The Copperhead Read online

  CHAPTER II

  JEFF'S MUTINY

  The farmer came in from the fields somewhat earlier than usual on thisAugust afternoon. He walked, I remember, with a heavy step and bowedhead, and, when he had come into the shade on the porch and taken offhis hat, looked about him with a wearied air. The great heat, withits motionless atmosphere and sultry closeness, had well-nigh wiltedeverybody. But one could see that Abner was suffering more than therest, and from something beyond the enervation of dog-days.

  He sank weightily into the arm-chair by the desk, and stretched out hislegs with a querulous note in his accustomed grunt of relief. On themoment Mrs. Beech came in from the kitchen, with the big china washbowlfilled with cold water, and the towel and clean socks over her arm, andknelt before her husband. She proceeded to pull off his big, dust-bakedboots and the woollen foot-gear, put his feet into the bowl, bathe anddry them, and draw on the fresh covering, all without a word.

  The ceremony was one I had watched many hundreds of times. Mrs. Beechwas a tall, dark, silent woman, whom I could well believe to have beenhandsome in her youth. She belonged to one of the old Mohawk-Dutchfamilies, and when some of her sisters came to visit at the farm Inoted that they too were all dusky as squaws, with jet-black shinycurls and eyes like the midnight hawk. I used always to be afraid ofthem on this account, but I dare say they were in reality most kindlywomen. Mrs. Beech herself represented to my boyish eyes the ideal of asaturnine and masterful queen. She performed great quantities of workwith no apparent effort--as if she had merely willed it to be done. Herhousehold was governed with a cold impassive exactitude; there werenever any hitches, or even high words. The hired-girls, of course,called her "M'rye," as the rest of us mostly did, but they rarelycarried familiarity further, and as a rule respected her dislike formuch talk. During all the years I spent under her roof I was neverclear in my mind as to whether she liked me or not. Her own son, even,passed his boyhood in much the same state of dubiety.

  But to her husband, Abner Beech, she was always most affectionatelydocile and humble. Her snapping black eyes followed him about andrested on him with an almost canine fidelity of liking. She spoke tohim habitually in a voice quite different from that which others heardaddressed to them. This, indeed, was measurably true of us all. Byinstinct the whole household deferred in tone and manner to our big,bearded chief, as if he were an Arab sheik ruling over us in a tenton the desert. The word "patriarch" still seems best to describe him,and his attitude toward us and the world in general, as I recall himsitting there in the half-darkened living-room, with his wife bendingover his feet in true Oriental submission.

  "Do you know where Jeff is?" the farmer suddenly asked, without turninghis head to where I sat braiding a whiplash, but indicating by thevolume of voice that his query was put to me.

  "He went off about two o'clock," I replied, "with his fish-pole. Theysay they are biting like everything down in the creek."

  "Well, you keep to work and they won't bite you," said Abner Beech.This was a very old joke with him, and usually the opportunity of usingit once more tended to lighten his mood. Now, though mere force ofhabit led him to repeat the pleasantry, he had no pleasure in it. Hesat with his head bent, and his huge hairy hands spread listlessly onthe chair-arms.

  Mrs. Beech finished her task, and rose, lifting the bowl from thefloor. She paused, and looked wistfully into her husband's face.

  "You ain't a bit well, Abner!" she said.

  "Well as I'm likely ever to be again," he made answer, gloomily.

  "Has any more of 'em been sayin' or doin' anything?" the wife asked,with diffident hesitation.

  The farmer spoke with more animation. "D'ye suppose I care a picayunewhat _they_ say or do?" he demanded. "Not I! But when a man's ownkith and kin turn agin him, into the bargain--" he left the sentenceunfinished, and shook his head to indicate the impossibility of such asituation.

  "Has Jeff--then--" Mrs. Beech began to ask.

  "Yes--Jeff!" thundered the farmer, striking his fist on the arm of thechair. "Yes--by the Eternal!--Jeff!"

  When Abner Beech swore by the Eternal we knew that things were prettybad. His wife put the bowl down on a chair, and seated herself inanother. "What's Jeff been doin'?" she asked.

  "Why, where d'ye suppose he was last night, 'n' the night before that?Where d'ye suppose he is this minute? They ain't no mistake about it,Lee Watkins saw 'em with his own eyes, and ta'nted me with it. He'sdown by the red bridge--that's where he is--hangin' round that Hagadorngal!"

  Mrs. Beech looked properly aghast at the intelligence. Even to me itwas apparent that the unhappy Jeff might better have been employed incommitting any other crime under the sun. It was only to be expectedthat his mother would be horrified.

  "I never could abide that Lee Watkins," was what she said.

  The farmer did not comment on the relevancy of this. "Yes," he wenton, "the daughter of mine enemy, the child of that whining, backbitingold scoundrel who's been eating his way into me like a deer-tick foryears--the whelp that I owe every mean and miserable thing that's everhappened to me--yes, of all living human creatures, by the Eternal! it's_his_ daughter that that blamed fool of a Jeff must take a shine to,and hang around after!"

  "He'll come of age the fourteenth of next month," remarked the mother,tentatively.

  "Yes--and march up and vote the Woolly-head ticket. I suppose that'swhat'll come next!" said the farmer, bitterly. "It only needed that!"

  "And it was you who got her the job of teachin' the school, too," putin Mrs. Beech.

  "That's nothing to do with it," Abner continued. "I ain't blamin'her--that is, on her own account. She's a good enough gal so far's Iknow. But everything and everybody under that tumble-down Hagadorn roofought to be pizen to any son of mine! _That's_ what I say! And I tellyou this, mother"--the farmer rose, and spread his broad chest, toweringover the seated woman as he spoke--"I tell you this; if he ain't gotpride enough to keep him away from that house--away from that gal--thenhe can keep away from _this_ house--away from me!"

  The wife looked up at him mutely, then bowed her head in tacit consent.

  "He brings it on himself!" Abner cried, with clenched fists, beginningto pace up and down the room. "Who's the one man I've reason to cursewith my dying breath? Who began the infernal Abolition cackle here?Who drove me out of the church? Who started that outrageous lie aboutthe milk at the factory, and chased me out of that, too? Who's beena layin' for years behind every stump and every bush, waitin' forthe chance to stab me in the back, an' ruin my business, an' set myneighbors agin me, an' land me an' mine in the poorhouse or the lockup?You know as well as I do--'Jee' Hagadorn! If I'd wrung his scrawnylittle neck for him the first time I ever laid eyes on him, it 'd 'a'been money in my pocket and years added onto my life. And then myson--_my_ son! must go taggin' around--oh-h!"

  He ended with an inarticulate growl of impatience and wrath.

  "Mebbe, if you spoke to the boy--" Mrs. Beech began.

  "Yes, I'll speak to him!" the farmer burst forth, with grim emphasis."I'll speak to him so't he'll hear!" He turned abruptly to me. "Here,boy," he said, "you go down the creek-road an' look for Jeff. If heain't loafin' round the school-house he'll be in the neighborhood ofHagadorn's. You tell him I say for him to get back here as quick as hecan. You needn't tell him what it's about. Pick up your feet, now!"

  As luck would have it, I had scarcely got out to the road before Iheard the loose-spoked wheels of the local butcher's wagon rattlingbehind me down the hill. Looking round, I saw through the accompanyingpuffs of dust that young "Ni" Hagadorn was driving, and that he wasalone. I stopped and waited for him to come up, questioning my mindwhether it would be fair to beg a lift from him, when the purpose of myjourney was so hostile to his family. Even after he had halted, and Ihad climbed up to the seat beside him, this consciousness of treacherydisturbed me.

  But no one thought long of being serious with "Ni." He was along inthe teens somewhere, not large for his years but extremely wiry an
dmuscular, and the funniest boy any of us ever knew of. How the son ofsuch a sad-faced, gloomy, old licensed exhorter as "Jee" Hagadorn couldbe such a running spring of jokes and odd sayings and general deviltryas "Ni," passed all our understandings. His very face made you laugh,with its wilderness of freckles, its snub nose, and the comical curl toits mouth. He must have been a profitable investment to the butcher whohired him to drive about the country. The farmers' wives all came outto laugh and chat with him, and under the influence of his good spiritsthey went on buying the toughest steaks and bull-beef flanks, at morethan city prices, year after year. But anybody who thought "Ni" wassoft because he was full of fun made a great mistake.

  "I see you ain't doin' much ditchin' this year," "Ni" remarked,glancing over our fields as he started up the horse. "I should thinkyou'd be tickled to death."

  Well, in one sense I was glad. There used to be no other suchback-aching work in all the year as that picking up of stones to fillinto the trenches which the hired men began digging as soon as thehay and grain were in. But on the other hand, I knew that the presentidleness meant--as everything else now seemed to mean--that the Beechfarm was going to the dogs.

  "No," I made rueful answer. "Our land don't need drainin' any more.It's dry as a powder-horn now."

  "Ni" clucked knowingly at the old horse. "Guess it's Abner that can'tstand much more drainin'," he said. "They say he's looking all roundfor a mortgage, and can't raise one."

  "No such thing!" I replied. "His health's poorly this summer, that'sall. And Jeff--he dont seem to take hold, somehow, like he used to."

  My companion laughed outright. "Mustn't call him Jeff any more," heremarked with a grin. "He was telling us down at the house that he wasgoing to have people call him Tom after this. He can't stand answerin'to the same name as Jeff Davis," he says.

  "I suppose you folks put him up to that," I made bold to comment,indignantly.

  The suggestion did not annoy "Ni." "Mebbe so," he said. "You know Dadlots a good deal on names. He's down-right mortified that I don't getup and kill people because my name's Benaiah. 'Why,' he keeps on sayingto me, 'Here you are, Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, as it was in HolyWrit, and instid of preparin' to make ready to go out and fall on theenemies of righteousness, like your namesake did, all you do is readdime novels and cut up monkey-shines generally, for all the world as ifyou'd been named Pete or Steve or William Henry.' That's what he givesme pretty nearly every day."

  I was familiar enough with the quaint mysticism which the oldAbolitionist cooper wove around the Scriptural names of himself and hisson. We understood that these two appellations had alternated among hisancestors as well, and I had often heard him read from Samuel and Kingsand Chronicles about them, his stiff red hair standing upright, and theblue veins swelling on his narrow temples with proud excitement. Butthat, of course, was in the old days, before the trouble came, and whenI still went to church. To hear it all now again seemed to give me anovel impression of wild fanaticism in "Jee" Hagadorn.

  His son was chuckling on his seat over something he had justremembered. "Last time," he began, gurgling with laughter--"last time hewent for me because I wasn't measurin' up to his idee of what a Benaiahought to be like, I up an' said to him, 'Look a-here now, people wholive in glass houses mustn't heave rocks. If I'm Benaiah, you'reJehoiada. Well, it says in the Bible that Jehoiada made a covenant. Doyou make cove-nants? Not a bit of it! all you make is butter firkins,with now an' then an odd pork barrel.'"

  "What did he say to that?" I asked, as my companion's merriment abated.

  "Well, I come away just then; I seemed to have business outside,"replied "Ni," still grinning.

  We had reached the Corners now, and my companion obligingly drew up tolet me get down. He called out some merry quip or other as he droveoff, framed in a haze of golden dust against the sinking sun, and Istood looking after him with the pleasantest thoughts my mind hadknown for days. It was almost a shock to remember that he was one ofthe abhorrent and hated Hagadorns.

  And his sister, too. It was not at all easy to keep one's loathingup to the proper pitch where so nice a girl as Esther Hagadorn wasits object. She was years and years my senior--she was even older than"Ni"--and had been my teacher for the past two winters. She had neverspoken to me save across that yawning gulf which separates littlebarefooted urchins from tall young women, with long dresses and theirhair done up in a net, and I could hardly be said to know her at all.Yet now, perversely enough, I could think of nothing but her manifestsuperiority to all the farm girls round about. She had been to a schoolin some remote city, where she had relations. Her hands were fabulouslywhite, and even on the hottest of days her dresses rustled pleasantlywith starched primness. People talked about her singing at church assomething remarkable; to my mind, the real music was when she justspoke to you, even if it was no more than "Good-morning, Jimmy!"

  I clambered up on the window-sill of the school-house, to make surethere was no one inside, and then set off down the creek-road towardthe red or lower bridge. Milking-time was about over, and one or twoteams passed me on the way to the cheese-factory, the handles of thecans rattling as they went, and the low sun throwing huge shadows ofdrivers and horses sprawling eastward over the stubble-field. I cutacross lots to avoid the cheese-factory itself, with some vague feelingthat it was not a fitting spectacle for anyone who lived on the Beechfarm.

  A few moments brought me to the bank of the wandering stream belowthe factory, but so near that I could hear the creaking of the chaindrawing up the cans over the tackle, or as we called it, the "teekle."The willows under which I walked stretched without a break from theclump by the factory bridge. And now, low and behold! beneath stillother of these willows, farther down the stream, whom should I seestrolling together but my school-teacher and the delinquent Jeff!

  Young Beech bore still the fish-pole I had seen him take from our shedsome hours earlier, but the line twisted round it was very white anddry. He was extremely close to the girl, and kept his head bent downover her as they sauntered along the meadow-path. They seemed not tobe talking, but just idly drifting forward like the deep slow waterbeside them. I had never realized before how tall Jeff was. Though theschool-ma'am always seemed to me of an exceeding stature, here was Jeffrounding his shoulders and inclining his neck in order to look underher broad-brimmed Leghorn hat.

  There could be no imaginable excuse for my not overtaking them.Instinct prompted me to start up a whistling tune as I advanced--acasual and indolently unobtrusive tune--at sound of which Jeffstraightened himself, and gave his companion a little more room on thepath. In a moment or two he stopped, and looked intently over the bankinto the water, as if he hoped it might turn out to be a likely placefor fish. And the school-ma'am, too, after a few aimless steps, haltedto help him look.

  "Abner wants you to come right straight home!" was the form in which mymessage delivered itself when I had come close up to them.

  They both shifted their gaze from the sluggish stream below to me uponthe instant. Then Esther Hagadorn looked away, but Jeff--good, big,honest Jeff, who had been like a fond elder brother to me since I couldremember--knitted his brows and regarded me with something like a scowl.

  "Did pa send you to say that?" he demanded, holding my eye with aglance of such stern inquiry that I could only nod my head in confusion.

  "An' he knew that you'd find me here, did he?"

  "He said either at the school-house or around here somewhere," Iadmitted, weakly.

  "An' there ain't nothin' the matter at the farm? He don't want me fornothin' special?" pursued Jeff, still looking me through and through.

  "He didn't say," I made hesitating answer, but for the life of me, Icould not keep from throwing a tell-tale look in the direction of hiscompanion in the blue gingham dress.

  A wink could not have told Jeff more. He gave a little bitter laugh,and stared above my head at the willow-plumes for a minute'smeditation. Then he tossed his fish-pole over to me and laughed again.

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p; "Keep that for yourself, if you want it," he said, in a voice not quitehis own, but robustly enough. "I sha'n't need it any more. Tell pa Iain't a-comin'!"

  "Oh, Tom!" Esther broke in, anxiously, "would you do that?"

  He held up his hand with a quiet, masterful gesture, as if she werethe pupil and he the teacher, "Tell him," he went on, the tone fallingnow strong and true, "tell him and ma that I'm goin' to Tecumsehto-night to enlist. If they're willin' to say good-by, they can let meknow there, and I'll manage to slip back for the day. If they ain'twillin'--why, they--they needn't send word; that's all."

  Esther had come up to him, and held his arm now in hers.

  "You're wrong to leave them like that!" she pleaded, earnestly, butJeff shook his head.

  "You don't know him!" was all he said.

  In another minute I had shaken hands with Jeff, and had started onmy homeward way, with his parting "Good-by, youngster!" benumbingmy ears. When, after a while, I turned to look back, they were stillstanding where I had left them, gazing over the bank into the water.

  Then, as I trudged onward once more, I began to quake at the thought ofhow Farmer Beech would take the news.