Hair snow-white, the drifts of many a winter, eyes sunken amid a
network of wrinkles, hands hardened and veinous, shoulders bent, and
step laggard and feeble, the old lovers were as beautiful to each
other, and as enthralled by mutual devotion, as on their wedding-day
forty-five years before. They were beautiful also to more discerning
eyes--to a wandering artist in quest of material, who painted them both
in divers poses, and carried off his canvases. As a recompense of some
sort, he left a masterly depiction of the god of love burned in the
wood of the broad, smooth board of the mantelpiece above the hearth,
where the fickle little deity, though furnished with wings for swiftest
flight, had long presided in constancy.
Doubtless some such sentiment had prompted the pyrography, but its
significance failed to percolate through the dense ignorance of the old
mountain woman.
“Folks from the summer hotel over yander nigh the bluffs air always
powerful tickled over that leetle critter,” she was wont to reply
to an admiring comment, “but he ‘pears ter me some similar ter a
flying-squirrel. I never seen no baby dee-formed with wings nohow,
an’ I tol’ the painter-man at the time that them legs war too fat ter
be plumb genteel. But, lawsy! I jes hed ter let him keep on workin’.
He war powerful saaft-spoken an’ perlite, though I war afeared he’d
disfigure every plain piece o’ wood about the house afore he tuk
hisself away.”
Years before, the romance of the old couple had been the idyl of the
country-side. They had indeed been lovers as children. They had made
pilgrimages to their trysting-place when the breadth of the dooryard
was a long journey. They had plighted their vows as they sat in
juvenile content, plump, tow-headed, bare-footed among the chips of
the wood pile. As they grew older it was the object of their lives
to save their treasures to bestow on each other. A big apple, a chunk
of maple-sugar, a buckeye of abnormal proportions, attained a certain
dignity regarded as _gages d’amour_. They were never parted for a day
till Editha was seventeen years old, when she was summoned to the care
of a paralytic aunt who dwelt in Shaftesville, twelve miles distant,
and who, in the death of her husband, had been left peculiarly helpless
and alone.
The separation was a dreary affliction to the lovers, but it proved the
busiest year of Benjamin Casey’s life, signalized by his preparations
for the home-coming of the bride to be. All the country-side took a
share in the “house-raising,” and the stanch log cabin went up like
magic on the rocky bit of land on the bluff, thus utilized to reserve
for the plow the arable spaces of the little farm. Every article of the
rude furniture common to the region was in its appropriate place when
Editha first stood on her own threshold and gazed into the glowing fire
aflare upon her own hearth; and humble though it was, she confronted
the very genius of home.
The guests who danced at the wedding and afterward at the infare felt
that the lifelong romance was a sort of community interest, and for
many a year its details were familiarized by repetition about the
fire-side or to the casual stranger. But Time is ever the mocker. The
generation which had known the pair in the bloom and freshness of
their beauty had in great part passed away. Their idyl of devotion
and constancy gradually became farcical as the years imposed their
blight. “Them old moth-eaten lovyers” was a phrase so apt in derisive
description that it commended itself for general use to a community of
later date and newer ideals. What a zest of jovial ridicule would the
iconoclasts have enjoyed had it been known that it was only when one
was sixty-five years of age and the other sixty-three that there had
occurred their first experience of a lovers’ quarrel! For Benjie and
Editha now were seriously regarded only by themselves.
A steady, sober man was Benjamin Casey, of a peculiarly sane and
reliable judgment, but it occasioned an outburst of unhallowed mirth in
the vicinity when it was bruited abroad that he had been chosen on the
venire for the petit jury at the next term of the court.
“I’ll bet Editha goes, too,” exclaimed a gossip at the cross-roads
store, delighted with the incongruity of the idea.
“Sure,” acceded his interlocutor. “Benjie can’t serve on no panel
’thout Editha sets on the jury, too.”
And, in fact, when the great day came for the journey to the county
town, the rickety little wagon with the old white mare stood harnessed
before the porch for an hour while Editha, in the toils of perplexity,
decided on the details of her toilet for the momentous occasion, and
Benjie bent the whole capacity of his substantial mind in the effort to
aid her. The finishing touch to her costume of staid, brown homespun
had a suggestion of sacrilege in the estimation of each.
“I’d lament it ef it war ter git sp’iled anyways, Benjie,” she
concluded at length, “but I dunno ez I will ever hev a more especial
occasion ter wear this big silk neckerchief what that painter-man sent
me in a letter from Glaston--I reckon fer hevin’ let him mark up my
mantel-shelf so scandalous. Jus’ the color of the sky it is, an’ ez big
ez a shoulder-shawl, an’ thick an’ glossy in the weave fer true. See!
I hev honed ter view how I would look in it, but I hev never made bold
ter put it on. Still, considerin’ I ain’t been in Shaftesvul sence the
year I spent thar forty-six years ago, I don’t want ter look tacky in
nowise; an’, then, I’ll he interjuced ter all them gentlemen of the
jury, too.”
Benjie solemnly averred himself of like opinion, and this important
question thus settled, the afternoon brought them to Shaftesville,
where they spent the night with relatives of Editha.
The criminal court-room of the old brick court-house was a revelation
of a new and awesome phase of life to the old couple when the jury
was impaneled early the next morning. Editha, decorous, though flushed
and breathless with excitement, sat among the spectators, who were
ranged on each side of the elevated and railed space inclosing the bar,
and Benjie, conspicuous among the jury, exercised the high privilege,
which most of his colleagues had sought to shirk, of aiding in the
administration of his country’s laws.
Although the taking of testimony occupied only two or three hours
during the morning, the rest of the jury obviously wearied at times
and grew inattentive, but Benjie continued alert, fresh, intent on a
true understanding of the case. More than once he held up his hand
for permission to speak, after the etiquette acquired as a boy at the
little district school, and when the judge accorded the boon of a
question, the point was so well taken and cut so trenchantly into the
perplexities involved, that both the arguments of the lawyers and the
charge from the bench were inadvertently addressed chiefly to this
single juryman, whose native capacity discounted the value of the
better-trained minds of the rest of the panel.
When the jury were about to retire to consider their verdict, the
unsophisticated pair were surprised to discover that Editha was
not to be allowed to sit with Benjie in the jury-room and aid the
deliberations of the panel. She had stood up expectantly in her place
as the jury began to file out toward an inner apartment, and had known
by intuition the import of Benjie’s remark to the constable in charge,
happily _sotto voce_, or it might have fractured the decorum of the
court-room beyond the possibility of repair. At the reply, Benjie
paused for a moment, looking dumfounded; then catching her eye, he
slowly shook his white head. The constable, young, pert, and brisk,
hastily circled about his “good and lawful men” with much the style
of a small and officious dog rounding up a few recalcitrant head of
cattle. The door closed inexorably behind them, and the old couple were
separated on the most significant instance in their quiet and eventless
lives.
For a few minutes Editha stood at a loss; then her interest in the
judicial proceedings having ceased with the retirement of Benjie
from the court-room, she drifted softly through the halls and thence
to the street. There had been many changes in Shaftesville since
the twelvemonth she had spent there forty-six years before, and she
presently developed the ardor of a discoverer in touring the town with
this large liberty of leisure while her husband was engrossed in the
public service.
[Illustration: Drawn by George Wright. Half-tone plate engraved by G.
M. Lewis.
“SHE HAD STOOD UP EXPECTANTLY IN HER PLACE AS THE JURY BEGAN TO FILE
OUT”]
As he sat constrained to the deliberations of the jury, Benjie was
beset with certain doubts and fears as to the dangers that might betide
her. Through the window beside him once he saw her passing on the
opposite side of the square, still safe, wavering to and fro before the
display of a dry-goods store, evidently amazed at the glories of the
fripperies of the fashion on view at the door.
Benjie sprang to his feet, then, realizing the exigencies of the
situation, sank back in his chair.
“Thar,” he said suddenly to his colleagues, waving his hand pridefully
toward the distant figure--“thar is Mis’ Casey, my wife, by Christian
name Editha.”
The jury, despite the untimeliness of the interruption, had the good
grace and the good manners to acknowledge this introduction, so to
speak, in the spirit in which it was tendered.
“Taking in the town, I suppose,” said the foreman, a well-known grocer
of the place.
“Jes so, jes so,” said the beaming Casey. “I war determinated that Mis’
Casey should visit Shaftesvul an’, ef so minded, take in the town.”
Editha vanished within the store, and Benjie’s mind was free to revert
to the matter in hand. It was not altogether a usual experience even
for one more habituated to jury service. The deliberations started with
some unanimity of opinion, the first three ballots showing eleven to
one, Benjie holding out in a stanch minority that bade fair to prevent
agreement, and enabling the foreman to perpetrate the time-honored joke
in the demand for supper.
“Constable,” he roared, “order a meal of victuals for eleven men and a
bale of hay for a mule.”
Later, however, Benjie was all a-tingle with pride when the foreman,
with a knitted brow at a crisis of the discussion observed, “There is
something worth considering in _one_ point of Mr. Casey’s contention.”
This impression grew until the jury called in the constable from
his station at the door to convey their request for instruction
upon a matter of law. Although long after nightfall, the court was
still in session, owing to the crowded state of the docket, and when
the jury were led into the court-room to receive from the bench an
explanation of the point in question, Benjie was elated to find that
the information they had sought aided and elucidated his position. The
first ballot taken after returning to the jury-room resulted in ten of
the jurors supporting his insistence against only two, and of these the
foreman was one. They balloted once more just before they started to go
to the hotel to bed, still guarded by the constable, who kept them, in
a compact body, from any communication with the public. On this ballot
only the foreman was in the opposition.
When they were standing in the hallway of the upper story of the hotel,
and the officer was assigning them to their rooms and explaining to the
foreman that he would be within call if anything was needed, Benjie,
now in high spirits, was moved to exclaim, “Never fear, sonny; a muel
is always ekal ter a good loud bray.”
All the jury applauded this turning of the tables, and laughed at the
foreman, and one demanded of Benjie what he fed on “up in the sticks to
get so all-fired sharp.”
The next morning, to the old mountaineer’s great satisfaction, the
foreman, having slept on his perplexities, awoke to Benjie’s way of
thinking, and when they were once more in the court-room he pridefully
stated that they had reached an agreement and found the prisoner
“Not guilty.” The crowd in the court-room cheered; in one moment the
prisoner looked like another man, and genially shook hands with each of
the jury; the judge thanked them before discharging them from further
duty; and as Benjie pushed out of the court-room in the crowd all this
was on the tip of his tongue to narrate for the eager wonderment and
interest of Editha.
An immediate start for home was essential in order not to tax old
Whitey too severely, for the clay roads were heavy as the result of
a recent rainfall, and they must reach the mountain before sunset,
in view of the steep and dangerous ascent. Therefore he sent word
to Editha to meet him at a certain corner, while he repaired to the
livery-stable for his vehicle; for he had happened to encounter her
hostess, a kinswoman, on his way from the court-room, and had taken
ceremonious leave of her on the street.
“I don’t want no more hand-shakin’ an’ farewells,” he said to
himself, flustered and eager for the start, so delighted was he to be
homeward-bound with Editha and fairly launched on the recital of his
wondrous experiences while serving on the jury.
His lips were vaguely moving, now with a word, now with a pleased
smile, formulating the sequences of his story, as he jogged along in
his little wagon and suddenly caught sight of his wife awaiting him at
the appointed corner.
At the first glance he remarked the change. It was Editha in semblance,
but not the Editha he knew or had ever known.
“Editha!” he murmured faintly, all his being resolved into eyes, as he
checked old Whitey and drew up close to the curb.
No meager old woman this, wont to hold herself a trifle
stoop-shouldered, to walk with a slow, shuffling gait. Her thin figure
was braced alertly, like some slender girl’s. She stepped briskly,
lightly, from the high curb, and with two motions, as the soldiers say,
she put her foot on the hub of the wheel and was seated beside him in
the wagon. Then he saw her face, through the tunnel of her dark-blue
sunbonnet, suffused with a pink bloom as delicate as a peach-blossom.
Her eyes were as blue and as lustrous as the silk muffler, which the
artist had doubtless selected with a realization of the accord of
these fine tints. A curl of her silky, white hair lay on her forehead,
and another much longer hung down beneath the curtain of her bonnet,
scarcely more suggestive of age than if it had been discreetly
powdered. Her lips were red, and there was a vibration of joyous
excitement in her voice.
“Waal, sir, Shaftesvul!” she exclaimed, turning to survey the vanishing
town, for it had required scarcely a moment to whisk them beyond its
limited precincts. “It’s the beauty-spot of the whole world, sure.
But,” she added as she settled herself straight on the seat and turned
her face toward the ranges in the distance, “we must try ter put up
with the mountings. One good thing is that we air used ter them, else
hevin’ ter go back arter this trip would be powerful’ hard on us, sure.
Benjie, who do ye reckon I met up with in Shaftesvul? Now, _who_?”
“I dunno,” faltered Benjie, all ajee and out of his reckoning. Luckily
old Whitey knew the way home, for the reins lay slack on her back. “War
it yer Cousin Lucindy Jane?” Benjie ventured.
“Cousin Lucindy Jane!” Editha echoed with a tone closely resembling
contempt. “Of course I met up with Cousin Lucindy Jane, an’ war
interjuced ter her cow an’ all her chickens. Cousin Lucindy Jane!” she
repeated slightingly. Then essaying no further to foster his lame
guesswork, “Benjie,” she laid her hand impressively on his arm, “I met
up with Leroy Tresmon’!”
She gazed at him with wide, bright eyes, challenging his outbreak
of surprise. But Benjie only dully fumbled with the name. “Leroy
Tresmon’?” he repeated blankly. “Who’s him?”
“Hesh, Benjie!” cried Editha in a girlish gush of laughter. “Don’t ye
let on ez I hev never mentioned Leroy Tresmon’s name ter you-’uns.
Gracious me! Keep that secret in the sole of yer shoe. He’d never git
over it ef he war ter find that out, vain an’ perky ez he be.”
“But--but when did ye git acquainted with him?”
“Why, that year ’way back yander when I lived with Aunt Dor’thy in
Shaftesvul. My! my! my! why, ’Roy war ez reg’lar ez the town clock
in comin’ ter see me. But, lawsy! it be forty-six year’ ago now.
I never would hev dreampt of the critter remembering me arter all
these years.” She bridled into a graceful erectness, and threw her
beautiful eyes upward in ridicule of the idea as she went on: “I war
viewin’ the show-windows of that big dry-goods store. They call it
‘the palace’”--Benjie remembered that he had seen her at that very
moment--“an’ it war all so enticin’ ter the eye that I went inside to
look closer at some of the pretties; an’ ez I teetered up an’ down the
aisle I noticed arter awhile a man old ez you-’uns, Benjie, but mighty
fine an’ fixed up an’ scornful an’ perky, an’ jes gazin’ an’ _gazin’_
at me. But I passed on heedless, an’ presently, ez I war about ter turn
ter leave, a clerk stepped up ter me--I hed noticed out of the corner
of my eye the boss-man whisper ter him--an’ this whipper-snapper he
say, ‘Excuse me, Lady, but did you give yer name ter hev any goods sent
up?’ An’ I say, ‘I hev bought no goods; I be a stranger jes viewin’
the town.’ Then ez I started toward the door this boss-man suddint
kem out from behind his desk an’ appeared before me. ‘Surely,’ he
said, smiling--he hed the whitest teeth, Benjie, an’ a-many of ’em, ez
reg’lar ez grains of corn--”
Benjie instinctively closed his lips quickly over his own dental
vacancies and ruins as Editha resumed her recital:
“‘Surely,’ he said, smiling, ‘thar never war two sech pairs of
eyes--made out of heaven’s own blue. Ain’t this Editha Bruce?’
“An’ I determinated ter skeer him a leetle, fer he war majorin’ round
powerful’ brash; so I said ez cool ez a cucumber, ‘Mis’ Benjamin Casey.’
“But, shucks! the critter knowed my voice ez well ez my eyes. He jes
snatched both my hands, an’ ef he said ‘Editha! Editha! Editha!’
once, he said it a dozen times, like he would bu’st out crying an’
sheddin’ tears in two minutes. He don’t call my name like you do,
Benjie, short-like, ‘’Ditha.’ He says it ‘_E_editha,’ drawn out, saaft,
an’ sweet. Oh, lawsy! I plumb felt like a fool or a gal seventeen
year’ old--same thing. Fer it hed jes kem ter me who _he_ war, but I
purtended ter hev knowed him all along. The conceits of the town ways
of Shaftesvul hev made me plumb tricky an’ deceitful; I tell ye now,
Benjie.” She gave a jocose little nudge of her elbow into his thin, old
ribs, and so strangely forlorn had Benjie begun to feel that he was
grateful even for this equivocal attention.
“Then ‘Roy Tresmon’ say--Now, Benjie, I dunno whether ye will think
_I_ done the perlite thing, fer I didn’t rightly know _what_ ter do
myself--he say, ‘Editha, fer old sake’s sake choose su’thin’ fer a gift
o’ remembrance outen my stock.’
“I never seen no cattle, so I s’posed he war talkin’ sorter townified
about his goods in the store. But I jes laffed an’ say, ‘My husband is
a man with a free hand, though not a very fat purse, an’ I prefer ter
spen’ a few dollars with ye, ez I expected ter do when I drifted in
hyar a stranger.’ Ye notice them lies, Benjie. I reckon I kin explain
them somehow at the las’ day, but they served my turn ez faithful ez
the truth yestiddy. I say, ‘Ye kin take one penny out of the change
an’ put a hole through it fer remembrance, an’ let old sake’s sake go
at that.’” Once more her caroling, girlish laughter echoed along the
lonely road.
“Though I really hedn’t expected ter spen’ a cent, I bought me some
thread an’ buttons, an’ some checked gingham fer aperns, an’ a leetle
woolen shoulder-shawl, an’ paid fer them, meanin’ of course ter tote
’em along with me under my arm; but ’Roy gin the clerk a look, an’ that
spry limber-jack whisked them all away, an’ remarked, ‘The goods will
be sent up immejetly ter Mrs. Jarney’s, whar ye say ye be stoppin’.’
An’, Benjie, whenst Cousin Sophy Jarney an’ me opened that parcel las’
night, what d’ ye s’pose we f’und?” She gave Benjie a clutch on the
wrist of the hand that held the reins; and feeling them tighten, old
Whitey mended her pace.
“Ye oughter been more keerful than ter hev lef’ the things at the store
arter payin’ cash money fer ’em,” rejoined Benjie, sagely, not that he
was suspicious of temperament, but unsophisticated of training.
“Shucks!” cried Editha, with a rallying laugh. “All them common things
that I bought war thar, an’ more besides, wuth trible the money,
Benjie. A fancy comb fer the hair--looks some similar ter a crown,
though jet-black an’ shiny--an’ a necklace o’ beads ter match. O
Benjie!” she gave his hand an ecstatic pressure. “I’ll show ’em ter ye
when we gits home--every one. They air in my kyarpet-bag thar in the
back of the wagon. An’ thar war besides a leetle lace cape with leetle
black jet beads winkin’ at ye all over it, an’ a pair o’ silk gloves,
not like mittens, but with separate fingers. Cousin Sophy Jarney she
jes squealed. She say, ‘I wish I hed a beau like that!’ Ned Jarney,
standin’ by, watchin’ me open the parcel, he say, ‘Ladies hev ter be
ez beautisome ez Cousin Editha ter hev beaus at command at her time of
life.’ Oh, my! Oh, my! Cousin Sophy she say, ‘Cousin Editha is yit,
ez she always war, a tremenjious flirt. I think I’ll try ter practise
a leetle bit ter git my hand in, ef ever _I_ should hev occasion
ter try.’ Oh, my! I’ll never furgit this visit ter Shaftesvul, the
beauty-spot of the nation.”
Editha’s admired eyes, alight with all the fervors of retrospection,
were fixed unseeing upon the majestic range of mountains, now turning
from blue to amethyst with a cast of the westering sun. The fences had
failed along the roadside, and for miles it had run between shadowy
stretches of forest that, save for now and again a break of fields or
pasture-lands, cut off the alluring view. A lovely stream had given the
wayfarers its company, flowing beside the highway, clear as crystal,
and when once more it expanded into shallows the road ran down to the
margin to essay a ford. Here, as old Whitey paused to drink from the
lustrous depths, the reflection of the deep-green, overhanging boughs,
the beetling, gray rocks, and the blue sky painted a picture on the
surface too refreshingly vivid and sweet for the senses to discriminate
at once all its keen sources of joy.
[Illustration: Drawn by George Wright. Half-tone plate engraved by R.
Varley.
“‘AN’ WILL YE TELL ME WHAT’S THE REASON I COULDN’T HEV HED RICHES--OLD
TOM FOOL!’“]
Old Whitey had seemed to drink her fill, but as Benjie was about to
gather up the reins anew she bowed her pendulous lips once more to the
shining surface.
“Fust off,” resumed Mrs. Casey, with a touch of gravity, “I felt plumb
mortified about them presents. I knowed all that stuff had cost ’Roy
an onpleasing price of money. But, then, I reminded myself I hed no
accountability. He done it of his own accord, an’ he could well afford
it. I remembered when I war fust acquainted with ’Roy, when I war jes a
young gal an’ he nuthin’ but a peart cockerel, he hed _then_ the name
of bein’ one of the richest men in Shaftesvul. His dad bein’ dead,
’Roy owned what he hed his own self. An’ jedgin’ by his ‘stock,’ ez
he called it, an’ his ‘palace,’ he must hev been makin’ money hand
over hand ever sence. So I made up my mind ter enjoy the treat whenst
he invited me an’ Sophy an’ her husband, Ned Jarney, ter go ter the
pictur’-show last night an’ eat supper arterward. An’, Benjie, I never
seen sech fine men-folks’s clothes ez ’Roy Tresmon’ stepped out in. He
hed on a b’iled shirt stiff ez a board; he mought hev leaned up ag’in’
it ef he felt tired. His white collar war ekally stiff, an’ ez high ez
a staked-an’-ridered fence. Whenst he looked over it he ’peared some
similar ter a jumpin’ muel in a high paddock. He hed leetle, tiny,
shiny buttons in his shirt-front,--Sophy said they war pure gold,--an’
his weskit war cut down jes so--lem me show ye how.”
She had turned to take hold of Benjie’s humble jeans clothing
to illustrate the fashion of the garb of the merchant prince of
Shaftesville when her hand faltered on the lapel of his coat. “Why,
Benjie,” she cried sharply, “what makes ye look so plumb pale an’
peaked? Air ye ailin’ anyways?”
“Naw, naw.” Benjie testily repudiated the suggestion. “Tell on yer
tale.” Then by way of excuse or explanation he added, “I ain’t sick,
but settin’ on a jury is a wearin’ business.”
“Mought be ter the britches, but not ter the health,” Editha rejoined.
Then she burst out laughing at her jest, and it brought to her mind a
new phase of her triumphs. “’Roy Tresmon’ he said I war the wittiest
lady he ever seen. He meant plumb jokified,” she explained tolerantly.
“An’ sure’ I did keep him on the grin. He ’lowed it war wuth twice
the price of his entertainment ter escort me ter the pictur’-show an’
theater-supper arterward; fer when the show war over, me an’ him an’
Sophy an’ Jarney went ter an eatin’-store, whar they hed a whole passel
o’ leetle tables set out in the floor an’ the biggest lookin’-glass I
ever see on the wall. But, lawsy! Benjie, be ye a-goin’ ter let that
old mare stand slobberin’ in the river plumb till sunset? Git up,
Whitey!”
As the wagon went jolting up the steep bank, Editha resumed:
“But I tell ye now, Benjie, ’Roy Tresmon’ didn’t do all the fine
dressin’. I cut a dash myself. Sophy begged me ter wear a dress of
hern ter the pictur’-show an’ the theater-supper, ez they called it,
arterward, which I war crazy ter do all the time, though I kep’ on
sayin’ ter her, ‘What differ do it make what a’ old mounting woman
wears?’ But I let myself be persuaded into a white muslin frock with
black spots, an’, Benjie, with the lace cape an’ the jet necklace,
an’ the fancy jet comb in my hair, I made that man’s eyes shine ekal
ter them gold buttons in his shirt-front. Lem me show ye how Sophy did
up my hair. I scarcely dared turn my head on the pillow las’ night fer
fear of gittin’ it outen fix, an’ I never teched comb nor bresh ter it
this mornin’ so ez ye mought hev some idee how it looked.”
With the word she removed her sunbonnet with gingerly care and sat
smiling at him, expectant of plaudits. In fact, the snow-white
redundancy of her locks, piled into crafty puffs and coiled in heavy
curls by the designing and ambitious Sophy, a close student of the
fashion items as revealed in the patent inside of the county paper,
achieved a coiffure that might have won even discriminating encomiums.
But Benjie looked at her dully and drearily as she sat, all rejuvenated
by the artifices of the mode, roseate and bland and suavely smiling. A
sudden shadow crossed her face.
“Why, Benjie,” she cried anxiously, “what kin ail you-’uns? Ye look
plumb desolated.”
“Oh, you g’ long, g’ long!” cried the goaded Benjie. Luckily she
imagined the adjuration addressed to the old mare, now beginning the
long, steep ascent of the mountain to their home on the bluff, and thus
took no exceptions to the discourtesy.
“I’ll be bound ye eat su’thin’ ez disagreed with you in the town-folk’s
victuals. I expec’ I’ll hev ter give ye some yarb tea afore ye feel
right peart ag’in. Ye would hev a right to the indigestion ef ye hed
been feedin’ like me nigh on ter midnight. I be goin’ ter tell ye
about the pictur’-show arter I finish about ’Roy Tresmon’ an’ me. That
supper--waal, sir, he invited Sophy an’ Ned Jarney, too, an’ paid fer
us all, though some o’ them knickknacks war likely ter hev been paid
fer with thar lives. Toadstools did them misguided sinners eat with
thar chicken, an’ I expected them presently ter be laid out stiff in
death. _I_ never teched the rank p’ison, nor the wine nuther. I say
ter ’Roy ez I never could abide traffickin’ with corn-juice. An’ he
grinned an’ say, ‘This is grape-juice, Editha.’ But ye mought know it
warn’t no common grape-juice. The waiter kep’ a folded napkin round
the bottle ez it poured, an’ the sniff of that liquor war tremenjious
fine. It war like a whole flower-gyardin full of perfume. Them two
men, ’Roy an’ Jarney, war breakin’ the dry-town law, I believe. They
kep’ lookin’ at each other an’ laffin’, an’ axin’ which brand of soft
drinks war the mos’ satisfyin’. An’ the man what kep’ the eatin’-store
looked p’intedly skeered as he said ter the waiter, ‘Ye needn’t put
_that_ bottle on the table.’ An’ they got gay fer true; my best
cherry-bounce couldn’t hev made ’Roy mo’ glib than he war. An’ ’Roy hed
no sense lef’ nuther. Sophy she say she seen the bill the waiter laid
by his plate,-ye know how keen them leetle, squinched-up eyes of hern
be,--an’ she say it war over ten dollars. Lawsy!--lawsy! what a thing
it is ter be rich! ’Roy Tresmon’ jes stepped up ter the counter an’
paid it ’thout battin’ an eye.”
The old couple had left the wagon now, and were walking up a
particularly steep and stony stretch of the road to lighten the load
on old Whitey, dutifully pulling the rattling, rickety vehicle along
with scant guidance. Editha kept in advance, swinging her sunbonnet
by the string, her elaborately coiffed head still on display. Now and
then as she recalled an item of interest to detail, she paused and
stepped backward after a nonchalant girlish fashion, while Benjie, old
and battered and broken, found it an arduous task to plod along with
laggard, dislocated, and irregular gait at the tail-board of the wagon.
They were in the midst of the sunset now. It lay in a broad, dusky-red
splendor over all the far, green valleys, and the mountains had garbed
themselves in richest purple. Sweets were in the air, seeming more
than fragrance; the inhalation was like the quaffing of some delicious
elixir, filling the veins with a sort of ethereal ecstasy. The balsam
firs imbued the atmosphere with subtle strength, and the lungs expanded
to garner it. Flowers under foot, the fresh tinkle of a crystal
rill, the cry of a belated bird, all the bliss of home-coming in his
thrilling note as he winged his way over the crest--these were the
incidents of the climb.
“I tell ye, Benjie,”--Editha once more turned to walk slowly backward,
swinging her bonnet by the string,--“it’s a big thing ter be rich.”
“Oh,” suddenly cried the anguished Benjie, with a poignant wail, his
fortitude collapsing at last, “I wish you war rich! That be what ye
keer fer; I know it now. I wish ye could hev hed riches--yer heart’s
desire! I wish I hed never seen you-’uns, an’ ye hed never seen me!”
Editha stood stock-still in the road as though petrified. Old
Whitey, her progress barred, paused not unwillingly, and the rattle
of the wagon ceased for the nonce. Benjie, doubly disconsolate in
the consciousness of his self-betrayal, leaned heavily against the
motionless wheel and gazed shrinkingly at the visible wrath gathering
in his helpmate’s eyes.
“Man,” she cried, and Benjie felt as though the mountain had fallen
on him, “hev ye plumb turned fool? Now,” she went on with a stern
intonation, “ye tell me what ye mean by that sayin’, else I’ll fling ye
over the bluff or die tryin’.”
“Oh, nuthin’, nuthin’, ’Ditha,” said the miserable Benjie, all the
cherished values of his life falling about him in undiscriminated wreck.
“Then I’ll make my own understandin’ outen yer words, an’ I’ll hold the
gredge ag’in’ ye ez long ez I live,” she protested.
“Waal, then,” snarled Benjie, “ye take heed ye make the words jes like
I said ’em. I’ll stand ter ’em. _I_ never f’und out how ter tell lies
in Shaftesvul. I’ll stand ter my words.”
“Ye wished I could hev hed riches,” Editha ponderingly recapitulated
his phrases. Then she looked up, her blue eyes severe and her flushed
face set. “An’ will ye tell me what’s the reason I couldn’t hev hed
riches--old Tom fool!”
Thus the lovers!
“You-’uns, ’Ditha?” Benjie faltered, bewildered by the incongruity of
the idea. “You, _riches_?”
“I could hev hed long ago sech riches ez ’Roy Tresmon’ hev got, sartain
sure,” she declared. “An’ considerin’ ye hev kem in yer old age ter
wish ye hed never seen me, ’pears like it mought hev been better ef I
hed thought twice afore I turned him off forty-six year’ ago.”
“Turned off ’Roy Tresmon’! Forty-six year’ ago! What did ye do that
fer, ’Ditha?” Benjie bungled, aghast. He had a confused, flustered
sentiment of rebuke: what had possessed Editha in her youth to have
discarded this brilliant opportunity!
“To marry you-’uns, of course,” retorted Editha, amazed in her turn.
“An’ now, oh, ’Ditha, that we hev kem so nigh the eend of life’s
journey ye air sorry fer it,” wailed Benjie. “But I never knowed ez ye
hed the chance.”
Editha tossed her head. “The chance! I hed the chance three times
whenst he war young an’ personable an’ mighty nigh ez rich ez he be
now.” She began to check off the occasions on her fingers. “Fust,
at the big barn dance, when the Dimmycrats hed a speakin’ an’ a
percession. Then one night whenst we-’uns war kemin’ home together from
prayer-meetin’ he tol’ ag’in ‘his tale of love,’ ez he called it,” she
burst forth in a shrill cackle of derision. “Then that Christmus I
spent in Shaftesvul the year I stayed with Aunt Dor’thy he begged me
ter kem out ter the gate jes at sun-up ter receive my present, which
war his heart; an’ I tol’ him ez I war much obleeged, but I wouldn’t
deprive him of it. Ha! ha! ha! Lawsy! we-’uns war talkin’ ’bout them
old times all ’twixt the plays at the pictur’-show, an’ he declared he
hed stayed a bachelor all these years fer my sake. I tol’ him that ef I
war forty-five years younger I’d hev more manners than ter listen ter
sech talk ez that, ha! ha! ha! ’T war all mighty funny an’ gamesome,
an’ I laffed an’ laffed.”
“’Ditha,” said the contrite Benjie, taking heart of grace from her
relaxing seriousness, “I love ye so well that it hurts me to think I
cut ye out of any good thing.”
“Waal, ye done it, sure,” said the uncompromising Editha. “But fer
you-’uns I would hev married that man and owned all he hev got from his
‘palace’ ter his store teeth.”
“Did--did you-’uns say his teeth war jes store teeth?” demanded Benjie,
excitedly.
“Did you-’uns expec’ the critter ter cut a new set of teeth at his time
of life?” laughed Editha.
“O ’Ditha, I felt so cheap whenst ye tol’ ’bout his fine clothes,”
Benjie began.
“He used ter wear jes ez fine clothes forty-five years ago,”
interrupted Editha, “an’ he war then ez supple a jumping-jack ez ever
ye see, not a hirpling old codger; but, lawsy! I oughtn’t ter laff at
his rheumatics, remembering all them beads on that cape.”
As they climbed into the wagon, the ascent being completed, and resumed
their homeward way, Benjie was moved to seek to impress his own merits.
“I hed considerable attention paid ter my words whenst settin’ on the
jury, ’Ditha. They all kem round ter my way of thinkin’ whenst they
heard me talk.”
“Waal, I don’t follow thar example,” Editha retorted. “The more I hear
ye talk, the bigger fool ye seem ter be. Hyar ye air now thinkin’ it
will make me set more store by ye ter know that eleven slack-twisted
town-men hearkened ter yer speech. Ye suits me, an’ always did. I’d
think of ye jes the same if every juryman hed turned ag’in’ ye,
stiddier seein’ the wisdom of yer words.”
A genial glow sprang up in Benjie’s heart, responsive to the brusk
sincerities of this fling, and when the house was reached, and the
flames again flared, red and yellow from the hickory logs in the
deep chimney-place, the strings of scarlet peppers swinging from the
ceiling, the gaily flowered curtains fluttering at the windows, the
dogs fawning about their feet on the hearthstone, Editha’s exclamation
seemed the natural sequence of their arrival.
“Home fer sure!” she cried with a joyous nesting instinct, and reckless
of inconsistency. “An’, lawsy! don’t it look good an’ sensible! ’Pears
like Shaftesvul is away, away off yander in a dream, an’ ’Roy Tresmon’,
with his big white teeth an’ fine clothes an’ rheumatic teeter, is some
similar ter a nightmare, though I _oughter_ hev manners enough ter
remember them beads on that cape, an’ speak accordin’. I be done with
travelin’, Benjie, an’ nex’ time ye set on a jury ye’ll hev ter do it
by yer lone.”
The firelight showed the cheery radiance of the smile with which
the old “moth-eaten lovyers” gazed at each other, and the quizzical
expression of the little Cupid delineated on the mantelpiece, peering
out at them from beneath the bandage of his eyes, his useless wings
spread above the hearth he hallowed.
[Illustration]