HADN'T LISTENED.
Not another word was spoken, and Peters went out, turning with a sullen
look as he reached the road. For a moment he stood there and then
skulked on away, met a dog in the road and kicked at him. When Margaret
re-entered the room Jasper was walking up and down with his hands behind
him. The old man began to tell a story: "Feller down in the bottoms
owned a calf that had wool on him like a sheep; uster ter shear him
every spring, and one time he--"
"Jasper, didn't Peters say he was a comin' after you?"
"Margaret, is it possible that you've been listenin' to two men talkin'
business? Now, business is a sort of a sacred thing. A feller in the
Bible says, 'I'd like might'ly to go to yo' little dinner, but I've got
to break a yoke of steers an' you must 'skuze me.' So, Margaret, you
must never interfere with bisiness."
"But didn't you say suthin' about that you might have to kill him?
Didn't you?"
"Huh. We must have been talkin' about a sheep that broke his leg. When a
sheep breaks his leg, you know, he's about gone. Mighty hard thing to
cure a sheep, makes no diffunce what's the matter with him. Feller over
near Smithfield had a sheep once that--"
"Didn't he say he was a goin' to be app'inted deputy marshal?"
"Who, the sheep? Now, I don't believe a sheep would make a very good
deputy marshal. Strikes me that the wolf would be a trifle better."
"Jasper, I didn't say a word about a sheep, and you know it."
"That's a fact. I was the one that was a talkin' about a sheep. I know'd
it was one of us, but I sorter forgot which one."
"Didn't he say that you made a good deal o' licker when the sun wan't
shinin'? Didn't he?"
"Margaret, ef you keep on, I'll be fo'ced to believe you have been
listenin'; an' I'd hate to think that. Thar ain't nuthin' much wus than
listenin' to other folks when they talk business. Now the fust woman on
the earth listened when her husband he was a talkin' to an angel that
was out in the garden a sunnin' hisse'f, and they called her a Eve
drapper."
"Wall, you wan't a talkin' to no angel, I'll tell you that."
"Talkin' to one now, ain't I?"
"Jasper, I didn't come in here to be made fun of. I'd rather quarrel
than to be made fun of."
"I don't know but that's a fact."
"Now why don't you tell me all about it?"
"I don't see the use in my repeatin' suthin' you've already hearn."
"Already hearn? I ain't hearn a word, and you know it. But suppose he do
git the app'intment--won't it mean trouble?"
"Wall, I don't know but it will. They do say that it's a sorter
troublesome job. Know'd a feller that was app'inted once, and he was
shot between the eyes--puttiest shot you ever saw. Man said, 'You
couldn't do that ag'in in ten years,' and putty soon thar come along
another deputy, an' blamed if he didn't do it ag'in."
"I wish you wouldn't pester me so--when I've already got trouble on my
mind."
"What's troublin' you, Margaret?"
"Why, dinner's about ready to take up, and them folks ain't come back.
Why, I never did see Lou as skittish as she is now. I reckon it's
because he's the son of a United States jedge."
"Oh, you've found out all about him, have you? Wall, he's sorter
skittish, too. And when his aunt talks it puts me in mind of a bird a
singin' up summers among the green leaves."
"Oh, any woman could talk thatter way if you'd put fine clothes on her.
Trouble is when a woman ain't dressed fitten to kill, nobody won't
listen to her. Common calico can't talk any better than that Mose Blake;
but silk--law me! Sings like a bird up among the green leaves. I despise
to hear a man go on thatter way--jest as if a woman ain't respectable
unless she covers herself with finery. But I want to tell you that Lou
can talk with the rest of 'em when she wants to--and so can I, for that
matter."
"Oh, you can talk, Margaret--thar ain't no doubt about that. Well, I'll
go out now and see if the hogs air gittin' along all right, and when
dinner's ready jest blow yo' ho'n."
Off from the road, not far from the house, a gulch ran zig-zag up among
the rugged hills. It was no mere ragged and unsightly drain for water
from the higher land. Flower-brightened and vine-hung, it was
deliciously cool, and gorgeous at every turn. At the bottom babbled a
rivulet, a bit of summer sky melted and poured among the green-tipped
rocks. Blooming shrubs in the giant's garden, the saplings seemed; and
hither came the birds to make their nests and to nod with half-shut eyes
in the drowsy afternoon. But after passing through this elbow corridor,
there were bare rocks, standing bold in the sun or bleak in the wind,
and here was a log hut almost hidden by bushes. It was called the mill,
and corn was ground there, but the meal was boiled in a great iron
kettle. It was Old Jasper's distillery. After leaving the house he went
up to this place, and in front of his picturesque though illegitimate
establishment, he sat down upon a stone to muse over his coming danger.
In Jasper Starbuck there was a force which, directed by education, would
have made of him a leader of men. Once a neighbor had threatened to
report him to the government, and in the night Jasper went to the house
of his enemy, called him to the door, showed him a rope, and without
saying a word went away. The neighbor knew what the rope meant. Years
before a miscreant who had assaulted a woman, was seized by Starbuck,
thrown upon his back, tied hand and foot, and hanged to a tree; and it
was only the timely arrival of officers of the law that saved him for
the deliberations of the established gallows. But with all his quickness
to act he was sometimes made slow by a touch of sentiment, and thus it
was that he permitted Peters to bully him. Between the two families
there had ever existed bad blood, and some of it had been spilled. In
the neighborhood it was a standing prediction that Jasper would one day
cut the throat of the blustering Lije, and the old fellow, especially as
time began to whiten his hair, constantly mused to himself: "I don't
want 'em to throw it up to my girl that she is the daughter of a
butcher, but if the time must come--" Here he always broke off,
summoning his humor with the whistle of a droll tune. "Thar may be some
way to weather it out," he now mused as he sat upon the stone, "I have
been in many a close place and I always weathered it out."
Suddenly he looked up, attracted by the bleating of a lamb; and up
higher among the crags he went, found the little thing caught between
two rocks, almost starved. "You don't belong to me," he said, taking the
lamb in his arms, "but yo' life belongs to you an' in the sight o' the
Lord mebby it amounts to as much as mine." He took the lamb down to the
house, gave it milk, and then took it back upon the hill-side, and,
putting it on the ground, said: "Thar, I reckon you'd better run along
home. Yo' mammy mout be distressed about you."
Upon returning to the house he found that his visitors had come back
from the post-office. Jim was gazing at Mrs. Mayfield, Tom was shyly
striving to dispel Lou's shyness, Mrs. Mayfield was talking romance.
"Oh, I could not have believed that such a place existed," she said to
Starbuck. "I was warned not to come here, that the people were ungentle
and that the report of the gun was oftener heard than the strains of the
song; but I find that your life here is almost uneventful music."
"I don't know what sort of music that is, ma'm, but if you say so, I'd
be willin' to bet on it. Wouldn't you, Jim?"
"I don't bet, Uncle Jasper,--but--but if she wanted me to I would."
"Of course you would, or any other preacher, if he's a man."
Mrs. Mayfield was looking at Jim and he sat illumined beneath her gaze.
"Your compliments are all so new and strange to me," she said. "And in
them I can find no flattery."
"Ma'm, I have never tried to flatter any one. Judas was a flatterer."
"That's right, ma'm," the old man declared, laughing and slapping his
leg; "an' I'd ruther a man would tell me a flat-footed lie than to pour
molasses on me. Young feller," he asked of Tom, "did you like yo'
ride?"
"Charmed with it, I assure you. Auntie called it a continuous panorama."
"Wall, I never thought about it in that way, but I reckon that's about
what it is."
"Oh, such visions are not to be forgotten," Mrs. Mayfield spoke up, and
at the sound of her voice Jim dodged. "And such air, Mr.
Starbuck--ethereal liquor of the gods."
At the word liquor Jasper's jaw dropped with a "hah?"
"Yes," she said, "wine from the press of Paradise. How free from the
taint of the world was every shrub and flower! I thought that a poet had
laid him down and dreamed, and awaking and stealing away, had left his
dream behind."
"That so? And right up on the hill from whar you crossed the river thar
lives the old feller they tell the tale about. Many years ago when thar
come along a gover'ment surveyor, a changein' the line between North
Caroliny an' Tennessee, he dragged his chain through the old feller's
house, putting one room in one state an' lettin' the other room stay in
the state it was. 'Wall,' says the old feller, beginnin' to move his
bed over into the tuther room, 'reckon I'll sleep over here as North
Caroliny ain't very healthy nohow,' an' he did till years atterwards
another chain proved that he was mo' than fifty miles over in Tennessee
an' then his health improved might'ly. I'm glad you like our part o' the
country, ma'm."
"Anyone to know the dark side of life as I do, Mr. Starbuck, must revel
here. There are no sneers among the trees, and the tears that fall from
the flowers are tears of joy and not of sorrow. It does not seem that
the great explorer, Trouble, has ever penetrated this region."
"Ma'm," said the old man, standing in front of her with his hands behind
him, "no matter whar we go trouble is thar jest in advance of us.
Trouble was in the garden of Eden, waitin' for man. The coward may say
that it come with the woman, but it was thar in the shape of a snake
befo' man trod the path. A house may be away off among the hills; it may
be kivered all over with vines an' the flowers may sweeten the roof, and
yit inside thar may be a heart that is a smotherin'."
"It is mighty warm in here," said Margaret, entering the room. "Come to
dinner."
Jim, in a constant tremble, as if he expected some dire accident to
befall him, sat beside Mrs. Mayfield. Once he dropped a dish, and later
leaning back in his chair, the hind legs of which were too short, tipped
over and came near upsetting the table. Tom and Lou tittered; Jasper
roared till the tears ran down his brown cheeks; Margaret reproved him
and all was in confusion till Mrs. Mayfield's gentle words pattered
musically among them like rain in the dust. She did not take notice of
the ludicrous mishap, and when Jim had scrambled to his feet and was
standing there ridiculous with a dry grin, she said to him: "I know you
must be fond of books, and when I return home I will send you
some--books that I have read and marked when the hours were long."
The preacher recovered himself. "Ma'm," said he, "in a book yo' pencil
would make a high price mark, and from one man that I know of there
could be no purchase."
"I gad," snorted Old Jasper, "dinged if he didn't git right up and stand
higher than he was befo'."
"Jasper," Margaret protested, "I wouldn't make fun of the way a man
stands. It don't sound right."
"My dear," Mrs. Mayfield replied to Margaret, motherly, though young,
"he paid Mr. Reverend a pretty compliment."
"Now did he?" Margaret rejoined. "Wall, if he did I'm mighty glad of it,
but the truth is, Miz Mayfield, Jasper is so full of his pranks you
never can tell how to take him. Lou, why don't you pass the butter to
Mr. Elliott; and the bread? Can't you see nothin' at all? I hope you
will excuse her, Mr. Elliott, fur she sometimes furgits though she did
go to school for two years over at Dry Fork."
Tom begged her not to worry about him. He was nearing that stage when
physical appetite is forgotten, when our entire nature, faults, virtues,
all littlenesses and greater qualities, are thrown into a heap to feed
the bonfire of love. An old man may love like a fool, but the boy loves
like a hero. The old man who believes that he is loved by a girl is a
reveler in the debauchery of his own vanity. With an egotism unknown to
youth, he believes. The "sweet thing" tells him with an air of wisdom
that she could not love youth, that it is but an animated folly, and he
believes her. But the boy is uncertain and doubts himself. His love,
instead of inspiring confidence within his own breast, inhabits his
heart with the ghost of fear. The old man talks platitudes and knows
that he is convincing. The boy stammers his devotion and feels that he
has failed.
"You ain't eatin' a thing," said Lou, and this bold boy in the city, but
timid now, dropped a piece of bread, burnt himself with coffee and
spluttered that never in all his life had he eaten so much. A bird
lighted on the window sill, and whispering to Lou, he said that it had
come to hear her talk, and to carry her music to the other birds to make
them envious; and she spoke no word, but her cheeks replied to him. The
old man was musing and saw nothing, but Margaret heard the words and saw
the blush, and sitting back in her chair she compressed her lips and
fanned herself in satisfied determination. Jim had become calm, though
watchful and still on the dodge. Sometimes he started as if a bold
thought with a sudden knock upon the prison door demanded liberation,
but frightened at the sound of the struggling voice within he would
seem to clap his hand over the key-hole, that no accent might escape.
The old man was aware of these trials and they amused him and often he
would duck his head and laugh over his plate. Margaret would clear her
throat at him.
"Now, Jasper, what on top of yeth has tickled you so? A body to see you
would think that thar wan't nuthin' serious nowhar. Oh, I like to see a
man enjoy hisse'f, but--"
"But you don't," Jasper filled in, winking at Jim, who dodged as if an
acorn had been flipped at his eye. "Ma'm," he added, "blamed if I
believe a woman ever has a right good laugh after she's past thirty.
About that time nature turns down the lamp for her and she begins to see
shadows. If she does laugh much atter this it is at an enemy. She won't
laugh with you--she laughs at you. You've got to look funny to
her--you've got to have on suthin' that looks odd."
"Oh, I don't think so, Mr. Starbuck," Mrs. Mayfield replied. "It has
often been denied, but a woman has the true sense of humor, but--"
"Humor!" exclaimed the old fellow. "Why, she's got mo' than a day in
April."
"You misunderstand me. I mean that she has a true sense of fun. Being
more sensitive than man, some things that a man wouldn't notice, strike
her as ridiculous. To say that she has no fun would be to rob her of
sorrow, for the keenest sorrow comes after we have had our fun."
"Ma'm, you air settin' in a boat, paddlin' at ease and I am a rollin' up
my britches higher an' higher, a tryin' to wade atter you; but you air a
gittin' out whar it is too deep fur me to foller you."
"A compliment charmingly expressed, Mr. Starbuck. But if I row away from
you, it was you who placed me in the boat."
"Ma'm, I allus thought it would be hard to talk to an educated woman. I
'lowed she would talk a finery that I couldn't understand, but you
sorter make me change my mind."
"Jasper, you do fret a body so," Margaret put in. "You would lead us to
think you never met a woman befo'. Why, thar air lots o' women up
here--can't talk silk and braid and plush, but they know how to say what
they mean."
Mrs. Mayfield bowed to her. "I quite agree with you, Mrs. Starbuck.
Women everywhere are pretty much the same."
"So glad to hear you say that, Miz Mayfield," Margaret replied. "It
ain't often that anybody agrees with me--Jasper never do. If I'd say a
crow's black, he'd 'low it was white."
"Yes," drawled the old man, "ef you was to say so; but you never would
say a crow was black. You'd say he was yaller. No, I don't allers
dispute what you say. Tuther day when I flung a rock at a steer, it
struck a tree, bounced back and hit me and you said, 'Thar, you've hurt
yo'se'f,' and I didn't dispute it. Jest give me the truth and you won't
here no complaint. Am I right, Jim?"
Jim did not relish his position as "prover." The umpire of household
argument "hath but a losing office." In the opinion of one side or the
other his decision is unjust. "You are nearly always right when you
think you are, Uncle Jasper, and you don't often think you are right
unless you are; and I can say the same of Aunt Margaret."
"Oh, I tell you," the old man declared, shaking his head, "Jim will
keep out of trouble as long as he kin; an' I want to say he is givin' me
a mighty useful lesson right along now about this time."
"Gracious! Look thar!" Margaret exclaimed.
"Hold on!" Jasper commanded, "don't nobody move. Keep right still and
don't say a word."
In the door stood a dog, gazing with glassy stare. Any one could see
that is was mad. A tiger leaping forth from a jungle and standing with
his eyes ablaze, must be a terrible sight. But the tiger, red tongue
out, crouching, eyes like fire, could not inspire more of terror than
the dead eye of a mad dog. We know that its tooth, its claw, its very
foam means death, lingering, horrible.
"Don't move," commanded Jasper, slowly getting up from the table. There
was no weapon within reach. "I'll have to choke him," said the old man.
"If any of you moves a muscle I'll hold you responsible." Gazing into
the eyes of the dog, he slowly moved toward the door. Then, making a
sudden motion forward, he sprang to one side; and the dog was in the
air, and when he came down the old man was upon his back, with hands
grasped around his throat. The women shrieked. Jim and Tom sprang
forward. "Look out, boys, don't let him scratch you. Here, Jim, grab his
hind legs. Mr. Elliott, fetch that handspike from over thar in the
corner."
Jim seized the dog's legs and Tom brought the big stick. "Shall I mash
his head with it, sir?"
"No. Put it across his neck and then I'll b'ar down on one end an' you
on the other an' with a twist Jim kin break his neck. Thar, we air
gittin' him." At the proper moment Jim gave the dog an upward twist and
there was a snap. They heard his neck break.
"It's all right," said Old Jasper. "Why, you women folks mustn't take on
now. Thar are two times when you mustn't take on--when thar's danger and
when thar ain't."
"I know he's pizened!" Margaret cried.
"Well, now, don't bet no money on that fur you'll lose it. He didn't
tech me."
"Let us thank the Lord," said Jim.
"All right," Jasper replied; "but thar ain't no hurry; the dog's dead."