A moonshiner's son

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I The Settlement Store 7

II A Signal and a Warning 22

Chapter I

No man on the mountain was more respected than old Jube Jarvis, the settlement storekeeper. But to no one was he quite such a hero as to the boy sitting on the step of the unopened store, in the dawn of a crisp September morning, waiting for the owner of the establishment to come from the house across the road and “ open up.”

He was a young fellow of not more, than twelve or fourteen years perhaps, yet there was an old look in his face that told of troubles that never should have knocked at the door of youth. The old-young face was crowned by a mass of reddish-brown hair that showed a golden tinge when the sun fell full upon it; as though nature, of her kindness, would have poured some of her own good warmth into his chilled little body.

There was an uncovered porch before the door, and a long step that led down into the public road. The boy was sea ted upon the step, face in his palms, elbows upon his knees, lost in thought.

Before him, contentedly cropping the crisping blades of grass, stood a gray mule without saddle or blanket, her bridle-rein lying lightly across the knee of her young rider. Now and then the boy put out his hand and stroked the short, glossy neck of the animal, at which she would leave off grazing for a moment to rub her nose affectionately against the wellpatched knees of her master. Evidently mule and master were on the best of terms.

Sometimes, too, the boy would rouse up from his dreamings and call out sharply : “ Whoa

thar, Kit.”

And then the mule would regard him in a kind of mild wonder, as though she said : “ How

could you think I would do such a thing ?”

And it was a little singular that he should have suspected old Kit would be guilty of slipping off home and leaving her master to tramp it back to the cabin on the bluff, more than two miles distant.

Of a truth, the boy was not thinking of the mule at all, but of the storekeeper across the way. He was wondering how long it would be before he would “ open up ” the store.

And he was telling himself that he was “ a great dunce for comm’ thar afore day was fairly broke anyhow.” And then he “ allowed granny would be in and about done with her breakfast ’g’inst he could get back home.” And while he was thinking thus the storekeeper chanced to look out of his window and see the forlornlooking boy sitting there in the gray mists of the morning with the leaves of the big maple tree drifting down upon him like lumps of yellow gold, and what he said was: “Well, if thar ain’t Joe Bentley !” A moment later he stepped across the road and saluted his early customer.

“ Mornin’, Joe.”

Joe bounded to his feet as though the voice of the storekeeper had sent new life surging through his frame.

“Homin’, Mr. Jarvis,” said he. “I hope now I didn’t wake you up, Mr. Jarvis.”

The storekeeper thrust his iron key into the lock.

“ Well,” said he, “ I had one eye open, so to speak. Folks all well, Joe?”

“ Same as common, thank’e, sir,” said Joe. “ I reckon now I’m here toler’bly early, Mr. Jarvis, an’ I ought to tell you why.”

“Better hitch your mule first, Joe,” said the merchant, with a sharp glance at the little old-young face that was telling him all too plainly that Joe was carrying an uncomfortable secret, and uncomfortable secrets were strictly forbidden at Jube Jarvis’s establishment. The old man kept a sharp watch on the boy while he twisted his lines into the low, drooping branches of the maple. There was that about Joe Bentley that had always appealed to childless Jube Jarvis. There was something in the boy, strong and staunch and true, that refused to yield itself to the unpromising surroundings among which fate had placed him. But could the old man have seen the broad black bruises laid upon the young shoulders under the coarse shirt which granny had darned and patched and spent many an hour trying to make look neat, the big heart of him would indeed have felt for ill-used Joe Bentley.

“ Got no mammy, and worse than no pappy,” grumbled the storekeeper, as he turned into the store, where Joe soon followed him.

“ Well, son,” said Mr. Jarvis, “ something onusual must a-liappened to fetch you out o’ bed when other chaps the size o’ you-uns air fairly knocking it off in sleep. What can I do for you, Joe ?”

Joe leaned his patched elbow upon the counter and hesitated : how like begging his errand appeared now, after he had ridden so fast and come so far to get it done. The merchant marked his hesitancy and said, encouragingly :

“ Come, come now; I reckin it ain't anything to be so mightily ashamed on ?"

“ No, sir," said Joe. “ It ain't anything to be ashamed on, I reckin. I have come over here to git one pound o' coffee for granny — "

The storekeeper dropped his right arm into the coffee barrel.

“Hold on tliar, Mr. Jarvis," said Joe, “I allers aims to be forehanded an' honest, an' I'm obliged to tell you I ain't got any money to pay for it."

“ Psher," remarked the merchant. “ I reckin I ain’t grown so close-fisted as I can't spare a pound o' coffee to an old woman like your granny. For I know mighty well it ain't for yourse’f you’re wanting of it."

“ No, sir," remarked Joe, “ it's for granny. She don’t appear to git on well without her cup o' mornin’s. But she don't know I come for it, else she wouldn't a-let me. I slipped off. 'Pears like I jest couldn’t see her suffrin for her cup — ” He stopped and his eyes filled.

“ Psher,” said the merchant, “ what’s a pound of coffee more or less. Hand me that tliar scoop out o’ the shot kaig, son.”

But Joe shook his head :

“ I couldn’t take it that way,” said he. “ Granny’d send me straight back if I did. She’d allow it ware no more’n beggin’. An’ she allows nobody has got the right to be a beggar who has got the strength to work. She allows that tliar be a sort of fairness even in beggin’, granny does. Besides, I aimed to give her the coffee, and I allowed may be you-uns would let me work it out. I could come straight back, soon’s I fetched the coffee home for granny’s breakfast. An’ I’ll work it out full and fair ; ’deed I will, Mr. Jarvis.”

The storekeeper stooped down and began scooping up the coffee : he did not measure it : there was no need to let the boy know that his order had been more than doubled. He would get full pay in work ; he had tried Joe Bentley before.

A MOONSHINEIi’s son

“ Whar’d you been, Joe,” he asked while wrapping the coffee in a sheet of brown paper. “ Whar’d you been so early of a mornin’ on old Kit ?” Joe dropped his head and was silent ; he stood before his one friend the unmistakable image of guilty shame.

“Well, well,” said Mr. Jarvis, “you needn’t tell unless you air so minded, but let us hope it ware a healthy, lawful business you ware out upon. These air mighty rough times, Joe, an’ a body’s got to be watchful an’ wary.”

Joe lifted his head and looked the storekeeper squarely in the eye. He knew the old man allowed nobody to tell unlawful secrets in his house, and Joe half expected he might be kicked out, as he had seen big men kicked many a time, for attempting to make a confident of old Jube. Still, he meant to make an explanation.

“It ware not lawful,” said he. “It were wicked an’ unlawful work, an’ I knew it all tht time. I ware holpin’ to break the law. I tell you fair, Mr. Jarvis. I went — afore I came over here — I went afore day, long afore day, to fetch a load — ”

A shadow darkened the doorway, the shadow of a strange horse and rider. A man from one of the valley towns below, judging from his dress and appearance, had ridden up to the step and drawn rein. The storekeeper leaned across the counter and touched Joe’s arm.

o

“ Not a word more,” said he, softly. “ I don’t want to hear a word about it. You can’t allers tell what’s a-goin’ to happen, an’ if anybody comes here inquirin’ o’ me consarnin’ the rascality o’ the kentry I ain’t obligated to lie for nobody, an’ I won’t be. Now do you-uns run ’long home, an’ take the nigh cut through the woods, an’ don’t you be a-talkin’ too much, nuther.”

He saw the gray mule trot off with her young rider before he returned to respond to the stranger’s good morning.

“ Mornin’, stranger,” said Jube, after which he went behind the counter and in his best business manner said to the man who had followed him into the store :

“ What can I do for you, stranger ?”

“ Why,” laughed the visitor, “ I think you can do a great deal. You see, my good friend—”

“ My name be J arvis,” said the merchant.

“Well, Mr. Jarvis, I am on the track of a great rascal.”

The merchant waved his hand, as though to take in the entire premises. “ S’arch,” said he. “ I ain’t concealin’ nobody as air wanted, an’ I ain’t consortin’ with rascals, as I knows on. S’arch the place if you’re minded, stranger.”

The strange man laughed again, lightly. “ Oh, I’m not suspecting you,” said he. As he spoke he threw back his coat; there was not a weapon in sight. The merchant noticed this, as the visitor intended he should. Revenue officers, as a general thing, came armed to the teeth, and under cover of darkness. Evidently this was not an officer, else he was one who had determined to avoid all the old subterfuges of his predecessors. Or else, Jube thought, he must be a very ignorant young fellow to so daringly take his life in his own hands.

“ I am not suspecting you. And, really, I am not exactly out upon a search to-day ; but I saw that boy come out of here — ”

The storekeeper held his breath; had Joe really got into some trouble, lie wondered. He supposed the boy had merely wished to talk about . his father, when he shut him up so unceremoniously. He didn’t care to have Lige Bentley’s illicit distilling thrust upon his confidence. True, he had suspicions, had had them all along ; but suspicions were not facts. If Joe was in trouble, why, he was ready to help him if he could, though he was not ready to lie for him. He held that a man’s first obligation is to his own honor, and that no man’s safety should be purchased at the expense of one’s own integrity. How he did hope that this man would ask no compromising questions.

“ Do you know that boy ?” was the first question put.

“ Mighty well ; knowed him nigh all his life ; handy a chap as you ever see.”

“ I thought so,” said the stranger. “ That is, I thought he looked so. And that is what made me suspect — ”

The merchant drew in his breath sharply and waited to hear more, the heart in his bosom beating like a trip-hammer until the stranger said :

“ Now, do you think I could hire this boy for a day?”

“ Hire him? That you couldn’t ; lie’s hired to me ; lie’s got to keep store.”

“ Oh, and why didn’t you say so at the first?”

“ Why didn’t you ax me? I answered you ever time you’ve put a question, an’ answered you truthful, stranger.”

The man withdrew without another word ; he fiung himself into the saddle and gave the reins a jerk that sent his big bay spinning out into the road. Suddenly he whirled, and called to the old man standing in the doorway :

“See here, my friend, I guess you’d best not mention my having been here.”

“All right, I won’t, onless some one should ax me. If they ax they git the truth, let ’em hail from whar they will,” and with a sigh of relief the storekeeper returned to his boxes and barrels.

But he was ill at ease ; something, he felt, was afoot; trouble was brewing for somebody, and he felt a vague fear that somehow Joe was not to escape.

For a long time the country around had been infested with illicit distillers; now and then during later years there had been a raid, more or less successful ; but for the most part the “ wildcatters,” as they were called, or “ moonshiners,” were too wary, and too well shielded, by the inaccessible cliffs, to feel any great alarm for their safety. But very lately matters were not moving so easily for the lawbreakers. Jube Jarvis had no sympathy with the illicit trade; he kept well out of it, and out of its secret hiding places. The “Revernuers” were welcome to come and go, to destroy or to pass by ; it was nothing, personally, to old Jube. But this boy, Joe Bentley, was a great deal to Jube ;

if danger threatened Joe, however remotely, he wanted to know it.

He thought a good deal about it after the strange man left the store ; why had he picked out Joe for his service ? And how was it that he had chanced to come to the store at the same time, and such an unusual time, that Joe had come ? Might he not have been following him, spying upon him, all the morning ? And J oe had admitted that he had been upon an unlawful errand. The merchant liatl grave fears.

“ It jest won’t do,” said he : “ Joe ain’t had any manner o’ showin’ in this world. Though I aint sayin’ but what he’s got a good, smart old grandmother that aims to do right by him. But he’s young an’ onwary. If that tliar saft-speakin’ youngster should overtake Joe on the road, he would, like as not up an’ confide to him ever thing he knows, an’ git liisse’f into no end o’ trouble, may be. I’m good mind to close up an’ go after him.”

Then he remembered that he had cautioned Joe to keep the trail, or “ nigh cut,” through the woods. This trail, both narrow and steep, had been made by the adventurous cattle herders on Hickorynut mountain, who were wont to come across to the settlement Saturday afternoons for supplies. It shortened the distance to Lige Bentley’s cabin by more than a mile ; and sure-footed old Kit was not afraid of its steeps and windings.

“If Joe keeps to the trail he’ll be safe enough,” said the merchant ; “ an’ ’gainst he strikes the big road on the way back thar’ll be too many o’ the mount’n boys round to make it healthy for strangers wearin’ store clothes, I reckin.”

At that moment there came to him the sound of a horn ; a soft blast, blown from the doorway of the house across the road ; he knew that it meant his breakfast was ready.

He went out, drawing the door after him, and stood a moment watching the long, yellow road from the settlement. Another blast from the horn reminded him that his cakes were cooling. Still he lingered, watching for Joe. But there was nothing to be seen save that straight, broad line of yellow sand gleaming in the sunlight.

Chapter II

There was to be a gander-pulling in the neighborhood that day, and the storekeeper knew that all the people for miles around would be on hand to see the fun. The boys from down on Brushy Creek, to say nothing of those over on Pine Knot mountain, would turn out in full force ; for fun was scarce, and to the mountaineers there are few things so diverting as a gander-pulling.

The storekeeper had reckoned upon the crowd that would visit the store that morning, and was not sorry that he was to have Joe’s assistance. For although the entertainment was not to come off until afternoon, the crowd would come early in the morning, bringing their dinners and making an all-day trip of it. The forenoon, for the most part, would be spent at the store ; not 22 so much in trading as in friendly gossip, though the women, to be sure, would bring their dried fruit and “ spun truck ” along to barter with old Jube for sugar and coffee and molasses.

The merchant gave a sigh of genuine relief as he approached the store and saw through the open door, Joe’s cheery face beaming above the counter. The place had been carefully swept, and already there were two visitors occupying the shuck-bottomed chairs set convenient for customers just without the door.

“ I would have come over an’ told you, Mr. Jarvis,” said Joe ; “ but they-uns allowed they’d only come to set a spell, an’ not to trade ; an’ so I didn’t see no call for startin’ of you up from your breakfast. I allowed as may be I could wait on sech as come before you got back. But tliar ain’t been a blessed soul exceptin’ of Mr. Long out thar an’ Jem.”

Jube recognized the early visitors as a man and his son, said to be in league with a certain distiller by the name of Dawson, who was supposed to be operating a still some miles away among the hills. He had scarcely time to more than say good-morning, however, before others began to come in, some to gossip, some to trade, and ere long the little store was crowded.

Among the very first to arrive was an old woman by the name of Martin, Polly Martin, known throughout the neighborhood for the sharpness of her tongue, as well as of her wits. She came up, panting and blowing from her long tramp, plumped an open-mouthed jar down on the step, nodded to the assembled neighbors and went into the store, carrying a roll of yellow yarn, some home-knit socks, and a bag of dried fruit, which she had brought to barter for certain necessary articles, after the custom of the mountaineers. She entered with a brusque, business-like air, and a semblance of extreme good humor ; but the practiced eye of the storekeeper saw the anxiety underlying the make-believe lightness.

“ Mornin’, folkses ! mornin’, Jube !” was her greeting. “ Got any time to fritter away on a ole woman like me, Jube? Then stir your stumps, man, an’ let me get along back home. The men folkses at my place air plumb set on goin’ to the gander-pullin’ this evenin’,, an’ I’m obleeged to git back an’ stay long o’ the chillen, an’ the house, so as they-uns can go. It won’t do to disapp’int the men folkses, I tell you ; the men folkses an’ the gander. Why, I a’most misdoubts that thar gander could get its own consent to have its neck pulled without the men from my place. ’Pears like the gander would sort o’ know it would be a disapp’intin’ occasion. Want some socks to-day, Jube ? I’m plumb set on havin’ some sorghum for the chillen. We-uns ain’t got a drap. The last I got ware not good. I tromped five mile an’ better to git it ; over to Yarbrough’s. An’ Yarbrough don’t measure fair, nuther. So this mornin’ I says to the chillen, says I, 4 Jube Jarvis gives fair measure, an’ I be goin’ over to trade with J ube. An’ here I be.’ ”

The storekeeper grunted, as he proceeded to unwrap the bundle of yarn. “ Since you ware so set on tradin’ along o’ me,” said he, “ wliyn’t you fetch them tliar eggs here las’ Christmas, as you promised to do ?”

“ Laws-a-massy, Jube, ain’t you-uns forgot them eggs yit? Why, they’d a been e’t up long ago, or else sp’iled. What diffe’nce can it make this late day ?”

“ It makes the diffe’nce of a pramise,” said Jube. “ I allers keep my word to folkses, an’ I look to others to keep thar word to me. What air you wantin’ for this truck, Mis’ Martin ?”

“Some sorghum, Jube. Thar’s the jar for it outside the door. I ware that fagged out I couldn’t fetch it another step. I want some sorghum an’ a mite o’ coffee. Then I want a slip o’ bacon for the apples. An’ I allowed as may be you-uns’d fling in a box o’ snuff. I ain’t had a good dip since I traded for that thar box last summer. Do you rickerlect, Jube?”

“ I ain’t goin’ to throw in a blessed thing,” declared the storekeeper. “ I aims to be fair, an’ may be generous, with my own customers, but I ain’t obligated to make presents to Jim Yarbrough’s customers. You-uns can go over tliar fur snuff. I’ll fill the jar an’ let you have the meat, but I ain’t thro win’ in no extrys.”

It was a small thing, merely an incident in the day’s happenings. There was a touch of surliness about it, Too, that appealed to the merchant’s sense of fairness, making him half regret what he had done when he saw the old woman start on her long tramp to the desolate cabin among the crags. In winter, when the trees were stripped of their foliage, he could see the brown cabin perched upon the steep bluffs, in the rear of the store, like a great ungainly vulture ready to swoop down upon the unsuspecting little settlement. It was scarcely a half-mile distant straight up the bluffs, but the crags were bold and steep, and the three-mile tramp by the public road was less fatiguing than any attempt to scale those almost inaccessible heights.

The storekeeper felt himself a brute to refuse the snuff ; it would have made a welcome companion on that long, tiresome trip. He hadn’t a doubt but that was what had brought her to the store ; and he had a suspicion that she had stolen away to the settlement without the knowledge of her husband, for she generally did her trading at a distant settlement on the other side of the bluff, with a merchant by the name of Yarbrough. Yarbrough was close and grasping, and Jube knew that it was old Martin who made his wife do her trading there ; he and Jube had quarreled some time since, and after that old Mrs. Martin never came to the settlement except on sucli occasions as she could “ slip off,” unknown to the old man. She had relied upon Jube’s generosity to throw in the snuff. Jube was disgusted with himself; he thought once of sending Joe to run and overtake her with the box, but some one came in and it slipped his mind.

A little thing, merely a box of disgusting, yellow snuff ; yet, could he have foreseen the part it was to play in the day’s proceedings he would indeed have felt, as he said, “ that you can’t allers tellwliar a little, small act will end.”

The new arrival who distracted the storekeeper’s attention from the episode of the snuff was a young man, who, at a glance, the merchant supposed to be a stranger. But a second look convinced him there was something odd, and not altogether unfamiliar, in the man’s appearance. The mass of yellow hair that crowned his rather shapely head didn’t appear to have just a natural set ; and the hands, though dark, were too small to belong to the mountaineers. In an instant the storekeeper recognized the fact that this new arrival was disguised.

He asked for a “ plug of chawing tobaccy ” in such a very natural drawl, however, that for a moment the merchant almost doubted the disguise.

He paid for his purchase, bit off a great hunk of it, and strolling over to an empty, upturned cracker box, dropped leisurely down upon it as though he had merely stopped in, in a m most natural way, to liear the gossip of the day.

Close upon his heels came Dawson, the moonshiner, who seldom showed himself about the settlement, and whose coming at this moment filled Jube’s heart with forebodings of trouble.

Dawson stood leaning a moment against the counter, watching the stranger through his ugly, swollen lids. His two confederates, Long and his son, moved their chairs nearer the open door, thus commanding a view of the entire store.

And all the time that Dawson was eyeing the strange man, the stranger Avas watching Joe Bentley. Many times Joe had passed him, brushing him more than once in the crowd, as he went in and out carrying bundles to the wagons of the customers, hitching horses for the women, and sometimes carrying a pail full of water to some thirsty traveler en route to the gander-pulling.

And Jube — keen-eyed, sharp-witted old Jube Jarvis — was watching the entire proceedings;

and always with an eye single to the safety of his young assistant.

When the rush of custom had subsided somewhat, Dawson addressed the merchant :

“ Had many callers this mornin’, Jube ?”

“ Diglit sharp,” was the reply, given with indifferent interest.

“ Didn’t any come afore you ware up, I reckin, did they, Jube?” said old man Long from the doorw r ay

The storekeeper looked up just in time to catch the unmistakable wink that passed between him and Dawson. But he was quite ready for them.

“ Why, yes,” said he, in the same tone of indifference ; “ I did have a customer, so to speak, afore I ware fairly up this mornin’. Come in a mighty hurry, ridin’ a right peart nag, an’ didn’t stop powerful long, nuther.”

A shade of purple seemed to gather under the red of Dawson’s skin, as he demanded to know who the customer was.

“ Who ware it ?” said he. “ Who ware it come a-tradin’ so early ?”

The merchant glanced at the young clerk, measuring at that moment a peck of dried beans into a bag, and said :

“ Why, Joe, thar.”

“ Joe ?”

“Yes, Joe Bentley; come to git some coffee for his granny afore settin’ in for his day’s work. An’ the spry young nag he rid over, why, it’s tethered out thar somewliars, I reckin. She answers to the name of Kit, if you’re wantin’ to talk to her.”

There was a laugh among the men, at Dawson’s expense; even the big distiller himself smiled at the storekeeper’s wit, and not one of them thought to inquire if Joe was the only customer who had called in the early hours of the morning. Jube had his answer ready, but as nobody put the question he said no more; only to tell himself that it was “ none of his business to remind them of their oversight.”

At that moment he chanced to look at the man on the cracker box. Did the fellow give him a wink before dropping his gaze to the floor? A moment later, on some pretext of looking for something on that side of the room, Jube approached the stranger and gave him a more critical survey. In dress he was a typical mountaineer, wearing a suit of brownish-gray jeans, a loose frock coat, old, and somewhat patched ; a red necktie, considerably crumpled, and a slouch hat, rammed in, sugar-loaf fashion, topping the shock of yellow hair.

About this time one of the men about the door called out in friendly salutation :

“ Hello, stranger ; whar’d you hail from ?”

The man on the box replied in the very purest dialect :

“ From over on Cooney, down yander.”

“ Come a-pleasurin’ ?” said Dawson.

“ Come to see the gyander-pullin’,” was the reply.

After this the talk became general, the interest shifting to the gander that was expected to furnish sport for the afternoon.

Some “ allowed ” that Jim Teik would get the gander's neck “ first pull ; ” while others main- 3 tained that “Lusli Simmons would never so much as let Teik git his fingers greased,” if Lush should be so lucky as to “ draw his pull before Teik’s chance came.”

In the general discussion the visitor from Cooney was really forgotten. And evidently the visitor from Cooney forgot himself ; in fact he must have forgotten that he was from Cooney at all, and a mountaineer, and supposed to know all about gander-pullings. For as the interest waxed warmer, he tilted himself back as gracefully as the backless box would admit of his doing, and called out to the astonished assembly, regardless of dialect and forgetful of consequences :

“ How is it done, gentlemen ? How is the gander pulled ?”