In Old Kentucky

by Edward Marshall; Charles Turner Dazey

There were a few things in the chest which pleased her, and she smiled as she discovered them, smiled as she tried them on, smiled as she saw the image wearing them in the cracked mirror by the side of the big fireplace. She had to make experiments with dripping tallow dips before she got a light which would enable her to get the full effect of an ornate old poke-bonnet which was the chief treasure from the chest, but finally she did so, and exclaimed in pleasure as she managed it.

It was, indeed, a charming picture which she saw there in the glass—a face with rosy cheeks, bright eyes, red lips set off with softly waving auburn hair and framed delightfully in the old arch of shirred red silk—and when she took it off, at last, she was convinced that one, at least, of her big problems had been solved. She had a bonnet, certainly, which was as lovely as the finest thing that any bluegrass belle could wear. There was not the slightest doubt that all its shirring was of real, real silk! She had run her fingers over it caressingly, delighted by its sheen and gloss when she had been a little girl; now she fondled it with loving touch, high hopes. Surely no young lady visitor, even from the far off and to her mysterious bluegrass could have anything much finer than that bonnet with its silken facings! She tied the wide strings underneath her chin in a great, flaring bow, and peeped forth from the cavernous depths of the arched "poke" with quite unconscious coquetry, flirting, with the keenest relish and most completely childish pleasure with the charming creature whom she saw reflected on the little mirror's cracked, imperfect surface.

It was while she stood thus, innocently coquetting with her own delightful picture, that a great plan for the plenishment of her otherwise imperfect wardrobe popped into her active, searching mind. Carefully she considered this, first before the glass and then, with feet crossed and clasped hands between her knees, before the roaring fire of resinous pine-knots in the old fireplace.

Having finally decided that it was a good one, she went about the cabin seeing to the fastenings of doors and windows, wholly unafraid despite her solitude. There was but one way of approaching this, her fastness in the rocks, and the bridge, had been drawn up for the night. Safe she was as any Rhenish baron in his moated stronghold.

Conscious that a busy day was looming large before her, she now blew out her candles and crept into her little curtained bed, to dream, there, vividly, of haughty beauties from the bluegrass staring in astonishment as they first glimpsed the beauty of a little mountain girl in such a gorgeous outfit as they had not in all their pampered lives conceived; of lovely aunts who smiled with pleasure when they saw their handsome nephews step up to this splendid maiden and take her hands in theirs; of wondrous youths—ah, these images were never absent from the scenes her fancy painted!—who scorned the haughty bluegrass beauties in favor of the freckled little fists of those same brilliant mountain maidens, and, lo! by taking those same freckled fists in theirs, removed the freckles and the callouses of work as if by magic, making them as white and fine—aye, whiter, finer!—than the haughty bluegrass beauty's. And in her dreams, too, was a gallant horseman, wise in equine ways, who came to her with handsome chargers trailing from fair-leather lead straps to present her with the thoroughbreds because her little, shaggy pony limped.

Queer fancies of the strange life of the lowlands which he had described to her, flashed, also, through her ignorant but active brain in fascinating visions. She thought she saw the houses on the tops of houses which he had described to her, in efforts to assist her to imagine structures more elaborate than the little, single storied cabins which were all that she had ever seen. Strange conceptions of the railroad, with its monstrous engines puffing smoke and fire would have been terrifying had there not been, ever at her side as dreams revealed them, a stalwart youth in corduroys to bear her from their path through rings of burning thickets.

Again she trembled in imagination at the thought of meeting the fine ladies who would be dressed with such elaboration and impressive elegance; but each time, when her dream seemed actually to lead her to them, there he was to help her through the great ordeal with heartening smiles and comforting suggestions.

Her sleep was restless, but delightful. Once she woke and left her bed to peer out of the window, wondering if, by chance, she might not glimpse a light in Layson's camp far down the mountain-side. She was disappointed when she found she could not, but went back to bed to find there further compensating dreams.

There might have been still greater compensation for her had she known that at the very moment when she peered out through the darkness, looking for some vagrant glimmer of a light from Layson's camp, he had, himself, just gone back to his cabin after having stood a long time staring through the darkness toward her own small cabin in its fastness.

He was thinking, thinking, thinking. The little mountain maid had strangely fascinated the highly cultivated youth from the far bluegrass. He did not know quite what to make of the queer way in which her fresh and lovely, girlish face, obtruded itself constantly into his thoughts. And as for the haughty bluegrass belle whom poor Madge dreaded so—he did not think of her, at all, save, possibly, with half acknowledged annoyance at the fact that she was coming to spy out his wilderness and those who dwelt therein. He would have been a little happier if he could have remained there, undisturbed, for a time longer.