The Leatherwood God eBook

“Abel,” the Squire said, “I don’t like this.  We seem to be listening.  I don’t believe Sally will like our overhearing her; and we ought to warn her.  It’s no use your stamping your bare feet, for they wouldn’t make any noise.  I’ll rap my stick on the floor.”  He also called out, “Hello, the house!” and Sally herself came to the kitchen door.  She burst into her large laugh.  “Well, I declare to goodness, if it ain’t Abel and the Squire!  Well, if this ain’t the best joke on me! Did you see Dylks off, Squire Braile?  And a good riddance to bad rubbage, I say.”

XXI

Hughey Blake, long-haired, barefooted and freckled, hung about the door of Nancy’s cabin, where she sat with her little girl playing in the weedy turf at her foot.  The late October weather was sometimes hot at noon, but the evenings were cool and the evening air was sweet with the scent of the ripened corn, and the faint odor of the fallen leaves.  The grasshoppers still hissed; at moments the crickets within and without the cabin creaked plaintively.

“I just come,” Hughey said, “to see if you thought she wouldn’t go to the Temple with me, to-night.  The Flock lets us have our turn reg’lar now, and we’re goin’ to have Thursday evenin’ meetin’ like we used to.”  In a discouraging silence from Nancy, he went on, “I’m just on my way home, now, and I’ll git my shoes there; and I don’t expect to wear this hickory shirt, and no coat—­”

“Yes, I know, Hughey, but I don’t believe it’ll be any use.  You can try; but I don’t believe it will.  I reckon you’d find out that she’s goin’ with Jim Redfield, if anybody.  She’s been off with him ’most the whole afternoon, gatherin’ pawpaws—­he knows the best places; I should think they could have got all the pawpaws in Leatherwood by this time.  You know I’ve always liked you, Hughey, and so has her father, and you’ve played together ever since you was babies, and you’ve always been her beau from childern up.  There ain’t a person in Leatherwood that don’t respect you and feel to think that any girl might be glad to get you; but I’m afraid it’s just your cleverness, and bein’ so gentle like—­”

“Do you ’spose, Nancy,” the young man faltered disconsolately, “it’s had anything to do with my not gettin’ her that hair?  I could ‘a’ done it as easy as Jim Redfield; but to tear it right out of his head, that way, I couldn’t; it went ag’in my stommick.”

“I don’t believe it’s that, Hughey.  If you must know, I believe it’s just Jim Redfield himself.  He’s bewitched her and she’s got to be bewitched by somebody; if it ain’t one it’s another; it was him then, and it’s Jim, now.”

“I see,” the young man assented sadly.

“She ain’t good enough for you, that’s the truth, Hughey, though I say it, her own kith and kin.  I can’t make you understand, I know; but she’s got to have somebody that she can feel the power of.”