A Wild Thing
It was night in the mountains of Kentucky. Wild hills rose on all sides. Swift mountain streams flowed rapidly up and down the mountains.
Jemima Tantrum was down at the stream, brewing1 whiskey at the family still.
She was a typical mountain girl.
Her feet were bare. Her hands, large and powerful, hung down below her knees. Her face showed the ravages3 of work. Although but sixteen, she had for over a dozen years been supporting her aged4 pappy and mappy by brewing mountain whiskey. From time to time she would pause in her task, and, filling a dipper full of the pure, invigorating liquid, would drain it off — then pursue her work with renewed vigor5.
She would place the rye in the vat6, thresh it out with her feet and, in twenty minutes, the completed product would be turned out.
A sudden cry made her pause in the act of draining a dipper and look up.
“Hello,” said a voice. It came from a man clad in hunting boots reaching to his neck, who had emerged.
“Can you tell me the way to the Tantrums’ cabin?”
“Are you uns from the settlements down thar?”
She pointed7 her hand down to the bottom of the hill, where Louisville lay. She had never been there; but once, before she was born, her great-grandfather, old Gore8 Tantrum, had gone into the settlements in the company of two marshals, and had never come back. So the Tantrums from generation to generation, had learned to dread9 civilization.
The man was amused. He laughed a light tinkling10 laugh, the laugh of a Philadelphian. Something in the ring of it thrilled her. She drank off another dipper of whiskey.
“Where is Mr. Tantrum, little girl?” he asked, not without kindness.
She raised her foot and pointed her big toe toward the woods. “Thar in the cabing behind those thar pines. Old Tantrum air my old man.”
The man from the settlements thanked her and strode off. He was fairly vibrant11 with youth and personality. As he walked along he whistled and sang and turned handsprings and flapjacks, breathing in the fresh, cool air of the mountains.
The air around the still was like wine.
Jemina Tantrum watched him entranced. No one like him had ever come into her life before.
She sat down on the grass and counted her toes. She counted eleven. She had learned arithmetic in the mountain school.
A Mountain Feud12
Ten years before a lady from the settlements had opened a school on the mountain. Jemina had no money, but she had paid her way in whiskey, bringing a pailful to school every morning and leaving it on Miss Lafarge’s desk. Miss Lafarge had died of delirium13 tremens after a year’s teaching, and so Jemina’s education had stopped.
Across the still stream, still another still was standing14; It was that of the Doldrums. The Doldrums and the Tantrums never exchanged calls.
They hated each other.
Fifty years before old Jem Doldrum and old Jem Tantrum had quarrelled in the Tantrum cabin over a game of slapjack. Jem Doldrum had thrown the king of hearts in Jem Tantrum’s face, and old Tantrum, enraged15, had felled the old Doldrum with the nine of diamonds. Other Doldrums and Tantrums had joined in and the little cabin was soon filled with flying cards. Harstrum Doldrum, one of the younger Doldrums, lay stretched on the floor writhing16 in agony, the ace2 of hearts crammed17 down his throat. Jem Tantrum, standing in the doorway18; ran through suit after suit, his face alight with fiendish hatred19. Old Mappy Tantrum stood on the table wetting down the Doldrums with hot whiskey. Old Heck Doldrum, having finally run out of trumps20, was backed out of the cabin, striking left and right with his tobacco pouch21, and gathering22 around him the rest of his clan23. Then they mounted their steers24 and galloped25 furiously home.
That night old man Doldrum and his sons, vowing26 vengeance27, had returned, put a ticktock on the Tantrum window, stuck a pin in the doorbell, and beaten a retreat.
A week later the Tantrums had put Cod28 Liver Oil in the Doldrums’ still, and so, from year to year, the feud had continued, first one family being entirely29 wiped out, then the other.
The Birth of Love
Every day little Jemina worked the still on her side of the stream, and Boscoe Doldrum worked the still on his side.
Sometimes, with automatic inherited hatred, the feudists would throw whiskey at each other, and Jemina would come home smelling like a French table d’h?te.
But now Jemina was too thoughtful to look across the stream.
How wonderful the stranger had been and how oddly he was dressed! In her innocent way she had never believed that there were any civilized30 settlements at all, and she had put the belief in them down to the credulity of the mountain people.
She turned to go up to the cabin, and, as she turned something struck her in the neck. It was a sponge, thrown by Boscoe Doldrum — a sponge soaked in whiskey from his still on the other side of the stream.
“Hi, thar, Boscoe Doldrum,” she shouted in her deep bass31 voice.
“Yo! Jemina Tantrum. Gosh ding yo’!” he returned.
She continued her way to the cabin.
The stranger was talking to her father. Gold had been discovered on the Tantrum land, and the stranger, Edgar Edison, was trying to buy the land for a song. He was considering what song to offer.
She sat upon her hands and watched him.
He was wonderful. When he talked his lips moved.
She sat upon the stove and watched him.
Suddenly there came a blood-curdling scream. The Tantrums rushed to the windows.
It was the Doldrums.
They had hitched32 their steers to trees and concealed33 themselves behind the bushes and flowers, and soon a perfect rattle34 of stones and bricks beat against the windows, bending them inward.
“Father! father!” shrieked35 Jemina.
Her father took down his slingshot from his slingshot rack on the wall and ran his hand lovingly over the elastic36 band. He stepped to a loophole. Old Mappy Tantrum stepped to the coalhole.
A Mountain Battle
The stranger was aroused at last. Furious to get at the Doldrums, he tried to escape from the house by crawling up the chimney. Then he thought there might be a door under the bead37, but Jemina told him there was not. He hunted for doors under the beds and sofas, but each time Jemina pulled him out and told him there were no doors there. Furious with anger, he beat upon the door and hollered at the Doldrums. They did not answer him, but kept up their fusillade of bricks and stones against the window. Old Pappy Tantrum knew that just as soon as they were able to affect an aperture38 they would pour in and the fight would be over.
Then old Heck Doldrum, foaming39 at the mouth and expectorating on the ground, left and right, led the attack.
The terrific slingshots of Pappy Tantrum had not been without their effect. A master shot had disabled one Doldrum, and another Doldrum, shot almost incessantly40 through the abdomen41, fought feebly on.
Nearer and nearer they approached the house.
“We must fly,” shouted the stranger to Jemina. “I will sacrifice myself and bear you away.”
“No,” shouted Pappy Tantrum, his face begrimed. “You stay here and fit on. I will bar Jemina away. I will bar Mappy away. I will bar myself away.”
The man from the settlements, pale and trembling with anger, turned to Ham Tantrum, who stood at the door throwing loophole after loophole at the advancing Doldrums.
“Will you cover the retreat?”
But Ham said that he too had Tantrums to bear away, but that he would leave himself here to help the stranger cover the retreat, if he could think of a way of doing it.
Soon smoke began to filter through the floor and ceiling. Shem Doldrum had come up and touched a match to old Japhet Tantrum’s breath as he leaned from a loophole, and the alcoholic42 flames shot up on all sides.
The whiskey in the bathtub caught fire. The walls began to fall in.
Jemina and the man from the settlements looked at each other.
“Jemina,” he whispered.
“Stranger,” she answered,
“We will die together,” he said. “If we had lived I would have taken you to the city and married you. With your ability to hold liquor, your social success would have been assured.”
She caressed43 him idly for a moment, counting her toes softly to herself. The smoke grew thicker. Her left leg was on fire.
She was a human alcohol lamp.
Their lips met in one long kiss and then a wall fell on them and blotted44 them out.
“As One.”
When the Doldrums burst through the ring of flame, they found them dead where they had fallen, their arms about each other.
Old Jem Doldrum was moved.
He took off his hat.
He filled it with whiskey and drank it off.
“They air dead,” he said slowly, “they hankered after each other. The fit is over now. We must not part them.”
So they threw them together into the stream and the two splashes they made were as one.
The End
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1
brewing
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| n. 酿造, 一次酿造的量 动词brew的现在分词形式 | |
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ace
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| n.A牌；发球得分；佼佼者；adj.杰出的 | |
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ravages
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| 劫掠后的残迹，破坏的结果，毁坏后的残迹 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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vat
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| n.(=value added tax)增值税，大桶 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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gore
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| n.凝血，血污；v.（动物）用角撞伤，用牙刺破；缝以补裆；顶 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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tinkling
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| n.丁当作响声 | |
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vibrant
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| adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的 | |
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12
feud
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| n.长期不和；世仇；v.长期争斗；世代结仇 | |
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delirium
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| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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enraged
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| 使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 )； 歜； 激愤 | |
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writhing
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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18
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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trumps
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| abbr.trumpets 喇叭；小号；喇叭形状的东西；喇叭筒v.（牌戏）出王牌赢（一牌或一墩）( trump的过去式 )；吹号公告，吹号庆祝；吹喇叭；捏造 | |
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21
pouch
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| n.小袋，小包，囊状袋；vt.装...入袋中，用袋运输；vi.用袋送信件 | |
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22
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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clan
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| n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派 | |
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24
steers
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| n.阉公牛，肉用公牛( steer的名词复数 )v.驾驶( steer的第三人称单数 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
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25
galloped
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| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
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26
vowing
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的现在分词形式） | |
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vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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28
cod
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| n.鳕鱼；v.愚弄；哄骗 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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31
bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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32
hitched
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| （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的过去式和过去分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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elastic
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| n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的 | |
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37
bead
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| n.念珠；(pl.)珠子项链；水珠 | |
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38
aperture
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| n.孔，隙，窄的缺口 | |
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39
foaming
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| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
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40
incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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41
abdomen
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| n.腹，下腹(胸部到腿部的部分) | |
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42
alcoholic
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| adj.（含）酒精的，由酒精引起的；n.酗酒者 | |
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43
caressed
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| 爱抚或抚摸…( caress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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44
blotted
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| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
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