Part 17 (1/2)
The nonchalance with which Leander Yerby hearkened to this criticism intimated a persuasion that there were many obedient people in this world, but few who could so disport themselves in the intricacies of the English language; and Sudley, as he plodded homeward with his rifle on his shoulder, his dog running on in advance, and Leander pattering along behind, was often moved to add the weight of his admonition to the teacher's reproof.
”Lee-yander,” he would gently drawl, ”ye mustn't be so bad, honey; ye _mustn't_ be so turr'ble bad.”
”Naw, ma'am, I won't,” Leander would cheerily pipe out, and so the procession would wend its way along.
For he still confused the gender in t.i.tles of respect, and from force of habit he continued to do so in addressing Tyler Sudley for many a year after he had learned better.
These lapses were pathetic rather than ridiculous in the hunter's ears.
It was he who had taught Leander every observance of verbal humility toward his wife, in the forlorn hope of propitiating her in the interest of the child, who, however, with his quick understanding that the words sought to do honor and express respect, had of his own accord transferred them to his one true friend in the household. The only friend he had in the world, Sudley often felt, with a sigh over the happy child's forlorn estate. And, with the morbid sensitiveness peculiar to a tender conscience, he winced under the knowledge that it was he who, through wrongheadedness or wrongheartedness, had contrived to make all the world besides the boy's enemy. Both wrongheaded and wronghearted he was, he sometimes told himself. For even now it still seemed to him that he had not judged amiss, that only the perversity of fate had thwarted him. Was it so fantastically improbable, so hopeless a solace that he had planned, that he should have thought his wife might take comfort for the death of their own child in making for its sake a home for another, orphaned, forlorn, a burden, and a glad riddance to those into whose grudging charge it had been thrown? This bounty of hope and affection and comfort had seemed to him a free gift from the dead baby's hands, who had no need of it since coming into its infinite heritage of immortality, to the living waif, to whom it was like life itself, since it held all the essential values of existence. The idea smote him like an inspiration. He had ridden twenty miles in a snowy night to beg the unwelcome mite from the custody of its father's half-brothers, who were on the eve of moving to a neighboring county with all their kin and belongings.
Tyler Sudley was a slow man, and tenacious of impressions. He could remember every detail of the events as they had happened--the palpable surprise, the moment of hesitation, the feint of denial which successively ensued on his arrival. It mattered not what the season or the hour--he could behold at will the wintry dawn, the deserted cabin, the glow of embers dying on the hearth within; the white-covered wagon slowly a-creak along the frozen road beneath the gaunt, bare, overhanging trees, the pots and pans as they swung at the rear, the bucket for water swaying beneath, the mounted men beside it, the few head of swine and cattle driven before them. Years had pa.s.sed, but he could feel anew the vague stir of the living bundle which he held on the pommel of his saddle, the sudden twist it gave to bring its inquiring, apprehensive eyes, so large in its thin, lank-jawed, piteous little countenance, to bear on his face, as if it understood its transfer of custody, and trembled lest a worse thing befall it. One of the women stopped the wagon and ran back to pin about its neck an additional wrapping, an old red-flannel petticoat, lest it should suffer in its long, cold ride. His heart glowed with vicarious grat.i.tude for her forethought, and he shook her hand warmly and wished her well, and hoped that she might prosper in her new home, and stood still to watch the white wagon out of sight in the avenue of the snow-laden trees, above which the moon was visible, a-journeying too, swinging down the western sky.
Laurelia Sudley sat in stunned amazement when, half-frozen, but triumphant and flushed and full of his story, he burst into the warm home atmosphere, and put the animated bundle down upon the hearth-stone in front of the glowing fire. For one moment she met its forlorn gaze out of its peaked and pinched little face with a vague hesitation in her own worn, tremulous, sorrow-stricken eyes. Then she burst into a tumult of tears, upbraiding her husband that he could think that another child could take the place of her dead child--all the dearer because it was dead; that she could play the traitor to its memory and forget her sacred grief; that she could do aught as long as she should live but sit her down to bewail her loss, every tear a tribute, every pang its inalienable right, her whole smitten existence a testimony to her love.
It was in vain that he expostulated. The idea of subst.i.tution had never entered his mind. But he was ignorant, and clumsy of speech, and unaccustomed to a.n.a.lyze his motives. He could not put into words his feeling that to do for the welfare of this orphaned and unwelcome little creature all that they would have done for their own was in some sort a memorial to him, and brought them nearer to him--that she might find in it a satisfaction, an occupation--that it might serve to fill her empty life, her empty arms.
But no! She thought, and the neighbors thought, and after a time Tyler Sudley came to think also, that he had failed in the essential duty to the dead--that of affectionate remembrance; that he was recreant, strangely callous. They all said that he had seemed to esteem one baby as good as another, and that he was surprised that his wife was not consoled for the loss of her own child because he took it into his head to go and toll off the Yerby baby from his father's half-brothers ”ez war movin' away an' war glad enough ter get rid o' one head o' human stock ter kerry, though, _bein' human_, they oughter been ashamed ter gin him away like a puppy-dog, or an extry cat, all hands consarned.”
From the standpoint she had taken Laurelia had never wavered. It was an added and a continual reproach to her husband that all the labor and care of the ill-advised acquisition fell to her share. She it was who must feed and clothe and tend the gaunt little usurper; he needs must be accorded all the infantile prerogatives, and he exacted much time and attention. Despite the grudging spirit in which her care was given she failed in no essential, and presently the interloper was no longer gaunt or pallid or apprehensive, but grew pink and cherubic of build, and arrogant of mind. He had no sensitive sub-current of suspicion as to his welcome; he filled the house with his gay babbling, and if no maternal chirpings encouraged the development of his ideas and his powers of speech, his cheerful spirits seemed strong enough to thrive on their own stalwart endowments. His hair began to curl, and a neighbor, remarking on it to Laurelia, and forgetting for the moment his parentage, said, in admiring glee, twining the soft tendrils over her finger, that Mrs.
Sudley had never before had a child so well-favored as this one. From this time forth was infused a certain rancor into his foster-mother's spirit toward him. Her sense of martyrdom was complete when another infant was born and died, leaving her bereaved once more to watch this stranger grow up in her house, strong and hearty, and handsomer than any child of hers had been.
The mountain gossips had their own estimate of her att.i.tude.
”I ain't denyin' but what she hed nat'ral feelin' fur her own chil'ren, bein' dead,” said the dame who had made the unfortunate remark about the curling hair, ”but Laurelia Sudley war always a contrary-minded, lackadaisical kind o' gal afore she war married, sorter set in opposition, an' now ez she ain't purty like she useter was, through cryin' her eyes out, an' gittin' sallow-complected an' bony, I kin notice her contrariousness more. Ef Tyler hedn't brung that chile home, like ez not she'd hev sot her heart on borryin' one herself from somebody. Lee-yander ain't in nowise abused, ez I kin see--ain't acquainted with the rod, like the Bible say he oughter be, an' ennybody kin see ez Laurelia don't like the name he gin her, yit she puts up with it. She larnt him ter call Ty 'Cap'n,' bein' she's sorter proud of it, 'kase Ty war a cap'n of a critter company in the war: 'twarn't sech a mighty matter nohow; he jes got ter be cap'n through the other off'cers bein' killed off. An' the leetle boy got it twisted somehows, an' calls _her_ 'Cap'n' an' Ty 'Neighbor,' from hearin' old man Jeemes, ez comes in constant, givin' him that old-fas.h.i.+oned name. 'Cap'n' 'bout fits Laurelia, though, an' that's a fac'.”
Laurelia's melancholy ascendency in the household was very complete. It was characterized by no turbulence, no rages, no long-drawn argument or objurgation; it expressed itself only in a settled spirit of disaffection, a pervasive suggestion of martyrdom, silence or sighs, or sometimes a depressing singing of hymn tunes. For her husband had long ago ceased to remonstrate, or to seek to justify himself. It was with a spirit of making amends that he hastened to concede every point of question, to defer to her preference in all matters, and Laurelia's sway grew more and more absolute as the years wore on. Leander Yerby could remember no other surroundings than the ascetic atmosphere of his home.
It had done naught apparently to quell the innate cheerfulness of his spirit. He evidently took note, however, of the different standpoint of the ”Captain” and his ”Neighbor,” for although he was instant in the little manifestations of respect toward her which he had been taught, his childish craft could not conceal their spuriousness.
”That thar boy treats me ez ef I war a plumb idjit,” Laurelia said one day, moved to her infrequent anger. ”Tells me, 'Yes, ma'am, cap'n,' an'
'Naw, ma'am, cap'n,' jes ter quiet me--like folks useter do ter old Ed'ard Green, ez war in his dotage--an' then goes along an' does the very thing I tell him not ter do.”
Sudley looked up as he sat smoking his pipe by the fire, a shade of constraint in his manner, and a contraction of anxiety in his slow, dark eyes, never quite absent when she spoke to him aside of Leander.
She paused, setting her gaunt arms akimbo, and wearing the manner of one whose kindly patience is beyond limit abused. ”Kems in hyar, he do, a-totin' a fiddle. An' I says, 'Lee-yander Yerby, don't ye know that thar thing's the devil's snare?' 'Naw, ma'am, cap'n,' he says, grinnin'
like a imp; 'it's _my_ snare, fur I hev bought it from Peter Teazely fur two rabbits what I cotch in my trap, an' my big red rooster, an' a bag o' seed pop-corn, an' the only hat I hev got in the worl'.' An' with that the consarn gin sech a yawp, it plumb went through my haid. An'
then the critter jes tuk ter a-bowin' it back an' forth, a-playin' 'The Chicken in the Bread-trough' like demented, a-dancin' off on fust one foot an' then on t'other till the puncheons shuck. An' I druv him out the house. I won't stan' none o' Satan's devices hyar! I tole him he couldn't fetch that fiddle hyar whenst he kems home ter-night, an' I be a-goin' ter make him a sun-bonnet or a nightcap ter wear stiddier his hat that he traded off.”
She paused.
Her husband had risen, the glow of his pipe fading in his unheeding hand, his excited eyes fixed upon her. ”Laurely,” he exclaimed, ”ye ain't meanin' ez that thar leetle critter could play a chune fust off on a fiddle 'thout no larnin'!”
She nodded her head in reluctant admission.
He opened his mouth once or twice, emitting no sound. She saw how his elation, his spirit of commendation, his pride, set at naught her displeasure, albeit in self-defence, perchance, he dared not say a word.
With an eye alight and an absorbed face, he laid his pipe on the mantel-piece, and silently took his way out of the house in search of the youthful musician.
Easily found! The racked and tortured echoes were all aquake within half a mile of the spot where, bareheaded, heedless of the threatened ignominy alike of sun-bonnet or nightcap, Leander sat in the flickering suns.h.i.+ne and shadow upon a rock beside the spring, and blissfully experimented with all the capacities of catgut to produce sound.
”Listen, Neighbor!” he cried out, descrying Tyler Sudley, who, indeed, could do naught else--”_listen_! Ye won't hear much better fiddlin' this side o' kingdom come!” And with glad a.s.surance he capered up and down, the bow elongating the sound to a cadence of frenzied glee, as his arms sought to accommodate the nimbler motions of his legs.