Part 7

“Do you reckon it ’uz the devil, Mis’ Dolly?” asked Evvie, as if sanity hung on my answer.

“Not at all, Evvie. The man was drunk probably.”

“No, he wa’n’t drunk,” interposed the sister. “It run him round an’ round the tree, an’ he could feel its breath on his neck, hot as fire.”

I moved toward the water-bucket, and courtesy demanded that she should go to the spring for fresh water. With her disappearance the room lost its spirit of combat. With swimming head and drowning struggle--how far were we from the Greeks and the bright gods of the woods?--I did what I could to reassure Evvie.

“I ain’t afeard when Judd’s here,” she said. “Judd ain’t afeard of anything. He’ll stay at home more when the baby’s here. Don’t men always think a lot o’ their babies, Mis’ Dolly?”

I lied vigorously, and Evvie was smiling when the sister-in-law returned. And she was smiling when I left, for I had promised that her mother would come next day to stay for a week.

I reached home about dark, saddled a mule and rode to the Kane farm. From there I went to see Jane Drake. Yes, Jane would take care of the Kane household--but “not more’n till Saturday ’count o’ meetin’ at Stecoa”--and let Mrs. Kane go to Evvie.

This done, I returned to nursing my canteloupe patch on the ridge, which that one year was a delicious success. But even under the spell of so rare a triumph, life was hardly tolerable on my peaks, with Evvie awaiting her fate in the shadows below. So I ordered the small telescope that I had wanted for a decade. Though treated later with superior scorn by my astronomer friends, it did serve as a transport to regions where nothing mattered. And when I resumed earthly relationships Evvie’s boy was two weeks old.

In the more remote hollows of the mountains birth goes the indifferent way of nature: gliding as the seasons for the most part, but too often ruthless, confounding as storm. Evvie, so fragile and so young, barely lived. I went once more to the shack, going down the mountain with Mrs. Kane and little Tommie, taking old Bill, the mule, to help us climb back. Mrs. Mason, senior, met us at the door. When the customary greetings were over--greetings that never, under any circumstances, are hurried in the mountains--the mother-in-law put in her very just complaint.

“Law, I’m glad ye got here! I kain’t spen’ my time waitin’ on a girl ’at won’t try to set up, an’ her baby two weeks old. Won’t eat nothin’ nuther, makes no difference what I fix. I baked her some light bread, an’ put ’lasses on it, an’ some butter I brought from home, an’ she won’t tech it. She’ll not git well till she tries to, an’ I kain’t wait round fer her to make up her mind. All my own work’s to do, an’ I got to be at it. You know how it is, Mis’ Kane. You kain’t stay here all the time no more’n I can.”

As on my first visit, I asked “Where is Judd?” and I received the same information. “He’s gone out to kill a squirrel.”

Evvie, who was lying with her eyes shut, said with startling vigor: “He’s been gone since yisterday.”

Judd’s mother looked toward the bed, and her eyes snapped. “You kain’t expect a man to lay round home ferever waitin’ fer a woman to git up. I’ve had ten young-uns an’ I never stayed in bed more’n nine days with ary one of ’em. In two weeks I was out in the crap, if it was crap-time, doin’ my part.”

There was a big crack in the cabin near Evvie’s bed. Her eyes sought the opening in a manner that told me she often found mental escape that way. It was obvious that her last hope was crushed. The baby had come, but had wrought no miracle. She knew, and all present there knew, that Judd was out on a bootlegging adventure; but it was not to be admitted in look or speech.

Evvie gazed through the crack, seeing nothing but the face of a hill that seemed about to fall on to the cabin. She stared as if her eyes would tunnel through it, and a delirious flare came over her face.

“Take that hill away, mommie,” she said, in a fret.

Mrs. Kane surprised me. “I kain’t take hit away, Evvie--but I can take you over hit,” she said, making aspirates in her clear determination.

“Can you set up on ol’ Bill? Tommie’ll ride behind you an’ hold you on. I’ll tote the baby, Mis’ Dolly’ll lead Bill, an’ we’ll get you home.”

Evvie hardly knew there was a baby, but she caught at the word home--“Oh, mommie, I can set up!”

“Set up an’ ride a mule!” cried Mrs. Mason. “An’ me here niggerin’ fer ye, an’ ye makin’ out ye couldn’t move!”

I made no protest; for I recalled an incident of the days before Evvie’s marriage. She was ill, and her mother had sent hurriedly for me. I went, accompanied by a friend from the region of grand opera and fever-thermometers, who happened to be in the highlands. She applied her thermometer and found that Evvie’s fever was running high. We fumbled about with improvised ministrations until Evvie asked for a “flitter.” Mrs. Kane was mainly worried because the child had eaten nothing since the day before, and when I saw her face light up at Evvie’s request, I hastily withdrew with my friend.

“Why did you leave?” she asked. “The child may be killed. Her mother may be ignorant enough to give her that fritter, or whatever she calls it.”

“Yes, she is going to get the flitter, and that is why I left. I had to take your disruptive civilized mind off the current. I want Evvie to live.”

The next day my friend returned to the patient, expecting, I am sure, to find a house in mourning. Evvie was sitting on the porch stringing beans. Mrs. Kane’s face was luminous.

“Evvie got better right away,” she explained, “soon as she et them three flitters I give her.”

Remembering that result, and seeing the glaze of resolution on her mother’s face, I meekly became a party to the process of getting Evvie out of the hollow. We formed under Mrs. Kane’s direction: I first, leading the mule, and Evvie in the saddle, leaning back on Tommie’s shoulder, quite safe with his strong little arms about her waist. Mrs. Kane followed, carrying the baby. And so Evvie came home.

III

Evvie did not lie in bed long after returning to her mother’s house. She sat in shadowy corners, unseeing, uncaring. Milk sometimes would be swallowed when brought to her; but eating required impossible effort.

“She don’t hardly know me,” said her mother. “Sometimes I’m ’most afeard of her. She might turn an’ claw me with them hands like chicken feet. She’s jest yeller skin an’ bones, like a quare little old woman.”

Judd did not come near her, and we heard of no inquiries on his part. But Cleve came out from Asheville and walked under my apple-trees.

“I can’t fight Judd,” he said. “He’s a heavyweight and I’m not. And I won’t gun him. But I know where his blockade still is.”

“Oh, Cleve, would you tell?”

“No, but it’s hard not to. He’d go to jail, an’ she could get her divorce.”

“And he would be out again in six months, to go gunning for _you_. He wouldn’t have your scruples. Besides, Cleve, if Evvie were free, you couldn’t take on a burden like that.”

“Burden! Mis’ Dolly, I’d be willin’ to carry Evvie with one arm and do my work with the other. You don’t know how a man feels when there ain’t but one woman fer him an’ another man’s got her--a man ’at wouldn’t pull her out o’ the fire! But I’m goin’ back to Asheville, an’ I won’t try to see her. Here’s my pocketbook. I want you to lend her father some money, and pay yerse’f out o’ this.”

He dropped the pocketbook and went, with his face oddly reddened after being so white. Evvie’s doctor from Carson was paid; the parcel-post brought oranges, lettuce, and such to the Kanes’ scant winter table. Gradually Evvie began to eat the food that interested her because it was unusual. Her eyes grew gentler and her glance rested intelligently on people and things. She would smile as her father told some pitiful joke, trying to ignore the fact that his daughter wasn’t “jest right.”

The growing baby exhibited Merlin traits which made him a favorite. One day Evvie’s wandering eyes fell upon him as he lay in my lap. Her glance stopped and became uneasy.

“Is that mommie’s baby?” she said.

“No, he’s your very own, Evvie, and as fine as they are made. Look! He has your big eyes, and just see how heavy! Let him lie on your lap a minute and you’ll find out.”

I started to lift him to her, but her look turned to swift terror and she shrank away. It was the beginning of health, however. A day or two afterward she asked me how long it would be before she died, and I knew she had begun to think about living.

“That depends on yourself, Evvie.”

“Could I live if I wanted to?” she asked, with incredulous hope.

“You could be well in two months.”

“After ever’thing?”

“Every single thing.”

“Mommie don’t want me home with a baby.”

“Your mother wouldn’t give up Bennie if Judd came with ten sheriffs to take him.”

“Could Judd take him?” she asked, with vehemence that was full of promise.

“You left Judd, you know, and the law might let the father have the child.”

“When he was so mean to me?”

“Oh! You think he was mean?”

“He’d leave me in that holler by myse’f an’ stay out all night huntin’.”

“The law might think a wife ought to have the courage to put up with that.”

“He knocked me inter the briars when I tried to foller him.”

“M-m-m! How long was that,” said I, touching the baby, “before your young man got here?”

“’Bout a month. I told him I’s afeard to stay in the shack, an’ he said I wanted to foller him ’cause I thought he was goin’ to Lizzie Bowles.”

It was joy to me to see her eyes flood burningly with temper.

“That’s where he _was_ goin’, too! He used to talk to her ’fore we’s married, an’ she’d jest come back from the cotton-mills in South C’lina with two silk dresses. They’d got up a big dance an’ I knowed Judd was agoin’. An’ he knocked me inter the briars by the trail round the corn patch.”

“The law might consider that,” I said. “Don’t worry about losing your baby. But first make sure that you want him.”

“I b’lieve I could hold him a bit now if you’ll set him here.”

I laid the baby in her lap and slipped out to tell Mrs. Kane. In six weeks Evvie was helping her mother with the housework. Spring came, and I bribed her to work in the garden by supplying the preposterously growing Bennie with clothes. By June she was again intrenched in her loveliness; not quite so plump, but round enough, and with her old wild-rose color. By and by she was duly divorced. Judd, in South Carolina, made no protest. Evvie’s perilous excursion seemed over, with no obvious reminder save the incredible baby.

She wore the fashionable knee dress, and with her hair in unfashionable braids down her back seemed to be the child-sister of the youngster that scrambled about her.

“Your little brother will soon be big enough to go to school with you,” said the new County Commissioner on his rounds, hoping to be pleasant.

Evvie stood mute and fiery red. “Don’t tell him the baby’s mine, mommie,” she whispered later to her mother. It must have seemed strange to her--that bubbling other existence around her feet--and a little embarrassment was, I thought, quite proper.

With autumn and corn-gathering Judd returned. It was a good season in the woods for the blockaders, and Judd had probably made arrangements in the “South” for profitable sales. He announced that he was buying calves for the winter and wanted to lay in a supply of feed for them. I never heard of his purchasing any calves, but he went about getting a little corn here and there at the cheap harvest price. Perhaps some one told him that his boy was a lad to be proud of, for he came one day to see him. I had walked over to the Kanes with Cleve, and we were about to take our leave. Evvie shook hands with Judd quite prettily.

“Golly, Evvie, you’ve come back hard!” he said. “Let’s set on the porch.”

He had forgotten his son, but Evvie brought him out, and Judd had difficulty in maintaining indifference. He looked about and saw Cleve.

“Hello, Cleve I This chap kinder takes my eye.”

“I reckon,” said Cleve, “he ain’t so fine as Lizzie Bowles’s boy.”

“That kid ain’t none o’ mine,” said Judd, too quickly.

“Lizzie’ll give you a chance to swear to that, anyhow.”

“What yer warmin’ chair-bottoms round here fer, Cleve Saunders?”

“He’s here,” said Evvie, her cheeks pink-spotted, “’cause he’s the best friend the baby’s got.”

“I’m the kid’s father, don’t you fergit, an’ I’ve got some rights. That divorce judge didn’t put no paper ’twixt me an’ the kid.”

“You can see him whenever you want to,” said Evvie, “so long as you don’t make trouble fer anybody that’s been as good to us as Cleve.”

Their eyes met and battled--no doubt reminiscently--and Judd capitulated. “All right,” he said.

From that time Evvie was sorely troubled by his visits. “I wouldn’t mind his comin’,” she said, “if he didn’t keep aggervatin’ me to live with him.”

“Why don’t you take Cleve, Evvie, and end the bother?”

“I don’t want to marry,” she said, with a shudder that was a broadside of confession. I was cheered. At least she would never be reconquered by Judd.

But the situation was pressing to a change; and finally it came. Judd was captured by Federal deputies. I went to Sam for particulars.

“They took him red-handed, stirrin’ the mash,” said Sam. “He fit like a bear, an’ kicked the officer in the mouth. It’ll mean the Pen, shore, an’ Evvie’ll be shet of him fer a while.”

“Won’t somebody bond him out?”

“His own folks don’t think ’nough of him fer that. I hearn his own father say he wa’n’t wuth a June bug with a catbird after it. Nobody’s goin’ to risk losin’ a farm fer that thing.”

I went home reassured. If Cleve would only pick up and woo furiously, instead of wistfully accepting mere smiles from Evvie, he could win, I felt, long before Judd’s reappearance.

The sight of Evvie hurrying toward me gave me no uneasiness. She was lugging the baby, in too much haste to let him toddle.

“Mis’ Dolly,” she began, “Judd’s the baby’s poppie, an’ he’s took. Nobody’ll go on his bond, an’ ever’body’s talkin’ hard against him, an’ him Bennie’s poppie. I been thinkin’ of that trouble ’way back, an’ it wasn’t all his fault.”

“You fell into the briars, I suppose?”

“No, but I was aggervatin’ him. I hated Lizzie Bowles an’ her silk dresses, an’ when he swore an’ told me to go back, I picked up a rock an’ if he hadn’t jumped I’d a broke his head with it. I was ashamed to tell you then. I was wild mad, an’ he _ought_ to ’a’ throwed me inter the briars. I wasn’t any he’p to him in the field, an’ when I got sick I wasn’t any he’p in the house, like his mother said. I didn’t do my part at all.”

“You did all you could, Evvie,” I said, with no effect on the tide pouring from her heart.

“An’ way back, when we’s livin’ with mommie, I was aggervatin’. At first when he’d pout an’ wouldn’t come to the table, I’d slip out with something fer him to eat, an’ beg till he’d take it, but once when we had company an’ he’d made me ashamed ’cause he went to the barn an’ wouldn’t come to breakfast, I got me a bundle o’ blade-fodder an’ took it to him. I told him if he wanted to live with the steers he could eat with ’em too. I was shore mean. An’, Mis’ Dolly, I want you to go to Carson jail an’ see Judd, an’ tell him when he comes back from the Pen I’ll be ready an’ we’ll begin all over. He’ll know I’ll keep my word.”

It was useless to remind her of pain that she could not recall; but I spoke of her father and mother. Would she break their hearts again?

“But look at Bennie!” she cried. “He’s gettin’ more like his father ever’ day. If I’m hard on Judd now, how can I look at my baby? Ever’body’s against him. You’re hard as the others. Won’t you go, Mis’ Dolly?”

“No, I won’t. You don’t know what you are doing.”

“Then I’ll have to git somebody else to go.”

Her message went to Judd by some busybody, and I wired to Asheville for Cleve. When he arrived on the next train I was at the station. “The thing to do, Cleve,” I said, “is to bail him out and let him come home.”

Cleve, knowing so well the Evvie that eluded him, saw the point at once. He also saw that neither he nor I should figure as bondsman.

“It’ll be hard work,” he said, “but I’ll find somebody.”

And over the country he went, picking out men whom he knew to be secret abetters of Judd, and working on their fear of his turning informer. The amount of bail was made up, and Judd was free. Evvie thought that he would come directly to her, but first he went to Mossy Creek to see “the boys.” They got up a dance, and it would have seemed ungrateful of Judd not to remain for it. When he reached Evvie his face was still slightly swollen from drink and revelry, but his spirits were riding high. Friends had gathered at the Kanes’ for the evening, and Judd began to recount his triumphs in jail.

“They made me president o’ their club soon’s I got there, an’ kicked the other feller out. We had some reg’lations, you bet! Ever’ feller that come into jail had to pay fifty cents fer terbacker; if he didn’t we flogged him. They wouldn’t let us have whiskey, an’ that was tough, you bet! We’d have court, an’ try the fellers, an’ it was a purty good life if we’d had more to eat. They’s all sorry to see me go, an’ I promised to smuggle in some hot stuff to ’em if there was any way. Mebbe I can work it with a mulatter girl ’at cooks fer ’em--right purty--color of a hick’ry leaf ’fore frost--she’ll he’p me, you bet! I’ll try it to-morr’ when me an’ Evvie go to Carson to hitch up. Some quare, ain’t it, marryin’ yer own wife? An’ what about yer kid goin’ on two at yer weddin’?”

Choking and helpless, I slipped away from the sound of his voice. Sam, walking home by my road, began to talk.

“Reckon you noticed Evvie in that corner while Judd was talkin’. Ef you’d a cut off her head at the neck it wouldn’t ’a’ bled a drap.”

I could not answer, and hurried on, finding Cleve on my doorstep. I took him into the house, my tears of rage and failure dropping; but when the full light of the lamp fell upon his face I thought no more of my own misery.

“There’s twelve hours yet, Cleve,” I said. “Evvie is not an utter fool.”

But he wouldn’t speak. For over an hour he sat by my fire, a humped reproach. I exhausted every consolation, even to telling him that she wasn’t worth it. Then he lifted his eyes, full of such mourning scorn that I became as silent as himself. There was a tap at the door, slight enough to be Evvie’s. I asked Cleve to go up-stairs, saying that I would call him if he was wanted. When he was gone I opened the door and heard Evvie’s voice.

“They’s so many at our house to-night. Ever’ bed’s full. I thought I’d come here to sleep. You don’t keer, do you?”

“I’m glad to see you, Evvie. Come, warm a little, and jump into bed. You’ve been running.”

“Yes, I was afraid--but--I had to come.”

Her little body was quivering. I sat her down, but did not dare to give a sign of sympathy that might plunge her into hysteria. I took up a book and sat reading until she became very still. We were in the kitchen, which was large and possessed a big, ugly fireplace. At the right of the fireplace, in the corner, ran a short flight of stairs, and under the stairs was a closet with an opening for a half-door. This opening was simply curtained.

I had held my book for ten minutes or more, when we heard sounds of talk and laughter from the road. I recognized Judd’s voice, and a loud knock followed. Instantly Evvie rose, stooped, and, darting like a bee, vanished behind the little curtain of the closet. There was hardly room for her among the pans and old ovens, but she scuttled her way, and there was silence. Then I opened the outer door and saw Judd with several companions.

“Me an’ the boys are lookin’ fer Evvie. We started to have a reel at bedtime an’ found she’d gone. I ’lowed right away she’d skipped over here, bein’ she’s crazy ’bout you. Reckon I skeered her a little talkin’ so much ’bout them jail fellers; but I’ll make it all right. I’m goin’ to be square with Evvie this time.”

He began to peek around me.

“Why--ain’t she here? She gone to bed?”

“No, Judd. Did you stop at Len’s?”

“We hollered, an’ she wasn’t there.”

“You’d better go on to Sam’s then,” I urged, following, or rather leading him away. “Take the short trail by the hemlocks.”

When they were certainly gone I went in. Cleve and Evvie were sitting by the fire. Her arms were around his neck and she was crying steadily. Cleve’s arms were determinedly in the right place. The next day they took the early train for Carson, and by noon were safely married.

Yesterday Evvie’s mother said to me: “You ought to go over to Asheville, Mis’ Dolly, jest to see how Evvie keeps that little house primped up. They’s water in it, hot an’ cold, an’ ever’thing, like I always wanted her to have. I reckon she’s ’bout fergot that shack in the holler.”

I tell myself that it is as well with Evvie as life permits it to be with the most of us; but she is now only eighteen, chiselled in beauty and colored with youth; and I try not to wonder what would happen if she should ever fall in love.

VI

MY WILD-HOG CLAIM: A DUBIOUS ASSET

I