V.
Marcella was spinning on the porch, when Teck Jepson and her father came through the cornfield toward the cabin,—spinning at the little flax-wheel, as she sat in a low chair, her foot on the treadle. The jack-bean vines that hung above her head blossomed lilac and white; the amethystine mountain looming behind the gray roof was gradually turning a darksome purple; the blue and curling smoke that issued from the stick-and-clay chimney made spiral progress up and up the slope. The zenith was a lustreless golden hue, and the west was crimson and burned with a passion of color, and the evening star was kindling. The daylight lingered, nevertheless, and as the girl drew out the long fine fibre of the flax, it glistened yellow, while the wheel whirled, and she seemed to be spinning sunbeams. Her face was serene, though unsmiling, and she sat silent, while the swift wheel whirred and whirred, and a katydid clamored in the gourd-vines hard by. Amidst their luxuriant tangles a firefly sent forth a fluctuating gleam.
It was some moments before Jepson noted Andy Longwood, the “frequent visitor,” sitting on the steps of the porch, or heeded the high, chirping voice of the callow Isabel, who evidently carried on most of the conversation. The young fellow’s fair hair floated down upon his shoulders in loose ringlets, as he leaned back among the gourd-vines. He had a pensive brow, a long, curling dark lash, a large and tranquil eye.
“Dad-burned purty little Woolly, I’ll swear,” Teck Jepson commented to himself, while courteously saluting Eli Strobe’s mother, who had instantly come to the door to receive him, and had sat down in a chair in the porch, folding her knotted hands peacefully in her lap. She was a thin, active, wizened little woman, considerably below the average height, and there were some sharp suggestions of mental agility, as well as physical, in her quick dark eyes. Her feet did not quite touch the floor, and as she stayed them on a rung of the chair she seemed rather perched than seated, and the instability of her position accented her tiny proportions. Her tall, burly, and deliberate son bore no trace of likeness to her, and she often observed, with the manner of discarding all responsibility for him, that he was “his dad over agin.” This “dad” of his had evidently not been an ornament to his sphere, and if he had met joy in his final estate it was well, since he had left peace behind him. For thirty years his relict had worn that peculiar freshened, released aspect common to many widows, and it was in Eli’s most stubborn moods that she usually felt called upon to mention the filial resemblance.
Teck Jepson strode up the steps, including the two girls in the cursory glance which he bestowed upon the rest of the party, and a succinct “Howdy.” There was something always impressive in his height, his gait, and his imperious face, and Marcella was vaguely awed. Her hand trembled upon the thread she was spinning, and it broke beneath her touch. She did not have the voice, somehow, to join in the soberly piped “Howdy” with which Isabel returned the salutation. Jepson gave the “frequent visitor” no further notice, and he held himself sedulously aloof from the younger people, accepting a chair on the porch which Eli Strobe tendered him, and looking over their heads at the waning sunset-tide.
“Waal, Teck,” Mrs. Strobe observed, after the greetings, “how d’ye like livin’ up on the high mounting?”
She turned upon him her bright eyes, set very close together, like the small Isabel’s, and her dry lips distended in a faint smile, and then became speciously grave, as if they meant to keep all the fun to themselves.
“It don’t make no differ to me, Mis’ Strobe,” he answered,—his rich, melancholy voice seemed to constrain the air to silence, and caused a remark of the “frequent visitor” to halt upon his lips, as he looked up with mute, respectful curiosity at the new-comer. “Whar the sperit leads me I will foller.”
Mrs. Strobe tossed her head aggressively; she had scant faith in any holiness save her own, and less patience with its assertion. And thus it was that she herself spoke now as one of the uncovenanted:—
“Ef I war you-uns, I’d wisht the sperit hed better taste ’n ter lead me whar M’ria Bowles hed set up her staff. Ef the sperit could do no better leadin’ ’n that fur me, I’d jes’ turn in an’ blaze out my own road. Yes, sir.”
She turned her head suddenly, and looked at him with incongruous daring, like a reckless wren.
“Needn’t tell me nuthin’ ’bout M’ria Bowles,” she continued, taking her knitting out of her pocket,—“she war always a hard, tantrum-y gal, with the kind o’ good looks ez I hed ruther be ugly than hev hed.”
She twisted the yarn around her little finger to restrain its presumable impetuosity, and the needles began to twinkle as they moved. Then she proceeded, with triumphant disregard of logic:—
“I tried an’ tried ter git Eli ter tell suthin’ ’bout’n her, arter he went a-visitin’ up in the mounting at Ben Bowles’s house. But ‘Yes’m’ an’ ‘Naw’m’ air all ez he hev got fur his mother nowadays, bein’ ez I can’t vote fur him. Eli air so ’feared he’ll git somebody set agin him ’fore the ’lection, by tellin’ suthin’ he said or didn’t say, he air mighty nigh mum! His tongue’ll limber out arter awhile, though, ye mark my words. Time the polls air closed he’ll know whether his soul’s his own or no.”
Eli Strobe sat under this criticism with an impassiveness that could have been attained only by long practice. He gazed with somnolent, meditative eyes at the landscape, his broad-brimmed hat pulled over his brow, his elbow upon his knee, his chin in his hand.
Marcella had flushed deeply. The spinning-wheel had ceased to whir. She looked up, her brown eyes alight, the broken thread in her hand.
“Ye mus’ hev furgot, granny,” she said, her voice trembling with the effort at self-repression into due respect; “dad tole ye a heap ’bout the folks on the mounting.”
“Till we war both tired out’n with the name o’ Bowles,” put in the uncompromising Isabel.
“He tole ye Mis’ Bowles war good-lookin’ ez ever, an’ her husband ’peared well-ter-do an’ mightily tuk up with her,” itemized Marcella; “an’ he reckoned she treated her step-chill’n well,—leastwise they war fat enough; an’ she seemed—so ter say—ez happy ez she ever war,—some lonesome, mebbe, bein’ on the mounting. He tole ye, an’ he tole ye!”
“Yes, he tole ye!” said Isabel, with an unfilial flirt of her tousled hair.
“An’ dad ain’t holdin’ his jaw fur fear o’ settin’ the voters catawampus.” There were tears in the deep brightness of Marcella’s eyes. “He ain’t afeard o’ not gittin’ ’lected. He kin bide by the vote ez onconsarned ez ever. It’s jes’ me an’ Is’bel ez hev sot our hearts on his bein’ lifted high, above all the people. Dad ain’t ’feard.”
“Naw, dad ain’t ’feard o’ nuthin’,” declared Isabel, tossing her head, in the pride of “dad’s” courage.
The little old woman glared down upon the youthful partisans of “dad” with an elaborate show of displeasure.
“Air Eli Strobe yer chile or mine?” she sourly demanded of the damsels.
This potent logic bereft them of all rejoinder.
“I hev ’lowed fur forty year an’ better ez he war my chile,” Mrs. Strobe continued, sarcastically. “Mebbe though I hev been mistaken.”
But while she folded her arms in a pose of important dudgeon, letting her knitting rest idly on her lap, she glanced at Teck Jepson with a sort of internal chuckle, as if to call his attention to the crushed champions.
“Mos’ folks would ’low ez I hed tuk toler’ble good keer o’ him without enny help from you-uns, an’, bein’ ez he hev throve toler’ble, it mought ’pear like I warn’t likely ter do nuthin’ ez would hurt him sure enough, or make him seem small ennywise. Eli Strobe hev made out ter git along fur a good many year ’thout you-uns ter take keer o’ him,—’fore Marcelly an’ Is’bel war ever hearn tell on.”
For the first time the bone of contention lifted his voice. Eli Strobe wished to prevent further retort on the part of his defenders.
“Shet up, chil’n,” he observed, in his calm, heavy tones. “Shet up. Ye talk like ye ain’t got no sense.”
“Sense!” cried the sharp little dame. “Sense don’t run in the fambly, ez fur ez I know it.”
She did not include herself among those thus deprived. She chose to consider her departed lord the head of the family, and herself as only an interloper.
“Naw, sir,” she observed, after a pause, “Eli brung no news home. I never knowed a man ez would. They gredge news to wimmin folks. But law,”—she was knitting again with an appearance of great inattention to the industry, looking about over the whisking needles,—“the gals air nigh ez bad ’bout bringin’ news home, ef not wuss. Ye see, Teck, I can’t go ’bout much, bein’ rheumatic. Ye mought ’low thar warn’t enough o’ me ter ’commodate much rheumatism, but I got more’n I need. So only the gals went ter the baptizin’. Sir, they hearn nare word o’ the preachin’, nare whisper o’ the singin’, salvation seemed afar off, an’ the gran’jer o’ this worl’ war more ter them ’n the waters o’ Jordan. Yes, sir! Answer me no questions could they,—no text, no psalm, couldn’t even tell what saints war ’tendin’ on the baptizin’, nor who war saved nor who war shoutin’. Fur they war all set ter wonder over a strange man they met a-kemin’ home; special good-lookin’, accordin’ ter Marcelly.”
“Granny!” cried the girl, starting up from her chair, overturning the spinning-wheel upon the surprised “Woolly.”
“Hold yer jaw whilst yer elders speak!” exclaimed the imperative old woman. “Good-lookin’, it seemed, till Marcelly couldn’t rest, but hard-hearted an’ cruel-eyed, fur all he hed eyes blue an’ deep ez a well, accordin’ ter Marcelly; an’ she b’lieved he hed no religion, though pious words war on his tongue! An’ I hed that man fur breakfus’, an’ dinner, an’ supper; an’ when Marcelly war plumb beat out talkin’ ’bout him, Is’bel tuk her turn.”
“Granny!” faintly reiterated Marcella, crimson and faltering, and hardly heeding Andy Longwood at her feet, as he sought to lift the wheel to its place before her, and to disengage his elbow from the “spun-truck.”
Isabel looked aghast from one to the other.
“Granny, it’s that same man!” she cried, with a facial contortion of great significance, but which her aged relative failed to interpret. Eli Strobe looked heavily on, a little doubtful, but unable to understand the commotion.
“I know it’s that same man I’m a-talkin’ ’bout,” Mrs. Strobe observed with dignity. “Ye didn’t know his name, nare one o’ ye; his looks war enough fur ye an’ Marcelly, special Marcelly. An’ ez ter his hard heart; an’ his cruel eyes, an’ his bein’ a hypocrite, it’s him ez hev got ter burn in Torment fur that, not Marcelly; so she rej’iced an’ rej’iced in the handsome sinner, a-purtendin’ ter despise him so!”
Isabel, less daunted by the situation than her sister, found strength to rise from the step where she had sat near the “frequent visitor,” and faced round upon her unconscious grandmother. She relied now upon nothing less pointed than her index-finger, and as she leveled it at Jepson she declared,—
“It’s him, granny,—him ez be a-settin’ thar in the cheer!”
Mrs. Strobe’s jaw dropped, as the realization of the social enormity of which she had been guilty was borne in upon her. She turned her faltering eyes upon Jepson, who sat beside her motionless. He was outwardly calm. His brow bore only a slight corrugation that could hardly be called a frown. His face was impassive; perhaps its imperious and lofty suggestions were accented by a touch of disdain, but in his eyes his anger burned undisguised. Mrs. Strobe appreciated now how deep they were, how blue, how full of fire, how alive with a tempestuous spirit. His long legs were stretched out before him; his hat was pushed far back from his brow, and he looked forth with a sedulous appearance of unconcern at the mustering shadows. She remembered in dismay the opprobrious epithets,—cruel-eyed, hard-hearted, no religion, and Marcella, the candidate’s daughter, despised him.
Now, for all that this old woman was so sharp of tongue, the good of her household lay very near to her heart, and her deeds were widely at variance with her words. Moreover, her pride in her son was very great, and Eli himself was not a more watchful and cautious politician than she, when need arose. A breach of hospitality was not less abhorrent to her than an infringement of the ten commandments; but hard upon the sense of her discourtesy came a poignant and politic monition for the interests of the impending election.
“Teck! Teck!” she cried, quaveringly, “’twarn’t ye ez them two sillies met an’ ’lowed war a strange man?”
“I tole ye, granny,” declared the self-sufficient Isabel, buffeted by the storm of emotions the crisis had roused, but gallantly weathering it,—“I tole ye he ’lowed ez he didn’t know me an’ Marcelly, but he knowed dad, an’ he war kin ter Ben Bowles. Kin ter Bowles,—I said it, an’ I said it.”
“Shet up! Who knows ye an’ Marcelly, ennyhows? Marcelly hev shot up hyar like Jonah’s gourd in a single night,—tall ez a bean-pole an’ seventeen year old. I’ll be bound ennybody ez hed nuthin’ ter do but ter medjure Marcelly would find an inch lengthwise onter her fur every day she lives. Who knows ye an’ Marcelly, ennyhows? Powerful fine folks ter know, I’ll be bound! Teck,”—she turned suavely to the visitor,—“ye ain’t tellin’ me ’twar you-uns sure enough, what I hev knowed sence ye war a-toddlin’ roun’ yer mam’s knee—a mighty good ’oman she war, an’ the end she made war a sampler to the saints, fur I war thar an’ see her takin’ off—bless the Lord fur the saints!—’twarn’t ye, Teck, ez them gals war a-makin’ sech a miration over, ez ef they hed fund a mare’s nest?”
“Yes’m,” he assented quietly, “’twar me.”
She noted the heavy frown gathering in the shadow of Eli Strobe’s big hat, drawn far over his brow. He cast a slow glance toward the group; then maintaining his mute, surly dignity, he gazed steadfastly forward at the glooming mountains.
Marcella, still grave and silent, had risen from her chair, more circumspectly this time, and the spinning-wheel was not overturned, although the “frequent visitor” put up his arm to guard against it. He had been greatly edified by the disastrous commotion in the conversation, and had briskly turned his placid face, lighted with an animation that might have hitherto seemed impossible, from one speaker to the other. A shade of regret crossed it as he noted Marcella’s movement, but it was in a jocose undertone that he demanded, “Whar be ye a-travelin’ ter, Marcelly?”
“I be a-goin’ ter dish up supper,” she answered stiffly, and with her voice at its usual pitch. She held herself a trifle more erect than usual; some sudden defiant intimations of pride were perceptible in her manner, as she threaded her way through the group, but in passing Jepson her long lashes swept her red cheek, for she could not encounter his gaze.
“I’ll be bound everything air burnt ter a crisp,” said the officious Isabel, but looking hopefully over her shoulder into the dusky brown interior. It was lighted only by the smouldering fire, that cast a gigantic shadow of the slight Marcella upon ceiling and walls, and a grotesquely magnified and frightful image of the old hound. For the dog of the “frequent visitor” was singularly accomplished in accurately understanding the English language, and had sprung up with much youthful alacrity upon the mere mention of supper.
He had followed the girl into the room, and sat beside the hearth, watching with anticipative delight each dish as it was borne to the table, licking his chaps with a zestful expression; now rising up suddenly, and then composing himself to sit down again, while his shadow on the wall made queer genuflections and obeisances to the table, with all the ardent spirit of a gourmand.
Without, the old woman seized the opportunity. She sat for a moment demurely silent; then, shaking with her internal chuckle, she said in a low tone to Teck,—
“Marcelly’s plumb outdone, I know, ’kase ye hev fund out ez she war streck with yer good looks, Teck, an’ called ye han’some. Laws-a-massy, gals air mighty purblind an’ foolish critters; they think the men air gin over ter studyin’ ’bout’n ’em, an’ tryin’ ter sense what they mean, when the fellers, mos’ likely, air jes’ standin’ with thar arms akimbo, a-lookin’ at the weather-signs, an’ a-wonderin’ what the chances air fur huntin’ ter-morrer.”
She glanced toward Jepson with a laugh, expectant of ready acquiescence. But there was upon his face, distinct enough even in the closing shadows, an expression so haughty, so aloof and unresponsive, that the little dame was at first perturbed and troubled, but presently grew angered in turn.
“A spiteful sinner!” she exclaimed to herself; “mad now, jes’ ’kase Marcelly ’lowed he hed no religion,—an’ he ain’t got none.”
All her facile cleverness was roused, however, and she was mindful, too, of the interests of the approaching election. Thus, although she struck, it was with a cautious hand and a crafty insight.
“But I reckon mos’ly,” she said, lowering her voice cautiously, “ez Marcelly war tormented, bein’ feared ez Clem Sanders mought hear somehows ez she hed been streck with yer good looks. I’ll be bound that skeered her.”
She forbore for a moment to mark how her shaft had sped. She sat motionless, her feet perched on the rung of the chair, and she looked very small and unintentional, and reflective, as she placidly contemplated the night scene. The fireflies fluctuated in the dank shadows, that gloomed duskily about the porch; now close at hand, now a momentary gleam far away in a bosky tangle, still multiplying, till they seemed some elusively glittering network spread as a snare for the darkness. The mountains had become invisible in the blackness, save for their rigid summit-lines against the sky. The frogs chanted by the water-side, and katydids were monotonously shrilling in the orchard. The grating of Teck Jepson’s chair on the floor, as he abruptly shifted his position, was the only sound that broke upon the quiet with the jarring effect of interruption, and as Mrs. Strobe turned she saw his face thrown into strong relief by the rays of a tallow dip within, which Marcella had just kindled. The white light streamed forth as far as the great gourd-leaves behind his head, eliciting their faint green color with the interstices of olive-hued shadows. His face had relaxed; it was haughty no longer. There was an alert anxiety in the blue eyes which the mountain girl fancied so deep. He had taken off his hat, and pushed back his dark hair from his forehead. He was frowning a little, and yet he hardly noticed the sudden flare of light upon his face; his compressed lips had softened, had parted. He said nothing. Another voice came out of the darkness:—
“I dunno what Clem Sanders mought ondertake ter set hisse’f up ter git mad fur, ’kase Marcelly ’lows ez this one or that one air good-lookin’,” “Woolly” spoke up, with an acrimony and a decision which showed that his discourse was not exclusively confined to the placid “baa.” “Clem Sanders hain’t got no right ter say nuthin’ ’bout good-lookin’ folks, the Lord above knows, all marked up with cinders an’ soot ez he be. I’ll be bound Marcelly ain’t a-goin’ ter interrupt herse’f studyin’ ’bout what Clem Sanders thinks ’bout good looks.”
“What ye talkin’ ’bout? Hev yer senses deserted ye?” the grandmother remarked to the “frequent visitor,” with a tart familiarity induced, perhaps, by the frequency of his visits. “Ye can’t expect a blacksmith ter be nuthin’ but cindery an’ sooty,—like folks ez plow gits miry. None ter choose ’twixt ’em, I’m a-thinkin’.”
“I know that.” Andy Longwood made a feint of acquiescence; then continued droningly, as one who has a grievance, “But Marcelly ain’t mindin’ Clem Sanders,—else she ain’t the gal I take her fur. Looks so grizzly an’ sooty, I ain’t s’prised none ef the Satan ez Pa’son Donnard seen settin’ on the anvil in the forge warn’t nuthin’ but Clem hisself.”
“Shucks!” said the uncompromising Isabel. “He hed wings an’ hawns, ’cordin’ ter pa’son, an’ Clem hain’t nare one.”
“Waal, I don’t keer,” growled “Woolly.” “Clem’s a sight ter be seen, a scandal ter the jaybirds.”
“That don’t make no differ!” cried the little old woman, stanch in argument. “Blacksmithin’ air a powerful fine business; the folks in Brumsaidge couldn’t git along ’thout Clem. An’ afore him,—shucks! way back in the Bible times they hed smiths, an’ I reckon they war ez sooty an’ cindery then ez now; dirt ain’t improved none noways, ez I onderstan’, sence them days. Thar war a man then, what the Bible speaks respec’fully of, by the name o’ Tubal Cain,—a cunning workman,—warn’t thar, Teck?” She appealed to him with animation as to a Biblical authority, expecting an eager and interested response; but he only said, “Yes’m,” with an evident effort, cleared his throat, and was silent.
Eli Strobe had risen in obedience to some signal from indoors. “Kem in ter supper.” His big voice rumbled out with all its wonted intonations of hospitality. If Jepson had not been otherwise absorbed, he might have noted the candidate’s self-control remarkable in so tantalizing an episode. It did not escape Mrs. Strobe’s keen attention, and she deported herself with a trifle of gay bravado, feeling beyond the reach of retribution, since the dictates of policy so hampered deserts.
“Waal, sir, eatin’ supper by a tallow dip,—who ever hearn the beat!” remarked Isabel. “A leetle mo’, an’ we would all hev gone ter bed hongry.”
“It do be a powerful late supper.” Mrs. Strobe had a slightly harried aspect; if conscience abode within her, it wielded its power in her housewifely instincts. “Be ye hongry, Teck,—ye an’ Andy an’ Eli? It’s all Marcelly’s fault, a-furgittin’ ter dish up supper till nigh on ter bed-time. An’ me, too: I jes’ sot an’ talked, I will ’low, ez ef my tongue war tied in the middle an’ workin’ at both e-ends.”
The feeble focus of the candle dully glowed in the centre of the table, sending out a subdued glimmer upon the faces that surrounded it amidst the encompassing obscurity. A vague glimpse was had of the smoke-blackened ceiling just above, with a rich dash of color where a cluster of strings of red peppers hung. The walls darkly merged into shadows; the fire was a smouldering, tawny-tinted coal; the ceaseless night sounds came through the open door,—the chirring of insects, the sigh of the woods, and the fret of the torrent. As Marcella waited upon them, she was invisible most of the time in the dark periphery of the circle: occasionally there were transitory visions of the fair dispenser of hospitality, the white light falling on her delicate face, and floating hair, and rounded arm, and deft hand, as perchance she leaned forward and tendered the cracked blue bowl of honey to one or the other of the guests; then only an alert, noiseless shadow, slipping about in the kindred gloom.
It was a silent meal, albeit the little old dame and Isabel were among the partakers. When they all repaired again to the porch, they found the moonlight there, with yellow slanting rays and long, melancholy shadows, and the distorted waning disk itself hung in the purple spaces above the black mountain that the house faced. The fireflies were quenched; only now and then a feeble gleam stole forth from a dark cluster of gourd-leaves. The perfume of the orchard was sweet on the air; the dew glittered on the low summits of the old gnarled trees. The men and the old woman lighted their pipes, and the coterie silently smoked, while Marcella sat on the steps of the porch, in the full radiance of the midsummer sheen, her idle hands folded upon one knee, her lustrous eyes turned upward to the moon, the wind lightly tossing her curling hair. Within, the candle still sputtered, while Isabel washed the dishes and pans,—this being her allotted task,— and made a great clatter to better express her industry.
It was all very still without; a constraint oppressed the group. Each had regrets in the premises, and harbored resentments. The occupation of smoking, the meditative languor which the consumption of tobacco warrants, precluded the necessity for conversation, and afforded an interval for the recuperation of the downcast spirits of the company. Small wonder that Clem Sanders, listening from his roof-room window, heard no laughing or talking at Strobe’s!
Suddenly the shrill clamor of a screech-owl invaded the nocturnal quietude; again and yet again, with its sinister, mirthless chuckle supplementing and seeming to ridicule its own hysteric outcry. It grated upon the nerves of Mrs. Strobe, already subjected to some unusual tension.
“Laws-a-massy, jes’ listen ter that thar n’isy fow-el. He be a-goin’ ter screech thar haffen the night, I’ll be bound; an’ he air a sure sign o’ death, ter holler nigh a chimbly. Jes’ listen at him, now, a-laffin’ at the corpse!” Once more the low, joyless, mocking merriment jarred the air. “Take yer dad’s gun thar, Marcelly, an’ run down in the orchard, an’ fire it off at him. He be right yander in that thar sheep-nose apple-tree.”
Marcella rose slowly. “I’ll drive him off,” she said, “but I ain’t a-goin’ ter fire no gun off at him; the critter hev got ez good a right ter live ez I hev. I’ll fling a sheep-nose apple at him, an’ that be ez much ez I be a-goin’ ter do ter him.”
“Listen at the sassiness of the stiff-necked generation!” exclaimed the old woman, evidently the exordium of a tirade against the young folks nowadays. But Marcella was already far down the grassy slope, and out of hearing; and with one scornful glance after her, Mrs. Strobe put her pipe into her mouth, and sourly relapsed into silence.
The high grass, tasseled and rank, glimmered with dew. The moonlit spaces wore a finer and a fairer lustre for the deep romantic shadows that hung about the boughs. There were long and glittering arches, where the fruited branches interlaced, and in the dappling shade beneath, the boles, all at regular intervals, had a columnated effect; and these arboreal aisles seemed endless. Even the homelier incidents of the orchard shared the enchantment of the moonlight: some blight that had fallen on one of the goodly branches had bereft it of leaves and fruit, and a web that had been woven about it shone, a refulgent gauze, and radiated a delicate and fibrous splendor. Down these simple ways Marcella went, the light upon her face; her hair fluttered with the slight breeze; her step was sure and free; she seemed so ethereal that she too might have been some embellishing fantasy of the night. The bird of ill-omen had ceased to cry, as if her very presence exorcised all evil fortunes. She paused, gazing upward, the moonbeams full on her shining eyes. She had lifted one arm and laid hold of a fruit-freighted bough. It seemed strange that she did not see the owl, so well she realized how it must look, up among the boughs somewhere, demurely silent, shuffling down, and suppressing, as it were, its fearful identity among its mottled feathers, its head askew as it watched her with its big yellow eyes. She had her hand upon the retributive apple; a sudden footfall,—Teck Jepson was approaching along the dewy colonnade.
The owl was safe, very safe indeed: a pity that the “fow-el” might not have known this, and have spared itself the anguish of fright that it endured, as it sat almost within arm’s length, discreetly silent, refraining from stirring claw or feather, and wisely looking down upon them.
The bough was shaking with more than the wind, for Marcella’s hand trembled on the unplucked apple.
Jepson’s hat was thrust on the back of his head. His face, too, was distinctly visible as he approached. Somehow he had never seemed to her so tall, so imperious of temper, so impressive, as now. But there was a trifle of embarrassment in his manner, and he only said,—
“Whar’s that thar ow-el?”
“I dunno,” faltered Marcella.
He did not seem to care. His mind was evidently little concerned with the “fow-el.”
He paused, looking steadily at her, as if he expected her to speak again. But she still stood silent, the moonlight in her lustrous eyes and on her upturned face, her hand on the apple as it swung on the low bough.
“I never expected ter hear ez ye hed been talkin’ ’bout me that-a-way; I never looked fur it,” he said.
The quick color surged into her cheeks; her eyes flashed; she let go the bough so suddenly that, swinging elastically into its place, the little owl was almost dislodged from its perch, and it tightened its toes and even slightly spread its wings to keep its balance. It uttered a low sound, a sort of mutter, that they might have heard had they not been too absorbed; and it was with a kind of resentful dignity that it settled itself again in its feathers, and cocked its head askew, and looked down at them with its round, bright eyes.
“An’ I dunno what sorter man ye kin be, ter kem makin’ remarks ter me ’bout’n it,” she cried indignantly.
“I hev knowed ye sech a little time, I reckon nobody would hev expected sech from you-uns,” he resumed.
She stood for a moment in blank amazement. Then she seemed ready to burst into tears. “I never said it ’cept ter granny,—an’ who would hev thunk o’ her settin’ up an’ tellin’ it all ter you-uns, not knowin’ ye war the same one? Ye never tole we-uns yer name, that evenin’. I jes’ ’lowed ye war kin ter Bowles.”
“I don’t keer who ye said it ter,” he declared, his voice full of reproach. “I ain’t keerin’ fur nuthin’ ’ceptin’ ye thunk it,—an’ I never done nuthin’ ter make ye think it.”
Once more she looked at him, aghast. She put up her hand again to the bough, now for the sake of support.
“Tellin’ folks, an’ settin’ out ter b’lieve ez I be a hypercrite, an’ purtend ter be pious, an’”—
“Oh!” she exclaimed, with a note of comprehension and relief so marked that he paused abruptly, and demanded sternly,—
“What did you-uns ’low I war talkin’ ’bout?”
She did not answer. Her expression had suddenly changed, as she stood under the bough. No dryad, no ethereal native of the tree, could wear a face more airily lightsome, more elfinly gay, than she, looking out through the sheen and the flickering shadow.
“Waal,” said he, staring blankly at her, “What war ye a-talkin’ ’bout?”
She only shook her head in gleeful silence.
“Ye never said nuthin’,” he resumed, seeking to review the conversation that he might unravel its mystery, “’ceptin’ I war a—a”—he stumbled at the word,—“a hypercrite, an’ a sinner;—yes, an’ special good-lookin’, but I never minded that.”
Her face had grown conscious again. “I reckon not,” she remarked dryly.
“Ye mind that, though,” he said penetratingly, at last; “that’s what ye thought I war talkin’ ’bout, hey? Waal, I jes’ mind ye callin’ me a sinner, an’ sayin’ ez I purtend ter be pious.”
He noted her instant relief at the change of the subject. “Ye don’t mind folks knowin’ ye called ’em sinners,” he continued, “but whenst it comes ter handsome sinners”—
He desisted, in pity for the look in her face.
“I tell ye now, Marcelly,” he said gravely, as they mechanically took their way together toward the house, “ye may ’low ez I be hard-hearted, an’ cruel-eyed, an’ got no religion, but I be a-goin’ ter furgive ye fur them words,—like a Christian!”
It was the first wrong that he had ever overlooked. He found forgiveness easy to be exercised, and very sweet.
She stole a shy look at his face. “That’s powerful good in ye,” she said softly. “I war jes’ a-talkin’ ter be a-talkin’, an’”—
Their shadows, close together, followed them over the shining grass, and for a time they were silent as they approached the group on the porch.
He paused abruptly, and looked down at her.
“An’ I don’t want ye ter be aggervatin’ yerse’f by ’lowin’ ez I ain’t goin’ ter do all I kin fur Eli in the ’lection. What ye said ain’t goin’ ter hender. I’ll vote fur him, an’ git all others I kin ter do likewise.”
Marcella began to experience a sensation as of coals of fire heaped upon the head. She could only murmur, “I war jes’ a-talkin’ ter be a-talkin’.”
That night, from time to time, as the hours wore on and the house was still, the little owl in the apple-tree lifted its voice and shrilled aloud, and laughed in sinister and chuckling mirth, while the moon slowly climbed the skies. And Mrs. Strobe, turning on an uneasy pillow, evolved bitter reflections concerning the inefficiency of the present generation.
“Sen’ two hearty young folks—one of ’em mos’ seven feet high ’ceptin’ what’s lackin’—down inter a orchard ter fling a apple at a ow-el an’ drive him off,—an’ a body would think they hed invited the critter ter bide ter supper, an’ sing hyme chunes arterward.”