HI’S HOUN’ DAWG
It was Saturday and Hi Kitchell and Jim McBirney, having done their
chores, met by appointment at the spring under the tulip trees where
Azalea intended to build her bungalow when she became very rich.
It was a lovely spot and they threw themselves down in perfect content,
their dogs near at hand, and looked off at what Hi called a “purty
worl’.”
“It jes’ seems like everything worth speakin’ about hed come my way,”
sighed Hi contently. “You-all remember what a pore little forsaken cuss
I was, Jim, when me and ’Zalie came draggin’ along with that thar show of
Sisson’s a year back an’ more?”
“’Taint more’n a year, Hi.”
“Seems like a century. An’ no sooner hed we laid eyes on your pa and ma
than things began to go right. An’ now look at us. ’Zalie’s like your
sister and gettin’ a tip-top education, and is off ridin’ the country
over with the Carsons; and me and ma hev a home anybody would be proud to
own, and that thar Industries business is lookin’ up more’n more every
livelong day. Why we’re so happy we’re in danger of bustin’. I asked ma
t’other day if she didn’t feel most like bustin’, and she said she did.”
“It’s a good place to live here-abouts,” agreed Jim. “Pleasant things
have a way of happenin’ ’round here. If it wa’n’t for that dod-gasted
hard luck of Annie Laurie’s, I’d think this was where the nicest folks in
creation lived. But some one done her a mean, low-down trick.”
“It was that scowlin’, grumblin’ Disbrow,” averred Hi. “I know it. Ma
says she feels it in her bones, and so do I, and Kitchell bones is simply
great for givin’ pointers. I say, what’s the use in you and me loafin’
’round here while that mis’able, sneakin’ houn’ gets off with Annie
Laurie’s money? Ain’t we her friends and as nigh kin as she’s got? What
say to you and me hikin’ out after that thar Disbrow an’ findin’ him and
bringin’ him back to justice?”
Hi’s sharp black eyes sparkled with the high intent of protecting the
friendless. The bright light of adventure shone round about him, and Jim
thrilled to it. Here was a friend worth having—a friend like those
knights of old of whom Azalea read to him, one who would go out and
conquer. Jim stared off across the purple valley, rejoicing in his good
fortune at living in days when there was still a man’s work to do in the
world.
“Hi,” he breathed after a time, “I’m with you.”
“Then,” said Hi, with something of the air of an Arctic explorer about to
embark on his hazardous voyage, “we must make ready. Thar’s no use in
waitin’ around here, dreamin’ and sighin’ the way the rest of the town is
doin’. Let’s get our grub together and be on our way.”
“I wish I could take Peter,” said Jim wistfully. Peter was his hound.
“But he’s got such a sore foot I don’t dast. Ma, she doctors it up every
morning and she says we’ll have to be mighty careful or we won’t have no
dog at all—he’ll die from blood poisonin’.”
“It’s too bad,” agreed Hi, “but we-all ken take Bike.” Bike, Hi’s hound,
wagged his tail in recognition of the attention paid him.
“It will make me feel awful bad for you to take Bike and me to be goin’
along without no dog at all,” mused Jim.
There seemed to be no limit to Hi’s chivalry to-day.
“Well then, by gum, I won’t take Bike,” he declared, his face lighting
with the glow of sacrifice. Jim was not unappreciative.
“Honest, Hi!”
“Honest.”
“Well then, let’s send the dogs home and we can go right on from here.
We don’t need no provisions. I’ve got some money—”
“So have I.”
“What’s the use of delayin’ then. Let’s set off.”
So the dogs were commanded to go to their respective homes, and with
lowered tails and drooping ears, they obeyed. Bike writhed along on his
belly, beating the ground with his tail. He actually shed tears of
humiliation and depression, but Peter, more absorbed with the discomfort
in his foot, limped lamely and obediently on his way toward home.
“Pore houn’s,” sighed Hi, “they sure are cast down.”
“Ain’t it just their luck,” Jim sympathized. “Pore critters.”
Both boys were talking their worst and enjoying it. This spang-up
grammar was well enough to catch on to when a fellow was talking with
Mrs. Carson, or even to Azalea, but there was such a thing as letting
down and enjoying oneself when the ladies were out of the way. Men must
be men now and then.
So, in all the freemasonry of their kind, the two set off across the
mountain. Neither one would have confessed that the “wander-thirst” was
on them too. But the truth was, Mr. Carson had set a most infectious
example. Mountain folks have pretty hard work staying at home. The
roads call, and they long to be up and away. It always seems as if
something wonderful must be waiting for them over the next hill. Jim and
Hi had the gypsy mood on them this day. They actually ran for a long
time, taking the cut-offs that led them over the spur of the mountain to
Mulberry Valley, which lay “over-yon” and which they had seldom visited,
and then always under the guidance of some grown person who insisted on
pushing them along and getting home again.
Getting home seemed to them just now as the last thing in the world that
a fellow would care to do. What was the use in getting home when a
person could run along paths bordered with trim huckleberry bushes, or
rest on a stone where lichen had woven a pale green lace? There were
partridge berries peeping up between dark green leaves; here was tender
wintergreen; yonder the “sweet buds” were coming out, weighting the air
with their fruity odor. Dear me, why should anybody go home?
There was an eagle hanging over the valley, strong, and calm, and sure.
Three buzzards sat on a blasted pine and shook their evil heads; a king
snake gave them a chase and got away from them in spite of their best
endeavors. And still the little path went on and on. It passed by a
deserted house, where the bats hung from the roof. It wound by wooded
hills and fields that once had been tilled, but had perhaps proved too
unfertile, and so been left; it crept on up the farther mountain,—the
unknown mountain—and still coaxed, and lured, and solicited; and the boys
kept on.
Their brown, dusty feet had grown weary and their throats were dry when
at length they came upon a cabin. They weren’t sure at first whether it
was lived in or not. The heavy shutters—there were no windows—were
closed, but the door stood slightly ajar. The chimney, which was made of
field stone held together with the red clay of the field, blossomed like
a garden with ferns and vines. The yard was bare of grass, but the old
stone wall round about it was overgrown with green things, though it was
still so early in the year, and the myrtle and mimosa showed their green
beside that of the laurel and rhododendron. There was a small well with
a sweep, and on the bench lay a broken gourd which had been used as a
drinking cup. But over the place was the deepest silence, save for one
early bee which made a cheerful buzzing, and seemed to fairly boom, so
still was the place.
“I say,” whispered Hi, “don’t it look spooky?”
“Maybe a hermit lives here,” Jim suggested.
“Or a skelington,” added Hi.
It was Hi who had the courage to push back the warped door and look in.
Jim was a few feet behind him and he never forgot the yell of horror that
came from Hi’s throat, a yell that had fear in it, fear for the next
second’s happening. Jim heard a swishing and a hissing, and he knew.
Neither formed the word “rattlers!” on their frozen tongues. Hi tried to
leap backward and fell over a stub of a bush and lay prone. Jim seized
his arm and dragged him along for a dozen feet, and even in the rush they
could hear their hearts beating frantically. That swishing and hissing
kept up. It seemed to grow louder. Hi turned himself and got on his
feet like a monkey. They both ran without looking behind. And after
they had started and had got away from the real danger, they began to
fear imaginary evils. Panic was on them. With their blistered bare feet
they sped on and on, taking no note of where they were going. Their
throats, which had been dry to start with, became like paper. Their eyes
bulged from their heads. They had started out great heroes, but they had
undergone a transformation and were two terribly frightened and tired
little boys.
Even as they sank exhausted beneath a pine tree they looked about them
shudderingly for snakes, but seeing none they lay there and gasped, their
hearts straining in their sides. Then, as their panting ceased, a soft
noise struck their ears. It sounded very familiar, and yet in their
utter bewilderment they could not at first tell what it was. The meaning
penetrated first to Jim.
“A spring,” he whispered. “A spring!”
They made their way toward it, dragging their feet like weary dogs, and
when they saw it, clear, cold and beautiful, gushing from the ground amid
wild forget-me-nots, they sank on their knees and drank long. After that
they lay still, staring at the sky. The world swam before them dreamily,
the clouds rocked back and forth; they slept.
When they awoke it was dark. It was not just partly dark as it is most
nights of the year. No, it was black. They might have been shut up in a
black velvet box or lost in a large bottle of black ink. There was
nothing above, below, around, so far as their sense could inform them.
It was Jim who had opened his eyes first. At least, he thought he had
opened them, but when he found he could see nothing at all he had his
doubts about having done it. He felt of his eyelids. Yes, they were
open, beyond doubt. Had he then suddenly gone blind? He couldn’t
imagine why he should, and yet, judging from his present plight, it
seemed probable.
“Hi!” he shouted, as if Hi were on the other side of a forty-acre lot.
Hi’s voice answered close at hand, sleepily. “Yep!”
“Hi, I believe I’ve gone blind. I can’t see nothing—not a blamed thing.”
There was a short silence.
“I can’t neither,” cried Hi. “Maybe we’re both blind.”
“It’s being so hungry, I reckon,” said Jim. “Don’t you think a fellah
could get so run down from eatin’ nothing that he’d go blind?”
“I reckon he might,” sighed Hi.
Silence fell again. They could hear the needles as they fell from the
trees, the low whispering of the spring, and the far-away sound of wind
or rain, they were not sure which.
Then suddenly they knew that they were not blind. All the world was lit
up—lit up terribly and then engulfed in darkness again. Then the thunder
came, clamoring and roaring about them. They were mountain boys and they
had heard thunder roar and rumble over the hills many times, but had it
ever had such a frightful bellow as this? It kept on and on and before
the first volley had quite died, again the world was lighted with that
fiery light—that forked flame—and again the voice of the sky awoke the
thousand voices of the hills.
“Oh, gosh!” groaned Hi.
“Ain’t there no place to hide?” demanded Jim with trembling voice.
No, there was no place to hide. The storm king owned everything around
there that night. It was all his domain and he meant to do with it as he
would. So he blasted an oak, and the boys saw it; and he cracked his
horrid whip at the invisible horses of the air, and they rushed by
screaming. And then the rain came; not drop by drop as rain should, but
in drops that chased each other so that they became streams; in streams
that became inverted fountains.
The boys couldn’t even call out to each other. They fought for breath as
the furious winds whipped them and the drenching rain engulfed them
almost like a wave. It was a cloudburst, they knew that much, and
finally, from mere animal instinct, they turned their faces to the
ground, wreathed their arms about their heads and lay prone. Still the
lightning flashed and the thunder bellowed; still the winds wailed and
the trees snapped. It seemed at last merely a question of keeping alive
till it was over.
But by and by it was over. It ceased almost as suddenly as it had come,
and weak as half-drowned rats the two boys got to their feet, and looking
up into a clear sky, saw the morning star shining down at them.
“We’ve got to get home,” said Jim, breathing deep.
“Yes,” agreed Hi.
It was some time before they could find any sort of a trail whatever, but
after a while they came upon one, though whether it had been made by
human feet long since and overgrown, or whether it was merely a rabbit
run they could not decide. However, they decided to take it. The dawn
was flushing the sky and they could make their way without much
difficulty now, so far as seeing was concerned, but their feet were
blistered and their bodies felt as sore as if they had been pounded.
They went on and on, doggedly.
“We’re bound to come to a road soon,” they kept telling each other.
“Oh, yes, we’ll get somewhere.”
And they got “somewhere,” beyond any manner of doubt. Lifting their eyes
at length, they saw before them that frightful cabin of “rattlers,” and
stealing to the door to greet the brightly shining sun was a fine,
confident father of rattlers. Hi gave one despairing whoop and fled, Jim
following, and once more they sped on, taking however an opposite
direction from that of the night before and trying to keep their faces
toward home. There was the mountain before them to cross, and then
Mulberry Valley, and then there was Tennyson mountain to climb. It was
really quite simple.
“Anybody ought to be able to do that,” said Hi stoutly.
But the trouble was that after an hour’s hard plodding they came to a
sort of opening and thought they had reached a road at last, and there
before them once more was the House of Rattlers. And that was the time
they gave up and cried. They dared not stay near there, so they went on
their way hastily, but not running now, sobbing as they went.
They were lost, that was all there was to it. They were quite completely
lost on a mountain they never had visited before—a mountain where nobody
lived and where the only neighborly things were rattle snakes.
They were both wondering if they were going to die there, to starve and
be heard of no more. Of course, years and years from then their
“skelingtons” might be found. But however interesting that might be for
others, it really would do them no good at all, when you came to think of
it.
Ugh, how chilly the morning air was! And how wet their clothes were!
And how empty their stomachs! And the rattlers—the rattlers!
There was a strange, bell-like sound in the distance, a deep, musical,
beautiful sound. It rang over the hills with a note at once sad and
glad. The boys stopped in their tracks and listened. It came again,
like church bells, only faster. It thrilled the two forlorn wanderers,
and brought the light back to their faces.
“Bike!” shouted Hi. “It’s Bike. He’s followed us. Oh, Bike, Bike, here
we are, you blessed old houn’ dawg! Here! Here!”
They put their fingers in their mouths and whistled, they shouted, they
laughed, they hugged each other; and then, over a rise came Bike,
wild-eyed with delight, large, it seemed, as a bear, and bursting with
importance.
He leaped on them till he knocked them down; he insisted on licking their
faces, on pretending to bite their calves, on lathering them as if they
were puppies. He couldn’t have enough of them nor they of him. But
after all, he came to his senses sooner than they.
“Enough of this,” he seemed to say. “For goodness sake, let’s be getting
home.”
He turned his back on them and started over the rise, wagging his tail
and giving vent to sharp, scolding barks.
“A fine lot of trouble you’ve put me to,” he appeared to be saying.
“Hustle yourselves now and get home. Don’t you know your folks are
worried to death about you? Such boys! Such boys! It wears a
respectable hound out trying to take care of you.”
And the boys understood and agreed with him. So they followed meekly
enough, limping first on one foot and then on the other and calling to
him every few minutes not to go so fast.
They went on for hours and hours, as it seemed, but at last they stood
beneath the tulip trees by the spring on Azalea’s plateau.
“Well,” said Hi, “this here is whar we part. We-all don’t seem to be
bringin’ the Disbrows back to get their just punishment.”
“I reckon we’d better not say much about punishment,” grinned the
leg-weary Jim. “So long, Hi. Hope it don’t hurt much.”
“Same to you,” called Hi. He and Bike were already on their way down the
mountain, and Jim, tired almost to collapse, made his way up the road to
where Ma McBirney paced back and forth, pouring out her soul in prayer.
But Pa McBirney seemed to have some feelings which did not come under the
head of gratitude for his son’s return. He knew what such a night of
torture meant to the dear woman beside him, who already had suffered too
many shocks. He looked Jim over with a sternly parental eye.
“If you got what’s coming to you, son,” he said, “you’d be well
lathered.”
“I know it, sir,” said Jim with conviction.
Pa hesitated. He was a gentle man.
“Well,” he said, “if you know it, and if you think you’ll remember it,
latherin’ wouldn’t teach you nothing. Go in with your ma and get some
food, and then wash yourself up and go to bed. Ma’d better give you some
of that salve o’ hern for your feet. And Jim—”
“Yes, sir.”
“You watch out jest as hard as you can, and don’t grow up a plumb fool.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jim.