Part 11 (1/2)

”Why, dinner's about ready to take up, and them folks ain't come back.

Why, I never did see Lou as skittish as she is now. I reckon it's because he's the son of a United States jedge.”

”Oh, you've found out all about him, have you? Wall, he's sorter skittish, too. And when his aunt talks it puts me in mind of a bird a singin' up summers among the green leaves.”

”Oh, any woman could talk thatter way if you'd put fine clothes on her.

Trouble is when a woman ain't dressed fitten to kill, n.o.body won't listen to her. Common calico can't talk any better than that Mose Blake; but silk--law me! Sings like a bird up among the green leaves. I despise to hear a man go on thatter way--jest as if a woman ain't respectable unless she covers herself with finery. But I want to tell you that Lou can talk with the rest of 'em when she wants to--and so can I, for that matter.”

”Oh, you can talk, Margaret--thar ain't no doubt about that. Well, I'll go out now and see if the hogs air gittin' along all right, and when dinner's ready jest blow yo' ho'n.”

Off from the road, not far from the house, a gulch ran zig-zag up among the rugged hills. It was no mere ragged and unsightly drain for water from the higher land. Flower-brightened and vine-hung, it was deliciously cool, and gorgeous at every turn. At the bottom babbled a rivulet, a bit of summer sky melted and poured among the green-tipped rocks. Blooming shrubs in the giant's garden, the saplings seemed; and hither came the birds to make their nests and to nod with half-shut eyes in the drowsy afternoon. But after pa.s.sing through this elbow corridor, there were bare rocks, standing bold in the sun or bleak in the wind, and here was a log hut almost hidden by bushes. It was called the mill, and corn was ground there, but the meal was boiled in a great iron kettle. It was Old Jasper's distillery. After leaving the house he went up to this place, and in front of his picturesque though illegitimate establishment, he sat down upon a stone to muse over his coming danger.

In Jasper Starbuck there was a force which, directed by education, would have made of him a leader of men. Once a neighbor had threatened to report him to the government, and in the night Jasper went to the house of his enemy, called him to the door, showed him a rope, and without saying a word went away. The neighbor knew what the rope meant. Years before a miscreant who had a.s.saulted a woman, was seized by Starbuck, thrown upon his back, tied hand and foot, and hanged to a tree; and it was only the timely arrival of officers of the law that saved him for the deliberations of the established gallows. But with all his quickness to act he was sometimes made slow by a touch of sentiment, and thus it was that he permitted Peters to bully him. Between the two families there had ever existed bad blood, and some of it had been spilled. In the neighborhood it was a standing prediction that Jasper would one day cut the throat of the bl.u.s.tering Lije, and the old fellow, especially as time began to whiten his hair, constantly mused to himself: ”I don't want 'em to throw it up to my girl that she is the daughter of a butcher, but if the time must come--” Here he always broke off, summoning his humor with the whistle of a droll tune. ”Thar may be some way to weather it out,” he now mused as he sat upon the stone, ”I have been in many a close place and I always weathered it out.”

Suddenly he looked up, attracted by the bleating of a lamb; and up higher among the crags he went, found the little thing caught between two rocks, almost starved. ”You don't belong to me,” he said, taking the lamb in his arms, ”but yo' life belongs to you an' in the sight o' the Lord mebby it amounts to as much as mine.” He took the lamb down to the house, gave it milk, and then took it back upon the hill-side, and, putting it on the ground, said: ”Thar, I reckon you'd better run along home. Yo' mammy mout be distressed about you.”

Upon returning to the house he found that his visitors had come back from the post-office. Jim was gazing at Mrs. Mayfield, Tom was shyly striving to dispel Lou's shyness, Mrs. Mayfield was talking romance.

”Oh, I could not have believed that such a place existed,” she said to Starbuck. ”I was warned not to come here, that the people were ungentle and that the report of the gun was oftener heard than the strains of the song; but I find that your life here is almost uneventful music.”

”I don't know what sort of music that is, ma'm, but if you say so, I'd be willin' to bet on it. Wouldn't you, Jim?”

”I don't bet, Uncle Jasper,--but--but if she wanted me to I would.”

”Of course you would, or any other preacher, if he's a man.”

Mrs. Mayfield was looking at Jim and he sat illumined beneath her gaze.

”Your compliments are all so new and strange to me,” she said. ”And in them I can find no flattery.”

”Ma'm, I have never tried to flatter any one. Judas was a flatterer.”

”That's right, ma'm,” the old man declared, laughing and slapping his leg; ”an' I'd ruther a man would tell me a flat-footed lie than to pour mola.s.ses on me. Young feller,” he asked of Tom, ”did you like yo'

ride?”

”Charmed with it, I a.s.sure you. Auntie called it a continuous panorama.”

”Wall, I never thought about it in that way, but I reckon that's about what it is.”

”Oh, such visions are not to be forgotten,” Mrs. Mayfield spoke up, and at the sound of her voice Jim dodged. ”And such air, Mr.

Starbuck--ethereal liquor of the G.o.ds.”

At the word liquor Jasper's jaw dropped with a ”hah?”

”Yes,” she said, ”wine from the press of Paradise. How free from the taint of the world was every shrub and flower! I thought that a poet had laid him down and dreamed, and awaking and stealing away, had left his dream behind.”

”That so? And right up on the hill from whar you crossed the river thar lives the old feller they tell the tale about. Many years ago when thar come along a gover'ment surveyor, a changein' the line between North Caroliny an' Tennessee, he dragged his chain through the old feller's house, putting one room in one state an' lettin' the other room stay in the state it was. 'Wall,' says the old feller, beginnin' to move his bed over into the tuther room, 'reckon I'll sleep over here as North Caroliny ain't very healthy nohow,' an' he did till years atterwards another chain proved that he was mo' than fifty miles over in Tennessee an' then his health improved might'ly. I'm glad you like our part o' the country, ma'm.”

”Anyone to know the dark side of life as I do, Mr. Starbuck, must revel here. There are no sneers among the trees, and the tears that fall from the flowers are tears of joy and not of sorrow. It does not seem that the great explorer, Trouble, has ever penetrated this region.”

”Ma'm,” said the old man, standing in front of her with his hands behind him, ”no matter whar we go trouble is thar jest in advance of us.