Alethea flushed. “I know ye air sot agin Reuben, but I’d believe his word agin enny other critter’s in the mountings.”
“Set a heap o’ store on him, don’t ye?” said Mrs. Sayles, sarcastically. “An’ when he kem a-courtin’ ye, an’ ’peared crazy ’bout’n ye, an’ ye an’ him war promised ter marry, ye couldn’t quit jowin’ at him fur one minit. Ye plumb beset him ter do like ye thought war right,—ez ef he hed no mo’ conscience o’ his own ’n that pullet thar, an’ hedn’t never hearn on salvation. An’ ye’d beg an’ beg him ter quit consortin’ with the moonshiners; an’ a-drinkin’ o’ apple-jack an’ sech; an’ a-rollickin’ round the kentry; an’ layin’ folkses fences down on the groun’; an’ liftin’ thar gates off’n the hinges; an’ ketchin’ thar geese, an’ pickin’ ’em, an’ scatterin’ thar feathers in the wind, an’ sendin’ ’em squawkin’ home; an’ a-playin’ kyerds; an’ a-whoopin’, an’ ridin’, an’ racin’. An’ ye war always a-preachin’ at him, an’ tryin’ ter straighten him out, an’ make him suthin’ he war never born ter be.”
Her pipe was smoked out. She drew from her pocket a fragment of tobacco leaf, which was apparently not sufficiently cured for satisfactory smoking, for she laid it on the hot ashes on the hearth and watched it as it dried, her meditative eyes shaded by her pink calico sun-bonnet.
“Naw, sir!” she continued, as she crumpled the bit of leaf with her fingers and crowded it into the bowl of her pipe, “I hev never liked Mink. I ain’t denyin’ it, nuther. I ain’t gamesome enough ter git tuk up with sech ways ez his’n. Mighty few folks air! But I could see reason in the critter when he ’lowed one day, right hyar by this very chimbly-place,—he sez, sez he, ‘Lethe, ye don’t like nuthin’ I do or say, an’ I’m durned ef I kin see how ye like me!’”
Alethea’s serious, lustrous eyes, looking in at the window, saw not the uncouth interior of her home,—no! As in a vision, irradiated by some enchantment, she beheld the glamours of the idyllic past, fluctuating, waning.
Even to herself it sometimes seemed that she might have been content more lightly. Her imbuement with those practical ideas of right and wrong, the religion of deeds rather than the futilely pious fervors of the ignorant mountaineers in which creed and act were often widely at variance, was as mysterious an endowment as the polarity of the loadstone. She was not introspective, however; she never even wondered that she should speak openly, without fear or favor, as she felt impelled. Had she lived in an age when every inward monition was esteemed the voice of the Lord, she might have fancied that she was called to warn the world of the errors of its ways. Her sedulous conscience, the austere gravity of her spirit, her courage, her steadfastness, her fine intelligence, even her obdurate self-will, might all have had assertive values in those long bygone days. As an historic woman, she might have founded an order, or juggled with state-craft, or perished a martyr, or rode, enthusiast, in the ranks of battle. By centuries belated in Wild-Cat Hollow, she was known as a “perverted, cross-grained gal” and “a meddlin’ body,” and the “widder Jessup” had much sympathy for having in a misguided moment married Alethea’s father. Sometimes the Hollow, distorted though its conscience was, experienced a sort of affright to recognize its misdeeds in her curt phrase. It could only ask in retort who set her up to judge of her elders, and regain its wonted self-complacency as best it might. Even her own ascetic rectitude lacked some quality to commend it.
“I can’t find no regular fault with Lethe,” her step-mother was wont to say, “’ceptin’ she’s jes’—Lethe.”
Mrs. Sayles’s voice, pursuing the subject, recalled the girl’s attention:—
“An’ ye tired his patience out,—the critter hed mo’ ’n I gin him credit fur,—an’ druv him off at last through wantin’ him ter be otherwise. An’ now folks ’low ez him an’ Elviry Crosby air a-goin’ ter marry. I’ll be bound she don’t harry him none ’bout’n his ways, ’kase her mother tole me ez she air mighty nigh a idjit ’bout’n him, an’ hev turned off Peter Rood, who she hed promised ter marry, though the weddin’ day hed been set, an’ Pete air wuth forty sech ez Mink.”