IT WAS not the only adventure that the School-teacher was destined to meet with on this day. As he was returning along the mountain road, with the little boy on his shoulder, at the first ascent, beyond the river crossing, he met two men in a buckboard. The horses were gaunt as from hard usage. The man who drove them was known to the School-teacher. The other was a big man with a heavy black beard. He sat leaning over in the buckboard. His head down. His shoulders rising in a hump. He had gone stooped for so long that the hump on his shoulders was now a sort of permanent deformity.
They drew up by the roadside as the School-teacher approached. The big, hump-shouldered man spoke, without taking the trouble to preface his remarks with any form of salutation.
“Do you claim old Nicholas Parks' estate?”
The School-teacher regarded him with his deep, tranquil, gray-blue eyes.
“It belongs to my father,” he said.
“Is your father related to old Nicholas?”
“No.”
“Has he got a deed from old Nicholas?”
“No.”
“Then how does he claim under him?”
“He does not claim under him. Nicholas Parks had his possession from my father.”
“You mean that your father owned it first?”
“Yes.”
“Did he sell to Nicholas?”
“No.”
“Then how did old Nicholas come to own it?”
“He never owned it; my father permitted him to use it.”
“Then your claim is that old Nicholas was just a tenant for life.”
“Yes,” replied the School-teacher, “that was it, a tenant for life.”
“Did your father give Nicholas any writing?”
“No.”
“Did Nicholas pay anything for the use of the land?”
“No.”
“Did he ever recognize your father's title while he was living?”
“No.”
“Then he never knew that your father owned these lands?”
“Yes,” replied the School-teacher, “in the end he knew it.”
“How did he know it, if he did not find it out while he was living?”
“He found it out while he was dying,” replied the School-teacher.
The big humpback looked out sidewise at the man standing in the road, with the child on his shoulder, its little arm around his neck, its little fingers on his face.
“Didn't you come into these mountains about the time that old Nicholas died?”
“On the very day that he died,” replied the School-teacher.
“I see,” said the humpback, “then he found it out through you.”
“No, man,” replied the School-teacher, “ever finds out anything about the affairs of my father except he find it out through me.”
“Then you're here to look after your father's business?”
“Yes,” replied the School-teacher, “that is it, I am here to look after my father's business.”
“An' so you moved in when old Nicholas died?”
“Yes.”
“I see,” said the humpback, “now I want to ask you another question. These lands belonged to the state. Old Nicholas bought from the state, and the state made him a deed. Do you contend that your father's title is older than that of the state?”
“Yes.”
The humpback compressed the muscles of his mouth and nodded his head slowly.
“I see,” he said, “your father claims the lands of Nicholas Parks under some old patent that gives him a color of title and he has sent you here to get into possession. A color of title is not good at law without possession. Well, I can tell you, the state's not going to lie by and allow you to acquire adverse possession. Old Nicholas Parks died without heirs, and, by the law, his property escheats to the state. So you can make up your mind to get off.”
He reached over, caught the whip out of its socket, and struck the horses. They jumped and the buckboard went clattering down the mountain, the wheels bouncing on the stones.
The little boy raised his hand and pointed his tiny finger at the departing horses.
“Man hurt gups,” he said.
The School-teacher stood in the road watching the humpback lash the half-starved team. His face was full of misery.
THE School-teacher had been helping the miller.
He had taken the shirts which she had offered to him, but he had refused to put upon her the labor of making up the big piece of linen that remained.
“Keep it,” he said, “until I need it.” All of Saturday he had been at work mending the wooden water wheel. In the evening he set out to return to Nicholas Parks' house. He took the short way up the mountain. When he came out on the great hickory ridge, the sun was not yet down. He stopped where the path entered the two roads, one turning along the ridge to his house, the other winding down the mountain, eastward, toward the far-off lumber mills, sometimes faintly to be indicated by a tiny wisp of smoke on the horizon.
There had been a gentle rain, and now under the soft evening sun the earth seemed to recover something of the virility of springtime, as though the impulse of life waning in the autumn were about to reconquer its dominion. Here and there, in the moist earth, a little flower crept out, as though tricked into the belief that it was springtime—a white strawberry, a tiny violet.
The sap seemed about to move under the bark of the beech trees, the buds to issue from the twigs.
In the forest the wren and the catbirds fluttered as under a nesting instinct, the gray squirrels fled around the rough shellbark trees and from one tree top to another, far off a pheasant drummed, and farther off a mountain bull lowed as he wandered through the forest.
The road descending the mountain was decked out in color, banked along its border with the poison ivy and the Virginia creeper, now a mass of scarlet. Above the beech and hickory leaves were yellow, the clay of the road below was yellow, and the soft sunlight entered and fused the edges of these colors. The forest for this hour took on the ripe expectancy of springtime.
The School-teacher stood where the path emerged from the forest
Presently from below him, beyond the turn of the road, a voice arose, a voice full, rich and sensuous—a woman's voice singing a song. It carried through the forest, swaggering, defiant melody. The words could not be determined. Indeed, there seemed to be no words. The song was a thing of sounds—of tropical, sensuous sounds. As though all the love calls of the creatures of the forest had been fused into one great, barbaric symphony.
A moment later the singer came into view.
She was a young, buxom woman, and she walked, singing, in the middle of the road, with a defiant swagger. Her hair was heavy and yellow like wheat straw. Her lips, colored purple from the wild grapes which she had been eating, were full, the under one drooping a little at the middle. Her face was whitened with a cheap powder to be had at the village store. Her bodice and her petticoat were of bright vivid colors. There was a crimson handkerchief tied around her neck, a cheap glittering bangle on her wrist, heavy, gilded earrings hanging in the lobes of her ears, and at her throat a breastpin of jet set in a lattice work of brass.
The School-teacher remained motionless. He watched the woman approaching in the middle of the road, her body swinging loose in her swaggering stride, and the full volume of her voice abandoned to her song.
She was halfway up the bend of the road before she realized that another was within sound of her voice. Then she saw the School-teacher and stopped.
The song ceased.
Her head went up and her eyes opened wide. She remained as though the power to move had been on the instant stricken out of her. Her foot advanced, her heel lifted, her mouth shaped to sing. Then, slowly, her face changed to an expression of profound astonishment.
The School-teacher did not speak. He did not move. The sun descending behind him slowly crept up the road to his feet, as though, bidden to withdraw from the world, it were loath to leave him.
The woman's face again changed. It became troubled. She moved now a few steps closer, softly, on tiptoe. Then, suddenly, with a swift gesture, she covered her face with her hands and burst into tears. Her body shook as with a convulsion. The tears streamed through her fingers.
Until now the School-teacher had not moved. Now he came slowly along the road to where she stood. As he approached, the woman sank down huddled together, her face covered, her bosom heaving, her hands wet. He stood before her in the road looking down at the bowed head.
“Poor child!” he said.
The woman continued to sob. The eyes of the School-teacher deepened with a profound sorrow. He stooped over to put his hand on the coarse yellow hair, redolent with a cheap perfume. But before the descending fingers touched her, the woman sprang up and flew like a wild thing into the forest.
The sun was now gone.
The tropical colors of the leaves, the vines, the yellow earth, departed with it. The gray twilight began to descend. The School-teacher walked slowly to the top of the ridge, and returned along the little meadow to Nicholas Parks' house. As he approached he saw a figure moving off down the mountain along the rail fence.
When he came to the house he stopped.
There was a paper tacked on the door. He looked at it for a moment, but he did not touch it. The four corners of the paper were doubled under and a tack at each end held it. He pulled the worn leather string, lifted the wooden latch and went in, leaving the paper fastened to the door.
The night had descended.
The house was dark. But when he entered it, on the instant, as though the opening of the door had made a draft through the fireplace, a log smoldering shot up a red flame that illumined the house.
The School-teacher went over to a table that stood by the wall.
On this table were a homemade cheese and the half of a loaf of bread. Beside them was a knife with a wooden handle and a thick china plate chipped at the rim. Before this table was a hickory chair, the seat of roughly plaited bark. The School-teacher sat down and ate his supper.
Everything in this house remained as Nicholas Parks had left it.
This chair, this table, a larger hickory chair with arms and a ragged cushion by the fireplace, a fourpost bed in the corner covered with a patchwork quilt. When Nicholas Parks died there had been, as now, a log on the fire, a cheese and a loaf of bread on the table.
There were, however, now on this table, before the School-teacher, some objects that had not been there. There was a little worn, broken toy that had once been a wooden horse; there was a top whittled out of a spool with a hickory pin through it. There was a Barlow knife with an iron handle, the blade broken at the point; there was a brass ring tied to a cotton rib-hon; and there were little bunches of wild flowers, the stems of which were primly wrapped with black thread. These were laid out on the table beyond the cheese and the loaf. And before he sat down to eat, the School-teacher touched them.
When he had finished his supper, the
School-teacher went over to the fireplace and sat down in the armchair. He sat beside the hearth where he could see the doer. He remained for a long time without moving, except now and then he looked toward the door, and when there came to him any sound from the night outside, he listened.
The night advanced. He remained in in the chair before the fire. The log continued to burn among the ashes in the fireplace. But it no longer flamed. It burned with a deep crimson glow that flooded the hair, the face, the hands of the School-teacher. The glow thus reflected seemed to take on a deeper crimson.
It became like the crimson of blood.
The School-teacher hardly ever moved except to raise his head to listen, but he was not asleep; there was no sleep in him. The glow of the smoldering log, changing on his face, gave it an expression of agony.
The night continued to advance; the hours passed. The vagrant sounds of the world outside ceased. The profound silence of midnight arrived and passed. The temperature changed.
But the School-teacher did not go to bed.
He sat in the fantastic glow of the fire, with its agony on him. Now and then, when the playing of the light seemed to convulse his features—seemed to distort them with a deeper agony, he turned his face toward the table standing along the wall, near the door, and his eyes rested on the broken toy horse, the top, the Barlow knife, the ring and little hunches of flowers; and turned thus out of the glow of the fire, his features no longer presented the aspect of agony. Moreover, when his head was turned like that, the glow of the fire, that had been thus distorting his face, passed by him and streamed over the objects on the table, bringing them into vivid contrast with every other object in the room.
The body of the night passed.
The morning began to arrive. And still the School-teacher waited. No one came. The room was profoundly silent. The breath of the morning entering, distilled a faint perfume out of the little bunches of wild flowers, a vague odor that arose and sweetened the room. The night was dead. The day was beginning to be born. Then it was that the one for whom the School-teacher waited finally came.
There was a faint sound outside, as though one approached walking softly on the grass, as though a hand passed gently along the door.
The School-teacher rose.
The latch of the door moved, the door turned noiselessly on its hinges, and the woman who had fled from the Schoolteacher into the forest entered.
The whole aspect of the woman was changed.
The purple stains on her mouth, the powder on her face, were gone. Her hair, too, had been cleansed of its cheap scent. It clung in damp strands about her face. The swagger, the defiance, the loud notes and color had gone out of her. And that which remained after these things were gone, now alone existed—as though the whole fabric of the woman had been washed with water. The woman put her hand swiftly to her face, to her hair; she caught her breath.
“Oh!” she said, “I thought you were asleep.”
The School-teacher's voice was incomparably gentle.
“No,” he said, “I have been waiting for you.”
“Then you thought I would come?”
“I knew that you would come.”
“I had to come,” she said. “I could not go back to—to—the other!”
“No,” he said, “you never could go back to that.”
“An'—an'—I had nowhere else to go.”
“I know that,” replied the Schoolteacher, “there is no place that you could go, except to me.”
THE children had bought the School-teacher a hat. It had been a large undertaking, and the cause of innumerable secret conferences in the grove behind the schoolhouse. The purchase of so costly a thing as a hat required a certain sum of money. To raise this sum of money, the children had been put to the most desperate straits. Every tiny store that any child possessed had been brought forward and contributed to the common fund. The difficulty did not lie in the drawing on this store. Although every contribution meant a sacrifice to the donor, no child had hesitated. There had been no question about what each should give, and no inquiry as to a holding back of resources. Every child had simply given all he had.
Ancient two-cent pieces with holes in them, worn nickles, one or two long-treasured ten-cent pieces, and one-cent pieces thumbed with counting, were withdrawn from snuffboxes, essence of coffee boxes, pill boxes, holes in the wall, from under the loose stones of the hearth and other safety deposit places—wherever the child had deemed it expedient to keep his treasures. Sometimes, however, this treasure was in the custody of older persons, and the obtaining of it had presented difficulties.
The whole school had often gone into counsel on these cases, ways and means devised, a proper motive constructed, and the child strengthened and drilled. When the device succeeded, the whole school for that day rejoiced, when it failed, the school was depressed, but it was not defeated, and some other plan was brought forward. Some of the plans were exceedingly ingenious, and, as a rule, the school prevailed.
However, when the whole store was finally collected, or as much as could be had, the children were confronted with a staggering disappointment; the entire fund, for all the counting and recounting of it, could not be made to exceed sixty-four cents. A wholesale borrowing, right and left, had added only eleven cents. Now, 't was well-known that a hat could not be purchased for less than a dollar, and when it became evident that the fund must fail by a fourth of that sum the children were in despair.
For a day or two almost the whole school was in tears.
Then, individually, it resorted to desperate devices. One whose grandfather had been accustomed to present him with ten cents on Christmas day endeavored to secure an advancement. A small child had hailed the doctor as he passed along the road, and had offered to work for him all the remainder of his life for ten cents paid down in cash. Another had approached the minister, after the Sunday collection, and endeavored to borrow a twenty-five-cent piece out of the hat.
These ventures had failed, and the latter with the perilous result that the minister had all but extracted the secret for the money, and his withering commentaries on a teacher who inculcated the spirit of avarice into little children had so stricken the child with terror that it had been afraid to tell the school what it had done.
This brief lapse into madness, the practical leadership of Martha, the miller's little girl, and the small boy, David, was presently able to cheek. They pointed out what it was useless to do. But for the present they were not able to bring forward any plan that it seemed worth while to undertake. At this season the only natural product of the mountain that could be exchanged for money was hickory nuts, and the value of this product was in doubt. Sometimes, early in certain seasons, the storekeeper had been known to give twenty-five cents for a bushel of choice hickory nuts, not the gross shellbark nut, but the small, round, sweet-kerneled nut of the smooth-bark hickory.
The school had considered this, but had come always against two serious difficulties. To secure a bushel of these small nuts would require a considerable searching of the mountains, and, despite the fact that the children were very small, each had duties at home that occupied Saturdays, and the evening fragments of the day. On Sundays, an austere theology imposed by the minister compelled them to attend the Sunday sermon and to practice the most rigorous inactivity under pain of hideous consequences. The insurmountable difficulty, however, lay in the fact that they could not get a bushel of hickory nuts over the long distance to the country store.
An unexpected event suddenly removed this difficulty. Coming breathlessly to the school on a Friday morning, little David announced that his father was going to the country store on Tuesday with the wagon to bring home a barrel of salt, and that he had obtained permission to accompany him. At once the school took up the possibility of securing the bushel of hickory nuts. It was immediately evident that within so brief a time the thing could not be done unless the whole of Sunday were devoted to the labor of it. The school promptly decided.
This expedition did not arise from any failure to appreciate the perils of the decision. Corporal chastisement under the home roof was certain to follow; and the hideous tortures vividly presented by the minister, awaiting at the threshold of his future life, that one who broke the Sabbath day, was scarcely less certain. Nevertheless, not a child of the whole school hesitated.
The complete success of the venture strengthened the school to bear the immediate consequences.
Corporal chastisement in the mountains was not apt to be a thing lightly administered. But it was a hardship which even the smallest children had come to regard as one of the inevitable conditions of life. As to that other penalty, which awaited them at the hands of an outraged and vindictive deity, they were somehow of the opinion that this malignant god could not inflict his punishments except through some overt act of the minister who was his executive agent. Thus, if they could outwit this dangerous penal vicegerent, the thing could be turned aside. In travail of this problem, they hit upon the plan of going over the head of the minister and claiming a direct authorization for their act. When approached for an explanation of their conduct they solemnly announced that an angel had come down through the roof of the schoolhouse and directed them not to attend the religious services on this Sunday.
Transported by the success of their undertaking; by the exquisite pleasure of making this presentation to the Schoolteacher; by the joy which his evident happiness in it carried to every heart; they had neglected to perfect the details of this story. Fortunately they agreed upon the personal aspect of the angel, since every child, when driven to describe this divine messenger, simply followed the guidance of his affections, and presented the School-teacher. But upon a close and searching examination there had been a divergence. How had the angel been clothed? Some of the children, put upon inquisition, had replied that he had nothing at all on; and others, feeling the need for appropriate vestments, had declared that the angel wore a red coat and blue breeches.
Seizing upon this point, as a protruding limb, the minister had finally drawn up the whole hidden body of the incident. And he was now on his way to confront the School-teacher with this piece of outrageous conduct. It was evening when he arrived. The school was coming through the little grove down into the road. The School-teacher walked among them. The grove was full of voices—the laughter of children. The School-teacher wore his new hat, and every now and then he took it off and held it in his hand that he might the better admire it. From the day that he had received it, he had never ceased to express his appreciation of it. He continued always to regard it, as if in it were merged, as in a symbol, all the little sacrifices of every child, and all the love that had strengthened each one to bear what the thing had cost him.
This never-ceasing appreciation of the School-teacher for his present had transported the school with pleasure. This acute happiness the children were not always able to control. Sometimes pride overcame one, and he would tell how much he had contributed.
And always the smaller children wished to hold the hat in their hands, so that it quickly gathered a border of little fingerprints.
Even the tiny boy, who had been too little to help in the purchase of the present, but who somehow dimly understood that all had given something toward this article, had brought forward a rooster feather, which he had found, and insisted that it be added to the hat. And the School-teacher had very carefully pinned this crimson feather to the band.
Moreover, the habit which the Schoolteacher had acquired of taking off his hat in order to admire it before the children, seemed to adhere to him when he was by himself: Of late, those who had watched him as he passed along the mountain roads, had observed him at this habit and had marked how his face, profoundly sad when he was alone, always immediately brightened.
The school trooping about the Schoolteacher was emerging from the grove when the minister got out of his buggy.
He tied the horse to a sapling with one of the lines. Then he drew his cotton gloves a little closer over his hands, buttoned his long black coat down to its last button, and stood out in the road to await the coming of the School-teacher. The children and the School-teacher stopped when they saw him. The pleasant laughing voices ceased. The children gathered around the School-teacher. The smallest ones came close up and took hold of his hands.
The minister addressed the Schoolteacher. His voice was high and sharp.
“Do you know what the school children have done?”
The School-teacher regarded the minister with his deep, calm, gray-blue eyes.
“Yes,” he said.
“Did you know that they were going to do it?”
“Yes.”
“Did you try to prevent it?”
“No.”
The lines in the minister's face hardened.
“That's all I wanted to know,” he said. “It is now perfectly evident that you are no fit person to have charge of school children. The community must get rid of you.”
He turned about in the road, untied his horse, got into his buggy and took up the lines. He raised one of the lines in his cotton-gloved hand to bring it down on the horse's back, but he paused with his arm extended, and turned about toward the School-teacher. He thrust his head to one side. His defective eye straining to see.
“Do you have any fear of God at all?” he said.
The School-teacher's calm, gentle voice did not change, it did not hesitate. “No,” he said, “none at all.”
ON SATURDAY morning the miller hailed the doctor as he was passing the mill.
“Are you goin' over to Black's?” she called.
The doctor stopped his horse.
“Yes,” he said, “they sent me word to come.”
“By Jonas the first of the week?”
“Yes.”
“For to see old Jerry's eye?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it ain't no use for you to go.”
“Did his eye get well of itself?” inquired the doctor.
“No, it didn't git well of itself,” replied the woman. “It never would have got well of itself. Ole Jerry's been set-tin' around with that eye tied up ever since the day that he thrashed out his wheat. He'd a-been blind in it all the rest of his life if it hadn't a-been for the School-teacher.”
The doctor turned around in his saddle.
“What did the School-teacher do to him?” he said.
“He cured him,” replied the miller.
The doctor had ridden past the mill before he stopped. Now he rode hack. The miller stood on the porch before the door. The doctor sat on his horse in the road, the loose bridle rein over his crooked arm, his good hand resting heavily on the pommel of the saddle.
“How did he cure him?” inquired the doctor.
“I don't know how he cured him,” replied the miller.
“Didn't you hear?” said the doctor.
“Yes, I heard,” replied the miller.
“Well,” said the doctor, “what did you hear?”
“I heard that he took ole Jerry to one side an' he asked him if he could see anything with that eye. An' ole Jerry said that he couldn't tell a man from a tree with it. Then the School-teacher put his hands on his eye, an' he made him look up an' and when the School-teacher got through ole Jerry could see. But he complained that his eye felt hot an' the School-teacher told him to hold a piece of wet clay against it—you know' that's awful good to draw out soreness—an' the next morning ole Jerry's eye was well. Now, how do you suppose he done it?”
“I don't suppose how he done 't,” replied the doctor. “I know how he done it. Ole Jerry got a wheat husk in that eye when he was thrashing, and it stuck against the lid back of the ball. The fools that looked into his eye by pushing the lid up couldn't see it. But when anybody come along with sense enough to turn the lid back he got the husk out and the eye got well.”
The miller crumpled the corner of her apron in her hand.
“I don't know about that,” she said. “D'd you hear how the School-teacher cured Sol Shreave's shoulder that he smashed in his clearing?”
“Yes, I heard it,” replied the doctor. “I was pretty apt to hear it.”
“Well, what did you think about that?” said the miller.
“I thought it was a piece of meddling with my practice,” replied the doctor. “It kept me out of a five-dollar fee.”
“But it was wonderful,” said the miller.
“No, it wasn't wonderful,” replied the doctor.
The miller spoke slowly. She nodded her head between each word.
“To cure a man's shoulder that was smashed, just by takin' hold of his arm, wouldn't that be a wonder?”
“Yes,” said the doctor, “that would be a hell of a wonder,”
“Well,” said the woman, “didn't the School-teacher do it?”
“No, he didn't do it,” replied the doctor. “Then you don't think 't's so, about the School-teacher fixin' Sol's shoulder?”
“Yes, I know it's so,” replied the doctor.
“Then what makes you say it ain't a wonder?”
“Because it's a thing; anybody could do,” replied the doctor.
“Charm a smashed shoulder well?”
“No,” replied the doctor, “rotate a dislocated joint into place. When Sol Shreave caught his ax in the grapevine he twisted the ball on the big hone of his arm out of the socket of the shoulder, and when the School-teacher took hold of his arm and rotated it around in the right way it went back into place.”
The miller crossed her hands over her apron. She took hold of the palm of her left with the fingers of her right. She gave her head a little jerk. Her eyebrows contracted.
“I don't know about that,” she said.
She remained for a moment looking down at the mill porch, then she looked up.
“Doctor,” she said, “did you ever hear of anybody that was dead bein' brought back to life?”
“Yes,” said the doctor, “I have heard of it ever since I could remember.”
“Then it has happened?”
“No,” said the doctor. “It never has happened. When you're dead, you're dead.”
The doctor took a watch out of his pocket. It was a heavy, old, silver watch, tied to his waistcoat buttonhole with a buckskin string. He opened it, examined it for a moment, then snapped the lid and thrust it back into his pocket. When he looked around the miller was standing in the roadside beside the horse.
“Doctor,” she said, “I'm a-goin' to tell you somethin' that I never told anybody.”
“What about?” said the doctor.
“About what I've just said,” replied the woman.
The doctor reflected for an instant, then he remembered. He shifted his position in the saddle. His voice showed annoyance.
“What cock-an'-bull story have you got a-hold of now?” he said.
“It's no cock-an'-bull story,” replied the miller. “It's the God's truth.”
The doctor made a deprecating gesture with his crooked arm.
“Now, look here, Sal,” lie said, “I haven't time to listen to all the tales you've heard.”
“It ain't anything I've heard,” replied the miller.
“What is it, then?”
“It's something I saw.”
“Did you see it yourself?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Now, Sal,” said the doctor, “don't begin to tell me something you thought you saw.”
“I'm not a-goin' to tell you somethin' that I thought I saw. I'm a-goin' to tell you something that I did see.”
“All right,” said the doctor, “go on and tell it. What did you see?”
The woman drew a little closer.
“Well,” she said, “one Saturday the School-teacher come down here to help me, an' he brought Mary Jane's little boy with him. He's awful little. He ain't two yet. The School-teacher left him with me while he went down under the mill to fix one of the wheel paddles. Well, Martha was gone an' there was nobody here but me to 'tend things. An' I got to movin' around and forgot the little boy. An' when I went to look for him—I hope I may die!—if he wasn't a-layin' drown-ded at the bottom of the millrace. Lord-amighty! I was crazy. I jumped in an' got him out, an' begun to holler for the School-teacher to come. But he was dead. I knowed he was dead. His little lips was blue, an' his poor little hands was cold.”
The tears came into the woman's eyes at the memory.
“Lordy, Lordy!” she said, “I knowed he was all that Mary Jane had in the world. I knowed her soul was wrapped up in him. I knowed it would kill her.”
The woman stopped and wiped her eyes with her apron.
“Well, the School-teacher come a-run-nin' an' took him out of my arms, an' carried him into the house. An' I just stood there in the road like I was dazed. But after a while I sort a come to myself, an' I tiptoed up on the porch, an' I looked in the door. An' the little boy was layin' on the bed, an' the School-teacher was a-bendin' over him. Then I thought of Mary Jane again. An' Lord-a'-mighty! I thought I'd die. I went down off the porch. An' I reckon I was crazy, because I started out, an' I run just as hard as I could right up the road. I reckon I run for half a mile. Then I thought I heard the School-teacher callin' me. An' I come hack with my apron over my head a-cryin'. An' when I got right here in the road, I did hear him, an' he said, 'Don't be distressed, for the child's all right.' An' I took my apron off my head, an' I looked in the door, an' there set the School-teacher by the stove with the little boy wrapped in a blanket—an' he wasalive.”
The woman stopped, lifted her shoulders, and took in a deep breath, like one who has concluded a violent exertion. She wiped her face with her apron.
“Well, he told me to make haste, an' dry out the little boy's clothes—he had nice, little, white clothes, Mary Jane's awful particular about him—an' I did, an' I ironed them so they'd be just like they was before he fell in. Then we put the clothes back on him. An' the Schoolteacher took him home. An' he was just as well as he was before he was drownded. An' the School-teacher told me not to tell anybody. I suppose he didn't want Mary Jane to find it out. It would only distress her for nothing.”
The woman folded her arms across her bosom, and looked up at the doctor.
“Now, then?” she said.
The doctor sat back in his saddle. He dropped his crooked arm by his side. He addressed the woman, speaking with a perceptible pause between each word.
“So you thought he raised the dead, did you?”
“Didn't I see him do it?” replied the woman.
“Well,” said the doctor, “if you're that big a fool, there's no use to talk to you.”
He turned around in the saddle, gath-tred up the reins, and kicked the horse with his heel. He passed out of sight in the direction of Jerry Black's house. The miller remained standing in the road.
JERRY BLACK'S house was beyond Hickory Mountain, in the direction of the far-off lumber mills.
It was afternoon before the doctor returned. He rode hard in anger. He had gone on to Black's house, determined to make the old man pay him for his visit. But the mountaineer, now that his eye was healed, had refused. The doctor stormed and threatened, but the mountaineer was obdurate. The School-teacher had cured him. He owed nothing. He would pay nothing.
The doctor was compelled to return empty-handed, and he rode hard.
A deep resentment against the man who thus interfered with his practice moved within him. When he came to Hickory Mountain, instead of following the road around by the mill, he took the one leading across through the lands of Nicholas Parks. It was mid-afternoon when he stopped in the road before the Schoolteacher's house. He called. A woman came to the door, her heavy hair the color of wheat straw. The doctor made an exclamation of profound astonishment.
“Yaller Mag!” he said. “Now what's that hussy doin' here?”
When the woman saw that the person in the road was the doctor, she went hack into the house and presently came out with a brown earthen crock. She walked down the path from the door bearing the crock in her hand. When she came out into the road, she held the crock up to the doctor.
“The School-teacher told me to give you this money when you come,” she said.
There was a handful of silver coins in the crock.
Again the doctor was astonished.
“When I come!” he echoed. “How did he know that I was coming?”
“I don't know how he knew it,” replied the woman.
“What did he tell you to give it to me for?”
“He didn't tell me.”
The doctor looked at the pieces of silver.
“I suppose this is money that the people have paid him. How much did old Black pay him?”
“He never paid him anything,” replied the woman. “Nobody ever paid him anything.”
“Who give him this money then?”
“Nobody give it to him,” said the woman. “It was in that crock on the shelf when old Nicholas Parks died. It ain't been touched.”
The doctor looked at the dust-covered handful of silver.
“If nobody pays him, an' he hasn't used any of this, where does he get money to buy things with?”
“He don't buy anything.”
“What does he live on, then?”
“Well,” said the woman, “when Nicholas Parks died, there was flour in the barrel. It ain't run out. It looks like it never would run out. Now, will you take the money, so I can get some feed for the horse?”
Again the doctor was astonished.
“How do you know that the horse hasn't been fed?”
“I don't know it,” replied the woman.
“Then what do you want to feed him for?”
“I want to feed him,” replied the woman, “because the School-teacher told me to.”
“Told you to feed my horse?”
“Yes, he told me to give you this money and to feed your horse. Are you goin' to take the money?”
“No,” said the doctor. “I'm not goin' to take it. I want to see the Schoolteacher himself. Where is he?”
“He's down at Mary Jane's house.”
“Is she the one that's got the woods-colt?”
“She's the one that's got the little boy,” replied the woman.
“Huh!” said the doctor. “What's he doin' there?”
“He's huskin' her corn.”
“So he spends his time helpin' the women who have no men folks about, too, does he?”
The woman looked up at the doctor. Her face undisturbed by the taunt.
“Yes,” she said. “He spends his time helpin' those who have nobody else to help them.”
The doctor did not reply. He gathered his bridle up in his hand. The woman moved around in front of the doctor.
“Ain't you goin' to let me feed the horse?”
“The horse can stand it just as well as I can,” said the doctor.
“But you can help it,” replied the woman, “an' the horse can't help it.”
“It won't hurt him to wait till I eat.”
“Would it hurt you to wait till he eats?”
“It wouldn't do me much good, if anybody was to sec me waitin' here,” said the doctor.
A flush of color sprang into the woman's face.
“I only wanted to feed him,” she said, “because the School-teacher told me to.”
“Get out of my way,” said the doctor. “This School-teacher has interfered with my business just about as much as I'm going to put up with.”
He clucked to his horse, and rode around the woman. When he had gone forward a few paces, he made a gesture with his crooked arm.
“Is there a path over the mountain this way?” he called without turning in his saddle.
“Yes,” replied the woman, “it runs down past the house.”
She remained standing by the gate with the crock in her hand.
The doctor entered the forest.
The colors lying far down the mountain in the sun were like those of an oriental carpet. Soft shades of green, of yellow, of crimson, kneaded into a harmony of low, unobtrusive tones that the sun warmed and illumined. Near at hand, along the path, where the doctor rode, the sumacs stood a dull red, the chestnut bushes yellow, the wild cherry leaves turning on their edges, the oaks crimson like a flame, the water beeches green, the hickory leaves curling on their twigs like shavings of gold.
The scene lay out below the doctor in the sun, incomparably painted, but he did not see it. He rode looking down at the pommel of his saddle. Now and then, when the horse stumbled, he brought it up with a wrench of the bit. The horse was tired. It went forward with its head down. Dust lay around its eye-pits. There were gray bands of dried sweat running parallel with the leather of the headstall, and beyond the borders of the saddle blanket.
At a turn of the path a dog appeared, his yellow hair rising on his back. As the doctor came on, the dog slowly retreated, growling, holding his place in the road until the horse was almost upon him, then springing hack, his teeth flashing, his eyes on the doctor. The dog did not bark, he made no considerable sound, he refused to attack the horse, but he continued always to menace the approach of the doctor.
They passed the spring and came out before the house and the little cornfield. Then the dog began, to bark, and a tiny voice arose.
“Ge-out, Nim!” it said.
This patch of clearing, lying within the many-colored garden of the forest, seemed illumined with a warmer sunlight. The effect doubtless arose from the carpet of coarse brown fox-grass grown up over the cornfield, into which the sun seemed to enter and remain. Two or three small maple trees, abundantly leaved, stood about, flaming scarlet.
Under one of these trees the Schoolteacher was at work.
A corn shock, unbound, lying on the ground before him. He was on his knees, bareheaded, without a coat, ripping the husk from the ear with a wooden “peg” bound to his middle finger, snapping it at the socket and tossing it out on a heap before him.
The ears coming from the Schoolteacher's hands were long, full-grained and of a deep yellow.
The two children, Martha and David, were gathering this corn into a split basket and carrying it to a crib made of rails and roofed with clapboards. Near the School-teacher, sitting on his coat spread out on the ground, was the tiny boy who had called to the dog. He was shelling a red ear of corn into the School-teacher's hat.
A brush fence inclosed the cornfield.
The doctor pulled up in the path beside the fence. The School-teacher arose. He stood bareheaded in the sun under the canopy of darning leaves. He looked past the doctor to the horse, standing with its legs out, its head down.
“I understand you're practicin' medicine,” said the doctor.
“Your horse is tired,” replied the School-teacher.
“There's a law against practicin' medicine without a license,” said the doctor.
“Your horse is hungry,” continued the School-teacher.
The doctor, riding on, replied with an oath.
“You're going to get into trouble,” he said.