The spectacular effects of the newly built railroad through Cherokee
County are of ceaseless interest to the denizens of the little log-cabins
that lie at wide intervals upon the route, along which, indeed, for many
miles, the only trace of civilization and progress is the occasional
swift apparition of the locomotive, and the long parallel rails
glistening in the sun. The dwellers in a certain hut near the river might
be considered to afford typical manifestations. The children appear
behind the rickety fence, or perhaps perched on the giddy eminence of
the topmost rail, and salute the engine with the dumb show of much
shouting and sometimes of derision. An old man hastily hobbles to the
door; a woman busy in hanging out clothes in the sun on the althea bushes
desists, to stare; the round-eyed baby on the doorstep becomes motionless
in amaze; the gazing dogs wag approving tails; the farmer, leaning on
his plough-handles, watches it till it is but a speck in the distance;
a cow in the pasture breaks into a shambling run and turns her head to
look back in affright; and near the woods-lot is a panic-stricken filly,
plunging, and kicking, and snorting. And however often the sight of it
may be vouchsafed, always the great splendid burnished motor, with its
clouds of white steam, its thunderous gait, its servitors standing upon
the platforms, and all its trains of loaded coaches, from which human
faces look forth, to be curiously scanned, is thus greeted. But at night
a mystery hangs about it. The reverberations of its footsteps may sound
in the deepest dreams. Where is the darkness so dense, when is the storm
so wild, that it cannot make its way as it lists? It seems then to these
simple folks like some development of abnormal force, as it rends the
gloom with its white glare, as it skims the denser medium of the earth
like a meteor through the sky,—or some strange serpent with a glittering
eye, drawing swiftly its sparkling lengths along. The rocks clamor with
the wild clangors it has taught them, and the tumultuous, exultant
shrieks of its whistle pierce the night. And for a time after it is gone
the rails shiver with the thought of it, and the hills cry out again and
again with fear.
It might appear that in the river lurks some danger for this bold
marauder; always it slackens its speed and bates its voice when it
approaches the bridge, and gives to the current a thousand glittering
gauds of reflection. If the hour is not too late, the wayside family
gather at the door to watch the train cross. When it reaches the other
side, and speeds away with a loud cry of triumph and a renewed redundancy
of motion, the old man turns, with an air of disappointment and a wag
of the head and a muttered insistence: “Can’t do that thar fool trick
_every_ time.” He had opposed the theory of railroads, and had looked
for a judgment to descend; in especial he had watched the building of
the bridge in a spirit of indignation, prophesying that there would be
a “big drownding” there one day, and had even lavished his advice upon
the engineer in charge of the work, who, nevertheless, did not desist.
Always he was convinced that that gossamer web, that union of strength
and lightness, would give way sometime under the weight, and one spring
night, as he hobbled to the door as usual to look at the flying and fiery
dragon, no longer mythical, the catastrophe seemed imminent.
There was a variety of passengers in the smoking-car. The commercial
traveler, returning with the swallow, was taking his way once more to the
places that knew him. Conference had been held in a neighboring town, and
the reverend gentlemen, homeward bound, were secular of aspect, genial
and jolly, enveloped in clouds of tobacco smoke of their own making. The
deputy-sheriff of Cherokee County was on board, and in his charge was
Mink Lorey, on his way to stand his new trial in Shaftesville, handcuffed
with Pete Owens, of the same county, who had had the misfortune to lose
his temper on a small provocation, and to kill his brother. They and the
guards were also a merry party. The deputy was undisguisedly glad to see
Mink again, and rehearsed for his benefit the news from the town, and the
rumors from the coves, and the vague echoes from the mountains, as he sat
facing his prisoner, his elbows on his knees, fanning himself with his
hat, now and then tousling his rough hair with one hand as he laughed, as
if to add this dishevelment to the contortions and grotesqueness of his
hilarity.
Mink listened with the wistful attention of one for whom all these things
are forever past. This world of redundant interest was to be his world
no more. Already it wore only the tender glamours of memory. The brown
shadows and yellow lights from the lamps were shifting and shoaling, as
the train jogged and lurched continually. The fluctuating gleams showed
that his face was a trifle thin, perhaps; the expression of his vivid
brown eyes had changed; they were desperate and hardened, but quickly
glancing and even brighter and larger than before. His white wool hat
was thrust on the back of his head as he leaned against the red velvet
cushion, and his auburn hair, longer than ever, curled down upon the
collar of his brown jeans coat. Now and then, when the deputy waxed
facetious, Mink laughed aloud in sympathy.
The moon was a-journeying, too, with all the train of stars. Always
through the open window one could find a serene transition from the
interior, with its gaudy colors, its lounging masculine figures,
its wreathing tobacco smoke, and the suffusion of yellow light and
alternating brown shadow. The sky was pure and blue; the young
mountaineer marked the weather-signs; the wind was astir,—a breeze other
than that caused by the motion of the train; he saw the trees on the
hillsides waving in the sweet spontaneity of the air; he noted the
shadow of the great locomotive swiftly traversing the wheat-fields, with
its piles of smoke scurrying behind it, and seeming not less material. He
leaned toward the window, and called to the deputy to mark how forward
the crops were. And then he fell back with a white despair on his face,
for the train was thundering through a forest, and the interfulgent sheen
and shadow amongst the great trees had caught the woodland creature’s
eye. The sylvan fragrance came to him for a moment. The fair, lonely
vista lured him. How long, how long it had been since he had trodden such
wilds! Rocks towered in the midst, and he was glad when they closed about
the way, and the reverberating clamors of the cut drowned the groan that
burst from him. And then they grew fainter, and here were the levels
once more, and suddenly—the Tennessee River! How should he fail to know
its splendid breadth and muscle, its majestic sinuosity as it curved! He
leaned once more toward the window, catching at the sill; the man with
whose hand his own was manacled complained of the strain. He dropped his
hand, and once more looked out as the train, at a bated and circumspect
pace, drew its slow length upon the bridge. Most of the passengers were
looking out, too, under the fascination that the water of a landscape
always exerts upon travelers. The moon hung above the broad vista of the
dark, lustrous stream, flinging upon its surface some gigantic magical
corolla, softly refulgent, to float on the water like a great white
lily. The dense forests, with a deeper gloom of shadow at their roots,
stood solemn and silent on either hand. The glare of the head-light
fell distorted on the ripples, and the lanterns of the brakemen evoked
twinkling reflections below. The dank vernal odors from the banks came in
on the breeze, and the wheels rolled slowly, and yet more slowly; they
were just beginning to accelerate their speed when one of the passengers,
glancing within to comment to a friend, saw the lithe young prisoner rise
suddenly and liberate his hand with a violent jerk, while his companion
in shackles with a hoarse cry, clutched frantically at him. The guard
turned with a start, as the young mountaineer, with an indescribably
swift and elastic bound, sprang through the window and caught the timbers
of the bridge. A violent jerk, a bell’s sharp jangle, and an abrupt
shiver ran through all the length of the train. Then the reflection
of the glare of the head-light and the lesser gleaming points in the
river were motionless. The train was at a stand-still in the middle of
the bridge. A wild clamor arose from many voices; the brakemen on the
platforms flashed their lanterns back and forth; a heavy body sprang into
the swift waters with a great splash, and the sharp crack of a pistol
echoed from the dark woods on either bank.
The startled passengers were treated to a fine display of conflicting
authorities as they poured out on the platform of the smoking-car, where
it seemed that the conductor of the train was laboring under the delusion
that he could arrest the deputy-sheriff of Cherokee County.
“You had no right to pull the bell-cord and stop my train,—and stop it on
the bridge!” he exclaimed.
“I’m bound ter ketch my prisoner!” cried the deputy-sheriff, wildly. “He
was handcuffed with this one, and he slipped his paw out somehow, an’
lept through the window, an’ perched thar on that timber o’ the bredge;
an’ I knowed he war expectin’ the train ter go right on, an’ I pulled the
rope ter stop it. I’d hev hed him,—I’d hev hed him, ef the durned Mink
hedn’t tuk ter the water! Lemme go! Lemme go!”
But the train was in motion again, slowly crossing the bridge, and the
officer could only rush to a window and look wildly over the waters,
illumined by the head-light and the glimmer of the moon, and fire at
devious black floating objects that showed resemblance to the head of a
swimming man struggling for his life. Several of the passengers derived
great sport from this unique target-shooting, and the quiet was invaded
with cries of excitement mingled with the reiterations of the pistol
pealing over the water. There! a fair shot! the object sinks,—only a
floating rail, for it is distinct as it rises once more to the surface;
and again the balls make havoc only among the ripples. The quarry
eludes,—eludes strangely. He must have had great practice in diving, or,
as one hopeful soul cries out, he must be at the bottom of the river.
Its current was placid enough when the train was safely on the other side
at a stand-still, and the people from the little log-cabin below climbed
the embankment to hear the cause of the unprecedented stoppage. The
bridge did not break on this occasion, but the old man is very sure they
cannot do this “fool trick” again.
Although the train waited for a time while the banks of the river were
patrolled, it was gone clanging on its way long before the rocks had
ceased to echo the tramp of excited horsemen and their hoarse cries, as
they beat the bushes in the neighboring woods, for the whole country-side
was roused. The opinion that the reckless young mountaineer had, in
leaping into the river, struck against some floating log, and had been
killed by the concussion, or had gone to the bottom among the bowlders
with a fatal force, gained ground as the day gradually dawned and no
trace of him was detected.
By degrees the search degenerated into the idler phases of morbid
curiosity. Many people visited the spot, ostensibly to join in the
effort, who stared at the bridge and speculated on its height, and
strolled up and down the banks, wondering futilely. Even when the sunset
was reddening the river; when the evening star was tangled in the boughs
of a white pine on the bank; when the sound of lowing kine was mellow on
the air; when the bridge doffed its massive aspect, and became illusory,
a shadow not more material than its shadow in the current below,—footing
for the moonbeams, lodgment for the dew, a perch for a belated bird,
familiar of the mist,—vague figures still lingered about the water-side,
and raucous voices grated on the evening air. But at last the darkness
slipped down; the train came and went; silence fell upon the river, save
for its own meditative, iterative voice, the croaking of frogs, and
the exquisite melody of the mocking-bird, as he sang in the slant of
the moonbeams glistening through fringes of the pines. A wind rose and
died away. The night was inexpressibly solitary. Far off a dog howled.
The constellations imperceptibly tended westward. And presently, in
the dark loneliness of the dead hour, something,—an otter, a musk-rat,
a mink?—some stealthy wild thing, stirred itself at the water’s edge,
beneath a broad ledge of the jagged, beetling rocks along the bank, under
the current, on the gravelly shallows. It made much commotion; the water
receded in widening circles far out toward the middle of the river,—a
scramble, a stroke or two, and it rose to its full height, and waded to
the shore; for it was the battered image of a man. He wore no hat; his
long locks hung in straight wisps down upon his shoulders. He glanced
about him continually with fearful eyes, as he hobbled stiffly up the
bank. Once he sat down on the roots of a tree in the shadow, and essayed
to draw off the great boots, heavy with water, and hampering his every
motion. But the leather, so long steeped, had swelled, and he could not
divest himself of them.
“Mought lose ’em, ennyhow, ef I war ter take ’em off,” he said, sturdily
adapting his optimism to the cumbrous impediments. And so he limped on.
He shivered in every limb. Over and again his breath seemed to fail him.
More than once his head whirled, and he leaned against a tree to steady
himself. The air was chill, but although the wind blew he was not sorry;
it would the earlier dry his garments.
“An’ I reckon I hev done cotch all the rheumatiz I kin hold, ennyways,
a-layin’ thar under the aidge o’ the ruver, half kivered with water fur a
night an’ a day.”
When the woods began to give way to fields he hung back, feeling desolate
and affrighted. How could he barter these sheltering shadows, this
nullifying darkness, for those wide, exposed spaces of the pasture? Its
dewy slope, with here and there an outcropping rock, but never a bush
nor a tree, lay under the slanting light of the moon. The mountains,
however, he knew were in that direction; and presently he took courage
to climb the fence, and with his hobbling shadow at his side,—from
which he sometimes shrunk with sudden fear, glancing over his shoulder
askance,—skulked across the grassy expanse, now in the melancholy sheen,
and now in the vague shade of a drifting cloud. There were sheep huddled
and white, at one side of the slope, all asleep, save one, that held its
head up and looked at him with a contemplative eye as he passed. A dog
seemed their only guardian. He did not bark, but came down toward the
stranger with a sinister growl. Mink had no fear of dogs, and somehow
they trusted him. The shepherd sniffed in surprise at his heels, bounded
up to lick his hand, followed with a wagging tail till he climbed the
fence, and regretfully saw him take his way down the road. For his
courage was renewed by its own achievements. He was bold enough presently
to invade a garden where potatoes had lately been planted, and he dug up
the sliced fragments, each carefully cut that it might contain two or
more “eyes.” He found, too, some turnips, and was greatly refreshed and
strengthened by his surreptitious meal. As he rose from the garden border
and turned away among the currant bushes, he was confronted suddenly by
the figure of a man. He sprang back, his heart plunging. He thought for a
moment that he was discovered. And yet—it stood so strangely still. Only
a suit of clothes stuffed with straw, and surmounted by an ancient and
battered hat.
Mink gazed gravely at the scarecrow, that had surpassed its evident
destiny in frightening that larger fowl, a jail-bird.
It might seem that with the weight of his heavy cares, the anguish of
his forlorn plight, the dispiriting influence of his imprisonment,
the jeopardy of his tortured freedom, his doubtful future,—exhausted,
chilled, sore,—he would find scant amusement or relish in the grotesque
image. One might wonder at the zest with which he applied himself, with
convulsive, feeble efforts, to uproot the pole that sustained it. He
conveyed it across the garden,—daring the dogs,—and placed the scarecrow
where it might seem to peer into the front window of the house. He stood
looking at it with intense satisfaction for a moment,—so like a man it
was! He could forecast how the women of the household would cry aloud
with terror when they should see it, how the mystified men would stare
and swear. He did not laugh; the feat in some other method satisfied his
sense of the ludicrous. It did not occur to him as a futile waste of
his time and strength,—of both he presently stood in sore need. For the
day was breaking when he still trudged between the zigzag lines of farm
fences, along a road that bore evidences of much travel, in a country
which he did not know, of which the only familiar objects were the dying
moon and the slowly developing outline of the Great Smoky Mountains, far
away.
“I’ll git ter Shaftesville in time ter stan’ my trial, ef I don’t mind,
’fore the dep’ty does,” he said to himself in a panic.
Nowhere were forests visible promising shelter. Here and there a limited
woods-lot lined the road; more often fields of corn, barely showing
tender sprouts above the ground, or stretches of winter wheat or millet,
or pastures. He was in the midst of a scene of exclusive agricultural
significance, when the startling sound of wagon wheels broke upon
the air, and the figure of a man driving a pair of strong mules rose
gradually from over the brow of the hill.
Mink’s clothes were already dry; his hair curled freshly once more, but
he was painfully conscious of the lack of his hat, and he knew that the
teamster’s eyes rested upon him in surprise. The man drew up his mules at
once. But the wily fugitive hailed him first.
“Howdy,” Mink remarked, advancing sturdily, putting one foot on the hub
of the front wheel and his hand on the off mule’s back, and looking
up with his bold, bright eyes at the driver. “Do you-uns hail from
nighabouts?”
“Down yander at Peters’ Cross-Roads,” responded the stranger promptly.
“I ax kase I ’lowed mebbe ye hed hearn some word o’ that thar prisoner ez
got away from the sher’ff o’ Cher’kee County,—Reuben Lorey.”
“_Mink_ Lorey, I hearn his name war,” corrected the teamster.
“Waal,”—Mink’s careless glance wandered aimlessly up and down the sunny
road,—“he oughter be named Mink, ef he ain’t; mean enough.”
“Ye’re ’quainted with him, I reckon,” said the teamster, still looking at
his hatless head.
“Mighty well! He hev gin me a heap o’ trouble. I dunno but I’d nigh ez
soon he’d be in the bottom o’ the Tennessee Ruver ez not. We-uns hail
from the same valley,—Hazel Valley.”
“What ye doin’ ’thout no hat?” demanded the saturnine, perplexed, and
vaguely suspicious man.
“Lost it in the ruver. Been fishin’. I hev been visitin’ some folks in
the flatwoods ez I be mighty well ’quainted with. I’m goin’ ter git me
another hat at the store.”
There was a pause.
“They ’low that thar man war drownded,” said the teamster, discursively.
“Waal,” said Mink, drawlingly, “I ’lowed I’d ax, so ez when I git ter
Hazel Valley I mought tell his folks a straight tale.”
The teamster’s wonderment, being satisfied as to the bare head of the
young fellow, he was eager to proceed on his journey. Certainly all
imaginable suspicions must have been allayed by the pertinacity with
which Mink hung upon the wheel, and talked about the rheumatism he feared
he had caught a-fishing, and declared he had found no sport in it.
Finally, with apparent reluctance, he took his foot from off the hub, and
the teamster was glad to go creaking along on his journey.
Although the danger was so successfully thwarted, the strain upon his
ingenuity, his nerves, and his presence of mind had told heavily upon
Mink’s reserve force of strength and courage. When at last he reached
the deep woods he was more dead than alive, as he flung himself down in
the hollow of a poplar-tree, struck long ago by lightning,—its great
length fallen, its branches burned, only its gigantic stump standing
to boast the proportions this chief of the savage wilds had borne. The
young mountaineer doubted, as he fell asleep, if he would ever wake.
But exhaustion did not prevail. Over and again, with a nervous start,
consciousness would seize upon him, and he would be himself long enough
to contrast his forlorn plight with the feignings of his dream, and so
sink again into troubled slumber. And yet it was with a deep satisfaction
that he gazed out at intervals upon the lonely crowded sylvan limits.
The underbrush closed about him; the great trees upreared their heads
against the sky, showing only a glimpse of the blue or a flake of the
burnished vernal sunshine. How restful the sight, how reassuring the
sound of the wind in the leaves! A squirrel frisked by, sleek and dapper,
with a brilliant, unaffrighted eye and a long curling tail. The familiar
creature seemed like a friend. “Howdy, mister,” observed Mink. “Ye air
one citizen ez I ain’t afeard on.”
But the squirrel came no more, although ever and anon Mink lifted
himself to look out. He noted the moss, green and gray, on the bark of a
rotting log; he started to hear the woodpecker tapping; he listened for
a time to a crested red-bird’s song, but its iteration was somnolent in
its effects, and when Mink next opened his eyes darkness enveloped the
world. He could hardly say whom he might be; he did not know where he
was. The oppression of his familiar cell in the Glaston jail filled his
consciousness until, as he groped about him, he felt the rotting sides of
the old tree and realized that he was free.
“I mus’ be a-travelin’,” he said to himself.
Free, but with so burning a pain in every limb that he could hardly
stand upon his feet; and what was this new misfortune? His forlorn boots
were bursting into fragments. As he staggered into the moonshine he
sat down, and putting one foot on his knee examined the sole in rueful
contemplation.
“Now don’t that thar beat kingdom come! Them boots war mighty nigh new
when I went ter jail, an’ I never stood on ’em none thar sca’cely. Mus’
hev been the soakin’ they got. I ain’t useter goin’ bar’foot lately, an’
how’ll I travel thirty mile this-a-way?”
It was at a slow gait that he hobbled along; now and then he stumbled,
and would have fallen but for his hasty clutch at a bush or a tree. His
feet were pierced by flints through the crevices of his boots, and he was
presently aware that he was marking his steps with his blood. He made
scant progress, although he struggled strenuously, and it was long before
day when he was fain to lie down in a rift in a great bank of rocks, and
recruit his wasted energies with sleep. “I hope I ain’t a-goin’ ter die
in sech a hole ez this,” he said, “ez ef I war a sure-enough mink. But
Laws-a-massy, what be I, ef I ain’t a mink?”
He laughed sarcastically as he turned himself over. He had evolved some
harsh theories of worldly inequalities. If he had knocked Jerry Price
or Ben Doaks senseless with a bit of iron, he argued, he would have
hardly been in jeopardy of arrest; the affair would perchance have been
chronicled by the gossips as “a right smart fight.” But he must forfeit
twenty years of his life for assaulting a man of Gwinnan’s quality. And
he had some bitter reflections to divert his mind, with the functions
of a counter-irritant, from his aching bones, his bleeding feet, his
overpowering sense of fatigue.
It was the next night—for he again lay hidden all day—that he at last
passed through the gap of the mountain and entered Eskaqua Cove. His
spirits had risen at the sight of the familiar things,—the foam on the
river dancing in the light of the moon, the dense solemn forests, the
great looming, frowning rocks. He hardly cared how steep the hillsides
were, how his sore feet burned and ached, how heavily he dragged his
weight. He could have cried aloud with joy when he beheld the little
foot-bridge which he knew so well, albeit he could scarcely stagger over
the narrow log; the low little house on the bank where Mrs. Purvine
lived. It was dark and silent under the silver moon, for the hour was
late, reckoning by rural habits,—about ten o’clock, he guessed. He
hesitated for a moment when he was in the road beside the fence. He
thought he might shorten the way by crossing the corn-field, for the
road made a bend below. He had climbed the fence and was well out in
the midst of the sprouting grain, when suddenly he started back. There
was a shadow coming to meet him. He could not flee. He could not hope
to escape observation. And yet, when he looked again, the dim figure
was curiously busy, and was not yet aware of his presence. It was the
figure of a woman, and he presently recognized Mrs. Purvine. Her head was
evidently much wrapped up against the night air, and her sun-bonnet was
fain to perch in a peaked attitude, in order to surmount the integuments
below; it was drawn down over her face, and by other means than the sight
of her countenance he identified her. It might seem an uncanny hour for
industry, but Mink could well divine that Mrs. Purvine had experienced
belated pangs of conscience concerning sundry rows of snap-beans, left
defenseless, save for her good wishes, against the frost. She was
engaged in covering them,—detaching a long board from a pile beside the
fence, and placing it with a large stone beneath either end above the
tender vegetable. Her shadow was doing its share, although it gave vent
to none of the pantings and puffings and sighs with which the flesh
protested, as it were, against the labor. It jogged along beside her on
the brown ground in dumpy guise, and stooped down, and rose up, and set
its arms akimbo to complacently observe the effect of the board, and
even wore a sun-bonnet at the same impossible angle. It started off with
corresponding alacrity to the pile to fetch another board for another
row, and was very busy as it stooped down to adjust a stone beneath. It
even sprang back and threw up both arms in sudden affright, when Mrs.
Purvine exclaimed aloud. For a deft hand had lifted the other end of the
board, and as she glanced around she saw a man kneeling on the mould and
placing the stone so that the delicate snap-beans might be sheltered.
“In the name o’ Moses!” faltered Mrs. Purvine between her chattering
teeth, as she rose to her feet, “air that thar Mink Lorey—or—or”—she
remembered how far away, how safe in jail, she had thought him—“or his
harnt?”
Mink turned his pallid face toward her. She saw the lustrous gleam of his
dark eyes.
He hesitated for a moment. Then, he could not resist. “I died ’bout two
weeks ago,” he drawled circumstantially.
Mrs. Purvine stood as one petrified for a moment. Then credulity revolted.
“Naw, Mink Lorey!” she said sternly. “Naw, sir! Ye ain’t singed nowhar.
Ef ye war dead, ye’d never hev got back onscorched.” She shook her
enveloped head reprehensively at him.
Regret had seized upon him. The fleeting privilege of frightening Mrs.
Purvine scarcely compensated for the risks he felt he ran in revealing
himself.
He stood silent and grave enough as she set her arms akimbo and gazed
speculatively at him.
“How d’ ye git out’n jail?” she demanded.
“Through thar onlockin’ the door,” said Mink.
Mrs. Purvine knitted her puzzled brows.
“War they willin’ fur ye ter leave?” she asked, seeking to fathom the
mystery.
“Waal, Mis’ Purvine,” equivocated the fugitive, jauntily, “I ain’t never
fund nobody, nowhar, right up an’ down _willin’_ fur me to leave ’em.
They hed ter let me go, though.”
“Waal, sir!” exclaimed Mrs. Purvine, with the accent of disappointment.
“I never b’lieved ez Jedge Gwinnan war in earnest whenst he promised
Lethe Sayles ter git ye pardoned. Whenst she kem back rej’icin’ over it
so, I ’lowed the jedge war jes’ laffin’ at her.”
The man, staring at her with unnaturally large and brilliant eyes,
recoiled suddenly, and his shadow seemed to revolt from her words. “Jedge
Gwinnan! pardon!” he cried, contemptuously, his voice rising shrilly into
the quiet night. “He got me no pardon! I’d hev none off’n him, damn him!
I’d bide in the prison twenty year, forty year,—I’d rot thar,—afore I’d
take enny faviors out’n _his_ hand! Lord! let me lay my grip on that man
one more time, an’ hell an’ all the devils can’t pull me off!”
His strength failed to support his excitement. He staggered to the pile
of boards and leaned against them, panting. Mrs. Purvine noted how white
his face was, how exhausted his attitude.
“Ye ’pear sorter peaked,” she remarked, prosaically, “an’ ye walk
toler’ble cripple.”
“Yes,” observed Mink, with his wonted manner, “it ’peared ter me a
toler’ble good joke ter jump off the middle o’ the bredge inter the
Tennessee Ruver. But it turned out same ez mos’ o’ my jokes,—makes me
laugh on the wrong side o’ my mouth.”
Mrs. Purvine began to understand. Her lower jaw dropped. “Whar hev ye hed
ennything ter eat?” she demanded, with bated breath.
“Waal,” said Mink, argumentatively, “eatin’ ’s a powerful expensive
business; we-uns would all save a heap ef we’d quit eatin’.”
Mrs. Purvine received this in pondering silence. Then she broke forth
suddenly:—
“Ye air a outdacious, sassy, scandalous mink, an’ I hev ’lowed ez much
fur many a year, but I never looked ter see the time when ye’d kem an’
prop yerse’f up in my gyarden-spot, an’ look me in the eye, an’ call me
stingy. How war I ter know ye warn’t ez full ez a tick, ye impident
half-liver? I kin see ez ye ain’t fat in no-wise, but how kin I tell by
the creases in a man’s face what he hed fur dinner?”
“Laws-a-massy, Mis’ Purvine!” exclaimed Mink, truly contrite for the
untoward interpretation which his words seemed to bear. “I never meant
sech ez that. Ef it hed been enny ways nigh cookin’ time, I’d hev kem
right in,—ef I hedn’t been afraid ye’d tell on me,—an’ axed ye fur a
snack. Ain’t I eat hyar time an’ agin along o’ Jerry Price? I hev hed a
heap o’ meals from you-uns,—more ’n ye know ’bout, fur I hev treated yer
water-million patch ez ef it hed been my own.”
If Mrs. Purvine was placated, she did not at once manifest the fact.
“What d’ye know ’bout cookin’ time, or cookin’, ye slack-twisted, lazy,
senseless critter? Jes’ kerry yer bones right inter that thar door, fur
eat ye hev got ter. In Moses’s name!” she ejaculated piteously, “the boy
kin sca’cely walk.”
But Mink hesitated. “I don’t wanter see Jerry,” he said. “I dunno what
Jerry mought think ’bout’n it all.”
“Jerry’s dead asleep, an’ so air all the boys,” declared the industrious
Mrs. Purvine. “Ye reckon ye air goin’ ter find ennybody up this time o’
night ’ceptin’ a hard-workin’ old woman like me? I can’t be no surer o’
ye ’n I be a’ready. Go ’long in, ’fore I set Bose on ye.”
He was sorry for himself,—to gauge the joy, the comfort, that the very
sight of the humble and familiar room afforded him. The fire had been
covered with ashes, but Mrs. Purvine promptly pulled out the coals and
piled on the pine knots, and the white flare showed the low-ceiled
apartment, the walls covered with the old advertisements; the puncheon
floor; the many strings of pepper and hanks of yarn hanging from the
beams, and the quilting-frame clinging to them like a huge bat; the two
high beds; the glister of the ostentatious mirror; the prideful clock,
silent on the shelf. As the interior became brilliantly illuminated, Mink
looked suspiciously at the glass in the windows; he experienced a relief
to note that the batten shutters were closed.
“I didn’t want nobody ter git a glimge o’ me,” he said, “’kase I
dunno but what they mought try ter hold ye ’sponsible fur feedin’ me,
cornsiderin’ I be a runaway.”
“They ain’t never ter goin’ ter find out ez ye hev been hyar now,” said
Mrs. Purvine.
“They mought ax ye,” suggested Mink.
“Waal, lies air healthy.” Mrs. Purvine accommodated her singular ethics
to many emergencies. “Church-yards air toler’ble full, but thar ain’t
nobody thar ez died from tellin’ lies. Not but what I’m a perfessin’
member,” she qualified, with a qualm of conscience, “an’ hev renounced
deceit in gineral; but ef ennybody kems hyar inquirin’ roun’ ’bout my
business,—what I done with this little mite o’ meat, an’ that biscuit,
an’ the t’other pot o’ coffee,—I answer the foolish accordin’ ter his
folly, like the Bible tells me, an’ send him reji’cin’ on his way.”
Mink, his every fear relieved, thought it a snug haven after the storms
that he had weathered, as he sat in Mrs. Purvine’s own rocking-chair, and
felt the grateful warmth of the blaze. He had hardly hoped ever again to
know the simple domestic comforts of the chimney-corner. The coffee put
new life into him, and after he had eaten the hot ash cake and bacon,
broiled on the coals, he took, at her insistence, another cup, and drank
it as she sat opposite him near the hearth. In this last potation she
joined him, having poured her coffee into a gourd, to save the trouble,
as she explained, of washing another cup and saucer.
“How do Lethe keep her health?” he asked.
“Fust-rate,” said Mrs. Purvine. Her tone had changed. She looked at him
speculatively from under the brim of her sun-bonnet, which she wore much
of the time in the house. “She air peart an’ lively ez ever.”
His lip curled slightly. He was sarcastic and critical concerning
Alethea’s mental attitude,—the reaction, perhaps, of much rebuke and
criticism received at her hands.
“I reckon she ain’t missed me none, then?” he hazarded.
“Waal, she never seen much o’ you-uns las’ summer, bein’ ez ye war
constant in keepin’ company with Elviry then; though she’s missed ye
cornsider’ble. Ye needn’t never ’low the gals will furgit ye, Mink,”
she added graciously. “The las’ time Lethe seen Jedge Gwinnan she war
a-beggin’ him fur ye,—an’ he promised, too. Lethe’s pretty enough ter
make a man do mos’ ennything,—leastwise these hyar town folks think so.”
The color had sprung into Mink’s face. He stood up for a moment,
searching for Jerry’s tobacco on the mantelpiece. He lighted his pipe by
a coal which he scooped up with the bowl, and as he put the stem between
his lips he looked hard at Mrs. Purvine’s placid face, as she drank her
coffee from the gourd, and meditatively swung her foot; the right knee
was crossed over the left; the other foot was planted squarely upon the
floor; a narrow section of a stout gray stocking was visible above a
leather shoe, laced incongruously with a white cotton cord, the kitten
having carried off its leather string, and Mrs. Purvine continually
“disremembering,” to more properly supply its place.
“Ben Doaks,—air he still thinkin’ ’bout marryin’ Lethe?” demanded Mink
between a series of puffs.
“Ef he air, he air barkin’ up the wrong tree, I kin tell ye!” exclaimed
Mrs. Purvine, angrily. “Lethe Sayles air goin’ ter marry a town
man,—leastwise that’s what all the kentry air sayin’. He ’lows she be
plumb beautiful! An’ I always did think so, though she air my own niece,”
as if this ought to be an obstacle. “I names no names,”—which would have
been difficult, under the circumstances,—“but he air a town man, an’ hev
got a high place, an’ air well off. Some folks don’t keer nuthin’ ’bout
money, but I ain’t one of ’em. An’ he air o’ good folks,—fust-rate stock;
an’ I sets store on fambly, too.”
Mink was leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees; his eyes burned
upon her face; his pipe-stem was quivering in his gaunt hand.
“Whar did she meet up with him?”
“Down in Shaftesville, when she went ter testify fur you-uns,” said Mrs.
Purvine. Then, with her sudden felicity of inspiration. “He seen her fust
in the court-room, an’ he war smitten at sight.”
She could not accurately define the impression she was making. But
she grew a little frightened as she watched the keen, clear-cut face,
changing unconsciously, responsive to her intimations: his wild dark
eyes, in no sort tamed or dimmed, dwelt steadily on the white vistas of
the fire; his fine red hair was tossed back, curling on his collar. As
she looked at him, constrained to note how handsome he was, she wished
very heartily, poor woman, that that mythical fortunate suitor had added
to the charming qualities with which she had endowed him the simple
essential, existence.
Mink burst suddenly into a satiric laugh, startling to hear. Mrs. Purvine
turned upon him, the gourd trembling in her hand.
“Ye ain’t got no manners, Mink Lorey,” she said, trying to resume her
note of superficial severity. “What be ye a-laffin’ at?”
“Jes’ at thoughts,” he said enigmatically; “thoughts!”
“Thoughts ’bout me, I’ll be bound,” said Mrs. Purvine aggressively.
“Naw; jes’ ’bout Lethe an’ that thar town man.” He whirled from the fire,
and walked up and down the floor with his hands in his pockets.
“Waal, don’t ye say no mo’ ’bout’n him,” said Mrs. Purvine, desirous of
contemplating him no longer, “an’ don’t ye ax me who he be—fur I won’t
tell ye!”
“Thar ain’t no need ter ax ye; I _know_.”
Mrs. Purvine pondered on this for a moment. She forgot it in her effort
to persuade the young fellow to accept the hospitalities of the spare
bedroom, of which she was so proud. “Ye kin jest stay in thar all night,
Mink, an’ all ter-morrer. Ye won’t wake up fur no breakfus’ arter the
tramp ye hev hed, an’ a long sleep’ll ease yer bones. An’ ter-morrer
night, ’bout ten o’clock, arter all the chill’n hev gone ter sleep
I’ll gin ye a good meal, an’ ye kin set out, heartened up an’ strong.
I’d ruther Jerry an’ the boys didn’t know ’bout yer bein’ hyar, ’kase
I dunno what the law does ter folks ez holps them ez be runnin’ from
jestice—or injestice; ’bout the same thing, ez fur ez I kin make out. An’
I don’t want them ter git inter trouble.”
“Mebbe the sher’ff’ll kem arter you-uns,” Mink warned her.
“Waal, I’ll tell him I ain’t got no time to waste, an’ ter take himself
off the way he kem;” and Mrs. Purvine dismissed the imaginary officer
with a lofty sniff.
It seemed to Mrs. Purvine, the next day, that many immediate requisites
were stowed away temporarily in the bedroom. She was continually on the
alert to prevent Jerry or the boys from invading it. “Keep out’n that
thar bedroom. I ain’t keerin’ ef ye _ain’t_ got no symblin’ seed. I ain’t
goin’ ter let ye s’arch _thar_. I hev got all my fine quilts what I
pieced myself—’ceptin’ with a leetle help from Lethe Sayles—a-hangin’ up
thar ter air. Hang ’em up in the sun, ye say? Who d’ye reckon wants ter
fade them gay colors out?”
When at last Jerry desisted in deference to this new strange whim, one of
the boys was beset with anxiety to get his shoes which he had set away
there.
“That’s the way the shoe-leather goes,—walkin’ on it,” said aunt Dely
reasonably. “Naw, sir! save them soles, an’ go bar’foot. The weather’s
warm now.”
The youngest, the most pertinacious and hard to resist, was tumultuous to
get a certain “whang o’ leather” which Bluff needed to complete his gear,
in order to continue ploughing.
“I ain’t a-keerin’ ef one o’ Bluff’s horns war lef’ in thar, an’ he
couldn’t wink without it. I ain’t goin’ ter hev them quilts disturbed.”
She presently became drowsy, because of her long vigil of the preceding
night, and placed her chair before the door that no one might enter
without rousing her, and thus, a solemn sentinel, she alternately knitted
and nodded away the afternoon.
It was a great relief to her when the house was still, the family all
asleep, and the fugitive’s meal prepared. She had taken special pains
with it, albeit she went about it yawningly, and had filled a tin pail
with provisions that he might carry with him.
She waited ten minutes or so after all was ready. She listened as she
knelt on the hearth. There was no sound from within but the stertorous
breathing of the sleepers in the roof-room. From without only the murmur
of the river, the croaking of a frog, the stir of the wind came in at the
open back door, through which she could see the white moonshine, lying
in lonely splendor upon the dark, prosaic expanse of the newly ploughed
fields. She rose and closed it, that the fugitive might not be revealed
to the casual eye of any nocturnal fisherman, striking through her domain
on his way to the river bank. Then she went to the bedroom door.
As she tapped on it, the door moved under the pressure, and she saw that
it was unbuttoned on the inside. “That thar keerless boy ought ter hev
buttoned this door!” she exclaimed. “The sher’ff could hev gone right in
and nabbed him whilst he war asleep. Ye Mink! _Mink!_”
There was no answer.
“Waal, sir! I never seen the beat.” Then in imperative crescendo, “_Ye
Mink!_”
She pushed the door open, presently. The moonlight slanted through the
porch and into the little bedroom, revealing the bed, empty, the room
deserted save for Mrs. Purvine’s rows of dresses hanging by the neck, and
the piles of quilts on a shelf, rising in imposing proportions to attest
her industry and a little help from Lethe Sayles.
He had fled,—when, why? She could not say; she could not imagine. She
stood staring, with a vacillating expression on her face. She was ready
for an outburst of futile anger, could she construe it as one of his
minkish tricks; he might even now be far away, laughing to picture how
she would look when she would stand at the open door and find the room
empty. Her face reddened at the thought. But perhaps, she argued, more
generously, he had taken some alarm, and fled for safety.
Mrs. Purvine had had no experience in keeping secrets, and her colloquial
habits were such as did not tend to cultivate the gift. More than once,
the next day, as she pondered on the mysterious disappearance of Mink,
she would drop her hands and exclaim in meditative wonderment, “Waal!
waal! waal! This worl’! This worl’! an’ a few mo’ ekal ter it.”
It went hard with her to resist the curious questionings that this
demonstration was calculated to excite. But when asked what she was
talking about she would only reply in enigmatical phrase, “Laros to
ketch meddlers!” and shake her head unutterably. Nevertheless, when it
became evident that her household had exhausted all their limited wiles
to elicit the mystery of which she seemed suddenly and incomprehensibly
possessed, and had reluctantly desisted, her resolution grew weaker
instead of stronger, and she was bereft of a piquant interest in their
queries and guesses. She began herself to play around the dangerous
subject; her remarks seemed to excite no suspicion and no surprise, and
thus she was astonished in her turn.
“I wonder, Jerry,” she said, as he and she, their pipes freshly lighted
after supper, strolled about the “gyarden-spot” to note how the truck was
thriving, Bose and a comrade or two at their heels,—“I wonder how high
that thar new bredge be over the Tennessee Ruver?”
“Never medjured it,” returned Jerry, his eyes twinkling as they met her
serious gaze.
“Ye g’ ’long!” exclaimed Mrs. Purvine tartly. She was addressing only
the unfilial spirit that prompted his reply, for she had no intention of
dismissing the audience, as she resumed at once in her usual tone. “Waal,
from all ye hev hearn, wouldn’t ye ’low ez ennybody jumpin’ off’n it war
’bleeged ter break thar neck?” she argued.
“I’d hev thunk so,” admitted Jerry, “but it seems not.”
She looked sharply at him from over her spectacles as she canvassed his
reply. It must have been accident. How could he know aught of Mink? She
was for a moment so impressed with a sense of danger here that she took
refuge in silence.
“Them peas’ll hev ter be stuck afore long,” Jerry remarked presently,
complacent in their growth.
But the simple pleasures of a garden were too insipid to enchain the
interest of the sophisticated Mrs. Purvine; her mind reverted to her
burning secret and the many speculations to which it gave rise. She
hardly noted the red sky, stretching so far above the purple mountains;
the river, with reflections of gold and pink amidst its silver glinting.
In the south Procyon, star of ill-omen, swung in the faint blue spaces. A
whip-poor-will sang. Darkness impended.
Once more she skirted the forbidden topic.
“Waal, I wouldn’t advise nobody ter try it.” She was alluding not to the
industrial necessity of sticking the peas, but to jumping off the bridge.
“Naw, sir,” Jerry assented quietly. “’Bout some things Mink ’pears ter
hev the devil’s own luck, though ginerally they run agin him. I reckon
nobody but Mink could hev lept from that bredge an’ swum out’n the ruver
’thout gittin’ cotched.”
Mrs. Purvine trembled from head to foot. As she turned her face toward
him the light of the evening struck upon her glittering spectacles in the
depths of her sun-bonnet, and it seemed a fiery and penetrating gaze she
bent on her adopted son.
“In the name o’ Moses, Jerry Price!” she solemnly adjured him. “How did
you-uns know ennything ’bout Mink Lorey?”
“Same way ye did,” said Jerry, in the accents of surprise.
Mrs. Purvine sat down abruptly on the pile of boards beside the fence.
Jerry, astonished at her evident agitation, proceeded:
“Yer mem’ry air failin’ surely, ef ye hev furgot ez the dep’ty sher’ff
tole us ’bout’n it yestiddy,—rid his critter right up thar ter the side
o’ the fence, an’ I lef’ Bluff whar I war a-ploughin’ an’ went down an’
talked ter him.”
“What war I a-doin’ of?” demanded Mrs. Purvine, feebly.
“Ye war settin’ knittin’ right in front o’ the bedroom door,—ter keep
we-uns from raidin’ in on them quilts ez ye war airin’ in the bedroom
whar thar ain’t no air.”
Mrs. Purvine breathed more freely. She had a vague memory of hearing a
man hallooing at the fence, and of seeing Jerry running to meet him; the
rest was lost in the deep slumber which she called “dozin’ off,” as she
sat sentinel in front of the door.
“I mus’ hev been noddin’,” she said, trembling again at the idea that the
sheriff and the prisoner had been at such close quarters. “I never hearn
none o’ it.”
“Waal,” explained Jerry, “he hed traced Mink up somewhar nighabouts. An’
he war mighty keen ter ketch him. He ’lowed Mink war a turrible fool ter
hev runned off, kase they hedn’t lef’ Glaston more’n two hours ’fore
Mink’s pardon kem. Jedge Gwinnan hed gone an’ beset the gov’nor, an’ tole
him ’twar a plumb mistake, an’ Mink warn’t no reg’lar jail-bird, nor
hardened critter, nor nuthin’ but a simple country boy. An’ he’d hed a
reg’lar martyrdom o’ injestice, an’ sech. An’ the ’sault war jes’ a boy’s
hittin’ a feller ez he ’lowed war gittin’ the better o’ him. ’Twarn’t
’count o’ the trial. He war jes’ jealous. Jedge Gwinnan ’lowed ez the
fight war mighty onfair, kase Mink war chained an’ he warn’t. An’ he
wouldn’t hev let him be prosecuted ef he could hev knowed it in time ter
hev holped it. An’ ez Mink’s case hed been affirmed by the S’preme Court
the gov’nor pardoned him. Skeggs ’lowed folks say the gov’nor war right
down glad ter do it, kase he hev hed ter be toler’ble hard on some folks
lately ez applied fur pardons; an’ he war glad Mink’s case kem along,
kase he didn’t want ter git onpop’lar, an’ ter ’pear set agin mercy ez a
constancy.”
“Waal! waal!” exclaimed Mrs. Purvine, divided between surprise and an
effort to gauge the effect of this intelligence on the prisoner listening
in the little room.
“Skeggs ’lowed ’twar mighty mean in Mink ter hide out an’ leave him ter
ketch all the consequences,—he air ’sponsible fur the ’scape,—kase they
don’t want Mink fur nuthin’ now but that thar leetle case ’bout’n the
mill, an’ everybody knows Tad ain’t dead, an’ Mink never bust down the
mill nohow. Mr. Harshaw ’lows he seen Tad when he war huntin’ up in the
mountings. An’ Lethe, she seen him. An’ Skeggs air honin’ an’ moanin’
’bout’n it, an’ ’lows Mink mought kem an’ be tried, ef he hed the feelins
o’ a man stiddier a mink.”
Mrs. Purvine rose slowly, and bent her meditative steps toward the door,
wondering all the more why Mink should have disappeared so mysteriously,
cognizant as he must have been of how his dangers had lessened, whither
he had gone, with what purpose.
“Aunt Dely,” said Jerry, suddenly, following her slowly, “how did ye know
ennything ’bout Mink, ef ye never hearn Skeggs tell it?”
“Jerry Price,” said Mrs. Purvine, sternly, “ef ye hed been raised by yer
aunt Melindy Jane, I’ll be bound ye’d hev larned better’n ter ax fool
questions with every breath ye draw.”