Matt Crim (Martha Jane Crim) - In Beaver Cove and Elsewhere (Matt Crim) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

"Ah, that's good. I ain't drunk nothin' like it in more'n four years."

He sat down on a fallen tree rotting on the roadside, to rest a few minutes. A market-wagon, white-covered and drawn by a yoke of sleek oxen, rumbled down the hill. In the driver the wayfarer recognized an old neighbor.

"Howdy, Mr. Davis?"

Davis stared, then leaped from the wagon.

"Why—why—it's Eph'um Hurd, ain't it?"

"What's left o' him," said Ephraim, rising, and shaking hands with his old friend.

"Well, you do look used up an' peaked."

"I've been sick."

"An' your hair is gray."

"It's the prison life done it."

"You've been through a good deal, I take it," in a tone of compassion.

"I don't want to think o' it any more if I can help it!" Ephraim exclaimed. "They didn't treat me so bad, but—oh, I thought it would take the soul out o' me!"

Davis shook his head sympathetically.

Ephraim's face sank on his breast for a moment. There were some questions he longed, yet dreaded, to ask. At last he plucked up courage.

"How—how is mother?"

"Purty well."

"'Lishy Cole is married, is he?"

"Yes; he married more 'n two years ago."

Of course he had expected that answer, but it caused his thin, worn face to twitch and contract with pain. He hastily picked up his stick.

"I—I'd better be gittin' on."

"Your ma's moved down to the Wood place," his neighbor called after him as he started up the road. "The Woods moved to Fannin County last year, you know."

"Is that so?" said Ephraim, but without halting again.

Married! Yes, why should they not marry? It was for that he had saved Elisha Cole. He had known it from the night of the dance, had clearly foreseen it all, that morning he stopped at Rock Creek—facing the awakening world and his own conscience. He had struggled for resignation during his prison life, but never had he been able to think of Armindy sitting by Elisha Cole's fireside—Elisha Cole's wife—without the fiercest pang of jealous anguish.

He sat down again, trembling with exhaustion, and bared his throbbing head to the cool breeze. He looked at his long, thin hands, stroked his face, feeling the hollows in his cheeks and under his eyes. He would never get back his youth and vigor again. It was well no woman loved him except his mother. She would not criticise his changed appearance, or care less for him on account of it.

It was dusk when he reached the old Wood cabin. The shutters had not been drawn over the small, square window in the chimney-corner, and he crept across the yard to look into the room, himself unseen. A low fire burned on the hearth; he could smell the bread baking before it, and the smoke of frying bacon filled the room. Then he saw his mother sitting at the corner of the hearth knitting, while another woman stooped over the fire. Suddenly she stood erect, and he caught his breath sharply, for it was Armindy Hudgins, Elisha Cole's wife, flushed, handsomer than ever. What did it mean? Had they taken his mother to live with them? He writhed at the thought. He leaned forward, for Armindy was speaking:

"Now I'll step to the spring for a pail o' water; then we'll have supper."

"I wish Eph'um was here to eat it with us. Do you think he'll ever come, Armindy?" she said wistfully.

"I know he will," said Armindy, firmly; but a shadow fell upon her face, and Ephraim could see that she looked older, more serious, than in former days. But what a fine, elastic step she had! what supple curves in her figure! His eyes dwelt upon her with admiration, with despair. He loved her as deeply as ever. She stepped out of the room and went away to the spring. He followed her, determined to find out the cause of her presence in his mother's house.

He vividly remembered that other night when they stood at the spring together, and raised his eyes to Brandreth's Peak, but the moon hung low in the west, a pale crescent, Armindy knelt by the spring, dipping up the water, when his shadow came between her and the faint moonlight. She glanced up, then sprang to her feet, half-frightened; the next moment she ran to him and fell weeping on his neck.

"Eph'um! Eph'um! I said you'd come! I've always said you'd come!"

He gathered her to him; then tried to push her away.

"Don't—I—where is 'Lishy?" he stammered.

"I don't know. What do you want to think o' him for, now?" she cried, looking at him with wet eyes, drawing his face down to hers.

"Ain't you 'Lishy's wife?"

She fell back a little.

"Did you think I'd marry him? I loved you, Eph'um—you."

"Is that the reason you 're here with my mother?"

"Yes; I've been with her nearly all the time."

"It was my fault the raiders come out to get 'Lishy, that night."

"I knew it when I heard how you saved him from them. Oh, don't hate me for makin' you suffer so! It seemed like fun then, but I've been paid back for it all."

He felt dazed. Armindy free, Armindy faithful, and loving, and humbly entreating him not to hate her! Life thrilled afresh through him.

"Who did 'Lishy Cole marry?" he inquired at last.

"How you keep thinkin' o' him!"

"I can afford to now."

"He married Sary Ann Wood."

They were standing by the laurel thicket. She saw that his eyes were fixed on the flowers, and turned quickly away to take up the pail of water.

"I ain't danced the hoe-down since that night."

He broke off a spray of the flowers and fastened it in her hair.

The Standneges lived in a little sheltered cove upon the mountain-side, their house only a two-roomed cabin, with an entry separating the rooms, and low, ungainly chimneys at each end. Below it the Cartecay River lay like an amber ribbon in the green, fertile valley; above it towered majestic mountain heights, shrouded in silver mists or veiled in a blue haze. The Standneges were bred-and-born mountaineers, and had drifted into the little cove while Indian camp-fires were still glowing like stars in the valley of the Cartecay, and Indian wigwams dotting the river's banks. The house had a weather-beaten look, and the noble chestnut-oaks shading it had covered the roof with a fine green mold.

POLLY.

The kitchen, a heavy-looking, smoke-blackened structure with a puncheon floor, stood just in the rear of the house, and so situated that from the door one could look through the entry to the front gate and the mountain road beyond.

Mrs. Standnege sat in the kitchen door one morning with bottles and bean-bags scattered around her, "sortin'" out seed-beans. She was a woman not much beyond middle age, but lean and yellow, with faded eyes and scant dun-colored hair, time and toil and diet having robbed her of the last remnant of youth, without giving her a lovely old age. She was a good type of the average mountain woman, illiterate but independent, and contented with her scant homespun dress, her house, her beanbags.

MRS. STANDNEGE.

A heavy old loom occupied one corner of the kitchen, and Polly, the eldest daughter, sat on the high bench before it, industriously weaving, while S'phiry Ann stood by the smoke-stained mantel, watching the pine she had laid on the fire burst into vivid flame. A bundle of clothes lay at her feet, surmounted by a round flat gourd, filled with brown jelly-like soap.

Polly was the eldest and she the youngest of eight children, but the others all lay safely and peacefully in the little neglected burial-ground at the foot of the mountain. She was unlike mother and sister. She had youth, she was supple and fair, her hair dark and abundant, her eyes gray and clear. She had the soft, drawling voice, but also a full share of the sturdy independence, of her race. The circumstances of her christening, Mrs. Standnege was rather fond of relating.