Belleboo, Chapters I-IV [pp. 79-87]

Belleboo.
watched Hal as long as he could follow
his course through the undulating coun try. He was going straight toward
Louisville.
He had stopped at the wagon to bid
his sister Poppilina good-bye. Pete,
coming down from his perch, met her.
She was about ten years old, a very
thin, sallow child, whose copperas linsey
dress by no means added to her attractions. Her hair was abundant, dark, and
slightly waving, her eyes a most solemn,
smileless gray. Her face expressed just
then all the varying shades of imperious ness, and to say the truth they became
her. They combined with her grandiloquent name, and made her worth a careful second glance.
She had the tiring drawl of her class,
and in her excitement it was yet more
emphasized. "Hal hev got secrets from
me, an' you air a knowin' ter it. I aint
a interferin' with Hal's man's rights, but
I'm his sister, his nearest blood kin, an'
it do seem ter me it air unproper fer him
ter hev secrets. I'm older'n I war sence
dad died, and I wait ter know whar
Hal's gone ter, an' the whyfores of it.
Hal air jest a high falutin', kase he hey
the opportunities."
"G'long, honey, w'at you know'bout
secrets? Marse Hal ain' got no secrets,
'less dey's tied up in de saddle bags, an'
dar war n't any in'em when I peeped
inter'em. He rode off up de kentry;
I seed him. Dar war n't no secrets
ridin''hind him on de pillion in yo'
place. Leastways I neber seed'em."
She pushed her hair back impatiently,
and fixed sparkling eyes on him.
"Who you talkin' ter, sah? I won't
'low no sech nonsense where I'm talkin'
business. I ast whar Hal hey gone."
"He te4led me he war gwine ter Louisville, an' I seed him go up de county
road."
"Visitin' the folks?"
"Dat w'at he say, Miss Poppliny."
"Thet's what I want ter know. I
wa' n't astin' for fairy tales."
Then she sat down on a tree stump,
and rocked back and forth with tearless
sobs, and Pete discreetly left her alone.
She had a proud, restless tempera ment, abnormally developed by petting
and by the example of her mother's
spirit. That lady had dwelt much on the
advantages of good blood and good family, had taken her visiting to the southern counties where her own family lived,
well-to-do people, whose refinements and
exclusiveness made a powerful impression upon Poppilina's mind. Already
she bowed down to and worshiped her
grandfather's character and memory,
directly opposed in this, as in nearly
everything else, to her brother. Her
spirit surged and teemed with notions
and prejudices far beyond her years.
She had exerted all her strength to keep
the family in Kentucky, had evolved a
half dozen plans with that end in view;
that failing, she had prayed that any disaster might befall them beyond the further bank of the Ohio, -any disaster
that would avert this wicked betrayal of
her native State and her grandfather's
well-laid plans.
Rarely did any family leave Kentucky
for Indiana without this feeling of leaving life behind them with their "folks."
Pete sat by the fire that night, - they
had camped by the wagon, - overlooking his harness, his thoughts filled with
Hal, when glancing up suddenly, he saw
in a break lit brightly by stars and just
beyond the wagon, the figure of a horseman. He knew it to be Hal. He started
up as the figure disappeared, and hurried up the hill side. More by instinct
than otherwise he followed a path leading to an open crown of the hill, and
there, as he expected, he found his master dismounted and gazing over the
country.
' Far to the north were the bluffs jutting on the Ohio; below, the plantation
and the wooded river; beyond, canebrakes, open levels, and forests; on the
other side of the hill, plantations, judg
86
[Jan.