Oldfield: A Kentucky Tale of the Last Century

by Nancy Huston Banks

She yawned, and swayed her turkey-wing fan.

"It would all have blown over and have passed, as all such things pass in this country, if John Stanley hadn't been morbid about it, if he had been at all like other people. Of course he was acquitted at the examining trial. There were plenty of witnesses to the fact that he fired in self-defence. The family of the man who was killed never made a motion toward taking the matter up, and they would have been ready enough to do it if they could have found any pretext for blaming John. They were, in fact, rather looked down on for taking it so easy. But John has never forgiven himself; he has always thought he might have done something else than what he did. He has rarely mentioned it to any one, but I understand that he once told Miss Judy that, if it were to do over again, he would run the risk of being killed himself rather than take the life of any human being. As I have said, he was always very religious, even then, and this was, I suppose, the reason why he brooded so over the affair. To this day he's more like a praying monk shut up in a cell than he's like the famous judge of a large circuit."

"Of course he never married," said Lynn.

"Oh, yes, he did—but not for a long time; not for years and years after that Spanish tiger had made an end of that foolish little kitten. Alice lived only a few months. They said that Alvarado wasn't unkind; that he even tried to be kind in his way. But Alice seemed to hate him—as much as she was capable of hating anybody—when she found out how he had tricked her; that he hadn't taken poison at all when he pretended he had, and that the awful-looking foam on his lips had come from chewing soap."

"Don't—don't!" cried the young man. "Leave the romance. Tell me about Judge Stanley—though he too has done what he could to spoil the story by marrying. What sort of woman is his wife? Poor little Alice!"

"I've never seen his wife. She has been here only once or twice, for a few days at a time. They say she is a high-flier and very ambitious. John didn't begin to go up very high in the world till after he had married her. She no doubt makes him a much better wife than Alice ever could have made. A silly, big-eyed, clinging, crying little woman who doesn't weigh a hundred pounds can drag down the strongest man like a mill-stone around his neck. That apparently harmless little creature managed to ruin the lives of two big strong men—each worth half a dozen of her for all useful purposes. John Stanley certainly has never seen a day's happiness, and there can be no sort of doubt that Alvarado has been partially demented ever since her death. His craziness seems to take the form of senseless litigation. He appears unable to keep away from the court-house when he knows that John Stanley is here, and he is always bringing lawsuits on ridiculous pretexts, so that the judge is compelled to rule them out of court. Alvarado is forever trying to find a chance to pick a quarrel with the judge, but he might just as well give it up. He will never be able, no matter how hard he tries, or how insulting he may be, to drag John Stanley into a duel or even into a quarrel."

"Why?" asked the young man in surprise, not understanding. "Is the Spaniard such a terrible person? Is the judge afraid?"

"Afraid—John Stanley afraid!" repeated old lady Gordon, scornfully. "He never knew what fear was. For calm, cool, unflinching courage in the face of the greatest danger, I have never known his equal. If I could remember and tell you some of the brave things that that man has done. Why, when he was only a lad he seized a lamp which had exploded and coolly held it in his bare hands—with the blazing oil burning the flesh to the bone—till he could carry it to a place of safety, rather than endanger the lives of other people by throwing it down. No longer than a year or two ago he nearly lost his own life by saving an old negro woman from a runaway horse. John Stanley is no more afraid of Alvarado than he is of me. It's all on account of his queer notions of religion, of humanity, and of the sacredness of human life. It all grew out of that unlucky accident of his youth, a matter that another man would not have given a second thought to. His fear, his horror of shedding blood has gradually grown more and more intense, until it seems to have become a positive mania. Nothing now can ever drive him from it. Alvarado may as well give up trying to provoke him into a quarrel. But he on his side is quite as determined as John Stanley. He will never give it up; he's no doubt been at the court-house hatching some plot this very day. I often wonder what the end will be, should both of the men go on living. To think of all the wrong and wretchedness that one foolish baby face can cause!"

Lynn did not cry out again, half in earnest and half in jest, begging his grandmother to spare romance; but he got up, silently, and took a turn or two about the room. He was genuinely shocked to find himself feeling the repulsion which her lack of womanliness forced upon him. The merciless cynicism revealed by everything that she said might have amused him had he heard it from another person; but he was uncontrollably repulsed by it coming from his father's mother. He was glad when she began to speak of other subjects, and less moving ones, although these also were interwoven with the history of the Pennyroyal Region.

She was not a native of Oldfield. Her birth-place lay farther up in that country on the "Pigeon Roost Fork of the Muddy, which is a branch of Green River," on the very spot thus described by Washington Irving's Kentucky classic. But Irving had only heard of "Blue Bead Miller," the famous hunter and Indian fighter, whom he has immortalized in that charming tale under his real name; and old lady Gordon had known him in her childhood and early youth. Many a time she had seen him in her father's house, where he would often come, bringing his rifle, "Betsy," for her mother to "unwitch." And this, her mother—who was young and city-bred, and full of wondering interest in all these strange ways of the wilderness—would always do with girlish delight, gravely running her slim white fingers up and down the grimy barrel, as one who works a beneficent charm, while the grim old woodsman looked on with unquestioning faith.