one breezy afternoon mrs. blake was footing it round the last loop of the “double s,” on her way to timber ridge. at the end of the steep grade she sat down on a mossy stump, took off her sunbonnet, and gave herself up to enjoyment of the spring day.
in the deep ravine below the road a mountain stream rushed coffee brown, throwing up crystal rainbows where it gurgled over rock ledges. on the steep hillside across the creek the tall forest trees were still bare, — the oak leaves no bigger than a squirrel’s ear. from out the naked grey wood the dogwood thrust its crooked forks starred with white blossoms — the flowers set in their own wild way along the rampant zigzag branches. their unexpectedness, their singular whiteness, never loses its wonder, even to the dullest dweller in those hills. in all the rich flowering and blushing and blooming of a virginia spring, the scentless dogwood is the wildest thing and yet the most austere, the most unearthly.
mrs. blake was thinking this out to herself as she sat on the stump. she gave scarcely a glance at the wild honeysuckle all about her, growing low out of the gravelly soil, pink and rose colour, with long, trembling stamens which made each blossom look like a brilliant insect caught in flight. when at last she took her basket and travelled upward, she left the turnpike and followed a by-road along the crest of the ridge. up here the soil was better; planted fields and little green meadows lay along her path. may apples grew in the damp spots; their blossoms, like tiny pond lilies, gave out a heavy, almost sickening sweetness. here and there stood a well-built farmhouse, with carefully tended yard and garden. along the rail fences the locust trees were in bloom. the breeze caught their perfume and wafted it down the road. every virginian remembers those locusts which grow along the highways: their cloud-shaped masses of blue-green foliage and heavy drooping clusters of cream-white flowers like pea blossoms. excepting the very old trees, the giants, the locusts look yielding and languid, like the mountain boy lounging against the counter when he goes to the country store. yet, from the time they are big enough to cut, they make the toughest fence posts a farmer can find, and in the timber trade the yellow locust is valued for its resistance to moisture.
from the ridge road mrs. blake could look down over hills and valleys, as if she were at the top of the world. she liked to go up there at any time of the year, and she liked to go on foot and alone. even in her best days, before her husband died, when she lived in washington and never came home to back creek for a visit, she used sometimes to be homesick for these mountains and the high places. this afternoon she was on the ridge in answer to a sick call, but it was not a serious one, and she meant to enjoy herself.
last evening a pale little girl, barefoot, in a carefully mended dress, had slipped silently into mrs. blake’s kitchen without knocking. for all that her hair was braided and her face was washed, she was a distressful little creature, with dark circles about her eyes. there was something at once furtive and innocent in her face. she told mrs. blake how granny let the flatiron fall on her foot t’other day, an’ now her toe was festerin’. would miz blake maybe come up an’ see if they ought to send for doctor brush? and now mrs. blake was on her way to see. she had bandages and turpentine ointment and arnica in her basket; but she had also a fruit jar full of fresh-ground coffee, half a baking of sugar cakes, and a loaf of “light” bread. the poor folks on the ridge esteemed coffee and wheat bread great delicacies. this visit was not to be entirely wasted on a sore foot. indeed, mrs. blake suspected that the foot was maybe not very bad, and that old mrs. ringer had sent for her because she had not seen her for a long time and wanted a visit with her.
mrs. blake herself looked forward to this visit. mrs. ringer was better company than many people who were more fortunate; who came of better blood, and had farms and raised sheep and pigs for market. there were some families on the ridge who were comfortably off, owned a few negroes to do the work, and held themselves very high. if you called at the pembertons’, for instance, you were kept waiting half an hour in the parlour while the ladies dressed and powdered their faces. when at last they appeared, with their mourning-bordered handkerchiefs and jet earrings, they minded their manners so carefully that the talk was very dull.
now, mandy ringer had lived a hard life, goodness knew, but misfortune and drudgery had never broken her spirit. she was as thin as a grasshopper, and as lively as one. she had probably never spent a dull day. when she woke in the morning, she got into her calico dress in a flash and ran out to see what her garden had done overnight. then she took a bucket and went to milk sukey in the shed. her son, though he was a cripple, would have done it for her, but in that country it was the custom for the women to do the milking. mrs. ringer wouldn’t have trusted either of her two daughters to take care of sukey. that little white-faced cow kept the log house going when everything else failed, and her calves brought in the only actual money the old woman ever saw.
mrs. ringer was born interested. she got a great deal of entertainment out of the weather and the behaviour of the moon. any chance bit of gossip that came her way was a godsend. the rare sight of a strange face was a treat: a pedlar with a pack on his back, or a medicine-vendor come from across the alleghenies with his little cart. mrs. ringer couldn’t read or write, as she was frank to tell you, but the truth was she could read everything most important: the signs of the seasons, the meaning of the way the wood creatures behaved, and human faces. she once said to mrs. blake when they were talking things over: “if the lord’ll jist let me stay alive, mam, an’ not put me down into a dirty hole, i kin bear anything.”
she had borne a good deal, certainly. her son was a poor cripple, and both her daughters had been “fooled.” that seldom occurred twice, even in the most shiftless households. disgrace to the womenfolk brought any family very low in that country. but mandy ringer couldn’t stay crushed for long. she came up like a cork, — probably with no better excuse than that the sun came up. her spirits bubbled into the light like a spring and spread among the cresses.
rachel blake had always been drawn toward expansive, warm-hearted people. and she had known many such folks in her time, when she lived in washington city before her husband died.
as she turned in at a low log house with a big outside rock chimney, mrs. ringer, her foot done up in rags, hopped lightly to the door to greet her. “now ain’t you most a angel to come all the way up the hills to see us! i declare i had a’most give you up, but lawndis he tole me not to despair. an’ he would go so fur as to shave fur you.”
at this a brown-skinned man with a crooked back and a clubfoot came forward. “yes, miz, blake, when the wind turned an’ blowed the clouds away, i reckoned you’d be along to see mother.” his voice was mellow and grave, and there was true courtesy in the way he looked at the visitor, placed a chair for her, and relieved her of her basket.
mrs. blake examined the sore foot and declared there was nothing worse than a bad bruise. she applied her ointment and a clean bandage, and took from her basket a pair of old carpet slippers. “you’ll be easy in these, mrs. ringer. put them on and keep them on. don’t on any account go about barefoot. now i’m a little weary after my walk, and if lawndis will kindle a fire i’m going to make some coffee for us.”
after the son had a fire going, he took up his hat. “if you’ll excuse me, miz blake, i’ll go out in the garden an’ do some weedin’. you and mother’ll feel freer to talk by yourselves. she ain’t seen much comp’ny lately.” he limped out of the house, careful not to put on his hat until he was well outside the door.
mrs. ringer spread a white cloth on the kitchen table and got out her blue chiney cups and plates. before the water was boiling lawndis came back with a stone crock in his hands. “here, mother. i seem to remember miz blake don’t like her coffee without cream. if you’ll skim some off, i’ll take the crock back to the spring-house. we got a real cold springhouse, mam, better’n most folks up here. it’s quite a piece away, but that’s where the spring is.”
“your son surely has nice manners, mrs. ringer,” remarked mrs. blake, as she watched him limping across the garden with the milk.
“yes’m, lawndis is a good boy, if i do say it. an’ he gits a power a’ work done, fur a lame man. ain’t it a pity i didn’t have no luck with my gals?”
this was a delicate subject. mrs. blake did not wish to discuss it. “where are the girls today?” she asked politely, as if there were nothing queer about them.
“ginnie, she’s got work up at capon springs, helpin’ clean the hotel fur summer visitors. up there they ain’t heered about her trouble, maybe. i don’t know where marge is this minute, but she’s likely off in the woods some’ers, ‘shamed to have you see her. it would all a-been different, miz blake, if my lawndis was a strong man. then he could a-tracked down the fellers an’ fit with ’em, an’ made ’em marry his sisters. but them raskels knowed my pore gals hadn’t nobody to stand up fur ’em. fellers is skeered to make free with a gal that’s got able men folks to see she gits her rights.”
mrs. blake still sought to avoid discussing these misfortunes, since there was nothing she could do to remedy them. she said blandly: “well, whatever happened, i know lawndis would never be hard on his sisters. now do tell me, mrs. ringer, who did you name your boy after? i’ve often wondered, and never thought to ask you.”
“lawndis? why, after the preacher. can’t you remember, when you was a little girl there come a preacher a-holdin’ revivals through these parts? he held meetin’s every night fur a week an’ more at bethel church, an’ i never missed a sermon. i ain’t never heered sich sermons before nor since. when the next baby come, i called him after that preacher.”
yes, mrs. blake remembered the preacher; he wore a long-tailed coat, even on horseback, and his name was leonidas bright. the hill people could do queer things with unfamiliar names.
at this moment the pale little girl who had come to mrs. blake’s yesterday stole down the ladder from the loft over the kitchen and shyly approached the table. in her hand was a little wooden box full of quartz crystals she had picked up on the stony hillsides.
“is these di’monds, miz blake, mam? kin i sell ’em fur money?”
“no, child, i’m afraid they’re not diamonds. they’re just as pretty, though.”
“now, becky, what need you come troublin’ miz blake fur? i tole you they ain’t di’monds. you run back upstairs an’ mind the baby, an’ here’s a cake fur you miz blake fetched me. is he asleep?”
“yes’m.”
mrs. blake slipped the child a second cake, and she went noiselessly up the ladder.
the grandmother gave a cackling little laugh. “that’s the fashion up here now. since the bethel robbery everybody thinks they kin make a fortin sellin’ somethin’. it’s come down even to pore becky.”
“what robbery are you talkin’ about, mrs. ringer?”
mrs. ringer put down the cup halfway to her lips. “you ain’t meanin’ you never heered of the bethel communion service bein’ stole?”
“i surely never heard a word about it.”
mrs. ringer’s face glowed. “well, i’m su’prised, mam! it’s a disgrace to us all up here, an’ we can’t hardly talk of nothin’ else. last sunday night, after preachin’, the whole communion service, the silver plate an’ the silver goblet an’ the little pitchers, was taken. an’ now his triflin’ relations is tryin’ to put it off on casper flight, as good a boy as ever lived, because he has the door key so he kin sweep out the church an’ keep it clean. now we all know a winder was broke out the night the deed was done, so what has casper’s key got to do with it, i’d like to know? would he break a winder, when he had a key?”
mrs. blake was thoroughly interested. “you mean the flight boy that comes to mr. fairhead’s school? why, his teacher can’t say enough good of him.”
“that’s him i mean. he’s bein’ persecuted by them louts of cousins of his’n, them ugly keyser boys that runs a still. who’s they to act up for the church, when they was never inside one? unless” — here mrs. ringer paused and shook her finger at mrs. blake as she added impressively — “unless they was inside bethel church last sunday night, after meetin’.”
“but why are the keysers trying to put it on casper? you say they’re cousins.”
“now, miz blake, who kin hate worse’n cousins? we all know that. they hates him jist on account of his bein’ a good boy, and tryin’ to make somethin’ of hisself, walkin’ all the way down to back creek to learn to read an’ write. nobody in their fam’ly could ever read ‘n’ write, an’ damned if anybody ever will. it’s pure spite, an’ i tell lawndis i know buck keyser broke that winder an’ clomb in an’ robbed the lord, as well as if i’d seen him do it. he’s got them things hid away some’ers, an’ one day he’ll tromp over the alleghenies where he ain’t knowed, an’ sell ’em.”
mrs. blake sniffed audibly. “well, he won’t get much for ’em. that bethel communion set ain’t silver at all. it’s plated stuff, and poor plate at that, i can tell you.”
mrs. ringer started in her chair. “is that so, miz blake! now, nobody but you would a-knowed. lordy me, i wisht i could a-had your chance, mam. it’s city life that learns you, an’ i’d a-loved it! so with all their deviltry they ain’t got no fortin hid away, an’ fur all the talk they’ve raised, it don’t amount to much more’n pore becky’s di’monds! there is a kind-a justice in this world after all, now ain’t there?”
their talk turned naturally to the classic example of belated justice: the murder of the pedlar at the red brick house on the ridge road, and its exposure after twenty years. while mrs. ringer was telling all she remembered of the two wretched women who had killed the pedlar for his pack, lawndis appeared at the door, sweaty and panting.
“maw, i’m afeered them keysers is got casper. i heered trouble over in the woods, an’ buck’s big haw-haw. he’s got the meanest laff ever was, when he’s out fur devilment. i’m a-goin’ over.”
mrs. ringer sprang up. “then i’m a-goin’ with ye.”
“no you ain’t, maw. you’re lamed with your foot.”
“i reckon i’m no lamer’n you air. come along, miz blake, we’ll all go. they ain’t no business in our woods.”
mrs. blake picked up her basket. “take one of lawndis’ canes, mandy, and spare your foot all you can.” she set out with the two cripples, down the garden, past the springhouse, and over toward the wood where they heard ugly, taunting voices.
they had not gone far when they came upon the three keysers and their captive. a young boy, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, was stripped naked to the waist and bound tight to a chestnut sapling. three men were lounging about the tree making fun of him. the brother called buck had his sleeves rolled up and his shirt open, showing a thick fleece of red hair on his chest and forearms. he was laughing and cracking a lash of plaited cowhide thongs. the boy tied to the tree said not a word in answer to buck’s taunting questions. he made no sound at all, did not even look up when mrs. blake came swishing through the bushes. for all he had set his teeth tight together, she could see his lower jaw trembling.
mrs. ringer spoke first. “now what air you keysers up to?”
big buck had a very smooth way with him when he took the trouble. he had certainly not expected to see mrs. blake from back creek, and her appearance put a different light on things. he pulled off his hat and spoke easy.
“nothin’ but a fam’ly matter, folks. this young feller’s been charged with takin’ the communion set. his maw’s a keyser, an’ it’s fur us to settle with him. you know yourselves his paw’s no account, an’ that baptist preacher he goes to school to don’t seem to a-learned him to keep his hands off things. time fur the fam’ly to learn him a little. he’s got to tell where them things is hid.”
mrs. blake had kept a steady eye on buck, and now she spoke.
“then you’d better go and get ’em, buck keyser, and put ’em back where they belong, for they’re poor plated stuff, and you’ll get nothing for them but trouble.”
buck’s face didn’t change, but his two brothers looked at each other.
“that’s what i’m after doin’, miz blake, onct i git ’em out-a him.” with that he swung his lash and gave casper a cut on the bare shoulder. the boy made no sound, but poor lawndis was so worked upon that he burst out crying and threw his arms round the prisoner to shield him with his own back. “don’t you dast hit him agin! i can’t fight ye, i’m jist a pore mock of a man, but you’ll have to finish me afore you tech him.”
mrs. blake knew lawndis would be sick for a week after such an outbreak. “shame on you, buck keyser!” she said, going up to him and putting her hand on his hairy arm. “it’s lawndis will get the most punishment out of this, and you know it. what did you come on their place for, to act your foolishness? what have you got against lawndis?”
“we ain’t got nothing agin lawndis. this whimperin’ boy come hidin’ in the ringer woods, ‘cause he’s a coward an’ can’t take a lickin’. we was after him, an’ come on him here, that’s how. don’t act the fool, lawndis. i’ll take care of my kin some’ers out-a your woods. he’ll git his ticklin’ when there’s no ladies around. come on, boys. good day to you, miz blake.”
mrs. blake told lawndis to go back to the house and drink the coffee that was left. while the two women untied the flight boy and hunted for his shirt, mrs. ringer whispered: “like as not they brought him into our woods a purpose. they was feelin’ devilish, an’ what’s the good a-actin’ devilish if nobody sees you? they knows lawndis is soft that-a-way, an’ can’t see a sparrer fall. it’s a mercy you was here, miz blake. i reckon they don’t want to git in too bad with your paw.”
on her way down the “double s” and the “holler” road, mrs. blake told herself she must have a talk with david fairhead about casper. perhaps it wasn’t wise to encourage him. “i don’t know whether that boy’s strong enough to master what’s around him,” she said to herself.” a man’s got to be stronger’n a bull to get out of the place he was born in. i just hope i won’t dream tonight the way casper stood against that tree, with his lower jaw tremblin’.”
