Have you seen Spring come to the mountains? Have you felt the subtle
power on the human heart, of trance-drugged impulses awakening in
plant, in animal, in humanity; in the deep hard arteries of the ancient
hills themselves? Winter there is grim and bleak beyond the telling.
In far separated cabins, held in the quarantine of mired roads, men and
women have lived, from hand to mouth, sinking into a dour and
melancholy apathy.
But when Spring comes, the gray and chocolate humps of raggedness are
softly veiled again with tender verdure and a song runs with the caress
of the breeze. It is a song relayed on the throats of birds. The
color of new flower and leaf and of skies washed clean of brooding
finds an echo in man and womankind. When the dogwood blossom,
everywhere, breaks into white foam upon the soft billows of woodland
green, and the sap stirs--then the old and crabbed bitterness of life
stands aside for the coming of Love.
If one be young and free, one feels, admittedly or subconsciously, the
deep tides that sing to sentiment and the undertows that pull to
passion.
About the lonely house of Alexander McGivins the woods were burgeoning
and tuneful. Stark contours of landscape had become lovely and
Alexander, preparing for the activities of "drappin' and kiverin'" in
the steep corn-fields, felt the surge of vague influences in her bosom.
Joe McGivins had carried a stricken face since Old Aaron's death. He
looked to his sister, as he had looked to his father, for direction and
guidance and though he worked it was as a hired man might have worked,
patiently rather than keenly and without initiative.
But keeping busy failed to comfort the empty ache in Alexander's heart
because in the grave over yonder lay all that had filled her world, and
though she would have fought the man who suggested it, there were times
when her lovely lips fell into lines of irony, and when she
half-consciously felt that her playing at being a man had been a bitter
and empty jest. She had only forfeited her woman's rights in life, and
had failed to gain the compensation of man's.
Once or twice when on the high road, she passed youthful couples,
love-engrossed, she went on with a wistfulness in her eyes. For such
as these, life held something, but for her, she was sure in her
obduracy of inexperience, there was no objective.
If the truth be told, the "spring-tide" was welling in the channels of
her being, as well as in the rivulets of the hills, and the changes
that had come to her were near to bearing fruit.
That space of little more than a week, when she had left her home--a
home which had also been a world with its own laws and environment--had
brought her into contact with other views. Her father's death had left
the house no longer the same. Two independent souls, with strong
views, may succeed in fashioning their own world, and she and her
father had been two such.
One left unsupported may fail, and now she was alone--for Joe hardly
counted.
Ever since she had been old enough to think at all, she had been
inordinately proud of "being a man," and profoundly contemptuous of the
women about her whose colorless lives spelled thraldom and hard
servitude.
That long fostered and passionately held creed would die hard. She
would fight herself and whomsoever else challenged its acceptance--but
insidious doubts were assailing her.
So to all outward seeming Alexander McGivins was more the "he-woman"
than ever before, but in her inner heart the leaven of change was at
its yeasty work.
"I've got ter be a man," she told Joe, who mildly objected, even while
he leaned on her strength. "Now thet paw's gone, I hev greater need
then ever ter stand squ'ar on my own two feet."
The youth nodded. "I reckon ye're right," he acknowledged, "but folks
talks a heap. I'm always figgerin' thet I'm goin' ter hev ter lick
somebody erbout ye. I wouldn't suffer nobody ter speak ill of ye when
I war present."
Alexander looked steadily at the boy. "I'm obleeged ter ye, but I'll
do my own fightin', Joe," she told him calmly. "I'll even make shift
ter do some o' your'n, an' yit----" She paused a moment and he
inquired, "Wa'al, what's on yore mind, Alexander?"
"An' yit," she went on more slowly and thoughtfully, "I'd be mighty
nigh willin' ter prove ther cause of ye gittin' in one or two good
fights--ef hit couldn't be brought ter pass no other way."
"Paw always counseled peace, ef a feller warn't pushed too fur," he
alleged in defense of his pacific attitude.
"So does I. But Joe, hit's jest on yore own account thet I'd like ter
see ye show more sperit. Folks talks erbout _you_ too. I know what
blood ye've got, commandin' blood--an' ef ye got roused up onc't hit'd
mek a more upstandin' man of ye. I knows hit's a lie, but I've heered
ye called ther disablest feller on Shoulder-blade!"
A touch of contempt stole into her voice as she added, "An' yore paw's
only son!"
He went away somewhat sulkily, but she had ignited in him a spark of
needed torture. Bred of a fighting line, the acid of self-scorn began
eating into his pride, and when a few days later he halted at a wayside
smithy, which was really only a "blind-tiger," and came upon a drinking
crowd, the ferment of his thoughts developed into action.
Sol Breck was sitting with his back turned as the boy strolled in and
it chanced that he was talking about Alexander. The girl herself with
her square sense of justice, would have recognized his comments as
crude jesting and would have passed them by unresented.
But Joe had been bitterly accusing himself of timidity and he needed
sustenance for his waning faith in his own temerity. It was
characteristic of him that he should pick an easy beginning, as a timid
swimmer seeks proficiency in shallow water. Sol Breck had the
unenviable reputation of one who never declined battle--and never
emerged from one crowned with victory. Joe hurled at him the challenge
of the fighting epithet and after a brief but animated combat had him
down and defeated. Then he returned home with a swelling breast, and
just enough marks of conflict upon his own person to bear out his
report of counsel heeded and resolution put to the touch.
Alexander listened without interruption to the end, for Joe had told
her all but the name of his adversary and the exact words that had
precipitated battle.
But when the narrative came to its conclusion she inquired quietly,
"What did he say erbout me?"
"Oh, hit wasn't so much what he said es ther way he said hit," was
Joe's somewhat shame-faced reply. "Ef hit hed been erbout any other
gal, I reckon I mout of looked over it."
"What was it?" The demand was insistent.
"He jest 'lowed that if 'stid of warin' pants an' straddlin' hosses,
ye'd pick ye out an upstandin' man an' wed him, thar mout come ter be
some _real_ men in ther fam'ly."
The girl's face crimsoned.
"I thought ye said hit war me ye fought erbout, Joe."
"I did say so, Alexander."
"An' ye didn't see no aspersion thet called fer a fight--in ther way
them words teched _you_?"
That phase of the matter had not occurred to Joe at all. He was used
to being overlooked.
"He warn't thinkin' erbout me," he lamely exculpated. "I reckon he hed
hit in head thet I hain't quite twenty-one yit."
For a while Alexander stood looking at him with a slowly gathering
tempest of anger in her eyes, under which the boy fidgeted, and finally
she spoke in that ominously still manner that marked moments of dang'er.
"What he said erbout me war true enough--an' ef ye admits what he all
but said erbout you--thet ye hain't no man--then _thet's_ true too."
The boy was crestfallen and a little impatient now. He had come to
recount an achievement which had plumed and reappareled a limping
self-respect and he had expected congratulation.
"What's ther use of faultin' me by mincin' words? I licked him, didn't
I? Set hit down ter anything ye likes."
Her voice still held that cold note of inflexible but quiet anger.
"Yes, ye licked him but hit looks like ter me ye picked yore man plum
keerful an' got ye an easy one. Wait hyar, I'm goin' atter my hat."
"What fer?"
"Were a'goin' over thar tergether--an' ye're goin' ter crave his
pardon."
"I wouldn't crave his pardon," burst out the boy violently, "ter save
his soul from torment. I'd be a laughing stock ef I did."
"Ye're agoin' ter do one of two things, Joe," she announced with
finality. "Ye're either agoin' ter ask his pardon, whilst I stands by
an' hears ye do hit or else ye're a'goin' ter tell him thet ye licked
him over ther wrong words--an' thet seein' ye blundered, ye're willin'
ter lick him afresh over ther right ones--him or anybody he names ter
fight in his place."
Joe hung his head for a moment, then the pricking of the old self-scorn
came with a turning tide.
"All right," he said. "Let's go."
It was an unmannerly, but a very astonished crew upon which they came
but at the sight of Alexander herself they all became sheepish and
discomfited of aspect.
"Sol," began the girl tersely, "Joe tells me thet him an' you hed a
fight jest now over somethin' ye said erbout he. I kin do my own
fightin', but Joe hes something ter tell ye on his own account."
So introduced, Joe spoke and this time it was the swimmer striking
boldly into deep water.
"Alexander 'lows I didn't hev need ter fight over loose talk erbout
her. But when airy feller says thar hain't no man in my household, so
long's I'm thar, I hev got ample cause ter fight. Ye've got ter tek
thet back right now. Ef so be ye hain't rested up yit, an' ye've got
any friend hyar thet ye'd like ter hev take yore place, I'm ready fer
him."
But Sol had had enough, for the present. Alexander's presence made
him, somehow, feel foolish, as if his thrashing were less of an
embarrassment than its cause.
"I war jest a-funnin,'" he protested. "I'm willin' ter take back
anything thet's done give offense."
One day shortly after that, when Joe came unexpectedly into the house
he surprised Alexander attired as he had never before seen her--in the
skirts of her own sex.
"Fer ther Lord's sake," exclaimed the boy. "Thet's ther fust time I
ever seed ye in petticoats. Looks like ye must hev on a half score of
'em."
"Like es not hit's ther last time ye'll ever see hit, too," retorted
Alexander hotly while her cheeks flamed. "Some day I mout hev ter go
down below ter some big town on business. A woman's got ter w'ar these
fool things thar, an' I was practising so's I could larn ter walk with
'em flappin' round my legs."
Yet she walked, for all the alleged difficulty, with an untrameled and
regal ease. With a sweep of hauteur she left the grinning boy and when
she returned a few minutes later she was breeched and booted as usual.
Sometimes, in these days, she went to a crest from which the view
reached off for leagues over the valley and beyond that over ridge upon
ridge of hilltops. There she thought of many things and was very
lonely. She could not have worded it but, deep in her heart, she felt
the outcry of the Spring voice: "Make me anything but neuter when the
sap begins to stir."
But how could this be any love-impulse in Alexander? Love, she had
always heard, must fix itself upon some one endearing object and lay
its glamor over definite features.
The most magnificent figure of a man she had ever seen often reared
itself in her thought-pictures with its six feet six of straight limbed
strength, its eagle-like keenness of eye, and its self-confident
bearing.
"Ef I could really be a man," she told herself, "I'd love ter be a man
like ther Halloway feller--ef only he wasn't so plum dirty and raggedy."
One day on her way back from the fields she saw a tall figure loafing
near the front door of her house and, at that distance, she thought
that it was Halloway. It stood so tall and straight that it must be,
but that was because the setting sun was in her eyes and the man showed
only in silhouette. So seen Jerry O'Keefe--for it proved to be
Jerry--suffered little by comparison with any man she knew--except
Halloway.
But Alexander did not greet him with any great warmth. She was angry
with herself because her heart had started suddenly to pounding at the
instant when she had imagined this man to be the other. She was angry,
too, with Jerry for disappointing her.
So she nodded coolly and demanded, "What's yore business hyarabout?"
In Jerry the rising joyousness of rebirth was full confessed. He was
here because since he had seen her last he had carried no other picture
in his thoughts, and now that the world was in bloom he wanted to see
her against a befitting background. To that end he had sold his small
farm and rented a plot and cabin near-by and if there was to be no
welcome for him here he had merely sold himself out of a home.
But the gray-blue eyes were whimsical, and the mobile lips smiling. He
was unrebuffed as he made a counter-query.
"Kain't a feller kinderly come broguein' in hyar, without some special
business brings him?"
Alexander felt that she had been unneighborly, but in her memory the
things that Brent had said to her had become a sort of troublesome
refrain. "Men will come and they won't be turned back." She
remembered, too, her own hot retort, "Like hell they won't!" It was in
the spirit of that retort that she answered.
"Ef ye hain't got no business hyar, ye hain't got no business hyar, an'
thet's all thar air ter hit."
"Mebby ye're ther business yoreself, Alexander," he suggested and there
was a persuasive quality in his voice.
"I'm my own business, nobody else's."
In this mood that had troubled her of late, Alexander was very
combative. She was not willing to surrender her code--not willing yet
to be treated as a woman.
"I heers tell thet ye've moved over hyar, bag an' baggage--an' ef I kin
help ye out any way, I'll seek ter convenience ye outen a sperit of
neighborness." She spoke in that extra-deliberate fashion that went
before a storm, and as she stood there with her head high, and her eyes
undeviatingly meeting his, she had the beauty of a war-goddess. "But
when ye hain't got no matter of need, don't come."
Jerry had no intention of being lightly repulsed. His purpose of
courtship had become his governing law but he had learned much of this
Amazonian woman and had set himself, not to an easy conquest, but to a
hard campaign. The man who, merely to be near one woman, sells a river
bottom farm that he had nursed into something like prosperity and who
takes on rocky acres in its stead, has shown, by his works, the
determination of his spirit.
Now, the humorous eyes riffled with a quiet amusement.
"I didn't say thet I come without business, Alexander. Mebby I hain't
stated hit yit."
"Then ye'd better state hit. Ye don't seem ter be in no tormentin'
haste."
O'Keefe thought that "tormentin' haste" in his position would be fatal
and yet the streak of whimsey that ran through him brought a
paradoxical answer.
"My hearth's cold over thar. I come ter borry fire."
He was watching her as he spoke, and now that he no longer stood under
the disadvantage of comparison with Jack Halloway he was no mean figure
of a man. One could not miss the fine, if slender, power of his long
and shapely lines from broad shoulder to tapering waist. His hair
curled crisply and incorrigibly and he bore himself with a lazy sort of
grace, agile for all its indolence. Alexander could not be quite sure
whether the eyes were insolent or humble. When he had stated his
mission of "borrowing fire" he had used a quaint phrase, eloquent of a
quainter custom. It had to do with that isolated life in a land where
until recently matches were rare and when the hearth fire died one had
to go to the neighbor's house and hasten back with a flaming fagot for
its relighting.
"Ye don't seem ter hev ther drive of a man borryin' fire. Why didn't
ye ask Joe. I heers him in thar."
"Hit's _goin' home_ not _comin'_ thet a man's got ter hasten with his
fire," he reminded her. "I didn't ask Joe because--he hain't got ther
kind of fire my heart needs, Alexander."
So her suspicion was true! He had been speaking, not literally, but in
the allegory of a suitor and her gathering wrath burst.
"Then I hain't got hit fer ye nuther. Let yore h'arth stay cold, an'
be damned ter ye--an' now begone right speedily!"
With pure effrontery the young man laughed. Into his voice he put a
pretense of appeal, as he calmly stuffed his pipe with tobacco crumbs.
"Alexander ye wouldn't deny a man such a plum needcessity es fire,
would ye?" he questioned, though even as he said it he drew from his
pocket a box of matches and struck one.
So he had made deliberate and calculated sport of her! Her anger saw
in his presence itself only the insult of the first attack from those
men who "would not be turned back," and once more the rage in her came
to its boiling-point.
She wheeled and went into the house and when she came out her face was
pale to the lips and her brows drawn in a resolute pucker, while in her
hands she carried a cocked rifle.
"Down yonder lays my fence-line," she autocratically told the man who
had continued standing where she had left him, and whose seeming was
still unflurried. "I've got a license ter say who crosses hit. Ye've
done sought ter make sport of me, an' now I commands ye ter cross ther
fence an' begone from hyar." She paused a moment because her breath
was coming fast with passion. "I warns ye nuver ter put foot on this
farm ergin--I aims ter see thet ye don't--an' when ye starts away don't
tarry ter look back, nuther."
Slowly Jerry O'Keefe nodded. One ordered from another's house must
obey, but the twinkle had not altogether faded from his eyes and there
was nothing precipitate in his movements, albeit the rifle was at ready
and the girl's deep breast was heaving with unfeigned fury.
"All right," he acceded, "I'm goin' now but es fer not lookin' back, I
wouldn't like ter mek no brash promises. You're hyar an' hit mout
prove right hard ter keep my eyes turned t'other way. I'm an
easy-goin' sort of feller anyhow, an' I likes ter let my glance kind of
rove hyar an' thar."
Her hands trembled on the gun and her voice shook into huskiness.
"Begone," she warned. "I kain't hold down my temper much longer."
"An' es fer comin' back," Jerry continued blandly, "some day you're
ergoin' ter _invite_ me back. Anyhow, I reckon I'd come, because
thar's somethin' hyar thet'll kinderly pulls me hither stronger then
guns kin skeer me off."
The girl sat there on her doorstep with her rifle across her knees and
halfway to the fence-line Jerry paused and looked back. The rifle came
up--and dropped back again as Alexander belatedly pretended that she
had not seen him. At the stile O'Keefe paused to turn his head again.
He even waved his hat, and this time she looked through him as through
a pane of glass.
But when she had been sitting broodingly for a long while, the cloud
slowly dissipated from her face. In her eyes a twinkle of merriment
battled with the fire of righteous indignation, and at last she even
laughed with a low pealing note like a silver bell.
"He's an impudent, no-count devil," she said, "but he's got right
unfalterin' nerve, an' thar's a mighty pleasin' twinkle in his eyes."
Not long after that Alexander made a journey to a nearby town, but
since it was one near the railroad she went in woman's attire, paying a
new deference to public opinion which she had heretofore scorned. She
was busily occupied there all day and her mission was one of mystery.