Stirring my molasses,
I've no time
To make a rhyme
For every fool that passes."
And Pendleton went on his way a sadder man; for the six red-haired little Clapsaddles were as usual hanging about the goose-pond, and had made themselves masters of this colloquy; which, consequently, spread with the rapidity of a Virginia creeper, from Rocky Point to Purcellville.
There is no doubt that Peter's gift was a great comfort to him, and, modest as he was, he accepted the inevitable fame growing out of his contributions to the Banner with a certain degree of complacency. The power of looking at the events of life with a view to turning them into poetry invests even common subjects with interest, and when any really exciting thing happens the gifted mind is conscious of a wonderfully uplifting feeling, such as the admiral of a fleet may experience when an enemy's ironclad opens fire. Opportunity is the spur that starts genius into a canter.
Peter sat smoking, and thinking how to turn the fight between himself and Funkhausen into a poem which should arouse the enthusiastic admiration of all readers of the Banner; including Mistress Amanda and perhaps Nellie.
When Funkhausen had set his hirelings upon the stalwart Peter he had not taken into account two things: one was that there was not a darkey in the county without a feeling of personal liking for the kind-hearted poet, and the other, that negroes are cowardly except under the influence of excitement. The foremost man in the group happened to be one to whose family Peter had rendered many kindnesses. When the blue eyes of his master's victim looked steadily into his own, Jake felt a curious tremor of mingled superstition and perplexity, which caused him to fall back on his comrades instead of advancing to the attack Funkhausen was doing his best to urge on. Peter's raised fist conveyed reminder as well as menace. That hand had been ready to extend help to those in need, but it was equally ready to strike down an offender. And the negroes did not like the looks of the strong, resolute white man standing upon the defensive, alone, but with right upon his side. They began to mutter and to fall back, until the whole mass had melted away; in some way bearing Funkhausen along with them. Whereupon Peter mounted his horse and quietly rode home.
But the county rang with the affair. As much to vindicate himself as for vengeance, Funkhausen had Peter up before the church for discipline. But to his disgust, and to the delight of everybody else, Deacon Greene declared that Peter had done nothing to be disciplined for; but that "if he hadn't fought Funkhausen the church would have turned him out!"
Mistress Amanda gave a dinner party and made Peter the guest of the occasion. It happened upon Michaelmas and old Aunt Viny insisted, for luck's sake, upon dressing a pair of her master's geese, and sending them to Benvenew. So that Peter had the pleasure of seeing pretty Nellie blush under the sly allusion made by one of the guests to the old proverb about "the maid that eats of the bachelor's goose." But on the other hand, common sense told him that blushing was with Nellie no sign of especial embarrassment. Indeed, it was probable that the proverb was unknown to her. She was much occupied, all dinner-time, with the account young Armstrong—now ordained and installed as the regular preacher for Sneaking Creek church—was giving her of a bush-meeting in the woods back of Purcellville. He was anxious for her mother to take her to the meetings, but Mistress Amanda did not like bush-meetings; and she was not inclined to encourage any species of religious excitement in Nellie. Peter would gladly have offered to drive her but he could not venture to do so in the face of her mother's disapproval. It seemed a little hard to him that he should not be able to avail himself of this little opportunity to please the young girl. And if jealousy had been possible to him he must have felt a twinge of it in seeing how absorbed Nellie was in the talk Armstrong was pouring into her ears. But the time had not yet come for him to recognize the significance of what was going on under his eye. The happenings of our daily life are like the characters at a masked ball. Capering before us, they seem entirely unrelated to ourselves in any particular, and it is only when they unmask that we know them for what they are.