But Graham was past sanity. He only clutched with the more frenzy at the thing which seemed to keep him from the ravenous mouth of the snarling waters.
Wade, in a kind of composed despair, sent a look towards the beach.
They were putting out a boat, a tiny sheel which frisked in the surf, and seemed motionless in the double action of the waves. Men laid hard at the oars. The little craft took the first big wave as a horse takes a hurdle. It dropped from the glassy height, and Wade saw it sink into a breach of the sea. Then flashing with crystal, it bore up again and outward.
The figures running and gesticulating on the beach had a marvellous distinctness to Wade's submerging eyes. He noticed the blue sky, flawed with scratches of white, the zigzag roof-lines of the great town, the twisting flags and meshes of the dark wire. Everything oppressed him with a sort of deadly clearness, as if a metal stamp should press in melting wax.
He was momently sinking, drawn ever outward by the undercurrent, and downward by the weighty burden throttling him in its senseless grasp.
He looked once more through a blinding veil of foam, and saw the boat dipping far to the left. A phantasm of life flickered before him.
Unsuspected trivialities shook out of their cells, and amazed him with the pygmy thrift of memory. Then came a sense of confusion, as if the spiritual and corporal lost each its boundary and ranged wild, and Wade felt the sea in his eyes, stroking them down as gently as ever any watcher by the dying.
FOOTNOTE:
[69] Copyright, 1894, by Harper and Brothers.
CORDIA GREER PETRIE
Mrs. Cordia Greer Petrie, a talented writer of very great promise and of decided performance, was born near Merry Oaks, Kentucky, February 12, 1872. When she was a child her parents removed to Louisville, Kentucky, and in the public schools of that city she was educated, after which she spent a half-year at old Eminence College, Eminence, Kentucky. In July, 1894, Miss Greer was married to Dr. Hazel G.
Petrie, of Fairview, Kentucky, who, for the past ten years, has been mine physician in various sections of eastern Kentucky. At the present time he is serving six mines and making his home at Chenoa, near Pineville, Kentucky. In her writings Mrs. Petrie has created a character of great originality in Angeline Keaton, an unlettered inhabitant of a remote Kentucky hamlet. "Of the original Angeline,"
Mrs. Petrie once wrote, "I know but little. She and her shiftless, 'no-erkount' husband, Lum, together with her son, Jeems Henry, lived in Barren county, not far from Glasgow. Angeline supported the family by working on the 'sheers,' 'diggin one half the taters fur tother half!' She was very anxious for her boy to 'git an edjycation' and no sooner would he get comfortably settled in a 'cheer' until she would exclaim, 'Jeems Henry! Git up offen them britches, you lazy whelp! Git yer book and be gittin some larnin in your head!' Without a word Jim Henry would climb up the log wall and from under the rafters abstract his blue back speller." Characterization is Mrs. Petrie's chief strength; and she is a positive refutation of the masculine dictum that women lack humor. With her friend, Miss Leigh Gordon Giltner, the short-story writer, she collaborated on an Angeline sketch, entitled "When the Bees Got Busy," which was published in the _Overland Monthly_ for August, 1904; and the prize story reprinted at the end of this note is the only other Angeline story that has been published so far. She has won several prizes with other stories, but a group of the Angeline sketches are in manuscript, and they will shortly appear in book form. _Angeline Keaton_, "with her gaunt angular form clad in its scant calico gown," is sure to "score" when she makes her bow between the covers of a book. She is every bit as cleverly conceived as _Mrs.
Wiggs_, _Susan Clegg_, or any of the other quaint women who have recently won the applause of the American public.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Letters from Mrs. Petrie to the Author; Miss Leigh Gordon Giltner's study in _The Southern Home Journal_ (Louisville).
ANGELINE JINES THE CHOIR
[From _The Evening Post_ (Louisville, Kentucky)]
She sat upon the edge of the veranda, fanning herself with her "split"
sunbonnet, a tall, angular woman, whose faded calico gown "lost connection" at the waist line. Her spring being dry, she came to our well for water. Discovering that Angeline Keaton was a "character," I invariably inveigled her to rest awhile on our cool piazza before retracing her steps up the steep, rocky hillside to her cabin home.
"I missed you yesterday," I said as a starter.
"Yes'm," she answered in a voice harsh and strident, yet touched with a peculiar sibilant quality characteristic of the Kentucky backwoodsman, "and thar wuz others that missed me, too!"
Settling herself comfortably, she produced from some hidden source a box of snuff and plied her brush vigorously.
"We-all have got inter a wrangle over at Zion erbout the church music," she began. "I and Lum, my old man, has been the leaders ever since we moved here from Lick-skillet. We wuz alluz on hand--Lum with his tunin' fork and me with my strong serpraner. When it come to linin' off a song, Lum wuz pintedly hard to beat. Why, folks come from fur and near to hear us, and them city folks, at Mis' Bowles' last summer, 'lowed thar warn't nothing in New York that could tech us. One of 'em offered us a dollar to sing inter a phonygraf reckerd, but we wuz afeerd to put our lives in jopperdy by dabblin' in 'lectricerty.
But even celebrerty has its drawbacks, and a 'profit is not without honor in his own country,' as the saying is. A passel of 'em got jellus, a church meeting was called, unbeknownst to us, and ermong 'em they agreed to make a change in the music at old Zion. That peaked-faced Betty Button wuz at the bottom of it. Ever since she tuk that normal course at Bowling Green she's been endeverin' to push herself inter promernence here at Bear Waller. Fust she got up a class in delsarty, but even Bear Waller warn't dull ernough to take to that foolishness! Then she canvassed the county with a cuttin' system and a book called 'Law at a Glance.' Now she's teaching vokle culshure. She orter know singers, like poits, is born, not made! Jest wantin' to sing won't do it. It takes power. It's give up mine's the powerfullest voice in all Bear Waller. I kin bring old Brindle in when she's grazing in the woods, back o' Judge Bowles' medder, and I simply step out on the portico and call Lum to dinner when he's swoppin' yarns down to the store quarter o' mile away. Fur that matter, though, a deef and dum man could fetch Lum to _vittles_.
"Do you know Bear Waller owes its muserkil educashun to me? Mine wuz the fust accordyon brought to the place, and I wuz allus ready to play fur my nabers. I didn't hafter be _begged_. I orgernized the Zobo band, I lent 'em my ballads, but whar's my thanks? At the battin' of an eye they're ready to drop me for that quavery-voiced Button gal and them notes o' hern that's no more'n that many peryids and commers.
"When the committee waited on me and Lum we jest flew mad and 'lowed we'd quit. Maybe we wuz hasty, but it serves 'em right. Besides, these Bear Wallerites ain't compertent to appreshiate a voice like mine, nohow. I decided I'd take my letter to Glasgow and jine that brag choir of their'n. It did me good to think how it 'ud spite some folks to see me leadin' the singin' at the county seat!
"Lum wuz dead set ergin it, but armin' myself with the rollin' pin and a skillet o' bilin grease, I finally pervailed on him to give in. Lum is of a yieldin' dispersishun if a body goes at 'im right.
"Jim Henry, that's my boy, an' I tuk a early start. We had tied up the colt in the cow shed and I wuz congratulatin' myself on bein' shet of the pesky critter when I heerd him nicker. Lookin' back, I saw him comin' in a gallerp, his head turned to one side, while he fairly obscured the landscape with great clouds o' pike dust!
"We wuz crossin' the railroad when old Julie heered that nicker, an'
right thar she balked. Neither gentle persuasion from the peach tree switch which I helt in my hand, nor well-aimed kicks of Jim Henry's boots in her flanks could budge her till that colt come up pantin'
beside her. We jest did clear the track when the accomerdashun whizzed by. Well, sir, when old Julie spied them kyars she began buck-jumpin'
in a manner that would'er struck terror to a less experienced hosswoman. Jim Henry, who wuz gazin' at the train with childlike pleasure, wuz tuk wholly by suprise, and before he knowed what wuz up he wuz precippytated inter the branches o' a red-haw tree. He crawled out, a wreck, his face and hands scratched and bleedin' and his britches hangin' in shreds, and them his Sundays, too! I managed to pin 'em tergether with beauty pins, and cautionin' him not to turn his back to the ordiance, we finally resumed our journey. That colt alluz tries hisself, and jest as we reached the square, in Glasgow, his appertite began clammerin', and Julie refused to go till the pesky critter's wants wuz appeased. Them Glasgowites is dear lovers of good hoss flesh, and quite a crowd gethered to discuss the good pints of the old mare and that mule colt.
"Some boys mistook Jim Henry for somebody they knowed and hollered, 'Say, Reube!' 'Hey, Reube!' at him. Jim Henry wuz fur explainin' to 'em their mistake, till one of 'em began to sing, 'When Reuben comes to town, he's shore to be done brown!' 'Jim Henry,' says I, sternly, 'you're no child o' mine ef you take _that_! Now, if you don't get down and thrash him I'm agoin' to set you afire when I get you home.'
"Jim Henry needed no second biddin'. He wuz off that nag in a jiffy, and the way he did wallerp that boy wuz a cawshun! He sellerbrated his victry by givin' the Bear Waller war-whoop. Then crawlin' up behind me, he said he wuz _now_ ready fur meetin'. That boy's a born fiter.
He gets it honest, for me and Lum are both experts, but then practice makes perfect, as the sayin' is.
"Our arrival created considerable stir in meetin'. Why is it that when a distinguished person enters a church it allus perduces a flutter? Owin'
to the rent in Jim Henry's britches, I shoved him inter the back seat.
Cautionin' him not to let me ketch him throwin' paper wads, I swept merjestercally up the ile and tuk a seat by the orgin. A flood of approvin' glances fastened themselves on my jet bonnet and fur-lined dolman. I wuz sorry I didn't know the fust song. It must have been a new one to that choir. Thar wuz four of 'em and each one wuz singin' it to a different tune, and they jest couldn't keep tergether! The coarse-voiced gal to my rear lagged dretfully. When the tall blonde, who wuz the only one of 'em that knowed the tune, when she'd sing,
"'Wake the song!'
that gal who lagged would echo,
"'Wake the song!'
in a voice as coarse as Lum's. She 'peared to depend on the tall gal for the words, for when the tall 'un would sing,
"'Song of Ju-ber-lee,'
the gal that lagged, and the two gents, would repeat, 'Of Ju-ber-lee.'
"I passed her my book, thinkin' the words wuz tore out o' hern, but, la! she jest glared at me, and she and them gents, if anything, bellered louder'n ever. I looked at the preacher, expecting to see him covered with shygrin, but, la! he wuz takin' it perfectly cam, with his eyes walled up at the ceilin' and his hands folded acrost his stummick like he might be havin' troubles of his own.
"I kept hopin' that tryo would either ketch up with the leader or jest have the curridge to quit. Goodness knows, I done what I could fur 'em, by beatin' time with my turkey wing.
"Somebody must have give 'em a tip, for the next song which the preacher give out as 'a solo,' that tryo jest pintedly giv it up and set thar is silent as clambs. The tall gal riz and commenced singin'
and that tryo never pertended to help her out! My heart ached in symperthy fur her as she stood thar alone, singin' away with her voice quaverin', and not a human bein' in that house jined in, not even the _preacher_! But she had _grit_, and kept right on! Most people would'er giv right up. She's a middlin' good singer, but is dretfully handercapt by that laggin' tryo and a passel o' church members that air too triflin' to sing in meetin'. The song wuz a new 'un to me, but havin' a nacheral year for music, I soon ketched the tune and jined in on the last verse with a vim. Of course I could only hummit, not knowin' the words, but I come down on it good and strong and showed them folks that Angeline Keaton ain't one to shirk a duty, if they wuz. After the sermon the preacher giv out 'Thar Is a Fountain Filled with Blood.' Here wuz my chanct to show 'em what the brag-voice of Bear Waller wuz like!
"With my voice risin' and falling and dwellin' with extry force on the fust syllerbles of foun-tin and sin-ners, in long, drawn-out meeter, I fairly lost myself in the grand old melerdy. I wuz soarin' inter the third verse when I discovered I wuz the only one in the house that knowed it! The rest of 'em wuz singin' it to a friverlous tune like them Mose Beasley plays on his fiddle! What wuz more, they wuz titterin' like I wuz in errer! The very idy! That wuz too much fur me, and beckernin' Jim Henry to foller, I marched outer meetin'!
"We found the old mare had slipped the bridle and gone home, so thar wuz nothin' left fur us to do but foot it. The last thing I heered as we struck the Bear Waller pike and set out fur home wuz that coarse-voiced gal, still lagging behind, as she sang,
"'The Blood of the Lamb!'"
MARIA THOMPSON DAVIESS
Miss Maria Thompson Daviess, author of _The Melting of Molly_, was born at Harrodsburg, Kentucky, in October, 1872, the descendant of the famous Joseph Hamilton Daviess, the granddaughter of the historian of Harrodsburg, whose full name she bears, and the niece of Mrs. H. D.