Chapter III

Evvie did not lie in bed long after returning to her mother’s house. She sat in shadowy corners, unseeing, uncaring. Milk sometimes would be swallowed when brought to her; but eating required impossible effort.

“She don’t hardly know me,” said her mother. “Sometimes I’m ’most afeard of her. She might turn an’ claw me with them hands like chicken feet. She’s jest yeller skin an’ bones, like a quare little old woman.”

Judd did not come near her, and we heard of no inquiries on his part. But Cleve came out from Asheville and walked under my apple-trees.

“I can’t fight Judd,” he said. “He’s a heavyweight and I’m not. And I won’t gun him. But I know where his blockade still is.”

“Oh, Cleve, would you tell?”

“No, but it’s hard not to. He’d go to jail, an’ she could get her divorce.”

“And he would be out again in six months, to go gunning for _you_. He wouldn’t have your scruples. Besides, Cleve, if Evvie were free, you couldn’t take on a burden like that.”

“Burden! Mis’ Dolly, I’d be willin’ to carry Evvie with one arm and do my work with the other. You don’t know how a man feels when there ain’t but one woman fer him an’ another man’s got her--a man ’at wouldn’t pull her out o’ the fire! But I’m goin’ back to Asheville, an’ I won’t try to see her. Here’s my pocketbook. I want you to lend her father some money, and pay yerse’f out o’ this.”

He dropped the pocketbook and went, with his face oddly reddened after being so white. Evvie’s doctor from Carson was paid; the parcel-post brought oranges, lettuce, and such to the Kanes’ scant winter table. Gradually Evvie began to eat the food that interested her because it was unusual. Her eyes grew gentler and her glance rested intelligently on people and things. She would smile as her father told some pitiful joke, trying to ignore the fact that his daughter wasn’t “jest right.”

The growing baby exhibited Merlin traits which made him a favorite. One day Evvie’s wandering eyes fell upon him as he lay in my lap. Her glance stopped and became uneasy.

“Is that mommie’s baby?” she said.

“No, he’s your very own, Evvie, and as fine as they are made. Look! He has your big eyes, and just see how heavy! Let him lie on your lap a minute and you’ll find out.”

I started to lift him to her, but her look turned to swift terror and she shrank away. It was the beginning of health, however. A day or two afterward she asked me how long it would be before she died, and I knew she had begun to think about living.

“That depends on yourself, Evvie.”

“Could I live if I wanted to?” she asked, with incredulous hope.

“You could be well in two months.”

“After ever’thing?”

“Every single thing.”

“Mommie don’t want me home with a baby.”

“Your mother wouldn’t give up Bennie if Judd came with ten sheriffs to take him.”

“Could Judd take him?” she asked, with vehemence that was full of promise.

“You left Judd, you know, and the law might let the father have the child.”

“When he was so mean to me?”

“Oh! You think he was mean?”

“He’d leave me in that holler by myse’f an’ stay out all night huntin’.”

“The law might think a wife ought to have the courage to put up with that.”

“He knocked me inter the briars when I tried to foller him.”

“M-m-m! How long was that,” said I, touching the baby, “before your young man got here?”

“’Bout a month. I told him I’s afeard to stay in the shack, an’ he said I wanted to foller him ’cause I thought he was goin’ to Lizzie Bowles.”

It was joy to me to see her eyes flood burningly with temper.

“That’s where he _was_ goin’, too! He used to talk to her ’fore we’s married, an’ she’d jest come back from the cotton-mills in South C’lina with two silk dresses. They’d got up a big dance an’ I knowed Judd was agoin’. An’ he knocked me inter the briars by the trail round the corn patch.”

“The law might consider that,” I said. “Don’t worry about losing your baby. But first make sure that you want him.”

“I b’lieve I could hold him a bit now if you’ll set him here.”

I laid the baby in her lap and slipped out to tell Mrs. Kane. In six weeks Evvie was helping her mother with the housework. Spring came, and I bribed her to work in the garden by supplying the preposterously growing Bennie with clothes. By June she was again intrenched in her loveliness; not quite so plump, but round enough, and with her old wild-rose color. By and by she was duly divorced. Judd, in South Carolina, made no protest. Evvie’s perilous excursion seemed over, with no obvious reminder save the incredible baby.

She wore the fashionable knee dress, and with her hair in unfashionable braids down her back seemed to be the child-sister of the youngster that scrambled about her.

“Your little brother will soon be big enough to go to school with you,” said the new County Commissioner on his rounds, hoping to be pleasant.

Evvie stood mute and fiery red. “Don’t tell him the baby’s mine, mommie,” she whispered later to her mother. It must have seemed strange to her--that bubbling other existence around her feet--and a little embarrassment was, I thought, quite proper.

With autumn and corn-gathering Judd returned. It was a good season in the woods for the blockaders, and Judd had probably made arrangements in the “South” for profitable sales. He announced that he was buying calves for the winter and wanted to lay in a supply of feed for them. I never heard of his purchasing any calves, but he went about getting a little corn here and there at the cheap harvest price. Perhaps some one told him that his boy was a lad to be proud of, for he came one day to see him. I had walked over to the Kanes with Cleve, and we were about to take our leave. Evvie shook hands with Judd quite prettily.

“Golly, Evvie, you’ve come back hard!” he said. “Let’s set on the porch.”

He had forgotten his son, but Evvie brought him out, and Judd had difficulty in maintaining indifference. He looked about and saw Cleve.

“Hello, Cleve I This chap kinder takes my eye.”

“I reckon,” said Cleve, “he ain’t so fine as Lizzie Bowles’s boy.”

“That kid ain’t none o’ mine,” said Judd, too quickly.

“Lizzie’ll give you a chance to swear to that, anyhow.”

“What yer warmin’ chair-bottoms round here fer, Cleve Saunders?”

“He’s here,” said Evvie, her cheeks pink-spotted, “’cause he’s the best friend the baby’s got.”

“I’m the kid’s father, don’t you fergit, an’ I’ve got some rights. That divorce judge didn’t put no paper ’twixt me an’ the kid.”

“You can see him whenever you want to,” said Evvie, “so long as you don’t make trouble fer anybody that’s been as good to us as Cleve.”

Their eyes met and battled--no doubt reminiscently--and Judd capitulated. “All right,” he said.

From that time Evvie was sorely troubled by his visits. “I wouldn’t mind his comin’,” she said, “if he didn’t keep aggervatin’ me to live with him.”

“Why don’t you take Cleve, Evvie, and end the bother?”

“I don’t want to marry,” she said, with a shudder that was a broadside of confession. I was cheered. At least she would never be reconquered by Judd.

But the situation was pressing to a change; and finally it came. Judd was captured by Federal deputies. I went to Sam for particulars.

“They took him red-handed, stirrin’ the mash,” said Sam. “He fit like a bear, an’ kicked the officer in the mouth. It’ll mean the Pen, shore, an’ Evvie’ll be shet of him fer a while.”

“Won’t somebody bond him out?”

“His own folks don’t think ’nough of him fer that. I hearn his own father say he wa’n’t wuth a June bug with a catbird after it. Nobody’s goin’ to risk losin’ a farm fer that thing.”

I went home reassured. If Cleve would only pick up and woo furiously, instead of wistfully accepting mere smiles from Evvie, he could win, I felt, long before Judd’s reappearance.

The sight of Evvie hurrying toward me gave me no uneasiness. She was lugging the baby, in too much haste to let him toddle.

“Mis’ Dolly,” she began, “Judd’s the baby’s poppie, an’ he’s took. Nobody’ll go on his bond, an’ ever’body’s talkin’ hard against him, an’ him Bennie’s poppie. I been thinkin’ of that trouble ’way back, an’ it wasn’t all his fault.”

“You fell into the briars, I suppose?”

“No, but I was aggervatin’ him. I hated Lizzie Bowles an’ her silk dresses, an’ when he swore an’ told me to go back, I picked up a rock an’ if he hadn’t jumped I’d a broke his head with it. I was ashamed to tell you then. I was wild mad, an’ he _ought_ to ’a’ throwed me inter the briars. I wasn’t any he’p to him in the field, an’ when I got sick I wasn’t any he’p in the house, like his mother said. I didn’t do my part at all.”

“You did all you could, Evvie,” I said, with no effect on the tide pouring from her heart.

“An’ way back, when we’s livin’ with mommie, I was aggervatin’. At first when he’d pout an’ wouldn’t come to the table, I’d slip out with something fer him to eat, an’ beg till he’d take it, but once when we had company an’ he’d made me ashamed ’cause he went to the barn an’ wouldn’t come to breakfast, I got me a bundle o’ blade-fodder an’ took it to him. I told him if he wanted to live with the steers he could eat with ’em too. I was shore mean. An’, Mis’ Dolly, I want you to go to Carson jail an’ see Judd, an’ tell him when he comes back from the Pen I’ll be ready an’ we’ll begin all over. He’ll know I’ll keep my word.”

It was useless to remind her of pain that she could not recall; but I spoke of her father and mother. Would she break their hearts again?

“But look at Bennie!” she cried. “He’s gettin’ more like his father ever’ day. If I’m hard on Judd now, how can I look at my baby? Ever’body’s against him. You’re hard as the others. Won’t you go, Mis’ Dolly?”

“No, I won’t. You don’t know what you are doing.”

“Then I’ll have to git somebody else to go.”

Her message went to Judd by some busybody, and I wired to Asheville for Cleve. When he arrived on the next train I was at the station. “The thing to do, Cleve,” I said, “is to bail him out and let him come home.”

Cleve, knowing so well the Evvie that eluded him, saw the point at once. He also saw that neither he nor I should figure as bondsman.

“It’ll be hard work,” he said, “but I’ll find somebody.”

And over the country he went, picking out men whom he knew to be secret abetters of Judd, and working on their fear of his turning informer. The amount of bail was made up, and Judd was free. Evvie thought that he would come directly to her, but first he went to Mossy Creek to see “the boys.” They got up a dance, and it would have seemed ungrateful of Judd not to remain for it. When he reached Evvie his face was still slightly swollen from drink and revelry, but his spirits were riding high. Friends had gathered at the Kanes’ for the evening, and Judd began to recount his triumphs in jail.

“They made me president o’ their club soon’s I got there, an’ kicked the other feller out. We had some reg’lations, you bet! Ever’ feller that come into jail had to pay fifty cents fer terbacker; if he didn’t we flogged him. They wouldn’t let us have whiskey, an’ that was tough, you bet! We’d have court, an’ try the fellers, an’ it was a purty good life if we’d had more to eat. They’s all sorry to see me go, an’ I promised to smuggle in some hot stuff to ’em if there was any way. Mebbe I can work it with a mulatter girl ’at cooks fer ’em--right purty--color of a hick’ry leaf ’fore frost--she’ll he’p me, you bet! I’ll try it to-morr’ when me an’ Evvie go to Carson to hitch up. Some quare, ain’t it, marryin’ yer own wife? An’ what about yer kid goin’ on two at yer weddin’?”

Choking and helpless, I slipped away from the sound of his voice. Sam, walking home by my road, began to talk.

“Reckon you noticed Evvie in that corner while Judd was talkin’. Ef you’d a cut off her head at the neck it wouldn’t ’a’ bled a drap.”

I could not answer, and hurried on, finding Cleve on my doorstep. I took him into the house, my tears of rage and failure dropping; but when the full light of the lamp fell upon his face I thought no more of my own misery.

“There’s twelve hours yet, Cleve,” I said. “Evvie is not an utter fool.”

But he wouldn’t speak. For over an hour he sat by my fire, a humped reproach. I exhausted every consolation, even to telling him that she wasn’t worth it. Then he lifted his eyes, full of such mourning scorn that I became as silent as himself. There was a tap at the door, slight enough to be Evvie’s. I asked Cleve to go up-stairs, saying that I would call him if he was wanted. When he was gone I opened the door and heard Evvie’s voice.

“They’s so many at our house to-night. Ever’ bed’s full. I thought I’d come here to sleep. You don’t keer, do you?”

“I’m glad to see you, Evvie. Come, warm a little, and jump into bed. You’ve been running.”

“Yes, I was afraid--but--I had to come.”

Her little body was quivering. I sat her down, but did not dare to give a sign of sympathy that might plunge her into hysteria. I took up a book and sat reading until she became very still. We were in the kitchen, which was large and possessed a big, ugly fireplace. At the right of the fireplace, in the corner, ran a short flight of stairs, and under the stairs was a closet with an opening for a half-door. This opening was simply curtained.

I had held my book for ten minutes or more, when we heard sounds of talk and laughter from the road. I recognized Judd’s voice, and a loud knock followed. Instantly Evvie rose, stooped, and, darting like a bee, vanished behind the little curtain of the closet. There was hardly room for her among the pans and old ovens, but she scuttled her way, and there was silence. Then I opened the outer door and saw Judd with several companions.

“Me an’ the boys are lookin’ fer Evvie. We started to have a reel at bedtime an’ found she’d gone. I ’lowed right away she’d skipped over here, bein’ she’s crazy ’bout you. Reckon I skeered her a little talkin’ so much ’bout them jail fellers; but I’ll make it all right. I’m goin’ to be square with Evvie this time.”

He began to peek around me.

“Why--ain’t she here? She gone to bed?”

“No, Judd. Did you stop at Len’s?”

“We hollered, an’ she wasn’t there.”

“You’d better go on to Sam’s then,” I urged, following, or rather leading him away. “Take the short trail by the hemlocks.”

When they were certainly gone I went in. Cleve and Evvie were sitting by the fire. Her arms were around his neck and she was crying steadily. Cleve’s arms were determinedly in the right place. The next day they took the early train for Carson, and by noon were safely married.

Yesterday Evvie’s mother said to me: “You ought to go over to Asheville, Mis’ Dolly, jest to see how Evvie keeps that little house primped up. They’s water in it, hot an’ cold, an’ ever’thing, like I always wanted her to have. I reckon she’s ’bout fergot that shack in the holler.”

I tell myself that it is as well with Evvie as life permits it to be with the most of us; but she is now only eighteen, chiselled in beauty and colored with youth; and I try not to wonder what would happen if she should ever fall in love.