The simple words struck me almost like a blow. The voice was sweet as a flute in its lowest tones, the lips were red and curving, but the speech was the uncouth vernacular of the hills. Fate had indeed cheated her.
As I nervously drew out my pipe, thinking what I should say next, she discovered a rent on her shoulder where the careless claws of the scared squirrel had torn the fabric of her dress. She gave a little exclamation of annoyance, thrust one finger in the torn place, pouted as a child might for an instant, then laughed and tossed her garlanded head.
"I don"t keer! Granny"ll fix it!"
It was my cue.
"Who is Granny?"
"Granny?... Oh! _my_ granny. We live together."
"On Lizard Point," I supplemented. "Doesn"t anyone else live with you?"
She nodded her head brightly.
"Yes, Grandf"er does, but he don"t count."
Her ingenuousness was bewitching, and I essayed to prolong the interview.
"Aren"t you afraid to wander around in the woods this way alone?"
"Me!... _Skeerd?_"
For a moment she looked at me with dropped chin and a tiny frown of wonder, then a glad stream of laughter came pouring from her upheld mouth, filling the forest with rippling, echoing cadences. I gazed on the round, gleaming column of her young throat, milk-white and firm, and a subtle, primal call stirred in my breast. When her boisterous merriment had subsided, I could see her teeth, like young corn when the husks are green, between the scarlet of her parted lips.
I came closer yet. I was bewildered, puzzled, but strangely attracted. I scarcely knew how to answer her.
"You see," I tried to explain, "it--that is, where I came from young women go nowhere without an escort, except in town."
"Oh!"
Her face was serious now, and she seemed trying to comprehend.
"Whur"d you come frum?" she demanded, with disconcerting abruptness.
"From Lexington."
"Whut"s that?"
"A town--a little city."
"I don"t like city people!"
The sentence sprang forth spontaneously, and she looked displeased.
"Why?"
I did not receive an answer. She was kicking a small bunch of moss with the toe of her ugly, coa.r.s.e shoe, which was rusty, and laced with a string. But for all its shapelessness, the shoe was very small.
"Why don"t you like city people?"
""Cause Buck says they"re mean an" stuck up!"
She flashed the sentence at me with a rapid glance of defiance.
"Who"s Buck?"
Now the girl"s face took fire, and dire confusion gripped her. Hair and skin became indistinguishable. But she flung her head up bravely, and with burning eyes looked straight into mine.
"Buck Steele. He"s th" blacksmith over to Hebron, an" he"s--my frien"."
She had grit. I honored her for that speech.
"You know I"m a stranger," I ran on, easily, making a pretense to fill my pipe, and so help her over her embarra.s.sment. "I came just about a week ago. I"m in the house up on Bald k.n.o.b yonder. The city didn"t agree with me, and my doctor sent me out here to get well. I"m not mean and stuck up, believe me. I"ve got the poorest sort of an opinion of myself, although I"ve lived pretty clean. Now I want to be friends with you, and all the folks about here. You"ll help me, won"t you?"
Her self-possession had returned while I was talking. When I stopped, I smiled, and looked at her as frankly and honestly as I could.
"You don" "pear puny!" was her startling rejoinder.
I took another tack.
"Pray tell me how it is the birds and the beasts obey you?"
"I love "em!" she answered, promptly, and with warmth. "I know "em, an"
they know me."
She turned without warning, and walking to the bank of the creek, which at this point was raised several feet above the water, leaned over and peered down into the pool below. Could Eve have been more artless? She was looking at her reflection in the mirror of the stream!
I picked up her bonnet by one of the strings, then went and stood beside her. A compliment arose unbidden to my lips, but I stifled it. It would not have been fair.
"I mus" go," she said, straightening up, and twisting a hanging curl near her forehead back beneath her hair.
"Aren"t you--"
I started to ask if she wasn"t afraid, and if I mightn"t go with her, but remembered in time.
"--and your granny very lonely?" I finished, lamely, but she did not appear to notice it.
"La! No! Th" Tollerses "s jis" t"other side o" th" ridge, "n" they"ve got a pas"l o" kids. No time to git lonesome!"
My spirit writhed. Such language as this--from her!
She held out a hand for the bonnet.
I brought it forward slowly, still holding it by the string. Her hand rested against mine for an instant as she took it. At this juncture I made a--to me--significant discovery. _Her nails were pared and clean!_ It seemed paradoxical, but it was true. I did not attempt to account for the phenomenon then, but I did later, with no results whatever.
"Where is Lizard Point--exactly?" I asked, my voice more serious than it had been during our talk.
She pointed her finger down the creek, as it flowed gently murmuring to the south.