The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come
Page 7
CHAPTER 7.
A FRIEND ON THE ROAD
Rain fell that night--gentle rain and warm, for the south wind rose atmidnight. At four o clock a shower made the shingles over Chad rattlesharply, but without wakening the lad, and then the rain ceased; andwhen Chad climbed stiffly from his loft--the world was drenched andstill, and the dawn was warm, for spring had come that morning, andChad trudged along the road--unchilled. Every now and then he had tostop to rest his foot. Now and then he would see people gettingbreakfast ready in the farm-houses that he passed, and, though hislittle belly was drawn with pain, he would not stop and ask forsomething to eat--for he did not want to risk another rebuff. The sunrose and the light leaped from every wet blade of grass and burstingleaf to meet it--leaped as though flashing back gladness that thespring was come. For a little while Chad forgot his hunger and forgothis foot--like the leaf and grass-blade his stout heart answered withgladness, too, and he trudged on.
Meanwhile, far behind him, an old carriage rolled out of a big yard andstarted toward him and toward Lexington. In the driver's seat was anold gray-haired, gray-bearded negro with knotty hands and a kindlyface; while, on the oval shaped seat behind the lumbering old vehicle,sat a little darky with his bare legs dangling down. In the carriagesat a man who might have been a stout squire straight from merryEngland, except that there was a little tilt to the brim of his slouchhat that one never sees except on the head of a Southerner, and in hisstrong, but easy, good-natured mouth was a pipe of corn-cob with a longcane stem. The horses that drew him were a handsome pair of halfthoroughbreds, and the old driver, with his eyes half closed, looked asthough, even that early in the morning, he were dozing. An hour later,the pike ran through an old wooden-covered bridge, to one side of whicha road led down to the water, and the old negro turned the carriage tothe creek to let his horses drink. The carriage stood still in themiddle of the stream and presently the old driver turned his head:"Mars Cal!" he called in a low voice. The Major raised his head. Theold negro was pointing with his whip ahead and the Major saw somethingsitting on the stone fence, some twenty yards beyond, which stirred himsharply from his mood of contemplation.
"Shades of Dan'l Boone!" he said, softly. It was a miniaturepioneer--the little still figure watching him solemnly and silently.Across the boy's lap lay a long rifle--the Major could see that it hada flintlock--and on his tangled hair was a coonskin cap--the scalpabove his steady dark eyes and the tail hanging down the lad's neck.And on his feet were--moccasins! The carriage moved out of the streamand the old driver got down to hook the check-reins over the shiningbit of metal that curved back over the little saddles to which theboy's eyes had swiftly strayed. Then they came back to the Major.
"Howdye!" said Chad.
"Good-mornin', little man," said the Major pleasantly, and Chad knewstraightway that he had found a friend. But there was silence. Chadscanned the horses and the strange vehicle and the old driver and thelittle pickaninny who, hearing the boy's voice, had stood up on hisseat and was grinning over one of the hind wheels, and then his eyesrested on the Major with a simple confidence and unconscious appealthat touched the Major at once.
"Are you goin' my way?" The Major's nature was too mellow andeasy-going to pay any attention to final g's. Chad lifted his old gunand pointed up the road.
"I'm a-goin' thataway."
"Well, don't you want to ride?"
"Yes," he said, simply.
"Climb right in, my boy."
So Chad climbed in, and, holding the old rifle upright between hisknees, he looked straight forward, in silence, while the Major studiedhim with a quiet smile.
"Where are you from, little man?"
"I come from the mountains."
"The mountains?" said the Major.
The Major had fished and hunted in the mountains, and somewhere in thatunknown region he owned a kingdom of wild mountain-land, but he knew aslittle about the people as he knew about the Hottentots, and caredhardly more.
"What are you doin' up here?"
"I'm goin' home," said Chad.
"How did you happen to come away?"
"Oh, I been wantin' to see the settleMINTS."
"The settleMINTS," echoed the Major, and then he understood. Herecalled having heard the mountaineers call the Bluegrass region the"settlemints" before.
"I come down on a raft with Dolph and Tom and Rube and the Squire andthe school-teacher, an' I got lost in Frankfort. They've gone on, Ireckon, an' I'm tryin' to ketch 'em."
"What will you do if you don't?"
"Foller'em," said Chad, sturdily.
"Does your father live down in the mountains?"
"No," said Chad, shortly.
The Major looked at the lad gravely.
"Don't little boys down in the mountains ever say sir to their elders?"
"No," said Chad. "No, sir," he added gravely and the Major broke into apleased laugh--the boy was quick as lightning.
"I ain't got no daddy. An' no mammy--I ain't got--nothin'." It was saidquite simply, as though his purpose merely was not to sail under falsecolors, and the Major's answer was quick and apologetic:
"Oh!" he said, and for a moment there was silence again. Chad watchedthe woods, the fields, and the cattle, the strange grain growing abouthim, and the birds and the trees. Not a thing escaped his keen eye,and, now and then, he would ask a question which the Major would answerwith some surprise and wonder. His artless ways pleased the old fellow.
"You haven't told me your name."
"You hain't axed me."
"Well, I axe you now," laughed the Major, but Chad saw nothing to laughat.
"Chad," he said.
"Chad what?"
Now it had always been enough in the mountains, when anybody asked hisname, for him to answer simply--Chad. He hesitated now and his browwrinkled as though he were thinking hard.
"I don't know," said Chad.
"What? Don't know your own name?" The boy looked up into the Major'sface with eyes that were so frank and unashamed and at the same time sovaguely troubled that the Major was abashed.
"Of course not," he said kindly, as though it were the most naturalthing in the world that a boy should not know his own name. Presentlythe Major said, reflectively:
"Chadwick."
"Chad," corrected the boy.
"Yes, I know"; and the Major went on thinking that Chadwick happened tobe an ancestral name in his own family.
Chad's brow was still wrinkled--he was trying to think what old NathanCherry used to call him.
"I reckon I hain't thought o' my name since I left old Nathan," hesaid. Then he told briefly about the old man, and lifting his lame footsuddenly, he said: "Ouch!" The Major looked around and Chad explained:
"I hurt my foot comin' down the river an' hit got wuss walkin' somuch." The Major noticed then that the boy's face was pale, and thatthere were dark hollows under his eyes, but it never occurred to himthat the lad was hungry, for, in the Major's land, nobody ever wenthungry for long. But Chad was suffering now and he leaned back in hisseat and neither talked nor looked at the passing fields. By and by, hespied a crossroads store.
"I wonder if I can't git somethin' to eat in that store."
The Major laughed: "You ain't gettin' hungry so soon, are you? You musthave eaten breakfast pretty early."
"I ain't had no breakfast--an' I didn't hev no supper last night."
"What?" shouted the Major.
Chad stated the fact with brave unconcern, but his lip quiveredslightly--he was weak.
"Well, I reckon we'll get something to eat there whether they've gotanything or not."
And then Chad explained, telling the story of his walk from Frankfort.The Major was amazed that anybody could have denied the boy food andlodging.
"Who were they, Tom?" he asked
The old driver turned:
"They was some po' white trash down on Cane Creek, I reckon, suh.Must'a' been." There was a slight contempt in the negro's words thatmade Chad think of
hearing the Turners call the Dillons whitetrash--though they never said "po' white trash."
"Oh!" said the Major. So the carriage stopped, and when a man in ablack slouch hat came out, the Major called:
"Jim, here's a boy who ain't had anything to eat for twenty-four hours.Get him a cup of coffee right away, and I reckon you've got some coldham handy."
"Yes, indeed, Major," said Jim, and he yelled to a negro girl who wasstanding on the porch of his house behind the store.
Chad ate ravenously and the Major watched him with genuine pleasure.When the boy was through, he reached in his pocket and brought out hisold five-dollar bill, and the Major laughed aloud and patted him on thehead.
"You can't pay for anything while you are with me, Chad."
The whole earth wore a smile when they started out again. The swellinghills had stretched out into gentler slopes. The sun was warm, theclouds were still, and the air was almost drowsy. The Major's eyesclosed and everything lapsed into silence. That was a wonderful ridefor Chad. It was all true, just as the school-master had told him; thebig, beautiful houses he saw now and then up avenues of blossominglocusts; the endless stone fences, the whitewashed barns, the woodlandsand pastures; the meadow-larks flitting in the sunlight and singingeverywhere; fluting, chattering blackbirds, and a strange new blackbird with red wings, at which Chad wondered very much, as he watched itbalancing itself against the wind and singing as it poised. Everythingseemed to sing in that wonderful land. And the seas of bluegrassstretching away on every side, with the shadows of clouds passing inrapid succession over them, like mystic floating islands--and never amountain in sight. What a strange country it was.
"Maybe some of your friends are looking for you in Frankfort," said theMajor.
"No, sir, I reckon not," said Chad--for the man at the station had toldhim that the men who had asked about him were gone.
"All of them?" asked the Major.
Of course, the man at the station could not tell whether all of themhad gone, and perhaps the school-master had stayed behind--it was CalebHazel if anybody.
"Well, now, I wonder," said Chad--"the school-teacher might'a' stayed."
Again the two lapsed into silence--Chad thinking very hard. He mightyet catch the school-master in Lexington, and he grew very cheerful atthe thought.
"You ain't told me yo' name," he said, presently. The Major's lipssmiled under the brim of his hat.
"You hain't axed me."
"Well, I axe you now." Chad, too, was smiling.
"Cal," said the Major. "Cal what?"
"I don't know."
"Oh, yes, you do, now--you foolin' me"--the boy lifted one finger atthe Major.
"Buford, Calvin Buford."
"Buford--Buford--Buford," repeated the boy, each time with his foreheadwrinkled as though he were trying to recall something.
"What is it, Chad?"
"Nothin'--nothin'."
And then he looked up with bewildered face at the Major and broke intothe quavering voice of an old man.
"Chad Buford, you little devil, come hyeh this minute or I'll beat thelife outen you!"
"What--what!" said the Major excitedly. The boy's face was as honest asthe sky above him. "Well, that's funny--very funny."
"Well, that's it," said Chad, "that's what ole Nathan used to call me.I reckon I hain't naver thought o' my name agin tell you axed me." TheMajor looked at the lad keenly and then dropped back in his seatruminating.
Away back in 1778 a linchpin had slipped in a wagon on the WildernessRoad and his grandfather's only brother, Chadwick Buford, had concludedto stop there for a while and hunt and come on later--thus ran an oldletter that the Major had in his strong box at home--and that brotherhad never turned up again and the supposition was that he had beenkilled by Indians. Now it would be strange if he had wandered up in themountains and settled there and if this boy were a descendant of his.It would be very, very strange, and then the Major almost laughed atthe absurdity of the idea. The name Buford was all over the State. Theboy had said, with amazing frankness and without a particle of shame,that he was a waif--a "woodscolt," he said, with paralyzing candor. Andso the Major dropped the matter out of his mind, except in so far thatit was a peculiar coincidence--again saying, half to himself--
"It certainly is very odd!"