Luke King was hot, damp with perspiration, and covered with the red dust
of the mountain road when he reached the four-roomed cabin of his
step-father among the stunted pines and gnarled wild cedars.
Old Mark Bruce sat out in front of the door. He wore no shoes nor coat,
and his hickory shirt and trousers had been patched many times. His gray
hair was long, sunburned, and dyed with the soil, and the corrugated
skin of his cheeks and neck was covered with long hairs. As his step-son
came into view from behind the pine-pole pig-pen, the old man uttered a
grunt of surprise that brought to the doorway two young women in
unadorned home-spun dresses, and a tall, lank young man in his
shirt-sleeves. It was growing dark, and they all failed to recognize the
new-comer.
"I suppose you have forgotten me," King said, as he put his valise on a
wash-bench by a tub of suds and a piggin of lye-soap.
"By Jacks, it's Luke King!" After that ejaculation of the old man he and
the others stared speechlessly.
"Yes, that's who I am," continued King. "How do you do, Jake?" (to the
tall young man in the doorway). "We might as well shake hands for the
sake of old times. You girls have grown into women since I left. I've
stayed away a long time and seen a lot of the world, but I've always
wanted to get back. Where is mother?"
Neither of the girls could summon up the courage to answer, and, as they
gave him their stiff hands, they seemed under stress of great
embarrassment.
"She's poorly," said the old man, inhospitably keeping his seat. "She's
had a hurtin' in 'er side from usin' that thar battlin' stick too much
on dirty clothes, hoein' corn an' one thing an' another, an' a cold
settled on her chest. Mary, go tell yore ma her son's turned up at last.
Huh, all of us, except her, thought you was dead an' under ground! She's
always contended you was alive an' had a job somers that was payin'
enough to feed an' clothe you. How's times been a-servin' you?"
"Pretty well." King removed his valise from the bench and took its place
wearily.
"Is that so? Things is worse than ever here. Whar have you been hangin'
out?"
"Seattle was the last place," King answered. "I've worked in several
towns since I left here."
"Huh, about as I expected! An' I reckon you hain't got much to show fer
it except what you got on yore back an' in that carpet-bag."
"That's about all."
"What you been followin'?"
"Doing newspaper work," replied the young man, coloring.
"I 'lowed you might keep at that. You used to git a dollar a day at
Canton, I remember. Married?"
"No."
"Hain't able to support a woman, I reckon. Well, you've showed a great
lot o' good sense thar; a feller of the wishy-washy, drift-about sort,
like you, can sorter manage to shift fer hisself ef he hain't hampered
by a pack o' children an' a sick woman."
At this juncture Mary returned. She flushed as she caught King's
expectant glance. She spoke to her father.
"She said tell 'im to come in thar."
Luke went into the front room and turned thence into a small chamber
adjoining. It was windowless and dark, the only light filtering
indirectly through the front room. On a low, narrow bed, beneath a
ladder leading to a trap-door above, lay a woman.
"Here I am, Luke," she cried out, warningly. "Don't stumble over that
pan o' water. I've been takin' a hot mustard foot-bath to try and get my
blood warm. I have chilly spells every day about this time. La me! How
you take me by surprise! I've prayed for little else in many a year, an'
was just about to give up. I took a little hope from some'n' old Ann
Boyd said one day about you bein' well an' employed somers out West, but
then I met Jane Hemingway, an' she give me the blues. She 'lowed that
old Ann just pretended you was doin' well to convince folks she'd made
no mistake in sendin' you to school. But, thank God, here you are alive,
anyway."
"Yes, I'm as sound as a new dollar, mother." His foot came in contact
with a three-legged stool in the darkness, and he recognized it as an
old friend and drew it to the head of her bed and sat down. He took one
of her hard, thin hands and bent over her. Should he kiss her? She had
not taught him to do so as a child, and he had never done it later in
his youth, not even when he had left home, but he had been out in the
world and grown wiser. He had seen other men kiss their mothers, and his
heart had ached. With his hand on her hard, withered cheek he turned her
face towards him and pressed his lips to hers. She was much surprised,
and drew herself from him instinctively, and wiped her mouth with a
corner of the coverlet, but he knew she was pleased.
"Why, Luke!" she said, quickly, "what on earth do you mean? Have you
gone plumb crazy?"
"I wanted to kiss you, that's all," he said, awkwardly. They were both
silent for a moment, then she spoke, tremblingly: "You always was
womanish and tender-like; it don't harm anybody, though; none o' the
rest in this family are that way. But, my stars! I can't tell a bit how
you look in this pitch-dark. Mary! oh, Mary!"
"What you want, ma?" The nearness of the speaker in the adjoining room
betrayed the fact that she had been listening.
"I can't see my hand before me," answered the old woman. "I wish you'd
fetch a light here. You'll find a stub of a candle in the clock under
the turpentine-bottle. I hid it thar so as to have some'n' to read the
Book with Sunday night if any preacher happened to drop in to hold
family worship."
The girl lighted the bit of tallow-dip and braced it upright in a
cracked teacup with some bits of stone. She brought it in, placed it on
a dry-goods box filled with cotton-seed and ears of corn, and shambled
out. King's heart sank as he looked around him in the dim light. The
room was only a lean-to shed walled with slabs driven into the ground
and floored with puncheons. The bedstead was a crude, wooden frame
supported by perpendicular saplings fastened to floor and rafters. The
irregular cracks in the wall were filled with mud, rags, and newspapers.
Bunches of dried herbs, roots, and red peppers hung above his head, and
piles of clothing, earth-dyed and worn to shreds, and agricultural
implements lay about indiscriminately. Disturbed by the light, a hen
flew from her nest behind a dismantled cloth-loom, and with a loud
cackling ran out at the door. There was a square cat-hole in the wall,
and through it a lank, half-starved cat crawled and came purring and
rubbing against the young man's ankle.
The old woman shaded her eyes and gazed at him eagerly. "You hain't
altered so overly much," she observed, "'cept your skin looks mighty
fair fer a man, and yore hands feel soft."
Then she lowered her voice into a cautious whisper, and glanced
furtively towards the door. "You favor your father--I don't mean Mark,
but your own daddy. You are as like him as can be. He helt his head that
away, an' had yore habit o' being gentle with women-folks. You've got
his high temper, too. La me! that last night you was at home, an' Mark
cussed you an' kicked yore writin'-paper in the fire, I didn't sleep a
wink. I thought you'd gone off to borrow a gun. It was almost a relief
to know you'd left, kase I seed you an' him couldn't git along. Your
father was a different sort of a man, Luke, and sometimes I miss 'im
sharp. He loved books an' study like you do. He had good blood in 'im;
his father was a teacher an' circuit-rider. I don't know why I married
Mark, unless it was kase I was afraid of bein' sent to the poor-farm,
but, la me! this is about as bad."
There was a low whimper in her voice, and the lines about her mouth had
tightened. King's breast heaved, and he suddenly put out his hand and
began to stroke her thin, gray hair. A strange, restful feeling stole
over him. The spell was on her, too; she closed her eyes and a satisfied
smile lighted her wan face. Then her lips began to quiver, and she
quickly turned her face from him.
"I'm a simpleton," she sobbed, "but I can't help it. Nobody hain't
petted me nor tuck on over me a bit since your pa died. I never treated
you right, neither, Luke. I ort never to 'a' let Mark run over you like
he did."
"Never mind that," King said. "He and I have already made friends; but
you must not lie in this dingy hole; you need medicine, and good, warm
food."
"Oh, I'm goin' to git up," she answered, lightly. "I'm not sick, Luke. I
jest laid down awhile to rest. I have to do this nearly every evening. I
must git the house straight. Mary an' Jane hain't no hands at house-work
'thout I stand right over 'em, an' Jake an' his pa is continually
a-fussing. I feel stronger already. If you'll go in t'other room I'll
rise. They'll never fix you nothin' to eat nor nowhar to sleep. I reckon
you'll have to lie with Jake like you used to, till I can fix better.
Things has been in an awful mess since I got so porely."
He went into the front room. The old man had brought his hand-bag in. He
had placed it in a chair and opened it and was coolly inspecting the
contents in the firelight. Jake and the two girls stood looking on. King
stared at the old man, but the latter did not seem at all abashed.
"Huh," he said, "you seem to be about as well stocked with little tricks
as a notion peddler--five or six pair o' striped socks and no end o'
collars; them things folded under the shirts looks like another suit o'
clothes. I reckon you have had a good job if you carry two outfits
around. Though I _have_ heard of printin'-men that went off owin'
accounts here an' yan."
"I paid what I owed before I left," King said, with an effort at
lightness as he closed the valise and put it into a corner.
In a few minutes his mother came in. She blew out the candle, and as she
crossed to the mantel-piece she carefully extinguished the smoking wick
with her fingers. The change in her was more noticeable to her son than
it had been when she was reclining. She looked very frail in her faded
black cotton gown. Somehow, bent as she was, she seemed shorter than of
old, more cowed and hopeless. Her shoes were worn through, and her bare
feet showed through the holes.
"Mary," she asked, "have you put on the supper?"
"Yes'm, but it hain't tuck up yet." The girl went into the next room,
which was used at once for cooking and dining, and her mother followed
her. In a few minutes the old woman came to the door.
"Walk out, all of you," she said, wearily. "Luke, it seems funny to make
company of you, but somehow I can't treat you like the rest. You'll have
to make out with what is set before you, though hog-meat is mighty
scarce this year. Just at fattenin'-time our pigs took the cholera an'
six laid down in the swamp in one day and died. Pork is fetchin' fifteen
cents a pound in town, and mighty few will sell on a credit."