Part 3

In the midst of our altercation, Absalom sauntered into my room, took his stand before my mirror, and proceeded to give his hair a good dressing with my brush and comb.

Later, as I saw Geordie walking to church with a Bible under his arm, heard his heart-felt singing of the hymns, and watched his pious, soap-shining face, I wondered I could ever have thought he meant to cheat anybody.

The Trojan War made fine progress to-night,--it is only on Saturday and Sunday nights that we can have stories, as other evenings must be spent in study. From the first, Killis has identified himself with his famous namesake, while Nucky has as inevitably taken sides with the Trojans and Hector, so much so that the boys call him "Trojan." This evening he was scathing in his denunciation of Achilles. "Gee," he said, "I wisht them Greeks had a-had a _man_ along. Now if Blant had a-been there, you'd a seed some fighting! He wouldn't have sulled around in no tent none! He'd a-got the drap on Hector allus-ago, same as he done on Elhannon and Todd and Dalt Cheever when they laywayed him in April. He was riding along past the cliff where they was hid in the bushes, and heared the click of the lock when Elhannon cocked his trigger, and whirled around and poured six bullets into 'em before they could fire their guns, killing Elhannon and very nigh killing t'other two."

_Wednesday._

I expected that with Iry's abilities in the way of spelling, he would be the pride and prodigy of the school; but I am pained to learn from his teacher that he can do nothing but spell. It seems that in the five-month district school he has attended three terms over on Rakeshin, nothing was taught but reading and spelling,--two lessons a day in the former, two in the latter,--thus does our noble commonwealth do her duty when she does it at all! Iry has had to go back into the first grade to learn the rudiments of arithmetic, geography, grammar, etc.

Last night Taulbee, the eldest, who is very opinionated, took occasion to enter a general protest against innovations such as nightgowns, tooth-brushes, fine-combs and the like, and wound up by arraigning the school methods of cooking. "Them little small biscuits you-all have don't make half of a good bite," he declared: "You women," he continued, severely, "think you know so much, and lay down so many laws, and, by Ned, you don't even know how to bile beans!"

"How should beans be cooked?" I inquired.

"A pot of string beans calls for a big chunk of fat pork and about four handful' of lard throwed in, to be fitten to eat," he said; "I haint tasted a right bean sence I come here."

This afternoon arrived a solemn little man of eleven from over on Clinch, named Hosea Fields, to take the one vacant place.

When Jason came up from his bath to-night, he rolled up his gown sleeve and held out a pink arm to me. "Just feel my muscle," he said, "Oh, I'm _so_ nervy!"

"I reckon he is," said Keats, "I seed him lay out three-at-a-time of them little primaries at recess to-day."

Last time it was two, now it is three. Of course these reports must be exaggerated,--such a baby could not be so warlike. Taking him in my arms and giving him a good hug, I said, "Jason, dear, I want you to remember that it is wrong for little boys to fight."

Objections to bathing have been withdrawn, and the boys for some nights have gone to the wash-house with such alacrity that my suspicions were aroused, and I found they were taking advantage of their nude condition, and freedom from interruption, to do great stunts of fighting, the bathing being entirely lost sight of. I have been compelled to make a rule that each boy must present himself in his clean gown after his bath at my door for inspection of head, ears, neck and feet.

VII

HEROES AND HERO WORSHIP

_Saturday Bed-time._

While the boys were scrubbing their rooms after breakfast this morning, Keats sauntered in, saying he had finished his job of cleaning the chicken-yard. I went back, found it anything but clean, and called up to Hen, who was sweeping the back steps, "Tell Keats to come back here and clean this yard better!" He had just passed the word along, "Hi, son, she says for you to come back and lick your calf over!" (I am becoming used to being "she" and "her" on all occasions) when Nucky appeared in the back door, waving excitedly for me. Not knowing what battle, murder or sudden death might be in progress, I flew up the walk. The boys were all hanging out the front door. Nucky shot me through them like a catapult, saying, "Take a look at that 'ere man,--it's Asher Hardwick, from over in Bloody Boyne. He's kilt twenty-four in war, and nine in peace, and wouldn't wipe his foot on Achilles!"

A gray, venerable-looking man was passing down the road on an ambling nag. "That man wouldn't hurt a fly," I said; "you must be mistaken."

"No, I haint,--I've seed him before. Of course he wouldn't hurt nobody less'n he was driv' to it; but the Mohuns just wouldn't give him no peace at all till they was all kilt off,--same as the Cheevers does us."

"But how could he kill nine in peace?" I asked.

"Kilt them just accidental,--they was witless folk that never knowed enough to keep out of his way when he was out after Mohuns. Asher he'd feel terrible about such as that."

To-night as I related more Trojan War, there were frequent interruptions from Nucky (who, during the stories, holds the place at my right hand always) such as, "I can beat that with Asher Hardwick!", "Blant wouldn't have took no such sass from Agamemnon or nobody!", and then would follow stories which did indeed sometimes beat Greeks and Trojans.

Later, he remarked, "If Hector and Achilles and them had a-lived now-a-days, they'd have got song-ballads made up about 'em, same as Asher and Blant. There's four or five about Asher--"

"I know one," interrupted Absalom.

"And there's one about Blant's revengement on the Cheevers when they laywayed him in April,--Basil Beaumont, over on Powderhorn, he made it."

"I know that, too," said Absalom.

"Achilles and Hector," I said, "did have song ballads made up about them, the very tales I am relating to you now; and a great blind poet, named Homer, went about singing them from palace to palace."

"Same as Basil Beaumont," said Nucky; "he don't never do a lick of work,--folks gives him his bed and vittles just to set in the chimley-corner and pick and sing song-ballads."

Geordie had left the room when Absalom spoke; he now returned with a small, homemade banjo--produced, I suppose, from the mysterious locked box he keeps there--and Absalom, tuning it, began to pick and sing an indescribably bloody and doleful song, "The Doom of the Mohuns," which fairly made my blood run cold. This finished, "Blant's Revengement" was demanded and sung, the words of it being as follows:

Blant Marrs he was a fighting boy, Most handy with his gun. On Trigger Branch of Powderhorn His famous deeds were done.

For thirty year' the war it raged All o'er a strip of bottom. Sometimes the Marrses triumphed strong, Again, the Cheevers got 'em.

His paw lamed up, his uncles kilt, Five year' Blant mourned his land, Until, good-grown, beside the fence He took his battle-stand.

Then Ben and Jeems they bit the dust And perished in their gore, And many Cheevers his good gun Felt sharp, and dreaded sore.

Elhannon, Todd and Dalton then Planned Blant for to layway All unbeknownst, while travelling Upon a fair spring day.

Beneath a cliff where Trigger bends In ambush they lay low. Oh, Blant, you better say your prayers! Death lurks at your elbow!

Oh, Blant, I wish you was safe at home; I think you'll never be; I would not give a tallow-dip For all your chance I see!

He comes, he hears a swift lock click, And, swifter than the wind, He turns, six barrels emptying Before they can begin.

Elhannon nevermore will see The sun rise o'er the peak; And Todd and Dalt, up from their wounds, Far, absent countries seek.

During the singing, the other boys cast envious glances in Nucky's direction, and Philip probably voiced the sentiments of all when he exclaimed,

"Dag gone, I wisht I had a big brother as mean as Blant!"

VIII

DRESS, CHIVALRY AND THE TROJAN WAR

_Sunday Evening._

When we were ready to start for church this morning, I was surprised to see Nucky halt before me, and eye me frowningly from head to foot. "What makes you allus wear ole ugly clothes?" he inquired. "Haint you got no pretty ones, like t'other women?"

I looked down at my black crêpe de chine,--of course I have worn deep mourning since I lost Mother, and for six years before I had not had on a color. "You don't like it?" I asked.

"I'd as soon look at a coal-bank, or a buzzard," he replied.

It suddenly struck me that the dear ones I have loved and lost would be of much the same opinion. "Wait a minute, boys," I said. I flew back and pulled from my trunk a white dress and some black ribbons laid away a year ago. When I emerged, there was a chorus of pleased "gee-ohs" and a decided accession of friendliness, the boys trying who could be first in helping me over the frightful mudholes between the school and the village. I see my duty clear now,--white dresses instead of black.

_Thursday._

Considering the antecedents of Nucky and Killis, I was not surprised when they informed me this morning they would make beds no longer, but would leave unless given men's work all the time. My reply, "But making beds _is_ men's work," was met by incredulous whistles.

"Now, boys," I said, "how about soldiers,--do you call them men?"

"By grab, them's the only men _is_ men,--I'd ruther be dead as not to be one," said Nucky.

"Gee, fighting's the best job there is," agreed Killis.

"Well, soldiers make their beds every single day," I said; "I have a cousin right now at West Point, learning to be a soldier, and when he gets out he will command a whole company, and he makes his bed every morning, and couldn't be a soldier if he didn't."

The two stood, dazed and pondering, for some minutes; then Nucky quietly flung an end of the sheet across to Killis, with the words, "There, son, take-a-holt of that kiver, and le's lay it straight!"

To my great relief, I heard Keats singing a more cheerful song at his work to-day:

Wisht I was a little turkle-dove, Setting on a limb so high. I'd take my darling on my knee And bid this world goodbye!

and at dinner, by actual count, he ate nine corn-dodgers, three helpings of string-beans, four sweet-potatoes and I know not how much sorghum.

He still sits with me in the evenings, and I feel now that I have always known Nervesty and the four small children at home, especially Sammy the baby, not to mention Charlie, the "flea-bit" nag, Ole Suke, the "pied" cow, with her twin sons the steers Buck and Brandy, and her daughter Reddy the heifer (now the proud possessor of a little "pied" calf and a "blind" teat), also the big black sow, Julia, who, true to mountain traditions, never has less than nine in her family, and above all the wonderful dog, Ponto, who appears to be all that a dog can, and more. And not infrequently during these talks Keats is called out to help fight some antagonist of Hen's (though there is often civil war between the brothers, they always combine against outside aggression); and at other times Hen will pause breathless on his swift way through house or yard to corroborate some statement of Keats's with, "Gee, woman, that 'ere's a dandy of a dog! He can do anything but climb a tree, and he gits half-way up them. He rounds up the shoats and drives up Ole Suke and the steers gooder than I can; and possums! groundhogs! polecats! dad burn my looks if he haint the beatenest ever you seed!"

_Friday._

I have tried all along to respect Jason's feelings, and give him jobs which would injure neither his pride nor his person. But yesterday while we were spading up a patch for turnip-and-mustard-greens, I forgot and sent him off to the school-yard to pick up trash. An hour later, I heard from a passer-by that he had been seen a mile up Perilous. "Don't you recollect him a-saying he would leave if you give him little-boy jobs?" Geordie reminded me.

"Saddle the nag and hurry after him," I implored Taulbee. Sometime later, he overtook the proud child on his way to Spraddle Creek, and brought him back under protest.

The boys say they see no good reason why they should say "yes ma'am" and "no ma'am." When I told them it was for the sake of politeness, Philip replied, "Polite's a lick-spittle,--I don't aim to be polite,--I don't _have_ to,--I'm able to get what I want without it!"

This last is only too true. "For they shall take who have the power, and they shall keep who can," is the creed of all, but more especially of Philip. This noon, when Iry's father had sent him from Rakeshin a fine, yellow, mellow apple, and the "pure scholar" was eating it as frugally and lingeringly as possible, Philip, came along, snatched it, bit off three-fourths, and coolly handed back the fragment to Iry, who, howling dismally, still had no redress.

"To think you could do such a base thing!" I exclaimed,--"Rob a little boy who cannot defend himself. You ought to be everlastingly ashamed!"

"I was behind the door when shame passed by," replied the robber, flippantly.

"You were indeed," I agreed; "I would not believe that a boy named Philip Sidney could be guilty of such a thing." Then I told him the story of the great Sir Philip, mortally wounded, fevered and athirst, handing the cup of water to the dying soldier beside him, with the words, "Your need is greater than mine."

He pondered a moment, then remarked, "No man'd be such a fool,--I bet it's just a slander they made up on him!"

I told him he should lose three days' playtime for his rapacity.

_Sunday Night._

Last night the Trojan War reached a climax in the death of Horse-Taming Hector, amid shouts of joy from Killis, and howls of fury from Nucky. I have seen for two weeks that considerable feeling has developed between the two on the subject, intensifying the natural jealousy each has of the prowess and reputation of the other.

This morning I had left the boys at the big house to help with the breakfast dishes--the regular Sunday proceeding--and was standing in the back cottage door drinking in the beauty of the morning and the Sabbath peace of the hills, when savage yells smote my ears. Following the sound, I ran to the school-yard. When I arrived, Nucky had just buried his teeth in Killis's arm, from which the blood was spurting, while Killis was striking out fiercely with his knife. Around the combatants the other boys formed a delighted, cheering circle, within which Philip danced madly about, shouting,

Fight, dogs, you haint no kin, 'F you kill one another, taint no sin!

In another second, Nucky had abandoned the hold with his teeth, and was flashing his own knife around Killis's throat. With a shinny-stick, I knocked up one knife after the other, and kept death at bay until four of the grown-up boys arrived and with difficulty separated the heroes and escorted them to the hospital to have their wounds staunched and dressed. Later, I heard that Nucky had begun it by leaping upon Killis with the words, "I'll show you Hector haint dead yet!"

To-night when I had the two in durance vile, and talked to them more severely than I had yet done on the evils of fighting, Nucky, the aggressor, gave as his excuse that his great-great-great-grandpaw had fit the British, his great-great-grandpaw the Indians, his great-grandpaw the Mexicans, his grandpaw the Rebels, and his paw and Blant the Cheevers ever since he could recollect, and that he himself was just bound to fight.

This was sound reasoning; and it brought before me with hitherto unrealized force the fact that these boys are in very truth the sons of heroes,--of forefathers who fought gloriously for freedom in the Revolution, afterward subdued the wilderness and the savages, and have since poured forth as one man from their fastnesses to safeguard the Union in every emergency; and that here, forgotten and neglected by an ungrateful state and nation, is the precious stuff of which great patriots and heroes are made.

Therefore I did not upbraid Nucky and Killis further; I merely explained to them the difference between fighting just to be fighting, and fighting to save one's country, and, since they had no idea who the "British," the "Mexicans" and the "Rebels" were, told them something of the history and causes of those wars, and how I hoped that they, too, when necessary, would fight for their nation. And though to them at first their country meant their mountains only, and they were surprised to hear that the great "level land" beyond was also theirs to love and fight for, their affections were hospitable, and with one voice they demanded that an enemy of the nation be produced at once.

Here endeth the Trojan War,--I see that it has fanned a flame already too intense. Even little Jason slipped out under the benches at church this morning, while I played the organ, and was found an hour later out in the road in front of the court-house, covered with mud, but glowing with the white-hot joy of having "whupped-out four-at-a-time" of the little village boys. Hereafter I shall tell and read stories of heroes who won glory by fighting, not one another, but dragons, giants, gorgons, and like destroyers of their countries.

Nucky inquired of me at supper to-night when he might make a visit home to Trigger; whereupon there was an instant and unanimous offer on the part of the boys to accompany him, when he goes, and see the hero Blant. He shook his head. "I haint aiming to take none of you," he said, "not if she'll go 'long with me," looking at me.

"I?" I said, much complimented. "Why, surely I will if I can. But it is three weeks yet before your time comes:"--the children are permitted to go home over week-ends every seven or eight weeks, in rotation. I am glad he wants me, and feel a considerable desire to visit Trigger.

IX

MORE TRADING, AND SOME FAMILY HISTORY

_First Monday in September._

Four weeks to-day since I acquired my family of sons, and now it seems as if I had had them always. So far from being ready to leave now my month is out, wild horses could not drag me away. The hours, once so leaden, pass with lightning swiftness; there is never any time for depression, or for looking into a desolate and dreaded future; my days are crammed with human interest, exciting as a dime novel. Besides, although I see no evidence that the boys care much for me, I care a great deal for them, and would not willingly leave them.

Geordie brought back with him from our walk yesterday a large bundle of elder-poles. This morning, mumble-peg went out, and pop-guns came in, like a clap of thunder, and I heard that Geordie was selling lengths of elder to the boys for two cents, or a satisfactory equivalent. It was impossible this afternoon to get manure hauled to the new flower-borders,--every time a barrow would get out of sight, the wheeler would sit down on it and go to whittling a pop-gun. After being scolded a third time, Philip complained bitterly to me,

"If you never wanted us to have pop-guns, whyn't you take them poles away from Geordie yesterday? Dad burn my looks, we git all the blame, and he gits all the gain,--he's a making it hand over fist."

"He was the only one who thought of putting the elder to use," I said. "I suppose he has a right to his gains."

Philip sadly admitted the justice of this view. "Dag gone _me_," he sighed, "I wisht I was a born trader and forelooker like him! Good thing I haint aiming to be no preacher, I'd starve to death the first week. But Geordie he's cut out for it."

"I'm afraid I don't see the connection between trading and preaching," I said.

"Well, preachers can't take no money for preaching--it would be a sin--and they haint got much time for tending craps and such, and less'n they good traders they mighty apt to starve. Geordie he haint never going to run out of wheat-flour, let alone corn meal. Gee! if you could see the things he's got in that locked box of his!"

"What has he?" I asked.

"Oh, _I_ haint never seed 'em,--nobody haint; but any minute in the day he can run his hand in and pull out something a boy'll think he's pine-blank bound to have or die!"

When I heard to-night that Keats's tooth-brush, Jason's blue necktie I gave him, Hen's fine-comb and pencil, Iry's "gallusses," and Nucky's only handkerchief, were among the articles traded for pop-gun material, I was moved to wrath with Geordie; but when he displayed to me the small and apparently worthless things he had accepted from other boys,--a torn woolen comforter from Taulbee, Killis's holey mittens, Joab's worn-out yarn socks, and a handful of rusty horse-shoe nails from Hosea, it seemed to me that, on the whole, there had not been such exorbitant exchanges for the joy of a pop-gun, and I softened my reprimand.

_Thursday._

Mrs. Salyer rode in to-day to see her boys, a watermelon in one saddle-pocket, a lot of fine pawpaws in the other. Oh the joy of the "two homesicks"! Before leaving, she said that her cousin Emmeline's funeral occasion was set for the fourth Saturday and Sunday in October, and she hoped her boys might be permitted to come home at that time and pay their respects to Emmeline, adding that she would be pleased to have me come with them. In answer to my puzzled inquiries--for I failed to see how Emmeline's death could be so nicely calculated in advance--she explained that funerals are never held in this country at the time of burial, when it is usually impossible to get a preacher, but that they are conducted in deliberate and appropriate style a year or two after the death.

This is to be the little Salyers' first visit home--we think it best they shall not go until then--and never, I suppose, was a funeral-occasion the subject of such desire and rejoicing.

_Sunday Night._

For two weeks we have been reading Hawthorne's Wonder Tales; and this afternoon on our walk the boys, led by Nucky, searched hopefully in caves, coal-banks and rock-dens for gorgons, minotaurs and dragons, finding nothing worse, however, than a few rattlesnakes and copperheads,--a tame substitute and an old story. But the value of drawing their minds to foes in the abstract is already apparent,--they fight less, and traits other than martial are coming to the front. Nucky has been giving his energies to learning, with results that astonish. His teacher says she has never seen such mental alertness. She has already put him up two grades, and says if he keeps on he may go up another this half-term. Iry, too, is proving his right to his title of "pure scholar."

To-night when we began again on the Wonder Book, Nucky said, "I can tell you a story that beats them,--all about a man by the name of Christian, that fit with devils, and come near being et up by a giant ten times as big as him."

There were loud cries of, "Tell it, Trojan!"; and he launched forth into a most graphic version of Pilgrim's Progress, the other boys listening absorbed throughout the evening. When all started off to bed, I called Nucky back. "Where did you learn that story?" I asked him.

"I have knowed it sence allus-ago," he said; "Maw she used to read it to me out of a book with pictures."

It is the first time he has spoken of his mother,--I hear from the other boys that he lost her quite recently.

"Then your mother had learning?" I inquired.