|WHEN the man came out into the mountain road, he saw the little boy
sitting on the sack of corn beside the red ox, and he smiled as he had
smiled at the hammering birds, at the yellow butterflies. He turned down
toward the tragic picture, lengthening his steps. The sun, by some trick
of the moving world, seemed to follow him out of the abandoned path.
The little boy did not see the man approaching, but he observed that the
ox, apparently resigned to passing the night on the mountain, was making
ready to lie down, knees first, after the manner of cattle. And the
comfortable assurance of Berry in this, the hour of their misfortune,
was more than he could bear. He arose and began to beat the ox with his
little fists.
“Git up, Berry!” he cried. “You ole dog! You ole scalawag! Git up!”
The ox slowly arose, and the child turned to find the man beside him.
“Poor Berry!” said the man, smiling. “Is he a very bad ox?”
“He's a lazy ole pup,” replied the little hoy, his wet eyes catching
and reflecting the stranger's smile. “He's spilt!” Then he crowded his
little fists into his eyes to remove the traces of weakness with which
he had been taken unawares.
“Do you reckon,” he said, “that both of us could put the corn on him if
we lifted together?”
“I think so,” replied the man; “at least we will try.”
He took up the piece of yellow carpet and laid it over the ox's back.
Then he stooped down, put his arms around the sack, linking his fingers
together under it. The little hoy took hold of the corner. The man
raised the sack with scarcely an effort, the child contributing his tiny
might. Then, as though the child's help were essential to the task, he
nodded.
“Now,” he said, and with a swing lifted the sack onto the ox's back.
The hoy straightened up, and put both little hands on his hips. His face
was now radiant.
“We got it up all right, didn't we?” he said, “both a-liftin'; an' now,”
he paused and regarded the ox with some concern, “I've got to git on
somehow-er-nuther.” The ordinary man would then have lifted the child
and set him on the ox, but this man did not. He seemed to know and
regard that self-reliance which was so dear a thing to this child. He
stood back and looked over the patriarch.
“Berry is a big ox,” he said. “We will lead him up to the bank.”
The little boy walked across the road, with a bit of a swagger.
“Yes,” he said, “Berry's a big ox.”
He liked this strange man who understood and considered him.
The man led the ox to the roadside, and standing by the beast's
shoulder, set his knee against the bank. The little boy put his foot on
the man's knee, caught hold of the ox's shoulder, and climbed up onto
the sack of corn. He panted with the effort.
“Berry's everlastin' big,” he observed in comment. Then he set himself
squarely on the sack.
“We're goin' to mill,” he said. “Where are you goin'?”
“If you don't mind,” replied the man, “I shall go along with you and
Berry.”
The tiny chest expanded.
“I don't mind,” he said, “ner Berry don't neither.”
Then, as a sort of condescension, as a sort of return for the man's
kindness, he gravely handed down the bit of ancient rope.
“An' you k'n lead Berry if you want to.”
They crossed the low gap and began to descend the mountain on the other
side. The man walked in front with the rope in his hand, the ox followed
with a slow, roiling gait, his head lowered, the child sitting astride
the sack of corn. The sun seemed to linger on the crest of the mountain
as though loath, now, to withdraw wholly from the world, a vagrant
breeze began to move idly in the tree tops, a faint haze to gather over
the forests, below the sun, as though it were some visible odor arising
from the earth.
The road was steep and rough, low stumps and the roots of trees remained
in it, and it was washed out in great ruts. The winter rain had carried
the loose earth out of it and left the stones and the tree roots
uncovered. A modern vehicle could hardly have kept together on such a
road, although it bore the marks of wheels where the mountaineer had
gone over with his wagon.
The little boy sat regarding the man who walked before him in the road.
He seemed not to have felt with this man that fear of the stranger which
is so strong an instinct with a child. From the first moment he had been
wholly at his ease. He spoke without restraint.
“Where's your hat?” he said.
The man paused, and put up his hand as though he had not until this
moment realized that he was bareheaded.
A note of distress came into the child's voice.
“You've lost your hat. Are you goin' back to look for it? 'Cause me an'
Berry can go on to the mill by ourselves.”
“No,” said the man, “I shall go on with you and Berry.”
“But you ain't got no hat,” the child continued.
“Perhaps I shall find one somewhere,” replied the man.
“No,” said the child, “you won't never find one, 'cause nobody don't
lose their hats up here. You'll have to buy one at the store.”
Then he went on to tell of all the wonderful things that the store
contained: Striped candy in sticks in a big glass jar, and fishhooks,
and sea grass fishin' lines, and guns, and pistols, and knives. But
principally knives. Upon this particular topic he spoke with deep
personal interest. In that place of wonders were knives with six blades,
with “peraly” handles, with gimlets and tweezers in them, little knives
that one could hide between one's fingers and big ones with a ring in
the handle so one could tie them to his “galluses.” And Barlows with IXL
on the blade.
He paused and thrust his hand into his pocket. He had one that his
grandfather had given him at Christmas, and he held it up--a Barlow with
a bone handle and a single blade.
The man stopped and came back to the ox's shoulder. He took the knife
and examined it carefully, opened it and tried the edge on his thumb.
The blade was round and blunt at the end. The child explained this with
an air of apology.
“Gran'-pap was afraid I'd run it in my eye, so he grinded it off. Have
you got a knife?”
The man felt in his pockets.
“No,” he replied, “I don't seem to have a knife.”
“Well,” said the little boy, “you can git one when you go to git your
hat.”
The man walked on by the ox's shoulder, and the child continued to talk.
There were difficulties to be met. The store was very far away, and one
required money to obtain its treasures. The getting of money was a very
troublesome affair. But he knew a way or two by which the thing could
be accomplished. One could gather hickory nuts or one could dig ginseng.
The latter method was to be advised--a pound brought a dollar and
seventeen cents. But it must be dried. One strung it on a string and
hung it over the fireplace. The storekeeper would not take it green.
He spoke a word of comment concerning the storekeeper.
He was hard to fool. He always broke the ginseng roots to see if there
was a nail concealed inside. The child knew a man who had outwitted the
storekeeper once by putting shot in the ends of the root, leaving the
middle unmolested; but, he added, that was “no way to do.”
The road on this side of the mountain was steep. The turns short. The
little party soon reached the foot, and came out into a valley, cleared
and sowed in timothy grass. Through this valley, between sodded banks,
ran a dark-colored, swiftly flowing stream.
The road followed the stream through the meadow until it approached the
mill. There the stream descended swiftly over ridges of sandstone into a
dam of ancient logs. The mill sat beside the road, its roof projecting,
its porch raised above the ground, its door and its gable open, its
entrance coated with white dust.
The machinery was of the simplest, two stone burrs turned by a paddle
wheel; the water carried down from the dam in a boxed sluice, covered
with green moss.
The mill evidently served two uses.
There was a second door to one-half of it, also opening on the porch,
and through the open door one could see a stove, a bed, a well-scrubbed
table.
As the man leading the red ox approached, a woman appeared in the mill
door. She was a sturdy woman of middle life, her calico dress pulled
up in front and girded around her ample waist with an apron string. Her
sleeves were rolled to the elbows, and her fat, powerful hands rested on
her hips. Her mouth was compressed, the muscles of her jaws protruded,
her bright gray eyes rested on the strange man with a profound, unmoved
scrutiny. When the ox stood beside the porch, the man spoke.
“Good evening,” he said.
The woman did not reply, she jerked her head; then she came slowly out,
still looking at the man.
“Jump off, David,” she said to the boy; then she took up the sack with
ease, swung it into the hollow of her arm, and went with it into the
mill, But over her shoulder she continued to regard the man standing in
the road.
She threw the sack down by the hopper, and came again into the mill
door. Her fat hands returned to her hips and her eyes went again to the
man. But she spoke to the boy.
“You'll be late gittin' home.”
“I ain't goin' home,” replied the child. “I'm goin' to Uncle Jimmie's,”
and he pointed his linger up the valley.
“You can make that by dark.” said the woman, “but you better be movin'
along.”
She came out and spread the piece of carpet on the ox. The small boy
stepped off the mill porch and went out into the road behind the man,
where a flat rock lay in the dust.
He remained a moment squatted down on his bare legs. Then he returned,
climbed onto the ox, and set out up the valley, kicking his heels
against the patriarch's ancient ribs.
At the bend of the road, the boy stopped and shouted. The man turned
about where he was standing. The boy pointed his finger.
“There's somethin' under that rock,” he called.
Then he swung around on his piece of carpet, spoke to the ox, and was
swallowed up in the shadows of the valley.
The man stooped down and turned the fiat stone over. There lay the
Barlow knife.
The woman, watching the man, suddenly brought her bent palm to her
forehead and looked up at the mountain, to see if some stray bit of the
setting sun had entered the valley. But there was nothing.
Night had descended.