Читать книгу A Maid of the Kentucky Hills - Edwin Carlile Litsey - Страница 6

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'Crombie had said with chilling frankness that I hadn't the money for a sea voyage, or for extended travel. The statement was distressingly true. Just at the time he and I finished our college careers, my father died. Contrary to general belief, and my own as well, he was almost a bankrupt. It was the old story of the frenzy for gain, great risks, and total loss. 'Crombie took up medicine, while I, lured by the promises of a fickle Fate, embraced literature. 'Crombie was wise; I was foolish. When people are sick they always want a doctor, but when they are idle they do not always read. If there is one road to the poorhouse which is freer from obstructions than all others, it is the road of the unknown author. I had a natural bent toward letters, had been editor-in-chief of the college magazine, and had sold two or three stories to middle-class periodicals. So, with the roseate illusions of youth at their flood, I pictured myself soon among the front rank of American writers, and equipped myself for a speedy conquest.

In six months I had sold a half dozen stories, for something approaching one hundred dollars, and had received enough rejection slips to paper one room. To this use I applied them, taking a doleful sort of pleasure in reading the punctilious printed messages with their eternal refrain of "We regret, etc." I wondered if the editors were as sorry as they pretended to be. And I thought, too, of the enormousness of their stationery bills.

But I persevered. The ten years which followed my embarkation upon this treacherous sea were not entirely barren of results. I managed to live frugally, which was something, and established gratifying relations with two or three magazines which bought my manuscripts with encouraging regularity. At last I placed a book with a reputable publishing house. The story fell flat from the press. The firm lost, and I did not receive a penny. The experience was bitter. I had spent a solid year writing that book, and I felt that if I could get a hearing my period of probation would be over. I got the hearing, and I was still in obscurity. That is the typical literary beginning, and he who finally succeeds deserves all he gets, for he has a heart of oak. My inherent optimism and stubborn will bore me safely through the mists and shallows of defeat, and with the sunlight of hope once more flooding my soul, I went on. Then 'Crombie handed me my commuted death sentence.

It is wonderful how news of this sort gets abroad. But it spreads like uncorked ether. I had proof of this two days later when my minister, an aged and good man, called on a mission of condolence.

"God did it, my boy," he said, as he left, "and you must bear it."

I didn't believe him. I believed that the devil did it, and that God would help me get rid of it.

Since I had to go up into the wilderness, the sooner I went the sooner I would return, and I found my anxiety to be off increasing day by day. Spring was unusually early this year. March was a miracle month of plum blooms, and swelling buds, and flower-sprinkled grass. Little spears of bright green were beginning to show on the lilac bushes, and elusive bird notes came fitfully from orchard and fence-row—blown bubbles of sound bursting ere they were scarcely heard.

When I began to make my preparations, I realized how helpless I was. What should I take with me in the way of food, clothing, bedding, utensils, medicine? I had never camped out a night in my life. 'Crombie would have to tell me. He knew, for every year he hiked off to Canada and the Adirondacks for thirty days, and lived like a caveman every hour he was gone. I went to his office. He was engaged, with six people in the waiting-room. I went out and got him on the telephone. He promised to see me that night at nine in his apartments. It was then three o'clock in the afternoon, so I took a walk. I could do nothing more until I had talked to him.

Lexington is really nothing more than a great big country town, but we love it. I reached the suburbs in half an hour, then took the pike, and walked briskly. The day had been like one huge bloom of some tropical orchid. Contrasted with the biting winter only a few weeks back, it was something to exult the heart and uplift the soul. Rain had fallen the night before. Day came with a world-wide flare of yellow sunshine; her dress a tempered breeze. By noon a coat was uncomfortable, and the air was full of music; the droning, charming, ceaseless litany of the bees. At three in the afternoon, when some strange freak drove me to the open road, the miracle had not passed. Surely God's hands were spread over the face of the earth, and His eyes looked down between. A few cumulus clouds were piled in fantastic groups toward the west, as I stopped about two miles out, and gazed slowly around me. Overhead was infinity, and the presence of the Creator. Encompassing me were unnumbered acres of that soil of which every child of the bluegrass is proud. On the breast of the world the annual mystery was spread. Death had changed to life. Where the snow's warm blanket had lately lain uprose millions and millions of tiny spears; wheat which had been folded safely by nature's cover against the blighting cold. Billowing fields of richest brown, where the ploughshare had made ready a bed for the seed corn and the hemp. Near me were two trees. Their roots were intertwined, for their trunks were not over a foot apart, and their branches had overlapped and interwoven. Almost as one growth they seemed. They were the dogwood and the redbud, and each was in full bloom. At first the sight dazzled me. The pure white flowers, yellow-hearted, gleaming against the mass of crimson blooms which clung closely to twig and limb, produced a remarkable effect. The hardier trees remained bleak, barren, apparently lifeless. They required more embracing from the sun, more kissing from the rain, more sighs of entreaty from the wind before the transmutation of sap to leaf would be accomplished.

It chanced that I had halted at a spot where no homestead was visible, and I was absolutely alone. None passed, and no cattle or stock of any kind stood in the adjoining fields. It was a faint foretaste of the immediate future, and a peculiar peace came over me as I stood on the hard, oiled road, and felt myself becoming at one with the universal light and life of the earth and sky. My breast thrilled, and I drew in my breath quickly. Was it a message? An assurance from the mother-heart of Nature that she would care for me tenderly in exile?

I turned and went slowly, thoughtfully, back to town, reaching it just as the dusk began to be starred by the rayed arc lights.

"'Crombie," I said, lighting one of his choicest cigars and sitting facing him; "you've steered me into an awful mess."

You know I could fuss at 'Crombie. He was too big to take offense.

"How so, my son?" he replied, easily, his large face gently humorous.

"Well, I started to pack for this—er—trip, or outing, and I had no more idea how to go about it than a pig. What will I need, and what must I take? You've got me into this, and you've got to see me through it."

"The first thing you'll need will be a roof with good, stout, tight walls under it. Remember, you're not going there to bask in sunshine alone, but you're going to spend next winter there!"

I looked at him, and I imagine my expression was something like that of a dog when a youth badgers it, for 'Crombie laughed.

"I don't want to make it worse than it is," he apologized; "neither do I want you to be deceived in any way regarding conditions. But by the time winter comes, take my word for it, you can sleep in a snow-drift without hurt."

I smoked in silence. The thought was not encouraging.

"I believe you will find things pretty much to your hand there," he went on, in a ruminative voice. "You remember I came from that part of the country, and the locality is entirely familiar. I have been all over Bald Knob a dozen times. Eight years ago a shack stood just where you would want yours. I think a fellow who had a natural love for the woods built it some eighteen or nineteen years ago, lived there a while, and later moved to another State. It is made entirely of undressed logs, and has one room and a kitchen. It ought to be in good condition yet, because it is protected by the bulk of the knob. I should guess the room to be about sixteen feet square, and the kitchen is a box, but big enough. There is a spring near, considerably impregnated with sulphur. This water can have nothing but a good effect. If the shack still stands, you should consider yourself very lucky."

As he drew this picture, I could not help but gaze at the sumptuous furnishings of the room in which I sat.

"How close is the nearest town?" I asked.

"The nearest town is Cedarton, my old home, ten miles from Bald Knob, but there is a hamlet within three miles. This consists of a few cottages, a store, a blacksmith shop and a distillery. You will have occasion to visit neither place often. If you should happen to run short of provisions, go to the hamlet called Hebron."

"Then seclusion is as necessary as pure air and plain food?"

"It is to prevent you from forming the habit that I advise you not to seek people. Man is naturally gregarious. If you began going to the hamlet once a week you would soon be going every day, and you would deteriorate into a cracker box philosopher or a nail keg politician, spending your time in hump-shouldered inertia rather than in tramping through the health-giving open in quest of the life-plant. You are going forth with a purpose, my son; don't forget that."

I threw my head back against the cushioned leather, and in doing so my eyes lighted on a magnificent moose head over the mantel.

"You killed that fellow?" I asked, swerving suddenly from the subject without apology, as is permitted between old friends.

"Yes; in northern Maine. I trailed him ten days, went hungry for two, broke through some thin lake ice in zero weather, tramped five miles with my wet clothes frozen on me before I could get to a fire, and slept two nights under snow a foot deep. Then I killed him."

I stared at him curiously.

"I confess," I said, "that I have thought you were giving me a prescription you knew nothing about. I beg your pardon for my unbelief."

He smiled, and broke his cigar ash into the tray at his elbow.

"I wouldn't miss my annual trip into Eden for a year's income," he said. "It is during those thirty days I store up life and energy for the remaining three hundred and thirty-five."

Then we fell to discussing my departure, and there followed an hour's talk on ways and means. By eleven o'clock I had a list of everything I could possibly need which would contribute to my comfort or well being. But there was one thing more; one supreme thing. All that evening I had been trying to speak it, and couldn't. Now we were sitting side by side at the table where we had made my list, and suddenly courage came. I clasped the ham-like hand lying close to mine, and looking steadily and beseechingly into my friend's eyes, said:

"'Crombie, go with me! I don't mean go to stay. I'm not such a miserable, snuffling coward as that. But companion me there—show me the way—help me get established. Two days—not longer. That country is new to me. Cedarton would take me for an escaped lunatic if I should apply at a livery stable for a wagon to take me and my effects to a shack which used to stand on the slope of Bald Knob. Don't you see? The people know you, and a word from you would fix it all right. I'm your patient. But more than that, 'Crombie, is having your good old self with me. Just come to the shack with me, help me place my things, hearten me up by your good man-talk, make me believe and know that I am on the right track. Just two days. Won't you do it, 'Crombie?"

I knew that I was asking a great deal, probably more than I should. It would seem that it was enough for one man to show another where bodily salvation lay, without taking him by the hand and leading him to it. And forty-eight hours from town now meant a monetary loss to the man beside me. But God made men like Abercrombie Dane for other purposes than money getting.

Now he gave me the sweetest smile I have ever seen on any face except my mother's, as he laid his other huge hand over mine.

"Yes, I'll go with you, my son," he said.