THESE TWAIN

ONE day, without explanation to his fellows, Joslin ceased in his labors, and started down the hill. No one asked him his intention, for he rarely spoke of his own plans. They saw his tall figure passing by the road beyond the forks of the river—the direction of his home. A half-hour before dusk that day, he arrived at the little gap in the fence, which made the gate of his own scant acres, unvisited for two years.

He walked steadily up to his own door, and, without announcement, pushed it open.

Two women stared at him without speech, as he stood in the half-light. One of these was his wife, the other his grandmother—the latter had come in upon one of her not infrequent visits, for in the Cumberlands kinship is held a sacred thing, and the ravens of the Lord have never forgotten their ancient errand.

Old Granny Joslin was the first to speak. “Well, Davy?” said she, as though she had been expecting him.

He did not answer her, did not bend in token of greeting to the other woman who sat sullenly silent. He took his own place at the fireside—the chief’s place of counsel in a cabin home. It once had been his own fireside. He was a stranger here to-day.

He stared silently at the ashes after the fashion of the mountaineers, who mostly do so because they have few thoughts. But David Joslin had many thoughts now, riotous thoughts, that left his mind a scene of combat.

This squalid interior, the unmade bed, the grimy pillow coverings, the table littered with the dishes of the earlier meal, the entire lack of neatness, cleanliness and order that left the place a hovel, and not a home—all this was as when he had left the place. There arose for him the comparison of this with the sweet quiet of other homes.

He had the feeling that gaunt fingers were reaching out to claim him once more. These who sat here—they were flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone. They were his people. He was of them. What, then, was his duty? And why could he not set out of his mind the comparison that urged in upon him—of these with others whom he had seen in a wider and lovelier world than this? These were ignorant as once he had been—caught in the shallows of life, victims of dwarfing poverty all their days.

Of these two was one whom David Joslin had sworn to love, honor and cherish, cleaving to none other. He had lived after the fashion of his people. Corn bread and hog meat; pot hooks and the early bed for the woman, crops and the occasional “frolic” for the man—that was the life all of them had known. This might have been any home; this woman, any wife of these hills. But other pictures rose before him—before David Joslin, a man with a conscience and a will to do the right.

Joslin shifted in his chair, but there was no greeting in his gaze. He did not reach out his hand to touch that of his wife—indeed, he never would have done that in the presence of another, for that would have been in violation of the creed of the hills.

“Well, Meliss’,” said he at last, “I’ve come back.”

“I see ye hev,” said she. “Hit’s nigh about time ye did.”

“That may be. At least I’m here.”

“We heerd tell of ye, Davy,” said his grandmother. “We heerd tell all about what’s happened. I don’t reckon folks’ll laugh at ye no more. How far along is the big house by now, Davy?”

“The walls are up, Granny,” said he. “It looks right fine, up on top of the hill. We’re out of nails now—I’ve got to go down the river before long to see if I can get trusted for a keg of nails at Windsor.” The corners of his mouth suggested a grim smile.

“Ye’d better see if ye kain’t git trusted fer a sack of meal,” sneered his wife. “How ye suppose we-all was a-goin’ to live here? Hit’s two year sence ye left.”

“I didn’t suppose, Meliss’,” said he. “If I had supposed anything at all I’d have stayed right here. When a thing has got to be done, you can’t look at what lies between you and it.”

“Ye’re a fine preacher o’ the Gospel,” said she contemptuously.

“I’m not a preacher of the Gospel,” replied David Joslin quietly.

“How come ye hain’t, Davy?” demanded his granddam. “I done tolt everybody ye was called. How come ye hain’t a preacher? If ye was, that explains a heap of things. Preachers, they hain’t held responserble.”

“It’s not yet time, Granny,” said Joslin gently. “Some time, maybe. I don’t know.”

“Not time! When’s it a-goin’ to be time then? When yore pap beginned to preach, he jest up an’ beginned, that’s all, an’ he was helt as powerful a preacher as ary in these mountings. Don’t I mind how over on the Buffalo he preached fer two weeks without a showin’ o’ grace, an’ he kep’ right on, an’ come evenin’ of the fourteenth day things begun fer to break, an’ within the next two days he baptized over two hundred souls, tell he taken a chill an’ liken enough to die from it, excusin’ the quinine I gin him.”

“Yes,” said Joslin, “I know about that. But if I don’t preach there, someone else will.”

“Well, what then?” demanded the fierce old woman of him. “What’s the matter with ye, boy? Hain’t ye as good a man as yore daddy, or air ye made all of skim melk?”

He only shook his head, and tried to smile.

“Ye’re a-workin’ right alongside of them Gannts up thar, they tell me,” went on the old dame. “Hit don’t look to me like ye had sand enough to hurt a flea. Why hain’t ye killed old Absalom long afore this? My Lord, looks to me like ye’d had chancet enough! Did ye come back fer yore pistol?”

“No, Granny, I didn’t come back for my pistol.”

“If ye don’t kill that man I’ll do it myself some time!” exclaimed the old woman savagely. “I hain’t a-skeered to do it, if ye air. An’ look at Chan Bullock—he’s all the leader the Joslins has got now, sence ye turned tail an’ run out. He’s a-workin’ now, too, along with the Gannts—well, maybe he’s only waitin’ to git a good chancet. Maybe he’ll git old Absalom yit some time.”

“I don’t think he will,” said David Joslin quietly. “They’ve slept side by side for more than one night, and neither made a move. Neither of them had a gun—there’s not a pistol in the whole lot.”

“Well, couldn’t Chan taken a hammer and mashed him while he was asleep?” demanded the old woman. “What better chancet will he ever hev than he’s got right now? Did them people ever give us ary chancet, I’d like to know?”

“No; nor did we them until now, Granny. But that day’s gone by.”

“Don’t ye be too damn sure,” reiterated the fiery old dame. “They’ll git ye yit, ef ye don’t watch out.”

“If they do,” said Joslin, “I’m ready to go. I tell you, times have changed in these hills.”

“Huh!” began his wife again. “Ye’re takin’ a heap on yoreself, seems to me, Davy Joslin. I reckon ye think ye done all this—in two year!”

“No, I don’t think so, Meliss’. I think the Lord did it.”

“And yet ye hain’t set up fer preachin’ yit! How’d ye come through school, anyhow? I’ll bet ye’re pore as Job’s turkey right now.”

“I’m worse than that, Meliss’. I’ve got nothing.”

“That’s it! That’s right!” went on his wife heatedly. “Hit’s what I expected. Ye’d let us starve. Well, I’ll fix ye anyhow.”

“What do you mean, Meliss’?” asked David Joslin curiously. Under his words now, gentle as they were, was the fierceness of the mountaineer, jealous of any liberties taken with him.

“Well,” she said, “ye quit me. Ye done left me fer full two year.”

“No, I didn’t, Meliss’. I didn’t quit you for two years. I told you when I left it was for all my life.”

“Yes, an’ that throwed her on my hands,” growled Granny Joslin. “Still, I wouldn’t complain if it hadn’t been them Gannts stole eight or ten hawgs off en us last year.”

“Hit was a fine way to do,” went on his wife, with growing confidence in her own powers now. “I nuvver seed a man in these mountings run away from his wife that way, lessen he was obleeged to lay out er git free from the law fer a while.”

“I didn’t leave the country,” replied David Joslin. “I left you. That don’t mean that I’ve left any of my responsibilities. I told you I didn’t dare look at the things I ought to do—it was only a question of the thing I ought to do the most. I had to get my education first. Now I’ve come back. I want to see now what I’d best to do about you.”

“Fine time to begin plannin’ now!” rejoined his wife sullenly.

“It’s true,” said he, “I can’t do much. I’ve got mighty little to do with. Still, I want to pay my debts.”

She rose and stood before him, close to his chair, her hands clenched into fists, her eyes flashing.

“Dang ye!” said she, with all the fury of the woman scorned in her face. “Ye quit me yellow, that’s what ye did. Ye run away an’ left me—ye was a coward—ye was a-skeered to stay in here—an’ now ye want to come sneakin’ around, tryin’ to make peace with them Gannts that we fit with all our lives, the hull of our fam’ly agin the hull of theirn! Ye come a-crawlin’ in here atter dark, an’ talkin’ to me about plans! Ye say the Lord has been a-holpin’ ye. I don’t reckon the Lord had much to do with it. I reckon ye could tell a-plenty different story right now if ye wanted to.”

“Yes,” said David Joslin, his forehead wet now, “I could.”

“Ye act to me like a houn’,” said she. “If ye’d been ary part of a man ye wouldn’t of runned away an’ lef me.”

“David, I reckon ye got to call that kind of talk,” said the old woman quietly.

“Yes, Granny,” said he, “I reckon I must.” But yet he sat silent, while his wife, now lashed into a fury, reviled him in such words as need not be repeated. Granny Joslin sat and chuckled ghoulishly, her pipe between her toothless lips.

“Well, go on, Meliss’,” said she. “Ye’re a-gettin’ ready for a trouncin’, ‘pears to me. Hain’t no Joslin’ll take that.”

But presently her grim face turned to the man who sat there silent, staring into the ashes of the fire.

“What’s the matter with ye, boy?” said she. “Air ye quittin’? Tell me—have ye been actin’ up with ary other womern Outside? If ye hain’t, it’s time ye tuk an’ taken a hand now in yore own house.”

“Granny,” said David Joslin suddenly, his face white in his resolution for a “true confession and not a false defense,” “there are three women in my life. Meliss’ here is one. There were two others—Outside. If you’d mean that I’ve gone wrong—for always—with either, or any other woman in the world, that’s not true. I came here to tell you the truth. What I’ve done you know—as much as you’re big enough to know or understand, Meliss’. Now, what do you mean? You say you’ve fixed me—what do you mean?”

“As though I was a-goin’ to keep on standin’ it!” half screamed his wife. “I tell ye I’m through with ye as much as ye air with me. That new doctor filled yore mind with notions about our bein’ married. Well, all right!”

“Yes, he did. It was wrong that we ever should have been married. But I’ve ended that as far as I could. I studied over it for a long time. What’s right for me to do? Whatever it is, I want to do it.”

“I didn’t need to study so much fer my own part,” retorted she. “Thar’s lawyers as well as doctors comin’ in this way nowadays. Well, I’m a-goin’ to git me a divorce, that’s what I’m a-goin’ to do. I done sole the red hawg to pay the lawyer, and he done tolt me what to do.”

“Ye heerd her, Davy,” said Granny Joslin, nodding her head. “I’ve knowed it. I was a-hopin’ ye’d give her a good thrashin’, though, afore she tolt ye—hit would of been more manful if ye had. But it’s true. She’s a-goin’ to git a divorce—the fust time that word has ever been heerd in our fam’ly.”

“Nor in mine neither,” rejoined the younger woman. “We was always fitten to be married ontel the railroads come in here—with their new doctors an’ their new lawyers. I’ve been mocked here in these mountings because my man left me, an’ because I didn’t have no fam’ly. Well, I said I fixed it. I’ve got out the papers.”

“But there was no law against cousins marrying in this state,” said Joslin. “It was only a natural law we broke—that’s the pity of it all, and the awful part of it all.”

“If thar was law agin hit thar’d be a heap of marriages ontied in these mountings,” said Granny Joslin.

“Hit don’t need to be that,” expounded Meliss’. “The lawyer done tolt me, if a man done lef’ his wife fer two year ‘thouten no support, she could git a divorce from him. Well, ye lef’ me two year ago—ye jest been a-hintin’ at something of yore goin’s on fer two year. Live with ye?—Not if ye was the last man on airth! I’m done—I’m a-goin’ to be free.”

“You’ve different ideas from what I had,” said David Joslin, still quietly. “I only thought it wasn’t right for us to live together. I wasn’t thinking of shirking any duty, or breaking any promise, least of all my marriage promise. I was going to pay you all I owed—all I could in every way.”

“Ye kain’t pay me nothin’ an’ nohow!” stormed his wife. “I don’t need ye noways on airth!”

“I’ve got mighty little in the world,” went on Joslin whitely after a time. “I’ll deed you the farm here. I never asked you to do what you’ve done—divorce is a thing unknown in our family or in these hills. But one thing’s sure—not for any reason—not even if the first reason was taken away—could I go on living with you now.”

Trembling in her rage at this, the first actual slight he had put upon her, his wife rose and half ran from the room, deeds, speech and even tears denied her. Joslin made no motion to restrain her, nor did the old dame, chuckling over her pipe, even follow her with her eyes.

“It’s done, Granny,” said Joslin bitterly after a time. “She can do what she likes about marrying again—I’ll not raise a hand to help her or stop her. What I have is hers, all of it, and that’s all I can do. As for me, I’ve not got a dollar, and I never will have while I live, I suppose.”

“Thar!” exulted the old woman. “I fotched it! I knowed it—I knowed thar was a other womern—but two! Tell me all about it, Davy. Furriners, huh? Well, I must say, Davy, that’s more like—that’s more like ye had some sort of a man-sperrit left to ye!”

Her shrill laughter now filled the room, and swayed her gnarled form as she rocked to and fro, her pipe involuntarily falling from her mouth in her merriment “Tell me about ‘em.”

“One was a married woman,” said David Joslin, speaking freely before his grandmother as he could not have done before his wife. “I didn’t know how fine and steady and sweet a woman could be till I saw her. I never heard her say a word above her voice. She was fine, always. I reckon she gave me my start—she showed what there was to hope and work for in the world. And she was beautiful, too—in a way I can’t well describe. She was so quiet, so still, folks never would think she was much, maybe not even beautiful. She’s one worth more than the world’s estimate. There are such—the finest of all in all the world, in all its days. She’s married.”

“Go on, Davy,” chuckled the old dame. “Tell the rest—tell about the other furrin womern. Ye said thar was two on ‘em. That’s some sperrit, boy! I declar, I’m a-thinkin’ more of ye now than I done hafe a hour ago! While ye’re confessin’, come on through an’ tell me the hull story. Was this-un old or young—was she married or single?”

“Single,” said David Joslin, still staring into the fire; “and young.”

“What manner of gal was she? Was she purty?”

“I didn’t think any woman ever could be so beautiful, in one way,” said Joslin soberly and truthfully. He raised his eyes now and looked fair into the face of his granddam.

The old woman shrilled with laughter as she saw the pallor of his cheek—the laughter of the old at the ways of life gone by. “Go on, Davy!” said she. “What sort of lookin’ gal was she? Tell me now—was she big or little—dark or fair?”

“She would just about go under my arm if I stood up,” said David Joslin slowly. “She was dark—her hair and eyes both dark. She told me she was French and Irish—she came from Boston, so she said.”

“French and Irish—oh, my God!” exclaimed the old dame. “Same as myself! Law sakes, Meliss’,” she shrilled through the half-open door beyond— “could you a-blame him? Didn’t I know his daddy, an’ don’t I know him? Don’t I know ary man, come to that——

“Well, Davy,” she added at last, “when air ye a-goin’ to leave us and go on back Outside? I reckon that’s the one ye’re a-goin’ back to, huh?”

“I’ll never see her again, Granny,” said David Joslin quietly. “But—now you ask me why I’m not a preacher—that’s why.”

Silence fell now in the little cabin, so agonized was he. The old woman nodded her head slowly.

“I’m going away now, Granny,” he continued at last “I’ve hurt Meliss’ mightily, and I’m sorry. I sinned, and I was to blame for it, not she, and I know that clear enough—she didn’t know any better. I’ve made nothing but trouble all my life, for myself most of all. Sometimes it’s hard to stand.”

“That’s right, Davy,” said his old granddam, nodding. “Yore way is a-goin’ to be right hard, I kin see that. Ye got a heap of troubles, one thing with another.”

“Well,” said he after a time. “It’s no use my hanging around. I’m going back.”

“Goin’ back!” shrilled the old dame, in her toothless mirthfulness. “We’ll look fer ye some day—but ye go on back now to that other womern. French-Irish!—she’ll be givin’ ye the slip if ye don’t watch out!”

“I’m not going back to her,” said David Joslin. “I told you that was done. I’m not coming back here, either.”

“Huh!” commented his wrinkled ancestress. “Here ye was with three wimmern on yore hands afore ye was thirty year old—Meliss’ an’ them two others! Well, I’ve heerd tell of mounting boys that has went Outside an’ made their fortunes an’ come back.—Ye been right busy, one way of speakin’.”

Her grandson only stared at her, mute.

“As fer Meliss’,” she added maliciously, “the Lord has gave an’ the law has took away. I don’t put it a-past her to marry agin—the lawyer man tolt her she could if she liked an’ could find ary man’d take her. She’s powerful homely now.”

Granny Joslin filled her pipe and went on smoking and chuckling. She stared so steadily into the ashes of the fireplace, was so deeply engaged with her own self-communings, that she scarcely noticed her grandson as he pushed back his chair, arising.

“Good-by, Davy,” said she, as he reached the threshold.

He turned from her and once more closed the door. It was his door no more.

“Meliss’,” said the old woman when at length she heard no more his feet passing on the hard ground walk. “Come on back in. He’s done gone.”

“What did I say!” broke out the younger woman as she clumped in once more. She flung herself into a chair, her face distorted with her jealous anger. “I knowed it—I knowed it all along. I knowed he’d be a-carryin’ on with wimmern-folks outside—he done owned up to two—ye heerd him, didn’t ye? Us a-starvin’ here, an’ him livin’ soft with them rich! Well, I fixed him, an’ I’m glad of it—he had it a-comin’ to him, that’s one thing shore.”

“Well,” said Granny Joslin after a time, “hit don’t look to me like thar was much hope; that’s right.”

“Hope!” half screamed the other, unrestrained. “I don’t want no hope. If he quits me, I reckon I’ve quit him. I hain’t so old, come to that. I kin raise my fam’ly yit, somewhars else. Thar’s other men in the world besides him—an’ real men at that.”

“What do you mean, Meliss’?” said the old woman, quietly. “You’ve said that twict now. I know the Joslins. He hain’t nuvver comin’ back agin—not in all his hull life. He’s done. He’ll have enough trouble—but he’ll nuvver trouble ye agin. He’s gone.”

“All right, then,” retorted the other angrily. “Let him go. He’s been gone fer two year, an’ he mought as well have been gone fer another year afore that. What do I need with him, with all the other men thar is in the world?”

“Huh!” rejoined the old lady, “as though I didn’t know ye’d been a-carryin’ on a civil courtship already! Seen him lately, Meliss’? ‘Pears to me like ye git worse favored every year, Meliss’. Ye’re a powerful homely womern, like I done tolt Davy now.” She still chuckled savagely, fearless as ever.

“Go on home!” cried the irate woman who faced her. “I hate ye all, ye Andy Joslins. Who air ye, anyways, to put on sech airs with me?”

But Granny Joslin did not go home for yet a while. Instead, she lighted her pipe with a coal once more, pushing it down with a horny forefinger.

“To dance through life, Meliss’,” said she, after a time, apropos of nothing apparent,—“that’s what life is fer. Ye set mopin’ and dawncey all the time—sour as a last month’s cornpone—do ye expect a man’s a-goin’ to love ye fer that? Yore old one didn’t, an’ yore new one won’t. But me—I kin dance yit!”

And suiting the action to the word, the old dame did arise, and catching her scant skirts up in either hand, executed a sturdy jig after the fashion of the olden times, stamping out the time on the puncheon floor, with an occasional exclamation of her own, whirling and turning, and now and then extending her skirts, at last snapping her fingers as she ceased. She seemed not too weary nor out of breath as she sank again into her chair.

“My God, Meliss’,” she said, “I’m glad thar’s one Joslin that’s showed hisself a man!”

She spoke to a vacant room—the other and younger woman, gone fey of her own savage humors, once more had flung from the room and was standing, hands clenched, in the yard beyond. But old Granny Joslin was not perturbed. She lighted her pipe once more and sat for a time engaged in her own thoughts as before—her eyes fixed exactly on a certain knot of a certain log in the rude wall—she voiced her own conclusions to herself.

“I was about that height my own self when I was a gal. An’ Lord! hain’t it sweet—to come just inside the arm of a strong man, Meliss’? Don’t I know?

“I was a-wonderin’ fer a while which one of them two wimmern Davy’d turn up with fustest. But, sakes! I know—he tolt me plenty, if he didn’t Meliss’. French-Irish—dark and curly-haired—big eyes, like enough—she come right under his arm when he stood up—the sort that’s sort of squushy when you hug ‘em—maybe light on her feet—laughin’, maybe! Wimmern that laughs has always got the aidge on them that cries. Why, I kin see that womern dancin’ as she goes along, alive clar down to her toes—that’s the one—you hear me now!”

And having demolished all argument on the part of the listening knot, Granny Joslin at length did knock the last ashes from her pipe, and, rising, leave the empty house and cold hearthfire of what was no longer a home.