The Wiving of Lance Cleaverage

More flowers were brought by girls and small boys from the neighbors' yards – yellow and purple and red were the colors mostly in bloom now, and those which would have been favored for this occasion. Roxy gravely arranged them and set them in place. She had veiled the looking-glass and stopped the clock as soon as she came into the house.

"A body cain't be too careful about all these here things," she said with a solemn sniff. "Hit's easy at a time like this for something to be did that crosses the luck."

Women came and went through the open doors, silent almost as the little breeze that played between. Everybody wore the same expression of mournful acquiescence in the natural order of things. Greetings were exchanged in low tones. Callista, carrying a basket of garden asters, came up the front walk, looking openly for her mother, guarding a little warily against Flenton Hands's approach. Some girls hurrying out to seek ferns in the low places of the wood met her, and she turned back with them, joining her activities to theirs and making a wreath of the flowers she had brought.

Flenton Hands was thirty years old. To have arrived at this age unmarried is, in the mountains, in some measure a reproach. True, he aligned himself sharply with the religious element of the community, and this, when youthful masculinity is ever apt to choose the broad way where there is more company, bespoke for him a certain indulgence or toleration that would have been denied a typical old bachelor.

He was cantankerous old Preacher Drumright's right hand at all times, and Drumright was safe always to approve him. He was the kind of man who seeks the acquaintance and company of those well-to-do and older than himself, paying a sober court to respectability and money, and thus coming eventually to be rated as one of the elders, while he yet held the dubious position of an unmarried male who shilly-shallied in the matter of wedding.

No actual scandal ever attached to Flenton Hands. If there were improprieties to be debited against him, he kept such matters out of the sight of Turkey Track people, and only a vague rumor of something discreditable associated itself with his Valley connections to warrant young girls in pouting their lips and referring to him as "that old Flenton Hands"; while their mothers reproved and told them that he was one of the best young men, as well as one of the best matches, in the neighborhood.

So far as personal appearance went, he was well enough, yet with a curious suggestion of solidity as though his flesh might have been of oak or iron. The countenance, too, with its round, high cheek-bones, had an unpleasing immobility, resting always in a somewhat slyish cast of expression which the odd slant of the light gray eyes gave to it. For the rest, he was thin-lipped, with thick, straight, dark hair, and an almost urban air of gentlemanliness, an effort at gentility which, in a shorter and more cheerful individual, would have been smug.

"Flenton's gone for the coffin," Sallie Blevins said. "He always tends to it when there's anything to do that calls for money to be spent."

"I reckon he's got a plenty," supplied little Rilly Trigg; "but someway I never could like his looks greatly. There, I oughtn't to have said that – and his granny laying dead in the house that-a-way."

Callista did not add her opinion to this discussion, but finding that she was in no danger of meeting Flenton, hurried the others promptly up to the house. As soon as she came in sight, Little Liza, six feet tall, with a jimber-jaw and bass voice, came and fell upon her neck and wept. Little Liza Hands got her descriptive adjective from being the third of the name. To-day she was especially prominent, because Granny Yearwood, the first Eliza, ninety pounds of fiery energy and ambition, had at last laid down the burden of her days. Her daughter, Eliza the second, had lain beside her husband, Eliphalet Hands, in churchyard mold these twenty years; and her big daughter, with the bovine profile, the great voice, and the timid, fluttered soul of a small child, remained in the world, the only Eliza Hands – yet still Little Liza to those about her. And for her name's sake, Little Liza was chief mourner.

The Hands girls all had a sort of adoring attitude toward Callista Gentry. Flenton wanted her, and they had been trying to get Flenton everything he wanted since he was small enough to cry for the moon, and strike at the hand which failed to pluck it down for him. Callista had not intended to stay. She was to be over later in the day – or the same night, rather – with the young people who sat up. But Little Liza managed to detain her on one pretext or another until the coffin arrived and Granny was finally placed therein.

"Just look at them thar shiny trimmin's on that thar coffin," admired Little Liza, jogging Callista's elbow. "That's Flent. That's my brother Flent. They ain't a thing he grudges to them he loves."

Callista uttered a soothing and satisfactory reply, and was making her escape, when Hands himself overtook her at the door. His features were drawn to an expression of great solemnity, one which suited them ill, for he had the upslanting brow, the pointed face and the narrow eye that, lightened by mirth, may be antic, but without the touch of humor is forbidding and even sinister.

"You're not going to leave us, air you?" he inquired in a carefully muffled tone, as though indeed Granny was sleeping lightly and might be easily wakened.

"Mother's going to stay now, and I'm coming back to-night," Callista hastened to say.

"I'm mighty glad you air," returned Flenton, with a heavy sigh. "In these times of affliction, hit's a powerful comfort to me to have you in sight."

Callista edged closer to the others. She was not unwilling to be seen standing whispering with Flenton. He was a good match, a creditable captive of any girl's bow and spear; yet she did not enjoy his love-making, least of all now that it was mingled with this ill-sorted solemnity.

"Flenton, have they sent word to your Uncle Billy's folks?" asked Octavia Gentry, making her appearance in the doorway behind the two.

"Yes'm," returned Flenton, not pleased to be interrupted, yet necessarily civil to the woman whom he hoped to have for a mother-in-law.

"And does the Bushareses and Adam Venable and his wife know hit? Is Mary a-comin'?" she pursued the catalog. "What about the Aspel Yearwoods out in Big Buck Gap – has anyone went out there? And Faithful Yearwood, that married Preacher Crowley – ain't they livin' down in the Tatum neighborhood?"

"Yes'm, they air," confirmed Flenton. "Cousin Ladd 'lowed to send one o' his chaps on a nag to Faithful Crowley's folks; and Ab Straley was to let them at Big Buck Gap know." Though impatient, he made a decent end. When he looked around, Callista had quietly moved away.

The day's work was over; men and boys began to arrive at the Hands place, some carrying lanterns. From early candle lighting till near the turn of the night the house would be full; then the elders, men and women on whose day labor a family must depend, would begin to slip away, except a few old widowers and bachelors who might remain smoking on the steps outside; and a circle of young folks who would be left sitting in the lamplight and fireshine of the main room. Flenton knew of old experience just how the night would go. He longed inexpressibly to be one of those up-sitting young people that he might push his chair close to Callista Gentry's and whisper to her in the privilege of the hour. Yet he was held back by a consideration for his dignity as one of the bereaved.

"Miz. Gentry," said Roxy Griever, "will you stay and he'p with the supper – they aim to have a reg'lar meal put on the table at about midnight – settin' up with the dead is mighty wearin'."

"I 'low the gals would rather tend to that theirselves," deprecated Octavia, mildly. "I mind how it was when I was a gal. I never did want some old women pesterin' around at sech a time."

She cast a swift glance to where Callista sat, her fair head bent, the lamplight upon its bright burden of corn-colored braids, Lance Cleaverage, his hands in his pockets, standing before the girl regarding her, and evidently about to say something.

The Widow Griever's look followed Octavia's to the front room in which half-a-dozen couples had paired off, whispering, giggling a bit if the truth must be told, with an occasional undernote of hysteria in the giggles.

"That's jest the reason," she announced, straightening up from the hearth where she had been stirring a vast boiler full of very strong coffee. "The gals that lets tham men have their way is foolish. They'll rue the day they done so. Men persons would always have the old folks leave, and the young folks run things to suit theirselves; but I don't believe in sech."

On the mental horizon of the Widow Griever there hovered ever a vast, dun, evil-promising cloud known as "tham men." She never alluded to the opposite sex in any way other than collectively, and named them in this manner, which held in it all of reproach. Her father – gentle soul – presented himself to her under the name of Poppy, as somewhat set apart from the raging mass of predatory males addressed more or less openly and directly to destruction. Poppy and a young brother, Sylvanus, though belonging to the vicious sex and thereby under suspicion, were possible; but Lance, the lawless and debonair, was not only one of the enemy – he was Roxy Griever's horrible example. The church-house where "tham men" were kept on the one side so that the gentler half of creation might sit peacefully on the other, was to her thinking the only safe and proper place of public gathering.

"I tell you, Miz. Gentry," she now pursued, her reprehending eye going past the person she answered to fasten itself on Lance's lounging figure and note the careless, upward fling of his head, "I tell you that I ain't never been back to the Settlement sence I left it a widder. What would I be doin' down thar amongst all tham men? But Lance, he goes down, and every time he goes, I think he gits more of the Old Boy in him, 'caze evil is a-walkin' around at noonday down in tham settlements, and you cain't be safe anywhars."

"Might just as well quit being scared then," drawled Lance's soft voice. He had stepped noiselessly to the door, at Callista's suggestion to see if the coffee were ready.

"You Lance Cleaverage!" returned his sister in a carefully suppressed tone that was sufficiently acid to make up for its lack of volume, "I ain't a-goin' to quit bein' scared for yo' say-so. You ought to be ashamed to name such – in the house with the dead this a-way. No, the coffee'll not be ready for somewhile yet. When hit is, you'ns can fetch cheers and he'p yourselves to it. I'm a-goin' to show Miz. Gentry my gospel quilt that I brung with me to lay over Granny."

Roxanna Cleaverage had married rather late in life. Girlhood had been but an unsatisfactory season to her; young women in a primitive society are not given much prominence, and Roxy had neither beauty nor charm to command what was to be had. Lacking these, she made a great point of religion, which led incidentally to her marriage with John Griever, an itinerant preacher, and brought her two blissful years and Mary Ann Martha. As the wife of a preacher she had been able to assume some dignity, to instruct, to lay down the law, to keep herself measurably in the public eye.

When she was widowed, it was bitter to her to go back to Kimbro Cleaverage's poor home and drop once more into obscurity. She yearned desperately to wear some mark of distinction, to have at least some semblance of social power. And in direct response to this longing, there came a vision in the night, and Roxy rose up and took her bits of quilt pieces and began to fashion a new thing. Other women might have the Rising Sun, the Log Cabin, the Piney-blow, the Basket of Posies; she had conceived and would execute a master work in the way of quilts, quite outside the line of these. Roxy lacked entirely that crude art sense which finds its expression in the mountain woman's beautifully pieced quilt; she only burned to startle admiration, to command respectful attention by some means. The big square of muslin was bought at the expense of considerable pinching and saving, and she began to set upon it those figures which had occupied her mind, her time and her fingers through the years since. Clumsily done, with no feeling whatever for form, proportion, or color, she poured into it a passion of desirous energy which yet produced its effect. The quilt was always at hand for such occasions as this, or when the Presiding Elder came on one of his rare visits. And it was useful to bring out if there were trouble, if someone needed to be overawed or to be threeped down. But that member of the Cleaverage Clan who in her eyes most needed threeping was proof against the gospel quilt. She had never put it forth for Lance's confusion since the day he took such an expressive interest in the undertaking, and advised – in the presence of Preacher Drumright – the adding of a sightly little border of devils around the semi-sacred square.

"A fine row o' davils would help the looks of it mightily, Sis' Roxy," he had argued. "They're named frequent in the Bible, and I'd cut 'em out for you. I would sure enough," he laughed, as she looked heavy reproach at him. "You give me a sharp pair o' shears and I can cut out as fine a lookin' davil as you or anybody need wish for!"

After that she let him alone, aware that his more gifted eye criticized her failures, even when he did not seek the circle about the exhibited quilt and wilfully mistake her angels for turkey buzzards.

The two older women now passed into that cool, shaded little chamber where lay the dead. The windows were open, and the white curtains blew gustily in the night breeze, making the candle Roxy carried flicker. She set it on a high shelf, and got out a thick roll of stuff, unwrapping and spreading forth her contribution to the solemnity of the occasion.

"Hit's jest the top on it," she communicated in a hoarse whisper. "I hain't got the heart to put it in frames and quilt it, 'caze I keep thinkin' of something else that ort to go on it, time I say I'm done. Cur'us that I ain't never showed it to you before." (This was a common formula with the widow, and nobody ever disputed it). "See, that's Adam and Eve, to begin on," and she indicated a pair of small, archaic figures cut from blue checked gingham, their edges turned neatly in and whipped to the white domestic background – when one thinks of it, a domestic background is fairly proper for Adam and Eve. "That ginghams they' cut out'n was a piece o' John's shirt – the last one I made him."

"Tut, tut," responded Octavia, making that little clicking sound with the tongue which does duty variously to express sympathy, reprehension, surprise, or deprecation. She regarded the artistic achievement before her with attention and respect. One could readily distinguish Eve from Adam, because Eve was endowed with petticoats, while Adam rejoiced in legs. Of course Eve had feet; but it would have taken someone less well acquainted with the moral character of the Widow Griever than was Octavia Gentry to deduce legs from those feet.

"What's that thar?" she made the customary inquiry, putting her finger on a twisty bit of polka-dotted calico. "That must be the sarpent."

"Hit air." Roxy returned the expected answer solemnly.

The Ancient Evil was represented as standing sociably on his tail, facing the tempted pair.

"My! Don't he look feisty?" commented Octavia, with courteous admiration. "Watch him jest a-lickin' out his tongue in Eve's face. Lord," she sighed conventionally, "how prone women air to sin!"

"Women? Huh!" snorted Mrs. Griever. "Not nigh so prone as tham men. Look-a-here," turning the quilt to get at the Tree of Good and Evil; "look at them thar apples. Now I made some of 'em out of red calico, and some out of yellow. Do you think I ort to have a few green, Miz. Gentry? Look like green apples is mighty sinful and trouble makin'."

"I don't know," Octavia debated, as she ran her fingers over a brave attempt at one of the Beasts of Revelation. "You might add a few green ones. Hit does stand to reason that the Old Boy is in green apples more than in ripe ones; but ef them that Eve tempted Adam with had been green – do you reckon he'd 'a' bit?"

The scandal was such an old one, that Roxy was evidently a little irritated at its revival.

"Well, o' course," she said with some asperity, "a body cain't gainsay what's in the Bible; but I have my doubts about that thar apple fuss. Hit's men that prints the Good Book, and does about with it – not women; an' I've always had a feelin' that mo' likely hit was Adam got into that apple business first."

"Well, I don't know," repeated Octavia doubtfully. "I always 'lowed the Bible was the Bible. But what's a-goin' to be here?" pointing to a sizable blank space.

"Why, that's a part that I ain't got to finish yet," explained Roxy. "Miz. Abner Dowst given me the prettiest piece o' goods last time I was at her house, and I been studyin' whether to use hit a-depicturin' the Queen of Sheba or Phar'oh's daughter; and then I thought I'd do better to show up Joseph a-dreamin', and the sun and the moon and eleven stars jist over his head – see, they'd set around sorter biassin' this-a-way, betwixt Adam-an'-Eve and this golden harp. Hit's a piece of that dress her gals all had on a-Sunday – you know Dows the always gits a bolt, and time her and the gals all has a dress out of hit, and him a shirt and the boys a shirt apiece, why the bolt's about gone. Well, this time that The'dory May, she axed for something bright, and he was bent on pleasin' her, so he picked for the brightest thing in the store. Hit looked sort o' gay a-comin' into church, one behind another; but now hit'll do fine for Joseph's coat. Ah, law, Miz. Gentry, hit'll be right here in my quilt long after their dresses is wore out and forgot about."

"Yes, indeed, hit will that, Sister Griever," her listener assented, a good deal impressed. "Is these sorter round things – "

"Them's the loaves an' fishes," Roxy hastened to elucidate. "They ain't so very well done, ye see. I was a-workin' on them when I hearn that Granny Yearwood was about to go, an' I hurried 'em up, 'caze I'd promised her that I'd spread the quilt over her when she was laid out. You he'p me with it now, Miz. Gentry, and we'll fold it back this-a-way so as not to show the part that ain't done."

"Laws, Miz. Griever," said Octavia, as the great square, with its many small, gaily colored figures, whipped laboriously into place, was spread out between their hands, "I don't see how you ever did think of all them things."

"I reckon it comes from havin' a preacher for a mate," returned Roxy. "Mr. Griever, he was always a cotin' scriptur' round the house, and now he's gone I remember his words – and put 'em down on the quilt, as a body may say. I love to have it by me to work on in time of trouble, an' I love to put it on the bed if a preacher sleeps the night at our house. Looks like a body ought to have good dreams un'neath the gospel that-a-way. Thar, ain't that fixed all right now? Cain't we leave here? I 'low them young folks out in the other room might need attention."

Octavia glanced through the slightly open door and saw that Lance and Callista had gone into the kitchen alone to look after the supper. They were talking together, and the mother noted hopefully that neither of them was laughing, and that the girl's color had risen, while her eyes looked troubled.

"Law honey," she said smiling, "sho'ly they can manage for theirselves one while. I'm plumb tired, an' I know good an' well you air. Le's sit here a spell whar it's cool an' quiet, an' have a little visit."

This was a sort of invitation which Roxy Griever could not refuse, and the courting couples were spared her surveillance for a little longer.

"Callista," Lance began abruptly, when they were out of earshot of those in the front room, "I raised the roof-beams of my cabin to-day – two big rooms and a porch between, with a cooking place for summer. Ain't that about right?"

Callista looked toward the other room uneasily. She had no audience now – how should she act, how demean herself so as to seem indifferent? Lance's undecipherable, clear hazel eyes were on her; they rested carelessly in what seemed a passing glance; yet at the back of that regard looked out a demand which she could scarcely comprehend.

"I – I don't know," she faltered. "Lance, won't you please lift that there coffee off o' the fire? It's boiled enough."

Lance bent lithely to the hearth and did her bidding.

"I've got me two horses now," he said in the same even undertone. "I matched Satan with a little black filly that Derf brought over from the Far Cove neighborhood. They're jest of a size, and they step together like a couple of gals with their arms around each other's waists. Derf said the filly was named Cindy; but I call her Sin – how do you like that? – Satan and Sin?"

"Well, I think it sounds right wicked, if you ask me," Callista plucked up courage to say. "But I don't reckon you care whether I like it or not."

Lance shook his head and smiled.

"Nope," he agreed easily. Then he added, "Havin' two horses helps out a good deal. I've been doing haulin' on Derf's contract. I'll have a right smart of money left, even after my house is all done. There'll be a-plenty laid up by next spring; and I'm goin' to put in the winter clearing land. I reckon we'll be good ready by April."

By April! A sweet perturbation took possession of Callista's breast. She dared not raise her eyes lest he should read in them what she yet jealously sought to conceal. He was not like the other boys; with all the raillery and badinage that went on between them – famous in their circle; with all the unusual parade, in the open play of courtship, he had never really approached her as a lover, never laid his hand on her in tenderness, nor offered her a caress, save as a public, saucy threat. Nor had he asked for her, as the mountain phrase goes; but surely now he meant her to understand that he expected to be married in the spring. If only he would ask her – if only! She had always meant – if she dared – to refuse him – at least the first time; to reluctantly give in under repeated importunities – but that was past. With her heart beating in her throat, she made shift to say,

"I hope you'll be better to your horses than most of the men that hauls. I do love a good horse."

"You goin' to ride with me to the buryin' tomorrow?" Lance inquired casually. "If you want to, we could leave the buryin' ground after the funeral's over and go up Lance's Laurel, to my place, and on round to your home the long way. I could show you whether I was good to my horses or not."

The color glowed softly in Callista's cheeks and her veiled eyes were bright. But before she could say yes or no, the Widow Griever came in.

"Good land, Lance Cleaverage!" she began on her usual formula. "Why hain't you bidden out all them folks in thar? This here coffee's done, an' a-gittin' cold. The biscuits ain't no better. They got to eat now, 'caze I want 'em to sing a good wake of hymns – I promised Granny I'd tend to pickin' 'em out."

With a grimace of good-natured acquiescence, Lance went to execute his sister's orders. Out on the porch a half-dozen young boys had succumbed to drowsiness, one by one, stretched on the boards, taking elbow or saddle for a pillow. The crickets and katydids were loud in the grove. Lance passed through the front rooms, speaking to the couples there, and called in those outside. The supper of good warm food, and hot, strong coffee was eaten gratefully. Then all went into the front room and the hymns were sung. Finally the up-sitting was over, and Callista had made no opportunity for further speech with Lance. He had not sought one, and chance had not offered it. She regretted a little that she really wanted so much to ride at his side to-morrow. If she did not, she would quite enjoy treating that cavalier invitation as though she had never heard it. But the very thought brought a quick apprehension of failure, and she resolved to be ready and waiting, so that she might seem to be carelessly picked up at the last moment, lest Lance himself anticipate her in this game of indifference.