Once more, on his way for his last year at college, Jason Hawn had
stepped into the chill morning air at the railway junction, on the edge
of the Blue-grass. Again a faint light was showing in the east, and
cocks were crowing from a low sea of mist that lay motionless over the
land, but this time the darky porter reached without hesitation for his
bag and led him to the porch of the hotel, where he sat waiting for
breakfast. Once more at sunrise he sped through the breaking mist and
high over the yellow Kentucky River, but there was no pang of
homesickness when he looked down upon it now. Again fields of grass and
gram, grazing horses and cattle, fences, houses, barns reeled past his
window, and once more Steve Hawn met him at the station in the same old
rattletrap buggy, and again stared at him long and hard.
"Ain't much like the leetle feller I met here three year ago--air ye?"
Steve was unshaven and his stubbly, thick, black beard emphasized the
sickly touch of prison pallor that was still on his face. His eyes had
a new, wild, furtive look, and his mouth was cruel and bitter. Again
each side of the street was lined with big wagons loaded with tobacco
and covered with cotton cloth. Steve pointed to them.
"Rickolect whut I tol' you about hell a-comin' about that terbaccer?"
Jason nodded.
"Well, hit's come." His tone was ominous, personal, and disturbed the
boy.
"Look here, Steve," he said earnestly, "haven't you had enough now?
Ain't you goin' to settle down and behave yourself?"
The man's face took on the snarl of a vicious dog.
"No, by God!--I hain't. The trouble's on me right now. Colonel
Pendleton hain't treated me right--he cheated me out--"
Steve got no further; the boy turned squarely in the buggy and his eyes
blazed.
"That's a lie. I don't know anything about it, but I know it's a lie."
Steve, too, turned furious, but he had gone too far, and had counted
too much on kinship, so he controlled himself, and with vicious cunning
whipped about.
"Well," he said in an injured tone, "I mought be mistaken. We'll
see--we'll see."
Jason had not asked about his mother, and he did not ask now, for
Steve's manner worried him and made him apprehensive. He answered the
man's questions about the mountains shortly, and with diabolical
keenness Steve began to probe old wounds.
"I reckon," he said sympathetically, "you hain't found no way yit o'
gittin' yo' land back?"
"No."
"Ner who shot yo' pap?"
"No."
"Well, I hear as how Colonel Pendleton owns a lot in that company
that's diggin' out yo' coal. Mebbe you might git it back from him."
Jason made no answer, for his heart was sinking with every thought of
his mother and the further trouble Steve seemed bound to make. Martha
Hawn was standing in her porch with one hand above her eyes when they
drove into the mouth of the lane. She came down to the gate, and Jason
put his arms around her and kissed her; and when he saw the tears start
in her eyes he kissed her again while Steve stared, surprised and
uncomprehending. Again that afternoon Jason wandered aimlessly into the
blue-grass fields, and again his feet led him to the knoll whence he
could see the twin houses of the Pendletons bathed in the yellow
sunlight, and their own proud atmosphere of untroubled calm. And again,
even, he saw Marjorie galloping across the fields, and while he knew
the distressful anxiety in one of the households, he little guessed the
incipient storm that imperious young woman was at that moment carrying
within her own breast from the other. For Marjorie missed Gray; she was
lonely and she was bored; she had heard that Jason had been home
several days; she was irritated that he had not been to see her, nor
had sent her any message, and just now what she was going to do, she
did not exactly know or care. Half an hour later he saw her again,
coming back at a gallop along the turnpike, and seeing him, she pulled
in and waved her whip. Jason took off his hat, waved it in answer, and
kept on, whereat imperious Marjorie wheeled her horse through a gate
into the next field and thundered across it and up the slope toward
him. Jason stood hat in hand--embarrassed, irresolute, pale. When she
pulled in, he walked forward to take her outstretched gloved hand, and
when he looked up into her spirited face and challenging eyes, a great
calm came suddenly over him, and from it emerged his own dominant
spirit which the girl instantly felt. She had meant to tease, badger,
upbraid, domineer over him, but the volley of reproachful questions
that were on her petulant red lips dwindled lamely to one:
"How's Mavis, Jason?"
"She's well as common."
"You didn't see Gray?"
"No."
"I got a letter from him yesterday. He's living right above Mavis. He
says she is more beautiful than ever, and he's already crazy about his
life down there--and the mountains."
"I'm mighty glad."
She turned to go, and the boy walked down the hill to open the gate for
her--and sidewise Marjorie scrutinized him. Jason had grown taller,
darker, his hair was longer, his clothes were worn and rather shabby,
the atmosphere of the hills still invested him, and he was more like
the Jason she had first seen, so that the memories of childhood were
awakened in the girl and she softened toward him. When she passed
through the gate and turned her horse toward him again, the boy folded
his arms over the gate, and his sunburnt hands showed to Marjorie's
eyes the ravages of hard work.
"Why haven't you been over to see me, Jason?" she asked gently.
"I just got back this mornin'."
"Why, Gray wrote you left home several days ago."
"I did--but I stopped on the way to visit some kinfolks."
"Oh. Well, aren't you coming? I'm lonesome, and I guess you will be
too--without Mavis."
"I won't have time to get lonesome."
The girl smiled.
"That's ungracious--but I want you to take the time."
The boy looked at her; since his trial he had hardly spoken to her, and
had rarely seen her. Somehow he had come to regard his presence at
Colonel Pendleton's the following Christmas night as but a generous
impulse on their part that was to end then and there. He had kept away
from Marjorie thereafter, and if he was not to keep away now, he must
make matters very clear.
"Maybe your mother won't like it," he said gravely. "I'm a jail-bird."
"Don't, Jason," she said, shocked by his frankness; "you couldn't help
that. I want you to come."
Jason was reddening with embarrassment now, but he had to get out what
had been so long on his mind.
"I'm comin' once anyhow. I know what she did for me and I'm comin' to
thank her for doin' it."
Marjorie was surprised and again she smiled.
"Well, she won't like that, Jason," she said, and the boy, not
misunderstanding, smiled too.
"I'm comin'."
Marjorie turned her horse.
"I hope I'll be at home."
Her mood had turned to coquetry again. Jason had meant to tell her that
he knew she herself had been behind her mother's kindness toward him,
but a sudden delicacy forbade, and to her change of mood he answered:
"You will be--when I come."
This was a new deftness for Jason, and a little flush of pleasure came
to the girl's cheeks and a little seriousness to her eyes.
"Well, you ARE mighty nice, Jason--good-by."
"Good-by," said the boy soberly.
At her own gate the girl turned to look back, but Jason was striding
across the fields. She turned again on the slope of the hill but Jason
was still striding on. She watched him until he had disappeared, but he
did not turn to look and her heart felt a little hurt. She was very
quiet that night, so quiet that she caught a concerned look in her
mother's eyes, and when she had gone to her room her mother came in and
found her in a stream of moonlight at her window. And when Mrs.
Pendleton silently kissed her, she broke into tears.
"I'm lonely, mother," she sobbed; "I'm so lonely."
A week later Jason sat on the porch one night after supper and his
mother came to the doorway.
"I forgot to tell ye, Jason, that Marjorie Pendleton rid over here the
day you got here an' axed if you'd come home."
"I saw her down the pike that day," said Jason, not showing the
surprise he felt. Steve Hawn, coming around the corner of the house,
heard them both and on his face was a malicious grin.
"Down the pike," he repeated. "I seed ye both a-talkin', up thar at the
edge of the woods. She looked back at ye twice, but you wouldn't take
no notice. Now that Gray ain't hyeh I reckon you mought--"
The boy's protest, hoarse and inarticulate, stopped Steve, who dropped
his bantering tone and turned serious.
"Now looky here, Jason, yo' uncle Arch has tol' me about Gray and Mavis
already up that in the mountains, an' I see what's comin' down here fer
you. You an' Gray ought to have more sense--gittin' into such trouble--"
"Trouble!" cried the boy.
"Yes, I know," Steve answered. "Hit is funny fer me to be talkin' about
trouble. I was born to it, as the circuit rider says, as the sparks fly
upward. That ain't no hope fer me, but you--"
The boy rose impatiently but curiously shaken by such words and so
strange a tone from his step-father. He was still shaken when he
climbed to Mavis's room and was looking out of her window, and that
turned his thoughts to her and to Gray in the hills. What was the
trouble that Steve had already heard about Mavis and Gray, and what the
trouble at which Steve had hinted--for him? Once before Steve had
dropped a bit of news, also gathered from Arch Hawn, that during the
truce in the mountains little Aaron Honeycutt had developed a wild
passion for Mavis, but at that absurdity Jason had only laughed. Still
the customs of the Blue-grass and the hills were widely divergent, and
if Gray, only out of loneliness, were much with Mavis, only one
interpretation was possible to the Hawns and Honeycutts, just as only
one interpretation had been possible for Steve with reference to
Marjorie and himself, and Steve's interpretation he contemptuously
dismissed. His grandfather might make trouble for Gray, or Gray and
little Aaron might clash. He would like to warn Gray, and yet even with
that wish in his mind a little flame of jealousy was already licking at
his heart, though already that heart was thumping at the bid of
Marjorie. Impatiently he began to wonder at the perverse waywardness of
his own soul, and without undressing he sat at the window--restless,
sleepless, and helpless against his warring self--sat until the shadows
of the night began to sweep after the light of the sinking moon. When
he rose finally, he thought he saw a dim figure moving around the
corner of the barn. He rubbed his eyes to make sure, and then picking
up his pistol he slipped down the stairs and out the side door, taking
care not to awaken his mother and Steve. When he peered forth from the
corner of the house, Steve's chestnut gelding was outside the barn and
somebody was saddling him. Some negro doubtless was stealing him out
for a ride, as was not unusual in that land, and that negro Jason meant
to scare half to death. Noiselessly the boy reached the hen-house, and
when he peered around that he saw to his bewilderment that the thief
was Steve. Once more Steve went into the barn, and this time when he
come out he began to fumble about his forehead with both hands, and a
moment later Jason saw him move toward the gate, masked and armed. A
long shrill whistle came from the turnpike and he heard Steve start
into a gallop down the lane.