Читать книгу Oldfield: A Kentucky Tale of the Last Century - Nancy Huston Banks - Страница 7

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Living was leisurely down in the Pennyroyal Region of those old days. About the middle of the last century, some twenty years after the major's death, the weeks and months and years went by so quietly that his daughters grew old without knowing it.

No one indeed ever thought of Miss Judy as old. Charm so purely spiritual as hers has never any age. And then it would seem as if an element of perpetual youth often lingers to the last around a lovable unmarried woman as it rarely does around the married. The rose keeps its beauty and sweetness longest when left to fade ungathered.

Possibly Miss Judy may have been a shade slighter than she had been twenty years before, although she was never much stouter than a willow twig. Her hair can hardly have been whiter than it had been ever since anybody could remember, and it was just as curly, too, notwithstanding that she tried harder every day to brush it till it was prim and smooth, as she thought white hair should be.

Miss Sophia had never seemed very young, and she now appeared little if at all older. Her dark hair never whitened, and if the gray streaks over her placid temples had broadened slightly, it was no more trouble than it used to be to reach up the chimney and get a bit of soot on the tip of her finger—while Miss Judy was out of the room or looking the other way. It was an innocent artifice, but it remained always the darkest secret between the sisters. And this was probably not quite so dark a secret as Miss Sophia supposed it to be, since she, being so very plump, could not stand on tiptoe to look in the mirror, as Miss Judy did. Consequently, it was perhaps inevitable that the touching up intended for the gray streaks over Miss Sophia's placid temples, sometimes fell unawares on her honest little cheeks, or her guileless little ears.

Almost unaltered as the sisters were, their environment was, if possible, even less changed by the quiet passing of the uneventful years. For all outward changes, this March morning on which Miss Judy looked out over the sleeping village might have been the first morning after the first settlers had made their homes in this vale of peace. The folding hills were yet covered by the primeval forest. The log houses built by the Virginians still straggled beside a single thoroughfare. The highway, too, was the same buffalo track which they had followed through the wilderness—just as crooked in its direction, just as irregular in its width, just as muddy in winter and dusty in summer, and it was called the "big road" now, just as it had been in the beginning. And the sleepers in the still darkened houses were, with scarcely an exception, the descendants of the sounder sleepers in the graveyard on the furthest, highest hilltop. For the people of that far-off Pennyroyal Region came and went in those old days only with the coming and the going of the generations.

The night's shadows still lingered among the great, black tree-trunks draping the leafless boughs, but the sun's radiant lances were already lifting the white mists from the lowlands. Soft sounds coming up from the silent fields echoed the gentle awakening of flocks and herds, deepening, as the light brightened, into the eternal matin appeal of the dumb creature to human brotherhood. The birds alone were all wide awake and vividly astir. Flocks of plovers wheeled white-winged across the low-hung sky. A lonely sparrow-hawk swung high on seemingly motionless pinions. There were redbirds, too, and bluebirds and blackbirds—pewees, thrushes, vireos, kingfishers—all flocking in with the red and gold of the sunrise, making the dun meadows bright and melodious with their plumage and song. Miss Judy saw and heard them in pleased surprise. She could not recall having seen any of them that season, save two or three melancholy robins, drooping in the cold rain of the previous day. But here they all were, and singing as if they had no doubt that spring had come, however doubtful mere mortals might be.

It was light enough now to see the tavern which stood on the edge of the village. The sign of the tavern, a big rusty bell hung in a rough, rickety wooden frame, stood clear against the gray horizon, dangling its rotting rope, which few travellers ever came to pull.

The court-house and the jail faced the tavern from the other side of the big road. The court-house, with its stately little pillars and its queer little cupola, looked like some small and shabby old gentleman in a very high, very tight stock. There were two terms of circuit court, lasting about a month, one in the spring and one in the fall. The quarterly and the county courts convened at stated periods. The magistrate's court, which was also in the court-house, was held usually and almost exclusively as the peace of the colored population might require. Fortunately, the magistrate was regarded with a good deal of wholesome awe, and it was fortunate that he lived in the village, inasmuch as his pacific services were likely to be needed at irregular and unexpected times. The county judge, however, found it entirely convenient to live in the country, on a farm near Oldfield, though he rode into the village and spent an hour or so in his office nearly every day. Judge John Stanley of the higher court lived a long way off, quite on the other side of the district, coming and going twice a year with the convening and adjournment of the spring and fall terms. He had lived in Oldfield when a young man, and up to the time that a terrible thing had happened. He was not to blame, yet it had blighted his whole life; it had driven him in horror away from the place which he had loved. It was a great loss to him to be separated from Miss Judy, the only mother he had known. But he used to return to Oldfield now and then until another misfortune made the place forever unendurable to him. After this only the drag of his duty and his fondness for Miss Judy ever brought him back, and he went away again as soon as he could. He always called upon her when he came, and always went to bid her good-by before going away; but he visited no one else and knew nothing of the village outside the strict line of his official duties.

Adjoining the court-house was the county jail, a tumble-down pile of mossy brick. Only the bars across the window indicated the character of the building. A prisoner was occasionally enterprising enough to pull out the bars, but they were always put in again sooner or later. There were two rooms, one above and one below, with a movable ladder between. When, at long and rare intervals a stranger was brought to the jail as a prisoner, he was put in the upper room and—as an extreme measure of precaution—the ladder was taken away during the night. Both the rooms were apt to be chilly in cold weather on account of the broken window-panes, yet the jail was on the whole more comfortable than many of the cabins in which the negroes lived, and any one—no matter what the color of his skin—can endure a good deal of cold without great discomfort, when abundantly and richly fed. The jailer, Colonel Fielding, and his family never thought of taking so much trouble or of being so mean and selfish as to make any difference in the food sent to the jail and that which was served on their own table. Now and then in the winter the turkey and the pudding would, it is true, get rather cold in transit, the jail and the jailer's residence being some distance apart; but the prisoners did not mind that. They used to stand at the windows good-humoredly hailing the passers-by to kill time; and waiting with such patience as they could muster for the coming of the good dinner, especially when they knew that there was more "quality" company than usual in the jailer's house. The colonel, a beautiful old man—tall, stately, clear-eyed, clean and upright in heart and mind and body—was a gentleman of the old school who had never earned a penny in all the days of his blameless life. Such a picture as he was to look at, with his long silver hair curling on his shoulders and his tall erect form draped in the long cloak which he wore like a Roman toga!

"By the o'wars!" he used to declare, "the older I am the faster and thicker my hair grows. As for my cloak—it's the only suitable thing, sir, for a gentleman's wear."

His house had always been the social centre of Oldfield. When his friends elected him to the office of jailer, deeming that the best and easiest way of providing for him, since it was the nearest to a sinecure afforded by county politics, his family became still more active leaders of society. In those good old days of the Pennyroyal Region, a gentleman of birth and breeding might engage in any honest avocation, without the slightest injury to his social position. The only difference that the colonel's election to the office of jailer made to his family and his neighbors was, that the salary enabled him to indulge his hospitable and generous inclinations more fully. The salary was small, to be sure, but it was more than he had ever had before. About this time, too, the colonel's five beautiful daughters—all famous beauties—were in the perfection of bloom, and none of them had yet married, thus beginning the breaking up of the happy home. Such dinners, such suppers, such dances as there were in that plain old house! The colonel's handsome, indolent, sweet-tempered wife used to say that they were always ready for company, because they had the best they could get every day. Usually there was not the slightest conflict between the colonel's large social obligations and his small official duties. On the contrary, the more fine dinners and suppers he gave the higher the prisoners lived, and the happier everybody was. In fact, the colored vagrant who managed to get into the jail when winter was near—when there were no vegetables in anybody's garden, no fruit in anybody's orchard, no green corn in anybody's field—was regarded by his fellows as very fortunate indeed.

It chanced, however, that a wandering stranger was one day locked in among the prisoners who were otherwise all home-folks. On that very evening the Fielding girls were giving a grand ball and supper, to which the whole fashion of the county was invited. The prisoners, with the exception of the stranger, were as deeply interested in what they saw and heard of the great stir of preparation as the guests could possibly have been. The stranger probably knew nothing of his companions' glowing and confident expectation of a generous share of the feast. If they told him anything of the feasting which the next day was sure to bring, he either did not believe it, naturally enough—having had most likely some experience with jails and jailers—or he preferred liberty to luxury. At all events on that eventful evening the colonel, whose mind was full of the ball, incidentally forgot to lock the door of the jail. The strange prisoner had, therefore, nothing to do but to open the door as soon as the jailer's back was turned; and this he did at once, disappearing in the darkness, never to be seen or heard of again. The other prisoners had tried to prevent his going, and they now did their utmost to give the alarm. They hallooed long and loud at the top of their strong lungs. But the wind was blowing hard in the wrong direction, the jail was too far from the house, and they could not make themselves heard above the music and dancing and laughter and drinking of toasts. Finally one of them, who was a sort of leader because he wintered regularly in the jail, offered to go to the colonel's house in order to let him know what had occurred. And he did go—willingly too—although the night was very cold and very dark, and the mud so deep that the very bottom seemed to have dropped out of the big road. The colonel himself with his youngest daughter was leading the Virginia reel, and just going down the middle to the tune of Old Dan Tucker; so that the bearer of the evil tidings had to wait a few moments looking in on the ball before he found a chance to tell his story. It was a cruel blow to come at such a time, and the colonel felt it sorely. The prisoner reported to his companions, after his return alone to the jail, that he thought "Marse Joe was about to swear" then and there. It was in vain that the colonel's guests hastened to reassure him; to tell him that it would be a great saving to the county—so all the gentlemen said—if every one of the lazy black rascals could be induced to run away. But the colonel felt the wound to his pride. It was a matter touching his honor. And finally, finding him inflexible in his determination to do his duty under the circumstances, the men present offered—almost to a man—to go with him when he went to search for the fugitive; and they kept their word on the following day about noon when the sun was warmest, just to please the colonel, although they knew beforehand how futile the pursuit would be with vast canebrakes near by and the Cypress Swamp just beyond the hills.

That memorable night of the ball was long, long past when this March morning dawned. The colonel was very old now and very feeble, with dimmed memories and utterly alone. He had lost his wife years before. His five beautiful daughters were married and gone. Alice, the most beautiful of all, the youngest, the brightest, the highest spirited, was dead after the wrecking of her young life. The old man had aged and failed rapidly since Alice's death. He, who used to be so cheerful, sat brooding at first, turning his aching memories this way and that way, trying to see whether he might not have done something to prevent the soft-hearted child from being frightened into marrying a man whom she feared almost as much as she disliked. He was always thinking about it in those early days after her death in the bloom of youth and beauty, but he rarely spoke of it even then, and after a time he was allowed to forget. Mercifully memory faded as weakness increased. The gentle, unhappy old man became ere long again a gentle, happy child, and yet—even to the last—when aroused to glimmering consciousness the gallant manner of the courtly gentleman of the old school came back. Miss Judy thought she had never seen so polished a bearing as the colonel's had been and would be—in a way—as long as he lived. She wondered uneasily that morning, as she looked toward his house, whether the servants took good care of him; and she made up her mind to be more watchful of him herself. She was much afraid that the rain might make his rheumatism worse.

Next to the colonel's, coming down the big road, was the Gordon place, the largest and best kept in the village. The house was a low rambling structure of logs, whitewashed inside and out. The rooms had been added at random as suited the comfort and convenience of the family. It was not the habit of the Oldfield people to consider appearances. It was not the habit of the widow Gordon to consider anything but her own wishes. It may have been on account of this imperiousness, this open and scornful disregard of everything and everybody except herself and her own comfort, that she was always called "old lady Gordon" behind her back. She lived alone with a large retinue of servants in the comfortable old house, spending her days in a state of mental and physical semi-coma from over-eating and over-sleeping, using both like lethean drugs. Miss Judy alone sometimes thought that old lady Gordon so used them and pitied her. Old lady Gordon, who had a strong keen sense of humor, almost masculine in its robustness, would have laughed at the idea of Miss Judy's pity. She was the richest member of that community in which all living was simple, and in which the extremes of riches and poverty were not known as they are known to the greater world. Most of the Oldfield people dwelt contentedly in the middle estate which the wisest of men prayed for. None was poorer than Miss Judy, who had only a pittance of a pension, the old house, and the scrap of earth; none, that is, except Sidney Wendall, who, although she owned the log cabin which sheltered her family and the bit of garden lying by its side, had not a penny of income for the support of her three children, her husband's brother, and herself. Yet Miss Judy managed to provide for Miss Sophia—and herself also as an afterthought; and Sidney provided for her family without difficulty, though in both cases a steady, strenuous effort was required.

Among the few who were really well-to-do, were Tom Watson and Anne his wife. Their house, facing Miss Judy's across the big road, was rather more modern than the rest of the Oldfield houses, and it was better furnished. And yet as Miss Judy looked at its closed blinds she sighed, thinking how little money had to do with happiness, when it could give no relief from pain of mind or body. More than a year had dragged by since the master of that darkened household had been brought home after the accident which had crushed the great, strong, passionate, undisciplined, good-hearted giant into a helpless, hopeless paralytic—as the lightning fells the mighty oak in fullest leaf. The mistress of the stricken home had always been what the Oldfield people called a "still-tongued" woman, and she was now become more silent than ever. The house had never been a cheerful one, save as the noisy master blustered in and out. Now it was sad indeed: now that both husband and wife knew that he could never be any better, never otherwise than he was, although he might live for years.

Miss Judy wondered as she gazed, whether Doctor Alexander, living a little further along the big road, had yet told Anne the whole truth. After a moment she was sure that he had not. He was the kindest of bluff-spoken men. And what would be the use—since neither Anne nor the doctor nor the power of the whole world of sympathy or science could do anything more? She was glad to see the doctor's curtains still drawn. He needed all the rest he could get; he was always overworked in his practice for twenty miles around. And Mrs. Alexander, the doctor's wife, was one of the rare kind, who are always ready to sleep when other people are sleepy and to breakfast when other people are hungry: a much rarer kind, as even Miss Judy knew, unworldly as she was, than the kind who always expect others to be sleepy when they wish to sleep and to be ready to eat when they are hungry.

In the unpainted, tumble-down house next to the doctor's, somebody was awake and stirring. Miss Judy guessed it to be Kitty Mills, and she knew it was more than likely that the poor woman had not been in bed at all. It was nothing uncommon for old man Mills, Kitty's father-in-law, to keep her busy in waiting upon him the whole night through. It was utterly impossible for Kitty, or anybody else, to please him, but Kitty never seemed to mind in the least; she merely laughed and tried again—over and over with untiring kindness and unflagging patience. Miss Judy never knew quite what to make of Kitty Mills, though she had lived just across the big road from her through all these years. Miss Judy could understand submission without resistance easily enough; she had submitted to a good many hard things herself, without a murmur. But she could not comprehend the acceptance of unkindness and injustice and ingratitude and endless toil and hardship with actual hilarity, as Kitty Mills accepted all of these things, day in and day out, year after year. And there she was now singing, blithe as a lark! Well, such a disposition as Kitty's was a good gift, Miss Judy thought almost enviously, as though her own disposition were very bad indeed. Then she began to reproach herself for uncharitable thoughts of old man Mills's daughters. They may have had their reasons for bringing their father to Kitty's house to be nursed by her, instead of nursing him themselves. Perhaps they had brought him because they believed Kitty would take better care of him than they could, knowing how faithfully she had nursed their mother who had been unable to leave her bed for years, and, indeed, up to her death, only a few months before. We cannot look into one another's hearts, so Miss Judy reminded herself. No doubt we should judge more justly if we could. And Sam, Kitty's husband, was really a good, kind man, and maybe he would work sometimes were it not for the misery in his back, which always grew worse whenever work was even mentioned in his presence. Still Miss Judy could not see, try as she might, how Kitty Mills could laugh till she cried, when old man Mills snatched up the dinner which she had cooked on a hot day and flung it out the window—dishes and all.

Looking farther along the big road, Miss Judy saw that the Pettuses also were awake and stirring about. The bachelor brother and the maiden sister were both early risers. Mr. Pettus kept the general store, and he liked to have it open and ready for trade when the farmers taking grain and tobacco to market drove the big-wheeled wagons with their swaying ox-teams through the village on the way to the river. Miss Pettus arose with the first chicken that took its head from under its wing, her main interest in life being concentrated in the poultry-yard. She always held that any one having to do with hens must be up before the sun; and she used to tell Miss Judy a great deal about the Individuality of Hens, the subject with which she was best acquainted and upon which she discoursed most entertainingly and instructively. Miss Judy always listened with much interest and entire seriousness. Gentle Miss Judy had not a very keen sense of humor; it is doubtful if any really sweet woman ever had.

"The folks who think all hens are alike except the difference that the feathers make outside, don't know what they are talking about!" Miss Pettus once said, in her excited way. "Hens are as different inside as folks are. Some hens are silly and some have got plenty of sense, only they're stubborn. There's that yellow-legged pullet of mine. She's so silly that she is just as liable to lay in the horse-trough as in her nice, clean nest. Every blessed morning, rain or shine, unless I'm up and on the spot before she can get into the trough, old Baldy eats an egg with his hay, and I'm expecting every day that he'll eat her. And there's that old dorminica, the one that Kitty Mills cheated me with when we swapped hens that time. Well, the old dorminica ain't a bit silly. She's just out and out contrary. The great, lazy, fat thing! Set she won't—do what I will! And Kitty Mills knew she wouldn't—knew it just as well when we swapped as I know it this minute. There's no use trying to persuade me that she didn't. It's awful aggravating, because the dorminica's the heaviest hen I've got. Well, night before last I made up my mind that I'd make her set, whether she wanted to or not. When it began to get dark and she sauntered off to go to roost, I caught her and put her down on a nest full of fine, fresh eggs—set her down real firm and determined, like that—as much as to say 'we'll see whether you don't stay there,' and then I turned a box over her so that she couldn't get out if she tried. But I couldn't help feeling kind of uneasy, with fresh eggs gone up so high, clear to ten cents a dozen. The next morning at break o' day, cold and rainy as it was, I put on my overshoes and threw my shawl over my head, and went to take a peep under the box. And there—you'll hardly believe it, Miss Judy, but I give you my word as a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church—there was that old dorminica a-standing up!"

Miss Judy had said at the time what a shame it was to waste nice eggs so, and she had spoken with sincere feeling. She had been cherishing a secret hope that she might get a few eggs from Miss Pettus to complete a setting for Speckle. Miss Judy had saved ten eggs with great care, keeping them wrapped in a flannel petticoat; but Speckle, the docile and industrious, could easily cover fifteen and was quite willing to do it. Now, Miss Judy's hope was lost through the dorminica's contrariness. She thought about this again with a pang of disappointment, as she heard the cackling and confusion going on in the Pettus poultry-yard, which told the whole neighborhood that Miss Pettus was wide awake and actively pursuing her chosen walk in life.

Sidney Wendall, the widow, was another early riser, as one needs be when earning a living for a whole family by one's wits. Sidney's house, the poorest and smallest of all the village, was the last at that end of the big road, and stood higher than the others, far up on the hillside. As Miss Judy looked toward it that morning, she was not thinking of Sidney but of Doris, her daughter, whom Miss Judy loved as her own child. At the very thought of Doris a new light came into her blue eyes and a lovelier flush overspread her fair cheeks. She stood still for a moment, gazing wistfully, waiting and longing for the far-off glimpse of Doris, which nearly always sweetened the beginning of the day. On that wet March morning there was no flutter of a little white apron, no sign of a wafted kiss. Miss Judy sighed gently as her gaze came back to her own yard. There were two japonica bushes, one standing on either side of the front gate, and as Miss Judy now glanced at them she was startled to see what seemed to be a roseate mist floating among the bare, brown branches, still dripping and shining with the night's rain.