The Wiving of Lance Cleaverage

								

Lance disappearing together between the trees. Under the green
domes of oak and liriodendron, the latter starred all over now
with orange-tawny tulips, she saw them pass. Wine of summer was
in the veins of the forest. Even the sober oaks, wreathed like
bacchanals, overflowed with sweetness from their wrappings of
wild grape. The two with the banjo took their way down a steep
path toward a jade-green pool, a still reach [18] of water arched
over by fantastic tangles of laurel and rhododendron, black
as the tents of Kedar, lighted only by the flash of a water-fall
that caught the sun. This was the baptismal place.
The daughter of the house of Gentry turned her face resolutely
toward respectability and the church, albeit there was no joy in
the countenance. Strung out over a quarter of a mile were
courting couples bent toward the same destination. To these
young hearts it seemed well worth while to have lain under the
heel of winter to attain this marvelous summer morning with its
green-clothed forest, its wreathing of blossoms where they
passed. Clean and cool as a bell's note, the song of a thrush
deep in the wood spilled jeweled drops of sound through the
trembling branches overhead. A catbird's sonata rippled boldly
out upon the very path. A canopy of bloom was woven and flung
over the spring by the black, knotty fingers of the laurel. Bees
tumbled happily in the bosom of the fairest drooping clusters,
their hum nearly drowned by the heavy gurgle of the creek water.
Callista drew in her breath sharply. Summer and sun and light
and love everywhere--and she was walking up to the church-house
with Flenton Hands, while back on some forest by-path, with
music at his finger ends and Ola Derf beside him, Lance
Cleaverage forgot her with a laugh.

CHAPTER II.
THE UP-SITTING.

GRANNY YEARWOOD--the grandmother of Flenton Hands and his
sisters--was dead. The work-hardened old body had parted with
its flame of life reluctantly; for nearly a year she had been
declining toward the end; and during the last months the family
had cared for her almost day and night. They were worn out with
the toil of it before she herself wore out. But now it was all
over. The first outburst of noisy lamentation, which is fairly
conventional in the Southern mountains, was past. The corpse had
been decently composed on a rude plank scaffold, while Octavia
Gentry and Roxy Griever took charge of the household and began
to order things in that curious half-ecclesiastical fashion
which follows the footsteps of death.
It was near noon, and Octavia dished up the dinner, while Roxy
paid more attention to the impending funeral arrangements. Before
the meal was over, young people began to come in, though none
could quite say how they had received word. The girls made proffer
of assistance, and swiftly the table was cleared away, the dishes
washed, and the house and surroundings put in immaculate  [20] order.