"Yes,she'd fell down a year ago--and had sort o'hurt herself--didn't do nothin',though,'cept break one hip,''she added,in her kind,patient old voice.Did many people stop there?Oh,yes,sometimes fifteen at a time--they "never turned nobody away.''And she had a big family,little Cindy and the two big girls and Buck and Mart--who was out somewhere--and the hired man,and yes--"Thar was another boy,but he was fitified,''said one of the big sisters.
"I beg your pardon,''said the wondering Blight,but she knew that phrase wouldn't do,so she added politely:
"What did you say?''
"Fitified--Tom has fits.He's in a asylum in the settlements.''
"Tom come back once an'he was all right,''said the old mother;"but he worried so much over them gals workin'so hard that it plum'throwed him off ag'in,and we had to send him back.''
"Do you work pretty hard?''I asked presently.Then a story came that was full of unconscious pathos,because there was no hint of complaint--simply a plain statement of daily life.They got up before the men,in order to get breakfast ready;then they went with the men into the fields --those two girls--and worked like men.
At dark they got supper ready,and after the men went to bed they worked on--washing dishes and clearing up the kitchen.
They took it turn about getting supper,and sometimes,one said,she was "so plumb tuckered out that she'd drap on the bed and go to sleep ruther than eat her own supper.''No wonder poor Tom had to go back to the asylum.All the while the two girls stood by the fire looking,politely but minutely,at the two strange girls and their curious clothes and their boots,and the way they dressed their hair.Their hard life seemed to have hurt them none--for both were the pictures of health--whatever that phrase means.
After supper "pap''came in,perfectly sober,with a big ruddy face,giant frame,and twinkling gray eyes.He was the man who had risen to speak his faith in the Hon.Samuel Budd that day on the size of the Hon.Samuel's ears.He,too,was unashamed and,as he explained his plight again,he did it with little apology.
"I seed ye at the speakin'to-day.That man Budd is a good man.He done somethin'fer a boy o'mine over at the Gap.''
Like little Buck,he,too,stopped short.
"He's a good man an'I'm a-goin'to help him.''
Yes,he repeated,quite irrelevantly,it was hunting hogs all day with nothing to eat and only mean whiskey to drink.
Mart had not come in yet--he was "workin'out''now.
"He's the best worker in these mountains,''said the old woman;"Mart works too hard.''
The hired man appeared and joined us at the fire.Bedtime came,and I whispered jokingly to the Blight:
"I believe I'll ask that good-looking one to `set up'with me.''"Settin'up''is what courting is called in the hills.The couple sit up in front of the fire after everybody else has gone to bed.The man puts his arm around the girl's neck and whispers;then she puts her arm around his neck and whispers--so that the rest may not hear.This I had related to the Blight,and now she withered me.
"You just do,now!''
I turned to the girl in question,whose name was Mollie."Buck told me to ask you who Dave Branham was.''Mollie wheeled,blushing and angry,but Buck had darted cackling out the door."Oh,''Isaid,and I changed the subject."What time do you get up?''
"Oh,'bout crack o'day.''I was tired,and that was discouraging.
"Do you get up that early every morning?''
"No,''was the quick answer;"a mornin'later.''
A morning later,Mollie got up,each morning.The Blight laughed.
Pretty soon the two girls were taken into the next room,which was a long one,with one bed in one dark corner,one in the other,and a third bed in the middle.The feminine members of the family all followed them out on the porch and watched them brush their teeth,for they had never seen tooth-brushes before.They watched them prepare for bed--and I could hear much giggling and comment and many questions,all of which culminated,by and by,in a chorus of shrieking laughter.
That climax,as I learned next morning,was over the Blight's hot-water bag.
Never had their eyes rested on an article of more wonder and humor than that water bag.
By and by,the feminine members came back and we sat around the fire.Still Mart did not appear,though somebody stepped into the kitchen,and from the warning glance that Mollie gave Buck when she left the room I guessed that the newcomer was her lover Dave.Pretty soon the old man yawned.
"Well,mammy,I reckon this stranger's about ready to lay down,if you've got a place fer him.''
"Git a light,Buck,''said the old woman.Buck got a light--a chimneyless,smoking oil-lamp--and led me into the same room where the Blight and my little sister were.Their heads were covered up,but the bed in the gloom of one corner was shaking with their smothered laughter.
Buck pointed to the middle bed.
"I can get along without that light,Buck,''I said,and I must have been rather haughty and abrupt,for a stifled shriek came from under the bedclothes in the corner and Buck disappeared swiftly.
Preparations for bed are simple in the mountains--they were primitively simple for me that night.Being in knickerbockers,I merely took off my coat and shoes.Presently somebody else stepped into the room and the bed in the other corner creaked.Silence for a while.
Then the door opened,and the head of the old woman was thrust in.
"Mart!''she said coaxingly;"git up thar now an'climb over inter bed with that ar stranger.''
That was Mart at last,over in the corner.Mart turned,grumbled,and,to my great pleasure,swore that he wouldn't.
The old woman waited a moment.
"Mart,''she said again with gentle imperiousness,"git up thar now,I tell ye --you've got to sleep with that thar stranger.''
