Paul Waffington sat alone, stunned. He was puzzled.
“Eat the best first,” he repeated, “and you will be eating the best all the time.” His brain cleared, he smiled, and said, “He’s right. That’s a lesson from a country boy, and it’s a good one,” and he got up to go.
CHAPTER VIII
The Response to Duty’s Call
Another day had grown old and was peacefully dying in the west as our hero drew near unto the goal of his heart. In the early morning he had come forth rested, with an elastic step, bright and happy. But the torrid heat of the noon-day had steadily followed him, and evening had brought him hither with weary limbs. He emerges from the gorge and slowly mounts the little knoll that overlooks the village.
“At last!” he exclaimed with delight. The fatigue of the trying day overcoming him, he sinks down upon a stone to rest and study the village that now lay before him.
Bathed in the yellow sunlight of the dying day, there lay before him the goal that he had been so laboriously trying to reach for more than thirty-six hours. To his eye there were not many changes visible in Blood Camp. To his left he could plainly see the two little rooms in which dwelt alone Miss Emeline Hobbs, the Sunday-school superintendent. Since the death of her father and mother five years before she had lived there alone, yet but a stone’s throw from the cabin of Uncle Lazarus and Aunt Mina. The door of her house stood open, and Paul Waffington could make out the figure of a woman in the excuse of a garden at the side. For a moment he kept his eyes on the figure among the vines and vegetables, then the figure gave a limp, and he knew that it was no other than Emeline Hobbs herself. A little further to the left was the school-house, and just about it the chestnut grove and the grave-yard. To his right stood the blacksmith shop, the store, and Slade Pemberton’s home and the tavern. Then lifting his eyes he beheld the mighty Snake smiling down upon him in silence. Again his eyes swept the mountain, and half way down its side they rested on the cabin of old Jase Dillenburger. From the cabin’s rude chimney lazy rings of smoke pushed each other upward. He thought, no doubt, that the hands of Gena Filson had built the fire that made the smoke, and perhaps at this very moment she was busily engaged in making ready the supper for old Jase Dillenburger and his stout wife.
The sudden stop of the clinking ring of the anvil in the blacksmith shop reminded him that the day was nearly done. Then roaring cheers came up from the store, and men and boys began pushing out the door in bunches. Fen Green was recognized among the others, and there was among the number a new one, the old fiddler, hence the ringing cheers. Slade Pemberton is the last to emerge from the store. He closed and locked the door and walked away towards his home. But groups of lazy and idle men still linger about the platform of the store to hear “Jist one more tune before we go,” as Fen Green had said. Then another final cheer goes up, and every man turns about and goes towards his own place. Day’s glittering train glides down the mighty mountain, passes by and enters the gorges of twilight, and sends its messenger—a peaceful silence—over the hamlet.
“How sweet is life!” exclaimed Paul Waffington, as he arose, trudged down the knoll into the village and turned in at the tavern gate.
The Allisons who kept the tavern greeted him cordially. Supper was ready and he went into the dining-room with a gnawing appetite. Supper over, he concluded that he would pay a little visit to Miss Emeline Hobbs and Uncle Lazarus and Aunt Mina, in order that he might have some definite word as to the welfare of the Sunday-school.
“Oh, go ’way! Oh, oh, go ’way!! No, no, doan’ go ’way. Oh!!! De Lawd help my po’ black so’l! Is yo’ a gos’? Or is it Puolly yo’ you’self, Massa Waffington?” Aunt Mina stood in the middle of her one-room cabin, with both hands up and her big eyes dilating until all the whites were visible. Then recovering herself somewhat, she put back her glasses on her forehead, dropped her big fat hands to her hips, and gazed at the man in the door again. “I showly do believe dat it is Puolly yo’ yo’self. De good Lawd be praised. Come right in he’ar an’ let yo’ ole black mammy see yo’ face. It is Puolly yo’ yo’self. I—I—I sed yo’d come. I sed yo’d come back. Laz said yo’d come. De good Lawd be praised, it’s yo’ yo’self.” She turned to the rear door of the cabin and put out her head in the gathering darkness and called out: