He turned away without looking to see how deep his barbed shaft went and, startled, June flushed to her hair. In a few minutes they were gone--Dave without the exchange of another word with June, and Loretta with a parting cry that she would come back on Sat.u.r.day. The old man went to the cornfield high above the cabin, the old woman, groaning with pains real and fancied, lay down on a creaking bed, and June, with Dave's wound rankling, went out with Bub to see the new doings in Lonesome Cove. The geese cackled before her, the hog-fish darted like submarine arrows from rock to rock and the willows bent in the same wistful way toward their shadows in the little stream, but its crystal depths were there no longer--floating sawdust whirled in eddies on the surface and the water was black as soot. Here and there the white belly of a fish lay upturned to the sun, for the cruel, deadly work of civilization had already begun. Farther up the creek was a buzzing monster that, creaking and snorting, sent a flashing disk, rimmed with sharp teeth, biting a savage way through a log, that screamed with pain as the brutal thing tore through its vitals, and gave up its life each time with a ghost-like cry of agony. Farther on little houses were being built of fresh boards, and farther on the water of the creek got blacker still. June suddenly clutched Bud's arms. Two demons had appeared on a pile of fresh dirt above them--sooty, begrimed, with black faces and black hands, and in the cap of each was a smoking little lamp.

"Huh," said Bub, "that ain't nothin'! h.e.l.lo, Bill," he called bravely.

"h.e.l.lo, Bub," answered one of the two demons, and both stared at the lovely little apparition who was staring with such naive horror at them.

It was all very wonderful, though, and it was all happening in Lonesome Cove, but Jack Hale was doing it all and, therefore, it was all right, thought June--no matter what Dave said. Moreover, the ugly spot on the great, beautiful breast of the Mother was such a little one after all and June had no idea how it must spread. Above the opening for the mines, the creek was crystal-clear as ever, the great hills were the same, and the sky and the clouds, and the cabin and the fields of corn.

Nothing could happen to them, but if even they were wiped out by Hale's hand she would have made no complaint. A wood-thrush flitted from a ravine as she and Bub went back down the creek--and she stopped with uplifted face to listen. All her life she had loved its song, and this was the first time she had heard it in Lonesome Cove since she had learned its name from Hale. She had never heard it thereafter without thinking of him, and she thought of him now while it was breathing out the very spirit of the hills, and she drew a long sigh for already she was lonely and hungering for him. The song ceased and a long wavering cry came from the cabin.

"So-o-o-cow! S-o-o-kee! S-o-o-kee!"

The old mother was calling the cows. It was near milking-time, and with a vague uneasiness she hurried Bub home. She saw her father coming down from the cornfield. She saw the two cows come from the woods into the path that led to the barn, switching their tails and s.n.a.t.c.hing mouthfuls from the bushes as they swung down the hill and, when she reached the gate, her step-mother was standing on the porch with one hand on her hip and the other shading her eyes from the slanting sun--waiting for her.

Already kindness and consideration were gone.

"Whar you been, June? Hurry up, now. You've had a long restin'-spell while I've been a-workin' myself to death."

It was the old tone, and the old fierce rebellion rose within June, but Hale had told her to be patient. She could not check the flash from her eyes, but she shut her lips tight on the answer that sprang to them, and without a word she went to the kitchen for the milking-pails. The cows had forgotten her. They eyed her with suspicion and were restive. The first one kicked at her when she put her beautiful head against its soft flank. Her muscles had been in disuse and her hands were cramped and her forearms ached before she was through--but she kept doggedly at her task. When she finished, her father had fed the horses and was standing behind her.

"Hit's mighty good to have you back agin, little gal."

It was not often that he smiled or showed tenderness, much less spoke it thus openly, and June was doubly glad that she had held her tongue. Then she helped her step-mother get supper. The fire scorched her face, that had grown unaccustomed to such heat, and she burned one hand, but she did not let her step-mother see even that. Again she noticed with aversion the heavy thick dishes and the pewter spoons and the candle-grease on the oil-cloth, and she put the dishes down and, while the old woman was out of the room, attacked the spots viciously. Again she saw her father and Bub ravenously gobbling their coa.r.s.e food while she and her step-mother served and waited, and she began to wonder. The women sat at the table with the men over in the Gap--why not here? Then her father went silently to his pipe and Bub to playing with the kitten at the kitchen-door, while she and her mother ate with never a word.

Something began to stifle her, but she choked it down. There were the dishes to be cleared away and washed, and the pans and kettles to be cleaned. Her back ached, her arms were tired to the shoulders and her burned hand quivered with pain when all was done. The old woman had left her to do the last few little things alone and had gone to her pipe.

Both she and her father were sitting in silence on the porch when June went out there. Neither spoke to each other, nor to her, and both seemed to be part of the awful stillness that engulfed the world. Bub fell asleep in the soft air, and June sat and sat and sat. That was all except for the stars that came out over the mountains and were slowly being sprayed over the sky, and the pipings of frogs from the little creek. Once the wind came with a sudden sweep up the river and she thought she could hear the creak of Uncle Billy's water-wheel. It smote her with sudden gladness, not so much because it was a relief and because she loved the old miller, but--such is the power of a.s.sociation--because she now loved the mill more, loved it because the mill over in the Gap had made her think more of the mill at the mouth of Lonesome Cove. A tapping vibrated through the railing of the porch on which her cheek lay. Her father was knocking the ashes from his pipe. A similar tapping sounded inside at the fireplace. The old woman had gone and Bub was in bed, and she had heard neither move. The old man rose with a yawn.

"Time to lay down, June."

The girl rose. They all slept in one room. She did not dare to put on her night-gown--her mother would see it in the morning. So she slipped off her dress, as she had done all her life, and crawled into bed with Bub, who lay in the middle of it and who grunted peevishly when she pushed him with some difficulty over to his side. There were no sheets--not even one--and the coa.r.s.e blankets, which had a close acrid odour that she had never noticed before, seemed almost to scratch her flesh. She had hardly been to bed that early since she had left home, and she lay sleepless, watching the firelight play hide and seek with the shadows among the aged, smoky rafters and flicker over the strings of dried things that hung from the ceiling. In the other corner her father and stepmother snored heartily, and Bub, beside her, was in a nerveless slumber that would not come to her that night-tired and aching as she was. So, quietly, by and by, she slipped out of bed and out the door to the porch. The moon was rising and the radiant sheen of it had dropped down over the mountain side like a golden veil and was lighting up the white rising mists that trailed the curves of the river. It sank below the still crests of the pines beyond the garden and dropped on until it illumined, one by one, the dewy heads of the flowers. She rose and walked down the gra.s.sy path in her bare feet through the silent fragrant emblems of the planter's thought of her--touching this flower and that with the tips of her fingers. And when she went back, she bent to kiss one lovely rose and, as she lifted her head with a start of fear, the dew from it shining on her lips made her red mouth as flower-like and no less beautiful. A yell had shattered the quiet of the world--not the high fox-hunting yell of the mountains, but something new and strange. Up the creek were strange lights. A loud laugh shattered the succeeding stillness--a laugh she had never heard before in Lonesome Cove. Swiftly she ran back to the porch. Surely strange things were happening there. A strange spirit pervaded the Cove and the very air throbbed with premonitions. What was the matter with everything--what was the matter with her? She knew that she was lonely and that she wanted Hale--but what else was it? She shivered--and not alone from the chill night-air--and puzzled and wondering and stricken at heart, she crept back to bed.

XVIII

Pausing at the Pine to let his big black horse blow a while, Hale mounted and rode slowly down the green-and-gold gloom of the ravine. In his pocket was a quaint little letter from June to "John Hail"; thanking him for the beautiful garden, saying she was lonely, and wanting him to come soon. From the low flank of the mountain he stopped, looking down on the cabin in Lonesome Cove. It was a dreaming summer day. Trees, air, blue sky and white cloud were all in a dream, and even the smoke lazing from the chimney seemed drifting away like the spirit of something human that cared little whither it might be borne. Something crimson emerged from the door and stopped in indecision on the steps of the porch. It moved again, stopped at the corner of the house, and then, moving on with a purpose, stopped once more and began to flicker slowly to and fro like a flame. June was working in her garden. Hale thought he would halloo to her, and then he decided to surprise her, and he went on down, hitched his horse and stole up to the garden fence. On the way he pulled up a bunch of weeds by the roots and with them in his arms he noiselessly climbed the fence. June neither heard nor saw him. Her underlip was clenched tight between her teeth, the little cross swung violently at her throat and she was so savagely wielding the light hoe he had given her that he thought at first she must be killing a snake; but she was only fighting to death every weed that dared to show its head. Her feet and her head were bare, her face was moist and flushed and her hair was a tumbled heap of what was to him the rarest gold under the sun. The wind was still, the leaves were heavy with the richness of full growth, bees were busy about June's head and not another soul was in sight.

"Good morning, little girl!" he called cheerily.

The hoe was arrested at the height of a vicious stroke and the little girl whirled without a cry, but the blood from her pumping heart crimsoned her face and made her eyes shine with gladness. Her eyes went to her feet and her hands to her hair.

"You oughtn't to slip up an' s-startle a lady that-a-way," she said with grave rebuke, and Hale looked humbled. "Now you just set there and wait till I come back."

"No--no--I want you to stay just as you are."

"Honest?"

Hale gravely crossed heart and body and June gave out a happy little laugh--for he had caught that gesture--a favourite one--from her. Then suddenly:

"How long?" She was thinking of what Dave said, but the subtle twist in her meaning pa.s.sed Hale by. He raised his eyes to the sun and June shook her head.

"You got to go home 'fore sundown."

She dropped her hoe and came over toward him.

"Whut you doin' with them--those weeds?"

"Going to plant 'em in our garden." Hale had got a theory from a garden-book that the humble burdock, pig-weed and other lowly plants were good for ornamental effect, and he wanted to experiment, but June gave a shrill whoop and fell to scornful laughter. Then she s.n.a.t.c.hed the weeds from him and threw them over the fence.

"Why, June!"

"Not in MY garden. Them's stagger-weeds--they kill cows," and she went off again.

"I reckon you better c-consult me 'bout weeds next time. I don't know much 'bout flowers, but I've knowed all my life 'bout WEEDS." She laid so much emphasis on the word that Hale wondered for the moment if her words had a deeper meaning--but she went on:

"Ever' spring I have to watch the cows fer two weeks to keep 'em from eatin'--those weeds." Her self-corrections were always made gravely now, and Hale consciously ignored them except when he had something to tell her that she ought to know. Everything, it seemed, she wanted to know.

"Do they really kill cows?"

June snapped her fingers: "Like that. But you just come on here,"

she added with pretty imperiousness. "I want to axe--ask you some things--what's that?"

"Scarlet sage."

"Scarlet sage," repeated June. "An' that?"

"Nasturtium, and that's Oriental gra.s.s."

"Nas-tur-tium, Oriental. An' what's that vine?"

"That comes from North Africa--they call it 'matrimonial vine.'"

"Whut fer?" asked June quickly.

"Because it clings so." Hale smiled, but June saw none of his humour--the married people she knew clung till the finger of death unclasped them. She pointed to a bunch of tall tropical-looking plants with great spreading leaves and big green-white stalks.

"They're called Palmae Christi."

"Whut?"

"That's Latin. It means 'Hands of Christ,'" said Hale with reverence.

"You see how the leaves are spread out--don't they look like hands?'

"Not much," said June frankly. "What's Latin?"

"Oh, that's a dead language that some people used a long, long time ago."

"What do folks use it nowadays fer? Why don't they just say 'Hands o'

Christ'?"

"I don't know," he said helplessly, "but maybe you'll study Latin some of these days." June shook her head.