Read Ebook: A Maid of the Kentucky Hills by Litsey Edwin Carlile Cassel John Harmon Illustrator

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Ebook has 1235 lines and 80245 words, and 25 pages

"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.

"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.

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 something it appeared; a gossamer covering which would vanish before the first breath of wind, or touch of sun. But well I knew the truth! It was the sun, and the wind, and the rain which had compassed the wonder. Beneath their united power the sluggish sap had first stirred in the hidden roots, and when the insistent summons became more and more powerful, had mysteriously arisen through successive cells of fiber, up and up, into every branch, into every limb, into the smallest and most insignificant twig, where Nature's final marvelous alchemy was performed, and moisture turned to bud, and bud turned to leaf. A leaf perfectly shaped and veined, each to its own tree.

Dusk came upon me as I gazed, enraptured. Softly the light stole away, and the shadows came. Now the horizon range was a wall of gloom, and then, like billows which made no sound, velvety waves of darkness overflowed all before me, blotting it out. But I know that to-morrow the lacey veil would have a deeper shade, and that soon, with millions upon millions of leaves astir, the Harpist of the Wood, when he touched his responsive strings, would draw yet a grander measure.

No bench went under the pine tree that night, but the next day I builded it well. It is a fine spot to sit and dream--a pastime I love.

IN WHICH I MEET A SATYR

Two weeks have passed since I talked with the dryad in the glade.

I am getting along splendidly. That is, my appetite is good, I sleep the night through, and my trouble remains at a standstill. I'm not expecting this to leave me at once. I read some every night. The days I force myself to spend outdoors. If I do not go on a tramp, I prowl around my hill of refuge. Yesterday I found a creditable cave some score of rods from the Lodge, in about the same latitude. There is an irregular, outjutting ledge of rock here, and it was beneath a moss-splotched bowlder I found a hole leading into the knob, its entrance large enough for me to stand erect in. I am not averse to a mild adventure, so I began a tentative exploration. I had proceeded but a few steps, however, when I stopped. I heard something. I had my revolver with me--I make a habit of taking it with me wherever I go--so I drew this and advanced a little further. The sound was repeated, louder and more menacing. I would have thought it the hiss of a serpent, but for its remarkable volume. I looked, but could see nothing. The passage ended in darkness. The floor was littered with small stones, and pebbles mixed with fine sand. I picked up one of the stones and tossed it sharply into the darkness ahead. The response was instantaneous. The hissing was renewed, but now it was accompanied by a scuffling sound, and I became aware that some formless thing was approaching me. I could see the bulk of it making for me--but that was enough! I turned and ran, ignominiously, forgetting my weapon in my fright. As I made my exit from the cave at full speed I grasped a near-by sapling desperately, described an erratic and ungraceful arc, thus saving myself from tumbling down the steep declivity which faced me, and finally brought up some score of feet away. I turned to see if I was pursued, but there was only an anxious and solicitous mother buzzard in the cave-mouth, her ugly neck outstretched toward me, and her broad wings bowed in anger. I laughed. It was a little late for their nesting season, but this one doubtless had a pair of miserable little yellow goslings back in that hole.

I give this incident to show how quiet my life was up to this time, and how such a trifling occurrence really caused me much excitement.

I began my chronicle to-night by saying it had been two weeks since I talked with the dryad in the glade. Why should I reckon time from that? I wrote the sentence unconsciously. Now, when I come to think about it, I realize that the dryad has been in my mind a very great deal during the last fortnight. You must know there is to be no concealment in this narrative. It is to be a record of absolute truth. Not only what I do, but what I think and feel, shall be faithfully set down. She--I don't even know her name! I can't see why I should have parted from her without asking her name, since I shall in all likelihood see her many times during the coming year. Perhaps it was her eyes which made me forget such an important question. I have never seen eyes like hers--never. They are the Irish gray. That's a different gray from all others, as I suppose you know. Don't ask me how they are different, for I don't propose to attempt an explanation. But they are, and especially is this true in women's eyes. A woman with Irish gray eyes can be dangerous if she wants to. In addition to their remarkable color, the dryad's eyes have very white lids which droop the least bit, perpetually shading the iris. She is something of a paradox. She has small feet, smooth hands and carefully kept nails, but her language, while spoken in a peculiarly pleasing voice, is so ungrammatical and colloquial that it makes rigors creep over me. I told her that I was coming to see her and her granny, but I haven't gone. Why haven't I? I told her I was coming to see her because I got lonely. Have I been lonely? Yes; very. Three days ago I bravely started for the glade where I had found her, intending to follow the guiding creek on to Lizard Point. I turned off before I reached the creek and went ten miles in another direction. Why did I do that? I want to see the dryad again. She interests me; I feel that we shall be good friends. She has a bright and ready mind, and is absolutely natural. She says what she wants to, laughs when she wants to, does what she wants to. I verily think she would be incapable of deception or guile, but I may be wrong in this. I suspect I am. Such things are not conditions resultant from culture and refinement; they belong to the human organism, and so, by virtue of her being, the dryad must possess them.

To-morrow I am going to Lizard Point.

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