In the "Stranger People's" country

by Charles Egbert Craddock

Shattuck was silent. Even his facile optimism was at fault for the nonce. And after another long-drawn sigh Felix went on:

"'Tain't made my life easy. I knowed that minit I went into chains, fur a promise ter the dead ain't like one ter the livin'. An' though I owe her nuthin' but gredges, both fur me an' Ephraim, 'tain't in gredges I be 'lowed ter pay the debt. I never knowed the weight of it, though, till I met that thar leetle snip o' a gal. 'Pears ter me Litt ain't like nobody that ever lived afore; the very way she turns her head air diff'ent, an' the hair grows on it not similar ter none. Folks round about the mountings say she ain't good-lookin', but her face shines ter me in the darkest night."

"She is—she is beautiful, and the rarest type of beauty," cried Shattuck, warmly; "she is unique. She would be considered most beautiful anywhere else."

Guthrie turned upon him a face aglow with gratification. "That's what makes me like you-uns, stranger," he said, cordially. "Ye 'pear ter sense things so. But I war set agin ye some, at fust, knowin' ye ter be Rhodes's friend," he added, frankly. "She likes ye too, Litt do. The t'other night whenst I war visitin' thar she talked ter Mis' Yates an' me an' Baker Anderson 'bout nuthin' in this worl' but you-uns, an' how smart an' perlite ye be, an' book-l'arned, an' diff'ent from them in the cove."

Shattuck received this with a vague, indeterminate thrill, which he did not then discriminate as premonition, but which he remembered afterward.

Guthrie was beset by no suspicion. "Lord!" he exclaimed, his face fervent and flushed, "ef I could take that thar leetle gal's hand in mine ter walk through this life, I could make the journey well pleasin' ter the Lord, though I don't reckon I'd keer whether 'twar heaven or hell arterwards. 'Twould make up ter me fur all the troubles I hev hed in this life. An' they ain't a few—they ain't a few. But I be powerful hampered, powerful hampered, stranger, even ef I warn't so all-fired 'feared o' Rhodes. She never would abide ter live along o' my step-mam, an' I can't leave her. I hev swore a oath ter the dead." Then he seemed to shake off his fears. "It's done me good ter talk so free. I couldn't hev done it—ter a stranger too—'ceptin' I knowed what store Litt set by ye, an' how smart she 'lows ye air."

Once again that vague prophetic disquiet thrilled along Shattuck's nerves. Felix had put his hat again upon his head; his face was softened with a reminiscent smile, as his eyes dwelt upon the furthest blue peaks, most illusory semblances of mountains, faint sublimations of azure, refined almost to nullity, upon the horizon.

"T'other night, what time she could spare from tormentin' Baker Anderson—an' she do make him funny enough ter set a horse a-laffin'—she spent in tellin' them cur'ous tales ye hev set a-goin' 'bout the folks ez war in this kentry 'fore the Injuns. An' Baker axed ef them Phœnicians warn't jes' the Fed'ral army. He 'peared ter think ez ye hedn't got the news o' the War yit. It liked ter hev killed Litt. She couldn't quit laffin'. But she tuck Mis' Yates up mighty short 'bout the Leetle People, an' 'lowed ye didn't want ter examinate thar graves fur gain, but fur knowledge fur the hist'ry o' the kentry."

And suddenly Shattuck's eyes were alight. He took instant advantage of this unexpected recruit to the ranks of scientific investigation. "She was exactly right, and shows her common-sense. And I wish, Fee"—he adopted a cordial familiarity of tone in his anxiety—"you would take that view yourself, and let me examine one or two of those graves."

Guthrie evidently experienced an inward struggle. He was divided between a sincere attraction which he felt toward the stranger, a wish to please, and a repugnant reluctance into which conscience—his queer, distorted, backwoods conscience—entered largely.