A Pagan of the Hills Part 20

In far separated cabins, held in the quarantine of mired roads, men and women have lived, from hand to mouth, sinking into a dour and melancholy apathy.

But when Spring comes, the gray and chocolate humps of raggedness are softly veiled again with tender verdure and a song runs with the caress of the breeze. It is a song relayed on the throats of birds. The color of new flower and leaf and of skies washed clean of brooding finds an echo in man and womankind. When the dogwood blossom, everywhere, breaks into white foam upon the soft billows of woodland green, and the sap stirs--then the old and crabbed bitterness of life stands aside for the coming of Love.

If one be young and free, one feels, admittedly or subconsciously, the deep tides that sing to sentiment and the undertows that pull to pa.s.sion.

About the lonely house of Alexander McGivins the woods were burgeoning and tuneful. Stark contours of landscape had become lovely and Alexander, preparing for the activities of "drappin' and kiverin'" in the steep corn-fields, felt the surge of vague influences in her bosom.

Joe McGivins had carried a stricken face since Old Aaron's death. He looked to his sister, as he had looked to his father, for direction and guidance and though he worked it was as a hired man might have worked, patiently rather than keenly and without initiative.

But keeping busy failed to comfort the empty ache in Alexander's heart because in the grave over yonder lay all that had filled her world, and though she would have fought the man who suggested it, there were times when her lovely lips fell into lines of irony, and when she half-consciously felt that her playing at being a man had been a bitter and empty jest. She had only forfeited her woman's rights in life, and had failed to gain the compensation of man's.

Once or twice when on the high road, she pa.s.sed youthful couples, love-engrossed, she went on with a wistfulness in her eyes. For such as these, life held something, but for her, she was sure in her obduracy of inexperience, there was no objective.

If the truth be told, the "spring-tide" was welling in the channels of her being, as well as in the rivulets of the hills, and the changes that had come to her were near to bearing fruit.

That s.p.a.ce of little more than a week, when she had left her home--a home which had also been a world with its own laws and environment--had brought her into contact with other views. Her father's death had left the house no longer the same. Two independent souls, with strong views, may succeed in fashioning their own world, and she and her father had been two such.

One left unsupported may fail, and now she was alone--for Joe hardly counted.

Ever since she had been old enough to think at all, she had been inordinately proud of "being a man," and profoundly contemptuous of the women about her whose colorless lives spelled thraldom and hard servitude.

That long fostered and pa.s.sionately held creed would die hard. She would fight herself and whomsoever else challenged its acceptance--but insidious doubts were a.s.sailing her.

So to all outward seeming Alexander McGivins was more the "he-woman"

than ever before, but in her inner heart the leaven of change was at its yeasty work.

"I've got ter be a man," she told Joe, who mildly objected, even while he leaned on her strength. "Now thet paw's gone, I hev greater need then ever ter stand squ'ar on my own two feet."

The youth nodded. "I reckon ye're right," he acknowledged, "but folks talks a heap. I'm always figgerin' thet I'm goin' ter hev ter lick somebody erbout ye. I wouldn't suffer n.o.body ter speak ill of ye when I war present."

Alexander looked steadily at the boy. "I'm obleeged ter ye, but I'll do my own fightin', Joe," she told him calmly. "I'll even make shift ter do some o' your'n, an' yit----" She paused a moment and he inquired, "Wa'al, what's on yore mind, Alexander?"

"An' yit," she went on more slowly and thoughtfully, "I'd be mighty nigh willin' ter prove ther cause of ye gittin' in one or two good fights--ef hit couldn't be brought ter pa.s.s no other way."

"Paw always counseled peace, ef a feller warn't pushed too fur," he alleged in defense of his pacific att.i.tude.

"So does I. But Joe, hit's jest on yore own account thet I'd like ter see ye show more sperit. Folks talks erbout _you_ too. I know what blood ye've got, commandin' blood--an' ef ye got roused up onc't hit'd mek a more upstandin' man of ye. I knows. .h.i.t's a lie, but I've heered ye called ther disablest feller on Shoulder-blade!"

A touch of contempt stole into her voice as she added, "An' yore paw's only son!"

He went away somewhat sulkily, but she had ignited in him a spark of needed torture. Bred of a fighting line, the acid of self-scorn began eating into his pride, and when a few days later he halted at a wayside smithy, which was really only a "blind-tiger," and came upon a drinking crowd, the ferment of his thoughts developed into action.

Sol Breck was sitting with his back turned as the boy strolled in and it chanced that he was talking about Alexander. The girl herself with her square sense of justice, would have recognized his comments as crude jesting and would have pa.s.sed them by unresented.

But Joe had been bitterly accusing himself of timidity and he needed sustenance for his waning faith in his own temerity. It was characteristic of him that he should pick an easy beginning, as a timid swimmer seeks proficiency in shallow water. Sol Breck had the unenviable reputation of one who never declined battle--and never emerged from one crowned with victory. Joe hurled at him the challenge of the fighting epithet and after a brief but animated combat had him down and defeated. Then he returned home with a swelling breast, and just enough marks of conflict upon his own person to bear out his report of counsel heeded and resolution put to the touch.

Alexander listened without interruption to the end, for Joe had told her all but the name of his adversary and the exact words that had precipitated battle.

But when the narrative came to its conclusion she inquired quietly, "What did he say erbout me?"

"Oh, hit wasn't so much what he said es ther way he said hit," was Joe's somewhat shame-faced reply. "Ef hit hed been erbout any other gal, I reckon I mout of looked over it."

"What was it?" The demand was insistent.

"He jest 'lowed that if 'stid of warin' pants an' straddlin' hosses, ye'd pick ye out an upstandin' man an' wed him, thar mout come ter be some _real_ men in ther fam'ly."

The girl's face crimsoned.

"I thought ye said hit war me ye fought erbout, Joe."

"I did say so, Alexander."

"An' ye didn't see no aspersion thet called fer a fight--in ther way them words teched _you_?"

That phase of the matter had not occurred to Joe at all. He was used to being overlooked.

"He warn't thinkin' erbout me," he lamely exculpated. "I reckon he hed hit in head thet I hain't quite twenty-one yit."

For a while Alexander stood looking at him with a slowly gathering tempest of anger in her eyes, under which the boy fidgeted, and finally she spoke in that ominously still manner that marked moments of dang'er.

"What he said erbout me war true enough--an' ef ye admits what he all but said erbout you--thet ye hain't no man--then _thet's_ true too."

The boy was crestfallen and a little impatient now. He had come to recount an achievement which had plumed and reappareled a limping self-respect and he had expected congratulation.

"What's ther use of faultin' me by mincin' words? I licked him, didn't I? Set hit down ter anything ye likes."

Her voice still held that cold note of inflexible but quiet anger.

"Yes, ye licked him but hit looks like ter me ye picked yore man plum keerful an' got ye an easy one. Wait hyar, I'm goin' atter my hat."

"What fer?"

"Were a'goin' over thar tergether--an' ye're goin' ter crave his pardon."

"I wouldn't crave his pardon," burst out the boy violently, "ter save his soul from torment. I'd be a laughing stock ef I did."

"Ye're agoin' ter do one of two things, Joe," she announced with finality. "Ye're either agoin' ter ask his pardon, whilst I stands by an' hears ye do hit or else ye're a'goin' ter tell him thet ye licked him over ther wrong words--an' thet seein' ye blundered, ye're willin'

ter lick him afresh over ther right ones--him or anybody he names ter fight in his place."

Joe hung his head for a moment, then the p.r.i.c.king of the old self-scorn came with a turning tide.

"All right," he said. "Let's go."

It was an unmannerly, but a very astonished crew upon which they came but at the sight of Alexander herself they all became sheepish and discomfited of aspect.

"Sol," began the girl tersely, "Joe tells me thet him an' you hed a fight jest now over somethin' ye said erbout he. I kin do my own fightin', but Joe hes something ter tell ye on his own account."

So introduced, Joe spoke and this time it was the swimmer striking boldly into deep water.

"Alexander 'lows I didn't hev need ter fight over loose talk erbout her. But when airy feller says thar hain't no man in my household, so long's I'm thar, I hev got ample cause ter fight. Ye've got ter tek thet back right now. Ef so be ye hain't rested up yit, an' ye've got any friend hyar thet ye'd like ter hev take yore place, I'm ready fer him."