Part 33

“Waal,” said Mink, argumentatively, “eatin’ ’s a powerful expensive business; we-uns would all save a heap ef we’d quit eatin’.”

Mrs. Purvine received this in pondering silence. Then she broke forth suddenly:—

“Ye air a outdacious, sassy, scandalous mink, an’ I hev ’lowed ez much fur many a year, but I never looked ter see the time when ye’d kem an’ prop yerse’f up in my gyarden-spot, an’ look me in the eye, an’ call me stingy. How war I ter know ye warn’t ez full ez a tick, ye impident half-liver? I kin see ez ye ain’t fat in no-wise, but how kin I tell by the creases in a man’s face what he hed fur dinner?”

“Laws-a-massy, Mis’ Purvine!” exclaimed Mink, truly contrite for the untoward interpretation which his words seemed to bear. “I never meant sech ez that. Ef it hed been enny ways nigh cookin’ time, I’d hev kem right in,—ef I hedn’t been afraid ye’d tell on me,—an’ axed ye fur a snack. Ain’t I eat hyar time an’ agin along o’ Jerry Price? I hev hed a heap o’ meals from you-uns,—more ’n ye know ’bout, fur I hev treated yer water-million patch ez ef it hed been my own.”

If Mrs. Purvine was placated, she did not at once manifest the fact. “What d’ye know ’bout cookin’ time, or cookin’, ye slack-twisted, lazy, senseless critter? Jes’ kerry yer bones right inter that thar door, fur eat ye hev got ter. In Moses’s name!” she ejaculated piteously, “the boy kin sca’cely walk.”

But Mink hesitated. “I don’t wanter see Jerry,” he said. “I dunno what Jerry mought think ’bout’n it all.”

“Jerry’s dead asleep, an’ so air all the boys,” declared the industrious Mrs. Purvine. “Ye reckon ye air goin’ ter find ennybody up this time o’ night ’ceptin’ a hard-workin’ old woman like me? I can’t be no surer o’ ye ’n I be a’ready. Go ’long in, ’fore I set Bose on ye.”

He was sorry for himself,—to gauge the joy, the comfort, that the very sight of the humble and familiar room afforded him. The fire had been covered with ashes, but Mrs. Purvine promptly pulled out the coals and piled on the pine knots, and the white flare showed the low-ceiled apartment, the walls covered with the old advertisements; the puncheon floor; the many strings of pepper and hanks of yarn hanging from the beams, and the quilting-frame clinging to them like a huge bat; the two high beds; the glister of the ostentatious mirror; the prideful clock, silent on the shelf. As the interior became brilliantly illuminated, Mink looked suspiciously at the glass in the windows; he experienced a relief to note that the batten shutters were closed.

“I didn’t want nobody ter git a glimge o’ me,” he said, “’kase I dunno but what they mought try ter hold ye ’sponsible fur feedin’ me, cornsiderin’ I be a runaway.”

“They ain’t never ter goin’ ter find out ez ye hev been hyar now,” said Mrs. Purvine.

“They mought ax ye,” suggested Mink.

“Waal, lies air healthy.” Mrs. Purvine accommodated her singular ethics to many emergencies. “Church-yards air toler’ble full, but thar ain’t nobody thar ez died from tellin’ lies. Not but what I’m a perfessin’ member,” she qualified, with a qualm of conscience, “an’ hev renounced deceit in gineral; but ef ennybody kems hyar inquirin’ roun’ ’bout my business,—what I done with this little mite o’ meat, an’ that biscuit, an’ the t’other pot o’ coffee,—I answer the foolish accordin’ ter his folly, like the Bible tells me, an’ send him reji’cin’ on his way.”

Mink, his every fear relieved, thought it a snug haven after the storms that he had weathered, as he sat in Mrs. Purvine’s own rocking-chair, and felt the grateful warmth of the blaze. He had hardly hoped ever again to know the simple domestic comforts of the chimney-corner. The coffee put new life into him, and after he had eaten the hot ash cake and bacon, broiled on the coals, he took, at her insistence, another cup, and drank it as she sat opposite him near the hearth. In this last potation she joined him, having poured her coffee into a gourd, to save the trouble, as she explained, of washing another cup and saucer.

“How do Lethe keep her health?” he asked.

“Fust-rate,” said Mrs. Purvine. Her tone had changed. She looked at him speculatively from under the brim of her sun-bonnet, which she wore much of the time in the house. “She air peart an’ lively ez ever.”

His lip curled slightly. He was sarcastic and critical concerning Alethea’s mental attitude,—the reaction, perhaps, of much rebuke and criticism received at her hands.

“I reckon she ain’t missed me none, then?” he hazarded.

“Waal, she never seen much o’ you-uns las’ summer, bein’ ez ye war constant in keepin’ company with Elviry then; though she’s missed ye cornsider’ble. Ye needn’t never ’low the gals will furgit ye, Mink,” she added graciously. “The las’ time Lethe seen Jedge Gwinnan she war a-beggin’ him fur ye,—an’ he promised, too. Lethe’s pretty enough ter make a man do mos’ ennything,—leastwise these hyar town folks think so.”

The color had sprung into Mink’s face. He stood up for a moment, searching for Jerry’s tobacco on the mantelpiece. He lighted his pipe by a coal which he scooped up with the bowl, and as he put the stem between his lips he looked hard at Mrs. Purvine’s placid face, as she drank her coffee from the gourd, and meditatively swung her foot; the right knee was crossed over the left; the other foot was planted squarely upon the floor; a narrow section of a stout gray stocking was visible above a leather shoe, laced incongruously with a white cotton cord, the kitten having carried off its leather string, and Mrs. Purvine continually “disremembering,” to more properly supply its place.

“Ben Doaks,—air he still thinkin’ ’bout marryin’ Lethe?” demanded Mink between a series of puffs.

“Ef he air, he air barkin’ up the wrong tree, I kin tell ye!” exclaimed Mrs. Purvine, angrily. “Lethe Sayles air goin’ ter marry a town man,—leastwise that’s what all the kentry air sayin’. He ’lows she be plumb beautiful! An’ I always did think so, though she air my own niece,” as if this ought to be an obstacle. “I names no names,”—which would have been difficult, under the circumstances,—“but he air a town man, an’ hev got a high place, an’ air well off. Some folks don’t keer nuthin’ ’bout money, but I ain’t one of ’em. An’ he air o’ good folks,—fust-rate stock; an’ I sets store on fambly, too.”

Mink was leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees; his eyes burned upon her face; his pipe-stem was quivering in his gaunt hand.

“Whar did she meet up with him?”

“Down in Shaftesville, when she went ter testify fur you-uns,” said Mrs. Purvine. Then, with her sudden felicity of inspiration. “He seen her fust in the court-room, an’ he war smitten at sight.”

She could not accurately define the impression she was making. But she grew a little frightened as she watched the keen, clear-cut face, changing unconsciously, responsive to her intimations: his wild dark eyes, in no sort tamed or dimmed, dwelt steadily on the white vistas of the fire; his fine red hair was tossed back, curling on his collar. As she looked at him, constrained to note how handsome he was, she wished very heartily, poor woman, that that mythical fortunate suitor had added to the charming qualities with which she had endowed him the simple essential, existence.

Mink burst suddenly into a satiric laugh, startling to hear. Mrs. Purvine turned upon him, the gourd trembling in her hand.

“Ye ain’t got no manners, Mink Lorey,” she said, trying to resume her note of superficial severity. “What be ye a-laffin’ at?”

“Jes’ at thoughts,” he said enigmatically; “thoughts!”

“Thoughts ’bout me, I’ll be bound,” said Mrs. Purvine aggressively.

“Naw; jes’ ’bout Lethe an’ that thar town man.” He whirled from the fire, and walked up and down the floor with his hands in his pockets.

“Waal, don’t ye say no mo’ ’bout’n him,” said Mrs. Purvine, desirous of contemplating him no longer, “an’ don’t ye ax me who he be—fur I won’t tell ye!”

“Thar ain’t no need ter ax ye; I _know_.”

Mrs. Purvine pondered on this for a moment. She forgot it in her effort to persuade the young fellow to accept the hospitalities of the spare bedroom, of which she was so proud. “Ye kin jest stay in thar all night, Mink, an’ all ter-morrer. Ye won’t wake up fur no breakfus’ arter the tramp ye hev hed, an’ a long sleep’ll ease yer bones. An’ ter-morrer night, ’bout ten o’clock, arter all the chill’n hev gone ter sleep I’ll gin ye a good meal, an’ ye kin set out, heartened up an’ strong. I’d ruther Jerry an’ the boys didn’t know ’bout yer bein’ hyar, ’kase I dunno what the law does ter folks ez holps them ez be runnin’ from jestice—or injestice; ’bout the same thing, ez fur ez I kin make out. An’ I don’t want them ter git inter trouble.”

“Mebbe the sher’ff’ll kem arter you-uns,” Mink warned her.

“Waal, I’ll tell him I ain’t got no time to waste, an’ ter take himself off the way he kem;” and Mrs. Purvine dismissed the imaginary officer with a lofty sniff.

It seemed to Mrs. Purvine, the next day, that many immediate requisites were stowed away temporarily in the bedroom. She was continually on the alert to prevent Jerry or the boys from invading it. “Keep out’n that thar bedroom. I ain’t keerin’ ef ye _ain’t_ got no symblin’ seed. I ain’t goin’ ter let ye s’arch _thar_. I hev got all my fine quilts what I pieced myself—’ceptin’ with a leetle help from Lethe Sayles—a-hangin’ up thar ter air. Hang ’em up in the sun, ye say? Who d’ye reckon wants ter fade them gay colors out?”

When at last Jerry desisted in deference to this new strange whim, one of the boys was beset with anxiety to get his shoes which he had set away there.

“That’s the way the shoe-leather goes,—walkin’ on it,” said aunt Dely reasonably. “Naw, sir! save them soles, an’ go bar’foot. The weather’s warm now.”

The youngest, the most pertinacious and hard to resist, was tumultuous to get a certain “whang o’ leather” which Bluff needed to complete his gear, in order to continue ploughing.

“I ain’t a-keerin’ ef one o’ Bluff’s horns war lef’ in thar, an’ he couldn’t wink without it. I ain’t goin’ ter hev them quilts disturbed.”

She presently became drowsy, because of her long vigil of the preceding night, and placed her chair before the door that no one might enter without rousing her, and thus, a solemn sentinel, she alternately knitted and nodded away the afternoon.

It was a great relief to her when the house was still, the family all asleep, and the fugitive’s meal prepared. She had taken special pains with it, albeit she went about it yawningly, and had filled a tin pail with provisions that he might carry with him.

She waited ten minutes or so after all was ready. She listened as she knelt on the hearth. There was no sound from within but the stertorous breathing of the sleepers in the roof-room. From without only the murmur of the river, the croaking of a frog, the stir of the wind came in at the open back door, through which she could see the white moonshine, lying in lonely splendor upon the dark, prosaic expanse of the newly ploughed fields. She rose and closed it, that the fugitive might not be revealed to the casual eye of any nocturnal fisherman, striking through her domain on his way to the river bank. Then she went to the bedroom door.

As she tapped on it, the door moved under the pressure, and she saw that it was unbuttoned on the inside. “That thar keerless boy ought ter hev buttoned this door!” she exclaimed. “The sher’ff could hev gone right in and nabbed him whilst he war asleep. Ye Mink! _Mink!_”

There was no answer.

“Waal, sir! I never seen the beat.” Then in imperative crescendo, “_Ye Mink!_”

She pushed the door open, presently. The moonlight slanted through the porch and into the little bedroom, revealing the bed, empty, the room deserted save for Mrs. Purvine’s rows of dresses hanging by the neck, and the piles of quilts on a shelf, rising in imposing proportions to attest her industry and a little help from Lethe Sayles.

He had fled,—when, why? She could not say; she could not imagine. She stood staring, with a vacillating expression on her face. She was ready for an outburst of futile anger, could she construe it as one of his minkish tricks; he might even now be far away, laughing to picture how she would look when she would stand at the open door and find the room empty. Her face reddened at the thought. But perhaps, she argued, more generously, he had taken some alarm, and fled for safety.

Mrs. Purvine had had no experience in keeping secrets, and her colloquial habits were such as did not tend to cultivate the gift. More than once, the next day, as she pondered on the mysterious disappearance of Mink, she would drop her hands and exclaim in meditative wonderment, “Waal! waal! waal! This worl’! This worl’! an’ a few mo’ ekal ter it.”

It went hard with her to resist the curious questionings that this demonstration was calculated to excite. But when asked what she was talking about she would only reply in enigmatical phrase, “Laros to ketch meddlers!” and shake her head unutterably. Nevertheless, when it became evident that her household had exhausted all their limited wiles to elicit the mystery of which she seemed suddenly and incomprehensibly possessed, and had reluctantly desisted, her resolution grew weaker instead of stronger, and she was bereft of a piquant interest in their queries and guesses. She began herself to play around the dangerous subject; her remarks seemed to excite no suspicion and no surprise, and thus she was astonished in her turn.

“I wonder, Jerry,” she said, as he and she, their pipes freshly lighted after supper, strolled about the “gyarden-spot” to note how the truck was thriving, Bose and a comrade or two at their heels,—“I wonder how high that thar new bredge be over the Tennessee Ruver?”

“Never medjured it,” returned Jerry, his eyes twinkling as they met her serious gaze.

“Ye g’ ’long!” exclaimed Mrs. Purvine tartly. She was addressing only the unfilial spirit that prompted his reply, for she had no intention of dismissing the audience, as she resumed at once in her usual tone. “Waal, from all ye hev hearn, wouldn’t ye ’low ez ennybody jumpin’ off’n it war ’bleeged ter break thar neck?” she argued.

“I’d hev thunk so,” admitted Jerry, “but it seems not.”

She looked sharply at him from over her spectacles as she canvassed his reply. It must have been accident. How could he know aught of Mink? She was for a moment so impressed with a sense of danger here that she took refuge in silence.

“Them peas’ll hev ter be stuck afore long,” Jerry remarked presently, complacent in their growth.

But the simple pleasures of a garden were too insipid to enchain the interest of the sophisticated Mrs. Purvine; her mind reverted to her burning secret and the many speculations to which it gave rise. She hardly noted the red sky, stretching so far above the purple mountains; the river, with reflections of gold and pink amidst its silver glinting. In the south Procyon, star of ill-omen, swung in the faint blue spaces. A whip-poor-will sang. Darkness impended.

Once more she skirted the forbidden topic.

“Waal, I wouldn’t advise nobody ter try it.” She was alluding not to the industrial necessity of sticking the peas, but to jumping off the bridge.

“Naw, sir,” Jerry assented quietly. “’Bout some things Mink ’pears ter hev the devil’s own luck, though ginerally they run agin him. I reckon nobody but Mink could hev lept from that bredge an’ swum out’n the ruver ’thout gittin’ cotched.”

Mrs. Purvine trembled from head to foot. As she turned her face toward him the light of the evening struck upon her glittering spectacles in the depths of her sun-bonnet, and it seemed a fiery and penetrating gaze she bent on her adopted son.

“In the name o’ Moses, Jerry Price!” she solemnly adjured him. “How did you-uns know ennything ’bout Mink Lorey?”

“Same way ye did,” said Jerry, in the accents of surprise.

Mrs. Purvine sat down abruptly on the pile of boards beside the fence.

Jerry, astonished at her evident agitation, proceeded:

“Yer mem’ry air failin’ surely, ef ye hev furgot ez the dep’ty sher’ff tole us ’bout’n it yestiddy,—rid his critter right up thar ter the side o’ the fence, an’ I lef’ Bluff whar I war a-ploughin’ an’ went down an’ talked ter him.”

“What war I a-doin’ of?” demanded Mrs. Purvine, feebly.

“Ye war settin’ knittin’ right in front o’ the bedroom door,—ter keep we-uns from raidin’ in on them quilts ez ye war airin’ in the bedroom whar thar ain’t no air.”

Mrs. Purvine breathed more freely. She had a vague memory of hearing a man hallooing at the fence, and of seeing Jerry running to meet him; the rest was lost in the deep slumber which she called “dozin’ off,” as she sat sentinel in front of the door.

“I mus’ hev been noddin’,” she said, trembling again at the idea that the sheriff and the prisoner had been at such close quarters. “I never hearn none o’ it.”

“Waal,” explained Jerry, “he hed traced Mink up somewhar nighabouts. An’ he war mighty keen ter ketch him. He ’lowed Mink war a turrible fool ter hev runned off, kase they hedn’t lef’ Glaston more’n two hours ’fore Mink’s pardon kem. Jedge Gwinnan hed gone an’ beset the gov’nor, an’ tole him ’twar a plumb mistake, an’ Mink warn’t no reg’lar jail-bird, nor hardened critter, nor nuthin’ but a simple country boy. An’ he’d hed a reg’lar martyrdom o’ injestice, an’ sech. An’ the ’sault war jes’ a boy’s hittin’ a feller ez he ’lowed war gittin’ the better o’ him. ’Twarn’t ’count o’ the trial. He war jes’ jealous. Jedge Gwinnan ’lowed ez the fight war mighty onfair, kase Mink war chained an’ he warn’t. An’ he wouldn’t hev let him be prosecuted ef he could hev knowed it in time ter hev holped it. An’ ez Mink’s case hed been affirmed by the S’preme Court the gov’nor pardoned him. Skeggs ’lowed folks say the gov’nor war right down glad ter do it, kase he hev hed ter be toler’ble hard on some folks lately ez applied fur pardons; an’ he war glad Mink’s case kem along, kase he didn’t want ter git onpop’lar, an’ ter ’pear set agin mercy ez a constancy.”

“Waal! waal!” exclaimed Mrs. Purvine, divided between surprise and an effort to gauge the effect of this intelligence on the prisoner listening in the little room.

“Skeggs ’lowed ’twar mighty mean in Mink ter hide out an’ leave him ter ketch all the consequences,—he air ’sponsible fur the ’scape,—kase they don’t want Mink fur nuthin’ now but that thar leetle case ’bout’n the mill, an’ everybody knows Tad ain’t dead, an’ Mink never bust down the mill nohow. Mr. Harshaw ’lows he seen Tad when he war huntin’ up in the mountings. An’ Lethe, she seen him. An’ Skeggs air honin’ an’ moanin’ ’bout’n it, an’ ’lows Mink mought kem an’ be tried, ef he hed the feelins o’ a man stiddier a mink.”

Mrs. Purvine rose slowly, and bent her meditative steps toward the door, wondering all the more why Mink should have disappeared so mysteriously, cognizant as he must have been of how his dangers had lessened, whither he had gone, with what purpose.

“Aunt Dely,” said Jerry, suddenly, following her slowly, “how did ye know ennything ’bout Mink, ef ye never hearn Skeggs tell it?”

“Jerry Price,” said Mrs. Purvine, sternly, “ef ye hed been raised by yer aunt Melindy Jane, I’ll be bound ye’d hev larned better’n ter ax fool questions with every breath ye draw.”

XXVIII.

Harshaw considered a knowledge of human nature as essential a tool of his trade as the Tennessee Reports, and the common human attributes, so far as he had discerned them, were definitely abstracted and tabulated in his mind,—for he was systematic mentally.

Nevertheless, he was profoundly ignorant of these traits as manifested in his own personality. Had another member of the legislature risen in his place one day, when the spring was just beginning to open, stating that he desired to make a motion based on public rumor, to which he considered the attention of the House should be directed, Harshaw could not have failed to note the ring of triumph in the voice, the predatory gleam in the eye, the restive eagerness of address, the swift fluency of excited words. He would not have been slow to deny to the demonstration those motives so insistently arrogated,—public justice, patriotism, sense of duty.

His manner had riveted the attention of the House, which was more than usually quiet. It had that sombre, undecorative aspect common to assemblages exclusively of men. The effect of uniformity of attire was, however, annulled in a measure by the varying expressions in countenance, in age, in attitude. The metropolitan representatives had a more dapper appearance than the members from the outlying districts, who were distinguished by a solid and serious mien that promised an intolerance of flippancy in matters of religion, and morals, and manners.

Here and there was a face individual enough to arrest attention. Kinsard’s head, with its high, earnest brow, its roving, melancholy black eyes, its sharp, characteristic features, stood out from the rest in strong relief, canceling the heads about it to a nebulous suggestion of humanity. He lounged in one of the most negligent of his dislocated postures. He had a smile of bitter contempt on his face, which bore no relation to his attitude of indifference, and expressed an energy of anger which he was at a loss how best to wreak. More than once he looked away from Harshaw, as if to divert his thoughts, to allay his irritation, by the contemplation of the scene without.

The windows stood open to the bland spring air. The languid, quiescent sunshine loitered along the great white stone porticoes, looking in often, a smiling, sheeny presence, upon the grave deliberations within. The river glistened in lustrous curves between high banks fringed with green as far as the eye could reach. The roofs of the city below were almost smokeless,—only here and there a wreathing hazy curl. The old forts on the hills wore all the dismantled and sunken aspect of desuetude, and gathered into the scars of war the blossoms of peace and the nestlings, and garnered the songs and the smiles of spring to make the waste places merry.

Hardly a sound entered at the window,—only the droning of a portly bee which, arrayed in a splendid buff jerkin and a black belt, came swiftly in and went again in a slant of sunshine. Harshaw’s voice, echoing from the stone walls, seemed doubly weighty and impressive and resonant.