I
The Kanes were a deserving family, tainted with inarticulate ambition.
I was glad to have them as rather distant neighbors instead of
“share-croppers.” Evvie, the oldest child, possessed beauty of the
appealing sort that stirs even the hurried passer-by with a feeling
of responsibility. As a tenant’s daughter she would have troubled my
sleep. Her mother was a Merlin and usually stopped to see me when
on her way to visit some member of the clan. “Hypnotic,” though an
intolerably cheapened word, must be used in describing the effect that
my typewriter seemed to have on Mrs. Kane. I did not understand this
until the day that she brought Evvie with her.
“She hain’t strong, Evvie. I kain’t git her to stay with a hoe long
’nough fer me to go in an’ git the dinner. I say to her, ‘Evvie, you
take my place an’ let me go in,’ an’ she’ll try fer a bit, but her
poppie’ll see her drappin’ back an’ gittin’ her breath hard, an’ he’ll
say, ‘You run ’long now, Evvie, an’ he’p yer mother,’ an’ in she’ll
come. So I’ve got in the way o’ lettin’ her git the dinner by herse’f
an’ I stay with the hoe.”
“But she can’t be more than ten,” I said.
“She’s twelve, an’ that’s nigh to a woman. Cleve Saunders kain’t pass
our place now ’thout peekin’ fer Evvie.”
I expected Evvie to drop her head or wriggle behind a chair; but her
chiselled chin was high, and her eyes darkened as easily as twilight
water. She was the traditional woman accepting her rôle.
Mrs. Kane’s glance swerved again to the typewriter, and her heart
tumbled out as she said: “I been thinkin’ maybe you could learn Evvie
to write on that.”
“If she is so much help to you,” I answered, snatching at the first
defense, “why not keep her at home until she is married?”
“That’s jest the trouble--her marryin’. She’ll disapp’int any boy
’round here. They all expect a woman to take a hand in makin’ the
livin’, through crap-time anyway. An’ Evvie kain’t hold out. If she
could learn to work on _that_, an’ git a job in town, like as not some
boy out there ’ud take a notion to her, an’ town boys don’t want their
wives to work. ’Tain’t expected of ’em to do more’n the cookin’ an’
housework an’ sewin’, an’ that ’ud be easy for Evvie.”
Evvie had stepped into the yard. It was a habit with her, I found, to
vanish as if for charming asides with herself and to reappear with no
sign of absence upon her. I reminded her mother that there might be
children to care for in addition to the occupations mentioned.
“’Course there would, but she’d have _them_ anywheres, an’ she’d better
have ’em where life’s easier’n it is here.”
“No doubt. What is her school grade?”
“She’s got to the fourth reader. But she ain’t peart in her books,
though she’s so smart-lookin’.”
Three years glowed in respite, and my voice warmed in reply.
“Bring her to me when she finishes the seventh grade, and I’ll see.”
The mother’s face grew long. “She ain’t fitten’ fer school,” she said.
“She’s had to quit, ’count o’ that wheezin’ ’at ketches her when she
climbs up the mountain. Her poppie had to meet her half-way down ever’
day an’ carry her up on his back. She’s too big fer that now, an’ he
says he reckons she knows enough. He’s awful proud o’ Evvie. An’ she’s
as smart as Annie Dills who learned to write on one o’ them things an’s
makin’ twelve dollars a week in Asheville.”
I held out that skill on the machine would be useless without a little
schooling behind it. Evvie, who had shown no interest in her future,
revealed no disappointment. She was a flower and had implicit faith in
the sun. But there was a touch of desperation in Mrs. Kane’s voice as
she took her leave. I tried to believe with Evvie in the reliability of
sunshine.
A year later Evvie was “talkin’ to” Cleve Saunders. He was a good boy
who had here and there learned the carpenter’s trade. Occasionally he
would go to Asheville to work on a job, and then a weekly letter would
come to Evvie. I approved of Cleve, but Evvie was only thirteen, and
though vividly and perfectly moulded as a woman, she was small for her
years. I protested to Mrs. Kane.
“I ain’t goin’ to let her git married ’fore she’s fifteen,” the mother
assured me. “Not if I can he’p it. Ef she had some work to keep her
mind on----”
“I’ve a friend,” I said, as I stepped between Mrs. Kane and my
typewriter, “who would like a helper with her children. It would be a
good home for Evvie and she would have nothing to do but play.”
“You mean anybody’d pay her jest fer playin’?”
“With children. And Evvie is fine with her little brothers and
sisters.” (I’ll _make_ Sue Waters take her, said I to myself.)
“Where’d the place be?”
“It’s on a big farm near Knoxville.”
“It’ll cost a heap to go, an’ we ain’t got nary calf we can sell now.”
“My friend will send the money for her fare, and Evvie can pay it back
if she stays.”
Mrs. Kane, thin and worn, threw up her head with almost as fine an air
as Evvie herself.
“Ef she don’t stay, I’ll pay it back ef it takes ever’ egg fer a year,”
she said.
We thought it settled; but before I could sufficiently browbeat Sue
Waters, Evvie’s mother came to me with a face grayer and more pinched
than ever.
“I reckon,” she said, “Evvie kain’t go till next year. I shore thought
I was through with babies, but there’s another acomin’, an’ Evvie’s all
the he’p I’ve got.”
Now, during preparations for Evvie’s setting forth, I had seen more of
her than usual, and had detected signs of a quick temper that gave me
uneasy visions of her amid the Waters brood. Also I feared that her
ideas of _fraternité et égalité_, which were as natural to her as the
ground under her feet, might give some trouble. If little Margaret
Waters should receive a piano for her birthday, Evvie would expect the
same or “just as good.” Sue Waters, having taken her degree in the
right subjects, would of course comprehend, but could hardly supply the
piano. My relief was almost as deep as my concern when Mrs. Kane made
her joyless announcement.
“Perhaps it is better to wait,” said I. “Evvie will be older and larger
by a year.”
“I dunno as that’s better,” said the mother. “She’s a woman to the
bone, an’ a year’ll seem a long time.”
Before the year was half out I left the mountains and was gone for
several months. As soon as conditions in the Kane home permitted, I
arranged by correspondence for Evvie’s going away. She was to write
to Mrs. Waters when she was ready, and the money for her fare would
be sent to her. As the train taking me home pulled into the village,
I thought of Evvie, supposing her to be with Mrs. Waters, and I felt
that I had helped to rob the hills of a flower that should belong to
them utterly.
A woman sharing my seat had been giving me the news. I did not hear
much of it, but finally caught the words “An’ Evvie got married.”
I jumped unmannerly, as if I would snatch the child to dry land. Then I
made my conscience comfortable.
“Cleve will take good care of her,” I said.
“’Tain’t Cleve,” replied the woman. “It’s that young feller from Mossy
Creek--Judd Mason.”