In the "Stranger People's" country

by Charles Egbert Craddock

A pointer, who had been asleep under the house, had rushed out upon recognizing the click of the cocking of a weapon, and stood in tremulous, wheezing agitation, now scanning the prospect for the threatened game and eagerly snuffing the air, now glancing up, surprised at the abnormal inactivity of this presentment of the genus sportsman.

"What makes ye 'low 'twar Shattuck, Litt?" Guthrie observed in the tone of a casual gossip.

There was a touch of rose in her cheek. "Waal, I warn't sartain a-fust. I 'lowed it couldn't be. Till toler'ble late, arter the moon hed riz, I hearn a pickaxe strikin' on rock up in the pygmy buryin'-ground" (he noticed that she had discarded the colloquial "Leetle People" for Shattuck's more scientific term), "an' then I knowed it couldn't be nobody but him. I didn't say nothin' 'bout'n it afore, 'kase I didn't know till las' night ez he hed got yer say-so ez he mought dig on yer land." She looked up with an unsuspicious smile; then, with the glow of mirth in her eyes, she burst suddenly into a peal of laughter. "Baker Anderson would hev it ez 'twar you-uns ez 'peared suddint at the winder whilst I war a-singin' a song. I wisht ye could hev seen Baker offerin' ter take down his rifle an' go arter ye fur hevin' gin me an' Mis' Yates sech a skeer. Ye could run Baker with yer ramrod! Baker 'lows yit ez 'twar you-uns. We-uns couldn't make out the man's face clear; jes' seen it fur a minit ez he looked through the winder. But ez soon ez I hearn that pick strike on the rock, I guessed mighty easy who hed been hangin' roun' the porch listenin' ter the singin', waitin' fur the moon ter rise."

A miracle could not have more stringently coerced his credulity; and, in truth, the circumstances wore all the sleek probability of fact. No man familiarized by song and story since the Middle Ages with the idea of the cavalier lingering without the castle walls to hear a lady's lute could have more definitely grasped its significance than did this primitive lover. It lent a strong coherence to every word that Shattuck had uttered; the praises of her beauty, to which he had hearkened with such simple joy; of her mind, of her unique grace, so at variance with the uncouth conditions of her life. And what new light was thrown upon her strangely retentive memory hoarding Shattuck's words; her eager determined vigilance in his behalf, from which the trump that might summon the dead from their graves would be futile to lure her; that radiant freshened beauty in her sapphire eyes! "Religion itself couldn't make her look more like an angel in the eyes!" Guthrie had said to himself, with a lover's alert and receptive recognition of an embellished loveliness. And Shattuck had come, in good sooth, to listen and linger without to hear her sing while he waited for the moon to rise.

He remembered, with an angry quickening of his pulse, his own simple-minded confidences to Shattuck yesterday in the barley fields. What! in his unsuspicious folly he had even told the man how she talked of him, how she treasured his words, how she valued his great learning, for thus she was minded to regard those acquisitions which the more staid and experienced people of the country-side esteemed crack-brained fantasies. And somehow this reflection operated as a check upon the bounding fury that possessed him; it held an element of self-reproach. He had unwittingly revealed to this stranger the sentiment which Letitia would have guarded as a sacred secret—if, indeed, she herself were aware of it. His face was set and hard; but the strong hand trembled that held the pistol, silent and empty and harmless enough now, albeit so recently flinging out its fate-freighted balls and its wild barbaric shriek.

"She never war gin ter 'settin' caps' arter folks, like other gals; she sorter sets store on herse'f 'kase the common run o' boys didn't like her. She feels too ch'ice fur enny or'nary cuss; an' I reckon she'd be hoppin' mad—" And then he paused with the conviction that she did not esteem Shattuck an "or'nary cuss." This revelation would probably only result in facilitating an understanding between them. "Ef he ever sees her agin," he said, between his set teeth. There recurred to him suddenly his words yesterday, amongst the waving barley—that he had it in his heart to kill any man who came between him and Letitia. He had spoken them with other intentions, with the thought of Rhodes in his mind; but Shattuck was warned, already warned. And if he had spoken too freely, it was at least not equivocally. "Ef ever he sees her agin," he once more muttered.

"What air you-uns sayin'?" she demanded, suddenly, all unsuspicious of his train of thought. "Mose kin converse ez well ez that. The only trouble with Mose's talk is that grown folks air too foolish ter onderstan' it. Ain't it, Mose?"

But the child gave her no heed, still fixing his upturned gaze on the pistol in Guthrie's hand, as eager of expression as the uplifted muzzle of the dog, who writhed and wagged his tail, and wheezed about the great boots.

Guthrie looked down at Letitia, his eyes changed and strange, and little to be understood. She paused as her own encountered them, holding the wisp of flax motionless in her hand, vaguely and superficially aware that a crisis had supervened, albeit beyond her ken.

"I mus' be a-goin'," he said, absently, still looking at her, his eyes freighted with his unread thoughts.