Birt had always been held in high esteem by the men at the tanyard.
Suddenly, however, the feeling toward him cooled. He remembered
afterward, although at the time he was too absorbed to fully
appreciate it, that this change began one day shortly after he had
learned of Nate's departure. As he went mechanically about his
work, he was pondering futilely upon his friend's mysterious
journey, and his tantalizing hopes lying untried in the depths of
the ravine. He hardly noticed the conversation of the men until
something was said that touched upon the wish nearest his heart.
"I war studyin' 'bout lettin' Birt hev a day off," said the tanner.
"An' ye'll bide hyar."
"Naw, Jube--naw!" Andy Byers replied with stalwart independence to
his employer. "I hev laid off ter attend. Ef ye want ennybody ter
bide with the tanyard, an' keer fur this hyar pit, ye kin do it
yerse'f, or else Birt kin. _I_ hev laid off ter attend."
Andy Byers was a man of moods. His shaggy eyebrows to-day
overshadowed eyes sombre and austere. He seemed, if possible, a
little slower than was his wont. He bore himself with a sour
solemnity, and he was at once irritable and dejected.
"Shucks, Andy! ye knows ye ain't no kin sca'cely ter the old woman;
ye couldn't count out how ye air kin ter her ter save yer life.
Now, I'M obleeged ter attend."
It so happened that the tanner's great-aunt was distantly related to
Andy Byers. Being ill, and an extremely old woman, she was supposed
to be lying at the point of death, and her kindred had been summoned
to hear her last words.
"I hed 'lowed ter gin Birt a day off, 'kase I hev got ter hev the
mule in the wagon, an' he can't grind bark. I PROMISED Birt a day
off," the tanner continued.
"That thar's twixt ye an' Birt. I hain't got no call ter meddle,"
said the obdurate Byers. "Ye kin bide with the tanyard an' finish
this job yerse'f, of so minded. I'm goin' ter attend."
"I reckon half the kentry-side will be thar, an' _I_ wants ter see
the folks," said Jubal Perkins, cheerfully.
"Then Birt will hev ter bide with the tanyard, an' finish this job.
It don't lie with me ter gin him a day off. I don't keer ef he
never gits a day off," said Byers.
This was an unnecessarily unkind speech, and Birt's anger flamed
out.
"Ef we-uns war of a size, Andy Byers," he said, hotly, "I'd make ye
divide work a leetle more ekal than ye does."
Andy Byers dropped the hide in his hands, and looked steadily across
the pit at Birt, as if he were taking the boy's measure.
"Ye mean ter say ef ye hed the bone an' muscle ye'd knock me down,
do ye?" he sneered. "Waal, I'll take the will fur the deed. I'll
hold the grudge agin ye, jes' the same."
They were all three busied about the pit. The hides had been taken
out, and stratified anew, with layers of fresh tan, reversing the
original order,--those that had been at the bottom now being placed
at the top. The operation was almost complete before Jubal Perkins
received the news of his relative's precarious condition. He had no
doubt that Birt was able to finish it properly, and the boy's
conscientious habit of doing his best served to make the tanner's
mind quite easy. As to the day off, he was glad to have that
question settled by a quarrel between his employees, thus relieving
him of responsibility.
Birt's wrath was always evanescent, and he was sorry a moment
afterward for what he had said. Andy Byers exchanged no more words
with him, and skillfully combined a curt and crusty manner toward
him with an aspect of contemplative dreariness. Occasionally, as
they paused to rest, Byers would sigh deeply.
"A mighty good old woman, Mrs. Price war." He spoke as if she were
already dead. "A mighty good old woman, though small-sized."
"A little of her went a long way. She war eighty-four year old, an'
kep' a sharp tongue in her head ter the las'," rejoined the tanner,
adopting in turn the past tense.
Rufe listened with startled interest. Now and then he cocked up his
speculative eyes, and gazed fixedly into the preternaturally solemn
face of Byers, who reiterated, "A good old woman, though small-
sized."
With this unaccustomed absorption Rufe's accomplishment of getting
under-foot became pronounced. The tanner jostled him more than
once, Birt stumbled against his toes, and Byers, suddenly turning,
ran quite over him. Rufe had not far to fall, but Byers was a tall
man. His arms swayed like the sails of a windmill in the effort to
recover his balance. He was in danger of toppling into the pit, and
in fact only caught himself on his knees at its verge.
"Ye torment!" he roared angrily, as he struggled to his feet.
"G'way from hyar, or I'll skeer ye out'n yer wits!"
The small boy ruefully gathered his members together, and after the
men had started on their journey he sat down on a pile of wood hard
by to give Birt his opinion of Andy Byers.
"He air a toler'ble mean man, ain't he, Birt?"
But Birt said he had no mind to talk about Andy Byers.
"SKEER ME!" exclaimed Rufe, doughtily. "It takes a heap ter skeer
ME!"
He got up presently, and going into the shed began to examine the
tools of the trade which were lying there. He had the two-handled
knife, with which he was about to try his skill on a hide that was
stretched over the beam of the wooden horse, when Birt glanced up
and came hastily to the rescue. Rufe was disposed to further
investigate the appliances of the tanyard left defenseless at his
mercy, but at last Birt prevailed on him to go home and play with
Tennessee, and was glad enough to see his tow-head, with his old hat
perched precariously on it, bobbing up and down among the low
bushes, as he wended his way along the path through the woods.
The hides had all been replaced between layers of fresh tan before
the men left, and Birt had only to fill up the space above with a
thicker layer, ten or fifteen inches deep, and put the boards
securely across the top of the pit, with heavy stones upon them to
weight them down. But this kept him busy all the rest of the
afternoon.
Rufe was pretty busy too. When he came in sight of home Tennessee
was the first object visible in the open passage. The sunshine
slanted through it under the dusky roof, and the shadows of the
chestnut-oak, hard by, dappled the floor. Lying there was an old
Mexican saddle, for which there was no use since the horse had died.
Tennessee was mounted upon it, the reins in her hands, the headstall
and bit poised on the peaked pommel. She jounced back and forth,
and the skirts of the saddle flapped and the stirrups clanked on the
floor, and the absorbed eyes of the little mountaineer were fixed on
space.
Away and away she cantered on some splendid imaginary palfrey,
through scenes where conjecture fails to follow her: a land,
doubtless, where all the winds blow fair, and sparkling waters run,
and jeopardy delights, and fancy's license prevails--all very
different, you may be sure, from the facts, an old saddle on a
puncheon floor, and a little black-eyed mountaineer.
How far Tennessee journeyed, and how long she was gone, it is
impossible to say. She halted suddenly when her attention was
attracted to a phenomenon within one of the rooms.
The door was ajar and the solitary Rufe was visible in the dusky
vista. He stood before a large wooden chest. He had lifted the
lid, and kept it up by resting it upon his head, bent forward for
the purpose, while he rummaged the contents with vandal hands.
Tennessee stared at him, with indignant surprise gathering in her
widening eyes.
Now that chest contained, besides a meagre store of quilts and
comforts, her own and her mother's clothes, the fewer garments of
the boys of the family being alternately suspended on the clothes-
line and their own frames. She resented the sacrilege of Rufe's
invasion of that chest. She turned on the saddle and looked around
with an air of appeal. Her mother, however, was down the hill
beside the spring, busy boiling soap, and quite out of hearing.
Tennessee gazed vaguely for a moment at the great kettle with the
red and yellow flames curling around it, and her mother's figure
hovering over it. Then she looked back at Rufe.
He continued industriously churning up the contents of the chest,
the lid still poised upon that head that served so many other useful
purposes--for the gymnastic exhibition involved in standing on it;
for his extraordinary mental processes; for a lodgment for his old
wool hat, and a field for his crop of flaxen hair.
All the instinct of the proprietor was roused within Tennessee. She
found her voice, a hoarse, infantile wheeze.
"Tum out'n chist!" she exclaimed, gutturally. "Tum out'n chist!"
Rufe turned his tow-head slowly, that he might not disturb the poise
of the lid of the chest resting upon it. He fixed a solemn stare on
Tennessee, and drawing one hand from the depths of the chest, he
silently shook his fist. And then he resumed his researches.
Tennessee, alarmed by this impressive demonstration, dismounted
hastily from the saddle as soon as his threatening gaze was
withdrawn. She tangled her feet in the stirrups and her hands in
the reins, and lost more time in scrambling off the floor of the
passage and down upon the ground; but at last she was fairly on her
way to the spring to convey an account to her mother of the outlaw
in the chest. In fact, she was not far from the scene of the soap-
boiling when she heard her name shouted in stentorian tones, and
pausing to look back, she saw Rufe gleefully capering about in the
passage, the headstall on his own head, the bit hanging on his
breast, and the reins dangling at his heels.
Now this beguilement the little girl could never withstand, and
indeed few people ever had the opportunity to drive so frisky and
high-spirited a horse as Rufe was when he consented to assume the
bit and bridle. He was rarely so accommodating, as he preferred the
role of driver, with what he called "a pop-lashEE!" at command. She
forgot her tell-tale mission. She turned with a gurgle of delight
and began to toddle up the hill again. And presently Mrs. Dicey,
glancing toward the house, saw them playing together in great amity,
and rejoiced that they gave her so little trouble.
They were still at it when Birt came home, but then Tennessee was
tired of driving, and he let her go with him to the wood-pile and
sit on a log while he swung the axe. No one took special notice of
Rufe's movements in the interval before supper. He disappeared for
a time, but when the circle gathered around the table he was in his
place and by no means a non-combatant in the general onslaught on
the corn-dodgers. Afterward he came out in the passage and sat
quietly among the others.
The freshened air was fragrant, and how the crickets were chirring
in the grass! On every spear the dew was a-glimmer, for a lustrous
moon shone from the sky. Somehow, despite the long roads of light
that this splendid pioneer blazed out in the wilderness, it seemed
only to reveal the loneliness of the forests, and to give new
meaning to the solemnity of the shadows. The heart was astir with
some responsive thrill that jarred vaguely, and was pain. Yet the
night had its melancholy fascination, and they were all awake later
than usual. When at last the doors were barred, and the house grew
still, and even the vigilant Towse had ceased to bay and had lodged
himself under the floor of the passage, the moon still shone in
isolated effulgence, for the faint stars faded before it.
The knowledge that in all the vast stretch of mountain fastnesses he
was the only human creature that beheld it, as it majestically
crossed the meridian, gave Andy Byers a forlorn feeling, while
tramping along homeward. He had made the journey afoot, some eight
miles down the valley, and was later far in returning than others
who had heeded the summons of the sick woman. For she still lay in
the same critical condition, and his mind was full of dismal
forebodings as he toiled along the road on the mountain's brow. The
dark woods were veined with shimmering silver. The mists, hovering
here and there, showed now a blue and now an amber gleam as the
moon's rays conjured them. On one side of the road an oak tree had
been uptorn in a wind-storm; the roots, carrying a great mass of
earth with them, were thrust high in the air, while the bole and
leafless branches lay prone along the ground. This served as a
break in the density of the forest, and the white moonshine
possessed the vacant space.
As he glanced in that direction his heart gave a great bound, then
seemed suddenly to stand still. There, close to the verge of the
road, as if she had stepped aside to let him pass, was the figure of
an old woman--a small-sized woman, tremulous and bent. It looked
like old Mrs. Price! As he paused amazed, with starting eyes and
failing limbs, the wind fluttered her shawl and her ample sunbonnet.
This shielded her face and he could not see her features. Her head
seemed to turn toward him. The next instant it nodded at him
familiarly.
To the superstitions mountaineer this suggested that the old woman
had died since he had left her house, and here was her ghost already
vagrant in the woods!
The foolish fellow did not wait to put this fancy to the test. With
a piercing cry he sprang past, and fled like a frightened deer
through the wilderness homeward.
In his own house he hardly felt more secure. He could not rest--he
could not sleep. He stirred the embers with a trembling hand, and
sat shivering over them. His wife, willing enough to believe in
"harnts"* as appearing to other people, was disposed to repudiate
them when they presumed to offer their dubious association to
members of her own family circle.
* Ghosts.
"Dell-law!" she exclaimed scornfully. "I say harnt! Old Mrs.
Price, though spry ter the las', war so proud o' her age an' her
ailments that she wouldn't hev nobody see her walk a step, or stand
on her feet, fur nuthin'. Her darter-in-law tole me ez the only way
ter find out how nimble she really be war ter box one o' her
gran'chill'n, an' then she'd bounce out'n her cheer, an' jounce
round the room after thar daddy or mammy, whichever hed boxed the
chill'n. That fursaken couple always hed ter drag thar chill'n out
in the woods, out'n earshot of the house, ter whip 'em, an' then
threat 'em ef they dare let thar granny know they hed been struck.
But elsewise she hed ter be lifted from her bed ter her cheer by the
h'a'th. She wouldn't hev HER sperit seen a-walkin' way up hyar a-
top o' the mounting, like enny healthy harnt, fur nuthin' in this
worl'. Whatever 'twar, 'twarn't HER. An' I reckon of the truth war
knowed, 'twarn't nuthin' at all--forg, mebbe."
This stalwart reasoning served to steady his nerves a little. And
when the moon went down and the day was slowly breaking, he took his
way, with a vacillating intention and many a chilling doubt, along
the winding road to the scene of his fright.
It was not yet time by a good hour or more to go to work, and
nothing was stirring. A wan light was on the landscape when he came
in sight of the great tree prone upon the ground. And there, close
to the edge of the road, as if she had stepped aside to let him
pass, was the figure of a little, bent old woman--nay, in the
brightening dawn, a bush--a blackberry bush, clad in a blue-checked
apron, a red plaid shawl, and with a neat sunbonnet nodding on its
topmost spray.
His first emotion was intense relief. Then he stood staring at the
bush in rising indignation. This sandy by-way of a road led only to
his own house, and this image of a small and bent old woman had
doubtless been devised, to terrify him, by some one who knew of his
mission, and that he could not return except by this route.
Only for a moment did he feel uncertain as to the ghost-maker's
identity. There was something singularly familiar to him in the
plaid of the shawl--even in the appearance of the bonnet, although
it was now limp and damp. He saw it at "meet'n" whenever the
circuit rider preached, and he presently recognized it. This was
Mrs. Dicey's bonnet!
His face hardened. He set his teeth together. An angry flush
flared to the roots of his hair.
Not that he suspected the widow of having set this trap to frighten
him. He was not learned, nor versed in feminine idiosyncrasies, but
it does not require much wisdom to know that on no account whatever
does a woman's best bonnet stay out all night in the dew,
intentionally. The presence of her bonnet proved the widow's alibi.
Like a flash he remembered Birt's anger the previous day. "Told me
he'd make me divide work mo' ekal, an' ez good ez said he'd knock me
down ef he could. An' I told him I'd hold the grudge agin him jes'
the same--an' I will!"
He felt sure that it was Birt who had thus taken revenge, because he
was kept at work while his fellow-laborer was free to go.
Byers thought the boy would presently come to take the garments
home, and conceal his share in the matter, before any one else would
be likely to stir abroad.
"An' I'll hide close by with a good big hickory stick, an' I'll gin
him a larrupin' ez he won't furgit in a month o' Sundays," he
resolved, angrily.
He opened his clasp-knife, and walked slowly into the woods, looking
about for a choice hickory sprout. He did not at once find one of a
size that he considered appropriate to the magnitude of Birt's
wickedness, and he went further perhaps than he realized, and stayed
longer.
He had a smile of stern satisfaction on his face when he was lopping
off the leaves and twigs of a specimen admirably adapted for
vengeance. He was stealthy in returning, keeping behind the trees,
and slipping softly from bole to bole. At last, as the winding road
was once more in view, he crouched down behind the roots of the
great fallen oak.
"I don't want him ter git a glimge of me, an' skeer him off afore I
kin lay a-holt on him," he said.
He intended to keep the neighboring bush under close watch, and
through the interlacing roots he peered out furtively at it. His
eyes distended and he hastily rose from his hiding-place.
The blackberry bush was swaying in the wind, clothed only in its own
scant and rusty leaves. A wren perched on a spray, chirped cheerful
matins.