Books: The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come
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John Fox, Jr. >> The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come
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It was a "blab school," as the mountaineers characterize a school in which the
pupils study aloud, and the droning chorus as shrill as locust cries ceased
suddenly when Chad came in, and every eye was turned on him with a sexless
gaze of curiosity that made his face redden and his heart throb. But he forgot
them when the school-master pierced him with eyes that seemed to shoot from
under his heavy brows like a strong light from deep darkness. Chad met them,
nor did his chin droop, and Caleb Hazel saw that the boy's face was frank and
honest, and that his eye was fearless and kind, and, without question, he
motioned to a seat--with one wave of his hand setting Chad on the corner of a
slab and the studious drone to vibrating again. When the boy ventured to
glance around, he saw Daws Dillon in one corner, making a face at him, and
little Tad scowling from behind a book: and on the other side, among the
girls, he saw another hostile face--next little Melissa which had the pointed
chin and the narrow eyes of the "Dillon breed," as old Joel called the family,
whose farm was at the mouth of Kingdom Come and whose boundary touched his
own. When the first morning recess came, "little recess," as it was called--the
master kept Chad in and asked him his name; if he had ever been to school, and
whether he knew his A B C's; and he showed no surprise when Chad, without
shame, told him no. So the master got Melissa's spelling-book and pointed out
the first seven letters of the alphabet, and made Chad repeat them three
times--watching the boy's earnest, wrinkling brow closely and with growing
interest. When school "took up" again, Chad was told to say them aloud in
concert with the others--which he did, until he could repeat them without
looking at his book, and the master saw him thus saying them while his eyes
roved around the room, and he nodded to himself with satisfaction--for he was
accustomed to visible communion with himself, in school and out. At noon--"big
recess" Melissa gave Chad some corn-bread and bacon, and the boys gathered
around him, while the girls looked at him curiously, merely because he was a
stranger, and some of them--especially the Dillon girl--whispered, and Chad
blushed and was uncomfortable, for once the Dillon girl laughed unkindly. The
boys had no games, but they jumped and threw "rocks" with great accuracy at a
little birch-tree, and Daws and Tad always spat on their stones and pointed
with the forefinger of the left hand first at what they were going to throw at,
while Chad sat to one side and took no part, though he longed to show them
what he could do. By and by they fell to wrestling, and finally Tad bantered
him for a trial. Chad hesitated, and his late enemy misunderstood.
"I'll give ye both underholts agin," he said, loftily, "you're afeerd!"
This was too much, and Chad sprang to his feet and grappled, disdaining the
proffered advantage, and got hurled to the ground, his head striking the earth
violently, and making him so dizzy that the brave smile with which he took his
fall looked rather sickly and pathetic.
"Yes, an' Whizzer can whoop yo' dawg, too," said Tad, and Chad saw that he was
going to have trouble with those Dillons, for Daws winked at the other boys,
and the Dillon girl laughed again scornfully--at which Chad saw Melissa's eyes
flash and her hands clinch as, quite unconsciously, she moved toward him to
take his part; and all at once he was glad that he had nobody else to champion
him.
"You wouldn' dare tech him if one of my brothers was here," she said,
indignantly, "an' don t you dare tech him again, Tad Dillon. An you --" she said,
witheringly, "you --" she repeated and stopped helpless for the want of words
but her eyes spoke with the fierce authority of the Turner clan, and its
dominant power for half a century, and Nancy Dillon shrank, though she turned
and made a spiteful face, when Melissa walked toward the school-house alone.
That afternoon was the longest of Chad's life--it seemed as though it would
never come to an end; for Chad had never sat so still for so long. His throat
got dry repeating the dreary round of letters over and over and his head ached
and he fidgeted in his chair while the slow hours passed and the sun went down
behind the mountain and left the school-house in rapidly cooling shadow. His
heart leaped when the last class was heard and the signal was given that meant
freedom for the little prisoners; but Melissa sat pouting in her seat-- she
had missed her lesson and must be kept in for a while. So Chad, too, kept his
seat and the master heard him say his letters, without the book, and nodded
his head as though to say to himself that such quickness was exactly what he
had looked for. By the time Chad had learned down to the letter 0, Melissa was
ready, for she was quick, too, and it was her anger that made her miss--and
the two started home, Chad stalking ahead once more. To save him, he could not
say a word of thanks, but how he wished that a bear or a wild-cat would spring
into the road! He would fight it with teeth and naked hands to show her how he
felt and to save her from harm.
The sunlight still lay warm and yellow far under the crest of Pine Mountain,
and they had not gone far when Caleb Hazel overtook them and with long strides
forged ahead. The school-master "boarded around" and it was his week with the
Turners, and Chad was glad, for he already loved the tall, gaunt, awkward man
who asked him question after question so kindly--loved him as much as he
revered and feared him--and the boy's artless, sturdy answers in turn pleased
Caleb Hazel. And when Chad told who had given him Jack, the master began to
talk about the faraway, curious country of which the cattle-dealer had told
Chad so much: where the land was level and there were no mountains at all;
where on one farm might be more sheep, cattle, and slaves than Chad had seen
in all his life; where the people lived in big houses of stone and brick--what
brick was Chad could not imagine--and rode along hard, white roads in shiny
covered wagons, with two "niggers" on a high seat in front and one little
"nigger" behind to open gates, and were proud and very high-heeled indeed;
where there were towns that had more people than a whole county in the
mountains, with rock roads running through them in every direction and narrow
rock paths along these roads--like rows of hearth-stones--for the people to
walk on--the land of the bluegrass--the "settlemints of old Kaintuck."
And there were churches everywhere as tall as trees and school-houses
a-plenty; and big schools, called colleges, to which the boys went when they
were through with the little schools. The master had gone to one of these
colleges for a year, and he was trying to make enough money to go again. And
Chad must go some day, too; there was no reason why he shouldn't, since any
boy could do anything he pleased if he only made up his mind and worked hard
and never gave up. The master was an orphan, too, he said with a slow smile;
he had been an orphan for a long while, and indeed the lonely struggle of his
own boyhood was what was helping to draw him to Chad. This college, he said,
was a huge brown house as big as a cliff that the master pointed out, that,
gray and solemn, towered high above the river; and with a rock porch bigger
than a great bowlder that hung just under the cliff, with twenty long, long
stone steps to climb before one came to the big double front door.
"How do you git thar?" Chad asked so breathlessly that Melissa looked quickly
up with a sudden foreboding that she might lose her little playfellow some
day. The master had walked, and it took him a week. A good horse could make
the trip in four days, and the river-men floated logs down the river to the
capital in eight or ten days, according to the "tide." "When did they go?" In
the spring, when the 'tides' came. "The Turners went down, didn't they,
Melissa?" And Melissa said that her brother Tom had made one trip, and that
Dolph and Rube were "might' nigh crazy" to go that coming spring; and,
thereupon, a mighty resolution filled Chad's heart to the brim and steadied
his eyes, but he did not open his lips then.
Dusk was settling when the Turner cabin came in sight. None of the men-folks
had come home yet, and the mother was worried; there was wood to cut and the
cows to milk, and Chad's friend, old Betsey the brindle, had strayed off
again; but she was glad to see Caleb Hazel, who, without a word, went out to
the wood-pile, took off his coat, and swung the axe with mighty arms, while
Chad carried in the wood and piled it in the kitchen and then the two went
after the old brindle together.
When they got back there was a great tumult at the cabin. Tom had brought some
friends from over the mountain, and had told the neighbors as he came along
that there was going to be a party at his house that night.
So there was a great bustle about the barn where Rube was getting the stock
fed and the milking done; and around the kitchen, where Dolph was cutting more
wood and piling it up at the door. Inside, the mother was hurrying up supper
with Sintha, an older daughter, who had just come home from a visit, and
Melissa helping her, while old Joel sat by the fire in the sleeping-room and
smoked, with Jack lying on the hearth, or anywhere he pleased, for Jack, with
his gentle ways, was winning the household one by one. He sprang up when he
heard Chad's voice, and flew at him, jumping up and pawing him affectionately
and licking his face while Chad hugged him and talked to him as though he were
human and a brother; never before had the two been separated for a day. So,
while the master helped Rube at the barn and Chad helped Dolph at the
wood-pile, Jack hung about his master--tired and hungry as he was and much as
he wanted to be by the fire or waiting in the kitchen for a sly bit from
Melissa, whom he knew at once as the best of his new friends.
After supper, Dolph got out his banjo and played "Shady Grove," and "Blind
Coon Dog," and "Sugar Hill," and "Gamblin' Man," while Chad's eyes glistened
and his feet shuffled under his chair. And when Dolph put the rude thing down
on the bed and went into the kitchen, Chad edged toward it and, while old Joel
was bragging about Jack to the school-master, he took hold of it with
trembling fingers and touched the strings timidly. Then he looked around
cautiously: nobody was paying any attention to him and he took it up into his
lap and began to pick, ever so softly. Nobody saw him but Melissa, who slipped
quietly to the back of the room and drew near him. Softly and swiftly Chad's
fingers worked and Melissa could scarcely hear the sound of the banjo under
her father's loud voice, but she could make out that he was playing a tune
that still vibrates unceasingly from the Pennsylvania border to the
pine-covered hills of Georgia-- "Sourwood Mountain." Melissa held her breath
while she listened--Dolph could not play like that--and by and by she slipped
quietly to her father and pulled his sleeve and pointed to Chad. Old Joel
stopped talking, but Chad never noticed; his head was bent over the neck of
the banjo, his body was swaying rhythmically, his chubby fingers were going
like lightning, and his eyes were closed--the boy was fairly lost to the
world. The tune came out in the sudden silence, clean-cut and swinging;
Heh - o - dee - um - dee - eedle - dahdee - deet
rang the strings and old Joel's eyes danced.
"Sing it, boy!" he roared, "sing it!" And Chad sprang from the bed, on fire
with confusion and twisting his fingers helplessly. He looked almost
frightened when Dolph ran back into the room and cried:
"Who was that a-pickin' that banjer?"
It was not often that Dolph showed such excitement, but he had good cause,
and, when he saw Chad standing, shamefaced and bashful, in the middle of the
floor, and Melissa joyously pointing her finger at him, he caught up the banjo
from the bed and put it into the boy's hands. "Here, you just play that tune
agin!"
Chad shrank back, half distressed and half happy, and only a hail outside from
the first of the coming guests saved him from utter confusion. Once started,
they came swiftly, and in half an hour all were there. Each got a hearty
welcome from old Joel, who, with a wink and a laugh and a nod to the old
mother, gave a hearty squeeze to some buxom girl, while the fire roared a
heartier welcome still. Then was there a dance indeed--no soft swish of lace
and muslin, but the active swing of linsey and simple homespun; no French
fiddler's bows and scrapings, no intricate lancers, no languid waltz; but neat
shuffling forward and back, with every note of the music beat; floor-thumping
"cuttings of the pigeon's wing," and jolly jigs, two by two, and a great
"swinging of corners," and "caging the bird," and "fust lady to the right
CHEAT an' swing"; no flirting from behind fans and under stairways and little
nooks, but honest, open courtship--strong arms about healthy waists, and a
kiss taken now and then, with everybody to see and nobody to care who saw. If
a chair was lacking, a pair of brawny knees made one chair serve for two, but
never, if you please, for two men. Rude, rough, semi-barbarous, if you will,
but simple, natural, honest, sane, earthy--and of the earth whence springs the
oak and in time, maybe, the flower of civilization.
At the first pause in the dance, old Joel called loudly for Chad. The boy
tried to slip out of the door, but Dolph seized him and pulled him to a chair
in the corner and put the banjo in his hands. Everybody looked on with
curiosity at first, and for a little while Chad suffered; but when the dance
turned attention from him, he forgot himself again and made the old thing hum
with all the rousing tunes that had ever swept its string. When he stopped at
last, to wipe the perspiration from his face, he noticed for the first time
the school-master, who was yet divided between the church and the law,
standing at the door, silent, grave, disapproving. And he was not alone in his
condemnation; in many a cabin up and down the river, stern talk was going on
against the ungodly 'carryings on,' under the Turner roof, and, far from
accepting them as proofs of a better birth and broader social ideas, these
Calvinists of the hills set the merry-makers down as the special prey of the
devil, and the dance and the banjo as sly plots of the same to draw their
souls to hell.
Chad felt the master's look, and he did not begin playing again, but put the
banjo down by his chair and the dance came to an end. Once more Chad saw the
master look, this time at Sintha, who was leaning against the wall with a
sturdy youth in a fringed hunting-shirt bending over her--his elbow against a
log directly over her shoulder, Sintha saw the look, too, and she answered
with a little toss of her head, but when Caleb Hazel turned to go out the
door, Chad saw that the girl's eyes followed him. A little later, Chad went
out too, and found the master at the corner of the fence and looking at a low
red star whose rich, peaceful light came through a gap in the hills. Chad
shyly drew near him, hoping in some way to get a kindly word, but the master
was so absorbed that he did not see or hear the boy and Chad, awed by the
stern, solemn face, withdrew and, without a word to anybody, climbed into the
loft and went to bed. He could hear every stroke on the floor below, every
call of the prompter, and the rude laughter and banter, but he gave little
heed to it all. For he lay thinking of Caleb Hazel and listening again to the
stories he and the cattle-dealer had told him about the wonderful settlements.
"God's Country," the dealer always called it, and such it must be, if what he
and the master said was true. By and by the steady beat of feet under him, the
swift notes of the banjo, the calls of the prompter and the laughter fused,
became inarticulate, distant-- ceased. And Chad, as he was wont to do,
journeyed on to "God's Country" in his dreams.
CHAPTER 4. THE COMING OF THE TIDE
While the corn grew, school went on and, like the corn, Chad's schooling put
forth leaves and bore fruit rapidly. The boy's mind was as clear as his eye
and, like a mountain-pool, gave back every image that passed before it. Not a
word dropped from the master's lips that he failed to hear and couldn't
repeat, and, in a month, he had put Dolph and Rube, who, big as they were, had
little more than learned the alphabet, to open shame; and he won immunity with
his fists from gibe and insult from every boy within his inches in
school--including Tad Dillon, who came in time to know that it was good to let
the boy alone. He worked like a little slave about the house, and, like Jack,
won his way into the hearts of old Joel and his wife, and even of Dolph and
Rube, in spite of their soreness over Chad's having spelled them both down
before the whole school. As for Tall Tom, he took as much pride as the school-master in the boy, and in
town, at the grist-mill, the cross-roads, or
blacksmith shop, never failed to tell the story of the dog and the boy,
whenever there was a soul to listen. And as for Melissa, while she ruled him
like a queen and Chad paid sturdy and uncomplaining homage, she would have
scratched out the eyes of one of her own brothers had he dared to lay a finger
on the boy. For Chad had God's own gift--to win love from all but enemies and
nothing but respect and fear from them. Every morning, soon after daybreak, he
stalked ahead of the little girl to school, with Dolph and Rube lounging along
behind, and, an hour before sunset, stalked back in the same way home again.
When not at school, the two fished and played together--inseparable.
Corn was ripe now, and school closed and Chad went with the men into the
fields and did his part, stripping the gray blades from the yellow stalks,
binding them into sheaves, stowing them away under the low roof of the big
barn, or stacking them tent-like in the fields--leaving each ear perched like
a big roosting bird on each lone stalk. And when the autumn came, there were
husking parties and dances and much merriment; and, night after night, Chad
saw Sintha and the school-master in front of the fire--"settin' up"--close
together with their arms about each other's necks and whispering. And there
were quilting parties and housewarmings and house-raisings--one that was of
great importance to Caleb Hazel and to Chad. For, one morning, Sintha
disappeared and came back with the tall young hunter in the deerskin
leggings--blushing furiously--a bride. At once old Joel gave them some cleared
land at the head of a creek; the neighbors came in to build them a cabin, and
among them all, none worked harder than the school-master; and no one but Chad
guessed how sorely hit he was.
Meanwhile, the woods high and low were ringing with the mellow echoes of axes,
and the thundering crash of big trees along the mountain-side; for already the
hillsmen were felling trees while the sap was in the roots, so that they could
lie all winter, dry better and float better in the spring, when the rafts were
taken down the river to the little capital in the Bluegrass. And Caleb Hazel
said that he would go down on a raft in the spring and perhaps Chad could go
with him who knew? For the school-master had now made up his mind finally--he
would go out into the world and make his way out there; and nobody but Chad
noticed that his decision came only after, and only a little while after, the
house-raising at the head of the creek.
When winter came, school opened again, and on Saturdays and Sundays and cold
snowy nights, Chad and the school-master--for he too lived at the Turners'
now--sat before the fire in the kitchen, and the school-master read to him
from "Ivanhoe" and "The Talisman," which he had brought from the Bluegrass,
and from the Bible which had been his own since he was a child. And the boy
drank in the tales until he was drunk with them and learned the conscious
scorn of a lie, the conscious love of truth and pride in courage, and the
conscious reverence for women that make the essence of chivalry as
distinguished from the unthinking code of brave, simple people. He adopted the
master's dignified phraseology as best he could; he watched him, as the master
stood before the fire with his hands under his coat-tails, his chin raised,
and his eyes dreamily upward, and Tall Tom caught the boy in just this
attitude one day and made fun of him before all the others. He tried some
high-sounding phrases on Melissa, and Melissa told him he must be crazy. Once,
even, he tried to kiss her hand gallantly and she slapped his face. Undaunted,
he made a lance of white ash, threaded some loose yarn into Melissa's colors,
as he told himself, sneaked into the barn, where Beelzebub was tied, got on
the sheep's back and, as the old ram sprang forward, couched his lance at the
trough and shattered it with a thrill that left him trembling for half an
hour. It was too good to give up that secret joust and he made another lance
and essayed another tournament, but this time Beelzebub butted the door open
and sprang with a loud ba-a-a into the yard and charged for the gate--in full
view of old Joel, the three brothers, and the school-master, who were standing
in the road. Instinctively, Chad swung on in spite of the roar of laughter and
astonishment that greeted him and, as Tom banged the gate, the ram swerved and
Chad shot off sidewise as from a catapult and dropped, a most unheroic little
knight, in the mire. That ended Chad's chivalry in the hills, for in the roars
of laughter that greeted him, Chad recognized Caleb Hazel's as the loudest. If
HE laughed, chivalry could never thrive there, and Chad gave it up; but the
seeds were sown.
The winter passed, and what a time Chad and Jack had, snaking logs out of the
mountains with two, four, six--yes, even eight yoke of oxen, when the log was
the heart of a monarch oak or poplar--snaking them to the chute; watching them
roll and whirl and leap like jack-straws from end to end down the steep
incline and, with one last shoot in the air, roll, shaking, quivering, into a
mighty heap on the bank of Kingdom Come. And then the "rafting" of those
logs--dragging them into the pool of the creek, lashing them together with
saplings driven to the logs with wooden pins in auger-holes--wading about,
meanwhile, waist deep in the cold water: and the final lashing of the raft to
a near-by tree with a grape-vine cable--to await the coming of a "tide."
Would that tide never come? It seemed not. The spring ploughing was over, the
corn planted; there had been rain after rain, but gentle rains only. There had
been prayers for rain:
"O Lord," said the circuit-rider, "we do not presume to dictate to Thee, but
we need rain, an' need it mighty bad. We do not presume to dictate, but, if it
pleases Thee, send us, not a gentle sizzle-sizzle, but a sod-soaker, O Lord, a
gullywasher. Give us a tide, O Lord!" Sunrise and sunset, old Joel turned his
eye to the east and the west and shook his head. Tall Tom did the same, and
Dolph and Rube studied the heavens for a sign. The school-master grew visibly
impatient and Chad was in a fever of restless expectancy. The old mother had
made him a suit of clothes -- mountain-clothes -- for the trip. Old Joel gave him
a five-dollar bill for his winter's work. Even Jack seemed to know that
something unusual was on hand and hung closer about the house, for fear he
might be left behind.
Softly at last, one night, came the patter of little feet on the roof and
passed--came again and paused; and then there was a rush and a steady roar
that wakened Chad and thrilled him as he lay listening. It did not last long,
but the river was muddy enough and high enough for the Turner brothers to
float the raft slowly out from the mouth of Kingdom Come and down in front of
the house, where it was anchored to a huge sycamore in plain sight. At noon
the clouds gathered and old Joel gave up his trip to town.
"Hit'll begin in about an hour, boys," he said, and in an hour it did begin.
There was to be no doubt about this flood. At dusk, the river had risen two
feet and the raft was pulling at its cable like an awakening sea-monster.
Meanwhile, the mother had cooked a great pone of corn-bread, three feet in
diameter, and had ground coffee and got sides of bacon ready. All night it
poured and the dawn came clear, only to darken into gray again. But the
river--the river! The roar of it filled the woods. The frothing hem of it
swished through the tops of the trees and through the underbrush, high on the
mountain-side. Arched slightly in the middle, for the river was still rising,
it leaped and surged, tossing tawny mane and fleck and foam as it thundered
along--a mad, molten mass of yellow struck into gold by the light of the sun.
And there the raft, no longer the awkward monster it was the day before,
floated like a lily-pad, straining at the cable as lightly as a greyhound
leaping against its leash.
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