Produced by David Widger
HIS “DAY IN COURT”
By Charles Egbert Craddock
1895
It had been a hard winter along the slopes of the Great Smoky Mountains,
and still the towering treeless domes were covered with snow, and the
vagrant winds were abroad, rioting among the clifty heights where they
held their tryst, or raiding down into the sheltered depths of the Cove,
where they seldom intruded. Nevertheless, on this turbulent rush was
borne in the fair spring of the year. The fragrance of the budding
wild-cherry was to be discerned amidst the keen slanting javelins of
the rain. A cognition of the renewal and the expanding of the forces of
nature pervaded the senses as distinctly as if one might hear the grass
growing, or feel along the chill currents of the air the vernal pulses
thrill. Night after night in the rifts of the breaking clouds close to
the horizon was glimpsed the stately sidereal Virgo, prefiguring and
promising the harvest, holding in her hand a gleaming ear of corn.
But it was not the constellation which the tumultuous torrent at the
mountain's base reflected in a starry glitter. From the hill-side above
a light cast its broken image among the ripples, as it shone for an
instant through the bosky laurel, white, stellular, splendid--only a
tallow dip suddenly placed in the window of a log-cabin, and as suddenly
withdrawn.
For a gruff voice within growled out a remonstrance: “What ye doin' that
fur, Steve? Hev that thar candle got enny call ter bide in that thar
winder?”
The interior, contrary to the customary aspect of the humble homes of
the region, was in great disarray. Cooking utensils stood uncleaned
about the hearth; dishes and bowls of earthen-ware were assembled upon
the table in such numbers as to suggest that several meals had been
eaten without the ceremony of laying the cloth anew, and that in default
of washing the crockery it had been re-enforced from the shelf so far as
the limited store might admit. Saddles and spinning-wheels, an ox-yoke
and trace-chains, reels and wash-tubs, were incongruously pushed
together in the corners. Only one of the three men in the room made
any effort to reduce the confusion to order. This was the square-faced,
black-bearded, thick-set young fellow who took the candle from the
window, and now advanced with it toward the hearth, holding it at an
angle that caused the flame to swiftly melt the tallow, which dripped
generously upon the floor.
“I hev seen Eveliny do it,” he said, excitedly justifying himself. “I
noticed her sot the candle in the winder jes' las' night arter supper.”
He glanced about uncertainly, and his patience seemed to give way
suddenly. “Dad-burn the old candle! I dunno _whar_ ter set it,” he
cried, desperately, as he flung it from him, and it fell upon the floor
close to the wall.
The dogs lifted their heads to look, and one soft-stepping old hound got
up with the nimbleness of expectation, and, with a prescient gratitude
astir in his tail, went and sniffed at it. His aspect drooped suddenly,
and he looked around in reproach at Stephen Quimbey, as if suspecting
a practical joke. But there was no merriment in the young mountaineer's
face. He threw himself into his chair with a heavy sigh, and desisted
for a time from the unaccustomed duty of clearing away the dishes after
supper.
“An' 'ain't ye got the gumption ter sense what Eveliny sot the candle in
the winder fur?” his brother Timothy demanded, abruptly--“ez a sign ter
that thar durned Abs'lom Kittredge.”
The other two men turned their heads and looked at the speaker with a
poignant intensity of interest. “I 'lowed ez much when I seen that light
ez I war a-kemin' home las' night,” he continued; “it shined spang down
the slope acrost the ruver an' through all the laurel; it looked plumb
like a star that hed fell ter yearth in that pitch-black night. I dun-no
how I s'picioned it, but ez I stood thar an' gazed I knowed somebody
war a-standin' an' gazin' too on the foot-bredge a mite ahead o' me.
I couldn't see him, an' he couldn't turn back an' pass me, the bredge
bein' too narrer. He war jes obligated ter go on. I hearn him breathe
quick; then--pit-pat, pit-pat, ez he walked straight toward that light.
An' he be 'bleeged ter hev hearn me, fur arter I crost I stopped.
Nuthin'. Jes' a whisper o' wind, an' jes' a swishin' from the ruver.
I knowed then he hed turned off inter the laurel. An' I went on,
a-whistlin' ter make him 'low ez I never s'picioned nuthin'. An' I kem
inter the house an' tole dad ez he'd better be a-lookin' arter Eveliny,
fur I b'lieved she war a-settin' her head ter run away an' marry Abs'lom
Kittredge.”
“Waal, I ain't right up an' down sati'fied we oughter done what we
done,” exclaimed Stephen, fretfully. “It don't 'pear edzacly right fur
three men ter fire on one.”
[Illustration: Old Joel Quimbey 081]
Old Joel Quimbey, in his arm-chair in the chimney-corner, suddenly
lifted his head--a thin head with fine white hair, short and sparse,
upon it. His thin, lined face was clear-cut, with a pointed chin and an
aquiline nose. He maintained an air of indignant and rebellious grief,
and had hitherto sat silent, a gnarled and knotted hand on either arm
of his chair. His eyes gleamed keenly from under his heavy brows as he
turned his face upon his sons. “How could we know thar warn't but one,
eh?”
He had not been a candidate for justice of the peace for nothing; he had
absorbed something of the methods and spirit of the law through sheer
propinquity to the office. “We-uns wouldn't be persumed ter _know_.” And
he ungrudgingly gave himself all the benefit of the doubt that the law
accords.
“That's a true word!” exclaimed Stephen, quick to console his
conscience. “Jes' look at the fac's, now. We-uns in a plumb black
midnight hear a man a-gittin' over our fence; we git our rifles;
a-peekin' through the chinkin' we ketch a glimge o' him--”
“Ha!” cried out Timothy, with savage satisfaction, “we seen him by the
light she set her head him on!”
He was tall and lank, with a delicately hooked nose, high cheek-bones,
fierce dark eyes, and dark eyebrows, which were continually elevated,
corrugating his forehead. His hair was black, short and straight, and
he was clad in brown jeans, as were the others, with great cowhide boots
reaching to the knee. He fixed his fiery intent gaze on his brother as
the slower Stephen continued, “An' so we blaze away--”
“An' one durned fool's so onlucky ez ter hit him an' not kill him,”
growled Timothy, again interrupting. “An' so whilst Eveliny runs out
a-screamin', 'He's dead! he's dead!--ye hev shot him dead!' we-uns make
no doubt but he _is_ dead, an' load up agin, lest his frien's mought
rush in on we-uns whilst we hedn't no use o' our shootin'-irons. An'
suddint--ye can't hear nuthin' but jes' a owel hoot-in' in the woods, or
old Pa'son Bates's dogs a-howlin' acrost the Cove. An' we go out with
a lantern, an' thar's jes' a pool o' blood in the dooryard, an' bloody
tracks down ter the laurel.”
“Eveliny gone!” cried the old man, smiting his hands together; “my
leetle darter! The only one ez never gin me enny trouble. I couldn't hev
made out ter put up with this hyar worl' no longer when my wife died ef
it hedn't been fur Eveliny. Boys war wild an' mischeevious, an' folks
outside don't keer nuthin' 'bout ye--ef they _war_ ter 'lect ye ter
office 'twould be ter keep some other feller from hevin' it, 'kase they
'spise him more'n ye. An' hyar she's runned off an' married old Tom
Kittredge's gran'son, Josiah Kittredge's son--when our folks 'ain't
spoke ter none o' 'em fur fifty year--Josiah Kittredge's son--ha! ha!
ha!” He laughed aloud in tuneless scorn of himself and of this freak
of froward destiny and then fell to wringing his hands and calling upon
Evelina.
The flare from the great chimney-place genially played over the huddled
confusion of the room and the brown logs of the wall, where the gigantic
shadows of the three men mimicked their every gesture with grotesque
exaggeration. The rainbow yarn on the warping bars, the strings of
red-pepper hanging from the ceiling, the burnished metallic flash from
the guns on their racks of deer antlers, served as incidents in the
monotony of the alternate yellow flicker and brown shadow. Deep under
the blaze the red coals pulsated, and in the farthest vistas of the fire
quivered a white heat.
“Old Tom Kittredge,” the father resumed, after a time, “he jes' branded
yer gran'dad's cattle with his mark; he jes' cheated yer gran'dad, my
dad, out'n six head o' cattle.”
“But then,” said the warlike Timothy, not willing to lose sight of
reprisal even in vague reminiscence, “he hed only one hand ter rob with
arter that, fur I hev hearn ez how when gran'dad got through with him
the doctor hed ter take his arm off.”
“Sartainly, sartainly,” admitted the old man, in quiet assent. “An'
Josiah Kittredge he put out the eyes of a horse critter o' mine right
thar at the court-house door--”
“Waal, arterward, we-uns fired his house over his head,” put in Tim.
“An' Josiah Kittredge an' me,” the old man went on, “we-uns clinched
every time we met in this mortal life. Every time I go past the
graveyard whar he be buried I kin feel his fingers on my throat. He had
a nervy grip, but no variation; he always tuk holt the same way.”
“Tears like ter me ez 'twar a fust-rate time ter fetch out the rifles
again,” remarked Tim, “this mornin', when old Pa'son Bates kem up
hyar an' 'lowed ez he hed married Eveliny ter Abs'lom Kittredge on
his death-bed; 'So be, pa'son,' I say. An' he tuk off his hat an' say,
'Thank the Lord, this will heal the breach an' make ye frien's!' An'
I say, 'Edzacly, pa'son, ef it _air_ Abs'lom's deathbed; but them
Kittredges air so smilin' an' deceiv-in' I be powerful feared he'll
cheat the King o' Terrors himself. I'll forgive 'em ennything--_over his
grave?_”
“Pa'son war tuk toler'ble suddint in his temper,” said the literal
Steve. “I hearn him call yer talk onchristian, cussed sentiments, ez he
put out.”
“Ye mus' keep up a Christian sperit, boys; that's the main thing,” said
the old man, who was esteemed very religious, and a pious Mentor in his
own family. He gazed meditatively into the fire. “What ailed Eveliny
ter git so tuk up with this hyar Abs'-lom? What made her like him?” he
propounded.
“His big eyes, edzacly like a buck's, an' his long yaller hair,” sneered
the discerning Timothy, with the valid scorn of a big ugly man for a
slim pretty one. “'Twar jes 'count o' his long yaller hair his
mother called him Abs'lom. He war named Pete or Bob, I disremember
what--suthin' common--till his hair got so long an' curly, an' he sot
out ter be so plumb all-fired beautiful, an' his mother named him agin;
this time Abs'lom, arter the king's son, 'count o' his yaller hair.”
“Git hung by his hair some o' these days in the woods, like him the
Bible tells about; that happened ter the sure-enough Abs'lom,” suggested
Stephen, hopefully.
“Naw, sir,” said Tim; “when Abs'lom Kittredge gits hung it 'll be with
suthin' stronger'n hair; he'll stretch hemp.” He exchanged a glance of
triumphant prediction with his brother, and anon gazed ruefully into the
fire.
“Ye talk like ez ef he war goin' ter live, boys,” said old Joel Quimbey,
irritably. “Pa'son 'lowed he war powerful low.”
“Pa'son said he'd never hev got home alive 'thout she'd holped him,”
said Stephen. “She jes' tuk him an' drug him plumb ter the bars, though
I don't see how she done it, slim leetle critter ez she be; an' thar she
holped him git on his beastis; an' then--I declar' I feel ez ef I could
kill her fur a-demeanin' of herself so--she led that thar horse, him
a-ridin' an' a-leanin' on the neck o' the beastis, two mile up the
mountain, through the night.”
“Waal, let her bide thar. I'll look on her face no mo',” declared the
old man, his toothless jaw shaking. “Kittredge she be now, an' none o'
the name kin come a-nigh me. How be I ever a-goin' 'bout 'mongst the
folks at the settlement agin with my darter married ter a Kittredge? How
Josiah an' his dad mus' be a-grinnin' in thar graves at me this night!
An' I 'low they hev got suthin' ter grin about.”
And suddenly his grim face relaxed, and once more he began to smite his
hands together and to call aloud for Evelina.
Timothy could offer no consolation, but stared dismally into the fire,
and Stephen rose with a sigh and addressed himself to pushing the
spinning-wheels and tubs and tables into the opposite corner of the
room, in the hope of solving the enigma of its wonted order.
*****
It seemed to Evelina afterward that when she climbed the rugged ways
of the mountain slope in that momentous night she left forever in the
depths of the Cove that free and careless young identity which she had
been. She did not accurately discriminate the moment in which she began
to realize that she was among her hereditary enemies, encompassed by
a hatred nourished to full proportions and to a savage strength long
before she drew her first breath. The fact only gradually claimed its
share in her consciousness as the tension of anxiety for Absalom's sake
relaxed, for the young mountaineer's strength and vitality were promptly
reasserted, and he rallied from the wound and his pallid and forlorn
estate with the recuperative power of the primitive man. By degrees she
came to expect the covert unfriendly glances his brother cast upon her,
the lowering averted mien of her sister-in-law, and now and again she
surprised a long, lingering, curious gaze in his mother's eyes. They
were all Kittredges! And she wondered how she could ever have dreamed
that she might live happily among them--one of them, for her name was
theirs. And then perhaps the young husband would stroll languidly in,
with his long hair curling on his blue jeans coat-collar, and an assured
smile in his dark brown eyes, and some lazy jest on his lips, certain of
a welcoming laugh, for he had been so near to death that they all had a
sense of acquisition in that he had been led back. For his sake they had
said little; his mother would busy herself in brewing his “yerb” tea,
and his brother would offer to saddle the mare if he felt that he could
ride, and they would all be very friendly together; and his alien wife
would presently slip out unnoticed into the “gyarden spot,” where the
rows of vegetables grew as they did in the Cove, turning upon her the
same neighborly looks they wore of yore, and showing not a strange leaf
among them. The sunshine wrapped itself in its old fine gilded gossamer
haze and drowsed upon the verdant slopes; the green jewelled “Juny-bugs”
whirred in the soft air; the mould was as richly brown as in Joel
Quimbey's own enclosure; the flag-lilies bloomed beside the onion bed;
and the woolly green leaves of the sage wore their old delicate tint and
gave out a familiar odor.
Among this quaint company of the garden borders she spent much of her
time, now hoeing in a desultory fashion, now leaning on the long handle
of the implement and looking away upon the far reaches of the purple
mountains. As they stretched to vague distances they became blue, and
farther on the great azure domes merged into a still more tender hue,
and this in turn melted into a soft indeterminate tint that embellished
the faint horizon. Her dreaming eyes would grow bright and wistful; her
rich brown curling hair, set free by the yellow sun-bonnet that slipped
off her head and upon her shoulders, would airily float backward in the
wind; there was a lithe grace in the slender figure, albeit clad in a
yellow homespun of a deep dye, and the faded purplish neckerchief
was caught about a throat fairer even than the fair face, which was
delicately flushed. Absalom's mother, standing beside Peter, the eldest
son, in the doorway, watched her long one day.
“It all kem about from that thar bran dance,” said Peter, a homely man,
with a sterling, narrow-minded wife and an ascetic sense of religion.
“Thar Satan waits, an' he gits nimbler every time ye shake yer foot. The
fiddler gin out the figger ter change partners, an' this hyar gal war
dancin' opposite Abs'lom, ez hed never looked nigh her till that day.
The gal didn't know _what_ ter do; she jes' stood still; but Abs'lom he
jes' danced up ter her ez keerless an' gay ez he always war, jes' like
she war ennybody else, an' when he held out his han' she gin him hern,
all a-trembly, an' lookin' up at him, plumb skeered ter death, her eyes
all wide an' sorter wishful, like some wild thing trapped in the woods.
An' then the durned fiddler, moved by the devil, I'll be be bound, plumb
furgot ter change 'em back. So they danced haf'n the day tergether. An'
arter that they war forever a-stealin' off an' accidentally meetin' at
the spring, an' whenst he war a-huntin' or she drivin' up the cow, an'
a-courtin' ginerally, till they war promised ter marry.”
“'Twarn't the bran dance; 'twar suthin' ez fleet-in' an' ez useless,”
said his mother, standing in the door and gazing at the unconscious
girl, who was leaning upon the hoe, half in the shadow of the blooming
laurel that crowded about the enclosure and bent over the rail fence,
and half in the burnished sunshine; “she's plumb beautiful--thar's the
snare ez tangled Abs'lom's steps. I never 'lowed ter see the day ez
could show enny comfort fur his dad bein' dead, but we hev been spared
some o' the tallest cavortin' that ever war seen sence the Big Smoky
war built. Sometimes it plumb skeers me ter think ez we-uns hev got a
Quimbey abidin' up hyar along o' we-uns in _his_ house an' a-callin' o'
herse'f Kittredge. I looks ter see him a-stalkin' roun' hyar some night,
too outdone an' aggervated ter rest in his grave.”
But the nights continued spectreless and peaceful on the Great Smoky,
and the same serene stars shone above the mountain as over the Cove.
Evelina could watch here, as often before, the rising moon ascending
through a rugged gap in the range, suffusing the dusky purple slopes and
the black crags on either hand with a pensive glamour, and revealing the
river below by the amber reflection its light evoked. She often sat on
the step of the porch, her elbow on her knees, her chin in her hand,
following with her shining eyes the pearly white mists loitering among
the ranges. Hear! a dog barks in the Cove, a cock crows, a horn is
wound, far, far away; it echoes faintly. And once more only the sounds
of the night--that vague stir in the windless woods, as if the forest
breathes, the far-away tinkle of water hidden in the darkness--and the
moon is among the summits.
The men remained within, for Absalom avoided the chill night air, and
crouched over the smouldering fire. Peter's wife sedulously held aloof
from the ostracized Quimbey woman. But her mother-in-law had fallen into
the habit of sitting upon the porch these moonlit nights. The sparse,
newly-leafed hop and gourd vines clambering to its roof were all
delicately imaged on the floor, and the old woman's clumsy figure, her
grotesque sun-bonnet, her awkward arm-chair, were faithfully reproduced
in her shadow on the log wall of the cabin--even to the up-curling
smoke from her pipe. Once she suddenly took the stem from her mouth.
“Eveliny,” she said, “'pears like ter me ye talk mighty little. Thar
ain't no use in gittin' tongue-tied up hyar on the mounting.”
Evelina started and raised her eyes, dilated with a stare of amazement
at this unexpected overture.
“I ain't keerin',” said the old woman, recklessly, to herself, although
consciously recreant to the traditions of the family, and sacrificing
with a pang her distorted sense of loyalty and duty to her kindlier
impulse. “I warn't born a Kittredge nohow.”
“Yes, 'm,” said Evelina, meekly; “but I don't feel much like talkin'
noways; I never talked much, bein' nobody but men-folks ter our house.
I'd ruther hear ye talk 'n talk myself.”
“Listen at ye now! The headin' young folks o' this kentry 'll never rest
till they make thar elders shoulder _all_ the burdens. An' what air ye
wantin' a pore ole 'oman like me ter talk about?”
Evelina hesitated a moment, then looked up, with a face radiant in the
moonbeams. “Tell all 'bout Abs'lom--afore I ever seen him.”
His mother laughed. “Ye air a powerful fool, Eveliny.”
The girl laughed a little, too. “I dunno ez I want ter be no wiser,” she
said.
But one was his wife, and the other was his mother, and as they talked
of him daily and long, the bond between them was complete.
*****
“I hev got 'em both plumb fooled,” the handsome Absalom boasted at the
settlement, when the gossips wondered once more, as they had often done,
that there should be such unity of interest between old Joel Quimbey's
daughter and old Josiah Kittredge's widow. As time went on many rumors
of great peace on the mountain-side came to the father's ears, and he
grew more testy daily as he grew visibly older. These rumors multiplied
with the discovery that they were as wormwood and gall to him. Not that
he wished his daughter to be unhappy, but the joy which was his grief
and humiliation was needlessly flaunted into his face; the idlers about
the county town had invariably a new budget of details, being
supplied, somewhat maliciously, it must be confessed, by the Kittredges
themselves. The ceremony of planting one foot on the neck of the
vanquished was in their minds one of the essential concomitants of
victory. The bold Absalom, not thoroughly known to either of the
women who adored him, was ingenious in expedients, and had applied the
knowledge gleaned from his wife's reminiscences of her home, her father,
and her brothers to more accurately aim his darts. Sometimes old Quimbey
would fairly flee the town, and betake himself in a towering rage to his
deserted hearth, to brood futilely over the ashes, and devise impotent
schemes of vengeance.
He often wondered afterward in dreary retrospection how he had survived
that first troublous year after his daughter's elopement, when he was
so lonely, so heavy-hearted at home, so harried and angered abroad. His
comforts, it is true, were amply insured: a widowed sister had come
to preside over his household--a deaf old woman, who had much to be
thankful for in her infirmity, for Joel Quimbey in his youth, before he
acquired religion, had been known as a singularly profane man--“a mos'
survigrus cusser”--and something of his old proficiency had returned to
him. Perhaps public sympathy for his troubles strengthened his hold upon
the regard of the community. For it was in the second year of Evelina's
marriage, in the splendid midsummer, when all the gifts of nature climax
to a gorgeous perfection, and candidates become incumbents, that he
unexpectedly attained the great ambition of his life. He was said to
have made the race for justice of the peace from sheer force of habit,
but by some unexplained freak of popularity the oft-defeated candidate
was successful by a large majority at the August election.
“Laws-a-massy, boys,” he said, tremulously, to his triumphant sons,
when the result was announced, the excited flush on his thin old face
suffusing his hollow veinous temples, and rising into his fine white
hair, “how glad Eveliny would hev been ef--ef--” He was about to say if
she had lived, for he often spoke of her as if she were dead. He turned
suddenly back, and began to eagerly absorb the details of the race, as
if he had often before been elected, with calm superiority canvassing
the relative strength, or rather the relative weakness, of the defeated
aspirants.
He could scarcely have measured the joy which the news gave to Evelina.
She was eminently susceptible of the elation of pride, the fervid glow
of success; but her tender heart melted in sympathetic divination of
all that this was to him who had sought it so long, and so unabashed
by defeat. She pined to see his triumph in his eyes, to hear it in his
voice. She wondered--nay, she knew that he longed to tell it to her. As
the year rolled around again to summer, and she heard from time to
time of his quarterly visits to the town as a member of the worshipful
Quarterly County Court, she began to hope that, softened by his
prosperity, lifted so high by his honors above all the cavillings of the
Kittredges, he might be more leniently disposed toward her, might pity
her, might even go so far as to forgive.
But none of her filial messages reached her father's fiery old heart.
“Ye'll be sure, Abs'lom, ef ye see Joe Boyd in town, ye'll tell him ter
gin dad my respec's, an' the word ez how the baby air a-thrivin', an' I
wants ter fotch him ter see the fambly at home, ef they'll lemme.”
Then she would watch Absalom with all the confidence of happy
anticipation, as he rode off down the mountain with his hair flaunting,
and his spurs jingling, and his shy young horse curveting.
But no word ever came in response; and sometimes she would take the
child in her arms and carry him down a path, worn smooth by her own
feet, to a jagged shoulder thrust out by the mountain where all the
slopes fell away, and a crag beetled over the depths of the Cove. Thence
she could discern certain vague lines marking the enclosure, and a tiny
cluster of foliage hardly recognizable as the orchard, in the midst of
which the cabin nestled. She could not distinguish them, but she knew
that the cows were coming to be milked, lowing and clanking their bells
tunefully, fording the river that had the sunset emblazoned upon it, or
standing flank deep amidst its ripples; the chickens might be going
to roost among the althea bushes; the lazy old dogs were astir on the
porch. She could picture her brothers at work about the barn; most often
a white-haired man who walked with a stick--alack! she did not fancy how
feebly, nor that his white hair had grown long and venerable, and tossed
in the breeze. “Ef he would jes lemme kem fur one haff'n hour!” she
would cry.
But all her griefs were bewept on the crag, that there might be no tears
to distress the tenderhearted Absalom when she should return to the
house.
The election of Squire Quimbey was a sad blow to the arrogant spirit of
the Kittredges. They had easily accustomed themselves to ascendency, and
they hotly resented the fact that fate had forborne the opportunity to
hit Joel Quimbey when he was down. They had used their utmost influence
to defeat him in the race, and had openly avowed their desire to see him
bite the dust. The inimical feeling between the families culminated one
rainy autumnal day in the town where the quarterly county court was in
session.
A fire had been kindled in the great rusty stove, and crackled away with
grudging merriment inside, imparting no sentiment of cheer to the gaunt
bare room, with its dusty window-panes streaked with rain, its shutters
drearily flapping in the wind, and the floor bearing the imprint of
many boots burdened with the red clay of the region. The sound of slow
strolling feet in the brick-paved hall was monotonous and somnolent.
Squire Quimbey sat in his place among the justices. Despite his pride of
office, he had not the heart for business that might formerly have been
his. More than once his attention wandered. He looked absently out of
the nearest window at the neighboring dwelling--a little frame-house
with a green yard; a well-sweep was defined against the gray sky, and
about the curb a file of geese followed with swaying gait the wise old
gander. “What a hand for fow-_els_ Eveliny war!” he muttered to himself;
“an' she hed luck with sech critters.” He used the obituary tense, for
Evelina had in some sort passed away.
He rubbed his hand across his corrugated brow, and suddenly he became
aware that her husband was in the room, speaking to the chairman of the
county court, and claiming a certificate in the sum of two dollars each
for the scalps of one wolf, “an' one painter,” he continued, laying the
small furry repulsive objects upon the desk, “an' one dollar fur the
skelp of one wild-cat.” He was ready to take his oath that these animals
were killed by him running at large in this county.
He had stooped a little in making the transfer. He came suddenly to
his full height, and stood with one hand in his leather belt, the other
shouldering his rifle. The old man scanned him curiously. The crude
light from the long windows was full upon his tall slim figure; his
yellow hair curled down upon the collar of his blue jeans coat; his
great miry boots were drawn high over the trousers to the knee; his
pensive deer-like eyes brightened with a touch of arrogance and enmity
as, turning slowly to see who was present, his glance encountered his
father-in-law's fiery gaze.
“Mr. Cheerman! Mr. Cheerman!” exclaimed the old man, tremulously, “lemme
examinate that thar wild-cat skelp. Thanky, sir; thanky, sir; I wanter
see ef hain't off'n the head o' some old tame tomcat. An' this air a
painter's “--affecting to scan it by the window--“two ears 'cordin' to
law; yes, sir, two; and this”--his keen old face had all the white light
of the sad gray day on its bleaching hair and its many lines, and his
eager old hands trembled with the excitement of the significant satire
he enacted--“an' this air a wolf's, ye say? Yes; it's a Kittredge's;
same thing, Mr. Cheerman, by a diff'ent name; nuthin' in the code
'bout'n a premium fur a Kittredge's skelp; but same natur'; coward,
bully, thief--_thief!_”
The words in the high cracked voice rang from the bare walls and bare
floors as he tossed the scalps from him, and sat down, laughing silently
in painful, mirthless fashion, his toothless jaw quivering, and his
shaking hands groping for the arms of his chair.
“Who says a Kittredge air a thief says a lie!” cried out the young man,
recovering from his tense surprise. “I don't keer how old he be,” he
stipulated--for he had not thought to see her father so aged--“he lies.”
The old man fixed him with a steady gaze and a sudden alternation of
calmness. “Ye air a Kittredge; ye stole my daughter from me.”
“I never. She kem of her own accord.”
“Damn ye!” the old man retorted to the unwelcome truth. There was
nothing else for him to say. “Damn the whole tribe of ye; everything
that goes by the accursed name of Kittredge, that's got a drop o' yer
blood, or a bone o' yer bones, or a puif o' yer breath--”
“Squair! squair!” interposed an officious old colleague, taking him by
the elbow, “jes' quiet down now; ye air a-cussin' yer own gran'son.”
“So be! so be!” cried the old man, in a frenzy of rage. “Damn 'em
all--all the Kittredge tribe!” He gasped for breath; his lips still
moved speechlessly as he fell back in his chair.
Kittredge let his gun slip from his shoulder, the butt ringing heavily
as it struck upon the floor. “I ain't a-goin' ter take sech ez that
off'n ye, old man,” he cried, pallid with fury, for be it remembered
this grandson was that august institution, a first baby. “He sha'n't sit
up thar an' cuss the baby, Mr. Cheerman.” He appealed to the presiding
justice, holding up his right arm as tremulous as old Quimbey's own. “I
want the law! I ain't a-goin' ter tech a old man like him, an' my wife's
father, so I ax in the name o' peace fur the law. Don't deny it”--with a
warning glance--“'kase I ain't school-larned, an' dunno how ter get it.
Don't ye deny me the law! I _know_ the law don't 'low a magistrate an'
a jestice ter cuss in his high office, in the presence of the county
court. I want the law! I want the law!”
The chairman of the court, who had risen in his excitement, turning
eagerly first to one and then to the other of the speakers, striving to
silence the colloquy, and in the sudden surprise of it at a momentary
loss how to take action, sat down abruptly, and with a face of
consternation. Profanity seemed to him so usual and necessary an
incident of conversation that it had never occurred to him until this
moment that by some strange aberration from the rational estimate of
essentials it was entered in the code as a violation of law. He would
fain have overlooked it, but the room was crowded with spectators. The
chairman would be a candidate for re-election as justice of the peace at
the expiration of his term. And after all what was old Quimbey to him,
or he to old Quimbey, that, with practically the whole town looking on,
he should destroy his political prospects and disregard the dignity of
his office. He had a certain twinge of conscience, and a recollection of
the choice and fluent oaths of his own repertory, but as he turned over
the pages of the code in search of the section he deftly argued that
they were uttered in his own presence as a person, not as a justice.
And so for the first time old Joel Quimbey appeared as a law-breaker,
and was duly fined by the worshipful county court fifty cents for each
oath, that being the price at which the State rates the expensive and
impious luxury of swearing in the hearing of a justice of the peace, and
which in its discretion the court saw fit to adopt in this instance.
The old man offered no remonstrance; he said not a word in his own
defence. He silently drew out his worn wallet, with much contortion of
his thin old anatomy in getting to his pocket, and paid his fines on the
spot. Absalom had already left the room, the clerk having made out the
certificates, the chairman of the court casting the scalps into the open
door of the stove, that they might be consumed by fire according to law.
The young mountaineer wore a heavy frown, and his heart was ill at ease.
He sought some satisfaction in the evident opinion of the crowd which
now streamed out, for the excitements within were over, that he had done
a fine thing; a very clever thought, they considered it, to demand the
law of Mr. Chairman, that one of their worships should be dragged from
the bench and arraigned before the quarterly county court of which he
was a member. The result gave general satisfaction, although there were
those who found fault with the court's moderation, and complained that
the least possible cognizance had been taken of the offence.
“Ho! ho! ho!” laughed an old codger in the street. “I jes knowed that
hurt old Joel Quimbey wuss 'n ef a body hed druv a knife through him;
he's been so proud o' bein' jestice 'mongst his betters, an' bein'
'lected at las', many times ez he hev run. Waal, Abs'lom, ye hev
proved thar's law fur jestices too. I tell ye ye hev got sense in yer
skull-i-bone.”
But Absalom hung his head before these congratulations; he found no
relish in the old man's humbled pride. Yet had he not cursed the baby,
lumping him among the Kittredges? Absalom went about for a time, with a
hopeful anxiety in his eyes, searching for one of the younger Quim-beys,
in order to involve him in a fight that might have a provocation and a
result more to his mind. Somehow the recollection of the quivering and
aged figure of his wife's father, of the smitten look on his old face,
of his abashed and humbled demeanor before the court, was a reproach
to him, vivid and continuously present with his repetitious thoughts
forever re-enacting the scene. His hands trembled; he wanted to lay hold
on a younger man, to replace this aesthetic revenge with a quarrel more
wholesome in the estimation of his own conscience. But the Quimbey sons
were not in town to-day. He could only stroll about and hear himself
praised for this thing that he had done, and wonder how he should
meet Evelina with his conscience thus arrayed against himself for her
father's sake. “Plumb turned Quimbey, I swear,” he said, in helpless
reproach to this independent and coercive moral force within. His
dejection, he supposed, had reached its lowest limits, when a rumor
pervaded the town, so wild that he thought it could be only fantasy.
It proved to be fact. Joel Quimbey, aggrieved, humbled, and indignant,
had resigned his office, and as Absalom rode out of town toward the
mountains, he saw the old man in his crumpled brown jeans suit, mounted
on his white mare, jogging down the red clay road, his head bowed before
the slanting lines of rain, on his way to his cheerless fireside. He
turned off presently, for the road to the levels of the Cove was not the
shorter cut that Absalom travelled to the mountains. But all the way
the young man fancied that he saw from time to time, as the bridle-path
curved in the intricacies of the laurel, the bowed old figure among
the mists, jogging along, his proud head and his stiff neck bent to the
slanting rain and the buffets of his unkind fate. And yet, pressing the
young horse to overtake him, Absalom could find naught but the fleecy
mists drifting down the bridle-path as the wind might will, or lurking
in the darkling nooks of the laurel when the wind would.
*****
The sun was shining on the mountains, and Absalom went up from the sad
gray rain and through the gloomy clouds of autumn hanging over the Cove
into a soft brilliant upper atmosphere--a generous after-thought of
summer--and the warm brightness of Evelina's smile. She stood in the
doorway as she saw him dismounting, with her finger on her lips, for
the baby was sleeping: he put much of his time into that occupation. The
tiny gourds hung yellow among the vines that clambered over the roof of
the porch, and a brave jack-bean--a friend of the sheltering eaves--made
shift to bloom purple and white, though others of the kind hung, crisp
and sere, and rattled their dry bones in every gust. The “gyarden spot”
at the side of the house was full of brown and withered skeletons of
the summer growths; among the crisp blades of the Indian-corn a sibilant
voice was forever whispering; down the tawny-colored vistas the pumpkins
glowed. The sky was blue; the yellow hickory flaming against it and
hanging over the roof of the cabin was a fine color to see. The red
sour-wood tree in the fence corner shook out a myriad of white tassels;
the rolling tumult of the gray clouds below thickened, and he could hear
the rain a-falling--falling into the dreary depths of the Cove.
All this for him: why should he disquiet himself for the storm that
burst upon others?
Evelina seemed a part of the brightness; her dark eyes so softly alight,
her curving red lips, the faint flush in her cheeks, her rich brown
hair, and the purplish kerchief about the neck of her yellow dress. Once
more she looked smilingly at him, and shook her head and laid her finger
on her lip.
“I oughter been sati'fied with all I got, stiddier hectorin' other folks
till they 'ain't got no heart ter hold on ter what they been at sech
trouble ter git,” he said, as he turned out the horse and strode
gloomily toward the house with the saddle over his arm.
“Hev ennybody been spiteful ter you-uns ter-day?” she asked, in an
almost maternal solicitude, and with a flash of partisan anger in her
eyes.
“Git out'n my road, Eveliny,” he said, fretfully, pushing by, and
throwing the saddle on the floor. There was no one in the room but the
occupant of the rude box on rockers which served as cradle.
Absalom had a swift, prescient fear. “She'll git it all out'n me ef
I don't look sharp,” he said to himself. Then aloud, “Whar's mam?” he
demanded, flinging himself into a chair and looking loweringly about.
“Topknot hev jes kem off'n her nest with fourteen deedies, an' she an'
'Melia hev gone ter the barn ter see 'bout'n 'em.”
“Whar's Pete?”
“A-huntin'.”
A pause. The fire smouldered audibly; a hickory-nut fell with a sharp
thwack on the clapboards of the roof, and rolled down and bounded to the
ground.
Suddenly: “I seen yer dad ter-day,” he began, without coercion. “He gin
me a cussin', in the courtroom, 'fore all the folks. He cussed all the
Kit-tredges, _all_ o' 'em; him too”--he glanced in the direction of the
cradle--“cussed 'em black an' blue, an' called me a _thief_ fur marryin'
ye an kerry-in' ye off.”
Her face turned scarlet, then pale. She sat down, her trembling hands
reaching out to rock the cradle, as if the youthful Kittredge might
be disturbed by the malediction hurled upon his tribe. But he slept
sturdily on.
“Waal, now,” she said, making a great effort at self-control, “ye
oughtn't ter mind it. Ye know he war powerful tried. I never purtended
ter be ez sweet an' pritty ez the baby air, but how would you-uns feel
ef somebody ye despised war ter kem hyar an' tote him off from we-uns
forever?”
“I'd cut thar hearts out,” he said, with prompt barbarity.
“Thar, now!” exclaimed his wife, in triumphant logic.
He gloomily eyed the smouldering coals. He was beginning to understand
the paternal sentiment. By his own heart he was learning the heart of
his wife's father.
“I'd chop 'em inter minch-meat,” he continued, carrying his just
reprisals a step further.
“Waal, don't do it right now,” said his wife, trying to laugh, yet
vaguely frightened by his vehemence.
“Eveliny,” he cried, springing to his feet, “I be a-goin' ter tell ye
all 'bout'n it. I jes called on the cheerman fur the law agin him.”
“Agin _dad!_--the law!”' Her voice dropped as she contemplated aghast
this terrible unapprehended force brought to oppress old Joel Quim-bey;
she felt a sudden poignant pang for his forlorn and lonely estate.
“Never mind, never mind, Eveliny,” Absalom said, hastily, repenting of
his frantic candor and seeking to soothe her.
“I _will_ mind,” she said, sternly. “What hev ye done ter dad?”
“Nuthin',” he replied, sulkily--“nuthin'.”
“Ye needn't try ter fool me, Abs'lom Kittredge. Ef ye ain't minded ter
tell me, I'll foot it down ter town an' find out. What did the law do
ter him?”
“Jes fined him,” he said, striving to make light of it.
“An' ye done that fur--_spite!_” she cried. “A-set-tin' the law ter
chouse a old man out'n money, fur gittin' mad an' sayin' ye stole his
only darter. Oh, I'll answer fur him”--she too had risen; her hand
trembled on the back of the chair, but her face was scornfully
smiling--“he don't mind the _money_; he'll never git you-uns _fined_ ter
pay back the gredge. He don't take his wrath out on folkses' _wallets_;
he grips thar throats, or teches the trigger o' his rifle. Laws-a-massy!
takin' out yer gredge that-a-way! It's ye poorer fur them dollars,
Abs'lom--'tain't him.” She laughed satirically, and turned to rock the
cradle.
“What d'ye want me ter do? Fight a old man?” he exclaimed, angrily.
She kept silence, only looking at him with a flushed cheek and a
scornful laughing eye.
He went on, resentfully: “I ain't 'shamed,” he stoutly asserted. “Nobody
'lowed I oughter be, It's him, plumb bowed down with shame.”
“The shoe's on the t'other foot,” she cried. “It's ye that oughter be
'shamed, an' ef ye ain't, it's more shame ter ye. What hev he got ter be
'shamed of?”
“'Kase,” he retorted, “he war fetched up afore a court on a crim'nal
offence--a-cussin' afore the court! Ye may think it's no shame, but he
do; he war so 'shamed he gin up his office ez jestice o' the peace, what
he hev run fur four or five times, an' always got beat 'ceptin' wunst.”
“Dad!” but for the whisper she seemed turning to stone; her dilated eyes
were fixed as she stared into his face.
“An' I seen him a-ridin' off from town in the rain arterward, his head
hangin' plumb down ter the saddle-bow.”
Her amazed eyes were still fastened upon his face, but her hand no
longer trembled on the back of the chair.
He suddenly held out his own hand to her, his sympathy and regret
returning as he recalled the picture of the lonely wayfarer in the rain
that had touched him so. “Oh, Eveliny!” he cried, “I never war so beset
an' sorry an'--”
She struck his hand down; her eyes blazed. Her aspect was all instinct
with anger.
“I do declar' I'll never furgive ye--ter spite him so--an' kem an' tell
_me!_ An' shame him so ez he can't hold his place--an' kem an' tell
_me!_ An' bow him down so ez he can't show his face whar he hev been so
respected by all--an' kem an' tell _me!_ An' all fur spite, fur he hev
got nuthin' ye want now. An' I gin him up an' lef him lonely, an' all
fur you-uns. Ye air mean, Abs'lom Kit-tredge, an' I'm the mos' fursaken
fool on the face o' the yearth!”
He tried to speak, but she held up her hand in expostulation.
“Nare word--fur I won't answer. I do declar' I'll never speak ter ye
agin ez long ez I live.”
He flung away with a laugh and a jeer. “That's right,” he said,
encouragingly; “plenty o' men would be powerful glad ef thar wives would
take pattern by that.”
He caught up his hat and strode out of the room. He busied himself in
stabling his horse, and in looking after the stock. He could hear the
women's voices from the loft of the barn as they disputed about the
best methods of tending the newly hatched chickens, that had chipped
the shell so late in the fall as to be embarrassed by the frosts and the
coming cold weather. The last bee had ceased to drone about the great
crimson prince's-feather by the door-step, worn purplish through long
flaunting, and gone to seed. The clouds were creeping up and up the
slope, and others were journeying hither from over the mountains. A
sense of moisture was in the air, although a great column of dust sprang
up from the dry corn-field, with panic-stricken suggestions, and went
whirling away, carrying off withered blades in the rush. The first drops
of rain were pattering, with a resonant timbre in the midst, when Pete
came home with a newly killed deer on his horse, and the women, with
fluttering skirts and sun-bonnets, ran swiftly across from the barn to
the back door of the shed-room. Then the heavy downpour made the cabin
rock.
“Why, Eveliny an' the baby oughtn't ter be out in this hyar
rain--they'll be drenched,” said the old woman, when they were all
safely housed except the two. “Whar be she?”
“A-foolin' in the gyarden spot a-getherin' seed an' sech, like she
always be,” said the sister-in-law, tartly.
Absalom ran out into the rain without his hat, his heart in the clutch
of a prescient terror. No; the summer was over for the garden as well
as for him; all forlorn and rifled, its few swaying shrubs tossed wildly
about, a mockery of the grace and bloom that had once embellished it.
His wet hair Streaming backward in the wind caught on the laurel boughs
as he went down and down the tangled path that her homesick feet had
worn to the crag which overlooked the Cove. Not there! He stood,
himself enveloped in the mist, and gazed blankly into the folds of the
dun-colored clouds that with tumultuous involutions surged above the
valley and baffled his vision. He realized it with a sinking heart. She
was gone.
*****
That afternoon--it was close upon nightfall--Stephen Quimbey, letting
down the bars for the cows, noticed through the slanting lines of rain,
serried against the masses of sober-hued vapors which hid the great
mountain towering above the Cove, a woman crossing the foot-bridge. He
turned and lifted down another bar, and then looked again. Something
was familiar in her aspect, certainly. He stood gravely staring. Her
sun-bonnet had fallen back upon her shoulders, and was hanging loosely
there by the strings tied beneath her chin; her brown hair, dishevelled'
by the storm, tossed back and forth in heavy wave-less locks, wet
through and through. When the wind freshened they lashed, thong-like,
her pallid oval face; more than once she put up her hand and tried to
gather them together, or to press them back--only one hand, for she
clasped a heavy bundle in her arms, and as she toiled along slowly up
the rocky slope, Stephen suddenly held his palm above his eyes. The
recognition was becoming definite, and yet he could scarcely believe his
senses: was it indeed Evelina, wind-tossed, tempest-beaten, and with as
many tears as rain-drops on her pale cheek? Evelina, forlorn and sorry,
and with swollen sad dark eyes, and listless exhausted step--here again
at the bars, where she had not stood since she dragged her wounded lover
thence on-that eventful night two years and more ago.
Resentment for the domestic treachery was uppermost in his mind, and he
demanded surlily, when she had advanced within the sound of his words,
“What hev ye kem hyar fur?”
“Ter stay,” she responded, briefly.
His hand in an uncertain gesture laid hold upon his tuft of beard.
“Fur good?” he faltered, amazed.
She nodded silently.
He stooped to lift down the lowest bar that she might pass. Suddenly
the bundle she clasped gave a dexterous twist; a small head, with
yellow downy hair, was thrust forth; a pair of fawn-like eyes fixed an
inquiring stare upon him; the pink face distended with a grin, to which
the two small teeth in the red mouth, otherwise empty, lent a singularly
merry expression; and with a manner that was a challenge to pursuit, the
head disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared, tucked with affected
shyness under Evelina's arm.
She left Stephen standing with the bar in his hand, staring blankly
after her, and ran into the cabin.