Books: The Heart Of The Hills
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John Fox, Jr. >> The Heart Of The Hills
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The teacher, a tall man in a long black frock-coat, had his back
to her, the room was crowded, and she saw no vacant seat. Every
pair of eyes within was raised to her, and instantly she caught
another surprised and puzzled stare from the boy who had taken her
part a little while before. The teacher, seeing the attention of
his pupils fixed somewhere behind him, turned to see the quaint
figure, dismayed and helpless, in the doorway, and he went quickly
toward her.
"This way," he said kindly, and pointing to a seat, he turned
again to his pupils.
Still they stared toward the new-comer, and he turned again. The
little girl's flushed face was still hidden by her bonnet, but
before he reached her to tell her quietly she must take it off,
she had seen that all the heads about her were bare and was
pulling it off herself--disclosing a riotous mass of black hair,
combed straight back from her forehead and gathered into a Psyche
knot at the back of her head. Slowly the flush passed, but not for
some time did she lift the extraordinary lashes that veiled her
eyes to take a furtive glance about her. But, as the pupils bent
more to their books, she grew bolder and looked about oftener and
keenly, and she saw with her own eyes and in every pair of eyes
whose glance she met, how different she was from all the other
girls. For it was a look of wonder and amusement that she
encountered each time, and sometimes two girls would whisper
behind their hands and laugh, or one would nudge her desk-mate to
look around at the stranger, so that the flush came back to
Mavis's face and stayed there. The tall teacher saw, too, and
understood, and, to draw no more attention to her than was
necessary, he did not go near her until little recess. As he
expected, she did not move from her seat when the other pupils
trooped out, and when the room was empty he beckoned her to come
to his desk, and in a moment, with her two books clasped in her
hands, she stood shyly before him, meeting his kind gray searching
eyes with unwavering directness.
"You were rather late coming to school."
"I was afeerd." The teacher smiled, for her eyes were fearless.
"What is your name?"
"Mavis Hawn."
Her voice was slow, low, and rich, and in some wonder he half
unconsciously repeated the unusual name.
"Where do you live?"
"Down the road a piece--'bout a whoop an' a holler."
"What? Oh, I see."
He smiled, for she meant to measure distance by sound, and she had
used merely a variation of the "far cry" of Elizabethan days.
"Your father works in tobacco?" She nodded.
"You come from near the Ohio River?"
She looked puzzled.
"I come from the mountains."
"Oh!"
He understood now her dress and speech, and he was not surprised
at the answer to his next question.
"I hain't nuver been to school. Pap couldn't spare me."
"Can you read and write?"
"No," she said, but she flushed, and he knew straightway the
sensitiveness and pride with which he would have to deal.
"Well," he said kindly, "we will begin now."
And he took the alphabet and told her the names of several letters
and had her try to make them with a lead pencil, which she did
with such uncanny seriousness and quickness that the pity of it,
that in his own State such intelligence should be going to such
broadcast waste for the want of such elemental opportunities,
struck him deeply. The general movement to save that waste was
only just beginning, and in that movement he meant to play his
part. He was glad now to have under his own supervision one of
those mountaineers of whom, but for one summer, he had known so
little and heard so much--chiefly to their discredit--and he
determined then and there to do all he could for her. So he took
her back to her seat with a copy-book and pencil and told her to
go on with her work, and that he would go to see her father and
mother as soon as possible.
"I hain't got no mammy--hit's a step-mammy," she said, and she
spoke of the woman as of a horse or a cow, and again he smiled.
Then as he turned away he repeated her name to himself and with a
sudden wonder turned quickly back.
"I used to know some Hawns down in your mountains. A little fellow
named Jason Hawn used to go around with me all the time."
Her eyes filled and then flashed happily.
"Why, mebbe you air the rock-pecker?"
"The what?"
"The jologist. Jason's my cousin. I wasn't thar that summer.
Jason's always talkin' 'bout you."
"Well, well--I guess I am. That is curious."
"Jason's mammy was a Honeycutt an' she married my daddy an' they
run away," she went on eagerly, "an' I had to foller 'em."
"Where's Jason?" Again her eyes filled.
"I don't know."
John Burnham put his hand on her head gently and turned to his
desk. He rang the bell and when the pupils trooped back she was
hard at work, and she felt proud when she observed several girls
looking back to see what she was doing, and again she was
mystified that each face showed the same expression of wonder and
of something else that curiously displeased her, and she wondered
afresh why it was that everything in that strange land held always
something that she could never understand. But a disdainful
whisper came back to her that explained it all.
"Why, that new girl is only learning her a-b-c's," said a girl,
and her desk-mate turned to her with a quick rebuke.
"Don't--she'll hear you."
Mavis caught the latter's eyes that instant, and with a warm glow
at her heart looked her gratitude, and then she almost cried her
surprise aloud--it was the stranger-girl who had been in the
mountains--Marjorie. The girl looked back in a puzzled way, and a
moment later Mavis saw her turn to look again. This time the
mountain girl answered with a shy smile, and Marjorie knew her,
nodded in a gay, friendly way, and bent her head to her book.
Presently she ran her eyes down the benches where the boys sat,
and there was Gray waiting apparently for her to look around, for
he too nodded gayly to her, as though he had known her from the
start. The teacher saw the exchange of little civilities and he
was much puzzled, especially when, the moment school was over, he
saw the lad hurry to catch Marjorie, and the two then turn
together toward the little stranger. Both thrust out their hands,
and the little mountain girl, so unaccustomed to polite
formalities, was quite helpless with embarrassment, so the teacher
went over to help her out and Gray explained:
"Marjorie and I stayed with her grandfather, and didn't we have a
good time, Marjorie?"
Marjorie nodded with some hesitation, and Gray went on:
"How--how is he now?"
"Grandpap's right peart now."
"And how's your cousin--Jason?"
The question sent such a sudden wave of homesickness through Mavis
that her answer was choked, and Marjorie understood and put her
arm around Mavis's shoulder.
"You must be lonely up here. Where do you live?" And when she
tried to explain Gray broke in.
"Why, you must be one of our ten--you must live on our farm. Isn't
that funny?"
"And I live further down the road across the pike," said Marjorie.
"In that great big house in the woods?"
"Yes," nodded Marjorie, "and you must come to see me."
Mavis's eyes had the light of gladness in them now, and through
them looked a grateful heart. Outside, Gray got Marjorie's pony
for her, the two mounted, rode out the gate and went down the pike
at a gallop, and Marjorie whirled in her saddle to wave her bonnet
back at the little mountaineer. The teacher, who stood near
watching them, turned to go back and close up the school-house.
"I'm coming to see your father, and we'll get some books, and you
are going to study so hard that you won't have time to get
homesick any more," he said kindly, and Mavis started down the
road, climbed the staked and ridered fence, and made her way
across the fields. She had been lonely, and now homesickness came
back to her worse than ever. She wondered about Jason--where he
was and what he was doing and whether she would ever see him
again. The memory of her parting with him came back to her--how he
looked as she saw him for the last time sitting on his old nag,
sturdy and apparently unmoved, and riding out of her sight in just
that way; and she heard again his last words as though they were
sounding then in her ears:
"I'm a-goin' to come an' git you--some day."
Since that day she had heard of him but once, and that was lately,
when Arch Hawn had come to see her father and the two had talked a
long time. They were all well, Arch said, down in the mountains.
Jason had come back from the settlement school. Little Aaron
Honeycutt had bantered him in the road and Jason had gone wild. He
had galloped down to town, bought a Colt's forty-five and a pint
of whiskey, had ridden right up to old Aaron Honeycutt's gate,
shot off his pistol, and dared little Aaron to come out and fight.
Little Aaron wanted to go, but old Aaron held him back, and Jason
sat on his nag at the gate and "cussed out" the whole tribe, and
swore "he'd kill every dad-blasted one of 'em if only to git the
feller who shot his daddy." Old Aaron had behaved mighty well, and
he and old Jason had sent each other word that they would keep
both the boys out of the trouble. Then Arch had brought about
another truce and little Jason had worked his crop and was making
a man of himself. It was Archer Hawn who had insisted that Mavis
herself should go to school and had agreed to pay all her
expenses, but in spite of her joy at that, she was heart-broken
when he was gone, and when she caught her step-mother weeping in
the kitchen a vague sympathy had drawn them for the first time a
little nearer together.
From the top of the little hill her new home was visible across a
creek and by the edge of a lane. As she crossed a foot-bridge and
made her way noiselessly along the dirt road she heard voices
around a curve of the lane and she came upon a group of men
leaning against a fence. In the midst of them was her father, and
they were arguing with him earnestly and he was shaking his head.
"Them toll-gates hain't a-hurtin' me none," she heard him drawl.
"I don't understand this business, an' I hain't goin' to git mixed
up in hit."
Then he saw her coming and he stopped, and the others looked at
her uneasily, she thought, as if wondering what she might have
heard.
"Go on home, Mavis," he said shortly, and as she passed on no one
spoke until she was out of hearing. Some mischief was afoot, but
she was not worried, nor was her interest aroused at all.
A moment later she could see her step-mother seated on her porch
and idling in the warm sun. The new home was a little frame house,
neat and well built. There was a good fence around the yard and
the garden, and behind the garden was an orchard of peach-trees
and apple-trees. The house was guttered and behind the kitchen was
a tiny grape-arbor, a hen-house, and a cistern--all strange
appurtenances to Mavis. The two spoke only with a meeting of the
eyes, and while the woman looked her curiosity she asked no
questions, and Mavis volunteered no information.
"Did you see Steve a-talkin' to some fellers down the road?"
Mavis nodded.
"Did ye hear whut they was talkin' about?"
"Somethin' about the toll-gates."
A long silence followed.
"The teacher said he was comin' over to see you and pap."
"Whut fer?"
"I dunno."
After another silence Mavis went on:
"The teacher is that rock-pecker Jason was always a-talkin'
'bout."
The woman's interest was aroused now, for she wondered if he were
coming over to ask her any troublesome questions.
"Well, ain't that queer!"
"An' that boy an' gal who was a-stayin' with grandpap was thar at
school too, an' she axed me to come over an' see her." This the
step-mother was not surprised to hear, for she knew on whose farm
they were living and why they were there, and she had her own
reasons for keeping the facts from Mavis.
"Well, you oughter go."
"I am a-goin'."
Mavis missed the mountains miserably when she went to bed that
night--missed the gloom and lift of them through her window, and
the rolling sweep of the land under the moon looked desolate and
lonely and more than ever strange. A loping horse passed on the
turnpike, and she could hear it coming on the hard road far away
and going far away; then a buggy and then a clattering group of
horsemen, and indeed everything heralded its approach at a great
distance. She missed the stillness of the hills, for on the night
air were the barking of dogs, whinny of horses, lowing of cattle,
the song of a night-prowling negro, and now and then the screech
of a peacock. She missed Jason wretchedly, too, for there had been
so much talk of him during the day, and she went to sleep with her
lashes wet with tears. Some time during the night she was awakened
by pistol-shots, and her dream of Jason made her think that she
was at home again. But no mountains met her startled eyes through
the window. Instead a red glare hung above the woods, there was
the clatter of hoofs on the pike, and flames shot above the tops
of the trees. Nor could it be a forest fire such as was common at
home, for the woods were not thick enough. This land, it seemed,
had troubles of its own, as did her mountains, but at least folks
did not burn folks' houses in the hills.
X
On the top of a bushy foot-hill the old nag stopped, lifted her
head, and threw her ears forward as though to gaze, like any
traveller to a strange land, upon the rolling expanse beneath, and
the lad on her back voiced her surprise and his own with a long,
low whistle of amazement. He folded his hands on the pommel of his
saddle and the two searched the plains below long and hard, for
neither knew so much level land was spread out anywhere on the
face of the earth. The lad had a huge pistol buckled around him;
he looked half dead with sleeplessness and the old nag was weary
and sore, for Jason was in flight from trouble back in those
hills. He had kept his promise to his grandfather that summer, as
little Aaron Honeycutt had kept his. Neither had taken part in the
feud, and even after the truce came, each had kept out of the
other's way. When Jason's corn was gathered there was nothing for
him to do and the lad had grown restless. While roaming the woods
one day, a pheasant had hurtled over his head. He had followed it,
sighted it, and was sinking down behind a bowlder to get a rest
for his pistol when the voices of two Honeycutts who had met in
the road just under him stopped his finger on the trigger.
"That boy's a-goin' to bust loose some day," said one voice. "I've
heerd him a-shootin' at a tree every day for a month up thar above
his corn-field."
"Oh, no, he ain't," said the other. "He's just gittin' ready fer
the man who shot his daddy."
"Well, who the hell WAS the feller?"
The other man laughed, lowered his voice, and the heart of the
listening lad thumped painfully against the bowlder under him.
"Well, I hain't nuver told hit afore, but I seed with my own eyes
a feller sneakin' outen the bushes ten minutes atter the shot was
fired, an' hit was Babe Honeycutt."
A low whistle followed and the two rode on. The pheasant squatted
to his limb undisturbed, and the lad lay gripping the bowlder with
both hands. He rose presently, his face sick but resolute, slipped
down into the road, and, swaying his head with rage, started up
the hill toward the Honeycutt cove. On top of the hill the road
made a sharp curve and around that curve, as fate would have it,
slouched the giant figure of his mother's brother. Babe shouted
pleasantly, stopped in sheer amazement when he saw Jason whip his
revolver from his holster, and, with no movement to draw his own,
leaped for the bushes. Coolly the lad levelled, and when his
pistol spoke, Babe's mighty arms flew above his head and the boy
heard his heavy body crash down into the undergrowth. In the
terrible stillness that followed the boy stood shaking in his
tracks--stood until he heard the clatter of horses' hoofs in the
creek-bed far below. The two Honeycutts had heard the shot, they
were coming back to see what the matter was, and Jason sped as if
winged back down the creek. He had broken the truce, his
grandfather would be in a rage, the Honeycutts would be after him,
and those hills were no place for him. So all that day and through
all that night he fled for the big settlements of the Blue-grass
and but half consciously toward his mother and Mavis Hawn. The
fact that Babe was his mother's brother weighed on his mind but
little, for the webs of kinship get strangely tangled in a
mountain feud and his mother could not and would not blame him.
Nor was there remorse or even regret in his heart, but rather the
peace of an oath fulfilled--a duty done.
The sun was just coming up over the great black bulks which had
given the boy forth that morning to a new world. Back there its
mighty rays were shattered against them, and routed by their
shadows had fought helplessly on against the gloom of deep
ravines--those fortresses of perpetual night--but, once they
cleared the eminence where Jason sat, the golden arrows took level
flight, it seemed, for the very end of the world. This was the
land of the Blue-grass--the home of the rock-pecker, home of the
men who had robbed him of his land, the refuge to his Cousin
Steve, his mother, and little Mavis, and now their home. He could
see no end of the land, for on and on it rolled, and on and on as
far as it rolled were the low woodlands, the fields of cut corn--
more corn than he knew the whole world held--and pastures and
sheep and cattle and horses, and houses and white fences and big
white barns. Little Jason gazed but he could not get his fill.
Perhaps the old nag, too, knew those distant fields for corn, for
with a whisk of her stubby tail she started of her own accord
before the lad could dig his bare heels into her bony sides, and
went slowly down. The log cabins had disappeared one by one, and
most of the houses he now saw were framed. One, however, a relic
of pioneer times, was of stone, and at that the boy looked
curiously. Several were of red brick and one had a massive portico
with great towering columns, and at that he looked more curiously
still. Darkies were at work in the fields. He had seen only two or
three in his life, he did not know there were so many in the world
as he saw that morning, and now his skin ruffled with some
antagonism ages deep. Everybody he met in the road or passed
working in the fields gave him a nod and looked curiously at his
big pistol, but nobody asked him his name or where he was going or
what his business was; at that he wondered, for everybody in the
mountains asked those questions of the stranger, and he had all
the lies he meant to tell, ready for any emergency to cover his
tracks from any possible pursuers. By and by he came to a road
that stunned him. It was level and smooth and made, as he saw, of
rocks pounded fine, and the old nag lifted her feet and put them
down gingerly. And this road never stopped, and there was no more
dirt road at all. By and by he noticed running parallel with the
turnpike two shining lines of iron, and his curiosity so got the
better of him that he finally got off his old nag and climbed the
fence to get a better look at them. They were about four feet
apart, fastened to thick pieces of timber, and they, too, like
everything else, ran on and on, and he mounted and rode along them
much puzzled. Presently far ahead of him there was a sudden,
unearthly shriek, the rumbling sound of a coming storm, rolling
black smoke beyond the crest of a little hill, and a swift huge
mass swept into sight and, with another fearful blast, bore
straight at him. The old nag snorted with terror, and in terror
dashed up the hill, while the boy lay back and pulled helplessly
on the reins. When he got her halted the thing had disappeared,
and both boy and beast turned heads toward the still terrible
sounds of its going. It was the first time either had ever seen a
railroad train, and the lad, with a sickly smile that even he had
shared the old nag's terror, got her back into the road. At the
gate sat a farmer in his wagon and he was smiling.
"Did she come purty near throwin' you?"
"Huh!" grunted Jason contemptuously. "Whut was that?"
The farmer looked incredulous, but the lad was serious.
"That was a railroad train."
"Danged if I didn't think hit was a saw-mill comin' atter me."
The farmer laughed and looked as though he were going to ask
questions, but he clucked to his horses and drove on, and Jason
then and there swore a mighty oath to himself never again to be
surprised by anything else he might see in this new land. All that
day he rode slowly, giving his old nag two hours' rest at noon,
and long before sundown he pulled up before a house in a cross-
roads settlement, for the mountaineer does not travel much after
nightfall.
"I want to git to stay all night," he said.
The man smiled and understood, for no mountaineer's door is ever
closed to the passing stranger and he cannot understand that any
door can be closed to him. Jason told the truth that night, for he
had to ask questions himself--he was on his way to see his mother
and his step-father and his cousin, who had moved down from the
mountains, and to his great satisfaction he learned that it was a
ride of but three hours more to Colonel Pendleton's.
When his host showed him to his room, the boy examined his pistol
with such care while he was unbuckling it, that, looking up, he
found a half-smile, half-frown, and no little suspicion, in his
host's face; but he made no explanation, and he slept that night
with one ear open, for he was not sure yet that no Honeycutt might
be following him.
Toward morning he sprang from bed wide-awake, alert, caught up his
pistol and crept to the window. Two horsemen were at the gate. The
door opened below him, his host went out, and the three talked in
whispers for a while. Then the horsemen rode away, his host came
back into the house, and all was still again. For half an hour the
boy waited, his every nerve alive with suspicion. Then he quietly
dressed, left half a dollar on the washstand, crept stealthily
down the stairs and out to the stable, and was soon pushing his
old nag at a weary gallop through the dark.
XI
The last sunset had been clear and Jack Frost had got busy. All
the preceding day the clouds had hung low and kept the air chill
so that the night was good for that arch-imp of Satan who has got
himself enshrined in the hearts of little children. At dawn Jason
saw the robe of pure white which the little magician had spun and
drawn close to the breast of the earth. The first light turned it
silver and showed it decked with flowers and jewels, that the old
mother might mistake it, perhaps, for a wedding-gown instead of a
winding-sheet; but the sun, knowing better, lifted, let loose his
tiny warriors, and from pure love of beauty smote it with one
stroke gold, and the battle ended with the blades of grass and the
leaves in their scarlet finery sparkling with the joy of another
day's deliverance and the fields grown gray and aged in a single
night. Before the fight was quite over that morning, saddle-horses
were stepping from big white barns in the land Jason was entering,
and being led to old-fashioned stiles; buggies, phaetons, and
rock-aways were emerging from turnpike gates; and rabbit-hunters
moved, shouting, laughing, running races, singing, past fields
sober with autumn, woods dingy with oaks and streaked with the
fire of sumac and maple. On each side of the road new hemp lay in
shining swaths, while bales of last year's crop were on the way to
market along the roads. The farmers were turning over the soil for
the autumn sowing of wheat, corn-shucking was over, and ragged
darkies were straggling from the fields back to town. From every
point the hunters came, turning in where a big square brick house
with a Grecian portico stood far back in a wooded yard, with a
fish-pond on one side and a great smooth lawn on the other. On the
steps between the columns stood Colonel Pendleton and Gray and
Marjorie welcoming the guests; the men, sturdy country youths,
good types of the beef-eating young English squire--sunburnt
fellows with big frames, open faces, fearless eyes, and a manner
that was easy, cordial, kindly, independent; the girls midway
between the types of brunette and blonde, with a leaning toward
the latter type, with hair that had caught the light of the sun,
radiant with freshness and good health and strength; round of
figure, clear of eye and skin, spirited, soft of voice, and slow
of speech. Soon a cavalcade moved through a side-gate of the yard,
through a Blue-grass woodland, and into a sweep of stubble and
ragweed; and far up the road on top of a little hill the mountain
boy stopped his old mare and watched a strange sight in a strange
land--a hunt without dog, stick, or gun. A high ringing voice
reached his ears clearly, even that far away:
"Form a line!"
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