Long after his father and his son had vanished from sight between the
great snow ridges that lined the street, Charlie Pickett stood at the
window of the jury room, looking out upon the wide, white landscape,
thinking of the days gone by, of the day just passed, of the days he
still hoped might come in the future.
Some one touched him gently on the shoulder. He turned and saw that it
was Gabriel, and reached out to him a welcoming hand.
“I’m glad to see you, Gabriel,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get
a chance to speak to you ever since you’ve been here. I’ve been
wanting to ask you about Dannie, and about Father, and Aunt Martha,
and yourself, and about the old place. It’s been a hard day for me,
Gabriel.”
“The’ ain’t no doubt o’ that, Char--Mr. Pickett, I mean.”
“No, not Mr. Pickett. I’m always Charlie to you, you know. We’ve
worked and tramped and hunted and fished together too often for any
formality of that kind, Gabriel. But I am glad to see you. Here, sit
down. Tell me about Dannie. I’ve just given him up to Father. I had a
right to take him, Gabriel; I wanted to take him; but I knew it would
break Father’s heart, and I couldn’t do that, I couldn’t do it.”
“Well,” replied Gabriel, slowly, “I ain’t got nothin’ to say aginst
Abner Pickett. He’s treated me like a white man fer eighteen year
an’ up’ards; but ef I had a son like you, an’ a gran’son like Dannie
Pickett, I’ll be everlastin’ly gee-hawed ef I wouldn’t git down off’n
my high hoss once’t in a w’ile, say once’t in a year to start on, an’
treat ’em both like human bein’s. Not to say but w’at he’s good to
Dannie. W’y good ain’t no name fer it. They ain’t nothin’ he wouldn’t
do fer that boy, nothin’--excep’ to let ’im hev the benefit uv a
father.”
“And is Dannie equally fond of him?”
“Sure. They’re jes’ like twins, them two is. W’enever an’ w’erever you
see one uv ’em, you’re jes’ nat’ally bound to see t’other.”
“So Aunt Martha has written me; and I’m glad of that, Gabriel. It is
the only thing that reconciles me to his loss. But does he never think
about his father? Does he never ask for him? Does he never want him?
Tell me that, Gabriel.”
“Well, he ain’t never asked ’is gran’father about ye more’n once, I
reckon. I heard ’im ask once. An’ the way--well, never mind that. Ez
ol’ Isra’l Pidgin use to say: ‘You can’t close up a crack by hammerin’
a wedge in it.’ But ef he’s asked me about ye once’t, he’s asked a
hunderd times. He’ll come on ye sudden like, w’en ye ain’t expectin’
it, an’ fire away till you don’t know wuther you’re standin’ on your
head or your feet. He come onto me once’t that way las’ fall in the
potater patch. ‘Gabriel,’ says ’e, ‘w’at did my father go away fer?’
sez ’e. Well, now, I could ’a’ told ’im, an’ I couldn’t ’a’ told ’im,
an’ I didn’t do nary one. ‘Did he an’ Gran’pap hev a quarrel?’ sez ’e.
An’ bless my soul ef I knew w’at to say. I couldn’t go to fillin’ of
’im up with stuff about ’is gran’pap; an’ I hadn’t no warrant to do it,
anyhow. I didn’t hear ye quarrel. ‘Don’t never tell fer a fact w’at
ye ain’t willin’ to swear to,’ ez ol’ Isra’l Pidgin use to say. But
I kin tell ye this, that ef they’s one thing in this world ’at that
boy wants to hear about, an’ to talk about, an’ to hev about, it’s his
father.”
“Thank you, Gabriel. Thank you a thousand times for telling me that.”
“Yes, an’ the most surprisin’ thing about it all is, w’at a lot of
blamed ignoramuses we all be w’en he asks any of us anything about ye.”
“I know you’re all very kind about it, Gabriel, and very wise and
considerate. I’m sure he couldn’t be in better hands.”
“Yes, your Aunt Marthy jest dotes on ’im.”
“I’m certain of that. But it was a strange thing for him to do,
Gabriel, to pull out that line of stakes. I came up the gap with him
the night he did it. He wanted to tell me then. I’m sorry now I didn’t
permit him to. It might have saved him a deal of suffering.”
“Well, he’s taken it hard, I can tell ye. He ain’t the same boy he was
six months ago. He couldn’t eat nor sleep nor rest, it worried ’im
so. We all thought he was sick, he fell away that bad. Even your Aunt
Marthy couldn’t do nothin’ fer ’im. But say, wa’n’t it grand, the way
he come in there at the wind-up an’ told how things wuz; puffickly
regardless of wuther he spent the nex’ six months in jail or no?
There’s the Pickett grit fer ye!”
“Gabriel, I think it was heroic.” And the tears sprang into Charlie
Pickett’s eyes as he thought of that pathetic little figure facing the
crowded court room, battling with his fear and conquering it, brave to
the limit in the cause of conscience and of truth.
“Yes, it wuz,” responded Gabriel. “An’ how under the sun an’ moon an’
seven stars he ever got here through them drifts! How did ’e git here,
anyhow? He couldn’t ’a’ druv. They couldn’t no hoss ’a’ got through.
He couldn’t ’a’ walked. Goliath o’ Gath couldn’t ’a’ walked it. An’ ’e
didn’t fly. How _did_ ’e git here, anyhow?”
“I don’t know, Gabriel. I hadn’t thought of it. How did he?”
The two men gazed at each other with a look of astonishment in their
faces that slowly grew into awe. Then Gabriel lifted his eyes and
pointed heavenward.
“God a’mighty,” he said reverently. “He done it fer ’im. Nobody else
could.”
Then, for many minutes, the two men sat in silence. Gabriel was the
first to speak.
“He’ll be goin’ home with ’im now, I reckon. I seen ’em start to’ards
the depot.”
“Yes,” replied Charlie, rising and going again to the window; “but
I doubt whether they will get farther than Port Lenox to-night. The
trains will be late, and the roads will not be broken. Poor boy! I
shall be glad to feel that he is at home with Aunt Martha, resting from
his physical strain, relieved of his mental burden. Well, Gabriel,
let’s go back into court. I don’t suppose they’ll want us any more, but
we’ll see what they are doing with the case.”
But court had adjourned. As the two men passed out into the hall the
people from the court room came crowding by. Among them was Nicholson,
the Delaware Valley and Eastern engineer. When he saw Gabriel his face
lighted up with a smile.
“Hello, my bumptious friend!” he shouted; “where’s your horn?”
“Left it to hum,” replied Gabriel, readily, “to scare off tramp
engineers ’at might come ’round settin’ stakes in the snow-drifts.”
“Are you going to leave it home when you die, or will you take it
along?”
“Oh! I’ll hev it with me on that trip. You can borrow it occasionally
ef you want to. Blowin’ on it once’t in a w’ile’s a great relief to
them in misery.”
A crowd was gathering, and Gabriel’s sally was greeted with a shout of
approval. It nettled Nicholson, and he turned away. He did not care for
fun unless he himself could be the beneficiary.
“Children and fools--” he muttered, “the old saying still holds good.”
“Say!” called Gabriel after him; “did you ever hear of ol’ Isra’l
Pidgin?”
“Oh, yes!” was the quick reply, “he was an idiot that lived up in York
State.”
“Yes. ’Member wut he said about the feller ’at goes ’round with a chip
on ’is shoulder lookin’ fer somebody to knock it off?”
Nicholson did not reply.
“Well,” continued Gabriel, “he says, says ’e, ‘that feller’s lucky ef
’e don’t git ’is shoulder put out o’ jint a gittin’ of the chip knocked
off,’ says ’e.”
But Nicholson had disappeared. He was pushing his way down the winding
staircase, satisfied that, in the estimation of the crowd, he was no
match for Gabriel, and anxious to escape. In the lower hall he met
Charlie Pickett. He went up to him with outstretched hand, for he was
generous as well as impetuous.
“Pickett,” he said, “if I made any fool remarks on the witness stand
to-day reflecting on you in any way, I want to ask your pardon. You
know there’s no man in the profession, nor anywhere else, for that
matter, whom I esteem more highly than I do you. My quick tongue always
did get me into no end of trouble, and I’m afraid it always will. It
wasn’t two minutes ago that I was crushed in repartee by that wise fool
from Pickett’s Gap, Gabriel, by name. But, Pickett, say! whose idea was
that moonlight survey, anyway? It was a genuine _coup-d’état_.”
“Oh, that was Wilson’s scheme. Our chief, you know. He knew that you
were running along the westerly bank of the Delaware that afternoon and
that a location by us next day would be too late. We didn’t dream that
you would get through the gap that night. I didn’t dream that you had
been through it when I went down in the moonlight. If I had seen your
stakes there, I should more than likely have turned back.”
“Well, it’s lucky for your people that you didn’t see them, then.
For the only hope you have, the way the matter stands now, is in the
theory that your board was the first to adopt the location. But that
was a strange thing, wasn’t it, about that boy pulling out the stakes?
It wasn’t a mere dare-devil adventure, you understand. It was done
conscientiously in order that justice--from his standpoint--might
prevail. Took some courage to go down through that gap in the
night-time you know, and pull out that line of stakes. But, talk about
grit and moral heroism! did you ever see or hear of anything equal to
that boy coming down from Pickett’s Gap, through a world of drifted
snow, and going on the stand, voluntarily, to swear himself into jail
just to set us right on the matter of the stakes, and to do justice to
you? Say, it was magnificent! If I had a boy like him, I’d keep him
with me day and night, just for the inspiration.”
“Yes? I’m glad to hear you say that. He’s my boy, Nicholson. You didn’t
know that, did you?”
Nicholson stared in amazement.
“Your boy!” he exclaimed. “Why, look here, Pickett! You’re not a son of
the owner of Pickett’s Gap, are you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Give me your hand. You’ve got a father and a son to be proud of. Why,
that old man will move heaven and earth to defend and preserve what he
considers his rights. I looked into the muzzle of his double-barrelled
shot-gun one day; well, it was lucky the sheriff came when he did, or
I’d have been picking bird-shot No. 2 out of my anatomy to this day.
And I don’t blame him a bit--not a bit. I’d have done the same thing
in his place. But that boy, Pickett, why that boy’s a hero. I wondered
what you carried him out of the court room so tenderly for when he
fainted. Where is he? Did he get over his illness? No wonder he went to
pieces, poor fellow!”
When Nicholson once started in to talk, it was of no use trying to
interrupt him till he was through.
“Yes,” replied Charlie, sadly, “he recovered; he went home with his
grandfather.”
Nicholson stood for a moment in deep thought.
“Look here, Pickett!” he exclaimed finally. “I don’t want to uncover
any family secrets; but what I can’t make out is why in the world,
if you own such a boy as that, he don’t know it. And, why in all the
worlds, if you’ve got a right to have the company of a human being,
with his intelligence and conscience and grit and grace, you don’t
avail yourself of it.”
“Well, Nicholson, it’s a long story. I can’t tell it to you now. You
wouldn’t understand it if I did. But I hope some day to have him with
me. How soon or how far away that day may be, I cannot tell. At any
rate, it will take a thousand unkind remarks from you, hereafter, to
overbalance the kind things you’ve said about me and mine in the last
twenty minutes.”
The two men shook hands warmly and passed out with the crowd. Charlie
Pickett went to his hotel, but not to rest. He could not brush from his
mental sight the vision of his son’s pale face and anxious eyes. He
heard always in his ears the boy’s pathetic voice as he lay exhausted
on the bench in the jury room and pleaded that he might go with his
father.
When morning came, the vision was still before him, the voice was
still in his ears. He paid little heed to the remaining witnesses who
testified in the case, and when, after fixing a day for argument,
court finally adjourned, he went back to his hotel with his mind in
a tumult of anxiety and desire; anxiety lest the great physical and
mental strain which the boy had undergone might bring on some sudden
and severe illness; desire that he might be with him, might look at
him, might talk to him, might hear his voice and press his hands.
Nor is it strange that his brief interview should have inspired such
tender and tumultuous thoughts. Charlie Pickett’s mother had died
in his childhood. His wife had yielded up her life for her son. His
father had driven him from home. This boy was the only one in all the
world to whom he was united in the bonds of blood and of undisguised,
untrammelled, unsatisfied affection. The more he thought about it the
more he wondered why he had, on the previous day, so readily yielded
to his father’s stern ultimatum. The more he considered it, the more
the unreasonableness of it, the injustice of it, the downright cruelty
of it impressed itself upon his mind. The restriction under which he
had placed himself chafed and galled him beyond endurance. At last,
unable longer to withstand the imperious demand of parental passion, he
buttoned his great-coat about him, pulled his cap over his eyes, and
set his face toward Pickett’s Gap, intent on doing something, anything,
to relieve the unbearable situation in which he found himself. A train
on the Mooreville branch was just leaving for Port Lenox. He boarded
it hastily, and contained himself as best he could while the wheezing
engine puffed its slow way between banks of shovelled snow so high that
half the time they hid the surrounding country from the sight of those
in the cars.
At Port Lenox he waited an hour for the down train on the main line,
striding up and down the platform like a caged animal. When he left the
car at Fisher’s Eddy, the short winter day was already at its close,
and the summit of the hill range, through which the gap wound its
sinuous way, was already all but indistinguishable against the western
sky. He started across the street toward a livery stable to get a horse
and sleigh, but, changing his mind suddenly, he struck out along the
middle of the roadway toward the hillside. The thought of waiting for
a team to be ready, of forcing a tired horse up the hill through the
heavy snow, was too much for his nearly exhausted patience.
Many and many a time, in other days, he had walked the road from
Fisher’s Eddy to the Pickett’s Gap homestead in time that would have
done credit to the best horse in Meredith County. He felt that he
could do it to-night. Moreover he knew that he needed the exercise
in order to work off, if possible, some of the surplus energy with
which his veins and muscles were charged. Perhaps, when he arrived
at his destination, he might not be so impetuous, he might be more
considerate, more gentle, more patient under the provocation which was
sure to come, more cautiously firm in his just demands.
When he reached the place where his survey terminated, on that eventful
September night, he stopped for a moment and looked down through the
darkness to the twinkling lights of Fisher’s Eddy as he had looked that
night. Then, pushing on through the snow-burdened glen, he recalled,
as he walked, every word and tone and look of the boy who was his
unwilling companion on that former journey; how they noted the location
of the curve; how they halted at the graveyard; how they said good-by
at the gate.
Here he was now, again at the gate, almost within sight, within
hearing, within touch of his boy. The thought of it brought a sudden
weakness to his limbs, and he stopped and leaned heavily against the
post on which Dannie had sat one happy morning and bade his grandfather
good-by. Here he was. What was he to do? What was he to say? How
should he enter the house? How introduce the object of his mission?
Abner Pickett had forbidden him to return; how would he greet him
to-night? In his unreasoning impetuosity he had thought of none of
these things until this moment. Now they presented themselves to him
with perplexing persistency. Not that he was weakening in his purpose,
he would not admit that; but how could he best accomplish the object
he had in view? That was the question. He moved slowly up the path,
turning these things over in his mind, until he reached the front
porch. At the side of the porch there was a window opening from the
sitting room. The curtain had not been drawn, and he could see in. The
impulse to look before he entered came upon him, and he pushed his
way through a huge bank of loose snow, close to the window ledge, and
fastened his eyes upon the occupants of the room.
A table was drawn up in front of a great wood fire, for it was a bitter
cold night, and Abner Pickett was sitting by it reading his paper. In
his face was still the hard, stern, uncompromising look with which he
had greeted Charlie in the jury room the day before. There was scant
encouragement in that face, indeed! Aunt Martha was sitting in her
accustomed chair by the fire, busy with her knitting; and Dannie, on
a stool by her side, with his head resting in her lap, gazed at the
crackling logs and the leaping flames, looking up now and then to
answer some question that she asked him. His face was turned so that
Charlie could see it plainly. It had in it a look of weariness, indeed,
but of content--of absolute content. It was a quiet, peaceful, pleasant
scene; but in another moment he, Charlie Pickett, was to break in
upon it, to destroy it, to set a gentle woman’s heart throbbing with
apprehension and fear, to arouse the unconquerable passion of a stern
old man, to plunge a weary, peaceful, contented boy into a new turmoil
of trouble and of grief. And to what end? Simply to satisfy his own
selfish desire. A revulsion of feeling came over him as he looked. The
old man moved uneasily in his chair, laid down his paper, and turned
toward Dannie. He appeared to be saying something to him, and as he
talked, the sternness, the hardness, the coldness vanished from his
rugged features, and his gray eyes, piercing when he was in anger,
softened now with the mild glow of tenderness and affection. Charlie
saw it all by the bright light of the fire, understood it all, felt
it all, and, waiting no longer, he turned away. With his face to the
thick darkness he struggled out to the path, down through the gate, and
on into the middle of the road. He thrust behind him his own desire,
his own disappointment and sorrow and loneliness, and once again, like
the man that he was, he thought only of his father’s comfort and the
happiness of his son.
A figure loomed up out of the darkness before him and stood still.
“Who goes thar?” came the challenge.
“It is I, Gabriel, Charlie Pickett.”
“Charlie Pickett! An’ w’at in the name o’ the seven wise men an’ their
jigger-books be ye a doin’ here?”
“I came to get my boy, Gabriel. I looked in at the window and saw that
he was content, and his grandfather happy, and I hadn’t the heart to
disturb their comfort and peace. So I am going again. They will not
know that I ever came. It is our secret, Gabriel. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand; but look here! That ain’t fair, you know. You’re
his father. You’ve got the fust right.”
“True, but I’m not demanding it. Don’t tempt me. My mind is made
up. Let me go now before I falter. Good night and good luck to you,
Gabriel!”
He reached out his hand, and Gabriel took it with a tremendous grasp.
“The genuine Pickett grit!” he exclaimed. “You’re a chip o’ the old
block, after all. So’s the boy. Wher’s your hoss? What! Didn’t hev
any? Walked up? Well, I’ll be--say, you’ll do! You’re Pickett to the
backbone! So’s the boy. Consarn ye, both o’ ye. Blame the hull three
o’ ye! You’re a set o’ the contrariest, pig-headedest, big-heartedest
human bein’s ’at the Lord ever let tromp on his foot-stool!”
It was evident that Gabriel’s feelings were getting the best of him,
for his voice was very husky as he continued:--
“Good night! Ef ever you want anything done around these parts, you let
me know. I’m it when you speak. Don’t forgit!”
“Thank you, Gabriel! Thank you a thousand times. Good night!”
The next moment Charlie Pickett’s figure was lost in the darkness, and
Gabriel stood gazing at the place where it had disappeared, muttering
to himself:--
“Well, ez ol’ Isra’l Pidgin use to say: ‘On the hull, darkness covers
more good deeds than evil ones.’”