THE BIRTH OF AN AMBITION
All day the girl had walked steadily, her bare feet comforted by the
warm dust, shunning the pebbles, never finding sham stones in the way,
making friends with the path--that would always be Johnnie. From the
little high-hung valley in the remote fastnesses of the Unakas where she
was born, Johnnie Consadine was walking down to Cottonville, the factory
town on the outskirts of Watauga, to find work. Sometimes the road wound
a little upward for a quarter of a mile or so; but the general tendency
was persistently down.
In the gray dawn of Sunday morning she had stepped from the door of that
room where the three beds occupied three corners, and a rude table was
rigged in the fourth. It might almost seem that the same hounds were
quarrelling under the floor that had scrambled there eighteen years
before when she was born. At first the way was entirely familiar to her.
It passed few habitations, and of those the dwellers were not yet
abroad, since it was scarce day. As time went on she got to the little
settlement at the foot of the first mountain, and had to explain to
everybody her destination and ambition. Beyond this, she stopped
occasionally for direction, she met more people; yet she was still in
the heart of the mountains when noon found her, and she crept up a
wayside bank and sat down alone to eat her bite of corn pone.
Guided by the instinct--or the wood-craft--of the mountain born and
bred, she had sought out one of the hermit springs of beautiful
freestone water that hide in these solitudes. When she had slaked her
thirst at its little ice-cold chalice, she raised her head with a low
exclamation of rapture. There, growing and blowing beside the cool
thread of water which trickled from the spring, was a stately pink
moccasin flower. She knelt and gazed at it with folded hands, as one
before a shrine.
What is it in the sweeping dignity of these pointed, oval,
parallel-veined leaves, sheathed one within another, the clean column of
the bloom stalk rising a foot and a half perhaps above, and at its tip
the wonderful pink, dreaming Buddha of the forest, that so commands the
heart? It was not entirely the beauty of the softly glowing orchid that
charmed Johnnie Consadine's eyes; it was the significance of the flower.
Somehow the finding this rare, shy thing decking her path toward labour
and enterprise spoke to her soul of success. For a long time she knelt,
her bright uncovered head dappled by a ray of sunlight which filtered
through the deep, cool green above her, her face bent, her eyes
brooding, as though she prayed. When she had finished her dinner of corn
pone and fried pork, she rose and parted with almost reverent fingers
the pink wonder from its stalk, sought out a coarse, clean handkerchief
from her bundle and, steeping it in the icy water of the spring, lapped
it around her treasure. Not often in her eighteen summers had she found
so fine a specimen. Then she took up her journey, comforted and
strangely elated.
"Looks like it was waiting right there to tell me howdy," she murmured
to herself.
The keynote of Johnnie Consadine's character was aspiration. In her
cabin home the wings of desire were clipped, because she must needs put
her passionate young soul into the longing for food, to quiet the
cravings of a healthy stomach, which generally clamoured from one
blackberry season to the other; the longing for shoes, when her feet
were frostbitten; the yet more urgent wish to feed the little ones she
loved; the pressing demand, when the water-bucket gave out and they had
to pack water in a tin tomato can with a string bail; the dull ache of
mortification when she became old enough to understand their position as
the borrowing Passmores. Yet all human desire is sacred, and of God; to
desire--to want--to aspire--thus shall the individual be saved; and
surely in this is the salvation of the race. And Johnnie felt vaguely
that at last she was going out into a world where she should learn what
to desire and how to desire it.
Now as she tramped she was conning over her present plans. Again she saw
the cabin at home in that pitchy black which precedes the first
leavening of dawn, and herself getting up to start early on the long
walk. Her mother would get up too, and that was foolish. She saw the
slight figure stooping to rake together the embers in the broad
chimney's throat that the coffee-pot might be set on. She remonstrated
with the little mother, saying that she aimed not to disturb
anybody--not even Uncle Pros.
"Uncle Pros!" Laurella echoed from the hearthstone, where she sat on her
heels, like a little girl playing at mud-pies. Johnnie smiled at the
memory of how her mother laughed over the suggestion, with a drawing of
slant brows above big, tragic dark eyes, a look of suffering from the
mirth which adds the crown to joyousness. "Your Uncle Pros he got a
revelation 'long 'bout midnight as to just whar that thar silver mine is
that's been dodgin' him for more'n forty year. He come a-shakin' me by
the shoulder--like I reckon he's done fifty times ef he's done it
once--and telling me that he's off to make all our fortunes inside of a
week. He said if you still would go down to that thar old fool cotton
mill and hire out, to name it to you that Shade Buckheath would stand
some watchin'. Your Uncle Pros has got sense--in streaks. Why in the
world you'll pike out and go to work in a cotton mill is more than I
can cipher."
"To take care of you and the children," the girl had said, standing tall
and straight, deep-bosomed and red-lipped, laughing back at her little
mother. "Somebody's got to take care of you-all, and I just love to
be the one."
Laurella Consadine, commonly called in mountain fashion by her maiden
name of Laurella Passmore, scrambled to her feet and tossed the dark
curls out of her eyes.
"Aw--law--huh!" she returned carelessly. "We'll get along; we always
have. How do you reckon I made out before you was born, you great big
somebody? What's the matter with you? Did you fail to borry a frock for
the dance over at Rainy Gap? Try again, honey--I'll bet S'lomy Buckheath
would lend you one o' her'n."
That was it; borrowing--borrowing--borrowing till they were known as the
borrowing Passmores and became the jest of the neighbourhood.
"No, I couldn't stand it," the girl justified herself. "I had obliged to
get out and go where money could be earned--me, that's big and stout
and able."
And sighingly--yet light-heartedly, for with Laurella Consadine and
Johnnie there was always the quaint suggestion of a little girl with a
doll quite too big for her--the mother let her go. It had been just so
when Johnnie would have her time for every term of the "old field
hollerin' school," where she learned to read and write; even when she
persisted in going to Rainy Gap where some charitably inclined northern
church maintained a little school, and pushed her education to dizzy
heights that to mountain vision appeared "plumb foolish."
That morning she had cautioned her mother to be careful lest they waken
the children, for if the little ones roused and began, as the mountain
phrase has it, "takin' on," she scarcely knew how she should find heart
to leave them. The children--there was the thing that drove. Four small
brothers and sisters there were; with little Deanie, the youngest, to
make the painfully strong plea of recent babyhood. Consadine, who never
could earn money, and used to be from home following one wild scheme or
another most of the time, was gone these two years upon his last
dubious, adventurous journey; there was not even his intermittent
assistance to depend upon. Johnnie was the man of the family, and she
shouldered her burden bravely, declaring to herself that she would yet
have a chance, which the little ones could share.
She had kissed her mother, picked up her bundle and got as far as the
door, when there came a spat of bare feet meeting the floor, a pattering
rush, and Deanie's short arms went around her knees, almost tripping
her up.
"I wasn't 'sleep--I was 'wake the whole time," whispered the baby,
lifting a warm, pursed mouth for a kiss. "Deanie'll be good an' let you
go, Sis' Johnnie. An' then when you get down thar whar it's all so
sightly, you'll send for Deanie, 'cause deed and double you couldn't
live without her, now could ye?" And she looked craftily up into the
face bent above her, bravely choking back the tears that wanted to drown
her long speech.
Johnnie dropped her bundle and caught up the child, crushing the warm,
soft, yielding little form against her breast in a very passion of
tenderness.
"Deed and double I couldn't," she whispered back. "Sister's goin' to
earn money, and Deanie shall have plenty of good things to eat next
winter, and some shoes. She shan't be housed up every time it snows.
Sis's goin' to--"
She broke off abruptly and kissed the small face with vehemence.
"Good-bye," she managed to whisper, as she set the baby down and turned
to her mother. The kindling touch of that farewell warmed her resolution
yet. She was not going down to Cottonville to work in the mill merely;
she was going into the Storehouse of Possibilities, to find and buy a
chance in the world for these poor little souls who could never have it
otherwise.
Before she kissed her mother, took up her bundle and trudged away in the
chill, gray dawn, she declared an intention to come home and pay back
every one to whom they were under obligations. Now her face dimpled as
she remembered the shriek of dismay Laurella sent after her.
"Good land, Johnnie Consadine! If you start in to pay off all the
borryin's of the Passmore family since you was born, you'll ruin
us--that's what you'll do--you'll ruin us."
These things acted themselves over and over in Johnnie's mind as,
throughout the fresh April afternoon, her long, free, rhythmic step, its
morning vigour undiminished, swung the miles behind her; still present
in thought when, away down in Render's Gap, she settled herself on a
rock by the wayside where a little stream crossed the road, to wash her
feet and put on the shoes which she had up to this time carried with
her bundle.
"I reckon I must be near enough town to need 'em," she said regretfully,
as she drew the big, shapeless, cowhide affairs on her slim, brown,
carefully washed and dried feet, and with a leathern thong laced down a
wide, stiff tongue. She had earned the money for these shoes picking
blackberries at ten cents the gallon, and Uncle Pros had bought them at
the store at Bledsoe according to his own ideas. "Get 'em big enough and
there won't be any fussin' about the fit," the old man explained his
theory: and indeed the fit of those shoes on Johnnie's feet was not a
thing to fuss over--it was past considering.
The sun was westering; the Gap began to be in shadow, although the point
at which she sat was well above the valley. The girl was all at once
aware that she was tired and a little timid of what lay before her. She
had written to Shade Buckheath, a neighbour's boy with whom she had gone
to school, now employed as a mechanic or loom-fixer in one of the cotton
mills, and from whom she had received a reply saying that she could get
work in Cottonville if she would come down.
Mavity Bence, who had given Johnnie her first clothes, was a weaver in
the Hardwick mill at Cottonville, Watauga's milling suburb; her father,
Gideon Himes, with whom Shade Buckheath learned his trade, was a skilled
mechanic, and had worked as a loom-fixer for a while. At present he was
keeping a boarding-house for the hands, and it was here Johnnie was to
find lodging. Shade himself was reported to be doing extremely well. He
had promised in his letter that if Johnnie came on a Sunday evening he
would walk up the road a piece and meet her. She now began to hope that
he would come. Then, waiting for him, she forgot him, and set herself to
imagine what work in the cotton mill and life in town would be like.
To Shade Buckheath, strolling up the road, in the expansiveness of his
holiday mood and the dignity of his Sunday suit, the first sight of
Johnnie came with a little unwelcome shock. He had left her in the
mountains a tall, thin, sandy-haired girl in the growing age. He got his
first sight of her profile relieved against the green of the wayside
bank, with a bunch of blooming azaleas starring its verdure behind her
bright head. He was not artist enough to appreciate the picture at its
value; he simply had the sudden resentful feeling of one who has asked
for a hen and been offered a bird of paradise. She was tall and lithe
and strong; her thick, fair hair, without being actually curly, seemed
to be so vehemently alive that it rippled a bit in its length, as a
swift-flowing brook does over a stone. It rose up around her brow in a
roll that was almost the fashionable coiffure. Those among whom she had
been bred, laconically called the colour red; but in fact it was only
too deep a gold to be quite yellow. Johnnie's face, even in repose, was
always potentially joyous. The clear, wide, gray eyes, under their
arching brows, the mobile lips, held as it were the smile in solution;
when one addressed her it broke swiftly into being, the pink lips
lifting adorably above the white teeth, the long fringed eyes crinkling
deliciously about the corners. Johnnie loved to laugh, and the heart of
any reasonable being was instantly moved to give her cause.
For himself, the young man was a prevalent type among his people. Brown,
well built, light on his feet, with heavy black hair growing low on his
forehead, and long blackish-gray eyes, there was something Latin in the
grace of his movements and in his glance. Life ran strong in Shade
Buckheath. He stepped with an independent stride that was almost a
swagger, and already felt himself a successful man; but that one of the
tribe of borrowing Passmores should presume to such opulence of charm
struck him as well-nigh impudent. The pure outlines of Johnnie's
features, their aristocratic mould, the ruddy gold of her rich,
clustering hair, those were things it seemed to him a good mill-hand
might well have dispensed with. Then the girl turned, saw him, and
flashed him a swift smile of greeting.
"It's mighty kind of you to come up and meet me," she said, getting to
her feet a little awkwardly on account of the shoes, and picking up
her bundle.
"I 'lowed you might get lost," bantered the young fellow, not offering
to carry the packet as they trudged away side by side. "How's everybody
back on Unaka? Has your Uncle Pros found his silver mine yet?"
"No," returned Johnnie seriously, "but he's lookin' for it."
Shade threw back his head and laughed so long and loud that it would
have been embarrassing to any one less sound and sweet-natured than
this girl.
"I reckon he is," said Buckheath. "I reckon Pros Passmore will be
lookin' for that silver mine when Gabriel blows. It runs in the family,
don't it?"
Johnnie looked at him and shook her head.
"You've been learnin' town ways, haven't you?" she asked simply.
"You mean my makin' game of the Passmores?" he inquired coolly. "No, I
never learned that in the settlement; I learned it in the mountains. I
just forgot your name was Passmore, that's all," he added sarcastically.
"Are you goin' to get mad about it?"
Johnnie had put on her slat sunbonnet and pulled it down so he could not
see her face.
"No," she returned evenly, "I'm not goin' to get mad at anything. And my
name's not Passmore, either. My name is Consadine, and I aim to be
called that. Uncle Pros Passmore is my mother's uncle, and one of the
best men that ever lived, I reckon. If all the folks he's nursed in
sickness or laid out in death was numbered over it would be a-many a
one; and I never heard him take any credit to himself for anything he
did. Why, Shade, the last three years of your father's life Uncle Pros
didn't dare hunt his silver mine much, because your father was paralysed
and had to have close waitin' on, and--and there wasn't nobody but Uncle
Pros, since all his boys was gone and--"
"Oh, say it. Speak out," urged Shade hardily. "You mean that all us
chaps had cut out and left the old man, and there wasn't a cent of money
to pay anybody, and no one but Pros Passmore would 'a' been fool enough
to do such hard work without pay. Well, I reckon you're about right. You
and me come of a mighty poor nation of folks; but I'm goin' to make my
pile and have my share, if lookin' out for number one'll do it."
Johnnie turned and regarded him curiously. It was characteristic of the
mountain girl, and of her people, that she had not on first meeting
stared, village fashion, at his brave attire; and she seemed now
concerned only with the man himself.
"I reckon you'll get it," she said meditatively. "I reckon you will.
Sometimes I think we always get just what we deserve in this here world,
and that the only safe way is to try to deserve something good. I hope I
didn't say too much for Uncle Pros; but he's so easy and say-nothin'
himself, that I just couldn't bear to hear you laughin' at him and not
answer you."
"I declare, you're plenty funny!" Buckheath burst put boisterously. "No,
I ain't mad at you. I kind o' like you for stickin' up for the old man.
You and me'll get along, I reckon."
As they moved forward, the man and the girl fell into more general chat,
the feeling of irritation at Johnnie's beauty, her superior air, growing
rather than diminishing in the young fellow's mind. How dare Pros
Passmore's grandniece carry a bright head so high, and flash such
glances of liquid fire at her questioner? Shade looked sidewise
sometimes at his companion as he asked the news of their mutual friends,
and she answered. Yet when he got, along with her mild responses, one of
those glances, he was himself strangely subdued by it, and fain to prop
his leaning prejudices by contrasting her scant print gown, her slat
sunbonnet, and cowhide shoes with the apparel of the humblest in the
village which they were approaching.