PICKETT’S GAP
[Illustration: The TMT Co.]
[Illustration: “‘I have been to blame.’”]
PICKETT’S GAP
BY
HOMER GREENE
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1904
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1902,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up, electrotyped, and published October, 1902. Reprinted March,
1904.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
_The illustrations in this book are reproduced from the original
drawings by the kind permission of_ THE YOUTH’S COMPANION.
ILLUSTRATIONS
“‘I have been to blame.’” _Frontispiece_
Facing Page
“‘This land is my gran’father’s, an’ I’ll stand where I
please on it.’” 30
“‘No better deed could be done by any one than to
pull their accursed stakes from the ground, and fling
’em, one and all, into the water of the brook.’” 42
“‘Good-by, my boy!’” 66
Signing the Contract. 82
“Abner Pickett sat upon the wall holding his gun in
readiness for action.” 102
“‘What shall I do, Aunt Martha?’” 114
“‘Tell the truth, you fool!’” 132
“He held the door wide open while the old man and his
grandson passed out into the corridor.” 164
PICKETT’S GAP
CHAPTER I
Abner Pickett stood in the dusty roadway, rake in hand, watching a
load of late August clover, that day harvested, move slowly toward
the barn. It was a rich, fragrant, well-proportioned load, covering
the hay-rigging wholly from sight, hiding the horses that drew it,
swallowing in its luxurious depths the man who drove the team. It was
Abner Pickett’s hay, and his team, and his barn; so indeed were his all
the fertile acres that surrounded him. But for all this Abner Pickett
was not happy.
The yellow glow of the late afternoon sun rested on his bronzed
face, but it left there no look of joy, nor even of content. He was
a picturesque figure as he stood facing the luminous west. His long
white hair, combed straight back from his forehead, curled gracefully
on his broad shoulders. His complexion was as clear, his cheeks as
pink-tinted, his blue eyes as bright and piercing, as though he had
been seventeen instead of sixty-five. His woollen shirt, open winter
and summer at the throat, disclosed a muscular neck like a bronze
column rising from his chest, and revealed nowhere the wrinkles and
the hollows which betoken weight of years. His manners and his moods
were no less eccentric than his looks. There were few people in that
region who had not, at one time or another, felt the shock of his
blunt speech or the keen edge of his caustic tongue. Yet here and
there some one, usually some poor and friendless one, would be found
brave enough to face an incredulous community and testify to Abner
Pickett’s kindness of heart. But he had the Pickett pride. His father
had it before him,--brought it with him, indeed, when he came from
New England into Pennsylvania and purchased from the commonwealth
the four hundred acre tract on which he built the Pickett homestead.
Abner Pickett inherited the place from his father. Not a square foot
of the four hundred acres had ever been sold. It was his pride and his
passion to keep it intact. He intended to pass it down that way to
his only son Charlie. Not that he had any exalted idea of Charlie’s
ability as a farmer. Indeed, it was well known that Charlie did not
take kindly to farming. He was much more fond of knocking around the
country with the compass and surveyor’s kit that he had managed to get
together, running land lines, locating corners, and laying out village
plots for the people of that section of the country. And whether or
not Abner Pickett was liked by the neighbors, it is very certain that
his son Charlie was the most popular young man in that end of Meredith
County. No one was surprised when he married the belle of Port Lenox,
the nearest up-river town, and brought her to his father’s house. They
all said that a young man of his parts could have married any one he
chose. But every one was surprised when it became generally known that
the young bride had found her way into Abner Pickett’s well-guarded
heart. People had been shaking their heads ominously for a month, and
predicted all sorts of trouble and unhappiness for Charlie Pickett’s
wife in his father’s household. They knew the old man’s eccentricities
so well. Small wonder, then, that they were astonished when they awoke
to the fact that Abner Pickett had become the devoted slave of his
daughter-in-law. Nothing was too good for her. No service on his part
was too burdensome or too painstaking if it added in the least to her
comfort or pleasure. Brusque and biting to the world about him, he was
to her as gentle and as helpful and as courteous as a knight of old.
During her long illness after Dannie, his only grandchild, was born,
his devotion to her never ceased. And when he saw the roses begin
to come back into her cheeks, he could no more restrain his delight
than he could refrain from drawing his breath. But one night she grew
suddenly ill again. And while Charlie and Aunt Martha did for her all
that loving thought could suggest, or tender care accomplish, Abner
Pickett flung himself on his brown mare and dashed madly off through
the darkness to Port Lenox, ten miles away, to fetch the doctor. He had
the doctor there by daylight; but no physician, nor any drug, nor the
most loving care, could hold the struggling spirit in the frail body,
and two days later Charlie’s wife was dead.
People who knew said that Abner Pickett felt the blow as keenly as
when his own wife died twenty years before. He would not listen to
the suggestion that her body should be taken back to her old home
at Port Lenox for interment; and, rather than face his wrath, her
parents consented that the burial should be made in the Pickett family
graveyard at the mouth of the gap. Their action was fully justified.
That graveyard was the pride of Abner Pickett’s heart. It lay in a
direct line with the opening into the gap, and barely two hundred
feet distant. On the north, it was bordered by the public road, on
the south, it was washed by the rippling waters of the brook, and
on every side, save the west, the hills rose precipitously as if to
guard it. It was a beautiful half-acre. The sward was always fresh and
green, and flowers bloomed there from May to October. Abner Pickett’s
parents were buried there, and his wife, and his brother and sister,
and his own children who had died in infancy, as well as others more
distantly related to him. And the sheltering soil also hid the bodies
of some without home or friends; bodies that, had it not been for Abner
Pickett’s generosity, would have found interment in the potter’s field.
When Charlie’s wife was buried there, the old man’s interest in his
graveyard increased tenfold. He bought the most beautiful monument
that the marble-cutters of Port Lenox could furnish, and had it placed
at the head of her grave. It was a fluted column, with pedestal and
cap, draped with chiselled flowers. Looked at from the west, it stood
out, tall and graceful, outlined in perfect proportion against the dark
shadows of the gap or the rich verdure of the hills that stood like
sentinels about it. That Abner Pickett’s graveyard was dear to him, and
that the memory of Charlie’s wife was one of the tenderest spots in his
heart, no one who knew the old man ever had reason to doubt.
But alas for Charlie! The life on the old homestead, which had been
irksome enough at its best, grew suddenly unbearable. The ancient
farmhouse, lit up temporarily by the brightness and sweetness of
the young life so quickly and pathetically ended, grew tenfold more
dark and forbidding than ever. It contained one jewel, indeed, his
baby, Dannie; but the child was not yet old enough to cheer the
father’s heart with companionable ways, and the days dragged by in
ever increasing loneliness and sorrow. The tasks of the farm, against
the performance of which he had always rebelled, became burdensome
now beyond endurance, and, on every possible pretext, he found his
way, with compass and chain, outside the borders of his father’s four
hundred acres to do work of which he grew more and more fond as his
knowledge and experience increased.
But all this was like gall and wormwood to his father. If Abner Pickett
had set his heart on anything, it was that Charlie should follow in
his footsteps as manager and eventually owner of one of the largest
and best farms in Meredith County, in which, like his father, he
should take a just and pardonable pride. That Charlie did not develop
a fondness for the farmer’s life was a sore trial to the old man, but
he hoped that, with advancing years and larger wisdom, the boy, grown
to manhood, would yet take kindly to the toil and triumphs of the farm.
And when Charlie settled down in the old homestead, with his sweet
young wife to cheer and encourage him, and went out to the tasks of
tillage with a hope and vigor almost akin to zest for the work, the old
man felt that the fulness of the time for which he had long hoped and
waited was at last come.
But his satisfaction was short-lived. With the death of Charlie’s
wife it vanished. And when the boy again took up his more congenial
occupation, and wandered off day after day with compass and chain,
leaving the farm to be cared for and worked by others, the old man’s
cup of sorrow and bitterness was indeed full. Between him and his son
there had been no open rupture, but day by day their relations with
each other became more strained, and each felt in the air the breath of
impending disaster.
It was early spring when Charlie’s wife died; it was late August now.
The summer, rich in warmth and showers, yielding an abundance from
field and garden, vine and tree, had brought to Abner Pickett only
sorrow, disappointment, and bitterness. All these were depicted in
his rugged face as he stood in the waning sunlight and watched the
creaking, jolting wagon with its fragrant load move slowly to the barn.
Up the road from the direction of the gap came Charlie, his compass on
his arm, his tripod on his shoulder, and his two-rod chain swinging
loosely from his free hand. He was a stalwart young fellow, blue-eyed
and fair-haired, tall and muscular, bronzed with the sun and wind,
vigorous with the springing life of early manhood.
When Abner Pickett heard footsteps behind him he turned and faced his
son.
“Well, father, I’m back.”
Charlie had been in Jackson County for three days tracing warrantee
lines.
“Yes, I see,” replied the old man, the expression of his face
absolutely unchanged.
“Is Dannie well?”
“So far as I know.”
Charlie started on, but before he had gone a dozen yards, he turned and
came back to his father.
“Father,” he said, “let’s end it.”
“End what?”
“This awkwardness, this uncertainty, this everlasting disagreement
about the farm. I can’t do farm work, father, I’m not fitted for it--I
hate it.”
Charlie should have been less impulsive, more considerate. To declare
farm work hateful was, in the mind of Abner Pickett, rank treason. But
Charlie was too much like his father to gloss things over. He said what
he felt, whether wise or unwise.
Abner Pickett changed his rake from one hand to the other, and still
looked at the bulky load of hay making its slow way to the dark and
gaping entrance to the barn.
“Yes,” he said slowly and coldly; “that’s been apparent for some time.
There’s dogs that’ll bite the hand that feeds ’em.”
Charlie’s face flushed.
“Don’t be unjust, father. I appreciate all you’ve done for me. But I
simply can’t stand it on the farm--and I won’t.”
The old man was still impassive.
“No? Well, you’re of age. Your time’s your own. There is no law to
compel you to work, exceptin’ the law of self-preservation. If you
choose to go gallivantin’ round the country like old Hiram Posten, with
a needle an’ a Jacob’s staff, runnin’ out people’s back yards for ’em,
it ain’t nobody’s business but your own. But men that stay on my farm
must work on my farm.”
Charlie stood for a moment gazing at his father intently.
“Does that mean,” he said at last, “that I must give up my surveying or
leave my home?”
The old man turned on his questioner suddenly, aroused at last from his
seeming impassiveness.
“Look here, young man,” he said, “I’ve got the best four hundred acres
o’ land in Meredith County. After I’m through with it it’s yours if you
want it. But you can’t get it by runnin’ land lines in Jackson County
all summer, an’ huntin’ muskrats in Beaver all winter. If you want my
farm, you’ve got to earn it, an’ the only way you can earn it is to
stay home an’ work it like your father an’ your gran’father did before
you. Now, that’s the last word. Take it or leave it as you choose.”
Charlie took no time for thought, no time to counsel with himself. As
quickly and decisively as though he had been putting aside a toy he
replied:--
“Very well, father; I leave it.”
For one moment Abner Pickett stood aghast. That any one, least of
all his own son, whose ancestral pride should have made such a thing
impossible, could throw away so coolly, so carelessly, a gift like
this, the condition of obtaining which should have been a joy to him
instead of a burden--it was simply and wholly incomprehensible. Without
a word he turned on his heel and started up the road toward the barn.
“Father!” called Charlie after him, “does this mean that I must leave
my home?”
The old man swung around and faced him almost savagely.
“_Your_ home!” he cried, “_your_ home! Since when have you possessed
it? Didn’t I get it from my father as a reward of faithfulness? Hasn’t
my work an’ my money made it the best place in Meredith County? Didn’t
I bring you up in it? Didn’t my money feed and clothe you? Didn’t my
money educate you an’ spoil you in the best school in this end o’ the
state? Didn’t I cater to your whims an’ follies an’ laziness for years
at my own expense? An’ when you saw fit to get married, and hadn’t a
cent o’ your own to support a wife on, an’ wasn’t likely to get it by
your own exertions, didn’t I keep you both under my own roof an’ save
you from starvation? An’ what have you ever done to pay for it? An’ now
you call it _your_ home; an’ next you’ll be orderin’ me to vacate. I
want you to understand that this home, an’ this house, an’ this farm,
an’ everything there is here is mine. Do you hear? It’s mine, mine,
mine!”
When Abner Pickett was angry, the blood mounted slowly to his neck,
then to his chin and face, and finally suffused his forehead with its
glow. He was angry now; more angry than Charlie had ever seen him
before save once; and that was when a man from Port Lenox offered him a
hundred dollars for a corner of his graveyard on which to erect a cider
mill.
And Charlie was angry in his turn. Up to this moment he had been
impatient and impulsive; now, stung by unjust reproaches, the hot blood
of passion went surging through his veins.
“You say what is not true!” he cried. “Since I was eighteen I have
earned enough and more than enough to support myself and those
dependent on me. And in all that time I have received from you only
discouragement and ridicule, and abuse and cruelty. I could stand it.
I had learned through years of suffering to stand it. But when, in the
presence of my wife, you kept it up, she could not fathom you; it made
her heartsick and homesick and sorrowful, and in the end it killed her!
I say she could have conquered disease, but her sympathy for me and
her fear of you, that killed her! Now I, too, have said my last word.
To-morrow I shall go. When you can treat me justly I will come again,
and not till then.”
He turned on his heel, strode down the road, past the graveyard,
lifting his hat reverently as he went by, and then was lost in the
deepening shadows of the glen.
Abner Pickett started homeward in a daze. His son’s terrible charge
against him came upon him like a stroke of lightning, and left him
blinded and bewildered.
“I killed her?” he murmured to himself. “I killed her? I that loved her
so; that would ’a’ cut off my right hand for her any day? What does he
mean? What Satan’s falsehood is it he has given me?”
In the gray of the next morning Charlie Pickett came up the path to
his old home. The door was unlocked. He opened it and entered. In the
sitting-room, with his head resting on his hand, his face gray in the
early morning light, he found his father. He crossed the room and stood
before him.
“Father,” he said, “I lied to you yesterday. I was unjust and unfilial.
I have no excuse to make except that I was moved by uncontrollable
anger. I do not know that you ever said a word in the presence of
my wife that could in any way hurt her feelings. I do not know that
you ever caused her a single pain, a single regret, a single sorrow.
I do know that you were more than kind to her, that you did for her
everything that loving thought or willing hands could do, and that
your grief at her death was scarcely less than my own. I owe you this
apology. I make it now. For this offence I ask your forgiveness. May I
have it?”
The old man looked up at him impassively.
“No.”
“But, father, it is the only lie I ever told you, and I am sorry for it
from the bottom of my heart.”
“One lie is enough.”
“But I am going now. I may never see you again. It is terrible for
father and son to be thus estranged. What can I do to redeem myself in
your eyes?”
“Nothing.”
“May I come sometime to see you?”
“No.”
Charlie turned toward the door, then, a thought striking him suddenly,
he turned back again.
“And Dannie, father?”
“Leave him with Martha.”
“Thank you! Good-by!”
The old man did not again respond. He still sat with his forehead in
his hands, motionless, passionless, like granite. Charlie left the
room, closing the door behind him, and went upstairs. In the hall he
met Aunt Martha.
“It’s all over, Auntie,” he said. “I’m going.”
The good woman had been weeping.
“I knew you had had it out with each other, Charlie.”
“Yes, I’m not to return. I’m going to kiss Dannie good-by. Father says
I shall leave him with you. Will you take him, Auntie?”
“Alice gave him to me to take care of when she died, and I’ll keep him
till you want him, Charlie. But you’ll soon be coming back?”
“I’m afraid not, Auntie. I can’t tell you about it. You know father. I
was thoughtless and cruel. He is firm and unforgiving. But you’ll know
where I am. When you want me send for me, and I’ll come.”
He passed on into Dannie’s room. The child was still sleeping. He
bent down and kissed the flushed cheek and the dimpled hand. A smile
crept over the little face, and the baby stirred in his sleep. Then
he went into his own room and threw together a few things to supply
his immediate wants. When he went downstairs again, Aunt Martha was
standing in the front door. She threw her arms around his neck and
kissed him good-by. She had known all his hopes, his ambitions, his
sorrows, his faults. She did not side with him against his father, but
she felt for him from the bottom of her heart.
At the gateway he turned and threw back to her a kiss. She stood in the
front door and saw his stalwart figure stride down the road through the
morning mist, and lose itself in the shadows of the gap.
The summer passed, and autumn brought tinted glory to Pickett’s Gap,
and then winter came and covered the landscape with her snows; but
Charlie Pickett did not come back. Years went by, and still he did not
return, and finally his very name grew to be but a memory among those
who had known him in his boyhood and his youth.