I had heard of him: a mountain buck; very big, very good-looking. He
never worked except to make a little corn that he could turn into
whiskey. As soon as I saw Evvie I asked her how she had happened to
marry Judd.
“I was goin’ to the post-office,” she said, “with a letter to Mis’
Waters, tellin’ her to send the money an’ I’d come right on, when I met
Judd an’ he walked along the road with me an’ begged me not to send
the letter. He said I’d find it hard out there with strange folks who
wouldn’t keer nothin’ fer me, an’ I’d better let him look after me
right. I was kinder afraid to go so fur from home, an’ Judd--he talked
good.”
“Where was Cleve?” I asked.
“He was over in Asheville workin’. He was goin’ to meet me an’ put
me on the Knoxville train. He lost his job, goin’ to the train fer a
week. I wrote to tell him I wasn’t comin’, but Judd lost the letter an’
forgot to tell me about it. Cleve got another job though. Anybody’ll
give Cleve work.”
“And Judd has been as good as his talk, I suppose?”
Evvie swung her head to one side as if she forbade it to droop.
“It’ll be all right soon as we git to ourse’vs. We’re livin’ with
poppie an’ mommie now, an’ they’s so many young-uns at home Judd gits
pouty sometimes. I kain’t fix good things to eat where they’s so many,
an’ Judd’ll leave the table when he don’t like what’s on it.”
Notwithstanding Evvie’s hopes, it was nearly a year before they got to
“therse’vs.” Her parents, with a home already overflowing with small,
unprofitable humanity, would have sheltered the young pair and their
expected baby indefinitely and without a murmur, preferring to break
their already bowed backs than breach the highland custom of welcome
for all; but Judd was growing restless for his old occupation, and
Evvie wanted her baby to be born in her own home.
So she said; but I knew that she was frightened, and would have chosen
to stay with her mother if she could have given up the hopes she had
built on getting Judd to herself.
Mrs. Kane, with her heart breaking over Evvie, took what relief she
could from the exodus.
“I could stand Judd,” she told me, “ef it wasn’t fer his poutin’. The
Merlins don’t pout. We git mad and blow off, and that’s all of it.
Judd’ll hang on an’ pout till my bones git sore. I was gittin’ so edgy
it’s jest as well they’re gone.”
I went once to see Evvie after she had moved. There was a trail down
the western side of the ridge on which I lived that would bring me to
Judd’s cabin at the end of four miles; and there was a wagon-road down
the eastern side which would take me eleven miles around the foot of
the ridge. I chose the trail and went down alone.
On the ridge top the sun had seemed to be of eternal brightness; but
I descended strangely into an unlit world. The intervale below me was
much narrower than the usual valley where a settlement lies; and it
was almost cut in halves by a huge spur that, at its foot, was bounded
on either side by a stream of water. The two streams, Nighthawk Branch
and Mossy Creek, united at the toe of the spur. I took the trail up
Mossy Creek, as I had been told to do, and walked along in sound of the
water, but getting no glimpse of it through the smothering laurel. It
was the first time that water running behind green leaves had left me
untouched by a mysterious joy; the first time that I had ever thought
of the laurel as sombre. Its dark radiance seemed like a challenge
from Nature ready to spring and regain an inimical kingdom. I was half
in sympathy with the Highlander who regarded it merely as a thing to
fight or let contemptuously alone. My old admiration for the Greeks
came rushing back. What a redoubtable imagination it was that, in the
credulous youth and fear-time of the world, could draw all terror from
the forest and people it with creatures of play and light!
The trail led me into a cove, away from the quavering incantation of
the water, but the laurel went darkly with me, heavily mingled with
kalmia that choked the trees and wrenched at their life with its
curling arms.
“The shack’s on northy land,” Mrs. Kane had said to me, “an’ the
la’r’l is so blustery it ’ud tangle a wild hog.”
I knew why the original settler had chosen such a spot, in spite of his
aversion to “thicketty patches.” In the stifling coves it would take a
most resolute official to find a hidden “still.” This made the place
equally desirable in the eyes of the latest tenant, Judd. I had known
Evvie only on sunny hilltops, and I wondered what “living under the
mountain,” as the natives put it, had done to her spirit. I recalled
Mrs. Kane’s remark after a first visit to Evvie. “Seemed like I had to
keep wipin’ at the shadders all the time I’s there.” Evvie must be very
tired, I thought, of wiping at the shadows.
The trees rose more freely and I came to a clearing. On a hill opposite
me, which faced the east, was a cornfield, two or three acres in
size. This, thanks to a low gap in the near-by ridge, received a few
hours of morning sunlight. In the hollow below stood the shack where
Evvie lived. I found her in bed with one of Judd’s sisters in sullen
attendance.
“She’s in bed ’bout ever’ other day,” the sister said, “an’ Judd’s
always havin’ to come over the branch fer one of us to wait on her.”
“I can git up to-morr’ sure,” said Evvie, but the faint remark only
sent her attendant’s nose a little higher.
Evvie was strange to see. Her eyes, dark and burning, clung devouringly
to a face that had already lost all flesh.
“Where is Judd?” I asked.
The sister was silent, but Evvie flushed and said he had gone to try to
kill her a squirrel. “I ain’t eat nothin’ all day,” she said. “I been
thinkin’ ’bout the devil tryin’ to ketch Amos Britton one night last
week.”
I thought her delirious, but her companion gloatingly explained that
the devil had indeed made an effort to capture Amos alive.
“It’s ’cause he killed Wes Baxter in a fight a year ago, an’ ain’t
never said he was sorry. He went huntin’ with Jim Webster Thursday
night, an’ something took after ’em, they couldn’t tell what. Jim got
away an’ run home, but Amos got behind a tree to shoot it, an’ it
knocked his gun down an’ run him round an’ round the tree fer hours.
Then all at onct daylight was comin’ in, an’ the thing wa’n’t there.
Amos says it run on two feet, near as he could make out, an’ kep’
flappin’ a tail. He’s so skeered he ain’t been out of his house sence
he got home.”
“Do you reckon it ’uz the devil, Mis’ Dolly?” asked Evvie, as if sanity
hung on my answer.
“Not at all, Evvie. The man was drunk probably.”
“No, he wa’n’t drunk,” interposed the sister. “It run him round an’
round the tree, an’ he could feel its breath on his neck, hot as fire.”
I moved toward the water-bucket, and courtesy demanded that she should
go to the spring for fresh water. With her disappearance the room lost
its spirit of combat. With swimming head and drowning struggle--how far
were we from the Greeks and the bright gods of the woods?--I did what I
could to reassure Evvie.
“I ain’t afeard when Judd’s here,” she said. “Judd ain’t afeard of
anything. He’ll stay at home more when the baby’s here. Don’t men
always think a lot o’ their babies, Mis’ Dolly?”
I lied vigorously, and Evvie was smiling when the sister-in-law
returned. And she was smiling when I left, for I had promised that her
mother would come next day to stay for a week.
I reached home about dark, saddled a mule and rode to the Kane farm.
From there I went to see Jane Drake. Yes, Jane would take care of the
Kane household--but “not more’n till Saturday ’count o’ meetin’ at
Stecoa”--and let Mrs. Kane go to Evvie.
This done, I returned to nursing my canteloupe patch on the ridge,
which that one year was a delicious success. But even under the spell
of so rare a triumph, life was hardly tolerable on my peaks, with
Evvie awaiting her fate in the shadows below. So I ordered the small
telescope that I had wanted for a decade. Though treated later with
superior scorn by my astronomer friends, it did serve as a transport
to regions where nothing mattered. And when I resumed earthly
relationships Evvie’s boy was two weeks old.
In the more remote hollows of the mountains birth goes the indifferent
way of nature: gliding as the seasons for the most part, but too often
ruthless, confounding as storm. Evvie, so fragile and so young, barely
lived. I went once more to the shack, going down the mountain with
Mrs. Kane and little Tommie, taking old Bill, the mule, to help us
climb back. Mrs. Mason, senior, met us at the door. When the customary
greetings were over--greetings that never, under any circumstances,
are hurried in the mountains--the mother-in-law put in her very just
complaint.
“Law, I’m glad ye got here! I kain’t spen’ my time waitin’ on a girl
’at won’t try to set up, an’ her baby two weeks old. Won’t eat nothin’
nuther, makes no difference what I fix. I baked her some light bread,
an’ put ’lasses on it, an’ some butter I brought from home, an’ she
won’t tech it. She’ll not git well till she tries to, an’ I kain’t wait
round fer her to make up her mind. All my own work’s to do, an’ I got
to be at it. You know how it is, Mis’ Kane. You kain’t stay here all
the time no more’n I can.”
As on my first visit, I asked “Where is Judd?” and I received the same
information. “He’s gone out to kill a squirrel.”
Evvie, who was lying with her eyes shut, said with startling vigor:
“He’s been gone since yisterday.”
Judd’s mother looked toward the bed, and her eyes snapped. “You kain’t
expect a man to lay round home ferever waitin’ fer a woman to git up.
I’ve had ten young-uns an’ I never stayed in bed more’n nine days
with ary one of ’em. In two weeks I was out in the crap, if it was
crap-time, doin’ my part.”
There was a big crack in the cabin near Evvie’s bed. Her eyes sought
the opening in a manner that told me she often found mental escape that
way. It was obvious that her last hope was crushed. The baby had come,
but had wrought no miracle. She knew, and all present there knew, that
Judd was out on a bootlegging adventure; but it was not to be admitted
in look or speech.
Evvie gazed through the crack, seeing nothing but the face of a hill
that seemed about to fall on to the cabin. She stared as if her eyes
would tunnel through it, and a delirious flare came over her face.
“Take that hill away, mommie,” she said, in a fret.
Mrs. Kane surprised me. “I kain’t take hit away, Evvie--but I can take
you over hit,” she said, making aspirates in her clear determination.
“Can you set up on ol’ Bill? Tommie’ll ride behind you an’ hold you on.
I’ll tote the baby, Mis’ Dolly’ll lead Bill, an’ we’ll get you home.”
Evvie hardly knew there was a baby, but she caught at the word
home--“Oh, mommie, I can set up!”
“Set up an’ ride a mule!” cried Mrs. Mason. “An’ me here niggerin’ fer
ye, an’ ye makin’ out ye couldn’t move!”
I made no protest; for I recalled an incident of the days before
Evvie’s marriage. She was ill, and her mother had sent hurriedly for
me. I went, accompanied by a friend from the region of grand opera and
fever-thermometers, who happened to be in the highlands. She applied
her thermometer and found that Evvie’s fever was running high. We
fumbled about with improvised ministrations until Evvie asked for a
“flitter.” Mrs. Kane was mainly worried because the child had eaten
nothing since the day before, and when I saw her face light up at
Evvie’s request, I hastily withdrew with my friend.
“Why did you leave?” she asked. “The child may be killed. Her mother
may be ignorant enough to give her that fritter, or whatever she calls
it.”
“Yes, she is going to get the flitter, and that is why I left. I had to
take your disruptive civilized mind off the current. I want Evvie to
live.”
The next day my friend returned to the patient, expecting, I am sure,
to find a house in mourning. Evvie was sitting on the porch stringing
beans. Mrs. Kane’s face was luminous.
“Evvie got better right away,” she explained, “soon as she et them
three flitters I give her.”
Remembering that result, and seeing the glaze of resolution on her
mother’s face, I meekly became a party to the process of getting Evvie
out of the hollow. We formed under Mrs. Kane’s direction: I first,
leading the mule, and Evvie in the saddle, leaning back on Tommie’s
shoulder, quite safe with his strong little arms about her waist. Mrs.
Kane followed, carrying the baby. And so Evvie came home.