The Trail of the Lonesome Pine

by John Fox

  XVIII

  Pausing at the Pine to let his big black horse blow a while, Halemounted and rode slowly down the green-and-gold gloom of the ravine. Inhis pocket was a quaint little letter from June to "John Hail"; thankinghim for the beautiful garden, saying she was lonely, and wanting him tocome soon. From the low flank of the mountain he stopped, looking downon the cabin in Lonesome Cove. It was a dreaming summer day. Trees, air,blue sky and white cloud were all in a dream, and even the smoke lazingfrom the chimney seemed drifting away like the spirit of something humanthat cared little whither it might be borne. Something crimson emergedfrom the door and stopped in indecision on the steps of the porch. Itmoved again, stopped at the corner of the house, and then, moving onwith a purpose, stopped once more and began to flicker slowly to andfro like a flame. June was working in her garden. Hale thought he wouldhalloo to her, and then he decided to surprise her, and he went on down,hitched his horse and stole up to the garden fence. On the way hepulled up a bunch of weeds by the roots and with them in his arms henoiselessly climbed the fence. June neither heard nor saw him. Herunderlip was clenched tight between her teeth, the little cross swungviolently at her throat and she was so savagely wielding the light hoehe had given her that he thought at first she must be killing a snake;but she was only fighting to death every weed that dared to show itshead. Her feet and her head were bare, her face was moist and flushedand her hair was a tumbled heap of what was to him the rarest gold underthe sun. The wind was still, the leaves were heavy with the richness offull growth, bees were busy about June's head and not another soul wasin sight.

  "Good morning, little girl!" he called cheerily.

  The hoe was arrested at the height of a vicious stroke and the littlegirl whirled without a cry, but the blood from her pumping heartcrimsoned her face and made her eyes shine with gladness. Her eyes wentto her feet and her hands to her hair.

  "You oughtn't to slip up an' s-startle a lady that-a-way," she said withgrave rebuke, and Hale looked humbled. "Now you just set there and waittill I come back."

  "No--no--I want you to stay just as you are."

  "Honest?"

  Hale gravely crossed heart and body and June gave out a happy littlelaugh--for he had caught that gesture--a favourite one--from her. Thensuddenly:

  "How long?" She was thinking of what Dave said, but the subtle twist inher meaning passed Hale by. He raised his eyes to the sun and June shookher head.

  "You got to go home 'fore sundown."

  She dropped her hoe and came over toward him.

  "Whut you doin' with them--those weeds?"

  "Going to plant 'em in our garden." Hale had got a theory from agarden-book that the humble burdock, pig-weed and other lowly plantswere good for ornamental effect, and he wanted to experiment, but Junegave a shrill whoop and fell to scornful laughter. Then she snatched theweeds from him and threw them over the fence.

  "Why, June!"

  "Not in MY garden. Them's stagger-weeds--they kill cows," and she wentoff again.

  "I reckon you better c-consult me 'bout weeds next time. I don't knowmuch 'bout flowers, but I've knowed all my life 'bout WEEDS." She laidso much emphasis on the word that Hale wondered for the moment if herwords had a deeper meaning--but she went on:

  "Ever' spring I have to watch the cows fer two weeks to keep 'em fromeatin'--those weeds." Her self-corrections were always made gravely now,and Hale consciously ignored them except when he had something to tellher that she ought to know. Everything, it seemed, she wanted to know.

  "Do they really kill cows?"

  June snapped her fingers: "Like that. But you just come on here,"she added with pretty imperiousness. "I want to axe--ask you somethings--what's that?"

  "Scarlet sage."

  "Scarlet sage," repeated June. "An' that?"

  "Nasturtium, and that's Oriental grass."

  "Nas-tur-tium, Oriental. An' what's that vine?"

  "That comes from North Africa--they call it 'matrimonial vine.'"

  "Whut fer?" asked June quickly.

  "Because it clings so." Hale smiled, but June saw none of hishumour--the married people she knew clung till the finger of deathunclasped them. She pointed to a bunch of tall tropical-looking plantswith great spreading leaves and big green-white stalks.

  "They're called Palmae Christi."

  "Whut?"

  "That's Latin. It means 'Hands of Christ,'" said Hale with reverence."You see how the leaves are spread out--don't they look like hands?'

  "Not much," said June frankly. "What's Latin?"

  "Oh, that's a dead language that some people used a long, long timeago."

  "What do folks use it nowadays fer? Why don't they just say 'Hands o'Christ'?"

  "I don't know," he said helplessly, "but maybe you'll study Latin someof these days." June shook her head.

  "Gettin' YOUR language is a big enough job fer me," she said with suchquaint seriousness that Hale could not laugh. She looked up suddenly."You been a long time git--gettin' over here."

  "Yes, and now you want to send me home before sundown."

  "I'm afeer--I'm afraid for you. Have you got a gun?" Hale tapped hisbreast-pocket.

  "Always. What are you afraid of?"

  "The Falins." She clenched her hands.

  "I'd like to SEE one o' them Falins tech ye," she added fiercely, andthen she gave a quick look at the sun.

  "You better go now, Jack. I'm afraid fer you. Where's your horse?" Halewaved his hand.

  "Down there. All right, little girl," he said. "I ought to go, anyway."And, to humour her, he started for the gate. There he bent to kiss her,but she drew back.

  "I'm afraid of Dave," she said, but she leaned on the gate and lookedlong at him with wistful eyes.

  "Jack," she said, and her eyes swam suddenly, "it'll most kill me--but Ireckon you better not come over here much." Hale made light of it all.

  "Nonsense, I'm coming just as often as I can." June smiled then.

  "All right. I'll watch out fer ye."

  He went down the path, her eyes following him, and when he looked backfrom the spur he saw her sitting in the porch and watching that shemight wave him farewell.

  Hale could not go over to Lonesome Cove much that summer, for he wasaway from the mountains a good part of the time, and it was a weary,racking summer for June when he was not there. The step-mother was astern taskmistress, and the girl worked hard, but no night passed thatshe did not spend an hour or more on her books, and by degrees shebribed and stormed Bub into learning his A, B, C's and digging at ablue-back spelling book. But all through the day there were times whenshe could play with the boy in the garden, and every afternoon, whenit was not raining, she would slip away to a little ravine behind thecabin, where a log had fallen across a little brook, and there in thecool, sun-pierced shadows she would study, read and dream--with thewater bubbling underneath and wood-thrushes singing overhead. For Halekept her well supplied with books. He had given her children's booksat first, but she outgrew them when the first love-story fell into herhands, and then he gave her novels--good, old ones and the best of thenew ones, and they were to her what water is to a thing athirst. But thehappy days were when Hale was there. She had a thousand questions forhim to answer, whenever he came, about birds, trees and flowers and thethings she read in her books. The words she could not understand in themshe marked, so that she could ask their meaning, and it was amazing howher vocabulary increased. Moreover, she was always trying to use thenew words she learned, and her speech was thus a quaint mixture ofvernacular, self-corrections and unexpected words. Happening once tohave a volume of Keats in his pocket, he read some of it to her, andwhile she could not understand, the music of the lines fascinated herand she had him leave that with her, too. She never tired hearing himtell of the places where he had been and the people he knew and themusic and plays he had heard and seen. And when he told her that she,too, should see all those wonderful things some day, her deep eyes tookfire and she dropped her head far back between
her shoulders and lookedlong at the stars that held but little more wonder for her than theworld of which he told. But each time he was there she grew noticeablyshyer with him and never once was the love-theme between them taken upin open words. Hale was reluctant, if only because she was still such achild, and if he took her hand or put his own on her wonderful head orhis arm around her as they stood in the garden under the stars--he didit as to a child, though the leap in her eyes and the quickening of hisown heart told him the lie that he was acting, rightly, to her and tohimself. And no more now were there any breaking-downs within her--therewas only a calm faith that staggered him and gave him an ever-mountingsense of his responsibility for whatever might, through the part he hadtaken in moulding her life, be in store for her.

  When he was not there, life grew a little easier for her in time,because of her dreams, the patience that was built from them and Hale'skindly words, the comfort of her garden and her books, and the blessedforce of habit. For as time went on, she got consciously used to therough life, the coarse food and the rude ways of her own people andher own home. And though she relaxed not a bit in her own daintycleanliness, the shrinking that she felt when she first arrived home,came to her at longer and longer intervals. Once a week she went downto Uncle Billy's, where she watched the water-wheel dripping sun-jewelsinto the sluice, the kingfisher darting like a blue bolt upon his prey,and listening to the lullaby that the water played to the sleepy oldmill--and stopping, both ways, to gossip with old Hon in her porch underthe honeysuckle vines. Uncle Billy saw the change in her and he grewvaguely uneasy about her--she dreamed so much, she was at times sorestless, she asked so many questions he could not answer, and shefailed to ask so many that were on the tip of her tongue. He saw thatwhile her body was at home, her thoughts rarely were; and it all hauntedhim with a vague sense that he was losing her. But old Hon laughed athim and told him he was an old fool and to "git another pair o' specs"and maybe he could see that the "little gal" was in love. This startledUncle Billy, for he was so like a father to June that he was as slowas a father in recognizing that his child has grown to such absurdmaturity. But looking back to the beginning--how the little girl hadtalked of the "furriner" who had come into Lonesome Cove all duringthe six months he was gone; how gladly she had gone away to the Gapto school, how anxious she was to go still farther away again, and,remembering all the strange questions she asked him about things in theoutside world of which he knew nothing--Uncle Billy shook his head inconfirmation of his own conclusion, and with all his soul he wonderedabout Hale--what kind of a man he was and what his purpose was withJune--and of every man who passed his mill he never failed to ask if heknew "that ar man Hale" and what he knew. All he had heard had been inHale's favour, except from young Dave Tolliver, the Red Fox or from anyFalin of the crowd, which Hale had prevented from capturing Dave.Their statements bothered him--especially the Red Fox's evil hintsand insinuations about Hale's purposes one day at the mill. The millerthought of them all the afternoon and all the way home, and when hesat down at his fire his eyes very naturally and simply rose to his oldrifle over the door--and then he laughed to himself so loudly that oldHon heard him.

  "Air you goin' crazy, Billy?" she asked. "Whut you studyin' 'bout?"

  "Nothin'; I was jest a-thinkin' Devil Judd wouldn't leave a grease-spotof him."

  "You AIR goin' crazy--who's him?"

  "Uh--nobody," said Uncle Billy, and old Hon turned with a shrug of hershoulders--she was tired of all this talk about the feud.

  All that summer young Dave Tolliver hung around Lonesome Cove. He wouldsit for hours in Devil Judd's cabin, rarely saying anything to June orto anybody, though the girl felt that she hardly made a move that he didnot see, and while he disappeared when Hale came, after a surly gruntof acknowledgment to Hale's cheerful greeting, his perpetual espionagebegan to anger June. Never, however, did he put himself into words untilHale's last visit, when the summer had waned and it was nearly time forJune to go away again to school. As usual, Dave had left the house whenHale came, and an hour after Hale was gone she went to the little ravinewith a book in her hand, and there the boy was sitting on her log, hiselbows dug into his legs midway between thigh and knee, his chin in hishands, his slouched hat over his black eyes--every line of him picturingangry, sullen dejection. She would have slipped away, but he heard herand lifted his head and stared at her without speaking. Then he slowlygot off the log and sat down on a moss-covered stone.

  "'Scuse me," he said with elaborate sarcasm. "This bein' yo'school-house over hyeh, an' me not bein' a scholar, I reckon I'm in yourway."

  "How do you happen to know hit's my school-house?" asked June quietly.

  "I've seed you hyeh."

  "Jus' as I s'posed."

  "You an' HIM."

  "Jus' as I s'posed," she repeated, and a spot of red came into eachcheek. "But we didn't see YOU." Young Dave laughed.

  "Well, everybody don't always see me when I'm seein' them."

  "No," she said unsteadily. "So, you've been sneakin' around through thewoods a-spyin' on me--SNEAKIN' AN' SPYIN'," she repeated so searinglythat Dave looked at the ground suddenly, picked up a pebble confusedlyand shot it in the water.

  "I had a mighty good reason," he said doggedly. "Ef he'd been up to someof his furrin' tricks---" June stamped the ground.

  "Don't you think I kin take keer o' myself?"

  "No, I don't. I never seed a gal that could--with one o' themfurriners."

  "Huh!" she said scornfully. "You seem to set a mighty big store by thedecency of yo' own kin." Dave was silent. "He ain't up to no tricks. An'whut do you reckon Dad 'ud be doin' while you was pertecting me?"

  "Air ye goin' away to school?" he asked suddenly. June hesitated.

  "Well, seein' as hit's none o' yo' business--I am."

  "Air ye goin' to marry him?"

  "He ain't axed me." The boy's face turned red as a flame.

  "Ye air honest with me, an' now I'm goin' to be honest with you. Youhain't never goin' to marry him."

  You hain't never goin' to marry him.", 0242]

  "Mebbe you think I'm goin' to marry YOU." A mist of rage swept beforethe lad's eyes so that he could hardly see, but he repeated steadily:

  "You hain't goin' to marry HIM." June looked at the boy long andsteadily, but his black eyes never wavered--she knew what he meant.

  "An' he kept the Falins from killin' you," she said, quivering withindignation at the shame of him, but Dave went on unheeding:

  "You pore little fool! Do ye reckon as how he's EVER goin' to axe yeto marry him? Whut's he sendin' you away fer? Because you hain't goodenough fer him! Whar's yo' pride? You hain't good enough fer him," herepeated scathingly. June had grown calm now.

  "I know it," she said quietly, "but I'm goin' to try to be."

  Dave rose then in impotent fury and pointed one finger at her. His blackeyes gleamed like a demon's and his voice was hoarse with resolution andrage, but it was Tolliver against Tolliver now, and June answered himwith contemptuous fearlessness.

  "YOU HAIN'T NEVER GOIN' TO MARRY HIM."

  "An' he kept the Falins from killin' ye."

  "Yes," he retorted savagely at last, "an' I kept the Falins from killin'HIM," and he stalked away, leaving June blanched and wondering.

  It was true. Only an hour before, as Hale turned up the mountain thatvery afternoon at the mouth of Lonesome Cove, young Dave had called tohim from the bushes and stepped into the road.

  "You air goin' to court Monday?" he said.

  "Yes," said Hale.

  "Well, you better take another road this time," he said quietly. "Threeo' the Falins will be waitin' in the lorrel somewhar on the road tolay-way ye."

  Hale was dumfounded, but he knew the boy spoke the truth.

  "Look here," he said impulsively, "I've got nothing against you, andI hope you've got nothing against me. I'm much obliged--let's shakehands!"

  The boy turned sullenly away with a dogged shake of his head.

  "I was behold
en to you," he said with dignity, "an' I warned you 'boutthem Falins to git even with you. We're quits now."

  Hale started to speak--to say that the lad was not beholden to him--thathe would as quickly have protected a Falin, but it would have only madematters worse. Moreover, he knew precisely what Dave had against him,and that, too, was no matter for discussion. So he said simply andsincerely:

  "I'm sorry we can't be friends."

  "No," Dave gritted out, "not this side o' Heaven--or Hell."