The Jucklins. Opie Percival Read
to please her," she said, when Mrs. Jucklin had turned about to keep a hoe-cake from burning. "All you've got to do is to say nothing until she gets through—that, and simply to remember that she enjoys it."
While we were eating we heard a voice crying: "Hike, there, Sam; get him down, Bob! Hike there!"
"They are warming up to their work," Guinea remarked, and her mother sighed; and then she began to talk louder than was her wont, striving to drown the old man's voice. "It isn't any use, mother," said the girl. "The gentleman will find it out sooner or later."
"And I suppose," said I, "that you think that you may find out my name sooner or later. Please pardon me for not introducing myself. My name is——"
"Hike, there, Bob! Get him down, Sam! Now you are at it! Hike, there!"
"My name is Hawes, William Hawes, and I am from Alabama."
"And you have come to teach the school?" said the girl.
"Yes, if I can make the arrangements."
"But is there anything very satisfying in such an occupation?" she asked.
I felt then that she placed no very high estimate upon my worth, and on her part this was but natural, for among country people school-teaching is looked upon as a lazy calling.
"I have not chosen teaching as my real vocation," I answered.
"Hike, there, I tell you! Hike!"
"It is my aim to be a lawyer, to be eloquent, to stir emotions, to be strong in the presence of men. My earlier advantages, no matter how I sought to turn them about, gave me no promise of reaching the bar; I had good primary training, but in reality I had to educate myself, and in the work of a teacher I saw a hope to lead me onward."
"Came within one of letting them fight to a finish," said the old man, stepping into the room.
"Limuel, why will you always humiliate me?" his wife asked, placing a chair for him.
"Humiliate you! Bless your life, I wouldn't humiliate you. The only trouble is that you are tryin' to make me fit a garment you've got, ruther than to make the garment fit me. I ain't doin' no harm, Susan, and it's my way, and you can't very well knock the spots off'en a leopard nur skin an Etheopian. Here comes Alf."
The son was a young fellow of good size, shapely, and with his mother's black eyes. Guinea introduced me to him, and at once I felt that I should like to win his friendship. The old man explained my presence there. "And now," said he, "I want you to go over to old Perdue's with him after dinner and see if any arrangements can be made. He's goin' to board with us, and I want to tell you right now that he is from good stock; his grandaddy was the captain of the company that my daddy fit in durin' the Creek war, and from what I learn I don't reckon there was ever sich fightin' before nor since. What are they doin' over at the General's?"
"Nothing much," Alf answered. "They started to plow this morning, but it is still most too wet."
"Was Millie at home?" Guinea asked.
"I think so, but I suppose you know that Chid isn't."
"Never mind that," the old man spoke up. "Leave all cuttin' and slashin' to folks that ain't no kin to each other. You've been to dinner, have you, Alf? Well, hitch the mare to the buckboard and go with this gentleman over to old Perdue's."
CHAPTER IV.
At the end of the passage, facing the ravine, I stood and talked to Guinea, while Alf was hitching the mare to the buck-board. The sun was well over to the west, pouring upon us, and in the strong light I noted the clear, health-hue of her complexion. A guinea chicken, swift and graceful, ran round the corner of the house, and, nodding toward the fowl, I said: "I am talking to her namesake and she is jealous."
I thought that the shadow of a pout crossed her lips, but she smiled and replied: "If my real name were not so ugly I'd insist upon people calling me by it. I hate nicknames."
"But sometimes they are appropriate," I rejoined.
"But when they are," she said, laughing, "they never stick. It's the disagreeable nickname that remains with us."
"Is that the philosophy you learned at Raleigh?" I asked.
She shrugged her shapely shoulders, laughed low in her throat and answered: "I haven't learned philosophy at all. It doesn't take much of a stock of learning for a girl who lives away out here."
"But she might strive to learn in order to be fitted for a better life, believing that it will surely come."
"How encouraging you are, Mr. Hawes. After a while you may persuade me that I am really glad that you came."
"You have already made me glad," I replied.
"Have I? Then mind that I don't make you sorry. Alf's waiting for you."
As we drove toward Perdue's I wondered what could have caused old man Jucklin's change of manner at the time he had spoken of sending his daughter away to be educated. Surely, he could not deplore the grace and refinement which this schooling had given her. Would it be well to ask Alf? No; he could but regard such a question as a direct impertinence.
The mare trotted briskly and the rush of cool air was delicious. The road was crooked, holding in its elbows bits of scenery unsuspected until we were upon them, moss growing under great rocks, weeping in eternal shade, a bit of water blazing in the sun, a hickory bottom, where squirrels were barking; and from everywhere came the thrilling incense of spring.
Alf, though a farmer, had not the stoop of overwork, nor that sullenness that often comes from a life-long and close association with the soil; he was chatty, talked to his mare, talked to me and whistled to himself. He pointed out a cave wherein British soldiers had been forced to take refuge to save themselves from the pursuit of victorious patriots, but what they had supposed was a refuge was, indeed, a trap, for the patriots smoked them out and took them to General Green's camp. We drove upon a hill top, and, looking across a valley, I saw a large brick house on a hill not far beyond. And I recognized it as a place that I had seen earlier in the day. "It's where General Lundsford lives," said Alf, following my eyes with his own. "We go by there. He used to own a good many negroes and some of them still hang about him. Most of his land is poor, but enough of it is rich to make him well off. And proud! He's proud as a blooded horse. Most of the very few old-timers that are left in this part of the country. We are getting somewhat Yankeefied, especially away over to the east where so many northern people come of a winter. But he doesn't take much to it—still cuts his wheat with a cradle."
We drove down into the valley, crossed a rude stone bridge, and slowly went up the other side. The mare, brisk from having been pent up, showed a disposition to quicken her pace, but Alf held her back, searching with his strong eyes the yard, the summer house in the garden hard by and the orchard off to the left. I looked at him and his face was eager and hard set, but his eyes, though strained, were soft and glowing. I spoke to him, but he heeded me not, but just at that moment he drew himself straighter and gazed toward the house. And I saw a woman crossing the yard. The road ran close to the low, rough stone wall, and when we had come opposite the gate Alf stopped the mare and got out to buckle a strap. But I noticed that he was looking more at the house than at the strap. A broad porch, or gallery, as we term it, ran nearly half way round the house, and out upon this a girl stepped and stood looking over us at the hills far away. I saw Alf blush, and the next moment he had sprung upon the buck-board and was driving off almost furiously. I wondered why he should be afraid of her. He was not overgrown, not awkward, but lithe, and I knew that he loved her and that his own emotion had frightened him.
Perdue lived but a short distance beyond the General's place, and soon we were there, talking to the old fellow out at the fence. When I told him my business he looked sharply at me, appearing to measure me from head to foot; and he