The Manchester Journal

A Peddler's Vigil

As the shadows fell behind the western moon
these peaks and the short twilight of
equinoctial latitude came on apace.

After a
time the man of the house came in. He
was tall and thin. Two ferret-like eyes
glowed sharply on the peddler from
amid the shaggy tangle of white hair
and beard.

He placed his long rifle in a rack over
the door, unslung his shot pouch and then
seated himself and gazed gloomily into
the fire without uttering either a greeting to
the stranger or to his family. Nan, passing a
rug, whispered to the peddler.

"Don't ye mind him, uncle, he's got one of his
bad spells on. It'll pass off by and by."

The peddler nodded and began a tale
concerning one of his adventures in Texas
as he was soon interrupted by Aunt
Viney.

"Sit up, stranger, we hain't got much to
eat, but such as it is you're welcome
to it."

In solemn
silence, after which he took his hat and
rapidly left the cabin. Aunt Viney saw fit
to explain.

"Yas, my man, hain't been like hisself
since the revenue men carried his son
John off five years ago last April.
Moonshining, I s'pose?"

"Yes, and top of that he shot one of 'em
while they were trying to take him and
they put him in the penitentiary at Nash-
ville for ten years."

The peddler remained silent for a mo-
ment or two. But when the dishes were
washed and put away he again entertained
the two women by relating sundry reminiscences
of his own career, and also describing
the wonders of certain great cities he
had visited.

After awhile Moses again stalked silently
in and took a seat in a far corner.

While the peddler talked he continued to
eye him closely, as if suspicious that the
stranger was not just what he should be.

"Speaking of telephone," continued the
peddler, "some folks in the mountains
don't believe that people can talk to each
other, and them a hundred or more miles
apart, but I tell you it's a fact. I've seen
it done myself."

"I've know'd of men hollerin' cross from
one mountain to another," said Aunt Viney
dubiously. "Mebbe they could make them
voices heard a matter of two miles. But
a hundred-" she shook her head disap-
provingly.

"It's so all the same, though. I have seen
and heard them talkin' just as we be now."

"That's as big a lie as ever was told," ex-
claimed old Mose, rising and making for
the door.

He seized his rifle as he passed, glancing
menacingly at the peddler and once
more left the cabin.

"The old man is a little touched in the
head, ain't he?" asked the peddler, who
seemed to take no offence whatever at the
old man's rude behavior.

"Ever since John was took off he's had
queer spells that come over him every
now and then. I must say he's more'n
apt to be 'spishus of strangers when they
come around.
He's always thinkin' of
revenoo spies.
I dessay that's what
makes him act so toward you. But you
mustn't mind him. I never knowed him
to succeed in hurting any one yet."

It was Nan who replied, for Aunt Viney
was making preparations to retire for the
night. When the girl and the ped-
dler were left alone the latter seemed
somewhat curious about this son John,
who for so many years had been under the
ban of the law.

"John was always good to Uncle Mose
and Aunt Viney, and that's one reason
Uncle Mose takes it so hard now."

"I suppose as you're kin to them, you
must have felt powerful bad when they
took him off?"

He eyed Nan closely as he spoke, and
the girl blushed slightly.

"I aln't no real kin to 'em," said she. "My
folks is all dead 'nd they raised me from
a little gal, but John and me was always
good friends."

"Nothin' more?"

The girl looked at him reprovingly.

"It's about bedtime," she said coldly.
"Sha'n't I show you where you are to
sleep?"

The peddler rose, took up his pack and
followed her into the little shed room.

There was an open window by the bed,
through which the full moon was then
shining.

"You won't need no light, I reckon," she
remarked. Then, bidding him good
night, she returned to the main cabin and
went to bed herself.

But for some reason she failed to go to
sleep. The bright moonlight, the rasp-
ing cry of the katydid from the trees with-
out and the discomfiting nature of her
thoughts kept her awake. She felt vaguely
uneasy about Uncle Mose. Where was
he. Very likely at the little moonshine
still up Bear Hollow half a mile away.
He often spent a night there engaged in
his illicit toil. Sue remembered his un-
friendly treatment of the peddler,
whose heavy breathing could now be
heard through the thin partition wall. He
had once laid in wait, rifle in hand, for
a passing drover, whom he had set down as
spy. Only Aunt Viney's prompt appearance
had prevented a probable murder.

Uncle Mose, though a good man enough
when in his right mind, was a dangerous,
uncertain personage when stirred by the
memory of his son to a spirit of half insane
hostility against all the world.

So uneasy did Nan become that at last
she rose, slipped on her dress and stole out
into the moonlight. An impulse she could
not control impelled her to look in at the
peddler's open window. She was prompted
by an indefinable fear. What she saw
caused her to start back, clasp her
hands and gasp for breath. Then, trembling
in every limb, she looked in again.

"My God," she faltered. "Am I dreaming?
surely it can't be- and yet I must
believe my own eyes."

Acting under a new impulse she turned
and fled along the trail leading to the
still. Arrived there she found the place
deserted. There was no fire in the furnace
and nothing to be heard but the cries of
the whippoorwills upon the mountain
side.

Full of painful forebodings she retraced
her steps and once more crouched beneath
the peddler's window. There she waited
until her limbs became cramped and the
night air chilled her to the bone.

"I might as well lie down again," she
thought, "I reckon uncle has gone down
the valley, for he said to-day he'd have to
go after some coffee right away. I might
wake the men up, but somehow I dussen't.
He might think I was forward."

But the second trial of the bed was no
better than the first.
The peddler's
heavy breathing was ever in her ears, and
her thoughts reverted constantly to the
sense of peril that vaguely yet persistently
kept her upon the tenterhooks of
anxiety.

"I wish morning would come," she said
for the hundredth time. "Lord, what a
meeting there will be then."

The sound of a stealthy footfall upon
the gravel without brought her to a sitting
position at once. Her heart beat
louder as she listened breathlessly. Yes,
it was moving round the house. Now
she heard it no more. Could she have
imagined it all? No, there it was again-
in the back porch.

Then-then! -she heard a gentle creaking
of the door. Ah! the bedroom door! She
sprang out of bed and a hasty bound
brought her to the door leading into the
back porch. She wrenched it open just
in time to catch a glimpse of a tall shadow
that disappeared within the shed
room.

"Good Lord, help me!" she faintly ejaculated
as she sprang forward nerved to
desperation by this dread fulfillment of
her fears.

She entered the room. There lay the
peddler, slumbering heavily in the white
glow of the moonlight. His face was
strangely altered, for the heavy beard had
fallen off, leaving exposed a clean shaven
youthful face. But the white bearded old
man bending over the prostrate form
with uplifted knife saw nothing distinctly.
To his morbid imaginings only the form
of a hated spy lay helpless before him. A
spy in the service of the defeated revenue,
who had robbed him of his only and well
beloved son.

"Uncle!" screamed Nan, dragging him
back. "Uncle! You shall not. Can't you
see? It's John -our John-your John!"

The peddler awoke and started upward
in a bewildered way. The knife fell to
the floor as Mose, his eyes almost started
from his head, stared at his son's white
face. Suddenly he comprehended and
the effect descended upon him like a
thunderbolt.

Uttering a low quivering cry he sank to
his knees by the bedside, and his head
fell forward. Nan's and John's eyes met
in a mutually recognizing glance; then
they turned their attention to the old
man. As they laid him upon the bed
Aunt Viney, awakened by the noise came
in. She fell as though confronted by a
ghost.

"John!" she exclaimed. "Yet it can't be!"

"Yes, it is, mother. I didn't know how
you'd all take my being so long in the
pen, so when the governor pardoned me
out I thought I would come home as a
peddler and in disguise till I found out if
you all cared for me any more."

While John was speaking Mose opened
his eyes, and tears blinded them as he
gazed.

"My son, my son!" he murmured broken-
ly. "And I might have killed him! My
mind's made up. There will be no more
stilling done in Bear Holler after this."

"Do you reckon Nan cares for me any
more, father?" asked John, while his eyes
sought those of Nan.

"Of course she does. Hasn't she been
grieving herself away ever since you was
took.
She never looked at another
man."

Nan's confusion seemed to sanction
this.

"There's only one thing to be done, in-
terrupted Aunt Viney decisively. "They've
just got to go over to the circuit rider's
next Sunday 'nd git married. After that's
over 'nd done with, Mose, I do hope you'll
behave yourself in future."

"Hain't I said I weren't a-going to 'still
whisky any more," said Mose. "'Stillin'
been at the bottom of all our troubles."

While the old folks talked John took
Nan's hand in his, and they stealthily
kissed each other.