VIII
The Rodneys At Home
All that long and never-to-be-forgotten night the stage lurched throughthe darkness with Mary Carmichael the solitary passenger. The fat lady hadwarned Johnnie Dax that he was on no account to replenish Chugg's flask,if he had the wherewithal for replenishment on the premises. Moreover, shethreatened Dax with the fury of her son should he fail in this particular;and Johnnie, hurt to the quick by the unjust suspicion that he could failso signally in his duty to a lady, not only refused to replenish theflask, but threatened Chugg with a conditional vengeance in the event ofaccident befalling the stage. It was with a partially sobered andmuch-threatened stage-driver, therefore, that Mary continued her journeyafter the supper at Johnnie Dax's, but the knowledge of it brought scantreassurance, and it is doubtful if the red stage ever harbored any onemore wakeful than the pale, tired girl who watched all the changes fromdark to dawn at the stage window.
Once or twice she caught a glimpse of distant camp-fires burning and knewthat some cattle outfit was camped there for the night; and once theydrove so close that she could hear the cow-boys' voices, enriched andmellowed by distance, borne to them on the cool, evening wind. It gave asense of security to know that these big-hearted, manly lads were withincall, and she watched the dwindling spark of their camp-fires and strainedher ears to catch the last note of their singing, with something of thefeeling of severed comradeship. Range cattle, startled from sleep by thestage, scrambled to their feet and bolted headlong in the blind impulse ofpanic, their horns and the confused massing of their bodies showing insharp silhouette against the horizon for a moment, then all would settleinto quiet again. There was no moon that night, but the stars were sownbroadcast--softly yellow stars, lighting the darkness with a shaded luster,like lamps veiled in pale-yellow gauze. The chill electric glitter of thestars, as we know it from between the roofs of high houses, this world offar-flung distance knows not. There the stars are big and still, like theeyes of a contented woman.
The hoofs of the horses beat the night away as regularly as the ticking ofa clock. It grew darker as the night wore on, and sometimes a coyote wouldyelp from the fringe of willows that bordered a creek in a way that madeMary recall tales of banshees. And once, when the first pale streak ofdawn trembled in the east and the mountains looked like jagged rocksheaved against the sky and in danger of toppling, the whole dread picturebrought before her one of Vedder's pictures that hung in the shabby oldlibrary at home.
They breakfasted somewhere, and Chugg put fresh horses to the stage. Sheknew this from their difference of color; the horses that they had leftthe second Dax ranch with had been white, and these that now toiled overthe sand and desolation were apparently brown. She could not be certainthat they were brown, or that they were toiling over the sand anddesolation, or that her name was Mary Carmichael, or indeed of anything.Four days in the train, and what seemed like four centuries in the stage,eliminated any certainty as to anything. She could only sit huddled into aheap and wait for things to become adjusted by time.
Chugg was behaving in a most exemplary manner. He drove rigidly as anautomaton, and apparently he looked no longer on the "lightning" when itwas bottled. Once or twice he had applied his eye to the pane thatseparated him from his passenger, and asked questions relative to hercomfort, but Mary was too utterly dejected to reply in more thanmonosyllables. As they crept along, the sun-dried timbers of the stagecreaked and groaned in seeming protest at wearing its life away in endlessjourneyings over this desert waste, then settled down into one of thosemaddeningly monotonous reiterations to which certain inanimate things aregiven in seasons of nervous tension. This time it was: "All the world's--astage--creak--screech--all--the world's a stage--creak--screech!" over and overtill Mary found herself fast succumbing to the hypnotic effect of theconstant repetition, listening for it, even, with the tyrannous eagernessof overwrought nerves, when the stage-driver broke the spell with, "Thishere stage gets to naggin' me along about here. She's hungry for heraxle-grease--that's what ails her."
"I suppose," Mary roused herself to say, "you have quite a feeling ofcomradeship for the stage."
"Me and Clara"--the stage had this name painted on the side--"have beentravelling together nigh onto four year. And while there's times that Iwould prefer a greater degree of reciprocity, these yere silent companionshas their advantages. Why, compare Clara to them female blizzards--the twoMrs. Daxes--and you see Clara's good p'ints immejit. Yes, miss, thethirst-quenchers are on me if either one of the Dax boys wouldn't be gladto swap, but I'd have to be a heap more locoed than I am now to consent tothe transaction."
At sunset the interminable monotony of the wilderness was broken by ahouse of curious architecture, the like of which the tired young travellerhad never seen before, and whose singular candor of design made her doubtthe evidence of her own thoroughly exhausted faculties. The house seemedto consist of a series of rooms thrown, or rather blown, together by someforce of nature rather than by formal design of builder or carpenter. Theoriginal log-cabin of this composite dwelling looked better built, morefinished, neater of aspect than those they had previously stopped at incrossing the Desert. Springing from the main building, like claws from acrustacean, were a series of rooms minus either side walls or flooring.Indeed, they might easily have passed for porches of more than usuallycommodious size had it not been for the beds, bureaus, chairs, stove withattendant pots, kettles, and supper in the course of preparation. Seenfrom any vantage-point in the surrounding country, the effect was that ofan interior on the stage--the background of some homely drama where pioneerlife was being realistically depicted. The _dramatis persona_ who occupiedthe centre of the stage when Mary Carmichael drove up was an elderly womanin a rocking-chair. She was dressed in a faded pink calico gown, limp andbedraggled, whose color brought out the parchment-like hue and texture ofher skin in merciless contrast. Perhaps because she still harboredillusions about the perishable quality of her complexion, which gave everyevidence of having borne the brunt of merciless desert suns, snows,blizzards, and the ubiquitous alkali dust of all seasons, she wore a pinksun-bonnet, though the hour was one past sundown, and though she satbeneath her own roof-tree, even if lacking the protection of four walls.From the corner of her mouth protruded a snuff-brush, so constantly inthis accustomed place that it had come to be regarded by members of herfamily as part and parcel of her attire--the first thing assumed in themorning, the last thing laid aside at night. Mary Carmichael had littledifficulty in recognizing Judith Rodney's step-mother, _nee_ Tumlin--shewho had been the heroine of the romance lately recorded.
Mrs. Rodney's interest in the girl alighting from the stage was evinced inthe palsied motion of the chair as it quivered slightly back and forth inplace of the swinging seesaw with which she was wont to wear the hoursaway. The snuff-brush was brought into more fiercely active commission,but she said nothing till Mary Carmichael was within a few inches of her.Then, shifting the snuff-brush to a position more favorable toenunciation, she said: "Howdy? Ye be Miz Yellett's gov'ment, ain't ye?"There was something threatening in her aspect, as if the office ofgoverness to the Yelletts carried some challenging quality.
"Government?" repeated Mary, vaguely, her head still rumbling with thenoise and motion of the stage; "I'm afraid I hardly understand."
"Ain't you-uns goin' to teach the Yellett outfit ther spellin', writin',and about George Washington, an' how the Yankees kem along arter he was inhis grave an' fit us and broke up the kentry so we had ter leave our homein Tennessee an' kem to this yere outdacious place, where nobody knows thediffunce between aig-bread an' corn-dodger? I war a Miss Tumlin fromTennessee."
The rocking-chair now began to recover its accustomed momentum. Thismuch-heralded educational expert was far from terrifying. Indeed, to Mrs.Rodney's hawklike gaze, that devoured every visible item of Mary'sextremely modest travelling-dress, there was nothing so very wonderfulabout "the gov'ment from the East." With a deftness compatible only
withlong practice, Mrs. Rodney now put a foot on the round of an adjoiningchair and shoved it towards Mary Carmichael in hospitable pantomime, neveronce relaxing her continual rocking the meantime. Mary took the chair, andMrs. Rodney, after freshening up the snuff-brush from a small, tin box inher lap, put spurs to her rocking-chair, so to speak, and started off at abrisk canter.
"I 'low it's mighty queer you-uns don't recognize the job you-uns kem outyere to take, when I call it by name." From the sheltering flap of thepink sun-bonnet she turned a pair of black eyes full of ill-concealedsuspicion. "Miz Yellett givin' herself as many airs 'bout hirin' agov'ment 's if she wuz goin' to Congress. Queer you don't know whether yoube one or not!" She withdrew into the sun-bonnet, muttering to herself.She could not be more than fifty, Mary thought, but her habit of mutteringand exhibiting her depopulated gums while she was in the act ofrevivifying the snuff-brush gave her a cronish aspect.
A babel of voices came from the open-faced room on the opposite side ofthe house corresponding to the one in which Mary and Mrs. Rodney weresitting. Apparently supper was being prepared by some half-dozen youngpeople, each of whom thought he or she was being imposed upon by theothers. "Hand me that knife." "Git it yourself." "I'll tell maw how youair wolfing down the potatoes as fast as I can fry 'em." "Go on,tattle-tale." This was the repartee, mingled with the hiss of frying meat,the grinding of coffee, the thumping sound made by bread being hastilymixed in a wooden bowl standing on a wooden table. The babel grew involume. Dogs added to it by yelping emotionally when the smell of thenewly fried meat tempted them too near the platter and some one with adisengaged foot at his disposal would kick them out of doors.Personalities were exchanged more freely by members of the family, and themeat hissed harder as it was newly turned. "Laws-a-massy!" muttered Mrs.Rodney; and then, shoving back the sun-bonnet, she lifted her voice in ashrill, feminine shriek:
"Eudory! Eu-dory! You-do-ry!"
A Hebe-like creature, blond and pink-cheeked, in a blue-checked apronbesmeared with grease and flour, came sulkily into her mother's presence.Seeing Mary Carmichael, she grasped the skirt of the greasy apron with thesleight of hand of a prestidigitateur and pleated it into a singlehandful. Her manner, too, was no slower of transformation. The familysulks were instantly replaced by a company bridle, aided and abetted by acompany simper. "I didn't know the stage was in yet, maw. I been talkingto Iry."
"This here be Miz Yellett's gov'ment. Maybe she'd like to pearten up somebefore she eats." She started the rocking-chair at a gallop, to signify toher daughter that she washed her hands of further responsibility. Beingproficient in the sign language of Mrs. Rodney's second self, as indeedwas every member of the family, Eudora led Mary to a bench placed in oneof the rooms enjoying the distinction of a side wall, and indicated afamily toilet service, which displayed every indication of having latelyseen active service. A roll-towel, more frankly significant of themultitude of the Rodneys than had been the babel of voices, a discouragedfragment of comb, a tin basin, a slippery atom of soap, these Eudoraproffered with an unction worthy of better things. "I declare Mist' Chugghave scarce left any soap, an' I don't believe thar's 'nother bit in thehouse." Eudora's accent was but faintly reminiscent of her mother's strongSmoky Mountain dialect, as a crude feature is sometimes softened in thesecond generation. It was not unpleasing on her full, rosy mouth. The girlhad the seductiveness of her half-sister, Judith, without a hint ofJudith's spiritual quality.
Mary told her not to mind about the soap, and went to fetch her hand-bag,which, consistent with the democratic spirit of its surroundings, wasresting against a clump of sage-brush, whither it had been lifted byChugg. Miss Carmichael's individual toilet service, which was neitherhandsome nor elaborate, impressed Eudora far more potently in ranking Maryas a personage than did her dignity of office as "gov'ment."
"I reckon you-uns must have seen Sist' Judy up to Miz Dax's. I hope shewar lookin' right well." There was in the inquiry an unmistakable note ofpride. The connection was plainly one to be flaunted. Judith, with hergentle bearing and her simple, convent accomplishments, was plainly the_grande dame_ of the family. Eudora had now divested herself of thegreasy, flour-smeared apron, flinging it under the wash-bench with asingle all-sufficient movement, while Mary's look was directed towards herdressing-bag. In glancing up to make some remark about Judith, Mary wasconfronted by a radiant apparition whose lilac calico skirts looked freshfrom the iron.
At the side of the house languished a wretched, abortive garden, runningover with weeds and sage-brush, and here a man pottered with thepurposeless energy of old age, working with an ear cocked in the directionof the house, as he turned a spade of earth again and again in hopeless,pusillanimous industry. But when his strained attention was presentlyrewarded by a shouted summons to supper, and he stood erect but for theslouching droop of shoulders that was more a matter of temperament than ofage, one saw a tall man of massive build, whose keen glance and slightlygrizzled hair belied his groping, ineffectual labor. The head, and facewere finely modelled. Unless nature had fashioned them in some vagrant,prankish mood, such elegance of line betokened prior generations in whichgentlemen and scholars had played some part--the vagabond scion of a goodfamily, perhaps. A multitude of such had grafted on the pioneer stock ofthe West, under names that carried no significance in the places whencethey came.
Weakness and self-indulgence there were, and those writ large and deep, onthe face of Warren Rodney; and, in default of an expression of deepersignificance, the wavering lines of instability produced a curiouslyambiguous effect of a fine head modelled by a 'prentice hand; a lady'scopy of the Belvidere, attempted in the ardors of the first lessons, mightapproximate it.
A smoking kerosene lamp revealed a supper-table of almost institutionalproportions. There were four sons and two daughters of the Tumlin union,strapping lads and lasses all of them, with more than a common dower oflusty health and a beauty that was something deeper than the perishableiridescence of youth. There was Fremont, named for the explorer-soldier;there was Orlando, named from his mother's vague, idle musings overpaper-backed literature at certain "unchancy" seasons; there was Richards,named from pure policy, for a local great man of whom Warren Rodney hadanticipated a helping hand at the time; there was Eudora, whose nominalorigin was uncertain, unless it bore affiliation to that of Orlando; therewas Sadie, thus termed to avoid the painful distinctions of "old Sally"and "young Sally"; and, lastly, like a postscript, came Dan--with him,fancy, in the matter of names, seemed to have failed. Dan was now six, aplump little caricature of a man in blue overalls, which, as they haddescended to him from Richards in the nature of an heirloom, reached highunder his armpits and shortened the function of his suspenders to thevanishing point.
Eudora was now sixteen, and the woman-famine in all the land had giftedher with a surprising precocity. Eudora knew her value and meant to makethe most of it. Unlike her mother in the old Black Hill days, she expectedmore than a "home of her own." To-night four suitors sat at table withEudora, and she might have had forty had she desired it. Any one of thefour would have cheerfully murdered the remaining three had opportunitypresented itself. Supper was a mockery to them, a Barmecide feast. Eachwatched his rivals--and Eudora. This was a matter of life and death. Therewas no time for food. The girl revelled in the situation to the full ofher untaught, unthinking, primitive nature. She gave the incident atighter twist by languishing at them in turns. She smiled, she sighed, shedrove them mad by taking crescent bites out of a slice of bread andexhibiting the havoc of her little, white teeth with a delectably daintygluttony.
Her mother, mumbling her supper with toothless impotency, renewed heryouth vicariously, and, while she quarrelled with her daughter from therising of the sun to the setting of the same, she added the last straw tothe burden of the distracted suitors by announcing what a comfort Eudorawas to her and how handy she was about the house.
Warren Rodney supported the air of an exile at his own table. Beyond apreliminary greeting to his daughter's gu
ests, he said nothing. Hisfamily, in their dealings with him, seemed to accord him the exemptions ofextreme age. He ate with the enthusiasm of a man to whom meals have becomethe main business in life.
"How's your mine up to Bad Water comin' along, Iry?" Orlando inquired, notfrom any hospitable interest in Ira's claim, but because he had sundryromantic interests in that neighborhood and hoped to make use of the youngprospector's interest in his sister by securing an invitation to returnwith him. Ira regarded the inquiry in the light of a special providence.Here was his chance to impress Eudora with the splendor of his prospectsand at the same time smite the claims of his rivals, and behold! a brotherof his lady had led the way.
Ira cleared his throat. "They tell me she air like to yield a million anyday." At this Eudora gave him the wealth of her eyes, and her motherreached across two of the glowering suitors and dropped a hot flapjack onhis plate.
"Who sez that she air likely to yield a million any day?" inquired BenSwift, openly flouting such prophecy. "Yes, who sez it?" inquired Hawksand Taylor, joining forces for the overthrow of the common enemy.
"'They sez' is easy talkin', shore 'nuff," mumbled Mrs. Rodney, as shehelped herself to butter with her own knife.
"A sharp from the Smithsonian Institute at Washington, he said it, and hehas taken back speciments with him."
"Ye can't keep lackings from freightin' round speciments--naw, sir, yecan't, not till the fool-killer has finished his job." Ben Swift chargedthe table with the statement as the prosecution subtly appeals to the highgrade of intelligence on the part of the jury. The point told. Eudora,wavering in her donation of hot flapjacks, gave them to Ben Swift.
Hawks now leaned across the table with a sinuous, beguiling motion, and,extending his long neck towards the prospector, with the air of aturkey-gobbler about to peck, he crooned, softly: "Ira, it's a heap riskyputtin' your faith in maverick sharps that trail around the country,God-a'mightying it, renaming little, old rocks into precious stones,seein' gold mines in every gopher-hole they come to. They names yourbackyard and the rocks appertainin' thereunto a heap fashionable, and likeas not some sucker gives him good money to float the trash back East."
Mrs. Rodney, whose partisanship in any discussion was analogous to theposition of a hen perching on a fence unable to decide on which side toflutter, was visibly impressed by Hawks's presentation of the case.Looking towards her daughter from under the eaves of her sun-bonnet, she"'lowed she had hearn that Bad Water was hard on the skin, an' that itwarn't much of a place arter all. Folks over thar war mostly half-livers."
Ira, now losing all semblance of policy at being thus grievously put downby his possible mother-in-law, "reckoned that herdin' sheep over to theBasin was a heap easier on the skin than livin' in a comf'table house overto Bad Water"--this as a fling at Hawks, who herded a small bunch of sheep"over in the Basin."
"Ai-yi," openly scoffed the former Miss Tumlin; "talk's cheap before--" Shewould have considered it indelicate to supply the word "marriage," but bybreaking off her sentence before she came to the pith of it she continuedto maintain the proprieties, and at the same time conveyed to her audiencethat she was too old and experienced to permit any fledgling from her nestto be caught, for want of a warning, by such obvious ante-matrimonialchaff as fair promises.
"Laws a massy!" she continued, reminiscently, working her toothless jaw tofree it from an escaped splinter from the snuff-brush. "When me an' pawwar keepin' comp'ny, satin warn't good enough for me. He lowed I wuz tohave half creation. Sence we wuz married he 'ain't never found time,endurin' all these years, to build me a bird-house."
The unbuilt bird-house was the Banquo's ghost at the Rodney board, Mrs.Rodney hearkening back to it in and out of season. If the family mademerry over a chance windfall of game or fresh vegetables, a prospect ofpossible employment for one of the boys, a donation of money from Judith,Mrs. Rodney remembered the unbuilt bird-house and indulged herself to thefull of melancholy. It is not improbable that, if she had been asked toname the chiefest disappointment of her wretched married life, she wouldhave mentioned the bird-house that was never built.
At mention of it Warren Rodney murmured broken, deprecatory excuses. Hisdull eyes nervously travelled about the table for some one to make excusesfor him. The family broke into hearty peals of laughter; the tragedy ofthe first generation had grown to be the unfailing source of merriment forthe second.
"Maw," began Orlando, "the reason you don't get no bird-house built outhyear is that they ain't no birds. We have offered time and time again tobuild you a house fo' buzzuds, they bein' the only birds hyearabouts, butyou 'low that you ain't fav'ble to tamin' 'em."
"I wuz raised in Tennessee, an' we-uns had a house for martins made out'ngourds, an' it was pearty." The pride with which she repeated thisparticular claim to honor in an alien land never diminished withrepetition. As she advanced further through the dim perspective of years,the little mountain town in Tennessee became more and more the centre ofcultivation and civic importance. The desolate cabin that she had left forthe interminable journey westward was recalled flatteringly through thehallowing mists of time. The children, by reason of these chronicles, hadgrown to regard their mother as a sort of princess in exile.
"Mrs. Rodney"--Swift leaned towards her and whispered something in her ear.She regarded him tentatively, then grinned. At her time of life, whyshould she put faith in the promises of men? "You fix it up, an' you getyour bird-house," was the conclusion of his sentence.
While this discussion had been in progress the viands had not beenneglected except by such members of the company as had been bereft ofappetite by loftier emotions--in consequence of which the table appeared tohave sustained a visitation of seventeen-year locusts. Eudora, evereconomic in the value she placed not only upon herself but herenvironment, proposed to her guests that they should wash the dishes, anart in which they were by no means deficient, being no exception to themajority of range bachelors in their skill in homely pursuits. And thus itcame to pass that Eudora's suitors, swathed in aprons, meekly washeddishes shoulder to shoulder, while their souls craved the performance ofvalorous deeds.
As this was the last stage station on the way to Lost Trail, MaryCarmichael was perforce obliged to content herself till Mrs. Yellettshould call or send for her. After supper, Chugg, with fresh horses to thestage, left Rodney's, apparently for some port in that seemingly pathlesssea of foot-hills. That there should be trails and defined routes overthis vast, unvaried stretch of space seemed more wonderful to Mary thanthe charted high-roads of the Atlantic. The foot-hills seemed to havegrown during the long journey till they were foot-hills no longer; theyhad come to be the smaller peaks of the towering range that had formed thespine of the desert. The air, that seemed to have lost some of itscrystalline quality on the flat stretches of the plains, was againsparkling and heady in the clean hill country. It stirred the pulses likesome rare vintage, some subtle distillation of sun-warmed fruit that hadbeen mellowing for centuries.
Very lonely seemed the Rodney home among the great company of mountains. Abrooding desolation had settled on it at close of day, and all thelaughter and light footsteps and gayly ringing voices of the young folkcould not dispel the feeling of being adrift in a tiny shell on the blackwaters of some unknown sea; or thus it seemed to the stranger within theirgate.
Mrs. Rodney retired within the flap of her sun-bonnet after the eveningmeal, settling herself in the rocking-chair as if it were some sort ofconveyance. Her family, who might have told the hour of day or her passingmood by the action of the chair, knew by her pacific gait that she wouldlament the unbuilt bird-house no more that night. The snuff-brush, newlyreplenished from the tin box, kept perfect time to the motion of thechair. With the lady of the house it was one of the brief seasons ofpassing content vouchsafed by an ample meal and a good digestion.
Warren Rodney took down a gun from the wall and began to clean it. Hishands had the fumbling, indefinite movements, the obscure action, directedby a brain already
begun to crumble. His industry with the gun was of apart with the impotent dawdling in the garden. His eyes would seek for therag or the bottle of oil in a dull, glazed way, and, having found them, hewould forget the reason of his quest. Not once that evening had theyrested on his wife or any member of his family. He had shown no interestin any of the small happenings of home, the frank rivalry of Eudora'ssuitors, the bickerings of the girls and boys over the division ofhousehold labor. The one thing that had momentarily aroused his somnolentintelligence was a revival of his wife's plaint anent the unbuiltbird-house. That, and a certain furtive anxiety during supper lest hisdaughter Eudora should forget to keep his plate piled high, were the onlysigns of a participation in the life about him.
From one of the rooms that opened to the world like a stage to theaudience, Mrs. Rodney kept her evening vigil. The last faint amethystinehaze on the mountains was deepening. They towered about the valley wherethe house lay, with a challenging immensity, mocking the pitiful grasp ofthese pygmies on the thousand hills. The snow on the taller of the peaksstill held the high lights. But all the valleys and the spaces between themountains were wrapped in sombre shadows; the crazy house invading thegreat company of mountains, penetrating brazenly to the very threshold oftheir silent councils, seemed but a pitiful ant-hill at the mercy of somepossible giant tread. The ill-adjusted family, disputing every inch ofground with the wilderness, became invested with a dignity quite out ofkeeping with its achievements. Their very weaknesses and vanities, oldSally still clinging to her sun-bonnet and her limp rose-colored skirts,an eternal requiem for the dead and gone complexion, lost thepicturesqueness of the pioneer and ranked as universal qualities,admissible in the austerest setting. Perhaps in some far distant councilof the Daughters of the Pioneers a prospective member of the house ofRodney would unctuously announce: "My great-great-grandmother was a MissTumlin of Tennessee; great-great-grandfather's first wife had been a Siouxsquaw. Isn't it interesting and romantic?"
Eudora now came to her mother with great news. Hawks had taken the firstopportunity of being alone with her to tell her of Jim's release from jailand of his abortive encounter with Simpson in the eating-house. He had notdeferred the telling from any feeling of reticence regarding thedisclosure of family affairs before strangers. News travels in the desertby some unknown agency. Twenty-four hours after a thing happened it wouldbe safe to assume that every cow and sheep outfit in a radius of threehundred miles would be discussing it over their camp-fires; and this longbefore there was an inch of telegraph wire or a railroad tire in thecountry. Hawks had merely reserved the news for Eudora's private earbecause he hoped thus to gain an advantage over his three rivals.
"Ai-yi!" said old Sally, sharply, and the chair came to an abruptstand-still. "In the name o' Heaven, how kem they to let him out?" Mrs.Rodney's knowledge of the law was of the vaguest; and if incarcerationwould keep a prisoner out of more grievous trouble, she could notunderstand giving him his freedom. To her the case was analogous toreleasing a child from the duress of a corner and turning him loose toplay with matches. "How kem they to let him out?" she repeated, the stillrocking-chair conveying the impersonal dignity of the pulpit or thejustice-seat. "I 'ain't hearn tell of so pearty a couple as the jail an'Jim in years."
The meaning that she put into her words belied their harsh face-value.With Jim in jail, her mind was comparatively at rest about him. She knewhe had been branding other men's cattle since the destruction of hissheep, and she knew the fate of cattle-thieves, and that Jim would be noexception to the rule. With her purely instinctive maternity, she had beenfond of Jim. He had been one more boy to mother. She harbored noill-feeling towards him that he was not her own. Moreover, she wanted nogallows-tree intermingled with the annals of her family. It suited herconvenience at this particular time that Jim should stay in jail. That hehad been given his freedom loosed the phials of her condemnation on theincompetents that released him.
"I 'low they wuz grudgin' him the mouthful they fed to him, that they ackso outdaciously plumb locoed as to tu'n a man out to get hisself hanged.An' Jim never wuz a hearty eater. He never seemed to relish his food, evenwhen he wuz a growin' kid."
A pale, twinkling point of light, faintly glimmering in the vast solitudesabove the billowing peaks, suddenly burst into a dazzling constellationbefore the girl and her mother. "It's a warning!" shivered the old woman."Some'um's bound to happen." She began to rock herself slowly. The thingshe dreaded had already come to pass in her imagination. Jim a free manwas Jim a dead man. He was so dead that already his step-mother was goingon with a full acceptance of the idea. She reviewed her relationship tohim. No, she had nothing to blame herself for. He had been moretroublesome than any of her own children and for that reason she had beenmore liberal with the rod. And yet--the face of the squaw rose before her,wraithlike, accusing! "Ai-yi!" she said; but this time her favoriteexpletive was hardly more than a sigh.
"I mind Jim when he first kem to us," she said, more to herself than toEudora, who sat at her feet. The impending tragedy in the family hadrobbed her of all the joy in her suitors. They sat on a bench on theopposite side of the house, divided by the very nature of their interestsyet companions in misery.
"He wuz scarce four, an' yet he had never been broke of the habit ofsucking his thumb. Ef he'd ben my child, I'd a lammed it out'n him beforehe'd a seen two, but seem' he was aged for an infant havin' suchpractices, I tried to shame him out'n it. But, Lord a massy, men folks ishard to shame even at four. I hissed at him like a gyander every time Iseen him do it. Now I'd a knowed better--I'd a sewed it up in a pepperrag."
"What's suckin' his thumb as an infant got to do with his gettin' lynchednow?" demanded Eudora, with the scepticism of the second generation.
"Wait till you-uns has children of your own," sniffed her mother, from theassured position of maternal experience, "an' see the infant that'sallowed to suck its thumb has the makin's in him of a felon or aunfortunit." She rocked a slow accompaniment to her dismal, prophecy.
Eudora's eyes, big with wonder, were fixed on the crouching flank of adistant mountain. Her mother broke the silence. Not often did they speakthus intimately. Old Sally belonged to that class of mothers who feel apride in their reticent dealings with their daughters, and who considerthe management of all affairs of the heart peculiarly the province ofyouth and inexperience.
But to-night she was prompted by a force beyond her ken to speak to thegirl. "Eudory, in pickin' out one of them men," she jerked her thumbtowards the opposite side of the house, "git one tha's clar o' the tricko' stampedin' round other wimming. It's bound to kem back to ye, same ascounterfeit money."
Eudora giggled. She was of an age when the fascinations of curiosity as tothe unknown male animal prompt lavish conjecture. "I 'lowed they allstampeded."
"Yes," leered the old woman--and she grinned the whole horrid length of herempty gums--"the most of 'em does. But you must shet your eyes to it. Themoment they know you swallow it, they's wuthless, like horses that has runaway once."
"Hark!" said Eudora. "Ain't that wheels?"
"It be," answered her mother. "It be that old Ma'am Yellett after hergov'ment."
Judith of the Plains Page 8