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THE JUCKLINS
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| OPIE READ'S SELECT WORKS |
| |
| Old Ebenezer |
| The Jucklins |
| My Young Master |
| A Kentucky Colonel |
| On the Suwanee River |
| A Tennessee Judge |
| |
|Works of Strange Power and Fascination|
| |
| Uniformly bound in extra cloth, gold |
| tops, ornamental covers, uncut edges,|
| six volumes in a box, |
| $6.00 |
| Sold separately, $1.00 each. |
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[Illustration]
OPIE READ'S SELECT WORKS
THE JUCKLINS
A NOVEL
BY
OPIE READ
Author of "Old Ebenezer," "My Young Master,"
"On the Suwanee River," "A Kentucky Colonel,"
"A Tennessee Judge," "The Colossus," "Emmett
Bonlore," "Len Gansett," "The Tear in The Cup,
and Other Stories," "The Wives of The Prophet."
ILLUSTRATED
CHICAGO LAIRD & LEE, PUBLISHERS
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year eighteen
hundred and ninety-six, by
WILLIAM H. LEE,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
(ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)
[Illustration]
THE JUCKLINS
CHAPTER I.
The neighbors and our family began to laugh at me about as far back as I
can remember, and I think that the first serious remark my father ever
addressed to me was, "Bill, you are too lazy to amount to anything in
this life, so I reckon we'll have to make a school teacher of you." I
don't know why he should have called me lazy; I suppose it must have
been on account of my awkwardness. Lazy, why, I could sit all day and
fish in one place and not get a bite, while my more industrious
companions would, out of sheer exhaustion of patience, be compelled to
move about; and I hold that patience is the very perfection of industry.
In the belief that I could never amount to anything I gradually
approached my awkward manhood. I grew fast, and I admit that I was
always tired; and who is more weary than a sprout of a boy? My brothers
were active of body and quick of judgment, and I know that Ed, my oldest
brother, won the admiration of the neighborhood when he swapped horses
with a stranger and cheated him unmercifully. How my father did laugh,
and mother laughed, too, but she told Ed that he must never do such a
thing again. With what envy did I look upon this applause. I knew that
Ed's brain was no better than mine; and as I lay in bed one night I
formed a strong resolve and fondly hugged it unto myself. I owned a
horse, a good one; and I would swap him off for two horses--I would
cheat some one and thereby win the respect of my fellows. My secret was
sweet and I said nothing. By good chance a band of gypsies came our way;
I would swindle the rascals. I went to their camp, leading my horse, and
after much haggling, I came home with two horses. It was night when I
reached home, and I put my team into the stable, and barred up my secret
until the sun of a new day could fall upon it. Well, the next morning
one of the horses was dead, and the other one was so stiff that we had
to shove him out of the stall. My father snorted, my poor mother wept,
and for nights afterward I slipped out and slept in the barn, burrowed
under the hay that I might not hear the derisive titter of my brother
Ed.
We lived in northern Alabama, in a part of the country that boasted of
the refinement and intelligence of its society. When I was alone with
boys much younger than myself I could say smart things, and I had a hope
that when I should go into formal "company" I would, with one evening's
achievement, place myself high above the numbskulls who had giggled at
me. The time came. There was to be a "party" at the house of a neighbor,
and I was invited. I had a suit of new clothes, and after dressing
myself with exceeding care, I set out, strong of heart, for the field of
victory. But I weakened when I saw the array of blooded horses hitched
without, and heard the gay laughter within, a merriment rippling and
merciless; and I stood on the porch, sick with the sense of my
awkwardness. I was too big, and I knew that I was straining my clothes.
Through the window I could see a trim fellow laughing with a girl, and I
said to myself, "If I can catch you out somewhere I will maul you." I
was not acquainted with him, but I hated him, for I knew that he was my
enemy. To an overgrown young fellow, ashamed of his uncouth, steer-like
strength, all graceful youths are hateful; and he feels, too, that a
handsome girl is his foe, for girls with pretty mouths are nearly always
laughing, and why should they laugh if they are not laughing at him?
Long I stood there, stretching the seams of my clothes, angry, wishing
that the house might catch fire. I heard footsteps, and looking about,
recognized a member of the household, an old and neglected girl. I was
not afraid of her, and I bowed. And I felt a sudden looseness, a giving
away of a part of my gear. She called me Mr. Hawes, the very first time
that any one had called me anything but Bill; she opened the door and
bade me go in. I had to duck my head as I stepped forward, and there I
was inside the room with the light pouring over me. I took one step
forward, and stumbled over something, and then a tittering fool named
Bentley, exclaimed: "Hello, here comes little Willie." I don't know how
I got out. I heard a roar of laughter, I saw grinning faces jumbled
together, and then I was outside, standing with my hot hand resting in
the frost on the top rail of a fence. Some one was urging me to come
back--the neglected girl--but I stood there silent, with my hot hand
melting the frost. I went out into the moon-lighted woods, seized a
sapling and almost wrenched it from the ground. Down the road I went
toward home, but I turned aside and sat on a log. I felt a sense of pain
and I opened my hands--I had been cutting my palms with my nails. But in
this senseless fury I had made up my mind. I would waylay Bentley and
beat him. Hour after hour I sat there. Horses began to canter by; up and
down the road there was laughter and merry chatting. The moon was full,
and I could plainly see the passers-by. Suddenly I sprang from the log
and seized a bridle rein. A girl shrieked and a man cut my hand with a
whip, and I jerked the horse to his knees. Bentley shouted that he would
kill me if I did not let go, but I heeded not; I jerked him off his
horse, kicked his pistol across the road, mashed his mouth, slammed him
against the ground. The shrieking girl cried out that I was a brute, and
I told her that I could whip her whole family, a charming bit of
repartee, I thought, but afterward I remembered that her family
consisted of herself and an aged grandmother, and I sent her an abject
apology. Bentley's horse cantered away, and I left the fellow lying in
the road, with the girl standing over him, shrieking for help. It was
all done in a minute, and with jolting tread I stalked away before any
one came up. Of course there was a great scandal. My poor mother was
grieved and humiliated, ashamed to meet any of the neighbors; and my
father swore that instead of becoming a school teacher I ought to turn
out as a highwayman. My brothers thought to have some fun with me, but I
frightened them with a roar, and for a time they were afraid to smile in
my presence. I was almost heartbroken over my disgrace. Without undue
praise I can say that I was generous and kindhearted; even as a child I
had shown almost a censurable unselfishness; I had given away my
playthings, and my sensibilities were so tender that I could not bear
the sight of a suffering animal, and I remember that an old man laughed
at me because I could not cut the throat of a sheep when the poor thing
had been hung up by the heels. And now I was put down as a heartless
brute. Bentley's face constantly haunted me. I was afraid that he might
die, and once when I heard that he was not likely to get well, I was
resolved to go to him, to beg his pardon. Two weeks had passed; it was
night and rain was pouring down, but I cared naught for the wetting. I
found Bentley sitting up with his face bandaged. His mother frowned at
me when she opened the door and saw me standing there under the drip,
and it was some time before she asked me to come in, and I have thought
that she would have driven me off had not the sight of me, wet and
debased, aroused her pity. Bentley held out his hand when I entered the
room, and he said, "I don't blame you, Bill. It was mean of me, but I
wanted to be smart." I was so full, so choked with emotion, that it was
some time before I could say a word. But after a time I spoke of the
rain, and told him that I thought that I had heard a wildcat as I came
along, which was a lie, for I had heard nothing save the wind and the
rain falling on the dead leaves. He laughed and said that he did not
suppose that I would have been very much frightened had the cat jumped
at me. Then I told him that I was the biggest coward on earth, and
sought to prove it by offering to let him kick me as long as he might
find it amusing. I told him that everybody despised me for the way I had
beaten him, everybody, including my own family, and that I deserved the
censure of all good people. We talked a long time, and he laughed a
great deal, but when I told him that I was coming over to work for him
three weeks, his eyes grew brighter with tears. This filled me up again
and I could do nothing but blubber. After a long time I asked him if he
would do me a favor, and he said that he would. Then I took out a watch
that I had brought in a buckskin bag, and I said, "Here is a thing that
used to belong to my grandfather, and it was given me by mother when I
was ten years old. It is a fine time-piece and is solid. Now, I want you
to take it as a present from me. You said you would do me a favor." But
he declared that he could not take it. "Why, I would despise myself if I
did," said he. I told him that I would despise myself if he did not. His
mother, who had left us alone, came in, smiling, and said that I must
not think of parting with so valuable a watch, the mark of my
grandfather's gentility, but I put the watch on the table and plunged
out into the rain and was gone. Bentley's mother returned the watch the
next day, and then there went about the neighborhood a report that I was
so much afraid of Bentley's revenge that I had tried to buy him off with
a watch. Bentley had said that I should not work for him, but when the
time for breaking up the land came, I went over and began to plow the
field. His mother came out and compelled me to quit, but I went back at
night and plowed while other people slept; and thus I worked until much
of his corn-land was broken up. The neighbors said that I had gone
insane, and a few days afterward, when I met a woman in the road, she
jerked her old mare in an effort to get away, and piteously begged me
not to hurt her. I made no further attempt to get into "company," and
thus, forced back upon myself, I began to form the habits of a student;
and to aid me in my determination to study law, I decided to teach
school. So, when I was almost grown--or, rather, about twenty-three
years old, for I appeared to keep on growing--I went over into another
neighborhood and took up a school. And they called me "Lazy Bill." I
couldn't understand why, for I am sure that I attended to my duties,
that I played town ball with the boys, that I even cut wood all day one
Saturday; but confound them, they called me lazy. I spoke to one of the
trustees; I called his attention to the fact that I worked hard, and he
replied that the hardest working man he had ever seen was a lazy fellow
who worked merely as a "blind." To sleep after the sun rises is a great
crime in the country, and sometimes I sat up so late with my books that
I had to be called twice for breakfast. And no amount of work could have
offset this ignominy. I taught school during three years, and found at
the end of that time that I was no nearer a lawyer's office. Once I
called on an old judge, the leading lawyer in a neighboring village, and
told him that if he would take me I would work for my clothes, and the
humorous old rascal, surveying me, replied: "I have not contemplated the
starting of a woolen mill. Why don't you go to work?" he asked. I told
him that I was at work, that I taught school, but that I wanted to be a
lawyer. He laughed and said that teaching school was not work--declared
it to be the refuge of the lazy and the shiftless. I then ventured to
remark that the South would continue to be backward as long as the
educator was put down as a piece of worthless rubbish. I went away, and
a few days later one of the trustees called on me and said that I had
declared their children to be ignorant rubbish, and that therefore they
wanted my services no longer. I returned home. My brothers were gone,
and my parents were in feeble health. My father died within a year, and
soon my mother followed him. The farm was poor and was mortgaged, and
empty-handed I turned away. I heard that a school teacher was wanted up
in North Carolina, near the Tennessee line, and I decided to apply for
the place. I walked to the railway station, twenty miles distant. I have
said that I went away empty-handed. I did not; I carried a trunk, light
with clothes and heavy with books. I had put my trunk on the railway
platform and was striding up and down when I saw two men, well-dressed,
rich-looking, standing near. This amounted to nothing, and I would not
mention it but for the fact that it was at this moment that I received
my first encouragement. One of the men, speaking to his companion,
remarked: "Devilish fine-looking fellow. I'd give a great deal to be in
his shoes, to have his strength and his youth." I turned away, eager to
hear more, yet afraid lest the other man might say something to spoil it
all. But he did not. "Yes," he replied, "but he doesn't know how
fortunate he is. Gad, he looks like an imported bull."
The train came and I was whirred away, over streams, below great hanging
rocks; but I thought not of the grandeur of the rocks nor of the beauty
of the streams, for through my mind was running the delicious music of
the first compliment that had ever been paid me. And I realized that I
had outgrown the age of my awkwardness, that strength was of itself a
grace to be admired, that I should feel thankful rather than remember
with bitterness the days of my humiliation. I observed a woman looking
at me, and there was interest in her eyes, and I knew that she did not
take kindly to me simply because she was an old and neglected girl, for
she was handsome. Beside her sat a man, and I could see that he was
eager to win her smile. He hated me, I could see that, but he couldn't
laugh at me. I noticed that my hands and feet were not over large, and
this was a sort of surprise, for I recalled hearing a boy say that my
foot was the biggest thing he ever saw without a liver in it. I reached
back and wiped out the past; I looked out at a radiant cloud hanging low
in the west, and called it the future. Fool? Oh, of course. I had been a
fool when a boy, and was a fool now, but how much wiser it was to be a
happy fool.
I was to leave the train at Nagle station, and then to go some distance
into the country, which direction I knew not. I made so bold as to ask
the handsome lady if she knew anything of the country about Nagle, and
she smiled sweetly, and said that she did not, that she was a stranger
going South. I had surmised as much, and I spoke to her merely to see
what effect it would have on the man who sat beside her. Was my
new-found pride making me malicious? I thought it was, and I censured
myself. The lady showed a disposition to continue the talk, but the man
drove me into silence by remarking: "I suppose there is something novel
about one's first ride on the cars." How I did want to reach out and
take hold of his ear, but I thought of Bentley and subsided. When I
arose to get off at my station, I thought that the lady, as I passed
her, made a motion as if she would like to give me her hand. This might
simply have been the prompting of my long famished but now over-fed
conceit, my bloating egotism, but I gave the woman a grateful thought as
I stood on the platform gazing at the train as it faded away in the dusk
that appeared to come down the road to meet it.
I had expected to alight at a town, but the station was a lonely place,
a wagon-maker's shop, the company's building and a few shanties. I asked
the station master if he knew where the school teacher was wanted, and
he answered that from the people thereabouts one must be needed in every
household.
"And I should think," I replied, giving him what I conceived to be a
look of severe rebuke, "that a teacher of common decency and politeness
is most needed of all."
"I reckon you are right," he rejoined. "Is he the man you are looking
for?"
"I don't want to get into trouble here," said I, "but I insist upon fair
treatment and I'm going to have it."
"All right, sir. Now, what is it you want to know?"
"Why, I was told that there was an opening for a school teacher in this
neighborhood."
"And so there is, but don't you know that no neighborhood could be proud
of such a fact? Therefore, you ought to be more careful as to how you
make your inquiries."
I saw that he wanted to joke with me and I joked with him. And I soon
found that this was the right course, for he invited me into his office
and insisted upon my sharing his luncheon, cold bread and meat and a tin
bucket of boiling coffee. I soon learned that he was newly graduated
from a school of telegraphy, and that this was his first position. He
had come from a city and he gave me the impression that he was buried
alive; he said that he had entered an oath in his book that if some one
didn't get off at his station pretty soon he would set the whole thing
on fire and turn train robber. "Don't you think that would be a pretty
good idea?" he asked, laughing.
"It would be a pretty dangerous one, at least," I answered.
"Yes, but without danger there is never any fun. My old man insisted
upon my taking that night-school course; and the professor of the
institution held out the idea that I could be a great man within a short
time after graduating; led me to believe I could get charge of a big
office in town, but here I am stuck up here in these hills. No rags
about here at all."
"No what?"
"Rags, calico, women--catch on?"
"You mean no society, to speak of."
"That's it. Oh, away off in the country it's all right, but I can never
go more than three miles from this miserable place. You'll have to go
about fifteen miles."
"How do you know?"
"Why, an old fellow from a neighborhood about that far away came out
here the other day and sent off a dispatch, telling some man off, I
don't remember where, to send a teacher out there."
"And one might have come by this time," I suggested, with a sense of
fear.
"No, you are the only one that has put in an appearance, and the only
one that is likely to come. I understand that they don't treat teachers
very well out there."
"How so?"
"The boys have a habit of ducking them in the creek, I hear."
"Oh, is that all? Be fun for me."
"You won't think so after you see those roosters. Let me see. Take the
Purdy road out there, and go straight ahead to the east, and when you
think you have gone about fifteen miles, ask for the house of Lim
Jucklin. The last teacher, I understand, boarded at his house."
"You appear to know a good deal about it."
"Well, the truth of it is, I do, for the last teacher came and went this
way. And he told me like this: 'The thing opened up all right, plenty of
rags, but that evening some of the young fellows came to me and said
that unless I brought some sort of treat the next morning they would put
me in the creek; said that they hated to do it, but that time-honored
customs must be observed. I didn't bring any treat and I went into the
creek. Then I left.' Yes, that's what he said, and I concluded that as
for me I would rather be here. It isn't so lively, but it is a good deal
dryer. But you can't get there to-night. Better take a shake-down here
with me till morning, and then you may catch some farmer going that way
with a wagon."
I thanked him for this courtesy, and readily accepted it. And the next
morning, with my trunk on my shoulder, I set out upon what I conceived
to be my career in life.