|JERRY BLACK'S house was beyond Hickory Mountain, in the direction of
the far-off lumber mills.
It was afternoon before the doctor returned. He rode hard in anger. He
had gone on to Black's house, determined to make the old man pay him
for his visit. But the mountaineer, now that his eye was healed, had
refused. The doctor stormed and threatened, but the mountaineer was
obdurate. The School-teacher had cured him. He owed nothing. He would
pay nothing.
The doctor was compelled to return empty-handed, and he rode hard.
A deep resentment against the man who thus interfered with his practice
moved within him. When he came to Hickory Mountain, instead of following
the road around by the mill, he took the one leading across through the
lands of Nicholas Parks. It was mid-afternoon when he stopped in the
road before the Schoolteacher's house. He called. A woman came to
the door, her heavy hair the color of wheat straw. The doctor made an
exclamation of profound astonishment.
“Yaller Mag!” he said. “Now what's that hussy doin' here?”
When the woman saw that the person in the road was the doctor, she went
hack into the house and presently came out with a brown earthen crock.
She walked down the path from the door bearing the crock in her hand.
When she came out into the road, she held the crock up to the doctor.
“The School-teacher told me to give you this money when you come,” she
said.
There was a handful of silver coins in the crock.
Again the doctor was astonished.
“When I come!” he echoed. “How did he know that I was coming?”
“I don't know how he knew it,” replied the woman.
“What did he tell you to give it to me for?”
“He didn't tell me.”
The doctor looked at the pieces of silver.
“I suppose this is money that the people have paid him. How much did old
Black pay him?”
“He never paid him anything,” replied the woman. “Nobody ever paid him
anything.”
“Who give him this money then?”
“Nobody give it to him,” said the woman. “It was in that crock on the
shelf when old Nicholas Parks died. It ain't been touched.”
The doctor looked at the dust-covered handful of silver.
“If nobody pays him, an' he hasn't used any of this, where does he get
money to buy things with?”
“He don't buy anything.”
“What does he live on, then?”
“Well,” said the woman, “when Nicholas Parks died, there was flour in
the barrel. It ain't run out. It looks like it never would run out. Now,
will you take the money, so I can get some feed for the horse?”
Again the doctor was astonished.
“How do you know that the horse hasn't been fed?”
“I don't know it,” replied the woman.
“Then what do you want to feed him for?”
“I want to feed him,” replied the woman, “because the School-teacher
told me to.”
“Told you to feed my horse?”
“Yes, he told me to give you this money and to feed your horse. Are you
goin' to take the money?”
“No,” said the doctor. “I'm not goin' to take it. I want to see the
Schoolteacher himself. Where is he?”
“He's down at Mary Jane's house.”
“Is she the one that's got the woods-colt?”
“She's the one that's got the little boy,” replied the woman.
“Huh!” said the doctor. “What's he doin' there?”
“He's huskin' her corn.”
“So he spends his time helpin' the women who have no men folks about,
too, does he?”
The woman looked up at the doctor. Her face undisturbed by the taunt.
“Yes,” she said. “He spends his time helpin' those who have nobody else
to help them.”
The doctor did not reply. He gathered his bridle up in his hand. The
woman moved around in front of the doctor.
“Ain't you goin' to let me feed the horse?”
“The horse can stand it just as well as I can,” said the doctor.
“But you can help it,” replied the woman, “an' the horse can't help it.”
“It won't hurt him to wait till I eat.”
“Would it hurt you to wait till he eats?”
“It wouldn't do me much good, if anybody was to sec me waitin' here,”
said the doctor.
A flush of color sprang into the woman's face.
“I only wanted to feed him,” she said, “because the School-teacher told
me to.”
“Get out of my way,” said the doctor. “This School-teacher has
interfered with my business just about as much as I'm going to put up
with.”
He clucked to his horse, and rode around the woman. When he had gone
forward a few paces, he made a gesture with his crooked arm.
“Is there a path over the mountain this way?” he called without turning
in his saddle.
“Yes,” replied the woman, “it runs down past the house.”
She remained standing by the gate with the crock in her hand.
The doctor entered the forest.
The colors lying far down the mountain in the sun were like those of an
oriental carpet. Soft shades of green, of yellow, of crimson, kneaded
into a harmony of low, unobtrusive tones that the sun warmed and
illumined. Near at hand, along the path, where the doctor rode, the
sumacs stood a dull red, the chestnut bushes yellow, the wild cherry
leaves turning on their edges, the oaks crimson like a flame, the water
beeches green, the hickory leaves curling on their twigs like shavings
of gold.
The scene lay out below the doctor in the sun, incomparably painted, but
he did not see it. He rode looking down at the pommel of his saddle. Now
and then, when the horse stumbled, he brought it up with a wrench of the
bit. The horse was tired. It went forward with its head down. Dust
lay around its eye-pits. There were gray bands of dried sweat running
parallel with the leather of the headstall, and beyond the borders of
the saddle blanket.
At a turn of the path a dog appeared, his yellow hair rising on his
back. As the doctor came on, the dog slowly retreated, growling,
holding his place in the road until the horse was almost upon him, then
springing hack, his teeth flashing, his eyes on the doctor. The dog did
not bark, he made no considerable sound, he refused to attack the horse,
but he continued always to menace the approach of the doctor.
They passed the spring and came out before the house and the little
cornfield. Then the dog began, to bark, and a tiny voice arose.
“Ge-out, Nim!” it said.
This patch of clearing, lying within the many-colored garden of the
forest, seemed illumined with a warmer sunlight. The effect doubtless
arose from the carpet of coarse brown fox-grass grown up over the
cornfield, into which the sun seemed to enter and remain. Two or three
small maple trees, abundantly leaved, stood about, flaming scarlet.
Under one of these trees the Schoolteacher was at work.
A corn shock, unbound, lying on the ground before him. He was on his
knees, bareheaded, without a coat, ripping the husk from the ear with a
wooden “peg” bound to his middle finger, snapping it at the socket and
tossing it out on a heap before him.
The ears coming from the Schoolteacher's hands were long, full-grained
and of a deep yellow.
The two children, Martha and David, were gathering this corn into a
split basket and carrying it to a crib made of rails and roofed with
clapboards. Near the School-teacher, sitting on his coat spread out on
the ground, was the tiny boy who had called to the dog. He was shelling
a red ear of corn into the School-teacher's hat.
A brush fence inclosed the cornfield.
The doctor pulled up in the path beside the fence. The School-teacher
arose. He stood bareheaded in the sun under the canopy of darning
leaves. He looked past the doctor to the horse, standing with its legs
out, its head down.
“I understand you're practicin' medicine,” said the doctor.
“Your horse is tired,” replied the School-teacher.
“There's a law against practicin' medicine without a license,” said the
doctor.
“Your horse is hungry,” continued the School-teacher.
The doctor, riding on, replied with an oath.
“You're going to get into trouble,” he said.