All the time studyin" how you kin go away an" leave me. Well, I"ll show you wuther I"m goin" or not."
The old man laughed. "Oh, pleased to have you come along, as the hawk said to the chicken." She climbed up and sat down beside him and he dodged as if she had struck at him. "Now stop yo" foolishness an" drive on, Jasper. An" I"ll jest bet anythin" that these steers run right off"n the bluff inter the creek. I jest know it."
"Oh, not with a preacher an" all these good-lookin" women," replied Jasper. "Whoa hawr, come here, Buck. Come here, Bright."
The old wagon creaked, groaned, shuddered and away they went down the hill. Lou and Mrs. Mayfield "bursting into song," Jim and Tom laughing.
The dawn had been red and the early morning was still pink, with here and there a mist-veil floating up from the creek. In the air were sudden joys, the indescribable and indefinable glees of a lightsome day, the very childhood of time; and back to the north the migratory bird was singing his way, mimicked and laughed at by the native mocking songster, jongleur of the feathered world. In all this blythe land it did not seem that there was an ache or a pain, of the body or of the heart; the light, the air, the music, all combined to form a wordless sermon on the mount.
"Mr. Reverend, you are silent again," said Mrs. Mayfield, and the preacher replied: "I didn"t know that, ma"m. I thought I was singing."
"I"m not singin"," Margaret spoke up, grasping Jasper"s arm. "I haven"t been so jolted since the mules ran away with me."
"Margaret," said Jasper, "you"d be jolted in the garden of Eden. Jolted out, I gad," he roared.
"I wouldn"t, no sich of a thing, an" you know it. Lou, air you sh.o.r.e you put everything in the basket."
"Yes"m."
"The pickels, and the chickens? I jest know you forgot the coffee, as if I could go all day without it. I never seed the like. Folks air gittin"
mo" an" mo" keerless every day. Of co"se you could put in the pickels--had to do that to leave the coffee out. Now what prompted you to do that?"
"Do what, mother?"
"Why, leave that coffee out?"
"It"s in the basket."
"Then why did you tell me you didn"t fetch it? What do you want to torment a body fur? Now, Jasper, whut air you a settin" up here fur, a shakin" like a lump o" calf-foot jelly? You give me the fidgits."
"Wall, thar won"t be n.o.body a laughin" now putty soon," said Jasper. "I kin see right now that these steers air goin" to run off inter the creek."
"They ain"t a goin" to do no sich of a thing, an" you know it. Miz Mayfield, did you ever see sich carryin"s-on?"
"I have never experienced a more delightful drive, Mrs. Starbuck. We read of the beautiful past, and it seems to me that to-day I have been permitted to live a hundred years ago. A hundred! Five hundred, and should not be surprised to see a troop of knights come galloping down the glen, with armor flashing and with poetic war-cries on their lips.
Were you thinking of that, Mr. Reverend?"
"No, ma"m. I was thinking of the men, clothed in skins and with shepherd"s crooks in their hands, carrying the gospel to the barbarians of old."
"And I was thinking," said Tom, "of old Daniel Boone, with his flint-lock rifle, going to Kentucky. And what were your thoughts, Miss Lou?"
"I wasn"t thinkin"--I was just a livin", that"s all. Sometimes what a blessin" it is jest to breathe. I reckon we are the happiest when we don"t have to think, when we jest set still and let things drift along like the leaf that"s a floatin" down the river."
"Very pretty, my dear," Mrs. Mayfield replied. "Thought is not happiness, though bliss may not lie wholly in ignorance. I should think that the happiness most nearly perfect is the half-unconscious rest of a thoughtful mind--the sound sleep of the strong."
"That"s all very well," said Old Jasper, waving his long lash over the steers. "But you can"t gauge happiness, and half the time you can"t tell what fetches it about. Some days you find yo"se"f miserable when thar ain"t nuthin" happened, an" the next day, when still nuthin" has tuck place to change things, you find yo"se"f happy. If you kin do a little suthin" to help a po" body along--an" do it, mind you, without thinkin"
that you air doin" it fur a purpose, then the chances air that you"ll be happy all day. But ef you help a feller with the idee of it a makin" you happy, it won"t, somehow. It"s like the card player a givin" a man money becaze he thinks it will fetch him good luck. I ricolleck one time I seed a big feller a bullyin" a po" little devil, an" I told him to quit an" he wouldn"t, an" I whaled him. Didn"t think nuthin" about it till I got nearly home an" I foun" myse"f a whistlin" like a bird, an" all that day I was as happy as a lark."
"Of co"se, ef you had a fight," Margaret spoke up. "To you it was like eatin" a piece o" June apple pie. Ah, don"t I ricolleck once when we went to a political speakin"? I reckon I do. A settin" thar jest as quiet as could be, a listin" to a man that was makin" the puttiest speech, a talkin" like a preacher, an" all at once you hopped up an"
made at him an" I never seed such a fight--an" you come a walkin" back to me with yo" hands full of his hair. Laws a ma.s.sy, don"t I ricolleck it?"
"Talkin" putty! W"y, Margaret, the feller was a tellin" of a lie. I didn"t want to fight him an" break up the meetin", an" I was showin"
that by settin" thar so quiet. But when he begun to lie, it was my duty to remind him of it."
"Wall," she replied, after a moment"s silence, "if that preacher out thar at Dry Fork" to-day begins to say things that you think ain"t true, jest set thar an" say nuthin", fur it ain"t none o" yo" business."
"That"s right, Margaret. I don"t kere what a man says when he"s a preachin", jest so he don"t p"int at me. He kin say that Moses drunk up the Red Sea ef he wants to--but he mustn"t p"int as if he could prove it by me."
"Oh, it would do you a world of good ef he did p"int at you. Nuthin" on the yeth would please you so much."
Down into the lowlands lying along a blue river the wagon rolled. Here the vegetation was rank, and the tops of the hickory trees were dim in the dazzling blue above. Great birds with long legs stretched out far behind, flew past, ancient war-bolts they seemed; and a flying squirrel looped his flight from one tree to another. The tall rattle weed, in bloom, nodded a yellow salute as they pa.s.sed.
"We are the guests of honor," said Mrs. Mayfield. "They have marshalled a gay army of soldiers to meet us."
"The roots of them weeds is pizen," Jasper spoke up, cutting off a yellow plume with his whip. "They look suthin" like the stalk of angelica an" sometimes they air dug up by mistake fur sich. See that squirrel. Look how he rattles up that hickory bark. Wall, down yan we turn to the right an" go up a little rise, dip down ag"in, then go up an" keep on a goin" up fur about a mile an" thar"s the church. Who preaches to-day, Margaret?"
"Brother Fetterson."
"Ah, hah, good man; an" I want to say that he"s got mighty fine jedgment when it comes to a hoss. He fust rid in here on a hoss that had about fo" j"ints to the squar foot. Some of our fellers told him he was so thin he oughtn"t be rid in the day--ought to keep him fur the dark; called him a sort of night mare. But he tuck it good natured an" jest kep" on a chawin" o" his tobacker. Then atter a while he lows that mebby some good brother mout like to swap with him, an" ever"body laughed fitten to kill. Then he said mebby they mout like to swop saddles. Wall, they done that an" right thar was the rise of that preacher in the good opinion of this here community, fur it wan"t long till he swopped off his hoss, a givin" the saddle to boot, an" he kept on a swoppin" till the fust thing we knowed he had the finest hoss in the whole neighborhood, an" the fust feller he swopped with was a walkin" an" a totin" his saddle. That"s the sort of a preacher the folks likes to hear, fur they"ve got confidence in his jedgment."
The log meeting-house was on a hill in the midst of a walnut grove. Its roof was green with moss and its sides gray and yellow. Many a storm had swept over this old pile of wood. In it the ordinance of secession had been read. Knives flashed, pistols barked, and blood was poured out upon the floor. Old Oliver"s horses ate their oats at the marble altar of an ancient cathedral; and within these log walls, and at this long slab, this mourners" bench, tear-stained by a generation long since in the grave, the horses of the guerrillas ate their corn. Descendants of the same men, carrying on what might have seemed a continuation of the same family quarrel, first one side and then another occupied Dry Fork as a fort; and when the rain was pouring as if to wash away the blood, Buell slept on a bench in this old house, and two days later Bragg"s orders were issued from its pulpit.
Numerous horses were tied about and the mule colt was blowing his treble horn. Maidens in their finery and young fellows rigged out from the pack of the nomadic Hebrew walked about, glancing shyly at one another. On the gra.s.s beneath the trees, lying, squatting, sitting, old men talked of early frosts and late snows, of strange and wonderful things that had happened away back in the days of misty tradition; one man"s father had seen a ghost, and another man"s grandfather, while leading to the altar a beautiful girl, was suddenly horrified to see her turn into a hideous witch. When Jasper"s "haul" had got out of the wagon, and while the women were shaking out their skirts, Laz Spencer came along in jacket and shrunken trousers.
"Laz," said Jasper, "you ought to sue that peddler. Yo" britches hain"t shrunk the same. One leg"s shorter than tuther."
"So I hearn," Laz replied, looking first at one leg and then at the other. "But britches ain"t whut"s a troublin" me at the present writin".
Miss lady"s duds is what"s a ailin" of me. Mag Bailey "lowed she"d meet me over here, but she didn"t come. I"d ruther be deceived by ten men than one woman. You kin whup a man, but it won"t do to whup a woman till you marry her, an" even then it"s sorter dangersome."
"She"s your fiance, I suppose," Tom remarked, winking at his aunt.
"I don"t know whut you mean, but she ain"t my nuthin" it don"t seem like."
"I mean you are engaged to her."
"Don"t look much like it. Told her ef she"d meet me over here we mout be. Reckon her not comin" is a hint that she ain"t agreeable to the p"int. How air you an" Lou a gittin" along?"
Margaret began to cough and Jasper ducked down behind the wagon. Lou blushed until her cheeks were as red as the ribbon on her hat. "I git along well with ever"body," she said.
"You embarra.s.s us, Mr. Spencer," Tom spoke up, red as the breast of a robin.
"That so?" replied Laz. "Wall, Mister, ef you don"t want to be jolted don"t try to jolt me."
"I beg your pardon, sir, if--"
"Oh, no harm done, Mister. Wait a minit," he added, squatting and peering down the hill among the trees. "I"m a billy goat with only one ho"n ef yander don"t come Mag with Sim Mason. Him an" her as sho"s I"m a foot high. Say, Jasper, they calls the sakermint the blood o" the lamb, don"t they? Wall, ef they want it to-day they kin have the blood of a calf."
"Oh, Mr. Spencer," cried Mrs. Mayfield, going to him in alarm, "I do hope you"ll have no trouble."
"Hope so, too, ma"m, but I ain"t a signin" no notes of hand. Look, he"s a hitchin" her hoss fur her an" you see ef he don"t walk with her up to the church do". An" ef he do, thar"s--whut did I tell you?"