In the "Stranger People's" country

by Charles Egbert Craddock

"Look yander at the sheep, Moses," Letitia adjured the infant as he sat on the floor of the porch—"look yander at the flocks o' the old man ez herds the clouds on the bald o' the mounting."

Moses stared with inconceivable impressions at the fictitious sheep, and more than once looked up with a contemplative eye and a sensitive lip at Letitia to hear again of the fabled herder whose flocks wore this tenuous guise. How much he believed, how much he understood, must ever remain a matter of conjecture. He hearkened to all that was told to him which trenched upon the wonderful lore of the nursery, but maintained the while the inscrutable, impenetrable reticence of the infant who can but who will not talk. And now all similitude of flocks was lost in a sudden precipitation of the cloud masses toward the valley. Gullies, abysses, the river, every depression seemed to exude vapors, that hung suspended in the air, till they were met by the downward rush. All at once a louder patter was on the little slanting roof of the porch, and upon its floor the drops, glittering in their elastic rebound, multiplied till Letitia, catching Moses under the arms, bore him within, his feet sticking straight out, conserving his sitting posture, and placed him on the broad hearth before the fire. And at last—whether the night or only its dull simulacrum—darkness descended. Letitia, looking forth from the open door, could see the pale shifting mists rather by the glow from the hearth than by the aid of such gray and sombre twilight as might linger without. The rain fell invisibly in the midst of the vapors; only the detached drops that pattered upon the edge of the floor of the porch gave out a steely gleam as they smartly rebounded and fell again. The room was all the cheerier for the dull and dank aspect of the world outside. The spinning-wheel drawn up to one corner of the hearth promised an evening full of quiet industry and a musical whirring pleasant to hear. The warping bars, on the opposite side of the brown wall, were full of color, much red predominating in many shades, for Moses had early seemed to notice the rich, brilliant tint, and it had won his rare approval. Indeed, so much Turkey red went into the fashioning of his garments that the hanks of yarn and cotton designed for them and hanging from the ceiling served to brighten the room, as if a bizarre decorative effect had been intentionally sought. The fire blazed merrily, and the light flashed back from the barrel of the rifle that rested on its rack of deer antlers against the chimney.

Letitia, in her faint-blue dress, moved deftly about, giving a touch here and there to set things in their eventide order, murmuring as she went a little song, scarcely a tune—more like the fragmentary melodies that the mountain brooks sing on their way to the valley. "A cur'ous sort'n psalmin' what she makes up out'n her own head," her mother used to say, with that rural distrust of all out of the usual experience. An ash cake was baking under the clean silver-gray mounds at one side of the great fire, which was too large for comfort—for the air was not chilly, albeit both doors and windows stood open—and too hot even for its purpose of cooking supper, for now and again the eggs, also roasting under the ashes, gave token by a sharp crack that one had succumbed unduly to the heat, had burst and spilled its yolk. On each occasion Moses, sitting after his lowly habit on the floor before the fire, gave a nervous little jerk, and looked with a certain anxiety at his mother, aware that all was not well in the domestic administration. Adelaide, kneeling by the hearth, frowned almost mechanically, and forgot the mishap the next moment. Presently she looked up at the grayish blackness that filled the door and window.

"I dun'no' whether it air night or no," she said, the red live coals that she had raked out upon the hearth casting a dull reflection upon her oval face and large dark eyes. "I mought be too forehanded a-gittin' supper fur aught I kin tell."

"Ye'll find out whenst it air supper-time by the comin' o' Baker Anderson," remarked Letitia. "That boy air wound up ter the very minute. His folks never kin need a clock ter find out what's meal-times, nor ter look at the sun. Mus' be a great comfort ter ennybody ter hev sech a punctual stommick in the house. My mother would dote on feedin' him."

And, sure enough, presently here was Baker, a great thumping boy of sixteen, with a man's frame and a callow, square, beardless, sheepish face, as conscious of his feet as if he were a centipede, as conscious of his big hands as if he had a hundred. All the grace and the strength of his muscles deserted him at the door, where he hesitated as if he doubted how he should before all these spectators ever reach the chair by the fireside which he usually occupied. Then he made a tremulous rush, deposited himself sidelong upon it, and, looking up from under his straight eyebrows, said, with a gasp, "G'evenin', Mis' Yates."

He did not dare to address Letitia, so conscious was he of her latent mockery, and of her knowledge of the criticism upon the household which he had made in his innocent confidences to his aunt, who had ruthlessly repeated it to the parties in interest: he had said that he had no objection to Mis' Yates, but that Letitia eyed him ez ef she could sca'cely keep from laffin' at him, an' Moses eyed him ez if he could sca'cely keep from smackin' his jaws; an' 'twixt 'em both he hardly knew whether he stood on his head or his heels; an' ef 'twarn't fur Mis' Yates, he an' his rifle would make tharselves sca'ce at Steve Yates's cabin.

To the manners of Moses, indeed, one far less sensitive than the guest might readily have taken exceptions. From time to time he angrily surveyed Baker, knitting his scanty brows, and always crooking his fat dimpled arm above his forehead whenever he renewed his gaze; and although this gesture is not among the generally accepted expressions of contumely, it had especial capacities to convey a flout. Poor Baker had expected gambols with the infant to be a means of lessening the awkwardness of his self-consciousness, and to put him on a more easy basis with the household. Mrs. Yates often felt herself obliged to apologize for the unfriendly conduct of Moses, and even to expostulate with the great Dagon, and beg him to mitigate his severity. He seemed instigated to this course in some sort by the malice of an old dog, brindled a bluish-gray and white, who had adopted a senile vagary that the visitor harbored wicked intentions against the household hero, which he evidently felt delegated to frustrate. He always came, upon the boy's entrance, and placed himself between the guest and the precious "leetle Mose," who found the animal's side, cushioned with fat, a sufficiently soft and comfortable pillow, and was wont to lean upon it, resting his downy head and fine pink cheek on the dark tigerish hair of the thick neck—the formidable fangs of the brute's half-open mouth, the fiery eye and rising bristles, bearing fierce contrast to the delicate infantile curves and coloring of the child's face. Here nightly, until Baker Anderson was led off to his slumbers in the roof-room, the dog sat immovable, now and then emitting a growl if he so much as glanced at Moses. Mrs. Yates could only redouble her suavity to the household defender, and add some soothing dainty to the supper. "I made this johnny-cake express fur you-uns, Baker," she would say. And when he could no longer be fed, she exerted herself to entertain him in the brief interval before the young fellow, tired out with the day's ploughing or hunting, would succumb to the heat and the stillness, and nod before the fire. Doubtless this talk was a salutary necessity for Adelaide, for the days were full of tears, and the nights of sighs and wakeful hours, and dreams of vague unhappiness and discordant, half-realized terrors. Letitia's smiling assurance, "How ye an' Steve air a-goin' ter laff an' laff over this some o' these days!" she could not accept, although it was grateful to hear, and she would still her sobs to listen to its iteration. But poor Baker, when awake, called for all her sympathy and countenance, thus helpless amongst his enemies, and so sorrow must needs be forgotten for a time.

They all sat thus this evening, the supper cleared away, the hearth swept, one of Moses's red stockings for winter wear growing under the needles in Adelaide's hand, the little flax spinning-wheel awhirl as Letitia drew out the long thread, the baby half drowsing on the fierce old dog's neck, the doors all aflare, when a sudden chill wind sprang up. They heard it rising far, far away—a deep, hollow murmur, all unlike the throbbing of the cataract, which was ceaseless in the darkness, beating like the heart of the night; it came stealthily down through the gap in the mountain, and the trees, hitherto silent and motionless above the little house, suddenly fell to trembling and clashed their boughs, and long-drawn sibilant sighs pervaded all their rustling foliage.

"Listen!" Letitia said, her foot pausing on the treadle, as she turned her brilliant azure eyes to the night, all black without. "Thar's the last o' the rain and the fog."