Part 7

“I jes’ wanted ter skeer that thar t’other boy”—he was looking Skimpy over very closely as he spoke, his eyes narrowing, his lips pursed up in a sort of calculation—he might have seemed to be mentally measuring Skimpy’s attenuated frame. “I jes’ wanted ter skeer that thar t’other boy. He’s powerful mean, Ike is. He air always a-purtendin’ ter like ennybody, an’ then a-laffin’ at ’em ahint thar backs. I didn’t know him then, but I knowed his uncle Ab, an’ I seen the minit I clapped eyes on him ez they war jes’ alike. An’ ez I hed a reason fur it, I skeered him. He’s mighty cantankerous ahint ennybody’s back,” Jerry continued as he strode on, swinging his right arm. “I hev hearn him declar’ ez that thar old cur o’ yourn, Bose, air the bes’-lookin’ member o’ the Sawyer fambly.” He glanced sharply at Skimpy, steadily stamping along the sandy road.

“Waal, ye know,” said Skimpy in a high excited voice, “Bose, ye know, is a plumb special coon-dog. An’ he’s sharp; mighty few gyard-dogs sech ez Bose. An’ he air a shepherd too. I’ll be bound none o’ our sheep air ever missin’ or kilt. An’ Bose sets ez much store by the baby ez enny o’ the fambly do; he jes’ gyards that cradle; he’ll snap at me if I so much ez kem nigh it—nobody but mam kin tech that baby arter Bose takes his stand. An’ Bose, he kin go out an’ find our cow out’n fifty an’ fetch her home.”

Binwell had long ago perceived that he had touched the wrong chord. Skimpy was quite content to be rated as secondary in beauty to the all-accomplished and beloved Bose.

“I know Bose,” he admitted. “Bose is hard to beat.”

“_Yes_, sir! Yes, _sir_!” And Skimpy wagged his convinced head.

“But Ike ’lows he be ugly.”

“Shucks! I say ugly!” cried Skimpy scornfully; he was willing to be considered no beauty himself—but _Bose_!

“An’ he ’lows he’d jes’ ez lief hear Bose howl ez you-uns sing.”

Skimpy paused, turning his astonished face up to Binwell, the moonlight full upon its stung and indignant expression. Now Bose had never been considered musical—not even by Skimpy. He drew the line that bounds perfection at Bose’s dulcet utterances. He was almost incredulous at this, despite his confiding nature.

“Why, I hev jes’ sot an’ sung fur Ike till I mighty nigh los’ my breath.”

“Ye oughter hear him mock ye, arter ye gits gone. Oh, Mister Coon! Oh, e-aw, Mister Kyune!” mimicked Jerry in an insulting falsetto. “He ’lows it gin him the year-ache; ye ’members how bad he had it.”

“Dellaw!” exclaimed the outdone and amazed Skimpy, stopping in the road, his breath short, his face scarlet.

“Made me right up an’ down mad,” said Jerry. “Oh, I knowed that Ike, minit I set eyes on him! I knowed his deceivin’ natur’. I wanted ter skeer him away from Keedon Bluffs. I never minded you-uns. I’d jes’ ez lief tell you-uns ez not why I wanted ter keep him off’n ’em.”

“What fur?” said Skimpy, once more trudging along.

“Waal, hyar I be whar my road turns off from yer road,” said Jerry, pausing. He stood at the forks of the road, half in the light of the moon, half in the shadow of the thinning overhanging foliage. The mists were in the channel of the river, and the banks were brimming with the lustrous pearly floods; the blue sky was clear save that the moon was beset by purple broken clouds—all veined about with opalescent gleams. The shadows were black in the woods; the long shafts of light, yellow and slanting, penetrated far down the aisles, which seemed very lonely and silent; an acorn presently fell from the chestnut oak above Binwell’s head into the white sandy road, so unfrequented that the track of a wagon which had passed long before would hardly be soon displaced unless by the wind or the rain.

“I tell ye,” said Jerry, looking down into the candid upturned face beneath the torn brim of the old white wool hat, “ye fetch Obadiah’s fiddle ter-morrer, an hour ’fore sundown, ter the sulphur spring, an’ I’ll l’arn ye them new chunes. An’ I’ll tell ye all ’bout Ike, an’ what he said an’ why I wanter keep sech ez him off’n them Bluffs.”

“Waal,” assented Skimpy, “I kin make out ter git the fiddle, I reckon.”

But it was with little joyous anticipation that he turned away. Ike’s words, as reported by Binwell, rankled in his heart; it was hot and heavy within him. He even shed a forlorn tear or two—to thus make acquaintance with the specious delusions of friendship. It was not so much the sting of wounded vanity, although he was sensible too of this—but that Ike should affect to esteem him so dearly and ridicule him behind his back! He was generous enough, however, to seek to make excuses to himself for his friend. “I reckon,” he muttered, “it mus’ hev been arter dad wouldn’t lemme go with Ike no mo’ an’ it riled him, an’ so he tuk ter tongue-lashin’ me. I reckon he never thunk ez I couldn’t holp it.”

And thus he disappeared down the woodland ways, leaving Jerry Binwell standing in the road and looking meditatively after him.

“I reckon it’s better ennyhow,” Binwell soliloquized. “Ike’s a hundred times smarter’n him, but he air smart enuff. Bes’ not be too smart. An’ though he be ez tall ez Ike he’s a deal stringier; he’s powerful slim. Ike ain’t much less’n me—an’ I be a deal too bulky—git stuck certain. Skimpy’s the boy.”

He remained silent for a time, vacantly gazing down the woods. Then suddenly he turned and betook himself homeward.

IX.

Circumstances the next day seemed adverse to Skimpy’s scheme. Obadiah for some time past had not been musically disposed, and the violin had hung silent on the cabin wall in company with strings of red peppers, and bags of herbs, and sundry cooking utensils. That afternoon the spirit of melody within him was newly awakened.

Skimpy, who had been lurking about the place, watching his opportunity, was dismayed to see Obadiah come briskly out of the cabin door with the instrument in his hand, and establish himself in a rickety chair on the porch. He tilted this back on its hind-legs until he could lean against the wall, stuck the violin under his chin, and with his long lean arm in a fascinating crook, he began to bow away rapturously. They were very merry tunes that Obadiah played—at least the tempo was lively and required a good many quick jerks and nods of the head, and much flirting and shaking of his long red mane to keep up with it. Occasionally his bow would glance off the strings with a very dashing effect, when he would hold it at arm’s-length, and grin with satisfaction, and wink triumphantly at Skimpy, who had come and seated himself on the steps of the porch hard by. He looked up from under the wide brim of his hat somewhat wistfully at Obadiah.

The violinist was happier for an audience, although he could have sat alone till sunset, with one leg doubled up under the other, which swayed loosely from the tilted elevation of the chair, and played for his own appreciative ear, and found art sufficient unto itself. But applause is a pleasant concomitant of proficiency and he loved to astonish Skimpy. His hat had fallen on the floor, and the kitten, fond of queer places to sleep, had coiled herself in the crown, and now and then lifted her head and looked out dubiously at Skimpy. Just above Obadiah was a shelf on which stood a pail of water and a gourd. What else there was up there an inquisitive young rooster was trying to find out, having flown over the heedless musician, still blithely sawing away.

“He oughter hev his wings cropped, so ez he couldn’t fly around that a-way,” said Skimpy suddenly. “Oughtn’t he, Oby?”

Now one would imagine that when Obadiah was harmoniously disposed all the chords of his nature would be attuned to the fine consonance which so thrilled him. On the contrary the vibrations of his temper were most discordant when his mood was most melodic. He had one curt effective rejoinder for any remark that might seek to interrupt him.

“Hesh up!” he said, tartly.

His mother, a tall gaunt woman of an aggressively neat appearance, was hanging out the clothes to dry on the althea bushes in the sun. She was near enough to overhear the conversation, and she suddenly joined in it.

“Nobody oughter want ter tie up other folkses tongues till they be right sure they hev got no call ter be tongue-tied tharself.”

To this reproof Obadiah refrained from making any unfilial reply, but scraped away joyously till Skimpy, longing for silence and the fiddle, felt as if the mountains shimmering through the haze were beginning to clumsily dance, and experienced a serious difficulty in keeping his own feet still, so nervous had he become in his eagerness to lay hold of the bow himself.

Sunset would be kindling presently—he gazed anxiously toward the western sky across the vast landscape, for the cabin was perched well up on the mountain slope, and the privilege of overlooking the long stretches of valley and range and winding river was curtailed only by the limits of vision. The sun was as yet a glittering focus of dazzling white rays, but they would be reddening soon, and doubtless his new friend was already waiting for him at the sulphur spring.

“I wisht ye’d lemme hev that thar fiddle a leetle while, Oby,” he said suddenly, his manner at once beguiling for the sake of the favor he sought, and reproachful for the denial he foresaw.

Obadiah’s arm seemed electrified—there was one terrific shriek from the cat-gut, and then his quivering hand held the bow silent above the strings.

“Air ye turned a bodacious idjit, Skimp?” he cried, positively appalled by the audacity of the request. “I wouldn’t hev ye a-ondertakin’ ter play the fool with this hyar fiddle, fur”—he hesitated, but his manner swept away worlds of entreating bribes—“fur _nuthin’_.”

The young rooster, finding that there was nothing upon the shelf except the water-pail and gourd, and hardly caring to appropriate them, had made up his mind to descend. After the manner of his kind, however, he teetered about on the edge of the shelf in some excitement, unable to determine just at what spot to attempt the leap. Twice or thrice he spread his bronzed red and yellow wings, stretched his neck, and bowed his body down—to rise up exactly where he was before. At last the adventurous fowl decided to trust himself to providence. With a squawk at his own temerity he fluttered awkwardly off the shelf, and almost alighted on the musician’s head, giving a convulsive clutch at it with his claws as he flopped past. There was a distressful whine from the fiddle-strings in Obadiah’s sudden perversion of the bow; he had forgotten all about the rooster on the shelf; he jumped back with a galvanic jerk, as he felt the fluttering wings about his head and the scrape of the yellow claws, and emitted a sharp cry of startled dismay.

Bose, who had been lying close beside a clumsy wooden box on rockers, growled surlily, fixing a warning eye on the boy; then his voice rose into a gruff bark. There was no longer use in his keeping quiet and guarding the cradle. Beneath the quilts was a great commotion; the personage enveloped therein, although sleeping according to infantile etiquette with its head covered, had no mind to be thus eclipsed when broad awake. There presently emerged a pair of mottled fists, the red head of the Sawyer tribe, an indignant, frowning red face, and a howl so vigorous that it seemed almost visible. It had no accompaniment of tears, for the baby wept for rage rather than grief, and sorrow was the share of those who heard him.

Mrs. Sawyer turned and looked reproachfully at the group on the porch.

“’Twarn’t _me_, mam, ’twar the rooster ez woke the baby,” Obadiah exclaimed, seeking to exculpate himself.

Bose was stretching himself to a surprising length, all his toe-nails elongated as he spread out his paws, and still half-growling and half-barking at Obadiah, the utterance complicated with a yawn.

“’Twar the rooster,” reiterated Obadiah—“the rooster, an’—an’—Bose.”

“’Twarn’t Bose!” exclaimed Skimpy, loyally.

“Hesh up!” said the dulcet musician.

“Needn’t tell me nuthin’ ag’in Bose—I know Bose!” said Mrs. Sawyer emphatically—thus a good name is ever proof against detraction. “Hang up that thar fiddle, Oby,” she continued. “I wonder the baby ain’t been woked up afore considerin’ the racket ye kep’ up. An’ go down yander ter the ’tater patch an’ see ef yer dad don’t need ye ter holp dig the ’taters. I don’t need ye hyar—an’ that fiddle don’t need ye nuther. I be half crazed with that thar everlastin’ sawin’ an’ scrapin’ o’ yourn, keep-in’ on ez ef yer muscles war witched, an’ ye _couldn’t_ quit.”

She sat down on a chair beside the cradle and began to rock it with her foot, readjusting the while the quilts over the head of the affronted infant, who straightway flung them off again that he might have more room for his vocalization.

Obadiah went obediently and hung up the fiddle, and presently looking down the slope Skimpy saw him wending his way toward the potato patch.

“I dunno how kem Oby ’lows that thar old fiddle b’longs to him, more’n it do ter the rest o’ we-uns,” Skimpy observed discontentedly, when the baby’s vociferations had subsided into a sort of soliloquy, keeping time with the rhythmic motions of the rockers. It was neither mutter nor wail nor indicative of unhappiness, but it expressed a firmly perverse resolution not to go to sleep again if he could help it, and rose instantly into a portentous howl if the monotonous rocking was intermitted for a moment.

“’Twar yer gran’dad’s fiddle,” said Mrs. Sawyer. “That’s the only sure enough owner it ever hed—he never gin it ter nobody in partic’lar whenst he died. An’ it jes’ hung thar on the wall till Obadiah ’peared ter take a kink ter play it.”

Obadiah doubtless considered himself entitled to the fiddle by the right of primogeniture—though Obadiah did not call it by this name. As Skimpy reflected upon the nature of his brother’s claim he felt that there was no reason why he should not insist on sharing the ownership. It was not Obadiah’s fiddle—it belonged to the family.

The baby’s voice sank gradually to a jerky monotone, then to a murmur and so to silence. The rockers of the cradle jogged thumpingly up and down the floor for a few minutes longer. And then Mrs. Sawyer betook herself once more to her task of hanging out the clothes, while Bose guarded the cradle, and Skimpy still sat on the steps, his elbows on his knees, and his pondering head held between his hands.

The lengthening yellow sunbeams poured through the cabin door, venturing gradually up the walls to where the silent instrument hung, filling it with a rich glow and playing many a fantasy though never stirring a string.

X.

When Jerry Binwell repaired to the sulphur spring that afternoon, there was no waiting figure amongst the rocks beside it. He paused at a little distance and glanced about with surprise. Then he slouched on toward the trysting place. In all the long avenues of the woods that seemed illumined by the clear amber tint of the dead leaves covering the ground, on which the dark boles of the trees stood out with startling distinctness, his roving eye encountered no living creature, except indeed a squirrel. It was perched upright upon the flat slab that almost hid the spring, eating a chestnut held between its deft paws; it scudded away, its curling tail waving as it ran up a tree hard by, and Binwell heard it chattering there afterward; more than once it dropped empty nutshells upon the man’s hat as he waited half-reclining among the rocks beside the spring. Time dawdled on; the sunshine adjusted itself to a new slant; it deepened to a richer tint; the shadows became pensive; the squirrel had fled long ago. Often Binwell lifted himself on his elbow and glanced about him, frowning surlily; but the vast woods were utterly solitary and very still this quiet day. Once a rustling sound caught his ear, and as he sprang up looking about hopefully for the boy, his motion alarmed some hogs that were roaming wild in the forest to fatten on the mast. They stood still, and fixed small sharp eyes intently upon him, then with an exclamatory and distrustful vociferation they ran off through the woods hardly less fleetly than deer. Jerry Binwell muttered his discontent, and glancing once more at the sky began to walk slowly about, keeping the spring in sight. Still no Skimpy came. The man’s face wore an expression both scornful and indignant as he paused at last.

The forest was remarkably free from undergrowth just here; the fiery besoms of the annual conflagrations destroyed the young and tender shoots, and left to the wilderness something of the aspect of a vast park. Only on one side, and that was where the ground sloped suddenly to the depths of a rugged ravine, an almost impenetrable jungle of laurel reached from the earth into the branches of the trees. Its ever-green leaves had a summer suggestion as the sun glanced upon them; none had changed, none had fallen. And yet, as he looked, he noted a thinning aspect, a sort of gap at a certain point in the massive wall of interlacing boughs, made, he fancied, when some lumbering bear tore a breach in search of winter quarters in those bosky securities. He was an idle man, and trifles were wont to while away his time. His momentary curiosity served to mitigate the tedium of waiting for Skimpy. He slowly strolled toward the gap amidst the foliage, wondering whether the animal had only lately passed, whether it was possible to come upon it in its lair and surprise it. He was near enough to lay his hand on the laurel leaves when he noticed there was a distinctly marked path threading its way through the tangle. He could not see the ground, but a furrow amongst the boughs indicated continual passing and repassing. For a few yards this was visible as he stood looking through the gap of bent and broken branches; then the rift among the leaves seemed to curve and he saw no further. Still meditating on the bear, he experienced some surprise when he observed in the marshy earth in the open space near where he stood the print of a man’s boot; not his own, as he was half-inclined to think at first. For as he held his foot above the track, he saw that the print in the moist earth was much broader, and that the man walked with a short pace, far different from his own long stride. The steps had not only gone into the laurel but had come thence; often, too, judging from the number and direction of the footprints.

“I wonder whar this path leads,” he said. “Somebody must be moonshinin’ hyar-abouts.”

He stood gazing down meditatively. The broad footprint was always the same, the step always the short measure indicating a slow and heavy man.

This suggested the idea of old Corbin. The retort, in the nature of a practical joke, played on the old codger at the store, had not altogether satisfied Binwell’s enmity; this, in fact, was, in a measure, reinforced by the surly silence and looks of aversion which had since been meted out to him throughout the community. It was more than curiosity which he now felt; it was a certain joy in secretly spying upon his enemy, and there was a merry sneer in his eyes as he began to push his way through the laurel. As the path curved, he saw the groove among the leaves anew before him, and he had but to follow its twists and turns. A long way it led him down the rugged descent, the laurel leaves almost closing over his head, the great forest trees rising high above the thicket, flinging their darkling shadows into the midst. He was chuckling to think what a time of it old Corbin must have had to get down. “An’ how in Kingdom Come did he ever git up ag’in?” he laughed.

The words had hardly escaped his lips before he emitted a husky cry of surprise: he had come suddenly to his journey’s end. In the midst of a clear patch of rocky ground, where even the sturdy laurel could not strike root, were scattered shavings and bits of wood, and stretching into the dense growth, so long they were, lay two staunch but slender poles upon the ground. They were joined by rungs, well fitted in a workman-like manner. It was in fact a great ladder, the like of which had never been seen in Tanglefoot Cove, and, indeed, rarely elsewhere. It might have reached from the river bank to the hollows of Keedon Bluffs! As Binwell gazed with starting eyes he noted that it was nearly completed—only a few rungs remained to be set in.

A sudden vibrating sound set all the stillness to jarring; he turned abruptly, his nerves tense, an oath between his teeth. It was too late for him to hide, to flee. He could only gaze in despair at Skimpy’s red head, his white wool hat set on the back of it, bobbing along through the laurel; his freckled, grinning face was bowed on Obadiah’s fiddle that wailed and complained beneath his sawing arm.

Perhaps it was the urgency of the moment that made Binwell bold and rallied his quick expedients. He did not even wonder how the boy had happened to discover him. Skimpy had descried him from a distance in the open woods, and had followed, bringing the fiddle according to their agreement. Binwell looked gravely at the boy and motioned to him to advance. The fiddle ceased to shiver beneath Skimpy’s inharmonious touch, and with his eyes stretched, and his mouth too, for that matter, he pressed on down to the spot. He could not restrain a wondering “Waal, sir!” when Binwell pointed to the ladder.

“Don’t say nuthin’, Skimp,” said Binwell. “Lay the fiddle an’ bow thar in the laurel; level em’ so ez they won’t fall; thar! Ye kin find ’em ag’in by that thar rock. Now take a-holt of that thar ladder, ’bout hyar; that’s the dinctum—an’ jes’ foller me.”

Skimpy recognized this as an odd proceeding, and yet he hardly felt warranted in questioning Jerry Binwell. He could not refuse his assistance in a mere matter of “toting”; he began to think that this service was the reason his friend had appointed this place of meeting on pretext of playing the fiddle. He did not definitely suspect anything worse than a scheme to get a little unrequited work from him. More especially were his doubts annulled by the quiet glance with which Jerry Binwell met his eager inquiring look.