The Phantoms of the Foot-Bridge and Other Stories Part 6

"I oughter been sati'fied with all I got, stiddier hectorin' other folks till they 'ain't got no heart ter hold on ter what they been at sech trouble ter git," he said, as he turned out the horse and strode gloomily toward the house with the saddle over his arm.

"Hev ennybody been spiteful ter you-uns ter-day?" she asked, in an almost maternal solicitude, and with a flash of partisan anger in her eyes.

"Git out'n my road, Eveliny," he said, fretfully, pus.h.i.+ng by, and throwing the saddle on the floor. There was no one in the room but the occupant of the rude box on rockers which served as cradle.

Absalom had a swift, prescient fear. "She'll git it all out'n me ef I don't look sharp," he said to himself. Then aloud, "Whar's mam?" he demanded, flinging himself into a chair and looking loweringly about.

"Topknot hev jes kem off'n her nest with fourteen deedies, an' she an'

'Melia hev gone ter the barn ter see 'bout'n 'em."

"Whar's Pete?"

"A-huntin'."

A pause. The fire smouldered audibly; a hickory-nut fell with a sharp thwack on the clapboards of the roof, and rolled down and bounded to the ground.

Suddenly: "I seen yer dad ter-day," he began, without coercion. "He gin me a cussin', in the court-room, 'fore all the folks. He cussed all the Kittredges, _all_ o' 'em; him too"--he glanced in the direction of the cradle--"cussed 'em black an' blue, an' called me a _thief_ fur marryin'

ye an kerry-in' ye off."

Her face turned scarlet, then pale. She sat down, her trembling hands reaching out to rock the cradle, as if the youthful Kittredge might be disturbed by the malediction hurled upon his tribe. But he slept st.u.r.dily on.

"Waal, now," she said, making a great effort at self-control, "ye oughtn't ter mind it. Ye know he war powerful tried. I never purtended ter be ez sweet an' pritty ez the baby air, but how would you-uns feel ef somebody ye despised war ter kem hyar an' tote him off from we-uns forever?"

"I'd cut thar hearts out," he said, with prompt barbarity.

"Thar, now!" exclaimed his wife, in triumphant logic.

He gloomily eyed the smouldering coals. He was beginning to understand the paternal sentiment. By his own heart he was learning the heart of his wife's father.

"I'd chop 'em inter minch-meat," he continued, carrying his just reprisals a step further.

"Waal, don't do it right now," said his wife, trying to laugh, yet vaguely frightened by his vehemence.

"Eveliny," he cried, springing to his feet, "I be a-goin' ter tell ye all 'bout'n it. I jes called on the cheerman fur the law agin him."

"Agin _dad_!--the law!" Her voice dropped as she contemplated aghast this terrible uncomprehended force brought to oppress old Joel Quimbey; she felt a sudden poignant pang for his forlorn and lonely estate.

"Never mind, never mind, Eveliny," Absalom said, hastily, repenting of his frantic candor and seeking to soothe her.

"I _will_ mind," she said, sternly. "What hev ye done ter dad?"

"Nuthin'," he replied, sulkily--"nuthin'."

"Ye needn't try ter fool me, Abs'lom Kittredge. Ef ye ain't minded ter tell me, I'll foot it down ter town an' find out. What did the law do ter him?"

"Jes fined him," he said, striving to make light of it.

"An' ye done that fur--_spite_!" she cried. "A-settin' the law ter chouse a old man out'n money, fur gittin' mad an' sayin' ye stole his only darter. Oh, I'll answer fur him"--she too had risen; her hand trembled on the back of the chair, but her face was scornfully smiling--"he don't mind the _money_; he'll never git you-uns _fined_ ter pay back the gredge. He don't take his wrath out on folkses' _wallets_; he grips thar throats, or teches the trigger o' his rifle. Laws-a-ma.s.sy!

takin' out yer gredge that-a-way! It's _ye_ poorer fur them dollars, Abs'lom--'tain't him." She laughed satirically, and turned to rock the cradle.

"What d'ye want me ter do? Fight a old man?" he exclaimed, angrily.

She kept silence, only looking at him with a flushed cheek and a scornful laughing eye.

He went on, resentfully: "I ain't 'shamed," he stoutly a.s.serted. "n.o.body 'lowed I oughter be. It's him, plumb bowed down with shame."

"The shoe's on the t'other foot," she cried. "It's ye that oughter be 'shamed, an' ef ye ain't, it's more shame ter ye. What hev he got ter be 'shamed of?"

"'Kase," he retorted, "he war fetched up afore a court on a crim'nal offence--a-cussin' afore the court! Ye may think it's no shame, but he do; he war so 'shamed he gin up his office ez jestice o' the peace, what he hev run fur four or five times, an' always got beat 'ceptin' wunst."

"Dad!" but for the whisper she seemed turning to stone; her dilated eyes were fixed as she stared into his face.

"An' I seen him a-ridin' off from town in the rain arterward, his head hangin' plumb down ter the saddle-bow."

Her amazed eyes were still fastened upon his face, but her hand no longer trembled on the back of the chair.

He suddenly held out his own hand to her, his sympathy and regret returning as he recalled the picture of the lonely wayfarer in the rain that had touched him so. "Oh, Eveliny!" he cried, "I never war so beset an' sorry an'--"

She struck his hand down; her eyes blazed. Her aspect was all instinct with anger.

"I do declar' I'll never furgive ye--ter spite him so--an' kem an' tell _me_! An' shame him so ez he can't hold his place--an' kem an' tell _me_! An' bow him down so ez he can't show his face whar he hev been so respected by all--an' kem an' tell _me_! An' all fur spite, fur he hev got nuthin' ye want now. An' I gin him up an' lef him lonely, an' all fur you-uns. Ye air mean, Abs'lom Kittredge, an' I'm the mos' fursaken fool on the face o' the yearth!"

He tried to speak, but she held up her hand in expostulation.

"Nare word--fur I won't answer. I do declar' I'll never speak ter ye agin ez long ez I live."

He flung away with a laugh and a jeer. "That's right," he said, encouragingly; "plenty o' men would be powerful glad ef thar wives would take pattern by that."

He caught up his hat and strode out of the room. He busied himself in stabling his horse, and in looking after the stock. He could hear the women's voices from the loft of the barn as they disputed about the best methods of tending the newly hatched chickens, that had chipped the sh.e.l.l so late in the fall as to be embarra.s.sed by the frosts and the coming cold weather. The last bee had ceased to drone about the great crimson prince's-feather by the door-step, worn purplish through long flaunting, and gone to seed. The clouds were creeping up and up the slope, and others were journeying hither from over the mountains. A sense of moisture was in the air, although a great column of dust sprang up from the dry corn-field, with panic-stricken suggestions, and went whirling away, carrying off withered blades in the rush. The first drops of rain were pattering, with a resonant timbre in the midst, when Pete came home with a newly killed deer on his horse, and the women, with fluttering skirts and sun-bonnets, ran swiftly across from the barn to the back door of the shed-room. Then the heavy downpour made the cabin rock.

"Why, Eveliny an' the baby oughtn't ter be out in this hyar rain--they'll be drenched," said the old woman, when they were all safely housed except the two. "Whar be she?"

"A-foolin' in the gyarden spot a-getherin' seed an' sech, like she always be," said the sister-in-law, tartly.

Absalom ran out into the rain without his hat, his heart in the clutch of a prescient terror. No; the summer was over for the garden as well as for him; all forlorn and rifled, its few swaying shrubs tossed wildly about, a mockery of the grace and bloom that had once embellished it.

His wet hair streaming backward in the wind caught on the laurel boughs as he went down and down the tangled path that her homesick feet had worn to the crag which overlooked the Cove. Not there! He stood, himself enveloped in the mist, and gazed blankly into the folds of the dun-colored clouds that with tumultuous involutions surged above the valley and baffled his vision. He realized it with a sinking heart. She was gone.

That afternoon--it was close upon nightfall--Stephen Quimbey, letting down the bars for the cows, noticed through the slanting lines of rain, serried against the ma.s.ses of sober-hued vapors which hid the great mountain towering above the Cove, a woman crossing the foot-bridge. He turned and lifted down another bar, and then looked again. Something was familiar in her aspect, certainly. He stood gravely staring. Her sun-bonnet had fallen back upon her shoulders, and was hanging loosely there by the strings tied beneath her chin; her brown hair, dishevelled by the storm, tossed back and forth in heavy wave-less locks, wet through and through. When the wind freshened they lashed, thong-like, her pallid oval face; more than once she put up her hand and tried to gather them together, or to press them back--only one hand, for she clasped a heavy bundle in her arms, and as she toiled along slowly up the rocky slope, Stephen suddenly held his palm above his eyes. The recognition was becoming definite, and yet he could scarcely believe his senses: was it indeed Evelina, wind-tossed, tempest-beaten, and with as many tears as rain-drops on her pale cheek? Evelina, forlorn and sorry, and with swollen sad dark eyes, and listless exhausted step--here again at the bars, where she had not stood since she dragged her wounded lover thence on that eventful night two years and more ago.

Resentment for the domestic treachery was uppermost in his mind, and he demanded surlily, when she had advanced within the sound of his words, "What hev ye kem hyar fur?"

"Ter stay," she responded, briefly.

His hand in an uncertain gesture laid hold upon his tuft of beard.

"Fur good?" he faltered, amazed.