straight, her nose was rather high, and her eyes were clear and gray.
The upper lip of her little mouth was so short that the teeth just under
it were never quite concealed. It was the mouth of a child and it gave
the face, with all its strength and high purpose, a peculiar pathos that
no soul in that little mountain town had the power to see or feel. A
yellow mule was hitched to the rickety fence in front of her and she
stood on the stoop of a little white frame-house with an elm switch
between her teeth and gloves on her hands, which were white and looked
strong. The mule wore a man's saddle, but no matter--the streets were
full of yellow pools, the mud was ankle-deep, and she was on her way to
the sick-bed of Becky Day.
There was a flood that morning. All the preceding day the rains had
drenched the high slopes unceasingly. That night, the rain-clear forks
of the Kentucky got yellow and rose high, and now they crashed together
around the town and, after a heaving conflict, started the river on one
quivering, majestic sweep to the sea.
Nobody gave heed that the girl rode a mule or that the saddle was not
her own, and both facts she herself quickly forgot. This half log, half
frame house on a corner had stood a siege once. She could yet see bullet
holes about the door. Through this window, a revenue officer from the
Blue Grass had got a bullet in the shoulder from a garden in the rear.
Standing in the post-office door only just one month before, she herself
had seen children scurrying like rabbits through the back-yard fences,
men running silently here and there, men dodging into doorways, fire
flashing in the street and from every house--and not a sound but the
crack of pistol and Winchester; for the mountain men deal death in all
the terrible silence of death. And now a preacher with a long scar
across his forehead had come to the one little church in the place and
the fervor of religion was struggling with feudal hate for possession of
the town. To the girl, who saw a symbol in every mood of the earth, the
passions of these primitive people were like the treacherous streams of
the uplands--now quiet as sunny skies and now clashing together with but
little less fury and with much more noise. And the roar of the flood
above the wind that late afternoon was the wrath of the Father, that
with the peace of the Son so long on earth, such things still could be.
Once more trouble was threatening and that day even she knew that
trouble might come, but she rode without fear, for she went when and
where she pleased as any woman can, throughout the Cumberland, without
insult or harm.
At the end of the street were two houses that seemed to front each other
with unmistakable enmity. In them were two men who had wounded each
other only the day before, and who that day would lead the factions, if
the old feud broke loose again. One house was close to the frothing hem
of the flood--a log-hut with a shed of rough boards for a kitchen--the
home of Becky Day.
The other was across the way and was framed and smartly painted. On the
steps sat a woman with her head bare and her hands under her
apron--widow of the Marcum whose death from a bullet one month before
had broken the long truce of the feud. A groaning curse was growled from
the window as the girl drew near, and she knew it came from a wounded
Marcum who had lately come back from the West to avenge his brother's
death.
"Why don't you go over to see your neighbor?" The girl's clear eyes gave
no hint that she knew--as she well did--the trouble between the houses,
and the widow stared in sheer amazement, for mountaineers do not talk
with strangers of the quarrels between them.
"I have nothin' to do with such as her," she said, sullenly; "she ain't
the kind--"
"Don't!" said the girl, with a flush, "she's dying."
"_Dyin?_"
"Yes." With the word the girl sprang from the mule and threw the reins
over the pale of the fence in front of the log-hut across the way. In
the doorway she turned as though she would speak to the woman on the
steps again, but a tall man with a black beard appeared in the low door
of the kitchen-shed.
"How is your--how is Mrs. Day?"
"Mighty puny this mornin'--Becky is."
The girl slipped into the dark room. On a disordered, pillowless bed lay
a white face with eyes closed and mouth slightly open. Near the bed was
a low wood fire. On the hearth were several thick cups filled with herbs
and heavy fluids and covered with tarpaulin, for Becky's "man" was a
teamster. With a few touches of the girl's quick hands, the covers of
the bed were smooth, and the woman's eyes rested on the girl's own
cloak. With her own handkerchief she brushed the death-damp from the
forehead that already seemed growing cold. At her first touch, the
woman's eyelids opened and dropped together again. Her lips moved, but
no sound came from them.
In a moment the ashes disappeared, the hearth was clean and the fire was
blazing. Every time the girl passed the window she saw the widow across
the way staring hard at the hut. When she took the ashes into the
street, the woman spoke to her.
"I can't go to see Becky--she hates me."
"With good reason."
The answer came with a clear sharpness that made the widow start and
redden angrily; but the girl walked straight to the gate, her eyes
ablaze with all the courage that the mountain woman knew and yet with
another courage to which the primitive creature was a stranger--a
courage that made the widow lower her own eyes and twist her hands under
her apron.
"I want you to come and ask Becky to forgive you."
The woman stared and laughed.
"Forgive me? Becky forgive me? She wouldn't--an' I don't want her--" She
could not look up into the girl's eyes; but she pulled a pipe from under
the apron, laid it down with a trembling hand and began to rock
slightly.
The girl leaned across the gate.
"Look at me!" she said, sharply. The woman raised her eyes, swerved
them once, and then in spite of herself, held them steady.
"Listen! Do you want a dying woman's curse?"
It was a straight thrust to the core of a superstitious heart and a
spasm of terror crossed the woman's face. She began to wring her hands.
"Come on!" said the girl, sternly, and turned, without looking back,
until she reached the door of the hut, where she beckoned and stood
waiting, while the woman started slowly and helplessly from the steps,
still wringing her hands. Inside, behind her, the wounded Marcum, who
had been listening, raised himself on one elbow and looked after her
through the window.
"She can't come in--not while I'm in here."
The girl turned quickly. It was Dave Day, the teamster, in the kitchen
door, and his face looked blacker than his beard.
"Oh!" she said, simply, as though hurt, and then with a dignity that
surprised her, the teamster turned and strode towards the back door.
"But I can git out, I reckon," he said, and he never looked at the widow
who had stopped, frightened, at the gate.
"Oh, I can't--I _can't!_" she said, and her voice broke; but the girl
gently pushed her to the door, where she stopped again, leaning against
the lintel. Across the way, the wounded Marcum, with a scowl of wonder,
crawled out of his bed and started painfully to the door. The girl saw
him and her heart beat fast.
Inside, Becky lay with closed eyes. She stirred uneasily, as though she
felt some hated presence, but her eyes stayed fast, for the presence of
Death in the room was stronger still.
"Becky!" At the broken cry, Becky's eyes flashed wide and fire broke
through the haze that had gathered in them.
"I want ye ter fergive me, Becky."
The eyes burned steadily for a long time. For two days she had not
spoken, but her voice came now, as though from the grave.
"You!" she said, and, again, with torturing scorn, "You!" And then she
smiled, for she knew why her enemy was there, and her hour of triumph
was come. The girl moved swiftly to the window--she could see the
wounded Marcum slowly crossing the street, pistol in hand.
"What'd I ever do to you?"
"Nothin', Becky, nothin'."
Becky laughed harshly. "You can tell the truth--can't ye--to a dyin'
woman?"
"Fergive me, Becky!"
A scowling face, tortured with pain, was thrust into the window.
"Sh-h!" whispered the girl, imperiously, and the man lifted his heavy
eyes, dropped one elbow on the window-sill and waited.
"You tuk Jim from me!"
The widow covered her face with her hands, and the Marcum at the
window--brother to Jim, who was dead--lowered at her, listening keenly.
"An' you got him by lyin' 'bout me. You tuk him by lyin' 'bout
me--didn't ye? Didn't ye?" she repeated, fiercely, and her voice would
have wrung the truth from a stone.
"Yes--Becky--yes!"
"You hear?" cried Becky, turning her eyes to the girl.
"You made him believe an' made ever'body, you could, believe that I
was--was _bad_" Her breath got short, but the terrible arraignment went
on.
"You started this war. My brother wouldn't 'a' shot Jim Marcum if it
hadn't been fer you. You killed Jim--your own husband--an' you killed
_me_. An' now you want me to fergive you--you!" She raised her right
hand as though with it she would hurl the curse behind her lips, and the
widow, with a cry, sprang for the bony fingers, catching them in her own
hand and falling over on her knees at the bedside.
"Don't, Becky, don't--don't--_don't!_"
There was a slight rustle at the back window. At the other, a pistol
flashed into sight and dropped again below the sill. Turning, the girl
saw Dave's bushy black head--he, too, with one elbow on the sill and the
other hand out of sight.
"Shame!" she said, looking from one to the other of the two men, who had
learned, at last, the bottom truth of the feud; and then she caught the
sick woman's other hand and spoke quickly.
"Hush, Becky," she said; and at the touch of her hand and the sound of
her voice, Becky looked confusedly at her and let her upraised hand sink
back to the bed. The widow stared swiftly from Jim's brother, at one
window, to Dave Day at the other, and hid her face on her arms.
"Remember, Becky--how can you expect forgiveness in another world,
unless you forgive in this?"
The woman's brow knitted and she lay quiet. Like the widow who held her
hand, the dying woman believed, with never the shadow of a doubt, that
somewhere above the stars, a living God reigned in a heaven of
never-ending happiness; that somewhere beneath the earth a personal
devil gloated over souls in eternal torture; that whether she went
above, or below, hung solely on her last hour of contrition; and that
in heaven or hell she would know those whom she might meet as surely as
she had known them on earth. By and by her face softened and she drew a
long breath.
"Jim was a good man," she said. And then after a moment:
"An' I was a good woman"--she turned her eyes towards the girl--"until
Jim married _her_. I didn't keer after that." Then she got calm, and
while she spoke to the widow, she looked at the girl.
"Will you git up in church an' say before everybody that you knew I was
_good_ when you said I was bad--that you lied about me?"
"Yes--yes." Still Becky looked at the girl, who stooped again.
"She will, Becky, I know she will. Won't you forgive her and leave peace
behind you? Dave and Jim's brother are here--make them shake hands.
Won't you--won't you?" she asked, turning from one to the other.
Both men were silent.
"Won't you?" she repeated, looking at Jim's brother.
"I've got nothin' agin Dave. I always thought that she"--he did not call
his brother's wife by name--"caused all this trouble. I've nothin' agin
Dave."
The girl turned. "Won't you, Dave?"
"I'm waitin' to hear whut Becky says."
Becky was listening, though her eyes were closed. Her brows knitted
painfully. It was a hard compromise that she was asked to make i between
mortal hate and a love that was more than mortal, but the Plea that has
stood between them for nearly twenty centuries prevailed, and the girl
knew that the end of the feud was nigh.
Becky nodded.
"Yes, I fergive her, an' I want 'em to shake hands."
But not once did she turn her eyes to the woman whom she forgave, and
the hand that the widow held gave back no answering pressure. The faces
at the windows disappeared, and she motioned for the girl to take her
weeping enemy away.
She did not open her eyes when the girl came back, but her lips moved
and the girl bent above her.
"I know whar Jim is."
From somewhere outside came Dave's cough, and the dying woman turned her
head as though she were reminded of something she had quite forgotten.
Then, straightway, she forgot again.
The voice of the flood had deepened. A smile came to Becky's lips--a
faint, terrible smile of triumph. The girl bent low and, with a
startled face, shrank back.
"_An' I'll--git--thar--first._"
With that whisper went Becky's last breath, but the smile was there,
even when her lips were cold.
A CRISIS FOR THE GUARD
The tutor was from New England, and he was precisely what passes, with
Southerners, as typical. He was thin, he wore spectacles, he talked
dreamy abstractions, and he looked clerical. Indeed, his ancestors had
been clergymen for generations, and, by nature and principle, he was an
apostle of peace and a non-combatant. He had just come to the Gap--a
cleft in the Cumberland Mountains--to prepare two young Blue Grass
Kentuckians for Harvard. The railroad was still thirty miles away, and
he had travelled mule-back through mudholes, on which, as the joke ran,
a traveller was supposed to leave his card before he entered and
disappeared--that his successor might not unknowingly press him too
hard. I do know that, in those mudholes, mules were sometimes drowned.
The tutor's gray mule fell over a bank with him, and he would have gone
back had he not feared what was behind more than anything that was
possible ahead. He was mud-bespattered, sore, tired and dispirited when
he reached the Gap, but still plucky and full of business. He wanted to
see his pupils at once and arrange his schedule. They came in after
supper, and I had to laugh when I saw his mild eyes open. The boys were
only fifteen and seventeen, but each had around him a huge revolver and
a belt of cartridges, which he unbuckled and laid on the table after
shaking hands. The tutor's shining glasses were raised to me for light.
I gave it: my brothers had just come in from a little police duty, I
explained. Everybody was a policeman at the Gap, I added; and,
naturally, he still looked puzzled; but he began at once to question the
boys about their studies, and, in an hour, he had his daily schedule
mapped out and submitted to me. I had to cover my mouth with my hand
when I came to one item--"Exercise: a walk of half an hour every
Wednesday afternoon between five and six"--for the younger, known since
at Harvard as the colonel, and known then at the Gap as the Infant of
the Guard, winked most irreverently. As he had just come back from a
ten-mile chase down the valley on horseback after a bad butcher, and as
either was apt to have a like experience any and every day, I was not
afraid they would fail to get exercise enough; so I let that item of the
tutor pass.
The tutor slept in my room that night, and my four brothers, the eldest
of whom was a lieutenant on the police guard, in a room across the
hallway. I explained to the tutor that there was much lawlessness in
the region; that we "foreigners" were trying to build a town, and that,
to ensure law and order, we had all become volunteer policemen. He
seemed to think it was most interesting.
About three o'clock in the morning a shrill whistle blew, and, from
habit, I sprang out of bed. I had hardly struck the floor when four
pairs of heavy boots thundered down the stairs just outside the door,
and I heard a gasp from the startled tutor. He was bolt upright in bed,
and his face in the moonlight was white with fear.
"Wha--wha--what's that?"
I told him it was a police whistle and that the boys were answering it.
Everybody jumped when he heard a whistle, I explained; for nobody in
town was permitted to blow one except a policeman. I guessed there would
be enough men answering that whistle without me, however, and I slipped
back into bed.
"Well," he said; and when the boys lumbered upstairs again and one
shouted through the door, "All right!" the tutor said again with
emphasis: "Well!"
Next day there was to be a political gathering at the Gap. A Senator was
trying to lift himself by his own boot-straps into the Governor's
chair. He was going to make a speech, there would be a big and unruly
crowd, and it would be a crucial day for the Guard. So, next morning, I
suggested to the tutor that it would be unwise for him to begin work
with his pupils that day, for the reason that he was likely to be
greatly interrupted and often. He thought, however, he would like to
begin. He did begin, and within half an hour Gordon, the town sergeant,
thrust his head inside the door and called the colonel by name.
"Come on," he said; "they're going to try that d--n butcher." And seeing
from the tutor's face that he had done something dreadful, he slammed
the door in apologetic confusion. The tutor was law-abiding, and it was
the law that called the colonel, and so the tutor let him go--nay, went
with him and heard the case. The butcher had gone off on another man's
horse--the man owed him money, he said, and the only way he could get
his money was to take the horse as security. But the sergeant did not
know this, and he and the colonel rode after him, and the colonel,
having the swifter horse, but not having had time to get his own pistol,
took the sergeant's and went ahead. He fired quite close to the running
butcher twice, and the butcher thought it wise to halt. When he saw the
child who had captured him he was speechless, and he got off his horse
and cut a big switch to give the colonel a whipping, but the doughty
Infant drew down on him again and made him ride, foaming with rage, back
to town. The butcher was good-natured at the trial, however, and the
tutor heard him say, with a great guffaw:
"An' I _do_ believe the d--n little fool would 'a' shot me."
Once more the tutor looked at the pupil whom he was to lead into the
classic halls of Harvard, and once more he said:
"Well!"
People were streaming into town now, and I persuaded the tutor that
there was no use for him to begin his studies again. He said he would go
fishing down the river and take a swim. He would get back in time to
hear the speaking in the afternoon. So I got him a horse, and he came
out with a long cane fishing-pole and a pair of saddle-bags. I told him
that he must watch the old nag or she would run away with him,
particularly when he started homeward. The tutor was not much of a
centaur. The horse started as he was throwing the wrong leg over his
saddle, and the tutor clamped his rod under one arm, clutching for the
reins with both hands and kicking for his stirrups with both feet. The
tip of the limber pole beat the horse's flank gently as she struck a
trot, and smartly as she struck into a lope, and so with arms, feet,
saddle-pockets, and fishing-rod flapping towards different points of the
compass, the tutor passed out of sight over Poplar Hill on a dead run.
As soon as he could get over a fit of laughter and catch his breath, the
colonel asked:
"Do you know what he had in those saddle-pockets?"
"No."
"A bathing suit," he shouted; and he went off again.
Not even in a primeval forest, it seemed, would the modest Puritan bare
his body to the mirror of limpid water and the caress of mountain air.
* * * * *
The trouble had begun early that morning, when Gordon, the town
sergeant, stepped from his door and started down the street with no
little self-satisfaction. He had been arraying himself for a full hour,
and after a tub-bath and a shave he stepped, spic and span, into the
street with his head steadily held high, except when he bent it to look
at the shine of his boots, which was the work of his own hands, and of
which he was proud. As a matter of fact, the sergeant felt that he
looked just as he particularly wanted to look on that day--his best.
Gordon was a native of Wise, but that day a girl was coming from Lee,
and he was ready for her.
Opposite the Intermont, a pistol-shot cracked from Cherokee Avenue, and
from habit he started that way. Logan, the captain of the Guard--the
leading lawyer in that part of the State--was ahead of him however, and
he called to Gordon to follow. Gordon ran in the grass along the road to
keep those boots out of the dust. Somebody had fired off his pistol for
fun and was making tracks for the river. As they pushed the miscreant
close, he dashed into the river to wade across. It was a very cold
morning, and Gordon prayed that the captain was not going to be such a
fool as to follow the fellow across the river. He should have known
better,
"In with you," said the captain quietly, and the mirror of the shining
boots was dimmed, and the icy water chilled the sergeant to the knees
and made him so mad that he flashed his pistol and told the runaway to
halt, which he did in the middle of the stream. It was Richards, the
tough from "the Pocket," and, as he paid his fine promptly, they had to
let him go. Gordon went back, put on his everyday clothes and got his
billy and his whistle and prepared to see the maid from Lee when his
duty should let him. As a matter of fact, he saw her but once, and then
he was not made happy.
The people had come in rapidly--giants from the Crab Orchard,
mountaineers from through the Gap, and from Cracker's Neck and
Thunderstruck Knob; Valley people from Little Stone-Gap, from the
furnace site and Bum Hollow and Wildcat, and people from Lee, from
Turkey Cove, and from the Pocket--the much-dreaded Pocket--far down in
the river hills.
They came on foot and on horseback, and left their horses in the bushes
and crowded the streets and filled the saloon of one Jack Woods--who had
the cackling laugh of Satan and did not like the Guard, for good
reasons, and whose particular pleasure was to persuade some customer to
stir up a hornet's nest of trouble. From the saloon the crowd moved up
towards the big spring at the foot of Imboden Hill, where, under
beautiful trunk-mottled beeches, was built the speakers' platform.
Precisely at three o'clock the local orator much flurried, rose, ran his
hand through his long hair and looked in silence over the crowd.
"Fellow citizens! There's beauty in the stars, of night and in the
glowin' orb of day. There's beauty in the rollin' meadow and in the
quiet stream. There's beauty in the smilin' valley and in the
everlastin' hills. Therefore, fellow citizens--THEREFORE, fellow
citizens, allow me to introduce to you the future Governor of these
United States--Senator William Bayhone." And he sat down with such a
beatific smile of self-satisfaction that a fiend would not have had the
heart to say he had not won.
Now, there are wandering minstrels yet in the Cumberland Hills. They
play fiddles and go about making up "ballets" that involve local
history. Sometimes they make a pretty good verse--this, for instance,
about a feud:
The death of these two men
Caused great trouble in our land.
Caused men to leave their families
And take the parting hand.
Retaliation, still at war,
May never, never cease.
I would that I could only see
Our land once more at peace.