In Happy Valley | Page 9

the funeral services of

Uncle Billy Hall, who had been dead ten years, and Uncle Billy would
be draped with all the virtues that so few men have when alive and that
so few lack when dead. He would marry such couples as might to
marriage be inclined. There were peculiar customs in Happy Valley,
due to the "rider's" long absences, so that sometimes a baby might
without shame be present at the wedding of its own parents. To be sure,
Lum's eyes did swerve once when the preacher spoke of
marriage--swerved from where the women sat to where sat the men--to
young Jake Kilburn, called Devil Jake, a name of which he was rather
proud; for Martha's eyes had swerved to him too, and Jake shot back a
killing glance and began twisting his black mustache.
And then the preacher told about the woman whom folks once stoned.
Lum listened dully and waited helplessly around at the end of the
meeting until he saw Martha and Jake go down the road together,
Martha shy and conscious and Jake the conquering daredevil that he
was known to be among women. Lum went back to his cabin, cooked
his dinner, and sat down in his doorway to whittle and dream.
Lum went to church no more. When Martha passed his shop, the same
"how-dye" passed between them and no more. Twice the circuit-rider
came and went and Martha and Devil Jake did not ask his services. A
man who knew Jake's record in another county started a dark rumor
which finally reached Lum and sent him after the daredevil. But Jake
had fled and Lum followed him almost to the edge of the bluegrass
country, to find that Jake had a wife and child. He had meant to bring
Jake back to his duty, but he merely beat him up, kicked him to one
side of the road like a dog, and came back to his shop.
Old Jeb Mullins came by thereafter with the old nag and the sack of
corn, and Lum went on doing little jobs for him for nothing, for Jeb
was a skinflint, a moonshiner, and a mean old man. He did not turn
Martha out of his hut, because he was callous and because he needed
her to cook and to save him work in the garden and corn-field. Martha
stayed closely at home, but she was treated so kindly by some of the
neighbors that once she ventured to go to church. Then she knew from
the glances, whispers, and gigglings of the other girls just where she

stood, and she was not seen again very far from her own door. It was a
long time before Lum saw her again, so long, indeed, that when at last
he saw her coming down Wolf Run on a sack of corn she carried a baby
in her arms. She did not look up as she approached, and when she
passed she turned her head and did not speak to him. So Lum sat where
he was and waited for her to come back, and she knew he had been
waiting as soon as she saw him. She felt him staring at her even when
she turned her head, and she did not look up until the old nag stopped.
Lum was barring the way.
"Yo' hoss needs shoein'," he said gravely, and from her lap he took the
baby unafraid. Indeed, the child dimpled and smiled at him, and the
little arm around his neck gave him a curious shiver that ran up the
back of his head and down his spine. The shoeing was quickly done,
and in absolute silence, but when they started up Wolf Run Lum went
with them.
"Come by my shack a minit," he said.
The girl said nothing; that in itself would be another scandal, of course,
but what was the difference what folks might say? At his cabin he
reached up and lifted mother and child from the old nag, and the girl's
hair brushed his cheek.
[Illustration]
"You stay hyeh with the baby," he said quietly, "an' I'll take yo' meal
home." She looked at him with mingled trust and despair. What was the
difference?
It was near sundown when Lum got back. Smoke was coming out of
his rickety chimney, and the wail of an old ballad reached his ears.
Singing, the girl did not hear him coming, and through the open door
he saw that the room had been tidied up and that she was cooking
supper. The baby was playing on the floor. She turned at the creak of
his footstep on the threshold and for the first time she spoke.
"Supper'll be ready in a minit."

A few minutes later he was seated at the table