CHAPTER VIIBoaz Honeycutt
Paul Waffingtonawoke with the birds on the following morning. He came out from between the two sleeping boys and the snowy white sheets at the break of day, went out and bathed his face in the running stream. He rambled through the clumps of rhododendrons and ivy, picking the flowers, while Henry Tolson fed the mare and Mrs. Tolson made ready the morning’s meal.
While the morning was yet early he put out his hand and said good-bye to the little family, believing that he had found friends in Henry Tolson and his dear old wife. It was a fact that was plain to see, that they were poor and unlearned. But throughout the cabin there was cleanliness, and in everything they said and did there was gentleness and truth. There was something about the kind look and gentle spirit of Mrs. Tolson that made Paul Waffington think of his own dear mother away back in the Kentucky valley. The good that was in him asserted itself, and he held out his hand and said from the bottom of his heart:
“Good-bye, Mrs. Tolson. I hope that we may meet again. May the good Lord bless you and yours. Good-bye.”
“Why, honey, whenever you air a-travelin’ up or down this here gorge, night or day, don’t you never pass this cabin door by. Don’t you never do it. You come right over here an’ make yourself at home. An’don’t you never holler ’fore this door any more neither. But you march right over here and take a chair, jist the same ef your own mother wuz astandin’ right there inside. Here, take this sweetcake along with you. You might git a little hungry along ’bout the spring up the gorge, an’ it’d keep you frum starvin’ maybe. You’ll git to Blood Camp ’fore night. Good-bye.”
He swung himself out into the road and walked along at a lively gait. Just as he made the first turn out of sight of the cabin, if he should have been disposed to stop and listen, he might have heard Mrs. Tolson fulfilling her promise of the night before to Cicero and Cæsar.
The road before him now assumed the appearance of one long arbor. It was lined with tall hemlocks and banks of rhododendrons grew between. At the edges of the road giant ferns waved to and fro in the fresh morning air. Then, too, it seemed that the gorge was literally alive with song-birds. Apparently, from every tree birds were pouring forth their morning song. The traveler slackened his pace a bit, removed his hat and carried it in his hand as he went, enjoying all nature to the limit of his capacity. Now he lingered to pluck a bunch of trailing moss that hung over a fallen tree. This July morning he was comparatively rested in body and mind, hence he was keenly alert to everything in nature’s world, and it all brought happiness to his soul.
How the heart of the thin and pale-faced city clerk yearned for such a retreat as this, thought Waffington. How those of the torrid cities, who bake their feet against the blistering pavements and burn their faces against the scalding walls, would welcome this haven of rest among the wild flowers and singing birds. Thegentle breezes, the babbling, splashing water falling into the deep pools and the shady recesses, would cool their fevered temples.
For three hours or more, perhaps, the traveler kept his way with uncovered head, enjoying the matchless beauties of nature’s world, with never a discordant note. At the noontide he came up before the spring in whose depth many a traveler before had quenched his burning thirst. It stood up in the rock, a basin cut out, moss-covered to its very brim. Crystal water overflowed the rim and trickled down through the moss and fell into the pool below. Paul Waffington knelt down and quenched his thirst in its depth, then seated himself on a log near by to rest and devour the “sweetcake” that Mrs. Tolson had given him in the early morning. He must be getting now within some ten miles of Blood Camp, he thought, munching the cake in silence. He wished that he might meet someone who could tell him the things that he wanted to know of Blood Camp. But he had met but one other traveler during the morning, and that was the mail-rider, who was going himself in the direction of Blood Camp at a fast gallop.
“What’s that!” he suddenly exclaimed, straining his ears to hear.
“Ho-de-o-do, ho-de-o-de; ho-de-o-do, ho-diddle-de-de!”
It was the echo of the voice of a boy coming down the gorge from the direction of Blood Camp.
“Ho-de-o-do, ho-de-o-de; ho-de-o-do, ho-diddle-de-de! Now watch at ye! Stan’ up here! Ef you stump your toe an’ fall down an’ throw me off, I’ll git down an’ git me a club an’ knock your dang head off! Git up. Moll!”
Just then an old gray horse came bouncing into view around the turn of the road, with a boy perchedbetween its bony shoulders and projecting hip bones. The boy was perhaps thirteen years old, wore a rimless straw hat, with bare feet and lips stained with tobacco juice.
“Good morning, my boy,” saluted Paul Waffington.
“Whoa, Moll! Howdy,” he replied, as he drew up before the spring. “You’re takin’ a rest, air ye?”
“Yes, sir. Resting and eating this cake for dinner; have a bit of it. It’s pretty good. Mrs. Tolson, who lives down at the mouth of the gorge, gave it to me this morning.”
The boy suddenly threw the piece that he had taken to the ground with a vim, spat out the portion in his mouth, and yelled out:
“Danged ef I eat any of it then!”
“Why, my boy, what’s wrong with the cake?”
“I hate them two dang Tolson boys. They fight me. I’ve licked ’em eleven times—Cæsar six an’ Cicero five—an’ doan’t you never think that I’ll ever eat a cake or anything else that their mammy has made,” and he came down with his fist on the bony shoulder of the gray mare as emphasis.
“Do you know that it is wrong to use profane language—to curse.”
“What? Dang it cussin’? That ain’t cussin’. That ain’t a starter to real cussin’. Ef you call that cussin’ it wouldn’t do fur you to hear Fen Green git started a little.”
“Is that tobacco you are chewing?”
“Yep.”
“What do you chew tobacco for?”
“None o’ your bizness. Whoa, Moll, I say!”
“What’s your name?”
“Boz.”
“What’s that you said?”
“I said, Boz.”
“Oh, yes, Boaz.”
“Yep. What’s your name?”
“Is that all the name you have, Boaz?”
“Course not. Boaz Honeycutt is all my name.”
“Where do you live, Boaz?”
“Blood Camp, an’ I can lick every boy my size from Blood Camp to the mouth of this here gorge. By giggers, I can lick Cicero Tolson quicker than a bullfrog can snatch a fly off’n a grass-blade!” He turned the quid of tobacco over in his mouth, spat over the gray mare’s head and asked:
“But what’s your name, I said?”
“Well, my name is Waffington—Paul Waffington.”
“Well, I wisht I may drap ded! I thot I had seed you before. Oh yes, you air the feller what organized the Sunday-school up to Blood Camp ’bout two year ago. Well, I wisht I may die! I knowed thet I had seed you before. Well, Emeline Hobbs has shore kept thet school agoin’, an’ said she wuz agoin’ to keep it agoin’ until you cum back, ef it took a milun year. But I shore am glad thet you air agoin’ back up there. I’ve bin a tendin’ Sunday-skule every Sunday fur nine months ’cept two. Once I wint a chestnut huntin’ and tother I wint in swimmin’ with a passel of boys. But I decided to quit the ’skule next Sunday ef you didn’t come. I like the skule very well an’ I like the lessons middlin’ well; but every time I look out the door or spit, Emeline Hobbs jabs me on my shins with that wooden pin o’ her’n, an’ my legs air sore frum it; an’ ef she wuz a boy I’d a tanned ’er up fur it a long time ago. Now, I want you to git her to quit jabbin’ me on my shins, git another superintender or I’m quit already now.”
“Well, Boaz, you’re a better boy than many boys, I am sure. There are boys to be found who do not go to Sunday-school. I’m glad to know that you have made such a fine record in the matter of attendance. Now tell me, how are all the others at Blood Camp?”
“Well, about as usual. Uncle Laz still keeps the school-house swept for Emeline an’ his old woman still irons clothes fur people. The Allisons air still keepin’ tavern whin anybody comes along, Fen Green’s attendin’ a little patch of taters and corn upon his mammy’s place since she died. The old fiddler cum since you wuz here. He’s a fine ’ne too. They say he’s the finest fiddler in the world, an’ I wouldn’t be surprised. Fen Green goes to see Genie Filson every Sunday. He ’lows thet he will get Jase’s word to marry Genie about Christmus. Jase likes Fen mighty well. But I don’t see Genie any more. Jase stopped her frum comin’ to Sunday-skule. People say thet she don’t look as well as she used to. Some say thet Jase is aworkin’ her to deth, but Jase says she is agrievin’ herself to deth over her two brothers who wint west an’ wuz never heard fum any more, is what’s amakin’ her look so bad.”
He took a bit of tobacco from his pocket and added it to what he already had in his mouth, and then continued:
“But Fen Green ain’t no account fur Genie as a man. Fen Green ain’t worth shucks! He couldn’t set a goose on a hillside ’thout putting the rocks on the upper side. I could stick a gourd on the end of a fence rail and learn it more sense than Fen Green’s got. W’hoa, Moll! But by giggers, I got to go.”
“Well, I thank you for your information. And now I hope that you will be at Sunday-school next Sunday.You are a promising boy, Boaz. You might make a great man, perhaps a great preacher.”
“No, siree. I couldn’t learn to kote (quote) Scripture fast enough.”
“I presume that you have learned a lot of Scripture in the Sunday-school?”
“Well, I reckon I have learned to kote a little, maybe.”
“Here’s a five-cent piece, Boaz. I want to hear you quote a verse or two of the Scriptures. If you can do it, I am going to give you the five-cent piece, and when you reach the town you may buy with it whatever you may wish. Now let’s have the verse.”
The boy looked at the coveted coin in the hand of the man. He had never been in possession of so large a piece of money before. His heart thumped heavily as he shut one eye and sighted with the other one through the ears of the gray mare at a rock in the road just in front, in a feeble attempt to steady his nerves.
“Well, I’ll try a verse. ‘He—he—he throwed him over the wall—the Lord throwed a man over the wall, an’ he throwed ’im over again—then he throwed ’m over the wall seventy times seven; then the dogs cum an’ licked all his sores—an’—an’—an’ there remained of the fragments thereof—twelve basketful.’”
Paul Waffington fell over on the moss-covered log and held his sides.
“You’re a fine one, Boaz, you’re a fine one. Success will come to you in time, my boy. Just keep it up. Here, take the money and buy candy or whatever you like when you reach the town.”
“I got to hit the road now. Killed too much time,I guess; an’ then I may have to fight them Tolsons down the gorge about another hour ’fore I git to go on. Started to Mountain City to git fall turnip seed and have this plow-pint sharpened.” He drew up his reins, took from his pocket three ripe apples, selected the finest one and began munching it.
“Why don’t you eat the smallest one first and save the best until the last, Boaz?” inquired Waffington.
“No, sir. You’re wrong there,” said the boy. “Eat the best first an’ you’ll be eatin’ the best all the time. Git up, Moll! Git up!” and away he went, disappearing through the trees.
Paul Waffington sat alone, stunned. He was puzzled.
“Eat the best first,” he repeated, “and you will be eating the best all the time.” His brain cleared, he smiled, and said, “He’s right. That’s a lesson from a country boy, and it’s a good one,” and he got up to go.