Opie Percival Read

“ He had slipped one arm about her and her head was on his shoulder.
"Beautiful," Mrs. Mayfield whispered to Jim. "Ah, what a day this has been to me. And, Mr. Reverend, I have begun to think that there is something good about nearly every one. Even that man whom we thought was such a brute became gentle."
"That's true, ma'm, but I think that there's one man that is absolutely depraved. Not the murderer, for he might feed the hungry. Not the wife-beater, for afterward he might beg her forgiveness and kiss her. Not the man that would rob the dead, for he might give a penny to a little child. ”

“ In such communities live poets with lyres attuned to drollery. Moved by the grandeurs of nature, the sunrise, the sunset, the storm among the mountains, the tiller of the gullied hill-side field is half dumb, but with those apt "few words which are seldom spent in vain," he charicatures his own sense of beauty, mingling rude metaphor with the language of "manage" to a horse. ”

“ I never make light of a real trouble, Jasper, but it seems that you do. A real trouble is a comin' down the road, but you don't appear to mind it. Have you seed Lije Peters sense he was here the other day? ”

“ The sun, emblazoning for a moment a distant mountain top, purpled the lower world and then all was in shade. For a long time they had been silent and when she spoke he started out of his revery and rubbed his eyes as if he had been asleep; but he had not, for as a spirit, a little [116] boy Bud, he had played with her in the gulch, coming out from beneath the rock when she called him.
"Let us go back to the house," she said. "They will wonder what has become of us." ”

“ In every age of the world people who live close to nature have, by the more cultivated, been classed as peculiar. An ignorant nation is brutal, but an uneducated community in the midst of an enlightened nation is quaint, unconsciously softened by the cultivation and refinement of institutions that lie far away. ”

“ I'm not changeable, ma'm. The doctrine of gentleness don't apply to a snake, and if that man didn't treat you right he is a snake. And I'm a preacher; I go out among them that needs prayer and I pray; in the night when it seems that everybody else in the world is asleep, I have gone out and knelt down in the dirt and prayed that the pain and the bitterness might be taken from the troubled hearts of my neighbors. ”

“ Descendants of the same men, carrying on what might have seemed a continuation of the same family quarrel, first one side and then another occupied Dry Fork as a fort; and when the rain was pouring as if to wash away the blood, Buell slept on a bench in this old house, and two days later Bragg's orders were issued from its pulpit.
Numerous horses were tied about and the mule colt was blowing his treble horn. Maidens in their finery and young fellows rigged out from the pack of the nomadic Hebrew walked about, glancing shyly at one another. ”

“ It was not only in keeping with the old man's half innocent character—it was the honest spurt of sinful Adam, remaining with the most of us—which the devout preacher may deplore for the sake of example and yet inwardly accept because he is human. I am told that there are languages that hold no profanity and we know that there are tongues too delicate for philosophy and too gentle for blank verse. ”

“ The mo' I talk to Jim, the preacher, the wus I hate red. Blood may be thicker than water all right enough, but it ain't as smilin' when the sun hits it. I don't want to fight, but—"
"Oh, yes you do," she broke in. "You'd ruther fight than eat."
A smile illumined his bronze countenance. "Wall, I ain't always hungry." The smile passed and with countenance grave and with voice deep he said: "Every whar you see a home, you may know that somebody has fit fur it. Every privilege in this here life has cost blood. ”

“ I represent the gospel, and as the gospel, I ask you to liberate that man."
"Hah, preacher," replied Sanderson. "And what if I don't pay no attention to the gospel?"
And Jim's voice was deep and solemn when he answered: "Then Jim Starbuck, the man, will mash your head and throw you out into the road where your dog is lying."
Old Jasper slapped himself and laughed, but there were tears in his eyes. "Thar won't be no necessity for that, Jim. You know my appetite ain't been right good lately—I've needed exercise, and the sort of exercise I need, this here man is goin' to help me to take. ”

“ When our spirits were low for want of hope, she has sung us back into faith. When our blood leaped to throw aside lowly ways and take up with the ways of sin, she told us that she was going home to tell the Lord. ”

“ In barbaric Europe, when every village was a principality unto itself, the cry at midnight, summoning men from their beds to butcher or be butchered, could not have been more startling than the noon-tide cry of "mad dog" in rural Tennessee. Mothers seized their children, fathers caught up guns and axes. ”

“ Tom asked, returning the gun to Lou.
"No, but them's the sort that usually goes off and kills folks. Thar's an old sayin', ma'm," he said to Mrs. Mayfield, "that thar's danger in a gun without lock, stock, or barrel—you kin w'ar a feller out with the ram-rod."
Lou replaced the gun and sat down. Tom stood over her, slily showing her some verses. Mrs. Mayfield, glancing round, understood that it was a [39] "poetic situation," and remarked to Jasper. "Just now we were speaking of trouble. Heart-hunger is the real poetry of life—heart-hunger and heart-ache; our pleasures are but jingling rhymes." ”

“ Old Jasper jingled and clanked the iron of his harness. "I don't know much about fountains," said he, "but I know a good deal about men, and I [40] never seed one with a black heart that ever had it washed out clean. I never knowd a scoundrel that wan't allus a scoundrel, and the Book don't say that the Savior died for scoundrels—died for sinners. A sinner kin be a fust-rate feller, full o' that weakness that helps a wretch outen trouble. The Savior knowed that and died for him."
Margaret slammed her pan of turnips down upon the table. ”

“ A hay stack in an open field couldn't be plainer than my life up to now, but there comes a time even in the most honest man's life when he feels that he must hide something, and that something is the fact that he does feel. ”

“ And how old air you to-day, mammy?"
"I doan hardly know, but I's eider eighty-fo' ur eighty-six."
"An' nobody's life could have been given mo' away in love to others."
"I hopes dat my soul is white, Mars Jasper."
"As white as a lamb, washed in the dew."
"Thank you, Mars Jasper, fur I ain't gwine be yere much longer, fur I's er gwine home. De road has been long an' I's almos' wore out, but I'll git home atter while, an' when I does, I gwine tell de Lawd erbout de folks down yere."
Tom and Lou came from the spring house, carrying a small jar, and the old man exclaimed: "Why, it must be heavy." ”

“ Some how you always make me feel glad when I've said somethin'. You are the only—only people that ever did that."
Jim had not spoken. Mrs. Mayfield asked him why he was so silent. "A man is sometimes most silent when he is afraid of saying too much," he answered, looking down.
"Mysterious wisdom," she mused, and this gave Tom his opportunity.
"Well, that's what you like, Auntie. You never did care for anything you could understand."
"I don't care for impertinence, sir," and Lou laughed at him: "There, you got it that time."
"Ma'm, I have no desire to be mysterious," said Jim. ”

“ A woman's like a mornin' glory flower—always a changing; an' I know you could learn to love me."
"Oh, you do. Well, what you know and what's the truth won't never know each other well enough to shake hands."
Peters smiled upon her, "Wall, if nuthin' else did, that of itself would prove you air old Jasper's daughter."
Margaret Starbuck came in, with a pan of turnips. Peters bowed to her. "Er good mornin', ma'm."
She put the pan on the table and giving him an unconscious grace bade him good morning. "Is mammy done ironin'?" she asked, speaking to Lou. ”

“ Now, I don't believe a sheep would make a very good deputy marshal. Strikes me that the wolf would be a trifle better."
"Jasper, I didn't say a word about a sheep, and you know it."
"That's a fact. I was the one that was a talkin' about a sheep. I know'd it was one of us, but I sorter forgot which one."
"Didn't he say that you made a good deal o' licker when the sun wan't shinin'? Didn't he?"
"Margaret, ef you keep on, I'll be fo'ced to believe you have been listenin'; an' I'd hate to think that. Thar ain't nuthin' much wus than listenin' to [86] other folks when they talk business. ”

“ Tuther day when I flung a rock at a steer, it struck a tree, bounced back and hit me and you said, 'Thar, you've hurt yo'se'f,' and I didn't dispute it. Jest give me the truth and you won't here no complaint. Am I right, Jim?"
Jim did not relish his position as "prover." The umpire of household argument "hath but a losing office." In the opinion of one side or the other his decision is unjust. "You are nearly always right when you think you are, Uncle Jasper, and you don't often think you are right unless you are; and I can say the same of Aunt Margaret." ”

“ Better would it have suited her purpose to parade the double wedding at Dry Fork, to shine in the presence of neighbors. But Jasper, expecting trouble, was in favor of the speediest method. "Miz Mayfield is the manager of the whole affair," said he. "Ma'm, have some of these here snap beans, b'iled with as brown a piece of bacon as you ever seed. What, Margaret, ain't a cryin'?"
"Of course a man would never cry on an occasion of this here sort," she whimpered. "You don't stop to think that our daughter is a goin' to leave us—it don't seem to make no diffunce to you." ”

“ The old man who believes that he is loved by a girl is a reveler in the debauchery of his own vanity. With an egotism unknown to youth, he believes. The "sweet thing" tells him with an air of wisdom that she could [96] not love youth, that it is but an animated folly, and he believes her. ”

“ Take the spirit away and we'd all be cattle. And I know exactly what species of cattle I'd be—I'd be a calf—just a red calf with horns about an inch long, and in nosing around I'd get a basket on my head, be frightened and make myself ridiculous. ”

“ We all seed how the thing was a driftin' an' thar wan't no way to stop it even if we wanted to. That young feller is a man. I am proud of him, an' as Miz Mayfield says, he'll be proud of her."
Still Margaret was loth to leave off. "I'm so glad to know that you ain't disapp'inted."
"No one could be disappointed in her, Mrs. Starbuck. She has a strong character."
"So glad to have sich a estimate from one that knows the world."
"It is knowing something of the world that causes me to place so high a value upon her."
"Thar," said Jasper, "thank her ag'in an' then we'll begin at suthin' else." ”

“ Margaret would clear her throat at him.
"Now, Jasper, what on top of yeth has tickled you so? A body to see you would think that thar wan't nuthin' serious nowhar. Oh, I like to see a man enjoy hisse'f, but—"
"But you don't," Jasper filled in, winking at Jim, who dodged as if an acorn had been flipped at his eye. "Ma'm," he added, "blamed if I believe a woman ever has a right good laugh after she's past thirty. About that time nature turns down the lamp for her and she begins to see shadows. If she does laugh much atter this it is at an enemy. She won't laugh with you—she laughs at you. ”

“ Trouble is when a woman ain't dressed fitten to kill, nobody won't listen to her. Common calico can't talk any better than that Mose Blake; but silk—law me! Sings like a bird up among the green leaves. I despise to hear a man go on thatter way—jest as if a woman ain't respectable unless she covers herself with finery. But I want to tell you that Lou can talk with the rest of 'em when she wants to—and so can I, for that matter."
"Oh, you can talk, Margaret—thar ain't no doubt [88] about that. ”

“ They say that a game-cock is the bravest thing in the world. That is not true. Nothing can be gamer than a game man. He is willing to die for a principle. And never is he thrice armed unless his quarrel is just.
Laz came back to the window and spoke and the old man started and looked toward him. "Jasper, I have hearn that Lije Peters is about to be app'inted deputy marshal." ”

“ A good many of 'em think it was writ fur them ag'in you. Findin' new picturs on the moon, Jim? I don't see nuthin' new; same old feller a burnin' of his bresh, allus a puttin' 'em on the fire an' never gittin' through."
"I'm thinking, that's all, Uncle Jasper."
"Comes from readin' them books up on the hill-top, I reckon. They make me think, too, when I git a holt of 'em, 'specially them about the war—looks like it's a mighty hard matter for a man to tell the truth the minit he grabs holt of a pen. Don't see why a pen is such a liar, but it is. ”

“ Look, they are jest as nature made 'em. Peters, fur God's sake don't turn 'em red."
"That's good talk, Starbuck, an' it mout belong to the pulpit but not to business, an' I'm a business man."
"Yes, you look like it."
"And I'll act like it, too; I'll tell you that fur yo' own infermation. An' thar ain't a man in the country that likes to give out infermation better'n I do—when I see that it's goin' to be of use to somebody. But I don't like to waste my wisdom, Star [190] buck. Look, here, don't you know the right to ruin you has come down to me from my folks, like er old spinnin' wheel? ”

“ Laws a massy, don't I ricolleck it?"
"Talkin' putty! W'y, Margaret, the feller was a tellin' of a lie. I didn't want to fight him an' break up the meetin', an' I was showin' that by settin' thar so quiet. But when he begun to lie, it was my duty to remind him of it."
"Wall," she replied, after a moment's silence, "if that preacher out thar at Dry Fork' to-day begins to say things that you think ain't true, jest set thar an' say nuthin', fur it ain't none o' yo' business."
"That's right, Margaret. I don't kere what a man says when he's a preachin', jest so he don't p'int at me. ”

“ She loved the truth and believed that bravery was not only akin to godliness, but the right hand of godliness.
In Starbuck's household, or at least attached to his log-house establishment, there were two other persons, an old black mammy who had nursed Jasper, and a trifling negro named Kintchin.
One day in summer there came two notable visitors, Mrs. Mayfield, and her nephew Tom Elliott, both from Nashville, sister and son of a United States Judge. When they came to Jasper's house, they decided to go no further.
"Tom," said the woman, "this is the place we are looking for." ”