A HUMAN ENIGMA
When the mountaineer had been assisted to his feet, he stood for a
moment, with his legs apart, swaying with giddiness; then, aware that
they were observing this, he looked at the Colonel and laughed. It was a
silent laugh, of the eyes and mouth and a movement in the throat. One
could not help thinking that should he let it out it would be deep and
musical.
With growing interest, and no slight amusement, they followed him to the
door where he gave a low whinnying sound that made Bob's stylish
chestnut look up with intelligent expectancy. Then back in the thicket
sounded a faint answer, followed by a crackling of brush, as the old
mare came obediently forward. Jane's horse, also, spoke inquisitively
from the shed where it was stabled, and the night sounds hushed again at
this intrusion of noises.
"I am Colonel May, of this county, sir," the old gentleman said, smiling
at the man's knack of mimicry. "My home, Arden, is but a few miles off."
"Howdy," replied the mountaineer, taking the proffered hand an instant
late and not seeming to realize they might want to be knowing who he
was. The Colonel and Bob exchanged glances.
"Perhaps," he ventured again, "you should drive with me and let Mr. Hart
here ride your horse. This is Mr. Hart, sir!"
"Howdy," Bob soberly put out his hand. "My whole name is Bob Hart, this
county, sir; and my home is known as Flat Rock--also at your service!"
The mountaineer thanked the Colonel with one perfunctory word, said
"Howdy" to Bob, then stepped out to Lucy who gave another low whinny of
welcome and rubbed her nose fondly into his hand. But something seemed
to be weighing heavily on his mind; his brows were contracted, his head
inclined in thought; and at last, having apparently worked it out, he
turned to them, announcing simply:
"This is Lucy!"
"Howdy," said Bob, still keeping an impassive face.
There came another moment of thought. Then:
"I'm Dale Dawson, of Sunlight Patch, in the mountings, suh." He said
this in so clever an imitation of their own introductions that it seemed
a caricature.
"_Chapeaux bas!_" the Colonel murmured, throwing Jane into the most
unlady-like fit of giggles.
"Where did it come from?" Bob asked later. He was riding with her a
hundred yards behind the buggy that held the Colonel and Dale, the old
rifle sticking out at the back like a bean pole.
"A heaven-sent deliverer," she quietly answered.
"I appreciate that," he said, in a more serious vein.
Her very reticence told him how deeply she had been shocked, and that it
was a subject to be avoided, for the present, at least. Bob was quick
to divine situations. For the moment, then, he drifted into another
channel, saying with a laugh that could hardly have been called
spontaneous:
"If he's an example of celestial types I'll--"
"Lead a different life?" she interrupted, smiling.
"No such plagiarism, thank you," he retorted. "I was about to say
something else!"
"You've been giving Bip some most unfatherly theories about that place,
by the way," she observed. "He has confided in me."
"Bip," Bob quietly remarked, with an oozing pride in the subject of his
six-year-old son, "has reached the age of embarrassing questions."
"And is being fed unpardonable answers," she said. "Between old Aunt
Timmie's declaration that it'll smell like heliotrope and taste like
possum the year 'round, and Uncle Zack swearing it's just a big race
track where everybody's horse will win, and doubtless the Colonel's word
for it that it's a perpetual spring flowing with ice-cold mint juleps, I
quite despair of the child's salvation. How have you been picturing it?"
"I passed that on," he ruefully admitted. "You and Ann can tackle it."
"I wasn't home this afternoon at his lesson time. Did he miss me?"
"Miss you! Ann says he went to your room about five o'clock, and then
came running to her saying something had happened to you. She was quite
a while getting him settled. And then, much shame to us, we realized
you'd not got back. I drove over to the Colonel's really expecting you
had stopped there." After a brief pause he asked: "Was that fellow much
unruly? I wouldn't disturb you about it, but think you ought to tell
us."
"About five o'clock," the girl mused. "That's most interesting, Bob.
I've told you, haven't I, that the child is tremendously psychic?"
"I don't know just what psychic is," he laughed. "It sounds like
medicine." And then repeated his other question: "Was Tusk much unruly?"
"Oh, no," she lightly answered. "Has Mr. McElroy been up in the hills
today?"
"There's the laziest chap in clothes," he declared. "I don't believe
he's done a lick of work since he came--and that's two months ago!
Personally, I don't care. He's bully company, and I'm not rabid for that
dinky little railroad, anyhow."
"It'll make all the difference to the mountaineers' future," she said.
"Quite right," he agreed, "and cut through my best pasture."
"Not your best pasture, surely!"
"My dear Jane, don't you know that when a railroad kills your cow it's
always your best cow? Pastures accordingly! Still," he added with a wry
look, "the people's good comes first, doesn't it! That's the proper
motto!" And suddenly he began to laugh. "Brent and your new friend up
there in the buggy ought to be a combination to keep the Colonel amused
for awhile! What do you think?"
She, too, had to laugh. The mental picture of the immaculate,
devil-may-care Brent McElroy--sent down in behalf of his father's
corporation to develop coal fields, to run a line for the little
railroad which Bob had just characterized as "dinky," and otherwise to
put into practice college experiences not included in its
curriculum--chumming with this new child of nature, threw them again
into peals of mirth.
"I wish someone would urge him on faster, anyhow," she said, more
seriously now.
"Why don't you try," he suggested.
They had turned into the lane, a mile of cool meanderings that led from
the pike to hospitable Arden, and for awhile rode in contemplative
silence. Faintly glimmering lights, yellow between the trees, from time
to time twinkled a welcome from the classic old house. Through four
generations of the Colonel's family this place had stood; occasionally
being altered to meet the requirements of comfort, but its stately
colonial front and thick brick walls remained intact. And for four
generations the neighborhood had looked at it with deep respect.
Valiantly had it held the fortification against encroaching modernism,
yet by slow degrees surrendering. A telephone had taken the place of the
more picturesque negro on a mule; the rural delivery of mail had made
another breach in the walls of seclusion. Only an automobile the Colonel
would not essay, declaring himself too much a lover of horseflesh to
offend his thoroughbreds with this; but when a touring car occasionally
penetrated as far as Arden, it was noticeable that his horses viewed it
with less suspicion than their master. Fortunately for the old
gentleman's peace of mind such a form of vehicle remained a novelty in
this section of Kentucky. The pike out of Buckville was good for a few
miles only, and then came almost impassable stretches of unworked roads
before connecting with those beautiful highways which wind and interwind
through the creamier centers of the State--a condition that did not
invite motorists.
Now as they drew near to the vine and tree entangled yard, the massive
white columns stood out through the gloom to meet them. From some of the
outlying cabins, former quarters of slaves, came low, minor singing of
present day field hands. However many times Bob approached this place,
his thoughts reverted to the evenings--half a score of years behind
him--when he would ride across from his own farm to court the Colonel's
daughter. He was thinking of this, of its sweetness to him then, of its
blessings to him now, and quietly said:
"When you marry I hope you will be as happy as I am."
"Existence is satisfying enough with you and Ann and Bip," she lightly
replied, "unless you want to get rid of me!"
He flushed, and turned almost angrily.
"There, I take it back," she said in tones as soft as the night. "It was
horrid! You've been so splendid in giving me a home--although I do
sometimes feel guilty for not being with the Colonel after all he's
done! Yet, were I there, I couldn't give nearly as much time to Bip.
Nothing can--"
"I wish you'd chop that," he growled. "You talk like you're under an
obligation, when you know darn well--"
"I was saying," she looked up brightly, "that nothing can take its
place, not even your suggested slavery; and there isn't a man in the
world whom I wouldn't despise for asking me. I just don't feel a bit
like it!"
"Lord help us!" he cried. "When will D. Cupid, Esquire, discover this
pristine hunting ground? You've a blue ribbon surprise in store for you,
that's all!"
"Perhaps Mr. D. Dawson will spring it," she laughed.
"Or the _blase_ B. McElroy," he suggested.
She made a grimace at this.
Lucy whinnied, and they saw the Colonel and Dale waiting at the bottom
step.
"Come in for awhile," the old gentleman urged.
"Now, Colonel," Bob said reproachfully, "do you know anything of Ann's
temper when under suspense?"
"I see, sir," his eyes wrinkled into a merry smile, "that you're as much
of a nigger about the house over there as I was when she honored me by
living here. Go home to your tyrant, sir, but come over, all of you,
tomorrow for dinner."
Lucy, now free of her burden, crossed to the silent but watchful
mountaineer and nestled her nose in his arm. It was an evidence of
affection which touched them all.
As Bob and Jane were leaving, in the buggy this time, they heard the
Colonel ask Uncle Zack if Mr. McElroy were home, and that old darky of
diminutive stature answer:
"No, sah, Cunnel, he done rid off harf hour ago."
"Maybe," Jane presently suggested, when they were well on their way,
"he's gone over to our house!"
"Maybe," Bob replied, wondering where of late the young engineer had
been spending his evenings.
"Do you know," she said irrelevantly, after a silence of several
minutes, "I believe a man in whom animals show implicit faith is to be
trusted."
"In this particular case, perhaps," he agreed, for it just so happened
that he, too, now was thinking of Dale. "Yet old Tom Hewlet has a lot of
dogs which fawn all over him!"
"That's so," she acquiesced, and both again fell silent.