A Maid of the Kentucky Hills Part 16

How straight the girl's young body was! Uncorseted though I knew she must be, the lines of her figure conformed to the demands of physical beauty. From her naturally slender waist, belted only with the band made in her one piece frock, her back tapered up to shoulders which were shapely even under the poorly fitting dress. Her head, held more than ordinarily high now, as she watched Granf'er, was n.o.bly poised on a firm, round neck, which I am most happy to record was not at all swan-like. I should like to add, in pa.s.sing, that I have never seen a girl with a swan-like neck. If such exist, their natural place is in a dime museum, or a zoo. Such a monstrosity would, from the nature of her affliction, look like either a snake or a goose, neither of which have come down in humanity's annals as types of beauty. I must say it to the credit of most moderns, however, that the swan-necked lady is seldom paraded for us to admire. There were no crooks or loops in the Dryad's neck. Like a section of column it was; smooth, perfect, swelling to breast and shoulder.

I clambered to my feet behind her, cursing mentally the harmless, hospitable, doddering old fellow approaching, and singing a paean of rejoicing in my soul at the same time. Such things can be. The breeze freshened, and began sporting with the dazzling, home-made coiffure on the Dryad's head. She had not loosened it since she came from her bath, and that is why I saw so plainly the cla.s.sic outlines of her head and throat. The madcap wind caught her dress, too, as she stood exposed to its sweep down the ravine, and cunningly smoothed it over her hip and thigh; tightly, snugly smoothed it, then took the fullness remaining and flapped and shook it out like a flag. So I knew, again through no fault of mine, that this girl who had never even heard of a modiste--of her skill to make limb or bust to order--had grown up with a form which Aphrodite might have owned. She did not know the breeze had played a trick upon her; or knowing, thought nothing of it. The seeds of our grosser nature sprout more readily in the hotbed of a drawing-room of "cultured" society, than in the windsweet, sun-disinfected acres of the out-of-doors.

She spoke.

"Granny's picklin' to-day. She's run out o' vinegar 'n' has sent Granf'er to fin' me to go to town 'n' git some more."

"Let me go with you!" I urged.

"No," she answered, promptly; "'t wouldn't do. Don't you see?"

"I see what's in your mind," I replied, knowing that she was thinking I would likely meet the smith again; "but I should be glad to go anyway."

"No; you mus' stay here."

Firmly she said it, and my saner judgment told me she was right. It would have been a fool's errand for me to undertake.

"I know it is best," I a.s.sented reluctantly, "but _why_ did Granny have to run out of vinegar this afternoon?"

Lessie threw me an amused glance over her shoulder, burst into a peal of laughter, and began waving her pole over her head in wide circles, taking this method to wind her line. When this was in place, she grasped the hook between finger and thumb, and imbedded it in the stopper.

"You bring th' fish 'n' th' bait," she said, and ran along the tree, sure-footed and nimble as a squirrel.

I picked up the can and bucket and followed. I looked at her catch as I went, and saw that it represented some half-dozen minnows only. Granf'er was waiting for us in the road. He had already transferred the jug to Lessie and given her instructions when I came up and cordially shook hands.

"How are you getting along?" was my greeting, as I wisely smothered the impatience I felt.

"Oh! fust rate;--'cep'n' th' ketch."

He put his left hand to his side and drew a wheezy breath.

Lessie gave her fis.h.i.+ng-pole into Granf'er's care, smiled a farewell and started toward Hebron. It wrenched me for her to begin that lovely walk alone. She was twenty steps away when the old man suddenly turned.

"Don't go trapes'n' in th' woods fur flow'rs 'n' sich! Granny's wait'n'

fur that air vinegyar!"

She waved her hand as a sign that she heard, but made no reply.

"A quare gal!" mused Granf'er, beginning to delve in his trousers pocket for his twist. "Fust 'n' las', they ain't no onderstand'n' 'er. She washes in th' woods lak a wil' Injun 'n' plays 'ith th' birds 'n' th'

beastes. Oncommin quare, by gos.h.!.+"

He opened his mouth and allowed to roll therefrom his chewed-out quid, ran his crooked and cracked forefinger around his gums to dislodge any particle of the leaf which might still remain in hiding, and took another chew.

"But she is a most attractive young lady, nevertheless," I ventured, tentatively, putting one hand in my pocket for my pipe and holding the other out in dumb request. I remembered the guest-rite of my first visit, and shrewdly suspected this move of mine would please the old man. It did.

"Lak it, don't ye?" he grinned, his wrinkled face lighting with pleasure as he eagerly thrust the tobacco into my palm. "Light Burley 't is, 'n'

skace 's' hen's teeth. Mos' c.r.a.ps plum' failed las' year, but I growed a plenty fur you 'n' me--yes, fur you 'n' me!"

The expression tickled him into a creaky, croaky sort of laugh.

"It's good stuff, Granf'er," I agreed, compromising with my conscience by supposing that it was good to chew, although to smoke, it bit my tongue abominably and had a green flavor. "I've been intending to come back to see you and Granny and Lessie ever since I was here last, but one thing and another has prevented. I hope you are all well?"

I turned toward the path and moved forward a few steps, as though a.s.suming we would now go on up to the house. But Gran'fer's thoughts did not run with mine.

"Well? Yes; that is to say, tol'ble." His manner was somewhat excited.

"Granny, y' know, 's pickl'n' to-day, 'n' w'en she's pickl'n' she's turble busy, 'n' turble--turble techous.... Fine terbacker, ain't it?"

as he saw the pale blue smoke beginning to come from my lips. "Yes, we're putty well, but Granny's ben kind o' contrairy these fo' days pas', 'n' bein' she's pickl'n' I 'low you 'n' me 'd jes' as well set down right here 'n' hev our chat."

He tried to speak in an ordinary way, but simulation did not abide in his honest, open soul, and I knew he felt he was breaking hospitality's rules in suggesting that we remain away from the house. The thought worried him, and he could not hide it.

"All right!" I answered, heartily, donning the hypocrite's cloak with perfect ease. (This is one of the advantages of our ultra civilized state.) "Women are different from men, anyhow, and take notions and ideas which we have to humor. And some people are so const.i.tuted by nature that they must be let alone when they are busy."

"Yes! Yes! That's it! Notions 'n' idees!" Gran'fer eagerly approved. "I don't see how yo' kin know so much 'bout wimmin if yo' 've never ben married.... Notions 'n' idees!" He chuckled with a dry sort of rattling sound, rubbed his leg, and thumped the ground with the b.u.t.t of the Dryad's fis.h.i.+ng-pole. "By gos.h.!.+ Notions 'n' idees!" he repeated, for the third time, his eyes narrowed and his face broadened in a fixed expression of unalloyed pleasure.

"Suppose we sit on the big rock here?" I said, with a gesture toward the immense stone which formed the tip of the Point.

I walked out upon it as I spoke, and the old fellow dragged after, doubtless still caressing in his mind that chance phrase which had caught his fancy. The stone was a dozen yards across, and its creek side arose perpendicularly from the water, its top being five feet or more from the stream's surface. Here we sat, hanging our legs over as boys would. I smoked, and Gran'fer chewed. He really didn't chew much, because I am sure he was inherently opposed to the slightest exertion which was unnecessary, but now and then he would defile the limpid purity below, a fact which convinced me he was enjoying his marvelous tobacco far more than I was.

"Wimmin _is_ curi's," began Gran'fer, when we had arranged ourselves comfortably. He twirled his stubby, funny looking thumbs contentedly and leisurely. The end of each was overhung with a remarkable length of nail, black and thick. "I s'pose they's nec'sary ur th' Lord wouldn't 'a' put 'em here, but it's a plum' fac' they's no read'n' 'em, 'n' no tell'n' whut they gunta do. S'firy 'n' me, come November twinty-fust, nex', hev ben married forty-two year. Right there in Hebrin wuz we married, forty-two year ago come November twinty-fust, nex'. At th'

Cath'lic chu'ch on th' hill, th' same whut's now Father John's. He wuzn't here them days. 'Nother pries' married us. S'firy's a Cath'lic 'n' I wus n't nothin', but I wuz bornd o' Prot'st'nt parints. 'N' I made th' fust mistake right there. Onless two people hev th' same b'lief, they oughtn't to jine in wedlock, 'cus trouble's comin' sh.o.r.e 's sin."

He took off his worn, soiled, and shapeless straw hat to scratch his head.

"I suspect you are entirely right about that. I know of a number of unhappy marriages for that reason."

Gran'fer grunted, twice.

"S'firy's a buxom gal, ez th' sayin' goes," he continued, reminiscently.

"Purties' gal hereabout she wuz, ef I do say it, but they's allus fire on her tongue. Jes' lak a patch o' powder her min' wuz, 'n' th' leas'

thin' 'd set it off. 'Tain't in th' natur o' young people to look ahead, ur I never 'd 'a' tried life with S'firy. A young feller in love is th'

out 'n' out d.a.m.ndes' fool on airth. I'se sich.... I couldn't stan' ag'in 'er."

He shook his head slowly, and fell to combing his straggling fringe of whiskers with his bent fingers.

I did not reply. I was not much interested in the old man's recital. I had guessed already practically all that he was telling me. My mind was full of other things; my thoughts were back on the Hebron road, following the footsteps of the girl with the jug.

"I fit, though; I fit to be boss o' my own house,"--the querulous, cracked voice broke in upon my reflections. "See here?" He drew his palm down over his long, shaven upper lip, and looked at me craftily with his little blue eyes. "I knowed a man onct, in them days, whut wore his beard jes' that way, 'n' he's the w'eelhoss o' the fam'ly. Th' wimmin wuz skeered uv 'im es a chick'n is uv a hawk. Whut he said they _done_, 'n' done 'ithout argyment. 'N' I took th' notion that if I shaved my lip, too, 'n' looked kind o' fierce 'n' hard lak, that I c'd manage S'firy. So one mornin' I gits my razor 'n' fixes that lip, 'n' w'en I saw myseff I felt I c'd boss anybody, I looked that mean. So in I comes to S'firy, 'n' tol' 'er, kind o' brash, that I wanted sich 'n' sich a thin' done, 'n' kind o' squared myseff 'n' put my han's on my hip j'ints, same 's I saw that other feller do, y' know.... Chris' Jesus!...

Whut happ'n'd? 'S ben a long time ago 'n' I can't ricollec' all th'

doin's. But she called me a babboon fust, 'n' then she lit into me....

Well, I kep' on shavin' my lip, 'cus I 'proved o' th' style, but I didn't order S'firy no more, bein' 's I'm nat'rly a man o' peace."

"How many children did you have, Gran'fer?" I asked, presently.

"Jes' two. Th' fust 'n' wuz a boy whut died o' fits w'en he 's two weeks ol'. Th' nex' 'n' wuz Ar'minty, Lessie's mammy. She died w'en Lessie 's skacely more 'n a baby."

"What was the matter with her?" I asked.

Quick as a flash Gran'fer turned on me, an expression of alarm and anger mingled showing on his face. What had I done? Surely my question was simple and natural enough. He saw my surprise and astonishment, and his feelings softened instantly.