The Law in Little Egypt

ILL, you take the old preacher a ham. Tom, you take the old preacher a bushel o’ shelled cawn with the nubbins throwed out, and be shore ye give him Methodist measure. George, you take the old preacher a bushel o’ ’taters, and you give him Methodist measure, too. I’ll find out whuther ye done it or not, and it’ll shore go hard wi’ ye ef ye don’t do it! Now git! Git! Show me yore heels!”

Thus spake the Law in Little Egypt, which is a settlement lying along Caney River, in the Big Bald Mountain country, considerably less than a thousand miles from the Tennessee-North Carolina State line. And having spoken, the Law crept back into the riotously blooming laurels and disappeared without even the sound of a breaking twig; and the three mountaineers it had halted and spoken to continued on their way homeward, and as they went they said nothing to one another.

They knew that it were far better to obey without question. Other men had dared to disobey, and some of them had been horse-whipped; while another of them had returned to the dust whence he came, and still another now lay on the flat of his back with a blue-lipped hole, through which swift lead had passed, in his left lung.

The correct name for the Law in Little Egypt was Sarah Harrison—but please don’t draw a conclusion here. It may be that you’ll be surprised inside of three minutes.

Sarah Harrison stole through the blooming laurels and to a dim old trail, followed it silently half a mile through the woodland, stopped at the upper edge of a little clearing, and called sharply:

“Jim!”

A tall and lanky figure with a squirrel rifle in its hands came to a doorway of the log cabin below.

“Put down that gun,” ordered the Law, “and come up here.”

Jim put his rifle down on the door-step, frowned, and went slowly up through the growing corn and to the snake fence. The other addressed him:

“You owe John Simmons a dollar and a half for one o’ old Sade the ’coon-dawg’s puppies. When’re ye a-goin’ to pay him?”

“I’m a-goin’ to pay him right now,” answered Jim.

“All right; go and do it,” said the Law, with twinkling eyes; and Jim went toward the cabin of the man who owned old Sade, the ’coon-dog.

Then Sarah Harrison walked another half-mile through the green woodland, stopped at the upper edge of another little clearing, and called sharply:

“Henry!”

In a doorway of a dilapidated log hut below appeared a little, slender man with mouse-colored hair, the face of a weasel, and fishy blue eyes.

“Come here!” ordered Sarah.

Henry came. He was one of those fellows who will corner you on the day that your mortgages are due, and pick sundry hairs off your coat-collar while he tells you his family secrets. Only Henry had no family. He lived a hand-to-mouth life, with only dogs for company; he hunted fur-bearing game in season, and he dug ginseng and fished. Man’s only true friend was a dog, he said; so, in order that he might have many friends, he had many dogs. Mongrels, they were, every one of them, but he loved them none the less for that.

“You tried to gi’ me away to Shuriff Connard yeste’day,” said the Law. “I’ll hoss-whup ye, ef ye try to deny it. Ef ye wasn’t so danged little, I’d hosswhup ye anyhow. Better not talk to Connard any more. Go back to the house!”

Henry went.

Sarah Harrison disappeared in a way that was almost uncanny, went up on the mountainside, sat down on the leaves and waited patiently for night to come.

When it was quite dark, Sarah Harrison stole down into the settlement, stole up to the back door of an old and rambling and honeysuckle-covered log cabin of three rooms, and rapped lightly and peculiarly—three raps and two, three and two. A candle within was suddenly put out, a meal-bag window-curtain was drawn, and the door creaked open on its wooden hinges. The Law entered, the door creaked back shut and a bar was dropped into place, and the candle was lighted again.

“Bub!” softly cried a glad feminine voice, and a pair of fine brown eyes shone with welcome.

ARAH HARRISON was not a woman. Sarah Harrison had been named too soon. His mother had had five boys, and she had wanted a girl; and when she was disappointed, she wouldn’t change the name because she feared it would bring bad luck. They had soon nicknamed him “Bub,” and Bub was now the biggest and the strongest and the finest-looking young man anywhere in the Big Bald Mountain country.

The cabin he was in was the home of Old Johnny Barlow, a hill preacher who had grown too old to preach. The girl that had admitted him was Old Johnny’s daughter, and his sweetheart. Bub Harrison put his big hands under Hattie’s chin, lifted her face a little, bent over and kissed her affectionately and reverently on the forehead.

“Set down, Bub,” came a feeble old voice from the chimney-corner; and Bub sat down.

“Bub, I been a-thinkin’,” went on the feeble old voice, “what on earth are you a-goin’ to do? You cain’t go on a-dodgin’ from tree to tree from the shuriff, like ye’ve been a-doin’.”

Young Harrison’s brows drew thoughtfully.

“I don’t know what I’m a-goin’ to do,” he said a little gloomily. “I could leave here, I reckon, and go away off some’eres whar’ I hain’t knowed, ef it wasn’t for a-doin’ without my people and you and Hattie.”

“Maybe ye’d better,” muttered Old Johnny. “Me and Hattie’ll miss ye, a course, and yore people’ll miss ye; but—well, I don’t know, son. I don’t know what to tell ye to do, boy. Ef ye could jest find out for sartain who it was ’at killed that thar nose-talkin’ Peele Bailey, ’at’d clear ye, Bub. Hi Footner is shot bad, but he hain’t a-goin’ to make a die of it, and a-bein’ cleared o’ killin’ Peele’d clear ye o’ shootin’ Hi.”

“Yes, but how am I a-goin’ to find out for sartain who killed Peele?”

The old mountaineer shook his head.

“I don’t know, son. I don’t know. I’ve thought and thought, and I hain’t no nigher a s’lution ’an I was at fust. Yore mother was here today. She wants to see ye, Bub.”

“It’s dangerous for me to go about home,” said Bub. “Shuriff Connard is allus a-watchin’ thar. Did George Henderson and Tom Little and Bill Adams bring ye anything today?”

“Yes,” smilingly. “’Taters, and cawn, and a ham—they’d laid off to bring ’em for a long time, they said.”

Know you that preachers in the hills are supported, not by salaries, but by donations.

“I see,” said Harrison, with twinkling eyes.

He began to look longingly toward a cat-hide banjo that hung on a hickory peg in the log wall. It seemed to him an age since he had played a banjo or heard one played, and, like most hillmen, he loved the instrument. Hattie read his thoughts well. She took down the banjo and gave it to him, and then she sat down on the floor at his feet.

“Play and sing, ‘Ella Ree,’” she requested.

“Ella Ree,” that old, old song—I think that Ella Ree must have been a poorly dressed, beautiful woman, with sweet, sad eyes. We hillfolk and near-hillfolk, we love that old, old song. After we’ve become rich, some of us, in coal or in iron or in timberlands, we profess, perhaps, a greater liking for “Ah, I Have Sighed to Rest Me,” but—we prick up our ears like young mules on circus day when we hear the banjo and “Ella Ree.”

“D’ye reckon it wouldn’t gi’ me away?” asked Bub. “Shuriff Connard he’s some’eres in this section, Hattie, honey.”

He barely heard her say:

“I—don’t—know.”

But she had asked it, and he would take a risk. He tightened the strings, looked toward the barred door and began to sing, his big fingers beating a jangling though not discordant accompaniment:

Bub rose quickly, put the banjo down and blew out the candle. He had heard the creak of a board in the back porch floor. Then he hastened silently into the next room and to an open window.

The person who made the board creak was the sheriff. For weeks he had been trying to get the drop on Bub Harrison, and failed signally. Bub knew every man, woman and child, every tree and every stone and every laurel bush, for miles around, for Bub had been born out there in the wilds; Bub had a gray squirrel beaten a sea mile for cunning, and a gray squirrel, if you please, is twice as cunning as a fox. Connard was alone. He could have had deputies with him; but four or five men, usually, can not do as much as one when the fugitive is a mountaineer who is unwilling to leave his home section; four or five men may be seen where one man may not. Besides, Connard was a young sheriff, and he was anxious to have the so-called outlaw fall into his own hands.

But now Connard was nonplussed. He had found Bub Harrison quite by accident; he had been about to pass the Barlow cab in, when he had heard Bub’s voice singing “Ella Ree.”

To go for men to surround the Barlow home was out of the question for several reasons. Those mountaineers who were friendly toward Bub could not be driven to assist in Bub’s capture, and those mountaineers who were not friendly toward Bub would be afraid—for Bub might escape. And then the cessation of the song showed that Harrison was alarmed, and Connard did not dare to leave the cabin for fear that Harrison would get away.

So Connard tried to surround the cabin himself. He rapped on the back door and called loudly:

“Open in the name of the law!”

Then he ran around the house to nab Bub at the front door.

But Bub didn’t try to make his escape by the front door. Bub knew. At the open window, well hidden in the darkness, Bub watched and waited.

His revolver ready in his hand, the officer went around the house, eyes wide open and keenly alert, several times. Then he did all there was left for him to do—he entered by the back door, which had been opened for him. The candle had been lighted.

“Where is Bub?” Connard demanded, his eyes on the black doorway that led to the cabin’s middle room. And at that moment Harrison crept out of the window.

The old preacher and his daughter confronted the sheriff.

“I’m shore I couldn’t tell ye jest whar he is,” said Old Johnny.

“He was here a minute ago,” growled Connard. “You’re laying yourself liable for harboring a criminal, you know!”

“Bub ain’t no criminal!” declared Hattie angrily.

“Maybe not,” replied the officer. “All the same, I’ve got a warrant for his arrest, and I’m going to arrest him.”

Hattie elevated her nose.

“You couldn’t arrest a pig!”

Connard smiled tolerantly.

“I’ll have to search the house, I guess.”

“Bub he ain’t in this house,” said Hattie, “and you ain’t a-goin’ to s’arch through it and tear everything up!”

The sheriff went toward the door that led to the middle room, and Hattie very promptly barred the way. Connard gently tried to push her aside, when a big, dark form stole up behind him, shot an arm around him and seized his revolver, wresting it from his hand. It was Bub.

“You’ll l’arn some day to take a woman’s word, Shuriff Connard!” he cried, turning the revolver upon its owner. “Now set down; me and you’s a-goin’ to have a little talk right here—we’re a-goin’ to sort o’ hold co’te, so to speak—set down, I say! Set!”

The officer sat down. He was no coward; it was good sense to sit down. Bub drew up a chair and also sat down, facing the man who had hunted him so hard.

“Now listen to me, Mr. Connard,” began the mountaineer. “I know I’m as good a man as you. I think I’m a durned sight better man ’an you. I believe in laws as much as you do, shuriff. But I don’t believe in a-lettin’ myself be sent to the pen on sarcumstantial evidence, and so I hain’t a-goin’ to be arrested.

“Shuriff, don’t forgit nary word I’m a-sayin’. I set myself up as the Law in Little Egypt acause it needed a law. It didn’t have none. I reckon it was jest natcheral for you and everybody else to think it was me killed Peele Bailey, and me shot Hi Footner, acause it happened that them two fellers kicked ag’in me as the Law. But shuriff, I never done it. I hope I may die right here whar I’m a-settin’ at ef I done it. And, havin’ not done it, I shore hain’t a-goin’ to suffer for it whilst I’m in my right mind.

“It may be, I know, ’at the sarcumstantial evidence wouldn’t be strong enough to send me up, but I hain’t a-goin’ to resk a-standin’ a trial. I don’t know, and you don’t know, what them Baileys and Footners would swear. One more thing, Mr. Connard: ef you give this here old man here any trouble over him a-lettin’ me step into his house, I’ll settle with ye. Remember that! You’ll find yore gun a-stickin’ in a crack o’ the back fence, shuriff.”

He rose, backed out by way of the back door and disappeared in the thick night. The officer found his revolver sticking in a crack of the fence; he took it and went away.

NY hillman can find a good hiding-place convenient to his friends and relatives. Bub Harrison, when he left Old Johnny’s house, went straight to a rotting, mildewed cabin that stood at the head of a hemlock-filled cove a mile from the settlement. It wasn’t long until he was sleeping and dreaming, as he so often dreamed, of Hattie Barlow.

Before the middle of the morning following, Hattie stole up to see him, and she took him something good to eat. Bub kissed her on the forehead, and they sat down together on the rotting, mildewed door step.

“Shuriff Connard he’s stuck up notices all over the settlement, a-sayin’ a big money reward would be paid for you, Bub!” Hattie told her sweetheart.

In truth, it was not a big reward that Connard offered. But to this poor hillwoman it seemed a fortune.

“Ain’t that the devil!” exclaimed Bub, his mouth full of fried ham.

“It’s a heap wuss’n that,” said Hattie. She went on: “I found out somethin’ yeste’day, which I didn’t have time to tell ye last night. That nose-talkin’ Peele Bailey, the day afore he was shot, killed one o’ Henry Rumley’s dawgs. Could that help ye any, Bub?”

Henry Rumley was the little fellow with the fishy blue eyes, the mouse-colored hair, the weasel’s face, and the many canine friends.

“Henry Rumley is the one ’at killed Peele!” exclaimed Bub thickly, because of a mouth full of fried ham, potatoes and corn-cake. “Henry Rumley and Peele never liked one another. Peele thrashed Rumley last Winter for a-takin’ a ’coon out o’ his trap. But a-provin’ ’at Henry killed Peele, ’at’s the devil of it, Hattie.”

“Allus slip up on a man’s blind side, pap allus said,” smiled Hattie Barlow. “Pap he alius said all men had a blind side, ef ye could jest find it. Now I wonder what is Henry’s?”

“Le’s see,” said Bub, swallowing. “Henry—Henry believes in signs. I never seen sech a feller to believe in signs. I seen him quit a-fishin’ acause he’d accident’ly stepped acrost his pole. Bad luck, he said.”

After a moment’s thought, Bub went to his feet.

“Hattie, little ole honey-darlin’, I be durned ef we hain’t done got him!”

For an hour they planned, and at the end of that time Hattie kissed her sweetheart and went homeward.

HEN Henry Rumley, the superstitious, went to his dilapidated hut from his daily ginseng hunt, late that afternoon, he found a great smear of blood across his door. It was the blood of a squirrel, but Henry Rumley didn’t know it. All blood is red.

The fishy eyes widened, and the face that reminded one so much of a weasel’s went deathly white. He shrank back from the red smear, and his dogs, afraid, cowered and slunk under the floor, leaving him alone; Henry frequently beat his four-footed friends, true as they were to him, much as he loved them. He stood in the guttered path for a moment, swore many times under his breath, then went around to the other door.

A smear of blood was on that door too!

Again Henry swore. Then he mustered his courage, all that he possessed, and entered the hut. It was growing dusky, and he scratched a match and lighted a half-burned tallow dip. In the feeble yellow glare he saw a cross marked on the floor, and upon closer investigation he found that it had been made of blood!

Henry dropped the candle, smothered a shriek and ran out to the weedy yard. The snowy bloom of the laurels above seemed to him like a multitude of ghosts. A man’s hell is lighted in his own soul.

Then there came from somewhere up on the mountainside the cry of one who talked through his nose, as Peele Bailey had done:

“Henry!”

The fishy-eyed little man ran back into his hut, barred both doors as well as he could, found the tallow dip and with fingers that shook violently applied a burning match to the wick. Again there came from somewhere up on the mountainside that weird, nasal-toned cry, and this time it seemed nearer:

“Henry!”

Henry Rumley shrank back against one of the log walls. He bent over, lifted out one of the worn floor-boards and called his dogs to him for company. Even the dogs seemed to feel the presence of some ghastly thing.

Once more there came that terrible, nasal-toned cry, and this time Rumley knew it was nearer, for it was so loud that it was like thunder

“Henry!”

“O Lord!” chattered Henry Rumley, and he sank to his knees on the floor among his dogs, friends who could not offer solace now in this his extremity. “O Lord! O Lord!”

For a few minutes there was a deep and utter silence save for the far-away and mournful cry of an owl, and then there came an old and feeble voice from the direction in which the settlement lay,

“What’s the matter wi’ ye, Henry, my boy?”

The weasel-faced man recognized the voice as that of the old preacher. He welcomed company now, and especially the company of one like Old Johnny who knew how to pray. He rose, hurried across the room and opened the door. Hattie Barlow’s father stepped across the worn sill, limped to a home-made chair and sat down.

“How—how did ye know the’ was anything the matter with me?” babbled Henry Rumley.

Old Johnny appeared to be much surprised.

“Why,” he said, “didn’t ye send for me to come to ye, Henry, my boy?”

“No!”

“Well, ’pon my honor!” and the old preacher suddenly stood up. “Now I wonder ef my old mind is up to playin’ me tricks! Henry, I’ll be dadblasted ef I didn’t hear somebody say, at my front door, this here:

“‘Johnny Barlow, Johnny Barlow, Johnny Barlow! Henry Rumley wants ye quick! Henry Rumley needs ye bad, Johnny Barlow!’ And so I come as quick as I could.”

Henry Rumley shook like a leaf.

“Look at that—on the floor!” he cried, and he pointed toward the two smears of squirrel-blood that made a cross.

“Why, what is it?” said Old Johnny. “I don’t see nothin’—nothin’ at all. Henry, you hain’t been a-drinkin’, have ye, my boy?”

“The cross—don’t you see it?” almost screamed Rumley.

“Hain’t no cross thar, as I can see,” declared the aged mountaineer. “Hain’t ye a-tryin’ to fool me, son?” smilingly.

“No—no! Look!” And he sat down on the floor, with the candle in his hand, and with a trembling finger pointed to the red marks.

“Why, son, the’ hain’t a thing thar!” exclaimed Old Johnny. “Not a single, solitary thing thar!”

Then there came again the cry that had stricken terror to the heart of the younger man. It was a very correct imitation of Peele Bailey’s voice. Bub Harrison was holding his nose between finger and thumb:

“Henry! Henry Rumley!”

“Listen! Did you hear that?” babbled the dog-lover.

“Son,” smilingly, “I didn’t hear nothin’ at all. And I’ve got a good hearin’. Why, what’s the matter with ye, son?”

Henry dropped the candle and sank to the floor in a heap. Old Barlow took up the candle and stuck it to a low shelf by means of its own wax. Then he bent over and put a hand gently on Rumley’s shoulder, and Rumley flinched at the touch.

“It must be a sign,” Barlow said, as if sadly, slipping up, as it were, on Rumley’s blind side. “My pore boy, I’m afeard yore time has come. I do wisht ye hadn’t ha’ killed Peele.”

“He killed my best dawg!” whined Henry Rumley—and in another minute he had confessed.

Then there entered several stalwart men and the girl Hattie, who had witnessed, through chinks in the log walls, the confession. Soon Bub Harrison joined them, and there was some rejoicing.

The Law in Little Egypt had vindicated itself.