Books: The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come
J >>
John Fox, Jr. >> The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come
Pages:
1 | 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20
"Begone!" said Chad, sharply, but the dog would not begone; he still came on
as though bent on a fight.
"Call yo' dog off," Chad called aloud. "My dog'll kill him. You better call
him off," he called again, in some concern, but the tall boy in front laughed
scornfully.
"Let's see him," he said, and the small one laughed, too.
Chad's eyes flashed--no boy can stand an insult to his dog--and the curves of
his open lips snapped together in a straight red line. "All right," he said,
placidly, and, being tired, he dropped back on a stone by the wayside to await
results. The very tone of his voice struck all shackles of restraint from
Jack, who, with a springy trot, went forward slowly, as though he were making
up a definite plan of action; for Jack had a fighting way of his own, which
Chad knew.
"Sick him, Whizzer!" shouted the tall boy, and the group of five hurried
eagerly down the hill and halted in a half circle about Jack and Chad; so that
it looked an uneven conflict, indeed, for the two waifs from over Pine
Mountain.
The strange dog was game and wasted no time. With a bound he caught Jack by
the throat, tossed him several feet away, and sprang for him again. Jack
seemed helpless against such strength and fury, but Chad's face was as placid
as though it had been Jack who was playing the winning game.
Jack himself seemed little disturbed; he took his punishment without an outcry
of rage or pain. You would have thought he had quietly come to the conclusion
that all he could hope to do was to stand the strain until his opponent had
worn himself out. But that was not Jack's game, and Chad knew it. The tall boy
was chuckling, and his brother of Chad's age was bent almost double with
delight.
"Kill my dawg, will he?" he cried, shrilly.
"Oh, Lawdy!" groaned the tall one.
Jack was much bitten and chewed by this time, and, while his pluck and purpose
seemed unchanged, Chad had risen to his feet and was beginning to look
anxious. The three silent spectators behind pressed forward and, for the first
time, one of these--the tallest of the group--spoke:
"Take yo' dawg off, Daws Dillon," he said, with quiet authority; but Daws
shook his head, and the little brother looked indignant.
"He said he'd kill him," said Daws, tauntingly.
"Yo' dawg's bigger and hit ain't fair," said the other again and, seeing
Chad's worried look, he pressed suddenly forward; but Chad had begun to smile,
and was sitting down on his stone again. Jack had leaped this time, with his
first growl during the fight, and Whizzer gave a sharp cry of surprise and
pain. Jack had caught him by the throat, close behind the jaws, and the big
dog shook and growled and shook again. Sometimes Jack was lifted quite from
the ground, but he seemed clamped to his enemy to stay. Indeed he shut his
eyes, finally, and seemed to go quite to sleep. The big dog threshed madly and
swung and twisted, howling with increasing pain and terror and increasing
weakness, while Jack's face was as peaceful as though he were a puppy once
more and hanging to his mother's neck instead of her breast, asleep. By and
by, Whizzer ceased to shake and began to pant; and, thereupon, Jack took his
turn at shaking, gently at first, but with maddening regularity and without at
all loosening his hold. The big dog was too weak to resist soon and, when Jack
began to jerk savagely, Whizzer began to gasp.
"You take YO' dawg off," called Daws, sharply.
Chad never moved.
"Will you say 'nough for him?" he asked, quietly; and the tall one of the
silent three laughed.
"Call him off, I tell ye," repeated Daws, savagely; but again Chad never
moved, and Daws started for a club. Chad's new friend came forward.
"Hol'on, now, hol'on," he said, easily. "None o' that, I reckon."
Daws stopped with an oath. "Whut you got to do with this, Tom Turner?"
"You started this fight," said Tom.
"I don't keer ef I did--take him off," Daws answered, savagely.
"Will you say 'nough fer him?" said Chad again, and again Tall Tom chuckled.
The little brother clinched his fists and turned white with fear for Whizzer
and fury for Chad, while Daws looked at the tall Turner, shook his head from
side to side, like a balking steer, and dropped his eyes.
"Y-e-s," he said, sullenly.
"Say it, then," said Chad, and this time Tall Tom roared aloud, and even his
two silent brothers laughed. Again Daws, with a furious oath, started for the
dogs with his club, but Chad's ally stepped between.
"You say 'nough, Daws Dillon," he said, and Daws looked into the quiet
half-smiling face and at the stalwart two grinning behind.
"Takin' up agin yo' neighbors fer a wood-colt' airye?"
"I'm a-takin' up fer what's right and fair. How do you know he's a
wood-colt--an' suppose he is? You say 'nough now, or--"
Again Daws looked at the dogs. Jack had taken a fresh grip and was shaking
savagely and steadily. Whizzer's tongue was out--once his throat rattled.
"Nough!" growled Daws, angrily, and the word was hardly jerked from his lips
before Chad was on his feet and prying Jack's jaws apart. "He ain't much
hurt," he said, looking at the bloody hold which Jack had clamped on his
enemy's throat, "but he'd a-killed him though, he al'ays does. Thar ain't no
chance fer NO dog, when Jack gits THAT hold."
Then he raised his eyes and looked into the quivering face of the owner of the
dog--the little fellow--who, with the bellow of a yearling bull, sprang at
him. Again Chad's lips took a straight red line and being on one knee was an
advantage, for, as he sprang up, he got both underholds and there was a mighty
tussle, the spectators yelling with frantic delight.
"Trip him, Tad," shouted Daws, fiercely.
"Stick to him, little un," shouted Tom, and his brothers, stoical Dolph and
Rube, danced about madly. Even with underholds, Chad, being much the shorter
of the two, had no advantage that he did not need, and, with a sharp thud, the
two fierce little bodies struck the road side by side, spurting up a cloud of
dust.
"Dawg--fall!" cried Rube, and Dolph rushed forward to pull the combatants
apart.
"He don't fight fair," said Chad, panting, and rubbing his right eye which his
enemy had tried to "gouge"; "but lemme at him--I can fight thataway, too."
Tall Tom held them apart.
"You're too little, and he don't fight fair. I reckon you better go on
home--you two--an' yo' mean dawg," he said to Daws; and the two Dillons--the
one sullen and the other crying with rage--moved away with Whizzer slinking
close to the ground after them. But at the top of the hill both turned with
bantering yells, derisive wriggling of their fingers at their noses, and with
other rude gestures. And, thereupon, Dolph and Rube wanted to go after them,
but the tall brother stopped them with a word.
"That's about all they're fit fer," he said, contemptuously, and he turned to
Chad.
"Whar you from, little man, an' whar you goin', an' what mought yo' name be?"
Chad told his name, and where he was from, and stopped.
"Whar you goin'?" said Tom again, without a word or look of comment.
Chad knew the disgrace and the suspicion that his answer was likely to
generate, but he looked his questioner in the face fearlessly.
"I don't know whar I'm goin'."
The big fellow looked at him keenly, but kindly.
"You ain't lyin' an' I reckon you better come with us." He turned for the
first time to his brothers and the two nodded.
"You an' yo' dawg, though Mammy don't like dawgs much; but you air a stranger
an' you ain't afeerd, an' you can fight--you an' yo' dawg--an' I know Dad'll
take ye both in."
So Chad and Jack followed the long strides of the three Turners over the hill
and to the bend of the river, where were three long cane fishing-poles with
their butts stuck in the mud--the brothers had been fishing, when the flying
figure of the little girl told them of the coming of a stranger into those
lonely wilds. Taking these up, they strode on--Chad after them and Jack
trotting, in cheerful confidence, behind. It is probable that Jack noticed, as
soon as Chad, the swirl of smoke rising from a broad ravine that spread into
broad fields, skirted by the great sweep of the river, for he sniffed the air
sharply, and trotted suddenly ahead. It was a cheering sight for Chad. Two
negro slaves were coming from work in a corn-field close by, and Jack's hair
rose when he saw them, and, with a growl, he slunk behind his master. Dazed,
Chad looked at them.
"Whut've them fellers got on their faces?" he asked. Tom laughed.
"Hain't you nuver seed a nigger afore?" he asked.
Chad shook his head.
"Lots o' folks from yo' side o' the mountains nuver have seed a nigger," said
Tom. "Sometimes hit skeers 'em."
"Hit don't skeer me," said Chad.
At the gate of the barn-yard, in which was a long stable with a deeply sloping
roof, stood the old brindle cow, who turned to look at Jack, and, as Chad
followed the three brothers through the yard gate, he saw a slim scarlet
figure vanish swiftly from the porch into the house.
In a few minutes, Chad was inside the big log cabin and before a big log-fire,
with Jack between his knees and turning his soft human eyes keenly from one to
another of the group about his little master, telling how the mountain cholera
had carried off the man and the woman who had been father and mother to him,
and their children; at which the old mother nodded her head in growing
sympathy, for there were two fresh mounds in her own graveyard on the point of
a low hill not far away; how old Nathan Cherry, whom he hated, had wanted to
bind him out, and how, rather than have Jack mistreated and himself be
ill-used, he had run away along the mountain-top; how he had slept one night
under a log with Jack to keep him warm; how he had eaten sassafras and birch
back and had gotten drink from the green water-bulbs of the wild honeysuckle;
and how, on the second day, being hungry, and without powder for his gun, he
had started, when the sun sank, for the shadows of the valley at the mouth of
Kingdom Come. Before he was done, the old mother knocked the ashes from her
clay pipe and quietly went into the kitchen, and Jack, for all his good
manners, could not restrain a whine of eagerness when he heard the crackle of
bacon in a frying-pan and the delicious smell of it struck his quivering
nostrils. After dark, old Joel, the father of the house, came in--a giant in
size and a mighty hunter--and he slapped his big thighs and roared until the
rafters seemed to shake when Tall Tom told him about the dog-fight and the
boy-fight with the family in the next cove: for already the clanship was
forming that was to add the last horror to the coming great war and prolong
that horror for nearly half a century after its close.
By and by, the scarlet figure of little Melissa came shyly out of the dark
shadows behind and drew shyly closer and closer, until she was crouched in the
chimney corner with her face shaded from the fire by one hand and a tangle of
yellow hair, listening and watching him with her big, solemn eyes, quite
fearlessly. Already the house was full of children and dependents, but no word
passed between old Joel and the old mother, for no word was necessary. Two
waifs who had so suffered and who could so fight could have a home under that
roof if they pleased, forever. And Chad's sturdy little body lay deep in a
feather-bed, and the friendly shadows from a big fireplace flickered hardly
thrice over him before he was asleep. And Jack, for that night at least, was
allowed to curl up by the covered coals, or stretch out his tired feet, if he
pleased, to a warmth that in all the nights of his life, perhaps, he had never
known before.
CHAPTER 3. A "BLAB SCHOOL" ON KINGDOM COME
Chad was awakened by the touch of a cold nose at his ear, the rasp of a warm
tongue across his face, and the tug of two paws at his cover. "Git down, Jack!"
he said, and Jack, with a whimper of satisfaction, went back to the fire that
was roaring up the chimney, and a deep voice laughed and called:
"I reckon you better git UP, little man!"
Old Joel was seated at the fire with his huge legs crossed and a pipe in his
mouth. It was before busily astir. There was the sound of tramping in the
frosty air outside and the noise of getting breakfast ready in the kitchen. As
Chad sprang up, he saw Melissa's yellow hair drop out of sight behind the foot
of the bed in the next corner, and he turned his face quickly, and, slipping
behind the foot of his own bed and into his coat and trousers, was soon at the
fire himself, with old Joel looking him over with shrewd kindliness.
"Yo' dawg's got a heap o' sense," said the old hunter, and Chad told him how
old Jack was, and how a cattle-buyer from the "settlements" of the Bluegrass
had given him to Chad when Jack was badly hurt and his owner thought he was
going to die. And how Chad had nursed him and how the two had always been
together ever since. Through the door of the kitchen, Chad could see the old
mother with her crane and pots and cooking-pans; outside, he could hear the
moo of the old brindle, the bleat of her calf, the nicker of a horse, one
lusty sheep-call, and the hungry bellow of young cattle at the barn, where
Tall Tom was feeding the stock. Presently Rube stamped in with a back log and
Dolph came through with a milk-pail.
"I can milk," said Chad, eagerly, and Dolph laughed.
"All right, I'll give ye a chance," he said, and old Joel looked pleased, for
it was plain that the little stranger was not going to be a drone in the
household, and, taking his pipe from his mouth but without turning his head,
he called out:
"Git up thar, Melissy."
Getting no answer, he looked around to find Melissa standing at the foot of
the bed.
"Come here to the fire, little gal, nobody's agoin to eat ye."
Melissa came forward, twisting her hands in front of her, and stood, rubbing
one bare foot over the other on the hearth-stones. She turned her face with a
blush when Chad suddenly looked at her, and, thereafter, the little man gazed
steadily into the fire in order to embarrass her no more.
With the breaking of light over the mountain, breakfast was over and the work
of the day began. Tom was off to help a neighbor "snake" logs down the
mountain and into Kingdom Come, where they would be "rafted" and floated on
down the river to the capital--if a summer tide should come--to be turned into
fine houses for the people of the Bluegrass. Dolph and Rube disappeared at old
Joel's order to "go meet them sheep." Melissa helped her mother clear away the
table and wash the dishes; and Chad, out of the tail of his eye, saw her
surreptitiously feeding greedy Jack, while old Joel still sat by the fire,
smoking silently. Chad stepped outside. The air was chill, but the mists were
rising and a long band of rich, warm light lay over a sloping spur up the
river, and where this met the blue morning shadows, the dew was beginning to
drip and to sparkle. Chad could nor stand inaction long, and his eye lighted
up when he heard a great bleating at the foot of the spur and the shouts of
men and boys. Just then the old mother called from the rear of the cabin.
"Joel, them sheep air comin'!"
The big form of the old hunter filled the doorway and Jack bounded out between
his legs, while little Melissa appeared with two books, ready for school. Down
the road came the flock of lean mountain-sheep, Dolph and Rube driving them.
Behind, slouched the Dillon tribe--Daws and Whizzer and little Tad; Daws's
father, old Tad, long, lean, stooping, crafty: and two new ones cousins to
Daws--Jake and Jerry, the giant twins. "Joel Turner," said old Tad, sourly,
"here's yo' sheep!"
Joel had bought the Dillons' sheep and meant to drive them to the county-seat
ten miles down the river. There had evidently been a disagreement between the
two when the trade was made, for Joel pulled out a gray pouch of coonskin,
took from it a roll of bills, and, without counting them, held them out.
"Tad Dillon," he said, shortly, "here's yo' money!"
The Dillon father gave possession with a gesture and the Dillon faction,
including Whizzer and the giant twins, drew aside together--the father morose;
Daws watching Dolph and Rube with a look of much meanness; little Tad behind
him, watching Chad, his face screwed up with hate; and Whizzer, pretending not
to see Jack, but darting a surreptitious glance at him now and then, for then
and there was starting a feud that was to run fiercely on, long after the war
was done.
"Git my hoss, Rube," said old Joel, and Rube turned to the stable, while Dolph
kept an eye on the sheep, which were lying on the road or straggling down the
river. As Rube opened the stable-door, a dirty white object bounded out, and
Rube, with a loud curse, tumbled over backward into the mud, while a fierce
old ram dashed with a triumphant bleat for the open gate. Beelzebub, as the
Turner mother had christened the mischievous brute, had been placed in the
wrong stall and Beelzebub was making for freedom. He gave another triumphant
baa as he swept between Dolph's legs and through the gate, and, with an
answering chorus, the silly sheep sprang to their feet and followed. A sheep
hates water, but not more than he loves a leader, and Beelzebub feared
nothing. Straight for the water of the low ford the old conqueror made and, in
the wake of his masterful summons, the flock swept, like a Mormon household,
after him. Then was there a commotion indeed. Old Joel shouted and swore;
Dolph shouted and swore and Rube shouted and swore. Old Dillon smiled grimly,
Daws and little Tad shouted with derisive laughter, and the big twins grinned.
The mother came to the door, broom in hand, and, with a frowning face, watched
the sheep splash through the water and into the woods across the river. Little
Melissa looked frightened. Whizzer, losing his head, had run down after the
sheep, barking and hastening their flight, until called back with a mighty
curse from old Joel, while Jack sat on his haunches looking at Chad and
waiting for orders.
"Goddlemighty!" said Joel, "how air we goin' to git them sheep back?" Up and
up rose the bleating and baaing, for Beelzebub, like the prince of devils that
he was, seemed bent on making all the mischief possible.
"How AIR we goin' to git 'em back?"
Chad nodded then, and Jack with an eager yelp made for the river--Whizzer at
his heels. Again old Joel yelled furiously, as did Dolph and Rube, and Whizzer
stopped and turned back with a drooping tail, but Jack plunged in. He knew but
one voice behind him and Chad's was not in the chorus.
"Call yo' dawg back, boy," said Joel, sternly, and Chad opened his lips with
anything but a call for Jack to come back--it was instead a fine high yell of
encouragement and old Joel was speechless.
"That dawg'll kill them sheep," said Daws Dillon aloud.
Joel's face was red and his eyes rolled.
"Call that damned feist back, I tell ye," he shouted at last. "Hyeh, Rube, git
my gun, git my gun!"
Rube started for the house, but Chad laughed. Jack had reached the other bank
now, and was flashing like a ball of gray light through the weeds and up into
the woods; and Chad slipped down the bank and into the river, hieing him on
excitedly.
Joel was beside himself and he, too, lumbered down to the river, followed by
Dolph, while the Dillons roared from the road.
"Boy!" he roared. "Eh, boy, eh! what's his name, Dolph? Call him back, Dolph,
call the little devil back. If I don't wear him out with a hickory; holler fer
'em, damn 'em! Heh-o-oo-ee!" The old hunter's bellow rang through the woods
like a dinner-horn. Dolph was shouting, too, but Jack and Chad seemed to have
gone stone-deaf; and Rube, who had run down with the gun, started with an oath
into the river himself, but Joel halted him.
"Hol'on, hol'on!" he said, listening. "By the eternal, he's a-roundin' 'em
up!" The sheep were evidently much scattered, to judge from the bleating, but
here, there, and everywhere, they could hear Jack's bark, while Chad seemed to
have stopped in the woods and, from one place, was shouting orders to his dog.
Plainly, Jack was no sheep-killer and by and by Dolph and Rube left off
shouting, and old Joel's face became placid and all of them from swearing
helplessly fell to waiting quietly. Soon the bleating became less and less,
and began to concentrate on the mountain-side. Not far below, they could hear
Chad:
Coo-oo-sheep! Coo-oo-sh'p-cooshy-cooshy-coo-oo-sheep!"
The sheep were answering. They were coming down a ravine, and Chad's voice
rang out above:
"Somebody come across, an' stand on each side o' the holler."
Dolph and Rube waded across then, and soon the sheep came crowding down the
narrow ravine with Jack barking behind them and Chad shooing them down. But
for Dolph and Rube, Beelzebub would have led them up or down the river, and it
was hard work to get him into the water until Jack, who seemed to know what
the matter was, sharply nipped several sheep near him. These sprang violently
forward, the whole flock in front pushed forward, too, and Beelzebub was
thrust from the bank. Nothing else being possible, the old ram settled himself
with a snort into the water and made for the other shore. Chad and Jack
followed and, when they reached the road, Beelzebub was again a prisoner; the
sheep, swollen like sponges, were straggling down the river, and Dillons and
Turners were standing around in silence. Jack shook himself and dropped
panting in the dust at his master's feet, without so much as an upward glance
or a lift of his head for a pat of praise. As old Joel raised one foot heavily
to his stirrup, he grunted, quietly:
"Well, I be damned." And when he was comfortably in his saddle he said again,
with unction:
"I DO be damned. I'll just take that dawg to help drive them sheep down to
town. Come on, boy."
Chad started joyfully, but the old mother called from the door: "Who's a-goin'
to take this gal to school, I'd like to know?"
Old Joel pulled in his horse, straightened one leg, and looked all
around--first at the Dillons, who had started away, then at Dolph and Rube,
who were moving determinedly after the sheep (it was Court Day in town and
they could not miss Court Day), and then at Chad, who halted.
"Boy," he said, "don't you want to go to school--you ought to go to school?"
"Yes," said Chad, obediently, though the trip to town--and Chad had never been
to a town--was a sore temptation.
"Go on, then, an' tell the teacher I sent ye. Here, Mammy--eh, what's yo'
name, boy? Oh, Mammy--Chad, here 'll take her. Take good keer o' that gal,
boy, an' learn yo' a-b-abs like a man now."
Melissa came shyly forward from the door and Joel whistled to Jack and called
him, but Jack though he liked nothing better than to drive sheep lay still,
looking at Chad.
"Go 'long, Jack," said Chad, and Jack sprang up and was off, though he stopped
again and looked back, and Chad had to tell him again to go on. In a moment
dog, men, and sheep were moving in a cloud of dust around a bend in the road
and little Melissa was at the gate.
"Take good keer of 'Lissy," said the mother from the porch, kindly; and Chad,
curiously touched all at once by the trust shown him, stalked ahead like a
little savage, while Melissa with her basket followed silently behind. The boy
never thought of taking the basket himself: that is not the way of men with
women in the hills and not once did he look around or speak on the way up the
river and past the blacksmith's shop and the grist-mill just beyond the mouth
of Kingdom Come; but when they arrived at the log school-house it was his turn
to be shy and he hung back to let Melissa go in first. Within, there was no
floor but the bare earth, no window but the cracks between the logs, and no
desks but the flat sides of slabs, held up by wobbling pegs. On one side were
girls in linsey and homespun: some thin, undersized, underfed, and with weak,
dispirited eyes and yellow tousled hair; others, round-faced, round-eyed,
dark, and sturdy; most of them large-waisted and round-shouldered -- especially
the older ones -- from work in the fields; but, now and then, one like Melissa,
the daughter of a valley farmer, erect, agile, spirited, intelligent. On the
other side were the boys, in physical characteristics the same and suggesting
the same social divisions: at the top the farmer -- now and then a slave-holder
and perhaps of gentle blood -- who had dropped by the way on the westward march
of civilization and had cleared some rich river bottom and a neighboring
summit of the mountains, where he sent his sheep and cattle to graze; where a
creek opened into this valley some free-settler, whose grandfather had fought
at King's Mountain--usually of Scotch-Irish descent, often English, but
sometimes German or sometimes even Huguenot--would have his rude home of logs;
under him, and in wretched cabins at the head of the creek or on the washed
spur of the mountain above, or in some "deadenin"' still higher up and swept
by mists and low-trailing clouds, the poor white trash--worthless descendants
of the servile and sometimes criminal class who might have traced their origin
back to the slums of London; hand-to-mouth tenants of the valley-aristocrat,
hewers of wood for him in the lowlands and upland guardians of his cattle and
sheep. And finally, walking up and down the earth floor--stern and smooth of
face and of a preternatural dignity hardly to be found elsewhere--the mountain
school-master.
Pages:
1 | 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20