TAKING THE BLUE RIBBON AT THE COUNTY FAIR.
Jenks Hollis sat on the fence. He slowly turned the quid of tobacco in his cheek, and lifting up his voice spoke with an oracular drawl:—
"Ef he kin take the certif'cate it's the mos' ez he kin do. He ain't never a-goin' ter git no premi-um in this life, sure 's ye air a born sinner."
And he relapsed into silence. His long legs dangled dejectedly among the roadside weeds; his brown jeans trousers, that had despaired of ever reaching his ankles, were ornamented here and there with ill-adjusted patches, and his loose-fitting coat was out at the elbows. An old white wool hat drooped over his eyes, which were fixed absently on certain distant blue mountain ranges, that melted tenderly into the blue of the noonday sky, and framed an exquisite mosaic of poly-tinted fields in the valley, far, far below the grim gray crag on which his little home was perched.
Despite his long legs he was a light weight, or he would not have chosen as his favorite seat so rickety a fence. His interlocutor, a heavier man, apparently had some doubts, for he leaned only slightly against one of the projecting rails as he whittled a pine stick, and with his every movement the frail structure trembled. The log cabin seemed as rickety as the fence. The little front porch had lost a puncheon here and there in the flooring—perhaps on some cold winter night when Hollis's energy was not sufficiently exuberant to convey him to the wood-pile; the slender posts that upheld its roof seemed hardly strong enough to withstand the weight of the luxuriant vines with their wealth of golden gourds which had clambered far over the moss-grown clapboards; the windows had fewer panes of glass than rags; and the chimney, built of clay and sticks, leaned portentously away from the house. The open door displayed a rough, uncovered floor; a few old rush-bottomed chairs; a bedstead with a patch-work calico quilt, the mattress swagging in the centre and showing the badly arranged cords below; strings of bright red pepper hanging from the dark rafters; a group of tow-headed, grave-faced, barefooted children; and, occupying almost one side of the room, a broad, deep, old-fashioned fireplace, where winter and summer a lazy fire burned under a lazy pot.
Notwithstanding the poverty of the aspect of the place and the evident sloth of its master, it was characterized by a scrupulous cleanliness strangely at variance with its forlorn deficiencies. The rough floor was not only swept but scoured; the dark rafters, whence depended the flaming banners of the red pepper, harbored no cobwebs; the grave faces of the white-haired children bore no more dirt than was consistent with their recent occupation of making mudpies; and the sedate, bald-headed baby, lying silent but wide-awake in an uncouth wooden cradle, was as clean as clear spring water and yellow soap could make it. Mrs. Hollis herself, seen through the vista of opposite open doors, energetically rubbing the coarse wet clothes upon the resonant washboard, seemed neat enough in her blue-and-white checked homespun dress, and with her scanty hair drawn smoothly back from her brow into a tidy little knot on the top of her head.
Spare and gaunt she was, and with many lines in her prematurely old face. Perhaps they told of the hard fight her brave spirit waged against the stern ordering of her life; of the struggles with squalor,—inevitable concomitant of poverty,—and to keep together the souls and bodies of those numerous children, with no more efficient assistance than could be wrung from her reluctant husband in the short intervals when he did not sit on the fence. She managed as well as she could; there was an abundance of fine fruit in that low line of foliage behind the house—but everybody on Old Bear Mountain had fine fruit. Something rarer, she had good vegetables—the planting and hoeing being her own work and her eldest daughter's; an occasional shallow furrow representing the contribution of her husband's plough. The althea-bushes and the branches of the laurel sheltered a goodly number of roosting hens in these September nights; and to the pond, which had been formed by damming the waters of the spring branch in the hollow across the road, was moving even now a stately procession of geese in single file. These simple belongings were the trophies of a gallant battle against unalterable conditions and the dragging, dispiriting clog of her husband's inertia.
His inner life—does it seem hard to realize that in that uncouth personality concentred the complex, incomprehensible, ever-shifting emotions of that inner life which, after all, is so much stronger, and deeper, and broader than the material? Here, too, beat the hot heart of humanity—beat with no measured throb. He had his hopes, his pleasure, his pain, like those of a higher culture, differing only in object, and something perhaps in degree. His disappointments were bitter and lasting; his triumphs, few and sordid; his single aspiration—to take the premium offered by the directors of the Kildeer County Fair for the best equestrian.
This incongruous and unpromising ambition had sprung up in this wise: Between the country people of Kildeer County and the citizens of the village of Colbury, the county-seat, existed a bitter and deeply rooted animosity manifesting itself at conventions, elections for the legislature, etc., the rural population voting as a unit against the town's candidate. On all occasions of public meetings there was a struggle to crush any invidious distinction against the "country boys," especially at the annual fair. Here to the rustics of Kildeer County came the tug of war. The population of the outlying districts was more numerous, and, when it could be used as a suffrage-engine, all-powerful; but the region immediately adjacent to the town was far more fertile. On those fine meadows grazed the graceful Jersey; there gamboled sundry long-tailed colts with long-tailed pedigrees; there greedy Berkshires fattened themselves to abnormal proportions; and the merinos could hardly walk, for the weight of their own rich wardrobes. The well-to-do farmers of this section were hand-in-glove with the town's people; they drove their trotters in every day or so to get their mail, to chat with their cronies, to attend to their affairs in court, to sell or to buy—their pleasures centred in the town, and they turned the cold shoulder upon the country, which supported them, and gave their influence to Colbury, accounting themselves an integrant part of it. Thus, at the fairs the town claimed the honor and glory. The blue ribbon decorated cattle and horses bred within ten miles of the flaunting flag on the judges' stand, and the foaming mountain-torrents and the placid stream in the valley beheld no cerulean hues save those of the sky which they reflected.
The premium offered this year for the best rider was, as it happened, a new feature, and excited especial interest. The country's blood was up. Here was something for which it could fairly compete, with none of the disadvantages of the false position in which it was placed. Hence a prosperous landed proprietor, the leader of the rural faction, dwelling midway between the town and the range of mountains that bounded the county on the north and east, bethought himself one day of Jenkins Hollis, whose famous riding had been the feature of a certain dashing cavalry charge—once famous, too—forgotten now by all but the men who, for the first and only time in their existence, penetrated in those war days the blue mountains fencing in their county from the outer world, and looked upon the alien life beyond that wooded barrier. The experience of those four years, submerged in the whirling rush of events elsewhere, survives in these eventless regions in a dreamy, dispassionate sort of longevity. And Jenkins Hollis's feat of riding stolidly—one could hardly say bravely—up an almost sheer precipice to a flame-belching battery came suddenly into the landed magnate's recollection with the gentle vapors and soothing aroma of a meditative after-dinner pipe. Quivering with party spirit, Squire Goodlet sent for Hollis and offered to lend him the best horse on the place, and a saddle and bridle, if he would go down to Colbury and beat those town fellows out on their own ground.
No misgivings had Hollis. The inordinate personal pride characteristic of the mountaineer precluded his feeling a shrinking pain at the prospect of being presented, a sorry contrast, among the well-clad, well-to-do town's people, to compete in a public contest. He did not appreciate the difference—he thought himself as good as the best.
And to-day, complacent enough, he sat upon the rickety fence at home, oracularly disparaging the equestrian accomplishments of the town's noted champion.
"I dunno—I dunno," said his young companion doubtfully. "Hackett sets mighty firm onto his saddle. He's ez straight ez any shingle, an' ez tough ez a pine-knot. He come up hyar las' summer—war it las' summer, now? No, 't war summer afore las'—with some o' them other Colbury folks, a-fox-huntin', an' a-deer-huntin, an' one thing an' 'nother. I seen 'em a time or two in the woods. An' he kin ride jes' ez good 'mongst the gullies and boulders like ez ef he had been born in the hills. He ain't a-goin' ter be beat easy."
"It don't make no differ," retorted Jenks Hollis. "He'll never git no premi-um. The certif'cate's good a-plenty fur what ridin' he kin do."
Doubt was still expressed in the face of the young man, but he said no more, and, after a short silence, Mr. Hollis, perhaps not relishing his visitor's want of appreciation, dismounted, so to speak, from the fence, and slouched off slowly up the road.
Jacob Brice still stood leaning against the rails and whittling his pine stick, in no wise angered or dismayed by his host's unceremonious departure, for social etiquette is not very rigid on Old Bear Mountain. He was a tall athletic fellow, clad in a suit of brown jeans, which displayed, besides the ornaments of patches, sundry deep grass stains about the knees. Not that piety induced Brice to spend much time in the lowly attitude of prayer, unless, indeed, Diana might be accounted the goddess of his worship. The green juice was pressed out when kneeling, hidden in some leafy, grassy nook, he heard the infrequent cry of the wild turkey, or his large, intent blue eyes caught a glimpse of the stately head of an antlered buck, moving majestically in the alternate sheen of the sunlight and shadow of the overhanging crags; or while with his deft hunter's hands he dragged himself by slow, noiseless degrees through the ferns and tufts of rank weeds to the water's edge, that he might catch a shot at the feeding wild duck. A leather belt around his waist supported his powder-horn and shot-pouch,—for his accoutrements were exactly such as might have been borne a hundred years ago by a hunter of Old Bear Mountain,—and his gun leaned against the trunk of a chestnut-oak.
Although he still stood outside the fence, aimlessly lounging, there was a look on his face of a half-suppressed expectancy, which rendered the features less statuesque than was their wont—an expectancy that showed itself in the furtive lifting of his eyelids now and then, enabling him to survey the doorway without turning his head. Suddenly his face reassumed its habitual, inexpressive mask of immobility, and the furtive eyes were persistently downcast.
A flare of color, and Cynthia Hollis was standing in the doorway, leaning against its frame. She was robed, like September, in brilliant yellow. The material and make were of the meanest, but there was a certain appropriateness in the color with her slumberous dark eyes and the curling tendrils of brown hair which fell upon her forehead and were clustered together at the back of her neck. No cuffs and no collar could this costume boast, but she had shown the inclination to finery characteristic of her age and sex by wearing around her throat, where the yellow hue of her dress met the creamy tint of her skin, a row of large black beads, threaded upon a shoe-string in default of an elastic, the brass ends flaunting brazenly enough among them. She held in her hand a string of red pepper, to which she was adding some newly gathered pods. A slow job Cynthia seemed to make of it.
She took no more notice of the man under the tree than he accorded to her. There they stood, within twelve feet of each other, in utter silence, and, to all appearance, each entirely unconscious of the other's existence: he whittling his pine stick; she, slowly, slowly stringing the pods of red pepper.
There was something almost portentous in the gravity and sobriety of demeanor of this girl of seventeen; she manifested less interest in the young man than her own grandmother might have shown.
He was constrained to speak first. "Cynthy"—he said at length, without raising his eyes or turning his head. She did not answer; but he knew without looking that she had fixed those slumberous brown eyes upon him, waiting for him to go on. "Cynthy"—he said again, with a hesitating, uneasy manner. Then, with an awkward attempt at raillery, "Ain't ye never a-thinkin' 'bout a-gittin' married?"
He cast a laughing glance toward her, and looked down quickly at his clasp-knife and the stick he was whittling. It was growing very slender now.
Cynthia's serious face relaxed its gravity. "Ye air foolish, Jacob," she said, laughing. After stringing on another pepper-pod with great deliberation, she continued: "Ef I war a-studyin' 'bout a-gittin' married, thar ain't nobody round 'bout hyar ez I'd hev." And she added another pod to the flaming red string, so bright against the yellow of her dress.
That stick could not long escape annihilation. The clasp-knife moved vigorously through its fibres, and accented certain arbitrary clauses in its owner's retort. "Ye talk like," he said, his face as monotonous in its expression as if every line were cut in marble—"ye talk like—ye thought ez how I—war a-goin' ter ax ye—ter marry me. I ain't though, nuther."
The stick was a shaving. It fell among the weeds. The young hunter shut his clasp-knife with a snap, shouldered his gun, and without a word of adieu on either side the conference terminated, and he walked off down the sandy road.
Cynthia stood watching him until the laurel-bushes hid him from sight; then sliding from the door-frame to the step, she sat motionless, a bright-hued mass of yellow draperies and red peppers, her slumberous deep eyes resting on the leaves that had closed upon him.
She was the central figure of a still landscape. The mid-day sunshine fell in broad effulgence upon it; the homely, dun-colored shadows had been running away all the morning, as if shirking the contrast with the splendors of the golden light, until nothing was left of them except a dark circle beneath the wide-spreading trees. No breath of wind stirred the leaves, or rippled the surface of the little pond. The lethargy of the hour had descended even upon the towering pine-trees, growing on the precipitous slope of the mountain, and showing their topmost plumes just above the frowning, gray crag—their melancholy song was hushed. The silent masses of dazzling white clouds were poised motionless in the ambient air, high above the valley and the misty expanse of the distant, wooded ranges.
A lazy, lazy day, and very, very warm. The birds had much ado to find sheltering shady nooks where they might escape the glare and the heat; their gay carols were out of season, and they blinked and nodded under their leafy umbrellas, and fanned themselves with their wings, and twittered disapproval of the weather. "Hot, hot, red-hot!" said the birds—"broiling hot!"
Now and then an acorn fell from among the serrated chestnut leaves, striking upon the fence with a sounding thwack, and rebounding in the weeds. Those chestnut-oaks always seem to unaccustomed eyes the creation of Nature in a fit of mental aberration—useful freak! the mountain swine fatten on the plenteous mast, and the bark is highly esteemed at the tan-yard.
A large cat was lying at full length on the floor of the little porch, watching with drowsy, half-closed eyes the assembled birds in the tree. But she seemed to have relinquished the pleasures of the chase until the mercury should fall.
Close in to the muddiest side of the pond over there, which was all silver and blue with the reflection of the great masses of white clouds, and the deep azure sky, a fleet of shining, snowy geese was moored, perfectly motionless too. No circumnavigation for them this hot day.
And Cynthia's dark brown eyes, fixed upon the leafy vista of the road, were as slumberous as the noontide sunshine.
"Cynthy! whar is the gal?" said poor Mrs. Hollis, as she came around the house to hang out the ragged clothes on the althea-bushes and the rickety fence. "Cynthy, air ye a-goin' ter sit thar in the door all day, an' that thar pot a-bilin' all the stren'th out 'n that thar cabbige an' roas'in'-ears? Dish up dinner, child, an' don't be so slow an' slack-twisted like yer dad."
* * * * *
Great merriment there was, to be sure, at the Kildeer Fair grounds, situated on the outskirts of Colbury, when it became known to the convulsed town faction that the gawky Jenks Hollis intended to compete for the premium to be awarded to the best and most graceful rider. The contests of the week had as usual resulted in Colbury's favor; this was the last day of the fair, and the defeated country population anxiously but still hopefully awaited its notable event.
A warm sun shone; a brisk autumnal breeze waved the flag flying from the judges' stand; a brass band in the upper story of that structure thrilled the air with the vibrations of popular waltzes and marches, somewhat marred now and then by mysteriously discordant bass tones; the judges, portly, red-faced, middle-aged gentlemen, sat below in cane-bottom chairs critically a-tilt on the hind legs. The rough wooden amphitheatre, a bold satire on the stately Roman edifice, was filled with the denizens of Colbury and the rosy rural faces of the country people of Kildeer County; and within the charmed arena the competitors for the blue ribbon and the saddle and bridle to be awarded to the best rider were just now entering, ready mounted, from a door beneath the tiers of seats, and were slowly making the tour of the circle around the judges' stand. One by one they came, with a certain nonchalant pride of demeanor, conscious of an effort to display themselves and their horses to the greatest advantage, and yet a little ashamed of the consciousness. For the most part they were young men, prosperous looking, and clad according to the requirements of fashion which prevailed in this little town. Shut in though it was from the pomps and vanities of the world by the encircling chains of blue ranges and the bending sky which rested upon their summits, the frivolity of the mode, though somewhat belated, found its way and ruled with imperative rigor. Good riders they were undoubtedly, accustomed to the saddle almost from infancy, and well mounted. A certain air of gallantry, always characteristic of an athletic horseman, commended these equestrian figures to the eye as they slowly circled about. Still they came—eight—nine—ten—the eleventh, the long, lank frame of Jenkins Hollis mounted on Squire Goodlet's "John Barleycorn."
The horsemen received this ungainly addition to their party with polite composure, and the genteel element of the spectators remained silent too from the force of good breeding and good feeling; but the "roughs," always critically a-loose in a crowd, shouted and screamed with derisive hilarity. What they were laughing at Jenks Hollis never knew. Grave and stolid, but as complacent as the best, he too made the usual circuit with his ill-fitting jeans suit, his slouching old wool hat, and his long, gaunt figure. But he sat the spirited "John Barleycorn" as if he were a part of the steed, and held up his head with unwonted dignity, inspired perhaps by the stately attitudes of the horse, which were the result of no training nor compelling reins, but the instinct transmitted through a long line of high-headed ancestry. Of a fine old family was "John Barleycorn."
A deeper sensation was in store for the spectators. Before Jenkins Hollis's appearance most of them had heard of his intention to compete, but the feeling was one of unmixed astonishment when entry No. 12 rode into the arena, and, on the part of the country people, this surprise was supplemented by an intense indignation. The twelfth man was Jacob Brice. As he was a "mounting boy," one would imagine that, if victory should crown his efforts, the rural faction ought to feel the elation of success, but the prevailing sentiment toward him was that which every well-conducted mind must entertain concerning the individual who runs against the nominee. Notwithstanding the fact that Brice was a notable rider, too, and well calculated to try the mettle of the town's champion, there arose from the excited countrymen a keen, bitter, and outraged cry of "Take him out!" So strongly does the partisan heart pulsate to the interests of the nominee! This frantic petition had no effect on the interloper. A man who has inherited half a dozen violent quarrels, any one of which may at any moment burst into a vendetta,—inheriting little else,—is not easily dismayed by the disapprobation of either friend or foe. His statuesque features, shaded by the drooping brim of his old black hat were as calm as ever, and his slow blue eyes did not, for one moment, rest upon the excited scene about him, so unspeakably new to his scanty experience. His fine figure showed to great advantage on horseback, despite his uncouth, coarse garb; he was mounted upon a sturdy, brown mare of obscure origin, but good-looking, clean-built, sure-footed, and with the blended charm of spirit and docility; she represented his whole estate, except his gun and his lean, old hound, that had accompanied him to the fair, and was even now improving the shining hour by quarreling over a bone outside the grounds with other people's handsomer dogs.
The judges were exacting. The riders were ordered to gallop to the right—and around they went. To the left—and there was again the spectacle of the swiftly circling equestrian figures. They were required to draw up in a line, and to dismount; then to mount, and again to alight. Those whom these manoeuvres proved inferior were dismissed at once, and the circle was reduced to eight. An exchange of horses was commanded; and once more the riding, fast and slow, left and right, the mounting and dismounting were repeated. The proficiency of the remaining candidates rendered them worthy of more difficult ordeals. They were required to snatch a hat from the ground while riding at full gallop. Pistols loaded with blank cartridges were fired behind the horses, and subsequently close to their quivering and snorting nostrils, in order that the relative capacity of the riders to manage a frightened and unruly steed might be compared, and the criticism of the judges mowed the number down to four.
Free speech is conceded by all right-thinking people to be a blessing. It is often a balm. Outside of the building and of earshot the defeated aspirants took what comfort they could in consigning, with great fervor and volubility, all the judicial magnates to that torrid region unknown to polite geographical works.
Of the four horsemen remaining in the ring, two were Jenkins Hollis and Jacob Brice. Short turns at full gallop were prescribed. The horses were required to go backward at various gaits. Bars were brought in and the crowd enjoyed the exhibition of the standing-leap, at an ever-increasing height and then the flying-leap—a tumultuous confused impression of thundering hoofs and tossing mane and grim defiant faces of horse and rider, in the lightning-like moment of passing. Obstructions were piled on the track for the "long jumps," and in one of the wildest leaps a good rider was unhorsed and rolled on the ground while his recreant steed that had balked at the last moment scampered around and around the arena in a wild effort to find the door beneath the tiers of seats to escape so fierce a competition. This accident reduced the number of candidates to the two mountaineers and Tip Hackett, the man whom Jacob had pronounced a formidable rival. The circling about, the mounting and dismounting, the exchange of horses were several times repeated without any apparent result, and excitement rose to fever heat.
The premium and certificate lay between the three men. The town faction trembled at the thought that the substantial award of the saddle and bridle, with the decoration of the blue ribbon, and the intangible but still precious secondary glory of the certificate and the red ribbon might be given to the two mountaineers, leaving the crack rider of Colbury in an ignominious lurch; while the country party feared Hollis's defeat by Hackett rather less than that Jenks would be required to relinquish the premium to the interloper Brice, for the young hunter's riding had stricken a pang of prophetic terror to more than one partisan rustic's heart. In the midst of the perplexing doubt, which tried the judges' minds, came the hour for dinner, and the decision was postponed until after that meal.
The competitors left the arena, and the spectators transferred their attention to unburdening hampers, or to jostling one another in the dining-hall.
Everybody was feasting but Cynthia Hollis. The intense excitement of the day, the novel sights and sounds utterly undreamed of in her former life, the abruptly struck chords of new emotions suddenly set vibrating within her, had dulled her relish for the midday meal; and while the other members of the family repaired to the shade of a tree outside the grounds to enjoy that refection, she wandered about the "floral hall," gazing at the splendors of bloom thronging there, all so different from the shy grace, the fragility of poise, the delicacy of texture of the flowers of her ken,—the rhododendron, the azalea, the Chilhowee lily,—yet vastly imposing in their massed exuberance and scarlet pride, for somehow they all seemed high colored.
She went more than once to note with a kind of aghast dismay those trophies of feminine industry, the quilts; some were of the "log cabin" and "rising sun" variety, but others were of geometric intricacy of form and were kaleidoscopic of color with an amazing labyrinth of stitchings and embroideries—it seemed a species of effrontery to dub one gorgeous poly-tinted silken banner a quilt. But already it bore a blue ribbon, and its owner was the richer by the prize of a glass bowl and the envy of a score of deft-handed competitors. She gazed upon the glittering jellies and preserves, upon the biscuits and cheeses, the hair-work and wax flowers, and paintings. These latter treated for the most part of castles and seas rather than of the surrounding altitudes, but Cynthia came to a pause of blank surprise in front of a shadow rather than a picture which represented a spring of still brown water in a mossy cleft of a rock where the fronds of a fern seemed to stir in the foreground. "I hev viewed the like o' that a many a time," she said disparagingly. To her it hardly seemed rare enough for the blue ribbon on the frame.
In the next room she dawdled through great piles of prize fruits and vegetables—water-melons unduly vast of bulk, peaches and pears and pumpkins of proportions never seen before out of a nightmare, stalks of Indian corn eighteen feet high with seven ears each,—all apparently attesting what they could do when they would, and that all the enterprise of Kildeer County was not exclusively of the feminine persuasion.
Finally Cynthia came out from the midst of them and stood leaning against one of the large pillars which supported the roof of the amphitheatre, still gazing about the half-deserted building, with the smouldering fires of her slumberous eyes newly kindled.
To other eyes and ears it might not have seemed a scene of tumultuous metropolitan life, with the murmuring trees close at hand dappling the floor with sycamore shadows, the fields of Indian corn across the road, the exuberant rush of the stream down the slope just beyond, the few hundred spectators who had intently watched the events of the day; but to Cynthia Hollis the excitement of the crowd and movement and noise could no further go.
By the natural force of gravitation Jacob Brice presently was walking slowly and apparently aimlessly around to where she was standing. He said nothing, however, when he was beside her, and she seemed entirely unconscious of his presence. Her yellow dress was as stiff as a board, and as clean as her strong, young arms could make it; at her throat were the shining black beads; on her head she wore a limp, yellow calico sunbonnet, which hung down over her eyes, and almost obscured her countenance. To this article she perhaps owed the singular purity and transparency of her complexion, as much as to the mountain air, and the chiefly vegetable fare of her father's table. She wore it constantly, although it operated almost as a mask, rendering her more easily recognizable to their few neighbors by her flaring attire than by her features, and obstructing from her own view all surrounding scenery, so that she could hardly see the cow, which so much of her time she was slowly poking after.
She spoke unexpectedly, and without any other symptom that she knew of the young hunter's proximity. "I never thought, Jacob, ez how ye would hev come down hyar, all the way from the mountings, to ride agin my dad, an' beat him out'n that thar saddle an' bridle."
"Ye won't hev nothin' ter say ter me," retorted Jacob sourly.
A long silence ensued.
Then he resumed didactically, but with some irrelevancy, "I tole ye t'other day ez how ye war old enough ter be a-studyin' 'bout gittin' married."
"They don't think nothin' of ye ter our house, Jacob. Dad 's always a-jowin' at ye." Cynthia's candor certainly could not be called in question.
The young hunter replied with some natural irritation: "He hed better not let me hear him, ef he wants to keep whole bones inside his skin. He better not tell me, nuther."
"He don't keer enough 'bout ye, Jacob, ter tell ye. He don't think nothin' of ye."
Love is popularly supposed to dull the mental faculties. It developed in Jacob Brice sudden strategic abilities.
"Thar is them ez does," he said diplomatically.
Cynthia spoke promptly with more vivacity than usual, but in her customary drawl and apparently utterly irrelevantly:—
"I never in all my days see no sech red-headed gal ez that thar Becky Stiles. She's the red-headedest gal ever I see." And Cynthia once more was silent.
Jacob resumed, also irrelevantly:—
"When I goes a-huntin' up yander ter Pine Lick, they is mighty perlite ter me. They ain't never done nothin' agin me, ez I knows on." Then, after a pause of deep cogitation, he added, "Nor hev they said nothin' agin me, nuther."
Cynthia took up her side of the dialogue, if dialogue it could be called, with wonted irrelevancy: "That thar Becky Stiles, she's got the freckledest face—ez freckled ez any turkey-aig" (with an indescribable drawl on the last word).
"They ain't done nothin' agin me," reiterated Jacob astutely, "nor said nothin' nuther—none of 'em."
Cynthia looked hard across the amphitheatre at the distant Great Smoky Mountains shimmering in the hazy September sunlight—so ineffably beautiful, so delicately blue, that they might have seemed the ideal scenery of some impossibly lovely ideal world. Perhaps she was wondering what the unconscious Becky Stiles, far away in those dark woods about Pine Lick, had secured in this life besides her freckled face. Was this the sylvan deity of the young hunter's adoration?
Cynthia took off her sunbonnet to use it for a fan. Perhaps it was well for her that she did so at this moment; it had so entirely concealed her head that her hair might have been the color of Becky Stiles's, and no one the wiser. The dark brown tendrils curled delicately on her creamy forehead; the excitement of the day had flushed her pale cheeks with an unwonted glow; her eyes were alight with their newly kindled fires; the clinging curtain of her bonnet had concealed the sloping curves of her shoulders—altogether she was attractive enough, despite the flare of her yellow dress, and especially attractive to the untutored eyes of Jacob Brice. He relented suddenly, and lost all the advantages of his tact and diplomacy.
"I likes ye better nor I does Becky Stiles," he said moderately. Then with more fervor, "I likes ye better nor any gal I ever see."
The usual long pause ensued.
"Ye hev got a mighty cur'ous way o' showin' it," Cynthia replied.
"I dunno what ye 're talkin' 'bout, Cynthy."
"Ye hev got a mighty cur'ous way o' showin' it," she reiterated, with renewed animation—"a-comin' all the way down hyar from the mountings ter beat my dad out'n that thar saddle an' bridle, what he's done sot his heart onto. Mighty cur'ous way."
"Look hyar, Cynthy." The young hunter broke off suddenly, and did not speak again for several minutes. A great perplexity was surging this way and that in his slow brains—a great struggle was waging in his heart. He was to choose between love and ambition—nay, avarice too was ranged beside his aspiration. He felt himself an assured victor in the competition, and he had seen that saddle and bridle. They were on exhibition to-day, and to him their material and workmanship seemed beyond expression wonderful, and elegant, and substantial. He could never hope otherwise to own such accoutrements. His eyes would never again even rest upon such resplendent objects, unless indeed in Hollis's possession. Any one who has ever loved a horse can appreciate a horseman's dear desire that beauty should go beautifully caparisoned. And then, there was his pride in his own riding, and his anxiety to have his preeminence in that accomplishment acknowledged and recognized by his friends, and, dearer triumph still, by his enemies. A terrible pang before he spoke again.
"Look hyar, Cynthy," he said at last; "ef ye will marry me, I won't go back in yander no more. I'll leave the premi-um ter them ez kin git it."
"Ye're foolish, Jacob," she replied, still fanning with the yellow calico sunbonnet. "Ain't I done tole ye, ez how they don't think nothin' of ye ter our house? I don't want all of 'em a-jowin' at me, too."
"Ye talk like ye ain't got good sense, Cynthy," said Jacob irritably. "What's ter hender me from hitchin' up my mare ter my uncle's wagon an' ye an' me a-drivin' up hyar to the Cross-Roads, fifteen mile, and git Pa'son Jones ter marry us? We'll get the license down hyar ter the Court House afore we start. An' while they'll all be a-foolin' away thar time a-ridin' round that thar ring, ye an' me will be a-gittin' married." Ten minutes ago Jacob Brice did not think riding around that ring was such a reprehensible waste of time. "What's ter hender? It don't make no differ how they jow then."
"I done tole ye, Jacob," said the sedate Cynthia, still fanning with the sunbonnet.
With a sudden return of his inspiration, Jacob retorted, affecting an air of stolid indifference: "Jes' ez ye choose. I won't hev ter ax Becky Stiles twict."
And he turned to go.
"I never said no, Jacob," said Cynthia precipitately. "I never said ez how I wouldn't hev ye."
"Waal, then, jes' come along with me right now while I hitch up the mare. I ain't a-goin' ter leave yer a-standin' hyar. Ye're too skittish. Time I come back ye'd hev done run away I dunno whar." A moment's pause and he added: "Is ye a-goin' ter stand thar all day, Cynthy Hollis, a-lookin' up an' around, and a-turnin' yer neck fust this way and then t'other, an' a-lookin' fur all the worl' like a wild turkey in a trap, or one o' them thar skeery young deer, or sech senseless critters? What ails the gal?"
"Thar'll be nobody ter help along the work ter our house," said Cynthia, the weight of the home difficulties bearing heavily on her conscience.
"What's ter hender ye from a-goin' down thar an' lendin' a hand every wunst in a while? But ef ye're a-goin' ter stand thar like ye hedn't no more action than a—a-dunno-what,—jes' like yer dad, I ain't. I'll jes' leave ye a-growed ter that thar post, an' I'll jes' light out stiddier, an' afore the cows git ter Pine Lick, I'll be thar too. Jes' ez ye choose. Come along ef ye wants ter come. I ain't a-goin' ter ax ye no more."
"I'm a-comin'," said Cynthia.
There was great though illogical rejoicing on the part of the country faction when the crowds were again seated, tier above tier, in the amphitheatre, and the riders were once more summoned into the arena, to discover from Jacob Brice's unaccounted-for absence that he had withdrawn and left the nominee to his chances.
In the ensuing competition it became very evident to the not altogether impartially disposed judges that they could not, without incurring the suspicions alike of friend and foe, award the premium to their fellow-townsman. Straight as a shingle though he might be, more prepossessing to the eye, the ex-cavalryman of fifty battles was far better trained in all the arts of horsemanship.
A wild shout of joy burst from the rural party when the most portly and rubicund of the portly and red-faced judges advanced into the ring and decorated Jenkins Hollis with the blue ribbon. A frantic antistrophe rent the air. "Take it off!" vociferated the bitter town faction—"take it off!"
A diversion was produced by the refusal of the Colbury champion to receive the empty honor of the red ribbon and the certificate. Thus did he except to the ruling of the judges. In high dudgeon he faced about and left the arena, followed shortly by the decorated Jenks, bearing the precious saddle and bridle, and going with a wooden face to receive the congratulations of his friends.
The entries for the slow mule race had been withdrawn at the last moment; and the spectators, balked of that unique sport, and the fair being virtually over, were rising from their seats and making their noisy preparations for departure. Before Jenks had cleared the fair-building, being somewhat impeded by the moving mass of humanity, he encountered one of his neighbors, a listless mountaineer, who spoke on this wise:—
"Does ye know that thar gal o' yourn—that thar Cynthy?"
Mr. Hollis nodded his expressionless head—presumably he did know
Cynthia.
"Waal," continued his leisurely interlocutor, still interrogative, "does ye know Jacob Brice?"
Ill-starred association of ideas! There was a look of apprehension on
Jenkins Hollis's wooden face.
"They hev done got a license down hyar ter the Court House an' gone a-kitin' out on the Old B'ar road."
This was explicit.
"Whar's my horse?" exclaimed Jenks, appropriating "John Barleycorn" in his haste. Great as was his hurry, it was not too imperative to prevent him from strapping upon the horse the premium saddle, and inserting in his mouth the new bit and bridle. And in less than ten minutes a goodly number of recruits from the crowd assembled in Colbury were also "a-kitin'" out on the road to Old Bear, delighted with a new excitement, and bent on running down the eloping couple with no more appreciation of the sentimental phase of the question and the tender illusions of love's young dream than if Jacob and Cynthia were two mountain foxes.
Down the red-clay slopes of the outskirts of the town "John Barleycorn" thunders with a train of horsemen at his heels. Splash into the clear fair stream whose translucent depths tell of its birthplace among the mountain springs—how the silver spray showers about as the pursuers surge through the ford leaving behind them a foamy wake!—and now they are pressing hard up the steep ascent of the opposite bank, and galloping furiously along a level stretch of road, with the fences and trees whirling by, and the September landscape flying on the wings of the wind. The chase leads past fields of tasseled Indian corn, with yellowing thickly swathed ears, leaning heavily from the stalk; past wheat-lands, the crops harvested and the crab-grass having its day at last; past "woods-lots" and their black shadows, and out again into the September sunshine; past rickety little homes, not unlike Hollis's own, with tow-headed children, exactly like his, standing with wide eyes, looking at the rush and hurry of the pursuit—sometimes in the ill-kept yards a wood-fire is burning under the boiling sorghum kettle, or beneath the branches of the orchard near at hand a cider-mill is crushing the juice out of the red and yellow, ripe and luscious apples. Homeward-bound prize cattle are overtaken—a Durham bull, reluctantly permitting himself to be led into a fence corner that the hunt may sweep by unobstructed, and turning his proud blue-ribboned head angrily toward the riders as if indignant that anything except him should absorb attention; a gallant horse, with another floating blue streamer, bearing himself as becometh a king's son; the chase comes near to crushing sundry grunting porkers impervious to pride and glory in any worldly distinctions of cerulean decorations, and at last is fain to draw up and wait until a flock of silly over-dressed sheep, running in frantic fear every way but the right way, can be gathered together and guided to a place of safety.
And once more, forward; past white frame houses with porches, and vine-grown verandas, and well-tended gardens, and groves of oak and beech and hickory trees—"John Barleycorn" makes an ineffectual but gallant struggle to get in at the large white gate of one of these comfortable places, Squire Goodlet's home, but he is urged back into the road, and again the pursuit sweeps on. Those blue mountains, the long parallel ranges of Old Bear and his brothers, seem no more a misty, uncertain mirage against the delicious indefinable tints of the horizon. Sharply outlined they are now, with dark, irregular shadows upon their precipitous slopes which tell of wild ravines, and rock-lined gorges, and swirling mountain torrents, and great, beetling, gray crags. A breath of balsams comes on the freshening wind—the lungs expand to meet it. There is a new aspect in the scene; a revivifying current thrills through the blood; a sudden ideal beauty descends on prosaic creation.
"'Pears like I can't git my breath good in them flat countries," says Jenkins Hollis to himself, as "John Barleycorn" improves his speed under the exhilarating influence of the wind. "I'm nigh on to sifflicated every time I goes down yander ter Colbury" (with a jerk of his wooden head in the direction of the village).
Long stretches of woods are on either side of the road now, with no sign of the changing season in the foliage save the slender, pointed, scarlet leaves and creamy plumes of the sourwood, gleaming here and there; and presently another panorama of open country unrolls to the view. Two or three frame houses appear with gardens and orchards, a number of humble log cabins, and a dingy little store, and the Cross-Roads are reached. And here the conclusive intelligence meets the party that Jacob and Cynthia were married by Parson Jones an hour ago, and were still "a-kitin'," at last accounts, out on the road to Old Bear.
The pursuit stayed its ardor. On the auspicious day when Jenkins Hollis took the blue ribbon at the County Fair and won the saddle and bridle he lost his daughter.
They saw Cynthia no more until late in the autumn when she came, without a word of self-justification or apology for her conduct, to lend her mother a helping hand in spinning and weaving her little brothers' and sisters' clothes. And gradually the eclat attendant upon her nuptials was forgotten, except that Mrs. Hollis now and then remarks that she "dunno how we could hev bore up agin Cynthy's a-runnin' away like she done, ef it hedn't a-been fur that thar saddle an' bridle an' takin' the blue ribbon at the County Fair."
THE CASTING VOTE.
I.
An election of civil and judicial officers was impending in Kildeer County when a comet appeared in the July sky, a mysterious, aloof, uncanny presence, that invaded the night and the stereotyped routine of nature with that gruesome effect of the phenomenal which gives to the mind so definite a realization of how dear and secure is the prosaic sense of custom.
All the lenses of the great observatories of the world had, in a manner, sought to entertain the strange visitant of the heavens. The learned had gone so far as to claim its acquaintance, to recognize it as the returning comet of a date long gone by. It even carried amidst its shining glories, along the far unimagined ways of its orbit, the name of a human being—of the man who had discovered it on its former visit, for thus splendidly does astronomy honor its votaries. Less scientific people regarded it askance as in some sort harbinger of woe, and spoke of presage, recalling other comets, and the commotions that came in their train—from the Deluge, with the traditional cometary influences rife in the breaking up of "the fountains of the great deep," to the victories of Mohammed II. and the threatened overthrow of Christendom, and even down to our own war of 1812. Others, again, scorned superstition, and entertained merely practical misgivings concerning the weight, density, and temperature of the comet, lest the eccentric aerial wanderer should run amuck of the earth in some confusion touching the right of way through space.
Meanwhile, it grew from the semblance of a vaporous tissue—an illuminated haze only discernible through the telescope, the private view of the favored few—till it gradually became visible to the unassisted eye of the profanum vulgus, and finally it flamed across the darkling spaces with its white crown of glory, its splendid wing-like train, and its effect of motion as of a wondrous flight among the stars—and all the world, and, for aught we know, many worlds, gazed at it.
Only in some great desert, the vast stretches of unsailed seas, or the depths of uninhabited forests, were its supernal splendors unnoted. It sunk as wistful, as tremulous, a reflection in a lonely pool in the dense mountain wilds as any simple star, a familiar of these haunts, that had looked down to mark its responsive image year after year, for countless ages, whenever the season brought it, in its place in the glittering mail of the Archer, or among the jewels of the Northern Crown, once more to the spot it had known and its tryst with its fair semblance in the water.
The great silver flake which the comet struck out upon the serene surface lay glinting there among the lesser stellar reflections, when a man, kneeling in a gully of the steep bank sloping to the "salt lick," leaned forward suddenly to gaze at it; then, with a gasp, turned his eyes upward to that flaming blade drawn athwart the peaceful sky. He did not utter a sound. The habit of silence essential to the deer-hunter kept its mechanical hold upon his nerves. Only the hand with which he grasped the half-exposed roots of a great sycamore-tree, denuded in some partial caving of the bank long ago, relaxed and trembled slightly.
He was a man of scant and narrow experience, his world the impenetrable mountain wilderness, and, though seemingly the pupil of nature, versed in the ways of beast and bird, the signs of the clouds, the seasons of bourgeoning and burr, it was but of casual external aspects. He knew naught of its wondrous history, its subtler significance, its strange record—the flood-tides registered on that cliff beyond the laurel; the reptilian trail in the ledge beneath the butt of his rifle, the imprint still fast in the solid rock, albeit the species extinct; the great bones of ancient unknown beasts sunk in the depressions of this saline quagmire, which herds of them had once frequented for the salt, as did of late the buffalo, and now the timorous deer, wont to come, like shadows wavering in the wind, to lick the briny earth. The strange, glinting blade overhead had no claim on his recognition as the "comet of Aristotle," or the "evil-disposed comet" personified by the Italians as Sir Great-Lance, il Signor Astone, or Halley's comet, or Donati's. Self is the centre of the solar system with many souls, and around this point do all its incidents revolve. For him that wondrous white fire was kindled in the skies, for him, in special relation to his small life, to the wish nearest his hot human heart, to the clumsy scheme dear to his slow, crude brain. He thought it a warning then: and later he thought this still.
Some vague stir—the wind perhaps, or perhaps a light-footed dryad—flitted past and was gone. The surface of the "lick" rippled with her footprints, and was smooth again. All the encompassing masses of trees and undergrowth about the place were densely black and opaque, giving the sense of absolute solidity and weight, except upon the verges, which were somehow shaded off into a cloudy brown against the translucent dove-tinted tissues in which the night seemed enveloped and obscured save for the white gleaming of the stars. This was the clear color that the brackish water wore as it reflected the night. It reflected suddenly a face—a face with a long velvety muzzle, a pair of spreading antlers, and dark eyes, gentle, timorous, liquidly bright. The water stirred with a sibilant lapping sound as the buck's tongue licked at the margin. Once he held up his head to listen, with his hoof lifted, then he bent again to the ripples. There was slight relation between him, the native of these woods, and that wayward waif of the skies; but among the unnumbered influences and incidents of its course it served to save that humble sylvan life for a space. The hunter neither saw nor heard.
It was only when the deer with a sudden snort and a precipitate bound fled crashing through the laurel that Walter Hoxon became aware of his presence, and of the stealthy approach that had alarmed him. The approach was stealthy no longer. A quick, nervous tread, a rustling of the boughs, and as the hunter rose to his feet his elder brother emerged from the undergrowth, taller than he as they stood together on the margin of the lick, more active, sinewy, alert.
"Whyn't ye take a shot at him, Wat?" cried Justus Hoxon tumultuously.
"I'll be bound ye war nappin'," he added in keen rebuke.
A pause, then Walter Hoxon pulled himself together and retorted:—
"Nappin'!" in scornful falsetto. "How could I get a shot, with ye a-trompin' up ez n'isy ez a herd o' cattle?"
The reproach evidently struck home, for the elder said nothing. With the thoroughness characteristic of the habitual liar, Walter proceeded to add circumstance to his original statement.
"I seen the buck whenst he fust kem sidlin' an' slippin' up ter the water, oneasy an' onsartain from the fust minute. I hed jes' sighted my rifle. An' hyar ye kem, a-bulgin' out o' the lau'l, an' sp'iled my shot." As the verisimilitude of his representations bore upon him, he unconsciously assumed the sentiments natural to the situation simulated. "Who tole ye ez I war hyar, anyhows?" he demanded angrily.
"'Dosia," replied Justus Hoxon in a mild tone. Then, with an effort at exculpation, "I 'lowed ye'd be keen—plumb sharp set—fur news 'bout the prospec's o' the 'lection. An' she 'lowed ez ye hed kem down hyar hopin' ter git a deer. 'T war The'dosia."
At the name the other had turned slightly away and looked down, a gesture that invidious daylight might have interpreted as anxiety, or faltering, or at the least replete with consciousness. But even if open to observation, it could scarcely have signified aught to Justus Hoxon, wrapped in his own thoughts, and in his absorbing interest in the events of the day. His mental attitude was so apparent to his brother, albeit his form was barely distinguishable as they stood together by the salt lick, that Wat ventured a question—a bold one, it seemed to him, and he felt a chill because of its temerity.
"Glad ter see ye, I s'pose?"
"Plumb tickled ter death," exclaimed Justus, his laughing voice full of reminiscent enthusiasm. "Thar war a big crowd at the Cross-Roads ter hear the speakin', an' a toler'ble gatherin' at Sycamore Gap. Everybody inquired partic'lar arter ye, an' whenst I tole 'em ye war tuk sick, an' couldn't be thar, an' I war 'lectioneerin' in yer place, they shuck han's, an' shuck han's. One ole man—ole Sam Coggins, up ter Sims's Mill—says ter me, he says, 'I dunno yer brother, Justus Hoxon; but blister my boots, ef I don't vote fur anybody ez air kin ter you-uns, an' ez ye hev set yer heart on 'lectin' ter office.' An' the way folks inquired arter ye, an'"—
"I ain't talkin' 'bout the 'lection," Wat broke in brusquely. "I war axin' 'bout 'Dosia. She war"—he hesitated—"liable ter be glad ter see ye, I reckon."
There was a note of surprise in his brother's voice from which Wat shrank in sudden alarm. "Oh, 'Dosia! Course she war glad. I seen her jes' now, an' she told me ez ye hed kem down ter the lick ter git a shot at the deer, bein' ez she hed 'lowed the venison war powerful good 'bout now. I never stayed but a minute. I says, ''Dosia, ye an' me hev got the rest o' our lives ter do our courtin' in, but this 'lection hev got ter be tended ter now, kase ef Wat ain't 'lected it'll set him back all his life. Some folks 'low ez 't ain't perlite an' respec'ful, nohow, fur pore folks like we-uns ter run fur office, like ez ef we war good ez anybody.' An' 'Dosia she jes' hustled me out'n the house. 'G'long! G'long! Do everything 'bout'n the 'lection! Turn every stone! Time enough fur courtin' arterward! Time enough!'"
Once more Justus laughed contentedly.
The man beside him stirred uneasily, then broke out irritably: "Waal, I'm powerful tired o' this 'lection foolishness, fur one. I wisht I hed never let ye push an' boost me inter it. I reckon them war right ez 'lowed pore folks like we-uns ain't fit ter run fur office, an' ain't goin' ter git 'lected. I'd never hev dreamt o' sech ef it hedn't been fur you-uns—never in this worl'." Walter's voice sunk moodily, and he had a flouting gesture as he turned aside.
A vicarious ambition is the most ungrateful of passions. There was something more than anger, than eager affection, than urgent reproach, than prescient alarm, albeit all rang sharply forth, in his brother's voice raised to reply; it was a keen note of helplessness, from which Walter's nerves recoiled with a sense of pain, so insistently clamorous it was.
"How kin ye say that!" cried Justus. "Fur ye ter stan' thar, ready ter throw away all yer good chances, jes' kase ye hev got the rheumatics an' don't feel like viewin' the people—though it 'pears like ye air well enough ter go huntin' of deer of a damp night at a salt lick! An' then, kase a mean-spirited half-liver flings dirt on ye an' yer fambly, fur ye ter sit down on a low stool, an' fill yer mouth with mud, an' 'low this air plenty good enough fur we-uns! 'Pore folks ain't fit ter git 'lected ter office!'" with scornful iteration. "My Lord! this hyar is a democratic kentry!" with an echo from the stump speeches of the day. "Leastwise the folks yander at Sycamore Gap 'peared ter think so. This hyar Tom Markham he war speakin' on the issues o' the day, an' bein' he's a frien' o' Sheriff Quigley's, he tuk a turn at me an' you-uns, o' course. Tole the folks how my dad an' mam died whenst I war twelve year old, an' how the only reason the fambly warn't sent ter the pore-house war kase the county folks war dil'tory, an' put it off, till they 'lowed our own house war pore enough. An' then he sot out ter be mighty funny, an' mocked the way I useter call the t'other chil'n 'Fambly,' sech ez—'Fambly, kem ter dinner, Fambly!' 'Shet up yer cryin', Fambly!' An' then he tole how I cooked—gathered all sorts o' yarbs an' vegetables tergether an' sot a pot ter bile, an' whenever 'Fambly' war hongry 'Fambly' tuk a snack, an' gracefully eat out'n the pot with thar fingers. An' sometimes 'Fambly' war moved ter wash thar clothes, an' they all repaired ter the ruver-bank, an' rubbed out thar rags, an' hung 'em on the bushes ter dry—an', duty done, 'Fambly' went a-wadin'. Everybody jes' laffed an' laffed!"
There was a strained tone in his voice, not far foreign to a sob, as he repeated these derisive flouts at his early and forlorn estate.
"An' now," resuming their rehearsal, "this enlightened constituency was asked ter bestow on a scion o' this same 'Fambly'—ignorant, scrub, pauper—an office of great importance to the people, that needed to fill it a man o' eddication an' experiunce, varsed in the ways o' the world—asked to bestow the office o' sheriff o' the county on a man who war so obviously incomp'tent an' illit'rate that he darsn't face the people ter make his perposterous demand!"
The wind came and went. The darkling bushes bowed and bent again. The leaves took up their testimony in elusive, sibilant mutterings. Justus Hoxon's eyes were cast upward for a moment, as he watched a massive bough of an oak-tree sway against the far sky, shutting off the stars, which became visible anew as the elastic branch swung back once more. Only the pallor of his face and a certain lustrous liquid gleam betokening his eyes were distinguishable to his brother, who nevertheless watched him with anxiety and quickened breathing as he went on:—
"That thar feller hed sca'cely stepped down off'n that thar stump afore I war on ter it. I asked fur a few minutes' attention, an' 'lowed, I did, that Mr. Markham's account o' the humble beginnin's of me an' 'Fambly' war accurate an' exac'. (Everybody hed looked fur me ter deny it, or ter git mad, or suthin', an' they war toler'ble s'prised.) 'Fambly' did eat out'n the pot permiscuous, an' made a mighty pore dinner thar many a day. An' 'Fambly' washed thar clothes ez described, infrequent enough, an' no doubt war ez ragged an' dirty ez they war hongry. But, I said, Mr. Markham hedn't told the haffen o' it. Cold winter nights, when the snow sifted in through the cracks, an' the wind blew in the rotten old door, 'Fambly' liked ter hev friz ter death. They hed the pneumonia, an' whoopin'-cough, an' croup; an' in summer, bein' a perverse set o' brats, 'Fambly' hed fever an' ager, an' similar ailments common ter the young o' the human race, the same ez ef 'Fambly' war folks! 'T war 'stonishin', kem ter think of it, how 'Fambly' hed the insurance ter grow up ter look like folks, let alone settin' out ter run fur office; an' ef God hedn't raised 'em up some mighty good frien's in this county, I reckon thar wouldn't be much o' 'Fambly' left. Some folks 'low ez Providence hev got mighty leetle jedgmint in worldly affairs, an' this mus' be one o' the strikin' instances of it. These frien's gin the bigges' boy work ter do, an' that holped ter keep 'Fambly's' bodies an' souls tergether. I reckon, says I, that I hev ploughed in the fields o' haffen the men in our deestric'; I hev worked in the tan-yard; I hev been striker in the blacksmith shop; an' all the time that pot, aforesaid, b'iled at home, an' 'Fambly' tuk thar dinner thar constant, with thar fingers, ez aforesaid. But 'Fambly' warn't so durned ragged, nuther. Good neighbors gin 'em some clothes wunst in a while, an' l'arned the gals ter sew an' cook some. An' thar kem ter be a skillet an' a fryin'-pan on the h'a'th ter holp the pot out. Why, 'Fambly' got so prosperous that one day, whenst a' ole, drunken, cripple, ragged man war passin', they enj'yed themselves mightily, laffin' at somebody po'rer than themselves. An' ole Pa'son Tyson war goin' by in his gig, an' he tuk note o' the finger o' scorn, an' he stopped. He said mighty leetle, but he tuk the trouble ter cut a stout hickory sprout, an' he gin 'Fambly' a good thrashin' all roun'. It lasted 'Fambly' well. They ain't laffed at 'God's pore' sence! Waal, 'Fambly' 's takin' up too much o' this enlightened assembly's attention. Enough to tell what's kem o' 'Fambly.' The oldes' gal went ter free school, l'arned ter read, write, an' cipher, an' married Pa'son Tyson's son, ez air a minister o' the gospel a-ridin' a Methodis' circuit in north Georgy now. An' the second gal"—his voice faltered—"she went ter free school, l'arned mo' still o' readin' an' writin' an' cipherin', an' taught school two year down on Bird Creek, an' war goin' ter be married ter a good man, well-ter-do, who had built her a house, not knowin' ez God hed prepared her a mansion in the skies. She is livin' thar now! An' las', the Benjamin o' all the tribe, kems my brother Walter. He went ter school; kin read, write, an' cipher; he's been taught ez much ez any man ez ever held the office he axes ter be 'lected ter, an' air thoroughly competent. Fac' is, gentlemen, thar's nothin' lef' ter show fur the humble 'Fambly' Mr. Markham's be'n tellin' 'bout, but me. I never went ter school, 'ceptin' in yer fields. I l'arned ter cure hides, an' temper steel, an' shoe horse-critters, so that pot mought be kep' a-b'ilin', an' 'Fambly' mought dine accordin' to thar humble way in them very humble days that somehow, gentlemen, I ain't got an' can't git the grace ter be 'shamed of yit."
He paused abruptly as he concluded the recital of his speech, and wiped his face with the back of his hand. "I wisht ye could hev hearn them men cheer. They jes' hollered tharse'fs hoarse. They shuck hands till they mighty nigh yanked my arm out'n its socket." With the recollection, he rubbed his right arm with a gesture of pain.
Something there was in the account of this ovation that smote upon the younger brother's sense of values, and he hastened to take possession of it.
"Oh, I knowed I war powerful pop'lar in the Sycamore Gap deestric'," he said, dropping his lowering manner, that had somehow been perceptible in the darkness, and wagging his head from side to side with a gesture of great security in the affections of Sycamore Gap. "Sycamore Gap's all right, I know; I'll poll a big majority thar, sure."
"I reckon ye will; but I warn't so sure o' that at fust," replied the elder. "They 'peared ter me at fust ter be sorter set ag'in us—leastwise me, though arter a while I could hardly git away from 'em, they war so durned friendly."
Walter cast a keen look upon him; but he evidently spoke from his simple heart, and was all unaware that he was personally the source of this sudden popularity in Sycamore Gap—his magnetism, his unconscious eloquence, and his character as shown in the simple and forlorn annals of "Fambly." And yet he was not crudely unthinking. He perceived the incongruity of his brother's successive standpoints.
"I dunno how ye kin purtend ter be so all-fired sure o' Sycamore Gap," he said suddenly. "'T ain't five minutes sence ye war 'lowin' ez pore folks couldn't git 'lected ter office, an' ye wished ye hed hed nothin' ter do with sech, an' 't war me ez bed jes' pushed an' boosted ye inter it."
The resources of subterfuge are well-nigh limitless. Walter Hoxon was an adept in utilizing them. He had seen a warning in the skies, and it had struck terror and discouragement to his heart; but not to his political prospects had he felt its application. Other schemes, deeper, treacherous, secret, seemed menaced, and his conscience, or that endowment to quake with the fear of requital that answers for conscience in some ill-developed souls, was set astir. Nevertheless, the election might suffice as scapegoat.
"Look a-yander, Justus," he said suddenly, pointing with the muzzle of his gun at the brilliant wayfarer of the skies, as if he might in another moment essay a shot. "That thar critter means mischief, sure ez ye air born."
The other stepped back a pace or two, and lifted his head to look.
"The comic?" he demanded. Walter's silence seemed assent. "Laws-a-massy, ye tomfool," Justus cried, "let it be a sign ter them ez run ag'in' ye! Count the comic in like a qualified voter—it kem hyar on account o' the incumbent's incompetence in office. Signs! Rolf Quigley is sign enough,—if ye want signs in 'lections,—with money, an' frien's, an' a term of office, an' the reg'lar nominee o' the party, an' ye jes' an independent candidate. No star a-waggin' a tale aroun' the sky air haffen ez dangerous ter yer 'lection ez him. An' he ain't lookin' at no comic! He looked this evenin' like he'd put his finger in his mouth in one more minute, plumb 'shamed ter his boot-sole o' the things Markham hed said. An' Markham he kem up ter me before a crowd o' fellers, an' says, says he: 'Mr. Hoxon, I meant no reflections on yer fambly in alludin' ter its poverty, an' I honor ye fur yer lifelong exertions in its behalf. I take pride, sir, in makin' this apology.' An' I says: 'I be a' illit'rate, humble man, Mr. Markham; but I will venture the liberty to tell ye ez ye mought take mo' pride in givin' no occasion fur apologies ter poverty.' Them fellers standin' aroun' jes' laffed. I knowed he didn't mean a word he said then, but war jes' slickin' over the things he hed said on Quigley's account, kase the crowd seemed ter favor me. I say, comic! Let Rolf Quigley take the comic fur a sign."
It is easy to pluck up fears that have no root. "Oh, I be goin' ter 'lectioneer all the same ez ever. Whar 's the nex' place we air bound fur?"
Walter put his hand on his brother's shoulder as he asked the question, and in the eager unfolding of plans and possibilities the two, as Justus talked, made their way along the deer-path beside the salt lick, leaving the stars coldly glittering on the ripples, with that wonderful streak of white fire reflected among them; leaving, too, the vaguely whispering woods, communing with the wind as it came and went; reaching the slope of the mountain at last, where was perched, amid sterile fields and humble garden-patch, the little cabin in which "Fambly" had struggled through its forlorn youth to better days.
* * * * *
The door was closed after this. A padlock knocked against it when the wind blew, as if spuriously announcing a visitor. The deceit failed of effect, for there was no inmate left, and the freakish gust could only twirl the lock anew, and go swirling down the road with a rout of dust in a witches' dance behind it. The passers-by took note of the deserted aspect of things, and knew that the brothers were absent electioneering, and wondered vaguely what the chances might be. This passing was somewhat more frequent than was normal along the road; for when the mists that had hung about the mountains persistently during a warm, clammy, wet season had withdrawn suddenly, and one night revealed for the first time the comet fairly ablaze in the sky, a desire to hear what was said and known about it at the Cross-Roads and the settlement and the blacksmith shop took possession of the denizens of the region, and the coteries of amateur astronomers at these centres were added to daily. Some remembered a comet or two in past times, and if the deponent were advanced in years his hearers were given to understand that the present luminary couldn't hold a tallow dip to the incandescent terrors he recollected. There were utilitarian souls who were disquieted about the crops, and anxiously examined growing ears of corn, expecting to find the comet's influence tucked away in the husks. Some looked for the end of the world; those most obviously and determinedly pious took, it might seem, a certain unfraternal joy in the contrast of their superior forethought, in being prepared for the day of doom, with the uncovenanted estate of the non-professor. A revival broke out at New Bethel; the number of mourners grew in proportion as the comet got bigger night by night. Small wonder that as evening drew slowly on, and the flaring, assertive, red west gradually paled, and the ranges began to lose semblance and symmetry in the dusk, and the river gloomed benighted in the vague circuit of its course, and a lonely star slipped into the sky, darkening, too, till, rank after rank, and phalanx after phalanx, all the splendid armament of night had mustered, with that great, glamourous guidon in the midst—small wonder that the ignorant mountaineer looked up at the unaccustomed thing to mark it there, and fear smote his heart.
At these times certain of the little sequestered households far among the wooded ranges got them within their doors, as if to place between them and the uncanny invader of the night, and the threatening influences rife in the very atmosphere, all the simple habitudes of home. The hearthstone seemed safest, the door a barrier, the home circle a guard. Others spent the nocturnal hours in the dooryard or on the porch, marking the march of the constellations, and filling the time with vague speculations, or retailing dreadful rumors of strange happenings in the neighboring coves, and wild stories of turmoil and misfortune that comets had wrought years ago.
It was at one of these makeshift observatories that Justus Hoxon stopped the first evening after his electioneering tour in the interest of his brother. The weather had turned hot and fair; a drought, a set-off to the surplusage of recent rain, was in progress; the dooryard on the high slope of the mountain, apart from its availability for the surveillance of any eccentric doings of the comet, was an acceptable lounging-place for the sake of the air, the dew, the hope of a vagrant breeze, and, more than all, the ample "elbow-room" which it offered the rest of the family while he talked with Theodosia Blakely. The rest of the family—unwelcome wights!—were not disposed to make their existence obtrusive; on the contrary, they did much to further his wishes, even to the sacrifice of personal predilection. Mrs. Blakely, her arms befloured, her hands in the dough, had observed him at the gate, while she stood at the biscuit-block in the shed-room, and although pining to rush forth and ask the latest news from the settlement and the comet, she only called out in a husky undertone: "'Dosia, 'Dosia, yander's Justus a-kemin' in the gate! Put on yer white apern, chile."
Because she had been adjured to put on her white apron, Theodosia did not put it on. She advanced to the window, about which grew, with its graceful habit, a hop-vine. A little slanting roof was above the lintel, a mere board or so, with a few warped shingles; but it made a gentle shadow, and Theodosia thought few men besides the one at the gate would have failed to see her there. He lingered a little, turning back to glance over the landscape, and then he deflected his course toward a rough bench that was placed in a corner of the rail fence, threw himself upon it, and fanned himself with his broad-brimmed hat.
"The insurance o' the critter! I'm a mind ter leave ye a-settin' thar by yerse'f till ye be wore out waitin'," she muttered.
She hesitated a moment, then took her sunbonnet and went out to meet him.
The scene was like some great painting, with this corner in the foreground left unfinished, so minute was the detail of the distance, so elaborate and perfect the coloring of the curves of purple, and amethyst, and blue mountains afar off, rising in tiers about the cup-shaped valley. Above it hung a tawny tissue of haze, surcharged with a deeply red, vinous splendor, as if spilled from the stirrup-cup of the departing sun. He was already out of sight, spurring along unknown ways. The sky was yellow here and amber there, and a pearly flake, its only cloud, glittered white in the midst. Up the hither slope the various green of the pine and the poplar, the sycamore and the sweet-gum, was keenly differentiated, but where the rail fence drew the line of demarkation, Art seemed to fail.
A crude wash of ochre had apparently sufficed for the dooryard; no weed grew here, no twig. It was tramped firm and hard by the feet of cow, and horse, and the peripatetic children, and poultry. The cabin was drawn in with careless angles and lines by a mere stroke or two; and surely no painter, no builder save the utilitarian backwoodsman, would have left it with no relief of trees behind it, no vineyard, no garden, no orchard, no background, naught; in its gaunt simplicity and ugliness it stood against its own ill-tended fields flattening away in the rear.
Such as it was, however, it satisfied all of Justus Hoxon's sense of the appropriate and the picturesque when Theodosia Blakely stepped out from the door and came slowly to meet him. The painter's art, if she were to be esteemed part of the foreground, might have seemed redeemed in her. Her dress was of light blue homespun; her sunbonnet of deep red calico, pushed back, showed her dark brown hair waving upward in heavy undulations from her brow, her large blue eyes with their thick black lashes, her rich brunette complexion, her delicate red lips cut in fine lines, and the gleam of her teeth as she smiled. She had a string of opaque white, wax-like beads around the neck of her dress, and the contrast of the pearly whiteness of the bauble with the creamy whiteness and softness of her throat was marked with much finish. Her figure was hardly of medium height, and, despite the suppleness of youth, as "plump as a partridge," according to the familiar saying. The clear iris of her eyes gave an impression of quick shifting, and by them one could see her mood change as she approached.