Produced by Charles Keller.  HTML version by Al Haines.

'Hell fer Sartain'

and

Other Stories

by

JOHN FOX, JR.

  TO
  MY BROTHER
  JAMES

AUTHOR'S NOTE

CONTENTS

  ON HELL-FER-SARTAIN CREEK
  THROUGH THE GAP
  A TRICK O' TRADE
  GRAYSON'S BABY
  COURTIN' ON CUTSHIN
  THE MESSAGE IN THE SAND
  THE SENATOR'S LAST TRADE
  PREACHIN' ON KINGDOM-COME
  THE PASSING OF ABRAHAM SHIVERS
  A PURPLE RHODODENDRON

ON HELL-FER-SARTAIN CREEK

Thar was a dancin'-party Christmas night on "Hell fer Sartain."  Jes
tu'n up the fust crick beyond the bend thar, an' climb onto a stump,
an' holler about ONCE, an' you'll see how the name come.  Stranger,
hit's HELL fer sartain!  Well, Rich Harp was thar from the head-waters,
an' Harve Hall toted Nance Osborn clean across the Cumberlan'.  Fust
one ud swing Nance, an' then t'other.  Then they'd take a pull out'n
the same bottle o' moonshine, an'--fust one an' then t'other--they'd
swing her agin.  An' Abe Shivers a-settin' thar by the fire a-bitin'
his thumbs!

Well, things was sorter whoopin', when somebody ups an' tells Harve
that Rich had said somep'n' agin Nance an' him, an' somebody ups an'
tells Rich that Harve had said somep'n' agin Nance an' HIM.  In a
minute, stranger, hit was like two wild-cats in thar.  Folks got 'em
parted, though, but thar was no more a-swingin' of Nance that night.
Harve toted her back over the Cumberlan', an' Rich's kinsfolks tuk him
up "Hell fer Sartain"; but Rich got loose, an' lit out lickety-split
fer Nance Osborn's.  He knowed Harve lived too fer over Black Mountain
to go home that night, an' he rid right across the river an' up to
Nance's house, an' hollered fer Harve.  Harve poked his head out'n the
loft--he knowed whut was wanted--an' Harve says, "Uh, come in hyeh an'
go to bed.  Hit's too late!" An' Rich seed him a-gapin' like a chicken,
an' in he walked, stumblin' might' nigh agin the bed whar Nance was
a-layin', listenin' an' not sayin' a word.

Stranger, them two fellers slept together plum frien'ly, an' they et
together plum frien'ly next mornin', an' they sa'ntered down to the
grocery plum frien'ly.  An' Rich says, "Harve," says he, "let's have a
drink."  "All right, Rich," says Harve.  An' Rich says, "Harve," says
he, "you go out'n that door an' I'll go out'n this door."  "All right,
Rich," says Harve, an' out they walked, steady, an' thar was two shoots
shot, an' Rich an' Harve both drapped, an' in ten minutes they was
stretched out on Nance's bed an' Nance was a-lopin' away fer the yarb
doctor.

The gal nussed 'em both plum faithful.  Rich didn't hev much to say,
an' Harve didn't hev much to say.  Nance was sorter quiet, an' Nance's
mammy, ole Nance, jes grinned.  Folks come in to ax atter 'em right
peart.  Abe Shivers come cl'ar 'cross the river--powerful frien'ly--an'
ever' time Nance ud walk out to the fence with him.  One time she
didn't come back, an' ole Nance fotched the boys thar dinner, an' ole
Nance fotched thar supper, an' then Rich he axed whut was the matter
with young Nance.  An' ole Nance jes snorted.  Atter a while Rich says:
"Harve," says he, "who tol' you that I said that word agin you an'
Nance?" "Abe Shivers," says Harve.  "An' who tol' you," says Harve,
"that I said that word agin Nance an' YOU?"  "Abe Shivers," says Rich.
An' both says, "Well, damn me!"  An' Rich tu'ned right over an' begun
pullin' straws out'n the bed.  He got two out, an' he bit one off, an'
he says:  "Harve," says he, "I reckon we better draw fer him.  The
shortes' gits him."  An' they drawed.  Well, nobody ever knowed which
got the shortes' straw, stranger, but--

Thar'll be a dancin'-party comin' Christmas night on "Hell fer
Sartain." Rich Harp 'll be thar from the head-waters.  Harve Hall's
a-goin' to tote the Widder Shivers clean across the Cumberlan'.  Fust
one 'll swing Nance, an' then t'other.  Then they'll take a pull out'n
the same bottle o' moonshine, an'--fust one an' then t'other--they'll
swing her agin, jes the same.  ABE won't be thar.  He's a-settin' by a
bigger fire, I reckon (ef he ain't in it), a-bitin' his thumbs!

THROUGH THE GAP

When thistles go adrift, the sun sets down the valley between the
hills; when snow comes, it goes down behind the Cumberland and streams
through a great fissure that people call the Gap.  Then the last light
drenches the parson's cottage under Imboden Hill, and leaves an
after-glow of glory on a majestic heap that lies against the east.
Sometimes it spans the Gap with a rainbow.

Strange people and strange tales come through this Gap from the
Kentucky hills.  Through it came these two, late one day--a man and a
woman--afoot.  I met them at the foot-bridge over Roaring Fork.

"Is thar a preacher anywhar aroun' hyeh?" he asked.  I pointed to the
cottage under Imboden Hill.  The girl flushed slightly and turned her
head away with a rather unhappy smile.  Without a word, the mountaineer
led the way towards town.  A moment more and a half-breed Malungian
passed me on the bridge and followed them.

At dusk the next day I saw the mountaineer chopping wood at a shanty
under a clump of rhododendron on the river-bank.  The girl was cooking
supper inside.  The day following he was at work on the railroad, and
on Sunday, after church, I saw the parson.  The two had not been to
him.  Only that afternoon the mountaineer was on the bridge with
another woman, hideously rouged and with scarlet ribbons fluttering
from her bonnet.  Passing on by the shanty, I saw the Malungian talking
to the girl.  She apparently paid no heed to him until, just as he was
moving away, he said something mockingly, and with a nod of his head
back towards the bridge.  She did not look up even then, but her face
got hard and white, and, looking back from the road, I saw her slipping
through the bushes into the dry bed of the creek, to make sure that
what the half-breed told her was true.

The two men were working side by side on the railroad when I saw them
again, but on the first pay-day the doctor was called to attend the
Malungian, whose head was split open with a shovel.  I was one of two
who went out to arrest his assailant, and I had no need to ask who he
was.  The mountaineer was a devil, the foreman said, and I had to club
him with a pistol-butt before he would give in.  He said he would get
even with me; but they all say that, and I paid no attention to the
threat.  For a week he was kept in the calaboose, and when I passed the
shanty just after he was sent to the county-seat for trial, I found it
empty.  The Malungian, too, was gone.  Within a fortnight the
mountaineer was in the door of the shanty again.  Having no accuser, he
had been discharged.  He went back to his work, and if he opened his
lips I never knew.  Every day I saw him at work, and he never failed to
give me a surly look.  Every dusk I saw him in his door-way, waiting,
and I could guess for what.  It was easy to believe that the stern
purpose in his face would make its way through space and draw her to
him again.  And she did come back one day.  I had just limped down the
mountain with a sprained ankle.  A crowd of women was gathered at the
edge of the woods, looking with all their eyes to the shanty on the
river-bank.  The girl stood in the door-way.  The mountaineer was
coming back from work with his face down.

"He hain't seed her yit," said one.  "He's goin' to kill her shore.  I
tol' her he would.  She said she reckoned he would, but she didn't
keer."

For a moment I was paralyzed by the tragedy at hand.  She was in the
door looking at him when he raised his head.  For one moment he stood
still, staring, and then he started towards her with a quickened step.
I started too, then, every step a torture, and as I limped ahead she
made a gesture of terror and backed into the room before him.  The door
closed, and I listened for a pistol-shot and a scream.  It must have
been done with a knife, I thought, and quietly, for when I was within
ten paces of the cabin he opened the door again.  His face was very
white; he held one hand behind him, and he was nervously fumbling at
his chill with the other.  As he stepped towards me I caught the handle
of a pistol in my side pocket and waited.  He looked at me sharply.

"Did you say the preacher lived up thar?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, breathlessly.

In the door-way just then stood the girl with a bonnet in her hand, and
at a nod from him they started up the hill towards the cottage.  They
came down again after a while, he stalking ahead, and she, after the
mountain fashion, behind.  And after this fashion I saw them at sunset
next day pass over the bridge and into the mouth of the Gap whence they
came.  Through this Gap come strange people and strange tales from the
Kentucky hills.  Over it, sometimes, is the span of a rainbow.

A TRICK O' TRADE

Stranger, I'm a separATE man, an' I don't inQUIZite into no man's
business; but you ax me straight, an' I tell ye straight:  You watch
ole Tom!

Now, I'll take ole Tom Perkins' word agin anybody's 'ceptin' when hit
comes to a hoss trade ur a piece o' land.  Fer in the tricks o' sech,
ole Tom 'lows--well, hit's diff'ent; an' I reckon, stranger, as how hit
sorter is.  He was a-stayin' at Tom's house, the furriner was,
a-dickerin' fer a piece o' lan'--the same piece, mebbe, that you're
atter now--an' Tom keeps him thar fer a week to beat him out'n a
dollar, an' then won't let him pay nary a cent fer his boa'd.  Now,
stranger, that's Tom.

Well, Abe Shivers was a-workin' fer Tom--you've heerd tell o' Abe--an'
the furriner wasn't more'n half gone afore Tom seed that Abe was up to
some of his devilMINT.  Abe kin hatch up more devilMINT in a minit than
Satan hisself kin in a week; so Tom jes got Abe out'n the stable under
a hoe-handle, an' tol' him to tell the whole thing straight ur he'd
have to go to glory right thar.  An' Abe tol'!

'Pears like Abe had foun' a streak o' iron ore on the lan', an' had
racked his jinny right down to Hazlan an' tol' the furriner, who was
thar a-buyin' wild lands right an' left.  Co'se, Abe was goin' to make
the furriner whack up fer gittin' the lan' so cheap.  Well, brother,
the furriner come up to Tom's an' got Tom into one o' them new-fangled
trades whut the furriners calls a option--t'other feller kin git out'n
hit, but you can't.  The furriner 'lowed he'd send his podner up thar
next day to put the thing in writin' an' close up the trade.  Hit
looked like ole Tom was ketched fer shore, an' ef Tom didn't ra'r, I'd
tell a man.  He jes let that hoe-handle drap on Abe fer 'bout haffen
hour, jes to give him time to study, an' next day thar was ole Tom
a-settin' on his orchard fence a-lookin' mighty unknowin', when the
furriner's podner come a-prancin' up an' axed ef old Tom Perkins lived
thar.

Ole Tom jes whispers.

Now, I clean fergot to tell ye, stranger, that Abe Shivers nuver could
talk out loud.  He tol' so many lies that the Lawd--jes to make things
even--sorter fixed Abe, I reckon, so he couldn't lie on more'n one side
o' the river at a time.  Ole Tom jes knowed t'other furriner had tol'
this un 'bout Abe, an,' shore 'nough, the feller says, sorter soft,
says he:

"Aw, you air the feller whut foun' the ore?"

Ole Tom--makin' like he was Abe, mind ye--jes whispers:  "Thar hain't
none thar."

Stranger, the feller mos' fell off'n his hoss.  "Whut?" says he.  Ole
Tom kep' a-whisperin':  "Thar hain't no coal--no nothing; ole Tom
Perkins made me tell t'other furriner them lies."

Well, sir, the feller WAS mad.  "Jes whut I tol' that fool podner of
mine," he says, an' he pull out a dollar an' gives hit to Tom.  Tom jes
sticks out his han' with his thum' turned in jes so, an' the furriner
says, "Well, ef you can't talk, you kin make purty damn good signs";
but he forks over four mo' dollars (he 'lowed ole Tom had saved him a
pile o' money), an' turns his hoss an' pulls up agin.  He was a-gittin'
the land so durned cheap that I reckon he jes hated to let hit go, an'
he says, says he: "Well, hain't the groun' rich?  Won't hit raise no
tabaccy nur corn nur nothin'?"

Ole Tom jes whispers:

"To tell you the p'int-blank truth, stranger, that land's so durned
pore that I hain't nuver been able to raise my voice."

Now, brother, I'm a separATE man, an' I don't inQUIZite into no man's
business--but you ax me straight an' I tell ye straight.  Ole Tom
Perkins kin trade with furriners, fer he have l'arned their ways.  You
watch ole Tom!

GRAYSON'S BABY

The first snow sifted in through the Gap that night, and in a "shack"
of one room and a low loft a man was dead, a woman was sick to death,
and four children were barely alive; and nobody even knew.  For they
were hill people, who sicken, suffer, and sometimes die, like animals,
and make no noise.

Grayson, the Virginian, coming down from the woods that morning, saw
the big-hearted little doctor outside the door of the shack, walking up
and down, with his hands in his pockets.  He was whistling softly when
Grayson got near, and, without stopping, pointed with his thumb within.
The oldest boy sat stolidly on the one chair in the room, his little
brother was on the floor hard by, and both were hugging a greasy stove.
The little girl was with her mother in the bed, both almost out of
sight under a heap of quilts.  The baby was in a cradle, with its face
uncovered, whether dead or asleep Grayson could not tell.  A pine
coffin was behind the door.  It would not have been possible to add to
the disorder of the room, and the atmosphere made Grayson gasp.  He
came out looking white.  The first man to arrive thereafter took away
the eldest boy, a woman picked the baby girl from the bed, and a
childless young couple took up the pallid little fellow on the floor.
These were step-children.  The baby boy that was left was the woman's
own.  Nobody came for that, and Grayson went in again and looked at it
a long while.  So little, so old a human face he had never seen.  The
brow was wrinkled as with centuries of pain, and the little drawn mouth
looked as though the spirit within had fought its inheritance without a
murmur, and would fight on that way to the end.  It was the pluck of
the face that drew Grayson.  "I'll take it," he said.  The doctor was
not without his sense of humor even then, but he nodded.  "Cradle and
all," he said, gravely.  And Grayson put both on one shoulder and
walked away.  He had lost the power of giving further surprise in that
town, and had he met every man he knew, not one of them would have felt
at liberty to ask him what he was doing.  An hour later the doctor
found the child in Grayson's room, and Grayson still looking at it.

"Is it going to live, doctor?"

The doctor shook his head.  "Doubtful.  Look at the color.  It's
starved.  There's nothing to do but to watch it and feed it.  You can
do that."

So Grayson watched it, with a fascination of which he was hardly
conscious.  Never for one instant did its look change--the quiet,
unyielding endurance that no faith and no philosophy could ever bring
to him.  It was ideal courage, that look, to accept the inevitable but
to fight it just that way.  Half the little mountain town was talking
next day--that such a tragedy was possible by the public road-side,
with relief within sound of the baby's cry.  The oldest boy was least
starved.  Might made right in an extremity like his, and the boy had
taken care of himself.  The young couple who had the second lad in
charge said they had been wakened at daylight the next morning by some
noise in the room.  Looking up, they saw the little fellow at the
fireplace breaking an egg.  He had built a fire, had got eggs from the
kitchen, and was cooking his breakfast.  The little girl was
mischievous and cheery in spite of her bad plight, and nobody knew of
the baby except Grayson and the doctor.  Grayson would let nobody else
in.  As soon as it was well enough to be peevish and to cry, he took it
back to its mother, who was still abed.  A long, dark mountaineer was
there, of whom the woman seemed half afraid.  He followed Grayson
outside.

"Say, podner," he said, with an unpleasant smile, "ye don't go up to
Cracker's Neck fer nothin', do ye?"

The woman had lived at Cracker's Neck before she appeared at the Gap,
and it did not come to Grayson what the man meant until he was half-way
to his room.  Then he flushed hot and wheeled back to the cabin, but
the mountaineer was gone.

"Tell that fellow he had better keep out of my way," he said to the
woman, who understood, and wanted to say something, but not knowing
how, nodded simply.  In a few days the other children went back to the
cabin, and day and night Grayson went to see the child, until it was
out of danger, and afterwards.  It was not long before the women in
town complained that the mother was ungrateful.  When they sent things
to eat to her the servant brought back word that she had called out,
"'Set them over thar,' without so much as a thanky."  One message was
that "she didn' want no second-hand victuals from nobody's table."
Somebody suggested sending the family to the poor-house.  The mother
said "she'd go out on her crutches and hoe corn fust, and that the
people who talked 'bout sendin' her to the po'-house had better save
their breath to make prayers with."  One day she was hired to do some
washing.  The mistress of the house happened not to rise until ten
o'clock.  Next morning the mountain woman did not appear until that
hour.  "She wasn't goin' to work a lick while that woman was a-layin'
in bed," she said, frankly.  And when the lady went down town, she too
disappeared.  Nor would she, she explained to Grayson, "while that
woman was a-struttin' the streets."

After that, one by one, they let her alone, and the woman made not a
word of complaint.  Within a week she was working in the fields, when
she should have been back in bed.  The result was that the child
sickened again.  The old look came back to its face, and Grayson was
there night and day.  He was having trouble out in Kentucky about this
time, and he went to the Blue Grass pretty often.  Always, however, he
left money with me to see that the child was properly buried if it
should die while he was gone; and once he telegraphed to ask how it
was.  He said he was sometimes afraid to open my letters for fear that
he should read that the baby was dead.  The child knew Grayson's voice,
his step.  It would go to him from its own mother.  When it was sickest
and lying torpid it would move the instant he stepped into the room,
and, when he spoke, would hold out its thin arms, without opening its
eyes, and for hours Grayson would walk the floor with the troubled
little baby over his shoulder.  I thought several times it would die
when, on one trip, Grayson was away for two weeks.  One midnight,
indeed, I found the mother moaning, and three female harpies about the
cradle.  The baby was dying this time, and I ran back for a flask of
whiskey.  Ten minutes late with the whiskey that night would have been
too late.  The baby got to know me and my voice during that fortnight,
but it was still in danger when Grayson got back, and we went to see it
together.  It was very weak, and we both leaned over the cradle, from
either side, and I saw the pity and affection--yes, hungry, half-shamed
affection--in Grayson's face.  The child opened its eyes, looked from
one to the other, and held out its arms to ME.  Grayson should have
known that the child forgot--that it would forget its own mother.  He
turned sharply, and his face was a little pale.  He gave something to
the woman, and not till then did I notice that her soft black eyes
never left him while he was in the cabin.  The child got well; but
Grayson never went to the shack again, and he said nothing when I came
in one night and told him that some mountaineer--a long, dark
fellow-had taken the woman, the children, and the household gods of the
shack back into the mountains.

"They don't grieve long," I said, "these people."

But long afterwards I saw the woman again along the dusty road that
leads into the Gap.  She had heard over in the mountains that Grayson
was dead, and had walked for two days to learn if it was true.  I
pointed back towards Bee Rock, and told her that he had fallen from a
cliff back there.  She did not move, nor did her look change.
Moreover, she said nothing, and, being in a hurry, I had to ride on.

At the foot-bridge over Roaring Fork I looked back.  The woman was
still there, under the hot mid-day sun and in the dust of the road,
motionless.

COURTIN' ON CUTSHIN

Hit was this way, stranger.  When hit comes to handlin' a right peert
gal, Jeb Somers air about the porest man on Fryin' Pan, I reckon; an'
Polly Ann Sturgill have got the vineg'rest tongue on Cutshin or any
other crick.

So the boys over on Fryin' Pan made it up to git 'em together.  Abe
Shivers--you've heerd tell o' Abe--tol' Jeb that Polly Ann had seed him
in Hazlan (which she hadn't, of co'se), an' had said p'int-blank that
he was the likeliest feller she'd seed in them mountains.  An' he tol'
Polly Ann that Jeb was ravin' crazy 'bout her.  The pure misery of it
jes made him plumb delirious, Abe said; an' 'f Polly Ann wanted to find
her match fer languige an' talkin' out peert--well, she jes ought to
strike Jeb Somers.  Fact is, stranger, Jeb Somers air might' nigh a
idgit; but Jeb 'lowed he'd rack right over on Cutshin an' set up with
Polly Ann Sturgill; an' Abe tells Polly Ann the king bee air comin'.
An' Polly Ann's cousin, Nance Osborn, comes over from Hell fer Sartain
(whut runs into Kingdom-Come) to stay all night an' see the fun.

Now, I hain't been a-raftin' logs down to the settlemints o' Kaintuck
fer nigh on to twenty year fer nothin', An' I know gallivantin' is
diff'ent with us mountain fellers an' you furriners, in the premises,
anyways, as them lawyers up to court says; though I reckon hit's purty
much the same atter the premises is over.  Whar you says "courtin',"
now, we says "talkin' to."  Sallie Spurlock over on Fryin' Pan is
a-talkin' to Jim Howard now.  Sallie's sister hain't nuver talked to no
man.  An' whar you says "makin' a call on a young lady," we says
"settin' up with a gal"!  An', stranger, we does it.  We hain't got
more'n one room hardly ever in these mountains, an' we're jes obleeged
to set up to do any courtin' at all.

Well, you go over to Sallie's to stay all night some time, an' purty
soon atter supper Jim Howard comes in.  The ole man an' the ole woman
goes to bed, an' the chil'un an' you go to bed, an' ef you keeps one
eye open you'll see Jim's cheer an' Sallie's cheer a-movin' purty soon,
till they gets plumb together.  Then, stranger, hit begins.  Now I want
ye to understand that settin' up means business.  We don't 'low no
foolishness in these mountains; an' 'f two fellers happens to meet at
the same house, they jes makes the gal say which one she likes best,
an' t'other one gits!  Well, you'll see Jim put his arm 'round Sallie's
neck an' whisper a long while--jes so.  Mebbe you've noticed whut
fellers us mountain folks air fer whisperin'.  You've seed fellers
a-whisperin' all over Hazlan on court day, hain't ye?  Ole Tom Perkins
'll put his arm aroun' yo' neck an' whisper in yo' year ef he's ten
mile out'n the woods.  I reckon thar's jes so much devilmint a-goin' on
in these mountains, folks is naturely afeerd to talk out loud.

Well, Jim let's go an' Sallie puts her arm aroun' Jim's neck an'
whispers a long while--jes so; an' 'f you happen to wake up anywhar to
two o'clock in the mornin' you'll see jes that a-goin' on.  Brother,
that's settin' up.

Well, Jeb Somers, as I was a-sayin' in the premises, 'lowed he'd rack
right over on Cutshin an' set up with Polly Ann comin' Christmas night.
An' Abe tells Polly Ann Jeb says he aims to have her fer a Christmas
gift afore mornin'.  Polly Ann jes sniffed sorter, but you know women
folks air always mighty ambitious jes to SEE a feller anyways, 'f he's
a-pinin' fer 'em.  So Jeb come, an' Jeb was fixed up now fittin' to
kill.  Jeb had his hair oiled down nice an' slick, and his mustache was
jes black as powder could make hit.  Naturely hit was red; but a feller
can't do nothin' in these mountains with a red mustache; an' Jeb had a
big black ribbon tied in the butt o' the bigges' pistol Abe Shivers
could borrer fer him--hit was a badge o' death an' deestruction to his
enemies, Abe said, an' I tell ye Jeb did look like a man.  He never
opened his mouth atter he says "howdy"--Jeb never does say nothin';
Jeb's one o' them fellers whut hides thar lack o' brains by a-lookin'
solemn an' a-keepin' still, but thar don't nobody say much tell the ole
folks air gone to bed, an' Polly Ann jes 'lowed Jeb was a-waitin'.
Fact is, stranger, Abe Shivers had got Jeb a leetle disguised by
liquer, an' he did look fat an' sassy, ef he couldn't talk, a-settin'
over in the corner a-plunkin' the banjer an' a-knockin' off "Sour-wood
Mountain" an' "Jinny git aroun'" an' "Soapsuds over the Fence."

  "Chickens a-crowin' on Sour-wood Mountain,
     Heh-o-dee-um-dee-eedy-dahdy-dee!
   Git yo' dawgs an' we'll go huntin',
     Heh-o-dee-um-dee-eedy-dahdy-dee!"

An' when Jeb comes to

  "I've got a gal at the head o' the holler,
     Heh-o-dee-um-dee-eedy-dahdy-dee!"

he jes turns one eye 'round on Polly Ann, an' then swings his chin
aroun' as though he didn't give a cuss fer nothin'.

  "She won't come, an' I won't foller,
     Heh-o-dee-um-dee-eedy-dahdy-dee!"

Well, sir, Nance seed that Polly Ann was a-eyin' Jeb sort o' flustered
like, an' she come might' nigh splittin' right thar an' a-sp'ilin' the
fun, fer she knowed what a skeery fool Jeb was.  An' when the ole folks
goes to bed, Nance lays thar under a quilt a-watchin' an' a-listenin'.
Well, Jeb knowed the premises, ef he couldn't talk, an' purty soon
Nance heerd Jeb's cheer creak a leetle, an' she says, Jeb's a-comin',
and Jeb was; an' Polly Ann 'lowed Jeb was jes a leetle TOO resolute an'
quick-like, an' she got her hand ready to give him one lick anyways fer
bein' so brigaty.  I don't know as she'd 'a' hit him more'n ONCE.  Jeb
had a farm, an' Polly Ann--well, Polly Ann was a-gittin' along.  But
Polly Ann sot thar jes as though she didn't know Jeb was a-comin', an'
Jeb stopped once an' says,

"You hain't got nothin' agin me, has ye?"

An' Polly Ann says, sorter quick,

"Naw; ef I had, I'd push it."

Well, Jeb mos' fell off his cheer, when, ef he hadn't been sech a
skeery idgit, he'd 'a' knowed that Polly Ann was plain open an' shet
a-biddin' fer him.  But he sot thar like a knot on a log fer haffen
hour, an' then he rickollected, I reckon, that Abe had tol' him Polly
Ann was peppery an' he mustn't mind, fer Jeb begun a-movin' ag'in till
he was slam-bang agin Polly Ann's cheer.  An' thar he sot like a
punkin, not sayin' a word nur doin' nothin'.  An' while Polly Ann was
a-wonderin' ef he was gone plumb crazy, blame me ef that durned fool
didn't turn roun' to that peppery gal an' say,

"Booh, Polly Ann!"

Well, Nance had to stuff the bedquilt in her mouth right thar to keep
from hollerin' out loud, fer Polly Ann's hand was a-hangin' down by the
cheer, jes a-waitin' fer a job, and Nance seed the fingers a-twitchin'.
An' Jeb waits another haffen hour an' Jeb says,

"Ortern't I be killed?"

"Whut fer?" says Polly Ann, sorter sharp.

An' Jeb says, "Fer bein' so devilish."

Well, brother, Nance snorted right out thar, an' Polly Ann Sturgill's
hand riz up jes once; an' I've heerd Jeb Somers say the next time he
jumps out o' the Fryin' Pan he's a-goin' to take hell-fire 'stid o'
Cutshin fer a place to light.

THE MESSAGE IN THE SAND

Stranger, you furriners don't nuver seem to consider that a woman has
always got the devil to fight in two people at once!  Hit's two agin
one, I tell ye, an' hit hain't fa'r.

That's what I said more'n two year ago, when Rosie Branham was a-layin'
up thar at Dave Hall's, white an' mos' dead.  An', GOD, boys, I says,
that leetle thing in thar by her shorely can't be to blame.

Thar hain't been a word agin Rosie sence; an', stranger, I reckon thar
nuver will be.  Fer, while the gal hain't got hide o' kith or kin, thar
air two fellers up hyeh sorter lookin' atter Rosie; an' one of 'em is
the shootin'es' man on this crick, I reckon, 'cept one; an', stranger,
that's t'other.

Rosie kep' her mouth shet fer a long while; an' I reckon as how the
feller 'lowed she wasn't goin' to tell.  Co'se the woman folks got hit
out'n her--they al'ays gits whut they want, as you know--an' thar the
sorry cuss was--a-livin' up thar in the Bend, jes aroun' that bluff o'
lorrel yander, a-lookin' pious, an' a-singin', an' a-sayin' Amen louder
'n anybody when thar was meetin'.

Well, my boy Jim an' a lot o' fellers jes went up fer him right away.
I don't know as the boys would 'a' killed him EXACTLY ef they had
kotched him, though they mought; but they got Abe Shivers, as tol' the
feller they was a-comin'--you've heard tell o' Abe-an' they mos' beat
Abraham Shivers to death.  Stranger, the sorry cuss was Dave.  Rosie
hadn't no daddy an' no mammy; an' she was jes a-workin' at Dave's fer
her victuals an' clo'es.  'Pears like the pore gal was jes tricked into
evil.  Looked like she was sorter 'witched--an' anyways, stranger, she
was a fightin' Satan in HERSELF, as well as in Dave.  Hit was two agin
one, I tell ye, an' hit wasn't fa'r.

Co'se they turned Rosie right out in the road I hain't got a word to
say agin Dave's wife fer that; an' atter a while the boys lets Dave
come back, to take keer o' his ole mammy, of co'se, but I tell ye
Dave's a-playin' a purty lonesome tune.  He keeps purty shy YIT.  He
don't nuver sa'nter down this way.  'Pears like he don't seem to think
hit's healthy fer him down hyeh, an' I reckon Dave's right.

Rosie?  Oh, well, I sorter tuk Rosie in myself.  Yes, she's been livin'
thar in the shack with me an' my boy Jim, an' the--  Why, thar he is
now, stranger.  That's him a-wallerin' out thar in the road.  Do you
reckon thar'd be a single thing agin that leetle cuss ef he had to
stan' up on Jedgment Day jes as he is now?

Look hyeh, stranger, whut you reckon the Lawd kep' a-writin' thar on
the groun' that day when them fellers was a-pesterin' him 'bout that
pore woman?  Don't you jes know he was a writin' 'bout sech as HIM--an'
Rosie?  I tell ye, brother, he writ thar jes what I'm al'ays a-sayin'.

Hit hain't the woman's fault.  I said it more'n two year ago, when
Rosie was up thar at ole Dave's, an' I said it yestiddy, when my boy
Jim come to me an' 'lowed as how he aimed to take Rosie down to town
to-day an' git married.

"You ricollect, dad," says Jim, "her mammy?"

"Yes, Jim," I says; "all the better reason not to be too hard on Rosie."

I'm a-lookin' fer 'em both back right now, stranger; an' ef you will,
I'll be mighty glad to have ye stay right hyeh to the infair this very
night.  Thar nuver was a word agin Rosie afore, thar hain't been sence,
an' you kin ride up an' down this river till the crack o' doom an'
you'll nuver hear a word agin her ag'in.  Fer, as I tol' you, my boy,
Jim is the shootin'es' feller on this crick, I reckon, 'cept ONE, an',
stranger, that's ME!

THE SENATOR'S LAST TRADE

A drove of lean cattle were swinging easily over Black Mountain, and
behind them came a big man with wild black hair and a bushy beard.  Now
and then he would gnaw at his mustache with his long, yellow teeth, or
would sit down to let his lean horse rest, and would flip meaninglessly
at the bushes with a switch.  Sometimes his bushy head would droop over
on his breast, and he would snap it up sharply and start painfully on.
Robber, cattle-thief, outlaw he might have been in another century; for
he filled the figure of any robber hero in life or romance, and yet he
was only the Senator from Bell, as he was known in the little Kentucky
capital; or, as he was known in his mountain home, just the Senator,
who had toiled and schemed and grown rich and grown poor; who had
suffered long and was kind.

Only that Christmas he had gutted every store in town.  "Give me
everything you have, brother," he said, across each counter; and next
day every man, woman, and child in the mountain town had a present from
the Senator's hands.  He looked like a brigand that day, as he looked
now, but he called every man his brother, and his eye, while black and
lustreless as night, was as brooding and just as kind.

When the boom went down, with it and with everybody else went the
Senator.  Slowly he got dusty, ragged, long of hair.  He looked
tortured and ever-restless.  You never saw him still; always he swept
by you, flapping his legs on his lean horse or his arms in his rickety
buggy here, there, everywhere--turning, twisting, fighting his way back
to freedom--and not a murmur.  Still was every man his brother, and if
some forgot his once open hand, he forgot it no more completely than
did the Senator.  He went very far to pay his debts.  He felt honor
bound, indeed, to ask his sister to give back the farm that he had
given her, which, very properly people said, she declined to do.
Nothing could kill hope in the Senator's breast; he would hand back the
farm in another year, he said; but the sister was firm, and without a
word still, the Senator went other ways and schemed through the nights,
and worked and rode and walked and traded through the days, until now,
when the light was beginning to glimmer, his end was come.

This was the Senator's last trade, and in sight, down in a Kentucky
valley, was home.  Strangely enough, the Senator did not care at all,
and he had just enough sanity left to wonder why, and to be worried.
It was the "walking typhoid" that had caught up with him, and he was
listless, and he made strange gestures and did foolish things as he
stumbled down the mountain.  He was going over a little knoll now, and
he could see the creek that ran around his house, but he was not
touched.  He would just as soon have lain down right where he was, or
have turned around and gone back, except that it was hot and he wanted
to get to the water.  He remembered that it was nigh Christmas; he saw
the snow about him and the cakes of ice in the creek.  He knew that he
ought not to be hot, and yet he was--so hot that he refused to reason
with himself even a minute, and hurried on.  It was odd that it should
be so, but just about that time, over in Virginia, a cattle dealer,
nearing home, stopped to tell a neighbor how he had tricked some
black-whiskered fool up in the mountains.  It may have been just when
he was laughing aloud over there, that the Senator, over here, tore his
woollen shirt from his great hairy chest and rushed into the icy
stream, clapping his arms to his burning sides and shouting in his
frenzy.

"If he had lived a little longer," said a constituent, "he would have
lost the next election.  He hadn't the money, you know."

"If he had lived a little longer," said the mountain preacher high up
on Yellow Creek, "I'd have got that trade I had on hand with him
through.  Not that I wanted him to die, but if he had to--why--"

"If he had lived a little longer," said the Senator's lawyer, "he would
have cleaned off the score against him."

"If he had lived a little longer," said the Senator's sister, not
meaning to be unkind, "he would have got all I have."

That was what life held for the Senator.  Death was more kind.

PREACHIN' ON KINGDOM-COME

I've told ye, stranger, that Hell fer Sartain empties, as it oughter,
of co'se, into Kingdom-Come.  You can ketch the devil 'most any day in
the week on Hell fer Sartain, an' sometimes you can git Glory
everlastin' on Kingdom-Come.  Hit's the only meetin'-house thar in
twenty miles aroun'.

Well, the reg'lar rider, ole Jim Skaggs, was dead, an' the bretherin
was a-lookin' aroun' fer somebody to step into ole Jim's shoes.  Thar'd
been one young feller up thar from the settlemints, a-cavortin' aroun',
an' they was studyin' 'bout gittin' him.

"Bretherin' an' sisteren," I says, atter the leetle chap was gone,
"he's got the fortitood to speak an' he shorely is well favored.  He's
got a mighty good hawk eye fer spyin' out evil--an' the gals; he can
outholler ole Jim; an' IF," I says, "any IDEES ever comes to him, he'll
be a hell-rouser shore--but they ain't comin'!" An', so sayin', I takes
my foot in my hand an' steps fer home.

Stranger, them fellers over thar hain't seed much o' this world.  Lots
of 'em nuver seed the cyars; some of 'em nuver seed a wagon.  An' atter
jowerin' an' noratin' fer 'bout two hours, what you reckon they said
they aimed to do?  They believed they'd take that ar man Beecher, ef
they could git him to come.  They'd heerd o' Henry endurin' the war,
an' they knowed he was agin the rebs, an' they wanted Henry if they
could jes git him to come.

Well, I snorted, an' the feud broke out on Hell fer Sartain betwixt the
Days an' the Dillons.  Mace Day shot Daws Dillon's brother, as I
rickollect--somep'n's al'ays a-startin' up that plaguey war an'
a-makin' things frolicsome over thar--an' ef it hadn't a-been fer a
tall young feller with black hair an' a scar across his forehead, who
was a-goin' through the mountains a-settlin' these wars, blame me ef I
believe thar ever would 'a' been any mo' preachin' on Kingdom-Come.
This feller comes over from Hazlan an' says he aims to hold a meetin'
on Kingdom-Come.  "Brother," I says, "that's what no preacher have ever
did whilst this war is a-goin' on." An' he says, sort o' quiet, "Well,
then, I reckon I'll have to do what no preacher have ever did."  An' I
ups an' says: "Brother, an ole jedge come up here once from the
settlemints to hold couht.  'Jedge,' I says, 'that's what no jedge have
ever did without soldiers since this war's been a-goin' on.'  An',
brother, the jedge's words was yours, p'int-blank.  'All right,' he
says, 'then I'll have to do what no other jedge have ever did.' An',
brother," says I to the preacher, "the jedge done it shore.  He jes
laid under the couht-house fer two days whilst the boys fit over him.
An' when I sees the jedge a-makin' tracks fer the settlemints, I says,
'Jedge,' I says, 'you spoke a parable shore.'"

Well, sir, the long preacher looked jes as though he was a-sayin' to
hisself, "Yes, I hear ye, but I don't heed ye," an' when he says, "Jes
the same, I'm a-goin' to hold a meetin' on Kingdom-Come," why, I jes
takes my foot in my hand an' ag'in I steps fer home.

That night, stranger, I seed another feller from Hazlan, who was
a-tellin' how this here preacher had stopped the war over thar, an' had
got the Marcums an' Braytons to shakin' hands; an' next day ole Tom
Perkins stops in an' says that WHARAS there mought 'a' been preachin'
somewhar an' sometime, thar nuver had been PREACHIN' afore on
Kingdom-Come.  So I goes over to the meetin' house, an' they was all
thar--Daws Dillon an' Mace Day, the leaders in the war, an' Abe Shivers
(you've heerd tell o' Abe) who was a-carryin' tales from one side to
t'other an' a-stirrin' up hell ginerally, as Abe most al'ays is; an'
thar was Daws on one side o' the meetin'-house an' Mace on t'other, an'
both jes a-watchin' fer t'other to make a move, an' thar'd 'a' been
billy-hell to pay right thar!  Stranger, that long preacher talked jes
as easy as I'm a-talkin' now, an' hit was p'int-blank as the feller
from Hazlan said.  You jes ought 'a' heerd him tellin' about the Lawd
a-bein' as pore as any feller thar, an' a-makin' barns an' fences an'
ox-yokes an' sech like; an' not a-bein' able to write his own
name--havin' to make his mark mebbe--when he started out to save the
world.  An' how they tuk him an' nailed him onto a cross when he'd come
down fer nothin' but to save 'em; an' stuck a spear big as a corn-knife
into his side, an' give him vinegar; an' his own mammy a-standin' down
thar on the ground a-cryin' an' a-watchin' him an' he a-fergivin' all
of 'em then an' thar!

Thar nuver had been nothin' like that afore on Kingdom-Come, an' all
along I heerd fellers a-layin' thar guns down; an when the preacher
called out fer sinners, blame me ef the fust feller that riz wasn't
Mace Day.  An' Mace says, "Stranger, 'f what you say is true, I reckon
the Lawd 'll fergive me too, but I don't believe Daws Dillon ever
will," an' Mace stood thar lookin' around fer Daws.  An' all of a
sudden the preacher got up straight an' called out, "Is thar a human in
this house mean an' sorry enough to stand betwixt a man an' his Maker"?
An' right thar, stranger, Daws riz.  "Naw, by God, thar hain' t!" Daws
says, an' he walks up to Mace a-holdin' out his hand, an' they all
busts out cryin' an' shakin' hands--Days an' Dillons--jes as the
preacher had made 'em do over in Hazlan.  An' atter the thing was over,
I steps up to the preacher an' I says:

"Brother," I says, "YOU spoke a parable, shore."

THE PASSING OF ABRAHAM SHIVERS

"I tell ye, boys, hit hain t often a feller has the chance o' doin' so
much good jes by DYIN'.  Fer 'f Abe Shivers air gone, shorely gone, the
rest of us--every durn one of us--air a-goin' to be saved.  Fer Abe
Shivers--you hain't heerd tell o' ABE?  Well, you must be a stranger in
these mountains o' Kaintuck, shore.

"I don't know, stranger, as Abe ever was borned; nobody in these
mountains knows it 'f he was.  The fust time I ever heerd tell o' Abe
he was a-hollerin' fer his rights one mawnin' at daylight, endurin' the
war, jes outside o' ole Tom Perkins' door on Fryin' Pan.  Abe was left
thar by some home-gyard, I reckon.  Well, nobody air ever turned out'n
doors in these mountains, as you know, an' Abe got his rights that
mawin', an' he's been a-gittin' 'em ever sence.  Tom already had a
houseful, but 'f any feller got the bigges' hunk o' corn-bread, that
feller was Abe; an' ef any feller got a-whalin', hit wasn't Abe.

"Abe tuk to lyin' right naturely--looked like--afore he could talk.
Fact is, Abe nuver could do nothin' but jes whisper.  Still, Abe could
manage to send a lie furder with that rattlin' whisper than ole Tom
could with that big horn o' hisn what tells the boys the revenoos air
comin' up Fryin' Pan.'

"Didn't take Abe long to git to braggin' an' drinkin' an' naggin' an'
hectorin'--everything, 'mos', 'cept fightin'.  Nobody ever drawed Abe
Shivers into a fight.  I don't know as he was afeerd; looked like Abe
was a-havin' sech a tarnation good time with his devilmint he jes
didn't want to run no risk o' havin' hit stopped.  An' sech devilmint!
Hit ud take a <DW53>'s age, I reckon, to tell ye.

"The boys was a-goin' up the river one night to git ole Dave Hall fer
trickin' Rosie Branham into evil.  Some feller goes ahead an' tells ole
Dave they's a-comin.'  Hit was Abe.  Some feller finds a streak o' ore
on ole Tom Perkins' land, an' racks his jinny down to town, an' tells a
furriner thar, an' Tom comes might' nigh sellin' the land fer nothin'.
Now Tom raised Abe, but, jes the same, the feller was Abe.

"One night somebody guides the revenoos in on Hell fer Sartain, an'
they cuts up four stills.  Hit was Abe.  The same night, mind ye, a
feller slips in among the revenoos while they's asleep, and cuts off
their hosses' manes an' tails--muled every durned critter uv 'em.
Stranger, hit was Abe.  An' as fer women-folks--well, Abe was the ill
favoredest feller I ever see, an' he couldn't talk; still, Abe was
sassy, an' you know how sass counts with the gals; an' Abe's whisperin'
come in jes as handy as any feller's settin' up; so 'f ever you seed a
man with a Winchester a-lookin' fer the feller who had cut him out,
stranger, he was a-lookin' fer Abe.

"Somebody tells Harve Hall, up thar at a dance on Hell-fer-Sartain one
Christmas night, that Rich Harp had said somep'n' agin him an' Nance
Osborn.  An' somebody tells Rich that Harve had said sompe'n' agin
Nance an' HIM.  Hit was one an' the same feller, stranger, an' the
feller was Abe.  Well, while Rich an' Harve was a-gittin' well,
somebody runs off with Nance.  Hit was Abe.  Then Rich an' Harve jes
draws straws fer a feller.  Stranger, they drawed fer Abe.  Hit's purty
hard to believe that Abe air gone, 'cept that Rich Harp an' Harve Hall
don't never draw no straws fer nothin'; but 'f by the grace o'
Goddle-mighty Abe air gone, why, as I was a-sayin', the rest of
us--every durned one of us air a-goin' to be saved, shore.  Fer Abe's
gone fust, an' ef thar's only one Jedgment Day, the Lawd 'll nuver git
to us."

A PURPLE RHODODENDRON

The purple rhododendron is rare.  Up in the Gap here, Bee Rock, hung
out over Roaring Rock, blossoms with it--as a gray cloud purples with
the sunrise.  This rock was tossed lightly on edge when the earth was
young, and stands vertical.  To get the flowers you climb the mountain
to one side, and, balancing on the rock's thin edge, slip down by roots
and past rattlesnake dens till you hang out over the water and reach
for them.  To avoid snakes it is best to go when it is cool, at
daybreak.

I know but one other place in this southwest corner of Virginia where
there is another bush of purple rhododendron, and one bush only is
there.  This hangs at the throat of a peak not far away, whose ageless
gray head is bent over a ravine that sinks like a spear thrust into the
side of the mountain.  Swept only by high wind and eagle wings as this
is, I yet knew one man foolhardy enough to climb to it for a flower.
He brought one blossom down: and to this day I do not know that it was
not the act of a coward; yes, though Grayson did it, actually smiling
all the way from peak to ravine, and though he was my best friend--best
loved then and since.  I believe he was the strangest man I have ever
known, and I say this with thought; for his eccentricities were
sincere.  In all he did I cannot remember having even suspected
anything theatrical but once.

We were all Virginians or Kentuckians at the Gap, and Grayson was a
Virginian.  You might have guessed that he was a Southerner from his
voice and from the way he spoke of women--but no more.  Otherwise, he
might have been a Moor, except for his color, which was about the only
racial characteristic he had.  He had been educated abroad and, after
the English habit, had travelled everywhere.  And yet I can imagine no
more lonely way between the eternities than the path Grayson trod alone.

He came to the Gap in the early days, and just why he came I never
knew.  He had studied the iron question a long time, he told me, and
what I thought reckless speculation was, it seems, deliberate judgment
to him.  His money "in the dirt," as the phrase was, Grayson got him a
horse and rode the hills and waited.  He was intimate with nobody.
Occasionally he would play poker with us and sometimes he drank a good
deal, but liquor never loosed his tongue.  At poker his face told as
little as the back of his cards, and he won more than admiration--even
from the Kentuckians, who are artists at the game; but the money went
from a free hand, and, after a diversion like this, he was apt to be
moody and to keep more to himself than ever.  Every fortnight or two he
would disappear, always over Sunday.  In three or four days he would
turn up again, black with brooding, and then he was the last man to
leave the card-table or he kept away from it altogether.  Where he went
nobody knew; and he was not the man anybody would question.

One night two of us Kentuckians were sitting in the club, and from a
home paper I read aloud the rumored engagement of a girl we both
knew--who was famous for beauty in the Bluegrass, as was her mother
before her and the mother before her--to an unnamed Virginian.  Grayson
sat near, smoking a pipe; and when I read the girl's name I saw him
take the meerschaum from his lips, and I felt his eyes on me.  It was a
mystery how, but I knew at once that Grayson was the man.  He sought me
out after that and seemed to want to make friends.  I was willing, or,
rather he made me more than willing; for he was irresistible to me, as
I imagine he would have been to anybody.  We got to walking together
and riding together at night, and we were soon rather intimate; but for
a long time he never so much as spoke the girl's name.  Indeed, he kept
away from the Bluegrass for nearly two months; but when he did go he
stayed a fortnight.

This time he came for me as soon as he got back to the Gap.  It was
just before midnight, and we went as usual back of Imboden Hill,
through moon-dappled beeches, and Grayson turned off into the woods
where there was no path, both of us silent.  We rode through tremulous,
shining leaves--Grayson's horse choosing a way for himself--and,
threshing through a patch of high, strong weeds, we circled past an
amphitheatre of deadened trees whose crooked arms were tossed out into
the moonlight, and halted on the spur.  The moon was poised over
Morris's farm; South Fork was shining under us like a loop of gold, the
mountains lay about in tranquil heaps, and the moon-mist rose luminous
between them.  There Grayson turned to me with an eager light in his
eyes that I had never seen before.

"This has a new beauty to-night!" he said; and then "I told her about
you, and she said that she used to know you--well."  I was glad my face
was in shadow--I could hardly keep back a brutal laugh--and Grayson,
unseeing, went on to speak of her as I had never heard any man speak of
any woman.  In the end, he said that she had just promised to be his
wife.  I answered nothing.  Other men, I knew, had said that with the
same right, perhaps, and had gone from her to go back no more.  And I
was one of them.  Grayson had met her at White Sulphur five years
before, and had loved her ever since.  She had known it from the first,
he said, and I guessed then what was going to happen to him.  I
marvelled, listening to the man, for it was the star of constancy in
her white soul that was most lustrous to him--and while I wondered the
marvel became a commonplace.  Did not every lover think his loved one
exempt from the frailty that names other women?  There is no ideal of
faith or of purity that does not live in countless women to-day.  I
believe that; but could I not recall one friend who walked with
Divinity through pine woods for one immortal spring, and who, being
sick to death, was quite finished--learning her at last?  Did I not
know lovers who believed sacred to themselves, in the name of love,
lips that had been given to many another without it?  And now did I not
know--but I knew too much, and to Grayson I said nothing.

That spring the "boom" came.  Grayson's property quadrupled in value
and quadrupled again.  I was his lawyer, and I plead with him to sell;
but Grayson laughed.  He was not speculating; he had invested on
judgment; he would sell only at a certain figure.  The figure was
actually reached, and Grayson let half go.  The boom fell, and Grayson
took the tumble with a jest.  It would come again in the autumn, he
said, and he went off to meet the girl at White Sulphur.

I worked right hard that summer, but I missed him, and I surely was
glad when he came back.  Something was wrong; I saw it at once.  He did
not mention her name, and for a while he avoided even me.  I sought him
then, and gradually I got him into our old habit of walking up into the
Gap and of sitting out after supper on a big rock in the valley,
listening to the run of the river and watching the afterglow over the
Cumberland, the moon rise over Wallen's Ridge and the stars come out.
Waiting for him to speak, I learned for the first time then another
secret of his wretched melancholy.  It was the hopelessness of that
time, perhaps, that disclosed it.  Grayson had lost the faith of his
childhood.  Most men do that at some time or other, but Grayson had no
business, no profession, no art in which to find relief.  Indeed, there
was but one substitute possible, and that came like a gift straight
from the God whom he denied.  Love came, and Grayson's ideals of love,
as of everything else, were morbid and quixotic.  He believed that he
owed it to the woman he should marry never to have loved another.  He
had loved but one woman, he said, and he should love but one.  I
believed him then literally when he said that his love for the Kentucky
girl was his religion now--the only anchor left him in his sea of
troubles, the only star that gave him guiding light.  Without this
love, what then?

I had a strong impulse to ask him, but Grayson shivered, as though he
divined my thought, and, in some relentless way, our talk drifted to
the question of suicide.  I was not surprised that he rather defended
it.  Neither of us said anything new, only I did not like the way he
talked.  He was too deliberate, too serious, as though he were really
facing a possible fact.  He had no religious scruples, he said, no
family ties; he had nothing to do with bringing himself into life;
why--if it was not worth living, not bearable--why should he not end
it?  He gave the usual authority, and I gave the usual answer.
Religion aside, if we did not know that we were here for some purpose,
we did not know that we were not; and here we were anyway, and our duty
was plain.  Desertion was the act of a coward, and that Grayson could
not deny.

That autumn the crash of '91 came across the water from England, and
Grayson gave up.  He went to Richmond, and came back with money enough
to pay off his notes, and I think it took nearly all he had.  Still, he
played poker steadily now--for poker had been resumed when it was no
longer possible to gamble in lots--he drank a good deal, and he began
just at this time to take a singular interest in our volunteer police
guard.  He had always been on hand when there was trouble, and I
sha'n't soon forget him the day Senator Mahone spoke, when we were
punching a crowd of mountaineers back with cocked Winchesters.  He had
lost his hat in a struggle with one giant; he looked half crazy with
anger, and yet he was white and perfectly cool, and I noticed that he
never had to tell a man but once to stand back.  Now he was the first
man to answer a police whistle.  When we were guarding Talt Hall, he
always volunteered when there was any unusual risk to run.  When we
raided the Pound to capture a gang of desperadoes, he insisted on going
ahead as spy; and when we got restless lying out in the woods waiting
for daybreak, and the captain suggested a charge on the cabin, Grayson
was by his side when it was made.  Grayson sprang through the door
first, and he was the man who thrust his reckless head up into the loft
and lighted a match to see if the murderers were there.  Most of us did
foolish things in those days under stress of excitement, but Grayson, I
saw, was weak enough to be reckless.  His trouble with the girl,
whatever it was, was serious enough to make him apparently care little
whether he were alive or dead.  And still I saw that not yet even had
he lost hope.  He was having a sore fight with his pride, and he got
body-worn and heart-sick over it.  Of course he was worsted, and in the
end, from sheer weakness, he went back to her once more.

I shall never see another face like his when Grayson came back that
last time.  I never noticed before that there were silver hairs about
his temples.  He stayed in his room, and had his meals sent to him.  He
came out only to ride, and then at night.  Waking the third morning at
daybreak, I saw him through the window galloping past, and I knew he
had spent the night on Black Mountain.  I went to his room as soon as I
got up, and Grayson was lying across his bed with his face down, his
clothes on, and in his right hand was a revolver.  I reeled into a
chair before I had strength enough to bend over him, and when I did I
found him asleep.  I left him as he was, and I never let him know that
I had been to his room; but I got him out on the rock again that night,
and I turned our talk again to suicide.  I said it was small, mean,
cowardly, criminal, contemptible!  I was savagely in earnest, and
Grayson shivered and said not a word.  I thought he was in better mind
after that.  We got to taking night rides again, and I stayed as
closely to him as I could, for times got worse and trouble was upon
everybody.  Notes fell thicker than snowflakes, and, through the
foolish policy of the company, foreclosures had to be made.  Grayson
went to the wall like the rest of us.  I asked him what he had done
with the money he had made.  He had given away a great deal to poorer
kindred; he had paid his dead father's debts; he had played away a good
deal, and he had lost the rest.  His faith was still imperturbable.  He
had a dozen rectangles of "dirt," and from these, he said, it would all
come back some day.  Still, he felt the sudden poverty keenly, but he
faced it as he did any other physical fact in life--dauntless.  He used
to be fond of saying that no one thing could make him miserable.  But
he would talk with mocking earnestness about some much-dreaded
combination; and a favorite phrase of his--which got to have peculiar
significance--was "the cohorts of hell," who closed in on him when he
was sick and weak, and who fell back when he got well.  He had one
strange habit, too, from which I got comfort.  He would deliberately
walk into and defy any temptation that beset him.  That was the way he
strengthened himself, he said.  I knew what his temptation was now, and
I thought of this habit when I found him asleep with his revolver, and
I got hope from it now, when the dreaded combination (whatever that
was) seemed actually to have come.

I could see now that he got worse daily.  He stopped his mockeries, his
occasional fits of reckless gayety.  He stopped poker--resolutely--he
couldn't afford to lose now; and, what puzzled me, he stopped drinking.
The man simply looked tired, always hopelessly tired; and I could
believe him sincere in all his foolish talk about his blessed Nirvana:
which was the peace he craved, which was end enough for him.

Winter broke.  May drew near; and one afternoon, when Grayson and I
took our walk up through the Gap, he carried along a huge spy-glass of
mine, which had belonged to a famous old desperado, who watched his
enemies with it from the mountain-tops.  We both helped capture him,
and I defended him.  He was sentenced to hang--the glass was my fee.
We sat down opposite Bee Rock, and for the first time Grayson told me
of that last scene with her.  He spoke without bitterness, and he told
me what she said, word for word, without a breath of blame for her.  I
do not believe that he judged her at all; she did not know--he always
said; she did not KNOW; and then, when I opened my lips, Grayson
reached silently for my wrist, and I can feel again the warning crush
of his fingers, and I say nothing against her now.

I asked Grayson what his answer was.

"I asked her," he said, solemnly, "if she had ever seen a purple
rhododendron."

I almost laughed, picturing the scene--the girl bewildered by his
absurd question--Grayson calm, superbly courteous.  It was a mental
peculiarity of his--this irrelevancy--and it was like him to end a
matter of life and death in just that way.

"I told her I should send her one.  I am waiting for them to come out,"
he added; and he lay back with his head against a stone and sighted the
telescope on a dizzy point, about which buzzards were circling.

"There is just one bush of rhododendron up there," he went on.  "I saw
it looking down from the Point last spring.  I imagine it must blossom
earlier than that across there on Bee Rock, being always in the sun.
No, it's not budding yet," he added, with his eye to the glass.

"You see that ledge just to the left?  I dropped a big rock from the
Point square on a rattler who was sunning himself there last spring.  I
can see a foothold all the way up the cliff.  It can be done," he
concluded, in a tone that made me turn sharply upon him.

"Do you really mean to climb up there?" I asked, harshly.

"If it blossoms first up there--I'll get it where it blooms first."  In
a moment I was angry and half sick with suspicion, for I knew his
obstinacy; and then began what I am half ashamed to tell.

Every day thereafter Grayson took that glass with him, and I went along
to humor him.  I watched Bee Rock, and he that one bush at the throat
of the peak--neither of us talking over the matter again.  It was
uncanny, that rivalry--sun and wind in one spot, sun and wind in
another--Nature herself casting the fate of a half-crazed fool with a
flower.  It was utterly absurd, but I got nervous over
it--apprehensive, dismal.

A week later it rained for two days, and the water was high.  The next
day the sun shone, and that afternoon Grayson smiled, looking through
the glass, and handed it to me.  I knew what I should see.  One purple
cluster, full blown, was shaking in the wind.  Grayson was leaning back
in a dream when I let the glass down.  A cool breath from the woods
behind us brought the odor of roots and of black earth; up in the
leaves and sunlight somewhere a wood-thrush was singing, and I saw in
Grayson's face what I had not seen for a long time, and that was
peace--the peace of stubborn purpose.  He did not come for me the next
day, nor the next; but the next he did, earlier than usual.

"I am going to get that rhododendron," he said.  "I have been half-way
up--it can be reached."  So had I been half-way up.  With nerve and
agility the flower could be got, and both these Grayson had.  If he had
wanted to climb up there and drop, he could have done it alone, and he
would have known that I should have found him.  Grayson was testing
himself again, and, angry with him for the absurdity of the thing and
with myself for humoring it, but still not sure of him, I picked up my
hat and went.  I swore to myself silently that it was the last time I
should pay any heed to his whims.  I believed this would be the last.
The affair with the girl was over.  The flower sent, I knew Grayson
would never mention her name again.

Nature was radiant that afternoon.  The mountains had the leafy
luxuriance of June, and a rich, sunlit haze drowsed on them between the
shadows starting out over the valley and the clouds so white that the
blue of the sky looked dark.  Two eagles shot across the mouth of the
Gap as we neared it, and high beyond buzzards were sailing over
Grayson's rhododendron.

I went up the ravine with him and I climbed up behind him--Grayson
going very deliberately and whistling softly.  He called down to me
when he reached the shelf that looked half-way.

"You mustn't come any farther than this," he said.  "Get out on that
rock and I'll drop them down to you."

Then he jumped from the ledge and caught the body of a small tree close
to the roots, and my heart sank at such recklessness and all my fears
rose again.  I scrambled hastily to the ledge, but I could get no
farther.  I might possibly make the jump he had made--but how should I
ever get back?  How would he?  I called angrily after him now, and he
wouldn't answer me.  I called him a fool, a coward; I stamped the ledge
like a child--but Grayson kept on, foot after hand, with stealthy
caution, and the purple cluster nodding down at him made my head whirl.
I had to lie down to keep from tumbling from the ledge; and there on my
side, gripping a pine bush, I lay looking up at him.  He was close to
the flowers now, and just before he took the last upward step he turned
and looked down that awful height with as calm a face as though he
could have dropped and floated unhurt to the ravine beneath.

Then with his left hand he caught the ledge to the left, strained up,
and, holding thus, reached out with his right.  The hand closed about
the cluster, and the twig was broken.  Grayson gave a great shout then.
He turned his head as though to drop them, and, that far away, I heard
the sibilant whir of rattles.  I saw a snake's crest within a yard of
his face, and, my God!  I saw Grayson loose his left hand to guard it!
The snake struck at his arm, and Grayson reeled and caught back once at
the ledge with his left hand.  He caught once, I say, to do him full
justice; then, without a word, he dropped--and I swear there was a
smile on his face when he shot down past me into the trees.

I found him down there in the ravine with nearly every bone in his body
crushed.  His left arm was under him, and outstretched in his right
hand was the shattered cluster, with every blossom gone but one.  One
white half of his face was unmarked, and on it was still the shadow of
a smile.  I think it meant more than that Grayson believed that he was
near peace at last.  It meant that Fate had done the deed for him and
that he was glad.  Whether he would have done it himself, I do not
know; and that is why I say that though Grayson brought the flower
down--smiling from peak to ravine--I do not know that he was not, after
all, a coward.

That night I wrote to the woman in Kentucky.  I told her that Grayson
had fallen from a cliff while climbing for flowers; and that he was
dead.  Along with these words, I sent a purple rhododendron.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of 'Hell fer Sartain' and Other Stories, by
John Fox, Jr.

***