Stringtown on the Pike

A Novel by John Uri Lloyd

Chapter Eleven

INTO THE STORM PASSED THE MINISTER

When the door of the grocery closed behind him the pastor paused, turned, grasped the doorknob, and stood with his back to the storm. Insensible now to external things, he did not feel the raging cold outside the room he had left, and gave no further thought to the glowing warmth within. He dropped upon his knees and raised his hands in supplication; then, rising, he drew his hat firmly down and strode out of the feeble light which struggled through the window.

He did not think of the course he should take—there was no path that night. He did not reason his way—no power of reason remained. His mind was wrapped in despondency, his spirit was lost in anguish so deep that this hurricane, the maddest storm American history records, was unnoticed and unfelt. There is no other explanation of the part he took that night. To have attempted thought concerning surrounding things would have been fatal to his errand; to have reasoned would have lost him the way. Under such conditions and in such blackness to look for roadways, to seek familiar objects, to attempt to guide one?s self by the intellect, would be to walk in circles, turn here and there, stagger like a drunken man, stumble, fall, and perish. The man did not care to see the way. Sensible neither to the cutting hail, the shrieking blast, nor the intense cold, he ignored that king of storms. Leaving the Stringtown pike, he struck into the fields and moved on. As if it were a balmy autumn day, and the breeze simply fanning the cheek and cooling the brow, as if life?s pleasures were before him and happy thoughts behind, he strode onward. Presently he turned aside; something he neither saw nor felt blocked the way. A herd of swine huddled together crushed one another, each seeking to creep beneath the others, striving to press nearer to the centre of the heap, vainly trying to escape the piercing cold that all night long crept through and through from beast to beast, until, when morning broke, not one remained alive. Scarcely had he passed them by when close beside him a mournful cry sounded; but the wail of anguish did not catch his ear nor did it sound again, for it was the last cry of some hapless beast that, struggling, had fallen helpless, and would not rise again. Caring not for man nor beast, the pastor moved onward, guided by he knew not what, toward a light he did not see. Over hills, through the woods, across frozen creeks, climbing fences, jumping gullies, seeking neither path nor road, he sped.

At first the shooting hail stung the skin, leaving little indented spots, but the sense of pain soon ceased beneath the quieting touch of benumbing cold. At first, the wind had waved the flowing hair that encircled his brow; but soon the beating hail and congealing frost had matted it together and frozen it to his skin and coat. At first, his arms and his fingers moved freely; but they rapidly grew insensible to pain or touch and finally hung stiff and motionless. The man knew nothing of all this, knew not that the creeping cold was nearing his vitals; little cared for life or death.

At last the pastor?s eyes were greeted by a slender ray streaming through a little window near the door of a cabin. He tried to raise his hand and grasp the doorknob, but could not. Both arms were numb. He shouted, but the cry was lost in the roar of the blast; he listened, but no answer came, only the tumult of the sweeping storm. Again and again he cried, and then in desperation threw himself against the door, crushed it in, and fell forward into the room. He tried to rise, but his hand could give no response to his will; his fingers rattled against the floor; his arms refused to bend. By chance, he pressed his heels against a crevice in the rough-hewn floor, then he raised his head, next his shoulders, and finally, as a worm creeps up, his body rose, and at last stood upright.

Edging along the wall, he reached the swinging door that now slammed in and out obedient to the whim of the varying blast, and pressing his weight against it succeeded in closing it, even to the snapping of the catch. Just then the flickering flame in the great fireplace flashed upward, lighting the room.

The cabin was built of unhewn beech logs. The spaces between the logs were chinked with stones and the interstices had been filled with mud. In the ceiling was a square hole to which a ladder reached; the floor was puncheon. At one end of the oblong room a chimney-place covered much of the area. A window opposed the fireplace, and another was cut beside the door. The hearth was made of a single, large flat fossil stone from out the creek bed. On that stone stood an iron oven, a few kitchen utensils, and in the huge throat of the chimney hung a crane to hold the kettle or suspend the roast. The furniture of the room comprised a small table, a few chairs and a bed. On the wall hung a brace of horns, a couple of guns, some arrows and a powder flask and pouch that once had been in service. All this the pastor saw as the fitful fireflash glimmered; for the quickened intellect of the man whose life, resting on the edge of one world did not reach yet a foothold in the other, comprehended quickly all that rose before his gaze. To the dying pastor time was precious, and a single flash carried to his brain what, under other circumstances, might have remained long unseen.

Then he fixed his gaze on the wan visage of the ?Corn Bug,? who stared back again from the coverlets of the bed;--a face in which only two great eyes and a stub nose were visible, for a mass of tangled beard and matted, unkempt hair covered all but the staring eyes and whiskey-dyed nose, while the body of the wretched man sank back.

The man was not alone; for Mr. Jones saw another form in the shadows, half reclining, half sitting on the opposite side of the bed?the form of a child, a young girl with dishevelled, flowing hair. She seemed to have been startled from sleep by the intruder, but she made no movement and asked no question. And still beyond these two, on the hearth, in the edge of the chimney, so indistinct that it was a question whether it were a shadow or a substance, he caught sight of a sombre tracing that resembled a human being, and yet seemed not altogether human?a dusky mask that seemed thrown before and yet might have been a part of a form behind.

The flickering fire started up and sank again, the shadows played in dissolving waves about the room. The wind without, in unison with the dancing shadows within, rose and fell, singing strange songs, which verberated through the many half-chinked crevices of the logs.

Never had the New England Parson heard the play of the wind at midnight in a house of logs, nor had he ever gazed at such a scene as this. In that Kentucky land, man nor child had ever taken part in such a drama, nor, after that New Year?s Eve, 1864, has any man heard such fiercely wild wind music. The two men gazed long at each other, but both held their voices.

The child broke the spell, and it is well that she did so, for the men seemed unable to utter a word. Each seemed to have transfixed the other; neither had the power to move. It was a nightmare spell, and as in a nightmare the life may flee before the body can be induced to move, so, had no living being spoken, the spell that held these men might have ended as nightmare sometimes ends.

Impulsively the little girl threw her arms about the form of the bedridden man, and then she laid her fair, chubby cheek against his rough beard, keeping her eyes riveted on the face of the silent parson. She stroked the matted hair of the uncouth man, and, searching with her face beneath the shaggy moustache, sought to kiss his lips. Even the suffering parson could but contrast the holiness of dawning childhood and the horrible repulsiveness of self-wasted manhood.

The child spoke pleadingly, as she toyed with the uncouth visage: ?Uncle, uncle, speak to me, Uncle Hardman;? but the dying sinner, released from silence by that voice, spoke, not to her, but to the man.

?Come here, Pahson, come here. I ordered Cupe ter find yo?, an? the brack rascal did his duty; he said he would send yo? ter me, an? he did. Wall, Pahson, bygones es bygones. I riled yo? once, Pahson, but I did n?t mean half I said, yo? see, Pahson ? come closer ? we who air bad hev a kind o? hatred fo? yoah kind, jest ?case yo? air good an? we air bad; there ain?t no other reason. An? when the corn-juice gets hold ov us we say cussed things we always half feel toward the like ov yo?, but don?t always speak. Wall, Mr. Jones, I asks fergiveness now, and aftah yo? does what I wants yo? ter, then yo? must kneel down, an? pray fo??come closer, Jones. I ain?t strong now an? I can?t speak loud. I swore at yo? once, Pahson, an? said yo? dare n?t wet yoah shoe soles in ice water; yo? hev beaten the words back.?

Mr. Jones moved slowly, painfully across the floor. The girl in fear clung closer to the sick man; the parson saw by the nearer view that the child was very beautiful, and also by that nearer view perceived that the man became more hideous.

?Pahson,? continued the sick man, ?in a trunk in the loft above es money, gol? an? silver?a fortune. I hev seen some ov et, Mr. Jones, gol?es there. Cupe says my granddad captured et from a British paymaster an? hid et in the chist; but et don?t make no diff?ence wha? et came from; et ain?t safe ter ask quistions ov any dollah. All I own, land an? money, all but two thousan? dollars, the girl must hev; write et down quick, Pahson, write et down.?

?Where is the paper, pen or pencil?? Mr. Jones asked.

?I hev been raised with the niggers an? by the niggers, too. Nevah had no use fo? papah an? pencil.?

?Then I cannot do what you wish,? said the parson.

?But yo? must do et; did n?t the jedge say the night I burned the deed that I must make a writin? will? Ain?t this child ter be taken care ov an? the boy ter be given money ter edycate him? Yo? must write et down, Pahson,? he pleaded; ? the end ov the nigger spell es here, the nigger spell thet linked yo? an? me tergethah, Mr. Jones, an? yo? must write. I can?t talk no longer, fo? I am very tired.?

?I left my note-book and pencil behind me; I cannot.?

?Can?t you write on a slate, mister?? asked the girl; ?I can.?

?She can?t write; she knows her letters, but calls makin? pictures writin?,? interrupted the ?Corn Bug.?

?I can write, and I?ve got a slate full of writin?,? protested the child.

?Where is the slate?? asked the parson; ?give it to me quickly.?

The child ran to a corner of the room and returned with a slate to which a pencil was attached by a string. ?There, mister, see the writin?,? and she pointed to the child drawings with which one side of it was covered.

But the parson could not use the pencil; his fingers refused to obey his will; he was helpless.

?Write,? said the ?Corn Bug,? ?write, Pahson, er I will die without makin? my cross. See, mahn?n es comin?, et es daylight now, an? Cupe?s nigger sign said thet with this mahn?n?s light I would die. Quick, Pahson, I want ter make my cross.?

By an effort Mr. Jones pressed the slate between his wrists. ?Make your letters, child, as I tell you to do.? And obedient to his command, she slowly spelled, letter by letter, word by word, the shortest will on record in Stringtown County, to which as witness the pastor managed to sign his name. ?Now for your crossmark.?

The dying man seized the pencil, and as he did so the old crone arose, and advancing from out the chimney jamb (for she was the shadow), stood over him and said, partly as an apology, partly to herself, ?I?se a nigger, but ef signin? ob papahs am t? be done, I wants t? see de makin? ob de cross. Cupe, he say, ?Dinah, doan yo? nebbah let no signin? ob papahs be done by Ma?se lessen yo? sees de makin? ob de cross.? ?

With the negro crone on one side and the child on the other, the ?Corn Bug? made the cross; and then his partly relieved mind reverted to the future.

?Would yo? pray fo? the likes ov me, Pahson??

But the parson, too weak to rise, near to eternity as was the ?Corn Bug,? shook his head, and murmured, ?I cannot, I dare not.?

?Can?t you pray, Mr. Preacher?? asked the girl; ?why, I can say the prayer my mother left me.?

?Pray for both of us, child,? murmured the parson with a last effort. Kneeling upon the puncheon floor, with her little hands clasped and her child-like face turned upward, the girl interceding for the dying profligate and the wretched murderer lisped the simple prayer:

Now we lay us down to sleep,

We pray thee, Lord, our souls to keep;

If we should die before we wake,

We pray thee, Lord, our souls to take.

But neither of the men heard the end of the touching invocation; before the words were hushed the spirits of both had broken their bonds and followed the message to the bar of justice.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The morning light suffused the room, the break of the bitter cold Friday morning, January 1st, 1864. The rising sun?s rays paled the fire-flash; the shadows vanished; the wild winds subsided, and excepting the biting cold without and the frozen creatures scattered over all the land, no evidence remained to tell of the storm which had come and gone. When the door of that lonely cabin was opened by the searchers ? for searchers started from Stringtown with the break of day ? they found the negress hovering over the embers on the hearth, folding in her embrace a sleeping girl. In the rude room, on the bed one man lay, and beside the bed another man kneeled, while between them, tightly clasped in the stiff fingers of him who kneeled, a child?s slate rested. Over the upturned surface of this slate awkward words were scrawled, and at the tip of the index finger of the man on the bed, him who clutched the pencil, they saw the sign of the cross.

I will to Sammy Drew, the widow?s son, two
thousand dollars. All else to Susie, my adopted child.

JOSEPH HARDMAN
His X
Witness OSMOND JONES



Typed by Sharon Franklin, M. L. S., Boone County Public Library; Manager, Walton Branch

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