dignity. You see, Carley, I am still Westover of Wanalah, and I mean to
prove it to all men by doing things. I don't know yet what things they
are to be, but they must be worthy of the name I bear. I'm going off to
rest and think for a while, and when I come back to Wanalah Jack Towns
will tell me what tools I have to work with. Meanwhile brawling with an
underbred fellow like Webb would be most unbecoming."
"I'm glad to see that you have lucid intervals, Boyd," answered his
friend. "I reckon we won't bother with Latin Grammar to-night. Let's
play backgammon instead. But in the meantime let me give you a
professional opinion and some professional advice. You are neurasthenic
and you've got to get over it. Your mountain trip will be good for you,
but it would be better still if you could get up a fight of some sort.
I'll try to stir up something of the kind for you, when you get back.
Anyhow, you've got to _quit thinking about yourself_. Let me assure you
that there are thousands of more interesting topics to think about.
There's lettuce, for example, and there is music, to say nothing of
onions and roe herrings and the Missouri Compromise, and the relations
of agriculture to national wealth, and 'possum hunting, and black-eyed
peas and the Dred Scott decision and the morality of flipping quarters
at crack loo. Oh, here's the backgammon board. Let's get to work."
XV
UP AT JUDY'S
Robust as he was, Boyd Westover felt himself somewhat weary and
footsore when he put one hand on the top rail of Judy Peters's gateless
fence and sprang over it to greet his hostess.
She was waiting for him of course. She had caught sight of him far down
the mountain, at one of the many turns of the road which were
conveniently visible from her door or her other points of observation.
It was not Judy's habit to be surprised by any arrival. She had had no
warning of Westover's intended visit, but she was keen of vision, and
had had no difficulty in recognizing the wayfarer four miles away, if
measured by the tortuosities of the road, and perhaps a mile away as
the crow flies.
That had been two or three hours before the time of his actual arrival,
but Judy had not wondered at the delay. She knew Boyd's ways and she
had made out that he had fishing tackle with him.
"Sapphiry," she had asked her daughter, "how many chickens has you got
picked an' fixed in the spring house."
"Four," answered Sapphira. "Why, Mammy?"
"Never you mind why." Then relenting toward the girl's curiosity she
said:
"Boyd Westover's a comin', an' he'll be mighty hungry fer supper. He's
afoot an' it's more'n twenty mile from his place here. Besides that
he's got four big branches to fish afore he gits here an' that'll take
a heap o' walkin' to say nothin' o' the len'th o' the road. So you jes'
go on with your ironin' till I tell you to set about gittin' supper."
"May be he won't fish the branches," suggested the girl.
"Yes, an' may be the moon'll rise in the west to-night an' run wrong
way 'crost the firmament. It's the same sort of a may be, an' that sort
never happens."
"What you reckon he's a comin' fer, Mammy?" asked Sapphira as she held
up a stiffly starched garment to inspect her work.
"Dunno, an' it don't make no difference neither, as the feller says.
Boyd Westover's father always found a welcome a waitin' at the fence
when he come to Judy Peters's house, an' I's got the same sort o'
welcome a holdin' out both han's for Boyd when he comes." Then by way
of a more direct though conjectural answer to her daughter's question
she added:
"Reckon he wants to git away from them stuckups down his way. I hear
they's a been a botherin' of him o' late. Coffey, William, son to
Jesse, was a tellin' me all about it."
The form "Coffey, William, son to Jesse," was one in familiar use in
the mountains as a means of identifying one among a multitude of men
bearing the same name. There were several families whose membership was
so all pervasive of that region that some such method of identification
on the polling lists and elsewhere was a necessity, and the polling
list nomenclature had been very generally adopted into ordinary use.
"What was 't all 'bout, Mammy?"
"I dunno, only, whatever 'twas, another feller done it."
With that lucid explanation Judy set her flatiron on a trivet in front
of the fire and went to one of her points of vantage to scan the road
below. On her return she took Sapphira's flatiron from her hand, saying:
"I'll finish up the ironin'. They ain't but three or four pieces. You
run over to the furdest 'tater patch an' gravel a pan o' potaters. Git
a plenty of 'em, kase they's mighty good with fish."
To "gravel" potatoes is to dig into the "hill" in which the vines grow,
from its side remove the larger potatoes from the rootlets, close up
the opening and leave the vines to bring the remaining tubers to
perfection. It is a process that yields new potatoes before their time
and without destroying the growths. The potatoes secured in that way
are very small, very unwholesome, but altogether delicious.
"May be he didn't git no fish," said Sapphira doubtingly.
"Well, you jes' look after the potater maybes. That's your job. The
fish'll git here all right kase I seen him a cleanin' of 'em on the
rocks down 'long Samson's branch. He won't fish no more this evenin'
an' he'll be here in less 'n an hour. So mosey along an' git them
potaters. Soon's I git through with this petticoat, I'll sif' some meal
fer batter bread, git out a crock o' apple butter, an' cut up some
tomatuses. Boyd Westover's hungry an' he's a goin' to have a good
supper ef Judy Peters knows her business, an' she thinks she do."
When Boyd nimbly swung himself over the fence, all preliminary
preparations for the evening meal were completely made, and Judy stood
ready to welcome him. In his honor she had changed the limp, hot
weather gown that had served her during her ironing, for a stiffly
starched calico in the violently high colors of which her barbaric soul
mightily rejoiced.
For greeting Judy said:
"You's come up to shake off the stuck-ups, Boyd, an' git among natural
folks I s'pose. Anyhow you're welcome. Them's beauties," looking into
Boyd's fish basket, "an' they's a flat-back an' two catfish among 'em.
I'd ruther eat a catfish or a flat-back any time than a trout. Trout's
sort o' stuck up fish, even ef they does live up here in the mountings.
But I ain't forgot how to make trout good with the sauce your pappy
learnt me how to make--sauce All on Days he called it,--an' I'll make
you some fer supper."
Presumably Judy meant sauce Hollandaise. At any rate the sauce she
served with the trout that night was a glorified example of the
dressing that _chefs_ call by that name, improved by the gastronomic
genius of the late Westover of Wanalah, and made by Judy Peters, whose
instinct was infallible in the manufacture of things delectable to the
palate.
Suddenly Judy observed something in Boyd Westover's face,--a look of
utter weariness that she was sagacious enough to interpret aright,
though she made no mention of her interpretation.
"He's got things on his mind," she reflected; "an' they's more tiresome
like than all the trampin' a feller can do. His legs is good fer twice
the walkin' he's done to-day. Never mind. We'll fix that up afore we're
through."
Then turning to Westover she said:
"You is awful tired, Boyd, even ef you did clear the fence like a
yearlin' colt. Now you's a goin' to rest. Never min' tellin' me nothin'
'bout what you're here for nor none o' the rest of it. You's a-goin' to
have a nap. It'll be a hour or may be two hour afore supper's ready,
'cause I's got that sauce All on Days to make, an' it's a slow job.
It's awful hot this evenin'"--Judy meant afternoon, but like the more
aristocratic Virginians she called everything between noon and
nightfall "evening" and everything after dusk "night," as in very fact
it was.
"It's awful hot this evenin', but they's a good breeze a blowin'
through the passage, an' they's a broad sofy there, three foot wide an'
seven foot long, an' there you's a goin' to spen' the time twix this
an' supper. They's pillers a plenty, an' you ain't got nothin' to do
only to lay down an' git a good rest. Come on in."
Five minutes later Boyd Westover was comfortably asleep, with the
assurance that there were no shams or false pretenses in the
hospitality he was enjoying, and it was more than two hours later
before Judy permitted him to be waked. She was accustomed to dominate
everything in her own household, suppers included, and this particular
supper she had "sot back" by a full hour in order that her guest might
have his nap out. Even then she forbade a rude awakening. She simply
parsed two or three times through the broad passageway between the two
log houses that constituted her home, until the swish of her starched
calico skirts awakened him "drop by drop like," as she explained to
Sapphira and those of her long-legged sons who had "turned up" for
supper in the maternal home. Those boys, Webster, Henry Clay, Andrew
Jackson and Theonidas--heaven only knows where Judy got that name--were
always uncertain quantities in the household. Each was a law unto
himself. They came and went at their own free will, giving no account
of themselves. Home was home to them. They appeared there, sure of a
welcome, whenever it suited their convenience to do so. Sometimes all
four would be there; sometimes not one of them would appear for months
at a time. In either case no questions were asked and no accounts
given. The boys were strong of limb, alert, industrious, independent.
They made their own living by doing any sort of work that fell in their
way, and they envied no man his lot or his possessions. They were types
of a robust citizenship of which the Trusts and the Trades
Unions--conspiracies both in restraint alike of trade and of
liberty--have left us small trace in this modern world.
Their ages varied from thirteen to nineteen years; their height from
five feet ten to six feet three; their muscularity and their sturdy
self reliance not at all.
XVI
JUDY PETERS'S DIAGNOSIS
"Now come out here, Boyd," said Judy when the supper was over. "They's
a full moon or purty nigh onto it, an' it's a raisin', an' the
weather's good an' hot,--good fer growin' corn, an' not bad fer apples
an' pertaters. You an' me is a goin' to have a good long talk. Take
that there rockin' chair an' make yourself comfortable, like, 'cause I
want to hear all about it."
[Illustration: "Now come out here, Boyd."--Page 161.]
The rocking chairs sat upon a broad porch or platform, for it had no
roof over it, and the rising moon flooded the place with light.
"Now tell me all about it," said Judy when the two were seated.
It is to be said that Judy knew "all about it" already, at least all
about what had happened up to a very few days before. It was her habit
to keep herself fully informed on all subjects that interested her, and
she was mightily interested in everything that concerned any Westover.
Her loyalty to the Westovers had its own reasons for being. These she
never explained. She rarely explained anything personal to herself. But
that loyalty was barbaric in its intensity of devotion, savage in its
vindictiveness toward whatever and whomsoever antagonized the
Westovers, and recklessly relentless in its manifestations.
As soon as Boyd Westover fell into difficulties in Richmond, she sent
one of her henchmen there with instructions to employ a lawyer to keep
her informed. When Boyd returned to Wanalah she sent Edgar Coffey to
the county seat to report happenings and conditions. She said to him:
"Edgar, I has choosed you fer this job, bekase o' several pints in your
character. You is slick an' sly, an' you ain't got no principles to
stand in your way, an' you seems to be stupid, so's nobody'll suspect
you or keep silent when you's about. You kin lie so natural like that
nobody but me'd ever suspect you was a lyin' at all. What you's got to
do is to go down there to the Court House on some sort o' made up
business like, an' hang 'round an' listen, an' find out how the
stuck-ups is a treatin' Boyd Westover. Then you come back here an' tell
me 'bout it. Ef them stuckups treats him fa'r an' squa'r like, it'll be
all right. Ef they don't, I'll make some of 'em wisht they hadn't never
'a' been borned." This last utterance was addressed only to herself.
Edgar Coffey had returned on the evening before Westover's arrival and
his report had included some account of Webb's boasting that he had
"declined to consider Boyd Westover as a man entitled to the attention
of a gentleman."
"Now wait, Edgar," Judy said, when Coffey reported this; "don't let
your loose tongue git away with you. Did you hear him say that
hisself--the durned little two-cent postage?"
"Yes, Judy, sure an' certain; an' everybody down that way's a laughin'
in their sleeves 'bout it. They says, says they, 'Why, ef Boyd Westover
was to git a real mad on him, that feller wouldn't make a mouthful fer
him.'"
"No more would he," said Judy, addressing herself.
So Judy knew in advance the whole story that she asked Westover to tell
her; but she wanted to hear his version of it and find out his mood of
mind concerning it, and so she gave no sign of knowing anything. That
was Judy's way.
Just as the two comfortably seated themselves Theonidas--the thirteen
year old son of the house--emerged from within bearing a tray on which
were a stone jug, a vase-like glass, containing honey in the comb, two
tumblers and a little array of spoons.
"Now wait a minute, Boyd," said Judy as she directed the placing of the
tray on a table that stood between her and Westover. "You's got a lot
o' durned temperance nonsense mixed up with your good sense, but this
is a 'ceptional occasion; I ain't yit had a chanst to drink to the new
'Westover of Wanalah,' nor yit to congratulate you; an' besides that,
they ain't no harm in a glass o' peach an' honey when I raised the
honey an' made the peach myself, an' specially when the peach is
thirteen year ole in the bar'l. So you an' me is a goin' to have a
glass o' peach an' honey together, sich as folks don't often taste
these days. They was three bar'ls o' that there peach brandy, when my
husband, Marcellus, an' me made it, thirteen year ago, an' that jug's
got the last drop that's left of it. An' the best of it is they ain't
never anybody but the best been let to let it trickle down their
throats. When it were five year old I sold one bar'l of it to Tom
Griffin in Richmond, 'cause he never would let anybody but the best
have any of it. When it were ten year old I give one bar'l of it to
your pappy, 'cause I jes' know'd what sort o' folks he'd let drink it.
You see the peaches that year--thirteen year ago--was extra superfine,
an' I picked out the very best of 'em for them three bar'ls o' brandy,
an' they ain't been no peach like it ever made in these here mountings.
So now you an' me's a goin' to have a glass o' peach an' honey, an' sip
it slow like, while we talk, so's that we kin git the taste in our
throats an' all the way down. You see, Boyd, they's tricks in makin'
peach jes' as they is in politics an' religion an' school teachin' and
gittin' married. They wa'n't no trick when I got married, mind. I don't
mean that. Marcellus Peters was as good a man as these here mountings
ever raised, an' now he's been dead more'n a dozen years I ain't got no
complaint to make 'bout him. Only he hadn't much 'git there' in him. It
didn't make much difference, 'cause I could ten' to that part o' the
business myself. But he did know how to make peach an' apple brandy.
You see, Boyd, they's tricks in makin' peach, as I was a sayin', an'
Marcellus he know'd all of 'em. I ain't a sayin' he didn't work 'em off
on folks as didn't know nor care. He'd git a order fer peach when he
hadn't no peach, an' he'd fill the order. He'd take ten pound or so o'
dried peaches an' set 'em to stew fer an hour or so. Then he'd put 'em
through the bung hole of a bar'l o' apple brandy, an' let 'em 'sociate
with the brandy like, fer three or four days, rollin' the bar'l now an'
then to shake it up, like. Then he'd draw that brandy off into another
bar'l, an' it was fine old peach. Same with cherry brandy, or
blackberry, an' the stuck-ups didn't know the difference. But this here
peach is differenter. It was made of peaches, good peaches, such as
you'd smile to eat, an' Tom Griffin was glad to pay me seven dollars a
gallon for the bar'l of it he got. I reckon he'd pay twice that ef he
could git another bar'l of it now."
Judy Peters was not talking without a definite purpose. She never did
that. Even when her conversation rambled as it did on this occasion, it
rambled of set purpose and with deliberate intent. This time her
purpose was to induce a like rambling impulse on Boyd Westover's part,
so that she might not only hear from his lips the whole story of his
tribulations, but gather, by the wayside of his conversation as it
were, a clear impression of his present mood and attitude of mind,
something which could not be gained by direct questioning.
In all this the shrewdly wise old woman succeeded, and when Boyd
Westover bade her good night as the clock struck twelve, she knew all
she wanted to know about him. After he had gone to bed she lighted her
pipe anew and summed up her conclusions in the case of the young man
beneath her roof in reflections to the following effect:
"He's a feelin' it more'n's good fer him.
"He's wrong in his mind or his liver or his lights, an' the fust
needfulness is to set 'em right.
"He's a doin' the right thing in a goin' off up into the high
mountings. It'll straighten out the liver an' lights an' I'll make
Theonidas go with him, jes' to take the rough off, an' to keep him in
company like. That'll be healthier fer him.
"They's somethin' about a gal in the case, but jes' naturally I
couldn't git at that. Men is sech fools 'bout women anyhow! A young
feller will pick one purty gal out'n a dozen, all on 'em jes' as purty
an' jes' as smart as she is, an' ef she gives him the mitten he'll go
mournin' about, jes' as ef she was the onliest tadpole in the puddle,
while all the rest o' the dozen purty gals is a standin' ready to make
as big a fool out'n him as ever she could 'a' done. It's cur'ous but
'tain't to be helped no way, I reckon.
"Howsomever the thing to do is to git him interested in somethin', an'
I kin manage that. He'll git healthy like, up thar' in the high
mountings, an' by the time he comes back I'll git somethin' ready fer
him to do."
Boyd was already better in spirits when he greeted the sun the next
morning from the top of a hill near Judy's place. The air of the
mountains had been good for him. Better still had been Judy's
cordiality and her naturalness. After all his depression had been
rooted in the artificialities of human association, and in Judy
Peters's company there was no such artificiality. She had not hesitated
to interrupt his narrative of events at various points to tell him that
in this or that particular he had been a "darned fool," or a "frosted
potater vine," or a "dod dasted idjit," or something else of the sort
that she thought helpful to her endeavor to bring him back to a healthy
mental condition.
Her main reliance for his restoration to normality, however, was in
getting something strenuous for him to do. "Hard work's the calomel he
needs, an' a good hard fight's his quinine. It'll cure his chills, an'
I'll git it ready fer him."
With that determination fixed in her mind, Judy knocked the ashes out
of her pipe, covered up the kitchen fire, set some roe herrings to
soak, and went to bed. Sleep was to her healthy soul a matter of course.
XVII
JUDY INFORMS HERSELF AND MAKES PLANS
It was well past midsummer when Westover after a stay of three days
went from Judy Peters's place up into the higher and more desolate
parts of the mountain region. He was accompanied by Theonidas, whose
instructions from his mother were minute and explicit.
"B'ar in mind, Theonidas," she said to him in an intimate conversation,
"as how your duty's to keep him busy with things outsiden' hisself.
He's got too many books 'long with him, but they's good ef he don't git
to readin' of 'em by daylight. You's got to look out fer that. Ef you
find him a readin' an' a broodin' by daylight, you jes' find out
somethin' 'bout a b'ar or a catamount hangin' round, an' git him to
lookin' fer that. An' ef he gits to readin' too late o' nights, showin'
as how his min's oneasy like, you kin git up a night hunt or somethin'
like that, or ef that don't work you kin go out an' yell like a painter
till he gits his gun."
A "painter," in mountain parlance, meant a panther, or more properly
the mountain lion, a catlike, predatory beast between whom and the
mountaineers there was eternal war.
"Anyhow, Theonidas," concluded Judy, "you ain't no fool, an' now as you
knows my intentions, you's to carry 'em out. Keep him a goin'. Keep him
busy. Keep him so durned tired that he can't help sleepin' o' nights.
That's your cawntract. Ef he gits contrary an' won't git sleepy an' you
can't think o' nothin' else to do, jes' you set down an' tell him a lot
o' your yarns. He's too perlite not to let you talk on, an' I ain't
never knowed nothin' as would put a feller to sleep quicker'n one o'
your yarns, Theonidas."
In the event there proved to be no need of the soporific influence of
Theonidas's yarns. Westover had gone into the mountains to distract his
mind with sport, and he pursued that purpose ceaselessly by day and by
night. He would hunt deer, bears, turkeys, squirrels, pheasants and
every other species of game as it came into the advancing season,
throughout the day, and at night after a campfire dinner which he
cooked for himself, he and Theonidas would go eagerly in quest of night
prowlers--'coons, 'possums, and painters. Now and then he would send
Theonidas down the mountain with a present of game for Judy, while he
himself exercised his wits in controversy with a certain wily old trout
that was accustomed to jeer at him from one or another pool of the
stream that flowed by the cabin door. Sometimes he sent a haunch of
venison, a half dozen pheasants or a brace of young wild turkey
gobblers, with a request that Judy should arrange for their delivery to
Carley Farnsworth, a commission he knew she would execute to the letter.
In brief, young Westover was growing healthy of mind and body again,
while the books he had brought with him to serve as a means of killing
time lay unopened in the log cabin where he slept for long hours at
such times as physical weariness forbade him further to follow the
sports of the glorious out of doors.
In the meanwhile Judy Peters was maturing her plans. She kept Edgar
Coffey most of the time in the plantation part of the county, with
instructions to find out how the people down there felt toward
Westover, and who among them might be trusted to aid her in a project
she had formed, when the time should be ripe for its execution. As a
result of Edgar's mousing inquiries and her own shrewd skill in
discriminating between truth and falsehood in his periodical reports,
Judy Peters knew more about sentiment in the piedmont region than
anybody there did, not excepting William Wilberforce Webb, whose
personal concern it was to inform himself accurately as to that. She
knew, as Webb did not, that the great majority of the men of Westover's
own class--the men of assured social position--were strongly disposed
to regard his misfortune with generous sympathy, while those of less
well assured standing were disposed to shrug shoulders and give hints
of doubt.
She learned one thing, however, that troubled her a good deal. Among
those of Westover's own class there was a vague, undefined but none the
less hurtful suspicion that he had somehow failed of manly chivalry in
his treatment of Margaret Conway. The suspicion had its origin in the
fact that Colonel Conway would in no way discuss Westover's case or
express any opinion concerning him or his conduct. On the other hand it
lacked definiteness for the same reason. If there were no truth in it,
people argued, Colonel Conway would certainly plant a heavy heel upon
the rumor as an act of simple justice to a falsely accused young man;
if there were truth in it, it was difficult to understand why Colonel
Conway did not call the young man to account in some way.
Of all these conditions Judy was fully informed and when the autumn
came, with the general election in prospect, she directed Edgar Coffey
to find out definitely concerning the prospective "enominations," as
she and all the rest of the mountain folk called them.
"Is that there fadey calico feller, Webb, a goin' to be enominated fer
State senator from our distric'," she asked of her emissary when he
returned from his mission.