Mothering on Perilous Part 7

XI

OVER ON TRIGGER

_Monday Morning._

Soon after breakfast on Sat.u.r.day we set out on our sixteen-mile ride to Trigger Branch, I on Mandy, Nucky walking,--he refused to ride behind, remarking, "I'm allus used to seeing the women ride there." The day was glorious, the way more and more beautiful as we proceeded. We crossed three mountains, stopping on the top of one, where the sunlight sifted down through translucent beech leaves, to eat our lunch, and then "followed" Powderhorn, a large creek, two or three miles, finally turning up Trigger Branch. At its mouth, Nucky pointed out the little log school-house in which he has received his education up to this term, and farther on he showed me various rocks and trees where he has delighted to "layway" and "ambush" infant Cheevers. Trigger Branch is the most picturesque creek I have yet seen; along its sides cliffs and "rock-houses" alternate with rich hollows, small strips of bottom, and steep but flourishing cornfields. All the houses we pa.s.sed on the lower reaches belonged to Cheevers, sons of Israel, and last of all was Israel's home. Three "sights," or about a half-mile above this, is the disputed boundary-line, which runs down from a mountain spur on the right hand side, and then across a piece of bottom to the branch. The bone of contention is a triangular slice of bottom, with its apex at the foot of the spur, not an acre in extent, all told. As Nucky pointed it out to me, I looked with mingled curiosity and horror. The fence of course now stands on the ancient line claimed by the Ma.r.r.s.es, where it has stood for nearly a century and a quarter.

"It is impossible to believe that more than a dozen lives have been sacrificed for this little piece of land," I said to Nucky, "why, I doubt if you could raise forty bushels of corn a year on it."

His face flushed. "It haint the money's worth," he said, proudly; "we don't care nothing about that. But it was granted to my great-great-great-grandpaw for fighting the British, and me'n' Blant would ruther die than part with a' inch of it."

He pointed to a thick, dark clump of hemlock near the foot of the spur, on the Marrs land. "That's where I keep lookout of moonlight nights when war is on," he said.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'That's where I keep lookout of moonlight nights when war is on.'"]

As we advanced, he showed me the steep cornfields tended by Blant and himself, the almost upright pastures where some cattle and sheep were feeding, and above, the virgin forest where Blant gets out yellow poplar and other fine timber, and on the very crest of the ridge, the gray, forbidding "high rocks" that are so fine for fox-hunts, and also, he says, for "hiding out" in if officers get too troublesome.

"Blant he has a whole pa.s.sel of warrants hanging over him," he said, "and the sheriff and deputies they used to come over every now and then last winter a-hunting him. Of course he couldn't afford to give hisself up, or put in no time in jail, when he was so bad needed at home; and at first he would take to the rocks when he seed 'em a-coming. But that was a heap of trouble, and he got mighty tired of it, and so next time they rid up he tuck his pistol and stepped out and told 'em that, bad as he hated to do it, circ.u.mstances was such that he would have to fire on 'em if they kep' bothering around; that he had the living to make for the family, and no time to spend setting around enjoying hisself in jail,--that with him duty come before pleasure, and he would have to request 'em to leave him alone. And seeing how he felt about it, they never come again for quite a spell,--not till after he kilt Elhannon in April. Then they kotch him purely by accident, but he got away from 'em that night,--I'll tell you about it sometime."

We were now approaching the Marrs house, a large, substantial one of logs, built on the time-honored pattern of "two pens and a pa.s.sage,"--that is, two huge rooms, with an open hallway, below, and a great "loft", large enough for six ordinary rooms, above. "Cap'n Enoch Marrs raised it, more'n a hundred year' gone," said Nucky.

Entering the open pa.s.sage, which was hung with saddles, bridles and gearing of all sorts, and also with strings of beans and peppers, we pa.s.sed into one of the lower rooms. Mr. Marrs arose, coughing, from one of the three large beds, upon which he had been resting, and welcomed me most kindly. In front of the great fireplace, four young children were gathered, and the eldest of these, a little woman of eight, held in her arms an infant, upon whom I looked with special interest. This, then, was "the babe,"--a beautiful, tiny girl-child of five months, with large gray eyes in a small white face, and the brightest of little smiles.

The room was bare save for the beds, some chairs, and a great homemade chest of drawers. On the fireboard were a clock and a few books, yellow and crumbly, as Nucky had said, and above, across wooden pegs set in the wall, rested a long, old-fashioned rifle, with a powderhorn slung on one end.

"This here's the gun Cap'n Enoch Marrs fit the British with," said Nucky, with bursting pride; "it's mine now,--paw give it to me on account of my name."

Half an hour later, the hero, Blant, came in from "saving" fodder. I gazed at him with all my might. He is a tall young man, with Nucky's fine gray eyes and dark hair, an open face and a resolute jaw. After greeting me in the gentlest of voices, he picked up the babe, who, clinging to him with cries and coos of joy, buried her little face in his bosom. He then went on with her across the pa.s.sage and into the other large room, whither Nucky followed him, and the two began preparations for supper. Several times I saw Blant pa.s.s the open door, always with the babe on his left arm, and once with a bowl of cornmeal, once a stack of roasting-ears, once a skillet of meat, in the other. As I looked, I said to myself over and over, "Is it possible this is a slayer of men, an eluder and defier of the law?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "As I looked, I said to myself over and over, 'Is it possible this is the slayer of men, an eluder and defier of the law?'"]

It also occurred to me for the first time that I was adding to his already heavy burdens; and I reproached myself for coming; but there was no help for it now.

Supper at last being ready, Mr. Marrs, leaning feebly on his crutch, conducted me into "t'other house," the children took their stands and we our seats about the table, and Blant, still with the babe on his arm, did the honors, pouring the coffee, and then impartially sharing with the babe the beans, fat meat, roasting-ears and sweet-potatoes on his plate. While of course the house in many ways shows the absence of woman's care, Blant's filling of his mother's place is indeed remarkable.

Later, my offer of help in the dish-washing being kindly but firmly refused, I returned to the first room with Mr. Marrs and the children, and we sat and talked. Of course I made no reference to the family "war," but I did inquire as much as possible in regard to ancient family history, and was shown the old Bible, the records of which go back to Captain Enoch Marrs, the first settler here. Mr. Marrs, however, told me that there are traditions that before the Ma.r.r.s.es came to America, they were brave and gentle folk for five hundred years in Old England, and poured out their blood like water for the glory of their country. "I allow from what I have heared that we have always been a fighting race," he said. "My great-grandpaw used to set up and tell big tales, which he got from his paw, how first one and then t'other of us fit for his king in ancient days, and won glory and renown,--I mind there was a famous admiral under Good Queen Bess, and before him a general that licked out the French nation--but I haint able to ricollect names and circ.u.mstances, having been too young and unknowing when I heared them tales to take proper interest, which I regret now."

I shared his regret,--with so many good and aristocratic English names in this mountain country, I have been quite sure that some of them harked back to a brave and honorable past, and it would be especially pleasing to me to trace Nucky's line to its old English home, and through its brave deeds for king and country.

While we talked, Blant returned, with the babe and Nucky, and a little later, Blant's bosom friend, Richard Tarrant, came in from across the mountain. He is a strikingly attractive young man. Before he had stayed long, he said,

"I have got bad news for you, Blant,--it is being talked that Todd and Dalt Cheever has got powerful homesick out west, and is aiming to come back before long. I hope it haint so,--I had looked forward to a right smart spell of peace for you,--G.o.d knows you have got your hands full, without no further warfare."

"I think Todd and Dalt will be satisfied to stay away a while yet,"

replied Blant, quietly; "I allow this is just one of Israel's lies."

"Well, I hope so," said Rich; "but forewarned is forearmed, and I thought you ought to know the talk."

"I want to know about it quick as they come," spoke up Nucky, hastily; "you can't no way get along without me to keep lookout."

Blant turned sternly upon him. "No matter what the news is, son," he admonished, "you stay right there where you air, and don't dare to leave and come home. You know maw's desires in regards to your getting l'arning. I promised her I'd carry 'em out, and now I aim to do it. You stay over there, or you'll have me to reckon with. I got Rich here to help me if need be, and likewise Uncle Billy's boys,--what I haint able to tend to myself."

Nucky's face flushed angrily; but he said no more.

When bed-time came, the family slept downstairs--besides the three beds in one room, there was another in the kitchen--and I was shown up to a comfortable feather-bed in the great loft. Long after everybody else was asleep, I heard the poor little babe wailing pitiably below, and Blant softly walking the floor with it, jolting it back and forth in his chair, and trotting it on his knees before the fire. No wonder the little creature suffered agonies after eating the things it got for supper.

After breakfast in the morning, Nucky invited me to go for a walk. We ascended one of the spurs of the mountain in the rear of the house,--never have I seen a more beautiful site for a home than in that hollow--and a third of the way up, on a small "bench," came upon what appeared to be a play-village. Beneath spreading trees, were a dozen or more diminutive houses, with latticed sides and roofs of riven oak boards. Some were crumbling into decay, some new and substantial. The one to which Nucky led me was still yellow. "Here's where Maw lays," he said, almost in a whisper (I judge that one reason he finds it so hard to speak of her is his feeling that he, or rather, her desire for his education, was in a way the cause of her death), and I knew that this must be the family burying-ground, and these the grave-houses once so necessary for the protection of the dead from wild beasts, and still surviving here in the customs of the mountain country.

Near the grave-house of his mother were three smaller ones, still good and new. "Our three young uns betwixt Blant and me died of typhoid one summer, about five year' gone," Nucky explained. China-asters were blossoming gaily among the weeds about these grave-houses. "Maw she sot 'em there," Nucky said, "she liked to come here and rest a spell when she was hoeing corn, and set with these young uns."

The tragedy of the life of Nucky's mother was brought forcibly before me as I stood there. An eager-minded, loving-hearted woman, shut off from all opportunity, the bringer of ten new lives into the world, laboring and drudging as only these mountain women know how to for the sustenance and clothing of her family, suffering constant anxiety as to the very lives of her loved ones by reason of the family "war," and finally having to go out into the darkness of death and bid them all farewell,--surely it is a sad and tragic history.

As we turned away, Nucky added, "With them three young uns around her, I allow she haint so lonesome as she would be all by herself."

"No," I said, "having her loved ones with her, she is happier far, even in heaven. For it is that which makes heaven."

Blant had dinner for us at eleven, and soon afterward we were ready to depart. "Come over and see us sometime at the school," I called to Blant, as he stood with the babe on his arm by the gate. He thanked me gravely, but did not say he would come.

"Gee," said Nucky, as we rode on, "he can't never do that,--why they'd just _have_ to arrest him if he run into the jaws of the sheriff and the jail that way!"

We made the last hour or two of our journey through moonlight in which the mist-hung mountains and shadowed valleys lay entrancingly lovely.

"This is the kind of nights I allus keep watch for the Cheevers," said Nucky.

I wondered if these were the sole thoughts aroused in him by the wondrous beauty in which he had been born and bred. Presently I knew.

"If maw is in heaven, like you say, do you allow the country round about there is any prettier than this here?" he asked.

"No, I am sure not," I replied, emphatically.

XII

THE FIGHTINGEST BOY

_Tuesday Night_.

Nucky ran in to-night from shinny, to have a "broke" ankle tied up, (it seems to me I am always tying up either "risings," "biles," sores or hurts) and said to me while I did it,

"That 'ere little Jason is just a-chawing up and spitting out them little day-schools. This morning at recess I seed him whup out five-at-a-time. Yes, sir, five was on him, and by Ned if he didn't lay out the last one. He's the fightingest boy you got!"

"I thought you were that," I said.