hearer. "Don't you know no long ones, like we foller singing in this
country?"
"I don't believe I do," she said. "Suppose you sing one yourself."
"No, I hain't no singer."
"Yes, I have a feeling that you are. I want to hear you."
"Well, anything to pass the time. I might try 'Turkish Lady.'"
He began a many-stanzaed ballad, having a robust tune with many queer,
long-drawn notes--the story of an English lord who was captured by a
Turkish one, and thrown into his deepest dungeon, to be released later
by the Turk's lovely daughter, amid mutual vows of love and constancy.
After "seven long years have rolled around," the Turkish lady "bundles
up her finest clothing," and journeys to England, in search of her
lagging lover. Arriving at his castle, and "tingling at the ring,"
she is informed by "the proud young porter" that his master is just
bringing a new bride in. She gives him a message to take to his lord;
and when he reports it, with the additional information,--
"There's the fairest lady standing yonder
That my two eyes did ever see;
She wears gold rings on every finger,
And on one finger she has three.
There's enough gay gold about her middle
To buy half of Northumberlee,"--
the master, recognizing his old true love from the description, under
the stress of returning passion breaks his sword in pieces three,
packs off the new bride with little ceremony, and celebrates another
wedding with the Turkish lady, to the general admiration and glee.
Isabel listened, inexpressibly charmed. "Do you realize," she inquired,
"that that ballad goes way back to the time of the Crusades, and is
probably seven or eight hundred years old? Where did you learn it?"
"I never heared nothing of hits history," he said, "but hit's what I
call a right ballat--hit turns out proper. My granny, she teached hit
to me; she used to foller singing the night through on song-ballats."
"Oh, will you take me to see her?" asked Isabel.
"Sartain."
"And your voice is good, too; you'll be a great help to me in the
singing classes."
Uncle Adam, another man, and the two teams came splashing up behind.
"I see you hain't been lonesome," remarked Uncle Adam.
"I allowed hit would be a bad time for you, getting acrost, and rid
down to see how things was," explained the young man, with dignity. "I
axed the singing woman to get up behind and ride in, but she said she
felt to wait for you."
"Take her on along," said Uncle Adam. "We got to hitch the teams to the
hind eend and pull out back'ards, if we do pull out, and hit'll be a
couple hours at best, and I take hit she wants to see t'other women.
Jump up behind, sis, and go in with him, and tell the women not to get
out of heart, that I'm a-coming some time!"
The young man rode close alongside, took off his coat and spread it
behind him, on the nag's back, and Isabel jumped from the wagon-seat
and lit in the proper place. As she firmly grasped the hantle of the
saddle, her fingers just grazed a pistol that protruded from her
rescuer's pocket.
"Far'well till I come," called Uncle Adam, as they started up the
creek. "Take keer of her, Fult!"
Isabel started violently at the name. Was it possible that the youth
sitting before her on the saddle, in all his dashing beauty, was the
young feud leader? He had certainly mentioned both Frankfort and Cuba.
Thrilled through and through, and consumed with curiosity, she could
not endure the suspense a moment longer.
"My name's Isabel Gwynne," she said. "What's yours?"
"Fult Fallon," he replied, gently touching the nag with his spur.
V
THE WIDOW-MAN
On the Thursday afternoon of the week following the quare women's
Fourth-of-July picnic, a hollow-eyed, disheveled-looking man drew up
before Uncle Lot Pridemore's gate, fell rather than dismounted from his
mule, dropped his bridle over a paling, and stumbled into the yard and
up on the porch.
Aunt Ailsie appeared from the rear of the house. "Jeems Craddock!" she
exclaimed; "I had plumb give you out! But what ails you, Jeems? Here,
set down, quick!"
She pushed a chair under him, and he slumped down in it on his
backbone, long legs stretching across the porch, arms hanging
lifelessly at his sides, chin dropped forward on his bosom.
Aunt Ailsie ran for a gourd of water. Jeems gulped it feebly.
"You look sick to death," she said, anxiously. "Maybe you better have
something stronger."
She returned this time with a cup half full of a liquid that looked
like water, but was much more eagerly drunk by Jeems.
"Eh law,--that's what I need; good corn-liquor, to holp me up a little."
"Hit's good, too," replied Aunt Ailsie; "hit's some Fulty fotched me
t'other day; he allus keeps me in hit."
She waited for the corn-liquor to get in its work--until Jeems's chin
was lifted from his breast, his hollow cheeks were flushed, his eyes
had lost their dull stare.
"Now tell about hit, Jeems," she said, sympathetically.
He began in a weak voice, which gained strength as he proceeded.
"Ever sence Mallie tuck'n died in Aprile, hit's been the same old
story--every night me up'n down all night with the babe, a-fixing hits
suck-bottle or a-walking hit for colic, and then getting up before day,
maybe without ary wink of sleep, to cook breakfast, with likely the
babe a-yelling all through, and t'other eight young-uns all a-squirming
underfoot so bad hit makes me dizzy-headed. Then a-trying to get 'em
all fed up, and them a-fighting and a-snatching all the time like
wildcats, and not able to eat none myself for worriment and dyspepsy.
Then a-starting the little gals on the dishes, and the oldest chaps
on the firewood, whilst I go out to feed the property and milk the
cow-brutes, and them cow-brutes so sot again' having a man-person come
a-nigh 'em they do more devilment than all the young-uns. Then maybe,
when I get back in, the babe has fell off the bed and nigh cracked hits
head, and the young-uns is piled on the floor in a gineral fight, if
they hain't sot the house afire playing with light-wood. And then I
got to get 'em all onraveled again, and the fire put out, and the babe
peaceified with a sugar-teat; and then sweep the main gorm of dirt out
of the house, and spread the beds, whilst the chaps goes out again to
dig 'taters and pick the beans for dinner. Which then I have to put
'em in the pot,--I give you my word, Aunt Ailsie, I hain't had time
to string ary bean this summer,--and mix up a pone of bread and fix
hit on the hairth where hit won't cook too hard. And all this before
the day's work is raelly begun. And then hit's gether up every one
of the nine,--babe, suck-bottle, and all, because I wouldn't dairst
leave ary one behind,--and climb the hill to tend the crap; though
there hain't but four of the young-uns, Miles and Joe and Minty and
Phœbe, is nigh big enough to hold a hoe. T'other four has to take
turns minding the babe, and not let hit fall off the hill or play with
rattlesnakes. Then we work all morning, and when the sun-ball gets
high, all hands comes down again to dinner, and then pull back up again
and work till sundown, with the babe a-laying on a quilt between the
rows, to take what naps of sleep hit gets, and t'others so drug-out
and ill and feisty, they keep a-drapping their hoes and running off
to hunt ground-hogs and 'possums, or quiling up somewheres and going
to sleep too--and which I wisht they'd all sleep all the time, for
then I'd see a little grain of peace. And then all down again to cook
supper and feed the young-uns and t'other creeturs,--mules and hogs
and chickens,--and milk them devilish cow-brutes again, and then get
all hands off to bed, and me dead for a nap of sleep myself, but
maybe not nary two hours hand-running all night long, what with the
babe's manœuvres, and my dyspepsy--for no kind of food won't set on my
stummick no more. And next day the whole thing all over again, if not
wusser, with maybe washing or churning throwed in--and all the time
the same old story--jest a hip-and-a-hurrah, and a rare-and-a-pitch,
and a hoove-and-a-set, from one day's eend to t'other, till hit's the
God's truth, Aunt Ailsie, I don't actually know whether I'm a-living in
a turrible nightmare, or dead and gone to hell for my sins--and don't
care, neither!"
Aunt Ailsie laid a compassionate hand on his arm. "Pore Jeems, pore
creetur," she said; "things is wusser with you than I suspicioned,
though I allowed they'd be bad enough when I heared Mallie was gone,
and you with so many of a size, and nary one big enough to help. I've
thought of you time and again, and wished I lived a-nigh you, so's I
could do things for you. You allus was sech a good, diligent, working
boy, the right son of your maw, that was my best friend when I was
a young gal. Yes, I shore have pitied you in my heart; and that's
the reason I sont you the word about these here fotched-on women; I
allowed, in the bunch of 'em, you could find one to your notion, and
pick you out a good wife. But that's neither here nor yander now; you
air a sick man, Jeems, and not in no fix even to talk about courting;
and what I aim to do is to put you to bed this minute."
"I would have started soon as the word come," groaned Jeems; "but first
I had to lay the corn by; and then Jasper, one of the three-year-old
twins, tuck a spell of the croup; and then Clevy, the five-year-old,
chopped his big toe off, and Jemimy, the two-year one, was a-licking
the milk out of the top aidge of the churn and went in head-foremost,
and was black in the face and appeariently gone when we pult her out.
And then seemed like I couldn't no way on earth persuade nobody to
come there and stay with them young-uns whilst I got away a couple of
days--not nary neighbor wouldn't no way consent to hit; and I had to
go clean yan side the mountain atter a widow-woman, Cindy Swope, with
six of her own, that tuck pity-sake on me and come over, with the six,
a-yesterday. And me so bad off by then I couldn't hardly set my nag to
get here."
"Pore Jeems--don't worry no more; you're here now, and in plenty of
time, too; none of the quare women hain't stepped off yet. You get
along there into t'other house, and shuck off, and lay down in the fur
bed you laid in when you was here two year gone,--pore creetur, you
look like a grandpaw now to the man you was then,--and I'll fetch you
in a leetle hot snack that I'll gorrontee to set on your stummick, and
then you'll take that nap of sleep you been dying for sence Aprile."
When Uncle Lot came in from work an hour later, snores were rising
loudly and rhythmically from "t'other house." Aunt Ailsie simply said
that Jeems Craddock, having a little business on Troublesome, had come
to take the night; and, seeing he was sick, she had put him to bed at
once--an explanation which satisfied Uncle Lot's stern but hospitable
soul.
At supper Uncle Lot announced; "Atter studying on hit a week, careful,
Ailsie, like I told you coming from the picnic I aimed to do, I have
made up my mind to lend a cow to them women on the hill for the time
they're here. We air commanded to remember the stranger that is within
our gates, and hit appears like I feel to do that much for 'em, even if
they have got a sight of wrong idees--sech as holding Sunday School for
young-uns, when hit hain't once even spoke of in Scripter, and giving
an overweight of larning to women-folks, and the like. And on that
last line, too, I have been a studying, like I promised the women; and
hit's true we air commanded to sarch the Scripters, and likewise that
Paul says there hain't neither male nor female in Christ Jesus. Which,
having clear Bible for, I am willing that you should larn jest enough
from them women for you to be able to read Scripter, and no more,
believing in my soul that larning in gineral is too much for a woman's
mind."
"O paw, do you raelly mean you aim to let me get larning, same as Uncle
Ephraim?" asked Aunt Ailsie, breathlessly.
"As fur as I told you," qualified Uncle Lot.
"Oh, praise the Lord!" exclaimed Aunt Ailsie. "O paw, I feel like I
can't wait to take my first lesson! When can I start in?"
"I allow you can go in maybe a-Saturday," permitted Uncle Lot,
graciously.
"And I'll drive the cow in then to the women, too. Which one do you
want to lend 'em, paw, Old Pied, or the pieded heifer? Both has calves
ready to wean, and both is milking fine--the heifer a leetle grain the
best."
"Let 'em have her, then; I don't do nothing halfway. And there's five
of them, and not but two of us."
But Aunt Ailsie did not have to take the cow in herself. Next morning,
which was Friday, Fult dashed up the branch.
"I'm on my way down Troublesome a piece," he called, "and allowed I'd
ride up and just say how-d'ye, and see how you was."
Aunt Ailsie ran down to the fence. "S-sh--don't talk so loud; there's a
sick man a-laying in there asleep," she said. "I'm proud you come, for
your grandpaw has tuck a notion to lend them quare women a cow, and you
can drive her back with you. And, another thing, Fulty, he has studied
on hit and made up his mind to let me get larning,--enough to read
Scripter, anyway,--and which I'm a-coming in to-morrow to take my first
lesson!"
"I'm glad for you, granny," said Fult, heartily, "and I'd take the cow
right back, now, but I'm on my way to see what has happened to the
singer the women sont out for, that ought to have got in last night.
But the rains have been so bad I allow traveling is pore, and Uncle
Adam's wagon is maybe stalled in a quick down Troublesome, and I told
the women I'd ride down a piece and see. But I'll come for the cow
later in the day--soon as dinner's over, maybe."
Returning to the house, Aunt Ailsie tiptoed into the room where Jeems
slept, and came out with a large armful of his clothes over her arm.
These she threw on a chair in the kitchen-house, then held up the coat
and trousers, with a deep sigh.
"Hain't hit a pyuore pity, now, for a man-person to start out
a-courting in sech gear?" she exclaimed. "Pore creetur, the babe has
puked up hits milk all over him from head to foot, and the dust has
got kotched in the spots, till nobody wouldn't be able to tell the
color of his coat and breeches. And them fine linsey, too, that Mallie
weaved herself out of black sheep's wool for him."
She went to work with hot water and soft soap, repeatedly sousing
the coat and trousers and socks, and rubbing them with her hands
(washboards were an unknown luxury). Then, having cleansed and rinsed
them, she hung them out in the July sun to dry, and turned her
attention to the hat, which was the usual broad-brimmed black felt of
the mountain man.
"Eh law, hain't hit a picter of misery!" she said, holding it out: "the
brim all a-flopping, like hits ambition was plumb gone."
She scrubbed and cleaned it, and then took a flatiron and pressed the
brim carefully while it was still damp, until it took on quite a jaunty
stiffness.
Then came the shoes. The deeply caked mud was scraped and washed off,
and a mixture of lard and soot generously applied.
By ten o'clock the suit was sufficiently dry to be pressed, and a truly
artistic job was made of it.
Then Aunt Ailsie went in and waked Jeems. "You've put in seventeen
hours good sleep," she said, "and I allow your stummick needs a leetle
comfort next. You got plenty of time to get ready for dinner. I fotched
you in a pan of warm water and soap and a towel and wash-rag, allowing
you might feel to take a good wash-off. Then you can put on this here
clean shirt of Lot's,--I couldn't get yourn off'n you to wash hit,--and
these here breeches I washed for you, and clean socks and shoes, and
then come in the kitchen-house and take you a shave with Lot's strop
and razor, and then I'll crap your hair,--hit looks like hit hain't
seed scissors sence Mallie died,--and then you'll begin to feel more
like yourself."
An hour later, Jeems, washed, dressed, shaved, shingled, and combed,
was indeed a transformed man--the hollow look gone from eyes and
cheeks, twenty years from his age.
"If you could meet up with yourself, Jeems, you wouldn't never know
hit was the same man rid up here a-yesterday," said Aunt Ailsie, proud
of her handiwork. "You look now about what you air--thirty-two come
September; I ricollect your birth, you and Link being nigh of an age.
You look fitten now to start out a-courting to-morrow. Not," she added
hastily, seeing an awakening gleam in Jeems's eye, "not to court young
gals, of course, but to court them of an age with you. Of course,
you'll never be what you once was, in those fur-off young days when me
'n' your maw used to take pride in your looks."
"Hit seems to me like two or three weeks sence yesterday," remarked
Jeems, who appeared to be in a kind of daze. "I don't noways feel like
the same man."
"You hain't," pronounced Aunt Ailsie. "You was in a pure franzy for
sleep. And now you got hit, hit has wropt up your narves, and swaged
down your feelings, and knit up your faculties, till you're in some fix
to look around you and get things kindly straightened out in your mind,
and take counsel about what you come for--the job of getting you a wife.
"Now I knowed in reason you'd be a-seeing troubles, though I never
tuck the full measure of 'em, or drempt how nigh crazed and drove you
was. But when these here furrin women come in, and I seed how smart
and pretty they was, and all the way from twenty-three to twenty-eight
year old, and nary a man to their name, seemed like hit went through me
like a knife, I felt so bad for sech sweet creeturs to be old maids.
And then I thought right off of you, and how scand'lous bad you needed
a wife, and your young-uns a maw, and how proud you'd be doing yourself
to get one of these fine, fotched-on women; and I jest put two and two
together, Jeems, and sont you word immediate, afore any more widow-men
could get in ahead of you; for you know they's allus several round
about, all on the look, and I knowed when they seed these women they'd
be atter 'em hot-foot. And when you didn't come sooner, I begun to get
right scared for your chances. But I hope you hain't too late yet.
"Now, Jeems, hit's plain enough you can't live no longer a
widder--you'll sartain be dead if you do. And the pint is, what kind
of a woman do you need? That's what you want to study on, and study
keerful. You hain't had no show sence Mallie died, to get out and look
around none, or do much thinking either, I allow. But hit don't take
much studying to know you need, first and foremost, a woman that can
tame down and civilize young-uns."
"That's hit," Jeems agreed, fervently.
"All them furrin' women knows how to handle young-uns to the queen's
taste," continued Aunt Ailsie. "You'd never believe how civil all them
feisty, briggaty boys and gals at The Forks has got to be."
"Hit's a sight how a woman-person can swage 'em down," said Jeems,
wonderingly. "Now, Cindy Swope hadn't been in the house a hour afore
she had my nine and her six all a-working peaceable and biddable."
"And the next thing you want, Jeems, with your dyspepsy, and all that
mess of young-uns, is somebody can cook good."
"Eh, law, that's what I want, too! I'm plumb beat out with my own
cooking; that air supper Cindy cooked when she come in was the first
meal of vittles had sot on my stummick for three month'."
"I don't rightly know," continued Aunt Ailsie, "which one of them quare
women is the best cook, but, from the table they set, I allow they all
air. Now there's one that's sort of extry fine on vittles and larns
the gals how to make all manner of new-fangled things, and hain't but
twenty-three, and got mighty pretty crow's-wing hair, and blue eyes.
But ricollect, she hain't for you, Jeems, and wouldn't so much as look
at a old widow-man with nine young-uns. And, anyhow, Darcy Kent's
a-talking to her. So don't you waste no thoughts there.
"And the next thing you got a bound to have is a woman can sew and
weave and spin, same as Mallie, and keep coats and blankets for you
and your young-uns. Now one of them head-women--Amy is her name--is
the sewingest woman ever I seed, besides the ladyest; why, she's
even got Fulty and his wild crowd of boys a-hemming handkerchers and
towels up yander every day, and she has already axed me to larn her
how to weave and spin. She'd be the woman for you, Jeems, if you
could get her--either her, or t'other head one, Virginny, which is
the up-and-comingest female ever I laid an eye on, and don't baulk at
nothing on earth. And then, of course, the nurse-woman, she'd be mighty
handy when the young-uns all takes down sick with the choking disease,
or the breast-complaint, or sech; or likewise that one that teaches
the least ones, and keeps about fifty of 'em happy and biddable all the
time. You couldn't make no mistake, whichever of them four you tuck,
Jeems."
Jeems meditated a moment, then said, with a deep groan: "One thing you
left out, Aunt Ailsie, and seems like hit's the one I set the most
store by of all. I want me a woman knows how to milk good, and handle
cow-brutes. Hit appears like I could have stood up under all the rest,
but for them devils of cow-brutes on my hands, that gets mad whenever I
come a-nigh 'em, just because I am a man-person, and upsets the bucket,
and holds up their milk, and kicks me in the shins, and does their
almightiest to aggravate and destroy me, till my gorge rises up at the
very thoughts of 'em. Yes, Aunt Ailsie, I want me a woman can milk, if
she can't do nothing else. Now, Cindy, hit was a sight--"
"Sartain you do, Jeems," interrupted Aunt Ailsie; "but there hain't no
needcessity in the world to bother about that. _Any_ woman anywheres
can milk,--hit's woman's _nature_ to,--and I allow every single one of
them fotched-on women is the finest milkers ever was; they so smart any
way you take 'em.
"But listen, Jeems,"--and there was a sudden, inspired gleam in
her eye,--"if that's what you set the most store by, me 'n' Lot is
a-lending a cow to them women this very day,--the pieded heifer,--and
Fulty is a-coming to drive her in atter dinner. And I never allowed
to let you go in where them women was till you had got you another
night of sleep. But sarcumstances changes plans, and I don't know but
what hit might be better for you to go in with Fulty this evening,
unbeknownst to the women, and kindly take a gineral view, and spy out
the land, so to speak, and see for yourself who is the ablest milker;
and then come back and sleep on hit to-night; and then to-morrow you
and me will go in and take the day,--I was a-going in anyhow to start
on my A B C's,--and I'll fix a way so's you'll get a chanct to court
the one you pick out--I allus was the most contrivingest woman you ever
seed. And if all goes well, as hit sartainly will, you'll ride home
a-Sunday with your wife behind you, and likewise all your troubles and
trials."
Jeems agreed that the plan was a good one; indeed, he began to wake
up and be quite keen on the scent; so much so that Aunt Ailsie felt
impelled to drop a few more words of wisdom.
"Of course, I know a man's nature, and in partic'lar a widow-man's, is
to run atter the youngest and foolishest female that crosses his trail,
with nary thought for his orphant offsprings, or his own welfare. But
take the counsel of one that has lived long and seed much and thinks
a sight of you, Jeems, and pick you out a good, old, settled woman,
nigh of an age with you, that's got more, or anyway as much, on the
inside of her head-piece as the outside, and will be a right step-maw
and helpmeet. Twenty-eight is terrible old, I know, most women being
nigh-grandmaws by then; but I give you my hand, Jeems, them two
head-women, Amy and Virginny, is the deceivingest in their looks ever
you seed, and don't ary one of 'em look hardly twenty; hit's a pure
myxtery how old women like them can keep sech a fair, tender skin, and
rosy jaws, and shiny hair, and white teeth.
"And another thing for you to bear in mind constant, Jeems, is that
no young gal, with a-plenty of chances ahead of her, wouldn't take a
second look at a old widow-man with nine orphant young-uns. No, a woman
would have to be pretty far along on the cull-list before she'd even
think of tying up with a man in your condition. Facts is facts, Jeems,
and ought to be looked full in the eye."
Uncle Lot stepped in just then, and the subject was, of necessity,
dropped. Jeems ate a ravenous dinner, and with every bite courage and
manhood seemed to grow within him.