Heart of the Blue Ridge. Waldron Baily
When he drew near to North Wilkesboro’, where he proposed to make a first essay in railway journeying, Zeke seated himself under the shade of a grove of persimmon-trees by the wayside, there painfully to encumber his feet with the new shoes. As he laced these, he indulged in soliloquy, after a fashion bred of his lonely life, on a subject born of his immediate surroundings.
“I hain’t noways superstitious,” he mused complacently, “but this grove ain’t no nice place, bein’ as it must be a nigger cemetery. Uncle Dick Siddon says they’s always niggers buried whar they’s persimmon-trees, an’ he says the niggers come first. An’ Uncle Dick, he ought to know, bein’ he’s eighty-odd-year old. Anyhow, it seems reasonable, ’cause niggers do swaller the stuns when they eats persimmons, an’ so, o’ course, jest nacher’ly the trees ’ll 19 spring up where the niggers git planted. So they’d be ha’nts like’s not. But I hain’t superstitious—not a mite. Mr. Sutton, he said such things as ha’nts an’ witch-doctors an’ such was all plumb foolishness. Still, my mammy has seen—”
He fell silent, recalling old wives’ tales of fearsome things seen and heard of nights. The shoes adjusted, he took from the black bag a holster, which sheltered a formidable-appearing Colt’s revolver. Having made sure that the weapon was loaded and in perfect order, Zeke returned it to the holster, which he put on snugly under the left arm-pit. These final preparations complete, he got up, and hastened into the town.
One bit more of his musings he spoke aloud, just before he entered the main street:
“No, I hain’t superstitious. But, by crickey! I’m plumb tickled I giv Plutiny thet fairy cross. They say them stones is shore lucky.”
At the railway station, Zeke asked for a ticket to Norfolk.
“Want a return-trip ticket?” the friendly station-agent suggested. He supposed the young mountaineer was taking a pleasure excursion to the city.
But Zeke shook his head defiantly, and spoke with utter forgetfulness of his experience in Joines’ store.
“No,” he declared stoutly, “I hain’t a-comin’ back till I’ve made my fortin.” 20
“You’ll be a long time gone from this-here State o’ Wilkes,” the agent vouchsafed dryly. He would have said more, but his shrewd eyes saw in this young man’s expression something that bade him pause, less sceptical. The handsome and wholesome face showed a strength of its own in the resolute curving nose and the firmly-set lips and the grave, yet kindly, eyes, with a light of purposeful intelligence glowing within their clear deeps. The tall form, broad of shoulder, deep of chest, narrow of hip, though not yet come to the fulness of maturity, was of the evident strength fitted to toil hugely at the beck of its owner’s will. The agent, conscious of a puny frame that had served him ill in life’s struggle, experienced a half-resentment against this youth’s physical excellence. He wondered, if, after all, the boast might be justified by the event.
“Train in ten minutes,” he said curtly, as he pushed out the ticket.
So, presently, Zeke, found himself seated for the first time on the red plush seat of a railway carriage. The initial stage of his journey was ended; the second was begun.
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CHAPTER III
The right of way from North Wilkesboro’ to Greensboro’ runs through a region where every vista delights the eye with wild and romantic scenes. The rails follow the course of the upper reaches of the Yadkin River, with swift succession of vicious curves and heavy grades. The twistings of the road-bed, so advantageous for presenting the varied loveliness of the wilds, were by way of being a real torture to the young adventurer, who sat in seeming stolidity near the rear door of the smoking-car, with the black bag between his feet. Even experienced travelers found the lunges of the train trying to their nerves as it shot at speed around “hairpin” bends, or hurled itself to the fall of a steeper descent. To Zeke, who for the first time knew the roar and jolt of such travel, this trip was a fearsome thing. To sit movelessly there, while the car reeled recklessly on the edge of abysses, was a supreme trial of self-control. The racking peril fairly sickened him. A mad impulse of flight surged in him. Yet, not for worlds would he have let anyone guess his miserable alarm. 22
Nevertheless, one there was who apprehended in some measure the ordeal through which the mountaineer was passing—happily, a kindly observer. An elderly man, across the aisle from Zeke, regarded his fellow passenger with particular intentness. It seemed to him that, in some vague way, the clean-cut face was familiar. His curiosity thus aroused, he perceived the tenseness of expression and attitude, and shrewdly suspected the truth. It was with benevolent intent, rather than for the gratification of inquisitiveness, that he finally got up and seated himself in the vacant place alongside the younger man.
Zeke’s perturbation caused him to start nervously at this advent of a stranger, but a single glance into the wrinkled, yet hale, face of the man reassured him. The visitor’s amiable character showed plainly in his dim blue eyes, which twinkled merrily. Moreover, there was a sure witness of worth in the empty sleeve, pinned to his left breast, on which showed the cross of honor. The humor lurking in the eyes was grotesquely manifested in his first address:
“This-hyar railroad hain’t no fitten one fer beginners,” he announced, with a chuckle. “Hit’s plumb likely to make a squirrel into a nut.”
Zeke smiled, somewhat ruefully. He understood the play on words since “boomer,” the mountaineers’ own name for the red squirrel, is often 23 applied to themselves. But the distraction afforded by the garrulous veteran was a relief. A new spur was given to their mutual interest when, after telling his name, it was discovered that his father had been a company-mate with Seth Jones, the veteran, in the Twelfth North Carolina Volunteers. The old man’s curiosity was highly gratified by this explanation of the inherited likeness that had puzzled him, and he waxed reminiscent and confidential. The diversion was welcome to his listener, where doubtless many another might have found the narrative of by-gone campaigns tedious in this prolix retelling. Ultimately, indeed, the youth’s sympathies were aroused by Jones’ tale of misfortune in love, wherein his failure to write the girl he left behind him had caused her first to mourn him as dead, and eventually to marry her second choice.
“But I’ve jest got scrumptious news,” he exclaimed, his rheumy eyes suddenly clear and sparkling. “Seems as how Fanny’s a widder. So, I’m a-goin’ to try my luck, an’ no shelly-shallyin’, now I’ve got her located arter a mighty lot o’ huntin’. Yes, sir, sonny,” he concluded, with a guffaw, “old as I be, I’m a-goin’ a-courtin’. If I ever see ye ag’in, I’ll tell ye how it comes out. I s’pose I seem plumb old fer sech foolishness to a boy like you be, but some hearts keep young till they stop. I’m 24 pretty spry fer my age, too, if I do say so as shouldn’t.”
Zeke was not so surprised by the old man’s hopes as he might have been, were it not for the example of Plutina’s grandfather, who, somewhat beyond four-score, was still scandalously lively, to the delectation of local gossip. But, though after the departure of Jones at a junction, Zeke reflected half-amusedly on the rather sere romances of these two ancient Romeos, he was far from surmising that, at the last, their amorous paths would cross.
There was still further harrowing experience for Zeke after reaching the Southern Railway’s terminal on the pier at Pinner’s Point, in Virginia, for here he was hurried aboard the ferry-boat, and was immediately appalled by the warning blast of the whistle. Few bear that strident din undismayed. This adventurer had never heard the like—only the lesser warning of locomotives and the siren of a tannery across twenty miles of distance. Now, the infernal belching clamor broke in his very ears, stunning him. He quivered under the impact, stricken to the soul for seconds of shock. But the few careless eyes that chanced to scan the mountaineer noted no faltering in face or form. He stood to all appearance serenely, easily poised, his attitude replete with the