The power and the glory

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THE POWER AND THE GLORY

"YES, I'M A-GOING TO GET A CHANCE TO WORK RIGHT
AWAY," SHE SMILED UP AT HIM

The Power
and the Glory

By
Grace MacGowan Cooke

Author of

"Mistress Joy," "Return," " Huldah," "Grapple,"
" Their First Formal Call," etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR I. KELLER

New York

Doubleday, Page & Company
1910

ALL SIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

COPYRIGHT, igOQ, IQIO, BY THE BUTTERICK PUBLISHING COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, iglO, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE t COMPANY
PUBLISHED, AUGUST, IQIO

TO HELEN

2075550

CONTENTS

I. THE BIRTH OF A WOMAN-CHILD . . 3

II. THE BIRTH OF AN AMBITION . . 12

III. A PEAK. IN DARIEN 25

IV. OF THE USE OF FEET 36

V. THE MOCCASIN FLOWER .... 52

VI. WEAVERS AND WEFT 65

VII. ABOVE THE VALLEY 76

VIII. OF THE USE OF WINGS 94

IX. A BIT OF METAL no

X. THE SANDALS OF JOY 135

XI. THE NEW BOARDER 155

XII. THE CONTENTS OF A BANDANNA . . 166

XIII. A PATIENT FOR THE HOSPITAL . . 175

XIV. WEDDING BELLS 188

XV. THE FEET OF THE CHILDREN . . . 200

XVI. BITTER WATERS 217

XVII. A VICTIM 241

XVIII. LIGHT 256

vi CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XIX. A PACT 269

XX. MISSING 276

XXI. THE SEARCH 287

XXII. THE ATLAS VERTEBRA 303

XXIII. A CLUE . . . 318

XXIV. THE RESCUE 335

XXV. THE FUTURE 358

ILLUSTRATIONS

Yes, I'm a-going to get a chance to work

right away," she smiled up at him . Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

He loomed above them, white and shaking.
"You thieves!" he roared. "Give me my
bandanner! Give me Johnnie's silver
mine!" 172

"Lost — gone! My God, Mother — it's three

days and three nights!" .... 294

The car was already leaping down the hill at a

tremendous pace 346

CHAPTER I

THE BIRTH OF A WOMAN-CHILD

WHOSE cradle's that?" the sick woman's thin
querulous tones arrested the man at the
threshold.

"Onie Dillard's," he replied hollowly from the
depths of the crib which he carried upside down upon
his head, like some curious kind of overgrown helmet.

"Now, why in the name o' common sense would
ye go and borry a broken cradle?" came the wail
from the bed. "I 'lowed you'd git Billy Spinner's,
an' hit's as good as new."

Uncle Pros set the small article of furniture down
gently.

" Don't you worry yo'se'f, Laurelly," he said enthusi
astically. Pros Passmore, uncle of the sick woman
and mainstay of the forlorn little Consadine household,
was always full of enthusiasm. '* Just a few nails and
a little wrappin' of twine'll make it all right," he
informed his niece. "I stopped a-past and borried
the nails and the hammer from Jeff Dawes; I mighty
nigh pounded my thumb off knockin' in nails with a
rock an' a sad-iron last week."

"Looks like nobody ain't got no sense," returned
Laurella Consadine ungratefully. "Even you, Unc'

3

4 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Pros — while you borryin' why cain't ye borry whole
things that don't need mendin' ?"

Out of the shadows that hoarded the further end
of the room came a woman with a little bundle in her
arm which had evidently created the necessity for the
borrowed cradle.

"Laurelly," the nurse hesitated, "I wouldn't name
it to ye whilst ye was a-sufferin/ but I jest cain't find
the baby's clothes nowhars. I've done washed the
little trick and wrapped her in my flannen petticoat.
I do despise to put anything on 'em that anybody else
has wore — hit don't seem right. But I've been plumb
through everything, an' cain't find none of her coats.
Whar did you put 'em ?"

"I didn't have no luck borryin' for this one,"
complained the sick woman fretfully. "Looks like
everybody's got that mean that they wouldn't lend me
a rag — an* the Lord knows I only ast a wearin' of the
clothes for my chillen. Folks can make shore that
I return what I borry — ef the Lord lets me."

"Ain't they nothin' to put on the baby?" asked
Mavity Bence, aghast.

"No. Hit's jest like I been tellin* ye. I went to
Tarver's wife — she's got a plenty. I knowed in
reason she'd have baby clothes that she couldn't expect
to wear out on her own chillen. I said as much to
her, when she told me she was liable to need 'em befo'
I did. I says, 'Ye cain't need more'n half of 'em, I
reckon, an' half'll do me, an' I'll return 'em to ye when
I'm done with 'em.' She acted jest as selfish — said

THE BIRTH OF A WOMAN-CHILD 5

she'd like to know how I was goin' to inshore her that
it wouldn't be twins agin same as 'twas before. Some
folks is powerful mean an* suspicious."

All this time the nurse had been standing with the
quiet small packet which was the storm centre of
preparation lying like a cocoon or a giant seed-pod
against her bosom.

"She's a mighty likely little gal," said she finally.
" Have ye any hopes o' gittin' anything to put on her ?"

The woman in the bed — she was scarcely more
than a girl, with shining dark eyes and a profusion of
jetty ringlets about her elfish, pretty little face -
seemed to feel that this speech was in the nature of
a reproach. She hastened to detail her further activ
ities on behalf of the newcomer.

"Consadine's a poor provider," she said plaintively,
alluding to her absent husband. "Maw said to me
when I would have him that he was a poor provider;
and then he's got into this here way of goin' off like.
Time things gets too bad here at home he's got a big
scheme up for makin' his fortune somewhars else, and
out he puts. He 'lowed he'd be home with a plenty
before the baby come. But thar — he's the best man
that ever was, when he's here, and I have no wish to
miscall him. I reckon he thought I could borry what
I'd need. Biney Meal lent me enough for the little un
that died; but of course some o' the coats was buried
with the child; and what was left, Sis' Elvira borried
for her baby. I was layin' off to go over to the Deep
Spring neighbourhood when I could git a lift in that

6 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

direction — the folks over yon is mighty accommoda
tive," she concluded, "but I was took sooner than I
expected, and hyer we air without a stitch. I've done
sont Bud an' Honey to Mandy Ann Foncher's -
mebby they'll bring in somethinV

The little cabin shrank back against the steep side
of the mountain as though half terrified at the hollow
immensity of the welkin above, or the almost sheer
drop to the valley five hundred feet beneath. A sidling
mountain trail passed the front of its rail fence, and
stones continually rolled from the upper to the lower
side of this highway.

The day was darkening rapidly. A low line of red
still burned behind the massive bulk of Big Unaka,
and the solemn purple mountains raised their peaks
against it in a jagged line. Within the single-roomed
cabin the rich, broken light from the cavernous fire
place filled the smoke-browned interior full of shadow
and shine in which things leaped oddly into life, or
dropped out of knowledge with a startling effect.
The four corners of the log room were utilized, three
of them for beds, made by thrusting two poles through
auger holes bored in the logs of the walls, setting a leg
at the corner where these met and lacing the bottom
with hickory withes. The fourth had some rude
planks nailed in it for a table, and a knot-hole in one
of the logs served the primitive purpose of a salt-cellar.
A pack of gaunt hounds quarrelled under the floor,
and the sick woman stirred uneasily on her bed and
expressed a wish that her emissaries would return.

THE BIRTH OF A WOMAN-CHILD 7

Uncle Pros had taken the cradle to a back door to
get the last of the evening sun upon his task. One
would not have thought that he could hear what the
women were saying at this distance, but the old hunter's
ears were sharp.

"Never you mind, Laurelly," he called cheerfully.
"Wrop the baby up some tashion, and I'll hike out
and get clothes for her, time I mend this cradle."

" Ef that ain't just like Unc' Pros ! " And the girlish
mother laughed out suddenly. You saw the gypsy
beauty of her face. "He ain't content with borryin'
men's truck, but thinks he can turn in an' borry coats
'mongst the women. Well, I reckon he might have
better luck than what I did."

As she spoke a small boy and girl, her dead brother's
children, came clattering in from the purple mysteries
of dusk outside, hand clasped in hand, and stopped
close to the bed, staring.

"Mandy Ann, she wouldn't lend us a thing," Bud
began in an aggrieved tone. " I traded for this — chop
ped wood for it — and hit was all she would give me."
He laid a coarse little garment upon the ragged coverlet.

"That!" cried Laurella Passmore, taking it up with
angrily tremulous fingers. "My child shain't wear no
sech. Hit ain't fittin' for my baby to put on. Oh, I
wisht I could git up from here and do about; I'd git
somethin' for her to wear!"

"Son," said Mrs. Bence, approaching the bedside,
"air ye afeared to go over as far as my house
right now ? "

8 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

" I ain't skeered ef Honey'll go with me," returned
the boy doubtfully, as he interrogated the twilit spaces
beyond the open cabin door.

"Well, you go ask Pap to look in the green chist
and send me the spotted caliker poke that he'll find
under the big bun'le. Don't you let him give you that
thar big bun'le; 'caze that's not a thing but seed corn,
and he'll be mad ef it's tetched. Tell Pap that what's
in the spotted poke ain't nothin' that he wants. Tell
him it's — well, tell him to look at it before he gives it
to you."

The two little souls scuttled away into the gathering
dark, and the neighbour woman sat down by the fire
to nurse the baby and croon and await the clothing
for which she had sent.

She was not an old woman, but already stiff and
misshapen by toil and the lack of that saving salt of
pride, the stimulation of joy, which keeps us erect and
supple. Her broad back was bent; her hands as they
shifted the infant tenderly were knotted and work-
worn. Mavity Bence was a w7idow, living at home
with her father, Gideon Himes; she had one child left,
a daughter; but the clothing for which she had sent
wras an outfit made for a son, the posthumous off
spring of his father; and the babe had not lived long
enough to wear it.

Outside, Uncle Pros began to sing at his work. He
had a fluty old tenor voice, and he put in turns and
quavers that no ear not of the mountains could possibly
follow and fix. First it was a hymn, all abrupt, odd,

THE BIRTH OF A WOMAN-CHILD 9

minor cadences and monotonous refrain. Then he
shifted to a ballad — and the mountains are full of old
ballads of Scotland and England, come down from the
time of the first settlers, and with local names quaintly
substituted for the originals here and there.

" She's gwine to walk in a silken gownd,
An' ha'e plenty o' siller for to spare,"

chanted the old man above the little bed he was
repairing.

"Who's that you're a-namin' that's a-goin' to have
silk dresses?" inquired Laurella, as he entered and
set the mended cradle down by the bedside.

"The baby," he returned. "Ef I find my silver
mine — or ruther when I find my silver mine, for you
know in reason with the directions Pap's Grandpap
left, and that word from Great Uncle Billy that helped
the Injuns- work it, I'm bound to run the thing down
one o' these days — when I find my silver mine this here
little gal's a-goin' to have everything she wants -
ain't ye, Pretty?"

And, having made a bed in the cradle from some
folded covers, he lifted the baby with strange deftness
and placed it in.

"See thar," he called their attention proudly. "As
good as new. And ef I git time I'm a-goin' to give it
a few licks o' paint."

Hands on knees, he bent to study the face of the
new-born, that countenance so ambiguous to our eyes,
scarce stamped yet with the common seal of humanity.

io THE POWER AND THE GLORY

"She's a mighty pretty little gal," he repeated
Mavity Bence's words. "She's got the Passmore
favour, as well as the Consadine. Reckon I better be
steppin' over to Vander's and see can I borry their
cow. If it's with you this time like it was with the
last one, we'll have to have a cow. I always thought
if we'd had a fresh cow for that other one, hit would
'a' lived. I know in reason Vander'll lend the cow
for a spell" -Uncle Pros always had unbounded
confidence in the good will of his neighbours toward
himself, since his own generosity to them would have
been fathomless - "I know in reason he'll lend hit,
'caze they ain't got no baby to their house."

He bestowed one more proud, fond look upon the
little face in the borrowed cradle, and walked out with
as elated a step as though a queen had been born to
the tribe.

In the doorway he met Bud and Hone}*, returning
with the spotted calico poke clutched fast between them.

"I won't ask nothin' but a wearin' of em for my
child," Laurella Consadine, born Laurella Passmore,
reiterated when the small garments were laid out on
the bed, and the baby was being dressed. "They're
mighty fine, Mavity, an' I'll take good keer of 'em and
always bear in mind that they're only borried."

"No," returned Mavity Bence, with unwonted
firmness, as she put the newcomer into the slip intended
for her own son. "No, Laurelly, these clothes ain't
loaned to you. I give 'em to this child. I'm a widder,
and I never look to wed again, becaze Pap he has to

THE BIRTH OF A WOMAN-CHILD n

have somebody to do for him, an' he'd just about tear
up the ground if I was to name sech a thing. I'm
mighty glad to give 'em to yo' little gal. I only wisht,"
she said wistfully, "that hit was a boy. Ef hit was a
boy, mebbe you'd give hit the name that should 'a'
went with the clothes. I was a-goin' to call the baby
John after hit's pappy."

Laurella Consadine lay quiescent for a moment,
big black eyes studying the smoky logs that raftered
the roof. Then all at once she laughed, with a flash
of white teeth.

"I don't see why Johnnie ain't a mighty fine name
for a gal," she said. "I vow I'm a-goin' to name her
Johnnie!"

And so this one of the tribe of borrowing Passmores
wore her own clothing from the first. No borrowed
garment touched her. She rejected the milk from the
borrowed ' cow, fiercely; lustily she demanded — and
eventually received — her own legitimate, unborrowed
sustenance.

Perhaps such a beginning had its own influence
upon her future.

CHAPTER II

THE BIRTH OF AN AMBITION

A,L day the girl had walked steadily, her bare
feet comforted by the warm dust, shunning the
pebbles, never finding sharp stones in the way,
making friends with the path — that would always be
Johnnie. From the little high-hung valley in the
remote fastnesses of the Unakas where she was born,
Johnnie Consadine was walking down to Cottonville,
the factory town on the outskirts of Watauga, to find
work. Sometimes the road wound a little upward
for a quarter of a mile or so; but the general tendency
was persistently down.

In the gray dawn of Sunday morning she had stepped
from the door of that room where the three beds
occupied three corners, and a rude table was rigged in
the fourth. It might almost seem that the same
hounds were quarrelling under the floor that had
scrambled there eighteen years before when she was
born. At first the way was entirely familiar to her.
It passed few habitations, and of those the dwellers
were not yet abroad, since it was scarce day. As time
went on she got to the little settlement at the foot of
the first mountain, and had to explain to everybody
her destination and ambition. Beyond this, she

THE BIRTH OF AN AMBITION 13

stopped occasionally for direction, she met more people;
yet she was still in the heart of the mountains when
noon found her, and she crept up a wayside bank and
sat down alone to eat her bite of corn pone.

Guided by the instinct — or the wood-craft — of the
mountain born and bred, she had sought out one of the
hermit springs of beautiful freestone water that hide
in these solitudes. When she had slaked her thirst at
its little ice-cold chalice, she raised her head with a
low exclamation of rapture. There, growing and
blowing beside the cool thread of water which trickled
from the spring, was a stately pink moccasin flower.
She knelt and gazed at it with folded hands, as one
before a shrine.

What is it in the sweeping dignity of these pointed,
oval, parallel-veined leaves, sheathed one within
another, the clean column of the bloom stalk rising a
foot and a half perhaps above, and at its tip the wonder
ful pink, dreaming Buddha of the forest, that so com
mands the heart ? It was not entirely the beauty of
the softly glowing orchid that charmed Johnnie Consa-
dine's eyes; it was the significance of the flower.
Somehow the finding this rare, shy thing decking her
path toward labour and enterprise spoke to her soul
of success. For a long time she knelt, her bright
uncovered head dappled by a ray of sunlight which
filtered through the deep, cool green above her, her
face bent, her eyes brooding, as though she prayed.
When she had finished her dinner of corn pone and
fried pork, she rose and parted with almost reverent

i4 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

fingers the pink wonder from its stalk, sought out a
coarse, clean handkerchief from her bundle and, steep
ing it in the icy water of the spring, lapped it around
her treasure. Not often in her eighteen summers
had she found so fine a specimen. Then she took up
her journey, comforted and strangely elated.

"Looks like it was waiting right there to tell me
howdy," she murmured to herself.

The keynote of Johnnie Consadine's character
was aspiration. In her cabin home the wings of
desire were clipped, because she must needs put her
passionate young soul into the longing for food, to
quiet the cravings of a healthy stomach, which gen
erally clamoured from one blackberry season to the
other; the longing for shoes, when her feet were frost
bitten; the yet more urgent wish to feed the little ones
she loved; the pressing demand, when the water-bucket
gave out and they had to pack water in a tin tomato
can with a string bail; the dull ache of mortification
when she became old enough to understand their
position as the borrowing Passmores. Yet all human
desire is sacred, and of God; to desire — to want -
to aspire — thus shall the individual be saved; and
surely in this is the salvation of the race. And Johnnie
felt vaguely that at last she was going out into a world
where she should learn what to desire and how to
desire it.

Now as she tramped she was conning over her
present plans. Again she saw the cabin at home in
that pitchy black which precedes the first leavening of

THE BIRTH OF AN AMBITION 15

dawn, and herself getting up to start early on the
long walk. Her mother would get up too, and that
was foolish. She saw the slight figure stooping to
rake together the embers in the broad chimney's throat
that the coffee-pot might be set on. She remonstrated
with the little mother, saying that she aimed not to
disturb anybody — not even Uncle Pros.

"Uncle Pros!" Laurella echoed from the hearth
stone, where she sat on her heels, like a little girl play
ing at mud-pies. Johnnie smiled at the memory of
how her mother laughed over the suggestion, with a
drawing of slant brows above big, tragic dark eyes, a
look of suffering from the mirth which adds the crown
to joyousness. "Your Uncle Pros he got a revelation
'long 'bout midnight as to just whar that thar silver
mine is that's been dodgin' him for more'n forty year.
He come a-shakin' me by the shoulder — like I reckon
he's done fifty times ef he's done it once — and telling
me that he's off to make all our fortunes inside of a
week. He said if you still would go down to that thar
old fool cotton mill and hire out, to name it to you that
Shade Buckheath would stand some watchin'. Your
Uncle Pros has got sense — in streaks. Why in the
world you'll pike out and go to work in a cotton mill
is more than I can cipher."

"To take care of you and the children," the girl
had said, standing tall and straight, deep-bosomed and
red-lipped, laughing back at her little mother. "Some
body's got to take care of you-all, and I just love to
be the one."

1 6 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Laurella Consadine, commonly called in mountain
fashion by her maiden name of Laurella Passmore,
scrambled to her feet and tossed the dark curls out
of her eyes.

" Aw — law — huh ! " she returned carelessly. " We'll
get along; we always have. How do you reckon I
made out before you was born, you great big some
body ? What's the matter with you ? Did you fail
to borry a frock for the dance over at Rainy Gap ?
Try again, honey — I'll bet S'lomy Buckheath would
lend you one o' her'n."

That was it; borrowing — borrowing — borrowing
till they were known as the borrowing Passmores and
became the jest of the neighbourhood.

" No, I couldn't stand it," the girl justified herself.
"I had obliged to get out and go where money could
be earned — me, that's big and stout and able."

And sighingly — yet light-heartedly, for with
Laurella Consadine and Johnnie there was always the
quaint suggestion of a little girl with a doll quite too
big for her — the mother let her go. It had been just
so when Johnnie would have her time for every term
of the "old field hollerin' school," where she learned
to read and write; even when she persisted in going
to Rainy Gap where some charitably inclined northern
church maintained a little school, and pushed her
education to dizzy heights that to mountain vision
appeared "plumb foolish."

That morning she had cautioned her mother to be
careful lest they waken the children, for if the little

ones roused and began, as the mountain phrase has it,
"takin' on," she scarcely knew how she should find
heart to leave them. The children — there was the
thing that drove. Four small brothers and sisters
there were; with little Deanie, the youngest, to make
the painfully strong plea of recent babyhood. Con-
sadine, who never could earn money, and used to be
from home following one wild scheme or another most
of the time, was gone these two years upon his last
dubious, adventurous journey; there was not even
his intermittent assistance to depend upon. Johnnie
was the man of the family, and she shouldered
her burden bravely, declaring to herself that she
would yet have a chance, which the little ones could
share.

She had kissed her mother,, picked up her bundle
and got as far as the door, when there came a spat of
bare feet meeting the floor, a pattering rush, and
Deanie's short arms went around her knees, almost
tripping her up.

"I wasn't 'sleep — I was 'wake the whole time,"
whispered the baby, lifting a warm, pursed mouth for
a kiss. " Deanie'll be good an' let you go, Sis' Johnnie.
An' then when you get down thar whar it's all so
sightly, you'll send for Deanie, 'cause deed and double
you couldn't live without her, now could ye?" And
she looked craftily up into the face bent above her,
bravely choking back the tears that wanted to drown
her long speech.

Johnnie dropped her bundle and caught up the

i8 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

child, crushing the warm, soft, yielding little form
against her breast in a very passion of tenderness.

"Deed and double I couldn't," she whispered back.
"Sister's goin' to earn money, and Deanie shall have
plenty of good things to eat next winter, and some
shoes. She shan't be housed up every time it snows.
Sis's goin' to -

She broke off abruptly and kissed the small face with
vehemence.

"Good-bye," she managed to whisper, as she set
the baby down and turned to her mother. The kind
ling touch of that farewell warmed her resolution yet.
She was not going down to Cottonville to work in the mill
merely; she was going into the Storehouse of Possibili
ties, to find and buy a chance in the world for these
poor little souls who could never have it otherwise.

Before she kissed her mother, took up her bundle
and trudged away in the chill, gray dawn, she declared
an intention to come home and pay back every one
to whom they were under obligations. Now her face
dimpled as she remembered the shriek of dismay
Laurella sent after her.

"Good land, Johnnie Consadine! If you start
in to pay off all the borryin's of the Passmore family
since you was born, you'll ruin us — that's what you'll
do — you'll ruin us."

These things acted themselves over and over in
Johnnie's mind as, throughout the fresh April after
noon, her long, free, rhythmic step, its morning vigour
undiminished, swung the miles behind her; still present

THE BIRTH OF AN AMBITION 19

in thought when, away down in Render's Gap, she
settled herself on a rock by the wayside where a little
stream crossed the road, to wash her feet and put on
the shoes which she had up to this time carried with
her bundle.

"I reckon I must be near enough town to need
'em," she said regretfully, as she drew the big, shape
less, cowhide affairs on her slim, brown, carefully
washed and dried feet, and with a leathern thong
laced down a wide, stiff tongue. She had earned the
money for these shoes picking blackberries at ten
cents the gallon, and Uncle Pros had bought them at
the store at Bledsoe according to his own ideas. "Get
'em big enough and there won't be any fussin' about
the fit," the old man explained his theory: and indeed
the fit of those shoes on Johnnie's feet was not a thing
to fuss over — it was past considering.

The sun was westering; the Gap began to be in
shadow, although the point at which she sat was well
above the valley. The girl was all at once aware that
she was tired and a little timid of what lay before her.
She had written to Shade Buckheath, a neighbour's
boy with whom she had gone to school, now employed
as a mechanic or loom-fixer in one of the cotton mills,
and from whom she had received a reply saying that
she could get work in Cottonville if she would come
down.

Mavity Bence, who had given Johnnie her first
clothes, was a weaver in the Hardwick mill at Cotton
ville, Watauga's milling suburb; her father, Gideon

20 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Himes, with whom Shade Buckheath learned his
trade, was a skilled mechanic, and had worked as a
loom-fixer for a while. At present he was keeping a
boarding-house for the hands, and it was here Johnnie
was to find lodging. Shade himself was reported to
be doing extremely well. He had promised in his
letter that if Johnnie came on a Sunday evening he
would walk up the road a piece and meet her. She
now began to hope that he would come. Then, wait
ing for him, she forgot him, and set herself to imagine
what work in the cotton mill and life in town would
be like.

To Shade Buckheath, strolling up the road, in the
expansiveness of his holiday mood and the dignity
of his Sunday suit, the first sight of Johnnie came with
a little unwelcome shock. He had left her in the
mountains a tall, thin, sandy-haired girl in the growing
age. He got his first sight of her profile relieved against
the green of the wayside bank, with a bunch of bloom
ing azaleas starring its verdure behind her bright head.
He was not artist enough to appreciate the picture
at its value; he simply had the sudden resentful feeling
of one who has asked for a hen and been offered a
bird of paradise. She was tall and lithe and strong;
her thick, fair hair, without being actually curly, seemed
to be so vehemently alive that it rippled a bit in its
length, as a swift-flowing brook does over a stone.
It rose up around her brow in a roll that was almost
the fashionable coiffure. Those among whom she
had been bred, laconically called the colour red; but

THE BIRTH OF AN AMBITION 21

in fact it was only too deep a gold to be quite yellow.
Johnnie's face, even in repose, was always potentially
joyous. The clear, wide, gray eyes, under their
arching brows, the mobile lips, held as it were the smile
in solution; when one addressed her it broke swiftly
into being, the pink lips lifting adorably above the white
teeth, the long fringed eyes crinkling deliciously about
the corners. Johnnie loved to laugh, and the heart
of any reasonable being was instantly moved to give
her cause.

For himself, the young man was a prevalent type
among his people. Brown, well built, light on his feet,
with heavy black hair growing low on his forehead,
and long blackish-gray eyes, there was something
Latin in the grace of his movements and in his glance.
Life ran strong in Shade Buckheath. He stepped
with an independent stride that was almost a swagger,
and already felt himself a successful man; but that one
of the tribe of borrowing Passmores should presume
to such opulence of charm struck him as well-nigh im
pudent. The pure outlines of Johnnie's features, their
aristocratic mould, the ruddy gold of her rich, cluster
ing hair, those were things it seemed to him a good
mill-hand might well have dispensed with. Then
the girl turned, saw him, and flashed him a swift
smile of greeting.

" It's mighty kind of you to come up and meet me,"
she said, getting to her feet a little awkwardly on
account of the shoes, and picking up her bundle.

"I 'lowed you might get lost," bantered the young

22 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

fellow, not offering to carry the packet as they trudged
away side by side. " How's everybody back on Unaka ?
Has your Uncle Pros found his silver mine yet ?"

"No," returned Johnnie seriously, "but he's lookin'
for it."

Shade threw back his head and laughed so long and
loud that it would have been embarrassing to any
one less sound and sweet-natured than this girl.

"I reckon he is," said Buckheath. "I reckon Pros
Passmore will be lookin' for that silver mine when
Gabriel blows. It runs in the family, don't it ?"

Johnnie looked at him and shook her head.

"You've been learnin' town ways, haven't you?"
she asked simply.

"You mean my makin' game of the Passmores?"
he inquired coolly. "No, I never learned that in the
settlement; I learned it in the mountains. I just forgot
your name was Passmore, that's all," he added sar
castically. "Are you goin' to get mad about it?"

Johnnie had put on her slat sunbonnet and pulled
it down so he could not see her face.

"No," she returned evenly, "I'm not goin' to get
mad at anything. And my name's not Passmore,
either. My name is Consadine, and I aim to be called
that. Uncle Pros Passmore is my mother's uncle,
and one of the best men that ever lived, I reckon. If
all the folks he's nursed in sickness or laid out in death
was numbered over it would be a-many a one; and I
never heard him take any credit to himself for anything
he did. Why, Shade, the last three years of your

THE BIRTH OF AN AMBITION 23

father's life Uncle Pros didn't dare hunt his silver
mine much, because your father was paralysed and had
to have close waitin' on, and — and there wasn't
nobody but Uncle Pros, since all his boys was gone
and- -"

"Oh, say it. Speak out," urged Shade hardily.
"You mean that all us chaps had cut out and left the
old man, and there wasn't a cent of money to pay
anybody, and no one but Pros Passmore would 'a'
been fool enough to do such hard work without pay.
Well, I reckon you're about right. You and me come
of a mighty poor nation of folks; but I'm goin' to make
my pile and have my share, if lookin' out for number
one '11 do it."

Johnnie turned and regarded him curiously. It
was characteristic of the mountain girl, and of her
people, that she had not on first meeting stared, vil
lage fashion, at his brave attire; and she seemed now
concerned only with the man himself.

"I reckon you'll get it," she said meditatively. "I
reckon you will. Sometimes I think we always get
just what we deserve in this here world, and that the
only safe way is to try to deserve something good.
I hope I didn't say too much for Uncle Pros; but he's
so easy and say-nothin' himself, that I just couldn't
bear to hear you laughin' at him and not answer you."

"I declare, you're plenty funny!" Buckheath
burst out boisterously. "No, I ain't mad at you. I
kind o' like you for stickin' up for the old man. You
and me '11 get along, I reckon."

24 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

As they moved forward, the man and the girl fell
into more general chat, the feeling of irritation at
Johnnie's beauty, her superior air, growing rather
than diminishing in the young fellow's mind. How
dare Pros Passmore's grandniece carry a bright head
so high, and flash such glances of liquid fire at her
questioner ? Shade looked sidewise sometimes at
his companion as he asked the news of their mutual
friends, and she answered. Yet when he got, along
with her mild responses, one of those glances, he was
himself strangely subdued by it, and fain to prop
his leaning prejudices by contrasting her scant print
gown, her slat sunbonnet, and cowhide shoes with the
apparel of the humblest in the village which they were
approaching.

CHAPTER III

A PEAK IN DARIEN

SO WALKING, and so desultorily talking,
they came out on a noble white highway
that wound for miles along the bluffy edge
of the upland overlooking the valley upon the one side,
fronted by handsome residences on the other.

It was Johnnie's first view of a big valley, a river,
or a city. She had seen the shoestring creek bottoms
between the endless mountains among which she was
born and bred, the high-hung, cup-like depressions of
their inner fastnesses; she was used to the cool, clear,
boulder-checked mountain creeks that fight their way
down those steeps like an armed man beating off
assailants at every turn; she had been taken a number
of times to Bledsoe, the tiny settlement at the foot of
Unaka Old Bald, where there were two stores, a
blacksmith shop, the post-office and the church.

Below her, now beginning to glow in the evening
light, opened out one of the finest valleys of the south
ern Appalachees. Lapped in it, far off, shrouded with
rosy mist which she did not identify as transmuted
coal smoke, a city lay, fretted with spires, already
sparkling with electric lights, set like a glittering boss
of jewels in the broad curve of a shining river.

25

26 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Directly down the steep at their feet was the cotton-
mill town, a suburb clustered about a half-dozen
great factories, whose long rows of lighted windows
defined their black bulk. There was a stream here,
too; a small, sluggish thing that flowed from tank to
tank among the factories, spanned by numerous hand
rails, bridged in one place for the wagon-road to cross.
Mills, valley, town, distant rimming mountains, river
and creek, glowed and pulsed, dissolved and relimned
themselves in the uprolling glory of sunset.

"Oh, wait for me a minute, Shade," pleaded the
girl, pulling off her sunbonnet. . . . " I want to look.
. . . Never in my life did I see anything so sightly!"

"Good land!" laughed the man, with a note of
impatience in his voice. "You and me was raised
on mountain scenery, as a body may say. I should
think we'd both had enough of it to last us."

" But this — this is different," groped Johnnie,
trying to explain the emotions that possessed her.
"Look at that big settlement over yon. I reckon it's
a city. It must be Watauga. It looks like the -
the mansions of the blest, in the big Bible that preacher
Drane has, down at Bledsoe."

" I reckon they're blest — they got plenty of money,"
returned Shade, with the cheap cynicism of his
kind.

"So many houses!" the girl communed with her
self. "There's bound to be a-many a person in all
them houses," she went on. One could read the
loving outreach to all humanity in her tones,

A PEAK IN DARIEN 27

" There is," put in Shade caustically. "There's
many a rogue. You want to look out for them tricky
town folks — a girl like you."

Had he been more kind, he would have said, "a
pretty girl like you." But Johnnie did not miss it;
she was used to such as he gave, or less.

"Come on," he urged impatiently. "We won't
get no supper if you don't hurry."

Supper! Johnnie drew in her breath and shook
her head. With that scene unrolled there, as though
all the kingdoms of earth were spread before them
to look upon, she was asked to remember supper!
Sighing, but submissively, she moved to follow her
guide, a reluctant glance across her shoulder, when there
came a cry something like that which the wild geese
make when they come over in the spring; and a thing
with two shining, fiery eyes, a thing that purred like
a giant cat, rounded a curve in the road and came
to a sudden jolting halt beside them.

Shade stopped immediately for that. Johnnie did
not fail to recognize the vehicle. Illustrated maga
zines go everywhere in these days. In the automobile
rode a man, bare-headed, dressed in a suit of white
flannels, strange to Johnnie's eyes. Beside him sat
a woman in a long, shimmering, silken cloak, a great,
misty, silver-gray veil twined round head and hat
and tied in a big bow under the chin. Johnnie had as
yet seen nothing more pretentious than the starched
and ruffled flummeries of a small mountain watering-
place. This beautiful, peculiar looking garb had

28 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

something of the picturesque, the poetic, about it,
that appealed to her as the frocks worn at Chalybeate
Springs or Bledsoe had never done. She had not
wanted them. She wanted this. The automobile was
stopped, the young fellow in it calling to Shade:

"I wonder if you could help me with this thing,
Buckheath ? It's on a strike again. Show me what
you did to it last time."

Along the edge of the road at this point, for safety's
sake, a low stone wall had been laid. Setting down
her bundle, Johnnie leaned upon this, and shared her
admiration between the valley below and these beauti
ful, interesting newcomers. Her bonnet was pushed
far back; the wind ruffled the bright hair about her
forehead; the wonder and glory and delight of it all
made her deep eyes shine with a child's curiosity
and avid wishfulness. Her lips were parted in uncon
scious smiles. White and red, tremulous, on tiptoe,
the eager soul looking out of her face, she was very
beautiful. The man in the automobile observed her
kindly; the woman's features she could not quite see,
though the veil was parted.

Neither Johnnie nor the driver of the car saw the
quick, resentful glance her companion shot at the
city man as Shade noted the latter's admiring look at
the girl. Buckheath displayed an awesome familiarity
with the machine and its workings, crawling under
the body, and tapping it here and there with a wrench
its driver supplied. They backed it and moved it
a little, and seemed to be debating the short turn which

A PEAK IN DARIEN 29

would take them into the driveway leading up to a
house on the slope above the road.

Johnnie continued to watch with fascinated eyes;
Shade was on his feet now, reaching into the bowels
of the machine to do mysterious things.

"It's a broken connection/' he announced briefly.

"Is the wire too short to twist together?" inquired
the man in the car. "Will you have to put in a new
piece ?"

"Uh-huh," assented Buckheath.

"There's a wire in that box there," directed the
other.

Shade worked in silence for a moment.

"Now she'll go," I reckon," he announced, and
once more the driver started up his car. It curved
perilously near the bundle she had set down, with the
handkerchief containing her cherished blossom lying
atop; the mud-guard swept this latter off, and Buck-
heath set a foot upon it as he followed the machine
in its progress.

"Take care — that was a flower," the man in the
auto warned, too late.

Shade answered with a quick, backward-flung glance
and a little derisive laugh, but no words. The young
fellow stopped the machine, jumped down, and picked
up the coarse little handkerchief which showed a bit
of drooping green stem at one end and a glimpse of
pink at the other.

"I'm sorry," he said, presenting it to Johnnie with
exactly the air and tone he had used in speaking to the

30 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

lady who was with him in the car. "If I had seen it in
time, I might have saved it. I hope it's not much hurt."

Buckheath addressed himself savagely to his work
at the machine. The woman in the auto glanced uneas
ily up at the house on the slope above them. Johnnie
looked into the eyes bent so kindly upon her, and could
have worshipped the ground on w^hich their owner
trod. Kindness always melted her heart utterly, but
kindness with such beautiful courtesy added — this
was the quality in flower.

" It doesn't make any differ," she said softly, turning
to him a rapt, transfigured face. "It's just a bloom
I brought from the mountains — they don't grow
in the valley, and I found this one on my way down."

The man wondered a little if it were only the glow
of the sunset that lit her face with such shining beauty;
he noted how the fires of it flowed over her bright,
blown hair and kindled its colour, how it lingered in
the clear eyes, and flamed upon the white neck and
throat till they had almost the translucence of pearl.

" I think this thing '11 work now — for a spell, any
how," Shade Buckheath's voice sounded sharply from
the road behind them.

"Are you afraid to attempt it, Miss Sessions?" the
young man called to his companion. " If you are,
we'll walk up, I'll telephone at the house for a trap
and we'll drive back — Buckheath will take the ma
chine in for us."

The voice was even and low-toned, yet every word
came to Johnnie distinctly. She watched with a sort

A PEAK IX DARIEN 31

of rapture the movements of this party. The man's
hair was dark and crisp, and worn a little long about
the temples and ears; he had pleasant dark eyes and
an air of being slightly amused, even when he did not
smile. The lady apparently said that she was not
afraid, for her companion got in, the machine nego
tiated the turn safely and began to move slowly up the
steep ascent. As it did so, the driver gave another
glance toward where the mountain girl stood, a swift,
kind glance, and a smile that stayed with her after
the shining car had disappeared in the direction of
the wide-porched building where people were laughing
and calling to each other and moving about — people
dressed in beautiful garments which Johnnie would
fain have inspected more closely.

Buckheath stood gazing at her sarcastically.

"Come on," he ordered, as she held back, lingering.
" They ain't no good in you hangin' 'round here. That
was Mr. Gray Stoddard, and the lady he's beauin'
is Miss Lydia Sessions, Mr. Hardwick's sister-in-law.
He's for such as her — not for you. He's the boss of
the bosses down at Cottonville. No use of you lookin'
at him."

Johnnie scarcely heard the words. Her eyes were
on the wide porch of the house above them.

"What is that place :" she inquired in an awestruck
whisper, as she fell into step submissively, plodding
with bent head at his shoulder.

"The Country Club," Shade flung back at her.
" Did you 'low it was heaven ?"

32

Heaven! Johnnie brooded on that for a long time.
She turned her head stealthily for a last glimpse of
the portico where a laughing girl tossed a ball to a
young fellow on the terrace below. After all, heaven
was not so far amiss. She had rather associated it
with the abode of the blest. The people in it were
happy; they moved in beautiful raiment all day long;
they spoke to each other kindly. It was love's home,
she was sure of that. Then her mind went back to
the dress of the girl in the auto.

"I'm a-going to have me a frock like that before
I die," she said, half unconsciously, yet with a sudden
passion of resolution. "Yes, if I live I'm a-goin'
to have me just such a frock."

Shade wheeled in his tracks with a swift narrowing
of the slate-gray eyes. He had been more stirred tfcan
he was willing to acknowledge by the girl's beauty,
and by a nameless power that went out from the seem
ingly helpless creature and laid hold of those with
whom she came in contact. It was the open admira
tion of young Stoddard which had roused the sullen
resentment he was now spending on her.

"Ye air, air ye?" he demanded sharply. "You're
a-goin' to have a frock like that ? And what man's,
a-goin' to pay for it, I'd like to know?"

Such talk belonged to the valley and the settlement.
In the mountains a woman works, of course, and earns
her board and keep. She is a valuable industrial
possession or chattel to the man, who may profit by
her labour; never a luxury — a bill of expense. As

A PEAK IN DARIEN 33

she walked, Johnnie nodded toward the factory in
the valley, beginning to blaze with light — her bridge of
toil, that was to carry her from the island of Nowhere
to the great mainland of Life, where everything might
be had for the working, the striving.

"I didn't name no man," she said mildly. "I don't
reckon anybody's goin' to give me things. Ain't there
the factory where a body may work and earn money
for all they need ?"

"Well, I reckon they might, if they was good and
careful to need powerful little," allowed Shade.

At the moment they came to the opening of a small
path which plunged abruptly down the steep side of
the ridge, curving in and out with — and sometimes
across — a carriage road. As they took the first steps
Oii*this the sun forsook the valley at last, and lingered
only on the mountain top where was that Palace of
Pleasure into which He and She had vanished, before
which the strange chariot waited. And all at once
the little brook that wound, a golden thread, between
the bulk of the mills, flowed, a stream of ink, from
pool to pool of black water. The way down turned
and turned; and each time that Shade and Johnnie
got another sight of the buildings of the little village
below, they had changed in character with the changing
point of view. They loomed taller, they looked darker
in spite of the pulsing light from their many windows.

And now there burst out a roar of whistles, like
the bellowing of great monsters. Somehow it struck
cold upon the girl's heart. They were coming down

34 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

from that wonderful highland where she had seemed
to see all the kingdoms of earth spread before her,
hers for the conquering; they were descending into
the shadow.

As they came quite to the foot they saw groups of
women and children, with here and there a decrepit
man, leaving the cottages and making their way toward
the lighted mills. From the doors of little shanties
tired-faced women with boys and girls walking near
them, and, in one or two cases, very small ones cling
ing to their skirts and hands, reinforced the crowd
which set in a steady stream toward the bridges and
the open gates in the high board fences.

"What are they a-goin' to the factory for on Sun
day evening?" Johnnie inquired.

"Night turn," replied Buckheath briefly. "Sun
day's over at sundown."

"Oh, yes," agreed Johnnie dutifully, but rather
disheartened. " Trade must be mighty good if they
have to work all night."

"Them that works don't get any more for it,"
retorted Shade harshly.

"What's the little ones goin' to the mill for?"
Johnnie questioned, staring up at him with appre
hensive eyes.

" Why, to play, I reckon," returned the young fellow
ironically. "Folks mostly does go to the mill to play,
don't they ?"

The girl ran forward and clasped his arm with
eager fingers that shook.

A PEAK IN DARIEN 35

"Shade!" she cried; "they can't work those little
babies. That one over there ain't to exceed four
year old, and I know it."

The man looked indifferently to where a tiny boy
trotted at his mother's heels, solemn, old-faced, unchild-
ish. He laughed a little.

"That thar chap is the oldest feller in the mills,"
he said. "That's Benny Tarbox. He's too short
to tend a frame, but his maw lets him help her at the
loom — every weaver has obliged to have helpers
wait on 'em. You'll get used to it."

Get used to it! She pulled the sunbonnet about
her face. The gold was all gone from the earth, and
from her mood as well. She raised her eyes to where
the last brightness lingered on the mountain-top. Up
there they were happy. And even as her feet carried
her forward to Pap Himes's boarding-house, her soul
went clamouring, questing back toward the heights,
and the sunlight, the love and laughter, she had left
behind.

"The power and the glory — the power and the
glory," she whispered over and over to herself. "Is
it all back there ?" Again she looked wistfully toward
the heights. "But maybe a body with two feet can
climb."

CHAPTER IV

OF THE USE OF FEET

THE suburb of Cottonville bordered a creek, a
starveling, wet-weather stream which offered
the sole suggestion of sewerage. The village
was cut in two by this natural division. It clung to the
shelving sides of the shallow ravine; it was scattered
like bits of refuse on the numerous railroad embank
ments, where building was unhandy and streets almost
impossible, to be convenient to the mills. Six big
factories in all, some on one side of the state line and
some on the other, daily breathed in their live current
of operatives and exhaled them again to fill the litter
of flimsy shanties.

The road which wound down from the heights ran
through the middle of the village and formed its main
street. Across the ravine from it, reached by a wooden
bridge, stood a pretentious frame edifice, a boarding-
house built by the Gloriana mill for the use of its office
force and mechanics. Men were lounging on the wide
porches of this structure in Sabbath-afternoon leisure,
smoking and singing. The young Southern male of
any class is usually melodious. Across the hollow
came the sounds of a guitar and a harmonica.

"Listen a minute, Shade. Ain't that pretty? I

36

OF THE USE OF FEET 37

know that tune," said Johnnie, and she began to hum
softly under her breath, her girlish heart responding
to the call.

"Hush," admonished Buckheath harshly. "You
don't want to be runnin' after them fellers. It's some
of the loom-fixers."

In silence he led the way past the great mill buildings
of red brick, square and unlovely but many-windowed
and glowing, alight, throbbing with the hum of pent
industry. Johnnie gazed steadily up at those windows;
the glow within was other than that which gilded
turret and pinnacle and fairy isle in the Western sky,
yet perchance this light might be a lamp to the feet
of one who wished to climb that way. Her adventur
ous spirit rose to the challenge, and she said softly, more
to herself than to the man:

"I'm a-goin' to be a boss hand in there. I'm goin'
to get the highest wages of any girl in the mill, time
I learn my trade, because I'm goin' to try harder 'n
anybody."

Shade looked around at her, curiously. Her beauty,
her air of superiority, still repelled him — such fancy
articles were not apt to be of much use — but this
sounded like a woman who might be valuable to her
master.

Johnnie returned his gaze with the frank good will
of a child, and suddenly he forgot everything but the
adorable lift of her pink lip over the shining white
teeth.

The young fellow now halted at the step of a big frame

38 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

house. The outside was of an extent to seem fairly
pretentious; yet so mean was the construction, so spar
ing of window and finish, that the building showed itself
instantly for what it was — the cheap boarding-house
of a mill town. A group of tired-looking girls sitting
on the step in blessed Sunday idleness and cheap
Sunday finery stared as he and Johnnie ascended and
crossed the porch. One of these, a tall lank woman
of perhaps thirty years, got up and followed a few hesi
tating paces, apparently more as a matter of curiosity
than with any hospitable intent.

A man with a round red face and a bald pate whose
curly fringe of grizzled, reddish hair made him look like
a clown in a pantomime, motioned them with a surly
thumb toward the back of the house, where clattering
preparations for supper were audible and odoriferous.
The old fellow sat in a splint-bottomed chair of extra
size and with arms. This he had kicked back against
the wall of the house, so that his short legs did not
reach the floor, the big carpet-slippered feet finding
rest on the rung of the chair. His attitude was one
of relaxation. The face, broad, flat, small of eye
and wide of mouth, did indeed suggest the clown coun
tenance; yet there was in it, and in the whole personality,
something of the Eastern idol, the journeyman attempt
of crude humanity to represent power. And the potential
cruelty of the type slept in his placid countenance as
surely as ever in the dreaming faceof Shiva, the destroyer.

" Mrs. Bence — Aunt Mavity," called Shade, advanc
ing into the narrow hall. In answer a tired-faced

OF THE USE OF FEET 39

woman came from the kitchen, wiping her hands
on her checked apron.

"Good Lord, if it ain't Johnnie! I was 'feared
she wouldn't git here to-night," she ejaculated when
she saw the girl. "Take her out on the porch, Shade;
I ain't got a minute now. Pap's poorly again, and
I'm obliged to put the late supper on the table for them
thar gals — the night shift's done eat and gone. I'll
show her whar she's to sleep at, after while. I don't
just rightly know whar Pap aimed to have her stay,"
she concluded hastily, as something boiled over on the
stove. Johnnie set her bundle down in the corner
of the kitchen.

"I'll help," she said simply, as she drew the excited
coffee-pot to a corner of the range and dosed it judi
ciously with cold water.

"Well, now, that's mighty good of you," panted
worried Mavity Bence. "How queer things comes
'round," she ruminated as they dished up the biscuits
and fried pork. "I helped you into the very world,
Johnnie. I lived neighbour to your maw, and they
wasn't nobody else to be with her when you was born,
and I went over. I never suspicioned that you would
be helpin' me git supper down here in the settlement
inside o' twenty year."

Johnnie ran and fetched and carried, as though she
had never done anything else in her life, intent on the
one task. She was alive in every fibre of her young
body; she saw, she heard, as these words cannot always
be truthfully applied to people.

40 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

"Did Shade tell you anything about Louvania?"
inquired the woman at length.

"No," replied Johnnie softly, "but I seen it in the
paper."

Louvania Bence, the only remaining child of the
widow, had, two weeks before, left her work at the
mill, taken the trolley in to Watauga, walked out upon
the county bridge across the Tennessee and jumped
off. Johnnie had read the published account, passed
from hand to hand in the mountains where Pap Himes
and Mavity Bence had troops of kin and where Lou
vania was born. The statement ran that there was no
love affair, and that the girl's distaste for her work
at the cotton mill must have been the reason for the
suicide.

"That there talk in the newspaper wasn't right,"
Louvania's mother choked. "They wasn't a word
of truth in it. You know in reason that if Louvany
hated to work in the mill as bad as all that she'd have
named it to me — her own mother — and she never
did. She never spoke a word like it, only to say now
and ag'in, as we all do, that it was hard, and that she'd
- well, she did 'low she'd ruther be dead, as gals will;
but she couldn't have meant it. Do you think she
could have meant it, Johnnie?"

The faded eyes, clouded now by tears, stared up into
Johnnie's clear young orbs.

"Of course she couldn't have meant it," Johnnie
comforted her. "Why, I'm sure it's fine to work in
the mill. If she didn't feel so, she'd have told you the

OF THE USE OF FEET 41

first thing. She must have been out of her mind.
People always are when they — do that."

"That's what I keep a-thinkin'," the poor mother
said, clinging pathetically to that which gave her
consolation and cheer. " I say to myself that it must
have been some brain disease took her all of a sudden
and made her crazy that-a-way; because God knows
she had nothing to fret her nor drive her to such."

By this time the meal was on the table, and the
girls trooped in from the porch. The old man with the
bald pate was seating himself at the head of the board,
and Johnnie asked the privilege of helping wait on table.

"No, you ain't a-goin' to," Mrs. Bence said hos
pitably, pushing her into a seat. "If you start in to
work in the morning, like I reckon you will, you ain't
got no other time to get acquainted with the gals but
right now. You set down. We don't take much
waitin' on. We all pass things, and reach for what
we want."

In the smoky illumination of the two ill-cleaned
lamps which stood one at each end of the table,
Johnnie's fair face shone out like a star. The tall
woman who had shown a faint interest in them on
the porch was seated just opposite. Her bulging
light-blue eyes scarcely left the newcomer's countenance
as she absent-mindedly filled her mouth. She was a
scant, stringy-looking creature, despite her height;
the narrow back was hooped like that of an old woman
and the shoulders indrawn, so that the chest was
cramped, and sent forth a wheezy, flatted voice that

42 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

sorted ill with her inches; her round eyes had no
speculation in them; her short chin was obstinate with
out power; the thin, half-gray hair that wanted to
curl feebly about her lined forehead was stripped
away and twisted in a knot no bigger than a walnut,
at the back of a bent head.

For some time the old man at the end of the table
stowed himself methodically with victuals; his air was
that of a man packing a box; then he brought his
implements to half-rest, as it were, and gave a divided
attention to the new boarder.

"What did I hear them call yo' name?" he inquired
gruffly.

Johnnie repeated her title and gave him one of
those smiles that went with most of her speeches.
It seemed to suggest things to the old sinner.

"Huh," he grunted; "I riccollect ye now. Yo'
pap was a Consadine, but you're old Virgil Passmore's
grandchild. One of the borryin' Passmores," he
added, staring coolly at Johnnie. "Virge was a fine,
upstandin' old man. You've got the favour of him
- if you wasn't a gal."

He evidently shared Schopenhauer's distaste for
"the low-statured, wide-hipped, narrow-shouldered
sex."

The girls about the table were all listening eagerly.
Johnnie had the sensation of a freshman who has
walked out on the campus too well dressed.

"Virge was a great beau in his day," continued Pap,
reminiscently. "He liked to wear good clothes, too.

43

I mind how he borried Abner Wimberly's weddin'
coat and wore it something like ten year — showed it off
fine — it fitted him enough sight better than it ever
fitted little old Ab. Then he comes back to Wimberly
at the end of so long a time with the buttons. He says,
says he, 'Looks like that thar cloth yo' coat was made
of wasn't much 'count, Ab,' says he. 'I think Jeeters
cheated ye on it. But the buttons was good. The
buttons wore well. And them I'm bringin' back,
'caze you may have use for 'em, and I have none,
now the coat's gone. Also, what I borry I return, as
everybody knows.' That was your granddaddy."

There was a tremendous giggling about the board
as the old man made an end. Johnnie herself smiled,
though her face was scarlet. She had no words to tell

O

her tormentor that the borrowing trait in her tribe
which had earned them the name of the borrowing
Passmores proceeded not from avarice, which ate
into Pap Himes's very marrow, but from its reverse
trait of generosity. She knew vaguely that they would
have shared with a neighbour their last bite or dollar,
and had thus never any doubt of being shared with
nor any shame in the asking.

"Yes," pursued Himes, surveying Johnnie chuck-
lingly, "I mind when you was born. Has your Uncle
Pros found his silver mine yet?"

"My mother has often told me how good you and
Mrs. Bence was to us when I was little," answered
Johnnie mildly. "No, sir, Uncle Pros hasn't found
his silver mine yet — but he's still a-hunting for it."

44 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

The reply appeared to delight Himes. He laughed
immoderately, even as Buckheath had done.

"I'll bet he is," he agreed. "Pros Passmore's
goin' to hunt that there silver mine till he finds another
hole in the ground about six feet long and six feet deep
- that's what he's a-goin' to do."

The hasty supper was well under way now. Mrs.
Bence brought the last of the hot bread, and shuffled
into a seat. The old man at the head of the board
returned to his feeding, but with somewhat moderated
voracity. At length, pretty fully gorged, he raised
his head from over his plate and looked about him for
diversion. Again his attention was directed to the new
girl.

"Air ye wedded?" he challenged suddenly.

She shook her head and laughed.

"Got your paigs sot for to git any one?" he fol
lowed up his investigations.

Johnnie laughed more than ever, and blushed
again.

"How old air ye?" demanded her inquisitor.
"Eighteen? 'Most nineteen? Good Lord! You're
a old maid right now. Well, don't you let twenty
go by without gittin' your hooks on a man. My ex
perience is that when a gal gits to be twenty an'
ain't wedded — or got her paigs sot for to wed — she's
left. Left," he concluded impressively.

That quick smile of Johnnie's responded.

"I reckon I'll do my best," she agreed reasonably;
"but some folks can do that and miss it."

OF THE USE OF FEET 45

Himes nodded till he set the little red curls all
bobbing around the bare spot.

"Uh-huh," he approved, "I reckon that's so.
Women is plenty, and men hard to git. Here's Mandy
Meacham, been puttin' in her best licks for thirty year
or more, an' won't never make it."

Johnnie did not need to be told which one was
Mandy. The sallow cheek of the tall woman across
from her reddened; the short chin wabbled a bit more
than the mastication of the biscuit in hand demanded;
a moisture appeared in the inexpressive blue eyes;
but she managed a shaky laugh to assist the chorus
which always followed Pap Himes's little jokes.

The old man held a sort of state among these poor
girls, and took tribute of admiration, as he had taken
tribute of life and happiness from daughter and
granddaughter. Gideon Himes was not actively a
bad man; he was as without personal malice as malaria.
When it makes miserable those about it, or robs a eirl

* o

of her pink cheeks, her bright eyes, her joy of life,
wearing the elasticity out of her step and making an
old woman of her before her time, we do not fly into
a rage at it — we avoid it. The Pap Himeses of this
world are to be avoided if possible.

Mandy stared at her plate in mortified silence.
Johnnie wished she could think of something pleasant
to say to the poor thing, when her attention was
diverted by the old man once more addressing herself.

"You look stout and hearty; if you learn to weave
as fast as you ort, and git so you can tend five or six

46 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

looms, I'll bet you git a husband," he remarked in a
burst of generosity. "I'll bet you do; and what's
more, I'll speak a good word for ye. A gal that's a
peart weaver's mighty apt to find a man. You learn
your looms if you want to git wedded — and I know
in reason you do — it's about all gals of your age
thinks of."

When supper was over Johnnie was a little surprised
to see the tall woman approach Pap Himes like a small
child begging a favour of a harsh taskmaster.

"Can't that there new girl bunk with me?" she
inquired earnestly.

"I had the intention to give her Louvany's bed,"
Pap returned promptly. "As long as nobody's with
you, I reckon I 'don't care; but if one comes in, you
take 'em, and she goes with Mavity, mind. I cain't
waste room, poor as I am."

Piloted by the tall girl, Johnnie climbed the narrow
stair to a long bare room where a row of double beds
accommodated eight girls. The couch she was to
occupy had been slept in during the day by a mill hand
who was on night turn, and it had not been remade.
Deftly Johnnie straightened and spread it, while her
partner grumbled.

"What's the use o' doin' that?" Mandy inquired,
stretching herself and yawning portentously. "We'll
jist muss it all up in about two minutes. When you've
worked in a mill as long as I have you'll git over the
notion of makin' your bed, for hit's but a notion."

Johnnie laughed across her shoulder.

OF THE USE OF FEET 47

"I'd just as soon do it," she reassured her compan
ion. "I do love smooth bedclothes; looks like I dream
better on 'em and under 'em."

Mandy sat down on the edge of the bed, interfering
considerably with the final touches Johnnie was putting
to it.

"You're a right good gal," she opined patronizingly,
"but foolish. The new ones always is foolish. I can
put you up to a-many a thing that'll help you along,
though, and I'm willin' to do it."

Again Johnnie smiled at her, that smile of enveloping
sweetness and tenderness. It made something down
in the left side of poor Mandy's slovenly dress-bodice
vibrate and tingle.

"I'll thank you mightily," said Johnnie Consadine,
" mightily." And knew not how true a word she spoke.

"You see," counselled Mandy from the bed into
which she had rolled with most of her clothes on,
"you want to get in with Miss Lydia Sessions and the
Uplift ladies, and them thar swell folks."

Johnnie nodded, busily at work making a more
elaborated night toilet than the others, who were going
to bed all about them, paying little attention to their
conversation.

"Miss Lyddy she ain't as young as she once was,
and the boys has quit hangin' 'round her as much as
they used to; so now she has took up with good works,"
the girl on the bed explained with a directness which
Miss Sessions would not perhaps have appreciated.
"Her and some other of the nobby folks has started

48 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

what they call a Uplift club amongst the mill girls.
Thar's a big room whar you dance — if you can -
and whar they give little suppers for us with not much
to eat; and thar's a place where they sorter preach
to ye — lecture she calls it. I don't know what-all
Miss Lyddy hain't got for her club. But you jist go,
and listen, and say how much obliged you are, an
she'll do a lot for you, besides payin' your wages to
get you out of the mill any day she wants you for the
Upliftin' business."

Mandy had a gasp, which occurred between sentences
and at the end of certain words, with grotesque effect.
Johnnie was to find that this gasp was always very
much to the fore when Mandy was being uplifted.
It then served variously as the gasp of humility, grati
tude, admiration; the gasp of chaste emotion, the gasp
of reprobation toward others who did not come
forward to be uplifted.

" Did you say there was books at that club ? " inquired
Johnnie out of the darkness — she had now extin
guished the light. "Can a body learn things from the
lectures ? "

"Uh-huh," agreed Mandy sleepily; "but you don't
have to read 'em — the books. They lend 'em to you,
and you take 'em home, and after so long a time you
take 'em back sayin' how much good they done you.
That's the way. If Mr. Stoddard's 'round, he'll ask
you questions about 'em; but Miss Lyddy won't -
she hates to find out that any of her plans ain't workin'."

For a long time there was silence. Mandy was just

OF THE USE OF FEET 49

dropping off into her first heavy sleep, when a whisper
ing voice asked,

" Is Mr. Stoddard — has he got right brown eyes
and right brown hair, and does he ride in one of these
- one of these -

"Good land!" grumbled the addressed, "I thought
it was mornin' and I had to git up! You ort to been
asleep long ago. Yes, Mr. Stoddard's got sorter
brown eyes and hair, and he rides in a otty-mobile.
How did you know?"

But Mandy was too tired to stay awake to marvel
over that. Her rhythmic snores soon proved that she
slept, while Johnnie lay thinking of the various proffers
she had that evening received of a lamp to her feet,
a light on her path. And she would climb — yes, she
would climb. Not by the road Pap Himes pointed out;
not by the devious path Mandy Meacham suggested;
but by the rugged road of good, honest toil, to heights
where was the power and the glory, she would certainly
strive.

She conned over the new things which this day had
brought. Again she saw the auto swing around the
curve and halt; she got the outline of the man's bent
head against the evening sky. They were singing again
over at the mechanics' boarding-house; the sound came
across to her window; the vibrant wires, the chorus of
deep male voices, even the words she knew they were
using but could not distinguish, linked themselves
in some fashion with memory of a man's eyes, his
smile, his air of tender deference as he cherished her

50 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

broken flower. Something caught in her throat and
choked. Her mind veered to the figures on the porch
of that Palace of Pleasure; the girl with the ball tossing
it to the young fellow below on the lawn. In memory
she descended the hill, coming down into the shadows
with each step, looking back to the heights and the light.
Well, she had said that if one had feet one might
climb, and to-night the old man had tried to train her
to his pace for attaining heart's desire. In the midst
of a jumble of autos and shining mill windows, she
watched the room grow ghostly with the light of a late-
risen moon. Suddenly afar off she heard the "honk!
honk! honk!" which had preceded the advent of the
car on the ridge road.

Getting up, she stole to the one window which the
long room afforded. It gave upon the main street of
the village. "Honk! honk! honk!" She gazed toward
the steep from which the sounds seemed to come.
There, flashing in and out of the greenery, appeared
half a dozen pairs of fiery eyes. A party of motorists
were going in to Watauga, starting from the Country
Club on the Ridge crest. Johnnie watched them,
fascinated. As the foremost car swept down the road
and directly beneath her window, its driver, whom she
recognized with a little shiver, by the characteristic
carriage of his head, swerved the machine out and
stopped it at the curb below. The others passed, calling
gay inquiries to him.

"We're all right," she heard a well-remembered voice
reply. "You go ahead — we'll be there before you."

OF THE USE OF FEET 51

The slim, gray-clad figure in the seat beside him
laughed softly and fluttered a white handkerchief as
the last car went on.

"Now!" exulted the voice. "I'll put on my goggles
and cap and we'll show them what running is.

' It's they'll take the high road and we'll take the low,
And we'll be in Watauga befo-o-ore them!"

Even as he spoke he adjusted his costume, and
Johnnie saw the car shoot forward like a living crea
ture eager on the trail. She sighed as she looked after
them.

Feet — of what use were feet to follow such a flight
as that ?

CHAPTER V

THE MOCCASIN FLOWER

JOHNNIE was used to hardship and early rising,
but in an intermittent fashion; for the Passmores
and Consadines were a haggard lot that came to
no lure but their own pleasure. They might — and
often did — go hungry, ill-clad, ill-housed; they might
sometimes — in order to keep soul and body together
— have to labour desperately at rude tasks unsuited to
them; '*but these times were exceptions, and between
such seasons, down to the least of the tribe, they had
always followed the Vision, pursuing the flying skirts
of whatever ideal was in their shapely heads. The
little cabin in the gash of the hills owned for do
main a rocky ravine that was the standing jest of the
mountain-side.

"Sure, hit's good land — fine land," the moun
taineers would comment with their inveterate, dry,
lazy humour. "Nothing on earth to hender a man
from raisin' a crap off 'n it — ef he could once git the
leathers on a good stout, willin' pa'r o' hawks or buz
zards, an' a plough hitched to 'em." And Johnnie
could remember the other children teasing her and
saying that her folks had to load a gun with seed corn
and shoot it into the sky to reach their fields. Yet,

52

THE MOCCASIN FLOWER 53

the unmended roof covered much joy and good feeling.
They were light feet that trod the unsecured puncheons.
The Passmores were tender of each other's eccen
tricities, admiring of each other's virtues. A wolf
race nourished on the knees of purple kings, how
should they ever come down to wearing any man's
collar, to slink at heel and retrieve for him ?

One would have said that to the daughter of such
the close cotton-mill room with its inhuman clamour,
its fetid air, its long hours of enforced, monotonous,
mechanical toil, would be prison with the torture added.
But Johnnie looked forward to her present enterprise
as a soldier going into a new country to conquer it.
She was buoyantly certain, and determinedly delighted
with everything. When, the next morning after her
arrival, Mandy Meacham shook her by the shoulder
and bade her get up, the room was humming with
the roar of mill whistles, and the gray dawn leaking
in at its one window in a churlish, chary fashion, re
minded her that they were under the shadow of a moun
tain instead of living upon its top.

"I don't see what in the world could 'a' made me
sleep so!" Johnnie deprecated, as she made haste to
dress herself. "Looks like I never had nothing to
do yesterday, except walking down. I've been on
foot that much many a time and never noticed it."

The other girls in the room, poor souls, were all
cross and sleepy. Nobody had time to converse with
Johnnie. As they went down the stairs another con
tingent began to straggle up, having eaten a hasty

54 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

meal after their night's work, and making now for
certain of the just-vacated beds.

Johnnie ran into the kitchen to help Mrs. Bence
get breakfast on the table, for Pap Himes was bad off
this morning with a misery somewhere, and his daughter
was sending word to the cotton mill to put a substitute on
her looms till dinner time. Almost as much to her own
surprise as to that of everybody else, Mandy Meacham
proposed to stay and take Johnnie in to register for a job.

When the others were all seated at table, the new
girl from the mountains took her cup of coffee and a
biscuit and dropped upon the doorstep to eat her break
fast. The back yard was unenclosed, a litter of tin
cans and ashes running with its desert disorder into
a similar one on either side. But there were no houses
back of the Himes place, the ground falling away
sharply to the rocky creek bed. Across the ravine
half a dozen strapping young fellows were lounging,
waiting for breakfast; loom-fixers and mechanics
these, whose hours were more favourable than those
of the women and children workers.

" It's lots prettier out here than it is in the house,"
she returned smilingly, when Mavity Bence offered
to get her a chair. "I do love to be out-of-doors."

"Huh," grunted Mandy with her mouth full of bis
cuit, " I reckon a cotton mill'll jest about kill you.
What makes you work in one, anyhow ? I wouldn't
if I could help it."

Johnnie eyed the tall girl gravely. "I've got to
earn some money," she said at length. "Ma and the

THE MOCCASIN FLOWER 55

children have to be taken care of. I don't know of
any better way than the mill."

"An' I don't know of any worse," retorted Mandy
sourly, as they went out together.

Johnnie began to feel timid. There had been a
secret hope that she would meet Shade on the way to
the mill, or that Mrs. Bence would finally get through
in time to accompany her. She was suddenly aware
that there was not a soul within sound of her voice
who had belonged to her former world. With a little
gasp she looked about her as they entered the office.

The Hardwick mill to which they now came con
sisted of a number of large, red brick buildings, joined
by covered passage-ways, abutting on one of those
sullen pools Johnnie had noted the night before, the
yard enclosed by a tight board fence, so high that the
operatives in the first- and second-floor rooms could
not see the street. This for the factory portion; the
office did not front on the shut-in yard, but opened out
freely on to the street, through a little grassy square
of its own, tree-shadowed, with paved walks and flower
beds. As with all the mills in its district, the sugges
tion was dangerously apt of a penitentiary, with its
high wooden barrier, around all the building, the only
free approach from the world to its corridors through
the seemly, humanized office, where abided the heads,
the bosses, the free men, who came and went at will.
The walls were already beginning to wear that gar
ment of green which the American ivy flings over so
many factory buildings.

56 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

As the two girls came up, Johnnie looked at the
wide, clear, plate windows, the brass railing that
guarded the heavy granite approach, the shining name
"Hardwick" deep-set in brazen lettering on the step
over which they entered. Inside, the polished oak
and metal of office fittings carried on the idea of splen
dour, if not of luxury. Back of the crystal windows
were the tempering shades, all was spacious, ordered
with quiet dignity, and there was no sense of hurry in
the well-clad, well-groomed figures of men that sat at
the massive desks or moved about the softly carpeted
floors. The corridor was long, but cleanly swept,
and, at its upper portion, covered with a material
unfamiliar to Johnnie, but which she recognized as
suited to its purpose. Down at the further end of that
corridor, something throbbed and moaned and roared
and growled — the factory was awake there and
working. The contrast struck cold to the girl's
heart. Here, yet more sharply defined, was the same
difference she had noted between the Palace of
Pleasure on the heights and the mills at the foot of
the mountain.

Would the people think she was good enough ?
Would they understand how hard she meant to try ?
For a minute she had a desperate impulse to turn and
run. Then she heard Mandy's thin, flatted tones an
nouncing:

"This hyer girl wants to git a job in the mill. Miz
Bence, she cain't come down this morning — you'll
have to git somebody to tend her looms till noon;

THE MOCCASIN FLOWER 57

Pap, he's sick, and she has obliged to wait on him -
so I brung the new gal."

"All right," said the man she addressed. "She
can wait there; you go on to your looms."

Johnnie sat on the bench against the wall where
newcomers applying for positions were placed. The
man she was to see had not yet come to his desk, and
she remained unnoticed and apparently forgotten for
more than an hour. The offices were entered from
the other side, yet a doorway close by Johnnie com
manded a view of a room and desk. To it presently
came one who seated himself and began opening and
reading letters. Johnnie caught her breath and leaned
a little forward, watching him, her heart in her eyes,
hands locked hard together in her lap. It was the
young man of the car. He was not in white flannels
now, but he looked almost as wonderful to the girl
in his gray business suit, with the air of easy com
mand, and the quiet half-smile only latent on his face.
Shade Buckheath had spoken of Gray Stoddard as
the boss of the bosses down at Cottonville. Indeed,
his position was unique. Inheritor of large holdings
in Eastern cotton-mill stock, he had returned from
abroad on the death of his father, to look into this
source of his very ample income. The mills in which
he was concerned were not earning as they should,
so he was told; and there was discussion as to whether
they be moved south, or a Southern mill be estab
lished which might be considered in the nature of a
branch, and where the coarser grades of sheeting

58 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

would be manufactured, as well as all the spinning
done.

But Stoddard was not of the blood that takes opinions
second-hand. Upon his mother's side he was the
grandson of one of the great anti-slavery agitators.
The sister of this man, Gray's great-aunt, had stood
beside him on the platform when there was danger
in it; and after the Negro was freed and enfranchised,
she had devoted a long life to the cause of woman
suffrage. The mother who bore him died young.
She left him to the care of a conservative father, but
the blood that came through her did not make for
conservatism.

Perhaps it was some admixture of his father's traits
which set the young man to investigating the cotton-
mill situation in his own fashion. To do this as he
conceived it should be done, he had hired himself to
the Hardwick Spinning Company in an office posi
tion which gave him a fair outlook on the business,
and put him in complete touch with the practical
side of it; yet the facts of the case made the situation
evident to those under him as well as his peers. What
ever convictions and opinions he was maturing in this
year with the Hardwicks, he kept to himself; but he
was supposed to hold some socialistic ideas, and
Lydia Sessions, James Hardwick's sister-in-law, made
her devoir to these by engaging zealously in semi-
charitable enterprises among the mill-girls. He was
a passionate individualist. The word seems unduly
fiery when one remembers the smiling, insouciant

THE MOCCASIN FLOWER 59

manner of his divergences from the conventional
type; yet he was inveterately himself, and not some
schoolmaster's or tailor's or barber's version of Gray
Stoddard; and in this, though Johnnie did not know
it, lay the strength of his charm for her.

The moments passed unheeded after he came into
her field of vision, and she watched him for some time,
busy at his morning's work. It took her breath when
he raised his eyes suddenly and their glances encoun
tered. He plainly recognized her at once, and nodded
a cheerful greeting. After a while he got up and came
out into the hall, his hands full of papers, evidently
on his way to one of the other offices. He paused
beside the bench and spoke to her.

" Waiting for the room boss ? Are they going to
put you on this morning?" he asked pleasantly.

"Yes, I'm a-going to get a chance to work right
away," she smiled up at him. "Ain't it fine ?"

The smile that answered hers held something
pitying, yet it was a pity that did not hurt or
offend.

"Yes — I'm sure it's fine, if you think so," said
Stoddard, half reluctantly. Then his eye caught the
broken pink blossom which Johnnie had pinned to
the front of her bodice. "What's that?" he asked.
"It looks like an orchid."

He was instantly apologetic for the word; but
Johnnie detached the flower from her dress and held
it toward him.

"It is," she assented. "It's an orchid; and the

60 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

little yellow flower that we-all call the whippoorwill's
shoe is an orchid, too."

Stoddard thrust his papers into his coat pocket,
and took the blossom in his hand.

"That's the pink moccasin flower," Johnnie told
him. "They don't bloom in the valley at all, and
they're not very plenty in the mountains. I picked
this one six miles up on White Oak Ridge yesterday.
I reckon I haven't seen more than a dozen of them
in my life, and I've hunted flowers all over
Unaka."

"I never had the chance to analyze one," observed
Stoddard. "I'd like to get hold of a good specimen."

"I'm sorry this one's broken," Johnnie depre
cated. Then her clouded face cleared suddenly with
its luminous smile. " If it hadn't been for you I reckon
it would have been knocked over the edge of the road,"
she added. "That's the flower I had in my hand
kerchief yesterday evening."

Stoddard continued to examine the pink blossom
with interest.

"You said it grew up in the mountains — and
didn't grow in the valley," he reminded her.

She nodded. "Of course I'm not certain about
that," and while she spoke he transferred his attention
from the flower to the girl. "I really know mighty
little about such things, and I've not been in the valley
to exceed ten times in my life. Miss Baird, that taught
the school I went to over at Rainy Gap, had a herba
rium, and put all kinds of pressed flowers in it. I

THE MOCCASIN FLOWER 61

gathered a great many for her, and she taught me to
analyze them — like you were speaking of — but I
never did love to do that. It seemed like naming over
and calling out the ways of your friends, to pull the
flower all to pieces and press it and paste it in a book
and write down all its — its — ways and faults."

Again she smiled up at him radiantly, and the young
man's astonished glance went from her dusty, cowhide
shoes to the thick roll of fair hair on her graceful head.
What manner of mill-girls did the mountains send
down to the valley ?

"But I- began Stoddard deprecatingly, when
Johnnie reddened and broke in hastily.

"Oh, I don't mean that for you. Miss Baird
taught me for three years, and I loved her as dearly
as I ever could any one. You may keep this flower
if you want to; and, come Sunday, I'll get you another
one that won't be broken."

"Why Sunday ?" asked Stoddard.

"Well, I wouldn't have time to go after them till
then, and the ones I know of wouldn't be open before
Sunday. I saw just three there by the spring. That's
the way they grow, you know — two or three in a place,
and not another for miles."

"You saw them growing?" repeated Stoddard. "I
should like to see one on its roots, and maybe make
a little sketch of it. Couldn't you just as well show
me the place Sunday ?"

For no reason that she could assign, and very
much against her will, Johnnie's face flushed deeply.

62 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

"I reckon I couldn't," she answered evasively.
" Hit's a long ways up — and — hit's a long ways
up."

"And yet you're going to walk it — after a week's
work here in the mill?" persisted Stoddard. "You'd
better tell me where they grow, and let me go up in
my car."

"I wish't I could," said Johnnie, embarrassed.
" But you'd never find it in the world. They isn't
one thing that I could tell you to know the place by:
and you have to leave the road and walk a little piece -
oh, it's no use — and I don't mind, I'd just love to
go up there and get the flowers for you."

"Are you the new girl?" inquired a voice at
Johnnie's shoulder.

They turned to find a squat, middle-aged man regard
ing them dubiously.

"Yes," answered Johnnie, rising. "I've been wait
ing quite a while."

"Well, come this way," directed the man and,
turning, led her away. Down the hall they went,
then up a flight of wooden stairs which carried them
to a covered bridge, and so to the upper story of the
factory.

"That's an unusual-looking girl." Old Andrew
MacPherson made the comment as he received the
papers from Stoddard's hands.

"The one I was speaking to in the hall ?" inquired
Stoddard rather unnecessarily. "Yes; she seems to
have an unusual mind as well. These mountain

THE MOCCASIN FLOWER 63

people are peculiar. They appear to have no
idea of class, and therefore are in a measure all
aristocrats."

"Well, that ought to square with your socialistic
notions," chaffed MacPherson, sorting the work on
his desk and pushing a certain portion of it toward
Stoddard. "Sit down here, if you please, and we'll go
over these now. The girl looked a good deal like a
fairy princess. I don't think she's a safe topic for
susceptible young chaps like you and me," the grizzled
old Scotchman concluded with a chuckle. "Your
socialistic hullabaloo makes you liable to foregather
with all sorts of impossible people."

Gray shook his head, laughing, as he seated himself
at the desk beside the other.

"Oh, I'm only a theoretical socialist," he depre
cated.

"Hum," grunted the older man. "A theoretical
socialist always seemed to me about like a theoretical
pickpocket — neither of them stands to do much harm.
For example, here you are, one of the richest young
fellows of my acquaintance, living along very con
tentedly where every tenet you profess to hold is daily
outraged. You're not giving away your money. You
take a healthy interest in a good car, a good dinner,
the gals; I'm even told you have a fad for old porce
lains — and yet you call yourself a socialist."

"These economic conditions are not a pin," answered
Gray, smiling. "I don't have to jump and say 'ouch!'
the minute I find they prick me. Worse conditions

64 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

have always been, and no doubt bad ones will survive
for a time, and pass away as mankind outgrows them.
I haven't the colossal conceit to suppose that I can
reform the world — not even push it much faster
toward the destination of good to which it is rolling.
But I want to know — I want to understand, myself;
then if there is anything for me to do I shall do it.
It may be that the present conditions are the best
possible for the present moment. It may be that if
a lot of us got together and agreed, we could better
them exceedingly. It is not certain in my mind yet
that any growth is of value to humanity which does not
proceed from within. This is true of the individual
- must it not be true of the class ?"

"No doubt, no doubt," agreed MacPherson, indif
ferently. "Most of the men who are loud in the
leadership of socialism have made a failure of their
own lives. We'll see what happens when a man who
is a personal and economic success sets up to teach."

"If you mean that very complimentary description
for me," said Gray with sudden seriousness, " I will
say to you here and now that there is no preacher in
me. But when I am a little clearer in my own mind as
to what I believe, I shall practise. The only real
creed is a manner of life. If you don't live it, you
don't really believe it."

CHAPTER VI

WEAVERS AND WEFT

THE Hardwick mill was a large one; to the
mountain-bred girl it seemed endless, while its
clamour and roar was a thing to daunt. They
passed through the spinning department, in which the
long lines of frames were tended by children, and
reached the weaving-rooms whose looms required the
attention of women, with here and there a man who
had failed to make a success of male occupations and
sunk to the ill-paid feminine activities. In a corner
of one of these, Johnnie's guide stopped before two
silent, motionless looms, and threw on the power.
He began to instruct her in their operation, all
communication being in dumb show; for the clap
ping thunder of the weaving-room instantly snatches
the sound from one's lips and batters it into shape-
lessness. Johnnie had been an expert weaver on
the ancient foot-power looms of the mountains; but
the strangeness of the new machine, the noise and
her surroundings, bewildered her. When the man
saw that she was not likely to injure herself or the
looms, he turned away with a careless nod and left
her to her fate.

It was a blowy April day outside, with a gay blue

66 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

sky in which the white clouds raced, drawing barges
of shadow over the earth below. But the necessity
of keeping dust out of the machinery, the inconvenience
of having flying ends carried toward it, closed every
window in the big factory, and the operatives gasped
in the early heat, the odour of oil, the exhausted air.
There was a ventilating system in the Hardwick
mill, and it was supposed to be exceptionally free from
lint; but the fagged children crowded to the casements
with instinctive longing for the outdoor air which could
not of course enter through the glass; or plodded their
monotonous rounds to tend the frames and see that the
thread was running properly to each spool, and that
the spools were removed, when filled.

By noon every nerve in Johnnie's body quivered
with excitement and overstrain; yet when Mandy
came for her at the dinner hour she showed her a face
still resolute, and asked that a snack be brought her
to the mill.

"I don't see why you won't come along home and
eat your dinner," the Meacham woman commented.
"The Lord knows you get time enough to stay in
the mill working over them old looms. Say, I seen
you in the hall — did you know who you was talk
ing to?"

The red flooded Johnnie's face as she knelt before
her loom interrogating its workings with a dexterous
hand; even the white nape of her neck showed pink
to Mandy's examining eye; but she managed to reply
in a fairly even tone:

WEAVERS AND WEFT 67

"Yes, that was Mr. Stoddard. I saw him yesterday
evening when I was coming down the Ridge with Shade."

" But did you know 'bout him ? Say — Johnnie Con-
sadine — turn yourself round from that old loom and
answer me. I was goin' a-past the door, and when I
ketched sight o' you and him settin' there talkin' as if
you'd knowed each other all your lives, why you could
have — could have knocked me down with a feather."

Johnnie sat up on her heels and turned a laughing
face across her shoulder.

"I don't see any reason to want to knock you down
with anything," she evaded the direct issue. "Go
'long, Mandy, or you won't have time to eat your
dinner. Tell Aunt Mavity to send me just a biscuit
and a piece of meat."

"Good land, Johnnie Consadine, but you're quare!"
exclaimed Mandy, staring with bulging light eyes.
"If it was me I'd be all in a tremble yet — and there
you sit and talk about meat and bread!"

Johnnie did not think it necessary to explain that
the tremor of that conversation with Stoddard had
indeed lasted through her entire morning.

"There was nothing to tremble about," she remarked
with surface calm. "He'd never seen a pink moc
casin flower, and I gave him the one I had and told
him where it grew."

"Well, he wasn't looking at no moccasin flower
when I seed him," Mandy persisted. "He was lookin'
at you. He jest eyed you as if you was Miss Lydia
Sessions herself — more so, if anything."

68 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Johnnie inwardly rebuked the throb of joy which
greeted this statement.

"I reckon his looks are his own, Mandy," she said
soberly. "You and me have no call to notice them."

"Ain't got no call to notice 'em? Well, I jest
wish't I could get you and him up in front of Miss
Sessions, and have her see them looks of his'n,"
grumbled Mandy as she turned away. "I bet you
there'd be some noticin' done then!"

When in the evening Mandy came for Johnnie,
she found the new mill hand white about the mouth
with exhaustion, heavy-eyed, choking, and ready to
weep.

"Uh-huh," said the Meacham woman, "I know
just how you feel. They all look that-a-way the first
day or two — then after that they look worse."

Nervelessly Johnnie found her way downstairs in
the stream of tired girls and women. There was
more than one kindly greeting for the new hand, and
occasionally somebody clapped her on the shoulder
and assured her that a few days more would get her
used to the work. The mill yard was large, filled
with grass-plots and gravel walks; but it was shut
in by a boarding so tall that the street could not be
seen from the windows of the lower floor. To Johnnie,
weary to the point where aching muscles and blood
charged with uneliminated waste spelled pessimism,
that high board fence seemed to make of the pretty
place a prison yard.

A man was propping open the big wooden gates, and

WEAVERS AND WEFT 69

through them she saw the street, the sidewalk, and a
carriage drawn up at the curb. In this vehicle sat a
lady; and a gentleman, hat in hand, talked to her from
the sidewalk.

"Come on," hissed Mandy, seizing her companion's
arm and dragging her forward. "Thar's Miss Lydia
Sessions right now, and that's Mr. Stoddard a-talkin'
to her. I'll go straight up and give you a knock
down — I want to, anyway. She's the one that runs
the Uplift Club. If she takes a shine to you it'll be
money in your pocket."

She turned over her shoulder to glance at Johnnie,
who was pulling vigorously back. There was no
hint of tiredness or depression in the girl's face now.
Her deep eyes glowed; red was again in the fresh lips
that parted over the white teeth in an adorable, tremu
lous smile. Mandy stared.

" Hurry up — he'll be gittin' away," she admon
ished.

"Oh, no," objected the new girl. "Wait till some
other time. I — I don't want to —

But her remonstrance came too late; Mandy had
yanked her forward and was performing the intro
duction she so euphoniously described.

Gray Stoddard turned and bowed to both girls.
He carried the broken orchid in his hand, and appar
ently had been speaking of it to Miss Sessions. Mandy
eyed him narrowly to see if any of the looks she had
apprehended as offensive to Miss Sessions went in
Johnnie's direction. And she was not disappointed.

;o THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Stoddard's gaze lingered long on the radiant counte
nance of the girl from Unaka. Not so the young women
looked after a few months of factory life. He was
getting to know well the odd jail-bleach the cotton
mill puts on country cheeks, the curious, dulled, yet
resentful expression of the eyes, begotten by continuous
repetition of excessive hours of trivial, monotonous
toil. Would this girl come at last to that favour ?
He was a little surprised at the strength of protest in
his own heart. Then MacPherson, coming down the
office steps, called to him; and, with courteous adieux,
the two men departed in company.

Johnnie was a bit grieved to find that the re
moval from Miss Sessions of the shrouding, misty
veil revealed a countenance somewhat angular in out
line, with cheekbones a trifle hard and high, and a
lack of colour. She fancied, too, that Miss Sessions
was slightly annoyed about something. She wondered
if it was because they had interrupted her conversation
with Mr. Stoddard and driven him away. Yet while
she so questioned, she was taking in with swift appre
ciation the trim set of the driving coat Miss Lydia
wore, the appropriate texture of the heavy gloves on
the small hands that held the lines, and a certain inde
finable air of elegance hard to put into words, but
which all women recognize.

"Ain't she swell?" inquired Mandy, as they passed
on. "She's after Mr. Stoddard now — it used to be
the preacher that had the big church in Watauga,
but he moved away. I wish I had her clothes.'*

WEAVERS AND WEFT 71

"Yes," returned Johnnie absently. She had already
forgotten her impression of Miss Sessions's displeasure.
Gone was the leaden weariness of her day's toil. Some
thing intimate and kind in the glance Stoddard had
given her remained warm at her heart, and set that
heart singing.

Meantime, Stoddard and MacPherson were walking
up the ridge toward the Country Club together, intend
ing to spend the night on the highlands. The Scotch
man returned once more to the subject he had broached
that morning.

"This is a great country," he opened obliquely,
"a very great country. But you Americans will have
to learn that generations of blood and breeding are not
to be skipped with impunity. See the sons and daugh
ters of your rich men. If the hope of the land lay in
them it would be a bad outlook indeed."

"Is that peculiar to America?" asked Stoddard
mildly. They were coming under the trees now.
He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair
to enjoy the coolness. "My impression was that the
youthful aristocracy of every country often made of
itself a spectacle unseemly."

The Scotchman laughed. Then he looked sidewise
at his companion. "I'm not denying," he pursued,
again with that odd trick of entering his argument
from the side, "that a young chap like yourself has
my good word. A man with money who will go to
work to find out how that money was made, and to
live as his father did, carries an old head on young

72 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

shoulders. I put aside your socialistic vapourings
of course — every fellow to his fad — I see in you the
makings of a canny business man."

It was Stoddard's turn to laugh, and he did so
unrestrainedly, throwing back his head and uttering
his mirth so boyishly that the other smiled in sympathy.

"You talk about what's in the blood," Gray said
finally, "and then you make light of my socialistic
vapourings, as you call them. My mother's clan -
and it is from the spindle side that a man gets his traits

- are all come-outers as far back as I know anything
about them. They fought with Cromwell — some
of them; they came over and robbed the Indians in
true sanctimonious fashion, and persecuted the
Quakers; and down the line a bit I get some Quaker
blood that stood for its beliefs in the stocks, and sac
rificed its ears for what it thought right. I'm afraid
the socialistic vapourings are the true expression of
the animal."

MacPherson grunted incredulously.

"I give you ten years to be done with it," he said.
"It is a disease of youth. But don't let it mark your
affairs. It is all right to foregather with these work-
ingmen, and find out about their trades-unions and
that sort of thing — such knowledge will be useful
to you in your business. But when it comes to women "

- MacPherson paused and shook his gray head -
"to young, pretty women — a man must stick to his
own class."

"You mean the girl in the corridor," said Stoddard

WEAVERS AND WEFT 73

with that directness which his friends were apt to find
disconcerting. "I haven't classified her yet. She's
rather an extraordinary specimen."

"Well, she's not in your class, and best leave her
alone," returned MacPherson doggedly. "It wouldn't
matter if the young thing were not so beautiful, and
with such a winning look in her eyes. This America
beats me. That poor lass would make a model prin
cess — according to common ideals of royalty — and
here you find her coming out of some hut in the moun
tains and going to work in a factory. Miss Lydia Ses
sions is a well-bred young woman, now; she's been all
over Europe, and profited by her advantages of travel.
I call her an exceedingly well-bred person."

"She is," agreed Stoddard without enthusiasm.

"And I'm sure you must admire her altruistic ideas
- they'd just fall in with yours, I suppose, now."

Stoddard shook his head.

"Not at all," he said briefly. "If you were enough
interested in socialism to know what we folks are driv
ing at, I could explain to you why we object to chari
table enterprises — but it's not worth while."

"Indeed it is not," assented MacPherson hastily.
"Though no doubt we might have a fine argument
over it some evening when we have nothing better to
talk about. I thought you and Miss Sessions were
fixing up a match of it, and it struck me as a very
good thing, too. The holdings of both of you are in
cotton-mill property, I judge. That always makes
for harmony and stability in a matrimonial alliance."

74 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Stoddard smiled. He was aware that Miss Lydia's
holdings consisted of a complaisant brother-in-law in
whose house she was welcome till she could marry.
But he said nothing on this head.

" MacPherson," he began very seriously, " I wonder
a little at you, I know you old-world people regard
these things differently; but could you look at Mrs.
Hardwick's children, and seriously recommend Mrs.
Hardwick's sister as a wife for a friend ?"

Old MacPherson stopped in the way, thrust his
hands deep in his pockets and stared at the younger
man.

"Well!" he ejaculated at last; "that's a great speech
for a hot-headed young fellow! Your foresight is
worthy of a Scotchman."

Gray Stoddard smiled. "I am not a hot-headed
person," he observed. "Nobody but you ever accused
me of such a thing. Marriage concerns the race and
a man's whole future. If the children of the mar
riage are likely to be unsatisfactory, the marriage will
certainly be so. We moderns bedeck and bedrape
us in all sorts of meretricious togas, till a pair of fine
eyes and a dashing manner pass for beauty; but when
life tries the metal — when nature applies her inevitable
test — the degenerate or neurotic type goes to the wall."

Again MacPherson grunted. "No doubt you're
sound enough; but it is rather uncanny to hear a young
fellow talk like his grandfather," the Scotchman said
finally. "Are there many of your sort in this aston
ishing land ?"

WEAVERS AND WEFT 75

"A good many," Stoddard told him. "The modern
young man of education and wealth is doing one of
two things — burning up his money and going to the
dogs as fast as he can; or putting in a power of thinking,
and trying, while he saves his own soul, to do his part
in the regeneration of the world."

"Yes. Well, it's a big job. It's been on hand a
long time. The young men of America have their
work cut out for them," said MacPherson drily.

"No doubt," returned Stoddard with undisturbed
cheerfulness. " But when every man saves his own
soul, the salvation of the world will come to pass."

CHAPTER VII

ABOVE THE VALLEY

ALL week in Johnnie the white flame of purpose
burned out every consciousness of weari
ness, of bodily or mental distaste. The pre
posterously long hours, the ill-ventilated rooms, the
savage monotony of her toil, none of these reached
the girl through the glow of hope and ambition. Phys
ically, the finger of the factory was already laid upon
her vigorous young frame; but when Sunday morning
came, though there was no bellowing whistle to break
in on her slumbers, she waked early, and while nerve
and muscle begged achingly for more sleep, she rose
with a sense of exhilaration which nothing could
dampen. She had seen a small mountain church
over the Ridge by the spring where her moccasin flowers
grew; and if there were preaching in it to-day, the boys
and girls scouring the surrounding woods during the
intermissions would surely find and carry away the
orchids. There was no safety but to take the road early.
The room was dark. Mandy slept noisily beside
her. All the beds were full, because the night-turn
workers were in. She meant to be very careful to
waken nobody. Poor souls, they needed this one day
of rest when they could all lie late. Searching for
something, she cautiously struck a match, and in

76

ABOVE THE VALLEY 77

the flaring up of its small flame got a glimpse of
Mandy's face, open-mouthed, pallid, unbeautiful,
against the tumbled pillow. A great rush of pity filled
her eyes with tears, but then she was in a mood to
compassionate any creature who had not the prospect
of a twelve-mile walk to get a flower for Gray Stoddard.

It was in that black hour before dawn that Johnnie
let herself out the front door, finding the direction by
instinct rather than any assistance from sight, since
fences, trees, houses, were but vague blots of deeper
shadow in the black. She was well on her way before
a light here and there in a cabin window showed that,
Sunday morning as it was, the earliest risers were begin
ning to stir. Her face was set to the east, and after
a time a pallid line showed itself above the great bulk
of mountains which in this quarter backed up the
ramparts of the circling ridges about Watauga. The
furthest line was big Unaka, but this passionate lover
of her native highlands gave it neither thought nor
glance, as she tramped steadily with lifted face, fol
lowing unconsciously the beckoning finger of Fate.

It was a dripping-sweet spring morning, dew-
drenched, and with the air so full of moisture that it
gathered and pattered from the scant leafage. She
was two miles up, swinging along at that steady pace
her mountain-bred youth had given her, when the
sky began to flush faintly, and the first hint of dawn
rested on her upraised countenance.

Rain-laden mists swept down upon her from the
heights, and she walked through them unnoting; the

78 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

pale light from the eastern sky shone on an aspect
introverted, rapt away from knowledge of its sur
roundings. She was going to get something for him.
She had promised him the flowers, and he would be
pleased with them. He would smile when he thanked
her for them, and look at her as he had when she gave
him the broken blossom. A look like that was to
the girl in her present mood as the sword's touch on
the shoulder of the lad who is being knighted by his
king — it made her want to rise up and be all that
such a man could ever demand of her. Twelve miles
of walking after a week's toil in the mill was a very
small offering to put before so worshipful a divinity.
She sought vaguely to conjecture just what his words
would be when next they spoke together. Her lips
formed themselves into tender, reminiscent half-
smiles as she went over the few and brief moments
of her three interviews with Stoddard.

Johnnie was not inexperienced in matters of the
heart. Mating time comes early in the mountains.
Had her dreams been of Shade Buckheath, or any of
the boys of her own kind and class, she would have
been instantly full of self-consciousness; but Gray
Stoddard appeared to her a creature so apart from
her sphere that this overwhelming attraction he held
for her seemed no more than the admiration she might
have given to Miss Lydia Sessions. And so the dream
lay undisturbed under her eyelashes, and she breasted
the slope of the big mountain with a buoyant step,
oblivious of fatigue.

ABOVE THE VALLEY 79

She reached the little wayside spring before even
the early-rising mountain folk were abroad, found three
pink blossoms in full perfection, plucked them and
wrapped them carefully in damp cloths disposed in
a little hickory basket that Uncle Pros had made for
her years ago. It was a tiny thing, designed to hold
a child's play-pretties or a young girl's sewing, but
shaped and fashioned after the manner of mountain
baskets, and woven of stout white hickory withes shaved
down to daintier size and pliancy by the old man's jack-
knife. Life was very sweet to Johnnie Consadine as she
straightened up, basket in hand, and turned toward
the home journey.

It was nearly nine o'clock when she reached the
gap above Cottonville. She was singing a little, softly,
to herself, as she footed it down the road, and wishing
that she might see Gray's face when he got her flow
ers. She planned to put them in a glass on his desk
Monday morning, and of course she would be at her
loom long before he should reach the office. She was
glad they were such fine specimens — all perfect.
Lovingly she pulled aside the wet cloth and looked
in at them. She began to meet people on the road,
and the cabins she passed were open and thronged
with morning life. The next turn in the road would
bring her to the spring where she had rested that eve
ning just a week ago, and where Shade had met her.

Suddenly, she caught the sheen of something down
the road between the scant greenery. It was a carnage
or an automobile. Now, it was more likely to be

8o THE POWER AND THE GLORY

the former than the latter; also, there were a half-
dozen cars in Cottonville; yet from the first she knew,
and was prepared for it when the shining vehicle
came nearer and showed her Gray Stoddard driving
it. They looked at each other in silence. Stoddard
brought the machine to a halt beside her. She came
mutely forward, a hesitating hand at her basket cover
ing, her eyes raised to his. With the mountaineer's
deathless instinct for greeting, she was first to speak.

"Howdy," she breathed softly. "I — I was look
ing for — I got you -

She fell silent again, still regarding him, and fumbling
blindly at the cover of the basket.

"Well — aren't you lost?" inquired Stoddard with
a rather futile assumption of surprise. He was
strangely moved by the direct gaze of those clear,
wide-set gray eyes, under the white brow and the
ruffled coronet of bright hair.

"No," returned Johnnie gently, literally. "You
know I said I'd come up here and get those moccasin
flowers for you this morning. This is my road home,
anyhow. I'm not as near lost on it as I am at a loom,
down in the factory."

Stoddard continued to stare at the hand she had
laid on the car.

"It'll be an awfully long walk for you," he said
at last, choosing his words with some difficulty. " Won't
you get in and let me take you up to the spring ? "

Johnnie laughed softly, exultantly.

"Oh, I picked your flowers before day broke. I'll

ABOVE THE VALLEY 81

bet there have been a dozen boys over from Sunday-
school to drink out of that spring before this time.
You wouldn't have had any blooms if I hadn't got
up early."

Again she laughed, and, uncovering the orchids,
held them up to him.

"These are beauties," he exclaimed with due enthu
siasm, yet with a certain uneasy preoccupation in his
manner. "Were you up before day, did you tell me,
to get these ? That seems too bad. You needed
your sleep."

Johnnie flushed and smiled.

"I love to do it," she said simply. "It was mighty
sweet out on the road this morning, and you don't
know how pretty the blooms did look, standing there
waiting for me. I 'most hated to pick them."

Stoddard's troubled eyes raised themselves to her
face. Here was a royal nature that would always
be in the attitude of the giver. He wanted to offer her
something, and, as the nearest thing in reach, sprang
down from the automobile and, laying a hand on her
arm, said, almost brusquely:

"Get in. Come, let me help you. I want to go
up and see the spring where these grow. I'll get you
back to Cottonville in time for church, if that's what
you're debating about."

Both of them knew that Johnnie's reluctance had
nothing to do with the question of church-time. Stod-
dard himself was well aware that a factory girl could
not with propriety accept a seat in his car; yet when

82 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

once they were settled side by side, and the car resumed
that swift, tireless climb which is the wonder and
delight of the mechanical vehicle, it was character
istic that both put aside definitely and completely
all hesitations and doubts. The girl was freely, inno
cently, exultantly blissful. Stoddard noticed her intent
examination of the machine, and began explaining
its workings to her.

"Was that what you were doing," she asked,
alluding to some small item of the operating, "when
you stopped by the side of the road, Sunday night,
when Miss Lydia was with you ?"

He looked his astonishment.

"You were right under my window when you
stopped," Johnnie explained to him. "I watched
you-all when you started away. I was sure you would
beat."

"We did," Stoddard assured her. "But we came
near missing it. That connection Buckheath put in
for me the evening you were with him on the Ridge
worked loose. But I discovered the trouble in time
to fix it."

Remembrance of that evening, and of the swift
flight of the motors through the dusk moonlight, made
Johnnie wonder at herself and her present position.
She was roused by Stoddard's voice asking:

"Are you interested in machinery?"

"I love it," returned Johnnie sincerely. "I never
did get enough of tinkerin' around machines. If I
was ever so fortunate as to own a sewing machine

ABOVE THE VALLEY 83

I could take it all apart and clean it and put it together
again. I did that to the minister's wife's sewing
machine down at Bledsoe when it got out of order.
She said I knew more about it than the man that sold
it to her."

"Would you like to run the car?" came the next
query.

Would she like to! The countenance of simple
rapture that she turned to him was reply sufficient.

"Well, look at my hands here on the steering-wheel.
Get the position, and when I raise one put yours in
its place. There. No, a little more this way. Now
you can hold it better. The other one's right."

Smilingly he watched her, like a grown person
amusing a child.

"You see what the wheel does, of course — guides.
Now," when they had run ahead for some minutes,
"do you want to go faster ?"

Johnnie laughed up at him, through thick, fair
lashes.

"Looks like anybody would be hard to suit that
wanted to go faster than this," she apologized. "But
if the machine can make a higher speed, there wouldn't
be any harm in just running that way for a spell, would
there?"

It was Stoddard's turn to laugh.

"No manner of harm," he agreed readily. "Well,
you advance your spark and open the throttle — that
speeds her up. This is the spark and this the gas,
here. Then you shove your shifting lever — see,

84 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

here it is — over to the next speed. Remember that,
any time you shift the gears, you'll have to pull the
clutch. The machine has to gain headway on one
speed before it can take the next."

Johnnie nodded soberly. Her intent gaze studied
the mechanism before her intelligently.

"We're going a heap faster now," she suggested
in a moment. "Can I move that — whatever it is -
over to the third speed ?"

"Yes," agreed Stoddard. "Here's a good, long,
straight stretch of road for us to take it on. I'll attend
to the horn when we come to the turn up there. We
mustn't make anybody's horse run away."

So the lesson proceeded. He showed her brake
and clutch. He gave her some theoretical knowledge
of cranking up, because she seemed to enjoy it as a
child enjoys exploiting the possibilities of a new toy.

Up and up they went, the sky widening and bright
ening above them. Hens began to lead forth their
broods. Overhead, a hawk wheeled high in the blue,
uttering his querulous cry.

"I'm mighty glad I came," the girl said, more to
herself than to the man at her side. "This is the
most like flying of anything that ever chanced to me."

From time to time Stoddard had sent swift, sidelong
glances at his companion, noting the bright, bent head,
the purity of line in the profile above the steering-
wheel, the intelligent beauty of the intent, down-
dropped eyes, with long lashes almost on the flushed
cheeks. He wondered at her; born amid these wide,

ABOVE THE VALLEY 85

cool spaces, how had she endured for a week the fetid
atmosphere of the factory rooms ? How, having
tested it, could she look forward to a life like that ?
Something in her innocent trust choked him. He
began some carefully worded inquiries as to her expe
rience in the mill and her opinion of the work. The
answers partook of that charm which always clung
about Johnnie. She told him of Mandy and, missing
no shade of the humour there was in the Meacham
girl, managed to make the description pathetic. She
described Pap Himes and his boarding-house, aptly,
deftly, and left it funny, though a sympathetic listener
could feel the tragedy beneath.

Presently they met the first farm-wagon with its load
of worshippers for the little mountain church beyond.
As these came out of a small side road, and caught
sight of the car, the bony old horses jibbed and shied,
and took all the driver's skill and a large portion of
his vocabulary to carry them safely past, the children
staring, the wTomen pulling their sunbonnets about
their faces and looking down. Something in the sight
brought home to Johnnie the incongruity of her present
position. On the instant, a drop of rain splashed
upon the back of her hand.

"There!" she cried in a contrite voice. "I knew
mighty well and good that it was going to rain, and I
ought to have named it to you, because you town folks
don't understand the weather as well as we do. I
ought not to have let you come on up here."

" We'll have to turn and run for it," said Stoddard,

86 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

laughing a little. "I wish I'd had the hood put on
this morning," as he surveyed the narrow way in
which he had to turn. "Is it wider beyond here,
do you remember ?"

"There's a bluff up about a quarter of a mile that
you could run under and be as dry as if you were in
the shed at home," said Johnnie. "This won't last
long. Do you want to try it ?"

"You are the pilot," Stoddard declared promptly,
resigning the wheel once more to her hands. "If it's
a bad place, you might let me take the car in."

Rain in the mountains has a trick of coming with
the suddenness of an overturned bucket. Johnnie
sent the car ahead at what she considered a rapid pace,
till Stoddard unceremoniously took the wheel from
her and shoved the speed clutch over to the third
speed.

"I'm mighty sorry I was so careless and didn't
warn you about the rain," she declared with shining
eyes, as her hair blew back and her colour rose at the
rapid motion. " But this is fine. I believe that if I
should ever be so fortunate as to own an automobile
I'd want to fly like this every minute of the time I
was in it."

As she spoke, they swept beneath the overhanging
rocks, and a great curtain of Virginia creeper and
trumpet-vine fell behind them, half screening them
from the road, and from the deluge which now broke
more fiercely. For five minutes the world was blotted
out in rain, with these two watching its gray swirls

ABOVE THE VALLEY 87

and listening to its insistent drumming, safe and dry
in their cave.

Nothing ripens intimacy so rapidly as a common
mishap. Also, two people seem much to each other
as they await alone the ceasing of the rain or the com
ing of the delayed boat.

"This won't last long," Johnnie repeated. "We
won't dare to start out when it first stops; but there'll
come a little clearing-up shower after that, and then
I think we'll have a fair day. Don't you know the
saying, 'Rain before seven, quit before eleven ?' Well,
it showered twice just as day was breaking, and I
had to wait under a tree till it was over."

The big drops lengthened themselves, as they came
down, into tiny javelins and struck upon the rocks
with a splash. The roar and drumming in the forest
made a soft, blurring undertone of sound. The first rain
lasted longer than Johnnie had counted on, and the
clearing-up shower was slow in making its appearance.
The two talked with ever-growing interest. Strangely
enough Johnnie Consadine, who had no knowledge of
any other life except through a few well-conned books,
appreciated the values of this mountain existence with
almost the detached view of an outsider. Her knowl
edge of it was therefore more assorted and available,
and Stoddard listened to her eagerly.

"But what made you think you'd like to work in a
cotton mill?" he asked suddenly. "After all, weren't
you maybe better off up in these mountains ?"

And then and there Johnnie strove to put into exact

88 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

and intelligent words what she had possessed and
what she had lacked in the home of her childhood.
Unconsciously she told him more than was in the mere
words. He got the situation as to the visionary, kindly
father with a turn for book learning and a liking for
enterprises that appealed to his imagination. Uncle
Pros and the silver mine were always touched upon with
the tender kindness Johnnie felt for the old man and
his life-long quest. But the little mother and the
children — ah, it was here that the listener found
Johnnie's incentive.

"Mr. Stoddard," she concluded, "there wasn't
a bit of hope of schooling for the children unless I
could get out and work in the factory. I think it's
a splendid chance for a girl. I think any girl that
wouldn't take such a chance would be mighty mean
and poor-spirited."

Gray Stoddard revolved this conception of a chance
in the world in his mind for some time.

"I did get some schooling," she told him. "You
wouldn't think it to hear me talk, because I'm careless,
but I've been taught, and I can do better. Yet if
I don't see to it, how am I to know that the children
will have as much even as I've had ? Mountain air
is mighty pure and healthy, and the water up here is
the finest you ever drank; but that's only for the body.
Of course there's beauty all about you — there was
never anything more sightly than big Unaka and the
ridges that run from it, and the sky, and the big
woods — and all. And yet human beings have got

to have more than that. I aim to make a chance for
the children."

"Are you going to bring them down and let them
work in the mills with you?" Stoddard asked in a
perfectly colourless tone.

Johnnie looked embarrassed. Her week in the
cotton mill had fixed indelibly on her mind the picture
of the mill child, straggling to work in the gray
dawn, sleepy, shivering, unkempt; of the young
things creeping up and down the aisles between the
endlessly turning spools, dully regarding the frames
to see that the threads were not fouled or broken;
of the tired little groups as they pressed close to the
shut windows, neglecting their work to stare out into
a world of blue sky and blowing airs — a world they
could see but not enter, and no breath of which could
come in to them. And so she looked embarrassed.
She was afraid that memory of those tired little faces
would show in her own countenance. Her hands on
the steering-wheel trembled. She remembered that
Mr. Stoddard was, as Shade had said, one of the bosses
in the Hardwick mill. It seemed too terrible to offend
him. He certainly thought no ill of having children
employed; she must not seem to criticize him; she
answered evasively:

"Well, of course they might do that. I did think
of it — before I went down there."

" Before you went to work in the mills yourself,"
supplied Stoddard, again in that colourless tone.

"Ye — yes," hesitated Johnnie; "but you mustn't

9o THE POWER AND THE GLORY

get the idea that I don't love my work — because I do.
You see the children haven't had any schooling yet,
and — well, I'm a great, big, stout somebody, and it
looks like I'm the one to work in the mill."

She turned to him fleetingly a countenance of appeal
and perplexity. It seemed indeed anything but certain
that she was one to work in the mill. There was some
thing almost grotesque in the idea which made Stod-
dard smile a little at her earnestness.

"I'd like to talk it over with you when you've been
at work there longer," he found himself saying. "You
see, I'm studying mill conditions from one side, and
you're studying them from the opposite — perhaps
we could help each other."

"I sure will tell you what I find out," agreed Johnnie
heartily. "I reckon you'll want to know how the
work seems to me at the side of such as I was used
to in the mountains; but I hope you won't inquire
how long it took me to learn, for I'm afraid I'm going
to make a poor record. If you was to ask me how
much I was able to earn there, and how much back
on Unaka, I could make a good report for the mill
on that, because that's all that's the matter with the
mountains — they're a beautiful place to live, but
a body can't hardly earn a cent, work as they
may."

Johnnie forgot herself — she was always doing
that — and she talked freely and well. It was as
inevitable that she should be drawn to Gray Stoddard
as that she should desire the clothing and culture Miss

ABOVE THE VALLEY 91

Lydia possessed. For the present, one aspiration
struck her as quite as innocent as the other. Stoddard
had not yet emerged from the starry constellations
among which she set him, to take form as a young man,
a person who might indeed return her regard. Her
emotions were in that nebulous, formative stage when
but a touch would be needed to show her whither the
regard tended, yet till that touch should come, she
as unashamedly adored Gray as any child of five could
have done. It was not till they were well down the
road to Cottonville that she realized the bald fact that
she, a mill girl, was riding in an automobile with one
of the mill owners.

She was casting about for some reasonable phrase
in which to clothe the statement that it would be better
he should stop the car and let her out; she had parted
her lips to ask him to take the wheel, when they rounded
a turn and came upon a company of loom-fixers from
the village below. Behind them, in a giggling group,
strolled a dozen mill girls in their Sunday best. Johnnie
had sight of Mandy Meacham, fixing eyes of terrified
admiration upon her; then she nodded in reply to
Shade Buckheath's angry stare, and a rattle of wheels
apprized her that a carriage was passing on the other
side. This vehicle contained the entire Hardwick
family, with Lydia Sessions turning long to look her
incredulous amazement back at them from her seat
beside her brother-in-law.

It was all over in a moment. The loom-fixers had
debouched upon the long, wooden bridge which crossed

92 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

the ravine to their quarters; the girls were going on,
Mandy Meacham hanging back and staring; a tree
finally shut out Miss Sessions's accusing countenance.

"Please stop and let me out here," said Johnnie,
in a scarcely audible voice.

When Stoddard would have remonstrated, or asked
why, his lips were closed by sight of her daunted,
miserable face. He knew as well as she the mad
imprudence of the thing which they had done, and
blamed himself roundly with it all.

"I'll not forget to bring the books we were talking
of/' he made haste to say. He picked up the little
basket from the floor of the car.

"You'd better keep the flowers in that/' Johnnie
told him lifelessly. Her innocent dream was broken
into by a cruel reality. She was struggling blindly
under the weight of all her little world's disappro
bation.

"You'll let me return the basket when I bring you
the books," Gray suggested, helplessly.

"I don't know," Johnnie hesitated. Then, as a
sudden inspiration came to her, "Mandy Meacham
said she'd try to get me into a club for girls that Miss
Sessions has. She said Miss Sessions would lend
me books. Maybe you might just leave them with
her. I'm sure I should be mighty proud to have them.
I know I'll love to read them; but — well, you might
just leave them with her."

A little satiric sparkle leaped to life in Stoddard's
eyes. He looked at the innocent, upraised face in

ABOVE THE VALLEY 93

wonder. The most experienced manoeuverer of
Society's legion could not have handled a difficult
situation more deftly.

"The very thing," he said cheerily. "I'll talk to
Miss Sessions about it to-morrow."

CHAPTER VIII

OF THE USE OF WINGS

I TOLD you I'd speak a good word for you,"
shouted Mandy Meacham, putting her lips down
close to Johnnie's ear where she struggled and
fought with her looms amid the deafening clamour of
the weaving room.

The girl looked up, flushed, tired, but eagerly recep
tive.

"Yes," her red lips shaped the word to the other's
eyes, though no sound could make itself heard above
that din except such eldritch shrieks as Mandy's.

"I done it. I got you a invite to some doin's at the
Uplift Club a-Wednesday."

Again Johnnie nodded and shaped "Yes" with her
lips. She added something which might have been
"thank you"; the adorable smile that accompanied it
said as much.

Mandy watched her, fascinated as the lithe, strong
young figure bent and strained to correct a crease in the
web where it turned the roll.

"They never saw anything like you in their born
days, I'll bet," she yelled. "I never did. You're
awful quare — but somehow I sorter like ye." And
she scuttled back to her looms as the room boss came

94

OF THE USE OF WINGS 95

in. A weaver works by the piece, but Mandy had
been reproved too often for slovenly methods not to
know that she might be fined for neglect. Her looms
stood where she could continually get the newcomer's
figure against the light, with its swift motion, its supple
curves, and the brave carriage of the well-formed head.
The sight gave Mandy a curious satisfaction, as though
it uttered what she would fain have said to the classes
above her. Hers was something the feeling which the
private in the ranks has for the standard-bearer who
carries the colours aloft, or the dashing officer who
leads the charge. Johnnie was the challenge she
would have flung in the face of the enemy.

"I'll bet if you'd put one of Miss Lyddy's dresses
on her she'd look nobby," Mandy ruminated, address
ing her looms. "That's what she would. She'd
have 'em all f — fa — faded away, as the feller says."

And so it came about that the next day Johnnie Consa-
dine did not go to the mill at all, but spent the morning
washing and ironing her one light print dress. It
was as coarse almost as flour-sacking, and the blue dots
on it had paled till they made a suspicious speckle
not unlike mildew; yet when she had combed her thick,
fair hair, rolled it back from the white brow and
braided it to a coronet round her head as she had seen
that of the lady on the porch at the Palace of Pleasure;
when, cleansed and smooth, she put the frock on, one
forgot the dress in the youth of her, the hope, the
glorious expectation there was in that eager face.

The ladies assisting in Miss Lydia Sessions's Uplift

96 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Club for work among the mill girls, were almost
all young and youngish women. The mothers in
Israel attacked the more serious problems of orphanages,
winter's supplies of coal, and clothing for the destitute.

" But their souls must be fed, too," Miss Lydia
asserted as she recruited her helpers for the Uplift
work. "Their souls must be fed; and who can reach
the souls of these young girls so well as we who are
near their own age, and who have had time for culture
and spiritual growth?"

It was a good theory. Perhaps one may say that it
remains a good theory. The manner of uplifting was
to select a certain number of mill girls whom it was
deemed well to help, approach them on the subject,
and, if they appeared amenable, pay a substitute
to take charge of their looms while those in process of
being uplifted attended a meeting of the Club. The
gathering to which Johnnie was bidden was held in
honour of a lady from London who had written a book
on some subject which it was thought ought to appeal
to workingwomen. This lady intended to address
the company and to mingle with them and get their
views. Most of those present being quite unfurnished
with any views whatever on the problem she discussed,
her position was something that of a pick-pocket in
a moneyless crowd; but of this she was fortunately
and happily unaware.

Mandy Meacham regarded Johnnie's preparation
for the function with some disfavour.

"Ef you fix up like that," she remonstrated, "you're

OF THE USE OF WINGS 97

bound to look too nice to suit Miss Lyddy. They
won't be no men thar. I'm goin' to wear my workin'
dress, and tell her I hadn't nary minute nor nary cent
to do other."

Johnnie laughed a little at this, as though it were
intended for a joke.

"But I did have time," she objected. "Miss
Sessions would pay a substitute for the whole day
though I told her I'd only need the afternoon for the
party. I think it was mighty good of her, and it's
as little as I can do to make myself look as nice as I
can."

"You ain't got the sense you was born with!"
fretted Mandy. "Them thar kind ladies ain't a-
carin' for you to look so fine. They'll attend to all the
fine lookin' theirselves. What they want is to know
how bad off you air, an' to have you say how much
what they have did or give has helped you."

Such interchange of views brought the two girls
to the door of the little frame chapel, given over for
the day to Uplift work. Within it rose a bustle and
clatter, a hum of voices that spoke, a frilling of nervous,
shrill laughter to edge the sound, and back of that the
clink of dishes from a rear room where refreshments
were being prepared.

Miss Sessions, near the door, had a receiving line,
quite in the manner of any reception. She herself,
in a blouse of marvellous daintiness and sweeping
skirts, stood beside the visitor from London to present
her. To this day Johnnie is uncertain as to where

98 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

the wonderful blue silk frock of that lady from abroad
was fastened, though she gave the undivided efforts
of sharp young eyes and an inquiring mind to the
problem a good portion of the time while it was within
her view. The Englishwoman was called Mrs. Arch-
bold, and on her other hand stood a tall, slim lady with
long gray-green eyes, prematurely gray hair which
had plainly been red, and an odd little twist to her
smile. This was Mrs. Hexter, wife of the owner of
the big woollen mills across the creek, and only bidden
in to assist the Uplift work because the position of her
husband gave her much power. These, with the
Misses Burchard, daughters of the rector, formed the
reception committee.

"I am so charmed to see you here to-day," Miss
Lydia smiled as they entered. It was part of her
theory to treat the mill girls exactly as she would
members of her own circle. Mandy, being old at the
business, possessed herself of the high-held hand
presented; but Johnnie only looked at it in astonish
ment, uncertain whether Miss Lydia meant to shake
hands or pat her on the head. Yet when she did
finally divine what was intended, the quality of her
apologetic smile ought to have atoned for her lapse.

"I'm sure proud to be here with you-all," she said.
"Looks like to me you are mighty kind to strangers."

The ineradicable dignity of the true mountaineer,
who has always been as good as the best in his environ
ment, preserved Johnnie from any embarrassment,
any tendency to shrink or cringe. Her beauty, in the

OF THE USE OF WINGS 99

fresh-washed print gown, was like a thing released and,
as Miss Sessions might have put it, rampant.

Gray Stoddard had gone directly to Lydia Sessions,
with his proffers of books, and his suggestions for
Johnnie. The explanation of how the girl came to be
riding in his car that Sunday morning was neither as
full nor as penitent as Miss Lydia could have wished;
yet it did recognize the impropriety of the act, and was,
in so far, satisfactory. Miss Sessions made haste to
form an alliance with the young man for the special
upliftment of Johnnie Consadine. She would have
greatly preferred to interest him in Mandy Meacham,
but beggars can not be choosers, and she took what
she could get.

"Whom have we here?" demanded the lady from
London, leaning across and peering at Johnnie with
friendly, near-sighted eyes. "Why, what a blooming
girl, to be sure! You haven't been long from the
country, I'll venture to guess, my dear."

Johnnie blushed and dimpled at being so kindly
welcomed. The mountain people are undemonstra
tive in speech and action; and that "my dear" seemed
wonderful.

"I come from away up in the mountains," she said
softly.

"From away up in the mountains," repeated the
Englishwoman, her smiling gaze dwelling on Johnnie's
radiant face. " Why yes — so one would conceive.
Well, you mustn't lose all those pretty roses in the
mill down here." She was a visitor, remember; resi-

ioo THE POWER AND THE GLORY

dents of Cottonville never admitted that roses, or any
thing else desirable, could be lost in the mills.

O 7

"I'll not," said Johnnie sturdily. "I'm goin' to
earn my way and send for Mother and the children,
if hard work'll do it; but I'm a mighty big, stout,
healthy somebody, and I aim to keep so."

Mrs. Archbold patted the tall young shoulder as she
turned to Mandy Meacham whom Miss Lydia was
eager to put through her paces for the benefit of the
lady from London.

"Isn't that the girl Mr. Stoddard was speaking to
me about?" she inquired in a whisper as Johnnie
moved away. "I think it must be. He said she was
such a beauty, and I scarcely believe there could be
two like her in one town."

''Such a type,' were Mr. Stoddard's exact words
I believe," returned Miss Sessions a little frostily.
"Yes, John Consadine is quite a marked type of the
mountaineer. She is, as she said to you, a stout,
healthy creature, and, I understand, very industrious.
I approve of John."

She approved of John, but she addressed herself to
exploiting Mandy; and the lady in the blue silk frock
learned how poor and helpless the Meacham woman
had been before she got in to the mill work, how
greatly the Uplift Club had benefited her, with many
interesting details. Yet as the English lady went from
group to group in company with Miss Lydia and
T. H. Hexter's wife, her quick eyes wandered across the
room to where a bright head rose a little taller than

OF THE USE OF WINGS 101

its fellows, and occasional bursts of laughter told that
Johnnie was in a merry mood.

The threadbare attempt at a reception was gotten
through laboriously. The girls were finally settled
in orderly rows, and Mrs. Archbold led to the platform.
The talk she had prepared for them was upon aspiration.
It was an essay, in fact, and she had delivered it suc
cessfully before many women's clubs. She is not to be
blamed that the language was as absolutely above the
comprehension of her hearers as though it had been
Greek. She was a busy woman, with other aims and
activities than those of working among the masses;
Miss Lydia had heard her present talk, fancied it, and
thought it wTould be the very thing for the Uplift Club.

For thirty minutes Johnnie sat concentrating des
perately on every sentence that fell from the lips of
the lady from London, trying harder to understand
than she had ever tried to do anything in her life.
She put all her quick, young mind and avid soul into
the struggle to receive, though piercingly aware every
instant of the difference between her attire and that
of the wromen who had bidden her there, noting acutely
variations between their language and hers, their voices,
their gestures and hers. These were the women of
Gray Stoddard's world. Such were his feminine associ
ates; here, then, must be her models.

Mandy and her likes got from the talk perhaps noth
ing at all, except that rich people might have what
they liked if they wanted it — that at least was Miss
Meacham's summing up of the matter when she went

102 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

home that night. But to Johnnie some of the sentences
remained.

"You struggle and climb and strive," said Mrs.
Archbold earnestly, "when, if you only knew it, you
have wings. And what are the wings of the soul ?
The wings of the soul are aspiration. Oh, that we
would spread them and fly to the heights our longing
eyes behold, the heights we dream of when we cannot
see them, the heights we foolishly and mistakenly
expect to climb some day."

Again Johnnie saw herself coming down the ridge
at Shade's side; descending into the shadow, stepping
closer to the droning mills; while above her the Palace
of Pleasure swam in its golden glory, and these who were
privileged to do so went out and in and laughed and
were happy. Were such heights as that what this
woman meant ? Johnnie had let it typify to her the
heights to which she intended to climb. Was it indeed
possible to fly to them instead ? The talk ended.
She sat so long with bent head that Miss Sessions
finally came round and took the unoccupied chair
beside her.

"Are you thinking it over, John ?" she inquired with
that odd little note of hostility which she could never
quite keep out of her voice when she addressed this
girl.

"Yes'm," replied Johnnie meekly.

Several who were talking together in the vicinity
relinquished their conversation to listen to the two.
Mrs. Hexter shot one of her quaint, crooked smiles

OF THE USE OF WINGS 103

at the lady from London and, with a silent gesture,
bade her hearken.

"I think these things are most important for you
girls who have to earn your daily bread," Miss Sessions
condescended.

" Daily bread," echoed Johnnie softly. She loved
fine phrases as she loved fine clothes. "I know where
that comes from. It's in the prayer about 'daily
bread,' and 'the kingdom and the power and the
glory.' Don't you think those are beautiful words,
Miss Lydia — the 'power and the glory'?"

Miss Sessions's lips sucked in with that singular,
half-reluctant expression of condemnation which was
becoming fairly familiar to Johnnie.

"Oh, John!" she said reprovingly, 'Daily bread'
is all we have anything to do with. Don't you
remember that it says 'Thine be the kingdom and the
power and the glory' ? Thine, John -- Thine."

"Yes'm," returned Johnnie submissively. But it
was in her heart that certain upon this earth had their
share of kingdoms and powers and the glories. And,
although she uttered that submissive "Yes'm," her
high-couraged young heart registered a vow to achieve
its own slice of these things as well as of daily bread.

" Didn't you enjoy Mrs. Archbold's talk ? I thought
it very fine," Miss Sessions pursued.

"It sure was that," sighed Johnnie. "I don't
know as I understand it all — every word. I tried
to, but maybe I got some of it wrong."

"What is it you don't understand, John?" inquired

io4 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Miss Lydia patronizingly. "Ask me. I'll explain
anything you care to know about."

Johnnie turned to her, too desperately in earnest to
note the other listeners to the conversation.

"Why, that about stretching out the wings of your
spirit and flying. Do you believe that?"

"I certainly do," Miss Sessions said brightly, as de
lighted at Johnnie's remembering part of the visitor's
words as a small boy when he has taught his terrier
to walk on its hind legs.

'Then if a body wants a thing bad enough, and
keeps on a-wanting it — Oh, just awful — is that
aspiration ? Will the thing you want that-a-way come
to pass ?"

"We-e-ell," Miss Sessions deemed it necessary to
qualify her statement to this fiery and exact young
questioner. "You have to want the right thing, of
course, John. You have to want the right thing."

"Yes'm," agreed Johnnie heartily. "And I'd 'low
it was certainly the right thing, if it was what good
folks — like you — want."

Miss Sessions flushed, yet she looked pleased, aware,
if Johnnie was not, of the number of listeners. Here
was her work of Uplift among the mill girls being
justified.

"I — Oh, really, I couldn't set myself up as a
pattern," she said modestly.

" But you are," Johnnie assured her warmly.

'There ain't anybody in this room I'd rather go by

as by you." The fine gray eyes had been travelling

OF THE USE OF WINGS 105

from neck to belt, from shoulder to wrist of the lady
who was enlightening her. "I think I never in all
my life seen anything more sightly than that dress-body
you're a-wearin'," she murmured softly. " Where -
how might a person come by such a one ? If you
thought that my wishing and — aspiring — would ever
bring me such as that, I'd sure try."

There rose a titter about the two. It spread and
swelled till the whole assembly was in a gale of laughter.
Miss Sessions's becoming blush deepened to the tint
of angry mortification. She looked about and assumed
the air of a schoolmistress with a room full of noisy
pupils; but Johnnie, her cheeks pink too, first swept
them all with an astonished gaze which flung the long
lashes up in such a wide curve of innocence as
made her eyes bewitching, then joined it, and laughed
as loud as any of them at she knew not what. It was
the one touch to put her with the majority, and leave
her mentor stranded in a bleak minority. Miss
Sessions objected to the position.

"Oh, John!" she said severely, so soon as she could
be heard above the giggles. " How you have misunder
stood me, and Mrs. Archbold, and all we intended
to bring to you! What is a mere blouse like this to
the uplift, the outlook, the development we were striving
to offer ? I confess I am deeply disappointed in you."

This sobered Johnnie, instantly.

"I'm sorry," she said, bending forward to lay a
wistful, penitent hand on that of Miss Sessions. "I'll
try to understand better. I reckon I'm right dumb,

io6 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

and you'll have to have a lot of patience with me. I
don't rightly know what to aspire after."

The amende was so sweetly made that even Lydia
Sessions, still exceedingly employed at being pictorially
chagrined over the depravity of her neophyte, could
but be appeased.

"I'll try to furnish you more suitable objects for
your ambition/' she murmured virtuously.

But the lady with the gray hair and the odd little
twist to her smile now leaned forward and took a hand
in the conversation.

"See here, Lydia," Mrs. Hexter remonstrated in
crisp tones, "what's the matter with the girl's aspiring
after a blouse like yours ? You took a lot of trouble
and spent a lot of money to get that one. I noticed
you were careful to tell me it was imported, because
I couldn't see the neck-band and find out that detail
for myself. That blouse is a dream — it's a dream.
If it's good enough aspiration for you or me, why not
for this girl ?"

"Oh, but Mrs. Hexter," murmured the mortified
Miss Sessions, glancing uneasily toward the mill-girl
contingent which was listening eagerly, and then at
the speaker of the day, "I am sure Mrs. Archbold will
agree with me that it would be a gross, material
idea to aspire after blouses and such-like, when
the poor child needs — er — other things so much
more."

"Yes'm, I do that," conceded Johnnie dutifully,
those changeful eyes of hers full of pensive, denied de-

OF THE USE OF WINGS 107

sire, as they swept the dainty gowns of the women be
fore her. "I do — you're right. I wouldn't think of
spending my money for a dress-body like that when
I'm mighty near as barefoot as a rabbit this minute,
and the little 'uns back home has to have every cent
I can save. I just thought that if beautiful wishes
was ever really coming true — if it was right and
proper for a person to have beautiful wishes — I'd
like "

Her voice faltered into discouraged silence. Tears
gathered and hung thick on her lashes. Miss Sessions
sent a beseeching look toward the lady from London.
Mrs. Archbold stepped accommodatingly into the
breach.

"All aspiration is good," she said gently. "I
shouldn't be discouraged because it took a rather
concrete form."

Johnnie's eyes were upon her face, trying to under
stand. A "concrete form" she imagined might allude
to the fact that Miss Sessions had a better figure than
she.

Mrs. Hexter, glad of an ally, tossed that incorrigible
gray head of hers and dashed into the conversation
once more.

"If I were you, Johnnie, I'd just aspire as hard as
I could in that direction," she said recklessly, her
mischievous glance upon the flowing lines of Johnnie's
young shoulders and throat. "A blouse like that would
be awfully fetching on you. You'd look lovely in it.
Why shouldn't you aspire to it ? Maybe you'll have

io8 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

one just as pretty before the style changes. I am sure
you're nice enough, and good-looking enough, for the
best in the way of purple and fine linen to come to you
by the law of attraction — don't you believe in the law
of attraction, Mrs. Archbold ?"

Lydia Sessions got up and moved away in shocked
silence. Mrs. Hexter was a good deal of a thorn in
her flesh, and she only tolerated her because of Mr.
Hexter and his position. After the retreating and
disaffected hostess came Mrs. Archbold's voice, with
a thread of laughter in it.

"I believe in the law of such attraction as this girl
has," she said kindly. " What is it your Walt Whitman
says about the fluid and attaching character ? That
all hearts yearn toward it, that old and young must give
it love. That is, my dear," turning explainingly to
Johnnie, "the character which gives much love, takes
much interest in those about it, makes itself one with
other people and their affairs — do you get my
meaning ? "

"I think I understand," half whispered Johnnie,
glowing eyes on the face of the speaker. "Do you
mean that I am anything like that ? I do love every
body — most. But how could I help it, when every
body is so good and kind to me ?"

The glances of the older women met across the
bright head.

"She won't have much use for feet to climb with,"
Mrs. Hexter summed it up, taking her figure from
the talk earlier in the afternoon. "She's got wings."

OF THE USE OF WINGS 109

And puzzled Johnnie could only smile from one to
the other.

"Wings!'* whispered Mandy Meacham to herself.
Mandy was not only restricted to the use of spiritual
feet; she was lame in the soul as well, poor creature,
"Wings — air they callin' her a angel?"

CHAPTER IX

A BIT OF METAL

IN THE valleys of Tennessee, spring has a trick
of dropping down on the world like a steaming
wet blanket. The season that Johnnie Con-
sadine went to work in the mills at Cottonville, May
came in with warm rains. Stifling nights followed sultry,
drenching days, till vegetation everywhere sprouted
unwholesomely and the mountain slopes had almost
the reek of tropic jungles.

Yet the girl performed the labours of a factory weaver
with almost passionate enthusiasm and devotion.
Always and always she was looking beyond the mere
present moment. If tending loom was the road
which led to the power and the glory, what need to
complain that it — the mere road — was but dull
earth ?

She tried conscientiously, to do and be exactly what
Lydia Sessions seemed to want. Gray Stoddard's
occasional spoken word, or the more lengthy written
messages he had taken to putting in the books he sent
her, seemed to demand of her nothing, but always
inspired to much. For all his disposition to keep
hands off the personal development of his friends, per
haps on account of it, Gray made an excellent teacher,

no

A BIT OF METAL in

and these writings — the garnered grain, the gist, of
his own wide culture — were the very sinews for the
race Johnnie was setting out on. She began to intelli
gently guard her speech, her manner, her very thoughts,
conforming them to what she knew of his ideals.
Miss Session's striving to build up an imitation lady
on the sincere foundation Johnnie offered appealed
less to the girl, and had therefore less effect; but she
immediately responded to Stoddard's methods, tuck
ing in to the books she returned written queries or
records of perplexity, which gradually expanded into
notes, expressions of her own awakened thought, and
even fancies, which held from the first a quaint charm
and individuality.

The long, hot days at the foot of the hills did seem
to the mountain-bred creature interminable and
stifling. Perspiration dripped from white faces as
the operatives stood listlessly at their looms, or
the children straggled back and forth in the narrow
lanes between the frames, tending the endlessly turn
ing spools.

The Hardwick Mill had both spinning and weaving
departments. Administrative ability is as much a
native gift as the poet's voice or the actor's grace, and
the managers of any large business are always on the
lookout for it. Before Johnnie Consadine had been
two months in the factory she was given charge of a
spinning room. But the dignity of the new position -
even the increase of pay — had a cloud upon it. She
was beginning to understand the enmity there is

iiz THE POWER AND THE GLORY

between the soulless factory and the human tide that
feeds its life. She knew now that the tasks of the
little spinners, which seemed less than child's play,
were deadly in their monotony, their long indoor hours,
and the vibrant clamour amid which they were per
formed. Her own vigorous young frame resisted val
iantly; yet the Saturday half-holiday, the Sunday of
rest, could scarcely renew her for the exorbitant hours
of mechanical toil.

As she left the mill those sultry evenings, with the
heat mists still tremulous over the valley and heat
lightnings bickering in the west, she went with a lagging
step up the village street, not looking, as had been
her wont, first toward the far blue mountains, and then
at the glorious state of the big valley. The houses of
the operatives were set up haphazard and the village
was denied all beauty. Most of the yards were
unfenced, and here and there a row of shanties would
be crowded so close together that speech in one could
be heard in the other.

"And then if any ketchin' disease does break out, like
the dipthery did last year," Mavity Bence said one
evening as she walked home with Johnnie, "hit's
sartin shore to go through 'em like it would go through
a family."

Johnnie looked curiously at the dirty yards with their
debris of lard buckets and tin cans. Space — air,
earth and sky — was cheap and plentiful in the moun
tains. It seemed strange to be sparing of it, down
here where people were so rich.

A BIT OF METAL 113

"What makes 'em build so close, Aunt Mavity?"
she asked.

"Hit's the Company," returned Mrs. Bence lifelessly.
"They don't want to spend any more than they have
to for land. Besides they want everything to be nigh
to the mill. Lord — hit don't make no differ. Only
when a fire starts in a row of 'em hit cleans up the
Company's property same as it does the plunder of
the folks that lives in 'em. You just got to be thankful
if there don't chance to be one or more baby children
locked up in the houses and burned along with the
other stuff. I've knowed that to happen more than
oncet."

Johnnie's face whitened.

" Miss Lydia says she's going to persuade her brother-
in-law to furnish a kindergarten and a day nursery for
the Hardwick Mill," she offered hastily. "They have
one at some other mill down in Georgia, and she says
it's fine the way they take care of the children while
the mothers are at work in the factory."

"Uh-uh," put in Mandy Meacham slowly, speaking
over the shoulders of the two, "but I'd a heap ruther
take care of my own child — ef I had one. An' ef
the mills can afford to pay for it the one way, they
can afford to pay for it t'other way. Miss Liddy's
schemes is all for the showin' off of the swells and the
rich folks. I reckon that, with her, hit'll end in talk,
anyhow — hit always does."

"Aunt Mavity," pursued Johnnie timidly, "do
you reckon the water's unhealthy down here in Cotton-

ii4 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

ville ? Looks like all the children in the mill have the
same white, puny look. I thought maybe the water
didn't agree with them."

Mavity Bence laughed out mirthlessly. " The water !"
she echoed in a tone of amused contempt. " Johnnie,
you're mighty smart about some things; cain'tyou see
that a cotton mill is bound to either kill or cripple a
child ? Them that don't die, sort o' drags along and
grows up to be mis'able, undersized, sickly somebodies.
Hit's true the Hardwick Mill won't run night turn;
hit's true they show mo' good will about hirin' older
children; but if you can make a cotton mill healthy
for young-uns, you can do more than God A'mighty."
She wiped her eyes furtively.

" Lou was well growed before ever she went in the
mill. I know in reason hit never hurt her. I mean
these here mammies that I see puttin' little tricks to
work that ort to be runnin' out o' doors gettin' their
strength and growth — well, po' souls, I reckon they
don't know no better, God forgive 'em!"

" But if they got sick or anything, there's always the
hospital," Johnnie spoke up hopefully, as they passed
the clean white building standing high on its green slope.

"The hospital!" echoed Mandy, with a half-terrified
glance over her shoulder. "Yes, ef you want to be
shipped out of town in a box for the student doctors
to cut up, I reckon the hospital is a good place. It's
just like everything else the rich swells does — it's
for their profit, not for our'n. They was a lot of big
talk when they built that thar hospital, and every one

A BIT OF METAL 115

of us was axed to give something for beds and such.
We was told that if we got hurt in the mill we could go
thar free, and if we fell sick they'd doctor us for little
or nothin'. They can afford it — considerin' the
prices they git for dead bodies, I reckon."

"Now, Mandy, you don't believe any such as that,"
remonstrated Johnnie, with a half-smile.

"Believe it — I know it to be true!" Mandy stuck
to her point stubbornly. "Thar was Lura Dawson;
her folks was comin' down to git the body and bury
hit, and when they got here the hospital folks couldn't
tell 'em whar to look — no, they couldn't. Atlas
Dawson 'lows he'll git even with 'em if it takes him
the rest of his natural life. His wife was a Bushares
and her whole tribe is out agin the hospital folks and
the mill folks down here. I reckon you live too far
up in the mountains to hear the talk, but some of
these swells had better look out."

As the long, hot days followed each other, Johnnie
noticed how Mandy failed. Her hand was forever
at her side, where she had a stitch-like pain, that she
called "a jumpin' misery." Even broad, seasoned
Mavity Bence grew pallid and gaunt. Only Pap
Himes thrived. His trouble was rheumatism, and
the hot days were his best. Of evenings he would sit
on the porch in his broad, rush-bottomed chair, the
big yellow cat on his knees, and smoke his pipe and,
if he cared to do so, banter unkindly with the girls on
the steps. Early in the season as it was, the upstairs
rooms were terribly hot; and sometimes the poor crea-

u6 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

tures sat or lay on the porch till well past midnight.
Across the gulch were songs and the strumming of
banjos or guitars, where the young fellows at the
inn waked late.

The rich people on top of the hill were beginning to
make their preparations to flit to the seashore or
mountains. Lydia Sessions left for two weeks, promis
ing to return in June, and the Uplift work drooped,
neglected. There seems to be an understanding that
people do not need uplifting so much during hot weather.
Gray Stoddard was faithful in the matter of books.
He carried them to Lydia Sessions and discussed with
that young lady a complete course of reading for Johnnie.
Lydia was in the position of one taking bad medicine
for good results. She could not but delight in any
enterprise which brought Stoddard intimately to her,
yet the discussion of Johnnie Consadine, the admira
tion he expressed for the girl's character and work,
were as so much quinine.

Johnnie herself was dumb and abashed, now, in his
presence. She sought vainly for the poise and com
posure which were her natural birthright in most of
the situations of life. Yet her perturbation was not that
of distress. The sight of him, the sound of his voice,
even if he were not saying good morning to her, would
cheer her heart for one whole, long, hot day: and if
he spoke to her, if he looked at her, nothing could touch
her with sadness for hours afterward. She asked no
questions why this was so; she met it with a sort of
desperate bravery, accepting the joy, refusing to see

A BIT OF METAL 117

the sorrow there might be in it. And she robbed herself
of necessary sleep to read Stoddard's books, to study
them, to wring from them the last precious crumb
of help or information that they might have for her.
The mountain dweller is a mental creature. An
environment which builds lean, vigorous bodies, is apt
to nourish keen, alert minds. Johnnie crowded into
her few months of night reading a world of ripening
culture.

Ever since the Sunday morning of the automobile
ride, Shade Buckheath had been making elaborate
pretense of having forgotten that such a person as
Johnnie Consadine existed. If he saw her approaching,
he turned his back; and when forced to recognize her,
barely growled some unintelligible greeting. Then
one evening she came suddenly into the machine room.
She walked slowly down the long aisle between pieces
of \vhirring machinery, carrying all eyes with her.
It was an offence to Buckheath to note how the other
young fellows turned from their tasks to look after
her. She had no business down here where the men
were. That was just like a fool girl, always running
after - — . She paused at his bench.

"Shade," she said, bending close so that he might
hear the words, " I got leave to come in and ask you to
make me a thing like this — see ?" showing a pattern
for a peculiarly slotted strip of metal.

Buckheath returned to the surly indifference of
demeanour which was natural to him. Yet he smiled
covertly as he examined the drawing she had made of

ii8 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

the thing she wanted. He divined in this movement
of Johnnie's but an attempt to approach himself,
and, as she explained with some particularity, he paid
more attention to the girl than to her words.

" I want a big enough hole here to put a bolt
through," she repeated. " Shade — do you understand ?
You're not listening to one word I say."

Buckheath turned and grinned broadly at her.

"What's the use of this foolishness, Johnnie?"
he inquired, clinking the strips of metal between his
fingers. "Looks like you and me could find a chance
to visit without going to so much trouble."

Johnnie opened her gray eyes wide and stared at
him.

"Foolishness!" she echoed. "Mr. Stoddard didn't
call it foolishness when I named it to him. He said
I was to have anything I wanted made, and that one
of the loom-fixers could attend to it."

"Mr. Stoddard — what's he got to do with it?"
demanded Shade.

"He hasn't anything; but that I spoke to him about
it, and he told me to try any plan I wanted to."

" Well, the less you talk to the bosses — a girl like you,
working here in the mill — the better name you'll
bear," Shade told her, twisting the drawing in his
hands and regarding her from under lowered brows.

"Don't tear that," cautioned Johnnie impatiently.
" I have to speak to some of the people in authority
sometimes — the same as you do. What's the matter
with you, Shade Buckheath?"

A BIT OF METAL 119

"There's nothing the matter with me," Buckheath
declared wagging his head portentously, and avoid
ing her eye. Then the wrath, the sense of personal
injury, which had been simmering in him ever since
he saw her sitting beside Stoddard in the young mill
owner's car, broke forth. "When I see a girl riding in
an automobile with one of these young bosses," he
growled, close to her ear, " I know what to think -
and so does everybody else."

It was out. He had said it at last. He stared at
her fiercely. The red dyed her face and neck at his
words and look. For a desperate moment she took
counsel with herself. Then she lifted her head and
looked squarely in Buckheath's face.

"Oh, that's what has been the matter with you all
this time, is it?" she inquired. "Well, I'm glad you
spoke and relieved your mind." Then she went on
evenly, "Mr. Stoddard had been up in the mountains
that Sunday to get a flower that he wanted, like the one
you stepped on and broke the day I came down. I
was up there and showed him where the things grow.
Then it rained, and he brought me down in his car.
That's all there was to it."

" Mighty poor excuse," grunted Shade, turning his
shoulder to her.

"It's not an excuse at all," said Johnnie. "You
have no right to ask excuses for what I do — or explana
tions, either, for that matter. I've told you the truth
about it because we were old friends and you named it
to me; but I'm sorry now that I spoke at all. Give

no THE POWER AND THE GLORY

me that drawing and those patterns back. Some of
the other loom-fixers can make what I want."

"You get mad quick, don't you ?" Buckheath asked,
turning to her with a half-taunting, half-relenting
smile on his face. "Red-headed people always do."

"No, I'm not mad," Johnnie told him, as she
had told him long ago. "But I'll thank you not to
name Mr. Stoddard to me again. If I haven't the
right to speak to anybody I need to, why it certainly
isn't your place to tell me of it."

"Go 'long," said Buckheath, surlily; "I'll fix 'em
for you." And without another word the girl left
him.

After Johnnie was gone, Buckheath chewed for
some time the bitter cud of chagrin. He was wholly
mistaken, then, in the object of her visit to the mechan
ical department ? Yet he was a cool-headed fellow,
always alert for that which might bring him gain.
Pushing, aspiring, he subscribed for and faithfully
studied a mechanics' journal which continually urged
upon its readers the profit of patenting small improve
ments on machinery already in use. Indeed everybody,
these days, in the factories, is on the lookout for patent-
able improvements. Why might not Johnnie have
stumbled on to something worth while ? That Passmore
and Consadine tribe were all smart fools. He made the
slotted strips she wanted, and delivered them to her
the next day with civil words. When, after she had
them in use on the spinning jennies upstairs for a week,
she came down bringing them for certain minute

A BIT OF METAL 121

alterations, his attitude was one of friendly help
fulness.

"You say you use 'em on the frames? What for?
How do they work?" he asked her, examining the
little contrivance lingeringly.

"They're working pretty well," she told him, "even
the way they are — a good deal too long, and with
that slot not cut deep enough, I'm right proud of myself
when I look at them. Any boy or girl tending a frame
can go to the end of it and see if anything's the matter
without walking plumb down. When you get them
fixed the way I want them, I tell you they'll be fine."

The next afternoon saw Shade Buckheath in the
spooling room, watching the operation of Johnnie
Consadine's simple device for notifying the frame-
tender if a thread fouled or broke.

"Let me take 'em all down to the basement," he
said finally when he had studied them from every
point of view for fifteen minutes. "They ain't as
well polished as I'd like to have 'em and I think they
might be a little longer in the shank. There ought to
be a ring of babbit metal around that slot, too — I
reckon I could get it in Watauga. If you'll let me
take 'em now, I'll fix 'em up for you soon as I can,
so that they'll do fine."

Johnnie remonstrated, half-heartedly, as he gathered
the crude little invention from the frames; but his
proposition wore a plausible face, and she suffered him
to take them.

"They ain't but five here," he said to her sharply.

122 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

"I know I made you six. Where's the other one?"
He looked so startled, he spoke so anxiously, that she
laughed.

"I think that must be the one I carried home," she
said carelessly. "I had a file, and was trying to fix
it myself one evening, and I reckon I never brought
it back."

" Johnnie," said Shade, coming close, and speaking
in a low confidential tone that was almost affectionate,
"if I was you I wouldn't name this business to anybody.
Wait till we get it all fixed right," he pursued, as he
saw the rising wonder in her face. "No need to tell
every feller all you know — so he'll be jest as smart
as you are. Ain't that so ? And you git me that
other strip. I don't want it layin' round for somebody
to get hold of and — you find me that other strip.
Hunt it up, won't you?"

"Well, you sure talk curious to-day!" Johnnie told
him. "I don't see anything to be ashamed of in my
loving to fool with machinery, if I am a girl. But
I'll get you the strip, if I can find it. I'm mighty
proud of being a room boss, and I aim to make my
room the best one in the mill. Shade, did you know
that I get eight dollars a week ? I've been sending
money home to mother, and I've got a room to myself
down at Pap Himes's. And Mr. Sessions says they'll
raise me again soon. I wanted 'em to see this thing
working well."

"Look here!" broke in Shade swiftly; "don't you
say anything to the bosses about this" -he shook

A BIT OF METAL 123

the strips in his hand — "not till I've had a chance
to talk to you again. You know I'm your friend, don't
you Johnnie ?"

"I reckon so," returned truthful Johnnie, with
unflattering moderation. "You get me those things
done as quick as you can, please, Shade."

After this the matter dropped. Two or three times
Johnnie reminded Shade of his promise to bring the
little strips back, and always he had an excuse ready
for her: he had been very busy — the metal he wanted
was out of stock — he would fix them for her just as
soon as he could. With every interview his manner
toward herself grew kinder — more distinctly that
of a lover.

The loom-fixers and mechanics, belonging, be it
remembered, to a trades-union, were out of all the
mills by five o'clock. It was a significant point for
any student of economic conditions to note these
strapping young males sitting at ease upon the porches
of their homes or boarding houses, when the sweating,
fagged women weavers and childish spinners trooped
across the bridges an hour after. Johnnie was
surprised, therefore, one evening, nearly two weeks
later, to find Shade waiting for her at the door of
the mill.

"I wish't you'd walk a piece up the Gap road with
me, I want to have speech with you," the young fellow
told her.

"I can't go far; I 'most always try to be home in
time to help Aunt Mavity put supper on the table, or

i24 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

anyway to wash up the dishes for her," the girl replied
to him.

"All right," agreed Buckheath briefly. " Wait here a
minute and let me get some things I want to take along."

He stopped at a little shed back of the offices, some
times called the garage because Stoddard's car stood
in it. Johnnie dropped down on a box at the door
and the young fellow went inside and began searching
the pockets of a coat hanging on a peg. He spoke
over his shoulder to her.

"What's the matter with you here lately since you
got your raise ? 'Pears like you won't look at a body."

"Haven't I seemed friendly?" Johnnie returned,
with a deprecating smile. "I reckon I'm just tired.
Seems like I'm tired every minute of the day — and
I couldn't tell you why. I sure don't have anything
hard to do. I think sometimes I need the good hard
work I used to have back in the mountains to get
rested on."

She laughed up at him, and Buckheath's emotional
nature answered with a dull anger, which was his only
reply to her attraction.

"I was going to invite you to go to a dance in at
Watauga, Saturday night," he said sullenly; "but
I reckon if you're tired all the time, you don't want
to go."

He had hoped and expected that she would say she
was not too tired to go anywhere that he wished her to.
His disappointment was disproportionate when she
sighingly agreed:

A BIT OF METAL 125

"Yes, I reckon I hadn't better go to any dances. I
wouldn't for the world break down at my work, when
I've just begun to earn so much, and am sending
money home to mother."

Inside the offices Lydia Sessions stood near her
brother's desk. She had gone down, as she sometimes
did, to take him home in the carriage.

"Oh, here you are, Miss Sessions," said Gray Stod-
dard coming in. "I've brought those books for
Johnnie. There are a lot of them here for her to make
selection from. As you are driving, perhaps you
wouldn't mind letting me set them in the carriage,
then I won't go up past your house."

Miss Sessions glanced uneasily at the volumes he
carried.

" Do you think it's wise to give an ignorant, untrained
girl like that the choice of her own reading?" she said
at length.

Stoddard laughed.

" It's as far as my wisdom goes," he replied promptly.
" I would as soon think of getting up a form of prayer
for a fellow creature as laying out a course of reading
for him."

"Well, then," suggested Miss Sessions, "why not
let her take up a Chatauqua course ? I'm sure many
of them are excellent. She would be properly guided,
and — and encroach less on your time."

"My time!" echoed Stoddard. "Never mind
that feature. I'm immensely interested. It's fascina-

126 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

ting to watch the development of so fine a mind which
has lain almost entirely fallow to the culture of schools.
I quite enjoy looking out a bunch of books for her, and
watching to see which one will most appeal to her.
Her instinct has proved wholly trustworthy so far.
Indeed, if it didn't seem exaggerated, I should say her
taste was faultless."

Miss Sessions flushed and set her lips together.

"Faultless," she repeated, with an attempt at a
smile. "I fancy Johnnie finds out what you admire
most, and makes favourites of your favourites."

Stoddard looked a bit blank for an instant. Then,

"Well — perhaps — she does," he allowed, hesita
tingly. His usual tolerant smile held a hint of indul
gent tenderness, and there was a vibration in his voice
which struck to Lydia Sessions's heart like a knife.

"No, you are mistaken," he added after a moment's
reflection. "You don't realize how little I've talked
to the child about books — or anything else, for that
matter. It does chance that her taste is mine in very
many cases; but you underrate our protege when you
speak of her as ignorant and uncultured. She knows
a good deal more about some things than either of us.
It is her fund of nature lore that makes Thoreau and
White of Selborne appeal to her. Now I love them
because I know so little about what they write of."

Lydia Sessions instantly fastened upon the one point.
She protested almost anxiously.

" But surely you would not call her cultured — a
factory girl who has lived in a hut in the mountains all

A BIT OF METAL 127

her life ? She is trying hard, I admit; but her speech
is — well, it certainly is rather uncivilized."

Stoddard looked as though he might debate that
matter a bit. Then he questioned, instead:

"Did you ever get a letter from her? She doesn't
carry her quaint little archaisms of pronunciation and
wording into her writing. Her letters are delicious."

Miss Sessions turned hastily to the window and
looked out, apparently to observe whether her brother
was ready to leave or not. Johnnie Consadine's
letters — her letters. What — when — ? Of course
she could not baldly question him in such a matter;
and the simple explanation of a little note of thanks
with a returned book, or the leaf which reported
impressions from its reading tucked in between the
pages occurred to her perturbed mind.

"You quite astonish me," she said finally. "Well
- that is good hearing. Mr. Stoddard," with sud
den decision, " don't you believe that it would be well
worth while, in view of all this, to raise the money and
send John Consadine away to a good school ? There
are several fine ones in New England where she might
partially work her way; and really, from what you say,
it seems to me she's worthy of such a chance."

Stoddard glanced at her in surprise.

"Why, Miss Sessions, doesn't this look like going
squarely back on your most cherished theories ? If
it's only to bestow a little money, and send her away
to some half-charity school, what becomes of your
argument that people who have had advantages should

i28 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

give of themselves and their comradeship to those
they wish to help ? " There was a boyish eagerness in
his manner; his changeful gray-brown eyes were
alight; he came close and laid a hand on her arm -
quite an unusual demonstration with Gray Stoddard.
"You mustn't discourage me," he said winningly.
"I'm such a hopeful disciple. I've never enjoyed
anything more in my life than this enterprise you and
I have undertaken together, providing the right food
for so bright and so responsive a mind."

Miss Lydia looked at him in a sort of despair.

"Yes — oh, yes. I quite understand that," she
agreed almost mechanically. " I don't mean to go
back on my principles. But what John needs is a
good, sound education from the beginning. Don't
you think so ?"

"No," said Stoddard promptly. "Indeed I do not.
Development must come from within. To give it a
chance — to lend it stimulus — that's all a friend can
do. A ready-made education plastered on the outside
cultivates nobody. Moreover, Johnnie is in no crying
need of mere schooling. You don't seem to know how
well provided she has been in that respect. But the
thing that settles the matter is that she would not
accept any such charitable arrangement. Unless you're
tired of our present method, I vote to continue it."

Lydia Sessions had been for some moments watch
ing Johnnie Consadine who sat on her box at the door
of the little garage. She had refrained from mention
ing this fact to her companion; but now Shade Buck-

A BIT OF METAL 129

heath stepped out to join Johnnie, and instantly Lydia
turned and motioned Stoddard to her.

"Look there," she whispered. "Don't they make
a perfect couple ? You and I may do what we choose
about cultivating the girl's mind — she'll marry a
man of her own class, and there it will end."

"Why should you say that?" asked Stoddard
abruptly. "Those two do not belong to the same
class. They "

"Oh, Mr. Stoddard! They grew up side by side;
they went to school together, and I imagine were
sweethearts long before they came to Cottonville."

"Do you think that makes them of the same class ?"
asked Stoddard impatiently. "I should say the pre
sumption was still greater the other way. I was not
alluding to social classes."

"You're so odd," murmured Lydia Sessions. "These
mountaineers are all alike."

The village road was a smother of white dust; the
weeds beside it drooped powdered heads; evil odours
reeked through the little place; but when Shade and
Johnnie had passed its confines, the air from the
mountains greeted them sweetly; the dusty white road
gave place to springy leaf-mould, mixed with tiny,
sharp stones. A young moon rode low in the west.
The tank-a-tank of cowbells sounded from homing
animals. Up in the dusky Gap, whip-poor-wills were
beginning to call.

"I'm glad I came," said Johnnie, pushing the hair

130 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

off her hot forehead. She was speaking to herself,
aware that Buckheath paid little attention, but walked
in silence a step ahead, twisting a little branch of
sassafras in his fingers. The spicy odour of the bark
was afterward associated in Johnnie's mind with what
he had then to say.

''Johnnie," he began, facing around and barring
her way, when they were finally alone together
between the trees, "do you remember the last time
you and me was on this piece of road here — do you ?"

He had intended to remind her of the evening she
came to Cottonville: but instead, recollection built
for her once more the picture of that slope bathed in
Sabbath sunshine. There was the fork where the
Hardwick carriage had turned off; to this side went
Shade and his fellows, with Mandy and the girls follow
ing; and down the middle of the road she herself came,
seated in the car beside Stoddard.

For a moment memory choked and blinded Johnnie.
She could neither see the path before them, nor find
the voice to answer her questioner. The bleak pathos
of her situation came home to her, and tears of rare
self-pity filled her eyes. Why was it a disgrace that
Stoddard should treat her kindly ? Why must she
be ashamed of her feeling for him ? Shade's voice
broke in harshly.

" Do you remember ? You ain't forgot, have you ?
Ever since that time I've intended to speak to you -
to tell you -

"Well, you needn't do it," she interrupted him pas>-

A BIT OF METAL 131

sionatefy. " I won't hear a word against Mr. Stoddard,
if that's what you're aiming at."

Buckheath fell back a pace and stared with angry
eyes.

"Stoddard — Gray Stoddard?" he repeated.
"What's a swell like that got to do with you and me,
Johnnie Consadine ? You want to let Gray Stoddard
and his kind alone — yes, and make them let you
alone, if you and me are going to marry."

It was Johnnie's turn to stare.

"If we're going to marry!" she echoed blankly —
"going to marry!" The girl had had her lovers.
Despite hard work and the stigma of belonging to the
borrowing Passmore family, Johnnie had commanded
the homage of more than one heart. She was not
without a healthy young woman's relish fcr this sort
of admiration; but Shade Buckheath's proposal came
with so little grace, in such almost sinister form, that
she scarcely recognized it.

" Yes, if we're going to wed," reiterated Buckheath
sullenly. "I'm willin' to have you."

Johnnie's tense, almost tragic manner relaxed.
She laughed suddenly.

"I didn't know you was joking, Shade," she said
good-humouredly. " I took you to be in earnest.
You'll have to excuse me."

"I am in earnest," Buckheath told her, almost
fiercely. "I reckon I'm a fool; but I want you. Any
day" -he spoke with a curious, half-savage reluc
tance - " any day you'll say the word, I'll take you."

132 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

His eyes, like his voice, were resentful, yet eager.
He took off his hat and wiped the perspiration from
his brow, looking away from her now, toward the road
by which they had climbed.

Johnnie regarded him through her thick eyelashes,
the smile still lingering bright in her eyes. After
all, it was only a rather unusual kind of sweethearting,
and not a case of it to touch her feelings.

" I'm mighty sorry," she said soberly, " but I ain't
aimin' to wed any man, fixed like I am. Mother and
the children have to be looked after, and I can't ask a
man to do for 'em, so I have it to do myself."

"Of course I can't take your mother and the chil
dren," Buckheath objected querulously, as though she
had asked him to do so. " But you I'll take; and you'd
do well to think it over. You won't get such a chance
soon again, and I'm apt to change my mind if
you put on airs with me this way."

Johnnie shook her head.

"I know it's a fine chance, Shade," she said in the
kindest tone, "but I'm hoping you will change your
mind, and that soon; for it's just like I tell you."

She turned with evident intention of going back and
terminating their interview. Buckheath stepped beside
her in helpless fury. He knew she would have other
opportunities, and better. He was aware how futile
was this threat of withdrawing his proposition. Hot,
tired, angry, the dust of the way prickling on his face
and neck, he was persistently conscious of a letter in
the pocket of his striped shirt, over his heavily beating

A BIT OF METAL 133

heart, warm and moist like the shirt itself, with the
sweat of his body. Good Lord! That letter which had
come from Washington this morning informing him
that the device this girl had invented was patentable,
filled her hands with gold. It was necessary that he
should have control of her, and at once. He put from
him the knowledge of how her charm wrought upon
him — bound him the faster every time he spoke to
her. Cold, calculating, sluggishly selfish, he had not
reckoned with her radiant personality, nor had the
instinct to know that, approached closely, it must inevit
ably light in him unwelcome and inextinguishable
fires.

:' Johnnie," he said finally, "you ain't saying no
to me, are you ? You take time to think it over -
but not so very long -- I'll name it to you
again."

" Please don't, Shade," remonstrated the girl, walking
on fast, despite the oppressive heat of the evening.
"I wish you wouldn't speak of it to me any more;
and I can't go walking with you this way. I have
obliged to help Aunt Mavity; and every minute of time
I get from that, and my work, I'm putting in on my
books and reading."

She stepped ahead of him now, and Buckheath
regarded her back with sullen, sombre eyes. What
was he to do ? How come nearer her when she thus
held herself aloof ?

''Johnnie Consadine!" The girl checked her steps
a bit at a new sound in his voice. " I'll tell you just one

i34 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

thing, and you'd better never forget it, neither. I ain't
no fool. I know mighty well an' good your reason for
treating me this-a-way. Your reason's got a name.
Hit's called Mr. Gray Stoddard. You behave yo'self
an' listen to reason, or I'll get even with him for it.
Damn him — I'll fix him!"

CHAPTER X

THE SANDALS OF JOY

GOME in here, Johnnie," Mavity Bence called
one day, as Johnnie was passing a strange
little cluttered cubbyhole under the garret
stairs and out over the roof of the lean-to kitchen.
It was a hybrid apartment, between a large closet and
a small room; one four-paned window gave scant light
and ventilation; all the broken or disused plunder
about the house was pitched into it, and in the middle
sat a tumbled bed. It was the woman's sleeping place
and her dead daughter had shared it with her during
her lifetime. Johnnie stopped at the door with a hand
on each side of its frame.

"Reddin' up things, Aunt Mavity?" she asked,
adding, "If I had time I'd come in and help you."

"I was just puttin' away what I've got left that
belonged to Lou," said the woman, sitting suddenly
down on the bed and gazing up into the bright face
above her with a sort of appeal. Johnnie noticed
then that Mrs. Bence had a pair of cheap slippers in
her lap. It came back vividly to the girl how the news
papers had said that Louvania Bence had taken off
her slippers and left them on the bridge, that she
might climb the netting more easily to throw herself

135

136 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

into the water. The mother stared down at these,
dry-eyed.

"She never had 'em on but the once," Mavity Bence
breathed. "And I — and I r'ared out on her for
buyin' of 'em. I said that with Pap so old and all, we
hadn't money to spend for slippers. Lord God!"
she shivered - " We had to find money for the under
taker, when he come to lay her out."

She turned to Johnnie feverishly, like a thing that
writhes on the rack and seeks an easier position.

"I had the best for her then — I jest would do it -
there was white shoes and stockin's, and a reg'lar
shroud like they make at Watauga; we never put a
stitch on her that she'd wore — hit was all new-bought.

O

For once I said my say to Pap, and made him take
money out of the bank to do it. He's got some in thar
for to bury all of us — he says — but he never wanted
to use any of it for Lou."

Johnnie came in and sat down on the bed beside
her hostess. She laid a loving hand over Mavity's that
held the slippers.

"What pretty little feet she must have had," she
said softly.

"Didn't she?" echoed the mother, with a tremulous
half-smile. "I couldn't more'n get these here on my
hand, but they was a loose fit for her. They're as
good as new. Johnnie, ef you ever get a invite to a
dance I'll lend 'em to you. Hit'd pleasure me to think
some gal's feet was dancin' in them thar slippers.
Lou, she never learned to dance — looked like she

THE SANDALS OF JOY 137

could never find time." Louvania, be it remembered
had found time in which to die.

So Johnnie thanked poor Mavity, and hurried away,
because the warning whistle was blowing.

The very next Wednesday Miss Sessions gave a
dance to the members of her Uplift Club. These
gaieties were rather singular and ingenious affairs,
sterilized dances, Mrs. Hexter irreverently dubbed
them. Miss Lydia did not invite the young men
employed about the mill, not having as yet undertaken
their uplifting; and feeling quite inadequate to cope
with the relations between them and the mill girls,
which would be something vital and genuine, and as
such, quite foreign — if not inimical — to her enter
prise. She contented herself with bringing in a few
well-trained young males of her own class, who were
expected to be attentive to the girls, treating them
as equals, just as Miss Lydia did. For the rest, the
members were encouraged to dance with each other,
and find such joy as they might in the supper, and the
fact that Miss Sessions paid for a half-day's work for
them on the morrow, that they might lie late in bed
after a night's pleasuring.

Johnnie Consadine had begun to earn money in such
quantities as seemed to her economic experience
extremely large. She paid her board, sent a little home
to her mother, and had still wherewith to buy a frock
for the dance. She treated herself to a trolley ride in
to Watauga to select this dress, going on the Saturday
half-holiday which the mills gave their workers, lest

138 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

the labour laws regulating the hours per week which
women and children may be employed be infringed
upon. There was grave debate in Johnnie's mind
as to what she should buy. Colours would fade -
in cheap goods, anyhow — white soiled easily. " But
then I could wash and iron it myself any evening I
wanted to wear it," she argued to Mandy Meacham,
who accompanied her.

"I'd be proud to do it for you," returned Mandy,
loyally. Ordinarily the Meacham woman was selfish;
but having found an object upon which she could
centre her thin, watery affections, she proceeded to be
selfish for Johnnie instead of toward her, a spiritual
juggle which some mothers perform in regard to their
children.

The store reached, Johnnie showed good judgment
in her choice. There was a great sale on at the biggest
shopping place in Watauga, and the ready-made
summer wear was to be had at bargain rates. Not
for her were the flaring, coarse, scant garments whose
lack of seemliness was supposed to be atoned for by a
profusion of cheap, sleazy trimming. After long and
somewhat painful inspection, since most of the things
she wanted were hopelessly beyond her, Johnnie
carried home a fairly fine white lawn, simply tucked,
and fitting to perfection.

"But you've got a shape that sets off anything," said
the saleswoman, carelessly dealing out the compliments
she kept in stock with her goods for purchasers.

"You're mighty right she has," rejoined Mandy,

THE SANDALS OF JOY 139

sharply, as who should say, "My back is not a true
expression of my desires concerning backs. Look at
this other — she has the spine of my dreams."

The saleswoman chewed gum while they waited for
change and parcel, and in the interval she had time
to inspect Johnnie more closely.

"Working in the cotton mill, are you?" she asked
as she sorted up her stock, jingling the bracelets on her
wrists, and patting into shape her big, frizzy pompa
dour. "That's awful hard work, ain't it? I should
think a girl like you would try for a place in a store.
I'll bet you could get one," she added encouragingly,
as she handed the parcel across the counter. But
already Johnnie knew that the spurious elegance of this
young person's appearance was not what she wished
to emulate.

The night of the dance Johnnie adjusted her costume
with the nice skill and care which seem native to so
many of the daughters of America. Mandy, dressing
at the same bureau, scraggled the parting of her own
hair, furtively watching the deft arranging of Johnnie's.

"Let me do it for you, and part it straight," Johnnie
remonstrated.

"Aw, hit'll never be seen on a gallopin' hoss,"
returned Mandy carelessly. " Everybody'll be so tuck
up a-watchin' you that they won't have time to notice
is my hair parted straight, nohow."

" But you're not a galloping horse," objected Johnnie,
laughing and clutching the comb away from her.
"You've got mighty pretty hair, Mandy, if you'd give

140 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

it a chance. Why, it's curly! Let me do it up right
for you once."

So the thin, graying ringlets were loosened around
the meagre forehead, and indeed Mandy's appearance
was considerably ameliorated.

"There — isn't that nice ?" inquired Johnnie, turn
ing her companion around to the glass and forcing her
to gaze in it — a thing Mandy always instinctively
avoided.

"I reckon I've looked worse," agreed the tall woman
unenthusiastically; "but Miss Lyddy ain't carin' to
have ye fix up much. I get sort of feisty and want
to dav-il her by makin' you look pretty. Wish't you
would wear that breas'-pin o' mine, an' them rings an'
beads I borried from Lizzie for ye. You might just
as well, and then nobody'd know you from one o' the
swells."

Johnnie shook her fair head decidedly. Talk of
borrowing things brought a reminiscent flush to her
cheek.

"I'm just as much obliged," she said sweetly. "I'll
wear nothing but what's my own. After a while I'll
be able to afford jewellery, and that'll be the time for
me to put it on."

Presently came Mavity Bence bringing the treasured
footwear.

"I expect they'll be a little tight for me," Johnnie
remarked somewhat doubtfully; the slippers, though
cheap, ill-cut things, looked so much smaller than her
heavy, country-made shoes. But they went readily

THE SANDALS OF JOY 141

upon the arched feet of the mountain girl, Mandy and
the poor mother looking on with deep interest.

" I wish't Lou was here to see you in 'em," whispered
Mavity Bence. "She wouldn't grudge 'em to you one
minute. Lord, how pretty you do look, Johnnie
Consadine! You're as sightly as that thar big wax
doll down at the Company store. I wish't Lou could
see you."

The dance was being given in the big hall above a
store, which Miss Lydia hired for these functions of
her Uplift Club. The room was half-heartedly decor
ated in a hybrid fashion. Miss Lydia had sent down
a rose-bowl of flowers; and the girls, being encouraged
to use their own taste, put up some flags left over from
last Fourth of July. When Johnnie and Mandy
Meacham — strangely assorted pair — entered the long
room, festivities were already in progress; Negro
fiddlers were reeling off dance music, and Miss Lydia
was trying to teach some of her club members the
two-step. Her younger brother, Hartley Sessions, was
gravely piloting a girl down the room in what was sup
posed to be that popular dance, and two young men
from Watauga, for whom he had vouched, stood ready
for Miss Sessions to furnish them with partners, when
she should have encouraged her learners sufficiently
to make the attempt. Round the walls sat the other
girls, and to Johnnie's memory came those words of
Mandy's, "You dance — if you can."

Johnnie Consadine certainly could dance. Many
a time back in the mountains she had walked five miles

i42 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

after a hard day's work to get to a dance that some one
of her mates was giving, tramping home in the dawn
and doing without sleep for that twenty-four hours.
The music seemed somehow to get into her muscles,
so that she swayed and moved exactly in time to it.

"That's the two-step," she murmured to her partner.
"I never tried it, but I've seen 'em dance it at the hotel
down at Chalybeate Springs. I can waltz a little; but
I love an old-fashioned quadrille the best — it seems
more friendly."

Gray Stoddard was talking to an older woman who
had come with her daughter — a thin-bodied, deep-
eyed woman of forty, perhaps, with a half-sad, tolerant
smile, and slow, racy speech. A sudden touch on his
shoulder roused him, as one of the young men from
town leaned over and asked him excitedly:

"Who's that girl down at the other end of the room,
Gray ? — the stunning blonde that just came in ?
She's got one of the mill girls with her."

Gray looked, and laughed a little. Somehow
the adjectives applied to Johnnie did not please
him.

"Both of them work in the mill," he said briefly.
"The one you mean is Johnnie Consadine. She's
a remarkable girl in more ways than merely in
appearance."

"Well, take me down there and give me an intro
duction," urged the youth from Watauga, in a tone of
animation which was barred from Uplift affairs-.

"All right," agreed Gray, getting to his feet with a

THE SANDALS OF JOY 143

twinkle in his eye. "I suppose you want to meet the
tall one. L I've got an engagement for the first dance with
Miss Consadine myself."

"Say," ejaculated the other, drawing back, "that
isn't fair. Miss Sessions," he appealed to their hostess
as umpire. " Here's Gray got the belle of the ball
mortgaged for all her dances, and won't even give me
an introduction. You do the square thing by me,
won't you ?"

Lydia Sessions had got her neophites safely launched,
and they were making a more or less tempestuous
progress across the floor. She turned to the two young
men a flushed, smiling countenance. In the tempered
light and the extremely favouring costume of the hour,
she looked almost pretty.

"What is it?" she asked graciously. 'The belle
of the ball? I don't know quite who that is. Oh!"
with a slight drop in her tone and the temperature of
her expression; "do you mean John Consadine?
Really, how well she is looking to-night!"

"Isn't she!" blundered the Watauga man with ill-
timed enthusiasm. " I call her a regular beauty, and
such an interesting-looking creature. What is she
trying to do ? Good Lord, she's going to attempt the
two-step with that Eiffel tower she brought along!"

These frivolous remarks, suited well enough to the
ordinary ballroom, did not please Miss Lydia for
an Uplift dance.

"The girl with John is one in whom I take a very
deep interest," she said with a touch of primness.

i44 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

11 John Consadine is young, and exceptionally strong
and healthy. But Amanda Meacham has — er -
disabilities and afflictions that make it difficult for her
to get along. She is a very worthy case."

The young man from Watauga, who had not regarded
Johnnie as a case at all, but had considered her purely
as an exceptionally attractive young woman, looked
a trifle bewildered. Then Gray took his arm and led
him across to where the attempt at two-stepping had
broken up in laughing disorder. With that absolutely
natural manner which Miss Sessions could never quite
achieve, good as her intentions were, he performed the
introduction, and then said pleasantly:

" Mr. Baker wants to ask you to dance, Miss Johnnie.
I'll carry on Miss Amanda's teaching, or we'll sit down
here and talk if she'd rather."

"No more two-steppin' for me," agreed Miss
Meacham, seating herself decidedly. "I'll take my
steps one at a time from this on. I'd ruther watch
Johnnie dance, anyhow; but she would have me try
for myself."

Johnnie and the young fellow from Watauga were
off now. They halted once or twice, evidently for
some further instructions, as Johnnie got the step and
time, and then moved away smoothly. Gray took
the seat beside Mandy.

"Ain't she a wonder?" inquired the big woman,
staring fondly after the fluttering white skirts.

"She is indeed," agreed Gray quietly. And then,
Mandy being thus launched on the congenial theme

THE SANDALS OF JOY 145

- the one theme upon which she was ever loquacious
— out came the story of the purchase of the dress, the
compliments of the saleswoman, the refusal of the
borrowed jewellery.

"Johnnie's quare — she is that — I'll never] deny
it; but I cain't no more help likin' her than as if she
was my own born sister."

"That's because she is fond of you, too," sug
gested Gray, thinking of the girl's laborious attempts
to teach poor Mandy to dance.

"Do you reckon she is?" asked the tall woman,
flushing. "Looks like Johnnie Consadine loves every
livin' thing on the top side of this earth. I ain't never
seen the human yet that she ain't got a good word for.
But I don't know as she cares 'specially 'bout me."

Stoddard could not refuse the assurance for which
Mandy so naively angled.

"You wouldn't be so fond of her if she wasn't fond
of you," he asserted confidently.

"Mebbe I wouldn't," Mandy debated; "but I don't
know. Let Johnnie put them two eyes o' hern on
you, and laugh in your face, and you feel just like you'd
follow her to the ends of the earth — or I know I do.
Why, she done up my hair this evening and" -the
voice sank to a half-shamed whisper- "she said it
was pretty."

Gray turned and looked into the flushed, tremulous
face beside him with a sudden tightening in his throat.
How cruel humanity is when it beholds only the
grotesque in the Mandys of this world. Her hair

146 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

was pretty — and Johnnie had the eyes of love to
see it.

He stared down the long, lighted room with unseeing
gaze. Old Andrew MacPherson's counsel that he let
Johnnie Consadine alone appealed to him at that
moment as cruel good sense. He was recalled from his
musings by Mandy's voice.

"Oh, look thar!" whispered his companion excitedly.
4 The other town feller has asked for a knock-down to
Johnnie, too. Look at him passin' his bows with her
just like she was one of the swells ! "

Stoddard looked. Charlie Conroy was relieving
Baker of his partner. Johnnie had evidently been
asked if she was tired, for they saw her laughingly shake
her head, and the new couple finished what was left
of the two-step and seated themselves a moment at the
other side of the room to wait for the next dance to
begin.

"These affairs are great fun, aren't they?" inquired
Conroy, fanning his late partner vigorously.

"I love to dance better than anything else in the
world, I believe," returned Johnnie dreamily.

"Oh, a dance — I should suppose so. You move
as though you enjoyed it; but I mean a performance
like this. The girls are great fun, don't you think ?
But then you wouldn't get quite our point of view on
that."

He glanced again at her dress; it was plain and
simple, but good style and becoming. She wore no
jewellery, but lots of girls were rather affecting that

THE SANDALS OF JOY 147

now, especially the athletic type to which this young
beauty seemed to belong. Surely he wa ot mistaken
in guessing her to be one of Miss Sessions's friends.
Of course he was not. She had dressed herself in
this simple fashion for a mill-girl's dance, that she
might not embarrass the working people who attended.
Yes, by George! that was it, and it was a long ways
better taste than the frocks Miss Sessions and Mrs.
Hexter were wearing.

Johnnie considered his last remark, her gaze still
following the movements of the Negro fiddler at the
head of the room. Understanding him to mean that,
being a mill-hand herself, she could not get a detached
view of the matter, and thus see the humour of this
attempt to make society women of working-girls,
Johnnie was yet not affronted. Her clear eyes came
back from watching Uncle Zeke's manoeuvres and
looked frankly into the eyes of the man beside her.

"I reckon we are right funny," she assented. "But
of course, as you say, I wouldn't see that as quick as
you would. Sometimes I have to laugh a little at
Mandy — the girl I was dancing with first this evening
— but — but she's so good-natured it never hurts her
feelings. I don't mind being laughed at myself, either."

"Laughed at — you?" inquired Conroy, throwing
an immense amount of expression into his glance. He
was rather a lady's man, and fancied he had made
pretty fair headway with this beautiful girl whom he
still supposed to be of the circle of factory owners.
"Oh, you mean your work among the mill girls here.

148 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Indeed, I should not laugh at that. I think it's noble
for those more fortunate to stretch a hand to help their
brothers and sisters that haven't so good a chance.
That's what brought me over here to-night. Gray
Stoddard explained the plan to me. He doesn't seem
to think much of it — but then, Gray's a socialist at
heart, and you know those socialists never believe in
organized charity. I tell him he's an anarchist."

"Mr. Stoddard is a mighty good man," agreed
Johnnie with sudden pensiveness. " They've all been
mighty good to me ever since I've been here; but I
believe Mr. Stoddard has done more for me than any
one else. He not only lends me books, but he takes
time to explain things to me."

Conroy smiled covertly at the simplicity of this
young beauty. He debated in his mind whether indeed
it was not an affected simplicity. Of course Gray was
devoting himself to her and lending her books; of
course he would be glad to assume the position of
mentor to a girl who bade fair to be such a pronounced
social success, and who was herself so charming.

"How long have you been in Cottonville, Miss
Consadine?" he asked. "Do tell me who you are
visiting — or are you visiting here ?"

"Oh, no," Johnnie corrected him. "I believe you
haven't understood from the first that I'm one of the
mill girls. I board at — well, everybody calls it Pap
Himes's boarding-house."

There was a moment's silence; but Conroy managed
not to look quite as deeply surprised as he felt.

THE SANDALS OF JOY 149

"I — of course I knew it," he began at length, after
having sorted and discarded half a dozen explanations.
"There — why, there's our dance!" And he stood
up in relief, as the fiddlers began on an old-fashioned
quadrille.

Johnnie responded with alacrity, not aware of having
either risen or fallen in her companion's estimation.
She danced through the set with smiling enjoyment,
prompting her partner, who knew only modern dances.
On his part Conroy studied her covertly, trying to
adjust his slow mind to this astonishing new state of
things, and to decide what a man's proper attitude
might be toward such a girl. In the end he found
himself with no conclusion.

'They say they're going to try a plain waltz," he
began as he led her back to a seat. He hesitated,
glanced about him, and finally placed himself uneasily
in the chair beside her. Good Lord! The situation
was impossible. What should he say if anybody -
Gray Stoddard, for instance — chaffed him about being
smitten in this quarter ?

"A waltz ?" echoed Johnnie helpfully when he did not

go on. " I believe I could dance that — I tried it once."

"Then you'll dance it with me?" Conroy found

himself saying, baldly, awkwardly, but unable, for the

life of him, to keep the eagerness out of his voice.

Upon the instant the music struck up. The two
rose and made ready for the dance; Conroy placing
Johnnie in waltzing position, and instructing her
solicitously.

150 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Gray Stoddard looking on, was amazed at the naif
simple jealousy that swept over him at the sight. She
had danced with Conroy twice already — he ought
to be more considerate than to bring the girl into
notice that way — a chump like Charlie Conroy, what
would he understand of such a nature as Johnnie Con-
sadine's ? Before he fully realized his own intentions,
he had paused in front of the two and was speaking.

"I think Miss Johnnie promised me a dance this
evening. I'll have to go back to the office in twenty
minutes, and — I hate to interrupt you, but I guess
I'll have to claim my own."

He became suddenly aware that Conroy was signal
ling him across Johnnie's unconscious head with
Masonic twistings of the features. Stoddard met these
recklessly inconsiderate grimacings with an impassive
stare, then looked away.

" I want to see you before you go," the man from
Watauga remarked, as he reluctantly resigned his
partner. " Don't you forget that there's a waltz
coming to me, Miss Johnnie. I'm going to have it,
if we make the band play special for us alone."

Lydia Sessions, passing on the arm of young Baker,
glanced at Johnnie, star-eyed, pink-cheeked and
smiling, with a pair of tall cavaliers contending for her
favours, and sucked her lips in to that thin, sharp line
of reprobation lohnnie knew so well. Dismissing her
escort graciously, she hurried to the little supper room
and found another member of the committee.

"Come here, Mrs. Hexter. Just look at that, will

THE SANDALS OF JOY 151

you?" She called attention in a carefully suppressed,
but fairly tragic tone, to Stoddard and Johnnie dan
cing together, the only couple on the floor. " None of
the girls know how to waltz. I am not sure that it
would be suitable if they did. When I came past, just
now, there were two of the men — two — talking to
John Consadine, and they were all three laughing. I
can't think how it is that girls of that sort manage to
stir things up so and get all the men around them."

"Neither can I," said Mrs. Hexter wickedly. "If
I did know how, I believe I'd do it sometimes myself.
What is it you want of me, Miss Sessions ? I must
run back and see to supper, if you don't need me."

"But I do," fretted Lydia. "I want your help.
This waltzing and — and such things — ought to be
stopped."

"All right," rejoined practical Mrs. Hexter. "The
quickest way to do it is to stop the music."

She had meant the speech as a jeer, but literal-
minded Lydia Sessions welcomed its suggestion. Hurry
ing down the long room, she spoke to the leader of
their small orchestra. The Negro raised to her a
brown face full of astonishment. His fiddle-bow
faltered — stopped. He turned to his two fellows
and gave hasty directions. The waltz measure died
away, and a quadrille was announced.

"That was too bad," said Stoddard as they came to
a halt; "you were just getting the step beautifully."

The girl flashed a swift, sweet look up at him. "I
do love to dance," she breathed.

i52 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

'' John, would you be so kind as to come and help in
the supper room," Miss Sessions's hasty tones broke in.

She was leaning on Charlie Conroy's arm, and
when she departed to hide Johnnie safely away in the
depths of their impromptu kitchen, it left the two
men alone together. Conroy promptly fastened upon
the other.

Charlie Conroy was a young man who had made
up his mind to get on socially. Such figures are rarer
in America than in the old world. Yet Charlie
Conroy with his petty ambitions does not stand entirely
alone. He seriously regarded marriage as a stepping-
stone to a circle which should include " the best people."
That this term did not indicate the noblest or most
selfless, need hardly be explained. It meant only
that bit of froth which in each community rides high
on the top of the cup, and which, in Watauga, was
augmented by the mill owners of its suburb of Cotton-
ville. Conroy had been grateful for the opportunity to
make an entry into this circle by means of assisting Miss
Sessions in her charitable work. That lady herself,
as sister-in-law of Jerome Hardwick and a descendant
of an excellent New England family, he regarded with
absolute veneration, quite too serious and profound
for anything so assured as mere admiration.

"I tried to warn you," he began: "but you were
bound to get stung."

"I beg your pardon?" returned Stoddard in that
civil, colourless interrogation which should always
check over-familiar speech, even from the dullest.

THE SANDALS OF JOY 153

But Conrpy was not sensitive.

"That big red-headed girl, you know," he said,
leaning close and speaking in a confidential tone. "I
mistook her for a lady. I was going my full length -
telling her what fun the mill girls were, and trying to
do the agreeable — when I found out."

o

" Found out what ? " inquired Stoddard. " That she
was not a lady ?"

"Aw, come off," laughed Conroy. "You make a
joke of everything."

"I knew that she was a weaver in the mill," said
Stoddard quietly.

Conroy glanced half wistfully over his shoulder in
the direction where Johnnie had vanished.

"She's a good-looker all right," he said thoughtfully.
" And smile — when that girl smiles and turns those
eyes on you — by George! if she was taken to New
York and put through one of those finishing schools
she'd make a sensation in the swagger set."

Stoddard nodded gravely. He had not Conroy' s
faith in the fashionable finishing school; but what he
lacked there, he made up in conviction as to Johnnie's
deserts and abilities.

'There she comes now," said Conroy, as the door
swung open to admit a couple of girls with trays of
coffee cups. "She walks mighty well. I wonder
where a girl like that learned to carry herself so finely.
By George, she is a good-looker! She's got 'em all
beaten; if she was only — . Queer about the accidents
of birth, isn't it ? Now, what would you say, in her

154 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

heredity, makes a common girl like that step and look
like a queen ?"

Gray Stoddard's face relaxed. A hint of his
quizzical, inscrutable smile was upon it as he answered.

"Nature doesn't make mistakes. I don't call
Johnnie Consadine a common girl — it strikes me that
she is rather uncommon."

And outside, a young fellow in the Sunday suit of a
workingman was walking up and down, staring at
the lighted windows, catching a glimpse now and again
of one girl or another, and cursing under his breath
when he saw Johnnie Consadine.

"Wouldn't go with me to the dance at Watauga -
oh no! But she ain't too tired to dance with the
swells!" he muttered to the darkness. "And I can't
get a word nor a look out of her. Lord, I don't know
what some women think!"

CHAPTER XI

THE NEW BOARDER

PAP HIMES was sitting on the front gallery, doz
ing in the westering sunshine. On his lap
the big, yellow cat purred and blinked with
a grotesque resemblance in colouring and expression
to his master. It was Sunday afternoon, when the
toilers were all out of the mills, and most of them lying
on their beds or gone in to Watauga. The village
seemed curiously silent and deserted. Through the
lazy smoke from his cob pipe Pap noticed Shade Buck-
heath emerge from the store and start up the street.
He paid no more attention till the young man's voice
at the porch edge roused him from his half-somnolence.

"Evenin', Pap," said the newcomer.

"Good evenin' yourself," returned Himes with
unusual cordiality. He liked men, particularly young,
vigorous, masterful men. "Come in, Buck, an* set
a spell. Rest your hat — rest your hat."

It was always Pap's custom to call Shade by the
first syllable of his second name. Buck is a common
by-name for boys in the mountains, and it could not
be guessed whether the old man used it as a diminu
tive of the surname, or whether he meant merely to
nickname this favourite of his.

155

156 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Shade threw himself on the upper step of the porch
and searched in his pockets for tobacco.

"Room for another boarder?" he asked laconically.

The old man nodded.

"I reckon there's always room, ef it's asked for,"
he returned. "Hit's the one way I got to make me
a livin', with Louvany dyin' off and Mavity puny
like she is. I have obliged to keep the house full,
or we'd see the bottom of the meal sack."

"All right," agreed Buckheath, rising, and treating
the matter as terminated. "I'll move my things in
a-Monday."

"Hold on thar — hold on, young feller," objected
Pap, as Shade turned away. It was against all reason
able mountain precedent to trade so quickly; but
indeed Shade had merely done so with a view to forcing
through what he well knew to be a doubtful proposition.

"I'm a-holding on," he observed gruffly at last,
as the other continued to blink at him with red eyes
and say nothing. "What's the matter with what I
said ? You told me you had room for another boarder
and I named it that I was comin' to board at your
house. Have you got any objections?"

"Well, yes, I have," Himes opened up ponderously.
"You set yourself down on that thar step and we'll
have this here thing out. My boardin'-house is for
gals. I fixed it so when I come here. There ain't
scarcely a rowdy feller in Cottonville that hain't at
one time or another had the notion he'd board with
Pap Himes; but I've always kep' a respectable house,

THE NEW BOARDER 157

and I always aim to. I am a old man, and I bear
a good name, and I'm the only man in this house, and
I aim to stay so. Now, sir, there's my flatform;
and you may take it or leave it."

Buckheath glanced angrily and contemptuously into
the stupid, fatuous countenance above him; he
appeared to curb with some difficulty the disposition
to retort in kind. Instead, he returned, sarcastically:

"The fellers around town say you won't keep any
thing but gals because nothin' but gals would put up
with your hectorin' 'em, and crowdin' ten in a room
that was intended for four. That's what folks say;
but I've got a reason to want to board with you, Pap,
and I'll pay regular prices and take what you give me."

Himes looked a little astonished; then an expres
sion of distrust stole over his broad, flat face.

"What's bringin' you here?" he asked bluntly.

" Johnnie Consadine," returned Shade, without
evasion or preamble. "Before I left the mountains,
Johnnie an' me was aimin' to wed. Now she's got
down here, and doin' better than ever she hoped to,
and I cain't get within hand-reach of her."

"Ye cain't?" inquired Pap scornfully. "Why any
body could marry that gal that wanted to. But Lord!
anybody can marry any gal, if he's got the sense he
was born with."

"All right," repeated Shade grimly. "I come to
you to know could I get board, not to ask advice. I
aim to marry Johnnie Consadine, and I know my
own business — air you goin' to board me ?"

158 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

The old man turned this speech in his mind for
some time.

"Curious," he muttered to himself, "how these here
young fellers will get petted on some special gal and
break their necks to have her."

"Shut up — will you?" ejaculated Buckheath, so
suddenly and fiercely that the old man fairly jumped,
rousing the yellow cat to remonstrative squirmings.
"I tell you I know my business, and I ask no advice
of you — will you board me ?"

"I cain't do it, Buck," returned Himes definitely.
" I ain't got such a room to give you by yourself as you'd
be willin' to take up with; and nobody comes into
my room. But I'll tell you what I'll do for you -
I'll meal you, ef that will help your case any. I'll
meal you for two dollars a week, and throw in a good
word with Johnnie."

Buckheath received the conclusion of this speech
with a grin.

"I reckon your good word 'd have a lot to do with
Johnnie Consadine," he said ironically, as he picked
up his hat from the floor.

"Uh-huh," nodded Pap. "She sets a heap of
store by what I say. All of 'em does; but Johnnie in
particular. I don't know but what you're about right.
Ain't no sense in bein' all tore up concernin' any gal
or woman; but I believe if I was pickin' out a good
worker that would earn her way, I'd as soon pick out
Johnnie Consadine as any of 'em."

And having thus paid his ultimate compliment to

THE NEW BOARDER 159

Johnnie, Himes relapsed into intermittent slumber as
Shade moved away down the squalid, dusty street
under the fierce July sun.

Johnnie greeted the new boarder with a reserve
which was in marked contrast to the reception he got
from the other girls. Shade Buckheath was a hand
some, compelling fellow, and a good match; this
Adamless Eden regarded him as a rival in glory even
to Pap himself. When supper was over on the first
night of his arrival, Shade walked out on the porch
and seated himself on the steps. The girls disposed
themselves at a little distance — your mountain-bred
young female is ever obviously shy, almost to prudery.

"Whar's Johnnie Consadine?" asked the new
comer lazily, disposing himself with his back against
a post and his long legs stretched across the upper step.

"Settin' in thar, readin' a book," replied Beulah
Catlett curtly. Beulah was but fourteen, and she
belonged to the newer dispensation which speaks up
more boldly to the masculine half of creation.
" Johnnie! Johnnie Consadine!" she called through
the casement. "Here's Mr. Buckheath, wishful of
your company. Better come out."

"I will, after a while/'returned Johnnie absently. "I've
got to help Aunt Mavity some, and then I'll be there."

"Hit's a sight, the books that gal does read," com
plained Beulah. "Looks like a body might get enough
stayin' in the house by workin' in a cotton mill, without
humpin' theirselves up over a book all evenin'."

"Mr. Stoddard lends 'em to her," announced Mandy

160 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

importantly. "He used to give 'em to Miss Lyddy
Sessions, and she'd give 'em to Johnnie; but now
when Miss Lyddy's away, he'll bring one down to the
mill about every so often, and him an' Johnnie'll stand
and gas and talk over what's in 'em — I cain't under
stand one word they say. I tell you Johnnie Con-
sadine's got sense."

Her pride in Johnnie made her miss the look of
rage that settled on Buckheath's face at her announce
ment. The young fellow was glad when Pap Himes
began to speak growlingly.

"Yes, an' if she was my gal I'd talk to her with a
hickory about that there business. A gal that ain't
too old to carry on that-a-way ain't too old to take a
whippin' for it. Huh!"

For her own self Mandy would have been thoroughly
scared by this attack; in Johnnie's defence she rustled
her feathers like an old hen whose one chick has been
menaced.

"Johnnie Consadine is the prettiest-behaved gal I
ever seen," she announced shrilly. "She ain't never
said nor done the least thing that she hadn't ort. Mr.
Stoddard he just sees how awful smart she is, and he
loves to lend her books and talk with her about 'em
afterward. For my part I ain't never seen look nor
motion about Mr. Gray Stoddard that wasn't such
as a gentleman ort to be. I know he never said
nothin' he ort not to me"

The suggestion of Stoddard's making advances of
unseemly warmth to Mandy Meacham produced a

THE NEW BOARDER 161

subdued snicker. Even Pap smiled, and Mandy
herself, who had been looking a bit terrified after her
bold speaking, was reassured.

Buckheath had been a week at the Himes boarding-
house, finding it not unpleasant to show Johnnie
Consadine how many of the girls regarded him with
favour, whether she did or not, when he came to supper
one evening with a gleam in his eye that spoke evil
for some one. After the meal was over, he followed
Pap out on the porch and sat down beside the old
man, the girls being bunched expectantly on the step,
for he was apt to delay for a bit of chat with one or
another of them before leaving.

"You infernal old rascal, I've caught up with you,"
he whispered, leaning close to his host.

Himes clutched the pipe in his teeth till it clicked,
and stared in helpless resentment at his mealer.

"What's the matter with you?" he demanded.

"Speak lower, so the gals won't hear you, or you'll
wish you had," counselled Shade. "I sent that there
thing on to Washington to get a patent on it, and now
I find that they was a model of the same there in the
name of Gideon Himes. What do you make of that ?"

Pap stared at the thin strips of metal lying in Shade's
hard, brown palm.

"The little liar!" he breathed. "She told me
she got it up herself." He glared at the bits of steel
with protruding eyes, and breathed hard.

"Well, she didn't," Shade countered swiftly, taking
advantage of the turn things were showing. " I made

1 62 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

six of 'em; and when I told her to bring 'em back
and I'd give her some that would wear better, she
only brought me five. She said she'd lost one here
at home, she believed. I might have knowed then that
you'd get your claws on it ef I wasn't mighty peart."

Old Gideon was not listening; he had fallen into a
brown study, turning the piece of metal in his skilful,
wonted, knotty ringers, with their spade tips.

"Put it out of sight — quick — here she comes!"
whispered Shade; and the old man looked up to see
Johnnie Consadine in the doorway. A grin of tri
umph grew slowly upon his face, as he gazed from one
to the other.

"She did get it up!" he returned in Buckheath's
fa.ce. "You liar! You're a-aimin' to steal it from
her. You filed out the pieces like she told you to, and
when you found it would work, you tried to get a patent
on it for yo'se'f. Yes, sir, I'm onto you!"

Shade looked over his shoulder. The girls had
forsaken the steps. Despairing of his coming, they were
strolling two-and-two after Johnnie on the sidewalk.

" It's you and me for it, Pap," he said hardily.
" What was you tryin' to do ? Was you gettin' the
patent for Johnnie ? Shall I call her up here and ask
her?"

"No, no," exclaimed the old man hastily. "They

ain't no use of puttin' sich things in a fool gal's hands.

She never heard of a patent — wouldn't know one

from a hole in the ground. Hit's like you say, Buck

-you and me for it."

THE NEW BOARDER 163

The two men rose and stood a moment, Shade smil
ing a bit to think what he would do with Pap Himes
and his claim if he could only once get Johnnie to say
yes to his suit. The thick wits of the elder man appar
ently realized this feature of the matter not at all.

"Why that thar girl is crazy to get married," he
argued, half angrily. "You know in reason she is -
they all are. The fust night when you brung her
here I named it to her that she was pretty well along
in years, and she'd better be spry about gettin' her
hooks on a man, or she was left. She said she'd do
the best she could — I never heered a gal speak up
pearter — most of 'em would be 'shamed to name
it out so free. Why, if it was me, I'd walk her down
to a justice's office an' wed her so quick her head'd
swim."

"Who's that talking about getting married?"
called Johnnie's voice from the street, and Johnnie
herself ran up the steps.

"Hit was me," harangued Pap Himes doggedly.
"I was tellin' Shade how bad you wanted to git off,
and that I 'lowed you'd be a good bargain for him."

He looked hopefully from one to the other, as though
he expected to see his advice accepted and put into
immediate practice. Johnnie laughed whole-heartedly.

"Pap," she said with shining eyes, "if you get me
a husband, I'll have to give you a commission on it.
Looks like I can't noways get one for myself, don't it ?"

She passed into the house, and Shade regarded
his ally in helpless anger.

1 64 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

"That's the way she talks, here lately," he growled.
"Seems like it would be easy enough to come to some
thing; and by the Lord, it would, with any other gal
I ever seed — or with Johnnie like she was when she
first came down here! But these days and times
she's got a way of puttin' me off that I can't seem to
get around."

Neither man quite understood the power of that
mental culture which Johnnie was assimilating so
avidly. That reading things in a book should enable
her — a child, a girl, a helpless woman — to negative
their wishes smilingly, this would have been a thing
quite outside the comprehension of either.

"Aunt Mavity wants me to go down to the store
for her," Johnnie announced, returning. "Any of
you girls like to come along?"

Mandy had parted her lips to accept the general
invitation, when Shade Buckheath rose to his feet and
announced curtly, "I'll go with you."

His glance added that nobody else was wanted,
and Mandy subsided into a seat on the steps and
watched the two walk away side by side.

" Looks like you ain't just so awful pleased to have
me boardin' with Pap," Shade began truculently,
when it appeared that the girl was not going to open
any conversation with him. " Maybe you wasn't
a-carin' for my company down street this eveninV

"No," said Johnnie, bluntly but very quietly. "I
wish you hadn't come to the house to board. 1 have
told you to let me alone."

THE NEW BOARDER 165

Shade laughed, an exasperated, mirthless laugh.
''You know well enough what made me do it," he
said sullenly. "If you don't want me to board with
Pap Himes you can stop it any day you say the word.
You promise to wed me, and I'll go back to the Inn.
The Lord knows they feed you better thar, and I
believe in my soul the gals at Pap Himes's will run
me crazy. But as long as you hang off the way you
do about our marryin', and I git word of you carryin'
on with other folks, I'm goin' to stay where I can
watch you."

"Other folks!" echoed Johnnie, colour coming into
her cheeks. "Shade, there's no use of your quarrelling
with me, and I see it's what you're settin' out to do."

"Yes, other folks — Mr. Gray Stoddard, for instance.
I ain't got no auto to take you out ridin' in, but you're
a blame sight safer with me than you are with him;
and if I was to carry word to your mother or your
uncle Pros about your doin's they'd say -

" The last word my uncle Pros left with ma to give
me was that you'd bear watchin', Shade Buckheath,"
laughed Johnnie, her face breaking up into sweet,
sudden mirth at the folly of it all. "You're not aimin'
for my good. I don't see what on earth makes you
talk like you wanted to marry me."

" Because I do," said Buckheath helplessly. He
wondered if the girl did not herself know her own
attractions, forgetful that he had not seen them plainly
till a man higher placed in the social scale set the
cachet of a gentleman's admiration upon them.

CHAPTER XII

THE CONTENTS OF A BANDANNA

IT WAS a breathless August evening; all day
the land had lain humming and quivering
beneath the glare of the sun. It seemed
that such heat must culminate in a thunder shower.
Even Pap Himes had sought the coolest corner of the
porch, his pipe put out, as adding too much to the
general swelter, and the hot, yellow cat perched at a
discreet distance.

The old man's dreamy eyes were fixed with a sort
of animal content on the winding road that disappeared
in the rise of the gap. If was his boast that God
Almighty never made a day too hot for him, and to
the marrow of them his rheumatic bones felt and
savoured the comfort of this blistering weather. High
up on the road he had noted a small moving speck
that appeared and disappeared as the foliage hid it,
or gaps in the trees revealed it. It was not yet time
for the mill operatives to be out; but as he glanced
eagerly in the direction of the buildings, the gates
opened and the loom-fixers streamed forth. Pap had
matters of some importance to discuss with Shade
Buckheath, and he was glad to see the young man's
figure come swinging down the street. The two were

166

THE CONTENTS OF A BANDANNA 167

soon deep in a whispered discussion, their heads bent
close together.

The little speck far up the road beteween the trees
announced itself to the eye now as a moving figure,
walking down toward Cottonville.

"Well, I'll read it again, if you don't believe me,"
Buckheath said impatiently. "All that Alabama mill
wants is to have me go over there and put this trick
on their jennies, and if it works they'll give us a royalty
of — well, I'll make the bargain."

"Or I will," countered Pap swiftly.

"You?" inquired Shade contemptuously. "Time
they wrote some of the business down and you couldn't
read it, whar'd you be, and whar'd our money be?"

The moving speck on the road appeared at this time
to be the figure of a tall man, walking unsteadily, reeling
from side to side of the road, yet approaching the village.

"Shade," pacified Himes, with a truckling manner
that the younger man's aggressions were apt to call
out in him, "you know I don't mean anything against
you, but I believe in my soul I'd ruther sell out the
patent. That man in Lowell said he'd give twenty
thousand dollars if it was proved to work — now
didn't he?"

"Yes, and by the time it's proved to work we'll
have made three times that much out of it. There ain't
a spinning mill in the country that won't save money
by putting in the indicator, and paying us a good
royalty on it. If Johnnie and me was wedded, I'd
go to work to-morrow advertising the thing."

i68 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

"The gal ain't in the mill this afternoon, is she?"
asked old Himes.

"No, She's gone off somewheres with some folks
Hardwick's sister-in-law has got here. If you want
to find her these days, you've got to hunt in some of
the swell houses round on the hills."

He spoke with bitterness, and Pap nodded com-
prehendingly; the subject was an old one between
them. Then Shade drew from his pocket a letter and
prepared to read it once more to the older man.

"Whar's Johnnie?"

Himes started so violently that he disturbed the
equilibrium of his chair and brought the front legs
to the floor with a slam, so that he sat staring straight
ahead. Shade Buckheath whirled and saw Pros
Passmore standing at the foot of the steps — the mov
ing speck come to full size. The old man was a
wilder-looking figure than usual. He had no hat on,
and a bloody cloth bound around his head confined
the straggling gray locks quaintly. The face was
ghastly, the clothing in tatters, and his hands trembled
as they clutched a bandanna evidently full of some
small articles that rattled together in his shaking
grasp.

"Good Lord — Pros! You mighty nigh scared
me out of a year's growth," grumbled Pap, hitching
vainly to throw his chair back into position. "Come
in. Come in. You look like you'd been seein* trouble."

"Whar's Johnnie?" repeated old Pros hollowly.

It was the younger man who answered this time,

THE CONTENTS OF A BANDANNA 169

with an ugly lift of the lip over his teeth, between a
sneer and a snarl.

"She's gone gaddin' around with some of her swell
friends. She may be home before midnight, an'
then again she may not," he said.

The old man collapsed on the lower step.

"I wish't Johnnie was here," he said querulously.
"I - ' he looked about him confusedly — " I've found
her silver mine."

At the words the two on the porch became sud
denly rigid. Then Buckheath sprang down the steps,
caught Passmore under the arm-pits and half led,
half dragged him up to a chair, into which he thrust
him with little ceremony.

He stood before the limp figure, peering into the
newcomer's face with eyes of greed and hands that
clenched and unclenched themselves automatically.

"You've found the silver mine!" he volleyed excit
edly. "Whose land is it on? Have you got options
yet? My grandpappy always said they was a silver
mine -

"Hush!" Pap Himes's voice hissed across the loud
explosive tones. "No need to tell your business to
the town. I'll bet Pros ain't thought about no options
yit- He may need friends to he'p him out on such
matters; and here's you and me, Buck — God knows
he couldn't have better ones."

The old man stared about him in a dazed fashion.

"I've got my specimens in this here bandanner,"
he explained quaveringly. "I fell over the ledge,

1 70 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

was the way I chanced upon it at the last, and I lay
dead for a spell. My head's busted right bad. But
the ore specimens, they're right here in the bandanner,
and I aimed to give 'em to Johnnie — to put 'em right
in her lap — the best gal that ever was — and say to
her, 'Here's your silver mine, honey, that your good-
for-nothin' old uncle found for ye; now you can live
like a lady!' That's what I aimed to say to Johnnie.
I didn't aim that nobody else should tetch them samples
till she'd saw 'em."

Himes and Buckheath were exchanging glances
across the old man's bent, gray head. Common
humanity would have suggested that they offer him
rest or refreshment, but these two were intent only
on what the bandanna held.

What is it in the thought of wealth from the ground
that so intoxicates, so ravishes away from all reasonable
judgment, the generality of mankind ? People never
seem to conceive that there might be no more than
moderate repayal for great toil in a mine of any sort.
The very word mine suggests to them tapping the vast
treasure-house of the world, and drawing an unlimited
share — wealth lavish, prodigal, intemperate. These
two were as mad with greed at the thought of the silver
mine in the mountains as ever were forty-niners in
the golden days of California, or those more recent
ignoble martyrs who strewed their bones along the
icy trails of the Klondike.

"Ye better let me look at 'em Pros," wheedled
Pap Himes. "I know a heap about silver ore. I've

THE CONTENTS OF A BANDANNA 171

worked in the Georgia gold mines — and you know
you never find gold without silver. I was three months
in the mountains with a feller that was huntin' nickel;
he 1'arned me a heap."

The old man turned his disappointed gaze from
one face to the other.

"I wish't Johnnie was here," he repeated his plain
tive formula, as he raised the handkerchief and untied
the corners.

Pap glanced apprehensively up and down the street;
Buckheath ran to the door and shut it, that none in
the house might see or overhear; and then the three
stared at the unpromising-looking, earthy bits of
mineral in silence. Finally Himes put down a stubby
forefinger and stirred them meaninglessly.

"Le' me try one with my knife," he whispered, as
though there were any one to hear him.

"All right," returned the old man nervelessly.
"But hit ain't soft enough for lead — if that's what
you're meanin*. I know that much. A lead mine
is a mighty good thing. Worth as much as silver
maybe; but this ain't lead."

A curious tremor had come over Pap Himes's face
as he furtively compared the lump of ore he held in
his hand with something which he took from his pocket.
He seemed to come to some sudden resolution.

"No, 'tain't lead — and 'tain't nothin'," he declared
contemptuously, flinging the bit he held back into the
handkerchief. "Pros Passmore — ye old fool — you
come down here and work us all up over some truck

1 72 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

that wasn't worth turnin' with a spade! You might
as well throw them things away. Whar in the nation
did you git 'em, anyhow?"

Passmore stumbled to his feet. He had eaten nothing
for three days, The fall over the ledge had injured
him severely. He was scarcely sane at the moment.

"Ain't they no 'count?" he asked pitifully. "Why,
I made shore they was silver. Well" -he looked
aimlessly about- "I better go find Johnnie," and
he started down the steps.

"Leave 'em here, Pros, and go in. Mavity'll
give you a cup of coffee," suggested Pap, in a kinder
tone.

The bandanna slipped rattling from the old man's
relaxed fingers. The specimens clattered and rolled
on the porch floor. With drooping head he shambled
through the door.

A woman's face disappeared for a moment from
the shadowy front-room window, only to reappear and
watch unseen. Mavity was listening in a sort of horror
as she heard her father's tones.

"Git down and pick 'em up — every one! Don't
you miss a one. Yo' eyes is younger'n mine. Hunt
'em up! hunt 'em up," hissed Pap, casting himself
upon the handkerchief and its contents.

"What is it?" questioned Buckheath keenly. "I
thort you had some game on hand." And he hastened
to comply. "Air they really silver ?"

"No — better'n that. They're nickel. The feller
that was here from the North said by the dips and

HE LOOMED ABOVE THEM, WHITE AND SHAKING. "YOU

THIEVES," HE ROARED. " GIVE ME MY BANDANNER !

GIVE ME JOHNNIE'S SILVER MINE!"

THE CONTENTS OF A BANDANNA 173

turns of the stratagems an' such-like we was bound
to have nickel in these here mountains somewhar.
A nickel mine's better'n a gold mine — an' these is
nickel. I know 'em by the piece o' nickel ore from
the Canady mines that I carry constantly in my pocket.
We'll keep the old fool out of the knowin' of it, and
find whar the mine is at, and we'll -

The two men squatted on the floor, tallying over the
specimens they had already collected, and looking about
them for more. In the doorway behind them appeared
a face, gaunt, grimed, a blood-stained bandage around
the brow, and a pair of glowing, burning eyes looking
out beneath. Uncle Pros had failed to find Mavity
Bence, and was returning. Too dazed to compre
hend mere words, the old prospector read instantly
and aright the attitude and expression of the two.
As they tied the last knot in the handkerchief, he
loomed above them, white and shaking.

"You thieves!" he roared. "Give me my bandan-
ner! Give me Johnnie's silver mine!"

"Yes — yes — yes! Don't holler it out that-a-
way!" whispered Pap Himes from the floor, where
he crouched, still clutching the precious bits of
ore.

"We was a-goin' to give 'em to you, Uncle Pros.
We was just foolin'," Buckheath attempted to reassure
him.

The old man bent forward and shot down a long
arm to recover his own. He missed the bandanna,
and the impetus of the movement sent him staggering

i74 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

a pace or two forward. At the porch edge he strove
to recover himself, failed, and with a short, coughing
groan, pitched down the steps and lay, an inert mass,
at their foot.

"Cover that handkecher up," whispered Himes
before either man moved to his assistance.

CHAPTER XIII

A PATIENT FOR THE HOSPITAL

WHEN the Hardwick carriage drove up in the
heavy, ill-odoured August night, and stopped
at the gate to let Johnnie Consadine out,
Pap Himes's boarding-house was blazing with light
from window and doorway, clacking and humming
like a mill with the sound of noisy footsteps and voices.
Three or four men argued and talked loudly on the
porch. Through the open windows of the front room,
Johnnie had a glimpse of a long, stark figure lying on
the lounge, and a white face which struck her with a
strange pang of vague yet alarming resemblance.
She made her hasty thankr to Miss Sessions and hurried
in. Gray Stoddard's horse was standing at the hitch
ing post in front, and Gray met her at the head of the
steps.

Stoddard looked particularly himself in riding dress.
Its more unconventional lines suited him well; the dust-
brown Norfolk, the leathern puttees, gave an adven
turous turn to the expression of a personality which
was only so on the mental side. He always rode bare
headed, and the brown hair, which he wore a little
longer than other men's, was tossed from its mascu
line primness to certain hyacinthine lines which were

'75

176 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

becoming. Just now his clear brown eyes were lumin
ous with feeling. He put out a swift, detaining hand
and caught hers, laying sympathetic fingers over the
clasp and retaining it as he spoke.

"I'm so relieved that you've come at last," he said.
"We need somebody of intelligence here. I just hap
pened to come past a few minutes after the accident.
Don't be frightened; your uncle came down to see you,
and got a fall somehow. He's hurt pretty badly,
I'm afraid, and these people are refusing to have him
taken to the hospital."

On the one side Himes and Buckheath drew back
and regarded this scene with angry derision. In the
carriage below Lydia Sessions, who could hear nothing
that was said, stared incredulously, and moved as
though to get down and join Johnnie.

"You'll want him sent to the hospital?" Stoddard
urged, half interrogatively. "Look in there. Listen
to the noise. This is no fit place for a man with ;«
possible fracture of the skull."

"Yes — oh, yes," agreed Johnnie promptly. "If
I could nurse him myself I'd like to — or help; but of
course he's got to go to the hospital, first of everything."

Stoddard motioned the Hardwick driver to wait,
and called down to the carriage load, "I want you
people to drive round by the hospital and send the
ambulance, if you'll be so kind. There's a man hurt
in here."

Lydia Sessions made this an immediate pretext for
getting down and coming in.

A PATIENT FOR THE HOSPITAL 177

" Did you say they didn't wane to send him to the
hospital?" she inquired sharply and openly, in her
tactless fashion, as she crossed the sidewalk. "That's
the worst thing about such people; you provide them
with the best, and they don't know enough to appre
ciate it. Have they got a doctor, or done anything
for the poor man ?"

"I sent for Millsaps, here — he knows more about
broken bones than anybody in Cottonville," Pap
offered sullenly, mopping his brow and shaking his
bald head. "Millsaps is a decent man. You know
what he's a-goin' to do to the sick."

"Is he a doctor?" asked Stoddard sternly, looking
at the lank, shuffling individual named.

"He can doctor a cow or a nag better'n anybody
I ever saw," Pap put forward rather shamefacedly.

"A veterinarian," commented Stoddard. "Well,
they've gone for the ambulance, and the surgeon will
:soon be here now."

"I don't know nothin' about veterinarians and
surgeons," growled Pap, still alternately mopping his
bald head and shaking it contemptuously; "but I
know that Millsaps ain't a-goin' to box up any dead
bodies and send 'em to the medical colleges; and I
know he made as pretty a job of doctoring old Spotty
as ever I seen. To be shore the cow died, but he got
the medicine down her when it didn't look as if human
hands could do it — that's the kind of doctor he is."

"I aim to give Mr. Passmore a teaspoonful of lamp
oil — karosene," said the cow doctor, coming forward,-

178 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

evidently feeling that it was time he spoke up for
himself. "Lamp oil is mighty rousin' to them as lays
like he's doin*. I've used copperas for such — but it
takes longer. Some say a dose of turpentine is better'n
lamp oil — hut I 'low both of 'em won't hurt.'*

Johnnie pushed past them all into the front room
where the women were running about, talking loud
and exclaiming. A kerosene lamp without a chimney
smoked and flared on the table, filling the room with
evil odours. Pros Passmore's white face thrown up
against the lounge cushion was the only quiet, dignified
object in sight.

"Mandy," said Johnnie, catching the Meacham
woman by the elbow as she passed her bearing a small
kerosene can, "you go up to my room and get the
good lamp I have there. Then take this thing away.
Where's Aunt Mavity?"

"I don't know. She's been carryin' on somethin'
tumble. Yes, Johnnie, honey — I'll get the lamp for ye."

When Johnnie turned to her uncle, she found Mill-
saps bending above him, the small can in his hands,
its spout approached to the rigid blue lips of the
patient with the unconcern of a man about to fill a
lamp. She sprang forward and caught his arm, bring
ing the can away with a clatter and splash.

"You mustn't do that," she said authoritatively.
"The doctors will be here in a minute. You mustn't
give him anything, Mr. Millsaps."

"Oh, all right — all right," agreed Millsaps, with
decidedly the air that he considered it all wrong.

A PATIENT FOR THE HOSPITAL 179

"There is some people that has objections to having
their kin-folks cyarved up by student doctors. Then
agin, there is others that has no better use for kin than
to let 'em be so treated. I 'low that a little dosin'
of lamp oil never hurt nobody — and it's cured a-many,
of most any kind of disease. But just as you say —
just as you say." And he shuffled angrily from the
room.

Johnnie went and knelt by the lounge. With deft,
careful fingers she lifted the wet cloths above the
bruised forehead. The hurt looked old. No blood
was flowing, and she wondered a little. Catching
Shade Buckheath's eye fixed on her from outside
the window, she beckoned him in and asked him to
tell her exactly how the trouble came about. Buck-
heath gave her his own version of the matter, omitting,
of course, all mention of the bandanna full of ore which
lay now carefully hidden at the bottom of old Gideon
Himes's trunk.

"And you say he fell down the steps?" asked
Johnnie. "Who was with him? Who saw it?"

"Nobody but me and Pap," Shade answered, trying
to give the reply unconcernedly.

"I — I seen it," whispered Mavity Bence, pluck
ing at Johnnie's sleeve. "I was in the fore room
here — and I seen it all."

She spoke defiantly, but her terrified glance barely
raised itself to the menacing countenances of the two
men on the other side of the lounge, and fell at once.
"I never heard nothin' they was sayin'," she made

i8o THE POWER AND THE GLORY

haste to add. " But I seen Pros fall, and I run out
and helped Pap and Shade fetch him in."

Peculiar as was the attitude of all three, Johnnie
felt a certain relief in the implied assurance that there
had been no quarrel, that her uncle had not been
struck or knocked down the steps.

"Why, Pap," she said kindly, looking across at the
old man's perturbed, sweating face, "you surely ain't
like these foolish folks round here in Cottonville
that think the hospital was started up to get dead
bodies for the student doctors to cut to pieces. You
see how bad off Uncle Pros is; you must know he's
bound to be better taken care of there in that fine
building, and with all those folks that have learned
their business to take care of him, than here in this
house with only me. Besides, I couldn't even stay
at home from the mill to nurse him. Somebody's
got to earn the money."

"I wouldn't charge you no board, Johnnie," fairly
whined Himes. "I'm willin' to nurse Pros myself,
without he'p, night and day. You speak up mighty
fine for that thar hospital. What about Lura Dawson ?
Everybody knows they shipped her body to Cincin
nati and sold it. You ort to be ashamed to put your
poor old uncle in such a place."

Johnnie turned puzzled eyes from the rigid face
on the lounge — Pros had neither moved nor spoken
since they lifted and laid him there — to the old man
at the window. That Pap Himes should be con
cerned, even slightly, about the welfare of any living

A PATIENT FOR THE HOSPITAL 181

being save himself, struck her as wildly improbable.
Then, swiftly, she reproached herself for not being
readier to believe good of him. He and Uncle Pros
had been boys together, and she knew her uncle one
to deserve affection, though he seldom commanded it.

There was a sound of wheels outside, and Gray
Stoddard's voice with that of the doctor's. Shade
and Pap Himes still hovered nervously about the
window, staring in and hearkening to all that was
said. Mavity Bence had wept till her face was sod
den. She herded the other girls back out of the way,
but watched everything with terrified eyes.

"He'll jest about come to hisself befo' he dies,"
the older conspirator muttered to Shade as the stretcher
passed them, and the skilled, white-jacketed attend
ants laid Pros Passmore in the vehicle without so much
as disturbing his breathing. "He'll jest about come
to hisself thar, and them pesky doctors '11 have word
about the silver mine. Well, in this world, them that
has, gits, mostly. Ef Johnnie Consadine had been
any manner o' kin to me, I vow I'd 'a' taken a hickory
to her when she set up her word agin' mine and let
him go out of the house. The little fool! she didn't
know what she was sendin' away."

And so Pros Passmore was taken to the hospital.
His bandanna full of ore remained buried at the
bottom of Gideon Himes's trunk, to be fished up often
by the old sinner, fingered and fondled, and laid back
in hiding; while the man who had carried it down
the mountains to fling it in Johnnie's lap lay with

182 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

locked lips, and told neither the doctors nor Himes
where the silver mine was. August sweated itself
away; September wore on into October in a proces
sion of sun-robed, dust-sandalled days, and still Uncle
Pros gave no sign of actual recovery.

Johnnie was working hard in the mill. Hartley
Sessions had become, in his cold, lifeless fashion,
very much her friend. Inert, slow, he had one quali
fication for his position: he could choose an assistant,
or delegate authority with good judgment; and he
found in Johnnie Consadine an adjutant so reliable,
so apt, and of such ability, that he continually pushed
more work upon her, if pay and honours did not
always follow in adequate measure.

For a time, much as she disliked to approach Shade
with any request, Johnnie continued to urge him
whenever they met to finish up the indicators and
let her have them back again. Then Hartley Sessions
promoted her to a better position in the weaving
department, and other cares drove the matter from
her mind.

The condition of Uncle Pros added fearfully to the
drains upon her time and thought. The old man
lay in his hospital cot till the great frame had wasted
fairly to the big bones, following her movements
when she came into the room with strange, questioning,
unrecognizing eyes, yet always quieted and soothed
by her presence, so that she felt urged to give him
every moment she could steal from her work. The
hurts on his head, which were mere scalp wounds,

A PATIENT FOR THE HOSPITAL 183

healed over; the surgeon at the hospital was unable
to find any indentation or injury to the skull itself
which would account for the old man's condition.
They talked for a long time of an operation, and
did finally trephine, without result. They would
make an X-ray photograph, they said, when he
should be strong enough to stand it, as a means of
further investigation.

Meantime his expenses, though made fairly nominal
to her, cut into the money which Johnnie could send
to her mother, and she was full of anxiety for the help
less little family left without head or protector up in
that gash of the wind-grieved mountains on the flank
of Big Unaka.

In these days Shade Buckheath vacillated from the
suppliant attitude to the threatening. Johnnie never
knew when she met him which would be uppermost;
and since he had wearied out her gratitude and liking,
she cared little. One thing surprised and touched her
a bit, and that was that Shade used to meet her of an
evening when she would be coming from the hospital,
and ask eagerly after the welfare of Uncle Pros. He
finally begged her to get him a chance to see the old
man, and she did so, but his presence seemed to have
such a disturbing effect on the patient that the doctors
prohibited further visits.

"Well, I done just like you told me to, and them
cussed sawboneses won't let me go back no more,"
Shade reported to Pap Himes that evening. "Old
Pros just swelled hisself out like a toad and hollered

184 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

at me time I got in the room. He's sure crazy all
right. He looks like he couldn't last long, but them
that heirs what he has will git the writin' that tells
whar the silver mine's at. Johnnie's liable to find
that writin' any day; or he may come to hisself and
tell her."

"Well, for God's sake," retorted Pap Himes testily,
"why don't you wed the gal and be done with it?
You wed Johnnie Consadine and get that writin',
and I'll never tell on you 'bout the old man and such;
and you and me'll share the mine."

Shade gave him a black look.

"You're a good talker," he said sententiously.
"If I could do things as easy as you can tell 'em, I'd
be president."

"Huh!" grunted the old man. "Marryin' a fool
gal — or any other woman — ain't nothin' to do. If
I was your age I'd have her Miz Himes before sun
down."

"All right," said Buckheath, "if it's so damn' easy
done — this here marryin' — do some of it your
self. Thar's Laurelly Consadine; she's a widow;
and more kin to Pros than Johnnie is. You go up in
the mountains and wed her, and I'll stand by ye in
the business."

A slow but ample grin dawned on the old man's
round, foolish face. He looked admiringly at Shade.

"By Gosh!" he said finally. "That ain't no bad
notion, neither. 'Course I can do it. They all want
to wed. And thar's Laurelly — light-minded fool -

A PATIENT FOR THE HOSPITAL 185

ain't got the sense she was born with — up thar with
out Pros nor Johnnie — I could persuade her to take
off her head and play pitch-ball with it — Lord, yes!"

"Well, you've bragged about enough," put in
Buckheath grimly. "You git down in the collar and
pull."

The old man gave him no heed. He was still grin
ning fatuously.

"It 'minds me of Zack Shalliday, and the way he
got wedded," came the unctuous chuckle. "Zack
was a man 'bout my age, and his daughter was a-keepin'
house for him. She was a fine hand to work; the best
butter maker on the Unakas; Zack always traded his
butter for a extry price. But old as Sis Shalliday
was — she must 'a' been all of twenty-seven — along
comes a man that takes a notion to her. She named
it to Zack. 'All right,' says he, 'you give me to-morrow
to hunt me up one that's as good a butter maker as
you air, and I've got no objections.' Then he took
hisself down to Preacher Blaylock, knowin' in reason
that preachers was always hungry for weddin' fees,
and would hustle round to make one. He offered
the preacher a dollar to give him a list of names of
single women that was good butter makers. Blaylock
done so. He'd say, 'Now this 'n's right fine-looking,
but I ain't never tasted her butter. Here's one that
ain't much to look at, but her butter is prime — jest
like your gal's; hit allers brings a leetle extry at the
store. This 'n's fat, yet I can speak well of her workin'
qualifications.' He named 'em all out to Zack, and

186 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Zack had his say for each one. 'The fat ones is easy
keepers/ he says for the last one, 'and looks don't
cut much figger in this business — it all depends on
which one makes the best butter anyhow/

"Well, he took that thar string o' names, and he
left. 'Long about sundown, here he is back and
hollerin' at the fence. 'Come out here, preacher —
I've got her.' He had a woman in his buggy that
Blaylock had never put eyes on in all his born days.
'Wouldn't none o' them I sent ye to have ye?' the
preacher asked Zack in a kind of whisper, when he
looked at that thar snaggle-toothed, cross-eyed some
body that Shalliday'd fetched back. 'I reckon they
would,' says Zack. ' I reckon any or all of 'em would
'a' had me,' he says. 'I had only named it to three
o' the four, and I hadn't closed up with none o' them,
becaze I wasn't quite satisfied in my mind about the
butter makin'. And as I was goin' along the road
toward the last name you give me, I come up with
this here woman. She was packin' truck down to
the store for to trade it. I offered her a lift and she
rid with me a spell. I chanced to tell her of what I
was out after, and she let on that she was a widder,
and showed me the butter she had — hit was all made
off of one cow, and the calf is three months old. I
wasn't a-goin' to take nobody's word in such a matter,
and hauled her on down to the store and seed the store
keeper pay her extry for that thar butter — and here
we air. Tie the knot, preacher; yer dollar is ready
for ye, and we must be gittin' along home — it's 'most

A PATIENT FOR THE HOSPITAL 187

milkin' time/ The preacher he tied the knot, and
Shalliday and the new Miz. Shalliday they got along
home." The old man chuckled as he had at the begin
ning of this tale.

"Well, that was business," agreed Shade impatiently.
"When are you goin' to start for Big Unaka ?"

The old man rolled his great head between his

O

shoulders.

"Ye-ah," he assented; "business. But it was bad
business for Zack Shalliday. That thar woman never
made a lick of that butter she was a packin' to the*
settlement to trade for her sister that was one o' them
widders the preacher had give him the name of.
Seems Shalliday's woman had jest come in a-visitin'
from over on Big Smoky, and she turned out to be the
laziest, no-accountest critter on the Unakas. She
didn't know which end of a churn-dasher was made
for use. Aw — law — huh! Business — there's two
kinds of business; but that was a bad business for
Zack Shalliday. I reckon I'll go up on Unaka to-mor
row, if Mavity can run the house without me."

CHAPTER XIV

WEDDING BELLS

A VINE on Mavity Bence's porch turned to
blood crimson. Its leaves parted from the
stem in the gay Autumn wind, and sifted
lightly down to joint he painted foliage of the two little
maples which struggled for existence against an adverse
world, crouching beaten and torn at the curb.

In these days Johnnie used to leave the mill in the
evening and go directly to the hospital. Gray Stoddard
was her one source of comfort — and terror. Uncle
Pros's injuries brought these two into closer relations
than anything had yet done. So far, Johnnie had
conducted her affairs with a judgment and propriety
extraordinary, clinging as it were to the skirts of Lydia
Sessions, keeping that not unwilling lady between her
and Stoddard always. But the injured man took a
great fancy to Gray. Johnnie he had forgotten;
Shade and Pap Himes he recognized only by an irrita
tion which made the doctors exclude them from his
presence; but something in Stoddard's equable, dis
ciplined personality, appealed to and soothed Uncle
Pros when even Johnnie failed.

The old mountaineer had gone back to childhood.
He would lie by the hour murmuring a boy's woods

1 88

WEDDING BELLS 189

lore to Gray Stoddard, communicating deep secrets
of where a bee tree might be found; where, known only
to him, there was a deeply hidden spring of pure free
stone water, "so cold it'll make yo* teeth chatter";
and which one of old Lead's pups seemed likely to
turn out the best coon dog.

When Stoddard's presence and help had been prof
fered to herself, Johnnie had not failed to find a gracious
way of declining or avoiding; but you cannot reprove
a sick man — a dying man. She could not for the life
of her find a way to insist that Uncle Pros make less
demand on the young mill owner's time.

And so the two of them met often at the bedside,
and that trouble which was beginning to make Johnnie's
heart like lead grew with the growing love Gray Stod
dard commanded. She told herself mercilessly that
it was presumption, folly, wickedness; she was always
going to be done with it; but, once more in his presence,
her very soul cried out that she was indeed fit at least
to love him, if not to hope for his love in turn.

Stoddard himself was touched by the old man's
fancy, and showed a devotion and patience that were
characteristic.

If she was kept late at the hospital, Mavity put by
a bite of cold supper for her, and Mandy always waited
to see that she had what she wanted. On the day
after Shade Buckheath and Gideon Himes had come
to their agreement, she stopped at the hospital for a
briefer stay than usual. Her uncle was worse, and
an opiate had been administered to quiet him, so that

1 9o THE POWER AND THE GLORY

she only sat a while at the bedside and finally took her
way homeward in a state of utter depression for which
she could scarcely account.

It was dusk — almost dark — when she reached the
gate, and she noted carelessly a vehicle drawn up before
it.

"Johnnie," called her mother's voice from the back
of the rickety old wagon as the girl was turning in
toward the steps.

"Sis' Johnnie — Sis' Johnnie!" crowed Deanie;
and then she was aware of sober, eleven-year-old Milo
climbing down over the wheel and trying to help
Lissy, while Pony got in his way and was gravely
reproved. She ran to the wheel and put up ready arms.

"Why, honeys!" she exclaimed. "How come you-
all never let me know to expect you ? Oh, I'm so glad,
mother. I didn't intend to send you word to come;
but I was feeling so blue. I sure wanted to. Maybe
Uncle Pros might know you — or the baby — and
it would do him good."

She had got little Deanie out in her arms now, and
stood hugging the child, bending to kiss Melissa,
finding a hand to pat Milo's shoulder and rub Pony's
tousled poll.

"Oh, I'm so glad! — I'm so glad to see you-all,"
she kept repeating. "Who brought you ?" She looked
closely at the man on the driver's seat and recognized
Gideon Himes.

"Why, Pap!" she exclaimed. "I'll never forget
you for this. It was mighty good of you."

WEDDING BELLS 191

The door swung open, letting out a path of light.

"Aunt Mavity!" cried the girl. "Mother and the
children have come down to see me. Isn't it fine ?"

Mavity Bence made her appearance in the doorway,
her faded eyes so reddened with weeping that she
looked like a woman in a fever. She gulped and
stared from her father, where in the shine of her
upheld lamp he sat blinking and grinning, to Lau-
rella Consadine in a ruffled pink-and-white lawn
frock, with a big, rose-wreathed hat on her dark
curls, and Johnnie Consadine with the children cling
ing about her.

"Have ye told her?" she gasped. And at the tone
Johnnie turned quickly, a sudden chill falling upon
her glowing mood.

"What's the matter?" she asked, startled, clutching
the baby tighter to her, and conning over with quick
alarm the tow-heads that bobbed and surged about
her waist. "The children are all right — aren't
they?"

Milo looked up apprehensively. He was an old-
faced, anxious-looking, little fellow, already beginning
to have a stoop to his thin shoulders — the bend of
the burden bearer.

"I — I done the best I could, Sis' Johnnie," he
hesitated apologetically. "You wasn't thar, and Unc'
Pros was gone, an' I thest worked the farm and took
care of mother an' the little 'uns best I knowed how.
But when she — when he — oh, I wish't you and
Unc' Pros had been home to-day."

192 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Johnnie, her mind at rest about the children, turned
to her mother.

"Was ma sick?" she asked sympathetically. Then,
noticing for the first time the unwonted gaiety of Laur-
ella's costume, the glowing cheeks and bright eyes,
she smiled in relief.

" You don't look sick. My, but you're fine ! You're
as spick and span as a bride."

The old man bent and spat over the wheel, prepara
tory to speaking, but his daughter took the words
from his mouth.

"She is a bride," explained Mavity Bence in a
flatted, toneless voice. "Leastways, Pap said he was
a-goin' up on Unaka for to wed her and bring her
down — and I know in reason she'd have him."

Johnnie's terror-stricken eyes searched her mother's
irresponsible, gypsy face.

"Now, Johnnie," fretted the little woman, "how
long air you goin' to keep us standin' here in the road ?
Don't you think my frock's pretty ? Do they make
em that way down here in the big town ? I bought
this lawn at Bledsoe, with the very first money you
sent up. Ain't you a bit glad to see us ?"

The lip trembled, the tragic dark brows lifted in
their familiar slant.

"Come on in the house," said Johnnie heavily, and
she led the way with drooping head.

Called by the unusual disturbance, Mandy left the
supper she was putting on the table for Johnnie and
ran into the front hall. Beulah Catlett and one or

WEDDING BELLS 193

two of the other girls had crowded behind Mavity
Bence's shoulders, and were staring. Mandy joined
them in time to hear the conclusion of Mavity' s explana
tion.

She came through the door and passed the new
Mrs. Himes on the porch.

"Why, Johnnie Consadine!" she cried. "Is that
there your ma ?"

Johnnie nodded. She was past speech.

"Well, I vow! I should've took her for your sister,
if any kin. Ain't she pretty? Beulah — she's
Johnnie's ma, and her and Pap has just been wedded."

She turned to follow Johnnie, who was mutely
starting the children in to the house.

"Well," she said with a sigh, "some folks gits two,
and some folks don't git nary one." And she brought
up the rear of the in-going procession.

"Ain't you goin' to pack your plunder in ?" inquired
the bridegroom harshly, almost threateningly, as he
pitched out upon the path a number of bundles and
boxes.

" I reckon they won't pester it till you git back from
puttin' up the nag," returned Laurella carelessly as
she swung her light, frilled skirts and tripped across the
porch. "You needn't werry about me," she called
down to the old fellow where he sat speechlessly
glaring. " Mavity'll show me whar I can sit, and git
me a nice cool drink; and that's all I'll need for one
while."

Pap Himes's mouth was open, but no words came. .

i94 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

He finally shut it with that click of the ill-fitting false
teeth which was familiar — and terrible — to everybody
at the boarding-house, shook out the lines over the old
horse, and jogged away into the dusk.

"And this here's the baby," admired Mandy, kneeling
in front of little Deanie, when the newcomers halted
in the front room. "Why, Johnnie Consadine! She
don't look like nothin' on earth but a little copy of you.
If she's dispositioned like you, I vow I'll just about
love her to death."

Mavity Bence was struggling up the porch steps
loaded with the baggage of the newcomers.

" Better leave that for your paw," the bride counselled
her. "It's more suited to a man person to lift them
heavy things."

But Mavity had not lived with Pap Himes for nearly
forty years without knowing what was suited to him,
in distinction, perhaps, from mankind in general.
She made no reply, but continued to bring in the bag
gage, and Johnnie, after settling her mother in a rocking-
chair with the cool drink which the little woman had
specified, hurried down to help her.

" Everybody always has been mighty good to me all
my life," Laurella Himes was saying to Mandy, Beulah
and the others. "I reckon they always will. Uncle
Pros he just does for me like he was my daddy, and
my children always waited on me. Johnnie's the best
gal that ever was, ef she does have some quare notions."

"Ain't she?" returned Mandy enthusiastically, as
Johnnie of the "quare notions" helped Mavity Bence

WEDDING BELLS 195

upstairs with the one small trunk belonging to
Laurella.

"Look out for that trunk, Johnnie," came her
mother's caution, with a girlish ripple of laughter in
the tones. "Hit's a borried one. Now don't you
roach up and git mad. I had obliged to have a trunk,
bein' wedded and comin' down to the settlement
this-a-way. I only borried Mildred Faidley's. She
won't never have any use for it. Evelyn Toler loaned
me the trimmin' o' this hat — ain't it sightly ?"

Johnnie's distressed eyes met the pale gaze of Aunt
Mavity across the little oilcloth-covered coffer.

" I would 'a' told you, Johnnie," said the poor woman
deprecatingly, " but I never knowed it myself till late
last night, and I hadn't the heart to name it at break
fast. I thort I'd git a chance this evenin', but they come
sooner'n I was expectin' 'em."

" Never mind, Aunt Mavity," said Johnnie. " When
I get a little used to it I'll be glad to have them all here.
I — I wish Uncle Pros was able to know folks."

The children were fed, Milo, touchingly subdued
and apologetic, nestling close to his sister's side
and whispering to her how he had tried to get
ma to wait and come down to the Settlement,
and hungrily begging with his pathetic childish eyes
for her to say that this thing which had come upon
them was not, after all, the calamity he feared. Snub-
nosed, nine-year-old Pony, whose two front teeth had
come in quite too large for his mouth, Pony, with the
quick-expanding pupils, and the temperament that

196 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

would cope ill with disaster, addressed himself gaily
to his supper and saw no sorrow anywhere. Little
Melissa was half asleep; and even Deanie, after the
first outburst of greeting, nodded in her chair.

"I got ready for 'em," Mavity told Johnnie in an
undertone, after her father returned. "I knowed in
reason he'd bring her back with him. Pap always
has his own way, and gits whatever he wants. I 'lowed
you'd take the baby in bed with you, and I put a
pallet in your room for Lissy."

Johnnie agreed to this arrangement, almost
mechanically. Is it to be wondered at that her
mind was already busy with the barrier this must set
between herself and Gray Stoddard ? She had never
been ashamed of her origin or her people; but this -
this was different.

Next morning she sent word to the mill foreman to put
on a substitute, and took the morning that she might go
with her mother to the hospital. Passmore was asleep,
and they were not allowed to disturb him; but o .1 the
steps they met Gray Stoddard, and he stopped so
decidedly to speak to them that Johnnie could not
exactly run away, as she felt like doing.

"Your mother!" echoed Stoddard, when Johnnie
had told him who the visitor was. He glanced from
the tall, fair-haired daughter to the lithe little gypsy
at her side. "Why, she looks more like your sister,"
he said.

Laurella's white teeth flashed at this, and her
big, dark eyes glowed.

WEDDING BELLS 197

"Johnnie's such a serious-minded person that she
favours older than her years," the mother told him.
"Well, I give her the name of the dead, and they say
that makes a body solemn like."

It was very evident that Stoddard desired to detain
them in conversation, but Johnnie smilingly, yet with
decision, cut the interview short.

" I don't see why you hurried me a-past that-a-way,"
the little mother said resentfully, when they had gone
a few steps. "I wanted to stay and talk to the gentle
man, if you didn't. I think he's one of the nicest per
sons I've met since I've been in Cottonville. Mr.
Gray Stoddard — how come you never mentioned
him to me Johnnie ?"

She turned to find a slow, painful blush rising
in her daughter's face.

" I don't know, ma," said Johnnie gently. " I
reckon it was because I didn't seem to have any
concern with a rich gentleman such as Mr. Stoddard.
He's got more money than Mr. Hardwick, they say -
more than anybody else in Cottonville."

"Has he?" inquired Laurella vivaciously. "Well,
money or no money, I think he's mighty nice. Looks
like he ain't studying as to whether you got money or
not. And if you was meaning that you didn't think
yourself fit to be friends with such, why I'm ashamed
of you, Johnnie Consadine. The Passmores and the
Consadines are as good a family as there is on Unaka
mountains. I don't know as I ever met up with any
body that I found was too fine for my company. And

198 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

whenever your Uncle Pros gets well and finds his silver
mine, we'll have as much money as the best of 'em."

The tears blinded Johnnie so that she could scarcely
find her way, and the voice wherewith she would have
answered her mother caught in her throat. She
pressed her lips hard together and shook her head,
then laughed out, a little sobbing laugh.

"Poor ma — poor little mother!" she whispered at
length. "You ain't been away from the mountains
as I have. Things are — well, they're a heap different
here in the Settlement."

'They're a heap nicer," returned Laurella blithely.
"Well, I'm mighty glad I met that gentleman this
morning. Mr. Himes was talking to me of Shade
Buckheath a-yesterday. He said Shade was wishful
to wed you, Johnnie, and wanted me to give the boy
my good word. I told him I wouldn't say anything -
and then afterward I was going to. But since I've
seen this gentleman, and know that his likes are
friends of your'n, well — I - - Johnnie, the Buck-
heaths are a hard nation of people, and that's the truth.
If you wedded Shade, like as not he'd mistreat you."

"Oh mother — don't!" pleaded Johnnie, scarlet of
face, and not daring to raise her eyes.

"What have I done now?" demanded Laurella
with asperity.

"You mustn't couple my name with Mr. Stoddard's
that way," Johnnie told her. " He's never thought
of me, except as a poor girl who needs help mighty
bad; and he's so kind-hearted and generous he's ready

WEDDING BELLS 199

to do for each and every that's worthy of it. But -
not that way — mother, you mustn't ever suppose
for a minute that he'd think of me in that way."

"Well, I wish't I may never!" Laurella exclaimed.
"Did I mention any particular way that the man was
supposed to be thinking about you ? Can't I speak a
word without your biting my head off for it ? As for
what Mr. Gray Stoddard thinks of you, let me tell you,
child, a body has only to see his eyes when he's looking
at you."

"Mother — Oh, mother!" protested Johnnie.

"Well, if he can look that way I reckon I can speak
of it," returned Laurella, with some reason.

"I want you to promise never to name it again,
even to me," said Johnnie solemnly, as they came to
the steps of the big lead-coloured house. "You surely
wouldn't say such a thing to any one else. I wish
you'd forget it yourself."

"We-ell," hesitated Laurella, "if you feel so strong
about it, I reckon I'll do as you say. But there ain't
anything in that to hinder me from being friends with
Mr. Stoddard. I feel sure that him and me would
get on together fine. He favours my people, the
Passmores. My daddy was just such an upstanding,
dark-complected feller as he is. He's got the look in
the eye, too."

Johnnie gasped as she remembered that the grand
father of whom her mother spoke was Virgil Passmore,
and called to mind the story of the borrowed wedding
coat.

CHAPTER XV

THE FEET OF THE CHILDREN

THE mountain people, being used only to one
class, never find themselves consciously in
the society of their superiors. Johnnie Con-
sadine had been unembarrassed and completely mis
tress of the situation in the presence of Charlie Conroy,
who did not fail after the Uplift dance to make some
further effort to meet the "big red-headed girl," as
he called her. She was aware that social overtures
from such a person were not to be received by her,
and she put them aside quite as though she had been,
according to her own opinion, above rather than
beneath them. The lover-like pretensions of Shade
Buckheath, a man dangerous, remorseless, as careless
of the rights of others as any tiger in the jungle, she
regarded with negligent composure. But Gray Stod-
dard — ah, there her treacherous heart gave way, and
trembled in terror. The air of perfect equality he
maintained between them, his attitude of intimacy,
flattering, almost affectionate, this it was which she
felt she must not recognize.

The beloved books, which had seemed so many steps
upon which to climb to a world where she dared
acknowledge her own liking and admiration for Stod-

THE FEET OF THE CHILDREN 201

dard, were now laid aside. It took all of her heart and
mind and time to visit Uncle Pros at the hospital, keep
the children out of Pap's way in the house, and do
justice to her work in the factory. She told Gray,
haltingly, reluctantly, that she thought she must give
up the reading and studying for a time.

"Not for long, I hope." Stoddard received her
decision with a puzzled air, turning in his fingers the
copy of "Walden" which she was bringing back to him.
"Perhaps now that you have your mother and the
children with you, there will be less time for this sort
of thing for a while, but you haven't a mind that can
enjoy being inactive. You may think you'll give it
up; but study — once you've tasted it — will never
let you alone."

Johnnie looked up at him with a weak and pitiful
version of her usual beaming smile.

"I reckon you're right," she hesitated finally, in a
very low voice. "But sometimes I think the less we
know the happier we are."

"How's this? How's this?" cried Stoddard, almost
startled. "Why, Johnnie — I never expected to hear
that sort of thing from you. I thought your optimism
was as deep as a well, and as wide as a church."

Poor Johnnie surely had need of such optimism as
Stoddard had ascribed to her. They were weary
evenings when she came home now, with the November
rain blowing in the streets and the early-falling dusk
almost upon her. It was on a Saturday night, and she
had been to the hospital, when she got in to find Mandy,

202 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

seated in the darkest corner of the sitting room, with a
red flannel cloth around her neck — a sure sign that
something unfortunate had occurred, since the tall
woman always had sore throat when trouble loomed
large.

"What's the matter?" asked Johnnie, coming close
and laying a hand on the bent shoulder to peer into the
drooping countenance.

" Don't come too nigh me — you'll ketch it," warned
Mandy gloomily. "A so' th'oat is as ketchin' as small
pox, and I know it so to be, though they is them that
say it ain't. When mine gits like this I jest tie it up
and keep away from folks best I can. I hain't dared
touch the baby sence hit began to hurt me this a-way."

"There's something besides the sore throat," per
sisted Johnnie. "Is it anything I can help you
about?"

"Now, if that ain't jest like Johnnie Consadine!"
apostrophized Mandy. "Yes, there is somethin' -
not that I keer." She tossed her poor old gray head
scornfully, and then groaned because the movement
hurt her throat. 'That thar feisty old Sullivan gave
me my time this evenin'. He said they was layin*
off weavers, and they could spare me. I told him, well,
I could spare them, too. I told him I could hire in any
other mill in Cottonville befo' workin' time Monday —
but I'm afeared I cain't." Weak tears began to travel
down her countenance. "I know I never will make
a fine hand like you, Johnnie," she said pathetically.
"There ain't a thing in the mill that I love to do —

203

nary thing. I can tend a truck patch or raise a field
o* corn to beat anybody, and nobody cain't outdo me
with fowls; but the mill -

She broke off and sat staring dully at the floor. Pap
Himes had stumped into the room during the latter
part of this conversation.

"Lost your job, hey ?" he inquired keenly.

Mandy nodded, with fearful eyes on his face.

"Well, you want to watch out and keep yo' board
paid up here. The week you cain't pay — out you go.
I reckon I better trouble you to pay me in advance,
unless'n you've got some kind friend that'll stand for
you."

Mandy's lips parted, but no sound came. The gaze
of absolute terror with which she followed the old man's
waddling bulk as he went and seated himself in front
of the air-tight stove, was more than Johnnie could
endure.

"I'll stand for her board, Pap," she said quietly.

"Oh, you will, will ye?" Pap received her remark
with disfavour. "Well, a fool and his money don't
stay together long. And who'll stand for you, Johnnie
Consadine ? Yo' wages ain't a-goin' to pay for yo'
livin' and Mandy's too. Ye needn't lay back on bein'
my stepdaughter. You ain't acted square by me, an' I
don't aim to do no more for you than if we was no kin."

"You won't have to. Mandy'll get a place next
week — you know she will, Pap — an experienced
weaver like she is. I'll stand for her."

Himes snorted. Mandy caught at Johnnie's hand-

204 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

and drew it to her, fondling it. Her round eyes were
still full of tears.

"I do know you're the sweetest thing God ever
made," she whispered, as Johnnie looked down at her.
"You and Deanie." And the two went out into the
dining room together.

"Thar," muttered Himes to Buckheath, as the
latter passed through on his way to supper; "you see
whether it would do to give Johnnie the handlin' o' all
that thar money from the patent. Why, she'd hand it
out to the first feller that put up a poor mouth and asked
her for it. You heard anything, Buck?"

Shade nodded.

"Come down to the works with me after supper.
I've got something to show you," he said briefly, and
Himes understood that the desired letter had arrived.

At first Laurella Consadine bloomed like a late rose
in the town atmosphere. She delighted in the village
streets. She was as wildly exhilarated as a child when
she was taken on the trolley to Watauga. With strange,
inherent deftness she copied the garb, the hair dressing,
even the manner and speech, of such worthy models as
came within her range of vision — like her daughter,
she had an eye for fitness and beauty; that which was
merely fashionable though truly inelegant, did not
appeal to her. She was swift to appreciate the change
in Johnnie.

"You look a heap prettier, and act and speak a
heap prettier than you used to up in the mountains,"
she told the tall girl. "Looks like it was a mighty

THE FEET OF THE CHILDREN 205

sensible thing for you to come down here to the Settle
ment; and if it was good for you, I don't see why it
wasn't good for me — and won't be for the rest of the
children. No need for you to be so solemn over it."

The entire household was aghast at the bride's atti
tude toward her old husband. They watched her with
the fascinated gaze we give to a petted child encroaching
upon the rights of a cross dog, or the pretty lady with
her little riding whip in the cage of the lion. She
treated him with a kindly, tolerant, yet overbearing
familiarity that appalled. She knew not to be
frightened when he clicked his teeth, but drew up
her pretty brows and fretted at him that she wished
he wouldn't make that noise — it worried her. She
tipped the sacred yellow cat out of the rocking-chair
where it always slept in state, took the chair her
self, and sent that astonished feline from the room.

It was in Laurella's evident influence that Johnnie
put her trust when, one evening, as they all sat in
Sunday leisure in the front room — most of the girls
being gone to church or out strolling with "company"
- Pap Himes broached the question of the children
p-oinp; to work in the mill.

o o

"They're too young, Pap," Johnnie said to him
mildly. "They ought to be in school this winter."

"They've every one, down to Deanie, had mo' than
the six weeks schoolin' that the laws calls for," snarled
Himes.

"You wasn't thinking of putting Deanie in the mill
— not Deanie — was you ?" asked Johnnie breathlessly.

2o6 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

"Why not?" inquired Himes. "She'll get no good
runnin' the streets here in Cottonville, and she can earn
a little somethin' in the mill. I'm a old man, an
sickly, and I ain't long for this world. If them chaps
is a-goin* to do anything for me, they'd better be puttin'
in their licks."

Johnnie looked from the little girl's pink-and-white
infantile beauty — she sat with the child in her lap -
to the old man's hulking, powerful, useless frame.
What would Deanie naturally be expected to do for
her stepfather ?

"Nobody's asked my opinion," observed Shade
Buckheath, who made one of the family group, "but
as far as I can see there ain't a thing to hurt young
'uns about mill work; and there surely ain't any good
reason why they shouldn't earn their way, same as we
all do. I reckon they had to work back on Unaka.
Goin' to set 'em up now an make swells of 'em ?"

Johnnie looked bitterly at him but made no reply.

"They won't take them at the Hardwick mill," she
said finally. " Mr. Stoddard has enforced the rule that
they have to have an affidavit with any child the mill
employs that it is of legal age; and there's nobody
going to swear that Deanie's even as much as twelve
years old — nor Lissy — nor Pony — nor Milo. The
oldest is but eleven."

Laurella had bought a long chain of red glass beads
with a heart-shaped pendant. This trinket occupied
her attention entirely while her daughter and hus
band discussed the matter of the children's future.

THE FEET OF THE CHILDREN 207

; Johnnie," she began now, apparently not having
heard one word that had been said, "did you ever in
your life see anything so cheap as this here string of
beads for a dime ? I vow I could live and die in that
five-and-ten-cent store at Watauga. There was more
pretties in it than I could have looked at in a week.
I'm going right back thar Monday and git me them
green garters that the gal showed me. I don't know
what I was thinkin' about to come away without 'em!
They was but a nickel."

Pap Himes looked at her, at the beads, and gave the
fierce, inarticulate, ludicrously futile growl of a
thwarted, perplexed animal.

"Mother," appealed Johnnie desperately, "do you
want the children to go into the mill ?"

" I don't know but they might as well — for a spell,"
said Laurella Himes, vainly endeavouring to look
grown-up, and to pretend that she was really the head
of the family. "They want to go, and you've done
mighty well in the mill. If it wasn't for my health, I
reckon I might go in and try to learn to weave, myself.
But there — I came a-past with Mandy t'other evenin'
when she was out, and the noise of that there factory
is enough for me from the outside — I never could
stand to be in it. Looks like such a racket would
drive me plumb crazy."

Pap stared at his bride and clicked his teeth with
the gnashing sound that overawed the others. He
drew his shaggy brows in an attempt to look masterful.

"Well, ef you cain't tend looms, I reckon you cart'

2o8 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

take Mavity's place in the house here, and let her keep
to the weavin' stiddier. She'll just about lose her job
if she has to be out and in so much as she has had to be
with me here of late.'*

"I will when I can," said Laurella, patronizingly.
"Sometimes I get to feeling just kind of restless and
no-account, and can't do a stroke of work. When I'm
that-a-way I go to bed and sleep it off, or get out and
go somewheres that'll take my mind from my troubles.
Hit's by far the best way."

Once more Pap looked at her, and opened and shut
his mouth helplessly. Then he turned sullenly to his
stepdaughter, grumbling.

"You hear that! She won't work, and you won't
give me your money. The children have obliged to
bring in a little something — that's the way it looks to
me. If the mills on the Tennessee side is too choicy to
take 'em — and I know well as you, Johnnie, that they
air; their man Connors told me so — I can hire 'em
over at the Victory, on the Georgy side."

The Victory! A mill notorious in the district for
its ancient, unsanitary buildings, its poor management,
its bad treatment of its hands. Yes, it was true that
at the Victory you could hire out anything that could
walk and talk. Johnnie caught her breath and hugged
the small pliant body to her breast, feeling with a
mighty throb of fierce, mother-tenderness, the poor
little ribs, yet cartilagenous; the delicate, soft frame
for which God and nature demanded time, and chance
to grow and strengthen. Yet she knew if she gave

THE FEET OF THE CHILDREN 209

up her wages to Pap she would be no better ofF-
indeed, she would be helpless in his hands; and the
sum of them would not cover what the children all
together could earn.

"Oh, Lord! To work in the Victory !" she groaned.

"Now, Johnnie," objected her mother," don't you
get meddlesome just because you're a old maid. Your
great-aunt Betsy was meddlesome disposed that-a-way.
I reckon single women as they get on in years is apt
so to be. Every one of these children has been prom
ised that they should be let to work in the mill. They've
been jest honin' to do it ever since you came down and
got your place. Deanie was scared to death for fear
they wouldn't take her. Don't you be meddlesome."

"Yes, and I'm goin' to buy me a gun and a nag with
my money what I earn," put in Pony explosively.
" 'Course I'll take you-all to ride." He added the
saving clause under Mile's reproving eye. "Sis'
Johnnie, don't you want me to earn money and buy
a hawse and a gun, and a — and most ever' thing else ?"

Johnnie looked down into the blue eyes of the little
lad who had crept close to her chair. What he would
earn in the factory she knew well — blows, curses, evil
knowledge.

"If they should go to the Victory, I'd be mighty
proud to do all I could to look after 'em, Johnnie,"
spoke Mandy from the shadows, where she sat on the
floor at Laurella Consadine's feet, working away
with a shoe-brush and cloth at the cleaning and polish
ing of the little woman's tan footwear. "Ye know I'm

210 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

a-gittin' looms thar to-morrow mornin'. Yes, I am,"
in answer to Johnnie's deprecating look. "I'd ruther
do it as to run round a week — or a month — 'mongst
the better ones, huntin' a job, and you here standin'
for my board/*

Till late that night Johnnie laboured with her
mother and stepfather, trying to show them that the
mill was no fit place for the children. Milo was all too
apt for such a situation, the very material out of which
a cotton mill moulds its best hands and its worst citizens.
Pony, restless, emotional, gifted and ambitious, crav
ing his share of the joy of life and its opportunities,
would never make a mill hand; but under the pressure
of factory life his sister apprehended that he would
make a criminal.

"Uh-huh," agreed Pap, drily, when she tried to put
something of this into words. "I spotted that feller for
a rogue and a shirk the minute I laid eyes on him.
The mill'll tame him. The mill'll make him git down
and pull in the collar, I reckon. Women ain't fitten to
bring up chillen. A widder's boys allers goes to ruin.
Why, Johnnie Consadine, every one of them chaps is
plumb crazy to work in the mill — just like you was -
and you're workin' in the mill yourself. What makes
you talk so foolish about it ?"

Laurella nodded an agreement, looking more than
usually like a little girl playing dolls.

" I reckon Mr. Himes knows best, Johnnie, honey,"
was her reiterated comment.

Cautiously Johnnie approached the subject of pay;

THE FEET OF THE CHILDREN 211

her stepfather had already demanded her wages, and
expressed unbounded surprise that she was not willing
to pass over the Saturday pay-envelope to him and let
him put the money in the bank along with his other
savings. Careful calculation showed that the four
children could, after a few weeks of learning, prob
ably earn a little more than she could; and in any case
Himes put it as a disciplinary measure, a way of life
selected largely for the good of the little ones.

"If you just as soon let me," she said to him at last,
"I believe I'll take them over to the Victory myself
to-morrow morning."

She had hopes of telling their ages bluntly to the mill
superintendent and having them refused.

Pap agreed negligently; he had no liking for early
rising. And thus it was that Johnnie found herself
at eight o'clock making her way, in the midst of the
little group, toward the Georgia line and the old Victory
plant, which all good workers in the district shunned if
possible.

As she set her foot on the first plank of the bridge she
heard a little rumble of sound, and down the road came
a light, two-seated vehicle, with coloured driver, and
Miss Lydia Sessions taking her sister's children out for
an early morning drive. There was a frail, long-
visaged boy of ten sitting beside his aunt in the back,
with a girl of eight tucked between them. The
nurse on the front seat held the youngest child, a little
girl about Deanie's age.

As they came nearer, the driver drew up, evidently

212 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

in obedience to Miss Sessions's command, and she
leaned forward graciously to speak to Johnnie.

"Good morning, John," said Miss Sessions as the
carriage stopped. "Whose children are those?"

"They are my little sisters and brothers," responded
Johnnie, looking down with a very pale face, and busy
ing herself with Deanie's hair.

"And you're taking them over to the mill, so that
they can learn to be useful. How nice that is!" Lydia
smiled brightly at the little ones — her best charity-
worker's smile.

"No," returned Johnnie, goaded past endurance,
"I'm going over to see if I can get them to refuse to
take this one." And she bent and picked Deanie up,
holding her, the child's head dropped shyly against her
breast, the small flower-like face turned a bit so that
one blue eye might investigate the carriage and those
in it. " Deanie's too little to work in the mill," Johnnie
went on. "They have night turn over there at the
Victory now, and it'll just about make her sick."

Miss Lydia frowned.

"Oh, John, I think you are mistaken," she said
coldly. "The work is very light — you know that.
Young people work a great deal harder racing about
in their play than at anything they have to do in a
spooling room — I'm sure my nieces and nephews do.
And in your case it is necessary and right that the
younger members of the family should help. I think
you will find that it will not hurt them."

Individuals who work in cotton mills, and are not

THE FEET OF THE CHILDREN 213

adults, are never alluded to as children. It is an
offense to mention them so. They are always spoken
of — even those scarcely more than three feet high
— as "young people."

Miss Sessions had smiled upon the piteous little
group with a judicious mixture of patronage and mild
reproof, and her driver had shaken the lines over the
backs of the fat horses preparatory to moving on, when
Stoddard's car turned into the street from the corner
above.

" Wait, Junius. Dick is afraid of autos," cautioned
Miss Lydia nervously.

Junius grinned respectfully, while bay Dick dozed
and regarded the approaching car philosophically. As
they stood, they blocked the way, so that Gray was
obliged to slow down and finally to stop. He raised
his hat ceremoniously to both groups. His pained eyes
went past Lydia Sessions as though she had been but the
painted representation of a woman, to fasten themselves
on Johnnie where she stood, her tall, deep-bosomed
figure relieved against the shining water, the flaxen-
haired child on her breast, the little ones huddled about
her.

That Johnnie Consadine should have fallen away all
at once from that higher course she had so eagerly
chosen and so resolutely maintained, had been to Gray
a disappointment whose depth and bitterness some
what surprised him. In vain he recalled the fact
that all his theories of life were against forcing a
culture where none was desired; he went back to

214 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

it with grief — he had been so sure that Johnnie did
love the real things, that hers was a nature which
not only wished, but must have, spiritual and mental
food. Her attitude toward himself upon their few
meetings of late had confirmed a certain distrust of her,
if one may use so strong a word. She seemed afraid,
almost ashamed to face him. What was it she was
doing, he wondered, that she knew so perfectly he
would disapprove ? And then, with the return of the
books, the dropping of Johnnie's education, came the
abrupt end of those informal letters. Not till they
ceased, did he realize how large a figure they had come
to cut in his life. Only this morning he had taken them
out and read them over, and decided that the girl who
wrote them was worth at least an attempt toward an
explanation and better footing. He had decided not
to give her up. Now she confirmed his worst appre
hensions. At his glance, her face was suffused
with a swift, distressed red. She wondered if he yet
knew of her mother's marriage. She dreaded the time
when she must tell him. With an inarticulate murmur
she spoke to the little ones, turned her back and hurried
across the bridge.

"Is Johnnie putting those children in the mill?"
asked Stoddard half doubtfully, as his gaze followed
them toward the entrance of the Victory.

"I believe so," returned Lydia, smiling. "We were
just speaking of how good it was that the cotton mills
gave an opportunity for even the smaller ones to help,
at work which is within their capacity."

THE FEET OF THE CHILDREN 215

"Johnnie Consadine said that?" inquired Gray,
startled. "Why is she taking them over to the
Victory?" And then he answered his own question.
"She knows very well they are below the legal age in
Tennessee/'

Lydia Sessions trimmed instantly.

"That must be it," she said. "I wondered a little
that she seemed not to want them in the same factory
that she is in. But I remember Brother Hartley said
that we are very particular at our mill to hire no young
people below the legal age. That must be it."

Stoddard looked with reprehending yet still incredu
lous eyes, to where Johnnie and her small following
disappeared within the mill doors. Johnnie — the
girl who had written him that pathetic little letter about
the children in her room, and her growing doubt as to
the wholesomeness of their work; the girl who had
read the books he gave her, and fed her understanding
on them till she expressed herself logically and lucidly
on the economic problems of the day — that, for the
sake of the few cents they could earn, she should put the
children, whom he knew she loved, into slavery, seemed
to him monstrous beyond belief. Why, if this were
true, what a hypocrite the girl was! As coarse and
unfeeling as the rest of them. Yet she had some shame
left; she had blushed to be caught in the act by him.
It showed her worse than those who justified this thing,
the enormity of which she had seemed to understand
well.

"You mustn't blame her too much," came Lydia

216 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Sessions's smooth voice. " John's mother is a widow,
and girls of that age like pretty clothes and a good time.
Some people consider John very handsome, and of
course with an ignorant young woman of that class,
flattery is likely to turn the head. I think she does as
well as could be expected.5'

CHAPTER XVI

BITTER WATERS

JOHNNIE had a set of small volumes of English
verse, extensively annotated by his own hand,
which Stoddard had brought to her early in
their acquaintance, leaving it with her more as a gift
than as a loan. She kept these little books after all
the others had gone back. She had read and reread
them — cullings from Chaucer, from Spenser, from
the Elizabethan lyrists, the border balladry, fierce,
tender, oh, so human — till she knew pages of them
by heart, and their vocabulary influenced her own,
their imagery tinged all her leisure thoughts. It
seemed to her, whenever she debated returning them,
that she could not bear it. She would get them out
and sit with one of them open in her hands, not reading,
but staring at the pages with unseeing eyes, passing
her fingers over it, as one strokes a beloved hand, or
turning through each book only to find the pencilled
words in the margins. She would be giving up part
of herself when she took these back.

Yet it had to be d(jne, and one miserable morn
ing she made them all into a neat package, intend
ing to carry them to the mill and place them on
Stoddard's desk thus early, when nobody would be

217

2i8 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

in the office. Then the children came in; Deanie was
half sick; and in the distress of getting the ailing child
comfortably into her own bed, Johnnie forgot the
books. Taking them in at noon, she met Stoddard
himself.

"I've brought you back your — those little books
of Old English Poetry," she said, with a sudden con
striction in her throat, and a quick burning flush that
suffused brow, cheek and neck.

Stoddard looked at her; she was thinner than she
had been, and otherwise showed the marks of misery
and of factory life. The sight was almost intolerable
to him. Poor girl, she herself was suffering cruelly
enough beneath the same yoke she had helped to lay
on the children.

"Are you really giving up your studies entirely?"
he asked, in what he tried to make a very kindly voice.
He laid his hand on the package of books. "I wonder
if you aren't making a mistake, Johnnie. You look
as though you were working too hard. Some things
are worth more than money and getting on in the
world."

Johnnie shook her head. For the moment words
were beyond her. Then she managed to say in a fairly
composed tone.

"There isn't any other way for me. I think some
times, Mr. Stoddard, when a body is born to a hard
life, all the struggling and trying just makes it that
much harder. Maybe when the children get a little
older I'll have more chance."

BITTER WATERS 219

The statement was wistfully, timidly made; yet to
Gray Stoddard it seemed a brazen defence of her
present course. It pierced him that she on whose
nobility of nature he could have staked his life, should
justify such action.

"Yes," he said with quick bitterness, "they might
be able to earn more, of course, as time goes on."
It was a cruel speech between two people who had
discussed this feature of industrial life as these had;
even Stoddard had no idea how cruel.

For a dizzy moment the girl stared at him, then,
though her flushed cheeks had whitened pitifully and
her lip trembled, she answered with bravely lifted head.

" I thank you very much for all the help you've been
to me, Mr. Stoddard. What I said just now didn't
look as though I appreciated it. I ask your pardon
for that. I aim to do the best I can for the children.
And I — thank you."

She turned and was gone, leaving him puzzled and
with a sore ache at heart.

Winter came on, wet, dark, cheerless, in the shack
ling, half-built little village, and Johnnie saw for the
first time what the distress of the poor in cities is. A
temperature which would have been agreeable in a
drier climate, bit to the bone in the mist-haunted
valleys of that mountain region. The houses were
mostly mere board shanties, tightened by pasting
newspapers over the cracks inside, where the women
of the family had time for such work; and the heating
apparatus was generally a wood-burning cook-stove,

220 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

with possibly an additional coal heater in the front room
which could be fired on Sundays, or when the family
was at home to tend it.

All through the bright autumn days, Laurella Himes
had hurried from one new and charming sensation or
discovery to another; she was like the butterflies that
haunt the banks of little streams or wayside pools at
this season, disporting themselves more gaily even than
the insects of spring in what must be at best a briefer
glory. When the weather began to be chilly, she
complained of a pain in her side.

"Hit hurts me right there," she would say piteously,
taking Johnnie's hand and laying it over the left side
of her chest. " My feet haven't been good and warm
since the weather turned. I jest cain't stand these
here old black boxes of stoves they have in the Settle
ment. If I could oncet lay down on the big hearth at
home and get my feet warm, I jest know my misery
would leave me."

At first Pap merely grunted over these homesick repin-
ings; but after a time he began to hang about her and
offer counsel which was often enough peevishly received.

"No, I ain't et anything that disagreed with me,"
Laurella pettishly replied to his well-meant inquiries.
"You're thinkin' about yo'se'f. I never eat more than
is good for me, nor anything that ain't jest right. Hit
ain't my stomach. Hit's right there in my side. Looks
like hit was my heart, an' I believe in my soul it is.
Oh, law, if I could oncet lay down befo' a nice, good
hickory fire and get my feet warm!"

BITTER WATERS 221

And so it came to pass that, while everybody in the
boarding-house looked on amazed, almost aghast,
Gideon Himes withdrew from the bank such money
as was necessary, and had a chimney built at the side
of the fore room and a broad hearth laid. He begged
almost tearfully for a small grate which should burn
the soft bituminous coal of the region, and be much
cheaper to install and maintain. But Laurella turned
away from these suggestions with the hopeless, pliable
obstinacy of the weak.

" I wouldn't give the rappin' o' my finger for a nasty
little smudgy, smoky grate fire," she declared rebel-
liously, thanklessly. "A hickory log-heap is what I
want, and if I cain't have that, I reckon I can jest die
without it."

"Now, Laurelly — now Laurelly," Pap quavered
in tones none other had ever heard from him, "don't
you talk about dyin'. You look as young as Johnnie
this minute. I'll git you what you want. Lord, I'll
have Dawson build the chimbley big enough for you to
keep house in, if them's yo' ruthers."

It was almost large enough for that, and the great
load of hickory logs which Himes hauled into the yard
from the neighbouring mountain-side was cut to length.
Fire was kindled in the new chimney; it drew per
fectly; and Pap himself carried Laurella in his arms
and laid her on some quilts beside the hearthstone,
demanding eagerly, "Thar now — don't that make
you feel better ? "

"Uh-huh." The ailing woman turned restlessly

222 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

on her pallet. The big, awkward, ill-favoured old
man stood with his disproportionately long arms
hanging by his sides, staring at her, unaware that his
presence half undid the good the leaping flames were
doing her.

"I wish't Uncle Pros was sitting right over there,
t'other side the fire," murmured Laurella dreamily.
"How is Pros, Johnnie?"

For nobody understood, as the crazed man in the
hospital might have done, that Laurella's bodily ill
ness was but the cosmic despair of the little girl who
has broken her doll. It had been the philosophy of
this sun-loving, butterfly nature to turn her back on
things when they got too bad and take to her bed till,
in the course of events, they bettered themselves. But
now she had emerged into a bleak winter world where
Uncle Pros was not, where Johnnie was powerless,
and where she had been allowed by an unkind Provi
dence to work havoc with her own life and the lives
of her little ones; and her illness was as the tears of
the girl with a shattered toy.

The children in their broken shoes and thin, ill-
selected clothing, shivered on the roads between house
and mill, and gave colour to the statement of many
employers that they were better off in the thoroughly
warmed factories than at home. But the factories
were a little too thoroughly warmed. The operatives
sweated under their tasks and left the rooms, with their
temperature of eighty-five, to come, drenched with
perspiration, into the chill outside air. The colds

BITTER WATERS 223

which resulted were always supposed to be caught out
of doors. Nobody had sufficient understanding of
such matters to suggest that the rebreathed, super
heated atmosphere of the mill room was responsible.

Deanie, who had never been sick a day in her life,
took a heavy cold and coughed so that she could scarcely
get any sleep. Johnnie was desperately anxious, since
the lint of the spinning room immediately irritated
the little throat, and perpetuated the cold in a steady,
hacking cough, that cotton-mill workers know well.
Pony was from the first insubordinate and well-nigh
incorrigible — in short, he died hard. He came to
Johnnie again and again with stories of having been
cursed and struck. She could only beg him to be good
and do what was demanded without laying himself
liable to punishment. Milo, the serious-faced little
burden bearer, was growing fast, and lacked stamina.
Beneath the cotton-mill regime, his chest was getting
dreadfully hollow. He was all too good a worker,
and tried anxiously to make up for his brother's
shortcomings.

"Pony, he's a little feller," Milo would say pitifully.
" He ain't nigh as old as I am. It comes easier to me
than what it does to him to stay in the house and tend
my frames, and do like I'm told. If the bosses would
call me when he don't do to suit 'em, I could always
get him to mind."

Lissy had something of her mother's shining vitality,
but it dimmed woefully in the rough-and-ready clatter
and slam of the big Victory mill.

224 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

The children had come from the sunlit heights and
free air of the Unakas. Their play had been always
out of doors, on the mosses under tall trees, where
fragrant balsams dropped cushions of springy needles
for the feet; their labour, the gathering of brush and
chips for the fire in winter, the dropping corn, and,
with the older boys, the hoeing of it in spring and
summer — all under God's open sky. They had been
forced into the factory when nothing but places on
the night shift could be got for them. Day work
was promised later, but the bitter winter wore away,
and still the little captives crept over the bridge in the
twilight and slunk shivering home at dawn. Johnnie
made an arrangement to get off from her work a little
earlier, and used to take the two girls over herself; but
she could not go for them in the morning. One evening
about the holidays, miserably wet, and offering its
squalid contrast to the season, Johnnie, plodding along
between the two little girls, with Pony and Milo follow
ing, met Gray Stoddard face to face. He halted uncer
tainly. There was a world of reproach in his face,
and Johnnie answered it with eyes of such shame and
contrition as convinced him that she knew well the
degradation of what she was doing.

"You need another umbrella," he said abruptly,
putting down his own as he paused under the store
porch where a boy stood at the curb with his car, hood
on, prepared for a trip in to Watauga.

"I lost our'n," ventured Pony. "It don't seem fair
that Milo has to get wet because I'm so bad about

BITTER WATERS 225

losing things, does it?" And he smiled engagingly
up into the tall man's face -- Johnnie's own eyes,
large-pupilled, black-lashed, full of laughter in their
clear depths. Gray Stoddard stared down at them
silently for a moment. Then he pushed the handle of
his umbrella into the boy's grimy little hand.

" See how long you can keep that one," he said kindly.
" It's marked on the handle with my name; and maybe if
you lost it somebody might bring it back to you.'*

Johnnie had turned away and faltered on a few paces
in a daze of humiliation and misery.

"Sis' Johnnie — oh, Sis' Johnnie!" Pony called after
her, flourishing the umbrella. "Look what Mr.
Stoddard give Milo and me." Then, in sudden con
sternation as Milo caught his elbow, he whirled and
offered voluble thanks. "I'm a goin' to earn a whole
lot of money and pay back the trouble I am to my folks,"
he confided to Gray, hastily. "I didn't know I was
such a bad feller till I came down to the Settlement.
Looks like I cain't noways behave. But I'm goin'
to earn a big heap of money, an' buy things for Milo
an* maw an' the girls. Only now they take all I can
earn away from me."

There was a warning call from Johnnie, ahead in the
dusk somewhere; and the little fellow scuttled away
toward the Victory and a night of work.

Spring came late that year, and after it had given
a hint of relieving the misery of the poor, there fol
lowed an Easter storm which covered all the new-made
gardens with sleet and sent people shivering back to

226 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

their winter wear. Deanie had been growing very
thin, and the red on her cheeks was a round spot of
scarlet. Laurella lay all day and far into the night
on her pallet of quilts before the big fire in the front
room, spent, inert, staring at the ceiling, entertaining
God knows what guests of terror and remorse. Noth
ing distressing must be brought to her. Coming home
from work once at dusk, Johnnie found the two little
girls on the porch, Deanie crying and Lissy trying to
comfort her.

" I thest cain't go to that old mill to-night, Sis' John
nie," the little one pleaded. "Looks like I thest cain't."

"I could tell Mr. Reardon, and he'd put a substitute
on to tend her frames," Lissy spoke up eagerly. "You
ask Pap Himes will he let us do that, Sis' Johnnie."

Johnnie went past her mother, who appeared to be
dozing, and into the dining room, where Himes was.
He had promised to do some night work, setting up new
machines at the Victory, and he was in that uncertain
humour which the prospect of work always produced.
Gideon Himes was an old man, pestered, as he himself
would have put it, by the mysterious illness of his young
wife, fretted by the presence of the children, no doubt
in a measure because he felt himself to be doing an ill
part by them. His grumpy silence of other days, his
sardonic humour, gave place to hypochondriac com
plainings and outbursts of fierce temper. Pony had
hurt his foot in a machine at the factory and it required
daily dressing. Johnnie understood from the sounds
which greeted her that the sore foot was being bandaged.

BITTER WATERS 227

"Hold still, cain't ye?'* growled Himes. "I ain't
a-hurtin' ye. Now you set in to bawl and I'll give ye
somethin' to bawl for — hear me?"

The old man was skilful with hurts, but he was using
such unnecessary roughness in this case as set the plucky
little chap to sobbing, and, just as Johnnie entered the
room, got him heavy-handed punishment for it. It was
an unfortunate time to bring up the question of Deanie;
yet it must be settled at once.

"Pap," said the girl, urgently, "the baby ain't fit
to go to the mill to-night — if ever she ought. You
said that you'd get day work for them all. If you
won't do that, let Deanie stay home for a spell. She
sure enough isn't fit to work."

Himes faced his stepdaughter angrily.

"When I say a child's fitten to work — it's fitten
to work," he rounded on her. "I hain't axed your
opinion — have I ? No. Well, then, keep it to your
self till it is axed for. You Pony, your foot's done
and ready. You get yourself off to the mill, or you'll
be docked for lost time."

The little fellow limped sniffling out; Johnnie reached
down for Deanie, who had crept after her to hear how
her cause went. It was evident that sight of the child
lingering increased Pap's anger, yet the elder sister
gathered up the ailing little one in her strong arms and
tried again.

"Pap, I'll pay you for Deanie's whole week's work
if you'll just let her stay home to-night. I'll pay you
the money now."

228 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

"All right," Pap stuck out a ready, stubbed palm,
and received in it the silver that was the price of the
little girl's time for a week. He counted it over before
he rammed it down in his pocket. Then, "You can
pay me, and she can go to the mill, 'caze your wages
ought to come to me anyhow, and it don't do chaps
like her no good to be muchin' 'em all the time. Would
you ruther have her go before I give her a good beatin'
or after?" and he looked Johnnie fiercely in the eyes.

Johnnie looked back at him unflinching. She did
not lack spirit to defy him. But her mother was this
man's wife; the children were in their hands. Devoted,
high-couraged as she was, she saw no way here to
fight for the little ones. To her mother she could not
appeal; she must have support from outside.

"Never you mind, honey," she choked as she clasped
Deanie's thin little form closer, and the meagre small
arms went round her neck. "Sister'll find a way.
You go on to the mill to-night, and sister'll find some
body to help her, and she'll come there and get you
before morning."

When the pitiful little figure had lagged away down
the twilight street, holding to Lissy's hand, limping on
sore feet, Johnnie stood long on the porch in the dark
with gusts of rain beating intermittently at the lattice
beside her. Her hands were wrung hard together.
Her desperate gaze roved over the few scattered lights
of the little village, over the great flaring, throbbing
mills beyond, as though questioning where she could
seek for assistance. Paying money to Pap Himes

BITTER WATERS 229

did no good. So much was plain. She had always
been afraid to begin it, and she realized now that the
present outcome was what she had apprehended.
Uncle Pros, the source of wisdom for all her childish
days, was in the hospital, a harmless lunatic. Of
late the old man's bodily health had mended suddenly,
almost marvellously; but he remained vacant, childish
in mind, and so far the authorities had retained him,
hoping to probe in some way to the obscure, moving
cause of his malady. Twice when she spoke to her
mother of late, being very desperate, Laurella had said
peevishly that if she were able she'd get up and leave
the house. Plainly to-night she was too sick a woman
to be troubled. As Johnnie stood there, Shade Buck-
heath passed her, going out of the house and down the
street toward the store. Once she might have thought
of appealing to him; but now a sure knowledge of
what his reply would be forestalled that.

There remained then what the others called her
" swell friends." Gray Stoddard — the thought
brought with it an agony from which she flinched.
But after all, there was Lydia Sessions. She was sure
Miss Sessions meant to be kind; and if she knew that
Deanie was really sick - — . Yes, it would be worth
while to go to her with the whole matter.

At the thought she turned hesitatingly toward the
door, meaning to get her hat, and — though she had
formulated no method of appeal — to hurry to the
Hardwick house and at least talk with Miss Sessions
and endeavour to enlist her help.

230 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

But the door opened before she reached it,
and Mavity Bence stood there, in her face the deadly
weariness of all woman's toil and travail since the fall.
Johnnie moved to her quickly, putting a hand on her
shoulder, remembering with swift compunction that
the poor woman's burdens were trebled since Laurella
lay ill, and Pap gave up so much of his time to hanging
anxiously about his young wife.

" What is it, Aunt Mavity ? " she asked. " Is anything
the matter ? "

"I hate to werry ye, Johnnie," said the other's
deprecating voice; "but looks like I've jest got obliged
to have a little help this evenin'. I'm plumb dead
on my feet, and there's all the dishes to do and a stack
of towels and things to rub out." Her dim gaze ques
tioned the young face above her dubiously, almost
desperately. The little brass lamp in her hand made
a pitiful wavering.

"Of course I can help you. I'd have been in before
this, only I — I — was kind of worried about some
thing else, and I forgot," declared Johnnie, strengthen
ing her heart to endure the necessary postponement
of her purpose.

She went into the kitchen with Mavity Bence, and
the two women worked there at the dishes, and washing
out the towels, till after nine o'clock, Johnnie's anxiety
and distress mounting with every minute of delay.
At a little past nine, she left poor Mavity at the door
of that wretched place the poor woman called her
room, looked quietly in to see that her mother seemed

BITTER WATERS '231

to sleep, got her hat and hurried out, goaded by a seem
ingly disproportionate fever of impatience and anxiety.
She took her way up the little hill and across the slope
to where the Hardwick mansion gleamed, many-
windowed, gay with lights, behind its evergreens.

When she reached the house itself she found an
evening reception going forward — the Hardwicks
were entertaining the Lyric Club. She halted outside,
debating what to do. Could she call Miss Lydia from
her company to listen to such a story as this ? Was
it not in itself almost an offence to bring these things
before people who could live as Miss Lydia lived ?
Somebody was playing the violin, and Johnnie drew
nearer the window to listen. She stared in at the
beautiful lighted room, the well-dressed, happy people.
Suddenly she caught sight of Gray Stoddard standing
near the girl who was playing, a watchful eye upon her
music to turn it for her. She clutched the window-
sill and stood choking and blinded, fighting with a
crowd of daunting recollections and miserable appre
hensions. The young violinist was playing Schubert's
Serenade. From the violin came the cry of hungry
human love demanding its mate, questing, praying,
half despairing, and yet wooing, seeking again.

Johnnie's piteous gaze roved over the well-beloved
lineaments. She noted with a passion of tenderness
the turn of head and hand that were so familiar to her,
and so dear. Oh, she could never hate him for it, but
it was hard — hard — to be a wave in the ocean of
toil that supported the galleys of such as these!

232 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

It began to rain again softly as she stood there,
scattered drops falling on her bright hair, and she
gathered her dress about her and pressed close to the
window where the eaves of the building sheltered her,
forcing herself to look in and take note of the difference
between those people in there and her own lot of life.
This was not usually Johnnie's way. Her unfailing
optimism prompted her always to measure the distance
below her, and be glad of having climbed so far, rather
than to dim her eyes with straining them toward what
was above. But now she marked mercilessly the
Jight, yet subdued, movements, the deference expressed
when one of these people addressed another; and Gray
Stoddard at the upper end of the room was easily the
most marked figure in it. Who was she to think
she might be his friend when all this beautiful world
of ease and luxury and fair speech was open to him ?

Like a sword flashed back to her memory of the
children. They were being killed in the mills, while
she wasted her thoughts and longings on people who
would laugh if they knew of her presumptuous devotion.

She turned with a low exclamation of astonishment,
when somebody touched her on the shoulder.

"Is you de gal Miss Lyddy sont for?" inquired
the yellow waitress a bit sharply.

"No — yes — I don't know whether Miss Sessions
sent for me or not," Johnnie halted out; " but," eagerly,
"I must see her. I've — Cassy. I've got to speak
to her right now."

Cassy regarded the newcomer rather scornfully.

BITTER WATERS 233

Yet everybody liked Johnnie, and the servant eventually
put off her design of being impressive and said in a
fairly friendly manner:

"You couldn't noways see her now. I couldn't
disturb her whilst she's got company — without you
want to put on this here cap and apron and come
he'p me sarve the refreshments. Dey was a gal
comin' to resist me, but she ain't put in her disappear
ance yet. Ain't no time for foolin', dis ain't."

Johnnie debated a moment. A servant's livery
- but Deanie was sick and - — . With a sudden, im
pulsive movement, and somewhat to Cassy's surprise,
Johnnie followed into the pantry, seized the proffered
cap and apron and proceeded to put them on.

" I've got to see Miss Sessions," she repeated, more
to herself than to the negress. " Maybe what I have
to say will only take a minute. I reckon she won't
mind, even if she has got company. It — well, I've
got to see her some way." And taking the tray of frail,
dainty cups and saucers Cassy brought her, she started
with it to the parlour.

The music was just dying down to its last wail when
Gray looked up and caught sight of her coming. His
mind had been full of her. To him certain pieces
of music always meant certain people, and the Serenade
could bring him nothing but Johnnie Consadine's
face. His startled eyes encountered with distaste the
cap pinned to her hair, descended to the white apron
that covered her black skirt, and rested in astonishment
on the tray that held the coffee, cream and sugar.

234 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

" Begin here," Cassie prompted her assistant, and
Johnnie, stopping, offered her tray of cups.

Gray's indignant glance went from the girl herself
to his hostess. What foolery was this ? Why should
Johnnie Consadine dress herself as a servant and wait
on Lydia Sessions's guests ?

Before the two reached him, he turned abruptly
and went into the library, where Miss Sessions stood
for a moment quite alone. Her face brightened;
he had sought her society very much less of late. She
looked hopefully for a renewal of that earlier companion
ship which seemed by contrast almost intimate.

"Have you hired Johnnie Consadine as a waitress ?"
Stoddard asked her in a non-committal voice. "I
should have supposed that her place in the mill would
pay her more, and offer better prospects."

"No — oh, no," said Miss Sessions, startled, and
considerably disappointed at the subject he had
selected to converse upon.

" How does she come to be here with a cap and
apron on to-night?" pursued Stoddard, with an edge
to his tone which he could not wholly subdue.

"I really don't understand that myself," Lydia
Sessions told him. "I made no arrangement with
her. I expected to have a couple of negresses — they're
much better servants, you know. Of course when a
girl like John gets a little taste of social contact and
recognition, she may go to considerable lengths to
gratify her desire for it. No doubt she feels proud
of forcing herself in this evening; and then of course

BITTER WATERS 235

she knows she will be well paid. She seems to be doing
nicely," glancing between the portieres where Johnnie
bent before one guest or another, offering her tray
of cups. " I really haven't the heart to reprove her."

"Then I think I shall," said Stoddard with sudden
resolution. "If you don't mind, Miss Sessions, would
you let her come in and talk to me a little while, as soon
as she has finished passing the coffee ? I — really
it seems to me that this is outrageous. Johnnie is
a girl of brains and abilities, and we who have her true
welfare at heart should see that she doesn't — in her
youth and ignorance — fall into such errors as this."

"Oh, if you like, I'll talk to her myself," said Miss
Lydia smoothly. The conversation was not so different
from others that she and Stoddard had held con
cerning this girl's deserts and welfare. She added,
after an instant's pause, -speaking quickly, with
heightened colour, and a little nervous catch in her
voice, " I'll do my best. I — I don't want to speak
harshly of John, but I must in truth say that she's
the one among my Uplift Club girls that has been
least satisfactory to me."

"In what way?" inquired Stoddard in an even,
quiet tone.

"Well, I should be a little puzzled to put it into
words," Miss Sessions answered him with a deprecating
smile; "and yet it's there — the feeling that John
Consadine is — I hate to say it — ungrateful."

"Ungrateful," repeated her companion, his eyes
steadily on Miss Sessions's face. "To leave Johnnie

236 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Consadine out of the matter entirely, what else do
you expect from any of your protegees ? What else
can any one expect who goes into what the modern
world calls charitable work?"

Miss Sessions studied his face in some bewilderment.
Was he arraigning her, or sympathizing with her ?
He said no more. He left upon her the onus of further
speech. She must try for the right note.

"I know it," she fumbled desperately. "And
isn't it disappointing ? You do everything you pos
sibly can for people and they seem to dislike you for
it."

"They don't merely seem to," said Stoddard,
almost brusquely, "they do dislike and despise you,
and that most heartily. It is as certain a result as that
two and two make four. You have pauperized and
degraded them, and they hate you for it."

Lydia Sessions shrank back on the seat, and stared
at him, her hand before her open mouth.

"Why, Mr. Stoddard!" she ejaculated finally. "I
thought you were fully in sympathy with my Uplift
work. You — you certainly let me think so. If
you despised it, as you now say, why did you help me
and — and all that ?"

Stoddard shook his head.

"No," he demurred a little wearily. "I don't
despise you, nor your work. As for helping you -
I dislike lobster, and yet I conscientiously provide you
with it whenever we are where the comestible is served,
because I know you like it."

BITTER WATERS 237

"Mr. Stoddard," broke in Lydia tragically, "that

is frivolous! These are grave matters, and I thought

— oh, I thought certainly — that I was deserving your

good opinion in this charitable work if ever I deserved

such a thing in my life."

"Oh — deserved!" repeated Stoddard, almost impa
tiently. "No doubt you deserve a great deal more
than my praise; but you know — do you not ? — that
people who believe as I do, regard that sort of philan
thropy as a barrier to progress; and, really now, I
think you ought to admit that under such circumstances
I have behaved with great friendliness and self-control."

The words were spoken with something of the old
teasing intonation that had once deluded Lydia Sessions
into the faith that she held a relation of some intimacy
to this man. She glanced at him fleetingly; then,
though she felt utterly at sea, made one more desperate
effort.

" But I always went first to you when I was raising
money for my Uplift work, and you gave to me more
liberally than anybody else. Jerome never approved
of it. Hartley grumbled, or laughed at me, and came
reluctantly to my little dances and receptions. I
sometimes felt that I was going against all my world -
except you. I depended upon your approval. I
felt that you were in full sympathy with me here, if
nowhere else."

She looked so disproportionately moved by the
matter that Stoddard smiled a little.

"I'm sorry," he said at last. "I see now that I

238 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

have been taking it for granted all along that you
understood the reservation I held in regard to this
matter."

"You — you should have told me plainly," said
Lydia drearily. " It — it gives me a strange feeling
to have depended so entirely on you, and then to find
out that you were thinking of me all the while as
Jerome does."

"Have I been?" inquired Stoddard. "As Jerome
does ? What a passion it seems to be with folks to
classify their friends. People call me a Socialist,
because I am trying to find out what I really do think
on certain economic and social subjects. I doubt
that I shall ever bring up underneath any precise label,
and yet some people would think it egotistical that I
insisted upon being a class to myself. I very much
doubt that I hold Mr. Hardwick's opinion exactly
in any particular." He looked at the girl with a sort
of urgency which she scarcely comprehended. " Miss
Sessions," he said, "I wear my hair longer than most
men, and the barber is always deeply grieved at my
obstinacy. I never eat potatoes, and many well-
meaning persons are greatly concerned over it -
they regard the exclusion of potatoes from one's
dietary as almost criminal. But you — I expect in
you more tolerance concerning my peculiarities.
Why must you care at all what I think, or what my
views are in this matter?"

"Oh, I don't understand you at all," Lydia said
distressfully.

BITTER WATERS 239

"No?" agreed Stoddard with an interrogative note
in his voice. " But after all there's no need for people
to be so determined to understand each other, is there ?"

Lydia looked at him with swimming eyes.

"Why didn't you tell me not to do those things?"
she managed finally to say with some composure.

"Tell you not to do things that you had thought
out for yourself and decided on?" asked Stoddard.
"Oh, no, Miss Sessions. What of your own develop
ment ? I had no business to interfere like that. You
might be exactly right about it, and I wrong, so far as
you yourself were concerned. And even if I were
right and you wrong, the only chance of growth
for you was to exploit the matter and find it out for
yourself ';

" I don't understand a word you say," Lydia Sessions
repeated dully. "That's the kind of thing you used
always to talk when you and I were planning for John
Consadine. Development isn't what a woman wants.
She wants — she needs — to understand how to please
those she — approves. If she fails anywhere, and
those she — well, if somebody that she has — con
fidence — in tells her, why then she'll know better
next time. You should have told me."

Her eyes overflowed as she made an end, but Stod
dard adopted a tone of determined lightness.

"Dear me," he said gently. "What reactionary
views ! You 're out of temper with me this evening -
I get on your nerves with my theorizing. Forgive me,
and forget all about it."

240 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Lydia Sessions smiled kindly on her guest, without
speaking. But one thing remained to her out of it all.
Gray Stoddard thought ill of her work — it carried
her further from him, instead of nearer! So many
months of effort worse than wasted ! At that instant
she had sight of Shade Buckheath's dark face in the
entry. She got to her feet.

"I beg your pardon," she said wanly, "I think there
is some one out there that I ought to speak to."

CHAPTER XVII

A VICTIM

IN THE spinning room at the Victory Mill, with
its tall frames and endlessly turning bobbins,
where the languid thread ran from hank to
spool and the tired little feet must walk the narrow
aisles between the jennies, watching if perchance a
filament had broken, a knot caught, or other mischance
occurred, and right it, Deanie plodded for what seemed
to her many years. Milo and Pony both had work
now in another department, and Lissy's frames were
quite across the noisy big room. Whenever the
little dark-haired girl could get away from her own
task and the eye of the room boss, she ran across to
the small, ailing sister and hugged her hard, begging
her not to feel bad, not to cry, Sis' Johnnie was bound
to come before long. With the morbidness of a sick
child, Deanie came to dread these well-meant assur
ances, finding them almost as distressing as her own
strange, tormenting sensations.

The room was insufferably close, because it had
rained and the windows were all tightly shut. The
flare of light vitiated the air, heated it, but seemed
to the child's sick sense to illuminate nothing.
Sometimes she found herself walking into the machinery

241

242 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

and put out a reckless little hand to guard her steps.
Sister Johnnie had said she would come and take her
away. Sister Johnnie was the Providence that was
never known to fail. Deanie kept on doggedly, and
tied threads, almost asleep. The room opened and
shut like an accordion before her fevered vision; the
floor heaved and trembled under her stumbling feet.
To lie down — to lie down anywhere and sleep -
that was the almost intolerable longing that possessed
her. Her mouth was hot and dry. The little white,
peaked face, like a new moon, grew strangely luminous
in its pallor. Her eyes stung in their sockets -
those desolate blue eyes, dark with unshed tears, heavy
with sleep.

She had turned her row and started back, when there
came before her, so plain that she almost thought she
might wet her feet in the*clear water, a vision of the
spring-branch at home up on Unaka, where she and
Lissy used to play. There, among the giant roots of
the old oak on its bank, was the house they had built
of big stones and bright bits of broken dishes; there
lay her home-made doll flung down among gay fallen
leaves; a little toad squatted beside it; and near by was
the tiny gourd that was their play-house dipper. Oh,
for a drink from that spring!

She caught sight of Mandy Meacham passing the
door, and ran to her, heedless of consequences.

"Mandy," she pleaded, taking hold of the woman's
skirts and throwing back her reeling head to stare
up into the face above her, "Mandy, Sis' Johnnie

A VICTIM 243

said she'd come; but it's a awful long time, and I'm
scared I'll fall into some of these here old machines,
I feel that bad. Won't you go tell Sis' Johnnie I'm
waitin' for her?"

Mandy glanced forward through the weaving-room
toward her own silent looms, then down at the little,
flushed face at her knee. If she dared to do things,
as Johnnie dared, she would pick up the baby and
leave. The very thought of it terrified her. No, she
must get Johnnie herself. Johnnie would make it
right. She bent down and kissed the little thing,
whispering:

"Never you mind, honey. Mandy's going straight
and find Sis' Johnnie, and bring her here to Deanie.
Jest wait a minute."

Then she turned and, swiftly, lest her courage evapor
ate, hurried down the stair and to the time keeper.

" Ef you've got a substitute, you can put 'em on my
looms," she said brusquely. "I've got to go down in
town."

"Sick?" inquired Reardon laconically, as he made
some entry on a card and dropped it in a drawer beside
him.

"No, I ain't sick — but Deanie Consadine is, and
I'm goin' over in town to find her sister. That child
ain't fitten to be in no mill — let alone workin' night
turn. You men ort to be ashamed — that baby ort to
be in her bed this very minute."

Her voice had faltered a bit at the conclusion.
Yet she made an end of it, and hurried away with

244 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

a choke in her throat. The man stared after her
angrily.

"Well!" he ejaculated finally. "She's got her
nerve with her. Old Himes is that gal's stepdaddy.
I reckon he knows whether she's fit to work in the
mills or not — he hired her here. Bob, ain't Himes
down in the basement right now settin' up new
machines ? You go down there and name this business
to him. See what he's got to say."

A party of young fellows was tramping down the
village street singing. One of them carried a guitar
and struck, now and again, a random chord upon its
strings. The street was dark, but as the singers, step
ping rythmically, passed the open door of the store,
Mandy recognized a shape she knew.

"Shade — Shade Buckheath! Wait thar!" she
called to him.

The others lingered, too, a moment, till they saw
it was a girl following; then they turned and sauntered
slowly on, still singing:

" Ef I was a little bird, I'd nest in the tallest tree,
That leans over the waters of the beautiful Tennessee.'

The words came back to Buckheath and Mandy in
velvety bass and boyish tenor.

" Shade — whar's Johnnie ? " panted Mandy, shaking
him by the arm. " I been up to the house, and she ain't
thar. Pap ain't thar, neither. I was skeered to name
my business to Laurelly; Aunt Mavity ain't no help
and, and — Shade — whar's Johnnie?" Buckheath

A VICTIM 245

looked down into her working, tragic face and his
mouth hardened.

"She ain't at home," he said finally. "I've been
at Himes's all evening. Pap and me has a — er, a
little business on hand and — she ain't at home. They
told me that they was some sort of shindig at Mr.
Hardwick's to-night. I reckon Johnnie Consadine
is chasin' round after her tony friends. Pap said she
left the house a-goin' in that direction — or Mavity
told me, I disremember which. I reckon you'll find
her tha. What do you want of her?"

"It's Deanie." She glanced fearfully past his
shoulder to where the big clock on the grocery wall
showed through its dim window. It was half-past
ten. The lateness of the hour seemed to strike her
with fresh terror. "Shade, come along of me," she
pleaded. "I'm so skeered. I never shall have the
heart to go in and ax for Johnnie, this time o' night
at that thar fine house. How she can talk up to them
swell people like she does is more than I know. You
go with me and ax is she thar."

The group of young men had crossed the bridge and
were well on their way to the Inn. Buckheath glanced
after them doubtfully and turned to walk at Mandy's
side. When they came to the gate, the woman hung
back, whimpering at sight of the festal array, and
sound of the voices within.

"They've got a party," she deprecated. "My
old dress is jest as dirty as the floor. You go ax 'em,
Shade."

246 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

As she spoke, Johnnie, carrying a tray of cups and
saucers, passed a lighted window, and Buckheath
uttered a sudden, unpremeditated oath.

"I don't know what God Almighty means makin'
women such fools," he growled. "What call had
Johnnie Consadine got to come here and act the ser
vant for them rich folks ? — runnin' around after Gray
Stoddard — and much good may it do her!"

Mandy crowded herself back into the shadow of
the dripping evergreens, and Shade went boldly up
on the side porch. She saw the door opened and
her escort admitted; then through the glass was aware
of Lydia Sessions in an evening frock coming into the
small entry and conferring at length with him.

Her attention was diverted from them by the
appearance of Johnnie herself just inside a win
dow. She ran forward and tapped on the pane.
Johnnie put down her tray and came swiftly out,
passing Shade and Miss Sessions in the side entry
with a word.

"What is it?" she inquired of Mandy, with a
premonition of disaster in hsr tones.

"Hit's Deanie," choked the Meacham woman.
"She's right sick, and they won't let her leave the
mill — leastways she's skeered to ask, and so am I.
I 'lowed I ought to come and tell you, Johnnie.
Was that right? You wanted me to, didn't you?"
anxiously.

"Yes — yes — yes!" cried Johnnie, reaching up swift,
nervous fingers to unfasten the cap from her hair,

A VICTIM 247

thrusting it in the pocket of the apron, and untying the
apron strings. "Wait a minute. I must give these
things back. Oh, let's hurry!"

It was but a moment after that she emerged once
more on the porch, and apparently for the first time
noticed Buckheath.

"To-morrow, then," Miss Sessions was saying to
him as he moved toward the two girls. "To-morrow
morning." And with a patronizing nod to them all, she
withdrew and rejoined her guests.

"I never found you when I went up to the house,"
explained Mandy nervously, "and so I stopped Shade
on the street and axed him would he come along with
me. Maybe it would do some good if he was to go
up with us to the mill. They pay more attention to
a man person. I tell you, Johnnie, the baby's plumb
broke down and sick."

The three were moving swiftly along the darkened

street now.

tt T'

I'm going to t-ake the children away from Pap,"
Johnnie said in a curious voice, rapid and monotonous,
as though she were reciting something to herself. " I
have obliged to do it. There must be a law somewhere.
God won't let me fail."

"Huh-uh," grunted Buckheath, instantly. "You
can't do such a thing. Ef you was married, and yo'
mother would let you adopt 'em, I reckon the courts
might agree to that."

"Shade," Johnnie turned upon him, "you've got
more influence with Pap Himes than anybody. I

248 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

believe if you'd talk to him, he'd let me have the child
ren. I could support them now."

" I don't want to fall out with Pap Himes — for
nothin'," responded Shade. "If you'll say that you'll
wed me to-morrow morning, I'll go to Pap and get him
to give up the children." Neither of them paid any
attention to Mandy, who listened open-eyed and
open-eared to this singular courtship. "Or I'll get
him to take 'em out of the mill. You're right, I ain't
got a bit of doubt I could do it. And if I don't do it,
you needn't have me."

An illumination fell upon Johnnie's mind. She
saw that Buckheath was in league with her stepfather,
and that the pressure was put on according to the
younger man's ideas, and would be instantly withdrawn
at his bidding. Yet, when the swift revulsion such
knowledge brought with it made her ready to dismiss
him at once, thought of Deanie's wasted little counten
ance, with the red burning high on the sharp, unchildish
cheekbone, stayed her. For a while she walked with
bent head. Heavily before her mind's eye went the
picture of Gray Stoddard among his own people, in
his own world — where she could never come.

"Have it your way," she said finally in a suffering
voice.

" What's that you say ? Are you goin' to take me ?"
demanded Buckheath, pressing close and reaching
out a possessive arm to put around her.

"I said yes," Johnnie shivered, pushing his hand
away; "but — but it'll only be when you can come to

A VICTIM 249

me and tell me that the children are all right. If you
fail me there, I -

Back at the Victory, downstairs went Reardon's
messenger to where Pap Himes was sweating over
the new machinery. Work always put the old man in
a sort of incandescent fury, and now as Bob spoke to
him, he raised an inflamed face, from which the small
eyes twinkled redly, with a grunt of inquiry.

"That youngest gal o' yours," the man repeated.
" She's tryin' to leave her job and go home. Reardon
said tell you, an' see what you had to say. The Lord
knows we have trouble enough with those young 'uns.
I'm glad when any of their folks that's got sand is
around to make 'em behave. I reckon she can't come
it over you, Gid."

Himes straightened up with a groan, under any
exertion his rheumatic old back always punished him
cruelly for the days of indolence that had let its supple
ness depart.

"Huh ?" he grunted. " Whar's she at ? Up in the
spinnin' room ? Well, is they enough of you up thar
to keep her tendin' to business for a spell, till I can
get this thing levelled?" He held to the mechanism
he was adjusting and harangued wheezily from behind
it. "I cain't drop my job an' canter upstairs every
time one o' you fellers whistles. The chap ain't more'n
two foot long. Looks like you-all might hold on to
her for one while — I'll be thar soon as I can - - 'bout
a hour"; and he returned savagely to his work.

250 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

When Mandy left her, Deanie tried for a time to
tend her frames; but the endlessly turning spools,
the edges of the jennies, blurred before her fevered eyes.
Everything — even her fear of Pap Himes, her dread
of the room boss — finally became vague in her mind.
More and more she dreaded little Lissy's well-meant
visitations; and after nearly an hour she stole toward
the door, looking half deliriously for Sister Johnnie.
Nobody noticed in the noisy, flaring room that spool
after spool on her frame fouled its thread and ceased
turning, as the little figure left its post and hesitated
like a scared, small animal toward the main exit. Pap
Himes, having come to where he could leave his work
in the basement, climbed painfully the many stairs
to the spinning room, and met her close to where the
big belt rose up to the great shaft that gave power
to every machine in that department.

The loving master of the big yellow cat had always
cherished a somewhat clumsily concealed dislike and
hostility to Deanie. Perhaps there lingered in this
a touch of half-jealousy of his wife's baby; perhaps
he knew instinctively that Johnnie's rebellion against
his tyranny was always strongest where Deanie was
concerned.

"Why ain't you on your job ?" he inquired threaten
ingly, as the child saw him and made some futile
attempt to shrink back out of his way.

"I feel so quare, Pap Himes," the little girl answered
him, beginning to cry. " I thes' want to lay down and
go to sleep every minute."

A VICTIM 251

"Huh!" Pap exploded his favourite expletive till
it sounded ferocious. "That ain't quare feelin's.
That's just plain old-fashioned laziness. You git
yo'self back thar and tend them frames, or I'll -

"I cain't! I cain't see 'em to tend! I'm right blind
in the eyes!" wailed Deanie. "I wish Sis' Johnnie
would come. I wish't she would!"

"Uh-huh," commented Bob Conley, who had
strolled up in the old man's wake. " Reckon Sis'
Johnnie would run things to suit her an' you. Himes,
you can cuss me out good an' plenty, but I take notice
you seem to have trouble makin' your own family
mind."

"You shut your head," growled Pap.

Reardon had added himself to the spectators.

"See here," the foreman argued, "if you say there's
nothing the matter with that gal, an' she carries on till
we have to let her go home, she goes for good. I'll
take her frames away from her."

Pap felt that a formidable show of authority must
be made.

"Git back thar!" he roared, advancing upon the
child, raising the hand that still held the wrench with
which he had been working on the machinery down
stairs. " Git back thar, or I'll make you wish you had.
When I tell you to do a thing, don't you name Johnnie
to me. Git back thar!"

With a faint cry the child cowered away from him.
It is unlikely he would have struck her with the
upraised tool he held. Perhaps he did not intend a

252 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

blow at all, but one or two small frame tenders paused
at the ends of their lanes to watch the scene with avid
eyes, to extract the last thrill from the sensation that
was being kindly brought into the midst of their monoto
nous toilsome hours; and Lissy, who was creeping up
anxiously, yet keeping out of the range of Himes's
eye, crouched as though the hammer had been raised
over her own head.

" Johnnie said - " began the little girl, desperately;
but the old man, stung to greater fury, sprang at her; she
stumbled back and back; fell against the slowly moving
belt; her frock caught in the rivets which were just
passing, and she was instantly jerked from her feet.
If any one of the three men looking on had taken
prompt action, the child might have been rescued at
once; but stupid terror held them motionless.

At the moment Johnnie, Shade and Mandy, coming
up the stairs, got sight of the group, Pap with upraised
hammer, the child in the clutches of imminent death.

With shrill outcries the other juvenile workers swiftly
gathered in a crowd. One broke away and fled down
the long room screaming.

"You Pony Consadine! Milo! Come here. Pap
Himes is a-killing yo' sister."

The old man, shaking all through his bulk, stared
with fallen jaw. Mandy shrieked and leaped up the
few remaining steps to reach Deanie, who was already
above the finger-tips of a tall man.

"Pap! Shade! Quick! Don't you see she'll be
killed!" Mandy screamed in frenzy.

A VICTIM 253

Something in the atmosphere must have made itself
felt, for no sound could have penetrated the din of the
weaving room; yet some of the women left their looms
and came running in behind the two pale, scared little
brothers, to add their shrieks to the general clamour.
Deanie's fellow workers, poor little souls, denied their
childish share of the world's excitements, gazed with
a sort of awful relish. Only Johnnie, speeding down
the room away from it all, was doing anything rational
to avert the catastrophe. The child hung on the slowly
moving belt, inert, a tiny rag of life, with her mop of
tangled yellow curls, her white, little face, its blue eyes
closed. When she reached the top, where the pulley
was close against the ceiling, her brains would be
dashed out and the small body dragged to pieces be
tween beam and ceiling.

Those who looked at her realized this. Numbed
by the inevitable, they made no effort, save Milo, who
at imminent risk of his own life, was climbing on a
frame near at hand; but Pony flew at Himes, beating
the old man with hard-clenched, inadequate fists, and
screaming.

"You git her down from thar — git her down this
minute! She'll be killed, I tell ye! She'll be killed,
I tell ye!"

Poor Mandy made inarticulate moanings and reached
up her arms; Shade Buckheath cursed softly under
his breath; the women and children stared, eager
to lose no detail.

"I always have said, and I always shall say, that

254 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

chaps as young as that ain't got no business around
whar machinery's at!" Bob Conley kept shouting over
and over in a high, strange, mechanical voice, plainly
quite unconscious that he spoke at all.

The child was so near the ceiling now that a universal
groan proceeded from the watchers. Then, all at once
the belt ceased to move, and the clash and tumult
were stilled. Johnnie, who had flown to the little
controlling wheel to throw off the power, came running
back, crying out in the sudden quiet.

"Shade — quick — get a ladder! Hold something
under there ! She might — Oh, my God ! " for Deanie's
frock had pulled free and the little form hurled down
before Johnnie could reach them. But the devoted
Mandy was there, her futile, inadequate skirts upheld.
Into them the small body dropped, and together
the two came to the floor with a dull sort of crunch.

When Johnnie reached the prostrate pair, Mandy
was struggling to her knees, gasping; but Deanie lay
twisted just as she had fallen, the little face sunken and
deathly, a tiny trickle of blood coming from a corner of
her parted lips.

"Oh, my baby! Oh, my baby! They've killed
my baby! Deanie — Deanie — Deanie - — !" wailed
Mandy.

Johnnie was on her knees beside the child, feeling
her over with tremulous hands. Her face was bleached
chalk-white, and her eyes stared fearfully at the motion
less lips of the little one, from which that scarlet stream
trickled; but she set her own lips silently.

A VICTIM 255

"Thar — right thar in the side," groaned Mandy.
" She's all staved in on the side thar — my pore little
Deanie! Oh, I tried to ketch her, but she broke right
through and pulled my skirts out of my hand and hit
the floor."

Pap had drawn nearer on shaking limbs; the children
crowded so close that Johnnie looked up and motioned
them back.

" Shade — you run for a doctor, and have a carriage
fetched," she ordered briefly.

" Is — Lord God, is she dead ?" faltered the old man.

"Ef she ain't dead now, she'll die," Mandy answered
him shrilly. "They ain't no flesh on her — she's
run down to a pore little skeleton. That's what the
factories does to women and children — they jest eats
'em up, and spits out they' bones."

"Well, I never aimed to skeer her that-a-way,"
said Himes; "but the little fool -

Johnnie's flaming glance silenced him, and his voice
died away, a sort of a rasp in his throat. Mechani
cally he glanced up to the point on the great belt from
which the child had fallen, and measured the distance
to the floor. He scratched his bald head dubiously,
and edged back from the tragedy he had made.

"Everybody knows I never hit her," he muttered
as he went.

CHAPTER XVIII

LIGHT

GRAY STODDARD'S eyes had followed Lydia
Sessions when she went into the hall to speak
to Shade Buckheath. He had a glimpse of
Johnnie, too, in the passage; he noted that she later
left the house with Buckheath (Mandy Meacham was
beyond his range of vision); and the pang that went
through him at the sight was a strangely mingled one.
The talk between him and his hostess had been
enlightening to both of them. It showed Lydia
Sessions not only where she stood with Gray, but it
brought home to her startlingly, and as nothing had
yet done, the strength of Johnnie's hold upon him;
while it forced Gray himself to realize that ever since
that morning when he met the girl on the bridge going
to put her little brothers and sisters in the Victory mill,
he had behaved more like a sulky, disappointed lover
than a staunch friend. He confessed frankly to himself,
that, had Johnnie been a boy, a young man, instead
of a beautiful and appealing woman, he wrould have
been prompt to go to her and remonstrate — he would
have made no bones of having the matter out clearly
and fully. He blamed himself much for the estrange
ment which he had allowed to grow between them. He

256

LIGHT 257

knew instinctively about what Shade Buckheath was -
certainly no fit mate for Johnnie Consadine. And
for the better to desert her — poor, helpless, unschooled
girl — could only operate to push her toward the
worse. These thoughts kept Stoddard wakeful com
pany till almost morning.

Dawn came with a soft wind out of the west, all the
odours of spring on its breath, and a penitent warmth
to apologize for last night's storm. Stoddard faced
his day, and decided that he would begin it with an
early-morning horseback ride. He called up his stable
boy over the telephone, and when Jim brought round
Roan Sultan saddled there was a pause, as of custom,
for conversation.

"Heared about the accident over to the Victory,
Mr. Stoddard?" Jim inquired.

"No," said Gray, wheeling sharply. "Anybody
hurt?"

"One o' Pap Himes's stepchildren mighty near
killed, they say," the boy told him. "I seen Miss
Johnnie Consadine when they was bringing the little
gal down. It seems they sent for her over to Mr.
Hardwickses where she was at."

Gray mounted quickly, settled himself in the saddle,
and glanced down the street which would lead him
past Himes's place. For months now, he had been
instinctively avoiding that part of town. Poor Johnnie!
She might be a disappointing character, but he knew
well that she was full of love; he remembered her eyes
when, nearly a year ago, up in the mist and sweetness

258 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

of April on the Unakas, she had told him of the baby
sister and the other little ones. She must be suffering
now. Almost without reflection he turned his horse's
head and rode toward the forlorn Himes boarding-
house.

As he drew near, he noticed a huddled figure at the
head of the steps, and coming up made it out to be
Himes himself, sitting, elbows on knees, staring straight
ahead of him. Pap had not undressed at all, but he
had taken out his false teeth "to rest his jaws a spell,"
as he was in the habit of doing, and the result was
startling. His cheeks were fallen in to such an extent
that the blinking red eyes above looked larger; it
was as though the old rascal's crimes of callous self
ishness and greed had suddenly aged him.

Stoddard pulled in his horse at the foot of the steps.

"I hear one of the little girls was hurt in the mill
last night. Was she badly injured ? Which one was
it?" he asked abruptly.

"Hit's Deanie. She's all right," mumbled Pap.
"Got the whole house uptore, and Laurelly miscallin'
me till I don't know which way to look; and now the
little dickens is a-goin' to git well all right. Chaps
is tough, I tell ye. Ye cain't kill 'em."

"You people must have thought so," said Stoddard,
"or you wouldn't have brought these little ones down
and hired them to the cotton mill. Johnnie knew what
that meant."

The words had come almost involuntarily. The
old man stared at the speaker, breathing hard.

LIGHT 259

"What's Johnnie Consadine got to do with it?"
he inquired finally. " I'm the stepdaddy of the children

— and Johnnie's stepdaddy too, for the matter of that

— and what I say goes."

"Did you hire the children at the Victory ?" inquired
Stoddard, swiftly. Back across his memory came the
picture of Johnnie with her poor little sheep for the
shambles clustered about her on the bridge before the
Victory mill. "Did you hire the children to the fac
tory?" he repeated.

"Now Mr. Stoddard," began the old man, between
bluster and whine, "I talked about them chaps to the
superintendent of yo' mill, an' you-all said you didn't
want none of that size. And one o' yo' men — he was
a room boss, I reckon — spoke up right sassy to me -
as sassy as Johnnie Consadine herself, and God knows
she ain't got no respect for them that's set over her.
I had obliged to let 'em go to the Victory; but I don't
think you have any call to hold it ag'in me -- Johnnie
was plumb impident about it — plumb impident."

Stoddard glanced up at the windows and made
as though to dismount. All night at his pillow had
stood the accusation that he had been cruel to Johnnie.
Now, as Himes's revelations went on, and he saw what
her futile efforts had been, as he guessed a part of her
sufferings, it seemed he must hurry to her and brush
away the tangle of misunderstanding which he had
allowed to grow up between them.

'They've worked over that thar chap, off an* on,
all night," the old man said. "Looks like, if they

26o THE POWER AND THE GLORY

keep hit up, she'll begin to think somethin's the matter
of her."

Gray realized that his visit at this moment would
be ill-timed. He would ride on through the Gap now,
and call as he came back.

"I had obliged to find me a place whar I could hire
out them chaps," the miserable old man before him
went on, garrulously. "They's nothin' like mill
work to take the davilment out o' young 'uns. Some
of them chaps'll call you names and make faces at you,
even whilst you' goin' through the mill yard — and
think what they'd be ef they wasn't worked! I'm
a old man, and when I married Laurelly and took
the keepin' o' her passel o' chaps on my back, I aimed
to make it pay. Laurelly, she won't work."

He looked helplessly at Stoddard, like a child about
to cry.

" She told me up and down that she never had worked
in no mill, and she was too old to 1'arn. She said the
noise of the thing from the outside was enough to show
her that she didn't want to go inside — and go she
would not."

" But she let her children go — she and Johnnie,"
muttered Stoddard, settling himself in his saddle.

"Well, I'd like to see either of 'em he'p theirselves!"
returned Pap Himes with a reminscence of his former
manner. ''Johnnie ain't had the decency to give me
her wages, not once since I've been her pappy; the
onliest money I ever had from her - - 'ceptin' to pay
her board — was when she tried to buy them chaps

LIGHT 261

out o' workin' in the mill. But when I put my foot
down an' told her that the chillen could work in the
mill without a beatin' or with one, jest as she might
see and choose, she had a little sense, and took 'em
over and hired 'em herself. Baylor told me afterward
that she tried to make him say he didn't want 'em,
but Baylor and me stands together, an' Miss Johnnie
failed up on that trick."

Pap felt an altogether misplaced confidence in the
view that Stoddard, as a male, was likely to take of
the matter.

"A man is obliged to be boss of his own family —
ain't that so, Mr. Stoddard?" he demanded. "I
said the chillen had to go into the mill, and into the mill
they went. They all wanted to go, at the start, and
Laurelly agreed with me that hit was the right thing.
Then, just because Deanie happened to a accident
and Johnnie took up for her, Laurelly has to go off
into hy-strikes and say she'll quit me soon as she can
put foot to the ground."

Stoddard made no response to this, but touched
Sultan with his heel and moved on. He had stopped
at the post-office as he came past, taking from his per
sonal box one letter. This he opened and read as he
rode slowly away. Halfway up the first rise, Pap saw
him rein in and turn; the old man was still staring
when Gray stopped once more at the gate.

"See here, Himes," he spoke abruptly, "this concerns
you — this letter that has just reached me."

Pap looked at the younger man with mere curiosity.

262 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

"When Johnnie was first given a spinning room
to look after," said Gray, "she came to Mr. Sessions
and myself and asked permission to have a small device
of her own contrivance used on the frames as an
Indicator."

Pap shuffled his feet uneasily.

"I thought no more about the matter; in fact I've
not been in the spinning department for — for some
time." Stoddard looked down at the hand which held
his bridle, and remembered that he had absented him
self from every place that threatened him with the sight
of Johnnie.

Pap was breathing audibly through his open mouth.

"She — she never had nothin' made," he whispered
out the ready lie hurriedly, scrambling to his feet and
down the steps, pressing close to Roan Sultan's shoulder,
laying a wheedling hand on the bridle, looking up
anxiously into the stern young face above him.

"Oh, yes, she did,'* Stoddard returned. "I
remember, now, hearing some of the children from the
room say that she had a device which worked well.
From the description they gave of it, I judge that it
is the same which this letter tells me you and Buckheath
are offering to the Alabama mills. Mr. Trumbull,
the superintendent, says that you and Buckheath hold
the patent for this Indicator jointly. As soon as I
can consult with Johnnie, we will see about the matter."

Himes let go the roan's bridle and staggered back
a pace or two, open-mouthed, staring. The skies had
fallen. His heavy mind turned slowly toward resent-

LIGHT 263

ment against Buckheath. He wished the younger
conspirator were here to take his share. Then the door
opened and Shade himself came out wiping his mouth.
He was fresh from the breakfast table, but not on
his way to the mill, since it was still too early. He
gave Stoddard a surly nod as he passed through the
gate and on down the street, in the direction of the
Inn. Himes, in a turmoil of stupid uncertainty,
once or twice made as though to detain him. His
slow wits refused him any available counsel. Dazedly
he fumbled for something convincing to say. Then
on a sudden inspiration, he once more laid hold of the
bridle and began to speak volubly in a hoarse under
tone:

"W'y, name o' God, Mr. Stoddard! Who should
have a better right to that thar patent than Buck and
me ? I'm the gal's stepdaddy, an' he's the man she's
goin' to wed."

Some peculiar quality in the silence of Gray Stoddard
seemed finally to penetrate the old fellow's under
standing. He looked up to find the man on horseback
regarding him, square-jawed, pale, and with eyes angrily
bright. He glanced over his shoulder at the windows
of the house behind him, moistened his lips once again,
gulped, and finally resumed in a manner both whining
and aggressive.

''Now, Mr. Stoddard, I want to talk to you mighty
plain. The whole o' Cottonville is full o' tales about
you and Johnnie. Yes — that's the truth."

He stood staring down at his big, shuffling feet,

264 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

laboriously sorting in his own mind such phrases as
it might do to use. The difficulty of what he had
to say blocked speech for so long that Stoddard, in
a curiously quiet voice, finally prompted him.

" Tales ? " he repeated. " What tales, Mr. Himes ? "

"Why, they ain't a old woman in town, nor a young

one neither — I believe in my soul that the young ones

is the worst — that ain't been talkin' — talkin' bad

— ever since you took Johnnie to ride in your otty-

mobile."

Again there came a long pause. Stoddard stared
down on Gideon Himes, and Himes stared at his own
feet.

"Well?" Stoddard's quiet voice once more urged
his accuser forward.

Pap rolled his head between his shoulders with a
negative motion which intimated that it was not well.

"And lending her books, and all sich," he pursued
doggedly. "That kind o' carryin' on ain't decent,
and you know it ain't. Buck knows it ain't — but
he's willin' to have her. He told her he was willin'
to have her, and the fool gal let on like she didn't want
him. He came here to board at my house because
she wouldn't scarcely so much as speak to him else
where."

By the light of these statements Stoddard read what
poor Johnnie's persecution had been. The details
of it he could not, of course, know; yet he saw in that
moment largely how she had been harried. At the
instant of seeing, came that swift and mighty revulsion

LIGHT 265

that follows surely when we have misprized and mis
understood those dear to us.

"What is it you want of me ?" he inquired of Himes.

"Why, just this here," Pap told him. "You let
Johnnie Consadine alone." He leaned even closer
and spoke in a yet lower tone, because a number of
girls were emerging from the house and starting down
the steps. "A big, rich feller like you don't mean any
good by a girl fixed the way Johnnie is. You wouldn't
marry her — then let her alone. Things ain't got so
bad but what Buck is still willin' to have her. You
wouldn't marry her."

Stoddard looked down at the shameful old man with
eyes that were indecipherable. If the impulse was
strong in him to twist the unclean old throat against
any further ill-speaking, it gave no heat to the tone
in which he answered:

"It's you and your kind that say I mean harm to
Johnnie, and that I would not marry her. Why
should I intend ill toward her ? Why shouldn't I
marry her ? I would — I would marry her."

As he made this, to him the only possible defence
of the poor girl, Pap faltered slowly back, uttering a
gurgling expression of astonishment. With a sense
of surprise Stoddard saw in his face only dismay and
chagrin.

" Hit — hit's a lie," Himes mumbled half-heartedly.
"Ye'd never do it in the world."

Stoddard gathered up his bridle rein, preparatory
to moving on.

266 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

"You're an old man, Mr. Himes," he said coldly,
"and you are excited; but you don't want to say any
more — that's quite enough of that sort of thing."

Then he loosened the rein on Roan Sultan, and
moved away down the street.

Gideon Himes stood and gazed after him with bulg
ing eyes. Gray Stoddard married to Johnnie! He
tried to adjust his dull wits to the new position of affairs;
tried to cipher the problem with this amazing new
element introduced. Last night's scene of violence
when the injured child was brought home went dismally
before his eyes. Laurella had said she would leave
him so soon as she could put foot to the floor. He had
expected to coax her with gifts and money, with con
cessions in regard to the children if it must be; but
with a rich man for a son-in-law, of course she would
go. He would never see her face again. And suddenly
he flung up an arm like a beaten schoolboy and began
to blubbler noisily in the crook of his elbow.

An ungentle hand on his shoulder recalled him to
time and place.

"For God's sake, what's the matter with you?"
inquired Shade Buckheath's voice harshly.

The old man gulped down his grief and made his
communication in a few hurried sentences.

"An' he'll do it," Pap concluded. "He's jest big
enough fool for anything. Ain't you heard of his
scheme for having the hands make the money in the
mill?" (Thus he described a profit-sharing plan.)
"Don't you know he's given ten thousand dollars to

LIGHT 267

start up some sort o' school for the boys and gals to
learn their trade in ? A man like that'll do anything.
And if he marries Johnnie, Laurelly'll leave me sure."

"Leave you!" echoed Buckheath darkly. "She
won't have to. If Gray Stoddard marries Johnnie
Consadine, you and me will just about roost in the
penitentiary for the rest of our days."

"The patent!" echoed Pap blankly. He turned
fiercely on his fellow conspirator. " Now see what ye
done with yer foolishness," he exclaimed. "Nothin'
would do ye but to be offerin' the contraption for sale,
and tellin' each and every that hit'd been used in the
Hardwick mill. Look what a mess ye've made. I'm
sorry I ever hitched up with ye. Boy o' yo' age has
got no sense."

"How was I to know they'd write to Stoddard?"
growled Shade sulkily. "No harm did if hit wasn't
for him. We've got the patent all right, and Johnnie
cain't help herself. But him — with all his money —
he can help her — damn him!"

"Yes, and he'll take a holt and hunt up about Pros's
silver mine, too," said Himes. "I've always mistrusted
the way he's been hangin' round Pros Passmore.
Like enough he's hearn of that silver mine, and that's
the reason he's after Johnnie."

The old man paused to ruminate on this feature of
the case. He was pleased with his own shrewdness
in fathoming Gray Stoddard's mysterious motives.

" Buck," he said finally, with a swift drop to friend
liness, " hit's got to be stopped. Can you stop it ?

268 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Didn't you tell me that Johnnie promised last night to
wed you ? Didn't you say she promised it, when you
was goin' up to the Victory with her ?"

Shade nodded.

"She promised she would if I'd get you to let the
children stay out of the mill. Deanie's hurt now, and
you're afraid to make the others go back in the mill
anyhow, 'count of Laurelly's tongue. I can't hold
Johnnie to that promise. But — but there's one
person I want to talk to about this business, and then
I'll be ready to do something."

CHAPTER XIX

A PACT

WHILE Himes and Buckheath yet stood thus
talking, the warning whistles of the various
mills began to blow. Groups of girls came
down the steps and stared at the two men conferring
with heads close together. Mavity Bence put her
face out at the front door and called.

"Pap, yo' breakfast is gettin' stone cold."

" Do you have to go to the mill right now ?" inquired
the older man, timorously. He was already under the
domination of this swifter, bolder, more fiery spirit.

"No, I don't have to go anywhere that I don't want
to. I've got business with a certain party up this-a-
way, and when I git to the mill I'll be there."

He turned and hurried swiftly up the minor slope
that led to the big Hardwick home, Pap's fascinated
eyes following him as long as he was in sight. As the
young fellow strode along he was turning in his mind
Lydia Sessions's promise to talk to him this morning
about Johnnie.

"But she'll be in bed and asleep, I reckon, at this
time of day," he ruminated. "The good Lord knows
I would if I had the chance like she has."

As he came in sight of the Hardwick house, he

269

270 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

checked momentarily. Standing at the gate, an aston
ishing figure, still in her evening frock, looking haggard
and old in the gray, disillusioning light of early morning,
was Lydia Sessions. Upstairs, her white bed was
smooth; its pillows spread fair and prim, unpressed
by any head, since the maid had settled them trimly
in place the morning before; but the long rug which
ran from her dressing table to the window might have
told a tale of pacing feet that passed restlessly from
midnight till dawn; the mirror could have disclosed
the picture of a white, anxious, and often angry face
that had stared into it as the woman paused now and
again to commune with the real Lydia Sessions.

She was thirty and penniless. She belonged to a
circle where everybody had money. Her sister had
married well, and Harriet was no better-looking than
she. All Lydia Sessions's considerable forces were
by heredity and training turned into one narrow channel
- the effort to make a creditable, if not a brilliant,
match. And she had thought she was succeeding.
Gray Stoddard had seemed seriously interested. In
those long night watches while the lights flared on
either side of her mirror, and the luxurious room of
a modern young lady lay disclosed, with all its sumptu
ous fittings of beauty and inutility, Lydia went over
her plans of campaign. She was a suitable match for
him — anybody would say so. He had liked her -
he had liked her well enough — till he got interested
in this mill girl. They had never agreed on anything
concerning Johnnie Consadine. If that element were

A PACT 271

eliminated to-morrow, she knew she could go back
and pick up the thread of their intimacy which had
promised so well, and, she doubted not at all, twist it
safely into a marriage-knot. If Johnnie were only
out of the way. If she would leave Cottonville. If
she would marry that good-looking mechanic who
plainly wanted her. How silly of her not to take him!

Toward dawn, she snatched a little cape from the
garments hanging in the closet, flung it over her
shoulders and ran downstairs. She must have a breath
of fresh air. So, in the manner of helpless creatures
who cannot go out in the highway to accost fate, she
was standing at the gate when she caught sight of
Shade Buckheath approaching. Here was her oppor
tunity. She must be doing something, and the nearest
enterprise at hand was to foster and encourage this
young fellow's pursuit of Johnnie.

"I wanted to talk to you about a very particular
matter," she broke out nervously, as soon as Buckheath
was near enough to be addressed in the carefully
lowered tone which she used throughout the interview.
She continually huddled the light cape together at the
neck with tremulous, unsteady fingers; and it was
characteristic of these two that, although the woman
had heard of the calamity at the Victory mill the night
before, and knew that Shade came directly from the
Himes home, she made no inquiry as to the welfare
of Deanie, and he offered no information. He gave
no reply in words to her accost, and she went on, with
increasing agitation.

272 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

"I — this matter ought to be attended to at once.
Something's got to be done. I've attempted to improve
the social and spiritual conditions of these girls in the
mill, and if I've only worked harm by bringing them
in contact with — in contact with -

She hesitated and stood looking into the man's
face. Buckheath knew exactly what she wished to
say. He was impatient of the flummery she found it
necessary to wind around her simple proposition;
but he was used to women, he understood them;
and to him a woman of Miss Sessions's class was no
different from a woman of his own.

" I reckon you wanted to name it to me about Johnnie
Consadine," he said bluntly.

"Yes — yes, that was it," breathed Lydia Sessions,
glancing back toward the house with a frightened air.
"John is — she's a good girl, Mr. Buckheath; I beg
of you to believe me when I assure you that John is a
good, honest, upright girl. I would not think anything
else for a minute; but it seems to me that somebody has
to do something, or — or -

Shade raised his hand to his mouth to conceal the
swift, sarcastic smile on his lips. He spat toward the
pathside before agreeing seriously with Miss Lydia.

"Her and me was promised, before she come down
here and got all this foolishness into her head," he said
finally. "Her mother never could do anything with
Johnnie. Looks like Johnnie's got more authority -
her mother's more like a little girl to her than the other
way round. Her uncle Pros has been crazy in the

A PACT 273

hospital, and Pap Himes, her stepfather — well, I
reckon she's the only human that ever had to mind
Pap and didn't do it."

This somewhat ambiguous statement of the case
failed to bring any smile to his hearer's lips.

"There's no use talking to John herself," Miss
Lydia took up the tale feverishly. "I've done that,
and it had no effect on — . Well, of course she would
say that she didn't encourage him to the things I saw
afterward; but I know that a man of his sort does not
do things without encouragement, and — Mr. Buck-
heath don't you think you ought to go right to Mr.
Stoddard and tell him that John is your promised wife,
and show him the folly and — and the wickedness of
his course — or what would be wickedness if he per
sisted in it ? Don't you think you ought to do that ?"

Shade held down his head and appeared to be giving
this matter some consideration. The weak point of
such an argument lay in the fact that Johnnie was not
his promised wife, and Gray Stoddard was very likely
to know it. Indeed, Lydia Sessions herself only
believed the statement because she so wished.

"I reckon I ort," he said finally. "If I could ever get
a chance of private speech with him, mebbe I'd

There came a sound of light hoofs down the road, and
Stoddard on Roan Sultan, riding bareheaded, came
toward them under the trees.

Miss Sessions clutched the gate and stood staring.
Buckheath drew a little closer, set his shoulder against
the fence and tried to look unconcerned. The rising

274 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

sun behind the mountains threw long slant rays across
into the bare tree tops, so that the shimmer of it dappled
horse and man. Gray's face was pale, his brow looked
anxious; but he rode head up and alert, and glanced
with surprise at the two at the Sessions gate. He
had no hat to raise, but he saluted Lydia Sessions
with a sweeping gesture of the hand and passed on. A
blithe, gallant figure cantering along the suburban
road, out toward the Gap, and the mountains beyond,
Gray Stoddard rode into the dip of the ridge and — so
far as Cottonville was concerned — vanished utterly.

Buckheath drew a long breath and straightened up.

"I'm but a poor man," he began truculently, "yit
there ain't nobody can marry the gal I set out to wed
and me stand by and say nothing."

"Oh, Mr. Buckheath!" cried Miss Lydia. "Mr.
Stoddard had no idea of marrying John — a mill girl!
There is no possibility of any such thing as that. I
want you to understand that there isn't — to feel
assured, once for all. I have reason to know, and I
urge you to put that out of your mind."

Shade looked at her narrowly. Up to the time Pap
gave him definite information from headquarters,
he had never for an instant supposed that there was a
possibility of Stoddard desiring to marry Johnnie;
but the flurried eagerness of Miss Sessions convinced
him that such a possibility was a very present dread
with her, and he sent a venomous glance after the
disappearing horseman.

"You go and talk to him right now, Mr. Buckheath,"

A PACT 275

insisted Lydia anxiously. "Tell him, just as you have
told me, how long you and John have been engaged,
and how devoted she was to you before she came down
to the mill. You appeal to him that way. You can
overtake him — I mean you can intercept him — if
you start right on now — cut across the turn, and go
through the tunnel."

" If I go after him to talk to him, and we — uh —
we have an interruption — are you going to tell every
body you see about it?" demanded Shade sharply,
staring down at the woman.

She crouched a little, still clinging to the pickets
of the gate. The word "interruption" only conveyed
to her mind the suggestion that they might be interfered
with in their conversation. She did not recollect the
mountain use of it to describe a quarrel, an outbreak,
or an affray.

"No," she whispered. "Oh, certainly not — I'll
never tell anything that you don't want me to."

"All right," returned Buckheath hardily. "If you
won't, I won't. If you name to people that I was the
last one saw with Mr. Stoddard, I shall have obliged to
tell 'em of what you and me was talkin' about when he
passed us. You see that, don't you?"

She nodded silently, her frightened eyes on his face;
and without another word he set off at that long, swing
ing pace which belongs to his people. Lydia turned
and ran swiftly into the house, and up the stairs to her
own room.

CHAPTER XX

MISSING

WHEN Stoddard did not come to his desk that
morning the matter remained for a time
unnoticed, except by McPherson, who fret
ted a bit at so unusual a happening. Truth to tell, the
old Scotchman had dreaded having this rich young
man for an associate, and had put a rod in pickle for
his chastisement. When Stoddard turned out to be a
regular worker, punctual, amenable to discipline, he
congratulated himself, and praised his assistant, but
warily. Now came the first delinquency, and in his
heart he cared more that Stoddard should absent
himself without notice than for the pile of letters lying
untouched.

"Dave," he finally said to the yellow office boy, "I
wish you'd 'phone to Mr. Stoddard's place and see
when he'll be down."

Dave came back with the information that Mr.
Stoddard was not at the house; he had left for an
early-morning ride, and not returned to his breakfast.

"He'll just about have stopped up at the Country
Club for a snack," MacPherson muttered to himself.
"I wonder who or what he found there attractive
enough to keep him from his work."

276

MISSING 277

Looking into Gray's office at noon, the closed desk
with its pile of mail once more offended MacPherson's
eye.

"Mr. Stoddard here?" inquired Hartley Sessions,
glancing in at the same moment.

"No, I think not," returned the Scotchman, unwilling
to admit that he did not exactly know. "I believe
he's up at the club. Perhaps he's got tangled in for
a longer game of golf than he reckoned on."

This unintentional and wholly innocent falsehood
stopped any inquiry that there might have been.
MacPherson had meant to 'phone the club during the
day, but he failed to do so, and it was not until evening
that he walked up himself to put more cautious
inquiries.

"No, sah — no, sah, Mr. Gray ain't been here,"
the Negro steward told him promptly. " I sure would
have remembered, sah," in answer to a startled inquiry
from MacPherson. "Dey been havin' a big game on
between Mr. Charley Conroy and Mr. Hardwick,
and de bofe of 'em spoke of Mr. Gray, and said dey
was expectin' him to play."

MacPherson came down the stone steps of the club
house, gravely disquieted. Below him the road wound,
a dimly conjectured, wavering gray ribbon; on the
other side of it the steep slope took off to a gulf of inky
shadow, where the great valley lay, hushed under the
solemn stars, silent, black, and shimmering with a
myriad pulsating electric lights which glowed like
swarms of fireflies caught in an invisible net. That

278 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

was Watauga. The strings of brilliants that led from
it were arc lights at switch crossings where the great
railway lines rayed out. Near at hand was Cottonville
with its vast bulks of lighted mills whose hum came
faintly up to him even at this distance. MacPherson
stood uncertainly in the middle of the road. Supper
and bed were behind him. But he had not the heart
to turn back to either. Somewhere down in that abyss
of night, there was a clue — or there were many clues -
to this strange absence of Gray Stoddard. Perhaps
Gray himself was there; and the Scotchman cursed
his own dilatoriness in waiting till darkness had covered
the earth before setting afoot inquiries.

He found himself hurrying and getting out of breath
as he took his way down the ridge and straight to Stod-
dard's cottage, only to find that the master's horse was
not in the stable, and the Negro boy who cared for it
had seen nothing of it or its rider since five o'clock that
morning.

"I wonder, now, should I give the alarm to Hard-
wick," MacPherson said to himself. " The lad may have
just ridden on to La Fayette, or some little nearby town,
and be staying the night. Young fellows sometimes
have affairs they'd rather not share with everybody -
and then, there's Miss Lydia. If I go up to Hardwick's
with the story, she'll be sure to hear it from Hardwick's
wife."

"Did Mr. Stoddard ever go away like this before
without giving you notice?" he asked with apparer»«-
carelessness.

MISSING 279

The boy shook his head in vigorous negative.

"Never since I've been working for him," he asserted.
"Mr. Stoddard wasn't starting anywhere but for his
early ride — at least he wasn't intending to. He
hadn't any hat on, and he was in his riding clothes.
He didn't carry anything with him. I know in reason
he wasn't intending to stay."

This information sent MacPherson hurrying to the
Hardwick home. Dinner was over. The master of
the house conferred with him a moment in the vestibule,
then opened the door into the little sitting room and
asked abruptly:

"When was the last time any of you saw Gray
Stoddard?"

His sister-in-law screamed faintly, then cowered in
her chair and stared at him mutely. But Mrs. Hard-
wick as yet noted nothing unusual.

" Yesterday evening," she returned placidly. " Don't
you remember, Jerome, he was here at the Lyric
reception ?"

"Oh, I remember well enough," said Hardwick
knitting his brows. "I thought some of you might
have seen him since then. He's missing."

"Missing!" echoed Lydia Sessions with a note of
terror in her tones.

Now Mrs. Hardwick looked startled.

"But, Jerome, I think you're inconsiderate," she
began, glancing solicitously at her sister. "Under the
circumstances, it seems to me you might have made
your announcement more gently — to Lydia, anyhow.

28o THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Never mind, dearie — there's nothing in it to be
frightened at."

"I'm not frightened," whispered Lydia Sessions
through white lips that belied her assertion. Hardwick
looked impatiently from his sister-in-law to his wife.

"I'm sorry if I startled you, Lydia," he said in a
perfunctory tone, "but this is a serious business.
MacPherson tells me Stoddard hasn't been at the
factory nor at his boarding-house to-day. The last
person who saw him, so far as we know, is his stable
boy. Black Jim says Stoddard rode out of the gate
at five o'clock this morning, bareheaded and in his
riding clothes. Have any of you seen him since -
that's what I want to know ?"

"Since?" repeated Miss Sessions, who seemed
unable to get beyond the parrot echoing of her ques
tioner's words. "Why Jerome, what makes you think
I've seen him since then ? Did he say — did anybody
tell you -

She broke off huskily and sat staring at her interlaced
fingers dropped in her lap.

"No — no. Of course not, Lydia," her sister
hastened to reassure her, crossing the room and putting
a protecting arm about the girl's shoulders. "He
shouldn't have spoken as he did, knowing that you
and Gray — knowing how affairs stand."

"Well, I only thought since you and Stoddard are
such great friends," Hardwick persisted, "he might
have mentioned to you some excursion, or made oppor
tunity to talk with you alone, sometime last night -

MISSING 281

to — to say something. Did he tell you where he was
going, Lydia ? Are you keeping something from
us that we ought to know? Remember this is no
child's play. It begins to look as though it might be
a question of the man's life."

Lydia Sessions started galvanically. She pushed
off her sister's caressing hand with a fierce gesture.

"There's nothing - no such relation as you're
hinting at, Elizabeth, between Gray Stoddard and me,"
she said sharply. Memory of what Gray had (as she
supposed) followed her into the library to say to her
wrung a sort of groan from the girl. "I suppose
Matilda's told you that we had — had some conversa
tion in the library," she managed to say.

Her brother-in-law shook his head.

"We haven't questioned the servants yet," he said
briefly. " We haven't questioned anybody nor hunted up
any evidence. MacPherson came direct to me from
Stoddard's stable boy. Gray did stop and talk to you
last night? What did he say?"

"I — why nothing in — I really don't remember,"
faltered Lydia, with so strange a look that both her
sister and Hardwick looked at her in surprise. "That
is — oh, nothing of any importance, you know. I — I
believe we were talking about socialism, and — and
different classes of people. . . . That sort of thing."

MacPherson, who had pushed unceremoniously into
the room behind his employer, nodded his gray head.
"That would always be what he was speaking of."
He smiled a little as he said it.

282 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

"All right," returned Hardwick, struggling into his
overcoat at the hat-tree, and seeking his hat and stick,
"I'll go right back with you, Mac. This thing some
how has a sinister look to me."

As the two men were leaving the house, Hardwick
felt a light, trembling touch on his arm, and turned to
face his sister-in-law.

" Why -- Jerome, why did you say that last?"
Lydia quavered. "What do you think has happened
to him ? Do you think anybody - - that is — ? Oh,
you looked at me as though you thought I had some
thing to do with it!"

"Come, come, Lyd. Pull yourself together. You're
getting hysterical," urged Hardwick kindly. Then he
turned to MacPherson. As the two men went compan-
ionably down the walk and out into the street, the
Scotchman said apologetically:

" Of course, I knew Miss Lydia would be alarmed. I
understand about her and Stoddard. It made mehesitate
a while before coming up to you folks with the thing."

"Well, by the Lord, you did well not to hesitate too
long, Mac!" ejaculated Hardwick. "I shouldn't feel
the anxiety I do if we hadn't been having trouble with
those mountain people up toward Flat Rock over that
girl that died at the hospital." He laughed a little
ruefully. 'Trying to do things for folks is ticklish
business. There wasn't a man in the crowd that inter
viewed me whom I could convince that our hospital
wasn't a factory for the making of stiffs which we sold
to the Northern Medical College. Oh, it was gruesome!

MISSING 283

I told them the girl had had every attention, and that
she died of pernicious anaemia. They called it 'a
big die word' and asked me point blank if the girl
hadn't been killed in the mill. I told them that we
couldn't keep the body indefinitely, and they said they
'aimed to come and haul it away as soon as they could
get a horse and wagon.' I called their attention to
the fact that I couldn't know this unless they wrote
and told me so in answer to my letter. But between
you and me, Mac, I don't believe there was a man in
the crowd who could read or write."

"For God's sake!" exclaimed the Scotchman.
"You don't think those people were up to doing a
mischief to Stoddard, do you ?"

"I don't know what to think," protested Hardwick.
"Yes; they are mediaeval — half savage. The fact
is, I have no idea what they would or what they
wouldn't do."

MacPherson gave a whistle of dismay.

"Gad, it sounds like the manoeuvres of one of our
Highland clans three hundred years ago!" he said.
"Wouldn't it be the irony of fate that Stoddard — poor
fellow! — a friend of the people, a socialist, ready to
call every man his brother — should be sacrificed in
such a way ?"

The words brought them to Stoddard's little home,
silent and deserted now. Down the street, the lamps
flared gustily. It was after eleven o'clock.

"Where does that boy live that takes care of the
horses — black Jim ?" Hardwick inquired, after they

284 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

had rung the bell, thumped on the door, and called,
to make sure the master had not returned during
MacPherson's absence.

" I don't know — really, I don't know. He might
have a room over the stable," MacPherson suggested.

But the stable proved to be a one-story affair, and
they were just turning to leave when a stamping sound
within arrested their notice.

"Good God! — what's that?" ejaculated Mac
Pherson, whose nerves were quivering.

"It's the horse," answered Hardwick in a relieved
tone. "Stoddard's got back -

"Of course," broke in old MacPherson, quickly,
"and gone over to Mrs. Gandish's for some supper.
That is why he wasn't in the house."

To make assurance doubly sure, they opened the
unlocked stable door, and MacPherson struck a match.
The roan turned and whinnied hungrily at sight of them.

'That's funny," said Hardwick, scarcely above his
breath. "It looks to me as though that animal hadn't
been fed."

In the flare of the match MacPherson had descried
the stable lantern hanging on the wall. They lit this
and examined the stall. There was no feed in the box,
no hay in the manger. The saddle was on Gray
Stoddard's horse; the bit in his mouth; he was tied by
the reins to his stall ring. The two men looked at each
other with lengthening faces.

" Stoddard's too good a horseman to have done that,"
spoke Hardwick slowly.

MISSING 285

"And too kind a man," supplied MacPherson loyally.
" He'd have seen to the beast's hunger before he satisfied
his own."

As the Scotchman spoke he was picking up the horse's
hoofs, and digging at them with a bit of stick.

'They're as clean as if they'd just been washed,"
he said, as he straightened up. "By Heaven! I have
it, Hardwick — that fellow came into town with his
hoofs muffled."

The younger man looked also, and assented mutely,
then suggested:

" He hasn't come far; there's not a hair turned on him."

The Scotchman shook his head. "I'm not sure of
that," he debated. "Likely he's been led, and that
slowly. God — this is horrible!"

Mechanically Hardwick got some hay down for the
horse, while MacPherson pulled off the saddle and
bridle, examining both in the process. Grain was
poured into the box, and then water offered.

"He won't drink," murmured the Scotchman.
"D'ye see, Hardwick ? He won't drink. You can't
come into Cottonville without crossing a stream.
This fellow's hoofs have been wet within an hour —
yes, within the half-hour."

As their eyes encountered, Hardwick caught his
breath sharply; both felt that chill of the cuticle, that
stirring at the roots of the hair, that marks the passing
close to us of some sinister thing — stark murder,
or man's naked hatred walking in the dark beside our
cheerful, commonplace path. By one consent they

turned back from the stable and went together to Mrs.
Gandish's. The house was dark.

"Of course, you know I don't expect to find him
here," said Hardwick. "I don't suppose they know
anything about the matter. But we've got to wake
them and ask."

They did so, and set trembling the first wave of that
widening ring of horror which finally informed the
remotest boundaries of the little village that a man
from their midst was mysteriously missing.

The morning found the telegraph in active requisi
tion, flashing up and down all lines by which a man
might have left Cottonville or Watauga. The police
of the latter place were notified, furnished with informa
tion, and set to find out if possible whether anybody
in the city had seen Stoddard since he rode away on
Friday morning.

The inquiries were fruitless. A young lady visiting
in the city had promised him a dance at the Valentine
masque to be held at the Country Club-house Friday
night. Some clothing put out a few days before to be
cleaned and pressed was ready for delivery. His
laundry came home. His mail arrived punctually.
The postmaster stated that he had no instructions for a
change of address; all the little accessories of Gray
Stoddard's life offered themselves, mute, impressive
witnesses that he had intended to go on with it in Cotton
ville. But Stoddard himself had dropped as completely
out of the knowledge of man as though he had been
whisked off the planet.

CHAPTER XXI

THE SEARCH

THE fruitless search was vigorously prosecuted.
On Saturday the Hardwick mill ran short-
handed while nearly half its male employees
made some effort to solve the mystery. Parties combed
again and again the nearer mountains. Sunday all
the mill operatives were free; and then groups of women
and children added themselves to the men; dinners
were taken along, lending a grotesque suggestion of
picnicking to the work, a suggestion contradicted by
the anxious faces, the strained timbre of the voices that
called from group to group. But night brought the
amateur searchers straggling home with nothing to
tell. It should have been significant to any one who
knew the mountain people, that information concerning
Gray Stoddard within a week of his disappearance, was
noticeably lacking. Nobody would admit that his had
been a familiar figure on those roads. At the utmost
they had "seed him a good deal a while ago, but he'd
sorter quit riding up this-a-way of late." But on no
road could there be found man, woman, or child who
had seen Gray Stoddard riding Friday morning on his
roan horse. The whole outlying district seemed to be
in a conspiracy of silence.

287

288 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

In Watauga and in Cottonville itself, clues were
found by the police, followed up and proved worthless.
All Gray's Eastern connections were immediately
communicated with by telegraph, in the forlorn hope
of finding some internal clue. The business men in
charge of his large Eastern interests answered promptly
that nothing from recent correspondence with him
pointed to any intention on his part of making a
journey or otherwise changing his ordinary way of
living. They added urgent admonitions to Mr. Mac-
Pherson to have locked up in the Company's safe
various important papers which they had sent, at
Stoddard's request, for signature, and which they
supposed from the date, must be lying with his other
mail. A boyhood friend telegraphed his intention
of coming down from Massachusetts and joining the
searchers. Stoddard had no near relatives. A grand-
aunt, living in Boston, telegraphed to Mr. Hardwick
to see that money be spent freely.

Meantime there was reason for Johnnie Consadine,
shut in the little sister's sick room day and night, to
hear nothing of these matters. Lissy had been allowed
to help wait upon the injured child only on promise
that nothing exciting should be mentioned. Both
boys had instantly begged to join a searching party,
Milo insisting that he could work all night and search
all day, and that nobody should complain that he
neglected his job. Pony, being refused, had run away;
Milo the rulable followed to get him to return; and by
Sunday night Mavity was feeding both boys from the

THE SEARCH 289

back door and keeping them out of sight of Pap's
vengeance. Considering that Johnnie had trouble
enough, she cautioned everybody on the place to say
nothing of these matters to the girl. Mandy, a feeble,
unsound creature at best, was more severely injured
than had been thought. She was confined to her bed
for days. Pap went about somewhat like a whipped
dog, spoke little on any subject, and tolerated no
mention of the topic of the day in Cotton ville; his face
kept the boarders quiet at table and in the house, any
how. Shade Buckheath never entered the place after
Deanie was carried in from the hastily summoned
carriage Thursday night.

The doctors told them that if Deanie survived the
shock and its violent reaction, she had a fair chance of
recovery. They found at once that she was not inter
nally injured; the blood that had been seen came only
from a cut lip. But the child's left arm was broken, the
small body was dreadfully bruised, and the terror had
left a profound mental disturbance. Nothing but
quiet and careful nursing offered any good hope; while
there was the menace that she would never be strong
again, and might not live to womanhood.

At first she lay with half-closed, glazed eyes, barely
breathing, a ghastly sight. Then, when she roused a
bit, she wanted, not Lissy, not even Johnnie; she
called for her mother.

When her child was brought home to her, dying as
they all thought, Laurella had rallied her forces and
got up from the pallet on which she lay to tend on the

290 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

little thing; but she broke down in the course of a few
hours, and seemed about to add another patient to
Johnnie's cares.

Yet when the paroxysms of terror shook the emaciated
frame, and the others attempted to reassure Deanie by
words, it was her mother who called for a bit of gay
calico, for scissors and needle and thread, and began
dressing a doll in the little sufferer's sight. Laurella
had carried unspoiled the faculty for play, up with her
through the years.

"Let her be," the doctor counselled Johnnie, in
reply to anxious inquiries. " Don't you see she's
getting the child's attention ? The baby notices. An
ounce of happiness is worth a pound of any medicine
I could bring."

And so, when Laurella could no longer sit up, they
brought another cot for her, and she lay all day babbling
childish nonsense, and playing dolls within hand-
reach of the sick-bed; while Johnnie with Lissy's help,
tended on them both.

"You've got two babies now, you big, old, solemn
Johnnie," Laurella said, with a ghost of her spark
ling smile. "Deanie and me is just of one age, and
that's a fact."

If Pap wanted to see his young wife — and thirst
for a sight of her was a continual craving with him;
she was the light of the old sinner's eyes — he had to
go in and look on the child he had injured. This
kept him away pretty effectually after that first fiery
scene, when Laurella had flown at him like a fierce little

THE SEARCH 291

vixen and told him that she never wanted to see his
face again, that she rued the day she married him, and
intended to leave him as soon as she could put foot to
the ground.

In the gray dawn of Monday morning, when Johnnie
was downstairs eating her bit of early breakfast, Pap
shambled in to make Laurella's fire. Having got the
hickory wood to blazing, he sat humped and shame
faced by the bedside a while, whispering to his wife and
holding her hand, a sight for the student of man to
marvel at. He had brought a paper of coarse, cheap
candy for Deanie, but the child was asleep. The
offering was quite as acceptable to Laurella, and she
nibbled a stick as she listened to him.

The bald head with its little fringe of grizzled curls,
bent close to the dark, slant-browed, lustrous-eyed,
mutinous countenance; Pap whispered hoarsely for
some time, Laurella replying at first in a sort of lan
guid tolerance, but presently with little ejaculations
of wonder and dismay. A step on the stair which
he took to be Johnnie's put Himes to instant flight.

"I've got to go honey/' he breathed huskily.
"Cain't you say you forgive me before I leave? I
know I ain't fitten fer the likes of you; but when I
come back from this here raid I'm a-goin' to take some
money out of the bank and git you whatever you want.
L6ok-a-here; see what I've done," and he showed a
little book in his hand, and what he had written in it.

"Oh — I forgive you, if that's any account to you,"
returned Laurella with kindly contempt. "I never.

292 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

noticed that forgiving things undid the harm any;
but — yes — oh, of course I forgive you. Go along;
I'm tired now. Don't bother me any more, Gid;
I want to sleep."

The old man thrust the treasured bankbook under
Laurella's pillow, and hurried away. Downstairs in
the dining room Johnnie was eating her breakfast.

''Johnnie," said Mavity Bence, keeping behind the
girl's chair as she served the meal to her at the end of
the long table, "I ain't never done you a meanness yet,
have I ? And you know I've got all the good will in
the world toward you — now don't you ?"

"Why, of course, Aunt Mavity," returned Johnnie
wonderingly, trying to get sight of the older woman's
face.

Mrs. Bence took a plate and hurried out for more
biscuits. She came back with some resolution plainly
renewed in her mind.

''Johnnie," she began once more, "there's something
I've got to tell you. Your Uncle Pros has got away
from 'em up at the hospital, and to the hills, and — and
- I have obliged to tell you."

"Yes, I know," returned Johnnie passively. "They
sent me word last night. I'm sorry, but I can't do
anything about it. Maybe he won't come to any harm
out that way. I can't imagine Uncle Pros hurting
anybody. Perhaps it will do him good."

"Hit wasn't about your Uncle Pros that I was
meaning. At least not about his gettin' away from the
hospital," amended Mavity. "It was about the day

THE SEARCH 293

he got hurt here. I — I always aimed to tell you.
I know I ort to have done it. I was always a-goin'
to, and then — Pap — he -

She broke off and stood silent so long that Johnnie
turned and looked at her.

"Surely you aren't afraid of me, Aunt Mavity,"
she said finally.

"No," said Mavity Bence in a low voice, "but I'm
scared of — the others."

The girl stared at her curiously.

" Johnnie," burst out the woman for the third time,
"yo' Uncle Pros found his silver mine! Oh, yes, he
did; and Pap's got his pieces of ore upstairs in a ban-
danner; and him and Shade Buckheath aims to git it
away from you-all and — oh, I don't know what!"

There fell a long silence. At last Johnnie's voice
broke it, asking very low:

"Did they — how was Uncle Pros hurt?"

"Neither of 'em touched him," Mavity hastened
to assure her. "He heard 'em name it how they'd get
the mine from him — or thought he did — and he come
out and talked loud, and grabbed for the bandanner,
and he missed it and fell down the steps. He wasn't
crazy when he come to the house. He was jest plumb
wore out, and his head was hurt. He called it yo'
silver mine. He said he had to put the bandanner
in yo' lap and tell you hit was for you."

Johnny got suddenly to her feet.

'Thank you, Aunt Mavity," she said kindly. "This
is what's been troubling you, is it ? Don't worry any

294 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

more, I'll see about this, somehow. I must go back
to Mother now."

Laurella had said to Pap Himes that she wanted to
sleep, and indeed her eyes were closed when Johnnie
entered the room; but beneath the shadow of the
sweeping lashes burned such spots of crimson that her
nurse was alarmed.

" What was Pap Himes saying to you to get you so
excited ? " she asked anxiously.

:< Johnnie, come here. Sit down on the edge of the
bed and listen to me," demanded Laurella feverishly.
She laid hold of her daughter's arm, and half pulled
herself up by it, staring into Johnnie's face as she talked ;
and out tumbled the whole story of Gray Stoddard's
disappearance.

As full understanding of what her mother said came
home to Johnnie, her eyes dilated in her pale face.
She sank to her knees beside the bed.

"Lost!" she echoed. "Lost — gone! Hasn't been
seen since Friday morning — Friday morning before
sunup! Friday, Saturday, Sunday. My God, Mother
— it's three days and three nights!"

"Yes, honey, it's three days and three nights,"
assented Laurella fearfully. "Gid says he's going up
in the mountains with a lot of others to search. He
says some thinks the moonshiners have taken him
in mistake for a revenuer; and some believe it was
robbery — for his watch and money; and Mr. Hard-
wick is blaming it on the Groner crowd that raised
up such a fuss when Lura Dawson died in the hospital

" LOST — GONE !

MY GOD, MOTHER — IT'S THREE DAYS AND
THREE NIGHTS ! "

THE SEARCH 295

here. Gid says they've searched every ridge and
valley this side of Big Unaka. He — Johnnie, he
says he believes Mr. Stoddard suicided."

"Where is Shade Buckheath?" whispered Johnnie.

"Shade's been out with mighty nigh every crowd
that went," Laurella told her. " Mr. Hardwick pays
them wages, just the same as if they were in the mill.
Shade's going with Gid this morning, in Mr. Stoddard's
automobile."

"Are they gone — oh, are they gone?" Johnnie
sprang to her feet in dismay, and stood staring a
moment. Then swiftly she bent once more over the
little woman in the bed. " Mother," she said before
Laurella could speak or answer her, "Aunt Mavity
can wait on you and Deanie for a little while — with
what help Lissy will give you — can't she, honey ?
And Mandy was coming downstairs to her breakfast
this morning — she's able to be afoot now — and I
know she'll be wanting to help tend on Deanie. You
could get along for a spell without me — don't you
think you could ? Honey," she spoke desperately. " I've
just got to find Shade Buckheath — I must see him."

"Sure, we'll get along all right, Johnnie," Laurella
put in eagerly. She tugged at a corner of the pillow,
fumbled thereunder with her little brown hand, and
dragging out Pap Himes's bankbook, showed it to
her daughter, opening at that front page where Pap's
clumsy characters made Laurella Himes free of all his
savings. "You go right along, Johnnie, and see cain't
you help about Mr. Stoddard. Looks like I cain't

296 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

bear to think. . . the pore boy . . . you go
on — me and Deanie'll be all right till you get back."

Johnnie stooped and kissed the cheek with its fever
ish flush.

"Good-bye, Mommie," she whispered hurriedly.
"Don't worry about me. I'll be back — . Well, don't
worry. Good-bye." She snatched a coat and hat,
and, going out, closed the door quietly behind her.

She stepped out into the dancing sunlight of an early
spring morning. The leafless vine on Mavity Bence's
porch rattled dry stems against the lattice work in a
gay March wind. Taking counsel with herself for
a moment, she started swiftly down the street in the
direction of the mills. In the office they told her that
Mr. Hardwick had gone to Nashville to see about getting
bloodhounds; MacPherson was following his own
plan of search in Watauga. She was permitted to go
down into the mechanical department and ask the head
of it about Shade Buckheath.

"No, he ain't here," Mr. Ramsey told her promptly.
"We're running so short-handed that I don't know
how to get along; and if I try to get an extra man, I
find he's out with the searchers. I sent up for Himes
yesterday, but him and Buckheath was to go together
to-day, taking Mr. Stoddard's car, so as to get further
up into the Unakas."

Johnnie felt as though the blood receded from her
face and gathered all about a heart which beat to suffo
cation. For a wild moment she had an impulse to
denounce Buckheath and her stepfather. But almost

THE SEARCH 297

instantly she realized that she would weaken her cause
and lose all chance of assistance by doing so. Her
standing in the mill was excellent, and as she ran up the
stairs she was going over in her mind the persons to
whom she might take her story. She found no one from
whom she dared expect credence and help. Out in
the street again she caught sight of Charlie Conroy,
and her thoughts were turned by a natural association
of ideas to Lydia Sessions. That was it! Why had
it not occurred to her before ? She hurried up the long
hill to the Hardwick home and, trying first the bell
at the front, where she got no reply, skirted the house
and rapped long and loudly at the side door.

Harriet Hardwick, when things began to wear a
tragic complexion, had promptly packed her wardrobe
and her children and flitted to Watauga. This hegira
was undertaken mainly to get her sister away from the
scene of Gray Stoddard's disappearance; yet when
the move came to be made, Miss Sessions refused to
accompany her sister.

"I can't go," she repeated fiercely. "I'll stay here
and keep house for Jerome. Then if there comes
any news, I'll be where — oh, don't look at me that
way. I wish you'd go on and let me alone. Yes -
yes — yes — it is better for you to go to Watauga and
leave me here."

Ever since her brother-in-law opened the door of
the sitting room and announced to the family Gray
Stoddard's disappearance, Lydia Sessions had been,
as it were, a woman at war with herself. Her first

298 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

impulse was of decorum — to jerk her skirts about her
in seemly fashion and be certain that no smirch adhered
to them. Then she began to wonder if she could find
Shade Buckheath, and discover from him the truth of
the matter. Whenever she would have made a move
ment toward this, she winced away from what she
knew he would say to her. She flinched even from
finding out that her fears were well grounded. As
matters began to wear a more serious face, she debated
now and again telling her brother-in-law of her sus
picions that Buckheath had a grudge against Stoddard.
But if she said this, how account for the knowledge ?
How explain to Jerome why she had denied seeing
Stoddard Friday morning ? Jerome was so terribly
practical — he would ask such searching questions.

Back of it all there was truly much remorse, and
terrible anxiety for Stoddard himself; but this was
continually swallowed up in her concern for her own
welfare, her own good name. Always, after she had
agonized so much, there would come with a revulsion -
a gust of anger. Stoddard had never cared for her, he
had been cruel in his attitude of kindness. Let him
take what followed.

Cottonville was a town distraught, and the Hardwick
servants had seized the occasion to run out for a bit of
delectable gossip in which the least of the horrors
included Gray Stoddard's murdered and mutilated
body washed down in some mountain stream to the
sight of his friends.

Johnnie was too urgent to long delay. Getting no

THE SEARCH 299

answer at the side door, she pushed it open and ventured
through silent room after room until she came to the
stairway, and so on up to Miss Sessions's bedroom
door. She had been there before, and fearing to alarm
by knocking, she finally called out in what she tried to
make a normal, reassuring tone.

"It's only me -- Johnnie Consadine — Miss Lydia."

The answer was a hasty, muffled outcry. Somebody
who had been kneeling by the bed on the further side
of the room sprang up and came forward, showing a
face so disfigured by tears and anxiety, by loss of sleep
and lack of food, as to be scarcely recognizable. That
ravaged visage told plainly the battle-ground that
Lydia Sessions's narrow soul had become in these
dreadful days. She knew now that she had set Shade
Buckheath to quarrel with Gray Stoddard — and
Gray had never been seen since the hour she sent the
dangerous, unscrupulous man after him to that quarrel.
With this knowledge wrestled and fought the instinct
we strive to develop in our girl children, the fear we
brand shamefully into their natures — her name must
not be connected with such an affair — she must not be
"talked about."

"Have they found him?" Lydia gasped. "Is he
alive?"

Johnnie, generous soul, even in the intense pre
occupation of her own pain, could pity the woman who
looked and spoke thus.

"No," she answered, "they haven't found him -
and some that are looking for him never will find him.

300 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Oh, Miss Lydia, I want you to help me make them send
somebody that we can trust up the Gap road, and on
to the Unakas."

Miss Sessions flinched plainly.

"What do you know about it?" she inquired in a
voice which shook.

Still staring at Johnnie, she moved back toward her
bedroom door. "Why should you mention the Gap
road ? What makes you think he went up in the
Unakas?"

"I — don't know that he went there," hesitated
Johnnie. " But I do know who you've got to find before
you can find him. Oh, get somebody to go with me
and help me, before it's too late. I - " she hesitated

"I thought maybe we could get your brother
Hartley's car. I could run it — I could run a car."

The bitterness that had racked Lydia Sessions's
heart for more than forty-eight hours culminated.
She had been instrumental in putting Gray Stoddard
in mortal danger — and now if he was to be helped,
assistance would come through Johnnie Consadine!
It was more than she could bear.

"I don't believe it!" she gasped. "You know who
to find! You're just getting up this story to be noticed.
You're always doing things to attract attention to
yourself. You want to go riding around in an auto
mobile and — and — Mr. Stoddard has probably gone
in to Watauga and taken the midnight train for Boston.
This looking around in the mountains is folly. Who
would want to harm him in the mountains ?"

THE SEARCH 301

For a moment Johnnie stood, thwarted and non
plussed. The insults directed toward herself made
almost no impression on her, strangely as they came
from Lydia Sessions's lips. She was too intent on her
own purpose to care greatly.

"Shade Buckheath - ' she began cautiously, in
tending only to state that Shade had taken Stoddard's
car; but Lydia Sessions drew back with a scream.

"It's a lie!" she cried. "There isn't a word of truth
in what you say, John Consadine. Oh, you're the
plague of my life — you have been from the first!
You follow me about and torment me. Shade Buck-
heath had nothing to do with Gray Stoddard's disap
pearance, I tell you. Nothing — nothing — nothing!"

She thrust forward her face and sent forth the words
with incredible vehemence. But her tirade kindled
in Johnnie no heat of personal anger. She stood
looking intently at the frantic woman before her.
Slowly a light of comprehension dawned in her eyes.

"Shade Buckheath had everything to do with Gray
Stoddard's disappearance. You know it — that's what
ails you now. You — you must have been there when
they quarrelled!"

"They didn't quarrel — they didn't!" protested
Miss Lydia, with a yet more hysteric emphasis. '' They
didn't even speak to each other. Mr. Stoddard said
'Good morning' to me, and rode right past."

Johnnie leant forward and, with a sudden sweeping
movement, caught the other woman by the wrist,
looking deep into her eyes.

302 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

"Lydia," she said accusingly, and neither of them
noticed the freedom of the address, "you didn't tell
the truth when you said you hadn't seen Gray
since Friday night. You saw him Friday morning -
you — and — Shade — Buckheatb! You have both
lied about it — God knows why. Now, Shade and
my stepfather have taken poor Gray's car and gone
up into the mountains. What do you think they went
for?"

The blazing young eyes were on Miss Sessions's
tortured countenance.

"Oh, don't let those men get at Gray. They'll
murder him!" sobbed the older woman, sinking once
more to her knees. '* Johnnie — I've always been
good to you, haven't I ? You go and tell them that -
say that Shade Buckheath — that somebody ought
to "

She broke off abruptly, and sprang up like a suddenly
goaded creature.

"No, I won't!" she cried out. "You needn't ask
it of me. I will not tell about seeing Mr. Stoddard
Friday morning. I promised not to, and it can't
do any good, anyhow. If you set them at me, I'll
deny it and tell them you made up the story. I will -
I will — I will!"

And she ran into her room once more, and threw
herself down beside the bed. Johnnie turned
contemptuously and left the woman babbling inco-
herencies on her knees, evidently preparing to pray
to a God whose laws she was determined to break.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ATLAS VERTEBRA

JOHNNIE hurried downstairs, in a mental turmoil
out of which there swiftly formed itself the
resolution to go herself and if possible over
take or find Shade and her stepfather. Word
must first be sent to her mother. She was glad to
remember that little bankbook under Laurella's
pillow. Mavity and Mandy would tend the invalids
well, helped by little Lissy; and with money available,
she was sure they would be allowed to lack for nothing.
She crossed the hall swiftly, meaning to go past the
little grocery where they bought their supplies and
telephone Mavity that she might be away for several
days. But near the side door she noted the Hardwick
telephone, and hesitated a moment. People would
hear her down at Mayfield's. Already she began to
have a terror of being watched or followed. Hesita
tingly she took down the receiver and asked for con
nection. At the little tinkle of the bell, there was a
swift, light rush abore stairs.

"Mahala!" screamed Miss Sessions's voice over the
banisters, thinking the maid was below stairs; "answer
that telephone/' She heard Johnnie move, and
added, "Tell everybody that I can't be seen. If

303

304 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

it's anything about Mr. Stoddard, say that I'm sick -
utterly prostrated — and can't be talked to." She
turned from the stairway, ran back into her own
room and shut and locked the door. And at that
moment Johnnie heard Mavity Bence's voice replying
to her.

"Aunt Mavity," she began, "this is Johnnie. I'm
up at Mr. Hardwick's now. Uncle Pros is out in the
mountains, and I'm going to look for him. I'd rather
not have anybody know I'm gone; do you under
stand that ? Try to keep it from the boarders and
the children. You and Mandy are the only ones
that would have to know."

"Yes, honey, yes, Johnnie," came the eager,
humble reply. "I'll do just like you say. Shan't
nobody find out from me. Johnnie - ' there was a
pause- " Johnnie, Pap and Shade didn't get off as
soon as they expected. Something was the matter
with the machine, I believe. They ain't been gone
to exceed a quarter of an hour. I -- I thought maybe
you'd like to know."

" Thank you, Aunt Mavity," said Johnnie. "Yes,
I'm glad you told me." She understood what a
struggle the kind soul had had with her weakness and
timidity ere, for loyalty's sake, she was able to make
the disclosure. "I may not be back for two or three
days. Don't worry about me. I'll be all right.
Mother's got money. You buy what she and Deanie
need, and don't work too hard. Good-bye."

She hung up the receiver, went out the side door

THE ATLAS VERTEBRA 305

and, reaching the main street, struck straight for the
Gap, holding the big road for the Unakas. To her
left was the white highway that ran along above the
valley, and that Palace of Pleasure which had seemed
a wonder and a mystery to her one year gone. To-day
she gave no thought to the sight of river and valley
and town, except to look back once at the roofs and
reflect that, among all the people housed there in sight
of her, there were surely those who knew the secret
of Gray Stoddard's disappearance — who could tell
her if they would where to search for him. Somehow,
the thought made her feel very small and alone and
unfriended. With its discouragement came that
dogged persistence that was characteristic of the girl.
She set her trembling lip and went over her plans
resolutely, methodically. Deanie and Laurella were
safe to be well looked after in her absence. Mavity
Bence and Mandy would care for them tenderly.
And there was the bankbook. If Johnnie knew her
mother, the household back there would not lack,
either for assistance or material matters.

And now the present enterprise began to shape
itself in her mind. A practical creature, she depended^
from the first on getting a lift from time to time. Yet
Johnnie knew better than another the vast, silent,
secret network of hate that draws about the victim
in a mountain vendetta. If the spirit of feud was
aroused against the mill owners, if the Groners and
Dawsons had been able to enlist their kin and clan,
she was well aware that the man or woman who

3o6 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

gave her smiling information as to ways and means,
might, the hour before, have looked on Gray Stoddard
lying dead, or sat in the council which planned to kill
him. Thus she walked warily, and dared ask from
none directions or help. She was not yet in her own
region, these lower ridges lying between two lines
of railway, which, from the mountaineer's point of
view, contaminated them and gave them a tincture
of the valley and the Settlement.

Noon came and passed. She was very weary.
Factory life had told on her physically, and the recent
distress of mind added its devitalizing influence.
There was a desperate flagging of the muscles weak
ened by disuse and an unhealthy indoor life.

"I wonder can I ever make it?" she questioned
herself. Then swiftly, "I've got to — I've got to."

Her eye roved toward a cabin on the slope above.
There lived a man by the name of Straley, but he was
a cousin to Lura Dawson, the girl who had died in
the hospital. Johnnie knew him to be one of the
bitterest enemies of the Cottonville mill owners, and
realized that he would be the last one to whom she
should apply. Mutely, doggedly, she pressed on,
and rounding a bend in a long, lonely stretch of road,
saw before her the tall, lithe form of a man, trousers
tucked into boots, a tall staff in hand, making swift
progress up the road. The sound of feet evidently
arrested the attention of the wayfarer. He turned
and waited for her to come up.

The figure was so congruous with its surroundings

THE ATLAS VERTEBRA 307

that she saw with surprise a face totally strange to her.
The turned-down collar of the rumpled shirt was
unbuttoned at a brown throat; the face above seemed
to her eyes neither old nor young, though the light,
springing gait when he walked, the supple, easeful
attitude now that he rested, one hand flung high on
the curious tall staff, were those of a youth; the eyes
of a warm, laughing hazel had the direct fearlessness
of a child, and a slouch hat carried in the hand showed
a fair crop of slightly grizzled, curling hair.

A stranger — at first the thought frightened, and
then attracted her. This man looked not unlike
Johnnie's own people, and there was something in his
face that led her to entertain the idea of appealing
to him for help. He settled the question of whether
or no she should enter into conversation, by accosting
her at once brusquely and genially.

"Mornin', sis'. You look tired," he said. "You
ought to have a stick, like me. Hold on — I'll cut
you one."

Before the girl could respond beyond an answering
smile and "good mormng," the new friend had put
his own alpenstock into her hands and gone to the
roadside, where, with unerring judgment, he selected
.a long, straight, tapering shoot of ash, and hewed
it deftly with a monster jack-knife drawn from his
trousers pocket.

" There — try that," he said as he returned, trim
ming off the last of the leaves and branches.

Johnnie took the staff with her sweet smile of thanks.

3o8 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

For a few moments the two walked on silently side
by side, she desperately absorbed in her anxi
eties, her companion apparently returning to some
world apart in his own mind. Suddenly:

"Can I get to the railroad down this side?" the
man asked her in that odd, incidental voice of his
which suggested that what he said was merely a small
portion of what he thought.

"Why — yes, I reckon so," hesitated Johnnie.
"It's a pretty far way, and there don't many folks
travel on it. It's an old Indian trail; a heap of our
roads here are that; but it'll take you right to the
railroad — the W. and A."

Her companion chuckled, seemingly with some
inner satisfaction.

"Yes, that's just what I supposed. I soldiered all
over this country, and I thought it was about as pretty
scenery as God ever made. I promised myself then
that if I ever came back into this part of the world,
I'd do some tramping through here. They're going
to have a great big banquet at Atlanta, and they had
me caged up taking me down there to make a speech.
I gave them the slip at Watauga. I knew I'd strike
the railroad if I footed it through the mountains here."

Johnnie examined her companion with attention.
Would it do to ask him if he had seen an automobile
on the road — a dark green car ? Dare she make
inquiry as to whether he had heard of Gray Stod-
dard's disappearance, or met any of the searchers ?
She decided on a conservative course.

THE ATLAS VERTEBRA 309

"I wish I had time to set you in the right road,"
she hesitated; "but my poor old uncle is out here
somewhere among these ridges and ravines; he's
not in his right mind, and I've got to find him if I
can."

"Crazy, do you mean?" asked her companion,
with a quick yet easy, smiling attention. "I'd like
to see him, if he's crazy. I take a great interest in
crazy folks. Some of 'em have a lot of sense left."

Johnnie nodded.

"He doesn't know any of us," she said pitifully.
'They've had him in the hospital three months, trying
to do something for him; but the doctors say he'll
never be well."

"That's right hopeful," observed the man, with
a plainly intentional, dry ludicrousness. "I always
think there's some chance when the doctors give 'em
up — and begin to let 'em alone. How was he hurt,
sis'?"

Johnnie did not pause to reflect that she had not
said Uncle Pros was hurt at all. For some reason
which she would herself have been at a loss to explain,
she hastened to detail to this chance-met stranger
the exact appearance and nature of Pros Passmore's
injuries, her listener nodding his head at this or that
point; making some comment or inquiry at another.

"The doctors say that they would suppose it was a
fractured skull, or concussion of the brain, or something
like that; but they've examined him and there is
nothing to see on the outside; and they trephined

3io THE POWER AND THE GLORY

and it didn't do any good; so they just let him stay
about the hospital."

"No," said her new friend softly, almost absently,
"it didn't do any good to trephine — but it might
have done a lot of harm. I'd like to see the back of
your uncle's neck. I ain't in any hurry to get to that
banquet at Atlanta — a man can always overeat
and make himself sick, without going so far to do it."

So, like an idle schoolboy, the unknown forsook
his own course, turning from the road when Johnnie
turned, and went with her up the steep, rocky gulch
where the door of a deserted cabin flung to and fro
on its hinges. At sight of the smokeless chimney,
the gaping doorway and empty, inhospitable interior,
Johnnie looked blank.

"Have you got anything to eat?" she asked her
companion, hesitatingly. "I came off in such a hurry
that I forgot all about it. Some people that I know
used to live in that cabin, and I hoped to get my dinner
there and ask after my uncle; but I see they have
moved."

"Sit right down here," said the stranger, indicating
the broad door-stone, around which the grass grew
tall. "We'll soon make that all right." He sought
in the pockets of the coat he carried slung across his
shoulder and brought out a packet of food. "I laid
in some fuel when I thought I might get the chance
to run my own engine across the mountains," he told
the girl, opening his bundle and dividing evenly.
He uttered a few musical words in an unknown tongue.

THE ATLAS VERTEBRA 311

" That's Indian," he commented carelessly, without
looking at her. "It means you're to eat your dinner.
I was with the Shawnees when I was a boy. I learned
a lot of their language, and I'll never forget it. They
taught me more things than talk."

Johnnie studied the man beside her as they ate their
bit of lunch.

" My name is Johnnie Consadine, sir," she told him.
"What shall I call you?"

Thus directly questioned, the unknown smiled quiz
zically, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners and
overflowing with good humour.

"Well, you might say 'Pap,'" he observed consider
ingly. "Lost of boys and girls do call me Pap —
more than a thousand of 'em, now, I guess. And
I'm eighty — mighty near old enough to have a girl
of nineteen."

She looked at him in astonishment. Eighty years
old, as lithe as a lad, and with a lad's clear, laughing
eye! Yet there was a look of power, of that knowl
edge which is power, in his face that made her say
to him:

"Do you think that Uncle Pros can ever be cured —
have his right mind back again, I mean ? Of course,
the cut on his head is healed up long ago."

"The cut on his head didn't make him crazy," said
her companion, murmuringly. "Of course it wasn't
that, or he would have been raving when he came
down from the mountain. Something happened to
him afterward."

3i2 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

"Yes, there did," Johnnie assented wonderingly -
falteringly. "I don't know how you came to guess
it, but the woman who told me that she was hiding
in the front room when they were quarrelling and
saw Uncle Pros fall down the steps, says he landed
almost square on his head. She thought at first his
neck was broken — that he was killed."

"Uh-huh," nodded the newcomer. "You see I'm
a good guesser. I make my living guessing things."
He flung her a whimsical, sidelong glance, as, having
finished their lunch, they rose and moved on. "I
wish I had my hands on the processes of that atlas
vertebra," he said.

"On — on what?" inquired Johnnie in a slightly
startled tone.

"Never mind, sis'. If we find him, and I can handle
him, I'll know where to look."

"Nobody can touch him but me when he gets out
this way," Johnnie said. "He acts sort of scared
and sort of fierce, and just runs and hides from people.
Maybe if you'll tell me what you want done, I could
do it."

" Maybe you could — and then again maybe you
couldn't," returned the other, with a great show of
giving her proposition serious consideration. "A
good many folks think they can do just what I can -
if I'd only tell 'em how — and sometimes they find
out they can't."

Upon the word, they topped a little rise, and Johnnie
laid a swift, detaining hand upon her companion's

THE ATLAS VERTEBRA 313

arm. At the roadside, in a little open, grassy space
where once evidently a cabin had stood, knelt the
figure of a gaunt old man. At first he seemed to the
approaching pair to be gesticulating and pointing,
but a moment's observation gave them the gleam of
a knife in his hand — he was playing mumblety-peg.
As they stood, drawn back near some roadside bushes,
watching him, the long, lean old arm went up, the
knife flashing against the knuckles of the clenched
fist and, with a whirl of the wrist, reversing swiftly
in air, to bury its blade in the soil before the player.

"Hi! Hi! Hi! I th'owed it. That counts two
for me," the cracked old falsetto shrilled out.

There on that grassy plot that might have been a
familiar dooryard of his early days, he was playing
alone, gone back to childhood. Johnnie gazed and
her eyes swam with unshed tears.

"You better not go up there — and him with the
knife and all," she murmured finally. The man
beside her looked around into her face and laughed.

O

"I'm not very bad scared," he said, advancing
softly in line with his proposed patient, motioning
the girl not to make herself known, or startle her
uncle.

Johnnie stole after him, filled with anxiety. When
the newcomer stood directly behind the kneeling man,
he bent, and his arms shot out with surprising quick
ness. The fingers of one hand dropped as though
predestined upon the back of the neck, the other caught
skilfully beneath the chin. There was a sharp wrench,

3 14 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

an odd crack, a grunt from Uncle Pros, and then the
mountaineer sprang to his full and very considerable
height with a roar. Whirling upon his adversary,
he grappled him in his long arms, hugging like a grizzly,
and shouting:

"You, Gid Himes, wha'r's my specimens ?"

He shook the stranger savagely.

"You an' Shade Buckheath — you p'ar o' scoun
drels — give me back my silver specimens! Give
me back my silver ore that shows about the mine for
my little gal."

"Uncle Pros! Uncle Pros!" screamed Johnnie,
rushing in and laying hold of the man's arm. "Don't
you know me ? It's Johnnie. Don't hurt this gentle
man."

The convulsion of rage subsided in the old man
\vith almost comical suddenness. His tense form
relaxed; he stumbled back, dropping his hands at
his sides and staring about him, then at Johnnie.

"Why, honey," he gasped, "how did you come
here? Whar's Gid? Whar's Shade Buckheath?
Lord A'mighty! Whar am I at?"

He looked around him bewildered, evidently expect
ing to see the porch of Himes's boarding-house at
Cottonville, the scattered bits of silver ore, and the
rifled bandanna. He put his hand to his head, and
sliding it softly down to the back of the neck demanded.

"What's been did to me?"

"You be right good and quiet now, and mind
Johnnie," the girl began, with a pathetic tremble in

THE ATLAS VERTEBRA 315

her voice, "and she'll take you back to the hospital
where they're so kind to you."

"The hospital?" echoed Pros. "That hospital
down at Cottonville ? I never was inside o' one o'
them places — what do you want me to go thar for,
Johnnie ? Who is this gentleman ? How came we-all
up here on the road this-a-way ?"

"I can quiet him," said Johnnie aside to her new
friend. "I always can when he gets wild this way."

The unknown shook his head.

"You'll never have to quiet him any more, unless
he breaks his neck again," came the announcement.
"Your uncle is as sane as anybody — he just doesn't
remember anything that happened from the time he
fell down the steps and slipped that atlas vertebra a
little bit on one side."

Again Pros Passmore's fingers sought the back of
his collar.

"Looks like somebody has been tryin' to wring
my neck, same as a chicken's," he said meditatively.
"But hit feels all right now — all right — Hoo-ee!"
he suddenly broke off to answer to a far, faint hail
from the road below them.

" Pap ! Hey — Pap ! " The words came up through
the clear blue air, infinitely diminished and attenuated,
like some insect cry. The tall man seemed to guess
just what the interruption would be. He turned with
a pettish exclamation.

"Never could go anywhere, nor have any fun, but
what some of the children had to tag," he protested.

3i6 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

"Hoo-ee!" He cupped his hands and sent his
voice toward where two men in a vehicle had halted
their horses and were looking anxiously up. "Well
-what is it?"

" Did you get lost ? We hired a buggy and came
out to find you," the man below called up.

"Well, if I get lost, I can find myself," muttered
the newcomer. He looked regretfully at the green
slopes about him; the lofty, impassive cliffs where
Peace seemed to perch, a visible presence; the great
sweeps of free forest; then at Uncle Pros and Johnnie.
And they looked back at him dubiously.

"I expect I'll have to leave you," he said at last.
"I see what it is those boys want; they're trying to
get me back to the railroad in time for the six-forty
train. I'd a heap rather stay here with you, but -
he glanced from Johnnie and Uncle Pros down to the
men in their attitude of anxious waiting — "I reckon
I'll have to go."

He had made the first descending step when Johnnie's
hand on his arm arrested him. Uncle Pros knew not
the wonder of his own restoration; but to the girl
this man before her was something more than mortal.
Her eyes went from the lightly tossed hair on his brow
to the mud-spattered boots — was he only a human
being ? What was the strange power he had over
life and death and the wandering soul of man ?

"What — what — aren't you going to tell me your
name, and what you are, before you go ?" she entreated
him.

THE ATLAS VERTEBRA 317

He laughed over his shoulder, an enigmatic laugh.

"What was it you did to Uncle Pros ?" Her voice
was vibrant with the awe and wonder of what she had
seen. "Was it the laying on of hands — as they tell
of it in the Bible?"

"Say, Pap, hurry up, please," wailed up the thin,
impatient reminder from the road.

" Well, yes — I laid my hands on him pretty strong.
Didn't I, old man?" And the stranger glanced to
tvhere Uncle Pros stood, still occasionally interrogat
ing the back of his neck with fumbling fingers. " Don't
you worry, sis'; a girl like you will get a miracle when
she has to have it. If I happened to be the miracle
you needed, why, that's good. As for my profession
— my business in life — there was a lot of folks that
used to name me the Lightning Bone-setter. For
my own part, I'd just as soon you'd call me a human
engineer. I pride myself on knowing how the struct
ure of man ought to work, and keeping the bearings
right and the machinery properly levelled up. Never
mind. Next time you have use for a miracle, it'll be
along on schedule time, without you knowing what
name you need to call it. You're that sort." With
that curious, onlooker's smile of his and with a nod
of farewell, he plunged down the steep.

CHAPTER XXIII

A CLUE

THEY stood together watching, as the tall form
retreated around the sharp curves of the red
clay road, or leaped lightly and hardily
down the cut-offs. They waved back to their late
companion when, climbing into the waiting buggy
below, he was finally driven away. Johnnie turned
and looked long at her uncle with swimming eyes,
as he stood gazing where the vehicle had disappeared.
She finally laid a tremulous hand on his arm.

"Oh, Uncle Pros," she said falteringly, "I can't
believe it yet. But you — you do understand me now,
don't you ? You know me. I'm Johnnie."

The old man wheeled sharply, and laughed.

"See here, honey," he said with a tinge of irritation
in his tones. "I reckon I've been crazy. From what
you say, looks like I haven't known my best friends
for a long time. But I have got as much sense now as I
ever had, and I don't remember anything about that
other business. Last thing I know of was fussin'
with Gid Himes and Shade Buckheath about my silver
ore. By Joe! I bet they got that stuff when I was
took -- Johnnie, was I took sudden ?"

He seated himself on the lush, ancient, deep-rooted

318

A CLUE 319

dooryard grass where, a half-hour gone, he had knelt,
a harmless lunatic, playing mumblety peg. Half
reluctantly Johnnie sank down beside him.

"Yes — yes — yes, Uncle Pros," the girl agreed,
impatience mounting in her once more, with the
assurance of her uncle's safety and well-being. "They
did get your specimens; but we can fix all that; there's
a worse thing happened now." And swiftly, suc-
cintly, she told him of the disappearance of Gray
Stoddard.

"An5 I been out o' my head six months and better,"
the old man ruminated, staring down at the ground.
"Good Lord ! it's funny to miss out part o' your days
like that. Hit was August — but — O-o-h, hot enough
to fry eggs on a shingle, the day I tramped down to
Cottonville with them specimens; and here it is" —he
threw up his head and took a comprehensive survey
of the grove about him- "airly spring — March, I
should say — ain't it, Johnnie ? Yes," as she nodded.
"And who is this here young man that you name that's
missin', honey ?"

The girl glanced at him apprehensively.

"You know, Uncle Pros," she said in a coaxing tone.
"It's Mr. Stoddard, that used to come to the hospital
to see you so much and play checkers with you when
you got better. You — why, Uncle Pros, you liked
him more than any one. He could get you to eat
when you wouldn't take a spoonful from anybody
else. You must remember him — you can't have
forgot Mr. Stoddard."

320 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Pros thrust out a long, lean arm, and fingered the
sleeve upon it.

"Nor my own clothes, I reckon," he assented with
a sort of rueful testiness; " but to the best of my knowin'
and believin', I never in my life before saw this shirt
I'm wearin '- — every garment I've got on is a plumb
stranger to me, Johnnie. Ye say I played checkers
with him — and -

"Uncle Pros, you used to talk to him by the hour,
when you didn't know me at all," Johnnie told him
chokingly. "I would get afraid that you asked too
much of him, but he'd leave anything to come and sit
with you when you were bad. He's got the kindest
heart of anybody I ever knew."

The old man's slow, thoughtful gaze was raised a
moment to her eloquent, flushed face, and then dropped
considerately to the path.

"An* ye tell me he's one of the rich mill owners?
Mr. Gray Stoddard ? That's one name you've never
named in your letters. What cause have you to think
that Shade wished the man ill ?"

Slowly Johnnie's eyes filled with tears. "Why,
what Shade said himself. He was -

"Jealous of him, I reckon," supplied the old man.

Johnnie nodded. It was no time for evasions.

"He had no call to be," she repeated. "Mr. Stod
dard had no more thought of me in that way than he
has of Deanie. He'd be just as kind to one as the
other. But Shade brought his name into it, and

O *

threatened him to me in so many words. He said -

A CLUE 321

she shivered at the recollection — "he said he'd fix
him — he'd get even with him. So this morning
when I found that Pap Himes and Shade had taken
Mr. Stoddard's car and come on up this way, it scared
me. Yet I couldn't hardly go to anybody with it.
I felt as though they would say it was just a vain,
foolish girl thinking she'd stirred up trouble and
had the men quarrelling over her. I did try to see
Mr. Hardwick and Mr. MacPherson, and both of them
were away. And after that I went to Mr. Hardwick's
house. The Miss Sessions I wrote you so much about
was the only person there, and she wouldn't do a thing.
Then I just walked up here on my two feet. Uncle
Pros, I was desperate enough for anything."

Passmore had listened intently to Johnnie's swift,
broken, passionate sentences.

"Yes — ye-es," he said, as she made an end. "I
sorter begin to see. Hold on, honey, lemme think
a minute."

He sat for some time silent, with introverted gaze,
Johnnie with difficulty restraining her impatience,
forbearing to break in upon his meditation.

"Hit cl'ars up to me — sorter — as I study on it,"
he finally said. "Hit's like this, honey; six months
ago (Lord, Lord, six months!) when I was walkin'
down to take that silver ore to you, Rudd Dawson
stopped me, and nothing would do but I must go
home with him — ye know he's got the old Gid Himes
place, in the holler back of our house — an' talk to
Will Venters, Jess Groner, and Rudd's brother Sam.

322 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

I didn't want to go — my head was plumb full of the
silver-mine business, an' I jest wanted to git down
to you quick as I could. The minute I said 'Johnnie,'
Rudd 'lowed he wanted to warn me about you down
in the Cottonville mills. He went over all that stuff
concerning Lura, an' how she'd been killed off in
the mill folk's hospital and her body shipped to Cin
cinnati and sold. I put in my word that you was
a-doin' well in the mills; an' I axed him what proof
he had that the mill folks sold dead bodies. I 'lowed
that you found the people at Cottonville mighty kind,
and the work good. He came right back at me sayin'
that Lura had talked the same way, and that many
another had. Well, I finally went with him to his
place — the old Gid Himes house — an' him an'
me an' Sam an' Groner had considerable talk. They
told me how they'd all been down an' saw Mr. Hard-
wick, and how quare he spoke to 'em. 'Them mill
fellers never offered me a dollar, not a dollar,' says
Rudd. An' I says to him, 'Good Lord, Dawson!
Never offered you money? For God's sake! Did
you want to be paid for Lura's body?' And he says,
'You know damn' well I didn't want to be paid for
Lura's body, Pros Passmore,' he says. 'But do you
reckon I'm a-goin' to let them mill men strut around
with money they got that-a-way in their pockets ? No,
I'll not. I'll see 'em cold in hell fust,' he says — them
Dawsons is a hard nation o' folks, Johnnie. I talked
to 'em for a spell, and tried to make 'em see that the
Hardwick folks hadn't never sold no dead body to

A CLUE 323

the student doctors; but they was all mad and out o'
theirselves. I seed that they wanted to get up a feud.
'Well,' says Rudd, 'They've got one of the Dawsons,
and before we're done we'll get one o' them/

"'Uh-huh,' I says, 'you-all air a-goin' to get one o'
them, air ye ? Do you mean by that that you're ready
to run your heads into a noose ?'

'We don't have to run our heads into nary noose,'
says Sam Dawson. 'Shade Buckheath is a-standin'
in with us. He knows all them mill fellers, an' their
ways. He aims to he'p us; an' we'll ketch one o'
them men out, and carry him off up here som'ers,
and hold him till they pay us what we ask. I reckon
the live body of one o' them chaps is worth a thousand
dollars.' That's jest what he said," concluded the
old man, turning toward her; "an' from what you tell
me, Johnnie, I'll bet Shade Buckheath put the words
in his mouth, if not the notion in his head."

"Yes," whispered Johnnie through white lips,
"yes; but Shade Buckheath isn't looking to make
money out of it. He knows better than to think that
they could keep Mr. Stoddard prisoner a while, and
then get money for bringing him back, and never
have to answer for it. He said he'd get even — he'd
fix him. Shade wants just one thing — Oh, Uncle
Pros! Do you think they've killed him ?"

The old man looked carefully away from her.

"This here kidnappin' business, an tryin' to get
money out of a feller's friends, most generally does
wind up in a killin'," he said. "The folks gits to

324 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

huntin' pretty hot, then them chat's done the trick
gets scared, and — they wouldn't have no good place
to put him, them Dawsons, and — and," reluctantly,
"a dead body's easier hid than a live man. Truth
is, hit looks mighty bad for the young feller, honey girl.
To my mind hit's really a question of time. The sooner
his friends gets to him the better, that's my belief."

Johnnie's pale, haggard face took on tragic lines
as she listened to this plain putting of her own worst
fears. She sprang up desperately. Uncle Pros rose,
too.

"Now, which way?" she demanded.

The old hunter stood, staring thoughtfully at the
path before his feet, rubbing his jaw with long, supple
fingers, the daze of his recent experience yet upon him.

"Well, I had aimed to go right to our old cabin,"
he said finally. "Hit's little more than a mile to where
Dawson lives, in Gid's old place in Blue Spring Holler.
They all think I'm crazy, an' they won't interfere
with me — - not till they find out different. Your
mother; she'll give us good help, once we git to her.
There's them that thinks Laurelly is light-minded and
childish, but I could tell 'em she's got a heap of sense
in that thar pretty little head o' her'n."

"Oh, Uncle Pros! I forgot you don't know — of
course you don't," broke in Johnnie with a sudden
dismay in her voice. "I ought to have told you that
mother" - she hesitated and looked at the old man —
"mother isn't up at the cabin any more. I left her in
Cotton ville this morning."

A CLUE 325

"Cottonville!" echoed Pros in surprise. Then
he added, " O' course, she came down to take care o'
me when I was hurt. That's like Laurelly. Is all the
chaps thar ? Is the cabin empty ? How's the baby ?"

Johnnie nodded in answer to these inquiries, for
bearing to go into any details. One thing she must
tell him.

"Mother's — mother's married again," she man
aged finally to say.

"She's - The old man broke off and turned
Johnnie around that he might stare into her face.
Then he laughed. "Well — well! Things have been
happenin' -- with the old man crazy an' all!" he
said. "An' yit I don't know it's so strange. Laurelly
is a mighty handsome little woman, and she don't
look a day older than you do, Johnnie. I reckon
it came through me bein' away, an' her havin' nobody
to do for her. 'Course" -with pride- "she could
have wedded 'most any time since your Pa died, if
she'd been so minded. Who is it ?"

Johnnie looked away from him. "I — Uncle Pros,
I never heard a word about it till I came home one
evening and there they were, bag and baggage, and
they'd been married but an hour before by Squire
Gaylord. It" -her voice sank almost to a whisper
-" It's Pap Himes."

The old man thrust her back and stared again.

"Gid — Gideon Himes?" he exclaimed incredu
lously. "Why, the man's old enough to be her grand-
daddy, let alone her father. Gid Himes — the old — •

326 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

What in the name of-- ? Johnnie — and you think
Himes is mixed up with this young man that's been
laywaid — him and Buckheath ? Lord, what is all
this business ?"

"When Shade found I wouldn't have him," Johnnie
began resolutely at the beginning, "he got Pap Himes
to take him to board so that he could always be at me,
tormenting me about it. I don't know what he and
Pap Himes had between them; but something — that
I'm sure of. And after the old man went up and mar
ried mother, it was worse. He p.ut the children in
the mill and worked them almost to death; even —
even Deanie," she choked back a sob. "And Shade
as good as told me he could make Pap Himes stop it
any time I'd promise to marry him. Something they
were pulling together over. Maybe it was the silver
mine."

"The silver mine!" echoed old Pros. "That's
it. Gid thought I was likely to die, and the mine
would come to your mother. Not but what he'd be
glad enough to get Laurelly — but that's what put
it in his head. An' Gid Himes is married to my little
Laurelly, an' been abusin' the children! Lord, hit
don't pay for a man to go crazy. Things gits out of
order without him."

"Well, what do you think now?" Johnnie inquired
impatiently. "We mustn't stay here talking when
Mr. Stoddard may be in mortal danger. Shall we go
on to our place, just the same ?"

The old man looked compassionately at her.

A CLUE 327

"Hold on, honey girl," he demurred gently.
"We- ' he sighted at the sun, which was declining
over beyond the ridges toward Watauga. "I'm
mighty sorry to pull back on ye, but we've got to get
us a place to stay for the night. See," he directed her
gaze with his own; "hit's not more'n a hour by sun.
We cain't do nothin' this evenin'."

The magnitude of the disappointment struck
Johnnie silent. Pros Passmore was an optimist, one
who never used a strong word to express sorrow or
dismay, but he came out of a brown study in which he
had muttered, "Blaylock. No, Harp wouldn't do.
Gulp's. Sally Ann's not to be trusted. What about
the Venable boys? No good" -to say with a dis
tressed drawing of the brows, " My God ! In a thing
like this, you don't know who to look to."

"No. That's so, Uncle Pros," whispered Johnnie;
she gazed back down the road she had come with the
stranger. "I went up Slater's Lane to find Mandy
Meacham's sister Roxy that married Zack Peavey,"
she said. "But they've moved from the cabin down
there. They must have been gone a good while, for
there's no work done on the truck-patch. I guess
they went up to the Nooning-Spring place — Mandy
said they talked of moving there. We might go and
see. Mandy" -she hesitated, and looked question-
ingly at her uncle — "Mandy's been awful good to
all of us, and she liked Mr. Stoddard."

"We'll try it," said Pros Passmore, and they set
out together.

3z8 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

They climbed in silence, using a little-travelled
woods-road, scarce more than two deep, grass-grown
ruts, full of rotting stumps. Suddenly a couple of
children playing under some wayside bushes leaped
up and ran ahead of them, screaming.

"Maw— he's comin' back, and he's got a woman
with him!"

A turn in the road brought the Nooning-Spring
cabin in sight, a tiny, one-roomed log structure, ancient
and ruinous; and in its door a young woman standing,
with a baby in her arms, staring with all her eyes at
them and at their approaching couriers.

She faltered a step toward the dilapidated rail fence
as they came up.

"Howdy," she said in a low, half-frightened tone.
Then to Uncle Pros, " We-all was mighty uneasy when
you never come back."

Involuntarily the old man's hand went to that
vertebra whose eighth-inch displacement had been
so lately reduced.

"Have I been here?" he asked. "I was out of
my head, and I don't remember it."

The young woman looked at him with a hopeless
drawing of scant, light eyebrows above bulging gray
eyes. She chugged the fretting baby gently up and
down in her arms to hush it. Johnnie saw her resem
blance to Mandy. Apparently giving up the effort
in regard to the man, Zack Peavey's wife addressed
the girl as an easier proposition.

"He was here," she said in a sort of aside. "He

A CLUE 329

stayed all night a-Saturday. Zack said he was kinder
foolish, but I thought he had as much sense as most
of 'em." Her gaze rested kindly on the old man.
The children, wild and shy as young foxes, had stolen
to the door of the cabin, in which they had taken
refuge, and were staring out wonderingly.

"Well, we'll have to ask you could we stay to-night,"
Johnnie began doubtfully. "My uncle's been out of
his head, and he got away from the folks at the hospital.
I came up to hunt for him. I've just found him -
but we aren't going right back. I met a man out there
on the road that did something to him that — that -
she despaired of putting into words that the woman
could comprehend the miracle which she had seen the
stranger work- "Well, Uncle Pros is all right now,
and we'd like to stay the night if we can."

"Come in — come in — the both of you," urged
the woman, turning toward the cabin. "'Course,
ye kin stay, an' welcome. Set and rest. Zack ain't
home now. He's - A curious, furtive look went
over her round face. "Zack has got a job on hand,
ploughing for — ploughing for a neighbour, but he'll
be home to-night."

They went in and sat down. A kettle of wild greens
was cooking over the fire, and everything was spot
lessly clean. Mandy had said truly that there wasn't
a thing on the farm she didn't love to do, and the
gift of housewifery ran in the family. Johnnie had
barely explained who she was, and made such effort
as she could to enlist Mandy's sister, when Zack came

330 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

tramping home, and showed, she thought, some
uneasiness at finding them there. The wife ran out
and met him before he reached the cabin, and they
stood talking together a long time, the lines of both
figures somehow expressing dismay; yet when they
came in there was a fair welcome in the man's de
meanour. At the supper table, whose scanty fare
was well cooked, Uncle Pros and Johnnie had to
tell again, and yet again, the story of that miracu
lous healing which both husband and wife could see
was genuine.

Through it all, both Pros and Johnnie attempted
to lead the talk around to some information which
might be of use to them. Nothing was more natural
than that they should speak of Gray Stoddard's dis
appearance, since Watauga, Cottonville, and the moun
tains above were full of the topic; yet husband and
wife sheered from it in a sort of terror.

"Them that makes or meddles in such gits their-
selves into trouble, that's what I say," Zack told the
visitors, stroking a chin whose contours expressed the
resolution and aggressiveness of a rabbit. "I ain't
never seen this here Mr. Man as far as I know. I don't
never want to see him. I ain't got no call to mix
myself up in such, and I 'low I'll sleep easier and live
longer if I don't do it."

"That's right," quavered Roxy. "Burkhalter's boy,
he had to go to mixin' in when the Gulps and the
Venables was feudin'; and look what chanced. Nary
one o' them families lost a man; but Burkhalter's

A CLUE 331

boy got hisself killed up. Yes, that's what happened
to him. Dead. I went to the funeral."

"True as Scriptur'," confirmed Zack - "reach
an' take off, Pros. Johnnie, eat hearty — true as
you-all set here. I he'ped make the coffin an' dig
the grave."

After a time there came a sort of ruth to Johnnie
for the poor creatures, furtive, stealing glances at
each other, and answering her inquiries or Uncle Pros's
with dry, evasive platitudes. She knew there was
no malice in either of them; and that only the abject
terror of the weak kept them from giving whatever
bit of information it was they had and were consciously
withholding. Soon she ceased plying them with ques
tions, and signalled Uncle Pros that he should do the
same. After the children were asleep in their trundle-
bed, the four elders sat by the dying fire on the hearth
and talked a little. Johnnie told Zack and Roxy
of the mill work at Cottonville, how well she had got
on, and how good Mr. Stoddard had been to her,
choking over the treasured remembrances. She related
the many kindnesses that had been shown Pros and
his kinfolk at the Hospital, how the old man had been
there for three months, treated as a guest during the
latter part of his stay rather than a patient, and how
Mr. Stoddard would leave his work in the office to
come and cheer the sick man, or quiet him if he got
violent.

"He looked perfectly dreadful when I first saw him,"
she said to them, "but the doctors took care of him as

332 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

if he'd been a little baby. The nurses fed him by
spoonfuls and coaxed him just like you would little
Honey; and Mr. Stoddard — he never was too busy
to - " the tears brimmed her eyes in the dusky cabin
interior — "to come when Uncle Pros begged for him."

The woman sighed and stirred uneasily, her eye
stealthily seeking her husband's.

In that little one-room hut there was no place for
guests. Presently the men drifted out to the chip
pile, where they lingered a while in desultory talk.
Roxy and Johnnie, partly undressed, occupied the
one bed; and later the host and his guest came in and
lay down, clothed just as they were, with their feet to
the fire, and slept.

In the darkness just before dawn, Johnnie wakened
from heavy sleep and raised her head to find that a
clear fire was burning on the hearth and the two men
were gone. Noiselessly she arose, and replaced her
outer wear, thinking to slip away without disturbing
Roxy. But when she returned softly to the interior,
after laving face and hands out at the wash-basin,
and ordering her abundant hair, she found the little
woman up and clad, slicing bacon and making coffee
of generous strength from their scanty store.

"No — why, the idea!" cried Roxy. "Of course,
you wasn't a-goin' on from no house o' mine 'thout no
breakfast. .Why, I say!"

Johnnie's throat swelled at the humble kindness.
They ate, thanked Roxy and her man Zack in the
simple uneffusive mountain fajshion, and started away

A CLUE 333

in the twilight of dawn. The big road was barely
reached, when they heard steps coming after them in
the dusk, and a breathless voice calling in a whisper,
"Johnnie! Johnnie!"

The two turned and waited till Roxy came up.

"I — ye dropped this on the floor," the woman
said, fumbling in her pocket and bringing out a bit of
paper. "I didn't know as it was of any value — and
then again I didn't know but what it might be.
Johnnie - ' she broke off and stood peering hesitat
ingly into the gloom toward the girl's shining face.

With a quick touch of the arm Johnnie signed to
Pros to move on. As he swung out of earshot, the
bulging light eyes, so like Mandy's, were suddenly
dimmed by a rush of tears.

"I reckon he'd beat me ef he knowed I told," Roxy
gasped. "He ain't never struck me yit, and us married
five year — but I reckon he'd beat me for that."

Johnnie wisely forbore reply or interference of any
sort. The woman gulped, drew her breath hard,
and looked about her.

" Johnnie," she whispered again, "the — that there
thing they ride in — the otty-mobile — hit broke
dbwn, and Zack was over to Pres Blevin's blacksmith
shop a-he'pin' 'em work on it all day yesterday. You
know Pres — he married Lura Dawson's aunt.
Neither Himes nor Buckheath could git it to move,
but by night they had it a-runnin' - — or so hit would
run. That's why you never saw tracks of it on the
toad — hit hadn't been along thar yit. But hit's

334 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

went on this morning. No — no — no! I don't know
whar it went. I don't know what they was aimin'
to do. I don't know nothin'! Don't ask me, Johnnie
Consadine, I reckon I've said right now what's put
my man's neck in danger. Oh, my God — I wish
the men-folks would quit their fussin' an' feudin'!"
And she turned and ran distractedly back into the
cabin while Johnnie hurried on to join her uncle.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE RESCUE

JOHNNIE caught her uncle's hand and ran
with him through the little thicket of saplings
toward the main road.

"We'll get the track of the wheels, and when we find
that car — and Shade Buckheath — and Pap Himes.
. . . I. . . ." Johnnie panted, and did not
finish her sentence. Her heart leaped when they came
upon the broad mark of the pneumatic tires still fresh
in the lonely mountain road.

"Looks like they might have passed here while
we was standin' back there talkin' to Roxy," Uncle
Pros said. "They could have — we'd not have heard
a thing that distance, through this thick woods. Won
der could we catch up with them ?"

Johnnie shook her head. She remembered the
car flying up the ascents, swooping down long slopes
and skimming like a bird across the levels, that morn
ing when she had driven it.

"They'll go almost as fast as a railroad train, Uncle
Pros," she told him, "but we must get there as soon
as we can."

After that scarcely a word was spoken, while the
two, still hand in hand, made what speed they could.

335

336 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

The morning waxed. The March sunshine was
warm and pleasant. It was even hot, toiling endlessly
up that mountain road. Now and again they met
people who knew and saluted them, and who looked
back at them curiously, furtively; at least it seemed
so to the old man and the girl. Once a lean, hawk-
nosed fellow ploughing a hillside field shouted across
it:

" Hey-oh, Pros Passmore ! How yuh come on ?
I 'lowed the student doctors would 'a' had you, long
ago."

Pros ventured no reply, save a wagging of the head.

"That's Blaylock's cousin," he muttered to Johnnie.
"Mighty glad we never went near 'em last night."

Once or twice they were delayed to talk. Johnnie
would have hurried on, but her uncle warned her with
a look to do nothing unusual. Everybody spoke to
them of Gray Stoddard. Nobody had seen anything
of him within a month of his disappearance, but
several of them had "hearn say."

"They tell me," vouchsafed a lanky boy dawdling
with his axe at a chip pile, "that the word goes in
Cottonville now, that he's took money and lit out for
Canada. Town folks is always a-doin' such."

"Like as not, bud," Pros assented gravely. "Me
and Johnnie is goin' up to look after the old house,
but we allowed to sleep to-night at Bushares's. Time
enough to git to our place to-morrow."

Johnnie, who knew that her uncle hoped to reach
the Consadine cabin by noon, instantly understood

THE RESCUE 337

that he considered the possibility of this boy being
a sort of picket posted to interview passers-by; and
that the intention was to misinform him, so that he
should not carry news of their approach.

After this, they met no one, but swung on at their
best pace, and for the most part in silence, husbanding
strength and breath. Twelve o'clock saw them enter
ing that gash of the hills where the little cabin crouched
against the great mountain wall. The ground became
so rocky, that the track of the automobile was lost.
At first it would be visible now and again on a bit of
sandy loam, chain marks showing, where the tire left
no impression; but, within a mile or so of the Con-
sadine home, it seemed to have left the trail. When
this point arrived, Johnnie differed from her uncle
in choosing to hold to the road.

"Honey, this ends the cyar-tracks. Looks like
they'd turned out. I think they took off into the bushes
here, and where that cyar goes we ought to go," Pros
argued.

But Johnnie hurried on ahead, looking about her
eagerly. Suddenly she stooped with a cry and picked
up from the path a small object.

"They've carried him past this way," she panted.
"Oh, Uncle Pros, he was right here not so very long
ago."

She scrutinized the sparse growth, the leafless
bushes about the spot, looking for signs of a struggle,
and the question in her heart was, "My God, was
he alive or dead?" The thing she held in her hand

338 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

was a blossom of the pink moccasin flower, carefully
pressed, as though for the pages of a herbarium. The
bit of paper to which it was attached was crumpled
and discoloured.

"Looks like it had laid out in the dew last night,"
breathed Johnnie.

"Or for a week," supplied Pros. He scanned the
little brown thing, then her face.

"All right," he said dubiously; "if that there tells
you that he come a-past here, we'll foller this road -
though it 'pears to me like we ought to stick to the
cyar."

"It isn't far to our house," urged Johnnie. "Let's
go there first, anyhow."

For a few minutes they pressed ahead in silence;
then some subtle excitement made them break into
a run. Thus they rounded the turn. The cabin
came in sight. Its door swung wide on complaining
hinges. The last of the rickety fence had fallen.
The desolation and decay of a deserted house was over
all.

'There's been folks here — lately," panted Pros.
"Look thar!" and he pointed to a huddle of baskets
and garments on the porch. "Mind out! Go
careful. They may be thar now."

They "went careful," stealing up the steps and
entering with caution; but they found nothing more
alarming than the four bare walls, the ash-strewn,
fireless hearth, the musty smell of a long-unoccupied
house. Near the back door, at a spot where the dust

THE RESCUE 339

was thick, Uncle Pros bent to examine a foot-print,
when an exclamation from Johnnie called him through
to the rear of the cabin.

"See the door!" she cried, running up the steep
way toward the cave spring-house.

"Hold on, honey. Go easy," cautioned her uncle,
following as fast as he could. He noted the whittling
where the sapling bar that held the stout oaken door
in place had been recently shaped to its present pur
pose. Then a soft, rhythmic sound like a giant breath
ing in his sleep caught the old hunter's keen ear.

"Watch out, Johnnie," he called, catching her arm.
"What's that? Listen!"

Her fingers were almost on the bar. They could
hear the soft lip-lip of the water as it welled out beneath
the threshold, mingled with the tinkle and fall of the
spring branch below.

Johnnie turned in her uncle's grasp and clutched
him, staring down. Something shining and dark,
brave with brass and flashing lamps, stood on the
rocky way beneath, and purred like a great cat in the
broad sunlight of noon — Gray Stoddard's motor
car! The two, clinging to each other on the steep
above it, gazed half incredulous, now that they had
found the thing they sought. It looked so unbeliev
ably adequate and modern and alive standing there,
drawing its perfectly measured breath; it was so elo
quent of power and the work of men's hands that there
seemed to yawn a gap of half a thousand years be
tween it and the raid in which it was being: made a

340 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

factor. That this pet toy of the modern millionaire
should be set to work out the crude vengeance of wild
men in these primitive surroundings, crowded up on
a little rocky path of these savage mountains, at the
door of a cave spring-house — such a food-cache as a
nomad Indian might have utilized, in the gray bluff
against the sky-line — it took the breath with its
sinister strangeness.

They turned to the barred door. The cave was
a sizable opening running far back into the mountain;
indeed, the end of it had never been explored, but
the vestibule containing the spring was fitted with rude
benches and shelves for holding pans of milk and jars
of buttermilk.

As Johnnie's hand went out to the newly cut bar,
her uncle once more laid a restraining grasp upon it.
A dozen men might be on the other side of the oaken
door, and there might be nobody.

"Hello!" he called, guardedly.

No answer came; but within there was a sound of
clinking, and then a shuffling movement. The pant
ing motor spoke loud of those who had brought it
there, who must be expecting to return to it very
shortly. Johnnie's nerves gave way.

"Hello! Is there anybody inside?" she demanded
fearfully.

"Who's there? Who is it?" came a muffled hail
from the cave, in a voice that sent the blood to Johnnie's
heart with a sudden shock.

"Uncle Pros, we've found him!" she screamed,

THE RESCUE 341

pushing the old man aside, and tugging at the bar
which held the door in place. As she worked, there
came a curious clinking sound, and then the dull im
pact of a heavy fall; and when she dragged the bar
loose, swung the door wide and peered into the gloom,
there was nothing but the silvery reach of the great
spring, and beyond it a prone figure in russet riding-
clothes.

"Uncle Pros — he's hurt! Oh, help me!" she cried.

The prostrate man struggled to turn his face to
them.

"Is that you, Johnnie?" Gray Stoddard's voice
asked. "No, I'm not hurt. These things tripped
me up."

The two got to him simultaneously. They found
him in heavy shackles. They noted how ankle and
wrist chains had been rivetted in place. Together
they helped him up.

As they did so tears ran down Johnnie's cheeks
unregarded. Passmore deeply moved, yet quiet, stud
ied him covertly. This, then, was the man of whom
Johnnie thought so much, the rich young fellow who
had left his work or amusements to come and cheer
a sick old man in the hospital; this was the face that
was a stranger's to him, but which had leaned over his
cot or sat across the checker-board from him for long
hours, while they talked or played together. That face
was pale now, the brown hair, "a little longer than
other people wore it," tossed helplessly in Stoddard's
eyes, because he scarcely could raise his shackled

342 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

hands to put it right; his russet-brown clothing was
torn and grimed, as though with more than one
struggle, though it may have been nothing worse than
such mishap as his recent fall. Yet the man's soul
looked out of his eyes with the same composure, the
same kindness that always were his. He was eaten
by neither terror nor rage, though he was alert for
every possibility of help, or of advantage.

"You, Johnnie — you!" whispered Gray, struggling
to his knees with their assistance, and catching a fold
of her dress in those manacled hands. "I have
dreamed about you here in the dark. It is you — it
is really Johnnie."

He was pale, dishevelled, with a long mark of black
leaf-mould across his cheek from his recent fall; and
Johnnie bent speechlessly to wipe the stain away and
put back the troublesome lock. He looked up into
the brave beauty of her young, tear-wet face.

'Thank God for you, Johnnie," he murmured. "I
might have known I wouldn't be let to die here in the
dark like a rat in a hole while Johnnie lived."

"Whar's them that brought you here? The
keepers?" questioned the old man anxiously, in a
hoarse, hurried whisper.

" Dawson's gone to his dinner," returned Gray.
"There were others here — came in an auto — I
heard that. They've been quarrelling for more than
an hour."

"About what they'd do with you," broke in Pros.
"Yes, part of 'em wants to put you out of the way,

THE RESCUE 343

of course." He stooped, eagerly examining the shackles
on Gray's ankles. "No way to git them things off
without time and a file," he muttered, shaking his
head.

"No," agreed Stoddard. "And I can't run much
with them on. But we must get away from here as
quick as we can. Dawson came in and told me after
the other had gone that they had a big row, and he
was standing out for me. Said he'd never give in to
have me taken down and tied on the railroad track
in Stryver's Gulch."

Johnnie's fair face whitened at the sinister words.

"The car!" she cried. "It's your own, Mr.
Stoddard, and it's right down here. Uncle Pros,
we can get him to it — I can run it — I know how."
She put her shoulder under Stoddard's, catching the
manacled hand in hers. Pros laid hold on the other
side, and between them they half carried the shackled
captive around the spring and to the door.

"Leggo, Johnnie!" cried her uncle. "You run
on down and see if that contraption will go. I can git
him thar now."

Johnnie instantly loosed the arm she held, sprang
through the doorway, and headlong down the bluffy
steep, stones rattling about her. She leaped into the
car. Would her memory serve her ? Would she for
get some detail that she must know ? There were
two levers under the steering-wheel. She advanced
her spark and partly opened the throttle. From the
steady, comfortable purr which had undertoned all

344 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

sounds in the tiny glen, the machine burst at once
into a deep-toned roar. The narrow depression
vibrated with its joyous clamour.

Suddenly, above the sound, Johnnie was aware of
a distant hail, which finally resolved itself into words.

"Hi! Hoo — ee! You let that car alone, whoever
you are."

She glanced over her shoulder; Passmore had got
Gray to the top of the declivity, and was attempting
to help him down. Both men evidently heard the
challenge, but she screamed to them again and again.

"Hurry, oh hurry! They're coming — they're com-
ing."

Stoddard had been stepping as best he could, hob
bling along in the hampering leg chains, that were
attached to the wrists also, and twitched on his hands
with every step. His muscles responded to Johnnie's
cry almost automatically, stiffening to an effort at
extra speed, and he fell headlong, dragging Pros
down with him. Despairingly Johnnie started to
climb down from the car and go to their aid, but
her uncle leaped to his feet clawing and grabbing to
find a hold around Gray's waist, panting out, "Stay
thar -- Johnnie — I can fetch him."

With a straining heave he hoisted Gray's helpless
body into his arms. The car trembled like a great,
eager monster, growling in leash. Johnnie's agonized
eyes searched first its mechanism, and then went to
the descending figures, where her uncle plunged des
perately down the slope, fell, struggled, rolled, but

THE RESCUE 345

rose and came gallantly on, half dragging, half carry
ing Gray in his arms.

"Let that car alone!" a new voice took up the hail,
a little nearer this time; and after it came the sound of
a shot. High up on the mountain's brow, against
the sky, Johnnie caught a glimpse of the heads and
shoulders of men, with the slanting bar of a gun barrel
over one.

"Oh, hurry, Uncle Pros!" she sobbed. "Let me
come back and help you."

But Passmore stumbled across the remaining space;
mutely, with drawn face and loud, labouring breath
he lifted Gray and thrust him any fashion into the
tonneau, climbing blindly after.

The pursuit on the hill above broke into the open.
Johnnie moved the levers as Gray had shown her how
to do, and with a bound of the great machine, they
were off. Stoddard, dazed, bruised, abraded, was back
in the tonneau struggling up with Uncle Pros's assis
tance. He could not help her. She must know for
herself and do the right thing. The track led through
the bushes, as they had found it that morning. It
was fairly good, but terribly steep. She noted that
the speed lever was at neutral. She slipped it over
to the first speed; the car was already leaping down
the hill at a tremendous pace; yet those yelling voices
were behind, and her pushing fingers carried the
lever through second to the third speed without pausing.

Under this tremendous pressure the car jumped like
a nervous horse, lurched drunkenly down the short

346 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

way, but reeled successfully around the turn at the
bottom. Johnnie knew this was going too fast. She
debated the possibility of slackening the speed a bit
as they struck the highway, such as it was. Uncle
Pros, yet gasping, was trying to help Gray into the
seat; but with his hampering manacles and the jerking
of the car, the younger man was still on his knees,
when the chase burst through the bushes, scarcely
more than three hundred feet behind them.

There was a hoarse baying of men's voices; there
were four of them running hard, and two carried guns.
The noise of the machine, of course, prevented its
occupants from distinguishing any word, but the men
ace of the open pursuit was apparent.

"Johnnie!" cried Gray. "Oh, this won't do!
For God's sake, Mr. Passmore, help me over there.
They wouldn't want to hurt her — but they're going
to shoot. She -

The old man thrust Gray down, with a hand on
his shoulder.

"You keep out o' range," he shouted close to Gray's
ear. "They won't aim to hit Johnnie; but you
they'll pick off as far as they can see ye. Bend low,
honey," to the girl in the driver's seat. " But freeze
to it. Johnnie ain't no niece of mine if she goes back
on a friend."

The girl in front heard neither of them. There
was a bellowing detonation, and a spatter of shot
fell about the flying car.

"That ain't goin' to hurt nobody," commented

THE RESCUE 347

Pros philosophically. "It's no more than buck-shot
anyhow."

But on the word followed a more ominous crack,
and there was the whine of a bullet above them.

"My God, I can't let her do this," Gray protested.
But Johnnie turned over her shoulder a shining face
from which all weariness had suddenly been erased,
a glorified countenance that flung him the fleeting
smile she had time to spare from the machine.

"You're in worse danger right now from my driving
than you are from their guns," she panted.

As she spoke there sounded once more the ripping
crack of a rifle, the singing of a bullet past them, and
with it the flatter, louder noise of the shot-gun was
repeated. Her eye in the act of turning to her task,
caught the silhouette of old Gideon Himes's uncouth
figure relieved against the noonday sky, as he sprang
high, both arms flung up, the hands empty and clutch
ing, and pitched headlong to his face. But her mind
scarcely registered the impression, for a rifle ball
struck the shaly edge of a bluff under which the road
at this point ran, and tore loose a piece of the slate-
like rock, which glanced whirling into the tonneau
and grazed Gray Stoddard's temple. He fell forward,
crumpling down into the bottom of the vehicle.

"On — go on, honey!" yelled Pros, motioning
vehemently to the girl. " Don't look back here — I'll
tend to him"; and he stooped over the motionless
form.

Then came the roaring impression of speed, of

348 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

rushing bushes that gathered themselves and ran back
past the car while, working under full power, it stood
stationary, as it seemed to Johnnie, in the middle
of a long, dusty gray ribbon that was the road. The
cries of the men behind them, all sounds of pursuit,
were soon left so far in the distance that they were
unheard.

"Ain't this rather fast?" shouted Uncle Pros, who
had lifted Stoddard's bleeding head to his knee and,
crouched on the bottom of the tonneau, was shielding
the younger man from further injury as the motor
lurched and pitched.

"Yes, it's too fast," Johnnie screamed back to him.
"I'm trying to go slower, but the foot-brake won't
hold. Uncle Pros, is he hurt ? Is he hurt bad ?"

"I don't think so, honey," roared the old man
stoutly, guarding Gray's inert body with his arm.
Then, stretching up as he kneeled, and leaning forward
as close to her ear as he could get: "But you git
him to Cottonville quick as you can. Don't you
werry about goin' slow, unlessen you're scared your
self. Thar ain't no tellin' who might pop up from
behind these here bushes and take a chance shot at us
as we go by."

Johnnie worked over her machine wildly. Gray
had told her of the foot-brake only; but her hand en
countering the lever of the emergency brake, she grasped
it at a hazard and shoved it forward, as the god of
luck had ordered, just short of a zigzag in the steep
mountain road which, at the speed they had been

THE RESCUE 349

making, would have piled them, a mass of wreckage,
beneath the cliff.

The sudden, violent check — shooting along at the
speed they were, it amounted almost to a stoppage
— gave the girl a sense of power. If she could do that,
they were fairly safe. With the relief, her brain
cleared; she was able to study the machine with
some calmness. Gray could not help her — out of
the side of her eye she could see where he lay inert
and senseless in Passmore's hold. The lives of all
three depended on her cool head at this moment.
She remembered now all that Stoddard had said the
morning he taught her to run the car. With one move
ment she threw off the switch, thus stopping the engine,
entirely. They must make it to Cottonville running
by gravity wherever they could; since she had no
means of knowing that there was sufficient gasoline
in the tank, and it would not do to be overtaken or
waylaid.

On and on they flew, around quick turns, along nar
row ways that skirted tall bluffs, over stretches of
comparatively level road, where Johnnie again
switched on the engine and speeded up. They were
skimming down from the upper Unakas like a great
bird whose powerful wings make nothing of distance.
But Johnnie's heart was as lead when she glanced back
at the motionless figure in the tonneau, the white, blood-
streaked face that lay on her uncle's arm. She turned
doggedly to her steering-wheel and levers, and took
greater chances than ever with the going, for speed's

350 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

sake. The boy they had talked with two hours before
at the chip pile, met them afoot. He leaped into the
bushes to let them pass, and stared after them with
dilated eyes. Johnnie never knew what he shouted.
They only saw his mouth open and working. Merci
fully, so far, they had met no vehicles. But now the
higher, wilder mountains were behind them, there
was an occasional horseman. As they neared Cot-
tonville, and teams were numerous on the road,
Johnnie, jealously unwilling to slacken speed, kept
the horn going almost continuously. People in wagons
and buggies, or on foot, drawn out along the roadside,
cupped hands to lips and yelled startled inquiries.
Johnnie bent above the steering-wheel and paid no
attention. Uncle Pros tried to answer with gesticu
lation or a shouted word, and sometimes those he
replied to turned and ran, calling to others. But
it was black Jim, riding on Roan Sultan, out with the
searchers, who saw and understood. He looked down
across the great two-mile turn beyond the Gap, and
sighted the climbing car. Where he stood it was less
than an eighth of a mile below him; he could almost
have thrown a stone into it. He bent in his saddle,
shaded his eyes, and gazed intently.

" Fo' God ! " he muttered under his breath. " That's
Mr. Gray hisself ! Them's the clothes he was wearin' ! "

Whirling his horse and digging in the spurs, he
rattled pell-mell down the opposite steep toward Cot-
tonville, shouting as he went.

"They've done got him — they've found him! Miss

THE RESCUE 351

Johnnie Consadine's a-bringin' him down in his own
cyar!"

At the Hardwick place, where the front lawn sloped
down with its close-trimmed, green-velvet sward,
stood two horses. Charlie Conroy had come out as
soon as the alarm was raised to help with the search.
He and Lydia had ridden together each day since.
Moving slowly along a quiet ravine yesterday, out
of sight and hearing of the other searchers, Conroy
had found an intimate moment in which to urge his
suit. She had begged a little time to consider, with so
encouraging an aspect that, this morning, when he
came out that they might join the party bound for
the mountains, he brought the ring in his pocket.
The bulge of the big diamond showed through her
left-hand glove. She had taken him at last. She
told herself that it was the only thing to do. Harriet
Hardwick, who had returned from Watauga, since
her sister would not come to her, stood in the door
of the big house regarding them with a countenance
of distinctly chastened rejoicing. Conroy's own frame
or mind was evident; deep satisfaction radiated from
his commonplace countenance. He was to be Jerome
Hardwick's brother-in-law, an intimate member of
the mill crowd. He was as near being in love with
Lydia Sessions at that moment as he ever would be.
As for Lydia herself, the last week had brought that
thin face of hers to look all of its thirty odd years;
and the smile which she turned upon her affianced

352 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

was the product of conscientious effort. She was safely
in her saddle, and Conroy had iust swung up to his
own. when Jim came pelting down the Gap road
toward the village. They could see him across the
slope of the hill. Conroy cantered hastily up the
street a bit to hear what the boy was vociferating.
Lydia's nerves quivered at sight of him returning.

"Hurrah! Hurrah!" shouted Conroy, waving his
cap. "Lord, Lord; Did you hear that, Lydia:
Hoo-ee, Mrs. Hardwick! Did you hear what Jim's
saying? They've got Gray! Johnnie Consadine's
bringing him — in his own car." Then turning once

O O O

more to his companion: "Come on. dear; we'll ride
right down to the hospital. Jim said he was hurt.
That's where she would take him. That Johnnie
Consadine of yours is the girl — isn't she a wonder,
though :"

o

Lydia braced herself. It had come, and it was
worse than she could have anticipated. She cringed
inwardly in remembrance; she wished she had not
let Conroy make that pitying reference — unreproved,
uncorrected — to Stoddard's being a rejected man.
But perhaps they were bringing Gray in dead, after
all — she tried not to hope so.

The auto became visible, a tiny dark speck, away
up in the Gap. Then it was sweeping down the Gap
road; and once more Conroy swung his cap and
shouted, though it is to be questioned that any one
marked him.

Below in the village the noisy clatter brought people

THE RESCUE 353

to door and casement. At the Himes boarding-house,
a group had gathered by the gate. At the window
above, in an arm-chair, sat a thin little woman with
great dark eyes, holding a sick child in her lap. The
sash was up, and both were carefully wrapped in a big
shawl that was drawn over the two of them.

"Sis' Johnnie is comin' back; she sure is comin'
back soon," Laurella was crooning to her baby. "And
we ain't goin'' to work in no cotton mill, an' we ain't
goin' to live in this ol' house any more. Next thing
we're a-goin' away with Sis' Johnnie and have a fi-ine
house, where Pap Himes can't come about to be cross
to Deanie."

High up on Unaka Mountain, where a cluttered
mass of rock reared itself to front the noonday sun, an
old man's figure, prone, the hands clutched full of
leaf-mould, the gray face down amid the fern, Gideon
Himes would never offer denial to those plans, nor
seek to follow to that tine house.

The next moment an automobile flashed into sight
coming clown the long lower slope from the Gap,
the horn blowing continuously, horsemen, pedestrians,
buggies and wagons fleeing to the roadside bushes as
it roared past in its cloud of dust.

"Look, honey, look — yon's Sis' Johnnie now!"
cried Laurella. "She's a-runnin' Mr. Stoddard's
car. An' thar's L nc' Pros. . . . Is — my Lord!
Is that Mr. Stoddard hisself, with blood all over him : "

Lydia and Conroy, hurrying down the street, drew
up on the fringes of the little crowd that had gathered

354 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

and was augmenting every moment, and Johnnie's
face was turned to Stoddard in piteous questioning.
His eyes were open now. He raised himself a bit on
her uncle's arm, and declared in a fairly audible voice:

"I'm all right. I'm not hurt."

"Somebody git me a glass of water," called Uncle
Pros.

Mavity Bence ran out with one, but when she got
close enough to see plainly the shackled figure Pass-
more supported, she thrust the glass into Mandy
Meacham's hand and flung her apron over her head.

"Good Lord!" she moaned. "I reckon they've
killed him. They done one of my brothers that-a-way
in feud times, and throwed him over a bluff. Oh,
my Lord; Why will men be so mean ?"

Pros had taken the glass from Mandy and held it
to Gray's lips. Then he dashed part of the remaining
water on Stoddard's handkerchief and with Mandy's
help, got the blood cleared away.

From every shanty, women and children came hasten
ing — men hurried up from every direction.

"Look at her — look at Johnnie!" cried Beulah
Catlett. " Pony ! Milo ! " turning back into the house,
where the boys lay sleeping. "Come out here and look
at your sister!"

"Did ye run it all by yourself, Sis' Johnnie ?" piped
Lissy from the porch.

The girl in the driver's seat smiled and nodded to
the child.

"Are you through there, Uncle Pros?" asked

THE RESCUE 355

Johnnie. "We must get Mr. Stoddard on to his
house."

The women and children drew back, the crowd
ahead parted, and the car got under way once more.
The entire press of people followed in its wake, surged
about it, augmenting at every corner.

"I'm afraid my horse won't stand this sort of thing,"
Lydia objected, desperately, reining in. Conroy
glanced at her in surprise. Bay Dick was the soberest
of mounts. Then he looked wistfully after the crowd.

"Would you mind if I - 'he began, and broke
off to say contritely, " I'll go back with you if you'd
rather." It was evident that Lydia would make of
him a thoroughly disciplined husband.

"Never mind," she said, locking her teeth. "I'll
go with you." One might as well have it done and
over with. And they hurried on to make up for lost
time.

They saw the car turn in to the street which led to
the Hardwick factory. Somebody had hurried ahead
and told MacPherson and Jerome Hardwick; and just
as they came in sight, the office doors burst open
and the two men came running hatless down the steps.
Suddenly the factory whistles roared out the signal
that had been agreed upon, which bellowed to the
hills the tidings that Gray Stoddard was found. Three
long calls and a short one — that meant that he
was found alive. As the din of it died down,
Hexter's mills across the creek took up the message,
and when they were silent, the old Victory came in

356 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

on their heels, bawling it again. Every whistle
in Cottonville gave tongue, clamouring hoarsely above
the valley, and out across the ranges, to the hun
dreds at their futile search, "Gray Stoddard is found.
Stoddard is found. Alive. He is brought in alive."

MacPherson ran up to one side of the car and Hard-
wick to the other.

"Are you hurt?" inquired the Scotchman, his
hands stretched out.

"Can you get out and come in?" Hardwick de
manded eagerly.

On the instant, the big gates swung wide, the
factory poured out a tide of people as though the
building had been afire. At sight of Stoddard, the car,
and Johnnie, a cheer went up, spontaneous, heart-
shaking.

"My God — look at that!" MacPherson's eyes
had encountered the shackles on Stoddard's wrists.

"Lift him down — lift him out," cried Jerome
Hardwick. With tears on his tanned cheeks the
Scotchman complied; and Hardwick's eyes, too, were
wet as he saw it.

"We'll have those things off of him in no time," he
shouted. "Here, let's get him in to the couch in my
office. Send some of the mechanics here. Where's
Shade Buckheath?"

A dozen pairs of hands were stretched up to assist
MacPherson and Pros Passmore. As many as could
get to the rescued man helped. And when the crowd
saw that shackled figure raised, and heard in the tense

THE RESCUE 357

silence the clinking sound of the chains, a low groan
went through it; more than one woman sobbed aloud.
But at this Gray raised his head a bit, and once more
declared in a fairly strong voice:

"I'm not hurt, people — only a little crack on the
head. I'm all right — thanks to her," and he motioned
toward the girl in the car, who was watching anxiously.

Then the ever thickening throng went wild; and
as Gray was carried up the steps and disappeared
through the office doors, it turned toward the auto
mobile, surging about the car, a sea of friendly, admir
ing faces, most of them touched with the tenderness
of tears, and cheered its very heart out for Johnnie
Consadine.

CHAPTER XXV

THE FUTURE

GRAY!" it was Uncle Pros's voice, and Uncle
Pros's face looked in at the office door.
"Could I bother you a minute about the side
walk in front of the place up yon ? Mr. Hexter told
me you'd know whether the grade was right, and I
could let the workmen go ahead."

Stoddard swung around from his desk and looked
at the old man.

"Come right in," he said. "I'm not busy — I'm
just pretending this morning. MacPherson won't give
me anything to do. He persists in considering me still
an invalid."

Uncle Pros came slowly in and laid his hat down
gingerly before seating himself. He was dressed in
the garb which, with money, he would always have
selected — the village ideal of a rich gentleman's wear
- and he looked unbelievably tall and imposing in
his black broadcloth. When the matter of the patent
was made known to Jerome Hardwick, a company
was hastily formed to take hold of it, which advanced
the ready money for Johnnie and her family to place
themselves. Mrs. Hexter, who had been all winter
in Boston, had decided, suddenly, to go abroad; and

358

THE FUTURE 359

when her husband wired her to know if he might let
the house to the Consadine-Passmore household, she
made a quick, warm response.

So they were domiciled in a ready-prepared home
of elegance and beauty. Though the place at Cotton-
ville had been only a winter residence with Mrs. Hexter,
she was a woman of taste, and had always had large
means at her command. With all a child's plasticity,
Laurella dropped into the improved order of things.
Her cleverness in selecting the proper wear for herself
and children was nothing short of marvellous; and her
calm acceptance of the new state of affairs, the acme
of good breeding. Johnnie immediately set about
seeing that Mavity Bence and Mandy Meacham were
comfortably provided for in the old boarding-house,
where she assured Gray they could do more good than
many Uplift clubs.

"We'll have a truck-patch there, and a couple of
cows and some chickens," she said. "That'll be good
for the table, and it'll give Mandy the work she loves to
do. Aunt Mavity can have some help in the house -
there's always a girl or two breaking down in the mills,
who would be glad to have a chance at housework
for a while."

Now Pros looked all about him, and seemed in no
haste to begin, though Gray knew well there was
something on his mind. Finally Stoddard observed,
smiling:

"You're the very man I wanted to see, Uncle Pros.
I rang up the house just now, but Johnnie said you had

360 THE POWE'R AND THE GLORY

started down to the mills. What do you think I've
found out about our mine?"

Certainly the old man looked very tall and dignified
in his new splendours; but now he was all boy, leaning
eagerly forward to half whisper:

" I don't know — what ?"

Stoddard's face was scarcely less animated as he
searched hastily in the pigeon-holes of his desk. The
patent might have a company to manage its affairs,
but the mine on Big Unaka was sacred to these two, in
whom the immortal urchin sufficiently survived to
make mine-hunting and exploiting delectable employ
ment.

"Why, Uncle Pros, it isn't silver at all. It's -
Gray looked up and caught the woeful drop of the face
before him, and hastened on to add, "It's better than
silver — it's nickel. The price of silver fluctuates;
but the world supply of nickel is limited, and nickel's
a sure thing."

Pros Passmore leaned back in his chair, digesting
this new bit of information luxuriously.

"Nickel," he said reflectively. And again he
repeated the word to himself. "Nickel. Well, I don't
know but what that's finer. Leastways, it's likelier.
To say a silver mine, always seemed just like taking
money out of the ground; but then, nickels are money
too — and enough of 'em is all a body needs."

''These people say the ore is exceptionally fine."
Stoddard had got out the letter now and was glancing
over it. " They're sending down an expert, and you

THE FUTURE 361

and I will go up with him as soon as he gets here.
There are likely to be other valuable minerals as by
products in a nickel mine. And we want to build an
ideal mining village, as well as model cotton mills.
Oh, we've got the work cut out for us and laid right to
hand ! If we don't do our little share toward solving
some problems, it will be strange."

"Cur'us how things turns out in this world," the old
man ruminated. "Ever sence I was a little chap settin'
on my granddaddy's knees by the hearth — big hickory
fire a-roarin' up the chimbly, wind a-goin' 'whooh!'
overhead, an' me with my eyes like saucers a-listenin'
to his tales of the silver mine that the Injuns had — ever
sence that time I've hunted that thar mine." He
laughed chucklingly, deep in his throat. "Thar
wasn't a wild-catter that could have a hideout safe
from me. They just had to trust me. I crawled
into every hole. I came mighty near seein' the end
of every cave — but one. And that cave was the
one whar my Mammy kept her milk and butter — the
springhouse whar they put you in prison. Somehow,
I never did think about goin' to the end of that.
Looked like it was too near home to have a silver
mine in it; and thar the stuff lay and waited for the day
when I should take a notion to find a pretty rock for
Deanie, and crawl back in thar and keep a crawlin',
till I just fell over it, all croppin' out in the biggest
kind of vein."

Gray had heard Uncle Pros tell the story many
times, but it had a perennial charm.

362 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

"Then I lost six months — plumb lost 'em, you know.
And time I come to myself, Johnnie an' me was a-huntin'
for you. And there we found you shut in that thar same
cave; and I was so tuck up with that matter that I
never once thought, till I got you home, to wonder did
Buckheath and the rest of 'em know that they'd penned
you in the silver mine. I ain't never asked you, but
you'd have knowed if they had."

"I should have known anything that Rudd Dawson
or Groner or Venters knew," Gray said, "but I'm not
sure about Buckheath or Himes. However, Himes
is dead, and Buckheath — I don't suppose anybody
in Cottonville will ever see him again."

Pros's face changed instantly. He leaned abruptly
forward and laid a hand on the other's knee.

'That's exactly what I came down here to speak with
you about, Gray," he said. 'They've fetched Shade
Buckheath in — now, what do you make out of that ?"

Stoddard shoved the letter from the Eastern mining
man back in its pigeon-hole.

"Well," he said slowly, "I didn't expect that. I
thought of course Shade was safely out of the country.
I--Passmore, I'm sorry they've got him." After
a little silence he spoke again. "What do I make of
it ? Why, that there are some folks up on Big Unaka
who need pretty badly to appear as very law-abiding
citizens. I'll wager anything that Groner and Rudd
Dawson brought Shade in."

Uncle Pros nodded seriously. " Them's the very
fellers," he said. " Reckon they've talked pretty free

THE FUTURE 363

to you. I never axed ye, Gray — how did they treat
ye?"

"Dawson was the best friend I had," Stoddard
returned promptly. "When I got to the big turn on
Sultan — coming home that Friday morning — Buck-
heath met me, and asked me to go down to Burnt
Cabin and help him with a man that had fallen and
hurt himself on the rocks. Dawson told me afterward
that he and Jesse Groner were posted at the roadside
to stop me and hem me in before I got to the bluff.
I've described to you how Buckheath tried to back
Sultan over the edge, and I got off on the side where
the two were, not noticing them till they tied me hand
and foot. They almost came to a clinch with Buck-
heath then and there. You ought to have heard Groner
swear'. It was like praying gone wrong."

"Uh-huh," agreed Pros, "Jess is a terrible wicked
man — in speech that-a-way — but he's good-hearted."

"That first scrimmage showed me just what the men
were after," Stoddard said. "Buckheath plainly
wanted me put out of the way; but the others had some
vague idea of holding me for a ransom and getting
money out of the Hardwicks. Dawson complained
always that he thought the mills owed him money.
He said they must have sold his girl's body for as much
as a hundred dollars, and he felt that he'd been cheated.
Oh, it was all crazy stuff! But he and the others had
justified themselves; and they had no notion of standing
for what Buckheath was after. I was one of the cotton-
mill men to them; they had no personal malice.

364 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Through the long evenings when Groner or Dawson
or Will Venters was guarding me — or maybe all three
of them — we used to talk; and it surprised me to find
how simple and childish those fellows were. They
were as kind to me as though I had been a brother,
and treated me courteously always.

"Little by little, I got at the whole thing from them.
It seems that Buckheath took advantage of the feeling
there was in the mountains against the mill men on
account of the hospital and some other matters. He
went up there and interviewed anybody that he thought
might join him in a vendetta. I imagine he found
plenty of them that were ready to talk and some that
were willing to do; but it chanced that Dawson and
Jesse Groner were coming down to Cottonville that
morning I passed Buckheath at the Hardwick gate,
and he must have cut across the turn and followed
me, intending to pick a quarrel. Then he met Dawson
and Groner and framed up this other plan with their
assistance.

"Uncle Pros, I want you to help me out. If Buck-
heath has to stand trial, how are we — any of us —
going to testify without making it hard on the Dawson
crowd ? I expect to live here the rest of my days.
Here's this mine of ours. And right here I mean to
build a big mill and work out my plans. I think you
know that I hope to marry a mountain wife, and I
can't afford to quarrel with those folks."

Uncle Pros's chin dropped to his breast, his eyes
half closed as he sat thinking intently.

THE FUTURE 365

"Well," he said finally, "they won't have nothing
worse than manslaughter against Shade. It can't
be proved that he intended to shoot Pap --'cause
he didn't. If he was shootin' after us — there's the
thing we don't want to bring up. You was down in
the bottom of the cyar, an' I had my back to him,
and so did Johnnie, and we don't know anything about
what was done — ain't that so ? As for you, you've
already told Mr. Hardwick and the others that you
was taken prisoner and detained by parties unknown.
Johnnie an' me was gettin' you out of the springhouse
and away in the machine. Then Gid and Shade
comes up, and thinkin' we're the other crowd stealin'
the machine — they try to catch us and turn loose at
us — that makes a pretty good story, don't it?"

"It does if Dawson and Groner and Venters agree
to it," Stoddard laughed. "But somebody will have
to communicate with them before they tell another one
— or several others."

"I'll see to that, Gray," Pros said, rising and pre
paring to go. "Boy," he looked down fondly at the
younger man, and set a brown right hand on his
shoulder, "you never done a wiser thing nor a kinder
in your life, than when you forgave your enemies that
time. I'll bet you could ride the Unakas from end
to end, the balance o' your days, the safest man that
ever travelled their trails."

"Talking silver mine?" inquired MacPherson, put
ting his quizzical face in at the door.

"No," returned Stoddard. "We were just mention-

366 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

ing my pestilent cotton-mill projects. By this time
next year, you and Hardwick will be wanting to have
me abated as a nuisance."

"No, no," remonstrated MacPherson, coming in and
leaning with affectionate familiarity on the younger
man's chair. 'There's no pestilence in you, Gray.
You couldn't be a nuisance if you tried. People who
will work out their theories stand to do good in the
world; it's only the fellows who are content with
bellowing them out that I object to."

"Better be careful!" laughed Stoddard. "We'll
make you vice-president of the company."

"Is that an offer?" countered MacPherson swiftly.
"I've got a bit of money to invest in this county; and
Hardwick has ever a new brother-in-law or such that
looks longingly at my shoes."

"You'd furnish the conservative element, surely,"
debated Stoddard.

"I'd keep you from bankruptcy," grunted the
Scotchman, as he laid a small book on Gray's desk.
"I doubt not Providence demands it of me."

Evening was closing in with a greenish-yellow sunset,
and a big full moon pushing up to whiten the sky above
it. It was late March now, and the air was full of
vernal promise. Johnnie stepped out on the porch
and glanced toward the west. She was expecting
Gray that evening. Would there be time before he
came, she wondered, for a little errand she wanted to
do ? Turning back into the hall, she caught a jacket
from the hook where it hung and hurried down to the

THE FUTURE 367

gate, settling her arms in the sleeves as she ran. There
would be time if she went fast. She wished to get the
little packet into which she had made Gray's letters
months ago, dreading to look even at the folded out-
sides of them, tucking them away on the high shelf
of her dress-closet at the Pap Himes boarding-house,
and trying to forget them. Nobody would know where
to look but herself. She got permission from Mavity
to go upstairs. Once there, the letters made their own
plea; and alone in the little room that was lately her
own, she opened the packet, carrying the contents
to the fading light and glancing over sheet after sheet.
She knew them all by heart. How often she had
stood at that very window devouring these same words,
not realizing then, as she did now, what deep meaning
was in each phrase, how the feeling expressed increased
from the first to the last. Across the ravine, one of the
loom fixers found the evening warm enough to sit on
the porch playing his guitar. The sound of the
twanging strings, and the appealing vibration of his
young voice in a plaintive minor air, came over to her.
She gathered the sheets together and pressed them to
her face as though they were flowers, or the hands of
little children.

"I've got to tell him — to-night," she whispered to
herself, in the dusky, small, dismantled room. "I've
got to get him to see it as I do. I must make my
self worthy of him before I let him take me for his
own."

She thrust the letters into the breast-pocket of her

368 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

coat and ran downstairs. Mavity Bence stood in the
hall, plainly awaiting her.

"Honey," she began fondly, "I've been putting away
Pap's things to-day — jest like you oncet found me
putting away Lou's. I came on this here." And
then Johnnie noticed a folded bandanna in her hands.

" You-ali asked me to let ye go through and find that
nickel ore, and ye brung it out in a pasteboard box;
but this here is what it was in on the day your Uncle
Pros fetched hit here, and I thought maybe you'd take
a interest in having the handkercher that your fortune
come down the mountains in."

"Yes, indeed, Aunt Mavity," said Johnnie, taking
the bandanna into her own hands.

"Pap, he's gone," the poor woman went on tremu
lously, " an' the evil what he done — or wanted to do -
is a thing that I reckon you can afford to forget. You're
a mighty happy woman, Johnnie Consadine; the Lord
knows you deserve to be."

She stood looking after the girl as she went out into
the twilit street. Johnnie was dressed as she chose now,
not as she must, and her clothing showed itself to be
of the best. Anything that might be had in Wautaga
was within her means; and the tall, graceful figure
passing so quietly down the street would never have
been taken for other than a member of what we are
learning to call the " leisure class." When the shadows
at the end of the block swallowed her up, Mavity turned,
wiping her eyes, and addressed herself to her tasks.

"I reckon Lou would 'a' been just like that if she'd

THE FUTURE 369

V lived," she said to Mandy Meacham, with the
tender fatuity of mothers. " Johnnie seems like a
daughter to me — an' I know in my soul no daughter
could be kinder. Look at her makin' me keep every
cent Pap had in the bank, when Laurelly could have
claimed it all and kep' it."

"Yes, an' addin' somethin' to it," put in Mandy.
"I do love 'em both -- Johnnie an' Deanie. Ef I
ever was so fortunate as to get a man and be wedded
and have chaps o' my own, I know mighty well and
good I couldn't love any one of 'em any better than I do
Deanie. An' yet Johnnie's quare. I always will say
that Johnnie Consadine is quare. What in the nation
does she want to go chasin' off to Yurrup for, when she's
got everything that heart could desire or mind think
of right here in Cottonville ?"

That same question was being put even more search-
ingly to Johnnie by somebody else at the instant when
Mandy enunciated it. She had found Gray waiting
for her at the gate of her home.

"Let's walk here a little while before we go in,"
he suggested. "I went up to the house and found
you were out. The air is delightful, and I've got some
thing I want to say to you."

He had put his arm under hers, and they strolled to
gether down the long walk that led to the front of the
lawn. The evening air was pure and keen, tingling
with the breath of the wakening season.

"Sweetheart," Gray broke out suddenly, "I've
been thinking day and night since we last talked together

370 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

about this year abroad that you're planning. I cer
tainly don't want to put my preferences before yours.
I only want to be very sure that I know what your
real preferences are," and he turned and searched
her face with a pair of ardent eyes.

" I think I ought to go," the girl said in a very low
voice, her head drooped, her own eyes bent toward
the path at her feet.

"Why?" whispered her lover.

" I — oh, Gray — you know. If we should ever be
married — well, then," in answer to a swift, impatient
exclamation, "when we are married, if you should
show that you were ashamed of me — I think it would
kill me. No, don't say there's not any danger. You
might have plenty of reason. And I --I want to be
safe, Gray — safe, if I can."

Gray regarded the beautiful, anxious face long and
thoughtfully. Yes, of course it was possible for her
to feel that way. Assurance was so deep and perfect
in his own heart, that he had not reflected what it
might lack in hers.

"Dear girl," he said, pausing and making her look
at him, "how little you do know of me, after all! Do I
care so much for what people say ? Aren't you always
having to reprove me because I so persistently like what
I like, without reference to the opinions of the world ?
Besides, you're a beauty," with tender brusqueness,
"and a charmer that steals the hearts of men. If you
don't know all this, it isn't from lack of telling. More
over, I can keep on informing you. A year of European

THE FUTURE 371

travel could not make you any more beautiful, Johnnie
— or sweeter. You may not believe me, but there's
little the 'European capitals' could add to your native
bearing — you must have learned that simple dignity
from these mountains of yours. Of course, if you
wanted to go for pleasure - ' His head a little on one
side, he regarded her with a tender, half-quizzical
smile, hoping he had sounded the note that would
bring him swift surrender.

" It isn't altogether for myself — there are the others,"
Johnnie told him, lifting honest eyes to his in the dim
moonlight. 'They're all I had in the world, Gray, till
you came into my life, and I must keep my own. I
belong to a people who never give up anything they
love."

Stoddard dropped an arm about his beloved, and
turned her that she might face the windows of the
house behind them, bending to set his cheek against
hers and direct her gaze.

"Look there," he whispered, laughingly.

She looked and saw her mother, clad in such wear
as Laurella's taste could select and Laurella's beauty
make effective. The slight, dark little woman was
coming in from the dining room with her children
all about her, a noble group.

"Your mother is much more the fine lady than you'll
ever be, Johnnie Stoddard," Gray said, giving her the
name that always brought the blood to the girl's cheek
and made her dumb before him. "You know your
Uncle Pros and I are warmly attached to each other.

372 THE POWER AND THE GLORY

What is it you'd be waiting for, girl ? Why, Johnnie,
a man has just so long to live on this earth, and the
years in which he has loved are the only years that
count — would you be throwing one of these away ?
A year — twelve months — three hundred and sixty-
five days — cast to the void. You reckless creature!"

He cupped his hands about her beautiful, fair face
and lifted it, studying it.

"Johnnie -- Johnnie -- Johnnie Stoddard; the one
woman out of all the world for me," he murmured,
his deep voice dropping to a wooing cadence. "I
couldn't love you better — I shall never love you less.
Don't let us foolishly throw away a year out of the days
which will be vouchsafed us together. Don't do it,
darling — it's folly."

Hard-pressed, Johnnie made only a sort of inarticu
late response.

"Come, love, sit a moment with me, here," pleaded
Gray, indicating a small bench hidden among the
evergreens and shrubs at the end of the path. "Sit
down, and let's reason this thing out."

"Reasoning with you," began Johnnie, helplessly,
"isn't — it isn't reasonable!"

"It is," he told her, in that deep, masterful tone
which, like a true woman, she both loved and dreaded.
"It's the height of reasonableness. Why, dear, the
great primal reason of all things speaks through me.
And I won't let you throw away a year of our love.
Johnnie, it isn't as though we'd been neighbours, and
grown up side by side. I came from the ends of the

THE FUTURE 373

earth to find you, darling — and I knew my own as
soon as I saw you/'

He put out his arms and gathered her into a close
embrace.

For a space they rested so, murmuring question and
reply, checked or answered by swift, sweet kisses.

"The first time I ever saw you, love.

"Oh, in those dusty old shoes and a sunbonnet!
Could you love me then, Gray?"

"The same as at this moment, sweetheart. Shoes
and sunbonnets — I'm ashamed of you now, Johnnie,
in earnest. What do such things matter?"

"And that morning on the mountain, when we got
the moccasin flowers," the girl's voice took up the theme.
" I — it was sweet to be with you — and bitter, too.
I could not dream then that you were for me. And
afterward — the long, black, dreadful time when you
seemed so utterly lost to me —

At the mention of those months, Gray stopped her
words with a kiss.

"Mine," he whispered with his lips against hers,
"Out of all the world — mine."

THE END

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