Part 4

“That be a powerful strange thing fur Abner ter be a-sayin’,” remarked the storekeeper presently.

Old Corbin shook his head with a wise look; a wise smile wrinkled about the corners of his mouth.

“In my opinion _he_ ain’t no blind man. He kin see _some_, mebbe more, mebbe less. He air jes’ purtendin’. Set up thar an’ laff an’ joke ez spry ez a boy o’ twenty, an’ talk ’bout climbin’ down the bluffs—an’ tell me he ain’t hed his vision for all these years! I know Abner!”

“What makes ye ’low sech ez that, Jake?” demanded his crony, fairly startled out of his composure by this proposition.

“Kase Abner always war a ’sateful an’ a plottin’ boy—look at the way he fooled his folks when he run off ter jine the Secesh! I ain’t furgittin’ that. An sure’s ye air born thar’s suthin’ behind all them thar shet eyeballs. Abner, he hain’t quit his plannin’ an’ sech. He hev got his reason fur it. It’s slow a-showin’. But it’ll be made plain.”

The storekeeper puffed his cob-pipe, and silently watched the blue wreaths curl from it. He did not enter readily into this opinion, for he was a man of the practical views natural to those who associate much with their fellows. Despite the sparse population of the district he had a pivotal participation in such life as there was on the slopes and in the cove, for it revolved about the store. But Corbin spent his days in mere mechanical labor that left his mind free to wander. Thus speculation and vague fancies were his companions, and there was scant wonder that he should presently treat them as conclusions and facts.

In silent anticipation of the elucidation of the singular theory advanced, Peter Sawyer drew from his pocket a strong clasp knife and began to whittle a bit of wood which he picked up from the doorstep. But old Corbin’s next remark seemed to have no relation to the subject.

“Who d’ye reckon I seen yestiddy up yander by that thar big vine-grown spot what they calls Old Scratch’s vineyard?”

Pete Sawyer looked inquiringly doubtful, but silently puffed his pipe.

“_Jerry Binwell!_”

Old Corbin paused after he said this, smiling broadly and fixedly—all the wrinkles about his mouth and eyes seemed to come out as if to enjoy the sensation that this announcement occasioned.

The storekeeper stared blankly for a moment, then dropped his pipe upon the ground. The fire rolled out.

“Laws-a-massy!” he exclaimed, unheeding.

“Yes, sir! same old Jerry; the wuss fur wear; some _de_-lapidated; but—same old Jerry!”

“I ’lowed he war in Texas; folks said he went thar arter the war.”

“I hailed him; he purtended not ter know me a-fust, an’ he stopped, an’ we talked awhile. He ’lowed he had never been ter Texas. Jes’ down the kentry a piece in Persimmon Cove. I dunno whether he war tellin’ the truth.”

“I reckon he war,” said the storekeeper. “It air a mighty out-o’-the-way place—Persimmon Cove; Satan hisself mought hid out in Persimmon an’ folks in gineral never be the wiser ez the Enemy war enny nigher.”

“He ’lowed he married thar,” continued Corbin. “An’ what d’ye reckon he hed along o’ him?”

He looked at his crony with a broad grin.

“A—leetle gal! Thar they war a-travelin’ along the slope. Hed a leetle ox-cart an’ a steer geared up in it; he hed a cow critter too; calf followed; an’ sech cheers an’ house-stuff ez he owned piled in the cart, an’ settin’ a-top o’ it all this hyar leetle gal—’bout ez big ez a shingle. She rid, bein’ ez she hain’t got no weight sca’cely.”

“An’ whar’s the ’oman?” asked the storekeeper, missing an important factor in the family circle.

Corbin lowered his voice and his humorous wrinkles strove to retire themselves.

“Dead,” he said gravely.

Peter Sawyer, bethinking himself of his pipe, filled it anew with a crumpled leaf of tobacco, relighted it, and with the pipe-stem between his teeth resumed the conversation.

“An’ what sorter welcome do he reckon he air goin’ ter find ’mongst the mountings hyar. Do he ’low we hev furgot his sheer in the war, kase it hev been right smart time since? Naw sir. I ’members like yestiddy whenst old Jeemes Guyther—Abner’s dad, ye know—kem ter my store, lookin’ ez ef he hed buried all his kin on yearth, an’ tole ez Abner hed run off ter jine the Secesh along o’ Jerry Binwell. An’ the old man said he hoped Ab mought die afore he reached the Rebel lines, kase he’d ruther mourn him dead ’n know he hed raised his hand ag’in the Nunion.”

“But he wouldn’t, though,” said Corbin prosaically. “Them war days when men talked mighty big.”

“An’ they acted mighty big too, sometimes,” retorted Sawyer.

“Waal, Abner war the apple o’ the old man’s eye,” said Corbin; “I b’lieve he’d turn in his grave ef he could know how Ab war hurt. The whole fambly jes’ the same, too. Look how Ab air pompered now. Ef Abner war blind sure enough he couldn’t be better treated. His dad always put the blame o’ Ab’s goin’ on Jerry. An’ Jerry war a wuthless chance! He kem back inside o’ a year—deserted! But Ab never kem back till arter the s’render.”

“What makes ye ’low ez Abner hev got his vision same ez common?” Sawyer demanded again. “That notion ’pears powerful cur’ous ter me—seein’ him led about hyar fur nigh on ter twenty year, now by Ike, an’ now by his brother, an’ then ag’in by a dog an’ sech.”

Old Corbin looked cautiously over his shoulder through the open door as if he feared some lurking eaves-dropper. The cabin on the slope stood silent and motionless in the motionless yellow radiance of the autumnal sun. But the winds were astir, and as they swayed the woods they revealed bizarre sunbeams rioting hither and thither in glittering fantasies among the leaves. No one sauntered down the curves of the winding road nor along the banks of the shining river. The only creature visible was the old dog asleep, but sitting upright, in a dislocated posture, his head nodding spasmodically, and his lower jaw dropped.

“Ye hearn,” said Corbin softly, “that thar nevy o’ his, Ike Guyther, ’low Ab want ter climb down Keedon Bluffs ter whar that old ball’s a-lyin’. Now do ye reckon a _blind_ man ez hev got good sense air goin’ ter trest his bones a-gittin’ down that jagged bluff ez sheer ez a wall with sech holp ez that thar skitter-brained Ike kin gin?”

Sawyer, holding his pipe in one hand and his grizzled chin in the other, meditatively shook his head.

“Naw sir,” said Corbin, putting the gesture into the more stalwart negation of words. “A man, though, ez hed his vision, though his j’ints be stiff some with age and laziness, mought do it, special ef he hed the holp o’ some strong spry boy like Ike, ez be astonishin’ grown fur his age, but ain’t got no mo’ sense an’ scrimination than a boy naterally hev.”

Once more Peter Sawyer nodded his head—this time the action was vertical, for the gesture intimated affirmation.

“What in the name o’ reason do Abner want ter go down whar the old ball be lodged?” he asked in a speculative voice, as if he hardly expected an answer.

But the ready Corbin, primed with surmises, first looked cautiously up and down the road and then ventured a suggestion.

“Waal, sir; seein’ Jerry Binwell minded me o’ Abner Guyther, an’ how they used ter consort together, an’ thinkin’ o’ Ab ’minded me o’ the store old Squair Torbett used ter set on him. Ab war mighty nigh always at the Squair’s house a-doin’ some leetle job or other, special arter the Squair tuk ter agein’ so through worryin’ ’bout the war an’ his sons ez war in the army. An’ Jerry Binwell war at the Squair’s too, bein’ Ab’s shadder. Waal, ye know the Squair hed a power o’ money, an’ he hed drawed it out’n the banks in the valley towns, ’count o’ the raidin’ soldiers an’ sech. An’ he hid it somehows. Some ’lowed he buried it, but most folks said he let these hyar two boys inter the secret, an’ Ab clomb down an’ hid the money in a strong box in a hole in Keedon Bluffs, whilst Jerry watched. Ye hev hearn that word? Waal, sir, the Bluffs air like a honeycomb; so full o’ holes ef a body didn’t know which one they hid it in they couldn’t find it.”

“I hev hearn folks a-talkin’ ’bout it myself,” put in Pete Sawyer, “though o’ late years they hev gin that up, mos’ly.”

“Yessir,” assented Corbin. “An’ the g’rillas they s’arched the Squair’s house ag’in an’ ag’in, an’ couldn’t find nuthin’. These two boys hed run off ter the Secesh army, by that time, else they’d hev been made ter tell whar the plunder war hid. An’ though Jerry deserted an’ kem back, the Southern sympathizers wouldn’t let him bide one single night in the cove, but druv him off, an’ he ain’t dared ter show his face hyar sence, else I reckon he’d hev stole the money, ef he hed knowed whar it war—the Squair being dead mighty onexpected.”

The storekeeper’s eyes widened. “Ye—’low—the—money’s—thar—yit—hid in Keedon Bluffs?” he panted.

“I know this,” said old Corbin. “’Twar hid thar, an’ I hearn with my own ears the heirs say they never got no money out’n Keedon Bluffs—they fairly scouted the idee. An’ now,” he pursued, “one of the heirs is dead; an’ the t’ other’s moved ter Arkansas. An’ hyar kems one o’ the men ez watched whilst the money war hid; an’ the t’ other ez hid it—a _blind_ man—be in a mighty hurry an’ disturbament ter climb down Keedon Bluffs. I dunno why they hain’t got it afore. I can’t foller percisely the serpient trail of the evil men. But ye mark my words—them two fellers will hev a powerful big row—or”—his eyes twinkled—“they’ll divide the plunder an’ ye’ll hear o’ them consortin’ tergether like frien’s.”

He met with a triumphant leer the distended astonished gaze of the storekeeper.

“Ho! ho! Keedon Bluffs don’t speak ’less they be spoke to fust,” he continued, “but thar secrets git noised abroad. Thar’s suthin’ thar wuth layin’ hands on ’thout foolin’ along of a old spent cannon-ball.”

V.

The arrival of Jerry Binwell and his little girl at Hiram Guyther’s cabin soon became known throughout the Cove, and the fact, which Ike shortly discovered, that the newcomers were regarded with disfavor by others did not tend to further commend them to him. He felt an odd sinking of the heart and a grotesque sort of mortification whenever he went to the mill or the store and encountered questions and comments concerning his father’s guests. Sometimes he was taken aside by a conservative old codger, and the queries were propounded in a mysterious and husky whisper which imparted additional urgency.

“They tell me ez _Jerry Binwell_ air a-visitin’ yer dad—air that a true word?”

And Ike would sulkily nod.

“What did he kem fur?”

“Ter get out’n the storm.”

“Storm’s been over a week an’ better”—with an implacable logic. Then, dredging with new energy for information—“When’s he goin’ away?”

“Dunno.”

“Whar’s he goin’ ter?” persistently.

“Dunno.”

“What’s he doin’ of?” changing the base of attack.

“Nuthin’.”

“What’s he say?”

“Ennything.”

“Waal sir!” in a tone of disappointment, the whole examination resulting in the total amount of nothing.

Out of Ike’s presence public opinion expressed itself more freely and it was unanimous. No one denied that it was a strange thing that Hiram Guyther, one of the most solid, respectable, and reliable men of the whole country-side, whose very name was a guarantee of good faith, should be harboring a graceless, worthless, neer-do-weel like Jerry Binwell, who was, moreover, suspected of treachery which had resulted in Abner’s blindness. The lines of demarkation between those of high character and those who lack the sterling virtues are strongly drawn and rigorously observed in the mountains. The stern and grim old Hiram himself was forced to recognize the incongruity of the situation and its utter irreconcilability with the popular estimation of himself and his household. But he maintained his ground as well as he might.

“Yaas,” he would drawl, “Jerry’s a-puttin’ up with we-uns now. Dunno how long he’ll stay. Till the spring o’ the year, mebbe. Naw, him an’ Abner don’t clash none. Naw, he don’t pester me, nuther.”

And with these baffling evasions he would ride away, leaving the gossips at the store or the mill drawing their chairs closer together, and knitting their brows, and shaking their heads.

It was all most ominous and depressing to Ike, for he was proud and keenly sensitive to any decline in public esteem; sometimes he was fairly tempted to tell that the old folks at his house had fallen victims to the witching charms of a noisy little body three feet high, who made them like everything she did, and do things of which they would never have believed themselves capable. Thus they tolerated Jerry for her sake. And then he held his peace for fear the gossips would say they were all touched in the head.

For certain severe elderly people who had visited the house—it had more visitors than usual—had observed in his hearing that they were sorry for his mother and his aunt Jemima;—“ter be cluttered up at thar time o’ life with a young child, special sech a one ez that, ez could no mo’ stan’ still ’n a pea on a hot shovel, an’ war a-laffin’ an’ a-hollerin’ all the time till a-body couldn’t hear thar own ears.”

Ike felt peculiar resentment against the propounders of these strictures, although he had not consciously fallen under the fascination of the little Rosamond. He could not however always disregard her hilarious challenges to play, but when he succumbed it was with a sort of surly surprise at his own relenting. He even consented to see-saw with her,—a pastime which she greatly affected,—although he was obliged to sit on a very short end of the plank thrust between the rails of the fence in order to balance her very small weight as she sat at the other extremity, on the inside of the fence. And there, as she swayed high and dropped low, beaming with smiles and pink with delight, she looked like a veritable rose, blown about in the playful wind. But Ike was less picturesque as he bobbed up and down very close indeed to the rails and the leaning cross-stakes. “I’ll butt my brains out ag’in these rails like a demented Billy-goat if I don’t mind,” he said to himself in dudgeon.

One day, when he and Skimpy had been visiting certain traps that they had jointly set in the woods, their homeward way led them past the store. They had had good luck with their snares, and their fine spirits responded alertly to a robust chorusing laugh that suddenly rang out from the dark interior of the building.

The boys quickened their steps; there was something unusual going on inside.

The brown, unpainted walls within, the shadowy beams and dusky rafters above, the burly boxes and barrels in the background, were dimly illumined by the one fibrous slant of sunshine through the window, which served to show too the long gaunt figure of the storekeeper standing near the entrance. He was swaying backward, laughing as he smote his thigh, and he called out, “Do it ag’in, Shanks! Do it ag’in!”

Then the boys observed that there was a large group of figures standing at one side, although not easily distinguishable since their brown jeans garb so assimilated with the mellow tint of the walls. The next minute Ike reached the door and the whole scene was distinct before him. In the midst of the circle stood Jerry Binwell, his coat lying on the floor, his hat hanging on the knob of a rickety chair. His thin, long face was flushed; he was laughing too and rubbing his hands, and walking to and fro a few steps each way. “Do it ag’in, Shanks,” once more called out Peter Sawyer.

There were friendly enough glances bent upon him, and everybody was laughing pleasantly, despite the pipes held between strong discolored teeth. Even old Jake Corbin had a reluctant twinkle among the many wrinkles that encircled his eyes as he sat smoking, his rickety chair tilted back against the wall.

“Pritty spry yit, fur a ole man,” declared Binwell, still rubbing his hands.

“Do it ag’in, Shanks!” rang out from the bystanders.

Binwell looked up for a moment, drawing back to the extreme end of the apartment. Suddenly he crouched and sprang into the air with an incredible lightness. It was a long oblique jump to the beam on which he caught; he did not wait a second but “skinned the cat” among the rafters with an admirable dexterity and dropped softly on his feet at the doorway.

Once more there was a guffaw. “Go it, Shanks!” “He’s a servigrous jumper, sure!” “Spry as a deer!”

It was a most pacific scene and the exhibition of agility seemed likely to promote only good fellowship and the pleasant passing of the hour until old Corbin remarked:

“Yes, Jerry’s a good jumper, an’ a good runner, too, I hev hearn.”

Binwell cast a quick glance over his shoulder; a light gleamed in his small, dark, defiant eye. Whether he did not pique himself on his speed, or whether he detected a sub-current of meaning in the comment, he was moved to demand abruptly:

“Whar did ye ever see me run?”

Old Corbin’s delight in the opportunity broadened his face by an inch or two. The display of intricate hieroglyphic wrinkles about his eyes was more than one might imagine possible to be described by age and fatness. His mouth distended to show the few teeth that had not yet forsaken his gums; his burly sides were shaking with laughter before he said, “I never _seen_ ye run, Jerry, but I hearn ez ye done some mighty tall runnin’ in the old war time.”

There was a shout of derision from the crowd, most of the men having served in one army or the other. The object of this barbed ridicule looked as if he might sink through the floor. His face flushed, his abashed eyes dropped, he stood quivering and abject before them all.

Ike had a quick pang of pity and resentment. And yet he was ashamed that this was the man who sat by his father’s hearth and shared their bread.

It was only for a moment that he was sorry for Binwell. The recovery from all semblance of shame or wounded pride was instantaneous as he retorted:

“That’s mighty easy ter say ’bout ennybody.” He whirled around on his light heel. “Naw, folks,” he cried out, “I ain’t much on the run; never footed it more’n jes’ fairly. But I tell ye—ef ye be tired o’ seein’ me jump—my jumpin’ ain’t nuthin’ ter my heftin’. I kin lift the heaviest man hyar an’ jump with him. Less see,” he affected to turn about and survey the burly, stalwart crowd. “Who pulls the beam at the highest figger?”

He hesitated for a moment; then with a sudden dart that was like the movement of a fish, he seized on old Corbin.

“Naw! naw!” wheezed the fat old fellow as the stringy, muscular arms encircled him. He strove to hold to his chair; it fell over in the fracas and eluded his grasp; he clutched at the window-sill—vainly; his hat dropped off; his face was scarlet, and he roared for help.

It would doubtless have been extended had not the quick and agile Jerry forestalled the heavy mountaineers. He lifted Corbin with a mighty effort; he even carried out his boast of jumping—not high, after all, but high enough for the wildly clutching old man to catch the low beam with both hands.

Binwell suddenly loosed his hold and left him swaying ponderously to and fro, two or three feet from the floor, in imminent danger of falling, sputtering and wheezing, and red in the face and with eyes starting out of his head. Then his tormentor, fearful doubtless of the recoil of public opinion, caught up his hat and coat and with a loud scornful laugh ran out of the store and disappeared up the leafy road.

To a man of ordinary weight and agility it would have been easy enough to spring to the floor. But the cumbersome bulk and slow, clumsy habit of old Corbin lent the situation real danger. There was a rush to his assistance—some officious hand thrust an empty barrel beneath his feet, hoping to afford him support, but it toppled under his weight and down he came, amidst a great rending of staves, as the barrel collapsed beneath him.

He was unhurt, although greatly shaken. He had been frightened at first; perhaps there was never so angry a man in the limits of the Cove as he was now. Again and again, as he was helped to his chair, he declared that he would revenge himself on Jerry Binwell, and the sympathetic crowd expressed their sense of the injury and the danger to which he had been subjected, as well as the indignity offered him. To Ike’s extreme amazement Binwell’s name was often coupled with that of his father, or the blind man, his uncle. Now, ordinarily, Ike would have felt that these two spirited and responsible people were amply able to answer for themselves; but he knew that it was only by an odd combination of circumstances that they were associated, almost with the intimacy of family relations, with such a person as Binwell. It implied a friendship for him which he knew they did not feel, and an indorsement of him which they were not prepared to give. Secure in their own sense of rectitude and good repute this possibility of a decline in public esteem had never, he was sure, occurred to them. Alas, Rosamondy, he heartily regretted that she had ever put her dimpled foot across their threshold, and yet he stipulated again within himself that it was not in his heart to wish any houseless creatures out of the shelter they had found.

He had a vague terror of this false position in which the family was placed. He knew, with suddenly awakened forecast, that the antagonism to Jerry Binwell would not end here. Old Corbin’s spleen that might once have passed for naught was now rendered a valid and righteous anger in public opinion, and he would have the sympathy and aid of all the country-side. But how or why, in the name of justice, could it include his father and his blind uncle, who had done naught after all but feed the hungry, and forgive the enemy, and house the roofless vagrant.

He lingered for a time after old Corbin had gone to Sawyer’s house to get “a bite an’ rest his bones,” listening to the younger men discuss the incident, and comment on Binwell’s strength.

When Ike at last rose and started, Skimpy started too.

“Skimp!” called the storekeeper after him, “yer mam’s got suthin’ fur ye to do at the house. Go thar!”

Skimpy obediently turned from the road into the by-path and Ike went on, his heart swelling with indignation and his eyes hot with tears. He knew that his friend was to be withheld from his association after this, lest he might come under the influence of so worthless and injurious an example as Jerry Binwell. He trudged along home, wishing that his father might have beheld the scene and wondering if that would have urged him to take some decided action in the case.

Ike had an odd indisposition to relate it all. He had been trained in a maxim,—good enough so far as it goes,—“If you can’t say anything kind of your neighbor, say nothing.” The only manifestation of his opinion was expressed in deeds, not in words. His mother had looked sharply at him from time to time during the past week, and this afternoon, as she opened suddenly the shed-room door and saw him casting down a great pile of bark, and chips, and sticks of wood, ready for the morning fires, she said unexpectedly:

“Ike, ain’t ye ailin’ nowhar?”

“Naw’m,” he replied, drawing himself up with stalwart pride, “I feel ez solid an’ sound ez a rock.”

“I ’lowed ye mus’ be sick—ye ’pear so sober-faced, an’ occupy yerself no ways sca’cely, ’cept in workin’—tendin’ on the wood-pile, an’ packin’ the water, an’ drivin’ the cow-critter. I ain’t hed ez much wood hyar ter burn, nor water ter cook with, nor the cow ez constant at the bars, fur ten year.”

Ike turned and glanced reflectively about him. The mountain, gorgeous in autumnal array, loomed above; a blue sky looked pensively down; some aerial craft had spread a cloud-sail, and the wind was fair.

“I never ’lowed ter feel sech pleasure in a wood-pile,” he said, meditatively. “I hev made up my mind ez I ain’t a-goin’ ter ondertake to be a shirk in this world.”