XXV.
On the second day of February, the ground-hog, true to his traditions, emerged from his hole, and looked about him cautiously for his shadow. Fortunately, it was not in attendance. And by this token the spring was early, and all the chill rains, and late frosts, and unpropitious winds, and concomitant calamities, that might have ensued had he found his ill-omened shadow awaiting him, were escaped. It was not long afterward that small protuberances appeared on every twig and wand and branch, although the trees had not budded save in these promissory intimations. The sap was stirring. The dead world was quickened again. That beautiful symbolism of the miracle of resurrection was daily presented in the reawakening, in the rising anew of the spring. So pensively gladsome it was, so gently approaching, with such soft and subtle languors! The sky was blue; the clouds how light, how closely akin to the fleecy mists! Sheep-bells were tinkling—for what! the pastures were already green! And here and there a peach-tree beside a rail-fence burst forth in a cloud of blossoms so exquisitely petaled, so delicately roseate, that only some fine ethereal vagary of the sunset might rival the tint. Sometimes among the still leafless mountains these pink graces of color would appear, betokening the peach orchard of some hidden little hut, its existence only thus attested. The Scolacutta River was affluent with the spring floods: a wild, errant stream this, with many a wanton freak, with a weakness for carrying off its neighbor’s rails; for snatching huge slices of land from the banks; for breaking off trees and bushes, and whirling them helplessly down its current, tossing and teetering in a frantic, unwilling dance. Many a joke had it played before and since the disaster to old Griff’s mill. The sunbeams might seem the strings of a harp; whenever touched by a wing they were quivering and thrilling with songs. Slow wreathing blue smoke curled in fields here and there where the fires of rubbish blazed; sometimes a stump would burn sullenly all night and char slowly, and with a puff of wind burst anew into flames. The soft lustres of the Pleiades and the fiery Aldebaran were resplendent in the heavens, and the moon was the paschal moon. A vernal thrill had blessed the wild cherry, and it gave out its glad incense. For miles and miles the exquisite fragrance from its vast growths on the mountain-side pervaded the air. And presently the mountain-side wore the tender verdure of budding leaves, and even the gloomy pines were tipped with new tufts of vivid green, unlike their sombre hue; and here and there crags flaunted a bourgeoning vine, and the wild ivy crept on the ground where the wood violet bloomed. All day the ploughs turned the furrow, and the air echoed with the calls “gee, haw” to the slow oxen.
And Mrs. Purvine was greatly distraught in the effort to remember exactly where she had stowed away certain bags of seed necessary, in view of their best interests, to be sown in the light of the moon.
Her sun-bonnet was all awry, her face wrinkled and anxious with the cares of the spring-tide “gyarden spot,” her gestures laborious and weary, as she sat on her porch, the lap of her ample apron filled with small calico bags, each of which seemed to have a constitutional defect in its draw-string; for when found closed it would not open, and if by chance open it would not close. There was a sort of shelf in lieu of balustrade against the posts of the porch, and on this were placed two or three pieces of old crockery,—providentially broken into shapes that the ingenious could utilize,—in which seeds were immersed in water, that they might swell in the night, and thus enter the ground prepared to swiftly germinate. One of these broken dishes stood on the floor at her feet, and a graceless young rooster, that had the air of loafing about the steps, approached by unperceived degrees, picked up several of the seed, and was quenching his thirst, when spied by Mrs. Purvine, who was viciously pulling the strings of a recalcitrant bag.
“In the name o’ Moses!” she adjured him so solemnly that the rooster stopped and looked at her expectantly. “I’m in an’ about minded ter cut them dish-rag-gourd seed out’n yer craw, ye great, big, ten-toed sinner, you! Ye needn’t turn yer head up ’twixt every sup,—so thankful ter the Lord fur water. Ye’ll find mo’ water in the pot ’n that. A-swallerin’ them few dish-rag-gourd seed ez nimble an’ onconsarned, an’ me jes’ a-chasin’ an’ a-racin’ an’ wore ter the bone ter find some mo’! Ye’d better leave ’em be.”
The rooster, hardly comprehending the words, was about to again sample the delicacy, when aunt Dely, stamping to startle him, inadvertently overturned the dish and the seed on the floor. The fowl scuttled off, looking askance at the ruin, and the water dripped through the cracks of the puncheon floor.
So absorbed had she been that she had not observed an approach, and Alethea was at the foot of the steps when she lifted her eyes.
“Hyar I be, aunt Dely,” said the girl, noticing Mrs. Purvine’s occupation with a surprise that seemed hardly warranted, and speaking in a breathless, eager way. “Air you-uns feelin’ enny better?”
For once in her life the crafty Mrs. Purvine was embarrassed; to conceal her confusion, she engaged in a strenuous struggle with one of the bags of seed.
“I feel toler’ble well,” she said at last, gruffly.
“Waal!” exclaimed Alethea, in amazement. “From the word Ben Doaks brung ter Wild-Cat Hollow, ez he war drivin’ up some steers ter the bald o’ the mounting, we-uns ’lowed ez ye hed been tuk awful sick, an’ war like ter die.”
“I sent ye that word,” said Mrs. Purvine with admirable effrontery. “I knowed thar warn’t no other way ter git ye down hyar. When hev ye hed the perliteness ter fetch them bones o’ yourn hyar afore?” She looked over her spectacles with angry reproach at the girl.
“Waal, aunt Dely,” said Alethea in her dulcet, mollifying drawl, sitting down on the step as she talked, “ye know I hev hed ter do so much o’ the ploughin’ an’ sech, a-puttin’ in o’ our craps. We-uns hev got sech a lot o’ folks up ter our house. An’ I dunno when Jacob Jessup hev done less work ’n he hev this spring.”
“Thought ye be always ’lowin’ ye ain’t layin’ off ter do his work,” said the elder tartly.
“Waal,” rejoined Alethea wearily, “I don’t ’pear ter hev the grit ter hold out an’ quar’l over it, like I used ter do. I reckon my sperit’s a-gittin’ bruk; but I don’t mind workin’ off in the field, ’thout no jawin’, whar I kin keep comp’ny with my thoughts.”
“I wouldn’t want ter keep comp’ny with ’em,” said aunt Dely cavalierly. “I’ll be bound they air heavier ter foller ’n the plough. Mighty solemn, low-sperited thoughts fur a spry young gal like you-uns! Ef yer head could be turned inside out, thar ain’t nobody ez wouldn’t ’low it mus’ outside be gray. They’d say, ‘In the name o’ Moses! old ez this inside, an’ yaller outside! ’Tain’t natur’!’”
The girl had taken off her bonnet. Her beauty was undimmed, despite a pensive pallor on her delicate cheek. She fanned herself with her sun-bonnet, and the heavy, undulating folds of her lustrous yellow hair stirred softly. “I’m powerful glad ter find ye hevin’ yer health same ez common,” she said.
“I’m s’prised ter hear ye say so,” declared Mrs. Purvine, tart from her renewed conflicts with the bag. “I ain’t sick, bless the Lord, but I wanted ye ter kem down hyar an’ bide with me, an’ I knowed I couldn’t tole ye out’n that thar Eden, ez ye call Wild-Cat Hollow, ’thout purtendin’ ter be nigh dead. So I jes’ held my han’ ter my side an’ tied up my head, an’ hollered ter Ben Doaks ez he went by. He looked mighty sorry fur me!” A faint smile flickered across her broad face. “I hed laid off ter go ter bed afore you-uns kem, though. I will say fur ye ez ye travel toler’ble fas’. Yes, sir!” she went on, after a momentary pause. “I live in a ongrateful worl’. I hev ter gin out I’m dyin’ ter git my own niece ter kem ter see me. An’ thar’s that thar Jerry Price, ez I hev raised from a ill-convenient infant ez won’t do nuthin’ I say, nor marry nobody I picks out fur him. I’ll be boun’ he wouldn’t hev no say-so ’bout’n it ef his aunt Melindy Jane hed hed the raisin’ of him. An’ Bluff ez good ez ’lowed this mornin’ ez he’d hook me ef I didn’t quit foolin’ in his bucket o’ bran,—’kase I ’lowed ez mebbe the saaft-soap gourd war drapped in it, bein’ ez I couldn’t find it nowhar, an’ I war afear’d ’twouldn’t agree with the critter’s insides. An’ thar’s that rooster,”—he was now out among the weeds,—“he war a aig ez got by accident inter a tur-r-key’s nest, an’ when he war hatched she wouldn’t hev him; an’ ez I hed no hen ez war kerryin’ o’ chickens his size, I hed ter care fur him. I useter git up in my bare feet in the middle o’ a winter night ter kiver up that thar rooster in a bat o’ cotton, fur he war easy ter git cold, an’ he could holler ez loud ez a baby. An’ arter all, he kem hyar an’ eat up ’bout haffen my dish-rag-gourd seed! I dunno what in Moses’ name is kem o’ the other bags. Never mind!”—she shook her head as she addressed the jaunty and unprescient fowl,—“I’ll git up the heart ter kill ye some day; an’ ef I can’t eat ye, bein’ so well acquainted with ye, I’ll be boun’ Jerry kin.”
Alethea, apprised how precious the seeds were, began to gather them up as she sat on the step.
“Listen ter Jerry, now!” exclaimed Mrs. Purvine, with whom the world had evidently gone much amiss to-day. “Needn’t tell me he don’t hurt Bluff’s feelins, callin’ him names whilst ploughing an’ yellin’ at him like a plumb catamount. Ef Bluff hedn’t treated me like he done this mornin’, I’d go thar an’ make Jerry shet up.”
Now and then the ox and the man at the plough-tail came into view at the end of the field that sloped down to the road. One of aunt Dely’s boys was dropping corn in the furrow, and the other followed with a hoe and covered the grain in. Alethea watched them with the interest of a practical farmer.
Aunt Dely, too, looked up, repeating the old formula:—
“One fur the cut-worm an’ one fur the crow,
Two fur the blackbird an’ one fur ter grow.”
Jerry, glancing toward the house, called out a salutation to Alethea, and then at long range entered upon a colloquy with Mrs. Purvine touching the lack of seed.
“Whar’s that thar t’other bag o’ seed-corn?” he demanded.
“Waal, I ain’t got none!” cried out Mrs. Purvine peremptorily. “I mus’ hev made a mistake, and fedded that thar bag o’ special an’ percise fine seed-corn ter the chickens,—I wish they war every one fried. I disremember now what I done, an’ what I done it fur. Ye jes’ gear up Bluff in the wagin an’ go ter mill, an’ see ef ye can’t git some thar.”
“Laws-a-massy!” objected Jerry, “’tain’t no use ter make Bluff go. I kin git thar an back quicker an’ easier ’thout him ’n with him.”
“Ye do ez ye air bid,” said Mrs. Purvine; and while Jerry stared she presently explained, as she sawed away on the draw-strings of a bag, “I want ye ter take Lethe along ter the post-office, ter see ef thar’s enny letter fur me.”
Now, Mrs. Purvine had never written nor received a letter in her life; in fact, would not have understood the functions of a post-office, had it not been for her husband’s incumbency some years ago. Nevertheless, in common with half the country-side, whenever she thought of it she gravely demanded if there were a missive for her, and was gravely answered in the negative, and went her way well content.
Both young people understood her ruse well enough,—to throw them together, in the hope that propinquity might do a little match-making. Since Mink’s long sentence of imprisonment had been pronounced upon him, she felt that there was no longer fear of rivalry from that quarter, as the Supreme Court would hardly reverse so plain and just a judgment. And now, she thought, is Jerry’s golden opportunity. However, she elaborately justified the expedition upon the basis of convenience.
“Ye could fetch the letter an’ the corn too,” she observed, in a cogitating manner; “but then, goin’ ter mill, ye’d be apt ter git meal sprinkled onto it. I reckon I’d better send Lethe too. Ye kin leave her at the post-office till ye go ter mill.”
This verisimilitude imposed even upon Alethea.
“Who air ye expectin’ a letter from, aunt Dely?” said the girl.
Mrs. Purvine was equal to the occasion.
“I ’lowed,” she said, with swift inspiration, “ez some o’ them folks ez we-uns bided with down thar in Shaftesville mought take up a notion ter write ter us.”
Alethea thought this not unlikely, and set out with Jerry with some interest, fully prepared to preserve the precious letter from any contact with meal.
Mrs. Purvine, her ill-humor evaporating in the successful exploiting of her little plan, gazed after them with a benignant smile illuminating her features, as they creaked off in the slow little ox-cart, its wheels now leaning outward and now bending inward, as the loose linch-pin or some obstruction in the road might impel. She noted, however, that the old slouch hat and the brown sun-bonnet, with its coy tress of golden hair showing beneath its curtain, were seldom turned toward each other, and there was evidently little disposition for conversation between the two young people.
“Bluff hev got mos’ o’ the brains in that thar comp’ny,” she said to herself with indignation because of their mutual indifference. “But Lethe Ann Sayles air mighty diffe’nt from some wimmin, ef she kin hold her jaw fur twenty year, an’ keep that thar dead-an’-gin-out look on her face fur Mink Lorey. He can’t git back ’fore then. An’ Jerry’s got ez good a chance ez Ben Doaks. But it’s mighty hard on a pore old woman like me, ez hed trouble enough marryin’ herself off thirty year ago, a-runnin’ away an’ sech, ter gin herself ter studyin’ ’bout sech foolishness in her old age ez love-makin’, an’ onsettlin’ her mind, ’kase they hain’t got enough sense ter do thar courtin’ ’thout help.”
But this unique grievance was so inadequate that Mrs. Purvine gave up the effort to eke out thereby her ill-humor, and gazed about with placid complacence at the spring landscape, tossing all the bags of seed together into a splint basket, to be sorted at some more propitious day.
In Bluff’s slow progress along the red clay road, the gradual unfolding of the scene, the vernal peace, the benedictory sunshine, had their benignant effect on Alethea. Absorbed as she had been, in descending the mountain, by her anxiety for the specious aunt Dely’s illness, she had not noted until now how far the spring was advanced in the sheltered depths of the cove, how loath to climb to the sterile fastnesses of Wild-Cat Hollow.
“The season ’pears ter be toler’ble back’ard in the hollow, jedgin’ by the cove,” she remarked, her eyes resting wistfully upon the tender verdure on the margin of the river. The sun was warm, for it was not long past noon, and Bluff stopped to drink in the midst of the ford. The translucent brown water above the bowlders, all distinct in its clear depths, washed about the miry wheels, and lapsed with soft sighs against the rocky banks; great silvery circles elastically expanded on its surface about the ox’s muzzle, distorting somewhat the image of his head and his big, insistent, sullen eyes and long horns, as he drank. Whenever the sunbeams struck the current a bevy of tiny insects might be seen, skittering about over the water; and hark! a frog was croaking on a rotten log in the dank shadow of the laurel. From the fields beyond the call of the quail was sweet and clear. The ranges encompassing the cove on every hand seemed doubly beautiful, doubly dear, with the tender promise of summer upon them, with the freshened delights of soft airs pervading them, with the predominant sense of the liberated joys of nature in the bourgeonings and the blooms, in the swift rushing of torrents, in the whirl of wings. The wooded lines of those summits close at hand were drawn in fine detail against the sky, save where the great balds towered,—symmetrical, ponderous, bare domes; further mountains showed purple and blue, and among them was a lowering gray portent that might have seemed a storm-cloud, save to those who knew the strange, cumulose outline of Thunderhead.
Everywhere birds were building. A couple of jays were carrying straws from a heap in a corner of a fence; they rose with a great whirl of blue and white feathers, as Bluff, his horns nodding, approached them. A dove was cooing in a clump of dogwood trees, whitely blooming by the road. There was a great commotion of wings in the air from a lofty martin-house in a wayside door-yard, as the plucky denizens chased a hawk round and round and out of sight.
“Thought that thar war the way ter the post-office at Squair Bates’s, Jerry,” Alethea observed, pointing down one of those picturesque winding roads, so common to the region, threading the forests, its tawny red convolutions flecked with shadow and sheen, showing in long, fascinating vistas, and luring one to follow.
“Yes, sir,” said Jerry, “but I hev got ter take ye ter the post-office at Locust Levels. Ain’t ye hearn aunt Dely ’low that? An’ I hev got ter leave ye thar whilst I go ter the grist-mill nigh by, off the road a piece.”
Alethea flushed with a dull annoyance, recognizing the device that the long drive might be still longer. She nevertheless made no comment. They were each too dutiful to vary the plan of the journey, although aunt Dely might have considered this only obedience in the letter, and not in the spirit, as neither again spoke for a mile or more.
“This be Kildeer County,” said Jerry, at last, breaking the long silence. “We-uns crossed the line back thar ’bout haffen hour ago.”
Alethea’s pensive enjoyment of the gentle influences of the scene was marred. To be sure, aunt Dely had an unequivocal right to send, if she liked, to the post-office at Locust Levels, a hamlet of Kildeer County, rather than to the one nearer, in her own county; but it was a patent subterfuge that she should expect to receive letters here from their friends in Shaftesville. It was Alethea’s excellent common sense that had preserved her from the folly of the continual anticipation of a letter, so common among ignorant people, who, with no acquaintances elsewhere, beset the post-offices with their demands. She had never asked for a letter for herself, and there had begun to be revealed to her the fact that it was not a post-office which could produce an epistle for Mrs. Purvine; she needed a correspondent.
“Ef ye ’low ye’ll feel like a fool axin’ fur that thar letter, Lethe,” said the acute Jerry, divining her thoughts, “I’ll do it. I never mind feelin’ like a fool,—thar’s a heap o’ ’em in this worl’. An’ whenever I acts like one, I remembers I’m in powerful good company. An’ that’s why I don’t try ter be no smarter ’n I am.”
But Alethea said that she would ask for the letter, as aunt Dely had directed. When she alighted from the wagon at Locust Levels, Jerry and Bluff drove off at a whisking pace, which indicated that both might feel relieved.
At the post-office the wood-pile was in front of the house, and therefore the approach was over chips, splinters, and shreds of bark, which gave out a pungent fragrance. It was a low little gray cabin, partly of log and partly of plank, and with a blossoming company of peach-trees about it. They hung over the fence, and all the steep bank down to the road was covered with their pink petals shed in the wind. Some golden candlesticks and “butter-and-eggs” were blooming inside the rickety little palings, and a girl stood upon the porch beside a spinning-wheel.
Alethea noted the unrecognizing stare bent upon her. She opened the gate with difficulty, and went up on the shaded porch. The girl had stopped spinning, but was still gazing at her. A yellow dog, who had been asleep on the floor, his muzzle on his fore-paws, also scanned her curiously, not stirring his head, only lifting his eyes. When she faltered her inquiry for a letter for Mrs. Purvine, the dog got up as briskly as if he were the postmaster.
“Fur who?” demanded a masculine voice, as a man with a plough-line in his hand stepped around the corner, lured by the sound of the colloquy.
“Mis’ Purvine,” repeated Alethea.
He looked at her with a touch of indignation. He would never get through his spring ploughing at this rate. He strode into the house, however, to investigate. “I never hearn o’ her in all my life,” he said tartly.
And Alethea began to have a realization how very wide this world is.
The walls of the room bore many flaming graces of advertisement, pasted over the logs. They were of more fantastic device and a newer fashion than Mrs. Purvine’s relics of her husband’s postmastership. There were two neat beds in the room, a very clean floor, and a woman in the chimney-corner, smoking her pipe, who nodded with grave courtesy to Alethea.
The postmaster inserted a key in the lock of a table-drawer, and there, by some perversity, it stuck; it would neither come out nor go further in, nor turn in either direction. The dog had entered, too, as he always did, with a business-like air, and was standing beneath the table, slowly wagging his tail and lolling out his tongue; what strange ideas did he connect with the distribution of the mail? His position involved some danger, as his master struggled and pulled at the drawer, and jerked the table about. Finally, one of its legs came in contact with the foot of the dog, who had the worst of it. As his shrieks filled the room, the perspiring man turned to Alethea.
“I know thar ain’t no letter fur no Mis’ Purvine,” he declared. “Thar air jes fower letters in this hyar dad-burned drawer, an’ they be fur Judge Gwinnan. Ye see I can’t open it.”
The mail seemed indeed in safe-keeping. His daughter, who had been peering down the road, suddenly spoke:—
“Ye’ll hev ter open it. Fur thar be Jedge Gwinnan now, a-ridin’ up on that thar roan colt o’ his’n, what he hev jes’ bruk.”
A little play with the key, and the drawer abruptly opened.
There was, indeed, no letter for Mrs. Purvine, and snatching up the four for Judge Gwinnan, with some newspapers, the postmaster ran hastily out, hailing the rider as he drew rein at the corner of the orchard fence.
Alethea hesitated for a moment at the gate, gazing at the equestrian figure that had paused under the soft pink glamours of the orchard. She had heard of his belated plea for Mink Lorey. He evidently bore no grudge for his injuries. Suddenly there flashed into her mind a word that she might say for that graceless and forlorn wight,—a word which, perhaps, might not be taken amiss; and if it should do no good, it could at least work no harm. It was an abrupt resolution. She stood in eager impatience, yet loath to interrupt him.
Gwinnan read his letters, one by one, while the postmaster went back to the plough, where the gray mare dozed in the furrow.
As Gwinnan gathered up the reins, looking absently ahead, the girl waiting by the roadside signed to him to stop. He did not see her. Somehow Alethea could not speak. She sprang forward with a hoarse cry, as he was about to pass like a flash, and caught his bridle. The young horse swerved, instead of trampling upon her, but dragging her with him.
“Take care!” cried out Gwinnan sharply. He drew up his horse with an effort, and looked down at her in amazement as she still clung to the bridle.
The next moment he recognized her.