Chapter 5

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_ CHAPTER V

Birt had always been held in high esteem by the men at the tanyard. Suddenly, however, the feeling toward him cooled. He remembered afterward, although at the time he was too absorbed to fully appreciate it, that this change began one day shortly after he had learned of Nate's departure. As he went mechanically about his work, he was pondering futilely upon his friend's mysterious journey, and his tantalizing hopes lying untried in the depths of the ravine. He hardly noticed the conversation of the men until something was said that touched upon the wish nearest his heart.

"I war studyin' 'bout lettin' Birt hev a day off," said the tanner. "An' ye'll bide hyar."

"Naw, Jube--naw!" Andy Byers replied with stalwart independence to his employer. "I hev laid off ter attend. Ef ye want ennybody ter bide with the tanyard, an' keer fur this hyar pit, ye kin do it yerse'f, or else Birt kin. _I_ hev laid off ter attend."

Andy Byers was a man of moods. His shaggy eyebrows to-day overshadowed eyes sombre and austere. He seemed, if possible, a little slower than was his wont. He bore himself with a sour solemnity, and he was at once irritable and dejected.

"Shucks, Andy! ye knows ye ain't no kin sca'cely ter the old woman; ye couldn't count out how ye air kin ter her ter save yer life. Now, I'M obleeged ter attend."

It so happened that the tanner's great-aunt was distantly related to Andy Byers. Being ill, and an extremely old woman, she was supposed to be lying at the point of death, and her kindred had been summoned to hear her last words.

"I hed 'lowed ter gin Birt a day off, 'kase I hev got ter hev the mule in the wagon, an' he can't grind bark. I PROMISED Birt a day off," the tanner continued.

"That thar's twixt ye an' Birt. I hain't got no call ter meddle," said the obdurate Byers. "Ye kin bide with the tanyard an' finish this job yerse'f, of so minded. I'm goin' ter attend."

"I reckon half the kentry-side will be thar, an' _I_ wants ter see the folks," said Jubal Perkins, cheerfully.

"Then Birt will hev ter bide with the tanyard, an' finish this job. It don't lie with me ter gin him a day off. I don't keer ef he never gits a day off," said Byers.

This was an unnecessarily unkind speech, and Birt's anger flamed out.

"Ef we-uns war of a size, Andy Byers," he said, hotly, "I'd make ye divide work a leetle more ekal than ye does."

Andy Byers dropped the hide in his hands, and looked steadily across the pit at Birt, as if he were taking the boy's measure.

"Ye mean ter say ef ye hed the bone an' muscle ye'd knock me down, do ye?" he sneered. "Waal, I'll take the will fur the deed. I'll hold the grudge agin ye, jes' the same."

They were all three busied about the pit. The hides had been taken out, and stratified anew, with layers of fresh tan, reversing the original order,--those that had been at the bottom now being placed at the top. The operation was almost complete before Jubal Perkins received the news of his relative's precarious condition. He had no doubt that Birt was able to finish it properly, and the boy's conscientious habit of doing his best served to make the tanner's mind quite easy. As to the day off, he was glad to have that question settled by a quarrel between his employees, thus relieving him of responsibility.

Birt's wrath was always evanescent, and he was sorry a moment afterward for what he had said. Andy Byers exchanged no more words with him, and skillfully combined a curt and crusty manner toward him with an aspect of contemplative dreariness. Occasionally, as they paused to rest, Byers would sigh deeply.

"A mighty good old woman, Mrs. Price war." He spoke as if she were already dead. "A mighty good old woman, though small-sized."

"A little of her went a long way. She war eighty-four year old, an' kep' a sharp tongue in her head ter the las'," rejoined the tanner, adopting in turn the past tense.

Rufe listened with startled interest. Now and then he cocked up his speculative eyes, and gazed fixedly into the preternaturally solemn face of Byers, who reiterated, "A good old woman, though small- sized."

With this unaccustomed absorption Rufe's accomplishment of getting under-foot became pronounced. The tanner jostled him more than once, Birt stumbled against his toes, and Byers, suddenly turning, ran quite over him. Rufe had not far to fall, but Byers was a tall man. His arms swayed like the sails of a windmill in the effort to recover his balance. He was in danger of toppling into the pit, and in fact only caught himself on his knees at its verge.

"Ye torment!" he roared angrily, as he struggled to his feet. "G'way from hyar, or I'll skeer ye out'n yer wits!"

The small boy ruefully gathered his members together, and after the men had started on their journey he sat down on a pile of wood hard by to give Birt his opinion of Andy Byers.

"He air a toler'ble mean man, ain't he, Birt?"

But Birt said he had no mind to talk about Andy Byers.

"SKEER ME!" exclaimed Rufe, doughtily. "It takes a heap ter skeer ME!"

He got up presently, and going into the shed began to examine the tools of the trade which were lying there. He had the two-handled knife, with which he was about to try his skill on a hide that was stretched over the beam of the wooden horse, when Birt glanced up and came hastily to the rescue. Rufe was disposed to further investigate the appliances of the tanyard left defenseless at his mercy, but at last Birt prevailed on him to go home and play with Tennessee, and was glad enough to see his tow-head, with his old hat perched precariously on it, bobbing up and down among the low bushes, as he wended his way along the path through the woods.

The hides had all been replaced between layers of fresh tan before the men left, and Birt had only to fill up the space above with a thicker layer, ten or fifteen inches deep, and put the boards securely across the top of the pit, with heavy stones upon them to weight them down. But this kept him busy all the rest of the afternoon.

Rufe was pretty busy too. When he came in sight of home Tennessee was the first object visible in the open passage. The sunshine slanted through it under the dusky roof, and the shadows of the chestnut-oak, hard by, dappled the floor. Lying there was an old Mexican saddle, for which there was no use since the horse had died. Tennessee was mounted upon it, the reins in her hands, the headstall and bit poised on the peaked pommel. She jounced back and forth, and the skirts of the saddle flapped and the stirrups clanked on the floor, and the absorbed eyes of the little mountaineer were fixed on space.

Away and away she cantered on some splendid imaginary palfrey, through scenes where conjecture fails to follow her: a land, doubtless, where all the winds blow fair, and sparkling waters run, and jeopardy delights, and fancy's license prevails--all very different, you may be sure, from the facts, an old saddle on a puncheon floor, and a little black-eyed mountaineer.

How far Tennessee journeyed, and how long she was gone, it is impossible to say. She halted suddenly when her attention was attracted to a phenomenon within one of the rooms.

The door was ajar and the solitary Rufe was visible in the dusky vista. He stood before a large wooden chest. He had lifted the lid, and kept it up by resting it upon his head, bent forward for the purpose, while he rummaged the contents with vandal hands.

Tennessee stared at him, with indignant surprise gathering in her widening eyes.

Now that chest contained, besides a meagre store of quilts and comforts, her own and her mother's clothes, the fewer garments of the boys of the family being alternately suspended on the clothes- line and their own frames. She resented the sacrilege of Rufe's invasion of that chest. She turned on the saddle and looked around with an air of appeal. Her mother, however, was down the hill beside the spring, busy boiling soap, and quite out of hearing. Tennessee gazed vaguely for a moment at the great kettle with the red and yellow flames curling around it, and her mother's figure hovering over it. Then she looked back at Rufe.

He continued industriously churning up the contents of the chest, the lid still poised upon that head that served so many other useful purposes--for the gymnastic exhibition involved in standing on it; for his extraordinary mental processes; for a lodgment for his old wool hat, and a field for his crop of flaxen hair.

All the instinct of the proprietor was roused within Tennessee. She found her voice, a hoarse, infantile wheeze.

"Tum out'n chist!" she exclaimed, gutturally. "Tum out'n chist!"

Rufe turned his tow-head slowly, that he might not disturb the poise of the lid of the chest resting upon it. He fixed a solemn stare on Tennessee, and drawing one hand from the depths of the chest, he silently shook his fist. And then he resumed his researches.

Tennessee, alarmed by this impressive demonstration, dismounted hastily from the saddle as soon as his threatening gaze was withdrawn. She tangled her feet in the stirrups and her hands in the reins, and lost more time in scrambling off the floor of the passage and down upon the ground; but at last she was fairly on her way to the spring to convey an account to her mother of the outlaw in the chest. In fact, she was not far from the scene of the soap- boiling when she heard her name shouted in stentorian tones, and pausing to look back, she saw Rufe gleefully capering about in the passage, the headstall on his own head, the bit hanging on his breast, and the reins dangling at his heels.

Now this beguilement the little girl could never withstand, and indeed few people ever had the opportunity to drive so frisky and high-spirited a horse as Rufe was when he consented to assume the bit and bridle. He was rarely so accommodating, as he preferred the role of driver, with what he called "a pop-lashEE!" at command. She forgot her tell-tale mission. She turned with a gurgle of delight and began to toddle up the hill again. And presently Mrs. Dicey, glancing toward the house, saw them playing together in great amity, and rejoiced that they gave her so little trouble.

They were still at it when Birt came home, but then Tennessee was tired of driving, and he let her go with him to the wood-pile and sit on a log while he swung the axe. No one took special notice of Rufe's movements in the interval before supper. He disappeared for a time, but when the circle gathered around the table he was in his place and by no means a non-combatant in the general onslaught on the corn-dodgers. Afterward he came out in the passage and sat quietly among the others.

The freshened air was fragrant, and how the crickets were chirring in the grass! On every spear the dew was a-glimmer, for a lustrous moon shone from the sky. Somehow, despite the long roads of light that this splendid pioneer blazed out in the wilderness, it seemed only to reveal the loneliness of the forests, and to give new meaning to the solemnity of the shadows. The heart was astir with some responsive thrill that jarred vaguely, and was pain. Yet the night had its melancholy fascination, and they were all awake later than usual. When at last the doors were barred, and the house grew still, and even the vigilant Towse had ceased to bay and had lodged himself under the floor of the passage, the moon still shone in isolated effulgence, for the faint stars faded before it.

The knowledge that in all the vast stretch of mountain fastnesses he was the only human creature that beheld it, as it majestically crossed the meridian, gave Andy Byers a forlorn feeling, while tramping along homeward. He had made the journey afoot, some eight miles down the valley, and was later far in returning than others who had heeded the summons of the sick woman. For she still lay in the same critical condition, and his mind was full of dismal forebodings as he toiled along the road on the mountain's brow. The dark woods were veined with shimmering silver. The mists, hovering here and there, showed now a blue and now an amber gleam as the moon's rays conjured them. On one side of the road an oak tree had been uptorn in a wind-storm; the roots, carrying a great mass of earth with them, were thrust high in the air, while the bole and leafless branches lay prone along the ground. This served as a break in the density of the forest, and the white moonshine possessed the vacant space.

As he glanced in that direction his heart gave a great bound, then seemed suddenly to stand still. There, close to the verge of the road, as if she had stepped aside to let him pass, was the figure of an old woman--a small-sized woman, tremulous and bent. It looked like old Mrs. Price! As he paused amazed, with starting eyes and failing limbs, the wind fluttered her shawl and her ample sunbonnet. This shielded her face and he could not see her features. Her head seemed to turn toward him. The next instant it nodded at him familiarly.

To the superstitions mountaineer this suggested that the old woman had died since he had left her house, and here was her ghost already vagrant in the woods!

The foolish fellow did not wait to put this fancy to the test. With a piercing cry he sprang past, and fled like a frightened deer through the wilderness homeward.

In his own house he hardly felt more secure. He could not rest--he could not sleep. He stirred the embers with a trembling hand, and sat shivering over them. His wife, willing enough to believe in "harnts"* as appearing to other people, was disposed to repudiate them when they presumed to offer their dubious association to members of her own family circle.

* Ghosts.

"Dell-law!" she exclaimed scornfully. "I say harnt! Old Mrs. Price, though spry ter the las', war so proud o' her age an' her ailments that she wouldn't hev nobody see her walk a step, or stand on her feet, fur nuthin'. Her darter-in-law tole me ez the only way ter find out how nimble she really be war ter box one o' her gran'chill'n, an' then she'd bounce out'n her cheer, an' jounce round the room after thar daddy or mammy, whichever hed boxed the chill'n. That fursaken couple always hed ter drag thar chill'n out in the woods, out'n earshot of the house, ter whip 'em, an' then threat 'em ef they dare let thar granny know they hed been struck. But elsewise she hed ter be lifted from her bed ter her cheer by the h'a'th. She wouldn't hev HER sperit seen a-walkin' way up hyar a- top o' the mounting, like enny healthy harnt, fur nuthin' in this worl'. Whatever 'twar, 'twarn't HER. An' I reckon of the truth war knowed, 'twarn't nuthin' at all--forg, mebbe."

This stalwart reasoning served to steady his nerves a little. And when the moon went down and the day was slowly breaking, he took his way, with a vacillating intention and many a chilling doubt, along the winding road to the scene of his fright.

It was not yet time by a good hour or more to go to work, and nothing was stirring. A wan light was on the landscape when he came in sight of the great tree prone upon the ground. And there, close to the edge of the road, as if she had stepped aside to let him pass, was the figure of a little, bent old woman--nay, in the brightening dawn, a bush--a blackberry bush, clad in a blue-checked apron, a red plaid shawl, and with a neat sunbonnet nodding on its topmost spray.

His first emotion was intense relief. Then he stood staring at the bush in rising indignation. This sandy by-way of a road led only to his own house, and this image of a small and bent old woman had doubtless been devised, to terrify him, by some one who knew of his mission, and that he could not return except by this route.

Only for a moment did he feel uncertain as to the ghost-maker's identity. There was something singularly familiar to him in the plaid of the shawl--even in the appearance of the bonnet, although it was now limp and damp. He saw it at "meet'n" whenever the circuit rider preached, and he presently recognized it. This was Mrs. Dicey's bonnet!

His face hardened. He set his teeth together. An angry flush flared to the roots of his hair.

Not that he suspected the widow of having set this trap to frighten him. He was not learned, nor versed in feminine idiosyncrasies, but it does not require much wisdom to know that on no account whatever does a woman's best bonnet stay out all night in the dew, intentionally. The presence of her bonnet proved the widow's alibi.

Like a flash he remembered Birt's anger the previous day. "Told me he'd make me divide work mo' ekal, an' ez good ez said he'd knock me down ef he could. An' I told him I'd hold the grudge agin him jes' the same--an' I will!"

He felt sure that it was Birt who had thus taken revenge, because he was kept at work while his fellow-laborer was free to go.

Byers thought the boy would presently come to take the garments home, and conceal his share in the matter, before any one else would be likely to stir abroad.

"An' I'll hide close by with a good big hickory stick, an' I'll gin him a larrupin' ez he won't furgit in a month o' Sundays," he resolved, angrily.

He opened his clasp-knife, and walked slowly into the woods, looking about for a choice hickory sprout. He did not at once find one of a size that he considered appropriate to the magnitude of Birt's wickedness, and he went further perhaps than he realized, and stayed longer.

He had a smile of stern satisfaction on his face when he was lopping off the leaves and twigs of a specimen admirably adapted for vengeance. He was stealthy in returning, keeping behind the trees, and slipping softly from bole to bole. At last, as the winding road was once more in view, he crouched down behind the roots of the great fallen oak.

"I don't want him ter git a glimge of me, an' skeer him off afore I kin lay a-holt on him," he said.

He intended to keep the neighboring bush under close watch, and through the interlacing roots he peered out furtively at it. His eyes distended and he hastily rose from his hiding-place.

The blackberry bush was swaying in the wind, clothed only in its own scant and rusty leaves. A wren perched on a spray, chirped cheerful matins. _

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