The Young Mountaineers

by Craddock, Charles Egbert

  A long pause ensued.

  "M'ria," said the blacksmith meekly to his wife, "hev ye tuk notice how the gyarden truck air a-thrivin'? 'Pears like ter me ez the peas air a-fullin' up consider'ble."

  And so the subject changed.

  He had it on his conscience, however, to explain the matter to the miller. For the second time old Bob Peachin, and the men at the mill, "laffed mightily at dad." And when Ab had recovered sufficiently from the exhaustion attendant upon borrowing a hammer, he "laffed too."

  It was night on Elm Ridge. So black, so black that the great crags and chasms were hidden, the forest was lost in the encompassing gloom, the valley and the distant ranges were gone,-all the world had disappeared.

  There was no wind, and the dark clouds above the dark earth hung low and motionless. Solomon Grow found it something of an undertaking to grope his way back from the little hut of unhewn logs, where he had stabled his father's horse, to the door of the cabin and the home-circle within.

  He fumbled for the latchstring, and pulling it carelessly, the door flew open suddenly, and he almost fell into the room.

  "Why d' ye come a-bustin' in hyar that thar way, Sol?" his mother demanded rather tartly. "Ef ye hed been raised 'mongst the foxes, ye couldn't show less manners."

  "Door slipped out'n my hand," said Sol, a trifle sullenly.

  "Waal-air ye disabled anywhar so ez ye can't shet it, eh?" asked his father, with a touch of sarcasm.

  Sol shut the door, drew up an inverted tub, seated himself upon it, and looked about, loweringly. He thought he had been needlessly affronted. Still, he held his peace.

  Within, there was a great contrast to the black night outside. The ash and hickory logs in the deep fireplace threw blue and yellow flames high up the wide stone chimney. The flickering light was like some genial, cheery smile forever coming and going.

  It illumined the circle about the hearth. There sat Sol's mother, idle to-night, for it was Sunday. His grandmother, too, was there, so old that she seemed to confirm the story told of these healthy mountains, to the effect that people are obliged to go down in the valley to die, else they would live forever.

  There was Sol's father, a great burly fellow, six feet three inches in height, still holding out his hands to the blaze, chilled through and through by his long ride from the church where he had been to hear the circuit-rider preach on "Forgiveness of Injuries."

  He was beginning now to quarrel vehemently with his brother-in-law, Jacob Smith, about the shabby treatment he had recently experienced in the non-payment of work,-for work in this country is a sort of circulating medium; a man will plough a day for another man, on condition that the favor is rigorously reciprocated.

  Jacob Smith had been to the still, and apparently had imbibed the spirit there prevailing, to more effect than Sol's father had absorbed the spirit that had been taught in church.

  In plain words, Jacob Smith was very drunk, and very quarrelsome, and very unreasonable. The genial firelight that played upon his bloated face played also over objects much pleasanter to look upon,-over the strings of red pepper-pods hanging from the rafters; over the bright variegations of color in the clean patchwork quilt on the bed; over the shining pans and pails set aside on the shelf; over the great, curious frame of the warping-bars, rising up among the shadows on the other side of the room, the equidistant pegs still holding the sized yarn that Solomon's mother had been warping, preparatory to weaving.

  On the other side of the room, too, was a little tow-headed child sitting in a cradle, which, small as he was, he had long ago outgrown as a bed.

  It was only a pine box placed upon rude rockers, and he used it for a rocking-chair. His bare, fat legs hung out on one side of the box, and as he delightedly rocked back and forth, his grotesque little shadow waved to and fro on the wall, and mocked and flouted him.

  What he thought of it, nobody can ever know; his grave eyes were fixed upon it, but he said nothing, and the silent shadow and substance swayed joyously hither and thither together.

  The quarrel between the two men was becoming hot and bitter. One might have expected nothing better from Jacob Smith, for when a man is drunk, the human element drops like a husk, and only the unreasoning brute is left.

  But had John Grow forgotten all the good words he had heard to-day from the circuit-rider? Had they melted into thin air during his long ride from the church? Were the houseless good words wandering with the rising wind through the unpeopled forest, seeking vainly a human heart where they might find a lodgment?

  The men had risen from their chairs; the drunkard, tremulous with anger, had drawn a sharp knife. John Grow was not so patient as he might have been, considering the great advantage he had in being sober, and the good words with which he had started out from the "meet'n'-house."

  He laid his heavy hand angrily upon the drunken man's shoulder.

  In another moment there would have been bloodshed. But suddenly the dark shadows at the other end of the room swayed with a strange motion; a great creaking sound arose, and the warping-bars tottered forward and fell upon the floor with a crash.

  The wranglers turned with anxious faces. No one was near the bars, it seemed that naught could have jarred them; but there lay the heavy frame upon the floor, the pegs broken, and the yarn twisted.

  "A warning!" cried Sol's mother. "A warning how you-uns spen' the evenin' o' the Lord's Day in yer quar'lin', an' fightin', an' sech. An' ye, John Grow, jes' from the meet'n'-house!"

  She did not reproach her brother,-nobody hopes anything from a drunkard.

  "A sign o' bad luck," said the grandmother. "It 'minds me o' the time las' winter that the wind blowed the door in, an' straight arter that the cow died."

  "Them signs air ez likely ter take hold on folks ez on cattle," said Jacob Smith, half-sobered by the shock.

  There was a look of sudden anxiety on the face of Solomon's mother. She crossed the room to the youngster rocking in the cradle.

  "Come, Benny," she said, "ye oughter go ter bed. Ye air wastin' yer strength sittin' up this late in the night. An' ye war a-coughin' las' week. Ye must go ter bed."

  Benny clung to his unique rocking-chair with a sturdy strength which promised well for his muscle when he should be as old as his great, strong brother Solomon. He had been as quiet, hitherto, as if he were dumb, but now he lifted up his voice in a loud and poignant wail, and after he was put to bed, he resurrected himself from among the bedclothes, ever and anon, with a bitter, though infantile, jargon of protest.

  "I'm fairly afeard o' them bars," said Mrs. Grow, looking down upon the prostrate timbers. "It's comical that they fell down that-a-way. I hopes 'tain't no sign o' bad luck. I wouldn't hev nothin' ter happen fur nothin'. An' Benny war a-coughin' las' week."

  She had not even the courage to put her fear into words. And she tenderly admonished tow-headed Benny, who was once more getting out of bed, to go to sleep and save his strength, and remember how he was coughing last week.

  "He hed a chicken-bone acrost his throat," said his father. "No wonder he coughed."

  Solomon rose and went out into the black night,-so black that he could not distinguish the sky from the earth, or the unobstructed air from the dense forest around.

  He walked about blindly, dragging something heavily after him. The weight of concealment it was. He knew something that nobody knew besides.

  At the critical moment of the altercation, he had stepped softly among the shadows to the warping-bars,-a strong push had sent the great frame crashing down. He was back in an instant among the others, and by reason of the excitement his agency in the sensation was not detected.

  Like his biblical namesake, Solomon was no fool. Had he been reared in a cultivated community, with the advantages of education, he might have been one of the bright young fellows who manage other young fellows, who control debating societies, who are prominent in mysterious associations, the secret of which is at once guarded and represented by a Cerberus of three Greek letters.


  But, wise as he was, Solomon was not a prophet. He had intended only to effect a diversion, and stop the quarrel. He had had no prevision of the panic of superstition that he had raised in the minds of these simple people; for the ignorant mountaineer is a devout believer in signs and warnings.

  As Solomon wandered about outside, he heard his father stumbling from the door of the house to the barn to see if aught of evil had come to the cow or the horse. He knew how his grandmother's heart was wrung with fear for her heifer, and he could hardly endure to think of his mother's anxieties about Benny.

  No prophetic eye was needed to foresee the terrors that would beset her in the days to come, when she would walk back and forth before the bars, warping the yarn to be woven into cloth for his and Benny's clothes; how she would regard the harmless frame as an uncanny thing, endowed with supernatural powers, and look askance at it, and shrink from touching it; how she would watch for the sign to come true, and tremble lest it come.

  He turned about, dragging and tugging this weight of concealment after him, reentered the house, and sat down beside the fire.

  His uncle Jacob Smith had gone to his own home. The others were telling stories, calculated to make one's hair stand on end, about signs and warnings, and their horrible fulfillment.

  "Granny," said Solomon suddenly.

  "Waal, sonny?" said his grandmother.

  When the eyes of the family group were fixed upon him, Solomon's courage failed.

  "Nothin'," he said hastily. "Nothin' at all."

  "Why, what ails the boy?" exclaimed his mother.

  "I tell ye now, Solomon," said his grandmother, with an emphatic nod, "ye hed better respec' yer elders,-an' a sign in the house!"

  Solomon slept little that night. Toward day he began to dream of the warping-bars. They seemed to develop suddenly into an immense animated monster, from which he only escaped by waking with a sudden start.

  Then he found that a great white morning, full of snow, was breaking upon the black night. And what a world it was now! The mountain was graced with a soft white drapery; on every open space there were vague suggestions of delicate colors: in this hollow lay a tender purple shadow; on that steep slope was an elusive roseate flush, and when you looked again, it was gone, and the glare was blinding.

  The bare black branches of the trees formed strangely interlaced hieroglyphics upon the turquoise sky. The crags were dark and grim, despite their snowy crests and the gigantic glittering icicles that here and there depended from them. A cascade, close by in the gorge, had been stricken motionless and dumb, as if by a sudden spell; and still and silent, it sparkled in the sun.

  The snow lay deep on the roof of the log cabin, and the eaves were decorated with shining icicles. The enchantment had followed the zigzag lines of the fence, and on every rail was its embellishing touch.

  All the homely surroundings were transfigured. The potato-house was a vast white billow, the ash-hopper was a marble vase, and the fodder-stack was a great conical ermine cap, belonging to some mountain giant who had lost it in the wind last night.

  "I mought hev knowed that we-uns war a-goin' ter hev this spell o' weather by the sign o' the warpin'-bars fallin' las' night," said John Grow, stamping off the snow as he came in from feeding his horse.

  "I hope 'tain't no worse sign," said his wife. "But I misdoubts." And she sighed heavily.

  "'Tain't no sign at all," said Solomon suddenly. He could keep his secret no longer. "'Twar me ez flung down them warpin'-bars."

  For a moment they all stared at him in silent amazement.

  "What fur?" demanded his father at last. "Just ter enjye sottin' 'em up agin? I'll teach ye ter fling down warpin'-bars!"

  "Waal," said the peacemaker, hesitating, "it 'peared ter me ez Uncle Jacob Smith war toler'ble drunk,-take him all tergether,-an' ez he hed drawed a knife, I thought that ye an' him hed 'bout quar'led enough. An' so I flung down the warpin'-bars ter git the fuss shet up."

  "Waal, sir!" exclaimed his grandmother, red with wrath. "Ez efmy son couldn't stand up agin all the Smiths that ever stepped! Ye must fling down the warpin'-bars an' twist the spun-truck-fur Jacob Smith!"

  "Look-a-hyar, Sol," said his father gruffly, "'tend ter yerself, an' yer own quar'ls, arter this, will ye!"

  Then, with a sudden humorous interpretation of the incident, he broke into a guffaw. "I hev lived a consider'ble time in this tantalizin' world, an' ez yit I dunno ez I hev hed any need o' Sol ter pertectme ."

  But Sol had unburdened his mind, and felt at ease again; not the less because he knew that but for his novel method of making peace, there might have been something worse than a sign in the house.

  It was a critical moment. There was a stir other than that of the wind among the pine needles and dry leaves that carpeted the ground.

  The wary wild turkeys lifted their long necks with that peculiar cry of half-doubting surprise so familiar to a sportsman, then all was still for an instant.

  The world was steeped in the noontide sunlight, the mountain air tasted of the fresh sylvan fragrance that pervaded the forest, the foliage blazed with the red and gold of autumn, the distant Chilhowee heights were delicately blue.

  That instant's doubt sealed the doom of one of the flock. As the turkeys stood in momentary suspense, the sunlight gilding their bronze feathers to a brighter sheen, there was a movement in the dense undergrowth. The flock took suddenly to wing,-a flash from among the leaves, the sharp crack of a rifle, and one of the birds fell heavily over the bluff and down toward the valley.

  The young mountaineer's exclamation of triumph died in his throat. He came running to the verge of the crag, and looked down ruefully into the depths where his game had disappeared.

  "Waal, sir," he broke forth pathetically, "this beats my time! If my luck ain't enough ter make a horse laugh!"

  He did not laugh, however. Perhaps his luck was calculated to stir only equine risibility. The cliff was almost perpendicular; at the depth of twenty feet a narrow ledge projected, but thence there was a sheer descent, down, down, down, to the tops of the tall trees in the valley far below.

  As Ethan Tynes looked wistfully over the precipice, he started with a sudden surprise. There on the narrow ledge lay the dead turkey.

  The sight sharpened Ethan's regrets. He had made a good shot, and he hated to relinquish his game. While he gazed in dismayed meditation, an idea began to kindle in his brain. Why could he not let himself down to the ledge by those long, strong vines that hung over the edge of the cliff?

  It was risky, Ethan knew,-terribly risky. But then,-if only the vines were strong!

  He tried them again and again with all his might, selected several of the largest, grasped them hard and fast, and then slipped lightly off the crag.

  He waited motionless for a moment. His movements had dislodged clods of earth and fragments of rock from the verge of the cliff, and until these had ceased to rattle about his head and shoulders he did not begin his downward journey.

  Now and then as he went he heard the snapping of twigs, and again a branch would break, but the vines which supported him were tough and strong to the last. Almost before he knew it he stood upon the ledge, and with a great sigh of relief he let the vines swing loose.

  "Waal, that warn't sech a mighty job at last. But law, ef it hed been Peter Birt stid of me, that thar wild tur-r-key would hev laid on this hyar ledge plumb till the Jedgmint Day!"

  He walked deftly along the ledge, picked up the bird, and tied it to one of the vines with a string which he took from his pocket, intending to draw it up when he should be once more on the top of the crag. These preparations complete, he began to think of going back.

  He caught the vines on which he had made the descent, but before he had fairly left the ledge, he felt that they were giving way.

  He paused, let himself slip back to a secure foothold, and tried their strength by pulling with all his force.

  Presently down came the whole mass in his hands. The fri
ction against the sharp edges of the rock over which they had been stretched with a strong tension had worn them through. His first emotion was one of intense thankfulness that they had fallen while he was on the ledge instead of midway in his precarious ascent.

  "Ef they hed kem down whilst I war a-goin' up, I'd hev been flung plumb down ter the bottom o' the valley, 'kase this ledge air too narrer ter hev cotched me."

  He glanced down at the sombre depths beneath. "Thar wouldn't hev been enough left of me ter pick up on a shovel!" he exclaimed, with a tardy realization of his foolish recklessness.

  The next moment a mortal terror seized him. What was to be his fate? To regain the top of the cliff by his own exertions was an impossibility.

  He cast his despairing eyes up the ascent, as sheer and as smooth as a wall, without a crevice which might afford a foothold, or a shrub to which he might cling.

  His strong head was whirling as he again glanced downward to the unmeasured abyss beneath. He softly let himself sink into a sitting posture, his heels dangling over the frightful depths, and addressed himself resolutely to the consideration of the terrible danger in which he was placed.

  [Illustration: HOW LONG WAS IT TO LAST]

  Taken at its best, how long was it to last? Could he look to any human being for deliverance? He reflected with growing dismay that the place was far from any dwelling, and from the road that wound along the ridge.

  There was no errand that could bring a man to this most unfrequented portion of the deep woods, unless an accident should hither direct some hunter's step.

  It was quite possible, nay, probable, that years might elapse before the forest solitude would again be broken by human presence.

  His brothers would search for him when he should be missed from home,-but such boundless stretches of forest! They might search for weeks and never come near this spot. He would die here, he would starve,-no, he would grow drowsy when exhausted and fall-fall-fall!