Books: The Heart Of The Hills
J >>
John Fox, Jr. >> The Heart Of The Hills
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 | 15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20
"These gentlemen, I think, are beside themselves," he said
quietly, "and I must ask your permission to withdraw."
Jason followed him out to the court-house door and watched him,
erect as a soldier, march down the street, and he knew the trouble
that was in store for the old gentleman, for already he had heard
similar incendiary talk from the small farmers around his mother's
home.
The following June Marjorie and Gray Pendleton brought back
finishing touches of dress, manner, and atmosphere to the dazzled
envy of the less fortunate, in spite of the fact that both bore
their new claims to distinction with a modesty that would have
kept a stranger from knowing that they had ever been away from
home. Jason and Mavis were still at the old university when the
two arrived. To the mountaineers all four had once seemed almost
on the same level, such had once been the comradeship between
them, but now the old chasm seemed to yawn wider than ever between
them, and there was no time for it to close, if closing were
possible, for again Jason went back to the hills--this time to
Morton Sanders' opening mines--and, this time, Mavis went with him
to teach Hawns and Honeycutts in a summer school on the outskirts
of the little mining town. Again for Jason the summer was one of
unflagging work and learning--learning all he could, all the time.
He had discovered that to get his land back through the law, he
must prove that Arch Hawn or Colonel Pendleton not only must have
known about the big seam of coal, not only must have concealed the
fact of their knowledge from his mother and Steve Hawn, but, in
addition, must have told one or both, with the purpose of fraud,
that the land was worth no more than was visible to the eye in
timber and seams of coal that were known to all. That Colonel
Pendleton could have been guilty of such underhandedness was
absurd. Moreover, Jason's mother said that no such statement had
been made to her by either, though Steve had sworn readily that
Arch had said just that thing to him. But Jason began to believe
that Steve had lied, and Arch Hawn laughed when he heard of
Jason's investigations.
"Son, if you want that land back, or, ruther, the money it's
worth, you git right down to work, learn the business, and DIG it
back in another way."
And that was what Jason, half unconsciously, was doing. And yet,
with all the ambition that was in him, his interest in the work,
his love for the hills, his sense of duty to his people and his
wish to help them, the boy was sorely depressed that summer, for
the talons with which the fate of birth and environment clutched
him seemed to be tightening now again.
The trials of Steve Hawn and of Hiram Honeycutt for the death of
the autocrat were bringing back the old friction. Charges and
counter-charges of perjury among witnesses had freshened the old
enmity between the Hawns and the Honeycutts. Jason himself had
once to go back to the Blue-grass as witness, and when he returned
he learned that the charge whispered against him, particularly by
little Aaron, was that he had sworn falsely for Steve Hawn and
falsely against Hiram Honeycutt. Again Babe Honeycutt had come
back from the West and had quietly slipped out of the mountains
again, and Jason was led to believe it was on his account. So once
more the old oath began to weigh heavily upon him, for everybody
seemed to take it as much for granted that he would some day
fulfil that oath as that, after the dark of the moon, that moon
would rise again. Moreover, fate was inexorably pushing him and
little Aaron into the same channels that their fathers had
followed and putting on each the duty and responsibility of
leadership. And Jason, though shirking nothing, turned sick and
faint of heart and was glad when the summer neared its close.
Through all his vacation he and Mavis had seen but little of each
other, though Mavis lived with the old circuit rider and Jason in
a little shack on the spur above her, for the boy was on the night
shift and through most of the day was asleep. Moreover, both were
rather morose and brooding, each felt the deep trouble of the
other, and to it each paid the mutual respect of silence. How much
Mavis knew, Jason little guessed, though he was always vaguely
uneasy under the constant search of her dark eyes, and often he
would turn toward her expecting her to speak. But not until the
autumn was at hand and they were both making ready to go back to
the Blue-grass did she break her silence. The news had just
reached them that Steve Hawn had come clear at last and was at
home--and Mavis heard it with little elation and no comment. Next
day she announced calmly that she was not going back with Jason,
but would stay in the hills and go on with her school. Jason
stared questioningly, but she would not explain--she only became
more brooding and silent than ever, and only when they parted one
drowsy day in September was the thought within her betrayed:
"I reckon maybe you won't come back again."
Jason was startled. She knew then--knew his discontent, his new
longing to break the fetters of the hills, knew even that in his
dreams Marjorie's face was still shining like a star. "Course I'm
comin' back," he said, with a little return of his old boyish
roughness, but his eyes fell before hers as he turned hurriedly
away. He was rolling away from the hills, and his mind had gone
back to her seated with folded hands and unseeing eyes in the old
circuit rider's porch, dreaming, thinking--thinking, dreaming--
before he began fully to understand. He remembered his mother
telling him how unhappy Mavis had been the summer the two were
alone in the Blue-grass, and how she had kept away from Marjorie
and Gray and all to herself. He recalled Mavis telling him
bitterly how she had once overheard some girl student speak of her
as the daughter of a jail-bird. He began to see that she had
stayed in the Blue-grass that summer on his mother's account and
on her account would have gone back with him again. He knew that
there was no disloyalty to her father in her decision, for he knew
that she would stick to him, jail-bird or whatever he was, till
the end of time. But now neither her father nor Jason's mother
needed her. Through eyes that had gained a new vision in the Blue-
grass Mavis had long ago come to see herself as she was seen
there; and now to escape wounds that any malicious tongue could
inflict she would stay where the sins of fathers rested less
heavily on the innocent. There was, to be sure, good reason for
Jason to feel as Mavis felt--he had been a jail-bird himself--but
not to act like her--no. And then as he rolled along he began to
wonder what part Gray might be playing in her mind and heart. The
vision of her seated in the porch thinking--thinking--would not
leave him, and a pang of undefined remorse for leaving her behind
started within him. She, too, had outgrown his and her people as
he had--perhaps she was as rebellious against her fate as he was
against his own, but, unlike him, utterly helpless. And suddenly
the boy's remorse merged into a sympathetic terror for the
loneliness that was hers.
XXXIII
Down in the Blue-grass a handsome saddle-horse was hitched at the
stile in front of Colonel Pendleton's house and the front door was
open to the pale gold of the early sun. Upstairs Gray was packing
for his last year away from home, after which he too would go to
Morton Sanders' mines, on the land Jason's mother once had owned.
Below him his father sat at his desk with two columns of figures
before him, of assets and liabilities, and his face was gray and
his form seemed to have shrunk when he rose from his chair; but he
straightened up when he heard his boy's feet coming down the
stairway, forced a smile to his lips, and called to him cheerily.
Together they walked down to the stile.
"I'm going to drive into town this morning, dad," said Gray. "Can
I do anything for you?"
"No, son--nothing--except come back safe."
In the distance a tree crashed to the earth as the colonel was
climbing his horse, and a low groan came from his lips, but again
he quickly recovered himself at the boy's apprehensive cry.
"Nothing, son. I reckon I'm getting too fat to climb a horse--
good-by."
He turned and rode away, erect as a youth of twenty, and the lad
looked after him puzzled and alarmed. One glance his father had
turned toward the beautiful woodland that had at last been turned
over to axe and saw for the planting of tobacco, and it was almost
the last tree of that woodland that had just fallen. When the
first struck the earth two months before, the lad now recalled
hearing his father mutter:
"This is the meanest act of my life."
Suddenly now the boy knew that the act was done for him--and his
eyes filled as he looked after the retreating horseman upon whose
shoulders so much secret trouble weighed. And when the elder man
passed through the gate and started down the pike, those broad
shoulders began to droop, and the lad saw him ride out of sight
with his chin close to his breast. The boy started back to his
packing, but with a folded coat in his hand dropped in a chair by
the open window, looking out on the quick undoing in that woodland
of the Master's slow upbuilding for centuries, and he began to
recall how often during the past summer he had caught his father
brooding alone, or figuring at his desk, or had heard him pacing
the floor of his bedroom late at night; how frequently he had made
trips into town to see his lawyer, how often the lad had seen in
his mail, lately, envelopes stamped with the name of his bank;
and, above all, how often the old family doctor had driven out
from town, and though there was never a complaint, how failing had
been his father's health, and how he had aged. And suddenly Gray
sprang to his feet, ordered his buggy and started for town.
Along the edge of the bleeding stumps of noble trees the colonel
rode slowly, his thoughts falling and rising between his boy in
the room above and his columns of figures in the room below. The
sacrilege of destruction had started in his mind years before from
love of the one, but the actual deed had started under pressure of
the other, and now it looked as though each motive would be
thwarted, for the tobacco war was on in earnest now, and again the
poor old commonwealth was rent as by a forked tongue of lightning.
And, like the State, the colonel too was pitifully divided against
himself.
Already many Blue-grass farmers had pooled their crops against the
great tobacco trust--already they had decided that no tobacco at
all should be raised that coming year just when the colonel was
deepest in debt and could count only on his tobacco for relief.
And so the great-hearted gentleman must now go against his
neighbor, or go to destruction himself and carry with him his
beloved son. Toward noon he reined in on a little knoll above the
deserted house of the old general, the patriarchal head of the
family--who had passed not many years before--the rambling old
house, stuccoed with aged brown and still in the faithful clasp of
ancient vines. The old landmark had passed to Morton Sanders, and
on and about it the ruthless hand of progress was at work. The
atmosphere of careless, magnificent luxury was gone. The servants'
quarters, the big hen-house, the old stables with gables and
sunken roofs, the staggering fences, the old blacksmith-shop, the
wheelless windmill--all were rebuilt or torn away. Only the arched
gate-way under which only thoroughbreds could pass was left
untouched, for Sanders loved horses and the humor of that gate-
way, and the old spring-house with its green dripping walls. No
longer even were the forest trees in the big yard ragged and
storm-torn, but trimmed carefully, their wounds dressed, and
sturdy with a fresh lease on life; only the mournful cedars were
unchanged and still harping with every passing wind the same
requiem for the glory that was gone. With another groan the old
colonel turned his horse toward home--the home that but for the
slain woodlands would soon pass in that same way to house a
Sanders tenant or an overseer.
When he reached his front door he heard his boy whistling like a
happy lark in his room at the head of the stairway. The sounds
pierced him for one swift instant and then his generous heart was
glad for the careless joy of youth, and instead of going into his
office he slowly climbed the stairs. When he reached the door of
the boy's room, he saw two empty trunks, the clothes that had been
in them tossed in a whirlwind over bed and chair and floor, and
Gray hanging out of the window and shouting to a servant:
"Come up here, Tom, and help put my things back--I'm not going
away."
A joyous whoop from below answered:
"Yassuh, yassuh; my Gord, but I IS glad. Why, de colonel--"
Just then the boy heard a slight noise behind him and he turned to
see his father's arms stretched wide for him.
Gray remained firm. He would not waste another year. He had a good
start; he would go to the mines and begin work, and he could come
home when he pleased, if only over Sunday. So, as Mavis had
watched Jason leave to be with Marjorie in the Blue-grass, so
Marjorie now watched Gray leave to be with Mavis in the hills. And
between them John Burnham was again left wondering.
XXXIV
At sunset Gray Pendleton pushed his tired horse across the
Cumberland River and up into the county-seat of the Hawns and
Honeycutts. From the head of the main street two battered signs
caught his eye--Hawn Hotel and Honeycutt Inn--the one on the
right-hand side close at hand, and the other far down on the left,
and each on the corner of the street. Both had double balconies,
both were ramshackle and unpainted, and near each was a general
store, run now by a subleader of each faction--Hiram Honeycutt and
Shade Hawn--for old Jason and old Aaron, except in councils of war
and business, had retired into the more or less peaceful haven of
home and old age. Naturally the boy drew up and stopped before
Hawn Hotel, from the porch of which keen eyes scrutinized him with
curiosity and suspicion, and before he had finished his supper of
doughy biscuits, greasy bacon, and newly killed fried chicken, the
town knew but little less about his business there than he
himself. That night he asked many questions of Shade Hawn, the
proprietor, and all were answered freely, except where they bore
on the feud of half a century, and then Gray encountered a silence
that was puzzling but significant and deterrent. Next morning
everybody who spoke to him called him by name, and as he rode up
the river there was the look of recognition in every face he saw,
for the news of him had gone ahead the night before. At the mouth
of Hawn Creek, in a bend of the river, he came upon a schoolhouse
under a beech-tree on the side of a little hill; through the open
door he saw, amidst the bent heads of the pupils, the figure of a
young woman seated at a desk, and had he looked back when he
turned up the creek he would have seen her at the window, gazing
covertly after him with one hand against her heart. For Mavis
Hawn, too, had heard that Gray was come to the hills. All morning
she had been watching the open door-way, and yet when she saw him
pass she went pale and had to throw her head up sharply to get her
breath. Her hands trembled, she rose and went to the window, and
she did not realize what she was doing until she turned to meet
the surprised and curious eyes of one of the larger girls, who,
too, could see the passing stranger, and then the young school-
mistress flushed violently and turned to her seat. The girl was a
Honeycutt, and more than once that long, restless afternoon Mavis
met the same eyes searching her own and already looking mischief.
Slowly the long afternoon passed, school was dismissed, and Mavis,
with the circuit rider's old dog on guard at her heels, started
slowly up the creek with her eyes fixed on every bend of the road
she turned and on the crest of every little hill she climbed,
watching for Gray to come back. Once a horse that looked like the
one he rode and glimpsed through the bushes far ahead made her
heart beat violently and stopped her, poised for a leap into the
bushes, but it was only little Aaron Honeycutt, who lifted his
hat, flushed, and spoke gravely; and Mavis reached the old circuit
rider's gate, slipped around to the back porch and sat down, still
in a tumult that she could not calm. It was not long before she
heard a clear shout of "hello" at the gate, and she clenched her
chair with both hands, for the voice was Gray's. She heard the old
woman go to the door, heard her speak her surprise and hearty
welcome--heard Gray's approaching steps.
"Is Mavis here?" Gray asked.
"She ain't got back from school."
"Was that her school down there at the mouth of the creek?"
"Shore."
"Well, I wish I had known that."
Calmly and steadily then Mavis rose, and a moment later Gray saw
her in the door and his own heart leaped at the rich, grave beauty
of her. Gravely she shook hands, gravely looked full into his
eyes, without a question sat down with quiet hands folded in her
lap, and it was the boy who was embarrassed and talked. He would
live with the superintendent on the spur just above and he would
be a near neighbor. His father was not well. Marjorie was not
going away again, but would stay at home that winter. Mavis's
stepmother was well, and he had not seen Jason before he left--
they must have passed each other on the way. Since Mavis's father
was now at home, Jason would stay at the college, as he lost so
much time going to and fro. Gray was glad to get to work, he
already loved the mountains; but there had been so many changes he
hardly remembered the creek--how was Mavis's grandfather, old Mr.
Hawn? Mavis raised her eyes, but she was so long answering that
the old woman broke in:
"He's mighty peart fer sech a' old man, but he's a-breakin' fast
an' he ain't long fer this wuld." She spoke with the frank
satisfaction that, among country folks, the old take in ushering
their contemporaries through the portals, and Gray could hardly
help smiling. He rose to leave presently, and the old woman
pressed him to stay for supper; but Mavis's manner somehow
forbade, and the boy climbed back up the spur, wondering, ill at
ease, and almost shaken by the new beauty the girl seemed to have
taken on in the hills. For there she was at home. She had the
peace and serenity of them: the pink-flecked laurel was in her
cheeks, the white of the rhododendron was at the base of her full
round throat, and in her eyes were the sleepy shadows of deep
ravines. It might not be so lonely for him after all in his exile,
and the vision of the girl haunted Gray when he went to bed that
night and made him murmur and stir restlessly in his sleep.
XXXV
Once more, on his way for his last year at college, Jason Hawn had
stepped into the chill morning air at the railway junction, on the
edge of the Blue-grass. Again a faint light was showing in the
east, and cocks were crowing from a low sea of mist that lay
motionless over the land, but this time the darky porter reached
without hesitation for his bag and led him to the porch of the
hotel, where he sat waiting for breakfast. Once more at sunrise he
sped through the breaking mist and high over the yellow Kentucky
River, but there was no pang of homesickness when he looked down
upon it now. Again fields of grass and gram, grazing horses and
cattle, fences, houses, barns reeled past his window, and once
more Steve Hawn met him at the station in the same old rattletrap
buggy, and again stared at him long and hard.
"Ain't much like the leetle feller I met here three year ago--air
ye?"
Steve was unshaven and his stubbly, thick, black beard emphasized
the sickly touch of prison pallor that was still on his face. His
eyes had a new, wild, furtive look, and his mouth was cruel and
bitter. Again each side of the street was lined with big wagons
loaded with tobacco and covered with cotton cloth. Steve pointed
to them.
"Rickolect whut I tol' you about hell a-comin' about that
terbaccer?"
Jason nodded.
"Well, hit's come." His tone was ominous, personal, and disturbed
the boy.
"Look here, Steve," he said earnestly, "haven't you had enough
now? Ain't you goin' to settle down and behave yourself?"
The man's face took on the snarl of a vicious dog.
"No, by God!--I hain't. The trouble's on me right now. Colonel
Pendleton hain't treated me right--he cheated me out--"
Steve got no further; the boy turned squarely in the buggy and his
eyes blazed.
"That's a lie. I don't know anything about it, but I know it's a
lie."
Steve, too, turned furious, but he had gone too far, and had
counted too much on kinship, so he controlled himself, and with
vicious cunning whipped about.
"Well," he said in an injured tone, "I mought be mistaken. We'll
see--we'll see."
Jason had not asked about his mother, and he did not ask now, for
Steve's manner worried him and made him apprehensive. He answered
the man's questions about the mountains shortly, and with
diabolical keenness Steve began to probe old wounds.
"I reckon," he said sympathetically, "you hain't found no way yit
o' gittin' yo' land back?"
"No."
"Ner who shot yo' pap?"
"No."
"Well, I hear as how Colonel Pendleton owns a lot in that company
that's diggin' out yo' coal. Mebbe you might git it back from
him."
Jason made no answer, for his heart was sinking with every thought
of his mother and the further trouble Steve seemed bound to make.
Martha Hawn was standing in her porch with one hand above her eyes
when they drove into the mouth of the lane. She came down to the
gate, and Jason put his arms around her and kissed her; and when
he saw the tears start in her eyes he kissed her again while Steve
stared, surprised and uncomprehending. Again that afternoon Jason
wandered aimlessly into the blue-grass fields, and again his feet
led him to the knoll whence he could see the twin houses of the
Pendletons bathed in the yellow sunlight, and their own proud
atmosphere of untroubled calm. And again, even, he saw Marjorie
galloping across the fields, and while he knew the distressful
anxiety in one of the households, he little guessed the incipient
storm that imperious young woman was at that moment carrying
within her own breast from the other. For Marjorie missed Gray;
she was lonely and she was bored; she had heard that Jason had
been home several days; she was irritated that he had not been to
see her, nor had sent her any message, and just now what she was
going to do, she did not exactly know or care. Half an hour later
he saw her again, coming back at a gallop along the turnpike, and
seeing him, she pulled in and waved her whip. Jason took off his
hat, waved it in answer, and kept on, whereat imperious Marjorie
wheeled her horse through a gate into the next field and thundered
across it and up the slope toward him. Jason stood hat in hand--
embarrassed, irresolute, pale. When she pulled in, he walked
forward to take her outstretched gloved hand, and when he looked
up into her spirited face and challenging eyes, a great calm came
suddenly over him, and from it emerged his own dominant spirit
which the girl instantly felt. She had meant to tease, badger,
upbraid, domineer over him, but the volley of reproachful
questions that were on her petulant red lips dwindled lamely to
one:
"How's Mavis, Jason?"
"She's well as common."
"You didn't see Gray?"
"No."
"I got a letter from him yesterday. He's living right above Mavis.
He says she is more beautiful than ever, and he's already crazy
about his life down there--and the mountains."
"I'm mighty glad."
She turned to go, and the boy walked down the hill to open the
gate for her--and sidewise Marjorie scrutinized him. Jason had
grown taller, darker, his hair was longer, his clothes were worn
and rather shabby, the atmosphere of the hills still invested him,
and he was more like the Jason she had first seen, so that the
memories of childhood were awakened in the girl and she softened
toward him. When she passed through the gate and turned her horse
toward him again, the boy folded his arms over the gate, and his
sunburnt hands showed to Marjorie's eyes the ravages of hard work.
"Why haven't you been over to see me, Jason?" she asked gently.
"I just got back this mornin'."
"Why, Gray wrote you left home several days ago."
"I did--but I stopped on the way to visit some kinfolks."
"Oh. Well, aren't you coming? I'm lonesome, and I guess you will
be too--without Mavis."
"I won't have time to get lonesome."
The girl smiled.
"That's ungracious--but I want you to take the time."
The boy looked at her; since his trial he had hardly spoken to
her, and had rarely seen her. Somehow he had come to regard his
presence at Colonel Pendleton's the following Christmas night as
but a generous impulse on their part that was to end then and
there. He had kept away from Marjorie thereafter, and if he was
not to keep away now, he must make matters very clear.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 | 15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20