robustious the hull summer, and last week I was took with a mis’ry in my
chist. I’ve been honin’ the hull day ter see some one and here you’ve
come. I reckon the Lord sent you.” The old man broke into a wheezing
cough which left him panting.
Talitha went to the fireplace and piled on fresh wood with a lavish hand.
There was a brisk crackling as the flames shot upward merrily. “I’m
going right to get supper,” she declared, forgetful of her weariness.
Si Quinn spread his hands before the blaze with a sigh of content, and
watched the girl as she bustled about the cabin. There was much to do
before even a simple meal could be prepared, for the schoolmaster’s
housekeeping even in health was sadly at variance with the methods
Talitha had learned at school the past year.
She brushed the floor as best she could with the stubby old broom, and
then attacked the pile of soiled dishes energetically. Outside, the
storm raged with fury, and a little rivulet trickled from under the door
across the rough boards of the floor. Later the corn pone was set to
baking, while the girl fried a platter of bacon and a dish of potatoes.
In a corner of the fireplace, on a few coals among the hot ashes, the
coffee pot sent forth an odour delightful to the nostrils of a
half-famished man. Si Quinn sniffed it eagerly.
“I hain’t set down ter sech a meal o’ vittles sence I war ter your
house,” he remarked gleefully as he drew his chair to the table and
helped himself liberally to the homely fare. “A squar’ meal will do me a
heap more good’n medsun. If I war reel sodden in selfishness, I’d wish
you hadn’t any kin and could stay right along here with me. But I ain’t,
I’m thankful you’ve got a better place’n this ol’ shack.”
Talitha looked at him curiously. She had never seen her old schoolmaster
in such a kindly, paternal mood. In her younger days, the lean,
spectacled face had inspired her with awe and a kind of terror. But
since her return from Bentville she thought of him with pity, not
unmingled with contempt, at his ignorance and dogged belief in the
strange theories which still prevailed in the isolated portions of the
mountains. She looked at the haggard old face that showed unmistakable
signs of past suffering, with a troubled conscience.
At last Si Quinn leaned back with a long sigh of satisfaction. “I reckon
you’ve ’bout saved my life, Tally. I war beginnin’ ter feel hit warn’t
much use ter hold on ter this world when thar warn’t nobody seemin’ ter
care speshul. Then you came along jest as though you’d been blowed
acrost the mountings. I’m mighty cur’us ’bout hit, Tally. Only a couple
o’ days ago, Dan Gooch looked in and said you-uns, and Ab and Gincy, hed
started fer school. Did the folks down thar reckon you’d hed ’nough
larnin’ and send you back?”
Talitha hesitated. She wisely felt the need of being very cautious as to
the report which would go abroad. “We did go,” she acknowledged, “but
the Girls’ Hall was full—just running over, the dean said—and the folks
around had taken all they could. There wasn’t another one could be
squeezed in, so I came—back,” she concluded, a renewed sense of her
disappointment nearly overwhelming her.
“Whar’s Gincy?” demanded the old man keenly.
“Oh, she stayed. She hasn’t ever had a chance, you know. She’d have
been terribly disappointed to have had to come home, and so would her
father; he’s been lottin’ on it all summer. I’m so glad they let her
stay,” Talitha added, fervently hoping that her secret had not slipped
out unaware.
“Hit’s cur’us, mighty cur’us,” mused Si Quinn, looking off into the fire
as though he had not heard a word Talitha had been saying. “Here I’d
been askin’ and askin’ the Lord ter send you here, then Dan Gooch comes
’long and ’lows I won’t set eyes on you agin till next summer and here
you be. Ain’t hit cur’us?”
“I never heard you were sick,” faltered the girl. “I’d have come before
if I’d only known.”
“That wan’t hit,” rejoined the schoolmaster. “I’ve allers done fer
myself, sick or well. I hain’t ever been used ter bein’ coddled afore,
that ain’t what’s on my mind, Tally. I wanted ter tell you thet I’ve
been a sorry teacher, but I never sensed hit till you-uns came back from
Bentville. I never had no sech chance ter git larnin’, and hit seems a
turrible pity you couldn’t hev stayed, but I know ’thout your tellin’ me
that you-uns came back ter give Gincy a chanct—”
“Oh, you mustn’t tell,” implored Talitha. “Father’d be so angry.”
“Hit shan’t git no further, but hit war jest like Tally Coyle ter do hit,
and mebbe the Lord had a hand in hit, too. I cal’late He knew jest how
much the Goose Creek school needed a teacher, fer I ain’t ever goin’ back
thar agin, Tally. My teachin’ days air over, but my heart hones fer
those pore lambs that’s so set on gittin’ larnin’. I want you ter take
’em and teach ’em all you kin. Mebbe next year you-uns kin go back ter
Bentville. Hit seems queer they couldn’t hev put up some kind of a shack
fer the gals ter stay in. A lot of strong, young fellers like Mart, now,
could hev taken holt.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” agreed Talitha, “but it would take money to make it
comfortable, and the Bentville folks haven’t any to spare.”
The old man nodded thoughtfully. “Hit’s mighty strange when I’ve heerd
thar’s folks livin’ in cities that’s more money’n they can anyways spend.
And here’s the mounting boys and gals a-thirstin’ fer the larnin’ they
can’t git.” The girl crouched before the fire puzzled over this new
problem, while Si Quinn creaked back and forth in the old rocker.
Suddenly it stopped. “I wish you’d git the Book, Tally, over on the
chist, and read a spell; you do hit so easy-like.”
Outside, in the wild night, the wind wailed loudly along the wooded
ridges of the great hills and hurled itself in angry gusts against the
little cabin unnoticed, as Talitha read chapter after chapter in clear,
unfaltering tones. The old man looked fondly down at her with a paternal
pride. His heart was at peace, for he had bequeathed his life work to
younger, more capable hands, and he rested content.
V
AN UNEXPECTED RIVAL
THE consternation at the Coyle cabin was great indeed when midway of the
next afternoon Talitha appeared, after making the old schoolmaster as
comfortable as possible. Although Sam Coyle had given but a grudging
assent to his daughter’s return to Bentville, he now loudly bewailed the
necessity which prevented her from “gittin’ more larnin’.”
His wrath cooled, however, when he learned that Si Quinn, who was highly
esteemed by the dwellers around Red Mountain, had abdicated his place in
the Goose Creek school in Talitha’s favour. It was an unprecedented
honour, as “gal” teachers were not looked upon favourably among the
mountaineers. It being the prevailing opinion that only a man could fill
the position with the requisite dignity and severity.
Remembering the tradition, the beginning was an ordeal from which the
girl inwardly shrank. She had never felt so helplessly ignorant in all
her life, although she had so often smiled with her brother over Si
Quinn’s incompetency.
It was soon rumoured that the old man had sent for Talitha Coyle to come
home and finish the remaining school months. In the mountains, school
begins the first of July and ends the last of December; when the heavy
rains and snows make travel well-nigh impossible. For a week the little
flock of pupils had been teacher-less, and Talitha was admonished to make
all haste to pass the required examination and begin her duties. The
county seat was twenty-five miles away, and she made preparations to
start for it the very next morning, her father accompanying her.
Fortunately, that night Dan Gooch brought word to the Coyle cabin that
Mr. Breel, head of the board of examiners, was at the Settlement and
would willingly give Talitha an examination if she could be on hand the
next morning.
With fear and trembling she set forth at dawn the next day to return at
night in triumph. It had not proved so terrible an ordeal as she had
imagined. Mr. Breel had been very kind and wished her success in her
undertaking.
Before Monday morning came, which should see Talitha installed as
mistress of the little school, complications arose in the shape of Jake
Simcox, a tall, fiery-headed, raw-boned youth. Noting the old
schoolmaster’s growing infirmities the past year, he had resolved to
secure the place. That it was about to be wrested from him by a “gal”
proved too much for human endurance. Laboriously he travelled from one
mountain home to another pleading his cause. But unfortunately for him,
his first call on Dan Gooch made an implacable enemy, for he
thoughtlessly mentioned the Bentville school in terms of derision,
further adding that “Si Quinn, the smartest man in Goose Creek, didn’t
need ter chase off ter git larnin’.”
But Jake departed, feeling that he had failed miserably in making the
desired impression. He would have felt still more convinced that the
fates were against him could he have known that Dan Gooch immediately
mounted his horse and set out with all possible haste to thwart the new
candidate’s efforts.
Dan secretly surmised the sacrifice Talitha had made that Gincy should
have her chance, and his gratitude gave him a ready tongue in the
former’s behalf. It was late that night when he and his jaded steed
returned victorious, for every member of the board and a number of
patrons of the school had been surprised at the Settlement store, and
there Jake Simcox’s cause was lost, it being the opinion of the trustees
that the old schoolmaster had a right to name a substitute for the
remainder of the term.
Jake Simcox did not take his defeat kindly, and to be beaten by a “gal”
was the bitterest drop in his cup. He had a brief pleasure in knowing
that when Talitha began school a number of children whose parents were
his adherents would be absent.
The young teacher was gathering her courage to meet the conditions to
which she had been accustomed all her life; suddenly they appalled her.
How could she make that bare and desolate place cheerful and inviting to
her pupils?
Early that Monday morning, long before the time for her scholars to
arrive, she started for the schoolhouse. Halfway up the slope she paused
to consider it—a small log cabin set in the midst of blackberry vines and
tall, brown weeds which reached to the eaves. A narrow, worn path led
through the tangle to the low, front door. Talitha hurried on
breathlessly and opened it. The shutter over the one glassless window at
the rear was also thrown back to let a draught of fresh air through the
damp, musty place. In one corner was a rusty sheet-iron stove, near it a
number of plank benches without backs; while on the opposite side a rude
desk and a single chair completed the furnishings. There were no
blackboards, no maps. The walls were as bare and uninteresting as when
Si Quinn sat in the seat of authority and ruled his little flock—she the
most timid and shrinking of them all—with a rod of iron.
She sat for a long time thinking until a certain project entered her
mind. It was something to be carefully considered. She sprang up and
filled a tin can with water for the flowers and reddening vines she had
gathered on the way, and placed it on her desk. Next, a large picture
calendar was pinned to the wall and several pictures from a newspaper
supplement—a part of her possessions acquired at Bentville.
A stream of sunlight through the open window lighted the gay colours on
walls and desk. The children hovered about the door in amazement until
they were bidden to enter. They were all small but Billy Gooch, the
eldest, who was short and stocky for his fourteen years and quite
prepared to be his young teacher’s most zealous champion.
The feeling of timidity with which Talitha began her duties vanished
before the morning was over; and in its place was a great anxiety to help
her pupils and make more attractive the cheerless place which only a wide
stretch of the imagination could call a schoolhouse. The latter seemed
an impossibility, but when she reached the creek path that night on her
way home, she found Dan Gooch waiting for her, eager for the earliest
news of the day’s proceedings. To this sympathetic listener she told her
needs and plans. He heard her to the end with a silent gravity which
gave little sign of encouragement, but at dawn the next morning, Dan was
in the saddle wending his way to the Settlement store. The flitch of
bacon in his saddlebag had been secretly purloined from the family’s
scanty store to be bartered for a few lengths of sawed timber and a small
quantity of black paint. Dan correctly surmising that the storekeeper,
being a patron of the school, would add his own contribution in the way
of generous measure beside the nails and loan of a hammer.
A few days later when Talitha entered the schoolroom, two large
blackboards nailed securely to the rough walls met her astonished eyes.
Si Quinn had never been able to evoke the interest which had so suddenly
been aroused in the Goose Creek school.
The secret which the young teacher had so patiently guarded for weeks was
at last revealed in the shape of maps and several much needed books. A
bundle of papers and magazines from the Bentville school was a welcome
addition to Talitha’s slender stock of material. A lump rose in Dan
Gooch’s throat as he helped her unpack the box from the city publishing
house and hang the maps where the best light from the window would fall
upon them. No words were needed to tell him that a large part of the
money, hoarded so carefully for Talitha’s expenses at Bentville, had been
spent in their purchase, and three of his children would be benefited by
them. Mentally he resolved that it should all be returned to her some
day in good measure.
Si Quinn was not ignorant of his former pupil’s successes. As often as
his health permitted he hobbled up the winding path and sat contentedly,
like a happy child, listening to the young teacher explaining things of
which he had never heard. At times he would shake his head in
bewilderment, but he never disputed her word, even when his most
cherished theory—that the earth was square—was disproved. His dulled
brain failed to grasp the explanation, but the bigoted faith in his own
meagre stock of knowledge died pitifully away.
Jake Simcox also was not unmindful of his rival’s success as a teacher.
With increasing anger he heard her praises sounded. Already his friends
had yielded to their children’s entreaties and sent them to school. Jake
kept aloof from the place until one day, wandering idly across the
foothills, he came suddenly in full view of the schoolhouse perched on
the side of Red Mountain. Its worn, weather-beaten logs looked ancient
enough against the autumn-tinted foliage. As he looked, the scowl on his
face deepened. He hesitated a moment, then took the trail toward it.
The place would be deserted for it was long past school time; there was
not a house in sight, still he approached it cautiously with sly, furtive
glances around.
Before he reached the building he could see that the weeds and blackberry
bushes had been exterminated, and in their places were broad-leaved ferns
planted close to the rough sides, and a healthy ivy that in another year
would give both grace and beauty to the walls. Jake eyed these changes
with a sneer. He tried the door; it was locked, an unheard-of thing
which he also resented. After much effort he unfastened the shutter,
threw it back, and sprang into the room.
The light of the setting sun streamed in broad shafts over the crest of
the mountain straight into the schoolhouse and illumined it to the
farthest corner. The autumn flowers and vines on the desk glowed
crimson. The blackboards, maps, and pictures had transformed the place;
it was bare no longer. A pail of water on a box, with a basin, towel,
and soap, was another innovation.
Secretly, Jake Simcox felt himself dwindle and grow small before such
superior knowledge, yet it only served to rouse him to greater
indignation that a “gal” should be better qualified to teach than he.
Striding to the desk he turned the leaves of the text-books Talitha
cherished so carefully, with a rough hand, shaking his head over the
bewildering pages. Naturally impetuous, his fiery temper once thoroughly
aroused swept him away in unreasoning wrath. At last he dropped upon a
bench, moodily taking note of every object around him until they seemed
seared into his memory.
The sun sank behind the mountain’s crest and the long shadows deepened
down the slopes. They crept silently in at the open window and filled
the room with gloom, and still he huddled there frowning until only a
faint, grey light struggled at the square opening. Then Jake moved
slightly. Two forces were wrestling within him—one very feebly, now worn
out with the unequal conflict. He sprang up, and, listening at every
step, closed the shutter cautiously and struck a match. There was a
basket of pine cones and crisp leaves behind the stove. He lifted the
lid and thrust them in. Another match and the mass was ablaze.
Recklessly the wood from a generous box full was thrown upon it, and then
in the midst of this furnace of flame hastily, as though his conscience
would smite him in the act, he caught the books from the desk and threw
them upon the pile. The pictures from the walls followed, the maps—what
he could tear off in great clinging shreds—were also added to the
holocaust.
The stove was red hot by this time and roaring like a young volcano. The
miscreant burned his fingers putting on the cover, and then it glowered
at him like a red monster as he watched it. Already his rage was
somewhat cooled; the provocation which had led to such a deed began to
look miserably small. He looked around at the bared walls and wished he
could put everything back as he found it.
But instead of dying down the fire seemed to wax hotter; there was a
snapping and crackling in the short length of pipe. A strange smell
suddenly pervaded the place which the frightened Jake knew was the mud
and stick chimney. It was afire, and while he stared in consternation,
he heard it crumble and fall.
For a moment the young fellow stood rooted to the spot. In his thirst
for revenge he had committed a most serious offence, for which the
mountaineers—a law unto themselves—would not hesitate to mete out a swift
punishment. The cabin was doomed. The flames had leaped to the roof;
the stovepipe reeled and hung tipsily, ready to drop in a moment.
Terror stricken, Jake Simcox flung back the shutter and leaped out into
the darkness. Like some wild thing of the mountains he fled down the
slope, on and on, only looking back once to see forked tongues of light
against the sky reaching higher and higher, until a swift, illumining
flash told that the great pine behind the little schoolhouse had caught
fire, and like a signal torch was blazing his shameful deed to all the
mountains. Where could he go to escape the consequences?
He turned toward a thicket of young trees to aid his escape, but as he
reached it a lumbering body emerged and proceeded leisurely toward the
creek, the measured jingle of a bell marking every step.
VI
HUNTING A VARMINT
SUPPER was late at the Gooch cabin. Brindled Bess, who daily supplied a
large portion of the evening meal, had strayed farther away than usual.
For more than an hour Billy and his sister had been searching the
mountain-side.
From his doorstep Dan looked gloomily forth into the fast gathering
night. If the animal, suddenly startled at the brink of a ledge, had
leaped over, it would be a sore calamity to the family. Dan listened to
the clatter of dishes inside the cabin until hunger and suspense overcame
him. He started up and with rapid strides disappeared across the
mountain in a haste entirely foreign to his habits.
Both eye and ear were keenly alert. There was a strange, coppery glow on
the eastern horizon. It reached far above the treetops, lurid and
threatening against the soft blue of the evening sky.
“Some foolish feller’s let his bresh fire git away from him, I reckon,”
commented Dan. But he went on without hearing a sound save those of the
night.
Suddenly, there was a crackling of bushes above the creek path, the thud
of hurried, stumbling steps. They came nearer until he could hear
panting breaths, and Sudie was flying past him white-faced, wild-eyed,
her hair streaming out like a frightened dryad of the mountains.
Dan caught roughly at her arm, and but for his grip she would have fallen
in terror. “What’s the matter? Whar’s thet cow critter?” he demanded.
Sudie struggled with her sobs. “Oh, pappy, the schoolhouse is afire!
Hit’s all-burnin’-up!” she gasped.
“What!” ejaculated her father in amazement.
“Hit shore is,” asseverated Billy, coming up red-faced and panting. “We
war a-headin’ the cow critter this way when we seen the fire a-bustin’
out’n the roof. Hit’s—” But Dan had not waited to hear more. He was
sprinting in the direction of the schoolhouse like a boy. His children
watched him for a moment in open-mouthed astonishment at such unheard-of
alacrity on their father’s part, then followed.
A good quarter of a mile brought him in plain sight of the burning
building, where he could plainly see the futility of further effort. The
little schoolhouse was a mass of flame, but the old, well-seasoned logs
would burn for hours yet. Fortunately the heavy shower of the morning
prevented the flames from spreading, the weeds and bushes had been so
thoroughly cleared away. Only the sentinel pine at the back of the cabin
was doomed.
Sudie clung to her father, sobbing wildly. “What’ll Tally say? We can’t
never go to school no more,” she wailed.
“Hesh, honey, hit don’t do no good ter take on thet a-way,” urged Dan.
“Somebody must hev been mighty keerless with matches or the like ter hev
fired hit. I reckoned Tally’d hed more sense.”
“Hit warn’t her,” Billy burst out, anxious to vindicate his teacher.
“Hit war thet Jake Simcox, I’ll be boun’. Jest as we hove in sight of
the place I seen him a-scootin’ fer the pines like a painter war after
him.”
“The low-down, sneakin’ varmint! Thet’s jest who did hit, and he ’lowed
not ter git ketched in the night time. He’ll git larned better. The
dark’ll kiver a heap o’ things, but no sech deed as this.” All the
fierceness that lies smouldering in the nature of the average mountain
man leaped into as fierce a flame as that consuming the little
schoolhouse. His younger children’s opportunities had been snatched from
them by this miscreant. He should not escape—a swift, deserved
punishment should be meted out to this offender as only mountain men
could measure it.
“Run home, Sudie, and tell your mammy she’ll hev ter tend ter the cow
critter ter-night, me and Billy won’t be back fer a spell. Thar’s a heap
ter be done before mornin’.”
His father’s ominous tone startled Billy. It brought to memory stories
he had heard of the Twilliger and Amyx feuds—his mother was a Twilliger.
He trembled.
“Son,” said Dan as Sudie disappeared, “do you ’low you can make the Coyle
place ter-night?”
“I reckon so,” answered Billy, bravely trying to forget that it was long
past his supper time. Mountain justice never waited on hunger.
“Clip up thar and back as soon as you kin, and tell Sam Coyle fer me,
thet we shall expect ter see him at the Forks ter-morrow mornin’ by
light, ter hunt varmints. They may hev left the kentry, but we’ll smoke
’em out if they’re ter be found. Kin you remember?”
“Yes, Pappy”
“Well, I’m goin’ ter the Twilligers. I kin git the boys ter push on to
the Settlemint, and then the news’ll carry fast enough, I reckon,” and
father and son parted.
At daybreak the Forks was the scene of an assembling of the clans. Old
scores were forgotten. They were meeting in a common cause which had
suddenly endeared itself to all. Not one of the older men but had
children among Tally’s flock, and they had begun to realize what the
school had meant to them.
Nearly all of the company were horseback, but every member carried a
“shooting iron,” a fact which had its own significance.
“If we could hev took after thet varmint last night, I reckon we could
hev treed him,” said Eli Twilliger. “But he’d be a plumb fool if he
warn’t out of the kentry by this time. Hit’s a mighty good thing he
hasn’t any kin in these parts.”