Who they were, and whence they came, none can say. The mountains
where they found their home--their long home--keep silence. The
stars, that they knew, look down upon their graves and make no sign.
Their memory, unless in some fine and subtle way lingering in the
mystery, the pervasive melancholy, the vaguely troublous forecast and
retrospect which possess the mind in contemplating this sequestered
spot, unhallowed save by the sense of a common humanity, has faded
from the earth. None might know that they had ever lived but for a dim
tradition associating them with the ancient forgotten peoples of this
old hemisphere of ours that we are wont to deem so new. For this is one
of the strange burial-grounds of the "pygmy dwellers" of Tennessee;
prehistoric, it is held, an extinct diminutive race; only Aztec
children, others surmise, of a uniform age and size, buried apart from
their kindred, for some unimagined, never-to-be-explained reason; and a
more prosaic opinion contends that the curious stone sepulchres contain
merely infant relics of the Cherokee Indian. All I know is, here they
rest, awaiting that supreme moment when this mortality shall put on
immortality, and meanwhile in the solemn environment of the Great Smoky
Mountains the "Leetle People" sleep well.
Quiet neighbors all these years have they been. So quiet! almost
forgotten. In fact, the nearest mountaineers start, with a dazed look,
at a question concerning them, then become mysterious, with that
superstitious, speculative gleam in the eye as of one who knows much of
uncanny lore, but is shy to recount.
"I do declar' I never war so set back in my life ez I felt whenst
that thar valley man jes' upped an' axed me 'bout'n them thar Leetle
Stranger People buried yander on the rise," declared Stephen Yates, one
July evening, as he stood leaning on his rifle before the door of his
cabin in the cove. His horse, reeking and blown, still saddled, bore a
deer, newly slain, unprotected by the game-laws, and the old hounds,
panting and muddy from the chase, lay around the doorstep.
A young woman of twenty, perhaps, with a pale oval face and dark hair,
and serene dark gray eyes, was on the rickety porch, leaning upon a
rude shelf that served also as a balustrade; she had a cedar piggin in
her hand, and the cow was lowing at the bars. On the doorstep there sat
a rotund and stalwart, but preternaturally solemn young person, who now
and again, with a corrugated countenance, gnashed his gums. His time
and energies were expended in that trying occupation known as "cuttin'
yer teeth," an acquisition which he would some day value more highly
than now. He sought, as far as an abnormally developed craft might
compass, to force, by many an infant wile, his elders to share his
woes, and it was with a distinctly fallen countenance that his father
hearkened to his mother's parenthetical request to "'bide hyar an'
company leetle Moses whilst I be a-milkin' the cow."
[Illustration: "LEETLE MOSE."]
Yates did not refuse, although a braver man might have quailed. It was
his hard fate to regard "leetle Moses" as a supreme fetich, and to
worship him with as unrequited an idolatry as ever was lavished on the
great god Dagon. He only sought to gain time, and continued his account
of the conversation:
"He 'lowed ef he hed knowed afore ez they war buried hyar, he'd hev
kem a hunderd mile jes' ter view the spot," he said, his eye kindling
with a recollection of the "valley man's" enthusiasm.
His wife hardly entered into it at second-hand. She regarded him with a
slow wonderment stealing over her face.
"War--war he 'quainted with enny of 'em in thar lifetime?" she
demanded, hesitating, but seeking to solve the valley man's
reason--"them Leetle Stranger People?"
[Illustration: "'WAR--WAR HE 'QUAINTED WITH ENNY OF 'EM?'"]
"Great Gosh! Adelaide!" Yates exclaimed, irritably, contemptuous all
at once of the limitations of her standpoint. "Ye stay cooped up hyar
sociatin' with nobody but leetle Mose till ye hev furgot every durned
thing ye ever knowed. The Leetle People hev been dead so long ago
nobody 'members 'em--not even old man Peake, an' he air a hunderd an'
ten year old--ef he ain't lyin'," he added, cautiously.
Her face flushed. There was fire in her serene eyes, like a flare of
sunset in the placid depths of a lake. "I'm willin' ter 'bide along o'
leetle Mose," she retorted. "I never expect ter see no better company
'n leetle Mose ter the las' day I live, an' I never _did_ see none!"
Yates shifted his weight uncertainly upon his other foot, and surveyed
with a casual glance the wide landscape. The sense of supersedure
was sharp at the moment. He had been in his day a great man in her
estimation, and now "leetle Mose," with his surly dejection, with only
a tooth or two--and with these he would have gladly dispensed--with
his uncertain gait and his pigeon-toes and his nearly bald head, was a
greater man still. He and his mother were a close corporation, but,
for the sake of his own fealty to the domestic Dagon, Steve Yates
forgave them both. He went on presently:
"The valley man hed jes' hearn tell ez them Leetle People war buried
hyarabout. I never seen a man so streck of a heap ez he war, an' he
axed me fool questions till I felt plumb cur'ous a-talkin' 'bout them
Leetle Stranger People buried thar on the rise." Once more he turned
toward the slope that embarrassed, half-laughing glance--in which,
however, there was no mirth--betokening a spirit ill at ease, and
secretly shrinking from some uncanny, irksome fear.
Her eyes mechanically followed his to the purple slope so still under
the crimson sky. Higher up, the mountain, shielded by the shadow of
its own crags from this reflection of the west, showed a dark-green
shade of an indescribable depth and richness of tone, never merging
into dusky indefiniteness. Through a gap in the range to the east were
visible the infinite blue distances of the Great Smoky peaks, their
color here and there idealized by the far-away glamours of sunset to an
exquisite roseate hue, or a crystalline and perfect amethyst against
the amber horizon. Down the clifty gorge--its walls of solid sandstone,
cloven to the bare heart of the range by the fierce momentum of the
waters--the bounding river came. One mad leap presented the glittering
splendors of a glassy-green cataract, and in its elastic spray an
elusive rainbow lurked. Its voice was like that of one crying in the
wilderness, so far might its eloquent iteration be heard. The Little
People, in their day, might have given ear to its message and pondered
on the untranslated tidings, but now they did not heed.
Only the dwellers in the mountaineer's cabin hard by listened at
times to the pulsing rhythm, as alive as the metre of a great poem;
and, again, in duller mood, its sound was but as silence to those who
cared not to hear. The dark little house seemed small and solitary
and transitory here among the massive, enduring mountains, beside the
majestic flow of the waters, and the rail-fence enclosed the minimum of
space from the great unpeopled wilds.
"I 'lowed ter him they never walked," Yates said, presently. "Ez fur ez
I know, they hain't been seen, nor none o' 'em set out ter walk, sence
they war put thar fust. Nobody ez I know purfesses ter hev seen enny o'
the Stranger People's harnts."
He repeated this with simplicity, evidently desirous of giving the
pygmy dwellers their bounden due.
"I 'lowed ter him," he continued, "ez folks hed let them be, an' they
hed let the mounting folks be. Nobody wanted sech cur'ous harnts ez
folks o' thar size ter git ter walkin' at this late day."
There was a vague chill in the air--or was it in the moral atmosphere?
"What be _he_ a-vagrantin' round fur, inquirin' 'bout them as be dead
an' done with the livin' long ago?" she demanded, a touch of acerbity
in her tone and a restless look in her eyes.
"He 'lows ez he's jes' kem hyar along o' Leonard Rhodes ez be
a-'lectioneerin' fur floater fur the Legislatur'. An' him an' Rhodes
air frien's, an' Rhodes hev got some lan' in this county ez hev got one
o' them Injun mounds on it, an' he hev let this frien' o' his hev
men ter dig an' open it ter see what they could find. I seen 'em arter
it ter-day; this hyar man 'peared mighty nigh ez excited ez a Juny-bug;
I noticed he never dug none, though, hisse'f."
He paused for a moment, chewing hard on his quid of tobacco; then he
slowly laughed. "The folks he hed hired ter dig 'lowed he war teched in
the head, but he 'peared sorter sensible ter me--never teched a spade,
an' 'twar a hot day."
"What did they find?" asked his wife, breathlessly.
"Dirt," Yates said, with an iconoclastic laugh, "a plenty of it.
He 'peared toler'ble disapp'inted till he hearn 'bout the Stranger
People's buryin'-groun'. Adelaide"--he raised his voice suddenly--"that
thar idjit o' a man, he 'lows ez them Leetle People warn't grown folks
at all--jes' chil'n; I tried ter tell the fool better--jes' leetle
chil'n!"
He glanced quickly at her, as if prepared for the shock of surprise
which must be elicited by this onslaught upon the faith of a whole
community. Somehow, as she again fastened her eyes on the sombre
declivity, her face wore the look of one whose secret thought is
revealed in words. In the few years that she had lived here, a
stranger herself, in some sort--not accustomed, as was her husband,
to a lifelong vicinage to the pygmy burial-ground--she had developed
no receptivity to that uncanny idea of a race of dwarfs. Always
as children she had thought of the Little People; she had made no
effort to reconcile this theory with the strange fact that no similar
sarcophagi, enclosing larger frames, were known of far or near;
she found no incongruity in the idea that infants should have been
thus segregated in death from all their kindred; it seemed a meet
resting-place for youth and innocence, thus apart from all others. They
were children--only children; all asleep; asleep and resting! With the
strange fascination that the spot and its unique tradition exerted upon
her, she would glance thither from time to time throughout the day,
pausing at her task to follow the shadow of the clouds sweeping over
the purple slope, and to listen to the whir of bees in the still noon
amongst the sweet fern and to the call of the glad birds. When she sang
in fitful fragments a crooning lullaby to her own child, who had made
all childhood doubly dear and doubly sacred to her heart, she was wont
to watch pensively the tender glow of evening reddening there, so soft,
so brilliant, so promissory of the splendid days to come that it needs
must suggest that supernal dawn when the Little People should all rise
to greet the rising sun that they had seen set for the last time so
long ago. In bright, slanting rows, as swift, as ethereal, as dazzling
as the morning mist transfigured by the sun's rays--with her prophetic
eyes she could behold them, rank after rank, coming down the slope in
this radiant guise; meanwhile they slept as securely as her child slept
in her arms, their waking as certain.
The picture recurred to her thoughts at the moment. "They will all rise
before we-uns at the jedgmint-day," she said, her far-seeing gray eyes
clear and crystalline upon the unmarked place.
"Laws-a-massy, Adelaide!" cried her husband, in a tone of expostulation
and alarm, with a quick glance over his shoulder, "what ails ye ter
say sech ez that--ez ef it war gospel sure?"
Her eyes came back reluctantly to him; the question had jarred upon
her reverie. "Ye air 'bleeged ter know that," she retorted, with a
slighting manner. "The sun strikes through the gap an' teches the
Leetle People's buryin'-groun' a full haffen hour an' better afore it
reaches the graveyard o' the mounting folks down thar in the shadder o'
the range."
He listened ponderingly to this logic, his chin resting upon the muzzle
of his rifle; then, with a noiseless shifting of his posture, he
looked again with a cautious gesture over his shoulder. He was a hardy
hunter, of a vigorous physique and but scantily acquainted with fear,
but this eerie idea of a thousand or so adult pygmy Tennesseeans astir
on the last day, forestalling the familiar mountain neighbors, robbed
immortality for the moment of its wonted prestige.
The oppressive influence even laid hold on his strong frame, and he
extended one powerful arm at full length, with a futile effort to yawn.
"G'long, Adelaide! G'long an' milk the cow!" he exclaimed, with the
irritation that was always apparent in his manner when perplexity
seized upon his brain--a good organ of its kind, but working best in
the clear air of out-of-door contemplation. He was a man of sound
common-sense, but with no endowment for furtive speculation, and
purblind gropings, and tenuous deductions from flimsy premises. He
heaved a great sigh of relief to remember the cow--the good, homely
cow--at the bars.
Adelaide had slowly taken up the piggin. "Ye hain't told me why that
thar valley man sets so much store by the Leetle People. I'll go arter
I hear that word."
"Waal, I ain't a-goin' ter speak it," retorted her husband, with a
threatening conjugal frown. "I ain't a-goin' ter let leetle Mose be
kep' up hyar till midnight a-waitin' for you-uns ter milk the cow. It's
cleverly dark now."
"Leetle Mose" was a name to conjure with; even the wife denied herself
the luxury of the last word, so lost was she in the mother. She put
the piggin hastily upon her head, and went, with the erect, graceful
pose that the prosaic weight fosters, down the winding path beyond the
spring to the bars where the red cow stood lowing.
The household idol, sitting upon the step with a grave, inscrutable
countenance, silently watched her departure, then suddenly set up a
loud and bitter wail of desertion. It was in vain that she paused and
called back promises of return, albeit he understood well the language
which so far he refused to speak; in vain that his father came and
sat beside him on the step, and patted him with a large hand upon his
limited back. It was a good opportunity for the lamentation in which
"leetle Mose" was prone to indulge. He had a reputation that extended
far beyond his ken--for the fence bounded his world--not, however, that
he would have cared. He was known throughout many a cove, and even
in the settlement, as the "wust chile ever seen, an' a jedgmint, ef
the truth war known, on Stephen an' Adelaide Yates fur hevin' been so
fly-away an' headstrong in thar single days--both of 'em wild ez deer,
an' gin over ter dancin' an' foolishness." It was with a certain grim
satisfaction that the settlement hearkened to the fact that they were
"mighty tame now." Thus Dagon's filial exploits lacked no plaudits.
His mental capacities, too, received due recognition. "He be powerful
smart, though; he won't let 'em hev no mo' comp'ny 'n he can help. I
reckon he knows they wouldn't 'tend ter him ef they hed ennything else
they _could_ 'tend ter. Sometimes that chile be a-settin' on the front
porch sorter peaceable, restin' hisse'f from hollerin'," his maternal
great-aunt Jerushy chronicled to a coterie of pleased gossips, "an' ef
he see a wagon a-stoppin' at the gate, or a visitor a-walkin' up the
path, he'll mos' lif' the roof off with his screeches. An' screech he
will till they leaves; he hev mos' made _me_ deef fur life. I useter
spend consider'ble o' my time with that young couple"--and there was an
ousted suggestion in Aunt Jerushy's manner. "It makes his dad an' mam
'shamed fur true, his kerryin's on; they air bowed down ter the yearth!"
The widespread strictures on their idol were very bitter to the
parental worshippers. Often, with a troubled aspect, they took counsel
together, and repeated in helpless dudgeon the criticism of his
kindred and neighbors. It was powerless to shake their loyalty. Even
his father, whom he chose to regard with a lowering and suspicious
mien, unless it were in the dead hours of the night, when he developed
a morbid craving to be trotted back and forth and up and down the
puncheon floor, was flattered with the smallest tokens of his
confidence.
He had an admirable perseverance. He sat still weeping in the midst
of his pink fat with so much distortion of countenance and display of
gums, and such loud vocal exercises, when Adelaide returned, that she
cast upon her husband a look of deep reproach, and he divined that she
suspected him of having gone to the extreme length of smiting Dagon in
her absence, and despite his clear conscience he could but look guilty.
"Oh, Mose!" he said, outdone, as he rose, "ye air so mean--ye air so
durned mean!"
But the callow wrath of the "leetle Mose" was more formidable than the
displeasure of the big man, and his heart burned at the short reply
of his wife, a sarcastic "I reckon so!" when he protested that he had
done nothing to Mose to which any fair-minded infant could have taken
exceptions. The vocalizations of Dagon were of such unusual power this
evening that his strength failed shortly after supper, and he was
asleep earlier than his ordinary hour, for he was something of a late
bird. Belying all his traits, he looked angelic as he lay in his little
rude box cradle. When the moonlight came creeping through the door it
found him there, with a smile on his rose-leaf lips, and both his pink
hands unclasped on the coverlet. Adelaide, despite the silence and
studious air of preoccupation she had maintained toward her husband,
could but beg Yates to observe the child's beauty as she sank down,
dead beat, on the doorstep to rest, but still keeping one hand on the
rocker of the cradle, for motion was pleasing to "leetle Mose," and
by this requisition he doubtless understood that he could absorb and
occupy his elders, even when he was unconscious.
"He's purty enough, the Lord knows," the dejected father assented, as
he sat smoking his pipe at a little distance on the step of the porch.
"I dun' no', though, what ails him ter take sech a spite at me. I do
all I kin ter pleasure him."
Adelaide experienced a vicarious qualm of conscience. "He ain't got no
spite at you-uns," she said, reassuringly, in the hope that her words
could speak louder than Dagon's actions. "It's jes' his teeth harry him
so."
"An' ye didn't useter be so easy sot agin me." Yates preferred this
complaint after a meditative puff of the pipe. There is a melancholy
pleasure in the role of domestic martyr. He was beginning to enjoy
himself.
"I ain't sot agin ye, but _somebody_ hev got ter take up an' gin up fur
leetle Mose. Men folks hain't got no patience with leetle chil'n."
"I never knowed what 'twar ter gin up afore," he protested. "I ain't
done nuthin' else sence Mose war born. Don't go nowhar, don't see
nuthin' nor nobody."
He smoked languidly for a few moments, then, with decision: "Thar
ain't no use in it; we-uns mought jes' ez well hev gone ter the infair
over yander in the cove at Pettingill's ez not ter-night, an' got Aunt
Jerushy ter bide with Moses till we kem back."
"Moses would hev hollered hisself inter a fit; he jes' stiffens at the
sight o' Aunt Jerushy."
"Waal, then, we-uns mought hev tuk Moses along; I hev seen plenty o'
babies sleepin' at a dance an' camp-meetin's, an' even fune'ls. I'll
bet thar's a right smart chance of 'em over at Pettingill's now."
"Mought cotch measles from some of 'em, too, or whoopin'-cough," said
his wife, conclusively.
There was no help for it. Seclusion with their Dagon was evidently
their fate until "leetle Mose" should be grown to man's estate.
There was a long pause, in which the mercurial and socially disposed
Yates dimly beheld the lengthening perspective of this prospect. He
had been a dancer of famous activities and a joyous blade at all the
mountain merry-makings, and he had married the liveliest girl of his
acquaintance--with no little trouble, too, for she had been a mountain
belle and something of a coquette. He sometimes could hardly identify
with these recollections the watchful-eyed and pensive little mother
and the home-staying wife.
"I wouldn't mind it ef Moses didn't treat me so mean," he resumed, all
his sensibilities sorely wounded. "I do declar' I be kep' hid out so in
the woods that I war plumb flustered when I seen them valley men this
evenin' down thar at the mound. I wouldn't hev been s'prised none ef I
hed jes' sot out an' run from 'em an' hid ahint a tree like old folks
'low the Injuns useter do whenst they seen a white man."
"Ye never 'lowed ez what set that valley man ter talkin' 'bout
the Leetle People," she said, seeking to divert his mind from his
unfilial son, and to open a more congenial topic. Her eyes, full
of the moonlight, turned toward the slope where the sheen, richly
metallic and deeply yellow, rested; the rising disk itself was visible
through the gap in the mountains; much of the world seemed in some
sort unaware of its advent, and lay in the shadow, dark and stolid,
in a dull invisibility, as though without form and void. The moon
had not yet scaled the heights of the great range; only that long
clifty gorge cleaving its mighty heart was radiant with the forecast
of the splendors of the night, and through this vista, upon the mystic
burial-ground, fell the pensive light like a benison.
Yates, too, glanced toward it with a kindling eye and an alert interest.
"He 'pears ter be a powerful cur'us man. Somebody 'lowed he war
a-diggin' fur jugs an' sech ez the Injuns hed--leastwise them ez built
the mounds; he 'lows 'twarn't no Injuns; and Pete Dinks tole it ez how
the jugs mus' be like that'n ez Felix Guthrie 'lowed war in the grave
o' one o' the Leetle People."
He paused. She turned her white, startled face toward him, her eyes
distended. Her voice was bated with horror--a mere whisper.
"What grave? How do Fee ondertake ter know sech ez air in the Stranger
People's graves?"
In his instant irritation because of the problem of her mental attitude
he lifted his voice, and it sounded strident above the droning
_susurrus_ of the cicada, which filled the summer night with a drowsy
monotone, and the insistent iteration of the falls.
"Gloryful gracious, Adelaide, surely ye mus' hev hearm ez how one o'
them big rocks in the water-fall thar fell from the top wunst, an'
crashed down inter the ruver. An' it kerried cornsider'ble o' the
yearth along the ruver-bank with it, an' tuk off the top slab o' the
stone coffin o' one o' these hyar Leetle People. They hain't buried
more'n two feet deep. An' Fee--'twar on his lan'--he had ter move his
fence back-'ards, an' whilst he war about it he got that slab an' put
it whar it b'longed, an' kivered the grave agin. An' so he seen the
jug in thar with the bones. The jug hed shells in it, Fee say, an' the
skeleton hed beads round its neck. That all happened, now ez I kem ter
study on it, afore ye an' me war married."
His acerbity had evaporated in the interest of the narration, and in
the evolution of an excellent reason for her ignorance of these things
that had happened previous to her advent into the neighborhood. He did
not notice that she took no advantage of the excuse to upbraid him with
his readiness to find fault, and that she made no rejoinder as she sat,
her head depressed, her whole attitude crouching, her dilated eyes
fixed with a horror-stricken fascination upon the pygmy burial-ground,
in that broad, lucent expanse of the yellow moonlight which was still
streaming through the illuminated gorge of the mountains into an
otherwise dusky world. The events of the afternoon were reasserting
themselves in his mind. He laughed a little as he reviewed them.
"Fee hed been huntin' with me ter-day, an' this valley man--I b'lieve
they 'lowed his name war Shattuck, an' he air a lawyer whar he kem
from; he don't dig fur a living--whenst he hearn 'bout that, he say,
quick ez lightning: 'Would ye know the spot agin? What made ye leave
the jar thar? What made ye put the slab back?' An' Fee--ye know how
crusty an' sour an' cantankerous he be--he say, 'Them Leetle People
air _folks_, an' I hev no call ter go grave-robbin' ez I knows on!'
That thar Shattuck turned fire-red in a minit. He air a mighty nice,
sa-aft-spoken, perlite man, though spindlin'. An' he talked mos'ly ter
me arter that--Fee stood by an' listened--an' I liked Shattuck middlin'
well. He 'lowed ez 'twar important ter know fur the history of the
kentry--an' he did sound sorter like he war vagrantin' in his mind--ter
know ef them Leetle People war grown folks or jes' chil'n. He b'lieves
they war jes' chil'n, but ef he could see jes' one skull he could tell."
Adelaide gasped; she reached out her hand mechanically and laid it upon
the feet of the baby curled up in his soft, warm nest. Her husband's
glance absently followed her movement, but he went on unheeding:
"An' Fee, standin' stare-gazin' him, ez sullen ez a bar with a
sore head, axed, 'How kin ye tell?' ez much ez ter say, 'Ye lie!'
But Shattuck war perlite ez ever. 'Many ways; by their teeth, for
instance--their wisdom teeth.' Then he went a-maunderin' on 'bout a
man he knowed ez could jes' take a bone o' a animal ez he never seen,
ez lived hyar afore the flood, an' tell how tall 'twar an' what it
eat--I do declar' he did sound like he war crazy, though he _looked_
sensible ter the las'--an' this l'arned man could actially medjure an'
make a pictur' of sech a animal out'n a few bones. An' Fee, he jes'
stood listenin' long enough ter say, 'Them Leetle People never done
me no harm, an' I ain't goin' ter do them none jes' 'kase they air
leetle an' dead, an' can't holp tharse'fs. They may hev hed a use fur
thar teeth in thar lifetime; I hain't got no use fur 'em now.' An' he
whurled around an' put his foot inter his stirrup an' war a-goin' ter
ride off, whenst the valley man cotch his bridle an' say, 'Ye hev got
no objections ter my excavatin' on yer land, though?'"
Yates laughed lazily. "I do declar' 'twar too durned funny. Fee didn't
know what the long-tongued sinner meant by 'excavatin',' an' I didn't
nuther till arterward. But Fee, he jes' wanted ter be contrairy, no
matter what, so he jes' say, powerful glum, 'I dun' no' 'bout that,'
and rid off down the road. An' this Shattuck, he jes' stood lookin'
after Fee with his chin cocked up in the air, an' he say, 'That's a
sweet youth!' He speaks out right plain an' spunky fur sech a spindlin'
man. Everybody laughed but Rhodes; _he_ looked mightily tuck back ter
hev his friend making game o' the mounting folks. Fee's vote counts
jes' the same ez ef he war ez pleasant ez a basket o' chips. So Rhodes,
he sorter frowned up an' say, 'Ye don't onderstan' Felix Guthrie. He
air a good-hearted man, but he ain't been treated right, an' it's
sorter soured him. He's good at heart, though.' An' this Shattuck
'peared ter take the hint; he say sorter stridin' about, off-hand, an'
that leetle soft hat o' his'n on the side o' his head, 'I mus' make
frien's with him, then; I mus' git on the right side o' him.' An' up
spoke one o' them Peakes--they war holpin' ter look on at the few ez
war willin' ter dig--'The only way,' he say, 'ter make frien's with Fee
Guthrie air ter fondle him with a six-shooter.' Shattuck laffed. But
Rhodes, he be a-shettin' him up all the time, an' a-hintin' at him, an'
a-lookin' oneasy. Rhodes air skeered 'bout his 'lection, ef the truth
war knowed."
He stretched his arms above his head and drew a long sigh of
pleasurable reminiscence. "We hed a right sorter sociable evenin'. I'll
be bound they air all over yander at the infair now. I know Rhodes
danced at the weddin' the t'other night at Gossam's, an' they do say he
kissed the bride, though they mought hev been funnin' 'bout'n that."
He looked at her once more, noticing at last the absorbed, intent
expression of her lustrous, thoughtful eyes; the thrill of some feeling
unknown to him was in her hand as she laid it upon his, and asked in an
irrelevant, mysterious, apprehensive tone, "What do 'excavate' mean?"
"Hey?" he exclaimed. He had already forgotten what he had said, in the
flexibility of his shallow mental processes, and recalled it by an
effort. "Shucks! Jes' dig--that's all. Folks hev got a heap o' cur'ous
words o' late years."
Her grasp tightened convulsively on his arm, "'Mongst the graves o' the
Leetle People?"
He nodded, looking at her with vague surprise and gathering anger.
"He sha'n't!" she cried, finding her voice suddenly, and it rang out
shrilly into the soft, perfumed night air. "It's in rifle range--the
Leetle People's buryin'-groun'. I hev got aim enough ter stop his
meddlin', pryin' han's 'mongst them pore Leetle People's bones. An'
I'll do it, too," she added, in a lower tone.
Her grasp had relaxed, for he had sprung to his feet and stood looking
at her, infinitely shocked, the image of the unoffending gentleman and
scholar, whom she threatened, in his mind, all unaware how it differed
from the ghoul of her ignorant fancy.
"Adelaide!" he exclaimed, with that accent of authority which he seldom
assumed, "hesh up! Tech that rifle, an' I'll turn ye out'n my door!"
She, too, was standing; she turned a stony face, white in the
moonlight, upon him as if she could not realize his words, but her eyes
were slowly kindling with a fury before which he quailed.
He was, however, in every way the stronger, and the gravity of the
crisis taught him how to use his strength.
"Take them words back," he reiterated, as if all unaffrighted, "or I'll
turn ye out'n my house forever, an' ye'll leave leetle Mose hyar, for
_he_ b'longs ter me!"
The fear that had quivered in his heart seemed suddenly translated
into her eyes; they looked an eloquent reproach, then, suddenly, all
the fire was quenched in tears, and she sank down sobbing by the side
of the cradle, leaving him standing there triumphant, it is true,
but finding bitterness in his victory. He sat down, presently, in
his former posture, feeling ill-used and reproachful and indignant.
It was difficult to resume the conversation in the tone which he had
maintained, and as she persistently wept, he resorted to reproaches.
"I dun' no' what in Canaan is the reason ye an' me can't git along
'thout quar'lin'. We never used ter quar'l none in our courtin' days,
an'"--as a fresh burst of sobs acquiesced in this statement, he
hastened to put the blame upon her--"ye never used ter talk so like a
durned fool." The chilly sensation which her threat, so full of horror,
had caused him, renewed for the moment its thrill.
"'Tain't like a fool," she declared, lifting her tearful face. "Ef
'tis, then the law's a fool--the law, ez ye set sech store on.
Ain't the law agin diggin' up folks's bones? I ain't a-goin' ter
do nothin' 'bout'n it, but ef ennybody war cotched at sech in the
_mounting_-folks's buryin'-groun' they'd hev a few ounces o' lead ter
tote off inside of 'em ef they could git away at all, an' ye know they
would."
The difference of their standpoint--his normal views unconsciously
modified by the talk of the scientific theorist, in which sentiment
was easily subordinated to the acquisition of valuable knowledge,
none of which could he adequately impart at second hand to her,
quivering as she was with the idea of sacrilege and the sanctity of the
tomb--baffled him for the moment; he hesitated; he found no words to
convey the impressions he had received; then he gave way to the anger
always the sequence of the antagonism of opinion between them.
"Ye don't sense nuthin', an' ye dun' no' nuthin', an' ye can't l'arn
nuthin'."
"I don't want ter l'arn sech ez ye 'pear ter pick up in the
settlemints," she retorted, with spirit. "Robbin' the dead an' sech!
I'd ruther stay at home an' jes' 'sociate with leetle Moses--a sight
ruther."
"I hedn't!" he declared, roughly. He rose to his feet. "I don't hev no
peace at home. I reckon I mought ez well go whar I don't get quar'led
with ez much. I mought jes' ez well be at the infair ez hyar."
"Jes' ez well," she sarcastically assented.
He stepped past her into the room to lay aside his shot-pouch and
powder-horn, as not meet accoutrement for a festive gathering.
"Ye hed better kerry yer rifle. Ain't ye 'feared ef ye leave it hyar I
mought take aim at suthin' in the Leetle People's buryin'-ground?" she
said, looking up at him from her lowly seat on the floor, her eyes hard
and dry and bright.
"Edzac'ly--fool enough fur ennything," he declared; but it was
empty-handed that he stepped out into the moonlight.
She made no effort to detain him; she did not call him back. He paused
when in the shadow of the great hickory-trees about the spring, and
looked up at the little house. The moon was above the mountains, nearly
full and radiant. Trailing luminous mists crept over the summits
after it, and caught the light. All the world shared in its gracious
splendors now, and the great gap, the gorge of the river, bereft of the
unique illumination its rugged vistas had monopolized while all was
dark about it, seemed melancholy and pensive, of reduced prominence and
blurred effect.
The dew glistened on the slanting roof of the little log-cabin;
the vines swayed duplicated by their moving shadows, and where the
moonlight fell unbroken through the doorway he saw, against the dark
background of the interior, Adelaide, still sitting on the floor beside
the cradle, and he heard the monotone of the rockers as they thumped to
and fro.
He heard it long after distance had nullified the sound. The wayside
katydids sang their song in chorus with it; the tree-toad shrilling
stridulously but bore it a burden. Even the roar of the water-fall
was secondary, however it might pervade and thrill the wilderness.
More than once, as he went along the dark and dewy road, he paused
doubtfully, half minded to retrace his way. "I oughtn't ter hev tuck
Adelaide up so sharp. Sence she hev hearn the notion ez them Leetle
People war jes' leetle chil'n, like Mose, she'll set mo' store by 'em,
jes' ter compli_mint_ him, ter the las' day she live. I'd hate ter be
sech a fool 'bout leetle Mose ez she be." He shook his head solemnly
as he stood in the road, fragrant with the odor of the azaleas in the
undergrowth and the balsamic breath of the low-hanging firs, which
were all fibrously a-glitter wherever the moon touched the dew in the
dense midst of their shadows. "An' she 'pears to think herse'f gifted
with wisdom now'days, an' sets up ter make remarks ez sobersided ez ef
she war risin' fifty year old. 'Fore she war married she never hed no
'pinions on nuthin'--ez frisky as a squir'l an' ez nimble. An' now'days
she ain't got nuthin' but 'pinions, an' air ez sot in her doctrines an'
ez solemn ez the rider, an' ez slow-spoken."
While he still hesitated, there came into his mind a foretaste of this
slow diction, fashioned to reproach or to ill-disguised triumph in
sedulously casual phrase, that would greet him should he return home,
his threat of attending the infair all unaccomplished. He would have
been glad enough to be sitting once more upon the low step of the
little porch, with Adelaide and the cradle of the slumbering Dagon
close by; but the pleasures of the festive gathering, grown all at once
strangely vapid and sterile to his imagination, lay between him and
the return to this calm domestic sphere; otherwise he would relinquish
all pretence of conserving those elements of primacy which he should
arrogate and maintain.
"It's time Adelaide hed fund out who's the head o' this hyar fambly.
'Tain't her, an' 'tain't leetle Mose, an' she ain't a-goin' to l'arn no
younger."