IT was ten o'clock that night when the stage, or “hack,” as it was called, put Pole down in the square at Springtown. He went directly to Floyd's store, hoping to see the young man before he went to bed, but the long building was wrapped in darkness. Pole went over to the little hotel where Floyd roomed. The proprietor, Jerry Malone, and two tobacco drummers sat smoking on the veranda.
“He's jest this minute gone up to his room,” the landlord said, in response to Baker's inquiry as to the whereabouts of his friend. “It's the fust door to the right, at the top o' the steps.”
Pole went up and knocked on Floyd's door, and the young merchant called out, “Come in.”
Baker opened the door, finding the room in darkness. From the bed in the corner Floyd's voice came: “Is that you, Pole?”
“Yes, I jest got back, Nelson. I went to the store expectin' to find you at work, an' then Jerry told me you was up here.”
“Light the lamp, Pole,” Floyd said. “There are some matches on that table right under your hand.”
“Oh, I hain't got long to stay,” returned the mountaineer, “an' I don't need a light to talk by, any more'n a blind man does to write his letters. I 'lowed I'd tell you what I done down thar. I seed Floyd.”
“Oh, you did! After you left I got really interested in your venture, and I was afraid you might accidentally miss him.”
“Yes, I seed 'im.” Pole found a chair and sat down at the little table, resting his hand on it, and tilting the chair back, after his favorite method of making himself comfortable. There was a lamp on a post in front of the hotel and its light came through a window and faintly illuminated the room. Pole could see the white covering of Floyd's bed and the outline of the young man's head and shoulders against a big feather pillow.
“You say you saw him?” Floyd's voice was eager and restrained.
“Yes, an' I got news fer you, Nelson—substantial news. Henry A. Floyd is yore own uncle.”
“Good God, Pole!”—Floyd sat up in bed—“don't make any mistakes. You say he is actually—”
“I ain't makin' no mistakes,” replied Pole. “He's the only brother of yore daddy, Charles Nelson Floyd. That old cuss told me so, an' I know he was tellin' me a straight tale.”
There was silence. Floyd pulled his feet from beneath the coverings and sat up on the bedside. He seemed unable to speak, and, leaning forward in his chair, the ex-moonshiner recounted in careful detail all that had passed between him and the man he had visited. For several minutes after Pole had concluded the merchant sat without visible movement, then Pole heard him take a long, deep breath.
“Well, I hope you are satisfied with what I done,” said Pole, tentatively.
“Satisfied! Great Heavens!” cried Floyd,' “I simply don't know what to say to it—how to tell you what I feel. Pole, I'll bet I'm having the oddest experience that ever came to mortal man. I don't know how to explain it, or make you understand. When a baby's born it's too young to wonder or reflect over its advent into the world, but to-night, after all my years of life, I feel—Pole, I feel somehow as if I were suddenly born again. That dark spot on my history has been in my mind almost night and day ever since I was old enough to compare myself to others. Persons who have strong physical defects are often morbidly sensitive over them. That flaw in my life was my eternally sore point. And my mother”—Floyd's voice sank reverently—“did he say who she was?”
“No, we didn't git fur enough,” Pole returned. “You see, Nelson, I got that information by pretendin' to be sorter indifferent about you, an' ef I'd 'a' axed too many questions, the old codger 'ud 'a' suspicioned my game. Besides, as I told you, he wasn't willin' to talk perfectly free. Although yore daddy's in the grave, the old man seems to still bear a sort o' grudge agin 'im, an' that, in my opinion, accounts fer him not helpin' you out when you was a child.”
“Ah, I see,” said Floyd; “my father was wild as a young man?”
“Yes, that's the way he put it,” answered Baker; “but I wouldn't let that bother me, Nelson. Ef yore daddy'd 'a' lived longer, no doubt, he'd 'a' settled down like you have. But he passed away in a good cause. It ort to be a comfort to know he died in battle.”
“Yes, that's a comfort,” said Floyd, thoughtfully.
“An' now you've got plenty o' kin,” Pole said, with a pleasant laugh. “I come over in the hack with Colonel Price and Captain Duncan, an' you ort to 'a' heard 'em both spout about the Floyds an' the Nelsons. They say yore blood's as blue as indigo, my boy, an' that they suspected it all along, on account o' yore pluck and determination to win in ever' game you tackled. Lord, you bet they'll be round to-morrow to give you the hand o' good-fellowship an' welcome you into high life. I reckon you'll sorter cut yore mountain scrub friends.”
“I haven't any scrub friends,” said Floyd, with feeling. “I don't know that you boast of your ancestry, Pole, but you are as high above the kind of man that does as the stars are above the earth.”
“Now you are a-kiddin' me!” said Baker. He put out his hand on the table and felt something smooth and cool under his touch. He drew it to him. It was a pint flask filled with whiskey. He held it up with a laugh. “Good Lord, what are you doin' with this bug-juice?” he asked.
“Oh, you mean that bottle of rye,” said Floyd. “I've kept that for a memento of the day I swore off, Pole, five years ago. I thought as long as I could pass it day after day and never want to uncork it, that it was a sign I was safely anchored to sobriety.”
There was a little squeak like that of a frightened mouse. Pole had twisted the cork out and was holding the neck of the bottle to his nose.
“Gee whiz!” he exclaimed. “That stuff smellsfine!You say it's five years old, Nelson?”
“Yes, it's almost old enough to vote,” Floyd laughed. “It was very old and mellow when I got it.”
The cork squeaked again Pole had stopped the bottle. It lay flat under his big, pulsating hand. His fingers played over it caressingly. “I wouldn't advise you to keep it under yore eye all the time, Nelson,” he said. “I tried that dodge once an' it got the best o' my determination.”
“I sometimes feel the old desire come over me,” said Floyd; “often when my mind is at rest after work, and even while I am at it, but it is never here in my room in the presence of that memento. It seems to make a man of me. I pity a drinking man, Pole. I know what he has to fight, and I feel now that if I were to lose all hope in life that I'd take to liquor as naturally as a starving man would to food.”
“I reckon,” said Pole, in a strange, stilled voice. His fingers were now tightly clasped about the bottle. There was a pause, then he slid it cautiously—very cautiously—towards him. He swallowed something that was in his throat; his eyes were fixed in a great, helpless stare on the dim figure across the room. Noiselessly the bottle was raised, and noiselessly it went down into the pocket of his coat.
“I feel like I owe you my life, Pole,” Floyd continued, earnestly. “You've done to-day what no one else could have done. If that old man had died without speaking of this matter I'd perhaps never have known the truth. Pole, you can call on me for anything you want that is in my power to give. Do you understand me, Pole, old friend?—anything—anything!”
There was silence. Pole sat staring vacantly in front of him. Floyd rose in slow surprise and came across the room. Pole stood up suddenly, his hand on the weighty pocket. Quickly he shifted to a darker portion of the room nearer the door.
“What's the matter, Pole?” Floyd asked, in surprise.
“Matter? Why, nothin', Nelson.” Baker laughed mechanically. “I was jest thinkin' that I ought to be in bed. I've told you all I kin, I guess.”
“You were so quiet just now that I thought—really, I didn't know what to think. I was telling you—”
“I know, Nelson.” Baker's unsteady hand was on the latch of the door. “Never you mind, I'll call on you if I want anything. I've got yore friendship, I reckon, an' that's enough fer me.”
He opened the door and glided out into the hall. “Good-night, Nelson.”
“Good-night, Pole, good-night. God bless you, old man!”
On the lonely road leading to his house the mountaineer stopped and drew the bottle from his pocket. “You dem little devil!” he said, playfully, holding it up before his eyes in the starlight. “Here I've gone all day in Atlanta, passin' ten 'thousand barroom doors, swearin' by all that was holy that I'd fetch Nelson Floyd his news with a sober head on my shoulders an' a steady tongueinthat head; an' I rid, too, by hunkey, all the way from Darley out here with a hack-driver smellin' like a bung-hole, with two quarts under his seat an' no tellin' how many under his hide. I say I got through all that, although my jaws was achin' tell they felt like they was loose at the sockets, an' I 'lowed I'd slide safe to the home-base, whenyou—you crawled up under my nose in the dark like a yaller lizard, with that dern tale about yore ripe old age an' kingly flavor. 'Memento' hell!” Pole was using Floyd's word for the first time. “I'd like to know what sort of a memento you'd make outside of a man's stomach. No, Poley, I reckon you've reached yore limit.”
The mouse squeaked again. Pole chuckled. He held the flask aloft and shook it.
“Gentlemen,” he said to the countless stars winking merrily down from above, “take one with me,” and he drank.
TWO days after this, Nathan Porter brought home the news of what had happened to Floyd. The family were seated at the dinner-table when he came in warm from his walk along the dusty road. He started to sit down in his place without his coat, but Cynthia rose and insisted on his donning it.
“Folks is sech eternal fools!” he said, as he helped his plate to a green hillock of string-beans, from the sides of which protruded bowlders of gray bacon, and down which ran rivulets of grease.
“What have they been doing now?” asked his wife, curiously.
“They hain't doin' nothin' in town but talkin',” Porter said, in a tone of disgust. “Looks like all business has come to a dead halt, so that everybody kin exchange views about what Nelson Floyd has discovered about his kin. He's found a man—or Pole Baker did fer 'im, when Pole was drunk down in Atlanta—who don't deny he's his uncle—his daddy's own brother—an' you'd think Floyd had unearthed a gold-mine, from all the talk an' well-wishin' among the elect. Old Duncan an' Colonel Price helt a whole crowd spellbound at the post-office this mornin' with the'r tales about the past power an' grandeur of the Nelson an' Floyd families in America, an' all they'd done fer the'r country an' the like.”
“Father, is this true?” Cynthia asked, her face almost pale in suppressed excitement.
“I reckon thar's no doubt about it,” answered Porter. “Pole Baker's roarin' drunk, an' that always indicates that some'n' good or bad's happened to him or his friends. Thar hain't no money in Floyd's find. The Atlanta man's on the ragged edge; in fact, some say he never would 'a' confessed to the crime ef he hadn't heard that Nelson was well-to-do. I dunno. I hardly ever laugh, but I mighty nigh split my sides while Jim Carden was pokin' fun at 'em all. Jim says all the bon-tons in this section has been treatin' Floyd like a runt pig till now. The Duncans had a big blow-out at the'r house last night. Miss Evelyn's got some Atlanta gals an' boys thar at a house-party, an' the shindig was a big event. Jim said he was standin' nigh Floyd yesterday when he got his invite, an' that Nelson was about to refuse p'int-blank to go, beca'se he'd never been axed thar before he got his blood certificate; but Jim said Pole Baker was standin' thar about half-shot, swayin' back an' forth agin the desk, an' Pole up an' told Floyd that he'd have to accept—that he was as good as any in the land, an' to refuse a thing o' that sort would belittle 'im; an' so Nelson put on a b'iled shirt an' a dicky cravat an' went. Jim said his wife run over with a passle o' other women to help about the dinin'-room an' kitchen, an' that Floyd was the high-cockalorum of the whole bunch. He said all the women was at his heels, an' that nothin' was talked except the high an' mighty grandeur that's come an' gone among the Nelsons an' Floyds. Jim said Floyd looked like he wanted to crawl through a knot-hole in the floor. I'll say this fer that feller—blood or no blood, he hain't no dem fool, an' you mark my words, this thing hain't a-goin' to spile 'im nuther. You let a man make hisse'f in life, an' he hain't a-goin' daft about the flabby, ready-made sort.”
“You wait and see,” Mrs. Porter said, a sneer on her lips, as she critically eyed Cynthia's face. “A man that's as bad as he is, to begin with, will be worse when he is run after like that.”
“I dunno,” said Porter, his mouth full of beans. “I seed 'im give old Johnson Blare a cut this mornin' that tickled me powerful. The old skunk got out o' his rickety buggy in front o' the store an' went in to congratulate Floyd. I knowed what he was up to, an' follered 'im back to the desk. He told Floyd that he was a sort o' far-off cousin o' the Nelsons, an' that he was prouder of that fact than anything else in the world. I seed Floyd was mad as he looked at the old fellow with his high collar an' frazzley necktie. 'I'm gittin' tired o' the whole business,' Floyd said to 'im. 'I want to be appreciated, if I deserve it, for myownsake, an' not on account o' my dead kinsfolk.' An' that certainly did squelch old Blare. He shook all over when he went out.”
“I suppose Nelson Floyd will end up by marrying Evelyn Duncan or some of the Prices,” Mrs. Porter said, significantly, as she fastened her lynx eye on Cynthia's shrinking face.
“That seems to be the talk, anyway,” Porter admitted. “She belongs to the doll-faced, bandbox variety. She'd be a nice little trick to dandle on a fellow's knee, but that's about all she'd be good for.” After the meal was over, Mrs. Porter followed Cynthia out into the kitchen, whither the girl was taking a big pan full of soiled dishes.
“This ought to make you very careful, Cynthia,” she said.
“I don't know what you mean, mother.” The girl looked up coldly.
“Well,Iknow what I mean,” said Mrs. Porter. “People seem to think this will bring about a sort of change in Nelson Floyd's way of living. We are really as good as anybody in this county, but we are poor, and others are rich, and have more social advantages. Evelyn Duncan always has snubbed you girls around here, and no young man has been going in both sets. So far nobody that I know of has talked unkindly about you and Nelson Floyd, but they would be more apt to now than ever. How that thing about the mill ever escaped—”
“Mother, don't bring that up again!” Cynthia said, almost fiercely. “I have heard enough of it. I can't stand any more.”
“Well, you know what I mean, and you have my warning,” said Mrs. Porter, sternly, “and that's all I can do. As good and respectable a young man as ever lived wants to marry you, and the worst rake in the county has been paying you questionable attentions. The first thing you know, Mr. Hillhouse will get disgusted, and—”
But Cynthia had left her work and gone out into the yard. With a face quite pale and set, she went through the orchard, climbed over the brier-grown rail-fence, and crossed the field and pasture to Pole Baker's house. Mrs. Baker, pale and bedraggled, with a ten-months-old baby on her arm, stood on the little porch of the cottage. At her feet the other children were playing.
“You've heard o' my trouble, I kin see that,” the married woman said, as the girl opened the gate. “Come in out o' the sun.”
“Yes, I've heard,” said Cynthia, “and I came as soon as I could.”
They went into the poorly furnished bedroom, with its bare floor belittered with the playthings of the children, and sat down in the straight-backed, rockerless chairs.
“You mustn't notice the way things look,” sighed Mrs. Baker. “The truth is, Cynthia, I haven't had the heart to lay my hand to a thing. Pole's been away three nights and three days now, and I don't know what has happened to him. He's quick tempered and gets into quarrels when he's drinkin'. He may be in jail in Darley, or away off some'rs on the railroad.”
“I know, I know,” said Cynthia. “Let me hold the baby; you look as if you are about to drop.”
“I didn't sleep an hour last night,” said Mrs. Baker, as she relinquished the child. “I don't want to complain. He's so good-hearted, Cynthia, and he can't help it to save his life. He's the kindest, sweetest man in the world when he's all right; but these sprees mighty nigh kill me. Take my advice an' don't marry a drinkin' man fer all you do. No—no, not even if you love 'im! It's easier to tear one out o' your heart before you have children by 'im, an' God knows a pore woman ought to havesomehappiness and peace of mind. If Pole don't come home to-day I'm afraid I'll go crazy. Pore little Billy kept wakin' up last night and askin' about his papa. He can't understand. He fairly worships his father.”
“We must hope for the best,” Cynthia said, sympathetically, and she drew the baby up close to her face and kissed it tenderly.
Late in the afternoon Cynthia went home. She helped her mother prepare supper, and after it was over she followed the example of the others and retired to her room. For an hour she sat sewing at her table, every now and then stifling a sigh. She rose and looked out of her window, at the wing of the house on the left. It was dark; the family were already asleep. She would undress and go to bed, but she knew she would lie awake for a long time, and that she dreaded.
Just then a sound broke the stillness of the night. Ah, she knew it so well! She sank back into her chair, quivering from head to foot in excitement. It was the whippoorwill call. It came again, more insistent, more pleading, but Cynthia sat motionless. Again it came; this time it was as if the weird notes were full of aggrieved inquiry. What was the matter? Why was she delaying? Cynthia rose, moved to the door of her room, but with her hand on the latch she paused. Then she turned back to her table and blew out her light, and began to disrobe in the darkness. No, she would not go in that manner to him again—never—never! To expect such a thing of Evelyn Duncan would not have entered his mind. Her mother was right. Evelyn Duncan was one thing in his estimation—she another. In the darkness she got into bed and drew the covering over her head that she might shut out the sound, for it pained her. There was silence for several minutes, then she heard the night bird's call farther away in the direction of the swamp. Floyd was going home. For hours she lay awake, unable to sleep. Once she sat upright with a start. Perhaps that would be the end. Perhaps she had driven him away, when if only she had obeyed the promptings of her heart he and she might—but he was gone, and, according to her mother's cautious view, she had acted for the best; and yet how could she ever forget the vast respect with which he had treated her that night at the mill? If he had been a bad man he would have shown it then. But he wasn't; he was good and thoughtful of her feelings. And he had come to-night full of his recent discovery. He wanted to tell her all about it, as he had told her of other things touching his inner life, and she had repulsed him—driven him away—to Evelyn Duncan. A sob struggled up in her bosom and forced its way to the surface.
AWEEK later Pole Baker came back from Darley on foot. He was covered with dust, his clothing was soiled and torn, his hair unkempt. He looked thinner; his big eyes seemed to burn in their sockets as if fed by the slow oil of despair. He paused at the well at the court-house to get a drink of water. He drank copiously from the big wooden bucket, and wiped his mouth on the back of his dusty hand. It was a very quiet afternoon at Springtown; scarcely any one was in sight. Pole moved over to the steps of the public building and sat down in abject indecision. “The Lord knows I ort to go on home to Sally an' the childem,” he groaned, “but how kin I?—how kin I?”
He sat there for half an hour, his head hanging, his great hands twitching nervously. Presently a shadow fell on the ground before him, and, looking up, he saw a negro boy extending a letter to him.
“A man told me ter give you dis here, Mr. Baker,” the boy said.
“What man?” Pole asked, as he took the communication.
“I didn't know 'im, suh. I never seed 'im before. He looked ter me like a mountain man. He was ridin' a little white mule, an' as soon as he gimme de letter an' tol me whar you was a settin' he whipped his mule an' rid off.”
Pole held the letter in his hand till the boy had gone, then he tore the envelope open and read it. It slipped from his inert fingers to the ground, and Pole, with glaring eyes, picked it up and read it again and again. To him it was worse than a death-blow.
“Pole Baker,” it began; “we, the Mountain-side White Cap Association, beg leave to inform you that we have sat in council at three separate meetings on your case of protracted drunkenness and family neglect. If any other man in the county had done as you have, he would have met with punishment long ago, but your friends put in excuses for you and postponed it. However, we met again last night and decided that it was our duty to act in your case. For ten days now your wife, a sweet, patient woman, has been verging on to despair through you. We hold that no living man has a right to tie a good woman to him by cords of love and pity and then torture her on the rack night and day just to gratify a beastly appetite. This step is being taken with great regret, and by men not known to you, but who admire you in many ways and like you. Punishment has been dealt out here in the mountains to good effect, as you yourself have been heard to admit, and we confidently believe that after we have acted in your case you will be a better man to them that are dependent on you. To-night at eight o'clock sharp our body will be at the gum spring, half-way between your farm and the court-house. If you are there to meet us, the disagreeable matter of whipping you will be done there, out of sight and hearing of your wife and children; if not, we will have to do as we have done in the case of other men, go to your house and take you out. We earnestly hope you will meet us, and that you will be prepared to make us promises that you will keep.
“Respectfully,
“The Mountain-side White Cap Association.”
Pole stared at the ground for a long time; the veins of his neck and brow stood out as if from physical torture. He looked about him suddenly in a spasm of effort to think of some escape from his impending doom. There was Nelson Floyd. He would grant him any request. He could draw upon the young merchant for unlimited funds, and before the fated hour arrived he could be far away from the country and his wife and children. A great lump rose inside of him and tore itself outward through his throat. No, he couldn't leave them; it was further out of his power now than ever. Besides, had he not brought all this on himself? Was not the threatened punishment equally as just in his case as it had been in the case of others among his neighbors? He rose to his feet. There was nothing left for him to do but to go home, and—yes, meet the White Caps at the appointed place and take what was coming to him bravely. Shoot? Defend his rights? Kill the men who were taking the part of those he himself had sworn to love and stand by?—no! The punishment?—yes; but after that, to his confused brain, all was a painful blank. His wife and children had always comforted him in trouble, but could they do so now? Would not the sight of their anxious faces only add to his load of remorse? As he went along the road towards his home, his rugged breast rose and expanded under his ragged shirt and then slowly fell. He was a dead man alive—a breathing, rotting horror in his own sight. A shudder went over him; he heard the commanding voice of the leader of the outlaws; he felt the lash and braced himself for another blow, which he hoped would cut deep enough to pierce the festering agony within him. Then his lower lip began to quiver, and tears came into his great, glaring eyes. He was beginning to pity himself, for, when all had been said and done, could he really have acted differently? Had God actually given him the moral and physical strength to avoid the pits into which he had stumbled with the helplessness of a little child?
The road led him into the depths of a wood where the boughs of mighty trees arched overhead and obscured the sunlit sky. He envied a squirrel bounding unhindered to its nest. Nature seemed to hold out her vast, soothing arms to him. He wanted to sink into them and sob out his pent-up agony. In the deepest part of the wood, where rugged cliffs bordered the road, he came to the spring mentioned in the letter. Here he paused and looked about him. On this spot the most awful experience of his rugged life would be enacted.
With a shudder he passed on. The trees grew less dense, and then on a rise ahead of him he saw his humble cottage, like a cheerless blot on the green lush-sward about it. He wanted now to search the face of his wife. For ten days, the letter said, she had suffered. She had suffered so much that the neighbors had taken up her cause—they had taken it up when he—great God!—when he loved her and the children with every tortured cord of his being! They had come to his wife's aid against him, her prime enemy. Yes, they should whip him, and he would tell them while they were at it to lay it on—to lay it on! and God sanction the cause.
He entered the gate. His wife was sitting in the little hall, a wooden bowl in her lap, shelling pease; on a blanket at her feet lay the baby. He went up the steps and stood in the doorway. She raised her eyes and saw him, and then lowered her head, saying nothing, though she was deathly pale. He stared helplessly for a moment, and then went out behind the house and sat down in a chair under a tree, near his beehives and his bent-toothed, stone-weighted harrow. A deeper feeling of despair had come over him, for it was the first time his wife had ever refused to greet him in some way or other on his return home. On the banks of a spring branch below the barn, he saw his older children playing, but he could not bear the sight of them, and, with his elbows on his knees, he covered his face with his hands. The memory came to him of men who had killed themselves when in deep trouble, but he brushed the thought away. They were shirking cowards. For half an hour he sat thus. He heard the children laughing as they continued their romp up and down the stream. Then his wife slowly came out to him. She was still pale, and it seemed to him that she was thinner than she had ever been before.
“Pole, darlin',” she began, with a catch in her voice, “some o' the neighbors has been tellin' me that I ort not to be kind an' good to you when you come home after you've done us this away, an' I acknowledge I did try just now to act sorter cold, but I can't. Oh, Pole, I ain't mad at you, darlin'! My heart is so full o' joy at seein' you back home, safe an' sound, that I don't know what to do. I know you are sorry, darlin', fer you always are, an' you look more downcast than I ever seed you in all my life. Oh, Pole, I've suffered, I'll admit, but that can't equal my joy right now at seein' you home with that sweet, sorry look in yore eyes. Pole, darlin', won't you kiss me? You would ef I hadn't turned from you as I did in the house jest now. Don't—don't blame me! I hardly knowed what I was doin'.”
A sob rose in him and burst. She saw his emotion, and put her arms around his neck.
“It was that meddlesome old Mrs. Snodgrass who put me up to actin' that away,” she said, tenderly. “But I'll never do it ag'in. The idea! An' me ever' bit as happy as I was the day we married one another! Thar comes little Billy, as hard as he kin move his little fat legs. Wipe yore eyes, Pole; don't let him see you a-cryin'. He'd remember it all his life—childern are so quar. Thar, wipe 'em on my apron—no, le'medo it. He's axed about you a hundred times a day. The neighbors' childern talked before him an' made him wonder.”
The child, red in the face and panting, ran into his father's outstretched arms.
“Whar you been, papa?” he asked.
“Over to Darley, Billy,” Pole managed to say.
“Are you goin' to stay at home any more, papa?” was the next query.
“Yes, Billy—I hope so. What have you childern been playing with down at the branch?”
“Johnny made a boat, papa, but it wouldn't swim. It sunk when he put sand on it. Will you make me a boat, papa?”
“Yes, Billy.”
“When, papa?”
“To-morrow, Billy.” Pole pressed his rough face to the child's smooth, perspiring brow, and then put him down. “Now run and play,” he said.
“I've put on some coffee to boil,” said Mrs. Baker when the child had left. “I know you want some. Pole, you look all unstrung. I never seed you so nervous. Yore hands are twitchin', an' I never seed sech a awful look in yore face. Don't you want me to cook some'n' special fer you to eat, Pole?”
“Not a thing, Sally,” he gulped. “The coffee is enough.”
She went into the house and came back with it. As she drew near he noted that the sun was fast going down; the shadow of the hill, to the west of the cottage, was creeping rapidly across the level field below. It would soon be eight o'clock, and then—
“Here it is,” said Sally, at his elbow. “It's as strong as I could make it. It will steady your nerves. Oh, Pole, I'm so glad you got back! I couldn't have gone through another night like the others. It would have killed me.”
He raised the coffee-cup to keep from seeing her wistful, dark-ringed eyes.
Night came on apace. He sat in his chair while she busied herself with heeding and putting the children to bed. Her voice rang with joy and relief as she spoke to them; once she sang a bar of an old ballad. It vividly recalled their courtship days. He moved his chair to the porch. He sat there awhile, and then went to feed his horse and cattle, telling himself, the while, that he had made his wife do his work for the past ten days that he might sink to the level of a beast.
After supper the two sat together in the moonlight on the porch, he silent, she talkative and full of joy. The old-fashioned clock on the mantel within struck seven. He waited about half an hour longer, and then he rose to his feet.
“I want to go to the store and see Nelson Floyd,” he said. “I'll be back inside of an hour, sure.”
She stared at him irresolutely for a moment, then she uttered a low groan.
“Oh, Pole, Pole, Pole! I don't want you to go,” she cried. “You know why. If you get whar any liquor is now, you—you may go off again. Stay with me, Pole! I'll give you some strong coffee. I'll do anything ruther than have you out o' my sight now that you are safe at home. You won't spile all my happiness by goin' off again. Will you, darlin'?”
He caught her wrist with his left hand and held his right steadily upward.
“I'll swear to you, Sally, before God, that I won't tetch a single drop, and that I'll be back inside of an hour. You kin trust me now, Sally. You never heard me speak this way before.”
Their eyes met. “Yes, I kin trust you when you talk that away,” she said. “Don't be gone longer than an hour, Pole. I'll set right here on the porch and wait for you.”
“All right. I'll keep my word, Sally.”
Out at the gate he passed, moving away, his head down, his long arms swinging disconsolately at his sides. When out of sight of the cottage he quickened his step. He must not be late. They must not, under any circumstances, come nearer to his house than the spring, and he must try to secure their promise not to let his degradation reach the ears of his wife and children. He could not stand that.
REACHING the appointed place, he sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree to wait. By-and-by he heard voices in the distance, and then the tramp, tramp of footsteps. A dark blur appeared in the moonlight on the road. It was a body of men numbering between twenty-five and thirty. They were all afoot, and, by way of precaution against identification, they wore white caps over their heads, with holes for the eyes. In their mouths they had stuffed wads of cotton to muffle and disguise their voices.
“Well, I see you've acted sensible, Baker,” said a man who seemed in the lead. “Some o' the boys 'lowed you'd cut an' shoot; but you hain't armed, are you, Pole?”
“No, I hain't armed, Joe Dilworthy.”
“Huh, you think you know me!” the speaker said, with a start.
“Yes, I know you,” answered Pole. “I'd know you anywhar in the world by yore shape an' voice.”
“Well, you maythinkI'm anybody you like,” returned the masked man. “That's neither here nur thar. I've been app'inted to do the talkin' to-night, Pole, an' I want to say, at the start, that this is the most disagreeable job that this association ever tackled. Yore case has been up before our body time after time, an' some'n' always throwed it out, fer you've got stacks an' stacks o' friends. But action was finally tuck, an' here we are. Pole, do you know any valid reason why you shouldn't be treated 'ike other malefactors in these mountains?”
There was silence. Pole's head was hanging down. They could not see his face in the moonlight.
“No, I don't see no reason,” the condemned man finally said. “I'm here to meet you, to tell you that I deserve more'n you fellows could lay on me ef you begun now an' kept up a steady lick till the last one of you was fagged out. The only trouble, gentlemen, is that I hain't a-goin' tofeelthe lash. Thar's a pain inside o' me so keen an' fur down that what you do jest to my body won't count. You are the friends of my wife an' childern; you are better friends to 'em than I've been, an' I want you to strip me to my dirty hide an' whip my duty into me, ef that is possible. The only thing I would ask is to spare my folks the knowledge of it, ef you kin see it that away. Keep this thing quiet—jest amongst us. I may be able to brace up an' try to do right in the future, but I don't believe I kin ef they know o' my humiliation.
“I don't ax that as a favor to myself, you understand, gentlemen, but to them you are befriendin'—a weak woman an' helpless little childern.”
Pole ceased speaking. There was profound silence, broken only by the croaking of frogs in the spring branch near by. Dilworthy thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers awkwardly, and slowly turned his eyeholes upon the eyeholes about him, but no one made sign or sound.
“Boys, you all hear what Pole says,” finally came from him. “He seems to feel—I mought say to realize—that—” The voice spent itself in the folds of the speaker's mask.
“Hold! I want to say a word.” A tall, lank man stepped from the group, spitting wads of cotton from his mouth and lifting the cap from his head. “I'm Jeff Wade, Pole. You see who I am. You kin appear agin me before the grand jury an' swear I'm a member o' this gang, ef you want to. I don't give a damn. In j'inin' the association, I tuck the oath to abide by what the majority done. But I didn't take no oath that I wouldn't talk when I got ready, an' I want now to explain, as is my right, I reckon, how I happen to be here. I've fit this case agin you fer several meetin's with all my soul an' strength, beca'se I knowed you was too good a man at heart to whip like a dog fer what you've done. I fit it an' fit it, but last meetin' my wife was down havin' another twelve-pound boy, as maybe you heard, an' somehow in my absence the vote went agin you. Strong speeches was made by yore wife's kin about her treatment, an' action was finally tuck. But I'm here to say that every lick that falls on yore helpless back to-night will hurt me more than ef they was on me You've made a better man out o' me in a few ways, Pole, an', by God! I'm a-goin' to feel like some o' that dirty crowd felt away back thar when they went along an' sanctioned the death agony of our Saviour. You are too good a man, Pole, to be degraded this away. What you've done agin yore own was through weakness that you couldn't well help. We've all got our faults, but I don't know a man in this gang that's got as many good p'ints to counteract the bad as you have.”
“That's all right, Jeff,” Pole said, stolidly. “What you say don't excuse me. I stand here to-night convicted by my neighbors of mistreatin' my own blood an' heart kin, an' I don't want nobody to defend me when sech men as Sandy McHugh tuck what was comin' to them without a whimper. I don't know what effect it's goin' to have on me. I cayn't see that fur ahead. I've tried to quit liquor about as hard as any man alive, an' I'm not goin' to make promises an' break 'em. After this is over, I reckon I'll do whatever the Lord has laid out fer me to do.”
“Pole, I'm Mel Jones!” Another tall man divested himself of cap and mask and stood out in full view. “I voted agin this, too. I'm yore friend, Pole. That's all I got to say.”
“That's all right, Mel,” said Pole, “an' I'm much obliged to you. But, gentlemen, I told my wife I was goin' to town an' would be straight back. You hain't said whether it would be possible to keep this thing quiet—”
“Quiet hell!” snorted Dilworthy. “Do you damn fools think I'm goin' to act as leader fer a lot o' snifflin' idiots that don't know whar they are at or how they got thar? It may not be parliamentary by a long shot, but as chairman o' this meetin' I'm goin' to say that I think you've all made a mess of the whole thing. I 'lowed I could abide by what the majority done in any matter that was pendin' before us, but I'll be derned ef I'm in favor o' tetchin'that thar man. I'd every bit as soon drag my old mammy from the grave an' whip her as a man feelin' like that thar 'un. I believe Pole Baker's tried as hard as any livin' mortal to behave hisse'f, an' that's enough. A gang o' men that's goin' about whippin' folks who's doin' the'r level best ort to be in better business, an' from to-night on—oath or no oath—I'm a-goin' to let the law o' the land manage the conduct o' my neighbors, as fur as I am concerned. It may be contrary to parliamentary rules, as I say, but this damn thing is so lopsided to-night that I'm a-goin' to put it to another vote. Maybe, ef Pole had a-been allowed to 'a' made a statement you'd 'a' seed this thing different. Now, all in favor of enactin' the verdict of our court in this case hold up yore hands.”
There was a portentous pause. Not a hand was raised.
“See thar? What did I tell you?” Dilworthy exclaimed, in disgust. “Not a man amongst you knows his own mind. Now, to the contrary: all in favor o' sendin' Baker home without tetchin' him raise yore hands.”
Every hand went up. Pole stared blankly from one stiff token of pity to another, then his head went down. The brim of his old hat hid his face. He was silent. The crowd was filtering away. Soon only Jeff Wade was left. He gave Pole his hand, and in an awkward voice said: “Go home now, old friend. Don't let Sally suspicion this. It would hurt her mighty bad.”
Pole said nothing at all, but, returning Wade's hand-pressure, he moved away in the soft moonlight.