It was clearing colder after the night’s rain; the broken clouds, as they sailed over, gleamed against a brilliant sky; the air was like wine. Leaves from the painted forest went swirling out across the valley, borne on the wind almost to the flying clouds. On such a morning every one must needs be astir on one pretext or another, and a crowd soon gathered at the Top, each man babbling of a theory and a plan of procedure that conflicted with all the others. The road was blocked with ox and mule teams and “tar-grinder” wagons, some laden with “spun-truck,” fruit, and logs on the way to the valley, others coming up with lumber, “roughness” from lowland fields, and manufactured articles from Macklimore’s shops; for not a soul was able to drive past the scene of so notable a robbery.
Hours were spent in discussion and argument before the blacksmith broke the lock of the box and the worst was known. Noah Chadwick was one of those old-fashioned people who distrust banks. He had long contemplated hiding his hoard as had his father before him, under some boulder in the breaks of the creek; but he had put the day off too long. Now, stunned by the knowledge that he was robbed, the old man simply cowered, shrunk into a heap on a cracker-box, his face drawn, his arms shaking, and allowed his neighbors as they assembled to offer consolation or encouragement unheeded. He would not be roused even by suggestions for borrowing the county bloodhounds or sending for the neighborhood wizard, who divined secret waters and treasures by means of a wand or a cup and ring.
“I’m a’ old man and a little man,” he shrieked once in a high, febrile voice of impotent rage, “but I can kill the sneakin’ hound that stole my money!” and he felt the emptiness of the threat even as it was uttered.
His wife walked to and fro, whimpering, “Oh, I wisht Rosabel was at home. She’d know what to say to her pap if anybody could.” She was not thinking of his loss or her own, although she had toiled as heavily as her husband for the slow accumulation of the lost two thousands. “Oh, Rose might understand how to ease his mind! I do wisht she was here!”
“Where’s she at?” inquired a sympathizing woman whose hands were still pink from washing breakfast dishes.
“She went to stay all day with her uncle’s folks. Oh, I wisht—”
“Some of you’ns ketch out my ol’ Soapstick and go a’ter her,” proposed the other. And a lad was ready with a neighbor’s buckboard to go in search of Chadwick’s daughter, when a shout went up from the small-boy contingent watching by the roadside, and she and Cairo came in sight, driving up the corduroy road in a cart hired from Macklimore.
Questions were called excitedly down the steep approach as the pair ascended; but Cairo merely laughed, and waved his hand. On reaching the store, he leaped to the ground, passed the file of waiting teams, and hurried in without a word.
“Cairo,” the blacksmith hailed him as he entered, “do you know—know anything about this here calamity?”
“What time did you leave the store yesterday?” asked another.
He replied to the latter: “Right after I was fired.”
“Fired, was ye? How much money did you take out?”
“Five dollars that was comin’ to me,” answered Cairo.
“Yes, I let him have that,” corroborated Mrs. Chadwick, “and he went right off, too. Oh, Cairo, he’p me and pap to find out—” Her face crinkled distressfully.
“I will; don’t worry,” he bade her, a reassuring seriousness and warmth coming into his tones.
“You didn’t have no more here your own self?” pursued the smith.
“Naw; I had thirty dollars in a safer place.” He lounged against the elbow-polished counter. “I jist ’lowed this store might wake up some morning and find its cash gone.”
“What fur?”
“Well, I been with Cephas Plank long enough to know in reason what he’d be apt to do whenever Rosebud turned him down.”
At these sensational words, the circle swayed and jostled, while a tremendous chattering and whispering went up from the outer group of shawled and aproned women.
“Shoo!” The smith was first to recover himself. “You ain’t got nothing to go on—that’s jist your guess.”
“That was all at first; but I noticed him git some things together yestidy that he wouldn’t ’a’ needed without he was goin’ away; and I judged, too, that he’d whirl in and do some devilment whenever I wasn’t here to sort o’ keep a eye on him.”
“Why in time couldn’t ye ’a’ said something about it, seein’ ye knowed so much?”
“I did try to,” explained Cairo equably, “and Mr. Chadwick wouldn’t listen to me. He got so mad, I looked for him to throw me over the bluff.”
He had missed the psychological moment for this laughing disclosure. The circle narrowed perceptibly; the men growled in their bearded throats, not half liking his light-heartedness.
“Maybe you know more ’n you’ve told.”
“Maybe I do.”
“Was it Cephas, then, sure ’nough?”
“Sure ’nough, hit was.”
“Know where he’s gone, do ye?”
“He’s half-way to the Indi’n Nation by now.”
Chadwick groaned, and got to his feet. “You holped him git away!” he groaned. “You ought to be hung in his place! You knowed all the time, and you let him git away with every cent I got! I’ll see what the law—”
“Oh, no; he didn’t git away with a cent o’ your’n,” pronounced Cairo deliberately. “Hit’s all right out yender in the buggy with my wife.”
“In the buggy—with your wife!”
“You didn’t think we was goin’ to stand around waitin’ for your say, after you’d done told us we wouldn’t git hit? We was married at her uncle’s house this morning.”
The little bride was already tiptoeing on the threshold, and now ran forward as the folk made way. “Don’t feel so bad, pappy,” she pleaded, reaching toward him a carefully tied packet. “Take ’n’ count the money—look, hit’s all here. Don’t be mad at us; don’t, pappy, will ye?”
Chadwick looked into her sweet, flushed face for a moment before he took the packet from her outstretched hand. “No, I won’t be mad, honey,” he said at last, slowly. “And—and don’t you and him be mad at me. A man ort not to hold to all the contentious things he says, and—Cairo, ef the money’s here—and hit is—why you and her’ll have enough out of hit to start ye to housekeepin’. You will, won’t ye?—something for Rose? I always aimed, whenever she got married—”
“I’m proud to,” said his son-in-law heartily.
On each dour and stolid mountaineer face approval struggled forth like the sun through clouds. Every watcher drew breath as the package was opened and found to contain the money and every least security that Cephas had deemed negotiable. Rosabel and her mother were crying and laughing in each other’s arms.
“Well, hit’s my treat, boys.” Noah came to himself as he closed his strong-box on its wonted contents. “And I ain’t got a thing but cider, so I cain’t ax y’uns what you’ll have.”
He turned to the counter. “Some of you boys make on a fire. Cairo, you he’p me about these here glasses and cups; and say, Cairo, wait a’ hour or so and I’ll ride back down to Macklimore with ye, and he’p ye git your things. I cain’t do no business to-day. Let’s all turn in and give this here couple a ch’ivari.”
twelve
Enchanter’s Nightshade
From The Craftsman 22 (July 1912): 387–97
“Enchanter’s Nightshade” is a story of male sibling rivalry over two young women—demure Fedelma, already married to older brother Ransom, and vivacious Callista, clearly attracted to younger brother Atlas. But in a sparsely populated mountain community, a young person may have eyes for someone else’s mate during the typically short courtship period. Such is the case with these four. Jealousy escalates into a fight between the two brothers, and only through the women’s intervention is serious violence prevented. The “enchanter’s nightshade” of the title is a plant associated in mytholog
y with the magic of the enchantress Circe. The luminous plant, along with a bit of mountain whiskey, seems to have cast an evil spell on the young people, but their natural goodness ultimately prevails. Miles’s desire for a happy ending and a moral lesson is evident in the denouement of the story.
. . .
At a merrymaking in Caney’s Cove two brothers were dancing. They were both in the early twenties, blond, well formed and agile. They had been known as “them good-lookin’ Reedy boys” before they were grown, and although demure Fedelma had married the elder a year ago, the maidens pressing their best plumage softly together in the doorway whispered to each other, “Ain’t he straight!” as Ransom took the floor, even while all their arts were directed toward attracting the still eligible Atlas. Ransom was a smaller and finer edition of his younger brother; he had clearer features, bluer eyes, and fair hair curling close to the scalp where Atlas’ mop was sandy.
Ransom’s partner of the moment was, as it happened, the very girl whom Atlas had brought to the gathering—Callie Drane, a girl large for her age, whose vivid coloring and thick waving hair bespoke abundant vitality. With a grace like that of a wild creature she bounded to meet the young fellow in the middle of the ring; her eyes and her teeth gleamed as she gave him her hand, unconscious of the strength of its clasp. Catching the air from the banjos, she began to sing as she danced.
“The ficety thing,” murmured some of the women. But others took up the melody, a native composition, and carried it all together:
“Some days seem dark and dreary, As though it was likely to rain;
Some clouds may float to center,
My love has gone off on the train.
“Oh it’s hard to be bound in prison,
It’s hard to be bound in jail!
To see iron bars around you,
And no one to go your bail!”
Callie moved to and fro lightly, her head high, her mouth well open, her face full of light, the song rippling from her throat as limpid and fresh as a streamlet from a mountain spring.
Her very antithesis was Fedelma, sitting mute and motionless by the wall. The bride of a year was not dancing this set, preferring, out of sheer pride in his appearance, to keep her soft dark gaze on her young husband. They were late in arriving because she had stopped to sew a patch inside the collar of his best shirt. Despite the meek grace of her neck and smooth brown head, she heard and rather resented the whispers; and at Callista’s too eager advance she half-rose with a smothered exclamation. A little later she stood up, turning her head from side to side uneasily.
To a would-be partner she replied confusedly, “No—I—jist ’lowed to get me a drink; it’s hot in here,” and slipped out under the tranquil stars.
She had kept a beautiful secret to tell Ransom tonight; but something, some careless word of his, had postponed the telling until they should find themselves alone on the homeward road, and now—“I won’t tell him a-tall!” she whispered fiercely, threading her aimless way through the undergrowth. “I jist won’t! That big tomboy Callie—she came right into his eyes with that look o’ hers, and he let her in—he let her in!. . . . They act as if they knowed something I don’t.” Her throat ached with rising sobs. “They used to go together, didn’t they? No telling but they think of each other still!”
Her feet found themselves in the spring path. Wishing only to be alone until this unwonted flood of feeling could spend itself, she went slowly down the hill and seated herself on the puncheon bench, placed there for the support of washtubs. Before her, in the white moonlight, stood Bivins’ springhouse, its walls of heavy logs and stones crossed by a delicate vine whose leaves and clustered berries showed translucent. Having once noticed, she could not take her eyes from the exquisite thing. The moon was mounting into the sky; she heard the whispered counsel of the leaves like a warning, and the night’s heavy moisture spilling from leaf to leaf. A faint pattering footfall rustled in the thicket. She felt so afraid of the lonely woods that she ceased crying, and leaned forward as if to rise; but she sat on, looking at the pretty slender vine, wishing she had not come here or to Bivins’ dance, yet perversely assuring herself that, if Ransom were really bent on reviving an old affair, nothing else could matter to him or to her.
A heavy, tramping step and a splash roused her from the mood into which she had fallen. She rose now and stood, a white slim shape in the cavern of shadow beneath the big tupelo that overarched Mam Bivins’ washplace.
The newcomer was Atlas. “Hello! what you doin’ here, Delma?” he asked, surprised. As she made no answer, he entered the springhouse, dipped his bucket and began fumbling along the walls. “Do they keep ary gourd here, that you known of?” he inquired, reappearing in the moon-drenched doorway.
“I don’t know,” she answered mournfully, speaking with an effort over the lump in her throat.
Replying to the tone instead of the words, he came toward her. In the moonlight she saw his honest face touched with concern, its big brows wrinkling together. “Is the’ anything the matter? Does Ransom know you’re here all by yourself?”
In the darkness she found his soft Southern bass inexpressibly comforting.
“I—jist wanted a drink.” And out of pure pique she added, “He don’t hafto know every step I take, does he?”
He answered with a little laugh that meant nothing except the blessed readiness of youth for laughter. “Let’s git us a drink, if we can find a gourd.”
She caught the quick spurt of a lighted match, an ejaculation as its snapped-off head hissed in the water. To the mountain girl there was a fascinating masculine recklessness in this dashing waste of matches.
He struck another, and looking up over its glow in the cup of his hollowed palms, found her face crowned with its wreath of jade and coral unexpectedly close to his own in the doorway, and smiled.
Fedelma drew back. “Well, there ain’t a thing here to drink out of except that big wooden bucket,” she exclaimed petulantly.
“Would ye take my hat?” he proffered, scooping a drink in its felt brim.
She drank and thanked him, but did not at once set off toward the house. Something in the deferential gesture with which he waited on her, some vibration in his voice, filled her with a sudden overwhelming curiosity as to how he would make love. She wondered, with a thrill of terror at her own daring, what were the deepest and tenderest notes of his voice, what the falling, hovering motions of his broad hands. One man’s wooing she knew by heart; could there be another as sweet?—But was that, perhaps, Ransom’s feeling about Callie? The racking anger came welling up again; and before she was aware it rose to words.
“Atlas, what makes you go with Callie Drane?”
He laughed again, a rich, pleasant chuckle. “Don’t you like her?”
“Oh—she thinks too much of herself, I b’lieve! Whatever makes you—?” She checked herself, realizing that her speech was open to misinterpretation.
“Why—because I couldn’t git you, I reckon.” It was an absurd compliment, awkwardly turned; but finding Ransom’s wife so unlike her usual shy and gentle self had gone to his head a little.
“Oh, shuh! You and me—” She really hardly knew what to say, “You and me ain’t never went together enough to—to—to make you talk like that.”
“Why—” He made a gesture of protest. “You remember the Three Springs picnic, don’t ye?”
Of course she did, but she had never been sure till now that it was worth remembering. Had he meant it, then—all the play of that merry time? Her pulses quickened; she stood silent, lovely and alluring in the dusk of the perfumed woods. The red berries in her hair seemed to burn like a desire.
They moved forward together, and Atlas, knocking accidentally against a sapling, brought down a shower of starry drops from the branches all over her.
She gave a little shriek, and then laughed, dancing ahead under the moving shadows of the foliage, bent upon reprisal. Tiny drops like diamond dust glittered on the stray curls ove
r her forehead, and on the leaves and berries of her wreath, twinkling with the tremor of her laughter.
Atlas stopped, his hands closing into fists. They stood facing each other, eyes answering eyes with something roused and dangerous. He recovered himself by an effort and drew back a step.
“You goin’ back to the house?” he suggested, taking up the bucket of water.
She trembled, balanced, hesitated—then compromised, “Not yit a while.” How far she had drifted from this morning’s austere joy in her secret, after the nights of terror and doubt!
Atlas set down the pail. “Then shall I stay too?” He came and bent over her. “Do ye want me—to—stay with you—Delma?”
She did not look up, as she made room for him beside her on Mam Bivins’ bench:—“only don’t ye forget, Atlas Reedy, that I’m a married woman!”
“I won’t if you don’t,” he laughed, fanning her with the hat she had drank from. Something in her fragility and helplessness moved him in a different way from Callie’s robust buoyance. He could not deny that he liked doing little things for Delma.
From the house up the hill the music of banjos came pulsing out upon the ancient night, powerful with associations to those two—a music indigenous to the soil as the scarlet-berried vine.
“I have a great ship on the ocean,
All lined with silver and gold;
And before my true lover shall suffer,
My ship shall be anchored and sold.
“If I had the wings of an eagle,
Or either the wings of a dove,
I’d fly over mountain and rivers,
And rest in the arms of my love.”
Of a sudden her face crinkled miserably. “I reckon Ransom’s done forgot it already.”
The Common Lot and Other Stories Page 20