was in the height of the excitement of making the morning coffee. An
opportunity for a word might possibly occur during the making of the
coffee for dinner or supper. Miss Penelope did not consider this
function quite so solemn a ceremony at dinner or supper time. Sometimes,
at rare intervals, she had been known to allow the coffee for dinner or
supper to be made by the cook in the kitchen. But the making of the
breakfast coffee was a very different and far more imposing ceremonial.
This must always be performed in the presence of the, entire assembled
household, by her own hand, on the wide hearth in the great room of
Cedar House. To have permitted the cook to make the morning coffee in
the kitchen, would have been in Miss Penelope's eyes, to relegate a
sacred rite to profane hands in an unconsecrated place. Her own making
of the morning coffee had indeed much of the solemnity of a religious
ceremony--or would have had, if those who looked on, had been unable to
hear, or even slightly dull of hearing. For the sound of Miss Penelope's
voice was charming when the listener could not hear what it said. And
her dulcet tone always ran through the whole performance like the faint,
sweet echo of distant music. But when the listener's ears were keen, and
he could hear the things that this kind, caressing voice was saying, the
threats that it was uttering!--They were alarming enough to curdle the
blood of the little cup-bearers, black, brown, and yellow, who always
flew like shuttles back and forth between the big house and the distant
kitchen while Miss Penelope was making the breakfast coffee. It required
much flying of small dusky legs, to and fro, before the cold water was
cold enough, the hot water hot enough, and the fresh egg fresh enough,
to satisfy Miss Penelope that the coffee would be all that it should be.
On this particular morning the usual excitement had reached its crisis
as Ruth came down the stairs. There was usually a slight lull when the
first slender and almost invisible column of steam arose from the long
spout of the coffee-pot. That was the most critical moment, and it now
being safely past, Miss Penelope hastily sent away all the cup-bearers
in a body. But she still hovered anxiously over the pot, gravely
considering how many minutes longer it should rest on its trivet over
the glowing coals. Hers was a quaint little figure. She wore a queer
little black dress, very short and narrow, made after some peculiar
fashion of her own, and over it a queerer little cape of the same stuff.
Her cap on the other hand was singularly large and white, and the ruffle
around her face was very wide and very stiff. The snapping black eyes
under the ruffle were never still, and the clawlike little hands were
never at rest. David in his idle way used to wonder what she worried
about and fidgeted over in her sleep. But it was hard to think of her
asleep; it would have been easier to fancy a sleeping weasel.
Nevertheless the boy liked Miss Penelope. Ruth and he had learned while
they were little children, that there was no unkindness in the snapping
of her sharp little black eyes, and that the terrible things she said
were as harmless as heat lightning. Even the little cup-bearers, black,
brown, and yellow, all knew how kind-hearted she was, and did not mind
in the least the most appalling threats uttered by her sweet, soft
voice. She always gave them something before she sent them flying back
to the cabins. Everybody liked her better than the widow Broadnax who
never scolded or meddled and indeed, rarely spoke at all to any one upon
any subject. For the household had long since come to understand that
this lady, like many another of her kind, was silent mainly because she
had nothing to say; and that she never found fault, simply because she
did not care. Indifference like hers often passes for amiability; and
that sort of motionless silence conceals a vacuum quite as often as it
covers a deep. Only one thing ever fully aroused the widow Broadnax; and
this was to see her half-sister taking authority in her own brother's
house. And indeed, that were enough to rouse the veriest mollusk of a
woman. In the case of the widow Broadnax this natural feeling was not at
all affected by the fact that she was too indolent to make the exertion
to claim and fill her rightful place as mistress of the house. It did
not matter in the least that she lay and slept like a sloth while poor
little Miss Penelope was up and working like a beaver. No woman's claims
ever have anything to do with her deserts; perhaps no man's ever have
either; perhaps all who claim most deserve least. At all events, it was
perfectly natural that the widow Broadnax should feel as truly and
deeply aggrieved at her half-sister's ruling her own brother's house, as
if she, herself, had been the most energetic and capable of
housekeepers.
On that morning her dull eyes kept an unwavering, unwinking watch over
the coffee making; as they always did over every encroachment upon her
rights. Her heavy eyelids were only partially lifted, yet not a movement
of Miss Penelope's restless little body, not a gesture of her nervous
little hands was allowed to escape. Now that the coffee was nearly
ready, Miss Penelope had become rather more composed. She still stood
guard over the coffee-pot; she never left it till she carried it to the
table with her own hands, but she was lapsing into a sort of spent
silence. She merely sighed at intervals with the contented weariness
that comes from a sense of duty well done. But her half-sister still
eyed her as a fat, motionless spider eyes a buzzing little fly which is
ceasing to flutter. Miss Penelope had not observed a large pewter cup
resting on the floor near the widow Broadnax's chair. It had been left
there by a careless servant, who had used a portion of the mixture of
red paint and sour buttermilk with which it was filled, to give the wide
hearth its fine daily gloss. Miss Penelope had not observed it because
she was always oblivious to everything else while hanging over the
coffee-pot. The widow Broadnax had seen the cup at once because it was
slightly in the way of her foot; and she was quick enough to notice the
least discomfort. But she had not immediately perceived the longed-for
opportunity which it gave her. That came like an inspiration a few
moments later, when Miss Penelope was off guard for an instant. Her back
was turned only long enough for her to go to the table and see if the
tray was ready for the coffee-pot, but the widow Broadnax found this
plenty of time. With a quickness truly surprising in one of her habitual
slowness, she swooped down and seized the cup of buttermilk and paint.
In a flash she lifted the lid of the coffee-pot, poured the contents of
the cup in the coffee, set the empty cup down in its place, and was back
again, resting among the cushions as if she had never stirred, when poor
little Miss Penelope, all unsuspecting, returned to her post.
"You really must get up, Sister Molly," that lady said resolutely,
renewing an altercation. "I hid the pantry keys under your chair
cushions at supper, last night. That's always the safest place. But I
forgot to take them out before you sat down. And you must get up--there
isn't enough sugar for the coffee."
"Let me," said Ruth, coming forward with a smile, in her pretty, coaxing
way.
When the antagonism between the sisters broke into open hostility, it
was nearly always she who managed to soothe them and restore a temporary
semblance of peace--for beyond that no mortal power could go. She now
prevailed upon the widow Broadnax to rise with her assistance, thus
securing the keys, and when that lady was once on her feet she was
easier to move, so that Ruth now led her to her place at the breakfast
table without further trouble. There was, however, always more or less
trouble about the place itself. It was but woman nature to feel it to be
very hard for a whole sister to sit at the side of the table while a
half sister sat at its head. The judge always did what he could to spare
her feelings, and Miss Penelope's at the same time. He was a bachelor,
and held women in the half-gallant, half-humorous regard which sets the
bachelor apart from the married man, and places him at a disadvantage
which he is commonly unaware of. The judge thought he understood the
distinctively feminine weaknesses particularly well, and that he made
uncommonly large allowance for them, as the bachelor always thinks and
never does. And then when the quarrel reached a crisis, and he was
entirely at the end of his resources for keeping the peace, he could
always threaten to take to the woods, and that usually brought a short
truce.
"Ruth, my dear, what's all this about some stranger's bringing you home
last night?" he inquired, taking his seat at the foot of the table.
"Where were you, William? and what were you doing? You shouldn't have
taken Ruth to such a place, or anywhere, if you couldn't take care of
her," with unusual severity.
Ruth sprang to William's defence. She said that it was not his fault.
They were separated by the crowd. He had done his best, and all that any
one could have done.
"I made William take me. He didn't want to do it. And I am not sorry
that I went, although I was so much frightened at the time. Without
seeing it, no one can ever know what this strange and awful thing is
like. No description can possibly describe it," she said, with darkening
eyes and rising color.
"A most shocking and improper scene," said William Pressley, as one who
weighs his words. "A most shocking and improper scene."
Ruth looked at him wonderingly.
"Shocking--improper!" she faltered, perplexedly. "What a strange way to
think of it. To me it was a great, grave, terrible spectacle. The awe of
it overwhelmed me, alarmed as I was. Why, it was like seeing the Soul
universal--bared and quivering."
William Pressley said nothing more. He never discussed anything. Once he
had spoken, the subject seemed to him finally disposed of.
"Great Grief!" cried Miss Penelope in the blankest amazement and the
greatest dismay. "For the land's sake!"
As the faithful high-priestess of the coffee-pot she was always the
first to taste her own brew. She now set her cup down hastily. Her red,
wrinkled little face was a study. The widow Broadnax, whose cup was
untouched, sat silent and impassive as usual, regarding her with the
same dull, half-open, unwinking gaze.
"What under the sun!" gasped Miss Penelope, still more and more amazed
and dismayed, and growing angry as she rallied from the shock.
"Come, come!--if I can't eat breakfast in peace, I'll take to the woods.
What's the matter?" exclaimed the judge. "Didn't you get the coffee made
to suit you, after all that rumpus? Isn't it good?"
"Good!" shrieked Miss Penelope. "It's poisoned, I do believe! Don't
drink it, any of you, if you value your lives!"
"Oh, nonsense!" said the judge. "You are too hard to please, Sister
Penelope. And you spoil the rest of us, making the coffee yourself.
Never mind--never mind!"
He took a sip and made a wry face, but he hardly ever knew what he was
eating, and pushing the cup back, forgot all about it. He was more
interested in Ruth's account of the meeting, and asked many questions
about her ride home.
"This young doctor must be a fine fellow," he said. "I have been hearing
a good deal about him from Father Orin. They are already great friends,
it seems. They meet often among the poor and the sick, and work
together. I hope, my dear, that you thought to ask him to call. You
remembered, didn't you, to tell him that the latch-string of Cedar House
always hangs on the outside? I want to thank him and then I should like
to know such a man. He is an addition to the community."
"Oh, yes, I thought of that, of course," said Ruth, simply. "I told him
I knew you and William would like to thank him. He is coming to-day. I
hope, uncle Robert, that you will be here when he does come."
"I shall be here to thank him," said William. "Uncle need take no
trouble in the matter. I will do all that is necessary."
A woman must be deeply in love before she likes to hear the note of
ownership in a man's voice when speaking of herself. Ruth was not at all
in love--in that way--although she did not yet know that she was not.
The delicate roses of her cheeks deepened suddenly to the tint of the
rich red ones which she held again in her hands. Her blue eyes darkened
with revolt, and she gave William a clear, level look, throwing up her
head. Then her soft heart smote her, and her gentle spirit reproached
her. She believed William Pressley to be a good man, and she was ever
ready to feel herself in the wrong. She got up in a timid flurry and
went to the door and stood a moment looking out at the sun-lit river.
Presently she quietly returned, and shyly pausing behind William's
chair, rested her hand on the back of it. There was a timid apology in
the gesture. She was thinking only of her own shortcomings. Had she been
critical of him or even observant, she would have seen that there was
something peculiarly characteristic in the very way that he handled his
knife and fork; a curious, satisfied self-consciousness in the very
lift of his wrists which seemed to say that this, and no other, was the
correct manner of eating, and that he disapproved of everybody else's
manner. But she saw nothing of the kind, for hers was not the poor
affection that stands ever ready to pick flaws. He did not know that she
was near him until the judge spoke to her; and then he sprang to his
feet at once. He was much too fine a gentleman to keep his seat while
any lady stood. Ruth smilingly motioned him back to his chair, and going
round the table, leant over the judge's shoulder. He had been examining
a packet of legal papers, and he laid a yellow document before her,
spreading it out on the table-cloth.
"You were asking the other day about the buffalo--when they were here,
and so on. Now, listen to this old note of hand, dated the fifteenth of
October, seventeen hundred and ninety-two, just nineteen years ago. Here
it is: 'For value Rec'd, I promise to pay Peter Wilson or his Agent,
twenty pounds worth of good market Buffalo Beef free from Boone, to be
delivered at Red Banks on the Ohio River, or at aney other place that he
or his shall salt beef on the banks of said river, and aney time in the
ensuing fawl before this fawl's hunting is over.' There now, my dear!
That would seem to prove that there were plenty of buffalo hereabouts
not long ago. A hundred dollars in English gold must have bought a
large amount of wild meat. If this meant Virginia pounds it was still a
great deal. And the hunter who drew this note must have known how he was
going to pay it."
"Rachel Robards says there were lots of buffalo when she came," said
Miss Penelope, who was gradually recovering from the shock of tasting
the coffee, and now prudently thought best to say no more about the
matter. "I always call her Rachel Robards, because I knew her so well by
that name. I am not a-disputing her marriage with General Jackson. If
she wasn't married to him when she first thought she was, she is now,
hard and fast enough. I have got nothing to say about that one way or
another. As a single woman, it don't become me to be a-talking about
such matters. But married or not married, I have always stood up for
Rachel Robards. Lewis Robards would have picked a fuss with the Angel
Gabriel, let alone a fire-eater like Andrew Jackson. Give the devil his
due. But all the same, if Andrew Jackson does try to chastise Peter
Cartwright for what he said last night, there's a-going to be trouble.
Now mark my word! I know as well, and better than any of you, that Peter
is only a boy. Many's the time that I've seen his mother take off her
slipper and turn him across her lap. And she never hit him a lick amiss,
either. But that's neither here nor there. His being young don't keep me
from seeing that he has surely got the Gift. It don't make any
difference that he hasn't cut his wisdom teeth, as they say. What if he
hasn't?" demanded Miss Penelope, with the most singular contrast between
her mild tone and her fierce words. "What has the cutting of wisdom
teeth got to do with preaching, when the preacher has been given the
Gift!"
So speaking, she suddenly started up from the table with an exclamation
of surprise, and ran to the open door.
"Peter! Oh, Peter Cartwright!" she called. "Wait--stop a minute. To
think of your going by right at the very minute that we were a-talking
about you!"
She went out under the trees where the square-built, stern-faced,
swarthy young preacher had brought his horse to a standstill.
"Now, Peter, you surely ain't a-going up to the court-house to see
Andrew Jackson," she said in sudden alarm.
"No, no, not now," said Peter, hurriedly. "I am riding fast to keep an
appointment to preach on the other side of the river."
"But you can stop long enough to eat breakfast. I lay you haven't had a
bite this blessed day."
Peter shook his head, gathering up the reins.
"And ten to one that you haven't got a cent of money!" Miss Penelope
accused him.
Peter's grim young face relaxed in a faint smile. He put his hand in his
pocket and drew out two small pieces of silver.
"Ah, ha, I knew it!" exulted Miss Penelope. "Now do wait just one
minute till I run in the house and get you some money."
"No, no, there isn't time. I'll miss my appointment to preach. I will
get along somehow. Thank you--good-by."
Miss Penelope, reaching up, seized the bridle-reins and held on by main
force with one hand while she rummaged in her out pocket with the other.
"There!--here are three bits--every cent I've got with me," she said
indignantly, shoving it in his hand. "Well, Peter Cartwright, if your
mother could know--"
But the young backwoodsman, whose fame was already filling the
wilderness, and was to fill the whole Christian world, now pressed on
riding fast, and was soon beyond her kind scolding.
"Well, 'pon my word! Did anybody ever see the like of that!" she cried,
seeing that Ruth had followed her to the door. "That boy don't know half
the time whether he has had anything to eat or not. And it's just
exactly the same to him when he's got money and when he hasn't."
The girl did not hear what Miss Penelope said. Her heart was responding,
as it always did, to everything great or heroic, and she looked after
this boy preacher with newly opened eyes. She suddenly saw as by a flash
of white light, that he and the other pioneer men of God--these
soldiers of the cross who were bearing it through the trackless
wilderness--were of the greatest. Her dim eyes followed the young
man--this brave bearer of the awful burden of the divine
mission--watching him press on to the river. She thought of the many
rivers that he must swim, the forests that he must thread, the savages
that he must contend against, the wild beasts that he must conquer, the
plague that he must defy, the shelterless nights that he must sleep
under the trees--freezing, starving, struggling through winter's cold
and summer's heat, and all for the love of God and the good of mankind.
VIII
THE LOG TEMPLE OF JUSTICE
Most of those dauntless soldiers, who first bore the cross through the
wilderness were as ready to fight as to pray--as they had to be. No
power of earth or evil which he had been able to combat could have
turned young Peter Cartwright that day or have held him back. Pressing
on without rest or food, he was in time to preach. When this duty was
done, he returned over the Shawnee Crossing and rode straight to the
court-house. To go there was in his eyes the next service due the Word.
The court-house was a single large, low room built of rough logs, and
standing in the depths of the primeval forest. Great trees arched their
branches over its roof and the immemorial "Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes,"
went up through their heavy dark tops. It must have been strange thus to
hear this formal summons before the bar of human justice, strange indeed
to see the precise motion of man's law in so wild a spot. Roundabout
there still stretched the wilderness which is subject only to nature's
law--the one immutable law which takes no heed of justice or mercy;
which recks neither man's needs nor his deserts.
The court-house in the wilderness stood quite alone, with no other
building near. There was not even a fence round it, nor so much as a
hitching-post in front of the rude door which was rarely closed. Those
who came--the judge, the jury, the lawyers, the clients, the
spectators--all hitched their horses to the swinging limbs of the trees.
The sole sign of man's handiwork, beyond the log walls of the
court-house itself, was a crude attempt at bridge-building. A creek ran
between the court-house and the home of Judge Knox, who was the judge of
the court, and over this a few rough boards had been loosely laid across
two rotting logs. The structure being both weak and unsteady, it was the
judge's habit to dismount on coming to the bridge and to cross it on
foot, leading his horse by the bridle. It was then but a stone's throw
to the court-house, and as he was heavy, clumsy, and an awkward rider,
he did not mount again, but walked on till he came to the spot where he
always stopped to tie the bridle to the same limb. And there he
invariably tied it in his absent-minded way, without ever thinking of
looking round to see if the horse was tied with the bridle. Sometimes he
was and again he was not, for this was as that sagacious and dignified
animal himself thought best. He commonly made up his mind upon this
point when they got to the bridge, where he could tell easily enough by
the judge's gait in crossing over, whether or not it would be advisable
to follow. If the horse then saw fit to turn back and go home, as a hint
to the family to send for the judge at the proper time, he never
hesitated to pull his head out of the old bridle which he could do very
easily. So that the judge sometimes went on and tied the empty bridle in
the usual place, never knowing the difference; while his horse calmly
turned round and soberly walked back to the stable. Seeing him thus pass
the windows, the good people of Cedar House sighed a little, and shook
their heads, but they nevertheless always knew exactly what to do.
On this late October day, however, the horse followed the judge without
demur, assured by his own observation that all was right. The judge,
honest, simple soul, rarely failed to turn over a new leaf and make a
fresh start on the morning after the meeting of the grand jury, which
gravely and respectfully found an indictment against him almost as
regularly at it met. He had already assessed and--gravely ordering it
written up--paid his own fine on this occasion without a murmur, as he
always did, and he was now quite sober and ready to resume his place on
the bench. He had held it for a long time to the public satisfaction;
and he continued to hold it for many years afterward with honor,
ability, and distinction, notwithstanding these occasional lapses. His
one weakness was of course well known but his profound knowledge of the
law, and his unimpeachable integrity were still better known. It was
said of him that he never had anything to say which could not be shouted
out from the court-house door. And these qualities were sorely needed on
the bench of the wilderness, more sorely needed at this time than ever
before or since.