IN WHICH AUNT SALLY TAKES HER DEPARTURE AND MEETS FRALE
The loom shed was one of the log cabins connected with the main building
by a roofed passage, which Thryng had noticed the evening before as
being an odd fashion of house architecture, giving the appearance of a
small flock of cabins all nestling under the wings of the old building
in the centre.
The shed was dark, having but one small window with glass panes near the
loom, the other and larger opening being tightly closed by a wooden
shutter. David slept late, and awoke at last to find himself thousands
of miles away from his dreams in this unique room, all in the deepest
shadow, except for the one warm bar of sunlight which fell across his
face. He drowsed off again, and his mind began piecing together
fragments and scenes from the previous day and evening, and immediately
he was surrounded by mystery, moonlit, fairylike, and white, a little
crooked being at his side looking up at him like some gnome creature of
the hills, revealed as a part of the enchantment. Then slowly resolving
and melting away after the manner of dreams, the wide spaces of the
mystery drew closer and warmer, and a great centre of blazing logs threw
grotesque, dancing lights among them, and an old face peered out with
bright, keen eyes, now seen, now lost in the fitful shadows, now pale
and appealing or cautiously withdrawn, but always watching--watching
while the little crooked being came and watched also. Then between him
and the blazing light came a dark figure silhouetted blackly against it,
moving, stooping, rising, going and coming--a sweet girl's head with
heavily coiled hair through which the firelight played with flashes of
its own color, and a delicate profile cut in pure, clean lines melting
into throat and gently rounded breast; like a spirit, now here, now
gone, again near and bending over him,--a ministering spirit bringing
him food,--until gradually this half wake, dreaming reminiscence
concentrated upon her, and again he saw her standing holding the candle
high and looking up at him,--a wondering, questioning spirit,--then
drooping wearily into the chair by the uncleared table, and again
waiting with almost a smile on her parted lips as he said "good night."
Good night? Ah, yes. It was morning.
Again he heard the continuous rushing noise to which he had listened in
the white mystery, that had soothed him to slumber the night before,
rising and falling--never ceasing. He roused himself with sudden energy
and bounded from his couch. He would go out and investigate. His sleep
had been sound, and he felt a rejuvenation he had not experienced in
many months. When he threw open the shutter of the large unglazed window
space and looked out on his strange surroundings, he found himself in a
new world, sparkling, fresh, clear, shining with sunlight and glistening
with wetness, as though the whole earth had been newly washed and
varnished. The sunshine streamed in and warmed him, and the air, filled
with winelike fragrance, stirred his blood and set his pulses leaping.
He had been too exhausted the previous evening to do more than fall into
the bed which had been provided him and sleep his long, uninterrupted
sleep. Now he saw why they had called this part of the home the loom
shed, for between the two windows stood a cloth loom left just as it had
been used, the warp like a tightly stretched veil of white threads, and
the web of cloth begun.
In one corner were a few bundles of cotton, one of which had been torn
open and the contents placed in a thick layer over the long bench on
which he had slept, and covered with a blue and white homespun
counterpane. The head had been built high with it, and sheets spread
over all. He noticed the blankets which had covered him, and saw that
they were evidently of home manufacture, and that the white spread which
covered them was also of coarse, clean homespun, ornamented in squares
with rude, primitive needlework. He marvelled at the industry here
represented.
As for his toilet, the preparation had been most simple. A shelf placed
on pegs driven between the logs supported a piece of looking-glass; a
splint chair set against the wall served as wash-stand and
towel-rack--the homespun cotton towels neatly folded and hung over the
back; a wooden pail at one side was filled with clear water, over which
hung a dipper of gourd; a white porcelain basin was placed on the chair,
over which a clean towel had been spread, and to complete all, a square
cut from the end of a bar of yellow soap lay beside the basin.
David smiled as he bent himself to the refreshing task of bathing in
water so cold as to be really icy. Indeed, ice had formed over still
pools without during the night, although now fast disappearing under the
glowing morning sun. Above his head, laid upon cross-beams, were bundles
of wool uncarded, and carding-boards hung from nails in the logs. In one
corner was a rudely constructed reel, and from the loom dangled the idle
shuttle filled with fine blue yarn of wool. Thryng thought of the worn
old hands which had so often thrown it, and thinking of them he hastened
his toilet that he might go in and do what he could to help the patient.
It was small enough return for the kindness shown him. He feared to
offer money for his lodgment, at least until he could find a way.
At last, full of new vigor and very hungry, he issued from his
sleeping-room, sadly in need of a shave, but biding his time, satisfied
if only breakfast might be forthcoming. He had no need to knock, for the
house door stood open, flooding the place with sunlight and frosty air.
The huge pile of logs was blazing on the hearth as if it had never
ceased since the night before, and the flames leaped hot and red up the
great chimney.
Old Sally no longer presided at the cookery. With a large cup of black
coffee before her, she now sat at the table eating corn-bread and bacon.
A drooping black sunbonnet on her head covered her unkempt, grizzly
hair, and a cob pipe and bag of tobacco lay at her hand. She was ready
for departure. Cassandra had returned, and her gratuitous neighborly
offices were at an end. The girl was stooping before the fire, arranging
a cake of corn-bread to cook in the ashes. A crane swung over the flames
on which a fat iron kettle was hung, and the large coffee-pot stood on
the hearth. The odor of breakfast was savory and appetizing. As David's
tall form cast a shadow across the sunlit space on the floor, the old
mother's voice called to him from the corner.
"Come right in, Doctah; take a cheer and set. Your breakfast's ready, I
reckon. How have you slept, suh?"
The girl at the fire rose and greeted him, but he missed the boy.
"Where's the little chap?" he asked.
"Cassandry sont him out to wash up. F'ust thing she do when she gets
home is to begin on Hoyle and wash him up."
"He do get that dirty, poor little son," said the girl. "It's like I
have to torment him some. Will you have breakfast now, suh? Just take
your chair to the table, and I'll fetch it directly."
"Won't I, though! What air you have up here! It makes me hungry merely
to breathe. Is it this way all the time?"
"Hit's this-a-way a good deal," said Sally, from under her sunbonnet,
"Oh, the' is days hit's some colder, like to make water freeze right
hard, but most days hit's a heap warmer than this."
"That's so," said the invalid. "I hev seen it so warm a heap o' winters
'at the trees gits fooled into thinkin' hit's spring an' blossoms all
out, an' then come along a late freez'n' spell an' gits their fruit all
killed. Hit's quare how they does do that-a-way. We-all hates it when
the days come warm in Feb'uary."
"Then you must have been glad to have snow yesterday. I was
disappointed. I was running away from that sort of thing, you know."
Thryng's breakfast was served to him as had been his supper of the
evening before, directly from the fire. As he ate he looked out upon the
usual litter of corn fodder scattered about near the house, and a few
implements of the simplest character for cultivating the small pocket of
rich soil below, but beyond this and surrounding it was a scene of the
wildest beauty. Giant forest trees, intertwined and almost overgrown by
a tangle of wild grapevines, hid the fall from sight, and behind them
the mountain rose abruptly. A continuous stream of clearest water, icy
cold, fell from high above into a long trough made of a hollow log.
There at the running water stood little Hoyle, his coarse cotton towel
hung on an azalia shrub, giving himself a thorough scrubbing. In a
moment he came in panting, shivering, and shining, and still wet about
the hair and ears.
"Why, you are not half dry, son," said his sister. She took the towel
from him and gave his head a vigorous rubbing. "Go and get warm, honey,
and sister'll give you breakfast by the fire." She turned to David:
"Likely you take milk in your coffee. I never thought to ask you." She
left the room and returned with a cup of new milk, warm and sweet. He
was glad to get it, finding his black coffee sweetened only with
molasses unpalatable.
"Don't you take milk in your coffee? How came you to think of it for
me?"
"I knew a lady at the hotel last summer. She said that up no'th 'most
everybody does take milk or cream, one, in their coffee."
"I never seed sech. Hit's clar waste to my thinkin'."
Cassandra smiled. "That's because you never could abide milk. Mothah
thinks it's only fit to make buttah and raise pigs on."
Old Sally's horse, a thin, wiry beast, gray and speckled, stood ready
saddled near the door, his bridle hanging from his neck, the bit
dangling while he also made his repast. When he had finished his corn
and she had finished her elaborate farewells at the bedside, and little
Hoyle had with much effort succeeded in bridling her steed, she stepped
quickly out and gained her seat on the high, narrow saddle with the ease
of a young girl. Meagre as a willow withe in her scant black cotton
gown, perched on her bony gray beast, and only the bowl of her cob pipe
projecting beyond the rim of her sunbonnet as indication that a face
might be hidden in its depths, with a meal sack containing in either end
sundry gifts--salt pork, chicken, corn-bread, and meal--slung over the
horse's back behind her, and with contentment in her heart, Aunt Sally
rode slowly over the hills to rejoin her old man.
Soon she left the main road and struck out into a steep, narrow trail,
merely a mule track arched with hornbeam and dogwood and mulberry trees,
and towered over by giant chestnuts and oaks and great white pines and
deep green hemlocks. Through myriad leafless branches the wind soughed
pleasantly overhead, unfelt by her, so completely was she protected by
the thickly growing laurel and rhododendron on either side of her path.
The snow of the day before was gone, leaving only the glistening wetness
of it on stones and fallen leaves and twigs underfoot, while in open
spaces the sun beat warmly down upon her.
The trail led by many steep scrambles and sharp descents more directly
to her home than the road, which wound and turned so frequently as to
more than double the distance. At intervals it cut across the road or
followed it a little way, only to diverge again. Here and there other
trails crossed it or branched from it, leading higher up the mountain,
or off into some gorge following the course of a stream, so that, except
to one accustomed to its intricacies, the path might easily be lost.
Old Sally paid no heed to her course, apparently leaving the choice of
trails to her horse. She sat easily on the beast and smoked her pipe
until it was quite out, when she stowed it away in the black cloth bag,
which dangled from her elbow by its strings. Spying a small sassafras
shrub leaning toward her from the bank above her head, she gave it a
vigorous pull as she passed and drew it, root and all, from its hold in
the soil, beat it against the mossy bank, and swished it upon her skirt
to remove the earth clinging to it. Then, breaking off a bit of the
root, she chewed it, while she thrust the rest in her bag and used the
top for a switch with which to hasten the pace of her nag.
The small stones, loosened when she tore the shrub from the bank,
rattled down where the soil had been washed away, leaving the steep
shelving rock side of the mountain bare, and she heard them leap the
smooth space and fall softly on the moss among the ferns and lodged
leaves below. There, crouched in the sun, lay a man with a black felt
hat covering his face. The stones falling about him caused him to raise
himself stealthily and peer upward. Descrying only the lone woman and
the gray horse, he gave a low peculiar cry, almost like that of an
animal in distress. She drew rein sharply and listened. The cry was
repeated a little louder.
"Come on up hyar, Frale. Hit's on'y me. Hu' come you thar?"
He climbed rapidly up through the dense undergrowth, and stood at her
side, breathing quickly. For a moment they waited thus, regarding each
other, neither speaking. The boy--he seemed little more than a
youth--looked up at her with a singularly innocent and appealing
expression, but gradually as he saw her impassive and unrelenting face,
his own resumed a hard and sullen look, which made him appear years
older. His forehead was damp and cold, and a lock of silken black hair,
slightly curling over it, increased its whiteness. Dark, heavy rings
were under his eyes, which gleamed blue as the sky between long dark
lashes. His arms dropped listlessly at his side, and he stood before
her, as before a dread judge, bareheaded and silent. He bore her look
only for a minute, then dropped his eyes, and his hand clinched more
tightly the rim of his old felt hat. When he ceased looking at her, her
eyes softened.
"I 'low ye mus' hev suthin' to say fer yourse'f," she said.
"I reckon." The corners of his mouth drooped, and he did not look up. He
made as if to speak further, but only swallowed and was silent.
"Ye reckon? Waal, why'n't ye say?"
"They hain't nothin' to say. He war mean an'--an'--he's dade. I reckon
he's dade."
"Yas, he's dade--an' they done had the buryin'." Her voice was
monotonous and plaintive. A pallor swept over his face, and he drew the
back of his hand across his mouth.
"He knowed he hadn't ought to rile me like he done. I be'n tryin' to
make his hoss go home, but I cyan't. Hit jes' hangs round thar. I done
brung him down an' lef' him in your shed, an' I 'lowed p'rhaps Uncle
Jerry'd take him ovah to his paw." Again he swallowed and turned his
face away. "The critter'd starve up yander. Anyhow, I ain't hoss
stealin'. Hit war mo'n a hoss 'twixt him an' me." From the low, quiet
tones of the two no one would have dreamed that a tragedy lay beneath
their words.
"Look a-hyar, Frale. Thar wa'n't nothin' 'twixt him an' you. Ye war
both on ye full o' mean corn whiskey, an' ye war quarrellin' 'bouts
Cass." A faint red stole into the boy's cheeks, and the blue gleam of
his eyes between the dark lashes narrowed to a mere line, as he looked
an instant in her face and then off up the trail.
"Hain't ye seed nobody?" he asked.
"You knows I hain't seed nobody to hurt you-uns 'thout I'd tell ye. Look
a-hyar, son, you are hungerin'. Come home with me, an' I'll get ye
suthin' to eat. Ef you don't, ye'll go back an' fill up on whiskey agin,
an' thar'll be the end of ye." He walked on a few steps at her side,
then stopped suddenly.
"I 'low I better bide whar I be. You-uns hain't been yandah to the fall,
have ye?"
"I have. You done a heap mo'n you reckoned on. When Marthy heered o' the
killin', she jes' drapped whar she stood. She war out doin' work 'at
you'd ought to 'a' been doin' fer her, an' she hain't moved sence. She
like to 'a' perished lyin' out thar. Pore little Hoyle, he run all the
way to our place he war that skeered, an' 'lowed she war dade, an' me
an' the ol' man went ovah, an' thar we found her lyin' in the yard, an'
the cow war lowin' to be milked, an' the pig squeelin' like hit war
stuck, fer hunger. Hit do make me clar plumb mad when I think how you
hev acted,--jes' like you' paw. Ef he'd nevah 'a' started that thar
still, you'd nevah 'a' been what ye be now, a-drinkin' yer own whiskey
at that. Come on home with me."
"I reckon I'm bettah hyar. They mount be thar huntin' me."
"I know you're hungerin'. I got suthin' ye can eat, but I 'lowed if
you'd come, I'd get you an' the ol' man a good chick'n fry." She took
from her stores, slung over the nag, a piece of corn-bread and a large
chunk of salt pork, and gave them into his hand. "Thar! Eat. Hit's
heart'nin'."
He was suffering, as she thought, and reached eagerly for the food, but
before tasting it he looked up again into her face, and the infantile
appeal had returned to his eyes.
"Tell me more 'bouts maw," he said.
"You eat, an' I'll talk," she replied. He broke a large piece from the
corn-cake and crowded the rest into his pocket. Then he drew forth a
huge clasp-knife and cut a thick slice from the raw salt pork, and
pulling a red cotton handkerchief from his belt, he wrapped it around
the remainder and held it under his arm as he ate.
"She hain't able to move 'thout hollerin', she's that bad hurted. Paw
an' I, we got her to bed, an' I been thar ever since with all to do
ontwell Cass come. Likely she done broke her hip."
"Is Cass thar now? Hu' come she thar?" Again the blood sought his
cheeks.
"Paw rode down to the settlement and telegrafted fer her. Pore thing!
You don't reckon what-all you have done. I wisht you'd 'a' took aftah
your maw. She war my own sister, 'nd she war that good she must 'a' went
straight to glory when she died. Your paw, he like to 'a' died too that
time, an' when he married Marthy Merlin, I reckoned he war cured o' his
ways; but hit did'n' last long. Marthy, she done well by him, an' she
done well by you, too. They hain't nothin' agin Marthy. She be'n a good
stepmaw to ye, she hev, an' now see how you done her, an' Cass givin' up
her school an' comin' home thar to ten' beastes an' do your work like
she war a man. Her family wa'n't brought up that-a-way, nor mine wa'n't
neither. Big fool Marthy war to marry with your paw. Hit's that-a-way
with all the Farwells; they been that quarellin' an' bad, makin' mean
whiskey an' drinkin' hit raw, killin' hyar an' thar, an' now you go
doin' the same, an' my own nephew, too." Her face remained impassive,
and her voice droned on monotonously, but two tears stole down her
wrinkled cheeks. His face settled into its harder lines as she talked,
but he made no reply, and she continued querulously: "Why'n't you pay
heed to me long ago, when I tol' ye not to open that thar still again?
You are a heap too young to go that-a-way,--my own kin, like to be hung
fer man-killin'."
"When did Cass come?" he interrupted sullenly.
"Las' evenin'."
"I'll drap 'round thar this evenin' er late night, I reckon. I have to
get feed fer my own hoss an' tote hit up er take him back--one. All I
fetched up last week he done et." He turned to walk away, but stood with
averted head as she began speaking again.
"Don't you do no such fool thing. You keep clar o' thar. Bring the hoss
to me, an' I'll ride him home. What you want o' the beast on the
mountain, anyhow? Hit's only like to give away whar ye'r' at. All you
want is to git to see Cass, but hit won't do you no good, leastways not
now. You done so bad she won't look at ye no more, I reckon. They is a
man thar, too, now." He started back, his hands clinched, his head
lifted, in his whole air an animal-like ferocity. "Thar now, look at ye.
'Tain't you he's after."
"'Tain't me I'm feared he's after. How come he thar?"
"He come with her las' evenin'--" A sound of horses' hoofs on the road
far below arrested her. They both waited, listening intently. "Thar they
be. Git," she whispered. "Cass tol' me ef I met up with ye, to say 'at
she'd leave suthin' fer ye to eat on the big rock 'hind the holly tree
at the head o' the fall." She leaned down to him and held him by the
coat an instant, "Son, leave whiskey alone. Hit's the only way you kin
do to get her."
"Yas, Aunt Sally," he murmured. His eyes thanked her with one look for
the tone or the hope her words held out.
Again the laugh, nearer this time, and again the wild look of haunting
fear in his face. He dropped where he stood and slipped stealthily as a
cat back to the place where he had lain, and crawling on his belly
toward a heap of dead leaves caught by the brush of an old fallen pine,
he crept beneath them and lay still. His aunt did not stir. Patting her
horse's neck, she sat and waited until the voices drew nearer, came
close beneath her as the road wound, and passed on. Then she once more
moved along toward her cabin.