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The Starbucks

by Opie Percival Read · English · Gutenberg #18984 · 327,725 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Starbucks

Author: Opie Percival Read


        
Release date: August 3, 2006 [eBook #18984]
                Most recently updated: January 1, 2021

Language: English

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THE STARBUCKS

A New Novel

by

OPIE READ


Author of
"The Jucklins," "Old Ebenezer," "My Young Master,"
"A Tennessee Judge," "A Kentucky Colonel," "Len Gansett,"
"On the Suwanee River," "Emmett Bonlore," Etc.







[Illustration: "SHE WAS THE ONLY MOTHER I KNOWED."]




Character Illustration, True to Life, Reproduced in Colors



Laird & Lee, Chicago

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1902,
by William H. Lee,
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at
Washington, D. C.




Contents

          CHAPTER                                          PAGE
              I. The People of the Hills,                    9
             II. Jim, the Preacher,                         17
            III. Getting Acquainted,                        32
             IV. At the Post Office,                        50
              V. Couldn't Quarrel in Peace,                 63
             VI. Hadn't Listened,                           84
            VII. Not So Far Out of the World,              102
           VIII. The Spirit that Played with Her,          111
             IX. At Dry Fork,                              118
              X. Tied to a Tree,                           134
             XI. Reading the News,                         148
            XII. Didn't Do Anything Heroic,                166
           XIII. Might Wipe her Feet on Him,               183
            XIV. An Old Man Preached,                      198
             XV. The Girl and the Churn,                   207
            XVI. The Appointment Comes,                    220
           XVII. Not to Tell Her a Lie,                    234
          XVIII. Down the Road,                            252
            XIX. Old Folks Left Alone,                     263
             XX. Met it in the Road,                       271
            XXI. Into the World beyond the Hills,          279
           XXII. Came to Weep,                             287
          XXIII. A Trip Not Without Incident,              296
           XXIV. Two Fruitful Witnesses,                   303
           XXIV. Too Proud to Beg,                         312




ILLUSTRATIONS

REPRODUCED IN COLORS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS


                                                               PAGE

   "She was the only mother I knowed,"                 Frontispiece

  "Them what hain't had trouble ain't had no cause to look fur
     the Lord,"                                                 48

   "Yes, I d-d-d-do say so, a-a-a-atter a f-f-f-fashion."       80

   "Kotch 'em stealin' hosses, I reckon."                      128

   "Well," Margaret exclaimed, "I never was so surprised."     208

   "Go on erway an' let me talk ter myse'f. You kain't talk."  240

   "If you air the Jedge, I am sorter diserp'inted in you."    288

   "Jedge, there ain't no better man than he is, an' for the
     Lord's sake don't hang him."                              304




"THE STARBUCKS."

[From the Drama of the Same Name.]




CHAPTER I.

THE PEOPLE OF THE HILLS.


In every age of the world people who live close to nature have, by the
more cultivated, been classed as peculiar. An ignorant nation is brutal,
but an uneducated community in the midst of an enlightened nation is
quaint, unconsciously softened by the cultivation and refinement of
institutions that lie far away. In such communities live poets with
lyres attuned to drollery. Moved by the grandeurs of nature, the
sunrise, the sunset, the storm among the mountains, the tiller of the
gullied hill-side field is half dumb, but with those apt "few words
which are seldom spent in vain," he charicatures his own sense of
beauty, mingling rude metaphor with the language of "manage" to a horse.

I find that I am speaking of a certain community in Tennessee. And
perhaps no deductions drawn from a general view of civilization would
apply to these people. Some of their feuds, it is said, may be traced
back to the highlands of Scotland, and it is true that many of their
expressions seem to come from old books which they surely have never
read, but they do not eat oats, nor do they stand in sour awe of Sunday.
What religion they have is a pleasure to them. In the log meeting-house
they pray and sing, sometimes with a half-open eye on a fellow to be
"thrashed" on the following day for not having voted as he agreed;
"Amen" comes fervently from a corner made warm by the ardor of the
repentant sinner; "Hallelujah!" is shouted from the mourner's bench, and
a woman in nervous ecstasy pops her streaming hair; but the average man
has come to talk horse beneath the trees, and the young fellow with
sun-burnt down on his lip is there slily to hold the hand of a maid
frightened with happiness and boastingly to whisper shy words of love.

"Do you like Sam Bracken?" he inquires.

"Not much."

"If you like him much, I bet I can whup him. Like Steve Smith?"

"Not so powerful well."

"I can whup him."

"Bet you can't."

"You wait."

And the chances are that unless she modifies her statement the Smith boy
will be compelled to answer for the crime of her compliment.

In this community, in the edge of what is known as East Tennessee, the
memory of Andrew Jackson is held in deepest reverence. To those people
he was as a god-like hero of antiquity. Single-handed he defeated the
British at New Orleans. Nicholas Biddle, a great banker somewhere away
off yonder, had gathered all the money in the land, and it was Jackson
who compelled him to disgorge, thus not only establishing himself as the
master of war, but as the crusher of men who oppress the poor.

       *       *       *       *       *

Prominent in the neighborhood of Smithfield, a town of three or four
hundred inhabitants, was Jasper Starbuck. Earlier in his life he had
whipped every man who stood in need of that kind of training. Usually
of a blythesome nature, he was subject to fits of melancholy, only to be
relieved by some sort of physical entanglement with an enemy. Then, his
"spell" having passed, he would betake himself to genial affairs, help a
neighbor with his work, lend his chattels to shiftless farmers, cut wood
and haul it for widows, and gathering children about him entertain them
with stories of the great war.

And how dearly that war had cost him. East Tennessee did not tear itself
loose from the Union; Andrew Johnson and Parson Brownlow, one a
statesman and the other a fanatic, strangled the edicts of the lordly
lowlanders and sent regiment after regiment to the Federal army. Among
the first to enlist were old Jasper Starbuck and his twin boys. The boys
did not come back. In the meantime their heart-broken mother died, and
when the father returned to his desolate home, there was a grave beneath
the tree where he had heard a sweet voice in the evening.

Years passed and he married again, a poor girl in need of a home; and at
the time which serves as the threshold of this history, he was sobered
down from his former disposition to go out upon a "pilgrimage" of
revenge. His "spells" had been cured by grief, but nothing could kill
his humor. Drawling and peculiar, never boisterous, it was stronger than
his passion and more enduring than the memory of a wrong. He was not a
large man. A neighbor said that he was built after the manner of a
wild-cat. He was of iron sinew and steel nerve. His eyes were black with
a glint of their youthful devilishness. His thick hair was turning gray.

Margaret, his wife, was a tender scold. She was almost a foundling, but
a believer in heredity could trace in her the evidences of good blood.
From some old mansion, long years in ruin, a grace had escaped and come
to her. An Englishman, traveling homeward from the defunct colony of
Rugby, declared that she was an uncultivated duchess.

"This union was blessed,"--say the newspapers and story-books, speaking
of a marriage,--"with a beautiful girl," or a "manly boy." Often this
phrase is flattery, but sometimes, as in this instance, it is the truth.
Lou Starbuck was beautiful. In her earlier youth she was a delicious
little riot of joy. As she grew older, she was sometimes serious with
the thought that her father and mother had suffered. She loved the truth
and believed that bravery was not only akin to godliness, but the right
hand of godliness.

In Starbuck's household, or at least attached to his log-house
establishment, there were two other persons, an old black mammy who had
nursed Jasper, and a trifling negro named Kintchin.

       *       *       *       *       *

One day in summer there came two notable visitors, Mrs. Mayfield, and
her nephew Tom Elliott, both from Nashville, sister and son of a United
States Judge. When they came to Jasper's house, they decided to go no
further.

"Tom," said the woman, "this is the place we are looking for."

Tom caught sight of Lou Starbuck, standing in the doorway, and replied:
"Auntie, I guess you are right."

The mere suggestion of taking boarders threw the household into a
flurry, but Mrs. Mayfield, tall, graceful, handsome, threw her charm
upon opposition and it faded away. Old Jasper was not over cordial to
"store clothes," at least he was not confidential, and with the keen
whip of his eye he lashed Tom Elliott, but the boy appeared to be frank
and manly.

"Of course you can stay as long as you want to," said Jasper, "but I
reckon you'll have to put on some homespun and a checked hickory shirt
or two, befo' you kin put up with our fare."

"Now, please, don't worry about that," Mrs. Mayfield spoke up. "We can
eat parched corn if necessary. We have come from the city to rest,
and--"

"Rest," Jasper broke in, looking at the young fellow. "Why, he don't
look like he ever done anythin'. Never plowed a day in your life, did
you?"

"I must confess that I haven't," Tom replied.

"Thar, I knowed it." And then speaking to Mrs. Mayfield, he added: "All
right, mam, we'll do the best we kin fur you. Got the same names here
that you had down whar you come from?"

Tom laughed. His aunt reproved him with a look. "Why, of course. What
object would we have in changing them?"

"Don't ask me, mam. I never know what object nobody has--ain't my
business. Here, Kintchin," he called to the negro, "take them trunks
outen the wagin and then you may go to sleep ag'in."

Kintchin came round a corner of the house, rubbing his eyes. "Talkin'
ter me, suh?"

"You hearn me."

"Said suthin' erbout gwine ter sleep. I jest wanter tell you dat I ain't
slep' none fur er week, an' ef you 'sinuate at me--"

"Go on there. Now mam, ef you'll jest step in we'll do the best we kin."

"Oh, thank you. How courteous you are."

"How what? I reckon you better git along without much o' that. Don't
want nobody put on a strain. Margaret, here are some folks," he
continued as his wife made her appearance. "Jest tell 'em howdy and let
'em alone."

She bowed to Tom and to Mrs. Mayfield. "And befo' you make yo'selves at
home," she said, "I hope you'll l'arn not to pay no attention to Jasper.
Lou, haven't you spoke to the folks?"

"No'm, but I can. Howdy."




CHAPTER II.

JIM, THE PREACHER.


During the rest of the day the visitors were permitted to amuse
themselves. Lou was shy, Margaret was distantly respectful and the old
man went about in leisurely attendance upon his affairs, not yet wholly
unsuspicious. A week before the arrival of the "folks from off yander,"
as the strangers were termed, there had come to Jasper's house a nephew,
Jim Starbuck, a mountain-side preacher. His air bespoke that gentleness
resultant of passion bound and gagged. At eighteen he had been known as
the terror of the creek. Without avail old Jasper had argued with him,
with fresh scalps dangling at his own belt. One night Jim turned a
revival meeting into a fight with bench legs, beat a hard-hearted money
lender until he was taken home almost a mass of pulp. At nineteen he
turned a hapless school teacher out of the school house, nailed up the
door, and because the teacher muttered against it, threw the pedagogue
into the creek. At twenty he seemed to hear a voice coming from afar. A
man going to mill said that he saw Jim beside a log on his knees in the
woods, praying; he was called a liar, knocked down his insulter and went
on with his grist. He had spoken the truth, for on the night following,
Jim arose in the congregation, renounced his reckless ways, and with a
defiance of the world that among the righteous awaked applause, he came
forward and knelt at the mourners' bench. His religion "took," they
said, as if speaking of vaccination, and before long he entered the
pulpit, ready gently to crack the irreligious heads of former companions
still stubborn in the ways of iniquity. From behind a plum bush, in the
corner of the fence, he had seen Mrs. Mayfield and had blinked, as if
dazzled by a great light. Nor was it till the close of day that he had
the courage to come into her presence, and then for a moment he
gazed--and vanished. Old Jasper found him mumbling beneath the moon.

"Lost anythin', Jim?"

"Nothing that I ever thought I had, Uncle Jasper."

"Look like a man that is huntin' fur his terbacker."

"I've quit tobacco long ago, Uncle Jasper."

"Huh, give that up, too? Then you have been hit hard. But atter all, my
boy, a lick that ain't hard don't count fur much. Understand I believe
in yo' Book all right, but not as the most of 'em reads it. The most of
'em reads it so as to make you do the things you don't want to do, and
what they want you to do. A good many of 'em think it was writ fur them
ag'in you. Findin' new picturs on the moon, Jim? I don't see nuthin'
new; same old feller a burnin' of his bresh, allus a puttin' 'em on the
fire an' never gittin' through."

"I'm thinking, that's all, Uncle Jasper."

"Comes from readin' them books up on the hill-top, I reckon. They make
me think, too, when I git a holt of 'em, 'specially them about the
war--looks like it's a mighty hard matter for a man to tell the truth
the minit he grabs holt of a pen. Don't see why a pen is such a liar,
but it is. And yit, the biggist liar I ever seed couldn't more than
write his name. What do you think of them folks in thar, Jim?"

Jim strode off, came back and standing with one hand resting on the rail
fence that surrounded the old man's door yard, hung his head and
replied: "Old Satan sometimes puts good clothes on his temptations,
Uncle Jasper."

"Why, you don't think that young feller's a nosin' round to--"

"I don't see anything mysterious in him, Uncle Jasper. It's the woman
that--that strikes so hard."

"Huh. I didn't think you cared anythin' about women, Jim."

"Oh, I don't and you musn't think I do. Did you ever have a feller catch
a spear out of the sun with a lookin' glass and shoot it through yo'
eyes? That's the way she done me, as she was a standing there at the
door."

"Wall, as game a feller as you are ain't afeared of a woman."

"I don't know about that. The gamer a feller is among men the fearder he
is among women, it seems like. But what am I talking about? She won't
take any notice of me and in fact it won't make any difference if she
does. I tell you, though, I don't like to be treated that way by a
woman."

"Why, how did she treat you?"

"Looked something at me that made me dissatisfied with myself. I reckon
I must be a good deal of a fool, Uncle Jasper."

"Wall, I don't reckon you are as smart as old Henry Clay was. Still you
ain't no slouch. Come on in and I'll give you a knockin' down to her.
She can't no mo' than hit you with somethin'."

When introduced Jim shied off into a corner and there during the evening
he remained, gazing at the woman from "off yander," with scarcely
courage enough to utter a word. Mrs. Mayfield inquired as to his church
among the hills, and his countenance flared with a silly light and old
Jasper ducked his head and snorted in the sleeve of his home-spun shirt.
But the next morning Jim had the courage to appear at the breakfast
table, still gazing; and later when Tom and his aunt went out for a
walk, he followed along like a dog waiting to be scolded.

Several days later, while old black mammy was ironing in the sitting
room, Kintchin came in at the door which always stood open, and looking
about, slowly went up to the old woman and inquired if she needed any
more wood.

"No," she answered, not looking at him, "I's nearly done."

Kintchin scratched his head. "Wall, I jest come ter tell you dat ef you
does need any mo' I knows er man dat'll git it fur you. Me. An' w'en er
man fetches er lady de sort o' wood I'd fetch you, w'y she kin tell
right dar whut he think o' her. Does you hyarken ter me?"

Mammy, slowly moving her iron, looked at him. "Whut de matter wid you,
man? Ain't habin' spells, is you?"

"I's in lub, lady, dat's whut de matter wid me."

"In lub? In lub wid who?"

He leaned toward her. "Wid you."

"W'y you couldn't lub me," she said. "I's eighty odd an' you ain't but
sixty. I's too old fur you. I doan want ter fool wid no chile."

Kintchin came closer and made an attempt to take her hand, shrewdly
watching the hot iron slowly moving over the bosom of a shirt. "I'll
burn da black hide ef you doan git erway. You bodders me."

The old rascal assumed an air of great astonishment. "Whut, er man
bodder er lady dat he lubs?"

"Didn't I tole you you couldn't lub me?"

"Couldn't lub you? Ain't you been er savin' yo' money all deze years,
an' ef er man kain't lub er lady dat's been er savin' her money, who kin
he lub?"

She gave him a look of contempt. "Oh, I knowd dar wuz er bug in de milk
pan. It's my little bit o' money you's atter, but you ain't gwine ter
git it. Dat money's ter bury me wid." And in a self-satisfied way she
nodded at him and resumed her work.

Kintchin stepped back, the word 'bury' having thrown a temporary pall
upon his cupidity, but soon he rallied and renewed his attack. "Funny
dat er lady will save all her life long jest ter be buried. I doan blebe
in deze yere 'spensive funuls nohow. Huh, an' you oughter hab ernuff by
dis time ter bury bof o' us. An' ef you says de word I'll be buried
side o' you ter keep you comp'ny."

She ceased her work and looked at him. "I won't need no comp'ny. I'll be
busy tellin' de Lawd 'bout de folks down yere. An, I gwine tell him,
w'in I goes home."

She gathered up the clothes basket and went into an adjoining room,
leaving Kintchin to muse alone. He heard the low whistle of a
backwoodsman's improvised tune, and looking up, saw a man leaning
against the door-facing. To the old negro the new comer was not a
stranger. Once that big foot had kicked him out of the road, and lying
in his straw bed the poor wretch had burned with resentment, cowed,
helpless; and sleeping, had dreamed of killing the brute and awoke with
a tune on his black lips. He knew Lije Peters, neighborhood bully
without being a coward, a born black-mailer, a ruffian with the touch of
humor, ignorant with sometimes an allegorical cast of speech. As he
entered the room he looked about and seeing no one else, spoke to
Kintchin:

"Whar's Jasper Starbuck?"

"I seed Miss Margaret an' Miss Lou out yander jest now," Kintchin
answered, backing off as Peters advanced toward him.

"I didn't ask about them. Whew, what you got sich a hot fire in here
for?"

"Mammy's been ironin'."

"Yes. Been a meltin iron I should think. Is Starbuck at home? Answer me,
you scoundrel." He made a threatening gesture and Kintchin, backing
further off, cried out, "Doan rush me, suh. Ef I'se er scoundul you
hatter give me time. Er scoundul hatter be keerful whut he say. I seed
Mr. Starbuck dis mawnin', suh."

Peters turned as if to go out, but halted and looked at Kintchin. The
old negro nodded. "Say, is that young feller and that woman here yit?"

"Gimmy time--gimmy time. I's er scoundul, you know."

"Do you want me to mash your head?"

Kintchin put his hand to his head. "Whut, dis one right yere? No, suh, I
doan blebe I does."

"Well, then answer me. That woman and young chap here yet?"

"Yas, suh, da's yere."

"She's his aunt, I understand."

"Yas, suh, dat's whut you un'erstand."

"Why did they come here? What are they doin'?"

"Gimmy time. Da come caze da wanter ter, an' now dat da's yere, da's
jest er bo'din'; dat's all."

"You are an old fool."

"Yas, suh," replied Kintchin, "dat's whut I yere."

Mammy came in and said to Kintchin, "De steers broke down de fence an'
is eatin' up de co'n. See, through de winder?"

"Dat won't do," Kintchin exclaimed with hurry in his voice but with
passive feet. "No, it won't do. Steer ain't got no right ter come roun'
er eatin' up de co'n."

"But w'y doan you go on, man? Mars Jasper'll git arter you."

"I's gwine. Allus suthin' ter make er man work his j'ints," he moved off
toward the door, and turning just before going out, said to Peters:
"Yere come Miss Lou now."

The girl came in singing, but seeing Peters, hushed, and turned to go
out.

"One minute, Miss Lou," said Peters, bowing awkwardly.

She halted, looked at him and said, "Well?"

"Won't you sit down," said Peters, making a great show of politeness.

"I'm not tired," Lou replied.

Peters smiled. "I've got suthin' I want to say to you."

"Then I may be tired," she said, sitting down. "Well?"

Peters stood for a moment, looking at her and then inquired: "Did yo'
father tell you suthin' I said to him?"

Slowly rocking she looked up at him. "He always has enough talk of his
own without repeatin' what other folks say."

"But what I told him was about you."

"Well, if what you said wasn't good you wouldn't be here to tell about
it, so it don't concern me."

He attempted to smile, but failed. "I don't know about that."

"You don't know about anything--much."

"Enough to know what I think of you."

"Hope you know what I think of you."

"Ah," said Peters, "I don't reckon you think of me very often."

Lou got up and went to him, looked straight into his eyes and said:
"Think of you! Why, I never know you are on earth till you come where I
am and then I spend my time tryin' to forget you are there."

"Well, now," replied Peters, "that ain't very polite."

She stepped back and looked at him in pretended astonishment. "Was
anybody ever polite to you?"

"Well, not many of the Starbucks, that's a fact--none, come to think of
it 'cept yo' cousin Jim, the preacher, and he believes that the Lord
made all things for a purpose."

"Yes, he believes that God made the devil."

Peters laughed as if he really enjoyed her contempt of him. He pulled at
his whiskers, cleared his throat, took a turn about the room and looking
at her again, he appeared as if he had attempted to soften his
countenance with a sentiment urgently summoned. "Yes, that is all true,
I reckon. And now let me tell you. I mout not look like it--like I'm
hard to please, but I am. Thar ain't one woman out of a hundred that can
make me wake up when I'm sleepy and think about her, but you can. And
ever sense you was a child I've said I'd never marry till I could git
you." He saw the anger in her eyes and hesitated. "Ah, you may not think
very much of me now," he continued, "but that can all be changed. A
woman's like a mornin' glory flower--always a changing; an' I know you
could learn to love me."

"Oh, you do. Well, what you know and what's the truth won't never know
each other well enough to shake hands."

Peters smiled upon her, "Wall, if nuthin' else did, that of itself would
prove you air old Jasper's daughter."

Margaret Starbuck came in, with a pan of turnips. Peters bowed to her.
"Er good mornin', ma'm."

She put the pan on the table and giving him an unconscious grace bade
him good morning. "Is mammy done ironin'?" she asked, speaking to Lou.

"Yes'm, I reckon so." Then she added, speaking to Peters, "Is there
anythin' else you wanted?"

"Why, Lou," Margaret spoke up, "is that the way to talk?"

"Yes'm, sometimes," and nodding at Peters she added: "And this is one of
them." She laughed, turned away and sat down with her elbows resting on
a battered old melodeon.

"Oh, she's jest a jokin' with me ma'm," said Peters. "I wanted to see
yo' husband. Reckon he's out some whar on the place."

"I think so," Margaret replied, peeling the turnips. "I heard him
calling the hogs just now."

Lou looked at Peters and said: "Then why don't you go?"

"Why, daughter," exclaimed Margaret, "you musn't talk that way. Mr.
Peters is in yo' house."

She came forward and to the visitor bowed with mock humility. "I beg
your pardon, Mr. Peters--"

"Oh, that's all right, Miss Lou."

"For bein' honest with you."

Peters cleared his throat. She returned to the melodeon and sat down
with her back toward him. Peters started out but halted and spoke to
Margaret. "Suthin' I have been workin' fur a long time is about to
come--an app'intment I've been tryin' to git, and when I git it there
air folks that ought to be skeered."

Lou glanced round at him and replied, "And then again, there are folks
that won't be."

"Ah," said Peters, "an' them that won't be air them that ought to be."
And then to Margaret he added: "If I don't find Jasper I'll be back.
When he comes tell him I want to see him. Good day."

When he had gone out into the road Margaret inquired of her daughter
what he had said to give such offense.

"He said I could learn to love him. And I as much as told him he was a
liar."

"But, daughter, you musn't talk like that. You'll have to be more
careful with him, for in some way he's got the upper hand of yo'
father."

"Well, I don't envy him his job."

"Hush," said Margaret. "Here come the folks."




CHAPTER III.

GETTING ACQUAINTED.


In came Mrs. Mayfield and her nephew, with Jim, the preacher, following
them. Margaret began industriously to dust a rocking chair. She bade
them come in, if it were not too warm, "Mammy has been ironing but the
fire's dyin' down. And I do hope she irons yo' clothes to suit you, Miz
Mayfield," she added.

"Oh, yes," replied Mrs. Mayfield, glancing round at the preacher who
with hat in hand sat on the melodeon stool, gazing at her. "I am not
hard to please," she continued, speaking to Margaret. "I have passed
that stage."

Margaret bowed to her. "Well, I'm mighty glad to hear it. So many folks
are hard to please. There come a woman from away off yander sometime ago
and took up over at Fetterson's and they couldn't do a thing to please
her--grumbled all the time; the water wasn't even good, when heaven
knows we've got the best water on the yeth. So I am glad you ain't hard
to please."

"Oh, I should indeed be finical to find fault with anything in this
delicious air," said Mrs. Mayfield, smiling at Lou, "this new life,
among these God-worshipping hills, these--"

"Oh, auntie brought her romance with her," Tom broke in, and Lou gave
him a look of tender reproof.

"Oh, let her talk, please. I like to hear her." And standing beside Mrs.
Mayfield's chair she said: "You told me you were something. What was
it?"

"An echo from the world," the city woman answered.

Lou looked at her mother who in turn gave her a look in which the girl
read an ignorance as profound as her own. "Well, is sounds mighty
putty," she said, "but what do you mean by it. I don't understand."

"Why Lou!" exclaimed her mother. "You musn't talk that way."

"Oh, let her go ahead," Tom spoke up. "The fact is auntie says a good
many things I'd like to have explained to me."

"Tom," she said, "please don't be any more wayward than you can help."

At this moment old Jasper's voice was heard without. "Git down from
here. Got less sense than any dog I ever seed, come a jumpin' on me with
yo' muddy feet. Howdy everybody, howdy," he greeted them as he entered,
with a set of harness on his arm. Every one spoke to him and after
surveying the party he drew a chair out from the table, sat down and
began to tug at the harness, pulling hard against the resistance of a
rusty buckle. "Whar's that luther string?" he inquired of his wife.

"What luther string?"

"The one I told you to put away for me some time last fall--mebby fall a
year ago. Whar is it?"

"Gracious alive Jasper, I don't know. What did you bring that gear in
here for? Can't you fix it at the stable?"

"Yes, could. Could also sleep and eat out thar, but I don't want to."

"Now what on the yeth do you want to talk that way fur?"

Jasper chuckled. "Wall, a man ain't hardly responsible for what he says
when he's talkin' to a woman."

"Then you don't believe, Mr. Starbuck, that woman inspires truth," said
Mrs. Mayfield, and Jim leaned forward, still gazing at her.

"Oh, yes, all the putty truths," Jasper replied, and Tom who, with Lou,
was standing over near the fire-place, sang out: "There, auntie, he is
meeting you on your own ground."

Jim's countenance flared and he struck in: "Yes, in the shade where the
soft air is stirring."

Mrs. Mayfield turned to him. "Oh, thank you Mr.--I shall have to call
you Mr. Reverend."

He gave her a smile and then as if afraid of too much light shut it off;
but he had the courage to reply: "Anything you call me, ma'm, will be
music."

"Oh, I tell you," said Jasper, tugging at the buckle, "Jim ain't been
preachin' ten years fur nothin'. Wall, mighty fur nothin', too; for I
ricolleck that one winter all he got was a pa'r of blue jeens britches
an' fo' pa'r of wool socks. And if I don't cuss this thing in a minit
more I'll be about fitten to preach."

"Mr. Starbuck," Mrs. Mayfield inquired, "was that you shooting so early
this morning?"

"Yes'm, killin' them squirrels we had fur breakfus'."

"And you saw the sun rise?"

He left off working with his gear and looked at her. "Ah, hah. Ever see
the sun rise?"

"I have seen the moon set," she said, half musing.

"And so have I," said Jasper. "I have seen the moon set and hatch out
the stars."

And still musing, Mrs. Mayfield replied: "Yes, and they peeped at one
another in their heavenly nest until the sun, man-like, came and spoiled
it all."

[Illustration: "THEM WHAT HAIN'T HAD TROUBLE 'AIN'T HAD NO CAUSE TO LOOK
FUR THE LORD."]

Jasper and his wife looked at each other, knowingly in the eye; and then
the old man said: "I beg yo' pardon, ma'm, but you must have had
trouble. But don't let it bother you any mo' than you kin help, fur my
experience teaches me that them what hain't had trouble ain't had no
cause to look fur the Lord."

"Why, Jasper Starbuck," Margaret spoke up, "ain't you ashamed of yo'se'f
to talk about the Lord thatter way?"

"I ain't said a word ag'in Him. Leave it to the preacher thar. Have I,
Jim?"

"No, Uncle Jasper."

"Much obleeged to you, Jim; and instead of stayin' five weeks with us as
you said you 'lowed to, I wush you'd stay longer. I need you to prove
things by. Couldn't make it five months, could you, Jim?"

"No, Uncle Jasper, I must get back to my mountain-side flock. There's
many a poor old man tottering along that needs me to help him walk."

"That's a fact," said Starbuck, and turning to Mrs. Mayfield he
continued: "He settles nearly all their troubles, ma'm; he's not only
their church but their cou't house. I've seed him preach the gospel with
one hand and with the other one tear up a lawsuit."

Lou, standing on a chair, had taken down an old gun which rested upon
deer horns above the fire place, and was exhibiting it to Tom. "My
great grandfather carried it at the battle of New Orleans," she said;
and reverently the young man took the gun and pressed the butt to his
shoulder, taking aim. "No wonder our country has a spirit that can't be
crushed," he remarked, lowering the ancient war hound and looking into
its black mouth.

"When we've got such guns?" she said, smiling down upon him, still
standing on the chair.

"No, not such guns but men who do such deeds and women who are proud of
them."

Jasper looked round and saw that the young man in his carelessness had
the gun pointed at him. "Here," he called, "turn that thing tuther way."

"Why it isn't loaded, is it?" Tom asked, returning the gun to Lou.

"No, but them's the sort that usually goes off and kills folks. Thar's
an old sayin', ma'm," he said to Mrs. Mayfield, "that thar's danger in a
gun without lock, stock, or barrel--you kin w'ar a feller out with the
ram-rod."

Lou replaced the gun and sat down. Tom stood over her, slily showing her
some verses. Mrs. Mayfield, glancing round, understood that it was a
"poetic situation," and remarked to Jasper. "Just now we were speaking
of trouble. Heart-hunger is the real poetry of life--heart-hunger and
heart-ache; our pleasures are but jingling rhymes."

Jasper and his wife exchanged glances, and the old man said: "Husband
dead, ma'm?"

"Worse than that, Mr. Starbuck."

"Why, ain't that awful," Margaret declared.

Jasper studied for a few moments and then inquired: "Wan't hung, was
he?"

She shook her head, sighed and made answer: "We were divorced."

Then the old man thought to be consoling. "Well, let us hope that you
won't marry him over ag'in."

"No, his heart is black."

"There is a fountain where it may be made white," said the preacher.

Sadly she smiled at him and replied: "To that fountain he would never
go."

Old Jasper jingled and clanked the iron of his harness. "I don't know
much about fountains," said he, "but I know a good deal about men, and
I never seed one with a black heart that ever had it washed out clean.
I never knowd a scoundrel that wan't allus a scoundrel, and the Book
don't say that the Savior died for scoundrels--died for sinners. A
sinner kin be a fust-rate feller, full o' that weakness that helps a
wretch outen trouble. The Savior knowed that and died for him."

Margaret slammed her pan of turnips down upon the table. "Oh, sometimes
I'm so put out with you."

"Yes," drawled the old man, "and old Miz Eve was put out with Adam, too,
but atter all the best thing she could do, was to stick to him and go
whar he went."

"Oh, of course," said Margaret. "The only use a man ever has for the
Bible is to hit a woman with it." She went over to a safe, looking back
at her husband who stood watching her, his droll countenance lighted
with a humorous grin; she began to mix meal in a pan, stirring
vigorously to make up corn pone, throwing in water with a dash. Tom and
Lou were still engaged with the verses.

"What is this line?" she asked.

"'Her eye a star of heart's most gleaming hope,'" he read, and she
purred like a kitten.

"What does it mean?" she asked.

"Why, er--it means all sorts of things."

"It sounds like things you find in a book, but this is in writin', isn't
it? And--and it smells like a violet in the woods."

"What have they got thar, a mortgage?" Jasper inquired of Mrs. Mayfield.

"The beginning of many a mortgage, Mr. Starbuck; some verses."

"Huh," grunted the old man, "I don't reckon they are like some verses I
had not long ago. Had a lawsuit befo' a jestice of the peace and they
called it Starbuck verses Brown."

Margaret ceased her work of mixing corn pone and looked round at him.
"Jasper, anybody to hear you talk would think you don't know nuthin'."

"Well," Starbuck replied, "that's the way to find out that a man don't
know nuthin'--by hearin' him talk. Feller over the mountains had a son
that was deef and dumb for twenty-odd year. Everybody lowed he was the
smartest one of the fam'ly. But finally a doctor teached him how to talk
and then they found out that he wan't nuthin' but a damned fool."

The profane twist of the old man's defense amused Mrs. Mayfield. And Jim
smiled. It was not only in keeping with the old man's half innocent
character--it was the honest spurt of sinful Adam, remaining with the
most of us--which the devout preacher may deplore for the sake of
example and yet inwardly accept because he is human. I am told that
there are languages that hold no profanity and we know that there are
tongues too delicate for philosophy and too gentle for blank verse.

"Now what do you want to pester a body thatter way for?" Margaret
rejoined, thankful that Mrs. Mayfield had not been shocked. "I never
seed a body that could be so aggrivatin'. Miz Mayfield, don't pay no
'tention to him when he talks thatter way, fur when he wants to he kin
be right bright.

"Oh, I understand him, Mrs. Starbuck," and then of Jasper she inquired:
"How far is it to the post office?"

"A little the rise of three mile. As soon as I git this gear in shape
I'll have Kintchin hitch up and drive a passel of you over thar. I
reckon we've got one of the smartest post-masters in the country. I've
seed him rip open many a man's letter an' read it off just like print.
Here, Kintchin! Kintchin! That nigger's asleep somewhar. One of these
days somebody will fill him so full of lead you couldn't turn him over
with a hand spike." Kintchin appeared at the door, stretching himself
and rubbing his eyes. "What have you been doin'?"

"Who, me?"

"Yes, you."

"Wall, suh, I ain't been ersleep ef dat whut you means."

"Then why didn't you answer me?"

"W'y, suh, I had my min' flung down on er 'ligious subjeck an' it wuz
all I coul' do ter t'ar it off."

"Ah, thought I hearn suthin' rip like a piece of tent cloth," and giving
Kintchin the harness he continued: "Here, hitch up old Dick and drive
these folks over to the post office."

"Yas, suh."

"And when you come back you can break that young steer."

"Yas, suh, break de steer."

"And when you get the steer broke," said Margaret, "I want you to make
me an ash hopper."

"Yas'm," replied the old negro, looking at her and then at Starbuck.

"And then," said Jasper, "I want you to hive the bees."

"And then," Margaret spoke up, "you may fix the loom."

"Yas'm, fix de loom."

"When that is done," said Starbuck, "you may rive some clap-boards to
cover the spring house."

"Yas, suh, ter kiver de spring house;" and scratching his head he stood
for a moment as if in deep thought. "An' look yere, Mr. Starbuck, while
I'se gone to the pos' office don't you reckon you kin think up suthin'
fur me ter do?"

"How willing he is to work," Mrs. Mayfield sympathetically remarked.

Kintchin ducked his head at her. "W'y, Lawd bless yo' life, honey, I
doan know nuthin' else. One time not long ergo I foun' o' er mawnin' dat
I wuz monst'us tired, an' den I come ter fin' out dat I been er gittin'
up an' er workin' in my sleep. Yas'm."

He looked at Jasper, expecting something, and it came: "Was that the
time they found the ham under yo' bed?"

"Mr. Starbuck, whut you all de time come er talkin' datter way fur?
Ain't dar nuthin' in dis life ter talk erbout 'cept politics? Doan you
know you got er soul ter save? Doan you know dat de Lawd frown on
slander? I doan care fur myse'f but I hate ter see er good man fling
erway his chances o' de salvation. An' suthin' gwine happen ter you ef
you keeps on 'sposin' yo'se'f."

Starbuck good naturedly drove him out, clucking at him as if he were a
horse. Lou slowly folded the paper which she had been gazing at during
all this time and said: "Oh, you must let me keep this."

"It amounts to nothing," replied Tom, making a pretense of taking the
paper but permitting her to retain it. "I will write you something
prettier."

"No, I want this."

"She is beginning early to mistrust promises," remarked Mrs. Mayfield.

"Oh, she knows the world," said Mrs. Starbuck. "She went to school for
two years over at Dry Fork. That's where she l'arned to play that
melogian."

"Yes," Jasper spoke up, "and the fust time I hearn it I thought a tree
had fell on one of the calves. Why, helloa, mammy, come in. Lookin' fur
suthin'?"

"I must er lef' my old pipe yere summers," said the old negro woman,
coming into the room.

"Here it is," said Jasper taking a cob pipe from the mantle-piece and
giving it to her. "Won't you sit down, mammy? You look so tired."

"No, Mars Jasper, I hain't hardly got time." She looked at the company,
bade every one good morning, with a heart-felt "God bless you;" and
looking at Mrs. Mayfield, slowly advanced toward her, gazing at her
hand. "W'y, honey, I neber seed de like o' putty rings you's got on.
Da's like de speret o' light er wrappin' round yo' fingers."

"Mammy, they are but glittering memories."

"Yas'm, da do shine might'ly ef dat whut you means."

Tom and Lou were going out. "Don't stray off," said Mrs. Mayfield. "We
are going to the post office, you know."

"Yes, if that fetch-taked nigger ever gits the hoss hitched up,"
Margaret spoke up.

Jasper snatched up his hat. "Oh, he'd hitch up a hoss to the fou'th of
July jest about in time to drive up to the front door of Christmas. I'll
go and see about it myse'f. Slowest nigger I ever seed," and muttering
he went out. Old mammy, still looking at the city woman's rings, began
softly to croon: "I neber seed er po' ole nigger dat didn't like rings.
I had er whole lot o' 'em once, but da turned green, an' da'd pizen me
ef I teched 'em wid my mouf. But one time Mars Jasper gib me one dat
didn't turn green, an' I lost it. You allus loses de best, you know.
Honey, Mars Jasper is allus doin' suthin' fur me. I nussed him w'en he
wuz er chile an' he dun paid me back mo' den er hunnud times; an' w'en I
got ole an' wuz down wid de rheumatiz, an' couldn't sleep in de night
w'en de lonesome cow er lowin' on de hill-side, he sot up wid me an'
spell out de words o' de Lawd, fur he kain't read right quick. He
couldn't been mo' tender wid his mudder, an' I gwine ter tell de Lawd
w'en I goes home, an' it won't be long--no'm it won't. An' on de wall by
my bed I dun made chalk marks o' de things I gwine tell de Lawd, an' dar
ain't hardly no mo' room fur new marks, da all been so good ter me; but
I gwine make one fur you, honey, caze you looked kind at me. Yas'm, I
is. But I must be gwine. Lawd bless you all; an' you too, strange lady."
And as this old creature walked out she still muttered blessings upon
them; this endeared old link, tenderly binding some of us to one of the
sweetest memories of the past. She is passing over the threshold into
the "big house" of eternity, this mother of love and charity, who sang
the little children to sleep, whose ebon fingers bound the wounds of
youth. She knew enough of God to be all love--of Christ to forgive all
wrongs.

"The wagon's ready," Jasper called, and Mrs. Mayfield turned to Jim.
"Won't you come too?"

He scrambled up, as if stung into action, grabbed his hat, went
boldly close to her and said: "If I thought yo' wish was in yo'
invitation, Satan couldn't hold me back, and the Lord wouldn't."

"What a strange compliment."

"Ma'm, I don't know how to speak compliments."

"Come on, please."




CHAPTER IV.

AT THE POST OFFICE.


Beneath the blooming boughs overhanging the mountain road the old
carryall was slowly pulled along by a horse into whose joints had crept
the dreamy laziness of early summer. Lou, bound about with flowering
vines, captive May-queen in purple chains, sat on the rear seat with
Tom; and she was shy in this close touch with the mysterious world from
afar off; and her timidity made him timid, this youth whose earliest
recollection was the booming of cannon, as he played upon a cavalryman's
blanket, waiting for his father to return from the charge. Motherless,
the pet of the battalion, his playthings the accoutrements of war, his
"stick horse," a sabre, his confidential companion a brass field piece.
Old soldiers, devoted to their colonel, carried him about on their
shoulders, and handsome women made him vain and bold with their kisses;
but in the presence of this mountain girl he was subdued. Jim and Mrs.
Mayfield sat together--that is, he sat out on the end of a board, as
far away from her as he could get, and once when the wheel ran over a
stone he fell off.

"Oh," she cried, "you must be hurt."

He got up, with his jack-o'-lantern smile, dusted himself and said:

"I--I would fall for you any time, ma'm."

"But," she laughed, "I didn't want you to fall."

"Didn't you? Well, I beg yo' pardon, I thought you did."

Kintchin, who sat in front, ducked his head and chuckled.

"Oh, de folks up yere is de 'commerdatinist you eber seed. Da'll stand
up fur you ur fall down fur you ur do anythin' you pleases. Sorry I come
off an' furgot suthin'. Allus de way--man furgits whut he needs de
mos.'"

"Did you forget something, Kintchin?" Mrs. Mayfield inquired.

"Yas'm, come off an' furgot twenty-fi' cents dat I wanted to fetch wid
me. I owes er quarter ter er crap-shootin' nigger ober dar, an' when I
kain't pay him he gwine retch his han' up atter my wool. I doan want no
big nigger retchin' atter me, caze I ain't right well dis mawin'. Co'se
ef I wuz well I wouldn' mine it so much, but ez it is, it bodders me
might'ly. You neber had no trouble wid er crap-shootin' nigger, ef you
had you'd be mo' consarned. Anybody gwine gib me er quarter."

"I'll give you a testament," said Jim, looking back and smiling at Tom.

"Testament! Ointment you better say," replied Kintchin. "Testament ain't
gwine be no mo' fo'ce wid dem niggers den de Lawd's pra'r would wid er
wild haug. Huh, I'se er dreadin' eber step o' de way ober dar."

"Here's a quarter," said Mrs. Mayfield, handing him a piece of silver.

"Thankee, ma'm. Oh, you's whut da calls er missiunary, an' I gwine he'p
ole black mammy pray fur you."

"Oh, how beautiful--nature sleeps and dreams of paradise," mused the
romantic woman and the preacher clasped his hands.

"Down off there is where the foxes live," said Lou. "One night I went
with pa to run them, and we galloped all round here, and when we got
home, just about day, my clothes were torn nearly all to pieces; but it
was such fun; and when old Bob got close to the fox and bellowed, it
seemed like he was beatin' his paw on my heart. And away off yander, the
hill-side opened and music poured out, and father reached over and put
his hand on my head and we listened."

"It is music," said Jim, "but the horn blowed by old Satan may be made
outen silver."

"But, Mr. Reverend," Mrs. Mayfield spoke up, "you surely don't object to
the enjoyment of a harmless adventure."

"No, ma'm. The Lord wants us to enjoy ourselves, but we should not jump
on the hoss of pleasure and gallop too fur away from the gospel of
truth."

Kintchin ducked his woolly head. "Keep on foolin' roun' an' dis yere
white man call up mourners," he declared. "De gospel it all right, bof
in de dark an' de light o' de moon; but you keep on foolin' wid it an'
follerin' it an' you gwine lose yo' min'. I knows whut I talkin' erbout.
You got ter come ter de 'clusion dat de Lawd knows best an' not pry too
fur inter his erfairs. De Book say suthin' 'bout eat all you want an'
take er drink once in er while fur ter-morrer you ain't gwine be yere."

"Does the Book say anything about shooting craps?" Tom inquired.

"Now, Mr. Tom, whut put dat inter yo' head? Book doan come out p'intedly
an' say you shan't."

"They cast lots for His garments," the preacher spoke, and Kintchin
replied:

"Oh, w'en you fling de Book down on me too hard, I jest hatter squirm,
dat's all. Ef I had ernudder quarter I could open up er 'skussion dat--"

"You'll not get it," said Jim.

"Dat ends it. Oh, I likes preachers--likes ter yere 'em talk, but I
ain't nebber got no money outen one yit. Da all time talk erbout gib
whut you got ter de po' an' foller on, an' da follers all right; but I
ain't seen 'em gibbin' nuthin'."

"They give to the spirit, Kintchin," remarked Mrs. Mayfield.

"Yas'm. But sometimes I'd leetle ruther da give ter de pocket.
Howsomedever, I mustn't go too fur wid dis man. He's er preacher, but
he er Starbuck an' he w'ar me out ef I push him too fur."

"Now, Kintchin," said the preacher, "you know you couldn't provoke me
into strikin' you. Don't you?"

"Yas, suh, I feels it; still I's er little skeered o' you. An' whut you
gwine gimme caze I skeered? Ain't it wuth er quarter ter be skeered like
I is? Huh?"

"Here," replied Jim, giving him a piece of money. "It's worth a quarter
to see Satan play his pranks."

A turn in the road, and there was a river, narrow, deep and as blue as
the sky. Wild spice bushes, shedding a sweet perfume, grew upon the
steep banks, and far below they saw a black bass leap to gulp a mouthful
of the sun. The hills stretched away, purple, blue, green; and through
the air shot a red bird, lightening from a cloud of flowers. A gaudy,
wild dragon, zouave-arrayed, stood guard over a violet nodding beside a
rock, and the milk-maidish white clover trembled in fear of the
lust-looking strawberry. Bold upon a high rock, with a fish in his claw,
sat a defiant eagle, and straight down the river flew a sand-hill
crane, like a fragment of gray mist.

They met a young fellow, carrying a tea-cup in his hand, with hair that
looked like hackled flax and with a grin that invited the confidence of
all mankind. It was Mose Blake, known to neighborhood fame as the
stutterer. He halted and attempted to say something, but Kintchin drove
on, muttering that he had no time for words that a fellow chewed all to
pieces. The boy tried to shout his defiance, but "you are a--a--a
f--f--f--," was all he could utter and even this was forestalled by
Kintchin, who called back at him: "Oh, we knows all erbout dat."

The road dipped down, turned, and they drove upon a ferry-boat, a mere
platform of rude plank and propelled by two gaunt men. On the other
shore they drove along still keeping close to the river. A country boy
hailed them, but without heeding him Kintchin remarked: "Dat's Laz
Spencer, an' he takin' dat meal bag home somewhar ter borry suthin'
else. Ef he wuz ter go ter heben an' foun' dat he couldn't borry some
angel's harp, he wouldn't stay dar. I 'spize ter see er pusson all de
time wantin' suthin'."

"You don't borrow, do you?" Tom asked, and he answered:

"Who, me? No, suh. I earns all I gits--ef not befo', afterwards. Jest ez
sho ez er pusson gibs me suthin' I gwine earn it."

Turning off from the river and entering upon a piece of level ground,
they came to the post-office, an old log house with gable end toward the
road. In an inclosure a number of tow-headed boys were trying to ride a
calf. In the road a child, not more than able to toddle, was throwing
stones at a blowing old goose.

Kintchin tied his horse to a "swinging limb," and the ladies were
assisted to the ground. Tom conducted them into the post-office, a store
wherein the merchant had for sale snuff, red calico, brown jeans, plug
tobacco, cast iron plow points, nails and cove oysters. The post-master
came forward dragging after him two splint-bottom chairs.

"Set down," he said. "Never seed you befo', but I'm glad to see you
now."

Tom inquired if there were anything in the office for Mrs. Mary Mayfield
or himself, calling his name; and the post-master looked at him closely
and asked: "Any kin to old Zeb Elliot that used to sell mink skins?"

"No, I have no relatives in this part of the country."

"Wall, old Zeb was a good deal of a man."

"That may be, but he was no relation of mine."

"Had long red whiskers and his hair stood up straight--seed him climb a
tree one night and shake a coon out as slick as a whistle. Had a dog
named Tige--feller pizened him. Where you frum?"

"Nashville. I wish you'd look--"

"Yes, that's what I'm goin' to do. And ain't this Jasper Starbuck's
daughter? I thought so," he added when Lou nodded at him. "I've knowed
Jasper a long time, but folks don't git round a visitin' now like they
uster. Never seed yo' father drunk in my life--swear it's a fact; never
did. I'll bet he kin whup a ground-hog as big as he is. And I'll sw'ar,
ain't this little Jimmie Starbuck?"

"My name is Jim and I am a Starbuck," the preacher answered.

"Thought I know'd you. Ah, hah, and they tell me you air preachin' the
gospel now. Which one o' the gospels air you preachin', Luke or John?
Wall, no diffunce, either of 'em is good enough, I reckon. I never tried
to preach."

"I wish you'd try to look over your stock of mail matter," said Tom.

"I'll do that, too. What was the other name. Mayfield? Well, that's a
familiar name to me. My grandmother was a Mayfield--no, Mayhew. Putty
nigh the same anyhow. You air expectin' a letter, I reckon."

"Yes, if you please."

"From yo' husband? No, you ain't married, of co'se. And I want to tell
you that you may have any letter in this shop, don't make no odds who
it's writ to. I'm allus glad to have folks come. I set here day after
day, by myself a good deal of the time, and I like comp'ny, too; uster
be a mighty hand to go round, but sorter give it up atter I got busy.
Now, let me see whar I put them letters." He scratched his head. "I had
'em yistidy, I'm certain of that." He went behind his counter, shook a
barrel, looked into it--looked into a cracker box, into a crock jar, and
brought out a handful of letters. "Oh, I know'd they was here somewhar,"
he said. "Elliott, Mayfield," he repeated, looking at the letters.
"Here's one for Endiott--'bout as near as I can come to you, young
feller. Will that do?"

"Of course not," Tom answered. "It isn't for me."

"Near enough, ain't it. Oughtn't to blame a man when he's doin' the best
he can. I can't hit at you at all, Mrs. Mayfield. Ain't nuthin' here
that sounds like you."

"Really," she said, "this is a remarkable post-office."

"One of the best, ma'm," replied the post-master. "Come in, Squire," he
called as a man, leading a hound, appeared at the door.

"I want a pint," said the Squire.

"All right--let me look at yo' dog." He examined the hound's teeth,
punched him in the side to catch his tone, pronounced his yelp of good
note, and gave the Squire a pint of liquor.

"About as peculiar case of barter as I ever saw," said Tom when the
Squire withdrew with his purchase.

"Yas, mout seem so, but a good artickle of hound is a currency at this
sto'."

"I heard that I might find peculiar people in this part of the country,"
said Mrs. Mayfield, "and I have not been disappointed."

The store-keeper smiled upon her, playing with the hound's ears. "Oh, we
never disapp'int folks," he replied. "But we ain't peculiar. Higher up
the mountains you might find folks that are right queer in their ways.
Up thar they ain't got no money at all 'cept coon skins. Well, do you
want to buy anythin'?"

"No," said Mrs. Mayfield, "not to-day."

"Got some right good snuff here if you want it."

"I don't use snuff."

"You don't? An' come round talkin' 'bout peculiar folks, too? Little
one," he said to Lou, "tell yo' daddy I may drap over to see him as soon
as my present rush is over. Trade is suthin' that don't wait fur no
man, Mrs. Mayflower."

"Auntie, you'll have to buy something after that," said Tom. "I don't
see how you can get away from it."

"Then I will show you. I wish you would tell Kintchin that we are ready
to go."




CHAPTER V.

COULDN'T QUARREL IN PEACE.


When Jim and Mrs. Mayfield were near the door, just before starting for
the post-office, she with graceful ceremony and he with the simple grin
of devout worship, Old Jasper had stood looking at them, with an
expression of mock seriousness; and when they went out, Starbuck slapped
his leg and snorted with laughter. Margaret reproved him with her ever
industrious eye.

"Blamed if I didn't think they was goin' to dance right thar," said the
old man.

"Jasper, what makes you wanter talk thatter way?"

"Didn't see how they could keep from it, Margaret. Couldn't see no way
to hold 'em back. Jest as ready to dance as the b'ar and the monkey that
the feller come along the road with last year, mebbe year befo' last. I
tell you, Jim ain't been a readin' them books on the hill-top fur
nothin'. I gad, every time he looks at her he flips a star." He walked
about the room, shaking his head. "The po' feller's hit. I gad, when you
flutter fine calico the preachers come a runnin' with the rest of 'em.
She's caught him, but he'll suffer an' say nuthin'. It's mighty hard
work to wring a squeal outen a Starbuck. In that respeck we air sorter
like wild hogs. I've seed a dog chaw a wild pig all to pieces an' he
tuck it with never a squeal--mout have grunted a little, but he didn't
squeal. Puffeckly nat'ral to grunt under sich circumstances, ain't it?"

"Oh, what do I care for yo' nonsense?"

"Nonsense! The affairs of the human fam'ly ain't nonsense, is they?
Heigho, but she's a mighty good woman."

"Of course," said Margaret, crossing the room and sitting down in a
rocking-chair. "Of course. A man thinks every woman's good--but his
wife."

"Had to break out, didn't you? Have I said you wan't good?"

"Might as well say it as to act it."

"How am I actin' it?"

"By not lovin' me, that's how."

"Not lovin' you. Have you got any postal-kyard or tillygram to that
effeck? I ain't sent you no sich news. Look here, did you ever notice
that when a woman's daughter gits up about grown--when the young fellers
begin to cut scollops about her--did you ever notice that about that
time she begins to complain that her husband don't love her? Hah? Did
you?"

"Oh, it's no sich of a thing," she replied, slowly rocking. "You know
you don't love me as much as you did yo' fust wife."

For a time the old fellow gazed at her, saying nothing; and then came
slow, deep-rumbling words: "Margaret, air you jealous o' that po' little
grave down yander under the hill? You never seed her, the mother o' my
two sons that went with me to pour out their blood fur their country;
and when she hearn that they wan't a comin' back, she pined away and
died and was buried under the tree whar we seed her standin' jest befo'
we went down beyant the hill. You ain't jealous o' that weak little
woman, air you?"

Slowly rocking, and reflecting for a few moments, she replied: "Jasper,
it's the weak little women that air so strong with the men."

"Yes," he declared, "and it's the weak little women that have sons that
air so ready to march to the tap of the drum. But I give you and our
daughter all the love thar is in this old heart o' mine, and that ought
to be enough."

"But you don't appear to want to talk to me," she whimpered.

"Talkin' to you now, ain't I?"

"Yes," she admitted, "sich talk as it is."

"Well, what do you want me to do? Stand like that young feller Elliott
and read stuff writ in short lines?"

Margaret flounced out of the chair. "Oh, I never seed a man that could
be as big a fool when he tried. I do know that--" Here she was
interrupted by the unheralded entrance of Mose Blake, the stuttering boy
with the tea-cup. He nodded at Starbuck and began to stutter. "Mother
sent me atter--atter a c--c--c--cup o' v--v--v--"

"How's all the folks, Mose?" Margaret broke in.

"W--w--w--w--w--"

"Glad to know it," said Starbuck. Mose looked at him with a dry grin,
sat down in the rocking-chair and began to rock himself.

"What did yo' mother send you after, Mose?" Margaret inquired.

"Cup o' v--v--v--v--v--"

"Can't you write it down?" Jasper inquired.

"Kik--kik--kik--ki--kan'--can't write."

"Don't you think you mout go off somewhar an' l'arn?"

"Ain't got--got tity--tity--t----t--time."

"Wall," said Jasper, "it appears to me like you've got all the time thar
is. Wall. All right, jest set thar till it comes to you and then let us
know what you want." He went over to a table where his wife was
standing, drew out a stool, sat down and said to her: "So, you think I
can be a bigger fool when I try than--"

"Hush," she cautioned, pointing to Mose, "he's a hearin' you."

Starbuck slowly turned his head, looked at Mose and then said to his
wife: "Wall, whar's the difference, he can't tell about it."

"Come atter a c--c--c--cup o' v--v--v--v--"

"Jest hold her down, Mose," Jasper encouragingly remarked, "and mebby
she'll come right side up atter a while."

"Jasper," said Margaret, "don't distress him."

"I ain't distressin' him half as much as he is me. 'Bout ready to give
her another trial, Mose?"

"Want a cup o' vin--vin--vin--"

"Oh, you air gettin' thar."

"Cup o' v--v--vinegar."

"Thank goodness," Margaret exclaimed.

"Thar you go distressin' him," said Jasper.

Margaret took the cup and went into the kitchen and Mose, looking at
Starbuck, grinned in self-celebration of his victory.

"Ain't as h--h--hot as it was when it was h--h--h--hotter, is it?"

"Come to think of it, don't believe it is."

"M--m--m--might r--r--r--rain, soon."

"Yes, and it looks like we mout have snow some time next winter."

"Thank y--y--y--you," said Mose; and as Margaret entered and handed him
the cup of vinegar he thanked her, rewarded her with a grin, and
departed. For some time after his exit nothing was said, but finally
Margaret, standing near the window, began to look for the ends of the
broken thread of discourse.

"Now, let me see."

To help her out Starbuck volunteered his services. "We had got to whar I
was the biggest fool when I tried. Don't you ricolleck?"

"Oh, you want to git back to whar you was tryin' to pick a quarrel with
me, do you?"

"No, jest thought I'd help you out."

"It's no sich of a thing. You know you don't love me an' you jest want a
chance to tell me so."

"Did it ever hit you, Margaret, that a woman ought to put herself in a
condition to be loved? Scoldin' don't fetch out love no mo' than b'ilin'
water would fetch out blossoms."

"I don't scold, and I don't see why you always keep a hintin' that I do.
Scold! I never scolded in my life. You know you git mad every mornin' at
breakfust. Man's always mad till he gits suthin' to eat. Scold indeed.
And if I was to scold, which I don't, I'd have a cause."

"Cause! Did you ever know a woman to look fur a cause an' not find one?
Jest make a cause of the needle in the hay-stack an' the woman will find
it. And I want to tell you that the mo' causes a woman has the mo'
disagreeable she is."

"Oh, it's no sich of a thing. A woman may slave an' slave an' never go
off the place and--"

"Go off the place! Didn't you go to the barbecue over at the cross-roads
last year?"

"Last year," she repeated; "it was year befo' last. Yes, an' look how
you acted on that day--eat till I was ashamed o' you--acted like you
never got anythin' at home. I never was so mortified in my life. Saw you
standin' thar with the leg of a shote in yo' hand, a makin' of a
speech."

"I was askin' a blessin' over the meat. I admit that I was hungry on
that occasion; I'd been savin' myse'f up. Thar ain't no use in goin' to
a barbecue unless you take yo' appetite with you."

"But thar's no sense in eatin' till everybody talks about it, goodness
knows."

"Who talked about it?"

"Everybody, that's who. Oh, you wouldn't love me if I was a dyin'."

"I'd much ruther have you livin'."

"No you wouldn't. If I was a dyin' it would tickle you mighty nigh to
death, you--"

In came Laz Spencer, the boy with the meal-bag on his arm.

"Glad to see you," Starbuck exclaimed, catching him by the hand; and
Laz, astonished at the warmth of the welcome, stood mute, as if
expecting for something to happen. "You got here jest in time, Laz."

"Howdy, Laz," Margaret greeted him, smoothing her countenance.

"Wall," said he, "ain't a standin' on my head," and speaking to Jasper
he added: "Come to fetch yo' meal-bag home."

"About when did you borry it, Laz," Jasper inquired, taking the bag and
throwing it upon the table.

"Last fall, some time."

"Well, how did you happen to fetch it back so soon?"

"Oh, jest got to thinkin' about it last month."

"Well, no tellin' what's goin' to happen when a feller gits to thinkin'.
What's the matter with yo' coat-tail?"

"Was a settin' on a stump, drapped off to sleep an' the calf chawed it."

"I do wish you two would hush yo' foolishness," said Margaret. "How's
yo' mother, Laz."

"Give her some interestin' news, Laz," said Starbuck. "Tell her the old
lady ain't expected to live."

"Now did anybody ever hear the like o' that," Margaret retorted. "I
never seed sich a man."

"Mother ain't so powerful well," said Laz. "She ain't bed sick, but
she's a chillin' a good deal. Got the shakes when she went down to the
creek bottoms. Can't eat nuthin' but spoon vittuls."

Margaret, dismissing the visitor from further attention, took up a
coffee-mill and sat down near the fire-place. Starbuck asked Laz how his
brother Bill was getting along since the fellow cut him with a knife,
an affair of no particular consequence, but serving as an incidental
topic for thoughtless talk.

"Sorter slow," said Laz, never changing a line of his countenance. His
face was as fixed as a mask, stupid and expressionless. Whenever he
smiled it was a neighborhood event.

"Wall, how did it happen, any way?" Starbuck inquired, biting an apple.

"Wall, Bill he war settin' thar on a log, lookin' out over the new
ground, not a thinkin' about bein' stobbed nur nuthin', an' this feller
jest slipped up an' stobbed him."

There came a hoarse cry from without.

"Somebody's a hollerin' helloa," said Margaret, grinding her coffee by
the fire-place.

Jasper went to the door.

"Helloa, that you, Gabe?"

"What's left of me," a voice replied.

"Won't you light an' look at yo' saddle?"

"No, don't believe I got time. Was goin' down to town an' didn't know
but you mout want to send fur suthin'."

"No, don't believe I'm pinched for anythin' at present."

"You might tell him to fetch me a newspaper," said Margaret.

"Wife 'lows you might fetch her a newspaper, Gabe."

"What sorter one?"

"Oh, one o' last year or year befo' last."

"Last year," Margaret repeated contemptuously. "If I can't get this
month's paper, I won't have none."

"Wife's mighty particular about her paper, Gabe," Jasper shouted. "Say,
fetch her one o' them farmer papers and then it won't make no diffunce
how old it is."

"All right. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, Gabe," and then thinking of something important Starbuck
hastened to cry out: "Say, Gabe, you might fetch me a can of cove
oysters and about a straw hat full o' crackers." The last request was
shouted through the window, on the sill of which there was a tin cup and
near by, in a corner, was a jug. Taking up the jug and the cup
Starbuck, approaching his visitor, inquired: "Have a sneeze, Laz?"

The young fellow did not look round; he saw neither the jug nor the cup,
but he knew what was meant, and with a slight change of countenance as
he arose, he replied: "Ain't snoze ter-day."

Jasper gave him the cup, raised the jug and said: "Shout when you've got
enough."

Instantly Laz became animated, but without a change of countenance:
"Say, ricolleck that feller lived over our way, had a white hoss--one
day come along and--" The cup ran over.

"You ain't very good at shoutin', air you?"

"Whoa," said Laz.

Jasper tilted the jug to his own lips and Laz drained the cup. Starbuck
made a motion with the jug toward Margaret and she shook her head with a
shudder.

"Tastes like the milk of human kindness," said Laz, and Jasper replied:

"Yes, till you git too much an' then it's like the juice b'iled outen
the hoof of old Satan. Say," he added, as he put the jug in its
accustomed place, "have you hearn the new preacher over at Ebenezer?"

"Went over to hear," Laz replied, "but a passel of us fellers got to
swoppin' saddles down at the spring an' didn't. They say Jim Starbuck
kin preach all round him."

"Bet Jim kin whup him," said Jasper.

"Now, Jasper," his wife spoke up, "why do you allus want to talk about
fightin', an' among preachers at that?"

"I ain't allus doin' that, Margaret. I happened to mention Jim because
fightin' was about the hardest temptation he had to give up, bein' a
Starbuck. But, Laz, the preacher over thar is good."

"How do you know?" Margaret struck in. "You went to sleep."

"Yes," said Jasper, "but he woke me up a time or two, and it takes a
putty good one to do that. The last feller they had over thar didn't; he
jest let me sleep an' dream--one day I dreamed I was a killin' of a wild
cat an' I come mighty nigh a breakin' up the meetin'. But this new man
is a high flyer, Laz. He chaws flat terbacker an' spits right out over
the dash-board." He took out his watch, shook it, held it to his ear,
and glancing at the clock on the mantle-piece, declared: "Either that
clock is a liar or this here watch can't tell the truth. I reckon I have
mo' trouble with time than anybody in the neighborhood. None of my
time-pieces can't git along with one another."

"What diffunce do that make?" Laz drawled. "The sun rises an' sets jest
like thar wan't no watches nur clocks. Wouldn't make no diffunce to me
ef thar wan't none. Shore ter git a feller inter trouble ef he pays much
attention to 'em. The only way for a man to live is jest to let time
take care of itse'f. It always did and I reckon it always will." He went
over to the table, took up the bag and looking at it as if studying a
problem, remarked to Jasper: "I'd like to borry this meal bag ag'in ef
you ain't got no particular use for it."

"All right, Laz, but I mout need it by year after next."

"Ah, hah. Wall, I'll try to have it back by then." He started off slowly
toward the door, halted and looked about.

"Don't see nuthin' else you want to borry, do you, Laz?"

"Nuthin' I can use. Good-day."

Margaret stood near the window, meditating. "Now, let me see."

"Want to know whar we was when he broke in?" Jasper asked, and she gave
him a pathetic look.

"I wan't a thinkin' about that."

"Glad to hear it. Look here, it's a gittin' so a man can't set down and
quarrel with his wife in peace. We air gittin' too crowded in this
neighborhood. Man moved in five miles from here day befo' yistidy."

"Then let's don't quarrel," said Margaret, holding out her hands.

He put his arms about her. "No, we won't. An' don't be jealous of that
po' little grave."

"No, Jasper, for she was the mother of soldiers."

Lije Peters came in, clearing his throat. Starbuck looked round at him
and said: "An' Satan come also."

"Starbuck," Peters began, "I want to see you a minit, by yo'se'f."

"I don't know that I've got anythin' to say to you, Lije, but that door
thar allus stands open, and I ain't in the habit of orderin' folks out
of my house. Margaret, will you please go in thar?" he added, motioning
with his head.

"But you won't have no trouble, will you, Jasper?"

"Trouble mostly comes to them that looks for it. I ain't lookin'."

Margaret went to the door, halted, looked back and then passed into the
adjoining room. Starbuck sat on a corner of the table. Peters stood
looking at him. Peters was much the larger man, and lifting at a
handspike, in the clearing at a log-rolling, would have been stronger;
but the bully, the half-coward, in combat, is rarely as strong as the
brave man. The blood of courage case-hardens a muscle.

They looked at each other, these two men whose relationship, never
agreeable, was nearing a crisis. Starbuck's voice was never softer than
when he said: "Won't you sit down, Lije?"

"Hardly wuth while. Did the folks tell you that I was over here earlier
in the day?"

"Nobody said anythin' about it, Lije. Couldn't have been very
important--what you said to 'em on that occasion."

Peters cleared his rasp-like throat. "Mo' important than some folks mout
think."

"Some folks don't think," Starbuck replied.

"And then ag'in," said Peters, "thar air others that does."

"Ah, hah, an' ef you air one of 'em, out with what you air thinkin'. Up
in the hills one time a dog bit an old feller, and his son's cotch the
dog an' put a rope around his neck to hang him. But they kept on a
standin' thar till finally the old feller 'low: 'Say, boys, when you've
got to hang a dog, do it as quick as you kin. Do you see whut I am a
drivin' at?"

Peters gave a gurgling, mirthless chuckle; and loose-jointed, shifted
his weight from one leg to the other. "Well, nobody ain't never accused
me of not understandin' things--yit."

"Mebbe it's because nobody ain't never paid you that much attention."

"Oh, you know how to talk. Ain't nobody ever denied that, but talk
that don't lead up don't amount to nuthin'. Starbuck, our families wan't
right good friends in the past."

"Wan't in love," Old Jasper agreed, and Peters coughed.

"Yes, that's a fact. An' I've got an old-fashioned, single-barrel,
cap-and-ball pistol that uster belong to a Starbuck."

"Yes, and a way back yander it killed a Peters, I've hearn."

"Yes, Starbuck, with a three-inch slug. But that's nuther here nur thar,
jest now. I'm willin' to furgit the past."

Starbuck gave him a knife-thrust glance, and replied: "When a Peters
says he is, it's ten to one he ain't."

"You air still talkin' fust rate. But come to think of it, you an' me
ain't been very much at outs."

"That's so, Lije. I've slept all night many a time without dreamin' of
you."

"Yes. But I reckon I've been doin' a leetle mo' dreamin' than you have.
Yo' daughter--"

"Only a dream so fur as you air consarned."

"Do you mean to say she won't marry me if you tell her to?"

Starbuck left the table upon which he had been sitting, and moved over
closer to his visitor. "Look here: you know she can't love you, an'
don't you want her because you think I've got a little money? Hah, ain't
that it?" And slowly the old man went over to the fire-place, took down
his pipe, filled it and stood twisting a piece of paper. "When you git
right down to it, Lije, ain't that the reason--money?"

"Well," said Peters, shifting about, "if thar is money, I reckon I know
how you come by some of it." He put his foot on a chair and pulled at
his beard. "Yes, I reckon I know how you got a good deal of it.
Starbuck, I know an old feller about yo' size an' with gray ha'r that
has made a good deal o' licker when the sun wan't shinin'. And that
fetches me down to the p'int. I have applied fur appointment as Deputy
United States Marshal. Do you know what that means--if I git it?"

Starbuck leaned over and thrust the piece of paper into the fire,
turned about with it blazing in his hand and applied it to his pipe.

"Do you know what that means, Starbuck?"

The old man puffed at his pipe, drew the blazing paper through his hand,
put out the fire, removed his pipe, studied a moment and said: "Yes. It
means that I may have to kill you."




CHAPTER VI.

HADN'T LISTENED.


Not another word was spoken, and Peters went out, turning with a sullen
look as he reached the road. For a moment he stood there and then
skulked on away, met a dog in the road and kicked at him. When Margaret
re-entered the room Jasper was walking up and down with his hands behind
him. The old man began to tell a story: "Feller down in the bottoms
owned a calf that had wool on him like a sheep; uster ter shear him
every spring, and one time he--"

"Jasper, didn't Peters say he was a comin' after you?"

"Margaret, is it possible that you've been listenin' to two men talkin'
business? Now, business is a sort of a sacred thing. A feller in the
Bible says, 'I'd like might'ly to go to yo' little dinner, but I've got
to break a yoke of steers an' you must 'skuze me.' So, Margaret, you
must never interfere with bisiness."

"But didn't you say suthin' about that you might have to kill him?
Didn't you?"

"Huh. We must have been talkin' about a sheep that broke his leg. When a
sheep breaks his leg, you know, he's about gone. Mighty hard thing to
cure a sheep, makes no diffunce what's the matter with him. Feller over
near Smithfield had a sheep once that--"

"Didn't he say he was a goin' to be app'inted deputy marshal?"

"Who, the sheep? Now, I don't believe a sheep would make a very good
deputy marshal. Strikes me that the wolf would be a trifle better."

"Jasper, I didn't say a word about a sheep, and you know it."

"That's a fact. I was the one that was a talkin' about a sheep. I know'd
it was one of us, but I sorter forgot which one."

"Didn't he say that you made a good deal o' licker when the sun wan't
shinin'? Didn't he?"

"Margaret, ef you keep on, I'll be fo'ced to believe you have been
listenin'; an' I'd hate to think that. Thar ain't nuthin' much wus than
listenin' to other folks when they talk business. Now the fust woman on
the earth listened when her husband he was a talkin' to an angel that
was out in the garden a sunnin' hisse'f, and they called her a Eve
drapper."

"Wall, you wan't a talkin' to no angel, I'll tell you that."

"Talkin' to one now, ain't I?"

"Jasper, I didn't come in here to be made fun of. I'd rather quarrel
than to be made fun of."

"I don't know but that's a fact."

"Now why don't you tell me all about it?"

"I don't see the use in my repeatin' suthin' you've already hearn."

"Already hearn? I ain't hearn a word, and you know it. But suppose he do
git the app'intment--won't it mean trouble?"

"Wall, I don't know but it will. They do say that it's a sorter
troublesome job. Know'd a feller that was app'inted once, and he was
shot between the eyes--puttiest shot you ever saw. Man said, 'You
couldn't do that ag'in in ten years,' and putty soon thar come along
another deputy, an' blamed if he didn't do it ag'in."

"I wish you wouldn't pester me so--when I've already got trouble on my
mind."

"What's troublin' you, Margaret?"

"Why, dinner's about ready to take up, and them folks ain't come back.
Why, I never did see Lou as skittish as she is now. I reckon it's
because he's the son of a United States jedge."

"Oh, you've found out all about him, have you? Wall, he's sorter
skittish, too. And when his aunt talks it puts me in mind of a bird a
singin' up summers among the green leaves."

"Oh, any woman could talk thatter way if you'd put fine clothes on her.
Trouble is when a woman ain't dressed fitten to kill, nobody won't
listen to her. Common calico can't talk any better than that Mose Blake;
but silk--law me! Sings like a bird up among the green leaves. I despise
to hear a man go on thatter way--jest as if a woman ain't respectable
unless she covers herself with finery. But I want to tell you that Lou
can talk with the rest of 'em when she wants to--and so can I, for that
matter."

"Oh, you can talk, Margaret--thar ain't no doubt about that. Well, I'll
go out now and see if the hogs air gittin' along all right, and when
dinner's ready jest blow yo' ho'n."

Off from the road, not far from the house, a gulch ran zig-zag up among
the rugged hills. It was no mere ragged and unsightly drain for water
from the higher land. Flower-brightened and vine-hung, it was
deliciously cool, and gorgeous at every turn. At the bottom babbled a
rivulet, a bit of summer sky melted and poured among the green-tipped
rocks. Blooming shrubs in the giant's garden, the saplings seemed; and
hither came the birds to make their nests and to nod with half-shut eyes
in the drowsy afternoon. But after passing through this elbow corridor,
there were bare rocks, standing bold in the sun or bleak in the wind,
and here was a log hut almost hidden by bushes. It was called the mill,
and corn was ground there, but the meal was boiled in a great iron
kettle. It was Old Jasper's distillery. After leaving the house he went
up to this place, and in front of his picturesque though illegitimate
establishment, he sat down upon a stone to muse over his coming danger.

In Jasper Starbuck there was a force which, directed by education, would
have made of him a leader of men. Once a neighbor had threatened to
report him to the government, and in the night Jasper went to the house
of his enemy, called him to the door, showed him a rope, and without
saying a word went away. The neighbor knew what the rope meant. Years
before a miscreant who had assaulted a woman, was seized by Starbuck,
thrown upon his back, tied hand and foot, and hanged to a tree; and it
was only the timely arrival of officers of the law that saved him for
the deliberations of the established gallows. But with all his quickness
to act he was sometimes made slow by a touch of sentiment, and thus it
was that he permitted Peters to bully him. Between the two families
there had ever existed bad blood, and some of it had been spilled. In
the neighborhood it was a standing prediction that Jasper would one day
cut the throat of the blustering Lije, and the old fellow, especially as
time began to whiten his hair, constantly mused to himself: "I don't
want 'em to throw it up to my girl that she is the daughter of a
butcher, but if the time must come--" Here he always broke off,
summoning his humor with the whistle of a droll tune. "Thar may be some
way to weather it out," he now mused as he sat upon the stone, "I have
been in many a close place and I always weathered it out."

Suddenly he looked up, attracted by the bleating of a lamb; and up
higher among the crags he went, found the little thing caught between
two rocks, almost starved. "You don't belong to me," he said, taking the
lamb in his arms, "but yo' life belongs to you an' in the sight o' the
Lord mebby it amounts to as much as mine." He took the lamb down to the
house, gave it milk, and then took it back upon the hill-side, and,
putting it on the ground, said: "Thar, I reckon you'd better run along
home. Yo' mammy mout be distressed about you."

Upon returning to the house he found that his visitors had come back
from the post-office. Jim was gazing at Mrs. Mayfield, Tom was shyly
striving to dispel Lou's shyness, Mrs. Mayfield was talking romance.

"Oh, I could not have believed that such a place existed," she said to
Starbuck. "I was warned not to come here, that the people were ungentle
and that the report of the gun was oftener heard than the strains of the
song; but I find that your life here is almost uneventful music."

"I don't know what sort of music that is, ma'm, but if you say so, I'd
be willin' to bet on it. Wouldn't you, Jim?"

"I don't bet, Uncle Jasper,--but--but if she wanted me to I would."

"Of course you would, or any other preacher, if he's a man."

Mrs. Mayfield was looking at Jim and he sat illumined beneath her gaze.
"Your compliments are all so new and strange to me," she said. "And in
them I can find no flattery."

"Ma'm, I have never tried to flatter any one. Judas was a flatterer."

"That's right, ma'm," the old man declared, laughing and slapping his
leg; "an' I'd ruther a man would tell me a flat-footed lie than to pour
molasses on me. Young feller," he asked of Tom, "did you like yo'
ride?"

"Charmed with it, I assure you. Auntie called it a continuous panorama."

"Wall, I never thought about it in that way, but I reckon that's about
what it is."

"Oh, such visions are not to be forgotten," Mrs. Mayfield spoke up, and
at the sound of her voice Jim dodged. "And such air, Mr.
Starbuck--ethereal liquor of the gods."

At the word liquor Jasper's jaw dropped with a "hah?"

"Yes," she said, "wine from the press of Paradise. How free from the
taint of the world was every shrub and flower! I thought that a poet had
laid him down and dreamed, and awaking and stealing away, had left his
dream behind."

"That so? And right up on the hill from whar you crossed the river thar
lives the old feller they tell the tale about. Many years ago when thar
come along a gover'ment surveyor, a changein' the line between North
Caroliny an' Tennessee, he dragged his chain through the old feller's
house, putting one room in one state an' lettin' the other room stay in
the state it was. 'Wall,' says the old feller, beginnin' to move his
bed over into the tuther room, 'reckon I'll sleep over here as North
Caroliny ain't very healthy nohow,' an' he did till years atterwards
another chain proved that he was mo' than fifty miles over in Tennessee
an' then his health improved might'ly. I'm glad you like our part o' the
country, ma'm."

"Anyone to know the dark side of life as I do, Mr. Starbuck, must revel
here. There are no sneers among the trees, and the tears that fall from
the flowers are tears of joy and not of sorrow. It does not seem that
the great explorer, Trouble, has ever penetrated this region."

"Ma'm," said the old man, standing in front of her with his hands behind
him, "no matter whar we go trouble is thar jest in advance of us.
Trouble was in the garden of Eden, waitin' for man. The coward may say
that it come with the woman, but it was thar in the shape of a snake
befo' man trod the path. A house may be away off among the hills; it may
be kivered all over with vines an' the flowers may sweeten the roof, and
yit inside thar may be a heart that is a smotherin'."

"It is mighty warm in here," said Margaret, entering the room. "Come to
dinner."

Jim, in a constant tremble, as if he expected some dire accident to
befall him, sat beside Mrs. Mayfield. Once he dropped a dish, and later
leaning back in his chair, the hind legs of which were too short, tipped
over and came near upsetting the table. Tom and Lou tittered; Jasper
roared till the tears ran down his brown cheeks; Margaret reproved him
and all was in confusion till Mrs. Mayfield's gentle words pattered
musically among them like rain in the dust. She did not take notice of
the ludicrous mishap, and when Jim had scrambled to his feet and was
standing there ridiculous with a dry grin, she said to him: "I know you
must be fond of books, and when I return home I will send you
some--books that I have read and marked when the hours were long."

The preacher recovered himself. "Ma'm," said he, "in a book yo' pencil
would make a high price mark, and from one man that I know of there
could be no purchase."

"I gad," snorted Old Jasper, "dinged if he didn't git right up and stand
higher than he was befo'."

"Jasper," Margaret protested, "I wouldn't make fun of the way a man
stands. It don't sound right."

"My dear," Mrs. Mayfield replied to Margaret, motherly, though young,
"he paid Mr. Reverend a pretty compliment."

"Now did he?" Margaret rejoined. "Wall, if he did I'm mighty glad of it,
but the truth is, Miz Mayfield, Jasper is so full of his pranks you
never can tell how to take him. Lou, why don't you pass the butter to
Mr. Elliott; and the bread? Can't you see nothin' at all? I hope you
will excuse her, Mr. Elliott, fur she sometimes furgits though she did
go to school for two years over at Dry Fork."

Tom begged her not to worry about him. He was nearing that stage when
physical appetite is forgotten, when our entire nature, faults, virtues,
all littlenesses and greater qualities, are thrown into a heap to feed
the bonfire of love. An old man may love like a fool, but the boy loves
like a hero. The old man who believes that he is loved by a girl is a
reveler in the debauchery of his own vanity. With an egotism unknown to
youth, he believes. The "sweet thing" tells him with an air of wisdom
that she could not love youth, that it is but an animated folly, and he
believes her. But the boy is uncertain and doubts himself. His love,
instead of inspiring confidence within his own breast, inhabits his
heart with the ghost of fear. The old man talks platitudes and knows
that he is convincing. The boy stammers his devotion and feels that he
has failed.

"You ain't eatin' a thing," said Lou, and this bold boy in the city, but
timid now, dropped a piece of bread, burnt himself with coffee and
spluttered that never in all his life had he eaten so much. A bird
lighted on the window sill, and whispering to Lou, he said that it had
come to hear her talk, and to carry her music to the other birds to make
them envious; and she spoke no word, but her cheeks replied to him. The
old man was musing and saw nothing, but Margaret heard the words and saw
the blush, and sitting back in her chair she compressed her lips and
fanned herself in satisfied determination. Jim had become calm, though
watchful and still on the dodge. Sometimes he started as if a bold
thought with a sudden knock upon the prison door demanded liberation,
but frightened at the sound of the struggling voice within he would
seem to clap his hand over the key-hole, that no accent might escape.
The old man was aware of these trials and they amused him and often he
would duck his head and laugh over his plate. Margaret would clear her
throat at him.

"Now, Jasper, what on top of yeth has tickled you so? A body to see you
would think that thar wan't nuthin' serious nowhar. Oh, I like to see a
man enjoy hisse'f, but--"

"But you don't," Jasper filled in, winking at Jim, who dodged as if an
acorn had been flipped at his eye. "Ma'm," he added, "blamed if I
believe a woman ever has a right good laugh after she's past thirty.
About that time nature turns down the lamp for her and she begins to see
shadows. If she does laugh much atter this it is at an enemy. She won't
laugh with you--she laughs at you. You've got to look funny to
her--you've got to have on suthin' that looks odd."

"Oh, I don't think so, Mr. Starbuck," Mrs. Mayfield replied. "It has
often been denied, but a woman has the true sense of humor, but--"

"Humor!" exclaimed the old fellow. "Why, she's got mo' than a day in
April."

"You misunderstand me. I mean that she has a true sense of fun. Being
more sensitive than man, some things that a man wouldn't notice, strike
her as ridiculous. To say that she has no fun would be to rob her of
sorrow, for the keenest sorrow comes after we have had our fun."

"Ma'm, you air settin' in a boat, paddlin' at ease and I am a rollin' up
my britches higher an' higher, a tryin' to wade atter you; but you air a
gittin' out whar it is too deep fur me to foller you."

"A compliment charmingly expressed, Mr. Starbuck. But if I row away from
you, it was you who placed me in the boat."

"Ma'm, I allus thought it would be hard to talk to an educated woman. I
'lowed she would talk a finery that I couldn't understand, but you
sorter make me change my mind."

"Jasper, you do fret a body so," Margaret put in. "You would lead us to
think you never met a woman befo'. Why, thar air lots o' women up
here--can't talk silk and braid and plush, but they know how to say what
they mean."

Mrs. Mayfield bowed to her. "I quite agree with you, Mrs. Starbuck.
Women everywhere are pretty much the same."

"So glad to hear you say that, Miz Mayfield," Margaret replied. "It
ain't often that anybody agrees with me--Jasper never do. If I'd say a
crow's black, he'd 'low it was white."

"Yes," drawled the old man, "ef you was to say so; but you never would
say a crow was black. You'd say he was yaller. No, I don't allers
dispute what you say. Tuther day when I flung a rock at a steer, it
struck a tree, bounced back and hit me and you said, 'Thar, you've hurt
yo'se'f,' and I didn't dispute it. Jest give me the truth and you won't
here no complaint. Am I right, Jim?"

Jim did not relish his position as "prover." The umpire of household
argument "hath but a losing office." In the opinion of one side or the
other his decision is unjust. "You are nearly always right when you
think you are, Uncle Jasper, and you don't often think you are right
unless you are; and I can say the same of Aunt Margaret."

"Oh, I tell you," the old man declared, shaking his head, "Jim will
keep out of trouble as long as he kin; an' I want to say he is givin' me
a mighty useful lesson right along now about this time."

"Gracious! Look thar!" Margaret exclaimed.

"Hold on!" Jasper commanded, "don't nobody move. Keep right still and
don't say a word."

In the door stood a dog, gazing with glassy stare. Any one could see
that is was mad. A tiger leaping forth from a jungle and standing with
his eyes ablaze, must be a terrible sight. But the tiger, red tongue
out, crouching, eyes like fire, could not inspire more of terror than
the dead eye of a mad dog. We know that its tooth, its claw, its very
foam means death, lingering, horrible.

"Don't move," commanded Jasper, slowly getting up from the table. There
was no weapon within reach. "I'll have to choke him," said the old man.
"If any of you moves a muscle I'll hold you responsible." Gazing into
the eyes of the dog, he slowly moved toward the door. Then, making a
sudden motion forward, he sprang to one side; and the dog was in the
air, and when he came down the old man was upon his back, with hands
grasped around his throat. The women shrieked. Jim and Tom sprang
forward. "Look out, boys, don't let him scratch you. Here, Jim, grab his
hind legs. Mr. Elliott, fetch that handspike from over thar in the
corner."

Jim seized the dog's legs and Tom brought the big stick. "Shall I mash
his head with it, sir?"

"No. Put it across his neck and then I'll b'ar down on one end an' you
on the other an' with a twist Jim kin break his neck. Thar, we air
gittin' him." At the proper moment Jim gave the dog an upward twist and
there was a snap. They heard his neck break.

"It's all right," said Old Jasper. "Why, you women folks mustn't take on
now. Thar are two times when you mustn't take on--when thar's danger and
when thar ain't."

"I know he's pizened!" Margaret cried.

"Well, now, don't bet no money on that fur you'll lose it. He didn't
tech me."

"Let us thank the Lord," said Jim.

"All right," Jasper replied; "but thar ain't no hurry; the dog's dead."




CHAPTER VII.

NOT SO FAR OUT OF THE WORLD.


Men with guns came down the road, shouting "mad dog." The cry was taken
up and it echoed among the hills. In barbaric Europe, when every village
was a principality unto itself, the cry at midnight, summoning men from
their beds to butcher or be butchered, could not have been more
startling than the noon-tide cry of "mad dog" in rural Tennessee.
Mothers seized their children, fathers caught up guns and axes. The
cross-roads merchant slammed his door and locked it. Oxen, catching the
alarm, bellowed in the fields.

Starbuck went out into the road to meet the men. "Say," he said, in
answer to their shout, "if you air lookin' for a mad dog I kin let you
have one cheap. He's round thar."

The dog was dragged away and the community returned to the allegiance
which it owed to quietude and laziness; the shiftless lout loitered
along the road, and the old woman, on the gray mare, followed by the
fuzzy mule colt, carried down to the "commercial emporium," "a settin'
o' goose aigs" to be swopped for a handful of coffee and a lump of brown
sugar.

"Ma'm," said Starbuck to Mrs. Mayfield, as he went back into the house,
"you see that we don't live so fur outen the world atter all. Of co'se
thar air places that have got mo' l'arnin' than we have, but we kin
skeer up a mad dog an' git rid o' him as quick as the best of 'em. An' I
reckon by this time you find that our affairs ain't so uneventful as you
put it. Young feller," he went on, speaking to Tom, "I like the way you
acted under fire. Thar was a time when I believed that a feller with
store clothes on was easy skeered, and I laughed when I seed 'em j'inin'
the army--'lowed they would w'ar out in a day or two; but they
outmarched us fellers that follered the plow an' when the time come they
tuck their red medicine an' never whimpered. Ricolleck one little chap
that didn't look like he was strong enough to pull up a handful o' white
clover--snatched up a flag, butted his way to the front and put his
colors on the breastworks o' the inimy."

"I thank you," Tom replied. "But you don't seem to be astonished that
the preacher wasn't scared."

"Who, Jim? Oh, no. Jim's a Starbuck."

"Don't make me out any worse than I naturally am, Uncle Jasper," said
Jim, smiling in that mild consciousness of humor sometimes necessary and
always appropriate to the pulpit.

Mrs. Mayfield smiled upon him, and bade him come with her to the place
where the short shade of noon-time was napping on the hill-top. He
clutched his hat and followed her and old Jasper snorted. "Follers her
like a pet lamb," said the old man to his wife when Tom and Lou also had
strolled off. "I mean Jim do. But to tell you the truth she'll never
marry him; don't know that he wants her, you understand, but if he do
he's in a bad fix. She's good and as putty as a red-bird, but I don't
reckon that she'd like to be the wife of a mountain preacher. And come
to think about it, I don't see why a woman would want to be the wife of
any preacher--much. Not that the preacher wouldn't be good to her, but
because she'd be a settin' herse'f up as a mark fur all the other women
in the neighborhood. Ef a preacher's wife laugh they say she ain't a
takin' no intrust in church work, an' ef she is sorrowful they say it's
all put on."

"Jasper, you don't know what you're a talkin' about, but you air
puffeckly nat'ral as long as you're a sayin' suthin' ag'in women. You
don't understand 'em at all."

"And ef I did I'd be smarter than old Solomon. He had fo' or five
hundred of 'em about him and he didn't understand even the most foolish
one of 'em. How air you goin' to understand a critter that don't
understand herse'f? But I tell you this here Miz Mayfield is
smart--talks like a new book that's got picturs in it."

"Oh! Then I reckon I can't talk at all."

"Have you hearn anybody hint that you can't talk? Did you ever notice
that when a man begins to talk about a woman, makes no diffunce who, his
wife puts it up that he's a talkin' about her? Did you?"

"No, nor you nuther. Gracious above!--book with picturs in it! But if
Jim wants to marry her, why don't he say so? What do he want allus to
be a steppin' round her skirts like a frost-bit chicken?"

"Wall, he ain't had time to ax her yit. It took the gospel mo' than a
thousand years to reach America, an' we oughtn't to expect preachers to
be in a rush."

She scowled at him and he went away, laughing, and she stood in the
door, shading her eyes with her hand, watching Tom and Lou as slowly
they walked down the road. Over to the right, in the dazzle of the sun,
Jim and Mrs. Mayfield were climbing a hill; and reaching the top, she
sat down on a rock and bade him sit near her, but he shook his head and
said that he preferred to stand where he was, and then, realizing that
his remark was abrupt, sat down by her and was silent. At her feet the
violets were blooming. There came a breeze, and the blossom of a poplar
sapling brushed her face and shed its perfume in her hair.

"In the city all is struggle and plot," she said, and musing for a time
in silence, she continued: "But here all seems to be innocence and
beauty."

"Not all innocence, ma'm," the preacher replied. "The poisonous insect
sometimes lives where the air is sweet. There is no land that is not in
need of the doctrine of gentleness. To the lovely eye almost all things
may look lovely--"

"Thank you," she broke in.

"Oh, not at all," he replied, unable to remember his ease of a moment
ago. "The fact is I don't believe we are goin' to have any rain for some
time yet. Needin' it a little, now, too."

"You were talking in a different strain just now and I interrupted you.
I am sorry. Let me lead you back."

"I don't hardly know where I was, ma'm. The fact is, I'm always about
half lost when I'm with you."

"Mr. Reverend, don't embarrass me."

"Embarrass you? Ma'm, I haven't had a fight in a good while, but if a
feller was to come along and embarrass you, why he'd soon have reason to
think that scarlet fever had broke out in the neighborhood."

"Now, please don't talk that way. Let us get back to where we were. You
were saying that all lands were in need of the doctrine of gentleness. I
suppose it is true, but this land needs only the doctrine while there
are others that are in need of the lash--I might say, the sword. I am
not as high in the social world as you may suppose, but what I know of
society leads me to believe that we polish a barbarism and call it a
brilliant grace. Politeness is charming to look at and to hear, but it
is the art of telling and acting a lie. Among these hills we hear a
laugh and we know that some one is amused. In society we see a smile and
we feel that some one is a hypocrite."

"I hope it ain't that bad, ma'm."

"But it is that bad."

"When Uncle Jasper asked you if yo' husband was dead, you said worse
than that--divorced. Was he very mean to you, ma'am?"

"He was a brute, Mr. Reverend."

"Did anybody knock him down for you?"

"Oh, no."

"Is he livin'?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Do you want him knocked down?"

"Why, Mr. Reverend! Just now you were talking of the doctrine of
gentleness, and now you speak of knocking some one down. How can you be
so changeable."

"I'm not changeable, ma'm. The doctrine of gentleness don't apply to a
snake, and if that man didn't treat you right he is a snake. And I'm a
preacher; I go out among them that needs prayer and I pray; in the night
when it seems that everybody else in the world is asleep, I have gone
out and knelt down in the dirt and prayed that the pain and the
bitterness might be taken from the troubled hearts of my neighbors. I've
gone to see many a young feller and begged him to give up fightin'--I've
done all that, but if you was to tell me where I could find that
man--man that was a brute to you, I'd hunt him and with my fist I would
mash the teeth out of his mouth. Where does he live?"

"We must not think of him, Mr. Reverend. And besides, when I speak of
him, how do you know that I tell the truth?"

"Ma'm, if a man should inspire you with a lie, it would be proof enough
that he is a brute."

She clapped her hands and laughed. "Oh, Troubadour, recite your soul to
me!"

"What did you say, ma'm?"

"Oh, nothing." She pointed and Jim saw Tom and Lou enter the vine-hung
gulch leading to the place where corn had been ground at night.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE SPIRIT THAT PLAYED WITH HER.


"This looks like the scenery in a theatre," said Tom, as slowly they
walked up the gulch. She asked him what he meant and he explained as
best he could the nature of a play-house, where to sweet music and amid
flowers the hero told the heroine that he would die for her. She replied
that it must be pretty, but that a book which she had read told her that
it was wrong to go to such a place. In this book there was a girl, and
one night she went with a young man to a theatre and when she came back
her mother was dead. Tom suggested that possibly the old lady might have
died anyway, but Lou shook her wavy hair till all sorts of witcheries
fell out of it.

"No, she died because the girl went, and I have thought I'd be afraid to
go as long as my mother was alive."

He helped her across the rivulet, though it was not more than a foot
wide at this place, and a little further on, helped her across again
when there was no necessity for it. "It didn't seem to have any
influence on the old man, did it?" he remarked.

"The girl goin' to the theatre? Oh, no; it takes more than that to kill
a man. Cousin Jim says when he went down to Memphis while the yeller
fever was there, he saw the theatre house. He went inside, and the seats
were red and soft--softer than the seats in a church, but there wasn't
anybody there for all the people that went there were dead with the
fever. But I have often wondered if there was so much music and so many
flowers how it could be so bad. They say that the angels have harps and
that in heaven there is music, but I haven't heard that there is any
music at the other place. Oh, did you see that bird almost light on me?"

"Thought you were a flower," Tom replied, helping her across the rivulet
again.

"Oh, it didn't. What makes you wanter talk that way for? Look, here is
where I used to make my play-house, and here are pieces of the broken
dishes yet, and that broken bottle was my bureau. Wait a minute and let
me think. There was a little boy played with me and his name was
Bud--not a sure enough little boy, but one that I pretended like; and I
could hear him talk and he'd say the prettiest things. He lived up there
under that big rock and would always come when I called him, but one
time a woman come along and she heard me talkin' to him and she couldn't
see him with her sort of eyes; and she went down to the house and told
mother that I must be crazy, and after this Bud wouldn't come when I
called him. That was a long time ago--a year and a half befo' year befo'
last. We will go on now."

When they came to the log hut, Tom cried out: "Oh, here is another
play-house. Is it yours?"

"No, this is where they grind corn."

He looked in at the low door and marveled at the strangeness of the
place, and after a long silence she asked him what he was thinking about
and he replied:

"About that little boy. He must have been happy."

"Yes, till that hateful woman came along and killed him. Wasn't she
mean? I wonder if hundreds of spirits haven't been killed that way. How
beautiful everything is sometimes when we shut our eyes. It is then that
we see spirits, but I was sick once and the spirits all got to be old
and wrinkled and they'd come up and grin at me; and after that for a
long time I was afraid to see things with my eyes shut. Isn't it nice to
be as brave as you are?"

He looked at her and his eyes were aglow with softened fire, and his
hand was near her own, resting on the log door-way, but he was not brave
now for he trembled and when he spoke his voice wavered. "Don't mock me
by calling me brave. There never was a bigger coward."

"Why, you are trembling now. Is it because I told you of the spirits?
But you ain't a coward. My father says you are brave and he knows, for
you wan't afraid of that mad dog, and there's nothin' as bad as that.
Oh, down yonder where the branch is bigger there is a water fall; and
after a rain it roars and I used to go there with little Bud and we
called it a scolding giant. Shall we go down there?"

"Yes, but you mustn't--mustn't think of that boy Bud so much."

"Oh, he was only a spirit."

"Yes, but so is everything that is anything. Take the spirit away and
we'd all be cattle. And I know exactly what species of cattle I'd
be--I'd be a calf--just a red calf with horns about an inch long, and in
nosing around I'd get a basket on my head, be frightened and make myself
ridiculous. I never knew it before, but I know now that I'd be a calf."

"Oh, no you wouldn't, no such of a thing. What makes you talk about
yourself that way? Come on, now."

Over a bluff of rock fifty feet high the rivulet poured and in the spray
they saw a rainbow. Down below where they stood ferns were rank and the
rocks were soft with moss. Here they sat and chatted of nothing but
themselves, he discovering faults in himself and she denying them,
calling him prettily to task for his slander, and thrilled him from one
indecision to another. The sun, emblazoning for a moment a distant
mountain top, purpled the lower world and then all was in shade. For a
long time they had been silent and when she spoke he started out of his
revery and rubbed his eyes as if he had been asleep; but he had not, for
as a spirit, a little boy Bud, he had played with her in the gulch,
coming out from beneath the rock when she called him.

"Let us go back to the house," she said. "They will wonder what has
become of us."

Jim and Mrs. Mayfield were coming down the hill. The preacher, too, had
for the most part been silent, though not in reverie, but in a constant
struggle. Once he said to her: "Ma'm, I can't get it out of my head that
you are makin' fun of me."

"I make fun of you, Mr. Reverend? I admit that in the past my heart was
gayer than wise, but there never was a time when I could have made fun
of you."

Slowly they walked down the hill and he pondered over what she had said,
but a simple heart is often a suspicious heart; rustic faith is afraid
of itself, and he did not believe her. He was not wise enough to see
that in her eye he was a moral Hercules. He did not know that in his
great strength, in his very awkwardness, there was a fascination for
this woman who had drunk wine from a golden goblet and found it bitter.
On every creed there are dark spots, and in his devotion to his calling
he was afraid that she had come to him as a temptation, to lead him
away from the work of saving souls. Sometimes he caught himself
foolishly wishing that suddenly she might develop into a man, the evil
one himself, that he might defy him; and then the softness of her words
would bring shame upon him and he would mutter imprecations against
himself.

"The sun is no longer shining upon it, but in my mind that hill-top will
always glow," she said when they had reached the road. "It must ever
remain a gold-tipped promontory of the past."

"Ma'm, I don't know what you mean."




CHAPTER IX.

AT DRY FORK.


The next day was Sunday, and immediately after breakfast Jasper
announced that he was going "to haul a passel of them" over to church,
the place of worship and of gossip being about five miles distant. And
when everything was made ready, Mrs. Mayfield was delighted to find upon
going out to the gate that they were to be drawn by two enormous oxen.
But Margaret objected. "Thar air two hosses out yander at the stable,
and it is jest one of Jasper's pranks to take these steers," she said.
"And I jest know he's a doin' it to humiliate me." The old man,
pretending to fix the yoke, ducked his head to hide his grinning
countenance. "Hosses out thar, but here we go like niggers to a
camp-meetin'," she went on. "I'm not goin'."

"Oh, do go, Mrs. Starbuck," Mrs. Mayfield pleaded.

"No, I won't go a step. I won't be shamed in this way."

"Sorry, Margaret," said Jasper. "I 'lowed you'd enjoy yo'se'f, still if
you don't want to go thar's no way of compellin' you. Wall, climb up,
everybody."

Mrs. Mayfield and Lou were helped into the wagon, Jasper climbed up and
had begun to swing his long lash when Margaret cried out: "You haven't
fixed any place for me."

"For you?" Jasper replied. "Didn't know you was a goin'."

"Oh, you think you kin make me stay at home all day by myse'f, do you?
All the time studyin' how you kin go away an' leave me. Well, I'll show
you wuther I'm goin' or not."

The old man laughed. "Oh, pleased to have you come along, as the hawk
said to the chicken." She climbed up and sat down beside him and he
dodged as if she had struck at him. "Now stop yo' foolishness an' drive
on, Jasper. An' I'll jest bet anythin' that these steers run right off'n
the bluff inter the creek. I jest know it."

"Oh, not with a preacher an' all these good-lookin' women," replied
Jasper. "Whoa hawr, come here, Buck. Come here, Bright."

The old wagon creaked, groaned, shuddered and away they went down the
hill. Lou and Mrs. Mayfield "bursting into song," Jim and Tom laughing.
The dawn had been red and the early morning was still pink, with here
and there a mist-veil floating up from the creek. In the air were sudden
joys, the indescribable and indefinable glees of a lightsome day, the
very childhood of time; and back to the north the migratory bird was
singing his way, mimicked and laughed at by the native mocking songster,
jongleur of the feathered world. In all this blythe land it did not seem
that there was an ache or a pain, of the body or of the heart; the
light, the air, the music, all combined to form a wordless sermon on the
mount.

"Mr. Reverend, you are silent again," said Mrs. Mayfield, and the
preacher replied: "I didn't know that, ma'm. I thought I was singing."

"I'm not singin'," Margaret spoke up, grasping Jasper's arm. "I haven't
been so jolted since the mules ran away with me."

"Margaret," said Jasper, "you'd be jolted in the garden of Eden. Jolted
out, I gad," he roared.

"I wouldn't, no sich of a thing, an' you know it. Lou, air you shore
you put everything in the basket."

"Yes'm."

"The pickels, and the chickens? I jest know you forgot the coffee, as if
I could go all day without it. I never seed the like. Folks air gittin'
mo' an' mo' keerless every day. Of co'se you could put in the
pickels--had to do that to leave the coffee out. Now what prompted you
to do that?"

"Do what, mother?"

"Why, leave that coffee out?"

"It's in the basket."

"Then why did you tell me you didn't fetch it? What do you want to
torment a body fur? Now, Jasper, whut air you a settin' up here fur, a
shakin' like a lump o' calf-foot jelly? You give me the fidgits."

"Wall, thar won't be nobody a laughin' now putty soon," said Jasper. "I
kin see right now that these steers air goin' to run off inter the
creek."

"They ain't a goin' to do no sich of a thing, an' you know it. Miz
Mayfield, did you ever see sich carryin's-on?"

"I have never experienced a more delightful drive, Mrs. Starbuck. We
read of the beautiful past, and it seems to me that to-day I have been
permitted to live a hundred years ago. A hundred! Five hundred, and
should not be surprised to see a troop of knights come galloping down
the glen, with armor flashing and with poetic war-cries on their lips.
Were you thinking of that, Mr. Reverend?"

"No, ma'm. I was thinking of the men, clothed in skins and with
shepherd's crooks in their hands, carrying the gospel to the barbarians
of old."

"And I was thinking," said Tom, "of old Daniel Boone, with his
flint-lock rifle, going to Kentucky. And what were your thoughts, Miss
Lou?"

"I wasn't thinkin'--I was just a livin', that's all. Sometimes what a
blessin' it is jest to breathe. I reckon we are the happiest when we
don't have to think, when we jest set still and let things drift along
like the leaf that's a floatin' down the river."

"Very pretty, my dear," Mrs. Mayfield replied. "Thought is not
happiness, though bliss may not lie wholly in ignorance. I should think
that the happiness most nearly perfect is the half-unconscious rest of
a thoughtful mind--the sound sleep of the strong."

"That's all very well," said Old Jasper, waving his long lash over the
steers. "But you can't gauge happiness, and half the time you can't tell
what fetches it about. Some days you find yo'se'f miserable when thar
ain't nuthin' happened, an' the next day, when still nuthin' has tuck
place to change things, you find yo'se'f happy. If you kin do a little
suthin' to help a po' body along--an' do it, mind you, without thinkin'
that you air doin' it fur a purpose, then the chances air that you'll be
happy all day. But ef you help a feller with the idee of it a makin' you
happy, it won't, somehow. It's like the card player a givin' a man money
becaze he thinks it will fetch him good luck. I ricolleck one time I
seed a big feller a bullyin' a po' little devil, an' I told him to quit
an' he wouldn't, an' I whaled him. Didn't think nuthin' about it till I
got nearly home an' I foun' myse'f a whistlin' like a bird, an' all that
day I was as happy as a lark."

"Of co'se, ef you had a fight," Margaret spoke up. "To you it was like
eatin' a piece o' June apple pie. Ah, don't I ricolleck once when we
went to a political speakin'? I reckon I do. A settin' thar jest as
quiet as could be, a listin' to a man that was makin' the puttiest
speech, a talkin' like a preacher, an' all at once you hopped up an'
made at him an' I never seed such a fight--an' you come a walkin' back
to me with yo' hands full of his hair. Laws a massy, don't I ricolleck
it?"

"Talkin' putty! W'y, Margaret, the feller was a tellin' of a lie. I
didn't want to fight him an' break up the meetin', an' I was showin'
that by settin' thar so quiet. But when he begun to lie, it was my duty
to remind him of it."

"Wall," she replied, after a moment's silence, "if that preacher out
thar at Dry Fork' to-day begins to say things that you think ain't true,
jest set thar an' say nuthin', fur it ain't none o' yo' business."

"That's right, Margaret. I don't kere what a man says when he's a
preachin', jest so he don't p'int at me. He kin say that Moses drunk up
the Red Sea ef he wants to--but he mustn't p'int as if he could prove it
by me."

"Oh, it would do you a world of good ef he did p'int at you. Nuthin' on
the yeth would please you so much."

Down into the lowlands lying along a blue river the wagon rolled. Here
the vegetation was rank, and the tops of the hickory trees were dim in
the dazzling blue above. Great birds with long legs stretched out far
behind, flew past, ancient war-bolts they seemed; and a flying squirrel
looped his flight from one tree to another. The tall rattle weed, in
bloom, nodded a yellow salute as they passed.

"We are the guests of honor," said Mrs. Mayfield. "They have marshalled
a gay army of soldiers to meet us."

"The roots of them weeds is pizen," Jasper spoke up, cutting off a
yellow plume with his whip. "They look suthin' like the stalk of
angelica an' sometimes they air dug up by mistake fur sich. See that
squirrel. Look how he rattles up that hickory bark. Wall, down yan we
turn to the right an' go up a little rise, dip down ag'in, then go up
an' keep on a goin' up fur about a mile an' thar's the church. Who
preaches to-day, Margaret?"

"Brother Fetterson."

"Ah, hah, good man; an' I want to say that he's got mighty fine jedgment
when it comes to a hoss. He fust rid in here on a hoss that had about
fo' j'ints to the squar foot. Some of our fellers told him he was so
thin he oughtn't be rid in the day--ought to keep him fur the dark;
called him a sort of night mare. But he tuck it good natured an' jest
kep' on a chawin' o' his tobacker. Then atter a while he lows that mebby
some good brother mout like to swap with him, an' ever'body laughed
fitten to kill. Then he said mebby they mout like to swop saddles. Wall,
they done that an' right thar was the rise of that preacher in the good
opinion of this here community, fur it wan't long till he swopped off
his hoss, a givin' the saddle to boot, an' he kept on a swoppin' till
the fust thing we knowed he had the finest hoss in the whole
neighborhood, an' the fust feller he swopped with was a walkin' an' a
totin' his saddle. That's the sort of a preacher the folks likes to
hear, fur they've got confidence in his jedgment."

The log meeting-house was on a hill in the midst of a walnut grove. Its
roof was green with moss and its sides gray and yellow. Many a storm
had swept over this old pile of wood. In it the ordinance of secession
had been read. Knives flashed, pistols barked, and blood was poured out
upon the floor. Old Oliver's horses ate their oats at the marble altar
of an ancient cathedral; and within these log walls, and at this long
slab, this mourners' bench, tear-stained by a generation long since in
the grave, the horses of the guerrillas ate their corn. Descendants of
the same men, carrying on what might have seemed a continuation of the
same family quarrel, first one side and then another occupied Dry Fork
as a fort; and when the rain was pouring as if to wash away the blood,
Buell slept on a bench in this old house, and two days later Bragg's
orders were issued from its pulpit.

Numerous horses were tied about and the mule colt was blowing his treble
horn. Maidens in their finery and young fellows rigged out from the pack
of the nomadic Hebrew walked about, glancing shyly at one another. On
the grass beneath the trees, lying, squatting, sitting, old men talked
of early frosts and late snows, of strange and wonderful things that
had happened away back in the days of misty tradition; one man's father
had seen a ghost, and another man's grandfather, while leading to the
altar a beautiful girl, was suddenly horrified to see her turn into a
hideous witch. When Jasper's "haul" had got out of the wagon, and while
the women were shaking out their skirts, Laz Spencer came along in
jacket and shrunken trousers.

"Laz," said Jasper, "you ought to sue that peddler. Yo' britches hain't
shrunk the same. One leg's shorter than tuther."

"So I hearn," Laz replied, looking first at one leg and then at the
other. "But britches ain't whut's a troublin' me at the present writin'.
Miss lady's duds is what's a ailin' of me. Mag Bailey 'lowed she'd meet
me over here, but she didn't come. I'd ruther be deceived by ten men
than one woman. You kin whup a man, but it won't do to whup a woman till
you marry her, an' even then it's sorter dangersome."

"She's your fiance, I suppose," Tom remarked, winking at his aunt.

"I don't know whut you mean, but she ain't my nuthin' it don't seem
like."

"I mean you are engaged to her."

"Don't look much like it. Told her ef she'd meet me over here we mout
be. Reckon her not comin' is a hint that she ain't agreeable to the
p'int. How air you an' Lou a gittin' along?"

Margaret began to cough and Jasper ducked down behind the wagon. Lou
blushed until her cheeks were as red as the ribbon on her hat. "I git
along well with ever'body," she said.

"You embarrass us, Mr. Spencer," Tom spoke up, red as the breast of a
robin.

"That so?" replied Laz. "Wall, Mister, ef you don't want to be jolted
don't try to jolt me."

"I beg your pardon, sir, if--"

"Oh, no harm done, Mister. Wait a minit," he added, squatting and
peering down the hill among the trees. "I'm a billy goat with only one
ho'n ef yander don't come Mag with Sim Mason. Him an' her as sho's I'm a
foot high. Say, Jasper, they calls the sakermint the blood o' the lamb,
don't they? Wall, ef they want it to-day they kin have the blood of a
calf."

"Oh, Mr. Spencer," cried Mrs. Mayfield, going to him in alarm, "I do
hope you'll have no trouble."

"Hope so, too, ma'm, but I ain't a signin' no notes of hand. Look, he's
a hitchin' her hoss fur her an' you see ef he don't walk with her up to
the church do'. An' ef he do, thar's--whut did I tell you?"

Sim walked to the church door with Mag, and then in observance of
established customs, sauntered off, happening to stroll in the direction
of Laz. Margaret appealed to Jasper. "Don't you let 'em have no trouble
here. If you do, I won't let you have no peace fur a month."

"Don't expect to have none nohow," the old man drawled.

Sim came along and Laz stepped forth to meet him. The newcomer advanced,
holding out his hand. "Laz," he said, "I'm glad to be of some service to
you. Mag was a comin' to church an' as her sister couldn't come I rode
along with her. Me an' her sister air goin' to be married befo' long."

Laz took hold of his hand. "Sim," he said, and his voice wavered and
tears gathered in the sympathetic eyes of Mrs. Mayfield--"Sim, I done
you wrong. I 'lowed you was a tryin' to cut me out an' I done you a
injestice, an' ef thar's any sort of punishment you want to put on me,
put it thar an' I'll take it an' won't say a word."

"Laz, old hoss, I've already put the punishment on you--I've tuck her
sister Ella, the flower an' the perfume of the family."

"They tell us," said Mrs. Mayfield, turning to her nephew, "that once
the sun went down and never more arose to illumine a day of gallantry.
They did not tell us the truth."

"No, auntie. These people are the unconscious survivors of the floral
contest at the poetic court of love."

"Ah, and they have even touched you, wayward boy. But come, shall we not
go into the house?"

"You folks go on an' I'll be there atter a while," replied Jasper.
"Thar's a feller over yander that's got a bay nag I want an' I mout
strike up a swop with him by the time the preacher gits to his second
an'--der--rer."

"You ain't goin' to do no sich of a thing," said Margaret. "I didn't
come all the way over here to be humiliated. You'll go right in thar an'
set down by me. Folks have said you don't love me an' I don't intend
that you shall prove it to 'em."

Jasper grinned, took her arm, and led the way into the house. It was a
long sermon, with many excursions, devious hog-paths running criss-cross
through a wilderness. But it was ardent and hammering. Old Satan was
defied, dared to come forth and show himself to this assembly, true
soldiers of the cross. Children nodding and held upright by their
mothers, hands hanging limp, looked like rag dolls; and many a strong
man and devil-hating dame felt themselves slipping off into drowsiness.
Jasper snored. Margaret pinched him, determinedly awake in order to
inflict punishment; and when at last the welcome benediction fell upon
nodding heads and weary shoulders, there was a scramble for the doors
and a rush for the baskets. Jasper swore that he never was as hungry in
all his life, and upon his arm Margaret put a restraining hand.

"Now don't eat like you never got nothin' at home. Miz Mayfield, it's
all put on with him."

A table cloth was spread on the ground and before the old man had tasted
a morsel, he went about looking for someone, astray at the feast, who
might not have brought a basket or received an invitation. He returned
with Laz, Sim and Mag. The girl minced, nibbling at a chicken wing, and
the boys pretended to be dainty, but when the girls were not looking,
grabbed like a hired hand at a barbecue. After a time, when the sun had
moved far around, Old Jasper wiped his knife on his trousers and
remarked: "Wall, I don't know how the rest of you feel, but as for me
I'm goin' off down thar summers in the holler an' take a nap."

Margaret protested, but a word from Mrs. Mayfield assured him that
privilege, and he strode away, humming as he went. Laz and Mag
"santered" off, Sim sprawled out to sleep, Tom and Lou bird-peeped at
each other and Jim and Mrs. Mayfield sat on a log in a lace-work of sun
and shade.

"This has been one of the happiest days of my life," she said. "I didn't
know that there could be so much pleasure without incident. Ah, a
quaint and plotless people, Mr. Reverend."

"There may be more plot than you think, ma'm. These folks all have their
troubles. And on the hill-side where you see the white flower, blood
runs sometimes. Uncle Jasper and I are about the last of our race--last
of the men folks. Most of us have been killed."

"I don't see how that could be, Mr. Reverend. Such gentleness--"

"Don't be fooled in us, ma'm. We ain't been always blameless. Through
our house old Satan has walked, leaving his tracks."

"Satan tempted the Son of Man, Mr. Reverend."

"Yes, ma'm; but didn't walk through His house, leaving of his tracks."




CHAPTER X.

TIED TO A TREE.


The sun was down and the stars were abroad and the young moon looked
like a silver bear-claw in the sky when Jasper turned his steers
homeward; and all the party broke out in song as down the hill they
rattled. The shallows in the river sang too, and high in a tree, a bird
too riotous to leave off with the coming of night, was carrolling the
tired end of his spree. Suddenly all singing stopped. There was a
flutter in the bushes and birds flew away and a rabbit scampered over a
log. It was a loud cry of distress and all nature heeds the cry of pain.
Laugh and the bird listens; shriek and it flies away.

"Whoa!" shouted Jasper. "What was that yell?"

"Someone in distress," Tom answered. "Seems to be over to the left."

They listened. The cry came again, and upon it was borne the words,
distinct now in the stillness: "Fur de Lawd's sake doan kill me."

"Come on!" Jasper shouted, as he leaped out of the wagon; and everyone
followed him. "Hold on thar!" the old man cried. "Don't tetch him
whoever you air. Do you hear me? It's Jasper Starbuck that's a talkin'
to you."

Down a slant and in an open space there was a fire of twigs, and in its
light were four men, one a negro bound hand and foot, the others an
oldish man and evidently his two sons.

"What's the matter here?" Jasper demanded.

"Wall," replied the oldish man, "whatever it is, it ain't no affair of
yourn. Tie him across the log, boys."

The negro implored mercy. "Marster, ez de Lawd is my jedge, I ain't
guilty. I ain't been er good man--I 'knowledges dat, but dis time I
ain't guilty."

"Hold on," Jasper demanded, and the women, standing behind him, murmured
commendation of his course. Tom and Jim stood apart, in positions of
advantage in the event that there should be a fight. "Hold on," Starbuck
repeated, speaking to the father of the two young men. "You must be a
newcomer in these here parts, or you would have held on at the first
command. Don't reckon you know me."

"I don't know you, but I know my own business. My name is Sanderson, and
I am from North Caroliny, and we air goin' to whup this nigger within a
inch of his life or know the reason why."

"All right," said Jasper, taking off his hat and scratching his head.
"That is, if I don't give you the reason why. Thar happens to be a
reason. But befo' I git down to it, let me ask what this po' devil's
done."

The negro broke out with fresh imploration. "Ole marster, save me. I
ain't nuthin' on dis big yearth--dar ain't no way fur me ter be no
count. De Lawd ain't gib me whut he has you folks. He has put me yeah
ter run like er rabbit wheneber I sees er white man er comin', an' I do
hopes you take my part. I'll tell you whut he 'cuze me erbout. I wuz er
comin' laung de road, an' I yeard a dog yelp, an' I come ter de dog er
minit later an' he lay dar in de road wid his head mashed. I wuz er
lookin' at de po' thing when up come deze men an' 'cuzed me er killin'
him; but old marster, let me tell you suthin': dar's mighty few niggers
dat eber kills er dog, caze de dog an' de nigger so close ter de yearth
da's friends. I didn't kill de dog."

"Mister," said Sanderson, "I mout come yo' way a thousand times and I
never would interfere with you, and my advice to you now is, don't
interfere with me. You spoke of me not knowin' you. Wall, you don't know
me, nuther."

"Jasper," Margaret exclaimed, "that's a threat, an' don't you let the
fack that us women folks air here stand in yo' way."

"No," cried Mrs. Mayfield, "we will all fight to protect this poor
creature."

Something gleamed in Lou's hand. It was a penknife. She said nothing,
but she stepped forward, the spirit of vengeance come out of the night;
but the old man touched her on the arm and said: "Little sweetheart, you
can't find no wild vines to dig up here with yo' knife."

"No," said Tom, "let me take it," and whispering, he added, "One word
from you and I will cut his throat. But you must be still."

She smiled at him and replied: "I will, because you say so," and again
the shy girl, trembling in the presence of one who loved her, she shrank
back and was a graceful shadow in the dusk.

"Mr. Stranger," said Jasper, "I am waitin' fur you ter untie that po'
old nigger."

"Thank you, Mr. Stranger," said the North Carolina man, "and I will when
we git through with him. He wanted to kill my dog so as he could steal
suthin', and a thief ought to be punished. That's a law I take with me
wharever I go."

"Good law," Jasper replied. "And thar's a law that's allus in force whar
I live and it's this here: when a thief is accused there must be some
proof befo' he is punished."

Jim spoke for the first time. He had stood with folded arms, and
sometimes his lips moved as if he were muttering a prayer. And now his
voice was as solemn as a benediction: "The poor Ethiopian was lead down
into the waters of forgiveness and baptized. In the sight of the Savior
the color of his skin had not made him a sinner. About the weak and the
wretched the gospel threw its protecting arm, and to-night it is here
to do the same. I represent the gospel, and as the gospel, I ask you to
liberate that man."

"Hah, preacher," replied Sanderson. "And what if I don't pay no
attention to the gospel?"

And Jim's voice was deep and solemn when he answered: "Then Jim
Starbuck, the man, will mash your head and throw you out into the road
where your dog is lying."

Old Jasper slapped himself and laughed, but there were tears in his
eyes. "Thar won't be no necessity for that, Jim. You know my appetite
ain't been right good lately--I've needed exercise, and the sort of
exercise I need, this here man is goin' to help me to take. Mister, once
mo' I ask you to untie that po' nigger, and then we will git at the
evidence. You hearn what the preacher said, and--"

Through the bushes a man came stalking. He was rugged and brusque, but
he bowed to the women and offered to shake hands with the men; but
Jasper inquired as to his business upon the scene, and put him back upon
formality until this point should be settled.

"Why, it's jest this," said he, looking round at the negro. "I was a
drivin' down the hill jest now, and a drivin' peart, when out run a dog
and bit at my hosses' feet. One of the hosses knocked him down and befo'
he could git up the wheel run over him. It made me mad, come a bitin' at
my hosses, an' I driv on, but I got to thinkin' that somebody mout be
accused of killin' him, so I come back, an' shore enough here you'd got
a nigger tied up. The killin' was a accident."

"All right, gentlemen," said Sanderson. "I'll turn him loose, and it
will be a good lesson fur him--it will l'arn him not to kill no dog of
mine. Cut the rope, Bob," he added, speaking to one of the boys.

The negro dropped down upon his knees to thank Jasper, but the old man
bade him arise and go about his business. "I would have done the same
for a dog," said he. "Wait a minit. You don't look like you've had
anythin' to eat lately. Here, boys, let's give him a few dimes."

Contributions were quicker and more spontaneous than the pennies that
fall in the twilight upon the outstretched banner of the Salvation
armyist; the newcomer took a piece of smooth silver out of a yarn sack
and handed it over, following the pace which Jasper had set. Tom gave a
dollar and Jim contributed enough to buy a hymn-book.

"Gentlemen," said Sanderson, "when I think a man's done wrong I want
blood, and sometimes I reckon I'm a little hot-headed about it--my
jestice is sorter blind--but when I find he hain't done wrong, w'y I
don't love money. Here, nigger, here's fifty cents, and I want you to
understand you mustn't kill a dog of mine."

With a broad grin, catching the reflection of the silver in his hand,
the negro bowed low. "No, sah, I ain't gwine kill no dog o' yo'n. Ef I
wuz ter meet yo' dog, I'd say, 'come yeah,' an' I'd hug him right dar.
Huh, I neber seed sich putty women folks in my life, an' I knows da's de
cause o' deze white folks gibbin' me all dis money. Huh, I wouldn' mine
bein' tied up dar ag'in. Mr. Sanderson, I blebe dat yo' name, I'll go
an' bury yo' dog fur you. Ladies an' gennermen, under de moon an' yeah
'neath de trees, I wush you good-night."

"Poetic duck," said Tom, as the darkey turned away.

"Charming in his pleading and in his gallantry," his aunt replied.

"Must have been brought up in the white folks' house," Sanderson
remarked, and then, bowing to the company, marshalled his boys and
marched off.

"Margaret," said Jasper, when again they were seated in the wagon, "I am
proud of you."

"No, you ain't, no sich of a thing, an' you only want a chance to tell
me so." He had slipped one arm about her and her head was on his
shoulder.

"Beautiful," Mrs. Mayfield whispered to Jim. "Ah, what a day this has
been to me. And, Mr. Reverend, I have begun to think that there is
something good about nearly every one. Even that man whom we thought was
such a brute became gentle."

"That's true, ma'm, but I think that there's one man that is absolutely
depraved. Not the murderer, for he might feed the hungry. Not the
wife-beater, for afterward he might beg her forgiveness and kiss her.
Not the man that would rob the dead, for he might give a penny to a
little child. But the man whose soul is in love with money. I don't
mean his soul, for he has none, but the man whose every thought is
money, money. He is a murderer, a wife-beater, a robber of the dead. He
can sleep at night when he knows that by his shrewdness, which has won
him friends among the rich, he has stretched out upon the bare floor a
starving child. Christ did not die for that man."

"No, Mr. Reverend," she replied, her head hung low; and something
dropped upon his hand--a tear.

Like two birds Lou and Tom were twittering. He asked her if she had been
happy that day because she did not think, and she answered that she had
been happy because she had thought.

Suddenly someone ran out of the woods in front of the steers. The wagon
stopped and Jasper shouted: "Whut's the matter here?"

A voice replied: "Wy, sah, atter buryin' de dog I tuck a sho't cut ter
head you off. I's de nigger, an' my heart wuz heavy, an' I had ter come
an' tell you suthin'. You'se Mr. Starbuck, ain't you?"

"Yes, but what about it?"

"Wall, sah, atter I tell you, w'y you kin tie me ter er tree an' whup
me ef you wants ter, but I got ter tell you. Not laung ergo, I stole er
chicken from yo' roost. An' now you may punish me."

"Hah? What sort of a chicken?"

"Er rooster, sah."

"What, that old dominecker?"

"Yas, sah, de dominecker."

"Did yon eat him?"

"Yas, sah, I eat him."

"Wall, that was punishment enough. Git up here, boys."

It was the first time that Mrs. Mayfield had ever heard Jim laugh. He
roared and he whooped as the wagon rattled along, and she was afraid
that he was going to fall off. She asked him a question and he answered
with a snort.

When they reached home a man was standing at the gate. Jasper inquired
who it was, for in the dark he could not distinguish his visitor, and a
voice replied:

"It's me, Gabe Wells--hollered helloa, and you wanted me to fetch you a
newsparer an' a can of cove oysters an' about a straw hat full of
crackers."

"Why, yes, Gabe, come in. Wondered why you hadn't fotch them oysters
over. Next to chitterlin's I reckon they air the best things in the
world."

When they were at supper, with Gabe eating as if he had not eaten at
home, Jasper related their adventure in the woods, and Gabe declared
that he would like to take a hand in such an affair. He swore roundly
that Sanderson was a brute, but when he heard that with the rest he had
contributed money, he wiped his mouth and said: "You can't allus tell.
That feller's a gentleman, an' some time a passel of us must hitch up
an' drive over to see him. We can't afford to negleck such neighbors as
him."

"What sort of a newspaper did you fetch, Gabe?" Margaret inquired, and
he handed her "The Fire-Side Companion."

"Full of news from beginnin' to end," he said. "None of yo' tame stuff
about Uncle Billy a comin' to town with a load of wood or Aunt Sally a
renewin' of her per-scription."

"Any discussion a goin' on down at town?" Jasper asked, and Gabe began
to rack his memory.

"Wall, no, I b'lieve not. Hearn one feller call one man a liar."

"Whut come of it?"

"Oh, nuthin' much. Hauled him home in a wagin. Say, it was the puttiest
wagin I ever seen--yaller stripes on the wheels, an' it clucked like a
hen with her fust drove of chickens. But I tell you I come mighty nigh a
gittin' some money down thar. A feller had three shells an' bet me I
couldn't guess which one of 'em he put a pea under. I seed him put it
under one--seed him jest as cl'ar as I see you, an' I would have bet him
five dollars, but--"

"But what?"

"Didn't have the money. Allus my luck. Ever' time I've come across a
chance fur a good speckerlation I ain't got no money. But I must be
goin'--I don't know, howsomedever, fur wife must have fed the stock by
this time. Lemme see. I reckon I better go."

That night when the romantic woman from the city was asleep, she did not
dream that the preacher was on his knees, with clasped hands, gazing up
at her window.




CHAPTER XI.

READING THE NEWS.


The next morning Old Jasper took up the story-paper and for a long time
sat at the table, bending over it, reading laboriously. Not far away his
wife sat, knitting and slowly rocking. Sometimes the old man's face
would light up and then it would darken.

"Shot fo' an' stobbed three," he read. "Hold on, he's about to git
another one. Got him! Oh, you bet he's got him foul. Wait a minit."
Then, gripping the table with one hand and with the other one grasping
the paper, he continued to read: "'Then the Captain findin' himself
again surrounded by the'"--he halted and began to spell out the
word--"'by the--b-a-n-d-i-t-s--threw down his empty pistol, drew his
dirk and--' Who tore this off?" he got up excitedly and demanded. "Here,
fetch me what the Captain done. Never in all my life was I left in sich
a lurch. Why, thar's no tellin' how many mo' he killed. Didn't think
that feller Gabe was sich a good jedge of a paper, but blamed if he
didn't fetch me one with news a oozin' out at every pore. And now
somebody has come along an' grabbed the works outen it. Margaret, don't
you see whut a fix I'm in? Can't you help me?"

Without looking up from her knitting, she replied: "Why, Jasper, that
ain't news. It's only a story-paper."

He staggered back as if she had thrown over him a pail of cold water.
His hair looked limp, and dew-beads of emotion stood out upon his brow.
He took a step forward and limped as if he had lost a part of his
strength.

"What, Margaret, ain't news when a man shoots fo' an' stobs three? Now
you air a woman of fine sense. I've allus said that, and for mercy sake
don't come a tellin' me that you don't know what news is. Scold me
whenever you feel like it, but don't come a tellin' me that."

She didn't look up. "But Jasper, it ain't true."

"Ain't true? Here it is, right here. Look." He shuffled over to her and
spreading out the paper put his finger at the place whence the vital
spark had fled. "Look, spelled out jest like in a almanic. See fur
yo'se'f."

Then came her voice, cold and cutting to his hopes: "Oh, I know it's
thar well enough. What I mean is it's all made up--it's a tale."

"A tale? What's that? What do you mean by a tale? Do you mean that it
didn't happen?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Of course it didn't happen."

He gazed at her, wondering whether or not to accept her wisdom. Then
upon the floor he flung the paper and trampled upon it. "If that's the
case, I don't want nuthin' mo' to do with it. Come a foolin' with a
man's affections thatter way. Ought to have been out yander at work half
a hour ago. Been a settin' here a thinkin' I was a gittin' facts. Man
ought to be whupped fur printin' a lie jest like fur tellin' one."

Margaret showed signs of sympathy. "Jasper, I wouldn't let it bother me
so."

He started. "Wouldn't let it bother you when you been a stuffin' yo'se'f
with a lie? Wouldn't let it bother you when a man gains yo' confidence
an' then deceives you?"

"Oh," she said, rocking herself and plying her needles, "it don't amount
to nuthin'. I wouldn't pay no attention to it."

"Look here, Margaret. Now--now, don't make light of my trouble."

Into her lap she let her knitting fall and earnestly she looked at him.
"I never make light of a real trouble, Jasper, but it seems that you do.
A real trouble is a comin' down the road, but you don't appear to mind
it. Have you seed Lije Peters sense he was here the other day?"

"No, I ain't been lookin' fur him."

"But he mout look for you."

"He won't have to look under the bed," the old man replied, slowly
walking up and down the room.

"Jasper, do you think he'll git that app'intment as deputy marshal?"

He halted and stood with his hands behind him. "I don't know, but if he
do, it means shore enough trouble." He took his hands from behind him
and looked at them. "Red on yo' hands don't make a good glove. The mo'
I talk to Jim, the preacher, the wus I hate red. Blood may be thicker
than water all right enough, but it ain't as smilin' when the sun hits
it. I don't want to fight, but--"

"Oh, yes you do," she broke in. "You'd ruther fight than eat."

A smile illumined his bronze countenance. "Wall, I ain't always hungry."
The smile passed and with countenance grave and with voice deep he said:
"Every whar you see a home, you may know that somebody has fit fur it.
Every privilege in this here life has cost blood. If a man wants to be
treated as a lamb, he must prove himself a tiger. He must conquer befo'
he's allowed to set down an' love. I don't want to kill that feller,
but--"

Laz Spencer appeared at the door. "Come in, Laz."

He came in and took off his slouch hat, standing there as if he had
something on his mind. Suddenly he exclaimed as if discharging a great
diplomatic mission: "Mornin', mornin'."

Margaret bade him good morning, and then asked concerning the health of
the "folks."

He sat down and twisted his hat round and round. "The folks air jest
tolerable, ma'm. How's all with you?"

"Tolerable," Margaret answered.

"Yo' brother Bill a gittin' better?" Jasper inquired.

Round and round Laz twisted his hat. "Pearter than he war yistidy, but
not as peart as he war the day befo'."

"Yo' mother still a eatin' of spoon vidults, Laz?"

"No, doc' he 'lows she kin eat knife an' fork stuff now."

"Any news over yo' way?"

"Nuthin' wuth dividin'. Doc' he sewed Patterson up an' 'lows he may git
well."

"Why, what's the matter with Patterson?"

"Sam Perdue cut him with a knife."

"Fur pity's sake," Margaret exclaimed.

"I ain't hearn about it," said Jasper.

"Yes, they had a right sharp time," Laz drawled. "Andy, he died."

"What Andy?"

"Andy Horn."

"Did you ever?" Margaret declared.

"What ailed him?" Jasper asked, showing increased interest.

"Got cotched in a saw mill. Ma'm," he added, looking at Margaret without
turning his head, "I reckon you hearn about old Aunt Sis Garrett?"

"Not a word."

"Fell down day befo' yistidy an' broke her hip."

"Why," said Margaret, "you didn't tell us yistidy at meetin'."

"Wall, I had suthin' else on my mind at the time. When things git to
pushin' around in my mind, I jest let one thing crowd out another."

"Fell down and broke her hip," Margaret mused aloud.

"Yes'm. Runnin' fitten to kill herse'f at the time. Can't run so mighty
brisk, you know, bein' old an' sorter rheumatic, but she done the best
she could. I seed a old feller a runnin' once, an' I says--"

"But here," Jasper broke in, "ain't she old enough to know better'n to
run fitten to kill herse'f?"

"Yes, suh, but she had to run on this here occasion. She was a gittin'
outen the way."

"Outen the way of what?"

"The crazy man that was atter her with a knife. Reckon you ricolleck Bud
Thomas," he went on without a change of countenance. "He made a fiddle
outen a gourd an' could play on it a right sharp. Went along by the sto'
one day an' he war a settin' on a box with this here gourd riddle, an--"

"Well, but what about him?" Jasper broke in.

"He war the crazy man. Reckon you ricollect that black ash tree down by
the creek at Baker's ford. Come along thar one time when the white
suckers war a runnin' an' I had a pair of grab hooks, an'--"

"Well, what about Baker's ford?" Jasper asked, coming closer to him, and
Margaret leaned forward expectantly.

"That's whar he hung hisse'f."

"What are we all a comin' to?" Margaret sighed, sitting back in her
chair.

Laz continued: "Didn't have no rope, so he hung hisse'f with a grape
vine."

Starbuck shook his head. "Oh, you kin put a grape vine to mo' uses than
one."

Margaret turned upon him. "Jasper, I wouldn't make light of it."

"I ain't a makin' light of it--can't make nuthin' of it. Laz, kin you
think of any other little thing that's happened to fret yo'
neighborhood?"

"Believe not, nothin' wuth dividin'. Did hear that Tobe Walsh war kicked
to death by a mule. Didn't put much faith in it, though."

"But was it true?"

"Yes. The mule got him. Buried ter-day."

"Oh, isn't that sad," Margaret wailed. "And he leaves a young wife,
too."

"Better than to leave an old one," said Jasper. "The young widder, you
know, kin smile through her grief."

"Had to tote her from the grave," Laz went on. "But she picked up a
right smart chance when Steve Moore came along. Had her bonnet set fur
him befo' she married Tobe, but he broke the strings an' got away."

"Don't want to borry nothin', do you, Laz?" Jasper inquired.

"Wall, yes," he answered, his countenance for the first time showing
signs of animation. "I come over to borry a hoss fur a week or two. Our
old nag fell offen the bluff an' killed hisse'f."

"That was ruther accommodatin', Laz. You would a been compelled to haul
him away in a day or two longer. But you want to borry a hoss for a week
or two? Don't you think you mout keep him a leetle longer?"

"Yes, mout on a pinch."

"Got any corn to feed him on?"

Laz began to scratch his head. "Wall, that is whut I was a goin' to talk
to you about. Our co'n crib war down on the branch. Branch riz an'
washed all the co'n away, an' I'd like fur you to let me have enough to
feed on fur a month or so."

Jasper was standing near Margaret. She reached over and plucked his
sleeve. "You can't do it, you jest can't. It would be a robbin' of
yo'se'f."

"Wall," drawled the old man, with a countryman's philosophical
resignation in the face of a difficulty that cannot be avoided, "when a
man robs hisse'f he ginerally knows about how fur the work has gone on.
I've been a lettin' putty nigh every man have what he wants an' it's
most too late to stop now. Laz, tell Kintchin to haul you over a load of
co'n an' you kin ride Old Roan home."

The borrower nodded his head, arose and started toward the door, but
halted and turned back. Starbuck inquired if there were anything else on
his mind. He scratched his head as if he would harrow up his sleeping
faculties and managed to say that he believed not.

"Laz, wush you'd try to keep my hoss away from that bluff."

"Oh, I'll take as good kere of him as if he belonged to me."

"What!--as if he belonged to you? Then I reckon I better not let you
have him. You must do better than that, Laz. An' say, don't furgit to
fetch him back."

"Oh, I never furgit nuthin'. Good-day."

Margaret hastened to the window and called after him: "Oh, Laz. We air
goin' to kill a sheep to-morrer. Tell yo' mother we'll send her over a
hindquarter."

"Yes'm," he answered, without looking back, and slouched off down the
road.

Up and down the room the old man walked, deep in thought. With his eyes
half-closed, sometimes he looked like a lion dozing in the sun. They say
that a game-cock is the bravest thing in the world. That is not true.
Nothing can be gamer than a game man. He is willing to die for a
principle. And never is he thrice armed unless his quarrel is just.

Laz came back to the window and spoke and the old man started and looked
toward him. "Jasper, I have hearn that Lije Peters is about to be
app'inted deputy marshal."

"Yes, Laz, that's the news a stirrin'."

Behind the lout's countenance a light was gradually turned up. "We all
knows whut that means, Jasper, an' ef you need me, all you've got to do
is to git out on the hill-top an' holler. Layin' in bed one night, an' I
hearn a feller holler. I went to him. They had him tied across a log an'
his shirt was off. I asked the cap'n of the gang whut it meant, an' he
'lowed that the feller had been in the habit o' whippin' his wife, an'
then I 'lows, I does--'Old chap, I reckon you'll hatter swallow yo'
salts. Good night.' An' I hearn him a swollerin' 'em. But if I hear you
holler, Jasper, I'll--"

"Don't talk about it, Laz."

"All right. Good-day."

When he was gone the old man resumed his walk, musing: "Don't want to
see nuthin' red on the ground."

He took out his knife, put his foot on a chair, and began to cut his
shoe-strings. As he was cutting the string from the other shoe his wife,
peeping round at him, inquired:

"Whut you do that fur?"

"I don't want to die with them on if I kin help it." And shutting his
knife with a snap he resumed his walk up and down the room. "And I am a
fixin' 'em so I kin kick 'em off."

"For mercy sake, Jasper, don't talk thatter way."

His sense of humor came back to him. "Oh, I may not have to kick 'em
off. It wouldn't surprise me if somebody else done the kickin'. But
it's better to be prepared. The good Book says--"

"Oh, now, the good Book don't say no sich of a thing, and you know it.
What makes you allus want to fetch in the good Book? Don't you know it
say, 'Thou shan't kill?' Don't you?"

"Yes, but I ain't found whar it say, 'Thou shall let a feller kill
you.'"

"Oh, there ought to be some way a smoothin' of it over."

"Yes, Margaret, a smoothin' of it over an' a pattin' it down with a
shovel."

"Oh, fur goodness sake, don't talk thatter way. It distresses me so."

"Why, jest a while ago you was fretted because I didn't treat it
serious. Wush you'd sorter draw off in writin' what you want me to do."

"Don't talk thatter way. I am so anxious, an' 'specially at this time
when--"

"When what?"

"When these folks air here--when that young feller is a payin' so much
attention to Lou."

"Don't worry about her, Margaret. If she has to take bitter medicine,
she'll do it an' smack her mouth."

"But, Jasper, he's the son of a United States Jedge."

"Wall, but thar ain't no objection to that, is there?"

"Oh, how tormentin' a man kin be when he tries."

"Oh, how tormentin' a woman kin be when she don't try."

"Did anybody ever hear the like? Jasper, don't you see how much Lou is a
thinkin' of him? Air you so blind that you can't see that? An' you know
that the app'intment of Peters mout spile it all."

The old man shrugged. "Yes, mout spile it all fur Peters. Let me tell
you suthin'. I ain't a stairrin' round to see how much one pusson thinks
of another, an' I don't know how much she keers fur that young feller,
but I do know that she is worthy of any man that ever trod shoe luther.
We give her all the freedom a girl wants, an' that man ain't a livin'
that could turn that freedom into shame. If she falls in love with him,
she will love him like a Starbuck--with all her soul. An' if he don't
love her, she'll be silent like a Starbuck. One day when we was a goin'
down the creek in canoe you saw a fish come up an' strike at the paddle.
Margaret, that was a Starbuck among fish."

There came a loud cry of "halloa," and Jasper went to the window.

"Helloa yo'se'f."

"My wagon's stalled down here," a man shouted, "and I'd like for you to
fetch your steers and give me a lift up the hill."

"What air you loaded with?"

"Hoop poles."

"All right, I'll send a nigger down an'--" Just then he caught sight of
Kintchin. "Here, you scoundrel, I thought I told you to haul a load of
corn over to Spencer's."

The negro came up to the window. "Yas, suh, but you didn't tell me. I
heard you tell dat man Laz, but he sich a liar you kain't blebe nuthin'
dat's said ter him."

Jasper turned away to laugh and Kintchin came round into the house.

"But you heard me tell him, you scoundrel," said the old man.

"Yas, suh, I wuz er standin' dar at de cornder o' de house at de time,
an' I yered you tell him, an' I would er blebed it, ez I tell you, but
dat man is sich er monst'us twister o' de fack dat nuthin' said ter him
soun's like de truf. I blebed it when you told him, but de minit he told
me it sounded like er lie."

"Kintchin, that's putty good sense, anyhow."

"Yas, suh, an' ain't all dat sense wuth er quarter?"

Jasper began to grabble into his pocket, when Margaret spoke up:
"Jasper, don't give that nigger no money. He won't do a thing I tell him
to."

Starbuck gave him a piece of silver, and with a look of deep injury the
darkey turned to Margaret. "Now, Miss Mar'get, whut you all time come er
flatter me datter way fur? You knows I's allus a braikin' my naik fur
you. I don't kere ef you is er 'oman, you's got er soul ter save, an'
you oughter be a lookin' out fur it."

He ambled slowly toward the door, muttering as he went, and Jasper's
sharp command did not serve to enliven him overmuch.

"Come, move on a little faster, and yoke up the steers and haul that
man's wagon up the hill. Never saw as slow a nigger in my life. Come on,
and I'll go with you."

He hastened out, passing Kintchin and commanding him to come on.
Margaret busied herself with picking up scraps of paper, among them
doubtless being an account of what the captain did, and threw them out
into the yard. Standing at the door, and glancing down the road, she
spied Mrs. Mayfield, Jim, Tom and Lou coming from a stroll among the
hills. Back into the house she ran, snatched down a turkey-wing fan from
a nail in the wall, dusted a rocking-chair, smoothed herself, and was
rocking placidly as any lady of leisure when the hill-side romancers
entered the room.




CHAPTER XII.

DIDN'T DO ANYTHING HEROIC.


During all the morning Jim had been silent. Standing on a purple knob,
arms folded, gazing far away toward the rugged scenes of his life's
work, he had reminded the world-woman of some discoverer, a Cortez
viewing the Pacific; and when to break the spell of his attitude she
asked him why he gazed so fixedly, he replied: "I am looking away off
yander at the duty I am neglecting, ma'm."

"Why, you couldn't neglect a duty, Mr. Reverend."

"I didn't think so, but I am. I put myself in mind of the old feller
that stood all day a smelling of a rose bush when the weeds were choking
his corn. In my wheat field the tares are coming up, now that I am away,
and I ought to be there to pull them up by the roots."

"But you need a vacation. Ail preachers take vacations. Why, in the
cities, they--"

"Yes, ma'm," he broke in. "Sometimes they shut up their churches, I
know, and they go away from their desks and their pulpits; but they are
learned men, bristling with sharp points against the man who attacks
their creed. I am not armed that way. I can't argue; I can't defend the
church against the smart men that Satan has hired. All I can do is to
preach in my rough way and go about and beg men to do as near right as
they can."

"And St. Paul could not have done more, Mr. Reverend."

"Ah," he said, bowing low, and then looking up at her. "I am afraid of
St. Paul. He was a great scholar and in his hands the gospel was a
dazzling thing. But with poor, ignorant Peter it was simple; and I
choose Peter for my master because I am not afraid of him."

Below them Tom and Lou sat on a rock. The game young fellow was still
shy. Sometimes he looked as if he despaired of ever recovering his
wonted nerve, for in this girl, so modest and so shrinking, he knew that
there lay asleep the wildcat's fearful spirit. Bold by nature he longed
at times to see this spirit blaze, but her soft eyes pleaded with him
and gentleness made him afraid.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Come right in," said Margaret as they appeared at the door. "Have this
cheer, Miz Mayfield?"

"No, thank you I'll sit over here." She sat down near the table, and Jim
took a seat opposite to her and resumed his silent gaze. "We have had a
delightful stroll," said Mrs. Mayfield, taking off her gloves; and Lou
who stood behind her peeped around lovingly into her eyes.

"Stroll," cried Tom. "I call it a chase. And you could catch a deer
almost as easily as to keep up with Miss Lou."

"Why, Mr. Tom, I didn't walk fast."

"Oh," he rejoined, "you didn't walk at all. You flitted."

His aunt looked at him. "Tom, dear, don't be extravagant."

"Extravagant! That's the reason father let me come up here. So I
couldn't be extravagant."

"He is determined to be literal," she said with a sigh.

Lou gathered up a handful of flowers that lay in Mrs. Mayfield's lap.
"Let me have these," and she began to weave them into the city woman's
hair.

"Why, daughter," cried Margaret, "don't do that. She mout not like it."

"Oh, don't stop her, please," Mrs. Mayfield replied, and then to Jim she
added: "Did you ever have a fawn touch you with its velvety lip? The
thrill of innocence, the--"

"Auntie, don't be extravagant," Tom broke in, and Lou gave him a look of
tender reproof. "I wish you'd hush, Mr. Tom. I like to hear her talk."

"Why--why don't you like to hear me talk?"

"I do except when you interrupt her."

He hung his head. "Thank you. Wishes should be sacred when set to
music."

"A very pretty speech," said Mrs. Mayfield, nodding Tom a compliment,
and Margaret, not to be left behind, declared: "Oh, he couldn't be
pearter if he tried."

"There," exclaimed the girl, patting Mrs. Mayfield's head, "you are in
bloom."

"She was the moment you said so," Tom replied.

"Do you think so?"

"Yes, I know it. She burst into bloom the moment you spoke."

"Then I'm glad I said it. Some how you always make me feel glad when
I've said somethin'. You are the only--only people that ever did that."

Jim had not spoken. Mrs. Mayfield asked him why he was so silent. "A man
is sometimes most silent when he is afraid of saying too much," he
answered, looking down.

"Mysterious wisdom," she mused, and this gave Tom his opportunity.

"Well, that's what you like, Auntie. You never did care for anything you
could understand."

"I don't care for impertinence, sir," and Lou laughed at him: "There,
you got it that time."

"Ma'm, I have no desire to be mysterious," said Jim. "A hay stack in an
open field couldn't be plainer than my life up to now, but there comes a
time even in the most honest man's life when he feels that he must hide
something, and that something is the fact that he does feel."

"There, auntie," cried Tom, "he has given you enough mystery to last
you--fifteen minutes."

"Is it too warm in here?" Margaret inquired, getting up and going toward
the door. They told her that it was "very pleasant," and she looked
around at them as if in her opinion it was getting fairly warm but not
quite warm enough.

"Mr. Reverend," said Mrs. Mayfield, "I have never known a man like you.
And did you ever have a fight, being a Starbuck?"

"I have seen men fall down."

"But you never killed anybody, did you--still being a Starbuck?"

"Kill anybody!" Tom cried. "Why, he's a D. D. not an M. D."

"Oh, hush, you stock joker. But Mr. Reverend, don't you think it is
awfully wrong to fight?"

And gazing into her eyes he said: "At times, ma'm, it is just as
essential as prayer. Now, Peter drew his sword and cut off a man's ear,
and Peter stood right up next to Christ."

"But the Savior told him to put up his sword."

"Very true, ma'm, but not until after the feller had lost his ear."

"Law, me!" exclaimed Margaret, standing at the door, "but you folks air
cuttin' up scollops."

"Mr. Reverend," Mrs. Mayfield continued, determined to pursue a subject
so interesting to herself, "someone told me of a very heroic thing you
did."

"Why, ma'm, I can't look back an' see that I ever did anything heroic. I
have helped many an old woman across the creek; I have helped a man set
out his tobacco plants, and I want to tell you that settin' out tobacco
is the most fetching work I ever did."

"But this was something you can't make light of. I am told that when
Memphis was stricken with yellow fever you went down there and nursed
the sick."

For a moment he was silent and then he said: "They needed strong arms
down there then. The hospitals were full and the churches empty. It
seemed to me like the gospel had got scared and was running to the
mountains. The Lord may not have called upon me to preach, but I do
believe he called on me to go down there."

Leaning upon the table she gazed into his face as if she were for the
first time in her life contemplating a human mystery. "You are a noble
man, Mr. Reverend. My faith in man gasped and died, but into it you have
blown the sweet breath of a new life. Don't misunderstand me, I--"

"No, ma'm, I won't do that. It is not for me to place an estimation upon
you. I don't know much about--"

"Come right in," Margaret called to Mose Blake, hesitating at the door.
She led him into the room and began to introduce him to the company.
"Mose, this is Miz Mayfield--" Mose shook hands with Jim. "No, this is
Miz Mayfield." Mose shook hands with Lou, then with Mrs. Mayfield, and
turning to Tom, to whom he was now presented, shook the stool which Tom
held in his hand and upon which he was about to sit, took it from him
and sat down. "All h--h--h--h--hands w--w--well, I h--h--hope."

"Well as usual," Margaret answered, sitting down in the rocker. "Why
ain't you folks been over?"

"Been a t--t--t--tryin' t--t--t--t--t--to git off. Granny sot
t--t--t--the feather b--b--b--bed a--f--f--fire night afore
l--l--l--last an' come mighty n--n--n--nigh b--b--b--burnin' up."

"Why, you don't say so?" Margaret exclaimed.

[Illustration: "YES, I D-D-D-DO SAY SO, A-A-A-ATTER A F-F-F-FASHION."]

"Yes I d--d--d--do say so a--a--a--atter a f--f--f--fashion."

"How far do you live from here Mr. Blake?" Tom inquired.

"Oh, 'bout t--t--t--three sights and a g--g--g--good long
w--w--w--walk."

"Charmingly indefinite," said Mrs. Mayfield and Jim, his eyes set,
nodded to her. Tom declared himself willing to bet that Mose was a good
fellow, "and I don't want to be impertinent," he ventured to remark,
"but do you know they can cure stammering now? They can."

"Y--y--y--yes, I kik--kik--kik--know. I tuck--tuck some l--l--l--lessons
once a--a--a--and was kik--kik--kik--cured. Got along all r--r--r--right
till I t--t--tried to talk--long as I di--d--d--din didn't say nuthin'.
Lou, air you g--g--g--goin' to church Sunday?"

"I don't know."

"Lowed I'd g--g--g--go with you. Mother said I ought to go up to the
m--m--m--m--m--mourner's b--b--bench, but p--p--p--p--pap he 'lowed if I
did git 'ligion I couldn't s--s--s--shout. But I'm in a hurry this
m--m--m--m--mornin'. Granny's sick and wants some m--m--m--med--hison."

"What's the matter with her?" Margaret inquired.

"Don't know. She didn't s--s--s--say."

"But what sort of medicine did they send you after?"

"Oh, a--a--a--any sort you ain't g--g--g--got no use fur."

"Why, that won't do," Mrs. Mayfield spoke up. "Why don't you send for a
physician?"

"Oh, that's a--a--a--all right. It never makes any d--d--dif--difference
with granny what s--s--sort of medicine she t--t--t--take--takes. If you
go to church Sunday, L--L--L--Lou, I may see you there. G--g--g--got
somethin' to s--s--s--say to you."

"How are you going to manage to say it?" Lou asked and he began to make
signs.

"Perhaps," said Mrs. Mayfield, "what he has to say could be conveyed by
signs."

"Yes," Tom declared, "signs are very impressive. Fellow made a few at me
once and when he got through I found he'd knocked me down."

"Knocked you down!" cried Lou. "Oh, how could anybody knock you down?"

Mrs. Mayfield looked at Jim. "How charming to be a hero in the sight of
a beautiful eye."

Jim drooped and said: "Yes'm."

Mose who had been screwing up his face began again: "Feller knock me
down have me to w--w--w--w--whup."

The voice of Kintchin, driving the steers, came up the hill: "Whoa, hor,
Buck, come yere. Come yere Bright." Mose remarked after a serious effort
that the steers must have about all they could pull, and then added that
he must be going. Tom asked if he found it difficult to pull himself
loose, and his aunt cried out! "Why Thomas." Kintchin's voice was heard
again, further off and Mose said he "reckoned" he'd have to be pulled
out by the steers. Margaret who had been searching the safe and the
"cubbo'd", bade him wait a moment, that she had some medicine for him.
"Here," she said, giving him two small packages, "'is some quinine and
some calomy. Tell yo' granny not to take too much of the calomy. Mout
salavater her."

"Yes'm. But it won't m--m--m--m--make any diffunce with granny
w--w--w--wuther she's s--s--s--salivated or not. She ain't got no teeth.
And b--b--b--besides, she likes the quinine better. She's
d--d--d--d--deef and the q--q--q--quinine makes her head
r--r--r--r--roar and she thinks she's hearin' suthin'. Well, er
g--g--g--g--good day."

"Miz Mayfield," said Margaret, when Mose was gone, "I reckon these folks
air mighty queer to you."

"Oh, no, they are close to nature in her most whimsical mood, and a
mother of fun is better than a step-mother to scandal."

"I don't know what you mean, auntie" said Tom, "and I don't guess you
do, but I'll bet they are game and that is enough to make them all right
with me."

"Why," Lou replied, "the man that won't fight is a Judas."

"Good," cried Tom, taking her hands. "I'd rather hear a girl say that
than to hear her play a symphony. Before my father was a judge he was a
soldier. Now they call him a learned jurist but I am prouder of the fact
that he was a distinguished colonel of cavalry."

"Gracious me!" exclaimed Margaret, "I must see about dinner."

"I'll help you mother," said Lou.

"No you won't," Margaret replied. "You jest stay right whar you air."

"You won't object to my helping," said Mrs. Mayfield, arising.

"Oh, no, that is you may come an' look on."

Jim snatched his hat off the floor and followed, leaving Tom and Lou
alone in the room. The girl stood leaning on the table looking at the
young fellow, and though often of late had they strolled alone in the
woods, yet he seemed to feel that this was the first time he stood
facing so confidential a privilege.

"And you lived away off in Maine," said Lou.

"Yes, until father received the appointment to come down here."

"Is yo' mother livin'?"

"No, I can just remember her."

She mused for a few moments as if struggling with a thought. "I read of
them findin' a new star," she said, "and I wondered if it wan't the
speret of some good man or woman that hed passed away from down here an'
gone up there."

"If that were true," he replied, coming forward and putting his hands on
the table, gazing into her eyes--"if that were true and I should find a
new star brighter than all the rest, I would call it--Lou."

She straightened up. "You must be careful how you talk to me because I
might not know how to act. When folks would hide things they must talk
like in a book, and I can't do that. But do you think if I was to read
books I could be smart?"

"I have begun to think that books don't make so much difference after
all. It's the soul that makes people great."

"There's hardly any way for a woman to be great," she said. "All I can
hope for is not to be foolish."

"You couldn't be foolish. You might make a man foolish, but you--"

"Oh, how could I make anybody foolish?" she cried, and leaving the table
she stood leaning upon the back of a rocking chair.

"How long have you known Mr. Peters?" he inquired and he appeared to be
embarrassed.

"All my life."

"Is he game?"

"Game enough, I reckon. Why do you ask?"

"I met him in the road and without cause he insulted me. And I could
have killed him!"

"He insulted you?" and she came closer to him. "Insulted you? Then why
didn't you kill him?"

"Because--because--I can't tell you now and you musn't ask."

Away from him she turned her head. "All right, I won't ask."

Margaret came to the door. "Lou, go down to the spring house and fetch
me that jar of butter," and coming into the room as Lou started, she
added, just as Jasper came in. "It's a mighty heavy jar, Mr. Elliott.
You mout go an' help her."

"Oh, may I?" Tom asked of Lou.

"Yes, you may, but--"

"But what?"

"I won't ask you to."

"Oh, you won't have to ask me."

"Well, then, come on."

Jasper looked knowingly at Margaret, who, laughing, went back into the
kitchen and the old man, shaking his head, humorously mused: "Blamed if
I don't wish I could fix up things thatter way." He sat down, took up a
lap-board, and upon it began to cut a piece of leather; but leaving off
the work, gave himself up to deep thought. "Shot fo' and stobbed three,"
he said, his mind on the story paper. "Ah, it may not be true, but it
sounds mighty natchul. I wonder how it all is goin' to end. Don't want
to think about it; wush I could think of somethin' else. Margaret's got
her heart set. And I wonder if my little girl has too. If she has it's
the first time, an' if his heart don't come when hers calls it, it will
never call ag'in." And for a long time he sat there, immovable, gazing;
and in his old eyes there was a dream.




CHAPTER XIII.

MIGHT WIPE HER FEET ON HIM.


Old Jasper's meditations were disturbed by Kintchin who thrust his head
through the window and inquired: "Doan want me to take dat co'n ober ter
Spencer's 'fo' dinner, does you?"

"No, any time this evenin' will do."

The negro came into the house and as he entered Starbuck said to him:
"And while you are resting you mout grind the axes."

"Yas, suh; grind de axes while I's er restin'. Look yere, Mr. Starbuck,
ain't you got some work fur me ter do while I's er eatin'?"

"Let me see. I reckon I can rig up a thing so you can churn with yo'
foot."

"Yas, suh. But whut's de use in stoppin' dar? You mout ez well scuffle
roun' an' fin' suthin fur me ter do wid de udder foot. Look yere, Mr.
Starbuck, ef it's jest de same ter you, I blebe I'd like ter quit dis
place."

"Why do you want to quit? Don't I give you plenty to do?"

"Oh, yas, suh; dat is on er pinch. But de truf is it 'pear ter me like
things er gittin' sort er squawlly roun' yere. Dat man Peters he's
threatenin' ter knock er nail kag in de head an' ring er dish rag an' I
doan want ter git in no row. You Starbuck folks may not mind it, but I
ain't uster bein' shot. He say he gwine be 'p'inted deputy marshal, an'
w'en he sees me er grindin' de co'n he gwine put er lot o' holes th'u'
me. I doan want ter look like no sifter."

Jasper arose, put down his lapboard, shut his knife and with a serious
air said to the old darkey. "I'm here to protect, you, Kintchin."

"Yas, suh, but you mout do de most o' yo' pertectin' atter I'se dun
dead."

"Wall, atter you're dead it won't make any difference."

"N--n--no, suh, dat's er fack. I hadn't thought o' dat. Funny how sich
er 'po'tent p'int will come ter er man w'en he neber did think o' it
befo', ain't it?"

"Don't you worry. You air safe enough."

"Safe ernuff? I doan know whut you calls safe ernuff. You mout feel
like you's safe ernuff ez long ez you ain't lost bof laigs an' er arm or
two, but dat sort er safe doan suit me."

"I give you my word, an' you know whut that means."

"Yas, suh, I knows all 'bout dat, but er word kain't stop er bullet."

Over to the old negro he slowly walked and gently put his hand on his
shoulder: "My word can, old man--mine has, an' I will protect you with
my life."

"Yas, suh, an' I'll stay, but ef I gits killed I gwine hol' you
'sponsible. Mark whut I tells you." He turned to go and at that moment
Peters entered the room. The negro quickly shambled to get out of his
way, and halted in the door.

"Starbuck," said the visitor, "thought I'd drap over to see you ag'in.
And whut's that nigger always hangin' round fur when I want to talk to
you?"

"Lives here, don't he?"

"That ourt ter settle it but, I lay it won't," muttered the negro,
standing in the door. Peters turned toward him with the remark:

"That vote they give you don't count for much."

"No, suh, not till da counts it."

"Shut up."

"Yas, suh, dat's whut I's er doin' jest ez fast ez I kin."

"Peters," said Starbuck, "I don't like to ask a man his business when
he's in my house."

"I reckon business is the right word, Starbuck," and moving closer to
Kintchin he demanded: "Somebody got a mortgage on yo' feet so you can't
move 'em?"

"Wha'fo'?" replied the negro, ducking his head.

"You keep on a standin' thar when you see I want to talk to Starbuck."

"W'y, bless yo' life, you's so entertainin' I kain't hardly t'ar myse'f
loose. Wheneber you talks it puts me in de min' o' er fiddle."

"But it don't make you move yo' feet, you scoundrel."

"No, suh, ef I moved my feet when de fiddle wuz gwine folks would think
I wuz er dancin' an' da'd turn me outen de church, an' I doan want 'em
ter do dat. Hurts er man's business w'en he's turned outen de church."

Peters addressed himself to Jasper. "Well, you have teached that nigger
nearly enough impudence to break his neck."

"Didn't know I was sich a good teacher, Lije. Don't you want a few
lessons? Go on, Kintchin." The negro slowly went away, looking back and
shaking his head, and Starbuck added: "Peters, I'm afraid I'll have to
furgit my raisin' an' ask you what you want."

"I want to give you the opportunity to have some sense."

"Well, now, Lije, it's mighty kind of you to be givin' out that sort of
artickle. Puts me in mind of the old feller that give away his shirts
when he didn't have none to spare."

"Good natchul talk, Starbuck--natchul as the squawk of a duck. But I
didn't come here to swop the perlitenesses of the season."

"No?" said Starbuck.

"You know I have been out of the neighborhood an' ain't had a chance to
talk business until lately."

"That's so."

"And you ought to know what that business is."

"Yes, I know."

"Even if a man is gittin' old, Starbuck, thar ain't no reason why he
should be a fool."

"That's a fact, Lije."

"And the biggest fool in the world, Starbuck, is the man that won't keep
out of trouble when he kin."

"That's true."

"Starbuck, ain't yo' eyes wide enough open to see that I kin ruin you?"

"Yes, Lije, with his eyes half shet a man kin see a rattlesnake."

"Then with both of 'em wide open he ought to see a panther."

"I'm a lookin' at you."

"That's all right, Starbuck. But we've passed the time fur beatin' about
the bush."

"I ain't a beatin', Lije."

"Starbuck, do you want to be ruined?"

"Stop!"

"Do you want to see yo' wife with her head bowed down on the table?"

"Stop!"

"Do you want to hear yo' daughter cryin' down thar in the valley?"

"I tell you to stop!"

"Do you want to know that the little grave down yander--"

"Stop, Peters, stop!" the old man cried, and then held forth his hands.
"You don't see nuthin' red on my hands, do you? Look, they are jest as
nature made 'em. Peters, fur God's sake don't turn 'em red."

"That's good talk, Starbuck, an' it mout belong to the pulpit but not to
business, an' I'm a business man."

"Yes, you look like it."

"And I'll act like it, too; I'll tell you that fur yo' own infermation.
An' thar ain't a man in the country that likes to give out infermation
better'n I do--when I see that it's goin' to be of use to somebody. But
I don't like to waste my wisdom, Starbuck. Look, here, don't you know
the right to ruin you has come down to me from my folks, like er old
spinnin' wheel? It's a fact, and you know it. But I don't want to do it
if I can help it. I know I would make yo' daughter a good husband, but
frum what I kin gether she wouldn't wipe her feet on me."

"Oh, yes, Peters, she mout if she had been walkin' in the mud."

"Yes, ah, hah. So I've got another plan."

"Oh, I don't reckon you're slow, Lije, when it comes to gittin' up
plans."

"That's true. An' I'm jest a little slow about askin' favors, but I want
to borry a thousand dollars, an' I don't want no time sot when it must
be paid back, nuther. I want that understood."

"Why, that's what they call blackmail, ain't it?"

"Oh, I don't care whut they call it, but I want you to git it fur me.
That p'int is settled. You've got to git it, an' git it quick."

"Why, Peters, I'd have to sell my land."

"Better do that than to throw away yo' liberty. You know that it means
ruin for you an' yo' wife an' a broken heart fur yo' girl. All I've got
to do is to act, an' you go to the penitentiary."

Upon Starbuck's face there was an expression of keen suffering.
Pleadingly he put up his hands, looking toward the door leading into the
kitchen and exclaimed. "Hold on. Somebody mout hear you."

"Oh, got you to thinkin', have I?"

"Yes, an' a man thinks better when he's by hisse'f."

Peters moved off toward the door and halting, remarked: "Yes, may think
better when he's by hisse'f, but not as fast. When he's got thinkin' to
do that he don't want to do he mout shirk it if left by hisse'f. Well,
I'll give you a leetle mo' time, but not much. My plan is that when
you've got a bad piece of work on hand, git through with it as soon as
possible. I'm goin' down the road a piece an' will drap in on my way
back," and as he passed out he looked back and added: "Thinkin' ought to
make a man wise."

The old man stood looking through the window, at Peters as he ambled
along the road, and turning away he muttered, "Shot fo' an' stobbed
three," his mind flying back to the story paper.

Mrs. Mayfield, followed by Jim, came in from the kitchen, remarking, "we
have been helping your wife but she has expelled us."

"I don't reckon thar was very much help needed." He waited until she had
sat down, and then coming slowly toward her he inquired: "Ma'm, air all
the deputy marshals in the state under yo' brother, the Jedge?"

"All in this district, I should think, are under the jurisdiction of his
court."

"I reckon the Jedge is putty hard on folks that makes what they call
wild-cat liquor."

"Extremely so, Mr. Starbuck. He sends them all to the penitentiary."

"I don't reckon he knows that a man may make liquor and yit have some
little jestice on his side."

"My brother can see no justice in a violation of the law."

The old man was silent for a few moments and then he asked: "Do he have
the app'intment of the deputy marshals?"

"I don't know as to that. I suppose, however, that the Marshal appoints
his own deputies. Do you want someone appointed?"

"Me? Oh, no," and walking off he added to himself: "It's someone I don't
want app'inted. That's the question with me." Margaret came in and he
inquired if dinner were nearly ready.

"As soon as the co'n pone's done," she answered, and he swore that he
was as hungry as a bear in the spring of the year. The old negro mammy
came to the door and with a peculiar softness which ever characterized
his voice when speaking to her, he bade her come in. "Set down," he
said, bringing a chair for her. "You look monst'us tired. Now, jest rock
yo'se'f thar an' putty soon you'll git rested."

"Thank you, Mars Jasper. An' I hopes you's all well, bof in de flesh an'
in de sight o' de Lawd."

"Ah, mammy," said the old man, "you never forgit the Lawd, do you?"

"How kin I, Mars Jasper, w'en I so close ter Him. An' Marster, dis is my
birfday."

"Is that so? And how old air you to-day, mammy?"

"I doan hardly know, but I's eider eighty-fo' ur eighty-six."

"An' nobody's life could have been given mo' away in love to others."

"I hopes dat my soul is white, Mars Jasper."

"As white as a lamb, washed in the dew."

"Thank you, Mars Jasper, fur I ain't gwine be yere much longer, fur I's
er gwine home. De road has been long an' I's almos' wore out, but I'll
git home atter while, an' when I does, I gwine tell de Lawd erbout de
folks down yere."

Tom and Lou came from the spring house, carrying a small jar, and the
old man exclaimed: "Why, it must be heavy." His wife knew that he was
charicaturing her and she stood contemptuous, with arms folded, as he
sprang forward to assist the two "youngsters." "Let me help you," and
pretending to stagger under a great weight, he took the jar and with
great apparent difficulty put it on the table.

"Jasper," said his wife, "I wouldn't make light of it."

"Light of it! Why, I couldn't make light of anything so heavy."

"Father," said Lou, "the bees have swarmed and settled on the peach
tree."

"That so? Why, I thought thar was honey in the air. Come on Jim an' help
me hive 'em. Won't take but a minit." Jim began to roll up his sleeves.
"Oh," protested the old man, "I don't want you to preach to 'em. Ma'm,"
he continued, addressing Mrs. Mayfield, "he always goes at 'em with his
sleeves rolled up, and, I gad, he fetches 'em."

Jim strove to explain to Mrs. Mayfield, but Jasper pulled at him.
"That's all right, Jim, she understands. Come on, or them bees might fly
away. Come on, I tell you. Ma'm take yo' eye offen him so he kin come
on. Thar, I thank you," he said, bowing, when Mrs. Mayfield looked in
another direction. "Thankee, ma'm an' ef I had a eye as fetchin' as
your'n I could haul wood with it. Come on, Jim." He drew the preacher
out of the house, and Margaret said to Mrs. Mayfield: "Don't let Jasper
fret you, ma'm."

"Oh, no, Mrs. Starbuck, to me he is an old time story book,
illustrated."

"My father fret anybody?" cried Lou. "How could he?"

"Why don't you say I couldn't fret anybody," Tom broke in, and looking
sweetly at him she innocently inquired, "Could you?"

At the corner of the fence Jasper and Jim halted. They had just seen
Peters enter the house. "Howdy," said the ruffian, entering the room. "I
'lowed I mout find Starbuck here."

"It would be safer for you to meet him where other folks are," Lou spoke
up and Peters bowed mockingly.

"Mars Peters," said Mammy, "please don't bother Mars Jasper, he's er
gittin' old."

And toward the poor old creature the ruffian turned with a scowl. "Shut
up, you old fool."

"Why, Mr. Peters," they all of them cried, and at that moment Jasper and
Jim came into the room. "Peters," said the old man, "this woman nursed
me. My mammy died an' left me to her, an' as a little baby she was the
only mother I knowed. My grandaddy built this house, an' that door was
opened by him an' never has been shut, an' anybody comin' along that
road was always welcome to come in. But thar is one man that must never
darken it ag'in." He took out his watch and looking at it, continued:
"I'll give you jest one minit, Peters."

The ruffian looked at a gun standing in the corner; looked at Jasper
holding the watch; looked at the women, who in disgust turned their
faces from him; looked at the door, and clearing his throat, walked out.

"Sometimes, ma'm" said Jasper speaking to Mrs. Mayfield, "the laziest
man ain't got no time to stay no longer."

"Well, I wouldn't make light of it," remarked Margaret.

"No lighter than I can help. I reckon we'd better eat a snack an' then
Jim, you may preach to them bees."




CHAPTER XIV.

AN OLD MAN PREACHED.


Several days passed and Peters was seen no more about the Starbuck
place, but the old man knew that the scoundrel had not surrendered his
scheme, but merely was lying low, waiting for his appointment as deputy
marshall. Such an office was not hard to get. The danger attending it
often made material scarce, for higher among the hills where the
rebellious spirit of man had never failed to gaze with defiant contempt
into the eye of the law, the distiller's blood smeared the rock and the
deputy, if not taken away by friends, was left to the buzzard. So,
whether or not trouble was on the road to meet old Jasper, depended upon
a piece of paper, to be written and stamped in the capital of the State.
But something else soon arose to claim the sympathetic attention of the
household.

One morning Lou came running into the house almost breathless, with the
excited words that old mammy was dying in her cabin. They all of them
hastened to her bedside, and when she saw the old man kneeling upon the
floor, she put forth her mummied hand and left it rest upon his head.

"I's gwine tell de Lawd erbout de folks down yere," were her last words,
and from the woods they brought wild flowers and among them she slept,
black sentiment of a hallowed past--a past of slavery, but of love. More
than treasured heirlooms, of rusty swords which, once bright, had
flashed in gallant hands; more than tress of hair, tipped with gold and
ribbon-bound; more than old love-letters, books or fading picture of
serenest face--more than all else does the old black mother bind us to
the sunny days of yore. Beneath a tree, where at evening when the sun
was low often had she sat watching the cows as home they came from the
cane-breaks in the bottoms, they dug her grave; and from all about, from
fern-fringed coves and knobs where the scrub oak grew, the people came,
old men and women to pay their respects to this bit of another age,
going home--and the children, came wonderingly, curious, with pictures
of witches in their fertile minds. The sermon was preached by an old
negro nearing ninety. At the head of the grave he stood and cast his
whitish eyes about, but nothing was there for him to see, for during
many years he had groped about in darkness. Once the property and
playmate of a favored child, he had been taught to read, and as the
years passed on, stubborn learning yielded to him, and along the
hill-sides he walked with the old prophets, with their poetic words
burning in his mind.

"Friends, close to me but somewhere off in the darkness," he said, "we
have come here to put this poor old piece of human clay in the cradle
that won't be rocked until the last day. In the years gone by, many a
time have we seen her, at the break of day, coming home from a bedside
where she had watched and nursed all night. When our spirits were low
for want of hope, she has sung us back into faith. When our blood leaped
to throw aside lowly ways and take up with the ways of sin, she told us
that she was going home to tell the Lord. No letter in the great Book
fastened itself on her poor mind, but in her soul the spirit of that
Book always had a home. My friends, here was a poor old creature who
never in all her long life had anything to hope for except a word of
gratitude for a kindness done. Many a time I read the Bible to her, and
though I made it the study of my long life, yet from what might seem the
darkness of her mind, there would sometimes flash a new light and fall
with bright explanation upon its pages." The old negro halted to wipe
his brow and Jim whispered to Jasper: "Is that learning or ignorance
inspired? I never heard many white men talk that way."

"I don't know what it is," Jasper replied. "But that old man, I have
hearn tell, went through a great school along with his young marster."

"It should not be in sorrow that we place her here," the preacher
continued. "With the simple minded and therefore the virtuous, she
accepted the gospel as a reality and not as a theory, and a gleaner in
the harvest field of promise, she takes to the Master her old hands full
of the wheat of faith, and her soul will enter upon its glorious reward.
Let us pray."

As they were returning from the grave a negro came up to Jasper and
said that he wished for a moment to speak to him. "Doan you reccernize
me?" he inquired, and Starbuck replied that he did not.

"W'y, sah, I's de generman whut de white man had tied ter de tree."

"Oh, yes, and also the gentleman that fell in love with my old rooster."

"Yas, sah, de se'f same."

"And now what can I do for you--put another chicken in yo' way?"

"No, sah, dat ain't whut I want. I wuz er cuttin' some wood dis mawnin'
ober at de Peters' place, an' I yere some talk dat don't soun' like er
flute. 'Pear like dat white man has got some trouble in his head fur
you."

"Yes, I know."

"An, frum whut I coul' gather he gwine gib it ter you; an' ef you wants
me ter I'll he'p you tie him ter er tree an' w'ar him out."

"No, that won't do. But do you know whether or not he has got a
app'intment from off yander at Nashville? Did you hear?"

"I doan think it quite got yere yit, but he keep on er lookin' down de
road 'spectin' it to come erlaung at any minit. Ef you want me ter, suh,
I'll keep er lookout while I's er workin' roun' de place, an' knock him
in de head de minit it do come."

"No, you musn't do that. Is he expectin' some help?"

"He wuz er talkin' erbout some men, sah. You ain't got no cullud ladies
ober at yo' house now, is you?"

"No, an' I don't want any mo' for none could take the place of old
mammy."

"No, sah, I reckons not, but I wuz jest er thinkin' dat ef you had any
dar I would drap ober a visitin'. I's allus sorter s'ciety struck atter
I goes ter er funul. It's den dat I kin fetch 'em wid my talk. It's easy
ter out-talk er lady atter er funul. I's had 'em take down er ole glove
an' empty dar money in my han'."

"What's your name?"

"Da calls me Ham, suh."

"Well, Ham, I reckon thar's a good deal of the scoundrel about you."

"Ain't it funny suh, dat I's yered dat befo'? Yas, suh; but scounnul or
not, I'll keep er sharp lookout on dat man Peters an' come an' tell you
ef suthin' happen."

Lou was tearful and depressed over the death of the old woman, whom she
had loved, who indeed was as a gentle grandmother to her, and going home
from the burial had but little to say; and Tom, respecting what to him
was a strange grief, walked along in silence. And for the most part Jim
was silent, too, but Mrs. Mayfield was aroused by what she had seen and
heard. "Every day this rugged world up here presents something new, Mr.
Reverend. Instead of becoming more able to compare it with other places
I have known, it is further and further removed as time passes. Of
course I had read books and heard songs, but never before coming here
did I believe that in real slavery had there existed poetry."

"They tell me, ma'm, that the greatest poetry has come out of the dark,"
he replied, walking with his eyes cast down.

"Then even as a Southerner you don't believe that slavery was right."

"No, ma'm, for slavery must dwarf the soul and the Book teaches that the
Ethiopian had a soul to save."

"But some of the slaves must have been kindly treated."

"Yes, ma'm, but the true way to be kind to ignorance is to enlighten
it."

"The old man who preached had known enlightenment and yet he holds no
bitterness against the people who kept his race in the dark."

"Ma'm, as a general thing the negro is not revengeful. Sometimes he is a
beast and he commits terrible crimes, but he is often like an animal--a
dog. Kindness makes him forget an injury. With his strong animal nature
his affection is warm, and sometimes when he forgets revenge he has also
forgotten gratitude."

He fell into silence and they walked slowly along, now far behind the
others. She strove to lead him back into a discussion, but he would not
talk, and when they reached the house, she sat down alone, and he stood
out at the fence, looking up and down the road. A man came along and
asked him how much longer he expected to remain in the neighborhood,
and glancing round at the house, at the woman who sat near the door, he
replied: "Don't think I'm going to stay much longer. Have you had any
news from over my way?"

"None except they are anxious for you to come on back."

"Well, you may tell them that they may expect me soon."

That night the household went early to bed, with the exception of Old
Jasper who, with a candle, sat at his table, not reading the story
paper, but attempting to write.




CHAPTER XV.

THE GIRL AND THE CHURN.


The next morning Lou was churning out in the yard and near her Mrs.
Mayfield sat, sewing. The scene was inspiring. Off to the right flowed
the blue creek, and everywhere were the hills, softly purple in the
distance.

"Things look so lonesome since poor mammy died," said the girl.

"But her passing away was beautiful," the city woman made reply, sewing,
thinking, glancing up with a sigh and then permitting her gaze to wander
off among the hills. "You were very fond of her, weren't you?"

"Yes. Her black face was one of the first I ever saw. She nursed father
and me, too; and she was like a mother. I--I wish you would stay here a
long time, Mrs. Mayfield."

"I don't like to think of returning to what people almost senselessly
call the world. This is the world as God made it. And amid these
heart-throbs of genuine nature I am beginning to live anew."

"But you'd get tired of it if you had to milk a cow that can pop her
tail like a whip," and after churning vigorously for a time, she
inquired: "Did you have trouble away off yonder where so many folks
live?"

"Yes, my married life ended in misery."

Lou ceased to churn and for a time stood musing. "Did you' husband tell
you a lie?"

"He lived a lie, my dear."

"Lived a lie? I don't understand how anybody can do that. Didn't he love
you?"

"Once, perhaps, but the love of some men is as variable as the wind,
blowing in many directions."

"But how could he tell you he loved you if he didn't?"

"My dear, men tell women many things that aren't true."

"I don't like to know that." She ceased churning again and thoughtfully
leaned upon the dasher. Suddenly she looked up and then came the
question: "And did they put yo' husband in jail?"

"Oh, no."

"What did they do with him?"

"His friends shrugged their shoulders, laughed and--forgave him."

"And didn't yo' friends try to kill him?"

"Oh, certainly not."

"What did they do?"

"Well, they shrugged--and didn't forgive me."

"But they had nothing to forgive," she replied, with a frown.

"In the world, my dear, that makes no difference." She was silent for a
time and the girl stood motionless, looking at her. "Sometimes I have
thought," she continued, "that it was not altogether his fault. With the
error of tenderness and confidence I believed that my life was his, his
mine; I believed that his every thought belonged to me--and perhaps I
asked him too many questions, and when a woman begins to do that, she is
unconsciously setting a trap for her husband."

For a moment the girl looked at her. "I don't know what you mean. But
when you came here with all yo' putty dresses, I thought you must be
happy."

"Little girl, there are many well-dressed troubles, and misery may
gleam with diamonds. But we won't talk about it. I have battled it out
and now I am surprised--and perhaps just a little disappointed," she
added with a laugh, "to find that I'm not as unhappy as I was. Sometimes
there is a consolation in feeling that we are utterly wretched."

"Is there?" She meditated for a time, puzzled, and then said: "I don't
believe it. You might just as well say that we have better health when
we're sick."

Mrs. Mayfield looked away, and the girl stricken with remorse, hastened
to her and said: "There, I have been too brash, haven't I? You must
forgive me for I didn't intend to be brash."

"Brash, my dear? What do you mean by that?"

She laughed. "Why, I thought everybody know'd what brash meant. Well,
it's er--too quick to say somethin' you oughtn't to say."

"Well, then, I don't think you were 'brash.'"

"Thank you." She resumed her work, and after a time left off to inquire:
"May I ask you somethin'?"

"Certainly--anything."

"Well, where you came from how long does it take anybody to--to fall--in
love?"

Mrs. Mayfield blushed. "No longer than it does here, my dear. Sometimes
here and everywhere love comes like death, in the twinkling of an eye.
But why do you ask?"

Upon her bosom the girl pressed her hands. "Because lately there is
somethin' here that tastes bitter an' sweet at the same time. You have
told me somethin' about yo'se'f an' now I will tell you somethin'. I--I
love Tom."

The woman arose. "Oh, but you mustn't tell it--you mustn't let him know
it. He is wayward and I am afraid that he has innocently deceived you.
He is hardly responsible--he says many things he doesn't mean. He--"

"And is he a liar, too?" the girl exclaimed, her eyes ablaze with anger.

"Oh, no, not that. But has he told you?"

She stood cold and defiant. "Not with words that I didn't understand,
but sometimes when he looks into my eyes I feel that he is tellin' me
with somethin' I do understand, and now--now I must shut my eyes." And
catching up the churn she ran into the house, Mrs. Mayfield calling
after her.

"Come back, Lou, I didn't mean that. Please come back and let me
explain." She hastened toward the door and Lou came running out. "Lou, I
didn't mean--" But she would not stay to hear. She ran away and Mrs.
Mayfield was begging her to return when Tom came hurriedly out of the
house. The girl had seen him and with fluttering heart she was seeking
the loneliness of the w

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