Over the shoulder of Yellow Old Bald up came the sun, bannered and glorious; the distant ranges glowed in his splendours; the sere fields about the place were all gilded. The small-paned eastern window of the sick-room let in a flood of morning light. Gone was the bird choir that used to welcome his earliest rays, swept south by the great tide of migration. Those that remained, s...o...b..rd, cardinal, and downy woodp.e.c.k.e.r--the "checkerbacker" of the mountaineer,--harboured all night and much of the day in the barn loft and in Judith"s cedar tree. Their twittering sounded cheerily about the eaves.
Back and forth in the puncheon-floored kitchen trudged old Dilsey Rust"s heavy-shod foot, carrying her upon the appointed tasks of the day.
In the quiet sick-room, where the low, alternating voices had subsided into an exchange of murmured words, suddenly Creed dropped his head back to stare at his companion with startled eyes.
"Judith!" he exclaimed. "Where are the boys?"
He glanced at the window, then about the room.
"It"s broad day. That word Blatch sent was a decoy; Huldah Spiller isn"t on the mountain. Somebody must go over there."
Judith rose swiftly to her feet.
"My Lord, Creed! I forgot all about "em," she said contritely. "Ye don"t reckon Blatch would harm the boys? And yet yo" right--it does look bad. I don"t know what to do, honey. They ain"t a man on the place till Uncle Jep comes. But maybe he"ll be along in about an hour."
She hurried to the window and stared over toward the Gulch; and at the moment a group of people topped the steep, rising into view one after the other out of the ravine, and coming on toward the house.
"Here they are now," she said with relief in her tones. "Thar"s Andy--Jeff, Pendrilly--why, whatever--The Lusk girls is with "em! They"s another--Creed, they _have_ got Huldy! And that last feller--no, "tain"t Blatch--of all things--it"s Wade! They"re comin" straight to this door.
Shall I let them in?"
"Yes," said Creed"s steady voice. "Let them right in."
She ran swiftly to slip an extra pillow under her patient"s shoulders, straighten the covers of the bed, and put all in company trim. Her eye brightened when she saw him sitting so erect and alert almost like his old self. Somebody rattled the latch.
"Come in, folks," Creed called, speaking out with a roundness and decision that it did her heart good to hear.
They all pushed into the room, the men shouldering back a little, glancing anxiously at the sick man, the Lusk girls timid, but Huldah leading the van.
"How"s Creed?" cried the irrepressible one, bounding into the room and looking about her. "Wade got yo" letter, Cousin Judy, an" I says to him that right now was the time for us to make a visit home. Wade"s got him a good place on the railroad, and I like livin" in the settlement; but bridal towers is all the go down thar, and we "lowed we"d take one."
Every inch of her raiment bespoke the bride, and it did not take Creed many moments to understand the situation, put out a thin white hand and, smiling, offer his congratulations. Wade received them with some low-toned, hesitating words of apology.
"Law, Cousin Creed"s ready to let bygones be bygones, Wade, honey!" his wife admonished him.
"_Cousin_ Creed?" echoed the obtuse Jeff.
Wade"s wife whirled to put a ready arm around Judith"s waist. "Why, you an" him is a-goin" to be wedded, ain"t you Judy? I always knowed, and I always said to everybody that I named it to, that you was cut out and made for each other. We heared tell from everybody in the Turkey Tracks that you an" Creed was goin" to be wedded as soon as he got well--then I reckon he"ll be my cousin, won"t he?"
Creed looked past the whispering girls to where Andy and Jeff stood. As the boys moved toward the bed.
"Did you find Blatch?" he asked, with a man"s directness. "How did you-all make out?"
Andy opened his lips to answer, when there was a clatter of hoofs outside. As they all turned to the window, Jephthah Turrentine"s big voice, with a new tone in it, called out to somebody.
"Hold on thar, honey--lemme lift ye down."
"Ain"t Uncle Jep goin" to be proud when he sees how well you air?"
Judith, stooping, whispered to Creed. "He went off to get somebody to he"p nurse you, because he said I done you more harm than good."
"Your Uncle Jep don"t know everything," returned Creed softly.
No mountaineer ever knocks on a door, but Jephthah Turrentine made considerable racket with the latch before he entered the room.
"Oh--you air awake," he said cautiously, then, looking about at the others, "an" got company so airly in the mornin"." He glanced from the newcomers to his patient. "You look fine--fine!" he a.s.serted with high satisfaction; then turning over his shoulder, "Come right along in, honey--Creed"ll be proud to see ye."
He paused on the threshold, reaching back a hand and entered, pulling after him Nancy Card--who was Nancy Card no longer. A wild-rose pink was in her withered cheeks under the frank grey eyes. She smiled as Judith had never imagined she could smile. But even then the young people scarcely fathomed the situation.
"Creed," cried the old man, "I"ve brung ye the best doctor and nurse there is on the mountings. Nancy she run off and left us, and I had to go after her, and I "lowed I"d make sartain that she"d never run away from me again, so I"ve jest--we jest----"
"Ye ain"t married!" cried Judith, sudden light coming in on her.
"We air that," announced old Jephthah radiantly.
"Well, Jude, I jest had to take him," apologised Nancy. "Here was him with the rheumatics every spring, an" bound and determined that he"d lay out in the bushes deer-huntin" like he done when he was twenty, and me knowin" in reason that a good course of dandelion and boneset, with my liniment well rubbed in, would fix him up--why, I jest _had_ to take him."
She looked about her for support, and she got it from an unexpected quarter.
"Well, I think you done jest right," piped up Huldah, who had been a silent spectator as long as she could endure it, "I"m mighty glad I"ve got a new mother-in-law, "caze I know Pap Turrentine"s apt to be well taken keer of in his old days."
His old days! Nancy looked indignantly from the red-haired girl to her bridegroom who, in her eyes, was evidently still a sprightly youth.
"Huh!" she remarked enigmatically. Then with a sudden change; "Yit whilst we are a-namin" sech, honey, won"t you jest run out to my saddle and bring me the spotted caliker poke off"n hit--hit"s got my bundle of yarbs in it. I"ll put on a drawin" of boneset for you befo" I set down."
"All right, Nancy--but I reckon I"ll have to clear these folks out of this sick-room fust," responded old Jephthah genially. "We"re apt to have too much goin" on for Creed."
But as they were marshalled to leave, the noise of a new arrival in the kitchen brought the curious Huldah to the door and she threw it wide to admit Iley, into whose arms she promptly precipitated herself with voluble explanations, which covered her career from the time she left Jim Cal"s cabin till that moment.
"You an" Wade are wedded? Why couldn"t you let a body know?" inquired Iley wrathfully, grasping her by the shoulder, holding her off for somewhat hostile inspection.
"That"s what I say," echoed Jim Cal"s voice from the doorway where he harboured, a trifle out of sight. "Ef you-all gals would be a little mo"
open an" above-bo"d about yo" courtin" business. .h.i.t would save lots of folks plenty of trouble. Here"s Iley got some sort o" notion that Huldy was over at Blatch"s, an" she put out an" run me home so fast that I ain"t ketched my breath till yit."
"Over at Blatch"s?" old Jephthah looked angrily about him, and Judith made haste to explain the whole matter, detailing everything that had led up to the trouble.
"We-all talked it over, Uncle Jep, and as you wasn"t here we made out to do the best we could, and the boys went."
"After me!" crowed Huldah. "An" thar I was on the train "long o" Wade comin" to Garyville that blessed minute."
"Well, Blatch had us hog-tied an" waitin" for the marshal to come an"
cyart us down and send us to the penitentiary," Jeff set forth the case.
"But you know how Blatch is, always devilin" folks; he made old Gid Rust mad, an" when Clianthy an" Pendrilly met the old man out on the road soon this mornin", he told "em to take a knife and come up to the cave an"
they could keep what they found."
"I never was so scairt in my life," Cliantha a.s.severated. Her china-blue eyes had not yet resumed their normal size or contour, and the a.s.sertion was easily believed.
"Nor me neither," agreed Pendrilla. "I says to him, says I, "Now you, Gid Rust, do you "low we"re crazy? We"re a-lookin" for old Boss and Spot, an"
we ain"t a-goin" up yon nary step." An" he says to us, says he, "Gals, you never mind about no cows," he says. "Hit"ll sh.o.r.e be the worse for Andy and Jeff Turrentine ef you don"t git yo"selves up thar an" git up thar quick." An" with that he gives us his knife out of his pocket, "caze we didn"t have none, and we run the whole blessed way, and cut the boys a-loose."
"I was that mad when I seen "em tied up thataway," chimed in Cliantha, "that I wouldn"t a "cared the rappin" o" my finger ef old Blatch Turrentine hisself had been thar. I"d "a" stood right up to him an" told him what I thort o" him an" his works." There are conditions, it is said, in which even the timid hare becomes militant, and doves will peck at the intruder.