rain barrel. He had a gourd with which he dipped the water out into a
pail, sprinkling himself plentifully meanwhile. In the house breakfast
was over, and Mrs. Haggis walked around heavily as though her night’s
sleep had failed to rest her. She looked old from sickness and overwork;
but the girls knew that look—nearly all the mountain women had it—and
judged her to be about forty-five.
“Howdy,” she said, beaming at them as they approached the house. “I’m
proud ter see ye. I was a-feelin’ jest as down-sperited an’ lonesome
when ye druv up yistiddy, an’ all of a suddint the chickens begun ter
crow like they knew you’d come. How’s Miss Howard? I think a heap o’
seein’ her every year.”
“She’s well,” smiled Nancy Jane, “and coming over to see you to-day. We
were all pretty tired last night and went to bed early.”
“I hope our cow didn’t keep ye awake; Job found her thar come light this
mornin’. I reckon she’s proud you’ve come—like we-uns.”
The girls laughed merrily. “Urilla drove her off in the night. She was
browsing around the bushes ringing her bell like a fire alarm; it was too
funny!” Mallie ended the recital with such evident enjoyment of the
situation that Mrs. Haggis joined in the laugh.
“Hit’s comin’ two weeks sence a soul war on this mounting,” sighed the
woman, “an’ I’m too porely ter travel any. Didn’t you never feel like
you’d jest got ter talk to some one ’sides your own folks? When I’m shet
of the men folks fer the day an’ can’t even see ’em workin’ in the cove
or hear old Barb’s bell, thar ain’t a human ter talk to ’cept Elam,
onless my Rodie comes up from the Hollow an’ packs her baby up these yere
rocks.”
Mrs. Haggis was walking along with them toward the spring, talking
eagerly. Little Elam had grabbed Nancy Jane’s proffered finger and was
trotting by her side; with his other hand he held his dress up as he had
seen his mother do. Both the girls noticed how clean the faded blue
calico was, and that the back yard was swept as carefully as the front.
“Why, Mrs. Haggis,” said Mallie, “you don’t look strong enough to do so
much work; you’re wearing yourself out cleaning like this.”
The woman sighed. “’Pears like when I don’t work, I git ter studyin’
’bout the chil’ren—I’ve buried seven of ’em. That’s when we lived over
in the fur aidge o’ Jackson County. Thar’s only three left ’sides Elam;
two are up in Indiany—married—an’ Rodie’s man works the college farm
below here. I don’t see her none too often; she helps tend the crap.”
The bushes and saplings hedged their path for several rods, then they
came to a tumble of rocks on the very edge of the cliff. A skeleton pine
whose roots still clung in the crevices, between the rocks, stood out
bare and white. At its base was a windlass, and to the bare trunk were
attached wires which slanted down into the treetops below. Mrs. Haggis
fastened the pail the girls had brought to the upper wire—a block of wood
and a pulley kept it upright—and started it on its way.
“My,” exclaimed Mallie, looking down at the tops of the tulip trees,
“it’s a long way to go for water. Is there a spring at the bottom?”
“Yes, nigh fourteen hundred feet down,” said Mrs. Haggis. “You-all hang
onto Elam, he’s crazy ter look over the aidge o’ things.”
“Let us do it,” protested Nancy Jane, alternately watching the slender,
bent figure and the pail bobbing down the wire.
“’Tain’t nothin’, doin’ this; hit’s the washin’ wears me out.”
“You don’t mean you, have to pull it all up from down there and then
carry it to the house?” Mallie inquired in astonishment.
“What I can’t ketch when hit rains. Where’d ye think I got hit?”
“I didn’t think,” said Mallie soberly, tugging at Elam. “You say your
daughter comes up this way. I wonder if we couldn’t find the path and go
to her house some time?”
“In course ye could. She’d appreciate a visit from you-all the best
kind. Hit’s middlin’ steep, though, an’ a power o’ work climbin’ back,
but I reckon ye wouldn’t mind.”
Nancy Jane insisted on bringing up the water; it was quite an effort for
even her strong, young arms. Then they hurried back to the bungalow to
find Gincy frying bacon and the rest making beds. “I knew you’d be
coming along pretty soon,” she said, dropping the eggs into the skillet.
“Miss Howard wants to ask you something.”
“How would you like to visit Miss Clark’s school to-day, it’s only a
little piece from the foot of the mountain near the pinnacle? We can
walk it in an hour and a half.”
“But it’s Sunday!” exclaimed Mallie. “How could we?”
Urilla laughed. “Isn’t Sunday a good day to go to Sunday-school, honey?
You must be dreaming. Wake up!”
“Oh, that’s it. I never thought of a Sunday-school out here; of course
I’ll go. When do we start?”
“Just as soon as the dishes are done. We’ll put up our dinners and walk
back just before sunset. We must allow two hours for the climb, anyhow.”
Miss Howard began planning for the luncheon.
By eight o’clock the little party were on their way. Mrs. Haggis came
out to the gate as they went by. “I wish I war goin’, too,” she said
wistfully, “but pore folks has ter work. I couldn’t tromp ’round the
mountings an’ git my meals. You-all go on an’ I’ll wash some dishes; I
couldn’t run ’round nohow an’ let Job do hit.”
The visitors waved a good-bye and started on. A mountain bluebird darted
hither and yon, a cardinal shot like a bright gleam through the gay
foliage. The dew was still heavy in the shady places, but they followed
the deep wagon track caused by heavy loads of picnickers from the
college, and parties at the bungalow. The season was almost over for
these, and then the long winter’s isolation began for the Haggis
family—an isolation shared by thousands over this great mountain region.
Every downward turn revealed a glimpse of beauty which the girls had not
noticed going up. From the coves where the men had been ploughing for
fall crops came a fragrant, earthy odour. Off to the southeast range
after range rose blue against the sky. At last they reached the pike
which led past the little settlement at the foot of the pinnacle. A
number of people passed them on horseback with the usual greeting;
otherwise the stillness was Sabbath-like.
A turn in the road disclosed the church house, a neat log building near a
little spring, and overshadowed by a turreted-topped mountain. There
were other buildings in the same yard, and probably a dozen scattered
around in sight. The girls noticed that they were of a better type than
those back in the hills at Goose Creek, for only one was windowless.
Two vehicles were approaching. The driver of the first was a tall,
pleasant-faced, youngish-looking woman who nodded at them with a smile of
surprised recognition as she checked the sleek chestnut.
“Why, good-morning, Miss Howard! Had you started for my place? We’re
not going to have any Sunday-school to-day—there’s to be a baptizing in
the afternoon—and I promised to attend services at Bentville this
morning. It’s the only chance I’ve had for a year.”
“I wouldn’t have you miss it for anything, Miss Clark; go right on, all
we want is permission to eat our lunch in your yard,” said Miss Howard,
smiling. “You’d like to stay to the baptizing, wouldn’t you, girls?”
There was an enthusiastic affirmative from every one. Nobody in the
mountains ever missed a baptizing if it were possible to get there.
Miss Clark leaned forward. “Go right into the dog-trot at my house; my
raincoat is hanging on the right—near my bedroom door; under it you will
find the key. Make yourself perfectly at home until I come back. You’d
better make some coffee on the oil stove; there’s cream in the spring
house. I’ll come back early.”
“Thank you ever so much, but don’t hurry back!” urged Miss Howard. “You
need the change, and we’ll get along splendidly.”
“I’m so glad we came!” exclaimed Urilla. “A baptizin’ is lots more
interesting than a Sunday-school. So that’s Miss Clark; I never saw her
before.”
“Nor I,” said Kizzie, “but I’m sure I shall like her. They say she’s
helped a good many girls to go to Bentville after they’ve finished out
here.”
“And boys, too,” added Miss Howard. “She’s changed the whole
neighbourhood. If you could only hear her tell of some of her thrilling
experiences during the last twelve years—of the shootings, and brawlings,
and fightings. To-day the people go to her for everything. She teaches
them to sew, and cook, shows them how to care for the sick and the
babies. Oh, Miss Clark is a wonderful woman!”
“She must be,” said Gincy soberly, thinking of Goose Creek and its needs.
The second team was passing them and she looked up quickly as a familiar
voice called out:
“Hello, what are you-all doing out this way?” It was Joe Bradshaw and
his roommate, Raphael Sloan.
“What are you?” she retorted.
“Raf lives out here at Pigg Branch and I’ve been visiting him. We
thought you were up at the bungalow and we’d drive up for two or three
hours.”
“Awfully sorry,” said Lalla, “we brought our dinners, and—” Then she
looked at Miss Howard. That lady smiled.
“You’d better come back with us—we’ll have plenty for two more—then we
can all see the baptizing this afternoon.”
The boys needed no second invitation. “We were coming down for that
anyhow,” said Raphael, as they turned around.
Miss Clark’s home was close to the church house. It was a log house,
built Virginia style, with a wide, covered porch through the centre
separating the two sides. This dog-trot was a cool place in warm
weather, a place to churn, and wash, a place to visit, and sew, or even
take a nap. Mallie sank down upon the old-fashioned couch and looked off
toward the cabins across the road. They were scattered up the branch,
and on beyond, one perched high in a patch of ploughed ground on the
opposite mountain.
“Isn’t this a lovely place!” she exclaimed, glancing back at the
trellised nasturtiums and morning-glories against the kitchen windows.
“I think Miss Clark is great! Look at those ducks in the branch, and
such a lot of chickens. How can she find time for everything?”
“Of course she’s great!” Raphael Sloan sank down on the floor
cross-legged. “She can do everything—play the organ, preach a sermon,
knock a bench together better than the boys, and ride any horse around
here. She rode the most ornery mule in these parts one night. Ever hear
about it?”
There was a chorus of negatives, and Raphael’s dark eyes lighted over the
prospect of thrilling the company. “It was about five years ago when the
Bennett and MacGowan feud was stirring things up ’round here and
everybody seemed bound to take sides. Miss Clark tried to keep out of
it, for there were children from both families in school. One morning
Hugh MacGowan came over to borrow a big needle to sew up his mule’s
shoulder—some one had cut a long gash in it the night before. You just
ought to have seen her eyes flash—I went to school to her then—and she
everlastingly told us what she thought of a man or boy who would hurt an
animal because he hated the owner. Of course the Bennett children went
home and told it, and—”
“I thought they all liked her,” interrupted Gincy.
“They did, but the old folks didn’t relish being criticised even though
no names were used. Miss Clark found a note pinned to her door the next
morning telling her to mind her own business or she’d get into trouble.
“Things were quiet for a while, then one time about midnight, she heard
some drunken men going by shouting and singing—then four or five shots.
It was bright moonlight and Miss Clark could see that one was wounded and
swaying on his mule; the rest galloped off. Izzie Gray was staying with
her then, and begged her not to stir outside, but do you suppose she’d do
anything of the kind? Not much. She sailed out and found Lem Bennett
bleeding to death—his arm all shot up.”
Raphael stopped suddenly with dramatic effect. His audience was plainly
excited and expectant. “Go on, Raf!” commanded Joe impatiently. “What
next?”
“Well, Miss Clark rode that mule clear into Bentville and got a doctor,
or the Bennett youngsters wouldn’t have a father to-day, I can tell you.”
“Did it stop the fighting?” asked Gincy, jumping up suddenly. She fished
the key from under the long raincoat and fitted it into the lock.
“Yes, I really think it did. She told Lem Bennett—he was the worst of
the crowd—that she saved his life so he could have a chance to be a
better man, and that she loved his children and wanted them to have a
better father. Then she had a long talk with the MacGowans. After that
the county went dry—she had a hand in that, too—and there wasn’t any more
trouble. Oh, Miss Clark is fine, I tell you!”
“I should think she was,” said Nancy Jane, her eyes open wide with
admiration. “Come on, let’s go in and see how she lives.”
Gincy was already inside. The rest followed. There was a large bookcase
filled with books and magazines, a piano, a big fireplace with a
comfortable seat and chair near it.
“Miss Clark made that seat,” said Raphael. “We boys made the chair, and
the piano was sent her by some rich people up north. We helped her paint
and varnish the floors, too.”
“She has some new rugs,” said Miss Howard. “They’re like those made down
at the loom house.”
There were three made of rags with patterns in the borders. They were
blue and white. The curtains were white cheesecloth with a blue,
stencilled pattern across the bottom. A few water colours and Hoffman’s
Christ were the only pictures.
“Come on back and help me find the oil stove; I’m getting hungry,” called
Kizzie from the dining-room. “Isn’t this cosy?” she asked, pointing to
the long, built-in cupboard and the little square table in the centre of
the room.
Beyond, was the kitchen. A large range occupied one corner near the
sink. “We’ve made candy and popped corn here many a time,” said Raphael.
“Miss Clark has a cooking class every week this year for the older
people.”
The oil stove was soon discovered and the coffee over. They ate their
dinner in the dogtrot and the crumbs went to the chickens who were
sociably inclined. Then they started for the church house, going through
the garden and a long arbour.
“What lovely flowers!” Mallie stopped to admire the larkspurs and fall
roses until the rest had disappeared inside the church, then she
followed.
It was a T-shaped building, one upright being used for the day school and
the other for the Sunday-school and monthly preaching. In case of a
crowd the two rooms could be thrown into one. A tiny, portable organ
occupied the space near the pulpit. Various mottoes, picture cards, and
Bible charts adorned the walls. There were a large fireplace and a small
sheet-iron stove, a dozen long benches which could be stacked at one side
when they met for sociability, and a little Sunday-school library sitting
in neat uprightness on the open shelves.
Miss Howard played a half-dozen hymns and they all sang, then Gincy, in a
clear, sweet voice, read the lesson. Miss Howard was explaining it when
the people began to gather for the baptizing. They came on horseback, in
jolt wagons, and afoot. Not far from the house the branch widened until
in spring it was almost a pond. Here, under the shade of a dozen walnut
and tulip trees, a motley crowd was assembling and the folks inside the
church house hurried out to join them. Once outside, they saw Miss Clark
coming up the pike, her horse trotting briskly.
They waited at the gate. It wanted only a few minutes of the time and
the horse must be unharnessed. Joe dropped the bars and Rafael helped
Miss Clark out of the carriage. “You go on with the rest,” he said in a
low tone, “we’ll be along after a bit.”
Together they went down the little slope, its edge crowded with women and
children. One lone cottonwood shadowed the pool in its deepest place,
stretching mottled arms almost to the opposite bank. Half its roots were
bare and white, washed by the spring torrents.
Each moment the gathering was augmented by fresh arrivals. Joe and
Raphael came up silently and stood near Miss Clark. A gaunt mountain
preacher whispered a few words to her, his face showing some perplexity.
She turned to the boys.
“Raphael, won’t you and Joe run up to the house? In the woodshed you
will find a shovel and hoe. Bring them here as quickly as you can.”
Five minutes later the boys came panting back, bearing the required
utensils. Two brawny mountain men took them, waded out into the shallow
water, and began digging.
“They’re making it deeper,” said Nancy Jane. “My, but won’t it be
roily!”
While the men worked the strange audience waited. Near the water’s edge
stood the candidates for baptism—two girls about seventeen, a woman, and
a middle-aged man with wiry black hair and dark, smouldering eyes. He
was short and stocky, a man of force, and—if roused—of fury.
A long carryall was toiling up the hill. Joe saw it first. “It’s the
college team,” he whispered to Miss Howard. “There must be a dozen
people.”
The teacher nodded. “Professor Butler’s going to do the baptizing; the
rest came along to sing.”
Already they could hear the strains of “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me,” the
rich, full tones swelling through the quiet autumn air as the people in
the carryall approached. One by one they joined the waiting crowd. The
digging had stopped and there was a hush of expectancy as the minister
made his way toward the waiting candidates. He spoke to them quietly,
then turned until his glance swept the assemblage.
Gincy never forgot that day. The frightened girls in the foreground,
with their coarse, white dresses; the children, their faces curious and
alarmed; the sunbonneted women; the row of men on the fence in the
rear—sallow, sunburned, and some bearing the marks of dissipation. But
what impressed her most was the exalted look on the face of the man when
he emerged from the water.
“Who is he?” she whispered to Raphael Sloan.
“Lem Bennett,” he whispered back, “and the woman is his wife.”
X
SI QUINN REVEALS A SECRET
ONLY that one forenoon did Talitha hold school in the hollow. The very
next day the weather took a turn, a cold wind blew up, and for more than
a week a lowering sky gave promise of rain it failed to fulfil-except now
and then in spiteful gusts. Her hopes, to which she had clung with a
brave persistence, vanished with the sunshine.
She was greatly puzzled at the indifference her family displayed over the
loss of the schoolhouse and its contents. Evidently the school must be
discontinued until another year at least. It was getting too late in the
season to hope for more than a few days—at a time—warm enough to hold the
session out of doors. She had thought some place might be opened to her,
but the cabins were small and already overcrowded. When she suggested
that the children meet at her own home for a few hours each day, her
parents decidedly objected. Even Dan Gooch seemed to forget his anxiety
to have Billy and Sudie “git larnin’,” and, although she had offered to
assist them with their lessons, along with her own brothers, they had not
put in an appearance.
Now that her plans for helping the young people of Goose Creek had
failed, Talitha felt more keenly than ever the disappointment of
returning home. She took all the heaviest work of the household upon her
strong, young shoulders. The spinning wheel whirred through the long
afternoons which otherwise would have been dull and dreary enough. She
had no heart to call on neighbours or kinfolk; they did not need her. Si
Quinn had also lost all interest in school matters, or she had failed to
meet his expectations. It was strange she had not known it before, and
yet she had done her best.
She had time now to notice the change that had come over her father.
Every morning he went off, his axe over his shoulder; such
fore-handedness in getting the winter’s wood was unusual in him. When
Martin was home it was he who saw that they did not lack for fuel when
the cold weather came on.
At the end of the second week she received a letter from her brother. It
was the first he had ever written her, for they had never been separated
before. Talitha puzzled over its pages, growing more and more bewildered
at their contents: “Si Quinn wrote me about the schoolhouse. Isn’t it
great! Jake always was heady, he could work up that temper of his until
he was worse than a hornet. I hope this’ll be a lesson he’ll remember.
I’m just as proud of you as I can be. Everything has worked out for the
best after all, hasn’t it? Gincy is studying like a whale. She was
mightily disturbed when she heard you’d gone home on her account and I
had all I could do to keep her from tagging along after you. But Gincy
has a heap of good sense. She’s Miss Howard’s right hand man; I don’t
get a sight of her except at meal times, but I can hear her voice on the
high notes ’way above the rest come Harmonia nights.—Oh, Gincy’s making
good, all right, and I’m glad as can be, but I do miss you awfully, sis—”
Talitha finished and then her eyes wandered back toward the beginning.
“I don’t understand it one bit,” she thought. “Mart doesn’t seem to care
at all that the schoolhouse burned. He writes as though it were almost a
joke.” The tears rushed to Talitha’s eyes. “I’m going right over to the
schoolmaster’s, maybe he can explain it,” she decided at last. “I do
wonder what he wrote Martin.”
The girl snatched up her sunbonnet and hurried out of the door, the
letter in her hand. Half-way to the old man’s cabin she met him hobbling
cheerfully along by the aid of his crutch. The satisfied smile on his
face brought Talitha’s grievance freshly to mind; she almost resented his
unusually jovial greeting.
“Halloo, thar, Tally; you shore air lookin’ robustious—”
“Good-morning,” responded Talitha coldly. “I’ve just got a letter from
Martin, and—and I’ve been wondering what you told him. He writes as
though it wasn’t—well, he almost joked about the schoolhouse being
burned.” The girl’s lips quivered.
“Law, now, did he?” considered the old man, evading the look of reproach
in Talitha’s eyes. “I didn’t go fer to give him any sech idee. Hit war
a powerful mean thing fer Jake Simcox ter do, and I aimed ter lay thet
out plain ter Mart. S’pose you jest walk along with me ter the ruins. I
thought a sight of thet old shack; hit’s whar I spent cornsiderable many
years. I like ter think of you-all a set-tin’ on them benches. You war
a powerful bouncin’ leetle gal, Tally, and I war an ill enough teacher,
but I done the best I knowed then.”
Talitha’s anger had suddenly vanished. There was something pitiful in
the schoolmaster’s fondness for recalling the past. After all, he felt
the loss of the old place more deeply than he would have people think.
“You mustn’t say that,” she insisted. “Of course you did the best you
could, but I know just how you feel; I wish I’d done more when I had the
chance.”
“Law, now, Tally, you’re jest a colt, as hit war, and thar’s plenty of
chances comin’ fer you. Hit ain’t as if you war sech a broken-down hoss
critter as I be.”
“But I can’t bear to give up the school!” cried the girl. “I’ve been
trying so hard to think of some way, and nobody seems to have the least
interest in it any more.”
“Don’t they now?” said Si Quinn with recovered cheerfulness. Then
stopping suddenly, “’Pears ter me suthin’s been goin’ on up this a way.”
They had come to where, through a cleared space among the trees, a
blackened heap was visible—all that was left of the poor little
schoolhouse.
But Talitha hardly noticed it. Something beyond had caught her eye—a
substantial yet picturesque structure of logs, the rough bark still
covering them and adding a beauty in harmony with the surroundings. The
carefully laid chimney at one end was receiving the last finishing
touches at the hands of a capable mason from the Settlement. A dozen men
stood about watching him admiringly.
The old man saw Talitha’s eyes widen in amazement.
“Why, what is it?” she cried suddenly. “I don’t understand!”
“Well, well, honey,” chuckled Si Quinn, “I reckon thet’s the joke Mart
writ you ’bout, and I declar’ if hit ain’t the biggest one I ever heerd
tell on. Hit’s goin’ ter be all ready fer you ter begin school Monday,
and nobody war goin’ ter say anythin’ ter you ’bout hit till thet time;
but I see I jest had ter, you war frettin’ so.”