In the beginning, such was her clear purpose to the Kentuckian"s eye, she filled it with flowers and gra.s.s and trees, and fish and bird and wild beasts. Just as she made Eden for Adam and Eve. The red men fought for the Paradise-fought till it was drenched with blood, but no tribe, without mortal challenge from another straightway, could ever call a rood its own. Boone loved the land from the moment the eagle eye in his head swept its shaking wilderness from a mountain-top, and every man who followed him loved the land no less. And when the chosen came, they found the earth ready to receive them-lifted above the baneful breath of river-bottom and marshland, drained by rivers full of fish, filled with woods full of game, and underlaid-all-with thick, blue, limestone strata that, like some divine agent working in the dark, kept crumbling-ever crumbling-to enrich the soil and give bone-building virtue to every drop of water and every blade of gra.s.s. For those chosen people such, too, seemed her purpose-the Mother went to the race upon whom she had smiled a benediction for a thousand years-the race that obstacle but strengthens, that thrives best under an alien effort to kill, that has ever conquered its conquerors, and that seems bent on the task of carrying the best ideals any age has ever known back to the Old World from which it sprang. The Great Mother knows! Knows that her children must suffer, if they stray too far from her great teeming b.r.e.a.s.t.s. And how she has followed close when this Saxon race-her youngest born-seemed likely to stray too far-gathering its sons to her arms in virgin lands that they might suckle again and keep the old blood fresh and strong. Who could know what danger threatened it when she sent her blue-eyed men and women to people the wilderness of the New World? To climb the Alleghenies, spread through the wastes beyond, and plant their kind across a continent from sea to sea. Who knows what dangers threaten now, when, his task done, she seems to be opening the eastern gates of the earth with a gesture that seems to say-"Enter, reclaim, and dwell therein!"
One little race of that race in the New World, and one only, has she kept flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone-to that race only did she give no outside aid. She shut it in with gray hill and shining river. She shut it off from the mother state and the mother nation and left it to fight its own fight with savage nature, savage beast, and savage man. And thus she gave the little race strength of heart and body and brain, and taught it to stand together as she taught each man of the race to stand alone, protect his women, mind his own business, and meddle not at all; to think his own thoughts and die for them if need be, though he divided his own house against itself; taught the man to cleave to one woman, with the penalty of death if he strayed elsewhere; to keep her-and even himself-in dark ignorance of the sins against Herself for which she has slain other nations, and in that happy ignorance keeps them to-day, even while she is slaying elsewhere still.
And Nature holds the Kentuckians close even to-day-suckling at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and living after her simple laws. What further use she may have for them is hid by the darkness of to-morrow, but before the Great War came she could look upon her work and say with a smile that it was good. The land was a great series of wooded parks such as one might have found in Merry England, except that worm fence and stone wall took the place of hedge along the highways. It was a land of peace and of a plenty that was close to easy luxury-for all. Poor whites were few, the beggar was unknown, and throughout the region there was no man, woman, or child, perhaps, who did not have enough to eat and to wear and a roof to cover his head, whether it was his own roof or not. If slavery had to be-then the fetters were forged light and hung loosely. And, broadcast, through the people, was the upright st.u.r.diness of the Scotch-Irishman, without his narrowness and bigotry; the grace and chivalry of the Cavalier without his Quixotic sentiment and his weakness; the jovial good-nature of the English squire and the leavening spirit of a simple yeomanry that bore itself with unconscious tenacity to traditions that seeped from the very earth. And the wings of the eagle hovered over all.
For that land it was the flowering time of the age and the people; and the bud that was about to open into the perfect flower had its living symbol in the little creature racing over the bluegra.s.s fields on a black pony, with a black velvet cap and a white nodding plume above her shaking curls, just as the little stranger who had floated down into those Elysian fields-with better blood in his veins than he knew-was a reincarnation perhaps of the spirit of the old race that had lain dormant in the hills. The long way from log-cabin to Greek portico had marked the progress of the generations before her, and, on this same way, the boy had set his st.u.r.dy feet.
CHAPTER 11.
A TOURNAMENT
On Sunday, the Major and Miss Lucy took Chad to church-a country church built of red brick and overgrown with ivy-and the sermon was very short, Chad thought, for, down in the mountains, the circuit-rider would preach for hours-and the deacons pa.s.sed around velvet pouches for the people to drop money in, and they pa.s.sed around bread, of which nearly everybody took a pinch, and a silver goblet with wine, from which the same people took a sip-all of which Chad did not understand. Usually the Deans went to Lexington to church, for they were Episcopalians, but they were all at the country church that day, and with them was Richard Hunt, who smiled at Chad and waved his riding-whip. After church Dan came to him and shook hands. Harry nodded to him gravely, the mother smiled kindly, and the General put his hand on the boy"s head. Margaret looked at him furtively, but pa.s.sed him by. Perhaps she was still "mad" at him, Chad thought, and he was much worried. Margaret was not shy like Melissa, but her face was kind. The General asked them all over to take dinner, but Miss Lucy declined-she had asked people to take dinner with her. And Chad, with keen disappointment, saw them drive away.
It was a lonely day for him that Sunday. He got tired staying so long at the table, and he did not understand what the guests were talking about. The afternoon was long, and he wandered restlessly about the yard and the quarters. Jerome Conners, the overseer, tried to be friendly with him for the first time, but the boy did not like the overseer and turned away from him. He walked down to the pike gate and sat on it, looking over toward the Deans". He wished that Dan would come over to see him or, better still, that he could go over to see Dan and Harry and-Margaret. But Dan did not come and Chad could not ask the Major to let him go-he was too shy about it-and Chad was glad when bedtime came.
Two days more and spring was come in earnest. It was in the softness of the air, the tenderness of cloud and sky, and the warmth of the sunlight. The gra.s.s was greener and the trees quivered happily. Hens scratched and c.o.c.ks crowed more l.u.s.tily. Insect life was busier. A stallion nickered in the barn, and from the fields came the mooing of cattle. Field-hands going to work chaffed the maids about the house and quarters. It stirred dreamy memories of his youth in the Major, and it brought a sad light into Miss Lucy"s faded eyes. Would she ever see another spring? It brought tender memories to General Dean, and over at Woodlawn, after he and Mrs. Dean had watched the children go off with happy cries and laughter to school, it led them back into the house hand in hand. And it set Chad"s heart aglow as he walked through the dewy gra.s.s and amid the singing of many birds toward the pike gate. He, too, was on his way to school-in a brave new suit of clothes-and n.o.body smiled at him now, except admiringly, for the Major had taken him to town the preceding day and had got the boy clothes such as Dan and Harry wore. Chad was worried at first-he did not like to accept so much from the Major.
"I"ll pay you back," said Chad. "I"ll leave you my hoss when I go "way, if I don"t," and the Major laughingly said that was all right and he made Chad, too, think that it was all right. And so spring took the shape of hope in Chad"s breast, that morning, and a little later it took the shape of Margaret, for he soon saw the Dean children ahead of him in the road and he ran to catch up with them.
All looked at him with surprise-seeing his broad white collar with ruffles, his turned-back, ruffled cuffs, and his boots with red tops; but they were too polite to say anything. Still Chad felt Margaret taking them all in and he was proud and confident. And, when her eyes were lifted to the handsome face that rose from the collar and the thick yellow hair, he caught them with his own in an unconscious look of fealty, that made the little girl blush and hurry on and not look at him again until they were in school, when she turned her eyes, as did all the other boys and girls, to scan the new "scholar." Chad"s work in the mountains came in well now. The teacher, a gray, sad-eyed, thin-faced man, was surprised at the boy"s capacity, for he could read as well as Dan, and in mental arithmetic even Harry was no match for him; and when in the spelling cla.s.s he went from the bottom to the head in a single lesson, the teacher looked as though he were going to give the boy a word of praise openly and Margaret was regarding him with a new light in her proud eyes. That was a happy day for Chad, but it pa.s.sed after school when, as they went home together, Margaret looked at him no more; else Chad would have gone by the Deans" house when Dan and Harry asked him to go and look at their ponies and the new sheep that their father had just bought; for Chad was puzzled and awed and shy of the little girl. It was strange-he had never felt that way about Melissa. But his shyness kept him away from her day after day until, one morning, he saw her ahead of him going to school alone, and his heart thumped as he quietly and swiftly overtook her without calling to her; but he stopped running that she might not know that he had been running, and for the first time she was shy with him. Harry and Dan were threatened with the measles, she said, and would say no more. When they went through the fields toward the school-house, Chad stalked ahead as he had done in the mountains with Melissa, and, looking back, he saw that Margaret had stopped. He waited for her to come up, and she looked at him for a moment as though displeased. Puzzled, Chad gave back her look for a moment and turned without a word-still stalking ahead. He looked back presently and Margaret had stopped and was pouting.
"You aren"t polite, little boy. My mamma says a NICE little boy always lets a little GIRL go first." But Chad still walked ahead. He looked back presently and she had stopped again-whether angry or ready to cry, he could not make out-so he waited for her, and as she came slowly near he stepped gravely from the path, and Margaret went on like a queen.
In town, a few days later, he saw a little fellow take off his hat when a lady pa.s.sed him, and it set Chad to thinking. He recalled asking the school-master once what was meant when the latter read about a knight doffing his plume, and the school-master had told him that men, in those days, took off their hats in the presence of ladies just as they did in the Bluegra.s.s now; but Chad had forgotten. He understood it all then and he surprised Margaret, next morning, by taking off his cap gravely when he spoke to her; and the little lady was greatly pleased, for her own brothers did not do that, at least, not to her, though she had heard her mother tell them that they must. All this must be chivalry, Chad thought, and when Harry and Dan got well, he revived his old ideas, but Harry laughed at him and Dan did, too, until Chad, remembering Beelzebub, suggested that they should have a tournament with two rams that the General had tied up in the stable. They would make spears and each would get on a ram. Harry would let them out into the lot and they would have "a real charge-sure enough." But Margaret received the plan with disdain, until Dan, at Chad"s suggestion, asked the General to read them the tournament scene in "Ivanhoe," which excited the little lady a great deal; and when Chad said that she must be the "Queen of Love and Beauty" she blushed prettily and thought, after all, that it would be great fun. They would make lances of ash-wood and helmets of tin buckets, and perhaps Margaret would make red sashes for them. Indeed, she would, and the tournament would take place on the next Sat.u.r.day. But, on Sat.u.r.day, one of the sheep was taken over to Major Buford"s and the other was turned loose in the Major"s back pasture and the great day had to be postponed.
It was on the night of the reading from "Ivanhoe" that Harry and Dan found out how Chad could play the banjo. Pa.s.sing old Mammy"s cabin that night before supper, the three boys had stopped to listen to old Tom play, and after a few tunes, Chad could stand it no longer.
"I foller pickin" the banjer a leetle," he said shyly, and thereupon he had taken the rude instrument and made the old negro"s eyes stretch with amazement, while Dan rolled in the gra.s.s with delight, and every negro who heard ran toward the boy. After supper, Dan brought the banjo into the house and made Chad play on the porch, to the delight of them all. And there, too, the servants gathered, and even old Mammy was observed slyly shaking her foot-so that Margaret clapped her hands and laughed the old woman into great confusion. After that no Sat.u.r.day came that Chad did not spend the night at the Deans", or Harry and Dan did not stay at Major Buford"s. And not a Sat.u.r.day pa.s.sed that the three boys did not go c.o.o.n-hunting with the darkies, or fox-hunting with the Major and the General. Chad never forgot that first starlit night when he was awakened by the near winding of a horn and heard the Major jump from bed. He jumped too, and when the Major reached the barn, a dark little figure was close at his heels.
"Can I go, too?" Chad asked, eagerly.
"Think you can stick on?"
"Yes, sir."
"All right. Get my bay horse. That old mare of yours is too slow."
The Major"s big bay horse! Chad was dizzy with pride.
When they galloped out into the dark woods, there were the General and Harry and Dan and half a dozen neighbors, sitting silently on their horses and listening to the music of the hounds.
The General laughed.
"I thought you"d come," he said, and the Major laughed too, and c.o.c.ked his ear. "Old Rock"s ahead," he said, for he knew, as did everyone there, the old hound"s tongue.
"He"s been ahead for an hour," said the General with quiet satisfaction, "and I think he"ll stay there."
Just then a dark object swept past them, and the Major with a low cry hied on his favorite hound.
"Not now, I reckon," he said, and the General laughed again.
Dan and Harry pressed their horses close to Chad, and all talked in low voices.
"Ain"t it fun?" whispered Dan. Chad answered with a shiver of pure joy.
"He"s making for the creek," said the Major, sharply, and he touched spurs to his horse. How they raced through the woods, cracking brush and whisking around trees, and how they thundered over the turf and clattered across the road and on! For a few moments the Major kept close to Chad, watching him anxiously, but the boy stuck to the big bay like a jockey, and he left Dan and Harry on their ponies far behind. All night they rode under the starlit sky, and ten miles away they caught poor Reynard. Chad was in at the kill, with the Major and the General, and the General gave Chad the brush with his own hand.
"Where did you learn to ride, boy?"
"I never learned," said Chad, simply, whereat the Major winked at his friends and patted Chad on the shoulder.
"I"ve got to let my boys ride better horses, I suppose," said the General; "I can"t have a boy who does not know how to ride beating them this way."
Day was breaking when the Major and Chad rode into the stable-yard. The boy"s face was pale, his arms and legs ached, and he was so sleepy that he could hardly keep his eyes open.
"How"d you like it, Chad?"
"I never knowed nothing like it in my life," said Chad.
"I"m going to teach you to shoot."
"Yes, sir," said Chad.
As they approached the house, a squirrel barked from the woods.
"Hear that, Chad?" said the Major. "We"ll get him."
The following morning, Chad rose early and took his old rifle out into the woods, and when the Major came out on the porch before breakfast the boy was coming up the walk with six squirrels in his hand. The Major"s eyes opened and he looked at the squirrels when Chad dropped them on the porch. Every one of them was shot through the head.
"Well, I"m d.a.m.ned! How many times did you shoot, Chad?"
"Seven."
"What-missed only once?"
"I took a knot fer a squirrel once," said Chad.
The Major roared aloud.
"Did I say I was going to teach you to shoot, Chad?"
"Yes, sir."
The Major chuckled and that day he told about those squirrels and that knot to everybody he saw. With every day the Major grew fonder and prouder of the boy and more convinced than ever that the lad was of his own blood.