The Jucklins. Opie Percival Read
are a stranger in North Caroliny," he said when he had clucked to his horses.
"Yes, I am a stranger everywhere you might put it," I answered. "I am from Alabama, but the people made so much fun of me in the community where I was brought up that I am even a stranger there."
"What did they make fun of you about?"
"Because I was overgrown and awkward."
"Whoa, boys! Let's shake hands again. I got it the same way when I was a boy, and I come in one of never gettin' over it."
We drove on and had gone some distance when he asked: "Do you know all about 'rithmetic?"
"I at least know the multiplication table."
"It's more than I do. Get up there, boys. And down in my country they think that a man that don't know all about 'rithmetic is a fool. I have often told them that there wan't no record of the fact that the Saviour was good at figgers, except figgers of speech, but they won't have it that a man is smart unless he can go up to a barn and cover one side of it with eights and sevens and nines and all that sort of thing. I've got a daughter that's quicker than a flash—took it from her mother, I reckon—and I have a son that's tolerable, but I have always been left in the lurch right there. But I can read all right, and I know the Book about as well as the most of them, but that makes no difference down in our neighborhood. The pace down there is set by Old General Lundsford. He knows all about figgers and everything else, for that matter, but figgers is his strong holt. He owns nearly everything; is a mighty 'ristocrat and don't bend very often; lives in the house that his grandfather built, great big brick, and never had no respect for me at all until I wallowed him in the road one day about thirty odd years ago. And along about ten years after that he found out that he had a good deal of respect for me. What do you know about game chickens?"
"Not very much; I simply know that they are about the bravest things that live."
He gave me another one of his square looks and replied: "There is more wisdom in such talk as that than there could be crowded into a wheat bin. But, do you know that people make fun of me because I admire a game rooster? They do. I don't want to fight 'em for money, you know; I'm a good church member and all that sort of thing; I believe the Book from one end to the other; believe that the whale swallowed Jonah, I don't care if its throat ain't bigger than a hoe-handle; believe that the vine growed up in one night, and withered at mornin'; believe that old Samson killed all them fellers with the jaw-bone—believe everything as I tell you from start to finish, but I'll be blamed if I can keep from fightin' chickens to save my life. And I always keep two beauties, I tell you. Not long ago my wife ups and kills Sam and fed him to a preacher. Preacher was there, hungry, and the other chickens were parading around summers on the other side of the hill, but my wife she ups and kills Sam, a black beauty, with a pedigree as long as a plow-line. And, sir, while that man was chawin' of my chicken he gave me a lecture on fightin' roosters."
"You spoke of your son and daughter. Do they attend school?"
"Oh, no; they are grown long ago."
"Then how is it that the teacher usually boards at your house?"
"I don't know; but they do. Reckon they jest fell into the habit. My house is handy, for one thing; ain't more than three miles from the school—jest a nice, exercisin' sort of walk. Whoa, boys! Sorter have to scotch 'em back goin' down here. Saw a man get killed down there one day; horse kicked him, and do you see that knob over there where them hickory trees are? I had a hard time there one night. A lot of foot-burners come to my house one night durin' the war and took me out and told me that if I didn't give them my money they would roast my shanks. I didn't have any money and I told them so, but they didn't believe me; and so they brought me right over there where them hickories are, tied me, took off my shoes and built up a fire at my feet; but about the time they had got me well blistered, along come some Yankee soldiers and nabbed 'em. And a few minutes after that there wasn't anything agin their feet, I tell you, not even the ground. Well, we are gettin' pretty close to home now."
"But we haven't come fifteen miles from the station, have we?"
"Well, you had come about five mile before I overtook you and we have come nearly ten since then. These hosses are travelers. Oh, I reckon we've got about three more miles to go yet."
The country was old, with here and there a worn-out and neglected field. A creek wound its way among the hills, deep and dark in places, but babbling out into a broad and shiny ford where we crossed. One moment the scene was desolate, with gullied hill-sides, but further on and off to the right I could see poetic strips of meadow land, and further yet, upon a hill-top, stood a grim old house of brick and stone. We turned off to the right before coming abreast of this place, and pursued a winding course along a deep-shaded ravine, not rough with broken ground, but graceful with grassy slopes and with here and there a rock. My companion pointed out his house, what is known as a double log building, with a broad passage way between the two sections. A path, so hard and smooth that it shone in the sun, ran down obliquely into the ravine, and at the end of it I saw a large iron kettle overturned, and I knew that this marked the spring. I liked the place, the forest back of it, the steep hills far away, the fields lying near and the meadow down the ravine. I hate a new house, a new field, a wood that looks new; to me there must be the impress of fond association, and here I found it, the spring-house with moss on its roof, the path, a great oak upon which death had placed its beautiful mark—a bough of misletoe.
"You hop right out and go in and make yourself at home, while I take care of the horses," said the old man. "Go right on," he added, for he saw that I was hesitating. "You don't need an introduction. Jest say that you are Whut'sname and that you are the new school teacher."
"But I don't know yet that I am to be the teacher."
"Well, then, tell 'em that you are Whut'sname and that you don't know whether you are to be the teacher or not."
"But won't you stop long enough to introduce me?"
"Oh, I reckon I mout. Come on. There is wife in the door, now."
He did not go as far as the door; he simply shouted: "Here's a man, Susan. He can tell you his name, for blamed if I ain't dun forgot."
CHAPTER III.
Into this household I was received with open-handed graciousness. Nothing can be more charming than the unconscious generosity of simple folk. To this family I applied the word simple and cut myself with a cool smile at my own vanity. Was I not a countryman and as rustic-minded as they? But I had come from another community, had crossed a state line and the lines of several counties, and besides I took to myself the credit of having read many a cunning book, and therefore these people were surely more simple than I. Traveling unquestionably gathers knowledge, but the man who reads has ever a feeling that he is the proper critic of the man who has simply observed.
Mrs. Jucklin gave me a strong grasp of welcome, apologized for the lack of order that I must surely find in the house and conducted me to the sitting-room, a large apartment, with a home-woven carpet on the floor. A turkey wing, used for a fan, hung beside the enormous fire-place, and on the broad mantelpiece, trimmed with paper cut in scollops, an old Yankee clock was ticking. The woman shook a cat out of a hickory rocking chair and urged me to sit down. She knew that I must be tired after my long ride, and she said that if I would only excuse her for a moment she would go down to the spring-house and get me a glass of milk, to give me strength wherewith to wait until she could stir about and get something to eat. And above all, I must pardon Limuel's abruptness of manner. But really he meant nothing by it, as I would find out when I should become better acquainted with him. She was a little, black-eyed woman, doubtless a descendant of a Dutch family that had come to the colony at an early date, for she reminded me of my mother, and I know that mother's grandfather was a Dutchman. I begged Mrs. Jucklin not to go after the milk, but she ran away almost with the lightness of a girl. In truth, to think of the milk made me shudder;