She closed the door and with a snort Mart piled into bed with me.I gave him plenty of room and did not introduce myself.A little more dark silence--the shaking of the bed under the hilarity of those astonished,bethrilled,but thoroughly unfrightened young women in the dark corner on my left ceased,and again the door opened.This time it was the hired man,and I saw that the trouble was either that neither Mart nor Buck wanted to sleep with the hired man or that neither wanted to sleep with me.A long silence and then the boy Buck slipped in.The hired man delivered himself with the intonation somewhat of a circuit rider.
"I've been a-watchin'that star thar,through the winder.Sometimes hit moves,then hit stands plum'still,an'ag'in hit gits to pitchin'.''The hired man must have been touching up mean whiskey himself.
Meanwhile,Mart seemed to be having spells of troubled slumber.He would snore gently,accentuate said snore with a sudden quiver of his body and then wake up with a climacteric snort and start that would shake the bed.This was repeated several times,and I began to think of the unfortunate Tom who was "fitified.''
Mart seemed on the verge of a fit himself,and I waited apprehensively for each snorting climax to see if fits were a family failing.They were not.Peace overcame Mart and he slept deeply,but not I.The hired man began to show symptoms.He would roll and groan,dreaming of feuds,_quorum pars magna fuit_,it seemed,and of religious conversion,in which he feared he was not so great.Twice he said aloud:
"An'I tell you thar wouldn't a one of 'em have said a word if I'd been killed stone-dead.''Twice he said it almost weepingly,and now and then he would groan appealingly:
"O Lawd,have mercy on my pore soul!''
Fortunately those two tired girls slept--I could hear their breathing--but sleep there was little for me.Once the troubled soul with the hoe got up and stumbled out to the water-bucket on the porch to soothe the fever or whatever it was that was burning him,and after that he was quiet.
I awoke before day.The dim light at the window showed an empty bed--Buck and the hired man were gone.Mart was slipping out of the side of my bed,but the girls still slept on.I watched Mart,for I guessed I might now see what,perhaps,is the distinguishing trait of American civilization down to its bed-rock,as you find it through the West and in the Southern hills--a chivalrous respect for women.
Mart thought I was asleep.Over in the corner were two creatures the like of which I supposed he had never seen and would not see,since he came in too late the night before,and was going away too early now --and two angels straight from heaven could not have stirred my curiosity any more than they already must have stirred his.But not once did Mart turn his eyes,much less his face,toward the corner where they were--not once,for I watched him closely.And when he went out he sent his little sister back for his shoes,which the night-walking hired man had accidentally kicked toward the foot of the strangers'bed.In a minute I was out after him,but he was gone.Behind me the two girls opened their eyes on a room that was empty save for them.Then the Blight spoke (this I was told later).
"Dear,''she said,"have our room-mates gone?''
Breakfast at dawn.The mountain girls were ready to go to work.All looked sorry to have us leave.They asked us to come back again,and they meant it.We said we would like to come back--and we meant it--to see them--the kind old mother,the pioneer-like old man,sturdy little Buck,shy little Cindy,the elusive,hard-working,unconsciously shivery Mart,and the two big sisters.As we started back up the river the sisters started for the fields,and I thought of their stricken brother in the settlements,who must have been much like Mart.
