VIII.

The disappointment which Amos James experienced found expression in much

the same manner as that of many men of higher culture. He went down to

his home in Eskaqua Cove, moody and morose. He replied to his chirping

mother in discouraging monosyllables. In taciturn disaffection he sat on

the step of the little porch, and watched absently a spider weaving her

glittering gossamer maze about an overhanging mass of purple grapes,

with great green leaves that were already edged with a rusty red and

mottled with brown. A mocking-bird boldly perched among them, ever and

anon, the airy grace of his pose hardly giving, in its exquisite

lightness, the effect of a pause. The bird swallowed the grapes whole

with a mighty gulp, and presently flew away with one in his bill for the

refreshment of his family, whose vibratory clamour in an althea bush

hard by mingled with the drone of the grasshoppers in the wet grass,

louder than ever since the rain, and the persistent strophe and

antistrophe of the frogs down on the bank of the mill-pond.

'Did they git enny shower up in the mounting, Amos?' demanded his

mother, as she sat knitting on the porch--a thin little woman, with a

nervous, uncertain eye and a drawling, high-pitched voice.

'Naw'm,' said Amos, 'not ez I knows on.'

'I reckon ye'd hev knowed ef ye hed got wet,' she said, with asperity.

'Ye hain't got much feelin', no ways--yer manners shows it--but I 'low

ye _would_ feel the rain ef it kem down right smart, or ef ye war streck

by lightnin'.'

There was no retort, and from the subtle disappointment in the little

woman's eye it might have seemed that to inaugurate a controversy would

have been more filial, so bereft of conversational opportunity was her

lonely life, where only a 'gang o' men loped 'round the mill.'

She knitted on with a sharp clicking of the needles for a time, carrying

the thread on a gnarled fourth finger, which seemed unnaturally active

for that member, and somehow officious.

'I'll be bound ye went ter Cayce's house,' she said aggressively.

There was another long pause. The empty dwelling behind them was so

still that one could hear the footsteps of an intruding rooster, as he

furtively entered at the back door.

'Shoo!' she said, shaking her needles at him, as she bent forward and

saw him standing in the slant of the sunshine, all his red and yellow

feathers burnished. He had one foot poised motionless, and looked at her

with a reproving side-glance, as if he could not believe he had caught

the drift of her remarks. Another gesture, more pronounced than the

first, and he went scuttling out, his wings half spread and his

toe-nails clattering on the puncheon floor. 'Ye went ter Cayce's, I'll

be bound, and hyar ye be, with nuthin' ter tell. Ef I war free ter

jounce 'round the mounting same ez the idle, shif'less men-folks, who

hev got nuthin' ter do but eye a mill ez the water works, I'd hev so

much ter tell whenst I got home that ye'd hev ter tie me in a cheer ter

keep me from talkin' myself away, like somebody happy with religion. An'

hyar ye be, actin' like ye hed no mo' gift o' speech'n the rooster.

Shoo! Shoo! Whar did ye go, ennyhow, when ye war on the mounting?'

'A-huntin',' said Amos.

'Huntin' D'rindy Cayce, I reckon. An' ye never got her, ter jedge from

yer looks. An' I ain't got the heart ter blame the gal. Sech a lonesome,

say-nuthin' husband ye'd make!'

The sharp click of her knitting-needles filled the pause. But her

countenance had relaxed. She was in a measure enjoying the conversation,

since the spice of her own share atoned for the lack of news or

satisfactory response.

'Air old Mis' Cayce's gyarden-truck suff'rin' fur rain?'

There was a gleam of hopeful expectation behind her spectacles. With her

reeking 'gyarden-spot' dripping with raindrops, and the smell of thyme

and sage and the damp mould on the air, she could afford some pity as an

added flavour for her pride.

'Never looked ter see,' murmured her son, between two long whiffs from

his pipe.

His mother laid her knitting on her lap.

'I'll be bound, Amos Jeemes, ez ye never tole her how 'special our'n war

a-thrivin' this season.'

'Naw'm,' said Amos, a trifle more promptly than usual, 'I never. 'Fore

I'd go a-crowin' over old Mis' Cayce 'bout'n our gyarden-truck I'd see

it withered in a night, like Jonah's gourd.'

'It's the Lord's han',' said his mother quickly, in self-justification.

'I ain't been prayin' fur no drought in Mis' Cayce's gyarden-spot.'

Another long pause ensued. The sun shining through a bunch of grapes

made them seem pellucid globes of gold and amber and crimson among

others darkly purple in the shadow. The mocking-bird came once more

a-foraging. A yellow and red butterfly flickered around in the air, as

if one of the tiger-lilies there by the porch had taken wings and was

wantoning about in the wind. On the towering bald of the mountain a

cloud rested, obscuring the dome--a cloud of dazzling whiteness--and it

seemed as if the mountain had been admitted to some close communion with

the heavens. Below, the colour was intense, so deeply green were the

trees, so clear and sharp a grey were the crags, so blue were the

shadows in the ravines. Amos was looking upward. He looked upward much

of the time.

'See old Groundhog?' inquired his mother, suddenly.

'Whar?' he demanded with a start, breaking from his reverie.

'Laws-a-massy, boy!' she exclaimed, in exasperation. 'Whenst ye war up

ter the Cayces', this mornin'.'

'Naw'm,' said Amos. He had never admitted, save by indirection, that he

had been to the Cayces'.

'War he gone ter the still?'

'I never axed.'

'I s'pose not, bein' ez ye never drinks nuthin' but buttermilk, do

ye?'--this with a scathing inflection.

She presently sighed deeply.

'Waal, waal. The millinium an' the revenue will git thar rights one of

these days, I hopes an' prays. I'm a favorin' of ennythink ez'll storp

sin an' a-swillin' o' liquor. Tax 'em all, I say! Tax the sinners!'

She had assumed a pious aspect, and spoke in a tone of drawling

solemnity, with a vague idea that the whisky tax was in the interest of

temperance, and the revenue department was a religious institution. The

delusions of ignorance!

'Thar ain't ez much drunk nohow now ez thar useter war. I 'members when

I war a gal whisky war so cheap that up to the store at the Settlemint

they'd hev a bucket set full o' whisky an' a gourd, free fur all comers,

an' another bucket alongside with water ter season it. An' the way that

thar water lasted war surprisin'--that it war! Nowadays ye ain't goin'

to find liquor so plenty nowhar, 'cept mebbe at old Groundhog's still.'

Amos made no reply. His eyes were fixed on the road. A man on an old

white horse had emerged from the woods, and was slowly ambling toward

the mill. The crazy old structure was like a caricature; it seemed that

only by a lapse of all the rules of interdependent timbers did it hang

together, with such oblique disregard of rectangles. Its doors and

windows were rhomboidal; its supports tottered in the water. The gate

was shut. The whir was hushed. A sleep lay upon the pond, save where the

water fell like a silver veil over the dam. Even this motion was dreamy

and somnambulistic.

On the other side of the stream the great sandstone walls of the channel

showed the water-marks of flood and fall of past years, cut in sharp

levels and registered in the rock. They beetled here and there, and the

verdure on the summits looked over and gave the deep waters below the

grace of a dense and shady reflection. Above the dark old roof on every

hand the majestic encompassing mountains rose against the sky, and the

cove nestled sequestered from the world in this environment.

The man on the gaunt white horse suddenly paused, seeing the mill silent

and lonely; his eyes turned to the little house farther down the stream.

'Hello!' he yelled. 'I kem hyar ter git some gris' groun'.'

'Grin' yer gris' yerse'f,' vociferated the miller, cavalierly renouncing

his vocation. 'I hev no mind ter go a-medjurin' o' toll.'

Thus privileged, the stranger dismounted, went into the old mill,

himself lifted the gate, and presently the musical whir broke forth. It

summoned an echo from the mountain that was hardly like a reflection of

its simple, industrial sound, so elfin, so romantically faint, so fitful

and far, it seemed! The pond awoke, the water gurgled about the wheel,

the tail-race was billowy with foam.

Presently there was silence. The gate had fallen; the farmer had

measured the toll, and was riding away. As he vanished Amos James rose

slowly, and began to stretch his stalwart limbs.

'I'm glad ye ain't palsied with settin' so long, Amos,' said his mother.

'Ye seem ter hev los' interes' in everythink 'ceptin' the doorstep. Lord

A'mighty! I never thunk ez ye'd grow up ter be sech pore comp'ny. No

wonder ez D'rindy hardens her heart! An' when ye war a baby--my sakes! I

could set an' list'n ter yer jowin' all day. An' sech comp'ny ye war,

when ye couldn't say a word an' hedn't a tooth in yer head!'

He lived in continual rivalry with this younger self in his mother's

affections. She was one of those women whose maternal love is expressed

in an idolatry of infancy. She could not forgive him for outgrowing his

babyhood, and regarded every added year upon his head as a sort of

affront and a sorrow.

He strode away, still gloomily downcast, and when the woman next looked

up she saw him mounted on his bay horse, and riding toward the base of

the mountain.

'Waal, sir!' she exclaimed, taking off her spectacles and rubbing the

glasses on her blue-checked apron, 'D'rindy Cayce'll hev ter marry that

thar boy ter git shet o' him. I hev never hearn o' nobody ridin' up that

thar mounting twict in one day 'thout they hed suthin' 'special ter

boost 'em--a-runnin' from the sher'ff, or sech.'

But Amos James soon turned from the road that wound in long, serpentine

undulations to the mountain's brow, and pursued a narrow bridlepath,

leading deep into the dense forests. It might have seemed that he was

losing his way altogether when the path disappeared among the boulders

of a stream, half dry.

He followed the channel up the rugged, rock-girt gorge for perhaps a

mile, emerging at length upon a slope of out-cropping ledges, where his

horse left no hoof-print.

Soon he struck into the laurel, and pressed on, guided by signs

distinguishable only to the initiated: some grotesque gnarling of limbs,

perhaps, of the great trees that stretched above the almost impenetrable

undergrowth; some projecting crag, visible at long intervals, high up

and cut sharply against the sky.

All at once, in the midst of the dense laurel, he came upon a cavity in

the side of the mountain. The irregularly shaped fissure was more than

tall enough to admit a man.

He stood still for a moment, and called his own name. There was no

response save the echoes, and, dismounting, he took the bridle and began

to lead the horse into the cave. The animal shied dubiously, protesting

against this unique translation to vague subterranean spheres. The

shadow of the fissured portal fell upon them; the light began to grow

dim; the dust thickened.

As Amos glanced over his shoulder he could see the woods without

suffused with a golden radiance, and there was a freshness on the

intensely green foliage as if it were newly washed with rain. The world

seemed suddenly clarified, and tiny objects stood out with strange

distinctness; he saw the twigs on the great trees and the white tips of

the tail-feathers of a fluttering bluejay. Far down the aisles of the

forest the enchantment held its wonderful sway, and he felt in his own

ignorant fashion how beautiful is the accustomed light.

When the horse's stumbling feet had ceased to sound among the stones,

the wilderness without was as lonely and as unsuggestive of human

occupation or human existence as when the Great Smoky Mountains first

rose from the sea.