Heart of the Blue Ridge. Waldron Baily
“Nobody—never, Zeke!” the girl answered, simply. There was an infinite honesty, an unalterable loyalty, in the curt words.
As he listened, the flush died from the lover’s face; contentment shone in his expression.
“I knowed hit, Honey—I knowed hit all the time. I know when I come back I’ll find ye waitin’.”
“Ye’ll come back, I reckon, with fool idees ’bout what yer women-folks ought to wear, like them furriners down below.” Her face relaxed into a genial smile, which brought a dimple to shadow the pink bloom of her cheek. But there was a trace of pensiveness; the vague hint of jealousy in the slow tones:
“Yes, I’ll be a-waitin’ till ye come, Zekie. An’ if the wearin’ o’ shoes an’ stockin’s ’ll make ye any happier, why, I guess I kin stand ’em—an’ them ladies’ straighteners, too. Yep, I’d wear ’em, if they did squeeze me fit to bust.”
Since Plutina had thus come to meet him, there was no need that he should follow further the trail toward the Siddon cabin, which lay out of his course. At the girl’s suggestion that she should accompany him a little way on the first stage of his journey out into the world, the two turned back toward the broader path, which led to the southwest 6 until it met the North Wilkesboro’ road. The two walked side by side, along this lovers’ lane of nature’s kindly devising. They went sedately, in all seeming, for the mountain folk are chary in demonstrations of affection. Yet, beneath the austere mask imposed by convention, their hearts were thrilling with the rapture each found in the near presence of the other. The glamour of romance was like a golden mist over all the scene, irradiating each leaf and flower, softening the bird-calls to fairy flutings, draping the nakedness of distant rugged peaks, bearing gently the purling of the limpid brook along which the path ran in devious complacence. Often, indeed, the lovers’ way led them into the shallows, through which their bare feet splashed unconcerned. The occasional prismatic flash of a leaping trout in the deeper pools caught their eyes. So, presently, the girl was moved to speak—with visible effort, very shyly, for the expression of her love in words was a thing unfamiliar, difficult.
“I sha’n’t have nobody to make flies fer now,” she said dully. “I jest hain’t a-goin’ arter the trout fer fun no more till ye comes back.”
Zeke would have answered, but he checked the words at his lips, lest the trembling of his voice might betray a feeling deemed inconsistent with manliness. They went forward in silence, a-quiver 7 with desire each of the other, yet mute with the forced repression of custom. Now, too, the sorrow of the parting so close at hand, colored their mood more and more, so that the golden glamour first dimmed and then changed into a sinister pall which overhung all the loveliness of the morning. At a turn in the path, where it topped a rise, before descending a long slope to the highway, Zeke came to a standstill. The girl paused obediently beside him. He fumbled in a pocket awkwardly, and drew forth a tiny square of coffee-colored stone, roughly lined, which he held out toward his companion. The tracery of the crystal formed a Maltese cross. The girl expressed no surprise. She accepted the token with a grave nod as he dropped it into her palm, and she remained gazing down at it with eyes hidden under the heavy white lids and long, curving lashes of shadowy brown.
Zeke spoke, very earnestly:
“Hit’s fer good luck, Tiny—fer good luck to he’p ye while we’re apart. Mebby, hit ’ll git in hits work by softenin’ the hardness o’ yer gran’pap’s heart agin me.”
In truth, the concentration of his thought on the fragment of stone had been enough of itself to give a talisman occult potence. That concentration of desire for the girl’s well-being was not merely of this moment. It had been with him constantly during 8 long hours of tedious clambering yesterday, when he followed the channel of Garden Creek through its tortuous course among the ravines of the Blue Ridge, through the narrow defile of the Devil’s Garden, sunless, strewn with rubble of boulders, with a chaos of shattered rock masses—débris, superstition said, of cataclysm—of the Crucifixion, when the mountain crests tore themselves asunder, and cast their pinnacles into the abyss for rage and grief. The searcher had climbed on and on, until he reached the nook sacred to the crystals. For concerning these, also, the superstition had its say, and told that the little pieces of stone, with the cross marked on each, were, in fact, the miraculously preserved tears shed by the fairies of these fastnesses in the dread hour of the Saviour’s anguish. The lover had sought long for a crystal that should be perfect. Now that it lay within the girl’s hand, he was content of his toil. Surely, whatever the truth concerning its origin, it was a holy thing, for the emblem it bore. It would serve to shield her against aught evil that might threaten—even the grandfather’s enmity against him, which set a barrier between them and happiness. The crystal would abide with her in sign of his love’s endurance, strong to save her and to cherish her against any ill. He sighed with relief, when she raised the crystal, and dropped it within her bosom. 9
Still, as always, fearful of showing emotion too openly, Zeke hastened to introduce a new topic. He took from a pocket a book of twelve two-cent postage stamps, to secure which he had trudged the four miles from his mother’s cabin to the Cherry Lane post-office. The book, in its turn, was proffered to Plutina, who accepted it in mild bewilderment.
The lover explained:
“Honey,” he said, without any embarrassment over the fact, “ye knows my ole mammy hain’t edicated, an’ I want ye to write for her once a month, arter I write to tell ye whar I’ll be.”
The girl nodded tacit acceptance of the trust, and consigned the stamps to a resting place alongside the crystal. And then, after a little, she spoke heavily:
“I reckon as how you-all better be a-joggin’, Zeke.”
For answer, the lad caught the girl in his arms, and gave her a kiss on either cheek—the hearty, noisy smacks of the mountaineer’s courting. But, in the next instant, he drew her close in an embrace that crushed the two warm bodies to rapture. His lips met hers, and clung, till their beings mingled. Afterward, he went from her voicelessly. Voicelessly, she let him go. … There could be no words to comfort the bitterness of such parting.
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CHAPTER II
When he was come within view of Joines’ mill and store on Roaring River, Zeke halted again for a final look back toward the wild home land, which he was now leaving for the first time. The blackness of his mood after parting with the girl had passed, though melancholy still made him its own. The resilience of youth was turning his spirits again toward the hopes that had inspired this going forth from his own familiar little wilderness into the vast and unknown wilderness of the world beyond. As he stared out at the scattered peaks, reared like conning towers over the sprawling medley of ridge and valley, a throb of fondness shook his heart. It was not sprung from esthetic appreciation of the wild and romantic landscape, though this had been sufficient to justify the stir of feeling. His sensibility was aroused by the dear friendliness of all the scene, where hollows and heights had been his constant haunts through all the days of childhood and adolescence until this hour. Of a sudden, he realized as never before a profound tenderness for this country of beetling crags 11 and crystal rivers, of serene spaces and balsamic airs. Hitherto, he had esteemed the neighborhood in some dull, matter-of-course fashion, such as folk ordinarily give to their native territory. But, in this instant of illumination, on the eve of separating himself from the place, love of it surged within him. This was his home, the dwelling of his dear ones. He felt toward it a quick reverence as for something strangely sacred. His eyes went to the great bulk of Stone Mountain, which jutted just before him to the east, its league of naked rock lying like some monstrous guardian of the place. Somehow, the dignity of the massive curving cliffs soothed him, heartened him anew. The immutability of the huge mound of stone was a prophecy. Through the ages, it had maintained its ward steadfastly. So it would remain. A gush of confidence washed away the last of the watcher’s