minute aimed to be parted from you, or to give you up? I had my plans
fixed even then to take you." He laughed delightedly. "But I allowed
I'd just see how things really was with you, before I finally did."
Isabel stopped where she stood, in blank amazement.
"Do you mean to tell me it was just play-acting--all that moving scene?"
"All's fair in love and war," laughed Fult; "hit wasn't play-acting
about the way I loved you; but the rest I reckon was."
Her voice took on a new and stern note as she continued: "In other
words, you deliberately deceived me and worked on my sympathy and got
my feelings wrought up? Those tears you shed were crocodile tears,
those heart-broken words and looks were all just a piece of fine
acting?"
"I allowed myself hit was pretty well done," replied Fult, in a
self-congratulatory tone.
"And you were entirely satisfied with the result of it?" Her voice now
took on an edge.
"I was, too." Again he laughed the low, triumphant laugh.
"You were quite satisfied I loved you? It didn't occur to you that a
moment of excitement and distress was not a reliable time to judge a
person by?"
"What I saw was enough for me," he said. "I knowed if you loved me
even a little, I could learn you to love me better and better."
"But suppose," said Isabel,--and her voice was hard and cold,--"suppose
that you should be mistaken. Suppose I could never learn to love a man
who deliberately deceives me, and then gloats over it. Suppose I did
not love you in the first place and, after that, never could?"
Anger mounted in Fult's voice as he replied: "But I done hit all for
you!"
"No, you didn't, you did it for your own sake, to gratify your vanity,
I suppose. The very fact you could do it shows you cared nothing for
me. Real love doesn't deceive and play-act. And I'm glad I found
out what you had done, because I had believed that you really were
suffering, and it is a great relief to me to know that you were not,
and that in reality you care nothing more for me than I do for you."
"But I _do_ love you," cried Fult, furiously; "and you love me, too;
you _have_ to, when you're going to be my wife by sun-up!"
"Maybe I'm going to be your wife by sun-up,--maybe I can't help
myself,--but if I am, it will be with anything but love in my heart."
Fult stopped in his tracks. "I won't hear you say that!" he cried,
threateningly.
"I not only do not love you, but I do love another man," continued
Isabel, standing straight and unabashed before him. "I found it out
to-night--it all came over me like a flood when I believed I had lost
him forever."
"Hit's a lie!" he exclaimed, savagely.
"It's the truth," she said, tensely. "It's someone I have known always;
he lived on the next place to ours, we grew up together, he is as much
a part of my life as breathing; but because I knew him so well, and
believed love to be something strange, unknown, romantic, I didn't
realize it was love I felt for him. I found it out to-night on this
ride, when I wanted him above all things in the universe. He's not so
picturesque or handsome as you are; but he's good, he's unselfish, he's
true--he'd die rather than deceive anybody, or treat a girl as you have
been willing to treat Lethie. And he's _mine_. And it was the thought
of him, even more than of her, that broke my heart to-night."
Seizing Isabel by the shoulders, Fult shook her with such violence that
all her joints seemed loosened. "Hush!" he commanded. "Don't drive me
too far; I don't want to kill you!"
"I'm not at all afraid that you will," she replied. "That wouldn't mend
matters."
"No other man shall ever have you!" he said between his teeth. His hand
moved toward his pistol pocket.
She stood before him, calm, unflinching. "You are too much of a man
for such talk as that," she said. "Let's try to look at things sensibly
and see what can be done. You deceived yourself, and me, into thinking
you cared for me, when in reality you didn't--your play-acting proves
that. And because you saw I admired the old ballad-heroes and their
ways, you thought it would please me to have you copy after them. Well,
it didn't--it shocked me almost to death instead, and made me feel
how cruel you were willing to be toward Lethie, and how selfish to
destroy all the influence of our summer's work in this way. The whole
thing, you see, has been just a mistake. But it may not be too late to
retrieve it. Nobody knows that I am not asleep in my tent to-night;
nobody will know before morning. If it is possible for us to ride back
there by daybreak, not a soul will ever know, and no real harm will be
done. If, on the contrary, we do not get back by morning, there will be
a great hue and cry, your absence as well as mine will be discovered,
they will put two and two together, and as much harm will be done as if
we had actually been married. If you can possibly get me there, don't
you think you had better take me back to The Forks at once?"
Fult looked at her fiercely. "I never took a backtrack in my life," he
said, chokingly.
"Do you want to marry me, knowing I love another man?"
"No, I wouldn't have you as a precious gift! But I aim to ride on--I
don't know nor care where, so I never see you again. You get back the
best way you can."
In another instant he had flung himself on the mare, and spurred her
forward in great leaps.
Isabel was left entirely alone in the night, ten or eleven miles from
The Forks. But, at least, she was free. She knew there was no possible
chance of her reaching there before day; still, she would do her best.
She turned and began to run along the road, and, when her breath was
exhausted by this, to walk on as swiftly as possible.
Probably it was twenty minutes before she heard the beat of hoofs
behind her, and then Fult's voice, saying, coldly: "I can't leave you
this way; hit wouldn't be right. No use to have the talk about you,
though, for my part, I don't care. Get on behind, and I'll try to get
you back in time, though hit'll be a hard ride."
Taking off his coat, he spread it behind him, and rode up alongside a
bank.
"I believed you'd think better of it," said Isabel.
Thankfully she jumped on, and grasped the hantle of the saddle. Thus
had she ridden behind him the day he brought her up Troublesome into
the village. Now they were to ride up Troublesome again, but in how
different a manner!
With only the words, "Hold on, for hit's aiming to be the hardest ride
you ever had," he turned the mare around, dashed the spurs into her
side, and they were off, over rocks, roots, bowlders, up hill and down
hill, through water above their stirrups--on, on, with never a pause or
a break in the wild gallop.
But always Isabel managed to hang on, though sometimes by the skin of
her teeth; and always in her heart hope was singing--they would get
there in time after all: Lethie's happiness was not to be destroyed,
the summer's work was not to be made a reproach instead of a benefit,
she herself was free, free--for Thomas. Fervently she prayed;
thankfully she heard Fult urge on the wearying mare.
Finally, as there was the first lightening of the sky in the east,
they turned up Fult's hollow, past his house, which she had never seen
before, and almost straight up the mountain in the rear, as far as the
panting horse could take them. Then Fult spoke.
"You couldn't never get in by way of The Forks without somebody seeing
you. But by taking to the ridge here, you can go along it and down the
spur to the tents, without no danger."
He helped her down, turned the mare loose, and in silence they climbed
to the high rocks and walked swiftly along the ridge--the same ridge
where she and Amy and Virginia had discovered the still.
Dawn was rosy in the sky when they came out over the spur where the
women's tents were, and stopped in the shelter of the trees.
"Go on by yourself now," said Fult; "there hain't nothing to hurt you.
And I've got you here in time; I don't see nobody stirring."
Isabel turned to him, and held out her hand.
"Don't think I don't appreciate what you have done for me," she said.
"I can never, never tell how grateful I am for your generosity. And I
want to beg a favor of you. There are only two more days of our stay:
be just the same you have been to us; don't let anyone see there is any
change. You are a very important part of the entertainment on Monday,
and if you are not there, it cannot go on. For everybody's sake, will
you come?"
"I'll be there," he said, shortly. He turned and strode rapidly back
along the ridge; and Isabel, slipping silently down the spur, entered
the tent where Amy and Virginia were still sleeping, and crept into her
cot without a sound.
X
FAREWELL TO SUMMER
The last day of the women's stay on Troublesome dawned bright and fair.
Early in the morning the work of packing began, the smaller things
being put in boxes and carried down the hill by Fult and his friends to
the hotel, ready to be placed in wagons the following morning. Later,
the tents were taken down and packed--all but one, which was to be used
as a dressing-room for the "show" in the afternoon.
Aunt Ailsie came in early to help, as did also Charlotta and Ruby
Fallon, Lethie, and others of the girls.
Between nine and ten the county people began to ride in in numbers.
The women and children came on up the hill, but the men tarried in the
village. For, all unknown to the quare women, Uncle Ephraim had had
boys stationed at the three roads, requesting all the men to come to
the courthouse to a meeting.
About eleven-thirty the men ascended the hill in a body, and joined
their families for dinner. Aunt Ailsie had invited Amy and Virginia and
the others to eat with her, and her capacious baskets held enough for
forty people.
Numerous gifts also were brought in to the women on this last
day--handsome large gourds, yarn mitts, turkey-wings for fans,
hand-woven linen towels, and, from Aunt Ailsie, fine striped linsey
petticoats for each of the six.
Shortly after dinner, the "show" began. A platform built just in front
of Pulpit Rock, and closely curtained on four sides, aroused much
curiosity, nothing in the nature of a dramatic entertainment ever
having been seen before.
There was first a short speech of welcome by Giles Kent, the
school-teacher; then songs by the children of different grades;
then a short talk by the nurse on ways of preventing typhoid,
tuberculosis, and other diseases; then marching and songs by the little
kindergartners.
Afterward came the great feature and surprise of the day: a number of
tableaux--scenes from old ballads and folk-tales, long known to the
imaginations of the people, but here enacted before their eyes by the
young folks in beautiful costumes.
Fult sang the ballads and, at the proper time, the curtains were drawn
back and the scenes revealed. There were two from "Barbara Allen,"
three from "Jackaro," and two from "Turkish Lady"; the latter being
especially striking, with Darcy Kent as the noble English captive and
Charlotta Fallon as the Turkish Lady who sets him free and afterward
follows him to his castle in England, where all ends happily.
Last came two incidents from "Lord Lovel" (this ballad was sung by
Charlie, not by Fult). The hero, bound "strange countries for to see,"
bids farewell to the lovely Lady Nancibelle, and rides away on his
milk-white steed (only it had to be changed to "coal-black," being
Fult's mare, with Fult as rider). He returns, after a year and a day
of wandering, to find the people all gathered around the bier of
Lady Nancibelle, who has pined away and died of longing for him; and
thereupon he himself dies of a broken heart. Annette took the part of
the "lovely Lady Nancibelle," and Fult was beautiful in the velvet
clothes and plumed hat of Lord Lovel.
Then followed several folk-tales, done by the children: Red
Riding-Hood, Cinderella, and Blue-beard, the tales being told by Amy as
the scenes were given.
And now came the surprise of the occasion--no one had known of it but
Isabel and the performers: two tableaux from "The Sleeping Beauty."
The curtain opened with the young princess, under the spell of the
wicked fairy, lying asleep, surrounded by the court people, and the
king and queen on their thrones, all likewise sleeping. Lethie, in a
rich robe of pink satin, with her pale golden hair falling over the
dark velvet couch, was very lovely. But it was in the second scene,
where the prince (Ronald Kent, a younger brother of Giles, a beautiful
dark-eyed stripling) enters the court, kisses the princess, raises her
to her feet, and leads her forward, that Lethie's full loveliness broke
upon the assembly.
Standing there, the golden veil of her hair streaming down from a
coronet of pearls over the rich, flowing folds of satin, her bare neck
and arms white as their strings of pearls, her pale cheeks for once
pink with excitement, her large eyes starry, her lips gravely smiling,
she was a vision of delight. Women, children, men gazed spellbound.
Never had they seen, or imagined, anything to compare with this. Her
beauty was of the kind that brings tears to the eyes, a pang to the
heart, because of its very perfection. And a spiritual quality shone
through the fleshly vessel as a clear light in a vase of alabaster.
People asked themselves if it were possible this was their Lethie; or
was it in truth a fairy princess, a creature not of this earth?
Hidden behind the curtain, Isabel watched their faces, and particularly
one face, that of Fult. Still wearing his velvet clothes and plumed
hat, he stood near one side of the platform, his gaze fixed upon
Lethie, in utter surprise and bewilderment; it was as if for the first
time he really saw her. Then he leaned forward, to see better. Then
he turned and saw the whole assembly hanging rapt upon her beauty.
Then he looked again, excitedly, delightedly, with a proud air of
proprietorship. His face flushed when he saw that Ronald continued to
hold her hand.
Isabel remembered Cynthia Fallon's words,--"Hit's allus the newest face
with them,"--and realized that she herself had been but an episode in
Fult's life; that this wonderful new Lethie, superimposed upon the old,
was the girl who, if any girl could, would hold Fult's wild heart.
When the curtain was at last drawn over Lethie's loveliness, and the
stage cleared, Amy and Virginia rose from the bench where they sat with
Aunt Ailsie, and mounted the platform to say a few words of farewell to
the people.
But Uncle Ephraim was ahead of them. "Women," he said, stepping up
beside them, "don't speak the word 'far'well' yet--not till you listen
at what we got to say." He began:--
"Women, citizens and friends, this here summer has been the ridge-top
of my life, to which all my hopes and prayers and ambitions has
p'inted. Hit has likewise been a Mount Nebo, to which I was led up for
to gaze out upon the Promised Land. Being, like Moses, allus a man of
prayer, I had faith to believe that some day the Lord would stretch out
his mighty hand for our deliverance.
"So, people under my voice, hit wasn't no great of a surprise to me
when these here women come in. I seed in their coming the dawning of
our hope, the gorrontee of our betterment, the asshorance that the
Lord had brung us to remembrance. And all along, friends, hit has
been in my mind that this summer wasn't noways the eend, but just the
beginning of the blessings the Lord aimed to pour out on us.
"I never spoke to the women or to nobody; I just laid hit on the Lord
and waited for his guiding hand. And when I heared the county was all
a-mustering for a last day here, hit appeared like a coal of fire from
the altar was toched to my lips, and I was commanded to speak out the
words that would be put into my mouth. And though I hain't no speaker,
and never was, I didn't dairst to deny the call.
"So, gethering the citizens together in the courthouse, I spoke my
thoughts, which was that somehow, I couldn't say exactly how, we must
fix to keep these women with us, to link 'em everly down to us that,
like the apostuls in the Good Book, we ought to be minded to build
tabernacles for 'em, so's they would allus abide with us.
"And about that time Giles, my grandson, riz and tuck the words out of
my mouth, to say that what was needed was to make the women stay and
start up a right school; that, good as his intentions was, he knowed
well he wasn't noways able to do for the young-uns what the women
could; and anyhow he was minded to go down in the level land and get
more larning soon as he could be spared. Which right there, friends, I
rej'iced to feel that my mantle had fell on Giles.
"Then one atter another of the citizens spoke, and the gineral sense
of the meeting appeared to be that we couldn't noway part with these
women; and that, if somehow or 'nother they could be brung round to
stay and start up a school, hit would be the best day that ever riz on
Knott County.
"Then we got down to rael business and talked about hows and ways. This
here schoolhouse we got is old, and not nigh sizable enough, and all
scrouged in so's the young-uns don't have no-wheres to play but the
street; but hit will make a good store-seat, and Enoch Bickers allowed
he would buy hit for sech. All hands appeared to feel like Polly
Ainslee's bottom, just beyand where the forks meets, was the onliest
place for a right school; and then and thar Lawyer Gentry went out
and seed Polly, to ax her figger, and she allowed, if hit was for the
women that had waited on her so good in the typhoid, she'd name a low
price--seven hunderd dollars. And when Nathe come back, though we air
pore folks, hit didn't take fifteen minutes to make up that sum, which
I have got hit all sot down here on paper.
"And for my part, hit was my wish not only to help a leetle with the
land, but to furnish the timber for the houses; for though I am lacking
in money, across yander in my hills is a sight of the finest yallow
poplars the old earth ever brung forth. And when I spoke that, hit was
on the lips of nigh every man present to offer his labor to cut the
timber, or snake down the logs, or hew and notch 'em, or to raise the
houses, or rive the boards for the roof; so you might say the buildings
hain't aiming to cost no great.
"And this hain't quite all. If my land yander across Troublesome had
been right land for a school, I would have give hit outright for the
purpose that is most nighest my heart. But you can all see what hit
is--I have deeded off passel atter passel to my offsprings as they
married, till what is left is nigh straight up and down, and hain't
got even a good house-seat left on hit. But I now offer to deed every
foot I got left to the women, to use soon as I am dead and gone, which
naturely can't be long, axing them only to let me and my old woman stay
on hit till then, and have the use of the cleared land to raise corn
for us and our property. All the timber and the coal to be theirn from
the start, which both'll be enough to last 'em fifty year, even if the
school grows like I hope hit will.
"For this is my idee, friends--that not only the young-uns in this town
is to have the benefits, but that some way may be thought up so all
the sprightly, ambitious-minded boys and gals in the county will get
a chance at the bread of knowledge. When I let my mind run out over
these mountains, and think of the dozens of young-uns up nigh every
hollow, and the scores up every branch, and the hunderds--thousands,
sometimes, if hit is a long one--along every creek, all with just as
good, bright, hungry minds as anybody's childern on earth, and all
starved of their rights, half, maybe, being beyand the reach of any
school, and them that goes to district school housed, maybe, worse than
cattle, with the chinking all out of the walls, and the boards rotted
on the roofs, and the rain a-pouring and the wind a-blowing through,
and the teacher, likely, a wild boy that hain't got neither larning nor
manners--why hit stirs my soul so I hain't hardly able to hold myself
under.
"People, every one of our young-uns ought to have a fair chance; and
hit's our business, yourn and mine, to get hit for 'em, and hit's
shame and disgrace and everlasting destruction to us if we don't. And
I don't see no reason why, if these women was to take pity-sake on
us and come, and if we was to all pull together, and put up houses,
and fetch in the young-uns, and then fetch along things for 'em to
eat,--for there hain't none of us so bad off as to lack for food; there
hain't a man-person here that couldn't spare a wagon-load of corn and
beans and 'taters for every child he brings,--and if the young-uns that
comes was to do their part and work reg'lar,--for I hain't got no use
for larning that sp'iles folks for work,--the boys raising gyardens
and cattle and hogs and sech, for the women, and the gals cooking and
cleaning, and sewing,--why I don't see no reason on earth to keep us
from having a right school here. Of course, I hain't a knowledgeable
man, and hain't acquainted with the workings of schools, and may be
mistaken in my idees. But Amy and Virginny, you know--how does hit look
to you?"
"I see what you mean, Uncle Ephraim: you plan for a school in which
both brain and hand shall be trained," replied Virginia. "Certainly
that is the kind of school we should wish to have, if we came. But do
you realize that we are not school-teachers, that neither of us has
ever taught school in her life, or would know how to go about it?"
"Maybe not, but you would know how to get them that would," replied the
old man, shrewdly.
"We see the great need," said Amy, with feeling, "and should love to
give our lives to filling it, if we could see the way clear. One thing
you fail to realize is that such a school would require, not only
the land and timber and labor and food so generously offered, but a
considerable amount of money to keep it running. The only way for us to
get this would be to go out into the world and tell of the needs here.
Would you, and the people of the county, be willing that we should?"
Uncle Ephraim was silent a moment. Then he spoke. "We air a proud
race," he said, "and like better to do for ourselves and our
offsprings. But we air also pore, so far as money goes, which hain't
nothing, I take hit, to be ashamed of. What we hain't noway able to do
ourselves, I allow we wouldn't be mean enough to stand in the way of
our childern getting."
"We should like to have a general expression of opinion about this,"
said Amy.
One after another of the leading men rose then, and concurred with
Uncle Ephraim. Uncle Lot's speech was characteristic:--
"Hit allus did, and still does, go again' the grain with me to take
a favor from anybody," he said, grimly; "which I allow is the drugs
and settlings of cyarnality and the Old Adam still remaining in my
natur'. When the Good Book declare hit is more blesseder to give than
to receive, hit means what hit says; and that them that hain't got
ought to humble their pride, and give them that has, a chance to bless
theirselves. I hope we will all try to look at hit that way.
"And as for these women theirselves, I will say as I said down yander
in the courthouse, when they first come up here I follered Solomon's
counsel about strange women, and suspicioned everything they done. But
I hain't seed a single thing but good come from their being with us:
times is bettered, peace has lit like a dove upon us, the young has
got knowledge and civility, and the old, enjoyment (which I don't hold
hit's again' the will of God for us to take, in measure); and even
their Sunday Schools, which some has reviled scand'lous, I will say
this much for, that, if Scripter hain't for 'em, neither is hit again'
em."
"You see, women," said Uncle Ephraim, after all the others had spoken,
"what the sense of the county is. If ever folks was needed and wanted
and demanded, you women air, and any way you want to do will pleasure
us. Say what you will, do what you will. But before we go furder with
plans and arrangements, there is one more thing to tend to, right now.