In Happy Valley | Page 6

land, and the drunken man slept on. The boy laughed loudly.
"Don't shoot!" he cried, and he came through the bushes jeering. The men at the still dropped their hands and looked sheepish and then angry, as did the card-players, whose faces reappeared over the edge of the bank. But the old man and the young one behind the tree, who alone had got ready to fight, joined in with the boy, and the others had to look sheepish again.
"Come on, Chris!" said the old moonshiner, dipping the cup into the white liquor and handing it forth full, "Hit's on me."
Christmas is "new Christmas" in Happy Valley. The women give scant heed to it, and to the men it means "a jug of liquor, a pistol in each hand, and a galloping nag." There had been target-shooting at Uncle Jerry's mill to see who should drink old Jeb Mullins's moonshine and who should smell, and so good was the marksmanship that nobody went without his dram. The carousing, dancing, and fighting were about all over, and now, twelve days later, it was the dawn of "old Christmas," and St. Hilda sat on the porch of her Mission school alone. The old folks of Happy Valley pay puritan heed to "old Christmas." They eat cold food and preserve a solemn demeanor on that day, and they have the pretty legend that at midnight the elders bloom and the beasts of the field and the cattle in the barn kneel, lowing and moaning. The sun was just rising and the day was mild, for a curious warm spell, not uncommon in the hills, had come to Happy Valley. Already singing little workers were "toting rocks" from St. Hilda's garden, corn-field, and vineyard, for it was Monday, and every Monday they gathered--boys and girls--from creek and hillside, to help her as volunteers. Far up the road she heard among them taunting laughter and jeers, and she rose quickly. A loud oath shocked the air, and she saw a boy chasing one of the workers up the vineyard hill. She saw the pursuer raise his hand and fall, just as he was about to hurl a stone. Then there were more laughter and jeers, and the fallen boy picked himself up heavily and started down the road toward her--staggering. On he came staggering, and when he stood swaying before her there was no shocked horror in her face--only pity and sorrow.
"Oh, Chris, Chris!" she said sadly. The boy neither spoke nor lifted his eyes, and she led him up-stairs and put him to bed. All day he slept in a stupor, and it was near sunset when he came down, pale, shamed, and silent. There were several children in the porch.
"Come, Chris!" St. Hilda said, and he followed her down to the edge of the creek, where she sat down on a log and he stood with hanging head before her.
"Chris," she said, "we'll have a plain talk now. This is the fourth time you've been"--the word came with difficulty--"drunk."
"Yes'm."
"I've sent you away three times, and three times I've let you come back. I let you come back after new Christmas, only twelve days ago."
"Yes'm."
"You can't keep your word."
"No'm."
"I don't know what to do now, so I'm going to ask you."
She paused and Chris was silent, but he was thinking, and she waited. Presently he looked straight into her eyes, still silent.
"What do you think I'd better do?" she insisted.
"I reckon you got to whoop me, Miss Hildy."
"But you know I can't whip you, Chris. I never whip anybody."
Several times a child had offered to whip himself, had done so, and she wondered whether the boy would propose that, but he repeated, obstinately and hopelessly:
"You got to whoop me."
"I won't--I can't." Then an idea came. "Your mother will have to whip you."
Chris shook his head and was silent. He was not on good terms with his mother. It was a current belief that she had "put pizen in his daddy's liquer." She had then married a man younger than she was, and to the boy's mind the absence of dignity in one case matched the crime in the other.
"All right," he said at last; "but I reckon you better send somebody else atter her. You can't trust me to git by that still"--he stopped with a half-uttered oath of surprise:
"Look thar!"
A woman was coming up the road. She wore a black cotton dress and a black sunbonnet--mourning relics for the dead husband which the living one had never had the means to supplant--and rough shoes. She pushed back the bonnet with one nervous, bony hand, saw the two figures on the edge of the creek, and without any gesture or call came toward them. And only the woman's quickness in St. Hilda saw the tense