The
Boy
Who
Brought
Christmas

“‘We reckoned, Grover Cleveland and me did, that this yer sprigged pattern would be becomin’ to your build’”

The Boy
Who Brought
Christmas

by
Alice Morgan
Illustrated by
John Jackson

Garden City New York
Doubleday, Page
& Company
1911

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY PERRY MASON & COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY ALICE MORGAN
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to thank the Editors of The American Press Association for their kind permission to reprint Chapters I and II of this story; and the Editors of The Youth’s Companion for their courtesy in permitting the republication of Chapters III and IV.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

The
Boy
Who
Brought
Christmas

The Boy
Who Brought
Christmas

I
THE ITINERANT CHRISTMAS TREE

Old Man Ledbetter came jolting along the stony mountain road in an ox cart, the tin-tipped ends of the shoe-string that confined his plaited beard dancing upon his breast, his hazel whipstock lying at his feet, and a hard, stumpy hand spread out upon either knee to hold himself steady. Without any gee-hawing on his part his yoked steeds turned at the ford and staggered clumsily into the Junaluska. In midstream a shallow swirl of water came circling about his feet, but, though he may have pressed his hands harder upon his knees, the only perceptible preparation he made for a possible submerging was the shifting of his tobacco into the other cheek.

But from the footlog below, a call, piping but authoritative, challenged his attention.

“Hi, gran’daddy! he didn’t cross the log; you reckon he waded the branch? Dixie and me’s done lost the trail!”

“Gee up,” the old man reached for his whip and was soon upon the sandy terra firma of the other side, submissively awaiting his grandson’s pleasure.

“Here, sir, here!” The puzzled Dixie had his nose pressed down to an equivocal impression where the sand of the road had spread itself through the weedy border. “Now foller, old boy; foller I say!”

“The puzzled Dixie had his nose pressed down to an equivocal impression where the sand of the road had spread itself through the weedy border”

The gesture of the grimy little hand was imperative, and Dixie sniffed among the dried weeds; then, closely nosing the ground, circled among the cart wheels but, baffled, squatted whimpering upon his haunches.

“You-all trackin’ a rabbit, Grover Cleveland?” The old man facetiously scrutinized both dog and boy.

In the North Carolina mountains there were in the time of my story and still are many namesakes of the great democrat, but our little hero was recognized far and wide as the child of the party. A sturdy, clear-eyed, true-hearted little mountaineer, the party was proud of him and no one ever gave him anything less than his full Christian name.

He was an orphan and grandmotherless; he and his grandfather lived alone, with no woman to keep them comfortable. These facts alone would have secured for him abundant sympathy from a simple-hearted, kindly people; but, in addition to these titles to favour, his grandfather was respected as an upright man and one of the oldest and richest residents of the county, owning many acres of land—not of richest quality to be sure—but as good as any for enumeration. So for miles around the child was welcomed into every mountain cabin, and no home so poor that he was permitted to leave it without some token of its owner’s kindly interest, a pair of home-spun, home-knit stockings or mittens or a needed patch upon jacket or trousers.

He was a very small boy to be out in the woods alone with his dog; for, though the sunny slopes were warm, deciduous foliage lay rustling or sodden upon the ground and snow whitened the shaded clefts and hollows of the higher peaks. His old soft hat covered only the back of his head and in front of it a fringe of blond hair bristled aggressively above blue eyes that scintillated with excitement. He wore clumsy copper-toed shoes and warm stockings wrinkled about his ankles, the dangling ends of the parti-coloured strings that gartered them showing below the short patched trousers.

“No!” he cried disdainfully, as if he had years ago lost interest in small game, “it’s old Sandy Claus! Cap’n Wiley says he’s got a den somewheres up on the Bald. He’s been down to the Pistopals’ meetin’-house and left ’em a whole pack of things and they’re a-goin’ to hang every last one of ’em on to a tree; and a-Chrisamus all the Pistopal girls and boys is goin’ to pick ’em off for keeps. But he ain’t left nary thing for the Methdises, or the Presaterians or the Red-Baptises or the Yaller-Baptises. Don’t you reckon that’s a low-down trick, gran’daddy? He was down yer last night agin with another pack o’ things for ’em and he come afoot this time for me and Dixie’s tracked him; we’ve done follered his tracks to the ford but we can’t strike his trail on t’other side. Git out, gran’daddy, and help us!”

“Yaas, Grover Cleveland, granddad’ll shore do what he kin for you,” the old man kept a serious face and began a clumsy descent, “but what you aim to do when you come on to him? You aim to clean him out?”

“No, I ain’t goin’ to tech nary thing ’thout he tells me; but I aim to let on to him that the Red-Baptises and the Yaller-Baptises and the Presaterians is jes’ as good as the Pistopals; and the Methdises is a heap better’n any of ’em (you and me is Methdises, ain’t we gran’daddy?) and I don’t guess he’ll think I’m a storyin’; do you gran’daddy?”

“Not if he’s as knowin’ as I take him to be, he won’t.”

Gran’daddy mounted the footlog and steadied himself by the hand rail as he crossed, while boy and dog scampered like squirrels ahead of him. On the other side he pretended to identify every print the boy discovered as track of deer, coon, bear, or catamount; there was nothing indefinite that might stand for a possible Santa Claus.

“He must have waded a right smart,” there was a disappointed quiver in the shrill treble, “so’s to throw us off the track; you reckon he kept to the branch as far up as the mill, gran’daddy?”

“It looks right much like he’s just criss-crossed first one side the branch and then t’other; anyway he’s got the sleight of coverin’ up his tracks. I reckon we’ll have to give it up, Grover Cleveland. Gran’daddy’s powerful rushed for time to-day.”

The old man recrossed the log, got into the wagon, and started on his jogging way, the boy a quiet, drooping little figure beside him.

“That’s a mighty low-down trick in Old Sandy Claus to take and leave you out, Grover Cleveland. Them Pistopals is the no-countest critters to be found in these yer mountings.”

“If I was the boss of all the meetin’-houses I wouldn’t have any but jes’ one, so’s Old Sandy Claus ’ud have to do ’em all alike,” the treble weakened and the boy gazed off into the woods with suspicious intensity.

“Now don’t you go to takin’-on, Grover Cleveland; maybe you and me can git up a Christmas tree all to ourselves; how’d that do? I reckon ole gran’dad’s about as rich right now as ary somebody round yer. I’ve just sold Copperhead Hill to the mining company and got the money down, two hundred and five dollars!” For a moment the old man gloated in silence over his wealth, for among these North Carolina mountaineers commerce is mostly carried on by barter and cash in hand is a scarce commodity.

“The Pistopals’ Chrisamus tree is only jes’ a holly”—gradually as the new idea had possessed his mind the limp little head had faced front again—“I clum up into that thar fiddle-leaf poplar that grows front of the meetin’-house winder and looked in, and there ain’t many berries on it at all; there’s a heap prettier ones in our woods.”

“Certainly there is, Grover Cleveland. There’s a hundred in Whiteoak Gulley that’s jes’ the shape of a yaller-pine burr, and all shinin’ with berries. You and me’ll take Butterfly and Bonaparte up thar and we’ll haul one of them ar holly bushes down to the house right soon, we will.”

“Them Pistopals has got theirs sot up in a box like it growed there.” The blue eyes, though encircled with a tale-telling sedimentary deposit, were now lifted brightly to the kind old face and for gran’daddy there was no retreat.

“By gum, we’ll set our tree up in a box in our t’other room like it growed there too.”

“And le’s don’t jes’ you and me have it all to ourselves, gran’daddy. Le’s have something for Vance Long and Harve Edney too; his pa’s a Red Baptis’ and his ma’s a Methdis’, but I reckon Harve’s the biggest part Methdis’ cause he never does me mean. And I’d be proud to put a hymn-book on for Suly Jordan; she sings so good and she tied up my toe in turpentine that day I stubbed it. And there’s Zeb’lon, old Aunt Dicey’s gran’son—looks like he’s growed bigger’n there’s any call for—but he has troubles yet jes’ like little fellers. Ole man Sumter, he shot Zeb’s tame deer last Friday, and Zeb and me, we got to it ’fore it was plumb dead and it looked up at Zeb, and Zeb he cried sure-’nough tears, he did. So you see Zeb’s only a boy yet and I don’t want to forgit him a-Chrisamus.”

“Yaas, Grover Cleveland, we’ll have a present on that ar tree for Zeb and Suly and for every Methdis’ boy and girl in Junaluska. There can’t be more’n a dozen of ’em since old man Simpson and his children and his gran’children and all his kinfolks left and jined the Baptises. And you can count their mas and their pas in too. But I’ll have to depend on you a heap, Grover Cleveland, gran’daddy never did see a Christmas tree in all his life; it’s a new institution in these mountings. Now if your gran’ma or your ma was alive they could help us out o’ this scrape, but”——he leaned over, trailed his whiplash in the sand and watched it reminiscently.

“And there’s two or three old women I want to remember; there’s old Aunt Dicey, she and your gran’ma was always close friends. I believe I’ll put a new frock on the Christmas tree for her. And ’way off up in Cutter’s Cove there’s Dan Cutter’s widow; she and your gran’ma was girls together, a pretty pair, too. I won’t pass her by. And just ’cross the branch from her is where Sam Long’s got his family stowed away. His mother—she’s a queer ole stick as ever was—but they do say that Sam’s wife does the old woman mean, so I’ll give her a frock just to show ’em all that she’s some thought of. If them old critters don’t see a Christmas tree this year, the chances is they’ll die ’thout ever seein’ one. Haw, Bonaparte! By gum, if we’d a’ been a steam car we’d have run plumb over old Mis’ Jimson’s cow; ’pears like she ain’t got heart in her to get out of the way; I reckon that pore old somebody ain’t got enough for herself to eat, let alone the cow. Gran’son, you jes’ get over in behind thar and heave her out that thar corn that’s under the bag of meal.”

“Ain’t she a Pistopal cow, gran’daddy?”

“I ’low she is, gran’son, but she’s got a whole rotation of stomachs and when they’re all hungry at once it must give her a powerful gone feelin’. I’ll put on a new frock for old Mis’ Jimson. I don’t reckon she ever had a store frock in her life and she ain’t so old yet but what she can turn out of her loom a frock that’ll outwear three of the store kind, but it’ll be a change for her.”

“O but, gran’daddy! gran’daddy! them Pistopals is right mean, they are, and ole Mis’ Jimson’s a Pistopal!”

“So she is, Grover Cleveland, so she is. I never thought of that”—for a minute they jogged along in silence—“I can’t somehow ’count for that, gran’son; thar’s a mistake somewhar—Mis’ Jimson’s a good woman. Anyway she can’t git down to the Pistopal meetin’-house a-Christmas; she’s got a risin’ on her leg.”

“Why, gran’daddy, old Mis’ Jimson can’t go anywhere! She couldn’t even git into this yer wagon so as we-all could carry her!”

“I’m ’feared you’re right, Grover Cleveland; now that’s another difficulty——”

“And all them other old women, gran’daddy—how’re they going to git down to our Chrisamus tree, and how’re they goin’ to git back again?”

“That certainly is a puzzler, gran’son. I reckon we-all will have to sleep on to that. If your mother was alive now, she’d know just how to take hold”——the old man dropped his elbows upon his knees, doubling himself in sad retrospection, and the little boy slipped off the seat in an effort to imitate the position. On his knees, holding to the front of the wagon box, he solved the problem.

“Hi, gran’daddy!” he shouted, clutching the old man’s trouserlegs to help himself to his feet, “me and you’ll stand that ar Chrisamus tree up in the wagon and we’ll hitch Bonaparte and Butterfly to it and we’ll carry it round an’ pick it as we go!”

“That’s the talk, Grover Cleveland!” the old man brought down upon his knee a big emphatic hand covering there two little wincing ones; “your ma’d have thought of that, too.”

“And I don’t want to pass any boy’s or girl’s house without stoppin’, gran’daddy, even if they’s Pistopals; I ain’t mad at ary one of ’em but Williebelle Greenlee, and now I done forgot what I’m mad at her for.”

“I don’t aim to ’lowance you, Grover Cleveland. I aim to let you get a stick of peppermint or horehoun’ for every boy and girl in Junaluska. I aim to let you show Old Sandy how the thing ought to be did. And I don’t reckon I’ll pass by any old woman, either, jes’ ’cause she’s been misled and jined the wrong church; it’s bad enough to lose your way without bein’ hounded for it besides.”

“What makes Baptises and Methdises an’ Presaterians an’ all them, gran’daddy? Was they borned that way?”

“You an’ me was, Grover Cleveland; our kinfolks was Methdises from way back before the flood I reckon; but the rest of ’em they’re mostly jes’ mixin’s.”

“When I come acrost the cattle on the mountings, I can tell by the slits in their ears who owns ’em; but I can’t tell what church owns the people round yer ’thout it’s meetin’-Sunday and I can see what meetin’-house they’re headin’ for. Have they got any ear-marks that you know ’em by, gran’daddy?”

“No they ain’t Grover Cleveland; they ain’t none of ’em branded that-a-way.”

“What makes ’em diff’rent, gran’daddy?”

“It’s the way they b’lieve, gran’son. The Methdises they b’lieve in free grace and sprinklin’, and the Baptises they b’lieve in sousin’, and the Presaterians—they’re right mean, they are—they b’lieve in ’lection.”

“Mighty nigh every somebody round yer went to ’lection and voted that Tuesday, gran’daddy.”

“So we did gran’son, so we did; but this yer Presaterian ’lection is somehow diff’rent. It’s a powerful low-down kind of ’lection—I reckon it’s favourin’ niggers votin’.”

After waiting a few seconds for this theological seed to sink deep the old man went on.

“An’ them Pistopals—I’m feared I’m a little in the dark as to their belief—but they must be mighty good scholars, for they kin read like lightnin’. They kin read a psa’m so fast that common folks can’t take in the sense of what they’re sayin’. And there’s another good thing about ’em: they do rev’rence the name of the Lord in the Sunday sarvice; they bow considdable low when they come to it. Only it does look like they don’t all of ’em carry their rev’rence ’round with ’em a-week-days; there’s Cap’n Campbell, he can cuss considdable and he don’t do no bowin’ when he calls on the name of the Lord a-week-days.”

“Hi, gran’daddy! the storekeeper’s wife she’s a Pistopal—and Monday, when she was scoopin’ up a pound of crackers for me, some mice run out of the cracker box and she jes’ hollered out, ‘For the Lord’s sake!’ and she didn’t bow and she didn’t look solemn, ary one.”

“Gran’son, I’ve read that there third commandment a heap of times and I can’t see as it provides for any week-day privileges or indulgences. When a man’s cussin’ mad, tain’t so powerful ill for him to bat the old devil’s name about some but, Grover Cleveland, don’t you never go to triflin’ with the name of the Lord; that’s uncommon low down, that is.

“There used to formerly be only one kind of Baptises here and they warshipped in the old red church. But ole man Jordan he got his back up and he took all his kin-people away and he built another church and he painted it yaller. You see he had a whole mountain of timber land that he was glad to get cleared off, and his sons run a sawmill, and there’s a big bed of yaller ochre right back of his house. He was smart enough to set ’em all to work, while they was red-hot mad. If he’d a give ’em time to cool off, that ar yaller meetin’-house never would been built. They did cool off before they got the chimbly up and to this day they’re a tryin’ to praise the Lord with their stovepipe a-stickin’ out the winder.”

“There’s too many kinds of ’em for old Sandy to git round to ’em all,” said the small boy persistently, returning to his first sorrow.

“Sometimes it looks to me like there’s too many kinds for the Lord to get round to ’em all, gran’son. There’s some big cities where there’s more kinds than we’ve got here. There’s two or three kinds of Meth’-dises and there’s Free-will Baptises and Holinesses, and they all seem to be workin’ for the same end, only they can’t agree to work together. But, of course, people’s got a right to all the religious differences they can pay for; but here in Junaluska we’re too poor to have so many churches.”

“How did there git to be so many kinds, gran’daddy?”

“’Twas zeal, Grover Cleveland. And there’s another point where gran’daddy ain’t exactly clear in his mind. Zeal must be a good thing; St. Paul he owned up that he had it, and yet—I reckon zeal’s like ’lectric’ty, it’s a powerful power for good so long as it’s kept in leaders; but you let ’lectric’ty go rarin’ round promiscuous and it’ll rip things all to flinderations. Eight years ago we had jes’ one church in Junaluska and we had a preacher all to ourselves; we didn’t let him starve to death or freeze to death, ary one. He lived down thar in my log cabin and he had his own roastin’-ear patch and a garden and a orchard. He had a horse of his own and there wasn’t a cabin in any of these mountain gullies that he didn’t know his way to, and there wasn’t a cabin where he wasn’t looked up to and respected. But by and by folks of diff’rent b’liefs came settlin’ round here. They was all powerful pious and they was all bustin’ with zeal, each one for his own ’religious denomination’ as they called it. And—well—I never could contrive just how they done it—but tollable soon there was five diff’rent churches in Junaluska and no more religion than there was before; unless pullin’ and haulin’ and each one tryin’ to git ahead of the other constitutes religion, which I’m doubtful if it do. And more’n that there ain’t work enough nor ham and hominy enough in Junaluska for more than one preacher. Them questions of yours has set me to studyin’, Grover Cleveland.”

So gran’daddy folded himself together and “studied” the rest of the way, while his grandson, making the most of his little brief authority, yelled so conflicting commands at the puzzled oxen that they took their head and in due time drew the rattling old wagon safe into the home barn yard.

A scarlet-beaded holly, fresh from the forests of the North Carolina mountains, is a Christmas Tree the wealthiest church in Christendom might covet. Such a one our heroes fixed upright and firm in the shackly old farm wagon. It seemed to grow from a soil deeply top dressed with corn fodder.

The resources of the one little store at the village were meagre but the genius of the decorators was not versatile. Gran’daddy chivalrously intended for the old women to have the best and in his eyes a new frock was a princely gift. As for the old men, what so appropriate and acceptable as a paper of plug tobacco. At this stage his ingenuity was exhausted and his grandson did the rest.

If there was anything that Grover Cleveland liked better than candy, it was more candy, and though he was unlearned in the letter of the Golden Rule its spirit was inherent in his nature. So, although the storekeeper had laid in an extra supply for the holiday trade (it was all in sticks, the kind in vogue when grandmas were little girls), when our small Santa Claus had made his purchases there was none left in stock and by the time material for seventeen calico gowns had been measured off, the storekeeper, among whose mental endowments the commercial instinct was not prominent, had persuaded himself that it was a crying injustice that the well-filled shelves of which he had been so proud should have been depleted at one purchase.

As much chagrined as pitiful, he watched his opportunity, and when Grover Cleveland, who was “toting” his packages from the store to the wagon where his grandfather sat, was gathering up his last armful he called him to a rear window.

“Do you see that ar woman toilin’ up the mountain with a poke on her back?”

“Ye-e-s!” cried the child, “and she’s got a little boy with her a heap littler than me!”

“That woman’s yer Aunt Calliny; and that ar little boy’s your own cousin. Don’t you think one of them caliker frocks ought to go to her and some of that candy to little Jakey? Why, he’s named for your gran’daddy.”

The loyal little grandson turned away dispiritedly saying only:

“She done gran’daddy mean.”

“And that ar little feller’s shoes is the raggedest you ever see,” this last remark was flung after the boy who was making a rapid exit.

The Ledbetter homestead was some distance from the highroad behind a screen of hills, and an old shed into which the afternoon sun shone with warm approval afforded privacy for the trimming of the tree. Though one pair of hands trembled with age and one pair with eagerness, as early as the twenty-second of December it stood in glorious completeness. The calico frocks, tightly rolled and tied with twine, swung from the stoutest branches, while the twigs bore fruit of plug tobacco and candy in wasteful and bewildering abundance.

“Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five,” counted the tired little Santa Claus as he lay on his bed that night. Three æons the days seemed to him and he sighed himself off to the land of Nod. The old man too slipped smoothly off to sleep, but he sighed as he went to think that time flies so fast. Dixie took no note of time, but before morning he took note of a bear that came nosing about the premises, attracted by the smell of sweets, and he barked so frantically as to bring the old man upon the spot armed with a musket that had seen service in ’61. Bruin retired from the scene with a leaden Christmas gift under his hide and gran’daddy wrapped himself in a tattered cloak of army gray and patrolled till morning. He felt hardly equal to two more nights of keeping guard, so he said to his grandson over their early breakfast:

“This is a mighty pretty day and it might rain a-Christmas.”

So they made out their itinerary at once and, though they were subject to some delays and gran’daddy remarked as he groped for his gloves in the wood box among dish towels, frying pans, broken dishes, and wearing apparel, “It’s quare what a way things has of skulking out of sight when they’re wanted,” and the little boy replied as he tore a strip from a window curtain and gartered his stocking, “It’s ’cause we ain’t got no woman here to keep ’em in their place,” by sunrise the oxen were hitched up and the premature Christmas tree started on its journey.

It was a day of gentle, insinuative, persistent sunshine, such as in these mountains December is not chary of. The frost-sheathed trees of the highest ridges lay like a long fluff of white ostrich feathers against the azure; light snows and partial thaws had converted the nearer mountain sides into a darkly crayoned network of lines and angles upon a dappled ground; all around them clustered the innumerable beauties of the winter landscape, and only the roads were vile.

The old man looked a veritable Santa Claus. Recognizing the churchly significance of the occasion, he had unbraided his beard and it fell before him a rippling, silver shield; beneath his gray slouch hat his kind eyes twinkled in their coverts of shaggy beetle-brows and, unconsciously completing the picture, he had discarded his tobacco for a corn-cob pipe.

Beside him, his little heart a-flutter but his face held resolutely serious, sat his grandson and between them sat Dixie for, in recognition of his services of the night, he too had been advanced to the position of a Santa Claus and in a far corner of the wagon, where the benefactor would not be tempted to test for himself the comparative blessedness of giving and receiving, was a stack of bones (there had been a “killing” the day before) for Dixie to bestow upon his canine acquaintances.

To old Mis’ Jimson the tree was carried in pristine completeness. From the well where she was trying to persuade her cow that a handful of meal in two gallons of water is mush, she espied its green top coming up behind the hill. For a moment she watched it grow, but before the oxen came into sight she hobbled away in terror to her cabin.

“I knowed it,” she said. “I knowed that ar owl a-hootin’ ’fore the door all night, meant some kind of meanness. ‘Trees as men walkin’”—she paraphrased unwittingly, and she didn’t know whether the text was history or prophecy. But she grabbed her testament from off the shelf and a rabbit’s foot from out the button box, reassuring herself by a swift glance that it was the left hind one (no other “keeps a man from harm”), pressed the two together, and ventured to take another look. She recognized the oxen, the wagon, and its occupants. Her terror fled, but she stood transfixed with amazement.

“Mis’ Jimson, this ’ere’s a sure ’nough Chrisamas tree,” called Grover Cleveland.

She hobbled down to the gate. “What upon airth, Jakey Ledbetter?” she asked.

Her old neighbour’s answer was an impressive silence while his unsteady hands plucked from the tree a roll of blue calico. “We reckoned, Grover Cleveland and me did, that this yer sprigged pattern would be becomin’ to your build,” he said presenting it.

“You ain’t tellin’ me that this yer’s for me!”—she smoothed out a fold with a quivering motion of her rheumatic old hand—“Colonel Ledbetter, I never did have a store frock before and it’s more’n I ever expected to own in this world.”

“Moo-o,” complained the cow and overturned the bucket, whereupon an avalanche of “roughness” descended upon her head.

“La me,” exclaimed Mis’ Jimson, “is Christmas trees for the dumb critters too?”

“That’s the view Grover Cleveland ’pears to take of it. Thar’s enough for one fodderin’ gran’son; we’ll drive round and put the rest in the shed.”

Shielding her eyes with her hand the old woman watched them out of sight. “I ain’t been carin’ lately whether I was livin’ or not,” she mused, “but if Christmas trees is beginnin’ to circolate in these yer mountings, I aim to perk up and live long enough to git my share.”

Most of the old people who were young when gran’daddy was a boy still occupied their fathers’ holdings in clefts and coves up in the higher mountains and to them the tree was carried while the sunshine still slanted and the roads were unthawed. Time flies or I would tell of its triumphant journey; how faded eyes grew bright and wrinkles wreathed themselves into smiles; how salutations and jokes fresh fifty years ago tripped upon the tongue as nimbly as in their early days. Only one failed to respond to the Christmas spirit of the occasion. That was old Captain Sumter. They came upon him leaning over his remnant of front fence viciously fletcherizing tobacco of his own unskillful curing.

“What fool consarn’s that, Jake Ledbetter?” he growled as the turnout stopped before him.

“It’s a Chrisamus tree,” called Grover Cleveland, scrambling to the ground and presenting him with a package of choice Durham.

The old man pocketed it but his thanks were of a fashion peculiarly his own:

“Jake Ledbetter, you always was the durndest fool in Junaluska.”

Only one took exception to her gift. That was Aunt Sally Long, the “queer old stick.”

“Now Jakey Ledbetter,” she whined, “I can’t put that caliker to no use in the world. I wove this frock myself mighty nigh five year ago”—she held out her narrow skirt for his inspection—“and I ain’t snagged it yet. I reckon it’s goin’ to last as long’s I do, at any rate I don’t want another frock added unto me. I’d a heap ruther you’d a brung me a pound of snuff.”

“Aunt Sally” (the accommodating Santa Claus took the roll from her and restored it to the tree), “it’s my intention for you to have whatever you can get the most fun out of; I can barter that thar frock for snuff enough to last you all your life, and there’ll be a balance comin’ to you besides; what’ll you have for that?”

“I don’ know, Jakey,” she drawled, and she pleated the hem of her apron while she pondered, “I don’ know; I reckon you might as well bring me a little more snuff.”

The roads were heavy with mud when Bonaparte and Butterfly toiled down into the little straggling town. “This is a Chrisamus tree,” announced the little Santa Claus, and there was no need to tarry there for delivery, for all the foot-free denizens, young, old, and middle-aged, thronged it when it stopped and followed when it moved on, and the tree shed its fruit as if a gale had struck it.

The old Santa Claus held his whip with a fine show of nonchalance while the little one worked among the holly branches, disdainful of the thorns, his eyes afire, his cheeks red hot, and his aureole of yellow hair tossing and tumbling with every motion of his little body. Williebelle, her ears tied up with a red woollen stocking and redolent of turpentine, was there and upon her he bestowed three sticks of peppermint, “two for herself and one for her earache.” He waited in person upon Aunt Polly, bedridden for a dozen years, and the procession was brought to a stand before her door that she might look out upon the first Christmas tree she had ever seen.

“I ’low this is a Methdis’ Christmas tree,” cried an Episcopalian (the only cynical one), “you-all aimed to get ahead of us.”

“No, siree,” answered the old man, “this yer tree’s built according to Grover Cleveland’s plan and he don’t b’lieve in secks. We-all ain’t aimin’ to git ahead of anybody but the bears.”

“Merry Christmas,” shouted a peace-making Episcopalian and the crowd took up the greeting, “Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!” till the hills gave back the echo.

The tired oxen drew the dismantled tree out of the village. The tired little Santa Claus cuddled sleepily within the encircling arm of the old one but they left behind them the spirit of the Christmas-tide. In the village “Merry Christmas!” still sounded from house to house and along the streets. The sticky children shouted it to one another; the women from their door-ways told it to passers-by; old men, nodding and smiling as they fumbled with jack-knife and tobacco and young men lounging on the corners, all told it to one another. Red Baptists told it to Yellow Baptists and Presbyterians to Methodists, and some unthinkingly told it to persons they were not on speaking terms with, then looked ashamed but repeated it. By and by the shadows came down into the valley, crept to the summits of the eastern ridge, slipped over and the village lay in darkness and in peace.

But high up on the mountain side, in a lonely hut that had not been visited by the Christmas tree, Carolina cuddled her little boy to sleep, crooning softly and sadly:

“While shepherds watched their flocks by night,
All seated on the ground.”

II
CREEDS AND DEEDS

The Episcopalians met next morning to trim the tree. They had the candles and candies and tinsel decorations sent them by the foreign Santa Claus whom Grover Cleveland had tried to track, and for every member of their congregation they had made little stockings of net. These they proceeded to fill with candy and to hang upon the tree, discussing meanwhile the perambulating tree of the previous day.

“There was nary somebody passed by,” said one, restoring with a bit of lemon stick the equilibrium of a tilted stocking, “the babies got something, every last one of ’em, and the niggers too, so fur as I know.”

“Every one was free to go to the first Christmas celebration,” said the young girl who taught the two-months-a-year free-school. “The shepherds came from the fields, and the angels came from heaven, and I have read that the wise men who came were from so far removed parts of the earth that they didn’t even speak the same language.”

“You reckon they was all Episcopals?”

“No, but when they went away they were all Christians.”

The rest of the decorators were a little awed by such erudition and no further remarks were made till the last gift was tied in its place and the candles, firmly fixed and pointing rafterward, were ready for the lighting. Then they stood off and surveyed the work of their hands.

“It’s powerful pretty,” said one.

“Yes, but seem like it’s narrow-contracted ’long side of Grover Cleveland’s tree. ’Course we’ve got six ten-cent dolls and he didn’t have nary one and he didn’t have nary candle but——”

“It’s not leavin’ out ary somebody that I’m studyin’ about. Why even our Nick got a shinbone, and I declare if he ain’t fit Grover Cleveland’s dog till he’s mighty nigh chawed his ears plumb off his head.”

“Old man Higgins told me ‘Merry Christmas’ yesterday evening. It’s the first word he’s spoke to me since I left the Methdis’ meetin’-house, and I wish there was something on this yer tree for him, just to show him that we-all ain’t holdin’ a grudge,” and further discussion revealed the fact that every one there had a neighbour or friend belonging to one of the other churches whom, for one reason or another, he or she would like to invite to the Christmas-tree.

The school teacher took a pencil from her pocket and they gathered round her. “We’ll begin at the first house towards sun-up,” they said; “there’s three somebodies there, there’s two in the next house and——” they counted every person in the neighbourhood and then the school teacher “done a sum.” “Nine pounds more will treat them all to candy,” she said and in a body they proceeded to the store to see if they could buy nine pounds at the wholesale rate.

“I declare, ’tain’t my fault,” pleaded the storekeeper. “I laid in ten pounds extra for Christmas but old man Ledbetter come in yer and he let Grover Cleveland clean me out. You can gen’rally, most always trust Colonel Ledbetter not to do no low down tricks but you-all know how’tis; if Grover Cleveland was a-hankerin’ after the whole top side of the airth his gran’daddy’d git it for him if he could. I’ve ordered some more, but it won’t be here till to-morrow.”

“That’s all right,” said the school teacher, “we’ll meet again this evening to make some more stockings, and we’ll trim the tree all over again and we’ll have a Christmas tree for all Junaluska.”

Some rustic beaux had been hanging about the group listening to the colloquy. They looked at one another and they looked at a row of fresh-faced, luxuriant-haired mountain girls at another counter bartering eggs which they had “toted” from their homes five or six miles away.

“Make it a general spree this evening,” they pleaded, “let us come to the tree-trimming and bring our girls.”

“We will,” said the teacher, “if you-all will spread the news that it’s to be an un-de-nom-i-na-tional tree and that all the grown-ups are invited to come to-night to the trimming and to bring for the tree whatever gifts they have for their families and their friends, and that young and old are invited to the exercises to-morrow night.”

“Captain Boyce won’t come nor Judge Brevard, ary one; they took a oath never to set foot in that thar meetin’-house.”

“Then we’ll move the tree somewhere else.”

Such was the series of events that transferred the tree and the trimmers to Colonel Ledbetter’s two-room cabin that overlooked the village from a highroad. The log fire blazing wide and high in the chimney place put to shame the candles that swaled and sputtered in turnip candelabra, but could not dim the light that shone from merry eyes as the happy people helped or hindered with equally good intentions. Long before dispersion could be thought of the tree stood full fruited and ready for the morrow’s harvesting.

“They drew up some benches before the fire and gave themselves to rest and reminiscence”

Suddenly the barking of a dog roused the gully behind the cabin.

“That’s my Cæsar; he’s struck a ’possum trail,” exclaimed a swain and with one rush young men and maidens made for the moonlit out-of-doors and joined in a ’possum hunt. Only the serious minded remained, fewer than a score of people and yet they were the metaphorical pillars of five different denominations of Christian churches, each struggling independently to establish the same gospel in that little mountain town. They drew up some benches before the fire and gave themselves to rest and reminiscence. On the road, in the fields, or at his fireside the Junaluskan may address his neighbour as Bill or Jeff or Jack, but in assembly every elderly man is accorded a title, military, civil, or ecclesiastic.

“Gettin’ ’long in years, Colonel Ledbetter,” observed a grizzled mountaineer running his eyes along the blackened rafters of the cabin; “a hundred year old ain’t it?”

“Mighty nigh,” answered the Colonel shooting tobacco juice at a fallen ember before kicking it back into the fire.

“Looks like with a little fixin’ up ’twas good for another hundred. You ain’t let it lately?”

“No, Deacon Higgins, I ain’t.” The speaker doubled into his studying attitude with unperceiving eyes upon the hearth; “the last tenant made a barnyard of the road out yer in front, fed his cattle and hogs there reg’lar so’t women folks couldn’t git by to go to meetin’ without silin’ their Sunday clothes and he let the ragweed run clean up to the eaves. It hurt my feelin’s to look at the place, ’twas such a contrast to what ’twas when Preacher Carr had it, so I turned him loose and locked the door and I don’t guess I’ll ever rent it again.”

“Preacher Carr certainly did keep it mighty snug,” said Captain Campbell, “and he was powerful proud of it too. He’d point out to every stranger the part the Injins built and the part your father added on to it; and he was proud of all outdoors besides. He ’lowed there wasn’t another tree in the country so handsome to look at as this yer postoak out in front.”

“And if he and his old gray mare was on the homeward road any whar near sundown, she’d break into a trot of her own free will and accord, knowin’ she’d got to git him here in time to see the sun slip down behind the Bald.”

“And he done made a sermon onct ’bout that ar cliff t’other side the road. His tex’ was somethin’ ’bout ‘The shadow of a Great Rock,’ and mighty nigh all the women in the meetin’-house had to unfold their pocket handkerchiefs ’fore he got through.”

“And he done kep’ his tater-patch as clean of weeds as my wife keeps her posy beds.”

“And he worked jes’ as hard to weed the sin out of Junaluska as he did to weed the pusly and cockles out of his roas’n’-ear patch.”

“Amen!” shouted Deacon Higgins.

“And he was always yer when he was needed”—the voice was unsteady and the speaker sat in the shadow. “I tell ye it cuts me powerful that when my wife died last spring there was nary a preacher to take her last test’mony, and she a-askin’ for him all the time. The neighbours done what they could when we laid her away; they sung a hymn and Judge Brevard read a chapter, but there was nary a sermon preached or a lesson of her life said over her, and she a Meth’dis’ in good and reg’lar standin’. I ain’t a-blamin’ our young preacher; the branches was swelled at the fords and the bridges was swept away. He couldn’t git yer nohow. But seem like something’s wrong when we’ve got five meetin’-houses and nary preacher living yer.”

“We don’t have Pres’terian preachin’ but once a month, because our preacher’s got three other charges besides Junaluska. He rides seventeen miles to git yer; but he ain’t Samson and he’s mighty nigh wore out ’fore he begins, and he has to gallop through the sarvice and ride off to after-dark preachin’ somewheres else.”

“Jes’ the same way ’tis with our preacher”—the women were speaking now—“he shakes hands friendly like but I don’t guess, if all the folks in the diff’rent places where he preaches was stood up together, he’d know me and my children from the lot.”

“Them was good old times”—the deacon’s wife took off her sunbonnet and straightened up its crown as she spoke—“when we had one meetin’-house and preachin’ every Sunday and Preacher Carr was right here on the ground ready for marryin’ or buryin’ or any sich like.”

“And Mis’ Carr—she was a mother to all of us.”

“Our preacher’s got a right big family and they do say that he don’t make enough to keep ’em all comf’table; but I don’t know how ’tis. Our church agreed to give him thirty dollars this year and we done raised fo’teen of it cash down and we reckoned we’d about make up the balance of it in apples and potatoes; there was some corn give besides. To be sure there was no way for him to haul it home, for he don’t own a wagon; but seem like, if his other churches done as well by him as we do, he wouldn’t be so peaked looking. They say he ain’t nary top coat to wear, but we-all give him nine pair of mittens and five pair of wristers, and Callerstown give him seven pair of mittens and four comforters for his neck and some wristers besides, and it do seem like his other churches ought to give him a overcoat.”

A few minutes of thoughtful silence ensued; then a philosopher spoke.

“It’s a heap easier to ’stablish churches than ’tis to support ’em after they’re sot goin’.”

With a deeply drawn breath Colonel Ledbetter stretched out his legs, set his soles upright before the fire, folded his arms and squared himself. He waited respectfully for the old bench to complete its squeaking preface, then, singling out one fork of a blazing log, addressed it earnestly.

“Grover Cleveland, he don’t believe in beliefs and I’ve been a-studyin’ whether he ain’t right. I reason this a-way:

“You-all know how ’tis with the gris’-mills round yer; some of ’em is run by a turbine wheel and some by a overshot wheel and Captain Campbell he’s jes’ sot up a undershot wheel. But if the day of meracles wasn’t past and some of us should stop on our way home from the mill and leave ole Mis’ Jimson a bag of meal, it would keep her and her ole cow from starvin’ plumb to death and she’d never ask which mill ground that ar grist. And in my opinion that’s the way ’tis with these yer diff’rent religious secks we’ve got in Junaluska; they each turn their crank in their own way but there ain’t much choice in the grist they turn out; that is to say, neighbours, if you judge a man from his outgoin’s and his incomin’s it would take more than human jedgment to tell whether he’s been ground by the Piscopals or the Methdises or the Presaterians or the Baptises.

“When we git riled, Presaterian cussin’ don’t sound noways diff’rent from Methdis’ cussin’ and a wayfarin’ man in Junaluska could never tell by lookin’ at the children’s frocks and faces whether their mothers believe that sprinklin’ or duckin’ is the tellin’est means of grace; and Baptis’ hogs and cattle left out on the mountings all winter without fodder and shelter looks jes’ as gaunted-up when spring comes as the Piscopals’ does. I’m beginnin’ to think, neighbours, that there’s right much more religion in doin’ then there is in fussin’ about beliefs.”

“Amen!” shouted a Methodist brother and the speaker gained courage.

“I’d like,” he went on, “to jine hands and pull together again, and don’t meddle with each others’ beliefs, till some one’s deeds shows that his creed is the best. I’d like not to worship any longer in meetin’-houses that ain’t as snug as a barn ought to be. All of us together can keep one building painted and the roof tight and the windows sashed. I’d like not to have a hand in starvin’ or freezin’ any more preachers, but to make one preacher comf’table right here in Junaluska—we done it once and we done it without any outside help too—and we can do it ag’in. I’d like to have him always right yer on the ground to christen our children, to bury our dead, and to marry our young folks. For myself, I ain’t carin’ what college turned him out so’s he’s a sure-’nough Christian and cares more about right livin’ than he does about beliefs.”

By the wall, the only occupant of a bench with legs of assorted lengths and easily tilted, sat Deacon Higgins who here put in a demurrer. Jolting back and forth, bringing the bench legs and his feet resoundingly upon the floor to mark his time, he sang, his eyes fixed upon a rafter and his heart upon opposition:

“‘I’m Meth’dis born an Pres’terian bred,

But Meth’dis will I die!’

“I’m a shoutin’ Meth’dis.”

“Well, you could continue on a shouting Meth’dis!”

“La, yes;” Colonel Ledbetter’s plan had won some enthusiastic supporters among the women. “Deacon Higgins you could take an amen corner for you and your folks and we-all wouldn’t object to your shoutin’ in once in a while.”

“And if the Piscopals wants to stand up and stretch their legs and try a readin’ match with the preacher now and then, why we could accommodate ’em with some Bible-readin’ ‘long with the singin’ and preachin’; the Bible makes good readin’ for any ’casion.”

“I’m tired,” said a weary-eyed woman. “I’m tired of the everlastin’ scratchin’ round to git ahead of some one else; I’m tired of runnin’ our church with one eye onto four other churches to see that they don’t come out a step ahead.”

Here a horse’s hoofs clattered upon the frozen road in front. Two or three women went to the window. “It’s Preacher Freeman,” they announced. “He’s on his way to Mills’s Ford to see that man that’s been hurt.”

“He’s got nine miles further to ride and it’s mighty cold.”

The door opened and a tall man, dark and spare, entered. He might have been thirty years old, but he smiled at the tree with boyish appreciation as he made his way past it and gave the assembly a general “Howdy.” Then he drew off his mittens and went from one to another shaking hands though he didn’t call them all by name. His own church people were there, but it is needless to name their denominational conformity—he was an honour to any church. They gave him a seat before the fire and he stretched out his shabbily shod feet toward it with a tired sigh, but an involuntary one, for he checked it.

“I stopped at your house Judge Brevard,” he said, “and learned that you were here.”

Embarrassed at being found in company so ecclesiastically mixed, Brevard irrelevantly felt of the young man’s coat.

“Tollable thin for this weather,” he said.

“The exercise of riding keeps me warm,” answered the preacher and changed the subject. “I didn’t expect to find all my people here” (with kind eyes he seemed to single out his own). “I’m glad of it,” he continued heartily. “I’m glad to see the whole neighbourhood joining hands.”

He praised the tree, gave a few minutes to general and friendly discourse, arranged with Brevard the personal matter which had been the object of his call, wished them a “Merry Christmas” and went out. They heard him speak to his horse as he untied him but in a moment he entered the cabin again. He came forward haltingly and laid a hand upon the back of a bench, fidgeting like an embarrassed schoolboy as he began to speak:

“Brethren, I spent last night twenty miles from here up on the Harriman Mountain. You-all know what Harriman is like.”

Colonel Ledbetter twisted himself round and faced the speaker.

“It’s the barrenest, ungratefulest land in the North Callina Mountains” (his voice had a defiant twang as if he challenged contradiction), “and how old Preacher Carr wrastles a livin’ out of that place he’s settled on, is more’n I can study out.”

“It’s Preacher Carr I want to speak to you about. You-all know that Brother Carr can get a crop out of a piece of ground if any one can. Next to men’s souls he loves the soil, and, my friends, whether we work with things physical or spiritual, it’s the loving touch that coaxes on the harvest. You-all know that, with late spring frosts and summer droughts, this has been a hard year for our farmers—your own cribs are only half full of corn and your fodder stacks are few and small; and yet your valley is a Land of Promise compared to Harriman’s Bald. Preacher Carr and his wife are facing a winter of want. They gave me the mountaineer’s welcome, but when she prepared the supper, I heard her gourd-scoop scrape the bottom of the meal bin, and this morning a creditor led away their staggering, starving cow. And yet Brother Carr is not decrepit; he is still hale and hearty but—God pity the old when their work is taken out of their hands before their graves are ready for them.

“He asked after his people in Junaluska (you will be ‘his people’ as long as his loyal old soul harbours a sentiment) and, when I told him I should pass through here this evening, he said, ‘Tell them a God-bless you, for me.’ Some one has told him that his old church is well-nigh gone to ruin and he asked me to take notice of it as I passed by and to shut the door if it stood open.

“So I have come back to ask you to add to your Christmas list the name of your old neighbour, friend, and pastor, this needy servant of God. He has not forgotten you and I know you will not forget him.”

He turned and walked out of the cabin and the group sat in silence till the sound of his horse’s hoofs grew faint.

“Them was good old times,” reiterated the deacon’s wife.

“I was some to blame when Preacher Carr was sent away,” said Colonel Ledbetter, “I own up to it but——”

“You hadn’t a mite more to say about it than the rest of us had——”

“I hadn’t a thing in the world agin him,” the old man went on without noticing the interruption; “’twas only that two other churches was a-runnin’ opposition to us and their preachers were young men and were drawing off our young people; I thought if we had a young man to preach for us we might get ’em all back again. ’Twas zeal that made me do it, misguided zeal; you see I hadn’t studied it out about religious secks then as I have since.”

But we need not give a full report of that meeting. It was not conducted by parliamentary rules, but its enactments went into effect next day.

Grover Cleveland and gran’daddy, side by side in the old farm wagon, took the road while it was still so dark that they must needs give the mules the rein. But there were other early risers in that community, for by sunrise Campbell and Greenlee and Brevard and others were playing away with hammer and trowel upon the Ledbetter cabin. They repaired the roof, they cemented into place the loose stones of the fireplace, and topped out the fallen chimney; between the logs they spatted clay—taken from the road in front but good as imperial Cæsar’s—and stopped the cracks “to keep the wind away.” They propped the leaning cow shed and before noon an occupant, “mighty nigh all Jersey,” was chewing her cud, while over her head was stored fodder sufficient to keep her chewing till pastures were green. Her neighbour on the other side of a partition was a Kentucky-bred roan mare, which but a few hours ago had been the property of Captain Campbell; he had appeared upon the scene riding a gray and leading the roan all saddled and ready for the road and had made her comfortable in this new home.

In durance a heterogeneous collection of chickens were making one another’s acquaintance over a collation of corn, the only unsociable one among them being Aunt Dicey’s old black hen; her powers were all employed in an effort to rid herself of a streamer of red flannel which the old lady had tied to her tail to discourage her sitting propensities.

Within doors the Christmas tree with its unshed mask still monopolized one room, but in the other cheerful hands worked a metamorphosis. Cobwebs, litter, and soil disappeared, and furniture, country made but adapted to its purpose, took its place. Upon the tough and rough old chestnut floor they levelled a bed of hay and, so that it was soft as pillows to the tread, what matter that each breadth of the rag carpet they spread upon it showed different tones of homemade dyes and the weave of a different loom? In one corner they corded together a bedstead in the good old fashion of their great-grandparents, and the bed they reared upon it was a marvel. There was a mattress of oat straw and one of corn-husks, a bed of stripped hens’ feathers and one of geese feathers, and bolsters and pillows in numbers sufficient to accommodate a family of hydras. Aunt Dicey furnished blankets spun and woven by her own hands from wool of her own shearing, and among a collection of quilts was a wonderful one of old Mis’ Jimson’s piecing. It contained, by actual count, three thousand one hundred and seventy-nine pieces and she called it “The Foundation of the Great Deep.” When at last that bed was made up, the turkey red cherubs on the pillow-shams (almost the only shams that modernity had introduced among those artless people) lay very close to the rafters. Its makers viewed it with admiration and complacency, but Deacon Higgins looked dubious:

“They’re a tollable spry old couple,” he said, “but”—and he wheeled a barrel of potatoes alongside as a suggestion of means of getting into bed.

It would take a readier pen than mine to enumerate and describe all the gifts that were brought to that plenishing. The cupboard door refused to close upon the array of ham, hominy, and honey (the three h’s of the mountaineer), the salt-rising bread, and the soda biscuit.

Major Greenlee was a carpenter. For half a day he planed, sawed, and hammered in a corner and when his work took form it was a capacious meal bin. When bagfuls of corn meal had been emptied into it till it was “plumb full” they all surveyed it with satisfaction and “reckoned the gourd wouldn’t scrape the bottom of that before spring.”

All day long pedestrians and vehicles had been coming and going before the old house as never before in its history and yet when the sun had set the sky on fire behind the Bald, the gathered people were still awaiting an arrival.

They scanned a mountain road above them, visible only in short lengths where it emerged from the forests into the clearings.

“I see ’em!” a far-sighted old man shouted with a boy’s enthusiasm, “I see Colonel Ledbetter’s white mules! Now they’re behind May’s Peak, you’ll see ’em come out on t’other side.”

And so they watched them from point to point and every time they came into view a squad ran in to re-inspect the cabin and see that every thing was in order.

At last the white mules stood before the door. Colonel Ledbetter and Grover Cleveland sat on the front seat of the wagon, and on chairs behind them sat Preacher Carr and his wife.

Strong hands assisted the wife to alight, but the preacher sprang over the wheel to greet his people. They crowded round him and the young cried, “Merry Christmas,” and the old said, “Welcome Home.”

They seated the pair beside their old beloved fireside. They were eight years older than when they had left it. The preacher had “held his own,” but when they took off the good wife’s bonnet her hair showed very white. A tender hand smoothed it.

“We are growing old,” said the preacher, but they told him that the gospel that he preached and lived would never grow old. They told him too of repairs to be made in the old church; it would look just as it used to look but over the door there would be the inscription:

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and thy neighbour as thyself.

The tree was stripped; the white mules were headed homeward; old man Ledbetter gathered up his reins and a tired little lad nestled close to his side.

“Wake up, Grover Cleveland, wake up! Don’t you hear ’em singing! Jine in, Grover Cleveland, jine in!”

Within the cabin a chorus swelled; without, one thin little voice piped free and clear:

“Crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, Lord of all.”

III
UNCONSCIOUS MENTALITY

What their acquaintances called an “understanding,” existed between Arsula Jordan and Thaddeus Garrett and he had taken her with him up on the mountain to consult Dan Cutter about hauling the timber for a new house. Their horse, Beauregard, having taken the road leisurely, eleven o’clock found them winding along the downhill road but still two miles from their homes in the village.

On their right the Junaluska swirled between its wooded banks. The moon was on their right too, throwing shadows across their road, dense or skeleton, as evergreen or deciduous trees obstructed its radiance.

“I think I see things a-skulkin’ ’cross the road,” said Arsula, crowding Thad more closely; “do you reckon any wild-cats could have come down off the Bald?”

“It’s only the shadders a-shiftin’ theirselves when the wind bends the trees; I didn’t reckon you was that scary, Suly; why there’s nothin’ to be scairt of; I’m here Suly! And I ain’t scairt of anything that travels these yer mountings—leastwise not of anything in flesh and blood.”

“Well I ain’t scart of anything that isn’t flesh and blood.”

“You say you ain’t?”

“La, no; I don’t b’lieve in ha’nts.”

“You say you don’t?”

“No I don’t; I b’lieve that when a body’s once plumb dead and buried in the ground, he ain’t goin’ to show hisself on the top side of the earth again till judgment day.

“Oh lawdy!” the ejaculation was only aspirated, and Thad brought Beauregard to a stand without speaking to him. They were at a bend of the road where it crossed the river. Above the ford, dark hemlocks arched the stream and the foot log lay in their dense shadow. Upon it something moved like a pale gray cloud, not outlined against the blackness, but softly blending with it.

Beauregard saw it too and pricked up his ears. Thad wound the reins round his right hand and even brought his left into action though with a soft apology to Suly:

“Looks like I might want all the hands I’ve got to hold him. You take a tight holt of me,” he counselled under his breath and, as the spectre neared the farther side, proceeded chidingly: “It’s powerful triflin’, Suly, to go to talkin’ ’bout ha’nts when you’re out in the woods at night—it’s tollable sure to call ’em up”—a rustling among the dry leaves under the bushes changed the course of his remarks.

“If the durn thing ’ud move a little faster, I’d drive into the water and stand a spell; witches and ha’nts and all them things is shy of water.” There was a closer scurry among the leaves and at a twitch of the reins Beauregard drew them into the ford and stopped there in obedience to another silent signal.

Above the rustling they heard a panting breath, and another ghost, a nimbler one, was on the log, a light, flying shadow against the dark, stationary ones.

“Sho,” said Suly, “it’s only a dog.” She started to whistle but Thad clapped his hand over her mouth:

“For gracious sake, Suly, don’t do that—it’s awful darin’.”

She was gurgling and spurting in an effort to regain her right of free speech when together the apparitions seemed to slip off the log upon the other side.

“I tell you it’s Colonel Ledbetter’s Dixie,” she cried as a dog frisked out into the moonlight; “and sure’s you’re born that’s little Grover Cleveland! and he’s walkin’ in his sleep again—poor little soul! Git up Beau!” She clutched at the reins, but Thad caught her hand.

“Poor little soul!” she repeated. “His gran’daddy’d go plumb distracted if he knowed that little soul was out on the mountings this time o’ night; nothin’ on him either, I reckon, but just his little shirt! Thad, if you don’t drive on right now, I’ll jump into the crick, I vow I will! I want to get my hands on him—poor little soul!”

When Beauregard trailed out upon the other side Suly leaped to the ground. “I want to see how he looks when he’s took this-a-way.”

The boy was several rods ahead trudging abstractedly along, his little, faded, blue-checked shirt playing about his knees, his bare feet taking the road unhesitatingly, his half-closed eyes looking neither right nor left nor seemingly before him. Curious, pitiful, Arsula walked beside him for a few steps in silence. He didn’t hear her nor the creak of the wagon behind her. His physical senses were in suspension. He was intently acting out some dream that dominated his little brain.

Head and tail adroop, Dixie was following so closely that now and again his muzzle touched the little loosely hanging hand. He seemed to take no more notice of Arsula as she came abreast than did his child master; but he was not walking in his sleep, for, though his dejected head never swerved, his eyes turned sidewise in their sockets and his lips wrinkled in very unbecoming folds above his teeth.

“Grover Cleveland,” Suly spoke softly, for, despite her brave common sense, she felt awed in this presence of a ruling, supernatural mentality; besides she wanted to spare the little favourite the shock of a too sudden awakening. But the boy walked on.

“Grover Cleveland, oh, Grover Cleveland!” she said more emphatically and gently put out her hand to take him by the shoulder.

“Gr-r-r-r-r-r!” said Dixie.

“Now look here Dixie Ledbetter,” she scolded severely, “you needn’t go to putting on any such airs as that when I’m around. I wouldn’t do Grover Cleveland mean a mite sooner’n you would, and you know it. And more than that, if I’d been in your place I’d have found some way to wake him up before he’d tramped this far in the cold. And more than that, t’other side the ford you went tearin’ off after a rabbit or a ’possum or a coon, and left him to find his way all by hisself. Now you get over there and don’t you say no more to me!”

Ashamed of his shortcomings or awed by her gestures, which were imperious, Dixie slunk to the other side of his master who, partially recovered by the unusual tones, came to a stand dazed and trembling.

“Poor little soul!” she said dropping to her knees and putting her arms about him. “Wake up, dear, and don’t you be scairt a mite, for it’s only Suly; you know Suly, don’t you?” her voice broke and a tear or two ran over her cheeks.

The child, coming slowly back to consciousness, gazed blankly into her face, then turned and peered into the woods, drawing his breath in hard, dry sobs. Then he recognized Dixie and felt of his tattered ears with a weakly caressing motion.

“Yes, Dixie’s here,” coaxed Suly, “and I’m here and Thad’s here with the wagon and we’re goin’ to carry you right home to your gran’daddy.”

By now Thaddeus was beside them. “Well, what about it!” was all he could say, but he acted promptly upon Suly’s bidding and lifted the boy into the wagon.

Suly wrapped him in a time-worn blanket of confederate gray that had been doing duty as a cushion and set him between them.

“Now where was you a-goin’ to?” interrogated the amazed Thaddeus, taking up the reins and driving slowly on.

“I—don’t—know,” sobbed the child.

“Why he was going home,” kindly assisted Suly.

“Where have you been at?” persisted Thaddeus.

“I—don’t—know.”

“Well how’d you git here, anyway?”

“Now Thad, you quit pesterin’ him,” commanded Suly.

By now the boy was quite himself and making desperate efforts to breathe without sobbing. “It’s powerful mizzable to be borned with ways that you can’t help,” he faltered, and the girl essayed to change the current of his thoughts.

“You knowed your Aunt Carliny and little Jakey had come back here to live, didn’t you, Grover Cleveland?”

“She done gran’daddy mean,” answered the boy and added after a long, tremulous breath, “Jakey’s shoes is wore out.”

They drove on in silence. When the boy had become quiet and too sleepy, Arsula believed, to take notice of what she was saying, she ventured to relieve her mind of some of its distracting emotions.

“If Carliny was where she’d ought to be, a-keepin’ house for her father, this little soul’d never get out of the house at night without her knowin’ it—I’m plumb sure of that. To think of her livin’ away off up there in that gully where nary somebody passes, month in and month out, in a ole hut with nothin’ but a dirt floor and no window; and chinks between the logs that you can put your hand into and her father the best-off man round yer! What you reckon he’d say if they was found froze plumb to death? And he such a powerful pious man and a-standin’ way up high in the church! Free-handed too—where he takes a notion—givin’ the preacher his rent free and all the wood he’s a mind to cut and haul and all the apples and corn and potatoes he’s a mind to harvest; and a-pilin’ up fodder stacks close to ole Mis’ Jimson’s fence and a-pullin’ out a rail with his own hands so’s her ole cow can get her head through and help herself.

“Carliny told me with her own lips that after she and her boy had come all the way from Yancey County—mighty nigh every step afoot too—her father wouldn’t let her in. She wouldn’t have come—for she’s got along tollable since she’s been a widow—only but she heard that he and Grover Cleveland wasn’t doin’ any good a housekeepin’ by theirselves; and it hurt her powerful to think that her sister Missouri’s little boy wasn’t gettin’ the right kind of care.

“Everybody’s clean done out about it. The preacher, he set out to labour with him, but Colonel Ledbetter he give him to understand that he was oversteppin’ his authority and since then nary neighbour darst speak up. But I’d give a pretty to tell Colonel Ledbetter what I think of him, and I aim to do it this very night.”

“Don’t you, Suly; ole man Ledbetter ain’t pleasant to talk to when he’s riled.”

There came the sound of some one tearing through the woods, and Thad brought Beauregard to a sudden stand. “Here we are,” he shouted.

“You-all got him!” called a quavering voice out of the darkness.

“Got him sure-’nough, Colonel Ledbetter. Captured him way off down by the ford!”

“I been trampin’ the woods for a hour lookin’ for him and I’m hoarse as a crow callin’ for him. Is he dressed up much?”

“Not much. Some durn fools would have took him for a ha’nt but I don’t never run from nothin’ and Suly here, she’s some spunky too.”

They drove slowly to the house the old man keeping abreast. The door stood open and from within shone the light of a flickering hearth fire.

Grover Cleveland shed his blanket, sprang over the wheel while it was yet in motion, and fled into the house and out of sight.

The old man chuckled. “The little feller’s right much ashamed of hisself when he’s found out in one of his spells. I reckon he cried some when you-all woke him up—he gen’ally does.

“Them that’s had nothin’ to cry for’s the ones that’s done the cryin’,” teased Thad.

“I don’t care if I did,” said Suly preparing to accept the invitation to “stop in by a spell.” “It must be a mighty nasty feelin’ to wake up in the woods at night and not know how you got there.”

“So it is, so it is,” said Colonel Ledbetter leading the way into the house. “I ain’t no mind to be stern with him, for he comes true and honest by the trick. I done it myself when I was a boy.”

He replenished the fire and lit a candle.

“He sleeps right there betwixt me and the wall,” he pointed to a bed in the corner, “and I can’t contrive how he manages to give me the slip so often; he’s got some sort of sleepin’ slyness that he ain’t no more notion of when he’s awake, than a angel. Barricadin’ the door ain’t no good. One night I tied him fast to my wrist so’s he couldn’t move without wakin’ me up, but that seemed to hurt the little fellow’s feelin’s powerful an’ I didn’t try it again.”

Nothing was to be seen of Grover Cleveland. Suly went to the bed.

“I should think he’d smother to death,” she said, “he’s drawed the Valley of the Mississippi clean over his head and he’s fast asleep.” She arranged a little breathing place for him.

The old man came and stood beside her.

“I helped quilt this quilt,” she went on, carefully folding it away from the face of the child, “it was the first quiltin’ party I ever went to and I took the tuck out of my frock to go. This was the first Valley of the Mississippi ever seen round yer and Missouri was mighty proud of it; she had the pattern sent from Georgy.”

“Them blue pieces over there,” said the old man, “is pieces of her frock; it was a store frock; and these yer streaked pieces on this side” (he traced them with an unsteady finger), “was my wife’s. Grover Cleveland, he calls that side his, because it’s pieces of his mother’s frock, and this side mine and he won’t never get into bed till his half’s on his side.”

Suly lifted a corner of the quilt into the light; “Here’s some of Carliny’s frock,” she led, but he would not follow.

“I bought Grover Cleveland a pair of boots this mornin’ and he was the proudest little somebody you ever looked at. Now where is them boots at?”—he was looking under the bed—“he set ’em up right here as careful as if they was glass and they was there after he went to sleep.”

This owner in fee-simple of eleven hundred acres of land, more or less, was living in one room and dishes, cooking utensils, clothing, shovels, rakes and various paraphernalia of his farming and housekeeping operations were littered about in bewildering confusion. He moved everything in his search for the boots, Arsula assisting.

“Carliny’s a mighty good housekeeper,” she remarked as she shook out and hung up some wearing apparel that had been piled in a corner. “She’d make things look a heap different if she was here.”

“Was he barefoot when you come acrost him?”

“Yes. Carliny, she’d manage it so that poor little soul wouldn’t go caperin’ about at night.”

“Them boots has taken to theirselves wings.”

“I’m afraid Carliny’s goin’ to freeze to death up there this winter—or starve—one.”

“Them boots had blue tops; they was Grover Cleveland’s own choice; blue always takes his eye.”

“It’s time we was movin’ on, Suly,” said Thad going to the door.

The girl had to stop beating the bush. “Carliny and Jakey ain’t a-doin’ any good up there, Colonel Ledbetter; they’re both a-lookin’ puny. She wants you and you want her, and Grover Cleveland, he wants her powerful, poor little soul! ’Tain’t right, nor Christian, nor human, nor common sense, nor horse sense, nor nonsense, nor any kind of sense for you to be so set. She’s your own flesh”—she stopped, awed by his steady stare at her.

“You go home,” he said, “and you sew the tuck back into that ar frock you wore to Missouri’s quiltin’ and you wear it and be a little gal again till you’re smart enough not to handle no such talk as that in my house. Carliny, she made her own bed and thar she must lie. I told her when she married that ar no-’count that she shouldn’t never put foot into house of mine again; and you go ask your daddy if he ever knowed a Ledbetter to go back on his word. And I’m bringin’ up Grover Cleveland the same way; he believes like I do; he thinks Carliny’d ought to go her own gait now.”

Arsula went out of the house with her hand to her eyes.

“I ’low you mean right,” he said softening a little, “and I’m a heap o’ times obliged to you for bringin’ him home, but you ain’t no call to go to interferin’ in my family affairs.”