A Maid of the Kentucky Hills Part 21

I hope I am not tiresome. Truth is not always interesting, and you must not question my veracity. To-night I will not avow that my hitherto well balanced mind is perfectly plumb. Since I confessed to my journal I found I have shot into the rapids, and this girl with hair like a potpourri of sunbeams and Irish gray eyes which starts some trembly mechanism to going inside me, is going to be the biggest and most important thing in my life.

Of course I laughed when she said H instead of G, but it was not a laugh that hurt. It was the one which soothes and condones. She laughed, too, and again I saw an upper row of teeth--white as young corn, and as even.

In half an hour she had turned the trick, and in addition could name any letter which I might choose on sight. Yes, I was proud of her then, and--yes, I told her so; wouldn't you? We then went through the small letters once or twice, but I did not ask her to learn any of them this morning. Celeste couldn't understand why the big letters and the little letters were not alike, and I couldn't either, so no explanation was forthcoming. Presently the primer was laid aside, and I produced the copybook. The Dryad's interest was just as intense when this branch of her education was brought to her notice.

"Is this writin'?" she queried, suspiciously, indicating the line in script at the top of the page.

"Yes, that's writ-_ing_," I said, but my eyes were kind.

"--_ing_, then!" she retorted, with some force, but I knew she was aggravated with herself, and not with me. Then she sat up very straight, and defiantly checked off each word of her next sentence on her palm, using an absurd fist as a checker.

"It--don't--look--like--Gran'fer's--writ-_ing_!"

I roared mightily at this, for her belligerency was irresistible.

At first she was amazed at my outburst, for her earnestness had prevented her from seeing how truly attractive her little speech had been. But as I kept on laughing she presently joined me, and together we raised such a disturbance that Gran'fer hurried out to investigate. I jumped up and took his hand, and managed to control myself enough to tell him the cause.

"B' gos.h.!.+ 'S a good thing S'firy's not here!" he exclaimed, leering from one to the other with his good-natured eyes twinkling. "She'd 'low you 's bust'n' th' Sabbath, 'n' like 's not 'd 'vite _you_ back to Baldy!"

He poked a crooked finger in my ribs, thrust his middle out and his shoulders back and gave a series of piercing screeches which I judged was his way of expressing superlative mirth.

I put my arm around his shoulder chum-fas.h.i.+on, and drew him aside.

"I hid and watched her leave," I whispered.

Again he screeched.

"You're a durned wise 'n'!" he said, presently. "S'firy's sot ag'in yo'

somehow, but I's jok'n' w'en I said I'd 'low she'd 'vite yo' back to Baldy. She wouldn't do sich a vi'lent thin' as that, see'n' as how she's got no airthly complaint ag'in yo', 'cep'n' you're a young man 'n'

good-look'n', 'n'"--lowering his voice and nodding toward the Dryad, who sat apparently absorbed in her copybook--"she don't 'low to ever let no man make love to that gal, 'n' she's skeerd o' yo' on that 'count--see?"

"Gran'fer, I smell some'n' burnin'!" called Celeste.

The old man turned with a trembling, low-voiced "Good G.o.d!" and bolted into the house, and instantly I heard a tin cover clatter on the kitchen floor.

"Whut'd you tell Gran'fer w'en you took 'im over there?" asked Eve, when I was again beside her.

"The truth," I replied, not altogether relis.h.i.+ng a like confession to her.

"Tell me, too!" she demanded, at once.

"Suppose I won't?" I parried, grasping the opportunity offered to weigh her character in different scales.

She thought a moment, with a queer little squinting of the eyes.

"Well, if you won't--I don't keer!"

It was not pique, but perfect candor.

"I told him that I waited down yonder in the woods until Granny went to church," I said.

She smiled, and spread the copybook out afresh.

"You needn't 'a' done that. I've had a talk with Granny, 'n' she's goin'

to let you come, same as she does Buck ... I p'suaded 'er."

"Bless your heart, Dryad! How did you manage it?"

"Granny'll do mos' anything for me," she answered, simply. "I tol' 'er that you jes' wanted to learn me, 'n' that I wanted to learn--so bad; 'n' that it wouldn't cost nothin'. So she ast Father John, 'n' he said it'd be all right. He said he knowed you."

"Yes, I've met Father John--and his niece."

"I don't like her," said Celeste, turning the leaves idly.

"Why don't you like her, Dryad?"

"'Cause--'cause--oh, jes' 'cause!"

She pouted her lips slightly, and shook her head.

So she, too, had that unanswerable reason which all women can claim.

"I feel sorry for her, because I don't think she has been happy. She has lived in cities all her life, and the cities have taken something from her they can never give back."

"Whut?"

"All things which you, living here in the hills, possess, and which are a woman's most precious gifts; purity, innocence, womanhood."

"I don't know 'zackly whut you mean."

"I shan't try to put it into simpler words just now, Dryad. But in the eyes of all true people you are worth more than a thousand Beryl Dranes."

She pursed her lips and gave a whistle of astonishment.

"Has Buck been here lately?" I asked.

"Not since I seen--I saw you on the log bridge."

Then for a time we remained silent. The day was intensely hot. The encroaching sun burned the yellow dog which had been lying in the yard, and he arose reluctantly and slouched over into the deeper shade by the foundation of the house--into a dusty hole which no doubt he had previously dug in a search for coolness. There, after gnawing his ribs, his black nose wrinkling oddly as he did so, he dropped his chin upon the ground and slowly closed his eyes. A rigor pa.s.sed over the side where the uncaptured flea still lingered, then, with a sigh, the dog slept. A brown hen, wings outheld from her body and bill agape, strolled dazedly through the s.h.i.+mmering air, singing that dolorous, unmusical, droning song begotten by the temperature. I have never heard that song from a hen's throat with the thermometer under ninety. It must have been an effect of the heat. Beyond, the green vast.i.tudes stretched endlessly--away to where the big wicked world throbbed and seethed and strove. All these externals pa.s.sed before my vision in a twinkling, and then my gaze was back on the girl sitting quietly by me, looking with eyes which sent no message to her brain upon the curving lines which meant knowledge. Her hair was up again to-day--for bodily comfort, I judge--and damp, curled strands clung flat to her milk-white neck. Below these, tiny drops of moisture stood, like baby pearls upon porcelain. I could not grow accustomed to the dazzling effect produced by her piled-up tresses. I could see neither comb, barette, nor pins, but no doubt a number of the "invisible" variety of the last were tucked away somewhere in the intricacies of that matchless coronet.

I asked if there were pen and ink on the place. She thought there was, and directly returned with both. Then the need arose for something suitable to hold the copybook while she traced her first letters. I knew there must be a table in the dining room, but I much preferred to remain where we were.

How I ever thought of such a thing I cannot guess, but I suggested the ironing board, and in another minute it was across each of our knees, and I was twisting the pen-staff about in Celeste's warm fingers to the proper angle. Her forefinger persisted in bending in at the first joint, and I as diligently straightened the contrary digit, not minding the task at all, for some occult reason. Naturally a huge blot was the first result, and the Dryad was for licking it off, as she had seen Gran'fer do once upon a time. I told her that wasn't nice, and laid the ink in the sun to dry, no blotting paper being available. When she finally got a start the girl did remarkably well. It was quite plain she had talent in this direction. I permitted her to rewrite the model line half way down the page, then told her lessons were over for the day. Nor did I neglect to bestow some well deserved compliments upon her aptness.

Granny may have been gone three hours, but I was nevertheless amazed when I saw her toiling up the winding path a short time later. Surely I had not been there over thirty minutes, all told! Far off as she was when I first sighted her, there seemed to be something menacing in the very way she got over the ground. As she drew quickly nearer, I observed that her round, red face was set in lines of furious anger, and she opened and closed her mouth in gasps, as a fish does on land. In spite of the a.s.surance the Dryad had given me, a subtle sense told me that I was the object of her rage. I turned to Celeste, to find wonder and astonishment depicted on her countenance.

"Whut on earth ails Granny?" she whispered.

"G.o.d knows!--and we will too, now"; for the old lady had halted a man's length away, a truly formidable spectacle.