A Maid of the Kentucky Hills Part 10

She saw me the same instant, and her eyes brightened with what seemed to me pleasure, while slow waves of color came into her cheeks. She smiled, and stood motionless, waiting for me to approach.

I lost no time in bidding her welcome. When I took her hand in greeting the contact was electrical--it may have been my imagination, I grant--but I'm sure I felt as if a charge of some kind had been projected into me.

"Whut's this book?" she asked, closing the volume but still holding it with a clinging touch. It was to me as if she wanted to make it a part of her, her hands and fingers were so enveloping in their grasp.

"That's heresy--rank heresy!" I laughed. "If Father John saw me reading that he would tell you to run from me as fast as you could."

She glanced up with a most attractive blending of alarm and amus.e.m.e.nt on her face.

"Then whut yo' read it fur?" she demanded.

"It was written by one of the smartest men the world has ever known, and I want to find out what he thinks. We don't have to believe all we read, you know. We can read for various reasons."

I saw she did not understand.

"Sit down," I continued. "Here, the bench is big enough for two. I'm so glad you have come to see me to-day. You almost missed me; I've been up on Baldy."

We sat side by side. There was barely room enough; as it was our hips came in contact. Then I told her of my little trip toward the clouds.

I'm sure she was not at all interested. In fact, after the first brightening of her face at the moment of my appearance, a sort of shadow had come upon it, as though cast from a mind not at rest. I watched her as I talked, and I know she was paying no heed to my recital. She toyed with the book, pressing the pages together, bending them in her fingers, and allowing them to slip under her thumb with a rustle. Now I saw her hair at close range for the first time, and it was truly a crown of glory. Solomon's wisdom was not at fault. A woman's hair holds some mysterious power for a man fully as potent as any of her other charms.

There is sorcery in it--and sometimes love-dreams--and sometimes oblivion--and sometimes madness! As I gazed at the Dryad's hair my voice unconsciously dropped to a lifeless monotone. Quickly I noted a fact which formed a fitting supplement to my former discoveries regarding the care of her person. By all legitimate courses of reasoning her hair should have been stringy, sleek, unkempt, and--dirty! But I beheld it the reverse in every particular. No boudoir bred Miss of any city could have produced better cared for tresses. Each silken strand lay separate from its fellows. The whole ma.s.s was s.h.i.+ning clean, and fresh, and fluffy; the well-shaped ears were transparently spotless, and her neck, where the yet finer hair grew upward and where tiny rings of cobwebby gold fluttered, was immaculate. Fellowman, do you marvel that my tale of climbing the peak came to an end almost in drivel?

As I stopped, rather sheepishly, she lost her hold on the book, and it slipped from her knees to the ground. Each bent to recover it. I was the quicker, but in the forward and downward movement which she made the Dryad's hair tumbled over her shoulders onto my neck, head and face, in a subtly scented, smooth, tickly mesh. It lasted but a moment; I think the shortest moment of my life. We came up laughing, both our faces red.

But as for that, one's face is always red when one bends to pick up something.

I opened the book at the front, found a big capital A, and pointing to it, asked Lessie what it was.

She shook her head.

"I don' know."

The pity of it! I could scarcely credit her reply.

"Would you like to know? Would you like to know all the letters in this book, big and little, so that you could read them at a glance?" I asked.

Again that hungry, helpless look came to her.

"Oh!... Yes!"

The first word was spoken with a sharply indrawn breath of eagerness.

The last one fell softly a moment later.

"You shall, Dryad. It's a shame you can't do it now. Is there no school here--in the neighborhood--at Hebron? Why have you never been to school?"

"They wuz a school in Hebron. Granny wouldn't let me go."

She was fingering a ruffle on her dress just above her knees in an embarra.s.sed way.

"Wouldn't let you go!" I exclaimed, indignantly ... "Why?"

"A man had it--a young man--'n' Granny hates men, 'specially young men."

"Why does she hate young men?"

"I don' know--you heard whut she said 'bout 'em. She's always preachin'

that to me."

I thought my former reading of Granny's att.i.tude correct now, but I did not speak of this to Lessie.

"Granny has done you a great injustice," I said, gravely; "however honest her intentions. I'm going to see that you have a chance, Dryad.

But if I'm to help you, I must speak of things exactly as they are, and there shall have to be many corrections. You won't mind this, will you?

I mean you will understand why it is done--that it is absolutely necessary for you to get along. You won't take offense--won't get mad, will you?"

She turned her eyes full into mine, her mobile face for the moment serious and calm.

"I'll do _anythin'_ to learn--to know! Oh! I git so lonesome fur--fur _knowin'_! I'm all shet up, 'n' they's things in my head 'n' in here that's jes' bustin' to git out!"

She placed her hand on her breast. Her brows had drawn together and I knew each word was the exact truth.

"All right; it's a bargain," I answered. "We'll begin this very minute.

Have you noticed that I talk differently from you, and Granf'er, and Granny'?"

Her mouth was set firmly as her chin moved up and down. I think she was a little scared at the beginning of her lessons.

"I talk correctly, and you talk incorrectly. That's hard to say, but we can't build without solid truth for a foundation. You should learn to speak correctly in a very short time, if you will be very careful, and try. It will take longer to learn to read, and write, but even that will not prove such a great task. Now, answer me--why did you come here to-day?"

"I come 'cause I wanted to!"

Quick as a flash her reply was out, and I could see she was watching me in a fascinated, apprehensive manner. I smiled to rea.s.sure her.

"You should say--'I _came be-cause_ I wanted to.' Say it that way."

"I--came--_be_-cause I wanted to!"

There was something almost pitiful in her fearful earnestness. This was the beginning of the opening of a sealed door before which she had stood so long, with no one to break the fastenings for her. She had put one hand against the dark trunk of the tree, and now her finger tips were white around the nails from the pressure she had unconsciously brought to bear, and she was trembling the least bit. Poor little Dryad in her windowless house! It must have been an ordeal for her.

How queerly that simple sentence broke upon my ears. It was the first perfect one she had ever spoken, and she enunciated it with painful precision, breathing each word forth in trepidation.

"Good!" I exclaimed, clapping my hands, whereat her tenseness vanished, and her bearing became like one who is somewhat confused, but happy.

"Don't forget that, now. Always say 'I came.' Many of your words are not words at all, but fearful corruptions which long use and carelessness have made worse. Then you drop your 'gs' outrageously, but that is a fault you'll overcome by practice."

Thus for an hour we sat on the narrow bench under the tall pine, while I made her answer question after question in her own way, then had her say them again the right way. Her aptness was amazing. Her mind seemed to seize and absorb the elemental instruction I gave her as a parched plant does moisture. She remained constantly intent, alert, ready; and when at length the slowly deepening shadows warned me that she should be going, and I told her the lesson for the day was over, I saw that she was agitated, excited, and her eyes shone as if brightened by wine.

"Oh, you're a capital pupil!" I complimented, warmly, as we arose and stood for a moment side by side. "Now how would you answer me, Dryad?"

She cast me a sidewise glance; partly mischievous, partly shy, partly earnest.

"I'm glad!" she said, quickly.