IN WHICH DAVID DISCOVERS CASSANDRA'S TROUBLE
After turning his furrows, David told Hoyle to ride the mule to the
stable, then he sat himself on the fence, and meditated. He bethought
him that in the paper he had drawn up he had made no provision for the
use of the mule. He wiped his forehead and rubbed the perspiration from
his hair, and coughed a little after his exertion, glad at heart to find
himself so well off.
He would come and plough a little every day. Then he began to calculate
the number of days it would take him to finish the patch, measuring the
distance covered by the six furrows with his eye, and comparing it with
the whole. He laughed to find that, at the rate of six furrows a day,
the task would take him well on into the summer. Plainly he must find a
ploughman.
Then the laying out of the ground! Why should he not have a vineyard up
on the farther hill slope? He never could have any fruit from it, but
what of that! Even if he went away and never returned, he would know it
to be adding its beauty to this wonderful dream. Who could know what the
future held for him--what this little spot might mean to him in the days
to come? That he would go out, fully recovered and strong to play his
part in life, he never doubted. Might not this idyl be a part of it? He
thought of the girl sitting at her loom, swaying as she threw her
shuttle with the rhythm of a poem, and weaving--weaving his life and his
heart into her web, unknown to herself--weaving a thread of joy through
it all which as yet she could not see. He knocked the ashes from his
pipe and stood a moment gazing about him.
Yes, he really must have a vineyard, and a bit of pasture somewhere, and
a field of clover. What grew best there he little knew, so he decided to
go up and consult the widow.
There were other things also to claim his thoughts. Over toward "Wild
Cat Hole" there was a woman who needed his care; and he must not become
so absorbed in his pastoral romance as to forget Hoyle. He was looking
actually haggard these last few days, and his mother said he would not
eat. It might be that he needed more than the casual care he was giving
him. Possibly he could take him to Doctor Hoyle's hospital for radical
treatment later in the season, when his crops were well started. He
smiled as he thought of his crops, then laughed outright, and strolled
back to the house, weary and hungry, and happy as a boy.
"Well, now, I like the look of ye," called the old mother from the
porch, where she still sat. "'Pears like it's done ye good a-ready to
turn planter. The' hain't nothin' better'n the smell o' new sile fer
them 'at's consumpted."
"Mother," cried Cassandra from within, "don't call the doctor that! Come
up and have dinner with us, Doctor." She set a chair for him as she
spoke, but he would not. As he stood below them, looking up and
exchanging merry banter with her mother, he laughed his contagious
laugh.
"I bet he's tired," shrilled Hoyle, from his perch on the porch roof.
"He be'n settin' on the fence smokin' an' rubbin' his hade with his
handkercher like he'd had enough with his ploughin'. You can nigh about
beat him, Cass. Hisn didn't look no better'n what yourn looked."
"Here, you young rascal you, come down from there," cried David.
Catching him by the foot, which hung far enough over to be within reach
of his long arm, he pulled him headlong from his high position and
caught him in mid-air. "Now, how shall I punish you?"
"Ye bettah whollop him. He hain't nevah been switched good in his hull
life. Maybe that's what ails him."
The child grinned. "I hain't afeared. Get me down on the ground oncet,
an' I c'n run faster'n he can."
"Suppose I duck him in the water trough yonder?"
"I reckon he needs it. He generally do," smiled Cassandra from the
doorway. "Come, son, go wash up." David allowed the child to slip to the
ground. "Seems like Hoyle is right enough about you, though. Don't go
away up the hill; bide here and have dinner first."
David dropped on the step for a moment's rest. "I see I must make a way
up to my cabin that will not pass your door. How about that? Was dinner
included in the rent, and the mule and the mule's dinner? And what is
Hoyle going to pay me for allowing him to ride Pete up and down while I
plough?"
"Yas, an' what are ye goin' to give him fer 'lowin' ye to set his hade
round straight, an' what are ye goin' to give me fer 'lowin' ye to set
me on my laigs again? Ef ye go a-countin' that-a-way, I'm 'feared ye're
layin' up a right smart o' debt to we-uns. I reckon you'll use that mule
all ye want to, an' ye'll lick him good, too, when he needs hit, an'
take keer o' yourself, fer he's a mean critter; an' ye'll keep that path
right whar hit is, fer hit goes with the farm long's you bide up
yandah."
"You good people have the best of me; we'll call it all even. Ever since
I leaped off that train in the snow, I have been dependent on you for my
comfort. Well, I must hurry on; since I've turned farmer I'm a busy man.
Can you suggest any one I might get to do that ploughing? Miss Cassandra
here may be able to do it without help, but I confess I'm not equal to
it."
"I be'n tellin' Cass that thar Elwine Timms, he ought to be able to do
the hull o' that work. Widow Timmses' son. They live ovah nigh the
Gerret place thar at Lone Pine Creek. He used to help Frale with the
still. An' then thar's Hoke Belew--he ought to do sumthin' fer all you
done fer his wife--sittin' up the hull night long, an' gettin' up at
midnight to run to them. Oh, I hearn a heap sittin' here. Things comes
to me that-a-way. Thar hain't much goin' on within twenty mile o' here
'at I don't know. They is plenty hereabouts owes you a heap."
"I think I've been treated very well. They keep me supplied with all I
need. What more can a man ask? The other day, a man brought me a sack of
corn meal, fresh and sweet from the mill--a man with six children and a
sick mother to feed, but what could I do? He would leave it, and
I--well, I--"
"When they bring ye things, you take 'em. Ye'll help 'em a heap more
that-a-way 'n ye will curin' 'em. The' hain't nothin' so good fer a man
as payin' his debts. Hit keeps his hade up whar a man 'at's good fer
anything ought to keep hit. I hearn a heap o' talk here in these
mountains 'bouts bein' stuck up, but I tell 'em if a body feels he
hain't good fer nothin', he pretty generally hain't. He'd a heap better
feel stuck up to my thinkin'."
"They've done pretty well, all who could. They've brought me everything
from corn whiskey to fodder for my horse. A woman brought me a bag of
dried blueberries the other day. I don't know what to do with them. I
have to take them, for I can't be graceless enough to send them away
with their gifts."
"You bring 'em here, an' Cass'll make ye a blueberry cake to eat hot
with butter melt'n' on hit 'at'll make ye think the world's a good place
to live in."
"I'll do it," he said, laughing, and took his solitary path up the
steep. Halfway to his cabin, he heard quick, scrambling steps behind
him, and, turning, saw little Hoyle bringing Cassandra's small
melon-shaped basket, covered with a white cloth.
"I said I could run faster'n you could. Cass, she sont some th' chick'n
fry." He thrust the basket at Thryng and turned to run home.
"Here, here!" David called after the twisted, hunched little figure.
"You tell your sister 'thank you very much,' for me. Will you?"
"Yas, suh," and the queer little gnome disappeared among the laurel
below.
In the morning, David found the place of the Widow Timms, and her son
agreed to come down the next day and accept wages for work. A weary,
spiritless young man he was, and the home as poverty-stricken as was
that of Decatur Irwin, and with almost as many children. It was with a
feeling of depression that David rode on after his call, leaving the
grandmother seated in the doorway, snuff stick between her yellow teeth,
the grandchildren clustering about her knees, or squatting in the dirt,
like young savages. Their father lounged in the wretched cabin, hardly
to be seen in the windowless, smoke-blackened space nearly filled with
beds heaped with ragged bedclothes, and broken splint-bottomed chairs
hung about with torn and soiled garments.
The dirt and disorder irritated David, and he felt angered at the
clay-faced son for not being out preparing his little patch of ground.
Fortunately, he had been able to conceal his annoyance enough to secure
the man's promise to begin work next day, or he would have gained
nothing but the family's resentment for his pains. Already David had
learned that a sort of resentful pride was the last shred of
respectability to which the poorest and most thriftless of the mountain
people clung--pride of he knew not what, and resentfulness toward any
who, by thrift and labor, were better off than themselves.
He reasoned that as the young man had been Frale's helper at the still,
no doubt corn whiskey was at the bottom of their misery. This brought
his mind to the thought of Frale himself. The young man had not been
mentioned between him and Cassandra since the day she sought his help.
He thought he could not be far from the still, as he forded Lone Pine
Creek, on his way to the home of Hoke Belew, whose wife he was going to
see.
David was interested in this young family; they seemed to him to be
quite of the better sort, and as he put space between himself and the
Widow Timms' deplorable state, his irritation gradually passed, and he
was able to take note of the changes a week had wrought in the growing
things about him.
More than once he diverged to investigate blossoming shrubs which were
new to him, attracted now by a sweet odor where no flowers appeared,
until closer inspection revealed them, and now by a blaze of color
against the dark background of laurel leaves and gray rocks. Ah, the
flaming azalea had made its appearance at last, huge clusters of
brilliant bloom on leafless shrubs. How dazzlingly gay!
In the midst of his observance of things about him, and underneath his
surface thoughts, he carried with him a continual feeling of
satisfaction in the remembrance of the little farm below the Fall Place,
and in an amused way planned about it, and built idly his "Castles in
Spain." A bit of stone wall whose lower end was overgrown with vines
pleased him especially, and a few enormous trees, which had been left
standing when the spot had been originally cleared, and the
vine-entangled, drooping trees along the banks of the small river that
coursed crookedly through it,--what possibilities it all presented to
his imagination! If only he could find the right man to carry out his
ideas for him, he would lease the place for fifty years for the
privilege of doing as he would with it.
After a time he came out upon the cleared farm of Hoke Belew, who was
industriously ploughing his field for cotton, and called out to him,
"How's the wife?"
"She hain't not to say right smart, an' the baby don't act like he's
well, neither, suh. Ride on to th' house an' light. She's thar, an' I'll
be up d'rectly."
Thryng rode on and dismounted, tying his horse to a sapling near the
door. The place was an old one. A rose vine, very ancient, covered the
small porch and the black, old, moss-grown roof. The small green foliage
had come out all over it in the week since he was last there. The glazed
windows were open, and white homespun curtains were swaying in the light
breeze. A small fire blazed on the hearth, and before it, in a
huge-splint-bottomed rocking-chair, the pale young mother reclined
languidly, wrapped in a patchwork quilt. The hearth was swept and all
was neat, but very bare.
Close to the black fireplace on a low chair, with the month-old baby on
her knees, sat Cassandra. She was warming something at the fire, which
she reached over to stir now and then, while the red light played
brightly over her sweet, grave face. Very intent she was, and lovely to
see. She wore a creamy white homespun gown, coarse in texture, such as
she had begun to wear about the house since the warm days had come.
Thryng had seen her in such a dress but once before, and he liked it.
With one arm guarding the little bundle in her lap, dividing her
attention between it and the porridge she was making, she sat, a living
embodiment of David's vision, silhouetted against and haloed by the red
fire, softened by the blue, obscuring smoke-wreaths that slowly circled
in great rings and then swept up the wide, overarching chimney.
He heard her low voice speaking, and his heart leaped toward her as he
stood an instant, unheeded by them, ere he rapped lightly. They both
turned with a slight start. Cassandra rose, holding the sleeping babe in
the hollow of her arm, and set a chair for him before the fire. Then
she laid the child carefully in the mother's arms, and removed the
porridge from the fire.
"Shall I call Hoke?" she asked, moving toward the door.
David did not want her to leave them, loving the sight of her. "Don't
go. I saw him as I came along," he said.
But she went on, and sat herself on a seat under a huge locust tree.
Tardiest of all the trees, it had not yet leaved out. Later it would be
covered with a wealth of sweet white blossoms swarming with honey-bees,
and the air all about it would be filled with its lavish fragrance and
the noise of humming wings.
Presently Hoke came plodding up from the field, and smiled as he passed
her. "Doc inside?" he asked.
She nodded. When David came out, he found her still seated there, her
head resting wearily against the rough tree. She rose and came toward
him.
"I thought I wouldn't leave until I knew if there was anything more I
could do," she said simply.
"No, you've done all you can. She'll be all right. Where's your horse?"
"I walked."
"Why did you do that? You ought not, you know."
"Hoyle rode the colt down to see could Aunt Sally come here for a day or
two, until Miz Belew can do for herself better." She turned back to the
house.
"Come home now with me. Ride my horse, and I'll walk. I'd like to walk,"
urged David.
"Oh, no. Thank you, Doctor, I must speak to Azalie first. Don't wait."
She went in, and David mounted and rode slowly on, but not far. Where
the trail led through a small stream which he knew she must cross, he
dismounted and allowed the horse to drink, while he stood looking back
along the way for her to come to him. Soon he saw her white dress among
the glossy rhododendron leaves as she moved swiftly along, and he walked
back to meet her.
"I have waited for you. You are not used to this kind of a saddle, I
know, but what's the difference? You can ride cross-saddle as the young
ladies do in the North, can't you?"
"I reckon I could." She laughed a little. "Do they ride that way where
you come from? It must look right funny. I don't guess I'd like it."
"But just try--to please me? Why not?"
"If you don't mind, I'd rather walk, please, suh. Don't wait."
"Then I will walk with you. I may do that, may I not?" He caught the
bridle-rein on the saddle, leaving the horse to browse along behind as
he would, and walked at her side. She made no further protest, but was
silent.
"You don't object to this, do you?" he insisted.
"It's pleasanter than being alone, but it's right far to walk, seems
like, for you."
"Then why not for you?" She smiled her mysterious, quiet smile. "You
must know that I am stronger than you?" he persisted.
"I ought to think so, since that day we rode over to Cate Irwin's, but I
was right afraid for you that time, lest you get cold; and then it was
me--" she paused, and looked squarely in his eyes and laughed. "You
wouldn't say 'it was me,' would you?"
He joined merrily in her laughter. "I never corrected you on that."
"You never did, but you didn't need to. I often know, after I've said
something--not--right--as you would say it."
"Do you, indeed?" he walked nearer, boyishly happy because she was close
beside him. He wanted to touch her, to take her hand and walk as
children do, but could not because of the subtile barrier he felt
between them. He determined to break it down. "Finish what you were
saying? And then it was me--what?"
"And then it was I who gave out, not you."
"But you were a heroine--a heroine from the ground up, and I love you."
He spoke with such boyish impulsiveness that she took the remark as one
of his extravagances, and merely smiled indulgently, as if amused at it.
She did not even flush, but accepted it as she would an outburst from
Hoyle.
David was amazed. It only served to show him how completely outside that
charmed circle within which she lived he still was. He was maddened by
it. He came nearer and bent to look in her face, until she lifted her
eyes to look fairly in his.
"That's right. Look at me and understand me. I waited there only that I
might tell you. Why do you put a wall between us? I tell you I love you.
I love you, Cassandra; do you understand?"
She stood quite still and gazed at him in amazement, almost as if in
terror. Her face grew white, and she pressed her two hands on her heart,
then slowly slid them up to her round white throat as if it hurt her--a
movement he had seen in her twice before, when suffering emotion.
"Why, Cassandra, does it hurt you for me to tell you that I love you?
Beautiful girl, does it?"
"Yes, suh," she said huskily.
He would have taken her in his arms, but refrained for very love of her.
She should be sacred even from his touch, if she so wished, and the
barrier, whatever it might be, should halo her. He had spoken so
tenderly he had no need to tell her. The love was in his eyes and his
voice, but he went on.
"Then I must be cruel and hurt you. I love you all the days and the
nights--all the moments of the days--I love you."
In very terror, she flung out her hands and placed them on his breast,
holding him thus at arm's-length, and with head thrown back, still
looked into his eyes piteously, imploringly. With trembling lips, she
seemed to be speaking, but no voice came. He covered her hands with his,
and held them where she had placed them.
"You have put a wall between us. Why have you done it?"
"I didn't--didn't know; I thought you were--as far--as far away from us
as the star--the star of gold is--from our world in the night--so far--I
didn't guess--you could come so--near." She bowed her head and wept.
"You are the star yourself, you beautiful--you are--"
But she stopped him, crying out. She could not draw her hands away, for
he still held them clasped to his heart.
"No, no! The wall is there. It must be between us for always, I am
promised." The grief wailed and wept in her tones, and her eyes were
wide and pleading. "I must lead my life, and you--you must stay outside
the wall. If you love me--Doctor,--you must never know it, and I must
never know it." Her beating heart stopped her speech and they both stood
thus a moment, each seeing only the other's soul.
"Promised?" The word sank into his heart like lead. "Promised?" Slowly
he released her hands, and she covered her face with them and sank at
his feet. He bent down to her and asked almost in a whisper: "Promised?
Did you say that word?"
She drooped lower and was silent.
All the chivalry of his nature rose within him. Should he come into her
life only to torment and trouble her? Ought he to leave the place? Could
he bear to live so near her? What had she done--this flower? Was she to
be devoured by swine? The questions clamored at the door of his heart.
But one thing could he see clearly. He must wait without the wall,
seeking only to serve and protect her.
With the unerring instinct which led her always straight to the mark,
she had seen the only right course. He repeated her words over and over
to himself. "If you love me, you must never know it, and I must never
know it." Her heart should be sacred from his personal intrusion, and
their old relations must be reestablished, at whatever cost to himself.
With flash-light clearness he saw his difficulty, and that only by the
elimination of self could he serve her, and also that her manner of
receiving his revelation had but intensified his feeling for her. The
few short moments seemed hours of struggle with himself ere he raised
her to her feet and spoke quietly, in his old way.
He lifted her hand to his lips. "It is past, Miss Cassandra. We will
drop these few moments out of your life into a deep well, and it shall
be as if they had never been." He thought as he spoke that the well was
his own heart, but that he would not say, for henceforth his love and
service must be selfless. "We may be good friends still? Just as we
were?"
"Yes, suh," she spoke meekly.
"And we can go right on helping each other, as we have done all these
weeks? I do not need to leave you?"
"Oh, no, no!" She spoke with a gasp of dismay at the thought. "It--won't
hurt so much if I can see you going right on--getting strong--like you
have been, and being happy--and--" She paused in her slowly trailing
speech and looked about her. They were down in a little glen, and there
were no mountain tops in sight for her to look up to as was her custom.
"And what, Cassandra? Finish what you were saying." Still for a while
she was silent, and they walked on together. "And now won't you say what
you were going to say?" He could not talk himself, and he longed to hear
her voice.
"I was thinking of the music you made. It was so glad. I can't talk and
say always what I think, like you do, but seems like it won't hurt me so
here," she put her hand to her throat, "where it always hurts me when I
am sorry at anything, if I can hear you glad in the music--like you were
that--night I thought you were the 'Voices.'"
"Cassandra, it shall be glad for you, always."
She looked into his eyes an instant with the clear light of
understanding in her own. "But for you? It is for you I want it to be
glad."