Books: The Heart Of The Hills
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John Fox, Jr. >> The Heart Of The Hills
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And the wondering lad saw man and woman aligning themselves like
cavalry fifteen feet apart and moving across the field--the men in
leggings or high boots, riding with the heel low and the toes
turned according to temperament; the girls with a cap, a derby, or
a beaver with a white veil, and the lad's eye caught one of them
quickly, for a red tam-o'-shanter had slipped from her shining
hair and a broad white girth ran around both her saddle and her
horse. There was one man on a sorrel mule and he was the host at
the big house, for Colonel Pendleton had surrendered every horse
he had to a guest. Suddenly there came a yell--the rebel yell--and
a horse leaped forward. Other horses leaped too, everybody yelled
in answer, and the cavalcade swept forward. There was a massing of
horses, the white girth flashing in the midst of the melee, a
great crash and much turning, twisting, and sawing of bits, and
then all dashed the other way, the white girth in the lead, and
the boy's lips fell apart in wonder. A black thoroughbred was
making a wide sweep, an iron-gray was cutting in behind, and all
were sweeping toward him. Far ahead of them he saw a frightened
rabbit streaking through the weeds. As it passed him the lad gave
a yell, dug his heels into the old mare, and himself swept down
the pike, drawing his revolver and firing as he rode. Five times
the pistol spoke to the wondering hunters in pursuit, at the fifth
the rabbit tumbled heels over head and a little later the hunters
pulled their horses in around a boy holding a rabbit high in one
hand, a pistol in the other, and his eager face flushed with pride
in his marksmanship and the comradeship of the hunt. But the flush
died into quick paleness, so hostile were the faces, so hostile
were the voices that assailed him, and he dropped the rabbit
quickly and began shoving fresh cartridges into the chambers of
his gun.
"What do you mean, boy," shouted an angry voice, "shooting that
rabbit?"
The boy looked dazed.
"Why, wasn't you atter him?"
He looked around and in a moment he knew several of them, but
nobody, it was plain, remembered him.
The girl with the white girth was Marjorie, the boy on the black
thoroughbred was Gray, and coming in an awkward gallop on the
sorrel mule was Colonel Pendleton. None of these people could mean
to do him harm, so Jason dropped his pistol in his holster and,
with a curious dignity for so ragged an atom, turned in silence
away, and only the girl with the white girth noticed the quiver of
his lips and the angry starting of tears.
As he started to mount the old mare, the excited yells coming from
the fields were too much for him, and he climbed back on the fence
to watch. The hunters had parted in twain, the black thoroughbred
leading one wing, the iron-gray the other--both after a scurrying
rabbit. Close behind the black horse was the white girth and close
behind was a pony in full run. Under the brow of the hill they
swept and parallel with the fence, and as they went by the boy
strained eager widening eyes, for on the pony was his cousin Mavis
Hawn, bending over her saddle and yelling like mad. This way and
that poor Mollie swerved, but every way her big startled eyes
turned, that way she saw a huge beast and a yelling demon bearing
down on her. Again the horses crashed, the pony in the very midst.
Gray threw himself from his saddle and was after her on foot. Two
others swung from their saddles, Mollie made several helpless
hops, and the three scrambled for her. The riders in front cried
for those behind to hold their horses back, but they crowded on
and Jason rose upright on the fence to see who should be trampled
down. Poor Mollie was quite hemmed in now, there was no way of
escape, and instinctively she shrank frightened to the earth. That
was the crucial instant, and down went Gray on top of her as
though she were a foot-ball, and the quarry was his. Jason saw him
give her one blow behind her long ears and then, holding a little
puff of down aloft, look about him, past Marjorie to Mavis. A
moment later he saw that rabbit's tail pinned to Mavis's cap, and
a sudden rage of jealousy nearly shook him from the fence. He was
too far away to see Marjorie's smile, but he did see her eyes rove
about the field and apparently catch sight of him, and as the rest
turned to the hunt she rode straight for him, for she remembered
the distress of his face and he looked lonely.
"Little boy," she called, and the boy stared with amazement and
rage, but the joke was too much for him and he laughed scornfully.
"Little gal," he mimicked, "air you a-talkin' to me?"
The girl gasped, reddened, lifted her chin haughtily, and raised
her riding-whip to whirl away from the rude little stranger, but
his steady eyes held hers until a flash of recognition came--and
she smiled.
"Well, I never--Uncle Bob!" she cried excitedly and imperiously,
and as the colonel lumbered toward her on his sorrel mount, she
called with sparkling eyes, "don't you know him?"
The puzzled face of the colonel broke into a hearty smile.
"Well, bless my soul, it's Jason. You've come up to see your
folks?"
And then he explained what Marjorie meant to explain.
"We're not hunting with guns--we just chase 'em. Hang your
artillery on a fence-rail, bring your horse through that gate, and
join us."
He turned and Marjorie, with him, called back over her shoulder:
"Hurry up now, Jason."
Little Jason sat still, but he saw Marjorie ride straight for the
pony, he heard her cry to Mavis, saw her wave one hand toward him,
and then Mavis rode for him at a gallop, waving her whip to him as
she came. The boy gave no answering signal, but sat still, hard-
eyed, cool. Before she was within twenty yards of him he had taken
in every detail of the changes in her and the level look of his
eyes stopped her happy cry, and made her grow quite pale with the
old terror of giving him offence. Her hair looked different, her
clothes were different, she wore gloves, and she had a stick in
one hand with a head like a cane and a loop of leather at the
other end. For these drawbacks, the old light in her eyes and face
quite failed to make up, for while Jason looked, Mavis was
looking, too, and the boy saw her eyes travelling him down from
head to foot: somehow he was reminded of the way Marjorie had
looked at him back in the mountains and somehow he felt that the
change that he resented in Mavis went deeper than her clothes. The
morbidly sensitive spirit of the mountaineer in him was hurt, the
chasm yawned instead of closing, and all he said shortly was:
"Whar'd you git them new-fangled things?"
"Marjorie give 'em to me. She said fer you to bring yo' hoss in--
hit's more fun than I ever knowed in my life up here."
"Hit is?" he half-sneered. "Well, you git back to yo' high-
falutin' friends an' tell 'em I don't hunt nothin' that-a-way."
"I'll stop right now an' go home with ye. I guess you've come to
see yo' mammy."
"Well, I hain't ridin' aroun' just fer my health exactly."
He had suddenly risen on the fence as the cries in the field
swelled in a chorus. Mavis saw how strong the temptation within
him was, and so, when he repeated for her to "go on back," the old
habit of obedience turned her, but she knew he would soon follow.
The field was going mad now, horses were dashing and crashing
together, the men were swinging to the ground and were pushed and
trampled in a wild clutch for Mollie's long ears, and Jason could
see that the contest between them was who should get the most
game. The big mule was threshing the weeds like a tornado, and
crossing the field at a heavy gallop he stopped suddenly at a
ditch, the girth broke, and the colonel went over the long ears.
There was a shriek of laughter, in which Jason from his perch
joined, as with a bray of freedom the mule made for home.
Apparently that field was hunted out now, and when the hunters
crossed another pike and went into another field too far away for
the boy to see the fun, he mounted his old mare and rode slowly
after them. A little later Mavis heard a familiar yell, and Jason
flew by her with his pistol flopping on his hip, his hat in his
hand, and his face frenzied and gone wild. The thoroughbred passed
him like a swallow, but the rabbit twisted back on his trail and
Mavis saw Marjorie leap lightly from her saddle, Jason flung
himself from his, and then both were hidden by the crush of horses
around them, while from the midst rose sharp cries of warning and
fear.
She saw Gray's face white with terror, and then she saw Marjorie
picking herself up from the ground and Jason swaying dizzily on
his feet with a rabbit in his hand.
"'Tain't nothin'," he said stoutly, and he grinned his admiration
openly for Marjorie, who looked such anxiety for him. "You ain't
afeerd o' nothin', air ye, an' I reckon this rabbit tail is a-
goin' to you," and he handed it to her and turned to his horse.
The boy had jerked Marjorie from under the thoroughbred's hoofs
and then gone on recklessly after the rabbit, getting a glancing
blow from one of those hoofs himself.
Marjorie smiled.
"Thank you, little--man," and Jason grinned again, but his head
was dizzy and he did not ride after the crowd.
"I'm afeerd fer this ole nag," he lied to Colonel Pendleton, for
he was faint at the stomach and the world had begun to turn
around. Then he made one clutch for the old nag's mane, missed it,
and rolled senseless to the ground.
Not long afterward he opened his eyes to find his head in the
colonel's lap, Marjorie bathing his forehead with a wet
handkerchief, and Gray near by, still a little pale from remorse
for his carelessness and Marjorie's narrow escape, and Mavis the
most unconcerned of all--and he was much ashamed. Rudely he
brushed Marjorie's consoling hand away and wriggled away from the
colonel to his knees.
"Shucks!" he said, with great disgust.
The shadows were stretching fast, it was too late to try another
field, so back they started through the radiant air, laughing,
talking, bantering, living over the incidents of the day, the men
with one leg swung for rest over the pommel of their saddles, the
girls with habits disordered and torn, hair down, and all tired,
but all flushed, clear-eyed, happy. The leaves--russet, gold and
crimson--were dropping to the autumn-greening earth, the sunlight
was as yellow as the wings of a butterfly, and on the horizon was
a faint haze that shadowed the coming Indian summer. But still it
was warm enough for a great spread on the lawn, and what a feast
for mountain eyes--chicken, turkey, cold ham, pickles, croquettes,
creams, jellies, beaten biscuits. And what happy laughter and
thoughtful courtesy and mellow kindness--particularly to the
little mountain pair, for in the mountains they had given the
Pendletons the best they had and now the best was theirs. Inside
fires were being lighted in the big fireplaces, and quiet, solid,
old-fashioned English comfort everywhere the blaze brought out.
Already two darky fiddlers were waiting on the back porch for a
dram, and when the darkness settled the fiddles were talking old
tunes and nimble feet were busy. Little Jason did his wonderful
dancing and Gray did his; and round about, the window-seats and
the tall columns of the porch heard again from lovers what they
had been listening to for so long. At midnight the hunters rode
forth again in pairs into the crisp, brilliant air and under the
kindly moon, Mavis jogging along beside Jason on Marjorie's pony,
for Marjorie would not have it otherwise. No wonder that Mavis
loved the land.
"I jerked the gal outen the way," explained Jason, "'cause she was
a gal an' had no business messin' with men folks."
"Of co'se," Mavis agreed, for she was just as contemptuous as he
over the fuss that had been made of the incident.
"But she ain't afeerd o' nothin'."
This was a little too much.
"I ain't nuther."
"Co'se you ain't."
There was no credit for Mavis--her courage was a matter of course;
but with the stranger-girl, a "furriner"--that was different.
There was silence for a while.
"Wasn't it lots o' fun, Jasie?"
"Shore!" was the absent-minded answer, for Jason was looking at
the strangeness of the night. It was curious not to see the big
bulks of the mountains and to see so many stars. In the mountains
he had to look straight up to see stars at all and now they hung
almost to the level of his eyes.
"How's the folks?" asked Mavis.
"Stirrin'. Air ye goin' to school up here?"
"Yes, an' who you reckon the school-teacher is?"
Jason shook his head.
"The jologist."
"Well, by Heck."
"An' he's always axin' me about you an' if you air goin' to
school."
For a while more they rode in silence.
"I went to that new furrin school down in the mountains," yawned
the boy, "fer 'bout two hours. They're gittin' too high-falutin'
to suit me. They tried to git me to wear gal's stockin's like they
do up here an' I jes' laughed at 'em. Then they tried to git me to
make up beds an' I tol' 'em I wasn't goin' to wear gal's clothes
ner do a gal's work, an' so I run away."
He did not tell his reason for leaving the mountains altogether,
for Mavis, too, was a girl, and he did not confide in women--not
yet.
But the girl was woman enough to remember that the last time she
had seen him he had said that he was going to come for her some
day. There was no sign of that resolution, however, in either his
manner or his words now, and for some reason she was rather glad.
"Every boy wears clothes like that up here. They calls 'em
knickerbockers."
"Huh!" grunted Jason. "Hit sounds like 'em."
"Air ye still shootin' at that ole tree?"
"Yep, an' I kin hit the belly-band two shots out o' three."
Mavis raised her dark eyes with a look of apprehension, for she
knew what that meant; when he could hit it three times running he
was going after the man who had killed his father. But she asked
no more questions, for while the boy could not forbear to boast
about his marksmanship, further information was beyond her sphere
and she knew it.
When they came to the lane leading to her home, Jason turned down
it of his own accord.
"How'd you know whar we live?"
"I was here this mornin' an' I seed my mammy. Yo' daddy wasn't
thar."
Mavis smiled silently to herself; he had found out thus where she
was and he had followed her. At the little stable Jason unsaddled
the horses and turned both out in the yard while Mavis went
within, and Steve Hawn appeared at the door in his underclothes
when Jason stepped upon the porch.
"Hello, Jason!"
"Hello, Steve!" answered the boy, but they did not shake hands,
not because of the hard feeling between them, but because it was
not mountain custom.
"Come on in an' lay down."
Mavis had gone upstairs, but she could hear the voices below her.
If Mavis had been hesitant about asking questions, as had been the
boy's mother as well, Steve was not. "Whut'd you come up here
fer?"
"Same reason as you once left the mountains--I got inter trouble."
Steve was startled and he frowned, but the boy gazed coolly back
into his angry eyes.
"Whut kind o' trouble?"
"Same as you--I shot a feller," said the boy imperturbably.
Little Mavis heard a groan from her step-mother, an angry oath
from her father, and a curious pang of horror pierced her.
Silence followed below and the girl lay awake and trembling in her
bed.
"Who was it?" Steve asked at last.
"That's my business," said little Jason. The silence was broken no
more, and Mavis lay with new thoughts and feelings racking her
brain and her heart. Once she had driven to town with Marjorie and
Gray, and a man had come to the carriage and cheerily shaken hands
with them both. After he was gone Gray looked very grave and
Marjorie was half unconsciously wiping her right hand with her
handkerchief.
"He killed a man," was Marjorie's horrified whisper of
explanation, and now if they should hear what she had heard they
would feel the same way toward her own cousin, Jason Hawn. She had
never had such a feeling in the mountains, but she had it now, and
she wondered whether she could ever be quite the same toward Jason
again.
XII
Christmas was approaching and no greater wonder had ever dawned on
the lives of Mavis and Jason than the way these people in the
settlements made ready for it. In the mountains many had never
heard of Christmas and few of Christmas stockings, Santa Claus,
and catching Christmas gifts--not even the Hawns, But Mavis and
Jason had known of Christmas, had celebrated it after the mountain
way, and knew, moreover, what the Blue-grass children did not
know, of old Christmas as well, which came just twelve days after
the new. At midnight of old Christmas, so the old folks in the
mountains said, the elders bloomed and the beasts of the field and
the cattle in the barn kneeled lowing and moaning, and once the
two children had slipped out of their grandfather's house to the
barn and waited to watch the cattle and to listen to them, but
they suffered from the cold, and when they told what they had done
next morning, their grandfather said they had not waited long
enough, for it happened just at midnight; so when Mavis and Jason
told Marjorie and Gray of old Christmas they all agreed they would
wait up this time till midnight sure.
As for new Christmas in the hills, the women paid little attention
to it, and to the men it meant "a jug of liquor, a pistol in each
hand, and a galloping nag." Always, indeed, it meant drinking, and
target-shooting to see "who should drink and who should smell,"
for the man who made a bad shot got nothing but a smell from the
jug until he had redeemed himself. So, Steve Hawn and Jason got
ready in their own way and Mavis and Martha Hawn accepted their
rude preparations as a matter of course.
At four o'clock in the afternoon before Christmas Eve darkies
began springing around the corners of the twin houses, and from
closets and from behind doors, upon the white folks and shouting
"Christmas gift," for to the one who said the greeting first the
gift came, and it is safe to say that no darky in the Blue-grass
was caught that day. And the Pendleton clan made ready to make
merry. Kinspeople gathered at the old general's ancient home and
at the twin houses on either side of the road. Stockings were hung
up and eager-eyed children went to restless dreams of their
holiday king. Steve Hawn, too, had made ready with boxes of
cartridges and two jugs of red liquor, and he and Jason did not
wait for the morrow to make merry. And Uncle Arch Hawn happened to
come in that night, but he was chary of the cup, and he frowned
with displeasure at Jason, who was taking his dram with Steve like
a man, and he showed displeasure before he rode away that night by
planting a thorn in the very heart of Jason's sensitive soul. When
he had climbed on his horse he turned to Jason.
"Jason," he drawled, "you can come back home now when you git good
an' ready. Thar ain't no trouble down thar just now, an' Babe
Honeycutt ain't lookin' fer you."
Jason gasped. He had not dared to ask a single question about the
one thing that had been torturing his curiosity and his soul, and
Arch was bringing it out before them all as though it were the
most casual and unimportant matter in the world. Steve and his
wife looked amazed and Mavis's heart quickened.
"Babe ain't lookin' fer ye," Arch drawled on, "he's laughin' at
ye. I reckon you thought you'd killed him, but he stumbled over a
root an' fell down just as you shot. He says you missed him a
mile. He says you couldn't hit a barn in plain daylight." And he
started away.
A furious oath broke from Jason's gaping mouth, Steve laughed, and
if the boy's pistol had been in his hand, he might in his rage
have shown Arch as he rode away what his marksmanship could be
even in the dark, but even with his uncle's laugh, too, coming
back to him he had to turn quickly into the house and let his
wrath bite silently inward.
But Mavis's eyes were like moist stars.
"Oh, Jasie, I'm so glad," she said, but he only stared and turned
roughly on toward the jug in the corner.
Before day next morning the children in the big houses were making
the walls ring with laughter and shouts of joy. Rockets whizzed
against the dawn, fire-crackers popped unceasingly, and now and
then a loaded anvil boomed through the crackling air, but there
was no happy awakening for little Jason. All night his pride had
smarted like a hornet sting, his sleep was restless and bitter
with dreams of revenge, and the hot current in his veins surged
back and forth in the old channel of hate for the slayer of his
father. Next morning his blood-shot eyes opened fierce and sullen
and he started the day with a visit to the whiskey jug: then he
filled his belt and pockets with cartridges.
Early in the afternoon Marjorie and Gray drove over with Christmas
greetings and little presents. Mavis went out to meet them, and
when Jason half-staggered out to the gate, the visitors called to
him merrily and became instantly grave and still. Mavis flushed,
Marjorie paled with horror and disgust, Gray flamed with wonder
and contempt and quickly whipped up his horse--the mountain boy
was drunk.
Jason stared after them, knowing something had suddenly gone
wrong, and while he said nothing, his face got all the angrier, he
rushed in for his belt and pistol, and shaking his head from side
to side, swaggered out to the stable and began saddling his old
mare. Mavis stood in the doorway frightened and ashamed, the boy's
mother pleaded with him to come into the house and lie down, but
without a word to either he mounted with difficulty and rode down
the road. Steve Hawn, who had been silently watching him, laughed.
"Let him alone--he ain't goin' to do nothin'." Down the road the
boy rode with more drunken swagger than his years in the wake of
Marjorie and Gray--unconsciously in the wake of anything that was
even critical, much less hostile, and in front of Gray's house he
pulled up and gazed long at the pillars and the broad open door,
but not a soul was in sight and he paced slowly on. A few hundred
yards down the turnpike he pulled up again and long and critically
surveyed a woodland. His eye caught one lone tree in the centre of
an amphitheatrical hollow just visible over the slope of a hill.
The look of the tree interested him, for its growth was strange,
and he opened the gate and rode across the thick turf toward it.
The bark was smooth, the tree was the size of a man's body, and he
dismounted, nodding his head up and down with much satisfaction.
Standing close to the tree, he pulled out his knife, cut out a
square of the bark as high as the first button of his coat and
moving around the trunk cut out several more squares at the same
level.
"I reckon," he muttered, "that's whar his heart is yit, if _I_
ain't growed too much."
Then he led the old mare to higher ground, came back, levelled his
pistol, and moving in a circle around the tree, pulled the trigger
opposite each square, and with every shot he grunted:
"Can't hit a barn, can't I, by Heck!"
In each square a bullet went home. Then he reloaded and walked
rapidly around the tree, still firing.
"An' I reckon that's a-makin' some nail-holes fer his galluses!"
And reloading again he ran around the tree, firing.
"An' mebbe I couldn't still git him if I was hikin' fer the corner
of a house an' was in a LEETLE grain of a hurry to git out o' HIS
range."
Examining results at a close range, the boy was quite satisfied--
hardly a shot had struck without a band three inches in width
around the tree. There was one further test that he had not yet
made; but he felt sober now and he drew a bottle from his hip-
pocket and pulled at it hard and long. The old nag grazing above
him had paid no more attention to the fusillade than to the
buzzing of flies. He mounted her, and Gray, riding at a gallop to
make out what the unearthly racket going on in the hollow was, saw
the boy going at full speed in a circle about the tree, firing and
yelling, and as Gray himself in a moment more would be in range,
he shouted a warning. Jason stopped and waited with belligerent
eyes as Gray rode toward him.
"I say, Jason," Gray smiled, "I'm afraid my father wouldn't like
that--you've pretty near killed that tree."
Jason stared, amazed--
"Fust time I ever heerd of anybody not wantin' a feller to shoot
at a tree."
Gray saw that he was in earnest and he kept on, smiling.
"Well, we haven't got as many trees here as you have down in the
mountains, and up here they're more valuable."
The last words were unfortunate.
"Looks like you keer a heep fer yo' trees," sneered the mountain
boy with a wave of his pistol toward a demolished woodland; "an'
if our trees air so wuthless, whut do you furriners come down thar
and rob us of 'em fer?"
The sneer, the tone, and the bitter emphasis on the one ugly word
turned Gray's face quite red.
"You mustn't say anything like that to me," was his answer, and
the self-control in his voice but helped make the mountain boy
lose his at once and completely. He rode straight for Gray and
pulled in, waving his pistol crazily before the latter's face, and
Gray could actually hear the grinding of his teeth.
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