The Starbucks | Page 2

hold the hand of a

maid frightened with happiness and boastingly to whisper shy words of
love.
"Do you like Sam Bracken?" he inquires.
"Not much."
"If you like him much, I bet I can whup him. Like Steve Smith?"
"Not so powerful well."
"I can whup him."
"Bet you can't."
"You wait."
And the chances are that unless she modifies her statement the Smith
boy will be compelled to answer for the crime of her compliment.
In this community, in the edge of what is known as East Tennessee, the
memory of Andrew Jackson is held in deepest reverence. To those
people he was as a god-like hero of antiquity. Single-handed he
defeated the British at New Orleans. Nicholas Biddle, a great banker
somewhere away off yonder, had gathered all the money in the land,
and it was Jackson who compelled him to disgorge, thus not only
establishing himself as the master of war, but as the crusher of men
who oppress the poor.
* * * * *
Prominent in the neighborhood of Smithfield, a town of three or four
hundred inhabitants, was Jasper Starbuck. Earlier in his life he had
whipped every man who stood in need of that kind of training. Usually
of a blythesome nature, he was subject to fits of melancholy, only to be
relieved by some sort of physical entanglement with an enemy. Then,
his "spell" having passed, he would betake himself to genial affairs,
help a neighbor with his work, lend his chattels to shiftless farmers, cut
wood and haul it for widows, and gathering children about him

entertain them with stories of the great war.
And how dearly that war had cost him. East Tennessee did not tear
itself loose from the Union; Andrew Johnson and Parson Brownlow,
one a statesman and the other a fanatic, strangled the edicts of the
lordly lowlanders and sent regiment after regiment to the Federal army.
Among the first to enlist were old Jasper Starbuck and his twin boys.
The boys did not come back. In the meantime their heart-broken
mother died, and when the father returned to his desolate home, there
was a grave beneath the tree where he had heard a sweet voice in the
evening.
Years passed and he married again, a poor girl in need of a home; and
at the time which serves as the threshold of this history, he was sobered
down from his former disposition to go out upon a "pilgrimage" of
revenge. His "spells" had been cured by grief, but nothing could kill his
humor. Drawling and peculiar, never boisterous, it was stronger than
his passion and more enduring than the memory of a wrong. He was
not a large man. A neighbor said that he was built after the manner of a
wild-cat. He was of iron sinew and steel nerve. His eyes were black
with a glint of their youthful devilishness. His thick hair was turning
gray.
Margaret, his wife, was a tender scold. She was almost a foundling, but
a believer in heredity could trace in her the evidences of good blood.
From some old mansion, long years in ruin, a grace had escaped and
come to her. An Englishman, traveling homeward from the defunct
colony of Rugby, declared that she was an uncultivated duchess.
"This union was blessed,"--say the newspapers and story-books,
speaking of a marriage,--"with a beautiful girl," or a "manly boy."
Often this phrase is flattery, but sometimes, as in this instance, it is the
truth. Lou Starbuck was beautiful. In her earlier youth she was a
delicious little riot of joy. As she grew older, she was sometimes
serious with the thought that her father and mother had suffered. She
loved the truth and believed that bravery was not only akin to godliness,
but the right hand of godliness.

In Starbuck's household, or at least attached to his log-house
establishment, there were two other persons, an old black mammy who
had nursed Jasper, and a trifling negro named Kintchin.
* * * * *
One day in summer there came two notable visitors, Mrs. Mayfield,
and her nephew Tom Elliott, both from Nashville, sister and son of a
United States Judge. When they came to Jasper's house, they decided to
go no further.
"Tom," said the woman, "this is the place we are looking for."
Tom caught sight of Lou Starbuck, standing in the doorway, and
replied: "Auntie, I guess you are right."
The mere suggestion of taking boarders threw the household into a
flurry, but Mrs. Mayfield, tall, graceful, handsome, threw her charm
upon opposition and it faded away. Old Jasper was not over cordial to
"store clothes," at least he was not confidential, and with the keen whip
of his eye he lashed Tom Elliott, but the boy appeared to be