Slowly the lad rode westward, for the reason that he was not yet quite
ready to pass between those two big-pillared houses again, and because
just then whatever his way--no matter. His anger was all gone now and
his brain was clear, but he was bewildered. Throughout the day he had
done nothing that he thought was wrong, and yet throughout the day he
had done nothing that seemed to be right. This land was not for him--he
did not understand the ways of it and the people, and they did not
understand him. Even the rock-pecker had gone back on him, and though
that hurt him deeply, the lad loyally knew that the school-master must
have his own good reasons. The memory of Marjorie's look still hurt,
and somehow he felt that even Mavis was vaguely on their side against
him, and of a sudden the pang of loneliness that Marjorie saw in his
eyes so pierced him that he pulled his old nag in and stood motionless
in the middle of the road. The sky was overcast and the air was bitter
and chill; through the gray curtain that hung to the rim of the earth,
the low sun swung like a cooling ball of fire and under it the gray
fields stretched with such desolation for him that he dared ride no
farther into them. And then as the lad looked across the level
stillness that encircled him, the mountains loomed suddenly from
it--big, still, peaceful, beckoning--and made him faint with
homesickness. Those mountains were behind him--his mountains and his
home that was his no longer--but, after all, any home back there was
his, and that thought so filled his heart with a rush of gladness that
with one long breath of exultation he turned in his saddle to face
those distant unseen hills, and the old mare, following the movement of
his body, turned too, as though she, too, suddenly wanted to go home.
The chill air actually seemed to grow warmer as he trotted back, the
fields looked less desolate, and then across them he saw flashing
toward him the hostile fire of a scarlet tam-o'-shanter. He was nearing
the yard gate of the big house on the right, and from the other big
house on the left the spot of shaking crimson was galloping toward the
turnpike. He could wait until Marjorie crossed the road ahead of him,
or he could gallop ahead and pass before she could reach the gate, but
his sullen pride forbade either course, and so he rode straight on, and
his dogged eyes met hers as she swung the gate to and turned her pony
across the road. Marjorie flushed, her lips half parted to speak, and
Jason sullenly drew in, but as she said nothing, he clucked and dug his
heels viciously into the old mare's sides.
Then the little girl raised one hand to check him and spoke hurriedly:
"Jason, we've been talking about you, and my Uncle Bob says you kept me
from getting killed."
Jason stared.
"And the school-teacher says we don't understand you--you people down
in the mountains--and that we mustn't blame you for--" she paused in
helpless embarrassment, for still the mountain boy stared.
"You know," she went on finally, "boys here don't do things that you
boys do down there--"
She stopped again, the tears started suddenly in her earnest eyes, and
a miracle happened to little Jason. Something quite new surged within
him, his own eyes swam suddenly, and he cleared his throat huskily.
"I hain't a-goin' to bother you folks no more," he said, and he tried
to be surly, but couldn't. "I'm a-goin' away." The little girl's tears
ceased.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I wish you'd stay here and go to school. The
school-teacher said he wanted you to do that, and he says such nice
things about you, and so does my Uncle Bob, and Gray is sorry, and he
says he is coming over to see you to-morrow."
"I'm a-goin' home," repeated Jason stubbornly.
"Home?" repeated the girl, and her tone did what her look had done a
moment before, for she knew he had no home, and again the lad was
filled with a throbbing uneasiness. Her eyes dropped to her pony's
mane, and in a moment more she looked up with shy earnestness.
"Will you do something for me?"
Again Jason started and of its own accord his tongue spoke words that
to his own ears were very strange.
"Thar hain't nothin' I won't do fer ye," he said, and his sturdy
sincerity curiously disturbed Marjorie in turn, so that her flush came
back, and she went on with slow hesitation and with her eyes again
fixed on her pony's neck.
"I want you to promise me not--not to shoot anybody--unless you HAVE to
in self-defence--and never to take another drink until--until you see
me again."
She could not have bewildered the boy more had she asked him never to
go barefoot again, but his eyes were solemn when she looked up and
solemnly he nodded assent.
"I give ye my hand."
The words were not literal, but merely the way the mountaineer phrases
the giving of a promise, but the little girl took them literally and
she rode up to him with slim fingers outstretched and a warm friendly
smile on her little red mouth. Awkwardly the lad thrust out his dirty,
strong little hand.
"Good-by, Jason," she said.
"Good-by--" he faltered, and, still smiling, she finished the words for
him.
"Marjorie," she said, and unsmilingly he repeated:
"Marjorie."
While she passed through the gate he sat still and watched her, and he
kept on watching her as she galloped toward home, twisting in his
saddle to follow her course around the winding road. He saw a negro boy
come out to the stile to take her pony, and there Marjorie,
dismounting, saw in turn the lad still motionless where she had left
him, and looking after her. She waved her whip to him, went on toward
the house, and when she reached the top of the steps, she turned and
waved to him again, but he made no answering gesture, and only when the
front door closed behind her, did the boy waken from his trance and jog
slowly up the road. Only the rim of the red fire-ball was arched over
the horizon behind him now. Winter dusk was engulfing the fields and
through it belated crows were scurrying silently for protecting woods.
For a little while Jason rode with his hands folded man-wise on the
pommel of his saddle and with manlike emotions in his heart, for, while
the mountains still beckoned, this land had somehow grown more friendly
and there was a curious something after all that he would leave behind.
What it was he hardly knew; but a pair of blue eyes, misty with
mysterious tears, had sown memories in his confused brain that he would
not soon lose. He did not forget the contempt that had blazed from
those eyes, but he wondered now at the reason for that contempt. Was
there something that ruled this land--something better than the code
that ruled his hills? He had remembered every word the geologist had
ever said, for he loved the man, but it had remained for a strange
girl--a girl--to revive them, to give them actual life and plant within
him a sudden resolve to learn for himself what it all meant, and to
practise it, if he found it good. A cold wind sprang up now and cutting
through his thin clothes drove him in a lope toward his mother's home.
Apparently Mavis was watching for him through the window of the
cottage, for she ran out on the porch to meet him, but something in the
boy's manner checked her, and she neither spoke nor asked a question
while the boy took off his saddle and tossed it on the steps. Nor did
Jason give her but one glance, for the eagerness of her face and the
trust and tenderness in her eyes were an unconscious reproach and made
him feel guilty and faithless, so that he changed his mind about
turning the old mare out in the yard and led her to the stable, merely
to get away from the little girl.
Mavis was in the kitchen when he entered the house, and while they all
were eating supper, the lad could feel his little cousin's eyes on him
all the time--watching and wondering and troubled and hurt. And when
the four were seated about the fire, he did not look at her when he
announced that he was going back home, but he saw her body start and
shrink. His step-father yawned and said nothing, and his mother looked
on into the fire.
"When you goin', Jasie?" she asked at last.
"Daylight," he answered shortly.
There was a long silence.
"Whut you goin' to do down thar?"
The lad lifted his head fiercely and looked from the woman to the man
and back again.
"I'm a-goin' to git that land back," he snapped; and as there was no
question, no comment, he settled back brooding in his chair.
"Hit wasn't right--hit COULDN'T 'a' been right," he muttered, and then
as though he were answering his mother's unspoken question:
"I don't know HOW I'm goin' to git it back, but if it wasn't right,
thar must be some way, an' I'm a-goin' to find out if hit takes me all
my life."
His mother was still silent, though she had lifted a comer of her apron
to her eyes, and the lad rose and without a word of good-night climbed
the stairs to go to bed. Then the mother spoke to her husband angrily.
"You oughtn't to let the boy put all the blame on me, Steve--you made
me sell that land."
Steve's answer was another yawn, and he rose to get ready for bed, and
Mavis, too, turned indignant eyes on him, for she had heard enough from
the two to know that her step-mother spoke the truth. Her father opened
the door and she heard the creak of his heavy footsteps across the
freezing porch. Her step-mother went into the kitchen and Mavis climbed
the stairs softly and opened Jason's door.
"Jasie!" she called.
"Whut you want?"
"Jasie, take me back home with ye, won't you?"
A rough denial was on his lips, but her voice broke into a little sob
and the boy lay for a moment without answering.
"Whut on earth would you do down thar, Mavis?"
And then he remembered how he had told her that he would come for her
some day, and he remembered the Hawn boast that a Hawn's word was as
good as his bond and he added kindly: "Wait till mornin', Mavis. I'll
take ye if ye want to go."
The door closed instantly and she was gone. When the lad came down
before day next morning Mavis had finished tying a few things in a
bundle and was pushing it out of sight under a bed, and Jason knew what
that meant.
"You hain't told 'em?"
Mavis shook her head.
"Mebbe yo' pap won't let ye."
"He ain't hyeh," said the little girl.
"Whar is he?"
"I don't know."
"Mavis," said the boy seriously, "I'm a boy an' hit don't make no
difference whar I go, but you're a gal an' hit looks like you ought to
stay with yo' daddy."
The girl shook her head stubbornly, but he paid no attention.
"I tell ye, I'm a-goin' back to that new-fangled school when I git to
grandpap's, an' whut'll you do?"
"I'll go with ye."
"I've thought o' that," said the boy patiently, "but they mought not
have room fer neither one of us--an' I can take keer o' myself anywhar."
"Yes," said the little girl proudly, "an' I'll trust ye to take keer o'
me--anywhar."
The boy looked at her long and hard, but there was no feminine cunning
in her eyes--nothing but simple trust--and his silence was a despairing
assent. From the kitchen his mother called them to breakfast.
"Whar's Steve?" asked the boy.
The mother gave the same answer as had Mavis, but she looked anxious
and worried.
"Mavis is a-goin' back to the mountains with me," said the boy, and the
girl looked up in defiant expectation, but the mother did not even look
around from the stove.
"Mebbe yo' pap won't let ye," she said quietly.
"How's he goin' to help hisself," asked the girl, "when he ain't hyeh?"
"He'll blame me fer it, but I ain't a-blamin' you."
The words surprised and puzzled both and touched both with sympathy and
a little shame. The mother looked at her son, opened her lips again,
but closed them with a glance at Mavis that made her go out and leave
them alone.
"Jasie," she said then, "I reckon when Babe was a-playin' 'possum in
the bushes that day, he could 'a' shot ye when you run down the hill."
She took his silence for assent and went on:
"That shows he don't hold no grudge agin you fer shootin' at him."
Still Jason was silent, and a line of stern justice straightened the
woman's lips.
"I hain't got no right to say a word, just because Babe air my own
brother. Mebbe Babe knows who the man was, but I don't believe Babe
done it. Hit hain't enough that he was jes' SEED a-comin' outen the
bushes, an' afore you go a-layin' fer Babe, all I axe ye is to make
PLUMB DEAD SHORE."
It was a strange new note to come from his mother's voice, and it kept
the boy still silent from helplessness and shame. She had spoken
calmly, but now there was a little break in her voice.
"I want ye to go back, an' I'd go blind fer the rest o' my days if that
land was yours an' was a-waitin' down thar fer ye."
From the next room came the sound of Mavis's restless feet, and the boy
rose.
"I hain't a-goin' to lay fer Babe, mammy," he said huskily; "I hain't
a-goin' to lay fer nobody--now. An' don't you worry no more about that
land."
Half an hour later, just when day was breaking, Mavis sat behind Jason
with her bundle in her lap, and the mother looked up at them.
"I wish I was a-goin' with ye," she said.
And when they had passed out of sight down the lane, she turned back
into the house--weeping.