Her hand passed gently round to the front of his shirt. She unfastened it, and began to sob as she turned the garment down at the neck. “Oh, Jim, did they hurt you? Does it—”
“They didn’t tetch me, Martha,” he said, finally recovering his voice. “Sid Wombley kinder tuk pity on me an’ stood up fer me, an’ they all concluded to give me another trial. I hain’t lived right, Martha, I kin see it now, an’ to-morrow I’m a-goin’ to begin different. These fellows have got good hearts in ‘em, an’ after the way they talked an’ acted to-night I hain’t a-goin’ to harbor no ill-will ag’in’ ‘em.”
Mrs. Trundle leaned toward him. She began to cry softly, and he drew her head over on his shoulder and stroked her thin hair with his coarse hands. Then they kissed each other, went into the cabin, and went to bed in the dark, so as not to wake the children.
In straggling, despondent lines the men in soiled gray leaned on their muskets and peered through the misty darkness at the enemy crawling across the field in front of them like a monster reptile. The colonel of the regiment nearest the coppice of pines strode restlessly back and forth in front of his men, on tenter-hooks of anxiety, the spasmodic glow of his cigar showing features grim and tortured.
“I feel like we ‘re in fer it to-night,” whispered Private Ericson to a battle-stained comrade.
“Right you are,” was the guarded reply; “an’ we-uns ain’t a handful beside the army out thar. I tell you the blasted fellers have had reinforcements sence the sun went down. I know it, an’ our colonel is beginnin’ to suspicion it. Ef he had his way he’d order a retreat while thar’s a chance.”
Silence, punctuated by the clanking of the colonel’s sword and the snoring of a private asleep standing, intervened. Then Private Huckaby resumed:
“So this is raily yore old stompin’-ground, Ericson. I reckon you uster haul pine-knots out ’n them woods, and split rails on that mountain-side.”
“I know every inch of it like a book,” sighed Ericson.
“An’ I reckon that sweetheart o’ yor ’n don’t live fur off, ef she didn’t refugee.”
“Her folks wuz Union,” returned Ericson, sententiously. “Her ’n tuk one side, an’ me an’ mine t’other. The cabin she used to live in is jest beyond them woods at the foot o’ the fust mountain, ‘Old Crow.’ She’s thar yit. A feller that seed ’er a week ago told me. She ‘lowed ef I jined the Confederacy I needn’t ever look her way any more. Her father an’ only brother went to the Union side, an’ she blamed me fer wantin’ to go with my folks. She is as proud as Lucifer. I wisht we’d parted friendlier. I hain’t been in a single fight without wantin’ that one thing off my mind.”
Ericson leaned on the muzzle of his gun, and Huckaby saw his broad shoulders rise and quiver convulsively. He stared at the begrimed face under the slouched hat, beginning to think that what he had seen of his young mate had been only the surface—the froth—of a deeper nature. An excited grunt came from the mist which almost enveloped the colonel, and he was seen to dart to the end of the regiment and throw down his cigar.
“To arms!” he cried.
The words were drowned in the clatter of muskets as they were snatched from the ground to horny palms. The sound died like the rustle of dead leaves in a forest after a gust of wind. A composite eye saw that the line which had been moving across the field in front had paused, steadied itself. The next instant it was a billow of flame half a mile in length, rolling up and dashing itself against the wall of damp darkness. The colonel, his blue steel blade raised against the sheet of piercing lead, sprang forward, a black silhouette against the enemy’s glare. He meant it as an objective command—a prayer—to his men to stand to their ground, but he tottered, leaned on his sword, and as its point sank into the earth he fell face downward. Drums, great and small, boomed and rattled on the Confederate side like a prolonged echo of the Federal’s salvo.
The ranks of the Confederates wavered—broke; the retreat began. Running backward, his gun poised, Ericson felt a numb, tingling sensation in his right side. He turned and started after his comrades, but each step he put down seemed to meet the ground as it fell from him. Then he felt dizzy. There was a roaring in his ears, and his legs weakened. As he fell his gun tripped the feet of Huckaby, and that individual went to earth, and then on hands and knees, to avoid being shot, crept to his friend’s side.
“What’s wrong, Eric? Done fer?” he asked, his tone weighty with the tragedy of the moment.
“I believe so,” said Ericson. “Go on; don’t wait!”
“Good-by, my boy,” Huckaby said. “I’d tote ye, but some ‘n’ is the matter with the calf o’ my right leg. I’d give out, I know, an’—an’ I must remember my wife and the ba—” He was gone.
Half an hour passed, during which time Ericson had experienced the delicious sensation of a man freezing to death, then a realization of his condition permeated his consciousness. He drew himself up on an elbow and glanced over the field. Black ambulances, like vultures stalking about with drooping wings, were picking their way among the dead and dying. Vaguely Ericson’s numb fancy pictured himself being jostled like a human log of wood to hospital, or perhaps to prison, and grasping his musket, and transforming it into a crutch, he rose and hobbled away from the groans and puddles of blood into the edge of the wood.
He had no sooner reached it than he felt the earth acting as if it were a mad sea again, and he sank headlong into the heather and underbrush. When he came to it was morning. The oblique rays of the sun were making diamonds and pearls of the poised dew-drops. The field had been cleared. Only a shattered gun, a tattered cap, a battered canteen bore evidence of the recent carnage. Half a mile across the level valley Ericson saw a village of tents, blue-coated guards pacing to and fro, and the stars and stripes rippling from a tall staff.
The private rose cautiously to his trembling feet, and aided by his too weighty crutch he went slowly through the wood toward the cabin where dwelt Sally Tripp.
“It’s the nighest house,” he said to himself. “Shorely she won’t refuse to let me in.”
However, when he had passed through the wood and saw the cabin not fifty yards from him in the open, a screw of blue smoke curling from the mud-and-stick chimney, misgivings which had depressed him ever since he had parted with her attacked him anew. He forgot that he had lost nearly every ounce of his life-blood, and stood almost erect, resting hardly the weight of his hand on the gun as his eyes drank in the familiar old scene.
Then he heard the massive bar of one of the doors squeak as it was lifted from its wooden sockets, and in the doorway stood a golden-haired vision.
“Thank God, it’s her!” Ericson muttered; and the sight of her standing there, looking afar off toward the camp of the Federals, gave him courage. He dropped his gun, determined not to exhibit weakness, and walked erectly, if slowly, toward her.
He saw the girl turn pale, stare at him steadily, and stifle a scream with her hand at her lips.
“Don’t you know me, Sally?” he asked.
She stared mutely, inwardly occupied with her outward appearance, fearing perhaps that a tithe of her gladness of heart at seeing him might be detected by his supersensitive, pleading eye.
“Thar ain’t nothin’ to keep me from knowin’ of you,” she said. “As fur as them clothes on yore back is concerned, they become yore sort powerful well. A rebel is a rebel anywhar.”
Again the qualms of physical weakness stirred within him. He hung his head, praying for strength to keep from falling at her feet. She smiled relentlessly and continued:
“I reckon when the Union men attackted you-uns last night you broke an’ ran like all the rest. I seed that fight, John Ericson. Me an’ grandpa scrouged down behind the chimney so as not to git struck an’ watched the trap the bluecoats was a-layin’ fer you-uns. We seed the reinforcements slide in round ‘Old Crow’, an’ knowed most o’ you-uns would play mumbly-peg ‘fore mornin’. I mought ‘a’ ‘lowed you’d git off unteched, knowing them woods as well as you do.”
His silence, his downcast attitude may have shamed the girl, for a change came over her. She cast a hurried glance at the far-off encampment, and a touch of anxiety came into her tone as she added:
“You’d better git back into hidin’, John Ericson. The Union soldiers have been sendin’ out searchin’ squads all day fer men that got aloose in the woods. They say they pulled Jake McLain right out ’n his bed. His wife had burnt his rebel uniform an’ said he was a Yank a-lyin’ up sick, but the powder-stains on his face give him away, an’ they tuk him off.”
It was plain to him that she did not suspect he was wounded unto death, and he forgave her sternness for the sake of his great love. Besides, she was showing qualities of patriotism to which he granted her the right, though he could not comprehend what influence had entered her life to harden it to such an extent. Just then the bent form of Grandfather Tripp emerged from the other room of the cabin, crossed the entry, and stared at the soldier.
“Well, I ’ll be liter’ly bumfuzzled!” he exclaimed. “Ef it ain’t John Ericson! I knowed yore company was in the fight last night, an’ I thought o’ you when I heerd the grape-shot a-plinkin’ out thar. But hang me, ef you don’t look sick ur half starved! Sally, give ’im some ‘n’ t’ eat. They don’t feed the rebs much. Johnny, she’s been a-pinin’ fer you ever sence you enlisted, an’ last night durin’ the fight she mighty nigh went distracted. She—”
“Grandpa, that’s a lie!” cried the girl, fiercely; but there were pink spots in her cheeks as she retreated into the cabin and began to slam the pots and pans on the stone hearth.
The old man caught the arm of the soldier. “Go right in, my boy. She’s that glad to see you unhurt she don’t know what to do. She ’ll give you a mouthful gladder ’n she ever fed a Yank.”
Mounting the log steps to the cabin door seemed to deprive the soldier of the last vestige of his strength. As if from a distance he heard the girl’s complaining voice, and a blur hung before his sight. Blindly he felt for a chair and sank into it. His head was sinking to his breast, when the sharp voice of the girl—sharper because of her grandfather’s meddling—revived him like the lash of a whip on the back of a succumbing beast of burden.
“Pa’s dead, John Ericson,” she cried. “Shot down, fer all I know, by you. He’s gone. Now I reckon you see why I don’t like the looks o’ yore clothes. Then jest see heer.” She flounced into a corner of the room, jerked a trunk open and brought to him the soiled uniform of a Federal soldier. “This was what Brother Jasper had on when he died. That hole in the breast is where the ball went in. He come home a week ago on a furlough to git over his wound, an’ died a-settin’ thar in that door. Do you wonder that I never want to lay eyes on a dirty gray coat again?”
Ericson’s slouched hat hid the piteous glare in his eyes. He rested his two hands on the arms of the chair and tried to draw himself up, but that effort was the signal for his collapse. The girl laid the uniform on the table and stared at him, the lines of her face softening and betraying vague disquietude.
“Look a heer,” she blurted out, suddenly, “are—are you wounded?”
He tried to speak, but his lips seemed paralyzed.
“My God! Grandpa, look!” the girl cried. “He’s wounded! He’s dying, an’ I’ve jest been a-standin’ heer—”
The old man bent over the soldier, and turned his face upward.
“Say, whar are you hit, Johnny?”
Ericson tried to affect a careless smile, and managed to place his hand on his wounded side. The old man unbuttoned his coat.
“Well, I should think so!” he muttered. “He’s lost enough of the life fluid to paint a barn. Quick, Sally, put down a quilt fer ’im to lie on in front o’ the fire!”
The girl obeyed as by clock-work, the whiteness of terror and regret in her face. She brought an armful of straw and some quilts and hastily patted out a crude bed for the soldier.
“Now,” said the old man, “you must lie down, Johnny.”
Ericson sat up erect.
“I don’t want to—to be helpless heer,” he stammered. “All through the war I’ve never thought o’ one single thing except Sally, an’ now—”
The girl cowered down on the hearth in front of him, and hid her face with her hands.
“I didn’t dream you was wounded,” she said. “Ef I’d ‘a’ knowed that, I’d never ‘a’ said what I did. Grandpa told the truth jest now, he did. Lie down, please do!”
He raised his eyes to her with a grateful glance. At this juncture the small, remote blast of a bugle fell on their ears, and it struck the tenderness from her great moist eyes. She rose and went to the door.
“It’s a searchin’ squad,” she cried, her voice vibrating with fear. “They are at Joe French’s house now. They are shore to come heer next. Ef they take John away he ’ll die!”
The old man stared at her rigidly.
“We must hide ‘im,” he said. “Sally, he’s an old friend an’ a neighbor. We must hide ‘im!”
The wounded soldier stood up, grasped the edge of the mantel-piece and swayed back and forth. There was a sweet comfort in her startled concern that rendered him impervious to fear.
“Thar ain’t no place to hide ‘im,” said the girl, with an agonized glance through the doorway toward French’s house.
Ericson’s knees began to bend, and he sank into his chair again.
“No use,” he muttered. “I ‘lowed I mought git to the woods, but I’d hobble so slow they’d be shore to see me. When they git heer I ’ll tell ’em you wasn’t harborin’ of me.”
The girl turned from the door.
“They are a-comin’,” she said. Then her eyes fell on her brother’s uniform. She started, clutched it, and held it toward her grandfather, fired with a sudden hope.
“Dress ’im in it,” she said. “I ’ll go out an’ meet ’em an’ tell ‘em nobody ain’t heer except you an’ my wounded brother home on a furlough. The permit is in t’other room. I ’ll show ’em that. They ’ll never dream he ain’t brother when they read the furlough an’ see ’im in the blue uniform.”
A sickly smile worked its way through the grimy surface of the soldier’s face as he raised his hand to signify opposition to her suggestion.
“I couldn’t do that, Sally,” he said. “Not to save my life, I couldn’t. Somehow I think the chances o’ my seein’ another sunrise is dead ag’in’ me, an’ I don’t want to die in any other uniform except the one me an’ my comrades has fought in. I’d as soon wear the clothes of a brother o’ yor ’n as anybody else alive, but I can’t put on blue even to escape arrest. I jest can’t! It would be exactly the same as bein’ a spy, an’ the Lord only knows how a fightin’ man hates that sort of a character.”
“But you must,” urged the girl, frantically. “Oh, you must!”
“I simply can’t. That’s all. I’d a sight ruther be tuk as a wounded soldier unable to stir a single peg than to sneak into another man’s clothes an’ deny the side I fit on. Huh, you are a woman! War makes men mighty indifferent to anything except duty.” A picture of baffled despair, the girl peered through the doorway at the approaching men.
“You once said you’d do anything I asked ef I’d consent to marry you. John, now will you let grandpa put it on you?”
A warm scarlet wave had passed over her. She had never looked so beautiful. He hesitated for some time, and then shook his head. “I can’t put on blue clothes, Sally.”
The air was still as death. Above the beat of her strumming pulse she could hear the “hep! hep!” of the soldiers as they marched toward the cabin. Ericson staggered to his feet and stood swaying beside her.
“I mought as well go out an’ meet ‘em,” he said, his face awry with pain and utter exhaustion. “Ef I don’t they ’ll think you are harborin’ a reb, an’ it mought go ag’in’ you-uns.”
Then he threw out his hands and clutched her shoulders, and sank to the floor.
“He has fainted, grandpa,” said the girl.
“Quick! Put the uniform on ‘im. I ’ll try to detain ’em out thar till you are ready.”
“I mought just as well take off his suit an’ kiver ’im with quilts,” suggested the old man. “It ’ll save time.”
“No, the uniform!” cried the girl. “Ef he has that on they won’t ask no questions—along with the furlough. You know Jake McLain tried that trick on ’em an’ failed. Put it on ‘im, for the Lord’s sake. Don’t stand thar idle!”
The steady tramp of feet was now audible, and the occasional command of the officer in charge. Darting from the back door the girl crossed the entry, went into the next room, and emerged with the permit of absence in her belt. Picking up a pail near the door, she went to the pig-pen in a corner of the zigzag rail fence, and with no eyes for the approaching men, slowly poured the food into the animal’s trough.
Stopping the squad a few yards from her, the captain doffed his cap and bowed.
“I have come to search your house for possible fugitives from the Confederate ranks last night,” he said, politely. “A good many have been found hiding in farmhouses in the vicinity.”
The girl set her pail down at her feet.
“We are Union,” she said, simply.
“I was told so,” the captain answered. “Nevertheless, I have orders to search your premises. Is there any one within?”
“Nobody but grandpa an’ my wounded brother, a Union soldier home on a furlough.” She took the paper from her belt and unfolded it very deliberately. “Thar’s his permit. I fetched it out to show it so’s you wouldn’t have to wake ’im up ef you could help it. He couldn’t sleep last nigh fer the shootin’, an’ the truth is, he is as nigh dead as kin be. I wisht you would let ’im rest.” The officer perused the furlough through his eyeglasses.
“That’s all right,” he said, handing it back. “But you see I have to obey orders.”
There was a pause. The maiden felt the captain’s eyes resting on her admiringly. She could hear the hobnailed soles of her grandparent’s shoes grinding on the puncheon floor, and knew that the old man was still engaged in dressing or undressing the fugitive.
“That’s so,” she said, in a tone which plainly intimated that the question was not positively settled. “But it looks like a shame, for brother is powerful low, an’ any noise mought do ’im lots o’ harm.”
“I ’ll leave my men here, and go in myself,” compromised the officer. “I ’ll walk very lightly.”
The heart of the girl sank. She could still hear the crunching of her grandfather’s shoes in the cabin.
“I ’ll be much obleeged ef you will be careful,” she said. And as he started to the cabin she joined him. “Please go in here first,” pointing to the room across the entry from the one containing the two men, “an’ I ’ll run in an’ see ef brother is fit to be seen.”
He complied, with a bow, and went into the room indicated. Reappearing in a moment, he found her crouching down on the grass, a look of pain on her face.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, with concern.
“Nothin’,” she winced. “I set my foot on that rock an’ it kinder twisted my ankle.”
He gave her his hand and aided her to rise.
“Please wait jest one minute,” she said, putting her foot down tentatively. “I was in sech a hurry jest now that I almost broke my ankle-bone.”
He bowed assent. His eyes lit with admiration for her physical charms, and she limped around to the rear of the cabin and went in. Just as she did so the noise of her grandfather’s shoes on the floor ceased. The old man, thinking she was accompanied by the soldiers, was enacting his part. He had flung himself into a chair, and sat nodding as if asleep. On the bed of straw lay Ericson, still unconscious, completely clothed in blue uniform. The discarded gray suit lay in a bundle in a corner.
“Quick, that will never do!” she cried, causing the old man to look up with a start. Taking a case from a pillow on the bed, she filled it with the gray uniform and crushed it into the bottom of the old man’s chair.
“Set on it,” she said. “An’ don’t git up, whatever you do.” Then she wrung her hands despairfully as she surveyed the room. A twitching of Ericson’s yellow face warned her that he was returning to consciousness, and a new terror pierced her heart.
“Ef he comes to,” she thought, “he ’ll deny being a Union soldier, an’ then they ’ll take ‘im—my God, have pity on the pore boy!”
She turned from the door and limped smilingly toward the waiting officer.
“Ef brother wakes,” she said, “I hope you won’t git mad at nothin’ he says. Fer the last two days he has been clean out ’n his head. Once he declared to us that he was actu’ly President Jeff Davis. Thar’s no tellin’ what idea may strike ’im next.”
“I ’ll try not to wake him,” said the captain. “I ’ll merely step inside very carefully. I wouldn’t do that if—if my men were not watching. You see they’d wonder—”
“Come on, then.” The rigidity of a crisis held her features. She entered first, and pushed the great cumbersome door open before her. The old man regarded them with sleepy looks and began to nod again.
The officer stood over the form in blue a moment, then peered under the bed, and even up the funnel-shaped chimney.
“It’s all right,” he whispered to Sally.
Ericson opened his eyes and smiled faintly.
The girl comprehended his frame of mind; he had not noticed that his clothes had been changed.
“You’ve run me in a hole,” he said to the captain. “I’m ready to go, but I don’t want you to think that these folks are a-harborin’ of me. I come heer uninvited. The truth is, that young lady ordered me off, an’ I’d ‘a’ gone, but I keeled over in the door.”
He put a hand on either side of him, and with a strenuous effort managed to sit up. Then he noticed his change of uniform, and as he plucked distastefully at his coat-sleeve, he stared first at the girl and then at the captain.
“Why, who’s done this heer?” he asked. “I ain’t no Yankee soldier. I’m a rebel dyed in the wool.”
The girl laid her hand on the officer’s arm.
“Come on, please, sir; he’s gittin’ excited. Ef we dispute with ’im he ‘ll git to rantin’ awful.”
Without a word the officer followed her from the cabin and down toward where his men stood. She walked rapidly, her steps quickened by the rising tones of Ericson’s voice behind her. She put her handkerchief to her dry eyes, and said, plaintively:
“I hardly know what to do. We’ve had no end of trouble. First the news come that pa had fell, an’ then brother come home like he is now.”
“He looks like a very sick man,” said the officer, with a bluntness peculiar to times of war. “Perhaps I ought to ask our surgeon to run over and take a look at him.”
She started, her face fell.
“Old Doctor Stone, nigh us, is a-lookin’ after ‘im,” was the hasty product of her bewildered invention. “He ’ll do all that can be done—an’—an’ I want to keep brother from thinkin’ about army folks as much as I can. Will you-uns camp nigh us long?”
“We leave inside of an hour.” He raised his cap, saluted his men, gave an order, and they whirled and tramped away.
She went back into the cabin and sat down by the side of Ericson’s pallet. There was something in his dumb glance and subdued air that quenched the warmth of her recent success. As he looked at her steadily his eyes became moist and his powder-stained lips began to quiver.
“I didn’t ’low you’d play sech a dog-mean trick on me, Sally,” he muttered. “I’d ruther a thousand times ‘a’ been shot like a soldier than to hide in Yankee clothes.” Under her warm rush of love and pity for him she completely lost the touch of hauteur that had clung to her since his return. She took his hand in hers and bent her body down till his fingers lay against her cheek. He could feel that she was deeply moved.
“I couldn’t stand to see ’em take you off,” she sobbed. “Because you are all I got on earth to keer fer. It would ‘a’ killed you, an’ me, too.” Her voice took on the gentle cadences of a mother consoling a sick child. “Grandpa will take off the mean old blue suit an’ put you up in the big bed, and I ’ll make you some good chicken soup with boiled rice in it.”
He pressed her hand.
“Do you raily want me heer, Sally?”
Her reply was a moment’s hesitation, a convulsive motion of the vocal cords, a failure of speech, and a final pressure of her lips on his fingers.
“Beca’se ef I ‘lowed you did, Sally, I wouldn’t keer much which side beat. I wouldn’t be able to think about any livin’ thing but you.”
“Well, you can, then,” she said; and she rose quickly. “Grandpa, I’m goin’ in t’other room to fix ’im some chicken soup. Undress ’im an’ put ’im to bed, an’ then go fetch Doctor Stone.”
An hour later the old physician arrived and examined the patient.
“A flesh wound only,” he said. “But he has lost mighty nigh every bit o’ blood in ‘im. Nuss ’im good, Sally, an’ he ’ll be able to make plenty o’ corn and taters fer you the rest o’ yore life—that is, if the war ever ends.‘’ Ericson was convalescing when the news of Lee’s surrender came floating over the devastated land.
“I’m awfully glad it’s all over,” he said. “I’m satisfied. I was shot by a Yankee ball an’ nussed back to life by a Union gal, so I reckon my account is even.”
Neil Filmore’s store was at the crossing of the Big Cabin and Rock Valley roads. Before the advent of Sherman into the South it had been a grist-mill, to which the hardy mountaineers had regularly brought their grain to be ground, in wagons, on horseback, or on their shoulders, according to their conditions. But the Northern soldiers had appropriated the miller’s little stock of toll, had torn down the long wooden sluice which had conveyed the water from the race to the mill, had burnt the great wheel and crude wooden machinery, and rolled the massive grinding-stones into the deepest part of the creek.
After the war nobody saw any need for a mill at that point, and Neil Filmore had bought the property from its impoverished owner and turned the building into a store. It proved to be a fair location, for there was considerable travel along the two main roads, and as Filmore was postmaster his store became the general meeting-point for everybody living within ten miles of the spot. He kept for sale, as he expressed it, “a little of everything, from shoe-eyes to a sack of guano.” Indeed, a sight of his rough shelves and unplaned counters, filled with cakes of tallow, beeswax and butter, bolts of calico, sheeting and ginghams, and the floor and porch heaped with piles of skins, cases of eggs, coops of chickens, and cans of lard, was enough to make an orderly housewife shudder with horror.
But Mrs. Filmore had grown accustomed to this state of affairs in the front part of the house, for she confined her domestic business, and whatever neatness and order were possible, to the room in the rear, where, as she often phrased it, she did the “eatin’ an’ cookin’, an’ never interfeer with pap’s part except to lend ’im my cheers when thar is more ’n common waitin’ fer the mail-carrier.”
And her chairs were often in demand, for Filmore was a deacon in Big Cabin Church, which stood at the foot of the green-clad mountain a mile down the road, and it was at the store that his brother deacons frequently met to transact church business.
One summer afternoon they held an important meeting. Abner Calihan, a member of the church and a good, industrious citizen, was to be tried for heresy.
“It has worried me more ’n anything that has happened sence them two Dutchmen over at Cove Spring swapped wives an’ couldn’t be convinced of the’r error,” said long, lean Bill Odell, after he had come in and borrowed a candle-box to feed his mule in, and had given the animal eight ears of corn from the pockets of his long-tailed coat, and left the mule haltered at a hitching-post in front of the store.
“Ur sence the widder Dill swore she was gwine to sue Hank Dobb’s wife fer witchcraft,” replied Filmore, in a hospitable tone. “Take a cheer; it must be as hot as a bake-oven out thar in the sun.”
Bill Odell took off his coat and folded it carefully and laid it across the beam of the scales, and unbuttoned his vest and sat down, and proceeded to mop his perspiring face with a red bandanna. Toot Bailey came in next, a quiet little man of about fifty, with a dark face, straggling gray hair, and small, penetrating eyes. His blue jean trousers were carelessly stuck into the tops of his clay-stained boots, and he wore a sack-coat, a “hickory” shirt, and a leather belt. Mrs. Filmore put her red head and broad, freckled face out of the door of her apartment to see who had arrived, and the next moment came out dusting a “split-bottomed” chair with her apron.
“How are ye, Toot?” was her greeting as she placed the chair for him between a jar of fresh honey and a barrel of sorghum molasses. “How is the sore eyes over yore way?”
“Toler’ble,” he answered, as he leaned back against the counter and fanned himself with his slouch hat. “Mine is about through it, but the Tye childern is a sight. Pizen-oak hain’t a circumstance.”
“What did ye use?”
“Copperas an’ sweet milk. It is the best thing I’ve struck. I don’t want any o’ that peppery eye-wash ’bout my place. It’d take the hide off ’n a mule’s hind leg.”
“Now yore a-talkin’,” and Bill Odell went to the water-bucket on the end of the counter. He threw his tobacco-quid away, noisily washed out his mouth, and took a long drink from the gourd dipper. Then Bart Callaway and Amos Sanders, who had arrived half an hour before and had walked down to take a look at Filmore’s fish-pond, came in together. Both were whittling sticks and looking cool and comfortable.
“We are all heer,” said Odell, and he added his hat to his coat and the pile of weights on the scale-beam, and put his right foot on the rung of his chair. “I reckon we mought as well proceed.” At these words the men who had arrived last carefully stowed their hats away under their chairs and leaned forward expectantly. Mrs. Filmore glided noiselessly to a corner behind the counter, and with folded arms stood ready to hear all that was to be said.
“Did anybody inform Ab of the object of this meeting?” asked Odell.
They all looked at Filmore, and he transferred their glances to his wife. She flushed under their scrutiny and awkwardly twisted her fat arms together.
“Sister Calihan wuz in here this mornin’,” she deposed in an uneven tone. “I ‘lowed somebody amongst ’em ort to know what you-uns wuz up to, so I up an’ told ‘er.”
“What did she have to say?” asked Odell, bending over the scales to spit at a crack in the floor, but not removing his eyes from the witness.
“Law, I hardly know what she didn’t say! I never seed a woman take on so. Ef the last bit o’ kin she had on earth wuz suddenly wiped from the face o’ creation, she couldn’t ‘a’ tuk it more to heart. Sally wuz with ‘er, an’ went on wuss ‘an her mammy.”
“What ailed Sally?”
Mrs. Filmore smiled irrepressibly. “I reckon you ort to know, Brother Odell,” she said, under the hand she had raised to hide her smile. “Do you reckon she hain’t heerd o’ yore declaration that Eph cayn’t marry in no heretic family while yo ‘re above ground? It wuz goin’ the round at singin’-school two weeks ago, and thar hain’t been a thing talked sence.”
“I hain’t got a ioty to retract,” replied Odell, looking down into the upturned faces for approval. “I’d as soon see a son o’ mine in his box. Misfortune an’ plague is boun’ to foller them that winks at infidelity in any disguise ur gyarb.”
“Oh, shucks! don’t fetch the young folks into it, Brother Odell,” gently protested Bart Callaway. “Them two has been a-settin’ up to each other ever sence they wuz knee-high to a duck. They hain’t responsible fer the doin’s o’ the old folks.”
“I hain’t got nothin’ to take back, an’ Eph knows it,” thundered the tall deacon, and his face flushed angrily. “Ef the membership sees fit to excommunicate Ab Calihan, none o’ his stock ’ll ever come into my family. But this is dilly-dallyin’ over nothin’. You fellers ’ll set thar cocked up, an’ chaw an’ spit, an’ look knowin’, an’ let the day pass ‘thout doin’ a single thing. Ab Calihan is either fitten or unfitten, one ur t’other. Brother Filmore, you’ve seed ’im the most, now what’s he let fall that’s undoctrinal?”
Filmore got up and laid his clay pipe on the counter and kicked back his chair with his foot.
“The fust indications I noticed,” he began, in a raised voice, as if he were speaking to some one outside, “wuz the day Liz Wambush died. Bud Thorn come in while I wuz weighing up a side o’ bacon fur Ab, an’ ‘lowed that Liz couldn’t live through the night. I axed ’im ef she had made her peace, and he ‘lowed she had, entirely, that she wuz jest a-lyin’ thar shoutin’ Glory ever’ breath she drawed, an’ that they all wuz glad to see her reconciled, fer you know she wuz a hard case speritually. Well, it wuz right back thar at the fireplace while Ab wuz warmin’ hisse’f to start home that he ‘lowed that he hadn’t a word to say agin Liz’s marvelous faith, nur her sudden speritual spurt, but that in his opinion the doctrine o’ salvation through faith without actual deeds of the flesh to give it backbone wuz all shucks, an’ a dangerous doctrine to teach to a risin’ gineration. Them wuz his words as well as I can remember, an’ he cited a good many cases to demonstrate that the members o’ Big Cabin wuzn’t any more ready to help a needy neighbor than a equal number outside the church. He wuz mad kase last summer when his wheat wuz spilin’ everybody that come to he’p wuz uv some other denomination, an’ the whole lot o’ Big Cabin folks made some excuse ur other. He ‘lowed that you—”
Filmore hesitated, and the tall man opposite him changed countenance.
“Neil, hain’t you got a bit o’ sense?” put in Mrs. Filmore, sharply.
“What did he say ag’in’ me—the scamp?” asked Odell, firing up.
Filmore turned his back to his scowling wife, and took an egg from a basket on the counter and looked at it closely, as he rolled it over and over in his fingers.
“Lots that he ortn’t to, I reckon,” he said, evasively.
“Well, what wuzsomeof it? I hain’t a-keerin’ what he says about me.”
“He ‘lowed, fer one thing, that yore strict adheerance to doctrine had hardened you some, wharas religious conviction, ef thar wuz any divine intention in it, ort, in reason, to have a contrary effect. He ‘lowed you wuz money-lovin’ an’ uncharitable an’ unfergivin’ an’, a heap o’ times, un-Christian in yore persecution o’ the weak an’ helpless—them that has no food an’ raiment—when yore crib an’ smokehouse is always full. Ab is a powerful talker, an’—”
“It’s the devil in ’im a-talkin’,” interrupted Odell, angrily, “an’ it’s plain enough that he ort to be churched. Brother Sanders, you intimated that you’d have a word to say; let us have it.”
Sanders, a heavy-set man, bald-headed and red-bearded, rose. He took a prodigious quid of tobacco from his mouth and dropped it on the floor at the side of his chair. His remarks were crisp and to the point.
“My opinion is that Ab Calihan hain’t a bit more right in our church than Bob Inglesel. He’s got plumb crooked.”
“What have you heerd ’im say? That’s what we want to git at,” said Odell, his leathery face brightening.
“More ’n I keered to listen at. He has been readin’ stuff he ortn’t to. He give up takin’ theAdvocate, an’ wouldn’t go in Mary Bank’s club when they’ve been takin’ it in his family fer the last five year, an’ has been subscribin’ fer theTrue Lightsence Christmas. The last time I met ’im at Big Cabin, I think it wuz the second Sunday, he couldn’t talk o’ nothin’ else but what this great man an’ t’other had writ somewhar up in Yankeedom, an’ that ef we all keep along in our little rut we ’ll soon be the laughin’-stock of all the rest of the enlightened world. Ab is a slippery sort of a feller, an’ it’s mighty hard to ketch ‘im, but I nailed ’im on one vital p’int.” Sanders paused for a moment, stroked his beard, and then continued: “He got excited sorter, an’ ‘lowed that he had come to the conclusion that hell warn’t no literal, burnin’ one nohow, that he had too high a regyard fer the Almighty to believe that He would amuse Hisse’f roastin’ an’ feedin’ melted lead to His creatures jest to see ’em squirm.”
“He disputes the Bible, then,” said Odell, conclusively, looking first into one face and then another. “He sets his puny self up ag’in’ the Almighty. The Book that has softened the pillers o’ thousands; the Word that has been the consolation o’ millions an’ quintillions o’ mortals of sense an’ judgment in all ages an’ countries is a pack o’ lies from kiver to kiver. I don’t see a bit o’ use goin’ furder with this investigation.”
Just then Mrs. Filmore stepped out from her corner.
“I hain’t been axed to put in,” she said, warmly; “but ef I wuz you-uns I’d go slow with Abner Calihan. He’s nobody’s fool. He’s too good a citizen to be hauled an’ drug about like a dog with a rope round his neck. He fit on the right side in the war, an’ to my certain knowledge has done more to ‘ds keepin’ peace an’ harmony in this community than any other three men in it. He has set up with the sick an’ toted medicine to ‘em, an’ fed the pore an’ housed the homeless. Here only last week he got hisse’f stung all over the face an’ neck helpin’ that lazy Joe Sebastian hive his bees, an’ Joe an’ his triflin’ gang didn’t git a scratch. You may see the day you ’ll regret it ef you run dry shod over that man.”
“We simply intend to do our duty, Sister Filmore,” said Odell, slightly taken aback; “but you kin see that church rules must be obeyed. I move we go up thar in a body an’ lay the case squar before ‘im. Ef he is willin’ to take back his wild assertions an’ go’long quietly without tryin’ to play smash with the religious order of the whole community, he may stay in on probation. What do you-uns say?”
“It’s all we kin do now,” said Sanders; and they all rose and reached for their hats.
“You’d better stay an’ look atter the store,” Filmore called back to his wife from the outside; “somebody mought happen along.” With a reluctant nod of her head she acquiesced, and came out on the little porch and looked after them as they trudged along the hot road toward Abner Calihan’s farm. When they were out of sight she turned back into the store. “Well,” she muttered, “Abner Calihanmayput up with that triflin’ layout a-interfeerin’ with ’im when he is busy a-savin’ his hay, but ef he don’t set his dogs on ’em he is a better Christian ‘an I think he is’ an’ he’s a good un. They are a purty-lookin’ set to be a-dictatin’ to a man like him.”
A little wagon-way, which was not used enough to kill the stubbly grass that grew on it, ran from the main road out to Calihan’s house. The woods through which the little road had been cut were so thick and the foliage so dense that the overlapping branches often hid the sky.
Calihan’s house was a four-roomed log building which had been weather-boarded on the outside with upright unpainted planks. On the right side of the house was an orchard, and beneath some apple-trees near the door stood an old-fashioned cider-press, a pile of acid-stained rocks which had been used as weights in the press, and numerous tubs, barrels, jugs, and jars, and piles of sour-smelling refuse, over which buzzed a dense swarm of honey-bees, wasps, and yellow-jackets. On the other side of the house, in a chip-strewn yard, stood cords upon cords of wood, and several piles of rich pine-knots and charred pine-logs, which the industrious farmer had on rainy days hauled down from the mountains for kindling-wood. Behind the house was a great log barn and a stable-yard, and beyond them lay the cornfields and the lush green meadow, where a sinuous line of willows and slender cane-brakes marked the course of a little creek.
The approach of the five visitors was announced to Mrs. Calihan and her daughter by a yelping rush toward the gate of half a dozen dogs which had been napping and snapping at flies on the porch. Mrs. Calihan ran out into the yard and vociferously called the dogs off, and with awed hospitality invited the men into the little sitting-room.
Those of them who cared to inspect their surroundings saw a rag carpet, walls of bare, hewn logs, the cracks of which had been filled with yellow mud, a little table in the center of the room, and a cottage organ against the wall near the small window. On the mantel stood a new clock and a glass lamp, the globe of which held a piece of red flannel and some oil. The flannel was to give the lamp color. Indeed, lamps with flannel in them were very much in vogue in that part of the country.
“Me an’ Sally wuz sorter expectin’ ye,” said Mrs. Calihan, as she gave them seats and went around and took their hats from their knees and laid them on a bed in the next room. “I don’t know what to make of Mr. Calihan,” she continued, plaintively. “He never wuz this away before. When we wuz married he could offer up the best prayer of any young man in the settlement. The Mount Zion meetin’-house couldn’t hold protracted meetin’ without ‘im. He fed more preachers an’ the’r hosses than anybody else, an’ some ‘lowed that he wuz jest too natcherly good to pass away like common folks, an’ that when his time come he’d jest disappear body an’ all.” She was now wiping her eyes on her apron, and her voice had the suggestion of withheld emotions. “I never calculated on him bringin’ sech disgrace as this on his family.”
“Whar is he now?” asked Odell, preliminarily.
“Down thar stackin’ hay. Sally begun on ’im ag’in at dinner about yore orders to Eph, an’ he went away ‘thout finishin’ his dinner. She’s been a-cryin’ an’ a-poutin’ an’ takin’ on fer a week, an’ won’t tech a bite to eat. I never seed a gal so bound up in anybody as she is in Eph. It has mighty nigh driv her pa distracted, kase he likes Eph, an’ Sally’s his pet.” Mrs. Calihan turned her head toward the adjoining room: “Sally, oh, Sally! are ye listenin’? Come heer a minute!”
There was silence for a moment, then a sound of heavy shoes on the floor of the next room, and a tall rather good-looking girl entered. Her eyes and cheeks were red, and she hung her head awkwardly, and did not look at any one but her mother.
“Did you call me, ma?”
“Yes, honey; run an’ tell yore pa they are all heer,—the last one of ‘em, an’ fer him to hurry right on to the house an’ not keep ‘em a-waitin’.”
“Yes-sum!” And without any covering for her head the visitors saw her dart across the back yard toward the meadow.
With his pitchfork on his shoulder, a few minutes later Abner Calihan came up to the back door of his house. He wore no coat, and but one frayed suspender supported his patched and baggy trousers. His broad, hairy breast showed through the opening in his shirt. His tanned cheeks and neck were corrugated, his hair and beard long and reddish brown. His brow was high and broad, and a pair of blue eyes shone serenely beneath his shaggy brows.
“Good evenin’,” he said, leaning his pitchfork against the door-jamb outside and entering. Without removing his hat he went around and gave a damp hand to each visitor. “It is hard work savin’ hay sech weather as this.”
No one replied to this remark, though they all nodded and looked as if they wanted to give utterance to something struggling within them. Calihan swung a chair over near the door, and sat down and leaned back against the wall, and looked out at the chickens in the yard and the gorgeous peacock strutting about in the sun. No one seemed quite ready to speak, so, to cover his embarrassment, he looked farther over in the yard to his potato-bank and pig-pens, and then up into the clear sky for indications of rain.
“I reckon you know our business, Brother Calihan,” began Odell, in a voice that broke the silence harshly.
“I reckon I could make a purty good guess,” and Calihan spit over his left shoulder into the yard. “I hain’t heerd nothin’ else fer a week. From all the talk, a body’d ’low I’d stole somebody’s hawgs.”
“We jesthadto take action,” affirmed the self-constituted speaker for the others. “The opinions you have expressed,” and Odell at once began to warm up to his task, “are so undoctrinal an’ so p’int blank ag’in’ the articles of faith that, believin’ as you seem to believe, you are plumb out o’ j’int with Big Cabin Church, an’ a resky man in any God-feerin’ community. God Almighty”—and those who saw Odell’s twitching upper lip and indignantly flashing eye knew that the noted “exhorter” was about to become mercilessly personal and vindictive—“God Almighty is the present ruler of the universe, but sence you have set up to run ag’in’ Him it looks like you’d need a wider scope of territory to transact business in than jest heer in this settlement.”
The blood had left Calihan’s face. His eyes swept from one stern, unrelenting countenance to another till they rested on his wife and daughter, who sat side by side, their faces in their aprons, their shoulders quivering with soundless sobs. They had forsaken him. He was an alien in his own house, a criminal convicted beneath his own roof. His rugged breast rose and fell tumultuously as he strove to command his voice.
“I hain’t meant no harm—not a speck,” he faltered, as he wiped the perspiration from his quivering chin. “I hain’t no hand to stir up strife in a community. I’ve tried to be law-abidin’ an’ honest, but it don’t seem like a man kin he’p thinkin’. He—”
“But he kin keep his thinkin’ to hisse’f,” interrupted Odell, sharply; and a pause came after his words.
In a jerky fashion Calihan spit over his shoulder again. He looked at his wife and daughter for an instant, and nodded several times as if acknowledging the force of Odell’s words. Bart Callaway took out his tobacco-quid and nervously shuffled it about in his palm as if he had half made up his mind that Odell ought not to do all the talking, but he remained mute, for Mrs. Calihan had suddenly looked up.
“That’s what I told him,” she whimpered, bestowing a tearful glance on her husband. “He mought ‘a’ kep’ his idees to hisse’f ef he had to have ‘em, and not ‘a’ fetched calumny an’ disgrace down on me an’ Sally. When he used to set thar atter supper an’ pore over theTrue Lightwhen ever’body else wuz in bed, I knowed it’d bring trouble, kase some o’ the doctrine wuz scand’lous. The next thing I knowed he had lost intrust in prayer-meetin’, an’ ‘lowed that Brother Washburn’s sermons wuz the same thing over an’ over, an’ that they mighty nigh put him to sleep. An’ then he give up axin’ the blessin’ at the table—somethin’ that has been done in my fam’ly as fur back as the oldest one kin remember. An’ he talked his views, too, fer it got out, an’ me nur Sally narry one never cheeped it, fer we wuz ashamed. An’ then ever’ respectable woman in Big Cabin meetin’-house begun to sluff away from us as ef they wuz afeerd o’ takin’ some dreadful disease. It wuz hard enough on Sally at the start, but when Eph up an’ tol’ her that you had give him a good tongue-lashin’, an’ had refused to deed him the land you promised him ef he went any further with her, it mighty nigh prostrated her. She hain’t done one thing lately but look out at the road an’ pine an’ worry. The blame is all on her father. My folks has all been good church members as fur back as kin be traced, an’ narry one wuz ever turned out.”
Mrs. Calihan broke down and wept. Calihan was deeply touched; he could not bear to see a woman cry. He cleared his throat and tried to look unconcerned.
“What step do you-uns feel called on to take next to—to what you are a-doin’ of now?” he stammered.
“We ‘lowed,” replied Odell, “ef we couldn’t come to some sort o’ understandin’ with you now, we’d fetch up the case before preachin’ to-morrow an’ let the membership vote on it. The verdict would go ag’in’ you, Ab, fer thar hain’t a soul in sympathy with you.”
The sobbing of the two women broke out in renewed volume at the mention of this dreadful ultimatum, which, despite their familiarity with the rigor of Big Cabin Church discipline, they had up to this moment regarded as a vague contingent rather than a tangible certainty.
Calihan’s face grew paler. Whatever struggle might have been going on in his mind was over. He was conquered.
“I am ag’in’ bringin’ reproach on my wife an’ child,” he conceded, a lump in his throat and a tear in his eye. “You all know best. I reckon I have been too forward an’ too eager to heer myself talk.” He got up and looked out toward the towering cliffy mountains and into the blue indefiniteness above them, and without looking at the others he finished awkwardly: “Ef it’s jest the same to you-uns you may let the charge drap, an’—an’ in future I ’ll give no cause fer complaint.”
“That’s the talk,” said Odell, warmly, and he got up and gave his hand to Calihan. The others followed his example.
“I ’ll make a little speech before preachin’ in the mornin’,” confided Odell to Calihan after congratulations were over. “You needn’t be thar unless you want to. I ’ll fix you up all right.”
Calihan smiled faintly and looked shamefacedly toward the meadow, and reached outside and took hold of the handle of his pitchfork.
“I want to try to git through that haystack ‘fore dark,” he said, awkwardly. “Ef you-uns will be so kind as to excuse me now I ’ll run down and finish up. I’d sorter set myself a task to do, an’ I don’t like to fall short o’ my mark.”
Down in the meadow Calihan worked like a tireless machine, not pausing for a moment to rest his tense muscles. He was trying to make up for the time he had lost with his guests. Higher and smaller grew the great haystack as it slowly tapered toward its apex. The red sun sank behind the mountain and began to draw in its long streamers of light. The gray of dusk, as if fleeing from its darker self, the monster night, crept up from the east, and with a thousand arms extended moved on after the receding light.
Calihan worked on till the crickets began to shrill and the frogs in the marshes to croak, and the hay beneath his feet felt damp with dew. The stack was finished. He leaned on his fork and inspected his work mechanically. It was a perfect cone. Every outside straw and blade of grass lay smoothly downward, like the hair on a well-groomed horse. Then with his fork on his shoulder he trudged slowly up the narrow field-road toward the house. He was vaguely grateful for the darkness; a strange, new, childish embarrassment was on him. For the first time in life he was averse to meeting his wife and child.
“I’ve been spanked an’ told to behave ur it ’ud go wuss with me,” he muttered. “I never wuz talked to that away before by nobody, but I jest had to take it. Sally an’ her mother never would ‘a’ heerd the last of it ef I had let out jest once. No man, I reckon, has a moral right to act so as to make his family miserable. I crawfished, I know, an’ on short notice; but law me! I wouldn’t have Bill Odell’s heart in me fer ever’ acre o’ bottom-lan’ in this valley. I wouldn’t ‘a’ talked to a houn’ dog as he did to me right before Sally an’ her mother.”
He was very weary when he leaned his fork against the house and turned to wash his face and hands in the tin basin on the bench at the side of the steps. Mrs. Calihan came to the door, her face beaming.
“I wuz afeerd you never would come,” she said, in a sweet, winning tone. “I got yore beans warmed over an’ some o’ yore brag yam taters cooked. Come on in ‘fore the coffee an’ biscuits git cold.”
“I ’ll be thar in a minute,” he said; and he rolled up his sleeves and plunged his hot hands and face into the cold spring-water.
“Here’s a clean towel, pa; somebody has broke the roller.” It was Sally. She had put on her best white muslin gown and braided her rich, heavy hair into two long plaits which hung down her back. There was no trace of the former redness about her eyes, and her face was bright and full of happiness. He wiped his hands and face on the towel she held, and took a piece of a comb from his vest pocket and hurriedly raked his coarse hair backward. He looked at her tenderly and smiled in an abashed sort of way.
“Anybody comin’ to-night?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Eph Odell, I ’ll bet my hat!”
The girl nodded, and blushed and hung her head.
“How do you know?”
“Mr. Odell ‘lowed I mought look fer him.”
Abner Calihan laughed slowly and put his arm around his daughter, and together they went toward the steps of the kitchen door.
“You seed yore old daddy whipped clean out to-day,” he said, tentatively. “I reckon yo ‘re ashamed to see him sech a coward an’ have him sneak away like a dog with his tail tucked ’tween his legs. Bill Odell is a power in this community.”
She laughed with him, but she did not understand his banter, and preceded him into the kitchen. It was lighted by a large tallow-dip in the center of the table. There was much on the white cloth to tempt a hungry laborer’s appetite—a great dish of greasy string-beans, with pieces of bacon, a plate of smoking biscuits, and a platter of fried ham in brown gravy. But he was not hungry. Slowly and clumsily he drew up his chair and sat down opposite his wife and daughter. He slid a quivering thumb under the edge of his inverted plate and turned it half over, but noticing that they had their hands in their laps and had reverently bowed their heads, he cautiously replaced it. In a flash he comprehended what was expected of him. The color surged into his homely face. He played with his knife for a moment, and then stared at them stubbornly, almost defiantly. They did not look up, but remained motionless and patiently expectant. The dread of the protracted silence, for which he was becoming more and more responsible, conquered him. He lowered his head and spoke in a low, halting tone:
“Good Lord, Father of us all, have mercy on our sins, and make us thankful fer these, Thy many blessings. Amen.”