Alethea Sayles awoke early the morning after the momentous news of Mink’s
journey had come to Wild-Cat Hollow; such an awakening as a barn-swallow
might know, the familiar of the rafters and the clapboards. There was
no other ceiling to the roof-room. She might put up her hand and touch
it where she lay, but in the centre it was higher,—high enough for many
pendent uses: bags of cotton swung from the ridge-pole; hanks of yarn;
bunches of pepper; gourds; old hats and garments, of awry, distorted,
facetious aspect in their caricature of the habit of humanity. The snow
pressed heavily without; through the crevices vague white glimpses of
the drifts might be seen, for the dull glow from the fire in the room
below penetrated the cracks between the boards of the flooring, which
served as the ceiling of the lower story. Light came in, too, from the
rifts between the wall and the great stick-and-clay chimney, which
bulged outward, being built outside the house, as is the habit in the
region. It was the light of the waning moon, fitful, fluctuating, for
clouds were astir. Now and then, too, Alethea could see the great morning
star with its tremulous glister, seeming nearer, dearer, than all the
others,—splendid, yet tender and full of promise. She looked wistfully
at it for a moment, feeling the dull aching wound in her heart, and
forgetting what dealt it. Then it all came back to her, and she wondered
she had awakened again. She could not understand how she lived. She felt
as if she could rise no more. But the cow was to be milked; she listened
to the cocks crowing. The baby, who had developed a virulent habit of
early rising, was already astir. She heard his thumping bare feet on
the floor of the room below; he would be cold, and she thought of the
danger of the embers, and remembered that the sluggard his mother still
drowsed. The breakfast must be cooked, the dishes must be washed. Her
physical strength was asserting itself against the shock to her mind. Her
collapsed energies were recuperated by sleep, albeit the slumber induced
by the primitive narcotics of the “yerb bag.” Ah, the world of Wild-Cat
Hollow, small though it was, was full of work, and she must lay hold. And
so she rose once more, and joined hands with joyless duty.
Ben Doaks sojourned with them for a time, and went hunting with Jessup,
and brought back game, and made Mrs. Sayles presents of the peltry. As he
sat by the fire at night he told the news from the cove in great detail,
and discussed it freely with Mrs. Jessup, and developed remarkable
capacities for acquiescence. Old Griff, he said, was having a mighty hard
winter. His mill had proved a sore loss, for he was bereft of his tolls,
and he had planted little corn. “He mought make out, though. His meat
looks thrivin’; he hain’t killed yit.” Ben spoke of the miller’s hogs
afoot as if they held their fat in trust and were stewards of their own
bacon. The old man seemed failing, and talked much about Tad; sometimes
as if he had already returned, sometimes as if he momently expected him.
The children, too, “’peared thrivin’,” though Ben didn’t believe Sophy
would ever be good for much except to look at, and the little ones “all
’peared ragged ez ef she didn’t study ’bout them much.”
“Too many peart, spry boys in the cove fur her ter study ’bout, stiddier
them,” said Mrs. Sayles, with a scornful toss of the head, histrionically
seeing the situation from Sophy’s standpoint.
“Jerry Price ’pears ter set a heap o’ store by Sophy’s looks,” submitted
Ben, with the implication of the remark.
“Waal, ’twould be a jedgmint on Dely Purvine fur all her onwholesome
vanity an’ slack-twisted sort o’ religion, ef that thar Jerry Price, ez
she hev brung up ez ef he war her own son,—though his looks air enough
ter tarrify a mole,—war ter marry Sophy Griff.”
“Waal, sir, one thing,—her housekeepin’ couldn’t ’stonish him none arter
Mis’ Purvine’s,” remarked Mrs. Jessup, with an elaborate semblance of
seeing the brighter side of things.
“Shucks!” Mrs. Sayles commented. “He’d miss mightily the show and the
shine he hev been used ter along o’ Mis’ Purvine.”
“Waal,” said Ben, “I don’t b’lieve ez Mis’ Purvine would mind much who
Jerry marries, so long ez he keeps clar o’ Elviry Crosby. Mis’ Purvine
air mightily outdone with her. She hev been mournin’ fur Peter Rood same
ez ef she war a widder-woman. An’ ye know she wouldn’t speak ter him ez
long ez Mink war out’n the grip o’ the sher’ff. She tried ter toll Pete
back arterwards. I hearn him ’low sech when they war drawin’ the jury. I
dunno how she made out.”
Mrs. Sayles gazed at the fire solemnly from under her pink sun-bonnet.
“Death tolled him,” she said lugubriously.
“I’d jes’ ez lief Death as Elviry Crosby,” said Mrs. Jessup, in calm
superiority to the wiles of feminine fascination.
Old man Sayles shook his head in negation.
“Mighty dark under the ground,” he said, with terror of the termination
of life; which for him signified so little that a sponge with a vocable
or two might have seemed his correlative.
But when Ben was gone,—and the sight of Alethea, silent, absorbed,
pallid, broken-hearted, gave him little wish to prolong his stay,—the
scene at the fireside was less amicable and cheerful. The elder women,
bereft of gossip, bickered over the trifling mishaps of the day. The old
man sorted his “lumber.” Jessup slouched and lazed and smoked. Only the
weather varied the aspect of the world. The snow slipped away in the
thaw, leaving mud and ooze and intervals of blackened ice. Then the rains
descended, and the scene without was dimly visible through the long,
slanting, dun-colored fringes of the cloud. The roof clamored with the
resonant fall of the drops, the clapboards leaked, and puddles formed
even in the ashes of the chimney corner. The sun might shine vaguely for
a day. The chill splendors of the wintry constellations scintillated
icily in the dark spaces of the night. But the clouds, rallying from
every repulse, closed once more about the Great Smoky, and ravine and
peak and cove were again deeply covered with snow.
Mrs. Jessup bewailed the change. “I war a-hopin’,” she remarked, “ez
we would hev no mo’ fallin’ weather, so Lethe could go ter the meetin’
at the church-house in Eskaqua Cove, an’ fetch up some word o’ what’s
a-goin’ on down thar ter this benighted roost. _I_ war raised in the
_cove_! I ain’t used ter sech a dwindlin’ sort o’ life ez this hyar.”
“What ailed ye, then, ter marry a mounting boy?” Mrs. Sayles would demand
in resentment.
“’Kase I war the mos’ outdacious an’ astonishin’ fool in Cherokee County.”
Mrs. Jessup was not a woman of great abilities, but she had an uncommon
gift of conclusiveness in retort.
Mrs. Sayles could only knit off her needle with a sort of whisking
scornfulness of gesture.
And presently, not to be silenced, she demanded when the meetin’ was to
be held.
“To-morrer’s the day; this be Sat’dy. Ter-morrer’s Sunday.”
“The snow’s a dry snow,” remarked Mrs. Sayles. “I dunno what’s ter hender
Lethe, ef she feels minded ter go ter meetin’.”
It never occurred to either of them to undertake themselves the hardships
and dangers of the excursion. Even Mrs. Jessup, pining for the fuller
development and richer social opportunities of life in the cove, did not
covet them to the extent of exertion.
Alethea was glad to be alone. The burden of the work, however
mechanically accomplished, had pressed heavily upon her consciousness.
The acrimony, the continual talk, the trivial stir, had impinged
jarringly upon her deeper absorption. The infinite solitude of the
wilds, the austere dignity of their silence, harmonized with her mood.
She had craved to hear the preaching. She was spiritually an hungered.
She turned to the consolations of religion. Now and then she drew a deep
sigh as she went, and paused and looked about her with eyes that felt as
if they had wept long; but they were dry, and tears for a time had been
strangers. She was fain to note closely to-day the aspects of the outer
world, or, woodland creature though she was, she might have missed her
way in the tortuous intricacies that the road had followed in striving
to make and keep a footing among the steeps. Icicles still hung to the
dark faces of the crags, grim and distinct upon the snowy slopes about
them. On every side towered the great trees, their gigantic proportions
more incredibly imposing when fully revealed in bare bole and branch than
when the foliage had veiled them. Now and then she met a mist, stealing
softly, silently along, or lurking like some half-affrighted apparition
in the depth of ravines, or peering down from over unmeasured heights.
As the road turned abruptly she saw a mass of white vapor against the
sky,—nay, it was Thunderhead, the great cloud-mountain. There was
movement upon the slopes of the peak. The mists shifted to and fro, with
vague gray shadows mysteriously attendant upon them. Sudden gusts of
wind swept through the forest, rousing it to motion, to weird murmurs.
She gathered her brown shawl about her and drew her bonnet forward. And
then the wind would slip away, and she would hear it repeating its mystic
apostrophe far off among the ravines of Thunderhead, or Big Injun, or
another of the mighty company of the border. Through rifts of the clouds
came sometimes a pallid glimpse of the midday moon. It had a strange
ghastly gleam on this sad gray day, above the great legendary mountain.
She stood and gazed at it for a moment in vague fascination, then she
turned and went on. She saw occasionally the footprints of small animals
in the snow. Often she looked after them, for she had the compassionate
tenderness of a compatriot for these little mountaineers. Once she
noticed a rabbit that crouched chilled and trembling for an instant, and
then went leaping through the frozen weeds.
She was not cold. It was growing warmer as she made her way down to lower
levels, and much of the time she walked rapidly. Only when she cautiously
crossed the mountain torrent, icy and motionless save that in its crystal
heart a stream like a silver arrow swiftly and silently glided, glancing
in the light, she felt the chill of the day. For the foot-bridge was hung
with icicles and enveloped in deceptive snow that fell at the touch of
her foot, and she began to be afraid she would lose so much time here
that she might be late and miss some part of the sermon. When the cove
became visible, one might fail to discern any expression of the social
opportunities for which Mrs. Jessup valued it. In its wintry guise it
was peculiarly open to the eye: its forests were bare; the unbroken snow
lay in its broad fields in lieu of its harvested crops; its road was
distinguishable by the narrow interval between the zigzag fences; the
serpentine lines of the river were defined by its snow-fringed laureled
banks; here and there a curl of blue smoke arose from the chimney of a
little house heavily thatched with drifts.
The church had for Alethea many melancholy associations. She paused at
the palings, remembering the night when she had stood here in the silent
moonshine, in the full summer-tide, and the vapors had shifted about,
and in their midst she had seen the boy whom they had said was dead. How
much had come into her life since then, and, alas, how much had gone
forth forever! The snow hung heavy in the pine-trees; the faint moon was
in the fretted gray sky above the mountains. The little house was dark
and drear under its whitened roof. The snow was melting close to the
chimney. She heard the drops trickling down. The mounds in the inclosure
were very distinct. Some of them had a square of palings close about:
those were the graves of the well-to-do people of the cove. She could
hardly have said, but for her life-long knowledge of the place, which
was the new-made grave where lay the man who had pointed at her with his
last living impulse, whose last word was intended for her, becoming dumb
on his lips as his life died in him,—a word never to be heard, never to
be answered. Here they all were, little ephemeral mounds in the midst of
the great eternities of the mountains. She wondered if there were words
to be said buried with the others; deeds to be done or undone; hopes
unrealized; promises deferred until now when time was no more for them.
Life was transitory, and so she was minded anew of the preacher.
He was already in the pulpit when she entered the low, dark little
building, with its scanty congregation huddled on the few benches. He
was a long-haired, wild-eyed, jeans-clad mountaineer, with a powerful
physique and an admiration of prowess. He was a worthy and a well-meaning
man, and there are those of his profession wiser than he who forget that
they are apostles of peace. The circumstantial account of various feuds
detailed in the Old Bible proved of intense interest to the majority of
his congregation, who listened with eager faces and spellbound attention.
The methods of slaughter in those days seem to have had phenomenal
diversity, and certainly exceeded anything of the sort that had ever been
heard of in Eskaqua Cove.
Alethea’s mind was too closely held in subordination to reverence for
her to acknowledge, even to herself, how little this discourse met her
peculiar needs. She endeavored to fix her attention humbly upon the
harrowing details of barbarity; now and then an expression of wincing
sympathy was in her clear eyes.
The application of the sermon—for it had an application—was to be found
in the thankfulness which every professing member should experience
because his lot was cast in Eskaqua Cove, where such practices did not
obtain, and the fear which the unregenerate should harbor, since these
tortures were nothing in comparison to what would happen to him in the
next world, unless he forthwith mended his ways.
It left a certain trace of meditative astonishment among the heavy
mountaineers, slouching out to their horses and wagons, slowly commenting
while chewing hard on their great quids of tobacco. The women lingered
and talked in a lack-lustre fashion to one another of their ailments,
and interchanged inquiries concerning absent members of the family.
Sophy Griff stood by the palings, debating whether she should accept the
proffer of one of the youths to take her home on his horse behind him.
She was looking about doubtfully. “I brung two o’ the chil’ren along o’
me, but they ’pear ter hev runned off somewhar. I dunno ez I wanter leave
’em.”
“They’ll be home ’fore supper-time,” urged the gallant. “Trest ’em ter
git thar ef thar’s enny eatin’ goin’ on.”
With this logic she suffered herself to be persuaded, mounted his horse
behind him, and they rode away after the manner of a cavalier and his
lady-love of the olden time.
Alethea trudged along the road to Mrs. Purvine’s house, for the journey
up the mountain was hardly a possible achievement after the fatigues
of the descent. The sun had come out. It scintillated on the snow. The
cascades in the half-frozen river glittered iridescent. The bluffs
were outlined with drifts in all their fissures; icicles clung to them
at every jutting point, and the stunted trees of their summit, whose
insistent roots seemed to pierce the stone, were encased in ice, and
sparkled as the wind moved them. In the midst of all this splendor
Mrs. Purvine’s house was dark and humble, despite the porch, and the
front steps, and the glass windows. In the half-buried garden a bevy
of dark figures sped this way and that over the snow. They were aunt
Dely’s boys chasing rabbits. The creatures, half famished and bold with
necessity,—fatally distinct on the whitened ground,—were deftly knocked
on the head with a stick, and one blow from such experts was sufficient.
In the party was a smaller boy, whom, at first, Alethea was puzzled to
remember. Presently she recognized ’Gustus Tom, and this prepared her
to see, when she entered, “sister Eudory,” sitting in front of Mrs.
Purvine’s fire.
The pernicious glass in the windows added much cheerfulness to the
apartment in weather like this. It aided the firelight in revealing
sister Eudory’s tangle of flaxen hair and beguiling plumpness, as she
sat, looking demure and wise, in one of the large rickety chairs. She was
nearly five years of age now, and a great girl, and when she got down and
went and stood behind the churn, in an affectation of shyness because of
Alethea’s presence, she was not hidden by the article, and the handle of
the dasher was insufficient to obscure her downcast face and her finger
in her mouth.
“Yer aig will pop an’ bust, fust thing ye know,” said aunt Dely, the
politic.
And Eudora forthwith came briskly out to investigate an egg which she was
roasting in the ashes, the kind present of Mrs. Purvine. The hen that
laid it was stalking about the room in unconscious bereavement. Now and
then there was a shrill piping from a basket on the floor, from which
overflowed, as it were, a downy collection of fall “deedies,” hatched
too late to stand any chance of weathering the winter except by being
reared into those obnoxious animals, house-chickens. A matronly feathered
head would occasionally be thrust out with a remonstrant cluck, and the
assemblage, miraculously escaping the heedless human foot, would climb
into the basket, and there would ensue a soft sound of snuggling down and
drowsy pipings. All of which excited sister Eudory almost to ecstasy.
Mrs. Purvine experienced less complacence. “Ef ennybody ain’t got no
baby, an’ feels like adoptin’ one ter take trouble about, jes’ let ’em
git ’em a settin’ o’ aigs an’ hatch out some fall deedies. They’ll be ez
much trouble ez twins!”
“Whyn’t you-uns stay ter the meetin’ ter the church-house, Eudory?”
demanded Alethea.
The little girl, kneeling on the hearth, anxiously adjusted a broom straw
on the egg to see if it were done,—when, according to culinary tradition,
the straw would turn; she glanced up with her charming smile showing her
snaggled little teeth.
“’Gustus Tom wouldn’t bide,” she declared.
“Waal, now, ’Gustus Tom oughter begin ez early ez he kin,” said Mrs.
Purvine. “Sech ez ’Gustus Tom hev a mighty wrastle with Satan ’fore
they git grace. ’Gustus Tom hev got a long way o’ wickedness afore him.
He oughter be among them in early youth convicted o’ sin an’ afeard o’
Satan.”
“Naw,” said the child, sitting upright and staring steadily at the straw.
“He be ’feared o’ Pete Rood. An’ he won’t bide a-nigh the church-house.”
The light of the fire was on her face. Its breath stirred her bright
hair. Her chubby hand hovered about the egg in the ashes. Surely the
straw was turning at last.
“Pete Rood is dead, Eudory,” said Mrs. Purvine, rebukingly.
“In the groun’,” said Eudory unequivocally.
The mention of him recalled to Alethea that momentous day of drawing the
jury, the mystery of Tad’s fate, the hardships of Mink’s duress, and
finally the calamity which he had brought upon himself.
Alethea had taken off her bonnet, and sat down in the rocking-chair
before the fire, her eyes fixed reflectively upon the great burning logs.
The interior of Mrs. Purvine’s house always had a leisurely aspect;
to-day it wore the added quiet and ease of Sunday stillness. It was
evident that here no anxious female heart was “harried ter death,” in
yearnings for the perfecting of a theory of housekeeping.
Mrs. Purvine, sitting with her empty hands in her lap, once more
rebuked sister Eudory, the decorums of the day giving a more stringent
interpretation to her code of manners.
“Ye mustn’t say ’Gustus Tom air ’feard o’ Pete Rood, ’kase he air dead.”
“That’s what ’Gustus Tom say—he say don’t talk ’bout’n it.” Eudora looked
up gravely. “He be wusser ’feard now ’n he war when Pete Rood war ’live.”
There was a sudden hand on the latch, and ’Gustus Tom came hastily in.
“Look-a-hyar, sister Eudory!” he cried remonstrantly, seizing her by the
arm, “what ails ye ter let yer tongue break loose that-a-way? Shet up! Ye
promised ye wouldn’t tell.”
He had an excited, grave, frightened look that was incongruous with the
roguish cast of his features; his torn old hat was jauntily askew; his
clothes were ragged; a single suspender seemed quite adequate to support
so many holes; his shoes were broken. There was a distinct deprecation
and anxiety in his face more pitiable than poverty, as he looked from one
to the other of the women. He was evidently wondering how much of his
secrets the faithless sister Eudory had told. He could not control his
fears. He broke out suddenly:
“Hev she tole ’bout’n what I done?”
Mrs. Purvine, who was jocose with children, and who could not appreciate
at this stage of the disclosure that anything of moment impended, folded
her arms slowly across her bosom, looked at him over her spectacles,
a great deal of the whites of her blue eyes showing, and with mock
solemnity nodded assent.
“Waal, waal—did she tell ’bout’n the—the mill, too?”
Aunt Dely shook her head in burlesque reproach. “She hev tole on ye,
’Gustus Tom. Yer wicked ways air made plain.”
His eyes were wildly starting from his head; he caught his breath in
quick gasps. The little girl first detected the genuine terror which he
was suffering, and as she held his hand she began to whimper and to lay
her head against his ragged shirt-sleeve.
“Oh, Mis’ Purvine,” cried ’Gustus Tom, “I never knowed aforehand how
’twar goin’ ter turn out, else I’d never hev gone thar that night, an’ I
wouldn’t hev knowed no mo’ ’bout who bust down the mill ’n nobody else!”
“Didn’t Mink bust the mill down?” asked Mrs. Purvine, staring.
“Naw,” said ’Gustus Tom, miserably, “Mink never.”
Aunt Dely suddenly sat upright, and took her spectacles from her
astonished eyes. She was about to speak sharply, but met Alethea’s
warning glance, and desisted.