It was a day to make glad the heart of slave or freeman.The earth was cool from a night-long rain,and a gentle breeze fanned coolness from the north all day long.The clouds were snow-white,tumbling,ever-moving,and between them the sky showed blue and deep.Grass,leaf,weed and flower were in the richness that comes to the green things of the earth just before that full tide of summer whose foam is drifting thistle down.The air was clear and the mountains seemed to have brushed the haze from their faces and drawn nearer that they,too,might better see the doings of that day.
From the four winds of heaven,that morning,came the brave and the free.Up from Lee,down from Little Stone Gap,and from over in Scott,came the valley-farmers--horseback,in buggies,hacks,two-horse wagons,with wives,mothers,sisters,sweethearts,in white dresses,flowered hats,and many ribbons,and with dinner-baskets stuffed with good things to eat--old ham,young chicken,angel-cake and blackberry wine--to be spread in the sunless shade of great poplar and oak.From Bum Hollow and Wildcat Valley and from up the slopes that lead to Cracker's Neck came smaller tillers of the soil--as yet but faintly marked by the gewgaw trappings of the outer world;while from beyond High Knob,whose crown is in cloud-land,and through the Gap,came the mountaineer in the primitive simplicity of home spun and cowhide,wide-brimmed hat and poke-bonnet,quaint speech,and slouching gait.Through the Gap he came in two streams--the Virginians from Crab Orchard and Wise and Dickinson,the Kentuckians from Letcher and feudal Harlan,beyond the Big Black--and not a man carried a weapon in sight,for the stern spirit of that Police Guard at the Gap was respected wide and far.Into the town,which sits on a plateau some twenty feet above the level of the two rivers that all but encircle it,they poured,hitching their horses in the strip of woods that runs through the heart of the place,and broad ens into a primeval park that,fan-like,opens on the oval level field where all things happen on the Fourth of July.
About the street they loitered--lovers hand in hand--eating fruit and candy and drinking soda-water,or sat on the curb-stone,mothers with babies at their breasts and toddling children clinging close--all waiting for the celebration to begin.
It was a great day for the Hon.Samuel Budd.With a cheery smile and beaming goggles,he moved among his constituents,joking with yokels,saying nice things to mothers,paying gallantries to girls,and chucking babies under the chin.He felt popular and he was--so popular that he had begun to see himself with prophetic eye in a congressional seat at no distant day;and yet,withal,he was not wholly happy.
"Do you know,''he said,"them fellers I made bets with in the tournament got together this morning and decided,all of 'em,that they wouldn't let me off?Jerusalem,it's most five hundred dollars!''And,looking the picture of dismay,he told me his dilemma.
It seems that his "dark horse''was none other than the Wild Dog,who had been practising at home for this tournament for nearly a year;and now that the Wild Dog was an outlaw,he,of course,wouldn't and couldn't come to the Gap.
And said the Hon.Sam Budd:
"Them fellers says I bet I'd BRING IN a dark horse who would win this tournament,and if I don't BRING him in,I lose just the same as though I had brought him in and he hadn't won.An'I reckon they've got me.''
"I guess they have.''
"It would have been like pickin'money off a blackberry-bush,for I was goin'to let the Wild Dog have that black horse o'mine--the steadiest and fastest runner in this country--and my,how that fellow can pick off the rings!He's been a-practising for a year,and I believe he could run the point o'that spear of his through a lady's finger-ring.''
"You'd better get somebody else.''
"Ah--that's it.The Wild Dog sent word he'd send over another feller,named Dave Branham,who has been practising with him,who's just as good,he says,as he is.I'm looking for him at twelve o'clock,an'I'm goin'to take him down an'see what he can do on that black horse o'mine.
But if he's no good,I lose five hundred,all right,''and he sloped away to his duties.
For it was the Hon.Sam who was master of ceremonies that day.He was due now to read the Declaration of Independence in a poplar grove to all who would listen;he was to act as umpire at the championship base-ball game in the afternoon,and he was to give the "Charge''to the assembled knights before the tournament.
At ten o'clock the games began--and I took the Blight and the little sister down to the "grandstand''--several tiers of backless benches with leaves for a canopy and the river singing through rhododendrons behind.There was jumping broad and high,and a 100-yard dash and hurdling and throwing the hammer,which the Blight said were not interesting--they were too much like college sports--and she wanted to see the base-ball game and the tournament.And yet Marston was in them all--dogged and resistless--his teeth set and his eyes anywhere but lifted toward the Blight,who secretly proud,as I believed,but openly defiant,mentioned not his name even when he lost,which was twice only.
"Pretty good,isn't he?''I said.
"Who?''she said indifferently.
"Oh,nobody,''I said,turning to smile,but not turning quickly enough.
"What's the matter with you?''asked the Blight sharply.
"Nothing,nothing at all,''I said,and straightway the Blight thought she wanted to go home.The thunder of the Declaration was still rumbling in the poplar grove.
"That's the Hon.Sam Budd,''I said.
"Don't you want to hear him?''
"I don't care who it is and I don't want to hear him and I think you are hateful.''
