A Knight of the Cumberland by Jr. John Fox (free ebook reader .TXT) 📖

was my time now—to ask questions.

They didn’t have many amusements on that creek, I discovered—and no dances. Sometimes the boys went coon-hunting and there were corn-shuckings, house-raisings and quilting-parties.

“Does anybody round here play the banjo?”

“None o’ my boys,” said the old woman, “but Tom Green’s son down the creek —he follers pickin’ the banjo a leetle.” “Follows pickin’ ”—the Blight did not miss that phrase.

“What do you foller fer a livin’?” the old man asked me suddenly.

“I write for a living.” He thought a while.

“Well, it must be purty fine to have a good handwrite.” This nearly dissolved the Blight and the little sister, but they held on heroically.

“Is there much fighting around here?” I asked presently.

“Not much ‘cept when one young feller up the river gets to tearin’ up things. I heerd as how he was over to the Gap last week—raisin’ hell. He comes by here on his way home.” The Blight’s eyes opened wide—apparently we were on his trail. It is not wise for a member of the police guard at the Gap to show too much curiosity about the lawless ones of the hills, and I asked no questions.

“They calls him the Wild Dog over here,” he added, and then he yawned cavernously.

I looked around with divining eye for the sleeping arrangements soon to come, which sometimes are embarrassing to “furriners” who are unable to grasp at once the primitive unconsciousness of the mountaineers and, in consequence, accept a point of view natural to them because enforced by architectural limitations and a hospitality that turns no one seeking shelter from any door. They were, however, better prepared than I had hoped for. They had a spare room on the porch and just outside the door, and when the old woman led the two girls to it, I followed with their saddle-bags. The room was about seven feet by six and was windowless.

“You’d better leave your door open a little,” I said, “or you’ll smother in there.”

“Well,” said the old woman, “ hit’s all right to leave the door open. Nothin’s goin’ ter bother ye, but one o’ my sons is out a coon-huntin’ and he mought come in, not knowin’ you’re thar. But you jes’ holler an’ he’ll move on.” She meant precisely what she said and saw no humor at all in such a possibility—but when the door closed, I could hear those girls stifling shrieks of laughter.

Literally, that night, I was a member of the family. I had a bed to myself (the following night I was not so fortunate)— in one corner; behind the head of mine the old woman, the daughter-in-law and the baby had another in the other corner, and the old man with the two boys spread a pallet on the floor. That is the invariable rule of courtesy with the mountaineer, to give his bed to the stranger and take to the floor himself, and, in passing, let me say that never, in a long experience, have I seen the slightest consciousness— much less immodesty—in a mountain cabin in my life. The same attitude on the part of the visitors is taken for granted—any other indeed holds mortal possibilities of offence—so that if the visitor has common sense, all embarrassment passes at once. The door was closed, the fire blazed on uncovered, the smothered talk and laughter of the two girls ceased, the coon-hunter came not and the night passed in peace.

It must have been near daybreak that I was aroused by the old man leaving the cabin and I heard voices and the sound of horses’ feet outside. When he came back he was grinning.

“Hit’s your mules.”

“Who found them?”

“The Wild Dog had ‘em,” he said.

III

THE AURICULAR TALENT OF THE HON. SAMUEL BUDD

Behind us came the Hon. Samuel Budd. Just when the sun was slitting the east with a long streak of fire, the Hon. Samuel was, with the jocund day, standing tiptoe in his stirrups on the misty mountain top and peering into the ravine down which we had slid the night before, and he grumbled no little when he saw that he, too, must get off his horse and slide down. The Hon. Samuel was ambitious, Southern, and a lawyer. Without saying, it goes that he was also a politician. He was not a native of the mountains, but he had cast his fortunes in the highlands, and he was taking the first step that he hoped would, before many years, land him in the National Capitol. He really knew little about the mountaineers, even now, and he had never been among his constituents on Devil’s Fork, where he was bound now. The campaign had so far been full of humor and full of trials—not the least of which sprang from the fact that it was sorghum time. Everybody through the mountains was making sorghum, and every mountain child was eating molasses.

Now, as the world knows, the straightest way to the heart of the honest voter is through the women of the land, and the straightest way to the heart of the women is through the children of the land; and one method of winning both, with rural politicians, is to kiss the babies wide and far. So as each infant, at sorghum time, has a circle of green-brown stickiness about his chubby lips, and as the Hon. Sam was averse to “long sweetenin’ ” even in his coffee, this particular political device just now was no small trial to the Hon. Samuel Budd. But in the language of one of his firmest supporters Uncle Tommie Hendricks:

“The Hon. Sam done his duty, and he done it damn well.”

The issue at stake was the site of the new Court-House—two localities claiming the right undisputed, because they were the only two places in the county where there was enough level land for the Court-House to stand on. Let no man think this a trivial issue. There had been a similar one over on the Virginia side once, and the opposing factions agreed to decide the question by the ancient wager of battle, fist and skull—two hundred men on each side—and the women of the county with difficulty prevented the fight. Just now, Mr. Budd was on his way to “The Pocket”—the voting place of one faction —where he had never been, where the hostility against him was most bitter, and, that day, he knew he was “up against” Waterloo, the crossing of the Rubicon, holding the pass at Thermopylae, or any other historical crisis in the history of man. I was saddling the mules when the cackling of geese in the creek announced the coming of the Hon. Samuel Budd, coming with his chin on his breast-deep in thought. Still his eyes beamed cheerily, he lifted his slouched hat gallantly to the Blight and the little sister, and he would wait for us to jog along with him. I told him of our troubles, meanwhile. The Wild Dog had restored our mules and the Hon. Sam beamed:

“He’s a wonder—where is he?”

“He never waited—even for thanks.”

Again the Hon. Sam beamed:

“Ah! just like him. He’s gone ahead to help me.”

“Well, how did he happen to be here?” I asked.

“He’s everywhere,” said the Hon. Sam.

“How did he know the mules were ours?”

“Easy. That boy knows everything.”

“Well, why did he bring them back and then leave so mysteriously?”

The Hon. Sam silently pointed a finger at the laughing Blight ahead, and I looked incredulous.

“Just the same, that’s another reason I told you to warn Marston. He’s already got it in his head that Marston is his rival.”

“Pshaw!” I said—for it was too ridiculous.

“All right,” said the Hon. Sam placidly.

“Then why doesn’t he want to see her?” “How do you know he ain’t watchin’ her now, for all we know? Mark me,” he added, “you won’t see him at the speakin’, but I’ll bet fruit cake agin gingerbread he’ll be somewhere around.”

So we went on, the two girls leading the way and the Hon. Sam now telling his political troubles to me. Half a mile down the road, a solitary horseman stood waiting, and Mr. Budd gave a low whistle.

“One o’ my rivals,” he said, from the corner of his mouth.

“Mornin’,” said the horseman; “lemme see you a minute.”

He made a movement to draw aside, but the Hon. Samuel made a counter-gesture of dissent.

“This gentleman is a friend of mine,” he said firmly, but with great courtesy, “and he can hear what you have to say to me.”

The mountaineer rubbed one huge hand over his stubbly chin, threw one of his long legs over the pommel of his saddle, and dangled a heavy cowhide shoe to and fro.

“Would you mind tellin’ me whut pay a member of the House of Legislatur’ gits a day?”

The Hon. Sam looked surprised.

“I think about two dollars and a half.”

“An’ his meals?”

“No!” laughed Mr. Budd.

“Well, look-ee here, stranger. I’m a pore man an’ I’ve got a mortgage on my farm. That money don’t mean nothin’ to you—but if you’ll draw out now an’ I win, I’ll tell ye whut I’ll do.” He paused as though to make sure that the sacrifice was possible. “I’ll just give ye half of that two dollars and a half a day, as shore as you’re a-settin’ on that hoss, and you won’t hav’ to hit a durn lick to earn it.”

I had not the heart to smile—nor did the Hon. Samuel—so artless and simple was the man and so pathetic his appeal.

“You see—you’ll divide my vote, an’ ef we both run, ole Josh Barton’ll git it shore. Ef you git out o’ the way, I can lick him easy.”

Mr. Budd’s answer was kind, instructive, and uplifted.

“My friend,” said he, “I’m sorry, but I cannot possibly accede to your request for the following reasons: First, it would not be fair to my constituents; secondly, it would hardly be seeming to barter the noble gift of the people to which we both aspire; thirdly, you might lose with me out of the way; and fourthly, I’m going to win whether you are in the way or not.”

The horseman slowly collapsed while the Hon. Samuel was talking, and now he threw the leg back, kicked for his stirrup twice, spat once, and turned his horse’s head.

“I reckon you will, stranger,” he said sadly, “with that gift o’ gab o’ yourn.” He turned without another word or nod of good-by and started back up the creek whence he had come.

“One gone,” said the Hon. Samuel Budd grimly, “and I swear I’m right sorry for him.” And so was I.

An hour later we struck the river, and another hour upstream brought us to where the contest of tongues was to come about. No sylvan dell in Arcady could have been lovelier than the spot. Above the road, a big spring poured a clear little stream over shining pebbles into the river; above it the bushes hung thick with autumn leaves, and above them stood yellow beeches like pillars of pale fire. On both sides of the road sat and squatted the honest voters, sour-looking, disgruntled—a distinctly hostile crowd. The Blight and my little sister drew great and curious attention as they sat on a bowlder above the spring while I went with the Hon. Samuel Budd under the guidance of Uncle Tommie Hendricks, who introduced him right and left. The Hon. Samuel was cheery, but he was plainly nervous. There were two lanky youths whose names, oddly enough, were Budd. As they gave him their huge paws in lifeless fashion, the Hon. Samuel slapped one on the shoulder, with the true democracy of the politician, and said jocosely:

“Well, we Budds