In Happy Valley | Page 2

but the slight man rose and came forward to
shake hands. She flashed a frown at her mother a moment later, behind
the stranger's back; teachers boarded around and he might be there for a
week and perhaps more. The teacher was mountain born and bred, but
he had been to the Bluegrass to school, and he had brought back certain
little niceties of dress, bearing, and speech that irritated the girl. He ate
slowly and little, for he had what he called indigestion, whatever that
was. Distinctly he was shy, and his only vague appeal to her was in his
eyes, which were big, dark, and lonely.
It was a disgrace for Allaphair to have reached her years of
one-and-twenty without marrying, and the disgrace was just then her
mother's favorite theme. Feeling rather poorly, the old woman began on
it that afternoon. Allaphair had gone out to the woodpile and was
picking up an armful of firewood, and the mother had followed her.
Said Allaphair:
"I tell you agin an' agin I hain't got no use fer 'em--a-totin' guns an'
knives an' a-drinkin' moonshine an' fightin' an' breakin' up meetin's an'
lazin' aroun' ginerally. An' when they ain't that way," she added
contemptuously, "they're like that un thar. Look at him!" She broke into

a loud laugh. Ira Combs had volunteered to milk, and the old cow had
just kicked him over in the mud. He rose red with shame and
anger--she felt more than she saw the flash of his eyes--and valiantly
and silently he went back to his task. Somehow the girl felt a pang of
pity for him, for already she saw in his eyes the telltale look that she
knew so well in the eyes of men. With his kind it would go hard; and
right she was to the detail.
She herself went to St. Hilda to work and learn, but one morning she
passed his little schoolhouse just as he was opening for the day. From a
gable the flag of her country waved, and she stopped mystified. And
then from the green, narrow little valley floated up to her wondering
ears a song. Abruptly it broke off and started again; he was teaching the
children the song of her own land, which she and they had never heard
before. It was almost sunset when she came back and the teacher was
starting for home. He was ahead of her--she knew he had seen her
coming--but he did not wait for her, nor did he look back while she was
following him all the way home. And next Sunday he too went to
church, and after meeting he started for home alone and she followed
alone. He had never made any effort to speak to her alone, nor did he
venture the courting pleasantries of other men. Only in his telltale eyes
was his silent story plain, and she knew it better than if he had put it
into words. In spite of her certainty, however, she was a little resentful
that Sunday morning, for his slender figure climbed doggedly ahead,
and suddenly she sat down that he might get entirely out of her sight.
She got down on her hands and knees to drink from the little rain-clear
brook that tinkled across the road at the bottom of the hill, and all at
once lifted her head like a wild thing. Some one was coming down the
hill--coming at a dog-trot. A moment later her name was called, and it
was the voice of a stranger. She knew it was Jay Dawn, for she had
heard of him--had heard of his boast that he would keep company with
her--and she kept swiftly on. Again and again he called, but she paid no
heed. She glared at him fiercely when he caught up with her--and
stopped. He stopped. She walked on and he walked on. He caught her
by the arm when she stopped again, and she threw off his hold with a
force that wheeled him half around, and started off on a run. She

stooped when she next heard him close to her and whirled, with a stone
in her hand.
"Go 'way!" she panted. "I'll brain ye!" He laughed, but he came no
nearer.
"All right," he said, as though giving up the chase, but when she turned
the next spur there Jay was waiting for her by the side of the road.
"How-dye," he grinned. Three times he cut across ledge and spur and
gave her a grinning how-dye. The third time she was ready for him and
she let fly. The first stone whistled past his head with astonishing speed.
The second he dodged and the third caught him between the shoulders
as he leaped for a tree with