The Trail of the Lonesome Pine | Page 6

mess."
"All right," shouted Hale, holding back his laughter, and on they went,
the old man remonstrating in the kindliest way--the old woman silently
puffing her pipe and making no answer except to flay gently the rump
of the lazy old gray.
Hesitating hardly a moment, Hale unjointed his pole, left his minnow
bucket where it was, mounted his horse and rode up the path. About

him, the beech leaves gave back the gold of the autumn sunlight, and a
little ravine, high under the crest of the mottled mountain, was on fire
with the scarlet of maple. Not even yet had the morning chill left the
densely shaded path. When he got to the bare crest of a little rise, he
could see up the creek a spiral of blue rising swiftly from a stone
chimney. Geese and ducks were hunting crawfish in the little creek that
ran from a milk-house of logs, half hidden by willows at the edge of the
forest, and a turn in the path brought into view a log-cabin well chinked
with stones and plaster, and with a well-built porch. A fence ran around
the yard and there was a meat house near a little orchard of apple- trees,
under which were many hives of bee-gums. This man had things "hung
up" and was well-to-do. Down the rise and through a thicket he went,
and as he approached the creek that came down past the cabin there
was a shrill cry ahead of him.
"Whoa thar, Buck! Gee-haw, I tell ye!" An ox-wagon evidently was
coming on, and the road was so narrow that he turned his horse into the
bushes to let it pass.
"Whoa--Haw!--Gee--Gee--Buck, Gee, I tell ye! I'll knock yo' fool head
off the fust thing you know!"
Still there was no sound of ox or wagon and the voice sounded like a
child's. So he went on at a walk in the thick sand, and when he turned
the bushes he pulled up again with a low laugh. In the road across the
creek was a chubby, tow-haired boy with a long switch in his right
hand, and a pine dagger and a string in his left. Attached to the string
and tied by one hind leg was a frog. The boy was using the switch as a
goad and driving the frog as an ox, and he was as earnest as though
both were real.
"I give ye a little rest now, Buck," he said, shaking his head earnestly.
"Hit's a purty hard pull hyeh, but I know, by Gum, you can make hit--if
you hain't too durn lazy. Now, git up, Buck!" he yelled suddenly,
flaying the sand with his switch. "Git up--Whoa-- Haw--Gee, Gee!"
The frog hopped several times.
"Whoa, now!" said the little fellow, panting in sympathy. "I knowed

you could do it." Then he looked up. For an instant he seemed terrified
but he did not run. Instead he stealthily shifted the pine dagger over to
his right hand and the string to his left.
"Here, boy," said the fisherman with affected sternness: "What are you
doing with that dagger?"
The boy's breast heaved and his dirty fingers clenched tight around the
whittled stick.
"Don't you talk to me that-a-way," he said with an ominous shake of his
head. "I'll gut ye!"
The fisherman threw back his head, and his peal of laughter did what
his sternness failed to do. The little fellow wheeled suddenly, and his
feet spurned the sand around the bushes for home--the astonished frog
dragged bumping after him. "Well!" said the fisherman.

IV
Even the geese in the creek seemed to know that he was a stranger and
to distrust him, for they cackled and, spreading their wings, fled
cackling up the stream. As he neared the house, the little girl ran around
the stone chimney, stopped short, shaded her eyes with one hand for a
moment and ran excitedly into the house. A moment later, the bearded
giant slouched out, stooping his head as he came through the door.
"Hitch that 'ar post to yo' hoss and come right in," he thundered
cheerily. "I'm waitin' fer ye."
The little girl came to the door, pushed one brown slender hand through
her tangled hair, caught one bare foot behind a deer-like ankle and
stood motionless. Behind her was the boy--his dagger still in hand.
"Come right in!" said the old man, "we are purty pore folks, but you're
welcome to what we have."

The fisherman, too, had to stoop as he came in, for he, too, was tall.
The interior was dark, in spite of the wood fire in the big stone fireplace.
Strings of herbs and red-pepper pods and twisted tobacco hung from
the ceiling and down the wall on either side