Chapter 2

Christmas is "new Christmas" in Happy Valley. The women give scant heed to it, and to the men it means "a jug of liquor, a pistol in each hand, and a galloping nag." There had been target-shooting at Uncle Jerry's mill to see who should drink old Jeb Mullins's moonshine and who should smell, and so good was the marksmanship that nobody went without his dram. The carousing, dancing, and fighting were about all over, and now, twelve days later, it was the dawn of "old Christmas," and St. Hilda sat on the porch of her Mission school alone. The old folks of Happy Valley pay puritan heed to "old Christmas." They eat cold food and preserve a solemn demeanor on that day, and they have the pretty legend that at midnight the elders bloom and the beasts of the field and the cattle in the barn kneel, lowing and moaning. The sun was just rising and the day was mild, for a curious warm spell, not uncommon in the hills, had come to Happy Valley. Already singing little workers were "toting rocks" from St. Hilda's garden, corn-field, and vineyard, for it was Monday, and every Monday they gathered--boys and girls--from creek and hillside, to help her as volunteers. Far up the road she heard among them taunting laughter and jeers, and she rose quickly. A loud oath shocked the air, and she saw a boy chasing one of the workers up the vineyard hill. She saw the pursuer raise his hand and fall, just as he was about to hurl a stone. Then there were more laughter and jeers, and the fallen boy picked himself up heavily and started down the road toward her--staggering. On he came staggering, and when he stood swaying before her there was no shocked horror in her face--only pity and sorrow.

"Oh, Chris, Chris!" she said sadly. The boy neither spoke nor lifted his eyes, and she led him up-stairs and put him to bed. All day he slept in a stupor, and it was near sunset when he came down, pale, shamed, and silent. There were several children in the porch.

"Come, Chris!" St. Hilda said, and he followed her down to the edge of the creek, where she sat down on a log and he stood with hanging head before her.

"Chris," she said, "we'll have a plain talk now. This is the fourth time you've been"--the word came with difficulty--"drunk."

"Yes'm."

"I've sent you away three times, and three times I've let you come back. I let you come back after new Christmas, only twelve days ago."

"Yes'm."

"You can't keep your word."

"No'm."

"I don't know what to do now, so I'm going to ask you."

She paused and Chris was silent, but he was thinking, and she waited. Presently he looked straight into her eyes, still silent.

"What do _you_ think I'd better do?" she insisted.

"I reckon you got to whoop me, Miss Hildy."

"But you know I can't whip you, Chris. I never whip anybody."

Several times a child had offered to whip himself, had done so, and she wondered whether the boy would propose that, but he repeated, obstinately and hopelessly:

"You got to whoop me."

"I won't--I can't." Then an idea came. "Your mother will have to whip you."

Chris shook his head and was silent. He was not on good terms with his mother. It was a current belief that she had "put pizen in his daddy's liquer." She had then married a man younger than she was, and to the boy's mind the absence of dignity in one case matched the crime in the other.

"All right," he said at last; "but I reckon you better send somebody else atter her. You can't trust me to git by that still"--he stopped with a half-uttered oath of surprise:

"Look thar!"

A woman was coming up the road. She wore a black cotton dress and a black sunbonnet--mourning relics for the dead husband which the living one had never had the means to supplant--and rough shoes. She pushed back the bonnet with one nervous, bony hand, saw the two figures on the edge of the creek, and without any gesture or call came toward them. And only the woman's quickness in St. Hilda saw the tense anxiety of the mother's face relax. The boy saw nothing; he was only amazed.

"Why, mammy, whut the--whut are you doin' up hyeh?"

The mother did not answer, and St. Hilda saw that she did not want to answer. St. Hilda rose with a warm smile of welcome.

"So this is Chris's mother?"

The woman shook hands limply.

"Hit's whut I passes fer," she said, and she meant neither smartness nor humor. The boy was looking wonderingly, almost suspiciously at her, and she saw she must give him some explanation.

"I been wantin' to see the school hyeh an' Miss Hildy. I had to come up to see Aunt Sue Morrow, who's might' nigh gone, so I jes kep' a-walkin' on up hyeh."

"Miss Hildy hyeh," said the boy, "was jes about to send fer ye."

"To sen' fer _me_?"

"I been drunk agin."

The mother showed no surprise or displeasure.

"Hit's the fourth time since sorghum time," the boy went on relentlessly. "I axed Miss Hildy hyeh to whoop me, but she says she don't nuver whoop nobody, so she was jes a-goin' to send fer you to come an' whoop me when you come a-walkin' up the road."

This was all, and the lad pulled out an old Barlow knife and went to a hickory sapling. The two women watched him silently as he cut off a stout switch and calmly began to trim it. At last the woman turned to the teacher and her voice trembled.

"I don't see Chris thar more'n once or twice a year, an' seems kind o' hard that I got to whoop him."

The boy turned sharply, and helplessly she took the switch.

"And hit hain't his fault nohow. His stepdaddy got him drunk. He tol' me so when he come home. I went by the still to find Chris an' cuss out ole Jeb Mullins an' the men thar. An' I come on hyeh."

"Set down a minute, mammy," said Chris, dropping on the log on one side of St. Hilda, and obediently the mother sat down on the other side.

"Mammy," he said abruptly, "I'll stop drinkin' if you will."

St. Hilda almost gasped. The woman lifted her eyes to the mountainside and dropped her gaze presently to her hands, which were twisting the switch in her lap.

"I'll stop if you will," he repeated.

"I'll try, Chris," she said, but she did not look up.

"Gimme yo' hand."

Across St. Hilda's lap she stretched one shaking hand, which the boy clasped.

"Put yo' hand on thar, too, Miss Hildy," he said, and when he felt the pressure of her big, strong, white hand for a moment he got up quickly and turned his face.

"All right, mammy."

St. Hilda rose, too, and started for the house--her eyes so blurred that she could hardly see the path. Midway she wheeled.

"Don't!" she cried.

The mother was already on her way home, breaking the switch to pieces and hiding her face within the black sunbonnet. The boy was staring after her.

THE LORD'S OWN LEVEL

The blacksmith-shop sat huddled by the roadside at the mouth of Wolf Run--a hut of blackened boards. The rooftree sagged from each gable down to the crazy chimney in the centre, and the smoke curled up between the clapboard shingles or, as the wind listed, out through the cracks of any wall. It was a bird-singing, light-flashing morning in spring, and Lum Chapman did things that would have set all Happy Valley to wondering. A bareheaded, yellow-haired girl rode down Wolf Run on an old nag. She was perched on a sack of corn, and she gave Lum a shy "how-dye" when she saw him through the wide door. Lum's great forearm eased, the bellows flattened with a long, slow wheeze, and he went to the door and looked after her. Professionally he noted that one hind shoe of the old nag was loose and that the other was gone. Then he went back to his work. It would not be a busy day with Uncle Jerry at the mill--there would not be more than one or two ahead of her and her meal would soon be ground. Several times he quit work to go to the door and look down the road, and finally he saw her coming. Again she gave him a shy "how-dye," and his eyes followed her up Wolf Run until she was out of sight.

The miracle these simple acts would have been to others was none to him. He was hardly self-conscious, much less analytical, and he went back to his work again.

A little way up that creek Lum himself lived in a log cabin, and he lived alone. This in itself was as rare as a miracle in the hills, and the reason, while clear, was still a mystery: Lum had never been known to look twice at the same woman. He was big, kind, taciturn, ox-eyed, calm. He was so good-natured that anybody could banter him, but nobody ever carried it too far except a bully from an adjoining county one court day. Lum picked him up bodily and dashed him to the ground so that blood gushed from his nose and he lay there bewildered, white, and still. Lum rarely went to church, and he never talked religion, politics, or neighborhood gossip. He was really thought to be quite stupid, in spite of the fact that he could make lightning calculations about crops, hogs, and cattle in his head. However, one man knew better, but he was a "furriner," a geologist, a "rock-pecker" from the Bluegrass. To him Lum betrayed an uncanny eye in discovering coal signs and tracing them to their hidden beds, and wide and valuable knowledge of the same. Once the foreigner lost his barometer just when he was trying to locate a coal vein on the side of the mountain opposite. Two days later Lum pointed to a ravine across the valley.

"You'll find that coal not fer from the bottom o' that big poplar over thar." The geologist stared, but he went across and found the coal and came back mystified.

"How'd you do it?"

Lum led him up Wolf Run. Where the vein showed by the creek-side Lum had built a little dam, and when the water ran even with the mud-covered stones he had turned the stream aside. The geologist lay down, sighted across the surface of the water, and his eye caught the base of the big poplar.

"Hit's the Lord's own level," said Lum, and back he went to his work, the man looking after him and muttering:

"The Lord's own level."

Hardly knowing it, Lum waited for grinding day. There was the same exchange of "how-dyes" between him and the girl, going and coming, and Lum noted that the remaining hind shoe was gone from the old nag and that one of the front ones was going. This too was gone the next time she passed, and for the first time Lum spoke:

"Yo' hoss needs shoein'."

"She ain't wuth it," said the girl. Two hours later, when the girl came back, Lum took up the conversation again.

"Oh, yes, she is," he drawled, and the girl slid from her sack of meal and watched him, which she could do fearlessly, for Lum never looked at her. He had never asked her name and he did not ask her now.

"I'm Jeb Mullins's gal," she said. "Pap'll be comin' 'long hyeh some day an' pay ye."

"My name's Lum--Lum Chapman."

"They calls me Marthy."

He lifted her bag to the horse's bony withers with one hand, but he did not offer to help her mount. He watched her again as she rode away, and when she looked back he turned with a queer feeling into his shop. Two days later Jeb Mullins came by.

"Whad' I owe ye?" he asked.

"Nothin'," said Lum gruffly.

The next day the old man brought down a broken plough on his shoulder, and to the same question he got the same answer:

"Nothin'." So he went back and teased Martha, who blushed when she next passed the door of the shop, and this time Lum did not go out to watch her down the road.

Sunday following, Parson Small, the circuit-rider, preached in the open-air "meetin'-house," that had the sky for a roof and blossoming rhododendron for walls, and--wonder of wonders--Lum Chapman was there. In the rear he sat, and everybody turned to look at Lum. So simple was he that the reason of his presence was soon plain, for he could no more keep his eyes from the back of Martha Mullins's yellow head than a needle could keep its point from the North Pole. The circuit-rider on his next circuit would preach the funeral services of Uncle Billy Hall, who had been dead ten years, and Uncle Billy would be draped with all the virtues that so few men have when alive and that so few lack when dead. He would marry such couples as might to marriage be inclined. There were peculiar customs in Happy Valley, due to the "rider's" long absences, so that sometimes a baby might without shame be present at the wedding of its own parents. To be sure, Lum's eyes did swerve once when the preacher spoke of marriage--swerved from where the women sat to where sat the men--to young Jake Kilburn, called Devil Jake, a name of which he was rather proud; for Martha's eyes had swerved to him too, and Jake shot back a killing glance and began twisting his black mustache.

And then the preacher told about the woman whom folks once stoned.

Lum listened dully and waited helplessly around at the end of the meeting until he saw Martha and Jake go down the road together, Martha shy and conscious and Jake the conquering daredevil that he was known to be among women. Lum went back to his cabin, cooked his dinner, and sat down in his doorway to whittle and dream.

Lum went to church no more. When Martha passed his shop, the same "how-dye" passed between them and no more. Twice the circuit-rider came and went and Martha and Devil Jake did not ask his services. A man who knew Jake's record in another county started a dark rumor which finally reached Lum and sent him after the daredevil. But Jake had fled and Lum followed him almost to the edge of the bluegrass country, to find that Jake had a wife and child. He had meant to bring Jake back to his duty, but he merely beat him up, kicked him to one side of the road like a dog, and came back to his shop.

Old Jeb Mullins came by thereafter with the old nag and the sack of corn, and Lum went on doing little jobs for him for nothing, for Jeb was a skinflint, a moonshiner, and a mean old man. He did not turn Martha out of his hut, because he was callous and because he needed her to cook and to save him work in the garden and corn-field. Martha stayed closely at home, but she was treated so kindly by some of the neighbors that once she ventured to go to church. Then she knew from the glances, whispers, and gigglings of the other girls just where she stood, and she was not seen again very far from her own door. It was a long time before Lum saw her again, so long, indeed, that when at last he saw her coming down Wolf Run on a sack of corn she carried a baby in her arms. She did not look up as she approached, and when she passed she turned her head and did not speak to him. So Lum sat where he was and waited for her to come back, and she knew he had been waiting as soon as she saw him. She felt him staring at her even when she turned her head, and she did not look up until the old nag stopped. Lum was barring the way.

"Yo' hoss needs shoein'," he said gravely, and from her lap he took the baby unafraid. Indeed, the child dimpled and smiled at him, and the little arm around his neck gave him a curious shiver that ran up the back of his head and down his spine. The shoeing was quickly done, and in absolute silence, but when they started up Wolf Run Lum went with them.

"Come by my shack a minit," he said.

The girl said nothing; that in itself would be another scandal, of course, but what was the difference what folks might say? At his cabin he reached up and lifted mother and child from the old nag, and the girl's hair brushed his cheek.

"You stay hyeh with the baby," he said quietly, "an' I'll take yo' meal home." She looked at him with mingled trust and despair. What was the difference?

It was near sundown when Lum got back. Smoke was coming out of his rickety chimney, and the wail of an old ballad reached his ears. Singing, the girl did not hear him coming, and through the open door he saw that the room had been tidied up and that she was cooking supper. The baby was playing on the floor. She turned at the creak of his footstep on the threshold and for the first time she spoke.

"Supper'll be ready in a minit."

A few minutes later he was seated at the table alone and the girl, with the baby on one arm, was waiting on him. By and by he pushed back his chair, pulled out his pipe, and sat down in the doorway. Dusk was coming. In the shadowy depths below a wood-thrush was fluting his last notes for that day. Then for the first time each called the other by name.

"Marthy, the circuit-rider'll be 'roun' two weeks from next Sunday."

"All right, Lum."

THE MARQUISE OF QUEENSBERRY

I

Thus it had happened. Pleasant Trouble was drunk one day and a fly lit on his knee. He whipped his forty-four from its holster.

"I'll show ye who _you_ air lightin' on!" he swore, and blazed away. Of course he killed the fly, but incidentally he shattered its lighting-place. Had he been in a trench anywhere in France, his leg would have been saved, but he was away out in the Kentucky hills. If he minded the loss of it, however, no one could see, for with chin up and steady, daredevil eyes he swung along about as well on his crutch as if it had been a good leg. Down the road, close to the river's brim, he was swinging now--his voice lifted in song. Ahead of him and just around the curve of the road, with the sun of Happy Valley raining its last gold on her golden bare head, walked the Marquise; but neither Pleasant nor she herself knew she was the Marquise. A few minutes later the girl heard the crunch of the crutch in the sandy road behind her, and she turned with a smile:

"How-dye, Pleaz!" The man caught the flapping brim of his slouch-hat and lifted it--an act of courtesy that he had learned only after Happy Valley was blessed by the advent of the Mission school: making it, he was always embarrassed no little.

"How-dye, Miss Mary!"

"Going down to the dance?"

"No'm," he said with vigorous severity, and then with unctuous virtue--"I hain't nuver run a set or played a play in my life."

The word "dance" is taboo among these Calvinists of the hills. They "run sets" and "play plays"--and these are against the sterner morals that prevail--but they do not _dance_. The Mission teacher smiled. This was a side-light on the complex character of Pleasant Trouble that she had not known before, and she knew it had nothing to do with his absent leg. A hundred yards ahead of them a boy and a girl emerged from a ravine--young King Camp and Polly Sizemore--and plainly they were quarrelling. The girl's head was high with indignation; the boy's was low with anger, and now and then he would viciously dig the toe of his boot in the sand as he strode along. Pleasant grinned.

"I won't holler to 'em," he said; "I reckon they'd ruther be alone."

"Pleasant," said Miss Mary, "you drink moonshine, don't you?"

"Yes'm."

"You sometimes _make_ it, don't you?"

"I've been s'picioned."

"You were turned out of church once, weren't you, for shooting up a meeting?"

"Yes," was the indignant defense, "but I proved to 'em that I was drunk, an' they tuk me back." The girl had to laugh.

"And yet you think dancing wrong?"

"Yes'm."

The girl gave it up--so perfunctory and final was is reply. Indeed, he seemed to have lost interest. Twice he had looked back, and now he turned again. She saw the fulfilment of some prophecy in his face as he grunted and frowned.

"Thar comes Ham Cage," he said. Turning, the girl saw an awkward youth stepping into the road from the same ravine whence Polly and young King had come, but she did not, as did Pleasant, see Ham shifting a revolver from his hip to an inside pocket.

"Those two boys worry the life out of me," she said, and again Pleasant grunted. They were the two biggest boys in the school, and in running, jumping, lifting weights, shooting at marks, and even in working--in everything, indeed, except in books--they were tireless rivals. And now they were bitter contestants for the favor of Polly Sizemore--a fact that Pleasant knew better than the Mission girl.

Flirts are rare in the hills. "If two boys meets at the same house," Pleasant once had told her, "they jes makes the gal say which one she likes best, and t'other one gits!" But with the growth of the Mission school had come a certain tolerance which Polly had used to the limit. Indeed, St. Hilda had discovered a queer reason for a sudden quickening of interest on Polly's part in her studies. Polly had to have the letters she got read for her, and the letters she sent written for her, and thus St. Hilda found that at least three young men, who had gone into the army and had learned to write, thought--each of them--that he was first in her heart. Polly now wanted to learn to read and write so that she could keep such secrets to herself. She had been "settin' up" with Ham Cage for a long time, and now she was "talkin' to" young King Camp. King was taking her to the dance, and it was plain to Pleasant that trouble was near. He looked worried.

"Well," he said, "I reckon thar hain't so much harm the way you school folks run sets because you don't 'low drinkin' or totin' pistols, an' you make 'em go home early. I heerd Miss Hildy is away--do you think you can manage the bad uns?"

"I think so," smiled Miss Mary.

"Well, mebbe I will come around to-night."

"Come right along now," said the girl heartily, but Pleasant had left his own gun at home, so he shook his head and started up the mountain.

II

Happy Valley was darkening now. The evening star shone white in the last rosy western flush, and already lanterns glowed on the porch of the "big house" where the dancing was to be. From high in the shadows a voice came down to the girl:

"I hain't got a gun an' I hain't had a drink to-day. Hit's a shame when Miss Hildy's always a-tryin' to give us a good time she has to _beg_ us to behave."

The young folks were gathering in. On the porch she saw Polly Sizemore in a chair and young King Camp slipping into the darkness on the other side of the house. A few minutes later Ham Cage strolled into sight, saw Polly, and sullenly dropped on the stone steps as far away from her as possible. The little teacher planned a course of action.

"Ham," she said, as she passed, "I want you to run the first set with me." Ham stared and she was rather startled by his flush.

"Yes'm," he stammered. A moment later young King reappeared at the other end of the porch.

"King," she said, "I want you to run the second set with me," and King too stared, flushed, and stammered assent, while Polly flashed indignation at the little teacher's back. It had been Miss Mary's plan to break up the hill custom of one boy and one girl dancing together all the time--and she had another idea as well.

Pleasant Trouble swung into the circle of light from the porch just as the first set started, and he sat down on the stone steps to look on. It was a jolly dance. Some elderly folks were there to look on, and a few married couples who, in spite of Miss Mary's persuasions, yet refused to take part. It was soon plain that Polly Sizemore and the little teacher were the belles of the ball, though of the two Polly alone seemed to realize it. Pleasant could hardly keep his eyes off the Mission girl. She was light as a feather, her eyes sparkled, her cheeks grew rosy, her laugh rang out, and the flaming spirit of her was kindling fires of which she never dreamed. Pleasant saw her dance first with Ham and then with King, and he grinned with swift recognition of her purpose. And he grinned the more when he saw that she was succeeding beyond her realization--saw it by the rage in Polly's black eyes, which burned now at Ham and now at King, for Miss Mary had no further need to ask either of them to dance--one or the other was always at her side. Indeed the Marquise, without knowing it, was making a pretty triangular mess of things, and Pleasant chuckled unholily--chuckled until he saw things were getting serious, and then his inner laughing ceased and his sharp eyes got wary and watchful. For first Ham and then King would disappear in the darkness, and each time they came back their faces were more flushed and their dancing was more furious.