The Heart's Kingdom

"Naw, stranger, naw," said Jed, and he rose as if to combat, but Mr.

Goodloe laid a restraining hand on his arm, and trembling, he took his

seat.

"Don't tell nothing, honey," he whispered, as the girl rose from her

bench, laid aside her cavernous black bonnet and advanced, took the oath

administered by the sheriff and stood facing father.

"Now, Mrs. Bangs," said father, with silvery tenderness in his voice

which I felt sure had gained him the reputation of never having lost a

case in which a woman was involved, "I want you to tell us all that

happened on the day that Jed let the mule escape him. Look at me and

tell me all about it."

"Well, stranger," began the mountain girl, with a look of confidence

coming into her face that was like a little pink wide-open arbutus, "I

reckon you won't believe me--like Jed didn't at first, though he do

now."

"Don't tell, honey," the prisoner commanded and implored in the one

plea. "I'd rather take the pen. They won't believe you."

"It war this way," she continued, without seeming to hear the command of

her young husband, upon whose arm the parson again laid a restraining

hand. "Jed he had unhitched the team and tied them with their rope

halters to the fence 'fore our cabin, when it was almost dark 'fore we

got thar. Then while I was unpacking the wagon he got on one horse and

rid down the side of the gulch to see whar water was at. I was jest

takin' the things in when a man come along leading five mules and riding

on one. He was a city stranger in fine clothes and he asked me fer a

meal because he had lost his way from a man who had a tent and grub. My

mammy allus cooked fer strangers, so--"

"She shore do that," ejaculated Mr. Turner, proud of his noted

hospitality.

"So I made up a fire hasty in the yard and put on a coffee pot," the

girl continued. "I had some corn pone and bacon my mammy had give me fer

a snack and I het that up. Whilst I got the meal the stranger he went on

unloading our wagon and then he come to a bundle of bed quilts what my

mammy have been saving fer me from her mammy and her grandmammy. He took

a notion to them and ast me how old they was and I told him about as old

as any twenty-inch cedar on Old Harpeth. He asked me to trade 'em, but I

couldn't abear to until he had riz to fifty dollars, what was the price

of a young mule, all on account of his sister wanting quilts like them

up in a big city. I was kinder crying quiet at letting 'em go, but I

thought about what that mule would be to Jed who wuz so good to me, so I

give 'em to him and he tied 'em on his saddle and went away. It war most

a hour when Jed come and when I told him and showed him the money, he

didn't believe me about them old quilts and he tooken the rope from

around the neck of the mule he'd been riding and--"