The Heart of the Hills Part 25

When he reached his front door he heard his boy whistling like a happy lark in his room at the head of the stairway. The sounds pierced him for one swift instant and then his generous heart was glad for the careless joy of youth, and instead of going into his office he slowly climbed the stairs. When he reached the door of the boy's room, he saw two empty trunks, the clothes that had been in them tossed in a whirlwind over bed and chair and floor, and Gray hanging out of the window and shouting to a servant:

"Come up here, Tom, and help put my things back--I'm not going away."

A joyous whoop from below answered:

"Ya.s.suh, ya.s.suh; my Gord, but I IS glad. Why, de colonel--"

Just then the boy heard a slight noise behind him and he turned to see his father's arms stretched wide for him.

Gray remained firm. He would not waste another year. He had a good start; he would go to the mines and begin work, and he could come home when he pleased, if only over Sunday. So, as Mavis had watched Jason leave to be with Marjorie in the Blue-gra.s.s, so Marjorie now watched Gray leave to be with Mavis in the hills. And between them John Burnham was again left wondering.

x.x.xIV

At sunset Gray Pendleton pushed his tired horse across the c.u.mberland River and up into the county-seat of the Hawns and Honeycutts. From the head of the main street two battered signs caught his eye--Hawn Hotel and Honeycutt Inn--the one on the right-hand side close at hand, and the other far down on the left, and each on the corner of the street. Both had double balconies, both were ramshackle and unpainted, and near each was a general store, run now by a subleader of each faction--Hiram Honeycutt and Shade Hawn--for old Jason and old Aaron, except in councils of war and business, had retired into the more or less peaceful haven of home and old age. Naturally the boy drew up and stopped before Hawn Hotel, from the porch of which keen eyes scrutinized him with curiosity and suspicion, and before he had finished his supper of doughy biscuits, greasy bacon, and newly killed fried chicken, the town knew but little less about his business there than he himself. That night he asked many questions of Shade Hawn, the proprietor, and all were answered freely, except where they bore on the feud of half a century, and then Gray encountered a silence that was puzzling but significant and deterrent. Next morning everybody who spoke to him called him by name, and as he rode up the river there was the look of recognition in every face he saw, for the news of him had gone ahead the night before. At the mouth of Hawn Creek, in a bend of the river, he came upon a schoolhouse under a beech-tree on the side of a little hill; through the open door he saw, amidst the bent heads of the pupils, the figure of a young woman seated at a desk, and had he looked back when he turned up the creek he would have seen her at the window, gazing covertly after him with one hand against her heart. For Mavis Hawn, too, had heard that Gray was come to the hills. All morning she had been watching the open door-way, and yet when she saw him pa.s.s she went pale and had to throw her head up sharply to get her breath. Her hands trembled, she rose and went to the window, and she did not realize what she was doing until she turned to meet the surprised and curious eyes of one of the larger girls, who, too, could see the pa.s.sing stranger, and then the young school- mistress flushed violently and turned to her seat. The girl was a Honeycutt, and more than once that long, restless afternoon Mavis met the same eyes searching her own and already looking mischief.

Slowly the long afternoon pa.s.sed, school was dismissed, and Mavis, with the circuit rider's old dog on guard at her heels, started slowly up the creek with her eyes fixed on every bend of the road she turned and on the crest of every little hill she climbed, watching for Gray to come back. Once a horse that looked like the one he rode and glimpsed through the bushes far ahead made her heart beat violently and stopped her, poised for a leap into the bushes, but it was only little Aaron Honeycutt, who lifted his hat, flushed, and spoke gravely; and Mavis reached the old circuit rider's gate, slipped around to the back porch and sat down, still in a tumult that she could not calm. It was not long before she heard a clear shout of "h.e.l.lo" at the gate, and she clenched her chair with both hands, for the voice was Gray's. She heard the old woman go to the door, heard her speak her surprise and hearty welcome--heard Gray's approaching steps.

"Is Mavis here?" Gray asked.

"She ain't got back from school."

"Was that her school down there at the mouth of the creek?"

"Sh.o.r.e."

"Well, I wish I had known that."

Calmly and steadily then Mavis rose, and a moment later Gray saw her in the door and his own heart leaped at the rich, grave beauty of her. Gravely she shook hands, gravely looked full into his eyes, without a question sat down with quiet hands folded in her lap, and it was the boy who was embarra.s.sed and talked. He would live with the superintendent on the spur just above and he would be a near neighbor. His father was not well. Marjorie was not going away again, but would stay at home that winter. Mavis's stepmother was well, and he had not seen Jason before he left-- they must have pa.s.sed each other on the way. Since Mavis's father was now at home, Jason would stay at the college, as he lost so much time going to and fro. Gray was glad to get to work, he already loved the mountains; but there had been so many changes he hardly remembered the creek--how was Mavis's grandfather, old Mr.

Hawn? Mavis raised her eyes, but she was so long answering that the old woman broke in:

"He's mighty peart fer sech a' old man, but he's a-breakin' fast an' he ain't long fer this wuld." She spoke with the frank satisfaction that, among country folks, the old take in ushering their contemporaries through the portals, and Gray could hardly help smiling. He rose to leave presently, and the old woman pressed him to stay for supper; but Mavis's manner somehow forbade, and the boy climbed back up the spur, wondering, ill at ease, and almost shaken by the new beauty the girl seemed to have taken on in the hills. For there she was at home. She had the peace and serenity of them: the pink-flecked laurel was in her cheeks, the white of the rhododendron was at the base of her full round throat, and in her eyes were the sleepy shadows of deep ravines. It might not be so lonely for him after all in his exile, and the vision of the girl haunted Gray when he went to bed that night and made him murmur and stir restlessly in his sleep.

x.x.xV

Once more, on his way for his last year at college, Jason Hawn had stepped into the chill morning air at the railway junction, on the edge of the Blue-gra.s.s. Again a faint light was showing in the east, and c.o.c.ks were crowing from a low sea of mist that lay motionless over the land, but this time the darky porter reached without hesitation for his bag and led him to the porch of the hotel, where he sat waiting for breakfast. Once more at sunrise he sped through the breaking mist and high over the yellow Kentucky River, but there was no pang of homesickness when he looked down upon it now. Again fields of gra.s.s and gram, grazing horses and cattle, fences, houses, barns reeled past his window, and once more Steve Hawn met him at the station in the same old rattletrap buggy, and again stared at him long and hard.

"Ain't much like the leetle feller I met here three year ago--air ye?"

Steve was unshaven and his stubbly, thick, black beard emphasized the sickly touch of prison pallor that was still on his face. His eyes had a new, wild, furtive look, and his mouth was cruel and bitter. Again each side of the street was lined with big wagons loaded with tobacco and covered with cotton cloth. Steve pointed to them.

"Rickolect whut I tol' you about h.e.l.l a-comin' about that terbaccer?"

Jason nodded.

"Well, hit's come." His tone was ominous, personal, and disturbed the boy.

"Look here, Steve," he said earnestly, "haven't you had enough now? Ain't you goin' to settle down and behave yourself?"

The man's face took on the snarl of a vicious dog.

"No, by G.o.d!--I hain't. The trouble's on me right now. Colonel Pendleton hain't treated me right--he cheated me out--"

Steve got no further; the boy turned squarely in the buggy and his eyes blazed.

"That's a lie. I don't know anything about it, but I know it's a lie."

Steve, too, turned furious, but he had gone too far, and had counted too much on kins.h.i.+p, so he controlled himself, and with vicious cunning whipped about.

"Well," he said in an injured tone, "I mought be mistaken. We'll see--we'll see."

Jason had not asked about his mother, and he did not ask now, for Steve's manner worried him and made him apprehensive. He answered the man's questions about the mountains shortly, and with diabolical keenness Steve began to probe old wounds.

"I reckon," he said sympathetically, "you hain't found no way yit o' gittin' yo' land back?"

"No."

"Ner who shot yo' pap?"

"No."

"Well, I hear as how Colonel Pendleton owns a lot in that company that's diggin' out yo' coal. Mebbe you might git it back from him."

Jason made no answer, for his heart was sinking with every thought of his mother and the further trouble Steve seemed bound to make.

Martha Hawn was standing in her porch with one hand above her eyes when they drove into the mouth of the lane. She came down to the gate, and Jason put his arms around her and kissed her; and when he saw the tears start in her eyes he kissed her again while Steve stared, surprised and uncomprehending. Again that afternoon Jason wandered aimlessly into the blue-gra.s.s fields, and again his feet led him to the knoll whence he could see the twin houses of the Pendletons bathed in the yellow sunlight, and their own proud atmosphere of untroubled calm. And again, even, he saw Marjorie galloping across the fields, and while he knew the distressful anxiety in one of the households, he little guessed the incipient storm that imperious young woman was at that moment carrying within her own breast from the other. For Marjorie missed Gray; she was lonely and she was bored; she had heard that Jason had been home several days; she was irritated that he had not been to see her, nor had sent her any message, and just now what she was going to do, she did not exactly know or care. Half an hour later he saw her again, coming back at a gallop along the turnpike, and seeing him, she pulled in and waved her whip. Jason took off his hat, waved it in answer, and kept on, whereat imperious Marjorie wheeled her horse through a gate into the next field and thundered across it and up the slope toward him. Jason stood hat in hand-- embarra.s.sed, irresolute, pale. When she pulled in, he walked forward to take her outstretched gloved hand, and when he looked up into her spirited face and challenging eyes, a great calm came suddenly over him, and from it emerged his own dominant spirit which the girl instantly felt. She had meant to tease, badger, upbraid, domineer over him, but the volley of reproachful questions that were on her petulant red lips dwindled lamely to one:

"How's Mavis, Jason?"

"She's well as common."

"You didn't see Gray?"

"No."

"I got a letter from him yesterday. He's living right above Mavis.

He says she is more beautiful than ever, and he's already crazy about his life down there--and the mountains."

"I'm mighty glad."

She turned to go, and the boy walked down the hill to open the gate for her--and sidewise Marjorie scrutinized him. Jason had grown taller, darker, his hair was longer, his clothes were worn and rather shabby, the atmosphere of the hills still invested him, and he was more like the Jason she had first seen, so that the memories of childhood were awakened in the girl and she softened toward him. When she pa.s.sed through the gate and turned her horse toward him again, the boy folded his arms over the gate, and his sunburnt hands showed to Marjorie's eyes the ravages of hard work.

"Why haven't you been over to see me, Jason?" she asked gently.

"I just got back this mornin'."