The Wiving of Lance Cleaverage. MacGowan Alice
set apart from the raging mass of predatory males addressed more or less openly and directly to destruction. Poppy and a young brother, Sylvanus, though belonging to the vicious sex and thereby under suspicion, were possible; but Lance, the lawless and debonair, was not only one of the enemy – he was Roxy Griever's horrible example. The church-house where "tham men" were kept on the one side so that the gentler half of creation might sit peacefully on the other, was to her thinking the only safe and proper place of public gathering.
"I tell you, Miz. Gentry," she now pursued, her reprehending eye going past the person she answered to fasten itself on Lance's lounging figure and note the careless, upward fling of his head, "I tell you that I ain't never been back to the Settlement sence I left it a widder. What would I be doin' down thar amongst all tham men? But Lance, he goes down, and every time he goes, I think he gits more of the Old Boy in him, 'caze evil is a-walkin' around at noonday down in tham settlements, and you cain't be safe anywhars."
"Might just as well quit being scared then," drawled Lance's soft voice. He had stepped noiselessly to the door, at Callista's suggestion to see if the coffee were ready.
"You Lance Cleaverage!" returned his sister in a carefully suppressed tone that was sufficiently acid to make up for its lack of volume, "I ain't a-goin' to quit bein' scared for yo' say-so. You ought to be ashamed to name such – in the house with the dead this a-way. No, the coffee'll not be ready for somewhile yet. When hit is, you'ns can fetch cheers and he'p yourselves to it. I'm a-goin' to show Miz. Gentry my gospel quilt that I brung with me to lay over Granny."
Roxanna Cleaverage had married rather late in life. Girlhood had been but an unsatisfactory season to her; young women in a primitive society are not given much prominence, and Roxy had neither beauty nor charm to command what was to be had. Lacking these, she made a great point of religion, which led incidentally to her marriage with John Griever, an itinerant preacher, and brought her two blissful years and Mary Ann Martha. As the wife of a preacher she had been able to assume some dignity, to instruct, to lay down the law, to keep herself measurably in the public eye.
When she was widowed, it was bitter to her to go back to Kimbro Cleaverage's poor home and drop once more into obscurity. She yearned desperately to wear some mark of distinction, to have at least some semblance of social power. And in direct response to this longing, there came a vision in the night, and Roxy rose up and took her bits of quilt pieces and began to fashion a new thing. Other women might have the Rising Sun, the Log Cabin, the Piney-blow, the Basket of Posies; she had conceived and would execute a master work in the way of quilts, quite outside the line of these. Roxy lacked entirely that crude art sense which finds its expression in the mountain woman's beautifully pieced quilt; she only burned to startle admiration, to command respectful attention by some means. The big square of muslin was bought at the expense of considerable pinching and saving, and she began to set upon it those figures which had occupied her mind, her time and her fingers through the years since. Clumsily done, with no feeling whatever for form, proportion, or color, she poured into it a passion of desirous energy which yet produced its effect. The quilt was always at hand for such occasions as this, or when the Presiding Elder came on one of his rare visits. And it was useful to bring out if there were trouble, if someone needed to be overawed or to be threeped down. But that member of the Cleaverage Clan who in her eyes most needed threeping was proof against the gospel quilt. She had never put it forth for Lance's confusion since the day he took such an expressive interest in the undertaking, and advised – in the presence of Preacher Drumright – the adding of a sightly little border of devils around the semi-sacred square.
"A fine row o' davils would help the looks of it mightily, Sis' Roxy," he had argued. "They're named frequent in the Bible, and I'd cut 'em out for you. I would sure enough," he laughed, as she looked heavy reproach at him. "You give me a sharp pair o' shears and I can cut out as fine a lookin' davil as you or anybody need wish for!"
After that she let him alone, aware that his more gifted eye criticized her failures, even when he did not seek the circle about the exhibited quilt and wilfully mistake her angels for turkey buzzards.
The two older women now passed into that cool, shaded little chamber where lay the dead. The windows were open, and the white curtains blew gustily in the night breeze, making the candle Roxy carried flicker. She set it on a high shelf, and got out a thick roll of stuff, unwrapping and spreading forth her contribution to the solemnity of the occasion.
"Hit's jest the top on it," she communicated in a hoarse whisper. "I hain't got the heart to put it in frames and quilt it, 'caze I keep thinkin' of something else that ort to go on it, time I say I'm done. Cur'us that I ain't never showed it to you before." (This was a common formula with the widow, and nobody ever disputed it). "See, that's Adam and Eve, to begin on," and she indicated a pair of small, archaic figures cut from blue checked gingham, their edges turned neatly in and whipped to the white domestic background – when one thinks of it, a domestic background is fairly proper for Adam and Eve. "That ginghams they' cut out'n was a piece o' John's shirt – the last one I made him."
"Tut, tut," responded Octavia, making that little clicking sound with the tongue which does duty variously to express sympathy, reprehension, surprise, or deprecation. She regarded the artistic achievement before her with attention and respect. One could readily distinguish Eve from Adam, because Eve was endowed with petticoats, while Adam rejoiced in legs. Of course Eve had feet; but it would have taken someone less well acquainted with the moral character of the Widow Griever than was Octavia Gentry to deduce legs from those feet.
"What's that thar?" she made the customary inquiry, putting her finger on a twisty bit of polka-dotted calico. "That must be the sarpent."
"Hit air." Roxy returned the expected answer solemnly.
The Ancient Evil was represented as standing sociably on his tail, facing the tempted pair.
"My! Don't he look feisty?" commented Octavia, with courteous admiration. "Watch him jest a-lickin' out his tongue in Eve's face. Lord," she sighed conventionally, "how prone women air to sin!"
"Women? Huh!" snorted Mrs. Griever. "Not nigh so prone as tham men. Look-a-here," turning the quilt to get at the Tree of Good and Evil; "look at them thar apples. Now I made some of 'em out of red calico, and some out of yellow. Do you think I ort to have a few green, Miz. Gentry? Look like green apples is mighty sinful and trouble makin'."
"I don't know," Octavia debated, as she ran her fingers over a brave attempt at one of the Beasts of Revelation. "You might add a few green ones. Hit does stand to reason that the Old Boy is in green apples more than in ripe ones; but ef them that Eve tempted Adam with had been green – do you reckon he'd 'a' bit?"
The scandal was such an old one, that Roxy was evidently a little irritated at its revival.
"Well, o' course," she said with some asperity, "a body cain't gainsay what's in the Bible; but I have my doubts about that thar apple fuss. Hit's men that prints the Good Book, and does about with it – not women; an' I've always had a feelin' that mo' likely hit was Adam got into that apple business first."
"Well, I don't know," repeated Octavia doubtfully. "I always 'lowed the Bible was the Bible. But what's a-goin' to be here?" pointing to a sizable blank space.
"Why, that's a part that I ain't got to finish yet," explained Roxy. "Miz. Abner Dowst given me the prettiest piece o' goods last time I was at her house, and I been studyin' whether to use hit a-depicturin' the Queen of Sheba or Phar'oh's daughter; and then I thought I'd do better to show up Joseph a-dreamin', and the sun and the moon and eleven stars jist over his head – see, they'd set around sorter biassin' this-a-way, betwixt Adam-an'-Eve and this golden harp. Hit's a piece of that dress her gals all had on a-Sunday – you know Dows the always gits a bolt, and time her and the gals all has a dress out of hit, and him a shirt and the boys a shirt apiece, why the bolt's about gone. Well, this time that The'dory May, she axed for something bright, and he was bent on pleasin' her, so he picked for the brightest thing in the store. Hit looked sort o' gay a-comin' into church, one behind another; but now hit'll do fine for Joseph's coat. Ah, law, Miz. Gentry, hit'll be right here in my quilt long after their dresses is wore out and forgot about."
"Yes, indeed, hit will that, Sister Griever," her listener assented, a good deal impressed. "Is these sorter round things –