A Knight of the Cumberland

by John Fox

  VI. THE GREAT DAY

  It was a day to make glad the heart of slave or freeman. The earth wascool from a night-long rain, and a gentle breeze fanned coolnessfrom the north all day long. The clouds were snow-white, tumbling,ever-moving, and between them the sky showed blue and deep. Grass, leaf,weed and flower were in the richness that comes to the green things ofthe earth just before that full tide of summer whose foam is driftingthistle down. The air was clear and the mountains seemed to have brushedthe haze from their faces and drawn nearer that they, too, might bettersee the doings of that day.

  From the four winds of heaven, that morning, came the brave and thefree. Up from Lee, down from Little Stone Gap, and from over in Scott,came the valley-farmers--horseback, in buggies, hacks, two-horse wagons,with wives, mothers, sisters, sweethearts, in white dresses, floweredhats, and many ribbons, and with dinner-baskets stuffed with good thingsto eat--old ham, young chicken, angel-cake and blackberry wine--to bespread in the sunless shade of great poplar and oak. From Bum Hollow andWildcat Valley and from up the slopes that lead to Cracker's Neck camesmaller tillers of the soil--as yet but faintly marked by the gewgawtrappings of the outer world; while from beyond High Knob, whose crownis in cloud-land, and through the Gap, came the mountaineer in theprimitive simplicity of home spun and cowhide, wide-brimmed hat andpoke-bonnet, quaint speech, and slouching gait. Through the Gap he camein two streams--the Virginians from Crab Orchard and Wise and Dickinson,the Kentuckians from Letcher and feudal Harlan, beyond the BigBlack--and not a man carried a weapon in sight, for the stern spirit ofthat Police Guard at the Gap was respected wide and far. Into the town,which sits on a plateau some twenty feet above the level of the tworivers that all but encircle it, they poured, hitching their horses inthe strip of woods that runs through the heart of the place, and broadens into a primeval park that, fan-like, opens on the oval level fieldwhere all things happen on the Fourth of July. About the street theyloitered--lovers hand in hand--eating fruit and candy and drinkingsoda-water, or sat on the curb-stone, mothers with babies at theirbreasts and toddling children clinging close--all waiting for thecelebration to begin.

  It was a great day for the Hon. Samuel Budd. With a cheery smile andbeaming goggles, he moved among his constituents, joking with yokels,saying nice things to mothers, paying gallantries to girls, and chuckingbabies under the chin. He felt popular and he was--so popular that hehad begun to see himself with prophetic eye in a congressional seat atno distant day; and yet, withal, he was not wholly happy.

  "Do you know," he said, "them fellers I made bets with in the tournamentgot together this morning and decided, all of 'em, that they wouldn'tlet me off? Jerusalem, it's most five hundred dollars!" And, lookingthe picture of dismay, he told me his dilemma. It seems that his "darkhorse" was none other than the Wild Dog, who had been practising at homefor this tournament for nearly a year; and now that the Wild Dog was anoutlaw, he, of course, wouldn't and couldn't come to the Gap. And saidthe Hon. Sam Budd:

  "Them fellers says I bet I'd BRING IN a dark horse who would win thistournament, and if I don't BRING him in, I lose just the same as thoughI had brought him in and he hadn't won. An' I reckon they've got me."

  "I guess they have."

  "It would have been like pickin' money off a blackberry-bush, for I wasgoin' to let the Wild Dog have that black horse o' mine--the steadiestand fastest runner in this country--and my, how that fellow can pick offthe rings! He's been a-practising for a year, and I believe he could runthe point o' that spear of his through a lady's finger-ring."

  "You'd better get somebody else."

  "Ah--that's it. The Wild Dog sent word he'd send over another feller,named Dave Branham, who has been practising with him, who's just asgood, he says, as he is. I'm looking for him at twelve o'clock, an' I'mgoin' to take him down an' see what he can do on that black horse o'mine. But if he's no good, I lose five hundred, all right," and hesloped away to his duties. For it was the Hon. Sam who was masterof ceremonies that day. He was due now to read the Declaration ofIndependence in a poplar grove to all who would listen; he was to act asumpire at the championship base-ball game in the afternoon, and he wasto give the "Charge" to the assembled knights before the tournament.

  At ten o'clock the games began--and I took the Blight and the littlesister down to the "grandstand"--several tiers of backless benches withleaves for a canopy and the river singing through rhododendrons behind.There was jumping broad and high, and a 100-yard dash and hurdling andthrowing the hammer, which the Blight said were not interesting--theywere too much like college sports--and she wanted to see the base-ballgame and the tournament. And yet Marston was in them all--dogged andresistless--his teeth set and his eyes anywhere but lifted toward theBlight, who secretly proud, as I believed, but openly defiant, mentionednot his name even when he lost, which was twice only.

  "Pretty good, isn't he?" I said.

  "Who?" she said indifferently.

  "Oh, nobody," I said, turning to smile, but not turning quickly enough.

  "What's the matter with you?" asked the Blight sharply.

  "Nothing, nothing at all," I said, and straightway the Blight thoughtshe wanted to go home. The thunder of the Declaration was still rumblingin the poplar grove.

  "That's the Hon. Sam Budd," I said.

  "Don't you want to hear him?"

  "I don't care who it is and I don't want to hear him and I think you arehateful."

  Ah, dear me, it was more serious than I thought. There weretears in her eyes, and I led the Blight and the little sisterhome--conscience-stricken and humbled. Still I would find that youngjackanapes of an engineer and let him know that anybody who made theBlight unhappy must deal with me. I would take him by the neck and poundsome sense into him. I found him lofty, uncommunicative, perfectly aliento any consciousness that I could have any knowledge of what was goingor any right to poke my nose into anybody's business--and I did nothingexcept go back to lunch--to find the Blight upstairs and the littlesister indignant with me.

  "You just let them alone," she said severely.

  "Let who alone?" I said, lapsing into the speech of childhood.

  "You--just--let--them--alone," she repeated.

  "I've already made up my mind to that."

  "Well, then!" she said, with an air of satisfaction, but why I don'tknow.

  I went back to the poplar grove. The Declaration was over and the crowdwas gone, but there was the Hon. Samuel Budd, mopping his brow withone hand, slapping his thigh with the other, and all but executing apigeon-wing on the turf. He turned goggles on me that literally shonetriumph.

  "He's come--Dave Branham's come!" he said. "He's better than the WildDog. I've been trying him on the black horse and, Lord, how he can takethem rings off! Ha, won't I get into them fellows who wouldn't let meoff this morning! Oh, yes, I agreed to bring in a dark horse, and I'llbring him in all right. That five hundred is in my clothes now. You seethat point yonder? Well, there's a hollow there and bushes all around.That's where I'm going to dress him. I've got his clothes all right anda name for him. This thing is a-goin' to come off accordin' to Hoyle,Ivanhoe, Four-Quarters-of-Beef, and all them mediaeval fellows. Justwatch me!"

  I began to get newly interested, for that knight's name I suddenlyrecalled. Little Buck, the Wild Dog's brother, had mentioned him, whenwe were over in the Kentucky hills, as practising with the Wild Dog--asbeing "mighty good, but nowhar 'longside o' Mart." So the Hon. Sam mighthave a good substitute, after all, and being a devoted disciple of SirWalter, I knew his knight would rival, in splendor, at least, any thatrode with King Arthur in days of old.

  The Blight was very quiet at lunch, as was the little sister, and myeffort to be jocose was a lamentable failure. So I gave news.

  "The Hon. Sam has a substitute." No curiosity and no question.

  "Who--did you say? Why, Dave Branham, a friend of the Wild Dog. Don'tyou remember Buck telling us about him?" No answer. "Well, I do--and,by the way, I saw Buck and one of the big sisters just a wh
ile ago. Hername is Mollie. Dave Branham, you will recall, is her sweetheart. Theother big sister had to stay at home with her mother and little Cindy,who's sick. Of course, I didn't ask them about Mart--the Wild Dog. Theyknew I knew and they wouldn't have liked it. The Wild Dog's around, Iunderstand, but he won't dare show his face. Every policeman in town ison the lookout for him." I thought the Blight's face showed a signal ofrelief.

  "I'm going to play short-stop," I added.

  "Oh!" said the Blight, with a smile, but the little sister said withsome scorn:

  "You!"

  "I'll show you," I said, and I told the Blight about base-ball at theGap. We had introduced base-ball into the region and the valley boysand mountain boys, being swift runners, throwing like a rifle shot fromconstant practice with stones, and being hard as nails, caught the gamequickly and with great ease. We beat them all the time at first, but nowthey were beginning to beat us. We had a league now, and this was thechampionship game for the pennant.

  "It was right funny the first time we beat a native team. Of course, wegot together and cheered 'em. They thought we were cheering ourselves,so they got red in the face, rushed together and whooped it up forthemselves for about half an hour."

  The Blight almost laughed.

  "We used to have to carry our guns around with us at first when we wentto other places, and we came near having several fights."

  "Oh!" said the Blight excitedly. "Do you think there might be a fightthis afternoon?"

  "Don't know," I said, shaking my head. "It's pretty hard for eighteenpeople to fight when nine of them are policemen and there are forty morearound. Still the crowd might take a hand."

  This, I saw, quite thrilled the Blight and she was in good spirits whenwe started out.

  "Marston doesn't pitch this afternoon," I said to the little sister. "Heplays first base. He's saving himself for the tournament. He's done toomuch already." The Blight merely turned her head while I was speaking."And the Hon. Sam will not act as umpire. He wants to save hisvoice--and his head."

  The seats in the "grandstand" were in the sun now, so I left thegirls in a deserted band-stand that stood on stilts under trees on thesouthern side of the field, and on a line midway between third base andthe position of short-stop. Now there is no enthusiasm in any sport thatequals the excitement aroused by a rural base-ball game and I neversaw the enthusiasm of that game outdone except by the excitement of thetournament that followed that afternoon. The game was close andMarston and I assuredly were stars--Marston one of the first magnitude."Goose-egg" on one side matched "goose-egg" on the other until the endof the fifth inning, when the engineer knocked a home-run. Spectatorsthrew their hats into the trees, yelled themselves hoarse, and I sawseveral old mountaineers who understood no more of base-ball than of thelost _digamma_ in Greek going wild with the general contagion. Duringthese innings I had "assisted" in two doubles and had fired in three"daisy cutters" to first myself in spite of the guying I got from theopposing rooters.

  "Four-eyes" they called me on account of my spectacles until a newnickname came at the last half of the ninth inning, when we were inthe field with the score four to three in our favor. It was then thata small, fat boy with a paper megaphone longer than he was waddled outalmost to first base and levelling his trumpet at me, thundered out in asudden silence:

  "Hello, Foxy Grandpa!" That was too much. I got rattled, and when therewere three men on bases and two out, a swift grounder came to me, Ifell--catching it--and threw wildly to first from my knees. I heardshouts of horror, anger, and distress from everywhere and my own heartstopped beating--I had lost the game--and then Marston leaped in theair--surely it must have been four feet--caught the ball with his lefthand and dropped back on the bag. The sound of his foot on it and therunner's was almost simultaneous, but the umpire said Marston's wasthere first. Then bedlam! One of my brothers was umpire and the captainof the other team walked threateningly out toward him, followed by twoof his men with base-ball bats. As I started off myself towards them Isaw, with the corner of my eye, another brother of mine start in a runfrom the left field, and I wondered why a third, who was scoring, satperfectly still in his chair, particularly as a well-known, red-headedtough from one of the mines who had been officiously antagonistic rantoward the pitcher's box directly in front of him. Instantly a dozen ofthe guard sprang toward it, some man pulled his pistol, a billy crackedstraightway on his head, and in a few minutes order was restored. Andstill the brother scoring hadn't moved from his chair, and I spoke tohim hotly.

  "Keep your shirt on," he said easily, lifting his score-card with hisleft hand and showing his right clinched about his pistol under it.

  "I was just waiting for that red-head to make a move. I guess I'd havegot him first."

  I walked back to the Blight and the little sister and both of themlooked very serious and frightened.

  "I don't think I want to see a real fight, after all," said the Blight."Not this afternoon."

  It was a little singular and prophetic, but just as the words left herlips one of the Police Guard handed me a piece of paper.

  "Somebody in the crowd must have dropped it in my pocket," he said. Onthe paper were scrawled these words:

  "_Look out for the Wild Dog!_"

  I sent the paper to Marston.