The Power and the Glory Part 22

"Well, I wish't I may never!" Laurella exclaimed. "Did I mention any particular way that the man was supposed to be thinking about you? Can't I speak a word without your biting my head off for it? As for what Mr.

Gray Stoddard thinks of you, let me tell you, child, a body has only to see his eyes when he's looking at you."

"Mother--Oh, mother!" protested Johnnie.

"Well, if he can look that way I reckon I can speak of it," returned Laurella, with some reason.

"I want you to promise never to name it again, even to me," said Johnnie solemnly, as they came to the steps of the big lead-coloured house. "You surely wouldn't say such a thing to any one else. I wish you'd forget it yourself."

"We-ell," hesitated Laurella, "if you feel so strong; about it, I reckon I'll do as you say. But there ain't anything in that to hinder me from being friends with Mr. Stoddard. I feel sure that him and me would get on together fine. He favours my people, the Pa.s.smores. My daddy was just such an upstanding, dark-complected feller as he is. He's got the look in the eye, too."

Johnnie gasped as she remembered that the grandfather of whom her mother spoke was Virgil Pa.s.smore, and called to mind the story of the borrowed wedding coat.

CHAPTER XV

THE FEET OF THE CHILDREN

The mountain people, being used only to one cla.s.s, never find themselves consciously in the society of their superiors. Johnnie Consadine had been unembarra.s.sed and completely mistress of the situation in the presence of Charlie Conroy, who did not fail after the Uplift dance to make some further effort to meet the "big red-headed girl," as he called her. She was aware that social overtures from such a person were not to be received by her, and she put them aside quite as though she had been, according to her own opinion, above rather than beneath them. The lover-like pretensions of Shade Buckheath, a man dangerous, remorseless, as careless of the rights of others as any tiger in the jungle, she regarded with negligent composure. But Gray Stoddard--ah, there her treacherous heart gave way, and trembled in terror. The air of perfect equality he maintained between them, his att.i.tude of intimacy, flattering, almost affectionate, this it was which she felt she must not recognize.

The beloved books, which had seemed so many steps upon which to climb to a world where she dared acknowledge her own liking and admiration for Stoddard, were now laid aside. It took all of her heart and mind and time to visit Uncle Pros at the hospital, keep the children out of Pap's way in the house, and do justice to her work in the factory. She told Gray, haltingly, reluctantly, that she thought she must give up the reading and studying for a time.

"Not for long, I hope," Stoddard received her decision with a puzzled air, turning in his fingers the copy of "Walden" which she was bringing back to him. "Perhaps now that you have your mother and the children with you, there will be less time for this sort of thing for a while, but you haven't a mind that can enjoy being inactive. You may think you'll give it up; but study--once you've tasted it--will never let you alone."

Johnnie looked up at him with a weak and pitiful version of her usual beaming smile.

"I reckon you're right," she hesitated finally, in a very low voice.

"But sometimes I think the less we know the happier we are."

"How's this? How's this?" cried Stoddard, almost startled. "Why, Johnnie--I never expected to hear that sort of thing from you. I thought your optimism was as deep as a well, and as wide as a church."

Poor Johnnie surely had need of such optimism as Stoddard had ascribed to her. They were weary evenings when she came home now, with the November rain blowing in the streets and the early-falling dusk almost upon her. It was on a Sat.u.r.day night, and she had been to the hospital, when she got in to find Mandy, seated in the darkest corner of the sitting room, with a red flannel cloth around her neck--a sure sign that something unfortunate had occurred, since the tall woman always had sore throat when trouble loomed large.

"What's the matter?" asked Johnnie, coming close and laying a hand on the bent shoulder to peer into the drooping countenance.

"Don't come too nigh me--you'll ketch it," warned Mandy gloomily. "A so'

th'oat is as ketchin' as smallpox, and I know it so to be, though they is them that say it ain't. When mine gits like this I jest tie it up and keep away from folks best I can. I hain't dared touch the baby sence hit began to hurt me this a-way."

"There's something besides the sore throat," persisted Johnnie. "Is it anything I can help you about?"

"Now, if that ain't jest like Johnnie Consadine!" apostrophized Mandy.

"Yes, there is somethin'--not that I keer." She tossed her poor old gray head scornfully, and then groaned because the movement hurt her throat. "That thar feisty old Sullivan gave me my time this evenin'. He said they was layin' off weavers, and they could spare me. I told him, well, I could spare them, too. I told him I could hire in any other mill in Cottonville befo' workin' time Monday--but I'm afeared I cain't."

Weak tears began to travel down her countenance. "I know I never will make a fine hand like you, Johnnie," she said pathetically. "There ain't a thing in the mill that I love to do--nary thing. I can tend a truck patch or raise a field o' corn to beat anybody, and n.o.body cain't outdo me with fowls; but the mill--"

She broke off and sat staring dully at the floor. Pap Himes had stumped into the room during the latter part of this conversation.

"Lost your job, hey?" he inquired keenly.

Mandy nodded, with fearful eyes on his face.

"Well, you want to watch out and keep yo' board paid up here. The week you cain't pay--out you go. I reckon I better trouble you to pay me in advance, unless'n you've got some kind friend that'll stand for you."

Mandy's lips parted, but no sound came. The gaze of absolute terror with which she followed the old man's waddling bulk as he went and seated himself in front of the air-tight stove, was more than Johnnie could endure.

"I'll stand for her board, Pap," she said quietly.

"Oh, you will, will ye?" Pap received her remark with disfavour. "Well, a fool and his money don't stay together long. And who'll stand for you, Johnnie Consadine? Yo' wages ain't a-goin' to pay for yo' livin' and Mandy's too. Ye needn't lay back on bein' my stepdaughter. You ain't acted square by me, an' I don't aim to do no more for you than if we was no kin."

"You won't have to. Mandy'll get a place next week--you know she will, Pap--an experienced weaver like she is. I'll stand for her."

Himes snorted. Mandy caught at Johnnie's hand and drew it to her, fondling it. Her round eyes were still full of tears.

"I do know you're the sweetest thing G.o.d ever made," she whispered, as Johnnie looked down at her. "You and Deanie." And the two went out into the dining room together.

"Thar," muttered Himes to Buckheath, as the latter pa.s.sed through on his way to supper; "you see whether it would do to give Johnnie the handlin'

o' all that thar money from the patent. Why, she'd hand it out to the first feller that put up a poor mouth and asked her for it. You heard anything, Buck?"

Shade nodded.

"Come down to the works with me after supper. I've got something to show you," he said briefly, and Himes understood that the desired letter had arrived.

At first Laurella Consadine bloomed like a late rose in the town atmosphere. She delighted in the village streets. She was as wildly exhilarated as a child when she was taken on the trolley to Watauga.

With strange, inherent deftness she copied the garb, the hair dressing, even the manner and speech, of such worthy models as came within her range of vision--like her daughter, she had an eye for fitness and beauty; that which was merely fashionable though truly inelegant, did not appeal to her. She was swift to appreciate the change in Johnnie.

"You look a heap prettier, and act and speak a heap prettier than you used to up in the mountains," she told the tall girl. "Looks like it was a mighty sensible thing for you to come down here to the Settlement; and if it was good for you, I don't see why it wasn't good for me--and won't be for the rest of the children. No need for you to be so solemn over it."

The entire household was aghast at the bride's att.i.tude toward her old husband. They watched her with the fascinated gaze we give to a petted child encroaching upon the rights of a cross dog, or the pretty lady with her little riding whip in the cage of the lion. She treated him with a kindly, tolerant, yet overbearing familiarity that appalled. She knew not to be frightened when he clicked his teeth, but drew up her pretty brows and fretted at him that she wished he wouldn't make that noise--it worried her. She tipped the sacred yellow cat out of the rocking-chair where it always slept in state, took the chair herself, and sent that astonished feline from the room.

It was in Laurella's evident influence that Johnnie put her trust when, one evening, they all sat in Sunday leisure in the front room--most of the girls being gone to church or out strolling with "company"--Pap Himes broached the question of the children going to work in the mill.

"They're too young, Pap," Johnnie said to him mildly. "They ought to be in school this winter."

"They've every one, down to Deanie, had mo' than the six weeks schoolin'

that the laws calls for," snarled Himes.

"You wasn't thinking of putting Deanie in the mill--not _Deanie_--was you?" asked Johnnie breathlessly.

"Why not?" inquired Himes. "She'll get no good runnin' the streets here in Cottonville, and she can earn a little somethin' in the mill. I'm a old man, an sickly, and I ain't long for this world. If them chaps is a-goin' to do anything for me, they'd better be puttin' in their licks."

Johnnie looked from the little girl's pink-and-white infantile beauty--she sat with the child in her lap--to the old man's hulking, powerful, useless frame. What would Deanie naturally be expected to do for her stepfather?

"n.o.body's asked my opinion," observed Shade Buckheath, who made one of the family group, "but as far as I can see there ain't a thing to hurt young 'uns about mill work; and there surely ain't any good reason why they shouldn't earn their way, same as we all do. I reckon they had to work back on Unaka. Goin' to set 'em up now an make swells of 'em?"

Johnnie looked bitterly at him but made no reply.

"They won't take them at the Hardwick mill," she said finally. "Mr.

Stoddard has enforced the rule that they have to have an affidavit with any child the mill employs that it is of legal age; and there's n.o.body going to swear that Deanie's even as much as twelve years old--nor Lissy--nor Pony--nor Milo. The oldest is but eleven."