Eben Holden | Page 5

saw him when I went out for
the water an' it was he tol' me they were after us.'
He took a look at the sky after a while, and, remarking that he guessed
they couldn't see his smoke now, began to kindle the fire. As it burned
up he stuck two crotches and hung his teapot on a stick' that lay in them,
so it took the heat of the flame, as I had seen him do in the morning.
Our grotto, in the corn, was shortly as cheerful as any room in a palace,
and our fire sent its light into the long aisles that opened opposite, and
nobody could see the warm glow of it but ourselves.

'We'll hev our supper,' said Uncle Eb, as he opened a paper and spread
out the eggs and bread and butter and crackers. 'We'll jest hev our
supper an' by 'n by when everyone's abed we'll make tracks in the dirt, I
can'tell ye.'
Our supper over, Uncle Eb let me look at his tobacco-box - a shiny
thing of German silver that always seemed to snap out a quick farewell
to me before it dove into his pocket. He was very cheerful and
communicative, and joked a good deal as we lay there waiting in the
firelight. I got some further acquaintance with the swift, learning
among other things that it had no appetite for the pure in heart.
'Why not?' I enquired.
'Well,' said Uncle Eb, 'it's like this: the meaner the boy, the sweeter the
meat.'
He sang an old song as he sat by the fire, with a whistled interlude
between lines, and the swing of it, even now, carries me back to that far
day in the fields. I lay with my head in his lap while he was singing.
Years after, when I could have carried him on my back' he wrote down
for me the words of the old song. Here they are, about as he sang them,
although there are evidences of repair, in certain lines, to supply the
loss of phrases that had dropped out of his memory:
I was goin' to Salem one bright summer day, I met a young maiden a
goin' my way; O, my fallow, faddeling fallow, faddel away.
An' many a time I had seen her before, But I never dare tell 'er the love
thet I bore. O, my fallow, etc.
'Oh, where are you goin' my purty fair maid?' 'O, sir, I am goin' t'
Salem,' she said. O, my fallow, etc.
'O, why are ye goin' so far in a day? Fer warm is the weather and long
is the way.' O, my fallow, etc.

'O, sir I've forgorten, I hev, I declare, But it's nothin' to eat an' its
nothin' to wear.' O, my fallow, etc.
'Oho! then I hev it, ye purty young miss! I'll bet it is only three words
an' a kiss.' O, my fallow, etc.
'Young woman, young woman, O how will it dew If I go see yer lover
'n bring 'em t' you?' O, my fallow, etc.
''S a very long journey,' says she, 'I am told, An' before ye got back,
they would surely be cold.' O, my fallow, etc.
'I hev 'em right with me, I vum an' I vow, An' if you don't object I'll
deliver 'em now.' O, my fallow, etc.
She laid her fair head all on to my breast, An' ye wouldn't know more if
I tol' ye the rest O, my fallow, etc.
I went asleep after awhile in spite of all, right in the middle of a story.
The droning voice of Uncle Eb and the feel of his hand upon my
forehead called me back, blinking, once or twice, but not for long. The
fire was gone down to a few embers when Uncle Eb woke me and the
grotto was lit only by a sprinkle of moonlight from above.
'Mos' twelve o'clock,' he whispered. 'Better be off.'
The basket was on his back and he was all ready. I followed him
through the long aisle of corn, clinging to the tall of his coat. The
golden lantern of the moon hung near the zenith and when we came out
in the open we could see into the far fields. I climbed into my basket at
the wall and as Uncle Eb carried me over the brook, stopping on a flat
rock midway to take a drink, I could see the sky in the water, and it
seemed as if a misstep would have tumbled me into the moon.
'Hear the crickets holler,' said Uncle Eb, as he followed the bank up
into the open pasture.
'What makes 'em holler?' I asked.

'O, they're jes' filin' their saws an' thinktin'.