Part 6

After making the acquaintance and hearing the family history of various chickens, turkeys, guineas and geese, I was taken up the hollow to the famous pawpaw patch, scene of innumerable 'possum hunts. Here even Ponto showed lively memories of past victories, while Keats, Hen and Hiram all talked at once, describing combats, and pointing out the very trees and logs. Some details of natural history I was able to gather from the confusion, such as: possums allus sull-up when they are kotch; boar possums does a heap of fighting, and it's a sight to hear their noses crack when they are at it, and the best sport ever seed is to ketch two and sic 'em ag'in each other; sow-possums do not fight, and the young uns curl their tails round their maw's and ride on her back when she travels; and, finally, possums are a master-race for wiles, and it is the mark of a man to be able to outwit them.

But darkness was beginning to fall, and when the gourd-horn blew for supper, nobody tarried on the way down. Oh, what beans, what "'taters," what "roasting-years," what corn-bread, and above all, what a noble vinegar-pie! Nervesty's reputation was fully sustained,--dangerously so, I feared, as I watched the boys gorge.

Then, while Mrs. Salyer and Keats went out to milk after supper, Hen and Susanna and Neely and I washed up the dishes; and while we were at it, Hiram and Jason were pulled apart, Jason with a gouged eye and a bitten arm, Hiram with a bloody nose and a raked shin. Then, Mrs. Salyer and Keats returning, and everybody being very sleepy indeed, we all went to bed in "t'other house," the little girls and I in one bed, Mrs. Salyer, Sammy and Keats in a second, and Hiram, Hen and Jason in the third (Hen in the middle). We had some general conversation after retiring, and it was all very happy and sociable. And of course Ponto slept in the room, too, and when, faithful guardian, he was not running to the door to growl at imaginary intruders, he was thumping his tail on the floor, or turning round and round before the fire to settle himself to his satisfaction.

Saturday morning, Keats, Hen and even I tried to beg off from the funeral occasion; but of course it was useless; and there was a busy time getting ready to start. A little past noon, I, on Mandy, with Susanna behind me, and Mrs. Salyer on Charlie, with Sammy before and Neely behind, reached the top of Bee Tree Gap, and looked down into the valley on the far side, the boys racing ahead of us. On a hill-shoulder below, grave-houses were visible, and people and nags were moving about.

Still farther down the valley, Mrs. Salyer showed me Emmeline's lonely little home. Emmeline, she said, had died a year and three months before, during the typhoid that took off Mr. Salyer, leaving a virtuous and pious memory, seven small children, and a deeply-stricken "widow."

Before we reached the burying-ground, the services began with a long-drawn funeral song, that came up to us in snatches. Very mournful and beautiful the tune was, embodying the very spirit of loneliness, sorrow and resignation. As we drew nearer, Mrs. Salyer joined in the refrain, and I caught some of the words,

I'm a long time travelling here below, A long time travelling away from my home. A long time travelling here below To lay this body down!

"A long time travelling" indeed it seems to those of us bereft as she is, and as I am. The inexpressible sweep, dignity and pathos of the song will haunt me as long as I live.

We joined the crowd among the grave-houses. In front of the newest of these, saplings had been laid across logs to make seats; and the people who could not be accommodated here sat on the ground or walked quietly about. Even the numerous babies were quiet, as if knowing that a funeral occasion demanded it.

The immediate family sat on the front sapling, facing the preachers, who occupied a plank against the grave-house. Mrs. Salyer pointed out Emmeline's bereaved "widow" to me. He sat with drooping head and utterly dejected attitude, while the row of children with him wept. Just at his side was a wholesome-faced young woman, surely too old to be Emmeline's daughter, holding on one arm a child about a year-and-a-half old, and in the other a very pink new baby.

"Who is that?" I inquired.

Mrs. Salyer whispered back, "That's his new woman, Mary,--of course he was bound to get him one right off, with all them young ones. She treats them mighty good, too. The new one's hers,--it come eight days ago, just in time for the funeral occasion."

When the first preacher started to speak, and Emmeline's virtues began to be aired, I saw with interest and surprise that Mary wept as sincerely and heartily as anybody, her tears dropping down impartially upon the nursing baby and the older one. Once, when her husband seemed quite overcome, she laid a pitying hand on his shoulder; at other times, with a corner of her apron she tenderly wiped the eyes and noses of all the children within reach. And when, later, the preacher referred solemnly and unblinkingly to the fact that Emmeline's offsprings had now fell into the hands of a step-maw, and it behooved her to remember that she must one day give account to the God of widows and orphans, she bowed her head very humbly, and seemed to be at once overwhelmed and uplifted by the thought of her responsibility. Her face was really wonderful and beautiful, and in it I saw far more hope for the happiness of Emmeline's offsprings than in that of the "widow." In both wives he appears to have received more than his deserts.

The whole scene--the lonely mountain-shoulder, the weather-beaten grave-houses, the isolated little home below, the reds and yellows of the forest fading after a night of heavy frost, the ancient spectacle of human bereavement and sorrow with nothing to relieve it save the look on Mary's face--went to my heart till the tears came.

At four o'clock, having heard five preachers and several funeral songs, we took our departure. The occasion was to last all day Sunday, too. I, however, besought Mrs. Salyer to let the boys have one day at home, and at last gained her consent; and when we were once more in bed, and conversation had languished, and Ponto was thumping the floor with his tail again, Keats raised his head from the pillow to murmur, sleepily, but rapturously "Gee-oh,--a whole 'nother day at home to-morrow!"

On our arrival at the school to-night after dark, I heard that Nucky had left Friday in spite of my commands, and had not yet returned.

XV

TROUBLE ON TRIGGER AND ELSEWHERE

_First Monday, November._

About ten this morning, Nucky came silently into the cottage, got his books, and was starting to the school-house, when I called him into my room.

"Did you go home?" I asked.

"Yes."

"And did Blant send you back?"

"Yes," he said. Then suddenly he flung the books on the floor and burst into furious weeping. "He run me off," he said; "and now there haint nobody to keep lookout for him, and I know he'll be kilt! If I was strong as him, I'd show him whether he could run me off!"

(I judge that Blant had to resort to severe measures before prevailing upon him to return.)

"When did he send you back?"

"Saturday."

"Where have you been since then?"

"Laying out in the high rocks,--I felt so bad I never cared what become of me. Todd and Dalt will get Blant, I know they will!"

I tried to comfort and cheer the poor child, telling him Rich Tarrant would help Blant, but I myself feel that he has grave cause for anxiety.

_Wednesday._

Trouble certainly arrives promptly. A man stopped at the gate this noon and hallooed for Nucky. "War's broke out again on Trigger," he said; "yesterday was election day, and when Blant rid down to the precinct booth to cast his first vote, there was Todd and Dalt a-drinking and a-whooping round like wild, and making their brags he wouldn't dast to put in an appearance. Of course when he come, it was just a question of the quickest trigger; and Todd had his right elbow put out of business, and Dalt a bullet in his shoulder, before you could bat your eye. Blant he got a trifling flesh-wound in his thigh,--nothing to speak of. He said you would probably hear of the trouble, and not git it straight, and he sont me over to relate to you how it really was, and to tell you to stay right where you air, or you'll see certain trouble,--that he is plenty able to tend to all that comes, and you throwed in; that your maw's desires that you get l'arning has got to be fulfilled though the heavens fall."

Nucky was silent and white for a moment; then he called out savagely, "You tell him I hate him for treating me this way, and I don't mind if he does get kilt!", then, rushing into his room and locking his door, I heard him kick chairs violently about, and then burst into another wild fit of weeping. With his devotion to Blant turned back upon itself, and his emotions and energies denied their natural outlet, I can see that this is to be a time of great strain and suffering.

_Friday._

I am pleased to find that Geordie's blandishments are not invariably successful. The little Salyers brought back with them from home two pairs of stout brogans. Now that November has set in, it is necessary to get all feet covered,--a most difficult proposition, since the friendly barrels hold almost no boys' shoes. Women's shoes have had to be de-heeled and pressed into service; and these of course suffer by comparison with the fine brogans. Yesterday while we were planting onions, I heard snatches of a conversation between Geordie and Hen, in which the word "brogans" played a prominent part. What Geordie's various offers were I could not gather; but, evidently, Hen has an acute mind, and has been cutting eye-teeth in past experiences; for his final answer came out loud and emphatic,

"No, son, I don't want your cow,--your calf's lousy!"

_Sunday Night._

With Nucky, moods of deep depression alternate with those of insane daring. Yesterday, looking up from the garden, I was horrified to see him balancing on the roof-tree of the big house, with the slippery, frosty roof slanting steeply down on both sides; and this afternoon on our walk, while the boys played "fox and dogs" and ran like deer over the mountains, I saw the "fox," Nucky, make for the gray rocks and crags that crown the summit of one, and then crawl to the jutting edge of the highest, and hang with his hands from it, out over space. These performances of his cause me acute suffering.

I wonder that mothers have not made a study of the effects of color upon children. My change of dress in the evenings from dark blue serge to cardinal silk causes an even more pronounced change in the home atmosphere. Red, the color of life, certainly appeals to boys; when I put on the cardinal dress, they love to stroke it with their hands, or to rub their heads against my shoulders as I read.

That beauty also means a great deal more to them than we older people think, I was made to realize when Iry began to tell to-night about the "powerful pretty looks" of his young mother, and how he loved, baby though he was, to "just lay and look at her." He told of one day in particular when he awoke from sleep in her arms before a great, roaring fire, and he and she looked and smiled into each other's eyes for a long, long time, until some strange women came in and interrupted them. It is a singular thing for him to remember--doubtless he and she had gazed into each other's eyes many times, after the manner of mothers and firstborn sons--probably the coming of the strange women fixed this particular incident in his memory.

Later in the evening, when we resumed the adventures of Odysseus, there was a chorus of indignation when the hero permits the monster Scylla to snatch six of his friends from the ship and make a meal of them. "Shut up the book!" "Don't want to hear about no such puke-stocking as him," "Ongrateful's worse'n pizen!" "Why'n't he grab his ax and chop off them six heads when he seed 'em a-coming?" "Any man can't fight for his friends better be dead!" were some of the comments. I bowed to the storm and shut the book, to hear several instances of true friendship related. One was about Blant and Rich Tarrant. During active hostilities on Trigger last winter, Blant was getting out yellow poplar timber from the top of his mountain, almost under the shadow of the "high rocks" on the summit, Richard assisting him. Happening to cast his eyes upward, Richard was just in time to see the muzzle of a gun projecting over the rocks, and to throw himself in front of Blant and receive the discharge in his own bosom. Had it been an inch farther to the right, it would have pierced his heart. As it was, he made a troublesome recovery.

"That's what I call right friendship," said Nucky; "there haint a minute in the day when him and Blant wouldn't lay down their life for each other, glad."

"Who was it shot the gun?" inquired Philip.

"Oh, Todd. We knowed it later when he went about with his left hand tied up,--Blant fired as the bullet hit Rich, at the hand that held the gun. We Marrses don't do no low-down fighting,--we allus fight in the open. And the Cheevers used to; but Todd is a snake in the grass, and don't stop at nothing."

_Thursday._

While at the big house talking with the head-workers yesterday, they showed me some albums of photographs made in the beginnings of their work here, before the school was even thought of, and when they came up from the Blue Grass only in the summers, and lived in tents, having classes in cooking, sewing, singing, nursing and the like. I turned the pages with eagerness, hearing enthralling tales as I went, and stopped at last before a small picture of strange beauty. In a blaze of firelight, against a dusky log-cabin interior, sat a young mother with a child clasped in her arms. The serene, Madonna-like tenderness of face and attitude made the photograph memorable and surprising.

"Many persons have admired that picture," said one of the heads; "we took it years ago, over on Rakeshin Creek, late one afternoon when, weary from a long tramp, we walked in upon a young mother and her child in the firelight. We spent the night there afterward."

"On Rakeshin!" I exclaimed. "How long ago was it?"

"Eight years, I should say."

"Do you suppose--could it have been, the wife and child of Mr. Atkins?"

"That's exactly who it was," she replied,--"one of his wives, I hardly remember which."

"I know," I said; "it was Iry's mother. And that wonderful child remembers the very hour! Only Sunday he was telling of the long look he and his mother were taking at each other when some strange women came in and interrupted them."

The heads exclaimed with me in wonder and loving interest.

"Give it to me," I said, "so that I may send it off at once to be enlarged for his Christmas present."

_Friday._

Very heavy rains for three days, and another big "tide," with seven panels of the back fence washed away, and Perilous a boiling yellow flood down which logs and whole trees are rushing. What was my horror, on hearing loud cheers from the stable-lot this morning, to see Nucky out in the middle of the torrent, standing calmly on a swift log, which even as I glanced, shot around a curve and out of sight. Ten minutes of agony for me followed; then Nucky reappeared, wet only to the waist, and followed by every boy on the place.

"Gee, that wasn't nothing," he deprecated, in answer to my reproaches, "I've rid logs ever sence I was born. I just jumped on her when she come a-nigh shore, and off again down Perilous a piece. I haint afeared!"

"Haint afeared got his neck broke yesterday," remarked Joab, drily.

These desperate and daring moods of Nucky's are source of untold suffering to me. I know they are caused largely by his worry over Blant, and his baffled desire to be at his post on Trigger. Sometimes I think it would be best to let him go,--there can be no doubt that Blant does need him, and he is doing little in his studies, and is so bitter and gloomy that I scarcely know my once delightful boy.

XVI

FILIAL PIETY AND CROUP

_Saturday Bed-time._

This evening, while we were popping corn in the "fotch-on" poppers, Killis said he could recollect "capping" corn in a skillet under the still while he and his father made liquor.

"You made liquor?" I exclaimed.

"Can't remember when I didn't," he replied; "I holp paw from the time I could walk. I would go with him up the hollow, and gather wood for the fire, and then set and watch the singlings whilst he kep' a lookout for officers. And sometimes he would let me mix the doublings, too. And when the liquor was made, and folks would come to buy it, I would circle round up in the field where it was hid, to show 'em the place, and they would come up with their jugs and leave the money under a stump. Gee, I knowed so much about the business I could run it myself!"

"I hope and pray you never will," I said, earnestly.

"What you got again' it,--you haint no officer," he said.

"No," I said, "but I think it is wrong." And I gave my reasons, which, however, failed to carry much conviction.

"The marshal that kilt your paw," inquired Nucky, at last, "how long you aim to let him live?"

"Till I'm good and ready for him," replied Killis; "I got a dead tree up the hollow I practice on all the time,--there's a band breast-high around it black with bullet-holes. Sometimes I shoot walking, and sometimes running, and sometimes I fetch a nag up and gallop around and shoot. When I get so I never miss, I'll ride over where he lives at and tell him 'I'm Steve Blair's boy,' and shoot him down like a dog, and revenge my paw, and do my duty."

A murmur of quiet approval began with Nucky and passed around the circle.

After the other boys went to bed, I finally extracted from Killis a solemn promise not to perform this "duty" before he was eighteen. It was the utmost I could accomplish,--long years of training must do the rest.

_Monday._

The first real snow yesterday, and the boys wild in consequence. On our walk up Perilous, they found drifts in which they dived and wallowed. Coming back I noticed that Jason was quite hoarse; and in the middle of the night I was awakened by strange and painful sounds, as if someone were choking to death. The night was cold, the bed warm; I lay and listened a moment longer. Then flinging on wrapper and slippers, I ran across the sitting-room to the upper bedroom. Jason was sitting up in bed, gasping for breath.

"What is the matter with you?" I asked.

"Croup," he croaked, between gasps.

"Did you ever have it before?"

"I follow havin' it."

"Why didn't you tell me it was coming on?"

"Afeared you'd whup me."

I wrung my hands. "Cleo," I called back, "what in the world should be done for croup?"

But for once her resources failed. "Some ties grease around their necks," she said.

I have a maxim, "when in doubt try a hot-water-bag". Desperately stirring the fire in my grate, I put on water, and while it was heating spread vaseline on a handkerchief. Then flying back to Jason, I slapped first the handkerchief, then the hot bag, upon his chest. Apparently the child was choking to death,--I was terribly frightened,--the water may have been a little over-hot. At any rate, between chokes, my "little pet" raised the most roof-splitting yells. "Take it off! Take it off! Paw he gits me pole-cat-grease!" All the boys jumped out of their beds and came running. Jason fought me like a little tiger; but grabbing him by the hair, I held the bag on with all my might. His yells increased. "Oh, God, she's a-killing me! Oh, God, she's a-burning me up! Oh, God, gimme pole-cat-grease, pole-cat-grease, po--_ole_-cat-grease!" It was an awful moment; but I held my ground and the bag. In a few seconds, which seemed ages, the cries and chokes lessened, the breathing became quieter, the tense little frame relaxed, and danger was past.

Half an hour later, when, weak but safe, my angel child lay quiet on his pillow, Philip, standing over him, remarked philosophically,

"Son, you'd a-waited a right smart spell for pole-cat-grease,--better to lose a patch of your hide than die waiting for that!"

XVII

BLESSINGS AND HATINGS

_Thanksgiving Day, Bed-time._

All day my heart has been overflowing with thankfulness; and to-night when I accompanied my sons to the beautiful Thanksgiving party at the big house, where all the young folks from miles around were gathered, and observed their handsome appearance in their Sunday suits and gay new ties, and, still better, their ease of manner, and social graces, my heart swelled with pride almost to bursting. I own to a weakness for pretty looks and pretty ways; and with the exception of Philip, who scorned to play any of the games in which girls had a part, my boys quite satisfied me to-night.

Still later, when we came home and sat around our fire to talk it over, I in my pink party dress, Nucky and Keats leaning against my shoulders, Jason and Iry with their heads in my lap, the other eight gathered as closely as possible about me, it seemed to me I had reached the point where I could say "My cup runneth over". When was a lonely heart more truly comforted, a forlorn creature snatched from greater desolation to brighter cheer? "Yea, the sparrow hath found her a nest", "Thou has set the desolate in families". Almost a miraculous thing it seems that I should actually have the desire of my heart,--a houseful of children; and, instead of the hideous loneliness I looked forward to a few months ago, the delightful task of bringing up these twelve sons to manhood and good citizenship. Indeed, I often ask myself, what other boys have such gifts to bring to their nation? Proud, self-reliant, the sons of heroes, bred in brave traditions, knowing nothing of the debasing greed for money, strengthened by a hand-to-hand struggle with nature from their very infancy (I have not one who did not begin at five or six to shoulder such family responsibilities as hoeing corn all summer, tending stock, clearing new ground, grubbing, hunting, gathering the crop), they should bring to the service of their country primal energy of body and spirit, unquenchable valor, and minds untainted by the lust of wealth.

Yes, I know that I am greatly blessed. Children of my own could be no dearer to me, and certainly not half so interesting; and my heart is fed and satisfied. After all, is not motherhood less a thing of the flesh than of the spirit,--indeed, the richest, fairest blossoming known to the human spirit? I believe that if all the sad, lonely, self-centred women in the land could know what joy dwells in my heart to-night, within twenty-four hours orphan asylums would be depopulated, city streets waifless.

Nucky lingered after the others went off to bed, to cover the fire. Then he opened the front door, and stood looking out into the bright moonlight. "These is the nights Blant needs me at home," he said, sighing deeply; "seems like I can't get no peace or rest in my mind for troubling over him." I crossed the room and stood beside Nucky, also looking out. As I gazed, his fear was communicated to me, and the fair moonlight seemed suddenly cruel and chill.

_Saturday._