BACK TO KINGDOM COME
It was the tournament that, at last, loosed Mammy's tongue. She was
savage in her denunciation of Chad to Mrs. Dean--so savage and in such
plain language that her mistress checked her sharply, but not before
Margaret had heard, though the little girl, with an awed face, slipped
quietly out of the room into the yard, while Harry stood in the
doorway, troubled and silent.
"Don't let me hear you speak that way again Mammy," said Mrs. Dean, so
sternly that the old woman swept out of the room in high dudgeon And
yet she told her husband of Mammy's charge;
"I am rather surprised at Major Buford."
"Perhaps he doesn't know," said the General. "Perhaps it isn't true."
"Nobody knows anything about the boy."
"Well, I cannot have my children associating with a waif."
"He seems like a nice boy."
"He uses extraordinary language. I cannot have him teaching my children
mischief. Why I believe Margaret is really fond of him. I know Harry
and Dan are." The General looked thoughtful.
"I will speak to Major Buford about him," he said, and he did--no
little to that gentleman's confusion--though he defended Chad
staunchly--and the two friends parted with some heat.
Thereafter, the world changed for Chad, for is there any older and
truer story than that Evil has wings, while Good goes a plodding way?
Chad felt the change, in the negroes, in the sneering overseer, and
could not understand. The rumor reached Miss Lucy's ears and she and
the Major had a spirited discussion that rather staggered Chad's
kind-hearted companion. It reached the school, and a black-haired
youngster, named Georgie Forbes, who had long been one of Margaret's
abject slaves, and who hated Chad, brought out the terrible charge in
the presence of a dozen school-children at noon-recess one day. It had
been no insult in the mountains, but Chad, dazed though he was, knew it
was meant for an insult, and his hard fist shot out promptly, landing
in his enemy's chin and bringing him bawling to the earth. Others gave
out the cry then, and the boy fought right and left like a demon. Dan
stood sullenly near, taking no part, and Harry, while he stopped the
unequal fight, turned away from Chad coldly, calling Margaret, who had
run up toward them, away at the same time, and Chad's three friends
turned from him then and there, while the boy, forgetting all else,
stood watching them with dumb wonder and pain. The school-bell clanged,
but Chad stood still--with his heart well nigh breaking. In a few
minutes the last pupil had disappeared through the school-room door,
and Chad stood under a great elm--alone. But only a moment, for he
turned quickly away, the tears starting to his eyes, walked rapidly
through the woods, climbed the worm fence beyond, and dropped, sobbing,
in the thick bluegrass.
An hour later he was walking swiftly through the fields toward the old
brick house that had sheltered him. He was very quiet at supper that
night, and after Miss Lucy had gone to bed and he and the Major were
seated before the fire, he was so quiet that the Major looked at him
anxiously.
"What's the matter Chad? Are you sick?"
"Nothin'--no, sir."
But the Major was uneasy, and when he rose to go to bed, he went over
and put his hand on the boy's head.
"Chad," he said, "if you hear of people saying mean things about you,
you mustn't pay any attention to them."
"No, sir."
"You're a good boy, and I want you to live here with me. Good-night,
Chad," he added, affectionately. Chad nearly broke down, but he
steadied himself.
"Good-by, Major," he said, brokenly. "I'm obleeged to you."
"Good-by?" repeated the Major. "Why?"
"Good-night, I mean," stammered Chad.
The Major stood inside his own door, listening to the boy's slow steps
up the second flight. "I'm gettin' to love that boy," he said,
wonderingly--"An' I'm damned if people who talk about him don't have me
to reckon with"--and the Major shook his head from side to side.
Several times he thought he could hear the boy moving around in the
room above him, and while he was wondering why the lad did not go to
bed, he fell asleep.
Chad was moving around. First, by the light of a candle, he laboriously
dug out a short letter to the Major--scalding it with tears. Then he
took off his clothes and got his old mountain-suit out of the
closet--moccasins and all--and put them on. Very carefully he folded
the pretty clothes he had taken off--just as Miss Lucy had taught
him--and laid them on the bed. Then he picked up his old rifle in one
hand and his old coonskin cap in the other, blew out the candle,
slipped noiselessly down the stairs in his moccasined feet, out the
unbolted door and into the starlit night. From the pike fence he turned
once to look back to the dark, silent house amid the dark trees. Then
he sprang down and started through the fields--his face set toward the
mountains.
It so happened that mischance led General Dean to go over to see Major
Buford about Chad next morning. The Major listened patiently--or tried
ineffectively to listen--and when the General was through, he burst out
with a vehemence that shocked and amazed his old friend.
"Damn those niggers!" he cried, in a tone that seemed to include the
General in his condemnation, "that boy is the best boy I ever knew. I
believe he is my own blood, he looks a little like that picture
there"--pointing to the old portrait--"and if he is what I believe he
is, by ----, sir, he gets this farm and all I have. Do you understand
that?"
"I believe he told you what he was."
"He did--but I don't believe he knows, and, anyhow, whatever he is, he
shall have a home under this roof as long as he lives."
The General rose suddenly--stiffly.
"He must never darken my door again."
"Very well." The Major made a gesture which plainly said, "In that
event, you are darkening mine too long," and the General rose, slowly
descended the steps of the portico, and turned:
"Do you really mean, that you are going to let a little brat that you
picked up in the road only yesterday stand between you and me?"
The Major softened.
"Look here," he said, whisking a sheet of paper from his coat-pocket.
While the General read Chad's scrawl, the Major watched his face.
"He's gone, by ----. A hint was enough for him. If he isn't the son of
a gentleman, then I'm not, nor you."
"Cal," said the General, holding out his hand, "we'll talk this over
again."
The bees buzzed around the honeysuckles that clambered over the porch.
A crow flew overhead. The sound of a crying child came around the
corner of the house from the quarters, and the General's footsteps died
on the gravel-walk, but the Major heard them not. Mechanically he
watched the General mount his black horse and canter toward the pike
gate. The overseer called to him from the stable, but the Major dropped
his eyes to the scrawl in his hand, and when Miss Lucy came out he
silently handed it to her.
"I reckon you know what folks is a-sayin' about me. I tol' you myself.
But I didn't know hit wus any harm, and anyways hit ain't my fault, I
reckon, an' I don't see how folks can blame me. But I don' want nobody
who don' want me. An' I'm leavin' 'cause I don't want to bother you. I
never bring nothing but trouble nohow an' I'm goin' back to the
mountains. Tell Miss Lucy good-by. She was mighty good to me, but I
know she didn't like me. I left the hoss for you. If you don't have no
use fer the saddle, I wish you'd give hit to Harry, 'cause he tuk up
fer me at school when I was fightin', though he wouldn't speak to me no
more. I'm mighty sorry to leave you. I'm obleeged to you cause you wus
so good to me an' I'm goin' to see you agin some day, if I can.
Good-by."
"Left that damned old mare to pay for his clothes and his board and his
schooling," muttered the Major. "By the gods"--he rose suddenly and
strode away--"I beg your pardon, Lucy."
A tear was running down each of Miss Lucy's faded cheeks.
Dawn that morning found Chad springing from a bed in a haystack--ten
miles from Lexington. By dusk that day, he was on the edge of the
Bluegrass and that night he stayed at a farm-house, going in boldly,
for he had learned now that the wayfarer was as welcome in a Bluegrass
farm-house as in a log-cabin in the mountains. Higher and higher grew
the green swelling slopes, until, climbing one about noon next day, he
saw the blue foothills of the Cumberland through the clear air--and he
stopped and looked long, breathing hard from pure ecstasy. The
plain-dweller never knows the fierce home hunger that the mountain-born
have for hills.
Besides, beyond those blue summits were the Turners and the
school-master and Jack, waiting for him, and he forgot hunger and
weariness as he trod on eagerly toward them. That night, he stayed in a
mountain-cabin, and while the contrast of the dark room, the crowding
children, the slovenly dress, and the coarse food was strangely
disagreeable, along with the strange new shock came the thrill that all
this meant hills and home. It was about three o'clock of the fourth day
that, tramping up the Kentucky River, he came upon a long, even stretch
of smooth water, from the upper end of which two black boulders were
thrust out of the stream, and with a keener thrill he realized that he
was nearing home. He recalled seeing those rocks as the raft swept down
the river, and the old Squire had said that they were named after
oxen--"Billy and Buck." Opposite the rocks he met a mountaineer.
"How fer is it to Uncle Joel Turner's?"
"A leetle the rise o' six miles, I reckon."
The boy was faint with weariness, and those six miles seemed a dozen.
Idea of distance is vague among the mountaineers, and two hours of
weary travel followed, yet nothing that he recognized was in sight.
Once a bend of the river looked familiar, but when he neared it, the
road turned steeply from the river and over a high bluff, and the boy
started up with a groan. He meant to reach the summit before he stopped
to rest, but in sheer pain, he dropped a dozen paces from the top and
lay with his tongue, like a dog's, between his lips.
The top was warm, but a chill was rising from the fast-darkening
shadows below him. The rim of the sun was about to brush the green tip
of a mountain across the river, and the boy rose in a minute, dragged
himself on to the point where, rounding a big rock, he dropped again
with a thumping heart and a reeling brain. There it was--old Joel's
cabin in the pretty valley below--old Joel's cabin--home! Smoke was
rising from the chimney, and that far away it seemed that Chad could
smell frying bacon. There was the old barn and he could make out one of
the boys feeding stock and another chopping wood--was that the
school-master? There was the huge form of old Joel at the fence talking
with a neighbor. He was gesticulating as though angry, and the old
mother came to the door as the neighbor moved away with a shuffling
gait that the boy knew belonged to the Dillon breed. Where was Jack?
Jack! Chad sprang to his feet and went down the hill on a run. He
climbed the orchard fence, breaking the top rail in his eagerness, and
as he neared the house, he gave a shrill yell. A scarlet figure flashed
like a flame out of the door, with an answering cry, and the Turners
followed:
"Why, boy," roared old Joel. "Mammy, hit's Chad!"
Dolph dropped an armful of feed. The man with the axe left it stuck in
a log, and each man shouted:
"Chad!"
The mountaineers are an undemonstrative race, but Mother Turner took
the boy in her arms and the rest crowded around, slapping him on the
back and all asking questions at once. Dolph and Rube and Tom. Yes, and
there was the school-master--every face was almost tender with love for
the boy. But where was Jack?
"Where's--where's Jack?" said Chad.
Old Joel changed face--looking angry; the rest were grave. Only the old
mother spoke:
"Jack's all right."
"Oh," said Chad, but he looked anxious.
Melissa inside heard. He had not asked for HER, and with the sudden
choking of a nameless fear she sprang out the door to be caught by the
school-master, who had gone around the corner to look for her.
"Lemme go," she said, fiercely, breaking his hold and darting away, but
stopping, when she saw Chad in the doorway, looking at her with a shy
smile.
"Howdye, Melissa!"
The girl stared at him mildly and made no answer, and a wave of shame
and confusion swept over the boy as his thoughts flashed back to a
little girl in a black cap and on a black pony, and he stood reddening
and helpless. There was a halloo at the gate. It was old Squire
Middleton and the circuit-rider, and old Joel went toward them with a
darkening face.
"Why, hello, Chad," the Squire said. "You back again?"
He turned to Joel.
"Look hyeh, Joel. Thar hain't no use o' your buckin' agin yo' neighbors
and harborin' a sheep-killin' dog." Chad started and looked from one
face to another--slowly but surely making out the truth.
"You never seed the dawg afore last spring. You don't know that he
hain't a sheep-killer."
"It's a lie--a lie," Chad cried, hotly, but the school-master stopped
him.
"Hush, Chad," he said, and he took the boy inside and told him Jack was
in trouble. A Dillon sheep had been found dead on a hill-side. Daws
Dillon had come upon Jack leaping out of the pasture, and Jack had come
home with his muzzle bloody. Even with this overwhelming evidence, old
Joel stanchly refused to believe the dog was guilty and ordered old man
Dillon off the place. A neighbor had come over, then another, and an
other, until old Joel got livid with rage.
"That dawg mought eat a dead sheep but he never would kill a live one,
and if you kill him, by ----, you've got to kill me fust."
Now there is no more unneighborly or unchristian act for a farmer than
to harbor a sheep-killing dog. So the old Squire and the circuit-rider
had come over to show Joel the grievous error of his selfish, obstinate
course, and, so far, old Joel had refused to be shown. All of his sons
sturdily upheld him and little Melissa fiercely--the old mother and the
school-master alone remaining quiet and taking no part in the
dissension.
"Have they got Jack?"
"No, Chad," said the school-master. "He's safe--tied up in the stable."
Chad started out, and no one followed but Melissa. A joyous bark that
was almost human came from the stable as Chad approached, for the dog
must have known the sound of his master's footsteps, and when Chad drew
open the door, Jack sprang the length of his tether to meet him and was
jerked to his back. Again and again he sprang, barking, as though
beside himself, while Chad stood at the door, looking sorrowfully at
him.
"Down, Jack!" he said sternly, and Jack dropped obediently, looking
straight at his master with honest eyes and whimpering like a child.
"Jack," said Chad, "did you kill that sheep?" This was all strange
conduct for his little master, and Jack looked wondering and dazed, but
his eyes never wavered or blinked. Chad could not long stand those
honest eyes.
"No," he said, fiercely--"no, little doggie, no--no!" And Chad dropped
on his knees and took Jack in his arms and hugged him to his breast.