Books: The Heart Of The Hills

J >> John Fox, Jr. >> The Heart Of The Hills

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"My, but some folks is lucky!"

On the porch Mavis waited up awhile, with no envy in her heart.
The moon was soaring over the crest of the Cumberland, and
somewhere, doubtless, Marjorie and Gray, too, had their eyes
lifted toward it. She looked toward the little gap in the western
hills where Gray's star had gone down.

"I'm so glad they're happy," she whispered.

The moon darkened just then, and beyond and over the dark spur
flashed a new light in the sky, that ran up the mounting clouds
like climbing roses of flame. The girl smiled happily. Under it
tired Jason was asleep, but the light up there was the work of his
hands below, and it hung in the heavens like a pillar of fire.

XLVII

Sitting on the porch next morning, Mavis and Martha Hawn saw Jason
come striding down the spur.

"I'm taking a holiday to-day," he said, and there was a light in
his eyes and a quizzical smile on his face that puzzled Mavis, but
the mother was quick to understand. It was Saturday, a holiday,
too, for Mavis, and a long one, for her school had just closed
that her children might work in the fields. Without a word, but
still smiling to himself, Jason went out on the back porch, got a
hoe, and disappeared behind the garden fence. He came back
presently with a tin can in his hands and held it out to Mavis.

"Let's go fishing," he said.

While Mavis hesitated the mother, with an inward chuckle, went
within and emerged with the bow and arrow and an old fishing-pole.

"Mebbe you'll need 'em," she said dryly.

Mavis turned scarlet and Jason, pretending bewilderment, laughed
happily.

"That's just what we do need," he said, with no further surprise,
no question as to how those old relics of their childhood happened
to be there. His mother's diplomacy was crude, but he was grateful
for it, and he smiled at her understandingly.

So, like two children again, they set off, as long ago, over the
spur, down the branch, across the road below the mines, and down
into the deep bowl, filled to the brim with bush and tree, and to
where the same deep pool lay in deep shadows asleep--Jason
striding ahead and Mavis his obedient shadow once more--only this
time Jason would look back every now and then and smile. Nor did
he drop her pole on the ground and turn ungallantly to his bow and
arrow, but unwound the line, baited her hook, cast it, and handed
her the pole. As of yore, he strung his bow, which was a
ridiculous plaything in his hands now, and he peered as of yore
into every sunlit depth, but he turned every little while to look
at the quiet figure on the bank, not squatted with childish
abandon, but seated as a maiden should be, with her skirts drawn
decorously around her pretty ankles. And all the while she felt
him looking, and her face turned into lovely rose, though her
shining eyes never left the pool that mirrored her below. Only her
squeal was the same when, as of yore, she flopped a glistening
chub on the bank, and another and another. Nor did he tell her she
was "skeerin' the big uns" and set her to work like a little
slave, but unhooked each fish and put on another worm. And only
was Jason little Jason once more when at last he saw the waving
outlines of an unwary bass in the depths below. Again Mavis saw
him crouch, saw again the arrow drawn to his actually paling
cheek, heard again the rushing hiss through the air and the
burning hiss into the water, and saw a bass leap from the
convulsed surface. Only this time there was no headless arrow left
afloat, for, with a boyish yell, Jason dragged his squirming
captive in. This time Jason gathered the twigs and built the fire
and helped to clean the fish. And when all was ready, who should
step forth with a loud laugh of triumph from the bushes but the
same giant--Babe Honeycutt!

"I seed you two comin' down hyeh," he shouted. "Hit reminded me o'
ole times. I been settin' thar in the bushes an' the smell o' them
fish might' nigh drove me crazy. An' this time, by the jumpin'
Jehosiphat, I'm a-goin' to have my share."

Babe did take his share, and over his pipe grew reminiscent.

"I'm mighty glad you didn't git me that day, Jason," he said, with
another laugh, "an' I reckon you air too now that--"

He stopped in confusion, for Jason had darted him a warning
glance. So confused was he, indeed, that he began to feel suddenly
very much in the way, and he rose quickly, and with a knowing look
from one to the other melted with a loud laugh into the bushes
again.

"Now, wasn't that curious?" said Jason, and Mavis nodded silently.

All the time they had been drifting along the backward current of
memories, and perhaps it was that current that bore them
unconsciously along when they rose, for unconsciously Jason went
on toward the river, until once more they stood on the little
knoll whence they had first seen Gray and Marjorie ride through
the arched opening of the trees. Hitherto, speech had been as
sparse between them as it had been that long-ago day, but here
they looked suddenly into each other's eyes, and each knew the
other's thought.

"Are you sorry, Mavis?"

She flushed a little.

"Not now"; and then shyly, "are you?"

"Not now," repeated Jason.

Back they went again, lapsing once more into silence, until they
came again to the point where they had started to part that day,
and Mavis's fear had led him to take her down the dark ravine to
her home. The spirals of smoke were even rising on either side of
the spur from Jason's cottage and his mother's home, and both high
above were melting into each other and into the drowsy haze that,
veiled the face of the mountain. Jason turned quickly, and the
subdued fire in his eyes made the girl's face burn and her eyes
droop.

"Mavis," he said huskily, "do you remember what I said that day
right here?"

And then suddenly the woman became the brave.

"Yes, Jasie," she said, meeting his eyes unflinchingly now and
with a throb of desire to end his doubt and suffering quickly:

"And I remember what we both DID--once."

She looked down toward the old circuit rider's house at the forks
of the road, and Jason's hand and lip trembled and his face was
transfigured with unbelievable happiness.

"Why, Mavis--I thought you--Gray--Mavis, will you, will you?"

"Poor Jasie," she said, and almost as a mother to a child who had
long suffered she gently put both arms around his neck, and, as
his arms crushed her to him, lifted her mouth to meet his.

Two hours it took Jason to go to town and back, galloping all the
way. And then at sunset they walked together through the old
circuit rider's gate and to the porch, and stood before the old
man hand in hand.

"Me an' Mavis hyeh want to git married," said Jason, with a
jesting smile, and the old man's memory was as quick as his humor.

"Have ye got a license?" he asked, with a serious pursing of his
lips. "You got to have a license, an' hit costs two dollars an'
you got to be a man."

Jason smilingly pulled a paper from his pockets, and Mavis
interrupted:

"He's MY man."

"Well, he will be in a minute--come in hyeh."

The old circuit rider's wife met them at the door and hugged them
both, and when they came out on the porch again, there was Jason's
mother hurrying down the spur and calling to them with a half-
tearful laugh of triumph.

"I knowed it--oh, I knowed it."

The news spread swiftly. Within half an hour the big
superintendent was tumbling his things from the cottage into the
road, for his own family was coming, he explained to Jason's
mother, and he needed a larger house anyway. And so Babe Honeycutt
swung twice down the spur on the other side and up again with
Mavis's worldly goods on his great shoulders, while inside the
cottage Martha Hawn and the old circuit rider's wife were as
joyously busy as bees. On his last trip Mavis and Jason followed,
and on top of the spur Babe stopped, cocked his ear, and listened.
Coming on a slow breeze up the ravine from the river far below was
the long mellow blast of a horn.

"'I God," laughed Babe triumphantly, "ole Jason's already heerd
it."

And, indeed, within half an hour word came that the old man must
have the infair at his house that night, and already to all who
could hear he had blown welcome on the wind.

So, at dusk, when Jason, on the circuit rider's old nag, rode
through camp with Mavis on a pillion behind in laughing acceptance
of the old pioneer custom, women and children waved at them from
doorways and the miners swung their hats and cheered them as they
passed. There was an old-fashioned gathering at the old Hawn home
that night. Old Aaron and young Aaron and many Honeycutts were
there; the house was thronged, fiddles played old tunes for nimble
feet, and Hawns and Honeycutts ate and drank and made merry until
the morning sun fanned its flames above the sombre hills.

But before midnight Jason and Mavis fared forth pillion-fashion
again. Only, Jason too rode sidewise every now and then that he
might clasp her with one arm and kiss her again and again under
the smiling old moon. Through the lights and noise of the mighty
industry that he would direct, they passed and climbed on.

Soon only lights showed that their grimy little working world was
below. Soon they stood on the porch of their own little home. To
them there the mighty on-sweeping hills sent back their own peace,
God-guarded and never to be menaced by the hand of man. And there,
clasped in each other's arms, their spirits rushed together, and
with the spiral of smoke from their own hearthstones, went upward.

XLVIII

Gently that following midsummer the old president's crutch thumped
the sidewalk leading to the college. Between the pillars of the
gateway he paused, lifted his undimmed keen blue eyes, and more
gently still the crutch thumped on the gravelled road as he passed
slowly on under the trees. When he faced the first deserted
building, he stopped quite still. The campus was deserted and the
buildings were as silent as tombs. That loneliness he had known
many, many years; but there was a poignant sorrow in it now that
was never there before, for only that morning he had turned over
the reins of power into a pair of younger hands. The young men and
young women would come again, but now they would be his no longer.
There would be the same eager faces, dancing eyes, swift coming
and going, but not for him. The same cries of greeting, the tramp
of many feet, shouts from the playgrounds-but not for his ears.
The same struggle for supremacy in the class-room--but not for his
favor and his rewarding hand. That hand had all but upraised each
building, brick by brick and stone by stone. He had started alone,
he had fought alone, and in spite of his Scotch shrewdness,
business sagacity, indomitable pluck and patience, and a
nationwide fame for scholarship, the fight had been hard and long.
He had won, but the work was yet unfinished, and it was his no
longer. For a little while he stood there, and John Burnham,
coming from his class-room with a little bag of books, saw the
still figure on crutches and paused noiselessly on the steps. He
saw the old scholar's sensitive mouth quiver and his thin face
wrenched with pain, and he guessed the tragedy of farewell that
was taking place. He saw the old president turn suddenly, limp
toward the willow-trees, and Burnham knew that he could not bear
at that moment to pass between those empty beloved halls. And
Burnham watched him move under the willows along the edge of the
quiet pond, watched him slowly climbing a little hill on the other
side of the campus, and then saw him wearily pass through his own
gate-home. He wished that the old scholar could know how much
better he had builded than he knew; could know what an exchange
and clearing-house that group of homely buildings was for the
human wealth of the State. And he wondered if in the old
thoroughbred's heart was the comfort that his spirit would live on
and on to help mould the lives of generations unborn, who might
perhaps never hear his name.

There was a youthful glad light in John Burnham's face when he
turned his back on the deserted college, for he, too, was on his
way at last to the hills--and St. Hilda. As he swept through the
Blue-grass he almost smiled upon the passing fields. The
betterment of the tobacco troubles was sure to come, and only that
summer the farmer was beginning to realize that in the end the
seed of his blue-grass would bring him a better return than the
leaf of his troublesome weed-king. There were groaning harvests
that summer and herds of sheep and hogs and fat cattle. There was
plenty of wheat and rye and oats and barley and corn yet coming
out of the earth, and, as woodland after woodland reeled past his
window, he realized that the trees were not yet all gone. Perhaps
after all his beloved Kentucky would come back to her own, and
there was peace in his grateful heart.

Two nights later, sitting on the porch of her little log cabin, he
told St. Hilda about Gray and Marjorie, as she told him about
Mavis and Jason Hawn. Gray and Jason had gone back, each to his
own, having learned at last what Mavis and Marjorie, without
learning, already knew--that duty is to others rather than self,
to life rather than love. But John Burnham now knew that in the
dreams of each girl another image would live always; just as
always Jason would see another's eyes misty with tears for him and
feel the comforting clutch of a little hand, while in Gray's heart
a wood-thrush would sing forever.

And, looking far ahead, both could see strong young men hurrying
up from the laggard Blue-grass into the lagging hills and strong
young men hurrying down from them, and could hear the heart of the
hills beating as one with the heart of the Bluegrass, and both
beating as one with the heart of the world.

THE END

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