The Blue Ridge

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21. 'Hi, Verney'



The bray of an ass was the third sign.

The first had been a note found by Parker tucked under the back door of the Rim shack on his return the evening before from an exercise ride upon Teetotaler.

This had read:

Heaven Sent:

We take this Surreptitious means of communicating with you, realizing full well the danger of your seeking Communication with us. Not that we are impatient with your Progress, but we wish to help you, in so far as Strength is given us, to Victory. To ease your mind, we report that none of the Stalwarts has suffered ill-effects from that ontoward Razzle Dazzle, from the entombing of which your bravery extricated us.

What with the Carnival coming on in less than a fortnight, we Pray that you will be able to put out the ArchEnemy's light-house before that Event, so that all may enjoy a nice, dry time in honor of North Carolina's stand for sobriety. Naturally, said enemy is stilling hard in order that the Carnival may be made a Riot of Wanton Wine.

We are credibly informed as to the location of a new Branch of this Pernicious Operandum. Directions will be \ furnished on application, by Sister Sally Shortoff, who misunderstood your Motives cruelly on first acquaintance. Do be Careful. And remember that each night our Prayers for your Safety ascend to Heaven Above.

Yours in the Fight for Right,
Glory Be!

Guided by this capriciously capitalized, tlnyscrlpted, code-signed missive, whose authorship could only be that of Aunt Hootie Plott, he had sought and found the second sign that morning. The turn-coat manner and prolific Instruction of Mistress Sally, at work in the corn field, were sequential.

She had not quite got his "color" that other day, she admitted, although she practically had given him the finest nag In the Blue Ridge, a transaction which she had ceased to regret only on learning that Teetotaler was thereby elected to an important oflce in the "cause." That he "take them blockade varmints In the act" was her advice. Strange doings had been observed through the brush by Bide and herself when out retrieving their "jump-devir' heifers a couple of days before.

Fearful of discovery by Old Tom Metcalf, who. of course was the "arch-enemy" referred to in the note, Sally had stayed only long enough to locate what she confidently believed to be a newly planted lair of the enemy. Aunt Hootie had advised trusting all to him. So be it. To Parker, then, the honor of uncovering the secrets housed within a padlocked lean-to built against the bank of Rattlesnake Run!

Now the braying of an ass, sign No. 3, rewarded his ride over the trail mapped out for him by the hill-country zealot. The refreshing sound of a small water-fall further assured him that he had come aright. He urged the piebald into a criss-cross fording of Roaring Fork.

On "yan" side the oft-branching waters he dismounted, looped the reins over a bush, and started afoot along the Indistinct trail beside the tributary. His going was the more eager in that the third sign, said to be the charm, had been that peculiarly tuneless, sea-saw bray.

His first triumph awaited around a bend in the branch - the sight of red-legged Solomon engaged In a strange occupation. Traced to the end of a long, curved beam, which turned an upright shaft planted in a box, the mule was walking, slow-footed, In a circle. Parker halted a moment to survey this motion-picture and the clay bank which effectively formed its background.

Where had he heard about the stirring of the mash, the mixing of sweet corn and malt, he wondered? That was what Vernaluska's noble steed must be doing - taking the first steps in the making of spirits from corn.

With the probability that at last he had discovered the still-house of the Metcalfs; that now he could prove himself without design against the "cantankerous" by faithfully sharing the family secret, exultation started him precipitately forward.

Beside the grinding box, however, he saw at once that the mass being combed by the wooden teeth at the end of the upright shaft could not be any compound of grain; was. Instead, a slate-colored substance which looked more like clay. As he leaned to examine It, Solomon stopped, blinked, drew back his lip - surveyed him, altogether, with an expresion of intolerable levity.

"Be about It, Sol! Quit your loaferlng!"

The admonition came from the other side of the bank from which, probably, the clay under process had been dug. It was voiced In the resonant contralto of the mountain girl. Solomon, with a grunt that might have meant either protest or indifference, resumed his plodding.

"What the Sam Hill is the idea?"

The mental query speeded Parker around the jutting bank. There he was halted by another puzzle.

The Metcalf girl was seated upon a low stool before a wheel which she turned with a foot-treadle; evidently she neither had seen nor heard his approach. Her splendid hair was uncovered and loosely coiled on the nape of her neck, which showed where the collar opened to be white as the flowers of a white rhododendron-bush just beyond her. Her print sleeves, rolled up, revealed upper arms of the same satiny, pure texture.

Very brown, by contrast, looked the long, strong hands which were shaping a loaf of clay into what resembled a gallon jug. She was sheltered from the sun by an overhang of boughs that extended from a small log structure built against the bank, evidently the lean-to of Mistress Sally's suspicion. Further, toward the creek, stretched a low vault, built of clay-chinked rocks whose chimney suggested an oven for the baking of her product. M

Both disappointment and Interest held Parker, that he should have found, in this supposed lair of the "arch-enemy," the sylvan setting of so innocent an Industry. He stepped from the shadow of the bank, doffed his cap, bowed with that charm of manner handed direct to him from all the other Parkers.

"Good morning. Miss Potter, near your modest cot, shaping many an urn and pot," he hailed her, with unvoiced apologies to Khayyam.

The girl sprang to her feet, glanced nervously back at the lean-to, then at him.

"Why are you-all trailing me this very first morning after I thought I had you settled to better ways?"

With a flourish of his cap toward her work, he continued his transposition:

"To see how you take clay 'from earthen things, from beggars' feet, and the head of kings.' "

Perplexity tempered her displeasure, then the twitch of a smile: "Do you-uns come as beggar or as king?"

"As both. I beg you and command you to tell me what the dickens you and friend Solomon are doing?"

"And I beg and command you to get about your own business." She turned her back, then added significantly over one shoulder: "Look out you don't get snake-bit going down the run."

He answered in metaphor: "I've heard a few rattlers since coming to the Blue Ridge, but I'm not afraid of gentlemanly snakes. It's hard to associate you with anything so wriggly and ugly as a snake, IvIIss Metcalf, and certainly you said nothing yesterday on Fallaway to forbid my visiting you in your workshop."

"I ain't receiving visitors to-day and what I see fitten to work at is my own secret."

"A secret may remain safe between two," he suggested, sauntering around so that she had to face him, focusing the sunlight of his smile upon the storm signs of her resentment. "Anyhow, your mule Invited my horse, so you have the wisdom of Solomon to blame. If you really do want to keep the location of your factory a secret, you should acquire a silencer - the sort your friend Currle has for his 'charmed' gun - for that bray-muzzle. Since Fm here, won't you Invite me to have a chair, fair mentor?"

"I certainly won't - leastwise I can't." The recalcitrant dimple of twice before suggested Its continued existence as she plumped herself down upon the only stool.

"Thank you so much - a seat Is what I meant." Parker hunched himself down on the ground before her, both arms affectionately clasping his knees. *T think It Is very clever of you to do your share of the family work. I wouldn't for anything have missed this revelation of you making the demijohns for ---"

"You think I make the jugs for dad's bumbllngs?" <With the interruption, she sprang back so suddenly that the large pottery piece which she had been fashioning, as if to second her denial, fell off the wheel into a shapeless mass on the ground. "You actually believe that I ---"

"There's nothing criminal in your participation, except telling your client fibs about It," he Insisted. "The law might consider you in the light of accessory to illicit output, but not I."

"Say, stranger, you-all come along with me."

She started toward the log structure. From the doorway she beckoned impatiently for him to hurry. Further arguments for the case in hand had been forming in Parker's mind, but when he lined up beside her just within the sill, he became speechless with amazement. ,

The hut was a storehouse, with shelves running around the walls, and without furniture except for two tables. Upon these were displayed earthenware of many shapes, colors and sizes, with not one among them that looked a suitable container for corn-juice. Jugs, urns, vases there v/ere of brown, of vermlllion, of green, blue, and gray.

With a murmured plea for permission, he advanced Into the room and lifted one of the nearest Into the sunlight shafting through the open door. An exclamation of surprise escaped him, for It was a vase unique and quite effective In design - its base the colled tail of a copper-head snake. Its body the Inflated middle, its neck the wide-flung, V-shaped mouth. In It, both viciousness and grace were presented; the mottled coloring was faithfully reproduced.

Replacing the vase, Parker glanced wonderlngly at the girl. She stood In the doorway watching him, answering his look by neither smile nor frown. He got an idea of her at that moment which he never lost - that she was proud to arrogance, yet humble almost to shame. So Intense he felt her to be that he restrained any light expression and returned to her pottery.

He discovered a jug of the shape she had been turning on the wheel. Finished, it ceased to suggest itself as a mere container, appeared rather an object of crude art. Its slender neck decorated by a design of leaves In bas-relief.

This he relinquished on espying one of a particularly appealing subject - a red chlckeree with arched back, upholding In Its forepaws a pine cone, among the prickly leaves of which its sharp nose was searching for piiions.

"Wherever did you learn to put this life-touch into clay?" he asked.

"You think they have a life-touch?"

She spoke diffidently, but her eyes demanded the truth.

"They are rather exceptional, I should say. Of course, such ability to suggest motion, to copy colors, to effect differences of texture must be inherent, but who taught you modeling?"

"That came as natural to my fingers, I reckon, as teeth to my gums. Uncle Steve - he taught me all he knew."

She had made jugs, she further explained, since she had been old enough to play In mud, the word being generic for all forms of her work. The relative referred to, long since departed, had been an assiduous "jugger" In his day. Not until she had gone over the mountains to school, however had she set any particular store by her talent.

"You wish to make a career of it?" he asked. "You can, I believe."

She nodded, then qualified her agreement: 'T wish to make money out of It."

"You mean that these things are for sale? This Mr. Squirrel with the pine cone" - he lifted the conceit - "may I obtain It by right of purchase? It reminds me of - well, of some personal friends. How much will you take for it?"

"How much will you give?"

She took an eager step toward him, a flush of excitement staining her cheek.

"Whatever you think it worth - ten, twenty ---"

"You-aIl talking cents or dollars?"

"Dollars, of course. What do you say?"

"I say " She hesitated, in an apparent conflict of avidity and self-depreciation. "It appears like ten dollars is a sight more than it's worth, but I'd be right glad of the money."

Parker wondered at the trembling of her hands as she accepted the crisp bill he extended and pinned it carefully inside the pocket of her gingham dress.

"I understand," he said aloud, as a sort of apology for her lust for lucre. "The bank-note is symbolic, as it were, of the value of your art."

"No, sir, it ain't any symbol to me. It's money. That's what I want, and what I'm going to have. There are faults in my work same as in my schooling. When it's good, it's only a happen-so. But I'm set on improving my jugs just as I am on learning to speak fine, like you outside folks. At school I got a kind of understanding of English, and I downright enjoy reading. But somehow I get plumb - that is, very discouraged."

"All you need is a little application and practice, Verne. And, say, why can't you practice on me? Look at it as your rightful fee for representing me before the court of hills. Won't you let me be a pal, let me help you - that is, if you think I can?"

"You-all could help me a lot," she began, with an air of consideration, "if "

"Hi, Verneyl Where be you?"

The interrupting call, although from some distance, sounded raucous, impatient.

The girl made no attempt to continue. She stood, a look of apprehension on her face, her body at tension.

She took a quick step toward Parker, then stopped, threw up her head, seemed strengthened by sudden decision. Turning, she hurried to the door and answered:

"Hi Rexle! Where be you"

From the path that shelved toward the waterfall strode a suitor who might have quickened the pulse of any girl - the personable hillbilly at his best. Carefully dressed In a new suit and hat, splendidly fit, his face alight from more than eagerness, he hurried to meet her, caught both her hands in his, leaned to see how It fared with her by a close look Into her eyes.

"How come you back so soon. Rex? Tom ain't expecting you for a couple of days yet." ' Currle did not at once answer. In fact, his lips looked too stiff to speak. A change had come into his expression, not so much from the doubtful graclousness of her greeting, probably, as from what he had seen within the hut when leaning forward to peer into her eyes. His clutch relaxed; he dropped her hands. All that light of something more than eagerness was snuffed out of his face.

"And you, Verney," he said at last In a low, dangerous voice, "I see you weren't expecting me, either."

Parker, appreciating that once again his presence was unwelcome, sauntered forward as he might have done to greet an enemy accidentally encountered at some pink-shaded tea-table of a mutual friend.

"How are you, Currle?" he said, and, from force of habit, extended the hand of the burned right arm.

But the hillbilly seemed not to see. He stood tense as a masterpiece done in stone, the ruddiness gone from his face, his lips twisted, his unwilling right clenched into a knobbed mallet.