xt7dnc5s7x7c https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7dnc5s7x7c/data/mets.xml Harris, Credo Fitch, 1874-1956. 1915  books b92-229-31183777 English Small, Maynard & Co., : Boston : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Sunlight Patch  / by Credo Harris. text Sunlight Patch  / by Credo Harris. 1915 2002 true xt7dnc5s7x7c section xt7dnc5s7x7c 


















SUNLIGHT PATCH

 






























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SUNLIGHT



PATCH



         BY
   CREDO HARRIS
Author of "Toby: A Novel of Kentucky,"
  "Motor Rambles in Italy," etc.



          BOSTON
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
        PUBLISHERS

 


































          Copyright, 1915
BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
           (INCORPORATIED)

 


























       To
MAUD BLANC HARRIS

 This page in the original text is blank.

 












                CONTENTS

CHAPTER                                    PAGE
       I OUT OF THE WILDERNESS . . . . .       I
       II AN UNEXPECTED RESCUE . . . . .       6
     III THE WOUNDED MOUNTAINEER    . . . I8
     IV A HUMAN ENIGMA     . . . . . . 29
     V  AN INTERRUPTED BREAKFAST . . . . 37
     VI THE BURNED CABIN   . . . . . . 45
     VII DALE DAWSON'S PHILOSOPHY . . . . 55
     VIII THE INCONSEQUENT ENGINEER    . . . 66
     IX  AT THE UNPAINTED HOUSE . . . . 75
     X  THE SPIRIT OF SUNLIGHT PATCH . . . 82
     XI ON THE THRESHOLD   . . . . . . 95
     XII A LIGHT ABOVE THE MOUNTAIN . . . 105
     XIII IN THE CIRCLE OF CEDARS   . . . . III
     XIV  A MEETING OF RASCALS .   .131
     XV  TRYING TO PLAY FAIR. . . . . . 14I
     XVI A SPRINGTIME SANTA CLAUS . . . . 155
   XVII AT ToP SPEED . . . . . . . . i67
   XVIII A DINNER OF SILENCES  . . . . . 179
   XIX  THE MERITS OF HORSEFLESH . . . . I92
   XX  A STARTLING CONFESSION .  .203
   XXI A VOICE AND A TAPER FLAME          2i6
   XXII Two PLANS . . . . . . . . . 226
   XXIII THE SECOND PLAN . . . . . . . 236
   XXIV  THE CALL THAT MEANS SURRENDER . 245

 





                 CONTENTS
CHAPTER                                   PAGE
   XXV  ALMOST A RESOLUTION. . . . . . 256
   XXVI "WHAT EYES HAVE YOU " . . . . 266
   XXVII A QUICK FUSE . . . . . . . . 286
 XXVIII AUNT TIMMIE HEARS A SECRET . . . 296
   XXIX  A PARALYSING DISCOVERY . . . . . 306
   XXX  "I'LL PAY THlE DEBT!.   . . . . 3i6
   XXXI OUT OF THE DYING DAY . . . . . 329
   XXXII THE SHERIFF FORGETS HIS PRISONER . 336
 XXXIII THE   MYSTIC  GARDENER SHOWS  HIS
           WORK  . . . . . . . . . . 341
 XXXIV   A GIRL'S NOBILITY.. . . . . . 355
 XXXV   THE PRODUCT OF SUNLIGHT PATCH  . 363
 XXXVI A TIN CYLINDER    . . . . . . . 372
 XXXVII TUSK   . . . . . . . . . . . 380
XXXVIII A LANE AT TWILIGHT  . . . . . . 386
XXXIX   TRIUMPH . . . . . . . . . . 390

 















SUNLIGHT PATCH

 This page in the original text is blank.

 









       SUNLIGHT PATCH

                   CHAPTER I

              OUT OF THE WILDERNESS

  He appeared an odd figure, sitting loosely on an old
white mare which held her nose to the ground and cau-
tiously single-footed over the uneven road. Uncon-
cerned, perhaps unconscious that he bestrode a horse, his
head was thrown back and his gaze penetrated the lace-
work of branches to a sky exquisite blue where a few
white, puffy clouds were aimlessly suspended. And, like
these clouds, his thoughts hovered between unrealized
hopes and the realistic mountains he was leaving;
thoughts interwoven with ambitions which had obsessed
his waking hours and glorified his dreams - dreams, de-
sires, ambitions, always before his eyes but out of reach.
His hair fell to the opened collar of a homespun shirt,
and homespun were his trousers, tucked into a pair of
homemade boots. His saddle bore an obscure brand of
the United States army, for it had carried one of his peo-
ple through the War of the States fifty years before, and
across its pummel balanced a long, ungainly rifle of an
earlier period.
  It was an afternoon of that month when the spirit of
                         II

 



SUNLIGHT PATCH



Kentucky arises from the loamy soil after a recreating
sleep of winter. The fragrance of the earth was every-
where. Overhead the trees met in great, silent arches -
Nature's Gothic, re-frescoed now in the delicate tints of
spring by the brush of Nature's Master-beneath which
all life seemed breathlessly poised as though in this dim-
lit, sun-dappled cathedral of the forest a mute service
were in progress. But the man -he did not seem to
see, or feel, or be. Thus, without a sound except for the
muffled shuffle of the old mare's unshod hoofs, he rode.
  They were coming down the mountain, he and the old
white mare; coming down into the valley, into the " set-
tlements "; and to-day marked the last stage of his jour-
ney from the center of those wild giants which had
bounded the territory of his twenty-two years' existence.
To-day he would emerge from the foothills into the open
country; into the smiling country of his imagination,
from somewhere in whose expanding fields now came
the call of a toiling plowboy. It was this which finally
brought him from his reverie in the sky, from his lofty
dreams to the smell of earth.
  Drawing down his gaze, he saw that here, indeed, was
the open threshold of a new world, and his eyes distended
with a veritable glory of sight. They had seen distance,
but not like this. They had ranged from mountain peak
to mountain peak, or across the scarred tops of inter-
vening peaks to a skyline untamed even by the coaxing
tints of rose and purple sunsets; but before him now
lay distance of another kind: hills upon hills, 'twas true,
yet low; and whose once rough lines were mellowed by

 



OUT OF THE WILDERNESS



the patient surgery of a hundred years of plowshares.
Gentle slopes, and shallow valleys, and slopes again-
not standing like his graven monsters of the Cumber-
lands, but lolling in peace and lazy unconcern, melt-
ing into the azure west so artfully that he could not
be definitely sure where earth left off and sky began.
And between these softly molded forms was no towering
harshness at whose contemplation his eyes would intui-
tively have narrowed, but a subdued carpet of many
fields, with here and there a nestling home. A grand,
sweeping canvas, it might have been, whose browns of
new-turned soil, whose light green tints of reborn or-
chards and sprouting wheat, were gracefully interrupted
by the deeper tones of clustered trees - those remnants
of primeval forest which the unintentional landscape gar-
deners of pioneer days had chanced to leave standing in
this picturesque Kentucky valley.
  A welcome seemed to rise from it like soothing fingers
laid upon his brow and his frame drooped in extreme
contentment; for it portrayed the country he had come
to seek from his home back in that wilderness where
bridle-paths are boulevards and primitive log cabins the
mansions of his people. So he continued to sit spell-
bound, held between the satisfaction of lingering and
the impulse to ride down into it, and to rest there as
everything seemed to be resting in a soft growth of
plenty. This was decided by the mare which, of her
own accord, turned and started on.
  He did not again draw rein for many miles. The
needle of his nature urged him forward, straight along



3

 



SUNLIGHT PATCH



a narrow valley lane that ambled between mildewed
fences and their inclosed fields; between untouched walls
of wild-grape, red-bud and blossoming dog-wood; and
he knew that his intuition was not sending him astray.
This sweet-smelling road was now making another turn
which ushered him directly upon a frame schoolhouse,
set slightly back in a grove of trees. Quickly, he brought
the old mare to a stop.
  That it was a schoolhouse - the very schoolhouse
which had been the reliquary of his dreams -he never
doubted, so accurately did it fit the description given by
a mountain preacher; and to be actually facing it in the
material form filled him with a nameless fascination.
Sitting rigid, in an attitude bent forward, his tense stare
directed on its partly open door, he suggested a Marathon
runner crouched for the start of that great trial; and
somewhere in his subconsciousness a voice whispered
that this day, this hour, marked the beginning of his mor-
tal race. He comprehended a certain vague significance
to which analysis was denied.
  Then slowly dismounting he led the mare deep into an
opposite thicket. There was no necessity for doing this,
no reason, except the latent sense of caution a wild
creature feels in strange places; and, having concealed
his rifle beneath a fallen log, he turned back to the road.
But now he hesitated, putting one hand against a tree for
support. A close observer might have seen that his body
was swaying slightly from side to side with a curious
movement, not unlike the restive motion of a caged beast;
and a glance at his face would have confirmed the exist-



4

 



OUT OF THE WILDERNESS



ence of some overwhelming emotion. In a deep, drawl-
ing voice, he spoke:
  " Wall, Ruth, I reckon hyar hit air, 'cause hit looks
jest like the preacher said! Now help my arms ter keep
hit with me, 'n' pray the Lawd ter make my haid larn
all the larnin' hit's got shet up in thar! 'N' tell Him
ter give my eyes the fu'st sight of ary danged skunk that'll
try ter crowd me outen hit, so's I kin kill 'im till he rots
in hell; 'n' I'll be the Christian ye asked me ter! "
  A gentle, almost a childish smile of satisfaction played
across his mouth, and the next moment he was walking
forward, carefully and reverently, as though the little
schoolhouse were on holy ground.
  The afternoon was waning, and the declining sun cast
a genial glow upon the weatherboarded front; gilding,
too, the near side of a crooked flag-pole set jauntily in
the yard. Except for evidences of recent life the place
seemed utterly deserted, and emboldened, even though
disappointed by this, he went up to the door. Here again
he hesitated, for some one within was speaking. It was
a woman's voice, raised in command and fear.



5

 










CHAPTER II



              AN UNEXPECTED RESCUE

  "You may go home now," she was saying. There
was a pause which carried no sign or sound of move-
ment. '" You may go home, don't you understand"
  It was a voice that to the listening mountaineer seemed
inexpressibly sweet and caressing, in spite of the deter-
mination which made it a bit unsteady. Still no answer.
The silence was becoming unnatural.
  " Tusk," she said again, " don't stand before me like
this! Go home!"
  Not knowing exactly what to do, but in a vague way
feeling that he might be needed, the stranger stepped
cautiously to the door and peered in.
  With her back to the blackboard and her arms rigid
against her sides, altogether in an attitude of one at bay,
stood a girl. He first noticed that her hands were tightly
clenched, and then his look went upward. Streaming
through the window the same golden rays that burnished
the weatherboards and flag-pole touched the looser
strands of her hair. This, against the background of
black, framed her upraised face with a halo of lustrous
glory, softening the parted lips rather than showing them
to be stamped with fear, but not disguising the terror
which leapt from her eyes as they stared, fairly hypno-
                          6

 


AN UNEXPECTED RESCUE



tized, at an ungainly man who stood leering down at her.
His head was set deep between massive, stooping
shoulders, and his arms were abnormally long, while the
color of his face indicated a diet, at some period of his life,
of clay and berries. Two fang-like teeth, curving out-
ward as the tusks of a wild boar -having furnished
inspiration for the name by which he was most popularly
known -added a last fierce touch to his repulsive fea-
tures.
  " Go home," the girl repeated, now in a weaker voice.
  " It ain't time to go home," he growled. " When kids
don't know their lessons you make 'em stay in, don't you
Well, I'm a-stayin', too! "
  "Let me by this instant," she commanded, plucking
another crumb of courage from the sheer imminence of
danger.
  " Aw, come off yoh high airs," he leered. " Ain't you
been standin' me up afore the school an' actin' me like a
fool I ain't kicked, have I Well, what you want to
go cuttin' up for now"
  Brains partly numbed, or over-excited by shock, some-
times take queer and irrelevant channels of thought, and
now the only thing on which she seemed able to concen-
trate was a duel she had witnessed on that very school-
house window sill but the previous day: a duel between
a locust and a wasp. They had fallen there in deadly
embrace, the clumsier holding his antagonist by brute
strength that ultimately would break its frail body; but
the wily wasp, conscious of this danger, sent thrust after
thrust of its venomous stinger with lightning stabs up and



7

 



SUNLIGHT PATCH



down its enemy's armor, trusting to chance that a vulner-
able spot might be found between the scales. She had
watched this struggle with a breathless pleasure - for at
times she could be pagan as of old - and when at last the
little point slipped through, she felt no pity for the locust;
rather, was she tempted to stroke the victor as it crawled
from the suddenly relaxed grip of its stiffening foe, laved
its wings, polished its legs, and rose into the air.
  Weak with the consciousness of her peril, this mental
by-play urged her to the necessity of speed; and, like the
stinger, her mind began an hysterical thrusting for a more
subtle method of defense.
  " Tusk, I'm sorry I stood you up before the class,"
she tried, in speaking kindly, to hide her loathing. " But
now you must go home at once, or I shall never be able
to let you come to school again!"
  HIe laughed outright.
  "Won't never let me come, no moh! Well, now jest
heah that! Why, sissy, you'd ortent git so mad! Kiss
me like a nice gal, an' let's make up! "
  " You beast," she cried, her fear suddenly bursting into
an irresistible rage. " You beast," she cried again, strik-
ing him in the face with all her strength. " You'll be
killed for this! "
  For an instant he was stunned by the surprise of her
attack, but then, blind with fury, his gorilla-like arms
shot out and caught her just as she was turning to dash
toward the door.
  During this scene the newcomer had made several de-
terminations to enter, yet each was checked by a con-



8

 



AN UNEXPECTED RESCUE



sciousness that he did not belong to this country where
he had been told strange customs prevailed. He was not
at all sure but that an interference would be seriously
inapt. Once or twice he had been on the verge of steal-
ing back into the thicket for his rifle, yet the schoolhouse
drama held him too firmly chained for this. Adopting
now a middle course, he went up the four steps and
entered with an innocent air of one having just arrived.
Blinking with a pretended effort to make out the interior,
he mildly asked:
  " Is this Miss Jane's school 
  Tusk sprang back with a snarl, while the girl, twisting
free and frantically recovering her balance, came toward
the new voice with hands outstretched, bumping against
the desks as one who had suddenly gone blind. She
could not speak, she could scarcely think, and only by
the sternest force of will would her knees bear up; but
somewhere in front of her stood deliverance, and to this
she groped.
  " Howdy," the new voice spoke again, as she felt
a hand take one of her own and press her toward a seat.
"Ye look peak-&l; maybe ye'd better set!"
  Her composure was returning in bounds; for this girl,
herself born in the mountains, possessed too much innate
fortitude to be long dominated by fear.
  " Thank you," her voice still trembled. " I - I must
have been frightened." Then quickly: " Yes, this is
Miss Jane's school, and I am Miss Jane."
  A curious sound rattled in the newcomer's throat, and
his chin dropped with stupid amazement. For a long



9

 



SUNLIGHT PATCH



moment he stared at her, his pupils dilating and contract-
ing in a strangely fascinating way, and his body begin-
ning slowly to rock from side to side as it had done in
the thicket across the road. But just now she was meet-
ing his gaze with a look of excited gladness.
  " Yeou! Miss Jane " he murmured, each syllable
vibrating with some deep timbre of admiration and pro-
tection. Another moment he stared, then his eyes turned
and rested unflinchingly on Tusk. It was a look par-
ticularly expressive neither of surprise nor condemnation,
hatred nor scorn, vet its very impassivity carried a pulsing
sense of danger, as though something terrible were on
the verge of happening and the various elements of de-
struction were being hurriedly assembled. But quietly
he turned again to the girl.
  "Lucy's outside. Maybe ye'd better let her take ye
home! "
  " Oh, ask her to come in," she cried, feeling the need
of a woman perhaps more than at any time in her life,
and now fearful of another sort of tragedy. She was
not sure of how much this newcomer had seen, but his
look at Tusk was eloquent of one thing: that if these
men were left alone the building would receive its first
stain of human blood. She wanted to spare her school-
house this. It was her boast that no life should go out
by violence beneath its roof: for it had long been a
recognized custom in wilder regions of this country for
men to choose the wayside schools, the scattered churches
or crossroads stores as places from which to usher obtru-
sive neighbors into eternal rest.



IO

 



AN UNEXPECTED RESCUE



  " Wall, she can't do that," the newcomer thoughtfully
replied, " seein' as how she's my ole mare. But ye
mought take her 'n' go home. Me 'n' this feller'll watch
yo' school! "
  Looking from one to the other, weighing the chances
of outwitting Tusk, she lightly suggested:
  " My own horse is in the shed. You may help me put
on the saddle! "
  " All right," he readily answered. " 'N' yeou," he
turned to Tusk, now watching them with growing malig-
nancy, " wait hyar till I git back: then verily, verily, I
say unto ye, we'll cast another devil outen the Lawd's
temple! "
  She was alert to acquiesce in this. Her instinct said
that unless something tentative were left in view, some
further part of the drama held out to be played, the sim-
ple-minded Tusk would stop their going. His dwarfed
intelligence, gauged to one idea, might be satisfied to
wait only if waiting promised a climax. And as for
the other's returning-this new-found deliverer who
was so thoroughly of the mountains, yet whose dialect
just now had savored of the " circuit-rider " type - she
felt able to cope with that exigency after they were out-
side. So in her eagerness she had arisen, when Tusk
stepped roughly to the door and slammed it.
  "Nobody's goin' home to-night," he growled, turn-
ing and glaring at them.
  His eyes, set unusually deep and close together, flashed
murder, and the girl sank weakly back into a seat. For
she knew Tusk's strength. She had seen him shoulder



I I

 



SUNLIGHT PATCH



a log under which two men were struggling and walk
firmly away with it. The very consciousness alone of
this power was oppressive. He could crush this other
man with a blow.
  " A soft answer turneth away wrath," a quiet voice
whispered down to her, and continued: " Let the gal
out; she wants ter go home! "
  " If you're some kind of a preacher," Tusk snarled at
him, having also noticed the Biblical character of speech,
" git out yohse'f. But the gal stays right heah till I'm
ready fer her to go! An', young feller, mebbe she'll be
let go home, or mebbe she'll come 'long with me -I
ain't decided, but I won't be hindered by no one! " His
voice was trembling with increasing passion. " Now's
yoh time to git, Mister Preacher, or, by Gawd -"
He drew a long, dirty knife from a hidden sheath, and
seemed unable to complete the sentence for his excited
breathing.
  " I hain't a preacher," the other quietly replied to him,
"but I've jest been sendin' a message ter the Lawd this
very evenin' 'n' I reckon He had me come in heah ter
look ye over, bein' as how ye air one of them sorry
skunks I'm arter." And without warning he sprang like
a panther at the offender's throat.
  The shock of his body sent Tusk backwards, tripping
him over a desk where both men went down in a heap.
Almost before they struck the floor the newcomer cried
to her:
  " Git the critter 'n' ride, Schoolteacher! Hit's yo'
only chance! "



I2

 



AN UNEXPECTED RESCUE



   He had no more time to warn, for a series of sounds,
sickening, bestial sounds, told of a terrific struggle as feet
and bodies and elbows dully crashed against the desks
on either side. It was a narrow aisle in which to fight.
  Yet she was not made of the stuff that would mount
a horse and fly. Her early life, when as a slip of a girl
she stood many a night with rifle in hand filling the place
of lookout for an outlaw father who trafficked in moon-
shine whisky, had taught her to be careless of physical
dangers. The terrors of a different sort of passion she
had never known; but now, with this averted, her nature
leapt beyond the past eight years of training-eight
years spent in fitting herself as teacher for this school -
and transported her to those early days of partial sav-
agery. Again she was the little mountain outlaw, and
the feeling was good, and her heart bounded with a
primeval pleasure of this excitement which was routing
every previous qualm of fright. Bent breathlessly for-
ward, her hands clenched into revengeful little fists, her
cheeks and eyes aflame and eager, her lips apart, and her
nostrils dilated as though in very truth they sought the
smell of battle, she was not a picture of one who would
mount a horse and fly.
  At the first rush Tusk's knife had fallen from his hand
and now lay almost at her feet. Stooping impulsively,
she seized it, while at the same moment he uttered a low
chuckle of satisfaction and started to arise. He did not
move as one entirely free, but clinging to a burden, and
when his shoulders slowly appeared she saw that he was
lifting the other man, who still struck ineffectually at his



13

 



SUNLIGHT PATCH



face. Handling him with no great exertion, he backed
against a desk and forced the body between his knees;
then placing one huge, hairy hand behind his victim's
ear, and the other beneath his chin, he began calmly to
twist.
  Jane realized the hellishness of this move which with
cruel certainty would break the yielding neck. The
mountaineer also knew, and put his remaining strength
into the struggle, yet only for a moment did it seem to
divert Tusk's purpose.
  If the girl had previously looked the beautiful savage,
she now became its incarnation. With an agonized cry
she screamed at him to stop, but his answer was to pin
the man more firmly and recommence the murderous
twisting.
  It was a matter of seconds now. Any instant she
might hear the snap, and see the one who was giving his
life for her quiver and become still. No longer hesitat-
ing, she flew at them with the blade raised high and
poised herself for the stroke. Yet she could not send it.
Again she tried, and a sob of rage burst from her throat
as the hand refused to obey. Had the creature turned,
it might have been less difficult; but the utter revulsion
of driving steel into unsuspecting and unresisting flesh
was more than she could master. Slowly the head was
yielding to those horrible hands, and the newcomer's eyes
rested on her own for the merest instant. It was the look
of a courageous man sinking beneath waves; but the
sweat and whipcord veins were eloquent of his frenzied
resistance.



14

 



AN UNEXPECTED RESCUE



IS



  " Someone's coming! Someone's coming! " she sud-
denly cried, rushing to the door and flinging it wide
open.
  Tusk looked up with a snarl.
  " Quick! Quick! " she cried again. " Here, this
way -quick! He's killing a man! Oh, thank God!"
She sprang back into the room, rapturously clasping the
knife to her breast. " They've come! They've come!
  With an oath Tusk flung his victim heavily to the
floor and dashed to a rear windoxv through which he dis-
appeared. She watched only long enough to see that his
rout was absolute-that her ruse of approaching help
had been successful. Then she turned.
  The room seemed dark to her eyes which had just been
peering into the sunset's fading glow, and she walked
with feeling steps toward the spot where she knew the
body lay, asking in a whisper: " Are you alive "  The
heavy silence made her shiver. There, at her feet,
sprawled the shadowy bulk, twisted and grotesque, and
an uncontrollable feeling of loathing crept over her.
  With startling suddenness a quail, close by the open
door, ripped out his evening call, and she sprang back
as though the thing upon the floor had moved. Yet she
continued to stare down at it, her cold hands pressed
against her burning cheeks - fascinated, horrified. A
few little minutes ago he had been a moving, feeling be-
ing like herself; and now he had entered the portals of
that mysterious eternity - at this very moment he was
standing before the calm scrutiny of God Himself!
How was he behaving in that great inspection Trem-

 



SUNLIGHT PATCH



bling with bowed head, like herself Or smiling with
a courage he had shown during his last earthly moments
while giving his life for her
  So vivid were these thoughts which raced like fury
through her brain that when the body did actually move
she gave a piercing shriek of terror. But she had re-
covered even before the echo of her voice resounded
through the little room and, instantly alert, brought the
drinking bucket from its shelf to bathe his face.
  Kneeling there-or, rather, in an attitude of sitting
on her crossed feet-eagerly watching for another sign
of life, the tenderness which spoke in mute eloquence
from every movement of her ministrations for the stran-
ger who had stood between her and insult, was a boon
that might have repaid any man for worse hurts than
his. She drew his head upon her lap and began carefully
to staunch a trickle of blood flowing from a small cut in
his temple.
  The sun went down, regretfully backing out of sight,
and by its slow retreat seeming loath to leave them to the
somber night. She did not notice its decline, but in the
afterglow leaned nearer, pushing back his matted hair and
searching each of his well-molded features. There was
nothing of a personal interest in the look; there was
nothing in the contact of their touch that aroused in her
the least personal appeal. He was merely a thing hurt,
a thing wounded in her defense.
  Again from outside the window came a call, the swing-
ing, twilight-eerie notes of a whip-poor-will; while, from
afar off, somewhere in the black woods, hooted an owl.



i6

 



          AN UNEXPECTED RESCUE                  I7

Softly, but with a restless spirit, the night-wind began
to stir; and a murmur, like the winnowing of many
wings, passed tremulously through the branches which
swept the schoolhouse roof. But now she was unafraid.

 









CHAPTER III



            THE WOUNDED MOUNTAINEER

  She was no longer fearful for his life. Saner deduc-
tions had recalled how he was fighting up to the moment
Tusk threw him off, and this precluded the probability of
a broken neck. The small abrasion over his temple, where
it must have struck a desk, could alone be responsible
for the unconsciousness which, she now felt assured,
would soon be passing.
  Had Jane been dressed as a nun, the picture she made
with the young mountaineer's head upon her lap would
have startled the world. None of those discerning critics
who stalk the galleries on varnishing day could have
passed a canvas such as this without bending their rusty
knees at least one creak in humble reverence. For God
had carefully blessed her with a Madonna-like loveliness,
a matchless purity, which held enthralled all who came
suddenly upon that look. Perhaps it was not known in
Heaven where she got her smile. It was this, when
rippling from eyes to mouth, and lingering about the
ovals of her cheeks, that could have swayed Faith upon
its base or chained it thrice firmly to the Rock.
  She had first acquired a pleasant suspicion of this
years before in the convent up the valley, where the good
sisters had given her shelter. Early one morning on
                          i8

 



THE WOUNDED MOUNTAINEER



mischief bent, at the very peep of dawn, she had filched
the garb of old sister Methune and, supporting its bulky
skirt, demurely walked into the Mother Superior's
sanctified chamber. What that good woman thought as
she raised herself up from her couch is not recorded
even in her conscience, but Jane was sent in haste to re-
place the nun's attire. While passing a glass door in a
dimly lit hall she saw, for the first time in her life, her
own face. For five, ten minutes she continued to look
back into this heretofore undiscovered and sinful re-
flector, sometimes laughing, sometimes making grimaces.
Then for another ten minutes she simply stared. Sister
Methune was late getting to her devotions that morn-
ing.
  But this incident had occurred eight years ago, when
she was scarcely thirteen. Until then she had literally
grown up like a weed-or a wild rose-a half-savage
little creature of the Cumberlands, loving passionately,
hating blindly, doing all things with the full intensity of
a vivid, whole-souled temperament. She lived in a cabin
many miles from the more civilized country where the
convent lay, under the questionable protection of a noted
feudist father, who was usually making moonshine when
not stalking his enemies. Her cherished glimpses of
civilization came during one month each year-July-
when she picked especially fat and luscious blackberries
in remote spots known only to her, and sold them in the
valley to Colonel John May, whose white columned
house might be seen on clear days from the convent tower.
  One of her visits happened upon a day when the place



I9

 



SUNLIGHT PATCH



was enlivened by his daughter's approaching wedding.
A distinguished house-party had assembled, among whom
a city-bred young fellow had been attracted by her wild
beauty. Safe from the eyes of his friends he followed
her through the woodland pasture, and talked to her;
and it had seemed a very natural thing. Mountain girls
mature early, and she was a woman for all her tender
years; a twelve and a half year old woman, partly sav-
age, masquerading in the guise of a girl. He was daz-
zling to her and pleasing. But suddenly he kissed her
and, infuriated, she flung the empty bucket in his face
and fled. The gods may know where she learned the
difference between right and wrong.
  In a passion of shame and bitter hatred, she hurled
back at him every oath her father, in his most prolific
moments, had ever used. It was a wondrous collection.
Her only idea was to reach home and return with the
rifle, and so insistent was this that she ran most of the
twelve intervening miles. Reaching at last the cabin
clearing, she panted up its steep side, through burnt
stumps and sparsely growing corn, to the door; but there
across the sill her father lay face down and motionless.
He might have been drunk, and so at first she thought,
until her approach revealed a little hole in the back of
his head. She stared at him like an image of wood,
then sank upon the floor, putting her lips close to his ear.
  " Pappy," she said, in a quick whisper, " Pappy, tell
me who done hit! I know ye air daid - but can't ye tell
me jest that "
  Her first impulse was of revenge, but slowly the love



20

 



THE WOUNDED MOUNTAINEER



- unmerited as it may have been - and the sense of
loss, of loneliness, came over her like a great wave, and
with her face on his still shoulder she wailed her wretched
grief to the silent wilderness. WN hen she looked up it
was sundown. She realized that whoever had killed him
might come back for her-might now, indeed, be
"layin' out" for her; and yet she could not leave him
unburied! Her hands grasped his shirt and she fran-
tically tugged, bracing her heels against the roughly hewn
log door-step, in a vague way hoping that she might drag
him to a spot where the ground would be soft enough to
dig. A few minutes of this fruitless effort compelled
her to give it up.
  "Pappy, can't ye help me, jest a leetle" she had
whispered in despair. And then