Читать книгу Gabriel Tolliver - Joel Chandler Harris - Страница 9

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When the great contest began, Nan was close to thirteen, and Gabriel was fourteen. Cephas was younger; he had lived hardly as many months as he had freckles on his face, otherwise he would have been an aged citizen. They wandered about together, always accompanied by Tasma Tid, all of them being children in every sense of the word. Occasionally they were joined by some of the other boys and girls; but they were always happier when they were left to themselves.

In the late afternoons they could always be found in the Bermuda fields, but at other times, especially on a warm day, their favourite playground was under the wide-spreading elms in front of the post-office. Amusing themselves there in the fine weather, they could see the people come and go, many of them looking for letters that never came. When the conflict at the front became warm and serious, and when the very newspapers, as Mrs. Absalom said, smelt of blood, there was always a large crowd of men, old and young, gathered at the post-office when the mail-coach came from Malvern. As few of the people subscribed for a daily newspaper, Judge Odom (he was Judge of the Inferior Court, now called the Court of Ordinary) took upon himself to mount a chair or a dry-goods box, and read aloud the despatches printed in the Malvern Recorder. This enterprising journal had a number of volunteer correspondents at the front who made it a point to send with their letters the lists of the killed and wounded in the various Georgia regiments; and these lists grew ominously long as the days went by.

And then, in the course of time, came the collapse of the Confederacy, an event that blew away with a breath, as it were, the hopes and dreams of those who had undertaken to build a new government in the South; and this march of time brought about a gradual change in the relations between Nan and Gabriel. It was almost as imperceptible in its growth as the movement of the shadow on the sun-dial. Somehow, and to her great disgust, Nan awoke one morning and was told that she was a young woman, or dreamt that she was told. Anyhow, she realised, all of a sudden, that she was now too tall for short dresses, and too old to be playing with the boys as if she were one of them; and the consciousness of this change gave her many a bad quarter of an hour, and sometimes made her a trifle irritable; for, sweet as she was, she had a temper.

She asked herself a thousand times why she should now begin to feel shy of Gabriel, and why she should be so self-conscious, she who had never thought of herself with any degree of seriousness until now. It was all a puzzle to her. As it was with Nan, so it was with Gabriel. As Nan grew shy and shyer, so the newly-awakened Gabriel grew more and more and more timid, and the two soon found themselves very far apart without knowing why. For a long time Cephas was the only connecting link between them. He was a sly little rascal, this same Cephas, and he found in the situation food for both curiosity and amusement. He had not the least notion why the two friends and comrades were inclined to avoid each other. He only knew that he was not having as pleasant a time as fell to his portion when they were all going about together with no serious notions of life or conduct.

Cephas got no satisfaction from either Nan or Gabriel when he asked them what the trouble was. Nan tried to explain matters, but her explanation was a very lame one. "I am getting old enough to be serious, Cephas; and I must begin to make myself useful. That's what Miss Polly Gaither says, and she's old enough to know. Oh, I hate it all!" said Nan.

"Is Miss Polly Gaither useful?" inquired Cephas.

"I'm sure I don't know," replied Nan; "but that's what she told me, and then she held up her ear-trumpet for me to talk in it; but I just couldn't, she looked so very much in earnest. It was all I could do to keep from laughing. Did you ever notice, Cephas, how funny people are when they are really in earnest?"

Alas! Cephas had often pinched himself in Sunday-school to keep from laughing at old Mrs. Crafton, his teacher. She was so dreadfully in earnest that she kept her face in a pucker the whole time. Outside of the Sunday-school she was a very pleasant old lady.

Gabriel had no explanation to make whatever. He simply told Cephas that Nan was becoming vain. This Cephas denied with great emphasis, but Gabriel only shook his head and looked wise, as much as to say that he knew what he knew, and would continue to know it for some time to come. The truth is, however, that Gabriel was as ignorant of the feminine nature as it is possible for a young fellow to be; whereas, Nan, by means of the instinct or intuition which heaven has conferred on her sex for their protection, knew Gabriel a great deal better than she knew herself.

When the war came to a close, Gabriel was nearly eighteen, and Nan was seventeen, though she appeared to be a year or two younger. She was still childish in her ways and tastes, and carried with her an atmosphere of simplicity and sweetness in which very few girls of her age are fortunate enough to move. Simplicity was a part of her nature, though some of her young lady friends used to whisper to one another that it was all assumed. She was even referred to as Miss Prissy, a term that was probably intended to be an abbreviation of Priscilla.

Regularly, she used to hunt Cephas up and carry him home with her for the afternoon; and on the other hand, Gabriel manifested a great fondness for the little fellow, who enjoyed his enviable popularity with a clear conscience. It was years and years afterwards before the secret of his popularity dawned on him. If he had suspected it at the time, his pride, such as he had, would have had a terrible fall.

One day, it was the year of Appomattox, and the month was June, Cephas heard his name called, and answered very promptly, for the voice was the voice of Gabriel, and it was burdened with an invitation to visit the woods and fields that surrounded the town. The weather itself was burdened with the same invitation. The birds sang it, and it rustled in the leaves of the trees. And Cephas leaped from the house, glad of any excuse to escape from the domestic task at which he had been set. They wandered forth, and became a part and parcel of the wild things. The hermit thrush, with his silver bell, was their brother, and the cat-bird, distressed for the safety of her young, was their sister. Yea, and the gray squirrel was their playmate, a shy one, it is true, but none the less a genuine one for all that. They roamed about the green-wood, and over the hills and fields, and finally found themselves in the public highway that leads to Malvern.

Cephas found a cornstalk, and with hardly an effort of his mind, changed it into a fine saddle-horse. The contagion seized Gabriel, and though he was close upon his eighteenth birthday, he secured a cornstalk, which at once became a saddle-horse at his bidding. The magical powers of youth are wonderful, and for a little while the cornstalk horses were as real as any horses could be. The steed that Cephas bestrode was comparatively gentle, but Gabriel's horse developed a desire to take fright at everything he saw. A creature more skittish and nervous was never seen, and his example was soon followed by the steed that Cephas rode. The two boys were so busily engaged in trying to control their perverse horses, that they failed to see a big covered waggon that came creeping up the hill behind them. So, while they were cutting up their queer capers, the big waggon, drawn by two large mules, was plumb upon them. As for Cephas, he didn't care, being at an age when such capers are permissible, but Gabriel blushed when he discovered that his childish pranks had witnesses; and he turned a shade redder when he saw that the occupants of the waggon were, of all the persons in the world, Mr. Billy Sanders and Francis Bethune.

Both of the boys would have passed on but for the compelling voice of Mr. Sanders. "Why, it's little Gabe, and he's little Gabe no longer. And Cephas ain't growed a mite. Hello, Gabe! Hello, Cephas! Howdy, howdy?"

Francis Bethune's salutation was somewhat constrained, or if that be too large a word, was lacking in cordiality. "What is the matter with Gabriel?" he asked.

"It's a thousand pities, Frank," remarked Mr. Sanders, "that Sarah Clopton wouldn't let you be a boy along with the other boys; but she coddled you up jest like you was a gal. Be jigged ef I don't believe you've got on pantalettes right now."

Bethune blushed hotly, while Gabriel and Cephas fairly yelled with laughter—and there was a little resentment in Gabriel's mirth. "But I don't see what could possess Tolliver," Bethune insisted.

"Shucks, Frank! you wouldn't know ef he was to write it down for you, an' Nan Dorrin'ton would know wi'out any tellin'. You ain't a bit brighter about sech matters than you was the day Nan give you a thumpin'."

At this Gabriel laughed again, for he had been an eye-witness to the episode to which Mr. Sanders referred. A boy has his prejudices, as older persons have theirs. Bethune had always had the appearance of being too fond of himself; when other boys of his age were playing and pranking, he would be primping, and in the afternoon, before he went off to the war, he would strut around town in the uniform of a cadet, and seemed to think himself better than any one else. These things count with boys as much as they do with older persons.

"Climb in the waggin, Gabe an' Cephas, an' tell us about ever'thing an' ever'body. The Yanks didn't take the town off, did they?"

The boys accepted the invitation without further pressing, for they were both fond of Mr. Sanders, and proceeded to give their old friend all the information he desired. Francis Bethune asked no questions, and Gabriel was very glad of it. At bottom, Bethune was a very clever fellow, but the boys are apt to make up their judgments from what is merely superficial. Francis had a very handsome face, and he could have made himself attractive to a youngster on the lookout for friends, but he had chosen a different line of conduct, and as a result, Gabriel had several scores against the young man. And so had Cephas; for, on one occasion, the latter had gone to the Clopton Place for some wine for his mother, who was something of an invalid, and, coming suddenly on Sarah Clopton, found her in tears. Cephas never had a greater shock than the sight gave him, for he had never connected this self-contained, gray-haired woman with any of the tenderer emotions. In the child's mind, she was simply a sort of superintendent of affairs on the Clopton Place, who, in the early mornings, stood on the back porch of the big house, and, in a voice loud enough to be heard a considerable distance, gave orders to the domestics, and allotted to the field hands their tasks for the day.