Part 9

“How the wind blows!” the blind man said from time to time, lifting his gray head and his young face. And aunt Jemima would remark on “the powerful clatter” of the orchard boughs and the rustling swish of the Indian corn standing dead and stark in the fields.

As the trumpeting blast came down the chimney once more Ab roused himself anew and exclaimed, “’Minds me o’ the night Rosamondy kem.”

“Did the wind blow me hyar?” cried Rosamondy, as she sat in her little chair.

“The bes’ wind that ever blew!” declared aunt Jemima, her gleaming spectacles intercepting her caressing glance.

Jerry Binwell turned a trifle aside in his chair to hide the scornful curve of his lips. There was no need to shift his posture. Aunt Jemima’s eyes were bent once more upon her knitting, and Abner was blind alike to sneers and smiles. Rosamond’s attention was fixed upon a big red apple roasting and sputtering between two stones that served as fire-dogs. Now and then, with the aid of a stick, she turned the other side of the apple to the heat. Only the blinking cat saw the jeer on his face, and this animal was too frequently ridiculed to care to cultivate any fine distinctions in the nature of laughs. Curiously enough, the cat wore a queer gown of blue-checked homespun and a ruffled cap that was often awry, for she sometimes put up a disaffected paw to scrape it off, or it became disarranged in hasty or too energetic washings of her face. She had been thus accoutered by aunt Jemima to appease Rosamondy’s craving for a live doll. The cat was very much alive, and seated before the fire she had an antique and dame-like look, which was highly appreciated by her owner, but which was totally destroyed when she walked on all-fours. The live doll was eminently satisfactory to Rosamond, and except for the tyranny of her garments was in danger of being killed by kindness.

The laugh on Jerry Binwell’s face was only a transient gleam. He relapsed into brooding gravity and meditatively eyed the fire.

“Ab,” he said suddenly, when aunt Jemima had left the room to join Mrs. Guyther, who was “sizin’” yarn in the shed-room, and he could hear their voices in animated controversy as to the best methods. “Ab, I’ll tell ye what this windy night in the fall of the year ’minds me of.”

His voice had the most agreeable inflections of which it was capable, but it elicited no response, for Abner had not relented toward his old comrade, and seldom would seem aware of his existence. Binwell’s face contorted into a disagreeable grimace. This secret taunt the blind man was spared. Then Binwell’s smooth tones went on as if he had not expected a rejoinder.

“’Minds me o’ that night in the old War time whenst me an’ you-uns holped old Squair Torbett ter hide his plunder from g’rillas an’ sech—ye ’member how the wind blowed?”

Abner’s fire-lit face glowed with more than the reflection of the flames. His lip curled; the reminiscence seemed to afford him some occult amusement.

“I ’member! I ’member!” he said slowly; then he chuckled softly to himself.

Binwell’s eyes were fixed upon him with an antagonistic intentness, as if he would fain seize upon his withheld thought in some unconscious betrayal of face. But the blind man could only hear his voice, languid and reminiscent, drawling on, aimlessly, it seemed. “Waal, I ’members it too, mighty well. How flustry the old man war! Wonder if we’ll be that-a-way when we-uns git ez old ez him? He gin us the box, an’ we-uns kerried it ter the top o’ the Bluffs, an’ ye clomb down whilst I watched. An’ wunst in a while the old man would nudge me,” then with a quick change of voice—“‘Ain’t that a horse a-lopin’, Jerry? hear it? hear it?’ An’ I’d say, ‘It’s the wind, Squair—the wind, a-wallopin’ up the gorge.’ An’ then he’d rest fur a minit an’ say, ‘Air sign o’ Ab? That thar boy’ll break his neck, I’m ’feared.’ An’ I’d say, ‘I hear the clods in the niches a-fallin’ whilst he climbs, Squair; he’s a-goin’ it.’ An’ then he’d clutch me by the arm, an’ say, whispery an’ husky, ‘Jerry! Jerry! what’s that down the road—the jingle o’ spurs, the clank o’ a sabre?’ An’ I’d say—‘It’s jes’ the dead leaves, Squair, a-rustlin’ as they fly in the wind.’ An’ he warn’t easy one minit till ye clomb up the Bluffs ag’in, empty-handed an’ the box hid.”

As he talked, Rosamond’s hands had fallen still in her lap while she listened with the wide-eyed wonder of childhood. Her curling yellow hair, ruddily gleaming in the firelight, hung down over her shoulders, her cheek was flushed, her great gray eyes, full of starry lights and yet pensively shadowed by her long black lashes, were fixed upon his face. When the tension slackened she sighed deeply and stirred, and then lapsed into intent interest again.

The blind man had bent forward, his elbows on his knees. “I ’members,” he said again.

“I never did know, Ab, whether ye fund them hollows in the Bluffs a toler’ble tight fit, nor how fur back they run in them rocks; but ye war a mighty slim boy in them days.”

“Warn’t slim enough ter git inter the fust nor the second,” spoke up the blind soldier briskly, with awakened interest.

“So ye put it inter the thurd?” demanded Jerry.

If he could have seen himself how well he would have thought it that his old comrade could not see him! His head was thrust forward till all the ligaments in his long thin neck were visible, strained and stretched. His eyes were starting. His breath was quick, and his under jaw had dropped. Rosamond had a half affrighted look as she sat in her chair on the hearth beside the sleeping dogs and the grotesquely attired cat that was gravely washing its face.

The blind man nodded. “Yes,” he said simply, “I put it in the thurd, an’ pritty far back, too.”

The chimney was resounding with the burden of the blast as it sang without; its tumultuous staves echoed far up the mountain slopes. Abner lifted his head to listen, hearing perhaps the faint din of the winds of memory blowing as they listed about Keedon Bluffs. The next instant his attention was recalled. In the momentary absorption the sharpened hearing of the blind had failed him. He subtly knew that there was a change in the room, but what it was he could not say. He stretched out his hand with a groping gesture. “Jerry,” he called out in a friendly voice. There was no answer.

The puzzled expression deepened on his face. He heard the stirring of the child. “Rosamondy,” he said, “who’s hyar?”

“Nobody,” the vibrant, sweet voice answered, “nobody but me—an’ Mis’ Cat.”

“Whar’s Jerry?” he demanded.

“Gone out,” she said promptly. “Sech walkin’ on tiptoes I never see.”

There sounded instantly a queer thumping on the puncheon floor, a tumble, a great gush of treble laughter; then the eccentric thumping was renewed and Abner knew that Rosamondy was imitating the deft celerity of Binwell’s exit on tiptoes. He did not laugh. He leaned back in his chair with doubt and perplexity corrugating his brow.

A step was upon the ladder, descending from the roof-room—not Ike’s usual light step, but he it was, slowly appearing from the shadows. Even after he had emerged into the genial firelight their gloom seemed still to rest upon his face, and his eyes were at once anxious and mournful. He withstood as well as he could the shock of welcome with which Rosamond rushed upon him, seizing him round the knees till he almost toppled over, and was constrained to wildly wave his arms in order to regain his equilibrium. She fell into ecstasies of delight because of the awkward insecurity he exhibited, and as with outstretched arms, and flying hair, and tangled feet, and rippling, gurgling cries, she mimicked him, he found himself at liberty to sink into a chair. And then while Rosamond, always long in exhausting her jokes, still toppled about the floor, he silently brooded over the fire.

Once or twice he raised his eyes and looked toward his uncle who seemed too lost in reverie. Sometimes Abner lifted his head to listen to the rioting winds and again bent it to his dreams. The white firelight flickered, and now the brown shadow wavered. He was presently subtly aware of a new presence by the hearth, unseen by others as all must be by him.

“Ye hev got trouble alongside o’ ye, Ike,” he remarked. “Ye’re mighty foolish. It’s a great thing ter be young, an’ strong, an’ hev all yer senses. The beastises hev got mo’ gumption than ye. Ever see a young strong critter, free an’ fat, that war mournful? Naw; an’ ye ain’t goin’ ter. Ye hev got the worl’ in a sling. An’ ye set an’ mope.”

Ike made an effort to rouse himself. “I know I oughtn’t,” he said in a strained voice, “but I be mighty—mighty troubled.”

“Jes’ so,” said the blind man.

Ike looked at the flickering white flames for a moment, at the pulsing red coals, at the vacillating brown shadows. Rosamondy had rushed into the shed-room to exhibit her imitation of Ike to his mother and aunt Jemima. He listened to the chorus of voices for a moment, then he said, “I dunno but what I’m foolish, uncle Ab, but I hearn what ye tole Jerry Binwell jes’ now ’bout whar ye hid the Squair’s money-box, an’—an’ I wisht ye hedn’t done it.”

“What fur?” the blind man lifted his face lighted with sudden interest, “ye be ’feared ez he mought ’low it’s thar yit an’ go arter it an’ git his neck bruk.”

Ike moved uneasily.

“That’s jes’ the reason he tried to keep me an’ Skimpy Sawyer from climbin’ down thar one evenin’—fust time I ever seen him; tried ter skeer we-uns with witches an’ sech. The Squair’s money-box air what he war arter, I be bound, the night o’ the coon hunt whenst I cotch him thar. I’m feared he’ll git it. I dunno what to do! I s’picioned suthin’, but I never ’lowed ’twar money. He’ll git arrested ef he don’t mind.”

“I wisht he would,” said Abner; he chuckled fiercely and fell to revolving his old grudges.

“Waal, I’d hate that mightily,” said Ike dolorously, “arrested out’n we-uns’s house. I war goin’ ter tell dad nex’ day, but he war gone ’fore I got home. I wisht Jerry Binwell bed never kem hyar!”

“Why, Ike,” Abner retorted cogently, “then leetle Rosamondy would never hev kem!”

“I seen old Corbin an’ the constable with thar heads mighty close tergether ter-day,” Ike went on drearily, “an’ arterward I passed down the river-bank on the opposite side ter Keedon Bluffs, an’ I see the constable a-hidin’ hisself in a clump o’ sour-wood. I dunno what ter do. I feel ’sponsible, somehows. I don’t want him ter git the money—a thievin’ scamp—and yit I don’t want him ter git arrested.” He paused in astonishment.

Abner Guyther was laughing in sardonic delight. “He ain’t goin’ ter git the money!” he cried. “An’ I dunno nobody ez needs arrestin’ ez bad ez he do—somebody oughter scotch his wheel, sartain! G’long, Ike; g’long ter bed. An’ quit addlin’ yer brains ’bout’n yer elders.”

Ike was not reassured by the reception of his disclosure. And he had not told the worst of his troubles. More than once of late he had seen Skimpy and Binwell together. He had felt no resentment that his friend had been forbidden association with him, to avoid contact with this elderly villain. It seemed wise in Skimpy’s father, and he only wished that his own had been sufficiently uninfluenced and firm to have determined upon a similar course. Noting the constable in the clump of sour-wood, and with his own recollection of Binwell climbing down Keedon Bluffs, he had been smitten with terror for Skimpy’s sake. He knew that Binwell had some reason of his own for affecting the lad’s society. In cudgeling his mind for the man’s motive he had brought to light the true one which might not have been so readily presented were not Keedon Bluffs so continually in his thoughts of late. He was sure that Binwell wished Skimpy, being light and slim, to explore the hollows of the Bluffs—with what end in view he had not definitely known until to-night. Nevertheless the conviction that his simple-hearted friend had become involved in serious danger had been strong enough that afternoon to induce him to go to Skimpy’s home. Old man Sawyer sat on the porch morosely smoking his pipe, and Ike paused at the fence and whistled for Skimpy—a shrill, preconcerted signal; it was in the deepest confidence that he was about to impart his suspicions and his warnings and he did not feel justified in including the elder Sawyer in the colloquy. It might be a slander on Jerry Binwell, after all. “An’ I don’t wanter be a backbiter like him,” said Ike to himself.

The whistle brought Skimpy promptly out from the barn. To Ike’s surprise, however, he did not approach the fence, which was at some distance from the house. He simply stood near the porch with his old hat on the back of his red head, his long arms crooked, his hands thrust into his pockets, and upon his face a sardonic grin that seemed broader than anything in his whole physical economy.

“Kem down hyar. I hev a word ter say ter ye,” called Ike.

He felt as if he were dreaming when instead of replying Skimpy swayed himself grotesquely and mockingly about, and began to sing with outrageous fluctuations from the key “Oh-aw-e-Mister Coon! Oh-aw-i-Mister Ky-une.”

It seemed a frenzied imitation of himself, and Ike was about to speak when Skimpy, putting his fingers in his ears that he might not hear Ike, although to the casual observer it might well seem that he had good reasons for not wanting to hear himself, bellowed and piped mockingly, “Oh-aw-i-Mister Kyune! That’s the way he ’lows I sing,” he observed in an aside to his father, who might have been carved from a corn-cob, for all the animation he showed, except to silently smoke his corn-cob pipe.

“I never!” cried Ike indignantly; “somebody hev been settin’ ye ag’in me—a backbitin’ scamp! An’ I’ll be bound I know who ’twar.”

But Skimpy’s fingers were in his ears, and he was still swaying back and forth and making the air shudder with his mock vocalizations. At last Ike turned away in sheer futility, angered and smarting, but as anxious and troubled as before.

Now he was sorry he had not persisted for he had not realized how immediate and terrible was the danger to Skimpy. He sat still for a moment, afraid to say aught of the perplexities that racked him, lest being mistaken he might needlessly implicate Skimpy in any crime that Binwell might commit. Presently he rose with a look of determination on his face. The sound of the lifting latch, the cold in-rushing of the air, the light touch of the flakes of ashes set a-flying from the hearth, notified Abner that he was solitary by the fire. He heard the cat purring, the low murmuring of the flames in the chimney, the wind outside, the voices of the two women busy in the shed-room.

Another stir of a latch and a presence entered bright even to the blind man. “All alone-y by hisself-y!” Rosamondy cried as she pattered across the floor and flung herself into his arms. He shared much baby talk with Mrs. Cat, but he was not jealous of that esteemed friend, for he was Rosamondy’s preferred crony. Through her, life had come to mean for him a present as well as a past, and to hold for him a future and a vista. He planned for her with the two old women. He had let it be known to all his relatives that all he had in the world—his horse, his cows, his share of the cabin, his gun, a captured sabre—was to be hers at his death. Always in his simple dreams for enriching her, and for her fair fate, Jerry Binwell’s image would be intruded like some ugly blight upon it all. He had heretofore thrust away the thought of him, and dreamed on resolutely. Somehow he could not do this to-night. As he patted her on the head and heard the silken rustle of her hair beneath his hand, he could but remember that it was her father risking his life on the rocks, his liberty, the lurking officer and everlasting ignominy, which must surely rebound upon her.

“She wouldn’t know nuthin’ ’bout it now, ef he war branded ez a thief, but she air a-goin’ ter be a gal ez will keer mightily fur a good name an’ sech. Jerry Binwell hain’t never hed a good name wuth talkin’ ’bout, but he ain’t never yit been branded ez a thief.”

Mrs. Cat was brought and perched upon his knee, and he was required to shake hands and inquire after her health and that of her family, which ceremony both he and the poor animal performed lugubriously enough, although with a certain dexterity, having been trained to it by frequent repetitions. Rosamondy, however, found herself a better improvisor than he of conversation for Mrs. Cat, and as she prattled on his anxious thoughts reverted to the subject.

“He air her dad, an’ he’ll be disgraced fur life, an’ I could hev purvented it. Too late! Too late!” he groaned aloud.

He felt like a traitor as she passed her soft little arm around his neck and kissed his cheek—pale now, although it had never blanched for shot or shell. He had both her and Mrs. Cat to hold, and although both were of squirming tendencies his mind could still steadily pursue its troublous regrets.

“But I oughtn’t ter hev done it jes’ fur Rosamondy, nuther. I oughter hev done it fur the sake of—_folks_! A man oughter keep another man from doing wrong, ef he kin, same ez ter keep his own score clear—them ez kin stan’ ter thar guns oughter keer ter keep the whole line from waverin’, stiddier a-pridin’ tharse’fs on the aim o’ thar one battery. Laws-a-massy; I wish I hed tole him. I wish I hed gin him a word. He mus’ be nigh thar now. Ef I jes’ could ketch him! Ef I jes’ could find my way! I ain’t been nigh thar fur twenty year. Fur one hour o’ sight ter save a man from crime! Fur one hour o’ sight to hold the battle-line! Fur one hour o’ sight to do the Lord’s kind will!”

He was speaking aloud. He had risen from his chair, the little girl and her cat slipping softly down upon the floor. He took a step forward, both groping hands outstretched. “Fur one hour o’ sight!”

“I’ll lead ye, unky Ab,” the child compassionately exclaimed, putting up her soft, warm hand to his cold trembling fingers.

“Lead me! yes! Lead me ter Keedon Bluffs,” he cried eagerly. “She kin do it! She kin save him! Stop,” he caught himself. “Look out, Rosamondy. Air the night dark?”

She opened the door; a mild current of air flowed in above her yellow head, for the wind now was laid. She saw the dark woods gloom around; the stars glimmer in the vast spaces of the sky; but about the mountain summit shone an aureola of burnished gold.

“The moon’s a-risin’,” she said.

He placed his hand in hers; she stepped sturdily upon the ground. The door closed, and the hearth was vacant behind them but for the flicker of the flames, the drowsing dogs, and the purring Mrs. Cat.

XIII.

That night as Skimpy sat with the family group by the fireside in his father’s cabin, he had much ado to maintain a fictitious flow of spirits, for at heart he was far from cheerful. Often he would pause, the laugh fading from his face, and he would lift his head as if listening intently. Surely the wind had no message for him as it came blaring down the mountain side! What significance could he detect in the clatter of the bare boughs of the tree by the door-step that he should turn pale at their slightest touch on the roof? Then recognizing the sound he would draw a deep breath of relief, and glance covertly about the circle to make sure that he had been unobserved. So expert in feigning had poor Skimpy become that he might have eluded all but the vigilance of a mother’s eye.

“Air ye ailin’, Skimpy?” she demanded anxiously. “Ye ’pear ter feel the wind. Ye shiver every time it blows brief. Be thar enny draught thar in the chinkin’?”

“Naw’m!” said Skimpy hastily. “I war jes’ studyin’ ’bout that thar song—

“‘The sperits o’ the woods ride by on the blast, An’ a witch they say lives up in the moon. Heigh! Ho! Jine in the chune! Jine in, neighbor, jine in the chune!’

“It jes’ makes my marrer freeze in my bones ter sing that song,” Skimpy said when his round fresh voice had quavered away into silence—somehow he could not sing to-night.

“Waal, I never set no store by sech,” said his mother. She looked reassuringly at him over the head of the baby, who slept so much during the day that he kept late hours, and did his utmost to force the family to follow his example. He sat on her knee, sturdily upright, although she held her hand to his back under the mistaken impression that his youthful spine might be weak; but he had more backbone—literally and metaphorically—than many much bigger people. He was munching his whole fist, for his mouth seemed not only large but flexible, and as he gazed into the fire he soliloquized after an inarticulate fashion. His face was red; his head was bald except for a slight furze, which was very red, along the crown; notwithstanding his youth he looked both aged and crusty.

Bose was at his mistress’s feet. He too sat upright, meditatively watching the fire with his one eye, and now and then lifting the remnants of his slit ears with redoubled attention as the wind took a fiercer twirl about the chimney. Occasionally as the baby’s monologue grew loud and vivacious, Bose wagged the stump of his tail in joy and pride, and it thwacked up and down on the floor.

It was a very cheerful hearth—the grinding tidiness of Mrs. Sawyer showed its value when one glanced about the well-ordered room; at the clean pots and pans and yellow and blue ware on the shelves; at the bright tints of the quilts on the bed and of the hanks of yarn and strings of peppers hanging from the rafters that harbored no cobwebs; at the clear blazes unhindered by ashes.

Obadiah with his fiddle under his chin was directly in front of the fire. He was tightening and twanging the strings; now and then cocking the instrument close to his ear to better distinguish the vibrations. There are few musicians who have a more capable and discerning air than Obadiah affected in those impressive moments of preparation. His three brothers sat on a bench, drawn across the hearth in the chimney corner, its equilibrium often endangered, for the two at one end now and again engaged in jocose scuffling, and Skimpy in the corner was barely heavy enough to keep it from upsetting. Sometimes their father, solemnly smoking his corn-cob pipe, would, with a sober sidelong glance and a deep half-articulate voice, admonish them to be quiet, and their efforts in this direction would last for a few moments at least. In one of these intervals their father spoke suddenly to Skimpy.

“I war downright glad ye tuk Ike up ez short ez ye done this evenin’, Skimp,” he said. “Though,” he added, with an afterthought, “I don’t want ye to gin yerse’f up ter makin’ game o’ folks.”

“’Twar him ez fust made game o’ me,” said Skimpy, ruefully, the taunt devised by the ingenious Binwell still rankling deep in his simple heart.

The twanging fiddle-strings were suddenly silent. Obadiah looked up with a fiery glance. “What gin the critter the insurance ter make game o’ you-uns, Skimp?” he demanded angrily.

Until today Skimpy had never mentioned his grievance, so deeply cut down was his self-esteem, and so reduced his pride in his “gift in quirin’.” He had hardly understood it himself, but he dreaded to have the family know how low his powers were rated lest they too think poorly of them. For Skimpy himself had come to doubt his gift—the insidious jeer had roused the first self-distrust that had ever gnawed him. His voice no longer sounded to him so full, so sweet, and loud, and buoyant. He sang only to quaver away, forlorn and incredulous after the first few tones. No more soaring melodies for him. He could only fitfully chirp by the wayside.

“He ’lowed,” said Skimpy, turning red, “ez I couldn’t sing—ez Bose, thar, could sing better’n _me_—hed a better voice; Bose, yander, mind ye.”

Bose at the sound of his name looked up with a sleepy inquiry in his single eye. Skimpy did not notice, but began to wheeze and rasp forth,—