost her? Like a spear-thrust the question kept recurring +until the next day, when Aunt Janey Stiles +came.</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Aunt Janey lived over the mountain on Juniper +Creek, three miles west of me, and carried all her supplies +on her shoulder from the village two miles to the +east. On her way out she would take eggs, butter, +chickens, beans—anything exchangeable at the village +store—and on her way in would carry flour, +coffee, sugar, salt, soda, and lard. She had done this +for forty years, and looked wiry and tenacious enough +to do it for forty more. She sometimes paused for half +a day, and once spent the night with me; but, unlike +the neighborly highlanders, would never turn a hand +to help me. She watched me work as she might have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span> +attended a play, and this did not make for the smoothness +of my operations; but I was always glad to see +Aunt Janey. Her attainments did not include a knowledge +of the alphabet, but her mind sometimes revealed +a glitter that made me think her brown, withered body +held an old-world spirit—Greek, perhaps—a Periclesian +favorite.</p> + +<p>“I wasn’t meanin’ to stop,” she said, as her sack +slid from her shoulders; “but seein’ the big kittle +smokin’ in the yard, I ’lowed you’s makin’ apple +butter, an’ I like to watch it poppin’. Don’t you quit +stirrin’. I’ll fetch me a cheer from the kitchen. The +sun’s as soft as an old blanket to-day.”</p> + +<p>She returned with the chair, and continued: “You’ve +got to watch apple butter closer’n a creepin’ baby if +anybody’s goin’ to <i>eat</i> it.”</p> + +<p>Did she know that I had burned up one kettleful? +Though I had tried to remove all trace of it, there +might be a treacherous odor in the air.</p> + +<p>“That’s so, Aunt Janey,” I said; “but I’m going to +take time to empty this anyway.” And I took up a +tub of apple-parings. I could utilize those parings in +three ways, and for that triple reason I wished them +to disappear quickly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>“They’re tellin’ all around that you’re powerful agin +wastin’ stuff,” said Aunt Janey when I had returned, +in a tone so intentionally colorless that I became suspicious +and defensive.</p> + +<p>“I am. And I could have carried those parings to +Sam’s hogs; but Sam would be lazier to-morrow than +he is to-day. And I could have made vinegar out of +them; but I’d have had to take Len from the field to +bring back the barrel that Serena borrowed last year. +And I could make jelly. But with all those fine jelly +apples lying around in bushels on the ground, why +should I save parings?”</p> + +<p>“You forgot beer,” said Aunt Janey.</p> + +<p>“Beer?” I faltered.</p> + +<p>I had elderberry wine, and blackberry cordial, and +peaches brandied in brown sugar as dietetic allurements, +but had made no provision for beer.</p> + +<p>“Best beer you ever drunk by a hickory fire in the +dead o’ Jinniwary. Stir, gal, stir!”</p> + +<p>I stirred. “But I don’t drink beer,” said I brightening, +“and nobody ought to now.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t eat pickle either—tomato-pickle, cabbage-pickle, +beet-pickle, pickylilly, onion-pickle, pickle +everything. An’ you <i>kain’t</i> eat much p’sarves, but I noticed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span> +you had ’most all sorts when I looked over your +stock.”</p> + +<p>“But the plain fruits and vegetables—everybody +likes <i>them</i>.”</p> + +<p>“You’re a leetle short on some of ’em, ain’t you? +Had a nice lot o’ beans to spile on you, didn’t you?”</p> + +<p>I had buried the contents of twelve large jars in +the garden after dark, hoping that my influence as a +conserver would not be diminished. How did she know? +I looked up from my stirring and met a glance of Aspasian +dubiety. She didn’t know. She had been guessing. +But my start had betrayed me. As soon as I was +caught, she became sincerely consoling.</p> + +<p>“Tut, gal, beans are always hard for a beginner. +It was that run you took off at night, I reckon. I +knowed when I passed you’d be in the night with it; +an’ I knowed they’d spile, you was so flustered. It +takes a ca’m sperret to put up beans to stay. Leather +breeches is safer.”</p> + +<p>She took up her sack.</p> + +<p>“There’s a powerful lot o’ wild grapes this year.”</p> + +<p>“Is there?” I said, so dispiritedly that she put +down her sack.</p> + +<p>“Biggest and juiciest I ever seen. A body ought to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span> +put up a lot o’ grapes. They’re so tonicky. An’ they +make the nicest jelly there is for the sick. Tarty like. +Apple jelly’s too tame for a stomach ’at’s off a bit. +Not speakin’ agin yourn, seein’ you got such a power +of it. An’ namin’ the sick, ain’t you never thought o’ +puttin’ up mullin? There’s enough for Europe an’ +Ameriky too in your new ground, an’ it’ll shore cure +that winter cough people has—cure it right now. If +you don’t mean to break off at all, if you ain’t goin’ to +stop <i>anywheres</i>, if I’s you I’d fix up some good yarb +medicines. You can send <i>them</i> to the soldiers. There’s +shumake for a swelled throat, an’ boneset for the ager, +an’ pokeweed for rheumatiz, an’ spignet for consumption, +an’ a lot more I’ll show you if you go home with +me some time. Things to he’p folks, ’stead of a lot of +stuff to chuck up the stomach an’ make ’em sicker. +S’pose you go home with me right now.”</p> + +<p>“With so much to do?” I said. “Oh, I couldn’t!”</p> + +<p>“There’ll always be something to do, gal. If we lived +till we finished up, the world ud be full of Methuselys, +an’ no room for the young folks. Nobody finishes. +They got to <i>break off</i>.”</p> + +<p>She shouldered her sack and started, pausing a rod +away for one more barb.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>“You goin’ to gether yer sunflower-seed? I’ve hearn +they eat ’em in Rooshia.”</p> + +<p>Aunt Janey was right: I had the uncomfortable habit +of hanging on for a finish that the gods would never +uncover. And what could I do about it? There was one +answer—Serena. She could break off without a qualm. +She could sing the doxology while doing it, and give +the Amen a sprightly reverberation.</p> + +<p>Without daring to pause, I started off, stepping as +briskly as Aunt Janey, but in the opposite direction. +I would get Serena to come and clear away every sign +of conservation, and I would walk on the mountains +while she was doing it. If only I might find her in the +disengaged period she would be sure to observe between +fodder-pulling and sorghum-making!</p> + +<p>As I neared Len’s cabin the odor of boiling syrup +told me I was too late. I arrived and looked drearily +on the scene. A shouting boy was busily driving the +oxen that turned the cane-mill, which was spouting +with juice. More juice foamed in the boiler on the furnace. +Len, his seven children, three neighbors, and their +children, were officiating in various or the same parts. +Serena was skimming the boiling syrup. All the country +round acknowledged her as the queen of “lassy-makers.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span> +She turned a heated face to me just long +enough to say with the most cheerful of smiles: “They +don’t give me time to make my beds.”</p> + +<p>I was turning away, when Len stopped me.</p> + +<p>“We’ve taken off one biler, an’ I put a few ’lasses +for you in that jug. Reenie, git the jug!”</p> + +<p>“I don’t want them,” I said, near to tears, and +trapped in the vernacular.</p> + +<p>Len was puzzled.</p> + +<p>“But you’re welcome to the ’lasses. I’ll bring ’em +up to you.”</p> + +<p>“Not a spoonful, thank you, Len,” I called, already +vanishing and hastening my steps unconsciously until +I found myself running—running up-hill. I did not +turn on the trail toward home, but went out to Three +Pine Point, where one could see the river miles away, +smooth, effortless, winding to some hidden land, safe +and far from the malefic spirit of industry. I dropped +to the brown pine-needles. Quickly the woods set their +magical currents flowing, and that sensation as of +smiling veins crept over me.</p> + +<p>Then I saw Nellie Ludd, or part of her. One could +get only partial glimpses of Nellie in the woods—an +upreaching arm, a strip of skirt, the sheen of her head.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span> +No, she was not golden-haired, or green-kirtled, and +she did not lead the fancy back to Tempe and the +vales of Arcady. Her dress was dingy brown in hue, +and of cloth woven on her mother’s loom, but fashioned +by herself as fittingly to her grace as fur to the +marten or feathers to the swallow. Her eyes, if ever +you met them, you would find to be honey-brown, +like the first falling leaves. Her hair was the color of +darkly shining smoke, and seemingly as loath to stay +put. And the world she led the fancy to was a world +which none of us have seen, but to which all secretly +intend to go; a world whose picture every man holds +in his heart, but will not look at in the light lest his +neighbor come upon him suddenly. For, though we +may have learned to love our neighbor as ourself, we +have not yet learned to trust him.</p> + +<p>It was a gracious chance that brought me to the +Point just as Nellie was leaving it. “Breaking off” +was no longer difficult. That sputtering kettle—how +remote and absurd it seemed!</p> + +<p>Descending late in the afternoon, my hills seemed +to shine upon me, reflecting happy restoration. I +passed by the pasture ridge where the silence was +tapped by the falling chestnuts, and felt no impulse to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span> +defeat the squirrels and gophers of their prize. A bellwood +crowned with purple bushels of grapes stirred no +acquisitive instinct. I went calmly through the orchard, +picking my way over the fallen fruit that no hand +would rescue from decay; looked unwistfully at the +pumpkins, cushaws, and “candy-roasters” that would +feed nothing but the frost; and from my cabin step +smiled at the flaming wing of a young maple that was +like a vivid aspiration airily detaching itself from the +clutch of utility and the lures of bounty.</p> + +<p>When I went in, Serena herself could not have cast +a more contented eye about my kitchen, turbulent +with unfinished tasks. The autumnal spirit had effectually +bathed my lacerations. The box on which conveniently +rested my little typewriter was invitingly +near. I sank, a willing non-resistant, into a chair, and +my hands mechanically sought the keys of the machine. +For a few minutes I seemed to be having a pleasant +time, with consciousness unaroused to the issue. Then +I took out the sheet and read:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="first">“Goodly Autumn comes again;</div> +<div class="verse">Fills my cupboard, fills my bin;</div> +<div class="verse">Piles the leaves beneath my shed</div> +<div class="verse">For my pony’s winter bed.</div> +</div> +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span> +<div class="verse">Goodly Autumn comes again;</div> +<div class="verse">Mellows apples, mellows sin;</div> +<div class="verse">Drops the bars in every place;</div> +<div class="verse">All the world is out to gaze.</div> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="verse">Goodly Autumn with her bread!</div> +<div class="verse">Surely now the poor are fed;</div> +<div class="verse">And in peace I may sit down</div> +<div class="verse">To my fill of white or brown.</div> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="verse">Autumn is so good to me;</div> +<div class="verse">I will walk abroad and see</div> +<div class="verse">If the earth and if the sun</div> +<div class="verse">Sup as well as I have done.”</div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>“This is how they feel,” thought I, as I drowned in +placidity without a bubble struggling overhead. “This +is why protracted meetings are held in autumn. Ah, I +will call my poem ‘The Season of Piety.’”</p> + +<p>I began to feel like the good wife of a deacon. Nay, +I was the deacon himself, and blushed in his elderly +trousers.</p> + +<p>With her usual ghostly suddenness, Katy appeared.</p> + +<p>“Mommy’s got the milkweed in her breast agin, an’ +the baby’s all broke out; she’s afraid it’s the measles +an’ we’ll all take ’em.”</p> + +<p>I rose. Certainly they would all take them. The season +of piety was ended.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>Both cases were happily light, and when Coretta +looked up from her pillow and said, “We ain’t goin’ +away. I’ve been thinkin’ what it ud be like to git sick +away from home an’ everybody,” I did not feel that a +slight reproof would be cruel.</p> + +<p>“Stay? With nothing laid in for the winter?”</p> + +<p>“But you’ve put up such a lot.”</p> + +<p>My heart, which had softened at sight of her young +cheek tracked red with the whimsical fever, felt a +stony relapse.</p> + +<p>“You know, Coretta, I have had to consider other +plans.”</p> + +<p>She was terrified, but unbelieving. The heavens +could not really fall.</p> + +<p>“<i>You wouldn’t let us stay?</i>”</p> + +<p>“On one condition, perhaps.”</p> + +<p>Her face shone with relief. She had met conditions +before, and melted through them.</p> + +<p>“What’s that, Mis’ Dolly?”</p> + +<p>“You’ll never wake me up again to borrow something +for breakfast?”</p> + +<p>“No, I shore won’t.”</p> + +<p>“Cross your heart?”</p> + +<p>“Cross my heart.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>“Swear to God?”</p> + +<p>“Swear to God.”</p> + +<p>I looked down at the lovely face, contented with the +thought of being sick and <i>at home</i>, and my smile undid +me.</p> + +<p>“Swear to God,” she repeated feebly, “unless, o’ +course, we’re jest smack out o’ stuff.”</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">III<br> + +<small>SERENA AND WILD STRAWBERRIES</small></h2> +</div> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p class="drop-cap">SHE was not an unalloyed joy that first year of our +friendship. Her imperturbability did not always +seem as a restful evergreen wall, in whose shadow I +could sit until perplexities lost their heat. At times it +was a “no thoroughfare” with the meadows of desire +gleaming beyond.</p> + +<p>I called one day and found her churning by the +spring, a pleasing picture, too, under the trees. Her +rounded, youngish figure gave no hint of her seven-fold +maternity, and however ragged the rest of her +family might be, she always magically managed to be +neat. She was singing leisurely and churning in rhythm—a +most undomestic performance; but my eye was +not Mrs. Poyser’s, and if it had been, it could not +have embarrassed Serena.</p> + +<p>“I’m takin’ my time,” she said, “fer this is my last +churnin’ fer a good spell, I reckon.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>“Your last? Why, is the cow sick?—dead? And +you have just bought her?” I asked, my concern sharpened +perhaps by the thought of a very inconvenient +loan that had gone abysmally into her purchase.</p> + +<p>“She got so many sweet apples last night she’s foundered +herself—clear light ruined, granpap says.”</p> + +<p>“Surely you didn’t turn her into the orchard?”</p> + +<p>“Why, a few apples wouldn’t hurt her. But there +was a whole passel on the ground that I couldn’t see +fer the weeds an’ briers. An’ she got ’em.”</p> + +<p>“But I lent Ben my scythe to cut those briers.”</p> + +<p>“His poppie needed him in the field, an’ he couldn’t +git the time right off. When he did, we couldn’t find +that scythe nowheres. I hate it about the cow,” she assured +me cheerfully; “but it had to happen, I reckon.”</p> + +<p>I looked about me. At that moment I could see nothing +artistic in Ned’s half of a shirt looped about one +shoulder; there was only pathos in little Lissie’s naked, +buttonless back; and I could not placidly think of +Len, as I had passed him a few moments before, showing +ankles as sockless as ever was Simpson. But perhaps +it was the thought of that loan, with its indefinite +time extension, that made me wish to set a shade of +anxiety on Serena’s unclouded brow. At any rate, I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span> +began to sermonize on the merits of discontent and +the virtue of ambition.</p> + +<p>Her face brimmed with astonishment that finally +broke into speech: “But I’ve four beds, and bread on +my table! What more do I want?”</p> + +<p>What more could I say? So man, in some grateful +season, may look up to the seated gods: “I’ve four religions +and a bumper crop; what more do I want?” +And what can the seated gods do but smile patiently?</p> + +<p>I retreated, seeking my usual solace after all defeats—the +unreproachful woods. Near a small clearing, in +the quiet shield of some bushes, I overheard the latter +end of an argument. One voice was Len’s, the other a +neighbor’s.</p> + +<p>“A tater’s a tater, anyhow,” the neighbor was affirming.</p> + +<p>“You might as well say a woman’s a woman,” came +the retort from Len.</p> + +<p>“Well, ain’t she?” said the neighbor.</p> + +<p>“Lord, no!” said Len, with contempt freely flowing.</p> + +<p>“Oh, course there ain’t nobody like Reenie. Pity the +Lord didn’t think o’ makin’ her fer Adam. We’d all be +in Eden yit, loaferin’ by the river of life, ’stead o’ +diggin’ taters out o’ rocks.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>“When you’re spilin’ to talk about a woman, Dan +Goforth, you needn’t travel furder’n your own doorstep,” +answered Len, his voice, like drawling fire, +creeping on without pause. “Reenie mayn’t be stout +enough to wear out a hoe-handle, but she’s never jowerin’ +when I come in, ’n’ there’s always a clean place +in the house big enough fer me to set my cheer down +in, I ain’t layin’ up much more’n debts, but they’s +easy carried when nobody’s naggin’ yer strenth out, +a woman’s smile ain’t no oak-tree in harvest-time, but +it’s jest as good to set by, my coat’s raggeder’n yourn, +but I’d ruther Reenie ’ud lose her needle onct on a +while than her temper all the time, neighbors can go +by my house day or night an’ never hear no fire aspittin’, +which kain’t be said o’ yourn, an’ you scootle +from here, Dan Goforth; don’t you tech nary nuther +tater in this patch!”</p> + +<p>The neighbor scootled, backward it seemed, to the +road. I took the trouble myself to go down to a trail +and come up casually from another direction, in full +view of Len. He was working mightily, digging up a +hill with two strokes of his hoe.</p> + +<p>“Dan gone?” I asked indifferently.</p> + +<p>“Ay, he lit out. Old Nance wanted him, I reckon.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span> +He dassen’t stay a minute after she fixes the clock fer +him.”</p> + +<p>“That’s a kind of trouble you and Reenie don’t +have.”</p> + +<p>“You’ve said it now. Reenie don’t keep no time on +me. If I want to drap over the mountain to see if I +can git old man Diller’s mule fer extry ploughin’, ’cause +the crab-grass is elbowin’ along the ground ’most rootin’ +up my corn, an’ tells Reenie I’ll be back by twelve, +an’ I find the old man spilin’ a ox-yoke, an’ I shapes it +up fer him an’ stays to dinner, an’ comes back by the +meetin’-house where they’s puttin’ in the new windows +an’ not gittin’ ’em plumb, an’ I stays till sundown +settin’ ’em in so they won’t make everybody ’at passes +think he’s gone cross-eyed, an’ I remembers we’ve got +no coffee, so I slips round by the store an’ stays till +dark talkin’ with Tim Frizbie about the best way to +grow fat corn an’ lean cobs, ’cause I know you want +me to git all the new idies I can, an’ when I strikes +Granny Groom’s place she’s at the gate wantin’ me +to talk to her Lizy’s girl who’s fixin’ to leave an’ strollop +over the country, an’ I says to that girl when +you’re at home you’re eatin’ welcome bread, and when +you’re out in the world you don’t know what you’re<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span> +eatin’, an’ a lot more that was aplenty, an’s I pass +Mis’ Woodlow’s, who’s got a powerful bad risin’, I +thinks I’ll stop an’ see if her jaw’s broke yit, an’ I +finds ol’ Jim so out o’ heart about her, I stays to help +him put over a couple o’ hours, an’ when I walks in +home about midnight, Reenie she’s gone to bed sensible, +an’ says there’s bread an’ beans in the cupboard. +Now that’s what I call some comfort to a man, to +know he can take what happens ’long the road, an’ +know his wife ain’t frettin’ till her stomach’s gone an’ +she’s as lean as a splinter like ol’ Nance Goforth.”</p> + +<p>“You nearly got what you wanted when you married, +didn’t you, Len?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I reckon, but I didn’t know it from the start-off. +Reenie was powerful to be agoin’, an’ I couldn’t +git used to draggin’ off every Saturday night to stay +till Monday mornin’. But I felt different about it +after I’d nearly killed her an’ the baby.”</p> + +<p>“Gracious, was it that bad?”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t do it a-purpose. It was back in Madison, +where I married Reenie, an’ jest two days ’fore Christmas. +She’d put in to go to her pap’s, an’ I thought I’d +git up a nice lot o’ wood, make me a big fire, an’ have +my Christmas at home. I’d told her I thought she’d<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span> +feel different about stayin’ in her own house after +she’d got a little ’un in it, but she ’lowed her sight an’ +hearin’ was as good as ’fore she had a baby, an’ she +could enjoy usin’ ’em just the same. So I got out by +good daylight an’ went up the hill above the house to +cut a big, dead chestnut that I was tired o’ lookin’ at; +then I means to slip over to By Kenny’s an’ git him +an’ his wife to come over fer Christmas ’fore Reenie +got away. There’d come a skift o’ snow a few days back, +bare enough to make the ground gray, then a little +warm rain, an’ on top o’ that a freeze that stung yer +eyeballs, an’ you never saw anything as slick as that +hill was ’fore the sun riz that mornin’. When my chestnut +fell she crackled off every limb agin the hard +ground clean as a sled-runner. Boys, if she didn’t shoot +off, makin’ smoke out o’ that frost! I saw she was +pinted fer our little shack an’ I tries to yell to Reenie +to git out, but I never made more’n a peep like a +chicken. When the log struck, it shaved by the corner +o’ the house an’ took the chimbly. Boys, it made bug-bites +o’ that chimbly! I knowed Reenie was settin’ by +the fire with the baby, an’ I’d killed ’em both. I felt +’most froze to the ground, an’ I thought if Reenie was +only livin’ I’d let her do her own ’druthers the rest of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span> +her days. An’ when I got down to the house an’ sees +her an’ the baby not hurt, with the rocks all piled +around ’em, I says to myself I ain’t ever goin’ back on +what I promised her unbeknownst. An’ I ain’t.”</p> + +<p>“What was she doing?”</p> + +<p>“She was jest settin’ there.”</p> + +<p>“What did she say?”</p> + +<p>“She ’lowed we’d got to go to pap’s fer Christmas. +An’ we did.”</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>I stood on the doorstep one morning, balancing destiny. +Should I take the downward road to the post-office, +and thereby connect with the distant maelstrom +called progress, or should I choose the upward trail to +the still crests of content?</p> + +<p>Serena, happening designedly by, saved me the +wrench of decision.</p> + +<p>“If you want any strawberries this year,” she said, +“you’d better go before the Mossy Creek folks have +rumpaged over Old Cloud field. They slip up from the +west side an’ don’t leave a berry for manners. I’m goin’ +now. I always go once.”</p> + +<p>I provided buckets and cups, as expected, and we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span> +started. The high ridge field where the berries rambled +had its name from an Indian, Old Cloud, who, it was +said, had lived there behind the cloud that always +rested on the ridge before so many of the peaks had +been stripped of their pine and poplar and balsam that +had held the clouds entangled and the sky so close. +After it had passed to the settlers it had taken forty +years of ignorant and monotonous tillage to reduce +the rich soil to a half-wild pasture enjoying the freedom +of exhaustion.</p> + +<p>I had been under roof for three days, and the spring +air produced the usual inebriation. Several times I +left Serena far behind, but she always caught up, and +we reached the top of the ridge together. Here, panting, +I dropped to a bed of cinquefoil, while Serena +stood unheated and smiling.</p> + +<p>“Did you ever run, Serena?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“I always take the gait I can keep,” she said, her +glance already roving the ground for berries. “The +other side o’ that gully’s red with ’em. We’ve got ahead +o’ Mossy Creek this time.”</p> + +<p>I was looking at the world which the lifted horizon +had given me. North by east the Great Smokies drew +their lilac-blue veil over impenetrable wildernesses of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span> +laurel. I could see the round dome of Clingman, and +turned quickly from the onslaught of a remembered +day when my body was wrapped in the odor of its fir-trees +and its heathery mosses cooled my feet. South lay +the Nantahalas, source of clear waters. West—but +what were names before that array of peaks like characters +in creation’s alphabet, whose key was kept in +another star? They rose in every form, curved, swaying, +rounded, a loaf, a spear, shadowed and unshadowed, +their splotches of green, gold, and hemlock-black +flowing into blue, where distance balked the +eyes and imagination stepped the crests alone. It +seemed easier to follow than to stay behind with feet +clinging to earth. Affinity lay with the sky.</p> + +<p>Serena was steadily picking berries.</p> + +<p>“But, Serena,” I called, “just see!”</p> + +<p>“I come here once a year,” she said, standing up, +“an’ I never take my look till I’ve filled my bucket.” +And she was on her knees again.</p> + +<p>Rebuke number two, I thought, and set to work. +Avoiding Serena’s discovered province, I crossed to the +next dip of the slope, and there the field was covered +with morning-glories, still radiantly open. All hues were +there, from the purple of night to snow without tint,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span> +and the clusters of berries under them seemed in sanctuary. +I plucked them away, feeling like a ravager of +shrines. A breeze flowed over the field, and every color +quivered dazzlingly. It was plainly a protest. I gave +up my robberies and passed to another part of the +field, where rapine seemed legitimate. Here the rank +grass of yesteryears was deeply rooted and matted, +and I sank adventurously in the tripping tangles. The +slope was steeper, too, and I slipped, slid, and stumbled +from patch to patch before theft was well begun, +losing half my captures in the struggle. It was tinglingly +arduous, however, and I continued a happy +game of profit and loss until I scrambled from a gully +into whose depths I had followed my rolling bucket, +and confronted Serena. She looked as if she had coolly +swum the lake of color behind us; but her fresh apron +was unstained, while mine was a splash of coral. I advised +her to return. The picking was better above.</p> + +<p>“I know it is,” she answered, “but them mornin’-glories +keep me fluttery, lookin’ at me all the time. I got +to fill my bucket <i>first</i>. I promised Len all he could eat in +a pie, an’ it takes a big one fer ten of us. Granpap’s +stayin’ at our house now. But we’d better move furder +over, out o’ this soddy grass. They’s rattlers here.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>With her word we saw him. He was partly coiled +not more than three feet from Serena’s undulating gingham. +The black diamonds shining on his amber skin +assured me of his variety—the kind that, as natives +tell me, Indians will not kill because “he gives a man +a chance.” Certainly he was giving us a chance. His +eyes seemed half-shut, but not sleepy, as if he did not +need his full power of vision to comprehend our insignificant +world. His poised head was motionless. Only +his tail quivered, not yet erected for his gentlemanly +warning. He glistened with newness, and was evidently +a youngish snake, with dreams of knighthood still unbattered. +His parents had bequeathed him none of +the hatred that belongs to a defeated race. Serena +seemed as motionless as he. I took her hand, drawing +her a few paces back, and we stood watching. Sir Rattle +slowly uncoiled, quivered throughout his variegated +length, and moved indifferently from us, disappearing +in the clumps of grass.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said a pale Serena, “I feel like I did after I +was baptized. The preacher, he was old man Diller, +put his hand on my shoulder an’ said, ‘Love the Lord, +my sister’; but I was so full o’ lovin’ everything and +everybody I couldn’t think about the Lord. Do you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span> +reckon snakes have brothers and sisters that they know +about? Think o’ that feller throwin’ away sech a chance +to git even!” She could not stop talking any more +than I could begin. “Let’s get to the top o’ the field +where it’s cooler. It’s got so hot I’m afeard a shower’s +comin’.”</p> + +<p>By the time we reached the top we knew that the +shower was to be a heavy one. There was a cave over +the ridge on the Mossy Creek side, where we could take +shelter. But we would wait a little for what the heavens +could show us. The doors of the sky were to be thrown +open. There would be no reservation of magic. Earth +knew it by the quick wind that pressed every grass-blade +to the ground and made the strawberry-blossoms +look like little white, whipped flags; and by the grove +of tall, young poplars that bent like maidens, their interlaced +branches resting, a silver roof, on their curved +shoulders. The lightning rippled, and earth was a +golden rose spreading her mountain petals. It was the +signal for the assembling of the dragons. They came +swelling from the west, pulling one great paw after +another from behind the walls of distance and puffing +black breath half across the sky. The lightning again, +and this time earth was a golden butterfly under the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span> +paws of the dragons. Then the conflict began, the beasts +mingled, and the sound of their bones massively breaking +struck and shook the ground under our feet. A +gray sea rose vertically on the horizon and marched +upon us. We fled, blinded, to the cave, tearing off our +aprons to protect our buckets.</p> + +<p>Even here Serena did not pant or gasp.</p> + +<p>“How dry it is!” she said, examining the berries. +“They’re not hurt. My, you didn’t cap yourn!”</p> + +<p>“But I’d never fill my bucket if I stopped to cap +them.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t stop. You leave the cap on the vine. +It’s as quick done as not. Now it’ll take you longer to +cap than it did to pick. O’ course you didn’t know. +Some folks knows one thing and some another,” she +added kindly. “Ain’t it a thick rain? But we got a +good place. Some say this cave’s ha’nted, an’ won’t +come anigh it. Uncle Sim Goforth died here, but he +was a good man an’ wouldn’t harm nobody if he did +come back.”</p> + +<p>“How did he happen to die here?”</p> + +<p>“They killed him. It was in time o’ the war way +back. Folks are better now. They say they’re doin’ +awful over the sea, but they’d never be so mean as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span> +they were to Uncle Sim. He hid here, an’ brought his +wife an’ childern. But they found him.”</p> + +<p>“Was he a Unionist or Confederate?”</p> + +<p>“I never could make out ’tween ’em. The Unionists, +they wanted to free the black people, but the Unionists +here in the mountains didn’t favor ’em. So I never +could git it clear. Anyway, Uncle Sim was a good man. +I’ve heard granpap tell about him many a night. The +men, when they found him, cut down a tree an’ hewed +out some puncheons fer a coffin, an’ made Uncle Sim +sit on it an’ play his fiddle. He could play the best that +ever was, an’ they say he played up fine that night. +They kept him playin’ till near daylight; then they +shot him, an’ his wife an’ childern lookin’ right on. I +used to cry, hearin’ granpap tell it, out in Madison, +but it don’t make me feel bad now, ’cause I know folks +are better than what they were them days.”</p> + +<p>Such naïveté was possible in the period of our national +innocence, before “the boys” began to drift back +home with certain truths on their tongue.</p> + +<p>“Looky! the rain’s stopped quicker’n it come. We +can go right back, fer the ridge dreens off soon as the +water strikes it. Ain’t it cool, an’ the air like gold!”</p> + +<p>She tried to catch a handful of it to show me its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span> +quality. We went back, and in a minute, as she said, +our buckets were full, though we lost a few seconds +while I learned of Serena how to cap and pick at the +same time. Then we started along the ridge to the +gap where we had entered the field. Walking back, I +lingered to pluck a giant white trillium that shone from +the fringe of wood. No loss to the forest; there were +thousands more lighting up the cove farther down. As I +came out of the wood, the air over the field seemed visibly +to precipitate some of its gold. A swarm—no, the +word is too heavy for anything so delicately bodied—a +band of butterflies, moving in a slow wave over the ridge, +had at that moment broken into myriads of distinct +flakes—a shattered blaze. Nearer, their gold became +tinily specked, and showed flashes and fringes of pearl; +the silver-bordered fritillaries, perhaps, or some kin of +theirs. I started to call Serena, but paused softly, for +she was gazing over the mountains, having her “look.” +I was left to the butterflies. Were they as unconscious +of their grubby origin as they seemed, holding no memory +of a life bounded by a sassafras twig, or of the cove +behind us where a violet leaf may have been both +food and heaven?</p> + +<p>The butterfly ought to be the symbol on every<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span> +Christian’s flag. It is the perfect pietist. Its confidence +in the Infinite is as patent as its wings. Serena, amid +that airy fluttering, seemed, in her own shining way, +the sovereign of the band. Deep as piety was her trust +in the morrow. Food would come to her, raiment would +be found.</p> + +<p>The butterflies floated past, becoming a dim, coppery +tremble in the shade of the valley. Serena was +still gazing in the distance. At last I said that we must +be going; Len was expecting his pie.</p> + +<p>“These berries ain’t goin’ into a pie,” she answered. +“They’re worth more than a pie’ll come to. They’re +goin’ into jam.”</p> + +<p>Was Serena taking forethought? No; I could trust +her lighted face and wet eyes. She was still piously +improvident.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Once more it was May, and early morning. I was out +before breakfast, gathering sticks for my hearth-fire. +There had been showers in the night, and an inch of +new grass trembled over the ground. I tugged at a +pile of brush made by my oldest apple-tree, which had +fallen in a winter storm. The limbs, and even the million<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span> +twigs, were all gray and green and slate-blue in +their wrappings of moss, and in among them, like a +burning heart, sat a cardinal.</p> + +<p>“You ought to be singing from a tree-top,” said I.</p> + +<p>“But I’m getting my breakfast. This is the <i>cafeteria</i> +of Wingland. Are you going to demolish it?”</p> + +<p>“Indeed, no!” I answered, picking up some peripheral +sticks and leaving his stronghold unshaken.</p> + +<p>To thank me, he hopped to the top of the pile, and, +right in my face, sang his most shamelessly seductive +song. Serena put her head out of the kitchen window +to listen. He paused, and deserted me for a tree-top. +But sweet was air and earth. Delight summoned an +antithesis. I thought of forgotten pains, some monitions +of the night before. Suppose I were to die, and +never again stand in that dip of the mountain when it +was a brimming bowl of springtime? Perhaps there was +no other planet where I might gather in my arms such +beautiful gray and green and slate-blue fagots. I turned +to go in, and met rebuke in the eyes of my Chicago +guest.</p> + +<p>“I wonder if you are going to tell me that your +woman does not know how to pick up brush.”</p> + +<p>My woman! If Serena heard that!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>“And after last night! Did you take your medicine?”</p> + +<p>Verily I had. She was unconvinced.</p> + +<p>“The bottle seems full.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I took it from the cardinal’s throat,” said I, +surrendering.</p> + +<p>She laughed, for there was sweetness in her, and we +went in to breakfast. I had prepared it before going +out, leaving Serena on guard. She was with me, not so +much for the help she gave, as to save the feelings of +my guest.</p> + +<p>“Do you have much of this soggy weather?” said +Chicago, airily tolerant, as we took our seats.</p> + +<p>“Why, I’ve never noticed.”</p> + +<p>“We shore do,” said Serena, with gloom that was +ludicrously alien to her face. “It’s li’ble to rain now +fer two weeks steady.”</p> + +<p>“But I had decided not to go home to-day,” cried +the guest, almost resentfully declining the hot biscuit +Serena urged upon her. “Two weeks! Do you mean +two weeks?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve known it to hang wet fer a month.”</p> + +<p>“Why, Serena!”</p> + +<p>“Showery like. You know it’s so, Mis’ Dolly.”</p> + +<p>“Well, we’re going to have perfect weather now.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span> +Tender, bright, with maybe a bit of dew in the air. +Stay, and I promise you a miracle among springs.” +I held up a glass of strawberry jam. “The kind of a +spring that produced this.” And I offered her the food +of heaven.</p> + +<p>“Thanks, but I’ve cut out sweets.”</p> + +<p>I caught my breath, and looked at Serena, in whose +eye sparkled a triumph that said plainly: “Now you +see!”</p> + +<p>My guest did not notice that I sat dumb, bewildered, +bereft. She was talking.</p> + +<p>“No, I think, my dear, that if you wish to memorialize +a passing folk, you will find material more worthy +of your pen in the twilight of the bourgeoisie. They +have lived in the main line of evolution, and will leave +their touch on the race. Faint it may be, but indelible. +In art, in literature, perhaps in certain predilections +of character and temperament, it will be possible to +trace them. These mountain people will not have even +a fossilized survival. They live in a <i>cul-de-sac</i>, a pocket +of society, so to speak. Your mind has an epic cast, +and will never fit into its limits.”</p> + +<p>There was more; then Serena’s voice glided into the +monologue.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>“Mis’ Dolly, I don’t like to tell you, seein’ you were +ailin’ last night, but Johnny Diller went by here this +mornin’, an’ he said Mis’ Ludd’s little Marthy wasn’t +expected to keep breath in her till sundown.”</p> + +<p>“I must go,” said I, getting up.</p> + +<p>“I don’t approve of it,” said my friend.</p> + +<p>“I must. You don’t understand——”</p> + +<p>“Please don’t tell me that again, my dear.”</p> + +<p>“But you don’t!”</p> + +<p>“Your hat’s on the porch,” said Serena.</p> + +<p>“You can’t leave to-day, Marie, because I haven’t +time to tell you good-by now,” I said, and hurried +away.</p> + +<p>Home again at ten in the evening, I found Serena +sitting by a bright kitchen fire humming “Old Time +Religion.”</p> + +<p>“Is Miss Brooks asleep?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“I reckon she is. She said she was goin’ to take a +sleeper.”</p> + +<p>“She’s gone?”</p> + +<p>Serena’s affirming nod did not interrupt her tune.</p> + +<p>“Please stop that humming, Serena, and tell me +what you did the minute my back was turned.”</p> + +<p>“Nothin’ at all. That was the matter, maybe.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>“You didn’t do <i>anything</i> for her?”</p> + +<p>“I fixed her a snack to eat on the train.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, thank you! It was a nice one, wasn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“I give her some pickled beets, an’ turnip-kraut, an’ +’tater salad made with that blackberry vinegar.”</p> + +<p>I dizzily recalled a remark of Len’s. “That blackberry +vinegar ’ud pickle a horseshoe.”</p> + +<p>“Serena,” I began faintly.</p> + +<p>She had crossed to a shelf and was looking fondly at +a jar of strawberry jam.</p> + +<p>My voice died away; I could not reproach her.</p> + +<p>Sweets, my friend had called it. And, my God, it +was May morning on a mountain-top!</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">IV<br> + +<small>SAM</small></h2> +</div> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p class="drop-cap">HE was passing my cabin late at night, and unexpectedly +found me sitting on the moonlit doorstep. +I was not longing for conversation, but Sam’s +voice, as mere sound, was no more interruptive than +purling water or a cajoling minor wind. It mellowed its +way over uncouth words in a manner that seemed to +be its owner’s gentle amends for using anything in +your presence so angular and knotty as the language +of man.</p> + +<p>“I thought,” he said, “maybe I could ketch that +coon what uses over in Grape Vine Cove; but my dog +Buck got onter a fox-trail, an’ coon wasn’t nothin’ to +him after that. I knowed that fox ’ud take him to Katter +Knob, so I let him go on by hissef an’ I shammucked +along toward home.”</p> + +<p>There was no hint in his easy air that he had broken +my rule against hunting in springtime. Any Merlin +would violate any rule occasionally, as a matter of +self-respect; and of all the Merlins, Sam was the least<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span> +capable of inferior misgiving. His whole mental interior +was as bare of obeisance as an iceberg of things +that grow.</p> + +<p>“I could ’a’ chivvied that fox out if I had gone after +him; but if a man don’t sleep he’s weak at the plough-handles. +Yore work first, Mis’ Dolly.”</p> + +<p>But a falling moon was marking 1 <span class="allsmcap">A. M.</span></p> + +<p>“That fox-hide would ’a’ brought me four dollars, +an’ Krettie keeps pesterin’ me fer a pair o’ shoes. My +head might as well be under the forestick. But she’ll +jest have to make out.”</p> + +<p>This was clearly an impeachment, but I made no +defense, and he passed to a topic with, presumably, +no implications.</p> + +<p>“Yer company comin’ to-morr’, I reckon?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Sam.”</p> + +<p>“So ye’re enjoyin’ yersef to-night.”</p> + +<p>I opposed another silence to his deduction.</p> + +<p>“That makes me think now—’f I have to meet the +train an’ haul ’em up, I kain’t plough to-morr’.”</p> + +<p>“But, Sam, you don’t have to go till four o’clock.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, but they’s a little work to do on my wagon +’fore I go down. I kain’t take any resk with friends o’ +yorn.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>I could always get interested in the way that Sam +made use of <i>yer</i>, <i>yore</i>, <i>yorn</i>, <i>you</i>, and <i>ye</i>. <i>Yorn</i>, with an +inflection that enlarged the <i>n</i>, was an avowal of separateness +as severing as the water that washed Pilate’s +hands.</p> + +<p>Having arranged for his morning sleep, he merged +away, pausing on an edge of moonlight to say: “Ain’t +the whipper-wills awhirlin’ to-night? Looks like they +ain’t goin’ to sleep at all.”</p> + +<p>“Whirling, Sam?”</p> + +<p>“Ay, you know ever’ time they say whipper-will they +whirl round on the limb. Whirl thersevs right round.”</p> + +<p>“What a foolish habit!”</p> + +<p>“Well, the whipper-will ain’t a much smart bird.”</p> + +<p>He flowed into the shadows and left me to ponder +my newly acquired bird-lore. It was the kind of information +which Sam frequently distributed, and with +no remonstrance from me. He was too sure and final; +and withal too quieting to the intellect. One doesn’t +demur to the south wind, or try to put it right.</p> + +<p>“I reckon I ain’t a much smart bird,” I said, thinking +many times I had stepped aside for the unstemmed +passage of Sam’s incredibly liquid voice.</p> + +<p>The next day brought my friend, Lucie Harvey, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span> +her husband, whom I knew only through her raptures. +They were happy additions to my tiny camp, and at +the end of their three days’ visit romantically voted +to make a bed in the barn and release my room, thus +making an indefinite stay possible. We were verbally +completing the plan when Sam appeared.</p> + +<p>“I knocked off ploughin’.” he said, “to take yer +trunks down.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, we’re not going,” said Lucie.</p> + +<p>“When I brought ye up, ye ’lowed ye’d be ready to +go back this evenin’ an’ I’ve come fer ye.”</p> + +<p>“Why, we’ll let you know when we want to go.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve come out o’ the plough to take ye.”</p> + +<p>“Sorry, my man,” said the bridegroom, “but it’s +your mistake. We’ll let you know when we’re ready for +you.”</p> + +<p>“You goin’ to live in the barn?”</p> + +<p>“There!” said Lucie, “he knew all about it!”</p> + +<p>They turned away for the walk which Sam had momentarily +delayed. I heard Lucie say, “How did he +know?” and I might have followed to tell her that +Sam always knew; but at that moment I was struck +motionless by hearing Ned Harvey drop the word +“Imbecile!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>Sam, very likely, did not know its meaning, but the +tone as it floated back was unmistakable.</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry you knocked off ploughing, Sam,” I +said, my eyes slinking.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I left Ben at it. Len said he could spare him.”</p> + +<p>“That means Len is doing double work, so Ben can +help you out.”</p> + +<p>“He’p me out? They’s yore friends, not mine. I +like Mis’ Harvey though. She’s mighty nice.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Harvey, too.”</p> + +<p>He looked toward Harvey, who was wearing a hunting-jacket +very handsomely.</p> + +<p>“Well, as to that, he wears a fine huntin’-jacket, but +I’ve seen folks wearin’ good clo’s that had to hunt up +the nest-eggs to fry if company dropped by to dinner.”</p> + +<p>A pensive shade came into his eyes as they continued +to follow the vanishing figure of Harvey. “I always +thought I’d like a huntin’-jacket,” he said; and as he +walked away, something in his bearing told me that +he was imaginarily clothed as his heart desired. There +had been no resentment in his voice. Perhaps he had +taken no notice of that terrible word. And gradually +I forgot that it had been uttered.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span></p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>A few days later Sam passed through my yard, where +Ned Harvey was warmly engaged in persuading me +not to have my crimson clover turned under, but to +hog it off. He had carried some of my farm books to +the barn, and the phrase “hog it off” had him in its +power. Lucie’s eyes approved shiningly.</p> + +<p>“And you know, Dolly,” she said, “after all, Ned +is a realtor, not a farmer.”</p> + +<p>“But, Mis’ Harvey,” said Sam, “we don’t fatten +hogs round here in the spring; an’ clover makes soft +meat—sorter like bear’s meat. An’ that makes me +think now—hain’t ye heard about that bear runnin’ +on Pitcher Mountain? Hit come down from Smoky.”</p> + +<p>“You’ve bears here?” asked Ned, turning a captured +ear.</p> + +<p>“Oh, ay, they’s a few left. They come down from +the bear-ground on Smoky oncet in a while. It’s only +eleven miles straight through to Pitcher. If I can git +Tom Bowles to plough fer me, I’m goin’ to have a +look at this feller.”</p> + +<p>He passed on, leaving Harvey intently gazing at +nothing. His bride caught his arm.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>“You are not going, Ned?”</p> + +<p>“Not without your consent, Lucie. It’s an opportunity, +of course. I have never shot a bear.”</p> + +<p>His thoughts wandered. We could see that he was +already back at home telling the boys about it.</p> + +<p>“If only you would be very, <i>very</i> careful, dear!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s all right, thank you, darling!” And he +set off after Sam. When he returned, he was enthusiastic +about his guide. “I like him! He hung back at first, +and I finally found that Bowles wouldn’t plough for +him without the money; so I paid him ten dollars in +advance. That’s all he is charging to take me. We shall +be gone only three or four days. He knows all the +trails; and we can get our bacon and meal at a little +store on Siler’s creek, and not have to carry a heavy +pack from here.”</p> + +<p>“If only you had an intelligent companion!” said +Lucie with foreboding.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Sam’s a fine fellow! And he knows a lot of old +songs. You know I want to make a collection.”</p> + +<p>“Do get ‘London City’ for me if you can,” I said. +“He will never give me more than a snatch of it.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="first">‘In London City where I did dwell</div> +<div class="verse">A merchant boy I loved so well——’</div> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>I am sure it has been sung under the very bonnet +of the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, ‘City’ not +‘town’; ‘merchant,’ not ‘soldier’ or ‘sailor.’”</p> + +<p>“It’s a link,” said Harvey. “Think of it! This remote +spot where nothing ever happened, and old London! +I’ll get it for you.”</p> + +<p>I wasn’t hopeful, knowing Sam’s disposition to sing +only at his own instance; but I could not discourage +any one so gallantly sure as Harvey.</p> + +<p>The next twenty-four hours were spent by the bear-hunters +in making ready. I asked Sam where he intended +to get a bear-dog, and was surprised to hear +that they had decided not to take one.</p> + +<p>“One o’ them big dogs’ll eat three men’s rations,” +said Sam. “We’d have to carry a heap more stuff, an’ +pay five dollars fer the hire of him, too. Anyways, if +we took a bear-dog, he’d git all the credit for the killin’, +when like as not he’d be back in camp eatin’ up +our victuals.”</p> + +<p>“It’s settled, Sam,” said Harvey. “A gun’s the clean +thing.”</p> + +<p>“I knowed you wanted to shoot bear, not claw ’em +out like Jed Weaver does.”</p> + +<p>As preparations went on, Lucie shrank to a wife’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span> +place in the background; but near the starting-moment +she slipped a pair of her husband’s best silk socks into +his kit.</p> + +<p>“They will rest your feet, dear,” she said, suppressing +a crinkly catch in her voice.</p> + +<p>The kiss she received was absent-mindedly given; but +when a hundred yards on his way, Harvey turned thoughtfully +and waved a marital hand broadly rearward.</p> + +<p>The fifth morning thereafter, Lucie, who had been +on watch at the curve of the road, came running in.</p> + +<p>“Dolly,” she cried, “I thought tramps never got up +here!”</p> + +<p>“They don’t,” I said.</p> + +<p>“But look!”</p> + +<p>She turned again and gazed out; then stood framed in +eerie silence. I saw, and she saw, that it was Ned. He +came up with an unrelaxing smile, but looking as if he +had not slept since his departure. Certainly he had not +shaved, though I had seen him carefully pack his +safety razor, and remembered his remark that even in +the woods a man could be a gentleman. He had on +Sam’s ragged coat, and under it we had glimpses of +Sam’s still more ragged, and once blue, cotton shirt. +His head was bare.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>Lucie was white-lipped and wide-eyed. “Did the +bears—” she began.</p> + +<p>“No, Lucie, the bears did not get me,” he said; and +preceded her to the barn.</p> + +<p>Two or three hours afterward she returned to tell +me that Ned was sleeping and did not wish to be awakened +until next morning. He appeared at breakfast, +neat and smiling, but his face was still marked by experience.</p> + +<p>“He has suffered,” said Lucie, helping his plate with +tender liberality.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it was nothing,” said Ned. “Sam took a bad +cold, and seemed threatened with pneumonia. As my +clothes were warmer than his, of course I exchanged +with him.”</p> + +<p>“Your best silk socks, too?” cried Lucie.</p> + +<p>“Certainly. He had <i>none</i>.”</p> + +<p>Then he told us about it. “We climbed steadily, and +the second day reached a height of four thousand feet +or more. There was a fierce wind, and it was bitter +cold. We had to keep a fire at night, and as Sam was +not well, I attended to that, which cut out my sleep. +<i>Don’t</i> moan like that, please, dearest. I am glad I went. +I feel better prepared for many things. I really do.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>And truly he did seem to have added to his stature. +He had been very likable; but now I began to admire +him.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t get a bear, but I made some notes. You +know I have always been interested in forest life. I +ought to have been a woodsman.”</p> + +<p>“I hope you won’t have to limp very long,” said +Lucie; and a slight silence followed.</p> + +<p>“Did Sam sing for you?” she continued, her usual +discernment failing.</p> + +<p>“Yes—a little—one song.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I hope you took it down!”</p> + +<p>“It was very <i>cold</i>, Lucie. I did no unnecessary writing.”</p> + +<p>“But you remember it?”</p> + +<p>“I shall never forget it,” he said, and, to my ears, his +voice held a slight acridity. I was glad when Lucie fell +into her sweetest manner and they went off together.</p> + +<p>As I moved about the deserted table, I noticed a +note-book lying on the floor. The floor being frequently +a repository for my own note-books, I picked this one +up, to see what subject had lost my devotion. On the +first page I read: “Night of the 15th: very cold; no +sleep. 16th: very cold; no sleep. 17th: very cold; no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span> +sleep.” The rest was blank. I laid the book on the floor, +a little under Harvey’s chair. Then I went to find Sam.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>“How is your cold, Sam?” I asked.</p> + +<p>He laughed his most purling-water laugh. “I cured +that when I was crossin’ Siler’s creek comin’ home. +There’s lots o’ sickness’ll leave you when you cross +water. Hit takes right off.”</p> + +<p>“Sam, do you know that Tom Bowles has not been +near the place? There isn’t a furrow ploughed in that +field.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, I know it. I was so busy the day we went off, +I forgot to tell you about that. Mr. Harvey bein’ yore +friend, I wanted to do ever’thing I could to he’p him; +but I said to myself that what you wanted ought to +come first, so I went to that field an’ I looked all over +it. I went cleverly all over it. An’ I saw ’twa’n’t no use +to throw away ten dollars on Tom Bowles, fer that +ground wouldn’t bring corn. Yer best chance is to +wait until fall, an’ put it in rye. It’ll shore bring rye.”</p> + +<p>“But when I wanted you to put it in rye last fall, +you said I ought to wait until spring and plant corn.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>“I ain’t fergittin’ that, but last fall I hadn’t gone +well over it like I ought.”</p> + +<p>“It’s not too late for corn now, if you’ll set to ploughing +at once.”</p> + +<p>“I’d do it, Mis’ Dolly; I’d be willin’ to do jest as you +say, even agin yer own intrust, which is what corn +’ud be in that ground; but I’ve got to go to Carson +to-morr’ an’ git my front tooth put in. It’s been out six +months now, an’ I’ve got the money in my pocket.”</p> + +<p>“Couldn’t you wait a few days, Sam?”</p> + +<p>“Why, I put it to you now, if you had a front tooth +out, wouldn’t you git one in the first chance? I’ve got +my clo’s, an’ the money, an’ it’s mighty hard to git +ever’thing together at oncet.”</p> + +<p>At last he had mentioned the clothes; so, without +repulse, might I.</p> + +<p>“Your jacket is a good fit, Sam.”</p> + +<p>“How do you think it suits me, Mis’ Dolly?”</p> + +<p>“I think you wear it about as well as Mr. Harvey +did.”</p> + +<p>“It set smart round the shoulders on him.”</p> + +<p>“Smart on you too, Sam.”</p> + +<p>“It looks better with the cap.” He put on the cap +for proof. “I let Mr. Harvey keep his pants an’ leggin’s.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span> +That chap from Asheville left me his, an’ I +thought they’s better’n Harvey’s. Jest let me walk +off.”</p> + +<p>He walked off, and I duly and sincerely admired.</p> + +<p>“You reckon,” he said, coming back, “if you saw +me as fur off as that black oak on the hill yander, an’ +I had my back to you, an’ you didn’t know I had +these clo’s, you reckon you’d take me fer Harvey?”</p> + +<p>I assured him I would.</p> + +<p>“He’s a well-set-up man, Harvey.”</p> + +<p>It was time to hit the nail. “Sam, I want the truth. +<i>Was</i> there a bear on Pitcher Mountain?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, there was—three year ago. I saw it myself, +after it ’uz dead.”</p> + +<p>“Go on. Make a clean breast of it.”</p> + +<p>“There, I knowed you’d be right on me. All right, +I’ll tell you ever’thing. I meant to all the time. But +’fore I begin, I want you to tell me what’s an impersile?”</p> + +<p>“An impersile? Oh—ah—an imbecile is a sort of +fool.”</p> + +<p>“I reckoned it was about that,” he said; and, too +late, I remembered.</p> + +<p>“I won’t keep back a dod-blessed thing, Mis’ Dolly.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span> +You know how my dog Buck acts when they’s a fox +usin’ around. He’ll lay on the hearth-rock thinkin’ +how he’s goin’ to git that fox. An’ ’long about two +o’clock I have to git up an’ let him out. Then he goes +to Len’s an’ rumbles on the door till Len gits up an’ +lets <i>his</i> dog out, an’ Buck takes him off to hunt that +fox. He’ll keep that up fer weeks if it takes weeks to +git him. It was jest thataway with me. I had to study +out how I was goin’ to git Harvey. He was a friend o’ +yorn, stayin’ in yore barn, an’ I couldn’t go over there +an’ lammux him. I’m a peaceable man anyhow, an’ +that ain’t my way.”</p> + +<p>“I know it isn’t, Sam, and I am surprised that you +couldn’t overlook one thoughtless word, where no +harm was meant.”</p> + +<p>“Yer goin’ too fast now. I did overlook, come time. +You know the Bible says that the birds may light on +your head, but ye needn’t let ’em make a nest in yer +hair. That means ’at hard words may drap on you, +but ye needn’t harbor ’em in yer heart. When that +word kep’ a-stickin’, I knowed I had to git it out, and +I did. I feel all right now, an’ I’ll do any favor fer Mr. +Harvey if he’ll come an’ ast me right. I’ll drive him +down to the depot if he’ll ast me, though I told Krettie<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span> +I’d never do it, an’ I said I’d make him push his +trunks down hissef in a wheelbarr’.”</p> + +<p>Concern must have risen to my face, for he became +regally assuring.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you worry a bit now. I thought it all out, +an’ I ’lowed I could git along ’thout doin’ him any +harm. Overlook it! Ain’t I showed that plain? Didn’t I +knock off ploughin’ in the middle o’ April an’ the dogwoods +a-buddin’ jest to take him bear-huntin’? He +was bound to go. He was wuss’n a hen that’s goin’ to +set, eggs er no eggs.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Sam, you know you started it yourself!”</p> + +<p>“I jest talked a little, as is common. It’s a man’s nater +to drap his talk aroun’ without lookin’ to see whose +head is hot. Shorely to goodness, yer not goin’ to blame +that on me!”</p> + +<p>“Well, what happened? You’ve got his gun, his +jacket, his cap, and his shirt.”</p> + +<p>“An’ his safety razor,” added Sam, “an’ these here.” +He pulled tenderly at a pocket of the jacket and gave +me a shining glimpse of the silk socks. “I put ’em on +oncet. Boys! Slipper-ellum ain’t nothin’!” Then he +began his story.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span></p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>“I didn’t take my gun, ’cause I was only goin’ along +to ’comerdate Harvey; an’ the trigger o’ mine was +busted. I didn’t take Buck nuther, fer we <i>might</i> ’a’ +run across a bear, an’ Buck’s so swell-headed, he thinks +he can wipe up anything, an’ a bear would ’a’ chawed +him to a dish-rag. I couldn’t take any resk with him, +fer Tim Reeves wrote me from Tennessee that he’d +give me fifty dollars fer him when he comes back, he’s +so hot fer fox. That first day me an’ Harvey travelled +like brothers, an’ I got him a good ways along ’thout +makin’ him feel the road. I carried his gun fer him, +so he could walk faster, an’ he was likin’ me first-rate. +At night I made a fine fire an’ he put his feet toward +it an’ went to sleep. Next mornin’ he got up an’ et +nine slices o’ bacon an’ a meal-pone I cooked on a rock. +I pushed him to eat, tellin’ him we had a terrible climb +afore us. He laffed at me, an’ says ‘Bring on yer mountains, +Sam.’ An’ I brought ’em. By night we’s in a +mile o’ the top o’ Smoky.”</p> + +<p>“But you were going to Pitcher Mountain!”</p> + +<p>“Aye, we <i>started</i> there, but when we passed Jed +Weaver’s, which is the last house, I said I’d go in an’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span> +git me a little new terbacker, ’cause Jed raises it an’ +it ’ud be neighborly to ast fer some. When I come out, +I told Harvey that Jed said the bear on Pitcher had +been killed an’ Mose Ashe had the hide. Which wuz +ever’ word so. It ’uz the biggest bear in the memory o’ +man, I told him; an’ that ’uz the truth too, fer I seen +it myself. Harvey’s lip fell till I was sorry fer him, an’ +I said I was willin’ to go on to the bear-ground on +Smoky, if he thought he could hold out. I said I wouldn’t +drive him, it wuz his trip anyway; an’ he said he +was feelin’ better ever’ minute, that climbin’ agreed +with him, an’ he looked like it did. I told him if he +wanted to go on, it was lucky he took me with him, +fer it was give up that I knowed the trails better’n +anybody that had ever gone inter the bear-ground. +Ain’t that so, Mis’ Dolly?”</p> + +<p>“That’s what I’ve heard, Sam.”</p> + +<p>“I spent a year in the woods after my first wife died. +I thought it was the best chance I’d ever git, an’ I +took it. So I said to Harvey: ‘Knowledge has got to be +paid fer. It’s the custom.’ An’ he says: ‘Oh, anything, +Sam!’ An’ I says: ‘What about yer gun?’ ‘Oh, my +gun?’ says he, a little set back, fer it was fire-new, as +you can see.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>His glance fondled the gleaming barrel of the gun +which was leaning against a tree near us.</p> + +<p>“I told Harvey I wasn’t feelin’ very well myself, +an’ it might be better fer me to go home anyhow; but +if we traded, I wouldn’t think o’ takin’ the gun till +we got back home, an’ he could carry it from there on, +’cause we’s gittin’ inter a country where we might +come on something wuth a bullet any minute. An’ he +said: ‘All right, it’s a bargain. Move, partner.’</p> + +<p>“So we climbed hard all day, an’ by night, as I told +you, we’s well up Smoky, an’ the coldest wind ablowin’ +that ever made an i-shickle out of a man’s gizzard. +We drew up at a spring, an’ I says: ‘We’ll stay right +here, fer there ain’t no water higher up.’ He was puffin’ +some, an’ he says: ‘How fur are we from the bear-ground?’ +I says: ‘It’s all around us. We’re right in +it.’ He whitened a little an’ gripped his gun, an’ I explained +o’ course we weren’t in the ackchal la’r’l thicket +where the bears denned, an’ where they tromp roads +in the brush big enough fer a horse to walk through. I +told him we hadn’t got to the stair-steps in the cliffs +where they climbed in an’ out o’ their dens; but they +used the neighborhood fer roamin’ an’ fer gittin’ +water. I reckoned he wouldn’t want to go on an’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span> +knock at their doors till mornin’, after he’d had a good +rest, an’ we’d keep a big fire all night so’s they wouldn’t +bother us.</p> + +<p>“I said I’d cook supper if he’d make the fire; an’ he +started to git up some wood; but it was slow work +’cause he’d keep the gun in one hand an’ pull an’ drag +at the brush with the other. When I’d rested good I +went an’ he’ped, fer I was sorry fer him, an’ was +pushin’ hungry. When I’d cooked supper, an’ he’d et +enough to make him feel sort o’ cocky, an’ I’d got up +a good lot o’ logs to last all night, he said he guessed +he’d turn in so’s to git a good sleep an’ be ready fer +the battle in the mornin’. An’ I said I b’lieved I would +too. He got purty still at that, an’ watched me fixin’ +my bed. It was so dod-a’mighty cold I got me a lot o’ +fir-boughs an’ piled ’em high as my head. Then I began +to crawl inter the middle of ’em.</p> + +<p>“‘Looky here, Sam,’ says Harvey, ‘I never heard of +a guide crawlin’ off to sleep when the camp needed +watchin’.’—‘I ain’t no guide,’ I says; ‘I’m a friend +what’s a long way from home jest to ’comerdate ye.’ +An’ I went in.</p> + +<p>“Then I put my head out an’ says, frien’ly as could +be: ‘You turn in too. That fire’ll burn ha’f the night,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span> +the wind’ll keep it up. An’ long about one o’clock I’ll +crawl out an’ throw on some more logs. Ef you hear a +noise, jest lay still, ’cause it’ll only be me astirrin’. +Bears,’ I says, ‘come up sly.’</p> + +<p>“I reckon he’s a little stubborn by nater, ’cause he +wouldn’t turn in at all. I looked out after a bit an’ saw +he’d took off his cap an’ tied his muffler round his +head, so I ast him if he wouldn’t let me have his cap. +My hat was full o’ holes an’ seemed to draw the wind. +I was all right, I said, ’cept the top o’ my head was +freezin’ off. He handed me his cap then, slow-like, an’ +never said I was welcome, ner nothin’. But I’d made +up my mind I was goin’ to overlook ever’thing, jest +as you say. I had some sleep after I got the cap, an’ +when I looked out ’round midnight, he was settin’ +there holdin’ his gun, an’ had a big fire that he’ped +warm the whole place. I slept like I was in my own +bed. Oncet I woke up thinkin’ I heard Krettie a-snorin’; +then I remembered where I was an’ knew it was the +wind thrashin’ about.</p> + +<p>“An’ you ought to ’a’ seen the stars a-shinin’. When +they’d wink, I’d almost jump, they seemed so close an’ +knowin’. I’d been thinkin’ about leavin’ Harvey up +there, an’ tellin’ him to foller one o’ the branches down<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span> +the mountain, an’ I thought maybe I’d put him on +one that ’ud bring him out about twenty miles from +home. But lookin’ at them stars, I made up my mind +to stand by him an’ bring him clean in to Mis’ Harvey.</p> + +<p>“Next mornin’ he went to the spring, but he said it +was so cold he guessed he wouldn’t wash. Then he +looked at hissef in a little glass he took out o’ his kit. +You know he’s one o’ them reddish men that have to +keep the razor goin’ ever’ day ef they keep ahead o’ +ther beard, an’ we’d been out two nights. After he’d +looked, he said he guessed he’d heat some water in +our tin cup an’ shave. But the wind was blowin’ so +aggervatin’ hard he got nettleish, an’ I said he might +cut hissef even if it was a safety, an’ bears had an awful +scent fer blood.</p> + +<p>“‘We’s huntin’ bears,’ I said, ‘an’ don’t want ’em +huntin’ us.’ He says, ‘You mean it well enough, Sam, +but they’s nothin’ in it.’ However, it was gittin’ late, +an’ he guessed he wouldn’t shave till night. He put +the razor back in its little box, an’ drapped it inter his +jacket pocket. But I’d clear forgot I’d seen him put +it there when he was rakin’ his kit fer it that night. I +told him I ’lowed he’d drapped it up by the spring<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span> +that mornin’ an’ I’d climb all the way back fer it if +he wanted me to.”</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t he look in his pockets?”</p> + +<p>“’Cause I had the jacket then, an’ I didn’t think +about it. I told him when he handed it to me that he’d +better look in the pockets, there might be somethin’ +in ’em he wanted; an’ he said they wasn’t nothin’ there, +an’ if they was, I might as well take it now as later; +only he said it rougher, like men’ll talk in the woods. +‘Not a dern thing in ’em,’ he says, if you’ll excuse me, +Mis’ Dolly, an’ jest as good as told me to keep it if +there wuz. I found the razor after I’d got home, an’ +by all rights it’s mine. But Harvey can have it if he’ll +come an’ ast fer it, though he’s got another one mighty +nigh as good.”</p> + +<p>He interrupted his story to say that I needn’t be +lookin’ at him like that; he never forgot Harvey was a +friend of mine, and he tried to do his best by him even +with “influenzy comin’ on.”</p> + +<p>“But you didn’t have influenza, Sam.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t know how near I come to it, though. +That very mornin’ after sleepin’ in the fir-boughs, I +got up sneezin’ awful an’ my backbone creepin’. In +the night my ol’ hat had blowed clear away, an’ I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span> +said to Harvey I reckoned he wouldn’t be usin’ the +cap an’ muffler both at oncet, an’ I’d wear whichever +he didn’t want. He says: ‘That’s kind of you, Sam.’</p> + +<p>“He had took off the muffler when he thought he +was goin’ to shave, an’ the next minute his ears looked +so brickle I could ’a’ knocked ’em off with a stick. So +he had put it back on. I told him the cap didn’t have +any ear-pieces, an’ I could stand the wind better’n he +could. I said mighty few bear-hunters ever got out o’ +the la’r’l and in home with anything on their heads +at all; that Jed Weaver always went into the woods +bareheaded, ’cause he said it cost too much to put hats +an’ caps on the la’r’l; an’ Harvey says: ‘Oh, jest keep +it, Sam, an’ let’s go.’ I told him we’d scrummish around +the mountain toward the sun, an’ maybe I could +shake off my chill. But it stuck to me, an’ after a +while I said I’d have to stop an’ build a fire.</p> + +<p>“He got frustered then, an’ said he’d come fer bear, +an’ he was goin’ to have one if he had to go on by +hissef. I told him I’d go with him, even if it meant +pneumony. Then he got frien’ly an’ said it wasn’t goin’ +to be that bad. We’d git our bear an’ go down ’fore +night. An’ he was all fer goin’ inter the la’r’l.</p> + +<p>“I went a little furder with him, an’ then I stopped<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span> +all in a shiver an’ told him he must remember I didn’t +have on warm clo’s like he had, though I had the same +sort o’ skin; an’ I said if I drapped an’ died up there, +fer him to hit Siler’s creek an’ foller it down to the settlement.</p> + +<p>“‘How ’m I goin’ ter hit Siler’s creek?’ says he. +Not a bit o’ feelin’ fer me. Jest thinkin’ how he was +goin’ to git down. I come near tellin’ him right then +that we’s ten miles west o’ the bear-ground an’ I didn’t +aim to go there with a man ’at couldn’t shoot a buzzard +off a washtub.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, Sam?”</p> + +<p>“Why, shorely yo don’t think I’d go right where +the bears wuz without a bear-dog! We’s in a bear-ground +all right, like I told Harvey, only it ’us the +<i>old</i> one, the one they used years ago ’fore the people +drove ’em furder back. I knowed Harvey couldn’t shoot, +an’ I had to study out how to take him bear-huntin’ +without gittin’ him chawed to death. ’Course the bears +do stray ’round there oncet in a while, an’ we might +’a’ come on one any time.</p> + +<p>“Right after Harvey showed me so plain how little +feelin’ he had, I thought I heard a bear growl off in +the thicket, an’ I told him to git ready. I said as I had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span> +no gun, I’d climb a tree an’ he could shoot if we got +a sight o’ the feller. He ast me if a man could shoot +a bear from a tree, an’ I told him yes, but it was mighty +hard to climb one with a gun in yer hand. He said as +I was feelin’ so bad maybe we’d better start down an’ +he’d come back next year an’ git his bear. I told him I +wasn’t goin’ to spile his trip, an’ I b’lieved I could +stick it out if I only had a warm shirt an’ jacket.</p> + +<p>“About that time I crossed a bear’s trail, shore as +you live. I’d seen the swipe a bear makes too often +not to know it. Harvey he leaned over an’ whispered: +‘Which way’s he goin’, Sam?’ An’ I showed him how +it was goin’ down. ‘It’s below us, Harvey,’ I says, ‘an’ +the track ain’t an hour old. The wind ain’t blowed it +dry.’ My heart was jumpin’ like it’d break through, +an’ I thought to myself, ain’t I the one fool fer bein’ +here without a bear-dog an’ with a man ’at kain’t +shoot.</p> + +<p>“Harvey says sudden: ‘How can we git down from +here, Sam?’ An’ I told him there was another trail +furder round the mountain that ’ud take us down to +Siler’s creek. It would mean a sight more walkin’, but +I thought I could make it if it wasn’t fer my chill. He +says, ‘All right! Strip!’ an’ took off his coat an’ shirt.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span> +I give him mine, an’ after that little talk about the +pockets, I got inter his clo’s an’ we started. I knew I +could find the head o’ Siler’s creek an’ could make it +down by keeping in sound o’ the water. Harvey would +’a’ been a lost man if he hadn’t been with a feller that +knowed the country like I did. But he never let on +that he wuz owin’ me anything. Jed Weaver had told +me that old trail had got so thicketty a man would +have to tie his eyeballs in if he come down it an’ didn’t +lose ’em. An’ that is what it wuz. When we come out +at Harney’s Bald, our fingers wuz bleedin’, an’ Harvey +said he guessed if that thicket was ’tween us an’ the +bear there wasn’t any more danger, an’ he throwed down +the gun. I had to carry it from there on, which wasn’t +the bargain at all. But I shot three squirrels, an’ Harvey +seemed kinder peeved ’stead o’ bein’ glad I had +something fer my trouble.</p> + +<p>“That night it was awful cold agin, fer we come out +in a northy cove about sundown an’ wuz too tired to +go on. Harvey said he wouldn’t make a fire if he froze +to death; so I got wood an’ cooked the squirrels, an’ +was jest as brotherly as I could be. After supper he +fell on the ground an’ went right to sleep. I covered +him with balsam, ’cause I wasn’t goin’ to bring a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span> +friend o’ yorn back sick. In the mornin’ he woke up +groanin’ an’ said his bones had hurt him so he hadn’t +shet his eyes all night. I got him out an’ hurried him +along all day. We had gone so fur around that bear, we +had to camp out an extry night. I found a purty good +campin’-place, but my feet was rubbed sore. Harvey +was a-limpin’. He said it was a long trip to make on +firecoals. I told him to keep in good heart, that he’d +be with Mis’ Harvey next day, an’ she’d pet him up +nice. But I couldn’t cheer him up noway, an’ he never +said nothin’ all the time I was gittin’ wood an’ cookin’ +supper.</p> + +<p>“After we’d et, him asayin’ nothin’, I pulled off +my boots, an’ he says: ‘Lord, man, don’t you wear +socks?’ I said not in the woods. Mutton taller is better’n +socks in the woods any day. An’ I took out a little +piece o’ taller I had in my pack an’ rubbed my feet +with it. Then I turned ’em to the fire an’ it eased ’em +up fine. I told him I was sorry I didn’t have enough +taller to divide, but I only had enough left to rub my +feet with in the mornin’ ’fore we started, an’ as he had +socks an’ I didn’t, I needed the taller wuss’n he did. +He took off his boots an’ wrapped his feet in his muffler. +A baby ought ’a’ knowed better, but I didn’t say<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span> +anything. I was wore out thinkin’ fer him at ever’ +turn. He looked so beat though, layin’ there in my ol’ +clo’s, I thinks I’ll sing a little fer him. The first day +we’s a-climbin’ he kept pesterin’ me to sing, an’ me +ha’f out o’ breath, luggin’ pack an’ gun. I b’lieve in +suitin’ a song to the time, an’ settin’ there, with my +feet a-warmin’, I got to thinkin’ how fine it was out +in the wild woods like that, an’ only one night from +home too; an’ ’most ’fore I knowed it I was singin’ +‘Free a Little Bird.’ It goes this a-way:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="first">“‘I’m as free a little bird as I can be;</div> +<div class="verse">I’ll never build my nest on the ground;</div> +<div class="verse">I’ll build my nest in a chinkapin-tree,</div> +<div class="verse">Where the bad boys can never tear it down.</div> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="verse">Carry me home, sweet Kitty, carry me home!</div> +<div class="verse">The stars they are bright,</div> +<div class="verse">An’ as soft as candle-light;</div> +<div class="verse">Sweet Kitty, carry me home!’</div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>“The verses are all jest alike ’cept the tree is different +ever’ time. That little bird builds its nest in nineteen +trees ’fore the song is done; an’ it’s ’lowable fer +you to put in more if you want to an’ can think of +’em. I thought of a lot—the mulberry, the sourwood, +the weepin’ willer, an’ so many more I was nigh an’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span> +hour gittin’ through. Harvey never said a word when +I stopped; he was awake though, fer I seen him move. +But I didn’t expect anything from him. The first day +we’s out it wuz ‘Thank ’e, Sam,’ all the time. But +after we got inter the deep woods where I was his rale +dependance, I never heard it oncet.</p> + +<p>“Next mornin’ his feet wuz so sore he couldn’t let +his boots tech ’em. ‘Sam,’ he says, ‘what’ll ye take fer +that taller?’ I told him I wasn’t tradin’ it; if he needed +it wuss’n I did, he was welcome. I could make out ef +I had a pair o’ easy socks. ‘Yer ain’t used them silk +ones yit, have ye?’ I says. He took ’em out of his kit +an’ handed ’em to me ’thout openin’ his mouth; though +I told him over agin that he was welcome to the taller. +But these furriners ain’t got much manners anyhow, +if you notice ’em close.</p> + +<p>“He said he hadn’t shet his eyes, an’ he’d nearly +froze, like as if I ought to ’a’ set up an’ kept the fire +goin’. I was glad enough to git him in home that mornin’; +an’ when he wants a friend to go bear-huntin’ with +him agin, he’ll have to look furder’n me. We ain’t +quarrelled though. That needn’t worry ye a bit. When +I left him yisterday he says, ‘Sam, yer a ’tellergent +feller,’ an’ he stuck out his hand.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>“You took it, Sam?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, ay, I took it. But,” he added—for in those +days in Unakasia every man was his own Shakespeare—“I +knew he was jest aflowerin’ me.”</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">V<br> + +<small>EVVIE: SOMEWHAT MARRIED</small></h2> +</div> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p class="drop-cap">THE Kanes were a deserving family, tainted with +inarticulate ambition. I was glad to have them +as rather distant neighbors instead of “share-croppers.” +Evvie, the oldest child, possessed beauty of the appealing +sort that stirs even the hurried passer-by with +a feeling of responsibility. As a tenant’s daughter she +would have troubled my sleep. Her mother was a Merlin +and usually stopped to see me when on her way to +visit some member of the clan. “Hypnotic,” though an +intolerably cheapened word, must be used in describing +the effect that my typewriter seemed to have on +Mrs. Kane. I did not understand this until the day +that she brought Evvie with her.</p> + +<p>“She hain’t strong, Evvie. I kain’t git her to stay +with a hoe long ’nough fer me to go in an’ git the +dinner. I say to her, ‘Evvie, you take my place an’ +let me go in,’ an’ she’ll try fer a bit, but her poppie’ll<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span> +see her drappin’ back an’ gittin’ her breath hard, an’ +he’ll say, ‘You run ’long now, Evvie, an’ he’p yer +mother,’ an’ in she’ll come. So I’ve got in the way o’ +lettin’ her git the dinner by herse’f an’ I stay with +the hoe.”</p> + +<p>“But she can’t be more than ten,” I said.</p> + +<p>“She’s twelve, an’ that’s nigh to a woman. Cleve +Saunders kain’t pass our place now ’thout peekin’ fer +Evvie.”</p> + +<p>I expected Evvie to drop her head or wriggle behind +a chair; but her chiselled chin was high, and her eyes +darkened as easily as twilight water. She was the traditional +woman accepting her rôle.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Kane’s glance swerved again to the typewriter, +and her heart tumbled out as she said: “I been thinkin’ +maybe you could learn Evvie to write on that.”</p> + +<p>“If she is so much help to you,” I answered, snatching +at the first defense, “why not keep her at home +until she is married?”</p> + +<p>“That’s jest the trouble—her marryin’. She’ll disapp’int +any boy ’round here. They all expect a woman +to take a hand in makin’ the livin’, through crap-time +anyway. An’ Evvie kain’t hold out. If she could learn +to work on <i>that</i>, an’ git a job in town, like as not some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span> +boy out there ’ud take a notion to her, an’ town boys +don’t want their wives to work. ’Tain’t expected of ’em +to do more’n the cookin’ an’ housework an’ sewin’, an’ +that ’ud be easy for Evvie.”</p> + +<p>Evvie had stepped into the yard. It was a habit with +her, I found, to vanish as if for charming asides with +herself and to reappear with no sign of absence upon +her. I reminded her mother that there might be children +to care for in addition to the occupations mentioned.</p> + +<p>“’Course there would, but she’d have <i>them</i> anywheres, +an’ she’d better have ’em where life’s easier’n +it is here.”</p> + +<p>“No doubt. What is her school grade?”</p> + +<p>“She’s got to the fourth reader. But she ain’t peart +in her books, though she’s so smart-lookin’.”</p> + +<p>Three years glowed in respite, and my voice warmed +in reply.</p> + +<p>“Bring her to me when she finishes the seventh +grade, and I’ll see.”</p> + +<p>The mother’s face grew long. “She ain’t fitten’ fer +school,” she said. “She’s had to quit, ’count o’ that +wheezin’ ’at ketches her when she climbs up the mountain. +Her poppie had to meet her half-way down ever’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span> +day an’ carry her up on his back. She’s too big fer that +now, an’ he says he reckons she knows enough. He’s +awful proud o’ Evvie. An’ she’s as smart as Annie +Dills who learned to write on one o’ them things an’s +makin’ twelve dollars a week in Asheville.”</p> + +<p>I held out that skill on the machine would be useless +without a little schooling behind it. Evvie, who +had shown no interest in her future, revealed no disappointment. +She was a flower and had implicit faith +in the sun. But there was a touch of desperation in +Mrs. Kane’s voice as she took her leave. I tried to believe +with Evvie in the reliability of sunshine.</p> + +<p>A year later Evvie was “talkin’ to” Cleve Saunders. +He was a good boy who had here and there learned the +carpenter’s trade. Occasionally he would go to Asheville +to work on a job, and then a weekly letter would +come to Evvie. I approved of Cleve, but Evvie was +only thirteen, and though vividly and perfectly moulded +as a woman, she was small for her years. I protested +to Mrs. Kane.</p> + +<p>“I ain’t goin’ to let her git married ’fore she’s fifteen,” +the mother assured me. “Not if I can he’p it. +Ef she had some work to keep her mind on——”</p> + +<p>“I’ve a friend,” I said, as I stepped between Mrs.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span> +Kane and my typewriter, “who would like a helper +with her children. It would be a good home for Evvie +and she would have nothing to do but play.”</p> + +<p>“You mean anybody’d pay her jest fer playin’?”</p> + +<p>“With children. And Evvie is fine with her little +brothers and sisters.” (I’ll <i>make</i> Sue Waters take her, +said I to myself.)</p> + +<p>“Where’d the place be?”</p> + +<p>“It’s on a big farm near Knoxville.”</p> + +<p>“It’ll cost a heap to go, an’ we ain’t got nary calf +we can sell now.”</p> + +<p>“My friend will send the money for her fare, and +Evvie can pay it back if she stays.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Kane, thin and worn, threw up her head with +almost as fine an air as Evvie herself.</p> + +<p>“Ef she don’t stay, I’ll pay it back ef it takes ever’ +egg fer a year,” she said.</p> + +<p>We thought it settled; but before I could sufficiently +browbeat Sue Waters, Evvie’s mother came to me +with a face grayer and more pinched than ever.</p> + +<p>“I reckon,” she said, “Evvie kain’t go till next +year. I shore thought I was through with babies, but +there’s another acomin’, an’ Evvie’s all the he’p I’ve +got.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span>Now, during preparations for Evvie’s setting forth, +I had seen more of her than usual, and had detected +signs of a quick temper that gave me uneasy visions +of her amid the Waters brood. Also I feared that her +ideas of <i>fraternité et égalité</i>, which were as natural to +her as the ground under her feet, might give some +trouble. If little Margaret Waters should receive a +piano for her birthday, Evvie would expect the same +or “just as good.” Sue Waters, having taken her degree +in the right subjects, would of course comprehend, +but could hardly supply the piano. My relief was almost +as deep as my concern when Mrs. Kane made +her joyless announcement.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps it is better to wait,” said I. “Evvie will +be older and larger by a year.”</p> + +<p>“I dunno as that’s better,” said the mother. “She’s +a woman to the bone, an’ a year’ll seem a long time.”</p> + +<p>Before the year was half out I left the mountains +and was gone for several months. As soon as conditions +in the Kane home permitted, I arranged by correspondence +for Evvie’s going away. She was to write +to Mrs. Waters when she was ready, and the money +for her fare would be sent to her. As the train taking +me home pulled into the village, I thought of Evvie,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span> +supposing her to be with Mrs. Waters, and I felt that +I had helped to rob the hills of a flower that should +belong to them utterly.</p> + +<p>A woman sharing my seat had been giving me the +news. I did not hear much of it, but finally caught the +words “An’ Evvie got married.”</p> + +<p>I jumped unmannerly, as if I would snatch the child +to dry land. Then I made my conscience comfortable.</p> + +<p>“Cleve will take good care of her,” I said.</p> + +<p>“’Tain’t Cleve,” replied the woman. “It’s that +young feller from Mossy Creek—Judd Mason.”</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>I had heard of him: a mountain buck; very big, very +good-looking. He never worked except to make a little +corn that he could turn into whiskey. As soon as I +saw Evvie I asked her how she had happened to +marry Judd.</p> + +<p>“I was goin’ to the post-office,” she said, “with a +letter to Mis’ Waters, tellin’ her to send the money +an’ I’d come right on, when I met Judd an’ he walked +along the road with me an’ begged me not to send the +letter. He said I’d find it hard out there with strange +folks who wouldn’t keer nothin’ fer me, an’ I’d better<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span> +let him look after me right. I was kinder afraid to go +so fur from home, an’ Judd—he talked good.”</p> + +<p>“Where was Cleve?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“He was over in Asheville workin’. He was goin’ to +meet me an’ put me on the Knoxville train. He lost +his job, goin’ to the train fer a week. I wrote to tell +him I wasn’t comin’, but Judd lost the letter an’ forgot +to tell me about it. Cleve got another job though. +Anybody’ll give Cleve work.”</p> + +<p>“And Judd has been as good as his talk, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>Evvie swung her head to one side as if she forbade +it to droop.</p> + +<p>“It’ll be all right soon as we git to ourse’vs. We’re +livin’ with poppie an’ mommie now, an’ they’s so many +young-uns at home Judd gits pouty sometimes. I kain’t +fix good things to eat where they’s so many, an’ Judd’ll +leave the table when he don’t like what’s on it.”</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding Evvie’s hopes, it was nearly a +year before they got to “therse’vs.” Her parents, with +a home already overflowing with small, unprofitable +humanity, would have sheltered the young pair and +their expected baby indefinitely and without a murmur, +preferring to break their already bowed backs +than breach the highland custom of welcome for all;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span> +but Judd was growing restless for his old occupation, +and Evvie wanted her baby to be born in her own +home.</p> + +<p>So she said; but I knew that she was frightened, and +would have chosen to stay with her mother if she could +have given up the hopes she had built on getting Judd +to herself.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Kane, with her heart breaking over Evvie, +took what relief she could from the exodus.</p> + +<p>“I could stand Judd,” she told me, “ef it wasn’t +fer his poutin’. The Merlins don’t pout. We git mad +and blow off, and that’s all of it. Judd’ll hang on an’ +pout till my bones git sore. I was gittin’ so edgy it’s +jest as well they’re gone.”</p> + +<p>I went once to see Evvie after she had moved. There +was a trail down the western side of the ridge on which +I lived that would bring me to Judd’s cabin at the end +of four miles; and there was a wagon-road down the +eastern side which would take me eleven miles around +the foot of the ridge. I chose the trail and went down +alone.</p> + +<p>On the ridge top the sun had seemed to be of eternal +brightness; but I descended strangely into an unlit +world. The intervale below me was much narrower<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span> +than the usual valley where a settlement lies; and it was +almost cut in halves by a huge spur that, at its foot, +was bounded on either side by a stream of water. The +two streams, Nighthawk Branch and Mossy Creek, +united at the toe of the spur. I took the trail up Mossy +Creek, as I had been told to do, and walked along in +sound of the water, but getting no glimpse of it through +the smothering laurel. It was the first time that water +running behind green leaves had left me untouched by +a mysterious joy; the first time that I had ever thought +of the laurel as sombre. Its dark radiance seemed like a +challenge from Nature ready to spring and regain an +inimical kingdom. I was half in sympathy with the +Highlander who regarded it merely as a thing to fight +or let contemptuously alone. My old admiration for the +Greeks came rushing back. What a redoubtable imagination +it was that, in the credulous youth and fear-time +of the world, could draw all terror from the forest and +people it with creatures of play and light!</p> + +<p>The trail led me into a cove, away from the quavering +incantation of the water, but the laurel went darkly +with me, heavily mingled with kalmia that choked the +trees and wrenched at their life with its curling arms.</p> + +<p>“The shack’s on northy land,” Mrs. Kane had said<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span> +to me, “an’ the la’r’l is so blustery it ’ud tangle a wild +hog.”</p> + +<p>I knew why the original settler had chosen such a +spot, in spite of his aversion to “thicketty patches.” In +the stifling coves it would take a most resolute official +to find a hidden “still.” This made the place equally +desirable in the eyes of the latest tenant, Judd. I had +known Evvie only on sunny hilltops, and I wondered +what “living under the mountain,” as the natives put +it, had done to her spirit. I recalled Mrs. Kane’s remark +after a first visit to Evvie. “Seemed like I had to keep +wipin’ at the shadders all the time I’s there.” Evvie +must be very tired, I thought, of wiping at the shadows.</p> + +<p>The trees rose more freely and I came to a clearing. +On a hill opposite me, which faced the east, was a cornfield, +two or three acres in size. This, thanks to a low +gap in the near-by ridge, received a few hours of morning +sunlight. In the hollow below stood the shack +where Evvie lived. I found her in bed with one of +Judd’s sisters in sullen attendance.</p> + +<p>“She’s in bed ’bout ever’ other day,” the sister said, +“an’ Judd’s always havin’ to come over the branch fer +one of us to wait on her.”</p> + +<p>“I can git up to-morr’ sure,” said Evvie, but the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span> +faint remark only sent her attendant’s nose a little +higher.</p> + +<p>Evvie was strange to see. Her eyes, dark and burning, +clung devouringly to a face that had already lost +all flesh.</p> + +<p>“Where is Judd?” I asked.</p> + +<p>The sister was silent, but Evvie flushed and said he +had gone to try to kill her a squirrel. “I ain’t eat nothin’ +all day,” she said. “I been thinkin’ ’bout the devil +tryin’ to ketch Amos Britton one night last week.”</p> + +<p>I thought her delirious, but her companion gloatingly +explained that the devil had indeed made an effort to +capture Amos alive.</p> + +<p>“It’s ’cause he killed Wes Baxter in a fight a year +ago, an’ ain’t never said he was sorry. He went huntin’ +with Jim Webster Thursday night, an’ something took +after ’em, they couldn’t tell what. Jim got away an’ +run home, but Amos got behind a tree to shoot it, an’ +it knocked his gun down an’ run him round an’ round +the tree fer hours. Then all at onct daylight was comin’ +in, an’ the thing wa’n’t there. Amos says it run on two +feet, near as he could make out, an’ kep’ flappin’ a tail. +He’s so skeered he ain’t been out of his house sence he +got home.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>“Do you reckon it ’uz the devil, Mis’ Dolly?” asked +Evvie, as if sanity hung on my answer.</p> + +<p>“Not at all, Evvie. The man was drunk probably.”</p> + +<p>“No, he wa’n’t drunk,” interposed the sister. “It run +him round an’ round the tree, an’ he could feel its +breath on his neck, hot as fire.”</p> + +<p>I moved toward the water-bucket, and courtesy demanded +that she should go to the spring for fresh water. +With her disappearance the room lost its spirit of combat. +With swimming head and drowning struggle—how +far were we from the Greeks and the bright +gods of the woods?—I did what I could to reassure +Evvie.</p> + +<p>“I ain’t afeard when Judd’s here,” she said. “Judd +ain’t afeard of anything. He’ll stay at home more when +the baby’s here. Don’t men always think a lot o’ their +babies, Mis’ Dolly?”</p> + +<p>I lied vigorously, and Evvie was smiling when the +sister-in-law returned. And she was smiling when I +left, for I had promised that her mother would come +next day to stay for a week.</p> + +<p>I reached home about dark, saddled a mule and rode +to the Kane farm. From there I went to see Jane Drake. +Yes, Jane would take care of the Kane household—but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span> +“not more’n till Saturday ’count o’ meetin’ at +Stecoa”—and let Mrs. Kane go to Evvie.</p> + +<p>This done, I returned to nursing my canteloupe patch +on the ridge, which that one year was a delicious success. +But even under the spell of so rare a triumph, life +was hardly tolerable on my peaks, with Evvie awaiting +her fate in the shadows below. So I ordered the small +telescope that I had wanted for a decade. Though +treated later with superior scorn by my astronomer +friends, it did serve as a transport to regions where +nothing mattered. And when I resumed earthly relationships +Evvie’s boy was two weeks old.</p> + +<p>In the more remote hollows of the mountains birth +goes the indifferent way of nature: gliding as the seasons +for the most part, but too often ruthless, confounding +as storm. Evvie, so fragile and so young, +barely lived. I went once more to the shack, going down +the mountain with Mrs. Kane and little Tommie, taking +old Bill, the mule, to help us climb back. Mrs. +Mason, senior, met us at the door. When the customary +greetings were over—greetings that never, under any +circumstances, are hurried in the mountains—the +mother-in-law put in her very just complaint.</p> + +<p>“Law, I’m glad ye got here! I kain’t spen’ my time<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span> +waitin’ on a girl ’at won’t try to set up, an’ her baby +two weeks old. Won’t eat nothin’ nuther, makes no difference +what I fix. I baked her some light bread, an’ +put ’lasses on it, an’ some butter I brought from home, +an’ she won’t tech it. She’ll not git well till she tries to, +an’ I kain’t wait round fer her to make up her mind. +All my own work’s to do, an’ I got to be at it. You +know how it is, Mis’ Kane. You kain’t stay here all +the time no more’n I can.”</p> + +<p>As on my first visit, I asked “Where is Judd?” and I +received the same information. “He’s gone out to kill +a squirrel.”</p> + +<p>Evvie, who was lying with her eyes shut, said with +startling vigor: “He’s been gone since yisterday.”</p> + +<p>Judd’s mother looked toward the bed, and her eyes +snapped. “You kain’t expect a man to lay round home +ferever waitin’ fer a woman to git up. I’ve had ten +young-uns an’ I never stayed in bed more’n nine days +with ary one of ’em. In two weeks I was out in the +crap, if it was crap-time, doin’ my part.”</p> + +<p>There was a big crack in the cabin near Evvie’s bed. +Her eyes sought the opening in a manner that told me +she often found mental escape that way. It was obvious +that her last hope was crushed. The baby had come,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span> +but had wrought no miracle. She knew, and all present +there knew, that Judd was out on a bootlegging adventure; +but it was not to be admitted in look or speech.</p> + +<p>Evvie gazed through the crack, seeing nothing but +the face of a hill that seemed about to fall on to the +cabin. She stared as if her eyes would tunnel through +it, and a delirious flare came over her face.</p> + +<p>“Take that hill away, mommie,” she said, in a fret.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Kane surprised me. “I kain’t take hit away, +Evvie—but I can take you over hit,” she said, making +aspirates in her clear determination.</p> + +<p>“Can you set up on ol’ Bill? Tommie’ll ride behind +you an’ hold you on. I’ll tote the baby, Mis’ Dolly’ll +lead Bill, an’ we’ll get you home.”</p> + +<p>Evvie hardly knew there was a baby, but she caught +at the word home—“Oh, mommie, I can set up!”</p> + +<p>“Set up an’ ride a mule!” cried Mrs. Mason. “An’ +me here niggerin’ fer ye, an’ ye makin’ out ye couldn’t +move!”</p> + +<p>I made no protest; for I recalled an incident of the +days before Evvie’s marriage. She was ill, and her +mother had sent hurriedly for me. I went, accompanied +by a friend from the region of grand opera and fever-thermometers, +who happened to be in the highlands.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span> +She applied her thermometer and found that Evvie’s +fever was running high. We fumbled about with improvised +ministrations until Evvie asked for a “flitter.” +Mrs. Kane was mainly worried because the child had +eaten nothing since the day before, and when I saw her +face light up at Evvie’s request, I hastily withdrew with +my friend.</p> + +<p>“Why did you leave?” she asked. “The child may +be killed. Her mother may be ignorant enough to give +her that fritter, or whatever she calls it.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, she is going to get the flitter, and that is why +I left. I had to take your disruptive civilized mind off +the current. I want Evvie to live.”</p> + +<p>The next day my friend returned to the patient, expecting, +I am sure, to find a house in mourning. Evvie +was sitting on the porch stringing beans. Mrs. Kane’s +face was luminous.</p> + +<p>“Evvie got better right away,” she explained, “soon +as she et them three flitters I give her.”</p> + +<p>Remembering that result, and seeing the glaze of +resolution on her mother’s face, I meekly became a +party to the process of getting Evvie out of the hollow. +We formed under Mrs. Kane’s direction: I first, leading +the mule, and Evvie in the saddle, leaning back on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span> +Tommie’s shoulder, quite safe with his strong little +arms about her waist. Mrs. Kane followed, carrying the +baby. And so Evvie came home.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Evvie did not lie in bed long after returning to her +mother’s house. She sat in shadowy corners, unseeing, +uncaring. Milk sometimes would be swallowed when +brought to her; but eating required impossible effort.</p> + +<p>“She don’t hardly know me,” said her mother. +“Sometimes I’m ’most afeard of her. She might turn +an’ claw me with them hands like chicken feet. She’s +jest yeller skin an’ bones, like a quare little old woman.”</p> + +<p>Judd did not come near her, and we heard of no inquiries +on his part. But Cleve came out from Asheville +and walked under my apple-trees.</p> + +<p>“I can’t fight Judd,” he said. “He’s a heavyweight +and I’m not. And I won’t gun him. But I know where +his blockade still is.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Cleve, would you tell?”</p> + +<p>“No, but it’s hard not to. He’d go to jail, an’ she +could get her divorce.”</p> + +<p>“And he would be out again in six months, to go +gunning for <i>you</i>. He wouldn’t have your scruples. Besides,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span> +Cleve, if Evvie were free, you couldn’t take on a +burden like that.”</p> + +<p>“Burden! Mis’ Dolly, I’d be willin’ to carry Evvie +with one arm and do my work with the other. You +don’t know how a man feels when there ain’t but one +woman fer him an’ another man’s got her—a man ’at +wouldn’t pull her out o’ the fire! But I’m goin’ back to +Asheville, an’ I won’t try to see her. Here’s my pocketbook. +I want you to lend her father some money, and +pay yerse’f out o’ this.”</p> + +<p>He dropped the pocketbook and went, with his face +oddly reddened after being so white. Evvie’s doctor +from Carson was paid; the parcel-post brought oranges, +lettuce, and such to the Kanes’ scant winter table. +Gradually Evvie began to eat the food that interested +her because it was unusual. Her eyes grew gentler and +her glance rested intelligently on people and things. She +would smile as her father told some pitiful joke, trying +to ignore the fact that his daughter wasn’t “jest right.”</p> + +<p>The growing baby exhibited Merlin traits which +made him a favorite. One day Evvie’s wandering eyes +fell upon him as he lay in my lap. Her glance stopped +and became uneasy.</p> + +<p>“Is that mommie’s baby?” she said.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>“No, he’s your very own, Evvie, and as fine as they +are made. Look! He has your big eyes, and just see +how heavy! Let him lie on your lap a minute and you’ll +find out.”</p> + +<p>I started to lift him to her, but her look turned to +swift terror and she shrank away. It was the beginning +of health, however. A day or two afterward she asked +me how long it would be before she died, and I knew +she had begun to think about living.</p> + +<p>“That depends on yourself, Evvie.”</p> + +<p>“Could I live if I wanted to?” she asked, with incredulous +hope.</p> + +<p>“You could be well in two months.”</p> + +<p>“After ever’thing?”</p> + +<p>“Every single thing.”</p> + +<p>“Mommie don’t want me home with a baby.”</p> + +<p>“Your mother wouldn’t give up Bennie if Judd came +with ten sheriffs to take him.”</p> + +<p>“Could Judd take him?” she asked, with vehemence +that was full of promise.</p> + +<p>“You left Judd, you know, and the law might let +the father have the child.”</p> + +<p>“When he was so mean to me?”</p> + +<p>“Oh! You think he was mean?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span>“He’d leave me in that holler by myse’f an’ stay out +all night huntin’.”</p> + +<p>“The law might think a wife ought to have the +courage to put up with that.”</p> + +<p>“He knocked me inter the briars when I tried to foller +him.”</p> + +<p>“M-m-m! How long was that,” said I, touching the +baby, “before your young man got here?”</p> + +<p>“’Bout a month. I told him I’s afeard to stay in the +shack, an’ he said I wanted to foller him ’cause I +thought he was goin’ to Lizzie Bowles.”</p> + +<p>It was joy to me to see her eyes flood burningly with +temper.</p> + +<p>“That’s where he <i>was</i> goin’, too! He used to talk to +her ’fore we’s married, an’ she’d jest come back from +the cotton-mills in South C’lina with two silk dresses. +They’d got up a big dance an’ I knowed Judd was +agoin’. An’ he knocked me inter the briars by the trail +round the corn patch.”</p> + +<p>“The law might consider that,” I said. “Don’t worry +about losing your baby. But first make sure that you +want him.”</p> + +<p>“I b’lieve I could hold him a bit now if you’ll set +him here.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>I laid the baby in her lap and slipped out to tell Mrs. +Kane. In six weeks Evvie was helping her mother with +the housework. Spring came, and I bribed her to work +in the garden by supplying the preposterously growing +Bennie with clothes. By June she was again intrenched +in her loveliness; not quite so plump, but round enough, +and with her old wild-rose color. By and by she was +duly divorced. Judd, in South Carolina, made no protest. +Evvie’s perilous excursion seemed over, with no +obvious reminder save the incredible baby.</p> + +<p>She wore the fashionable knee dress, and with her hair +in unfashionable braids down her back seemed to be the +child-sister of the youngster that scrambled about her.</p> + +<p>“Your little brother will soon be big enough to go to +school with you,” said the new County Commissioner +on his rounds, hoping to be pleasant.</p> + +<p>Evvie stood mute and fiery red. “Don’t tell him the +baby’s mine, mommie,” she whispered later to her +mother. It must have seemed strange to her—that +bubbling other existence around her feet—and a little +embarrassment was, I thought, quite proper.</p> + +<p>With autumn and corn-gathering Judd returned. It +was a good season in the woods for the blockaders, and +Judd had probably made arrangements in the “South”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span> +for profitable sales. He announced that he was buying +calves for the winter and wanted to lay in a supply of +feed for them. I never heard of his purchasing any +calves, but he went about getting a little corn here and +there at the cheap harvest price. Perhaps some one told +him that his boy was a lad to be proud of, for he came +one day to see him. I had walked over to the Kanes +with Cleve, and we were about to take our leave. Evvie +shook hands with Judd quite prettily.</p> + +<p>“Golly, Evvie, you’ve come back hard!” he said. +“Let’s set on the porch.”</p> + +<p>He had forgotten his son, but Evvie brought him out, +and Judd had difficulty in maintaining indifference. He +looked about and saw Cleve.</p> + +<p>“Hello, Cleve I This chap kinder takes my eye.”</p> + +<p>“I reckon,” said Cleve, “he ain’t so fine as Lizzie +Bowles’s boy.”</p> + +<p>“That kid ain’t none o’ mine,” said Judd, too quickly.</p> + +<p>“Lizzie’ll give you a chance to swear to that, anyhow.”</p> + +<p>“What yer warmin’ chair-bottoms round here fer, +Cleve Saunders?”</p> + +<p>“He’s here,” said Evvie, her cheeks pink-spotted, +“’cause he’s the best friend the baby’s got.”</p> + +<p>“I’m the kid’s father, don’t you fergit, an’ I’ve got<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span> +some rights. That divorce judge didn’t put no paper +’twixt me an’ the kid.”</p> + +<p>“You can see him whenever you want to,” said +Evvie, “so long as you don’t make trouble fer anybody +that’s been as good to us as Cleve.”</p> + +<p>Their eyes met and battled—no doubt reminiscently—and +Judd capitulated. “All right,” he said.</p> + +<p>From that time Evvie was sorely troubled by his +visits. “I wouldn’t mind his comin’,” she said, “if he +didn’t keep aggervatin’ me to live with him.”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you take Cleve, Evvie, and end the +bother?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to marry,” she said, with a shudder +that was a broadside of confession. I was cheered. At +least she would never be reconquered by Judd.</p> + +<p>But the situation was pressing to a change; and +finally it came. Judd was captured by Federal deputies. +I went to Sam for particulars.</p> + +<p>“They took him red-handed, stirrin’ the mash,” said +Sam. “He fit like a bear, an’ kicked the officer in the +mouth. It’ll mean the Pen, shore, an’ Evvie’ll be shet +of him fer a while.”</p> + +<p>“Won’t somebody bond him out?”</p> + +<p>“His own folks don’t think ’nough of him fer that.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span> +I hearn his own father say he wa’n’t wuth a June bug +with a catbird after it. Nobody’s goin’ to risk losin’ a +farm fer that thing.”</p> + +<p>I went home reassured. If Cleve would only pick +up and woo furiously, instead of wistfully accepting +mere smiles from Evvie, he could win, I felt, long before +Judd’s reappearance.</p> + +<p>The sight of Evvie hurrying toward me gave me no +uneasiness. She was lugging the baby, in too much +haste to let him toddle.</p> + +<p>“Mis’ Dolly,” she began, “Judd’s the baby’s poppie, +an’ he’s took. Nobody’ll go on his bond, an’ ever’body’s +talkin’ hard against him, an’ him Bennie’s poppie. I +been thinkin’ of that trouble ’way back, an’ it wasn’t +all his fault.”</p> + +<p>“You fell into the briars, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>“No, but I was aggervatin’ him. I hated Lizzie +Bowles an’ her silk dresses, an’ when he swore an’ told +me to go back, I picked up a rock an’ if he hadn’t +jumped I’d a broke his head with it. I was ashamed to +tell you then. I was wild mad, an’ he <i>ought</i> to ’a’ throwed +me inter the briars. I wasn’t any he’p to him in the +field, an’ when I got sick I wasn’t any he’p in the house, +like his mother said. I didn’t do my part at all.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>“You did all you could, Evvie,” I said, with no effect +on the tide pouring from her heart.</p> + +<p>“An’ way back, when we’s livin’ with mommie, I was +aggervatin’. At first when he’d pout an’ wouldn’t come +to the table, I’d slip out with something fer him to eat, +an’ beg till he’d take it, but once when we had company +an’ he’d made me ashamed ’cause he went to the +barn an’ wouldn’t come to breakfast, I got me a bundle +o’ blade-fodder an’ took it to him. I told him if he +wanted to live with the steers he could eat with ’em +too. I was shore mean. An’, Mis’ Dolly, I want you to +go to Carson jail an’ see Judd, an’ tell him when he +comes back from the Pen I’ll be ready an’ we’ll begin +all over. He’ll know I’ll keep my word.”</p> + +<p>It was useless to remind her of pain that she could +not recall; but I spoke of her father and mother. Would +she break their hearts again?</p> + +<p>“But look at Bennie!” she cried. “He’s gettin’ more +like his father ever’ day. If I’m hard on Judd now, how +can I look at my baby? Ever’body’s against him. +You’re hard as the others. Won’t you go, Mis’ Dolly?”</p> + +<p>“No, I won’t. You don’t know what you are doing.”</p> + +<p>“Then I’ll have to git somebody else to go.”</p> + +<p>Her message went to Judd by some busybody, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span> +I wired to Asheville for Cleve. When he arrived on the +next train I was at the station. “The thing to do, +Cleve,” I said, “is to bail him out and let him come +home.”</p> + +<p>Cleve, knowing so well the Evvie that eluded him, +saw the point at once. He also saw that neither he nor +I should figure as bondsman.</p> + +<p>“It’ll be hard work,” he said, “but I’ll find somebody.”</p> + +<p>And over the country he went, picking out men +whom he knew to be secret abetters of Judd, and working +on their fear of his turning informer. The amount +of bail was made up, and Judd was free. Evvie thought +that he would come directly to her, but first he went +to Mossy Creek to see “the boys.” They got up a dance, +and it would have seemed ungrateful of Judd not to +remain for it. When he reached Evvie his face was still +slightly swollen from drink and revelry, but his spirits +were riding high. Friends had gathered at the Kanes’ +for the evening, and Judd began to recount his triumphs +in jail.</p> + +<p>“They made me president o’ their club soon’s I got +there, an’ kicked the other feller out. We had some reg’lations, +you bet! Ever’ feller that come into jail had to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span> +pay fifty cents fer terbacker; if he didn’t we flogged +him. They wouldn’t let us have whiskey, an’ that was +tough, you bet! We’d have court, an’ try the fellers, +an’ it was a purty good life if we’d had more to eat. +They’s all sorry to see me go, an’ I promised to smuggle +in some hot stuff to ’em if there was any way. +Mebbe I can work it with a mulatter girl ’at cooks fer +’em—right purty—color of a hick’ry leaf ’fore frost—she’ll +he’p me, you bet! I’ll try it to-morr’ when me +an’ Evvie go to Carson to hitch up. Some quare, ain’t +it, marryin’ yer own wife? An’ what about yer kid +goin’ on two at yer weddin’?”</p> + +<p>Choking and helpless, I slipped away from the sound of +his voice. Sam, walking home by my road, began to talk.</p> + +<p>“Reckon you noticed Evvie in that corner while +Judd was talkin’. Ef you’d a cut off her head at the +neck it wouldn’t ’a’ bled a drap.”</p> + +<p>I could not answer, and hurried on, finding Cleve on +my doorstep. I took him into the house, my tears of +rage and failure dropping; but when the full light of +the lamp fell upon his face I thought no more of my +own misery.</p> + +<p>“There’s twelve hours yet, Cleve,” I said. “Evvie is +not an utter fool.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>But he wouldn’t speak. For over an hour he sat by +my fire, a humped reproach. I exhausted every consolation, +even to telling him that she wasn’t worth it. Then +he lifted his eyes, full of such mourning scorn that I +became as silent as himself. There was a tap at the +door, slight enough to be Evvie’s. I asked Cleve to go +up-stairs, saying that I would call him if he was wanted. +When he was gone I opened the door and heard Evvie’s +voice.</p> + +<p>“They’s so many at our house to-night. Ever’ bed’s +full. I thought I’d come here to sleep. You don’t keer, +do you?”</p> + +<p>“I’m glad to see you, Evvie. Come, warm a little, +and jump into bed. You’ve been running.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I was afraid—but—I had to come.”</p> + +<p>Her little body was quivering. I sat her down, but +did not dare to give a sign of sympathy that might +plunge her into hysteria. I took up a book and sat reading +until she became very still. We were in the kitchen, +which was large and possessed a big, ugly fireplace. At +the right of the fireplace, in the corner, ran a short +flight of stairs, and under the stairs was a closet with +an opening for a half-door. This opening was simply +curtained.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>I had held my book for ten minutes or more, when +we heard sounds of talk and laughter from the road. I +recognized Judd’s voice, and a loud knock followed. +Instantly Evvie rose, stooped, and, darting like a bee, +vanished behind the little curtain of the closet. There +was hardly room for her among the pans and old ovens, +but she scuttled her way, and there was silence. Then +I opened the outer door and saw Judd with several +companions.</p> + +<p>“Me an’ the boys are lookin’ fer Evvie. We started +to have a reel at bedtime an’ found she’d gone. I ’lowed +right away she’d skipped over here, bein’ she’s crazy +’bout you. Reckon I skeered her a little talkin’ so much +’bout them jail fellers; but I’ll make it all right. I’m +goin’ to be square with Evvie this time.”</p> + +<p>He began to peek around me.</p> + +<p>“Why—ain’t she here? She gone to bed?”</p> + +<p>“No, Judd. Did you stop at Len’s?”</p> + +<p>“We hollered, an’ she wasn’t there.”</p> + +<p>“You’d better go on to Sam’s then,” I urged, following, +or rather leading him away. “Take the short trail +by the hemlocks.”</p> + +<p>When they were certainly gone I went in. Cleve and +Evvie were sitting by the fire. Her arms were around<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span> +his neck and she was crying steadily. Cleve’s arms were +determinedly in the right place. The next day they +took the early train for Carson, and by noon were safely +married.</p> + +<p>Yesterday Evvie’s mother said to me: “You ought +to go over to Asheville, Mis’ Dolly, jest to see how +Evvie keeps that little house primped up. They’s water +in it, hot an’ cold, an’ ever’thing, like I always wanted +her to have. I reckon she’s ’bout fergot that shack in +the holler.”</p> + +<p>I tell myself that it is as well with Evvie as life permits +it to be with the most of us; but she is now only +eighteen, chiselled in beauty and colored with youth; +and I try not to wonder what would happen if she +should ever fall in love.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">VI<br> + +<small>MY WILD-HOG CLAIM: A DUBIOUS ASSET</small></h2> +</div> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p class="drop-cap">IT was mostly during my first two years on the farm +that things happened. Unfamiliarity sharpened +events into adventure. Later the unusual gradually +flattened into matter of course. For this reason I am +glad that I looked over my wild-hog claim during the +first year of possession, a time when I fed on explorer’s +elixir, and knew not plain bread and meat.</p> + +<p>I can still see Sam, a clear-cut figure, swinging from +an overhead bough which he had grasped just in time +to save himself from the plunging, foam-scattering boar +that in another second would have had his life. But the +beginning of the day was calm enough. For some time +I had heard talk of my claim as a fund-producing property +which, if looked after as it should be, would enable +me to buy out the County Bank as soon as I chose. My +predecessor had imported a few Berkshires and Poland +Chinas to mix with the wild breed, and the result, Len +assured me, was “the best mixtry in the mountains.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span> +Quality had been improved without unfitting the hogs +for hardy life on the ridges. Acorns were abundant; +sprouting chestnuts could be uprooted until late in the +spring. By taking the hogs in midwinter, before the +mast began to grow scant, one could find them fairly +fat, and two or three weeks in the pen, with plenty of +corn to crunch, would make the meat sweet and marketable. +Whenever things looked expensively blue on +the farm there was always some one to remind me +cheerfully of my wild hogs that could be “fotched in +an’ cashed quick as nothin’.”</p> + +<p>We were having some bright, windless days in January, +and Len said to me wistfully: “Ain’t this the hog-huntin’ +time, though?”</p> + +<p>I was getting close to the wall as to ways and means, +so I answered: “Very well, Len. Tell Sam about it and +get ready for a round-up to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>He was delighted. “I jest been achin’ to git into the +woods,” he said. “There’ll be a lot o’ young-uns to +mark. ’Course you know what yer mark is, Mis’ Dolly?” +I didn’t, and he apologized for my ignorance in a matter +so vital. “A woman kain’t be expected to know +ever’thing ’bout the hog business. Yer mark is an undercrap +in the right year an’ two main smart slits in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span> +top o’ the left. Ag Snead’s got a mark nearly like yorn, +only they’s a slit in the right an’ a crap too. It’s a top +slit, an’ ever’ hog that’s got the top o’ his year torn off +ol’ Ag drives in fer his’n. An’ they’s mainly yorn, Mis’ +Dolly.”</p> + +<p>“But how do they get their ears torn off?”</p> + +<p>“Dogs. We have to ketch ’em with a dog, an’ he gits +’em by the year. Sometimes a blame hog’ll leave part +of his year with the dog an’ go on. I’ve hearn ol’ Ag’ll +sic his dogs onto yore mark, hopin’ to tear a year off +an’ claim the hog, an’ I wouldn’t put it past him.”</p> + +<p>“That’s rascality, Len, and Mr. Snead is a deacon.”</p> + +<p>“Law, when a man goes hog-huntin’ he puts his ’ligion +in the cupboard, so it won’t git hurt while he’s out.”</p> + +<p>“Those hogs are mine. I’m going to have a talk with +neighbor Snead.”</p> + +<p>Len was startled. “Lord-a-mercy! This here’s a country +where you kain’t call a man a hog-thief an’ git home +by sundown.”</p> + +<p>“I won’t call him a thief.”</p> + +<p>“No, I reckon you’ll jest inquire ef he’s got any o’ +yore hogs in his pen.”</p> + +<p>Noting that I duly crumpled, he became protective +as usual.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>“You see, Mis’ Dolly, they ain’t any way to ’proach +a man on sech a subject, less’n yer carryin’ a good +gun.”</p> + +<p>“We’ll meet at Sam’s,” he told me, “round about +’fore good daylight. There’ll be pap an’ my Ben, an’ +we’ll take Burl ’cause he’s got a big dog.”</p> + +<p>Burl was a cousin of Coretta’s, staying at Sam’s and +trying, with fluctuating success, to court Len’s oldest +girl. “A good hog-hunt,” said Len, “will show ef he’s +any account, him an’ that dog o’ hisn.”</p> + +<p>I managed to reach Sam’s the next morning while +the smoky lamp was still burning on the kitchen table. +As I approached I heard voices, zestful and happy, +but when I appeared in the door there was surprise, +then a troubled silence.</p> + +<p>“You needn’t been afeard I wouldn’t git ’em off +early,” said Coretta. “I been up sence three o’clock, +an’ Len an’ Ben come at four. We’d done breakfast, +an’ was jest chowin’ till light broke.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not hurrying you. I was only afraid that I +wouldn’t be in time myself.”</p> + +<p>“You’re not going?” all questioned at once, and +plunged into talk of the cliffs that I would tumble over, +the thickets I couldn’t crawl through, and the “straight-ups”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span> +I couldn’t climb. I did not doubt their concern +for me, but felt that more was behind their opposition +than desire for my safety. In some subterranean way +they knew that crafty hints had reached me of their +having now and then spirited hogs to neighborly markets, +forgetting to share the proceeds with the owner; +they knew too, by the same invisible channels, that +the tainting insinuations had been indignantly discouraged; +yet they suspected me of wanting to keep on +their track. After getting up at an heroic hour to prove +my full comradeship, it was depressing to run against +suspicion, as cold in my confident face as the frosty air +of the dawn. But I innocently urged that I was bound +for the hunt, that our lives were of equal value, and I +would share all risks. After some minutes of talk—genuine +even as it veiled the core of discussion—the +springs of good humor began to flow, doubt was put to +cover, and we were on the road.</p> + +<p>Serena was with us. She had come with Len to the +meet, and I had heard him insisting on her accompanying +me. “You won’t have to go fur,” he said. “She’ll +turn back ’fore we git to Broke Yoke Gap.”</p> + +<p>Granpap also was of the party. “He kain’t run,” said +Len, “but he’ll he’p us more’n you’d think. He caught<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span> +a big feller last year all by hisse’f, ’cept what little ol’ +Bub could do.”</p> + +<p>“All right, granpap,” I said, feeling gay and generous +as the sun began to warm our mountain, “you can +have all you catch to-day. I won’t take any toll from +you.”</p> + +<p>There was no answer—no thanks. Everybody looked +straight into the woods, ostensibly concerned with +nothing but sighting a hog; and I knew thereby that +my words had been taken seriously.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>“We ought to git Red Granny to-day,” said Sam, +examining the ground where the smoking leaves had +been stirred. “Here’s her consarned ol’ broke-toed +track. An’ here’s a lot o’ littler tracks. She’s been in +an’ tolled out some more o’ our shotes. I bet if we hurried +up we’d come right on her.”</p> + +<p>“Let’s hurry then,” I urged; for I knew about the +old sow called Red Granny, that for three years had +proved uncapturable. She kept her inaccessible house +on the side of a rough mountain, making her way to it +through a great pile of rock by a passage yet undiscovered.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span> +Though a good breeder, filling the woods with +sandy-haired pigs, she also seemed able to teach them +the secret of escape. Bub, who was an old dog, could +hardly be made to run a red pig unless it was on his +own side of the mountain.</p> + +<p>“’Tain’t no use to trail Red Granny,” said Len. “Ol’ +Bub leads the dogs, an’ he won’t run thataway. I put +him on her trail onct an’ he was out all night. When +he come in next day he was too ’shamed to look at me.”</p> + +<p>“Well, let’s get somewhere,” I said, feeling the cold +in spite of the sun. Then I found I had made a mistake. +The first part of hog-hunting is deliberation. There was +a long discussion as to the most fruitful direction.</p> + +<p>Finally little Ross, who had followed Serena, said, +“Let’s go to the sow’s oak,” and to my amazement +everybody agreed. “I bet that spotted sow is there +with some little pigs, an’ poppie promised me one,” +said Ross.</p> + +<p>The sow’s oak was a giant tree with a large hollow +at the butt, big enough to furnish good shelter for a +litter. For years it had been a favorite bedding-place. +To find it we had to descend into a cove where there +was a clear spring. All stopped for water, though everybody +had taken a drink just before leaving Sam’s. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span> +Highlander can go without a meal or two with no inconvenience, +but he drinks water in season and out of +season. After leaving the spring we passed around the +curving side of a hill and came in sight of the tree.</p> + +<p>“Sst!” said Sam. “I see her. She’s in there, an’ she’s +got pigs. Don’t crowd her now. Keep the dogs back. +We don’t want her to git tore, an’ her a-sucklin’ pigs. +Y’all stand out here in a circle like, so she kain’t git +through if she runs, and I’ll ease up behind the tree. +When ye see me bounce ’round to the front to grab +her leg, ever’body an’ the dogs bear right in.”</p> + +<p>He made a wide circuit and came up behind the tree, +but before he reached it Burl’s dog, Bugle, who was +new at the game, gave a yelp and the sow sprang out. +About a dozen tiny pigs, black-spotted and with delicate +pink noses, followed her. All three of the dogs +rushed forward and yapped in her face. She bristled to +fight, then turned and dashed in the opposite direction, +flashing by Sam and leaving him to look foolish, with +a knotted rope in his hands. The dogs flew after the +sow and the men followed the dogs. Little Ross began to +scramble after the terrified, squealing pigs.</p> + +<p>“Go after the one with the black spot on its year,” +said Serena. “It’s the purtiest.” Ross tumbled after the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span> +one she pointed out and secured it. Serena took it into +her apron. By that time not a pig was to be seen or +heard. They were all under the leaves, behind logs, +anywhere they could secrete their quivering bodies. In +the distance we could hear the cry of the dogs and +shouts of the men. Then the yelping ceased, and we +heard the wild squeals of the captive. When we reached +the spot the men were looking down on the struggling +sow. She was tied by one hind leg, and the other end +of the rope was made fast to a young tree.</p> + +<p>“She’ll keep all right,” said granpap, examining the +knots critically. “Reckon anybody’ll find her here ’fore +we git back? The woods air full o’ hunters.”</p> + +<p>“Hunters and stealers,” said Len indignantly. “But +we kain’t he’p it. We got to go on.”</p> + +<p>“She’ll drive in easy,” said Serena. “It’s that sow +you brought in last year, an’ I gentled her with slop +fer a month.” She put the little pig down by his mother, +who became very still as he lifted a nudging nose to +her. I wanted to return and find the other pigs, but +was swiftly talked down.</p> + +<p>“They’ll find the sow ef she’ll squeal loud enough,” +said Sam. “They won’t run fur anyhow, an’ we’ll look +’em out as we go home.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>The men had discovered some signs which they were +sure would lead to a fine bunch of shotes. “An’ shotes +pay,” they said. “Anybody’ll buy a shote.”</p> + +<p>The “signs” took us by a very rough way through a +damp hollow. Serena declared it was so “blustery” she +couldn’t stand it, and persuaded me to turn up the +slope and walk along the ridge, leaving the men to +push their way below. “They always scour that holler,” +she said, “but they’ve never brought a pig out of it.” In +half an hour the men came up defeated. Some pigs had +been found, but they proved to be in Ag Snead’s mark.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell ye what let’s do,” said Len. “We’ll go to +Raven Den side to find that big b’ar hog that’s tuskin’ +our gentles ever’ time they go to the woods.”</p> + +<p>“B’ar hog” was euphemistic usage, in my presence, +for boar. It was humorously incorrect, being similar in +sound to the abbreviation for barrow.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid o’ that feller,” said young Ben. “I seen +him onct. He suits me where he is.”</p> + +<p>“Let’s go fer him,” said Burl. “That sounds like a +hunt.”</p> + +<p>“I’m ready,” said Sam. “That feller’s too mean to +let live. I’ve had to sew up two shotes this week that +come in all cut up.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>We were moving slowly along the ridge, and little +Ross, who had been running ahead, came flying back +to say that he had found a hog sound asleep. We rushed +forward and came upon a fine sow lying dead. Len +pointed to a bullet-hole in her forehead.</p> + +<p>“Is it ours?” I asked, for my mind was set on +revenue and this was a dismal beginning. So far we +had to our credit only a half-tame sow that would +probably have come in of her own accord when food +grew scarce—and this. Len flicked the exposed ear +of the sow. “You see the undercrap,” he said. Then +he pulled the other ear from under her head. “An’ +there’s the two slits. It’s a ten-dollar bill you got layin’ +there.”</p> + +<p>“Ay,” said Sam, “she’s worth ten dollars more yisterday +than to-day.”</p> + +<p>“Yisterday!” said Len. “She’s shot early this +mornin’. She ain’t froze yit, an’ last night would ’a’ +froze fire. Whoever shot her is in the woods now, an’ +he better not come shammuckin’ where I can see him. +I’d have my say.”</p> + +<p>“You ain’t goin’ to talk into a gun, Len,” said +Serena. “Wha’d you promise me about this hog business?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>“Shucks, Reenie, I ain’t broke no promise yit.”</p> + +<p>“Y’ain’t goin’ to nuther. Ol’ Ag’s got more bullets. +Reckon I’m goin’ to chance comin’ on you layin’ in +the woods like this here sow?”</p> + +<p>“Why,” I asked, at last getting in my burning question, +“did they shoot the poor thing and leave her +here?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, she looked slick an’ fine a hundred yards off, +but when they shot her an’ come up close they seen she +was goin’ to litter an’ wasn’t fit fer meat.”</p> + +<p>“What about a stomach that can eat a hog right off +the mast?” said Sam. “Ag Snead ain’t more’n ha’f human +anyway.”</p> + +<p>“’Twa’n’t Ag,” said granpap. “It ’ud take two men +to git this hog in home, an’ ol’ Ag is secrety. He wouldn’t +want a partner in this kind o’ work. It’s the Copp boys +more’n likely.”</p> + +<p>“There’s ol’ Aggervation now,” called Ben. We +looked ahead and saw a man approaching. It was Agnashus +Snead. A boy, big-limbed and nearly grown, +walked beside him.</p> + +<p>“That’s his nephew, Ted Shoals,” said Len. “’Course +they done it! Now watch Ag, the ol’ devil! You’d think +he was jest from prayer-meetin’.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span>“Howdy, folks,” Snead called to us. He was about +seventy, with cool, pink cheeks, and white hair that +still kept a youthful ripple. His eyes were golden brown +and young as a boy’s. I found myself introduced, and +shook hands with him almost eagerly. Oh, no, he +couldn’t have done it!</p> + +<p>“Any luck?” he asked, and Len pointed to the dead +hog. The old man was properly shocked. “They’s some +rotten folks in this kentry,” he said, “ef a man knowed +where to find ’em.”</p> + +<p>“Right, there is,” said Len, “an’ I b’lieve I’d know +’em ef I seen ’em.” His black eyes looked kindlingly +into the brown eyes of Snead. Serena pushed in. “<i>Your</i> +luck’s all right, Uncle Ag. The boys jest now found a +bunch o’ yore shotes down in that holler.”</p> + +<p>“Reckon they didn’t have no years tore off?” he +asked, repaying Len’s thrust. But no fight was precipitated +because he accompanied his question with the +frankest of smiles. Serena had often told me that you +could say anything in the mountains if you took care +to say it laughing.</p> + +<p>“No,” put in Sam, with a grin equally disarming, +“but if I’s as mean as <i>some</i> folks I’d whacked off their +years ragged-like, an’ druv ’em in home.” The laugh<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span> +went round. Both parties had spoken their minds. Old +Ag bent over and touched the bullet-hole.</p> + +<p>“Them Copp boys air in the woods to-day.”</p> + +<p>We knew what he meant, but if the Copp boys +should ever get him cornered not one of us could swear +that he had accused them.</p> + +<p>“Their gun makes the same kind of a hole yorn does, +I reckon,” said Len, with a steady look at Snead’s +rifle.</p> + +<p>This was going too far. Snead rose up and looked +about. He would be two against five, with maybe a +woman to claw him from the back. A tolerant smile +spread over his face. “It shore does,” he said. “I’ll tell +you what, boys. I kain’t take my shotes in with jest +Ted here to he’p me. S’pose I hunt with you to-day, +an’ you he’p me to-morr’.”</p> + +<p>Asking a favor was more disarming than laughter. +This was a neighborly appeal, and Len was first, last, +and always, a good neighbor. In two minutes we were +all on our way to the haunt of the big b’ar hog, leaving +the embryo feud, for a time at least, to smother under +amenities.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span></p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Serena had slyly given me several opportunities to +turn back with her. At last she openly rebelled. “Ef yer +goin’ down in them rocks,” she said, “I’m goin’ to +make a fire on the ridge an’ set here till ye git back, if +ye ever do git back.”</p> + +<p>“Stay if you want to,” Len told her, “an’ keep +Ross to he’p ye pick up brush. Ef we roust that b’ar +there’d best be nobody round that kain’t hop quick.”</p> + +<p>The entire party gave me a look which was a plain +request that I keep Serena company. I was half angered. +“Come on,” I said, taking the lead along the +ridge. “I hope you’ll enjoy yourself, Serena.”</p> + +<p>They stood dubiously, then came on with a shout.</p> + +<p>“Yer like my first wife,” said Snead, striding alongside +of me. “Nothin’ could head her. You’ve heard +’bout the man that had had three wives an’ when he +prayed he would say: ‘God bless Patch, an’ Piece-patch, +but dern ol’ Tear-all.’ Now I say it back’ards. +My first un wuz Tear-all, an’ I’d ruther have her back +than any of ’em. There wuzn’t any government them +days. Ever’ feller had his own still ef he wanted one, +an’ tended to his own business. Governments hadn’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span> +come inter fashion. I’d say to my wife, ‘Serry, I’d like +to cut up fer a week an’ lay drunk,’ an’ she’d say: ‘Go +it, Ag, I’ll ’tend to the crap.’ An’ when I got through +I’d let her have her turn ef she wanted it, and she generally +did. When she wuz dyin’ she says ‘Ag, you’ve +been square. You’ve come as you wanted an’ gone as +you wanted, an’ so’ve I, bless Jesus.’ ‘Yes, Serry,’ I +says, ‘you’ve never been tied to the meat-skillet or +wash-pot.’ She laffed then an’ says: ‘I reckon you +knowed that string would ’a’ broke anyhow, Ag.’ When +she wuz dead I wuz fool enough to think my luck +wouldn’t turn, an’ I married agin in about six weeks. +Lord, Lord, she cleaned an’ she cooked an’ she mended +till I begged her to let up an’ go huntin’ with me. I +wuz so lonesome I purty near cried, an’ all she done +wuz to git down on her marr’s an’ pray fer my soul. +‘O Lord,’ she says, ‘I’ll take keer o’ his pore neglected +body ef you’ll jest save his soul.’ Well, I set in then +an’ made her glad to git out. I set down an’ cussed her +steady fer two days. She was ready to go the first day, +but said she couldn’t till she got ever’thing done. She +left my clothes all fixed an’ the house like pie, an’ +enough cooked to keep me fer a week, an’ me cussin’ +her in a solid streak. She had the grit, but it wuz turned<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span> +the wrong way fer me. It gives me the all-gonest, lonesome +feeling now to think of how she worked an’ +worked, an’ all I wanted wuz company. ’Twa’n’t long +till she married Ham Copp an’ I reckon he suited her, +fer they’re livin’ together yit. It’s her two boys what’s +been so near that dead sow back yander, no matter +what Len Merlin’s got in his head about it. You kain’t +blame the boys, they been brought up so religious. I +think a heap of religion, but you got to keep it in +bounds er it’s like fire an’ water; it’ll eat ye up. The +Copp boys don’t want to be et up, an’ when they gets +out they make t’other way, toward the devil. I’m a +deacon, an’ pay my dues, but nobody can say I treat +my religion too familiar.”</p> + +<p>Sam called us to halt, and we paused in a body to +look searchingly down over the cliffs where boulders +struggled brokenly and trees and saplings scrambled for +distorted life.</p> + +<p>“He’s down there, boys. I’ll take Bub an’ Bugle, an’ +pap to carry the rope, an’ when we find where he is, +y’all stretch ’round above us, an’ I’ll go in an’ sic up +the dogs. Len, you hold Buck. He’s my dog, an’ I ain’t +savin’ him, but bein’ a fox-dog he’s better fer the run, +of it comes to runnin’. They’s the masterest ivy thicket<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span> +’bout a quarter furder, an’ ef we roust him out he’s +liable to make fer it.”</p> + +<p>We began the descent, and as I stumbled laboriously +downward I thought of Serena sitting by her fire, no +doubt singing one of the many ballads which she had +learned from her grandmother, and which had probably +been sung by a score of generations before her without +ever losing its essence in print. I stifled a lyrical regret +and clung resolutely to my commercial mood. About +thirty yards from the top we scattered and took our +stations as Sam directed.</p> + +<p>“Ef he breaks out, beat the bushes an’ make a noise +like the whole Cher’kee nation full of corn-juice.”</p> + +<p>Sam then went farther down, and was beginning to +peer cautiously about for the boar when Len cried out: +“Hold on! There he is! At the top!”</p> + +<p>We looked up and saw the boar above us, monstrously +outlined at the top of the ridge. He was huge +and black, and my startled eyes magnified him to a +fearsome thing. I found out later that he was not of +inordinate size. He was poking a nose that seemed +several feet long over the verge of a sheer cliff. There +were simultaneous howls from the three dogs. The +boar’s bristles rose like black Lombardy poplars; and as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span> +he flung himself around, his tusks, whiter than the +whitest cloud, seemed to circle the heavens. He shot +along the ridge, Buck plunging after him.</p> + +<p>“Foller him, fellers,” shouted Sam. “I’ll take Bub +an’ Bugle an’ make fer the thicket. That’s where he’s +goin’.”</p> + +<p>Len, Burl, Ted, and Ben began to leap up the mountainside +and were soon racing along the ridge trail. I +could be of no use in heading off the boar, and after one +staggered look upward at the almost vertical slope I +decided to follow Sam and granpap. Snead was of the +same mind, and we struggled along, swinging from +bushes and scrambling over boulders until we arrived +at the ivy thicket, which was not ivy at all, but a mass +of twisted kalmia from which several great chestnut +trees rose in triumph. From somewhere in the tangled +interior I could hear Sam’s voice constantly repeating +a formula, “Sic ’im, Bub! Sic, sic, sic!”—not loud +but in a steady tone, half pleading, half commanding.</p> + +<p>Snead crawled into the thicket, and in about ten +minutes was back again.</p> + +<p>“Sam’s standin’ to his waist in a sink-hole,” he said, +“an’ skeered white-eyed. But he ain’t in no danger, +the ivy’s so thick round the sink-hole. Bub nor Bugle<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span> +won’t take holt o’ that thing. They prance all round +him, much as the ivy’ll let ’em, an’ keep out o’ the way +o’ his tusks, an’ that’s all. We got to have a dog that’ll +take holt. Sam says fer me to send Ben down the +mountain Pizen Branch way an’ git Jake Sutton’s ol’ +dog, Drum. Drum’ll bring him out ef anything will.”</p> + +<p>“There’s Buck.”</p> + +<p>“Shucks, ef Bub won’t take holt we needn’t wait on +Buck.”</p> + +<p>“What’s granpap doing?”</p> + +<p>“Nothin’ but squattin’ in the bottom o’ that sink-hole +wishin’ he’s in prayer-meetin’.”</p> + +<p>Snead made his way up to the circle of silent watchers, +and Ben was soon flying down the mountain Pizen +Branch way. In ten minutes he would be at the foot, +but he would have to return slowly by a winding trail, +and it would be nearly an hour before Drum could be +one of us. In the meantime Sam, with the two dogs, +endeavored to keep the boar entertained. Suddenly +there was a shriek. A dark body was thrown into the +air and fell on top of a thick bunch of “ivy.” “The +blood jest sprinkled,” said Sam afterward.</p> + +<p>“He’s killed my dog,” shouted Burl from the hillside. +But Bugle had received only a skin wound and,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span> +scrambling down, crept with viscerated courage to his +master. Sam kept on incessantly with the formula, +“Sic ’im, Bub! Sic, sic, sic!” and finally called to Len: +“Send Buck in here ’less ye want me to git tore up. +Bub’s winded.”</p> + +<p>From somewhere up the hill Len unloosed Buck, who +rushed for the thicket. His entrance was Wagnerian, +with a sound that reached the spheres. I had crept forward +until I could get black glimpses of the boar as he +whirled about, charging at the agile Bub and missing +him by a hair’s breadth. With the entrance of Buck he +decided to run, and dashed along the “tunnel” that in +happier days he had worn to his hiding-place. The dogs +tumbled over each other and were slower in getting +out. Sam appeared and shouted to the watchers above: +“Tear along up there! Ef he gits round the mountain +we might as well go home.”</p> + +<p>I was at granpap’s heels and going fine, when he fell. +He wasn’t seriously hurt, but sat on a rock rubbing his +ankle, and I was astounded at the imprecations which +he dropped on that “b’ar devil.” It meant more to him +than being out of the race. Life had beaten him and +gone on, and he knew it. “Reckon they’ll say I done it +a-purpose,” he said forlornly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span>“Oh, no, they won’t. Sam himself couldn’t have +jumped that rock.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll set here till the pain gits meller.”</p> + +<p>We waited, and the tumult died away and with it +my hope of witnessing the capture. After a little we +heard a sort of scrambling in the bushes.</p> + +<p>“That’s Ag,” said granpap. “He’d git out o’ the run +ef he had to break his neck fer it.”</p> + +<p>A moment passed and Snead joined us, slightly limping.</p> + +<p>“I was jumpin’ a blame rock, an’ it tumbled me off,” +he said. “What’s the matter with the ol’ man?”</p> + +<p>“Not a durn thing,” said granpap. “I jest ’lowed I’d +drap out.”</p> + +<p>To show his scorn of subterfuge, he got up and took +a few firm steps, then sat down, white with pain but +grinning with triumph.</p> + +<p>“I’d give my coat an’ shirt to go with the boys,” +said Snead. “Ef I hadn’t struck on that sore knee I +could ’a’ kept up all right.”</p> + +<p>“Reckon I couldn’t,” said granpap. “When I got +old I knowed it. Time ain’t slipped nothin’ on me.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I ain’t give in yit,” Snead asserted, his yellow-brown +eyes shimmering. “These woods’ll be my back<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span> +yard as long as I’m topside o’ earth, an’ when I’m under +it I’ll rattle the dirt ef I can.”</p> + +<p>“I’d do a lot myself,” said granpap, “ef I could do +it with my tongue.”</p> + +<p>Snead’s retort was lost in the returning tumult. The +racers were coming back with a rush that made us think +of scurrying to refuge. Sam afterward related what had +happened.</p> + +<p>“When I got out of the thicket,” he said, “I started +over the rocks like a jumpin’ spider. Thet ol’ devil went +straight like he was goin’ round the mountain, but the +dogs kept bearin’ down on his upper side an’ brought +him up under a cliff that he hadn’t counted on meetin’. +He had to turn on ’em then, but they wouldn’t rush +in an’ he wouldn’t rush out. The foam was flyin’ an’ +Buck was all bloody. Them tusks had scraped some +sense into him, an’ he was standin’ off, yappin’ an’ +yowin’. Little ol’ Bub was jumpin’ up an’ down an’ +wantin’ like fire to go in, but he knowed better. ‘All +we can do,’ I says to Len when the boys come up, ‘is +to hold the feller here till Ben comes with ol’ Drum.’ +An’ about that time the b’ar decided to come out an’ +give them dogs a skeer. You run me in here, he thinks, +an’ by golly I’ll run ye out. An’ he lit fer ’em. You<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span> +never seen dogs so skeert. An’ that’s why we all come +back. ’Cause that thing wanted to. He jest rid the +saplin’s after them dogs. It was the masterest sight, +him goin’ over ever’thing like he had wings in his insides.”</p> + +<p>He was “riding the saplings” when we saw him, but +we had no time for leisurely observation. We were in +the most open strip of the brush and this was the highway +for the chase. The dogs seemed divided between +fear and shame. They rushed forward with their tongues +out, but every few rods would fling their heads back as +if to turn on their pursuer; then at sight of him they +would give an apparently dying screech and flee forward +again.</p> + +<p>“Scroonch up to that poplar,” called Snead, “an’ +they’ll pass us.” The poplar was an immense one, five +feet through at the butt, and was only three or four +yards from us; but we had barely time to cross the distance +and crowd against the tree before the wild runners +flew by. I felt that the earth must be moving; +that the whole mountain was a penumbration of that +black, vaulting body; the air ought to bleed, torn by +those merciless tusks.</p> + +<p>They passed out of sight, to our left; and very soon,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span> +on our right, we saw Sam. His shoes were ripped open, +and his overalls, in strips from his knees down, revealed +legs and ankles scratched and bloody. In his hard-set +face I scarcely recognized the softly placating features +of Sam. As he passed us he was muttering something +about old Drum. “Ef ol’ Drum’ll ever git here!” A +few minutes later Len and Ted came up.</p> + +<p>“Where’s Burl?” asked granpap.</p> + +<p>“Back yander, tendin’ that no-’count dog o’ hisn.”</p> + +<p>They hurried on, and Len called over his shoulder: +“Come on, pap, with yer rope. I hear Ben an’ ol’ Drum. +We’ll git him now.”</p> + +<p>We listened, and a long, deep, fresh-sounding bay +echoed through the woods. Granpap grabbed his rope, +dropping his lameness and twenty years of his age. +“Smoke yer heels, boys,” he said; and like boys we +followed. “He’s bayed agin,” said granpap, as we +neared a discord of indescribable sounds. Soon we saw +the boar, on top of a lichen-covered boulder, sitting on +his haunches, his eyes, like two little black stars, pouring +vitriol that ought to have made the forest crumple. +The rock itself, with its green, black, and creamy spots +and veinlike roots climbing over it, seemed a part of +the creature’s body, making a monster as superior to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span> +attack as granite, as formidable as if Nature had condensed +her forces into his resisting form. The yapping +dogs at the base of the rock, and the men with their +ceaseless “sic, sic,” were as negligible as squeaking +gnats.</p> + +<p>Sam was the only one with any apparent dignity. +He had yielded to fatigue, and lay motionless on the +ground, probably forty feet from me and an equal distance +from the group about the rock.</p> + +<p>A long musical sound came from old Drum. It was +not loud, but of a sure timbre that made the woods +quiver. The boar threw up his head and his sides +thumped. From my safe distance I fancied a trembling +among all the little ruffled scales of the lichens. Suddenly +Ben’s young voice called out from somewhere +above the rock “Go it, Drum, sic ’im, sic ’im!” and +Drum’s huge yellow body vaulted from the slope to +the upper edge of the boulder. At that instant the boar +shot into the air, curved downward, and struck the +ground near the men, scattering them to cover. He +rolled for a second, like a knotted ball, then found his +four feet properly under him and made straight for +Sam.</p> + +<p>For a second I felt blinded by a swirling black cloud,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span> +then stood clear-sighted in a small but painfully vivid +human world. Nature with her everlasting forces retreated +and consciousness was trivially reabsorbed in +the by-product, humanity. I could even see Coretta, a +pale widow, in the country store with a basket of eggs, +insisting on an exchange of black percale; and myself +distractedly guiding the destinies of her fatherless +young.</p> + +<p>But Sam was quicker than the boar. With one motion +he leaped three feet from the ground, and with +arms abnormally long seized the limb of a tree that +stretched above him, drawing his body up accordion-fashion +and hanging there like a half-opened jackknife. +The boar dashed under him and on toward me. I resigned +life resentfully. My passion for union with earth +was spent. There was nothing but ignominy in being +trampled into the ground and muddily tusked.</p> + +<p>Drum saved me. I saw him at the boar’s side trying +to reach his ear. The boar whirled in defense, and Len +cried: “Run, God A’mighty, run!” I supposed he +meant me, but I couldn’t move. I had to see whether +Drum got that ear or not. My arm was grabbed and I +was viciously shaken. “Ain’t you got a bit o’ sense?” +That didn’t seem to matter, but when I had been pulled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span> +to safety I managed to say: “Thank you, Len, I guess +I’ll—faint.” Which I did, but it was not a desperate +lapse. I was up in a few minutes, watching the game +between Drum and the boar, and commenting on it in +a meekly diminished voice.</p> + +<p>It was worth seeing. Drum clearly understood his +difficulty. He was to get his teeth into the boar’s ear +and keep his own body safely guarded from the tossing +tusks. They shuttled back and forth, for every time +that Drum was near getting a hold the boar would +whirl in an effort to drive his tusk into the dog, and +this would cause a face-about for both of them. I did +not see how the game of wits and muscle could end except +by the exhaustion of one or the other; and the +boar was doubtless using his last strength. It seemed +shockingly unfair for Drum to come so fresh to the +contest.</p> + +<p>“Be right still; be right still,” Len would say, though +nobody needed the adjuration, all being tense and motionless. +“Drum’s gittin’ him winded. He’ll land in a +minute. Be right still.”</p> + +<p>I understood what he meant by “landing” when +Drum finally sailed upward and dropped down on the +boar’s back just behind his ears.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span>“He’s got him!” shouted Sam. “Git yer sticks, ever’body. +I’ll grab his leg. Y’all be ready to come in, er +he’ll tear me up ef Drum’s holt breaks.”</p> + +<p>But this time Drum held on, and the boar spun round +and round helplessly. It seemed death to approach him, +but Sam got behind a rock, lay down, and reached out +a long arm, ready to grab a flying hind leg if it should +come near.</p> + +<p>“Len, you an’ pap git the noose over his nose. +Where’s that Burl? Let him an’ Ben hold my legs.” +But Burl called from a prudent distance: “He ain’t +winded yit. You’d all better keep out.”</p> + +<p>“Dern yer white skin,” said Sam, “git back to yer +dry-goods box in Asheville. Ben, you an’ Ted ketch +holt o’ my legs.” They obeyed, bracing their feet +against the rock, getting ready, it appeared, to pull +Sam in two. Len, holding a big club, took the dangerous +position of granpap’s guard in his attempts to +noose the boar. Snead was to tie another rope about +the leg if Sam succeeded in grabbing it.</p> + +<p>There was a ragged, throaty shout. Sam had him. +Snead, too reckless, rushed in on the wrong side and +had to rush out again.</p> + +<p>“Tie him, kain’t you?” puffed Sam. “I ain’t no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span> +snake, I kain’t live in two pieces!” Snead made another +rush and got the rope securely tied. This freed Sam, +who made a grab for the other hapless hind leg of the +boar, and the two were then made fast together. The +animal, crazed by the outrage, tossed his tusks in a +last desperation, and Drum’s hold broke. The dog was +thrown ten feet, just as granpap, by a miraculous move, +got the noose around the boar’s nose above his tusks.</p> + +<p>“Pap’s done it!” cried Len. And “Pap’s got him!” +echoed Sam. “Me fer granpap!” shouted Ben. “Smart +fer ol’ bones,” said Snead; and “Hurrah, granpap!” +said I, to be with the tide.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t ’a’ beat it,” said Burl, and Len turned +on him. “Ef you want to marry my girl, you’ll have to +carry a better gun’n I do.”</p> + +<p>“You got to pay fer my dog,” said Burl, backing +off.</p> + +<p>“When hell cools butter,” said Len. “Shet yer mouth +ef you can do it with them tight breeches on.” Then +his angry spurt was over. “You goin’ to he’p carry this +thing in home?”</p> + +<p>Burl came trippingly forward and looked at the boar. +Forefeet and back were tied, and a long pole thrust +under them. Safely trussed, but the tusks looked alive.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span> +“I’ll he’p at his hind feet,” said Burl, and laughter +rolled over him.</p> + +<p>“You walk ahead to keep the bears an’ Injuns off us,” +said Len. “Ben, you an’ Sam git aholt the hind end o’ +that pole. Me an’ Ted’ll take the front.”</p> + +<p>They took off their jackets and, doubling them up, +placed them between their shoulders and the pole.</p> + +<p>“Won’t it hurt him?” I asked, as they swung their +load.</p> + +<p>“Hurt that feller? I jest wish we could,” said Sam.</p> + +<p>I remembered that the creature was revenue and +hardened my heart. We ought to get twenty-five dollars, +at least, for him, half of which would be mine, the +other half going to Sam and Len.</p> + +<p>As it was easier to keep around the side of the hill +with their heavy load, and come into the trail lower +down, I said that I would go up to the ridge and get +Serena. I should be glad to be out of sight of the +pathetic monster swinging in torture from the pole.</p> + +<p>I got up the hill, and at some distance caught sight +of Serena’s fire. She was placidly singing, in utter detachment +from little Ross, who was “playing horse” +up and down the ridge. The song was her favorite ballad +about the cruelty of sundering true lovers. She liked<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span> +to repeat it; and though she usually began singing in a +robust major key, with each repetition her tone would +become more plaintive. She was now at her happiest, +in an unbearably wailing minor. The girl, persecuted +by obdurate parents, had wandered from home</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="first">“And rambled the green growing meadows around,</div> +<div class="verse">Until she came to a clear broad river,</div> +<div class="verse">And under a green shade-tree sat down.</div> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="verse">She then took o—u—t a silver dagger-r,</div> +<div class="verse">And percht it thr—ough her lily-white breast,</div> +<div class="verse">And these words uttered as she staggered,</div> +<div class="verse">‘True love, true l—o—ve, I’m goin’ to rest.’”</div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>And her lover, being at that very moment on that +clear, broad river, and passing that very tree,</p> + +<p class="center">“He ran, he r—a—n, he ran unto her,”</p> + +<p>and picking up the same silver dagger, he “percht it +through his weeping heart,” and Serena sang to the +world:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="first">“Let this be a gr—ea—t and awful warning,</div> +<div class="verse">To all who ke—e—p true lovers apart;</div> +<div class="verse">To all who ke—e—p true lovers apart.”</div> +</div></div> + +<p>“Serena,” said I gently, “wouldn’t you just as soon +say ‘pierced’ as ‘percht’?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span>“That wouldn’t be doin’ right by granmommie. She +always sung it thataway, an’ she was a hundred and +three when she died, an’ died in her cheer. She knowed +what she’s about to the last minute. She sung it ‘percht,’ +an’ I wouldn’t change it noways. My, but you look like +you’d been bee-huntin’ in a locus’ patch!”</p> + +<p>“I’ve had a good time, Serena.”</p> + +<p>“So’ve I,” she said, getting up. “An’ I didn’t resk +my life fer it nuther.”</p> + +<p>We were to meet the men at the place where the +spotted sow lay tied. Serena and I arrived first by a +few minutes, as the men travelled slowly with their +burden, and stopped frequently to “change the bone.” +We found the sow quiet and sullen. There was only the +one pig with her.</p> + +<p>“We must find the other pigs,” I said to the men, +when they came up blowing and put their load +down.</p> + +<p>“We kain’t do that. It’s turnin’ colder, an’ it’ll be +night now ’fore we git in home with this chap.”</p> + +<p>“But they’re so little! They’ll starve!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, half of ’em’ll scratch through alive. Let’s go +fer water, boys.”</p> + +<p>Everybody but myself went round the side of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span> +hill to the spring. I stayed to ponder on the extravagant +method of bringing in wild hogs. The thought of those +ten or more little black-and-pink creatures shivering in +the woods until starvation released them was more +than I could passively bear. I looked at the rope, and +found it tied in what to me was an unalterable knot. +But I could cut it by laying it against a rock and rubbing +it with the sharp edge of another rock. I found +the stones I wanted and set to work, making the rope +as ragged as possible. When the stringy ends dropped +no one would have suspected that the rope had been +cut. The sow rushed off with her little pig following, +and they were soon out of sight. Then I found that I +too was longing for water, and hurried to the spring. +I knew I should find the others lingering, each wanting +to get in one more comment on the inexhaustible subject +of the capture.</p> + +<p>“We’d better git back,” said Len at last. “Pap, you +can drive the sow in. Thanks to gracious, we don’t +have to carry <i>her</i>.”</p> + +<p>It was an angry and bewildered group that paused +at the spot where the sow had been tied.</p> + +<p>“Dern her sides, wha’d she mean by layin’ here all +day an’ breakin’ the rope at the last minute?” said<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span> +Sam. “It wuz a good rope too. There wuzn’t a weak +spot in it.”</p> + +<p>“I reckon it <i>wuz</i> a good rope,” complained Len. +“That young-un got holt o’ my plough-lines. I wouldn’t +’a’ give ’em fer that ol’ sow.”</p> + +<p>“Ain’t it a cussin’ shame now Mis’ Dolly won’t git +nothin’? Ha’f that sow would ’a’ been hern. ’Course +the b’ar is pap’s. It wuz pap ’at got in the throw that +tied him.”</p> + +<p>It was a moment before I got the full meaning of +Sam’s words, and when I did my astounded silence +seemed to create a slight embarrassment.</p> + +<p>“Pap’ll give her a part,” said Len, “ef she wants to +take it. Mebbe she didn’t ’zackly mean what she told +him ’bout havin’ what he could ketch. It’ll disappint +pap, but we ain’t goin’ to have no hard feelin’ ’bout an +ol’ b’ar hog.”</p> + +<p>“I’m shore glad,” said Sam, “that she saw pap ketch +him, an’s got her own eyes fer it. I wouldn’t take a +throwed-away dish-rag off’n her underhand. Ez fer her +not meanin’ what she said, her word’s as good in the +woods as ’tis in the meetin’-house. Ever’body’ll tell ye +that. ’Tain’t jest me a-talkin’.”</p> + +<p>My inward tumult subsided. There was no profit in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span> +rebellion when the elements were against me. I looked +at granpap, silent and apart, chewing his bit of dogwood.</p> + +<p>“What about it, granpap?”</p> + +<p>“What y’all say’s good enough fer me.”</p> + +<p>No help there, so I yielded with a gaiety that left +them slightly puzzled, not understanding the lubricant +value of a good laugh at oneself.</p> + +<p>“The victory is yours, granpap. Let’s get him home.”</p> + +<p>There was a buzz of spirited talk, all to show granpap +that he was to be congratulated. When we started again +Snead proposed going by Abe Siler’s.</p> + +<p>“He’ll buy that feller right off the pole, an’ we’ll +save time by drappin’ him there. Abe’s wantin’ to git +a hog to pen right now, an’ he’ll give you six dollars fer +that b’ar.”</p> + +<p>“Six dollars!” I exclaimed. “Three weeks with all +the corn he wants, and he’ll weigh out forty dollars’ +worth of meat!”</p> + +<p>“It ’ud make a big hole in my pile o’ corn,” said +granpap.</p> + +<p>“You gittin’ it wrong, Mis’ Dolly,” said Snead. +“B’ar meat as old as that feller is stringy an’ tough, +an’ don’t make no grease to talk about. Ain’t hardly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span> +anybody’ll buy it. Ol’ Abe ain’t pertickler ef he gits it +cheap. He’ll take the green meat to Carson an’ sell it. +Six dollars is top money fer him.”</p> + +<p>“Yer talkin’ right, Ag,” said granpap. “Let’s go by +Abe’s.”</p> + +<p>We went by Abe’s, and granpap pocketed five dollars +for the hog, the buyer considering six a “masterous +price.”</p> + +<p>Everybody seemed happy going home, except for a +few regrets over the sow that got away, and a wail +from little Ross for his lost pig. Everybody except myself. +I was reflecting heavily in terms of profit and loss. +All of my farm-help had given a day’s work; they would +give another to-morrow, helping Snead. Four men two +days meant a loss to me of eight days’ labor. Coretta +would surely shame me into contributing toward new +shoes and overalls for Sam. I must also count my disturbing +escape from starting a feud; must even consider +future entanglements on that score. Nor should I forget +the emotional waste due to seeing every member of +the party narrowly and frequently elude death from +pitching head over heels into a rock-bed. And to its +hopeless depths I must consider the probability of becoming +indentured to the family of some ghost who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span> +had sacrificed his fleshly part in bringing out “my” +hogs; that is, if I persisted in exploiting my claim.</p> + +<p>Snead dropped back and put an end to my list of +contingencies. His voice was intimately lowered and I +caught Sam’s eye following him furtively.</p> + +<p>“I hate to see a woman git the worst of it when she’s +tryin’ to be fair,” he began. “You’ve got a fine hog-claim, +an’ you ought to be gittin’ something out of it. +How many hogs hev the boys brought in fer ye this +year?”</p> + +<p>“This is the first time we’ve been after them.”</p> + +<p>“’Course, though, the boys hev been out more’n onct +amarkin’ shotes?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know about that.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I do, fer I’ve seen ’em.” He called to Sam. +“Sam, how many shotes did ye git marked that day I +seed ye out fer ’em?”</p> + +<p>Sam did not flinch under the attack. “We marked a +fine lot,” he said. “I don’t jest remember how many. I +been meanin’ to tell ye ’bout that, Mis’ Dolly, ’cause +you’ll be wantin’ to ’low us something fer the markin’. +It’s shore hard work. That wuz when you’s gone to +Hiwassee, an’ I fergot to tell ye when you come home. +I knowed you’d make it all right.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>“What’s it worth to mark hogs, Sam?”</p> + +<p>“It’s <i>worth</i> more’n ketchin’ ’em, ’cause we’ve got to +ketch ’em an’ mark ’em, an’ turn ’em loose. But we’re +goin’ to make it easier on you than that.”</p> + +<p>I exonerate Sam from any intention of charging me +for “turning them loose.” He was merely embellishing +his defense. But by a brief calculation I saw that if I +gave half the value of the hogs for catching and bringing +them in, and the other half, or a little less, for +marking the young, I would have to pursue my profit +with a microscope.</p> + +<p>Snead again took up his confidential tone. “I ain’t a +man fer makin’ trouble, an’ there ain’t anybody in a +hundred miles o’ me can swear I ever accused him o’ +sellin’ other folks’ hogs; but I wish you’d a gone by +Ham Copp’s next day an’ seed what he had in his pen. +I ain’t sayin’ what, an’ I never will say what, in court +er out, but I ’low you’d know yer own mark.”</p> + +<p>Sam and Len had hastily entered upon a subdued +conference of their own, and just then Sam called to +Snead.</p> + +<p>“Wha’d you say, Uncle Ag, ef we don’t he’p ye to-morr’, +an’ call it square about them shotes you ain’t +paid fer yit?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span>He was staggered, taken in the open, but rallied +jauntily.</p> + +<p>“All right, boys; jest as you say.”</p> + +<p>Sam turned to me. “We didn’t tell ye ’bout them +shotes Uncle Ag got, ’cause he was in sech a hole ’bout +payin’ fer ’em, an’ nacherly we didn’t want to worry +ye till we got it fixed. Now he gits our part o’ the +shotes fer he’ppin’ us to-day, an’ we’re willin’ to take +<i>yore</i> part fer the markin’ you owes us, an’ wait on +Uncle Ag fer it, seein’ we made sech a slow trade fer +ye.”</p> + +<p>By then I was in a position to foretell just the +amount of revenue that in all time to come I was going +to derive from my claim.</p> + +<p>“We don’t want to take any downright money from +ye, Mis’ Dolly,” explained Sam. “You’ve never been +hard on us, an’ we kain’t afford to be hard on <i>you</i>. An’ +by fixin’ it the way I said, ever’body’ll be satisfied, an’ +you won’t be out nothin’ but a few shotes.”</p> + +<p>“And a few shotes, Sam, don’t matter when I’ve got +the woods full of them.”</p> + +<p>“That’s what I wuz goin’ to say.”</p> + +<p>“A man with the woods full of hogs is in a pretty +good fix, isn’t he?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>“Jest about fat rich, Mis’ Dolly.”</p> + +<p>“Then you and Len are rich. The hog-claim is yours.”</p> + +<p>They thought it a joke at first, and I labored to +convince them; then they insisted on my keeping half +of it.</p> + +<p>“No, boys,” I persisted generously. “That would +mix up our calculations. As it is, you’ll know what +you’ve got, and I’ll know what I’ve got.”</p> + +<p>“You’re right about that,” said Sam.</p> + +<p>“I want to say, too, that this deal works backward. +If there’s anybody owing for hogs, the debt is yours, +and you needn’t ever bother me about it.”</p> + +<p>“An’ if any meddlin’ ol’ loafer comes tellin’ ye ’bout +seein’ hogs here, there, an’ yander, in other folks’ pens, +from time back,” said Sam, with the dignity of righteousness, +“it won’t be wuth a blue bean to him.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll send him to you and Len. It will be your affair, +not mine.”</p> + +<p>At that, Len came over to me. His face was serious +but glowing. “I knowed you’s white,” he said, “but I +didn’t know jest how white you wuz. Abe Siler’s beggin’ +me underhand to leave you an’ work on his place. Next +time he asts me, I’m goin’ to bust my knuckles on them +two big front teeth o’ hisn.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>Len, who was noted as a “clean-crop-man,” was the +most coveted tenant within three townships. I had +bought his loyalty cheap.</p> + +<p>Sam, of coarser but shrewder mind, spared me any +disconcerting gratitude. Before their early bedtime I +was to hear his comment to Coretta, who was shedding +grateful tears.</p> + +<p>“Aw, shet up, K’rettie. I reckon she’s got sense +enough to know that the woods full o’ hogs ain’t wuth +much to a woman.”</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">VII<br> + +<small>SERENA TAKES A BOARDER</small></h2> +</div> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p class="drop-cap">“BUT where do they sleep?” my “foreign” friends +would ask, with the impertinence of civilization, +whenever they returned from a call at the shack where +Len and Serena, after nightfall, compressed their spreading +family into two rooms and a loft.</p> + +<p>With a light answer I would callously shunt investigation. +“Oh, Serena tucks them away!”</p> + +<p>Rectitude, founded on bathtubs, with privacy at +one’s mere discretion, had lost its power over me during +the years in which I had hoped for a season sufficiently +free from disaster to enable me to add two +morally indispensable rooms to Len’s cabin; nevertheless +the desire hung like a vague compulsion in the +back of my mind, unaffected by the indifference of +Serena, who, oblivious to restriction, remained the smiling +magnet of her swarm.</p> + +<p>I did go so far as to give Len the lumber from an old +house which I had torn down with the luxurious intent +of lining my own cabin from the material. I found that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span> +it contained enough sound chestnut to provide an ample +kitchen for his house, and we spent a happy evening +making the plans. There was to be a big fireplace, built +by Uncle Ben Copp, an authority on chimney structure, +and plenty of “shevs,” about which Len was +enthusiastic, though Serena, innocent of industrial +vision, liquidly inquired: “Whatever’ll I put on ’em?”</p> + +<p>Len was to build the kitchen. He was untrained, but +not inapt, and rarely finished a job without a proud +touch of invention that gave him as much pleasure as +the pay he received. But, as the only member of his +family possessing the slightest energetic fire, “ever’ turn +was hisn,” and he was always two or three years in the +rear of his more ambitious intentions. The lumber made +a promising stack in the back yard, and occasionally +during the season that followed, Len would say to me: +“Reckon my work’ll ever let up so’s I can git at that +kitchen?”</p> + +<p>The pile gradually receded, very noticeably after a +few days of rainy weather, and by the end of the second +year it had withdrawn to invisibility. No one ever +spoke of the kitchen again, and I would have been the +last to mention it; but when the winter winds found +the crevices in my cabin and, with the gaiety of discoverers,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span> +attacked my spine, I thought longingly of my +lumber that had disappeared in Serena’s cook-stove; +and one day I had the pleasure of hearing Si Goforth +ask, as he passed through Len’s yard, whatever they’d +put their stack o’ chestnut into? Getting no answer +from a hurt and silent group, he added slyly: “A lumber +pile nigh the house is as bad as a rail fence; it sucks +itssef.”</p> + +<p>I never had the hardihood to probe into the sleeping +arrangements of Serena’s household; but I could see the +two beds in the room where they kept a fire, sat and +talked, picked the banjo and received their company. +I knew there were beds in the loft for the boys, and +that granpap placed his own there when he chose to +live with Len and exchange, for a time, Coretta’s fidgety +ambition for the cheery fatalism of Serena. There +was no bed in the room where they cooked and ate, +but this was for lack of space only. The necessarily +long table, benches, and chairs devoured any vacancy +left by the cook-stove, cupboard, and water-shelf. +From chance remarks I gathered that if visitors were +men-folks they ascended to the loft; if women, Len +went above, leaving the guests below with Serena and +the girls. There were “ticks” which could be placed on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span> +the floor when the beds overflowed, as they did quite +frequently. Just where they were put was something to +wonder over, but I kept the whole matter in a sort of +kindly murk, waiting the day when I should be able to +act with deference due to an articulate conscience.</p> + +<p>Because of Serena’s apathy toward gardening, canning, +drying, and preserving, and her persistent habit +of letting the children “run along and milk,” the family +diet through the greater part of the year was without +surprise or adventure. Corn bread, coffee, fried meat, +’taters, and ’lasses satisfied hunger, with no concessions +to either infancy or age. Let me not forget pickled +beans. That dish was a mainstay for babe and man. +But notwithstanding the depressing fare, there was always +company at Len’s. Constant good humor and unflagging +welcome made for an open house. “Stay with +us,” Len would say, and add the mountain jargon, +which in this case was almost literally true: “We can +give you plenty o’ spring water, pickled beans, an’ satisfaction.”</p> + +<p>Sometimes I tried a carefully padded remonstrance, +such as: “Don’t you think it is too hard on Serena to +have so much company?”</p> + +<p>“Reenie don’t bother hersef. They take what comes.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>“With so many children, Len, you’ll kill yourself +soon enough without providing for others.”</p> + +<p>“You kain’t call what I give ’em providin’. I tell +Reenie to hand ’em out some salt an’ let ’em pick +’round the yard.” And with his laughter filling the air, +he would rush off to whichever of his many jobs was +driving him the hardest.</p> + +<p>My approaches to Serena were alike futile. I have +good reason to remember the last one, which took place +on my front porch one Sunday morning.</p> + +<p>“We’re bound to take keer o’ the Madison folks +when they come out,” she said, in response to a tentative +protest from me. “The Merlins used to live back +there, an’ so did all o’ my folks.”</p> + +<p>“But Len isn’t the only Merlin around here.”</p> + +<p>“He’s the one they think the most of anyhow,” she +returned proudly.</p> + +<p>“They’re not all from Madison. What about the +people from over the ridge?”</p> + +<p>“As to them, Mis’ Dolly, you know as well as I do +that we’re up here half-way ’twixt all o’ Nighthawk +settlement an’ the stores an’ post-office down at Beebread. +When them folks git on top o’ the mountain, +goin’ er comin’, they’ve got to set an’ rest. Ef it’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span> +dinner-time, of course I lay ’em a plate, an’ ef it’s +leanin’ toward night you wouldn’t want me not to ast +’em to stay. A barn cat would be civiller than that an’ +let ’em sleep in the hay.”</p> + +<p>“There are other houses on the ridge, Serena.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, here’s yorn right here, but you’re livin’ by +yersef an’ company makes trouble. I’ve got sech a big +fam’ly I don’t notice it when a few more drap in. +Lots o’ times,” she continued, in an attempt to save +my feelings and underrate her own popularity, “they +say to me let’s go round to yore house, an’ I know +you’re busy, so I tell ’em we’ll go after we set a bit. +Then I wait till it’s too late to come over. ’Tain’t because +they don’t like you, an’ don’t you git to thinkin’ +it.”</p> + +<p>I had understood that Serena always interpreted me +favorably to the community, but I had not realized +until that moment how much I owed to her sense of +proprietorship in me and my affairs. More eager than +ever to reciprocate, I pursued the argument.</p> + +<p>“You haven’t explained Sunday. Very likely you’ll +have to cook dinner for half a dozen people to-day, +besides your own family.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sort o’ expectin’ it. Some young folks told<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span> +Lonie and Ben they’s comin’ up to-day. You’re always +sayin’ let the childern have a good time, an’ I reckon +you wouldn’t want me to shet off Sunday. There +wouldn’t be much left fer ’em.”</p> + +<p>She knew I would find this unanswerable, and thus +encouraged entered on doubtful ground.</p> + +<p>“Har’et Drake said maybe she’d come too, with her +man an’ the young-uns. She said they’d take dinner +with you er me, one er t’other.”</p> + +<p>“With me?”</p> + +<p>“Har’et thinks a heap o’ you, but maybe she’ll stay +at my house. I knowed her out in Madison.”</p> + +<p>My eyes sought their familiar refuge, the horizon, +and even as my glance swept the hill it fell upon Mrs. +Drake, her man, and the five children in undeviating +approach. Serena’s eyes followed mine.</p> + +<p>“Looks like they’re comin’ here,” she said. “They’ll +git a better dinner anyway. I ain’t got what I ought to +hev fer anybody that’ll climb all the way up here jest +a-neighborin’.”</p> + +<p>I gave the guests a welcome which I hope did not +reveal a daunted heart. There was still a chance that +they would go with Serena, and my day of sun and +solitude be restored to me. The Madison influence<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span> +might prevail. Unexpectedly I found myself blessing +that contemned affiliation.</p> + +<p>When Serena rose to go she proved to be the preferred +hostess. Mr. Drake had brought a banana muskmelon +from home, which he left with me in gentle propitiation +for his desertion; and as the family accompanied +Serena around the curving road I may have +had a slight feeling of humiliation but no sense of injury. +I knew that as an entertainer I could not compete +with Len and Serena. They were reservoirs of +mountain song and story, and their lingual flow never +permitted a conversational vacuum. No wonder that I +was passed by.</p> + +<p>Serena undulated from my sight, but left illumination +behind her. In a whirl of emotion I went to my +smoke-house and took down from my store as much as +I could carry in a generous basket, and, taking a back +trail, brought the stuff to Serena’s kitchen door while +her guests were “chowing” with Len on the front +porch.</p> + +<p>“The gardens haven’t come in yet,” I apologized, +when Serena appeared at the door, “and I was afraid +your canned stuff had given out.”</p> + +<p>It was always out by Christmas, and this was April.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>“Yes,” said Serena, “it’s jest about gone. An’, I declare, +I was out o’ sugar an’ lard too! I’ll shore pay +you back.”</p> + +<p>“Never mind that. The Drakes don’t get up here +often. I want you to set them a good dinner.”</p> + +<p>“I told Len,” she said, with a touch of triumph, +“that he’d got it all wrong ’bout you not wantin’ us +to have so much company. I told him you’s as free-hearted +as ef you’s born in the mountains.”</p> + +<p>With humbled step I turned into the trail home, and +never again offered any admonitions against excessive +hospitality.</p> + +<p>Through the spring and summer I continued to make +apologetic contributions to Serena’s table, glad in this +way to lessen any debt of festivity that I owed the +community. A more trustful spirit seemed to reign on +the mountain, and there was a happy impetus toward +no one cared what. All might have gone well for a much +longer period if, toward the end of the summer, I had +not become too deeply concerned over the emaciated +appearance of little Ross, and the fact that Len, long +overburdened, showed signs of failing health, apparently +evident to none but me. An encounter with Serena +brought my feelings to the surface. She came in one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span> +day to tell me of an incident that had amused her “past +common.”</p> + +<p>But here I should explain that Serena insisted on +“raising” ducks every year. I had striven in vain to +induce her to transfer her love from the unprofitable +duck to the remunerative hen. Ducks amused her, and +at first I shared her pleasure when she took me to see +a brood that had just “broke through.” A nestful of +chickens is tame in comparison with ducklings that +seduce the eye with their deeper, ineffable downiness +and their constant vibratory motions that seem to +annex the air to their twinkling contour. As they grow +older the entertainment deepens. The rôle of parent, +for good reasons, is enacted always by a hen, and she +will soon learn to wander unconcernedly on the bank +while her charges are diving and paddling in the water, +but it is another matter when, a little after sundown, +she attempts to hover ducklings that are determined to +straggle about until after dark. The desperate mother +wears herself out clucking, squawking, and spluttering +as she tries to prevail upon the rebels to change their +nature and go to sleep. Sometimes they impishly gather +under her and are quiet for a moment, then as soon as +the hen is in a merciful doze, out they come. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span> +morning also has its drama, for the ducklings are awake +and ready to run about before daylight, while the hen +is still longing for sleep. Throughout the day she will +droop from weariness and distractedly revive to pursue +her duty unthanked and derided.</p> + +<p>As time passed, Serena’s ducklings remained out +later, and finally would stroll home, drabbled and noisy, +around nine o’clock. In the early morning one might +see the hen roaming disconsolately without an offspring +to cheer her, all of her brood being far in the woods +searching the little streams and wet banks for the food +ancestrally beloved. Their number lessened as wild +creatures devoured them. Even dogs considered them +rightfully their own, if found far from the barnyard, +and by the end of the summer Serena would be as +duckless as at its beginning, but she had had many a +pleasant, shady jaunt in search of them “outdoin’est +things.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll try again,” she would say. “Duck-feathers +make sech good pillers.” But she never got a feather.</p> + +<p>On the day I have mentioned, she rippled in and +said: “You know I set that gray hen on duck-eggs +again.”</p> + +<p>“So late in the year? Of course you’ll lose them.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span>“I’d lose ’em anyway,” she said, surrendering fundamental +ground for temporary defense. “An’ I want to +tell you ’bout that hen. You know what an awful time +that first set give her this summer. They wuz the head-longest +bunch I’ve ever had, an’ they kept her about +crazy. I wouldn’t hev set her again ef there’d been +another hen ready. I felt sorry fer the pore thing. To-day +it wuz time fer her to come off an’ I went to the +nest to see about her. I didn’t hear no yeepin’ an’ I +stood around fer a good spell. All at onct there come a +‘yeep’ like a slit—you know how different a duck’s +‘yeep’ is from a chicken’s—an’ when that hen heard +it she jumped off the nest an’ flew fer a smart stretch +a-squawkin’ like she wuz skeered crazy, an’ run up the +hill out o’ sight, an’ I ain’t seen her sence she took off. +‘Yeep,’ an’ she’s gone! She’d been showed, that gray +hen had.”</p> + +<p>“Serena,” I said, determined upon judgment, and refusing +to smile more than once, “it is time for you to +quit fooling with ducks. There are so many things you +could be doing.”</p> + +<p>“What things?”</p> + +<p>“Your spring needs cleaning out. It is full of rotting +leaves.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span>“Yes, I’ve been wishin’ Len could git time fer that.”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you do it yourself?”</p> + +<p>“It ’ud ruin a spring fer a woman to clean it out.”</p> + +<p>“It was a very lazy woman who started that superstition, +Serena. I clean my spring all the time.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, an’ it ain’t what it used to be. I’ve been noticin’ +that. It’s druggy.”</p> + +<p>“Because the fine roots of that big maple have +reached it. I’ll have Len take that tree out as soon as +he gets time.”</p> + +<p>“Looks like he gets busier ’n busier.”</p> + +<p>“Of course, when the children are getting bigger and +bigger and are not doing their share of the work. Len +is killing himself trying to bring in enough for ten.”</p> + +<p>“The boys don’t take after their poppie. An’ if they +did, it wouldn’t keep him from workin’ as hard as he +could anyhow. I do all I can fer him.”</p> + +<p>“You could give him better food.”</p> + +<p>“Ain’t beans good?”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t you notice yesterday that Len left the table +without eating a single bean? He was hot and tired—and +<i>pickled</i> beans! He drank a lot of coffee and ate +two bites of yellow bread. Then he went to the field to +work until night.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span>“I ain’t ever heard him complain.”</p> + +<p>“You never will. He’ll die believing you are the only +woman on earth.”</p> + +<p>“He ain’t goin’ to die.”</p> + +<p>“No. You are going to quit living out of a lard can, +a coffee bucket, and a pickle barrel.”</p> + +<p>She was crying a little. “I ain’t got cans fer puttin’ +up stuff,” she said.</p> + +<p>“I’ll look out for the cans, Serena. You know you +can work. I’ve seen you.”</p> + +<p>“But I kain’t keep it up.”</p> + +<p>She knew her weakness. Work one day and rest six +was her version of the great example.</p> + +<p>“Lonie will help you, and the boys. Len will plough +and harrow all the good land you want for gardens and +patches. We’ll put in a fall garden too, and have all +kinds of green things through the winter—spinach, +lettuce, collards, turnip-tops, celery—besides the +keepers, parsnips, carrots, salsify, sweet potatoes put +up in sand—<i>and</i> beans!”</p> + +<p>I rushed on, with plans undigested but dazzling, and +her few tears dried in shining twinkles. “I’ll try,” she +said, “if you’ll keep right after me.” I smiled too, and +she started home.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span>“I wonder where that gray hen is by now,” she +turned to say. “Ef you’d seen her when that duck-diddly +yeeped, you’d be laffin’ yet.”</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Serena tried. Her lifelong acceptance of things as +they happened had kept her unaware of the complexities +of an occupation made up of a jumble of industries, +as farm life must ever be until the ferment of +organization begins to heave effectively in the mind of +the last individual, the man on the land. But she was +favored by nature with a good brain, and began to be +pleased when she found that it would work.</p> + +<p>A neighbor made a dress for Lonie and the product +was so hopeless a bungle that Serena, perforce, had to +attempt remaking it. With no help from me except the +initial urge, a trifle imperious, perhaps, she got at it, and +the result was so charming that I asked in surprise why +she had taken it to Mrs. Hite.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t feel like foolin’ with it.”</p> + +<p>“But you see you did have to fool with it. And you +had to wash for Mrs. Hite in exchange for the sewing.”</p> + +<p>“Washin’s easy if I’m feelin’ good. It kinder bothers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span> +my head cuttin’ an’ sewin’. But Lonie is takin’ on so +about that dress, I reckon I’ll have to mess with her +clo’s from now on.”</p> + +<p>“No, teach her to make them herself.”</p> + +<p>“Lord-a-mercy, she’ll have to pick it up like I did. +Don’t you git to pushin’ me, Mis’ Dolly, an’ maybe +I’ll make it through like you want me to.”</p> + +<p>She had the same success with the boys’ shirts. They +had been accustomed to one sleazy shirt for Sundays +and rags for work-days. Now, released from the commercially +constant grays and drab blues of the cheaper +ready-mades, they could, for the same money, buy +material for two and have the thrill of selecting from +an assortment of specks and stripes and colors of their +heart. One Sunday when Len and Serena halted by my +doorstep on their way to “preachin’ over the ridge,” I +noticed that Len was uplifted by a modest lavender +stripe. “I’ve been wearin’ them ol’ dingy shirts to +meetin’ fer twenty years, an’, Lord, I’m sick of ’em,” +he said, with a proud eye on Serena, the worker of +miracles.</p> + +<p>No more time was spent in following an ever-dwindling +flock of ducks. Serena and I, with the help of Ned, +patched the cover of an old building, treated it with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span> +mite-proof whitewash, and with planks and clean straw +made nests irresistible to any hen worthy of her keep. +For the diddlies, we carried strips from an old sawmill +and made coops which we could set about in sunny +places. And Len sowed an acre of rye for green winter +picking; also a “skiver of wheat” which was to be all +Serena’s, as a basis for “feed,” but I suspected that +the hens would anticipate that harvest—and they did.</p> + +<p>In the spring, over at Len’s, a bountiful garden was +in the ground early. It had been my onerous but measurably +happy custom, if my intermittent journeying +permitted, to cultivate a garden for my own needs, +the surplus going, as kisses do, by favor, which meant +that Serena had her share. But now—could I not buy +of <i>her</i>? I had derived from my gardens a savory pleasure, +superior and cryptic, but with ever-growing rebellion +I realized that my method was the method of +the spendthrift instead of the canny reckoner.</p> + +<p>Take, if it please you, the most responsive of plants, +lettuce. Consider its history from its origin in a seed +catalogue (carefully conned instead of that haunting, +unopened book of essays) to its final surrender on your +dining-table, gold-white in its depths, and crackling +crisp from an earthen jar set in your clear, cold spring.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span> +Think, if the nuances of appetite permit, of the digging, +the fertilizing, and the pulverizing of the soil, the preparation +of new beds for transplanting, the transplanting +itself at the time most propitious for the product, +however inopportune for you, the guarding against +heat, against cold, against drouth, against beating rain, +the covering, the uncovering, and the rising early at +last to uproot it with the night cool in its heart; all +demanding a thousand thoughts and movements before +its æsthetic finality can complete your dinner +scheme and perish, it may be, under a tooth indifferently +devouring mere lettuce. And so with those tender, +early limas. So too, and a little more, with that +dish of creamed something. And if your nucleus is +broiled chicken, as it must often be, the alternative +being some form of hog—chicken brought up from the +egg under your proprietary eye; if your periphery include +blueberries that did not fall of themselves from +the ridge on the peak to ennoble your meal; and if the +cream is the velvety sequence of a wet and weedy +climb to the top of the pasture in pursuit of a thankless +cow, pampered from your own corn-crib, that +merely lifts her head and watches your stumbling, bedrabbled +arrival to the last inch; the thought of being<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span> +able to “buy from Serena” will be a warm and driving +glow in your heart. For such an end I, prudent at last, +was willing to forego any mystic succulence to be secured +from the participation of this my hand in the +birth and growth of my edibles.</p> + +<p>The injustice of letting the burden fall to Serena did +not trouble me. She had a family to save, I had none. +With her it was duty; with me it was an interruption of +duty. But if my reasoning <i>was</i> fallacious, if my aim was +besmirched with selfishness, if my intended liberality +as to prices was only the bare gesture of reciprocity, I +was ready to say, so be it. I was under the spell of that +most alluring of hopes, the hope of combining the simplicities +of nature, the abandon of the wilderness, the +austere ecstasy of solitude, with the flowing market of +the city voluptuary.</p> + +<p>And so there was a bountiful garden at Len’s. It required +tact amounting to technic to get all of the +family help necessary in its preparation, and when +finally it shot up with its promise of abundance, I +felt that I had perspiringly insinuated it into and out +of the ground. However, there it was, and the summer +passed, leaving us affluent with the plunder we had +wrung from it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>But happiness had fled the mountain. Slowly, reluctantly, +in my contact with the family, I became aware +of the desertion—even felt it in my own denuded +days. Formerly I had accepted Serena’s occasional +help, knowing so well that I was not withdrawing her +from imperative tasks at home. Now that was changed, +and with a vengeance that demanded more than a reversal +of favors. My time was never my own, calculated +and indubitable. Daily it became more difficult to comfort +myself with thoughts of “next year” when Serena’s +reformation would be thorough and her work so adjusted +that she at least would have time to run over +to my cabin and remove the ashes from my big fireplace. +I could never take out those relentlessly accumulating +ashes without a protest to the stony gods; while +Serena had often declared that she enjoyed doing it. +“It makes the place look so clean and purty,” she +would say, and go at the work with the heart of an +artist. My thoughts began to linger tenderly on the +days that were gone, days adorned with a dilatory, +unprovident, laughter-loving Serena, who could always +find time to take out my ashes.</p> + +<p>I recalled that she had had a special gift of service +for each of us, and began to see in that the secret of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span> +her power. Ben cared for nothing so much as to have +his one pair of trousers pressed for Sunday morning, +when overalls were cast aside and he arrayed himself +for courtship. Serena, unfailingly in the old days, had +made this her Saturday-night job. Len could strain +contentedly through the longest day of work if Serena +would sit down after supper to hear his tale of it, +and his plan for to-morrow; and it was her habit to +take her seat by his side as soon as he had left the +table and cut off his “chaw” of tobacco. If the children +washed the dishes, very well. If they didn’t, or +wouldn’t, cleaning up was deferred until morning, +without protest or friction. Lonie loved music, and +Serena not only traded her pet pig for a banjo, she +never interrupted her daughter’s strumming, giving it +an importance above any urgency of the moment, such +as bringing water when the kettle was sizzling dry, +rescuing a line of clothes from an advancing shower, or +pulling a toddler from the bank of the stream that ran +through the yard. Such minor duties Serena unhesitatingly +assumed if Lonie happened to be lolling on the +bed, her eyes on the ceiling, and her banjo on her +stomach, while she drew out the chords to accompany +such highland classics as</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="first">“Richard courted Mandy,</div> +<div class="verse">And he come to court me.</div> +<div class="verse">Boy, on your pallet</div> +<div class="verse">There’s no room for three.”</div> +</div></div> + +<p>For her own pleasure, Serena demanded a neat appearance. +Others might sling their rags and wear caked +overalls, but a trim garb was her unquestioned privilege. +Of late it seemed to me that the imp of untidiness +had more than one finger upon her. That certainly +meant unhappiness for herself. Then what did it indicate +for the others? Their special right, too, was ignored, +along with my fireplace.</p> + +<p>But what began to give me real anxiety was the +change in Serena’s expression and bearing. She was +showing a network of fine wrinkles on her forehead, +and beginning to walk with a slight, straining stoop, +akin to Len’s—a stoop that had begun to reproach +me in my dreams.</p> + +<p>I was pondering all this one morning when I heard +the chirp of Aunt Janey Stiles. “Why’n’t you go to +preachin’ to-day? You’ve got a meetin’-house face on +ye.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Aunt Janey! Did you stay on the mountain +last night?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span>“Yes, I wuz so tired when I pulled up from Beebread +yisterday that I stopped at Reenie’s an’ slept there. I +ain’t goin’ to do it agin though.”</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter, Aunt Janey?”</p> + +<p>“The devil, I reckon. When I woke up this mornin’ +I thinks fer a minute I’m at Dan Goforth’s, where the +roarin’s as steady as the wind in Peach Tree Gap. I +couldn’t b’lieve I’s at Reenie’s. They all slept late, +’cause it’s Sunday, an’ Ben got up an’ built a fire. Then +he kept tryin’ to git his mother up, ’cause she hadn’t +pressed his pants the night before, an’ he wuz aimin’ +to go to meetin’ on Nighthawk. He kept stompin’ +around, and jerkin’ the cheers about, and then he +begun to swear. Right then Len bounces out o’ bed. +Maybe he wuz sleepy er something, an’ didn’t understand +it, but anyway he jumps up when Ben begins +swearin’, an’ takes up a cheer an’ runs him out o’ the +house with it, an’ him ’thout shoes on an’ hit frosty.”</p> + +<p>“Len didn’t do that!”</p> + +<p>“I ain’t <i>astin’</i> you to believe it.”</p> + +<p>“But he’s foolish about Ben.”</p> + +<p>“He’s a sight bigger fool about Reenie though, an’ +I reckon maybe he thought Ben wuz cussin’ at her.”</p> + +<p>“Aunt Janey, this is terrible!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span>“I thought I’d drap by an’ tell ye. I felt like you +ought to know there’s something spilin’ the peaceablest +family in the settlement, and you’d better find +out what it is.”</p> + +<p>Aunt Janey went off, leaving me to unhappy reflections. +Toward night I had a visit from Len. Of old it +had been his habit to call out some witty greeting +as he approached, but now his appearance was pathos +unrelieved. He took a chair and began to talk of far-off +matters, but I refused to be led around Robin Hood’s +barn, and hurried him, slightly bewildered, to the object +of his visit.</p> + +<p>“We wuz gittin’ along all right,” he said, “till Reenie +began to want ’tater patches in the moon.”</p> + +<p>“You are getting along all right now, Len. Isn’t that +old store debt nearly paid, that you used to say kept +you awake nights?”</p> + +<p>“Ay, that’s quit brogin’ round my bed, but I don’t +mean things like that. I mean they ain’t any satisfaction +in livin’. It’s been nigh three weeks sence Reenie +set down by me an’ kept still long enough fer me to tie +the first word to the next one. She’s cleanin’ up, er +churnin’, er gittin’ the childern’s clo’s fixed fer school, +er clearin’ something er other out o’ the way so she can<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span> +put in a full day to-morr’, she says, like next day +wouldn’t have any hours at all. She don’t hardly take +time to nuss little Ross, an’ him lookin’ like he ain’t +goin’ to be here another year.”</p> + +<p>“You’re looking better yourself, Len. You weigh +more, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I know we’ve got more to eat an’ to put on, +but I’d ruther wear a feller an’ a wench, an’ set down +to corn bread an’ coffee, an’ see some satisfaction. +Lonie slips out with her banjo an’ goes to Bob Ellis’s, +an’ that boy o’ Bob’s ain’t fit company fer my girl. +It’ll come to something bad shore. An’ Ben is cuttin’ +up like he’s goin’ to marry that no-’count girl o’ Jem +Ray’s. It’ll be a sorry day fer Reenie ef he brings that +thing in. Reenie’s worried to the bone, an’ coughs haf +the night so she kain’t sleep. I don’t want her to be +like Dan Goforth’s wife, a-strainin’ up hill and down, +pickin’ strawberries, an’ blackberries, an’ buckberries, +an’ dryin’ fruit, an’ cannin’ peaches, an’ runnin’ after +chickens, an’ if ever she sets down a minute he says: +‘Nancy, looks like ye’d take better keer o’ that something +er other, an’ me workin’ so hard to keep the +fam’ly off the county,’ an’ she ups an’ goes at it agin. +Her pore little hands, you could see to read through<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span> +’em, an’ she’s so scant you could put her in a matchbox +mighty nigh, an’ hit full. I don’t want Reenie to +git thataway. When I married her I didn’t count on +gittin’ much help. I knowed she wuz like her father, +Uncle Lish Bates, out in Madison. He wuzn’t a workin’ +man by natur. Six hundred acres o’ land wuz what he +owned, an’ when one o’ his fields got wore out he would +pick out the richest piece on the place, where the big +timber growed, an’ cut a dead-ring around the oaks an’ +chestnuts an’ poplars, an’ next year when they’s dead +he’d chop out a hole in ’em an’ set fire in the hole, an’ +it ’ud never go out till the tree wuz burnt up, less’n it +rained, so he didn’t have clearin’ to do, only pilin’ +brush. In the winter he’d go out an’ git him a big bunch +o’ wood an’ bring it in an’ stack it up in the corner, +high as he could. Then he’d make a big fire an’ set an’ +tell the masterest tales so long as they wuz anybody +to drap in an’ listen, an’ when they wuzn’t he’d jest +set an’ sing. He couldn’t read a book-word, but he +knowed ever’ song from Noher down. Nothin’ ever +made him mad, an’ he wuz so clever round his house +that folks said ef the devil wuz to come along, Uncle +Lish would set him a bite an’ sing him a song, then +tell him the way to the next place. I thought I wuz<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span> +gittin’ something like that when I married Reenie. I +knowed I could work hard enough fer both of us, an’ +ef I wanted to do it I wuz my own fool an’ nobody +else’s. But here’s Reenie goin’ against her own sef, +seems like, an’ so different I’m about to fergit where I +live. I want you to go an’ talk to her, Mis’ Dolly. +That’s what I’ve come fer. She’ll listen to what you +say.”</p> + +<p>“Hadn’t you better talk to her yourself, Len?” I +asked, feeling appropriately uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>“She might snap me up. She’s never done that in +her life, an’ ef she did, I’d never fergit it. I ain’t goin’ +to resk it. If I kain’t live peaceable with my own wife, +we’ll bust the quilt right now an’ quit.”</p> + +<p>He knew, of course, the part I had played in the +change that afflicted Serena, but in his eyes, pleading +so humbly for her restoration, there was no reproachful +sign. I made him no promise further than agreeing +to talk with her next day, but that was enough to send +him home in a hopeful mood. Something had to be +done, but it was not yet my intention to advise Serena +to abandon her industrious course. A way of adjustment +must be found. Contentment ought, and surely +would, follow thrift.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span>It was nearly sundown the next day before I could +feel ready for the promised talk. I found Serena sitting +in her kitchen, flapping a straw hat to cool her reddened +forehead, though we were well into autumn. A +bucket of wild gooseberries was on the floor by her +chair. She had just come from Three Pine Ridge, +she explained. The gooseberries were very thick up +there.</p> + +<p>“Didn’t you get tired, Serena, with such a climb?”</p> + +<p>“Tired wuzn’t nothin’. I reckon the ground hurt fer +fifteen feet around me. An’, Mis’ Dolly, I’ve quit.”</p> + +<p>There was a brief silence between us, then she entered +upon her defense.</p> + +<p>“’Tain’t no use fer you to say you’ll hep me any +more’n you do now, ’cause you kain’t. Len said last +night it looked like you wuz gittin’ sort o’ keen an’ +sharp-natered, an’ I told him it was on account o’ you +runnin’ over here so much, an’ me no time to go to +yore house an’ hep ye out in a pinch. He said he’d a +lot ruther I wouldn’t do so much at home an’ hep you +a little, ef that wuz what it took to keep you easy. But +it looks like from the time I begin in the mornin’ to git +the childern off to school——”</p> + +<p>“And how well they are doing, Serena! The teacher<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span> +has been telling me. They look so happy in their new +clothes, and Lissie and Tom are getting fat too.”</p> + +<p>She took no notice of my trivial interpolation.</p> + +<p>“An’ find all their caps an’ ’boggins an’ fix their dinner +to carry, an’ something always to be mended ’fore +they can start, and the cows waitin’ to be milked, an’ +you tellin’ me to milk ’em on the stroke o’ the clock, +the same time ever’ day——”</p> + +<p>“And you’ve been having plenty of milk and butter. +That’s a triumph, Serena, in a big family like yours.”</p> + +<p>“An’ ever’ dish an’ pot to be washed, an’ the house +to redd up, all before I can <i>begin</i> a day’s work, an’ +Lonie a-sulkin’ ’cause I want her to take holt o’ the +sewin’ while I’m puttin’ up stuff, an’ Ben, he used to +think there wuzn’t nobody but me—” Here her voice +shook slightly and she tacked about rebelliously. “But +I ain’t keerin’ what they all think, I’m goin’ by my +<i>own</i> feelin’s. An’ I’ve quit. I come to it up there in the +late roas’in’-year patch. I went by there as I come from +the ridge with this big bucket o’ gooseberries, which +was heavy enough without a pile o’ roas’in’ years in +my apern, but you said I must git another big mess +’fore the frost struck ’em heavy, an’ that field was plum +full o’ pack-saddlers. One stung me ever’ time I laid my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span> +hand on a roas’in’ year. Hit hurts worse’n a hornet fer +a minute, an’ it’s harder on a body’s temper than a +hornet is. Hit makes you feel bad all over an’ inside +too. An’ this mornin’ I put on them sandals you give +me to easy my feet, an’ by four o’clock they had me +broke off at the ankles. I reckon my feet take a different +kind o’ easin’ from yorn. An’ here’s these gooseberries +got to be legged ’fore I can git supper, so’s I can cook +’em while I’m bakin’ bread, an’ save stove-wood. Ben is +rearin’ an’ pitchin’ all the time now ’bout me usin’ so +much wood, an’ leavin’ me to git it mysef haf the time. +I’m so tired I know I ain’t goin’ to sleep none to-night.” +Then, with a desolation in her voice that made my +eyes suddenly hot, she added: “My sleep is all I git.”</p> + +<p>I was stricken silent, and she began again. “They’re +goin’ to bury Uncle Nathe Ponder to-morr’, an’——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Serena, is Mr. Ponder dead?”</p> + +<p>“He died a Saturday. The Freemasons are comin’ +out from Carson to bury him proper, an’ here I am tied +up with fixin’ things to eat next winter! I ain’t had a +chance to look inter the door at Uncle Nathe’s, an’ +him been sick three months.”</p> + +<p>“He was a good man, by all accounts.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I wonder why the Lord didn’t take shif’less ol’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span> +Med Pace ’stead of a good man like Uncle Nathe, but +I reckon He don’t want <i>all</i> the culls. ’Course Uncle +Nathe had his way ’bout most things, but he was shore +a good man. Never was a widder that couldn’t go to +his mill an’ git a bushel o’ meal when she didn’t know +where else to go. They got to callin’ the bottom o’ the +meal-sack ‘Uncle Nathe,’ round in Silver Valley where +he lived. When the meal was out they’d say: ‘We’re +gittin’ down to Uncle Nathe.’ The Freemasons ought to +give him a proper funeral ef they’d give it to anybody. +Len says Arn Weaver wants to take a load o’ folks in +his car, ef it don’t rain. Ef it rains he kain’t git over +Red Hog Gap. I’ve never stept inter a car, an’ it would +put heart inter me to git to go. I didn’t even see the +baptizin’ on Nighthawk when they’s fifteen hit the +water. An’ there’s Sis Long’s baby I ain’t ever looked +at. It’s the first one she’s had in three year an’ they’re +all so proud they’re buttin’ stumps about it. Hit don’t +seem right to lay sech store by eatin’. Ef we ain’t got +time fer dyin’ an’ bein’ born, what <i>hev</i> we got time +fer?”</p> + +<p>“Serena, how big is that car of Arnold Weaver’s?”</p> + +<p>“It’ll hold seven scrouged in the seats, an’ you can +pack in as many young-uns as you want to.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span>“I don’t suppose you could get the children ready +to go to the funeral to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“No, I’d have to wash their clo’s all around, an’ do +some mendin’. I couldn’t git ’em ready if I stayed up +all night.”</p> + +<p>“When Len comes in I want you to tell him to get +word to Arn that we’ll go in his car to-morrow. We’ll +leave Ben with the children and take Lonie with us.”</p> + +<p>“You kain’t git Len to stop fodder-pullin’. He never +done that in his life. Him an’ Sam ain’t brothers when +it comes to takin’ fodder.”</p> + +<p>“He’ll stop, Serena.”</p> + +<p>Her eyes were like great jewels. “Them gooseberries’ll +sour ’fore I git back.” But, as if afraid that I would +take second thought, she appended hastily: “I don’t +think much o’ gooseberries anyway. They’ll look about +as good to me a-spilin’ as a-keepin’.”</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>We went to the funeral, and Serena and I remained +in Silver Valley for a day and night, the guests of +Aunt Lizy Haynes. When we returned it was the old +Serena who came home. The factitious disguise of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span> +past twelve months had dropped utterly away. She +assumed my acquiescence, and received it. Her utmost +effort had been given, and my way had proved a failure. +Therefore her own was better, and she returned to +it with conscientious abandon. Her silence, in regard to +her long, faithful struggle, grew, I think, out of her +gentle pity for my defeat. Possibly she loved me more, +but that was the crowning seal of my descent, marking +the fall of authority. With time and tact and no +mistakes I might again give oracular advice, but for +the present my “mouth was growed up.”</p> + +<p>Serena’s floor was not scrubbed, but my fireplace +was neat once more, and my house shone with her +occasional presence. Ben returned to week-day rags, +but his Sunday trousers were always ready. Lonie +lolled at home and picked the banjo, lazy indeed, but +a vestal in no danger of perjure. Len found “satisfaction,” +with Serena’s chair touching his in the firelight. +He would grow thin again on coffee and untasted +beans, but his smile would endure. Little Ross was +happy with his mother’s arms waiting at any time. +Of all the children he was the one that showed no improvement +during Serena’s period of reformation. He +might die of malnutrition, but tragedy—is it not the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span> +commonplace of life? And happiness the rare fortune? +I questioned Serena for the hundredth time about the +boy’s diet. Oh, yes, he was eating eggs right along. But +this time I was not satisfied with a meagre affirmative.</p> + +<p>“How many does he eat?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t keep no count. He goes to the nest when he +hears a hen cackle. You told me the fresher they was +the better they was, an’ I told him he could have ’em +soon as they’s laid. He brings ’em in, gits him a spoon +o’ grease, an’ cleans the ashes off the fire-shovel an’ +cooks ’em on it right then.”</p> + +<p>“But he can’t get them soft that way.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, he kain’t eat ’em soft like you showed me how +to fix ’em, jelly all through. They make him sick thataway. +I thought it wuz better fer him to eat a hard egg +than no egg at all. He cooks ’em till they couldn’t be +no harder ’thout burnin’ up. An’ he takes enough of +’em. I kain’t look around, seems like, ’thout seein’ him +cookin’ one. He’s drinkin’ milk, too, only he ain’t had +none sence yisterday ’cause we’ve been out o’ coffee, +barrin’ the grounds I boiled over fer Len.”</p> + +<p>“What has coffee to do with it?”</p> + +<p>“He kain’t take milk less’n it’s about haf coffee. He +learned to drink coffee when he was a baby, an’ he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span> +won’t take milk at all ef I don’t mix it up good with +coffee. Then he’ll drink a lot of it. Yes, he takes plenty +milk an’ eggs, but I kain’t see its heppin’ him a bit. He +rolls about all night, an’ talks in his sleep, an’ gits up +a-frettin’ till we kain’t stand him. I have to take him on +my lap an’ nuss him like a baby ’fore he’ll quiet down. +Len’s always sayin’, ‘Reenie, fer the Lord’s sake, take +the pore little feller,’ an’ as soon as he gits on my lap +he thinks he’s all right. An’ him ten year old. Ef the +big uns git to be babies again I don’t know what I’m +goin’ to do. I kain’t git on with my work a-settin’ backside +to it all the time.”</p> + +<p>But no one could smile in Serena’s heavenly way and +at the same time be sincerely pining to get on with +her work.</p> + +<p>During her frictionally industrious year, the stream +of company had somewhat lessened, but within a month +after her return to the old smiling status it had resumed +its normal flow. As time passed, the family larder was +heavily, though genially, touched. The children’s winter +store of “balanced rations” melted away in hospitable +warmth, the cows dribbled their milk uncertainly, +and if butter appeared on the breakfast-table, the small +saucer was much augmented by a big bowl of gravy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span> +made of half-cooked flour and grease, which at least was +“filling”; and so long as the holiday atmosphere prevailed, +every one, family and visitors alike, was superbly +indifferent to dietary monotony.</p> + +<p>I did not resume my encouraging contributions, and +probably this was taken as a hint of disapproval, which +caused a slight tension between our houses. One day +near dark, when I found that Serena had to provide for +nine sleepers besides her own ten, I offered to take +three of the small children home with me, and met a +dignified refusal. She “wouldn’t think o’ troublin’ me +noway.” I went home, my conscience narcotized, and +feeling a sort of admiration for Serena’s resourcefulness. +But about bedtime she appeared, a little crestfallen, +and said: “I reckon I’ll have to let the young-uns +come over this onct. Uncle Med Pace drapped in +jest now with two o’ his boys, an’ I ain’t got another +tick I can put down. Ef it wuzn’t sech a cold night I +could make out with a pallet, but we need all the kivers +on the beds.”</p> + +<p>I told her I should be glad to have the children, perhaps +overdoing my heartiness because of her evident +compunction. When she left, to send them over, she +observed the highland punctilio of asking me to accompany<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span> +her and spend the night. This with no sense of +the ludicrous. It was immemorial custom, from which +any deviation, under any circumstances, would have +seemed boorish.</p> + +<p>The next time I was called upon to receive the overflow +from her cabin there was less reluctance in her +manner, and the third time it was done with such ease +of spirit that I said testily: “Serena, why don’t you +take boarders and get a little pay for your trouble?”</p> + +<p>About a week afterward I passed Len’s on my way +to Beebread. The house was a hundred yards distant +from the main road, with only two gigantic apple-trees +intervening. An old man, assisted by Serena, was removing +plunder from a strange wagon before the door, +but I knew better than to stop and investigate a happening +so unusual. If I waited, I should eventually hear +all about it; if I inquired, I should hear only the least +that could be told me. Not to appear prematurely +curious, I kept away from Len’s cabin for two or three +days. Then I sauntered over. As I approached I heard +screams so eerie, so full of anguish, that I ran staggeringly +to the house and fell against the shut door. The +windows had sheets pinned over them, and the door +was carefully fastened with an inside bar. Years passed,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span> +it seemed, before Serena came to the door and made +an aperture large enough to admit of her passage onto +the porch.</p> + +<p>“It ain’t nobody but pore little Viny,” she said. “Do +you want to come in and see her?”</p> + +<p>“Can I help you?” I asked faintly.</p> + +<p>“No, there kain’t anybody do fer her but me. She +told me before she took her spell what to do. I’ve got +to git back to her now, but me an’ Len’ll be over to see +you after supper.”</p> + +<p>I walked feebly homeward, and waited. Serena and +Len came a little late. She explained this by saying: “I +have to be sort o’ behind with my supper ever’ other +day now. Viny don’t git over her spell till it’s turned +five o’clock. You know we’ve been tellin’ you for a long +time about Uncle Mace Morgan’s girl, Viny.”</p> + +<p>So they had, I dimly recalled.</p> + +<p>“She’s been wantin’ to come an’ live with us ever +sence her mother died a year ago, an’ Uncle Mace +brought her up the mountain Wednesday, with her +bed an’ things.”</p> + +<p>No longer dimly, but in a flash of apprehensive light, +I recalled the story of Viny Morgan. She was a cousin +of Serena’s. When a child of thirteen, she had been the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span> +victim of a disease that had left her with a withered +leg. The youngest of her family, and of an endearing +disposition, she had tripped about happily on crutches +until she was twenty-one. At that age she was stricken +by a malady that produced acute crises of pain. As the +years passed the pain increased and the crises came in +regular periods every other day. For hours she would +struggle in a crazed, semiconscious way, and only her +mother could “manage” her at these times. After the +mother’s death, the father did what he could for his +daughter, while he kept looking about distractedly for +some one to relieve him. Serena had the courage and +the kindness, but deferred her consent, I think because +she and Len in some vague way forefelt my protest.</p> + +<p>“You know, Mis’ Dolly,” said Serena, “after you +told me I ought to take boarders an’ git pay fer keepin’ +folks, I thought ef there was anybody in the world I +ought to take it was pore little Viny. She’s goin’ to give +me five dollars a week, an’ she ain’t a bit of trouble +only ever’ other day when she has her spell. Hit comes +on around one o’clock an’ stays till about five, jest four +hours is all it is, an’ I don’t have to do anything but +set by her an’ rub her, an’ keep her from bitin’ me +when the pain gits so bad she’s out an’ out crazy.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span>“Serena, are you telling me that you can sit by her +and hear her scream like that for four hours?”</p> + +<p>“Her mother done it fer twenty year, an’ it wuz +harder fer her than fer me. Somebody’s got to take keer +of her, an’ Uncle Mace is mighty nigh dead over it. He +kain’t hold out like a woman. Five dollars a week’ll hep +us a lot. You can git them cloaks you wanted fer the +childern, now I’ve got a way to pay you. Ef I can earn +it adoin’ what the Lord tells us is our duty, I’m glad +o’ the chaince. ’Fore you make up your mind about it, +Mis’ Dolly, I want you to come an’ see Viny. Come +when she’s feelin’ good, so you can get acquainted. The +young-uns are plum foolish about her, an’ I kain’t keep +’em off her bed.”</p> + +<p>“Where <i>is</i> her bed, Serena?”</p> + +<p>“It’s in the corner by the fireplace. It scrouges us a +little, but Len fixed a bench at the foot o’ the bed, an’ +the childern set on that an’ keep warm. There wuzn’t +room fer Viny’s bed ’twixt mine and the girls’. Viny is +shore sociable an’s been wonderin’ when you’ll come to +see her. She can crochet the purtiest, an’ gits money fer +it, but Uncle Mace don’t know it. Her mother left her +a hundred dollars, all in five-dollar gold pieces, that +she’d saved up aslippin’ eggs to the store, an’ sellin’ off<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span> +chickens quiet, an’ makin’ rugs fer them summer folks +at Carson. She told Viny to git more ef she could, an’ +go to the hospital with it. Uncle Mace never would +hear to her goin’, an’ that’s why Viny won’t tell him +about the money. He says she’ll never come back alive, +an’ he’s agin the hospital awful. He b’lieves the devil +gits inter pore innercent Viny to punish him fer some +meanness he done onct, an’ he says God will drive it +out in His own time. I told him it looked like God would +’a’ put it in him ’stead o’ Viny, an’ he said it hurt him +worse fer Viny to have it, an’ he had to work, bein’ a +man. ‘You’re too old to work now,’ I told him, ‘an’ +maybe if you prayed hard, the Lord would put it inter +you an’ let Viny off fer a while,’ but he said it wuz best +to let God work it out in his own way. Viny, though, +she kinder wants to try the hospital, an’ that’s why she +won’t tell him about the money. You’ll take to the +pore little thing soon as you look at her, Mis’ Dolly. +Len said the day Uncle Mace brought her up the mountain +that we ought to go an’ see you first, but I told +him I’d lived by you long enough to know what you’d +say ’thout askin’.”</p> + +<p>Her eyes were bright with appeal. Len was straining +anxiously over her shoulder. What could I do but beat +down my anti-Samaritan intellect and surrender them<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span> +to their own undoing? I don’t remember what I said, +but when they left me, and I held the lamp to light +them across the little bridge in the yard, I saw that +they were walking hand in hand, as they liked to do +when sharing a supreme pleasure.</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>I went to see Viny.</p> + +<p>They had helped her from her bed to the fireside, and +she talked, softly eager, while her slim hands were busy +with a needle and Serena’s quilt-scraps. Without a +knowledge of her age, I should have taken her for a frail +girl in her twenties. She had the profound gentleness +and mystic smile of one recently released from intolerable +pain. They were all proud of her. Lonie took her advice +as to the pattern of a new dress. Ned brought her +an enormous apple whose keeping qualities he had been +testing. Len came to the house for a drink when he +could more easily have gone to the spring, because he +had thought of something that would make Viny laugh.</p> + +<p>Her illness was not mentioned until some one spoke +of her mother’s long devotion. Then her warm, hazel +eyes were lit with idolatry.</p> + +<p>“At first,” she said, “my attacks come hit or miss, +and it was awfully hard for mother to plan her work.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span> +She had everything to do at home, and no help except +father. They were all married off but me. I prayed fer +my spells to come reg’lar, and after a while they did. +Then mother could lay out her work, and get on all +right.”</p> + +<p>Her disease was terribly real, there was no doubt of +that; but I wondered if, through concern for her mother, +she had actually psychologized her crises into periodicity.</p> + +<p>When I left the house Serena accompanied me a few +steps. Len joined us, eager to know what I thought of +Viny, and it was easy to say all that they were longing +to hear.</p> + +<p>“I knowed you’d like her,” said Serena. “She offered +me one of her five-dollar gold pieces to-day, an’ I was +ashamed to look at it, knowin’ all about her savin’ up +fer the hospital. I made her put it back in that little +bag she carries her money in. She don’t eat but onct a +day. Then it’s only a little butter an’ a ’tater. I couldn’t +think o’ chargin’ her fer a ’tater. Sometimes she’ll taste +an egg, but she brought three hens, an’ I git more o’ +the eggs than she does. She brought her own bed an’ +kivers, so I kain’t charge her fer sleepin’. She lays there, +not botherin’ anybody, an’ ever’ other day when she’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span> +not out of her mind, she heps me piece quilts, an’ I +kain’t tell you the things she’s patched.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps you ought to pay <i>her</i>, Serena,” I said, but +the irony did not penetrate.</p> + +<p>“She wouldn’t let me do that. She says it’s only right +fer her to hep me. No, she wouldn’t take pay fer piecin’ +an’ patchin’.”</p> + +<p>I was about to ask Serena why she couldn’t let Viny +pay her for the service she received, but happily for +me, I was forestalled by Len.</p> + +<p>“Anybody,” he said, “that would take pay from +Viny fer the leetle mite she eats would be so stingy +they’d screak. An’ Reenie kain’t charge fer waitin’ on +her. Ef there’s anything plain in the Bible it’s how we +ought to take keer o’ the sick.”</p> + +<p>“About them cloaks, Mis’ Dolly, you got fer Ray an’ +Lissie,” Serena remembered to say, “I’ve studied out +how I can pay you back by makin’ a fire an’ milkin’ +fer you when the weather’s bad. I reckon that would +suit you same as money.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, a lot better, Serena!”</p> + +<p>“I thought you’d like that,” she said, with a countenance +as joyful as if the debt were already paid.</p> + +<p>As the weeks passed I found there was only one objection<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span> +to Viny as a member of the household. Her +“bad day” interfered with company, particularly if it +fell on Saturday or Sunday. During her attacks, light +and sound were like blows, and before entering on her +torture she would implore Serena to keep the room +darkened and silent. This meant that family and guests +had to crowd around the little kitchen stove, impossibly +subdued, until Viny “come out of it.” At those times I +avoided the house and its immediate region. Never in +my life had I watched the calendar so closely, fearing +that I might make a mistake and hear those screams +again. But once I ventured over on a “bad day,” waiting +until five o’clock, when Viny would be “getting +through.” I listened and heard only a low moaning. +Serena let me in. Viny’s pretty head was weaving agonizedly, +and in her broken moans I could distinguish an +anguished appeal for help. “She’s bearable easy now,” +said Serena, returning to the task of rubbing her patient’s +head and arms and back.</p> + +<p>I went to the bed and looked at Viny. Of her eyes, +only the whites could be seen. It was hard to believe +that within an hour they would be soft, dark, intelligent. +The sight was too ghastly, and I retreated to the +porch. After a few moments Serena came out.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span>“She’s still now,” she said. “She’ll lay there quiet +fer haf an hour, then she’ll be all right, only awful +weak.”</p> + +<p>I looked closely at Serena. It was clear that she was +failing. “You can’t hold up at this,” I said, grasping +at the commonplace.</p> + +<p>“I could ef folks would change off with me onct in a +while. I could hold up fine. But what you reckon that +ol’ Ann Hite said when I sent her word I’d wash fer +her ef she’d come an’ stay with Viny jest once? She +said it ’ud take a year’s washin’ to pay fer that.”</p> + +<p>“Serena,” I said, firmly defensive, “you needn’t look +about for people as good as you are. They don’t exist.”</p> + +<p>“I tried to slip out from Viny the last time, an’ let +Lonie stay with her, but it wuzn’t more’n two er three +minutes ’fore Lonie come runnin’ out cryin’, an’ showed +me her wrist bleedin’ where Viny bit her. Viny cried +awful about it when she come to, but Lonie won’t try +it any more, so I’ll jest keep at it. I ain’t got to come +over an’ hep you any ’bout milkin’ an’ makin’ fires, but +you see how it is, an’ I reckon you don’t blame me. +I’m studyin’ out how I’ll pay you some time.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t speak of it again, Serena,” I replied, thankful +to have escaped the degradation of lying in bed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span> +and letting her come around the curve in the freezing +weather to milk for me.</p> + +<p>A month, perhaps, went by, and the influenza began +to climb the mountain. As it drew nearer, I thought of +Len’s household, with two invalids already in the +crowded cabin, and the prospect took my breath. One +morning about daylight I heard Len’s voice calling me, +and hurried down the stairs to hear the worst.</p> + +<p>“Reenie wuz took last night. Looks like she’s goin’ +to git bad off. An’ I’ve come to ast you whatever’ll I +do about Viny?”</p> + +<p>“Is this her bad day, Len?”</p> + +<p>“No, that thing don’t tech her till to-morr’.”</p> + +<p>I knew what he was expecting me to say, but I +launched a surprise that astounded him.</p> + +<p>“Then hitch up as quickly as you can, put her things +in the wagon, and take her back to her father.”</p> + +<p>His lips made two or three quivering attempts at +speech. “I thought maybe you’d——”</p> + +<p>“No, Len. I can’t take care of Viny. I <i>won’t</i> take care +of Viny. And the only thing you can do about it is to +take her back to her father.”</p> + +<p>“I reckon I’ll have to,” he said, in dazed dejection.</p> + +<p>“How long will it take you to get off?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>He glanced at the first rays of the sun, then said: +“Two hours’ll do.”</p> + +<p>“Then in two hours I will be over to say good-by to +Viny and take care of Serena until you get back.”</p> + +<p>He went, his long, stooped back plainly telling me +that I had been weighed in the balance and struck the +beam of heaven.</p> + +<p>For about two weeks I was kept in close attendance +on Serena and the children. Just as they were getting +up, it came my turn to go down. Neighbors, far and +near, were ready with kind help, but it was not until +Serena walked in, a little pale yet from her own convalescence, +and looked down at me with her blue eyes +almost hazel dark with feeling, that the temperature of +the pillow under my head dropped to a hopeful point. +The bland movements of her hands seemed to be fulfilling +an old desire. Behind her was the generation of +Uncle Lish, who could sit and sing till the fire was out; +and hovering with her presence was the never-defined +equation that rescues from loneliness the edge of the +grave. It did not trouble me to know that on my recovery +I was going to be as foolish about Serena as Len +and her children.</p> + +<p>After I could sit in my chair, it was as good as hearing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span> +gentle music just to see her on the other side of the +fire, her hands in her lap, with the placidity of eternity +doing nothing at all. One day she spoke of Viny.</p> + +<p>“I reckon you was right about Viny. I didn’t know +how scrouged we wuz till I got to stayin’ over here with +you. Seems like they’s more’n as many agin of us now, +an’ when we all try to git around the fire, some of us +kain’t see the blaze, let alone feel it. When they’s company +the childern have to set back so fur they’re too +cold to git their lessons.”</p> + +<p>It was then that the vague trouble about those two +unbuilt rooms crystallized in my mind with unbearable +clearness. By some economical turn or twist, I would +get them put up.</p> + +<p>“Serena,” I said, “I’m going to have enough lumber +hauled up the mountain to make two more rooms at +your house, and I’ll have Cleve Saunders build them if +Len can’t get the time.”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” she cried joyously, “me an’ Len wuz sayin’ +last night how fine that would be! I reckon he’d better +not go after pore little Viny till you git ’em done.”</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">VIII<br> + +<small>A PROPER FUNERAL</small></h2> +</div> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p class="drop-cap">WE were on our way to see Uncle Nathe Ponder +buried. Serena was as happy as she could be +with decency, considering our solemn destination. She +had not been away from home for several months, and +her joyous reaction could be suppressed only intermittently. +But, at any time, her laughter was pleasantly +low of key, as if she were softly trying it out before +subjecting you to the full flow that never came.</p> + +<p>And Serena was infectious. I had set out with my +mind meditatively intrenched on the going down of +men into the grave; the passing of man himself, of +earth, of suns, of systems, with no full-grown hope of +any immortal salvage; but Serena, pulsingly aware in +a significant world, soon restored me to stature as a +member of a community bent on giving due honor to +one whose days among them had been spent with the +vividness that amounts to virtue among a people who +look to life for their drama instead of the stage and the +morning papers.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span>We had left home early because of Len’s prediction +that we should have to walk after reaching Red Hog +Gap, the entrance to Silver Valley. “But we’ll be in +two miles o’ the graveyard then,” he said, “an’ can +pick it up in no time.” Uncle Nathe’s farm lay in Silver +Valley township only four miles, by crow’s wing, northwest +of mine, but the descent over cliffs and crags was +hazardous, and we had set off in exactly the opposite +direction, walking the two miles down to Beebread, +where Arnold Weaver was waiting on the new highway +with his car—the first automobile to become a local +pride in our part of the mountains. We soon sailed over +the few miles of highway and reached Scatter, the next +railroad-station below Beebread, where we turned into +the narrow mountain road leading to Uncle Nathe’s +country. Here we began to come upon people who were +walking to the funeral, and it was here that our car, +through Len’s cordiality, became so firmly packed. He +extended invitations until the seats, the floor, and the +running-boards would hold no more. “You’re payin’ +fer the whole car,” he said, “an’ might as well git yer +money’s worth.”</p> + +<p>We were bouncing heavily along over the rutty road +when ahead of us we saw a young man whose brisk step<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span> +was certainly not of the highlands. There were various +unsuccessful conjectures as to his identity, and suddenly +Len called out: “Hey, Arn, stop yer shooter! It’s +Ann Lindsay’s boy!”</p> + +<p>“He’d have to set ’tween yer big toe an’ the long un,” +said Arn. “I ain’t goin’ to stop no more.”</p> + +<p>“But he’s come all the way from C’lumby to be at +Uncle Nathe’s buryin’.”</p> + +<p>“He didn’t walk only from Scatter.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll jump out an’ let him set in my place.”</p> + +<p>“You ain’t got any place. You’re settin’ on the tip +aidge o’ nothin’.”</p> + +<p>But Arn stopped the car. “Here, Bake,” said Len, +“I’m gittin’ out, an’ you hop in. Reckon you know +me?”</p> + +<p>“Len Merlin!” cried the stranger. “You caught that +fox yet?”</p> + +<p>“No, he’s waitin’ fer ye.”</p> + +<p>“Can’t get him this trip. Got to hurry back. Go on, +Arn, with your baggage. I’m walking to rest myself. +Been on the train since last night. I’ll see you all over +the hill.”</p> + +<p>His refusal of the “seat” was positive, and we moved +on, but not far. We were climbing the hill leading to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span> +Red Hog Gap, and Lea’s prediction came true. The car +refused to take the last lap over the hill, though we +gave it an opportunity to do its best, by dropping out +and scattering as readily as overripe plums from a +suddenly shaken bough. With good cheer we began our +walk to the graveyard. When nearly there we were +overtaken by Bake Lindsay, and Len picked up their +broken conversation.</p> + +<p>“What yer hurryin’ to git back fer? You ain’t been +in sence when?”</p> + +<p>“Not since I was married,” said Lindsay, “and that’s +five years. I started soon as I heard about Uncle Nathe.”</p> + +<p>“Is he really a nephew of Mr. Ponder?” I asked of +the woman walking nearest to me, for with the whole +country calling him “uncle,” the blood-kin were left +without distinction.</p> + +<p>“No, he ain’t no nephew,” she said, in a tone that I +had learned to recognize as a shut trail in Unakasia. +The story was not for me, an outsider. Even Len and +Serena had turned a gently impassive front to my very +reasonable interest in Uncle Nathe’s family history. +But Serena now stepped up and said intimately: “Jest +wait, Mis’ Dolly. We’ll go to dinner with Aunt Lizy +Haynes. Uncle Nathe’s half-brother, Ranz, is stayin’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span> +there, an’ he’s shore to let loose after the buryin’. When +Uncle Ranz lets loose it’s something else, I’m tryin’ to +tell ye. They won’t be any more questions to ast when +he gits through.” Then she moved over to Bake. “It’s +fine, yore comin’ in, Bake,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Of course I wanted to be at the funeral, but,” he +explained honestly, “I’ve come mainly to get mother.”</p> + +<p>“She goin’ back with you?” cried half a dozen voices.</p> + +<p>“She’s promised to. I’ve been trying to get her to +come out to me and Jenny ever since we’ve been married.” +Then his voice seemed to struggle a little. “Before +we tied up, Jenny gave me her word that she’d be +good to mother, and I know she’ll keep it.”</p> + +<p>“You got any young-uns?” asked Len, and Bake +said he had a little boy. They had named him Nathan.</p> + +<p>“That tickled Uncle Nathe, I reckon,” said the +woman who had answered me the moment before. Then +she hastened to cover her indiscretion. “’Course y’all +have been on his place a long time, an’ he’s been mighty +good to ye.”</p> + +<p>“He’s been good to ever’body,” said another.</p> + +<p>“I reckon he has,” said Bake, and we entered the +graveyard.</p> + +<p>It was to be a Masonic funeral. Uncle Nathe’s popularity<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span> +would have drawn a large attendance, but the +presence of the Fraternity made the occasion an event +in Silver Valley’s history. Nathan Ponder had been the +only Freemason in his township, a member of the distant +lodge in Carson, and for years he had not been in +active attendance there, but he had left a request to +be buried by the brethren, and they had gallantly responded.</p> + +<p>“That’s Elmer Jenkins,” whispered Serena of a man +who was prominent in the ceremony. “He’s a lawyer, +come up from South C’liny ’bout a year ago, ’count of +his wife’s health, an’ settled in Carson.”</p> + +<p>“Looks like,” said another voice, “that they could +’a’ got along ’thout a furriner to tell ’em what to do.”</p> + +<p>“He’s high up in the lodge,” said Uncle Ranz Ponder, +the half-brother of Uncle Nathe, “an’ he seems +mighty frien’ly.”</p> + +<p>The old and impressive service was solemnly conducted +to the end, and there was a general breaking-up, +amid a conflict of invitations for everybody to go home +with everybody else for dinner.</p> + +<p>“We’ll go with Aunt Lizy,” said Serena. “They’s a +lot been astin’ me, but they ain’t none of ’em pulled the +buttons off my clo’s tryin’ to take me with ’em, an’ I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span> +know we’ll be full welcome at Aunt Lizy’s. Uncle Ranz, +he’s her cousin, he’ll be there, like I said.”</p> + +<p>So Mrs. Haynes’s invitation was accepted. Serena +and I were to stay until the next day, but Len and the +daughter, Lonie, were to return that evening to look +after the children, the cows, and the chickens.</p> + +<p>The brethren who had come out from Carson returned +to town, with the exception of Lawyer Jenkins, who, +probably, was thinking of profitable affiliations with +the remote but fertile valley. I observed him reading +the headstones around the new-made grave, and it +seemed to me that he was afflicted with a growing concern. +He turned, with a question, to the man nearest +him, who happened to be Len.</p> + +<p>“Am I to understand that our good brother was +married four times?”</p> + +<p>“You shore air,” said Len. “There lays four of as +good wives as a man ever had. Them tombstones don’t +tell no lies. They’s all ’fore my time, savin’ Aunt Lindy, +his last ’un, but I’ve hearn enough to know what they +wuz.”</p> + +<p>“But four? Isn’t it a little unusual?”</p> + +<p>“Well, maybe it is, but Uncle Nathe wuzn’t no hand +to set at home by hissef.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span>At that moment, to Len’s apparent relief, Aunt Lizy +came up, and we found that Mr. Jenkins also had accepted +her invitation. He walked with her husband, +Uncle Dan’l Haynes, and I gathered from drifting fragments +of their conversation that Mr. Jenkins was still +on the trail of Uncle Nathe’s connubial history.</p> + +<p>At the dinner-table he pleased all of the guests by +introducing the topic from which they were politely +holding back. “I have been learning from our kind +host,” he said, eying with favor his selected piece of +fried chicken, “what this loss means to the community.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” some one responded, “it knocks all of us, +losin’ Nathe does.”</p> + +<p>“There is some property too, I believe. I trust there +is harmony among the heirs.”</p> + +<p>“They’re all behavin’ fine,” said Aunt Lizy, with +some heartiness.</p> + +<p>“Our brother was married several times, I understand. +Did—er—all of his wives leave issue?”</p> + +<p>“Young-uns? No, Aunt Lindy never had any, ner +Lu Siler, but Callie had a little feller that died—Rufe, +they called him. An’ Ponnie, his fust wife, left four, all +livin’ yit. They git along together fust-rate.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder what Ponnie would ’a’ said,” reflected<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span> +Uncle Dan’l, “ef somebody had told her Nathe wouldn’t +be buried alongside o’ her.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Uncle Ranz, “I’d ruther not hear what +Ponnie would ’a’ said.”</p> + +<p>“I say it ought to ’a’ been Lindy he wuz laid by,” +asserted Aunt Lizy. “She lived with him the longest an’ +worked the hardest.”</p> + +<p>“She didn’t think a grain more o’ him than Lu Siler +did,” returned Uncle Dan’l.</p> + +<p>“Our brother expressed no preference?” inquired +Mr. Jenkins.</p> + +<p>“You mean which un did he want to lay ’longside +of? No, he wuzn’t a man to put one wife ’fore another. +He left that to us.”</p> + +<p>“Very thoughtful, I take it,” said the lawyer. “A +strong character certainly. I am sorry I never knew +him.” And he mused a little on the bed-rock qualities +of the old mountaineer.</p> + +<p>“We meant,” explained Uncle Dan’l, “to lay Nathe +by his fust wife, Ponnie, but when we dug down there +we struck a rock that would ’a’ had to be blasted out, +an’ we’s afeard it would shake up the graves. We +couldn’t lay him t’other side o’ her, ’cause her two childern +wuz there, an’ then come Lindy, his last wife, so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span> +we decided to dig jest beyant Lindy. But about four +feet down we come to water that turned ever’thing +inter mud—it wuz that spring, I reckon, that sinks +inter the ground above the graveyard—an’ we had to +go to the upper row where Callie an’ little Rufe an’ Lu +wuz layin’. We couldn’t put him by Lu, ’cause she wuz +in the aidge o’ the Ponder lot, right next to Randy +Hayes in Bill Hayes’s lot, an’ it jest had to be Callie er +nothin’.”</p> + +<p>Comments followed, various and spirited, with citations +of other instances, historic and contemporary, and +the dinner was over. Mr. Jenkins regretted that he must +leave us. He was urged to stay, in the politest highland +manner, but when the door had closed behind the respected +“furriner,” the immediate relaxation in the air +showed that the hour of restraint had been heroically +prolonged.</p> + +<p>“Harmony!” exclaimed Aunt Lizy. “An’ there’s +Angie Sue claimin’ ever’thing her daddy had. There +won’t be a scrap left when they all git through fightin’.”</p> + +<p>The general glance slanted toward me, and I began +to think that I ought to have disappeared with Mr. +Jenkins, though the fact that I was under Serena’s native +wing had done much to vouch for me.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span>“I don’t reckon Bake Lindsay’ll mix up in anything,” +said Pole Andrews, with an eye carefully diverted. “I +seen he wuz at the buryin’.”</p> + +<p>“Wonder what he’s back here fer?” said another, +equally disinterested.</p> + +<p>“He’s come to git his mother,” Serena easily announced.</p> + +<p>“Ann!” came from several voices.</p> + +<p>“That’s what he said. You heard him, Mis’ Dolly.”</p> + +<p>She turned to me with careless confidence, and I responded +with an uncritical smile that embraced the +company.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes! He has come in for his mother. She is going +to live with him and Jenny.”</p> + +<p>I knew everything then! There was a stir of abandon, +and an eager voice asked: “You don’t think that +Bake can tech any o’ the property, do you?”</p> + +<p>“’Course he kain’t,” said Aunt Lizy, before I could +recover from the direct appeal. “Anybody knows that.”</p> + +<p>“You are right, Mrs. Haynes,” said I, now clothed +in authority. “He is not entitled to a single thing. +Though, of course, I’ve never heard the whole story. +I’ve been wishing some of you would tell me everything +just as it happened.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span>“Ranz there’ll tell ye,” said Aunt Lizy. “He thinks +his tongue’s got a mortgage on ever’thing abody could +say about Nathe Ponder.”</p> + +<p>“Ef I’ve got sech a mortgage, Lizy, you’re always +scrappin’ to git yer name on it.” Then he turned to me. +“If I tell it, I’ll have to start at the fust of it. I never +could hit the middle an’ go on.”</p> + +<p>“All right, Uncle Ranz,” said one of the younger +men. “That’s what we want. I reckon this is the last +time we’ll all corcus over Uncle Nathe.”</p> + +<p>“Y’all keep Lizy from pesterin’ me then, an’ turn +that feist out, some o’ ye.”</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>“Nathe took me to live with him an’ Ponnie,” began +Uncle Ranz, “when they’s fust married. I wuz about +ten years old then, an’ I’ve got to say it fer Nathe, he +wuz as good to me as a daddy. He wuz thirty years old +when his fust trouble come up, an’ he’d been married +turnin’ onto ten years. Him an’ Ponnie had four childern +a livin’ an’ two dead.”</p> + +<p>“You wuz there, Uncle Ranz,” put in a guest, “the +very day o’ the trouble, wuzn’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I wuz right there, but ef I’m goin’ to talk it will<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span> +have to be on my own time an’ not yorn.” There was a +chastened silence, then he continued amiably: “Ponnie +had been spittin’ fire fer two er three days, an’ the childern +wuz dodgin’ her. I wuz grown up by that time, +an’ could look out fer myself. Nathe an’ Ponnie had +been plum crazy about each other when they got +married, but they had black eyes pineblank alike, an’ +I’ve noticed that don’t work out as well as when you +marry a different color. Nathe’s hair wuz curly, though, +an’ Ponnie’s wuz straight an’ long. It wuz powerful +thick, too, an’ she could twist it an’ wrap it round her +head big as a dish-pan mighty nigh. I’ve <i>hearn</i> she had +a drap o’ Cher’kee in her——”</p> + +<p>“That wuzn’t so, Ranz,” Aunt Lizy interjected. “Me +an’ Ponnie wuz the same age, an’ run together from the +time we’s out of our cradles, an’ ef there’d been any +Indian in her I’d ’a’ knowed it.”</p> + +<p>“You’d ’a’ had to know her gran’mother, I reckon. +Anyways I’m jest tellin’ what I hearn. There wuz a +woman up on Sawmill Creek that folks said wuzn’t +much good. She had hair as yaller as honey, an’ as +sprangly as a stump full o’ gran’daddies. It begun to +seep around that Nathe wuz slippin’ over there, an’ +Ponnie got holt o’ the talk. After that, Nathe dassent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span> +stay away from home all night, she’d git so ruffled up. +He come to me one day an’ ast me ef I couldn’t ride +over inter Tennessee an’ look at some mules he wanted +to buy to trade on. I thought he ought to go hissef, +’cause he knowed a mule from the tip o’ his nose to the +kick in his heels, so I says: ‘Nathe, you kain’t afford to +let Ponnie ruin yer business. Air ye a man, er air ye +not?’ That’s what I said, an’ I reckon I ought to ’a’ +kept my mouth shut, seein’ how it turned out, an’ gone +on inter Tennessee. Nathe walked off an’ saddled up, +an’ told Ponnie he’d be gone four er five days. She’d +come out to the gate, an’ when he told her that, I saw +her kindle up, an’ she turned square around an’ went +inter the kitchen. After Nathe rid off I went in too, an’ +I saw Ponnie wuz workin’ hard an’ tryin’ to git easy. +We talked about what a good man Nathe wuz, an’ +what he wuz doin’ fer his fam’ly, an’ how the neighbors +thought sech a sight o’ him, an’ what he wuz goin’ to +make agittin’ mules out o’ Tennessee an’ tradin’ on +’em, an’ she quieted off an’ seemed all right till Nathe +got back from his trip. When he come in she wuz mighty +glad to see him. He told her he’d done well, an’ she’d +be stringin’ di’monds in that black hair some day, an’ +they ’most had a little courtin’ spell. But Julie Mack<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span> +come in the next day to help Ponnie put up fruit an’ +bile off apple butter, an’ Julie’s mother lived up on +Sawmill Creek not fur from that woman.”</p> + +<p>“Ol’ Sis Mack could split a truth an’ make two lies +out of it!” said Aunt Lizy, and Uncle Ranz loftily accepted +the interpolation.</p> + +<p>“That’s what I told Ponnie when she come out to +the orchard where I wuz shakin’ down apples. She said +that Julie’s mother had seen Nathe ridin’ down Sawmill +Creek road, an’ I told her what I thought of ol’ Sis +Mack’s tongue. ‘He may ’a’ jest rid by innercent,’ I +says. ‘Innercent!’ says Ponnie. ‘It wuzn’t yisterday she +seen him, it wuz the day before.’”</p> + +<p>“‘Well, ef it’s so,’ I told her, ‘it ain’t so bad as +buryin’ Nathe.’ I reckon that’s another time I spoke +wrong, fer she said she didn’t know about that, an’ +went off a-studyin’. But she come in an’ got supper, +tryin’ to smile peart, an’ Nathe didn’t know nuthin’ +wuz wrong. Next mornin’ she got to studyin’ agin, an’ +come round to me about ten o’clock. ‘Ranzie,’ she says, +‘I’m goin’ to kill Nathe,’ an’ I says: ‘You need him too +bad, Ponnie, to hep raise yer childern.’ ‘I kain’t raise +’em at all,’ she says, ’ef he keeps me bothered this a-way. +Nathe’s my man, an’ I ain’t goin’ to have him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span> +runnin’ here an’ yander.’ I went to Nathe then, an’ +told him that Ponnie knowed about him an’ he’d better +get it fixed up with her. He said nobody could lie hard +enough to git anything fixed up with Ponnie, an’ I said: +‘What ef she took a notion to kill ye, Nathe?’ He laffed +big at that, an’ said: ‘Ranz, you don’t know Ponnie +like I do. She’d keep me here jest fer her temper to +bite on.’ ‘She ain’t so awful high-tempered,’ I says. +‘She works hard, an’s raisin’ yer four childern. She’d +never say a hot word, leastways to you, ef it wuzn’t +fer the way folks say you run around. Ef it’s so, I’d try +to quit it till she gits to where she don’t think enough +o’ you fer it to bother her.’</p> + +<p>“‘Lord, they ain’t no hope o’ that,’ he said. ‘But +don’t you worry ’bout her killin’ me.’ An’ he went off +to hep some men we had workin’ in the fodder. I kep’ +busy in the orchard, an’ ’long a little ’fore twelve I wuz +goin’ inter the yard with a tow-sack full o’ winesaps +on my back when I seen Ponnie comin’ from the smoke-house +with the big butcher-knife in her hand, an’ seen +Nathe a-crossin’ over to the spring. They come up close +together, an’ she put out her hand an’ took holt o’ +Nathe’s hair right above his forehead. He had powerful +curly hair then, like I told ye, an’ black as sut. She<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span> +turned his head right back, an’ says: ‘Nathe, I’m goin’ +to cut yer throat.’ That sack dropped off my back, but +I wuz so cold I couldn’t move. Nathe looked right at +her an’ laffed. ‘Go ahead, Ponnie,’ he says. ‘I reckon +that’s what you ought to do.’ She let go then an’ made +like she wuz playin’ with him, but she says, ‘Some o’ +these days I’ll mean it,’ an’ went inter the kitchen. In +about haf an hour she come to the door an’ called ever’body +to dinner. We’s all in the yard, washed up by that +time, an’ we went in. Ponnie had made apple pies that +mornin’, an’ had chicken an’ dumplin’s, ’cause that +wuz what Nathe liked, an’ she’d set the table out nice, +an’ put on a white table-cloth, which we didn’t have +only fer company an’ Sundays. She hepped ever’body, +an’ picked out the drumstick fer little Rosie, an’ made +the boys, Herb an’ Sam, stop scrappin’. Then she says: +‘Hep yersevs, I’m goin’ inter the big room fer a minute.’ +We went on eatin’, an’ Nathe called out she’d +better hurry up, the dumplin’s wuz goin’ fast, an’ right +then we heard a shot. When we got in, there she wuz +lyin’ on the floor stone dead, an’ Nathe’s ol’ rifle there +to tell it. Nathe fell down on the floor an’ kept sayin’, +‘You don’t mean it, Ponnie, you know you don’t mean +it,’ over an’ over till I’s about crazy. He’d rub her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span> +black hair like he wuz techin’ a baby, an’ swear that +he’d put his eyes out ’fore he’d look at another woman +agin. ‘You know you hear me, Ponnie,’ he’d say, ‘you +know you do.’”</p> + +<p>Uncle Ranz paused feelingly, and when another voice +took up the narrative, the help was tolerantly welcomed.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Uncle Dan’l, “I’ve hearn Ben Goforth +tell it. He wuz one o’ the men workin’ there that day, +an’ they pulled Nathe away from Ponnie an’ inter the +yard, till the women could lay her out. Soon as she wuz +dressed fer her coffin he went back an’ laid on the floor +till they carried her off.”</p> + +<p>“He got over it, though,” said Serena, who could +never linger in gloom.</p> + +<p>“Purty slow, purty slow, but when he did put it by—well, +sir, he <i>put it by</i>.”</p> + +<p>“Slow it wuz,” said Aunt Lizy. “I remember, as well +as Ranz, er anybody here, ’bout that next winter an’ +spring. Nathe kept lookin’ like he didn’t keer whether +he wuz in this world er the next, an’ he wouldn’t put +in no crap. Ranzie here had the whole farm on his +hands, an’ I’ll say it fer Ranz that ef it hadn’t been fer +him them little young-uns would ’a’ gone hungry that +year, er lived off the neighbors. The deacons fin’ly went<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span> +to Nathe an’ ast him ef he thought he wuz heppin’ +Ponnie any by neglectin’ her childern, an’ said he ort +to git somebody who would take keer of ’em. They told +him to marry some good woman that ’ud look after +them like Ponnie wanted. An’ after they’d pestered +him a while, he says: ‘All right, I’ll marry, but I don’t +want a woman that’s crazy about me, an’ I don’t want +to git crazy about <i>her</i>.’ He told ’em to find somebody +that would be good to the young-uns an’ he’d be satisfied. +The deacons went all around then, an’ got their +wives to go, an’ they talked to all the single women as +fur up as Sawmill Creek an’ as fur down as Nighthawk, +but they’s all skeered to marry Nathe, an’ no wonder +when he kept stuggin’ round the country lookin’ like +the hind wheels o’ destruction. They thought there +must be something awful quare about him er Ponnie +wouldn’t ashot hersef. There wuz jest one widder——”</p> + +<p>“Ay, Mary Kempit,” said a voice, as Aunt Lizy +paused, a little short of breath. “She had five young-uns.”</p> + +<p>“That’s her,” said Aunt Lizy, coming back with +some haste, before Uncle Ranz could weld his broken +narrative. “She said she’d try it, fer Nathe had a fine +farm, an’ Bune Waller said the same. Bune wuz an old<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span> +maid with one leg crippled up ’count of a snake-bite +when she wuz little. The old folks thought Bune would +suit better’n the widder, not havin’ any young-uns to +mix up with Nathe’s, so they went to him an’ told him +that Bune wuz the best they could do. I’ve always +wished I could ’a’ been there when they told him. +Uncle Joe Withers, he wuz senior deacon then, he said +Nathe cut his galluses an’ went straight up. When he +come down an’ got his breath, he says to ’em, ‘Who’s +counted the finest-lookin’ single woman in Silver Valley?’ +an’ they ’lowed Callie Brown wuz the takin’est +one, sence she’d come back from South C’liny, where +she’d been workin’. But she wuzn’t keen to marry, not +a mountain man anyway, fer she wouldn’t look at +Mince Peters, who wuz runnin’ a payin’ sawmill, an’ +the best ketch ’twixt Cherokee an’ Hiwassee. Nathe +ast ’em would she be good to the childern, an’ they +’lowed she would, she looked like she’d jump out o’ the +way of a worm ruther’n step on it, but he couldn’t git +her, they said, not ef he’s as rich as cream in a cracklin’ +gourd. She didn’t have no call fer holdin’ off though, +Uncle Joe told him, fer she hadn’t saved a brownie +workin’ in the mills, put it all on her back, he reckoned, +an’ she didn’t have no home, her folks all bein’ dead.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span> +‘But ef you go to see her,’ he says, ‘you’ll ride back +jest like you come. She’s livin’ at my house, an’ I know +Callie.’ Nathe never paid no more ’tention to what they +said, an’ fixed hissef up fer courtin’.”</p> + +<p>“Fixed hissef up!” Uncle Ranz bore in, returning +with vigor to his own. “I reckon! I wuz right there, an’ +the way he shaved an’ slicked an’ combed an’ dressed +would take me all day to tell ye. We wuz exactly the +same size, me an’ Nathe, an’ he walked in on me an’ +says: ‘Ranz, you let me have that new suit o’ yorn, an’ +I’ll give you that white sow an’ them three shotes you +been a-wantin’. I’ve got to have it right now,’ he says. +He’d let his clo’s run down till a skeercrow wouldn’t ’a’ +swopped with him ’thout a smart chance o’ boot. But +when he wuz all growed inter my suit, an’ rid off on a +big bay mare he had, thinks I yer my own half-brother, +but it ’ud take some travellin’ to find yer mate fer +looks. He went over to Joe Withers’, where Callie wuz +stayin’, an’ in two weeks they’s married. When he +wanted to, Nathe had a way o’ talkin’ that folks said +would put heart in a holler log, an’ I reckon Callie wuz +all heart, the way it turned out. As fer holdin’ hersef +high, I never seen none o’ that after she come to live +with Nathe. She made him a good wife, an’ got to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span> +likin’ him powerful, but he never seemed to take to +Callie. ’Twuzn’t thinkin’ about Ponnie, though, that +kept him from likin’ her, fer when he did drap his +troubles he drapped ’em hard. It pestered me awful the +way he went on fer a while, huntin’ up ever’ woman he +could hear of that wuzn’t much good. I said to him +onct that Callie seemed to be doin’ <i>her</i> part, an’ he +said: ‘Ef you don’t think I’m adoin’ mine, Ranz, jest +keep a-thinkin’ it.’ An’ I dassent say any more, fer +Nathe in them days wuz wearin’ his temper outside +his shirt, an’ you had to tech him keerful er go round. +When Callie wuz fust married she didn’t know much +about housework an’ takin’ keer o’ farm stuff, but she +went at it steady, an’ in less’n a year she wuz runnin’ +ever’thing like it ort to be, an’ nobody would ’a’ knowed +the childern wuzn’t hern ef she hadn’t been too young +to be their mommie.”</p> + +<p>“Ay,” said Aunt Lizy, “they went under her skirts +like they belonged. Nathe lost a lot of his luck when he +buried Callie Brown.”</p> + +<p>“How long did she live?” I asked, and Uncle Ranz +seemed to approve of the sympathetic query, which +perhaps reminded him that he had a new and perfectly +safe pair of ears for an old tale.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span>“She lived four years full, an’ inter five, from the +time she married Nathe till we put her in the graveyard +in the row above Ponnie an’ her two. We wuz lookin’ +fer Callie’s baby, little Rufe, to die, an’ Nathe ’lowed +they could lay there together. That soft look Callie +had turned out to be weak lungs, an’ the cotton-mills +hadn’t hepped ’em any. The hard work at Nathe’s +pulled her down to a shadder. I own it, I got to thinkin’ +a heap of Callie. Looked like she wuz tryin’ her best an’ +never botherin’ Nathe, er lettin’ on she wuz any more +to him than a hired woman. When I seen it wuz killin’ +her, I wuz druv to say something. I’d tried Nathe, an’ +that didn’t hep any, so I went to Callie an’ told her +straight out that she could git a divorce from Nathe +any day she wanted it, fer the whole country knowed +how he wuz runnin’ on, an’ the deacons had been to +him about it. I said she wouldn’t have to go fur, nuther, +to git somebody to take keer of her right. She wouldn’t +have to go blood-naked ner eat acorns, not by a thousan’ +mile, while I wuz drawin’ a workin’-man’s breath. +When I said that, Callie turned her back on me an’ +begun to cry. I waited to see what she wuz goin’ to say, +fer a woman’s cryin’ might mean one thing an’ it might +mean another. When she turned round she says: ‘Ranzie,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span> +I’ll fergive ye ef ye’ll go to church reg’lar.’ An’ I +went to meetin’ from then on, till Callie died, though +it wuzn’t easy to set still an’ listen to ol’ Silas Mack +a-whinin’ from the time he got up to preach till he set +down two hours afterwards. Barrin’ that, I ain’t ever +been sorry I let Callie know she could git away ef she +wanted to. I told Nathe about it after she wuz dead, +an’ he said he wouldn’t hold it agin me, seein’ he never +hurt hissef makin’ it easy fer Callie, an’ he told me to +stay right on with him an’ hep look after the farm. I +thought ef he didn’t want to make a fuss, I wouldn’t, +an’ I staid right on till he married Lu Siler. He wuzn’t +slow about pickin’ up Lu. She hadn’t been a widder +more’n three er four months, an’ chainces wuz thick +with her, ’cause she had a house an’ lot in Carson, an’ +a fine piece o’ land on Little Horse Branch. When +Nathe got ready he walked right in an’ took her. She +wuz a little older’n him, an’ short on looks, but there +never wuz a better woman than Lu, leavin’ out Callie, +an’ she wuz awful proud o’ Nathe. She wuz the one +who got him inter this Freemason business, bein’ Eastern +Star hersef, an’ a lot o’ her folks an’ friends belongin’. +Nathe took to it fine, an’ went as high as he +could as fast as they’d take him, an’ always held a big<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span> +hand afterwards in whatever they had goin’ on, till +late years when most o’ the old members had drapped +out er wuz buried, an’ he seemed to sort o’ fergit about +it. He went around with Lu, an’ treated her respectful, +like he ort, with her deedin’ him ever’thing she had an’ +cuttin’ out her own folks. He sold the house an’ lot in +Carson an’ built the big house on the farm the first +year he was married to Lu. He said he wanted her to +have ever’thing as nice as she had it in Carson when +she wuz livin’ with Jim Siler. It wuz in them years that +Nathe sort o’ stept up in life.”</p> + +<p>Uncle Ranz was forced to take breath, though he +knew that Aunt Lizy would be in at the breach.</p> + +<p>“Nathe never got bigetty though,” she said. “It wuz +about that time that he got to lookin’ round an’ heppin’ +folks in hard luck. He wuz always ready with the loan +of a cow fer a widder, er a plough-critter fer new-married +couples, er a sack o’ meal, an’ sometimes a bit +o’ money that he wuzn’t too pertickler about gittin’ +back. I’ve said many a time that Silver Valley owed a +lot to Lu Siler fer makin’ a changed man out o’ Nathe.”</p> + +<p>“You want to start that old argyment, Lizy, an’ you +can have it. I say, an’ I’ll always say, it wuz Ann that +changed Nathe, an’ not Lu Siler.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span>“Ann!” The contempt of the elect was in Aunt +Lizy’s voice. She reached into her pocket for her snuff. +Only snuff could reconcile her to the existence of Ann. +Uncle Ranz turned to his more passive hearers.</p> + +<p>“There ain’t any man, er woman nuther, in this +country,” he said, “who knows more about that than I +do. It begun ’long in the last year o’ Callie’s lifetime, +an’ I reckon I wuz purty keen on what wuz happenin’ +round Callie. Nathe had a little ol’ mill on one end o’ +his farm, fer grindin’ corn fer hissef an’ his neighbors. +It’s there yit, only it’s been built all over. An’ he had a +little ol’ log house settin’ close to the mill, where he +kept a fam’ly to ’tend to the grindin’ an’ hep on the +farm. He ’lowed the man could work on the farm, an’ +his wife could tend to the mill, in a pinch anyways. +Well, Curt Lindsay, he come over from round Cowee +an’ ast fer the place. He said he wuz married, an’ his +wife’s mother wuz livin’ with ’em, an’ she could handy +’tend to the mill. His wife wuzn’t much stout, an’ he +didn’t count on gittin’ anything out of her but a little +housekeepin’, an’ maybe hoein’ in the patches. An’ +Nathe told him to come on. Curt wuz a big feller an’ +looked like he’d make a good hand. I told Nathe so +mysef, an’ there’s one more time I’d ’a’ done better ef<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span> +I’d kept my mouth shet. Well, they come on, an’ the +mother looked like all she knowed wuz hard work an’ +more of it. But Ann, Curt’s wife, she looked like a +hummin’-bird round a rosey-bush. The mother, that ’uz +Mis’ Baker, told me Ann had never been much strong +an’ her daddy, up till he died a little ’fore that, had +never let anything be put on her too hard. Ann wuz +willin’ enough, but they had to put it on her light, er +she’d git down sick. Curt didn’t keer one way er another +so the work got done. Ann had married him when she +wuz fourteen, an’ she wuzn’t more’n up’rds o’ fifteen +when she come to live on Nathe’s place. Nathe wuz a +little above thirty-five, an’ had seen his troubles, but +they hadn’t put the years on him. When he wuz +smoothed up, folks said ef his good looks wuz divided +around, they’d make ever’body in the settlement look +passable, even countin’ Sary Copp, who had a caved-in +nose an’ scrofula o’ the jaw. But Nathe wuz fur from +bein’ as good as he wuz good-lookin’. I reckon he wuz +the furdest from the Amen row right then that he ever +wuz in his life. He’d put a mortgage on his farm to git +spendin’ money, an’ he wuz runnin’ round spendin’ it. +‘Ranz,’ he says to me, ‘I don’t keer much about women, +but what’s a feller to do with hissef?’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span>“An’ then Ann moved in. ‘Let’s go over,’ Nathe says +to me one day, ‘an’ see ef Curt’s got settled. Maybe +he’ll need some hep about something.’ ‘All right,’ says +I, an’ we went. Looked like there wuzn’t nobody at +home when we come up. Nathe walked up big an’ +pounded on the door till I wished there wuzn’t anybody +in there to hear him. Then Ann opened the door. +Nathe hadn’t ever seen her ’fore that, an’ when she +looked up, a bit skeered, an’ her eyes as blue as a prize +ribbon at a fair, Nathe fell back inter the yard like +she’d pinted a gun at him. I ask her how her folks wuz, +seein’ Nathe wuzn’t goin’ to talk, an’ she said they’s +well, an’ her mother wuz in the house, wouldn’t we +come in, an’ Curt wuz gone to Carson to git some +things they needed fer housekeepin’.</p> + +<p>“‘What things?’ says Nathe, gittin’ over his lock-jaw, +an’ when she told him, he says: ‘Tell yer mother +to come over to the house an’ my wife’ll give her anything +you’re needin’.’ Then he went off. I follered him, +an’ he walked along like a wooden man till we got nigh +home, then he says: ‘Ranz, I reckon I’d better look +after things round here a little closer’n I been adoin’.’ +An’ from that minute Nathe wuz changed, an’ he hadn’t +ever set eyes on Lu Siler. Callie wuz still alive, an’ she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span> +seemed awfully hepped up about Nathe. She talked to +me of how he wuz takin’ holt like he raley owned the +place, an’ it wouldn’t be long till he’d lift the mortgage, +an’ maybe send Angie Sue to Carson to school. +But Callie wuz too worn out by that time fer any +change to do her downright good, an’ she died in the +spring, like I wuz tellin’ ye. Then Nathe married Lu. +I ain’t sayin’ my own half-brother married a woman +fer what she had, but I do say that he’d got to be sort +o’ cravin’. Where he’d spent a dollar before, free as +water, looked like he wuz tryin’ to save three. He wuz +runnin’ the farm close, an’ raisin’ ever’thing we et +purty nigh, but coffee an’ sugar, an’ wuz watchin’ his +tradin’ right sharp, though when Lu got there he built +her a nice house, like I said, with her own money, an’ +he went around the country with her whenever she +wanted him to, an’ didn’t mind spendin’ on his lodge +a bit ’er heppin’ folks like Lizy wuz tellin’ ye. I +quit livin’ at Nathe’s an’ went over inter Tennessee. +Callie wuz on my mind, more’n when she’d been +livin’, seemed like, an’ on top o’ that I wuz afeard +Nathe an’ Lu were goin’ to have fallin’ weather. I +thought ef he wuz in fer a mess I’d seen enough o’ his +troubles. But he kept writin’ fer me to come back, an’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span> +when I’d been gone about two year I come home. I +found ever’thing runnin’ like sugar-water in sap-time. +Nathe never went round the mill, er where Ann wuz, +so fur as anybody knowed. When something had to be +’tended to over there, he’d git Lu to go.</p> + +<p>“‘Lu,’ he says one night at supper, ‘looks like we +ortn’t to live here in this big house with ever’thing +comfortable, an’ water piped from the mountain yander, +an’ the fam’ly that works fer us puttin’ up with +that smoky little hut over at the mill. When yore folks +wuz out from Carson the other day I wuz ashamed to +tell ’em that shack wuz on our farm. What you think +about takin’ what I make tradin’ this year an’ fix ’em +up a place they can keep clean an’ make look like something? +Mis’ Baker’s always ready to come over here +an’ give you a hand at anything, an’ we ort to make it +easier at home fer a hard-workin’ woman like she is.’</p> + +<p>“‘I’d hate to fix up a place fer that rowdy, Curt +Lindsay,’ said Lu. ‘He stays drunk half o’ his time +now.’</p> + +<p>“‘You fix it, Lu, an’ I’ll drive him off er make him +do better. The women-folks there are human, same as +us, even ef Curt ain’t.’</p> + +<p>“‘Yes,’ says Lu, ‘I git awfully sorry fer that pore<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span> +little Ann. I don’t know what keeps her spirits up. +She’s always singin’ when I go over there, er diggin’ in +the yard round her flowers, an’ they say Curt beats +her, too.’</p> + +<p>“Nathe jumped up then, like he’d swallered a crumb +too quick, an’ went out to the water-bucket. When he +come back he wuz a little hoarse from chokin’, an’ he +says: ‘You do what I told you, Lu. You know more +about houses than I do. Fix it up so we won’t be +ashamed of it anyway, an’ I can git a better man to +live there ef I have to drive Curt off.’</p> + +<p>“Lu ast me to hep her, an’ we got Mose Kimpit to +boss the job, him that married Angie Sue afterwards, +an’ I hired some men, an’ in no time Ann wuz livin’ in +a little house that looked like a pickcher, but Curt wuz +drinkin’ harder than ever.</p> + +<p>“‘You’ll have to get rid o’ him, Nathe,’ said Lu, an’ +he said: ‘Well, let’s go over there an’ see about it.’ +‘Come on, Ranz,’ he said; ‘Curt might jump onto me +an’ I might want some hep.’ Nathe wuzn’t afeard o’ +nuthin’ this side o’ Jordan, an’ I laffed an’ went on with +’em. When we all got in a hunderd yards o’ the house +we heard somebody screamin’, an’ Nathe got white as +a dead man. ‘It’s Ann,’ says Lu; ‘he’s a-beatin’ her,’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span> +an’ she begun to cry. Nathe says to me: ‘You stay here +with Lu. I’ll fix him,’ an’ set off runnin’ like he’d +gone mad. He didn’t open the door, jest kicked it in +like it wuz glass. There wuzn’t any more screamin’, +an’ when he come out he says: ‘Go in there, Ranz, an’ +hep patch that feller up. I’ve give him two hours to git +up an’ crawl off. He knows what the law does fer a man +that lays his hand on a woman in the fix Ann’s in, an’ +he’ll go. He don’t want to spend the next ten years in +the pen.’</p> + +<p>“Well, Curt went off, an’ Mis’ Baker wrote fer a son +she had over on Cowee to come an’ take his place on +the farm, an’ they all lived there in the little house +quiet as could be. The whole country wuz braggin’ on +the way Nathe had settled with Curt, though some +said he ort to have tuk him up an’ let him go to the +pen. Anybody that ’ud beat a little thing like Ann ort +to git the worst the law could lay on him.</p> + +<p>“In about three months Ann’s baby wuz born, an’ +Lu acted like she thought it wuz hern, the way she +took keer of it, an’ wuz over there half the time. She +begged Nathe to go with her to see it, but he wouldn’t. +That wuz woman’s business, he said. Things went on +quiet-like fer two or three years, maybe four. Angie Sue<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span> +got through school an’ married Mose Kempit. She +didn’t do much fer hersef, considerin’ the chaince they +give her. She had Ponnie’s temper, too, but Ponnie had +a big heart along with her temper, an’ Angie Sue never +had no more heart than a hornet’s got. Little Rosie +wuz a-growin’ up, an’ the boys, Herb an’ Sam, wuz +nearly men. They wuz quiet boys, not wuth much one +way er t’other. Ann’s brother got married, an’ Nathe +fixed him a house not fur from the other one, an’ Ann +an’ her mother lived by thersevs. Mis’ Baker, she +’tended to the mill. The boy wuz named Baker, fer +Ann’s father, an’ folks called him little Bake Lindsay.</p> + +<p>“Well, we’s livin’ along, an’ ever’body comfortable, +when one day in the fall when the woods wuz a-turnin’, +Lu says to me: ‘Ranz, s’pose we take Rosie an’ the boys +an’ go hunt chestnuts to-day? I ain’t been in the woods +this year.’ That suited me, an’ we all went over to the +big hill about a quarter of a mile to the back of Ann’s +house. Nathe wuzn’t along. He’d got a letter the day +before tellin’ him to come to Carson about a trade, an’ +he’d set off walkin’ that mornin’, not lettin’ the boys +drive him to Scatter to hit the train. It wuz too much +trouble, he said, an’ he liked to walk. He wuz in fine<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span> +health then, his skin clear pink, an’ not a gray hair in +his head. Lu wuz feelin’ a little lonesome, I reckon, +after he set off, an’ that’s what made her hit on goin’ +fer chestnuts. We had a good time, an’ picked up a lot, +but we didn’t go up the big hill any furder than the +oak spring. Me an’ Lu an’ Rosie set down by the spring +to rest a bit, an’ the boys said they’d shammuck along +home an’ carry the chestnuts. We had about two flour-pokes +full. While we’s settin’ there, me an’ Lu an’ +Rosie, we heard somebody laffin’ way up at the top o’ +the hill. ‘There’s somebody else out to-day,’ said Lu. +‘Let’s wait an’ see who it is.’ We knowed from the +way the voices sounded that whoever wuz up there +had started down. I sort o’ felt like I knowed the man’s +voice, the way he wuz laffin’, an’ I set there with my +eye-teeth a-gittin’ loose, till right out o’ the woods +about fifty yards above us come Nathe an’ Ann. They +come on down, not seein’ us till they wuz right on us, +but we saw them all right. An’ I’ll say to ever’body +here, an’ Lizy too, that they may have been as mean +as the old boy, but they looked like they’d got to +Heaven an’ took up. Nathe’s face wuz like halleloo, an’ +Ann wuz flutterin’ ’s ef she wuz made out o’ wings. +She saw us ’fore Nathe did, ’cause he wuzn’t seein’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span> +nothin’ but Ann, an’ she give a little scream an’ set +right down on the ground. Nathe looked around then, +right at Lu. They stood there lookin’ at each other, an’ +Nathe couldn’t move his eyes fer a minute. Ef there’d +been a hole anywheres handy I reckon he’d ’a’ drapped +into it, but he didn’t have any hidin’-place, an’ Lu—Lord +bless her!—maybe she wuz sorry fer him, she +said, ‘Let’s go home, Rosie,’ an’ turned off an’ we come +home.”</p> + +<p>“Ay,” said Uncle Dan’l, “Lu wuz a good woman. I +wuz thinkin’ when that Jenkins wuz here an’ we wuz +talkin’ about who ought to lay ’long o’ Nathe, that Lu +had paid fer the place, even if she didn’t git it.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe so, but I am glad it wuz Callie got it, an’ I +hope she knows it,” said Uncle Ranz, a bit snappishly. +“I wuz sorry fer Lu, though. Nathe come in about +midnight an’ went to bed in the room next to the +one where him an’ Lu always stayed. But he didn’t +sleep none, an’ about three o’clock he come an’ woke +me up an’ ast me what Lu wuz meanin’ to do. I told +him she hadn’t said yit, he’d find out to-morr’. But +next day she couldn’t speak fer a cold she’d caught +settin’ by that spring. She wrote on a piece o’ paper +that she’d git a divorce an’ they’d divide the property<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span> +fair. Nathe got down by the bed an’ begged her not to +do that. He said there wuzn’t anybody to blame but +him, an’ it ’ud kill Ann to be disgraced, which wuz +what he ortn’t ’a’ said to Lu, but Nathe wuz so tore up +I reckon he couldn’t think o’ pickin’ his way. An’ Lu +wrote, ‘Is Baker yore boy?’ an’ Nathe said he wuz. +I s’pose he thought lyin’ wouldn’t hep him any with +Lu lookin’ right through him. I could see the big tears +rollin’ down Lu’s face, an’ she wrote: ‘I’m goin’ soon +as I git up.’ But she didn’t go, an’ there wuzn’t any +divorce, fer her cold turned inter double pneumony. +In three days she wuz dead, an’ we laid her up there +in Callie’s row next to little Rufe.</p> + +<p>“It wuzn’t long till talk wuz floatin’ round ’bout +Nathe an’ Ann, though I don’t b’lieve he went nigh +her, an’ I reckon Rosie started the talk. Nobody but +me had heard Nathe say that Bake wuz hisn, but Rosie +told Angie Sue what she’d seen that day by the spring. +An’ they thought it wuz fine to act smart about it.”</p> + +<p>“The gals thought a heap o’ Lu,” said Aunt Lizy, +irrepressible as justice. “I don’t blame ’em fer takin’ +her part.”</p> + +<p>“I ain’t blamin’ ’em,” said Uncle Ranz. “I’m sayin’ +they wuz mighty hard on Ann. Angie Sue said she wuz<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span> +goin’ to tell her father he had to turn Ann off the place. +I never heard her tell him, but I seen her go into the +room where he wuz. When she come out she looked +like she wuz fallin’ to pieces, an’ milk couldn’t be +whiter. As fur as I know that wuz the only time she +ever named Ann to her daddy. Nathe wuzn’t bothered +about Angie Sue, but he walked mighty keerful on +Ann’s account. He kept goin’ to church right along, an’ +travelled over to Carson faithful to his lodge meetin’s, +an’ acted a little more’n fair in his tradin’, an’ kept his +name right up. He wuz gittin’ to be wuth something +too. I reckon his farm, an’ stock, an’ what he had in +the Carson bank, would ’a’ come to more’n anybody +else in Silver Valley could ’a’ spelt. So the deacons let +him alone, as they ort, with no more proof than what +me an’ Rosie saw, an’ him behavin’ right an’ payin’ +the preacher reg’lar, besides givin’ him a suit o’ clothes +an’ a fine pair o’ shoes at Christmas.</p> + +<p>“Folks sort o’ made it easy fer Ann too, fer ever’body +thought a sight of her.” Here Aunt Lizy gave the +narrator a glance that drove him to an emendation. +“Barrin’ a few o’ the women that wuz so good they +didn’t have no use fer the New Testament. Most o’ the +folks would go to the mill, like they’d been doin’, an’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span> +act frien’ly, an’ make a heap over little Bake. Ever’body +knowed that Ann had had an awful time with +Curt, an’ Nathe wuz twenty years older’n her an’ could +talk water up-hill. Nobody could prove nothin’ anyway, +’cause walkin’ in the woods one time wuzn’t no +proof, not what the law could handle anyhow.</p> + +<p>“Lu had been dead runnin’ onto a year, an’ the talk +had died clean out, when Nathe told me to go to Mis’ +Baker an’ tell her to take Ann to Carson an’ git a paper +from the judge sayin’ she wuzn’t Curt’s wife. It wuz +the law in them days that if a man an’ his wife didn’t +live together fer three year they wuz nachally divorced +’thout goin’ inter court. I b’lieve they’ve changed it to +five year now, but it wuz three then, an’ Curt had been +gone four year an’ up’ards. I found Ann all in a trimmle +an’ cryin’ hersef to death. She showed me a letter she’d +got from Curt sayin’ he wuz comin’ back to settle with +Nathe—that he’d heard whose boy Bake wuz, an’ he +reckoned Nathe wouldn’t be so spry about havin’ him +arrested ef he come back. She said she wouldn’t marry +Nathe, fer Curt would be shore to slip in an’ kill him. +That’s what Curt said he would do in the letter, an’ +she didn’t have no more sense than to believe it. I +went home an’ told Nathe, an’ he swore like no human<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span> +bein’ ort to, an’ went straight off to Ann’s. When he +come back, I knowed from his looks as fur as I could +see him that his tongue hadn’t hepped him fer onct.</p> + +<p>“‘I told her,’ he said, ‘I’d marry her, an’ take keer +o’ her the rest o’ her life, like no woman wuz ever tuk +keer of in Silver Valley, an’ ef Angie Sue come home +she’d have to begin smilin’ at the gate er she’d never git +inter the house, an’ Ann told me to find me a good +woman an’ let her alone!’</p> + +<p>“‘She’s afeard Curt’ll come back an’ kill ye, Nathe,’ +I told him.</p> + +<p>“‘Yes,’ he says, ‘Curt’s comin’ to kill me! That’s +why he sent in his brag. So’s I could have my trigger +ready.’</p> + +<p>“‘Shucks,’ I said, ‘he’s a big coward; he’ll never +come.’</p> + +<p>“‘’Course he won’t,’ says Nathe, ‘but that don’t hep +me ef I kain’t make Ann believe it. Git me a good +woman, she says, an’ let her alone! It ’ud serve her almighty +right ef I did.’</p> + +<p>“‘You won’t do that, Nathe,’ I says, an’ he said: +‘No, I’ll hang around Aim fer the rest o’ my life, waitin’ +fer a chance to lick her shoes!’</p> + +<p>“‘That won’t be much to do,’ I told him. ‘Her shoes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span> +ain’t bigger than a thimble.’ ‘No, they ain’t,’ he says, +an’ took the all-over trimmles. ‘I’m clean crazy, Ranz,’ +he says.</p> + +<p>“He mulled around fer maybe a month, kickin’ at +his luck, an’ tryin’ to break pore little Ann, an’ the +very day Mis’ Baker told me that Ann couldn’t hold +out agin him much longer, he tied up with Nan Tittiewad.”</p> + +<p>Uncle Ranz paused once more, and Aunt Lizy, always +at the gap, and now evidently big with information, +darted in.</p> + +<p>“Her name wuzn’t Tittiewad. I knowed her folks +that year me an’ Dan lived out in Jackson County. +Her name wuz Benson, an’ her fam’ly wuz sort o’ bigetty. +She married Jim Sluter the fust time. Jim’s father +wuz called Taterwad ’cause he stole a wad o’ ’taters +onct, not more’n a good mess, an’ wuz carryin’ ’em +home when he wuz ketched with ’em. His name wuz +Ham Sluter, but folks called him Ham Taterwad after +that, an’ from him it went to his whole fam’ly. When +Jim married Nan Benson, they called him Jim Taterwad +after his father, an’ Nan would git so mad about +it they told her they’d change it to Tittiewad ef that +’ud suit her better, an’ the madder she got the tighter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span> +that name stuck to her. Jim an’ her didn’t git along. +They fit up an’ down the road, till fin’ly Jim left her, +an’ nobody ever knowed what become of him. He got +clear away from Nan. But they kept callin’ her Nan +Tittiewad, the same as ever, ’cause it fitted her, I +reckon, an’ it follered her wherever she went. I could +’a’ told Nathe all about her, but he wuzn’t sayin’ much +to folks around home right then. He met Nan one day +in Carson, an’ went round to the boardin’-house where +she put up. They talked all night, an’ the next mornin’ +they went to the court-house an’ got married.”</p> + +<p>Aunt Lizy was breathless from the hurried discharge +of her burden, and Uncle Ranz came in leisurely.</p> + +<p>“I never knowed nothin’,” he said, “till I seen ’em +drive up an’ Nathe hepped Nan out o’ the buggy. She +wuz tall, an’ had a fair sight o’ flesh on her, but you +couldn’t call her fat. She had red hair, but nobody wuz +’lowed to say it wuz red. She said it wuz orbun, but +that didn’t change its color a bit. Her skin wuz white +as a white egg-shell, an’ her eyes sky blue, not dark +blue like Ann’s, an’ her lips as red as shumake heads. +She wuz the fust woman Nathe had laid his hand on +in nigh to a year, an’ I reckon, considerin’ what his +nater wuz, it jest made him swim off. Nan sailed inter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span> +Lu’s house, an’ in less’n half an hour she’d been in ever’ +corner of it. Her lip wuz curlin’ considerable, but when +Nathe come in she ’peared to be satisfied. I b’lieve she +wuz raley took up with Nathe at first, an’ he went +about with his head lookin’ over all of us, heppin’ do +ever’thing she wanted, pullin’ the furniture here an’ +yander, an’ takin’ the pick o’ the parlor set to the room +where they slept, an’ all sech crazy work. But when +they’d been married about three weeks, an’ Nathe begun +to think o’ settlin’ down to work like he ort, she +said at breakfast one mornin’ that seein’ they’d done +without a honeymoon, s’pose they tuk a trip to Californy +er Flurridy. She’d always wanted to go to +them places, she said. Nathe ’lowed he didn’t have +enough money in the bank fer the trip, an’ didn’t have +time to go ef the cash wuz layin’ handy. She got mad +then, an’ said: ‘Well, I ain’t got time to wash yer +dishes an’ sweep yer house an’ cook yer meals, nuther.’ +Nathe told her he thought Rosie had been doin’ most +of the work, but ef it wuz too much fer her, he’d let +Angie Sue come home a while. She’d been wantin’ to +come, ’cause she’s havin’ trouble with Mose Kempit, +the man she married the fust time. An’ Nan said: ‘Oh, +Lord, don’t bring any more peek-eyes in here! I’m<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span> +smotherin’ to death now!’ Then she got up an’ walked +down toward the creek, but she come back fer dinner, +an’ from that time on it looked like the devil wuz runnin’ +the house from top to bottom. Nathe fin’ly said +he’d give her the money to go to Californy on ef she’d +stay when she got there, but she told him she wuzn’t +that easy, he wuz goin’ to do more than that fer her. +She said she’d have to be paid good fer comin’ to sech +a hole an’ livin’ with an ol’ squeeze-pocket that had +killed three wives an’ kept another woman too. I reckon +she’d picked something out o’ the neighbors, an’ Rosie +had told her about Ann, fer she wuz powerful thick +with Nan the fust week she wuz in the house.”</p> + +<p>Uncle Dan’l was growing restless. “I say, Ranz,” he +put in, “I never b’lieved Nan wuz near as bad as she +made hersef out. She wuz tryin’ to git Nathe to drive +her off, so she could sue him fer support an’ live where +she wanted to.”</p> + +<p>“’Course she wuz,” assented Uncle Ranz. “I found +that out right away, an’ me an’ Nathe talked it over. +‘You want to be keerful, Nathe,’ I told him, ‘an’ keep +yer hands off her an’ not give her any claim agin ye. +She’ll wear hersef out ’fore long.’ ‘You reckon she will?’ +Nathe ast me, an’ I told him I wuz shore she would ef<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span> +he kept still no matter what she done. That seemed to +hep him, an’ he set his teeth an’ tried to stand it. He +didn’t dare go to see Ann, fer that wuz what his wife +wuz watchin’ fer. He knowed she’d find him out, day +er night, an’ he walked straight as a shingle. The +whole neighborhood thought Nathe wuz actin’ fine, +an’ anybody would ’a’ been sorry for him the day +that Nan called Ann’s name an’ put something else to +it as plain as the Bible speaks it. Nathe set still, like +he’d never move till jedgment-day, an’ her tongue +hurtin’ him worse than rippin’ fire. I b’lieve Nan felt +kinder discouraged after that, thinkin’ she’d never git +him riled enough to beat her er drive her off.</p> + +<p>“It wuz awful the way she made a destroyment of +things in the house. One day she wuz settin’ in the big +room with Nathe, an’ she tuk a little penknife she had +an’ begun to cut the threads out of a cushion that Lu +had worked all over with little birds an’ leaves. ‘Don’t +do that,’ said Nathe. ‘Lu made that hersef.’ An’ Nan +says, ‘It’s mine now!’ an’ throwed it inter the fire. +Nathe jumped up to grab it off the blazin’ logs, an’ +Nan got right afore him. He’d ’a’ shoved her down, I +reckon, if Cricket Sawyer hadn’t been there an’ held +him back. Crick knew what Nan wuz after, the same<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span> +as the rest of us, an’ she got so mad at him she never +spoke to him afterwards, though they set at the same +table three times a day.</p> + +<p>“She found out where Nathe kept the aperns an’ +trimmin’s an’ things he wore at his lodge meetin’s. He +thought more o’ them cooterments than anything he +had. Nan got the key to the drawer, an’ when he come +in one day she wuz all rigged out in ’em. ‘Don’t I look +purty, Nathe?’ she says, walkin’ up an’ down ’fore +him. An’ he wuz afraid to say a word, fer he knowed +what she’d done to that cushion. ‘You won’t be wantin’ +’em any more,’ she says, ‘’cause yer lodge’ll turn ye +out soon as I tell ’em what you’ve got over yander at +the mill.’ Then she walked out an’ down the road with +them things on, an’ Nathe never seen a stitch o’ the +riggin’ afterwards. I fixed it up that she tied a rock to +’em an’ throwed ’em inter the creek.</p> + +<p>“We’d had about seven er eight months o’ Nan when +Nathe begun to look thin an’ show he wuz losin’ out. +I b’lieve he got to thinkin’ that Nan wouldn’t mind +heppin’ him off inter the next world ef she could do it +sly. He kept Crick Sawyer hired, but I couldn’t find +out what fer, he wuz so lazy an’ slept half of ever’ day. +I got to teasin’ him about drawin’ pay fer gittin’ his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span> +breath, an’ he fired up an’ told me that Nathe had +hired him to watch Nan at night, he’d got so skeered +o’ what she might do when he wuz asleep. I felt ashamed +o’ Nathe fer that, an’ I never let him know I’d found +out what Crick’s job wuz. But I says: ‘Crick, ef Ponnie +er Callie er Lu left here owin’ Nathe a hard time, Nan +has shore paid it fer ’em.’</p> + +<p>“She never done a thing to hep round the house, but +she wuz always on time fer her meals. She’d take the +head o’ the table, too, like she wuz the queen bee, +though she hadn’t warmed kiver with Nathe sence the +fust month she wuz there. She’d talk an’ laff an’ make +fun o’ Crick, an’ wouldn’t let a soul pour the coffee +but her. One day when she’d poured a cup fer Nathe, +it sparkled up quare, an’ he throwed it inter the fireplace. +It wuz that day that he went off to Carson an’ +come back with a cousin of ourn, Lem Thatcher, who’d +went out West an’ done well, an’ come back to see his +kinfolks. He wuz a widower, an’ a little younger’n +Nathe, an’ tolerable fair-lookin’ too. When Nan found +out he had some money she put on her best dressin’ an’ +smiled like a pickcher. When she wuz all flossied up an’ +shiny, a man would have to look at her sort o’ easy +out o’ one eye, till he found out her ways didn’t match<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span> +up. We’s all past the place where Nan’s looks counted +fer anything, but Lem wuzn’t, an’ when she’d plumb +her eyes at him he’d wriggle an’ turn red. Nathe seen +his chaince then, an’ told Lem he had to go inter Tennessee +fer a few days, but fer him to make hissef at +home an’ not think o’ leavin’ till he got back. He staid +about a week, an’ when he come home Lem an’ Nan +had been gone three days. I reckon they’s half-way to +Californy by that time. She left a note tellin’ Nathe +the sooner he got his divorce the better it would suit +her an’ Lem, an’ he could keep the few dollars in his +old sock, she said. She didn’t have no use fer ’em, an’ +his boy, Baker, might need ’em. She had the note +tacked up outside the front door. I wuzn’t at home the +mornin’ they left, but Crick told me she made Lem +tack the note up, an’ her laffin’ till you could hear her +to the pasture gate.</p> + +<p>“Nathe got a divorce soon as he could, but it wuz a +year er two ’fore anybody could speak to him about +Nan ’thout him takin’ out his big handkercher an’ +wipin’ his for’ed, he’d got inter sech a habit of it while +she wuz around. As fer his house, it shore needed a +good woman in it, Nan had been sech a tear-down.”</p> + +<p>“He got a good woman when Aunt Lindy Webb<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span> +went there,” said Serena, anticipating Aunt Lizy, and +making it known that the story had reached a stage +familiar to her generation.</p> + +<p>“Ay, Nan had sort o’ shattered him,” said Uncle +Dan’l, “and he made up his mind he wouldn’t make +no mistake the next time.”</p> + +<p>I wanted to hear about Ann. A depression was upon +me, as if she had died. Then I remembered that she +was going to South Carolina with Bake. But it was a +relief when Uncle Ranz uttered her name again.</p> + +<p>“Of course Nathe went to see Ann first, but she +stuck to what she’d said before, an’ Nathe didn’t take +it so hard this time. He could see fer hissef that Ann +couldn’t run his place, an’ he wuz shore needin’ somebody +that could. Rosie had got married, but her an’ +Angie Sue kept comin’ home to stir up trouble with +anybody that wuz hired on the place, an’ Nathe wuz +beginnin’ to show his gray hairs. Ann had been sick +fer a long spell. She tuk down dreckly after he married +Nan, an’ when Nathe seen her fer the fust time in +nearly a year, he give right in an’ told her she could +have her own way about ever’thing an’ he’d stand by +her jest the same. She begun to pick up purty soon, +and in a little while wuz as peart as ever. I don’t reckon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span> +it made any difference ’tween ’em when he married +Lindy Webb. Lindy had been married before——”</p> + +<p>“Twice,” said another voice, younger than Aunt +Lizy’s.</p> + +<p>“That’s so, twice,” said Uncle Ranz, “an’ she had +shown clear as gospel what a good woman she wuz. +Nathe ast about her from fust to last ’fore he ever +went to see her. He wuzn’t takin’ any chainces. Lindy’s +fust man would run away ’bout ever’ other year, an’ +she would make the crap an’ take keer of it, an’ have +his plate at the table ready fer him ever’ meal she set +down to, in case he drapped in. Ef she had a little +money saved up, he took holt of it right away. Onct +she saved seventeen dollars makin’ syrup, runnin’ the +cane-mill night an’ day, an’ he took ever’ dollar soon +as he come in. He went off at last an’ staid so long that +Jim Webb wanted to marry Lindy, so he went round +’mong the neighbors an’ called a meetin’. They voted +she could marry Jim, but she couldn’t take up with +any furriner that might come along an’ want her farm. +She married Jim then, an’ he would ’a’ made her a good +husband ef he hadn’t hurt his leg tryin’ to break a yoke +o’ steers hissef, ’stead o’ lettin’ Lindy do it like she +wuz used to. It didn’t heal up, an’ Lindy had to wait<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span> +on him hand an’ foot fer ten years, an’ make the livin’ +fer both of ’em. Jim wuz quarrellin’ all the time, an’ +Lindy said he wuz fractious ’cause he wuz so disappinted +in not bein’ able to hep her like he’d set out to +do. He died about the time her farm wuz run through +with, ’count o’ him wantin’ ever’thing, an’ livin’ on +almanac medicine, but she had nice things in her +house an’ she brought ’em all to Nathe’s. It wuzn’t +long till she had Nathe’s place lookin’ as well as it did +in Lu’s time, an’ she had more in the cellar to eat an’ +drink than Lu ever had. There wuzn’t nuthin’ Lindy +didn’t know how to do er to make. She wuzn’t burnin’ +jealous nuther, an’ told me hersef she wuzn’t goin’ to +keep Nathe miser’ble by tryin’ to change his nater. +She’d leave that to the Lord, she said.”</p> + +<p>“That wuz the only thing,” said Aunt Lizy, “that I +held agin Lindy. She wuz too easy about Ann.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Ann never bothered her. She never set her +foot in the big house, an’ she told Nathe she’d never +cross the doorstep after that day she met Rosie in the +road, an’ Rosie mewed up her mouth an’ drawed back +her skirts. Nathe come to see that Ann wuz right. +Lindy had a strong hand on the girls, an’ kep’ his house +so he could set in it peaceable, which wuz more’n Ann<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span> +could ’a’ done. He told Ann she could always do as she +pleased about ever’thing except one. He said Bake +would have to go away to school. He put it that the +other childern might treat him like he wuzn’t as good +as they wuz, an’ Ann give in. But I had an idy he seen +she wuz gittin’ all wrapped up in Bake. Nathe couldn’t +stand bein’ left out like that. Anyway he sent Bake +off, an’ he growed up a fine feller, comin’ back fer his +vacations, an’ to hunt ’possums Christmas, an’ ever’body +likin’ him same as ef he’s raised right here.</p> + +<p>“About a month after Nathe married Lindy, somebody +writ Ann from Birmingham that Curt had died +down there, an’ Nathe sent me to Alabam’ to make +sure it wuz so, an’ I found out it wuz. I thought Nathe +would be terr’bly cut up when I told him, ’cause ef +he’d waited a little, Ann might ’a’ married him with +Curt out o’ the way. But he ’lowed it wouldn’t ’a’ made +any difference, he couldn’t let Ann come inter the big +house where the girls would keep her miser’ble even ef +she’d been willin’ to try it, an’ it wuz too late fer him +to go away from Silver Valley an’ begin all over. I +could see he wuz gittin’ satisfied with things as they +wuz.”</p> + +<p>“Why wouldn’t he be satisfied?” said Aunt Lizy,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span> +“with pore Lindy doin’ ever’thing fer him while he rid +aroun’, an’ went over to Ann’s whenever he took a +notion! An’ folks never stopped him from bein’ deacon.”</p> + +<p>“What proof did they have agin him, I’d like fer +ye to tell me,” said Uncle Ranz. “They couldn’t do +nothin’ without proof. It wuz his own mill, an’ ef he +wanted to set around there fer a while, onct or twict a +week, he had a right to. Nobody but me knowed what +he’d said about Bake, an’ I never told it till to-day.”</p> + +<p>“To-day!” exclaimed Aunt lazy. “I’ve heard it a +hunderd times ef I have onct!”</p> + +<p>“Well, I may have told <i>you</i> a time er two, Lizy, but +I never went round the settlement a-tellin’ it. I reckon +folks thought ef Lindy didn’t want to act up about +Ann, <i>they</i> didn’t have no call to make trouble. Lindy +had her hands full anyhow, there wuz always so many +runnin’ in an’ out o’ the big house. The boys got married, +too, an’ some o’ the childern wuz comin’ an’ goin’ +all the time. It wuz quiet over at Ann’s, an’ she wuz a +lot easier in her mind after Curt died. She growed +stronger, an’ begun to ’tend to the mill hersef. When +her mother died, she kept right on tendin’ it. An’ she +wouldn’t take nobody to live with her. Her brother’s +fam’ly wuz so close she didn’t need nobody, she said.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span> +Folks would come to the mill, an’ talk pleasant, an’ +hep with the liftin’, an’ Nathe couldn’t make her give +it up.”</p> + +<p>But Aunt Lizy must add a bitter touch. “It’s a pity,” +she said, “that he didn’t try to make Lindy give up +some o’ <i>her</i> hard work; she’d ’a’ lived longer.”</p> + +<p>“I know she worked hard,” said Uncle Ranz, “an’ +the gals wuz aggervatin’, but she seemed satisfied, an’ +Nathe never interfered with her about nothin’.”</p> + +<p>“I reckon,” said Uncle Dan’l, “them twenty-odd +years he lived with Lindy wuz about the best o’ Nathe’s +life. An’ she never opened her mouth about Ann.”</p> + +<p>“You’re fergittin’ what she said when she wuz dyin’. +Lindy wuz proud o’ her nice things—all the quilts +she’d pieced, an’ counterpins an’ kiverlids she’d wove, +an’ rugs, an’ table-kivers, an’ curtains. When she wuz +dyin’ she ast Nathe not to let Ann come in over ’em +soon as she wuz dead cold. Nathe promised her he +wouldn’t. ‘Ef I bring a woman in here, Lindy,’ he said, +‘she’ll have to be as smart as you’ve been.’ That +pleased Lindy better’n anything he could ’a’ told her. +Nathe kept his word too, an’ married a fine widder +from out around Waynesville. She wuz up in years, +but healthy, an’ could turn her hand to anything.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span> +Nathe wuz proud o’ the Widder Stiles when he brought +her in.”</p> + +<p>“I knowed her boy, Zeb, out in Jackson County,” +said Uncle Dan’l. “He wuz a smart feller, an’ went off +an’ made two kinds of a doctor of hissef, a rubbin’ doctor +an’ the other kind. I seen Doc Stiles when he went +through here last summer.”</p> + +<p>“His mother could ’a’ come inter Silver Valley without +puttin’ on airs, though,” Aunt Lizy informed us, +in a tone savoring of keen reminiscence.</p> + +<p>“She had different notions from Lindy, an’ that’s +what Nathe wuzn’t expectin’,” continued Uncle Ranz. +“She never ast no questions, an’ nobody told her +nothin’, but she looked around fer hersef, an’ it didn’t +take her long to make up her mind about Ann. When +they’d been married about six weeks, she told Nathe +she believed she’d go fer a visit to see how her folks +wuz gittin’ on. Nathe said all right, only he’d ruther +she wouldn’t stay long an’ it harvest-time. He hitched +up, an’ took her to Scatter, an’ she got on the train an’ +never come back. Nathe went over to Waynesville +after her, but he had to come home by hissef. Seemed +like he wuz tuk down about it, an’ never got back his +spirit. ’Twasn’t long till he couldn’t ride over to Ann’s,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span> +an’ after that he went off fast. Angie Sue left her second +husband, an’ come to live with her daddy, an’ Herb’s +wife wuz dead an’ him an’ all the childern wuz there, +an’ pore ol’ Nathe had to die ’thout anybody in the +house to make things run easy an’ peaceable.</p> + +<p>“Angie Sue is claimin’ ever’thing her daddy had fer +takin’ keer o’ him, but ef it hadn’t been fer the things +Ann cooked up an’ slipped over to him by me an’ the +neighbors, he wouldn’t ’a’ teched a bite fer three weeks +’fore he died. Angie Sue quit takin’ her stuff in to him, +’cause all he’d say wuz: ‘Git out o’ here with that pizen.’ +The day he wuz dyin’ he sent me to tell Ann that Bake +would take keer o’ her. She knowed that, but he wanted +to be sendin’ some word. She wuz settin’ by the winder +holdin’ something in her hand when I come inter +the yard. I went to the winder, an’ she paled off a little +an’ ast ef he wuz gone. When I told her what he wanted +me to, she says: ‘You give him this. He’ll know what +it is.’ I looked, an’ it wuz a big ol’ shiny chestnut, so +light I knowed they wuzn’t nuthin’ in it but dust. ‘I +picked it up,’ she says, ‘that day about a minute ’fore +Lu saw us.’ I took it, but Nathe wuz dead when I got +back home.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span></p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>At Scatter the next morning Serena and I waited +for the up-train to Beebread. A little mother and her +big son were waiting for the down-train going east. +Serena went over to the mother, who was Ann Lindsay, +and they chatted softly. I kept aside, not precipitating +an introduction. Was she not a nugatory survival, who, +by all laws of fitness, ought to have been on the hill +’longside the others? But the “others” would have removed +their dusty skirts; and Bake had said that +Jenny would be good to her. That expectation was apparent, +I thought, in her quiet assurance. And suddenly, +unreasonably, I felt that her departure was a desertion.</p> + +<p>I recalled the futile Angie Sue, the innocuous Herb +and Sam, the negligible Rosie, and thought of Nathe +with all his vital insistence buried so “proper” in an +untended grave. Then I looked at big Bake, whose +resolute posterity would shoulder through, undoubtedly, +to the end of a needy world. Here, for the breath-time +of earth, at least, Uncle Nathe might hold oblivion +in check.</p> + +<p>The whistle of the east-bound train blew, a mile<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span> +away. I had overheard enough to know that Bake and +his mother would leave the train at Carson and motor +over the new highway, out and down to their lowland +home—that highway, monstrously magical, so rapidly +obliterating the Unakasia of my intimate care and +delight. Within a few years, the ways and customs of +Atlantis would not be more dim in time.</p> + +<p>While the whistle of the train was still keen in the +air, Elmer Jenkins walked on to the platform. He spied +Baker Lindsay, and went to him at once.</p> + +<p>“I saw you at the funeral yesterday,” he said.</p> + +<p>“I saw you too,” said Bake, his smile implying that +no one could have missed the master of ceremonies. +Mr. Jenkins was pleased, and his glance of response +included the pretty, white-haired woman at Bake’s +side. When he was introduced, the lawyer would have +offered his hand, but Ann, unfledged in new air, was +too timid to note the gesture.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you were out yesterday, Mrs. Lindsay,” +he said, and she dropped a soft negative.</p> + +<p>“Too bad you missed the ceremony! It was unusual +in a district so remotely rural. I was glad to be instrumental +in getting a good turn-out from the Carson +lodge, though Mr. Ponder had not been in attendance<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span> +for some years. These fine old mountaineers are passing—passing. +It was a very interesting funeral. Very.”</p> + +<p>“I reckon it was,” said Ann, as Bake, gently dominant, +lifted her to the train.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="transnote"> +<p class="ph1">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p> + +<p>Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.</p> + +<p>Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.</p> + +<p>Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.</p> +</div></div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75567 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/75567-h/images/colophon.jpg b/75567-h/images/colophon.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f8c79cd --- /dev/null +++ b/75567-h/images/colophon.jpg diff --git a/75567-h/images/cover.jpg b/75567-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..60c67fc --- /dev/null +++ b/75567-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/75567-h/images/coversmall.jpg b/75567-h/images/coversmall.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..63d33f5 --- /dev/null +++ b/75567-h/images/coversmall.jpg diff --git a/75567-h/images/title_page.jpg b/75567-h/images/title_page.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..64dd4f2 --- /dev/null +++ b/75567-h/images/title_page.jpg |
