THE ASKING.
ON the comb of a tall ridge back of the Cleaverage place, Ola
Derf caught up with Lance at last.
"I got to set down awhile till I can ketch my breath," the girl
said jerkily. "I reckon I run half a mile hollerin' yo' name
every step. Lance Cleaverage--and you never turned yo' head. I
believe in my soul you heared me the first time I called."
Cleaverage did not take the trouble to affirm or deny. He flung
himself back on the fern and pine needles with his hat over his
face, and remarking, "Wake me up when you get your breath,"
affected to go to sleep. Ola Derf was as comfortable a companion
as a dog, in that you could talk to her or let her alone, as the
humor ran.
A cicada's whir overhead swelled to a pulsating screech and died
away. The woods here opened into calm and lofty spaces which at a
little distance began to be dimmed as with vaporized sapphire--the
blue that melted the hills into the sky. His eyes were caught by
an indigo-bird in the branches--a [71] drop of color apparently
precipitated by this marvel of azure held in solution by the summer
air.
It was the morning after Lance had sung to Callista under her
window, and his mind was yet swimming in dreams of her. He was
roused from these by Ola's voice.
"Lance," she began and broke off. "Oh, Lance, I want to talk to
you about--about--" Again her voice lapsed. She could see
nothing of his face. His chest rose and fell rhythmically.
"Lance--air you asleep?"
"Huh-uh. But if you keep on talkin' right good maybe I'll get to
sleep."
She paid no attention to the snub, but addressed herself once
more to what seemed a difficult bit of conversational tactics.
"Lance," came the plaint for the third time, "I wanted to name
Callista Gentry to you. I--I--that thar gal don't care the
rappin' o' her finger about you, nor any man."
Cleaverage, with the memory of last night warm at his heart,
smiled under his hat brim and made no answer, save a little
derisive sound which might have meant denial, indifference, or
mere good-humored contempt of Ola herself.
"Oh, yes, I know," Ola nodded to her own thought, "they's a heap
of 'em lets on not to like the boys; but with Callista Gentry hit
goes to the bone. She don't care for nary soul in this round world
but her own pretty self. She 'minds me [72] of a snake--a white
snake, if ever there was such a thing. You look at her. You ain't
never seen her change color, whatever came or went."
The picture evoked of Callista's flushed, tender face lying upon
his breast made the pulses of the man on the warm pine needles
leap.
"Well," he prompted finally, "what's the trouble? Are you a true
friend, that doesn't want me to get snake bit?"
Ola laughed out a short laugh.
"No," she said, drearily, "I'm just a fool that's got yo' good
at heart, and don't like to see you get a wife that cares
nothin' for you. Thar--I've said my say. Thar's no love in her,
and thar's no heart in her. But if a pretty face and high and
mighty ways is what takes you, of course you can follow yo'
ruthers."
"Uh-huh," agreed Lance, pushing his hat back and sitting up. He
cast a laughing, sidelong glance in her direction. "Ola," he
said softly, "I'm a goin' to let you into a secret. The gals has
pestered me all my life long with too much lovin', and my great
reason for bein' willin' to have Callista Gentry is that she
seems like you say, sorter offish."
To his intense surprise (he had been wont to jest much more
hardily with her than this), Ola's face flushed suddenly a dark,
burning red. She jumped to her feet like a boy.
"All right," she said in a throaty tone, her [73] countenance turned
away from him. "If that's so, I'm sorry I spoke. Tell Miz.
Cleaverage all about it--and all about me and the other gals
that run after you so turrible. I don't care."
But half way down the ridge her swift, angry, steps began to
lag, and a little further on Lance overtook her.
"They's a-goin' to be a dance at our house a-Wednesday," she
said in a penitent voice. "You're a-comin', ain't you, Lance?"
"Nope," returned the invited guest briefly.
He volunteered no excuse or explanation; and so, when the
parting of their ways was reached, she demanded with imploring
eyes on his face,
"Ye ain't mad with me, air ye. Lance? Why won't you come to my
party?"
"Got somethin' else to do," Cleaverage returned nonchalantly.
"Callista and me is goin' to be married a-Wednesday night."
Ola fell back a step, and clutched the sunbonnet which she
carried rolled in her hands.
"You're a--w'y, Lance--you're jest a foolin'," she faltered.
Lance shook his head lightly, without a word.
"But--why, I was over at Gentry's this morning," she exclaimed
finally. "Nobody thar said anything about it." She still watched
his face incredulously. "They shorely would have said somethin',
if Callista had named the day." [74]
"She never named it," said Lance easily. "I named it myself,
back there on the ridge whilst you was catchin' your breath--or
wastin' it. We had allowed that a week from yesterday would do
us, but it sort of come over me that Wednesday was the right
time, and I'm goin' along by there right now to settle it all.
Reckon if you folks are givin' a dance you won't heed a invite?
Good-bye," and he turned away on his own trail.
Swift, unsmiling, preoccupied as a wild thing on its foreordained
errand--the hart to the spring, the homing bird--Cleaverage made
his way to the Gentry place. Callista felt him coming before he
turned into the big road; she saw him while yet the leafage of the
door maples would have confused any view less keen. She longed
to flee. Then in a blissful tremor she could do nothing but remain.
Octavia Gentry, carrying hanks of carpet chain to the dye-pot in
the yard, caught sight of him and called out a greeting.
"Is Mr. Gentry about the place?" Lance asked her, as he lingered
a moment with Callista's eyes on him from the doorway.
"Yes, Pappy's makin' ready to go down to the Settlement, and he
ain't been to the field to-day. He's in the house somewhar's.
Did you want to see him special, Lance?"
Cleaverage made no direct reply; and the widow added,
"Thar he is, right now," as Ajax Gentry stepped [75] out into the
open passage with a bit of harness in his hand which he was
mending. A certain gravity fell on her manner as the two walked
toward the house. It went through her mind that Cleaverage had
never formally asked for Callista, and that now he was about to
do so. She lifted her head proudly and glanced round at him.
Lance Cleaverage was not only the best match in the whole Turkey
Track region, but he had been the least oncoming of all "Sis's
love-yers." You never could be sure whether Lance wanted the
girl or was merely amusing himself; and Octavia had always been
strongly set upon the match. When they came to the porch edge,
Lance seated himself upon it and looked past the old man to
where Callista's flower face was dimly discernible in the entry
beyond.
"Good morning," he said impersonally. "I'm glad to find you at
home, Mr. Gentry. I stopped a-past to name it to you-all that
Callista and me has made up our minds to be wed a-Wednesday
evening."
There was a soft exclamation from within; but mother and
grandfather remained dumb with astonishment. Cleaverage glanced
round at them with a slight impatience in his hazel eyes that
held always the fiery, tawny glint in their depths. He detested
having people receive his announcements as though they were
astonishing--that is, unless it was his humor to astonish. [76]
"Well," Grandfather Gentry began after a time, "ain't this
ruther sudden?"
"Marryin' has to be done all of a sudden," Lance remarked
without rancor. "I never yet have heard of gettin' married
gradual."
"Why, Lance, honey," said the widow in a coaxing tone, "you
ain't rightly ready for a wife, air ye? Ef you two young folks
had named this to me--well, six months ago--I'd 'a' had
Callista's settin' out in good order. Looks like Pappy's right,
and it is sorter suddent."
"What do you say, Callista?" inquired the postulant bridegroom
without looking up.
In the soft dusk of the interior the girl's face was crimson.
Here came the time when she could no longer pretend to be urged
into the marriage by her mother, her grandfather, the course of
events; but must say "yes" or "no" openly of her own motion.
Last night's startling accost yet shook her young heart; the
glamour of that hour came back upon her senses.
"I say whatever you say, Lance," she uttered, scarcely above a
whisper.
Ajax Gentry laughed out.
"Well--I reckon that settles it," he said, jingling his harness
and turning to leave.
"No--it don't settle nothin'," broke in Octavia anxiously.
"Lance ain't got any land cleared to speak of over on his place,
and he ain't put in any crop; how air the both of 'em to live? [77]
They'll just about have obliged to stay here with us. You can
find work for Lance on the farm, cain't ye, Pappy?"
Old Ajax measured his prospective grand-son-in-law with a steady
eye, and assured himself that there was not room on the farm nor
in the house for two masters. He read mastery in every line of
face and figure. Lance got to his feet so suddenly that he might
have been said to leap up.
"I've built me a good cabin, and it's all ready. Callista and me
are goin' into no house but our own," he said brusquely. "Ain't
that so, Callista?"
Again the girl within the doorway answered in that hushed,
almost reluctant voice,
"Just as you say. Lance."
And though grandfather laughed, and Mother Gentry objected and
even scolded, that ended the argument.
"I'll stop a-past and leave the word at Hands's," Lance told
them as he turned to go. "Is there anyone else you'd wish me to
bid, mother?"
That "mother," uttered in Lance's golden tones, went right to
the widow's sentimental heart. She would have acceded to
anything he had proposed in such a way. Old Ajax smiled,
realizing that Lance meant to triumph once for all over Flenton
Hands.
As Cleaverage walked away, the mother prompted, almost
indignantly, [78]
"Why didn't ye go down to the draw-bars with him, Callista? I
don't think that's no way to say farewell to a young man when
you've just been promised."
Gentry looked at his daughter-in-law through narrowed eyes, then
at Callista; his glance followed Lance Cleaverage's light-footed
departure a moment, and then he delivered himself.
"I ain't got nothing agin your marryin' Lance Cleaverage
Wednesday evening," he said concisely to Callista. "I ain't been
axed; but ef I had been, my say would still be the same. All
I've got to tell you is that thar was never yet a house built of
logs or boards or stones that was big enough to hold two
families."
"Why, Pap Gentry!" exclaimed Octavia in a scandalized tone.
"This house is certainly Callista's home, and I'm sure I love
Lance as well as I ever could a own son. If they thought well to
live here along of us this winter, I know you wouldn't hold to
that talk."
"I reckon you don't know me so well as ye 'lowed ye did,"
observed Gentry; "for I would--and do. Lance Cleaverage has took
up with the crazy notion of marryin' all in haste. He ain't got
no provision for livin' on that place of his. Well, I tell you
right now, he cain't come and live in my house. No, nor you
cain't pack victuals over to 'em to keep 'em up."
A coquette according to mountain ideals, carrying [79] her head high
with the boys, famous for her bickerings with Lance, Callista
Gentry had always been a model at home, quiet, tractable,
obedient. But the face she now turned upon her grandfather was
that of a young fury. All her cold pride was up in arms. That
secret, still spirit of hers, haughty, unbent, unbroken, reared
itself to give the old man to understand that she wanted nothing
of him from this on. She--Lance's wife--the idea of her begging
food from Grandfather Gentry!
"If you two'll hush and let me speak," she said in an even tone,
"I reckon I'll be able to set grandpappy's mind at rest. You can
give me the wedding--I reckon you want to do so much as that for
your own good name. But bite or sup I'll never take afterwards
in this house. No, I won't. So far from carryin' victuals out of
it, you'll see when I come in I'll have somethin' in my hand,
grandpap. I invite you and mother right now to take yo' Sunday
dinners with me when you want to ride as far as the Blue Spring
church. But,"--she went back to it bitterly--"bite or sup in
this house neither me nor Lance will ever take." Then, her eyes
bright, her usually pale cheeks flaming, she turned and ran up
the steep little stairs to her own room. Octavia looked reproach
at her father-in-law; but Ajax Gentry spat scornfully toward the
vacant fireplace, and demanded, [80]
"Now she's a pretty somebody for a man to wed and carry to his
home, ain't she? I say, Sunday dinners with her! Can she mix a
decent pone o' corn bread, and bake it without burnin' half her
fingers off? She cain't. Can she cut out a hickory shirt and
make it? She cain't. Could she kill a chicken and pick and clean
it and cook it--could she do it ef she was a starvin'? She could
not. She cain't so much as bile water without burnin' it. She
don't know nothin'--nothin' but the road. She's shore a fine
bargain for a man to git. To have a passel o' fool boys
follerin' after her and co'tin' her, that's all Callisty's ever
studied about, or all you ever studied about for her."
"Well, pappy," Octavia bridled, considerably stung, "I don't
think you' got much room to talk. In yo' young days, from all I
ever heared--either from you or from others--you was about as
flighty with the gals, and had about as many of 'em follerin'
after you, as Sis is with the boys."
She looked up at her father-in-law where he lounged against the
fire-board. Grandly tall was old Ajax Gentry, carrying his
seventy years and his crown of silver like an added grace. His
blue eye had the cold fire of Callista's, and his lean sinewy
body, like hers, showed the long, flowing curves of running
water.
"O-o-o-oh!" he rejoined, with an indescribable lengthened
circumflex on the vowel that lent it [81] a world of meaning.
"O-o-o-oh! . . . a man! Well--that's mighty different. If a feller's
got the looks--and the ways--he can fly 'round amongst the gals
for a spell whilst he's young and gaily, and it don't do him no
harm. There's some that the women still foller after, even when
he's wedded and settled down" (Ajax smiled reminiscently). "But
when a man marries a gal, he wants a _womern_--a womern that'll
keep his house, and cook his meals, and raise his chillen right.
The kind o' tricks Callisty's always pinned her faith to ain't
worth shucks in wedded life. Ef I was a young feller to-morrow,
I wouldn't give a chaw o' tobaccer for a whole church-house full
o' gals like Callisty, an' I've told you so a-many's the time.
Yo' Maw Gentry wasn't none o' that sort--yo' mighty right she
wasn't! She could cook and weave and tend a truck patch and
raise chickens to beat any womern in the Turkey Tracks, Big
_and_ Little. I say, Sunday dinner with Callisty!" he repeated.
"Them that goes to her for a dinner had better pack their
victuals with 'em."
Octavia gathered up her hanks of carpet-warp and started for the
door.
"All right, Pappy," she said angrily. "All right. I raised the
gal best I knowed how. I reckon _you_ think the fault--sence you
see so much fault in her--comes from my raisin'; but I know
mighty well an' good that the only trouble _I_ ever had with
Sis, was 'count o' her Gentry blood. [82] How you can expect the
cookin' o' corn pones and makin' o' hickory shirts from a gal
that's always got every man in reach plumb distracted over her,
is more'n I can see." Octavia went out hastily before her
father-in-law could make the ironic reply which she knew to
expect; and after a moment or two, Ajax himself moved away
toward the log stable to begin his harnessing.
Callista had hurried to her bedroom, slammed the door, and was alone
with her own heart. As for Lance, walking beneath the chestnuts, he
had no wish to have her beside him under the old man's humorous,
semi-sarcastic gaze and his prospective mother-in-law's sentimental,
examining eye. He wanted her to himself. He thought with a mighty
surge of rapture of the approaching time when they could shut out
all the world and find once more that island of delight where they
should dwell the only created beings. He, to share his honeymoon
with the Gentry family! He laughed shortly at the thought.
It was Little Liza that opened the Hands door to him, and her
light eyes softened unwillingly as they beheld his alert figure
on the step. Little Liza was tormented with an incongruously
soft heart, painfully accessible to the demands of beauty and
charm.
"Howdy," she said. She had not seen Lance Cleaverage since the day of
the funeral; but she had heard from her brother and her sisters that
[83] his behavior on that occasion was unseemly, if not positively
disrespectful.
Lance barely returned her greeting, then he broached his errand.
"Jane! Ellen! Oh, Flent!" she called distressfully, when she had
his news, "Come on out. Lance Cleaverage is here, waitin' to
invite you to his weddin'."
The two sisters came out on the porch, but Flenton did not make
his appearance.
"Howdy, Lance. Who is it?" inquired Ellen Hands. "Callista
Gentry hasn't took you, has she?"
"Well," drawled Lance, lifting a laughing eye to the line of
big, gray-faced women on the rude, puncheon-floored gallery,
"you can make it out best way you find. The weddin' is to be
held at the Gentry place. If it ain't Callista, it's somebody
mighty like her."
Little Liza's lip trembled.
"You Lance Cleaverage," she said huskily, "you're a-gettin' the
sweetest prettiest thing that ever walked this earth. I do know
that there ain't the man livin' that's fit for Callisty. I hope
to the Lord you'll be good to her."
Again Lance regarded the doleful visages before him and laughed.
"You-all look like I'd bid you to a funeral rather than to a
weddin'," he said, lingering a bit to see if Flenton would show
himself. [84]
Hands was just inside the window. He knew well what had been
said. Nothing could have been less to his taste than the going
out to receive such an invitation.
"Thar--you see now, Flent," said Little Liza tragically, as she
encountered her brother when they turned from watching Lance
away. "You've lost her. Oh, law! I always thought if I could
call Callisty Gentry sister, it would make me the happiest
critter in the world."
"You may have a chance so to call her yet," said Hands, who
showed any emotion the announcement may have roused in him only
by an added tightening of lip and eye. "Wednesday ain't come
yet--and hit ain't gone."
"Well, hit'll come and hit'll go," said Ellen heavily. "Lance
Cleaverage gits what he starts after, and that's the fact."
"Yes," agreed Little Liza, "he shore does. I don't reckon I
could have said no to him myself."
"Lance Cleaverage!" echoed her brother. "Well, he's born--but he
ain't buried. I never did yet give up a thing that I'd set my
mind on. I ain't said I've given up Callista Gentry."
The three looked at him rather wildly. Talk of this sort is
unknown among the mountain people. Yet they could but feel the
woman's admiration for his masculine high-handedness of speech.
At the Cleaverage place they were making ready for the noonday
meal when Lance brought [85] his news home. The table, with its
cloth of six flour-sacks sewed end to end, was set in the cool
entry. The Dutch oven, half buried in ashes, was full of
buttermilk-dodgers, keeping hot. At the other side of the broad
hearthstone, Roxy Griever bent above a dinner-pot dishing up
white beans and dumplings. Beside her Mary Ann Martha held a
small yellow bowl and made futile dabs with a spoon she had
herself whittled from a bit of shingle, trying to get beans into
it. Her mother's reproofs dropped upon her tousled and
incorrigible head with the regularity of clockwork.
"You, Mary Ann Marthy, I do know in my soul you' the worst child
the Lord ever made: Where do you expect to go to when you die?
Look at that thar good victuals all splattered out in the ashes.
That's yo' doin'. You' jest adzackly like yo' uncle Lance."
Then Sylvane, who was shaping an axe-helve in the doorway,
looked up and said, "Here comes Lance himself." And Kimbro
Cleaverage pushed another chair towards the table.
"Well," said the bridegroom expectant, looking about on the
shadowed interior of the cabin, dim to his eyes after the glare
outside, "I've got a invite for you-all to a weddin'."
"Not you and Callista?" exclaimed Sylvane, his boyish face
glowing. "Oh, Lance--she ain't said yes, has she?" [86]
"No, Buddy," Lance flung over his shoulder, and you saw by his
smile the strong affection there was between them, "she ain't
said yes--but I have. I've set the time for Wednesday, and the
Gentry place is all uptore right now getting ready for it. I
reckon"--his eye gleamed with the mischievous afterthought--"I
reckon they'll clear the big barn for dancing."
As though the word had been a catch released in her mechanism,
Roxy Griever straightened up, spoon in hand, with a snort.
"You Lance Cleaverage--you sinful soul!" she began, pointing her
bean spoon at him and thus shedding delightful dribblings of
the stew which Mary Ann Martha instantly scraped up, "you air
a-gettin' the best girl in the two Turkey Tracks--and here you
take the name of dancin' on yo' sinful lips at the same time!"
"I reckon you'll not come if there's goin' to be dancin',"
remarked Lance, hanging up his hat and seating himself at the
table. "I hadn't thought of that. Well--we'll have to get along
without you."
Roxy snorted inarticulate reprobation. Suddenly she demanded.
"Sylvane, whar's that branch of leaves I sent you after?"
With the words, Mary Ann Martha, unnoticed by her mother,
abruptly dropped her shingle spoon, scrambled across Sylvane's
long legs, and [87] galloped wildly out into the bit of orchard
beside the house, her mass of almost white curling hair flying
comically about her bobbing head, a picture of energetic terror.
Her young uncle looked after her, smiling tolerantly, and said
nothing.
"The flies'll git more of this dinner than we'uns, if we don't
have something. Why'n't you git me that branch o' leaves,
Sylvane?" persisted his sister.
"Well, Sis' Roxy, I wanted to finish my axe-helve, so I
sub-contracted that order o' yourn," answered Sylvane,
deprecatingly. "Sent Ma'-An'-Marth' out to git a small limb."
"For the land's sake! An' her not taller than--" began Roxy
querulously. But her father put in, with pacific intention,
"Here's the chap now with her peach-tree branch. Come on,
Pretty; let Gran'pappy put it up 'side o' him at the table. Now
sons, now daughter, air ye ready? This is a bountiful meal; and
Roxy's cooked it fine as the best; we're mightily favored. We'll
ax God's blessing on the food." [88]