He found that in the few moments of his absence the company had98awakened to the enormity of what was going on. There were a half-dozen people round Callista, most of them talking. Little Liza, who evidently believed that the finger of the Lord was in it, and that her brother Flenton was at last going to get the girl of his choice, clung to Callista's hand and wept. Flenton himself stood squarely in the bride's path, speaking low and eagerly. At the upper end of the room Octavia Gentry was almost in hysterics as she labored with the preacher, trying to get him to say that he would marry the pair at once if they would come back. Old Ajax had retired to his corner by the big fireplace, where he stood smiling furtively, and slowly rubbing a lean, shaven jaw, as he glanced from his daughter-in-law to his granddaughter in leisurely enjoyment. After all, there was much he liked well in Callista's chosen.
Roxana Griever had flown to supplement Octavia's entreaties with the preacher. Kimbro made his way toward the door, evidently with some half-hearted intention of remonstrating with his son. Sylvane had slipped out to help Lance with the horses—he guessed that his brother never meant to ride away from the Gentry place alone.
You'll marry us now.
"He ain't fitten for you, Callisty," Hands was whispering over and over. "He ain't fitten for you. A man that will do you this-a-way on yo' wedding day, what sort o' husband is he goin' to make? Here's me, honey, that's loved you all your life, an' been99a member o' the church in good standin' sence I was twelve years old. Callisty, I'd be plumb proud to lay down for you to walk over. You take me, and we'll have a weddin' here sure enough."
The words were breathed low into the bride's ear; yet attitude and air were eloquent, and Hands's position and intentions were so notorious, that the proposition might as well have been shouted aloud.
"Lance—you Lance! Callista, honey!" implored the mother's voice distressfully above the moving heads of the crowd. "You chillen wait till I can get thar. Preacher says he'll wed you now. Come on back in here."
"Yes, and when you git that feller back in here a-standin' before Preacher Drumright to be wedded, you'll toll a wild buck up to a tainted spring," chuckled old Ajax Gentry.
Lance only smiled. The lover, all aglow, rejected with contempt this maimed thing they would thrust upon him for a marriage. He was leading Callista's horse to the porch edge that she might mount, when he glanced up and found how strongly the pressure was being put upon his girl. The sight arrested his hurrying steps, and turned him instantly into the semblance of an indifferent bystander.
"Honey, they say a good brother makes a good husband," Little Liza was booming on in what she fondly believed was a tone100audible only to Callista. "I tell you Flenton is the best brother any gals ever had."
Cleaverage stood gazing at them with eyes indecipherable, then—turned his back.
"And look at Lance Cleaverage," exhorted Little Liza, "a drinkin', coon-huntin', banjo playin' feller that don't darken the doors of a church—his own sister cain't never name him without tellin' how wicked he is. Let him go, honey—you let him go, an' take Flent."
Lance, standing with his back to them, holding his horses, had begun to whistle. At first the sound was scarcely to be heard above the babel of voices in the lighted room—but it came clearly to Callista's ears. Flenton's hand reached hers; Ellen joined her entreaties to those of Little Liza. Callista, while not a church member, had always aligned herself with the ultra-religious element; she had been the companion and peer of those eminently fitted and ever ready to sit in judgment on the unworthy. Now she heard all these joining to condemn Lance.
The tune outside went seeking softly among the turns and roulades with which Lance always embellished a melody. It was the song he had sung under her window. Her heart remembered the words.
"How many years, how many miles,Far from the door where my darling smiles?How many miles, how many years . . .?"
"How many years, how many miles,Far from the door where my darling smiles?How many miles, how many years . . .?"
"How many years, how many miles,
Far from the door where my darling smiles?
How many miles, how many years . . .?"
His musing, eyes were on the far line of mountains, velvety101black against the luminous blackness of the sky; his gaze rested thoughtfully on a great star that hung shining in the dusk over the horizon's edge. He seemed deaf to the clatter and squabble, blind to the movement in the room behind him. Softly he whistled, like a man wandering pensive beside a lonely sea, or in some remote, solitary forest, a man untouched by the more immediate and human things of life. The two horses after snorting and pulling back at first sight of the unaccustomed lights and the noisy voices, put down their noses toward the long, lush dooryard grass.
"He ain't lookin' at you. He ain't a-carin'," Flenton whispered to her.
For the first time Callista glanced directly to where her bridegroom stood. His back was to her—yes, his back was to her. And though the little whistle went questing on with its "How many miles—how many years?" even as her eye rested on him he made a leisurely movement toward one of the horses, like a man who might be about to mount. Swift as a shadow she slipped through the hands of those around her and down the steps.
"Lance," she breathed. "Lance." Then she was in his arms. He had lifted her to the saddle.
"Good land!" wailed Octavia Gentry, "if you've got to go, Sis,102they's no use ruinin' yo' frock. Here's your ridin' skirt," and she flourished the long calico garment and struggled to get down to the mounted pair.
Lance was on the other horse now. He paid no attention to any of them, but let his smiling gaze rove for the last time over the lighted windows, the noisy people, the long tables.
"What time will you-all be back?" called the still secretly chuckling old Ajax from the doorway, as he saw them depart.
"Never," answered Lance's clear hail.
"Oh, Lance—ain't you a-goin' to come back and have the weddin'?" began Octavia.
At this the bridegroom turned in his saddle, reining in thoughtfully. He would not accept this mutilated ceremony, yet the wedding of Lance Cleaverage should not be shorn in the eyes of his neighbors. Slowly he wheeled his horse and faced them all once more.
"Callista and me ain't coming back here," he assured them, without heat, yet with decision. "But I bid you-all to an infare at my house tomorrow night."
Then once more he wheeled his pony, caught at Callista's bridle, and sweeping into the big road, started the two forward at a gallop. His arm was round Callista's waist. Her head drooped in the relief of a decision arrived at, and a final abandonment to103her real feeling that was almost swoon-like, on the conqueror's shoulder. The horses sprang forward as one.
"Callista—sweetheart," he whispered with his lips against her hair, "we don't want nothin' of them folks back there, do we? We don't want nothin' of anybody in the world. Just you and me—you and me."
104
THE inheritance of Lance Cleaverage came to him from his maternal grandfather. Jesse Lance had felt it bitterly when his handsome high-spirited youngest daughter ran away with Kimbro Cleaverage, teacher of a little mountain school, a gentle, unworldly soul who would never get on in life. His small namesake was four years old when Grandfather Lance, himself a hawkfaced, up-headed man, undisputed master of his own household, keen on the hunting trail, and ready as ever for a fight or a frolic, came past and stopped at the Cleaverage farm on the way from his home in the Far Cove neighborhood down to the Settlement to buy mules, and, incidentally, to arrange about his will. He was not advanced in years, and he was in excellent health; but there were a number of married sons and daughters to portion, he had a considerable amount of property, and his wife was ailing. It had been suggested that both should make their wills; so the documents, duly written out, signed and attested, were being carried down to Jesse Lance's lawyer in Hepzibah.
He had seen almost nothing of his one-time favorite, Melissa,105since the marriage twelve years before with Cleaverage that so disappointed him; and he had not now expected to remain the night in her house. But the little Lance, a small splinter of manhood, at once caught his grandfather's eye. The child stirred Jesse Lance's curiosity perhaps—or it may have been some deeper feeling. The first collision between these two occurred as the visitor, having dismounted, approached the Cleaverage gate. He had his favorite hound with him, and four-year-old Lance, leading forth old Speaker, his chosen comrade, observed the hair rise on the neck of grandfather's follower, and listened with delight to the rumble of growls the dogs exchanged.
"Ye better look out. If Speaker jumps on yo' dog he'll thest about eat him up," the child warned.
The tall man swept his grandson with a dominating gaze that was used to see the people about Jesse Lance obey. But things that scared other children were apt to evoke little Lance's scornful laughter or stir up fight in him.
"You call off yo' hound," the newcomer said imperiously. "I don't let my dog fight with every cur he meets."
The small boy wheeled—hands in trouser pockets—and gazed with disappointed eyes to where the two canines were making friends.
"I wish they would jump on each other; I thest wish't they106would," he muttered. "I know Speaker could whip."
Grandfather Lance looked with interest at the child. Such a boy had he been. This was the spirit he had bequeathed to Lance's mother, and which she had wasted when she married a schoolteacher.
Melissa Cleaverage, come down in the world now, paid timid court to her father without much success; but in the middle of the afternoon, her four-year-old son settled the question of the visitor remaining for the night. Jesse Lance had been across the gulch to look at some wild land which belonged to him, up on the head waters of the creek called Lance's Laurel, a haggard, noble domain, its lawless acres still tossing an unbroken sea of green tree-tops towards the sky. As he returned to the Cleaverage place, he traversed a little woods-path without noticing the small jeans-clad boy who dragged a number of linked objects across the way.
"You gran'pap!" came the shrill challenge after him. "You quit a-breakin' up my train."
Jesse glanced toward the ground and saw a great oak chip dangling by a string against his boot. He turned an impassive countenance, and thrust with his foot to free it from its entanglement.
"Watch out—you'll break it!" cried the child, running up. Then, as a second jerk shook and rattled the dangling bit of wood,107"Ain't you got no sense?" he roared. "That's the injine to my train that you done stepped on and broke all up, and it cain't go a lick with you, big, lazy loafer, standin' right in the middle of it!"
For a moment the fierce baby eyes looked up into eyes as fierce above them. Such a glance should have sent any youngster weeping to its mother's skirts; but the tiny man on the woods-path stood his ground, ruffling like a game cock.
"Uh-huh!" jeered the grandfather, "and who might you be, young feller?"
"I'm cap'n of this train," Lance flung back at him, scarlet of face, his form rigid, his feet planted wide on the mold of the path.
Grim amusement showed itself in the elder countenance. Yet Jesse Lance was not used to permitting himself to be defied. Not since Melissa had run rough-shod over him and held his heart in her little grubby hands, had another been allowed such liberties.
"Oh, ye air, air ye? Well, that's mighty big talk for little breeches," he taunted, to see whether the spirit that looked out at him from his grandson's eyes went deep, or was mere surface bravado.
He got his answer. With a roar the baby charged him, gripped the big man around the knees and swung.
"Git off'n my injine!" he bellowed, contorting his small body to hammer with his toes the offending legs he clung to. "I told you once civil, and you didn't go. I'm cap'n of this train, and I108can throw rowdies off when they won't go."
The lines of the man's face puckered curiously as he looked down at the small assailant. Without another word he freed his foot from the chip-and-string "train," moving circumspectly and with due regard to flimsy couplings. Without another word he stepped slowly on, looking across his shoulder once, to note that Lance instantly joined his train into shape and, turning his back on his big adversary, promptly forgot all about him. Where the woods-path struck the big road, the grandfather stood a long moment and studied his grandson; then he made his way to the house where eleven year-old Roxy sat sorting wild greens on the porch edge.
"How old is that chap back thar?" he inquired of her brusquely.
"Brother Lance? W'y, he ain't but fo' year old," Roxana returned sanctimoniously. "Gran'pap, you mustn't hold it agin' him that he's so mean—he's but fo' year old. An' Poppy won't never whip him like he ort. If Poppy would jest give him a good dosin' of hickory tea, I 'low he'd come of his meanness mighty quick."
Jesse Lance merely grunted in reply to these pious observations, and in his mind there framed itself a codicil to be added to that will. Melissa—Melissa who married Kimbro Cleaverage—had been left out of both testaments so far; but she was his109favorite child, and it had been in her father's mind to bequeath to her the wild land up in the Gap. Yet of what use would such a piece of timber be to a woman? And it would be of less account to a man like Kimbro Cleaverage. They would but sell it for the meagre price someone might offer their necessities now. No, the dauntless captain of the train back there on the path was the one to own the Gap hundred. Such a man as he promised to become, would subdue that bit of savage nature, and live with and upon it. The lawyer in Hepzibah should fix the will that way.
Susan Lance died in her husband's absence; and the pair of mules Jesse had bought in the Settlement ran away with him on his journey home, pitching themselves, the wagon and driver, all over a cliff and breaking his neck. So it was that the codicil to the will left "to my namesake Lance Cleaverage, the Gap hundred on Lance's Laurel," not then of as much value as it had now become. High on the side of the slope it lay, as befitted the heritage of a free hunter. The timber on it was straight, tall and clean, mostly good hardwood. Here was the head of Lance's Laurel, a bold spring of pure freestone water bursting out from under a bluff—a naked mass of sandstone which fronted the sky near his boundary-line—in sufficient volume to form with its own waters the upper creek. A mile down, this stream110joined itself to Burnt Cabin Laurel, and the two formed Big Laurel. This water supply, unusually fine even in that well-watered country, added greatly to the value of the tract as a homestead. Coal had been found on the other side of the ridge, and Lance, who believed in his star, thought it reasonable to expect that coal would be discovered on his own land.
Meantime, though he had cleared none of it for crops—not even the necessary truck-patch—he made a little opening on a fine, sightly rise, with a more lofty eminence behind it, and set to work building his cabin. Scorning the boards from the portable sawmill which would have offered him a flimsy shanty at best, hot in the brief, vivid summer and cold in winter, he marked the best timber for the purpose, and planned a big, two-penned log house, with an open porch between. Lance, his father and Sylvane, spent more than ten days getting out the trees. It took forty boles to build a single pen ten logs high; and as Lance had decided to have the rooms measure fourteen feet inside, each must be cut to fifteen foot length. Then, since he was fastidious in the matter of a straight wall, Lance himself measured and lined each one and scored it to line, his father coming behind him with a broad-axe and hewing it flat on the two sides, leaving the log perhaps about five inches through, whatever its height might be, and thus securing a flat wall of111even thickness. For the kitchen at the back, it was thought good enough to snake the logs up in the round, with the bark all on, and merely skelp them roughly as they were put up one by one.
It took only a day to raise the walls of the cabin on Lance's Laurel, for the owner was tremendously popular, and there was help enough offered in friendly country fashion that day to have raised another pen, had the logs been ready. Roxy Griever and little Polly came across the gulch with dinner for the men; but the best things the laughing jovial party had, Lance cooked for them on an open camp-fire.
The roof was of hand-rived clapboards which Lance and Sylvane got out; but all the flooring was of tongued and grooved boards, brought from the Hepzibah planing mill, narrow, smooth, well-fitted, well-laid.
There were not in all the Turkey Track neighborhoods such door-and window-frames, nor doors of such quality, all hauled up from the planing mill.
When it came to the chimney, Lance was the master hand, a mason by trade, and sent for far and near to build chimneys or doctor one which refused to draw. He had chosen the stones from the creek-bed, water-washed, clean, offering traceries of white here and there on their steely, blue-gray surfaces. He debated long over the question of a rounded arch with keystone for the front112of his fireplace, as is the manner of all the older chimneys in the mountains; but finally he and Sylvane found one day a single straight arch rock so long that it could be laid across the jambs, and this he shaped a bit and hauled up for the purpose. The day he set in the chimney-throat the iron bar from which to hang the kettles, Sylvane lay watching him.
"Now, that's what Sis' Roxy's been a-wantin' ever sence I can remember," the younger brother commented, as Lance manipulated the mortar and set stone upon stone with nice skill.
"Uh-huh," assented the proprieter of Lance's Laurel lightly. "She wants it too bad. If she'd just want it easier, maybe she'd get it, one of these days."
He laughed drolly down at the boy lying on the grass, and both remembered the long dreary tirades by which poor Roxy had tried to get her brother to so amend the home hearth that cooking should be rendered less laborious for her.
And it was to this home that Lance Cleaverage brought his bride. Here it was that he hoped to build that true abiding place which such spirits as Lance seek, and crave, and seldom find. The hearthstone he had himself laid, the skilfully built chimney, with its dream of Callista sitting on one side of the hearth and himself on the other—these were gropings after the answers such as he always asked of life.
"This ain't what Pap calls a sojourning place—this here's going113to be a real home, Callista," he said eagerly, as the two young creatures went about it examining their new habitation the next morning. "It'll be cool in the summer, and good and warm in the winter. That chimney'll draw—just look at the fire. I never have built a chimney that smoked."
"Did you build the chimney, Lance?" Callista asked him, leaning on his arm.
"I did that," he told her. "They're always after me to build other folks' chimneys and lay other people's hearthstones, and I ain't so very keen to do it—and it don't pay much—up here. But my own—one for you and me to sit by—"
He broke off and stared down at her, his eyes suddenly full of dreams. Oh, the long winter evenings; they two together beside the leaping hearth-fire. They would be as one. Surely into this citadel he had builded for his life, the enemy—the olden lonesomeness—could never come.
They had their bit of breakfast, and Lance was about to go down to the Settlement to purchase the wherewithal for the impromptu infare. It was hard to leave her. He went out and fed the black horses and came back to say good-bye once more. His team was his hope of a subsistence, seeing that there was no cleared land to farm. He and they together could earn a living for two or three114months yet. After that, there would be small opportunity throughout the winter for teaming. Through the summer he had been hauling tan-bark on the contract for old man Derf. Nearly all of this money he had spent upon the house; and he felt he had now to draw upon what remained—though it was not yet quite due—for the expenses of the infare. Callista was down at the hearth as he entered, the tiny blaze in its center warming the whiteness of her throat and chin where she bent to hang a pot on the bar his skill and forethought had placed there for her. Something mighty and primal and terribly sweet shook the soul of Lance Cleaverage as he looked at her kneeling there. She was his—his mate. He would never be alone again. He ran to her and dropped his arm about her. She turned up to him that flushing, tender, responsive countenance which was new to both of them.
"Hadn't I better buy you a pair of slippers?" he asked her, just for the pleasure of having her answer.
"I reckon I don't need 'em, Lance," she said soberly, getting to her feet and moving with him toward the door. "If I could dance—or if I ever did dance—I might have need of such."
"Dance!" echoed her husband with quick tenderness, looking down at her as they paused on the doorstone. "If you was to dance, Callista, there wouldn't any of the other gals want to stand up on the floor beside you. I'm goin' to get the slippers."
He rode away on his black horse, her fond eyes following him;115and the sight of her standing in the door waving her hand was his last vision of home.
At the gate, far down the slope, he stopped for some imaginary investigation of his accoutrements, but really to have an excuse to turn and wave to Callista, cupping his hands and calling back, "I'm going to bring you the finest pair of slippers I can buy."
For in his pocket was one of her shoes, and in his mind the firm intention of getting so light and flexible a pair of slippers that his girl should be coaxed into learning to dance. Callista not dance—it was unthinkable! Of course she would dance. Vaguely his mind formed the picture of her swaying to the rhythm of music. His eyes half closed, he let black Satan choose his own gait, as his arms felt somehow the light pressure of her form within them, and he was dancing with Callista. On—on—on through the years with Callista. She should not grow old and faded and workworn, nor he hardened, commonplace, indifferent. There should be love and tenderness—beauty and music and movement—in their lives. And she should dance for him—with him—Callista, who had never yet danced with anyone.
Early morning shadows lay cool across the road; ground-squirrels frisked among the boulders by the way. The far mountains were of116a wonderful morning color, not blue, but a blend of the tint of the golden sun-warmed slopes with that of the air; a color of dream, of high romance—a color of ideals.
At one time he was roused from his thoughts by a bee-like drone of voices, accompanied by jangling cowbells. Around the turn ahead of him came a herd of spotted yearlings, their shaggy hides clustered with the valley's wayside burrs. They took the road, crowding stupidly against his horse, and shuffled by; then followed two riders, driving the bunch to mountain pastures to find their own living until winter should set in—an old man in a faded hat and shawl, gaunt, humped over his saddle-bow; and his son beside him on a better horse, but colorless of feature as himself.
"Howdy," said Lance, smiling, and they answered him, "Howdy."
But he was moved to a new pity for these men, whom he did not know, and for all their kind who are born and live, God knew why, without the eagle power of soaring into blue gulfs of dream. He rode with his head high, eye bright, his cheek glowing, his whole body tingling in the exquisite flow of the frost-sweetened morning air upon it. The horse, too, felt the touch of last night's frost, and fretted against the bit until Lance, with a shout, let him go. Then the road underfoot rushed past with the wind as the two splendid, exultant creatures flew117over it, for the moment so far in sympathy that they seemed one. They found themselves reluctantly slowing down at the front fence of the Derf place. The pack of hounds burst from under the porch, and ran baying out to meet Lance. Iley Derf's Indian husband crouched at the corner of the cabin picking up something, and moved noiselessly away with an armful of wood. The clamor of the hounds brought Derf himself out, and Lance had a glimpse of women moving about at household work in the cabin.
"Light—light and come in," Garrett Derf greeted him. "I hear you and old Jeff Drumright had it up an' down last night, and that you beat the old hypocrite out."
"Much obliged, I ain't got time to get down," Lance answered, ignoring the rest of Derf's speech. "I just stopped as I was passing to get some money."
Derf's eyes narrowed to slits. He lounged forward, bent and secured a bit of wood from the chip pile and commenced to whittle. Such rapid and abrupt negotiations are quite foreign to mountain business ethics, where it takes a half a day to collect a day's wages.
"Want some money," Derf repeated contemplatively. "You mean that thar money for the haulin', I reckon."
"Yes," returned Lance impatiently, "I couldn't very well mean any other."
"Well, Lance, you shorely ain't forgettin' that that thar money118ain't due till next month," Derf said, setting a foot on the chopping block and proceeding to pick his teeth with the toothpick he had shaped. "The haulin' ain't all done yet."
"No, I ain't forgot that; but I knew you had money by you, and I didn't reckon you'd object to paying some of it ahead of time."
Cleaverage forced himself to speak civilly, though his temper was rising. Derf chuckled.
"Now see here," he shifted the raised foot, and set forth evidently on a long argument. "Thar ain't no man livin' that likes to pay money afore hit's due. Ef I've got the cash by me, that's my good fortune. Ef you want payment ahead of time, it's worth somethin'. What do you aim to take for the debt as it stands, me to pay you today? Of course I'm good for it; but this here business is the same as discountin' a note, and that calls for money. What'll you take, Lance?"
"Whatever you'll give me, I reckon," Lance came back quickly, with light scorn. "Looks like you've got it your own way. What are you offering?"
"Oh, I ain't offerin' nothin'," Derf receded from his proposition. A shrewd enjoyment was evident beneath the surface stupidity and reluctance. "It's you that wants the money. Looks like you must want it pretty bad."
Nothing but the fact that he conceived it necessary to have the119funds, kept Lance from breaking out wrathfully and leaving his tormentor.
"See here, Garrett Derf," he said at last, divided between scorn and angry dignity, "I made you one offer—and I'd think the meanest man would call it good enough—I'll take what money you choose to give me. Now you can say the rest."
"See here, Lance," echoed Derf, grinning, and glancing toward the cabin, "you ort not to trade so careless these days and times. Yo're a married man now; you've got to look out for yo' spare cash, or yo' ol' woman'll be in yo' hair. What you needin' all this here money for, anyway?"
The day before, Derf durst not for his life inquire so closely into Lance Cleaverage's affairs. Now he felt that he held the boy in a cleft stick. Something of this Lance understood; also, the allusion to Callista's right to vise his bargains stung him beyond reason. No doubt he knew at bottom that what he was now engaged on was unfair to her.
"If you're going to pay, you'd better be about it," he said to Derf. "I've got some buying to do when I get my money, and Frazee's store is a right smart ways from here."
Derf came through the fence and laid a detaining hand on Satan's mane, getting nipped at for his pains.
"You ain't got the time to go down to the store and buy, and git back home by night," he argued. "Better trade with me, Lance. I120brung up a wagon load of goods last time I was down. I aim to put in shelving and set up regular next month."
A quick change went over Lance's face.
"Have you got any women's slippers—that size?" the bridegroom asked eagerly, drawing Callista's shoe from his pocket.
Derf took the shoe in his hand and fingered it, bending so his countenance was concealed. Lance became aware of a heaving of the man's shoulders, a gurgling, choking sound that at length resolved itself into a fierily offensive chuckle.
"Buyin' shoes for her the fust day!" snickered Garrett Derf.
The young fellow bent from his saddle and swooped the bit of foot-gear out of the other's fingers—it looked so much as though he would clout Garrett Derf on the side of the head with it that the latter dodged hastily.
"Are you going to trade, or are you not?" he asked with blazing eyes. "I got something else to do besides stand here talking."
"I'll give you half," bantered Derf, still holding discreetly out of range, but wiping the tears of delicious mirth from the corners of his eyes.
"I'll take it," returned Lance sharply, thrusting forth his hand. "Have you got it with you?"
The chance was too good to lose. Derf instantly ceased121chuckling, reached down in a capacious pocket and hauled up a great wallet, out of which he began to count the money, looking up furtively every moment to see if Lance had been only jesting, or if his temper and that reckless spirit of his were sufficiently roused to carry through the outrageous trade. But when the few bills and the bit of silver were ready, Lance took them, put them carelessly into his pocket without the usual careful fingering and counting, and wheeled Satan toward the road.
"Ain't you goin' to tell a body 'howdy'?" came a treble hail from the cabin as he did so, and Ola Derf's small face, still disfigured from her tears of last night, presented itself at the doorway. "Lance, wait a minute—I want to speak with you," the girl called; and then she came running down to the fence and out into the road. "Was you and Pap a-fussin'? Ye ain't goin' to be mad with us becaze Callista and her folks never was friendly with us, air ye?" she inquired doubtfully, looking up at him with drowned eyes.
Pity stirred Lance's heart. Poor little thing, she had always been a friendly soul, since the two were tow-headed tykes of six playing hookey together from the bit of summer school, as devoted as a dog, observant of his mood and careful of all his preferences. It was rare for her to thrust upon him her own distress, or to let him see her other than cheerful, eagerly122willing to forward his plans. And he remembered with resentment that both at his own home and Callista's after some heated discussion of his proposition to invite the Derfs, he had said they could have it their own way, and no invitation had been given.
"Well, you and me ain't going to fuss, anyhow, are we, Ola?" he said heartily. "I bid you to the infare at my house to-night. I was just gettin' the money from your father to buy some things that Callista'll need for it."
Square, stubbed, the little brown girl stood at the roadside shading her gaze with one small, rough hand, looking up at the mounted man with open, unchanged adoration. Her eyes—the eyes of an ignorant little half savage—enlightened by love, valued accurately the perfect carriage of his shapely head on the brown throat, the long, tapering line from waist to toe, as he sat at ease in the saddle. Who of them all was the least bit like Lance, her man of men, with his quizzical smile, his blithe, easy mastery of any situation?
"Hit's too late now for you to go away down yon to the store, ain't it. Lance?" the girl asked him timidly. "Don't you want to come in and see the new things Pappy brung up from the Settlement? I believe in my soul he's got the prettiest dancin' shoes I ever laid my eyes on—but Callista don't dance," she amended.
Lance sighted at the sun. He was entirely too late for a trip to123Hepzibah—he knew that. The shoe in his pocket nudged him in the side and suggested that this was the place for buying Callista's slippers. Without more ado he sprang from Satan's back, flung the reins over a fence post, and followed Ola into the big shed where the goods for the new store were piled heterogeneously on the floor.
124
WHEN Callista's gaze could no longer distinguish Lance on Satan, when the thick woods had swallowed up his moving figure at last, she turned to make ready the house for the evening. He had lived in the place, off and on, for several weeks, during the long period of finishing up work. Every evidence of his occupancy showed him a clever, neat-handed creature. Callista was continually finding proof of his daintiness and tidiness. She admired the bits of extra shelving—a little cupboard here or there—a tiny table that let down from the wall by means of a leathern hinge, to rest on its one stout leg—all sorts of receptacles contrived from most unlikely material. Throughout the forenoon, the girl worked, using the implements and utensils that his hands had made ready for her, drawing upon the store of girlish possessions which had come over in her trunk the day before, for wherewithal to grace and beautify the place for the evening's festivities.
Early in the afternoon Lance himself came riding slowly in. She had not expected him much before dark, and she ran to meet him with eager welcome. She watched him while he125unsaddled and fed his horse, and then the two went gaily into their new home, their arms full of the carefully wrapped purchases he had bought. The pretty slippers were got out, displayed and tried on; the curtains for the front windows were spread forth, and the bright table cover for the little stand; the lamp with its wonderful gay shade was cautiously unpacked and set up, the silverplated spoons counted, almost awesomely. Lance had had no dinner, and Callista had been so engrossed in her work about the cabin that she had cooked none for herself, stopping only to snatch a bite of the cold food left from breakfast. So now when all had been gone over again and again, admired and delighted in, he put her in a chair and peremptorily bade her, "rest right there whilst I make you some coffee and cook some dinner for the both of us."
Lance cooked just as he played the banjo, or danced, or hunted possums. Callista watched him with joy in the sure lightness of his movements, the satisfactoriness and precision of his results.
It was after three o'clock, and they were just finishing their coffee and cornbread, when little Polly Griever came running in at the door and announced,
"Cousin Lance, A' Roxy says tell you ef they's a-goin' to be dancin' here to-night, ne'er a one of us shain't step foot in the house."
"You go tell yo' Aunt Roxy that they's sure goin' to be dancin'126in my place this night," Lance instructed her, throwing his head back to laugh. "Say Polly, you tell her I aim to have her do the callin' off—you hear? Don't you forget, now. Tell her I'm dependin' on her to do the callin' off, and—"
"Now, Lance!" remonstrated Callista. Her face relaxed into lines of amusement in spite of herself. Yet she resolutely assumed a wifely air of reproof that Lance found irresistible. "You ought to be ashamed of yourse'f. If you ain't, why, I'm ashamedforyou. Polly, you go tell Miz. Griever that they won't be a thing in the world here in my house that she'd object to."
"Huh!yo' house!" interpolated Lance, and he made as though he would have kissed her right before Polly, whereat her color flamed beautifully and she hastily moved back a bit, in alarm.
"You tell yo' Aunt Roxy, please come on, Polly, and to come early," she continued with native tact. "Tell her I'll expect her to help me out. Why, I don't know how I'd get along without Sis' Roxy and Pappy Cleaverage and Brother Sylvane."
Polly stood near the door, like a little hardy woods-creature, and rolled her gaze slowly about the interior, noting all the preparations that were on foot. She observed Lance shove back a little from the table and reach for his banjo. While Callista127lingered over her cup of coffee, Polly saw, with the tail of her eye, that Lance drew a little parcel from his pocket and began to put a new string on the instrument. That settled it; he had spoken the truth: he was going to have dancing there that night. The thin-shanked wiry little thing watched him continually till she caught his eye. Then with the freemasonry there always was between Lance and youngsters, she raised her brows in an interrogatory grimace while Callista's eyes were in her cup. Lance grinned and nodded his head vigorously. Still Polly looked doubtful. Lance moved his foot wickedly to emphasize his meaning. Polly was convinced. There would be no legitimate coming to the infare—not if she took that word home to Aunt Roxy.
But instead of turning to leave with her message, Polly slowly edged into the room. Presently Lance and Callista together cleared the table, making play of it like a pair of children. Together they set out the provisions that Lance had brought, and began to prepare the supper for the infare. And all the time Polly's eyes were upon the good things to eat, the marvelous lamp with its gay shade, the new curtains which they tacked up at the windows, all the wonders and delights that were to be exploited that evening. She had enjoyed herself hugely at the wedding, in spite of the fact that the bridegroom, whom she128especially delighted in and admired, left in so unceremonious and theatric a manner early in the evening. If a wedding without Lance was like that, what would the infare be in Lance's own house? She grappled with the problem of how to escape Aunt Roxy and get to this festivity. She could only think of one possible method—that was to stay at Lance's now she was there. She looked down covertly at her old homespun dress, soiled and torn, her whole person unkempt and untidy. Well—she gulped a bit—better this than nothing at all. She would rather appear thus among the guests of the infare than not to be able to appear in any guise; but when she considered her bare feet, she gave up in despair. If she only had her shoes and stockings out of Aunt Roxy's house, the joys of the infare were as good as hers—let come after what must.
Gaily Lance and Callista went forward with their preparations. To their minds, they were the first who had ever felt that pristine rapture of anticipation when two make ready a home. Dear children! Did not Adam, when Eve called him to help her with fresh roses for the bower she was decking, know the same? It is as old as Paradise, that joy, and as legitimate an asset of happiness to humanity as any left us. Suddenly, upon the quiet murmur of their talk, came the sharp slam of the door, and129they heard little Polly's bare feet go spatting down the trail.
"Well, hit's time she left," commented Callista gently, "if she's goin' to take word to Sister Roxy."
But Polly had been stricken with an inspiration. Down the steep cut-off which crossed the ravine with Lance's Laurel brawling in its depth, and led to the Cleaverage place, she ran full pelt. It was two miles by the wagon road around the bend; but it was little over a mile down across the gulch, and Polly made quick work of the descent, scarcely slacking on the steep climb up again. She galloped like a frightened filly over that bit of path on which the original owner of the Gap hundred had met young Lance with his chip train nineteen years ago, and burst headlong in upon Roxy Griever.
"A' Roxy!" she gasped, "Callisty's a-goin' to have preachers at the infare—an'—an'—she wants yo' gospel quilt. Pleas'm git it for me quick—Callisty's in a bi-i-g hurry."
Polly's instinct carried true; and the Widow Griever was borne by the mere wind of her fictitious haste. Before she had stopped to consider, Roxy found herself taking the gospel quilt out of the chest where it was kept. Back in the room where she had been sitting, little Polly dived under the bed and secured her shoes, a convenient stocking thrust in the throat of each. With the130swiftness and deftness of a squirrel or a possum, she concealed these in her scanty skirts and stood apparently waiting when the widow returned, bundle in hand. But now Roxy Griever's slow wits had begun to stir.
"What preachers is a-comin'?" she inquired sharply. "Brother Drumright, he's out preachin' on the White Oak Circuit—an' he wouldn't be thar nohow—a body knows in reason. Young Shalliday, he—What preachers did Callisty say was a-comin'?"
"I never hearn rightly jest what ones," stammered Polly, making a grab for the quilt and missing it. "But thar's more'n a dozen comin'," she gulped, as she saw her aunt's face darken with incredulity.
"You Polly Griever," began the widow sternly, "you know mighty well-an'-good thar ain't no twelve preachers in this whole deestrick. I'll vow, I cain't think of a single one this side of Hepzibah. I believe you're a-lyin' to me. Preachers at Lance Cleaverage's house, and him apt to break out and dance anytime! What did he say—you ain't never told me that yit—what did Lance say 'bout the dancin' anyhow?"
Keen-visaged, alert Polly had possessed herself of the precious bundle, and now she hopped discreetly backward, shaking the ragged mane out of her eyes like a wild colt.
"W'y, Lance, he says he's a-goin' to have dancin', and a plenty131of it," she announced with impish gusto—there would never be any hanging for a lamb with Polly; she was somewhat of Lance's kidney. She backed a pace or two outside the door, stepping as warily as a wildcat might, before she concluded, "An' he 'lowed to have you do the callin' off, A' Roxy! He said be shore an' come—that he was a-dependin' on you to call off for 'em to dance!"
The Widow Griever made a dive for the bundle gripped in Polly's stringy little arm. But the girl, far too quick for her, backed half way to the gate. She must make a virtue of necessity.
"Well, you can take that thar quilt over to Callisty," she harangued. "I won't deny it to her, and I hope it may do good. If tham men is a-goin' to git up a dance, you tell her she needn't expect to see me nor mine; but the quilt I'll send. You give it to her, and come right straight back to this house. You hear me, you Polly Griever?—straight back!"
The last adjuration was shouted after Polly's thudding bare feet as they went flying once more down the short cut into the gulch.
"Yes'm," came back the faint hail. "I will, A' Roxy."
Deep in the hollow where the waters of Laurel gurgled about the roots of the black twisted bushes that gave it its name, where132ordinarily a body would be fearfully afraid at such a time—blind man's holiday, and neither dark nor light in the open, while here the shadows lay like pools of ink—Polly Griever sat herself down in great content to put on her shoes and stockings. She was puffing a little, but the success of her enterprise had so fired her that all thoughts of ha'nts and such-like were banished. She hauled up the home-knit hose over her slim shanks and knobby knees, girding them in place with a gingham string, and hastily laced on her cowhide shoes. Being then in full evening dress, she made a more leisurely way up the steep to Lance's cabin, prepared to take in and enjoy all the festivities of the occasion.
She found the house alight and humming. Octavia Gentry and old Ajax had arrived, and the latter was throned in state as usual by the chimney-side—the evening was cool for September, and the flickering blaze that danced up the broad throat was welcome for its heat as well as for light. The mother-in-law was everywhere, looking at the contrivances for housekeeping, full of fond pride in what she saw, anxious to convince the young people that she did not resent their unceremonious behavior of the night before. She pinched the new window curtains between her fingers, and advised Callista to pin newspapers behind them in ordinary times lest the sun fade their colors. She helped at the lighting of133the new lamp, and finally settled down in the kitchen among the supper preparations.
"Looks right funny to be here to an infare this night, when we-all helt the weddin' without you last night," Octavia commented amiably. "I did wish the both o' you could have been thar to see the fun. The gals and boys got to playin' games, and sorter turned it into a play-party. Look like they hardly could stop theirselves for supper. Big as our house is, hit ain't so suited to sech as yourn." Again she looked commendingly about her. "I tell you, Callista," she said over and over again, "I think yo' Lance has showed the most good sense in his building and fixing up of any young man I ever knew."
But she need not have troubled greatly; Lance had no consciousness of offense in him; and he was busy welcoming guests, going out to help the men unhitch, showing those who had ridden where they might tether their horses; or, if they liked, unsaddle and turn them loose in his brush-fenced horse lot, which was later to be a truck-patch; greeting his father and Sylvane, and grinning over the fact that Roxy was not with them, while Mary Ann Martha was.
"Roxana had got it into her head someway that you-all aimed to dance, and come she would not," Kimbro said plaintively.
"She was bound an' determined that Ma'-Ann-Marth' shouldn't134neither," Sylvane took up the story. "But the chap helt her breath—didn't ye, Pretty?—an' looked like she'd never ketch it again; so Sis' Roxy give in."
"Hey, Unc' Lance's gal!" the bridegroom hailed her, as the fat little bundle was passed down to him from the old buckboard, and instantly caught around his neck, hugging hard, and rooting a delighted face against his cheek.
It was nearly eight o'clock when Ola Derf rode up alone and came in. Mountain people are so courteous to each other as to make those who do not understand call them deceitful. Ola was received as amiably as such an invader might have been in the best of urban society. She looked with round, avid eyes at everything about her, and finally at the bride, her hostess.
"An' you a-wearin' them slippers," she commented. "I told Lance I knowed in reason you would." The remark was made in the further room, where the girls were laying off their things and putting them down on that bed where Callista, a little bewildered by the unsolicited loan, had spread forth the wonderful gospel quilt.
"Did you he'p Lance to choose Callisty's slippers?" asked Ellen Hands.
Rilly Trigg and Little Liza stopped in the door to listen. Octavia Gentry turned from the shelves she was examining. Even Polly ceased to stare across the open entry into the other room where most of the men were.
"Yes," said Ola, composedly, seating herself on the floor to135adjust her own footwear. "He was at our house a-wantin' to buy dancin' slippers for Callisty, and 'course he knowed I would understand what was needed. I reckon Callisty couldn't tell him, so he brought one of her shoes in his pocket, and axed me. Do they fit ye, Callisty?"
A curious change had come over the bride's face, yet it was calm and even fairly smiling, as she answered indifferently,
"No. I wasn't aimin' to wear 'em. I just tried them on. They' too big for me." And she closed the door and went resolutely to a chest in the corner, from which she took her heavy, country-made shoes to replace the slippers Lance's love had provided.
The Derf girl regarded her askance.
"Ain't you afeared you'll make him mad ef you take 'em off?" she asked finally. "I know he aims to have you dance befo' he's done with it, and you cain't noways dance in them thar things," looking with disfavor at the clumsy shoes.
"Callista doesn't dance, and she ain't a-goin' to," Octavia Gentry was beginning with some heat, when her daughter interrupted.
"Never mind, Mother," she said with dignity. "I ain't aimin' to dance, and I reckon you're not. Maybe Ola's mistaken in regards to Lance."
The Derf girl laughed shortly, deep in her throat. Before she136could speak, the closed door jarred open, revealing Roxy Griever, with a stout switch in her hand.
"Whar's Polly," the newcomer inquired wrathfully.
"Mighty glad to see you, Sis' Roxy," cried Callista, welcoming the diversion, but looking with surprise at her sister-in-law's draggled gingham on which the night dews of Laurel Gulch lay thick, her grim visage, and her switch. "Polly—she was here a minute ago."
But Polly, wise with the wisdom of her sex, had flown to Lance, and now she hid behind him, clinging like a limpet.
"Come in, Sis' Roxy. We're proud to see you here," shouted Lance, with an impudent disregard of anything amiss, and a new householder's enthusiastic hospitality.
"Did you send me word that you was a-goin' to have me call off the dances?" the widow demanded in an awful voice.
Her scrapegrace brother laughed in her face.
"That was jest a mighty pore joke, Sis' Roxy," he explained. "We-all was goin' to play some games, and I know you' a powerful good hand to get us started. Come on; fix the boys and gals like they ought to be for that"—he hesitated a little, frowning—"that play we used to have sometimes where they all stand up in137couples, and—Wait, I'll get my banjo and play a tune and you'll see what I mean."
Lance had not lived his twenty-three years with his sister Roxy to fail now in finding her weak side. She loved lights, a crowd, as he did. True, she wished to harangue the crowd, and the lights must be to reveal her, playing the pictorially pious part; yet a Virginia Reel, disguised as a game, answered well to give her executive powers scope and swing, and they were in the thick of the fun when the women came from the other room.
In the moments of her detention in that room, Ola had begun to find whether being bidden to a festivity really made one a guest. Rilly Trigg whispered apart to Callista, and looked out of the corners of her eyes at the newcomer. Lance's wife evidently reproved her for doing so, but a smile went with the words. Octavia Gentry spoke solemnly to the Derf girl, asking after the health of her parents in a tone so chilly that the outsider felt herself indefinitely accused.
"I don't keer," she muttered to herself rebelliously, "hit's Lance's house. Lance ain't a-goin to th'ow off on old friends just becaze he's wedded."
On the instant she entered the other room, and had sight of her host, flushed, laughing-eyed, his brown curls rumpled, the banjo in his lap, swaying to the rhythm of "Greenbacks," as Roxy Griever struggled to keep the boys and girls in an orderly line138while she showed them how to "Shake hands acrost-like."
The dull little face lighted up. Here was something at which Ola felt she could help, a ground upon which she was equal to the best of them.
"Hit's a reel!" she exclaimed joyously. "I'll call off for ye, Lance."
As though her words had been some sort of evil incantation, the pretty group dissolved instantly. The girls fled giggling and exclaiming; the boys shouldered sheepishly away; only the Widow Griever remained to confront the spoil-sport with acid visage and swift reproof. Roxy wound up the hostilities that ensued by declaring,
"You can dance, and Brother Lance kin, ef them's yo' ruthers; but ye cain't mix me in. That thar was a game I played when I went to the old field hollerin' school. Call hit a reel ef ye want to—oh, call hit a reel—shore! But ye cain't put yo' wickedness on me."
"Yes," returned Ola hardily, "I played it at school, too. But it's the Virginia Reel, and Lance said he was goin' to have dancin' here to-night. Ain't ye. Lance? I brung my slippers."
Roxy Griever turned and flounced out. Lance smiled indulgently at Ola. His sister's warlike demonstrations amused him mightily and put him in a good humor.
"Sure," he agreed largely. "You and me will have 'em all dancin' before we're done. I wish't we had Preacher Drumright here to139pat for us."
The sedate guests, though they laughed a little, fell away from these two, leaving them standing alone in the centre of the floor, while some of the boys and girls lingered, staring and giggling, wondering what they would do or say next.
"'Pears like they ain't nobody but you and me to do the dancin'," Ola began doubtfully, "an' if you have to play—"
She broke off. In the doorway that led to the little back room appeared the solemn countenance of the Widow Griever. This worthy woman fixed a cold eye upon her brother and beckoned him silently with ghostly finger.
"I'll be back in a minute, Ola," he told his unwelcome addition to the company, the wedge he had driven into their ranks, and which seemed about to split them asunder.
140
LANCE found his father and Octavia Gentry awaiting him in the lean-to kitchen, Kimbro Cleaverage anxious and deprecating. Old Ajax had dodged the issue, and Sylvane was out in the other room trying to get the boys and girls to playing again. But Callista was there—not beside her mother—she stood near the door, a little pale and looking anywhere but at her bridegroom. Lance Cleaverage's eye, half scornful, swept the scattered group and read their attitude aright.
"Anything the matter with you-all?" he inquired suavely.
"Yes, they's a-plenty the matter with us, and with all decent and respectable persons here in this house gathered this night," the Widow Griever began in a high, shaking, unnatural voice.
"I reckon all that means Ola Derf, for short," cut in Lance, not choosing to be bored with a lengthy harangue.
"Yes, it does," Roxy told him. "That thar gal would never have been bidden to Miz. Gentry's house. Callisty would never have been called on to even herself with sech, long as she staid141under her gran'pappy's roof. And when it comes to what it did out in 'tother room, it's more than Callisty that suffers."
"Suffers!" echoed her brother with a contemptuous grin. "Well, if that don't beat my time! I reckon Ola Derf cain't eat any of you-all. She's just a little old gal, and you're a good-sized crowd of able-bodied folks—what harm can she do you?"
"Well, Lance," began his mother-in-law, with studied moderation, though she was plainly incensed, "I do not think, hit's any way for you to do—evening Callista with such folks. She ain't used to it."
Lance looked to where Callista yet held aloof near the door, pale and silent, avoiding his eye.
"A man and his wife are one," he said, with less confidence than would have been his earlier in the day. "What's good enough for me is good enough for Callista."
He got no sign of agreement from his bride—and he had expected it.
"Son, I think you made a mistake to bid that Derf gal here," spoke old Kimbro mildly. "But don't you let her start up any foolishness, and we'll all get through without further trouble."
"Yes," broke in the Widow Griever's most rasping tones. "She called the game I was a-showin' the boys and gals a Virginia Reel, an' 'lowed she'd call off for us. Call off!" Roxy snorted.142"A lot of perfessin' Christians to dance—dance to Ola Derf's callin' off!"
Once more Lance's eye swept the circle of hostile, alien faces. His sense of fair play was touched. Also, he felt himself pushed outside and set to defending his solitary camp, with the whole front of respectability arrayed against him. This, so far as the others were concerned, was the usual thing; it daunted him not at all. But when he looked to Callista, and saw that at the first call she had left him—left him alone—arrayed herself with the enemy—a new, strange, stinging pain went through his spirit. He smiled, while odd lights began to bicker in his eyes.
"O-oo-oh," he said in a soft, careless voice, "didn't you-all know that I aim to have dancin'? Why, of course I do." And he walked away with head aslant, leaving them dumb.
It was but a retort, the usual quick defiance from the Lance Cleaverage who would not be catechized, reproved; yet when he entered the outer room and found Ola drawn over at one side, unfriended, while a knot of whispering girls, quite across the floor from her, cast glances athwart shoulders in her direction, the good will of old comradeship, the anger of the host who sees his guest mistreated, pushed forward his resolution.
"I reckon I'd better be goin' home," Ola said to the pale Callista, who followed her husband from the back room. "Looks143like I'm in the way here; and mebbe Lance ort not to have bid me—hit's yo' house."
The bride looked from her bridegroom to the brown girl strangely. In her own fashion, she was as unwilling to be outdone as Lance himself. "This here is Lance's house," she said coldly. "He bids them that he chooses to it. But I reckon he don't aim to have any dancin'."
Roxy Griever paused in the doorway and peered in.
"I reckon the trouble is that none of the folks here know how to dance," Ola was saying doubtfully. "Let's you and me show 'em, Lance. Come on."
Wildly, the sister cast about her for aid. Old Ajax regarded the scene with the same covert enjoyment he had given another domestic embroglio. Her father had slipped through a back door under pretense of seeing to the horse. Her glance fell on Flenton Hands. This was the man for her need.
Earlier in the evening, when Flenton made his appearance in Lance Cleaverage's house, accompanying his sisters, Octavia had murmured, "Well, I vow! Ef I'd 'a' been him, ox chains and plow lines couldn't have drug me here, after what was said an' done last night." Even Roxana had wondered at the cold obtuseness that could prompt the acceptance on Flent's part of that general144invitation Lance had flung back over his shoulder to the deserted wedding guests, and looked in vain to see what it was that Hands expected to gain by his attitude. There was some whispering and staring among the other guests, but Flenton Hands was admitted to be "quare," and his connection with the Settlement offered a ready means of accounting for his not doing things like other people. Now the Widow Griever felt that Providence—it is wonderful how people of her sort find Providence ever retained on their own side of the case—had dictated the attendance of this exemplary and godly person, second only in authority concerning church matters to Brother Drumright. She hastily dragged him aside, pouring out the whole matter, in voluble, hissing whispers, with many backward jerks of the head or thumb toward where Ola and Lance, in the midst of a group of boys and girls, still laughed and joked.
"I don't know as I ort to mix into this here business," Hands began cautiously—the man was not altogether a fool. "The way things has turned out, looks like I ain't got no call to interfere."
"'Course you have," Roxy Griever told him. "Preacher Drumright ain't here—ef he was, I'd not even have to name it to him; he'd walk right up to Lance Cleaverage in a minute—spite o' the way145Lance done him last night—an' tell him what he ort an' ort not to do. An' yo' the next after Preacher Drumright. Go 'long, Flenton. Speak to him. Mr. Gentry won't, an' Poppy's done left to git out of hit. Poppy never would do what he ort where Lance was consarned. He wouldn't give that boy discipline when he could have kivvered him with one hand—an' now look at the fruits of it!"
Thus urged, Flenton made a somewhat laborious progress toward the middle of the room. Deep in that curious, indirect, unsound nature of his was the hankering to brave Lance Cleaverage in his own house, to insult and overcome him there before Callista; but the pluck required to undertake the enterprise was not altogether moral courage; in spite of the laws of hospitality, there might be some physical demand in the matter, and this Flenton was scarcely prepared to answer.
He halted long at his host's shoulder, seeking an opportunity to enter the conversation. Ola paid no attention to him; Callista stood a little apart from the two, looking down, playing with a fold of her skirt. Finally, most of the people in the room noted something strained and peculiar in the situation of affairs, and began to stare and listen. Flenton cleared his throat.
"Brother Cleaverage," he essayed in a rather husky voice.
Lance wheeled upon him with eyes alight. Thrusting his hands far146down in his pockets, he stared at Flenton Hands from head to foot. Then his glance traveled to the widow behind Flenton's shoulder.
"We-e-ell, well," he drawled, with a lazy laugh in his voice, "have you and Sis' Roxy made a match of it? That's the only way you'll ever get to be kin to me, and name me brother, Flenton Hands."
Roxy's long drab face crimsoned darkly, and she fluttered in wild embarrassment. Hands laughed gratingly, but there was no amusement in the sound.
"No," he returned in his best pulpit manner—he was sometimes called upon to officiate at small gatherings when the preacher could not be present—"no, yo' worthy sister an' me hain't had our minds on any such. But we have been talking of a ser'ous matter, Brother Cleaverage."
The form of address slipped out inadvertently, and Hands looked uncomfortable. Lance shook his head.
"I ain't yo' brother," he demurred, with exaggerated patience. "You' gettin' the families all mixed up. Hit was Callista I married."
The boys and girls listening were convulsed with silent mirth. Rilly Trigg snickered aloud, and little Polly ventured to follow along the same line. Flenton's pale face reddened faintly.
"I know mighty well-an'-good you ain't brother of mine, Lance147Cleaverage," he said doggedly. "Ef you was, I'd—I'd—"
"Say it," prompted Lance, standing at ease and surveying his adversary with amusement. "Speak out what's in you. You got me right here in my own house where I'd be ashamed to give you yo' dues. Now's the time to free yo' mind. I ain't fit to have Callista, is that it? She could a' done better—that's what you want to tell me, ain't it?"
There was a perfect chorus of approving giggles at this, extending even to the male portion of the company. The tinge of color left Flenton's sallow cheeks, and they were paler than usual; but he hung to his purpose.
"I've been axed by them that thinks you ought to be dealt with, to reason with you." He finally got well under way. "Callista Gentry belongs to a perfessin' family—she's all but a church member. You fussed with the preacher last night and tuck her away from in front of him, an' married her before a ongodly Justice of the Peace, an' now you air makin' motions like you was a-goin' to dance here in her house. Yo' sister said that yo' father wouldn't do nothin', and she axed me would I name these things out to you; and I said I would. Thar. I've spoke as I was axed. Looks like the man that's got Callista Gentry could afford to behave hisself."
With each new accusation, Lance's lids had dropped a bit lower148over the bright eyes, till now a mere line of fire showed between the lashes, and followed the movement of Flenton's heavily-swung shoulders, as he emphasized his words with uncouth shruggings. Yet when all was said, only the conclusion seemed to stay in Lance's mind. He was asked to do and be much because he had Callista. But what of the bride? Was not something due from Callista because she had him?
"'Pears to me like you're in a mighty curious place, Flenton Hands," he began in a silky, musing voice. "Ef you was wedded to anybody—jest anybody—I'd shorely keep out o' your way and let you alone. Is this yo' business? Have I asked yo' ruthers? Has Callista? I got just the one word to say to you—an' it can't be said here in my house. But it shall be spoken when and where we meet next—you mind that!"
A sudden, tense hush fell on the room. Did this mean the declaration of war which amounts to a one-man feud in the mountains, and which finally reaches the point where it is kill or be killed on sight? Flenton dropped back with a blanched, twisted countenance. He had not bargained for so much.
The young host looked around. His company had separated itself swiftly into sheep and goats, the elders and the primmer portion149of the young people whispering together apart, while the bolder youthful spirits gathered in a ring about himself and Ola Derf. One of these, Rilly Trigg perhaps, took up the banjo and commenced laboriously to pick chords on it.
"Now, if Callisty could only dance, we'd shore see fun," Ola Derf suggested.
Lance looked to where his bride stood, aloof, mute, with bitten lip, listening to what her mother whispered in her ear. Yes, he was alone once more; she was with the enemy. His glance took the girl in from head to foot. He saw that she had removed his first gift, the slippers.
"Callista can dance about as much as you can play, Rill," he said mockingly.
The bride lowered white lids over scornful eyes and turned her back. Rilly laid down the banjo. A couple of the boys began to pat.
"Come on, Lance," whispered Ola defiantly. "I dare ye to dance. I bet yo' scared to."
A dare—it was Lance Cleaverage's boast that he would never take a dare from the Lord Almighty. He flung himself lightly into position. "Pat for us. Buck, cain't you?" he suggested half derisively. Then, with a swift, graceful bending of the lithe body, he saluted his partner and began.
The Derf girl was a muscular little creature; she moved with the tirelessness of a swaying branch in the wind; and Lance himself150was a wonder, when he felt like dancing. The circle of young people mended itself and grew closer. The two in the middle of the floor advanced toward each other, caught hands, whirled, retreated, and improvised steps to the time of Fuson's spatting palms.