The Call of the Cumberlands

by Charles Neville Buck

He stood there in the road looking down at her and the twisted smile that lifted only one corner of her lips, while the other drooped. The moonlight caught her eyes; eyes that were trying, like the lips, to smile, but that were really looking away into the future, which she saw stripped of companionship and love, and gray with the ashiness of wretched desolation. And, while he was seeing the light of the simulated cheeriness die out in her face, she was seeing the strange, exalted glow, of which she was more than half-afraid, kindle in his pupils. It was as though she were giving up the living fire out of her own heart to set ablaze the ambition and anticipation in his own.

That glow in Samson's eyes she feared and shrank from, as she might have flinched before the blaze of insanity. It was a thing which her mountain superstition could not understand, a thing not wholly normal; a manifestation that came to the stoic face and transformed it, when the eyes of the brain and heart were seeing things which she herself could not see. It was the proclamation of the part of Samson which she could not comprehend, as though he were looking into a spirit world of weird and abnormal things. It was the light of an enthusiasm such as his love for her could not bring to his eyes—and it told her that the strongest and deepest part of Samson did not belong to her. Now, as the young man stood there before her, and her little world of hope and happiness seemed crumbling into ruins, and she was steeling her soul to sacrifice herself and let him go, he was thinking, not of what it was costing her in heart-break, but seeing visions of all the great world held for him beyond the barriers of the mountains. The light in his eyes seemed to flaunt the victory of the enthusiasms that had nothing to do with her.

Samson came forward, and held out his arms. But Sally drew away with a little shudder, and crouched at the end of the stile.

"What's ther matter, Sally?" he demanded in surprise, and, as he bent toward her, his eyes lost the strange light she feared, and she laughed a little nervous laugh, and rose from her seat.

"Nothin' hain't ther matter—now," she said, stanchly.

Lescott and Samson discussed the matter frequently. At times, the boy was obstinate in his determination to remain; at other times, he gave way to the yearnings for change and opportunity. But the lure of the palette and brush possessed him beyond resistance and his taciturnity melted, when in the painter's company, to a roughly poetic form of expression.

"Thet sunrise," he announced one morning, setting down his milk-pail to gaze at the east, "is jest like the sparkle in a gal's eyes when she's tickled at somethin' ye've said about her. An,' when the sun sets, hit's like the whole world was a woman blushin'."

The dance on Saturday was to be something more portentous than a mere frolic. It would be a clan gathering to which the South adherents would come riding up and down Misery and its tributaries from "nigh abouts" and "over yon." From forenoon until after midnight, shuffle, jig and fiddling would hold high, if rough, carnival. But, while the younger folk abandoned themselves to these diversions, the grayer heads would gather in more serious conclave. Jesse Purvy had once more beaten back death, and his mind had probably been devising, during those bed-ridden days and nights, plans of reprisal. According to current report, Purvy had announced that his would-be assassin dwelt on Misery, and was "marked down." So, there were obvious exigencies which the Souths must prepare to meet. In particular, the clan must thrash out to definite understanding the demoralizing report that Samson South, their logical leader, meant to abandon them, at a crisis when war-clouds were thickening.

The painter had finally resolved to cut the Gordian knot, and leave the mountains. He had trained on Samson to the last piece all his artillery of argument. The case was now submitted with the suggestion that the boy take three months to consider, and that, if he decided affirmatively, he should notify Lescott in advance of his coming. He proposed sending Samson a small library of carefully picked books, which the mountaineer eagerly agreed to devour in the interval.

Lescott consented, however, to remain over Saturday, and go to the dance, since he was curious to observe what pressure was brought to bear on the boy, and to have himself a final word of argument after the kinsmen had spoken.