twelve jurymen, whose names were gradually affixed to the petition. But
they too had questions that were hard to answer. "Are you kin of his?"
they would ask, impressed by her hardships and her self-immolation.
And when she would answer, "No," she would fancy that the shelter
they gave her was not in confidence, but for mere humanity. And she
shrank sensitively from these supposititious suspicions. They were
poor men, mostly, but one of them stopped his plowing to lend her his
horse to the next house, and another gave her a lift of ten miles in
his wagon, as it was on his way. He it was who told her, in rehearsing
the country-side gossip, that the governor was canvassing the State
for reëlection, and had made an appointment to speak at Sparta the
following day.
A new idea flashed into her mind. Her sudden resolution fairly
frightened her. She cowered before it, as they drove along between the
fields of yellowing corn, all in the gairish sunshine, spreading so
broadly over the broad plain. That night she lay awake thinking of it,
while the cold drops started upon her brow. Before daybreak she was
up and trudging along the road to Sparta. It was still early when she
entered the little town of the mountain bench, set in the flickering
mists and chill, matutinal sunshine, and encompassed on every hand by
the mighty ranges. A flag floated from the roof of the court-house, and
there was an unusual stir in the streets. Excited groups were talking
at every corner, and among a knot of men, standing near, one riveted
her attention. He had been spoken of in her hearing as the governor of
the State. Bold with the realization of the opportunity, she pushed
through the staring crowd and thrust the much-thumbed petition into his
hand. He cast a surprised glance upon her, then looked at the paper.
"All right; I'll examine it," he said hastily, and folding it he turned
away. In his political career he had studied many faces; unconsciously
an adept, he may have deciphered those subtle hieroglyphics of
character, and despite her ignorance, her poverty, and the low,
criminal atmosphere of her mission, read in her eyes the dignity of her
endeavor, the nobility of her nature, and the prosaic martyrdom of her
toilsome experience. He turned suddenly back to reassure her. "Rely on
it," he said heartily, "I'll do what I can."
Her pilgrimage was accomplished; there was nothing more but to turn
her face to the mountains. It seemed to her at times as if she should
never reach them. They were weary hours before she came upon Lost
Creek, loitering down the sunlit valley to vanish in the grewsome
caverns beneath the range. The sumach leaves were crimsoning along
its banks. The scarlet-oak emblazoned the mountain side. Above the
encompassing heights the sky was blue, and the mountain air tasted
like wine. Never a crag or chasm so sombre but flaunted some swaying
vine or long tendriled moss, gilded and gleaming yellow. Buckeyes
were falling, and the ashy "Indian pipes" silvered the roots of the
trees. In every marshy spot glowed the scarlet cardinal-flower, and
the goldenrod had sceptred the season. Now and again the forest quiet
was broken by the patter of acorns from the chestnut-oaks, and the
mountain swine were abroad for the plenteous mast. Overhead she heard
the faint, weird cry of wild geese winging southward. The whole aspect
of the scene was changed, save only Pine Mountain. There it stood,
solemn, majestic, mysterious, masked by its impenetrable growth, and
hung about with duskier shadows wherever a ravine indented the slope.
The spirit within it was chanting softly, softly. For the moment she
felt the supreme exaltation of the mountains. It lifted her heart. And
when a sudden fluctuating red glare shot out over the murky shades, and
the dull sighing of the bellows reached her ear from the forge on the
mountain's brink, and the air was presently vibrating with the clinking
of the hand-hammer and the clanking of the sledge, and the crags
clamored with the old familiar echoes, she realized that she had done
all she had sought to do; that she had gone forth helpless but for her
own brave spirit; that she had returned helpful, and hopeful, and that
here was her home, and she loved it.
This enabled her to better endure the anger and reproaches of her
relatives and the curiosity and covert suspicion of the whole
country-side.
Evander's people regarded the situation with grave misgivings. "I hope
ter the mercy-seat," quavered old man Price, "ez Cynthy Ware hain't
gone an' actially sot the gov'nor o' Tennessee more' n ever agin that
pore critter; but I misdoubts,"--he shook his head piteously, as he
perched on the fence,--"I misdoubts."
"An' the insurance o' that thar gal!" cried Mrs. Price. "She never had
no call ter meddle with 'Vander."
Cynthia's mother entertained this view, also, but for a different
reason. "'Twar no consarn o' Cynthy's, nohow," she said, advising with
her daughter Maria. "Cynthy air neither kith nor kin o' 'Vander, who
air safer an' likelier in the pen'tiary 'n ennywhar else, 'kase it
leaves her no ch'ice but Jeemes Blake, ez she hed better take whilst
he air in the mind fur it an' whilst she kin git him."
Jubal Tynes wished he could have foreseen that she would meet the
governor, for he could have told her exactly what to say; and this, he
was confident, would have secured the pardon.
And it was clearly the opinion of the "mounting," expressed in the
choice coteries assembled at the mill, the blacksmith's shop, the
Settlement, and the still-house, that a "young gal like Cynthy" had
transcended all the bounds of propriety in this "wild junketing after
gov'nors an' sech through all the valley country, whar she warn't
knowed from a gate-post, nor her dad nuther."
There were, however, doubters, who disparaged the whole account of the
journey as a fable, and circulated a whisper that the petition had
never been presented.
This increased to open incredulity as time wore on, to ridicule, to
taunts, for no word came of the petition for pardon and no word of the
prisoner.
The bleak winter wore away; spring budded and bloomed into summer;
summer was ripening into autumn, and every day, as the corn yellowed
and thickly swathed ears hung far from the stalk, and the drone of the
locust was loud in the grass, and the deep, slumberous glow of the
sunshine suffused every open spot, Cynthia, with the return of the
season, was vividly reminded of her weary ploddings, with bleeding
feet and aching head, between such fields along the lengthening valley
roads. And the physical anguish she remembered seemed light--seemed
naught--to the anguish of suspense which racked her now. Sometimes she
felt impelled to a new endeavor. Then her strong common sense checked
the useless impulse. She had done all that could be done. She had
planted the seed. She had worked and watched, and beheld it spring up
and put forth and grow into fair proportions; only time might bring its
full fruition.
The autumn was waning; cold rains set in, and veined the rocky chasms
with alien torrents; the birds had all flown, when suddenly the
Indian summer, with its golden haze and its great red sun, its purple
distances and its languorous joy, its balsamic perfumes and its vagrant
day-dreams, slipped down upon the gorgeous crimson woods, and filled
them with its glamour and its poetry.
One of these days--a perfect day--a great sensation pervaded Pine
Mountain. Word went the rounds that a certain notorious horse thief,
who had served out his term in the peni tentiary, had stopped at the
blacksmith shop on his way home, glad enough of the prospect of being
there once more; "an' ez pious in speech ez the rider, mighty nigh,"
said the dwellers about Pine Mountain, unfamiliar with his aspect as
a penitent and discounting his repentance. It was a long story he had
to tell about himself, and he enjoyed posing as the central figure
in the curious crowd that had gathered about him. He seemed for the
time less like a criminal than a great traveler, so strange and full
of interest to the simple mountaineers were his experiences and the
places he had seen. He stood leaning against the anvil, as he talked,
looking out through the barn-like door upon the amplitude of the great
landscape before him; its mountains so dimly, delicately blue in the
distance, so deeply red and brown and yellow nearer at hand, and still
closer shaded off by the dark plumy boughs of the pines on either side
of the ravine above which the forge was perched. Deep in the valley,
between them all, Lost Creek hied along, veining the purple haze with
lines of palpitating silver. It was only when the material for personal
narration was quite exhausted that he entered, though with less zest,
on other themes.
"Waal,--now, 'Vander Price," he drawled, shifting his great cowhide
boots one above another. "I war 'stonished when I hearn ez 'Vander
war in fur receivin' of stolen goods. Shucks!"--his little black eyes
twinkled beneath the drooping brim of a white wool hat, and his wide,
flat face seemed wider and flatter for a contemptuous grin,--"I can't
onderstand how a man kin git his own cornsent ter go cornsortin' with
them ez breaks inter stores and dwellin's an' sech, an' hankerin' arter
store-fixin's an' store-truck. Live-stock air a differ. The beastis air
temptin', partic'lar ef they air young an' hev got toler'ble paces."
Perhaps a change in the faces of his audience admonished him, for he
qualified: "The beastis air temptin'--_ter the ungodly_. I hev gin over
sech doin's myself, 'kase we hed a toler'ble chaplain yander in the
valley" (he alluded thus equivocally to his late abode), "an' I sot
under the preachin' a good while. But store-truck!--shucks! Waal, the
gyards 'lowed ez 'Vander war a turrible feller ter take keer on, when
they war a-fetchin' him down ter Nashvul. He jes' seemed desolated. One
minit he'd fairly cry ez ef every sob would take his life; an' the nex'
he'd be squarin' off ez savage, an' tryin' ter hit the gyards in the
head. He war ironed, hand an' foot."
There was no murmur of sympathy. All listened with stolid curiosity,
except Cynthia, who was leaning against the open door. The tears
forced their way, and silently flowed, unheeded, down her cheeks. She
fixed her brown eyes upon the man as he went on:--
"But when they struck the railroad, an' the critter seen the iron
engine ez runs by steam, like I war a-tellin' ye about, he jes' stood
rooted ter the spot in amaze; they could sca'cely git him budged away
from thar. They 'lowed they hed never seen sech joy ez when he war
travelin' on the steam-kyars a-hint it. When they went a-skeetin' along
ez fast an' ez steady ez a tur-r-key-buzzard kin fly, 'Vander would
jes' look fust at one o' the gyards an' then at the t'other, a-smilin'
an' tickled nearly out 'n his senses. An' wunst he said, 'Ef this ain't
the glory o' God revealed in the work o' man, what is?' The gyards
'lowed he acted so cur'ous they would hev b'lieved he war a plumb
idjit, ef it hedn't a-been fur what happened arterward at the Pen."
"Waal, what war it ez happened at the Pen?" demanded Pete Blenkins. His
red face, suffused with the glow of the smouldering forge-fire, was
a little wistful, as if he grudged his quondam striker these unique
sensations.
"They put him right inter the forge at the Pen, an' he tuk ter the work
like a pig ter carrots." The ex-convict paused for a moment, and cast
his eye disparagingly about the primitive smithy. "They do a power o'
work thar, Pete, ez you-uns never drempt of."
"Shucks!" rejoined Pete incredulously, yet a trifle ill at ease.
"'Vander war a good blacksmith fur the mountings, but they sot him ter
l'arnin' thar. They 'lowed, though, ez he war pearter'n the peartest.
He got ter be powerful pop'lar with all the gyards an' authorities, an'
sech. He war plumb welded ter his work--he sets more store by metal
than by grace. He 'lowed ter me ez he wouldn't hev missed bein' thar
fur nuthin'! 'Vander air a powerful cur'ous critter: he 'lowed ter me
ez one year in the forge at the Pen war wuth a hundred years in the
mountings ter him."
Poor Cynthia! Her eyes, large, luminous, and sweet, with the holy
rapture of a listening saint, were fixed upon the speaker's evil,
uncouth face. Evander had not then been so unhappy!
"But when they hired out the convict labor ter some iron works' folks,
'Vander war glad ter go, 'kase he'd git ter l'arn more yit 'bout
workin' in iron an' sech. An' he war powerful outed when he hed ter
kem back, arter ten months, from them works. He hed tuk his stand in
metal thar, too. An' he hed fixed some sort'n contrivance ter head
rivets quicker'n cheaper'n it air ginerally done; an' he war afeard
ter try ter git it 'patented,' ez he calls it, 'kase he b'lieved the
Pen could claim it ez convict labor,--though some said not. Leastwise,
he determinated ter hold on ter his idee till his term war out. But
he war powerful interrupted in his mind fur fear somebody else would
think up the idee, too, an' patent it fust. He war powerful irked by
the Pen arter he kem back from the iron works. He 'lowed ter me ez he
war fairly crazed ter git back ter 'em. He 'lowed ez he hed ruther see
that thar big shed an' the red hot puddler's balls a-trundlin' about,
an' all the wheels a-whurlin', an' the big shears a-bitin' the metal ez
nip, an' the tremenjious hammer a-poundin' away, an' all the dark night
around split with lines o' fire, than to see the hills o' heaven! It
'pears to me mo' like hell! But jes' when 'Vander war honing arter them
works ez ef it would kill him ter bide away from thar, his pardon kem.
He fairly lept an' shouted fur joy!"
"His pardon!" cried Cynthia.
"Air 'Vander pardoned fur true?" exclaimed a chorus of mountaineers.
The ex-convict stared about him in surprise. "Ain't you-uns knowed that
afore? 'Vander hev been out'n the Pen a year."
A year! A vague, chilly premonition thrilled through Cynthia. "Whar be
he now?" she asked.
"Yander ter them iron works. He lit out straight. I seen him las' week,
when I war travelin' from my cousin Jerry's house, whar I went ez soon
ez I got out'n the Pen. The steam-kyars stopped at a station ez be nigh
them iron works, an' I met up with 'Vander on the platform. That's how
I fund out all I hev been a-tellin' ye, 'kase we didn't hev no time ter
talk whilst we war in the Pen; they don't allow no chin-choppin' thar.
When 'Vander war released, the folks at the iron works tuk him ter work
on weges, an' gin him eighty dollars a month."
There was an outburst of incredulity. "Waal, sir!" "Tim'thy, ye kerry
that mouth o' yourn too wide open, an' it leaks out all sorts o' lies!"
"We-uns know ye of old, Tim'thy!" "Pine Mounting haint furgot ye yit!"
"I wouldn't gin eighty dollars fur 'Vander Price, hide, horns, an'
tallow!" declared Pete Blenkins, folding his big arms over his leathern
apron, and looking about with the air of a man who has placed his
valuation at extremely liberal limits.
"I knowed ye wouldn't b'lieve that, but it air gospel-true," protested
the ex-convict. "Thar is more money a-goin' in the valley 'n thar is in
the mountings, an' folks pays more fur work. Besides that, 'Vander hev
got a patent, ez he calls it, fur his rivet contrivance, an' he 'lows
ez it hev paid him some a'ready. It'll sorter stiffen up the backbone
o' that word ef I tell ye ez he 'lowed ez he hed jes' sent two hunderd
dollars ter Squair Bates ter lift the mortgage off'n old man Price's
house an' land, an' two hunderd dollars more ter be gin ter his dad
ez a present. An' Squair Bates acted 'cordin' ter 'Vander's word, an'
lifted the mortgage, an' handed old man Price the balance. An' what
do ye s'pose old man Price done with the money? He went right out an'
buried it in the woods, fur fear he'd be pulled out'n his bed fur it,
some dark night, by lawless ones. He'll never find it agin, I reckon.
The idjit hed more sense. I seen 'Lijah diggin' fur it, ez I rid by
thar ter-day."
"Did 'Vander 'low when he air comin' back ter Pine Mounting?" asked
Pete Blenkins. "He hev been gone two year an' a half now."
"I axed him that word. An' he said he mought kem back ter see his folks
nex' year, mebbe, or the year arter that. But I misdoubts. He air so
powerful tuk up with metal an' iron, an' sech, an' so keen 'bout his
'ventions, ez he calls 'em, ez he seemed mighty glad ter git shet o'
the mountings. 'Vander 'lows ez you-uns dunno nothin' 'bout iron up
hyar, Pete."
It was too plain. Cynthia could not deceive herself. He had forgotten
her. His genius, once fairly evoked, possessed him, and faithfully his
ambitions served it. His love, in comparison, was but a little thing,
and he left it in the mountains,--the mountains that he did not regret,
that had barred him so long from all he valued, that had freed him at
last only through the prison doors. His love had been an unavowed love,
and there was no duty broken. For the first time she wondered if he
ever knew that she cared for him,--if he never remembered. And then she
was suddenly moved to ask, "Did he 'low ter you-uns who got his pardon
fur him?"
"I axed that word when las' I seen him, an' the critter said he
actially hed never tuk time ter think 'bout'n that. He 'lowed he war
so tickled ter git away from the Pen'tiary right straight ter the iron
works an' the consarn he hed made ter head rivets so peart, ez he never
wondered 'bout'n it. He made sure, though, now he had kem ter study
'bout'n it, ez his dad hed done it, or it mought hev been gin him fur
good conduc' an' sech."
"'Twar Cynthy hyar ez done some of it," explained Pete Blenkins,
"though Jubal Tynes stirred himself right smart."
As Cynthia walked slowly back to her home in the gorge, she did not
feel that she had lavished a noble exaltation and a fine courage in
vain; that the subtlest essence of a most ethereal elation was expended
as the motive power of a result that was at last flat, and sordid,
and most material. She did not murmur at the cruelty of fate that she
should be grieving for his woes while he was so happy, so blithely
busy. She did not regret her self-immolation. She did not grudge all
that love had given him; she rejoiced that it was so sufficient, so
nobly ample. She grudged only the wasted feeling, and she was humbled
when she thought of it.
The sun had gone down, but the light yet lingered. The evening star
trembled above Pine Mountain. Massive and darkling it stood against the
red west. How far, ah, how far, stretched that mellow crimson glow, all
adown Lost Creek Valley, and over the vast mountain solitudes on either
hand! Even the eastern ranges were rich with this legacy of the dead
and gone day, and purple and splendid they lay beneath the rising moon.
She looked at it with full and shining eyes.
"I dunno how he kin make out ter furgit the mountings," she said;
and then she went on, hearing the crisp leaves rustling beneath her
tread, and the sharp bark of a fox in the silence of the night-shadowed
valley.
Mrs. Ware had predicted bitter things of Cynthia's future, more
perhaps in anger than with discreet foresight. Now, when her prophecy
was in some sort verified, she shrank from it, as if with the word
she had conjured up the fact. And her pride was touched in that her
daughter should have been given the "go-by," as she phrased it. All the
mountain--nay, all the valley--would know of it. "Law, Cynthy," she
exclaimed, aghast, when the girl had rehearsed the news, "what be ye
a-goin' ter do?"
"I'm a-goin' ter weavin'," said Cynthia. She already had the shuttle
in her hand. It was a useful expression for a broken heart, as she was
expert at the loom.
She became so very skillful, with practice, that it was generally
understood to be mere pastime when she would go to help a neighbor
through the weaving of the cloth for the children's clothes. She went
about much on this mission: for although there were children at home,
the work was less than the industry, and she seemed "ter hev a craze
fur stirrin' about, an' war a toler'ble oneasy critter." She was said
to have "broken some sence 'Vander gin her the go-by, like he done,"
and was spoken of at the age of twenty-one as a "settled single woman;"
for early marriages are the rule in the mountains. When first her
father and then her mother died, she cared for all the household, and
the world went on much the same. The monotony of her tragedy made it
unobtrusive. Perhaps no one on Pine Mountain remembered aright how it
had all come about, when after an absence of ten years Evander Price
suddenly reappeared among them.
Old man Price had, in the course of nature, ceased to sit upon the
fence,--he could hardly be said to have lived. The fence itself was
decrepit; the house was falling to decay. The money which Evander had
sent from time to time, that it might be kept comfortable, had been
safely buried in various localities and in separate installments, as
the remittances had come. To this day the youth of Pine Mountain,
when afflicted with spasms of industry and, as unaccustomed, the lust
for gold, dig for it in likely spots as unavailingly as the idiot
once sought it. Evander took the family with him to his valley home,
and left the little hut for the owl and the gopher to hide within,
for the red-berried vines to twine about the rotting logs, for the
porch to fall in the wind, for silence to enter therein and make it a
dwelling-place.
"How will yer wife like ter put up with the idjit?" asked Pete Blenkins
of his old striker.
"She'll be _obleeged_ ter like it!" retorted Evander, with an angry
flash in his eyes, presaging contest.
It revealed the one dark point in his prospects. The mountaineers
were not so slow-witted as to overlook it, but Evander had come to be
the sort of man whom one hardly likes to question. He had a traveling
companion, however, who hailed from the same neighborhood, and who
talked learnedly of coal measures, and prodded and digged and bought
leagues of land for a song,--much of it dearly bought. He let fall a
hint that in marrying, Evander had contrived to handicap himself. "He
would do wonders but for that woman!"
His mountain auditors could hardly grasp the finer points of the
incompatibility; they could but dimly appreciate that the kindling
scintilla of a discovery in mechanics, more delicately poised on
practicability than a sunbeam on a cobweb, could have a tragic
extinction in a woman's inopportune peevishness or selfish exactions.