Part 7

A mail-carrier rides over from Powderhorn way twice a week. This morning, while cleaning was in progress, he stopped at the cottage gate. "I allowed I'd stop and tell you the news from Trigger," he said. "Another battle fit over the fence last night. I have been looking for it ever sence Todd and Dalt come back, knowing they wa'n't bad wounded in the election fight. Blant has been looking for it, too, and him and Rich has took turns keeping watch of a day, and of moonlight nights. Last night was Blant's watch; but he was powerful tired from logging, and the babe was punier than common, and he had to set up with it longer, and before he knowed it he drapped off to sleep there a-holding it before the fire; and there he sot till he was woke by chilling about eleven. Then he walked out to see how the land lay at the fence; and there was the whole b'iling of Cheevers, with very near all the rails drug off the old boundary, and a-laying 'em on the new. All hands got to work with their guns, and anybody'd a-thought sure they'd finish him, so many ag'in' one; but by good luck all of 'em put together haint got his aim, and atter a few was wounded, they took to their heels and abandoned the field. That 'ere Blant is a pure wonder; but such good luck haint apt to hit twice, and they're bound to git him sooner or later. I hope I may die if he haint the worst handicapped for warfare ever I seed, with a family to feed, and a whole passel of young uns to be paw and maw to, and the babe pindling all the time, and Rich on yan side the mountain, and his uncle Billy's boys a mile up the branch."

When I turned around to speak to Nucky, who had been just behind me, he was gone. Great as is my anxiety about him, I realize the uselessness of trying to send after him, or to hold him back.

_Thursday, first week December._

Nucky returned last night, after nearly a week of absence,--it seems that Blant was glad of his help this time. He says that on Monday they gathered together Rich and his uncle Billy's boys and one or two more, and in broad daylight laid the fence again on the old line, every man working armed, those who drove the mules that dragged the rails walking with guns in position, those who laid the rails doing so with guns tucked under their arms. "I carried my rifle Cap'n Enoch Marrs fit the British with," said Nucky. But though the Marrs side worked all day at the fence, and the Cheevers must have known what was going on, not one of them appeared. "They have had their fill of fighting Blant in the open," said Nucky; "what they will do now will be to kill him from cover. Todd he won't stop at nothing. And Blant he haint able to look out for hisself with so much to tend to, and needs me there to be eyes for him, especially now, with Christmas coming on, and all the drinking and devilment that is allus done then. But he won't listen to no reason, or let me stay."

"I am sure that Richard Tarrant will be with him day and night," I said, to comfort him.

"Yes; but tha'in't nobody got the eye for a Cheever I got, or can keep watch like me."

I share Nucky's feeling that he ought to be there to be eyes for Blant; at the same time I am inexpressibly thankful that Blant refuses to keep him, and that he is here with me in safety.

XVIII

CHRISTMAS ANTICIPATIONS

_Monday._

Already the air is full of Christmas talk and plans. Besides the great tree here in our school for the entire neighborhood, the workers and teachers expect to have seven or eight trees in other localities, thus bringing brightness and cheer and the Christmas story into many sad and colorless lives. I should have been glad to have a tree over on Trigger; but a gathering there in the present state of feeling would be extremely dangerous, and by Nucky's advice, I have abandoned the hope. "I'd like to have you come over," he said; "but Trigger haint no place for women or women's doings now."

Another excitement is the telephone just set up in our village, connecting us with the railroad and the outside world.--All the boys went down this afternoon to see and hear the marvel.

_Wednesday Morning._

I have begun teaching some of the beautiful old English carols to our boys and girls,--it seems peculiarly fitting that these children of pure English stock should sing the carols centuries ago upon the lips of their ancestors. But the task is an uphill one with the boys,--they refuse to take any interest in this or any other Christmas preparation. When I reproached them to-night for their apathy, Philip said,

"Nothing here to take no interest in,--won't be no chance for no Christmas doings till we git away from here."

"But there will be great Christmas doings," I said, "just the very best that can be thought of."

"What,--you women aiming to lay in a store of liquor and do a lot of shooting?" he asked, with dawning hope.

"Horrors, no!" I exclaimed.

"Them's the good times I allus seed a-Christmas."

"Me, too!" echoed the other eleven.

"Didn't you ever hang up your stocking, or have a tree or get presents?"

"Never heared tell of the like till I come here."

"But it's the greatest possible fun," I insisted.

"Fun enough for women, may be, but men,--gee!"

"Gimme a big jug of moonshine!" shouted Joab.

"And a galloping nag!" cried Nucky.

"And a pistol in both hands!" added Killis.

"Boys," I said, "is it possible you can be willing to spend the holy season of Christmas in drinking and shooting?"

"Only way I ever heared of anybody spending it," said Philip; "everybody does it. If there's ary boy here," he added, "that haint been drunk, or tried to, every Christmas he can ricollect, hold up your hand!"

Not a hand moved, till suddenly, as if by an afterthought, Killis's went up. "I weren't last Christmas," he said; "when paw got shot and lay a-dying, he told me never to drink another drap, and I haint toch it sence."

"Mighty hard on you," remarked Joab; "I never pass a Christmas without being drunk,--paw he gen'ally fills me'n Iry up till we can't see single, and then makes us walk a crack in the floor, for fun."

"I allus used to swill all I could hold, from New Christmas to Old Christmas," said Killis.

"I drink all I want and then ride around on Blant's nag and shoot off my rifle," said Nucky.

"When I were a five-year-old," contributed Geordie, "my uncles give me a pint of liquor, and then put a cocked pistol in my hand and p'inted it at Absalom, and told me to shoot. I fired away,--good thing I weren't sober, I'd a-kilt him sure!"

"The neighbors up the branch they invites us to their house and treats us a-Christmas," said Hen; "but Keats he haint half a man,--I can drink twict as much as him!"

"Self-brag is half-scandal," exclaimed Keats, angrily; "it's because I've had white swelling and typhoid I can't drink as much as you, you sorry little scald-pate!"

"Paw and me got so drunk last Christmas we couldn't roll over in bed," piped up Jason.

Taulbee, the great stickler for propriety, summed up the matter authoritatively: "Folks would think they was bad off if they couldn't pass around a jug of liquor a-Christmas," he said; "they would feel like it weren't showing hospitality."

When I remember that this was the idea of the entire Christian world less than a century ago, I cannot be too severe upon my boys, distressing as these conditions are.

Killis spoke again shortly. "I want every boy here that can get to my house on Clinch a-Christmas to come, and see a good time," he announced. "Come the Saturday after New Christmas. I can't drink myself, on account of what paw said; but I got good-and-plenty for my friends. And maw she'll give you all you can eat. And we'll shoot off all paw's guns and pistols."

There was unanimous acceptance, even by boys living nearly forty miles distant from Killis, Nucky's being qualified by the condition, "If the Cheevers haint giving too much trouble at home."

I sighed deeply. "Boys," I said, "you know what I think about drinking; you know I consider it very, very wrong."

"Quare women has quare notions," remarked Joab, forbearingly.

"You know I hope the day will come when not one of you will ever touch liquor," I said. "Is there one now who thinks enough of me to promise not to drink this Christmas?"

The dead silence that followed was broken at last by Philip. "We like you all right," he said; "but, by grab, a fellow's got to see some fun!"

It is rumored that Killis's uncles still carry on the business in which his father perished; so I suppose there will be no doubt about the "good-and-plenty" to drink at his house.

_Sunday, mid-December._

Two birthdays this past week, Philip's thirteenth, Wednesday, and Nucky's twelfth yesterday, and the excitement of having gorgeous birthday cakes at our table, and passing around candles for birthday wishes.

At bed-time last night, Hen came up from the wash-house looking extremely clean as to head and feet. When he was passing into the bedroom however, I called him back. "What is that dark band just below your nightgown?" I asked.

He made no reply, but stooped so that his gown should fall lower. I lifted the hem to his knees, revealing the fact that the cleanness stopped half-way, and that above that line his legs were more than dingy. "Didn't you wash all over?" I inquired.

"Not quite all."

"How much did you wash?"

"Down to my neck and very near up to my knees. That dag-gone ole gown done shrunk up two inches sence the last time."

"But didn't I tell you you must wash all over every single bath?"

"That was before cold weather sot in. Philip he said down to your neck and up to your knees was a-plenty in cold weather, and all _he_ was aiming to do; and it's all any of us boys been a-doing sence November started in."

"You haint never washed as far up as your knees, son," corrected Keats, from superior heights; "you allus stop where your nightgown comes to. I told you she'd ketch you if you done that!"

Summoning all my family, I found the shocking fact to be true that for six weeks not one had bathed any farther than "down to my neck and up to my knees,"--they rather gloried in it, especially Philip, and complained bitterly when made to lose several days' play time, in addition to taking a complete bath instantly, every one, though it was already past bed-time.

Truly my Thanksgiving pride in their beautiful manners and aristocratic appearance has received a severe shock!

XIX

CHRISTMAS AND DANGER

_Wednesday Afternoon, Christmas Day._

No time to catch one's breath for ten days. Now the festivities are over. First came the tree last night. It was an exciting time as all of us, teachers, children, and parents from miles around, dressed in our best, sat waiting, the sole blot on my happiness being that just as the curtain was drawn back, revealing the splendid "spruce-pine" (hemlock) with its gleaming candles, strings of popcorn and hollyberries, and mysterious packages tied and banked around, my Philip, having successfully eluded me beforehand, stepped out on the platform, with a dirty face, tousled hair, soiled shirt, gallusses fastened by one nail, and a large hole in the seat of his breeches, to hand the gifts to Santa Claus for distribution.

Then, before daylight this morning, came the boys' carols, sung through halls and stairways of the big house, and down through the village street, awakening the valley with the glad tidings; and, finally, the great moment after breakfast, when our resident children were turned into the library, where, on a "fireboard" extended for the occasion across two sides of the room, hung seventy gay stockings. Great was the joy of little and big girls, many of whom had never beheld a doll before, over the pretty "poppets" in the tops of their stockings; great, though quieter, the pleasure of the boys in "store" marbles, balls and knives, not to mention candy and "orange-apples"; but greatest was the happiness of little Iry, the "pure scholar," as, after gazing long and wonderingly at the large picture beneath his stocking, he at last clasped it rapturously to his heart, crying, "Me'n my maw! I got my maw back ag'in!" I knew he would recognize it!

My own stocking, too, held its treasures,--ten sticks of candy from Nucky, a little poke of brown-sugar and crackers (greatest luxury known to mountain children) from Killis, a walnut penholder from Philip, a fine apple, all the way from Rakeshin, and treasured for weeks for the purpose, from Iry, a red-flannel pincushion from Jason.

Then came the painful moment when I saw my boys scatter to their homes,--even Jason, who has no home, went for a week with Keats and Hen. Again I begged Killis not to get the boys drunk when they visit him Saturday, but he would make no promise. Last of all, and most reluctantly, I bade Nucky goodbye. I fear and dread the events that this Christmas season may bring to pass on Trigger,--with one accord, the boys prophesy "bloody doings" there. I would keep him back if I could; but nothing can prevent his going.

And now I shall have a much needed rest, and a chance to catch up on magazines and books laid away for five months.

_Bed-time._

The day has been ages long,--I cannot read or rest,--the old loneliness is all back upon me again. Why did I let all the boys go? And how am I to face the ten days of their absence? The silence is awful. I would give the world to hear the dozen pairs of shoes come thundering across the little bridge and into the cottage, the shrill voices raised in play or song or even a fight!

_Thursday Night._

My joy may be imagined when, as I started to breakfast this morning, I saw Jason come climbing over the big gate. To my pleased inquiries as to the cause of his return, he finally murmured with pretty bashfulness, "I were homesick for you!" "My darling child!" I cried, hugging him very hard. Then we went to the village and bought all the goodies he felt able to eat; and all day I have sat on the floor playing marbles with him. If I did not have Killis's party, and Nucky's danger to worry over, I should be quite happy. As it is, a sense of foreboding oppresses me. When this evening I saw a splendid moon, almost full, hang over the wooded mountain to the East, my fears were quickened.

_Saturday Morning._

All Thursday, yesterday and last night, I worried and could not sleep; and my anxiety has now reached a pitch where I must do, and no longer think. Something terrible hangs over me,--I know not whether it is some casualty to-day at Killis's, consequent upon the drinking and shooting, or something still more dreadful on Trigger Branch. At any rate, there is nothing to prevent my riding over to Clinch, and then, if I find all well there, going the eight miles farther to Nucky's, and persuading him to return with me if possible. I am just about to set off with Jason.

_Sunday Morning, Killis's Home on Clinch._

We came by way of Nancy's Perilous, passing the Salyer home. Keats was out chopping wood in the snow, and greeted me joyfully. I accepted his invitation to alight for dinner; but before I could get off the nag, he remarked, "I see you got your little pet up behind you,--did he tell you how come him to leave a-Thursday?"

"Yes," I replied, proudly; "he was homesick for me."

Keats measured Jason with his eye. "He's the lyin'est little devil ever I seed," he said; "I'll tell you what made him go. Him and Hiram fit from the time he stepped in the door, and all through supper, and off'n on all night, and got up before day to start in ag'in; and Hiram he got him down and rid him, and Jason he pult his Christmas knife out of his pocket and jobbed it in Hiram's wrist, and maw she tuck atter him with a hickory, and he run away."

I slid off Mandy, called for another hickory, sternly dragged down my "darling child," and gave him, not only the punishment he escaped on Thursday, but another on my own account; the bitterness of it being doubled for him when all the Salyers, including Hiram, came out to see it well done.

After a hasty dinner, we started on again,--I could not be satisfied to tarry. Dark pictures rose before me all the way,--my dear boys drinking, shooting, maybe killing one another--and I urged Mandy on, scarcely feeling the cold wind that blew down from the snowy mountains.

It was past three when I reached the Blair home. Behind it rose a great hollow, filled with dark hemlocks. I gazed up into it with a shudder, remembering it was here that Killis's father died.

Mrs. Blair met me at the door, and in answer to my inquiries for the boys, said, "They've been in and out all day; now they're up the branch shooting."

"Have they been drinking much?" I asked.

"A sight!" she answered; then she continued smiling, "but what they've drank won't hurt 'em much, I reckon. When Killis come home a-Wednesday, he called for several jugs of liquor for the boys a-Saturday; and I told him all right, for I don't never deny him nothing. But next day 'peared like he was thoughtful in his mind, and come evening, he said if he had something that weren't pure liquor, but would just sort of cheer the boys, he would give 'em that, to please you. And I recollected there was a barrel of cider left. So this morning, before they come, he drawed off a kag of that, and being as it was pretty hard, poured in a couple of gallon of water, so's they wouldn't get _too_ cheered; and all day they been eating and drinking fit to burst, and then running out to shoot a while, and then filling up ag'in."

"Anybody wounded?" I asked.

"None so far."

Relieved beyond expression, I sank into a chair and gave thanks to God. A little later, Killis ran in the front door. "I never give them boys nary drap but cider," he said; "I done it to please you!"

I threw my arms around him; yes, I even wept.

"And I watered the cider, too," he continued; "them boys thinks they are drunk, and seeing a right Christmas, but they haint, but it does 'em just as much good!"

The other boys followed;--all mine but Nucky, the Salyers and the Atkinses were there, and some neighbor boys--piling up guns and pistols on the beds, and taking another round of pies and cider. Finding they were not at all abashed to see me, I accepted pressing invitations to spend the night, and we had a cheerful evening, with picking and singing, until Philip, who has been visiting a boy friend on Powderhorn, roused all my premonitions again by saying,

"I went up Trigger to fetch Trojan; but he couldn't come. He said Todd and Dalt had give it out they would certainly take the fence and grease their boots with Blant's brains before Christmas was over; and him and Rich was a-keeping lookout every minute."

All my fears leaped into being again instantly. If I could, I would have started for Trigger then and there. I cannot say how sinister the bright moonlight appeared to me as it streamed in through chinks in the logs during the night. This morning my panic seems excessive; still I am going to Trigger at once with Philip to guide me.

XX

WAR AND WORSE ON TRIGGER

_Monday Noon._

Let me try to tell, if I can do so, the tale of these dreadful twenty-four hours. We crossed over a high gap and down into the head-waters of Powderhorn, and thence to the mouth of Trigger. Just as we reached it, a man riding down looked intently at me. "You are one of them school-women, haint you?" he inquired. I recognized him as Saxby, Blant's neighbor who brought Nucky word of the election fight, and replied, "Yes."

"I seed you when I was over," he continued. "I allow by your being here you have heared the news from Trigger."

"What news?" I asked.

"Another engagement last night,--I hate to tell you the rest."

"What is it?" I demanded.

"Ever sence Blant defeated them at the fence a month gone, the Cheever boys has been dogging his footsteps in secret, trying to git him unbeknownst and unexpected. Though he haint seed hair nor hide of 'em, two or three times bullets has whizzed by him when he was doing chores round the house, or feeding the property. Of course he haint let the little chap, Nucky, know nothing about it, and has stayed in and laid low all he could, letting Rich tend to outside things for him. As Christmas come on, Todd and Dalt got so deep in liquor they couldn't keep their tongues from wagging, and they have bragged far and nigh that they would both take the fence and grease their boots with Blant's brains, before Christmas was over. So a' extry watch has been kept at both house and fence, and the little chap, Nucky, he has been hard at it. Last night when the full moon riz about seven, he was in the clump of spruce-pine on the p'int with his great-grandpaw's gun he allus packs around, when the whole b'iling of Cheevers, nine or ten, marched out to the fence. Just what happened, we haint got no means of knowing; but instid of obeying orders, and running to the house to tell Blant and Rich, like he ought, the boy he committed plumb suicide by opening fire on 'em from the tree. Of course before he could drap to the ground, seven or eight of 'em had blazed away in his direction; and when Blant and Rich heared the shots and come a-running, the little chap was a-laying limp and dead, and the Cheevers running round confused-like, carrying off one wounded. Blant he rushed on 'em like a robbed she-bear, routing 'em in no time,--Rich said such shooting never was seed on earth. I heared the noise acrost the branch where I live at, and come a-running. When we turnt the little chap over, we found he was bleeding from several flesh wounds, which we tied up; but then we also seed his skull was broke and stove in by another bullet, and knowed there wa'n't no hope. We tuck him to the house, and sot there all night keeping the death-watch, and looking for every breath to be his last."

"Then he still does breathe?" I asked, fiercely.

"Yes, a little-grain; but he don't know nothing, and of course there haint no possible chance, with his skull broke. I'm a-riding now to inform his maw's kin down Powderhorn."

I laid the whip to Mandy, who, startled, sprang forward in a gallop. The twenty minutes before I reached the Marrs home seemed endless. I believed I had already suffered all that a woman could; but that was before I knew the love of a mother for her child.

I ran into the house, pushing away the people gathered there, and laid my hand on the bosom of the small body lying there so limp and still. The heart was beating, feebly but steadily, "He is not dead!" I cried, "and he shall not die!"

Blant, sitting crouched by the bed, head in hands, raised up and stared at me; Mr. Marrs lifted a bandage from Nucky's head, showing a wound from which a piece of bone protruded, and shook his head hopelessly.

"But the bullet can't have gone in, or he would have died instantly," I said; "it must have broken the skull and glanced off, leaving the bone pressing against the brain."

"Even so, nobody can't live with their skull broke," he replied.

"But they can,--they do! A broken skull may be lifted, trephined, by a good surgeon,--many a life is saved thus nowadays."

"Haint no surgeons in this country," said Mr. Marrs; "what few scattering doctors there is don't follow carving."

"But the new telephone!" I cried. "There is a telephone now from our village to the railroad,--we can get word to a surgeon in the Blue Grass in a few hours; by hard riding he can be here inside of two days. If we can only keep the child alive until then, his life may be saved!"

Blant sprang to his feet, hope transfiguring his haggard face. "Tell me what to do," he said.

"Saddle your best nag for Philip, and let him ride to the school and tell the nurse to telephone for the best surgeon in the state, and that we shall bring Nucky to the hospital to-night on a stretcher."