THE PAINTER AND UNCLE 'SIAH'S HARNAH.
"WHEN father settled up nigh the head-waters of the Penobscot, folks
said we'd have to be mighty car'ful, or some o' the young ones would
tumble over the jumping-off-place, we'd got so nigh. But Uncle 'Siah
went right along, and took up land furder on, whar there wa'n't
nothing but hemlock-trees and chipmunks for company, and no passing
to keep the women-folks running to the winders. Thar was a good road
cut through the woods, and there was the river run within a
stone's-throw of both houses: so, one way and another, we got
back'ards and for'ards consid'able often, 'specially when the young
folks begun to grow up.
"Harnah wor Uncle 'Siah's second gal, and just as pooty as a picter.
She looked suthin' like Dolcy, Dora's little adopted darter, you
know: but she wor alluz a-larfin', and gitting off her jokes; and
had a sort of a wicked look by spells, enough to make a feller's
flesh creep on his bones."
"Lor', that's enough o' Harnah! She wa'n't so drefful different from
other folks. Git along to the story part on't," interrupted
Mehitable, clicking her knitting-needles energetically.
Seth looked at her a little indignantly for a moment, and then burst
into a loud laugh,--
"Lor'! I'd clear forgot how it used ter spite Hit to hear me praise
up Harnah. You see, sir, Mehitabul wor a sort o' cousin o' my
mother's, and so come to live long of us when her father died: but
she never cottoned to Harnah very strong when she see how well I
liked her; though, now she's got me for her own man, I'd think"--
"But the panther, Mr. Ross," interposed Dora, who saw, with womanly
sympathy, the flush of mortification upon Mehitable's face: "do tell
us about the panther."
"Yes: I b'lieve my idees was kind o' wandering from the pint; but
that's nothing strange, if you knowed what an out-an-outer that gal
was. Well, well, 'tain't no use a-crying over spilt milk, and
by-gones may as well be stay-gones.
"Sam Hedge, he was my uncle's hired man, and a plaguy smart feller
too; good-looking, merry as a grig, a live Yankee for faculty, and
pretty forehanded too, though he hadn't set up for himself then. I
more than suspicioned he'd ruther live with Uncle 'Siah, and see
Harnah from morning to night, than go off and take up land for
himself; or maybe he didn't feel as if he'd the peth to take right
hold of new land all alone. Anyway, there he wor, and there he
stuck, right squar in my way, do as much as I might to git him out
on't.
"Of course, you onderstand about being in my way means all along o'
Harnah. We was both sweet on her, and no mistake; though nary one on
us, nor, I believe, the gal herself, could ha' told which one she
favored.
"Waal, to skip over all the rest (though there's the stuff for half
a dozen stories in it), I'll come to one night when I'd been up to
Uncle 'Siah's, and Harnah and Sam had come down to the crick to see
me off; for I'd come in my boat. I felt kind o' savage; for Harnah
had been mighty pooty with me all that evening; and I knew Sam had
come down to the boat a purpose to go back to the house with her,
and, 'fore they was half-way, she'd come right round, and be just as
clever to him as she'd been before to me."
"If you knew your cousin to be such a terrible little flirt as that,
I shouldn't think you would have cared so much about her, Seth,"
suggested Karl, laughing.
"No more shouldn't I, cap'n," replied Seth ruefully. "But somehow I
couldn't help it. I'd think it over nights, and say to myself, 'You
darned fool! don't you see the gal's a-playing one of you off agin
t'other, and maybe don't care a pin for neither? Get shet of her
once for all, and be a man; can't ye?' And then I'd find I couldn't;
and so it went till we come to that night, and stood there on the
edge of the crick,--two on us ready to clinch and fight till one
cried enough, and t'other a-laughing at us both.
"So, all to once, Harnah says, says she,--
"'I do believe them harebells are blowed out by this time. Ain't
they, boys?'
"'You and I'll go to-morrow and see, anyway,' says Sam, speaking up
quick, 'fore I got the chance.
"'I'm a-going to see; and, if Harnah'll come too, all the better,'
says I, as pleasant as a bear with a sore head.
"'Two's company, and three's a crowd; so you'd better stop to home,
Seth,' says Sam.
"'Two's company, that's Harnah and me; and three's a crowd, that's
you: so, ef you don't like crowding nor being crowded, you'd better
stop to home yourself,' says I.
"'I believe I spoke first, Seth Ross,' says Sam, pretty savage at
last.
"'That don't make no difference, as I know on. Harnah was my cousin
long afore you was her father's hired man; and that puts me in mind
you hain't asked leave yet. Maybe the old man won't let you go. What
you going to do then?' asked I, dreadful kind of sneering; for I
felt mad.
"Sam he didn't say nothing; but he drew back, and doubled up his
fists. I caught the glint of his eye in the moonlight, and my
darnder riz.
"'Come on,' says I; 'I'm ready for you; and we'll fight it out like
men. The feller that's licked shall give up once for all.'
"But 'fore Sam could speak, or I could hit out as I wanted ter,
Harnah come right in between us. I swow ef that gal didn't look
harnsome! Her eyes was wide open, and shining just like blue steel
in the moonlight. Her cheeks and lips was white; and seemed to me
the very curls of her hair shot out sparks, she was so mad.
"'You'd better stop while there's time,' says she, still and cold.
'If you strike one another, or if you ever fight, and I the cause, I
swear to God I never will speak a civil word to either one of you
again as long as I live. So now you know.
"'As for the harebells, you sha'n't neither one of you go for 'em.
Ef I want harebells, there's them that can get 'em for me, and not
make so much fuss about it neither.'
"She turned, and stepped off toward the house as if she'd got steel
springs in the soles of her feet.
"Sam and I eyed each other. It seemed as if Harnah felt that look;
for she turned all of a sudden, and come back.
"'Sam,' says she, p'inting up to the house, 'go home; and don't you
speak to me again to-night. Seth, get into your boat, and push her
off. You needn't come up to-morrow night.'
"We sort o' looked at one another and at her, and then meeched off
the way she told us, for all the world like two dogs that's got a
licking, and been sent home 'fore the hunt was done.
"I didn't sleep a great deal that night. Fact is, I was turning over
in my own mind what Harnah had said about them as would git
harebells for her, and not make so much fuss about it neither.
"'I swow,' says I, 'I'd like to clinch that feller, whoever he may
be, and not have Harnah nigh enough to interfere.' Then I rec'lected
a Cap'n Harris, a British officer, that come down from Canady the
summer before, hunting and fishing, and had stopped a week or more
at Uncle 'Siah's, mostly for the sake of seeing Harnah, as I thought
then, and do now. Ever since, when Harnah didn't know how else to
plague Sam and me, she'd set up to talk about 'real gentlemen,' and
'folks that knowed manners,' and all sech stuff. Then she'd pretend
she'd got a letter from Cap'n Harris, and that he was coming agin,
and all that. So now I got it in my head that Cap'n Harris was
coming, and that she meant he'd get the harebells.
"'But I'll bet he won't, without a fight, anyway,' says I, clinching
up my fist; and then I went to sleep quite comf'table.
"Now, there wa'n't but one place, as I knew of, where harebells was
to be found; and Harnah had showed me that place herself the summer
afore, and I had picked the flowers for her. So I made up my mind to
go next day and see if they was in blow; and, if they was, to get a
bunch anyway, and take the resk of giving 'em to Harnah arterwards.
"I couldn't git away in the morning nohow; for Hitty seemed to know
it was something about Harnah that was calling me, and contrived all
sorts of business to keep me to hum: but, after dinner, I jist took
my hat, and cleared out afore she knowed it, and, by the time she
missed me, was half a mile up the river.
"'Twas a pooty day as ever you see; and as I rowed along, listening
to the water running by the boat, and the wind rustling in the
trees, I began to feel real sort of good, and didn't care half so
much about Sam or the British cap'n as I did when I started. When I
come to the landing at Uncle 'Siah's, I never stopped, though I
looked with all my eyes for any signs of Harnah; but couldn't see no
one but Sam going out to the cornfield, with a hoe on his shoulder.
"'Good for you, Sam,' says I to myself. 'Hard work's dreadful
wholesome for love-sickness.' So I rowed along as merry as a
cricket, and pretty soon tied up my boat, and struck off into the
woods. It was consid'able of a walk; and I strolled along easy till
I came to the place whar the harebells growed, 'bout a mile and a
half from the river. This was a high clift, covered with brush and
trees on one side, and on the other falling sheer down to a little
deep valley, with another clift rising opposite. These clifts joined
each other at the two ends of the valley: so there was no getting
into it anyway but down the faces of 'em, and that was as much as a
man's neck was worth; but, fur's I know, no man had ever wanted to,
nor ever tried to, till that day.
"The harebells growed on the very edge of the fust clift, and a
little way down the face of it, and looked mighty pooty a-floating
in the wind. Harnah, who was kind of romantic, said they was the
plume in the old clift's hat; and she called the place the Lovers'
Rock, 'case, she said, the two clifts seemed taking hold of hands,
and jist going to kiss."
"That sounds like Harnah, anyway," muttered Mehitable
contemptuously.
"Yes, it's more uv an idee than you'd 'a been likely to git off,
ain't it, Hit?" asked Seth with a malicious grin, and winking at the
company.
But Mehitable preserving a prudent silence, and only showing her
feelings by an accelerated movement of her knitting-needles, her
husband elevated his eyes again to the ceiling, recrossed his legs,
and continued:--
"I scrambled up the back of the clift easy enough; and, sure enough,
there was the posies, all in blow, and tossing their heads at me as
if they knowed how pooty they was, and dared me not to say so.
Somehow they made me think of Harnah; and I spoke right out,--
"'Yes, I know you be; and I hain't never said you ain't as pooty a
cretur as walks the airth: but I wish you wan't so awful
changeable.'
"Then I laffed right out, to think I was talking to a lot of flowers
same as if they was a gal; and, when I done laffin', I went down on
my knees, and begun to pick 'em. But I hadn't more than got the
first fist-ful when I heerd a groan, a sort uv a faint holler groan,
that sounded as if it come right out uv the ground underneath me. I
dropped the flowers, and riz right up on eend. My ha'r riz too; for
I was scaart, I tell you. 'But,' thinks I, ''twon't do to run away
the fust lick:' so I held on, and pooty soon it come agin. This time
I listened sharp, and had my wits about me; so that, when it wor
through, I clim' right up to the top uv the ledge, and looked down
into the valley, hollerin'--
"'Who be you? Is any one thar?'
"A voice answered, faint and weak; but what it said, or whar it was,
I couldn't for the life of me tell.
"So I hollered agin,--
"'Whar be you, stranger? Holler as loud as you kin!'
"The voice answered back; and I heerd my own name, and, as I
thought, in a voice that turned me as sick and weak as a gal.
"It was Harnah's voice; and my first idee was that she wor dead, and
wor ha'nting me.
"'Harnah!' says I, soft and low, 'is it you?'
"There wa'n't no answer, but another groan, and along of it a
curious kind of noise, like a lot of cats all growling together. I
knowed that noise; and, afore it eended, I knowed whar it come from.
And, all to once, the hull story come to me: Harnah was down thar in
a painter's den; and the kittens was a-growling round her. The old
ones must be away, or one of 'em would 'a been out to see to me
afore this.
"I hadn't the fust thing in the way of a we'pon with me; but there
was plenty of stones down in the hollow, and I cut a good
oak-sapling with my jack-knife. Then I sot myself to scramble down
the face of the clift; and, I tell you, I sweat before I got to the
bottom. Ef it hadn't been for Harnah, I couldn't 'a done it; but,
somehow or 'nother, I reached the bottom, and looked about me. Sure
enough, close to my feet was the mouth of a cave, running right in
under the ledge, though not more than three foot high. I knelt down
and peeked in, calling,--
"'Harnah, be you thar?'
"'Seth, is it you?' asked a voice very faint.
"'Yes, my dear, it is,' says I, 'and bound to get you out uv this
scrape about the quickest. What's a-keeping you in there?'
"'My leg is broke, and the horrid creature is lying on my feet!'
says Harnah.
"I didn't wait for no more questions, but crawled inter the hole. A
dozen feet from the mouth, I come to a snarl of fur, and glary eyes,
and snapping teeth, and savage growls, that I finally made out to be
a couple of painter-kittens, not more'n a few days old, but savage
enough for a hundred. They was snuggled close up to something: what
it was I couldn't at fust make out in the darkness; but putty soon I
see that it was a full-grown painter, lying stretched out at length.
I started back, with all the blood in me pricking at my fingers'
ends with the scare I'd got; but Harnah's voice from beyond says,--
"Don't be frightened at the old panther. She's dead. They fought,
and one ran away; and this one is dead.'
"And is she a-lying on your feet, did you say? It's so dark in here,
I can't see the fust thing,' says I, feeling round for the critter's
head, and gitting my paws tore by the young ones, who, I must say
for 'em, was mighty handy with their claws for their age. So says
I,--
"'Well, fust thing, I'll get red o' these little devils; and then
I'll drag out the karkiss, and see to you, my poor gal.'
"So I clinched the fust one by the throat, and, when he hung like a
rag, pitched him out, and grappled t'other; but he was a case, I
tell you. Fight!--you'd ought ter have seen him!-and scratch and
bite, and spit and yowl, till the whole woods rung with his uproar.
I mastered him finally; but he'd done his work, and come nigh
beating me even arter he was dead, as ye shall hear.
"When the kittens was out of the way, I clinched the karkiss uv the
old painter, and dragged it to'rst the mouth uv the cave. It wor
hard work; and, when I'd got part way, I left it lying, and squeezed
by (for it most filled up the passage), and went to see how bad
Harnah might be hurt; for, when I spoke to her last, she hadn't made
no reply. Leaning over her, I felt round for her face, and had jist
touched her cold cheek, and called to her to know if she was alive,
when I heerd jist over my head the awfulest roar that ever come out
uv a creter's throat; and so loud, that it echoed through and
through the cave enough to deaf you. The minute I heerd it, I knew
what was tew pay, and give up for lost. It wor the man o' the house
come home in a hurry to see what them squalls uv the dying kittens
meant; and that's how I said they come nigh beating me even arter
they was dead.
"Now, mister, what would you say a man had ought to have done in
such a fix as that?-run, or stay? Mind ye, I hadn't the fust thing
in shape uv a we'pon, nor couldn't get hold even uv my stick, nor
the stones outside; and what could a feller do with his naked fists,
shet up in a hole with a wild-cat?"
"It was a trying situation; but I don't believe you ran away," said
Mr. Brown good-humoredly.
"Yer bet your life on that, stranger," replied Seth with emphasis.
"I hadn't no idee on't; though the only other chance seemed to be to
jump down the critter's throat, and choke him, so's ter spile his
stomach for Harnah.
"I looked to the mouth uv the cave, and thought, 'He won't get by
that karkiss very easy;' and then, all of a sudden, the strangest
idee you ever heerd come acrost me, and I jumped as though I'd been
shot. It wor to play off one of the critters agin the other, and
keep the old painter out uv his den with the karkiss of his mate.
"It wor a curus idee, now, worn't it; but they say a drownding
man'll clinch to a straw, and this wor worth the trying to a feller
in as tight a place as I. So I tumbled the old lady over as well as
I could, and got her wedged inter the narrerest part uv the road,
with her back rounded out, and her paws in, so's't I should have a
better chance for hanging on than the old feller outside 'ud have
for pulling. Then, with my jack-knife, I cut a slit in one of the
fore-legs and one of the hind, to put my hands inter; and then I
held on.
"'Twa'n't but a minute arter I got fixed 'fore he wor down upon me,
yelling and squalling enough ter make a man's blood run cold. They
call 'em Injin Devils down our way; and I guess there ain't no kind
uv devils make a wuss-soundin' noise. I jist shut my eyes, and lay
low; for when I knowed that furce, wild creter wor within two foot
uv me, and nothing ter keep him off but a karkiss that he'd claw ter
pieces in ten minutes, I kinder wondered how I'd been sich a plaguy
fool as to think uv the plan, and ter feel so pleased with it.
"And didn't yer never mind, sir, when you've been laying out for
some great pull, you feel as if you'd got fixed fustrate, and was
sure ter win, till the minute comes; and then, all ter once, your
gitting-ready seems no account somehow, and you feel downright
shamed uv what, a minute before, made you so chirk?"
"Yes, that is human nature, Seth; but it is well to remember that
cool precaution is worth more than excitement, after all," said Mr.
Brown.
"Yes, sir, I suppose so now; but I didn't then. It only seemed to me
as ef I was a darned fool, though I couldn't hev said what I'd ought
to hev done different ef I'd been ever so wise. Well, the critter
come, and he stuck his head in, snuffing and smelling for a minute;
and then reached in one paw, jest as softly as you've seed a
pussy-cat feeling uv a ball uv yarn on the floor. Then he growled;
for either he'd smelt or he'd seed me a-peekin' over the old woman's
corpse at him. Hokey! didn't I wish I'd a good gun handy jis' then,
with sech a splendid chance to sight it! But I hadn't; and thar was
the critter, growling and tearing away at the karkiss like mad: fer
he'd pooty much made up his mind by this time what sort o' game lay
behind it, and he was bound to be at it. Any one would 'a thought
his nateral feelings would 'a stood in the way some, seein' as 'twor
his own wife he wor clapper-clawin' at sich a rate; but they didn't
seem to a bit: and, I tell you, he made the fur fly 'thout
con-sideration. The blood streamed down inter my face, and the smell
of that and the flesh choked me. My arms wor straightened clean out
with holding on; and sometimes I could jest see the green eyes o'
the painter, an' feel his hot breath, as he opened his jaws to hiss
and spit at me jis' like a big cat. I felt the eend uv all things
wor at hand; an', shettin' my eyes, I tried hard ter say a prayer,
or somethin' good an' fittin'. I couldn't think o' none, hows'ever:
so I jis' turned raound, and sez, 'Harnah! good-by, Harnah!' an'
felt most as if I'd prayed; though she, poor gal! wor clean swownded
away, and never heerd a word on't.
"Jes' then, when my thoughts wor so took up that I'd act'ally most
forgot where I wor, and jes' held on to the critter kind o'
mechanical-like, I heerd a shot, and then another. The painter heerd
'em too, an' more than heerd 'em, I reckon; for, with a growl an' a
roar that made me scringe, he let go the karkiss, an' backed hisself
out o' the hole 'thout never sayin good-by to me nor to the old
lady.
"Next minute I heerd another shot, and then another; and then sech
horrid groans and screams, mixed up with growls and hisses from the
painter, that I knew he wor hit hard, an' like to die; and, ef I
should say I wor sorry, it 'ud be a lie. Then I heerd feet climbing
and scrambling down the rocks; and next I heerd a v'ice calling,
kind o' frightened-like,--
"'Be you raound here, Harnah, or Seth?'
"'Yes, we be,' says I, waking up all uv a sudden; for I'd lay sort
o' stupid till then: but now I wor wide enough awake, and soon made
Sam understand where we was, and what was to be done. He didn't say
much, but worked away like a good feller, till he got out, fust the
mauled karkiss o' the painter, with the flesh all hanging from it in
strips; then me, covered with blood, and looking wuss than a dead
man, I expect; and finally Harnah, jes' coming to after her dead
faint.
"We must git her out o' this horrid den 'fore she knows whar she is,
or it'll skeer her to death,' says I, as soon as I could speak. 'But
how'll we do it?'
"'You look as if you b'longed here; so I reckon you'd better stop
behind, and I'll git Harnah out by myself,' says Sam, laffin' in a
kind o' hard way.
"I didn't say nothing; but I thought I wouldn't 'a took that time to
laff at a feller, nor yet to show a spite agin him, if I'd been Sam,
and he me.
"It's more nor I could do to justly tell you how we ever got that
gal up them rocks. I expect it wor more the hand o' God, so to
speak, than us that did it. Fust place, we tied our handkerchers
raound her waist, fer a hold; and then Sam went ahead, pulling her
after him, and I sort o' helped behind, and clim' along as well's I
could; and bimby we got up, and laid Harnah down to rest among the
harebells. When she got a little smarter, she told us how she
thought she'd come and git 'em fer herself, and then pertend some
one had given 'em to her, jest so's to plague us, and see what we'd
say. Then, whilst she was a-picking of 'em, she heerd a painter cry
right clost to her, and was so scared, she sot out to run, and, fust
she knew, was over the edge of the clift, and rolling down the face
on't. When she got to the bottom, her leg was broke, and she
couldn't stir; and up to the top o' the rocks she see the painter's
head, with his green eyeballs a-glaring down at her, and his ears
laid back, ready for a spring. What with the pain, and what with the
scare, I expect the poor gal fainted. Anyways, the next thing she
knowed was finding herself in the cave with the two painter-kittens
playing round her, and the old one lying close to, moving his tail
from side to side, and yawning till she could see all his white
teeth and great red throat. Ef she wor scart afore, she didn't feel
no better now, you'd better believe. But Harnah was a stout-hearted
gal, with all her delicate ways; and she never stirred, no made a
sound, only lay still, and fixed her eyes as stiddy as she could on
those uv the great brute beside her. Pooty soon she see that he wor
a-looking at her; and pooty soon he began to make a purring sort of
noise, like 'bout forty big tomcats tied up in one bag. Then Harnah
spoke to him, like as she'd have coaxed a dog, and, arter a while,
began to play with the cubs a little. One way and another, they'd
got to be 'mazin' good friends all raound, when a cry was heerd
outside; and the old man and the little ones pricked up their ears,
and yowled in answer. It wor the old woman coming home, sure enough;
and the minute she poked her snout inter the den, and see what
company her man had got while she wor gone, the trouble begun.
Harnah, naterally, wor too much skeered to see justly what went on:
but there were a big fight somehow; and she got a notion that the
she-painter wanted to fall afoul uv her, and that he wouldn't let
her; and, like other married folks, from words they come to blows;
and the upshot uv the hull was, that the old lady got the wust on't,
and lay dead on the field uv action.
"Whether the husband felt bad, or whether he wanted sunthin' to eat,
or whether he had an engagement with another lady, I couldn't say;
but, the minute he'd given the finishing blow to his wife, he
cleared out, and didn't come back till the cubs called him to see to
me.
"Well, we got Harnah home somehow; and next day we come again, and
skun the old tiger and the cubs; and I got a hull heap o' harebells.
I was bound, that, after all the fuss, Harnah shouldn't lose her
harebells; and she didn't."
Seth was silent; and, tilting his chair a little farther back,
crossed his hands above his chest, and began to whistle softly. The
company looked at him inquiringly; and, after a pause, Karl asked,--
"Well, what next, Seth?"
"Nothing, cap'n: that's all; except I didn't tell how Sam see me
going up the river, and suspicioned I wor a going to meet Harnah,
and so dropped all, and followed on. What he brought his gun fer, I
didn't never ask him."
"But Hannah-what became of her?"
"Oh! she was kind o' peeked a while, with her broken leg; but, arter
that, she was as well as ever."
"Yes; but how did her love-affairs terminate?" persisted Karl.
"Waal, she married Sam Hedge the next fall; and I guess their
love-affairs turned out like other folkses a good deal,--lots o'
'lasses at fust, and, arter a while, lots o' vinegar: that's the way
o' married life."
In delivering this sentiment, Seth bestowed a sidelong glance upon
Mehitable, far more merry than sincere in its expression; but she,
tranquilly pursuing her knitting, let fall her retort, as if she had
not perceived the sarcasm.
"Oh, waal!" said she, "I don't know as I've any call to find fault
with merried life. Seth's made as good a husband as a gal has a
right to expect that takes a feller out o' pity 'cause he's been
mittened by another gal."
The laugh remained upon the feminine side of the argument, and the
party merrily separated for the night.