IN WHICH YET A FIFTH SHOCK ARRIVES, AND ROUNDS OUT THE DAY
This certainly has been a big day, the first one which has required two chapters of my story. I could have put it all in one, it is true, but I believe there exists a general preference for frequent "stopping places," and I shall defer to this opinion, partly, perhaps, because I heartily endorse it myself. Granf'er sighted Lessie at once, brought his jug up and down twice at arm's length by way of recognition, and resumed his way with the shuffling, elbow-lifting gait which usually attaches to men advanced in years when in a hurry.
How straight the girl's young body was! Uncorseted though I knew she must be, the lines of her figure conformed to the demands of physical beauty. From her naturally slender waist, belted only with the band made in her one piece frock, her back tapered up to shoulders which were shapely even under the poorly fitting dress. Her head, held more than ordinarily high now, as she watched Granf'er, was nobly poised on a firm, round neck, which I am most happy to record was not at all swan-like. I should like to add, in passing, that I have never seen a girl with a swan-like neck. If such exist, their natural place is in a dime museum, or a zoo. Such a monstrosity would, from the nature of her affliction, look like either a snake or a goose, neither of which have come down in humanity's annals as types of beauty. I must say it to the credit of most moderns, however, that the swan-necked lady is seldom paraded for us to admire. There were no crooks or loops in the Dryad's neck. Like a section of column it was; smooth, perfect, swelling to breast and shoulder.
I clambered to my feet behind her, cursing mentally the harmless, hospitable, doddering old fellow approaching, and singing a pæan of rejoicing in my soul at the same time. Such things can be. The breeze freshened, and began sporting with the dazzling, home-made coiffure on the Dryad's head. She had not loosened it since she came from her bath, and that is why I saw so plainly the classic outlines of her head and throat. The madcap wind caught her dress, too, as she stood exposed to its sweep down the ravine, and cunningly smoothed it over her hip and thigh; tightly, snugly smoothed it, then took the fullness remaining and flapped and shook it out like a flag. So I knew, again through no fault of mine, that this girl who had never even heard of a modiste—of her skill to make limb or bust to order—had grown up with a form which Aphrodite might have owned. She did not know the breeze had played a trick upon her; or knowing, thought nothing of it. The seeds of our grosser nature sprout more readily in the hotbed of a drawing-room of "cultured" society, than in the windsweet, sun-disinfected acres of the out-of-doors.
She spoke.
"Granny's picklin' to-day. She's run out o' vinegar 'n' has sent Granf'er to fin' me to go to town 'n' git some more."
"Let me go with you!" I urged.
"No," she answered, promptly; "'t wouldn't do. Don't you see?"
"I see what's in your mind," I replied, knowing that she was thinking I would likely meet the smith again; "but I should be glad to go anyway."
"No; you mus' stay here."
Firmly she said it, and my saner judgment told me she was right. It would have been a fool's errand for me to undertake.
"I know it is best," I assented reluctantly, "but why did Granny have to run out of vinegar this afternoon?"
Lessie threw me an amused glance over her shoulder, burst into a peal of laughter, and began waving her pole over her head in wide circles, taking this method to wind her line. When this was in place, she grasped the hook between finger and thumb, and imbedded it in the stopper.
"You bring th' fish 'n' th' bait," she said, and ran along the tree, sure-footed and nimble as a squirrel.
I picked up the can and bucket and followed. I looked at her catch as I went, and saw that it represented some half-dozen minnows only. Granf'er was waiting for us in the road. He had already transferred the jug to Lessie and given her instructions when I came up and cordially shook hands.
"How are you getting along?" was my greeting, as I wisely smothered the impatience I felt.
"Oh! fust rate;—'cep'n' th' ketch."
He put his left hand to his side and drew a wheezy breath.
Lessie gave her fishing-pole into Granf'er's care, smiled a farewell and started toward Hebron. It wrenched me for her to begin that lovely walk alone. She was twenty steps away when the old man suddenly turned.
"Don't go trapes'n' in th' woods fur flow'rs 'n' sich! Granny's wait'n' fur that air vinegyar!"
She waved her hand as a sign that she heard, but made no reply.
"A quare gal!" mused Granf'er, beginning to delve in his trousers pocket for his twist. "Fust 'n' las', they ain't no onderstand'n' 'er. She washes in th' woods lak a wil' Injun 'n' plays 'ith th' birds 'n' th' beastes. Oncommin quare, by gosh!"
He opened his mouth and allowed to roll therefrom his chewed-out quid, ran his crooked and cracked forefinger around his gums to dislodge any particle of the leaf which might still remain in hiding, and took another chew.
"But she is a most attractive young lady, nevertheless," I ventured, tentatively, putting one hand in my pocket for my pipe and holding the other out in dumb request. I remembered the guest-rite of my first visit, and shrewdly suspected this move of mine would please the old man. It did.
"Lak it, don't ye?" he grinned, his wrinkled face lighting with pleasure as he eagerly thrust the tobacco into my palm. "Light Burley 't is, 'n' skace 's' hen's teeth. Mos' craps plum' failed las' year, but I growed a plenty fur you 'n' me—yes, fur you 'n' me!"
The expression tickled him into a creaky, croaky sort of laugh.
"It's good stuff, Granf'er," I agreed, compromising with my conscience by supposing that it was good to chew, although to smoke, it bit my tongue abominably and had a green flavor. "I've been intending to come back to see you and Granny and Lessie ever since I was here last, but one thing and another has prevented. I hope you are all well?"
I turned toward the path and moved forward a few steps, as though assuming we would now go on up to the house. But Gran'fer's thoughts did not run with mine.
"Well? Yes; that is to say, tol'ble." His manner was somewhat excited. "Granny, y' know, 's pickl'n' to-day, 'n' w'en she's pickl'n' she's turble busy, 'n' turble—turble techous.... Fine terbacker, ain't it?" as he saw the pale blue smoke beginning to come from my lips. "Yes, we're putty well, but Granny's ben kind o' contrairy these fo' days pas', 'n' bein' she's pickl'n' I 'low you 'n' me 'd jes' as well set down right here 'n' hev our chat."
He tried to speak in an ordinary way, but simulation did not abide in his honest, open soul, and I knew he felt he was breaking hospitality's rules in suggesting that we remain away from the house. The thought worried him, and he could not hide it.
"All right!" I answered, heartily, donning the hypocrite's cloak with perfect ease. (This is one of the advantages of our ultra civilized state.) "Women are different from men, anyhow, and take notions and ideas which we have to humor. And some people are so constituted by nature that they must be let alone when they are busy."
"Yes! Yes! That's it! Notions 'n' idees!" Gran'fer eagerly approved. "I don't see how yo' kin know so much 'bout wimmin if yo' 've never ben married.... Notions 'n' idees!" He chuckled with a dry sort of rattling sound, rubbed his leg, and thumped the ground with the butt of the Dryad's fishing-pole. "By gosh! Notions 'n' idees!" he repeated, for the third time, his eyes narrowed and his face broadened in a fixed expression of unalloyed pleasure.
"Suppose we sit on the big rock here?" I said, with a gesture toward the immense stone which formed the tip of the Point.
I walked out upon it as I spoke, and the old fellow dragged after, doubtless still caressing in his mind that chance phrase which had caught his fancy. The stone was a dozen yards across, and its creek side arose perpendicularly from the water, its top being five feet or more from the stream's surface. Here we sat, hanging our legs over as boys would. I smoked, and Gran'fer chewed. He really didn't chew much, because I am sure he was inherently opposed to the slightest exertion which was unnecessary, but now and then he would defile the limpid purity below, a fact which convinced me he was enjoying his marvelous tobacco far more than I was.
"Wimmin is curi's," began Gran'fer, when we had arranged ourselves comfortably. He twirled his stubby, funny looking thumbs contentedly and leisurely. The end of each was overhung with a remarkable length of nail, black and thick. "I s'pose they's nec'sary ur th' Lord wouldn't 'a' put 'em here, but it's a plum' fac' they's no read'n' 'em, 'n' no tell'n' whut they gunta do. S'firy 'n' me, come November twinty-fust, nex', hev ben married forty-two year. Right there in Hebrin wuz we married, forty-two year ago come November twinty-fust, nex'. At th' Cath'lic chu'ch on th' hill, th' same whut's now Father John's. He wuzn't here them days. 'Nother pries' married us. S'firy's a Cath'lic 'n' I wus n't nothin', but I wuz bornd o' Prot'st'nt parints. 'N' I made th' fust mistake right there. Onless two people hev th' same b'lief, they oughtn't to jine in wedlock, 'cus trouble's comin' shore 's sin."
He took off his worn, soiled, and shapeless straw hat to scratch his head.
"I suspect you are entirely right about that. I know of a number of unhappy marriages for that reason."
Gran'fer grunted, twice.
"S'firy's a buxom gal, ez th' sayin' goes," he continued, reminiscently. "Purties' gal hereabout she wuz, ef I do say it, but they's allus fire on her tongue. Jes' lak a patch o' powder her min' wuz, 'n' th' leas' thin' 'd set it off. 'Tain't in th' natur o' young people to look ahead, ur I never 'd 'a' tried life with S'firy. A young feller in love is th' out 'n' out damndes' fool on airth. I'se sich.... I couldn't stan' ag'in 'er."
He shook his head slowly, and fell to combing his straggling fringe of whiskers with his bent fingers.
I did not reply. I was not much interested in the old man's recital. I had guessed already practically all that he was telling me. My mind was full of other things; my thoughts were back on the Hebron road, following the footsteps of the girl with the jug.
"I fit, though; I fit to be boss o' my own house,"—the querulous, cracked voice broke in upon my reflections. "See here?" He drew his palm down over his long, shaven upper lip, and looked at me craftily with his little blue eyes. "I knowed a man onct, in them days, whut wore his beard jes' that way, 'n' he's the w'eelhoss o' the fam'ly. Th' wimmin wuz skeered uv 'im es a chick'n is uv a hawk. Whut he said they done, 'n' done 'ithout argyment. 'N' I took th' notion that if I shaved my lip, too, 'n' looked kind o' fierce 'n' hard lak, that I c'd manage S'firy. So one mornin' I gits my razor 'n' fixes that lip, 'n' w'en I saw myseff I felt I c'd boss anybody, I looked that mean. So in I comes to S'firy, 'n' tol' 'er, kind o' brash, that I wanted sich 'n' sich a thin' done, 'n' kind o' squared myseff 'n' put my han's on my hip j'ints, same 's I saw that other feller do, y' know.... Chris' Jesus!... Whut happ'n'd? 'S ben a long time ago 'n' I can't ricollec' all th' doin's. But she called me a babboon fust, 'n' then she lit into me.... Well, I kep' on shavin' my lip, 'cus I 'proved o' th' style, but I didn't order S'firy no more, bein' 's I'm nat'rly a man o' peace."
"How many children did you have, Gran'fer?" I asked, presently.
"Jes' two. Th' fust 'n' wuz a boy whut died o' fits w'en he 's two weeks ol'. Th' nex' 'n' wuz Ar'minty, Lessie's mammy. She died w'en Lessie 's skacely more 'n a baby."
"What was the matter with her?" I asked.
Quick as a flash Gran'fer turned on me, an expression of alarm and anger mingled showing on his face. What had I done? Surely my question was simple and natural enough. He saw my surprise and astonishment, and his feelings softened instantly.
"She jes' pined 'way lak," he replied, dropping his eyes and smoothing the back of one hand with the palm of the other. "Didn't hev no fevers, nur nothin'. Jes' drooped, lak a tomater plant does w'en it's fust sot out 'n' don't git no rain. Got weaker 'n' weaker. Wouldn't eat nothin'. Didn't try to live. Couldn't do nothin' with 'er. So she jes' wilted up 'n' died, lak a tomater plant in th' sun.... Ar'minty."
The plain, brief recital stirred me, and awoke within me a wondering interest. Gran'fer's head was low now, so low that the hair on his chin spread out fanlike over his faded, checked shirt. His hand had ceased its caressing movement, and lay above the other. I could see that each had a slight palsied motion. The little bent figure at my side struck me as infinitely pathetic just then. Dull indeed must I have been not to have sensed the shadow of some dire tragedy occurring in the years he had mentioned. For a number of days past vague imaginings and sundry conjectures had come to vex my mind with their unsatisfying presence. I had known for some time that Lessie was not all she seemed, and now, this moment, I stood on the borderland of enlightenment. Unfamiliar thrills shot through me, flame tipped and eager. My heart pounded oddly, and my eyelids were hot against the balls. Instantly a thought had sprung full-born into existence, and it was the acceptance of this thought which sent that tingling, vibrating current shooting throughout my entire being. Where did Lessie get her refined features? Where the instinct to care scrupulously for her person? Where that mute, painful longing for something she could not name? From generation after generation of ox-minded hill folk? Impossible! From them came her wonderful simplicity, her extreme naturalness, her kinship with the wild places and the things which dwelt there. But—I felt now as if a force pump was connected with my chest, and that any moment it might burst asunder. Dare I ask Gran'fer? Dare I, almost a total stranger, intrude here, and seek to pry behind the veil these old people had drawn between their grandchild and the world? I resolved to make the effort, but with great caution, feeling my way with carefully chosen words. I did not want to offend, but the desire to know the truth about the Dryad was all but overpowering. It was not vulgar, idle curiosity. For I knew the deeps were stirred; that underlying all else was the strange, full throbbing of a new force.
So I put a hand on the old man's sagging shoulder in friendly way, and said, speaking softly—
"And is Lessie's father—"
I got no further.
It was as though I had put him in contact with a live wire. His drooping body straightened, his boot heels clicked against the face of the stone, and his stiffened arms shot over his head.
"Damn 'im! Damn 'im! Damn 'im!" he exclaimed shrilly, each expletive more forceful than the one which went before. He tossed his clenched fists skyward, and followed such a lurid stream of malediction, in consideration of some lily-minded reader, I will not set it down. I was almost alarmed at the storm my luckless speech had loosened; it seemed for a short time as if Gran'fer would really go into a spasm. His lip curled back brute-like till his teeth showed, while his face was grooved, seamed and twisted uglily. The evil memories which gripped him tore him roughly for several moments, and then his passion was spent, leaving him with eyes red and blazing, chest heaving and arms trembling. I learned nothing from his volcanic, torrential downpour of curses which in any way lightened the mystery I was burning to solve. It was merely a meaningless jumble of heated invective, delivered with deadly earnestness and the most emphatic inflections.
At first I was dumb. His violence came on him so suddenly and quickly. From the little I had seen of him I had set him down as a rather meek character, what manhood he may formerly have had henpecked out of him; an entity, forsooth, but nothing more. When the shock had passed I did not essay to soothe him. My judgment told me this would not have been wise. There are some people, especially rural ones and others of no education, who will not take soothing. In fact, it acts as oil, rather than water, to flames. I believed Gran'fer to be of this sort, and while I had no doubt his rage was both righteous and genuine, I let it wear out before I spoke again.
"I beg your pardon, sir; but I did not know."
He swallowed twice; I could see his hairy Adam's apple rise and fall.
"We don't—talk 'bout him. 'N'—yo' mustn't ast!"
The tones were trembling and weak now, but there was dignity in them. A feeling of true respect came to me for Gran'fer. There was something sterling in him. A man may crawl on his belly before a sharp-tongued shrew, and yet hold that within him which will arise at the command of necessity; stunned and brow-beaten worth quickened by chance, opportunity, or need.
Now there surged within me another wish—a wild desire to know one other thing. It would harm no one to tell me, and to me it meant much.
"Gran'fer," I said; "I'm your friend—your true friend. Perhaps I should put it that I am Lessie's friend. I apologize for what I said; I didn't intend any harm. I promise not to mention the subject again to you. But I pray that you will tell me this—does Lessie know—know about her father—who he was—and all?"
I waited for his answer, trembling inwardly. He seemed to be thinking. The cloud had come again to his face, and he began cracking his knuckles, a succession of vicious little snaps. Then one word burst from him, hard as a pellet of lead.
"No!"
"Thank you," I said.
Then there fell a silence between us. Gran'fer's mind was back in the past, and I was groping blindly in the mists of wonder and supposition. There was a reason, then, for the complex, warring nature of the Dryad. How I longed to know the whole truth! But I could go no further here. It was a painful subject, a guarded secret to the old man sitting humped over by my side, and for the time I must hold my curiosity in check. The revelation would come. I was determined to learn the story, one way or another, though from what source I could not remotely guess.
Gran'fer's customary garrulity had deserted him; he even forgot to spit in the water. When my pipe burned out I did not refill. I know both of us were oppressed, were quieted by the thought of this great wrong which had been inflicted nearly a score of years ago. So the creeping shadows came upon us, and beyond the high western spur the sky glowed salmon, and gold, and mauve. I heard a screech-owl's sudden chatter, and a crazy bat wheeled in a wide curve just in front of us. The surface of the creek grew leaden hued, and the mighty Harp of the Ancient Wood thrilled gently in response to the low twilight breeze. Gran'fer stirred, and got stiffly to his feet. I did the same. Somehow I felt awed. Out here creation seemed so immense, so recent, that it was hard to believe the trail of the serpent had passed over this spot, too. We turned in silence and went back to the road.
From down Hebron way came the sound of singing. Not blatantly loud and shrill, but very mellow and rich-toned. It was a woman's voice. A change had come over me, and I did not want to meet her again just then. She would have marked the difference. I turned and held out my hand. Gran'fer took it and gave it a mighty squeeze. His eyes were wet, and his face looked pained. As I came down the ladder at the other end of the bridge I glanced across at him. He was standing where I left him, gazing down the road up which the girl was coming, with that song of light-hearted, carefree youth upon her lips.
I moved away, quickly.