Читать книгу A Maid of the Kentucky Hills - Edwin Carlile Litsey - Страница 10

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A week has passed. Until to-day I had begun to fear that my proposed plan of making a book would come to naught. One would not care to read of a daily life consisting of getting up, eating, smoking, reading, strolling about and going to bed. That is all I have done until to-day, when something happened. But before I come to this, I must tell of the labor I undergo in procuring water.

I have spoken elsewhere of a sulphur spring. It is located in another ravine across the one lying at the foot of my knob. I have been drinking the water dutifully, because 'Crombie told me to, although to my mind it is vile stuff, and I can't see how anything with such a pronounced odor can be beneficial. I don't suppose I know. But I must have cooking and bath water as well, and this comes from the small stream which runs through the center of the nearest ravine. The distance would not be so great on a level, but to struggle up the steep slope with a bucket full of water in each hand is no fun. I have had to make two trips every day, much to my discomfort. This is a problem which I have to solve, or else go unwashed. Then, too, when the summer comes the stream below will most probably run dry, although 'Crombie assured me the sulphur water was plentiful the year round.

I have been getting located the last seven days; exploring my hill of refuge, and making little excursions into the neighboring fastnesses. Almost the last thing 'Crombie told me was to remember the life-plant, and the sooner I began the search the better it would be for me. I'm not altogether satisfied about this life-plant, although I know 'Crombie wouldn't joke with me about so serious a matter. I have at length decided to take his word implicitly, and begin a systematic hunt for this most peculiar growth. I am feeling suspiciously well. My cough has nearly gone, and it seems almost absurd that a strapping man of six foot two should be out chasing a chimera of this sort.

This morning I was up before the sun, an experience I have not known since childhood. I breakfasted bountifully on ham, eggs, bread, and coffee. Then, flushing foolishly, I filled a pint Mason jar with water—sweet water—screwed the top down tightly, thrust the jar hastily in my coat pocket, took my pipe and a stout staff I had cut several days before, and started on my first tramp for this life-plant.

I swung down the road—I will call it such—up which the wagons had come, crossed to the spring and drank of the cold, bad smelling water, and as I stood puffing my pipe I wondered which way I should go. It did not matter in the least, but it was human to consider, and I considered. Before me loomed the prodigious bulk of my home hill. Back of me rose another, not quite so imposing, but exceedingly steep. To right and left swept the ravine, silent, shadowy in the newborn morning. It was from the right we had come. I turned to the left, and presently the thick soles of my heavy walking shoes were crunching and clattering the loose shale as I skirted the shallow stream bed.

I went far that day, climbing ridge after ridge, traversing hollow after hollow, always with my eyes open for my rare treasure. Again and again I came upon farm land, small patches of tilled soil which the stubborn strength of man had wrested from the wilderness to supply his needs. These fields I went around. Once, from a high point, I saw a tiny hamlet, caught the cackle of geese, and heard the low of kine.

Noon came and went before I was aware. I had brought no lunch with me. It was past midafternoon when I again drew near home. There was never any danger of my getting lost. Far as I might walk in a single day, that towering peak would yet be visible, rearing itself in silent grandeur to guide me back. The thought was comforting.

I approached in a different direction from any I had ever taken before, coming almost from due west. I had swiftly descended a slight slope, hunger giving me haste, and had burst into a glade at the edge of one of the many creeks which threaded the country, when I stopped short.

A girl was standing on the further side of the glade. She had not heard me, for the leaf-sodden mold gave back no sound from my careless feet. She stood under a dogwood tree, and it chanced, the moment I beheld her, that the declining sun fell all about and over her. She had plucked a number of sprays from the tree, and as I stood with bated breath she began to weave the white and yellow blooms into her hair, which shone in my eyes like a reflection from burnished copper. She sang as she weaved, or rather crooned, for I caught no words. It was just an elfin little tune, with quavering minors strung on a listless monotone. She was garbed very, very simply; a one piece dress of faded blue, belted at the waist. A poke bonnet of the same color lay upon the ground near her feet. Her position in relation to mine was a semi-profile, so I could make little of her face, but her form was slim and straight, and her bowed arms displayed a natural grace as she thrust her fingers in and out of her shining hair, working the star-like blossoms into place.

As I stood wonder-struck, debating what to do, I saw a commotion in the tree by which she stood, a scuttling form darted out on the branch nearest the girl's head, then leaped to her shoulder, where it sat and nibbled a nut, its tail a graceful gray plume. I think my mouth went agape; if it didn't, it should have, for here was magic.

The girl—or dryad, for I was beginning to doubt if she was real—paid no immediate heed to the squirrel, but went on droning her song and toiling patiently at the flowers. I stood and watched her, leaning on my staff, my erstwhile hunger forgotten. Would she vanish into air, or would she disappear in the cleft of an oak? I determined to see.

In a few moments her crown was in place. She put her hands down, but almost at once raised one of her arms, and gave a small, thin, twittering call. She stood like a statue, apparently waiting, then repeated the sound, varying it only by a quick rising inflection at the end. Like an echo an answer filtered sweetly out from the forest to one side, and I saw a streak of brown cleave the air of the glade, as a small wood bird, of a species unknown to me, dipped to the outstretched arm and perched upon the girl's wrist. There it sat, its pert little tail at a sharp angle, and its head cocked to one side very knowingly.

"Good Lord!" I burst forth, involuntarily, then bit my lip for a fool.

The charm was rudely broken; I had spoiled the tableau.

With a whisk of his tail the squirrel dropped to the girl's hip, jumped to the ground, and headed toward the thicker growth with frightened leaps. The bird vanished as the ball does from between the conjuror's fingers—it just went, but I did not see it go—and the girl turned with a quiet movement to see who the idiot was.

"I—beg your pardon!" I said, advancing several steps and taking off my cap. "That—er—I have never seen—you know—er—I'm really sorry I scared them off!"

She stood perfectly calm, her weight resting rather awkwardly upon one foot, her hands loosely clasped in front of her, as I made my stammering speech. I don't know why I should have been so confused, unless it was from her rare composure.

"They'll come back," she said, assuringly, and smiled.

I drew closer. I could not believe the evidence of my eyes. When I saw her joined hands I marveled; they were white, slender, smooth, entirely unmarked by toil. Now her face. It was fresh, sweet—not beautiful—and lighted by gray eyes, which brought a sensation to my spine. It was not a face I would have expected to meet in the Kentucky knob country. True, there was a superficial expression which reflected her environments, her associates, but this appeared to me even in that moment as a veil to be taken off, that the true nature might shine forth. Her voice was low, rich, and held a strangely haunting note which made for unrest in the heart of a man. She was totally wild; that I could not doubt. Illiterate, crude, a child of the locality, but when I first looked in her face, when I first heard her voice, I knew that I stood before one whom Fate had cheated. That she was not abashed, not even startled by the sudden appearance of a total stranger, I attributed rightly to her mode of life, which was untrammeled by convention, thoroughly natural, and free from the restraints artificiality begets.

"You—live near?" I said, never once thinking of passing on now that my apology was spoken.

"Uh-huh; at Lizard P'int. 'Tain't fur—up th' holler a bit."

The simple words struck me almost like a blow. The voice was sweet as a flute in its lowest tones, the lips were red and curving, but the speech was the uncouth vernacular of the hills. Fate had indeed cheated her.

As I nervously drew out my pipe, thinking what I should say next, she discovered a rent on her shoulder where the careless claws of the scared squirrel had torn the fabric of her dress. She gave a little exclamation of annoyance, thrust one finger in the torn place, pouted as a child might for an instant, then laughed and tossed her garlanded head.

"I don't keer! Granny'll fix it!"

It was my cue.

"Who is Granny?"

"Granny? … Oh! my granny. We live together."

"On Lizard Point," I supplemented. "Doesn't anyone else live with you?"

She nodded her head brightly.

"Yes, Grandf'er does, but he don't count."

Her ingenuousness was bewitching, and I essayed to prolong the interview.

"Aren't you afraid to wander around in the woods this way alone?"

"Me! … Skeerd?"

For a moment she looked at me with dropped chin and a tiny frown of wonder, then a glad stream of laughter came pouring from her upheld mouth, filling the forest with rippling, echoing cadences. I gazed on the round, gleaming column of her young throat, milk-white and firm, and a subtle, primal call stirred in my breast. When her boisterous merriment had subsided, I could see her teeth, like young corn when the husks are green, between the scarlet of her parted lips.

I came closer yet. I was bewildered, puzzled, but strangely attracted. I scarcely knew how to answer her.

"You see," I tried to explain, "it—that is, where I came from young women go nowhere without an escort, except in town."

"Oh!"

Her face was serious now, and she seemed trying to comprehend.

"Whur'd you come frum?" she demanded, with disconcerting abruptness.

"From Lexington."

"Whut's that?"

"A town—a little city."

"I don't like city people!"

The sentence sprang forth spontaneously, and she looked displeased.

"Why?"

I did not receive an answer. She was kicking a small bunch of moss with the toe of her ugly, coarse shoe, which was rusty, and laced with a string. But for all its shapelessness, the shoe was very small.

"Why don't you like city people?"

"'Cause Buck says they're mean an' stuck up!"

She flashed the sentence at me with a rapid glance of defiance.

"Who's Buck?"

Now the girl's face took fire, and dire confusion gripped her. Hair and skin became indistinguishable. But she flung her head up bravely, and with burning eyes looked straight into mine.

"Buck Steele. He's th' blacksmith over to Hebron, an' he's—my frien'."

She had grit. I honored her for that speech.

"You know I'm a stranger," I ran on, easily, making a pretense to fill my pipe, and so help her over her embarrassment. "I came just about a week ago. I'm in the house up on Bald Knob yonder. The city didn't agree with me, and my doctor sent me out here to get well. I'm not mean and stuck up, believe me. I've got the poorest sort of an opinion of myself, although I've lived pretty clean. Now I want to be friends with you, and all the folks about here. You'll help me, won't you?"

Her self-possession had returned while I was talking. When I stopped, I smiled, and looked at her as frankly and honestly as I could.

"You don' 'pear puny!" was her startling rejoinder.

I took another tack.

"Pray tell me how it is the birds and the beasts obey you?"

"I love 'em!" she answered, promptly, and with warmth. "I know 'em, an' they know me."

She turned without warning, and walking to the bank of the creek, which at this point was raised several feet above the water, leaned over and peered down into the pool below. Could Eve have been more artless? She was looking at her reflection in the mirror of the stream!

I picked up her bonnet by one of the strings, then went and stood beside her. A compliment arose unbidden to my lips, but I stifled it. It would not have been fair.

"I mus' go," she said, straightening up, and twisting a hanging curl near her forehead back beneath her hair.

"Aren't you—"

I started to ask if she wasn't afraid, and if I mightn't go with her, but remembered in time.

"—and your granny very lonely?" I finished, lamely, but she did not appear to notice it.

"La! No! Th' Tollerses 's jis' t'other side o' th' ridge, 'n' they've got a pas'l o' kids. No time to git lonesome!"

My spirit writhed. Such language as this—from her!

She held out a hand for the bonnet.

I brought it forward slowly, still holding it by the string. Her hand rested against mine for an instant as she took it. At this juncture I made a—to me—significant discovery. Her nails were pared and clean! It seemed paradoxical, but it was true. I did not attempt to account for the phenomenon then, but I did later, with no results whatever.

"Where is Lizard Point—exactly?" I asked, my voice more serious than it had been during our talk.

She pointed her finger down the creek, as it flowed gently murmuring to the south.

"Th' crick 'll lead yo'. Nigh onto half mile frum here."

"I'm coming to see you and your granny some day soon. May I? You know it's lonesome for me out here. I'm not used to it. May I come?"

She gazed at me with steady gray eyes for a few moments.

"Ye-e-es; I s'pose so," she answered, reluctantly; "if yo' git lonesome. … Whut yo' keer'n' that jar fur?"

Her glance had just espied it, and now it was my turn to blush.

"I'll tell you—when I see you again," I compromised, laughing.

She started off, but stopped and turned.

"Live on Baldy, yo' say?"

"Yes; in the old log house there."

"I go thur sometimes. Maybe I'll come 'n' see you!"

"All right. You'll be mighty welcome."

"Good-by."

"Good-by."

She did not look back, and I stood with a distinct sensation enveloping me until her copper-gold head, crowned with the star-like dogwood, had passed from view.