Part 28

Then the two men tilted their chairs against the little porch in front of Peter Giles' log cabin, and puffed their pipes in silence. The panorama spread out before them showed misty and dreamy among the delicate spiral wreaths of smoke. But was that gossamer-like illusion, lying upon the far horizon, the magic of nicotian, or the vague presence of distant heights? As ridge after ridge came down from the sky in ever-graduating shades of intenser blue, Peter Giles might have told you that this parallel system of enchantment was only "the mountings"; that here was Foxy, and there was Big Injun, and still beyond was another, which he had "hearn tell ran spang up into Virginny." The sky that bent to clasp this kindred blue was of varying moods. Floods of sunshine submerged Chilhowee in liquid gold, and revealed that dainty outline limned upon the northern horizon; but over the Great Smoky mountains, clouds had gathered and a gigantic rainbow bridged the valley. . . . . . . . . Simon Burney did not speak for a moment. . . . "That's a likely gal o' yourn," he drawled, with an odd constraint in his voice,--"a likely gal, that Clarsie." . . .

"Yes," Peter Giles at length replied, "Clarsie air a likely enough gal. But she air mightily sot ter havin' her own way. An' ef 't ain't give to her peaceable-like, she jes' takes it, whether or no."

This statement, made by one presumably informed on the subject, might have damped the ardor of many a suitor,--for the monstrous truth was dawning on Peter Giles's mind that suitor was the position to which this slow elderly widower aspired. But Simon Burney, with that odd, all-pervading constraint still prominently apparent, mildly observed, "Waal, ez much ez I hev seen of her goin's-on, it 'pears ter me az her way air a mighty good way. An' it ain't comical that she likes it." . . . . . . . The song grew momentarily more distinct: among the leaves there were fugitive glimpses of blue and white, and at last Clarsie appeared, walking lightly along the log, clad in her checked homespun dress, and with a pail upon her head.

She was a tall lithe girl, with that delicately transparent complexion often seen among the women of these mountains. Her lustreless black hair lay along her forehead without a ripple or a wave; there was something in the expression of her large eyes that suggested those of a deer,--something free, untamable, and yet gentle. "'Tain't no wonder ter me ez Clarsie is all tuk up with the wild things, an' critters ginerally," her mother was wont to say; "she sorter looks like 'em, I'm a-thinkin'."

As she came in sight there was a renewal of that odd constraint in Simon Burney's face and manner, and he rose abruptly. "Waal," he said, hastily, going to his horse, a raw-boned sorrel, hitched to the fence, "it's about time I war a-startin' home, I reckons."

He nodded to his host, who silently nodded in return, and the old horse jogged off with him down the road, as Clarsie entered the house and placed the pail upon a shelf.

. . . . . . . . .

The breeze freshened, after the sun went down, . . . there were stars in the night besides those known to astronomers; the stellular fire-flies gemmed the black shadows with a fluctuating brilliancy; they circled in and out of the porch, and touched the leaves above Clarsie's head with quivering points of light. A steadier and an intenser gleam was advancing along the road, and the sound of languid footsteps came with it; the aroma of tobacco graced the atmosphere, and a tall figure walked up to the gate.

"Come in, come in," said Peter Giles, rising, and tendering the guest a chair. "Ye air Tom Pratt, ez well ez I kin make out by this light. Waal, Tom, we hain't furgot ye sence ye done been hyar."

. . . . . . . .

The young man took leave presently, in great depression of spirits. . . . Clarsie ascended the ladder to a nook in the roof which she called her room.

For the first time in her life her slumber was fitful and restless, long intervals of wakefulness alternating with snatches of fantastic dreams. . . . And then her mind reverted to Tom Pratt, to old Simon Burney, and to her mother's emphatic and oracular declaration that widowers are in league with Satan, and that the girls upon whom they cast the eye of supernatural fascination have no choice in the matter. "I wish I knowed ef that thar sayin' war true," she murmured, her face still turned to the western spurs, and the moon sinking slowly toward them.

With a sudden resolution she rose to her feet. She knew a way of telling fortunes which was, according to tradition, infallible, and she determined to try it, and ease her mind as to her future. Now was the propitious moment. "I hev always hearn that it won't come true 'thout ye try it jes' before daybreak, an' kneelin' down at the forks of the road." She hesitated a moment and listened intently. "They'd never git done a-laffin' at me, ef they fund it out," she thought. . . . [She went out into the road.] She fixed her eyes upon the mystic sphere dropping down the sky, knelt among the azaleas at the forks of the road, and repeated the time-honored invocation: "Ef I'm a-goin' ter marry a young man, whistle, Bird, whistle. Ef I'm a-goin' ter marry an old man, low, Cow, low. Ef I ain't a-goin' ter marry nobody, knock, Death, knock."

There was a prolonged silence in the matutinal freshness and perfume of the woods. She raised her head, and listened attentively. No chirp of half-awakened bird, no tapping of wood-pecker or the mysterious death-watch; but from far along the dewy aisles of the forest, the ungrateful Spot that Clarsie had fed more faithfully than herself, lifted up her voice, and set the echoes vibrating. Clarsie, however, had hardly time for a pang of disappointment.

While she still knelt among the azaleas, her large deer-like eyes were suddenly dilated with terror. From around the curve of the road came the quick beat of hastening footsteps, the sobbing sound of panting breath, and between her and the sinking moon there passed an attenuated one-armed figure, with a pallid sharpened face, outlined for a moment on its brilliant disk, and dreadful starting eyes, and quivering open mouth. It disappeared in an instant among the shadows of the laurel, and Clarsie, with a horrible fear clutching at her heart, sprang to her feet. . . . the ghost stood before her. She could not nerve herself to run past him, and he was directly in her way homeward.

. . . . . . . . .

"Ye do ez ye air bid, or it'll be the worse for ye," said the "harnt" in a quivering shrill tone. "Thar's hunger in the nex' worl' ez well ez in this, an' ye bring me some vittles hyar this time ter-morrer, an' don't ye tell nobody ye hev seen me, nuther, or it'll be the worse for ye." . . .

The next morning, before the moon sank, Clarsie, with a tin pail in her hand, went to meet the ghost at the appointed place. . . . . . Morning was close at hand. . . . . . the leaves fell into abrupt commotion, and he was standing in the road, beside her. He did not speak, but watched her with an eager, questioning intentness, as she placed the contents of the pail upon the moss at the roadside. "I'm a-comin' agin ter-morrer," she said, gently. . . . Then she slowly walked along her misty way in the dim light of the coming dawn. There was a footstep in the road behind her; she thought it was the ghost once more. She turned, and met Simon Burney, face to face. His rod was on his shoulder, and a string of fish was in his hand.

"Ye air a-doin' wrongful, Clarsie," he said sternly. "It air agin the law fur folks ter feed an' shelter them ez is a-runnin' from jestice. An' ye'll git yerself inter trouble. Other folks will find ye out, besides me, an' then the sheriff 'll be up hyar arter ye."

The tears rose to Clarsie's eyes. This prospect was infinitely more terrifying than the awful doom which follows the horror of a ghost's speech. "I can't help it," she said, however, doggedly swinging the pail back and forth. "I can't gin my consent ter starvin' of folks, even if they air a-hidin' an' a-runnin' from jestice." . . . .

FOOTNOTE:

[47] By permission of Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, Boston.

DANSKE DANDRIDGE.

~1859=----.~

MRS. DANDRIDGE was born in Copenhagen, when her father, Honorable Henry Bedinger, was minister to Denmark. In 1877 she was married to Mr. Stephen Dandridge of Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Her first name, Danske, is the pretty Danish word for Dane, and is pronounced in two syllables.

WORKS.

Joy, and other Poems.

Mrs. Dandridge's poems are as dainty and airy as if the elves themselves had led her to their bowers and discovered to her their secrets; and this is truly what her poetic sense has done, for the poet is a seer and singer of the secrets of nature.

THE SPIRIT AND THE WOOD SPARROW.

(_From Joy, and other Poems._[48])

'Twas long ago: The place was very fair; And from a cloud of snow A spirit of the air Dropped to the earth below. It was a spot by man untrod, Just where I think is only known to God. The spirit, for a while, Because of beauty freshly made Could only smile; Then grew the smiling to a song, And as he sang he played Upon a moonbeam-wired cithole Shaped like a soul.

There was no ear Or far or near, Save one small sparrow of the wood, That song to hear. This, in a bosky tree, Heard all, and understood As much as a small sparrow could By sympathy. 'Twas a fair sight That morn of Spring, When on the lonely height, The spirit paused to sing, Then through the air took flight Still lilting on the wing. And the shy bird, Who all had heard, Straightway began To practice o'er the lovely strain; Again, again; Though indistinct and blurred, He tried each word, Until he caught the last far sounds that fell Like the faint tinkles of a fairy bell.

Now when I hear that song, Which has no earthly tone, My soul is carried with the strain along To the everlasting Throne; To bow in thankfulness and prayer, And gain fresh faith, and love, and patience, there.

FOOTNOTE:

[48] By permission of the author, and publishers. G. P. Putnam's Sons, N. Y.

AMÉLIE RIVES CHANLER.

~1863=----.~

MRS. CHANLER, or AMÉLIE RIVES as she still styles herself in writing, was born in Richmond, Virginia, but passed her early life at the family place in Albemarle County, called "Castle Hill." She is a granddaughter of William Cabell Rives, once minister to France and author of "Life of Madison"; and her grandmother, Mrs. Judith Walker Rives, was a woman of much ability, and left some writings entitled "Home and the World," and "Residence in Europe."

She was married in 1888 to Mr. John Armstrong Chanler of New York and has since spent much time in Paris, studying painting for which she has as great fondness as for writing.

Her first stories were written in the style of the time of Shakspere; the best of them is "Farrier Lass o' Piping Pebworth." They created a sensation as they came out and were said to be the work of a girl under twenty. She has also written stories of Virginia life and of modern times; besides poems, and dramas, in which last her talents seem to reach a higher plane than in any other kind of writing.

WORKS.

A Brother to Dragons. Farrier Lass o' Piping Pebworth. Virginia of Virginia. The Quick or the Dead? According to St. John. Athelwold, [drama]. Barbara Dering, [sequel to The Quick or the Dead?] Nurse Crumpet Tells the Story. Story of Arnon. Inja. Witness of the Sun. Herod and Mariamne, [drama]. Poems, [scattered in magazines]. Tanis, the Sang-Digger.

TANIS.

(_From Tanis, the Sang-Digger._[49])

Gilman was driving along one of the well-kept turnpikes that wind about the Warm Springs Valley. He recognized the austere and solemn beauty that hemmed him in from the far-off outer world; but at the same time he was contrasting it with the sea-coast of his native State, Massachusetts, and a certain creeping homesickness began to rise about his heart.

In addition to this, he had left his delicate wife suffering with an acute neuralgic headache, and also saddened by a yearning for the picturesque old farm-house in which he had been born, and where they had lived during the first year of marriage. The trap which Gilman drove was filled with surveying instruments, and, as he turned into the rough mountain road, which led towards the site of the new railway for which he was now prospecting, the smaller ones began to rattle together and slide from the seat beside him. Finally, as the cart slipped against a stone, the level bounced into a puddle. He was about to jump out when a bold, ringing voice called to him:

"Set still--A'll pick hit up."

Then a figure slid down the rocky bank at his right, her one garment wrinkling from her bare, sturdy legs during the performance.

Gilman had never seen anything like her in his thirty years of varied experience.

She was very tall. A curtain of rough, glittering curls hung to her knees. Her face, clear with that clearness which only a mountain wind can bring, was white as a seagull's breast, except where a dark, yet vivid pink melted into the blue veins on her temples and throat. Her round, fresh lips, smooth as a peony-leaf, were parted in a wide laugh, over teeth large and yellow-white, like the grains on an ear of corn. She wore a loose tunic of blue-gray stuff, which reached to the middle of her legs, covered with grass stains and patches of mould. Her bare feet, somewhat broadened by walking, were well-shaped, the great toe standing apart from the others, the strong, round ankles, although scratched and bruised, perfectly symmetrical. Her arms, bare almost to the shoulder, were like those with which in imagination we complete the Milo. Eyes, round and colored like the edges of broken glass, looked out boldly from under her long black eyebrows. Her nose was straight and well cut, but set impertinently.

As she picked up the muddy level she laughed boisterously and wiped it on her frock.

"Thank you," said Gilman, and then, after a second's hesitation, added: "Where are you going? Perhaps I can give you a lift on your way? Will you get in?"

"Well, a done keer ef a do," she said, still staring at him.

She got in and took the level on her knee, then burst out laughing again--

"A reckon yuh wonders what a'm a haw-hawin' at?" she asked, suddenly. "Well, a'll tell yuh! 'Tiz case a feels jess like this hyuh contrapshun o' yourn. A haint hed a bite sence five this mawnin', and a've got a bubble in th' middle o' me, a ken tell yuh!"

She opened her flexible mouth almost to her ears, showing both rows of speckless teeth, and roaring mirthfully again.

"I've got some sandwiches, here--won't you have one?" said Gilman.

"Dunno--what be they?" she asked, rather suspiciously, eyeing him sidewise.

He explained to her, and she accepted one, tearing from it a huge semi-circle, which she held in her cheek while exclaiming:

"Murder! hain't that good, though? D'yuh eat them things ev'y day? Yuh looks hit! You're a real fine-lookin' feller--mos' ez good-lookin' ez Bill."

"Who is Bill?" asked Gilman, much interested in this, his first conversation with a genuine savage.

"Bill? he's muh pard, an' muh brother, too. I come down hyuh tuh git him a drink o' water, but a hain't foun' a spring yit."

"No, there isn't one in several miles," said Gilman.

"Hyuh!" she cried. "Lemme git out." . . . And she was out, with the bound of a deer. "You g'long," she said; "a'm sorry a rode this far wi' you. You'll larf 'bout muh bar foots, an' this hyuh rag o' mine, wi' them po' white trash an' niggers. Whar you fum, anyhow? You hain't a Fuginia feller. A kin tell by yo' talk. You called roots 'ruts' jess now, an' yuh said we'd 'sun' be whar them other fellers be. Whar you fum?"

"From Massachusetts," said Gilman.

"S'that another langidge fuh some name a knows?"

"No--it's the real name of another State."

"Well, hit's 'nuff tuh twis' a body's tongue, fuh life, so a done blame yuh s'much fuh yo' funny talk. Mawnin'." And she began to swing herself upon a great lichen-crested boulder by the roadside. . . . . .

Gilman was naturally curious as to the type of the young barbarian whom he had met on his drive to Black Creek, and, during a pause in his work, he told a young fellow named Watkins of his adventure, and asked him to what class the girl belonged.

"I reckon, sir, she was a sang-digger," said Watkins, laughing. "They're a awful wild lot, mostly bad as they make 'em, with no more idea of right an' wrong than a lot o' ground-horgs."

"But what is a 'sang-digger'?" asked Gilman, more and more curious.

"Well, sir, sang, or ginseng, ez the real name is, is a sorter root that grows thick in the mountains about here. They make some sorter medicine outer it. I've chawed it myself for heartburn. It's right paying, too--sang-digging is, sir; you ken git at least a dollar a pound for it, an' sometimes you ken dig ten pounds in a day, but that's right seldom. Two or three pounds a day is doin' well. They're a awful low set, sir, sang-diggers is. We call 'em 'snakes' hereabouts, 'cause they don't have no place to live cep'in' in winter, and then they go off somewhere or ruther, to their huts. But in the summer and early autumn they stop where night ketches 'em, an' light a fire an' sleep 'round it. They cert'n'y are a bad lot, sir. They'll steal a sheep or a horse ez quick ez winkin'. Why, t'want a year ago that they stole a mighty pretty mare o' mine, that I set a heap by, an' rid off her tail an' mane a-tearin' through the brush with her. She got loose somehow an' come back to me. But they stole two horses for ole Mr. Hawkins, down near Fallin' Springs, an' he a'in't been able to git 'em back. There's awful murders an' villainies done by 'em. But some o' them sang-digger gals is awful pretty. . . . Yes, sir, I reckon she was a sang-digger, sure enough."

[This wild creature of the woods was treated kindly by Gilman and his wife, and she finally sacrificed herself to save Mrs. Gilman.]

FOOTNOTE:

[49] By permission of the author, and publishers, the Town Topics Publishing Co., N. Y.

GRACE KING.

GRACE KING was born in New Orleans, the daughter of William W. King, and has made a reputation as a writer of short stories depicting Creole life. Her "Balcony Stories" are like pictures in their vivid intensity.

WORKS.

Monsieur Motte. Earthlings. Balcony Stories. Bonne Maman. Bayou L'Ombre. History of Louisiana.

LA GRANDE DEMOISELLE.

A BALCONY STORY.

(_From the Century Magazine_,[50] Jan., 1893.)

That was what she was called by everybody as soon as she was seen or described. Her name, besides baptismal titles, was Idalie Sainte Foy Mortemart des Islets. When she came into society, in the brilliant little world of New Orleans, it was the event of the season, and after she came in, whatever she did became also events. Whether she went, or did not go; what she said, or did not say; what she wore, and did not wear--all these became important matters of discussion, quoted as much or more than what the President said, or the governor thought. And in those days, the days of '59, New Orleans was not, as it is now, a one-heiress place, but it may be said that one could find heiresses then as one finds type-writing girls now.

Mademoiselle Idalie received her birth and what education she had on her parent's plantation, the famed old Reine Sainte Foy place, and it is no secret that, like the ancient kings of France, her birth exceeded her education.

It was a plantation, the Reine Sainte Foy, the richness and luxury of which are really well described in those perfervid pictures of tropical life, at one time the passion of philanthropic imaginations, excited and exciting over the horrors of slavery. Although these pictures were then often accused of being purposely exaggerated, they seem now to fall short of, instead of surpassing, the truth. Stately walls, acres of roses, miles of oranges, unmeasured fields of cane, colossal sugar-house--they were all there, and all the rest of it, with the slaves, slaves, slaves everywhere, whole villages of negro cabins. And there were also, most noticeable to the natural, as well as visionary eye--there were the ease, idleness, extravagance, self-indulgence, pomp, pride, arrogance, in short the whole enumeration, the moral _sine qua non_, as some people considered it, of the wealthy slaveholder of aristocratic descent and tastes.

What Mademoiselle Idalie cared to learn she studied, what she did not she ignored; and she followed the same simple rule untrammeled in her eating, drinking, dressing, and comportment generally; and whatever discipline may have been exercised on the place, either in fact or fiction, most assuredly none of it, even so much as in a threat, ever attainted her sacred person. When she was just turned sixteen, Mademoiselle Idalie made up her mind to go into society. Whether she was beautiful or not, it is hard to say. It is almost impossible to appreciate properly the beauty of the rich, the very rich. The unfettered development, the limitless choice of accessories, the confidence, the self-esteem, the sureness of expression, the simplicity of purpose, the ease of execution,--all these produce a certain effect of beauty behind which one really cannot get to measure length of nose, or brilliancy of the eye. This much can be said; there was nothing in her that positively contradicted any assumption of beauty on her part, or credit of it on the part of others. She was very tall and very thin with small head, long neck, black eyes, and abundant straight black hair,--for which her hair-dresser deserved more praise than she,--good teeth of course, and a mouth that, even in prayer, talked nothing but commands; that is about all she had _en fait d'ornements_, as the modistes say. It may be added that she walked as if the Reine Sainte Foy plantation extended over the whole earth, and the soil of it were too vile for her tread.

Of course she did not buy her toilets in New Orleans. Everything was ordered from Paris, and came as regularly through the custom-house as the modes and robes to the milliners. She was furnished by a certain house there, just as one of a royal family would be at the present day. As this had lasted from her layette up to her sixteenth year, it may be imagined what took place when she determined to make her début. Then it was literally, not metaphorically, _carte blanche_, at least so it got to the ears of society. She took a sheet of note-paper, wrote the date at the top, added "I make my début in November," signed her name at the extreme end of the sheet, addressed it to her dressmaker in Paris, and sent it. . . . . .

That she was admired, raved about, loved even, goes without saying. After the first month she held the refusal of half the beaux of New Orleans. Men did absurd, undignified, preposterous things for her: and she? Love? Marry? The idea never occurred to her. She treated the most exquisite of her pretenders no better than she treated her Paris gowns, for the matter of that. She could not even bring herself to listen to a proposal patiently; whistling to her dogs, in the middle of the most ardent protestations, or jumping up and walking away with a shrug of the shoulders, and a "Bah!"

Well! every one knows what happened after '59. There is no need to repeat. The history of one is the history of all. . . . . . . . .