|THE School-teacher came out of the door of Nicholas Parks' house.
It was early in the morning. Frost glistened on the rails of the worm
fence. The air was crisp and sweet.
There was a smell of faint wood smoke.
The door of the house was fastened with a wooden latch on the inside
from which a black leather string, tied in a knot, issuing from a worn
hole, hung on the outside of the door. The man drew the door close
and, pulling the string, dropped the latch into place. Then he left the
house, walking slowly.
In the direction that he moved there was no path. He crossed the little
meadow, south of the house, climbed the rail fence and entered the
forest. There was still no path, although the man moved like one who
followed land marks that he knew.
He descended through the forest for perhaps half a mile in the deep
leaves.
Then he came abruptly on a path that entered a little cove and continued
around a shoulder of the mountain. A spring of water issuing here from a
limestone strata trickled into a keg buried in the earth. On the broken
branch of a dogwood sapling, beside the spring, hung a mottled gourd.
The School-teacher stopped, dipped the gourd into the crystal water, and
drank.
At this moment three figures came into view along the path from
the opposite direction: a child about two years old, a woman, and a
rough-haired yellow dog.
The child came first. He walked with the uncertain tottering gait of
very little children. He wore a clean, white, muslin dress, a tiny apron
and cheap baby shoes, such as one sees hanging on a string over the
counter of mountain stores. He was a sturdy little boy, with soft yellow
hair, burnished at the tips like that of the School-teacher, and big
gray-blue eyes. He was laughing, stopping now and then to look back at
the dog following, and his mother; and then running along ahead.
The woman was young and slender. Her face, tanned by the weather, was
a deep olive. Her hair was black, lustrous and heavy, and hung down her
back in a thick plait. Her eyes were dark and big. The whole aspect of
the woman was that of one untimely matured, and permanently saddened.
Her blue dress was of a cheaper material than that of the child's.
She carried a tin bucket with a wooden handle.
The woman and the dog stopped when they saw the School-teacher standing
by the spring. But the child greeted the stranger in his baby dialect.
“How-da-do man,” he said. He went on, the little feet tottering over the
uneven path. When he reached the Schoolteacher, he spoke again.
“Up-a-go,” he said.
The man stooped and lifted the child into his arms. The sunny smile that
lighted the baby face seemed to enter and illumine his own. Something
of it, too, moved into the face of the woman, but the cast there of
perpetual melancholy seemed loath to depart, as though the muscles were
unaccustomed to a change.
The child turned about in the man's arms, and pointed his finger toward
two catbirds that were fluttering in a neighboring bush.
“Giggles,” he said.
The manner in which the woman's big melancholy eyes followed every
motion of the little boy indicated how her heart enveloped him. He was
evidently her one treasure. The smile, struggling to possess the woman's
face, seemed to descend and sweeten her mouth.
“He means them birds,” she said. “He's got a kind a talk of his own.”
“I understand him perfectly,” said the man.
“Do you?” said the woman, the smile gaining in her face. “I thought
nobody could understand him but me. You must take to little children.”
“I love little children,” replied the School-teacher.
The child put his hand into the pocket of his apron and drew out a
battered toy--a cheap, little, painted, wooden toy, so broken and worn
that no one could tell what animal it was originally intended to
represent. He held it up for the Schoolteacher's admiration.
“Gup,” he said.
“He means a horse,” the woman explained. “He's heard folks down to the
mill say 'git up' to horses they was ridin', an' he thinks that's the
name of it, but he's got names of his own. Now he calls a bird an' a
fish an' a mouse a 'giggle.' I don't know why. Because a bird ain't like
a fish, an' neither one of them ain't like a mouse.”
“I believe I understand why he gives them all the same name,” replied
the School-teacher.
The woman came closer to the man and the child. Her eyes took on an
expression of deep inquiry.
“What do you reckon is the reason? I've thought about it often.”
“I think it's because a bird, a fish and a mouse all appear to him to
have the same motion, to wiggle.”
The woman's face cleared. “I never thought of that. I reckon that is it.
But now, he's got names that ain't like the things at all. Because he
calls milk 'bugala' and there ain't no such word as 'bugala.' An' if
it's sour or anything he calls it 'nim bugala.'”
The woman recalled with the word, the morning when, to wean him, she had
blackened her breast with charcoal, and the child had pushed away the
blackened breast with his little hand and said, “nim bugala.”
“And he calls everything else to eat 'A B.' Now why would he call milk
'bugala' an' bread an' butter 'A B'?”
The School-teacher saw that this mystery attaching to the child was dear
to the woman, and he could not disturb it.
“Little children are very wonderful,” he said.
“They are wonderful,” the woman continued. “Just think of the things
they learn when they are real little.”
She jerked her head toward the dog remaining behind her in the road.
“Why, he learned Jim's name when he was awful little. He called him
'Nim' an' that's purty near right.”
Her face again became deeply thoughtful.
“I'd like to know if his word 'nim,' like he says 'nun bugala,' has
anything to do with Jim's name. It sounds like it, but I don't see how
it could be, because 'nim' means something that he don't like, an' he
does like Jim. He's powerful fond of Jim.”
The School-teacher thoughtfully considered the problem.
“It might be that he has watched you give Jim the things that you did
not want to eat yourself, and so he came to the conclusion that all such
food belonged to Jim. It would not mean that he did not like Jim. It
would only mean that the things that did not taste right to him ought to
be given to Jim. They were not good things, they were 'nim' things.”
The woman's mouth opened.
“Dear me,” she said, “just think of him putting things together like
that, an' him so little?”
Then she looked up at the man with a sort of wonder.
“Why, you understand him better than I do, an' I'm his mother. Maybe
you're married an' got a little boy of your own.”
“I was never married,” replied the man.
“Then maybe you've got a little baby brother.”
“No.”
“Was there never any little children at your house?”
“My father's house,” replied the School-teacher, “is full of little
children.”
“Just little children that he takes care of?”
“Yes.”
“Then you've been with 'em a lot.”
“I am always with them,” replied the School-teacher.
“I could a-told that,” said the woman, “by the way Sonny takes to you.
I could a-told that you was used to little children, an' that you liked
them.” She indicated the tiny boy with a bob of the head. “He knows it
right away; babies and dogs allers knows it right away.”
She regarded the man for some minutes in silence. Then she spoke like
one come after thought to a conclusion.
“I 'spose you're the new School-teacher?”
“Yes.”
“An' you're goin' down to the school-house now.”
“Yes.”
“Then if you'll wait till I git a bucket of water, I'll show you the way
down. The path goes out by our house.”
She went over to the spring and dipped the bucket into the keg. The dog
that had been lying down 'n the path, his head lowered between his paws,
now craw led up to the man and began to lick his feet.
The little boy looked down and shook his tiny fist at the dog.
“Ge-out, Nim!” he said.
The woman rose with the bucket of water.
“You don't have to carry him,” she said, “he can walk real well.”
“I would rather carry him,” replied the School-teacher.
And he followed the woman along the path, the dog at his heels.
They turned the shoulder of the ridge and came out on a flat bench of
the mountain. Here stood a little cabin, built of logs and daubed with
clay. It was roofed with rough clapboards. Before it was a porch roofed
like the cabin. The door, swinging on wooden hinges, stood open. On
the puncheon floor was a piece of handmade carpet--a circular mat,
hand-plaited out of rags, a primitive cradle with wooden rockers, a bed
covered with a pieced quilt, a rough stone fireplace, an iron pot with
a lid and a black iron kettle. On the porch stood a split-basket full
of beans in the hull, and beside the basket two chairs, the seats of
plaited hickory bark. One of them was very small, a chair in miniature,
made for the little boy. Near the path was an ax, a hacked log and some
lighter limbs of trees, such as a woman might carry in from the forest.
Beside the chimney was a primitive hopper made of clapboards, holding
wood-ashes, and under this was a broken iron pot in which lye, obtained
from the ashes by pouring water on it, dripped.
Beyond the cabin was a bit of garden and a little cornfield, where the
ripened corn stood in yellow shocks bound with grapevines. The shocks
were small, such as a woman could reach around. About, on the bench,
were a grove of sugar trees, scarred with the marks of an auger, and
among them, here and there, a great hickory. Beyond the grove one heard
the faint tinkling of a bell where a cow moved in the forest.
The woman set the bucket of water on the porch and turned to take the
child.
“Come, sonny.”
The little boy drew back in the man's arms.
“No,” he said.
“But, sonny,” the woman continued, “the Teacher's goin' away down the
road.”
“Baby go wif him down woad.”
The woman coaxed, “Won't sonny stay with Jim and mother?”
“Nim an' muvver go woad.”
“No,” said the woman, “Jim an' mother ain't goin' down the road. Will
sonny go an' leave Jim an' mother?”
The little boy looked over the man's shoulder at the rough-haired yellow
dog. Jim was his housemate and his brother. A decision was a sore trial,
but he finally made it. He turned about in the man's arms.
“Baby go woad,” he said.
The man now entered the conversation. “Let him go with me.”
“But he's too little to go to school.”
“He is not too little to go with me.”
“But he'll bother you, won't he?”
“No, he will not bother me. He will help me.”
“He can't help you.”
“Yes, he can help me.”
“I don't see how he can help you.”
“He will remind me of the little children in my father's house.”
“Keep you from gettin' homesick?”
“Yes,” replied the School-teacher, “that is it. He will keep me from
getting homesick.”
“Well,” said the woman, “if I let him go, you'll take care of him, won't
you?”
“I will surely take care of him.”
“An' you'll bring him back before sundown.”
“Yes.”
“Well, it'll be powerful lonesome, but I reckon I can finish gatherin'
the beans. I will fix him somethin' to eat. You can put it in your
pocket.”
The woman went into the house, got a flat bottle, such as a cheap sort
of liniment is sold in at the mountain stores, scalded it out with water
and filled it with fresh milk. Then she cut some thin slices of a white
bread called “salt rising” and spread it with butter. She stopped with
the knife in her hand, considered a moment, and then cut two larger
pieces of bread, buttered them, and wrapped them all in a piece of
homespun linen towel. She went out to the man with the folded towel and
the bottle in her hand.
“Here's his milk an' here's his bread. I put in two pieces for you.”
The man put the bottle and the bread into his pocket. The light of his
great gray-blue eyes deepened.
“You also thought of me,” he said.
“I didn't see you carryin' any dinner.” replied the woman, “an' the
bread's nice. I had powerful good luck yesterday. I don't allers have
such luck, but everything turned out right with the bakin' somehow.”
The men went on with the little boy in his arms, but the dog remained.
He sat miserably in the path, his tail moving in the leaves, his
eyes fixed on the woman's face. For a time the woman, watching the
disappearing figures, did not notice the dog. Then she saw him, knew his
distress and spoke.
“You can go along, Jim,” she said.
The dog ran barking after the man and little boy. He overtook them and
went on ahead. At the point where the path entered the forest, the man
turned and looked back at the woman. She did not move, but the smile,
struggling all the morning to conquer her face, finally possessed it.
The School-teacher, the little boy and the dog continued to descend the
mountain. The child addressed every object with which he was familiar.
When they passed the brindle cow, cropping broom sedge beside the path,
he hailed it with a salutation..
“How-da-do, boo,” he sard.
Leaves, burning red with autumn color, he explained, were “dowers.”
Finally they came to the river, running shallow between the foot of
the mountain and the farther bench on which the school-house stood.
The child had not crossed this water, and he was afraid for the man to
attempt it. He put his little hand firmly on the man's arm to stop him.
The School-teacher stopped, and the child considered this new and
unaccustomed peril. He sat studying the water, his restraining hand on
the man's arm. Finally, the dog, growing impatient at the delay, entered
the river and began to wade across. The child removed his hand. His
fears were ended. The crossing was safe. He directed the man's attention
to the proof of it.
“Nim walk in wat,” he said.