Crestlands Part 2

Dudley slipped into his clothes and hastened down the steep stairway in search of such toilet accessories as his attic apartment did not afford. When he reached the porch, the twins provided him with a basin of water, a "noggin" of lye soap, and a towel; and telling him he would find the "coa.r.s.e comb on the chist of drawers in the settin'-room,"

hurried to the poultry-yard, where the chickens were already off their roosts and clamoring for their morning meal.

His toilet completed, Dudley started for a ramble before breakfast. At first a faint pink light began to tinge the eastern sky, but presently, from over the crest of the hills across the road, the sun arose like a red ball, dispersing the chill gray mist, and the new day, fresh and radiant and vibrant with the songs of birds, the crowing and cackling of chickens, and the lowing of cattle, was fully inaugurated.

If the stranger found the scene in front of the house quietly beautiful, no less interesting was the more homely one to the rear. In the stable lot Susan and Rache were each stooping beside a long-horned cow, milking. In another enclosure Eph was struggling to head off a determined little calf from its mother, a fierce-looking spotted cow which a negro woman was trying to milk. At the window of the barn loft could be seen a negro man tossing down hay to the horses; and in a lot across the way a number of hogs, in answer to Henry's loud "Soo-e-ey, soo-e-ey!" came clamoring and squealing for the corn "nubbins" he was tossing from the sack across his shoulders.

Soon after breakfast, Abner, accompanied by Henry, set out with the subscription paper.

"How many signers did you git?" inquired Rogers that night when the family were again a.s.sembled around the fire.

"Forty-three down, four more doubtful, and two more promised conditionally."

"Who air the conditionals?"

"The Hinkson children."

"Whut's Bushrod Hinkson mekin' conditions fur, I'd lak to know?"

exclaimed Mrs. Rogers. "I'll bet it's jes' his stinginess. He'd skin a flea fur its hide an' taller, any day."

"He will send his children only on condition that I work out a certain problem which it seems the last two schoolmasters could not solve."

"Pshaw!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Rogers. "Is he still pipin' on thet ole sum? It's in po'try, ain't it?"

"Yes," replied Dudley, taking a slip of paper from his pocket and reading therefrom:

"A landed man two daughters had, And both were very fair; To each he gave a piece of land, One round, the other square.

"Twenty shillings to an acre, Each piece this value had; But the shillings that could compa.s.s it For it just ten times paid.

"And if once across a shilling be an inch, As which is very near, Which had the better fortune, The round one or the square?"

"Kin you wuck it?" asked Rogers, anxiously.

"Oh, yes, I think so. It doesn't seem a very complicated affair."

"Bushrod Hinkson sartinly is the crankiest ole somebody I evah hearn tell on," was Mrs. Rogers' verdict. "What diffruns would it mattah ef you couldn't wuck thet fool sum? His two shavers hain't no fu'thah 'long in ther books then my twins, air they, Susan?"

"Lawdy!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Rogers. "I hope you kin wuck it, an' shet him up fur good an' all. He thinks he knows it all when it comes to figgahs, an' kin siphah fastah'n a hoss kin gallop. It's time somebody took him down 'bout thet ole po'try sum. I'd lak to choke him on it.

"Reckon Gilcrest put you through yer gaits, too, didn' he?" Rogers asked presently, removing his cowhide shoes, stretching his legs out in front of the fire, and proceeding, as he explained, "to toast his feet befoh goin' to roost."

"Yes, sir," answered Dudley, "and he looked so stern and eyed me so keenly from underneath his grizzled eyebrows that I felt as though I were before the Inquisition."

"Jes' so!" Rogers a.s.sented, although he had probably never heard of the Inquisition. "Hiram's three hobby hosses air 'good roads, Calvinism and slavery.' Which o' them ponies wuz he ridin' this mawnin'?"

"He took a gallop on all three," laughingly answered Abner; "but he rode the doctrinal steed longest and hardest."

"Egzactly!" said Rogers, taking a chew of tobacco. "He's daft on good roads; kinder rabid on slavery; but when it comes to the 'five p'ints,'

he's rank pizinous. I s'pose he rid the good-roads hoss fust. He ginerly does."

"Yes, he took a preliminary canter on it. Then he looked at me searchingly and asked if I was opposed to slavery. I rather think he suspected me of being here on some secret mission to stir up insurrection among the negroes; but when I said that I thought they were much better off as slaves than they were in their native heathen condition, he relaxed considerably. He then worked around to church and doctrinal matters, and was argumentative and dictatorial about 'predestination,' 'effectual calling,' etc.; but I finally told him that though not a church-member, I had been reared under strict Presbyterian influences. This delighted him, and he said I was doubtless well grounded, and that if I was one of the 'elect,' I would be called in the Lord's own good time."

"I'm glad you got through so well. Hiram's a good man at bottom, but ez full o' prejudice ez a aigg's full o' meat. He even claims thet Stone hain't sound on orthodoxy, which means he ain't so streenous 'bout G.o.d Almighty's fav'rin' some folks to etarnal salvation, befoh the foundations o' the world, and others, jes' ez good, to everlastin'

d.a.m.nation. Brother Stone he's mighty quiet an' mild-like, but kindah hints thet G.o.d Almighty's too just to hev fav'rites. I tell you, thar's trouble brewin' on this very p'int; and thar's gwintah be a tur'ble split 'foh long in Cane Ridge meeting-house."

"Did you see the rest o' the folks at Gilcrest's?" Mrs. Rogers asked.

"No, ma'am, the interview was held at the stile block; but Major Gilcrest asked me to return after seeing the other patrons, and take dinner; and he also said something about my boarding with him."

"Boahdin' at Gilcrest's!" said Rogers. "Not ef me an' Cynthy Ann knows it! Of course you'll stop with us."

"Yes," added his wife, "me an' Susan's been all maw-nin' a-fixin' up the north room fer you, so's you kin hev----"

"You are certainly most kind, Mrs. Rogers. I'm sure I'll be pleased with everything which you and Mr. Rogers arrange."

"Well," said Rogers, again taking up the subscription paper and making a calculation, "you've done fine gittin' up a school, an' will mek a purty little sum outen yer wintah's wuck--'bout one hundred an' thirty dollahs, I mek it. Now, how many acres et a dollar an' two bits a acre kin be bought fer thet? 'Bout one hundred an' four, hain't it?"

"Yes, one hundred and four acres, if there were no other expenses, but----"

"Whut othah expenses kin you hev wuth namin'? You've got a saddle-bag full o' clothes an' books, hain't you?--'nough to last through the wintah; so whut----"

"But my board! You haven't said how much that will be."

"Well, now," said Rogers, with a sly wink at his wife, "how much do you reckon 'twould be right ter pay?"

"About five shillings per week. I'm told that is the usual----"

"Five shillin's! The granny's hind foot! Why, boy, whut you tek me an'

Cynthy Ann fur? We shan't tek five shillin's nor yit five cents. A boy like you, not much older'n our William, ef he'd 'a' lived, an' frum Lawsonville, too! Didn't I tell you you'd be jes' lak my own frum this time on? Board, indeed! Heah's plenty o' cawn pone, hom'ny, bacon an'

taters, I reckon; 'sides cawn an' oats an' stable room fur yer nag. All we ax is thet you nevah say board to us agin. But, ef you like," he added kindly, "you kin holp Henry an' Cissy some o' nights in ther books, an' mek a hand to wuck roads, one Sat'dy in each month tell snow comes."

Early Monday morning, while the frost yet glistened on gra.s.s and hedge row, Abner, accompanied by Susan, Tommy and the twins, set out for the schoolhouse, a mile distant. At the same time, by a dozen different paths through woods and fields, other children with dinner pails and spelling-books hastened toward the same goal, regardless of nuts, wild grapes and other woodland attractions; for each wanted to be first to reach the schoolhouse on this, the opening day.

Cane Ridge schoolhouse was a large hut of unhewn logs, with a roof of rough boards and bark. The windows were covered with oiled paper instead of gla.s.s, and the scanty light thus admitted was augmented by that which came in through frequent gaps in the mud-daubed walls. Wind, rain and snow likewise found free admission through these crevices; but on winter days the climate of the schoolroom was tempered by the blazing logs piled in the mammoth fireplace occupying one entire end of the building.

A rude platform opposite the fireplace was the master's rostrum, whereon was his high, box-like desk of pine and his split-bottomed chair. Just back of his seat upon the floor of the platform stood a row of dinner pails, and above on wooden pegs hung the children's hats and bonnets. On each side of the room was a long writing-desk, merely a rough board resting with the proper slant upon stout pins driven into the walls. Here on rude, backless benches sat the larger boys and girls. At the right-hand side of the room, on a lower bench in front of the older pupils, sat the little boys "with curving backs and swinging feet, and with eyes that beamed all day long with fun or apprehension."

Opposite them, on a similar bench, was a row of little girls in linsey dresses and tow-linen pinafores.

Every grade of home was represented--the shiftless renter's squalid hovel, the backwoods hunter's rude hut, the substantial log house of the prosperous farmer, and the more pretentious dwelling of such men as Gilcrest and Dunlap and Winston, who claimed kinship with the flower of Virginian aristocracy.

In the pioneer schools grammar, history, geography, and the sciences, if taught at all, were usually treated orally; but in the main, spelling, reading, writing and arithmetic were the only branches studied. As reading-charts for the little ones, the alphabet was pasted upon broad hickory paddles which were frequently used for outside as well as inside application of knowledge. Readers were coming into vogue, but in most schools the pupils in reading advanced from alphabetical paddle to spelling-book; from spelling-book to "Pilgrim's Progress" or the Bible. Sometimes the Bible was the only reading-book allowed by the parent, and many a child in those days learned to read by wrestling with the jaw-breaking words in Kings and Chronicles; for, as Bushrod Hinkson declared when he refused to buy a reader for his son, "The Bible's 'nough tex'-book on readin', an' when a boy hez learned to knock the pins frum undah all the big words in the 'Good Book,' he'll be able to travel like a streak o' lightnin' through all kinds o' print."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Cane Ridge Meeting-house._]

CHAPTER III.