The Power and the Glory Part 4

"What did I hear them call yo' name?" he inquired gruffly.

Johnnie repeated her t.i.tle and gave him one of those smiles that went with most of her speeches. It seemed to suggest things to the old sinner.

"Huh," he grunted; "I riccollect ye now. Yo' pap was a Consadine, but you're old Virgil Pa.s.smore's grandchild. One of the borryin' Pa.s.smores,"

he added, staring coolly at Johnnie. "Virge was a fine, upstandin' old man. You've got the favour of him--if you wasn't a gal."

He evidently shared Schopenhauer's distaste for "the low-statured, wide-hipped, narrow-shouldered s.e.x."

The girls about the table were all listening eagerly. Johnnie had the sensation of a freshman who has walked out on the campus too well dressed.

"Virge was a great beau in his day," continued Pap, reminiscently. "He liked to wear good clothes, too. I mind how he borried Abner Wimberly's weddin' coat and wore it something like ten year--showed it off fine--it fitted him enough sight better than it ever fitted little old Ab. Then he comes back to Wimberly at the end of so long a time with the b.u.t.tons.

He says, says he, 'Looks like that thar cloth yo' coat was made of wasn't much 'count, Ab,' says he. 'I think Jeeters cheated ye on it. But the b.u.t.tons was good. The b.u.t.tons wore well. And them I'm bringin' back, 'caze you may have use for 'em, and I have none, now the coat's gone.

Also, what I borry I return, as everybody knows.' That was your granddaddy."

There was a tremendous giggling about the board as the old man made an end. Johnnie herself smiled, though her face was scarlet. She had no words to tell her tormentor that the borrowing trait in her tribe which had earned them the name of the borrowing Pa.s.smores proceeded not from avarice, which ate into Pap Himes's very marrow, but from its reverse trait of generosity. She knew vaguely that they would have shared with a neighbour their last bite or dollar, and had thus never any doubt of being shared with nor any shame in the asking.

"Yes," pursued Himes, surveying Johnnie chucklingly, "I mind when you was born. Has your Uncle Pros found his silver mine yet?"

"My mother has often told me how good you and Mrs. Bence was to us when I was little," answered Johnnie mildly. "No, sir, Uncle Pros hasn't found his silver mine yet--but he's still a-hunting for it."

The reply appeared to delight Himes. He laughed immoderately, even as Buckheath had done.

"I'll bet he is," he agreed. "Pros Pa.s.smore's goin' to hunt that there silver mine till he finds another hole in the ground about six feet long and six feet deep--that's what he's a-goin' to do."

The hasty supper was well under way now. Mrs. Bence brought the last of the hot bread, and shuffled into a seat. The old man at the head of the board returned to his feeding, but with somewhat moderated voracity. At length, pretty fully gorged, he raised his head from over his plate and looked about him for diversion. Again his attention was directed to the new girl.

"Air ye wedded?" he challenged suddenly.

She shook her head and laughed.

"Got your paigs sot for to git any one?" he followed up his investigations.

Johnnie laughed more than ever, and blushed again.

"How old air ye?" demanded her inquisitor. "Eighteen? 'Most nineteen?

Good Lord! You're a old maid right now. Well, don't you let twenty go by without gittin' your hooks on a man. My experience is that when a gal gits to be twenty an' ain't wedded--or got her paigs sot for to wed--she's left. Left," he concluded impressively.

That quick smile of Johnnie's responded.

"I reckon I'll do my best," she agreed reasonably; "but some folks can do that and miss it."

Himes nodded till he set the little red curls all bobbing around the bare spot.

"Uh-huh," he approved, "I reckon that's so. Women is plenty, and men hard to git. Here's Mandy Meacham, been puttin' in her best licks for thirty year or more, an' won't never make it."

Johnnie did not need to be told which one was Mandy. The sallow cheek of the tall woman across from her reddened; the short chin wabbled a bit more than the mastication of the biscuit in hand demanded; a moisture appeared in the inexpressive blue eyes; but she managed a shaky laugh to a.s.sist the chorus which always followed Pap Himes's little jokes.

The old man held a sort of state among these poor girls, and took tribute of admiration, as he had taken tribute of life and happiness from daughter and granddaughter. Gideon Himes was not actively a bad man; he was as without personal malice as malaria. When it makes miserable those about it, or robs a girl of her pink cheeks, her bright eyes, her joy of life, wearing the elasticity out of her step and making an old woman of her before her time, we do not fly into a rage at it--we avoid it. The Pap Himeses of this world are to be avoided if possible.

Mandy stared at her plate in mortified silence. Johnnie wished she could think of something pleasant to say to the poor thing, when her attention was diverted by the old man once more addressing herself.

"You look stout and hearty; if you learn to weave as fast as you ort, and git so you can tend five or six looms, I'll bet you git a husband,"

he remarked in a burst of generosity. "I'll bet you do; and what's more, I'll speak a good word for ye. A gal that's a peart weaver's mighty apt to find a man. You learn your looms if you want to git wedded--and I know in reason you do--it's about all gals of your age thinks of."

When supper was over Johnnie was a little surprised to see the tall woman approach Pap Himes like a small child begging a favour of a harsh taskmaster.

"Can't that there new girl bunk with me?" she inquired earnestly.

"I had the intention to give her Louvany's bed," Pap returned promptly.

"As long as n.o.body's with you, I reckon I don't care; but if one comes in, you take 'em, and she goes with Mavity, mind. I cain't waste room, poor as I am."

Piloted by the tall girl, Johnnie climbed the narrow stair to a long bare room where a row of double beds accommodated eight girls. The couch she was to occupy had been slept in during the day by a mill hand who was on night turn, and it had not been remade. Deftly Johnnie straightened and spread it, while her partner grumbled.

"What's the use o' doin' that?" Mandy inquired, stretching herself and yawning portentously. "We'll jist muss it all up in about two minutes.

When you've worked in a mill as long as I have you'll git over the notion of makin' your bed, for hit's _but_ a notion."

Johnnie laughed across her shoulder.

"I'd just as soon do it," she rea.s.sured her companion. "I do love smooth bedclothes; looks like I dream better on 'em and under 'em."

Mandy sat down on the edge of the bed, interfering considerably with the final touches Johnnie was putting to it.

"You're a right good gal," she opined patronizingly, "but foolish. The new ones always is foolish. I can put you up to a-many a thing that'll help you along, though, and I'm willin' to do it."

Again Johnnie smiled at her, that smile of enveloping sweetness and tenderness. It made something down in the left side of poor Mandy's slovenly dress-bodice vibrate and tingle.

"I'll thank you mightily," said Johnnie Consadine, "mightily." And knew not how true a word she spoke.

"You see," counselled Mandy from the bed into which she had rolled with most of her clothes on, "you want to get in with Miss Lydia Sessions and the Uplift ladies, and them thar swell folks."

Johnnie nodded, busily at work making a more elaborated night toilet than the others, who were going to bed all about them, paying little attention to their conversation.

"Miss Lyddy she ain't as young as she once was, and the boys has quit hangin' 'round her as much as they used to; so now she has took up with good works," the girl on the bed explained with a directness which Miss Sessions would not perhaps have appreciated. "Her and some other of the n.o.bby folks has started what they call a Uplift club amongst the mill girls. Thar's a big room whar you dance--if you can--and whar they give little suppers for us with not much to eat; and thar's a place where they sorter preach to ye--lecture she calls it. I don't know what-all Miss Lyddy hain't got for her club. But you jist go, and listen, and say how much obliged you are, an she'll do a lot for you, besides payin'

your wages to get you out of the mill any day she wants you for the Upliftin' business."

Mandy had a gasp, which occurred between sentences and at the end of certain words, with grotesque effect. Johnnie was to find that this gasp was always very much to the fore when Mandy was being uplifted. It then served variously as the gasp of humility, grat.i.tude, admiration; the gasp of chaste emotion, the gasp of reprobation toward others who did not come forward to be uplifted.

"Did you say there was books at that club?" inquired Johnnie out of the darkness--she had now extinguished the light. "Can a body learn things from the lectures?"

"Uh-huh," agreed Mandy sleepily; "but you don't have to read 'em--the books. They lend 'em to you, and you take 'em home, and after so long a time you take 'em back sayin' how much good they done you. That's the way. If Mr. Stoddard's 'round, he'll ask you questions about 'em; but Miss Lyddy won't--she hates to find out that any of her plans ain't workin'."

For a long time there was silence. Mandy was just dropping off into her first heavy sleep, when a whispering voice asked,

"Is Mr. Stoddard--has he got right brown eyes and right brown hair, and does he ride in one of these--one of these--"

"Good land!" grumbled the addressed, "I thought it was mornin' and I had to git up! You ort to been asleep long ago. Yes, Mr. Stoddard's got sorter brown eyes and hair, and he rides in a otty-mobile. How did you know?"

But Mandy was too tired to stay awake to marvel over that. Her rhythmic snores soon proved that she slept, while Johnnie lay thinking of the various proffers she had that evening received of a lamp to her feet, a light on her path. And she would climb--yes, she would climb. Not by the road Pap Himes pointed out; not by the devious path Mandy Meacham suggested; but by the rugged road of good, honest toil, to heights where was the power and the glory, she would certainly strive.