The Legend of the Rift.
CHAPTER I.
fHE changeful mid-August air blew nippingly through the chinks of Bill Teague^s log cabin, perched high up on a long western spur of the Cumberland ridge in East Tennessee, and within the cavernous chimney-depths beyond the wide hearth, the fire-light blazed and flared, sending out narrow rays that crept into every corner of the little room, and threw quaint shadows straggling up among the smoky rafters. Its warm glow touched the wide-ruffled white cap of Granny McDermot, dozing and nodding in her low chair in the corner; it shone upon the clicking knitting-needles in Penny Shackleford's nimble, bony fingers, and upon the rasping cards in Mrs. Teague^s lazy, fat ones, and glinted upon the loose brown curls that broke about Licia^s brow as she trod softly back and forth before the spinning-wheel.
Licia Teague was a tall, slim, blue-eyed young thing, with smooth, fair skin, and a glow of color in 2
her high cheeks, and now and then as the wide wheel whirred busily she added the music of her voice in a sweet, crooning contralto.
But the crooning and the whirring and the knitting and the carding suddenly ceased. With a scream that sent the empty pipe from between her own toothless gums, and the clicking needles from Penny Shackleford's nimble fingers, rattling noisily upon the hearth-stones below. Granny waked from her doze and sprang to her feet, her head trembling, her cap-strings fluttering.
" What ails yer, Granny? " said Licia,''going to her and taking her by the hand.
"Don't yer tech me, chile,'' said the old woman. " A vision is before me."
Her voice was singularly rich, deep and unquaver-ing, her eyes glowed and shone beneath her beetling brows, and her head towered straightly erect above Licia's as she held the girl off with one hand, and, with the other, extended her stout staff as a seer might a divining rod. Penny Shackleford and Mrs. Teague only gazed at the old woman in open-mouthed amazement as she went on fiercely, staring straight before her.
" I hear the stirring of a great wind, and see the burning of a fierce fire ! I see death and destruction an' dreary desolation ! I see the lappin' of the flame tongues an' the whirlin' of the blindin' smoke ! I hear the curses of strong men, an' the wailing of women an' the cryin' of young child'n ! Woe ter them that give suck this night, an' ter the mountain woman, who suffers in the perils of childbirth ! Woe, woe, woe ! For the finger of God is pointed in wrath, and
the flame tongues turn upon the hands that lighted them. Woe, woe, woe ! ^'
The sparkling eyes hid themselves again beneath the wrinkled lids, the cap-strings fl^uttered and were still; the outstretched staff fell to the floor with a crash, and the old woman herself sank in a heap on the hearth at Licia\s feet.
^' The old 'un air clean daft," said Penny Shackle-ford by and by, when the three women had put Granny away for the night in the fat, round bed in the corner. The nimble Penny had resumed her seat in the chimney-jamb, and was trying vainly to pick up the stitches lost on Granny's vision.
Licia only glanced up at her sharply without speaking. The girl had set the wheel back into its corner, and, from Granny's low chair, was watching the fire pictures glow and fade.
^' The Lord knows whar Licia's Pa is at this night,'' said Mrs. Teague, devoutly.
The present Mrs. Teague was the second of the name, and only Licia's step-mother. She usually spoke of her husband as '^ Licia's Pa," because it seemed to her somehow to keep the proper relationship in evidence, and to save trouble generally, and Mrs. Teague always did cheerfully anything that saved trouble.
'^ Yes, the Lord only knows whar he is, Sister Liz'-beth," said the nimble Penny. ^' He ain't been home sence yistiddy mornin'."
"Yer ain't got no call ter say the Lord only knows, Penny Shackleford," said Licia, without lifting her eyes from the fire, " seein's I know 'bout 's well as the Lord do."
'^ Well, I say, Licia Teague, you air a cool 'un, you air/^ said the fat Mrs. Teague. " A body would 'low as mebbe you an' the Lord was sorter in cahoot the way you let on, an' you a j'iner, too; you oughter be 'shame ter talk thater way ! "
"You air wastin' yer breath. Miss Liz'beth," said the girl, wdth the patience of utter indifference. " Yer mought need it termorrow, mebbe, when yer'll likely see as the old 'un air none so daft after all."
" The way that gal do let on beats my time," said the nimble Penny, with a sniff of her sharp nose. " Likely you kin tell whether your Pa air dead or 'live, seeiu' he have been gone so long."
A groan from Mrs. Teague at the dubious suggestion made Licia lean forward and put her hand gently upon her step-mother's stout arm.
" You air overly nimble with yer tongue. Penny Shackleford, but Bill Teague air all right. Miss Liz'beth," she said, reassuringly. " He war ever one ter look out fer hisse'f."
Whatever knowledge or suspicion she may have had, however, concerning her father's whereabouts must not at least have been particularly reassuring, for it was with considerable uneasiness about him that she crept into bed beside Penny in the little back room by and by.
The one small narrow window in the close little room w^as just beside the girl's head, and when the voice of the sleeping Penny rasped out its slumberous staccato Licia opened the wooden shutter and leaned her head against the broad sill, looking out into the night. Away up the mountain side, toward the Rift, an owl screeched its unwelcome plaint, and.
with a shiver, the girl stole from bed and crept softly through the open door into the next room, feeling with her hands upon the floor in the dark till she found one of Granny's slippers by the bedside, and turned it upside down to break the spell of the ominous bird's warning.
CHAPTER II.
Even the turning of a slipper could not break the spell that hung over all the mountain. The spirit of the times imbued its tree-crowned fastnesses, and the smouldering fires of discontent, touched by the fuse of oppression, were bursting into flame.
The morning of the thirteenth came but tardily over the eastern hills, as if to defer the evil day. About the little cabins, all along the hillslopes, womenfolk went laggingly to their work, their hearts with the men who were making a struggle with destiny, their hopes with the issue of the day's work.
Up the ridge at Tracey City the guards, worn and spent with nights of fruitless watching, moved sleej)ily to their accustomed duties within the stockade, or followed the restless, sullen convicts to the mines and the coke-ovens. At a small, uncovered table in the long, silent refectory Warden Stone sat eating his solitary breakfast. Through the open doorway he could see, now and then, one of the guards pass, his head bowed and his footsteps lagging; the sunlight, steamy with the recent mist, blazed in the dust of the bare yard and on the glaring, whitewashed barracks. The whole thing oppressed him. Deep down in his
heart he understood and sympathized with the rebellion and discontent which he knew were lurking without the stockade's high wall, but, honest man that he was, he had determined to protect to the utmost the interest of the men he represented. He put the knife and fork across his still unen]])tied plate and was leaving the tabh^, when a brisk step without startled him.
'^ You are wanted at the gate, sir,^' said the guard, in a hoarse, sleepy voice, turning at once to go.
As Stone went down the steps and into the yard a kitten, a pretty little black and white thing, ran out from the kitchen behind and rubbed itself about his feet. Without thinking, perhaps, he stooped and picked the little thing up and carried it in his arms to the gate.
^^What do you want?'' he asked of the miner, wdio stood without, waiting for him.
^^Ter tell yer that the drivers an' bosses have struck," said the man, sullenly.
Stone stopped and put the kitten down into the dusty road, Avaitiug till he saw it run away over the broken slate dumps toward the town, then he turned, himself, and started to the nearest convict mine. As he came to the entrance of the cave the donkey cart passed out over the tramway, dumping its black load beside the track ; within he could hear a muffled sound of singing, and now and then the sharp click of a pick.
^^ Yer better not go in thar, sir," said the cartman, unhitching his mule.
"Why not?" asked Stone a little sharply, as he wheeled about.
The man only jerked his thumb over his shoulder without speaking, and with less of consternation than of surprise, perhaps, Stone saw a long line of men marching through the stockade gate.
" They air the free miners, sir/^ said the cartman, " an' they mean mischief, they do."
Stone pushed his soft felt hat down upon his head and ran rapidly up the slope to the stockade.
A group of miners came to the gate to meet him from within.
^^ We'uns air changed things up some'at in here, sir,'' said one of them, touching his cap with his left hand; there was a gun in his right. 'MVe'U hafter hoi' yer guards fer a while yit, what few yer got here, but we don't mean no harm ter you, ef yer'U jes' be easy. We'uns have stood erbout as much as we air gwineter; that's all, sir. The men air movin' the things out'n the offices thar; whenst they git th'ough we'uns air goin' ter burn the stockade."
^^ There's no use in doing that, men," began Stone.
"Use ernough," said a big, heavy-browed man, stepping up beside the spokesman. '^ Mebbe yer know as I'm Bill Teague, sir, an' ef yer do, yer likewise knows I mean what I say. We air free men, we air, an' we aim ter be treated as sech. We air fightin' fur bread an' meat, an' we fight ter win." The men behind murmured their assent, and Teague went on. " Yer kin have yer jail birds by an' by, an' clear out'n here with 'em, but right now yer'll hafter lay low whilst we'uns sen's this here ol' barracks to Kingdom Come."
There was not long to wait. The dry, lime-coated barracks burned like tinder, the flames spread-
ing with their ovvu wind. An escort of the miners had loaded a train with the convicts and their guards, and as Stone stood on the rear platform of the receding coach he saw the little black-and-white stockade kitten come out of the station, rubbing itself against the facing of the door. Away off up the slope the fire blazed and flared, the smoke clouds blotting the sky.
CHAPTER III.
At Cowan they met an up-going train, a special carrying a company of State troops to the relief of the Tracey City camp.
^^ You boys are too late,'' said Stone to the officer in charge.
^^ Our orders were to go to Tracey," said the Captain, stepping upon the car as the bell rang.
" God help them and bring them through all right," said Stone a little sadly, as he shook himself into his seat and pulled his hat down over his eyes.
^' Well, it seems there is nothing left for us to do but to follow the brilliant example of the King of France, and march down the hill again," said the Captain, ruefully, when once they got up the mountain. " I have wired for return orders, and we shall have to wait here till they come."
" In the meantime, I should like leave of absence for a few hours," said a tall young Sergeant, who sat looking out of the window of the car.
"What's the game, Mac? "asked the Captain, with a laugh.
" Nothing," said the young fellow, stretching his
long limbs. ^^ I used to live over there on that lower spur once, and I think I should like to take a look at the old land, that is all. I shall report on time, Captain.^^
Up the slope the stockade smoked and burned, but the mines were silent and empty ; the fires were out in the coke furnaces, and all was quiet in the little dirty town. The young man crossed the dusty road, and, dropping down the mountain side, was soon deep in the underbrush. The afternoon air was hot and stifling and dense from the smoking barracks, but he took oiFhis close-fitting cap and unbuttoned the high collar of his coat.
" I Avonder if Licia will know me," he said softly under his breath ; '^ little Licia Teague.'^
He had stooped to break a frond of sweet fern that shot up in the path, when the cracking of a dry twig startled him, and he turned to find himself looking straight down the barrel of a pistol.
They were desperate looking men enough, the two who stood over him, but he was no coward. ^^ What is it?'' he asked, drawing himself up.
'^ Yes, that's what we 'low, too; what is it?" said one of the men, without moving. ^^ What do you'uns mean by comin' here with them soljer clo'es on in these mountings ? We air free men, we air, an' we want no sech trundle-bed trash as you'uns pesterin' 'roun' here."
^' Why, Bill Teague," said the young fellow, when the man was done ; " don't you know me?"
^^ Yes, I know yer well ernough, Dan'l McAl-pine," Teague answered. '^ I knowed yer mother afore yer; I'd know them eyes er Hester Levan's ef
yer'd drapped out'n heaven with 'em. She gin me the slip oncet, but my turn^s come now. We'uns air set-lin' up many er ol' score on the mountings this day, an' I air ghid you happened erh)ng to git your shur.'^
" What do'you mean, man ? " asked Dan, sharply.
" Likely yer'll fin' out," Teague answered. '' Yer know the way to the Rift ridge, don't yer?''
"Yes," said Dan.
" Well, strike a trot."
" To the Rift ? " asked Dan. '' Why, man, that is miles awav, and I must re])ort at eight."
" Well, von air a fresh 'un," said Teague, with a grin. '' Likely yer'll take yer marehin' orders funi me yit erwhile, though. (tIvc us yer gun an' lead on ter the Rift. Me an' Aaron here'll foller."
How dear and familiar everything seemed to Dan in the little wooded trail up the mountain, and how sweet the air was when the sun had gone, and he passed beyond reach of the smoke fumes ! By and by came the glorious afterglow, warming all the niisty valley and tipping the treetops wdth color, till silently out of the darkness shot the moon, playing hide-aiid-seek among the trees as he passed, and sifting in patches of silver on the path through the underbrush. How beautiful it all was to Dan, who loved it so, and how glad he was for the very joy of living!
CHAPTER IV.
The next morning heaven itself seemed to have bent down to touch the earth, or else some Titan's hand held the hills aloft, Avaving their tree-plumes in
the clouds. The mist was over all, subtle, illusive, entrancing, hiding sights familiar, and holding, perhaps, all that one hoped.
In the midst of it, with its dampness cooling her cheeks and curling the soft tendrils of hair about her brow, stood Licia, leaning against the fence with the milkpail in her hand. But the tinkling of the cowbell came faintly from the underbrush below, and within the little pen the still unawakened caH' slept in satisfied comfort, unready for his morning's meal. The air was sweet with the odor of the morning, and the green leaves bent down, heavy with the moisture they seemed to hold greedily.
Licia watched the little space about her grow gradually more and more as the mists crept slowly backward with the coming of the sun over the hilltops ; yet across the gorge, high up on the Rift ridge, fended by the trees, they still lingered, wrapping fold on fold about the rocks, weaving pictures that grew and faded between the tree-bolls. But, besides the tree-trunks and the sprawling underbrush, what was it that the girl saw up there in the mist? What was it that seemed to make her heart stop beating as she stood there wide-eyed and startled in the early morning light? High up on the ridge, with the veil of cloud enwrapping them, she had seen the faint figures of a man and a woman that seemed to beckon to her with dim spirit hands as together they sank through the mist into the darkness.
''The wraiths o' the Rift,'' said Licia, with a shudder.
Even as she spoke the mists parted, and now quite plainly in the sunlight she saw the two men that
seemed to scramble up from the very jaws of the earth there among the rocks, and who disappeared together over the ridge. Tall, stalwart fellows they were and clad in the loose, ill-fitting garb of the mountaineer; what could it mean? Stranger even than the wraiths that beckoned her seemed it to Licia to see these mountain men up there on the Rift ridge.
^' Ha'nts' groun V it had always been, this riven, rocky ledge, all circled about with stories, weird legends born of the mists perhaps, and full of the pathos that is ever found in the lore of a simple folk who live forever in the clouds. As the years passed these stories had grow^i w^th the telling, parodoxically waxing stronger as their age increased, till more and more the mountain people had come to shun the mist-wrapped ridge, with its narrow, broken ledge jutting far out over the wooded gorge.
"It w^ar ever a God-fursaken place, the Rift ridge war,'^ Granny McDermot always said. "He air jes' leP it to ha'nts an' sech, that bare ledge up thar 'mongst the clouds, an' folks as sense the workings er His onseen han' knows He never rifted them rocks fur nothin'. It air onhallered groun', that air, an' nought but evil comes ter them as njeddles with it. In His own good time the Lord '11 sen' it all, piece by piece, down inter the darkness. That air a true word, fur two rifts I've knowed up thar in my day an' time, an' likely them as come afore me knowed more; I dunno, I dunno ! Mebbe it war the fust 'un that come early in my day, but even then, howsom-ever, the place war kinder onmolested, an' we'uns never beared er the Rift tell Ab Somers he foun' it. Ab war a wild 'un, he war, an' thev do sav he come
here with a price erpuii his head, but howsomever that may be, he gin'ly managed ter keep hisse^f skuree in the daytime, an' oncet when the sheriff an' his posse fum over the mountings yon way come hereabouts kinder still an' sarchin' like, Ab he warn't no whar ter be foun', an' arter while, whenst he did turn up, he tol' erbout the Rift 'crost the ledge up thar. Jes' a narrow crack he said it war, cuttin' the rocks crostwise fum the ridge, an' they do say as how Ab oughter know, sence he had crope inter the Rift, er hidin' tell the sheriff war out'n the way. Ab war a cute 'un, anyhow, he war, an' purty ter look at, but somehow folks didn't seem ter take ter him; leastways none but 'Riah Peddy. 'Spite er ever'thing, whatsomever a man may be, thar's some woman some-whar fool ernough ter keer fur him; and sech er one war 'Riah. Wrastle with her how they mought, her Pa an' Ma couldn't ween her off'n Ab Somers, oncet she sot her head thater way. So we'uns warn't 'sprised none whenst one mornin' Ab an' 'Riah war both gone; nobody knowed how nur whar. Arter 'while, tho', folks comin' fum down the cove thar ter the west'ard 'lowed that now an' ergin, when the sun hung low, techin' only on the high lan's,they viewed sometimes a man an' a woman up thar on the ridge, Ab an' 'Riah mo'n likely hidin' in the Rift. Howsomever, nobody have ever seed hair nur hide uv 'em fum that good day ter this, an' thar's reason ernough fur not seein' 'em, too, sence 'twar 'long er that time the big herricance come, strippin' the mountings an' snappin' down trees same as yer'd break off a witch-hazel switch fer a toothbrush. 'Twar that storm as opened the cl'arin' thar overlookin' the valley, an' in the
thick er the thunder an' lightin' we'uns here on the spurs heared a soun' that echoed an' viberated 'ginst the mounting side like the Day er Judgment come ter han', and whenst it war all over we seen the Rift had parted, the overhangin' ledge had fell, mo'n likely takin' Ab an' 'Riah erlong with it an' buryin' uv 'em fnrever down thar in the darkness 'mongst the trees.
^' Howsomever, they have never been viewed theyse'ves sence the night er the leavin', the'r ha'nts may be seen when the mist is white on the ridge, an' the soun' er the'r voices is heared tell yit when the winds wail in the gorge an' scream 'roun' them scarred an' riven rocks up thar. But woe ter them as happens ter view the ha'nts, er hears po' Ab an' 'Riah screechin'in the win'! Many er one thar be as have viewed the wraiths ter the'r sorrow, but 'long er the fust war little Millisy Mathis down ter the cove. One mornin', whilst she war crostin' the spur thar, her an' her little brother Bud—him as runs the tanyard yonder ter the crost-roads—Millisy she chance ter turn her eyes twodes the Rift, kinder onbe-knowinst like, an' way up thar in the mist she seen the wraiths uv Ab an' 'Riah. Skurce turned 'er fifteen she war then, but afore the year war out the po' chile scrambled up thar ter the Rift rock an' slid down over the precipice ter hide a shame she daresn't face.
'^ Prit nigh twenty years passed, with now an' then some one nuther seein' the ha'nts up thar on the ridge, an' whosomever viewed 'em, bad luck war sho ter foller. 'Long er them days the purtiest gal in the mountings war Hester Levan. Whenst the trees is bare, acrost the gorge thar on the nex' spur, you kin
view the oV Levan cabin, empty these eight year, whar Hester lived. She war alius purty, Hester war, ef I do say it, an' thar warn't nair young man in all the mounting side as didn't want her; but thar warn't never but one that she ever seemed ter favor none. Howsomever, I 'lowed fum the fust she somehow helt her head too high fur sech as come fum hereabouts. Thar's some folks as thinks the best uv everything comes fum far off, an' Hester war thater way."
Just who the favored of Hester's fickle fancy might have been. Granny herself did not say, but upon the mountain side—the story ran, that back in the sixties, when Bill Teague left home with a gun on his shoulder—he carried with him Hester Levan's promised word. Be that as it may, however, certain it is that he found no bride awaiting him when the war was over and he came home.
^' The misfort'n all come er Hester's viewin' the ha'nts o' the Rift," Granny always said. " One morin' early, soon arter the boys war mostly gone off in the army, Hester 'lowed she viewed Ab an' 'Riali plain as day up thar on the rocks, wavin' an' beck'nin' ter her out'n the mist. Somehow, nuther, it never seem ter pester her none; she's alius so pyert, Hester war, an' us'n ter do as she please. Even when thar never come no news er the boys, an' ever'body was pestered some, 'specially them as had men gone in the army, Hester she didn't seem ter keer much. It war mighty little we'uns beared, too, in them days, sho'. 'Twas all so fur 'way, the war was; even Chicamauga an' Missionary Ridge didn't seem ter be nigh ernough ter hurt much. It was only when one er the boys 'ud come stragglin' back with a arm er a
leg lef bellin^ in the valley^ er sometimes whenst the raiders dashed over the mountings thatwe'uns heared tell er the war. 'Longerbout the time Hester Levan viewed the ha'nts, Gin^l Forrest an' his men clum' up the mountings, thar under the Point, ter the south'-ard an' swep' over the ridge. The evenin' er that same day, jes' as the sun settled twixt them two ridges over thar crost the valley, Hester Levan, er trapsin' th'ough the underbresh lookin' fur her oP muley that was over late er comin' ter the cow^-pen, looked up crost the gorge an' seen on the Rift ridge thar the liger uv a man 'ginst the sky. So plain she viewed him tell she knowed him ter be a soljer, an' whilst she still looked she seen him drap out er sight as ef the earth had opened an' swallowed him up. She war ever a cute 'un, Hester war, an' skeered er nothin'; so jest' leavin' the cow ter git home in her own good time, she sot the milk-pail down by the spring an' sayin' naught ter no one, she clum' up the ridge thar tell she come ter the very top whar she'd viewed the man. Then she seen what we'uns hadn't s'picioned afore, that a new Rift was openin' in the rocks. 'Twar inter this the man had slipped—Mc-Alpine his name war. Major McAlpine—an' Hester foun' him a' most dead w^ith w'ariness an' outdone with pain, sence he'd broke his leg whenst he fell, an' was jes' hangin' thar ter the sides er the Rift. They do say that fum the time Hester seen him hangin' thar she had heart nur thought fur no man else in all the worl'. Howsomever that may be, leastways she did have him tuck down ter the cabin crost thar, whar her an' ol' Miss Levan, Hester's ma what uster
be, they nussed him back ter health an' strenk, an' arter while, whenst he leP, Hester went 'long, too, as his wife."
^' But that warn't bad luck. Granny," Licia had said, romantic little soul that she was, when the old woman told her the story long ago.
" Wait an' see, wait an' see, chile," Granny had said. '^ Misfortin's sho ter foller them as views the ha'nts o' the Rift ridge."
^^Misfortin' ernough to a married a valley man," Bill Teague had said, when he came home to find no bride awaiting him. It was not till long afterwards that he consoled himself with Granny's pretty granddaughter, the sweet, young thing, who was Licia's mother, and who had died when the girl was born.
It was of all this that Licia was thinking as she stood there in the early morning and saw the wraiths o' the Rift beckoning to her in the mists. Would they bring ill-luck to her, she wondered, or, perhaps, the fate that had come to Hester Levan ?
Then she thought of something else, this slim, young maiden with her head in the clouds. There seemed to come to her a vision of a lonely little girl, scarce more than a wide-eyed, curly-haired toddler, who had sat on the cold stones under the trees, looking across the gorge at the blue smoke swirling up from the Levan cabin, and wondering what they were doing over there, the woman—widowed now—who had found her love in the Rift so long ago, and the child whom she had brought back with her to the mountains. She remembered, too, that as the little girl had sat dreaming there had come scrambling up 3
under the rocks through the underbrush, a boy with a russet light in his rough, curling hair, and a glow of color in all liis sunburnt face. Licia remembered how brightly his eyes had shone when he saw her, this young Dan McAlpine, Hester Levan's son, and how his clear voice had echoed on the mountain side. What a glad day that had been to her, and afterwards ! It seemed to Licia that she remembered everything; the little windmill he had set for her, where the water gurgled over the stones beneath the laurel ; the snares for birds, which he had made among the underbrush ; the whistles he had turned for her eager lips, and the songs he taught her to sing till the eclio of them came back to iier in her shrill child's voice across the years. She could smell again the odor of the sweet fern that he bn>ught back with him from the Rift, when he had scrambled up there once, and hear his laugh as he called to her to look at him standing high on the ledge, while she hid her eyes lest they should see him going down into the darkness. But better than all, perhaps, she remembered the day, eight years ago now, when Dan came to tell her goodby ; his father's people had sent for them, and he and his mother were going back to the valley again. Licia was only a slim little thing of ten then, and Dan had taken her tearful face in his two hands and kissed it.
" Don't cry, dear; don't cry," he had said, gently. ** Some day I shall come back and take you away, just as father did mother long ago. Don't cry, and don't forget."
Not to cry, that had been hard, but not to forget ?
Ah, me! Do women ever forget—women, who remember with their hearts? Had she forgotten, she who had waited through the years? Did she forget when she saw the wraiths beckoning to her in the mist? Was it a premonition of evil that made her heart cease to beat when she saw the men scramble up out of the Rift on the "haunts' o^round?"
CHAPTER V.
Bill Teagiie, riding up through the trees, into the little rocky trail that led from the gorge below, drew rein sharply when he saw the girl still leaning upon the fence overlooking the road.
" You air u]) early,'^ he said shortly. It was a saying common among the mountain j)eople that Teaa:ue\s dauo-hter was "too cute fur him." "Bill air too darn *cute hisse'f ter stomach his wimmin folks knowin' as much as he do,'' they said.
Be that as it may, certain it is that of late since Teague had taken to consorting with men who were sometimes fouud doing deeds not the most irreproachable, there had seemed to spiing up a kind of antagonism between him and his daughter. Her clear blue eyes seemed to pierce him through and through, and it did not please him.
" It air better ter be up early than late, I'm thinkin'," she said now, watching his heavy, slouching figure, as he led the foam-flecked sorrel through the little creaking gate.
The noise disturbed a rooster that had been sur-
prised into tardiness by the belated daylight, and the big bird stretehed his damp wings np overhead in the spreading chestnut, his shrill voice echoing loudly on the mountain side. The awakened calf lifted np his young voice pleadingly, and the mother mooed back coming consolation from the under-brush below; hens, noisy with their infant broods clucked and peeped in the wet grass, busy Avith the work of living. The day was begun, and Licia turned to its customary duties.
When she went into the house, Granny was already up and in her corner by the hearth. Penny Shackle-ford was laying the table, the dishes clattering noisily in her nimble fingers. Upon a low stool before the blazing fire Mrs. Teague sat, looking now and then at the crusty pones of corn-bread that crisped and browned in the oven before her, or turning the slices of odorous bacon that writhed and sputtered in their exuberant grease in the skillet on the coals.
^' The Fort up ter Tracy burn yistiddy," said Teague, by and by. He had poured his smoking coifee into the saucer, and now stooped forward to blow upon it.
" We'uns viewed it," said Penny Shackleford, who was always ready to talk, even to her taciturn brother-in-law. " We went up ter the cVarin^, time we seen the smoke, er skinnin' t'hough the underbresh like catamounts, an' every step, I fetched a scream."
In the mind of the nimble Penny there seemed to belong some peculiar merit in the ''fetching" of this scream of hers, for she will tell about it with evident relish to this day.
''The old'un had a vision the night afore/' said Mrs. Teagne in a subdued whisper, glancing over her shoulder at the dozing old woman. '' She 'lowed as how evil would come ter them as lighted the fire."
Teague threw up his head, and looked across the room sharply at the silent, drowsing old woman. '' The old \m air 'cute," he said, after a pause, as he resumed his eating, " but she don't sense everything. We'uns war too clost pressed : 'twar agin natur' ter s'pose we\l stan' ever'thiug. What with capital er grindiu' an' er squeezin' an' the convicts er doin' mo' an' mo' ever' year we'uns was bleeged ter turn. It air agin' natur' fur capital ter git ever'thing an' labor nothin'."
Just what Mrs. Teague comprehended bv all this I shall not venture to say, but it seems probable that she conceived within the inner recesses of her uncon-voluted brain the absorbing idea that Capital was a hard-fisted individual whose antics at the best of times was not to be depended upon, for she said quite calmly : "S'posin' Capital was ter inform, an' turn the law on the miners.''
"Inform an' turn the law?" said Teague, with an unpleasant laugl). ''Things have got past the law. Troops fum Nashville an' Chattanoogv come up las' night. Happen they'll fin' the mountings none so easy ter level. Them as sent trundle-bed soljers to molest hill men mebbe'll live ter see naught but the leavin's uv 'em some'ars in the mountings onsus-pected." ^
Licia looked up quickly as her father pushed his chair from the table, and left the house. Through
the open door-way ^he watched him bus. y makmg preparations for departure, and waited tdl the raw-boned sorrel disai)peared with hnu over tne r.dge.
CHAPTER VI.
The early sun was still low in the eastern sky when with quiok/free step Licia swung herself down the ; ope that I'ed to the gorge beneath the R.ft ndge^
\bove her head great gnarled oaks, scarred w.th the storm of years, stretched their scraggy h™";'''^^' and giant chestnuts spread their l>,g leaves and shook their full green burrs. The sunlight stole through the branches of the red-bud, an,l showed now and then n some sheltered corner a belated rhododendron flower, fresh and sweet. Blackberry vines with then beaded fruit and starry-wliite blossoms tangled the way, and on either side a glory of golden-rod and iron-weed waved their yellow and P"'t1« pl"™;^ " perpetual defiance. Tiny orchids shot up ever and ^iion ; little " monkey-flowers " with queer ^q"'"*-/-peeped up from the wet grass. Everywhere slim-recked sun-flowers held aloft their black heads, golden-crowned and glorious, and ferns sent their toothed fror.ds or trailed in g^^cefnl maiden '-•--•J^;,^ moss-covered stones. The very air was «weet with the breath of flower-laden morn, and now and hen
from some shaded ledge, the «f^'-tl<='l,.l[^^<^^^^''?t down their hoarded moisture shower-hke as L c.a passed, while small wild fowls, shy and full-throated, made melody in the tree-tops.
How sweet it all was ! Yet the girl passed through like one in a dream, the fear in her heart growing more and more as she came nearer and nearer to the ^' haunts' groun."
When at length she had climbed up under the ledge, she stood upon the jutting rocks, awed and fearful. About the Rift's moutli there were tracks in the loose earth, and on the damp grass, but within, as she peered over, all was dark and still. Still it seemed, but not quite silent. Was it only the sighing of the wind through the fern-fronds, or did she hear the wraiths moaning in the darkness below?
Following the line of the cleft, Licia came to the cliff^s edge, and kneeling down and clinging to the jutting stones and springing shrubs, she scrambled over to a narrow ledge or shelf, six or eight feet below. Pressing close to the rocks, and still clinging to the branches she might look straight into the Rift's perpendicular opening. Hers must have been, at best, a dangerous foothold; but it seemed that some higher sense, that w^as neither instinct nor reason, guided her. Meanwhile, the great w^hite sun had swung round over the hilltops, and now there shot from it one long, narrow beam that pierced the Rift's darkness, dancing and quivering on the rough stones and through the waving ferns till it show^ed there within the cavernous depths, crushed and broken Avith its fall, the poor bruised body of a man. The sun beam kissed into gold the loose curls that had escaped from the little soldier's cap, and shone pityfully upon the wide vis-ionless eyes. Without at the Rift's mouth, the girl felt the wild beating of her hopeless heart and saw the
light go out of her life." It was thus that Dan had came back to her.
Though Granny McDermot did not live to see the fulfillment of her prophecy, Bill Teague and Aaron Bennet have expiated with their own lives the crime of the Rift ridge, and the law is satisfied: but across the gorge, at the old Levan cabin where the mist is white on the mountains, two women, weary and sad-eyed, tell out their desolate days, united by the kinship of a common love and a common grief.
CH^
A Presidential Appointment.
^^ifT was a pleasant February morDiDg, the twittering "Si of the birds on the pavement and in the big cot-^ tonwood trees making it seem quite gladsome without, and, by and by, the Judge began to feel the general stuffiness of the close office, and pulled his chair a little jerkily across the floor to the open window. He had a book in his hand, and held its pages open till he was seated. It was the "Blue Book,'' containing the list of Presidential appointments, which he seemed to be perusing so earnestly, holding it off at arm's length and running his finger along to note the salary attached to each office, now and then, perhaps a little unconsciously, marking one with his thumb nail. He paused a moment to turn over a leaf, and glanced out through the open window, peering over his glasses for a distant view. The street below was a quiet one, and the figure of a tall, spare man in a closely-buttoned cutaway coat, with a high silk hat and dangling cane, was a conspicuous one in comparison to the few leisurely going passers-by in simple morning attire.
^^ Yes, it is Everett/^ said the Judge to himself as the well-dressed man drew nearer, and he shut the book a little hastily and went across the room to put it on the table. He was still standing when the silk hat appeared up his stairway, and he called out quite cheerily :
"Good morning, Everett."
"Ah, as busy as ever, I see, Judge," said the man, shaking hands a little obseqiously. " I liardly hoped to find you down so early."
"Why it's nine o'clock," said the Judge, pulling out his watch. "T have been down for an hour. I think you are the early bird ; a thriving young Congressman like you has no need to look out for the proverbial worm. You ought to leave that for us old fellows who are being laid on the shelf."
" O, well now, that is an idea," said the Congressman cheerfully, "but I think I ought to know how much likelihood there is of vour being laid on the shelf"
The Judge laughed a little nervously at this kindly disclaimer, and the Congressman went on :
"Yes, I came out a little early this morning. I have only a few more days at home, and there's a good deal to be done. Thank you for taking care of this for me," and he picked up the book the Judge had put down so hastily.
"Quite a number of my kindly constituents are to call on me this morning, and I'm afraid I shall have a difficulty in ' placing' some of them."
He seemed quite elated at his own mild joke, and the Judge laughed tentatively.
''Yes, sir," the Congressman continued, " when a man with a'osolutely no political record, a man who has been of no more use to his party than the gamin is to the procession which he follows thro' the streets —when such a man I say, comes and asks for a fat office, it is nothing more nor less than unadulterated gall, and shows us the mighty wrong side of a campaign victory." He was not looking at the Judge as he spoke, and seemed quite carried away by his own enthusiasm. " Now, there are men, deserving, honorable men, who have upheld the party and kept its standard waving above the slime of degradation, men whom we would be glad to reward"—he spoke quite naturally—'' and glad to have to the front now, for, I tell you, we want to keep our forces well mustered, we want to keep our posts well guarded. This is our deal now, fair and square, and we do not want to play a losing game." He was not on ''the floor" and seemed a little reckless of his metaphors.
"The President is a mighty long-headed man, but the new bills are going to prove hard nuts to crack."
Everett spoke rapidly, but his quick eye had been glancing round the room, meanwhile taking in all its details.
There were holes in the matting on the floor, and dust on the books and the shelves and the tables. It had not been so once; it had not been so when he, a poor clerk in a grocer's store, had come at odd moments to borrow books of the Judge, and get him to explain difficult passages of Blackstone. He thought of it all now, and of how prosperous and
thriving the Judge was then, and how kindly and gracious Avithal. He thought of his own first case, which the Judge had given him, and of his maiden speech which the Judge had coached him for; he remembered liow he had brought down the laughter of the Court by beginning ^' Mr. Speaker,^' instead of '^Gentlemen of the Jury,'' and how the Judge had patted him on the back when it was over and told him his lapsus lingucv. was a good sign, and that some day he would be saying ^^ Mr. Speaker" in earnest from the floor. Yes, he remembered it all now, and it had come true for him—but the Judge? He felt sorry he had not kept up with him during the years he had been in Washington; perhaps he was being laid on the shelf. To be sure he looked old and worn.
The Congressman was thinking of all this while he had been speaking, and his finger kept running-over the leaves of the book which he held in his hand. He snapped the covers together nervously.
" I tell you what. Judge," he said, " I wish you wanted an appointment and you'd let me get one for you. IM like to wipe out some old scores with you in that way.''
The Judge's eyes fell, and he flecked a speck of dust from his worn coat-sleeve before he replied. There was a little nervousness in his manner, but his words were quite direct.
^' Thank you, Everett," he said simply, " I have been thinking I would like a good quiet place."
The Congressman's intentions were the best, but the Judge's reply seemed to stagger him for a moment.
He pressed his lips together, hardening his pleasant face, but his words were kindly.
" Well, now, I'm sure Vm glad to hear it. Judge," he said, '^and I think we will have no difficulty in arranging it.''
He sat down on the straight office chair, pressing his thin knees close together, and leaning his slender body forward, resting his elbows on the table.
'' If you'll just go through this list with me," he went on, and there was a business-like brusqueness in his tone, ^Sve might see what there is left."
He turned to the list of first-class appointments, running his bony finger down the line and telling off names as he went.
" There's England now, that's for Massachusetts, of course; and France, Illinois will get that, and so on. No, there's nothing there. Let me see, how'd you like a consulate? Some pretty good places, light work, enough salary, you know. Here, how's this ? That's not bad. Got any choice of place, Judge?"
" Well, I don't know; it just came into my head a moment before you came up. I think on a venture, I should say that I wanted a mild climate," said the Judge, a little vaguely.
" Yes, of course," continued the Congressman, still following the route of his finger. ^' Now there's Mexico, or Peru, or Bolivia. Let me see, some good places on the other side, in Italy perhaps, or Ireland, that's pretty good. I wish I'd known about this thing sooner; I've promised so many of the places. But here, now, holding the book to the Judge, '' how's
this? Right smart salary, ain't it? Suppose we see what we can do with that."
He arose as he spoke, taking the Judge's assent for granted, but his graeiousness returned as he got upon his feet and looked down at the old man beside him.
He gave a very hearty handshake, saying : " Now, Judge, I want you to count upon my doing everything possible in this matter, and, believe me, it will give me great pleasure. We'll send in a perfect reveille of letters and so on. Of course, everything will have to pass through the senior Senator's hands ; but you know him, don't you? Yes; I thought so. Well, I think we may count upon him in this matter, and, at any rate, you may upon me.''
The Congressman seemed willing and sincere enough, but the thing had not passed off just according to the Judge's desire. Accustomed as he was to granting favors, he was new to the business of asking them, and the unwonted effort galled him. He hoped the thing would not be talked about until it was quite settled, and it made him wince a few mornings later, when the paper contained the announcement that "Judge Acton was prominently spoken of for an important foreign post."
His friends were enthusiastic; the several local papers were exuberant in their laudation.
One thing about it, they said, was that the Judge's record did not have to be looked up. This was because everybody knew it; everybody knew his private character to be one of unparalleled purity, his private life to be one of unostentatious philanthropy. His
public career was unimpeachable; every one who knew anything of the political history of the State was familiar with the Judge's staunch adherence to party lines, and party principles. So tlie community discussed it, were elated and felt that the matter was settled. The Board of Trade, it is true, sent a testimonial in the Judge's behalf, not tiiat (hey felt that it was needed at all, but just by way of showing their appreciation of the choice which they felt assured would be made. Thus summarily are many weighty matters settled by those who have no finger in the governmental pie. Numerous friends in other States wrote to the Judge, giving him hearty and previous congratulations, telling him that they had written to their various Senators, each one of whom it was always said, ^' had the ear of the President,'' giving the Judge what they usually called " a rouser.'' Thus it seemed that so far as might be seen all was done that could be, and there was nothing left but to await the grinding of the mill of the gods.
The person who said least and doubtless thought most about the Judge's appointment was Ruth.
When Mrs. Acton looked up from her knitting to say: ^^ Ruth, since your father has asked for the appointment, I want him to get it." That worthy lady had, then and there, as she would have expressed it, ^' said her say."
Mrs. Acton was one who always spoke with reserves ; reserves that grew by harboring, and were, invariably, ready for emergencies.
So Ruth had not discussed the matter with her mother. She simply awaited an emergency, hoping
one would come to break down her reserves. She appreciated the sensitiveness her father might feel while the matter was still in doubt, and went out of her way to respect it. ,> , • i
But as I have intimated, she did a deal of thinking, for Ruth was a young woman possessed of aspirations, of that peculiar kind of restlessness ^yhich usually passes muster under the name of ambition, and one of her innermost desires had been to get away from the narrow confines of the small city, wherein she had passed almost her only life, and, added to this, was an over-weening desire to go abroad.
Now that there was a probability of this, she was forced to content herself with only thinking of her desire, and strengthened her hope with her mother^s decision that, since her father had asked for a place, she wanted him to get it.
Singularly enough, the only person whom she felt inclined to talk to about it was John—John Hume—-and now he was gone, she knew not where, and it did not make things easier for her to reflect that she had herself been the cause of his going. But with all of her reflections she could not bring herself to think it was anything but stupid of John to go off as he had done. 'Hadn't he been asking her to marry him once a year ever since she could remember, and hadn't she always given him the same answer ?
And now, it did seem too utterly stupid of him to say that, since she w^as older he supposed she knew her own mind and that he would go away and not trouble her any more.
Just as tho' she hadn't known her own mind all along.
John was a deal too masterful, and, to be sure, she was not sorry she had said " no '' to him, but she couldn't help wishing he hadn^t gotten in a huff and gone off like that to nobody knew where, just at a time when she most wanted him. Ruth kept thinking of this after she had looked up her Meistersehaff and set to studying in case she had to go abroad; perhaps that's the reason she made so little progress with her grammar.
CHAPTER II.
It was one of those blustering, windy nights toward the middle of March when John Hume got home. Just why John had decided to shut up his Washington apartments sooner than was necessary and to run down home for a brief visit he did not quite acknowledge to himself, but merely said that he would like a last glimpse of the old place to carry away with him, to remember when he was so far away and so long gone. There was no one to say good-by to—no one except Ruth, and he should not see her, probably.
He was thinking of all this the night he got home, and was walking up from the station to his old quarters. He calculated that none of the boys would have come in at that hour, and that he could look up a few papers that he wanted, and have a good, quiet, cozy time of it. He knew that Jessup, his old roommate, would have left plenty of coals in the grate, and he felt quite gratified that a comfortable glow stole out beneath the door to greet him as he mounted the dusty stairway.
4
Everything was just as he had expected to find it; even his individual post-box on the door was full ot things Jessup had neglected to send. He took tliem out, the bundles of newspapers and a few letters, carrying them in with him and dumping them down on the table along with his grip. ^ ,, ,
Within, too, all seemed quite as of old, but somehow he couldn't help feeling sorry, after all, that he hadn't wired Jessup he was coming. The little fellow's cheerfulness would have made his home-coming happier, his last glimpse of the old place brighter. He had a passing thought of going out to look the boys up, but his trip had been a fatiguing one, so he emptied Jessup's tea-kettle and got the cinders and dust from his face and hands, found his own big slippers in their accustomed corner, and drew up a chair to the table, stretching his long limbs to the fire's cheerful warmth.
It was nice to be at home, and he fell to wondering if, after all, he should see Ruth. Perhaps he would meet iier in the street, as a thousand times he had thought of meeting her while he was gone, with the wind rumpling her loose curls, and the dear look in her bright eyes, and the smile on her sweet lips. He had thought of her so often, and the pain of it all was still in his heart; what would it be when he was gone so far away?
He brushed his hands across his eyes as if to shut out a vision, and picking up one of the dusty papers he had brought in, he began to open it listlessly. The first thing that caught his eye was Judge Acton's name at the head of a column,' and, like one awakening
from a dream, he read of his probable appoiutment. He had heard nothing of it and he read the whole thing twice over before lie seemed to understand, then, blowing a long, low, whistle he threw the paper down beside him on the floor.
Jessnp's step was heard mounting the stair, and in a moment the little fellow burst iii, fairly kissing Hume in the exuberance of his delight at seeing him.
" Why didn't you let a man know you were coming?'' he said, frisking about the roon/in his nervous little way. "I'd have had the boys in to glorify. Why didn't you write to a fellow, anyhow? Why, you had me here pijiing my young life away, believing you had gone to that nether region vou easuallv mentioned the night you flew off like a shot out of a shovel, to the Lord-knows-where. 8av, whv didn't you write?"
" Write ? " said Hume. " You are a great one to talk about writing; whv in the mischief didn't vou write ? "
''I? WHiy I had nothing to write," said Jessup helplessly. '
'' Oh,^ you didn't ? Well why didn't you send the papers?" said Hume, picking up the one at his feet.
^' Oh, come now, but that is a good one, "said Jessup, going ofl* in a fit of laughter. " Where out of the world have you been that you wanted to see our papers? Did you want to know what we thought of the Toronto question ? Did you want to see us settle the free art bill with one stroke of our mighty pen? Or did you want to know that Bill Jones was adding a new coat of paint to his palatial residence, that the
hoaorable Mayor was out again after a })r«)tracted spr— beg pardon—illness, that our old friend John Smith from Hog Thief Point, was in town yesterday, and, last, but not least, that there are no flies on '^—
'' Hush, Jessup, ean't you?" said Hume, breaking in a littU^ sharply. '' I think you might have written me about—Judge Acton's app(untment, for instance."
"Phew!'^ said Jessup, ''sits the wind in that quarter yet? I didn't know you would feel interested, as all was over twixt you and Ruth." Hume winced.
'' Besides," Jessup went on, " he hasn't got it yet, and probably never will. Kissing goes by favor, and things seem to be moving slowly in Washington."
'' Do you suppose such a man as Judge Acton wouldn't gat what he asked for?" demanded Hume.
'' I've seen as good men as he refused what they asked for," said the little fellow significantly.
" Stop that, Jessup," said Hume, doggedly. " You know I wasn't worthy to fasten lier shoe latchet."
*' Oh, I know," answered the loyal little man, looking up at his big friend, '' you're not worth wiping up the floor with. If you were, I'd do it, sir, I'd do it."
''Well, well, we shall make it all right, Jessup, old boy," said Hume, slipping ofl^ his slipper and throwing one arm caressingly about the little fellow's shoulders.
"Would you mind sitting up for me a bit? I shall not be gone long, and I'll get you to call me early in the morning, please, Jess; I've got to go to Washington."
" You have, have you ? What did you come for?"
" To see you, Jessup, of course," broke in Hume,
softly, but the little fellow didii^t feign to notice the interruption.
"What did you come for? A chunk of fire? Well, I'll ^fire' you early enough in the morning, be sure/' ^
Hume ran doAvn stairs and hurried up the street to the telegraph office in a vague kind of way, feeling that he could thus help along on its journey the message he was going to send. He picked up a blank, addressed it to his Senior Senator at Washington, filling it in without counting the words.
When he got back home he was very gentle with little Jessup, who had refilled the cup of tea for him in the old way.
CHAPTER III.
_ It had been arranged that the Congressman was to give a reception in honor of Judge Acton's departure when the family stopped in Washington on their way to JNew York whence they were to sail. It was a very swell affair, of course, when it came off, and next to the Congressman's beautiful wife, Ruth was quite the prettiest thing there, and she was having a perfectly lovely time. or j
At least slie kept telling herself over and over again that she was enjoying the cram and the rush, the meeting so many charming people, but she was haunted by the dreadful thought that she was going to break down in the midst of it all and cry. There was a man standing with his back to her just behind a group of palms; he had been there a lon^ time and
he reminded her of John. If only it were John she would feel better; then, after a while, she eould see him and tell him good-by.
The Congressman himself w^as talking to her, and when he stopped she thought she had better thank him for having gotten the appointment for her father. Somehow the echo of her words sounded very insincere, and looking u|) at him a little pleadingly, she said : '^ Indeed, I am very grateful to you, and I know it was all owing to you that the phiee was given father, the Senator was very lagging."
The Congressman began to say something in reply, but she did not hear what it was. The man behind the palms had moved, and—y<'s, it was John, and he was coming to her; it had been so long since she saw him, and she wanted to tell him good-by. No, he was going the other way; but surely he had seen her. What could it mean? For John Hume\s kind, gray eyes looked full into hers for a brief second, he bent his head a little stiffly and was gone.
The Congressman stopj)ed short in what lie was saying, glanced over his shoulder at Hume's retreating figure, and wondered if Ruth was quite the flirt she seemed. When he turned to look at her again, something in the girl's downcast face struck him.
'^ There seems to be a little lull just now," he said, bending to offer his arm, '^ and I'm afraid I shall not have another opportunity to show you my orchids. Will you let me take you now?
The girl slipped her hand through his arm gratefully, glad to escape the glare of lights upon her burning face and sank back well into the shadow
of the vines in a quiet corner where he had found her a seat.
" Well, Miss Aeton/' he said, after a little, " Fm afraid I can't legitimately lay claim to all the thanks you were so gracious as to offer me a while ago. Of course you know, I wanted to do what I could for your father, but when I put the matter to the Senator, he told me he had already promised the place to—'^ the Congressman paused a moment, " to—er—someone else. This particular some one else happened to be a young fellow who was anxious to go to the antipodes, if possible, on some pretext or another, just then, and the Senator was going to give him all his influence. Had known the young man's father, you know, and that sort of thing, and was disposed to let the fellow have anything he wanted, and he had settled upon the very place the Judge had thought of. So that's the state of affairs I found when I got here. Well, perhaps, I don't know exactly where the hitch was, but at the last minute—the very day before the appointment was to be made, in fact—the young fellow called off, said he didn't want it, and it was given to your father. So, you see, it is to him, the young man, that your thanks are due."
'' Who is he ? What is his name ? " asked Ruth, breathlessly.
'^ Hume, you know, John Hume," said the Congressman, feeling that his plot had wound up a little tamely, perhaps, after all.
" Oh ! Oh ! " said Ruth, covering her face with her hands and bowing her head upon the flower-decked stand before her.
She did not look up when the Congressman went out, closing the door softly behind him. A moment later, with an ice in his hand, he met Hume in the hall.
" Would you mind taking this into the conservatory and doing the gallant in my stead ? I^m busy/' he said, hurrying on as he put the plate into the young man's hand.
Perhaps John didn't suspect anything, perhaps he hoped everything. At all events, when he opened the door and found Ruth, with her head still bowed upon the table, he put one of his big palms ovei; her little hand and called to her gently.
" Oh, John ! " she cried, springing up, *' to think of your having done that! Of your having given up your place to father, and then letting us go on and never have a chance to say a word to you about it! Never mind now, I know all about it, the Congressman has told me part, and I guessed the rest. And you were going to let us go away without even saying good-by to you. Oh, John !"
" Good-bv," said John. " Is that all vou wanted to say, Ruth ? "
The tears were still standing in her gladsome eyes, and she hung her head so low that her words came only in a whisper, but he heard.
"No, that isn't quite all, for I love you, John."
How Hank and His Folks Saw the Show.
^^^ANK pulled his horses close to the sidewalk and Ji^ stood up in the wagon, looking wistfully at the ^ big bills which the man was busily pasting to the long stretch of high wall by the cotton-yard.
" Gwine to be a show in town?'' he asked good-naturedly.
^' Yes, sir/' said the man with the paste-pot, glancing carelessly over his shoulder.
^^ Gwine to be a big 'un, ain't it ? " Hank went on.
'^ Biggest you ever saw," said the man giving a vigorous sweep of the brush.
Hank grinned down on the man's broad back complacently, pushed his dirty white hat up on his head, and said:
" 'Taint wuth your while to put them words in the paper 'bout your show, mister. It wouldn't be fur out er sight at that rate, certain, beein's how I ain't never saw a show."
"Say you haven't?" It was the man's turn to
grin now, and he did so broadly. ^' Well, my friend, you ought to see this one.'^
" Well, I'm blest ef I warn't stud'in' 'bout that when I seen you stickin' them pitchers up. I jess 'lowed as how maybe I'd come an' fetch Molly an' the chillun. Th' ain't nair one er my folks ever seen er show."
He gathered up the reins in one hand and sat down, leaning over the wagon-body in a confidential kind of way.
"Yes, I's jess stud'in' 'bout bringin' the folks in to this here show, but you know how 'tis. Times is plum powerful liard, an' crops is short ever'where."
"O, it won't cost much,"' said the man. ^^ You just scratch around and pick up a few dimes and come along and bring Molly and the children."
^' I'm blest ef I don't do it, mister," said Hank with a burst of enthusiasm. '' What time'd you say the show'd be here?"
"On the twelfth."
''The twelfth. That's nex' Saddy week, ain't it?" said Hank musingly. "Well, now, that's the very day I's aimin' to come in with the cotton anyhow, so I'm blest ef I don't put Molly an' the chillun in the wagin too, an' haul 'em in to the show\"
" That's right," said the man, gathering up his pots and bills.
" Yes, sir, we'll be on han' an' don't you forgit it. Say, you may jess count on me an' Molly an' the chillun," Hank called over his shoulder.
He took a last lingering look at the gorgeous pictures, before he turned his horses' heads down the
dusty street which led to the bridge across the creek. Somehow he felt quite joyous as he whipped up the poor tough little ponies, their shoes clinking noisily against the stones, and the loose cotton-ties in the big wagon rattling a cheerful accompaniment.
'^ Gwiue to be a circus in town, Molly/' said Hank, when he got home and she had come out to see him unhitch, leaning lazily against the fence with the baby in her arms.
"¦ You don't say ! " she ejaculated.
'* Yes," he went on with growing enthusiasm, " gwine to be a circus, an' a big 'un, too. A feller was tellin' me. An' what you reckon I'm a min' to do, Molly?"
'^ Don't know. Hank," she said a little tentatively.
"Guess, oP 'oman," he said, hilariously, flipping at the baby with the end of the bridle reins.
" Reckon you aim to go to tlie show, don't you Hank ?" she asked wistfully, when his back was turned as he stooped to unhitch a strap.
" That's what, ol' 'oman,'' he said joyously, " That's jess what, but there's mo' to it, an' you an^ the chillun better be slickin' yourse'ves up for I aim to take you all along too."
"To the circus?" she asked breathlessly.
" Yes, to the circus," Hank answered with manifest pride in his decision. " I studied it all out when I's comin' home. You see, it's to be nex' Saddy week, an' I's aimin' to take the cotton in that day anyhow, so it couldn't a hit handier. Now you an' the chillun jess git ready an' we'll g'long an^ have a look at all them things I seen in the pitchers. Might's
well do it, you know. Markham will be owin' us some on the cotton, an' I speck you want to do a little tradin' anyhow. So we-11 jess go, that's what."
Now, Hank and his wife were simple folk, belonging to that extensive class of individuals who are usually spoken of as ^^ having a hard time of it." If this meant that no matter how favorable the season elsewhere. Hank's little rocky hillside ranch was sure to have too much or too little rain; it it meant that his corn and cotton and potatoes somehow or other as he said, '^ never seemed to hit;" if it meant that his horses and cows were always underfed, that Molly was put to it to keep her constantly-increasing and ever-stretching brood in the merest suspicion of a supply of clothes, that her chickens were in a chronic state of disease, being bandied about busily between cholera and the pips from one year's end to the other; that her housework was never finished by nightfall and always had to be left over for next day: if all this meant 'Miaving a hard time" then Hank and Molly certainly had it. The only thing that grew and prospered on the whole stoney little place were the children. As Molly's neighbors said of her, ^^ she sholy seem to have good luck with the young ones." There were all ages and sizes of them, as many as could crowd in between Sim, a lank lad of ten, and little Moll, the baby girl.
But in spite of the hard times, it was quite a joyous party that set out to the circus when Saturday came, for it takes more than short crops and long drouths to down an improvident spirit. From their high perch on the cotton bales beneath the pent-house of the overstretched wagon-sheet, the children poked
their tow-heads, anon shouting out in happy young voices, or gurgling a suppressed giggle at the unwonted excitement. Hank chirruped cheerily to the ponies, his sunburnt face beaming with goodnatured anticipations, and by his side, with the baby in her arms, sat Molly, resplendent in her faded red calico and white sun bonnet.
It was still quite early when they got to town and Hank drove first to the cotton-yard and dumped his two precious bales out among the many broAvn-sacked bundles which lay there in careless array, their plethoric sides bursting with fleecy whiteness.
" V\\ jess drive ^roun to the square, Molly,'^ he said, " an' you and the chillun can set there in the wagin 'tell I see Mark ham an' have a settle?7ien^. Then I'll come fur you an' we'll see the show, and ever'thing that's gwine. We ain't aimin' to do no half-way business on this here circus, air we Sim? You bet, we'll jess natchelly do the thing up right. I ain't no slouch when it comes to a show, no how, ef I ain't never been to one."
Hank's great good-nature must have been contagious, for Markham beamed upon him benignantly, and shook his hand as cordially as if his meagre two bales had been multiplied by a hundred.
" Come in to the show, did you Hank ? " he asked, rubbing his hands together cheerfully, and smiling up into Hank's face.
" Yes," said Hank, broadly. ^' 'Lowed maybe times warn't so hard that a feller couldn't afford a little fun. Never made nothin' wuth layin' by nohow, an' might's well git the good er what there is, that's what I say. But I brought the cotton along, an' I'd
like to have a settlement with you right away ef you've got the time. You see, I brought Molly an' the chillun along too, an' they air settin' 'roun' yonder on the square waitin' fur mo to come back, an' I want to git there soon as 1 kin."
^' Just itemise Hank's bill for me, please," said Markham to the bookkeeper as he and Hank passed through the office in the cotton-yard.
'^ I'm glad you brought your cotton in to-day, Hank," he went on when the weighing and classing were over and they had come back into the office. " Tt jumped u]) a point yesterday.
''You don't say!" said Hank, feeling vaguely that whatever a "point" might be it meant quite an unlimited pinnacle to his pile of balance due. In it he saw a pair of boots for Sim, a dress for Molly and—
But Markham interrupted liis vision.
'' Here you are Hank, he said, taking up the long sheet from the bookkeeper's desk.
Hank's eyes followed Markham's finger slowly but uncomprehendingly down the long column of figures, and his heart gave a big jump at the end, when he heard still in the same cheery voice :
" ^Yell, we'll credit you by the cotton to-day, and you see, that puts you pretty nearly square. You will owe us only eight dollars and fifty cents, and I can carry that till you can scrape up a few eggs and chickens for Christmas, maybe."
But Hank's ears were full. " I owe you eight dollars an' a ha'f?" he said breathlessly; "Why, Lord man, ain't there.nothin' comin' to me?"
Markham looked up kindly over his glasses, but
the blow had been too great. Hank dropped down into a chair, covering his face with his hands.
''Good Lord!" he went on helpk\ssly. "The cotton^s ever'thing I\'e got in the worl' ! I knowed there wouldn't be much comin' on it, but Vt^ aimin' to git Sim a pair er boots an' Molly a nevv dress among ^em ! Lord ! Lord ! An' you say there ain't nair cent comin' to me? An' Molly an' the chillun a-settin 'round yonder in the wagin waitin' fur me to come an' take 'em to the show! Do you mean I've got to go an' tell 'em I ain't got a cent in tlie worP, an' we'll jess have to hitch up an' go 'long back home? Lord ! Lord ! " and the big tears were trickling down his cheeks.
The bookkeeper slid down from his stool, and went out softly, closing the door behind him. Mark-ham took off his glasses and wiped them slowly. He had been a poor man once, and he knew how heavily some things bear upon simple folk, even those who are accustomed to " havino: a hard time."
'^ Well, well," he said kindly, running his hand in his pocket, " I reckon times are harder with you than they are with me, and you'd better let us call things square, and take this five dollar bill and go and get Molly and the children. It is almost time for the show."
Hank was no beggar, however used he was to hard times, but he had no power to compass the disappointment that would be waiting for him if he refused Markham's offer; but it was but a poor spiritless slouching figure that went by and by to join the expectant group in the wagon. He kept his fingers clasped on old Markham's bill in his pocket, and his
lips were tight pressed. But there was no time for explanations. Out tumbled the little towheads by twos and threes with Molly and the baby on top, for the music had already begun.
Up the street and around the square, turning down by the baker\s shop came the procession, and oh ! oh! was there ever anything grander to see ? the puffing, smoking, screaming calliope, the gorgeous equestriennes, the rattling, rumbling cages, the strange wild things peering out with hungry eyes, the ponderous elephants with long snouts—was there ever anything like it all?
Never before to Hank and his folks surely, and is it any wonder that his drooping spirits revived and that along with the rest he gave himself up and followed in the wake of the steaming music across the creek and quite into the big tent itself? He gave up old Markham's bill at the door forg3tful that there went along with it his whole worldly wealth, and by and by when it was all over and the wagon rattled noisily out on the homeward road, Molly said with a burst of recalled consciousness when the little cabin appeared in sight:
" Lor', Hank, we forgot the tradin' *'
Hank ran his hand down into the pocket where Markham's money had been, but he heard only vaguely, for a vision of the clown in his wide trousers danced before his eyes and the sound of music was in his ears:
" But we seen the show," he said softly.
':Sieur Antoine and .Snow-white. Page 61.
Snow-white.
CHAPTER I.
W^OW very white she did look always, the dainty Jg^ little one of Pierre and Felice, with her golden ^ hair and her blue, sweet eyes, as she played among the brown-skinned, dusky-locked children in the sunshine of the old quarter. And it is little wonder that they called her ^^ Snow-white,'^ the dainty sweet one, for very white she must have looked to Pierre that morning when he found her lying on the door-step, with the snowflakes all about her, and only her round, baby-blue eyes showing out of the whiteness.
"¦ See what Our Lady has sent us, Felice,'^ he said, taking the precious bundle in his big, brown hands, and carrying it in to his wife. ^' A little snow-white baby.''
Felice turned back the shawl, and brushed the snow-flakes from the baby's face, and there, sure enough, pinned to the little dress, was a card, and as Pierre bent down to see, he read, " For Pierre and Felice."
'^ There ! Did I not say ? '' he exclaimed joyously, '' it is for us that the Blessed Virgin has sent her."
And together they knelt, holding the little one between them, and giving thanks for her who had been sent to oheer their eliildless home and fill their empty hearts.
Only this they knew of the (coming of the little one, but, when they carried her to Pdre Martin for his blessing, the old priest remembered the slight, graceful women who knelt so long at Vespers the evening before, and who had, when the service was over, questioned him about the same Felice, the coif-feuse, and Pierre, her husband, who lived in the crumbling grey house beyond the church. He remembered too that the liand which dropped into his the heavv purse of gold, wore no ring upon its third finger, and *Pere Martin sighed as he h)oked into tiie baby's face, and murmured, '' Another Uimb for the fold."
But he did not speak of what he remembered: instead, lie only tohl Pierre and Felice that he would himself go with them to the office of the old notaire on the corner where all could be arranged, and that the next day after Mass they might bring the child to be christened.
And so they did, giving her the name of Snow-white. No other name would have suited her half so well. Snow-white she was when Pierre found her, and snow-white Felice always kept her. She was never too busy to put a few dainty tucks in baby's white slip, or to wash her face and brush her yellow curls. And Pierre never came up stairs now without stopping to wash his hands at the big tub down in
the court, so that he might not soil baby's dress when he took her in his arms, and he kissed her, oh, so gently, lest he should leave the impress of his lips on her's. Somehow, too, his step grew lighter and his laugh cheerier. Even down on the levee, and at the warehouse where he worked all day lifting and turning the big cotton bales with his sharp hook, he would sometimes forget and laugh softly because of the little one at home. Felice's songs, too, grew gayer as she tripped about at her tidy house-work, and her coiffures w^ere more elaborate and graceful than ever.
'^ It makes a difference, is it not so, madanie?" she would say when she dressed the hair of a fond young mother, who, perhaps, sat the while gently swinging tlie cradle of her lirst-born, '^ it makes a difference that there is now a little heart for your big one to hold. I know, it is all changed with me now that the Blessed Virgin has sent us a little one. It makes nothing now that I must go up and down the stair, that I nuist bring the water from the cistern in the court, or that I must be forever crimping and curling and sticking in the pins."
And it did indeed seem that all the household was changed. It was not a very great household to be sure, for besides Pierre and Felice, there were only Marta and Babette and 'Sieur Antoine in the little grey house.
Marta lived on the first floor, and from her apartments there came always the pleasing odor of burnt sugar, for it was in her own little back room that she made the white and yellow ropes of candy that she sold upon the streets every day. What delight it was to
her when Siiow-wliite couhi sit idoiu; and h<jld in lier chubby fist a stick of the crisp candy, sucking it till it ran down her wrists and chin and upon her little dress in streams of linked sweetness.
'^ It is by the reason that the little one likes it that I make this cream candy/' she would say to her customers, and so go her way with a lighter step and a. heavier purse because of the baby's coming.
But it was Babette who took care of Snow-white when Felice must be away. Bal)ette was a blanchis-seuse, anci was always washing, washing, washing in the big tubs down in the court. When Snow-white was old enough and the days were mild, Babette would take her shawl, and spreading it out over the warm bricks, put the baby upon it, shading her little lace from the sun with one of Pierre's big straw hats hung up on a stick. The child grew to love Babette, with her broad, round face, and her plump, white arms ; grew to love the warjii court where there was so much suidight and always the splashing of water and the flapping ot snowy clothes on the line.
And 'Sieur Antoine ? Ah, yes; perhaps more than any one else 'Sieur Antoine came to love the little gift-child. At first he would only pause when he met Felice on the stair and inquire after the Ittle one, but, by and by, he stopped in on his way up to his room to see the baby, all clean and sweet and white tucked away in her little bed. 'Sieur Antoine spoke but little: his violin talked for him, he would say, and he was always sad and often hungry too, Pierre thought. So when Snow-white was able to climb the stair without fear of her falling, Felice
sometimes would send her up to 'Sieur Antoine's room Avith a slice of bread or a bit of meat that he might find it waiting for him when he comes. But better than all this to the old man was just to have the child curl up in the window-seat and listen as he played, his music full of memories.
^'What is it makes me hurt here when you play, ^Sieur Antonie?" the child would ask, putting her little hand over her heart, and standing close beside his knee with her eyes full of tears. '' Is music then so sad."
'^ It is not music, little one," he would say, ^' it is life." It W'as the good P^re Martin himself who used to come for the child w4ien she was old enough to run about, and carry her Avith him to the church and to his own cozy little cottage behind with its vine-clad porch and its garden sweet Avith roses. He would pluck for her the heavy-headed buds that brushed her cheeks, and take her home with her apron full of fiow^ers, or her hands full of oranges from the tree beside his w indow. ^' May I not give the Virgin some of my flowers?" the child Avould say as she picked the finest to lay at Mary's feet w4ien they passed the church.
CHAPTER II.
Thus among the good friends the little one grew and prospered, brightening the house and the square and the street with her presence. There was much to make her happy too ; her good friends and the sun-
shine and the flowers and the pictures in the church and the Blessed Virgin, and the good St. Joseph. Besides her own litth' church that she knew and loved so Avell, was the Baptist Mission across the street, where there were no shrine and no candles, only just bare walls and benches. How drear it must be inside, the child thought as she sat by the open window watching the peo])le come and go, their long, black shadows darting like big swallows on the pavement as they passed the liglit. Within the little organ squeaked and rasped, and once as she sat listening she heard the voices singing:
'' Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."
The child kept saying the words over and over to herself. AV^hat could they mean, she wondered, this little one had never seen a snow-fall.
'' What is the snow like, Maman ? " she would say, '^ and why do you call me Snow-white ? "
*^ It is by the reason that my little one is pure like the snow itself, that 1 call her so ; ^' Felice would answer. ^^ Wait, petite, by and by you will see, perhaps, when the wind blows and the cold comes."
" How white is the snow," the child would ask, and taking a sample of cotton from the pocket of his blouse, Pierre would scatter the lint about her head saying, " whiter than that."
"¦ Whiter than this,'' Babette told her when she took the frothy suds from the tubs, and threw them up into the air till they fell in tiny water-bits upon the ground.
*^ Whiter than these," Pdre Martin would say as he lifted her up to his broad shoulder, and held her
aloft until her face was buried in a mass of orange blossoms above.
^' This is a strange winter/' said 'Sieur Antoine one night as he sat fingering his violin strings Avhich were taut and dry with the cold.
'* Will it snow/' asked the child eagerly.
'' Since eight years the snow has not come/' said Felice, "• and we remember it so well, is it not, the night before the little one came ? "
" I remember/' said Babette, '' and was it like this, all still and grey? I would not cover my tubs that night thinking to catch the rain, and the next morning, were they not beautiful, those tubs?"
"- Is it then so beautiful," asked the child. ''Will you not take your violin 'Sieur Antoine, and tell me how it looks?"
And 'Sieur Antoine ])layed. Those who knew felt the inaudible falling of the flakes, thicker and thicker, but gentle as the drawing of a shroud. He kept his eyes upon the child, and he saw her waiting, listening. Suddenly, with a twang of the strings and a twist of the bow^, there came the jingle of sleigh-bells, the sound of merry voices, and the little one's face was glad. But 'Sieur Antoine forgot, and he played on and on in the minor chords, till tears stood in the child's eyes, and Felice put out her hand to stay him.
" Is it then like that and that, the snow/' asked the little one when he was stopped. " Ah, it cannot be."
''Perhaps," said 'Sieur Antoine, and the others could not speak for fear; was it the music that held them ? But the next day it was come. Snow-white
felt it when she opened her eyes that morning, and saw the daylight peeping in pale and strange thro' the curtains, and creeping to the window, she looked out. The streets were already busy and merry with the voices of children, and how glad a time it was in the old city where the snow so seldom came, but more than all else the little one felt the wondrous purity of the white world without, and with an echo of 'Sieur Antoine's snow music in her ears, she folded her hands and knelt down.
"Holy Mother of God, wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."
Ah, poor little one, how these old words came back to her afterwards, when this day was long since dead !
CHAPTER III.
When again the peeping of the daylight thro' the parted curtains in the little grey house showed the snow piled high upon the street and housetop, only Pierre and Felice, with clasped hands, stood sadly by the window looking out, and, as once in the old sweet days, they had knelt and blessed the Virgin for giving them the little one, so now again they bowed together and prayed. What was it they were saying now, these bowed ones? Ah, I know not, only One heard, for they spoke not, for the prayer was in their hearts.
All day the snow fell, growing thicker and thicker, making even the air white with its whirling flakes, and,
as night came down, and the first lights began to shine across the little narrow street, a woman, scarce more than a child she seemed, with her rumpled yellow hair and her wide blue eyes, hurrying along in the cold, stopped now and then in a quiet doorway to rest. Was it the snow that blinded her eyes and hindered her feet, and what was it that kept sounding in her ears? Was it not then all true, all true the old sad music of 'Sieur Antoine's violin ? Oh God ! Oh God ! if she had only known ! And the woman pulled the shawl closer about her face ; the snow was blinding her eyes. Where was he now, the good 'Sieur Antonie, and Felice and Pierre and Marta and Babette ? Would they see her out there in the snow as she passed? The light shown but dimly thro' the drawn curtains of the little grey house, and the old Mission across the way was still and dark. What was it she had heard the voices singing there once in the old days?
^' Wash me—'^ Oli God ! Would anybody hear if she sang the old words over to herself? Holy Mother, keep yet a little while the chill that was creeping to her heart! Oh God, help till she might find P^re Martin and confess ! Poor little one, the burden was crushing her.
How quiet it was in the little church, where the candles burnt within the chancel sweet with the odor of incense. How quiet and how warm. Would they come by and by, the good Pdre Martin and Felice and Pierre, perhaps, and find her there waiting, their Snow-white little one?
Oh God! No. Snow-white no lona-er! Oh God!
(J4
The black shadows stole nearer and nearer. ^^Ave Maria, plena gracia —" the old words had slipped from her memory. How long had it been since she had said them ? " Tho' thy sins be as scarlet—" what was the rest ? Had she not heard once in the old days, or was Mary whispering in her ear as she lay now at her feet? The chill crej^t closer and closer, the blue eyes grew dim, but the lips parted, and One who called the Virgin mother heard the words of the old })rayer: '^ Wash me, and 1 shall be whiter than snow."
By and by they found Iht with the old sweet smile upon her stilled lips, and the old childish look over all the calm features, and thus had the snow given them back their little one, and brought home the lamb to the fold.
Thomas McTair and His Nancy.
fWAS riding slowly along on my tired sorrel nag, for reasons which I thought would be pleasure and I hoped would be profit, traversing the mountains of East Tennessee, not far from Jasper. I was in the very midst of the forest primeval: giant trees stretched their gnarled branches above my head, and scattered their brilliant leaves, weaving a carpet for my horse's feet more gorgeous than kings have trod. Away oif in the lonely Sequatchie I coukl see the slo])ing ridges and spreading spurs, dovetailing into each other their crimson and yellow and purple till all faded alike into the distant blue, as the moulitains lost themselves in the misty west. No sound broke tlie stillness, save now and then the barking of a squirrel cracking nuts in the big chestnut trees, or the late call of a wood-bird for his mate. I was musing on the mighty works of God, and the pitiful efforts of his unworthy creatures as I rode along, and wondering where I should get my supper, for I was what might be called decently hungry and
indecently thirsty. Suddenly, a sharp turn in the trail stuck my horse's nose almost into the very face of a man who sat on a rock by the roadside, staring-straight before him. His head and chest were thrown forward, his chin had dropped below zero, his lank knees spread wide apart like the open jaws of a Louisiana alligator, and his hands hung limp at his side. A suit of brown jeans, so new that they smelt of the walnut-bark dye, clothed his thin stripe of manly form, and a shirt-collar of blue hickory, turned down around a spare neck, to the very verge of which his fadev, straw-colored hair was plastered, sleek as a ball-room floor, with turkey-fat. A more perfect picture of abject misery I never saw before nor since, and I jerked my pony's head out of the man's face and leaned forward in my saddle to look at him. , , , .
'' Got it bad?" I asked at last, when the creaking of his stiff clothes and the snort of his heavy breathing became embarrassingly audible in the (juietude of
the forest.
^' That's what 1 hev, stranger," he said, lifting his jaw, but still keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead. '' Ketched it in the neck an' the collar-bone an the chist an' the breas'-bone, an' the heart an' «ie stomick an'the lights an' the livers an' the bowils an' the yuther lower regions. Facks er the business is, I ve got it f'um the crownd er my ol' fool head to the soles er my big blamed foot. Got it all over."
'^^Vhat gave it to you?"
He sprang to his seven feet of height with a yell that reverberated on the mountain side, jumped about
a yard from the ground, cracking his heels together as he came down again.
^^ What gin it to me, stranger?'^ he shouted when he had lit, "what gin it to me? Why Nancy, ov course. Who'd you s^pose? Cause why? Cause er these here plague-on clones what you see befo^ you a-kiverin^ this flabber-gasted oV hide er mine. Look at 'em, stranger, look at 'em, fur Gawd's sake, fur their een is nigh at lian'." And the fellow gyrated around among the dry leaves like a materialized whirlwind.
"Clothes?" said I. "What's the matter with your clothes? That's as good a suit as I've seen this side of Pennsylvania."
" Stranger, you don't mean it." he said softly, coming up close beside me, and fetching me a whack across my thigh that tingled all the way up my anatomy, creeping out at the end of my funny-bone. "Sho' now, you don't mean it."
" Yes, I do though, but what does Nancy say about it?" I answered.
"Stranger!" he said, leaning on my pony's neck, and looking up at me confidentially, "you see it's this 'er way. Me an' Nancy thar, 's been keepin' comp'ny ni^h on to three year come the thirteen day er nex' December, an' things had about got*whar thar warn't nairy ornery cuss on the mounting as dared to look at the groun' she walked on. I'm some, stranger, when I gits riled, an' the fellows 'lowed 'twas my deal, an' cl'ared the track. Well, sech was matters tell the twenty-seven day er las' Angus', whenst we was comin' home f'um meetin' down to the cove.
That day I axed an' Nancy spoke the word, and we fixed the time—this here very day, blame it—fur the knot to be tied, the knot which binds but don't ineberate." I saw the feOow's jaw was beginning to quiver, and suddenly he clapped his hands to his face and dropped back on the stone. T thought he was going off into one of those staring trances, perhaps, or worse, so I interposed gently :
"Where was tlie hitch?"
''Right here, durn it all," he shouted, slapping liis narrow pantaloons and flinging (?pen his ample coat front. "These here clo'es, I tell you. Mam made em fur me witli her own ban's, too; that's whar it hurts. 1 can't go back to the cabin an' tell Mam Nancy scorned the clo'es slie made, could you, now, stranger, 't you was nu'? I've knowed Mam longer'n I hev Nancy, an' she hev stood by me th'ough evil as well as th'ough good report, in sickness an' in health"— tlie fellow's eyes were getting set again. " Oh Lordy ! Whatcher reckon make my ol' fool min'keep runnin'on that marridge cer'mony? As 1 aimed to tell you while ago. Mam, she made this here suit out'n-out, cardin' an' spinnin' an' weavin' an' cuttin' an' sewin' and all. She ripped uj) Pap's weddin' suit fur a patron, which Gran'-pap he'd mar'id in'the same befo' him. An' this hickory stripe shirt, she made it, too, an' stranger, what's a fellow to do? I can't go home, s'help me Gawd, an'tell the ol' 'oman Nancy scorned the clo'es she made fer me, but I don't min' tellin' you, seein' you are handy, an' seem kinder soft an' harmless. As I 'lowed the weddin' was to come off to-night, so I got ready an'
went down early, aimiii' to be on han^, an' thinkin^ I could he^p 'roun' mebbe, fetchin' wood an' drawin' cider. I got thar soon arter dinner, an' Nancy^s little sis Ten, she seed me comin', and ranned an' toP the yuthers. An' by gum, whenst I shinned over the fence, an' started up the parth to the house, thar they all was, big as life, come to the door to watch me. Thar was Nancy an' her Mam an' her Dad an' Buck an' Jeems, an' Marthy Ann an' 'Randy Gibbs f um over at Jasper, what had come to stan' up at the weddin', an' that little blame' Tennessee, an' Nancy! Lord, how they seem' to swell thar in the cabin door, as I fumbled up to the house th'ough the dead leaves. Seem' like thar was a plum army of 'em thar, an' Nancy, an' look like my legs tangled up same's a in-terferin' horse, an' my arms growed so long they tetched the groun' an' my feet so big the yearth couldn't hoi' em. My, stranger, but I was hot whenst I did get to that cabin do', which it natchelly seemed to be miles away. Well, whenst I did get thar, thar was Nancy!"
^^^ Thomas McTair,' she said, pyeart-like, steppin' to the front, an' 'Randy Gibbs a-eggin' her on f'um behin'. ' Thomas McTair,' — Pap, his name is Thomas, an' Mara jined on the McTair fur the bishop what uster be down to Nashville—' Thomas McTair,' says Nancy, ^ was you aimin' to marry in them jeans garments?' she says. ^Them was my intentions,' says I, seein' she had spoke so proper. ' Well, Mr. Lane,' she up an' answer, ' if them is your intentions, you'll git some yuther gal to marry you. If a man is too low down to git a pa'r er sto'-bought clo'es to marry
in, why the Lord hev mercy on his soul, fur I won't/ Yes, sir, them's what Nancy's very words war, an' with that the do' slammed, an' w^henst I looked up thar warn'nt no Nancy ! O Lord ! O Lord !"
'^ Stranger," lie began again after a moment, "did you mean them words you spoke about this dad-blamed suiter jeans? Did you now?"
" Well, yes," I answered. ''From my standpoint that is a first-rate suit, straight goods, all wool and a yard wide."
" Thanky, stranger, thanky!" said Thomas Mc-Tair exuberantly, ''blamed ef I don't tell the old lady them words er your'n ; but see here, stranger, would you min' swoppin' ?"
" What ? Suits ?" I asked, smiling at the remembrance of the twelve inches of difference in our heights.
"That's what," he said eagerly. "You see, it's tliiser w^ay : Thar's plenty time yit, fo' the weddin' was to 'a been, an' ef you air a min' to 'commodate me I kin git thar by the time the 'squire'll come, an' bless Gawd, I'll git Nancy !"
"I am afraid your clothes won't fit me," I said, temporizingly.
His face fell. '^ Looker here, stranger," he said, and there were tears in his eyes. " I'mer losin' the chance er Nancy ! You don't know what that means, ea'se you've never sot eyes on that purty face er hern, nur seen her walkin' in the mist uv a mornin' with the dampness curlin that yeller hair uv hern, an'—O Lord, stranger, ain't thar a gal som'ers as vou'd die to git?"
" Right you are there, Thomas/' I said, dismounting. "You've hit the nail on the head, and I'll tell you what I'll do for you. Mam's cooked up a lot of good things, hasn't she, back at the cabin, for you and Nancy to start honey-mooning on ?"
" That's what," he answered.
" Well, shuck off. I'll lend you my suit till the wedding's over, provided you'll put me on the trail to your cabin, and give me supper and a bed. A fellow gets kinder played climbing mountains."
'^ Stranger, you're a trump," cried Thomas with effusion. '^You're a man, ever' inch of you, an' you're treatin' me white. O Lord! Jest to think, I'll git Nancy!"
" I say, Thomas," said I, after we had both disrobed, " you'll have to get that turkey grease out of your hair, or I'm afraid my hat won't stay on your head ; it will slip off, you know."
"Right you air, stranger," he said, eyeing my rough shock, "mebbe a little stragglin' look, as you mought call it, would go better with sto'-bought clo'es. But come down this way a piece."
He picked up my bundle of clothes and his own big boots, which he had been compelled to remove in order to skin his trousers over his feet, and led the way down the trail, clad only in his under-suit of unwashed Sea-island.
We came presently upon a little cove under overhanging ledges of rock whence a spring bubbled, trailing its way noisily down the mountain-side. Before I knew what he was about Thomas McTair had thrown himself forward on the palms of his hands, 6
and was standing feet uppermost over the stream. The ripples gurgled through his long hair, washing the oil out upon the troubled waters.
" Never wet a thread, did I ? " he said, bv and by, as he turned a somersault, and landed on his feet.
By this time I was comfortably habited in his hickory shirt and brown jeans, with about a foot of trousers turned u]) in an English roll around my ankles.
Thomas McTair's dressing proceeded more slowly, converting him into a forked sight. My trousers struck him about the region of his calves, and refused to be coaxed any lower, but this was a minor defect as his cow-hide boot-tops nobly satisfied the deficiency. But up above there were no extenuating circumstances. The button-tab at the end of the shirt-bosom struck him amid seas, and lopped over the low-cut vest. The short sack coat failed to hide the strap and buckle in the rear, and showed a suspicious line of white round the waist places when he raised his arm. About three inches of Sea-island under-shirt formed a cuff })ro-truding beneath the coat sleeve. His wet hair stood out in little weepy wisps all over his head, but the biggest thing in sight was the smile that pervaded his countenance.
" Don't happen to hev a lookin'-glass about you, do you, stranger?" he asked, when his toilet was complete.
" I do just," I said, reaching in my saddle-bags for my traveling case, and the glow of satisfaction that showed in his face at sight of his comical reflection rewarded me for my philanthropic endeavors.
^^ Stranger," he said to me by and by, as he held my hand in his, " you hev been to me a frien' in need with two in the bush, that's what. Now s'long tell I .see you agin. You foller the leadin' er that thar trail th'ough the underbresh, an' fust news you know you'll see the cabin in the cla'rin', an' mo'n likely Mam er milkin' the cow. She's survigrous lookin' Mam is, but she's all right. You jest tell her Thomas McTair sont you, an' your fort'in's made with Mam. The jug sets behin' the do'. S'long : I'm loaded now fur Nancy."
I watched him swing himself down with quick, free strides, and by and by turned my liorse's head up through the underbrush.
The sun was just sinking to rest, and hung like a red ball of fire beyond the murky mountains. I turned for a last long look at him to find myself staring straight down the barrel of a rifle.
''Didn't calklate on this jest, did ye stranger?" asked the old man at the end of the gun as he came out from the underbrush. Be was a long, lean, lank, tough old customer with determination written in boxcar letters all ov^er his hard old face, and I began to feel a little shaky in my bones with that hungry-looking rifle filling up the space between us.
" Well, I believe you are right, old man," I began, circulating through all the grey matter of my brain to produce an appropriate answer.
'^ I 'lowed not, ye dadblasted valley-man ye," the old man interrupted me. '' I could give ye the same as ye sont mebbe, with ol' meat-in-the-pot here, but shootin's too good fur ye. I guess ye'U keep handy
¦^4
enough, so ye'U 'commodate me by leadin' the way up that there trail whilst me an' ol' meat-in-the-pot brings upm the rear."
'^ No use talking over matters before we get up, is there, old fellow?" I asked, breathing easier at the chance of a respite at least, and finding that the trail was the one pointed out by Thomas McTair. I put two and two together and concluded that my captor was the flitlier of my whilom friend, and that perhaps matters might not prove as disastrous as they looked.
A half hour's steady pull brought us to the clearing which Thomas McTair had described, and sure enough, Mam was at the pen milking. The old man directed mv way up to the rickety rail fence, and called his w'ife to him, speaking to her in husky whispers which I could not understand.
By and by he made me dismount and lead the way into the cabin. " Onload, stranger," he said, motioning me to a seat in the chimney corner by the fire. I gave him mv pistol and empty flask, w^iich were all I had transferred from mv pockets to Thomas McTair's when we changed clothes. Through the open window^ I saw the old woman leading away my tired nag, and I hoped she would give him a good supper. Presently she came in.
'' Bets," said the old man, giving her the rifle, ye set thar by the table, an' keep the gun p'inted plum. Ef the skunk wink his eve onnecessary, why let her go Gallagher. I'd like to keep him tell the boys kin see the fun, but blaze away ef he shows his teeth. I'll g'long down now."
Bets was a " survigrous " old woman, as Thomas
McTair had said, and she gazed at me witli tire in her eye, and her finger on the trigger. I calculated upon the chance of Thomas McTair's probable return to the parental roof, and concluded that for the sake of my health and the welfare of humanity at large, it would be unwise to put off eating and drinking till that time. I looked the old lady straight in her fiery eye, and said with the deliberation of a seed-tick grabbing for keeps, and in the sanctimonious tone of a newly-appointed circuit-rider:
^^ Madam, if I should by chance die of starvation before my friend Thomas McTair returns from the wedding, kindly tell him that it broke my heart to go Avithout seeing him once more in this life, and that I shall hope to meet him in heaven.'' The old woman's hand shook, and I feared the trigger would fall, but it didn't, and I kept on. "Tell my friend, Thomas McTair, that I will and bequeath to him and his heirs forever my plug horse, my saddle-bags, and all that is in them, my six-shooter and my empty flask, and this I do in return for the favor he showed me in so nobly exchanging this excellent and altogether lovely suit of brown Jeans for my own garments which moth and dust doth corrupt, and thieves break thro' and steal. Amen."
By this time the old woman was in tears. She laid the gun on the table, grabbed a pumpkin pie from the shelf behind her with one hand, and about a yard of fried smoked sausage links with the other.
^' Stranger," she said, shaking a tear about the size of a marrowfat pea from the end of her thin nose, " stranger, set to."
She laid a plate upon tlic table as she spoke, flanked it with a bowl of apple sauce, a corn-pone, and about two dozen hard-boiled eggs. ''The cabin's your'n, stranger," she said, as I drew my chair to the board.
''And the jug behind the door? " 1 enquired.
"An' the jug behin' the door," she said, producing a fat, brown demijohn, and a cracked glass.
By and l)y she took the gun and set it over in the corner with a tliump. " Oh ! Tom Lane alius was a born'd fool," she said, emphatically, as she fished her snuffbox and brush from her pocket, and sat down to ruminate.
I had about cleared up everything in sight, and was feeling wonderfully comfortable inside, when I heard a yell like a stray Comanche's and old Lane burst in upon us.
"Thang Gawd I " he said, grabbing my hand and almost crushing it in his own. " Thang Gawd ye air live an' kickiu'. Blamed ef I didn't think ye'd kill my son, Thomas McTair, fur the clothes on his back, blarst my ol' fool hide."
Thomas McTair and Nancy came in soon after.
"By gum, stranger," Paid the big fellow, "but you missed a close call f'um the old man's gun, didn't you. But it's all right now. You're safe, and I've got Nancy."
I staid with them till the sun was high in the heavens next day, and Thomas McTair went down the trail with me a bit to put me in the right road.
" You've been a Gawd-sen' to me, stranger," he said, at parting, " fur you got me Nancy."
The distant tree-tops blazed iu the glory of the noon-day sun as I turned into the rocky mountain road; the grey squirrels Avarmed themselves amid the branches overhead, rattling down chestnut-hulls upon the fallen leaves, and away back in the underbrush I heard the high pitched, happy voice of Thomas Mc-Tair: " O git along, git along, git along Nancy, way down in Rockingham/'
An Unbroken Bond.
^T was 8t. Valentine's eve, and at midnight 1 had •jxIl jnst returned, wet and eold, from visiting a pa-^ tient way out in the Thirteenth District. As I hung my dripping coat in the outer closet I stumbled over a box, which, I remembered, the office boy told me had come by express during the morning. It was a small wooden case and (juite light, so I carried it upstairs with me and set it down on the hearth. I put on my slippers and dressing-gown, got down my cigars and was just seating myself to have a good rest, when something familiar in the writing on the box at my feet struck mv attention.
" Why, it is Murcherson's fist," I said. " What can he be sending me?''
Drawing out the nails, I opened the box hastily, finding it, as I thought, filled with the most beautiful cigars, long, slim, black Havanas, every one. " Murch-erson's a trump," I said, taking up a handful of the beauties. As I did so my hand struck something hard underneath. Removing the cigars hastily I found that they covered a man's skull, of the mos exquisite shape and polish, being rich and creamy a^
old ivory. I took it out of the box and examined it closely, marveling much at its matchless beauty and symmetry. By and by I put it up on the mantel in front of me, between the clock and a little brass casket, wherein I kept a few little worthless souvenirs. As I resumed my seat it seemed to me that the eye-sockets in the skull had gathered expression, and that its grinning mouth was ready to speak.
I am a plain, practical man, not given to fantasies, but I could not shake off the hideous fascination which the vacant countenance had for me. I opened book after book, only to turn over the leaves unread. The skull kept glaring at me. I lit my cigar and tried to doze, but my eyes refused to close. I got up by and by and turned the skull with its face to the wall, but then it seemed to me that the thing was leering at me over an imaginary shoulder. It was horrible. I turned out the gas and sat in the semi-darkness, the firelight flickering and throwing long shadows across the room.
By and by I heard the clock strike one.
" It is St. Valentine^s Day," I said, throwing some fresh coal into the grate. St. Valentine's Day! What did that mean to me? It had meant a great deal to me once, and man that I was, with grey hairs beginning to show at ray temples, it seemed to me that I looked more and more eagerly for its coming, grew more and more anxious for the word that was to come to me on St. Valentine's Day—the word that was to make me so happy.
I had been but nineteen when I first knew Christine, and she was just budding into the flower of per-
feet womanhood. I knew 1 loved her from the first, and fancied I could not err in believing that she returned my love as frankly as it was given. Years passed—two, three—yet I did not speak ; there seemed no use. It was but natural that we shoukl love, and I had no fear of the future. It was my last year at college, and I wanted to wait and slu)w lier that it was a man's love that I had to give her.
It was during this year, at mid-term, that Maurice Beaumont came. When I think of him it always seems that what foHowed his coming came but naturally. He was one of those reckless, fascinating, brilliant men who know no Uiw but their own will. Personally, he was the most beautiful man I ever beheld. Tall, lithe, graceful, he possessed that sensuous languor of bearing which so often conceals a fiery intensity of temperament. His brow was broad and expansive and smooth as polished marble; his eyes— were they black or blue? I never knew, but I have seen them flash forth irridescent rays of purple that gleamed like fire. His chin was deeply cleft, his lips were full and mobile and smootli as a woman's.
It was I who introduced this man to Christine. It was upon St. Valentine's Day, and I shall never forget the meeting. When she came into us as we sat awaiting her in the firelit room, Maurice arose as I called her name, and, without speaking, he held out his hand to her, looking at her with his eyes half veiled under his long lashes. And she ? I was standing near her and saw her whole slight frame shudder as with a sudden chill, but her cheeks were burning red when she put her hand in his. During
the months that followed I strove to blind myself to what was happening before my very eyes. I had nothing to offer but my love, and when school was over I went to tell her. I am sure she must have known I should tell her, but I shall never forget the look of anguish that came upon her face as I poured out my love to her.
'^ Oh, Henry," she cried, bending toward me and clasping her hands, " do not, I beseech you, do not say any more."
^' But I love you, Christine," I said.
" If you love me, have pity on me and say no more," she answered. " I cannot, I must not love you. Be my friend, Henry, and help me.''
Her manner alarmed me. '' What is it, Christine?" I cried. ^^ You have but to tell me what you wish."
" There is only one way—do not speak—go away. It must be. I may not, I must not listen. I must not love you."
Ere the words had died upon her lips, Maurice Beaumont had come into the room and stood between us, his eyes flashing flre. His voice was more than calm as he spoke.
'^ Who speaks of love to thee, ma belle ? " he said, as he took Christine's hand in his. I could almost have killed him when he stooped and kissed her. Without a word she sank back, flushed but passive. I turned and fled from the house, and I think neither knew that I was gone.
Two years passed before I ever saw either again. I was returning from the dissecting room one night,
wheu I felt an arm slipped into mine and heard a familiar voice greeting me. It was Beaumont. Bitter as I felt toward him, I could not shake off his grasp, could not resist the fascination which he had always exerted over me. He went with me to niy room and ensconsed himself in my best arm-chair. We talked of anything, everything but Christine. I dared not ask him of her, and I knew nothing save that they were not married.
" \yhat day is this?" he asked at last.
'^ Tuesday," I answered.
''And the day after to-morrow is St. Valentine's Day," he said. '' Do you remember St. Valentine^s Dav two years ago, Henry ? "
'Without waiting for me to reply he pulled out his Avatch, exclaiming: " Just two o'clock. Come, hustle into a fresh rig. AVe shall have time to catch the south-bound train, and on Valentine\s Day we shall be with Christine. What do you say? Come."
It was a very strange meeting, that with Christine. I could not help feeling that she was glad of my coming, though she gave me scarce a word more than the greeting. Brilliant as I knew Beaumont to be, I had never seen him as he was that night. He was gay, witty, sparkling ; he was grave, calm, tender, passionate, intense, as the mood suited him, but always fascinating. By and by he sat down to the open piano and let his fingers fly over the keys till they seemed possessed of the very demon of music, weird and fantastic. Suddenly, while still the spell of his playing was on us, he came and stood before us.
^' I am going away/' he .said. " I shall never trouble you again, if you will only wait patiently. I know not where I shall go, nor when I shall return, but it will be on St. Valentine's Day. Wait, and expect me."
Stooping over he pressed his lips to Christine's brow, then, tossing into my lap a long, slender cigar, such as he always smoked, he grasped my hand and ,was gone.
Ten years passed slowly for us, and still there came no word of Beaumont. It had been needless for me to urge Christine to become my wife.
" I am bound to him by a sacred promise, Henry," she said, ^^ and I love you too well to have you suffer. We must await his coming. You do not know his power."
I was thinking of all these things that night while the skull kept leering at me from the mantel. The fire had burned low in the grate as I mused, and it had grown quite dark in the room. Sinking back into the chair, I closed my eyes. Did I sleep ? I know not what time passed, but suddenly I heard the sharp stroke of a match, a faint light gleamed and faded, and opening my eyes I saw that the skull had turned its face to me, and between its grinning rows of teeth was a cigar, a long, black Havana.
^' How are you, Henry, old boy ? " Could I be asleep and dreaming, or was it really Beaumont's voice coming to me from the skull? I was too startled to speak, and the voice went on :
'' I tried to come back sooner, but I was afraid. She would have married me, and it had been better
for her to die than to be tied to such a reprobate as I. Do not reproach me for keeping you waiting so long; I was afraid to come while I was alive. I loved her so; my God, how I loved her I But, adieu forever. Morning will soon be here—the morning of St. Valentine's Day! May it bring joy to you and her? I didn't mean you to keep this weed for me, but I have enjoyed it. Thanks. Good-by."
I shook myself up with a start. Had I been asleep? The room was dark with the blackness that harbingers the coming day. The fire was neai-ly out, my limbs were numb with cold. Hastily lighting the gas, I looked about me. The skull sat upou the mantel, its vacant sockets staring, its mouth grinning. The teeth on one side were slightly discolored as fioni tobacco, and <m the shelf beside lay a little heap of ashes and a cigar stump!
Unlocking the casket with the key, which always hung to my watch chaiu, 1 searched for the cigar which Beaumont had given me the last night 1 had seen him. It w^as gone I
As I closed the casket hastily, my elbow brushed against the skull, knocking it over upon the hearth below. A little bit of paper fell from within it, dislodged by the jar. Picking it U[) eagerly, I read :
'' Dear Doc :—I found this queer skull in a curio shop in Havana. The old fellow who kept the shop was hard up at the time, else he would never have parted with it. He told me it was the skull of a queer (!hap named Beaumont, who used to frequent his shop and smoke his best cigars. Beaumont died a year or
so ago, and left a request that my old curio dealer should preserve his skull, himself giving directions how it should be prepared. It struck me as being somewhat out of the common order, so I send it to you as a Valentine, along with these weeds.
'^ Yours, Tom Murcherson."
I passed my hand before my eyes. I was not dreaming now, at any rate. Between the curtains the faintest streak of gray was showing. The day was breaking—St. Valentine's Day.
«<)
A BKI.ATED SPRINCi TiMH.
^jTT was a bitterly cold morniiijj^, and the blue-coated •>% policeman who had been walking slowly up and ^^ down the block for half an hour without ceasing, beat his hands together and snuggled his bearded face down into his upturned collar. He looked up and down the avenue anxiously now and then, as if hoping to see some one, but at last paused before a little whitewashed cabin. He waited still irresolute, scanning closely the long broad street, but apparently in vain, for in another moment he had stepped up to the cabin door and opened it without knocking.
'' Happy New Year to you, Uncle Isham," he said cheerily, putting his head in, and smiling pleasantly at the old negro who sat before the fire with a big well-filled platter on the table beside him and a tin cup of steaming coffee in his hand.
• " 'Fo' Gawd, Marse Billy, honey, ef you ain't skeered the goose llesh out on me," said the old man, struggling to his feet, and spilling the coffee, which ran in a little trickling stream down his ragged trousers. " Fust time I seed you dis year sar, an' here day too," he went on, laughing at his
own pleasantry. " Bnt come in out'n de col', chile, an' set down 'fo de fire and ^varm youse'f. An' de same to you, sar, alius an' whatsomever."
" Thanky, Uncle Ishani, thanky," and the officer drew a chair up to the glowing fire that crackled and flared on the wide hearth.
" How's the rheumatiz," he asked, stretching his hands out to the warmth, and looking up to the old man over his shoulder.
'^ Poly, Marse Billy," answered the old man, " poly, thank Gawd. How's youse'f, sar.
" First rate, thanks, old man, but it's cold as charity out there.
'' Hello'. What's all this? " said the officer, breaking off and stooping down to examine a pair of turkey wings and a big outspread tail which lay stretched and drying amid the ashes on the hearth.
" Dem dar, sar," asked the old man shyly, " dem dar's turkey fans, Marse Billy."
" Fans, eh ? " said the officer rising to his feet, and facing about sharply, with his back to the fire, "and what's that in that dish over there? T for turkey bones? Why, man, you must have been having a spread. Why didn't you give me an invite for old times' sake? Haven't been getting married now^, have you, old man, without me to give the bride away?"
" Sho now, Marse Billy," said Isham with a burst of laughter, " who you reckon gwin't marry a no count old fellow lack me?"
" Who? Why that's just what I want to know. Aunt Em'lv. on the other side the fence maybe, ain't it?" asked'Billy. 7
^'You go off now, Marse Billy, chile," said the old man, laughing with infinite delight, and shuffling from one foot to the other nervously. " Slie wouldn't have sech as me nohow."
'' Don't know about that so mueh," the officer went on pleasantly, •' l)ut—where did you say you got your turkey ?"
The old man shuffled to the Hre-place in an embarrassed kind of way, and ])ut on a stick of wood. " It was gin to me, sar."
'^ It was eh? Well, tliat's lueky. And who gin it to you?" the officer turned back his coat tails, ran his hands down deep into his pockets, and gi-iinicd facetiously.
" A lady, sar." •
'^ A lady, Uncle Ishaiu ? Why, this grows interesting. Wish I could Hiul a lady kind enough to ' gin ' me a turkey now and then for a change. A lady? Well, what does that mean? Thiidv you could make enough for two of your size, old man ? How's business anyhow ? "
" Purtv fair, sar, }>urty fair. Ain't got no cause to complain."
'' That's good," said Billy, in an absent-minded, temporizing kind of way. "Cold weather brought you plenty of wood-sawing, 1 reckon. By the by, you weren't in day before yesterday ; at work then ? "
"Yessar, I's out to Col. Gilmers, sar, choppin' stove wood," the old man answered.
''On Jordan Street?"
'' Yessar."
" Next door to Sam Wilson's? "
"Yessar, Marse Billy," said the old man, hanging his head a little shamefacedly, it seemed; ^^ how come you ax me dat, sar?"
The officer's eyes dropped too as the old man spoke. He opened his watch, and shut it again with a sharp snap. He buttoned up his long coat, and pulled on his wool gloves with a brisk, business-like air. '^ Well, you'll have to come along with me, I reckon, old man," he said at last, looking fiercely down at his boots and shutting his lips firmly.
"What you say, Marse Billy?" the old man asked.
" I reck(>n you'll have to come along with me— to court, you know," the officer answered slowly, looking pitifully at the old man, and rubbing his gloved hands nervously together.
" You see how it is, old man," he said; " Sam Wilson had a turkey taken from his coop night before last, a big, fine gobbler, with bronze markings—" he stoo])ed down and picked up one of the wings from the hearth, examining it critically—'' and—I think we had better go now, old man, it is nearlv nine o'clock."
The old man sank down into his chair covering his face with his hands. He uttered no word, but gave a low sob, like a helpless child.
The young man looked down at him sadly. He was not much to look at to be sure, this poor, broken old man, with whom the passing years had not dealt gently. There was only a fringe of wool now encircling his head like a disjointed nimbus, in the midst of which his bald pate shone like burnished bronze.
Age and rheumatism, and bending over the saw-buck, perhaps, had crooked forever the bowed back, and stiffened t}ie trembling limbs, and the poor old eyes from which the tears trickled slowly now, beneath the knotted fingers, were always red and w^atery from many years of whitewashing.
Sure he was not mu(;h to look upon even at his best, but the young man who stood beside him gazed down at him fondly, ])assing his palm hurriedly before his eyes now and then. He could not remember when Isham had not been to him a dear, loved, familiar sight, this poor old wood-cutter, whom all Shreve-port knew and loved. He remembered with a vividness that smote him in the face, blinding him almost to his duty, more than one dreary night, when he, a ragged barefoot lad, hungry and cold, and worse than homeless, had found shelter and warmth in the old man's cabin, and food at his humble board. Was it so very long since he had sat in that very chimney corner listening to the marvelous adventures of ^^Brer Rabbit'' and the old man's far distant youth ?
Oh, Lord, this wouldn't do ! He fancied he heard the clock on the stroke while he lingered with his duty clear before him. He choked back the tears that filled his big-bearded throat, and stooping over, rested his hand on the old man's head.
'' Maybe it'll all come right. Uncle Isham," he said gently, '' but I think I shall have to go now."
The old man stood u}) dazed and helpless. The officer put his stick in his trembling hand, and reached his ragged old hat from its peg above the fire-place.
He banked the ashes over the glowing coals, and led the old man out, locking the door behind him.
'• You just come on behind me, Uncle Isham," he said with kindly delicacy, and with bowed head he walked down the street slowly, in spite of his haste, that the poor shuffling old feet following him might not suffer.
The little court-room over the market-house was crowded with culprits, poor pleasure-loving creatures who had come to reap the harvest of their holiday wild oats.
The docket was almost completed when they got there, and Billy gave the old man a seat in the corner by the stove. He sat with bowed head, silent and listless, even when his own name was called.
"¦ Stand up, Uncle Isham/^ said Billy, touching him on the shoulder.
'^ Why, is it you, old man ?" asked the mayor, looking kindly over his glasses.
The abject head only bowed lower, but the old man did not speak. He stood leaning on his stick, nervous and pitiful.
The mayor asked the old man no questions. Instead he and Billy held a long consultation together, speaking in husky whispers which the old man seemed not to hear. At the end of it Billy ran his hand down into his pocket, and began to unstrap a thin leather wallet which he pulled out.
But the mayor was clinking together a couple of coins which he held in his hand, and he leaned over his desk to the old man and said, '' I reckon two dollars will compensate Mr. Wilson for the loss of his
gobbler, and another two to the city will make it even, if Billy will let me go halves with him for that amount and—and—I think you may go now, old man, for I am sure I will never see you here again."
The old man lifted his head as if to speak, but his trembling lips were silent, and he did not move.
*' Come, Uncle Isham," said Billy, taking him by the arm.
'^ Beg pardon, your honor/' said a thin-faced, one-eyed constable, rising from his seat by the door, and taking a paper from his inner pocket, " I've a warrant sworn out before Justice Hanks for the arrest of this old negro on the charge of larceny ; 1 shall have to relieve von of him, friend Billy."
'^ Confound that fellow WHson," said Billy between his teeth, when he and the mayor w^ere left alone. ''Why couldn't he be satisfied with the worth of his turkey. If I had known all this I shouldn't have—"
^* Wilson is a new man to the town, Billy, and you must remember, he doesn't know old Isham as w^e do," interru])ted the mayor.
'^ Have you anything to offer in defense," asked young Hanks quite kindly when the old man's case \vas presented. The old iellow shook his head.
^' Shall I appoint counsel?"
'* 'Tain't wuth while, sar," the old man answered. *' Jess lemme know what you want when the gent'man gits thew."
Mr. Wilson was on hand in person to offer testimony, which he did very clearly. The evidence was dead against the old man. On the last day of the old year he liad been engaged in chopping wood for CoL
Gilmer, Mr. Wilson's next-door neighbor. More than once dnring the day he had been seen in Mr. Wilson\s own back yard, talking with his cook.
" HoAV about your cook, Mr. Wilson," said Hanks interrupting him, " do you knoAV her?''
^^ O, yes, she's been with me all the year. She's straight. Old Emily, you know."
" O, Aunt Em'ly,'' said Hanks, reassured.
The old man moved a step nearer the young judge, lifting for a moment his downcast eyes. His hat fell from his trembling lingers, he stooped to pick it up, and the evidence proceeded.
From time to time during the year the old man had been a visitor to Mr. Wilson's kitchen, and also from time to time small quantities of wood had been missing from the wood-pile. However, this was merely in passing: no charge was to be preferred for the wood-stealing. That w^as only a suspicion. But upon New Year's day, having rather more serious doubts concerning the turkey, Mr. Wilson had stopped at the old man's cabin on his way down town, ostensibly to make arrangements for a job of whitewashing, and had then seen drying on the hearth the wings and tail of what had once been his own bronze gobbler.
'^I am sorry, old man," said Hanks when the case was dismissed, ^' but three months w^as as little as I ccJuld give you."
They led him away after a while to the jail behind the court-house, and the old man sat down desolately on a bench against the wall, in the common cell with his fellow-prisoners.
They were a kindly crew enough, these jolly jailbirds whom he found himself among when at last the door was closed upon them, and they soon came to let him alone as he wished them to do. All day long he would sit in his corner unheeding them, and at night when they were asleep he would lie awake, thinking, thinking.
Sometimes Billy came to see him, bringing a plug of tobacco to keep him company, or a little fine-cut for the old man's pipe. But these little kindnesses seemed to make little impression upon him; he only sat just the same when Billy was gone, thinking, thinking.
There was a long stretch of years back of this, the old man's evil hour, which might have unburdened themselves for him, but somehow, now he thought but dimly of them, even the days of his far distant youth, whose tender memories rise to the top like rich cream when the milk of life has soured. He had loved to linger upon them, those far away days when life was young, but now the old man's retrospect extended no further back than the throbbing time of last year's spring.
Yes, it must have begun in the spring-time, that belated budding of love's hope in the old man's bosom, which had commenced in his delight and ended in his undoing—the early spring-time, when the peach blossoms were gay against the wall of Mrs. Citron's shop, and even poor dirty Mugginsville was beautiful with the glory of returning life. Yes, it began in the spring, and the old man remembered that the May-pop vine which grew and sprawled
against the dividing fence 'twixt his own small yard and Em'ly's was then only a young thing whose delicate tendrils he had to lift out of the way of his whitewash brush. That May-pop vine was like himself, the old man had told EmMy once, with its roots on his side the fence, and its ^' hankerings" on hers. And these same '^ hankerings " of his, alns^ what had they cost him, poor old man !
He had felt their first thrill, perhaps, when he sat on his little front gallery that early spring morning and watched Em'ly moving into the cabin so close to his own that they seemed a tiny pair of twins, set down to play in the midst of the dust and dirt of the straggling street. Somehow it had touched a tender chord in the old man's heart to see a comely woman briskening about with a broom in that comfortable, definite way which only women know. It reminded him of what he had once hoped for of the wife of his dead and gone youth. But she had been long ago dead and gone then, too, the wife of his youth, and when death came to claim her for his own, all that he found was a scant shroud-ful of skin and bones. Em'ly now as he had gazed upon her, proved a fine, fat, comely woman whose voluminous turbaned head crowned a fiice ample as a harvest moon's, with her overflowing sides running quite over the belt line and resting upon the spreading hips below, with that generous prodigality which a bounteous nature likes sometimes to show.
As the old man looked back upon it now his chance of ever convincing Em'ly that one little cabin would be big enough for the two of them, must have
beeu a hopeless one from the start, handicapped as he was by age and infirmity, and yet, how tenaciously had he clung to it! And was this to be the end ?
Often and often thro' the long night watches he fancied he heard the turn of Emily's key in the door and her step on the unsteady cabin floor as he had heard them many a time during his year's worship of her. Sometimes too he heard tlie dreary dribble of water, and remembered the two leaking faucets in the rickety tub cistern which split in twain the dividing fence, and stretched a wooden gutter, like a thin brown shaky arm to each of the two conjoined cabins. How tenderly his thoughts had dwelt once upon this existent bond of union between his own home and Em'ly's, but what did it profit him now that when the long hot summer days piled the dust high on the housetops, and no rain fell in all the dirty little city^ what did it profit liim that he had gone thirsty so that the faucet on the other side of the fence might not be empty? And then those long first fall days when the early nipping cold had kindled into brighter flame the smouldering fire on his wide heartli and sent a thin wisp of smoke curling from Em'ly^s round-mouthed chimney—he remembered these too. He remembered something else too that smote him thro' the long days and nights of thinking ; for in all Em'ly's little grass-grown yard never a stick of wood was to be seen, tho' the smoke from her chimney waned not, and her commodious basket which went with her empty in the mornings returned always laden at even-tide after her day's cooking. Poor old man, poor old man !
Was he dreaming, or did he hear Em'ly calling to
liim as she had called to him that New Year's eve? ^^ Isham, Ishain ! " He turned his head over on his cot to shut out the ghost of a sound which haunted him. He had been glad enough to hear it once, however, and to see lier too, that night, standing by the little fence with the street liglit shining on her face and a big brown bundle in her arms.
" Want to ax you to do me a favor," she had said, and by and by she had handed up to him not a parcel, but a big, fat, fluttering turkey.
^* Miss Lou gin it to me," she had said, ^^ Miss Lou Wilson, whar I cook at, an' bein' I's gwine to have comp'ny tomorrer I lowed I'd ax you to kill him and clen liim fur me, an' arter he's cooked an' served I'll pass you over de bones an' j'ints fur to 'commodate youse'f wid."
He kept hearing her voice saying the words over and over again. Surely none heard but himself, as he lay there alone in the dark? Over and over again, over and over again; but dusky wings fanned the old man's cheeks, and by and by he slept.
" Isham, old man ! " He was not dreaming this time to be sure, and he opened his eyes to see the pale daylight creeping thro' the little grated window, and Billy, big and kindly, leaning over him.
'^ It's all right now, old man," he said. '' Your time is up, and I have come to ask your forgiveness for my part in that performance three months ago. I ought to have known better then, but she—I understand now."
The old man scarcely heard, but the sheriff's key grated in the lock once more—and this was freedom!
The strong light in the corridor blinded him, but he thought some one was coming toward him. The old man stood aside to let her pass, but she came quite up to him, took his hand in hers, and called him by name. It was Em'ly.
" I done come fur you, Isham, honey," she said.
The three months of repentance had softened her voice, and her woman's heart too, let us suppose, for there was a wedding in the neat little cabin on her side of the fence that night. Justice Hanks performed the ceremony, and Billy gave the bride away, and carved the big turkey which he had himself provided for the bountiful board.
"¦ You must take better care of the old man, now that you have got him on your side of the fence, Aunt Em'ly," said young Hanks, when he told her good-night.
She looked reproachfully at him as she took the old man's crooked bony hand in her round plump one. '' Don't you, honey, don't you," she said with tears in her eyes, "don't you pesticate de oP man now—my ol' man whose shoe-latches you an' me is not wuthy to on loose."
" Amen," said Billy from the doorway, and the two were left alone in the dawning of another spring.
t)9
At The Station.
fHE lowering clouds had begun to empty themselves with a dreary drizzle by the time the little dirty train reached Temple, and when Anna got out she was almost glad of the dampness in her face. Both the conductor and the porter were busy with the numerous parcels of a party of young girls whose gay chatter had made them quite conspicuous during tire journey, so Anna had to make two trips to the waiting-room before she got her own baggage off. She put her telescope down in a vacant seat in the corner by a window, while she went back for her bag and lunch-box. She ran a little nervously across the platform, dragging her umbrella under her arm, and having a vague dread that she would not find her telescope when she returned. It had not been moved, however, and she put it down on the floor and sank down into the vacant seat dejectedly. The journey had not been a pleasant one. It had seemed to Anna that the dead level of the Texas plains depressed her. The sky touched the earth at too close an horizon to-day, the dull grey above melting into the dull grey below, leaving no vistas.
The clumps of mesquite and scriih oak lost their green in the general clullness; the sheep in the pastures huddled together, cold and shivering. The whole aspect was gloomy. Tlic cliill of tlie east wind crept into the badly-warmed and illy-ventilated coacli, and it had been in vain for Anna to l)utton her well-worn cloak uj) close about her throat : her feet and limbs were cold, though her face was feverishly hot.
The whole thing had set her head Xn aching, and she j)ressed it against the soiU'd pane now, looking out across the wet plains liopelessly. Now and tlien the door of the waiting room opened as a newcomer entered, and the sliarp gusts of wind that came in from the drear ()utside made her shiver. Within, in one corner of the spacious room, two boys were dealing out plug tobacco, ham sandwiches and coffee at an oil-cloth-covered lunch-counter. Poor, ill-fed women with dirty children and crying l)abies huddled about the stove, making frequent trips to the leaky water-tank with its rusty tin cup. Cow-boys with high-heeled boots and clinking spurs, walked restlessly about the room or stood and steamed their damp clothes before the lire. A Mexican UiiiKf/c vender who occupied the seat next Anna's, sat dozing with his arms folded over his smoking basket. The commingled odor of the damp shucks, greasy meat and steamed meal was sickening, but the girl felt almost too tired to move, and there seemed small chance of her getting another seat. A thin-chested, \vatery-eyed youth, with a soiled bandage covering half of his cankered mouth, was cracking pecans between his knuckles and flipping the hulls into the
saw-dust-box cuspidor across the aisle. Anua felt a twinge of pain every time a nut cracked, and now and then unconsciously pressed her fingers nervously against her throbbing temples. Outside the cars were switching back and forth, clanking and whistling, and the porters were tossing and tumbling trunks noisily on the soggy platform.
Life seemed to Anna utterly and altogether desolate, and she closed her eyes by and by to shut out the hideous, sordid details of it just around her. There are moments rare enough to most of us, thank God, when we seem to lose the connecting link which binds us in the chain of pulsing, breathing humanity, and leave us stranded upon an island Avhence we may see only the intricate mechanism of life^s hideous reality. Such a moment had come to Anna Kinloch, and when her closed lids turned her gaze inward, the tears trickled beneath her thin lids helplessly. It seemed to her tliat though her life had been one succession of battles, she had never known many victories, and all of them had left her some dead to bury; but it did not make her defeat any easier now to reflect that it was far from being the only one she had ever experienced. It did not help her to know that there had been extenuating circumstances in her favor. She had only taken the school on a venture, and the odds had been against her from the start. She had been too quiet, too reserved, too cultured, in fact, for the poor hard-featured narrow-minded settlers whose children she had tried to teach in the little bare Texas town that made scarce a blot on the spreading prairie. The children who had been brave enough to come to
school to her, sat and stared at her over their desks, their eyes big with fear and wonder: the women, poor, hard-worked, weary things, came to their doors to look after her as she passed, and the men stopped their teams and forgot to lift their hats when they saw her wandering alone about the prairies with her flower-press or her stone hammer in her hand. It only made the memory of all this harder now to reflect that she might have met the children's awestruck, lielpless gaze half-way and satisfied it: that she could have gone to the little bare houses sometimes and sat with the tired women and held their babies maybe, and talked with them about their work, which was all they knew% poor things: that she might have spoken a word or two now and then to the men, to show them she was neither dazed nor daft. These were the things she might have done and had not. Instead, she found herself driven more and more upon herself, and when mid-term came, the burden had grown too great, and she had shifted it. She had told the few children who were left staring at her, that they might pack up their books and go home, and the poor things had been too scared to ask why. There was nothing else to do but to lock up the school house and give the key to the old blacksmith next door, fiom whom she had obtained it in September.
" This here place ain't fittin' fur you, Miss," he had said to her that first day, and he only repeated it with a little look of pity, when she told him good-by. He was the nearest approach to a friend she had made during her stay.
Old Mrs. Gaddy, with whom she boarded, had shut her lips close when Anna told her she was going away. The five dollars which the girl paid her weekly was almost all that lay between the old woman and starvation, but deep down in her heart the poor thing felt a sense of relief.
'' Miss Kinloch's ways ain^t our ways/' she had told her neighbors when they came first to gossip with her at the back door about her boarder, and that was as much as she had ever learned of the quiet woman who occupied her best room and whom she seldom saw except at meals.
Anna thought of all this now, and though her defeat had not been very much of one, it pained her nevertheless. At thirty women begin to feel a little loosening of the tension, sometimes to lose faith in themselves, and Anna wondered if there were not as many mistakes behind her as there seemed to be dangers ahead. She looked back upon her years of struggle and called them wasted. She had striven to force her little stream of life into broader currents than it was made for, only to see its waters trickle and fall were the rocks were rough or the banks were steep. It was that comprehension of her impotence before that had sickened her and driven her to Texas for a brace up. But the current was too feeble to run over so broad a bed, and she had made no effort. Perhaps it did not matter, after all; she was alone in the world, and one failure could not count for much in the whole universe, she thought.
The tears still trickled down her cheeks, but she had ceased to start when the boy cracked his pecans 8
or when the door opened. The man with tamales got up and went out: a train had come in, and passengers were crowding off and on. The stools around the lunch-counter were filled with people, and the boys were busy filling plates and rattling cups. Anna opened her lunch-box listlessly, and was not surprised to find that Mrs. Gaddy had put up only enough for one meal.
"She owed me so much and no more," said the girl to herself, with a little hard smile.
She set the box down on top of her telescope and went over to the counter for a cup of coffee. When she held out her hand to receive it, a man on the stool just beside her gave an order. Anna turned sharply, facing him and letting the cup fall heavily upon the counter, whence it rolled noisily to the floor.