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THE GOLDEN ROAD
There is night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun,
moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise
a wind on the heath.
--GEORGE BORROW.
[Illustration:
"_Good-night, dear Jean Francois," said she with gaiety._
"_May your dreams be of your beloved roads of Picardy."
She threw him an elfish kiss from her finger-tips and
hastened into her airy improvised bedroom._]
THE GOLDEN ROAD
by
FRANK WALLER ALLEN
Author of "Back to Arcady"
With Illustrations and Decorations by George Hood
[Illustration]
New York
Wessels & Bissell Co.
1910
Copyright, 1910, by
Wessels & Bissell Co.
October
Entered at Stationers' Hall
All rights reserved
Premier Press
New York
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE HAPPY PEDLER COMES TO TOWN 3
II THE JADE AND THE INQUISITION 13
III JEAN FRANCOIS' VAST POSSESSIONS 23
IV THE MISADVENTURE OF A CIRCUS 35
V TIMID CONQUEST COMES TO TOWN 48
VI THE JADE, A NONENTITY, BECOMES THE ILLUSTRIOUS NANCE 57
VII A PEDLER'S PACK OF DREAMS 68
VIII MONSIEUR L'ABBE PICOT OF THE BRAVE, OUTLANDISH HEART 74
IX THE CHILD IS FATHER TO THE MAN 86
X ON THE MORNING ROAD 97
XI THE SATISFACTORY EXPLANATION OF NANCE 107
XII A HEBE OF THE HIGHWAY 117
XIII THE NIGHT IN THE GREENWOOD 129
XIV VICARIOUS VAGABONDS 136
XV "IF I WERE MONSIEUR L'ABBE PICOT" 146
XVI HEBE'S FAREWELL TO PAN 155
XVII THE DAY OF FAITH 163
XVIII THE DAY OF DOUBT 171
XIX THE DAY OF LOST CONFIDENCE 176
XX MONSIEUR L'ABBE AT HOME 185
XXI "LITTLE ST. JACQUES OF THE STREET" 194
XXII MONSIEUR L'ABBE LIES ILL 201
XXIII "I WOULD TALK WITH SOME OLD LOVER'S GHOST, WHO
LIVED BEFORE THE GOD OF LOVE WAS BORN" 210
XXIV THE PRIEST AND FAUN 216
XXV MONSIEUR L'ABBE PICOT GOES UPON A JOURNEY 222
ILLUSTRATIONS
_She threw him an elfish kiss from her finger-tips and hastened
into her airy improvised bedroom._ (Page 135.) Frontispiece
_The Boy ceased his sobbing. After a while, looking up with a
tearful, smiling face, he announced, as if to the Voice that
had called him_: "_Now I must go to work._" Facing page 92
_A solitary man, standing on the hilltop, turned slowly from
mountain to valley, from sky to field, seeming to eat and
think and breathe--to make a part of him by some paganish
transubstantiation--the very day itself._ Facing page 98
PART FIRST
"'T WAS PAN HIMSELF HAD WANDERED HERE,
A-STROLLING THROUGH THE SORDID CITY,
AND PIPING TO THE CIVIC EAR
THE PRELUDE OF SOME PASTORAL DITTY!
THE DEMIGOD HAD CROSSED THE SEAS--
FROM HAUNTS OF SHEPHERD, NYMPH, AND SATYR,
AND SYRACUSAN TIMES--TO THESE
FAR SHORES...."
--_Edmund Clarence Stedman._
THE GOLDEN ROAD
CHAPTER ONE
THE HAPPY PEDLER COMES TO TOWN
At the close of a glad day in early June, Nance and I stood watching a
horse and van, driven by a stranger of captivating appearance, turn from
the down-river turnpike and halt on a grassy knoll overlooking the Ohio.
The cart, which was a large two-wheeled affair with little cupboard-like
boxes beneath, and a short pair of stairs for mounting stored on the top
among a medley of old umbrellas, bore an adventurous, foreign aspect. At
least we had seen nothing before so wonderful. Its wheels were low and
broad-tired; the shafts were thick and heavy with a prop suspended from
each of them, that the weight might be balanced when not supported by
the ragged brown mare now pulling it. The body, held rather high above
the axle by a pair of big, bowed springs, was completely closed upon
all sides like a circus wagon, though, more than anything else, this
queer craft seemed a sort of private Noah's ark. The entrance was in the
rear and, as we afterward discovered, could be reached by mounting a
wheel, hauling the steps from the roof, and attaching them to small
sockets in the door-sill. This amazing and spectacular vehicle was
painted a brilliant yellow.
The man idling beside this magnificent equipage was the most picturesque
being I have ever seen. He was of medium height with broad, muscular
shoulders, sturdy legs like one used to walking much in the open, and a
general ease and grace of movement, as if each motion were made to
music, indicating a perfect health of body. His features were large and
generous with penetrating quizzical gray eyes, a nose slightly Roman,
and a wide mouth which seemed continuously to be struggling to suppress
a smile. He wore a short bushy beard that needed brushing. His hair was
red, heavy, unkempt, and a trifle long, completely covering his ears.
On his feet were stout, heavy-soled, laced boots. Thrust into their tops
were well-worn corduroy trousers. His shirt was of dark blue woolen
material, open at the neck, showing a corded, hairy chest. He wore no
hat.
Upon arriving at the knoll the master of the van sat hastily upon the
ground and, as if gravel had been eating into his heels, quickly removed
his boots. Then he rubbed his feet slowly and sensuously over the soft
cool grass as if it were a specific for drawing fever from blistered
soles. Next, quite as suddenly, he arose and went about the business of
unhitching the mare from the cart. Just as he was leading her from her
burden we, like curious children, drew near and mumbled a bashful good
evening.
"How do you do, my dears," he said, with frank good humor.
"My name," I ventured, "is Charles Reubelt King, and hers is Nance
Gwyn.... This is our common," I added, with the condescending air of the
small proprietor whose vanity was touched because of not having been
consulted concerning its occupancy by the daring incumbent.
"Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Charles Screwbelt Ring. Miss Nance
Gwyn, I am distinctly honored.... And I," said he, with an elaborate bow
in which he removed and swept the ground with an imaginary hat, while
one hand pressed his heart, "am Jean Francois, sometimes known as the
Umbrella Man, at others as the Happy Pedler.... I am pedler, poet,
mender of umbrellas." Here he straightened to his full height, all the
time yelling directly at me, "Umbrellas to mend! Umbrellas to mend! No?"
he exclaimed with a comical shrug of his shoulders, and then continued,
"I am philosopher, vagabond, musician,--a very sad gentleman you see,
who am fifth cousin to Master William Shakespeare, and own brother to
Francois Villon, one-time king of the French!" Then, again turning and
addressing himself particularly to me, "I own the road, the river, the
hills, the trees, and all the blue summer sky. The stars are mine, too,
and I turn 'em out to pasture o' nights."
"O, I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle," he cried to Nance, as if he had
forgotten something pertaining to good breeding.
"This lady," here he turned, including in his bow the patient little
brown mare waiting at his elbow for the bridle to be removed, "is my
mare Rogue. She's not a pretty lass, and she lacks a sense of humor.
There are none like her for a pleasant ramble down the road. She loves
her sugar like a child.... Shake hands with Miss Gwyn, my dove," he
added, while Nance timidly touched the extended hoof.
"Also," continuing the presentations, "Mademoiselle Columbine," and he
waved a hand whimsically toward the yellow van. "She is beautiful, now,
isn't she, my dears? And she's sound, serviceable, and optimistic. She
holds my dreams.... What more could you ask? Yes?"
"And last of all," said he, removing with a flourish a little, burned,
villainous briar-root pipe from his mouth, "this is Pierrett. She's a
dirty wench, but sweet and toothsome as parched corn. She is as
philosophical as a fisherman, as independent as a church pillar, and
she's my soul mate! Eh, Pierrett?"
"You see," he said, addressing me to the exclusion of Nance, as he
turned Rogue onto the pasture, "I'm the lone male among all of these
females. A sort of Mormon elder, I am; but, tut, man, it's only a
brotherly kind of relationship which doesn't entail jealousy.... You
see, son, everybody's children are mine--yes, you two's my kiddies--and
I pretty much own the world; only, you see, I don't take it and use it
except for traveling purposes. All I ask," said he, becoming quite
serious, with a far-away expression in his splendid eyes while he
pointed down the long white highway, "is a road to roam,--_le long du
trimard_--a river now and then for variety, the sigh of my music in the
greenwood, a bit of milk and cheese on a village common at night, for I
love the homely gleam of distant lights, and the stars to sing me to
sleep while browsing Rogue twinkles her grass.... Um, ah, doesn't make
you sleepy, son, just to hear about it? Yes?"
"Now, Mr. Charles--"
"Reubelt King," I hastened to correct him, as he hesitated with a merry
twinkle in his eye.
"--Reubelt King, run along and tell me whose house that is way down
yonder on the river."
"The old home of the many pillars?" I questioned. "Monsieur l'abbe
Jacques Picot."
"Father Picot?... The hell--O, I beg your pardon, Rogue, Pierrett,
Columbine, and your young ladyship!... You females are terribly
ubiquitous at times.... No, that's not a cuss-word, Mademoiselle. It
means you women are always lingering around a good, healthy, pleasant,
cussful male like me.
"Where'd I come from? Just down the _chemin_, my dears. And if you were
impolite enough to ask me where I was going, that's where--down the
road.... Where do I live?"
Jean Francois sings:
"Under the greenwood tree,
Who loves to lie with me,
And turn his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall you see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
"Who doth ambition shun,
And loves to live i' the sun,
Seeking the food he eats,
And pleased with what he gets,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather."
"Is that as you like it, my dears?... My cousin has quite a fancy for
the song. He's a sort of _trimardeur_ who once made plays.... He wrote
'em and acted 'em, but, son, I live 'em."
Then, seated upon the grass, he spoke half jestingly, and yet with a
serious note of reminiscence in his voice:
"Sometimes I'm Jacques, that melancholy cuss. Sometimes I'm Puck--merry
Robin Goodfellow. You wouldn't believe it, now, would you? Sometimes,
Touchstone. Often I am Ariel--
"'Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In the cowslip's bell I lie;
There I crouch when owls do cry.
On the bat's back I do fly
After summer merrily:
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.'"
"I have been Romeo, but no more for me.... Nance, you red-headed little
jade, how old are you?"
We were preparing to leave. We weren't interested. What did we care
about all of this? Who were Ariel and Puck, anyhow? I could see that
Nance did not like one bit being a "red-headed jade." She was always
very sensitive about the color of her hair and the freckles on her nose.
"Don't go, my kiddies," he suddenly pleaded. "Look-e-here. I'm going to
make a big, crackling fire in a minute. Then we'll have a bucket of
water from the river. I've a kettle and some eggs aboard the
Columbine.... Say, we'll have the one great time of our lives!"
It took no unusual amount of insisting to make us enter into a game like
that with zest. And O, the mysteries of the interior of Mademoiselle
Columbine. O, the stories of caliphs and kings and grand viziers and
robbers and things. And they were friends of his, too. Personal friends!
It was unpleasantly late when we stole away home to scoldings and to
bed. He told us to refer 'em to him, and he'd fix things with the
grown-ups. Our parting glimpse, as we ran across the pasture, was Jean
Francois, seated in the grass within the circle of the glowing light of
the embers, talking to his pipe. Pretty soon, we knew for he told us,
he'd be in bed. He used the stars, he remarked, to button the covers
down, and he'd dip 'em into the river to put them out in the morning.
CHAPTER TWO
THE JADE AND THE INQUISITION
It is time you knew old Doctor Felix Longstreet, Nance Gwyn's Waltonian
grandfather. For short, she frequently designated him as "The G. F." His
chief happiness lay in the hours he stole from his practise to put in
with a rod and minnows on Eagle Creek and in rearing his granddaughter,
both of whose parents were dead, in the most unconventional manner
possible. With him lived a maiden sister, Miss Barbara. Her gods were
convention and propriety. They were the doctor's devils. Truly, Nance
lived "between the devil and the deep blue sea!"
"The world of men," I once heard the old doctor remark, "is divided into
two classes: those who understand that a river has a heart and those who
do not care a tinker's damn if it hasn't." Upon his retiring from the
room a half-hour after this sentence was delivered, Aunt Barbara, after
glancing timidly about to be sure that he had gone, ventured to Nance
and me, engaged in making a small boat upon the portico, the following:
"He is right. Always right, for that matter!" she exclaimed with
vehemence, nervously patting her foot upon the floor. "Now I know of no
one who has so many characteristics in common with a stream as my
brother Felix. He can be as full of peace and happiness and gentle
little ripples to-day, then to-morrow as picturesque with whippy, foamy
whitecaps and occasional squalls as the river he loves."
"Very true, Aunt Barbara," commented Nance with deliberateness, "and I
know he can flow by in the most exasperatingly placid, disinterested
manner possible. Also, should the occasion arise, quickly fill up with
ice!"
It would be unfair, however, not to tell you that a more gentle man or
true never lived than this old river god. Indeed, he is the veritable
reincarnation of Izaak Walton. It is true old Izaak tended his
linen-draper's shop, while Doctor Longstreet tends his pills. It was
Jean Francois who made the remark that the chief difference lay in the
fact that the one coated the body on the outside while the other coats
it on the inside. Our pedler also pointed out, again, that both were
very much alike in loving a friend, a pipe with a bit of philosophy, a
quiet stream, and a favorite rod with which to go a-fishing.
Just how long Doctor Longstreet has practised medicine in Oldmeadow, I
shall not presume to say. It seems to me as if always he has been there;
always smelling delightfully of a mixture of strong tobacco smoke and
carbolic acid; always riding over the countryside, or carrying through
the town a pair of small leather saddle-bags or a fishing pole. Very
frequently both. Nance, who was in a position to know, said that one
side of these cases contained pills and the other angle worms.
At any rate, I know that seemingly a very long time ago, in comparison
with myself, he was born in Virginia. In his youth he was graduated
from the University at Charlottesville, and later from the Jefferson
Medical College. Upon receiving his diploma, entitling him to practise
medicine, he came directly to Oldmeadow. Except for four years spent as
a surgeon in the Confederate army, he has given his life to this old
Kentucky town on the Ohio river. For the present this is enough of him,
save to mention that other than Nance, with the sun-colored hair; the
river, which embraces "goin' a-fishin'"; and General Robert E. Lee, a
name symbolizing all that Virginia and the South mean to him, he loves
the little town, with its old-fashioned customs and traditions, which
has been the background for most of his activities.
* * * * *
The morning following our glorious introduction to the magnificent Jean
Francois I was out early and bound for the commons. I scarcely expected
Nance to be up. I felt that there would be something intimate and
personal, perhaps undefinable, it is true, between this master of the
happy caravan and myself because we were both men. I had made up my mind
that he was a woman-hater. As I hurried along the street my plans were
brutally shattered, for whom should I encounter but the red-headed jade
herself, grinning quite wickedly, even though her hand was tightly
gripped in that of her Aunt Barbara, whose serious features were drawn
together in grim determination.
"I want you, too, Charles Reubelt," said Miss Longstreet curtly, and
with evident disapproval not only in her tone, but in the look with
which she surveyed my full diminutive person.
"Yes, we want you, Charles Reubelt," Nance reiterated in close, but
undetected, imitation of her Aunt Barbara.
Now while this really very charming spinster had no actual command over
me, having quite tangible parents two blocks away, yet I acknowledged an
assumed authority felt by every boy and girl in Oldmeadow. So,
yielding, I fell in behind, marching meekly to Doctor Longstreet's
office.
We entered in single file, Miss Longstreet shoving Nance unceremoniously
before her. I lingered, cap in hand, near the open door.
"Felix," she began, in a voice slightly agitated by the fear of the
unknown result in approaching the old doctor upon any subject, "do you
know where these children were last night?"
"No, my dear Barbara," he replied with irony, looking up from a series
of powders he was proportioning with his jack-knife on a piece of
newspaper; "were they drowned?"
"No, but she might well have been, for all that you look after her!" she
exclaimed, now leaving me out of the arraignment and giving herself
solely to Nance.
After carefully lifting each powder onto a small square piece of paper,
torn from his writing pad, folding them neatly, and placing all of them
in an envelope which he proceeded to seal, then to write directions upon
the back, he again gave his attention to his sister.
"So she has been swimming with Charles Reubelt," he said, in mock
horror.
"For heaven's sake, no, Felix. Don't you dare suggest such a thing to
her.... The way you do talk!"
"What has she been doing then?" he asked, looking severely over the rims
of his spectacles at the offending young lady.
With slow and effective emphasis Aunt Barbara brought her accusation:
"They were out on the common until ten o'clock last night with a tramp,
that's what!" You will notice that again I was included in her remarks.
"With what?... With who?" he exclaimed to Nance.
"With Jean Francois," came the brave reply of the jade.
"Barbara, Barbara," he exclaimed in quick, whispered hisses.
"Yes, my brother," she replied, rising to the seriousness of the
occasion.
"They say that his ears are pointed! That he has legs and feet like a
goat!"
"How shockingly unbecoming," and she gazed reproachfully at the
culprits.
The doctor glared viciously at each of us in turn; blew his nose
resonantly; shook himself like a big Newfoundland, and then, much to
Miss Longstreet's chagrin and our astonishment, burst into hearty
laughter.
"What!" cried he. "So you two are just discovering my friend, Jean
Francois?... Poet, pedler, philosopher, mender of umbrellas, and player
on the pipes," said he, drolly imitating our friend of the night before.
"You knew him all of the time?" I exclaimed.
"Let me see," said the doctor reminiscently; "when did I first discover
the happy pedler?... O, yes, the second year after the Abbe Picot came
to live in Oldmeadow. I remember now. It has been some five or six years
ago.... That's what you youngsters get by going away every summer
instead of remaining at home with your betters."
"Is he a _real_ poet?" ventured Nance, with her accustomed irrelevance.
"Certainly," came the reply. "Hasn't he said so? Besides, he knows his
Shakespeare like a scholar.... Cultivate him."
"Cultivate!" cried the now fully alarmed Aunt Barbara. "Felix, you are
positively indecorous.... Cultivate a tramp?"
"Barbara, my dear, I assure you, he is quite a gentleman. He likes my
pills, he loves the river like a brother, and he knows his Shakespeare.
That is quite enough.... What do you want, my dear unwearied sister--a
frilled shirt-front? I've seen many a one bowing over you in the old
days all togged out in finery who hadn't half so great a heart and half
so genuine a manner.
"Now, Nance," he said, turning from the thoroughly squelched Aunt
Barbara to us, "Jean Francois comes with his happy caravan--a name I
gave his outfit the first time I saw it--every year when May or June is
at her bonniest. Nobody knows just when or where he comes from, and no
one, who loves him, cares. All of a sudden he's here, that's all. He
always camps on the green, where you discovered him last night,
overlooking the river. Sometimes he's here most of the summer. Sometimes
it's just a week, or a month. Then, like he comes, he just goes.
"'It's a fever,' he said to me once in answer to a question as to why he
was off, when I met him on the river road, bound west. 'It's a fever
that you, old Saddle-bags, can't pill or cuss away.... Au revoir,' and
his Columbine moved away.
"Occasionally he returns during the late September days. It is only for
a week or a day, however.... I can always tell that he is coming by the
wild geese flying. He is a migratory bird--this Jean Francois of ours."
If the doctor continued to speak of the pedler to Aunt Barbara, we never
knew it. Nance and I slipped through the door into the June sunshine and
hurried across the village to the common, where camped the master of the
happy caravan.
CHAPTER THREE
JEAN FRANCOIS' VAST POSSESSIONS
Would it make you happy to know that you possessed, as your heart's own,
a long, white, alluring road? A joyous, lovable, intimate road which
leads over the hills through a thousand friendly trees, all sheltered
beneath the wide blue sky. A road of many moods: a gentle road; a brave,
true road; a morning road; a smiling, sunset road; a devil-may-care,
starlit road; a lover's moon-whitened road; a road that goes and goes,
never returns, yet always is homeward bound. Home to the dingle, the
glen, the sheltering greenwood, the chattering little river; the camp of
the gipsy. A road bordered by flower-faced fields with drowsing
villages, now and then, like ancient inns with bread and cheese and
milk.
Such is Jean Francois' great highway. All the morning he spent telling
us of _le long du trimard_, to use an expression frequently upon his
lips. He told us of the men of the road, their dreams, their strange and
adventurous lives. Often he spoke simply of amazing and unlooked-for
deeds of heroism. He sang of nymphs, of dryads with wondrous beauty. He
talked of marvelous, strong-limbed satyrs, of gentle fauns stealing
through the wild-wood. In whispered words, with bated breath, as if he
told of sacred secret things, he described to us the days of his
brother, the great god Pan.
"There are those," said he, "who say that Pan is dead. They are but
blind. Some day, if life is kind, I shall take you to him. When once you
hear the immortal music of his oaten pipes you will have discovered the
passionate note which will lead you, lead you down the road, over the
hills into the far away where youth and the greater love abide, as was
meant from the beginning of the world.... Long live the great Pan,"
cried he.
Then, as if suddenly coming back to this as from another world, his eyes
lost their preternatural expression and became wistful and kind and
merry.
"And what do you think of it all, my children?" said he, with a sweep of
his hand, which was meant to include all the splendid things he had been
telling us. It never seemed to occur to him that he doubtless spoke of
much which was utter mystery so far as we were concerned. But that was
characteristic of the man. He talked to Nance and me in very much the
same manner in which he spoke with Doctor Longstreet.
Nance's reply came as a surprise to me. I was glad her Aunt Barbara was
not numbered among those present. With slow and serious mien she said:
"Some day, Jean Francois, I shall be a gipsy with you."
"Ah, my little jade," said he, with an obvious note of sympathy and
gratitude in his voice, "so you have heard the call of the road?... Yes,
there will come a time when we'll go hand in hand down the traffic
lands. We'll roam forever and a day, forever and away.... You shall help
me cry my wares."
Then, seeing in Nance's face a look which took him at his word, and upon
mine questionings bordering upon alarm, he burst into hearty laughter,
restoring our poise, and cried:
"You must not take too seriously, my dears, the nonsense of the happy
pedler!"
"What of you?" he asked, quickly turning to me. "Have you heard it
too--the call of the road? No?"
As for me, I'm distinctly of the town. So, using a phrase kin to his
own, I replied:
"Oldmeadow belongs to me," and I launched into a boyish panegyric of my
birthplace.
* * * * *
It is a quaint bit of a village, where spectacled old ladies in black
lace caps poke case-knives about the roots of rose-bushes, while elderly
gentlemen with canes hobble over flag-stone sidewalks to their favorite
seats in the spicy, leathery, brown-papery atmosphere of the store. In
some features Oldmeadow seems even older than the river, though I am
assured by cracker-barrel historians that this is not a fact. It has
been here long enough, however, to become a fixed part of the landscape,
which is no more likely to change than the course of the Ohio, or the
shape of the Kentucky hills away to the south. The older folk are
careful not to die until they have faithfully imparted to the younger
people all of their old-fashioned courtesy, gentle virtues, assorted
prejudices, and cures for mumps, measles, and rheumatism.
"Oldmeadow herself--" I began, but Jean Francois interrupted.
"Quite right, son. 'She' is the word. She is distinctly an elderly
maiden lady with old-time beauty; a sort of adorable shyness; a certain
charming primness which sits upon her head like a Sunday bonnet. She
takes a friendly interest in the love affairs of the young if duly
governed by a proper regard for propriety. Her conventional amusements
she defends from the parson with roguish pleasantry. Over the evening
coffee she takes a half-frightened delight in mild gossip.... That's
your aunt Oldmeadow," concluded Jean Francois, with a smile.
Oldmeadow rests--I think you will agree with me that "rests" is the
word--just high enough to be secure from the June rise, and very timidly
peeps, as if she were fully expecting to see some naughty naked little
boys in swimming, through the willows over the banks of the most
beautiful river in the world. The great, lazy Ohio slowly winds into
view from among the hazy hills in the east, lingers for a moment after a
manner most friendly, and then, with assumed indifference, drifts away
to disappear among other hazy hills in the west.... Do you remember how
we used to ask the grown-ups, "Where does the river come from?"... The
river is made very human, and the town, which has no railroad to this
day, is kept in touch with the outside world by the big, white-collared
steamboats which plow their way daily between Louisville and Cincinnati.
When you climb the high banks and get into the village the sidewalks are
of large flat stones, with peppergrass and green old moss growing
between them and about the roots of the gnarled honey-locusts which have
stood for a hundred years along the primitive gutters. The houses are
delightfully old-fashioned and quaint. Some are mere plain white
cottages far back from the streets, where vines cover the latticed
porches. In the lawns circles and crude stars are made for peonies and
sweet williams. Some, however, are more pretentious, being built of
stone or brick, with occasional pillars, colonial in manner, with wide
old arches above the damp, moss-covered slabs of the floor.
"Your village should be very happy," remarked Jean Francois, after my
conclusion. "Does she not have the river to sing to her; the tree-clad
hills for shelter; the good blue sky to smile upon her; grave old homes
with green sunny gardens to lend dignity; and the laughing loves of
youth to keep warm her heart?... There's the village for a road like
mine!"
Oldmeadow possesses three points of greater pride: her hospitality,
which needs no encomium; the "college," of which more anon; and the Old
Mansion of Many Pillars.... It was of this home that Jean Francois now
asked the history. Every child in the village knew it, for, was it not,
with its mystery, its ghosts, its inviting splendor, the heart's desire
of Nance and me ever since, for us, time began?
It stands in an ample yard, amid old pines, locust trees, and lilac
bushes, overlooking the river. It is a great square house of the
colonial type, with low wings to the right and left. The windows are
large, deep-seated, and many-paned. The enhancing feature, however, is
the big, broad portico, the roof of which is supported by noble
Corinthian columns, spotted and green with moss and ivy. This house is
not only the most elegant, inside and out, in Oldmeadow to-day, but in
that time it possessed an atmosphere of aristocratic seclusion,
amounting in the minds of the children and negroes to mystery.
Until recent years it had been the property of an old French refugee of
the ancient regime. His father had fled from the court of Louis XIV to
Louisiana. The son, years later, having gotten into some trouble over a
woman, killing his man, which, so far as we are concerned, is another
story, came into the river valley of Kentucky and at vast expense built
the old mansion as it now stands. To all appearances he had wrought with
the expectations of some one sharing the home with him. It was made for
happiness, love, and children. At first he was a jolly, gay young
fellow, seeking society. After a few years, however, he gradually
withdrew from his companions, became silent, morose, and lived
altogether to himself. His townspeople saw him seldom, his servant
making the necessary trips for supplies. He led the life of a recluse
and a student. The reason for this always remained unknown. It served
for many a fireside topic on winter evenings. Old men spun gossipy
anecdotes concerning it, and the old ladies, romantic tales. Youth built
melodramatic love stories for him, while children made of it the source
of fantasy.
Finally, when he sickened and died, beside his servant, Doctor Felix
Longstreet alone was with him. Unless the doctor knew, and no one dared
question him, the secret of the old Frenchman's life passed with his
soul. It was the physician, in compliance with the last commands of the
dead gentleman, who corresponded with the heir designated by the will.
This was Monsieur Jacques Picot, of Paris, whom he notified of his
inheritance and the conditions attached thereto. These were, briefly:
That he must come to America and occupy the house; that he could neither
sell nor give the property away; that at his demise, however, he could
bequeath the estate to whomever he chose. In case the Abbe Picot would
not accept these conditions, everything was to revert to a more distant
relative, Captain Martin Felon of the French army. It was said the
original owner of the old home made these strange demands because of his
desire to force all of his kith and kin from their native country. He
was an intense American, and had not forgotten that his father had been
a fugitive.
* * * * *
"Ah," cried Jean Francois, nodding his head with a mysterious air, "that
accounts for many things.... Some day I'll take Rogue, Columbine, and
Pierrett, go down among the bayous, and discover why a gentleman of the
old regime lost heart. Then, maybe, I'll tell you about it.
"Meantime, my dears, don't you think it would be pretty fine for you to
grow up and live in this old home as your very own? Yes?... Monsieur
l'Abbe cannot live always, I know. I happen to be slightly acquainted
with him. He is very kindly disposed toward you. There's no telling what
he might do.
"How would it suit you, Nance Gwyn of the sun-colored hair, to one day
be mistress of the mansion?"
"I am not quite certain," said she, for the old home had quite a strong
hold upon the imagination of Nance as well as all the rest of
Oldmeadow's children, "but I think I should take Columbine and you and
the road, first, Jean Francois."
"First?" exclaimed the pedler, with a humorous twinkle in his eye.
"First," came the very certain reply from the jade; "for some day I mean
to have them both."
CHAPTER FOUR
THE MISADVENTURE OF A CIRCUS
After a great deal of pleading, bringing to bear everything with which I
was acquainted in the art of persuasion, I had succeeded in inducing
Jean Francois to leave his happy caravan for a day and to become friends
with our back yard. My family, be it understood, were dining in the
country, leaving the premises to my undisputed control from early
morning until late afternoon. Our pedler came with trepidation. He
scented mischief of a kind which he did not find congenial. He had the
greatest aversion to unexpectedly meeting people whom he did not know or
did not like. Also he demanded room--the wide spaces of the open. To
come about a house, or to enter an enclosure where escape would be
fraught with embarrassment, was to him exceedingly painful. His apparent
panic reminded me strongly of some timid, uncertainly tamed animal
bravely trying to receive the caresses of human beings. Persistence
prevailed, however, and he stole around the house, like someone bent
upon a hopeless task, and seated himself upon the woodpile.
He looked about him with evident disapproval. Then, removing Pierrett
from his mouth, he addressed her with elaborate politeness:
"Say, my sweet hussy, did you ever notice the personality of a crack in
the fence? Have you ever given study to the sins of back yards?...
Yes?... Just the other day I heard the old doctor say that you could
tell the condition of a man's liver by the appearance of his back
yard.... He's right about it."
* * * * *
In general esteem our back yard, if you choose to remember, was second
only to the attic. The crack in the fence was its thorn in the flesh. Of
course the kitchen opened onto it, or rather, it opened onto the
kitchen, for this warm bread-scented producer of tarts is not to be
compared in point of importance with this plot sacredly set apart for
make-believers. Here, however, is a fitting place to state that for an
inn the kitchen suited admirably, and Betty, though black-a-visaged as a
pirate, made a very respectable Mine Host.
The right side was flanked by an impassable high board fence which
Grown-ups, I have since learned, built to hide their back-yard sins from
their neighbors, the Greens, who possessed a similar assortment. To us,
however, it was a stockade erected by no less a personage than our
comrade Daniel Boone, famous for his cigars, and served to protect us
from the Indians who, in reality, were the half-dozen assorted little
Greens, then on the summit of the stone age. These savages weren't at
all neighborly, a thing for which we never ceased to be thankful. The
really splendid part about it was that at any time, without other
warning than a sudden whoop, rocks were likely to be thrown over the
fence at our unsuspecting heads. Though once and a while producing a
scalp wound upon our side, it was altogether a very harmless play, with
just enough excitement to keep it alive. Besides, in the end, all of the
stones the Greenlets ever threw away always found their way back to
their side of the stockade. And what matter to any of us if it caused
the mothers on either side to cease speaking except in company, and the
fathers to have only a mere business bow?
In our back yard was the stable, two parts of which are worthy of
mention. There was the hay-loft, reached by a steep and rickety ladder
through a hole in the floor, a fine old place in which to hide from
visiting dressed-up small boys whose presence was, on general
principles, undesirable. Then there were great billows of hay, with
sweet, breezy odors, on which one might be cast away on a pitchfork raft
for days and days. Above, on the rafters, were drab-colored nests of
mud-daubing martins, which easily became gulls, albatross, or distant
sails, as the moment might demand.
The very best place of all, as you will hereinafter discover, was our
buggy shed. The floor was nothing more than the good, hard earth. Here
and there were little wallowing nests of dust made by some cheerful hen
while engaged in an indolent sun-bath. On one side hung the harness,
which might be pressed into service for circus purposes. Along the
braces lay the monkey-wrench, hammer, nails, and delectable boxes of
fascinating axle grease. The rancid smell of this yellowish-black
article of lubrication is indissolubly associated with heaven-sent
memories of the happiest days. True I never tried it, though I believe
you once did with painful results; I always wanted to spread it on a
white slice of bread and eat it. The axle grease was a cause for sin.
More anon.
In the center stood our phaeton, which served from a coach and four to a
low-raking revenue cutter. Behind it was the jolt wagon--so named
because of a lack of springs. This caused very delightful sensations to
those playing train within, when the vehicle was being driven at a trot
over a rough road. Now one of the privileges to be bought, often at a
high price, from the hired man, was the unalloyed joy of putting great
daubs of grease upon the axles of the aforesaid phaeton and farm wagon.
I have often done without my second piece of chocolate pie, gladly
thrusting it surreptitiously down the throat of this previously
mentioned man of many virtues, just to get to help at this task.
Something second unto it was being allowed to spin the recently attended
wheel before removing the jack from beneath it. All of this that you may
know the charms of axle grease.... O, the memories of that day of many
sins!
Nance, who lived just back of me, with an alley between, had a habit
which was good or bad as it suited my purpose. It was to come through a
gate in her back fence, which mine did not possess, and enter my domain
through a crack in the fence. This entrance, which had been made long
ago by the removal of a board, was a constant source of annoyance to me.
Since her first appearance years ago, the crack had been worn smooth and
glossy by much passing of girl frocks. She insisted upon being played
with and the pity of her possessing neither father, mother, sisters, or
brothers of her own was all that saved the crack being securely nailed.
It was only when she attempted to force dolls upon me that I sternly
rebelled. Of course it was only in the back yard and upon the common
that she was allowed my comradeship. When we were fishing or swimming
she could not come, though she shed many tears and entered various
protests.
Now of all times this was one when a visit from her was not wanted. Jean
Francois acted like she would be welcome, it is true. Just why he so
fancied her was then a mystery to me. I'll leave it to you. I had
prepared for a really wicked, good time all alone with the happy pedler.
In the morning, after playing Indian with the Greens, I hoped we should
be buccaneers in the hay until Aunt Bet began to get dinner. Then we
were to slip into the house and slide down the banisters until time to
eat. The whole afternoon was to be spent greasing the phaeton and the
jolt wagon. There was a new box of axle grease, and a splendid pine
paddle with which to apply it.... Suppose you had all of such a great
day planned and a red-headed little jade, with a very white frock,
taking her welcome for granted, squeezed through the crack of your
fence.... Jean Francois says you can always count upon a woman making
her appearance just when you are off on a particularly masculine jaunt.
Well, the Indians had to be postponed. She had once taken a rather
awkward left-handed part in a battle and had gone bellowing through the
fence, a most unbecoming woman. She wasn't any heroine. The scar, which
her Aunt Barbara feels very sure will disappear, may be found in that
blessed red hair to this day. So politeness forbade warfare. The hay
proved better. It is true I noticed her eyes grow a bit wide with fear
as she arose on the rickety ladder. This was fostered by Jean Francois
following closely behind, playing sailor. We made believe that she was a
respectable merchantman, while I was a pirate, and the pedler the
man-of-war. I swooped down upon her only to be chased and hard put by
the shot and shell of the larger vessel. I feel sure she got the worst
of the fight. Then, in the storm, we covered her with hay until her weak
little protest from somewhere beneath the billows made me uneasy for her
ever again reaching port.
It was the banisters where she surprised all of us.
"I do it all the time at home," she informed us proudly. Just then I
ceased to sympathize with her lack of a mother. I, too, wished for a G.
F. who domineered a maiden aunt.
"You see," said she, "I never walk down stairs unless Aunt Barbara is
around."
Then she illustrated her ability for us, to almost knocking the newel
post from its dignified position at the bottom of the stair. We stood
watching with awe and a trifle of envy. It was an unfortunate thing in
some respects to have parents. Here, however, our joy was interrupted by
a call demanding Nance to report for dinner. She departed, and I was
left to dissipate on an old-fashioned circular baluster. Jean Francois
became a spectator, saying that he drew the line at such amusements.
It was the afternoon which caused the telling of this story. History was
made. We had the jack under the front wheel of the jolt wagon when she
appeared. The umbrella man was unscrewing the nut while I worked the
grease. Her frock was a new one. A trace of recent tears told of the
folly of playing respectable merchantman upon a sea of hay. Here the
wheel was lifted off, placed against the wall, and the glistening axle,
already suffering from over attention, was liberally applied with
lubricant. When we turned to replace the wheel, there was the jade
sitting innocently against the hub. She stepped aside for us, only to
expose a neat black ring printed upon a part of her frock which
prophesied what awaited her within the immediate future. At first she
was inclined to cry. Instead, upon our laughing at her, she became
impudent. As each wheel came off, she promptly sat against it, regularly
increasing the number of rings. Then she insisted on at least putting
one paddle full on an axle. After that she must be allowed to attend one
entire wheel by herself, of course, allowing one of us to remove it.
This we did cheerfully. Were we not interested in getting her just as
black as possible? Had she not grown exceedingly bold and saucy?... Next
she decided to taste the grease. One little finger, on the tip of which
was a bit of black tar, was stuck delicately on her outstretched tongue,
while she made a face for our delectation.
Suddenly she turned upon us with the information that she was a circus.
"A whole circus?" asked Jean Francois derisively.
"A whole circus, and I'm going to perform," she informed us.
She then insisted that Jean Francois and I go away, as she was going to
do her act on the horizontal bar. In fact, she commanded us to leave,
but whatever we chose to do she nevertheless intended to do her trick.
The pedler promptly turned his back and began the imitation of the kind
of music played when the acrobats are out. As for me I stood my ground.
She needed an audience, I insisted. Who ever heard of a circus without
an audience? Then, quite to my astonishment, Nance proceeded to skin the
cat. She sputtered something about getting even at her party--I
remembered this afterward--as she heaved her legs between her hands, and
a multitude of clothes obscured her features. I was somewhat awed by
this bit of prowess. I respected her for it. Still, I, myself, fully
intended, so soon as I became a man, to walk on the ceiling. Also I
found myself wondering if the immortal Jean Francois numbered this among
his accomplishments.
Just then the climax came, in the shape of her Aunt Barbara, who,
silently and suddenly, like death, stood before us.
"Aunt Barbara," she explained as she dropped, a tearful little bundle of
apologies, into the dust, "Aunt Barbara, I didn't want to do it before
Charles. Really, I didn't, but I just couldn't get him to go away.... I
hated to do it, really, but he simply would not leave."
Then to see her hurried through the crack in the fence with a sharp
spank, as she stooped through the opening, almost convinced me that she
was one thing on earth God had made without any purpose.
Jean Francois says there isn't any greater creative force in this world
for pity than a very tearful, snuffy, turned-up, little girl-nose.
CHAPTER FIVE
TIMID CONQUEST COMES TO TOWN
Less than a month following the events clustered about the rise and fall
of the unfortunate circus, a certain tow-headed, freckled-faced boy,
whom I knew once upon a time, long ago, might have been found seated on
the lar-board side of the ferry float, hidden away from his fellow men,
that he might contemplate. I am sure Izaak Walton knew a deal about
boys, and that much of his gentle philosophy was developed into
tangibility because he occasionally consulted them.
Early in the morning Jean Francois and Doctor Longstreet had tramped up
the river seeking a favorite fishing pool. They had invited the boy to
go with them, but even the all-day companionship of his two heroes could
not withdraw him from the problem which now completely occupied his mind
and heart.... Nance was spending her time at home, doubtless enjoying
certain triumphs of the previous night. The fellows couldn't interest
him. The river--his river now--alone seemed adequate. The great stream
lay at his feet, stretching away to the Indiana hills, beautiful, calm,
majestic, yet sympathetic and inviting to confidences. At any rate, so
it seemed to the boy in whose life something new, mysterious, wonderful
was coming to birth.
On the evening previous to this thoughtful dabbling in the water there
had happened in the life of this boy an event. Not such an event as it
might be if you were to find the rainbow's end; more important than if
you were granted three wishes by the queen of fairies. You have been
expecting these rather commonplace happenings all of your life. This
particular event came without the slightest warning or preparation, at
least so far as he knew; like you might wake some morning and find your
wings attached behind your ears instead of on your shoulder-blades,
where you are really expecting to wear them. The boy, it might be said,
was made of marbles and tops and little mud puddles; of rivers and trees
and all out of doors; of Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, and Kit Carson;
and, of nights by the winter's fireside, of good adventurous books. For
him all of the rest of the world was yet to be created. To him his
mother wasn't a woman; she was just mother. Girls, like flies, were
inevitable nuisances, mostly to be ignored, but occasionally shot at
with a broken bit of rubber band.... He didn't even know that he was
ugly. Yet he had learned early that the boys best suited for "knux,"
fishin', and the like had freckles, snub-noses, and cow-licks. Had not
father often remonstrated with mother at too much washing, insisting
that it was part of a small boy's portion to get dirty and to sniffle?
Hadn't he seen through old Doctor Longstreet's derision when he would
take such evident delight in saying to hovering little motherettes:
"Madame, I congratulate you upon the hideousness of your son. Thank God
for ugly boys--they make men. A pretty boy, madame, is a misprint--the
wrong title under the wrong picture. I congratulate you!... Ah, it
reminds me of the story of--"
Never mind the doctor's story. Sufficient to say it was not about a
pirate or a captain of the guards, or I'd tell it here. One thing: he
was generally right about boys, angle worms, and pills.