“Why, Benjie,” she cried anxiously, “what kin ail you-’uns? Ye look plumb desolated.”
“Oh, you g’ long, g’ long!” cried the goaded Benjie. Luckily she imagined the adjuration addressed to the old mare, now beginning the long, steep ascent of the mountain to their home on the bluff, and thus took no exceptions to the discourtesy.
“I’ll be bound ye eat su’thin’ ez disagreed with you in the town-folk’s victuals. I expec’ I’ll hev ter give ye some yarb tea afore ye feel right peart ag’in. Ye would hev a right to the indigestion ef ye hed been feedin’ like me nigh on ter midnight. I be goin’ ter tell ye about the pictur’-show arter I finish about ’Roy Tresmon’ an’ me. That supper--waal, sir, he invited Sophy an’ Ned Jarney, too, an’ paid fer us all, though some o’ them knickknacks war likely ter hev been paid fer with thar lives. Toadstools did them misguided sinners eat with thar chicken, an’ I expected them presently ter be laid out stiff in death. _I_ never teched the rank p’ison, nor the wine nuther. I say ter ’Roy ez I never could abide traffickin’ with corn-juice. An’ he grinned an’ say, ‘This is grape-juice, Editha.’ But ye mought know it warn’t no common grape-juice. The waiter kep’ a folded napkin round the bottle ez it poured, an’ the sniff of that liquor war tremenjious fine. It war like a whole flower-gyardin full of perfume. Them two men, ’Roy an’ Jarney, war breakin’ the dry-town law, I believe. They kep’ lookin’ at each other an’ laffin’, an’ axin’ which brand of soft drinks war the mos’ satisfyin’. An’ the man what kep’ the eatin’-store looked p’intedly skeered as he said ter the waiter, ‘Ye needn’t put _that_ bottle on the table.’ An’ they got gay fer true; my best cherry-bounce couldn’t hev made ’Roy mo’ glib than he war. An’ ’Roy hed no sense lef’ nuther. Sophy she say she seen the bill the waiter laid by his plate,-ye know how keen them leetle, squinched-up eyes of hern be,--an’ she say it war over ten dollars. Lawsy!--lawsy! what a thing it is ter be rich! ’Roy Tresmon’ jes stepped up ter the counter an’ paid it ’thout battin’ an eye.”
The old couple had left the wagon now, and were walking up a particularly steep and stony stretch of the road to lighten the load on old Whitey, dutifully pulling the rattling, rickety vehicle along with scant guidance. Editha kept in advance, swinging her sunbonnet by the string, her elaborately coiffed head still on display. Now and then as she recalled an item of interest to detail, she paused and stepped backward after a nonchalant girlish fashion, while Benjie, old and battered and broken, found it an arduous task to plod along with laggard, dislocated, and irregular gait at the tail-board of the wagon. They were in the midst of the sunset now. It lay in a broad, dusky-red splendor over all the far, green valleys, and the mountains had garbed themselves in richest purple. Sweets were in the air, seeming more than fragrance; the inhalation was like the quaffing of some delicious elixir, filling the veins with a sort of ethereal ecstasy. The balsam firs imbued the atmosphere with subtle strength, and the lungs expanded to garner it. Flowers under foot, the fresh tinkle of a crystal rill, the cry of a belated bird, all the bliss of home-coming in his thrilling note as he winged his way over the crest--these were the incidents of the climb.