Produced by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown, Jacqueline Jeremy and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net THE JUCKLINS +--------------------------------------+ | OPIE READ'S SELECT WORKS | | | | Old Ebenezer | | The Jucklins | | My Young Master | | A Kentucky Colonel | | On the Suwanee River | | A Tennessee Judge | | | |Works of Strange Power and Fascination| | | | Uniformly bound in extra cloth, gold | | tops, ornamental covers, uncut edges,| | six volumes in a box, | | $6.00 | | Sold separately, $1.00 each. | +--------------------------------------+ [Illustration] OPIE READ'S SELECT WORKS THE JUCKLINS A NOVEL BY OPIE READ Author of "Old Ebenezer," "My Young Master," "On the Suwanee River," "A Kentucky Colonel," "A Tennessee Judge," "The Colossus," "Emmett Bonlore," "Len Gansett," "The Tear in The Cup, and Other Stories," "The Wives of The Prophet." ILLUSTRATED CHICAGO LAIRD & LEE, PUBLISHERS Entered according to Act of Congress in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-six, by WILLIAM H. LEE, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. (ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.) [Illustration] THE JUCKLINS CHAPTER I. The neighbors and our family began to laugh at me about as far back as I can remember, and I think that the first serious remark my father ever addressed to me was, "Bill, you are too lazy to amount to anything in this life, so I reckon we'll have to make a school teacher of you." I don't know why he should have called me lazy; I suppose it must have been on account of my awkwardness. Lazy, why, I could sit all day and fish in one place and not get a bite, while my more industrious companions would, out of sheer exhaustion of patience, be compelled to move about; and I hold that patience is the very perfection of industry. In the belief that I could never amount to anything I gradually approached my awkward manhood. I grew fast, and I admit that I was always tired; and who is more weary than a sprout of a boy? My brothers were active of body and quick of judgment, and I know that Ed, my oldest brother, won the admiration of the neighborhood when he swapped horses with a stranger and cheated him unmercifully. How my father did laugh, and mother laughed, too, but she told Ed that he must never do such a thing again. With what envy did I look upon this applause. I knew that Ed's brain was no better than mine; and as I lay in bed one night I formed a strong resolve and fondly hugged it unto myself. I owned a horse, a good one; and I would swap him off for two horses--I would cheat some one and thereby win the respect of my fellows. My secret was sweet and I said nothing. By good chance a band of gypsies came our way; I would swindle the rascals. I went to their camp, leading my horse, and after much haggling, I came home with two horses. It was night when I reached home, and I put my team into the stable, and barred up my secret until the sun of a new day could fall upon it. Well, the next morning one of the horses was dead, and the other one was so stiff that we had to shove him out of the stall. My father snorted, my poor mother wept, and for nights afterward I slipped out and slept in the barn, burrowed under the hay that I might not hear the derisive titter of my brother Ed. We lived in northern Alabama, in a part of the country that boasted of the refinement and intelligence of its society. When I was alone with boys much younger than myself I could say smart things, and I had a hope that when I should go into formal "company" I would, with one evening's achievement, place myself high above the numbskulls who had giggled at me. The time came. There was to be a "party" at the house of a neighbor, and I was invited. I had a suit of new clothes, and after dressing myself with exceeding care, I set out, strong of heart, for the field of victory. But I weakened when I saw the array of blooded horses hitched without, and heard the gay laughter within, a merriment rippling and merciless; and I stood on the porch, sick with the sense of my awkwardness. I was too big, and I knew that I was straining my clothes. Through the window I could see a trim fellow laughing with a girl, and I said to myself, "If I can catch you out somewhere I will maul you." I was not acquainted with him, but I hated him, for I knew that he was my enemy. To an overgrown young fellow, ashamed of his uncouth, steer-like strength, all graceful youths are hateful; and he feels, too, that a handsome girl is his foe, for girls with pretty mouths are nearly always laughing, and why should they laugh if they are not laughing at him? Long I stood there, stretching the seams of my clothes, angry, wishing that the house might catch fire. I heard footsteps, and looking about, recognized a member of the household, an old and neglected girl. I was not afraid of her, and I bowed. And I felt a sudden looseness, a giving away of a part of my gear. She called me Mr. Hawes, the very first time that any one had called me anything but Bill; she opened the door and bade me go in. I had to duck my head as I stepped forward, and there I was inside the room with the light pouring over me. I took one step forward, and stumbled over something, and then a tittering fool named Bentley, exclaimed: "Hello, here comes little Willie." I don't know how I got out. I heard a roar of laughter, I saw grinning faces jumbled together, and then I was outside, standing with my hot hand resting in the frost on the top rail of a fence. Some one was urging me to come back--the neglected girl--but I stood there silent, with my hot hand melting the frost. I went out into the moon-lighted woods, seized a sapling and almost wrenched it from the ground. Down the road I went toward home, but I turned aside and sat on a log. I felt a sense of pain and I opened my hands--I had been cutting my palms with my nails. But in this senseless fury I had made up my mind. I would waylay Bentley and beat him. Hour after hour I sat there. Horses began to canter by; up and down the road there was laughter and merry chatting. The moon was full, and I could plainly see the passers-by. Suddenly I sprang from the log and seized a bridle rein. A girl shrieked and a man cut my hand with a whip, and I jerked the horse to his knees. Bentley shouted that he would kill me if I did not let go, but I heeded not; I jerked him off his horse, kicked his pistol across the road, mashed his mouth, slammed him against the ground. The shrieking girl cried out that I was a brute, and I told her that I could whip her whole family, a charming bit of repartee, I thought, but afterward I remembered that her family consisted of herself and an aged grandmother, and I sent her an abject apology. Bentley's horse cantered away, and I left the fellow lying in the road, with the girl standing over him, shrieking for help. It was all done in a minute, and with jolting tread I stalked away before any one came up. Of course there was a great scandal. My poor mother was grieved and humiliated, ashamed to meet any of the neighbors; and my father swore that instead of becoming a school teacher I ought to turn out as a highwayman. My brothers thought to have some fun with me, but I frightened them with a roar, and for a time they were afraid to smile in my presence. I was almost heartbroken over my disgrace. Without undue praise I can say that I was generous and kindhearted; even as a child I had shown almost a censurable unselfishness; I had given away my playthings, and my sensibilities were so tender that I could not bear the sight of a suffering animal, and I remember that an old man laughed at me because I could not cut the throat of a sheep when the poor thing had been hung up by the heels. And now I was put down as a heartless brute. Bentley's face constantly haunted me. I was afraid that he might die, and once when I heard that he was not likely to get well, I was resolved to go to him, to beg his pardon. Two weeks had passed; it was night and rain was pouring down, but I cared naught for the wetting. I found Bentley sitting up with his face bandaged. His mother frowned at me when she opened the door and saw me standing there under the drip, and it was some time before she asked me to come in, and I have thought that she would have driven me off had not the sight of me, wet and debased, aroused her pity. Bentley held out his hand when I entered the room, and he said, "I don't blame you, Bill. It was mean of me, but I wanted to be smart." I was so full, so choked with emotion, that it was some time before I could say a word. But after a time I spoke of the rain, and told him that I thought that I had heard a wildcat as I came along, which was a lie, for I had heard nothing save the wind and the rain falling on the dead leaves. He laughed and said that he did not suppose that I would have been very much frightened had the cat jumped at me. Then I told him that I was the biggest coward on earth, and sought to prove it by offering to let him kick me as long as he might find it amusing. I told him that everybody despised me for the way I had beaten him, everybody, including my own family, and that I deserved the censure of all good people. We talked a long time, and he laughed a great deal, but when I told him that I was coming over to work for him three weeks, his eyes grew brighter with tears. This filled me up again and I could do nothing but blubber. After a long time I asked him if he would do me a favor, and he said that he would. Then I took out a watch that I had brought in a buckskin bag, and I said, "Here is a thing that used to belong to my grandfather, and it was given me by mother when I was ten years old. It is a fine time-piece and is solid. Now, I want you to take it as a present from me. You said you would do me a favor." But he declared that he could not take it. "Why, I would despise myself if I did," said he. I told him that I would despise myself if he did not. His mother, who had left us alone, came in, smiling, and said that I must not think of parting with so valuable a watch, the mark of my grandfather's gentility, but I put the watch on the table and plunged out into the rain and was gone. Bentley's mother returned the watch the next day, and then there went about the neighborhood a report that I was so much afraid of Bentley's revenge that I had tried to buy him off with a watch. Bentley had said that I should not work for him, but when the time for breaking up the land came, I went over and began to plow the field. His mother came out and compelled me to quit, but I went back at night and plowed while other people slept; and thus I worked until much of his corn-land was broken up. The neighbors said that I had gone insane, and a few days afterward, when I met a woman in the road, she jerked her old mare in an effort to get away, and piteously begged me not to hurt her. I made no further attempt to get into "company," and thus, forced back upon myself, I began to form the habits of a student; and to aid me in my determination to study law, I decided to teach school. So, when I was almost grown--or, rather, about twenty-three years old, for I appeared to keep on growing--I went over into another neighborhood and took up a school. And they called me "Lazy Bill." I couldn't understand why, for I am sure that I attended to my duties, that I played town ball with the boys, that I even cut wood all day one Saturday; but confound them, they called me lazy. I spoke to one of the trustees; I called his attention to the fact that I worked hard, and he replied that the hardest working man he had ever seen was a lazy fellow who worked merely as a "blind." To sleep after the sun rises is a great crime in the country, and sometimes I sat up so late with my books that I had to be called twice for breakfast. And no amount of work could have offset this ignominy. I taught school during three years, and found at the end of that time that I was no nearer a lawyer's office. Once I called on an old judge, the leading lawyer in a neighboring village, and told him that if he would take me I would work for my clothes, and the humorous old rascal, surveying me, replied: "I have not contemplated the starting of a woolen mill. Why don't you go to work?" he asked. I told him that I was at work, that I taught school, but that I wanted to be a lawyer. He laughed and said that teaching school was not work--declared it to be the refuge of the lazy and the shiftless. I then ventured to remark that the South would continue to be backward as long as the educator was put down as a piece of worthless rubbish. I went away, and a few days later one of the trustees called on me and said that I had declared their children to be ignorant rubbish, and that therefore they wanted my services no longer. I returned home. My brothers were gone, and my parents were in feeble health. My father died within a year, and soon my mother followed him. The farm was poor and was mortgaged, and empty-handed I turned away. I heard that a school teacher was wanted up in North Carolina, near the Tennessee line, and I decided to apply for the place. I walked to the railway station, twenty miles distant. I have said that I went away empty-handed. I did not; I carried a trunk, light with clothes and heavy with books. I had put my trunk on the railway platform and was striding up and down when I saw two men, well-dressed, rich-looking, standing near. This amounted to nothing, and I would not mention it but for the fact that it was at this moment that I received my first encouragement. One of the men, speaking to his companion, remarked: "Devilish fine-looking fellow. I'd give a great deal to be in his shoes, to have his strength and his youth." I turned away, eager to hear more, yet afraid lest the other man might say something to spoil it all. But he did not. "Yes," he replied, "but he doesn't know how fortunate he is. Gad, he looks like an imported bull." The train came and I was whirred away, over streams, below great hanging rocks; but I thought not of the grandeur of the rocks nor of the beauty of the streams, for through my mind was running the delicious music of the first compliment that had ever been paid me. And I realized that I had outgrown the age of my awkwardness, that strength was of itself a grace to be admired, that I should feel thankful rather than remember with bitterness the days of my humiliation. I observed a woman looking at me, and there was interest in her eyes, and I knew that she did not take kindly to me simply because she was an old and neglected girl, for she was handsome. Beside her sat a man, and I could see that he was eager to win her smile. He hated me, I could see that, but he couldn't laugh at me. I noticed that my hands and feet were not over large, and this was a sort of surprise, for I recalled hearing a boy say that my foot was the biggest thing he ever saw without a liver in it. I reached back and wiped out the past; I looked out at a radiant cloud hanging low in the west, and called it the future. Fool? Oh, of course. I had been a fool when a boy, and was a fool now, but how much wiser it was to be a happy fool. I was to leave the train at Nagle station, and then to go some distance into the country, which direction I knew not. I made so bold as to ask the handsome lady if she knew anything of the country about Nagle, and she smiled sweetly, and said that she did not, that she was a stranger going South. I had surmised as much, and I spoke to her merely to see what effect it would have on the man who sat beside her. Was my new-found pride making me malicious? I thought it was, and I censured myself. The lady showed a disposition to continue the talk, but the man drove me into silence by remarking: "I suppose there is something novel about one's first ride on the cars." How I did want to reach out and take hold of his ear, but I thought of Bentley and subsided. When I arose to get off at my station, I thought that the lady, as I passed her, made a motion as if she would like to give me her hand. This might simply have been the prompting of my long famished but now over-fed conceit, my bloating egotism, but I gave the woman a grateful thought as I stood on the platform gazing at the train as it faded away in the dusk that appeared to come down the road to meet it. I had expected to alight at a town, but the station was a lonely place, a wagon-maker's shop, the company's building and a few shanties. I asked the station master if he knew where the school teacher was wanted, and he answered that from the people thereabouts one must be needed in every household. "And I should think," I replied, giving him what I conceived to be a look of severe rebuke, "that a teacher of common decency and politeness is most needed of all." "I reckon you are right," he rejoined. "Is he the man you are looking for?" "I don't want to get into trouble here," said I, "but I insist upon fair treatment and I'm going to have it." "All right, sir. Now, what is it you want to know?" "Why, I was told that there was an opening for a school teacher in this neighborhood." "And so there is, but don't you know that no neighborhood could be proud of such a fact? Therefore, you ought to be more careful as to how you make your inquiries." I saw that he wanted to joke with me and I joked with him. And I soon found that this was the right course, for he invited me into his office and insisted upon my sharing his luncheon, cold bread and meat and a tin bucket of boiling coffee. I soon learned that he was newly graduated from a school of telegraphy, and that this was his first position. He had come from a city and he gave me the impression that he was buried alive; he said that he had entered an oath in his book that if some one didn't get off at his station pretty soon he would set the whole thing on fire and turn train robber. "Don't you think that would be a pretty good idea?" he asked, laughing. "It would be a pretty dangerous one, at least," I answered. "Yes, but without danger there is never any fun. My old man insisted upon my taking that night-school course; and the professor of the institution held out the idea that I could be a great man within a short time after graduating; led me to believe I could get charge of a big office in town, but here I am stuck up here in these hills. No rags about here at all." "No what?" "Rags, calico, women--catch on?" "You mean no society, to speak of." "That's it. Oh, away off in the country it's all right, but I can never go more than three miles from this miserable place. You'll have to go about fifteen miles." "How do you know?" "Why, an old fellow from a neighborhood about that far away came out here the other day and sent off a dispatch, telling some man off, I don't remember where, to send a teacher out there." "And one might have come by this time," I suggested, with a sense of fear. "No, you are the only one that has put in an appearance, and the only one that is likely to come. I understand that they don't treat teachers very well out there." "How so?" "The boys have a habit of ducking them in the creek, I hear." "Oh, is that all? Be fun for me." "You won't think so after you see those roosters. Let me see. Take the Purdy road out there, and go straight ahead to the east, and when you think you have gone about fifteen miles, ask for the house of Lim Jucklin. The last teacher, I understand, boarded at his house." "You appear to know a good deal about it." "Well, the truth of it is, I do, for the last teacher came and went this way. And he told me like this: 'The thing opened up all right, plenty of rags, but that evening some of the young fellows came to me and said that unless I brought some sort of treat the next morning they would put me in the creek; said that they hated to do it, but that time-honored customs must be observed. I didn't bring any treat and I went into the creek. Then I left.' Yes, that's what he said, and I concluded that as for me I would rather be here. It isn't so lively, but it is a good deal dryer. But you can't get there to-night. Better take a shake-down here with me till morning, and then you may catch some farmer going that way with a wagon." I thanked him for this courtesy, and readily accepted it. And the next morning, with my trunk on my shoulder, I set out upon what I conceived to be my career in life. CHAPTER II. The month was April, and the day was blithe, with no blotch in the sky. The country was rough, the road was pebbly in the bottoms and flinty on the hills, but there was a leaping joy everywhere; in the woods where the blue-jays were shouting, down the branch where the woodpecker tapped in an oak tree's sounding board. It must have been a low-hanging ambition to be thrilled with the prospect of teaching school, or was it buoyant health that made me happy? I eased down my trunk, and boyishly threw stones away off into an echoing hollow. A rabbit ran out into the road and stopped, and with a stone I knocked it over. Tenderly I picked it up, felt its fluttering heart, and groaned inwardly when the little heart was stilled. I called myself a murderer, an Anglo-Saxon brute, to kill a harmless creature merely upon a devilish impulse, and in the gravelly ground I began to dig a grave with my knife, and I was so much taken up with this work and with my grief, that I heeded not the approach of a wagon. "What are you doing there?" some one called. I looked up. A farmer had stopped his blowing horses and was looking at me. "I'm digging a grave," I answered. "Diggin' a grave? Why, who's dead?" "A rabbit." He moved uneasily, and gave me a searching look. And I saw that he took me to be insane. "I killed the poor thing," I explained, "killed it out of mere wantonness, and I am so grief-stricken that I am going to do the best I can for the poor thing--going to give it a Christian burial." The man laughed. "I wish you would kill the last one of them," he said. "Set out as nice a young orchard as you ever saw last winter, and the devilish rabbits killed every one of the trees." "Then I am not so much of a murderer after all," I replied. "I might have known that rabbits are not altogether harmless. How far do you go on this road?" "About ten miles." "Will you let me ride with you?" "Yes, be glad to have you." I put the rabbit into his grave, raked the dirt on him with my foot--hardly a Christian-like way, I admit--placed my trunk into the body of the wagon, and took a seat beside the man. And there was something about him that at once interested me. His hat was off and the breeze was stirring his grizzly hair. His nose was large and thin, and when he turned his face square upon me, I saw that his eyes were gray and clear. He wore no coat, his shirt sleeves were rolled back, and though he must have been more than fifty years old, I could see that he had enormous strength in his arms. And he was looking at me admiringly, for he said, "You must be pretty much of a man." "I am not a child except in my lack of wisdom," I answered. "Gad, you talk like a preacher. Which way are you going?" "Over to Lim Jucklin's house." He gave me another square look and remarked, "That's my name." "You don't tell me so?" "Didn't you hear me tell you so?" "Yes, but----" "Well, then, I did tell you so." "I am delighted to meet you, sir. I am a school teacher, and I hear that one is wanted in your neighborhood." He looked at me from head to foot, and replied: "I shouldn't wonder but you are the right man. What's your name?" I told him and after a few moments of silence he asked, "Any kin to the Luke Hawes that fought in the Creek war?" "He was my grandfather." "Ah, hah, and my daddy fit with him--was a lieutenant in his company. Let's shake hands. Whoa, boys." He stopped his horses, got up, shook down the wrinkled legs of his trousers and reached forth his hand. "You are a stranger in North Caroliny," he said when he had clucked to his horses. "Yes, I am a stranger everywhere you might put it," I answered. "I am from Alabama, but the people made so much fun of me in the community where I was brought up that I am even a stranger there." "What did they make fun of you about?" "Because I was overgrown and awkward." "Whoa, boys! Let's shake hands again. I got it the same way when I was a boy, and I come in one of never gettin' over it." We drove on and had gone some distance when he asked: "Do you know all about 'rithmetic?" "I at least know the multiplication table." "It's more than I do. Get up there, boys. And down in my country they think that a man that don't know all about 'rithmetic is a fool. I have often told them that there wan't no record of the fact that the Saviour was good at figgers, except figgers of speech, but they won't have it that a man is smart unless he can go up to a barn and cover one side of it with eights and sevens and nines and all that sort of thing. I've got a daughter that's quicker than a flash--took it from her mother, I reckon--and I have a son that's tolerable, but I have always been left in the lurch right there. But I can read all right, and I know the Book about as well as the most of them, but that makes no difference down in our neighborhood. The pace down there is set by Old General Lundsford. He knows all about figgers and everything else, for that matter, but figgers is his strong holt. He owns nearly everything; is a mighty 'ristocrat and don't bend very often; lives in the house that his grandfather built, great big brick, and never had no respect for me at all until I wallowed him in the road one day about thirty odd years ago. And along about ten years after that he found out that he had a good deal of respect for me. What do you know about game chickens?" "Not very much; I simply know that they are about the bravest things that live." He gave me another one of his square looks and replied: "There is more wisdom in such talk as that than there could be crowded into a wheat bin. But, do you know that people make fun of me because I admire a game rooster? They do. I don't want to fight 'em for money, you know; I'm a good church member and all that sort of thing; I believe the Book from one end to the other; believe that the whale swallowed Jonah, I don't care if its throat ain't bigger than a hoe-handle; believe that the vine growed up in one night, and withered at mornin'; believe that old Samson killed all them fellers with the jaw-bone--believe everything as I tell you from start to finish, but I'll be blamed if I can keep from fightin' chickens to save my life. And I always keep two beauties, I tell you. Not long ago my wife ups and kills Sam and fed him to a preacher. Preacher was there, hungry, and the other chickens were parading around summers on the other side of the hill, but my wife she ups and kills Sam, a black beauty, with a pedigree as long as a plow-line. And, sir, while that man was chawin' of my chicken he gave me a lecture on fightin' roosters." "You spoke of your son and daughter. Do they attend school?" "Oh, no; they are grown long ago." "Then how is it that the teacher usually boards at your house?" "I don't know; but they do. Reckon they jest fell into the habit. My house is handy, for one thing; ain't more than three miles from the school--jest a nice, exercisin' sort of walk. Whoa, boys! Sorter have to scotch 'em back goin' down here. Saw a man get killed down there one day; horse kicked him, and do you see that knob over there where them hickory trees are? I had a hard time there one night. A lot of foot-burners come to my house one night durin' the war and took me out and told me that if I didn't give them my money they would roast my shanks. I didn't have any money and I told them so, but they didn't believe me; and so they brought me right over there where them hickories are, tied me, took off my shoes and built up a fire at my feet; but about the time they had got me well blistered, along come some Yankee soldiers and nabbed 'em. And a few minutes after that there wasn't anything agin their feet, I tell you, not even the ground. Well, we are gettin' pretty close to home now." "But we haven't come fifteen miles from the station, have we?" "Well, you had come about five mile before I overtook you and we have come nearly ten since then. These hosses are travelers. Oh, I reckon we've got about three more miles to go yet." The country was old, with here and there a worn-out and neglected field. A creek wound its way among the hills, deep and dark in places, but babbling out into a broad and shiny ford where we crossed. One moment the scene was desolate, with gullied hill-sides, but further on and off to the right I could see poetic strips of meadow land, and further yet, upon a hill-top, stood a grim old house of brick and stone. We turned off to the right before coming abreast of this place, and pursued a winding course along a deep-shaded ravine, not rough with broken ground, but graceful with grassy slopes and with here and there a rock. My companion pointed out his house, what is known as a double log building, with a broad passage way between the two sections. A path, so hard and smooth that it shone in the sun, ran down obliquely into the ravine, and at the end of it I saw a large iron kettle overturned, and I knew that this marked the spring. I liked the place, the forest back of it, the steep hills far away, the fields lying near and the meadow down the ravine. I hate a new house, a new field, a wood that looks new; to me there must be the impress of fond association, and here I found it, the spring-house with moss on its roof, the path, a great oak upon which death had placed its beautiful mark--a bough of misletoe. "You hop right out and go in and make yourself at home, while I take care of the horses," said the old man. "Go right on," he added, for he saw that I was hesitating. "You don't need an introduction. Jest say that you are Whut'sname and that you are the new school teacher." "But I don't know yet that I am to be the teacher." "Well, then, tell 'em that you are Whut'sname and that you don't know whether you are to be the teacher or not." "But won't you stop long enough to introduce me?" "Oh, I reckon I mout. Come on. There is wife in the door, now." He did not go as far as the door; he simply shouted: "Here's a man, Susan. He can tell you his name, for blamed if I ain't dun forgot." CHAPTER III. Into this household I was received with open-handed graciousness. Nothing can be more charming than the unconscious generosity of simple folk. To this family I applied the word simple and cut myself with a cool smile at my own vanity. Was I not a countryman and as rustic-minded as they? But I had come from another community, had crossed a state line and the lines of several counties, and besides I took to myself the credit of having read many a cunning book, and therefore these people were surely more simple than I. Traveling unquestionably gathers knowledge, but the man who reads has ever a feeling that he is the proper critic of the man who has simply observed. Mrs. Jucklin gave me a strong grasp of welcome, apologized for the lack of order that I must surely find in the house and conducted me to the sitting-room, a large apartment, with a home-woven carpet on the floor. A turkey wing, used for a fan, hung beside the enormous fire-place, and on the broad mantelpiece, trimmed with paper cut in scollops, an old Yankee clock was ticking. The woman shook a cat out of a hickory rocking chair and urged me to sit down. She knew that I must be tired after my long ride, and she said that if I would only excuse her for a moment she would go down to the spring-house and get me a glass of milk, to give me strength wherewith to wait until she could stir about and get something to eat. And above all, I must pardon Limuel's abruptness of manner. But really he meant nothing by it, as I would find out when I should become better acquainted with him. She was a little, black-eyed woman, doubtless a descendant of a Dutch family that had come to the colony at an early date, for she reminded me of my mother, and I know that mother's grandfather was a Dutchman. I begged Mrs. Jucklin not to go after the milk, but she ran away almost with the lightness of a girl. In truth, to think of the milk made me shudder; I couldn't bear the thought of it. During the hard times at the close of the war, when I was a child, we had to drink rye coffee, and I remember that once the cows got into the rye field and gave rye milk. The coffee and the milk together had made me sick, and ever since then I had looked upon milk with a reminiscent horror. But there she came with it. "My dear madam," I pleaded, "I would much rather not drink it." "Oh, but you must, for I know you are tired out." "But I don't drink milk." "And it is because you can't find any like this. Just taste it, then." The old man came stalking into the room and I gave him an appealing look. "I gad, Susan," said he, "let him alone. Don't you reckon he's got sense enough to know what he wants? Take the stuff away." With a sigh of disappointment she placed the tumbler upon the mantelpiece. "Where's Alf?" the old man asked. "Gone over to the General's to help about something." "Where's Guinea?" "She's about somewhere. That's her in the passage, I think. Guinea?" There was no reply, save of hastening footsteps, and a moment later a young woman entered the room. She was not very tall, but she was graceful, and her dark eyes were dashed with mischief. She reminded me of the woman whom I had seen on the train; her smile was the same, but her eyes were brighter. She had a peculiar laugh, a musical cluck, and at first sight I was glad that I had met her, but a moment later I was afraid that she was going to laugh at me. The old man did not introduce me; his wife did not know my name, and I sought to speak my name, but had lost it just at that moment and could merely splutter something. I was not much embarrassed, though; I recalled what I had heard the two men say, and behind me was the strong brace of a woman's kindly regard. "We are glad to see you," said the girl, looking straight at me. I replied that I was glad to see her, and then we both laughed; she with her musical cluck and I with a goat-like rasp, it seemed to me. We all drew up about the fire-place, a habit in the country, and it was then that I thought of the open-handed graciousness of the household. Had I correctly caught this girl's name, Guinea? And with a countryman's frankness I asked if that were her name. "Well, no," said Mrs. Jucklin, speaking for her, "it ain't her sure enough name, but it's all that she goes by. And it came about in this way: A long time ago, when she was a little bit of a girl, she was toddlin' about the yard with a checked dress on, and one of the neighbors lookin' at her said that she looked exactly like a little guinea chicken, and ever since then we have called her Guinea. Her right name is Angeline." "Her right name is what?" the old man asked, looking up. "Angeline," I said. "Well, it's the first time I ever heard of it." "Now, Limuel, why do you want to act that way? A body would think that you don't know anything about your own family." "Never heard of it before," said the old man. "You are surely the most provokin' man I ever saw, Limuel. You know the very day we named the child, and now you pretend----" "Pretend? I don't pretend nothin'. Can't blame a man for never hearin' of the name, can you?" "Mister," she said, turning to me, "please don't pay any attention to him. He'd pester me nearly to death if I'd let him. But come, Guinea, we must stir about and get something to eat." The mother and the daughter went out into a kitchen detached from the main part of the house, and the old man looked at me and laughed. And after a moment of chuckling he said: "I reckon that I've got two of the finest in the world." "Children?" I asked. "No, game roosters. One's named Sam and the other's named Bob." "I thought you said that Sam had been eaten by the preacher." "Oh, that Sam was, but I've got another one. I always have a Sam and a Bob. When a Sam dies I get another Sam, and likewise with a Bob. But you know what's a fact? I never allow 'em to fight to a finish. If I did the sport would be gone. You must never let one rooster know that the other one can whip him, for if you do there won't be any fight after that--you must always keep each one believin' that he is the best man. I reckon I've had more than a hundred, but I never let 'em fight to a finish. My folks here don't care nothin' about fun--they even frown on it, Alf with the rest, and I hold that he ought to know better, bein' a man, but so it is. I've got a chicken house back here, with a high picket fence around it, and I keep it locked, I tell you. Have to, or the preachers would eat up my sport, and this ain't findin' no fault with their doctrine, for I believe the Book from kiver to kiver. After we get a snack we'll slip off and have a set-to. What do you say?" I hardly knew what to say. I was afraid to decline, lest I might lose his good opinion, and I was loth to accept the invitation, fearing that I might lower myself in the estimation of the women; but while I was casting about the old man relieved me by saying: "However, we've got plenty of time before us. It's always well to hold a good thing in reserve, you know. After dinner we'll go over and see Old Perdue and find out if you can arrange with him about the school. He's got the whole thing in charge. General Lundsford has charge of nearly everything else, but he don't take much stock in free schools. He argues that nothin' that's free is any good, and in the main he's about right; but we've had some pretty good schools here, the only trouble bein' to keep the teachers out of the creek. What education my son Alf has he picked up about home, here, but Guinea was sent off to school, way over at Raleigh." "I am glad to see that you thought so much of the importance of training her mind," I remarked. He gave me a troubled look, moved uneasily, as I had seen him move when I told him that I was burying a rabbit, ran his fingers through his upright, bristling hair and for a long time was silent. And as I looked at him I fancied that he was trying to think of something to say, something to lead my mind away from what he had already said. I had seen the quaint, half-comical side of his nature, and now I saw that he could be thoughtful, and in his serious mood his face was strong and rugged. His beard, cropped close, reminded me of scraps of wire, some of them rusted; and when he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand I wondered that he did not scratch the skin off. Guinea came to the door and told us that the meal was ready. The old man got up, with a return of his comical air, and told me to follow him. The girl continued to stand near the threshold and as I drew near unto her she said: "This door wasn't cut quite high enough for you, was it? Look, father, he has to duck his head. The boys may have a time putting him into the creek." She was now talking to her father, but was looking at me, so I took it upon myself to answer her. "Yes, for you have called attention to the fact that my legs are long and the rascals may have hard running with trying to catch me." "Oh," she replied, "but I was thinking of your strength rather than your swiftness. Come this way. Father has run off and left you." The old man had stepped down out of the passage and had gone some distance toward a small house surrounded by a picket fence. "You go with her," he called, looking back, "and I'll be there pretty soon." "No telling when he will come now," the girl remarked, walking close beside me. "He's got two of the most spiteful chickens out there you ever saw, and whenever anything goes wrong with him he bolts right out there, no matter who is here, and makes those vicious things peck at each other. Mother and I try hard to reform him, but we can't." It was Mrs. Jucklin's time-grayed privilege to apologize for the scantiness of her fare, and this she did with becoming modesty and regret. She had not expected company; the regular dinner hour was over long ago, and somehow she never could understand why she couldn't get a meal out of the regular time. But if I would only give her a chance she would reclaim herself. She called my attention to the corn bread; declared that it was not fit to be eaten, and she didn't know what made the stove act that way. But the milk she knew was good. Oh, she had forgotten that I didn't drink milk. Guinea smiled at me and clucked at her mother. "Don't pretend that you like anything just to please her," she said, when Mrs. Jucklin had turned about to keep a hoe-cake from burning. "All you've got to do is to say nothing until she gets through--that, and simply to remember that she enjoys it." While we were eating we heard a voice crying: "Hike, there, Sam; get him down, Bob! Hike there!" "They are warming up to their work," Guinea remarked, and her mother sighed; and then she began to talk louder than was her wont, striving to drown the old man's voice. "It isn't any use, mother," said the girl. "The gentleman will find it out sooner or later." "And I suppose," said I, "that you think that you may find out my name sooner or later. Please pardon me for not introducing myself. My name is----" "Hike, there, Bob! Get him down, Sam! Now you are at it! Hike, there!" "My name is Hawes, William Hawes, and I am from Alabama." "And you have come to teach the school?" said the girl. "Yes, if I can make the arrangements." "But is there anything very satisfying in such an occupation?" she asked. I felt then that she placed no very high estimate upon my worth, and on her part this was but natural, for among country people school-teaching is looked upon as a lazy calling. "I have not chosen teaching as my real vocation," I answered. "Hike, there, I tell you! Hike!" "It is my aim to be a lawyer, to be eloquent, to stir emotions, to be strong in the presence of men. My earlier advantages, no matter how
{'title': 'The Jucklins: A Novel by Opie Percival Read', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}