“THEM OLD MOTH-EATEN LOVYERS”

BY CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK

Author of “In the Tennessee Mountains,” “Where the Battle was Fought,” etc.

WITH PICTURES BY GEORGE WRIGHT

HAIR snow-white, the drifts of many a winter, eyes sunken amid a network of wrinkles, hands hardened and veinous, shoulders bent, and step laggard and feeble, the old lovers were as beautiful to each other, and as enthralled by mutual devotion, as on their wedding-day forty-five years before. They were beautiful also to more discerning eyes—to a wandering artist in quest of material, who painted them both in divers poses, and carried off his canvases. As a recompense of some sort, he left a masterly depiction of the god of love burned in the wood of the broad, smooth board of the mantelpiece above the hearth, where the fickle little deity, though furnished with wings for swiftest flight, had long presided in constancy.

Doubtless some such sentiment had prompted the pyrography, but its significance failed to percolate through the dense ignorance of the old mountain woman.

“Folks from the summer hotel over yander nigh the bluffs air always powerful tickled over that leetle critter,” she was wont to reply to an admiring comment, “but he ‘pears ter me some similar ter a flying-squirrel. I never seen no baby dee-formed with wings nohow, an’ I tol’ the painter-man at the time that them legs war too fat ter be plumb genteel. But, lawsy! I jes hed ter let him keep on workin’. He war powerful saaft-spoken an’ perlite, though I war afeared he’d disfigure every plain piece o’ wood about the house afore he tuk hisself away.”

Years before, the romance of the old couple had been the idyl of the country-side. They had indeed been lovers as children. They had made pilgrimages to their trysting-place when the breadth of the dooryard was a long journey. They had plighted their vows as they sat in juvenile content, plump, tow-headed, bare-footed among the chips of the wood pile. As they grew older it was the object of their lives to save their treasures to bestow on each other. A big apple, a chunk of maple-sugar, a buckeye of abnormal proportions, attained a certain dignity regarded as gages d’amour. They were never parted for a day till Editha was seventeen years old, when she was summoned to the care of a paralytic aunt who dwelt in Shaftesville, twelve miles distant, and who, in the death of her husband, had been left peculiarly helpless and alone.

The separation was a dreary affliction to the lovers, but it proved the busiest year of Benjamin Casey’s life, signalized by his preparations for the home-coming of the bride to be. All the country-side took a share in the “house-raising,” and the stanch log cabin went up like magic on the rocky bit of land on the bluff, thus utilized to reserve for the plow the arable spaces of the little farm. Every article of the rude furniture common to the region was in its appropriate place when Editha first stood on her own threshold and gazed into the glowing fire aflare upon her own hearth; and humble though it was, she confronted the very genius of home.

The guests who danced at the wedding and afterward at the infare felt that the lifelong romance was a sort of community interest, and for many a year its details were familiarized by repetition about the fire-side or to the casual stranger. But Time is ever the mocker. The generation which had known the pair in the bloom and freshness of their beauty had in great part passed away. Their idyl of devotion and constancy gradually became farcical as the years imposed their blight. “Them old moth-eaten lovyers” was a phrase so apt in derisive description that it commended itself for general use to a community of later date and newer ideals. What a zest of jovial ridicule would the iconoclasts have enjoyed had it been known that it was only when one was sixty-five years of age and the other sixty-three that there had occurred their first experience of a lovers’ quarrel! For Benjie and Editha now were seriously regarded only by themselves.

A steady, sober man was Benjamin Casey, of a peculiarly sane and reliable judgment, but it occasioned an outburst of unhallowed mirth in the vicinity when it was bruited abroad that he had been chosen on the venire for the petit jury at the next term of the court.

“I’ll bet Editha goes, too,” exclaimed a gossip at the cross-roads store, delighted with the incongruity of the idea.

“Sure,” acceded his interlocutor. “Benjie can’t serve on no panel ’thout Editha sets on the jury, too.”

And, in fact, when the great day came for the journey to the county town, the rickety little wagon with the old white mare stood harnessed before the porch for an hour while Editha, in the toils of perplexity, decided on the details of her toilet for the momentous occasion, and Benjie bent the whole capacity of his substantial mind in the effort to aid her. The finishing touch to her costume of staid, brown homespun had a suggestion of sacrilege in the estimation of each.

“I’d lament it ef it war ter git sp’iled anyways, Benjie,” she concluded at length, “but I dunno ez I will ever hev a more especial occasion ter wear this big silk neckerchief what that painter-man sent me in a letter from Glaston—I reckon fer hevin’ let him mark up my mantel-shelf so scandalous. Jus’ the color of the sky it is, an’ ez big ez a shoulder-shawl, an’ thick an’ glossy in the weave fer true. See! I hev honed ter view how I would look in it, but I hev never made bold ter put it on. Still, considerin’ I ain’t been in Shaftesvul sence the year I spent thar forty-six years ago, I don’t want ter look tacky in nowise; an’, then, I’ll he interjuced ter all them gentlemen of the jury, too.”

Benjie solemnly averred himself of like opinion, and this important question thus settled, the afternoon brought them to Shaftesville, where they spent the night with relatives of Editha.

The criminal court-room of the old brick court-house was a revelation of a new and awesome phase of life to the old couple when the jury was impaneled early the next morning. Editha, decorous, though flushed and breathless with excitement, sat among the spectators, who were ranged on each side of the elevated and railed space inclosing the bar, and Benjie, conspicuous among the jury, exercised the high privilege, which most of his colleagues had sought to shirk, of aiding in the administration of his country’s laws.

Although the taking of testimony occupied only two or three hours during the morning, the rest of the jury obviously wearied at times and grew inattentive, but Benjie continued alert, fresh, intent on a true understanding of the case. More than once he held up his hand for permission to speak, after the etiquette acquired as a boy at the little district school, and when the judge accorded the boon of a question, the point was so well taken and cut so trenchantly into the perplexities involved, that both the arguments of the lawyers and the charge from the bench were inadvertently addressed chiefly to this single juryman, whose native capacity discounted the value of the better-trained minds of the rest of the panel.

When the jury were about to retire to consider their verdict, the unsophisticated pair were surprised to discover that Editha was not to be allowed to sit with Benjie in the jury-room and aid the deliberations of the panel. She had stood up expectantly in her place as the jury began to file out toward an inner apartment, and had known by intuition the import of Benjie’s remark to the constable in charge, happily sotto voce, or it might have fractured the decorum of the court-room beyond the possibility of repair. At the reply, Benjie paused for a moment, looking dumfounded; then catching her eye, he slowly shook his white head. The constable, young, pert, and brisk, hastily circled about his “good and lawful men” with much the style of a small and officious dog rounding up a few recalcitrant head of cattle. The door closed inexorably behind them, and the old couple were separated on the most significant instance in their quiet and eventless lives.

For a few minutes Editha stood at a loss; then her interest in the judicial proceedings having ceased with the retirement of Benjie from the court-room, she drifted softly through the halls and thence to the street. There had been many changes in Shaftesville since the twelvemonth she had spent there forty-six years before, and she presently developed the ardor of a discoverer in touring the town with this large liberty of leisure while her husband was engrossed in the public service.

Drawn by George Wright. Half-tone plate engraved by G. M. Lewis.

“SHE HAD STOOD UP EXPECTANTLY IN HER PLACE AS THE JURY
BEGAN TO FILE OUT”

As he sat constrained to the deliberations of the jury, Benjie was beset with certain doubts and fears as to the dangers that might betide her. Through the window beside him once he saw her passing on the opposite side of the square, still safe, wavering to and fro before the display of a dry-goods store, evidently amazed at the glories of the fripperies of the fashion on view at the door.

Benjie sprang to his feet, then, realizing the exigencies of the situation, sank back in his chair.

“Thar,” he said suddenly to his colleagues, waving his hand pridefully toward the distant figure—“thar is Mis’ Casey, my wife, by Christian name Editha.”

The jury, despite the untimeliness of the interruption, had the good grace and the good manners to acknowledge this introduction, so to speak, in the spirit in which it was tendered.

“Taking in the town, I suppose,” said the foreman, a well-known grocer of the place.

“Jes so, jes so,” said the beaming Casey. “I war determinated that Mis’ Casey should visit Shaftesvul an’, ef so minded, take in the town.”

Editha vanished within the store, and Benjie’s mind was free to revert to the matter in hand. It was not altogether a usual experience even for one more habituated to jury service. The deliberations started with some unanimity of opinion, the first three ballots showing eleven to one, Benjie holding out in a stanch minority that bade fair to prevent agreement, and enabling the foreman to perpetrate the time-honored joke in the demand for supper.

“Constable,” he roared, “order a meal of victuals for eleven men and a bale of hay for a mule.”

Later, however, Benjie was all a-tingle with pride when the foreman, with a knitted brow at a crisis of the discussion observed, “There is something worth considering in one point of Mr. Casey’s contention.”

This impression grew until the jury called in the constable from his station at the door to convey their request for instruction upon a matter of law. Although long after nightfall, the court was still in session, owing to the crowded state of the docket, and when the jury were led into the court-room to receive from the bench an explanation of the point in question, Benjie was elated to find that the information they had sought aided and elucidated his position. The first ballot taken after returning to the jury-room resulted in ten of the jurors supporting his insistence against only two, and of these the foreman was one. They balloted once more just before they started to go to the hotel to bed, still guarded by the constable, who kept them, in a compact body, from any communication with the public. On this ballot only the foreman was in the opposition.

When they were standing in the hallway of the upper story of the hotel, and the officer was assigning them to their rooms and explaining to the foreman that he would be within call if anything was needed, Benjie, now in high spirits, was moved to exclaim, “Never fear, sonny; a muel is always ekal ter a good loud bray.”

All the jury applauded this turning of the tables, and laughed at the foreman, and one demanded of Benjie what he fed on “up in the sticks to get so all-fired sharp.”

The next morning, to the old mountaineer’s great satisfaction, the foreman, having slept on his perplexities, awoke to Benjie’s way of thinking, and when they were once more in the court-room he pridefully stated that they had reached an agreement and found the prisoner “Not guilty.” The crowd in the court-room cheered; in one moment the prisoner looked like another man, and genially shook hands with each of the jury; the judge thanked them before discharging them from further duty; and as Benjie pushed out of the court-room in the crowd all this was on the tip of his tongue to narrate for the eager wonderment and interest of Editha.

An immediate start for home was essential in order not to tax old Whitey too severely, for the clay roads were heavy as the result of a recent rainfall, and they must reach the mountain before sunset, in view of the steep and dangerous ascent. Therefore he sent word to Editha to meet him at a certain corner, while he repaired to the livery-stable for his vehicle; for he had happened to encounter her hostess, a kinswoman, on his way from the court-room, and had taken ceremonious leave of her on the street.

“I don’t want no more hand-shakin’ an’ farewells,” he said to himself, flustered and eager for the start, so delighted was he to be homeward-bound with Editha and fairly launched on the recital of his wondrous experiences while serving on the jury.

His lips were vaguely moving, now with a word, now with a pleased smile, formulating the sequences of his story, as he jogged along in his little wagon and suddenly caught sight of his wife awaiting him at the appointed corner.

At the first glance he remarked the change. It was Editha in semblance, but not the Editha he knew or had ever known.

“Editha!” he murmured faintly, all his being resolved into eyes, as he checked old Whitey and drew up close to the curb.

No meager old woman this, wont to hold herself a trifle stoop-shouldered, to walk with a slow, shuffling gait. Her thin figure was braced alertly, like some slender girl’s. She stepped briskly, lightly, from the high curb, and with two motions, as the soldiers say, she put her foot on the hub of the wheel and was seated beside him in the wagon. Then he saw her face, through the tunnel of her dark-blue sunbonnet, suffused with a pink bloom as delicate as a peach-blossom. Her eyes were as blue and as lustrous as the silk muffler, which the artist had doubtless selected with a realization of the accord of these fine tints. A curl of her silky, white hair lay on her forehead, and another much longer hung down beneath the curtain of her bonnet, scarcely more suggestive of age than if it had been discreetly powdered. Her lips were red, and there was a vibration of joyous excitement in her voice.

“Waal, sir, Shaftesvul!” she exclaimed, turning to survey the vanishing town, for it had required scarcely a moment to whisk them beyond its limited precincts. “It’s the beauty-spot of the whole world, sure. But,” she added as she settled herself straight on the seat and turned her face toward the ranges in the distance, “we must try ter put up with the mountings. One good thing is that we air used ter them, else hevin’ ter go back arter this trip would be powerful’ hard on us, sure. Benjie, who do ye reckon I met up with in Shaftesvul? Now, who?”

“I dunno,” faltered Benjie, all ajee and out of his reckoning. Luckily old Whitey knew the way home, for the reins lay slack on her back. “War it yer Cousin Lucindy Jane?” Benjie ventured.

“Cousin Lucindy Jane!” Editha echoed with a tone closely resembling contempt. “Of course I met up with Cousin Lucindy Jane, an’ war interjuced ter her cow an’ all her chickens. Cousin Lucindy Jane!” she repeated slightingly. Then essaying no further to foster his lame guesswork, “Benjie,” she laid her hand impressively on his arm, “I met up with Leroy Tresmon’!”

She gazed at him with wide, bright eyes, challenging his outbreak of surprise. But Benjie only dully fumbled with the name. “Leroy Tresmon’?” he repeated blankly. “Who’s him?”

“Hesh, Benjie!” cried Editha in a girlish gush of laughter. “Don’t ye let on ez I hev never mentioned Leroy Tresmon’s name ter you-’uns. Gracious me! Keep that secret in the sole of yer shoe. He’d never git over it ef he war ter find that out, vain an’ perky ez he be.”

“But—but when did ye git acquainted with him?”

“Why, that year ’way back yander when I lived with Aunt Dor’thy in Shaftesvul. My! my! my! why, ’Roy war ez reg’lar ez the town clock in comin’ ter see me. But, lawsy! it be forty-six year’ ago now. I never would hev dreampt of the critter remembering me arter all these years.” She bridled into a graceful erectness, and threw her beautiful eyes upward in ridicule of the idea as she went on: “I war viewin’ the show-windows of that big dry-goods store. They call it ‘the palace’”—Benjie remembered that he had seen her at that very moment—“an’ it war all so enticin’ ter the eye that I went inside to look closer at some of the pretties; an’ ez I teetered up an’ down the aisle I noticed arter awhile a man old ez you-’uns, Benjie, but mighty fine an’ fixed up an’ scornful an’ perky, an’ jes gazin’ an’ gazin’ at me. But I passed on heedless, an’ presently, ez I war about ter turn ter leave, a clerk stepped up ter me—I hed noticed out of the corner of my eye the boss-man whisper ter him—an’ this whipper-snapper he say, ‘Excuse me, Lady, but did you give yer name ter hev any goods sent up?’ An’ I say, ‘I hev bought no goods; I be a stranger jes viewin’ the town.’ Then ez I started toward the door this boss-man suddint kem out from behind his desk an’ appeared before me. ‘Surely,’ he said, smiling—he hed the whitest teeth, Benjie, an’ a-many of ’em, ez reg’lar ez grains of corn—”

Benjie instinctively closed his lips quickly over his own dental vacancies and ruins as Editha resumed her recital:

“‘Surely,’ he said, smiling, ‘thar never war two sech pairs of eyes—made out of heaven’s own blue. Ain’t this Editha Bruce?’

“An’ I determinated ter skeer him a leetle, fer he war majorin’ round powerful’ brash; so I said ez cool ez a cucumber, ‘Mis’ Benjamin Casey.’

“But, shucks! the critter knowed my voice ez well ez my eyes. He jes snatched both my hands, an’ ef he said ‘Editha! Editha! Editha!’ once, he said it a dozen times, like he would bu’st out crying an’ sheddin’ tears in two minutes. He don’t call my name like you do, Benjie, short-like, ‘’Ditha.’ He says it ‘Eeditha,’ drawn out, saaft, an’ sweet. Oh, lawsy! I plumb felt like a fool or a gal seventeen year’ old—same thing. Fer it hed jes kem ter me who he war, but I purtended ter hev knowed him all along. The conceits of the town ways of Shaftesvul hev made me plumb tricky an’ deceitful; I tell ye now, Benjie.” She gave a jocose little nudge of her elbow into his thin, old ribs, and so strangely forlorn had Benjie begun to feel that he was grateful even for this equivocal attention.

“Then ‘Roy Tresmon’ say—Now, Benjie, I dunno whether ye will think I done the perlite thing, fer I didn’t rightly know what ter do myself—he say, ‘Editha, fer old sake’s sake choose su’thin’ fer a gift o’ remembrance outen my stock.’

“I never seen no cattle, so I s’posed he war talkin’ sorter townified about his goods in the store. But I jes laffed an’ say, ‘My husband is a man with a free hand, though not a very fat purse, an’ I prefer ter spen’ a few dollars with ye, ez I expected ter do when I drifted in hyar a stranger.’ Ye notice them lies, Benjie. I reckon I kin explain them somehow at the las’ day, but they served my turn ez faithful ez the truth yestiddy. I say, ‘Ye kin take one penny out of the change an’ put a hole through it fer remembrance, an’ let old sake’s sake go at that.’” Once more her caroling, girlish laughter echoed along the lonely road.

“Though I really hedn’t expected ter spen’ a cent, I bought me some thread an’ buttons, an’ some checked gingham fer aperns, an’ a leetle woolen shoulder-shawl, an’ paid fer them, meanin’ of course ter tote ’em along with me under my arm; but ’Roy gin the clerk a look, an’ that spry limber-jack whisked them all away, an’ remarked, ‘The goods will be sent up immejetly ter Mrs. Jarney’s, whar ye say ye be stoppin’.’ An’, Benjie, whenst Cousin Sophy Jarney an’ me opened that parcel las’ night, what d’ ye s’pose we f’und?” She gave Benjie a clutch on the wrist of the hand that held the reins; and feeling them tighten, old Whitey mended her pace.

“Ye oughter been more keerful than ter hev lef’ the things at the store arter payin’ cash money fer ’em,” rejoined Benjie, sagely, not that he was suspicious of temperament, but unsophisticated of training.

“Shucks!” cried Editha, with a rallying laugh. “All them common things that I bought war thar, an’ more besides, wuth trible the money, Benjie. A fancy comb fer the hair—looks some similar ter a crown, though jet-black an’ shiny—an’ a necklace o’ beads ter match. O Benjie!” she gave his hand an ecstatic pressure. “I’ll show ’em ter ye when we gits home—every one. They air in my kyarpet-bag thar in the back of the wagon. An’ thar war besides a leetle lace cape with leetle black jet beads winkin’ at ye all over it, an’ a pair o’ silk gloves, not like mittens, but with separate fingers. Cousin Sophy Jarney she jes squealed. She say, ‘I wish I hed a beau like that!’ Ned Jarney, standin’ by, watchin’ me open the parcel, he say, ‘Ladies hev ter be ez beautisome ez Cousin Editha ter hev beaus at command at her time of life.’ Oh, my! Oh, my! Cousin Sophy she say, ‘Cousin Editha is yit, ez she always war, a tremenjious flirt. I think I’ll try ter practise a leetle bit ter git my hand in, ef ever I should hev occasion ter try.’ Oh, my! I’ll never furgit this visit ter Shaftesvul, the beauty-spot of the nation.”

Editha’s admired eyes, alight with all the fervors of retrospection, were fixed unseeing upon the majestic range of mountains, now turning from blue to amethyst with a cast of the westering sun. The fences had failed along the roadside, and for miles it had run between shadowy stretches of forest that, save for now and again a break of fields or pasture-lands, cut off the alluring view. A lovely stream had given the wayfarers its company, flowing beside the highway, clear as crystal, and when once more it expanded into shallows the road ran down to the margin to essay a ford. Here, as old Whitey paused to drink from the lustrous depths, the reflection of the deep-green, overhanging boughs, the beetling, gray rocks, and the blue sky painted a picture on the surface too refreshingly vivid and sweet for the senses to discriminate at once all its keen sources of joy.

Drawn by George Wright. Half-tone plate engraved by R. Varley.

“‘AN’ WILL YE TELL ME WHAT’S THE REASON I COULDN’T HEV
HED RICHES—OLD TOM FOOL!’“

Old Whitey had seemed to drink her fill, but as Benjie was about to gather up the reins anew she bowed her pendulous lips once more to the shining surface.

“Fust off,” resumed Mrs. Casey, with a touch of gravity, “I felt plumb mortified about them presents. I knowed all that stuff had cost ’Roy an onpleasing price of money. But, then, I reminded myself I hed no accountability. He done it of his own accord, an’ he could well afford it. I remembered when I war fust acquainted with ’Roy, when I war jes a young gal an’ he nuthin’ but a peart cockerel, he hed then the name of bein’ one of the richest men in Shaftesvul. His dad bein’ dead, ’Roy owned what he hed his own self. An’ jedgin’ by his ‘stock,’ ez he called it, an’ his ‘palace,’ he must hev been makin’ money hand over hand ever sence. So I made up my mind ter enjoy the treat whenst he invited me an’ Sophy an’ her husband, Ned Jarney, ter go ter the pictur’-show last night an’ eat supper arterward. An’, Benjie, I never seen sech fine men-folks’s clothes ez ’Roy Tresmon’ stepped out in. He hed on a b’iled shirt stiff ez a board; he mought hev leaned up ag’in’ it ef he felt tired. His white collar war ekally stiff, an’ ez high ez a staked-an’-ridered fence. Whenst he looked over it he ’peared some similar ter a jumpin’ muel in a high paddock. He hed leetle, tiny, shiny buttons in his shirt-front,—Sophy said they war pure gold,—an’ his weskit war cut down jes so—lem me show ye how.”

She had turned to take hold of Benjie’s humble jeans clothing to illustrate the fashion of the garb of the merchant prince of Shaftesville when her hand faltered on the lapel of his coat. “Why, Benjie,” she cried sharply, “what makes ye look so plumb pale an’ peaked? Air ye ailin’ anyways?”

“Naw, naw.” Benjie testily repudiated the suggestion. “Tell on yer tale.” Then by way of excuse or explanation he added, “I ain’t sick, but settin’ on a jury is a wearin’ business.”

“Mought be ter the britches, but not ter the health,” Editha rejoined. Then she burst out laughing at her jest, and it brought to her mind a new phase of her triumphs. “’Roy Tresmon’ he said I war the wittiest lady he ever seen. He meant plumb jokified,” she explained tolerantly. “An’ sure’ I did keep him on the grin. He ’lowed it war wuth twice the price of his entertainment ter escort me ter the pictur’-show an’ theater-supper arterward; fer when the show war over, me an’ him an’ Sophy an’ Jarney went ter an eatin’-store, whar they hed a whole passel o’ leetle tables set out in the floor an’ the biggest lookin’-glass I ever see on the wall. But, lawsy! Benjie, be ye a-goin’ ter let that old mare stand slobberin’ in the river plumb till sunset? Git up, Whitey!”

As the wagon went jolting up the steep bank, Editha resumed:

“But I tell ye now, Benjie, ’Roy Tresmon’ didn’t do all the fine dressin’. I cut a dash myself. Sophy begged me ter wear a dress of hern ter the pictur’-show an’ the theater-supper, ez they called it, arterward, which I war crazy ter do all the time, though I kep’ on sayin’ ter her, ‘What differ do it make what a’ old mounting woman wears?’ But I let myself be persuaded into a white muslin frock with black spots, an’, Benjie, with the lace cape an’ the jet necklace, an’ the fancy jet comb in my hair, I made that man’s eyes shine ekal ter them gold buttons in his shirt-front. Lem me show ye how Sophy did up my hair. I scarcely dared turn my head on the pillow las’ night fer fear of gittin’ it outen fix, an’ I never teched comb nor bresh ter it this mornin’ so ez ye mought hev some idee how it looked.”

With the word she removed her sunbonnet with gingerly care and sat smiling at him, expectant of plaudits. In fact, the snow-white redundancy of her locks, piled into crafty puffs and coiled in heavy curls by the designing and ambitious Sophy, a close student of the fashion items as revealed in the patent inside of the county paper, achieved a coiffure that might have won even discriminating encomiums. But Benjie looked at her dully and drearily as she sat, all rejuvenated by the artifices of the mode, roseate and bland and suavely smiling. A sudden shadow crossed her face.

“Why, Benjie,” she cried anxiously, “what kin ail you-’uns? Ye look plumb desolated.”

“Oh, you g’ long, g’ long!” cried the goaded Benjie. Luckily she imagined the adjuration addressed to the old mare, now beginning the long, steep ascent of the mountain to their home on the bluff, and thus took no exceptions to the discourtesy.

“I’ll be bound ye eat su’thin’ ez disagreed with you in the town-folk’s victuals. I expec’ I’ll hev ter give ye some yarb tea afore ye feel right peart ag’in. Ye would hev a right to the indigestion ef ye hed been feedin’ like me nigh on ter midnight. I be goin’ ter tell ye about the pictur’-show arter I finish about ’Roy Tresmon’ an’ me. That supper—waal, sir, he invited Sophy an’ Ned Jarney, too, an’ paid fer us all, though some o’ them knickknacks war likely ter hev been paid fer with thar lives. Toadstools did them misguided sinners eat with thar chicken, an’ I expected them presently ter be laid out stiff in death. I never teched the rank p’ison, nor the wine nuther. I say ter ’Roy ez I never could abide traffickin’ with corn-juice. An’ he grinned an’ say, ‘This is grape-juice, Editha.’ But ye mought know it warn’t no common grape-juice. The waiter kep’ a folded napkin round the bottle ez it poured, an’ the sniff of that liquor war tremenjious fine. It war like a whole flower-gyardin full of perfume. Them two men, ’Roy an’ Jarney, war breakin’ the dry-town law, I believe. They kep’ lookin’ at each other an’ laffin’, an’ axin’ which brand of soft drinks war the mos’ satisfyin’. An’ the man what kep’ the eatin’-store looked p’intedly skeered as he said ter the waiter, ‘Ye needn’t put that bottle on the table.’ An’ they got gay fer true; my best cherry-bounce couldn’t hev made ’Roy mo’ glib than he war. An’ ’Roy hed no sense lef’ nuther. Sophy she say she seen the bill the waiter laid by his plate,-ye know how keen them leetle, squinched-up eyes of hern be,—an’ she say it war over ten dollars. Lawsy!—lawsy! what a thing it is ter be rich! ’Roy Tresmon’ jes stepped up ter the counter an’ paid it ’thout battin’ an eye.”

The old couple had left the wagon now, and were walking up a particularly steep and stony stretch of the road to lighten the load on old Whitey, dutifully pulling the rattling, rickety vehicle along with scant guidance. Editha kept in advance, swinging her sunbonnet by the string, her elaborately coiffed head still on display. Now and then as she recalled an item of interest to detail, she paused and stepped backward after a nonchalant girlish fashion, while Benjie, old and battered and broken, found it an arduous task to plod along with laggard, dislocated, and irregular gait at the tail-board of the wagon. They were in the midst of the sunset now. It lay in a broad, dusky-red splendor over all the far, green valleys, and the mountains had garbed themselves in richest purple. Sweets were in the air, seeming more than fragrance; the inhalation was like the quaffing of some delicious elixir, filling the veins with a sort of ethereal ecstasy. The balsam firs imbued the atmosphere with subtle strength, and the lungs expanded to garner it. Flowers under foot, the fresh tinkle of a crystal rill, the cry of a belated bird, all the bliss of home-coming in his thrilling note as he winged his way over the crest—these were the incidents of the climb.

“I tell ye, Benjie,”—Editha once more turned to walk slowly backward, swinging her bonnet by the string,—“it’s a big thing ter be rich.”

“Oh,” suddenly cried the anguished Benjie, with a poignant wail, his fortitude collapsing at last, “I wish you war rich! That be what ye keer fer; I know it now. I wish ye could hev hed riches—yer heart’s desire! I wish I hed never seen you-’uns, an’ ye hed never seen me!”

Editha stood stock-still in the road as though petrified. Old Whitey, her progress barred, paused not unwillingly, and the rattle of the wagon ceased for the nonce. Benjie, doubly disconsolate in the consciousness of his self-betrayal, leaned heavily against the motionless wheel and gazed shrinkingly at the visible wrath gathering in his helpmate’s eyes.

“Man,” she cried, and Benjie felt as though the mountain had fallen on him, “hev ye plumb turned fool? Now,” she went on with a stern intonation, “ye tell me what ye mean by that sayin’, else I’ll fling ye over the bluff or die tryin’.”

“Oh, nuthin’, nuthin’, ’Ditha,” said the miserable Benjie, all the cherished values of his life falling about him in undiscriminated wreck.

“Then I’ll make my own understandin’ outen yer words, an’ I’ll hold the gredge ag’in’ ye ez long ez I live,” she protested.

“Waal, then,” snarled Benjie, “ye take heed ye make the words jes like I said ’em. I’ll stand ter ’em. I never f’und out how ter tell lies in Shaftesvul. I’ll stand ter my words.”

“Ye wished I could hev hed riches,” Editha ponderingly recapitulated his phrases. Then she looked up, her blue eyes severe and her flushed face set. “An’ will ye tell me what’s the reason I couldn’t hev hed riches—old Tom fool!”

Thus the lovers!

“You-’uns, ’Ditha?” Benjie faltered, bewildered by the incongruity of the idea. “You, riches?”

“I could hev hed long ago sech riches ez ’Roy Tresmon’ hev got, sartain sure,” she declared. “An’ considerin’ ye hev kem in yer old age ter wish ye hed never seen me, ’pears like it mought hev been better ef I hed thought twice afore I turned him off forty-six year’ ago.”

“Turned off ’Roy Tresmon’! Forty-six year’ ago! What did ye do that fer, ’Ditha?” Benjie bungled, aghast. He had a confused, flustered sentiment of rebuke: what had possessed Editha in her youth to have discarded this brilliant opportunity!

“To marry you-’uns, of course,” retorted Editha, amazed in her turn.

“An’ now, oh, ’Ditha, that we hev kem so nigh the eend of life’s journey ye air sorry fer it,” wailed Benjie. “But I never knowed ez ye hed the chance.”

Editha tossed her head. “The chance! I hed the chance three times whenst he war young an’ personable an’ mighty nigh ez rich ez he be now.” She began to check off the occasions on her fingers. “Fust, at the big barn dance, when the Dimmycrats hed a speakin’ an’ a percession. Then one night whenst we-’uns war kemin’ home together from prayer-meetin’ he tol’ ag’in ‘his tale of love,’ ez he called it,” she burst forth in a shrill cackle of derision. “Then that Christmus I spent in Shaftesvul the year I stayed with Aunt Dor’thy he begged me ter kem out ter the gate jes at sun-up ter receive my present, which war his heart; an’ I tol’ him ez I war much obleeged, but I wouldn’t deprive him of it. Ha! ha! ha! Lawsy! we-’uns war talkin’ ’bout them old times all ’twixt the plays at the pictur’-show, an’ he declared he hed stayed a bachelor all these years fer my sake. I tol’ him that ef I war forty-five years younger I’d hev more manners than ter listen ter sech talk ez that, ha! ha! ha! ’T war all mighty funny an’ gamesome, an’ I laffed an’ laffed.”

“’Ditha,” said the contrite Benjie, taking heart of grace from her relaxing seriousness, “I love ye so well that it hurts me to think I cut ye out of any good thing.”

“Waal, ye done it, sure,” said the uncompromising Editha. “But fer you-’uns I would hev married that man and owned all he hev got from his ‘palace’ ter his store teeth.”

“Did—did you-’uns say his teeth war jes store teeth?” demanded Benjie, excitedly.

“Did you-’uns expec’ the critter ter cut a new set of teeth at his time of life?” laughed Editha.

“O ’Ditha, I felt so cheap whenst ye tol’ ’bout his fine clothes,” Benjie began.

“He used ter wear jes ez fine clothes forty-five years ago,” interrupted Editha, “an’ he war then ez supple a jumping-jack ez ever ye see, not a hirpling old codger; but, lawsy! I oughtn’t ter laff at his rheumatics, remembering all them beads on that cape.”

As they climbed into the wagon, the ascent being completed, and resumed their homeward way, Benjie was moved to seek to impress his own merits. “I hed considerable attention paid ter my words whenst settin’ on the jury, ’Ditha. They all kem round ter my way of thinkin’ whenst they heard me talk.”

“Waal, I don’t follow thar example,” Editha retorted. “The more I hear ye talk, the bigger fool ye seem ter be. Hyar ye air now thinkin’ it will make me set more store by ye ter know that eleven slack-twisted town-men hearkened ter yer speech. Ye suits me, an’ always did. I’d think of ye jes the same if every juryman hed turned ag’in’ ye, stiddier seein’ the wisdom of yer words.”

A genial glow sprang up in Benjie’s heart, responsive to the brusk sincerities of this fling, and when the house was reached, and the flames again flared, red and yellow from the hickory logs in the deep chimney-place, the strings of scarlet peppers swinging from the ceiling, the gaily flowered curtains fluttering at the windows, the dogs fawning about their feet on the hearthstone, Editha’s exclamation seemed the natural sequence of their arrival.

“Home fer sure!” she cried with a joyous nesting instinct, and reckless of inconsistency. “An’, lawsy! don’t it look good an’ sensible! ’Pears like Shaftesvul is away, away off yander in a dream, an’ ’Roy Tresmon’, with his big white teeth an’ fine clothes an’ rheumatic teeter, is some similar ter a nightmare, though I oughter hev manners enough ter remember them beads on that cape, an’ speak accordin’. I be done with travelin’, Benjie, an’ nex’ time ye set on a jury ye’ll hev ter do it by yer lone.”

The firelight showed the cheery radiance of the smile with which the old “moth-eaten lovyers” gazed at each other, and the quizzical expression of the little Cupid delineated on the mantelpiece, peering out at them from beneath the bandage of his eyes, his useless wings spread above the hearth he hallowed.