CHAPTER I.In Which Tobacco is Hero On an October afternoon some four years later, at the season of the year when the whole county was fragrant with the curing tobacco, Christopher Blake passed along the stretch of old road which divided his farm from the Weatherbys', and, without entering the porch, called for Jim from the little walk before the flat whitewashed steps.In response to his voice, Mrs.
Weatherby, a large, motherly looking woman, appeared upon the threshold, and after chatting a moment, directed him to the log tobacco barn, where the recently cut crop was "drying out.""Jim and Jacob are both over thar," she said; " an' a few others, for the matter of that, who have been helpin' us press new cider an' drinkin' the old.I'm sure I don't see why they want to lounge out thar in all that smoke, but thar's no accountin' for the taste of a man that ever I heard tell of an' I reckon they kin fancy pretty easy that they are settin' plum in the bowl of a pipe.It beats me, though, that it do.Why, one mouthful of it is enough to start me coughin' for a week, an' those men thar jest swallow it down for pure pleasure." Clean, kindly, hospitable, she wandered garrulously on, remembering at intervals to press the young man to "come inside an' try the cakes an' cider.""No, I'll look them up out there," said Christopher, resisting the invitation to enter."I want to get a pair of horseshoes from Jim; the gray mare cast hers yesterday, and Dick Boxley is laid up with a sprained arm.Oh, no, thanks; I must be going back."With a friendly nod he turned from the steps and went rapidly along the path which led to the distant barn.
As Mrs.Weatherby had said, the place was like the bowl of a pipe, and it was a moment before Christopher discovered the little group gathered about the doorway, where a shutter hung loosely on wooden hinges.
The ancient custom of curing tobacco with open fires, which had persisted in Virginia since the days of the early settlers, was still commonly in use; and it is possible that had one of Christopher's colonial ancestors appeared at the moment in Jacob Weatherby's log barn it would have been difficult to convince him that between his death and his resurrection there was a lapse of more than two hundred years.He would have found the same square, pen-like structure, built of straight logs carefully notched at the corners; the same tier-poles rising at intervals of three feet to the roof; the same hewn plates to support the rafters;the same "daubing" of the chinks with red clay; and the same crude door cut in the south wall.From the roof the tobacco hung in a fantastic decoration, shading from dull green to deep bronze, and appearing, when viewed from the ground below, to resemble a numberless array of small furled flags.On the hard earth floor there were three parallel rows of "unseasoned" logs which burned slowly day and night, filling the barn with gray smoke and the pungent odour of the curing tobacco.
"It takes a heap of lookin' arter, an' no mistake," old Jacob was remarking, as he surveyed the fine crop with the bland and easy gaze of ownership."Why, in a little while them top leaves thar will be like tinder, an' the first floatin' spark will set it all afire.That's the way Sol Peterkin lost half a crop last year, an' it's the way Dick Moss lost his whole one the year before."At Christopher's entrance he paused and turned his pleasant, ruddy face from the fresh logs which he had been watching."So you want to have a look at my tobaccy, too?" he added, with the healthful zest of a child."Well, it's worth seein', if I do say so; thar hasn't been sech leaves raised in this county within the memory of man.""That's so," said Christopher, with an appreciative glance."I'm looking for Jim, but he's keeping up the fires, isn't he?" Then he turned quickly, for Tom Spade, who with young Matthew Field had been critically weighing the promise of Jacob's crop, broke out suddenly into a boisterous laugh.
"Why, I declar', Mr.Christopher, if you ain't lost yo' shadow!"he exclaimed.
Christopher regarded him blankly for a moment, and then joined lightly in the general mirth."Oh, you mean Will Fletcher," he returned."There was a pretty girl in the road as we came up, and I couldn't get him a step beyond her.Heaven knows what's become of him by now!""I bet my right hand that was Molly Peterkin," said Tom."If anybody in these parts begins to talk about 'a pretty gal,' you may be sartain he's meanin' that yaller-headed limb of Satan.
Why, I stopped my Jinnie goin' with her a year ago.Sech women, Isaid to her, are fit for nobody but men to keep company with.""That's so; that's so," agreed old Jacob, in a charitable tone;"seein' as men have most likely made 'em what they are, an'
oughtn't to be ashamed of thar own handiwork.""Now, when it comes to yaller hair an' blue eyes," put in Matthew Field, "she kin hold her own agin any wedded wife that ever made a man regret the day of his birth.Many's the time of late I've gone a good half-mile to git out of that gal's way, jest as Iused to cut round old Fletcher's pasture when I was a boy to keep from passin' by his redheart cherry-tree that overhung the road.
Well, well, they do say that her young man, Fred Turner, went back on her, an' threw her on her father's hands two days befo'
the weddin'."
"It was hard on Sol, now you come to think of it," said Tom."He told me himself that he tried to git the three who ought to marry her to draw straws for the one who was to be the happy man, but they all backed out an' left her high an' dry an' as pretty as a peach.Fred Turner would have taken his chance, he said, like an honest man, an' he was terrible down in the mouth when I saw him, for he was near daft over the gal.""Well, he was right," admitted Matthew, after reflection."Why, the gal sins so free an' easy you might almost fancy her a man."He drew back, coughing, for Jim came in with a long green log and laid it on the smouldering fire, which glowed crimson under the heavy smoke.
"Here's Sol," said the young man, settling the log with his foot.
