Chapter I

The Kanes were a deserving family, tainted with inarticulate ambition. I was glad to have them as rather distant neighbors instead of “share-croppers.” Evvie, the oldest child, possessed beauty of the appealing sort that stirs even the hurried passer-by with a feeling of responsibility. As a tenant’s daughter she would have troubled my sleep. Her mother was a Merlin and usually stopped to see me when on her way to visit some member of the clan. “Hypnotic,” though an intolerably cheapened word, must be used in describing the effect that my typewriter seemed to have on Mrs. Kane. I did not understand this until the day that she brought Evvie with her.

“She hain’t strong, Evvie. I kain’t git her to stay with a hoe long ’nough fer me to go in an’ git the dinner. I say to her, ‘Evvie, you take my place an’ let me go in,’ an’ she’ll try fer a bit, but her poppie’ll see her drappin’ back an’ gittin’ her breath hard, an’ he’ll say, ‘You run ’long now, Evvie, an’ he’p yer mother,’ an’ in she’ll come. So I’ve got in the way o’ lettin’ her git the dinner by herse’f an’ I stay with the hoe.”

“But she can’t be more than ten,” I said.

“She’s twelve, an’ that’s nigh to a woman. Cleve Saunders kain’t pass our place now ’thout peekin’ fer Evvie.”

I expected Evvie to drop her head or wriggle behind a chair; but her chiselled chin was high, and her eyes darkened as easily as twilight water. She was the traditional woman accepting her rôle.

Mrs. Kane’s glance swerved again to the typewriter, and her heart tumbled out as she said: “I been thinkin’ maybe you could learn Evvie to write on that.”

“If she is so much help to you,” I answered, snatching at the first defense, “why not keep her at home until she is married?”

“That’s jest the trouble--her marryin’. She’ll disapp’int any boy ’round here. They all expect a woman to take a hand in makin’ the livin’, through crap-time anyway. An’ Evvie kain’t hold out. If she could learn to work on _that_, an’ git a job in town, like as not some boy out there ’ud take a notion to her, an’ town boys don’t want their wives to work. ’Tain’t expected of ’em to do more’n the cookin’ an’ housework an’ sewin’, an’ that ’ud be easy for Evvie.”

Evvie had stepped into the yard. It was a habit with her, I found, to vanish as if for charming asides with herself and to reappear with no sign of absence upon her. I reminded her mother that there might be children to care for in addition to the occupations mentioned.

“’Course there would, but she’d have _them_ anywheres, an’ she’d better have ’em where life’s easier’n it is here.”

“No doubt. What is her school grade?”

“She’s got to the fourth reader. But she ain’t peart in her books, though she’s so smart-lookin’.”

Three years glowed in respite, and my voice warmed in reply.

“Bring her to me when she finishes the seventh grade, and I’ll see.”

The mother’s face grew long. “She ain’t fitten’ fer school,” she said. “She’s had to quit, ’count o’ that wheezin’ ’at ketches her when she climbs up the mountain. Her poppie had to meet her half-way down ever’ day an’ carry her up on his back. She’s too big fer that now, an’ he says he reckons she knows enough. He’s awful proud o’ Evvie. An’ she’s as smart as Annie Dills who learned to write on one o’ them things an’s makin’ twelve dollars a week in Asheville.”

I held out that skill on the machine would be useless without a little schooling behind it. Evvie, who had shown no interest in her future, revealed no disappointment. She was a flower and had implicit faith in the sun. But there was a touch of desperation in Mrs. Kane’s voice as she took her leave. I tried to believe with Evvie in the reliability of sunshine.

A year later Evvie was “talkin’ to” Cleve Saunders. He was a good boy who had here and there learned the carpenter’s trade. Occasionally he would go to Asheville to work on a job, and then a weekly letter would come to Evvie. I approved of Cleve, but Evvie was only thirteen, and though vividly and perfectly moulded as a woman, she was small for her years. I protested to Mrs. Kane.

“I ain’t goin’ to let her git married ’fore she’s fifteen,” the mother assured me. “Not if I can he’p it. Ef she had some work to keep her mind on----”

“I’ve a friend,” I said, as I stepped between Mrs. Kane and my typewriter, “who would like a helper with her children. It would be a good home for Evvie and she would have nothing to do but play.”

“You mean anybody’d pay her jest fer playin’?”

“With children. And Evvie is fine with her little brothers and sisters.” (I’ll _make_ Sue Waters take her, said I to myself.)

“Where’d the place be?”

“It’s on a big farm near Knoxville.”

“It’ll cost a heap to go, an’ we ain’t got nary calf we can sell now.”

“My friend will send the money for her fare, and Evvie can pay it back if she stays.”

Mrs. Kane, thin and worn, threw up her head with almost as fine an air as Evvie herself.

“Ef she don’t stay, I’ll pay it back ef it takes ever’ egg fer a year,” she said.

We thought it settled; but before I could sufficiently browbeat Sue Waters, Evvie’s mother came to me with a face grayer and more pinched than ever.

“I reckon,” she said, “Evvie kain’t go till next year. I shore thought I was through with babies, but there’s another acomin’, an’ Evvie’s all the he’p I’ve got.”

Now, during preparations for Evvie’s setting forth, I had seen more of her than usual, and had detected signs of a quick temper that gave me uneasy visions of her amid the Waters brood. Also I feared that her ideas of _fraternité et égalité_, which were as natural to her as the ground under her feet, might give some trouble. If little Margaret Waters should receive a piano for her birthday, Evvie would expect the same or “just as good.” Sue Waters, having taken her degree in the right subjects, would of course comprehend, but could hardly supply the piano. My relief was almost as deep as my concern when Mrs. Kane made her joyless announcement.

“Perhaps it is better to wait,” said I. “Evvie will be older and larger by a year.”

“I dunno as that’s better,” said the mother. “She’s a woman to the bone, an’ a year’ll seem a long time.”

Before the year was half out I left the mountains and was gone for several months. As soon as conditions in the Kane home permitted, I arranged by correspondence for Evvie’s going away. She was to write to Mrs. Waters when she was ready, and the money for her fare would be sent to her. As the train taking me home pulled into the village, I thought of Evvie, supposing her to be with Mrs. Waters, and I felt that I had helped to rob the hills of a flower that should belong to them utterly.

A woman sharing my seat had been giving me the news. I did not hear much of it, but finally caught the words “An’ Evvie got married.”

I jumped unmannerly, as if I would snatch the child to dry land. Then I made my conscience comfortable.

“Cleve will take good care of her,” I said.

“’Tain’t Cleve,” replied the woman. “It’s that young feller from Mossy Creek--Judd Mason.”