In the "Stranger People's" country

by Charles Egbert Craddock

"I couldn't let ye tote the bones off, even ef they air prehistoric." He thought the word signified some sect different from Baptist or Methodist, and heterodox enough to forfeit the sanctity of sepulchre, since he had heard it so often urged by Shattuck, in extenuation of his wish to examine the graves. "I couldn't do that. He mought not like it whenst he wakes on the jedgmint-day ter find his bones in a strange place; he mought never hev been out'n Tennessee in his life, an' not be 'quainted with nobody risin' at the same time 'round him. But ye may open one grave, an'"—he relented still further, looking into Shattuck's eyes, eagerly fixed upon him—"an' ef he hev got a jug like the one I seen, I'll let ye hev it, an'," his brows grew anxious with the devising of the expedient, "I'll loan him a pitcher from the house, so he'll hev one, though the Lord only knows what he wants with it, an' mebbe at the las' day he will hev forgot, an' won't know the diff'ence."

"I won't take the jug," said Shattuck, suddenly infected with the reluctance to rifle the sarcophagus, so strong amongst the mountaineers, so alien to the man of science. The forgotten relics lying there in that long rest became all at once, through Guthrie's homely speech, individualized, invested with the rights of property, the sense of a past and the certainty of a future, humanized as a man and a brother, rather than a system of bones that might, ethnologically considered, establish or disprove a theory, its manner of burial less significant of the universal doom of death and the hope of resurrection than of the civilization of the race and the fashion of the day. "I won't take the jug. I only want to see what this widespread story of prehistoric pygmy dwellers in Tennessee rests upon. That is all. I think they must be children—these Little People. I won't take the jug."

Guthrie's face cleared instantly. "Waal"—he drew a long breath—"I'm glad o' that. Fur ef they air chil'n, he mought set mo' store on his jug an' his beads 'n on his soul's salvation. I don't see ez it could hurt ter jes' lift up the top stone an' set it back agin. Bein' ez it's you-uns, I'll resk it enny-hows." The opportunity of investigating this most unique myth, originating how and where no man can tell, of which so much has been so diversely written and said, caused every sentiment of the archæologist to glow within him. In this secluded region it was hardly probable that the tread of science had ever before pressed the turf of the pygmy burying-ground. He should be able to speak from actual experience. There was no doubt concerning the spot. And all the country-side confirmed the tradition with singular unanimity, with one voice. Every detail was full of interest; the very method of coffining—the six slabs of stone in the shallow graves, the strange weavings and material of the shrouding rugs and mats, the ornaments, the weapons, the jugs with the sea-shells within—what rich intimations of the industrial status, the civilization of these people of the pygmy myth! Ah, here indeed was history in its most unimpugnable form! These tokens should balk oblivion, and truth prevail even in the grave.

X.

Shattuck turned with an excited, flushed face and his eyes triumphant. He had no intuition of Rhodes's anxious, disconcerted frame of mind, for the candidate was seized by a sudden fear that he was to have no opportunity to confer with Felix Guthrie anent the living issues of the election. His long ride had been taken with scant result, indeed, to flatter an old woman and to loll on the grass with the acquiescent younger brother, who would not hesitate to rescind the promise of support he had made if he fancied that it fell under the disapproval of Felix. Rhodes had had no idea that the colloquy would be so soon terminated. He scrambled sheepishly to his feet as the others precipitately passed, oblivious of the two under the tree.

"Hello! Hold on!" cried Rhodes. "Where are you making off to?"

Guthrie turned an absorbed face upon him, continuing what he was saying, but including him in the invitation extended to Shattuck to come to the house for refreshment for themselves and their horses before beginning the descent of the mountain.

"We hev had dinner long ago, but I know mam kin git ye up some sorter snack ter hearten ye up, an' ye kin leastwise take a drink 'long o' Eph an' me. An' I'll loan ye a pickaxe an' a spade, an' saddle my beastis, an' holp ye go an' dig."

It seemed to Rhodes unpardonable that his friend should be so forgetful of the interests of the election, for the allusion to the pickaxe and spade, coupled with his previous knowledge of Shattuck's chief absorption, was enough to acquaint him with the nature of the business in progress. The color had diffused itself over his handsome face to the roots of his brown hair, and his eyes were surprised and perturbed as he mechanically glanced about his attire, picking here and there a clinging barley straw from his garments. He contrived, on joining the others, to walk abreast with them, and thus end the burdensome dialogue with Eph, who, in no degree offended by his defection and accustomed to slight consideration, lagged cheerfully in the rear, chewing a straw with abnormal activity of jaw, his hat pushed far back from his broad, sunburned, fleshy face, his gait shambling and awkward, as if he still were in the furrow.

Rhodes, however willingly he might have balked his friend's preference in the choice of a subject of conversation, could hardly intimate with impunity that the enlightened voter, whose suffrage he coveted, held forth upon a theme which he considered trivial and to the last degree irksome. Nevertheless, as he walked along in the glare of the sun upon the forever shoaling waves of the silver-green grain, and listened to Guthrie droning forth his slowly forming purposes concerning the arrangements for the investigation of the pygmy graves, his irritation that the primary intention of his visit should be frustrated, and the interest appertaining to his candidacy ruthlessly thrust aside, so increased that he set himself to devise an expedient whereby he might safely disparage the matter in hand, and thus reassert the significance of his presence and the propriety of his prominence as guest. He turned his head suddenly, archly lifting his eyebrows, and distending his eyes with a burlesque of amazement; then breaking into his joyous "ha! ha!" he clapped Guthrie jocosely on the shoulder.