In those open fields near the Pettingill cabin where the infair was in
progress, the moonlight seemed to reach its richest effulgence. There
was something in the delicate blue-green tint of the broad blades of
the waving Indian corn, where the dew lay with a glitter like that of
the whetted edge of a keen weapon, which was not revoked by the night,
being of so chaste and fine a tone that it comported with that limited
scale of color which the moon countenances. With the unbroken splendor
upon this expanse, all the brighter because of the deep sombre forests
above and the dense dark jungle of the laurel below--for the corn
stood upon so steep a slope that how the crop was cultivated seemed a
marvel to the unaccustomed eye--it was visible a long way to Stephen
Yates as he approached on the country road; even after he had crossed
the little log foot-bridge over the river, and commenced the steep
ascent of a wooded hill, he could still catch glimpses now and then
of this dazzling green through the heavy black shadows of the great
trees, from the foliage of which every suggestion of color had been
expunged. Another light presently came from a different direction,
goading the dulled and preoccupied mind of the young man into fresh
receptivities. A sound arose other than the tinkling metallic tremors
and gurglings of the mountain stream--the sound of a fiddle; a poor
thing enough, doubtless, but voicing a wild, plaintive melody, which
pervaded the woods with vibrant rhythmic tones, even in the distances,
where it wandered fitfully and faint, and now and again was lost. It
issued from out a great tawny flare, under the dense boughs of the
trees, that grew a brighter yellow as Yates drew nearer, soon resolving
itself into the illuminated squares of the doors and windows of the
Pettingill cabin. More than once figures, with gigantic shadows that
reached high up among the trees, eclipsed these lights, and suggested
to him the superannuated spectators of the festivity, looking in
upon it from porch and window. Certain masses of shadow began to
be differentiated amidst the dusky, tawny vistas in the darkness,
now only vaguely asserting an alien texture from the heavy shade of
the foliage, and now becoming definite and recognizable as sundry
household furnishings, evicted and thrust upon the bare ground to make
room for the dancing. The loom cut a sorry figure standing out under
the trees. Dimly discerned, it seemed to wear an aspect of forlorn
astonishment, consciously grotesque and discouraged. And then, as the
path wound, it receded to obscurity, and his attention was bespoken by
the spinning-wheels close by the wood-pile, all a-teeter on the uneven
flooring of the chips, and now and again, as if by a common impulse,
awhirl in a solemn, hesitant revolution, as some tricksy wind came out
of the woods and went its way.
A sinuous turn of the river brought it close to the Pettingill cabin,
and in the darkness he could see the stars, all come down to the earth,
the splendid Lyra playing in the ripples. A flare, too, from the
festive halls glassed itself in certain shallows; the rainbow hues of
the warping bars hard by were reflected on this placid surface, and the
great gaunt frame for the first time beheld its skeleton proportions.
The rhythmic beat of the untiring feet on the puncheon floor of the
cabin pulsed with the palpitations of the stars; the fiddle sang and
sang as ceaselessly as the chanting cicada without, and the frogs
intoning their sylvan runes by the water-side. All the night seemed
given over, in a certain languorous, subtly pensive way, to the rustic
merry-making of the infair, and only Stephen Yates felt himself an
intruder and out of place. As his step fell upon the porch, in its most
secluded and shadowy corner, he winced to note the quick, alert turning
from the window of a shaggy gray head, and the keen, peering eyes of
the hospitably intent father of the bridegroom who made the feast.
"Ye, Steve!" he cried out, "what ye kem a-sneak-in' up ter the house
that-a-way fur? Howdy! howdy!"
This stentorian welcome, pitched high to drown the sound of the dancing
and the long-drawn cadence of the violin, diverted the attention of the
by-standers, who, their faces unfamiliar in the combined effects of
the high lights from the windows and the deep shadows of the darkness
without, all turned to gaze at the new-comer and to assist at the
colloquy.
"We-uns hev all been a-gittin' married round hyar lately. Whar's that
purty wife o' yourn? Lef' her at home?" Genuine dismay and covert
rebuke were in the very inflections of the host's voice, although he
sought to make it as hearty and effervescent as before. "Lef' her at
home? Ter mind the baby? Waal, we air a-goin' ter miss her, but mebbe
the baby would hev missed her mo'. Waal, _ye_ air welcome, ennyhow."
"They tell me, Yates," remarked one of the by-standers, with the pious
intention of making himself disagreeable, "ez you-uns hev got the
meanes' baby in the kentry. Plumb harries ye out'n house an' home with
the temper of him."
"I have hearn that, too," affirmed another, the gleaming teeth of his
half-illumined face attesting his relish of the abashed attitude of the
forlorn Benedict. "I hev hearn 'way down ter Hang-Over Mountain big
tales 'bout'n the survigrous temper o' that thar brat o' yourn. They
'low they kin hear him holler plumb ter the Leetle Tennessee."
The others exchanged glances of derision. The goaded father plucked up
a trifle of spirit.
"He _may_ have a survigrous temper, an' he _do_ holler; he hev got the
lungs ter do it; fur I tell ye now he's a _whale_! He air goin' ter be
the Big Man o' these mountings--a reg'lar Samson!"
"Sure enough?" demanded the host, who, in his double character of
entertainer and father, showed more interest in "leetle Mose" than the
bachelors felt, except as he subdued his paternal relative and rendered
him ridiculous.
"Yes, sir! Git him to stand on his feet, sir, an' I tell ye his
head will reach that high." Yates measured off a length of the post
at least twice the height of Moses. "_He's a whale!_" And, with a
gravely triumphant nod, he pushed boldly into the room, although he
knew that the rows of elderly women against the wall were commenting
upon his "insurance" in appearing without his wife, thence proceeding,
doubtless, to tear the character of the "leetle Moses" in such manner
as that flimsy and much rent and riddled fabric was capable of being
further shred.
The floor trembled and elastically vibrated to the tread of the
dancers. The fiddler was seated in a rickety chair, precariously
perched upon a table that evidently felt also the recurrent thrills of
the measured pace. An intimation of the reverence in which his genius
was held was given in the generous glass at the feet of the musician,
never allowed to grow empty, however often, with a dexterous downward
lurch, he caught it up and applied it to his lips in the intervals of
the "figures," which he cried aloud in a stentorian voice. The big
boots on his long crossed legs swayed above the heads of the company;
his own head was not far from the festoons of red peppers swinging from
the brown beams, his face was rapt, his cheek rested on the violin; his
eyes were half-closed, and yet his vision was clear enough to detect
any effort on the part of a passer-by to perpetrate the threadbare joke
of appropriating the glass at his feet devoted to his refreshment.
Then the fiddle-bow demonstrated a versatile utility in the sharp rap
which it could deal, and its swiftness in resuming its more ostensible
uses. There was little laughter amongst the young hunters and their
partners. They danced with glistening eyes and flushed cheeks and a
solemn agility, each mandate of the fiddler watched for with expectant
interest, and obeyed with silent alacrity. They were all familiar to
Steve Yates, looking on from the vantage-ground of his twenty-two years
at the scenes of his youth, as it were; for in this primitive society
the fact that he was a married man rendered him as ineligible for a
dancing partner as the palsy could have done. Only Leonard Rhodes
seemed something of a novelty. He hailed from the county town, and
was a candidate for the Legislature. In the nimble pursuance of the
road to success and fame he mingled in the dance, and he would have
esteemed it fortunate could his devoirs have always been as congenial.
He affected a pronounced rural air, although even his best manners
were further from the cosmopolitan standard at which he habitually
aimed than he himself realized. He was a tall, well-built, brown-haired
young man, with a deeply sunburned face, a small, laughing brown eye,
a reddish-brown, waving beard of a fine tint and lustre, which he
usually had dyed a darker tone to evade the red shade considered so
great a defect in that region. Owing to the length of his absence from
his home in the interests of his canvass, and the lack of the village
barber and his arts, its color had quite regained its pristine value.
He wore sedulously his old clothes, which, upon his handsome figure,
hardly looked so old or so plain or so democratic as he would fain have
had his constituents see them, or, indeed, as the garments would have
seemed on another man. He danced impartially and successively with
every girl in the room; and it was well for his political prospects,
doubtless, that he had such elastic and tough resources for this
amusement at his command, since the neglect of any one of the fair
might have resulted in the loss of an indefinite number of votes among
her relatives of the sterner sex. His opponent, a family man forty-five
years of age, was in disastrous eclipse. The elder candidate could
only stand in a corner with some old codgers, who were painfully
unresponsive to his remarks and his jolly stories, and whose attention
was prone to wander from his long, cadaverous, bearded face as he
talked, and to follow the mazes of the dance.
Yates bethought himself of Rhodes's friend, the archæologist, and
catching sight of him lounging in a window opposite, his face lighted
with the first suggestion of pleasure that the evening had offered. He
made the tour of the room gradually, pausing now to keep out of the way
of the dancers; now darting mouse-like along the wall in the rear of
a couple advancing to the centre; now respectfully edging past a row
of the mountain dowagers seated in splint-bottomed chairs, and talking
with loud, shrill glee, bestowing but scant recognition on the man who
had left his wife at home. At last, after many hair-breadth escapes, he
reached Mr. Shattuck, still lolling upon the window-seat.
"How hev ye been a-comin' on?" Yates demanded, looking down at him with
a pleased smile.
For Mr. Shattuck, without the affectation of rustic proclivities, made
his way so fairly into the predilections of the mountaineers that his
friend Rhodes, who held himself a famous tactician and full of all the
finer enterprises to capture public favor, had asked more than once how
he managed it.
"I _don't manage_ it," the other had said.
He was a man of some twenty-eight or thirty years of age, of medium
height and with a slender figure, clad somewhat negligently in a dark
suit of flannel; he wore a small, soft, blue hat with an upturned brim,
which left his features unshaded. They were very keenly chiselled
features, not otherwise striking, but their clear cutting imparted
delicacy and intimations of refined force to his pale, narrow face. He
had a long, drooping brown moustache, and his hair, cut close, was of a
kindred tint, but darker. His eyes were full of light and life, darkly
gray, and with heavy lashes, and as they rested upon the scene, unique
to his experience, for he was city bred, one might never have divined
the circumstance of initiation, so ready an acceptance of it all in
its best interpretations did they convey. He made apparently no effort
to assume this air and mental attitude. As he looked up his glance was
singularly free and unaffected.
"I'm taking it all in," he said.
Yates, his fancy titillated by a fresh interest, his blood beginning to
pulse at last to the rhythm of happiness in the air, for which the old
fiddle marked the time, grudged himself so much pleasure which Adelaide
could not share. His heart was warm with the thought of her; a subtle
pain of self-reproach thrilled through his consciousness, and presently
her name was on his lips.
"My wife," he said, with unwonted communicativeness to the stranger,
"she's a great hand fur sech goin's on ez this; an' sech a dancer!
Ye mought ez well compare a herd o' cows ter a nimble young fawn ez
compare them gals ter Adelaide."
As he roared this out with all the force of his lungs above the
violin's strain and the recurrent beat of the dancing feet, his
enthusiasm re-enforcing the distinctness and volume of his speech, the
careless Mr. Shattuck became slightly embarrassed, and looked about
from one side to the other, as if fearful that the colloquy might
be overheard. But no one seemed to notice except a certain long and
lank mountaineer standing hard by, grizzled and middle-aged, who bore
earnest testimony to the same effect, leaning down toward Shattuck to
make himself heard.
"Yes, sir; a plumb beautiful dancer; light on her feet, I tell ye! The
purties' gal ennywhar round hyar. I hev knowed her sence she war no
bigger'n that thar citizen over yander."
He gave a jerk of his thumb toward a year-old child on the outskirts of
the crowd standing at the knee of his grandmother, who supported him in
an upright posture by keeping a clutch upon his petticoats, while he
bobbed up and down in time to the music, thumping first one foot and
then the other upon the floor, emulating and imitating the dancers,
participating in the occasion with the zest of a born worldling. His
grave face, his glittering eye, his scarlet plumpness of cheek, and
his evident satisfaction in his own performance combined to secure an
affectionate ridicule from the by-standers; but he, and indeed all
else, was unobserved by the dancers.
"Ef I hed thunk Adelaide would hev put up with sech ez you-uns, Steve,
I'd hev tried myself," protested the elderly bachelor, "though I ain't
much of a marryin' man in gineral."
Yates received this with less geniality. "Ye needn't hev gin yerse'f
the trouble," he retorted. "Haffen the mounting tried thar luck, an'
war sent away with thar finger in thar mouth."
"An' 'mongst 'em all she made ch'ice of a man ez goes a-pleasurin'
whilst she be lef' ter set at home like a old 'oman," and with a nod,
half reproach, half derision, he strolled away.
A mild form of pleasuring certainly, to watch the solemn capering
of the young mountaineers to and fro on the shaking puncheons, the
vibrations of which, communicated to the tallow dips sputtering upon
every shelf and table, caused the drowsy yellow light to so fluctuate
that with the confusion and the wild whirl of dancing figures the
details of the scene were like some half-discriminated furnishings of
a dream. Such as it was, Yates's conscience gave him a sharper pang,
especially when he thought of her as he had seen her last, the quiet,
pure moonlight falling fibrous and splendid through the open door upon
her grieved, upturned face as she crouched on the floor beside the
sleeping child, angelic in his smiling, pensive dreams. Yates felt that
he had been harsh; he felt this so poignantly that he gave himself no
plea of justification. All that she had said seemed now natural and
devoid of intention; only his alert censoriousness could have called it
in question--and he had been her choice of all the mountain.
"Adelaide ain't keerin' fur sech ez this," he said, loftily. "A nangel
o' light couldn't 'tice her away from leetle Mose. She fairly dotes on
all the other chil'n in the worl' jes' out'n compli_mint_ ter leetle
Mose. I hed a plumb quar'l with her this evenin'," he added, turning
to the archæologist with a smile, "arter I hed told her ez ye reckoned
them Leetle People buried thar on the rise war nuthin' but chil'n. She
jes' fired up, sir, an' 'lowed ef ye went a-foolin' round them with yer
fine book l'arnin' an' diggin' up thar bones, she'd pick ye off with a
rifle. Leetle Mose hev made her mighty tender to all the chil'n."
Shattuck glanced up with a good-natured laugh; he recognized only
fantastic hyperbole in the threat, and Yates once more experienced a
qualm of self-reproach to realize how seriously he had regarded it, how
heavily he had punished the extravagant, meaningless indignation.
"The only trouble I fear is getting the consent of the owner of the
land," Shattuck said, easily, and his eyes reverted to the object
that had before absorbed his attention. It was not the maelstrom of
"Ladies to the right." Yates, following the direction of his intent
gaze, experienced a trifle of surprise that it should be nothing more
striking than Letitia Pettingill, the daughter of the house, standing
in the doorway silently watching the dancing.
"A scrap of a gal" she was esteemed in the mountains, being a trifle
under the average height, and delicately built in proportion. The light
flickering out upon the porch barely showed the dark-green background
of hop-vines in the black darkness without. Her dull, light-blue cotton
dress, defined against this sombre hue, was swaying slightly aslant,
the wind breaking the straight folds of the skirt. Her complexion was
of a clear creamy tone; the hair, curling on her brow, and massed at
the nape of the neck and there tied closely, the thick, short, curling
ends hanging down, was a dusky brown, not black; and her eyes, well
set and with long dark lashes and distinctly arched eyebrows, were of
that definite blue which always seems doubly radiant and lucent when
illumined by an artificial light. Her small straight features had
little expression, but her lips were finely cut and delicately red. She
held up one arm against the door-frame, and bent her inscrutable eyes
on the quickening whirl.
"Waal, what Fee Guthrie kin see in her or what she kin see in Fee
Guthrie ter fall in love with one another beats my time," said Yates,
with a grin, commenting openly upon the focus of the other's attention.
Mr. Shattuck evidently perceived something of interest in her; he did
not lift his eyes, but he rejoined with freshened animation:
"Guthrie? The young 'bear with the sore head' who owns the pygmy
burying-ground?"
"That very actial bear," cried Yates, delighted with this
characterization of his friend and neighbor. "His old cabin thar's
'bout tumbled down; 'twar lef him by his gran'dad, an' he lives up on
the mounting with his step-mam; but he owns that house too; his dad's
dead. Some folks 'low," he continued, rehearsing with evident gusto the
gossip, "ez he don't keep comp'ny with Litt Pettingill. He jes' sot
by her wunst at camp-meetin', 'kase him an' her war all the sinners
present, an' that started the tale ez he war courtin' her; everybody
else war either convicted o' sin, an' at the mourner's bench, or else
shoutin' saints o' the Lord, prayin' an' goin' 'mongst the mourners. I
never hearn tell o' nobody keepin' comp'ny with Letishy Pettingill;
I'll be bound it'll take a heap better-lookin' gal 'n her ter suit Fee
Guthrie."
"I should like ter know where he'd find her," observed Shattuck.
Yates turned to bend the eye of astonished and questioning criticism
upon the unconscious object of their scrutiny.
"Ye 'low ez Litt Pettingill air well-favored, stranger?" he demanded at
last, in amazement.
"Very pretty and very odd. I never saw a face in the least like hers."
"Waal!" exclaimed Yates. "Litt Pettingill's beauty air news ter the
mountings. Some folks 'low she hev got a cur'us kind o' mind. Some even
say she air teched in the head." His tone seemed to intimate that Mr.
Shattuck, in the face of this fact, had reason to reform his standard
of taste.
That gentleman shook his own head in contemptuous negation. "Never in
this world. Never with that face."
"Waal, ye can't size her up now," insisted Yates, "leetle ez she
be"--with a grin--"whilst she be a-standin' still. Ef ye war ter see
her a-movin' an' a-turnin' roun', she's ez quick an' keen-lookin' ez a
knife-blade in a suddint fight, an' mighty nigh ez dangerous. She looks
at ye like she _warn't_ lookin' at ye, but plumb through yer skull
inter yer brains, ter make sure ye war tellin' her what ye thunk. She
talks cur'ous, too, sorter onexpected an' contrariwise, an' she never
_could_ git religion. That's mighty cur'ous in gal folks. I ain't so
mighty partic'lar 'bout men Christians, though I'm a perfesser myself,
but religion 'pears ter me ter kem sorter nat'ral ter gal folks.
'Tain't 'kase she's too religious that she ain't a-dancin'. It's jes'
'kase nobody hev asked her. She ain't no sorter favo_rite_ 'mongst the
boys."
Mr. Shattuck suddenly glanced up, half laughing, half triumphant, for
the little figure in blue had just been led out to the centre of the
floor, and the doorway was vacant save for a large brindled cur that
stood upon the threshold, wagging his tail and watching the scene with
a suave, indulgent, presidial gaze, as if he were the patron of the
ball. To be sure, her partner was that man of facile admiration, the
candidate Rhodes, but Shattuck experienced a vicarious satisfaction
that it could not be said that she had not been asked to dance at all.
He watched the couple as the set formed anew, and noticed that Rhodes,
with his sedulously rustic air, was beginning in the interim some
conversation, stooping from his superior height for her reply. He
rose suddenly to the perpendicular, an almost startled surprise upon
his face as he stared; then he clapped his hands with a jocular air
of applause, and his round laugh rang out with an elastic, unforced
merriment, which suggested to his friend that he was finding the ways
of policy not such thorny ways after all. Shattuck wondered vaguely
if this demonstration, too, were of the affectations of propitiation,
or if what she had said were clever enough to elicit it, or merely
funny. His eyes followed the little blue-clad figure as she began to
dance--her untutored movements all in rhythm with the music, as an
azalea dances in time to the wind. Now she drifted about with short,
mincing, hesitant steps, now with flying feet and skirts whirling, as
if responsive to the circling impetus she could in no wise resist. She
looked almost a child amongst the burlier and coarser forms. With her
delicate hands, and her tiny feet, and her spirited face, and the faint
blue color of her dress, she bore an odd contrast to the buxom beauty
of the other mountain girls, clad in variegated plaided homespun. Her
blue eyes were alight and glancing; her parted lips were red; her feet
hardly seemed to touch the floor as her hands fell from one partner's
grasp, and she came wafting through the party-colored maze, with
outstretched arms, to another.
For the fun was waxing fast and furious with the added and unique
diversion known as "Dancin' Tucker." The forlorn "Tucker" himself,
partnerless in the centre of the set, capered solemnly up and down,
adjusting his muscles and his pride to ridicule, which was amply
attested by the guffaws that ever and anon broke from the spectators.
However nonchalantly each temporary "Tucker" might deport himself in
his isolated position, the earnestness of his desire to escape from
his unwelcome conspicuousness by securing a partner, and his sincere
objection to his plight, were manifested always upon the fiddler's
command, "Gen'lemen ter the right," when he might join the others on
their round, dogging the steps of the youth he wished to forestall,
both balancing to each lady in succession. If, by chance, the "Tucker"
succeeded first in catching a damsel's hands and swinging her around
at the moment that the magic command "Promenade all!" sounded on the
air, he left his pillory to the slower swain, who must needs forthwith
"dance Tucker."
The traits of character elicited by the "Tucker" rôle constitute its
true fascinations, and are manifold. One nimble young hunter seemed
almost stricken with the palsy upon his isolation, or gradually
petrifying, while he sought to dance alone in the middle of the circle,
so heavily did each foot follow the other as he hopped aimlessly up
and down; the expression of his eyes was so ludicrously pitiable and
deprecatory, as they swept the coterie of the dowagers who lined
the walls, that they screamed with laughter. The instant "Promenade
all!" sounded upon the air, he made a frantic burst for liberty so
precipitate that at the moment of touching the hand of the damsel of
his choice he suddenly lost his equilibrium, and fell with a thunderous
crash quite outside of the charmed periphery. Amidst the shouts of the
company Rhodes caught the relinquished hands of the waiting lady, and
triumphantly gallopaded away, thus escaping the ignominy of "dancin'
Tucker."
And then Rhodes bethought himself suddenly of that future seat in the
legislative halls of the State. Shattuck laughed to divine his anxiety
as the meditative gravity gathered upon Rhodes's flushed and distended
countenance; his white teeth, all on display, suddenly disappeared.
His hand doubtfully stroked his beautiful undyed beard. There was
something worse even than dancing Tucker at the infair. With every
sharpened sense and every heightened emotion normal to the estate of
candidacy, he was appreciating with how much less philosophy, with what
scanty grace, indeed, he could endure to dance Tucker before the people
at the polls in the November election. As the rueful "Tucker," with
every bone shaken, gathered himself up slowly from the floor amidst
the screaming and stamping elders--even the dancers and the fiddler
had paused to laugh--his face scarlet, his lips compressed with pain,
his eyes nervously glancing, unseeing, hither and thither, like a
creature's in a trap, Rhodes stepped out from his place.
"This ain't fair," he said, taking the "Tucker" by the arm; "you were
ahead of me, and I'd have been left if you hadn't tripped up. _I'm_
Tucker by rights, an' I always play fair."
The "Tucker" looked at him with a doubtful, red, frowning face; but as
Rhodes jocularly took his place in the centre, and the violin began a
_pizzicato_ movement, as if all the strings were dancing too, with a
long sigh of relief he accepted the situation, and presently joined in
the laugh at the lorn candidate-Tucker.
The fact of an ulterior motive is a wonderfully reconciling influence.
Leonard Rhodes was dancing his way into the ballot-box, and thus it
was that he thought it consistent with his dignity to seek to be an
especially comical "Tucker." But the essential humor of the character
of "Tucker" is his unwillingness to be funny, and his helpless
absurdity and eagerness to elude his solitary dance. Human nature is so
complex that even those whose profession it is to know it can predicate
little even upon its most fundamental facts. As Rhodes bounded about,
now and then executing a double-shuffle and cutting a pigeon-wing of an
extraordinary agility, and more than once intentionally suffering an
opportunity of securing a partner to escape him, remaining "Tucker"
through several rounds, Shattuck heard comments among the by-standers
altogether at variance with the candidate's expectations. "That's all
done a purpose!" "_He_ makes a tremenjious fool of hisself!" "He don't
expect ter git married in this kentry!"
Shattuck wondered by what subtle unclassified perception, appertaining
to candidate-nature, these unexpected results were at last borne in
to Rhodes's consciousness, since he was unable to hear the whispers
by reason of the noise of the dancing, or, in the midst of his
absorbing saltatory activities, to mark any change of aspect among the
spectators. His jocund face grew gradually incongruously grave and
troubled as he bounded about with undiminished agility. These were
muscular forces now, however, at work, sustaining his continuance--mere
strength--instead of the joyous elasticity and animal spirits that
had at first made him so light. When, finally, it was possible to
bring his penance to a close, his politic monitions had all become
confused and contradictory, and he made as blind and vehement a rush
for the nearest opportunity as if he had been merely one of the young
mountaineers, with no further or deeper purpose in participating in
the pastime than the pleasure of dancing. His eyes seemed suddenly
opened to his precipitancy as he stood successful among the couples,
equipped at last with a partner, and flushed and tired and panting.
A wild acclamation of jeering joy had arisen among the spectators,
who during Rhodes's incumbency had grown tired and lost zest, for
it was seldom, indeed, that Felix Guthrie "danced Tucker." As the
young mountaineer, lowering and indignant, stood looking at Rhodes,
the genuine mirth of the situation was communicated once more to the
dancers, to the violin, and to the spectators, and the whole infair was
throbbing with a new lease on life. The tallow candles, sputtering on
tables and shelves, which had occasionally bowed almost to extinction
before the passing breeze--the whole party vanishing in these momentary
eclipses--seemed now endowed with freshened brilliancy; the fiddler
changed the tune to a merrier; the odor of apple-jack, newly drawn from
the barrel, was imbued with zestful suggestions as the jug was passed
among the on-lookers; only to Leonard Rhodes did the hour seem late,
and the room hot, and the violin dissonant, and the company frowsily
rustic and distasteful, and himself an unlucky devil to have his fate
and his best and highest aspirations and his chosen walk in life at
their arbitrary will. No candidate, making the crucial test of personal
experience, ever felt more doubtful of the wisdom of republican
institutions than did Leonard Rhodes, realizing the fatuity of his
choice for displacement, on meeting the gaze of Fee Guthrie, whom he
had constituted "Tucker" for the nonce, for Guthrie's aspect gave no
room for speculation as to the real sentiments with which he regarded
the position.
As Felix Guthrie stood in his conspicuous place, both the strangers
were impressed with the large symmetry of the scale upon which he
was built, its perfect proportion, its graceful ease. His boots,
reaching to the knee, were of a length and weight that might have
been an effective bar to any display of agility on the part of one
less accustomed to such cumbrous foot-gear. His brown jeans coat
was buttoned to the chin and girded about with a leather belt, in
which there were a pistol and a hunting-knife--in fact, the only
preparation which he had made for the dance was the removal of his
spurs and his hat. His face was deeply bronzed by the sun and the
wind, somewhat too square, but otherwise so regularly cut that the
features were inexpressive, save for the long brown eyes, with their
lowering, suspicious, antagonistic gleam. The full, dark, straight
eyebrows almost met above them. His hair, of a rich yellow color,
falling in long, loose, feminine ringlets on either side of this
large, surly, aggressive face, had an almost grotesque effect, so far
is our civilization from the days of the lovelocks. It hung down on
his collar, and curled with a grace and readiness that were the envy
of more than one of his partners. He was known far and wide as an
"ugly customer," in reference to his surly and belligerent traits of
character, which rather overshadowed his physical endowments. Rhodes,
however, had no fear of him, save for his political influence, for he
was a man of some hereditary consideration, and of substance--of more
than moderate means, according to the standard of the cove--and in no
wise had he ever been known to be placated or to forgive an affront.
It was with a heavy heart that the candidate began to dance to his
doom, which he now felt was inevitable, wishing that he could have
the immunity of his opponent, whose age had rendered him ineligible
for mingling in the festivities of the infair. His eyes ever and
anon wandered to the "Tucker," who was beginning to dance too, not
vehemently, but with a wonderful softness and lightness, considering
his ponderous accoutrements, his curls all in commotion, delicately
waving and oscillating about his fierce, intent, unsmiling face. This
was a "Tucker" of unique interest and value. The windows were full
of the loiterers without; the spectators about the walls laughed
breathlessly, and now and again stood up to catch an unimpeded glimpse
of him amidst the dancers moving to the fiddler's mandate.
The musician was a wise man in his generation, and understood the
human nature amongst which his lot was cast. He had kept sundry
"Tuckers" dancing, as mechanically and unwillingly as if they trod on
hot iron, long, long after they had despaired of ever hearing again
the "Gen'lemen ter the right" which gave them their chance, often
elusive, to escape. But he made Fee Guthrie's "Tucker" a short rôle.
The spectators were hardly accustomed to him in the unbeloved character
when the sudden command "To the right" smote sharply upon the air, and
the circle was awhirl anew. Felix Guthrie, in the midst, manifested
none of the precipitancy of his predecessors. His eyes were aglow; his
feet moved softly in certain "steps" of his own invention; his whole
attitude was one of expectancy, of abeyance. Scanning continually the
revolving crowd, he looked like a panther ready to spring. When the
word came at last, and he darted forward, the whole attack was most
accurately adjusted to the moment. He had chosen to forestall Rhodes,
who was balancing to Letitia Pettingill. There was only an instant's
difference in the quick movements, but instead of "swinging" the man
who came first, according to the rules, she suddenly swerved aside,
passed under Guthrie's outstretched arm, and, with a radiant face and
sapphire eyes, held out both hands to the candidate, who, bewildered,
clasped them, and the two swung round in the customary revolution,
leaving Guthrie "Tucker" as before. He stood as if petrified in the
instant's silence that ensued. Then, as a great clamor of laughter
and surprised comment arose, he sprang upon Rhodes, his grip on the
candidate's throat. Rhodes, himself of a brawny strength, had put forth
its uttermost to defend himself. A wave of wind went through the room,
flickering all its candles and blending the fluctuating shadows. In
their midst the bewildered guests saw, as in a dream, Guthrie deal,
with the butt of the pistol clasped in his hand, a blow upon the
candidate's head. The next moment the sharp crack of the discharged
weapon pealed through the room, and the puncheons trembled with the
heavy fall as Rhodes came down at full length on the floor. The violin
quavered into silence, the crowd drew off suddenly, then again pressed
close about the insensible figure; the wind once more went through the
rooms, with all the shadows racing after; and only the baby, still
dancing in the corner--although he, too, had stopped a moment and
winked hard at the clamorous, jarring tone of the pistol--was unaware
that "dancin' Tucker" at the infair had ended in bloodshed, and that
the gayety was over for the time.