Dickey Downy Part 6

"Well, I don't want any more such experiences. I'm dead tired; my face is all scratched with the thorns and bushes; and I haven't seen a newspaper for a week. If the railroad company needs any more work of this kind done, they must get somebody else."

"Fiddle-dee-dee! You mustn't be so easily discouraged," answered the other young man, who had already set to work sc.r.a.ping up dry chips and pieces of bark to make a fire, "Think of these poor mountaineers who stay here all their lives. Your little tramp of a few days is nothing to what they do all the time and never think of complaining. The half of them are too poor to own a mule. They eat hog and hominy the year around, and are thankful to get it. Their clothes are fearfully and wonderfully made, but for all that they don't give up and think life isn't worth living."

As the two young fellows talked on in this strain I named them Growler and Cheery, because the one was so determined to look on the dark side, while the other took a cheerful view of everything. Growler continued to lounge on the ground, looking with careless interest at Cheery, who was preparing dinner.

The dinner was in a small tin box which he took from his coat pocket.

Opening it he disclosed some eatables very compactly put in. He took out several articles and set them on the ground in front of him. In the box was a bottle stoutly corked containing a dark liquid, some of which he poured into a flat tin cup which formed a part of the lid of the box. This he set over the fire, which by this time was snapping cheerily.

"Come," he said. "Here's a lunch fit for a king. Get up and have your share. Maybe when your stomach is warmed up with a few ham and mustard sandwiches, some cheese and coffee, you'll be in better spirits. These crackers are good eating too."

"Fit for a king, eh? Mighty poor kind of a king, I should say,"

growled Growler sarcastically; but he rose and flicked the leaves and twigs from his clothing before he helped himself to the coffee which was now hot.

"One cup for two people is just one too few," laughed Cheery when it came his turn to take some. "My! but it tastes good. There's nothing like the open air to give one an appet.i.te."

"I don't like coffee without cream," objected Growler, chewing moodily at his cracker.

"Well, we'll get to Girard by to-night, and then possibly we will get a good supper."

While they were lunching I had observed another traveler slowly approaching through the underbrush. Over one shoulder was slung a leather strap in which were a few books. He carried a rifle, and from his coat pocket bulged a small package. As he drew nearer the sound of his footsteps startled Growler who nervously upset his coffee over his s.h.i.+rt front.

"What d'ye suppose he is?" he asked of Cheery as the stranger approached.

"I judge he's a parson, from the cut of his clothes," observed Cheery.

Then as the new-comer advanced he called: "h.e.l.lo, friend! Who'd 'a thought of meeting company this far back in these mountains?"

"This is only about eight miles from the town where I live," answered the gentleman, who now seated himself near them with his back against a tree, "I know the paths through here fairly well, for I come this way several times through the summer. But this will be my last trip for the season, and I'm giving a little more time to it on that account.

I've taken it somewhat leisurely to-day."

He was a delicate-looking, middle-aged man, with a mild voice and a kind face.

"You're a drummer for a publis.h.i.+ng house, I take it?" said Growler, nodding toward the books in the strap. "I've just been wondering where you'd find any buyers in these infernal woods."

The gentleman laughed. "No," said he, "this is my regular route; but I'm not a commercial traveler in any sense. I'm a pastor at a town near here, and I go out to these mountain families to hold services every few weeks."

"You don't mean you foot it through these bushes and among these wildcats to preach to the mountaineers!" exclaimed Growler in astonishment.

"Certainly I do. These poor people would never hear the sound of the gospel if some one did not take it to them. They have souls to be saved, my friend. I feel it is my duty to carry the word to them. As for the wildcats," he continued, smiling, "I have my rifle. Besides the government offers a small bounty for every wildcat."

"Oh, yes, I see. You combine business with pleasure and have your wildcat bounty to pay expenses as you go along--or else keep it for pin-money," and Growler laughed good-humoredly at his own fun.

"You're the parson from St. Thomas, I judge," said Cheery.

The gentleman bowed, and said he was the pastor of that little church.

"I've heard of your mission work, and I understand you've done a great deal of good among the mountain whites."

"How many churches have you in these mountains?" interrupted Growler.

"I have but the one church organization, for outside through the mountains there are no churches--no buildings, no organizations.

People ten and fifteen miles apart can't very well have churches. I visit the families. I have three on this mountain side. I am well repaid for all the sacrifice of comfort I make, in knowing how glad they are to have me come. To many of them I am the connecting link with the rest of mankind. Ah! the world knows nothing of the privations and sorrows and ignorance of many of these poor creatures!

Through the winter I am obliged to stop my visitations, but I generally leave a few books and papers for those who can read, and pictures for the children."

"Well, parson, I didn't know there was enough goodness in any man in the United States to make him willing to tramp right into the wildest part of the Allegheny. Mountains to preach the gospel to half a dozen poor people!" exclaimed Growler, still more astonished.

"My friend," responded the gentleman earnestly, "the world is full of Christian men and women who are trying to help others."

Just then my mother said to me, "When I hear the beautiful words that minister speaks and see what he is doing, then indeed do I believe that human beings have hearts."

As we resumed our journey I wondered if Growler would profit by the suns.h.i.+ny example of Cheery and the devotion of the parson of St. Thomas.

Later in our travels we came upon some old acquaintances. Our stopping-place was near an ancient house on a mountain side. The outlook was the grandest I had ever seen, and though I have traveled much since then I have never found anything to exceed it in beauty. A glistening river wound its way in a big loop at the foot of the mountain, and beyond it lay stretched out a busy city.

A good many years before a battle had been fought on these heights, which people still remembered and talked about. I heard them speak of it as the "Battle above the clouds." There was still a part of a cannon wagon in the yard which visitors came to see and examined with much interest. They also often requested the landlady to let them look at the walls of an old stone dairy adjoining the house, because the soldiers had carved their names there.

To me it seemed strange that the guests would sit for hours on the long gallery of this hotel, and go over and over the incidents of the battle, telling where this regiment stood, or where that officer fell, as if war and the taking of life were the most pleasant rather than the most distressful subjects in the world. In the distance was a mammoth field of graves, miles of graves, beautifully kept mounds under which lay the dead heroes of that sad time.

The days up here were beautiful, but it was at night that this was a scene of surpa.s.sing loveliness. Far below the lights of the city glowed like spangles in the darkness. Above us was the star-encrusted sky. It was like being suspended between a floor and a ceiling of glittering jewels.

On this plateau grew the biggest cherry trees I ever saw, and they bore the biggest and sweetest cherries, though I could not taste any at that time, as the season was past. I heard the landlady complaining one day to some of her guests that the rascally birds had hardly left her a cherry to put up.

"The saucy little thieves! they must have eaten bushels of the finest fruit," she said.

"And didn't you get any?" inquired a childish voice. There was something familiar in the voice and I flew to the porch railing to see who it was. And who should it be but dear little Marion. And there too was her aunty, Miss Dorothy, and the professor, and in the parlor I caught a glimpse of Miss Katie and the colonel. They were having a pleasant vacation together.

Marion looked inquiringly into the landlady's face. No doubt she was thinking the mountain birds were very greedy to eat up all the cherries and not leave one for the poor woman to can.

"Our birds always eat some of our cherries too," she said, "but they always leave us plenty."

"There were bushels left on our trees," observed the landlady's daughter. "We had all we wanted, mother. We couldn't possibly have used the rest if the birds had not eaten them. We had a cellar full of canned cherries left over from the year before, you remember, and that is the way it is nearly every year."

"Yes, yes, I know," answered her mother impatiently; "but for all that I don't believe in letting the birds have everything."

"I never begrudge a bird what it eats," commented the professor. "Of course you can discourage the birds, drive them off, break up their nests, starve them out, and have a crop of caterpillars instead of cherries. But, beg pardon, madam, maybe you don't object to caterpillars," and he bowed low to the landlady.

The laugh was against her and I was glad of it, for I didn't consider it either kind or polite to call us "saucy little thieves."

We were amused one morning when, flying over a piece of pretty country, we saw a lady moving rapidly along on the red sandy path below. She seemed to be neither exactly riding nor walking, as she was not on foot nor had she a horse. On closer inspection it was seen that she was propelling a strange-looking vehicle. Two of her carriage wheels were gone, and between the remaining two the lady was perched. At sight of it I was immediately reminded of the queer thing that Johnny Morris rode which the admiral had described to us and called a "wheel." I felt sure that this was the same kind of a machine. The lady looked neither to the right nor to the left, but her glance was fixed intently on the road before her.

Farther along another lady leaned against the fence awaiting her approach. As she bowled along the friend asked enthusiastically: "Is it not splendid?"

The rider called back to her: "It is grand! It is almost as if I were flying. I know now how a bird feels."

Think of comparing the sensation produced by moving that heavy iron machine, with the rider but three feet from the ground, to the exhilaration felt by a bird spurning the earth and soaring on delicate wing through the fields of heaven! It was truly laughable!

Our amus.e.m.e.nt was cut short, however, when we noticed that the lady's hat was decorated with a dead dove.

"Can we never get away from this millinery exhibition of death?" I exclaimed in horror.