LITMIR.BIZ

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was almost dawn, when Bear Cat slipped from under his quilt, drew on his shoes and trousers and left the loft-like attic, his feet making no sound on the rungs of the ladder.

      What furtive mission was taking him out, pondered Henderson, into the laurel-masked hills at that hour?

      But out in the creek-bed road, with the setting moon on his face, Bear Cat Stacy paused and drank in a long breath.

      "He seen Blossom's eyes flash, he said," murmured the boy with his hands clenched at his sides, then he threw back his shoulders and spoke half aloud and very resolutely: "Wa'al they won't never hev ter flash no more fer thet cause." After a little while, his gaze fixed on the myriad stars, he spoke again. "God Almighty, I needs thet ye should holp me now. I aims ter go dry fer all time – an' I kain't hardly compass hit withouten ye upholds me."

      Wheeling abruptly, he went with long strides around the turn of the road. A half hour later he was noiselessly opening the gate of the preacher's house. He meant to wait there until Blossom awoke, but prompted by habit he gave, thrice repeated, the quavering and perfectly counterfeited call of a barn owl. Since she had been a very small girl, that had been their signal, and though she would not hear it now, it pleased him to repeat it.

      Then to his astonishment he heard, very low, the whining creak of an opening door, and there before him, fully dressed, intently awake, stood the girl herself.

      "Blossom," said Bear Cat in a low voice that trembled a little, "Blossom, I came over ter wail hyar till ye woke up. I came ter tell ye – thet I'm ready ter give ye my hand. I hain't never goin' ter tech a drap of licker no more, so long es I lives. I says hit ter ye with God Almighty listenin'."

      "Oh, Turney – !" she exclaimed, then her voice broke and her eyes swam with tears. "I'm – I'm right proud of ye," was all she could find the words to add.

      "Did I wake ye up?" demanded the boy in a voice of self-accusation. "I didn't aim to. I 'lowed I'd wait till mornin'."

      Blossom shook her head. "I hain't been asleep yit," she assured him. Her cheeks flushed and she drooped her head as she explained. "I've been a-prayin, Turney. God's done answered my prayer."

      Turner Stacy took off his hat and shook back the dark lock of hair that fell over his forehead. Beads of moisture stood out on his temples.

      "Did ye keer – thet much, Blossom?" he humbly questioned, and suddenly the girl threw both arms about his neck. "I keers all a gal kin keer, Turney. I wasn't sartain afore – but I knowed hit es soon as I begun prayin' fer ye."

      Standing there in the pallid mistiness before dawn, and yielding her lips to the pressure of his kiss, Blossom felt the almost religious solemnity of the moment. She was crossing the boundary of acknowledged love – and he had passed through the stress of terrific struggle before he had been able to bring her his pledge. His face, now cool, had been hot with its fevered passion. But she did not know that out of this moment was to be born transforming elements of change destined to shake her life and his; to quake the very mountains themselves; to rend the old order's crust, and finally, after tempest and bloodshed – to bring the light of a new day. No gift of prophecy told her that, of the parentage of this declaration of her love and this declaration of his pledge, was to be born in him a warrior's spirit of crusade which could only reach victory after all the old vindictive furies had been roused to wrath – and conquered – and the shadow of tragedy had touched them both.

      And had Bear Cat Stacy, holding her soft cheek pressed to his own, been able to look even a little way ahead, he would have gone home and withdrawn the hospitality he had pledged to the guest who slept there.

      CHAPTER VII

      Because Jerry Henderson viewed the life of the hills through understanding eyes, certain paradoxes resolved themselves into the expected. He was not surprised to find under Lone Stacy's rude exterior an innate politeness which was a thing not of formula but of instinct.

      "Would hit pleasure ye," demanded the host casually the next morning, "ter go along with me up thar an' see that same identical still thet I tuck sich pains yestiddy ye shouldn't see?" But Henderson shook his head, smiling.

      "No, thank you. I'd rather not see any still that I can avoid. What I don't know can't get me – or anyone else – into trouble."

      Lone Stacy nodded his approval as he said: "I didn't aim ter deny ye no mark of confidence. I 'lowed I'd ought ter ask ye."

      Turner Stacy stood further off from illiteracy than his father. In the loft which the visitor had shared with him the night before he had found a copy of the Kentucky Statutes and one of Blackstone's Commentaries, though neither of them was so fondly thumbed as the life of Lincoln.

      By adroit questioning Jerry elicited the information that the boy had been as far along the way of learning as the sadly deficient district schools could conduct him; those shambling wayside institutions where, on puncheon benches, the children memorize in that droning chorus from which comes the local name of "blab-school."

      Turner had even taken his certificate and taught for a term in one of these pathetic places. He laughed as he confessed this: "Hit jest proves how pore ther schools air, hyarabouts," he avowed.

      "I expect you'd have liked to go to college," inquired Henderson, and the boy's eyes blazed passionately with his thwarted lust for opportunity – then dimmed to wretchedness.

      "Like hit! Hell, Mr. Henderson, I'd lay my left hand down, without begrudgin' hit, an' cut hit off at ther wrist fer ther chanst ter do thet!"

      Henderson sketched for him briefly the histories of schools that had come to other sections of the hills; schools taught by inspired teachers, with their model farms, their saw-mills and even their hospitals: schools to which not only children but pupils whose hair had turned white came and eagerly learned their alphabets, and as much more as they sought.

      The boy raised a hand. "Fer God's sake don't narrate them things," he implored. "They sots me on fire. My grandsires hev been satisfied hyar fer centuries an' all my folks sees in me, fer dreamin' erbout things like thet, is lackin' of loyalty."

      Henderson found his interest so powerfully engaged that he talked on with an excess of enthusiasm.

      "But back of those grandsires were other grandsires, Turner. They were the strongest, the best and the most American of all America; those earlier ancestors of yours and mine. They dared to face the wilderness, and those that got across the mountains won the West."

      "Ours didn't git acrost though," countered the boy dryly. "Ours was them thet started out ter do big things an' failed."

      Henderson smiled. "A mule that went lame, a failure to strike one of the few possible passes, made all the difference between success and failure in that pilgrimage, but the blood of those empire-builders is our blood and what they are now, we shall be when we catch up. We've been marking time while they were marching, that's all."

      "Ye've done been off ter college yoreself, hain't ye, Mr. Henderson?"

      "Yes. Harvard."

      "Harvard? Seems ter me I've heered tell of hit. Air hit as good as Berea?"

      The visitor repressed his smile, but before he could answer Bear Cat pressed on:

      "Whilst ye're up hyar, I wonder ef hit'd be askin' too master much of ye ef – " the boy paused, gulped down his embarrassment and continued hastily – "ef ye could kinderly tell me a few books ter read?"

      "Gladly," agreed Henderson. "It's the young men like you who have the opportunity to make life up here worth living for the rest."

      After a moment Bear Cat suggested dubiously: "But amongst my folks I wouldn't git much thanks fer tryin'. Ther outside world stands fer interference – an' they won't suffer hit. They believes in holdin' with their kith an' kin."

      Again Henderson nodded, and this time the smile that danced in his eyes was irresistibly infectious. In a low voice he quoted:

      "The men of my own stock

      They may do ill or well,

      But they tell the lies I am wonted to,

      They are

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