V.

The arrival of Jerry Binwell and his little girl at Hiram Guyther’s cabin soon became known throughout the Cove, and the fact, which Ike shortly discovered, that the newcomers were regarded with disfavor by others did not tend to further commend them to him. He felt an odd sinking of the heart and a grotesque sort of mortification whenever he went to the mill or the store and encountered questions and comments concerning his father’s guests. Sometimes he was taken aside by a conservative old codger, and the queries were propounded in a mysterious and husky whisper which imparted additional urgency.

“They tell me ez _Jerry Binwell_ air a-visitin’ yer dad—air that a true word?”

And Ike would sulkily nod.

“What did he kem fur?”

“Ter get out’n the storm.”

“Storm’s been over a week an’ better”—with an implacable logic. Then, dredging with new energy for information—“When’s he goin’ away?”

“Dunno.”

“Whar’s he goin’ ter?” persistently.

“Dunno.”

“What’s he doin’ of?” changing the base of attack.

“Nuthin’.”

“What’s he say?”

“Ennything.”

“Waal sir!” in a tone of disappointment, the whole examination resulting in the total amount of nothing.

Out of Ike’s presence public opinion expressed itself more freely and it was unanimous. No one denied that it was a strange thing that Hiram Guyther, one of the most solid, respectable, and reliable men of the whole country-side, whose very name was a guarantee of good faith, should be harboring a graceless, worthless, neer-do-weel like Jerry Binwell, who was, moreover, suspected of treachery which had resulted in Abner’s blindness. The lines of demarkation between those of high character and those who lack the sterling virtues are strongly drawn and rigorously observed in the mountains. The stern and grim old Hiram himself was forced to recognize the incongruity of the situation and its utter irreconcilability with the popular estimation of himself and his household. But he maintained his ground as well as he might.

“Yaas,” he would drawl, “Jerry’s a-puttin’ up with we-uns now. Dunno how long he’ll stay. Till the spring o’ the year, mebbe. Naw, him an’ Abner don’t clash none. Naw, he don’t pester me, nuther.”

And with these baffling evasions he would ride away, leaving the gossips at the store or the mill drawing their chairs closer together, and knitting their brows, and shaking their heads.

It was all most ominous and depressing to Ike, for he was proud and keenly sensitive to any decline in public esteem; sometimes he was fairly tempted to tell that the old folks at his house had fallen victims to the witching charms of a noisy little body three feet high, who made them like everything she did, and do things of which they would never have believed themselves capable. Thus they tolerated Jerry for her sake. And then he held his peace for fear the gossips would say they were all touched in the head.

For certain severe elderly people who had visited the house—it had more visitors than usual—had observed in his hearing that they were sorry for his mother and his aunt Jemima;—“ter be cluttered up at thar time o’ life with a young child, special sech a one ez that, ez could no mo’ stan’ still ’n a pea on a hot shovel, an’ war a-laffin’ an’ a-hollerin’ all the time till a-body couldn’t hear thar own ears.”

Ike felt peculiar resentment against the propounders of these strictures, although he had not consciously fallen under the fascination of the little Rosamond. He could not however always disregard her hilarious challenges to play, but when he succumbed it was with a sort of surly surprise at his own relenting. He even consented to see-saw with her,—a pastime which she greatly affected,—although he was obliged to sit on a very short end of the plank thrust between the rails of the fence in order to balance her very small weight as she sat at the other extremity, on the inside of the fence. And there, as she swayed high and dropped low, beaming with smiles and pink with delight, she looked like a veritable rose, blown about in the playful wind. But Ike was less picturesque as he bobbed up and down very close indeed to the rails and the leaning cross-stakes. “I’ll butt my brains out ag’in these rails like a demented Billy-goat if I don’t mind,” he said to himself in dudgeon.

One day, when he and Skimpy had been visiting certain traps that they had jointly set in the woods, their homeward way led them past the store. They had had good luck with their snares, and their fine spirits responded alertly to a robust chorusing laugh that suddenly rang out from the dark interior of the building.

The boys quickened their steps; there was something unusual going on inside.

The brown, unpainted walls within, the shadowy beams and dusky rafters above, the burly boxes and barrels in the background, were dimly illumined by the one fibrous slant of sunshine through the window, which served to show too the long gaunt figure of the storekeeper standing near the entrance. He was swaying backward, laughing as he smote his thigh, and he called out, “Do it ag’in, Shanks! Do it ag’in!”

Then the boys observed that there was a large group of figures standing at one side, although not easily distinguishable since their brown jeans garb so assimilated with the mellow tint of the walls. The next minute Ike reached the door and the whole scene was distinct before him. In the midst of the circle stood Jerry Binwell, his coat lying on the floor, his hat hanging on the knob of a rickety chair. His thin, long face was flushed; he was laughing too and rubbing his hands, and walking to and fro a few steps each way. “Do it ag’in, Shanks,” once more called out Peter Sawyer.

There were friendly enough glances bent upon him, and everybody was laughing pleasantly, despite the pipes held between strong discolored teeth. Even old Jake Corbin had a reluctant twinkle among the many wrinkles that encircled his eyes as he sat smoking, his rickety chair tilted back against the wall.

“Pritty spry yit, fur a ole man,” declared Binwell, still rubbing his hands.

“Do it ag’in, Shanks!” rang out from the bystanders.

Binwell looked up for a moment, drawing back to the extreme end of the apartment. Suddenly he crouched and sprang into the air with an incredible lightness. It was a long oblique jump to the beam on which he caught; he did not wait a second but “skinned the cat” among the rafters with an admirable dexterity and dropped softly on his feet at the doorway.

Once more there was a guffaw. “Go it, Shanks!” “He’s a servigrous jumper, sure!” “Spry as a deer!”

It was a most pacific scene and the exhibition of agility seemed likely to promote only good fellowship and the pleasant passing of the hour until old Corbin remarked:

“Yes, Jerry’s a good jumper, an’ a good runner, too, I hev hearn.”

Binwell cast a quick glance over his shoulder; a light gleamed in his small, dark, defiant eye. Whether he did not pique himself on his speed, or whether he detected a sub-current of meaning in the comment, he was moved to demand abruptly:

“Whar did ye ever see me run?”

Old Corbin’s delight in the opportunity broadened his face by an inch or two. The display of intricate hieroglyphic wrinkles about his eyes was more than one might imagine possible to be described by age and fatness. His mouth distended to show the few teeth that had not yet forsaken his gums; his burly sides were shaking with laughter before he said, “I never _seen_ ye run, Jerry, but I hearn ez ye done some mighty tall runnin’ in the old war time.”

There was a shout of derision from the crowd, most of the men having served in one army or the other. The object of this barbed ridicule looked as if he might sink through the floor. His face flushed, his abashed eyes dropped, he stood quivering and abject before them all.

Ike had a quick pang of pity and resentment. And yet he was ashamed that this was the man who sat by his father’s hearth and shared their bread.

It was only for a moment that he was sorry for Binwell. The recovery from all semblance of shame or wounded pride was instantaneous as he retorted:

“That’s mighty easy ter say ’bout ennybody.” He whirled around on his light heel. “Naw, folks,” he cried out, “I ain’t much on the run; never footed it more’n jes’ fairly. But I tell ye—ef ye be tired o’ seein’ me jump—my jumpin’ ain’t nuthin’ ter my heftin’. I kin lift the heaviest man hyar an’ jump with him. Less see,” he affected to turn about and survey the burly, stalwart crowd. “Who pulls the beam at the highest figger?”

He hesitated for a moment; then with a sudden dart that was like the movement of a fish, he seized on old Corbin.

“Naw! naw!” wheezed the fat old fellow as the stringy, muscular arms encircled him. He strove to hold to his chair; it fell over in the fracas and eluded his grasp; he clutched at the window-sill—vainly; his hat dropped off; his face was scarlet, and he roared for help.

It would doubtless have been extended had not the quick and agile Jerry forestalled the heavy mountaineers. He lifted Corbin with a mighty effort; he even carried out his boast of jumping—not high, after all, but high enough for the wildly clutching old man to catch the low beam with both hands.

Binwell suddenly loosed his hold and left him swaying ponderously to and fro, two or three feet from the floor, in imminent danger of falling, sputtering and wheezing, and red in the face and with eyes starting out of his head. Then his tormentor, fearful doubtless of the recoil of public opinion, caught up his hat and coat and with a loud scornful laugh ran out of the store and disappeared up the leafy road.

To a man of ordinary weight and agility it would have been easy enough to spring to the floor. But the cumbersome bulk and slow, clumsy habit of old Corbin lent the situation real danger. There was a rush to his assistance—some officious hand thrust an empty barrel beneath his feet, hoping to afford him support, but it toppled under his weight and down he came, amidst a great rending of staves, as the barrel collapsed beneath him.

He was unhurt, although greatly shaken. He had been frightened at first; perhaps there was never so angry a man in the limits of the Cove as he was now. Again and again, as he was helped to his chair, he declared that he would revenge himself on Jerry Binwell, and the sympathetic crowd expressed their sense of the injury and the danger to which he had been subjected, as well as the indignity offered him. To Ike’s extreme amazement Binwell’s name was often coupled with that of his father, or the blind man, his uncle. Now, ordinarily, Ike would have felt that these two spirited and responsible people were amply able to answer for themselves; but he knew that it was only by an odd combination of circumstances that they were associated, almost with the intimacy of family relations, with such a person as Binwell. It implied a friendship for him which he knew they did not feel, and an indorsement of him which they were not prepared to give. Secure in their own sense of rectitude and good repute this possibility of a decline in public esteem had never, he was sure, occurred to them. Alas, Rosamondy, he heartily regretted that she had ever put her dimpled foot across their threshold, and yet he stipulated again within himself that it was not in his heart to wish any houseless creatures out of the shelter they had found.

He had a vague terror of this false position in which the family was placed. He knew, with suddenly awakened forecast, that the antagonism to Jerry Binwell would not end here. Old Corbin’s spleen that might once have passed for naught was now rendered a valid and righteous anger in public opinion, and he would have the sympathy and aid of all the country-side. But how or why, in the name of justice, could it include his father and his blind uncle, who had done naught after all but feed the hungry, and forgive the enemy, and house the roofless vagrant.

He lingered for a time after old Corbin had gone to Sawyer’s house to get “a bite an’ rest his bones,” listening to the younger men discuss the incident, and comment on Binwell’s strength.

When Ike at last rose and started, Skimpy started too.

“Skimp!” called the storekeeper after him, “yer mam’s got suthin’ fur ye to do at the house. Go thar!”

Skimpy obediently turned from the road into the by-path and Ike went on, his heart swelling with indignation and his eyes hot with tears. He knew that his friend was to be withheld from his association after this, lest he might come under the influence of so worthless and injurious an example as Jerry Binwell. He trudged along home, wishing that his father might have beheld the scene and wondering if that would have urged him to take some decided action in the case.

Ike had an odd indisposition to relate it all. He had been trained in a maxim,—good enough so far as it goes,—“If you can’t say anything kind of your neighbor, say nothing.” The only manifestation of his opinion was expressed in deeds, not in words. His mother had looked sharply at him from time to time during the past week, and this afternoon, as she opened suddenly the shed-room door and saw him casting down a great pile of bark, and chips, and sticks of wood, ready for the morning fires, she said unexpectedly:

“Ike, ain’t ye ailin’ nowhar?”

“Naw’m,” he replied, drawing himself up with stalwart pride, “I feel ez solid an’ sound ez a rock.”

“I ’lowed ye mus’ be sick—ye ’pear so sober-faced, an’ occupy yerself no ways sca’cely, ’cept in workin’—tendin’ on the wood-pile, an’ packin’ the water, an’ drivin’ the cow-critter. I ain’t hed ez much wood hyar ter burn, nor water ter cook with, nor the cow ez constant at the bars, fur ten year.”

Ike turned and glanced reflectively about him. The mountain, gorgeous in autumnal array, loomed above; a blue sky looked pensively down; some aerial craft had spread a cloud-sail, and the wind was fair.

“I never ’lowed ter feel sech pleasure in a wood-pile,” he said, meditatively. “I hev made up my mind ez I ain’t a-goin’ ter ondertake to be a shirk in this world.”

She understood him instantly. As the door swung a little ajar she looked back over her shoulder through the shed-room into the main room of the cabin. Binwell was not there; no one was visible in the ruddy glare of the fire illuminating the brown walls but the little Rosamond and the blind man. She had elected to consider herself some neighing, prancing steed, and Abner held her by one long, golden curl, that served as reins. A short tether, to be sure, but she curveted, and stamped, and laughed as few horses have ever done. The reflection of her merriment was in the smile on the blind man’s face. Her very shadow was glad, as it sported with the firelight on the floor.