A Maid of the Kentucky Hills. Edwin Carlile Litsey
rippling, echoing cadences. I gazed on the round, gleaming column of her young throat, milk-white and firm, and a subtle, primal call stirred in my breast. When her boisterous merriment had subsided, I could see her teeth, like young corn when the husks are green, between the scarlet of her parted lips.
I came closer yet. I was bewildered, puzzled, but strangely attracted. I scarcely knew how to answer her.
"You see," I tried to explain, "it—that is, where I came from young women go nowhere without an escort, except in town."
"Oh!"
Her face was serious now, and she seemed trying to comprehend.
"Whur'd you come frum?" she demanded, with disconcerting abruptness.
"From Lexington."
"Whut's that?"
"A town—a little city."
"I don't like city people!"
The sentence sprang forth spontaneously, and she looked displeased.
"Why?"
I did not receive an answer. She was kicking a small bunch of moss with the toe of her ugly, coarse shoe, which was rusty, and laced with a string. But for all its shapelessness, the shoe was very small.
"Why don't you like city people?"
"'Cause Buck says they're mean an' stuck up!"
She flashed the sentence at me with a rapid glance of defiance.
"Who's Buck?"
Now the girl's face took fire, and dire confusion gripped her. Hair and skin became indistinguishable. But she flung her head up bravely, and with burning eyes looked straight into mine.
"Buck Steele. He's th' blacksmith over to Hebron, an' he's—my frien'."
She had grit. I honored her for that speech.
"You know I'm a stranger," I ran on, easily, making a pretense to fill my pipe, and so help her over her embarrassment. "I came just about a week ago. I'm in the house up on Bald Knob yonder. The city didn't agree with me, and my doctor sent me out here to get well. I'm not mean and stuck up, believe me. I've got the poorest sort of an opinion of myself, although I've lived pretty clean. Now I want to be friends with you, and all the folks about here. You'll help me, won't you?"
Her self-possession had returned while I was talking. When I stopped, I smiled, and looked at her as frankly and honestly as I could.
"You don' 'pear puny!" was her startling rejoinder.
I took another tack.
"Pray tell me how it is the birds and the beasts obey you?"
"I love 'em!" she answered, promptly, and with warmth. "I know 'em, an' they know me."
She turned without warning, and walking to the bank of the creek, which at this point was raised several feet above the water, leaned over and peered down into the pool below. Could Eve have been more artless? She was looking at her reflection in the mirror of the stream!
I picked up her bonnet by one of the strings, then went and stood beside her. A compliment arose unbidden to my lips, but I stifled it. It would not have been fair.
"I mus' go," she said, straightening up, and twisting a hanging curl near her forehead back beneath her hair.
"Aren't you—"
I started to ask if she wasn't afraid, and if I mightn't go with her, but remembered in time.
"—and your granny very lonely?" I finished, lamely, but she did not appear to notice it.
"La! No! Th' Tollerses 's jis' t'other side o' th' ridge, 'n' they've got a pas'l o' kids. No time to git lonesome!"
My spirit writhed. Such language as this—from her!
She held out a hand for the bonnet.
I brought it forward slowly, still holding it by the string. Her hand rested against mine for an instant as she took it. At this juncture I made a—to me—significant discovery. Her nails were pared and clean! It seemed paradoxical, but it was true. I did not attempt to account for the phenomenon then, but I did later, with no results whatever.
"Where is Lizard Point—exactly?" I asked, my voice more serious than it had been during our talk.
She pointed her finger down the creek, as it flowed gently murmuring to the south.
"Th' crick 'll lead yo'. Nigh onto half mile frum here."
"I'm coming to see you and your granny some day soon. May I? You know it's lonesome for me out here. I'm not used to it. May I come?"
She gazed at me with steady gray eyes for a few moments.
"Ye-e-es; I s'pose so," she answered, reluctantly; "if yo' git lonesome. … Whut yo' keer'n' that jar fur?"
Her glance had just espied it, and now it was my turn to blush.
"I'll tell you—when I see you again," I compromised, laughing.
She started off, but stopped and turned.
"Live on Baldy, yo' say?"
"Yes; in the old log house there."
"I go thur sometimes. Maybe I'll come 'n' see you!"
"All right. You'll be mighty welcome."
"Good-by."
"Good-by."
She did not look back, and I stood with a distinct sensation enveloping me until her copper-gold head, crowned with the star-like dogwood, had passed from view.
CHAPTER FIVE
IN WHICH I SAY WHAT I PLEASE
A prodigious miracle has happened.
It is not yet mid-April, but the Spirit of Life has stirred in every bole and bough; every twig and tendril. The awakening has been so gradual, so stealthy, so silent, that not until this afternoon did I notice that the far reaching brown world over which I daily looked, had changed.
I had been doing some rough carpentering—building a bench on either side of my doorway outside, using a broad plank I had found in the kitchen for the purpose. It is true I had chairs, and chairs are more comfortable, but it has struck me that the Lodge would look better with these benches in front; would have a more finished appearance. So I knocked them up quickly. Now on the further rim of my plateau grows a single pine; a tall, many-limbed, graceful tree. Somehow the thought was born that a bench under this pine would not be placed amiss, so I walked toward it to investigate the idea at close range. Its lowest branches shot out more than two feet over my head, and as I passed under them I obtained a fresh and unobstructed view of a tremendous reach of landscape. Instantly my mind received the impression that something had happened. The entire perspective was subtly transformed.
Before me was nothing but trees—a vast valley full; slopes clothed with them and peaks capped with them. And each tree was touched with mystery; the familiar, never to be understood transmutation of sap to bud and leaf. The effect from where I stood was not beautiful only; it awoke a positive awe in my heart. The immense area comprehended by my gaze was undergoing resurrection. Painless, soundless, without effort, the ancient forest was coming back to life; to green, vigorous, waving and dancing life. The process was as yet scarcely begun, but already it was a veracious promise of perfect fulfillment. A tenuous, lacey veil of pale, elusive green seemed stretched over all growth within the scope of my vision. A misty, unreal