She did not change her posture now. "Ever see _me_ pound ennybody on
the head with a shootin'-iron?" she continued.
"Shucks!" he cried, slowly apprehending her meaning; "ye can't git
out'n it that-a-way."
"I never war in it. When ye see somebody o' my size in a fight with one
o' yer size, let _me_ know it."
"'Twar _yer_ fault, an' ye know that full well," he made himself plain,
with an intonation of severity.
"_My_ fault? _Mercy!_" she cried, "_I_ wouldn't hev bruk up that dance
fur a bushel o' sech ez ye an' Rhodes!" She gave a gurgling laugh of
retrospective pleasure.
A moment's silence ensued, while he pushed back his hair to look
gloweringly at the half-reclining figure, which, although not moving,
had contrived to take on an air of flouting indifference.
"Ye air a mighty small matter," he said, scathingly, "fur me an' Rhodes
ter make ourselves sech fools about."
"An' sech _big_ fools!" she cried, with animation. "Whenst I feel
obligated ter see I'm a fool, it's sech a comfort ter know I ain't much
of a fool."
He said nothing in reply, feeling too clumsy and ponderous to follow
the attack with so lithe and elusive an enemy. He did not definitely
realize it, but in dropping his aggressions he assumed far more potent
weapons.
"O my Lord A'mighty!" he groaned, putting his head in one hand, and
covering his eyes as he supported his elbow upon the log behind him;
"it don't make much diff'ence whose fault 'tis. _I_ hev ter suffer fur
it. _I_ hev ter suffer fur everything. Sufferin' air what I war born
fur, I reckon. Leastwise I ain't seen nuthin' else."
Something faintly stirred the trees; it was not the wind, for it did
not seem to come again or to pass further. It was as if they were
awakening from some subtleties of sleep, unknown to science, that had
stilled their pulses. Fragrance was in the air; the great red rose in
the grass by the gate was bursting its buds. The rank weeds asserted
their identity. Even the wood-pile gave evidence of walnut and hickory
and the resinous pine. And still the moon, ever reddening, ever
dulling, sank lower, and the stars were brightening in the darkening
sky.
Once more he groaned. "I never war cut out for a fighter," he declared.
"Whenst I war a leetle bit o' a boy, an' my dad married agin an' brung
that everlastin' wild-cat o' a step-mam o' mine home, I war in a mighty
notion o' bein' frien'ly--leetle liar--leetle cowardly fox! I knowed
what war good fur me, an' which side my bread war buttered on, an' she
couldn't beat me hard enough ter make me hit back or sass her. I war
fur givin' up an' takin' mild ez a lam' everything she hed a mind ter
do ter me. But arter a while I got so ez whenst she beat my leetle
brother it made me winge an' winge--she couldn't hurt sech a calloused
time-server ez _me_! An' so I tuk ter hidin' him in the bresh whenst
she got mad at him. An' one day whenst she fund him, an' tuk ter
larrapin' him, I jes' flew at her, an' I bit her arm 'mos' through.
She let Ephraim alone. She war skeered at me. I seen it. An' I tuk ter
bitin' arter that like a cur-dog. My dad lemme 'lone. Vis'tors ez kem
ter the house war warned off'n me. I begun ter git my growth. I hed
an arm ez growed so it could lam a man like a sledge-hammer; it kep'
all the boys an' everybody else off'n Ephraim, ez never war a fighter,
an' let him git some growth, an hold up his head, an' try ter do like
folks."
He had dropped his hand and was staring at her with surprised eyes. She
was leaning forward, the golden moonlight still on her face. Her finely
cut lips were smiling. She held out, with an air of gay, mysterious
confidence, a tiny object between her finger and thumb.
"'Hold fast what I give ye,'" she quoted, with a low, gurgling
triumphant laugh.
He reached out and took from her with slow suspicion a pistol ball,
turning it around, and looking at her with an air of suspended
comprehension and doubt.
"I fund it hyar at the wood-pile; it never teched Rhodes. He ain't much
hurt--his senses jes' knocked out'n him. They can't do nuthin' ter
you-uns fur sech ez that."
"They better not try!" he cried, belligerently. Then, with the accents
of scorn: "D'ye 'low ez I be a-troublin' _my_se'f 'count o' sech cattle
ez Rhodes? Naw, sir! Nobody air a-goin' ter pester me! The whole
mounting, an' the home folks an' all, hev got mighty perlite ter me,
an' hev been fur a long time." He paused meditatively. "Yes, sir," he
exclaimed; "peace hev kem ter me by the pound!" He smote his massive
chest.
Then, after another silence, he sighed. "But I be troubled," he
resumed, "'kase hyar one day 'bout a year ago I goes ter the church
house. I always loved the Lord, fur He war persecuted, an' I knowed
He felt fur me. I never war so tuk up with this worl'. I hain't
hed no pleasure in it. I yearned fur a better one. An' durned ef
the thin-lipped, turnip-hearted preacher didn't git up an' gin out
the doctrine ef enny war ter hit ye on one cheek, ye mus' turn the
tother one; fur that's religion! That ain't my policy, an' 'tain't
my practice. An' I reckon I'll hev ter go ter hell jes' whenst I war
a-settin' myself in the hope o' heaven."
He drooped his head upon his hand again and groaned aloud. "I hev
wondered," he resumed, his voice somewhat muffled by his attitude, "ef
the cuss read that in the Good Book, or jes' made it up out'n his own
head. But that sayin' hev tormented me in the midnight, an' tuk my
sleep from me. I sorter feel it in me like it _mus'_ be true. Religion
can't be so easy ez jes' lovin' the Lord. It's this hyar hevin' ter
love yer fellow-man ez makes religion so durned hard on ye."
A cloud was in the west, not continuous, but with dusky brown strata
across the gilded spaces above the purple mountains; its shadows lay on
the mists below in dull streaks amidst the shining pearly tone. When
the moon, so golden, so great now and glamourous, passed behind one of
these bars of vapor, and even the sullen cloud was tenderly tinted and
showed radiating verges of dull gold, one might see the bereft world in
the prosaic gray medium of the day that was to come.
Once more he looked about him and sighed. "Why," he argued, "I couldn't
hev got on with all the smitin' folks wanted ter do ter me an' Ephraim,
'specially Ephraim. But then I 'low ez I hev got the mounting too much
skeered ter fool with Ephraim or me nuther now, an' mebbe ef I sot
out ter repent right hearty I mought make out yit. But I furgits--I
furgits! I can't repent more'n a haffen hour at a time. An' hyar
ter-night--jes' on account o' you-uns--I hauls off agin, an' mighty
nigh kills Rhodes!"
"'Twarn't 'count o' me," she drawled, with the musical vibration that
seemed to follow each tone. She had resumed her former attitude and her
air of mocking gayety. "Ye air carryin' it all wrong. 'Twarn't account
o' _me_ ye half killed Rhodes. 'Twar all account o' 'Tucker'!"
He caught the gleam of her laughing eyes as he sat with his elbows on
his knees and glowered sidelong at her.
"I am small," she protested, in dimpling merriment. "I can't ondertake
more'n my sheer. Let 'Tucker' take the blame. Ye warn't dyin' ter dance
with me. Ye war dyin' _not_ ter dance with yerse'f."
His face had flushed. His eyes were full of grave resentment as they
met her laughing glance. "I didn't 'low ez ye war so onfeeling ez ye
'pear ter be," he said, reproachfully. "Ever sence that time at the
church house whenst all were convicted of sin, or saints, 'ceptin' ye
an' me settin' alongside o' one another, I hev been sorter sorry fur
ye, an' 'lowed ye war sorter sorry fur me."
She only replied with a laugh, and he evidently deemed futile the bid
for sympathy on the score of religious or irreligious fellowship, for
he recurred to it no more.
There was a stir along the path; a great high-stepping turkey gobbler
was slowly coming down it, pausing now and then, and turning his
wattled head askew to bring his eye to bear upon some incident of the
high dewy weeds, that might promise a preliminary bit to a morning
meal. The rest of his tribe, yet roosting on a bare branch of an
otherwise full-leaved tree, looked big and burly against the roseate
sky; each long inquisitive neck now and again stretched downward, each
clutching claw ever and anon moving uncertainly along the perch with a
fluctuating intention to descend, was growing momently more distinct as
the gray light more and more encroached upon the moon, all obscured now
by one of those cloud strata.
In this interval of eclipse Guthrie asked, suddenly, from out the dusk:
"Ye know I warn't 'Tucker' by rights. Whyn't ye wanter dance with me?"
The shadow made her face uncertain. He could only see that she did not
move. "Did I say I didn't want ter dance with you-uns? I don't 'pear
ter remember it." Her tones, vibrant with mockery, were a trifle louder
upon the air--a trifle strained; or was it that the world seemed more
silent, muffled in the cloud that hid the moon?
"What's the reason ye wanted ter dance with Rhodes?" he demanded,
pursuing the subject.
"Did I say I wanted ter dance with Rhodes?" She asked the
counter-question with the sharp note of inquiry.
He detected its spuriousness, but her enigmatical intention embarrassed
him. "Ye hed ruther dance with him than with me," he said, forlornly,
losing his balance.
"Waal, it looks sorter that-a-way, now don't it?" she replied, in
casual, irrelevant accents, as of an unconcerned third person.
The moon came out from under the cloud with a great flare of golden
glory. Somewhere a cock's crow sounded--clear, mellow tones, delivered
with the precision and aplomb of the blast of a bugle. The wind of
dawn was coming over the eastern summits, and suddenly the moonlight
was all superfluous above the dark, rugged western mountains, for the
gray day was on the land. The little house stood distinct and forlorn,
all its windows flaring to show its denuded state within; here, and
there a tallow dip still sputtered. And if by moonlight and half
distinguished the loom and the warping bars had looked disconsolate in
their evicted estate under the trees, by daylight they wore so sorry
and so consciously distraught an air that such definite expressiveness
seemed oddly incongruous with their inanimate condition. All atilt and
unsteady they stood on the uneven ground, and about them were many
other objects of the household gear which the night had served to
obscure. Pots and pans were scattered about or congregated in heaps.
Chests and bedsteads, bags and bundles, quilting-frames and churns
and tubs--all bore token how the behests of hospitality had stripped
the house to make room for the dancing and the exigent demands of the
extensive supper-tables. The dogs seemed to take much note of this
unprecedented dislocation of the domestic administration, and they
went about with inquisitive, exploring noses, and tails stilled and
drooped in suspended judgment, amongst the various objects which they
snuffingly recognized. One old fellow, the evening of his days much
racked by rheumatism, seemed to discern an adequate reason in all
the confusion, as he curled himself to doze on the plumpest of the
feather-beds, with a large bone disposed within easy reach, to which he
might refer as inclination prompted. The spinning-wheels all teetered
unsteadily on the uneven chips about the wood-pile; now and again the
wheels revolved with precipitate, erratic action as the wind stirred
them. Letitia no longer looked at the moon--a mere pallid simulacrum
of itself, worn thin and gauzy against the pale west; one might hardly
know if it still hung there when the first red dart of the sun, yet
below the horizon, was aimed at the flushing zenith. Her dress was
blue again, not white; her face had something of the flush of the sky
upon it, half seen though it was. She had bent forward to the little
flax wheel, and had drawn out a thread, breaking and tangling it, only
affecting to spin, while the whimseys of the wind turned the wheel.
The light was distinct enough to show even the pistol ball in Felix
Guthrie's hand as he held it up and gazed at it speculatively.
"I wisht it war in Rhodes's heart," he observed, slowly. "That's whar I
wisht 'twar."
The spinning-wheel stopped suddenly; the blue eyes were bent upon him;
her lips curved in laughter. "Thar ye go ter heaven!" she cried, waving
her hand as if to point the way, "repentin' by the half-hour."