by John Fox
CHAPTER 14.
THE MAJOR IN THE MOUNTAINS
The quivering heat of August was giving way and the golden peace ofautumn was spreading through the land. The breath of mountain woods byday was as cool as the breath of valleys at night. In the mountains,boy and girl were leaving school for work in the fields, and from theCumberland foothills to the Ohio, boy and girl were leaving happyholidays for school. Along a rough, rocky road and down a shiningriver, now sunk to deep pools with trickling riffles between--for adrouth was on the land--rode a tall, gaunt man on an old brown marethat switched with her tail now and then at a long-legged, rough-hairedcolt stumbling awkwardly behind. Where the road turned from the riverand up the mountain, the man did a peculiar thing, for there, in thatlonely wilderness, he stopped, dismounted, tied the reins to anoverhanging branch and, leaving mare and colt behind, strode up themountain, on and on, disappearing over the top. Half an hour later, asturdy youth hove in sight, trudging along the same road with his capin his hand, a long rifle over one shoulder and a dog trotting at hisheels. Now and then the boy would look back and scold the dog and thedog would drop his muzzle with shame, until the boy stooped to pat himon the head, when he would leap frisking before him, until anotheraffectionate scolding was due. The old mare turned her head when sheheard them coming, and nickered. Without a moment's hesitation the laduntied her, mounted and rode up the mountain. For two days the man andthe boy had been "riding and tying," as this way of travel for two menand one horse is still known in the hills, and over the mountain, theywere to come together for the night. At the foot of the spur on theother side, boy and dog came upon the tall man sprawled at full lengthacross a moss-covered bowlder. The dog dropped behind, but the man'squick eye caught him:
"Where'd that dog come from, Chad?" Jack put his belly to the earth andcrawled slowly forward--penitent, but determined.
"He broke loose, I reckon. He come tearin' up behind me 'bout an hourago, like a house afire. Let him go." Caleb Hazel frowned.
"I told you, Chad, that we'd have no place to keep him."
"Well, we can send him home as easy from up thar as we can fromhyeh--let him go."
"All right!" Chad understood not a whit better than the dog; for Jackleaped to his feet and jumped around the school-master, trying to lickhis hands, but the school-master was absorbed and would none of him.There, the mountain-path turned into a wagon-road and the school-masterpointed with one finger.
"Do you know what that is, Chad?"
"No, sir." Chad said "sir" to the school-master now.
"Well, that's"--the school-master paused to give his wordseffect--"that's the old Wilderness Road."
Ah, did he not know the old, old Wilderness Road! The boy gripped hisrifle unconsciously, as though there might yet be a savage lying inambush in some covert of rhododendron close by. And, as they trudgedahead, side by side now, for it was growing late, the school-mastertold him, as often before, the story of that road and the pioneers whohad trod it--the hunters, adventurers, emigrants, fine ladies and finegentlemen who had stained it with their blood; and how that road hadbroadened into the mighty way for a great civilization from sea to sea.The lad could see it all, as he listened, wishing that he had lived inthose stirring days, never dreaming in how little was he of differentmould from the stout-hearted pioneers who beat out the path with theirmoccasined feet; how little less full of danger were his own days tobe; how little different had been his own life, and was his purposenow--how little different after all was the bourn to which his ownrestless feet were bearing him.
Chad had changed a good deal since that night after Jack's trial, whenthe kind-hearted old Major had turned up at Joel's cabin to take himback to the Bluegrass. He was taller, broader at shoulder, deeper ofchest; his mouth and eyes were prematurely grave from much brooding andlooked a little defiant, as though the boy expected hostility from theworld and was prepared to meet it, but there was no bitterness in them,and luminous about the lad was the old atmosphere of brave, sunny cheerand simple self-trust that won people to him.
The Major and old Joel had talked late that night after Jack's trial.The Major had come down to find out who Chad was, if possible, and totake him back home, no matter who he might be. The old hunter lookedlong into the fire.
"Co'se I know hit 'ud be better fer Chad, but, Lawd, how we'd hate togive him up. Still, I reckon I'll have to let him go, but I can standhit better, if you can git him to leave Jack hyeh." The Major smiled.Did old Joel know where Nathan Cherry lived? The old hunter did. Nathanwas a "damned old skinflint who lived across the mountain on StoneCreek--who stole other folks' farms and if he knew anything about Chadthe old hunter would squeeze it out of his throat; and if old Nathan,learning where Chad now was, tried to pester him he would break everybone in the skinflint's body." So the Major and old Joel rode over nextday to see Nathan, and Nathan with his shifting eyes told them Chad'sstory in a high, cracked voice that, recalling Chad's imitation of it,made the Major laugh. Chad was a foundling, Nathan said: his mother wasdead and his father had gone off to the Mexican War and never comeback: he had taken the mother in himself and Chad had been born in hisown house, when he lived farther up the river, and the boy had begun torun away as soon as he was old enough to toddle. And with each sentenceNathan would call for confirmation on a silent, dark-faced daughter whosat inside: "Didn't he, Betsy?" or "Wasn't he, gal?" And the girl wouldnod sullenly, but say nothing. It seemed a hopeless mission exceptthat, on the way back, the Major learned that there were one or twoBufords living down the Cumberland, and like old Joel, shook his headover Nathan's pharisaical philanthropy to a homeless boy and wonderedwhat the motive under it was--but he went back with the old hunter andtried to get Chad to go home with him. The boy was rock-firm in hisrefusal.
"I'm obleeged to you, Major, but I reckon I better stay in themountains." That was all Chad would say, and at last the Major gave upand rode back over the mountain and down the Cumberland alone, still onhis quest. At a blacksmith's shop far down the river he found a man whohad "heerd tell of a Chad Buford who had been killed in the Mexican Warand whose daddy lived 'bout fifteen mile down the river." The Majorfound that Buford dead, but an old woman told him his name was Chad,that he had "fit in the War o' 1812 when he was nothin' but a chunk ofa boy, and that his daddy, whose name, too, was Chad, had been killedby Injuns some'eres aroun' Cumberland Gap." By this time the Major wasas keen as a hound on the scent, and, in a cabin at the foot of thesheer gray wall that crumbles into the Gap, he had the amazing luck tofind an octogenarian with an unclouded memory who could recollect aqueer-looking old man who had been killed by Indians--"a ole fellerwith the curiosest hair I ever did see," added the patriarch. His namewas Colonel Buford, and the old man knew where he was buried, for hehimself was old enough at the time to help bury him. Greatly excited,the Major hired mountaineers to dig into the little hill that the oldman pointed out, on which there was, however, no sign of a grave, and,at last, they uncovered the skeleton of an old gentleman in a wig andperuke! There was little doubt now that the boy, no matter what theblot on his 'scutcheon, was of his own flesh and blood, and the Majorwas tempted to go back at once for him, but it was a long way, and hewas ill and anxious to get back home. So he took the Wilderness Roadfor the Bluegrass, and wrote old Joel the facts and asked him to sendChad to him whenever he would come. But the boy would not go. There wasno definite reason in his mind. It was a stubborn instinct merely--theinstinct of pride, of stubborn independence--of shame that festered inhis soul like a hornet's sting. Even Melissa urged him. She never tiredof hearing Chad tell about the Bluegrass country, and when she knewthat the Major wanted him to go back, she followed him out in the yardthat night and found him on the fence whittling. A red star was sinkingbehind the mountains. "Why won't you go back no more, Chad?" she said.
"'Cause I HAIN'T got no daddy er mammy." Then Melissa startled him.
"Well, I'd go--an' I hain't got no daddy er mammy." Chad stopped hiswhittling.
"Whut'
d you say, Lissy?" he asked, gravely.
Melissa was frightened--the boy looked so serious.
"Cross yo' heart an' body that you won't NUVER tell NO body." Chadcrossed.
"Well, mammy said I mustn't ever tell nobody--but I HAIN'T got no daddyer mammy. I heerd her a-tellin' the school-teacher." And the littlegirl shook her head over her frightful crime of disobedience.
"You HAIN'T?"
"I HAIN'T!"
Melissa, too, was a waif, and Chad looked at her with a wave of newaffection and pity.
"Now, why won't you go back just because you hain't got no daddy an'mammy?"
Chad hesitated. There was no use making Melissa unhappy.
"Oh, I'd just ruther stay hyeh in the mountains," he said,carelessly--lying suddenly like the little gentleman that he was--lyingas he knew, and as Melissa some day would come to know. Then Chadlooked at the little girl a long while, and in such a queer way thatMelissa turned her face shyly to the red star.
"I'm goin' to stay right hyeh. Ain't you glad, Lissy?"
The little girl turned her eyes shyly back again. "Yes, Chad," she said.
He would stay in the mountains and work hard; and when he grew up hewould marry Melissa and they would go away where nobody knew him orher: or they would stay right there in the mountains where nobodyblamed him for what he was nor Melissa for what she was; and he wouldstudy law like Caleb Hazel, and go to the Legislature--but Melissa! Andwith the thought of Melissa in the mountains came always the thought ofdainty Margaret in the Bluegrass and the chasm that lay between thetwo--between Margaret and him, for that matter; and when Mother Turnercalled Melissa from him in the orchard next day, Chad lay on his backunder an apple-tree, for a long while, thinking; and then he whistledfor Jack and climbed the spur above the river where he could look downon the shadowed water and out to the clouded heaps of rose and greenand crimson, where the sun was going down under one faint white star.Melissa was the glow-worm that, when darkness came, would be awatch-fire at his feet--Margaret, the star to which his eyes werelifted night and day--and so runs the world. He lay long watching thatstar. It hung almost over the world of which he had dreamed so long andupon which he had turned his back forever. Forever? Perhaps, but hewent back home that night with a trouble in his soul that was not topass, and while he sat by the fire he awoke from the same dream to findMelissa's big eyes fixed on him, and in them was a vague trouble thatwas more than his own reflected back to him.
Still the boy went back sturdily to his old life, working in thefields, busy about the house and stable, going to school, reading andstudying with the school-master at nights, and wandering in the woodswith Jack and his rifle. And he hungered for spring to come again whenhe should go with the Turner boys to take another raft of logs down theriver to the capital. Spring came, and going out to the back pastureone morning, Chad found a long-legged, ungainly creature stumblingawkwardly about his old mare--a colt! That, too, he owed the Major, andhe would have burst with pride had he known that the colt's sire was afamous stallion in the Bluegrass. That spring he did go down the riveragain. He did not let the Major know he was coming and, through anameless shyness, he could not bring himself to go to see his oldfriend and kinsman, but in Lexington, while he and the school-masterwere standing on Cheapside, the Major whirled around a corner on themin his carriage, and, as on the turnpike a year before, old Tom, thedriver, called out:
"Look dar, Mars Cal!" And there stood Chad.
"Why, bless my soul! Chad--why, boy! How you have grown!" For Chad hadgrown, and his face was curiously aged and thoughtful. The Majorinsisted on taking him home, and the school-master, too, who wentreluctantly. Miss Lucy was there, looking whiter and more fragile thanever, and she greeted Chad with a sweet kindliness that took the stingfrom his unjust remembrance of her. And what that failure to understandher must have been Chad better knew when he saw the embarrassed awe, inher presence, of the school-master, for whom all in the mountains hadso much reverence. At the table was Thankyma'am waiting. Around thequarters and the stable the pickaninnies and servants seemed toremember the boy in a kindly genuine way that touched him, and evenJerome Conners, the overseer, seemed glad to see him. The Major wasdrawn at once to the grave school-master, and he had a long talk withhim that night. It was no use, Caleb Hazel said, trying to persuade theboy to live with the Major--not yet. And the Major was more contentwhen he came to know in what good hands the boy was, and, down in hisheart, he loved the lad the more for his sturdy independence, and forthe pride that made him shrink from facing the world with the shame ofhis birth; knowing that Chad thought of him perhaps more than ofhimself. Such unwillingness to give others trouble seemed remarkable inso young a lad. Not once did the Major mention the Deans to the boy,and about them Chad asked no questions--not even when he saw theircarriage passing the Major's gate. When they came to leave the Majorsaid:
"Well, Chad, when that filly of yours is a year old, I'll buy 'em bothfrom you, if you'll sell 'em, and I reckon you can come up and go toschool then."
Chad shook his head. Sell that colt? He would as soon have thought ofselling Jack. But the temptation took root, just the same, then andthere, and grew steadily until, after another year in the mountains, itgrew too strong. For, in that year, Chad grew to look the fact of hisbirth steadily in the face, and in his heart grew steadily a proudresolution to make his way in the world despite it. It was curious howMelissa came to know the struggle that was going on within him and howChad came to know that she knew--though no word passed between them:more curious still, how it came with a shock to Chad one day to realizehow little was the tragedy of his life in comparison with the tragedyin hers, and to learn that the little girl with swift vision hadalready reached that truth and with sweet unselfishness had reconciledherself. He was a boy--he could go out in the world and conquer it,while her life was as rigid and straight before her as though it ranbetween close walls of rock as steep and sheer as the cliff across theriver. One thing he never guessed--what it cost the little girl tosupport him bravely in his purpose, and to stand with smiling face whenthe first breath of one sombre autumn stole through the hills, and Chadand the school-master left the Turner home for the Bluegrass, this timeto stay.
She stood in the doorway after they had waved good-by from the head ofthe river--the smile gone and her face in a sudden dark eclipse. Thewise old mother went in-doors. Once the girl started through the yardas though she would rush after them and stopped at the gate, clinchingit hard with both hands. As suddenly she became quiet.
She went in-doors to her work and worked quietly and without a word.Thus she did all day while her mind and her heart ached. When she wentafter the cows before sunset she stopped at the barn where Beelzebubhad been tied. She lifted her eyes to the hay-loft where she and Chadhad hunted for hens' eggs and played hide-and-seek. She passed throughthe orchard where they had worked and played so many happy hours, andon to the back pasture where the Dillon sheep had been killed and shehad kept the Sheriff from shooting Jack. And she saw and notedeverything with a piteous pain and dry eyes. But she gave no sign thatnight, and not until she was in bed did she with covered head give way.Then the bed shook with her smothered sobs. This is the sad way withwomen. After the way of men, Chad proudly marched the old WildernessRoad that led to a big, bright, beautiful world where one had but to doand dare to reach the stars. The men who had trod that road had madethat big world beyond, and their life Chad himself had lived so far.Only, where they had lived he had been born--in a log cabin. Theirweapons--the axe and the rifle--had been his. He had had the samefight with Nature as they. He knew as well as they what life in thewoods in "a half-faced camp" was. Their rude sports and pastimes, theirlog-rollings, house-raisings, quilting parties, corn-huskings, feats ofstrength, had been his. He had the same lynx eyes, cool courage,swiftness of foot, readiness of resource that had been trained intothem. His heart was as stout and his life as simple and pure. He wastaking their path and, in the far West, beyond the Bluegrass worldwhere he was goi
ng, he could, if he pleased, take up the same life atthe precise point where they had left off. At sunset, Chad and theschool-master stood on the summit of the Cumberland foothills andlooked over the rolling land with little less of a thrill, doubtless,than the first hunters felt when the land before them was as much awilderness as the wilds through which they had made their way. Belowthem a farmhouse shrank half out of sight into a little hollow, andtoward it they went down.
The outside world had moved swiftly during the two years that they hadbeen buried in the hills as they learned at the farm-house that night.Already the national storm was threatening, the air was electricallycharged with alarms, and already here and there the lightning hadflashed. The underground railway was busy with black freight, and JohnBrown, fanatic, was boldly lifting his shaggy head. Old Brutus Dean waseven publishing an abolitionist paper at Lexington, the aristocraticheart of the State. He was making abolition speeches throughout theBluegrass with a dagger thrust in the table before him--shaking hisblack mane and roaring defiance like a lion. The news thrilled Chadunaccountably, as did the shadow of any danger, but it threw theschool-master into gloom. There was more. A dark little man by the nameof Douglas and a sinewy giant by the name of Lincoln were thrilling theWest. Phillips and Garrison were thundering in Massachusetts, and fierytongues in the South were flashing back scornful challenges and threatsthat would imperil a nation. An invisible air-line shot suddenlybetween the North and the South, destined to drop some day and lie adead-line on the earth, and on each side of it two hordes of brothers,who thought themselves two hostile peoples, were shrinking away fromeach other with the half-conscious purpose of making ready for acharge. In no other State in the Union was the fratricidal character ofthe coming war to be so marked as in Kentucky, in no other State wasthe national drama to be so fully played to the bitter end.
That night even, Brutus Dean was going to speak near by, and Chad andCaleb Hazel went to hear him. The fierce abolitionist first placed aBible before him.
"This is for those who believe in religion," he said; then a copy ofthe Constitution: "this for those who believe in the laws and infreedom of speech. And this," he thundered, driving a dagger into thetable and leaving it to quiver there, "is for the rest!" Then he wenton and no man dared to interrupt.
And only next day came the rush of wind that heralds the storm. Justoutside of Lexington Chad and the school-master left the mare and coltat a farm-house and with Jack went into town on foot. It was Saturdayafternoon, the town was full of people, and an excited crowd waspressing along Main Street toward Cheapside. The man and the boyfollowed eagerly. Cheapside was thronged--thickest around a framebuilding that bore a newspaper sign on which was the name of BrutusDean. A man dashed from a hardware store with an axe, followed byseveral others with heavy hammers in their hands. One swing of the axe,the door was crashed open and the crowd went in like wolves. Shatteredwindows, sashes and all, flew out into the street, followed by showersof type, chair-legs, table-tops, and then, piece by piece, the batteredcogs, wheels, and forms of a printing-press. The crowd made littlenoise. In fifteen minutes the house was a shell with gaping windows,surrounded with a pile of chaotic rubbish, and the men who had done thework quietly disappeared. Chad looked at the school-master for thefirst time: neither of them had uttered a word. The school-master'sface was white with anger, his hands were clinched, and his eyes wereso fierce and burning that the boy was frightened.