Part 4

"People under the shadow of my voice,--all you that the mountains has give birth and suck to,--you know what I mean. Though we air ignorant folk, not able to get much acquainted with God through his written Word, yet He hain't never left us without a witness; He hain't never failed to speak to our minds and our hearts. In the high, lifted-up places, gazing out over the green mountain-tops, with maybe the sun-ball drapping low in the west, and the clouds and the elements all a-praising Him in their beauty; or maybe of a cold winter's day, with the whole world white and the snow a-sparkling and the shadows deep-blue in the hollows; He talks to us, He shows us things that no level-lander don't know nothing about, or get no inkling of--visions, and dreams, and things to come. You have all, even the meanest, kotched a glimp of 'em. For we air a seeing people.

"And several times in sech visions, friends, I have beheld down there below, in the valley of Troublesome, all manner of peaceful and happy homes, where every man had his mind made up to let liquor and guns alone, and the women-folks tended their offsprings in the fear of the Lord, and even the young was too busy getting larning to be briggaty and feisty.

"I allow, moreover, that there is but few here that, in their better hours, hain't beheld and wished for the same. But how hit was to come about didn't appear. We wa'n't able to help ourselves, or bring about a change; hit was like a land-slip: things had got too much headway to be turnt back. We needed outside help, but where hit was to come from, nobody knowed. But from the time I were a leetle shirt-tail boy, hoeing corn on yon hillsides, I have had faith to believe the Lord would send hit in some time, from somewheres, and have never ceased a-praying for hit.

"And in the weeks past, friends, sence these here women tuck up their abode with us, hit has appeared like my prayers was answered, my visions a-coming true. I hain't heared a gun fired off sence that first night they come in; I have seed the boys that ginerally drinks and fights and shoots (because they hain't got nothing better to do) all a-gethered in, happy and peaceable, singing and playing, and even sewing; and the gals, that is apt to idle and squander their time, taking joy in larning how to cook right vittles and dig out dirt; and the older folks likewise waking up to things they never heared of before; and me myself,--which hit don't seem noways possible, but yet hit is true,--me, that nigh a lifetime ago had give up all hope of ever being knowledgeable; me, with you might say both feet in the grave, becoming a man of larning. For the women here has already teached me my letters, and I'm a-studying on page three of my primer; and before the summer passes I'll be a-reading in my grandsir's old yaller Bible I have churrished so long, praise the Lord!

"In all which, friends, I see the hand of the Almighty. Hit is Him that has sont these women in to us; hit is Him that has led 'em along the rough way to our help; hit is Him that has answered my long-raised prayers.

"Now, the Lord having done his part so complete, and these here women a-doing theirn, what about ourn? Deep down in our hearts, don't we feel to do something, too, to help along the good work and bring the visions to pass?

"There is several things, citizens and offsprings, we can do if we so feel to. One is to treat these women kind and friendly, and incourage 'em to keep on; another is to send our young-uns in to take the benefits of what they can get. But the most demandingest thing of all for us to do, 'pears like, is to patch up our differences and troubles for the time the women air amongst us, and publicly agree on hit. I hain't got no differences or troubles with nobody nowhere, thank God! but some of my offsprings has, and this is what I am getting down to, right now. I ax my grandson, Darcy Kent, and likewise my young friend, Fult Fallon, that has already showed sech a fine sperrit here to-day, to step forrard here, whilst I lay the matter before 'em."

The two young men, startled, flushed, reluctant, came slowly forward, avoiding one another's eyes, and stood, some distance apart, in front of Uncle Ephraim, at the foot of the rock. The audience held its breath.

"I praise and thank you, boys," began the old man, "that in these past few days, for the sake of these women and the work they are doing for us, you have turnt aside from follering your feelings and have sunk your troubles out of sight. I was glad a-Saturday, when I seed you playing in the same set. I was glad when I seed you, and all the boys that follers you both, a-keeping peace on the hill here to-day. Hit is fine and honorable in both of you; and the only trouble is, we hain't got no assurance hit will last, and that your innard feelings won't bust out in death and destruction maybe the next minute. Hit is, therefore, my desire to counsel you two boys--being the leaders in the war--to declare here and now a truce, a solemn truce, in the presence of this county, for the full time the women stays with us.

"Hatred is long and lasty, boys--you have got a lifetime before you to work hit out in. The folks of this county is plumb wore to a frazzle with fighting and fear. What they need is a spell of rest. I allow you would have kept the peace anyhow for these few weeks, out of respect to the women; but everybody'll feel better if hit's agreed on in public. Now I don't ax you to take one another's hands--hit would be hy-pocrisy, your feelings being what they air; but I do ax you both to jine hands with me, and give your solemn word not to take up the war again in no way, or let it be tuck up by your friends, while these women stays with us. Ponder hit, boys,--study on hit,--take all the time you need; be plumb satisfied in your minds."

Silence fell, while Uncle Ephraim and all the audience gazed upon the two tall young men, one so fair, one so dark, both so handsome, and both standing as if turned to stone.

Uncle Ephraim's voice again broke the intense stillness.

"As I look upon you two boys," he said, "both so pretty, both so upstanding and brave, both orphants through this war that has been handed down to you, both honest as the day, both feeling hit your bounden duty to kill each other off if you can, both knowing that, if either one had his way, t'other's fair body would be laying under the sod, hit does seem like sorrow plumb swallows me up, and my heart swells too big for hits socket, like I would gladly pour out my life here before you, if hit could only bring you together in right feeling.

"Boys, when Amy here was a-reading Scripter to me a-Sunday, she read where hit said, 'Give place to wrath--vengeance is mine, saith the Lord'; and another, and better, read: 'Love your enemies, pray for them that despitefully use you.' I ax you to meditate on them words in days to come, to open up your hearts and your minds to 'em. Not now,--the day is still far off when you can accept sech idees,--love being a puny-growing and easy-killed plant. I don't ax for nothing of that kind now. All I request is your word calling a truce while the women stays. All I ax is for you to think about the county and forget yourselves. Do you, Darcy, my offspring, and the oldest of the two, feel to give me your hand on hit?"

Darcy, flushed and then pale, reached up and slowly laid a hand in his grandfather's. "I do," he said, firmly.

Fult did not wait to be asked. "Me, too," he said, taking Uncle Ephraim's other hand. Then, impulsively, "And I'll say furder, Uncle Ephraim, that if all the Kents was like you there never would have been no war."

"There would not," repeated Uncle Ephraim, emphatically, clasping the hands of the two.

He looked out over the assembly. "Citizens of this county," he said, "you have witnessed this solemn covenant this day made and sealed in your presence. And I call upon all here that has ever tuck sides or had hard feelings, to see to hit that they keep the truce their leaders has agreed on, and make hit stand. And I hereby declare peace in this county for the time these women stays with us. And now, may the Lord dig round our hearts with the mattock of his love, till the roots goes to spreading, and the sap goes to rising, and the leaves buds out, and the blossoms of love and righteousness shoots forth and abounds in all our lives!"

IV

THE SINGING GAL

It was not until the train pulled out of the station that Isabel felt sure she was really going to the mountains. When the letter had come the day before, from Amy Scott to Mrs. Gwynne, begging the loan of her daughter for a few weeks, to help in the social work on Troublesome Creek,--"for," it read, "the singing classes are by far our most popular feature, and none of us can sing; our need of a singer is really desperate,"--Mrs. Gwynne had at first refused point-blank to let Isabel go. "I could not sleep at night," she said, "with you up in that wild country, where they do nothing but make moonshine whiskey and kill each other off in those horrible feuds."

Mr. Gwynne's persuasion, added to Isabel's importunity, had at last won a reluctant consent; but during the hurried preparations, Isabel was in constant fear of its withdrawal; and while she and her father were driving the three miles to town in the family carriage, she was haunted by the dread of galloping hoofs behind, and the voice of one of the negro boys at the window saying, "Miss Millicent say she done change her mind, and for Miss Isabel to come on back home." Even at the station, she was in such nervous fear that she could hardly show appreciation of Thomas Vance's presence, and of the inevitable box of candy and new novel.

She hardly knew what Thomas and her father said as they got her settled in the dingy day-coach (there was nothing better on this newly built road to the coal-fields in the edge of the mountains), her one desire being to hear the train-bell ring for a start. After what seemed a long time, it did so; Thomas and Mr. Gwynne jumped off, and Isabel felt that she was embarked upon the adventure of her life.

The trip was an all-day one, the heat great, the train exceedingly dirty; but Isabel was all eyes and interest. They passed, first, through the beautiful Blue Grass country, with its smooth, rolling pastures, clear brooks, sleek herds of cattle and horses, and stately homes like her own, set back amid tall trees; then into the poorer and rougher "knobs," where life was evidently a different proposition; then the knobs rose into hills, and the hills became steeper and higher, until the train was shut in between cliffs and mountains. The progressive change in the people who got into and off the train all along the way was as striking as the changing topography. It was hard to believe that all could belong to the same state.

About five in the afternoon they arrived at the end of the railroad--a mountain county-seat famous for the terrible feud then raging.

A tall old man in a slouch hat was standing by the platform, and as Isabel descended he inquired solemnly, "Is this the singing gal?"

"Yes; and of course you're Uncle Adam Howard," she answered.

Without a word, he took her suitcase and led the way along the track, between endless piles of ties and lumber. Once she broke the silence to ask, "How is the feud coming on now?"

To her surprise, he stopped, looked hastily all about, and replied in a low voice, "Hit hain't safe to talk about the war in public. Walls, and even lumber-piles, has years, and trees has tongues, and a man that aims to live peaceable can't see, hear, nor tell nothing."

He left the track at last, and turned up a slope toward an ugly frame house, backed into a cliff, which had the words "Mountainside Hotel" in large letters across its front. From its porch, a view of the straggling, muddy town could be had.

The loud supper-bell rang as they entered, and they went at once to the dining-room. Two drummers were the only other guests; the landlady and her daughters waited on the table, and the meal was a silent one.

When she was shown to her room afterward, however, Isabel ventured to make inquiries about the "war," and the landlady became loquacious upon the subject, and even offered to take her to see the blood-spots where several of the feudists had perished--an offer instantly accepted.

Skirting numerous deep mud-holes, and many reposing hogs and cows, they came at last to the courthouse, stronghold of the law, which proved to be the scene of the blood-spots. There they were, on step and walls, black and grisly.

"Hit's a sight in this world, the terrible things that goes on, and the men that's kilt and wounded," said the landlady. "If my man was alive, or my gals was boys, I wouldn't never see ary grain of peace."

Just across the street from the courthouse, she pointed out the large store belonging to one of the feud leaders, from the upper windows of which the shots had been fired that caused some of the spots. "Laywayings," "ambushings," battles, murder, and sudden death, seemed to be the order of the day; and apparently neither the state militia nor any other power could quell the trouble.

On their return to the hotel, Isabel found in her room, which was also the parlor, the three daughters of the house and the two drummers. One of the girls was producing loud discords on an organ with a front of scrollwork over red flannel, which adorned one corner; and as she had preëmpted the only chair in the room, the others sat on the two beds.

After a long hour of this, Isabel was left in possession, and proceeded to make herself ready for the night. The bed-covers were very dingy, and, turning them back, she found that there was but one sheet on each bed, and it was far from fresh; so were the pillow-cases. She was dismayed for only a moment, however: opening the newspapers her father had provided her with, she covered the top of one bed, and then lay down on it, with her blue silk kimono and her raincoat for covers.

At earliest dawn she was awakened by Uncle Adam's loud rap, and the summons, "Get up along, sis; we got to take a soon start!"

After they had pulled through the deep mud-holes in the town, they turned into a creek-bed, and plunged at once into a world of green loneliness and wild beauty. All day long they either "followed creeks," or wound around the sides of steep mountains, with sheer drop-offs below the narrow trail. Uncle Adam was no talker, but he was a skilled driver. Often it seemed that they must go over the edge, or that the mules could not climb the steps of rock up which they had to pull the heavy wagon; but always the danger was safely passed. Isabel wished, however, that she had four hands instead of two, to hold on with.

Along the creeks, where the going, though very rough, seemed not so dangerous, they passed numbers of windowless log-houses, flanked by almost perpendicular corn-fields. Sometimes whole families--men, women, and children--were out hoeing corn; but Uncle Adam explained that the "crap" was about "laid by"; and more often crowds of children swarmed to the doors of the houses to see the wagon pass. Usually there was a withdrawing woman's face in the dark interior behind.

They met but few men during the day, and every one of these was riding, and carried a gun on arm or shoulder.

"Why do they all carry guns?" asked Isabel.

Uncle Adam considered a moment, then replied: "Hit's gen'ally squirrel-hunting time in Breathitt."

"Do you mean," she inquired, "that they all go armed on account of the 'war'?"

Uncle Adam's reply was to reach down in the wagon and remove some bundles of fodder from beneath his feet, exposing a Winchester rifle. "Best to be on the safe side," he whispered, dropping the fodder back.

The sun had set before they crossed the last mountain, White Doe; and it was almost dark and mist hung everywhere before they halted at Uncle Adam's house at the head of White Doe Creek, the halfway place.

A fat feather-bed with clean covers had never looked so good to Isabel; and she threw her weary body and racked bones across it, while Aunt Rhoda went into "t'other house" to put supper on the table. After eating, she fell into bed for good, never knowing when Aunt Rhoda and Uncle Adam got into the other bed in the room. Once in the night she was awakened by a terrific clap of thunder, and a heavy downpour of rain on the roof.

In the morning Uncle Adam appeared troubled. "Hit was a bad storm," he said, "and hit means tides, landslips, and quicks all along the way. Reason would say not go on; but the women might get tore-up in their minds about you, so I allow we'll ondertake hit."

Sure enough, the streams that had been low and clear yesterday were to-day yellow torrents. Often Isabel had to grab her suitcase and lift her feet up into the seat, as the water came swirling into the wagon-bed. The boxes of freight Uncle Adam was hauling to the women just had to take the water.

Isabel noticed that the Winchester no longer reposed on the wagon-floor, and asked the reason.

"We passed the county line when we crossed White Doe last night," Uncle Adam said. "Hit's only in Bloody Breathitt that a weepon is called for."

"They have no wars, then, in this county?"

"Oh, yes, they got one; but hit's more open and fa'r and squar--not laywaying and ambushing and sech, like in Breathitt, whar the wrong man gets kilt often as not. Life is tolable safe in this county, and talking hain't so dangerous, neither. I allus keep my mouth shet in Breathitt--have follered hit sence I were young. But here I can speak freer. Now this here war on Troublesome--"

"Oh, do you actually mean there is a war where Cousin Amy and the tents are?" cried Isabel, delightedly.

"Right thar at the Forks of Troublesome," replied Uncle Adam; "Fallons and Kents, they both live thar, and for nigh thirty year thar's been a sight of hate and bloodshed betwixt 'em. But they have fit in the open, and done their own killing, mostly--not hired hit done, like they foller doing in Breathitt; and so a man has more respects for 'em. Sence the two main heads, Fighting Fult Fallon and Red Rafe Kent, got kilt off things hain't been quite so bad. You see, Red Rafe he finally kilt Fighting Fult; and then young Fult you might say had a bound to revenge his paw, and he kilt Rafe; and then there was a spell of peace whilst young Fult was down at Frankfort a year--"

"Do you mean in the penitentiary?"

"Yes; and then whilst he fit a year in Cuby. But when he come home, 'peared like he was kindly wild-turned, and hit wa'n't no time till him and Rafe's boy, Darcy, started the war all over again. The two boys don't hardly ever meet without shooting, and they've wounded each other time and again, though not fatal; and t'other boys that runs with 'em has been kilt and wounded, and things is pretty bad. But I heared tell that at a picnic the quare women give on the hill last Thursday, nigh all the county being thar, old Uncle Ephraim Kent, the grand-daddy of Troublesome, some way or 'nother persuaded Fult and Darcy to call a truce for the time the women stayed. I allow hit's true. But of course hit won't last--there's too long-lived a hate betwixt Kents and Fallons ever to raly die down."

He was interrupted by the stopping of the wagon, the bed of which had caught on a large boulder, hidden by the muddy water.

Without a word, or the least show of annoyance, Uncle Adam got out, waded the creek to the bank, climbed to a rail-fence not far away, and returned with a rail, with which, almost thigh-deep in water all the time, he prized and tugged till the wagon was detached from the rock.

Soon afterward they turned out of the creek, and up a mountain. When they were near the top, Uncle Adam, who was walking alongside, handed the lines to Isabel.

"Hold 'em a minute, sis, whilst I see what's on ahead."

He came back soon, saying, "Hit's a bad slip--the trail all kivered deep. I'll have to chop me a way out below."

Taking his axe, he plunged down the slope, chopping saplings and undergrowth as he went, and as far as possible avoiding big trees.

After quite a while he returned. "Get out, sis, if you feel to," he said; "but hit would be better if you stayed in and helt the lines, whilst I hang on to the wagon behind. The mules know how--jest hold 'em straight."

The slope was one of at least fifty degrees, and there was no ledge or bench anywhere below to break a possible descent of five or six hundred feet. Isabel's heart was in her mouth, but she let it come no farther. "All right," she said, between clenched teeth.

Straight down, therefore, the mules went, a cautious, crouching step at a time, holding the wagon back with their haunches and with Uncle Adam's help. It was a remarkable performance, as was also the sheer pull up again on the far side of the "slip."

"Looks skeerier than hit is," remarked Uncle Adam, when they were once again in the road, and the mules were resting and "blowing."

The next thing they hung on was a stump in the middle of the descending trail. "Never was kotched on that stump before," said Uncle Adam; "the big rain has washed the road clean away on both sides. Good thing I fotched that-air rail along; I allowed I'd need hit a few times."

After more prizing, they again proceeded for quite a while without difficulty. Then, in a creek where numerous logs were floating, they undertook to "ride" one, and were held for a short time on its larger end.

The various mishaps took time, however, and when night fell they were still some miles from their destination, with rain again beginning.

"I'm purely afeared to risk Troublesome in the dark," said Uncle Adam. "Hit is well named--hit is full of quicks. We'll take the night here with Benjy Logan's folks, and go on to the Forks in the morning."

Controlling her disappointment as best she might, Isabel made friends with Benjy Logan's folks, slept with them, eight in a room, that night, and was treated with such kindness that she was almost reconciled to the delay.

Next morning the sky was clear, and their journey went well for an hour, until they turned into Troublesome Creek. Then, very soon, the wagon began to settle and sink, and the mules to strain in vain to pull it out.

"We've struck one," said Uncle Adam, calmly. "A man can't manage no way to shun all the quicks there is in this creek." He stepped out on the tongue and began ungearing the mules.

"I'll ride back yander to the last house we passed and get another team, and some men to help. You set right there on your feet and don't take no fear,--hit ain't aiming to settle much furder."

He rode back down the stream, and Isabel "sat on her feet" and watched the yellow "tide" hurry past her, and rise higher in the wagon-bed. Very soon, however, it seemed to reach its limit, and then she relaxed and abandoned herself to the spell of rushing water, green wooded slopes, and deep loneliness.

Her revery was broken by the plunging of a horse's hoofs in water, and the appearance of a horseman a short distance ahead. He rode straight down toward her, inquiring,--

"Did you strike a quick?"

"Yes," she said.

"You're the singer the women in the tents sont out for, hain't you?"

"Yes."

"I was sartain of hit. Where's Uncle Adam gone to?"

"To get another team and some help."

"He'll need hit," said the newcomer, surveying the wagon.

He was young and extremely handsome, with large dark eyes, blue-black hair, and olive skin, and he sat his horse with perfect grace. Though he did not remove his wide black hat in speaking to Isabel, his manner otherwise was courtesy itself.

"Hit'll take two teams every bit and grain of two hours to pull that wagon out," he said. "Better get up behind me and ride in."

"Thank you," she said, "but Uncle Adam might wonder what had become of me."