The Voice of the People Part 12

From the far-off horizon clouds of lavender were melting, and the pines had gone gray.

Presently a white patch glimmered in the midst of the pasture, and he began to call softly:

"Coo-sheep! Coo-sheep!"

A tremulous bleat answered, but as he neared the flock it scattered swiftly, the errant leaders darting shyly behind the looming outlines of sa.s.safras bushes. Again he called, and again the plaintive cry responded, growing fainter as several fleeter ewes sped past him to the beech trees beside the little stream.

The s.p.a.ce before the boy was suddenly spangled with fireflies, and the mist grew denser.

He broke off a branch of sa.s.safras and started at a brisk run, rounding by some dozen yards the startled ewes. The scattered white blotches closed together as he ran towards them, and fled, bleating, to the flock where it cl.u.s.tered at the pasture gate.

In a moment he had driven them across the road and behind the bars of the cow-pen.

When he entered the house a little later he found that the family had had supper, a single plate remaining for himself. His stepmother, looking jaded and nervous, was putting salted herring to soak in an earthenware bowl, while she scolded Sairy Jane, who was patching Jubal's ap.r.o.n.

"It's goin' on ten years sence I've stopped to draw breath," said Marthy Burr, "an' I'm clean wore out. 'Tain't no better than a dog's life, nohow--a woman an' a dog air about the only creeturs as would put up with it, an' they're the biggest pair of fools the Lord ever made. Here I've been standin' at the tub from sunrise to sunset, with my jaw a'most splittin' from my face, an' thar's yo' pa a-settin' at his pipe as unconsarned as if I wa'nt his lawful wife--the more's the pity! It's the lawful wives as have the work to do, an' the lawfuller the wives the lawfuller the work. If this here government ain't got nothin' better to do than to drive poor women till they drop I reckon we'd as well stop payin' taxes to keep it goin'."

Nicholas wiped his heated brow on his shirt-sleeve and hung his hat on the back of a bottomless chair. Jubal, who was rolling on the floor, gave a gurgle and made a grab at it, to be soundly boxed by his mother as she reseated him at Sairy Jane's feet. His gurgle wavered dolorously and rose into a howl.

"Have you been to supper, ma?" asked Nicholas cheerfully.

"Lord, Nick, it's a long ways past supper-time," answered Sairy Jane, relieved by the interruption. "The things air all washed up, ain't they, pa?"

Amos Burr scowled heavily upon the boy's head, his phlegmatic nature goaded into resentment by his wife's ill-temper and the lamentations of Jubal.

"I don't reckon you expect supper to keep waitin' till breakfast," he said. "You've given your ma trouble enough 'thout makin' her do an extra washin' up on your o'count. You've gone clean crazy sence you've been loafin' round with them Battles. I don't see as you air much o'count, nohow."

Nicholas raised his eyes to his father's face and looked at him fixedly. For a moment he did not speak, and then he said slowly:

"I'm as good as a hand to you."

He was thinking doggedly that he had never hated any one so much as he hated his own father, and that he liked the sensation. He wished he could do him some real harm--hit him hard enough to hurt or make the peanuts rot in the ground. He should like also to choke Jubal, who never left off yelling.

Amos Burr spat a mouthful of tobacco juice through the open window, flinching before the boy's steady glance. He was a mild-natured man at best, whose chief sin was his softness. It would not have entered his slow-witted head to protest against the accusations of his wife. When they stung him into revolt he revolted in the opposite direction.

But his failures were faults in his son's eyes. To the desperate determination of the boy, weakness became as contemptible as crime. What was a man worth who worked from morning until night and yet achieved nothing? Of what account was the farmer whom the crows outwitted and the weather made a mockery? Did not the very crops cry out as they rotted that his father was a fool, and the unploughed land proclaim him a coward? Had he ever dared a venture in his life or risked a season? And yet what had ever returned at his bidding or brought forth at his planting?

"You've been mighty little use of late," repeated Amos Burr stubbornly when his wife placed the earthenware bowl on the shelf and came to the table--her arm outstretched.

"Now, you jes' take yourself right off, Amos Burr," she said. "If you can't behave decently to my dead sister's child you shan't hang round them as was her own flesh and blood kin. Sairy Jane, you bring that plate of hot corn pones from the stove. Here, Nick, set right down an'

eat your supper! There's some canned cherries if you want 'em."

Nicholas sat down, but the cornbread stuck in his throat and the coffee was without aroma. He looked at the figured oilcloth on the table and thought of the shining gla.s.s and silver at Juliet Burwell's. The flavour of the cake she had given him seemed to intensify his distaste for the food before him. He felt that he cared for n.o.body--that he wanted nothing. He looked at his stepmother and thought that she was dried and brown like a hickory nut; he looked at Sairy Jane and wondered why she didn't have any eyelashes, and he looked at Jubal and saw that he was all gums.

When he went up to his little attic room after supper he sat on his shucks pallet in the darkness and thought of all the evil that he should like to do. He should like to pull Sairy Jane's plait and to slap Jubal.

He should even like to tell Juliet Burwell that he didn't want to keep a clean heart, and to call G.o.d names. No, he would not become a minister and preach the Gospel. He would be a thief instead and break into hen-houses and steal chickens. If his father planted watermelons he would steal them from the vines as soon as they were ripe. Perhaps Eugenia would help him. At any rate he would go halves with her if she would be his partner in wickedness. He had just as soon go to h.e.l.l, after all--if it were not for Thomas Jefferson.

He leaned his head on his hands and looked through the narrow window to where the peanut fields lay in blackness. From the stable came the faint neigh of the old mare, and he remembered suddenly that he had forgotten to put straw in her stall and to loosen her halter that she might lie down. He rose and stole softly downstairs and out of the house.

IX

One evening in late autumn Nicholas went into Delphy's cabin after supper and found Eugenia seated upon the hearth, facing Uncle Ish and Aunt Verbeny. Between them Delphy's son-in-law, Moses, was helping Bernard mend a broken hare trap, while Delphy, herself, was crooning a lullaby to one of her grandchildren as she carded the wool which she had taken from a quilt of faded patchwork. On the stones of the great fireplace the red flames from lightwood splits leaped over a smouldering hickory log, filling the cabin with the penetrating odour of burning, resinous pine. From the wall above the hearth a dozen roasting apples were suspended by hemp strings, and as the heat penetrated the russet coats the apples circled against the yawning chimney like small globes revolving about a sun.

Eugenia was sitting silently in a low, split-bottomed chair, her hands folded in her lap and her animated eyes on the dark faces across from her, over whose wrinkled surfaces the dancing firelight chased in ruddy lights and shadows.

Uncle Ish had stretched his feet out upon the stones, and the mud adhering to his rough, homemade boots was fast drying before the blaze and settling in coa.r.s.e gray dust upon the hearth. His gnarled old palms lay upward on his knees, and his grizzled head was bowed upon his chest.

At intervals he muttered softly to himself, but his words were inaudible--suggested by some far-off and disconnected vision. Aunt Verbeny was nodding in her chair, arousing herself from time to time to give a sharp glance into the face of Uncle Ish.

"Huccome dey let you out ter-night, honey?" asked Delphy suddenly, turning her eyes upon Eugenia as she drew a fresh handful of wool from between the covers of the quilt.

"I ran away," replied the child gravely. "I saw Bernard with his hare trap, and Bernard shan't do nothin' that I can't do."

"Yes, I shall," rejoined Bernard without looking up from his trap. "You can't wear breeches."

"I like to know why I can't," demanded Eugenia. "I put on a pair of your old ones and they fit me just as well as they do you--only Aunt Chris made me get out of them."

"Sakes er live!" exclaimed Aunt Verbeny, awaking from her doze.

Uncle Ish stared dreamily into the flames. "Ole Miss wuz in her grave, she wuz," he muttered, while Delphy looked at him and shook her head mysteriously.

Then, as Nicholas entered, they made a place for him upon the hearthstones, treating him with the forbearing tolerance with which the well-born negro regards the low-born white man.

"Pa wants you all to help him in peanut-picking to-morrow," said Nicholas, addressing the group indiscriminately. "He's late at it this year, but he's been laid up with rheumatism."

"Dar ain' nuttin' ez goes on two foot er fo' ez won' len' er han' at a pickin'," remarked Uncle Ish as the boy sat down. "Dar ain' nuttin' in de shape, er man er crow ez won't he'p demse'ves w'en dey's lyin' roun'

loose, nuther."

"Dar's gwine ter be er killin' fros' fo' mawnin'," said Moses, his teeth chattering from the draught let in by the opening door. "Hit kilt all Miss Chris' hop vines las' year, en it'll kill all ez ain't under kiver ter-night. Hit seems ter sort er lay holt er yo' chist en clean grip hit."

"You ain' never had no chist, nohow," remarked Delphy disdainfully. "Hit don't take mo'n er spit er fros' ter freeze thoo you. You de coldest innered somebody I ever lay eyes on. Dar mought ez well be er fence rail er roun' on er winter night fer all de wa'mth ez is in yo' bones."

"Dat's so," admitted Moses shamefacedly. "Dat's so. Dese yer nights, when de fire is all gone, is moughty near ter freezin' me out er house en home. I ain' never seed ne'r quilt ez wuz made fur er hull fambly yit. Wid me ter pull en Betsey ter pull en de chillun ter pull, whar de quilt?"

"Dar ain' no blankets dese days," said Uncle Ish sadly. "Dey ain' got mo'n er seasonin' er wool in dese yer sto' stuff. Dey wa'nt dat ar way in ole times, sis Verbeny. Bless yo' soul, sis Verbeny, dey wan't dat ar way."

"Ole Miss she use ter have eve'y st.i.tch er her wool carded fo' her own eyes," said Aunt Verbeny. "What wa'nt good enough fer her wuz good enough fer de res', en we got hit. Ef'n de briars wouldn't come out'n it soon ez she laid her han' on 'em, Ole Miss she turnt up her nose en thowed de wool on ter de n.i.g.g.e.rs' pile. Hit had ter be pisonous white en sof fo' hit 'ud tech Ole Missusses skin. Noner yo' nappy stuff done come near her."

Uncle Ish chuckled and hung his head on his breast.

"Doze wuz times!" he cried, "doze wuz times, en dese ain't times!"

Then he looked at Nicholas, who was watching the apples spinning in the heat.

"De po' white trash ain' set foot inside my do'," he added, "en de leetle gals ain' flirt roun' twell dar wa'nt no qualifyin' der legs f'om der arms."