“oh, yes, i walked all the way up the mountain from the railroad depot,” explained the young woman whose arrival we chronicled in another chapter, “but i stopped over night at a cabin on the way and discovered some just[39] delightful characters—the tollivers—regular craddock sort of people, an old lady and her son.”
by some method known only to herself she had put herself upon a speaking-plane with dufour, who, as she approached him, was standing in an angle of the wide wooden veranda waiting for the moon to rise over the distant peaks of the eastern mountains.
“i saw mr. tolliver to-day while whipping a brook down here,” said he, turning to look her squarely in the face.
“oh, did you! isn’t he a virile, villainous, noble, and altogether melodramatic looking man? i wish there was some one here who could sketch him for me. but, say, mr. dufour, what do you mean, please, when you speak of whipping a brook?”
she took from her pocket a little red note-book and a pencil as he promptly responded: “whipping a brook? oh, that’s angler’s nonsense, it means casting the line into the water, you know.”
“that’s funny,” she remarked, making a note.
she was taller than dufour, and so slender and angular that in comparison with his excessive plumpness she looked gaunt and bony. in speaking her lips made all sorts of wild contortions showing her uneven teeth to great effect, and the extreme rapidity of her utterance gave an explosive emphasis to her voice. over her forehead, which projected, a fluffy mass of pale[40] yellow hair sprang almost fiercely as if to attack her scared and receding chin.
“you are from michigan, i believe, miss crabb,” remarked dufour.
“oh, dear, no!” she answered, growing red in the face, “no, indeed. i am from indiana, from ringville, associate editor of the star.”
“pardon, i meant indiana. of course i knew you were not from michigan.”
“thanks,” with a little laugh and a shrug, “i am glad you see the point.”
“i usually do—a little late,” he remarked complacently.
“you are from boston, then, i infer,” she glibly responded.
“not precisely,” he said, with an approving laugh, “but i admit that i have some bostonian qualities.”
at this point in the conversation she was drooping over him, so to say, and he was sturdily looking up into her bright, insistent face.
“what a group!” said crane to mrs. bridges, a new york fashion editor. “i’d give the best farm in kentucky (so far as my title goes) for a photograph of it! doesn’t she appear to be just about to peck out his eyes!”
“your lofty imagination plays you fantastic tricks,” said mrs. bridges. “is she the famous western lady reporter?”
“the same, of the ringville star. i met her at the cincinnati convention. it was there[41] that bascom of the bugle called her a bag of gimlets, because she bored him so.”
“oh!”
this exclamation was not in response to what crane had said, but it was an involuntary tribute to the moon-flower just flaring into bloom between twin peaks lying dusky and heavy against the mist of silver and gold that veiled the sweet sky beyond. a semi-circle of pale straw-colored fire gleamed in the lowest angle of the notch and sent up long, wavering lines of light almost to the zenith, paling the strongest stars and intensifying the shadows in the mountain gorges and valleys. grim as angry gods, the pines stood along the slopes, as if gloomily contemplating some dark scheme of vengeance.
“a real sapphic,” said crane, dropping into a poetical tone, as an elocutionist does when he is hungry for an opportunity to recite a favorite sketch.
“why a sapphic?” inquired the matter-of-fact fashion-editor.
“oh, don’t you remember that fragment, that glorious picture sappho’s divine genius has made for us—”
he quoted some greek.
“about as divine as choctaw or kickapoo,” she said. “i understand the moon-shine better. in fact i have a sincere contempt for all this transparent clap-trap you poets and critics indulge in when you got upon your greek hobby. divine sappho, indeed! a lot of bald bits of[42] jargon made famous by the comments of fogies. let’s look at the moon, please, and be sincere.”
“sincere!”
“yes, you know very well that if you had written the sapphic fragments the critics would——”
“the critics! what of them? they are a set of disappointed poetasters themselves. blind with rage at their own failures, they snap right and left without rhyme or reason. now there’s peck, a regular——”
“well, sir, a regular what?” very coolly demanded the critic who had stepped forth from a shadowy angle and now stood facing crane.
“a regular star-gazer,” said mrs. bridges. “tell us why the planets yonder all look so ghastly through the shimmering moonlight.”
peck, without reply, turned and walked away.
“is he offended?” she asked.
“no, he gives offence, but can not take it.”
mrs. bridges grew silent.
“we were speaking of sappho,” observed crane, again gliding into an elocutionary mood. “i have translated the fragment that i repeated a while ago. let me give it to you.
“when on the dusky violet sky
the full flower of the moon blooms high
the stars turn pale and die!”
just then miss moyne, dressed all in white, floated by on peck’s arm, uttering a silvery gust of laughter in response to a cynical observation of the critic.
[43]
“what a lovely girl she is,” said mrs. bridges. “mr. peck shows fine critical acumen in being very fond of her.”
crane was desperately silent. “he’s a handsome man, too, and i suspect it’s a genuine love affair,” mrs. bridges went on, fanning herself complacently. back and forth, walking slowly and conversing in a soft minor key, save when now and then miss moyne laughed melodiously, the promenaders passed and repassed, peck never deigning to glance toward crane, who had forgotten both sappho and the moon. miss moyne did, however, once or twice turn her eyes upon the silent poet.
“oh,” went on miss crabb, filling dufour’s ears with the hurried din of her words, “oh, i’m going to write a novel about this place. i never saw a better chance for local color, real transcripts from life, original scenes and genuine romance all tumbled together. don’t you think i might do it?”
“it does appear tempting,” said dufour. “there’s tolliver for instance, a genuine chilhowee moonshiner.” he appeared to laugh inwardly as he spoke. indeed he heard the plash of water and the dripping, shivering mountaineer stood forth in his memory down there in the gorge.
“a moonshiner!” gasped miss crabb, fluttering the leaves of her note-book and writing by moonlight with a celerity that amazed dufour.
[44]
“potentially, at least,” he replied evasively. “he looks like one and he don’t like water.”
“if he does turn out to be a real moonshiner,” miss crabb proceeded reflectively to say, “it will be just too delicious for anything. i don’t mind telling you, confidentially, mr. dufour, that i am to write some letters while here to the chicago daily lightning express. so i’d take it as a great favor if you’d give me all the points you get.”
“that’s interesting,” he said, with a keen scrutiny of her face for a second. “i shall be glad to be of assistance to you.”
he made a movement to go, but lingered to say: “pray give me all the points, too, will you?”
“oh, are you a journalist too?” she inquired, breathlessly hanging over him. “what paper—”
“i’m not much of anything,” he hurriedly interposed, “but i like to know what is going on, that’s all.”
he walked away without further excuse and went up to his room.
“i’ve got to watch him,” soliloquized miss crabb, “or he’ll get the scoop of all the news. give him points, indeed! maybe so, but not till after i’ve sent them to the lightning express! i’ll keep even with him, or know the reason why.”
it was a grand panorama that the climbing moon lighted up all around mount boab, a vast billowy sea of gloom and sheen. here were[45] shining cliffs, there dusky gulches; yonder the pines glittered like steel-armed sentinels on the hill-tops, whilst lower down they appeared to skulk like cloaked assassins. shadows came and went, now broad-winged and wavering, again slender and swift as the arrows of death. the hotel was bright within and without. some one was at the grand piano in the hall making rich music—a fragment from beethoven,—and a great horned owl down the ravine was booming an effective counterpoint.
crane stood leaning on the railing of the veranda and scowling savagely as peck and miss moyne continued to promenade and converse. he was, without doubt, considering sinister things. mrs. bridges, finding him entirely unsympathetic, went to join miss crabb, who was alone where she had been left by dufour. meantime, up in his room, with his chair tilted far back and his feet thrust out over the sill of an open window, dufour was smoking a fragrant cuban cigar, (fifty cents at retail) and alternating smiles with frowns as he contemplated his surroundings.
“authors,” he thought, “are the silliest, the vainest, and the most impractical lot of human geese that ever were plucked for their valuable feathers. and newspaper people! humph!” he chuckled till his chin shook upon his immaculate collar. “just the idea, now, of that young woman asking me to furnish her with points!”
there was something almost jocund blent with his air of solid self-possession, and he[46] smoked the precious cigars one after another with prodigal indifference and yet with the perfect grace of him to the manner born.
“hotel helicon on mt. boab!” he repeated, and then betook himself to bed.
