_Monday Morning._
Soon after breakfast on Saturday we set out on our sixteen-mile ride to
Trigger Branch, I on Mandy, Nucky walking,--he refused to ride behind,
remarking, "I'm allus used to seeing the women ride there." The day was
glorious, the way more and more beautiful as we proceeded. We crossed
three mountains, stopping on the top of one, where the sunlight sifted
down through translucent beech leaves, to eat our lunch, and then
"followed" Powderhorn, a large creek, two or three miles, finally
turning up Trigger Branch. At its mouth, Nucky pointed out the little
log school-house in which he has received his education up to this term,
and farther on he showed me various rocks and trees where he has
delighted to "layway" and "ambush" infant Cheevers. Trigger Branch is
the most picturesque creek I have yet seen; along its sides cliffs and
"rock-houses" alternate with rich hollows, small strips of bottom, and
steep but flourishing cornfields. All the houses we passed on the lower
reaches belonged to Cheevers, sons of Israel, and last of all was
Israel's home. Three "sights," or about a half-mile above this, is the
disputed boundary-line, which runs down from a mountain spur on the
right hand side, and then across a piece of bottom to the branch. The
bone of contention is a triangular slice of bottom, with its apex at the
foot of the spur, not an acre in extent, all told. As Nucky pointed it
out to me, I looked with mingled curiosity and horror. The fence of
course now stands on the ancient line claimed by the Marrses, where it
has stood for nearly a century and a quarter.
"It is impossible to believe that more than a dozen lives have been
sacrificed for this little piece of land," I said to Nucky, "why, I
doubt if you could raise forty bushels of corn a year on it."
His face flushed. "It haint the money's worth," he said, proudly;
"we don't care nothing about that. But it was granted to my
great-great-great-grandpaw for fighting the British, and me'n' Blant
would ruther die than part with a' inch of it."
He pointed to a thick, dark clump of hemlock near the foot of the spur,
on the Marrs land. "That's where I keep lookout of moonlight nights when
war is on," he said.
[Illustration: "'That's where I keep lookout of moonlight nights when
war is on.'"]
As we advanced, he showed me the steep cornfields tended by Blant and
himself, the almost upright pastures where some cattle and sheep were
feeding, and above, the virgin forest where Blant gets out yellow poplar
and other fine timber, and on the very crest of the ridge, the gray,
forbidding "high rocks" that are so fine for fox-hunts, and also, he
says, for "hiding out" in if officers get too troublesome.
"Blant he has a whole passel of warrants hanging over him," he said,
"and the sheriff and deputies they used to come over every now and then
last winter a-hunting him. Of course he couldn't afford to give hisself
up, or put in no time in jail, when he was so bad needed at home; and at
first he would take to the rocks when he seed 'em a-coming. But that was
a heap of trouble, and he got mighty tired of it, and so next time they
rid up he tuck his pistol and stepped out and told 'em that, bad as he
hated to do it, circumstances was such that he would have to fire on 'em
if they kep' bothering around; that he had the living to make for the
family, and no time to spend setting around enjoying hisself in
jail,--that with him duty come before pleasure, and he would have to
request 'em to leave him alone. And seeing how he felt about it, they
never come again for quite a spell,--not till after he kilt Elhannon in
April. Then they kotch him purely by accident, but he got away from 'em
that night,--I'll tell you about it sometime."
We were now approaching the Marrs house, a large, substantial one of
logs, built on the time-honored pattern of "two pens and a
passage,"--that is, two huge rooms, with an open hallway, below, and a
great "loft", large enough for six ordinary rooms, above. "Cap'n Enoch
Marrs raised it, more'n a hundred year' gone," said Nucky.
Entering the open passage, which was hung with saddles, bridles and
gearing of all sorts, and also with strings of beans and peppers, we
passed into one of the lower rooms. Mr. Marrs arose, coughing, from one
of the three large beds, upon which he had been resting, and welcomed me
most kindly. In front of the great fireplace, four young children were
gathered, and the eldest of these, a little woman of eight, held in her
arms an infant, upon whom I looked with special interest. This, then,
was "the babe,"--a beautiful, tiny girl-child of five months, with large
gray eyes in a small white face, and the brightest of little smiles.
The room was bare save for the beds, some chairs, and a great homemade
chest of drawers. On the fireboard were a clock and a few books, yellow
and crumbly, as Nucky had said, and above, across wooden pegs set in the
wall, rested a long, old-fashioned rifle, with a powderhorn slung on one
end.
"This here's the gun Cap'n Enoch Marrs fit the British with," said
Nucky, with bursting pride; "it's mine now,--paw give it to me on
account of my name."
Half an hour later, the hero, Blant, came in from "saving" fodder. I
gazed at him with all my might. He is a tall young man, with Nucky's
fine gray eyes and dark hair, an open face and a resolute jaw. After
greeting me in the gentlest of voices, he picked up the babe, who,
clinging to him with cries and coos of joy, buried her little face in
his bosom. He then went on with her across the passage and into the
other large room, whither Nucky followed him, and the two began
preparations for supper. Several times I saw Blant pass the open door,
always with the babe on his left arm, and once with a bowl of cornmeal,
once a stack of roasting-ears, once a skillet of meat, in the other. As
I looked, I said to myself over and over, "Is it possible this is a
slayer of men, an eluder and defier of the law?"
[Illustration: "As I looked, I said to myself over and over, 'Is it
possible this is the slayer of men, an eluder and defier of the law?'"]
It also occurred to me for the first time that I was adding to his
already heavy burdens; and I reproached myself for coming; but there was
no help for it now.
Supper at last being ready, Mr. Marrs, leaning feebly on his crutch,
conducted me into "t'other house," the children took their stands and we
our seats about the table, and Blant, still with the babe on his arm,
did the honors, pouring the coffee, and then impartially sharing with
the babe the beans, fat meat, roasting-ears and sweet-potatoes on his
plate. While of course the house in many ways shows the absence of
woman's care, Blant's filling of his mother's place is indeed
remarkable.
Later, my offer of help in the dish-washing being kindly but firmly
refused, I returned to the first room with Mr. Marrs and the children,
and we sat and talked. Of course I made no reference to the family
"war," but I did inquire as much as possible in regard to ancient family
history, and was shown the old Bible, the records of which go back to
Captain Enoch Marrs, the first settler here. Mr. Marrs, however, told me
that there are traditions that before the Marrses came to America, they
were brave and gentle folk for five hundred years in Old England, and
poured out their blood like water for the glory of their country. "I
allow from what I have heared that we have always been a fighting
race," he said. "My great-grandpaw used to set up and tell big tales,
which he got from his paw, how first one and then t'other of us fit for
his king in ancient days, and won glory and renown,--I mind there was a
famous admiral under Good Queen Bess, and before him a general that
licked out the French nation--but I haint able to ricollect names and
circumstances, having been too young and unknowing when I heared them
tales to take proper interest, which I regret now."
I shared his regret,--with so many good and aristocratic English names
in this mountain country, I have been quite sure that some of them
harked back to a brave and honorable past, and it would be especially
pleasing to me to trace Nucky's line to its old English home, and
through its brave deeds for king and country.
While we talked, Blant returned, with the babe and Nucky, and a little
later, Blant's bosom friend, Richard Tarrant, came in from across the
mountain. He is a strikingly attractive young man. Before he had stayed
long, he said,
"I have got bad news for you, Blant,--it is being talked that Todd and
Dalt Cheever has got powerful homesick out west, and is aiming to come
back before long. I hope it haint so,--I had looked forward to a right
smart spell of peace for you,--God knows you have got your hands full,
without no further warfare."
"I think Todd and Dalt will be satisfied to stay away a while yet,"
replied Blant, quietly; "I allow this is just one of Israel's lies."
"Well, I hope so," said Rich; "but forewarned is forearmed, and I
thought you ought to know the talk."
"I want to know about it quick as they come," spoke up Nucky, hastily;
"you can't no way get along without me to keep lookout."
Blant turned sternly upon him. "No matter what the news is, son," he
admonished, "you stay right there where you air, and don't dare to leave
and come home. You know maw's desires in regards to your getting
l'arning. I promised her I'd carry 'em out, and now I aim to do it. You
stay over there, or you'll have me to reckon with. I got Rich here to
help me if need be, and likewise Uncle Billy's boys,--what I haint able
to tend to myself."
Nucky's face flushed angrily; but he said no more.
When bed-time came, the family slept downstairs--besides the three beds
in one room, there was another in the kitchen--and I was shown up to a
comfortable feather-bed in the great loft. Long after everybody else was
asleep, I heard the poor little babe wailing pitiably below, and Blant
softly walking the floor with it, jolting it back and forth in his
chair, and trotting it on his knees before the fire. No wonder the
little creature suffered agonies after eating the things it got for
supper.
After breakfast in the morning, Nucky invited me to go for a walk. We
ascended one of the spurs of the mountain in the rear of the
house,--never have I seen a more beautiful site for a home than in that
hollow--and a third of the way up, on a small "bench," came upon what
appeared to be a play-village. Beneath spreading trees, were a dozen or
more diminutive houses, with latticed sides and roofs of riven oak
boards. Some were crumbling into decay, some new and substantial. The
one to which Nucky led me was still yellow. "Here's where Maw lays," he
said, almost in a whisper (I judge that one reason he finds it so hard
to speak of her is his feeling that he, or rather, her desire for his
education, was in a way the cause of her death), and I knew that this
must be the family burying-ground, and these the grave-houses once so
necessary for the protection of the dead from wild beasts, and still
surviving here in the customs of the mountain country.
Near the grave-house of his mother were three smaller ones, still good
and new. "Our three young uns betwixt Blant and me died of typhoid one
summer, about five year' gone," Nucky explained. China-asters were
blossoming gaily among the weeds about these grave-houses. "Maw she sot
'em there," Nucky said, "she liked to come here and rest a spell when
she was hoeing corn, and set with these young uns."
The tragedy of the life of Nucky's mother was brought forcibly before me
as I stood there. An eager-minded, loving-hearted woman, shut off from
all opportunity, the bringer of ten new lives into the world, laboring
and drudging as only these mountain women know how to for the sustenance
and clothing of her family, suffering constant anxiety as to the very
lives of her loved ones by reason of the family "war," and finally
having to go out into the darkness of death and bid them all
farewell,--surely it is a sad and tragic history.
As we turned away, Nucky added, "With them three young uns around her, I
allow she haint so lonesome as she would be all by herself."
"No," I said, "having her loved ones with her, she is happier far, even
in heaven. For it is that which makes heaven."
Blant had dinner for us at eleven, and soon afterward we were ready to
depart. "Come over and see us sometime at the school," I called to
Blant, as he stood with the babe on his arm by the gate. He thanked me
gravely, but did not say he would come.
"Gee," said Nucky, as we rode on, "he can't never do that,--why they'd
just _have_ to arrest him if he run into the jaws of the sheriff and the
jail that way!"
We made the last hour or two of our journey through moonlight in which
the mist-hung mountains and shadowed valleys lay entrancingly lovely.
"This is the kind of nights I allus keep watch for the Cheevers," said
Nucky.
I wondered if these were the sole thoughts aroused in him by the
wondrous beauty in which he had been born and bred. Presently I knew.
"If maw is in heaven, like you say, do you allow the country round about
there is any prettier than this here?" he asked.
"No, I am sure not," I replied, emphatically.