In Happy Valley
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John Fox >> In Happy Valley
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III
Juno had been delirious since the day she was stricken. Her mutterings
had been disjointed and unintelligible, but that night, while Mother Camp
and the New Englander sat at her bedside, she said again:
"Don't let him come."
"She ain't said that for three days now," said Mother Camp. "Whut d'
you s'pose she means?" The husband shook his head.
Next morning the nurse for whom St. Hilda had sent arrived from the
Bluegrass, and the New Englander started down Little Clover to the
settlement school to consult the doctor and see St. Hilda. It was a
brilliant, drenched June day, and never, he believed, had his eyes
rested on such a glory of green and gold. Already he had been heralded
in the swift way common in the hills, and all who saw him coming knew
who he was. He was Juno's man, and the people straightway called him--Jim.
When he stood on St. Hilda's porch her words and her drawn, anxious face
went straight to his heart. There was nobody like Juno, and without Juno
she did not know how she could get along. Her own little sufferers were
in tents about her, and there was only one nurse for them. Juno, said the
doctor, might be unconscious for a long time, and her nurse must be with
her night and day: so who would take Juno's place throughout the hills
she did not know. At once the New Englander, who knew a good deal about
medicine and something of typhoid, found himself offering to do all he
could. Then and there the Mission teacher gave him a list of patients,
and then and there, with a thermometer in his pocket and a medicine-case
in his hand, he started on his first round. The people were very shy with
him at first. In a few days he was promoted to Doctor Jim, and soon he
was plain "Doc" to all. By every mouth that opened he found Juno's name
blessed, and many were the tales of what she had done. She had saved wild
Jay Dawn's little girl and Lum Chapman's firstborn. She had brought old
Aunt Sis Stidham back from the shadow of the grave, and had turned that
tart, irreverent old person's erring feet back into the way of the Lord.
[Illustration]
Night and day, and through wind and storm, she had travelled the hills,
healing the sick and laying out and helping to bury the dead. Apparently
there was not a man, woman, or child in Happy Valley who did not love her
or have some reason to be grateful, and when in the open-air meeting-house
Parson Small told of her work and prayed that her life be spared, there
were fervent "Amens," or tears and sobs, from all. Doctor Jim soon found
himself getting deeply interested in the people, and when he contrasted
the lives of those whom the influence of the Mission school had not yet
reached with the folks in Happy Valley he began to realize the amazing
good that St. Hilda was doing in the hills. What a place he was earning
for himself he was yet to learn, but through some mystification an inkling
came. To be sure, everybody spoke to him as though he were a fixture in
the land. He could pass no door that somebody did not ask him to come
in and rest a spell, or stay all night. He never went by the mill that
Aunt Jane did not have a glass of buttermilk for him and Uncle Jerry did
not try to entice him in for a talk. Several times the little judge of
Happy Valley had ridden down to ask after Juno and to talk with him.
Pleasant Trouble waved his crutch from a hillside and shouted himself
at Doctor Jim's disposal for any purpose whatever. But one sunset he
had stopped at Lum Chapman's blacksmith-shop just as a big, black-haired
fellow, with a pistol buckled around him, was reeling away. The men
greeted him rather solemnly, and he felt that they wanted to say
something to him, but no one spoke. He saw Jay Dawn nod curtly to
Pleasant Trouble, who got briskly up and walked up the road with him
until they were in sight of Juno's home. For three days thereafter
Pleasant was waiting for him at the shop and walked the same space
with him. The next day Jay Dawn spoke with some embarrassment to him:
"Have you got a gun?"
"No." Jay handed forth one.
"Oh, no!" said Doctor Jim.
"Go on!" said Jay shortly; "I got another un."
"But why do I need a gun?" Jay was distinctly embarrassed.
"Well," he drawled, "thar's some purty bad fellers 'bout hyeh, an' when
they gits drunk they might do somethin'. Now that Jerry Lipps you seed
hyeh t'other day a-staggerin' off drunk--he's bad. An' you do a heap o'
travellin' alone. This ain't fer you to kill nobody but jus' kind o' to
pertect yerself."
"All right," laughed Doctor Jim. "I couldn't hit a barn--" but to humor
Jay he took the weapon, and this time Pleasant Trouble did not walk home
with him.
Later he mentioned the matter to St. Hilda, who looked very grave.
"Yes, Jerry Lipps is a bad man. He's just out of the penitentiary.
Pleasant walked home with you to protect you from him. They won't
let him do anything to you openly. And Jay gave you that gun in case
he should attack you when nobody was around."
"But what has the fellow got against me?" The teacher hesitated.
"Well, Jerry used to be in love with Juno, but she would never have
anything to do with him and he never would let her have anything to
do with anybody else. He shot one boy, and shot at another, and he
has always sworn that he would kill the man she married."
"Nonsense!" he said, but going home that night Doctor Jim carried
the gun where he could get at it quickly.
"My God!" he muttered with grim humor; "no wonder Juno didn't want
me to come."
It was only a few days later that Doctor Jim came out of Lum Chapman's
house and paused in the path looking up Wolf Run. Jerry Lipps's sister
lived half a mile above and he had just heard that her little daughter
was down with the fever. Jerry might be staying with the sister, but
Doctor Jim's duty was now up there and, in spite of the warnings given
him, he did not hesitate. The woman stared when he told who he was and
why he had come, but she nodded and pointed to the bed where the child
lay. He put his pistol on the bed, thrust a thermometer into the little
girl's mouth and began taking her pulse. A hand swept the pistol from
the bed and, when he turned around, about all he could think was:
"How extraordinary!"
Jerry, red with rage and drink, was at the kitchen door fumbling at the
butt of his pistol, while his sister had Doctor Jim's gun levelled at her
brother's heart.
"You can't tech him," she said coolly, "an' if you pull that gun out an
inch furder I'll kill ye as shore as thar's a God in heaven." And at that
moment the door opened and Pleasant Trouble swung in on his crutch and
grinned. Doctor Jim then heard the tongue-lashing of his life. The woman's
volubility was like a mill-race, and her command of vitriolic epithets was
beyond his ken. She recited what Juno had done, Doctor Jim was doing, the
things Jerry had done and left undone, and wound up:
"You never was wuth Juno's little finger, an' you ain't wuth _his_ little
finger-nail now. Take his gun, Pleas. Take him to the State line, an' don't
you boys let him come back agin until he's stopped drinkin', got a suit o'
clothes, an' a job."
"Why, Mandy," said Pleasant, "hit's kind o' funny, but Lum an' Jay an' me
fixed hit up about an hour ago that we aimed to do that very thing. I seed
Doc a-comin' up hyeh, an' was afeard I mought be too late: but if I'd 'a'
knowed you was hyeh I wouldn't 'a' worried."
Again Doctor Jim was thinking, "How extraordinary!" but this time how
extraordinary it was that the man really meant to shoot him. Somehow
he began to understand.
Still grinning, Pleasant Trouble had swung across the room, whipped
Jerry's pistol from the holster, and with it motioned the owner toward
the door. Then Doctor Jim rose. "Hold on!" he said, and he took the
pistol from the woman's hands, strode straight up to Jerry and smiled.
Now, from the top of Virginia down through seven Southern States to
Georgia there are some three million mountaineers, and it is doubtful
if among them all any other three pairs of ears ever heard such words
as Professor James Blagden of New England spoke now:
"Jerry, I don't blame you for having loved Juno, or for loving her now.
I wouldn't blame anybody. I even understand now why you wanted to kill
me, but that would have been--silly. Give him back his gun, Pleasant,"
he added, still smiling, "and give this one back to Jay." He reached in
his pocket, pulled forth two cigars and handed one to each. "Now you two
sit down and smoke, and in a moment I'll go along with you, and we'll
help Jerry get a job." And thereupon Doctor Jim turned around to his
little patient. Dazed and a bit hypnotized, Jerry took the cigar and
thrust his pistol into his holster.
"I'll be gittin' along," he said sullenly, and made for the door. Pleasant
followed him. At the road Jerry turned one way and Pleasant the other.
"You heered whut Mandy and me said," drawled Pleasant. "If you poke yore
nose over the line 'bout three of us will shoot you on sight. We'd do it
fer Juno, an' if she ain't alive we'll do it fer Doctor Jim."
"I was a-goin' over thar anyways," said Jerry, "an' I'll come back when I
please. You one-legged limb o' Satan--you go plum'"--Pleasant's eyes began
to glitter--"back to him."
Pleasant laughed, and as they walked their separate ways the same question
was in the minds of both:
"Now, whut the hell did he mean by 'silly'?"
IV
Only the next morning a happy day dawned. Old King Camp came home with his
sons--two stalwart boys and a giant father. Doctor Jim looked long at old
King's hair, which was bushy and jet-black. He stood it as long as he could
and then he asked:
"Why do people on the other side of the mountain call you _Red_ King Camp?"
he asked.
"They don't--not more'n once," was the grim answer. "I'm _Black_ King Camp.
Red's my cousin, but I don't claim him."
One load was off Doctor Jim's heart. His father-in-law was like his name
in many ways, and Doctor Jim liked him straightway and Black King liked
Doctor Jim. Old King shook his head.
"I don't see why Juno didn't bring you down here long ago," he said, and
Doctor Jim did not try to explain--he couldn't. It must have been fear of
Jerry--and he believed that Jerry, too, was now out of the way.
About noon Juno came back for the first time from another world. She did
not open her eyes, but she heard voices and knew what they were saying.
Her mother was talking in the next room to somebody whom she called Jim.
Who could Jim be? And then she heard the man's voice. Her eyes opened
slowly on the nurse, her lips moved, but before she could frame the
question her heart throbbed so that she went back into unconsciousness
again. But the nurse saw and told, and when Juno came back again she saw
her husband and smiled without surprise or fright.
"I dreamed you were here," she whispered, "and I'm dreaming right now
that you are here. Why, I see you." Gently he took her face in his hands,
and when she felt his touch she looked at him wildly and the tears sprang.
From that day on she gained fast, and from the nurse, her mother, and the
neighbors she soon knew the story of Doctor Jim.
"So you thought Red King was my father," she said, "and that he was in
the penitentiary?" Doctor Jim nodded shamefacedly.
"Well, even that wouldn't have been so bad--not down here. And maybe
you thought I didn't want you to come on account of Jerry Lipps." Again
Doctor Jim nodded admission, and Juno laughed.
"I never thought of that, and if I had," she added proudly and
scornfully, "I never would have been afraid--for _you_."
"Then why didn't you want me to come?"
"I didn't know _you_--didn't know the big, _big_ man you are. Now I'm
shamed--and happy."
One morning, three weeks later, Jay Dawn and Lum Chapman brought up a
litter that Lum had made, and they two and Black King and Doctor Jim
made ready to carry Juno down the mountain. Jerry Lipps was passing in
the road when they bore her out the gate, and he started to sidle by
with averted eyes. Doctor Jim halted.
"Here, Jerry!" he called. "You take my place." And Jerry, red as an
oak leaf in autumn, stepped up to the litter, and up at her old lover
Juno smiled.
"Doc," said Jerry, "I got a job."
Behind, Pleasant Trouble swung along with Doctor Jim. Mother Camp followed
on horseback. People ran from every house to greet Juno, or from high on
the hillsides waved their hands and shouted "how-dyes" down to her. Soon
they were at the Mission, where St. Hilda and Uncle Jerry and Aunt Jane
were waiting on the porch, and where pale little boys and girls trooped
weakly from the tents to welcome her. And then at a signal from Doctor Jim
the four picked up the litter.
"Why, where are you going?" asked Juno.
"Never you mind," said Doctor Jim.
Through the little vineyard they went, up a little hill underneath cedars
and blooming rhododendrons, and there on the top was a little cabin built
of logs with the bark still on them, with a porch running around all sides
but one, and supported by the trunks of little trees. The smell of cedar
came from the open door, and all was as fresh and clean as the breath of
the forest from which everything came--a home that had been the girl's
lifelong dream. The Goddess of Happy Valley had her own little temple
at last.
On the open-air sleeping-porch they sat that night alone.
"I'm going to help raise some money for that Mission down there," said
Doctor Jim. "I don't know where any more good is being done, and I don't
know any people who are more worth being helped than--your people."
Happy Valley below was aswarm with fireflies. The murmur of the river
over shallows rose to them. The cries of whippoorwills encircled them
from the hillsides and over the mountain majestically rose the moon.
"And you and I are coming down every summer--to help."
Juno gathered his hand in both her own and held it against her cheek.
"Jim--Doctor Jim--_my_ Jim."
THE BATTLE-PRAYER OF PARSON SMALL
Parson Small rose. From the tail-pocket of his long broadcloth coat
he pulled a red bandanna handkerchief and blew his nose. He put the
big blunt forefinger of his right hand on the text of the open Bible
before him.
"Suffer--" he said. He glanced over his flock--the blacksmith, his
wife, and her child, the old miller and Aunt Betsey, the Mission
teacher and some of her brood, past Pleasant Trouble with his crutch
across his half a lap, and to the heavy-set, middle-aged figure just
slipping to a seat in the rear with a slouched hat in his hand. The
parson's glance grew stern and he closed the Great Book. Jeb Mullins,
the newcomer, was--moonshiner and undesirable citizen in many ways. He
had meant, said the parson, to preach straight from the word of God,
but he would take up the matter in hand, and he glared with doubtful
benevolence at Jeb's moon face, grayish whiskers, and mild blue eyes.
Many turned to follow his glance, and Jeb moved in his seat and his
eyes began to roll, for all knew that the matter in hand was Jeb.
Straightway the parson turned his batteries on the very throne of
King Alcohol and made it totter. Men "disguised by liquer" were not
themselves. Whiskey made the fights and the feuds. It broke up meetings.
It made men lie around in the woods and neglect their families. It stole
brains and weakened bodies. It made women unhappy and debauched children.
It turned Holy Christmas into a drunken orgy. And "right thar in their
very midst," he thundered, was a satellite of the Devil-King, "who was
a-doin' all these very things," and that limb of Satan must give up his
still, come to the mourner's bench, and "wrassle with the Sperit or else
be druv from the county and go down to burnin' damnation forevermore."
And that was not all: this man, he had heard, was "a-detainin' a female,"
an' the little judge of Happy Valley would soon be hot on his trail. The
parson mentioned no name in the indictment, but the stern faces of the
women, the threatening looks of the men were too much for Jeb. He rose
and bolted, and the parson halted.
"The wicked flee when no man pursueth!" he cried, and he raised hands
for the benediction.
"Thar's been so much talk about drinkin'," muttered Aunt Sis Stidham as
she swayed out, "that hit's made me plum' thirsty. I'd like to have a dram
right now." Pleasant Trouble heard her and one eye in his solemn face gave
her a covert wink.
The women folks had long clamored that their men should break up Jeb's
still; and the men had stood the nagging and remained inactive through
the hanging-together selfishness of the sex, for with Jeb gone where
then would they drink their drams and play Old Sledge? But now Jeb was
"a-detainin' of a female," and that was going too far. For a full week
Jeb was seen no more, for three reasons: he was arranging an important
matter with Pleasant Trouble; he was brooding over the public humiliation
that the parson had visited on him; and he knew that he might be waited
upon any day by a committee of his fellow citizens and customers headed
by a particular enemy of his. And indeed such a committee, so headed,
was formed, and as chance would have it they set forth the following
Sunday morning just when Jeb himself set forth to halt the parson on
his way to church. The committee caught sight of Jeb turning from the
roadside into the bushes and the leader motioned them too into the
rhododendron, whispering:
"Wait an' we'll ketch him in some mo' devilment." In the bushes they
waited. Soon the parson hove in view on a slowly pacing nag, with his
hands folded on the pommel of his saddle and deep in meditation. Jeb
stepped out into the road and the hidden men craned their necks from
the bushes with eyes and ears alert.
"Good mornin', Parson Small!" The old nag stopped and the parson's
head snapped up from his revery.
"Good mornin', Jeb Mullins." The parson's greeting was stern and
somewhat uneasy, for he did not like the look on old Jeb's face.
"Parson Small," said Jeb unctuously, "las' Sunday was _yo'_ day." The
men in the bushes thrust themselves farther out--they could hear every
word--"an' this Sunday is _mine_."
"Every Sunday is the Lawd's, Jeb Mullins--profane it not."
"Well, mebbe He'll loan me this un, parson. You lambasted me afore all
Happy Valley last Sunday an' now I'm a-goin' to lick you fer it." The
parson's eye gleamed faintly and subsided.
"I'm on my way to preach the word of God, Jeb Mullins."
"You'll git thar in time, parson. Git off yo' hoss!"
"I've got my broadcloth on, Jeb Mullins, an' I don't want to muss it
up--wait till I come back."
"You can take it off, parson, or brush off the dust atterwards--climb
off yo' hoss." Again the parson's eye gleamed and this time did not
subside.
"I reckon you'll give me time to say a prayer, Jeb Mullins!"
"Shore--you'll need it afore I git through with ye."
With a sigh the parson swung offside from Jeb, dexterously pulling a
jackknife from his trousers-pocket, opening it, and thrusting it in the
high top of his right boot. Then he kneeled in the road with uplifted
face and eyes closed:
[Illustration]
"O Lawd," he called sonorously, "thou knowest that I visit my fellow man
with violence only with thy favor and in thy name. Thou knowest that when
I laid Jim Thompson an' Si Marcum in thar graves it was by thy aid. Thou
knowest how I disembowelled with my trusty knife the miserable sinner
Hank Smith." Here the parson drew out his knife and began honing it on
the leg of his boot. "An' hyeh's another who meddles with thy servant and
profanes thy day. I know this hyeh Jeb Mullins is offensive in thy sight
an' fergive me, O Lawd, but I'm a-goin' to cut his gizzard plum' out, an'
O Lawd--" Here Parson Small opened one eye and Jeb Mullins did not stand
on the order of his going. As he went swiftly up the hill the committee
sprang from the bushes with haw-haws and taunting yells. At the top of
the hill Jeb turned:
"I was a-goin' anyhow," he shouted, and with his thumb at his nose he
wriggled his fingers at them.
"He'll never come back now--he'll be ashamed."
"Friends," called the parson, "the Lawd is with me--peace be unto you."
And the committee said:
"Amen!"
The Japanese say: Be not surprised if the surprising does not surprise.
When Jeb walked into meeting the following Sunday no citizen of Happy
Valley had the subtlety to note that of them all Pleasant Trouble alone,
sitting far in the rear, showed no surprise. Pleasant's face was solemn,
but in his eyes was an expectant smile. Women and men glared, and the
parson stopped his exhortation to glare, but Jeb had timed his entrance
with the parson's call for sinners to come to the mourners' bench. It was
the only safe place for him and there he went and there he sat. The parson
still glared, but he had to go on exhorting--he had to exhort even Jeb.
And Jeb responded. He not only "wrassled with the Sperit" valiantly but
he "came through"--that is, he burst from the gloom of evil and disbelief
into the light of high purpose and the glory of salvation. He rose to
confess and he confessed a great deal; but, as many knew, not all--who
does? He had driven the woman like Hagar into the wilderness; he would
go out right now and the folks of Happy Valley should see him break up
his own still with his own hands.
"Praise the Lawd," said the amazed and convinced parson; "lead the way,
Brother Mullins." _Brother_ Mullins! The smile in Pleasant's eyes almost
leaped in a laugh from his open mouth. The congregation rose and, led by
Jeb and the parson, started down the road and up a ravine. The parson
raised a hymn--"Climbing up Zion's hill." At his shack Jeb caught up an
axe which he had left on purpose apparently at his gate, and on they went
to see Jeb bruise the head of the serpent and prove his right to enter
the fold. With a shout of glory Jeb plunged ahead on a run, disappeared
down a thickened bank, and, as they pushed their way, singing, through
the bushes, they could hear him below crashing right and left with his
axe, and when they got to him it was nearly all over. Many wondered how
he could create such havoc in so short a time, but the boiler was gashed
with holes, the worms chopped into bits, and the mash-tub was in splinters.
Happy Valley dispersed to dinner. Lum Chapman took the parson and his
new-born father-in-law home with him, his wife following with her apron
at her eyes, wiping away grateful tears. At sunset Pleasant Trouble swung
lightly up Wolf Run on his crutch and called Jeb down to the gate:
"You got a good home now, Jeb."
"I shore have." Jeb's religious ecstasy had died down but he looked
content.
The parson was mounting his nag and Pleasant opened the gate for him.
"Hit's sort o' curious, parson," said Jeb, "but when you prayed that
prayer jes' afore I was about to battle with ye I begun to see the
errer o' my ways."
"The Lawd, Brother Mullins," said the parson, dryly but sincerely,
"moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform." The two watched
him ride away.
"The new still will be hyeh next week," said Pleasant out of one corner
of his mouth. One solemn wink they exchanged and Pleasant Trouble swung
lightly off into the woods.
THE CHRISTMAS TREE ON PIGEON
The sun of Christmas poured golden blessings on Happy Valley first;
it leaped ten miles of intervening hills and shot winged shafts of
yellow light into the mouth of Pigeon; it darted awakening arrows
into the coves and hollows on the Head of Pigeon, between Brushy Ridge
and Pine Mountain; and one searching ray flashed through the open door
of the little log schoolhouse at the forks of Pigeon and played like
a smile over the waiting cedar that stood within--alone.
Down at the mines below, the young doctor had not waited the coming
of that sun. He had sprung from his bed at dawn, had built his own
fire, dressed hurriedly, and gone hurriedly on his rounds, leaving
a pill here, a powder there, and a word of good cheer everywhere.
That was his Christmas tree, the cedar in the little schoolhouse--his
and Hers. The Marquise of Queensberry, he called her--and she was
coming up from the Gap that day to dress that tree and spread the
joy of Christmas among mountain folks, to whom the joy of Christmas
was quite unknown.
An hour later the passing mail-carrier, from over Black Mountain,
stopped with switch uplifted at his office-door.
"Them fellers over the Ridge air comin' over to shoot up yo'
Christmas tree," he drawled.
The switch fell and he was gone. The young doctor dropped by his
fire--stunned; for just that thing had happened ten years before
to the only Christmas tree that had ever been heard of in those
immediate hills, except his own. Out of that very schoolhouse some
vandals from over Pine Mountain had driven the Pigeon Creek people
after a short fight, and while the surprised men, frightened women
and children, and the terrified teacher scurried to safety behind
rocks and trees had shot the tree to pieces. That was ten years
before, but even now, though there were some old men and a few old
women who knew the Bible from end to end, many grown people and most
of the children had never heard of the Book, or of Christ, or knew
that there was a day known as Christmas Day. That such things were
so had hurt the doctor to the heart, and that was why, as Christmas
drew near, he had gone through the out-of-the-way hollows at the Head
of Pigeon and got the names and ages of all the mountain children; why
now, long after that silly quarrel with the marquise, he had humbled his
pride and written her please to come and help him; why she had left the
Christmas of Happy Valley in St. Hilda's hands and was coming; and why
now the cedar-tree stood in the little log schoolhouse at the forks of
Pigeon. Moreover, there was yet enmity between the mountaineers of Pigeon
and the mountaineers over Pine Mountain, who were jealous and scornful
of any signs of the foreign influence but recently come into the hills.
The meeting-house, courthouse, and the schoolhouse were yet favorite
places for fights among the mountaineers. There was yet no reverence
at all for Christmas, and the same vandals might yet regard a Christmas
tree as an imported frivolity to be sternly rebuked. The news was not
only not incredible, it probably was true; and with this conclusion some
very unpleasant lines came into the young doctor's kindly face, and he
sprang for his horse.
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