Part 4 (1/2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

”Worse than that, Mr. Starbuck.”

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

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

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

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

”No, his heart is black.”

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

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

Old Jasper jingled and clanked the iron of his harness. ”I don't know much about fountains,” said he, ”but I know a good deal about men, and I never seed one with a black heart that ever had it washed out clean.

I never knowd a scoundrel that wan't allus a scoundrel, and the Book don't say that the Savior died for scoundrels--died for sinners. A sinner kin be a fust-rate feller, full o' that weakness that helps a wretch outen trouble. The Savior knowed that and died for him.”

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

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

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

”What is this line?” she asked.

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

”What does it mean?” she asked.

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

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

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