In the "Stranger People's" country

by Charles Egbert Craddock

The state of vacuity that does not feel and cannot know is made cognizable sometimes to the thinking and the feeling soul by a dreary sense of solitude, for which the consciousness of the finer susceptibility does not compensate. It was not that Shattuck resented the fact that his friend's limitations precluded his sharing these enthusiasms, as that that burden of isolation, that painful consciousness of a lack of congeniality, that yearning for fellowship, so poignant to the gregarious human animal, came upon him for the moment; a realization of being alone, out of the reach of his companion, beset him, and he found it bitter, albeit he recognized that his higher standpoint created the inaccessibility.

Rhodes, once more in the saddle, was infinitely conversable. He had on the face which he took about with him on his canvass—his best expression, gay, gentle, kind; his conversation was full of country jokes, which he delivered with a rural drawl, and he was about as rustic a specimen as an educated man can well personate. He never dropped the character for a moment, although he hardly cared to impress his friend with its value. Its lapses from his usual habit of speech revolted Shattuck in some sort, albeit the contorted language of the ignorant mountaineers never grated upon his somewhat nice philological prejudices. One was the voice of affectation—an aping of boorishness and rusticity and yeoman simplicity, which Shattuck called by the not inapt name of "poor-mindedness;" the other was the natural speech and manners of those deprived of opportunities of culture, and was entitled to respect as being the best they could do.

"Bless your soul, Rhodes," he said at last, with a touch of satire, "you needn't put so many negatives in a sentence with the kind object of pleasing me; I'm not a registered voter in either of your counties. And I love you so that I'd vote for you, if I could, just as willingly for three or four negatives in a single negation as for eight. Save 'em up, my dear boy. I remember the fate of the man who couldn't say 'No,' but I must say I don't think it impends for you at present."

"Hello! I didn't know you were such a school-master. I'll have to mind my p's and q's, hey?" said Rhodes, with a good-natured intonation, although he had flushed darkly at the taunt.

So instilled into his blood was the instinct of policy, however, that he abated naught of his determination to conciliate his friend if possible beyond this merely outward truce. And now was illustrated how subservient is the science of propitiation to the object upon which it is exerted, for Leonard Rhodes had been held to possess the subtle art to an extreme degree, and so proficient had he become therein that he was wont to find its unctuous exercise a pleasure. He could but himself admire the dexterity with which he brought the conversation to prehistoric America, especially prehistoric Tennessee. He had paused when they had reached one of the high ridges about the base of the great mountains far above, and he called to Shattuck to observe that, looking back toward his place, they could distinctly see the mound, and that, looking forward down the multitudinous defiles amongst the ranges, the pygmy burying-ground might be located by the proximity of the cataract, a mere cascade in the distance, an emerald gleam and a glittering, white, plume-like waving. Thence the transition was easy to the many antiquities found within the state. To his surprise, Shattuck seemed incomprehensibly to hold back and to grow reticent. Rhodes had material to work upon far different from the simple unsuspecting country folk. He had not thought that divination could so keep pace with most secret and supple intention, and that his object was perfectly plain and unglossed to the man whom it sought to mislead. Shattuck was almost openly impatient of the topic on which he was wont to love to talk, and which he often could not be prevailed upon to relinquish. He would not seriously discuss it now. When Rhodes demanded of him a theory concerning the ancient aboriginal races, based upon evidences of their advanced civilization, he replied with uncharacteristic flippancy that he was never acquainted with any of them, and that he could make a pretty pot of money if he had been. And when Rhodes, with that heavy assuming ignorance which is so ready to trench upon unknown, untried ground of laborious research, deeming all things slight and of small difficulty that are strange to its meagre acquisitions, attempted to argue certain hypotheses upon which he had heard him descant, Shattuck left the disquisition to his host, not even affecting to set him right when Rhodes himself could feel that he was floundering. The candidate was wanting in any fine capacity to read character or conduct in its more delicate script, and Shattuck's state of mind was as undecipherable hieroglyphics. Thus at cross-purposes they at last reached Guthrie's home, high up on the mountain.

IX.

The house was the usual small log-cabin, so overshadowed, however, by trees, dense and dark, that not the whole structure, but only the tiny porch and door were visible up the dusky green vista. When the sun fell through the leaves it was in fleckings of abnormal lustre, so deep was the shade. Fowls pecked about in the long dank grass. From high up on the mountain-side came the clear metallic clink of a cow-bell. A spring gurgled close at hand in the yard, and a vessel, with butter or milk in it, covered with a white cloth, was visible among the gravelly banks that bounded the spring branch. An old woman, tall and stalwart, sitting upon the porch, furtively looking at the two visitors as they came through the bars and up the path, had so forbidding an aspect that Shattuck was reminded of the superstition of "an evil eye." She gave them no greeting, but listened silently as Rhodes, having pulled himself together again into his genial, rustic, canvassing identity, asked for Felix Guthrie. He broke off short.

"Now, I wonder if you ain't Mrs. Guthrie!" he exclaimed.

"Ye air a good guesser," she said, with a sneer. "Who else would I be, hyar in Fee Guthrie's house?"

She wore no cap. Her hair, luxuriant and gray, was combed plainly down over her ears and caught in a heavy coil, that betokened its great length, at the back of her head. Her face in contrast was sallow and parchment-like. The features were singularly straight; her eyes were dark, her spectacles were mounted upon her head, and her expression was unsmiling. It was hardly wonderful that Rhodes should have lost his balance, and he had a discomfited sense that Shattuck might relish the fact. Shattuck, however, was looking about with his usual keen susceptibility to the interest of new places and people.