The Starbucks. Opie Percival Read

Judge. When they came to Jasper's house, they decided to go no further.

      "Tom," said the woman, "this is the place we are looking for."

      Tom caught sight of Lou Starbuck, standing in the doorway, and replied: "Auntie, I guess you are right."

      The mere suggestion of taking boarders threw the household into a flurry, but Mrs. Mayfield, tall, graceful, handsome, threw her charm upon opposition and it faded away. Old Jasper was not over cordial to "store clothes," at least he was not confidential, and with the keen whip of his eye he lashed Tom Elliott, but the boy appeared to be frank and manly.

      "Of course you can stay as long as you want to," said Jasper, "but I reckon you'll have to put on some homespun and a checked hickory shirt or two, befo' you kin put up with our fare."

      "Now, please, don't worry about that," Mrs. Mayfield spoke up. "We can eat parched corn if necessary. We have come from the city to rest, and—"

      "Rest," Jasper broke in, looking at the young fellow. "Why, he don't look like he ever done anythin'. Never plowed a day in your life, did you?"

      "I must confess that I haven't," Tom replied.

      "Thar, I knowed it." And then speaking to Mrs. Mayfield, he added: "All right, mam, we'll do the best we kin fur you. Got the same names here that you had down whar you come from?"

      Tom laughed. His aunt reproved him with a look. "Why, of course. What object would we have in changing them?"

      "Don't ask me, mam. I never know what object nobody has—ain't my business. Here, Kintchin," he called to the negro, "take them trunks outen the wagin and then you may go to sleep ag'in."

      Kintchin came round a corner of the house, rubbing his eyes. "Talkin' ter me, suh?"

      "You hearn me."

      "Said suthin' erbout gwine ter sleep. I jest wanter tell you dat I ain't slep' none fur er week, an' ef you 'sinuate at me—"

      "Go on there. Now mam, ef you'll jest step in we'll do the best we kin."

      "Oh, thank you. How courteous you are."

      "How what? I reckon you better git along without much o' that. Don't want nobody put on a strain. Margaret, here are some folks," he continued as his wife made her appearance. "Jest tell 'em howdy and let 'em alone."

      She bowed to Tom and to Mrs. Mayfield. "And befo' you make yo'selves at home," she said, "I hope you'll l'arn not to pay no attention to Jasper. Lou, haven't you spoke to the folks?"

      "No'm, but I can. Howdy."

CHAPTER II.

       Table of Contents

JIM, THE PREACHER.

       Table of Contents

      During the rest of the day the visitors were permitted to amuse themselves. Lou was shy, Margaret was distantly respectful and the old man went about in leisurely attendance upon his affairs, not yet wholly unsuspicious. A week before the arrival of the "folks from off yander," as the strangers were termed, there had come to Jasper's house a nephew, Jim Starbuck, a mountain-side preacher. His air bespoke that gentleness resultant of passion bound and gagged. At eighteen he had been known as the terror of the creek. Without avail old Jasper had argued with him, with fresh scalps dangling at his own belt. One night Jim turned a revival meeting into a fight with bench legs, beat a hard-hearted money lender until he was taken home almost a mass of pulp. At nineteen he turned a hapless school teacher out of the school house, nailed up the door, and because the teacher muttered against it, threw the pedagogue into the creek. At twenty he seemed to hear a voice coming from afar. A man going to mill said that he saw Jim beside a log on his knees in the woods, praying; he was called a liar, knocked down his insulter and went on with his grist. He had spoken the truth, for on the night following, Jim arose in the congregation, renounced his reckless ways, and with a defiance of the world that among the righteous awaked applause, he came forward and knelt at the mourners' bench. His religion "took," they said, as if speaking of vaccination, and before long he entered the pulpit, ready gently to crack the irreligious heads of former companions still stubborn in the ways of iniquity. From behind a plum bush, in the corner of the fence, he had seen Mrs. Mayfield and had blinked, as if dazzled by a great light. Nor was it till the close of day that he had the courage to come into her presence, and then for a moment he gazed—and vanished. Old Jasper found him mumbling beneath the moon.

      "Lost anythin', Jim?"

      "Nothing that I ever thought I had, Uncle Jasper."

      "Look like a man that is huntin' fur his terbacker."

      "I've quit tobacco long ago, Uncle Jasper."

      "Huh, give that up, too? Then you have been hit hard. But atter all, my boy, a lick that ain't hard don't count fur much. Understand I believe in yo' Book all right, but not as the most of 'em reads it. The most of 'em reads it so as to make you do the things you don't want to do, and what they want you to do. A good many of 'em think it was writ fur them ag'in you. Findin' new picturs on the moon, Jim? I don't see nuthin' new; same old feller a burnin' of his bresh, allus a puttin' 'em on the fire an' never gittin' through."

      "I'm thinking, that's all, Uncle Jasper."

      "Comes from readin' them books up on the hill-top, I reckon. They make me think, too, when I git a holt of 'em, 'specially them about the war—looks like it's a mighty hard matter for a man to tell the truth the minit he grabs holt of a pen. Don't see why a pen is such a liar, but it is. And yit, the biggist liar I ever seed couldn't more than write his name. What do you think of them folks in thar, Jim?"

      Jim strode off, came back and standing with one hand resting on the rail fence that surrounded the old man's door yard, hung his head and replied: "Old Satan sometimes puts good clothes on his temptations, Uncle Jasper."

      "Why, you don't think that young feller's a nosin' round to—"

      "I don't see anything mysterious in him, Uncle Jasper. It's the woman that—that strikes so hard."

      "Huh. I didn't think you cared anythin' about women, Jim."

      "Oh, I don't and you musn't think I do. Did you ever have a feller catch a spear out of the sun with a lookin' glass and shoot it through yo' eyes? That's the way she done me, as she was a standing there at the door."

      "Wall, as game a feller as you are ain't afeared of a woman."

      "I don't know about that. The gamer a feller is among men the fearder he is among women, it seems like. But what am I talking about? She won't take any notice of me and in fact it won't make any difference if she does. I tell you, though, I don't like to be treated that way by a woman."

      "Why, how did she treat you?"

      "Looked something at me that made me dissatisfied with myself. I reckon I must be a good deal of a fool, Uncle Jasper."

      "Wall, I don't reckon you are as smart as old Henry Clay was. Still you ain't no slouch. Come on in and I'll give you a knockin' down to her. She can't no mo' than hit you with somethin'."

      When introduced Jim shied off into a corner and there during the evening he remained, gazing at the woman from "off yander," with scarcely courage enough to utter a word. Mrs. Mayfield inquired as to his church among the hills, and his countenance flared with a silly light and old Jasper ducked his head and snorted in the sleeve of his home-spun shirt. But the next morning Jim had the courage to appear at the breakfast table, still gazing; and later when Tom and his aunt went out for a walk, he followed along like a dog waiting to be scolded.

      Several days later, while old black mammy was ironing in the sitting room, Kintchin came in at the door which always stood open, and looking about, slowly went up to the old woman