When the pitchiness of night closed in until it seemed that the
mountains moved up and huddled closer together, Newt was on
well-remembered roads and did not pause. In an hour or two the moon
would be up, and he would reach the cabin which he called home.
With the coming of the moon the hills underwent a wizardry of beauty
which was lost on the boy. First, silvery threads of light began to
weave along the bristling ridges of the east and opalescent flecks to
glimmer overhead. Then a soft blue-gray light filtered down the slopes;
throwing the shoulders of the mountains into relief and bathing the
lowlands in a luminous mist. The waters of Troublesome caught the glint
and the frogs boomed out from bass to treble, while back in the timbered
slopes the whippoorwills set up a plaintive chorus.
Ahead of him Newt saw his destination. A cabin of logs stood darkly at
the side of the road, marking his journey's end. Though the moon struck
across the small hard-tramped yard, the house threw its shadow forward
and was itself a block of darkness from which shone no light. That was
because there was no light to shine, except what came from the
fireplace, and because there was no window through which it might show.
But Newt needed no illumination. He knew every wretched detail by heart.
There was one room only, except for the lean-to shed, which served as
kitchen and dining-room, and that was reached by going outside and
walking around the corner of the house. The one room was pictured on his
mind almost as clearly as he trudged toward its door-step as it could be
when he entered it. Through the slabs of the puncheon floor the wind
came in gusty weather. In each of the four corners was a large double
bed with feather mattresses, for the family, when he had left home, had
numbered six. About the log walls on pegs driven into the chinking would
be hanging such articles of clothing as were not in use, except such
other articles as were thrust in disorder under the beds. Unless the
family had "lain down" they would be huddling about the hearth with
their shoes off, for even in June when the night chill came it was
customary to kindle an evening fire. Always in the past, his great
grandfather, old Luke Spooner, had sat at the right-hand corner of that
hearth, mumbling into his long white beard. Newt wondered if he would
still be there. He had been almost a centenarian when they took the
grandson away to the penitentiary; his sight almost gone, his hearing
almost gone, his brain wasted to a remnant of nightmare brooding, but
his physical vitality holding out like a spent and stubborn fortress.
Once he had been among the most feared of feudists, tireless, unafraid,
vindictive and honest. He would hardly be there now, reflected Newt. He
must have died by this time. One member of his family only would he
greet with any feeling akin to welcome. His father had in his rough way
been fond of him, and Newt in an equally wolfish fashion had
reciprocated the feeling. It had never been expressed in words or
demonstration, for of these things the mountaineer is as chary as a
grizzly. Often in the long warfare of quarreling and bickering between
his father and mother, which Newt regarded as a natural and universal
incident of family life, his "pappy" had taken his side and rescued him
from a "whopping."
Newt thought he would be glad to see his father.
He crossed the stile, hewn in rough steps from a poplar stump, and
strode over to the broken mill-stone that served as a door-step. He
shouted, "I'm a-comin' in," and pushed at the door. It was barred. That
was a sign of the troublesome condition of the times. The mountaineer
shouts an announcement of his coming from a distance to avoid the
seeming of surreptitiousness, but, having reached the threshold, does
not knock.
"Who's thet?" called a high-pitched, irritable voice from the interior.
It was his mother's voice, and Newt replied:
"Hit's me, Mammy. Let me in."
No outburst or murmur of surprise broke from the cabin at the
announcement of the prodigal's return. He heard only the rasping of a
bar being drawn from its sockets, and then the door swung in. Newt
entered, and with no offer to embrace his mother cast an appraising
glance about the place, which the logs on the hearth revealed in a
wavering light. The corners of the room were darkly shadowed, but the
semicircle about the fireplace was red and yellow from the flames. The
rafters were smoke-blackened, and an odor hung between the walls like
that in a house used for curing hams.
About the fire sat the family group, but none of them rose to welcome
him. At the right hand corner sat old Luke. He was not dead then, after
all, though just now he was sleeping with his bearded, mummy-like face
fallen forward and his long hickory staff resting between his knees.
Newt's younger brother, "Little Luke," grown since he had left home from
a boy of thirteen to a gawky and angular young cub of sixteen, and his
sister, who had been twelve and was now fifteen, stared at him in shy
silence. His mother who was only a little more than forty had all the
seeming of sixty. She was bent and slovenly. But of his father he saw
nothing, though a man sat in the remaining chair, and when this
interloper leaned forward, holding down his beard with his forefinger as
he spat at the ashes, Newt recognized Clem Rawlins, a distant kinsman.
Clem's presence surprised him little, for it would have been quite
natural for Clem or any other man who found himself benighted to stop
and "stay all night."
His mother came forward, and invited:
"Take my cheer, Newt. I'll set on the bed."
Newt dropped into the seat, and inquired:
"Where's pappy?"
"Daid," was his mother's laconic reply.
"When did he die?"
Clem Rawlins answered in a deep, drawling voice:
"He failed tol'able fast-like after ye left, Newt. He had the weak
treemers, an' died erbout cawn-plantin' time a-follerin' of yore goin'
down below."
The boy said nothing. He sat mutely scowling into the fire.
A constrained silence fell on the gathering, which was at last broken by
the boy's mother in a tone of dubious embarrassment.
"With yore old gran-pap on my hands, Newt, an' yore pap daid an' Little
Luk kind of puny-like, I couldn't hardly git along withouten some man on
the place an' so--" She paused again, then added with a note
half-apology, half-defiance: "An' so I married Clem. I was plumb driv
ter hit."
She knew that the boy had never liked his kinsman, Clem Rawlins, but now
Newt sat with his brow drawn and his gaze fixed on the embers, making no
response. Clem waited stolidly, puffing at his pipe, though he, too,
would be glad when the moment of explanation was ended. At last, the boy
dismissed the topic with the curt comment:
"I reckon thet's yore business."
After a while, he rose and went to the corner of the room where once his
few belongings had been kept. He evidently failed to find that for which
he sought, for he came back to the fire and demanded:
"Whar's my rifle-gun?"
His mother was still sitting on the edge of the bed. She had filled her
clay pipe and lighted it with a coal from the fire. Once more her voice
carried the note of anxious embarrassment, and she tried to give it also
an ingratiating quality, as she replied.
"Well, ye see, Newty, atter yore pappy died we had a heap of trouble.
'Peared like the good Lord hed done plumb forgot us in his
provi-_dence_. The hail kilt all the cawn, an' the hawgs died off like
es ef they was blighted, an' so--" She paused, and the boy finished for
her in a voice very metallic, though not reproachful.
"So ye went an' sold my rifle-gun. Is thet what ye war a-tryin' ter
say?"
"Thet's hit," she acknowledged. Then in exculpation she went on: "Ye
see, Newt, I wouldn't 'a' done hit, only I didn't reckon ye'd want hit
no more. We didn't hardly 'low ye'd ever come back hyar noways."
Newt Spooner rose from his chair and stood facing them. His fists were
tight-clenched at his sides. The spurting blaze of the slowly dying fire
sent his shadow wavering out across the semicircle of light.
"You-all didn't 'low I'd need my rifle-gun no more," he repeated slowly,
with forced restraint. "Ye didn't hardly reckon I'd ever come back
hyar-abouts. Ye 'lowed I wuz buried alive in thet damned penitentiary
whar ye let me go without a-holpin' me none. Ye 'lowed I'd jest stay
thar an' rot." He paused and his breath came heavily. Then his utterance
quickened. "Well, ye 'lowed plumb wrong. I'm hyar an' thar's a thing I'm
hyar ter do, an' hit's a thing thet calls fer a gun. Ye done married
this-hyar man. Thet's yore business an' his'n. 'Pears like ter me ye
mout 'a' done a sight better, but I hain't got no call ter say nothin'
erbout thet."
With a vague idea of placating both sides of what might become a family
rupture, the woman suggested in a milder tone than usual:
"I mout 'a' done a sight wusser, too, Newt."
The boy sniffed.
"I don't hardly see how," he retorted. "Now I've done been robbed of my
gun. What's become of my pappy's gun?"
His mother hesitated, then confessed:
"I done give it ter Clem."
The son nodded his head.
"Thet's what I 'lowed. Now thet gun b'longs ter me. I've done lawfully
heired hit from my pap." He turned suddenly to Clem Rawlins, and his
voice rang out in sharp and peremptory outburst.
"Go git hit!"
Rawlins rose in quick obedience, and went to his own corner whence he
fetched the repeating rifle that had been the elder Spooner's.
Newt stood before the fireplace, testing and loading the magazine, while
his mother looked on in anxious scrutiny.
Then the centenarian across the hearth roused up, lifting his ancient
and withered face, in which the jaw muscles worked loosely and flabbily.
"Who air thet feller?" he demanded in a quavering, accusing voice,
gazing up without recognition at the tall, spare figure which towered
over him.
"Thet's little Newt," shouted the mother, bending her lips close to his
ear. The old man sat foolishly blinking for a time as his wandering
thoughts came back to a focus.
Finally, he brandished his long staff and stormed weakly.
"Ye hadn't oughter suffered yeself ter be penitentiaried. In my day no
Spooner wouldn't 'a' done hit. Ye air the fust one thet's ever wore
stripes...."
"I wouldn't of gone thar nuther, ef my own kin hed a-stood by me,"
blazed the boy with an evil glitter in his eye.
"Don't pay him no mind, Newt," hastily admonished his mother; "he hain't
noways responsible. He's plumb fitty."
"Why the hell don't he die?" demanded the youth, gazing down
contemptuously on the withered and decaying figure.
"I'm kinder tuckered out," he added a moment later. "I reckon I'll lay
down."
Such was Newt Spooner's home-coming.