Down the Ravine Part 4

He was, however, uneasy to hear of any man down the ravine in the neighborhood of his hidden treasure, but he could not now question Rufe, for Jube Perkins, with mock severity, was taking the small boy to account.

Byers was looking on, the knife idle in his hands, and his lips distended with a wide grin in the antic.i.p.ation of getting some fun out of Rufe.

"Look-a-hyar, bub," said Jubal Perkins, with both hands in his pockets and glaring down solemnly at Rufe; "ef ever I ketches ye goin' of yerrands no better'n that ag'in, I'm a-goin' ter--TAN that thar hide o' yourn."

Rufe gazed up deprecatingly, his eyes widening at the prospect.

Byers broke into a horse laugh.

"We've been wantin' some leetle varmints fur tanning ennyhow," he said. "Ye'll feel mighty queer when ye stand out thar on the spent tan, with jes' yer meat on yer bones, an 'look up an' see yer skin a-hangin' alongside o' the t'other calves, an' sech--that ye will!"

"An' all the mounting folks will be remarkin' on it, too," said Perkins. Which no doubt they would have done with a lively interest.

"I reckon," said Byers, looking speculatively at Rufe, "ez't would take a right smart time fur ye ter git tough enough ter go 'bout in respect'ble society ag'in. 'T would hurt ye mightily, I'm thinkin'.

Ef I war you-uns, I'd be powerful partic'lar ter keep inside o' sech an accommodatin'-lookin' little hide ez yourn be fur tanning."

Rufe's countenance was distorted. He seemed about to tune up and whimper. "An' ef I war you-uns, Andy Byers, I'd find su'thin'

better ter do'n ter bait an' badger a critter the size o' Rufe!"

exclaimed Birt angrily.

"That thar boy's 'bout right, too!" said the man who had hitherto been standing silent in the door.

"Waal, leave Rufe be, Jubal!" said Byers, laughing. "YE started the fun."

"Leave him be, yerself," retorted the tanner.

When Birt mounted the mule, and rode out of the yard, he glanced back and saw that Rufe had approached the shed; judging by his gestures, he was asking a variety of questions touching the art of tanning, to which Byers amicably responded.

The mists were shifting as Birt went on and on. He heard the acorns dropping from the chestnut-oaks--sign that the wind was awake in the woods. Like a glittering, polished blade, at last a slanting sunbeam fell. It split the gloom, and a radiant afternoon seemed to emerge. The moist leaves shone; far down the aisles of the woods the fugitive mists, in elusive dryadic suggestions, chased each other into the distance. Although the song-birds were all silent, there was a chirping somewhere--cheerful sound! He had almost reached his destination when a sudden rustling in the undergrowth by the roadside caused him to turn and glance back.

Two or three shoats lifted their heads and were gazing at him with surprise, and a certain disfavor, as if they did not quite like his looks. A bevy of barefooted, tow-headed children were making mud pies in a marshy dip close by. An ancient hound, that had renounced the chase and a.s.sumed in his old age the office of tutor, seemed to preside with dignity and judgment. He, too, had descried the approach of the stranger. He growled, but made no other demonstration.

"Whar's Nate?" Birt called out, for these were the children of Nate's eldest brother.

For a moment there was no reply. Then the smallest of the small boys shrilly piped out, "He hev gone away!--him an' gran'dad's claybank mare."

Another unexpected development! "When will he come back?"

"Ain't goin' ter come back fur two weeks."

"Whar 'bouts hev he gone?" asked Birt amazed.

"Dunno," responded the same little fellow.

"When did he set out?"

There was a meditative pause. Then ensued a jumbled bickering. The small boys, the shoats, and the hound seemed to consult together in the endeavor to distinguish "day 'fore yestiddy" from "las' week."

The united intellect of the party was inadequate.

"Dunno!" the mite of a spokesman at last admitted.

Birt rode on rapidly once more, leaving this choice syndicate settling down again to the mud pies.

The woods gave way presently and revealed, close to a precipice, Nate's home. The log house with its chimney of clay and sticks, the barn of ruder guise, the fodder-stack, the ash-hopper, and the rail fence were all imposed in high relief against the crimson west and the purpling ranges in the distance. The little cabin was quite alone in the world. No other house, no field, no clearing, was visible in all the vast expanse of mountains and valleys which it overlooked. The great panorama of nature seemed to be unrolled for it only. The seasons pa.s.sed in review before it. The moon rose, waxing or waning, as if for its behoof. The sun conserved for it a splendid state.

But the skies above it had sterner moods,--sometimes lightnings veined the familiar clouds; winds rioted about it; the thunder spoke close at hand. And then it was that Mrs. Griggs lamented her husband's course in "raisin' the house hyar so nigh the bluffs ez ef it war an' aigle's nest," and forgot that she had ever accounted herself "sifflicated" when distant from the airy cliffs.

She stood in the doorway now, her arms akimbo--an att.i.tude that makes a woman of a certain stamp seem more masterful than a man.

Her grizzled locks were ornamented by a cotton cap with a wide and impressive ruffle, which, swaying and nodding, served to emphasize her remarks. She was conferring in a loud drawl with her husband, who had let down the bars to admit his horse, laden with a newly killed deer. Her manner would seem to imply that she, and not he, had slain the animal.

"Toler'ble fat," she commented with grave self-complacence. "He 'minds me sorter o' that thar tremenjious buck we hed las'

September. HE war the fattes' buck I ever see. Take off his hide right straight."

The big cap-ruffle flapped didactically.

"Lor'-a--ma.s.sy, woman!" vociferated the testy old man; "ain't I a- goin' ter? Ter hear ye a-jowin', a-body would think I had never shot nothin' likelier'n a yaller-hammer sence I been born. S'pos'n ye jes' takes ter goin' a-huntin', an' skinnin' deer, an' cuttin'

wood, an' doin' my work ginerally. Pears-like ye think ye knows mo'

'bout'n my work'n I does. An' I'll bide hyar at the house."

Mrs. Griggs nodded her head capably, in nowise dismayed. "I dunno but that plan would work mighty well," she said.

This conjugal colloquy terminated as she glanced up and saw Birt.

"Why, thar's young Dicey a-hint ye. Howdy Birt! 'Light an' hitch!"

"Naw'm," rejoined Birt, as he rode into the enclosure and close up to the doorstep. "I hain't got time ter 'light." Then precipitately opening the subject of his mission. "I kem over hyar ter see Nate. Whar hev he disappeared ter?"

"Waal, now, that's jes' what I'd like ter know," she replied, her face eloquent with baffled curiosity. "He jes' borried his dad's claybank mare, an' sot out, an' never 'lowed whar he war bound fur.

Nate hev turned twenty-one year old," she continued, "an' he 'lows he air a man growed, an' obligated ter obey n.o.body but hisself.

From the headin' way that he kerries on hyar, a-body would s'pose he air older 'n the c.u.mberland Mountings! But he hev turned twenty- one--that's a fac'--an' he voted at the las' election."

(With how much discretion it need not now be inquired.)

"I knows that air true," said Birt, who had wistfully admired this feat of his senior.

"Waal--Nate don't set much store by votin'," rejoined Mrs. Griggs.

"Nate, he say, the greatest privilege his kentry kin confer on him is ter make it capital punishment fur wimmen ter ax him questions!-- Which I hev done," she admitted stoutly.

And the ruffle on her cap did not deny it.

"Nate air twenty-one," she reiterated. "An' I s'pose he 'lows ez I hev no call nowadays ter be his mother."

"Hain't ye got no guess whar he be gone?" asked Birt, dismayed by this strange new complication.

"Waal, I hev been studyin' it out ez Nate mought hev rid ter Parch Corn, whar his great-uncle, Joshua Peters, lives--him that merried my aunt, Melissy Baker, ez war a widder then, though born a Scruggs.

An' then, ag'in, Nate MOUGHT hev tuk it inter his head ter go ter the Cross-roads, a-courtin' a gal thar ez he hev been talkin' about powerful, lately. But they tells me," Mrs. Griggs expostulated, as it were, "that them gals at the Cross-roads is in no way desirable,- -specially this hyar Elviry Mills, ez mighty nigh all the boys on the mounting hev los' thar wits about,--what little wits ez they ever hed ter lose, I mean ter say. But Nate thinks he hev got a right ter a ch'ice, bein' ez he air turned twenty-one."

"Did he say when he 'lowed ter come back?" Birt asked.