AFTER ALL.
White's cabin was better than the average Sand-Mountain house, but
its surroundings were not so inviting as those where considerable
farms, with orchards and garden plats, gave an air of frugal thrift,
almost of comfort to the scene, at some points in the lower valleys.
It was built of pine logs, split into halves, the flat side turned
in, and the apertures between covered with long clap-boards of pine,
rove with the grain, and smoothed with a drawing-knife. The
chimneys, which were spacious, consisted of pens of split sticks,
built from the ground to a little above the roof, and heavily daubed
with red clay. An arid little clearing whose stumpy, rain-washed
fields lay as if on edge, leaning against the mountain-side, showed
that a light crop of tobacco or a doubtful yield of maize "nubbins"
would be the best return that labor might hope for from the soilless
clay and the dry, lifeless monotony of the mountain summers. This
clearing was all on one side of the cabin, reaching down toward the
little valley, whilst on the other three sides the forest was
unbroken, saving that, further up the mountain, wind and fire had
done their work for ages. The fences about the place were old and
neglected, grown over by vines and shrubs of various kinds, and the
little gate in front, made of wattled boards, hung askew on rude
hinges of hickory withes. Just outside of this gate, between it and
the road, was a small space which for many years, ever since the
cabin was built, in fact, had been used for piling up, cutting and
splitting the wood and pine knots used by the household, and upon
which a moldy mass of chips, bark and woody fragments had slowly
accumulated. All the native trees near the cabin had long ago been
felled, and a few gnarled peach trees now grew in their stead.
Standing on the rotten door-sill and looking out across the lower
valley, one could have a fine view, over ill-shaped farm-plats and
variegated woods, of the broken masses of mountains, near and far,
with their beetling cliffs, their clustered foot-hills and their bare
stony peaks, all over-canopied with a serene blue sky. But the scene
was not one to inspire the beholder with any broad ideas of nature or
of human life. It was a dry, cramped, desolate landscape, even in
the first fresh colors of spring, when the tassels were on the trees
and the wild flowers fairly carpeted the ground, for it lacked
fertility, suggestion, promise.
Here Milly White had been born and here she had lived to grow from
babyhood to womanhood, a wild growth, like that of the native trees,
plants and birds. Physically she was beautiful to look upon, if in
looking one could separate the physical from the other form of human
beauty; but she was strictly a product of Sand Mountain, the last
refinement of its productive forces, no doubt, approaching as near
the perfect as nature, working within such limitations and under such
hopeless restrictions, could get. It would be impossible to give in
words any fair idea of her beauty or of her ignorance; to attempt
either would appear like exaggeration. The painter would succeed no
better, for his representation could reach no further than pathetic
caricature. Her life, her condition and her surroundings composed an
instance not far out of the common in Sand Mountain existence. Her
beauty, it is true, was exceptional, as beauty is in all cases, her
ignorance was somewhat denser than the average, and her experience on
Reynolds' account, had compassed its utmost possibility of disturbing
force. In so far as her vision could go, she peered into the
paradise coveted by all girls, and dreamed the dreams of unselfish
love. Every evening she went down to the little gate and leaned upon
it, watching long and patiently for the coming of a man, as other
women do, and every morning she renewed the vigil for a time, and the
evening and the morning were a day. She had but a vague
understanding of things too vaguely understood by all girls, and she
made of Reynolds no more a god than most young women do of the men
they love. She could not realize her danger and she felt but
indefinitely how much she was risking. As days and weeks dragged by
and John did not come, she showed signs of nervous restlessness; but
she said little. Her health, instead of failing, as might have been
expected, seemed to improve. Her face filled out to full womanly
proportions, her cheeks gathering rich tints of rose and carmine, her
eyes softening and dilating as if with the wonder of some sweet,
strange discovery. She hovered, as a butterfly about a flower, over
the things in Reynolds' room. For hours she would sit before the
sketch on the easel and gaze dreamily, half forlornly at it. She
arranged and re-arranged the books, the chairs, the little worn
foot-stool, the slippers, the dressing-gown, creeping about as
noiselessly as if she feared the least sound might break her reverie.
She was lonely, despondent and nervous at times, but she did not
complain. White exhausted over and over again his stock of ingenuity
in inventing excuses for "thet ther Colonel," who, he insisted, was
"a hevin' of sech a roarin' ole time, a shootin' of birds an' a
drinkin' of liquor an' a playin' of them ther new-fangled games of
keerds." White himself had grown strangely uneasy in his manner and
his eyes had lost somewhat of their humorous light. It was beginning
to confirm itself in his mind that his idol had clay feet. He gave
up his confidence in Reynolds inch by inch, so to speak, clinging to
it with the dogged stubbornness of his narrow nature.
Spring fell upon the mountains some weeks earlier than usual. The
old peach-trees were loaded with pale pink bloom and along the ragged
ravines a tender green ran in waving veins. Day after day was
cloudless and warm, followed by nights of such starry splendor as are
seen nowhere save in the Southern mountain regions.
One evening Milly was at the gate, as usual, leaning over its uneven
slats, gazing down the stony road. Her father came out of the cabin,
bare-headed, pipe in mouth, with his hands thrust into his trowsers
pockets.
"Think he air a comin' to-night, do ye, Milly?" he asked, standing
near her and looking aimlessly about. "I shedn't be s'prised ef he'd
drop along one of these yer days purty soon. Hit air a gittin' most
time for the bird-shootin' ter stop, anyhow."
"I dremp las' night 'at he wer' dead, an' 'at's a sign, ye know," she
answered, without looking up. "I jes' know 'at he air a comin' purty
soon."
"Ef ye do see 'im a comin' down the road ther', Milly, an' ye've a
min' ter jump over thet gate ther', w'y I shed 'vise ye ter git back
yer a leetle an' take a runnin' start so's to be shore not to trip er
nothin'." White chuckled dryly at the end of his speech, as if
enjoying the scene it suggested; but receiving no reply from the girl
his face resumed its look of stolid repose, albeit his eyes wandered
restlessly without seeming to see any thing.
The sun was down, an hour ago, and the stillness of night had fallen
on the wide, rugged landscape. There was scarcely wind enough to
bear away the light jets of tobacco smoke puffed sharply now and then
from the man's mouth.
"I dremp las' night, too, 'at the Colonel he wer' dead, Milly," he
presently said; but he did not add that he dreamed that the Colonel
had been killed, and by his hand.
"I'm jest a lookin' for 'im now, an' a 'spectin' 'im ever' minute,"
she replied, her voice quavering sweetly, her limbs trembling.
White swallowed, as if something hurt his throat, and pressed a
finger vigorously into his pipe. The muscles of his face twitched
convulsively.
"Oh, I consider 'at we'd better go inter the house, Milly," he urged,
"for hit air not 'tall s'posible 'at the Colonel he'll come to-night;
but he air comin' shore ter-morrer, that's es sarting es gun's iron,
Milly."
"Lis'n, pap, I yer somethin' like he wer' a walkin' up the road this
yer way: lis'n!" She shook her hand at him in token of silence, but
did not turn her head, leaning far over the gate.
"Hit ain't him, Milly, he'd be er singin' er song, ef hit wer' him.
Don't ye 'member how he used ter warble them cur'us chunes when he
wer' a comin'?"
"Keep still, I tell ye, pap, for I know 'at I jest do yer 'im a
comin' down ther'."
"Mebbe ye do, s'pec ye do," said White with a shake of his head, "but
hit air ter-morrer 'at ye yer 'im a comin'. He air dead shore to
roll in ter-morrer. Don't ye fret, he air a comin' 'fore long,
Milly."
"He air a comin' right now: oh!" she cried, and flinging open the
gate, she slipped through like a bird and ran down the road.
"I knowed 'at ye'd come, John, oh, John! John!" White heard her say,
her voice cutting with shrill sweetness through the still evening air.
He went through the gateway, and, stumbling over the wood-pile,
walked rapidly after her. Sure enough, there was Reynolds in the
middle of the road, with Milly clinging to him. They were in a place
where the strong star-light dimly outlined them. White stopped short
and actually reeled like a drunken man. He went no nearer to them,
but turned and staggered rather than walked back into the cabin.
"Hit air all right, mother," he said to his wife as he entered. "He
air out ther'--the Colonel air."
She looked up with a start, for his voice was thick with excitement.
"She--she--Milly'll be all right now. She won't go erstracted now,
mother," he added, dropping into a chair and beginning to refill his
pipe.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's Milly: At Love's Extremes, by Maurice Thompson