IV. CLOSE QUARTERS
Two hours up the river we struck Buck. Buck was sitting on the fence bythe roadside, barefooted and hatless.
"How-dye-do?" I said.
"Purty well," said Buck.
"Any fish in this river?"
"Several," said Buck. Now in mountain speech, "several" means simply "agood many."
"Any minnows in these branches?"
"I seed several in the branch back o' our house."
"How far away do you live?"
"Oh, 'bout one whoop an' a holler." If he had spoken Greek the Blightcould not have been more puzzled. He meant he lived as far as a man'svoice would carry with one yell and a holla.
"Will you help me catch some?" Buck nodded.
"All right," I said, turning my horse up to the fence. "Get on behind."The horse shied his hind quarters away, and I pulled him back.
"Now, you can get on, if you'll be quick." Buck sat still.
"Yes," he said imperturbably; "but I ain't quick." The two girls laughedaloud, and Buck looked surprised.
Around a curving cornfield we went, and through a meadow which Buck saidwas a "nigh cut." From the limb of a tree that we passed hung a pieceof wire with an iron ring swinging at its upturned end. A little fartherwas another tree and another ring, and farther on another and another.
"For heaven's sake, Buck, what are these things?"
"Mart's a-gittin' ready fer a tourneyment."
"A what?"
"That's whut Mart calls hit. He was over to the Gap last Fourth o' July,an' he says fellers over thar fix up like Kuklux and go a-chargin' onhosses and takin' off them rings with a ash-stick--'spear,' Mart callshit. He come back an' he says he's a-goin' to win that ar tourneymentnext Fourth o' July. He's got the best hoss up this river, and onSundays him an' Dave Branham goes a-chargin' along here a-picking offthese rings jus' a-flyin'; an' Mart can do hit, I'm tellin' ye. Dave'smighty good hisself, but he ain't nowhar 'longside o' Mart."
This was strange. I had told the Blight about our Fourth of July, andhow on the Virginia side the ancient custom of the tournament stillsurvived. It was on the last Fourth of July that she had meant to cometo the Gap. Truly civilization was spreading throughout the hills.
"Who's Mart?"
"Mart's my brother," said little Buck.
"He was over to the Gap not long ago, an' he come back mad as hops--" Hestopped suddenly, and in such a way that I turned my head, knowing thatcaution had caught Buck.
"What about?"
"Oh, nothin'," said Buck carelessly; "only he's been quar ever since.My sisters says he's got a gal over thar, an' he's a-pickin' off theserings more'n ever now. He's going to win or bust a belly-band."
"Well, who's Dave Branham?"
Buck grinned. "You jes axe my sister Mollie. Thar she is."
Before us was a white-framed house of logs in the porch of whichstood two stalwart, good-looking girls. Could we stay all night? Wecould--there was no hesitation--and straight in we rode.
"Where's your father?" Both girls giggled, and one said, with frankunembarrassment:
"Pap's tight!" That did not look promising, but we had to stay justthe same. Buck helped me to unhitch the mules, helped me also to catchminnows, and in half an hour we started down the river to try fishingbefore dark came. Buck trotted along.
"Have you got a wagon, Buck?"
"What fer?"
"To bring the fish back." Buck was not to be caught napping.
"We got that sled thar, but hit won't be big enough," he said gravely."An' our two-hoss wagon's out in the cornfield. We'll have to string thefish, leave 'em in the river and go fer 'em in the mornin'."
"All right, Buck." The Blight was greatly amused at Buck.
Two hundred yards down the road stood his sisters over the figure of aman outstretched in the road. Unashamed, they smiled at us. The man inthe road was "pap"--tight--and they were trying to get him home.
We cast into a dark pool farther down and fished most patiently; not abite--not a nibble.
"Are there any fish in here, Buck?"
"Dunno--used ter be." The shadows deepened; we must go back to thehouse.
"Is there a dam below here, Buck?"
"Yes, thar's a dam about a half-mile down the river."
I was disgusted. No wonder there were no bass in that pool.
"Why didn't you tell me that before?"
"You never axed me," said Buck placidly.
I began winding in my line.
"Ain't no bottom to that pool," said Buck.
Now I never saw any rural community where there was not a bottomlesspool, and I suddenly determined to shake one tradition in at least onecommunity. So I took an extra fish-line, tied a stone to it, and climbedinto a canoe, Buck watching me, but not asking a word.
"Get in, Buck."
Silently he got in and I pushed off--to the centre.
"This the deepest part, Buck?"
"I reckon so."
I dropped in the stone and the line reeled out some fifty feet and beganto coil on the surface of the water.
"I guess that's on the bottom, isn't it, Buck?"
Buck looked genuinely distressed; but presently he brightened.
"Yes," he said, "ef hit ain't on a turtle's back."
Literally I threw up both hands and back we trailed--fishless.
"Reckon you won't need that two-hoss wagon," said Buck. "No, Buck, Ithink not." Buck looked at the Blight and gave himself the pleasure ofhis first chuckle. A big crackling, cheerful fire awaited us. Throughthe door I could see, outstretched on a bed in the next room, the limpfigure of "pap" in alcoholic sleep. The old mother, big, kind-faced,explained--and there was a heaven of kindness and charity in herdrawling voice.
"Dad didn' often git that a-way," she said; "but he'd been out a-huntin'hawgs that mornin' and had met up with some teamsters and gone to apolitical speakin' and had tuk a dram or two of their mean whiskey, andnot havin' nothin' on his stummick, hit had all gone to his head. No,'pap' didn't git that a-way often, and he'd be all right jes' as soon ashe slept it off a while." The old woman moved about with a cane and thesympathetic Blight merely looked a question at her.
"Yes, she'd fell down a year ago--and had sort o' hurt herself--didn'tdo nothin', though, 'cept break one hip," she added, in her kind,patient old voice. Did many people stop there? Oh, yes, sometimesfifteen at a time--they "never turned nobody away." And she had a bigfamily, little Cindy and the two big girls and Buck and Mart--who wasout somewhere--and the hired man, and yes--"Thar was another boy, but hewas fitified," said one of the big sisters.
"I beg your pardon," said the wondering Blight, but she knew that phrasewouldn't do, so she added politely:
"What did you say?"
"Fitified--Tom has fits. He's in a asylum in the settlements."
"Tom come back once an' he was all right," said the old mother; "but heworried so much over them gals workin' so hard that it plum' throwed himoff ag'in, and we had to send him back."
"Do you work pretty hard?" I asked presently. Then a story came thatwas full of unconscious pathos, because there was no hint ofcomplaint--simply a plain statement of daily life. They got up beforethe men, in order to get breakfast ready; then they went with the meninto the fields--those two girls--and worked like men. At dark theygot supper ready, and after the men went to bed they worked on--washingdishes and clearing up the kitchen. They took it turn about gettingsupper, and sometimes, one said, she was "so plumb tuckered out thatshe'd drap on the bed and go to sleep ruther than eat her own supper."No wonder poor Tom had to go back to the asylum. All the while thetwo girls stood by the fire looking, politely but minutely, at the twostrange girls and their curious clothes and their boots, and the waythey dressed their hair. Their hard life seemed to have hurt themnone--for both were the pictures of health--whatever that phrase means.
After supper "pap" came in, perfectly sober, with a big ruddy face,giant frame, and twinkling gray eyes. He was the man who had risen tosp
eak his faith in the Hon. Samuel Budd that day on the size of the Hon.Samuel's ears. He, too, was unashamed and, as he explained his plightagain, he did it with little apology.
"I seed ye at the speakin' to-day. That man Budd is a good man. He donesomethin' fer a boy o' mine over at the Gap." Like little Buck, he, too,stopped short. "He's a good man an' I'm a-goin' to help him."
Yes, he repeated, quite irrelevantly, it was hunting hogs all day withnothing to eat and only mean whiskey to drink. Mart had not come inyet--he was "workin' out" now.
"He's the best worker in these mountains," said the old woman; "Martworks too hard."
The hired man appeared and joined us at the fire. Bedtime came, and Iwhispered jokingly to the Blight:
"I believe I'll ask that good-looking one to 'set up' with me." "Settin'up" is what courting is called in the hills. The couple sit up in frontof the fire after everybody else has gone to bed. The man puts his armaround the girl's neck and whispers; then she puts her arm around hisneck and whispers--so that the rest may not hear. This I had related tothe Blight, and now she withered me.
"You just do, now!"
I turned to the girl in question, whose name was Mollie. "Buck told meto ask you who Dave Branham was." Mollie wheeled, blushing and angry,but Buck had darted cackling out the door. "Oh," I said, and I changedthe subject. "What time do you get up?"
"Oh, 'bout crack o' day." I was tired, and that was discouraging.
"Do you get up that early every morning?"
"No," was the quick answer; "a mornin' later."
A morning later, Mollie got up, each morning. The Blight laughed.
Pretty soon the two girls were taken into the next room, which was along one, with one bed in one dark corner, one in the other, and a thirdbed in the middle. The feminine members of the family all followed themout on the porch and watched them brush their teeth, for they had neverseen tooth-brushes before. They watched them prepare for bed--and Icould hear much giggling and comment and many questions, all of whichculminated, by and by, in a chorus of shrieking laughter. That climax,as I learned next morning, was over the Blight's hot-water bag. Neverhad their eyes rested on an article of more wonder and humor than thatwater bag.
By and by, the feminine members came back and we sat around the fire.Still Mart did not appear, though somebody stepped into the kitchen, andfrom the warning glance that Mollie gave Buck when she left the room Iguessed that the newcomer was her lover Dave. Pretty soon the old manyawned.
"Well, mammy, I reckon this stranger's about ready to lay down, ifyou've got a place fer him."
"Git a light, Buck," said the old woman. Buck got a light--achimneyless, smoking oil-lamp--and led me into the same room where theBlight and my little sister were. Their heads were covered up, butthe bed in the gloom of one corner was shaking with their smotheredlaughter. Buck pointed to the middle bed.
"I can get along without that light, Buck," I said, and I must havebeen rather haughty and abrupt, for a stifled shriek came from under thebedclothes in the corner and Buck disappeared swiftly. Preparations forbed are simple in the mountains--they were primitively simple for methat night. Being in knickerbockers, I merely took off my coat andshoes. Presently somebody else stepped into the room and the bed in theother corner creaked. Silence for a while. Then the door opened, and thehead of the old woman was thrust in.
"Mart!" she said coaxingly; "git up thar now an' climb over inter bedwith that ar stranger."
That was Mart at last, over in the corner. Mart turned, grumbled, and,to my great pleasure, swore that he wouldn't. The old woman waited amoment.
"Mart," she said again with gentle imperiousness, "git up thar now, Itell ye--you've got to sleep with that thar stranger."
She closed the door and with a snort Mart piled into bed with me. Igave him plenty of room and did not introduce myself. A little more darksilence--the shaking of the bed under the hilarity of those astonished,bethrilled, but thoroughly unfrightened young women in the dark corneron my left ceased, and again the door opened. This time it was the hiredman, and I saw that the trouble was either that neither Mart nor Buckwanted to sleep with the hired man or that neither wanted to sleepwith me. A long silence and then the boy Buck slipped in. The hired mandelivered himself with the intonation somewhat of a circuit rider.
"I've been a-watchin' that star thar, through the winder. Sometimes hitmoves, then hit stands plum' still, an' ag'in hit gits to pitchin'." Thehired man must have been touching up mean whiskey himself. Meanwhile,Mart seemed to be having spells of troubled slumber. He would snoregently, accentuate said snore with a sudden quiver of his body and thenwake up with a climacteric snort and start that would shake the bed.This was repeated several times, and I began to think of the unfortunateTom who was "fitified." Mart seemed on the verge of a fit himself, andI waited apprehensively for each snorting climax to see if fits were afamily failing. They were not. Peace overcame Mart and he slept deeply,but not I. The hired man began to show symptoms. He would roll andgroan, dreaming of feuds, _quorum pars magna fuit_, it seemed, and ofreligious conversion, in which he feared he was not so great. Twice hesaid aloud:
"An' I tell you thar wouldn't a one of 'em have said a word if I'd beenkilled stone-dead." Twice he said it almost weepingly, and now and thenhe would groan appealingly:
"O Lawd, have mercy on my pore soul!"
Fortunately those two tired girls slept--I could hear theirbreathing--but sleep there was little for me. Once the troubled soulwith the hoe got up and stumbled out to the water-bucket on the porch tosoothe the fever or whatever it was that was burning him, and after thathe was quiet. I awoke before day. The dim light at the window showed anempty bed--Buck and the hired man were gone. Mart was slipping out ofthe side of my bed, but the girls still slept on. I watched Mart, forI guessed I might now see what, perhaps, is the distinguishing trait ofAmerican civilization down to its bed-rock, as you find it through theWest and in the Southern hills--a chivalrous respect for women. Martthought I was asleep. Over in the corner were two creatures the like ofwhich I supposed he had never seen and would not see, since he came intoo late the night before, and was going away too early now--and twoangels straight from heaven could not have stirred my curiosity any morethan they already must have stirred his. But not once did Mart turn hiseyes, much less his face, toward the corner where they were--not once,for I watched him closely. And when he went out he sent his littlesister back for his shoes, which the night-walking hired man hadaccidentally kicked toward the foot of the strangers' bed. In a minute Iwas out after him, but he was gone. Behind me the two girls opened theireyes on a room that was empty save for them. Then the Blight spoke (thisI was told later).
"Dear," she said, "have our room-mates gone?"
Breakfast at dawn. The mountain girls were ready to go to work. Alllooked sorry to have us leave. They asked us to come back again, andthey meant it. We said we would like to come back--and we meant it--tosee them--the kind old mother, the pioneer-like old man, sturdy littleBuck, shy little Cindy, the elusive, hard-working, unconsciously shiveryMart, and the two big sisters. As we started back up the river thesisters started for the fields, and I thought of their stricken brotherin the settlements, who must have been much like Mart.
Back up the Big Black Mountain we toiled, and late in the afternoon wewere on the State line that runs the crest of the Big Black. Right ontop and bisected by that State line sat a dingy little shack, and there,with one leg thrown over the pommel of his saddle, sat Marston, drinkingwater from a gourd.
"I was coming over to meet you," he said, smiling at the Blight, who,greatly pleased, smiled back at him. The shack was a "blind Tiger"where whiskey could be sold to Kentuckians on the Virginia side andto Virginians on the Kentucky side. Hanging around were the slouchingfigures of several moonshiners and the villainous fellow who ran it.
"They are real ones all right," said Marston. "One of them killed arevenue officer at that front door last week, and was killed by theposse as he was trying to esc
ape out of the back window. That house willbe in ashes soon," he added. And it was.
As we rode down the mountain we told him about our trip and the peoplewith whom we had spent the night--and all the time he was smilingcuriously.
"Buck," he said. "Oh, yes, I know that little chap. Mart had him posteddown there on the river to toll you to his house--to toll YOU," he addedto the Blight. He pulled in his horse suddenly, turned and looked uptoward the top of the mountain.
"Ah, I thought so." We all looked back. On the edge of the cliff, farupward, on which the "blind Tiger" sat was a gray horse, and on it was aman who, motionless, was looking down at us.
"He's been following you all the way," said the engineer.
"Who's been following us?" I asked.
"That's Mart up there--my friend and yours," said Marston to theBlight. "I'm rather glad I didn't meet you on the other side of themountain--that's 'the Wild Dog.'" The Blight looked incredulous, butMarston knew the man and knew the horse.
So Mart--hard-working Mart--was the Wild Dog, and he was content todo the Blight all service without thanks, merely for the privilege ofsecretly seeing her face now and then; and yet he would not look uponthat face when she was a guest under his roof and asleep.
Still, when we dropped behind the two girls I gave Marston the Hon.Sam's warning, and for a moment he looked rather grave.
"Well," he said, smiling, "if I'm found in the road some day, you'llknow who did it."
I shook my head. "Oh, no; he isn't that bad."
"I don't know," said Marston.
The smoke of the young engineer's coke ovens lay far below us and theBlight had never seen a coke-plant before. It looked like Hades evenin the early dusk--the snake-like coil of fiery ovens stretching up thelong, deep ravine, and the smoke-streaked clouds of fire, trailing likea yellow mist over them, with a fierce white blast shooting up hereand there when the lid of an oven was raised, as though to add freshtemperature to some particular male-factor in some particular chamberof torment. Humanity about was joyous, however. Laughter and banterand song came from the cabins that lined the big ravine and the littleravines opening into it. A banjo tinkled at the entrance of "PossumTrot," sacred to the darkies. We moved toward it. On the stoop sat anecstatic picker and in the dust shuffled three pickaninnies--one boy andtwo girls--the youngest not five years old. The crowd that was gatheredabout them gave way respectfully as we drew near; the little darkiesshowed their white teeth in jolly grins, and their feet shook the dustin happy competition. I showered a few coins for the Blight and on wewent--into the mouth of the many-peaked Gap. The night train was comingin and everybody had a smile of welcome for the Blight--post-officeassistant, drug clerk, soda-water boy, telegraph operator, hostler,who came for the mules--and when tired, but happy, she slipped fromher saddle to the ground, she then and there gave me what she usuallyreserves for Christmas morning, and that, too, while Marston was lookingon. Over her shoulder I smiled at him.
That night Marston and the Blight sat under the vines on the porchuntil the late moon rose over Wallens Ridge, and, when bedtime came, theBlight said impatiently that she did not want to go home. She had to go,however, next day, but on the next Fourth of July she would surely comeagain; and, as the young engineer mounted his horse and set his facetoward Black Mountain, I knew that until that day, for him, a blightwould still be in the hills.