At sunset Gray Pendleton pushed his tired horse across the Cumberland
River and up into the county-seat of the Hawns and Honeycutts. From the
head of the main street two battered signs caught his eye--Hawn Hotel
and Honeycutt Inn--the one on the right-hand side close at hand, and
the other far down on the left, and each on the corner of the street.
Both had double balconies, both were ramshackle and unpainted, and near
each was a general store, run now by a subleader of each faction--Hiram
Honeycutt and Shade Hawn--for old Jason and old Aaron, except in
councils of war and business, had retired into the more or less
peaceful haven of home and old age. Naturally the boy drew up and
stopped before Hawn Hotel, from the porch of which keen eyes
scrutinized him with curiosity and suspicion, and before he had
finished his supper of doughy biscuits, greasy bacon, and newly killed
fried chicken, the town knew but little less about his business there
than he himself. That night he asked many questions of Shade Hawn, the
proprietor, and all were answered freely, except where they bore on the
feud of half a century, and then Gray encountered a silence that was
puzzling but significant and deterrent. Next morning everybody who
spoke to him called him by name, and as he rode up the river there was
the look of recognition in every face he saw, for the news of him had
gone ahead the night before. At the mouth of Hawn Creek, in a bend of
the river, he came upon a schoolhouse under a beech-tree on the side of
a little hill; through the open door he saw, amidst the bent heads of
the pupils, the figure of a young woman seated at a desk, and had he
looked back when he turned up the creek he would have seen her at the
window, gazing covertly after him with one hand against her heart. For
Mavis Hawn, too, had heard that Gray was come to the hills. All morning
she had been watching the open door-way, and yet when she saw him pass
she went pale and had to throw her head up sharply to get her breath.
Her hands trembled, she rose and went to the window, and she did not
realize what she was doing until she turned to meet the surprised and
curious eyes of one of the larger girls, who, too, could see the
passing stranger, and then the young school-mistress flushed violently
and turned to her seat. The girl was a Honeycutt, and more than once
that long, restless afternoon Mavis met the same eyes searching her own
and already looking mischief. Slowly the long afternoon passed, school
was dismissed, and Mavis, with the circuit rider's old dog on guard at
her heels, started slowly up the creek with her eyes fixed on every
bend of the road she turned and on the crest of every little hill she
climbed, watching for Gray to come back. Once a horse that looked like
the one he rode and glimpsed through the bushes far ahead made her
heart beat violently and stopped her, poised for a leap into the
bushes, but it was only little Aaron Honeycutt, who lifted his hat,
flushed, and spoke gravely; and Mavis reached the old circuit rider's
gate, slipped around to the back porch and sat down, still in a tumult
that she could not calm. It was not long before she heard a clear shout
of "hello" at the gate, and she clenched her chair with both hands, for
the voice was Gray's. She heard the old woman go to the door, heard her
speak her surprise and hearty welcome--heard Gray's approaching steps.
"Is Mavis here?" Gray asked.
"She ain't got back from school."
"Was that her school down there at the mouth of the creek?"
"Shore."
"Well, I wish I had known that."
Calmly and steadily then Mavis rose, and a moment later Gray saw her in
the door and his own heart leaped at the rich, grave beauty of her.
Gravely she shook hands, gravely looked full into his eyes, without a
question sat down with quiet hands folded in her lap, and it was the
boy who was embarrassed and talked. He would live with the
superintendent on the spur just above and he would be a near neighbor.
His father was not well. Marjorie was not going away again, but would
stay at home that winter. Mavis's stepmother was well, and he had not
seen Jason before he left--they must have passed each other on the way.
Since Mavis's father was now at home, Jason would stay at the college,
as he lost so much time going to and fro. Gray was glad to get to work,
he already loved the mountains; but there had been so many changes he
hardly remembered the creek--how was Mavis's grandfather, old Mr. Hawn?
Mavis raised her eyes, but she was so long answering that the old woman
broke in:
"He's mighty peart fer sech a' old man, but he's a-breakin' fast an' he
ain't long fer this wuld." She spoke with the frank satisfaction that,
among country folks, the old take in ushering their contemporaries
through the portals, and Gray could hardly help smiling. He rose to
leave presently, and the old woman pressed him to stay for supper; but
Mavis's manner somehow forbade, and the boy climbed back up the spur,
wondering, ill at ease, and almost shaken by the new beauty the girl
seemed to have taken on in the hills. For there she was at home. She
had the peace and serenity of them: the pink-flecked laurel was in her
cheeks, the white of the rhododendron was at the base of her full round
throat, and in her eyes were the sleepy shadows of deep ravines. It
might not be so lonely for him after all in his exile, and the vision
of the girl haunted Gray when he went to bed that night and made him
murmur and stir restlessly in his sleep.