Part 6 (2/2)

This was the last time Cornelia ever remonstrated with Pap John. She had a little talk with the new doctor from Hepzibah who bad succeeded old Dr.

Pastergood; and after that John was added to the list of her anxieties. He might carry the milk to the cabin on The Bench; he might slip in, when he deemed Sammy away--or asleep--and plough the corn; she saw the tragic folly of it, but must be silent. And so on that particular June morning, when Pap had put up the mule, clambered down the short-cut footway from The Bench to the old house, stopping several times to shake his head again and murmur to himself--”Whut you gwine do? There's them chaps; there's Huldy. Mustn't plough his co'n; mustn't take over air cow. Whut you gwine do?”--Aunt Cornelia's seeing eye noted his perturbation the moment he came in at the door. With tender guile she built up a considerable argument in the matter of a quarterly meeting which was approaching--the grove quarterly, in which Pap John was unfailingly interested, and during which there were always from two to half a dozen preachers, old and young, staying with them. So she led him away--ever so little away--from his ever-present grief.

It was the next day that he said to her, ”Cornely, I p'intedly ain't gwine to suffer this hyer filchin' o' co'n them Fusons is a-keepin' up on me.”

”Is the Fusons a-stealin' yo' co'n, John?” she responded, in surprise.

”W'y, they got a-plenty, ain't they?”

”Well, no, not adzactly, that is to say, Buck Fuson ain't got a-plenty. He too lazy and s.h.i.+f'less to make co'n of his own; and he like too well to filch co'n from them he puts his spite on. Buck Fuson he tuck a spite at me, last time the raiders was up atter that Fuson hideout; jes set up an'

swore 'at I'd gin the word to 'em. You see, honey, he makes him up a spite that-a-way--jes out o' nothin'--'cause hit's sech a handy thing to have around when he comes to want co'n. Thar's some one already purvided to steal from--some one 'at's done him a injury.”

”Pappy! W'y, Johnny honey, sakes alive! What air ye ever a-gwine to do 'long o' that there thing?” For the old man had laboriously fetched out a rusty wolf-trap, and was now earnestly inspecting and overhauling it.

”Whut am I a-gwine to do 'long o' this hyer, Cornely? W'y, I am jes p'intedly a-gwine to set it in my grain-room. Buck Fuson air a bad man, honey. There's two men's blood to his count. They cain't nothin' be done to him for nair a one of 'em--you know, same's I do--'ca'se hit cain't be proved in a co't o' law. But I kin ketch him in this meanness with this hyer little jigger, and I'm a-gwine to do hit, jest ez sure ez my name's John Overholt!”

”Oh, Pappy! A leetle bit o' co'n fer a man's chillen--”

”Now, Cornely honey, that's a womern! Buck Fuson is the wrong kind o' man to have round. He's ben a stealin' my co'n now fer two weeks and mo'. Ef I kin ketch him right out, and give him a fa'r shamin', he'll quit the Turkey Tracks fer good. So fer as Elmiry and the chaps is consarned, they'll be better off without Buck 'n what they is with him.”

At this moment Aunt Cornelia cried out joyously, ”Oh, thar's my chile!” and ran to meet her daughter-in-law. The little girl--Cornelia the second--could navigate bravely by herself now, and Huldy was carrying the l.u.s.ty twin boys. In the flutter of delight over this stolen visit, the ugly wolf-trap threat was forgotten. It had been a month and more since Sammy had set foot in his parents' house. It had gone all over both Turkey Tracks that Sam Overholt declared he would never darken Pap Overholt's door again--Pap Overholt, who had tried to make a pauper of him, loading him with gifts and benefits, like he was s.h.i.+f'less, no-'count white tras.h.!.+ The little Huldy reported him gone to Far Canaan, over beyond Big Turkey Track, in the matter of some employment, which he had not deigned to make clearer to his wife. He would not be back until the day after to-morrow; and meantime she might stay with the old folks two whole days and nights! In the severe school to which life had put her, the little Huldy had developed an astonis.h.i.+ng amount of character, of shrewdness, and perception, and a very fair philosophy of her own. To the elder woman's sad observation that it was mighty strange what made Sammy so ”onthankful” and so ”ha'sh” to his pappy, who had done so much for him, Huldy responded,

”No, Aunt Cornely, hit ain't strange, not a bit.”

”Ain't strange? Huldy child, what do you mean?”

”W'y, don't you know, Aunt Cornely, ef he do Pappy that-a-way, when Pappy do so much fer him, then he don't have to be thankful. When everybody's a-tellin' him, 'Yo' pap's so kind, yo' pap does everything for you; look like you cain't be good enough to him,' he 'bleeged to find some way to shake off all that thankfulness 'at's sech a burden to him. And so when Pappy come a-totin' milk, an' a-totin' pork, an' a-ploughin' his co'n outen the weeds, w'y, Sammy jest draw down his face an' look black at Pappy, and make like he mad at him--like he don't want none o' them things--like Pappy jest pesterin' round him fer nothin'. but meanness. Now mind, Aunt Cornely, I ain't say Sammy knows this his own se'f. But I studied Sammy mighty well, an' _I_ know. Sammy gittin' tell he do me the same way. I wait on him hand and foot; I cook his bacon jest like he tol' me you did it fer him. I fix everything the best I kin (and mebby all three of the chillen a-cryin'

after me); and when he come in and see it all ready, and see how hard I got it, and seem like there's a call fer him to be thankful, then Sammy jest turns on hit all. He draw down his face at me and he say, black like: 'I don't want no bacon--what did you fix that s.h.i.+rt for that-a-way? Take away that turnip sallet--I cain't git nothin' like I want it.' Then, you know,”

with a little smile up into the other's face, half pitiful, half saucy,--”Then you know, Sammy don't have to be thankful. Hit was all done wrong.”

It was the next evening--Sat.u.r.day evening. The entire household (which included Elder Justice and two young preachers from Big Turkey Track, with Brother Tarbush, one of the new exhorters) had returned from the afternoon's meeting in the grove. Supper had been eaten and cleared away.

The babies had been put to sleep; the two women and the five men--all strong and striking types of the Southern mountaineer--were gathered for the evening reading and prayer. Elder Justice, now nearly eighty years old, a beautiful and venerable person, had opened the big Bible, and after turning the leaves a moment, raised his grave, rugged face and read: ”'Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death.'”

He paused, and on the intense stillness which followed the ceasing of his voice--the silence of evening in the deep mountains--there broke a long, shrill, agonized scream.

As every one of the little circle leaped to his feet, Aunt Cornelia's eyes sought her husband's face, and his hers. After that grinding, terrible cry, the stillness of the night was unstirred. Pap Overholt sprang to the hearth--where even in the midsummer months a log smoulders throughout the day, to be brightened into a cheery blaze mornings and evenings,--seized a brand, one or two of the others following his example, and ran through the doorway, across the little chip-yard, making for the low-browed log barn and the grain-room beside it.

None who witnessed that scene ever forgot it. Each one told it afterward in his own way, declaring that not while he lived could the remembrance of it pa.s.s from his mind. Pap Overholt's tall figure leaped crouching through the low doorway, and next instant lifted the blazing brand high above his head; the others followed, doing the same. There by the grain-bin, with ashy countenance and shaking limbs, the sweat of anguish upon his forehead, his eyes roving dumbly around the circle of faces revealed by the flickering light of the brands--there with the dreadful wolf-trap (locked by its chain to a stanchion) hanging to his right arm, its fangs bitten through and through the flesh, stood Sammy.

Pap Overholt's mind refused at first to understand. He had known (with that sort of moral a.s.surance which makes a thing as real to us as the evidence of the senses themselves) that it was Buck Fuson who had been stealing his grain. He had set his trap to catch Buck Fuson; not instantly could the mere sight of his eyes convince him that the trapped thief was the petted, adored, perverse son, who had refused his father's bounty when it had seemed the little wife and babies must starve. When he did realize, the cry that burst from his heart brought tears to all the eyes looking upon him.

Down went the tall, broad figure, down into the dust of the grain-room floor. And there Pap Overholt grovelled on his knees, his white head almost at the thief's feet, crying, crying that old cry of David's: ”Oh, Sammy, my son! My son, Sammy! An' I wouldn't 'a' touched a hair o' his head. My G.o.d!

have mercy on my soul, that would 'a' fed him my heart's blood--an' he wouldn't take bite nor sup from my hand. Oh, Sammy! what did you want to do this to yo' po' old pappy fer?”

Elder Justice, quick and efficient at eighty years, had sprung to the lad's right arm, two of the younger men close after. Aunt Cornelia held her piece of blazing light-wood for them while they cut away the sleeve and made ready to bear apart the powerful jaws of the trap. The little Huldy had said never a word. Her small, white face was strained; but it did not bear the marks of shock and of horror that were written on every other countenance there. When they had grasped jaws and lever, and Elder Justice's kind voice murmured, ”Mind now, Sammy. Hold firm, son; we air a-gwine to pull 'em back. Brace yo'se'f,” the boy's haggard eyes sought his mother's face.

”Le' me take it, Aunt Cornely,” whispered Huldy, loosing the light-wood from the elder woman's hand and leaving her free. And the next moment Sammy's left hand was clasped tight in his mother's; he turned his face round to her broad breast and hid it there; and there he sobbed and shook as the savage jaws came slowly back.

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