IV.

Kelsey trudged on with his slide and his oxen, elated by his moral

triumph. He glorified himself for his meekness. He joyed, with all the

turbulent impulses of victory, in the blacksmith's discomfiture.

Yet he was cognizant of his own deeper, subtler springs of action. There

was that within him which forbade him to take the life of an unarmed

man, but he piqued himself that he forbore. He had withheld even the

return of the blow. But he knew that in refraining he had struck deeper

still. He dwelt upon the scene with the satisfaction of an inventor. He,

too, could foresee the consequences: the blood-curdling eloquence; the

port and pose of a martyr; the far-spread distrust of the blacksmith's

professions of piety, under which that doughty religionist already

quaked.

And as he reflected he replied, tartly, to the monitor within, 'Be

angry, and sin not.'

And the monitor had no text.

Because of the night drifting down, perhaps--drifting down with a

chilling change; because of the darkened solemnity of the dreary woods;

because of the stars shining with a splendid aloofness from all that is

human; because of the melancholy suggestions of a will-o'-the-wisp

glowing in a marshy tangle, his exultant mood began to wane.

'Thar it is!' he cried suddenly, pointing at the mocking

illusion--'that's my religion: looks like fire, an' it's fog!'

His mind had reverted to his wild supplications in the solitudes of the

'bald'--his unanswered prayers. The oxen had paused of their own accord

to rest, and he stood looking at the spectral gleam.

'I'd never hev thunk o' takin' up with religion,' he said, in a shrill,

upbraiding tone, 'ef I hed been let ter live along like other men be, or

ef me an mine could die like other folks be let ter die! But it 'peared

ter me ez religion war 'bout all ez war lef', arter I hed gin the baby

the stuff the valley doctor hed lef' fur Em'ly--bein' ez I couldn't read

right the old critter's cur'ous scrapin's with his pencil--an' gin Em'ly

the stuff fur the baby. An' it died. An' then Em'ly got onsettled an'

crazy, an' tuk ter vagrantin' 'roun', an' fell off'n the bluff. An' some

say she flunged herself off'n it. And I knows she flunged herself off'n

it through bein' out'n her mind with grief.'

He paused, leaning on the yoke, his dreary eyes still on the _ignis

fatuus_ of the woods. 'An' then Brother Jake Tobin 'lowed ez religion

war fur sech ez me. I hed no mind ter religion. But the worl' hed in an'

about petered out for me. An' I tuk up with religion. I hev sarved it

five year faithful. An' now'--he cast his angry eyes upward--'ye let me

believe that thar is no God!'

So it was that Satan hunted him like a partridge on the mountains. So it

was that he went out into the desert places to upbraid the God in whom

he I believed because he believed that there was no God. There was a

tragedy in his faith and his unfaith. That this untrained, untutored

mind should grope among the irreconcilable things--the problems of a

merciful God and His afflicted people, foreordained from the beginning

of the world and free agents! That to the ignorant mountaineer should

come those distraught questions that vex polemics, and try the strength

of theologies, and give the wise men an illimitable field for the

display of their agile and ingenious solutions and substitutions! He

knew naught of this: the wild Alleghanies intervened between his

yearning, empty despair and their plenished fame, the splendid

superstructure on the ruins of their faith. He thought himself the only

unbeliever in a Christian world, the only inherent infidel: a

mysteriously accursed creature charged with the discovery of the

monstrous fallacy of that beneficent comfort, assuaging the grief of a

stricken world, and called an overruling Providence. Again his

flickering faith would flare up, and he would reproach God who had

suffered its lapse. This was his secret and his shame, and he guarded

it. And so when he preached his wild sermons with a certain natural

eloquence; and prayed his frantic prayers, instinct with all the

sincerities of despair; and sang with the people the mournful old hymns,

in the little meeting-house on the notch, or on the banks of the

Scolacutta River, where they went down to be baptized, his keen

introspection, his moral dissent, which he might not forbear, yet would

not avow, were an intolerable burden, and his spiritual life was the

throe of a spiritual anguish.

Often there was no intimation in those sermons of his of the quaint

doctrines which delight the simple men of his calling in that region,

who are fain to feel learned. His Christ, to judge from this mood, was a

Paramount Emotion; not the Christ who confuted the wise men in the

temple, and read in the synagogues, and said dark allegories; but He who

stilled the storm, and healed the sick, and raised the dead, and wept,

most humanly, for the friend whom he loved. Kelsey's trusting heart

contended with his doubting mind, and the simple humanities of these

sermons comforted him. Sometimes he sought consolation otherwise; he

would remember that he had never been like his fellows. This was only

another manifestation of the dissimilarity that dated from his earliest

recollections. He had from his infancy peculiar gifts. He was learned in

the signs of the weather, and predicted the mountain storms; he knew the

haunts and habits of every beast and bird in the Great Smoky, every leaf

that burgeons, every flower that blows. So deep and incisive a knowledge

of human nature had he, that this faculty was deemed supernatural, and

akin to the gift of prophecy. He himself understood, although perhaps he

could not have accurately limited and defined it, that he exercised

unconsciously a vigilant attention and an acute discrimination; his

forecast was based upon observation so close and unsparing, and a power

of deduction so just, that in a wider sphere it might have been called

judgment, and, reinforced by education, have attained all the functions

of a ripened sagacity.

Crude as it was, it did not fail of recognition. In many ways his 'word'

was sought and heeded. His influence yielded its richest effect when his

_confrere_ of the pulpit would call on him to foretell the fate of the

sinner and the wrath of God to the Big Smoky. And then Brother Jake

Tobin would accompany the glowing picture by a slow rhythmic clapping of

hands and a fragmentary chant, 'That dreadful Day air a-comin'

along!'--bearing all the time a smiling and beatific countenance, as if

he were fireproof himself, and brimstone and flame were only for his

friends.

Rousing himself from his reverie with a sigh, Hiram Kelsey urged the

oxen along the sandy road, which had here and there a stony interval

threatening the slide with dissolution at every jolt. They began

presently to quicken their pace of their own accord. The encompassing

woods and the laurel were so dense that no gleam of light was visible

till they brought up suddenly beside a rail fence, and the fitful

glimmer of firelight from an open door close at hand revealed the

presence of a double log cabin. There was an uninclosed passage between

the two rooms, and in this a tall, gaunt woman was standing.

'Thar be Hi now, with the steers,' she said, detecting the dim bovine

shadows in the flickering gleams.

Tell Hiram ter come in right now,' cried a chirping voice, like a

superannuated cricket. 'I hev a word ter ax him.'

'Tell Hiram ter feed them thar steers fust,' cried out another ancient

voice, keyed several tones lower, and also with the ring of authority.

'Tell Hiram,' shrilly piped the other, 'ter hustle his bones, ef he

knows what air good fur 'em.'

'Tell Hiram,' said the deeper voice, sustaining the antiphonal effect,

'I want them thar steers feded foreshortly.'

Then ensued a muttered wrangle within, and finally the shriller voice

was again uplifted:

'Tell Hiram what my word air.'

'An' ye tell Hiram what _my_ word air.'

The woman, who was tall as a grenadier, and had a voice like velvet,

looked meekly back into the room, upon each mandate, with a nod of mild

obedience.

'Ye hearn 'em,' she said softly to Kelsey. Evidently she could not

undertake the hazard of discriminating between these co-equal

authorities.

'I hearn 'em,' he replied.

She sat down near the door, and resumed her occupation of monotonously

peeling June apples for 'sass.' Her brown calico sun-bonnet, which she

habitually wore, in doors and out, obscured her visage, except her chin

and absorbed mouth, that now and then moved in unconscious sympathy with

her work. There was a piggin on one side of her to receive the quartered

fruit, and on the other a white oak splint basket, already half full of

the spiral parings. On the doorstep her husband sat, a shaggy-headed,

full-bearded, unkempt fellow, in brown jeans trousers reaching almost to

his collarbone in front, and supported by the single capable suspender

so much affected in the mountains. His unbleached cotton shirt was open

at the throat, for there was fire enough in the huge chimney-place to

make the room unpleasantly warm, despite the change of temperature

without. Now and then he stretched out his hand for an apple already

pared, which his wife gave him with an adroit back-handed movement, and

which he ate in a mouthful or two. He made way for Kelsey to enter, and

asked him a question, almost inarticulate because of the apples, but

apparently of hospitable intent, for Kelsey said he had had a bite and a

sup at Jonas Trice's, and did not want the supper which had been

providently saved for him.

Kelsey did not betray which command he had thought best to obey.

'I hed ter put my rifle on the rack in the t'other room, gran'dad,' he

observed meekly, addressing one of two very old men who sat on either

side of the huge fireplace. There were cushions in their rude arm

chairs, and awkward little three-legged footstools were placed in front

of them. Their shoes and clothing, although coarse to the last degree,

were clean and carefully tended. They had each long ago lived out the

allotted threescore years and ten, but they had evidently not worn out

their welcome. One had suffered a paralytic attack, and every word and

motion was accompanied with a convulsive gasp and jerk. The other old

man was saturnine and lymphatic, and seemed a trifle younger than his

venerable associate.

'What war ye a-doin' of with yer rifle?' mumbled gran'dad in wild,

toothless haste.

'I tuk it along ter see, when I war a-comin' home, ef I mought shoot

suthin' tasty for supper.'

'What did ye git?' demanded gran'dad, with retrospective greed; for

supper was over, and he had done full justice to his share.

'I never got nuthin',' said Kelsey, a trifle shame-facedly.

'Waal, waal, waal! These hyar latter times gits cur'ouser ez they goes

along. The stren'th an' the seasonin' hev all gone out'n the lan'.

Whenst I war young, folks ez kerried rifles ter git suthin' fur supper

never kem home a-suckin' the bar'l. Folks ez kerried rifles in them days

didn't tote 'em fur--fur--a 'ornamint. Folks in them days lef preachin'

an' prophecy an' sech ter thar elders, an' hunted the beastis an' the

Injun,--though sinners is plentier than the t'other kind o' game on the

Big Smoky these times. No man in them days, jes' turned thirty, sot

hisself down ter idlin', an' preachin', an' convictin' his elders o'

sin.'

Kelsey bore himself with the deferential humility characteristic of the

mountaineers towards the aged among them.

'What war the word ez ye war a-layin' off to say ter me, gran'dad?' he

asked, striving to effect a diversion.

'Waal, waal, look a-hyar, Hiram,' exclaimed the old man, remembering his

question in eager precipitancy. 'This hyar 'Cajah Green, ye know, ez air

a-runnin' fur sher'ff--air--air he Republikin or Dimmycrat?'

'Thar's no man in these hyar parts smart enough ter find that out,'

interpolated Obediah Scruggs in the door, circumspectly taking the apple

seeds out of his mouth. He was the son of one of the magnates, and the

son-in-law of the other; his matrimonial venture had resulted in

doubling his filial obligations. His wife had brought, instead of a

dowry, her aged father to the fireside.

''Cajah Green,' continued the speaker, 'run ez a independent las' time,

an' thar war so many bolters an' sech they split the vote, an' he war

'lected. An' now he air a-runnin' agin.'

The old man listened to this statement, his eye blazing, his chin in a

quiver, his lean figure erect, and the pipe in his palsied hand shaking

till the coal of fire on top showed brightening tendencies.

'Waal, sir! waal!' exclaimed the aged politician, with intense

bitterness. 'The stren'th an' the seasonin' hev _all_ gone out'n the

lan'! Whenst I war young,' he declared dramatically, drawing the

pitiable contrast, 'folks knowed what they war, an they let other folks

know, too, ef they hed ter club it inter 'em. But them was Old Hickory's

times. Waal, waal, we ain't a-goin' ter see Old Hickory no

more--no--more!'

'I hopes not,' said the other old man, with sudden asperity. 'I hopes

we'll never see no sech tormentin' old Dimmycrat agin. But law! I

needn't fret my soul. Henry Clay shook all the life out'n him five year

afore he died. Henry Clay made a speech agin Andrew Jackson in 1840 what

forty thousan' people kem ter hear. _Thar_ war a man fur ye! He hed a

tongue like a bell; 'pears like ter me I kin hear it yit, when I listens

right hard. By Gum!' triumphantly, 'that day he tuk the stiffenin' out'n

Old Hickory! Surely, surely, he did! Ef I thought I war never a-goin'

ter hear Old Hickory's name agin I'd tune up my ears fur the angel's

quirin'. I war born a Republikin, I grow'd ter be a good Whig, an' I'll

die a Republikin. Ef that ain't religion I dunno what air! That's the

way I hev lived an' walked afore the Lord. An' hyar in the evenin' o' my

days I hev got ter set alongside o' this hyar old consarn, an' hear him

jow 'bout'n Old Hickory from mornin' till night. Ef I hed knowed how he

war goin' ter turn out 'bout'n Old Hickory in his las' days, I wouldn't

hev let my darter marry his son, thirty-five year ago. I knowed he war a

Dimmycrat, but I never knowed the stren'th o' the failin' till I were

called on ter 'speriunce it.'

'Ye 'lowed t'other day, gran'dad,' said Kelsey, addressing the aged

paralytic in a propitiatory manner, 'ez ye warn't a-goin' ter talk

'bout'n Old Hickory no more. It 'pears like ter me ez ye oughter gin yer

'tention ter the candidates ez ye hev got ter vote fur in August--'Cajah

Green, an' sech.'

But it must be admitted that Micajah Green was not half the man that Old

Hickory was, and the filial remonstrance had no effect. The acrimonies

of fifty years ago were renewed across the hearth with a rancour that

suggests that an old grudge, like old wine, improves with time. No one

ventured to interrupt, but Obediah Scruggs, still lounging in the door,

commented in a low tone:

'The law stirs itself ter sot a time when a man air old enough ter vote

an' meddle with politics ginerally. 'Pears like ter me it ought ter sot

a time when he hev got ter quit.'

'Waal, Obediah!' exclaimed the soft-voiced woman, the red parings

hanging in concentric circles from her motionless knife. 'That ain't

religion. Ye talk like a man would hev ter be ez sensible an' solid fur

politics ez fur workin' on the road. They don't summons the old men fur

sech jobs ez that. They mought ez well enjye the evenin' o' thar days

with this foolishness o' politics ez enny other.'

'Shucks!' said Obediah, who had the courage of his convictions. 'These

hyar old folks hev hed ter live in the same house an' ride in the same

wagin thirty-five year, jes' 'kase, when we war married, they agreed ter

put what they hed tergether; an' they hev been a-fightin' over thar dead

an' gone politics ev'ry minit o' the time sence. Thar may be some good

Dimmycrats, an' thar may be some good Republikins, but they make a

powerful oneasy team, yoked tergether. An' when it grows on 'em so, the

law oughter step in, an' count 'em over age, an' shet 'em up. 'Specially

ez dad hev voted fur Andy Jackson fur Presi_dint_ outer respec' fur his

mem'ry, ev'y 'lection sence the tormentin' old crittur died.'

But he said all this below his breath, and presently fell silent, for

his wife's face had clouded, and her soft drawling voice had an

intimation of a depression of spirit.

'The kentry hev kem ter its ruin,' exclaimed the paralytic, 'when

men--brazen-faced buzzards--kin go an' git 'lected ter office 'thout no

party ter boost 'em! Look a-hyar,'--he turned to his grandson,--'ye air

always a-prophesyin'. Prophesy some now. Air 'Cajah Green a-goin' ter be

'lected?'

He thumped the floor with his stick, and fixed his imperative eye upon

Hiram Kelsey's face.

'Naw, gran'dad. He won't be 'lected,' said the prophet.

The old man's face was scarlet because of this contradiction of his own

dismal vaticinations.

''Cajah Green _will_ be 'lected,' he cried. 'The kentry's ruined. Folks

dunno whether they air Republikins or Dimmycrats! Lor' Almighty, ter

think o' that! The kentry's ruined! An' yer prophesyin' don't tech it.

They hed false prophets in the old days, an' the tribe holds out yit.'

He struck the floor venomously with his stick. Its defective aim once or

twice brought it upon a rough black bundle that lay rolled up in front

of the fire like a great dog. A slow head was lifted inquiringly, with

an offended mien, from the rolls of fat and far. Twinkling small eyes

glared out. When another blow descended, with a wild disregard of

results, there was a whimper, a long, low growl, a flash of white teeth,

and with claw and fang the pet cub caught at the stick. The old man

dropped it in a panic.

'Look a-yander at the bar!' he shrieked.

But the cub had crouched on the floor since the stick had fallen, and

was whimpering again, and looking about in cowardly appeal.

The old man rallied. 'What d'ye bring the savage beastis home fur,

Hiram, out'n the woods whar they b'long?' he vociferated.

'Kase he 'lowed he hed killed the dam, an' the young 'un war bound ter

starve,' put in the other old man, actuated, perhaps, by some sympathy

for the grandson, whose strength and youth counted for naught against

this adversary.

'What air ye a-aimin' ter do with it? Ter kill sech chillen ez happen

ter make game o' ye? That's what the prophets of old 'cited thar bars

ter do--ter kill the little laffin' chillen.'

Kelsey winced. The cruelties of the old chronicles bore hard upon his

wavering faith.

The old man saw his advantage, and with the wantonness of tyranny

followed it up: 'That's it--that's it! That would suit Hiram, like the

prophets--ter kill the innercent chillen!'

The young man recoiled suddenly. The patriarch, a wild terror on his

pallid, aged face, recognised the significance of his words. He held up

his shaking hands as if to recall them--to clutch them. He had

remembered the domestic tragedy; the humble figure of the little

mountain child, all gaiety and dimples and gurgling laughter, who had

known no grief and had wrought such woe, who had left a rude, empty

cradle in the corner, a mound--such a tiny mound!--in the graveyard, and

an imperishable anguish of self-reproach, unquenchable as the fires of

hell.

'I furgot--I furgot!' shrieked the old man. 'I furgot the baby! When

war she buried?--las' week or year afore las'? The only one--the only

great-gran'child I ever hed. The frien'liest baby! Knowed me jes' ez

well!' He burst into senile tears. 'Don't ye go, Hiram. What did the

doctor say ye gin her? Laws-a-massy! 'Pears like 'twar jes' yestiddy she

war a-crawlin' 'round the floor, stidd'er that heejus beastis ez I wisht

war in the woods--laffin'--Lord A'mighty! laffin' an' takin' notice ez

peart. Hiram, don't ye go--don't ye go! Peartes', pretties' chile I ever

see--an' I had six o' my own--an' the frien'lies'! An' I hed planned fur

sech a many pleasures when she hed got some growth an' hed l'arned ter

talk. I wanted ter hear what she hed ter say--the only great-gran'child

I ever hed--an' now the words will never be spoke. 'Pears like ter me ez

the Lord shows mighty little jedgmint ter take her, an' leave me

a-cumberin' the groun'.'

Then he began once more to wring his hands and sob aloud--that piteous

weeping of the aged!--and to mumble brokenly, 'The frien'lies' baby!'

The woman left her work and took off her bonnet, showing her grey hair

drawn into a skimpy knot at the back of her head, and leaving in high

relief her strong, honest, candid features, on which the refinements of

all benign impulses effaced the effects of poverty and ignorance. She

crossed the room to the old man's chair; her velvety voice soothed him.

He suffered himself to be lifted by his son and grandson, and carried

away bodily to bed in the room across the passage. In the meantime the

woman filled a tin cup with lard, placing in its midst a button tied in

a bit of cloth to serve as a wick, and lighted it at the fire, while the

cub presided with sniffing curiosity at the unusual proceeding, pressing

up close against her as she knelt on the hearth, well knowing that she

was not to be held in fear nor in any special respect by young bears.

'I'm goin' ter gin him a button-lamp ter sleep by, bein' ez he hev tuk

the baby in his head agin,' she said to her father in explanation; 'he

won't feel so lonesome ef he wakes up.'

He had looked keenly after his venerable compeer as the paralytic was

borne across the uninclosed passage between the two rooms.

'He's breaking some. He's aging,' he said critically; not without

sympathy, but with a stalwart conviction that his own feebleness was as

strength to the other's weakness. 'He's breaking some,' he repeated,

with a physical vanity that might have graced a prize-fighter.

The next moment there came sharp and shrill through the open door the

old man's voice, high and glib in cheerful forgetfulness, conversing

with his attendants as they got him to bed.

'Whenst I war young,' he cried, 'I went down to Sevierville wunst. 'Twar

when they war a-runnin' of Old Hickory.'

'Thar it is again!' exclaimed the ancient Republican. 'Old Hickory war

bad enough when he war alive; but I b'lieves he's wusser now that he is

dead, with this hyar old critter a-moanin' 'bout him night and day. I'd

feel myself called ter fling him of'n the bluff, ef it warn't that he

hev got the palsy, an' I gits sorry fur him wunst in a while. An' then I

b'lieves that ennybody what is a Dimmycrat air teched in the head, an'

ain't 'sponsible fur thar foolishness, 'kase sensible folks ain't

Dimmycrats. That's been my 'speriunce fur eighty year, an' I hev hed no

call ter change my mind. So I hev to try my patience an' stan' this hyar

old critter's foolishness, but it air a mighty tough strain.'