Part 2 (1/2)
But he did not become a hermit by any means. The young men of Gullettsville made Sunday excursions to his farm, and he was pleased to treat them with great deference. Moreover, he began to go upon little journeys of his own across Sugar Valley. He made no mystery of his intentions; but one day there was considerable astonishment when he rode into Gullettsville on horseback, with Puss Pringle behind him, and informed the proper authorities of his desire to make her Mrs. Puss Poteet. Miss Pringle was not a handsome woman, but she was a fair representative of that portion of the race that has poisoned whole generations by improving the frying-pan and perpetuating ”fatty bread.”
The impression she made upon those who saw her for the first time was one of lank flatness--to convey a vivid idea rather clumsily. But she was neither lank nor flat. The total absence of all attempts at artificial ornamentation gave the future Mrs. Poteet an appearance of forlorn s.h.i.+ftlessness that was not even slightly justified by the facts. She was a woman past the heyday of youth, but of considerable energy, and possessed of keen powers of observation. Whatever was feminine about her was of that plaintive variety which may be depended upon to tell the story of whole generations of narrow, toilsome, and unprofitable lives.
There was one incident connected with Miss Pringle's antenuptial ride that rather intensified the contempt which the Mountain entertained for the Valley. As she jogged down the street, clinging confidently, if not comfortably, to Teague Poteet's suspenders, two young ladies of Gullettsville chanced to be pa.s.sing along. They walked slowly, their arms twined about each other's waists. They wore white muslin dresses, and straw hats with wide and jaunty brims, and the loose ends of gay ribbons fluttered about them. These young ladies, fresh from school, and no doubt full of vainglory, greeted the bridal procession with a little explosion of giggles, and when Puss Pringle pushed back her gingham sun-bonnet and innocently gazed upon them, they turned up their noses, sniffed the air scornfully, and made such demonstrations as no feminine mind, however ignorant in other directions, could fail to interpret.
Miss Pringle had not learned the art of tossing her head and sniffing the air, but she half closed her eyes and gave the young ladies a look that meant something more than scorn. She said nothing to Teague, for she was in hopes he had not observed the tantrums of the school-girls.
As for Teague, he saw the whole affair, and was out to the quick. In addition to the latent pride of his cla.s.s, he inherited the sensitiveness of his ancestors, but, turning his eyes neither to the right nor to the left, he jogged along to the wedding. He carried his wife home, and thereafter avoided Gullettsville. When he was compelled to buy coffee and sugar, or other necessary luxuries, he rode forty miles across the mountain to Villa Bay.
He had been married a year or more when, one afternoon, he was compelled to ride down to Gullettsville under whip and spur for a doctor. There was a good deal of confused activity in the town. Old men and young boys were stirring around with blue c.o.c.kades in their hats, and the women wore blue rosettes on their bosoms. Three negroes in uniform--a contribution from the nearest railroad town--were parading up and down the straggling street with fife and drums, and a number of men were planting a flag-pole in front of the court-house.
No conscientious historian can afford to ignore a coincidence, and it so happened that upon the very day that league Poteet's wife presented him with the puzzle of a daughter, Fate presented his countrymen with the problem of war. That night, sitting in the door of his house and smoking his pipe, Teague witnessed other developments of the coincidence. In the next room the baby-girl squalled most persistently; down in the valley the premonitions of war made themselves heard through the narrow throat of a small cannon which, until then, had been used only to celebrate the Fourth of July.
The noise of a horse's hoofs roused Teague's hounds, and some one called out from the road--
”h.e.l.lo, Poteet!”
”Ah-yi!”
”You hearn the racket?”
”My gal-baby keeps up sich a hollerin' I can't hear my own years.”
”_Oh!_”
”You better b'lieve! Nine hours ole, an' mighty peart. What's them Restercrats in the valley cuttin' up the'r scollops fer?”
”Whoopin' up se_say_sion. Sou' Ca'liny done plum gone out, an' Georgy a-gwine.”
Teague Poteet blew a long, thin cloud of home-made tobacco-smoke heavenward, leaned back heavily in his chair, and replied--
”Them air Restercrats kin go wher' they dang please; I'm a-gwine to stay right slambang in the United States.”
There was a little pause, as if the man on horseback was considering the matter. Then the response came--
”Here's at you!”
”Can't you 'light?” asked Poteet.
”Not now,” said the other; ”I'll git on furder.”
The man on horseback rode on across the mountain to his home. Another mountaineer, seeing the rockets and hearing the sound of the cannon, came down to Poteet's for information. He leaned over the brush-fence.
”What's up, Teague?”
”Gal-baby; reg'lar surbinder.”
”_Shoo!_ won't my ole 'oman holler! What's up down yan?”
”Them dad-blasted Restercrats a secedin' out'n the United States.”
”They say theyer airter savin' of the'r n.i.g.g.e.rs,” said the man at the fence.