Credo Fitch Harris

“ The little stream he followed soon crossed a narrow, tangled lane, and this he knew would lead out toward Flat Rock; but, as he turned into it, far down its shadowy aisle he saw Mac, tail up, smelling under a ledge of rock for chipmunks.
There was no reason why the mountaineer should have sought a hiding-place, except for the wildness in his being which pointed cautionward; or, perhaps, feeling that Jane, not unattended, would be soon in sight, he may have preferred a more auspicious moment to deliver his gladsome tidings. ”

“ Old soldiers feel its pulsing at the booming of a cannon; old women feel it at the laughter of a child; others know it is there while beneath the spell of an orchestra, a breeze in the pines, a bird's note, the fragrance of certain flowers, the caress of a voice. You will forgive this unintentional preamble," he looked slowly up at her, "when I say that your voice just now has been all of these things to me—and more!"
"Oh, Brent," she cried, with a brave pretense at lightness, "if only you weren't such a trifler! ”

“ But, Brent," her voice grew wondrously sincere, "there was something more to it: the simplicity with which that farmer, whose boots have been in the soil for six days, could merge so actually into those things which make for ideality! How few of us who cannot play an organ would deign to offer ourselves as pumpers for its prosy bellows! Think of the music we are denying ourselves, and others about us, merely because we lack the kind of spirit to take off our coats and," she looked whimsically up at him, "spit on our hands before the world!" ”

“ If Tom were drunk enough and infuriated enough to strike his step-daughter, what might an old negress expect? And she reasonably well surmised the circumstances underlying Tom's present demand. She had not forgotten a fragment of Brent's conversation with the Colonel one day while she was gathering up their empty goblets, nor had Zack carried messages without her knowledge. It seemed that Aunt Timmie's over-powering presence had a faculty of drawing the innermost secrets from his small body and storing them in her own big frame, as though they were in need of a safer depository. ”

“ They never gossip, sir!—for gossips, sir, are the most arrant of cowards! No one's character is safe from them, sir! They take a grain of fact," the old gentleman's face was becoming flushed as he thundered forth this pet denunciation, "and plant it in soil manured with the rottenest intentions, sir! And it grows into a bastard of truth, exhaling odors as vitiated as the breath of a toad! The very saints could not be revivified from such a poison, much less our poor selves, sir, who strive a lifetime constructing character for those damned polluters to blight with their graveyard whisperings! ”

“ But just before reaching the house she again turned and faced him. "It hurts, Brent," she faltered, "to know you are thinking unkind things of me! Your own worldliness makes you utterly unsparing!"
"I would rather not have you persist in this," he said gently. "It seems to be one of those cases where you can't tell the truth, so why should you go to the other extreme unnecessarily? I'm not asking you 'what is the matter?' or if you found your cigarettes! Please dismiss it! If you want Dale to meet you in that charmed circle, I'm sure it's a harmless pastime." ”

“ The breeze carried this sound to her quick ears and, gently lowering the mountaineer's head, she went to the door. The whip-poor-wills abruptly hushed, for they, too, had caught the sound; and amidst that strained expectancy of woods life, which grows so tense as daylight fails, she waited.
When the approaching buggy came out of the dusk she saw what she had been expecting, Colonel May driving a powerful chestnut, and, with him, Bob Hart; not so great in stature, but resembling the older man in grace and manner as though he might in fact have been his son, instead of his daughter's husband. ”

“ They were crossing a pasture luxuriant with bluegrass where Lucy had been pensioned to while away in comfort her declining years; and now a more tender light came into the old gentleman's face. For he saw her head go up while yet a great way off from them, and saw her intently looking. He knew what difficulty, and with what yearning, she was urging her clouded eyes to do their best; and he guessed the exultation gradually creeping through her frame as she began to realize that Dale was near. ”

“ Miss Liz, to be sure, was invariably aware when Sundays came; being told by that unnamable pressure of peace which to most women would proclaim the Sabbath even in places of utter solitude. Otherwise, the weeks might be composed of Mondays or Fridays, since school had been out.
Jane, this particular morning playing with Bip and Mac somewhat apart from the Colonel and Brent who were engrossed in a game of chess, had been critically alive to the Sunday habits of these two families which had come to mean so much to her; especially in relation to the little boy. ”

“ The Colonel was not in his accustomed place on the honeysuckled end of the porch, nor was Zack about, so she dismounted alone and tied the lathery beast. Perhaps they were at Bradford's cottage, comforting little Mesmie. Perhaps they were—but she tried not to think of that! Never had the world seemed so deserted. Nothing was astir. The edge of a lace curtain, drawn outward by the passing of someone through one of the library French windows, hung over the sill, deadly white and deadly still. ”

“ Why, sir, much of the pleasure of drinking and smoking and eating—as a gentleman understands these pleasures—is in their peaceful contemplation before the act! Otherwise, we are swine, and degrade our nutriment by coarse handling! What respect can we have for self, sir, if we choke and gurgle, and contemptuously treat those things we put into our bodies! I shall have no more of it, sir!"
Brent waited until this wave of impatience had spent itself upon the chairs, the grass, and everything within reach of the Colonel's wrathful eye ”

“ It does not need the jail, it does not need the fiery lash of a ruined woman's pleading, it does not need the death-bed of one beloved; because the Kingdom of Earth is such that just a pair of eyes, a damask cheek, the murmuring of a name at twilight, may grow beneath some magic dew into a power that holds one hand upon the Throne and with the other meets mankind. ”

“ I jest seen you light up like a lightnin'-bug! You're a devil! I know; a devil!"
"Oh," Brent, more than ever delighted with this adventure, began to understand, "I see what you mean! Yes, sure 'nough, I'm the devil—the very old boy himself, dressed up this way to fool people. Zip!" He let the torch flash again behind his closed fingers, and again Tusk gasped and trembled as they turned magically aglow.
"Shut up," Brent commanded. "You'll scare Tom! And if you tell a soul who I am—well, you can guess what I'll do to you! Now call Tom out, and put it to him strong. ”

“ In a hazy sort of way it was borne in on her that if gentlemen were unable to drink and at the same time keep their skins decent, they were becoming inexcusably degraded. In the circumstances, they could have no pretty gardens—ever! Above all, perhaps, was her intuitive knowledge that Brent had tried to harm this girl who, at the bidding of an old negress, came offering her flesh to help one in whom she felt no particular interest—though Dale, too, had immeasurably shocked her with his selfishness. ”

“ The old gentleman's eyes twinkled as he observed Brent's gloom. It had an effect of pleasing him, and he banteringly advanced another moral axiom:
"There are worse misfortunes than being poor!"
"That may be, Colonel," he sighed. "I'm not familiar with all the tortures. Anyway, I'll bury the issue, along with my nose, in the delectable juleps Timmie is bringing."
"You must have caught her eye," the old gentleman smiled, watching her waddle through the hall with an inviting tray.
"Or Miss Liz is taking a nap," the other suggested, raising one of the frosted goblets. ”

“ But this impetuous student, whose soul craved the heights of Lincoln and Clay, took no recesses.
Petulantly Brent had carried his woe to the Colonel, but, instead of sympathy, he found the old gentleman radiant;—declaring Dale would become so utterly absorbed in learning the secrets of this science, that the engineer would find himself being led out by the ears each morning at sunrise.
"The road is just as good as built," he had cried, "if you have along Dale's example of application!" Which comforted Brent not at all. ”

“ Bob and Brent exchanged winks. They knew the old gentleman was getting frightfully tangled, and were curious to see how he would work himself out of it.
"Then I suppose you mean," her voice rang with the challenge, "that killing people is compatible with the common law?"
"Legal hangings are," he smiled blandly. "But, what I do seriously mean is this: the common law of a country, and therefore the common law of a place, is merely—and nothing more than—a common custom plus the power to change that custom. ”

“ Brent managed to get along pretty well with everything but work, and in severing diplomatic relations with this he usually found himself persona non grata with Jane and her strongest ally, Miss Liz. For Jane, more than all of them, realized the blessings a railroad would bring to her people in that wild area beyond Snarly Knob. She knew how each artery leading from the virgin heart of those mountains, carrying to the world its stream of warmth, would return twofold riches to the benighted denizens of their antiquity. ”

“ Brent murmured.
"Condemn! Why, sir, I admire him for it! I was early taught to love the truth and shame the devil!"
Brent laughed softly. He got a great deal of fun out of ragging the old gentleman a bit at times.
"If shaming the devil were all," he said; "but think of your neighbors!"
"I think of no one, sir!" The Colonel was fuming now, and glaring impartially at everything about him.
"Then I wonder you've got a friend left. But, all joking aside, I wouldn't take anything for Dale, and have really grown to like him a whole lot. If he could just get over giving me the creeps! ”