The Blue Ridge

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3. Stranger Unwelcome



"Yes, sir?"

The succinct question startled Parker from his thoughts - returned them with a swallow to his momentarily forgotten quest. He found that the lank proprietor, who had been occupied during the backdoor colloquy rewinding print-bolts and restoring them to the shelves, now stood In the aisle behind him. In the voice was no trace of the mountain drawl which he was coming to take for granted; rather, it had a pronounced Yankee twang. A pair of pale-gray eyes were fixed upon him in an intense look.

"I assume," Parker began, "that you are Postmaster SImms?"

"You assume correctly, both as to my name and office. If you are expecting mail, there's none for you."

At this curt reply to a query unasked Parker forced an increase of friendliness into his manner.

"But how can you be sure when you don't know my name?" he suggested engagingly.

Simm's attitude did not change. "This office pigeon-holes no mail to-day addressed to persons not known to me. Any other business?"

He who had such urgent ''other business" tried to silence the demands of the comptroller within himself, tried for finesse. It was evident that Simms did not take to him at first glance, was not going to embrace him fraternally. He was accustomed to having people like him; he must explain his presence, ingratiate himself.

"I'm a stranger in your village, Mr. Simms - Calvin A. Parker, a well-meaning painter of pictures who "

"Who wouldn't have to be very good to be better than those who have come to these parts before. Artist? Well, you look it!"

The comptroller reminded Parker that everything depended on his seeming good nature. "I had something of a shake-up just outside the village; got chucked into the ditch from "

"Verney Metcalf told me all about that. I find myself right busy this afternoon."

Again the mogul of the wets had cut him off.

"I hoped you might be able to tell me of some cabin not too far back in the Blue Ridge which I could rent for the summer."

"And what do you want a cabin for?"

Into this doubtful conversational overture Parker plunged. "I'm keen about hunting, for one thing."

"This section's all hunted out, sir. There ain't enough game left for folks that live here and have a right to it. You'd find better hunting elsewhere say, down In the Tusqulte or the Nantahala country."

"But killing is not my chief vice. What I came for is to get some of your Blue Ridge colors on canvas."

Slmms's head threw back and his unpleasantly long nose Inflated. "WeVe had artists here before, I tell you, and they were none too popular."

"Was their work so bad?"

The self-declared member of the profession was determined to bear up to the last.

" It wasn't their work so much, young fellow. It's just that painting In general ain't good hereabouts. I don't mind at all telling you this gratis."

Parker bowed his acknowledgments.

"Aside from the reasons mentioned, Mr. SImms, I think a few months In your mountains will benefit my health. I hoped you might happen to know of "

The postmaster, In his next interruption, assumed the gravity of a physician when he advises a patient to make his will.

"Health? Don't you ever believe it. Whoever told you that must have had evil designs on you. This Is a most unhealthy country for strangers. After I moved here from Vermont, I was five years getting acclimated. Besides which, there ain't any cabin vacant. Since the State went dry we've been shaking hands with prosperity, and every hut is chock-a-block, for a fact."

The Pharisaical expression and devout delivery of this last discouragement might have overcome Parker's doubts had not his nostrils collected certain whiffs of adverse testimony. The postmaster's breath was unmistakable - a complete vindication of Cotton Eye's tribute, "mogul of the wets."

"Almost do you make me believe," he said more cheerfully, "that strangers are unwelcome in Dismal Gap."

"Almost do you get me right." For the moment Simms's manner approached graciousness. "Mildly speaking, strangers are unwelcome. You wouldn't be likely to enjoy a visit here - certainly not in those clothes - hunting either pictures or health."

"Somehow, I'm not so sure - even in these clothes." The young man smoothed his left sleevfe with his right hand respectingly.

"Anyway, there's no empty cabin for you," snapped the postmaster.

All through the interview those other Parkers had been advising their descendant. Now they nudged him, warned him not to lose his temper. His manner did them proud.

"At least there is no necessity for me to leave Mrs. Plott's before I can have a tent sent over from the city. Thanks for your cordial reception, Mr. Simms."

His real "business" unbroached, he left the store. Fractious as were certain of his sensibilities over the failure of his errand, others were diverted. Did they think him a yeggman, a jail-bird, or what? Had Tobe Riker preceded his passenger to the village court of appeals to protect his own heart interest? Or could it be that Vernaluska Metcalf herself had turned down those long, strong thumbs of hers at the calico counter before King Currie had appeared to "rile" her Into that wonderful smile?

He was about to repass the dried-up dispensary where, a short while before, he had awakened Cotton Eye Lee and a breastful of hope, when the light burst upon him with radium strength. He stopped short, began to grin, lifted his eyes. From out the clear he saw why he was stranger unwelcome in Dismal Gap.

His whole past life seemed to have been but preface to the present moment - this culminative, thrilling, delicious moment. He had been reading a book, at it were, whose elaborate preparation had educated him up to full enjoyment of an incomparably humorous denouement. Moved by a desire to luxuriate in it, he strode to the stoop, worn down by the boots of thirsty hillbillies in the wet, wet days gone, never to return. There he settled, before yielding to the emotion already agitating him.

Chuckles began to escape him, interspersed with ejaculations, although there was none to hear along the empty street.

"I declare! I do declare! So that's it? I get the whole thing now - such an utterly funny thing. Me to be taken for - for that! Shades of Sylvia and Spence - zihat would they say?"

In the very onrush of his paroxysms of mirth he strangled them in order the more calmly to realize their cause.

He, Calvin A. Parker, had been sent into the mountains of North Carolina to get beyond temptation. Spencer Pope, collector of internal revenue, supposed to know the region, had selected it. But Spencer, blinded by confidence In the enforcement of the excise laws, had overlooked a thing or two or three. In the choice of an alleged bone-dry territory as the stage of a fight for abstinence, he had failed to consider the possibility of an illicit liquor traffic.

And here were the woods so full of moonshine that he - subject of the experiment - had at once come under the suspicion which had wronged so many strangers before him, none of whom could possibly have been as Innocent of hostile intent, as kindly disposed toward the regional industry as he. He - "poor Cal Parker" - to be taken for a revenue sleuth I

But anyhow, anyhow No diagram of his discovery, no tracing of its side-issues could expand the delicious irony of that first perception. There was he, wreck of a great name, ruin of a career, sent into the hills to forget "the curse"; and here had he walked, straight as though following a call, into its birth-place, where it best might be remembered. His dear, delightful curse 1

What a joke - what a joke - on Sylvia and Spencer back in old New York; on Tobe Riker and Asa Simms and Rex Currie ; on all the Red-Blue Ridgers here at hand.

And what a game had been given him to play I The dire suspicion that he was an official fighter of the demon he had blindly served - he must not disturb that, since its hazard was the quip. Would he play? Well, now! Even without his desire to perpetuate on canvas a really vital smile, the prospect captivated him.

His chuckles developed until he held both sides with his hands In an effort to control them. Next breath, giving up to the irresistible, he began to rock back and forth.

"Ha, ha, ha!" escaped him In mezzo voce; then: "Ho, ho!" In bass.

He laughed and laughed - until he held on to the floor. More and more regardless rose his voice, quite as though he were alone in the village.

"Well, stranger, you seem to be enjoying yourself!"

It was a voice he had heard somewhere before, a strong, humorous, yet caustic voice, that put the silencer upon Parker's risibihties. Opening his eyes he perceived a long shadow before him; lifting them, he saw Rex Currie standing in the road, interestedly regarding him.

"Oh, how do you do? I - I am." Parker smoothed out his features, struggled for coherence. "You - you know, I can see a joke when it's poked right at me."

"So can I," offered Currie, still eying him.

"I thought you were in such a hurry to go home with the girl of the - with Miss Metcalf."

"I was, but I sighted some unfinished business that's delayed me a spell. Don't let me cork your enjoyment." The handsome suitor of the girl of the smile positively scowled as he added: "I reckon you're entitled to enjoy yourself - ivhile yoii can!"

After which Impressive observance he nodded, started up the street, disappeared within the emporium of Asa Simms.

"While you can!" The echo jeered In the mind of Calvin Parker, again headed toward the Hotel Plott.

"Yet!" The same emphasis had been given one word back In the store.

There had been reason enough for him to "cork" his enjoyment In that he seldom felt like doing things he was told to do. Currie had advised him to laugh on, hence he had ceased.

But why should the grim note In a strange countryman's voice blunt the point of the joke - his Incomparable joke?