A Maid of the Kentucky Hills. Edwin Carlile Litsey
seven days; exploring my hill of refuge, and making little excursions into the neighboring fastnesses. Almost the last thing 'Crombie told me was to remember the life-plant, and the sooner I began the search the better it would be for me. I'm not altogether satisfied about this life-plant, although I know 'Crombie wouldn't joke with me about so serious a matter. I have at length decided to take his word implicitly, and begin a systematic hunt for this most peculiar growth. I am feeling suspiciously well. My cough has nearly gone, and it seems almost absurd that a strapping man of six foot two should be out chasing a chimera of this sort.
This morning I was up before the sun, an experience I have not known since childhood. I breakfasted bountifully on ham, eggs, bread, and coffee. Then, flushing foolishly, I filled a pint Mason jar with water—sweet water—screwed the top down tightly, thrust the jar hastily in my coat pocket, took my pipe and a stout staff I had cut several days before, and started on my first tramp for this life-plant.
I swung down the road—I will call it such—up which the wagons had come, crossed to the spring and drank of the cold, bad smelling water, and as I stood puffing my pipe I wondered which way I should go. It did not matter in the least, but it was human to consider, and I considered. Before me loomed the prodigious bulk of my home hill. Back of me rose another, not quite so imposing, but exceedingly steep. To right and left swept the ravine, silent, shadowy in the newborn morning. It was from the right we had come. I turned to the left, and presently the thick soles of my heavy walking shoes were crunching and clattering the loose shale as I skirted the shallow stream bed.
I went far that day, climbing ridge after ridge, traversing hollow after hollow, always with my eyes open for my rare treasure. Again and again I came upon farm land, small patches of tilled soil which the stubborn strength of man had wrested from the wilderness to supply his needs. These fields I went around. Once, from a high point, I saw a tiny hamlet, caught the cackle of geese, and heard the low of kine.
Noon came and went before I was aware. I had brought no lunch with me. It was past midafternoon when I again drew near home. There was never any danger of my getting lost. Far as I might walk in a single day, that towering peak would yet be visible, rearing itself in silent grandeur to guide me back. The thought was comforting.
I approached in a different direction from any I had ever taken before, coming almost from due west. I had swiftly descended a slight slope, hunger giving me haste, and had burst into a glade at the edge of one of the many creeks which threaded the country, when I stopped short.
A girl was standing on the further side of the glade. She had not heard me, for the leaf-sodden mold gave back no sound from my careless feet. She stood under a dogwood tree, and it chanced, the moment I beheld her, that the declining sun fell all about and over her. She had plucked a number of sprays from the tree, and as I stood with bated breath she began to weave the white and yellow blooms into her hair, which shone in my eyes like a reflection from burnished copper. She sang as she weaved, or rather crooned, for I caught no words. It was just an elfin little tune, with quavering minors strung on a listless monotone. She was garbed very, very simply; a one piece dress of faded blue, belted at the waist. A poke bonnet of the same color lay upon the ground near her feet. Her position in relation to mine was a semi-profile, so I could make little of her face, but her form was slim and straight, and her bowed arms displayed a natural grace as she thrust her fingers in and out of her shining hair, working the star-like blossoms into place.
As I stood wonder-struck, debating what to do, I saw a commotion in the tree by which she stood, a scuttling form darted out on the branch nearest the girl's head, then leaped to her shoulder, where it sat and nibbled a nut, its tail a graceful gray plume. I think my mouth went agape; if it didn't, it should have, for here was magic.
The girl—or dryad, for I was beginning to doubt if she was real—paid no immediate heed to the squirrel, but went on droning her song and toiling patiently at the flowers. I stood and watched her, leaning on my staff, my erstwhile hunger forgotten. Would she vanish into air, or would she disappear in the cleft of an oak? I determined to see.
In a few moments her crown was in place. She put her hands down, but almost at once raised one of her arms, and gave a small, thin, twittering call. She stood like a statue, apparently waiting, then repeated the sound, varying it only by a quick rising inflection at the end. Like an echo an answer filtered sweetly out from the forest to one side, and I saw a streak of brown cleave the air of the glade, as a small wood bird, of a species unknown to me, dipped to the outstretched arm and perched upon the girl's wrist. There it sat, its pert little tail at a sharp angle, and its head cocked to one side very knowingly.
"Good Lord!" I burst forth, involuntarily, then bit my lip for a fool.
The charm was rudely broken; I had spoiled the tableau.
With a whisk of his tail the squirrel dropped to the girl's hip, jumped to the ground, and headed toward the thicker growth with frightened leaps. The bird vanished as the ball does from between the conjuror's fingers—it just went, but I did not see it go—and the girl turned with a quiet movement to see who the idiot was.
"I—beg your pardon!" I said, advancing several steps and taking off my cap. "That—er—I have never seen—you know—er—I'm really sorry I scared them off!"
She stood perfectly calm, her weight resting rather awkwardly upon one foot, her hands loosely clasped in front of her, as I made my stammering speech. I don't know why I should have been so confused, unless it was from her rare composure.
"They'll come back," she said, assuringly, and smiled.
I drew closer. I could not believe the evidence of my eyes. When I saw her joined hands I marveled; they were white, slender, smooth, entirely unmarked by toil. Now her face. It was fresh, sweet—not beautiful—and lighted by gray eyes, which brought a sensation to my spine. It was not a face I would have expected to meet in the Kentucky knob country. True, there was a superficial expression which reflected her environments, her associates, but this appeared to me even in that moment as a veil to be taken off, that the true nature might shine forth. Her voice was low, rich, and held a strangely haunting note which made for unrest in the heart of a man. She was totally wild; that I could not doubt. Illiterate, crude, a child of the locality, but when I first looked in her face, when I first heard her voice, I knew that I stood before one whom Fate had cheated. That she was not abashed, not even startled by the sudden appearance of a total stranger, I attributed rightly to her mode of life, which was untrammeled by convention, thoroughly natural, and free from the restraints artificiality begets.
"You—live near?" I said, never once thinking of passing on now that my apology was spoken.
"Uh-huh; at Lizard P'int. 'Tain't fur—up th' holler a bit."
The simple words struck me almost like a blow. The voice was sweet as a flute in its lowest tones, the lips were red and curving, but the speech was the uncouth vernacular of the hills. Fate had indeed cheated her.
As I nervously drew out my pipe, thinking what I should say next, she discovered a rent on her shoulder where the careless claws of the scared squirrel had torn the fabric of her dress. She gave a little exclamation of annoyance, thrust one finger in the torn place, pouted as a child might for an instant, then laughed and tossed her garlanded head.
"I don't keer! Granny'll fix it!"
It was my cue.
"Who is Granny?"
"Granny? … Oh! my granny. We live together."
"On Lizard Point," I supplemented. "Doesn't anyone else live with you?"
She nodded her head brightly.
"Yes, Grandf'er does, but he don't count."
Her ingenuousness was bewitching, and I essayed to prolong the interview.
"Aren't you afraid to wander around in the woods this way alone?"
"Me! … Skeerd?"
For a moment she looked at me with dropped chin and a tiny frown of wonder, then a glad stream of laughter came pouring from her upheld