possession of the house, the unproductive clearing around it, and the
narrow strip of woodland bounding the richer farm beyond. From the
cabin door could be seen the broken, picturesque hills marking the
course of the Etowah River, with the Blue Ridge Mountains far beyond,
and the Long Swamp range rising in the foreground.
Very little of 'Zeki'l's past history was known in Zion Hill settlement.
He had walked into Mr. Davy Tanner's store one spring day, a dusty,
penniless tramp, his clothes hanging loosely from his stooping
shoulders, a small bundle in one hand, a rough walking-stick in the
other. Mr. Davy Tanner was a soft-hearted old man, and the forlorn,
friendless stranger appealed strangely to his sympathy, in spite of his
candid statement that he had just finished a five-years' term in the
penitentiary for horse-stealing.
"I tell you this, not because I think it's anything to boast of, but
because I don't want to 'pear like I'm deceivin' folks," he said in a
dejected, melancholy tone, his face twitching, his eyes cast down. It
was a haggard face, bleached to a dull pallor by prison life, every
feature worn into deep lines. Evidently he had suffered beyond the
punishment of the law, though how far it had eaten into his soul no man
would ever learn, for after that simple statement of his crime and his
servitude as a convict, he did not again, even remotely, touch upon his
past, nor the inner history of his life. No palliative explanations
were offered, no attempts made to soften the bare, disgraceful truth.
Mr. Davy Tanner was postmaster as well as merchant, and his store was
the general rendezvous for the settlement. The women came to buy snuff,
and thread, and such cheap, simple materials as they needed for Sunday
clothes; the men to get newspapers and the occasional letters coming for
them, besides buying sugar and coffee, and talking over the affairs of
the county and of Zion Hill church.
They looked on 'Zeki'l Morgan with distrust and contempt, and held
coldly aloof from him. But at last a farmer, sorely in need of help,
ventured to hire him, after talking it over with Mr. Davy Tanner.
"I tell you there ain't a mite o' harm in him."
"S'pose he runs away with my horse, Mr. Tanner?"
"I'll stand for him ef he does," said Mr. Davy Tanner, firmly. "I don't
know any more th'n you about him, but I'm willin' to trust him."
"That's the way you treat most o' the folks that come about you," said
his neighbor, smiling.
"Well, I ain't lost anything by it. It puts a man on his mettle to
trust him--gives him self-respect, if there's any good in him."
All the year 'Zeki'l filled a hireling's place, working faithfully; but
the next year he bought a steer, a few sticks of furniture, and, renting
the cabin and rocky hillside from Mr. Davy Tanner, set up housekeeping,
a yellow cur and an old violin his companions. Then he managed to buy
the place, and settled down. On one side he had the Biggers place, a
fine, rich farm, and on the other Mr. Davy Tanner's store and Zion Hill
church. He attended the church regularly, but always sat quietly,
unobtrusively in a corner, an alien, a man forever set apart from other
men.
As the years passed, openly expressed distrust and prejudice died out,
though he was never admitted to the inner life of the settlement. He
did not seem to expect it, going his way quietly, and ever maintaining
an impenetrable reserve about his own private history. Not even Mr.
Davy Tanner could win him from that reticence, much as he desired to
learn all about those long years of penal servitude and the life
concealed behind them. He seemed to be without any ties of kindred or
friendship, for the mail never brought anything to him, not even a
newspaper.
[Illustration: "A DUSTY, PENNILESS TRAMP."]
But he seemed a kindly natured man, with a vein of irrepressible
sociability running through him, in spite of his solitary ways of life.
There were glimpses of humor occasionally, and had it not been for that
cloud of shame hanging forbiddingly over him, he would have become a
favorite with his neighbors.
Across the road, opposite his house, he set up a small blacksmith shop,
and much of his idle time he spent in there, mending broken tools,
sharpening dull plows, hammering patiently on the ringing red-hot iron.
The smallest, simplest piece of work received the most careful
attention, and the farmers recognized and appreciated his
conscientiousness.
One summer afternoon, as he was plowing in his cotton-field, a neighbor
came along the road and, stopping at the fence, hailed him. He plowed to
the end of the row, and halted.
"Good evenin', 'Zeki'l," said the man, mounting to the top of the fence,
and sitting with his heels thrust through a crack in the lower rails.
"Howdy you do, Marshall? What's the news down your way?" 'Zeki'l
inquired, drawing his shirt-sleeve across his face, and leaning on the
plow-handles.
"I don't know as there's much to tell. Billy Hutchins an' Sary Ann
McNally run away an' got married last night, an' old Mis' Gillis is
mighty nigh dead with the ja'nders. A punkin couldn't look yallerer."
He opened his knife, and ran his fingers along the rail in search of a
splinter to whittle. "Old man Biggers has sold his place at last."
"Has he?"
"Yes; I met him down at the store, an' he said the trade had been made."
"He's bound to go to Texas."
"Yes; so he 'lows."
"Well, old Georgy is good enough for me," 'Zeki'l remarked, with a
pleased glance at his sterile fields.
"An' for me," said Marshall, heartily. "Wanderin' 'round don't make
folks rich. Biggers owns the best place in this settlement, an' he'd
better stay on it. It won't do to believe all the tales they tell about
these new States. I had a brother go to Louisiany before the war.
Folks said, 'Don't take anything with you; why, money mighty nigh grows
on bushes out there.' His wife took the greatest pride in her feather
beds, but what would be the use o' haulin' them beds all the way across
the Mississippi, when you could rake up feathers by the bushel
anywheres? Well, they went, an' for the whole endurin' time they stayed
they had to sleep on moss mattresses, an' my brother 'lowed it was about
the meanest stuff to kill he ever struck. If you didn't bile it, an'
bury it, an' do the Lord only knows what to it, it would grow an' burst
out of the beds when you was sleepin' on 'em." 'Zeki'l's attention did
not follow those reminiscent remarks. "Who bought the Biggers place?"
he inquired, as soon as Marshall ceased speaking.
"A man he met in Atlanta when he went down the last time, a man from one
of the lower counties, an' his name--why, yes, to be sure, it's Morgan,
same as yours--'Lijy Morgan. May be you know him?" with a sharp,
questioning glance.
But the momentary flush of emotion that the stranger's name had called
to 'Zeki'l's face was gone.
"I don't know as I do," he slowly replied, staring at a scrubby
cotton-stalk the muzzled ox was making ineffectual attempts to eat.
"I 'lowed may be he might be some kin to you," said Marshall, in a
baffled tone.
"I don't know as he is," said 'Zeki'l, still in that slow, dry,
non-committal tone, his eyes leaving the cotton-stalk to follow the
swift, noiseless flight of a cloud-shadow across a distant hillside.
"Morgan isn't an uncommon name, you know."
"That's so," reluctantly admitted Marshall.
"When does Mr. Biggers think o' goin' to Texas?"
"Oh, not until after crops are gathered."
"The other family, isn't to come, then, right away?"
"No; not till fall."
After Marshall had whittled, and gossiped, and gone his way, 'Zeki'l
stood a long time with his hands resting on the plow-handles, his brows
drawn together in deep thought. Some painful struggle seemed to be going
on. The crickets shrilled loudly in the brown sedge bordering a dry
ditch, and a vulture sailed majestically round and round above the
field, his broad black wings outspread on the quivering air. The
cloud-shadows on the river-hills assumed new form, shifted, swept away,
and others came in their places, and the vulture had become a mere
speck, a floating mote in the upper sunlight, before he turned the
patient ox into another furrow, murmuring aloud:
"I didn't go to them, an' if they come to me, I can't help it. I am not
to blame; the Almighty knows I'm not to blame;" and his overcast face
cleared somewhat.
That night when Mr. Davy Tanner closed his store and went home, he said
to his wife:
"'Zeki'l Morgan must be lonesome, or pestered about somethin'. You'd
think that old fiddle o' his could talk an' cry too, from the way he's
playin'."
The season advanced; crops were gathered, and the shorn fields looked
brown and bare. A sere, withering frost touched the forests, and the
leaves fell in drifts, while the partridge called to his mate from fence
and sedgy covert. A light snowfall lay on the distant mountains when the
Biggerses started to the West and the new family of Morgans moved into
Zion Hill settlement.
It was the third day after their arrival. 'Zeki'l leaned over the front
gate with an armful of corn, feeding two fat pigs, when 'Lijy Morgan
passed along the road on his way to Mr. Davy Tanner's store. He was a
strong-looking, well-built man, with rugged features and hair partly
gray. He looked curiously at the solitary, stooping figure inside the
gate, his steps slackened, then he stopped altogether, a grayish pallor
overspreading the healthy, ruddy hue of his face.
"'Zeki'l!"
'Zeki'l dropped the corn, and thrust open the gate.
"Howdy you do, 'Lijy?"
[Illustration: "HOWDY YOU DO, 'LIJY?"]
Their hands met in a quick, close grip, then fell apart.
"I like not to have known you, 'Zeki'l, it was so unexpected seein' you
here," said 'Lijy, huskily, scanning the worn, deeply lined face before
him with glad yet shrinking gaze.
"An' twelve years make a great difference in our looks sometimes, though
you are not so much changed," said 'Zeki'l quietly. He had been
prepared for the meeting, and years of self-mastery had given him the
power of concealing emotion.
"Twelve years? Yes; but it has seemed like twenty to me since--since it
all happened. Why didn't you come home, 'Zeki'l, when your time was
out?"
"I 'lowed the sight o' me wouldn't be good for you, 'Lijy; an'--an' the
old folks were gone."
"Yes; it killed them, 'Zeki'l, it killed them," in a choked voice.
"I know," said 'Zeki'l, hastily, his face blanching; "an' I thought it
would be best to make a new start in a new settlement."
"Do the folks here know?"
"That I served my time? Yes; but that's all. When I heard that you had
bought the Biggers place I studied hard about movin' away, but I like it
here. It's beginnin' to seem like home."
'Lijy stared at the poor cabin, the stunted, naked peach-trees, so cold
and dreary-looking in the wintry dusk.
"Is it yours, 'Zeki'l?"
"Yes; it's mine, all mine. Come in and sit awhile with me, an' warm.
It's goin' to be a nippin' cold night."
He turned, and 'Lijy silently followed him across the bare yard and into
the house. A flickering fire sent its warm glow throughout the room,
touching its meagre furnishing with softening grace, but a chill struck
to 'Lijy Morgan's heart as he crossed the threshold--a chill of
desolation.
"Do you live here alone?"
"Yes; all alone, except Rover and the fiddle."
The cur rose up from the hearth with a wag of his stumpy tail, and gave
the visitor a glance of welcome from his mild, friendly eyes.
There were only two chairs in the room, and 'Zeki'l placed the best one
before the fire for his guest, then threw on some fresh pieces of wood.
Outside the dusky twilight deepened to night, the orange glow fading
from the west, and the stars shining brilliantly through the clear
atmosphere. The chill wind whistled around the chimney-corners and
through the chinks in the log walls.
Between the men a constrained silence fell. The meeting had been painful
beyond the open acknowledgment of either. The dog crept to his master's
side and thrust his nose into his hand. The touch roused 'Zeki'l. From
the jamb he took a cob pipe and a twist of tobacco.
"Will you smoke, 'Lijy?"
"I believe not; but I'll take a chew."
He cut off a liberal mouthful, and then 'Zeki'l filled and lighted his
pipe. It seemed to loosen his tongue somewhat.
"Is Marthy Ann well enough?"
"She's tolerable."
"How many children have you?"
"Three; the girls, Cynthy an' Mary--"
"I remember them."
"An' little Zeke."
'Zeki'l's face flushed.
"Named him for me, 'Lijy?"
"Yes; for you. Cynthy's about grown now, an' a likely girl, I can tell
you."
His face softened; his eyes grew bright with pride and tenderness as he
spoke of his children. 'Zeki'l watched him, noting the change in his
countenance, and perhaps feeling some pain and regret that he had missed
such pleasure. 'Lijy reached out his hand and laid it on his knee.
"'Zeki'l, you must come live with us now. I'll tell these folks we are
brothers, an'--"
"I don't know as I would," said 'Zeki'l, gently. "It would only make
talk, an' I'm settled here, you know."
His unimpassioned tone had its effect on his brother. He protested, but
rather faintly, finally saying:
"Well, if you'd rather not--"
"That's just it. I'd rather not."
They both rose, and 'Lijy groped uncertainly for his hat.
"Your life ain't worth much to you, 'Zeki'l, I know it ain't," with
uncontrollable emotion.
"It's worth more 'n you think, 'Lijy, more 'n you think."
He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and cleared his throat as though to
speak again, but his brother had reached the door before he called to
him.
"'Lijy."
"Well?"
"What became o' 'Lizabeth?"
"She's still livin' with us."
He peered into the bowl of the pipe.
"She's never married?"
"No. She had a fall about ten years ago which left her a cripple, an'
she's grayer than I am. You 're not comin' to see us, 'Zeki'l?"
"I reckon not, 'Lijy." And while 'Lijy stumbled through the darkness
home--his errand to the store forgotten--'Zeki'l stood before the fire,
one arm resting against the black, cobwebby mantel. "Crippled an' gray!
O 'Lizabeth, 'Lizabeth!" he groaned, and put his head down on his arm,
the twelve years rolling backward upon him.
"Where have you been, 'Lijy?" exclaimed Mrs. Morgan when her husband
returned. "We waited an' waited for you, till the supper was spoiled."
"I met a man I used to know," he said, evasively, casting a wistful,
troubled glance toward the corner where 'Lizabeth, his wife's sister,
sat knitting, a crutch lying at her side.
Cynthia, a rosy, merry-eyed girl, laughed.
"Pa is always meetin' a man he knows."
Mrs. Morgan began hastily removing the covered dishes from the hearth to
the table.
"Well, where is the sugar you went over to the store to get?" she
demanded with some irritation.
"I forgot it, Marthy. I'll go for it in the mornin'," in a confused,
propitiatory tone.
She stared at him.
"I never! Forgot what you went after! You beat all, 'Lijy Morgan; you
certainly do beat all."
"The man must 'a' sent your wits wool-gatherin', pa," cried Cynthia,
jocosely.
'Lizabeth leaned forward. Her face was long, thin, and pale, and the
smooth hair framing it glinted like silver in the firelight; but her
dark eyes were wonderfully soft and beautiful, and her mouth had
chastened, tender lines about it.
"Are you sick, 'Lijy?" she inquired, in a gentle, subdued voice, a voice
with much underlying, patient sweetness in it.
Morgan gave her a grateful look. "N--no; but I don't think I care for
any supper," he said slowly. "I'll step out an' see if the stock has
all been fed."
When he returned Mrs. Morgan sat by the fire alone. He looked hastily
about the room.
"Where is Cynthy?"
"Gone to bed."
"An' 'Lizabeth?"
"She's off, too."
He drew a sigh of relief, and stirred the fire into a brighter blaze.
"Marthy Ann, it was 'Zeki'l I saw this evenin'."
She dropped the coarse garment she was mending.
"'Zeki'l!"
"Hush! Yes; he lives up on the hill between here an' the store;" and
then he went on to tell her about their meeting and conversation. Her
hard, sharp-featured face softened a little when he came to 'Zeki'l's
refusal to live with them or to have their kinship acknowledged.
"I'm glad to see he's got that much consideration. We left the old place
because folks couldn't forget how he'd disgraced himself; an' to come
right where he is! I never heard of anything like it. Why didn't he
leave the State if he wanted to save us more trouble?" wiping tears of
vexation from her eyes. "You spent nearly all you had to get him out of
prison, an' when he had to go to the penitentiary it killed his pa an'
ma, an'--"
"Be silent, woman! you don't know what you are talkin' about!" he said
sternly, writhing in his chair like a creature in bodily pain. "God
A'mighty forgive me!" He paused, smote his knee with his open palm, and
turned his face away.
"Well, if I don't know what I'm talkin' about, I'd like to know the
reason!" she cried, with the same angry excitement. "You ain't been
like the same man you were before that happened, you know you ain't.
I'll never be willin' to claim kin with 'Zeki'l Morgan again, never!
Folks may find out for themselves; an' they'll do it soon enough--don't
you be pestered--soon enough."
But not a suspicion of the truth seemed to occur to Zion Hill
settlement. The Morgans were welcomed with great friendliness, and
'Zeki'l alone failed to visit them. Children sat around his brother's
fireside, a wife ministered to him; but he had forfeited all claim to
such homely joys. The girls had evidently been informed of his
relationship to them, for they looked askance at him as they passed
along the road, pity and curiosity in their eyes. Once he came out of
the blacksmith shop, and, meeting his sister-in-law in the roadway,
stopped her, or she would have passed with averted head.
"You needn't be so careful, Marthy Ann," he said, without the slightest
touch of bitterness in his calm tone.
"It is for the children's sake, 'Zeki'l," she said, her sallow face
flushing with a feeling akin to shame. "I must think o' them."
He gave her a strange glance, then looked to the ground.
"I know; I thought o' them years ago."
"It's a pity you didn't think before--"
"Yes, so it is; but some deeds aren't to be accounted for, nor recalled
either, no matter how deeply we repent."
"We sold out for the children's sake, but, Lord! I'm pestered now more
than ever."
"Because I'm here?"
"Well, it ain't reasonable to think we can all go right on livin' here,
an' folks not find out you an' 'Lijy are brothers."
"What would you like for me to do, Marthy Ann?"
She hesitated a moment, then drew a little nearer to him.
"Couldn't you go away? You've got nobody but yourself to think about,
an' I know in reason 'Lijy would be glad to buy your place," with a
careless, half-contemptuous glance at the cabin.
A dull flush passed over his face; his mouth twitched.
"Does 'Lijy want me to go?"
"He ain't said so; but--"
"I'll think about it," he said slowly, turning back to the smithy, where
a red-hot tool awaited his hammer.
But thinking about it only seemed to bind his heart more closely than
ever to the arid spot he called home. He had looked forward to spending
all the remaining years of his broken, ruined life there, far from the
world and from those who had known him in the past. Then a great desire
had risen within him to remain near 'Lizabeth. He shrank from the
thought of meeting her, speaking to her, and felt rather glad that she
did not appear at church. A few times in passing he had caught a
glimpse of her walking about the yard or garden in the winter sunshine,
leaning on her crutch, and the sight had sent him on his way with
downcast face. He had just sat down before the fire to smoke one
evening when there came a timid knock on the door. It was just between
daylight and darkness, and he supposed it to be some neighbor on his way
to or from the store who wished to drop in to warm himself and gossip a
little.
"Come in," he said hospitably, and, reaching out, drew the other chair
nearer the fire.
The latch was slowly lifted, the door swung open, and then he started to
his feet, pipe and tobacco falling to the floor, while his face flushed
and paled, and his breath came in a sharp sigh. It was 'Lizabeth, her
bonnet pushed back, her shawl hanging loosely around her shoulders.
"I've be'n to the store for Marthy Ann, I wanted to go to get out away
from the house a little while, and I thought I'd step in for a minute,
'Zeki'l, to see you."
"You are tired; come an' sit down," he said huskily, and led her to the
chair.
[Illustration: "DO YOU THINK YOUR LAMENESS WOULD MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE?"]
What emotion those simple, commonplace words covered! They looked at
each other, silently noting the changes time and sorrow had wrought.
They had never been openly declared lovers, but words were not needed
for them to understand each other, and they knew that they would marry
when she had finished her term as teacher in the county school, and he
had built a house on the lot of land his father had given him. But that
shameful, undenied accusation of horse-stealing, followed swiftly by
trial and conviction, had put an end to all hopes, all plans.
"You see I'm a cripple now, 'Zeki'l," she said, to break the silence.
"An' I've grown old," he replied, and their eyes met again in a long,
eloquent, steadfast gaze, and they knew that neither age, nor
affliction, nor shame, nor separation had wrought any change in their
love. It had only grown stronger and deeper. Her thin face flushed,
her trembling fingers gathered up a fold of her gown.
"Why don't you come to see us, 'Zeki'l?"
"I can't, 'Lizabeth; I can't. It wouldn't be right. Don't you know
I've been longin' to come, an' hungerin' an' hungerin' to see you?" He
flung himself on the floor at her feet, his face hidden against her
knees. "You don't know all! you don't know all!" The words were wrung
from him by an almost uncontrollable desire to tell her the story of his
sufferings. She had not turned against him nor forgotten him. It was
almost more than he could bear, to read in her eyes her faith and her
pardon. He felt the touch of her hand on his bared head, and tears
gushed from his eyes.
"Can't you tell me?" she whispered, her face, her eyes, illumined by a
pity and tenderness divine in their beauty.
"No, honey; it's somethin' I must bear alone, I must bear alone."
He rose to his feet again, brushing his sleeve across his eyes, and she
stood up also, leaning on her crutch, the transient glow of color fading
from her face.
"You shouldn't bear it alone if I didn't have this lameness. You--"
"Hush!" he said, and, taking her hand, pressed it against his breast.
"Do you think your lameness would make any difference? Wouldn't I love
you all the more, take care o' you all the better, for it? It's the
disgrace, the shame, standin' between us. I'll never outlive it--get
rid of it--an' I'll never ask any woman to share it. I couldn't."
Her physical infirmity held her silent. She would be a care and a
burden to him rather than a help. She drew up her shawl.
"The Almighty comfort you, 'Zeki'l."
"An' take care o' you, 'Lizabeth."
He took her hand in a grasp painful in its closeness, then he turned and
leaned against the mantel, and she went softly out of the room.
Winter passed. The frost-bound earth sent up faint scents and sounds of
spring in fresh-plowed fields and swelling buds. 'Zeki'l wandered about
his fields in idleness, striving to make up his mind to go away. It
would be best, yet the sacrifice seemed cruel.
"It is more than I can bear," he cried aloud one night, and strained one
of the violin-strings until it snapped asunder. He laid the instrument
across his knees and leaned his head upon it. The candle burned dimly,
and a bat flew in through the open door, circled around the room, at
last extinguishing the feeble light with one of its outspread wings. But
the unhappy man did not heed the gloom. Why should he care to have a
light for his eyes when his soul was in such darkness? He groped his
way to the bed, and fell down upon it. Rover came back from a nightly
prowl, barked to let his master know of his presence, then lay down on
the doorstep.
The sound of music vibrated through the air, and 'Zeki'l remembered that
the young people of the settlement were to have a "singing" at his
brother's that evening. He raised his head and listened. They were
singing hymns, and many of them were associated with recollections of
his own youth. A line of Tom Moore's "Come, ye disconsolate," once a
special favorite when sorrow seemed far from him, was borne to his ears:
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.
He lay down and slept.