The Jucklins: A Novel

by Opie Percival Read

I pushed him back and said: "Go on with your story."

I was walking so fast that he was almost trotting to keep up with me. "Right there I was weak," he said. "I thought of what a bright creature my girl was, thought of what education would do for her, thought that I could soon pay back the money, and I agreed. And I want to tell you that it has been hot ashes on me ever since. They are goin' to marry all right enough, but it galls me to think that I had to send her out to have her educated at another man's expense—cuts me to think that she wasn't good enough for any man just as I could give her to him. And I'm goin' to pay back that money if I have to sell this strip of poor dirt, that's what I'm goin' to do. Yes, sir, even if it's ten years after they are married. Chyd is off at school now, and has been for a long time; only comes home for a while at vacation, and it seems to me that if he's goin' to be a doctor it's time he was at it. But I understand that they are goin' to send him to another place after he gits through with this one. I don't know much about him, but they say that he's a first-rate sort of a fellow. Oh, I knowed him well enough when he was little, but I haven't seen so very much of him since he growed up. Guinea thinks all the world of him, of course, and says that they were born for each other. Gimme that plow here. You don't know how to tote it nohow. I'm not goin' right straight back to the field; I'm goin' to the house. Them hot ashes is on me an inch thick."

I let him take the plow; I left him at the draw bars, and with heavy and dragging feet I climbed up to my room. I sat down to my desk, but not with elbows resting on the board, not with my chin in my hands; I couldn't bear to think of that attitude. Now, I understood why she had said "Oh" with such coolness when I had declared that I hated doctors. My heart was freezing, my head was hot, and in a fevered fancy I saw Guinea and that boy playing up and down the rivulet. I saw them wading in the water; heard him tell her that when they grew up she must be his wife, and I saw her, holding her dress about her ankles, look up at him and smile. I knew that he had never been awkward, I knew that he looked like Bentley, knew that he would have made fun of me, and down in my heart there was a poisonous hatred, yellow, green, venomous. I am seeking to hide nothing; I cannot paint myself as a generous and high-minded man. When stirred, I seem to have more rank sap than other men—less reason, more senseless passion. I roared at the picture, sitting there gripping the desk, and frightened it away; and to myself I acknowledged the faults which I now set forth, but an acknowledgment of a fault is not within itself virtue. The fool's recourse is to call himself a fool, to upbraid himself, curse himself and then in graciousness to pardon himself. You might as well reason with a rattlesnake, striking at you—might as well seek to temporize and argue with a dog drooling hydrophobic foam, as to tell the human heart what it ought to do. Reason is a business matter and it can make matches, but it cannot make love.

Long I sat there, gripping the desk, gazing at the rafters overhead, groaning in the lover's conscious luxury of despair. Should I go away? No; I would stay and see it out. I would be light and gay—a bear's waltz. I would laugh and rebuke fate; I would punish Guinea for having played with that boy up and down the brook; I would be all sorts of a fool.

The old man's voice came ringing through the air. "Hike, there, Sam; hike, there, Bob. Get him down. Hike, there!"

He was having a round with his chickens, to fan off the atmosphere of humiliation, to blow away the hot ashes that were so thick upon him. I remembered that I had not delivered Mrs. Jucklin's message, and I hastened out to the "stockade," and knocked at the gate. "Hike, there, boys! Who's that? Whoa, boys, that'll do! Go in there, Sam! Ho, it's you, eh?" he said, opening the gate. "Sorry, but you didn't git here quite in time. You had the opportunity, but you flung it away. What, gone over to Parker's? That's all right. Well, I must be gettin' back to the field. Looks like the grass will take me in spite of everything I can do. You'll help until they get the school-house built? Now, I'm much obleeged to you, but we can't rig up another outfit. Why, yander you go already," he added, pointing to a wagon load of lumber drawn along the road. "It's Perdue's wagon. Yander comes another one, with Ren Bowles, the carpenter, on board. Oh, they are goin' to rush things. I've heard that already this mornin'. You never saw a neighborhood stirred up much worse than this one is over that affair, and there is strong talk of lynchin' them fellers; and this mornin' a party went over to see old Aimes and told him that if he wan't gone by 10 o'clock they would string him up, and I reckon he's gone by this time. They are makin' great heroes oute'n you and Alf, I tell you. A number of 'em wanted to see you, but Alf wouldn't let 'em wake you up. I saw Parker while I was down at the shop; he'd jest got back from town; and he told me that the grand jury that's now in session would indict them fellers to-day, and as court is already set they may be brought to trial for murderous assault and arson right away, and I want to tell you that they'll do well if they save their necks. Parker said that he reckoned you and Alf better go over to Purdy to-morrow. Well, I must git back, for that grass is musterin' its forces every minute I'm away."

I worried through the day, saw Guinea in a haze, heard her voice afar off, and at night I went to bed worn out and limp. Alf did not come up until some time after I lay down. He came softly whistling a doleful air to prove that his sympathies were with me, sat down upon the edge of my bed and remained there a long time motionless and silent. I knew not what to say to him and he was evidently puzzled as to what he ought to say to me. Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth may speak, but out of the heart's fullness there also flows a silence.

"Bill," he said, reaching over and turning down the light which I had left brightly burning, "I killed a snake to-day that I reckon must be six feet long. Came crawling across the field as if he had important business over in the woods, but he didn't get there. Ever kill many big snakes?"

"Not very many," I answered, "but I am well acquainted with them and I have been bitten by a big snake that lies coiled about the universe, striking at a heart whenever he sees it."

He got up, blew out the low blaze of the lamp, and sat down on his own bed, I could tell from the creaking of the slats; and after a time he said something about the gridiron on which a man was compelled to wallow. Ordinarily I would have laughed, hot ashes on the father and hot coals under the son, but now I sighed deeply.