Books: The Red Acorn
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John McElroy >> The Red Acorn
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The roar of the water drowned his voice before it reached Fortner's
ears, and Harry, obeying the instinct to accept leadership, followed
the mountaineer tremblingly.
In a little while he felt--more than saw--Fortner stop, adjust
his feet, and make a long stride forward with one of them. Glen
collected himself for the same effort. He had need of all of his
resolution, for the many narrow escapes which he had made from
slipping into the hungry torrent, had shaken every nerve.
"I'm over," called out Fortner. "Ye try hit now."
Harry balanced his gun so as to embarrass him the least, and
carefully felt with his left foot for the edge of the chasm. The
catamount announced his renewed presence by a vindictive scream.
The clouds parted just enough to let through a rift of gray light,
but it fell not upon the brink of the black gap in the path. It
showed for an instant the whirlpool, with fragments of tree trunks,
of ghastly likeness to drowned human bodies, eddying dizzily around.
"Come on," called out Fortner, impatiently.
Harry stepped out desperately. For a mental eternity he hung in air.
His hands relaxed and his gun dropped with a crash and a splash.
Then his foot touched the other side with nervous doubtfulness.
It slipped, and he felt himself falling--falling into all that he
feared. Fortner grasped his collar with a strong hand, and dragged
him up against the rocky wall of the path.
"Thar, yer all right," he said, panting with the exertion, "but
hit wuz a mouty loud call for ye. Gabriel's ho'n couldn't've made
a much mo' powerful one."
"I've lost my gun," said Harry, regretfully, as soon as he could
compose himself.
"Cuss-an'-burn the blasted ole smooth-bore," said Fortner,
contemptuously. "Don't waste no tear on that ole kick-out-behind.
We'll go 'long 'tween Wildcat an' the Ford, an' pick up a wagon-load
uv ez good shooters ez thet clumsy chunk o' pot-metal wuz. Shake
yourself together. We've on'y got a mile or so ter go now."
In Harry's condition, the "mile or so" seemed to be stretching out
a long ways around the globe, and he began to ask himself how near
he was to the much-referred-to "heart of the Southern Confederacy."
At length a little fading toward gray of the thick blackness, to
that they had emerged from the heavy woods into more open country.
Harry thought they were come to fields, but he could see nothing,
and without remark plodded painfully after his leader.
Suddenly a large pack of dogs immediately in front of them broke
the stillness with a startling diapason, ranging from the deep
bass of the mastiff to the ringing bark of the fox-hounds. Mingled
with this was the sound of the whole pack rushing fiercely forward.
Fortner stopped in his tracks so abruptly that Glen stumbled against
him. The mountaineer gave the peculiar whistle he had uttered
at the Ford. The rush ceased instantly. The deep growls of the
mastiffs and bull-dogs stopped likewise; only the hounds and the
shrill-voiced young dogs continued barking.
The darkness was rent by a long narrow lane of light. A door had
been opened in a tightly-closed house, just beyond the dogs.
"Down, Tige! Git out, Beauty!" said Forstner, imperiously. "Lay
down, Watch! Quiet Bruno!"
The clamors of the gang changed to little yelps of welcome.
"Is that you, Jim?" inquired a high-pitched but not unpleasant
voice, from the door.
"Yes, Aunt Debby," answered Fortner, "an' I hev some one with me."
As the two approached, surrounded by the fawning dogs, a slender,
erect woman appeared in the doorway, holding above her head, by its
nail and chain, one of the rude iron lamps common in the houses of
the South.
"Everything all right, Aunt Debby?" asked Fortner, as, after entering,
he turned from firmly securing the door, by placing across it a
strong wooden bar that rested in the timbers on either side.
"Yes, thank God!" she said with quiet fervor. She stepped with
graceful freedom over the floor, and hung the lamp up by thrusting
the nail into a crack in one of the logs forming the walls of the
room. "An' how is hit with ye?" she asked, facing Fortner, with
her large gray eyes eloquent with solicitude.
"O, ez fur me, I'm jes ez sound ez when I left heah last week, 'cept
thet I'm tireder 'n a plow mule at night, an' hongrier nor a b'ar
thet's lived all Winter by suckin' hits paws."
"I s'pose y' air tired an' hongry; ye look hit," said the woman,
with a compassionate glance at Harry, who had sunk limpy into a
chair before the glowing wood-fire that filled up a large part of
the end of the room.
"Set down by the fire," she continued, "an' I'll git ye some pone
an' milk. Thar's nothin' better ter start in on when yer rale
empty." She went to a rude cupboard in the farther part of the
room, whence the note of colliding crockery soon gave information
that she was busy.
Fortner took a bunch of tow from his pouch, and with it wiped off
every particle of dampness from the outside of his rifle, after
which he laid the gun on two wooden hooks above the fireplace, and
hung the accouterments on deer horns at its breech.
"Pull off yer shoes an' toast yer feet," he said to Harry. "The
fire'll draw the tiredness right out."
Harry's relaxed fingers fumbled vainly with the wet and obstinate
shoe-strings. Aunt Debby came up with a large bowl of milk in each
hand, and a great circular loaf of corn-bread under her arm. She
placed her burden upon the floor, and with quick, deft fingers
loosened the stubborn knots without an apparent effort, drew off
the muddy shoes and set them in a dark corner near the fireplace
before Harry fairly realized that he had let a woman do this humble
office for him. The sight and smell of food aroused him from the
torpor of intense fatigue, and he devoured the homely fare set before
him with a relish that he had never before felt for victuals. As
he ate his senses awakened so that he studied his hostess with
interest. Hair which the advancing years, while bleaching to
a snowy white had still been unable to rob of the curling waves
of girlhood, rippled over a broad white brow, sober but scarcely
wrinkled; large, serious but gentle gray eyes, and a small, firm
mouth, filled with even white teeth were the salient features of a
face at once resolute, refined and womanly. Long, slender hands,
small feet, covered with coarse but well-fitting shoes, a slight,
erect figure, suggestive of nervous strength, and clad in a shapely
homespun gown stamped her as a superior specimen of the class of
mountaineer woman to which she belonged.
"Heah's 'nuther pone, honey," she said to Fortner, as she handed
both of them segments of another disk of corn-bread, to replace
that which they had ravenously devoured. "An' le' me fill yer
bowls agin. Hit takes a powerful sight o' bread an' milk ter do
when one's rale hongry. But 'tain't like meat vittels. Ye can't
eat 'nuff ter do ye harm."
She took from its place behind the rough stones that formed the
jam of the fireplace a rude broom, made by shaving down to near
its end long slender strips from a stick of pliant green hickory,
then turning these over the end and confining them by a band into
an exaggerated mop or brush. With this she swept back from the
hearth of uneven stones the live coals flung out by the fire.
"Thar's some walnut sticks amongst thet wood," she said as she
replaced the hearth-broom, "an' they pops awful."
From a pouch-like basket, made of skilfully interwoven hickory
strips, and hanging against the wall, she took a half-finished
stocking and a ball of yarn. Drawing a low rocking-chair up into
the light, she seated herself and began knitting.
As he neared the last of his second bowl of milk Fortner bethought
himself, and glanced at Aunt Debby. Her work had fallen from her
nervous hands and lay idly in her lap, while her great eyes were
fixed hungrily upon him.
"They've bin fouten over ter Wildcat to-day," he said, answering
their inquiry, without waiting to empty his mouth.
"Yes, I heard the cannons," she said with such gentle voice as made
her dialect seem quaint and sweet. "I clim up on Bald Rock at the
top o' the mounting an' lissened. I could see the smoke raisin',
but I couldn't tell nothin'. Much uv a fout?"
"Awful big'un. Biggest 'un sence Buner Vister. Ole Zollicoffer
pitched his whole army onter Kunnel Gerrard's rijimint. Some other
rijiments cum up ter help Kunnel Garrard, an' both sides fit like
devis fur three or fur hours, an' the dead jess lay in winrows,
an'---"
The demands of Fortner's unappeased appetite here rose superior
to his desire to impart information. He stopped to munch the last
bit of corn-bread and drain his bowl to the bottom.
"Yes," said Aunt Debby, inhospitably disregarding the exhaustion
of the provender, and speaking a little more quickly than her wont,
"but which side whipt?"
"Our'n, in course," said Fortner, with nettled surprise at the
question. "Our'n, in course. Old Zollicoffer got ez bad a licken
ez ever Gineral Zach Taylor gi'n the Mexicans."
"Rayally?" she said. Gratification showed itself in little lines
that coursed about her mouth, and her eyes illumined as when a
light shines through a window.
"Yes," answered Fortner. "Like hounds, and run clean ter the
Ford, whar they're now a-fouten an' strugglin to git acrost, and
drowndin' like so many stampeded cattle."
"Glory! Thank God!" said Aunt Debby. Her earnestness expressed
itself more by the intensity of the tone than its rise.
"Evidently a tolerable regular attendant at Methodist camp-meetings,"
thought Harry, rousing a little from the torpor into which he was
falling.
Her faded check flushed with a little confusion at having suffered
this outburst, and picking up her knitting she nervously resumed
work.
Fortner looked wistfully at the bottom of his emptied bowl. Aunt
Debby took it away and speedily returned with it filled. She came
back with an air of eager expectancy that Fortner would continue
his narrative. But unsatisfied hunger still dominated him, and
he had thoughts and mouth only for food. She sad down and resumed
her knitting with an apparent effort at composing herself.
For a full minute the needles clicked industriously. Then
they stopped; the long, slender fingers clenched themselves about
the ball of yarn; she faced Fortner, her eyes shining with a less
brilliant but intenser light.
"Jim Fortner," she said with low, measured distinctness, "why don't
ye go on? Is thar somethin' that ye'r afeered ter tell me? What
hez hapened ter our folks? Don't flinch from tellin' me the wust.
I'm allers willin' ter bow ter the will o' the Lord without a
murmur. On'y let me know what hit is."
"Why, Aunt Debby, thar hain't been nothin' happened ter 'em," said
Fortner, deeply surprised. "Thar ain't nothin' ter tell ye 'bout
'em. They're all safe. They're in Kunnel Garrard's rijimint, ez
ye know, an' hit fit behind breastworks, and didn't lose nobody,
scacely--leastwise none uv our kin."
She rose quickly from her chair. The ball of yarn fell from her
lap and rolled unheeded toward the glowing coals under the forelog.
With arm outstretched, hands clasped, and eyes directed upward in
fervent appeal, there was much to recall that Deborah from whom she
took her name--that prophetess and priestess who, standing under
the waving palm trees of Ball-Tamar, inspired her countrymen to go
forth and overthrow and destroy their Canaanitish oppressors.
"O, God!" she said in low, thrilling tones, "Thou's aforetimes gi'n
me much ter be thankful fur, as well ez much ter dumbly ba'r when
Thy rod smote me fur reasons thet I couldn't understand. Thou knows
how gladly I'd've gi'n not on'y my pore, nigh-spent life, but also
those o' my kinsmen, which I prize much higher, fur sech a vict'ry
ez this over the inimies of Thee an' Thy people. But Thou'st gi'n
hit free ez Thy marcy, without axin' blood sacrifice from any on
us. I kin on'y praise Thee an' Thy goodness all my days."
Fortner rose and listend with bowed head while she spoke. When she
finished he snatched up the ball of shriveling yarn and quenched
its smoking with his hand. Looking fixedly at this he said softly:
"Aunt Debby, honey, I hain't tole ye all yit."
"No, Jim?"
"No," said he, slowly winding up the yarn, "Arter the fouten wuz
thru with at the Gap I slipt down the mounting, an' come in on the
r'ar uv those fellers, an' me an' this ere man drapt two on 'em."
"I kinder 'spected ye would do something uv thet sort."
"Then we tuk a short cut an' overtuk 'em agin, an' we drapt another."
Aunt Debby's eyes expressed surprise at this continued good fortune.
"An' then we tuk 'nuther short cut, an' saved 'nuther one."
Aunt Debby waited for him to continue.
"At last--jess ez they come ter the Ford--I seed OUR man."
"Seed Kunnel Bill Pennington?" The great gray eyes were blazing
now.
"Yes." Fortner's speech was the spiritless drawl of the mountains,
and it had now become so languid that it seemed doubtful if after
the enunciation of each word whether vitality enough remained to
evolve a successor. "Yes," he repeated with a yawn, as he stuck
the ball of yarn upon the needles and gave the whole a toss which
landed it in the wall-basket, "an' I GOT him, tew."
"O, just God! Air ye shore?"
"Jess ez shore ez in the last great day thar'll be some 'un settin'
in judgement atween him an' me. I wanted him ter be jess ez shore
about me. I came out in plain sight, and drawed his attention.
He knowed me at fust glimpse, an' pulled his revolver. I kivered
his heart with the sights an' tetcht the trigger. I'm sorry now
thet I didn't shoot him thru the belly, so thet he'd been a week
a-dyin' an' every minnit he'd remembered what he wuz killed fur.
But I wuz so afeered that I would not kill him ef I hit him some
place else'n the heart--thet's a wayall pizen varmints hev--thet
I didn't da'r resk hit. I wuz detarmined ter git him, too, ef I
had ter foller him clean ter Cumberland Gap."
"Ye done God's vengence," said Aunt Debby sternly. "An' yit hit
wuz very soon ter expect hit." She clasped her hands upon her
forehead and rocked back and forth, gazing fixedly into the mass
of incandescent coals.
"Hit's gwine to cla'r up ter-morrow," said Fortner, returning from
an inspection of the sky at the door. "Le's potter off ter bed,"
he continued rousing up Harry. They removed their outer garments
and crawled into one of the comfortable beds in the room.
Later in the night a sharp pain in one of Harry's over-strained
legs awoke him out of his deep slumber, for a few minutes. Aunt
Debby was still seated before the fire in her chair, rocking back
and forth, and singing softly:
"Thy saints in all this glorious war,
Shall conquer ere they die.
They see the triumph from afar--
By faith they bring hit nigh.
Sure I must suffer ef I would reign;
Increase my courage, Lord.
I'll bear the toil, endure the pain."
He went to sleep again with the sweet strains ringing in his ears,
as if in some way a part of the marvelous happenings of that most
eventful day.
Chapter XII. Aunt Debby Brill.
Beneath the dark waves where the dead go down,
There are gulfs of night more deep;
But little they care, whom the waves once drown,
How far from the litght they sleep.
And dark though Sorrow's fearful billows be,
They have caverns darker still.
O God! that Sorrow's waves were like the sea,
Whose topmost waters kill.
-Anonymous.
It was nearly noon when Harry awoke. The awakening came slowly
and with pain. In all his previous experiences he had had no hint
even of such mental and bodily exhaustion as now oppressed him.
Every muscle and tendon was aching a bitter complaint against the
strain it had been subjected to the day before. Dull, pulseless
pain smoldered in some; in others it was the keen throb of the
toothache. Continued lying in one position was unendurable; changing
it, a thrill of anguish; and the new posture as intolerable as the
first. His brain galled and twinged as did his body. To think was
as acute pain as to use his sinews. Yet he could not help thinking
any more than he could help turning in the bed, though to turn was
torture.
Every organ of thought was bruised and sore. The fearful events of
the day before would continue to thrust themselves upon his mind.
To put them out required painful effort; to recall and comprehend
them was even worse. Reflecting upon them now, with unstrung
nerves, made them seem a hundred-fold more terrible than when they
were the spontaneous offspring of hot blood. With the reflection
came the thoguhts that this was but a prelude--an introduction--to
an infinitely horrible saturnalia of violence and blood, through
which he was to be hurried until released by his own destruction.
This became a nightmare that threatened to stagnate the blood in
his veins. He gasped, turned his back to the wall with an effort
that thrilled him with pain, and opened his eyes.
Naught that he saw reminded him of the preceding day. Sunny peace
and contentment reigned. The door stood wide open, and as it
faced the south, the noonday sun pushed in--clear to the opposite
wall--a broad band of mellow light, vividly telling of the glory
he was shedding where roof nor shade checked his genial glow. On
the smooth, hard, ashen floor, in the center of this bright zone,
sat a matronly cat, giving with tongue and paw dainty finishing
touches to her morning toilet, and watching with maternal pride
a kittenish game of hide-and-seek on the front step. Through the
open doorway came the self-complacent cackling of hens, celebrating
their latest additions to their nests, and the exultant call of
a cock to his feathered harem to come, admire and partake of some
especially fat worm, which he had just unearthed. Farther away
speckled Guinea chickens were clamoring their satisfaction at the
improvement in the weather. Still farther, gentle tinklings hinted
of peacfully-browsing sheep.
Inside the house, bunches of sweet-smelling medicinal herbs, hanging
agains the walls to dry, made the air heavy with their odors. Aunt
Debby was at work near the bright zone of sun-rays, spinning yarn
with a "big wheel." She held in one hand a long slender roll of
carded wool, and in the other a short stick, with which she turned
the wheel. Setting it to whirling with a long sweep of the stick
against a spoke, she would walk backward while the roll was twisted
out into a long, thin thread, and then walk forward as they yarn
was wound upon the spindle. When she walked backward, the spindle
hummed sharply; when she came forward it droned. There was a stately
rhythm in both, to which her footsteps and graceful sway of body
kept time, and all blended harmoniously with the camp-meeting melody
she was softly singing:
"Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave and follow Thee;
Naked, poor, despised, forsaken,
Thou from hence my all shalt be.
Perish every fond ambition--
All I've sought, or hoped, or known;
Yet how rich is my condition--
God and Heaven still my own."
A world of memories of a joyous past, unflecked by a single one of
the miseries of the present, crowded in upon Harry on the wings of
this well-remembered tune. It was a favorite hymn at the Methodist
church in Sardis, and the last time he had heard it was when he
had accompanied Rachel to the church to attend services conducted
by a noted evangelist.
Ah, Rachel!--what of her?
He had not thought of her since a swift recollection of her words
at the parting scene on the piazza had come to spur up his faltering
resolution, as the regiment advanced up the side of Wildcat. Now
one bitter thought of how useless all that he had gone through
with the day before was to rehabilitate himself in her good opinion
was speedily chased from his mind by the still bitterer one of the
contempt she must feel for him, did she but know of his present
abject prostration.
After all, might not the occurrences of yesterday be but the memories
of a nightmare? They seemed too unreal for probability. Perhaps
he was just recovering consciousness after the delirium of a fever.
The walnut sticks in the fireplace popped as sharply as pistols,
and he trembled from head to foot.
"Heavens, I'm a bigger coward than ever," he said bitterly, and
turning himself painfully in bed, he fixed his eyes upon the wall.
"I was led to believe," he continued, "that after I had once been
under fire, I would cease to dread it. Now, it seems to me more
dreadful than I ever imagined it to be."
Aunt Debby's wheel hummed and droned still louder, but her pleasant
tones rode on the cadences like an Aeolian harp in a rising wind:
"Man may trouble and distress me,
'T will but drive me to Thy breast;
Life with trials hard may press me;
Heaven will bring me sweeter rest.
O, 'tis not in grief to harm me,
While Thy love is left to me.
O, 'twere not in joy to charm me,
Were that joy unmixed with Thee."
He wondered weakly why ther were no monasteries in this land and
age, to serve as harbors or refuge for those who shrank from the
fearfulness of war.
He turned over again wearily, and Aunt Debby, looking toward him,
encountered his wide-open eyes.
"Yer awake, air ye?" she said kindly. "Hope I didn't disturb you.
I wuz tryin' ter make ez little noise ez possible."
"No, you didn't rouse me. It's hard for me to sleep in daylight,
even when fatigued, as I am."
"Ef ye want ter git up now," she said, stopping the whell by pressing
the stick against a spoke, and laying the "roll" in her hand upon
the wheel-head, "I'll hev some breakfast fur ye in a jiffy. Ye
kin rise an' dress while I run down ter the spring arter a fresh
bucket o' water."
She covered her head with a "slat sun-bonnet," which she took from
a peg in the wall, lifted a cedar waterpail from a shelf supported
by other long pegs, poured its contents into a large cast-iron
teakettle swinging over the fire, and whisked out of the door.
Presently the notes of her hymn mingled in plaintive harmony with
the sparkling but no sweeter song of a robin redbreast, twittering
his delight in the warm sunshine amid the crimson apples of the
tree that overhung the spring.
"Will ye hev a fresh drink?" she asked Harry, on her return.
He took the gourdful of clear, cool water, which she offered him,
and drank heartily.
"Thet hez the name o' bein' the best spring in these parts," she
said, pleased with his appreciation.
"An' hit's a never-failin' spring, too. We've plenty o' water the
dryest times, when everybody else's goes dry."
"That IS delicious water," said Harry.
"An' now I'll git ye yor breakfast in a minnit. The teakittle's
a-bilin', the coffee's ground, the pone's done, an' when I fry a
little ham, everything will be ready."
As her culinary methods and utensils differed wholly from anything
Harry had ever seen, he studied them with great interest sharpened
not a little by a growing appetite for breakfast.
The clumsy iron teakettle swung on a hook at the end of a chain
fastened somewhere in the throat of the chimney. On the rough stones
forming the hearth were a half-dozen "ovens" and "skillets"--circular,
cast-iron vessels standing on legs, high enough to allow a layer
of live coals to be placed beneath them. They were covered by a
lid with a ledge around it, to retain the mass of coals heaped on
top. The cook's scepter was a wooden hook, with which she moved
the kettles and ovens and lifted lids, while the restless fire
scorched her amrs and face ruddier than cherry.
It was a primitive way, and so wasteful of wood that it required
a tree to furnish fuel enough to prepare breakfast; but under the
hands of a skillful woman those ovens and skillets turned out viands
with a flavor that no modern appliance can equal.
The joists of the house were thickly hung with the small delicious
hams of the country--hams made from young and tender hogs, which
had lived and fattened upon the acorns, fragrant hickory-nuts and
dainty beechnuts of the abundant "mast" of the forest, until the
were saturated with their delicate, nutty flavor. This was farther
enriched by a piquancy gained from the smoke of the burning hickory
and oak, with which they were cured, and the absorption of odors
from the scented herbs in the rooms where they were drying. Many
have sung the praises of Kentucky's horses, whisy and women, but
no poet has tuned his lyre to the more fruitful theme of Kentucky's
mast-fed, smoke-cured, herb-scented hams. For such a man waits a
crown of enduring bays.
Slices of this savory ham, fried in a skillet--the truth of history
forces the reluctant confession that the march of progress had not
yet brought the grid-iron and its virtues to the mountains--a hot
pone of golden-yellow meal, whose steaming sweetness had not been
allowed to distill off, but had been forced back into the loaf by
the hot oven-lid; coffee as black and strong as the virile infusions
which cheer the hearts of the true believers in the tents of the Turk,
and cream from cows that cropped the odorous and juicy grasses of
mountain meadows, made a breakfast that could not have been more
appetizing if composed by a French CHEF, and garnished by a polyglot
bill-of-fare.
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