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FAREWELL TO SUMMER
Thelast day of the women's stay on Troublesome dawned bright and fair. Early in the morning the work of packing began, the smaller things being put in boxes and carried down the hill by Fult and his friends to the hotel, ready to be placed in wagons the following morning. Later, the tents were taken down and packed—all but one, which was to be used as a dressing-room for the "show" in the afternoon.
Aunt Ailsie came in early to help, as did also Charlotta and Ruby Fallon, Lethie, and others of the girls.
Between nine and ten the county people began to ride in in numbers. The women and children came on up the hill, but the men tarried in the village. For, all unknown to the quare women, Uncle Ephraim had had boys stationed at the three roads, requesting all the men to come to the courthouse to a meeting.
About eleven-thirty the men ascended the hill in a body, and joined their families for dinner. Aunt Ailsie had invited Amy and Virginia and the others to eat with her, and her capacious baskets held enough for forty people.
Numerous gifts also were brought in to thewomen on this last day—handsome large gourds, yarn mitts, turkey-wings for fans, hand-woven linen towels, and, from Aunt Ailsie, fine striped linsey petticoats for each of the six.
Shortly after dinner, the "show" began. A platform built just in front of Pulpit Rock, and closely curtained on four sides, aroused much curiosity, nothing in the nature of a dramatic entertainment ever having been seen before.
There was first a short speech of welcome by Giles Kent, the school-teacher; then songs by the children of different grades; then a short talk by the nurse on ways of preventing typhoid, tuberculosis, and other diseases; then marching and songs by the little kindergartners.
Afterward came the great feature and surprise of the day: a number of tableaux—scenes from old ballads and folk-tales, long known to the imaginations of the people, but here enacted before their eyes by the young folks in beautiful costumes.
Fult sang the ballads and, at the proper time, the curtains were drawn back and the scenes revealed. There were two from "Barbara Allen," three from "Jackaro," and two from "Turkish Lady"; the latter being especially striking, with Darcy Kent as the noble English captive and Charlotta Fallon as the Turkish Lady who sets him free and afterward follows him to his castle in England, where all ends happily.
Last came two incidents from "Lord Lovel" (this ballad was sung by Charlie, not by Fult). The hero, bound "strange countries for to see," bids farewell to the lovely Lady Nancibelle, and rides away on his milk-white steed (only it had to be changed to "coal-black," being Fult's mare, with Fult as rider). He returns, after a year and a day of wandering, to find the people all gathered around the bier of Lady Nancibelle, who has pined away and died of longing for him; and thereupon he himself dies of a broken heart. Annette took the part of the "lovely Lady Nancibelle," and Fult was beautiful in the velvet clothes and plumed hat of Lord Lovel.
Then followed several folk-tales, done by the children: Red Riding-Hood, Cinderella, and Blue-beard, the tales being told by Amy as the scenes were given.
And now came the surprise of the occasion—no one had known of it but Isabel and the performers: two tableaux from "The Sleeping Beauty."
The curtain opened with the young princess, under the spell of the wicked fairy, lying asleep, surrounded by the court people, and the king and queen on their thrones, all likewise sleeping. Lethie, in a rich robe of pink satin, with her pale golden hair falling over the dark velvet couch, was very lovely. But it was in the second scene, where the prince (Ronald Kent, a younger brotherof Giles, a beautiful dark-eyed stripling) enters the court, kisses the princess, raises her to her feet, and leads her forward, that Lethie's full loveliness broke upon the assembly.
Standing there, the golden veil of her hair streaming down from a coronet of pearls over the rich, flowing folds of satin, her bare neck and arms white as their strings of pearls, her pale cheeks for once pink with excitement, her large eyes starry, her lips gravely smiling, she was a vision of delight. Women, children, men gazed spellbound. Never had they seen, or imagined, anything to compare with this. Her beauty was of the kind that brings tears to the eyes, a pang to the heart, because of its very perfection. And a spiritual quality shone through the fleshly vessel as a clear light in a vase of alabaster. People asked themselves if it were possible this was their Lethie; or was it in truth a fairy princess, a creature not of this earth?
Hidden behind the curtain, Isabel watched their faces, and particularly one face, that of Fult. Still wearing his velvet clothes and plumed hat, he stood near one side of the platform, his gaze fixed upon Lethie, in utter surprise and bewilderment; it was as if for the first time he really saw her. Then he leaned forward, to see better. Then he turned and saw the whole assembly hanging rapt upon her beauty. Then he looked again, excitedly, delightedly, with a proud air of proprietorship.His face flushed when he saw that Ronald continued to hold her hand.
Isabel remembered Cynthia Fallon's words,—"Hit's allus the newest face with them,"—and realized that she herself had been but an episode in Fult's life; that this wonderful new Lethie, superimposed upon the old, was the girl who, if any girl could, would hold Fult's wild heart.
When the curtain was at last drawn over Lethie's loveliness, and the stage cleared, Amy and Virginia rose from the bench where they sat with Aunt Ailsie, and mounted the platform to say a few words of farewell to the people.
But Uncle Ephraim was ahead of them. "Women," he said, stepping up beside them, "don't speak the word 'far'well' yet—not till you listen at what we got to say." He began:—
"Women, citizens and friends, this here summer has been the ridge-top of my life, to which all my hopes and prayers and ambitions has p'inted. Hit has likewise been a Mount Nebo, to which I was led up for to gaze out upon the Promised Land. Being, like Moses, allus a man of prayer, I had faith to believe that some day the Lord would stretch out his mighty hand for our deliverance.
"So, people under my voice, hit wasn't no great of a surprise to me when these here women come in. I seed in their coming the dawning of our hope, the gorrontee of our betterment, the asshorance thatthe Lord had brung us to remembrance. And all along, friends, hit has been in my mind that this summer wasn't noways the eend, but just the beginning of the blessings the Lord aimed to pour out on us.
"I never spoke to the women or to nobody; I just laid hit on the Lord and waited for his guiding hand. And when I heared the county was all a-mustering for a last day here, hit appeared like a coal of fire from the altar was toched to my lips, and I was commanded to speak out the words that would be put into my mouth. And though I hain't no speaker, and never was, I didn't dairst to deny the call.
"So, gethering the citizens together in the courthouse, I spoke my thoughts, which was that somehow, I couldn't say exactly how, we must fix to keep these women with us, to link 'em everly down to us that, like the apostuls in the Good Book, we ought to be minded to build tabernacles for 'em, so's they would allus abide with us.
"And about that time Giles, my grandson, riz and tuck the words out of my mouth, to say that what was needed was to make the women stay and start up a right school; that, good as his intentions was, he knowed well he wasn't noways able to do for the young-uns what the women could; and anyhow he was minded to go down in the level land and get more larning soon as he could be spared.Which right there, friends, I rej'iced to feel that my mantle had fell on Giles.
"Then one atter another of the citizens spoke, and the gineral sense of the meeting appeared to be that we couldn't noway part with these women; and that, if somehow or 'nother they could be brung round to stay and start up a school, hit would be the best day that ever riz on Knott County.
"Then we got down to rael business and talked about hows and ways. This here schoolhouse we got is old, and not nigh sizable enough, and all scrouged in so's the young-uns don't have no-wheres to play but the street; but hit will make a good store-seat, and Enoch Bickers allowed he would buy hit for sech. All hands appeared to feel like Polly Ainslee's bottom, just beyand where the forks meets, was the onliest place for a right school; and then and thar Lawyer Gentry went out and seed Polly, to ax her figger, and she allowed, if hit was for the women that had waited on her so good in the typhoid, she'd name a low price—seven hunderd dollars. And when Nathe come back, though we air pore folks, hit didn't take fifteen minutes to make up that sum, which I have got hit all sot down here on paper.
"And for my part, hit was my wish not only to help a leetle with the land, but to furnish the timber for the houses; for though I am lacking in money,across yander in my hills is a sight of the finest yallow poplars the old earth ever brung forth. And when I spoke that, hit was on the lips of nigh every man present to offer his labor to cut the timber, or snake down the logs, or hew and notch 'em, or to raise the houses, or rive the boards for the roof; so you might say the buildings hain't aiming to cost no great.
"And this hain't quite all. If my land yander across Troublesome had been right land for a school, I would have give hit outright for the purpose that is most nighest my heart. But you can all see what hit is—I have deeded off passel atter passel to my offsprings as they married, till what is left is nigh straight up and down, and hain't got even a good house-seat left on hit. But I now offer to deed every foot I got left to the women, to use soon as I am dead and gone, which naturely can't be long, axing them only to let me and my old woman stay on hit till then, and have the use of the cleared land to raise corn for us and our property. All the timber and the coal to be theirn from the start, which both'll be enough to last 'em fifty year, even if the school grows like I hope hit will.
"For this is my idee, friends—that not only the young-uns in this town is to have the benefits, but that some way may be thought up so all the sprightly, ambitious-minded boys and gals in the county will get a chance at the bread of knowledge.When I let my mind run out over these mountains, and think of the dozens of young-uns up nigh every hollow, and the scores up every branch, and the hunderds—thousands, sometimes, if hit is a long one—along every creek, all with just as good, bright, hungry minds as anybody's childern on earth, and all starved of their rights, half, maybe, being beyand the reach of any school, and them that goes to district school housed, maybe, worse than cattle, with the chinking all out of the walls, and the boards rotted on the roofs, and the rain a-pouring and the wind a-blowing through, and the teacher, likely, a wild boy that hain't got neither larning nor manners—why hit stirs my soul so I hain't hardly able to hold myself under.
"People, every one of our young-uns ought to have a fair chance; and hit's our business, yourn and mine, to get hit for 'em, and hit's shame and disgrace and everlasting destruction to us if we don't. And I don't see no reason why, if these women was to take pity-sake on us and come, and if we was to all pull together, and put up houses, and fetch in the young-uns, and then fetch along things for 'em to eat,—for there hain't none of us so bad off as to lack for food; there hain't a man-person here that couldn't spare a wagon-load of corn and beans and 'taters for every child he brings,—and if the young-uns that comes was to do their part and work reg'lar,—for I hain't got no use forlarning that sp'iles folks for work,—the boys raising gyardens and cattle and hogs and sech, for the women, and the gals cooking and cleaning, and sewing,—why I don't see no reason on earth to keep us from having a right school here. Of course, I hain't a knowledgeable man, and hain't acquainted with the workings of schools, and may be mistaken in my idees. But Amy and Virginny, you know—how does hit look to you?"
"I see what you mean, Uncle Ephraim: you plan for a school in which both brain and hand shall be trained," replied Virginia. "Certainly that is the kind of school we should wish to have, if we came. But do you realize that we are not school-teachers, that neither of us has ever taught school in her life, or would know how to go about it?"
"Maybe not, but you would know how to get them that would," replied the old man, shrewdly.
"We see the great need," said Amy, with feeling, "and should love to give our lives to filling it, if we could see the way clear. One thing you fail to realize is that such a school would require, not only the land and timber and labor and food so generously offered, but a considerable amount of money to keep it running. The only way for us to get this would be to go out into the world and tell of the needs here. Would you, and the people of the county, be willing that we should?"
Uncle Ephraim was silent a moment. Then hespoke. "We air a proud race," he said, "and like better to do for ourselves and our offsprings. But we air also pore, so far as money goes, which hain't nothing, I take hit, to be ashamed of. What we hain't noway able to do ourselves, I allow we wouldn't be mean enough to stand in the way of our childern getting."
"We should like to have a general expression of opinion about this," said Amy.
One after another of the leading men rose then, and concurred with Uncle Ephraim. Uncle Lot's speech was characteristic:—
"Hit allus did, and still does, go again' the grain with me to take a favor from anybody," he said, grimly; "which I allow is the drugs and settlings of cyarnality and the Old Adam still remaining in my natur'. When the Good Book declare hit is more blesseder to give than to receive, hit means what hit says; and that them that hain't got ought to humble their pride, and give them that has, a chance to bless theirselves. I hope we will all try to look at hit that way.
"And as for these women theirselves, I will say as I said down yander in the courthouse, when they first come up here I follered Solomon's counsel about strange women, and suspicioned everything they done. But I hain't seed a single thing but good come from their being with us: times is bettered, peace has lit like a dove upon us,the young has got knowledge and civility, and the old, enjoyment (which I don't hold hit's again' the will of God for us to take, in measure); and even their Sunday Schools, which some has reviled scand'lous, I will say this much for, that, if Scripter hain't for 'em, neither is hit again' em."
"You see, women," said Uncle Ephraim, after all the others had spoken, "what the sense of the county is. If ever folks was needed and wanted and demanded, you women air, and any way you want to do will pleasure us. Say what you will, do what you will. But before we go furder with plans and arrangements, there is one more thing to tend to, right now.
"We couldn't noway have the face to ax you to stay, women, onless we could gorrontee you peace from wars and sech troubles. We all ricollect the truce that was called here in early summer by Fallons and Kents for the time you stayed. Now I could take advantage of Fult and Darcy and say to 'em that, now you aim maybe to stay for good, the truce will hold for all time. But this wouldn't be hardly fair, when their intentions was only for the summer. If they will agree now, of their own free will, to make hit stand allus, then we will know just where we are at, and whether to go on and fix for the school. If they won't, then we cast our plans to the winds, dig graves for all our bright hopes, and bid you a sad far'well. Hit all hangs upon themind of them two boys, and I ax them to be pondering whilst I talk on.
"Hit appears to me, people, that what we need is to get back to the time, two year gone, when we was enjoying peace, and when Fulty, having fit for his country, first come back from Cuby, and everybody was proud to welcome back such a pretty, brave boy; for, like his paw, he was allus much beloved. Hit is my opinion that, if he felt like working off his sperrits a leetle, then, and shooting up the town, and a few meetings, and sech-like harmless pleasures, no notice ought to have been took; hit was naetural, especially atter that turrible, pent-up year at Frankfort. The grand jury would have done better—yes, hit would, Lot—to take no notice. Atter hit did take notice, and drawed up the indictments, then Darcy, being sheriff, was obligated, whether he liked hit or not, to sarve 'em, which, as might have been foreseed, Fulty wouldn't stand for. So, as you mought say, the grand jury was the main cause—yes, hit was, Lot—of the war starting up again, and of placing them two boys in a position where they purely had to fight. And, not larning wisdom from experience, hit went on drawing indictments every court, which was but throwing fire in gunpowder.
"Now, my idee is to go back and drap out them two years like they had never been, and ondo what harm was done the best we can. And to thateend," drawing a sheaf of papers from his pocket, "I tuck hit upon me afore I come up here to go to the clerk's office and get out every indictment again' Fulty, which I now hold all and sing'lar here in my hand, my notion being, sence they have fotched so much sorrow and trouble on us, to destroy and burn 'em here in the eyes of the county."
Calmly drawing a match from his pocket, the old man set fire to a corner of the sheaf, and held it out before him as the flames arose.
"Some folks, especially lawyers, mought say hit was a leetle high-minded for a man to take the law in his hands this way," he remarked; "but there's times, people, when righteousness has first claims over law. Hit is my prayer," he continued, watching the flames, "that in this here smoke all ricollections of Fult's and Darcy's troubles, and of their fathers' troubles afore them, shall pass away and perish."
When he had seen the last bit of paper fall to the ground and blacken and crumble, he turned to Fult.
"Fulty," he said, "Knott County hain't got ary single thing again' you no more—all is wiped out and done away. Hit confidences you never to do no more wrong.
"And you, Darcy, hain't obligated never no more to pursue atter Fult. Hit is my belief youallus wanted peace, and want it wusser now that things has come into your life to make hit more sweeter to you.
"And now I will ax you two boys to come forward here on the stand and say what you feel to do."
The two young men, both still in their lordly velvet garments, stepped on the platform from different sides, and slowly approached Uncle Ephraim and the women in the centre.
"You being the oldest, speak first, Darcy," he commanded.
Darcy, gazing all the time into the eyes of the cooking teacher below, spoke clearly, calmly. "I say let the truce hold forever," he said; "I never wanted war."
Uncle Ephraim turned to Fult. "Hit is my prayer, Fulty," he said, "that you will be of the same mind. Hit is my hope to see you from now on leading the county in goodness and rightness, and raising up offsprings for us as brave as you and as fair as Lethie here, who is our fairest."
Fult stood a moment silent. Lethie, still a fairy princess, but with little Madison now in her lap, leaned forward slightly from a front seat, her soul in her eyes as she gazed upon Fult; and Aunt Ailsie waited for his words with trembling hands.
Then he spoke. "I love my country," he said, "the land that give me birth and suck. And I lovemy people, though they hain't allus done me right, and some of 'em sont me off once where I couldn't never see nothing but stone walls. But I don't hold that again' em—they never knowed how hard hit would be. But there is feelings in my heart I don't never expect to be able to forget, and hit was them I had to study on before I could answer Uncle Ephraim. If anything could make me forget, hit would be what he said and done here to-day; if anything could make me like the name of Kent, hit would be his goodness and justice. And I don't feel to disapp'int the hopes and expectations of that good old man, or to stand in the way of good coming to the young of this country. I will, therefore, bury my feelings as deep as I can, and give my word never to let them get the better of me no more. If I find they are aiming to bust forth, whether or no, I will quit the country before they do. I give you my hand on hit. Uncle Ephraim."
The old man took Fult's hand, with a sudden movement clasped it to his bosom, and then passed it, and afterward Darcy's, to the two women.
"You'll come to us now, women?" he asked.
Their faces bore the look of those who have just received a great and solemn call. "We will come," they answered.
Then, bowing his head upon his breast, Uncle Ephraim prayed, simply:—
"Father of our sperrits, look down upon thishere scene to-day and pour out blessings upon these two young men that has put aside their hate and revengement for the good of the county; may they have a failable ricollection for meanness done 'em in the past, and hearts more and more mellered by love and life in the future. And look upon these good women, that is about to cast in their lot with us; hold up their hands while they do for our young-uns and lighten our darkness. Look upon the county, strike off hits shackles, turn again hits captivity, bring hit into the fair and wealthy land that now stretches plain in view ahead. And, Lord of all mercy. Answerer of Prayer, now lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace."
Printed by McGrath-Sherrill Press, BostonBound by Boston Bookbinding Co., Cambridge