Part 12

"I happened to be raising the window of Father Mills's room,--he likes it down at night no matter how hot it is, and wants it raised and lowered all through the day,--and I saw Merica run out of Miss Judy's kitchen, and jump the back fence. She couldn't have more than 'lighted on the ground on the other side, when the air was filled all of a sudden with aprons and head-handkerchiefs--and smothered squalls. And bless your soul, there sat Miss Judy by the front window, knowing not a breath about what was going on over in the orchard--calm and sweet as any May morning and pretty as a pink--the dear little thing,--darning away on Miss Sophia's stocking, till you couldn't tell which was stocking and which was darn; and talking along in her chirrupy funny little way about that Becky (whoever she is), for all the world as if she were some real, live woman living that minute, right on the other side of the big road; and there was poor Miss Sophia a-listening, pleased as pleased could be, and mightily interested too, though it was plain to be seen that she had no more notion of what Miss Judy was talking about than the man in the moon;" and Kitty Mills took up her apron to wipe away the tears that had come from laughing over the picture thus conjured up.

Old lady Gordon did not enter into the conclave. She thought nothing about Miss Judy in connection with the rivalry between Eunice and Merica for the heart and hand of her black coachman, Mr. Enoch Cotton. Indeed, she thought nothing at all about the matter. In passing it seemed to her quite in the usual order of colored events. It had not up to that time touched her own comfort at any point. Eunice, knowing her mistress, was careful, even in the height of her jealous rages, even when she met Merica in the orchard by challenge to combat, to guard the excellence and the regularity of old lady Gordon's meals, thereby insuring against any interference from her.

"Just give Miss Frances her way and she'll give you your way, and that's more than you can say for most folks; lots of folks want their way and your way too, but Miss Frances don't."

Eunice had said this to Enoch, who was comparatively a newcomer, speaking in the picturesque dialect of her race, which is so agreeable to hear and so disagreeable to read. Having determined, as a mature widow knowing her own mind, to take Enoch Cotton unto herself for better or worse, it seemed to Eunice best to instruct him with regard to the keeping of his place as the gardener and the driver of the antiquated coach in which old lady Gordon, who never walked, fared forth at long and irregular intervals. This helpful instruction had been given before Merica's entrance into the field came cruelly to chill the confidence existing between Eunice and Enoch Cotton. It was during this completely confidential time that Eunice had also told him that it was entirely a mistake to suppose the mistress to be as hard to get along with as some people thought she was. The main thing, the only thing in fact, was to keep from crossing her comfort.

"_I_'ve got nothing to do but to cook what she wants cooked in the way she wants it cooked, with her batter cakes brown on both sides; and to be careful to have the meals on the table at the stroke of the clock. You've got nothing to do but to raise plenty of the vegetables she likes, and to have the coach 'round at the front gate to the minute by the watch. We won't have any trouble with Miss Frances so long as we do what she wants and don't cross her comfort. If you ever do cross it--even one time--then look out!"

Eunice had eloquently concluded these valuable hints, silently nodding her head, with her blue-palmed black hands on her broad hips. And Enoch Cotton--alas! learned his lesson so well that, although old lady Gordon became gradually aware of his inconstancy, she saw no reason to interfere in Eunice's behalf.

Miss Judy, the only person whose comfort was really imperilled, sat chatting that day with Miss Sophia, all unconscious, till the peas were cooked. She then went out to put them in her mother's prettiest china bowl--the little blue one with the wreath of pink roses round it--and daintily spread a fringed napkin over the top. Maybe Tom might notice how pretty it looked, Miss Judy said to Miss Sophia, though he noticed sadly little of what went on around him. Anyway, it would be a compliment to Anne to send the peas in the best bowl. Miss Judy hesitated before putting the soup in the next best bowl. It would be a serious matter indeed if the old man should seize it and fling it out of the window before Kitty could stop him, as he often did with her cooking and her dishes. Still, it did not seem quite polite to Kitty to send it in a tin cup, so that, after Miss Judy had consulted Miss Sophia, who assented very quickly and firmly,--fearing that the rest of the soup might get cold,--Merica was given the second best bowl also, but charged not to let go her hold on it until Kitty herself took it out of her hand.

"Give it to old Mr. Mills with sister Sophia's compliments," Miss Judy said, with unconscious irony.

Miss Sophia ate her portion of the soup with much satisfaction, while Miss Judy watched her with beaming eyes, turning at length to follow Merica's progress with a radiant gaze. It always made her happy to do anything for any one; and she never felt that she had very little to do with. As Merica came out of the Watsons' gate and started up the big road with the bowl of soup, Miss Judy, in her satisfaction, could not help calling the girl back to ask whether Tom Watson appeared to notice the wreath of roses. It was a bit disappointing to have Merica say that she hardly thought he had. Then Miss Judy, sighing a little, gave the servant further directions, telling her to go on from the Mills' house up to Miss Pettus's to ask for the loan of the chicken-snake which Mr. Pettus had killed that morning. Miss Judy was afraid that Miss Pettus would forget to hang it before sundown (white side up) on the fence to fetch rain, which was really beginning to be needed very much by the gardens. If Miss Pettus neglected it till the sun went down, there would of course be no use in hanging it on the fence at all, so that, to make sure, it was better for Merica to borrow it and fetch it home when she came. Merica sullenly demurred that the snake would not stay on the stick, and that it would crawl off as fast as it was put on; adding rather insolently that she could not be all day putting a garter-snake on a stick and having it crawl off every step of the way down the big road--with a fire under the wash-kettle. But Miss Judy gently assured her that the garter-snake--or any other kind of a serpent--would stay on a stick if it were put on tail first. It stuck like wax then, Miss Judy said, and could not crawl off, no matter how hard it might try.

"And when you've got the garter-snake tail-first over the stick, you might stop and remind Miss Doris not to be late in coming by for me to go with her to-morrow morning to take her dancing lesson. No, wait a moment; you had best ask her if she will be so very kind as to come to see me this evening, so that we may practise some songs--particularly 'Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer'--and then we can talk over the dancing lesson," said Miss Judy.

There were not many days during the whole year, and there had hardly been a whole day for many a year, on which Miss Judy and Doris could not find some good and urgent reason for seeing one another.

XIII

THE DANCING LESSON

Miss Judy's ideas of chaperonage were very strict. It would have seemed to her most improper to allow Doris to take the dancing lesson alone. Not that she thought any harm of the dancing-master; Miss Judy thought no harm of any one. Her ideals were always quite apart from all considerations of reality. It made no difference to her that only the neighbors were usually to be met on the way, and that on the morning of the first lesson the big road lay wholly deserted when she passed out of her little gate with Doris by her side--she herself so small, so timid, so frail, and Doris so tall, so valiant, so strong. Yet the sense of guardianship, full of deep pride and grave delight, filled her gentle heart even as it must have filled the Lion's when he went guarding Una.

It was a pity that Lynn Gordon missed the pretty sight. He had passed Miss Judy's gate before she came forth with her charge, and now, all unconscious of his loss, strolled idly on in the opposite direction. Doris was in his mind as he went by the silver poplars, but he caught no glimpse of her through the thick foliage, and could barely see the snowy walls of the house. Slowly he walked on as far as the brow of the hill at the southern end of the village, as he had done once before, and stood for a moment again looking out over the land. Then, turning, he retraced his aimless steps.

The day was like a flawless diamond, melting into the rarest pearl where the haze of the horizon purpled the far-off hills. The sapphire dome of the heavens arched without a cloud. Below stretched the meadows, lying deep and sweet in new-cut grass and alive and vivid and musical with the movement, the color, and the song of the birds. He did not know the names of half of them; but there were vireos, and orioles, and thrushes, and bobolinks, and song-sparrows, and jay-birds, and robins--all wearing their gayest plumage and singing their blithest songs. Even the flickers wore their reddest collars and sang their sweetest notes, as if vying with the redwings which flashed their little black bodies hither and thither as flame bears smoke. The scarlet tanagers also blossomed like gorgeous flowers all over the wide green fields. And the bluebirds--blue--blue--blue--gloriously singing, seemed to be bringing the hue and the harmony of the radiant heavens down to the glowing earth.

The melodious chorus was pierced now and then by a note of infinitely sad sweetness, as a bird lamented the wreck of its hopes which had followed the cutting of the grass. But the mourner was far afield, so that its sweet lament was but a soft and distant echo of the world-pain which forever follows the passing of the Reaper. The young man heeded it as little as we all heed it, till our own pass under the scythe. He stopped to lean on the fence, drinking in the beauty and fragrance, thus unwittingly disturbing the peace and happiness of a robin family which was dwelling in a near-by blackberry bush. The head of this flowering house now flew out, protesting with every indignant feather against this unmannerly intrusion of a mere mortal upon a lady-bird's bower. Trailing his wings and ruffling his crest, he sidled away along the top of the fence as if there were nothing interesting among those blossoms for anybody to spy out--in a word, doing everything a true gentleman should do under such circumstances, no matter how red his waistcoat may be. Another robin sang what he thought of the situation, expressing himself so plainly from the other side of the big road, that even the young man understood; while still another robin, too far away to know what shocking things were going on, poured out a rapturous song as though all living were but revelling in sunshine.

Lynn Gordon turned away, thinking with a smile what a wonderful thing love must be, since it could so move the gentlest to fierceness, as he had just seen; and could bring the fiercest to gentleness, as he had often heard. Smiling at his own idle thoughts, he wandered on. The loosened petals of the blackberry bloom drifted before him like snowflakes wafted by the south wind. The rich deep clover field on the other side of the way was rosy and fragrant with blossoms. The wild grape, too, was in flower, its elusive aromatic scent flying down from the wooded hillsides, as though it were the winged, woodland spirit of fragrance.

Approaching the woods at the foot of the hills, Lynn saw a log cabin, which he had not seen before, although he knew that the land upon which it stood was a part of the Gordon estate; part of the lands which would one day be his own. As his careless glance rested on the cabin, strains of music coming from it caught and fixed his attention. Some one was playing an old-fashioned dance tune on a violin, and Lynn unthinkingly followed the stately measure till he found himself standing unobserved before the humble dwelling from which it came, free to gaze his fill at a scene revealed by the open passage between the two low rooms.

The passage walls were spotless with white-wash, and the shadows of the trees standing close behind showed deeply green beyond. Against these soft green shadows and on one side of the passage stood the white-haired Frenchman. His fiddle was under his chin, held tenderly as though it were a precious thing that he dearly loved. His head was a little on one side and his eyes were partially closed,--like the birds,--as if he too were under the spell of his own music. His right arm, jauntily raised, wielded the bow: his left toe was advanced, then his right, now this one, now that one--advancing, bowing, retiring--all as solemn as solemn could be.

And more serious if possible than Monsieur Beauchamp was Doris herself, facing him from the opposite side of the passage; grave, indeed, as any wood nymph performing some sacred rite in a sylvan temple. When the young man saw her first, she stood poised and fluttering, as a butterfly poises and flutters uncertain whether to alight or to fly. The thin skirt of the book-muslin party coat, delicately held out at the sides by the very tips of her fingers, and lightly caught by the soft wind, spread like the wings of a white bird. The slippers, heel-less and yellow as buttercups, were thus brought bewitchingly into view--with the narrow ribbon daintily crossed over the instep and tied around the ankle--as they darted in and out beneath the fluttering skirt. Her golden hair, loosed by the dance and the breeze, fell around her shoulders in a radiant mantle, growing more beautiful with every airy movement. The exquisite curve of her cheek, nearly always colorless, now faintly reflected the rose-red of her perfect lips as the snowdrift reflects the glow of the sunset. Her large dark eyes were lost under her long dark lashes, and never wandered for an instant from the little Frenchman's guiding toes. And Doris understood those toes perfectly, although she knew not a word of the dancing-master's native language, and not much of her own when spoken by him, as he now mingled the two, quite carried away by this sudden and late return to his true vocation. She followed their every motion as thistledown follows the wind: stepping delicately, advancing coquettishly, courtesying quaintly--as Miss Judy had taught her,--and retiring, alluring, only to begin over and over again. It was all as artless, as graceful, and as natural as the floating of the thistledown; and such a wonderful dance as never was seen on land or sea, unless--as the young man thought, with the sight going to his head like royal burgundy--the fairies might have danced something of the kind on Erin's enchanted moss within the moonlit ring.

On fiddled the old Frenchman and on winged the young girl, both of them far too deeply absorbed in the serious business in hand to notice the onlooker, till Miss Judy came, actually running and almost out of breath. She had seen the young man's approach to the cabin, but she was too far away to reach it before him, although she had come as quickly as she possibly could. Hastening, she sharply reproached herself for having been persuaded to go so far from the cabin to look at Mrs. Beauchamp's strawberry bed. It was, of course, utterly impossible to have foreseen this young gentleman's appearance. Nevertheless, she should not have left Doris, poor child, alone for a moment--none knew that better than herself. And now to see what had come of her unpardonable thoughtlessness! What would this stranger think of Doris, or of any well brought up girl, whom he thus found neglected? At this thought Miss Judy, for all her mildness, ruffled with indignation as a hen ruffles at any rough touch upon her soft little chicks. She would try, she said to herself, to retrieve her mistake. She would do her best to show this grandson of old lady Gordon--who made fun of everybody--that her Doris was no ignorant rustic, roaming the woods all forgotten by her proper guardians. As she ran, much agitated and even alarmed, the little lady mechanically looked over her shoulder and put her little hands behind her back to make sure that the point of her neckerchief was precisely where it should be. She never felt quite equal to a difficult undertaking until she was certain of the point's exact location, and now, having learned by long practice to tell with some degree of certainty by touch,--on account of its being so hard to look in the long mirror,--she now thought that it was in its proper place, and she accordingly entered the green-shadowed end of the passage with a very high air. Her manner was indeed as high and even haughty a manner as could possibly be assumed by a very small, very gentle old lady, who was blushing, and trying to get her breath after a rush across a ploughed field. The greeting which she gave Lynn Gordon was therefore noticeably cold; also the introduction to Doris was plainly wrung from her by politeness, and given with marked reluctance. So that the young man, not understanding in the least, naturally wondered greatly at the change in the little lady, who had been so winningly gracious on the previous day.

Monsieur Beauchamp's eager hospitality did something to make Lynn feel less like an unpardonable intruder. And madame, also, was kind in her matter-of-fact way. She took no notice whatever of her husband's introducing her as the Empress Maria. Acting as though she had been deaf she placed chairs for her guests, and then went out to fetch them some new crab cider in thick glass tumblers on a large deep plate. An inflexible custom of Oldfield required that a guest should be offered some kind of refreshment, no matter what the time of day. Fortunately, there was no rigid rule as to the kind of refreshment; one kind would do as well as another, provided only that something was offered promptly. Each Oldfield housekeeper had her own preference, her own specialty. Miss Pettus might with perfect propriety offer a piece of fried chicken at three o'clock in the afternoon to a guest who had dined at one; old lady Gordon might order a full meal at any hour for any one who dropped in between meals, to her own and everybody else's entire satisfaction; Miss Judy might serve a handful of gooseberries, either green or ripe, on her mother's prettiest plate, and the guest always remarked how pretty it was, whether she dared eat it or not. Mrs. Beauchamp accordingly felt herself to be uncommonly lucky in having this newly made, still sweet, crab cider to offer her visitors. She had seen the time when she had been obliged to hand a glass of toddy, and that, too, without a sprig of mint or a bit of ice.

It was quite as much a part of Oldfield manners to accept the refreshment as to offer it. Miss Judy took her glass of cider and sipped it daintily, saying how nice it was, yet managing while doing this to make it quite plain that the intruder was meant to feel that _he_ had no share in the sweet graciousness extended to her hostess. The eyes of the two young people met involuntarily, and although Doris, coloring, dropped her eyes in confusion, Lynn saw the sudden dimpling of her cheek. It was the second time they had looked at each other; Doris had given him one startled, fleeting glance, with a frightened exclamation and a hurried dropping of skirts, when she had first seen him standing in front of the passage, looking at her as she danced. He now found no opportunity to speak to her. Miss Judy arose to take Doris away as soon as courtesy would allow her to do so without seeming to slight Mrs. Beauchamp's cider. She was ever more careful of the feelings of her inferiors than of her equals, if that were possible. She was quite determined, nevertheless, to withdraw at once. The lesson might be resumed another day, she said to Monsieur Beauchamp, gently but firmly, adding that Miss Wendall's mother and uncle were doubtless expecting her. And this Miss Judy said loftily, almost haughtily, in a tone calculated to inform the young gentleman that Miss Wendall's mother and uncle were personages to be reckoned with. As Miss Judy left her seat, Doris also arose and started to get her hat, which was hanging against the wall. Lynn Gordon eagerly sprang up and took it down and handed it to her. He had no thought, however, of accepting his dismissal, when Miss Judy, after taking leave of the dancing-master and his wife with a grand little air which puzzled the worthy pair exceedingly, merely inclined her head stiffly in his direction. Instead, he coolly went before her and Doris to the gate, and, after holding it open till they had passed out, calmly followed them, carefully taking his place by Miss Judy's side, and away from Doris.

For a few paces Miss Judy was silent with surprise, rigid with displeasure. She went, carrying her little head very high indeed, and taking dainty, mincing steps. She held up the front of her black bombazine by a delicately small pinch of the cloth between her forefinger and thumb, and her little finger was very elegantly crooked. Her sweet face was set as a flint. She was stern in the determination to set Doris right in the estimation of old lady Gordon's grandson--this handsome, mannerly, young gentleman, who might nevertheless have his grandmother's disposition as well as her features, for all Miss Judy knew. Yet her stiffness began to thaw under Lynn's genial frankness as a light frost melts under a warm sun. He was tactful considering his age, his inexperience, and especially his sex--if tact be ever a matter of age and experience, as it is almost always one of sex. He had, too, a gay, boyish way about him which was very winning, and which gradually disarmed gentle Miss Judy almost completely within the length of a couple of rods. Within three rods she began to talk quite naturally, the only lingering sign of her mildly fixed purpose being the unusually didactic turn of her remarks.

"You know, I presume, Mr. Gordon," she said primly and with significant distinctness, as one who weighs her words, "that this is the oldest portion of Kentucky. There is, as I am well aware, a widespread but erroneous impression that the Blue Grass Region is older than this; but no well-read person could possibly fall into such an unaccountable error. The real Kentucky pioneer was Thomas Walker, who came from Virginia through Cumberland Gap into the south-eastern part of the state in 1750, and made explorations coming this way;--not Daniel Boone, who first entered the northern and middle part of it as late as 1769. The Blue Grass people are not to blame, perhaps, for honestly believing their section to be the oldest in Kentucky, since most of them have been brought up to believe it; but it is really surprising that, with a good many reading citizens who know something of history, they should cling to this extraordinary misbelief in opposition to all written and unwritten history of the state. The first house, too, was built here in the Pennyroyal Region, near Green River. Why, my dear sir, I can give you personal assurance that the ruins of this first house in Kentucky are still to be seen. I have never seen them myself," added Miss Judy, scrupulously; "but many friends of mine have seen them."