PS 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Prof. Juan E. Reyna 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 2514.BS3 
 
 Bred in the bone / 
 
 3 1924 022 147 429 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022147429 
 
' Thank you. I am glad if he meets with your approval.' 
 
BRED IN THE 
 BONE 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS NELSON PAGE 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 NEW YORK::::::::::::::::MCMIV 
 
 DL 
 
Copt/right, 1904, ly Charles Scribner's Sons 
 
 PubUshed, May, 1904 
 
 ^,f:^2a^^ 
 
MY MOTHER 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE title of this volume of Southern 
 stories has been chosen not so much 
 because of the first story as because all the 
 stories are founded on traits of character 
 which have appeared to the author to be 
 
 bred in the bone. 
 
 T. N. P. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Bred in the Bone 1 
 
 The Spectre in the Cart 61 
 
 The Sheriff's Bluf 103 
 
 The Long Hillside 1A3 
 
 Old Jdbe's Marital Experiments 169 
 
 The Christmas Peace 183 
 
 Mam' Lyddy's Recognition 235 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 " Thank you. I am glad if he meets with your 
 
 approval " Frontispiece 
 
 Facing 
 page 
 
 " Let him go, son; let him go! You'll win 
 yet " 50 
 
 Dressed in his Sunday clothes, with a clean 
 white shirt on, seated on his pine coffin, 
 was old Joel 90 
 
 Drew up along the path from the tavern to 
 
 how to him 108 
 
 " I don't forget the pretty girls " ISJi- 
 
 " I don' keer nothin' 'bout de temper " 180 
 
 As he stalked on, bitter and lonely, he was sud- 
 denly run into by a little hoy, in whose 
 arms was a bundle so big that he could 
 scarcely see over it 2^0 
 
 Guiding her as if she had been the first lady in 
 the land S50 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 I 
 
 J.T was the afternoon before the closing day of 
 the spring meeting of the old Jockey Club that 
 so many people know. The next day was to be the 
 greatest ever known on that course; the Spring 
 Meeting was to go out in a blaze of glory. As to 
 this everybody in sight this spring afternoon was 
 agreed; and the motley crowd that a little before 
 sunset stood clustered within the big white-painted 
 gate of the grounds about the Jockey Club race- 
 stables rarely agreed as to anything. From the 
 existence of the Deity to the effect of a blister on 
 a windgall, through the whole range of stable- 
 thought and horse-talk, there was no subject, 
 speaking generally, on which that mongrel popu- 
 lation agreed, except, of course, on one thing — 
 the universal desirability of whiskey. On this one 
 subject they all agreed, always. 
 
 Yet they were now all of one mind on the fact 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 that the next day was to be the record on that 
 course. In the first place, the prize in the great 
 over-night event, the steeplechase set for the mor- 
 row, was the biggest ever offered by the club, and 
 the "cracks" drawn together for the occasion were 
 the best ever collected at a meeting on that course. 
 
 Even such noted steeplechasers as Mr. Galloper's 
 Swallow, Colonel Snowden's Hurricane, and Tim 
 Rickett's Carrier Pigeon, which had international 
 reputations, were on hand for it, and had been 
 sent "over the sticks" every morning for a week in 
 hopes of carrying off such a prize. 
 
 There was, however, one other reason for the 
 unwonted unanimity. Old Man Robin — "Colonel- 
 Theodoric-Johnston's-Robin-suh" — said it was to 
 be the biggest day that was ever seen on that 
 track, and in the memory of the oldest stable-boss 
 old Robin had never admitted that any race of the 
 present could be as great, "within a thousand 
 miles," as the races he used to attend "befo' de 
 wah, when bosses ran all de way from Philidelphy 
 to New Orleans." Evil-minded stable-men and boys 
 who had no minds — only evil — laid snares and 
 4 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 trapfalls for "Colonel Theodoric Johnston's Rob- 
 in, of Bullfield, suh," as he loved to style himself, 
 to trip him and inveigle him into admissions that 
 something was as good now as before the war ; but 
 they had never succeeded. The gang had followed 
 him to the gate, where he had been going off and 
 on all the afternoon, and were at their mischief now 
 while he was looking somewhat anxiously out up 
 the parched and yellow dusty road. 
 
 "Well, I guess freedom's better 'n befo' d' 
 wah?" hazarded one of his tormentors, a hatchet- 
 faced, yellow stable-boy with a loud, sharp voice. 
 He burst into a strident guffaw. 
 
 "Maybe, you does," growled Robin. He edged 
 ■oflF, rubbing his ear. "Befo' de wah you'd be 
 mindin' hawgs — what you ought to be doin' now, 
 stidder losin' races an' spilin' somebody's bosses, 
 mekin' out you kin ride." A shout of approving 
 derision greeted this retort. 
 
 Old Robin was a man of note on that circuit. 
 It was the canon of that crowd to boast one's self 
 better than everyone else in everything, but Robin 
 was allowed to be second only to the speaker and 
 
 5 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 the superior of everyone else with a unanimity 
 which had its precedent only after Salamis. 
 
 Robin had been head of Colonel Theodoric 
 Johnston's stable before the war, the time on 
 which his mind dwelt with tender memory; and 
 this, with the consideration with which he was 
 treated by stable-owners and racing-gentlemen 
 who shone like luminaries on the far edge of the 
 stable-boys' horizon, and the old man's undoubted 
 knowledge of a horse, made him an authority in 
 that world. 
 
 The BuUfield stable had produced some of the 
 greatest horses of the country — ^horses to which 
 the most ignorant stable-biped knew the great 
 winners of the present traced back their descent 
 or were close akin — and if Colonel Johnston's 
 stable lost anything of prestige, it was not in 
 Robin's telling of it. He was at it now as he stood 
 at the big white gate, gazing up the road, over 
 which hung a haze of dust. Deucalion, Old Nina, 
 Planet, Fanny Washington, and the whole gleam- 
 ing array of fliers went by in Robin's illumined 
 speech, mixed up with Revenue, Boston, Timoleon, 
 6 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 Sir Archy, and a dozen others in a blaze of equine 
 splendor. 
 
 "Aw, what 're you giflSn us?" jeered a dusky 
 young mulatto, clad in a ragged striped sweater, 
 recently discharged as a stable-boy. "What wus 
 the time then.? Why 'n't you read the book?" 
 
 This was a dig at Robin, for he was "no great 
 hand at reading," and the crowd knew it and 
 laughed. The old man turned on the speaker. 
 
 "Races now ain't no mo' than quarter-dashes. 
 Let 'em try 'em in fo'-mile heats if they want to 
 see what's in a hoss. Dat's the test o' .wind an' 
 bottom. Our bosses used to run fo'-mile heats 
 from New York to New Orleans, an' come in with 
 their heads up high enough to look over dis gate." 
 
 "Why 'n't you read the books?" persisted the 
 other, facing him. 
 
 "I can't read not much better than you ken 
 ride," retorted Robin. This was a crusher in that 
 company, where riding stood high above any Ht- 
 erary attainment ; for the other had been a failure 
 as a jockey. 
 
 He tried to rally. 
 
 "I'll bet you a hundred dollars I can " 
 
 7 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 Robin gazed at him witheringly. 
 
 "You ain' got a hunderd dollars ; you ain't got 
 a hunderd cents! You wouldn't 'a' been wuth a 
 hunderd dollars in slave-times, an' I know you 
 ain' wuth it now." 
 
 The old man, with a final observation that he 
 didn't want to have to go to court as a witness 
 when folks were taken up for stealing their mas- 
 ter's money, took out and consulted his big gold 
 stop-watch. That was his conclusive and clinching 
 argument. It was surprising what an influence 
 that watch exercised. Everyone who knew Robin 
 knew that watch had been given him before the 
 war as a testimonial by the stewards of the Jockey 
 Club. It had the indisputable record engraved on 
 the case, and had been held over the greatest race- 
 horses of the country, Robin could go up to the 
 front door of the club and ask for the president — 
 he possessed this exclusive privilege — and be re- 
 ceived with an open hand and a smile, and dis- 
 missed with a jest. Had not Major McDowell met 
 him, and introduced him to a duke as one of his 
 oldest friends on l^e turf, and one who could give 
 
 8 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 the duke more interesting information about thei 
 horses of the past than any other man he knew? 
 Did not Colonel Clark always shake hands with 
 him when they met, and compare watches ? So now, 
 when, as the throng of horse-boys and stable-at- 
 tendants stood about him, Robin drew his watch 
 and consulted it, it concluded his argument and 
 left him the victor. 
 
 The old trainer himself, however, was somewhat 
 disturbed, and once more he gazed up the road 
 anxiously. The ground on which he had predicted 
 the greatness of the next day was not that the noted 
 horses already present were entered for the race, 
 but much more because he had received a letter 
 from one whom he sometimes spoke of as "one of 
 his childern," and sometimes as "one of his young 
 masters" — a grandson of his old master. Colonel 
 Theodoric Johnston of BuUfield — telling him that 
 he was going to bring one of his horses, a colt his 
 grandfather had given him, and try for the big 
 steeplechase stake. 
 
 Old Robin had arranged the whole matter for 
 him, and was now awaiting him, for he had writ- 
 9 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 ten that he could not get there until late in the 
 day before the race, as he had to travel by road 
 from the old place. 
 
 Though old Robin let no one know of his un- 
 easiness, he was watching now with great anxiety, 
 for the sun was sinking down the western sky 
 toward the green bank of trees beyond the turn 
 into the home stretch, and in an hour more the 
 entries would be closed. 
 
 While he waited he beguiled the time with stories 
 about his old master's stable, and about the equine 
 "stars" that shone in the pedigree of this horse. 
 
 Colonel Johnston's fortune had gone down with 
 the close of the war, and when his stable was 
 broken up he had recommended his old trainer to 
 one of his friends and had placed him with a more 
 fortunate employer. 
 
 Robin had not seen his old master's grandson 
 for years — not since he was a little boy, when 
 Robin had left home — ^and he pictured him 
 as a dashing and handsome young gentleman, 
 such as he remembered his father before him. As 
 to the horse, not Sir Archy himself had been 
 10 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 greater. Robin talked as though he had had the 
 handling of him ever since he was dropped; and 
 he ran over a pedigree that made the boys about 
 him open their wicked eyes. 
 
 Just then a stable-boy discerned out on the high- 
 way across the field a rider, coming along at a 
 swinging trot that raised the dust and shot it in 
 spurts before him. 
 
 "Yonder he come now!" cried the urchin, with 
 a grimace to attract the attention of the crowd. 
 They looked in the direction indicated, and then in 
 chorus began to shout. Old Robin turned and 
 glanced indifferently down the road. The next in- 
 stant he wheeled and his black hand made a clutch 
 at the boy, who dodged behind half a dozen others 
 as a shout of derisive laughter went up from the 
 throng. What Robin saw was only a country lad 
 jogging along on a big raw-boned, blazed-faced 
 horse, whose hip-bones could be seen even at that 
 distance. 
 
 "You know dat ain't my horse!" said the old 
 man, sharply. "You young boys is gittin' too free 
 with you' moufs ! Dat horse " 
 
 The rest of his speech, however, was lost; for 
 11 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 at that moment the horseman turned from the high- 
 way into the road to the race-course and came 
 swinging on toward the gate. The gang behind 
 old Robin broke into renewed jeers, but at the 
 same time kept well out of his reach; for the old 
 man's face bore a look that no one dared trifle 
 with, and he had a heavy hand on occasion, as 
 many of them had come to know. His eyes now 
 were fastened on the horse that was rapidly ap- 
 proaching through a cloud of dust on the yellow 
 road, and a look of wonder was growing on his 
 brown face. 
 
 The rider pulled rein and drew up just outside 
 the open gate, looking down on the group there 
 in some bewilderment. Then his eyes lighted up, 
 as the old trainer stepped out and, taking off his 
 hat, put forth his hand. • 
 
 "Uncle Robin?" 
 
 "My young master." He took the bridle just 
 as he might have done years before had his old 
 master ridden up to the gate. 
 
 The act impressed the gang behind him as few 
 things could have done, and though they nudged 
 12 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 one another, they fell back and huddled together 
 rather farther away, and only whispered their ridi- 
 cule among themselves. 
 
 The boy sprang from the saddle, and the old 
 man took possession of the horse. 
 
 They were a strange-looking pair, horse and 
 rider, fresh from the country, both of them dusty 
 and travel-stained, and, as the stable-boys whis- 
 pered among themselves, both "starving for the 
 curry-comb." 
 
 The lad passed in at the gate, whipping the dust 
 from his clothes with the switch he carried. 
 
 "Good-evening, boys." 
 
 Robin glared back fiercely to see that no in- 
 solent response was made, but there was no danger. 
 The voice and manner were such that many a hand 
 jerked up to a cap. Besides, the young lad, though 
 his clothes were old and travel-stained, and his hair 
 was long and was powdered with dust, showed a 
 clean-cut face, a straight back, broad shoulders, 
 and muscular legs, as he strode by with a swing 
 which many a stable-boy remarked. 
 
 Robin led the horse away around the end of the 
 13 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 nearest stable. No one would liave known his feel- 
 ings, for he kept a severe countenance, and broke 
 out on the nearest stable-boy with fierce invective 
 for not getting out of his way. 
 
 The horse carried his head high, and, with 
 pointed ears, wide eyes, and dilated nostrils, in- 
 spected everything on either side. 
 
 It was only when the new-comer and Robin were 
 out of hearing that the jeers broke out aloud, and 
 even then several of the on-lookers, noting the 
 breeding along with the powerful muscles and flat 
 bone, asserted that it was "a good horse, all the 
 same." They had eyes for a good horse. 
 
 II 
 
 As the old trainer led the horse away around 
 the long stables, the low rumble of far-off thunder 
 grumbled along the western horizon. Robin 
 glanced in that direction. It might mean a change 
 in the chances of every horse that was to run next 
 day. The old man looked downcast; the boy's 
 countenance cleared up. He scanned the sky long 
 14 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 and earnestly where a dull cloud was stretching 
 across the west ; then he followed the horse among 
 the long lines of low buildings with a quickened 
 step. 
 
 It was not till they had reached a box-stall in 
 an old building far oiF in one corner of the 
 grounds that the old negro stopped. When he had 
 been expecting another horse — the horse of which 
 he had boasted to his entire acquaintance — ^he had 
 engaged in advance a box in one of the big, new 
 stables, where the descendant of the kings would 
 be in royal and fitting company. He could not 
 bring himself now to face, with this raw-boned, 
 sunburnt colt, the derisive scrutiny of the men 
 who had heard him bragging for a week of what 
 his young master would show them when he came. 
 Yet it was more on his young master's account than 
 on his own that he now slunk away to this far-off 
 corner. He remembered his old master, the king of 
 the turf, the model of a fine gentleman, the leader 
 of men; whose graciousness and princely hospi- 
 tality were in all mouths; whose word was law; 
 whose name no one mentioned but with respect. 
 15 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 He remembered his young master as he rode 
 away to the war on one of the thorough-breds, a 
 matchless rider on a matchless horse. How could 
 he now allow their grandson and son, in this rusty 
 suit, with this rusty colt at which the stable-boys 
 jeered, to match himself against the finest men and 
 horses in the country? He must keep him from en- 
 tering the horse. 
 
 But as the old fellow stopped before the stall 
 and glanced at the horse he had been leading, his 
 face changed. It took on the first look of interest it 
 had worn since the horse had appeared on the road 
 in a cloud of dust. He was standing now directly 
 in front of him. His eyes opened. The deep chest, 
 the straight, clean legs with muscles standing out 
 on the forearms in big knots, the fine head with 
 its broad, full brow, its wide eyes full of life and 
 intelligence, the dehcate muzzle, suddenly caught 
 his eye. He took a step to one side, and scanned 
 the horse from top to hoof, and his face lighted 
 up. Another step, and he ran his hand over him, 
 up and down, from topknot to fetlock, from crest 
 to croup. At every touch his eyes opened wider. 
 16 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Umhm ! He hard as a rock !" He was talking 
 aloud, but to himself. "He's got de barrel to stay, 
 an' he leg jes as clean as a pin !" 
 
 It was the first word of praise he had vouch- 
 safed. The young owner's face lighted up. He had 
 felt the old man's disappointment, and his heart 
 had been sinking. It was lifted now. 
 
 "What you say he pedigree?" 
 
 "Imported Leam " 
 
 "I know. Dat's de blood! Imported Leaming- 
 ton — Fanny Wash'n' by Revenue ! He'll do. Hit's 
 bred in de bone!" 
 
 "Did you ever see such bone.-"' the boy asked, 
 running his hand over the big knee-joint. 
 
 The old trainer made no answer. He glanced 
 furtively around to see that no one heard the ques- 
 tion. Then he went on feeling the horse, inch by 
 inch. Every muscle and sinew he ran his hand 
 over, and each moment his face cleared up more 
 and more. "He ain' nothin' but rock!" he said, 
 straightening up. "Walk him off dyah, son" — ^with 
 a wave of his hand — "walk him." 
 
 It was as if he were speaking to a stable-boy. 
 17 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 He had now forgotten all but the horse, but the 
 young man understood. 
 
 He took the bridle, but the horse did not wait. 
 At the first step he was up with him, with a long, 
 swinging stride as springy as if he were made of 
 rubber, keeping his muzzle close to his master's 
 shoulder, and never tightening his rein. Now 
 and then he threw up his head and gazed 
 far over beyond the whitewashed fence toward a 
 horse galloping away off on the curving track, as 
 if there were where his interest lay. 
 
 "Straight as a plank," muttered the old trainer, 
 with a toss of his head. "'Minds me o' Planet. Got 
 de quarters on him. — ^Bring him back!" he called. 
 
 As the young man returned, the older one asked, 
 
 "Can he run.?" 
 
 "Run! Want to see him move?" 
 
 Without waiting for an answer, he vaulted into 
 the saddle and began to gather up the reins. The 
 horse lifted his head and gathered himself to- 
 gether, but he did not move from his tracks. 
 
 "Wait. How far is you come to-day?" demanded 
 Robin. 
 
 18 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "About forty miles. I took it easy." He turned 
 the horse's head. 
 
 The old man gave an exclamation, part oath, 
 part entreaty, and grabbed for the reins just as 
 the boy was turning toward the track, where a 
 whitewashed board fence stood over four feet high. 
 
 "Wait — ^whar you gwine? Forty mile! Whar 
 you gwine.? Wait!" 
 
 "Over into the track. That fence is nothing." 
 
 He settled himself in the saddle, and the horse 
 threw up his head and drew himself together. But 
 old Robin was too quick for him. He clutched the 
 rider by the leg with one hand at the same time 
 that he seized the bridle with the other. 
 
 "Git off him; git off him!" Without letting go 
 the bridle, he half lifted the boy from the saddle. 
 
 "That won't hurt him, Uncle Robin. He's used 
 to it. That fence is nothing." 
 
 "Gi' me dis boss dis minute. Forty mile, an' 
 'spec' to run to-morrow ! Gi' me dis hoss dis minute, 
 boy." 
 
 The young owner yielded with a laugh, and the 
 old trainer took possession of the horse, and led 
 19 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 him on, stopping every now and then to run his 
 hand over his sinewy neck and forelegs, and 
 grumbling to himself over the rashness of youth. 
 
 "Jes like he pa," he muttered. "Never could 
 teach him to tek keer o' a hoss. Think aU a hoss 
 got to do is to run! Forty mile, an' want to put 
 him at a five-foot fence when he cold as a wedge !'' 
 
 When he was inside the stable his manner 
 changed. His coat was off in an instant, and no 
 stable-boy could have been more active. He set 
 about grooming the horse with the enthusiasm of a 
 boy, and the horse, after the first inquisitive in- 
 vestigation of his new attendant, made with eye 
 and nose, gave himself up to his care. The young 
 owner did the same, only watching him closely to 
 learn the art of grooming from a past-master of the 
 craft. 
 
 It was the first time in years that Robin had 
 played hostler; and it was the first time in his hfe 
 that that horse had ever had such a grooming. 
 Every art known to the professor of the science 
 was applied. Every muscle was rubbed, every sinew 
 was soothed. And from time to time, as at touch 
 20 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 of the iron muscles and steel sinews the old fel- 
 low's ardor increased, he would straighten up and 
 give a loud pufF of satisfaction. 
 
 "Umph! Ef I jist had about a week wid him, 
 I'd show 'em som'n'!" he declared. "Imported 
 Leam " 
 
 "He don't need any time. He can beat anything 
 in this country," asserted the owner from his perch 
 on a horse-bucket. 
 
 "You ain' see 'em all," said Robin, dryly, as he 
 bent once more to his work. "An' it's goin' to rain, 
 too," he added, as the mimble of thunder came up 
 louder from the westward. 
 
 "That's what I am hoping for," said the other. 
 "He's used to mud. I have ridden him in it after 
 cattle many a day. He can out-gallop any horse in 
 the State in mud." 
 
 Robin looked at the young man keenly. He 
 showed more shrewdness than he had given him 
 credit for. 
 
 "Kin he jump in mud?" he demanded. 
 
 "He can jump in anything. He can fly. If you 
 
 just had let me take him over those fences '* 
 
 21 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 Robin changed the subject: 
 
 "What's his name? I got to go an' enter 
 him." 
 
 The boy told him. The old man's countenance 
 changed, but the other did not see it. He was busy 
 getting a roll of bills — ^by no means a large one — 
 from his pocket. 
 
 "How much is it."" I have the money all right." 
 He proudly unrolled the money, mostly dollar bills. 
 The old negro took the roll and counted the 
 money slowly. 
 
 "Is dis — .-"' he began, but stopped. After a 
 minute's thought he went over them again. 
 
 "Heah." He took out about half the money, and 
 handed the rest back. "Wait. I'll tend to it." He 
 reached for his coat. "Don't you do nuttin' to him 
 while I'm gone, an' don't you lef him, not a min- 
 ute." He put on his coat and went out. 
 
 His path led out from among the stables to the 
 wing of one of the buildings where the superin- 
 tendent and his staff had their offices. Here a 
 colloquy took place between Robin and the cigar- 
 smoking, dark-skinned clerk in charge, and then 
 22 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 Robin left and paid a visit to another kind of oflS- 
 cial — ^an oiBcial on the main road, just outside the 
 grounds, who kept an establishment which was di- 
 vided into two departments. One was dignified by 
 the word "Cafe" painted in black letters on the 
 white ground of the painted pane, though on the 
 door was the simple American word "Bar." Over 
 the door of the other was an attempt to portray 
 three gilded balls. The proprietor of this bifur- 
 cated establishment, a man with red hair, a low 
 forehead, a broad chin, and brawny shoulders, a 
 long lip and long arms, rejoiced in the name 
 of Nicholas Crimins, though by most of his cus- 
 tomers he was irreverently called by a diminutive of 
 that name. The principal part of his business un- 
 doubtedly came from the side of the establishment 
 with the short name ; but it was known to the stable- 
 fraternity that on— i)ccasion "Old Nick" would 
 maJie an advance to a needy borrower who was 
 "down on his luck" of at least fifteen per cent, of 
 almost any article's value. Saddles, bridles, watches, 
 pistols, scarf-pins, and all the indiscriminate be- 
 longings of a race-track population were to be 
 23 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 found in his "store." And it was said that he had 
 even been known to take over a stable when the 
 owner found it necessary to leave the State on ex- 
 ceptionally short notice. 
 
 Into this odorous establishment old Robin now 
 went and had a brief interview with the proprietor, 
 whose surprise at the old trainer's proposition was 
 unfeigned. As he knew Robin was not a gambler, 
 the money-lender could set down his request to only 
 one of two causes : either he had lost on a race that 
 day, or he had "points" which made him willing 
 to put up aU he could raise on a horse next day. 
 He tried him on the first. 
 
 "Had bad luck to-day? I lost a pile myself," 
 he began insinuatingly. "Thim scoundrels'll bate 
 ivery horse they say a man look at. It's a regular 
 syn-dicate." 
 
 "Nor, I didn't lay a dollar on a hoss to-day," 
 declared Robin. He looked wise. 
 
 It was not that, reflected Mr. Crimins. Then it 
 must be the other. Robin's look decided him. 
 
 "Any news?" he asked confidentially, leaning 
 forward and dropping his husky voice. This 
 24 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 meant, generally, had he heard of anything likely" 
 to change the chances of next day's race. 
 
 "Ur — ^who's goin' to win the steep'?" 
 
 Robin looked wiser. 
 
 "Well — the' may be some surprises to-morrow. 
 You keep your eyes open. Dese heah Yankee 
 bosses don' always have dey own way " 
 
 "I try to, but thim sheenies ! Tell me what you 
 know?" His voice was a cajoling whisper now. 
 "They says Hurricane's — or is it Swallow's — ?" 
 He was looking with exaggerated interest at some- 
 thing in his hand, waiting in hopes that Robin 
 would take up the sentence and complete it. 
 
 Robin chuckled, and the chuckle was worth what 
 he wanted. 
 
 "Swallow's too fat; Hurricane's good, but it's 
 muscle an' wind an' de blood what tells in de last 
 mile — ^blood an' bottom. You keep yer eye on a 
 dark boss. Gi' me meh money." 
 
 The loan-broker still held on to the notes, partly 
 from force of habit, while he asked: "Who's 
 a-ridin' him?" 
 
 But Robin reached for the bills and got them. 
 25 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Somebody as knows how to ride," he said, 
 oracularly. "You'll see to-morrow." 
 
 As he turned away the lender muttered an oath 
 of disappointment. The next moment he walked 
 to the dirty window and examined something 
 curiously. Then he put it to his ear, and then in 
 his pocket with a look of deep satisfaction. 
 
 "Well, I'll make this anyhow." 
 
 When Robin came out of the shop, for the first 
 time in twenty years he was without his big gold 
 watch. He passed back by the secretary's office, 
 and paid down the sum necessary to enter a horse 
 in the next day's steeplechase. The clerk looked 
 toward the door. 
 
 "Don't you know the sun is down?" 
 
 "De sun down! 'Tain't nothin' but de cloud. 
 De sun's a quarter of a hour high." Robin walked 
 to the door. 
 
 "What time is it by your watch?" 
 
 "Hit's edzactly seven — " His back was to the 
 official. 
 
 "Humph!" grunted the clerk. "Don't you 
 
 know " 
 
 26 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 " — lackin' six " 
 
 " — ^the sun sets at ten minutes to seven?" 
 
 " — lackin' sixteen minutes forty-two seconds 
 and a quarter," pursued Robin, with head bent as 
 if he were looking at a watch. 
 
 "Oh, you be hanged! Your old watch is always 
 slow." 
 
 "My watch.? Dis heah watch.''" He turned, but- 
 toning his coat carefully. "You know whar dis 
 watch come f'om.''" He pressed his hand to his 
 side and held it there. 
 
 "Yes, I know. Give me your money. It wUl help 
 swell Carrier Pigeon's pile to-morrow." 
 
 "Not unless he can fly," said Robin. 
 
 "What's his name.'"' The clerk had picked up 
 his pen. 
 
 Robin scratched his head in perplexity. 
 
 "Le' me see. I 'mos' forgit. Oh, yes." He gave 
 the name. 
 
 "What! Call him 'J. D.' " 
 
 "Yes, dat'U do." 
 
 So, the horse was entered as "J. D." 
 
 As Robin stepped out of the door the first big 
 drops of rain were just spattering down on the 
 27 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 steps from the dark cloud that now covered all 
 the western sky, and before he reached the stable 
 it was pouring. 
 
 As he entered the stall the young owner was on 
 his knees in a corner, and before him was an open 
 portmanteau from which he was taking something 
 that made the old man's eyes glisten : an old jacket 
 of faded orange-yellow silk, and a blue cap — ^the 
 old Bullfield colors, that had once been known on 
 every course in the country, and had often led 
 the field. 
 
 Robin gave an exclamation. 
 
 "Le' me see dat thing!" He seized the jacket 
 and held it up. 
 
 "Lord, Lord ! I's glad to see it," he said. "I ain' 
 see it for so long. It's like home. Whar did you 
 git dis thing, son? I'd jest like to see it once mo' 
 come home leadin' de field." 
 
 "Well, you shall see it doing that to-morrow," 
 said the young fellow, boastfully, his face alight 
 with pleasure. 
 
 "I declar' I'd gi' my watch to see it." 
 
 He stopped short as his hand went to his side 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 where the big gold timepiece had so long reposed, 
 and he took it away with a sudden sense of loss. 
 This, however, was but for a second. In a moment 
 the old trainer was back in the past, telling his 
 young master of the glories of the old stable — ^what 
 races it had run and what stakes it had won. 
 
 The storm passed during the night, and the 
 sun rose next morning clear and bright. One horse, 
 at least, that was entered for the big race was well 
 cared for. Robin had slept in his stall, and his 
 young master had had his room. They had become 
 great friends, and the young man had told the old 
 trainer of his hopes. If he won he would have 
 enough to send his sister off to school in the city, 
 and he would go to college. Robin had entered 
 into it heart and soul, and had given the boy aU 
 the advice he could hold. 
 
 Robin was up by light, looking after the horse ; 
 and the young owner, after waiting long enough 
 to take another lesson in the proper handhng of a 
 horse about to run, excused himself, and, leaving 
 the horse with the old trainer, went out, he said, 
 "to exercise for his wind." This was a long walk; 
 29 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 but the young rider's walk took him now, not along 
 the track or the road, but along the steeplechase 
 course, marked by the hurdles; and though the 
 ground was wet and soggy on the flat, and in some 
 places the water still stood, he appeared not to 
 mind it in the least. So far from avoiding the 
 pools, he plunged straight through them, walking 
 backward and forward, testing the ground, and at 
 every "jump" he made a particular examination. 
 
 When he returned to the stable he was as wet 
 as a "drowned rat," but he looked well satisfied, 
 and the old trainer, after he had talked with him 
 a few minutes, was satisfied also. 
 
 "Dat boy 's he gran'pa's gran'chile," he mut- 
 tered, well pleased with his account. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The crowd that assembled at the course that 
 afternoon was enough to fill the hearts of the man- 
 agement with joy, if a management has hearts. 
 When the first race was called, the stands and pad- 
 docks were already filled, and the road was 
 crowded with vehicles as far as the eye could see. 
 30 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 The club and club-paddock filled later, as is the 
 way with fashionable folk; but when the second 
 race was called, these, too, were packed, and they 
 looked, with the gay dresses of the throng that 
 filled every foot of space, Hke great banks of 
 flowers, while the noise that floated out sounded 
 like the hum of a vast swarm of bees. 
 
 The great race of the day was the fourth on 
 the programme, and all minds were fastened on it, 
 the interest in the other races being merely per- 
 functory. 
 
 Before the big event the paddock was thronged 
 with those who came to see the horses. A curious 
 crowd they were — stout men, heavy-jawed and 
 coarse-lipped; thin men, sharp-eyed and fox- 
 faced; small, keen men, evil-looking boys, and 
 round-faced, jovial-looking fellows — all stamped 
 with horse. Among these mingled refined-looking 
 gentlemen and fashionably dressed ladies. 
 
 Even under their blankets the horses were a fine- 
 looking lot. 
 
 Among the crowd was a group of which the 
 centre was a young and very pretty girl. A sim- 
 31 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 pie white gown became her youth and freshness, 
 and a large white hat with a long white ostrich- 
 feather curled over the brim, shading her piquant 
 face, added to her charm. A few pink roses fast- 
 ened in her dress were the only color about her, 
 except the roses in her cheeks. Most of those with 
 her were men considerably older than herself. 
 They appeared, rather, friends of her father, 
 Colonel Ashland, a distinguished-looking gentle- 
 man, known to turfmen as the owner of one of the 
 best stock-farms in the country. He loved horses, 
 but never talked of them. The young lady had 
 just left school, and had never seen a steeplechase 
 before, and her eagerness kept her companions in 
 continual merriment. They were bantering her to 
 bet, which she had as yet refused to do. All were 
 deeply interested in the race. Indeed, two of the 
 gentlemen with Colonel Ashland, Colonel Snowden 
 and Mr. Galloper, had horses entered in the steeple- 
 chase; and as they examined the horses and made 
 observations on them apt as a proverb, many of 
 the by-standers strained their ears to catch their 
 words, in hopes of getting a few last points on 
 which to lay their bets. 
 
 32 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 Hurricane, a medium-sized bay, was next to the 
 favorite; but Swallow, a big-boned sorrel, was on 
 his form going up in the betting, and Mr. Gal- 
 loper was in fine spirits. He was bantering his 
 friend for odds that his big chestnut with the 
 cherry colors would not beat the favorite. 
 
 Presently in the round came, led by an elderly 
 negro, whose face wore a look portentous of mys- 
 tery, a big horse covered with a sheet. A set of 
 clean legs appeared below the sheet, and the head 
 set on the long, muscular neck was fine enough for 
 a model. 
 
 "What horse is that.?" asked one of the gentle- 
 men. It was the same question that many were ask- 
 ing as the horse walked with a long, easy swing, 
 as quiet, yet as much at home, as if he were in his 
 own stable-yard. 
 
 "Hello! that must be the new entry— 'J. D.,' " 
 said Colonel Snowden, pushing forward to get a 
 good look at him. 
 
 "Whose horse is this, Robin.'" enquired Colonel 
 Ashland. 
 
 The old fellow touched his hat. 
 33 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Dis is Mr. Johnston's hoss, suh." He spoke 
 with pride. 
 
 "Not a very distinguished name," laughed one 
 of the others, Mr. Newby, a youngish man dressed 
 in the latest race-course style. He wore bits and 
 stirrups as pins and fobs, owned a few horses, and 
 "talked horse" continually. 
 
 Old Robin sniffed disdainfully. 
 
 "Oh, it may be," said the young girl, turning 
 her eyes on him with a little flash. She saw that 
 the old darkey had caught the words. 
 
 "What Mr. Johnston is it, uncle.-'" she asked, 
 kindly, with a step forward. 
 
 "Mr. Theod'ric Johnston, madam." He spoke 
 with pride. 
 
 "What! Colonel Theodoric Johnston? Is he liv- 
 ing stiU.''" asked Colonel Ashland. "I thought he — 
 How is he?" 
 
 "Oh, nor, suh! He's dead. He died about three 
 years ago. Dis gent'man is his gran'son — one o' 
 my young masters. I was the fust pusson ever put 
 him on a hoss." 
 
 "Can he ride?" 
 
 34 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Kin he ride! You wait an' see him," laughed 
 the old man. "He ought to be able to ride ! Ken 
 a bud fly? Heah he now." 
 
 He turned as the young owner, brown and 
 tanned, and hardly more than a boy, came up 
 through the crowd. He, hke his horse, had been 
 carefully groomed, and through his sun tan he bore 
 a look of distinction. He was dressed for the race, 
 but wore a coat over his faded silk jacket. As he 
 turned and found Robin talking to a lady, his cap 
 came off instinctively. The men 'ooked at him 
 scrutinizingly. 
 
 "Are you Colonel Theodoric Johnston's grand- 
 son.'"' enquired Colonel Snowden. "He used to have 
 some fine horses." 
 
 "Yes, sir." His eye stole to the horse that was 
 just beside him, and the color mounted to his 
 cheek. 
 
 "And he was a fine man. The turf lost one of 
 its best ornaments when he retired." Colonel Ash- 
 land was the speaker. 
 
 "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." His cap was in his 
 hand, his words and manner were respectful, but 
 35 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 when he spoke he looked the other in the eyes, and 
 his eyes, though shy, were clear and calm. 
 
 "We were just admiring your horse," said the 
 young lady, graciously. 
 
 He turned and looked at her with the color flash- 
 ing up in his tanned cheeks. 
 
 "Thank you. I am glad if he meets with your 
 approval." He ended his formal little speech with 
 a quaint, slow bow. "I wish he were worthier of it." 
 
 "Oh, I am sure he is," she said, politely. "At 
 least, you have our good wishes." Her eye fell on 
 one of her companions. "Hasn't he, Mr. Newby.''" 
 
 The latter only looked at the younger man and 
 grunted. 
 
 "Well, at least you have mine," she said, with 
 an air of bravado. 
 
 "Thank you. I'll try to deserve them." 
 
 "Dat young lady knows a boss," asserted old 
 Robin, triumphantly. "Jes look at him, dyah. 
 What bone an' muscle!" He raised the sheet and 
 waved his dusky hand towards his charge. 
 
 "Yes, that's what I say. Such bone and muscle !" 
 she repeated, with pretended gravity. 
 36 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Especially the bone!" observed Mr. Newby, in 
 a low tone. 
 
 "I shall back him," she said. She held in her 
 hand a rose which had broken off its stem. She 
 took it and stuck it in a loop in the sheet. 
 
 Just then the first bell sounded, and the hostlers 
 began to get the horses ready to appear before the 
 judges, while the riders went off to weigh in, and 
 the crowd began to stream back to the stands. 
 As the group turned away, the young owner took 
 the rose from the loop and, with a shy look around, 
 hid it in the breast of his jacket. His eye followed 
 the white hat till it passed out of the paddock gate. 
 
 "Do you really think that horse can win.?" 
 asked Mr. Newby of the young lady, as they 
 strolled along. "Because I tell you he can't. I 
 thought you were a sport. Why, look at his hocks ! 
 He won't get over the Liverpool." 
 
 "I shall back him," said she. "What is the 
 Liverpool?" 
 
 "Here, I'll tell you what I'll do," said Mr. 
 Newby. "I'U bet you two to one he doesn't win the 
 race." He winked at the others, 
 37 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Very well. I don't approve of betting, but I'll 
 do it this time just to punish you." 
 
 "Now I'll bet you two to one he doesn't come in 
 second — ^that boy won't get him over the water- 
 jump." 
 
 "Very well — no, I don't want to take odds. I'll 
 bet you even. I must be a sport." 
 
 The other protested, while the rest of the party 
 looked on with amusement. 
 
 "Oh, well, if you insist," said Mr. Newby. 
 "What shall it be.?" 
 
 "A box of the best " 
 
 "Of the best cigars?" 
 
 "No; I don't smoke. Candy." 
 
 "Oh, you expect to win?" 
 
 "Of coiu"se. Who ever saw such bone and mus- 
 cle?" 
 
 They reached their places in the box, smiHng 
 and bowing to their acquaintances about 
 them. 
 
 As soon as they were settled, the young lady 
 picked up a paper lying by, and began to search 
 diligently for the name of her horse. 
 38 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Ah, here it is!" She began to read. It was a 
 column of forecasts. "Tell me, please, what does 
 '100 to 1' mean.?" 
 
 "That the horse is selling at that." 
 
 "Selling.? What does that mean?" 
 
 There was an explosion of laughter from those 
 about her. They explained. 
 
 "Oh, what cheats men are!" she exclaimed with 
 conviction. 
 
 "Come, I'll let you off if you ask quarter," 
 laughed Mr. Newby. "No horse can jump with 
 knees as big as that." 
 
 "Never! I'll back him to the end," she declared. 
 "Oh, there he is now! There is his yeUow jacket," 
 she added, as the buzz grew louder about them, 
 and glasses were levelled at the horses as they filed 
 by spirited and springy on their way to the start- 
 ing-point some furlongs down the course. No one 
 else appeared to be looking at the big brown. But 
 his rider was scanning the boxes till his eye rested 
 on a big hat with a white feather; then he sat up 
 very straight. 
 
 Two of the gentlemen came up from the pad- 
 S9 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 dock. Colonel Snowden had the horse that was next 
 to the favorite. They were now talking over the 
 chances. 
 
 "Well, what are you going to do.'' How do you 
 stand.-"' his friends asked. 
 
 "A good chance to win. I don't know what that 
 new horse can do, of course; but I should not 
 think he could beat Hurricane." 
 
 "Of course he cannot," said Mr. Newby. "Rid- 
 den by a green country boy!" 
 
 "He has some good points and has a fine pedi- 
 gree." 
 
 Mr. Newby raised his eyebrows. "So has his 
 rider; but pedigrees don't count in riders." 
 
 "I never could understand why blood should 
 count in horses and not in men," said Miss Ash- 
 land, placidly. "Oh, I hope he'U win!" she ex- 
 claimed, turning her eager face and glancing back 
 at the gentlemen over her shoulder. 
 
 "Well, I like that !" laughed Colonel Snowden. 
 "With all that money on the race ! I thought you 
 were backing Hurricane.'"' 
 
 "Oh, but he hasn't anybody to back bim," she 
 40 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 protested. "No; I sha'n't back Hurricane. I shall 
 back him." 
 
 "Which.? The horse or the rider.?" 
 
 "The horse — no, both!" she declared, firmly. 
 "And oh, papa," she exclaimed, glancing back at 
 him over her shoulder, "they say he wants to win 
 to send his sister to school and to go to college him- 
 self." 
 
 "Well, I must say you seem to have learned a 
 good deal about him for the time you had." 
 
 She nodded brightly. "That's what the old 
 colored man told a friend of mine." 
 
 "If he doesn't go to college till he wins with 
 that horse," said Mr. Newby, "he is likely to find 
 his education abbreviated." 
 
 "I shall back him, anyhow." She settled herself 
 in her seat. 
 
 "Here, I'll tell you what I will do. I will bet 
 you he don't get a place," said Mr. Newby. 
 
 "How much.? What is a 'place'.?" she asked. 
 
 It was explained to her. 
 
 "How much — a hundred to one ?" 
 
 "No; not that!" 
 
 41 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "You're learning," laughed her friends. 
 
 "There! they're off. Here they come!" buzzed 
 the crowd, as the flag at last fell, and they came 
 up the field, a dozen in all, two in the lead, then 
 E. half-dozen together in a bunch, and two or three 
 behind, one in the rear of all. Old Robin's heart 
 dropped as the cry went up: "The countryman's 
 left. It's yellow-jacket!" It was too far off for him 
 to see clearly, but the laughter about him was 
 enough. 
 
 "That boy don't know how to ride. What did 
 they put him in for.?" they said. 
 
 A minute later, however, the tone changed. The 
 country boy was coming up, and was holding his 
 horse in, too. The riders were settling themselves 
 and spreading out, getting their horses in hand 
 for the long gallop. 
 
 In fact, the old trainer's last piece of advice to 
 his young pupil was worthy of a Delphic track. 
 
 "Don' let 'em lef you; but don't let 'em wind 
 
 you. Don't git so far behind 't folks'U think 
 
 you's ridin' in de next race; but save him for 
 
 de last half-mile. You'll have plenty o' room 
 
 42 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 den to let him out, an' de track's mighty heavy. 
 Watch Hurricane an' Fightin' Creek. Keep nigh 
 'em, but save him, an' look out for de Liverpool." 
 
 It was on this advice that the young rider was 
 acting, and though he was in the rear at the start 
 he did not mind it. He saw that two or three riders 
 were trying to set the pace to kill oiF the other 
 horses, and he held his horse in, picking his 
 ground. 
 
 So they passed two or three fences, the horses 
 in the same order, and came toward the water- 
 jump in front of the stands. It was a temptation 
 to rush for it, for the safest chance was in front, 
 and the eyes of thousands were on them. Some of 
 the riders did rush, and the leaders got over it 
 well ; but in the bunch two horses struck and went 
 down, one going over and turning a complete 
 somersault on the other side, the other from a false 
 take-off falling back on the near side, with his 
 rider almost under him, immediately in front of 
 young Johnston's horse. Whether it was the fall 
 of the two horses with the splash of the water in 
 the ditch beyond, or whether it was the sudden 
 43 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 twitch that Johnston gave his bridle to turn the 
 brown as the horse and rider rolled almost imme- 
 diately before him, or whether it was all these 
 taken together, the brown horse swerved and re- 
 fused, turning entirely back, while the rest of 
 the field swept on. The other horses and riders 
 had scrambled to their feet, and the mind of the 
 crowd was relieved. They broke into a great shout 
 of laughter as the rider of the brown dehberately 
 rode the horse back. 
 
 "You are going the wrong way!" 
 
 "He's going to meet 'em!" they shouted, de- 
 risively. 
 
 Even the gentlemen about the young girl of the 
 white hat in the club box who had backed the 
 brown horse could not help joining in. 
 
 "Now, Miss Catherine, where are you.'"' asked 
 Mr. Newby. "Will you allow that I can pick a 
 horse better than you .'' If so, I'll let you off." 
 
 "He pulled him out to avoid striking those other 
 men," declared the girl, warmly. "I saw him." 
 
 "Oh, nonsense! Who ever heard of a man pull- 
 ing out in a steeplechase to avoid striking another 
 44 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 horse? I have heard of a man pulling out to avoid 
 killing his own horse; but that boy pulled out be- 
 cause his horse refused. That horse had more sense 
 than he. He knew he couldn't take it. Hello! 
 what's he doing?" For young Johnston, his 
 face set hard, had turned his horse and headed 
 him again toward the jump. At that moment the 
 other horses were rising the slope on top of which 
 was the next jump, and the brown caught sight of 
 them. He had appeared till now a little bewildered ; 
 but the effect was electrical. His head went up, his 
 ears went forward; a sudden fury seemed to seize 
 him, and he shot forward like a rocket, while the 
 crowd on the other side of the track hooted in de- 
 rision. 
 
 "By Jove ! He'll go down if he rushes hke that," 
 cried the men in the box. But he did not. He hardly 
 appeared to see the fence before him any more 
 than he heard the jeers of the crowd. With high 
 head and pointed ears, he dashed at it, taking it in 
 his stride, and clearing it with a mighty bound. 
 
 The crowd in the stands, carried away, burst 
 into a storm of applause, and the gentlemen about 
 45 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 the young girl of the big white hat clapped their 
 hands. 
 
 Old Robin, down in the paddock, was shouting 
 and talking volubly to a crowd of strangers. 
 
 "He's a jumper! He's got de pedigree. Dat's 
 blood. You ain' see my old master's bosses befo'." 
 
 "Your old master's horses!" growled a gruff 
 voice behind him. "You made me lose fifty dollars 
 on yer blanked horse wid yer blanked lies. You'll 
 pay it back or yer won't see that watch ag'in." 
 
 Robin glanced at the angry pawnbroker, but 
 he did not have time to argue then. The horse gal- 
 loping up the long slope before the stables en- 
 grossed his attention. He simply edged away from 
 his reviler, who went off to "hedge" his bets, if 
 possible. 
 
 "He's a good horse, but he's out of the race," 
 said one of the gentlemen who had been bantering 
 Miss Ashland. 
 
 "Yes, but he never had a chance — a mere flash. 
 You can't expect a common pick-up to run against 
 a field like that." 
 
 Mr. Newby turned back to the girl, who was 
 46 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 leaning forward watching the horse going over 
 the hill. 
 
 "Well, Miss Catherine, ready to ask terms yet?" 
 
 "No; wasn't that the water-jump?" 
 
 "Yes ; but he has got to go over it again. Come, 
 I'll bet you twenty to one he doesn't win." 
 
 "Done." 
 
 "Now I'll bet you a hundred and twenty to one 
 he doesn't get a place." 
 
 "Done." 
 
 "Now I'll even things up, and bet you he doesn't 
 
 "Done!" said the girl, turning on him with a 
 sudden flash. "He shall come in, if I have to go 
 down there and ride him in myself." 
 
 An exclamation from one of the others broke in 
 on this banter: 
 
 "Blessed if he isn't gaining on them!" 
 
 And sure enough, as the brown horse came out 
 from beyond the hill, though he was still far to 
 the rear of the field, he had undoubtedly lessened 
 the gap between them. The young girl's eyes 
 sparkled. 
 
 47 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 "Oh, he can't keep it up. He's riding his heart 
 out," said one of the other gentlemen, with his 
 glasses to his eyes. "But he's a better horse than 
 
 I thought, and if he had had a rider he might " 
 
 "He has got to make the Liverpool, and he'U 
 never do it," said Mr. Newby. "There he goes 
 now. Watch him. Jupiter ! he's over !" 
 
 "Did you see that jump.'' He's got stuff in him !" 
 "But not enough. He's got to go around once 
 and a half yet." 
 
 "The blue is leading." "Red-jacket is coming 
 up." "The green is done for," etc. 
 
 So it went, with the horses coming around the 
 curve for the second time. The favorite and about 
 half the others were running well, their riders be- 
 ginning to take the pace they proposed to keep to 
 the end. Several others were trailing along behind 
 at various distances, among them the two horses 
 that had shot out in the lead at first, and behind 
 all but the last one, which was manifestly already 
 beaten, the big brown horse, galloping with head 
 still up and ears still pointed forward, bent on 
 catching the horses ahead of him. 
 48 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 The field swept by the stands, most of them get- 
 ting safely over the big water-jump, though 
 several of the horses struck hard, and one of them 
 went on his knees, pitching his rider over his head. 
 The country horse had still to take the leap, and 
 all eyes were on him, for it was the jump he 
 had refused. Bets were offered that he would 
 refuse again, or that after his killing chase he 
 would be too winded to clear it and would go 
 down. At any rate, they agreed the boy who was 
 riding him was crazy, and he could never last to 
 come in. 
 
 Old Robin ran across the track to try and stop 
 him. He waved his arms wildly. 
 
 "Pull out. You'll kill him ! Save him for another 
 time. Don't kill him!" he cried. 
 
 But the young rider was of a different mind. 
 The vision of two girls was in his thoughts — one 
 a young girl down on an old plantation, and the 
 other a girl in white in a front box in the club. She 
 had looked at him with kind eyes and backed him 
 against the field. He would win or die. 
 
 The horse, too, had his life in the race. Unheed- 
 49 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 ing the wild waving of the old trainer's arms, he 
 swept by him with head still up and ears still for- 
 ward, his eyes riveted on the horses galloping in 
 front of him. Once or twice his ears were bent 
 toward the big fence as if to gauge it, and then his 
 eyes looked off to the horses running up the slope 
 beyond it. When he reached the jump he rose so 
 far from it that a cry of anxiety went up. But it 
 changed to a wild shoiit of applause as he cleared 
 everything in his stride and lighted far beyond the 
 water. Old Robin, whose arms were high in the air 
 with horror as he rose, dropped them, and then, 
 jerking off his hat, he waved it wildly around his 
 head. 
 
 "He can fly. He ain't a boss at all ; he's a bud !" 
 he shouted. "Let him go, son; let him go! You'll 
 win yet." 
 
 But horse and rider were beyond the reach of 
 his voice, galloping up the slope. 
 
 Once more they all disappeared behind the hill, 
 and once more the leaders came out, one ahead of 
 the others, then two together, then two more, run- 
 ning along the inside of the fence toward the last 
 50 
 
'Let him go, son; let him go ! You'll win yet." 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 jumps, where they would strike the clear track 
 and come around the turn into the home stretch. 
 The other horses were trailing behind the five 
 leaders when they went over the hill. Now, as they 
 came out again, one of the second batch was ahead 
 of all the others and was making up lost ground 
 after the leaders. Suddenly a cry arose: "The 
 yellow! The orange! It's the countryman!" 
 
 "Impossible! It is, and he is overhauling 'em!" 
 
 "If he lives over the Liverpool, he'U get a 
 place," said one of the gentlemen in the club box. 
 
 "But he can't do it. He must be dead," said Mr. 
 Newby. "There goes one now. The red-jacket's 
 down." 
 
 "I'm out," said Mr. Galloper. "He's up all 
 right." 
 
 "He'll get over," said the girl. "Oh, I can't 
 look! Tell me when he's safe." She buried her face 
 in her hands. 
 
 "There he goes. Oh!" 
 
 "Oh, is he down.?" she panted. 
 
 "Jove! No — he's over clear and clean, running 
 like a streak," said the gentleman, with warm ad- 
 51 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 miration. "He's safe now. Only two more hurdles. 
 It's all clear. That boy is riding him, too." 
 
 The girl sprang to her feet. 
 
 "Give me your glasses. It is — it is! He's safe!" 
 she cried. She turned to Newby who stood next to 
 her. "Ask quarter and I'll let you off." 
 
 "He'll never be able to stand the track. It's fet- 
 lock-deep." 
 
 But at that moment the horses turned into the 
 track, and the real race began. Newby's prophecy 
 went to the winds. As was seen, the leaders were 
 riding against each other. They had dropped out of 
 account all the other horses. They had not even seen 
 the brown. The first thing they knew was the shout 
 from the crowd ahead of them, blown down to them 
 hoarsely as the big brown horse wheeled into the 
 stretch behind them. He was ahead of the other 
 horses and was making hotly after the four horses 
 in the lead. He was running now with neck out- 
 stretched; but he was running, and he was surely 
 closing up the gap. The blood of generations of 
 four-mile winners was flaming in his veins. It was 
 even possible that he might get a place. The crowd 
 52 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 began to be excited. They packed against the 
 fences, straining their necks. 
 
 How he was running! One by one he picked 
 them up. 
 
 "He's past the fourth horse, and is up with the 
 third!" 
 
 The crowd began to shout, to yell, to scream. 
 The countryman, not content with a place, was 
 bent on winning the race. He was gaining, 
 too. 
 
 The two leaders, being well separated, were eas- 
 ing up. Hurricane, the bay, in front, the black, 
 the favorite, next, with the third well to the rear. 
 The trainers were down at the fence, screaming 
 and waving their arms. They saw the danger that 
 the riders had forgot. 
 
 "Come on! Come on!" they shouted. 
 
 Old Robin was away down the track, waving 
 like mad. Suddenly the rider of the second horse 
 saw his error. The rush of a horse closing up on 
 him caught his ear. He looked around to see a big 
 brown horse with a white blaze in the forehead, 
 that he had not seen since the start, right at his 
 53 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 quarter, about to slip between him and the fence. 
 He had just time to draw in to the fence, and for 
 a moment there was danger of the two horses com- 
 ing down together. 
 
 At the sight old Robin gave a cry. 
 
 "Look at him! Runnin' my hoss in de fence! 
 Cut him down ! Cut him down !" 
 
 But the brown's rider pulled his horse around, 
 came by on the outside, and drew up to the flank 
 of the first horse. He was gaining so fast that the 
 crowd burst into shouts, some cheering on the 
 leader, some the great brown which had made such 
 a race. 
 
 The boxes were a babel. Everyone was on his 
 feet. 
 
 "The yellow's gaining !" 
 
 "No; the blue's safe." 
 
 "Orange may get it," said Colonel Ashland. 
 "He's the best horse, and well ridden." 
 
 He was up to the bay's flank. Whip and spur 
 were going as the leader saw his danger. 
 
 Old Robin was like a madman. 
 
 "Come on ! Come on !" he shouted. "Give him de 
 54 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 whip — cut him in two — ^lift him! Look at him — 
 my hoss ! Come on, son ! Oh, ef my ol' master was 
 jest heah!" 
 
 A great roar ran along the fences and over the 
 paddock and stands as the two horses shot in to- 
 gether. 
 
 "Oh, he has won, he has won !" cried the girl in 
 the big hat, springing up on a chair in ecstasy. 
 
 "No; it's the blue by a neck," said her father. 
 "I congratulate you, Snowden. But that's a great 
 horse. It's well that it was not a furlong farther." 
 
 "I think so," said the owner of the winner, 
 hurrying away. 
 
 "They have cheated him. I am sure he won," 
 asserted the young lady. 
 
 They laughed at her enthusiasm. 
 
 "Newby," said one of the gentlemen, "you'd 
 better get Miss Catherine to pick your horses for 
 you." Newby winced. 
 
 "Oh, it's easy!" said the girl, nonchalantly. 
 "Bone and muscle — and a green country boy — 
 with a pedigree." 
 
 55 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 IV 
 
 As Johnston was leading his horse away, the 
 gentleman who had fallen at the water-jump came 
 up to him. 
 
 "I want to thank you," he said. "I saw you puU 
 him around." 
 
 "I was afraid I'd strike you," said the other, 
 simply. 
 
 Just then two gentlemen pushed through the 
 crowd. One was Mr. Newby. 
 
 "Are you the owner of this horse?" he asked the 
 young man. 
 
 "Yes, sir." He spoke with pride. 
 
 "Dat he is de owner," put in old Robin, who 
 had the bridle, "an' he owns a good hoss ! He got 
 de ambition." 
 
 "Want to sell him?" 
 
 "Um-um-hm — d'n' know. I came on to sell him." 
 
 "Don't you sell him. Don't you never sell him," 
 urged the old trainer. "Keep him, an' le' me handle 
 56 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 him for you. You'll git mo' 'n second money next 
 time." 
 
 "I'll give you a thousand doUars for him. What 
 do you say.!"' 
 
 Old Robin gave an exclamation. 
 
 "A thousand doUars! For dis hoss!" 
 
 The gentleman's friend broke in: 
 
 "Oh, come, Newby, don't rob the boy. He'U give 
 you two thousand," he laughed. 
 
 They were examining the horse as he walked 
 along under his blanket. 
 
 "Two thousand?" The boy was hesitating. It 
 was a great sum to him. 
 
 "No; but I'll split the difference," said Mr. 
 Newby: "I'll give you fifteen hundred for him if 
 he is as good as I think him when I look him over. 
 What's his name?" 
 
 "Jefferson Davis." 
 
 "Oh, the devil! I'll change his name pretty 
 quickly." 
 
 "No, you won't," said the boy. 
 
 "Won't I? I'll show you when I get him," he 
 muttered. "Well, what do you say?" 
 57 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Will you promise not to change his name?" 
 
 The other laughed. 
 
 "Not much! When I buy him he's my horse.'* 
 
 "He'll never be your horse." 
 
 "What.?" 
 
 "He's not for sale." He turned away. 
 
 "Oh, nonsense! Here; wait " 
 
 "I would not sell him to you, sir, at any price. 
 Good-morning." He moved on. 
 
 "You've lost a good horse," said his friend. 
 
 "Oh, I'U get him yet!" 
 
 "I don't think so," said Colonel Ashland, who, 
 with his daughter on his arm, had come up to con- 
 gratulate the young rider. 
 
 "I wish I might have won for you," said the 
 young man to Miss Ashland. His cap was in his 
 hand and he made the same quaint bow that he had 
 made before. 
 
 "I think you did win ; at least, you ought to have 
 had it. My father says he is a great horse." 
 
 At the words the color mounted to his sun- 
 burned cheeks. "Thank you," he said, and looked 
 suddenly deep into her eyes. 
 58 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 She put out her hand to pet the horse, and he 
 turned and rested his head against her. She gave 
 an exclamation of delight. 
 
 "Oh! father, look." 
 
 "We know our friends," said young Johnston. 
 
 "Dat we does. She's de on'ies' one as bet on 
 him," asserted old Robin. "Dat young lady knows 
 a good hoss." 
 
 "Who is that boy.?" asked Mr. Newby, as the 
 horse was led away. 
 
 "A green country boy with a pedigree," said a 
 low voice at his shoulder. 
 
 "Where does he come from.?" 
 
 "Virginia," said Colonel Ashland. "And his 
 name is Theodoric Johnston. It's bred in the bone." 
 
 Next morning as young Johnston rode his horse 
 out of the stable gate, old Robin walked at his side. 
 Just in front of the pawn-shop Robin puUed out 
 his watch and examined it carefully. 
 
 "I don' mind but one thing," he said. "I didn't 
 have dis yisterday to hoi' de time on him. But 
 nem mind: wait teU nex' season." 
 59 
 
THE SPECTRE IN THE 
 CART 
 
THE SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 
 J. HAD not seen my friend Stokeman since we 
 were at college together, and now naturally we 
 fell to talking of old times. I remembeyed him as a 
 hard-headed man without a particle of supersti- 
 tion, if such a thing be possible in a land where we 
 are brought up on superstition, from the bottle. 
 He was at that time full of life and of enjoyment 
 of whatever it brought. I found now that his wild 
 and almost reckless spirits had been tempered by 
 the years which had passed as I should not have 
 believed possible, and that gravity had taken place 
 of the gayety for which he was then noted. 
 
 He used to maintain, I remember, that there 
 was no apparition or supernatural manifestation, 
 or series of circumstances pointing to such a mani- 
 festation, however strongly substantiated they ap- 
 peared to be, that could not be explained on purely 
 natural grounds. 
 
 63 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 During our stay at college a somewhat notable 
 instance of what was by many supposed to be a 
 supernatural manifestation occurred in a deserted 
 house on a remote plantation in an adjoining 
 county. 
 
 It baffled all investigation, and got into the 
 newspapers, recalling the Cock Lane ghost, and 
 many more less celebrated apparitions. Parties 
 were organized to investigate it, but were baffled. 
 Stokeman, on a bet of a box of cigars, volunteered 
 to go out alone and explode the fraud; and did 
 so, not only putting the restless spirit to flight, 
 but capturing it and dragging it into town as the 
 physical and indisputable witness both of the truth 
 of his theory and of his personal courage. The ex- 
 ploit gave him immense notoriety in our little 
 world. 
 
 I was, therefore, no little surprised to hear him 
 say seriously now that he had come to understand 
 how people saw apparitions. 
 
 "I have seen them myself," he added, gravely. 
 
 "You do not mean it !" I sat bolt upright in my 
 chair in my astonishment. I had myself, largely 
 64, 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 
 through his influence, become a sceptic in matters 
 relating to the supernatural. 
 
 "Yes, I have seen ghosts. They not only have 
 appeared to me, but were as real to my ocular 
 vision as any other external physical object which 
 I saw with my eyes." 
 
 "Of course, it was an hallucination. Tell me; 
 I can explain it." 
 
 "I explained it myself," he said, dryly. "But 
 it left me with a little less conceit and a little more 
 sympathy with the hallucinations of others not so 
 gifted." 
 
 It was a fair hit. 
 
 "In the year — ," he went on, after a brief period 
 of reflection, "I was the State's Attorney for my 
 native county, to which office I had been elected 
 a few years after I left college, and the year we 
 emancipated ourselves from carpet-bag rule, and 
 I so remained until I was appointed to the bench. 
 I had a personal acquaintance, pleasant or other- 
 wise, with every man in the county. The district 
 was a close one, and I could almost have given the 
 census of the population. I knew every man who 
 65 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 was for me and almost every one who was against 
 me. There were few neutrals. In those times much 
 hung on the elections. There was no border-land. 
 Men were either warmly for you or hotly against 
 you. 
 
 "We thought we were getting into smooth water, 
 where the sailing was clear, when the storm sud- 
 denly appeared about to rise again. In the can- 
 vass of that year the election was closer than ever 
 and the contest hotter. 
 
 "Among those who went over when the lines 
 were thus sharply drawn was an old darky named 
 Joel Turnell, who had been a slave of one of my 
 nearest neighbors, Mr. Eaton, and whom I had 
 known all my life as an easy-going, palavering 
 old fellow with not much principle, but with kindly 
 manners and a likable way. He had always claimed 
 to be a supporter of mine, being one of the two 
 or three negroes in the county who professed to 
 vote with the whites. 
 
 "He had a besetting vice of pilfering, and I 
 had once or twice defended him for stealing and 
 gotten him off, and he appeared to be grateful to 
 66 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 
 me. I always doubted him a little ; for I believed he 
 did not have force of character enough to stand up 
 against his people, and he was a chronic liar. StiU, 
 he was always friendly with me, and used to claim 
 the emoluments and privileges of such a relation. 
 Now, however, on a sudden, in this campaign he 
 became one of my bitterest opponents. I attributed 
 it to the influence of a son of his, named Absalom, 
 who had gone off from the county during the war 
 when he was only a youth, and had stayed away 
 for many years without anything being known of 
 him, and had now returned unexpectedly. He 
 threw himself into the fight. He claimed to have 
 been in the army, and he appeared to have a deep- 
 seated animosity against the whites, particularly 
 against all those whom he had known in boyhood. 
 He was a vicious-looking fellow, broad-shouldered 
 and bow-legged, with a swagger in his gait. He 
 had an ugly scar on the side of his throat, evi- 
 dently made by a knife, though he told the ne- 
 groes, I understood, that he had got it in the war, 
 and was ready to fight again if he but got the 
 chance. He had not been back long before he was 
 67 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 in several rows, and as he was of brutal strength, 
 he began to be much feared by the negroes. When- 
 ever I heard of him it was in connection with some 
 fight among his own people, or some eifort to ex- 
 cite race animosity. When the canvass began he 
 flung himself into it with fury, and I must say 
 with marked effect. His hostility appeared to be 
 particularly directed against myself, and I heard 
 of him in all parts of the district declaiming 
 against me. The negroes who, for one or two elec- 
 tions, had appeared to have quieted down and be- 
 come indifferent as to politics were suddenly re- 
 vivified. It looked as if the old scenes of the Re- 
 construction period, when the two sides were like 
 hostile armies, might be witnessed again. Night 
 meetings, or 'camp-fires,' were held aU through the 
 district, and from many of them came the report 
 of Absalom Turnell's violent speeches stirring up 
 the blacks and arraying them against the whites. 
 Our side was equally aroused and the whole section 
 was in a ferment. Our effort was to prevent any 
 outbreak and tide over the crisis. 
 
 "Among my friends was a farmer named John 
 68 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 
 Halloway, one of the best men in my county, and 
 a neighbor and friend of mine from my boyhood. 
 His farm, a snug little homestead of fifty or sixty 
 acres, adjoined our plantation on one side; and 
 on the other, that of the Batons, to whom Joel 
 Turnell and his son Absalom had belonged, and I 
 remember that as a boy it was my greatest privi- 
 lege and reward to go over on a Saturday and be 
 allowed by John Halloway to help him plough, or 
 cut his hay. He was a big, ruddy-faced, jolly boy, 
 and even then used to tell me about being in love 
 with Fanny Peel, who was the daughter of another 
 farmer in the neighborhood, and a Sunday-school 
 scholar of my mother's. I thought him the great- 
 est man in the world. He had a fight once with Ab- 
 salom Turnell when they were both youngsters, 
 and, though Turnell was rather older and much, 
 the heavier, whipped him completely. Halloway was 
 a good soldier and a good son, and when he came 
 back from the war and won his wife, who was a 
 belle among the young farmers, and settled down 
 with her on his little place, which he proceeded to 
 make a bower of roses and fruit-trees, there was 
 69 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 not a man in the neighborhood who did not rejoice 
 in his prosperity and wish him well. The Halloways 
 had no children and, as is often the case in such 
 instances, they appeared to be more to each other 
 than are most husbands and wives. He always 
 spoke of his wife as if the sun rose and set in her. 
 No matter where he might be in the county, when 
 night came he always rode home, saying that his 
 wife would be expecting him. 'Don't keer whether 
 she's asleep or not,' he used to say to those who 
 bantered him, 'she knows I'm a-comin', and she 
 always hears my click on the gate-latch, and is 
 waitin' for me.' 
 
 "It came to be well understood throughout the 
 county. 
 
 " 'I believe you are hen-pecked,' said a man to 
 him one night. 
 
 " 'I believe I am, George,' laughed Halloway, 
 'and by Jings ! I like it, too.' 
 
 "It was impossible to take offence at him, he 
 
 was so good-natured. He would get out of his bed 
 
 in the middle of the night, hitch up his horse and 
 
 pull his bitterest enemy out of the mud. He had 
 
 70 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 on an occasion ridden all night through a blizzard 
 to get a doctor for the wife of a negro neighbor in 
 a cabin near by who was suddenly taken ill. When 
 someone expressed admiration for it, especially a& 
 it was known that the man had not long before 
 been abusing Halloway to the provost-marshal, 
 who at that time was in supreme command, he said : 
 
 " 'Well, what's that got to do with it? Wa'n't 
 the man's wife sick? I don't deserve no credit, 
 though; if I hadn't gone, my wife wouldn' 'a' 
 let me come in her house.' 
 
 "He was an outspoken man, too, not afraid of 
 the devil, and when he believed a thing he spoke it, 
 no matter whom it hit. In this way John had been 
 in trouble several times while we were under 'gun- 
 rule'; and this, together with his personal charac- 
 ter, had given him great influence in the county, 
 and made him a power. He was one of my most 
 ardent friends and supporters, and to him, per- 
 haps, more than to any other two men in the 
 county, I owed my position. 
 
 "Absalom Turnell's rancorous speeches had 
 stirred all the county, and the apprehension of the 
 71 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 outbreak his violence was in danger of bringing 
 might have caused trouble but for John Hallo- 
 way's coolness and level-headedness. John offered 
 to go around and follow Absalom up at his meet- 
 ings. He could 'spike his guns,' he said. 
 
 "Some of his friends wanted to go with him. 
 'You'd better not try that,' they argued. 'That 
 feUow, Ah. Tumell's got it in for you.' But he 
 said no. The only condition on which he would go 
 was that he should go alone. 
 
 " 'They ain't any of 'em going to trouble me. 
 I know 'em all and I git along with 'em first 
 rate. I don't know as I know this fellow Ab. ; he's 
 sort o' grown out o' my recollection; but I warft 
 to see. He knows me, I know. I got my hand on 
 him once when he was a boy — about my age, 
 and he ain't forgot that, I know. He was a blus- 
 terer; but he didn't have real grit. He won't say 
 nothin' to my face. But I must go alone. You all 
 are too flighty.' 
 
 "So Halloway went alone and followed Ab. up 
 at his 'camp-fires,' and if report was true his mere 
 presence served to curb Ab.'s fury, and take the 
 72 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 
 fire out of his harangues. Even the negroes got to 
 laughing and talking about it. 'Ab. was jest like 
 a dog when a man faced him,' they said ; 'he could 
 n' look him in the eye.' 
 
 "The night before the election there was a meet- 
 ing at one of the worst places in the county, a 
 country store at a point known as Burley's Fork, 
 and Halloway went there, alone — and for the first 
 time in the canvass thought it necessary to inter- 
 fere. Absalom, stung by the taunts of some of his 
 friends, and having stimulated himself with mean 
 whiskey, launched out in a furious tirade against 
 the whites generally, and me in particular; and 
 called on the negroes to go to the poUs next day 
 prepared to 'wade in blood to their lips.' For him- 
 self, he said, he had 'drunk blood' before, both of 
 white men and women, and he meant to drink it 
 again. He whipped out and flourished a pistol in 
 one hand and a knife in the other. His language 
 exceeded belief, and the negroes, excited by his 
 violence, were showing the efi'ect on their emotions 
 of his wild declamation, and were beginning to 
 respond with shouts and cries when Halloway rose 
 73 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 and walked forward. Absalom turned and started 
 to meet him, yelling his fury and threats, 
 and the audience were rising to their feet when 
 they were stopped. It was described to me after- 
 ward. 
 
 "Halloway was in the midst of a powder maga- 
 zine, absolutely alone, a single spark would have 
 blown him to atoms and might have caused a 
 catastrophe which would have brought untold evil. 
 But he was as cahn as a May morning. He walked 
 through them, the man who told me said, as if he 
 did not know there was a soul in a hundred miles 
 of him, and as if Absalom were only something to 
 be swept aside. 
 
 " 'He wa'n't exac'ly laughin', or even smilin', 
 said my informant, 'but he jest looked easy in 
 his mine.' 
 
 "They were all waiting, he said, expecting Ab- 
 salom to tear him to pieces on the spot; but 
 as Halloway advanced, Absalom faltered and 
 stopped. He could not stand his calm eye. 
 
 " 'It was jest hke a dog givin' way before a 
 man who ain't afraid of him,' my man said. 'He 
 74 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART. 
 
 breshed Absalom aside as if he had been a fly, and 
 began to talk to us, and I never heard such a 
 speech.' 
 
 "I got there just after it happened; for some 
 report of what Absalom intended to do had 
 reached me that night and I rode over hastily, 
 fearing that I might arrive too late. When, how- 
 ever, I arrived at the place everything was quiet, 
 Absalom had disappeared. Unable to face his 
 downfall, he had gone off, taking old Joel with 
 him. The tide of excitement had changed and the 
 negroes, relieved at the relaxing of the tension, 
 were laughing among themselves at their cham- 
 pion's defeat and disavowing any sympathy with 
 his violence. They were all friendly with Hallo- 
 way. 
 
 " 'Dat man wa'n' nothin' but a' outside nigger, 
 nohow,' they said. 'And he always was more mouth 
 than anything else,' etc. 
 
 " 'Good L — d! He say he want to drink blood!' 
 declared one man to another, evidently for us to 
 hear, as we mounted our horses. 
 73 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 " 'Drink whiskey!' replied the other, dryly, and 
 there was a laugh of derision. 
 
 "I rode home with Halloway. 
 
 "I shall never forget his serenity. As we passed 
 along, the negroes were lining the roads on their 
 way homeward, and were shouting and laughing 
 among themselves; and the greetings they gave 
 us as we passed were as civil and good-humored as 
 if no unpleasantness had ever existed. A little after 
 we set out, one man, who had been walking very 
 fast just ahead of us, and had been keeping in 
 advance all the time, came close to Halloway's stir- 
 rup and said something to him in an undertone. All 
 I caught was, 'layin' up something against him.' 
 
 " 'That's aU right, Dick ; let him lay it up, and 
 keep it laid up,' Halloway laughed. 
 
 " 'Dat's a bad feller !' the negro insisted, un- 
 easily, his voice kept in an undertone. 'You got to 
 watch him. I'se knowed him from a boy.' 
 
 "He added something else in a whisper which I 
 did not catch. 
 
 " 'All right ; certainly not ! Much obliged to 
 you, Dick. I'll keep my eyes open. Good-night.' 
 76 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 
 " 'Good-night, gent'men' ; and the negro fell 
 back and began to talk with the nearest of his com- 
 panions effusively. 
 
 " 'Who is that?' I asked, for the man had kept 
 his hat over his eyes. 
 
 " 'That's Dick Winchester. You remember that 
 old feUow 't used to belong to old Mr. Eaton — 
 lived down in the pines back o' me, on the creek 't 
 runs near my place. His wife died the year of the 
 big snow.' 
 
 "It was not necessary for him to explain further. 
 I remembered the negro for whom Halloway had 
 ridden through the storm that night. 
 
 "I asked Halloway somewhat irrelevantly, if he 
 carried a pistol. He said no, he had never done so. 
 
 " 'Fact is, I'm afraid of killin' somebody. And 
 I don't want to do that, I know. Never could bear 
 to shoot my gun even durin' o' the war, though I 
 shot her 'bout as often as any of 'em, I reckon — 
 always used to shut my eyes right tight whenever 
 I pulled the trigger. I reckon I was a mighty pore 
 soldier,' he laughed. I had heard that he was one 
 of the best in the army. 
 77 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 " 'Besides, I always feel sort o' cowardly if I've 
 got a pistol on. Looks like I was afraid of some- 
 body — an' I ain't. I've noticed if two fellows have 
 pistols on and git to fightin', mighty apt to one git 
 hurt, maybe both. Sort o' like two dogs growling 
 — ^long as don't but one of 'em growl it's all right. 
 If don't but one have a pistol, t'other feller always 
 has the advantage and sort o' comes out top, while 
 the man with the pistol looks mean.' 
 
 "I remember how he looked in the dim moon- 
 light as he drawled his quaint philosophy. 
 
 " 'I'm a man o' peace, Mr. Johnny, and I learnt 
 that from your mother — I learnt a heap o' things 
 from her,' he added, presently, after a little period 
 of reflection. 'She was the lady as used always to 
 have a kind word for me when I was a boy. That's 
 a heap to a boy. I used to think she was an angel. 
 You think it's you I'm a fightin' for in this can- 
 vass.? 'Tain't. I like you well enough, but I ain't 
 never forgot your mother, and her kindness to my 
 old people durin' the war when I was away. She 
 give me this handkerchief for a weddin' present 
 when I was married after the war — said 'twas all 
 78 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 
 she had to give, and my wife thinks the world and 
 all of it ; won't let me have it 'cept as a favor ; but 
 this mornin' she told me to take it — said 'twould 
 bring me luck.' He took a big bandanna out of his 
 pocket and held it up in the moonlight. I remem- 
 bered it as one of my father's. 
 
 " 'She'll make me give it up to-morrow night 
 when I git home,' he chuckled. 
 
 "We had turned into a road through the plan- 
 tations, and had just come to the fork where Hallo- 
 way's road turned off toward his place. 
 
 " 'I lays a heap to your mother's door — purty 
 much all this, I reckon.' His eye swept the moon- 
 bathed scene before him. 'But for her I mightn't 
 'a got her. And ain't a man in the world got a 
 happier home, or as good a wife.' He waved his 
 hand toward the little homestead that was sleep- 
 ing in the moonlight on the slope the other side of 
 the stream, a picture of peace. 
 
 "His path went down a little slope, and mine 
 
 kept along the side of the hill until it entered the 
 
 woods. A great sycamore tree grew right in the 
 
 fork, with its long, hoary arms extending over 
 
 79 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 both roads, making a broad mass of shadow in the 
 white moonlight. 
 
 "The next day was the day of the election. Hal- 
 loway was at one poll and I was at another; so I 
 did not see him that day. But he sent me word that 
 evening that he had carried his poll, and I rode 
 home knowing that we should have peace. 
 
 "I was awakened next morning by the news that 
 both Halloway and his wife had been murdered the 
 night before. I at once galloped over to his place, 
 and was one of the first to get there. It was a hor- 
 rible sight. Halloway had evidently been waylaid 
 and killed by a blow of an axe just as he was en- 
 tering his yard gate, and then the door of the 
 house had been broken open and his wife had been 
 killed, after which Halloway's body had been 
 dragged into the house, and the house had been 
 fired with the intention of making it appear that 
 the house had burned by accident. But by one of 
 those inscrutable fatalities, the fire, after burning 
 half of two walls, had gone out. 
 
 "It was a terrible sight, and the room looked hke 
 a shambles. Halloway had plainly been caught un- 
 80 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 
 awares while leaning over his gate. The back of his 
 head had been crushed in with the eye of an axe, 
 and he had died instantly. The pleasant thought 
 which was in his mind at the instant — perhaps, of 
 the greeting that always awaited him on the click 
 of his latch; perhaps, of his success that day; 
 perhaps, of my mother's kindness to him when he 
 was a boy — ^was yet on his face, stamped there in- 
 delibly by the blow that killed him. There he lay, 
 face upward, as the murderer had thrown him after 
 bringing him in, stretched out his full length on the 
 floor, with his quiet face upturned, looking in that 
 throng of excited, awe-stricken men, just what he 
 had said he was : a man of peace. His wife, on the 
 other hand, wore a terrified look on her face. There 
 had been a terrible struggle. She had lived to taste 
 the bitterness of death, before it took her." 
 
 Stokeman, with a little shiver, put his hand over 
 his eyes as though to shut out the vision that re- 
 curred to him. After a long breath be began 
 again. 
 
 "In a short time there was a great crowd there, 
 white and black. The general mind flew at once to 
 81 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 Absalom Turnell. The negroes present were as 
 earnest in their denunciation as the whites; per- 
 haps, more so, for the whites were past threaten- 
 ing. I knew from the grimness that trouble was 
 brewing, and I felt that if Absalom were caught 
 and any evidence were found on him, no power on 
 earth could save him. A party rode off in search 
 of him, and went to old Joel's house. Neither Ab- 
 salom nor Joel were there ; they had not been home 
 since the election, one of the women said. 
 
 "As a law officer of the county I was to a cer- 
 tain extent in charge at Halloway's, and in looking 
 around for aU the clews to be found, I came on a 
 splinter of 'light-wood,' not as large or as long 
 as one's little finger, stuck in a crack in the floor 
 near the bed : a piece of a stick of 'fat-pine,' such 
 as negroes often carry about, and use as tapers. 
 One end had been burned; but the other end was 
 clean and was jagged just as it had been broken 
 off. There was a small scorched place on the planks 
 on either side, and it was evident that this was one 
 of the splinters that had been used in firing the 
 house. I called a couple of the coolest, most levd- 
 82 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 
 headed men present and quietly showed them the 
 spot, and they took the splinter out and I put it 
 in my pocket. 
 
 "By one of those fortuitous chances which so 
 often happen in every lawyer's experience, and ap- 
 pear inexplicable, Old Joel Tumell walked up to 
 the house just as we came out. He was as sympa- 
 thetic as possible, appeared outraged at the crime, 
 professed the highest regard for HaUoway, and 
 the deepest sorrow at his death. The sentiment of 
 the crowd was rather one of sympathy with him, 
 that he should have such a son as Absalom. 
 
 "I took the old man aside to have a talk with 
 him, to find out where his son was and where he 
 had been the night before. He was equally vehe- 
 ment in his declarations of his son's innocence, and 
 of professions of regard for Halloway. And sud- 
 denly to my astonishment he declared that his son 
 had spent the night with him and had gone away 
 after sunrise. 
 
 "Then happened one of those fatuous things 
 that have led to the detection of so many negroes 
 and can almost be counted on in their prosecution. 
 83 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 Joel took a handkerchief out of his pocket and 
 wiped his face, and as he did so I recognized the 
 very handkerchief Halloway had shown me the 
 night before. With the handkerchief, Joel drew 
 out several splinters of light-wood, one of which 
 had been broken off from a longer piece. I picked 
 it up and it fitted exactly into the piece that had 
 been stuck in the crack in the floor. At first, I could 
 scarcely believe my own senses. Of course, it be- 
 came my duty to have Joel arrested immediately. 
 But I was afraid to have it done there, the crowd 
 was so deeply incensed. So I called the two men 
 to whom I had shown the light-wood splinter, told 
 them the story, and they promised to get him away 
 and arrest him quietly and take him safely to jail, 
 which they did. 
 
 "Even then we did not exactly believe that the 
 old man had any active complicity in the crime, 
 and I was blamed for arresting the innocent old 
 father and letting the guilty son escape. The son, 
 however, was arrested shortly afterward. 
 
 "The circumstances from which the crime arose 
 gave the case something of a political aspect, and 
 84 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 
 the prisoners had the best counsel to be procured, 
 both at our local bar and in the capital. The evi- 
 dence was almost entirely circumstantial, and when 
 I came to work it up, I found, as often occurs, that 
 although the case was plain enough on the outside, 
 there were many difficulties in the way of fit- 
 ting all the circumstances to prove the guilt of 
 the accused and to make out every link in the 
 chain. Particularly was this so in the prosecution 
 of the young man, who was supposed to be the 
 chief criminal, and in whose case there was a 
 strong effort to prove an ahbi. 
 
 "As I worked, I found to my surprise that the 
 guilt of the old man, though based wholly on cir- 
 cumstantial evidence, was established more clearly 
 than that of his son — not indeed, as to the mur- 
 ders, but as to the arson, which served just as well 
 to convict on. The handkerchief, which Joel had 
 not been able to resist the temptation to steal, and 
 the splinter of light-wood in his pocket, which 
 fitted exactly into that found in the house, to- 
 gether with other circumstances, proved his guilt 
 conclusively. But although there was an equal 
 85 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 moral certainty of the guilt of the young man, it 
 was not so easy to establish it by law. 
 
 "Old Dick Winchester was found dead one 
 morning and the alibi was almost completely 
 proved, and only failed by the incredibility of the 
 witnesses for the defence. Old Joel persistently de- 
 clared that Absalom was innocent, and but for a 
 confession by Absalom of certain facts intended 
 to shift the suspicion from himself to his father, I 
 do not know how his case might have turned out. 
 
 "I believed him to be the instigator as well as 
 the perpetrator of the crime. 
 
 "I threw myself into the contest, and prosecuted 
 with all the vigor I was capable of. And I finally 
 secured the conviction of both men. But it was 
 after a hard fight. They were the only instances 
 in which, representing the Commonwealth, I was 
 ever conscious of strong personal feeling, and of 
 a sense of personal triumph. The memory of my 
 last ride with Halloway, and of the things he had 
 said to me; the circumstances under which he and 
 his wife were killed ; the knowledge that in some sort 
 it was on my account ; and the bitter attacks made 
 86 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 
 on me personally (for in some quarters I was de- 
 picted as a bloodthirsty ruffian, and it was charged 
 that I was for political reasons prosecuting men 
 whom I personally knew to be innocent), all com- 
 bined to spur me to my utmost effort. And when 
 the verdicts were rendered, I was conscious of a 
 sense of personal triumph so fierce as to shock 
 me. 
 
 "Not that I did not absolutely believe in the 
 guilt of both prisoners; for I considered that I 
 had demonstrated it, and so did the jurors who 
 tried them. 
 
 "The day of execution was set. An appeal was 
 at once taken in both cases and a stay was granted, 
 and I had to sustain the verdicts in the upper 
 court. The fact that the evidence was entirely cir- 
 cumstantial had aroused great interest, and every 
 lawyer in the State had his theory. The upper 
 court affirmed in both cases and appeals were taken 
 to the highest court, and again stay of execution 
 was granted. 
 
 "The prisoners' counsel had moved to have the 
 prisoners transferred to another county, which I 
 87 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 opposed. I was sure that the people of my county 
 would observe the law. They had resisted the first 
 fierce impulse, and were now waiting patiently for 
 justice to take its course. Months passed, and the 
 stay of execution had to be renewed. The road to 
 Halloway's grew up and I understood that the 
 house had fallen in, though I never went that way 
 again. Still the court hung fire as to its conclusion. 
 
 "The day set for the execution approached for 
 the third time without the court having rendered 
 its decision. 
 
 "On the day before that set for the execution, the 
 court gave its decision. It refused to interfere in 
 the case of old Joel, but reversed, and set aside the 
 verdict in that of the younger man. Of a series of 
 oyer one hundred bills of exception taken by his 
 counsel as a 'drag-net,' one held ; and owing to the 
 admission of a single question by a juror, the judg- 
 ment was set aside in Absalom's case and a new trial 
 was ordered. 
 
 "Being anxious lest the excitement might in- 
 crease, I felt it my duty to stay at the county-seat 
 that night, and as I could not sleep I spent the 
 88 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 
 time going over the records of the two cases ; 
 which, like most causes, developed new points, 
 every time they were read. 
 
 "Everything was perfectly quiet all night, 
 though the village was filling up with people from 
 the country to see the execution, which at that time 
 was still public. I determined next morning to go 
 to my home in the country and get a good rest, 
 of which I began to feel the need. I was detained, 
 however, and it was well along in the forenoon be- 
 fore I mounted my horse and rode slowly out of 
 town through a back street. The lane kept away 
 from the main road except at one point just out- 
 side of town, where it crossed it at right angles. 
 
 "It was a beautiful spring day — a day in which 
 it is a pleasure merely to live, and as I rode along 
 through the quiet lane under the leafy trees I 
 could not help my mind wandering and dwelling 
 on the things that were happening. I am not sure, 
 indeed, that I was not dozing; for I reached the 
 highway without knowing just where I was. 
 
 "I was recalled to myself by a rush of boys up 
 the street before me, with a crowd streaming along 
 89 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 behind them. It was the head of the procession. The 
 sheriff and his men were riding, with set faces, in 
 front and on both sides of a slowly moving vehicle ; 
 a common horse-cart in which in the midst of his 
 guards, and dressed in his Sunday clothes, with a 
 clean white shirt on, seated on his pine cofBn, was 
 old Joel. I unconsciously gazed at him, and at the 
 instant he looked up and saw me. Our eyes met as 
 naturally as if he had expected to find me there, 
 and he gave me as natural and as friendly a bow — 
 not a particle reproachful; but a little timid, as 
 though he did not quite know whether I would 
 speak to him. 
 
 "It gave me a tremendous shock. I had a sud- 
 den sinking of the heart, and nearly fell from my 
 horse. 
 
 "I turned and rode away ; but I could not shake 
 off the feeling. I tried to reassure myself with 
 the reflection that he had committed a terrible 
 crime. It did not compose me. What insisted on 
 coming to my mind was the eagerness with which 
 I had prosecuted him and the joy I had felt at my 
 success. 
 
 90 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 "Of course, I know now it was simply that I was 
 overworked and needed rest; but at that time the 
 trouble was serious. 
 
 "It haunted me all day, and that night I could 
 not sleep. For many days afterwards, it clung to 
 me, and I found myself unable to forget it, or to 
 sleep as I had been used to do. 
 
 "The new trial of Absalom came on in time, and 
 the fight was had all over again. It was longer than 
 before, as every man in our county had an opin- 
 ion, and a jury had to be brought from another 
 county. But again the verdict was the same. And 
 again an appeal was taken; was refused by the 
 next higher court; and allowed by the highest; 
 this time because a talesman had said he had ex- 
 pressed an opinion, but had not formed one. In time 
 the appeal was heard once more, and after much 
 delay, due to the number of cases on the docket 
 and the immense labor of studying carefully so 
 huge a record it was decided. It was again re- 
 versed, on the technicality mentioned, and a new 
 
 trial was ordered. 
 
 "That same day the court adjourned for the 
 term. 
 
 91 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Having a bedroom adjoining my ofBce, I spent 
 that night in town. I did not go to sleep until late, 
 and had not been asleep long when I was awakened 
 by the continual repetition of a monotonous sound. 
 At first I thought I was dreaming, but as I aroused 
 it came to me distinctly : the sound of blows in the 
 distance struck regularly. I awaked fully. The 
 noise was in the direction of the jail. I dressed 
 hastily and went down on the street. I stepped into 
 the arms of a half-dozen masked men who quietly 
 laid me on my back, blindfolded me and bound me 
 so that I could not move. I threatened and strug- 
 gled; but to no purpose, and finally gave it up 
 and tried expostulation. They told me that they 
 intended no harm to me ; but that I was their pris- 
 oner and they meant to keep me. They had come 
 for their man, they said, and they meant to have 
 him. They were perfectly quiet and acted with the 
 precision of old soldiers. 
 
 "All the time I could hear the blows at the jail 
 as the mob pounded the iron door with sledges, and 
 now and then a shout or cry from within. 
 
 "The blows were on the inner door, for the mob 
 
 92 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 
 had quickly gained access to the outer corridor. 
 They had come prepared and, stout as the door 
 was, it could not resist long. Then one great roar 
 went up and the blows ceased suddenly, and then 
 one cry. 
 
 "In a little while I heard the regular tramp of 
 men, and in a few minutes the column came up the 
 street, marching like soldiers. There must have 
 been five hundred of them. The prisoner was in the 
 midst, bare-headed and walking between two 
 mounted men, and was moaning and pleading and 
 cursing by turns. 
 
 "I asked my captors if I might speak, and they 
 gave me ten minutes. I stood up on the top step of 
 the house, and for a few minutes I made what 
 I consider to have been the best speech I ever 
 made or shall make. I told them in closing that I 
 should use all my powers to find out who they were, 
 and if I could do so I should prosecute them, 
 everyone, and try and have them hanged for 
 
 murder. 
 
 "They heard me patiently, but without a word, 
 and when I was through, one of the leaders made 
 93 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 a short reply. They agreed with me about the law ; 
 but they felt that the way it was being used was 
 such as to cause a failure of justice. They had 
 waited patiently, and were apparently no nearer 
 seeing justice executed than in the beginning. So 
 they proposed to take the law into their own hands. 
 The remedy was, to do away with all but proper 
 defences and execute the law without unreasonable 
 delay. 
 
 "It was the first mob I had ever seen, and I ex- 
 perienced a sensation of utter powerlessness and in- 
 significance; just as in a storm at sea, a hurricane, 
 or a conflagration. The individual disappeared be- 
 fore the irresistible force. 
 
 "An order was given and the column moved on 
 silently. 
 
 "A question arose among my guards as to what 
 should be done with me. 
 
 "They wished to pledge me to return to my 
 rooms and take no steps until morning, but I 
 would give no pledges. So they took me along with 
 them. 
 
 "From the time they started there was not a word 
 94 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 except the orders of the leader and his lieu- 
 tenants and the occasional outcry of the prisoner^ 
 who prayed and cursed by turns. 
 
 "They passed out of the village and turned in at 
 HaUoway's place. 
 
 "Here the prisoner made his last struggle. The 
 idea of being taken to HaUoway's place appeared 
 to terrify him to desperation. He might as well 
 have struggled against the powers of the Infinite. 
 He said he would confess everything if they would 
 not take him there. They said they did not want 
 his confession. He gave up, and from this time 
 was quiet; and he soon began to croon a sort of 
 hymn. 
 
 "The procession stopped at the big sycamore 
 under which I had last parted from HaUoway. 
 
 "I asked leave to speak again ; but they said no. 
 They asked the prisoner if he wanted to say any- 
 thing. He said he wanted something to eat. The 
 leader said he should have it; that it should never 
 be said that any man — even he — ^had asked in vain 
 for food in that county. 
 
 "Out of a haversack food was produced in 
 95 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 plenty, and while the crowd waited, amidst pro- 
 found silence the prisoner squatted down and ate 
 up the entire plateful. 
 
 "Then the leader said he had just five minutes 
 more to live, and he had better pray. 
 
 "He began a sort of wild incoherent ramble; 
 confessed that he had murdered Halloway and his 
 wife, but laid the chief blame on his father, and 
 begged them to tell his friends to meet him in 
 heaven. 
 
 "I asked leave to go, and it was given me on 
 condition that I would not return for twenty min- 
 utes. This I agreed to. 
 
 "I went to my home and aroused someone, and 
 we returned. It was not much more than a half 
 hour since I had left, but the place was deserted. 
 It was all as silent as the grave. There was no 
 living creature there. Only under the great syca- 
 more, from one of its long, pale branches that 
 stretched across the road, hung that dead thing 
 with the toes turned a little in, just out of our 
 reach, turning and swaying a little in the night 
 
 wind. 
 
 96 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 
 "We had to climb to the limb to cut the body 
 down. 
 
 "The outside newspapers made a good deal of 
 the affair. I was charged with indifference, with 
 cowardice, with venality. Some journals even de- 
 clared that I had instigated the lynching and par- 
 ticipated in it, and said that I ought to be hanged. 
 
 "I did not mind this much. It buoyed me up, 
 and I went on with my work without stopping for 
 a rest, as I had intended to do. 
 
 "I kept my word and ransacked the county for 
 evidence against the lynchers. Many knew nothing 
 about the matter; others pleaded their privilege 
 and refused to testify on the ground of self -crimi- 
 nation. 
 
 "The election came on again, and almost before 
 I knew it I was in the midst of the canvass. 
 
 "I held that election would be an indorsement 
 of me, and defeat would be a censure. After all, 
 it is the indorsement of those about our own home 
 that we desire. 
 
 "The night before the election I spoke to a crowd 
 at Burley's Fork. The place had changed since 
 97 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 Halloway checked Absalom Turnell there. A large 
 crowd was in attendance. I paid Halloway my per- 
 sonal tribute that night, and it met with a deep 
 response. I denounced the lynching. There was a 
 dead silence. I was sure that in my audience were 
 many of the men who had been in the mob that 
 night. 
 
 "When I rode home quite a company started 
 with me. 
 
 "The moon, which was on the wane, was, I re- 
 member, just rising as we set out. It was a soft 
 night, rather cloudy, but not dark, for the sad 
 moon shone a little now and then, looking wasted 
 and red. The other men dropped off from time to 
 time as we came to the several roads that led to 
 their homes and at last I was riding alone. I was 
 dead tired, and after I was left by my companions 
 sat loungingly on my horse. My mind ran on 
 the last canvass and the strange tragedy that had 
 ended it, with its train of consequences. I was not 
 aware when my horse turned off from the main 
 road into the by-lane that led through the Hallo- 
 way place to my own home. My horse was the same 
 98 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 
 I had ridden that night. I awaked suddenly to a 
 realization of where I was, and regretted for a 
 second that I had come by that road. The next 
 moment I put the thought away as a piece of 
 cowardice and rode on, my mind perfectly easy. 
 My horse presently broke into a canter and I took 
 a train of thought distinctly pleasant. I mention 
 this to account for my inabihty to explain what 
 followed. I was thinking of old times and of a 
 holiday I had once spent at Halloway's when old 
 Joel came through on his way to his wife's house. 
 It was the first time I remembered ever seeing Joel. 
 I was suddenly conscious of something white mov- 
 ing on the road before me. At the same second my 
 horse suddenly wheeled with such violence as to 
 break my stirrup-leather and almost throw me 
 over his neck. I pulled him up and turned him 
 back, and there before me, coming along the un- 
 used road up the hill from Halloway's, was old 
 Joel, sitting in a cart, looking at me, and bowing 
 to me politely just as he had done that morning 
 on his way to the gallows ; while dangling from the 
 white limb of the sycamore, swaying softly in the 
 99 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 wind, hung the corpse of Absalom. At first I 
 thought it was an illusion and I rubbed my eyes, 
 ^ut there they were. Then I thought it was a de- 
 lusion; and I reined in my horse and reasoned 
 about it. But it was not; for I saw both men as 
 plainly as I saw my stirrup-leather lying there in 
 the middle of the road, and in the same way. My 
 horse saw them too, and was so terrified that I 
 could not keep him headed to them. Again and 
 again I pulled him around and looked at the men 
 and tried to reason about them; but every time I 
 looked there they were, and my horse snorted and 
 wheeled in terror. I could see the clothes they wore : 
 the clean, white shirt and neat Sunday suit old 
 Joel had on, and the striped, hickory shirt, torn 
 on the shoulders, and the gray trousers that the 
 lynched man wore — I could see the white rope 
 wrapped around the limb and hanging down, and 
 the knot at his throat; I remembered them per- 
 fectly. I could not get near the cart, for the road 
 down to Halloway's, on which it moved steadily 
 without ever approaching, was stopped up. But I 
 rode right under the limb on which the other man 
 100 
 
SPECTRE IN THE CART 
 
 hung, and there he was just above my head. I rea- 
 soned with myself, but in vain. There he still hung 
 silent and limp, swinging gently in the night wind 
 and turning a little back and forth at the end of 
 the white rope. 
 
 "In sheer determination to fight it through I 
 got off my horse and picked up my stirrup. He 
 was trembhng like a leaf. I remounted and rode 
 back to the spot and looked again, confident that 
 the spectres would now have disappeared. But 
 there they were, old Joel, sitting in his cart, bow- 
 ing to me civilly with timid, sad, friendly eyes, as 
 much alive as I was, and the dead man, with his 
 limp head and arms and his toes turned in, hang- 
 ing in mid-air. 
 
 "I rode up under the dangling body and cut 
 at it with my switch. At the motion my horse 
 bolted. He ran fully a mile before I could pull him 
 in. 
 
 "The next morning I went to my stable to get my 
 horse to ride to the polls. The man at the stable said : 
 
 " 'He ain't fit to take out, sir. You must *a gi'n 
 him a mighty hard ride last night — ^he won't tetch 
 a moufFul ; he's been in a cold sweat aU night.' 
 101 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Sure enough, he looked it. 
 
 "I took another horse and rode out by Hallo- 
 way's to see the place by daylight. 
 
 "It was quiet enough now. The sycamore shaded 
 the grass-grown track, and a branch, twisted and 
 broken by some storm, hung by a strip of bark 
 from the big bough that stretched across the road 
 above my head, swaying, with limp leaves, a little 
 in the wind ; a dense dog-wood bush in full bloom 
 among the young pines, filled a fence-corner down 
 the disused road where old Joel had bowed to me 
 from his phantom cart the night before. But it 
 was hard to believe that these were the things which 
 had created such impressions on my mind — ^as 
 hard to believe as that the quiet cottage peering 
 out from amid the mass of peach-bloom on the 
 other slope was one hour the home of such hap- 
 piness, and the next the scene of such a tragedy." 
 
 Once more he put his hands suddenly before his 
 face as though to shut out something from his 
 vision. 
 
 "Yes, I have seen apparitions," he said, 
 thoughtfully, "but I have seen what was worse." 
 102 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 I 
 
 M. HE county of H was an old Colonial 
 
 county, and even as late as the time of my story 
 contained many old Colonial relics. Among them 
 were the court-house and the jail, and, at that 
 time, the Judge and the Sheriff. 
 
 The court-house was an old brick edifice of 
 solemn and grayish brown, with a portico whose 
 mighty columns might have stood before a temple 
 of Minerva overlooking the JEgean Sea. With its 
 thick walls and massive barred windows, it might 
 have been thought the jail, until one saw the jail. 
 The jail once seen stood alone. A cube of stone, 
 each block huge enough to have come from the 
 Pyramid of Cheops; the windows, or rather the 
 apertures, were small square openings, crossed and 
 recrossed with great bars of wrought iron, so mas- 
 sive that they might have been fashioned on the 
 105 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 forge of the Cyclops. Looking through them from 
 the outside, one saw just deep enough into the nar- 
 row cavern to see another iron grating, and catch a 
 suspicion of the darkness beyond. The entrance was 
 but a slit letting into a stone-paved corridor on 
 which opened the grinding iron doors of the four 
 small cells, each door a grate of huge iron bars, 
 heavily crossed, with openings just large enough 
 to admit a hand. The jail was built, not to meet 
 the sentimental or any other requirements of a rea- 
 sonable and humane age, but in that hard time 
 when crime was reckoned crime, when the very 
 names of "gaol" and "prison" stood for something 
 clear and unmistakable. 
 
 The Judge of the circuit was himself a relic of 
 the past, for his youth had been cast among those 
 great ones of the earth whose memory had come 
 down coupled with deeds so heroic and far-reach- 
 ing, that even to the next generation the actors 
 appeared half enveloped and magnified in the halo 
 of tradition. His life had been one of high rectitude 
 and dignity, to which habits of unusual studious- 
 ness and a great work on Executors had added a 
 106 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 reputation for vast learning, and in his old age 
 both in his manner and his habit he preserved a dis- 
 tance and a dignity of demeanor which lent dignity 
 to the Bar, and surrounded him wherever he went 
 with a feeling akin to awe. Though he had given up 
 the queue and short clothes, he still retained ruffles, 
 or what was so closely akin to them that the differ- 
 ence could scarcely be discerned. Tall, grave, and 
 with a little bend, not in the shoulders but in the 
 neck ; with white hair just long enough to be 
 brushed behind in a way to suggest the knot which 
 had once appeared at the back; with calm, quiet 
 eyes under bushy white eyebrows ; a face of pinkish 
 red inherited from Saxon ancestors, who once lived 
 in the sun and on the brine, and a mouth and chin 
 which bespoke decision and self-respect in every 
 line and wrinkle, wherever he moved he prpduced 
 an impression of one who had survived from a pre- 
 ceding age. Moreover, he was a man of heroic 
 ideals, of Spartan simplicity, and of inflexible dis- 
 cipline. 
 
 If he had a weakness it was his susceptibility to 
 feminine testimony. 
 
 107 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 The county was a secluded one — a fitting field 
 for such a judge. And the great meetings of the 
 year were the sessions of the Circuit Court. 
 
 The Judge's name was then on every lip, and 
 his passage to the court-house was a procession. 
 Everyone except those unfortunates who had come 
 under his ban, or might be too far gone in drink 
 to venture into his presence, drew up along the 
 path from the tavern to bow to him and receive 
 his courteous bow in return as he passed with slow 
 and thoughtful step along, preceded by the Sheriff 
 and his deputies, and followed by the Bar and "the 
 multitude." 
 
 Whenever he entered the court or rose from the 
 bench the lawyers stood. 
 
 If he was impressive ofi' the bench, on the bench 
 he was imposing. 
 
 At heart one of the kindest of men, he added 
 to great natural dignity a high sense of the lofti- 
 ness of a position on the bench and preserved, with 
 impartial and inflexible rigor, the strictest order 
 in his court, ruling bar and attendants alike up to 
 a high accountability. 
 
 108 
 
Drew up along the path from the tavern to bow to him. 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 No one would any more have thought of taking 
 a liberty with Judge Lomax than he would have 
 done it with an old lion. Just one man, possibly, 
 might have thought of it, but he would not have 
 done it — and this was Aleck Thompson, the Sheriflp 
 of the county, a jovial man past middle age, a rubi- 
 cund bachelor, who had courted half the girls in 
 the county and was intimate with more than half 
 the people in the circuit. He was daring even to 
 rashness. He had held the office of Sheriff — not so 
 long, perhaps, as the Judge had sat on the bench, 
 but, at least, since he first stood for the place; 
 and he could hold it as long as he wished it. He 
 was easily the most popular man in the county. 
 He treated everybody with unvarying joviality 
 and indiscriminate generosity, and it was known 
 that his income, though large, was, except so much 
 as was absolutely necessary for his support, dis- 
 tributed with impartial fairness among the peo- 
 ple of his county, a part over the poker-table, a 
 part over the bar, and the balance in other popular 
 ways. He had a face that no one could read, and 
 bluffed as weU with a pair of treys as with four 
 109 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 aces. But he used to say that such a bluff was 
 to be used rarely, and only on important occasions. 
 Now and then some opposition to him would 
 arise and a small headway would be made against 
 him. As, for instance, after he advised Squire Jef- 
 ford's plump and comely daughter, Mary, not to 
 marry Dick Creel, because Dick was too dissipated. 
 There were some who said that the Sheriff had de- 
 signs himself on Sam Jefford's buxom, black-eyed 
 daughter, while others held that he was afraid of 
 young Dick, who was an amiable and popular 
 young fellow, and that he did not want him to get 
 too much influence in the lower end of the county. 
 However it was, Mary Jefford not only married 
 her young lover, but sobered him, and as she was 
 young, pretty, and ambitious, and worshipped her 
 husband, Dick Creel at the next election, to use the 
 vernacular, "made cornsideruble show runnin' 
 ag'inst the Sheriff, and give him cornsideruble 
 trouble." Still, Thompson was elected overwhelm- 
 ingly, and few people believed Mary Creel's charge 
 that the Sheriff had got Dick drunk on purpose 
 to beat him. Thompson said, "Didn't anybody have 
 to git Dick drunk — the work was t'other way." 
 
 no 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 II 
 
 The session of the Circuit Court in the "- 
 
 year of the Commonwealth," as the writs ran, and 
 "in the sixteenth year of Aleck Thompson's 
 Sheriffalty," as that official used to say, was more 
 than usually important. The noted case of "Do- 
 little et al. vs. Dolittle's Executrix" was tried at 
 the autumn term of the court, and caused con- 
 siderable excitement in the county ; for, in addition 
 to the amount of property and the nice questions 
 of law which were involved, the two sides had been 
 severally espoused by two sister churches, and 
 nearly half the county was in attendance, either as 
 witnesses or interested spectators. Not only was 
 every available corner in the little village filled to 
 overflowing with parties, witnesses, and their ad- 
 herents, but during the first week of the term the 
 stable-yards and road-sides were lined with covered 
 wagons and other vehicles, in or under which some 
 of those who had not been fortunate enough to ob- 
 111 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 tain shelter in the inn used to sleep, and "Briles's 
 bar" under the tavern did a thriving business. 
 
 As the case, however, wore on, and the weather 
 became inclement, the crowd dropped off somewhat, 
 though a sufficient number still remained to give 
 an air of life to the little road-side village. 
 
 Certain of these visitors found the bar-room on 
 the ground floor of the tavern across the road more 
 attractive than the court-room, and as evening 
 came the loud talking in that direction told that 
 the visits had not been fruitless. 
 
 Perfect order, however, prevailed in the court, 
 until one evening one of these visitors, a young 
 man named Turkic, who had been spending the 
 afternoon at the bar, made his way into the court- 
 room. He was clad in a dingy, weather-stained over- 
 coat and an old slouch hat. He sank into a seat at 
 the end of a bench near the door and, being very 
 drunk, soon began to talk aloud to those about 
 him. 
 
 "Silence!" called the Sheriff over the heads of 
 the crowd from his desk in front, and those near 
 the man cautioned him to stop talking. A moment 
 112 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 later, however, he began again. Again the Sheriff 
 roared "Silence!" But by this time the hot air of 
 the court-room had warmed up Mr. Turkic, and 
 in answer to the warning of those about him, he 
 declared in a maudlin tone, that he "Warn't goin' 
 to keep silence." 
 
 "I got's much right to talk's anyone, and I'm 
 a goin' to talk's much's I please." 
 
 His friends tried to silence him, and the Sheriff 
 made his way through the crowd and endeavored 
 to induce him to leave the court-room. But it was to 
 no purpose. Jim Turkic was much too "far gone" 
 to know what he was doing, though he was in a de- 
 lightfully good humor. He merely hugged the 
 Sheriff and laughed drunkenly. 
 
 "Aleck, you jist go 'way fom here. I ain't 
 a-goin' to shet up. You shet up yourself. I'm a-goin' 
 to talk all I please. Now, you hear it." 
 
 Then as if to atone for his rudeness, he caught 
 the Sheriff roughly by the arm and pulled him 
 toward him: 
 
 "Aleck, how's the case goin'.? Is Mandy a goin' 
 to win? Is that old rascal rulin' right?" 
 113 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 The Sheriff urged something in a low voice, but 
 Turkle would not be silenced. 
 
 "Now you see thar," he broke out with a laugh 
 to those about him, "didn't I tell you Aleck wa'n't 
 nothin' but a ol' drunkard? What d'you s'pose 
 the ol' rascal wants me to do? He wants me to go 
 over there to the bar and git drunk like 'im, and I 
 ain't goin' to do it. I never drink. I've come here 
 to see that my cousin Mandy's chil'ern gits their 
 patrimony, and I ain' a goin' to 'sociate with 
 these here drunken fellows like Aleck Thompson." 
 
 The Sheriff made a final effort. He spoke posi- 
 tively, but Turkle would not heed. 
 
 "Oh, 'Judge' be damned ! You and I know that 
 ol' fellow loves a dram jest's well's the best of 'em 
 — ^jest's well's you do. Look at his face. You think 
 he got that drinkin' well-water? Bet yer he's got a 
 bottle in 's pocket right now." 
 
 A titter ran through the crowd, but was suddenly 
 stopped. 
 
 A quiet voice was heard from the other end of 
 the court-room, and a deathly silence fell on the 
 assemblage. 
 
 114 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 "Suspend for a moment, gentlemen, if you 
 please. Mr. Sheriff, bring that person to the bar 
 of the Court." 
 
 The crowd parted as if by magic, and the 
 Sheriff led his drunken constituent to the bar, 
 where his befuddled brain took in just enough of 
 the situation to make him quiet enough. The Judge 
 bent his sternest look on him until he quailed. 
 
 "Have you no more sense of propriety than to 
 disturb a court of justice in the exercise of its high 
 function ?" 
 
 Turkle, however, was too drunk to understand 
 this. He tried to steady himself against the bar. 
 
 "I ain't is-turbed no Court of function, and 
 anybody 't says so, Jedge, iz a liar." He dragged 
 his hand across his mouth and tried to look around 
 upon the crowd with an air of drunken triumph, 
 but he staggered and would have fallen had not 
 the Sheriff caught and supported him. 
 
 The Judge's eyes had never left him. 
 
 "Mr. Sheriff, take this intoxicated creature and 
 confine him in the county gaol until the expira- 
 tion of the term. The very existence of a court of 
 115 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 justice depends upon the observance of order. 
 Order must be preserved and the dignity of the 
 Court maintained." 
 
 There was a stir — ^half of horror — ^throughout 
 the court-room. Put a man in that jail just for 
 being tight! 
 
 Then the Sheriff on one side and his deputy on 
 the other, led the culprit out, now sufficiently quiet 
 and half whimpering. A considerable portion of 
 the crowd followed him. 
 
 Outside, the prisoner was sober enough, and he 
 begged hard to be let off and allowed to go home. 
 His friends, too, joined in his petition and prom- 
 ised to guarantee that he would not come back 
 again during the term of court. But the Sheriff 
 was firm. 
 
 "No. The Judge told me to put you in jail, and 
 I'm goin' to do it." He took two huge iron keys 
 from his deputy and rattled them fiercely. 
 
 Turkle shrank back with horror. 
 
 "You ain't goin' to put me in thar, Aleck! Not 
 in that hole ! Not just for a little drop o' whiskey. 
 It was your whiskey, too, Aleck. I was drinkin' yo' 
 health, Aleck. You know I was." 
 116 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 "The Judge won't know anything about it. 
 He'll never think of it again," pleaded several of 
 Turkle's friends. "You know he has ordered a 
 drunken man put there before and never said any 
 more about it — ^just told you to discharge him next 
 day." 
 
 Turkle stiffened up with hope. 
 
 "Yes, Aleck." He leaned on the Sheriff's arm 
 heavily. "He's drunk himself — I don't mean that, 
 I mean you're drunk — oh, no — I mean Vm drunk. 
 Everybody's drunk." 
 
 "Yes, you've gone and called me a drunkard 
 before the Court. Now I'm goin' to show you." 
 Thompson rattled his big keys again savagely. 
 
 Turkle caught him with both hands. 
 
 "Oh, Aleck, don't talk that a-way," he pleaded 
 in a tremulous voice. "Don't talk that a-way !" He 
 burst into tears and flung his arms around the 
 Sheriff's neck. He protested that he had never seen 
 him take a drink in his life; he would go and tell 
 the Judge so; if necessary, he would swear to it 
 on a Bible. 
 
 "Aleck, you know I love you better than any- 
 117 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 body in this world — except my wife and childrer/. 
 Yes, better than them — better than Jinny. Jinny 
 will tell you that herself. Oh ! Aleck !" He clung to 
 him and sobbed ! 
 
 His friends indorsed this and declared that they 
 would bring him back if the Judge demanded his 
 presence. They would "promise to bring him back 
 dead or alive at any time he sent for him." 
 
 As Turkle and his friends were always warm 
 supporters of the Sheriff, a fact of which they did 
 not fail to remind him, Thompson was not averse 
 to letting him off, especially as he felt tolerably 
 sure that the Judge would, as they said, forget all 
 about the matter, or, if he remembered it, would, 
 as he had done before, simply order him to dis- 
 charge the prisoner. So, after dragging the culprit 
 to the jail door to scare him well and make his 
 clemency the more impressive, he turned him 
 over to the others on condition that he would mount 
 his mule and go straight home and not come back 
 again during the term. This Turkle was so glad 
 to do that he struck out at once for the stable at 
 what Thompson called a "turkey trot," and five 
 118 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 minutes later he was galloping down the road, 
 swinging mightily on his sorrel mule, but whip- 
 ping for life. 
 
 That night Thompson was much toasted about 
 the court-house for his humanity. Several of his 
 admirers, indeed, got into somewhat the same con- 
 dition that Turkle had been in. Even Dick Creel, 
 who had come to court that day, lapsed from vir- 
 tue and fell a victim to the general hilarity. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The next morning when court was opened, the 
 Judge was even more than usually dignified and 
 formal. The customary routine of the morning was 
 gone through with; the orders of the day before 
 were read and were signed by the Judge with more 
 than wonted solemnity. The Clerk, a benignant- 
 looking old man with a red face and a white beard, 
 took up his book and adjusted his glasses to call 
 the pending docket: the case of "DoUttle vs. Do- 
 little's Ex'ex.," and the array of counsel drew their 
 119 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 chairs up to the bar and prepared for the work of 
 the day, when the Judge, taking off his spectacles, 
 turned to the Sheriff's desk. 
 
 "Mr. Sheriff, bring in that unfortunate in- 
 ebriate whom I sentenced to confinement in the 
 gaol yesterday. The Court, while sensible of the 
 imperative necessity of protecting itself from all 
 unseemly disorder and preserving its dignity un- 
 diminished, nevertheless always leans to the 
 side of mercy. The Court trusts that a night's 
 incarceration may have sufficiently sobered and 
 chastened the poor creature. The Court will 
 therefore give him a brief admonition and will 
 then discharge him." 
 
 The Judge sat back in his large arm-chair and 
 waited benignantly with his gaze resting placidly 
 in front of him, while a deathly silence fell on the 
 crowd and every eye in the court-house was turned 
 on the Sheriff. 
 
 Thompson, standing at his desk, was staring at 
 
 the Judge with jaw dropped and a dazed look like 
 
 a man who had suddenly to face judgment. He 
 
 opened his lips twice as if to speak, then turned 
 
 120 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 and went slowly out of the court-house like a man 
 in a dream, while those left behind looked in each, 
 other's eyes, some half scared and others more than 
 half amused. 
 
 Outside, Thompson stopped just between two of 
 the great pillars. He rammed his hands deep in his 
 pockets and gazed vacantly over the court-green 
 and up the road. 
 
 "What will he do with you? Remove you?" 
 asked two or three friends who had slipped out 
 of the door behind him and now stood about 
 him. 
 
 "He'll put me in jail — and remove me." 
 
 "Can't you go and get Jim back here?" 
 
 "Or put a man on a horse and send for him?" 
 suggested a second. "You can get a man to go 
 there for a dollar and a half." 
 
 "No, he can't do that," declared another, half 
 testily; "it's over twenty-five miles to Jim's, and 
 like as not, Jim's drunk at home. He wouldn't get 
 here till to-morrow night." 
 
 "Aleck, you tell him he was sick. I reckon he is 
 sick enough, drunk as he was," suggested the last 
 121 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 speaker in a friendly tone ; but the first dashed his 
 hope. 
 
 "Next thing, the Judge would be sendin' the 
 Doctor to see about him and askin' him how he is 
 comin' on — if he didn't go and see how he is comin' 
 on himself." 
 
 " Jee-rusalem ! that would be bad!" 
 
 Thompson's face had not changed a whit. He 
 had still stood and looked as if in a dream. Sud- 
 denly, as his eyes rested on the tavern across the 
 road beyond the court-green they lit up. His 
 friends followed his gaze. A young man had just 
 come out of the tavern bar and was making his 
 way unsteadily across the road toward a horse- 
 rack, where a thin bay horse stood tied. He was 
 clad in a sun-burnt overcoat and slouch hat, 
 much as Turkic had been dressed the evening 
 before. 
 
 "There's Turkle now !" exclaimed one of the men 
 behind Thompson. 
 
 "No; it's Dick Creel," corrected another. "He 
 ain't been drunk before in a year. He's goin' home 
 
 122 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 "Sorry for him when he gits home. His wife will 
 straighten him out." 
 
 But Thompson paid no heed to- them. He darted 
 down the walk and pounced on the young man just 
 as he reached his horse. 
 
 "Come here," he said in a tone of authority. 
 "The Judge wants you." 
 
 Creel looked at him in vague amazement. 
 
 "The Judge wants me? What th' Judge want 
 with me? 'S he want to consult me?" 
 
 "Never mind what he wants — he wants you. 
 Come along, and mind, no matter what he says to 
 you, don't you open your mouth. If you do he'll 
 put you in jail. He's been kind o' curious lately 
 about all this drinkin' and he's in an all-fired fury 
 this morning and he'll clap you in jail in a minute. 
 Come along." 
 
 The young man was too much dazed to under- 
 stand, and Thompson was hurrying him along so 
 rapidly that he had no time to expostulate. At 
 every step the Sheriff was warning him, under ter- 
 rific penalties, against answering the Judge a sin- 
 gle word. 
 
 123 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "No matter if he says black's white and white's 
 black, don't you open your mouth or you'U get 
 it. It's much as I can do to keep you out of jail 
 this minute." 
 
 "But, Sheriff— ! But, Aleck—! Just wait a 
 minute! I don't " 
 
 The next instant he was Inside the court-house 
 and the Sheriff was marching him up the aisle be- 
 tween the upturned faces. He planted him at the 
 bar immediately before the Court, pulling off his 
 hat in such a way as to drag his hair over his face 
 and give him an even more dishevelled appearance 
 than before. Then he moved around to his own 
 desk, keeping his eye fixed piercingly on the aston- 
 ished Creel's bewildered face. A gasp went over 
 the court-room, and the Bar stared at the prisoner 
 in blank amazement. 
 
 The Judge alone appeared oblivious of his 
 presence. He had sat absolutely silent and mo- 
 tionless since he had given the order to the Sheriff 
 to produce the prisoner, his face expressive of deep 
 reflection. Now he withdrew his eye from the ceil- 
 ing. 
 
 124 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 With impressive deliberation he put on his large 
 gold-rimmed spectacles; sat up in his chair; as- 
 sumed his most judicial expression, which sat curi- 
 ously on his benignant face, and looked severely 
 down upon the culprit. The court-room shivered 
 and Thompson's round face grew perceptibly 
 whiter; but his eyes, after a single fleeting glance 
 darted at the Judge, never left the face of the man 
 at the bar. 
 
 The next second the Judge began to speak, and 
 Thompson, and the court-room with him, heaved a 
 deep sigh of relief. 
 
 "Young man," said the Judge, "you have 
 committed an act of grievous impropriety. You 
 have been guilty of one of the most reprehensible 
 offences that any citizen of a Commonwealth 
 founded upon order and justice could commit, an 
 act of such flagrant culpability that the Court, in 
 the maintenance of its dignity and in the interest 
 of the Commonwealth found it necessary to visit 
 upon you punishment of great severity and in- 
 carcerate you in the gaol usually reserved for the 
 125 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 most depraved malefactors. Intemperance is one of 
 the most debasing of vices. It impairs the intellect 
 and undermines the constitution. To the inhibition 
 of Holy Writ is added the cumulative if inferen- 
 tial prohibition of the Law, which declines to con- 
 sider inebriety, though extreme enough in degree 
 to impair if not destroy the reasoning faculty, in 
 mitigation of crime of the highest dignity. If you 
 had no beloved family to whom your conduct would 
 be an affliction, yet you have a duty to yourself 
 and to the Commonwealth which you have flagrant- 
 ly violated. To shocking inebriety you added the 
 even grosser misdemeanor of disturbing a Court 
 in the exercise of its supreme function: the calm, 
 orderly, and deliberate administration of justice 
 between the citizens of the Commonwealth." 
 
 "But, Judge — ?" began the young man. 
 
 A sharp cough from the Sheriff interrupted 
 him and he glanced at the Sheriff to meet a menac- 
 ing shake of the head. 
 
 The strangeness of the scene and the impressive 
 solemnity of the Judge so wrought upon the 
 young man that he began to whimper. He looked 
 126 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 at the Judge and once more opened his mouth to 
 speak, but the Sheriff called, sharply : 
 
 "Silence!" 
 
 Creel glanced appealingly from the Judge to the 
 Sheriff, only to meet another imperative shake of 
 the latter's head and a warning scowl. 
 
 Then the Judge proceeded, in a tone that 
 showed that he was not insensible to his altered 
 manner. 
 
 "The Court, always mindful of that mercy 
 whose quality 'is not strained, but droppeth as the 
 gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath,' 
 trusts that your recent incarceration, though brief, 
 may prove adequate to the exigencies of the oc- 
 casion. It hopes that the incarceration of one night 
 in the common gaol may prove in case of a young 
 man like yourself sufficiently efficacious to deter 
 you from the repetition of so grave a misdemeanor, 
 and at the same time not crush too much that gen- 
 erous spirit of youth which in its proper exercise 
 may prove so advantageous to its possessor, and 
 redound so much to the benefit of the Common- 
 wealth. The order of the Court, therefore, is that 
 127 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 the Sheriff discharge you from further imprison- 
 ment. 
 
 "Mr. Sheriff, conduct the young man to the 
 door, caution him against a recurrence of his of- 
 fence, and direct him toward his home. 
 
 "We will now proceed to call the docket." 
 
 The court-room with another gasp broke into 
 a buzz, which was instantly quelled by the sharp 
 command of the Sheriff for silence and order in 
 the court. 
 
 "But, Judge — " began Creel again, "I don't 
 understand ' ' 
 
 What he did not understand was not heard, for 
 Thompson seized the prisoner before he could fin- 
 ish his sentence, and, with a grip of steel on his 
 arm, hustled him down the aisle and out of the 
 court-room. 
 
 A good many persons poured out of the court- 
 room after them and with subdued laughter fol- 
 lowed the Sheriff and his charge across the green. 
 Thompson, however, did not wait for them. The 
 young man appeared inclined to argue. But the 
 Sheriff gave him no time. Hurrying him down the 
 128 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 walk, he unhitched his horse for him and ordered 
 him to mount. 
 
 "But, Sheriff— Mr. Thompson, I'm darned if I 
 understand what it is all about." 
 
 "You were drunk," said Thompson — "fla- 
 grantly inebriated. Go home. Didn't you hear the 
 Judge.?" 
 
 "Yes, I heard him. He's doty. I might have 
 been drunk, but I'm darned if I slept in jail last 
 night — ^I slept in " 
 
 "I'm darned if you didn't," said the Sherifi'. 
 "The Judge has ruled it so, and so you did. Now 
 go home and don't you come back here again dur- 
 ing this term, or you will sleep in jail again." 
 
 "That old Judge is doty," declared the young 
 man with a tone of conviction. 
 
 "So much the worse for you if you come back 
 here. Go home now, just as quick as you can." 
 
 Creel reflected for a moment. 
 
 "Well, it beats my time. I'll tell you what I'll 
 do, Mr. Thompson," he said, half pleadingly. "I'll 
 go home and stay there if you will promise not to 
 tell my wife I was in jail." 
 129 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "I promise you," said Aleck, solemnly. "I give 
 you my word I won't." 
 
 "And what's more," continued Creel, "if you'll 
 keep anybody else from doing it, I'H vote for you 
 next time for Sheriff." 
 
 "I promise you that, too," said Aleck, "and if 
 anybody says you were there, let me know, and 
 I'll come up there and — and tell her you weren't. 
 I can't do any more than that, can I.-"' 
 
 "No, you can't do any more than that," ad- 
 mitted Creel, sadly, and, leaning over and shaking 
 hands with the Sheriff cordially for the first time 
 in some years, he rode away in profound dejection. 
 
 "Well, I've got to face Mary," he said, "and 
 I reckon I might as well do it. Whiskey is a queer 
 thing. I must have been a lot drunker than I 
 thought I was, because if the Court hadn't ruled 
 it, I would have sworn I slept in that there wing 
 room last night." 
 
 "Well, that's the best bluff I ever put up," 
 said Thompson to the throng about him as he 
 turned back to the court house. 
 
 The Sheriff's bluff became the topic of the rest 
 130 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 of the term. Such audacity, such resourcefulness 
 had never been known. Thompson became more 
 popular than ever, and his re-election the follow- 
 ing spring was admitted to be certain. 
 
 "That Aleck Thompson's the smartest man 
 that is," declared one of his delighted adherents. 
 
 Thompson himself thought so, too, and his imi- 
 tation of the Judge, of Dick Creel, and of him- 
 self in court became his most popular story. 
 
 Only the old Judge moved among the throng of 
 tittering laymen, calm, dignified, and unsuspecting. 
 
 "If ever he gets hold of you, Aleck," said one 
 of that worthy's worshippers, "there's likely to be 
 a vacancy in the office of sheriff." 
 
 "He'll put me in jail," laughed Aleck. "Dick 
 Creel says he's kind o' doty." 
 
 IV 
 
 The Court was nearing the end of the term. 
 
 Dolittle et al. vs. Dolittle's Executrix, with all its 
 witnesses and all its bitternesses, had resulted in 
 a mistrial, and the sister churches were wider apart 
 131 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 than ever. The rest of the docket was being daily 
 disposed of. 
 
 The Sheriff was busy one day telling his story 
 to an admiring throng on the court-green when 
 someone casually observed that Mrs. Dick Creel 
 had got off the train that morning. 
 
 The Sheriff's face changed a little. 
 
 "Where is she.?" 
 
 "Waitin' in the tavern parlor." 
 
 "What is she doing here.'' What is she doing 
 in there?" 
 
 "Jest a settin' and a waitin'." 
 
 "I 'spect she is waitin' for you, Aleck.?" hazarded 
 one of his friends. 
 
 There was a burst of laughter, for Squire Jef- 
 ford's daughter, Mary, was known to be "a woman 
 of her own head." 
 
 The Sheriff laughed, too; but his laughter was 
 not as mirthful as usual. He made an ineffectual 
 attempt to keep up his jollity. 
 
 "I reckon I'll go and see Mary," he said at 
 length. 
 
 He left the group with affected cheerfulness, 
 132 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 but his heart was heavier than he liked to admit. 
 He made his way to the "ladies' parlor," as the 
 little sitting-room in the south wing of the ram- 
 bling old tavern, overlooking the court-green was 
 called, and opened the door. 
 
 On one side of the wood fire, in a stiff, high- 
 backed chair sat a young woman, in her hat and 
 wrap and gloves, "jest a settin' and a waitin'." 
 She was a well-made and comely young woman 
 under thirty, with a ruddy face, smooth hair and 
 bright eyes that the Sheriff knew could both smile 
 and snap. Her head was well set on rather plump 
 shoulders ; her mouth was well formed, but was now 
 close drawn, and her chin was strong enough to 
 show firmness — ^too much firmness, as Thompson 
 mentally decided when he caught its profile. 
 
 The Sheriff advanced with an amiable smile. 
 He was so surprised. 
 
 "Why, you here, Mary! When did you come.?" 
 His tone was affable and even testified pleasure. 
 But Mary did not unbend. She was as stiff as the 
 chair she sat in. Without turning her head she 
 turned her eyes and looked at him sideways. 
 133 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Mrs. Creel." 
 
 There was a glint in her black eyes that meant 
 war, and Thompson's countenance fell. 
 
 "Ah— ur— Mrs. Creel." 
 
 "I didn't know as you'd know me?" She spoke 
 quietly, her eyes still on him sidewise. 
 
 "Not know you! Why, of course, I know you. 
 I don't forget the pretty girls — ^leastways, the 
 prettiest girl in the county. Your father and 
 I " 
 
 "I heard you made a mistake about my hus- 
 band and Jim Turkle. I thought maybe you 
 might think I was Mrs. Turkle." 
 
 There was the least perceptible lifting of her 
 shoulders and drawing down of her mouth, but 
 quite enough to suggest Jenny Turkle's high 
 shoulders and grim face. 
 
 The Sheriff tried to lighten the conversation. 
 
 "Oh! Come now, Mary, you mustn't get mad 
 about that. It was all a joke. I was comin' right up 
 after court adjourned to tell you about it — and — . 
 It was the funniest thing! You'd 'a' died laugh- 
 ing if you'd been here and seen " 
 
 134< 
 
"1 don't forget the pretty girls." 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 "I heard they was all laughin' about it. I ain't 
 so easy to amuse." 
 
 "Oh! Yes, you would, too," began Thompson, 
 cajolingly. "If you'd seen " 
 
 "What time does Court adjourn.'"' she asked, 
 quietly and irrelevantly. 
 
 "Oh, not for two or three — not for several days 
 yet — Probably 'twill hold over till well into next 
 week. But if you'd seen " 
 
 "I mean what time does it let out to-day?" 
 
 Thompson's face fell again. 
 
 "Why — ah — about — ah — Why? What do you 
 want to know for.""' 
 
 "I want to see the Judge." Her voice was dead 
 level. 
 
 "What about.?" 
 
 "About business." 
 
 "What business?" 
 
 "Co'te business," with cold irony. 
 
 "You don't mean that you're goin' to ?" 
 
 He paused without framing the rest of the 
 question. 
 
 She suddenly stood up and flamed out. 
 133 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Yes, I am — that's just what I am goin' to do. 
 That's what I've come here for. You may take a 
 liberty with the Judge — he's doty; but you can't 
 take a liberty with tub — I'm Squire Jefford's 
 daughter, and I'm goin' to show you." 
 
 She was facing him now, and her black eyes 
 were darting fire. Thompson was quite stag- 
 gered. 
 
 "Why, Mary! I am surprised at you. Your 
 father's old friend — who has had you on his knee 
 many a time. I am shocked and surprised- — and 
 mortified and — ^astonished — and — mortified " 
 
 "You've done said that one once," she said, 
 icily, 
 
 "Why, Mary, I thought we were friends — " he 
 began. But she cut in on him. 
 
 "Friends!" She spoke with contempt. "You've 
 had it in for Dick ever since he was a boy." Her 
 voice suddenly broke and the tears sprang to her 
 eyes and rolled down her cheeks. 
 
 "Why, Mary — no such thing — ^I assure you — 
 Dick and I are the best of friends — dear friends." 
 
 Her snifi^ was more forcible than words. She 
 136 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 wiped her eyes and looked at him with freezing con- 
 tempt. 
 
 "I'm a fool! And I don't want you to be 
 Mary-iv^ me, either. If Dick chooses to let you get 
 him drunk and make a beast and a fool of him 
 and drag him up before the Court like a — ^a — ^like 
 that drunkard, Jim Turkle, what don't know how 
 to behave himself seemly in Court, and Circuit 
 Court at that — ^he may ; but I'll let you know, I'm 
 not goin' to do it. I don't mean the Judge to think 
 my husband's a thing like that. I mean to set him 
 right. And I'll tell him you are nothing but an 
 old gambler who spends your time ruinin' young 
 men, and braggin' as how you can blufiF any- 
 body." 
 
 "Mary! — ur — Mrs. Creel!" gasped the Sheriff. 
 
 She stalked by him wiping her eyes, and 
 marched straight to the door; but the Sheriff was 
 too quick for her. His office, his reputation, every- 
 thing hung on his pacifying her. He sprang to 
 the door and, standing with his back against it, 
 began to apologize in so humble a tone that even 
 the angry wife could not but listen to him. 
 137 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 He said everything that any mortal could have 
 said, and declared that he would do anything on 
 earth that she might ask. 
 
 She reflected, and he began to hope again. 
 When their eyes met, hers were still hard, but they 
 were calmer. 
 
 "I know you think you are making a fool of 
 me," she began, and then as he protested she shut 
 him up with a sharp gesture. 
 
 "Yes, you do, you think so; but you are not. 
 There is but one thing I will accept in apology." 
 
 "What is that.?" 
 
 "You are to make Dick your deputy." 
 
 "But, M " 
 
 "I knew you wouldn't. Stand aside." She gave a 
 sweep of the arm. 
 
 "But, Mary!" 
 
 "Stand aside, I say — ^I'd rather have jou re- 
 moved anyway." 
 
 "But, Mary, just hsten " 
 
 "Stand aside, or I will call." She straightened 
 herself and looked past him, as if listening. 
 
 "But, Mary, do be reasonable!" 
 138 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 She opened her mouth as if to cry out. The 
 Sheriff threw up both hands. 
 
 "Mary, please — For kingdom's sake, don't! 
 What unreasonable creatures women are!" 
 
 "You'd better let women alone. One is as much 
 as you can manage now." She spoke witheringly. 
 "I give you one more chance." 
 
 "More than I can manage. You know Dick will 
 get drunk " 
 
 "Not unless you make him. Who was drunk at 
 that barbecue at Jones's Cross Roads last sum- 
 mer.?" 
 
 "Oh, Mary!" 
 
 "Who set up till after Sunday mornin' playin' 
 kyards — . Yes, gamblin', the last night of last 
 County Co'te.P" 
 
 "Oh, Mary! — ^AU right. I lay down my hand." 
 
 She drew paper and pencil from her little bag 
 and held them out to him. 
 
 "Write it down." 
 
 "Ain't my word good enough.?" 
 
 "If you mean to do it, why are you afraid to 
 write it?" 
 
 139 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "I'm not afraid." 
 
 "Then write it." She held the paper to him with 
 outstretched arm. 
 
 "What shall I write.?" 
 
 "Write what I say : 'I, Aleck Thompson, prom- 
 ise and bind myself if I remain in ofBce for another 
 term to appoint my dear friend, Dick Creel' — 
 underscore that — ^'my first deputy, and to keep 
 him in as long as he keeps sober and attends to 
 his business.' Now sign it." 
 
 "What consideration do I get for this?" 
 Thompson looked up from the paper at her ca- 
 jolingly. She met his gaze with a little flash. 
 
 "Oh! I forgot the con-sideration," she mur- 
 mured, "and I Squire Jefford's daughter, too! 
 Write : 'The consideration for the above is the love 
 I bear the aforesaid Richard Creel, and the fear I 
 have that his wife will tell the Judge what a smart 
 Aleck I am.' " 
 
 "Mary, you don't want me to write that?" 
 
 "Them very words. I little more forgot the con- 
 sideration." 
 
 The paper was written. 
 140 
 
THE SHERIFF'S BLUFF 
 
 She glanced out of the window. 
 
 "Now I want a witness. I see the court is broken 
 up." 
 
 " 'Tain't necessary." 
 
 "I want a witness, and I'm goin' to have 
 him." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "The Judge." 
 
 "Look here, Mary " 
 
 "I'm goin' to have him. You come and intro- 
 duce me." 
 
 "Mary, are you after all goin' to ?" 
 
 She met his gaze frankly. 
 
 "No — unless you go back on me. If you do, I'll 
 tell him and show him the paper ; and what's more, 
 I'll show it all around this county." 
 
 A flash of genuine admiration sprang into the 
 Sheriff's eyes. 
 
 "Mary, you ought to have been a man, or — 
 Mrs. Aleck Thompson." 
 
 The paper was signed and witnessed. 
 The Judge inquired of the Sheriff that evening, 
 141 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Who is that handsome and very interesting 
 young woman?" 
 
 "She is the wife of a young man I want to get 
 as my deputy, sir." 
 
 "A very interesting young woman," observed 
 the Judge, gravely, "I should say she is a young 
 woman of some intellect and considerable deter- 
 mination." 
 
 "She is, indeed, sir !" said the Sheriff. 
 
 Long afterward Aleck Thompson used to tell 
 the story and always wound up with, "I thought I 
 could put up a good bluff; but Mary Creel beat 
 me. She bluffed me clean. But she was the best 
 deputy I ever had." 
 
 142 
 
THE LONG HILLSIDE 
 
 A CHEISTMAS HARE-HUNT IN OLD VIEGINIA 
 
THE LONG HILLSIDE 
 
 A CHEISTMAS HAEE-HUNT IN OLD VIRGINIA 
 
 X HERE do not seem to be as many hares now 
 as there used to be when I was a boy. Then the 
 "old fields" and branch-bottoms used to be full of 
 them. They were peculiarly our game; I mean 
 we used to consider that they belonged to us boys. 
 They were rather scorned by the "gentlemen," by 
 which was meant the grown-up gentlemen, who 
 shot partridges over the pointers, and only picked 
 up a hare when she got in their way. And the ne- 
 groes used to catch them in traps or "gums," which 
 were traps made of hollow gum-tree logs. But we 
 boys were the hare-hunters. They were our prop- 
 erty from our childhood; just as much, we con- 
 sidered, as "Bruno" and "Don," the beautiful 
 "crack" pointers, with their brown eyes and satiny 
 ears and coats, were "the gentlemen's." 
 
 The negroes used to set traps all the Fall and 
 145 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 Winter, and we, with the natural tendency of boys 
 to imitate whatever is wild and primitive, used to 
 set traps also. To tell the truth, however, the hares 
 appeared to have a way of going into the ne- 
 groes' traps, rather than into ours, and the former 
 caught many to our one. 
 
 Even now, after many years, I can remember 
 the delight of the frosty mornings; the joy with 
 which we used to peep through the little panes of 
 the dormer-windows at the white frost over the 
 fields, which promised stronger chances of game 
 being caught; the eagerness with which, oblivious 
 of the cold, we sped through the garden, across 
 the field, along the ditch banks, and up by the 
 woods, making the round of our traps; the ex- 
 pectancy with which we peeped over the whitened 
 weeds and through the bushes, to catch a glimpse 
 of the gums in some "parf" or at some clearly 
 marked "gap"; our disappointment when we 
 found the door standing open and the trigger set 
 just as we had left it the morning before; our 
 keen delight when the door was down ; the dash for 
 the trap; the scuffle to decide which should look 
 146 
 
THE LONG HILLSIDE 
 
 in first ; the peep at the brown ball screwed up back 
 at the far end; the delicate operation of getting 
 the hare out of the trap; and the triumphant re- 
 turn home, holding up our spoil to be seen from 
 afar. We were happier than we knew. 
 
 So far to show how we came to regard hares as 
 our natural game, and how, though to be bird- 
 hunters we had to grow up, we were hare-hunters 
 as boys. The rush, the cheers, the yells, the ex- 
 citement were a part of the sport, to us boys the 
 best part. 
 
 Of course, to hunt hares we had to have dogs — 
 at least boys must have — ^the noise, the dash, the 
 chase are half the battle. 
 
 And such dogs as ours were! 
 
 It was not allowable to take the bird-dogs after 
 hares. I say it was not allowable; I do not say it 
 was not done, for sometimes, of course, the 
 pointers would come, and we could not make them 
 go back. But the hare-dogs were the puppies and 
 curs, terriers, watch-dogs, and the nondescript 
 crew which belonged to the negroes, and to the 
 plantation generally. 
 
 147 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 What a pack they were! Thin, undersized 
 black-and-tans, or spotted beasts of doubt- 
 ful breed, called "houn's" by courtesy; long- 
 legged, sleepy watch-dogs from the "quarters," 
 brindled or "yaller" mongrels, which even courtesy 
 could not term other than "kyur dogs"; sharp- 
 voiced "fises," busier than bees, hunting like fury, 
 as if they expected to find rats in every tuft of 
 grass; and, when the hares got up, bouncing and 
 bobbing along, not much bigger than the "molly 
 cottontails" they were after, getting in everyone's 
 way and receiving sticks and stones in profusion, 
 but with their spirits unbroken. And all these were 
 in one incongruous pack, growling, running, bark- 
 ing, ready to steal, fight, or hunt, whichever it 
 happened to be. 
 
 We used to have hunts on Saturdays, just we 
 boys, with perhaps a black boy or two of our par- 
 ticular cronies; but the great hunt was "in the 
 holidays" — ^that is, about Christmas. Then all the 
 young darkies about the place were free and ready 
 for sport. 
 
 This Christmas hunt was an event. 
 148 
 
THE LONG HILLSIDE 
 
 II 
 
 It was the year 186 — , and, Christmas-day 
 falling on a Sunday, Saturday was given as the 
 first day of the holidays. It had been a fine Fall; 
 the cover was good, and old hares were plentiful. 
 It had been determined some time before Christ- 
 mas that we would have a big hare-hunt on that 
 day, and the "boys" — ^that is, the young darkies 
 — came to the house from the quarters, prepared 
 for the sport, and by the time breakfast was over 
 they were waiting for us around the kitchen door. 
 
 Breakfast was always late about Christmas time ; 
 perhaps, the spareribs and sausages and the jelly 
 dripping through a blanket hung over the legs of 
 an upturned table accounted for it; and on this 
 Christmas eve it was ten by the tall clock in the 
 corner of the dining-room before we were through. 
 
 When we came out, the merry darkies were wait- 
 ing for us, grinning and showing their shining 
 teeth, laughing and shouting and calling the dogs. 
 They were not allowed to have guns ; but our guns, 
 149 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 long old single-barrels handed down for at least 
 two generations, had been carried out and cleaned, 
 and they were handing them around, inspecting 
 and aiming them with as much pride as if they had 
 been brand-new. There was only one exception to 
 this rule: Uncle "Limpy-Jack," so called because 
 he had one leg shorter than the other, was allowed 
 to have a gun. He was a sort of professional 
 hunter about the place. No lord was ever prouder 
 of a special privilege handed down in his family 
 for generations. 
 
 The other boys were armed with stout sticks 
 and made much noise. Uncle Limpy-Jack was in 
 this respect also the only exception; he was grave 
 as became a "man" who was a hunter by business, 
 and "warn't arter no foolishness." He allowed no 
 one to touch his gun, which thus possessed a special 
 value. He carried his powder in a gourd and his 
 shot in an old rag. 
 
 The pack of dogs I have described, fully re- 
 cruited, were hanging around, growling and 
 snarling, sneaking into the kitchen and being 
 kicked out by Aunt Betty and her corps of vari- 
 150 
 
THE LONG HILLSIDE 
 
 colored assistants, largely augmented at the ap- 
 proach of Christmas with its cheer. The yelping 
 of the mongrel pack, the shouts and whoops of 
 the boys, and the laughter of the maids or men 
 about the kitchen and back-yard, all in their best 
 clothes and in high spirits, were exhilarating, and 
 with many whoops and much "hollering," we 
 climbed the yard fence, and, disdaining a road, of 
 course, set out down the hiU across the field, taking 
 long strides, each one bragging loudly of what he 
 would do. 
 
 Let me see: there were John and Andrew and 
 Black Peter, and Bow-legged Saul, and Milker- 
 Tim, and Billy, and Uncle Limpy-Jack, and others 
 now forgotten, and the three white boys. And the 
 dogs, "Ole Rattler," and "Ole Nimrod," who had 
 always been old by their names, and were re- 
 garded with reverence akin to fetich-worship be- 
 cause they were popularly supposed to be able to 
 trail a hare. It was a delusion, I am now satisfied; 
 for I cannot recall that they ever trailed one cer- 
 tainly three feet. Then there were the "guard 
 dawgs" : "Hector," brindled, bob-tailed, and ugly, 
 151 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 and "Jerry," yellow, long-tailed, and mean; then 
 
 there was "Jack," fat, stumpy, and ill-natured; 
 
 there were the two pointers, Bruno and Don, the 
 
 beauties and pride of the family, with a pedigree 
 
 like a prince's, who, like us, were taking a holiday 
 
 hunt, but, unlike us, without permission; "Rock," 
 
 Uncle Limpy-Jack's "hyah dawg," and then the 
 
 two terriers "Snip" and "Snap." 
 
 We beat the banks of the spring ditch for 
 
 form's sake, though there was small chance of a 
 
 hare there, because it was pasture and the banks 
 
 were kept clean. Then we made for the old field 
 
 beyond, the dogs spreading out and nosing around 
 
 lazily, each on his own hook. Whether because of 
 
 the noise we made and their seeking safety in 
 
 flight, or because they were off "taking holiday,"* 
 
 as the negroes claimed, no hares were found, and 
 
 after a half-hour our ardor was a little dampened. 
 
 But we soon set to work in earnest and began to 
 
 beat a little bottom lying between two hills, 
 
 through which ran a ditch, thickly grown up with 
 
 * The hares, according to the negroes, used to take holidays 
 and would not go into traps in, this season ; so the only way to 
 get them was by hunting them. 
 
 152 
 
THE LONG HILLSIDE 
 
 bushes and briers. The dead swamp-grass was very 
 heavy in the narrow Uttle bottom along the sides, 
 and was matted in tufts. The dogs were scattered, 
 and prowling around singly or in couples; and 
 only one of the pointers and Snip were really on 
 the ditch. Snip showed signs of great industry, and 
 went bobbing backward and forward through a 
 patch of heavy, matted grass. In any other dog 
 this might have excited suspicion, even hope. There 
 are, however, some dogs that are natural liars. Snip 
 was one of them. Snip's failing was so well known 
 that no attention was paid to him. He gave, in- 
 deed, a short bark, and bounced up two or three 
 times like a trap-ball, looking both ways at once; 
 but this action only called down upon him uni- 
 versal derision. 
 
 Just then, however, a small boy pointed over to 
 the top of the hill calling, "Look-a yander," and 
 shouts arose, "Dyah she go!" "Dyah she go!" 
 "Dyah she go!" 
 
 Sure enough, there, just turning the hiU, went 
 a "molly cotton," bouncing. In a second we were 
 aU in fuU chase and cry, shouting to each other, 
 153 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "whooping" on the dogs, and running with all our 
 might. We were so carried away by the excitement 
 that not one of us even thought of the fact that 
 she would come stealing back. 
 
 No negro can resist the inclination to shout 
 "Dyah she go !" and to run after a hare when one 
 gets up; it is involuntary and irresistible. Even 
 Uncle Limpy-Jack came bobbing along for a 
 while, shouting, "Dyah she go !" at the top of his 
 voice; but being soon distanced he called his dog. 
 Rock, and went back to beat the ditch bank again. 
 
 The enthusiasm of the chase carried us all into 
 the piece of pine beyond the fence, where the pines 
 were much too thick to see anything and where 
 only an occasional glimpse of a dog running back- 
 ward and forward, or an instinctive "oun-oun!" 
 from the hounds, rewarded us. But "molly is berry 
 sly," and while the dogs were chasing each other 
 around through the pines, she was tripping back 
 down through the field to the place where we had 
 started her. 
 
 We were recalled by hearing an unexpected 
 "bang" from the field behind us, and dashing out 
 154 
 
THE LONG HILLSIDE 
 
 of the woods we found Uncle Limpy- Jack holding 
 up a hare, and with a face whose gravity might 
 have done for that of Fate. He was instantly sur- 
 rounded by the entire throng, whom he regarded 
 with superb disdain and spoke of as "you chil- 
 lern." 
 
 "G' on, you chillern, whar you is gwine, and 
 meek you' noise somewhar else, an' keep out o' my 
 way. I want to git some hyahs !" 
 
 He betrayed his pleasure only once, when, as 
 he measured out the shot from an old rag into 
 his seamed palm, he said with a nod of his head: 
 "Y' all kin rwn ole hyahs ; de ole man shoots 'em.'* 
 And as we started off we heard him muttering: 
 
 " Ole Molly Hyah, 
 What yo' doin' dyah? 
 Settin' in de cornder 
 Smohin' a cigah." 
 
 We went back to the branch and began again 
 to beat the bushes, Uncle Limpy-Jack taking un- 
 questioned the foremost place which had hereto- 
 fore been held by us. 
 
 155 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 Suddenly there was a movement, a sort of 
 scamper, a rush, as something slipped out of the 
 heavy grass at our feet and vanished in the 
 thick briers of the ditch bank. "Dyah she go!" 
 arose from a dozen throats, and gone she was, in 
 fact, safe in a thicket of briers which no dog nor 
 negro could penetrate. 
 
 The bushes were vigorously beaten, however, and 
 all of us, except Uncle Limpy-Jack and Milker- 
 Tim, crossed over to the far side of the ditch where 
 the bottom widened, when suddenly she was dis- 
 covered over on the same side, on the edge of the 
 little vaUey. She had stolen out, the negroes de- 
 clared, licking her paws to prevent leaving a scent, 
 and finding the stretch of hillside too bare to get 
 across, was stealing back to her covert again, go- 
 ing a little way and then squatting, then going 
 a few steps and squatting again. "Dyah she go!" 
 "Dyah she go I" resounded as usual. 
 
 Bang! — bang! — snap! — ^bang! went the four 
 guns in quick succession, tearing up the grass any- 
 where from one to ten yards away from her. As if 
 she had drawn their fire and was satisfied that she 
 156 
 
THE LONG HILLSIDE 
 
 was safe, she turned and sped up the hill, the white 
 tail bobbing derisively, followed by the dogs strung 
 out in line. 
 
 Of course, all of us had some good excuse for 
 missing, Uncle Limpy-Jack's being the only valid 
 one — that his cap had snapped. He made much of 
 this, complaining violently of "dese yere wuthless 
 caps !" With a pin he set to work, and he had just 
 picked the tube, rammed painfully some grains of 
 powder down in it, and put on another cap which 
 he had first examined with great care to impress 
 us. "Now, let a ole hyah git up," he said, with a 
 shake of his head. "She got man ready for her, 
 she ain' got you chillern." The words were scarcely 
 spoken when a little darky called out, "Dyah she 
 come !" and sure enough she came, "lipping" down 
 a furrow straight toward us. Uncle Limpy-Jack 
 was on that side of the ditch and Milker-Tim was 
 near him, armed only with a stout well-balanced 
 stick about two feet long. As the hare came down 
 the hill, Uncle Jack brought up his gun, took a 
 long aim and fired. The weeds and dust flew up 
 off to one side of her, and she turned at right 
 157 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 angles out of the furrow; but as she got to the 
 top of the bed, Milker-Tim, flinging back his arm, 
 with the precision of a bushman sent his stick 
 whirling like a boomerang skimming along the 
 ground after her. 
 
 Tim with a yell rushed at her and picked her up, 
 shouting, "I got her! I got her!" 
 
 Then Uncle Limpy-Jack pitched into him: 
 
 "What you doin' gittin' in my way?" he com- 
 plained angrily. "Ain' you got no better sense ^n 
 to git in my way like dat? Didn' you see how nigh 
 I come to blowin' yo' brains out? Didn' you see 
 I had de hyah when you come pokin' yer woolly 
 black head in my way? Ef I hadn' flung my gun 
 ofi', whar'd you 'a' been now? Don' you come 
 pokin' in my way ag'in!" 
 
 Tim was too much elated to be long aff'ected by 
 even this severity, and when he had got out of 
 Uncle Jack's way he sang out: 
 
 " die Molly Hyah. 
 You' ears mighty thin. 
 Yes, yes, yes, 
 
 I come a-t'ippin' thoo de min'! " 
 158 
 
THE LONG HILLSIDE 
 
 So far the honors were all Uncle Jack's and 
 Milker-Tim's, and it was necessary for the rest of 
 us to do something. Accordingly, the bottom having 
 been well hunted, the crowd struck out for an old 
 field over the hiU, known as "the long hillside." It 
 was thick in hen-grass and broom-straw, and sloped 
 down from a piece of pine with a southern exposure 
 on which the sun shone warm. We had not reached 
 it before a hare jumped out of a bush near Charlie. 
 In a few moments, another bounced out before one 
 of the dogs and went dashing across the field. Two 
 shots followed her ; but she kept on till at last one 
 of the boys secured her. 
 
 We were going down the slope when Peter 
 called in great excitement: 
 
 "Heah a ole hyah settin' in her baid. Come 
 heah, Dan, quick ! Gi' me your gun ; le' me git 
 him!" 
 
 This was more than Dan bargained for, as he 
 had not got one himself yet. He ran up quickly 
 enough, but held on tightly to his gun. 
 
 "Where is he.'' Show him to me; I'll knock him 
 
 159 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 As he would not give up the gun, Peter pointed 
 out the game. 
 
 "See him?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Right under dat bush — right dyah" (point- 
 ing). "See him? Teck keer dyah, Don, teck keer," 
 he called, as Don came to a point just beyond. 
 "See him?" He pointed a black finger with tremu- 
 lous eagerness. 
 
 No, Dan did not see, so he reluctantly yielded up 
 the gun. 
 
 Peter took aim long and laboriously, shut both 
 eyes, puUed the trigger, and blazed away. 
 
 There was a dash of white and brown, a yell, 
 and Don wheeled around with his head between his 
 fore paws stung by the shot as "molly" fled streak- 
 ing it over the hill followed only by the dogs. 
 
 Peter's face was a study. If he had killed one of 
 us he could not have looked more like a criminal, 
 nor have heard more abuse. 
 
 Uncle Limpy-Jack poured out on him such a 
 volume of vituperation and contempt that he was 
 almost white, he was so ashy. 
 160 
 
THE LONG HILLSIDE 
 
 Don was not permanently hurt ; but one ear was 
 pierced by several shot, which was a serious affair, 
 as his beauty was one of his good points, and his 
 presence on a hare-hunt was wholly against the 
 rules. Uncle Limpy-Jack painted the terrors of 
 the return home for Peter with a vividness so 
 reahstic that its painfulness pierced more breasts 
 than Peter's. 
 
 Don was carried to the nearest ditch, and the 
 entire crowd devoted itself to doctoring his ear. 
 It was decided that he should be taken to the quar- 
 ters and kept out of sight during the Christmas, 
 in the hope that his ear would heal. We all agreed 
 not to say anything about it if not questioned. 
 Uncle Limpy-Jack had to be bribed into silence 
 by a liberal present of shot and powder from us. 
 But he finally consented. However, when Met, in 
 a wild endeavor to get a shot at a stray partridge 
 which got up before us, missed the bird and let 
 Uncle Limpy-Jack, at fifty yards, have a few 
 number-six pellets in the neck and shoulder, Peter's 
 delinquency was forgotten. The old man dropped 
 his gun and yelled, "Oh! Oh!" at the top of his 
 161 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 voice. "Oh ! I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead." He lay 
 down on the ground and rolled. 
 
 Met was scared to death and we were all seri- 
 ously frightened. Limpy-Jack himself may have 
 thought he was really killed. He certainly made us 
 think so. He would not let anyone look at the 
 wound. 
 
 Only a few of the shot had gone in, and he was 
 not seriously injured; but he vowed that it was all 
 done on purpose, and that he was "going straight 
 home and tell Marster," a threat he was only pre- 
 vented from executing by all of us promising him 
 the gold dollars which we should find in the toes of 
 our stockings next morning. 
 
 HI 
 
 So far the day had been rather a failure: the 
 misfortunes had exceeded the sport; but as we 
 reached the long hillside I have spoken of, the fun 
 began. The hares were sunning themselves com- 
 fortably in their beds, and we had not gone more 
 162 
 
THE LONG HILLSIDE 
 
 than two hundred yards before we had three up, 
 and cutting straight down the hill before us. 
 
 Bang! — ^bang! — bang! — bang! went the guns. 
 One hare was knocked over, and one boy also by 
 the kick of his gun ; the others were a sight chase, 
 and every boy, man, and dog joined in it for dear 
 life. 
 
 "Whoop! — ^whoop! Dyah she go! Dyah she 
 go! Heah, heah! Heah, heah! Heah, heah, heah! 
 Whoop, Rattler! Whoop, Nimrod! Heah, Snip! 
 heah, heah, Bruno! Heah, heah!" Everyone was 
 striving to get ahead. 
 
 Both hares were picked up before reaching 
 cover, one being caught by Bruno, who was mag- 
 nificent in a chase. After many falls and failures 
 by all of us, Saul flung himself on the other and 
 gave a wild yell of triumph. 
 
 The "long hillside" was full of hares ; they 
 bounced out of the hen-grass ; slipped from brush- 
 heaps and were run down, or by their speed and 
 agility escaped us all. The dogs got the frenzy 
 and chased wildly, sometimes running over them 
 and losing them through a clever double and dash. 
 163 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 The old field rang with the chase until we turned 
 our steps toward home to get ready for the fun 
 after dark. 
 
 We were crossing the pasture on our way home. 
 The winter sunset sky was glowing like burnished 
 steel; the tops of the great clump of oaks and 
 hickories in which the house stood were all that we 
 could see over the far hiU; a thin line of bluish 
 smoke went straight up in the quiet air. The dogs 
 had gone on ahead, even the two or three old 
 watch-dogs ran after the others, with their noses 
 in air. 
 
 The question of concealing Don and his ragged 
 ear came up. It was necessary to catch him and 
 keep him from the house. We started up the slope 
 after him. As we climbed the hiU we heard them. 
 
 "Dee got a ole hyah now; come on," exclaimed 
 one or two of the younger negroes ; but old Limpy- 
 Jack came to a halt, and turning his head to one 
 side listened. 
 
 "Heish ! Dat ain' no ole hyah dey're arter ; dey're 
 arter Marster's sheep — dat's what 'tis!" 
 
 He started off at a rapid gait. We did the same. 
 164 
 
THE LONG HILLSIDE 
 
 "Yep, yep ! Oun, oun, oun ! Err, err, err !" came 
 their voices in fiill cry. 
 
 We reached the top of the hill. Sure enough, 
 there they were, the fat Southdowns, tearing like 
 mad across the field, the sound of their trampling 
 reaching us, with the entire pack at their heels, the 
 pointers well in the lead. Such a chase as we had 
 trying to catch that pack of mischievous dogs! 
 Finally we got them in; but not before the whole 
 occurrence had been seen at the house. 
 
 The shouts that were borne to us as rescuers be- 
 gan to troop across the fields drove our hearts down 
 into our boots. 
 
 The return to the house was widely different 
 from the triumph of the out-going in the morning. 
 It was a dejected cortege that wended its toilsome 
 way up the hill. Uncle Limpy-Jack basely deserted 
 us after getting the promise of our gold dollars, 
 declaring that he "told dera boys dat huntin' ole 
 hyahs warn' no business for chillern!" 
 
 We knew that we had to "face the condign." 
 There was no maudlin sentiment in that region. 
 Solomon was truly believed to have been the wisest 
 165 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 of men, and at least one of his decrees was still 
 acted on in that pious community. 
 
 The black boys were shipped off to their mam- 
 mies and I fear received their full share of "the 
 condign." 
 
 We were ushered solemnly into the house and 
 were marched upstairs to meditate on our enormi- 
 ties. 
 
 We could hear the debate going on below, and 
 now and then a gentle voice took up the cause. 
 Presently a slow step mounted the stair and the 
 door opened. It was a grave senior — owner of Don. 
 We knew that we were gone. 
 
 "Boys, didn't you know better than that.'"' 
 
 Three culprits looked at each other sideways and 
 remained speechless. We were trying to figure out 
 which was the more politic answer. 
 
 "Now, this is Christmas " 
 
 "A time of peace and good-will," said Met under 
 his breath, but loud enough to be heard. 
 
 "Yes — and that's the reason I am going to ap- 
 peal to you as to what should be done to you. 
 Suppose you were in my place and I in yours, and 
 166 
 
THE LONG HILLSIDE 
 
 you had told me never — never to take the pointers 
 out to run hares, and I knew I was disobeying you, 
 and yet I had done it deUberately — deliherately 
 disobeyed you — ^what would you do?" 
 
 I confess that the case seemed hopeless. But Met 
 saved the day. 
 
 "I'll tell you what I'd do, sir." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "I'd give you another chance." 
 
 "Hm — ^m — ah — ^ur " 
 
 It was, however, too much for him, and he first 
 began to smile and then to laugh. Met also broke 
 into a laugh, knowing that he had caught him. 
 
 So peace and good-will were restored and Christ- 
 mas really began. 
 
 167 
 
OLD JABE'S MARITAL 
 EXPERIMENTS 
 
OLD JABE'S MARITAL 
 EXPERIMENTS 
 
 Old Jabe belonged to the Meriweathers, a fact 
 which he never forgot or allowed anyone else to 
 forget; and on this he traded as a capital, which 
 paid him many dividends of one kind or another, 
 among them being a dividend in wives. How many 
 wives he had had no one knew ; and Jabe's own ac- 
 count was incredible. It would have eclipsed Henry 
 VIII and Bluebeard. But making aU due allowance 
 for his arithmetic, he must have run these worthies 
 a close second. He had not been a specially good 
 "hand" before the war, and was generally on un- 
 friendly terms with the overseers. They used to 
 say that he was a "slick-tongued loafer," and "the 
 laziest nigger on the place." But Jabe declared, in 
 defiance, that he had been on the plantation before 
 any overseer ever put his foot there, and he would 
 outstay the last one of them all, which, indeed, 
 proved to be true. The overseers disappeared with 
 171 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 the end of Slavery, but Jabe remained "slick- 
 tongued," oily, and humorous, as before. 
 
 When, at the close of the war, the other negroes 
 moved away, Jabez, after a brief outing, "took 
 up" a few acres on the far edge of the plantation, 
 several miles from the house, and settled down to 
 spend the rest of his days, on what he called his 
 "place," in such ease as constant application to his 
 old mistress for aid and a frequently renewed sup- 
 ply of wives could give. 
 
 Jabe's idea of emancipation was somewhat one- 
 sided. He had all the privileges of a freedman, but 
 lost none of a slave. He was free, but his master's 
 condition remained unchanged : he still had to sup- 
 port him, when Jabez chose to call on him, and 
 Jabez chose to call often. 
 
 "Ef I don' come to you, who is I got to go to?" 
 he demanded. 
 
 This was admitted to be a valid argument, and 
 Jabez lived, if not on the fat of the land, at least 
 on the fat of his former mistress's kitchen, with 
 such aid as his current wife could furnish. 
 
 He had had several wives before the war, and 
 172 
 
OLD JABE'S EXPERIMENTS 
 
 was reputed to be none too good to them, a fact 
 which was known at home only on hearsay; for 
 he always took his wives from plantations at a dis- 
 tance from his home. 
 
 The overseers said that he did this so that he 
 could get off to go to his "wife's house," and thus 
 shirk work; the other servants said it was because 
 the women did not know him so well as those at 
 home, and he could leave them when he chose. 
 
 Jahez assigned a different reason: 
 
 "It don' do to have your wife live too nigh to 
 you; she'll want t' know too much about you, an' 
 you can't never git away from her" — a bit of 
 philosophy the soundness of which must be left to 
 married men. 
 
 However it was, his reputation did not interfere 
 with his ability to procure a new wife as often as 
 occasion arose. With Jabez the supply was ever 
 equal to the demand. 
 
 Mrs. Meriwether, his old mistress, was just 
 telling me of him one day in reply to a question of 
 mine as to what had become of him; for I had 
 known him before the war. 
 173 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Oh ! he is living> still, and he bids fair to out- 
 last the whole colored female sex. He is a perfect 
 Bluebeard. He has had I do not know how many 
 wives and I heard that his last wife was sick. They 
 sent for my son, Douglas, the doctor, not long 
 ago to see her. However, I hope she is better as he 
 has not been sent for again." 
 
 At this moment, by a coincidence, the name of 
 Jabez was brought in by a maid. 
 
 "Unc' Jabez, m'm." 
 
 That was all ^ but the tone and the manner of 
 the maid told that Jabez was a person of note with 
 the messenger; every movement and glance were 
 self-conscious. 
 
 "That old — ! He is a nuisance! What does he 
 want now.'' Is his wife worse, or is he after a new 
 one?" 
 
 "I d'n' kn', m'm," said the maid, sheepishly, 
 twisting her body and looking away, to appear 
 unconcerned. "Would n' tell me. He ain' after me!" 
 
 "Well, tell him to go to the kitchen tiU I send 
 for him. Or — wait: if his wife's gone, he'll be 
 courting the cook if I send him to the kitchen, and 
 174 
 
OLD JABE'S EXPERIMENTS 
 
 I don't want to lose her just now. Tell him to 
 come to the door." 
 
 "Yes, ^m." The maid gave a half-suppressed 
 giggle, which almost became an explosion as she 
 said something to herself and closed the door. It 
 sounded like, "Dressed up might'ly — settin' up to 
 de cook now, I b'lieve." 
 
 There was a slow, heavy step without, and a 
 knock at the back door; and on a call from his 
 mistress, Jabez entered, bowing low, very pompous 
 and serious. He was a curious mixture of assur- 
 ance and conciliation, as he stood there, hat in 
 hand. He was tall and black and bald, with white 
 side-whiskers cut very short, and a rim of white 
 wool around his head. He was dressed in an old 
 black coat, and held in his hand an ancient beaver 
 hat around which was a piece of rusty crape. 
 
 "Well, Jabez?" said his mistress, after the salu- 
 tations were over. "How are you getting along?" 
 
 "Well, mist'is, not very well, not at aU well, 
 ma'am. Had mighty bad luck. 'Bout my wife," 
 he added, explanatorily. He pulled down his lips, 
 and looked the picture of solemnity. 
 175 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 I saw from Mrs. Meriwether's mystified look 
 that she did not know what he considered "bad 
 luck." She could not tell from his reference whether 
 his wife was better or worse. 
 
 "Is she — ah.'' What — oh — How is Amanda.'"' 
 she demanded finally, to solve the mystery. 
 
 " 'Mandy ! Lord ! 'm, 'Mandy was two back. 
 She's de one runned away wid Tom Halleck, an' 
 lef me. I don' know how she is. I never went ahter 
 her. I wuz re-ally glad to git shet o' her. She was 
 too expansive. Dat ooman want two frocks a year. 
 When dese women begin to dress up so much, a 
 man got to look out. Dee ain't always dressin' fer 
 you!" 
 
 "Indeed!" But Mrs. Meriwether's irony was 
 lost on Jabez. 
 
 "Yes, 'm; dat she did! Dis one's name was 
 Sairey." He folded his hands and waited, the 
 picture of repose and contentment. 
 
 "Oh, yes. So; true. I'd forgotten that 'Mandy 
 left you. But I thought the new one was named 
 Susan?" observed Mrs. Meriwether. 
 
 "No, 'm; not de newes' one. Susan — I had her 
 176 
 
OLD JABE'S EXPERIMENTS 
 
 las' Christmas; but she wouldn' stay wid me. She 
 was al'ays runnin' off to town ; an' you know a man 
 don' want a ooman on wheels. Ef de Lawd had in- 
 tended a ooman to have wheels, he'd 'a' gi'n 'em to 
 her, wouldn' he?" 
 
 "Well, I suppose he would," assented Mrs. Meri- 
 wether. "And this one is Sarah .J" Well, how 
 is ?" 
 
 "Yes, 'm; dis one was Sairey." We just caught 
 the past tense. 
 
 "You get them so quickly, you see, you can't 
 expect one to remember them," said Mrs. Meri- 
 wether, frigidly. She meant to impress Jabez; but 
 Jabez remained serene. 
 
 "Yes, 'm; dat's so," said he, cheerfully. "I kin 
 hardly remember 'em myself." 
 
 "No, I suppose not." His mistress grew severe. 
 "Well, how's Sarah.?" 
 
 "Well, m'm, I couldn' exactly say — Sairey 
 she's done lef me — ^yes, 'm." He looked so cheer- 
 ful that his mistress said with asperity: 
 
 "Left you ! She has run off, too ! You must have 
 treated her badly?" 
 
 177 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "No, 'm I didn'. I never had a wife I treated 
 better. I let her had all she could eat; an' when 
 she was sick " 
 
 "I heard she was sick. I heard you sent for the 
 doctor." 
 
 "Yes, ^m ; dat I did — dat's what I was gwine to 
 tell you. I had a doctor to see her twice. I had two 
 separate and indifferent physicians : fust Dr. Over- 
 all, an' den Marse Douglas. I couldn' do no mo' 'n 
 dat, now, could I?" 
 
 "Well, I don't know," observed Mrs. Meriwether. 
 "My son told me a week ago that 'she was sick. 
 Did she get well?" 
 
 The old man shook his head solemnly. 
 
 "No, 'm; but she went mighty easy. Marse 
 Douglas he eased her off. He is the Bes' doctor I 
 ever see to let 'em die easy." 
 
 Mingled with her horror at his cold-blooded re- 
 cital, a smile flickered about Mrs. Meriwether's 
 mouth at this shot at her son, the doctor; but the 
 old man looked absolutely innocent. 
 
 "Why didn't you send for the doctor again.?" 
 she demanded. 
 
 "Well, m'm, I gin her two chances. I think dat 
 178 
 
OLD JABE'S EXPERIMENTS 
 
 was 'nough. I wuz right fond o' Sairey ; but I de- 
 clar' I'd ruther lost Sairey than to broke." 
 
 "You would!" Mrs, Meriwether sat up and be- 
 gan to bristle. "Well, at least, you have the ex- 
 pense of her funeral ; and I'm glad of it," she as- 
 serted with severity. 
 
 "Dat's what I come over t' see you 'bout. I'm 
 gwirie to give Sairey a fine fun'ral. I want you 
 to let yo' cook cook me a cake an' — one or two more 
 little things." 
 
 "Very well," said Mrs. Meriwether, relenting 
 somewhat; "I will tell her to do so. I will tell her 
 to make you a good cake. When do you want 
 it.?" 
 
 Old Jabez bowed very low. 
 
 "Thank you, m'm. Yes, m'ra; ef you'll gi' me a 
 right good-sized cake---an' — a loaf or two of 
 flour-bread — an' — a ham, I'll be very much 
 obleeged to you. I heah she's a mighty good cook ?" 
 
 "She is," said Mrs. Meriwether; "the best I've 
 had in a long time." She had not caught the tone 
 of interrogation in his voice, nor seen the shrewd 
 look in his face, as I had done. Jabez appeared 
 well satisfied. 
 
 179 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "I'm mighty glad to heah you give her sech a 
 good char-acter; I heahed' you'd do it. I don' know 
 her very well." 
 
 Mrs. Meriwether looked up quickly enough to 
 catch his glance this time. 
 
 "Jabez — I know nothing about her character," 
 she began coldly. "I know she has a vile temper; 
 but she is an excellent cook, and so long as she is 
 not impudent to me, that is all I want to know." 
 
 Jabez bowed approvingly. 
 
 *'Yes, 'm; dat's right. Dat's all I want t' know. 
 I don' keer nothin' 'bout de temper; atter I git 
 "em, I kin manage 'em. I jist want t' know 'bout 
 de char-acter, dat's all. I didn' know her so well, 
 an' I thought I'd ax you. I tolt her ef you'd give 
 her a good char-acter, she might suit me; but I'd 
 wait fer de cake — an' de ham." 
 
 His mistress rose to her feet. 
 
 "Jabez, do you mean that you have spoken to 
 that woman already?" 
 
 "Well, yes, 'm ; but not to say speak to her. I jes 
 kind o' mentioned it to her as I'd inquire as to her 
 char-acter." 
 
 180 
 
I don' keer nothin' 'bout de temper. 
 
OLD JABE'S EXPERIMENTS 
 
 "And your wife has been gone — ^how long? Two 
 days?" 
 
 "Well, mist'is, she's gone fer good, ain't 
 she?" demanded Jabez. "She can't be no mo' 
 gone ?" 
 
 "You are a wicked, hardened old sinner!" de- 
 clared the old lady, vehemently. 
 
 "Nor, I ain't, mist'is ; I 'clar' I ain't," protested 
 Jabez, with unruffled front. 
 
 "You treat your wives dreadfully." 
 
 "Nor, I don't, mist'is. You ax 'em ef I does. Ef 
 I did, dee would n' be so many of 'em anxious t' 
 git me. Now, would dee? I can start in an' beat a' 
 one o' dese young bloods aroun' heah, now." He 
 spoke with pride. 
 
 "I believe that is so, and I cannot understand 
 it. And before one of them is in her grave you are 
 courting another. It is horrid — ^an old — ^Methuse- 
 lah like you." She paused to take breath, and 
 Jabez availed himself of the pause. 
 
 "Dat's de reason I got t' do things in a kind o' 
 hurry — I ain' no Methuselum. I got no time t' 
 wait." 
 
 181 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 "Jabez," said Mrs. Meriwether, seriously, "tell 
 me how you manage to fool all these women." 
 The old man pondered for a moment. 
 "Well, I declar', mist'is, I hardly knows how. 
 Dee wants to be fooled. I think it is becuz dee 
 wants t' see what de urrs marry me fer, an' what 
 dee done lef me. Women is mighty curisome folk." 
 
 I have often wondered since if this was really 
 the reason. 
 
 182 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 I 
 
 A HEY had lived within a mile of each other for 
 fifty-odd years, old Judge Hampden and old Colonel 
 Drayton ; that is, all their lives, for they had been 
 bom on adjoining plantations within a month of 
 each other. But though they had thus lived and 
 were accounted generally good men and good neigh- 
 bors, to each other they had never been neighbors 
 any more than the Levite was neighbor to him who 
 went down to Jericho. 
 
 Kindly to everyone else and ready to do their 
 part by all other men, the Draytons and the Hamp- 
 dens, whenever they met each other, always passed 
 by on the other side. 
 
 It was an old story — ^the feud between the fam- 
 ilies — and, perhaps, no one now knew just how the 
 trouble started. They had certainly been on opposite 
 sides ever since they established themselves in early 
 Colonial days on opposite hills in the old county 
 185 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 from which the two mansions looked at each other 
 across the stream like hostile forts. The earliest rec- 
 ords of the county were those of a dispute between 
 one Colonel Drayton and one Captain Hampden, 
 growing out of some claim to land ; but in which the 
 chief bitterness appeared to have been injected by 
 Captain Hampden's having claimed precedence over 
 Colonel Drayton on the ground that his title of 
 "Captain" was superior to Colonel Drayton's title, 
 because he had held a real commission and had 
 fought for it, whereas the Colonel's title was simply 
 honorary and "Ye sayd Collonel had never smeUed 
 enough powder to kill a tom-cat." 
 
 However this might be — and there was nothing 
 in the records to show how this contention was 
 adjudicated — in the time of Major Wihner Dray- 
 ton and Judge Oliver Hampden, the breach 
 between the two families had been transmitted from 
 father to son for several generations and showed no 
 signs of abatement. Other neighborhood families 
 intermarried, but not the Drayton-Hall and the 
 Hampden-Hill families, and in time it came to be 
 an accepted tradition that a Drayton and a Hamp- 
 186 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 den would not mingle any more than would fire and 
 water. 
 
 The Hampdens were dark and stout, hot-blooded, 
 fierce, and impetuous. They were appparently vig- 
 orous; but many of them died young. The Dray- 
 tons, on the other hand, were slender and fair and 
 usually lived to a round old age ; a fact of which 
 they were wont to boast in contrast with the briefer 
 span of the Hampdens. 
 
 "Their tempers burn them out," the Major used 
 to say of the Hampdens. 
 
 Moreover, the Draytons were generally cool-head- 
 ed, deliberate, and self-contained. Thus, the Dray- 
 tons had mainly prospered throughout the years. 
 
 Even the winding creek which ran down through 
 the strip of meadow was a fruitful cause of dissen- 
 sion and litigation between the families. "It is as 
 ungovernable as a Hampden's temper, sir," once 
 said Major Drayton. On the mere pretext of a 
 thunder-storm, it would burst forth from its banks, 
 tear the fences to pieces and even change its course, 
 cutting a new channel, now to one side and now to 
 the other through the soft and loamy soil. A lawsuit 
 187 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 arose over the matter, in which the costs alone 
 amounted to far more than the value of the whole 
 land involved; but no one doubted that old Major 
 Drayton spoke the truth when he declared that his 
 father would rather have lost his entire estate with 
 all its rolling hills and extensive forests than the acre 
 or two which was finally awarded to Judge Hamp- 
 den. 
 
 As neither owner would join the other even in 
 keeping up a partition fence, there were two fences 
 run within three feet of each other along the entire 
 boundary line between the two places. With these 
 double fences, there could hardly be peace between 
 the families; for neither owner ever saw the two 
 lines running side by side without at once being re- 
 minded of his neighbor's obstinacy and — of his own. 
 
 Thus, in my time the quarrel between the Dray- 
 ton-Hall people and the Hampden-Hill folks was a 
 factor in every neighborhood problem or proposi- 
 tion from a "church dressing" or a "sewing society 
 meeting" to a political campaign. It had to be con- 
 sidered in every invitation and in every discussion. 
 
 It is not meant that there was no intercourse be- 
 188 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 tween the two families. Major Drayton and 
 Judge Hampden regularly paid each other a visit 
 every year — ^and oftener when there was serious 
 illness in one house or the other — ^but even on such 
 occasions their differences were liable to crop out. 
 One of them held an opinion that when one gentle- 
 man was spending the night in another gentleman's 
 house, it was the part of the host to indicate when 
 bedtime had arrived; whilst the other maintained 
 with equal firmness the doctrine that no gentleman 
 could inform his guest that he was fatigued: 
 that this duty devolved upon the guest himself. 
 This difference of opinion worked comfortably 
 enough on both sides until an occasion when Judge 
 Hampden, who held the former view, was spending 
 the night at Colonel Drayton's. When bedtime ar- 
 rived, the rest of the household retired quietly, leav- 
 ing the two gentlemen conversing, and when the 
 servants appeared in the morning to open the blinds 
 and light the fires, the two gentlemen were still 
 found seated opposite each other conversing to- 
 gether quite as if it were the ordinary thing to sit 
 up and talk all night long. 
 189 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 On another occasion, it is said that Major Dray- 
 ton, hearing of his neighbor's serious illness, rode 
 over to make inquiry about him, and owing to a 
 slip of the tongue, asked in a voice of deepest sym- 
 pathy, "Any hopes of the old gentleman dying?" 
 
 II 
 
 Yet, they had once been friends. 
 
 Before Wilmer Drayton and Oliver Hampden 
 were old enough to understand that by all 
 the laws of heredity and custom they should 
 be enemies, they had learned to like each other. 
 When they were only a few years old, the little creek 
 winding between the two plantations afforded in its 
 strip of meadow a delightful neutral territory where 
 the two boys could enjoy themselves together, safe 
 from the interference of their grave seniors; 
 wading, sailing mimic fleets upon its uncertain cur- 
 rents, fishing together, or bathing in the deepest 
 pools it offered in its winding course. 
 
 It looked, indeed, for a time as if in the fellow- 
 190 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 ship of these two lads the long-standing feud of 
 the Hampdens and Draytons might be ended, at 
 last. They went to school together at the academy, 
 where their only contests were a generous rivalry. 
 At college they were known as Damon and Pythias, 
 and though a natural rivalry, which might in any 
 event have existed between them, developed over the 
 highest prize of the institution — the debater's medal 
 — ^the generosity of youth saved them. It was even 
 said that young Drayton, who for some time had 
 apparently been certain of winning, had generously 
 retired in order to defeat a third candidate and 
 throw the prize to Oliver Hampden. 
 
 They came home and both went to the Bar, but 
 with diflFerent results. Young Drayton was learned 
 and unpractical. Oliver Hampden was clever, able, 
 and successful, and soon had a thriving practice; 
 while his neighbor's learning was hardly known 
 outside the circle of the Bar. 
 
 Disappointed in his ambition, Drayton shortly 
 retired from the Bar and lived the life of a country 
 gentleman, while his former friend rapidly rose to 
 be the head of the Bar. 
 
 191 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 The old friendship might have disappeared in 
 any event, but a new cause arose which was certain 
 to end it. 
 
 Lucy Fielding was, perhaps, the prettiest girl in 
 all that region. Oliver Hampden had always been 
 in love with her. However, Fortune, ever capricious, 
 favored Wilmer Drayton, who entered the lists when 
 it looked as if Miss Lucy were almost certain to 
 marry her old lover. It appeared that Mr. Drayton's 
 indifference had counted for more than the other's 
 devotion. He carried off the prize with a dash. 
 
 If Oliver Hampden, however, was severely strick- 
 en by his disappointment, he masked it well ; for he 
 married not long afterward, and though some said 
 it was from pique, there was no more happily mar- 
 ried pair in all the county. 
 
 A year later a new Oliver came to keep up the 
 name and tenets of the Hampdens. Oliver Hamp- 
 den, now the head of the Bar, would not have envied 
 any man on earth had not his wife died a few years 
 later and left him alone with his boy in his big 
 house. 
 
 Lucy Drayton was born two years after young 
 Oliver Hampden. 
 
 192 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 The mammies of the two children, as the mammies 
 of their parents had done before them, used to talk 
 them over on the edge of the shaded meadow which 
 divided the places, and thus young Oliver Hamp- 
 den, a lusty boy of five, came to know little Lucy 
 Drayton fully three years before his father ever 
 laid eyes on her. 
 
 Mr. Hampden was riding around his fences one 
 summer afternoon, and was making his way along 
 the double division line with a cloud on his brow as 
 the double rows recalled the wide breach with his 
 neighbor and former friend, and many memories 
 came trooping at the recollection. Passing through 
 a small grove which had been allowed to grow up to 
 shut off a part of his view of the Drayton place, as 
 he came out into the meadow his eye fell on a scene 
 which made him forget the present with all its 
 wrongs. On the green turf before him where butter- 
 cups speckled the ground with golden blossoms, was 
 a little group of four persons busily engaged and 
 wholly oblivious of the differences which divided 
 the masters of the two estates. The two mammies 
 were seated side by side on a bank, sewing and talk- 
 ing busily — ^their large aprons and caps making a 
 193 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 splotch of white against the green willows beyond — 
 and in front of them at a little distance a brown- 
 haired boy of five and a yellow-ringleted girl of 
 three were at play on the turf, rolling over and over, 
 shouting and laughing in their glee. 
 
 As the father rested his eyes on the group, the 
 frown which had for a second lowered on his brow 
 passed away and he puUed in his horse so as not to 
 disturb them. He was about to turn back and leave 
 them in their happiness when his black-eyed boy 
 caught sight of him and ran toward him, shout- 
 ing for a ride and calling over his shoulder for 
 "Luthy" to "come on too." As there was no escape, 
 Mr. Hampden went forward and, ignoring the con- 
 fusion of the mammies at being caught together, 
 took the boy up before him and gave him a ride up 
 and down the meadow. Then nothing else would 
 do for Master Oliver but he "must take Luthy up, 
 too." 
 
 "Perhaps 'Luthy' may be afraid of the horse.'"' 
 suggested Mr. Hampden, with a smile. 
 
 But far from it. Led by the little boy who had 
 run to fetch her, she came to Mr. Hampden as 
 194 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 readily as his own son had done, and, though she 
 gave him one of those quick searching glances with 
 which childhood reads character, having made sure 
 that he was friendly she was no more afraid of his 
 horse than the boy was. 
 
 Oliver tried to lift her, and as he tugged at her, 
 the father sat and watched with a smile, then leant 
 down and picked her up while the two mammies 
 gasped with mingled astonishment and fear. 
 
 "I tell you, she's pretty heavy," said the little 
 hoy. 
 
 "Indeed, she is," said the father, gaily. 
 
 Mr. Hampden would have taken his son home 
 with him, but the latter declined the invitation. He 
 wished to "stay with Luthy." So, Mr. Hampden, 
 having first set the nurses' minds at ease by compli- 
 menting the little girl in warm terms to her mammy, 
 rode home alone with his face set in deep reflection. 
 
 The breach between the Hampdens and the Dray- 
 tons was nearer being closed that evening than it 
 had been in three generations, for as Oliver Hamp- 
 den rode up the bridle path across his fields, he 
 heard behind him the merry laughter of the two 
 195 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 children in the qmet meadow below, and old memo- 
 ries of his childhood and college life softened his 
 heart. He forgot the double line fences and deter- 
 mined to go on the morrow to Drayton Hall and 
 make up the quarrel. He would offer the first over- 
 ture and a full declaration of regret, and this, he 
 was quite sure, would make it up. Once he actually 
 turned his horse around to go straight across the 
 fields as he used to do in his boyhood, but there be- 
 low him were the double line fences stretching 
 brown and clear. No horse could get over them, and 
 around the road it was a good five miles, so he 
 turned back again and rode home and the chance 
 was lost. 
 
 On his arrival he found a summons in a suit 
 which had been instituted that day by Wilmer 
 Drayton for damages to his land by reason of his 
 turning the water of the creek upon him. 
 
 Mr. Hampden did not forbid old Lydia to take 
 his boy down there again, but he went to the meadow 
 no more himself, and when he and Wilmer Drayton 
 met next, which was not for some time, they barely 
 spoke. 
 
 196 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 III 
 
 Young Oliver Hampden grew up clear-eyed, 
 strong, and good to look at, and became shy 
 where girls were concerned, and most of all appeared 
 to be shy with Lucy Drayton. He went to college 
 and as he got his broad shoulders and manly stride 
 he got over his shyness with most girls, but not 
 with Lucy Drayton. With her, he appeared to 
 have become yet more reserved. She had inherited 
 her mother's eyes and beauty, with the fairness of a 
 lily; a slim, willowy figure; a straight back and a 
 small head set on her shoulders in a way that showed 
 both blood and pride. Moreover, she had character 
 enough, as her friends knew: those gray eyes that 
 smiled could grow haughty with disdain or flash 
 with indignation, and she had taught many an up- 
 pish young man to feel her keen irony. 
 
 "She gets only her intellect from the Draytons; 
 her beauty and her sweetness come from her mother," 
 said a lady of the neighborhood to Judge Hamp- 
 den, thinking to please him. 
 197 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "She gets both her brains and beauty from her 
 mother and only her name from her father," 
 snapped the Judge, who had often seen her at 
 church, and never without recalling Lucy Fielding 
 as he knew her. 
 
 That she and young Oliver Hampden fought 
 goes without saying. But no one knew why she was 
 cruelly bitter to a young man who once spoke slight- 
 ingly of Oliver, or why Oliver, who rarely saw her 
 except at church, took up a quarrel of hers so 
 furiously. 
 
 The outbreak of the war, or rather the conditions 
 preceding that outbreak, finally fixed forever the 
 gulf between the two families. Judge Hampden 
 was an ardent follower of Calhoun and "stumped" 
 the State in behalf of Secession, whereas Major 
 Drayton, as the cloud that had been gathering so 
 long rolled nearer, emerged from his seclusion and 
 became one of the sternest opponents of a step 
 which he declared was not merely revolution, but 
 actual rebellion. So earnest was he, that believing 
 that slavery was the ultimate bone of contention, 
 198 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 he emancipated his slaves on a system which he 
 thought would secure their welfare. Nothing could 
 have more deeply stirred Judge Hampden's wrath. 
 He declared that such a measure at such a crisis 
 was a blow at every Southern man. He denounced 
 Major Drayton as "worse than Garrison, Phillips, 
 and Greeley aU put together." 
 
 They at last met in debate at the Court House. 
 Major Drayton exasperated the Judge by his cool- 
 ness until the latter lost his temper and the crowd 
 laughed. 
 
 "I do not get as hot as you do," said the Major, 
 blandly. He looked as cool as a cucumber, but his 
 voice betrayed him. 
 
 "Oh, yes, you do," snorted the Judge. "A mule 
 gets as hot as a horse, but he does not sweat." 
 
 This saved him. 
 
 There came near being a duel. Everyone expect- 
 ed it. Only the interposition of friends prevented 
 their meeting on the field. Only this and one other 
 thing. 
 
 Though no one in the neighborhood knew it until 
 long afterward — and then only in a conjectural 
 199 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 way by piecing together fragments of rumors that 
 floated about — young Oliver Hampden really pre- 
 vented the duel. He told his father that he loved 
 Lucy Drayton. There was a fierce outbreak on the 
 Judge's part. 
 
 "Marry that girl! — ^the daughter of Wilmer 
 Drayton? I will disinherit you if you but so much 
 as » 
 
 "Stop!" The younger man faced him and held 
 up his hand with an imperious gesture. "Stop ! Do 
 not say a word against her or I may never forget 
 it." 
 
 The father paused with his sentence unfinished, 
 for his son stood before him suddenly revealed in 
 a strength for which the Judge had never given 
 him credit, and he recognized in his level eyes, tense 
 features, and the sudden set of the square jaw, the 
 Hampden firmness at its best or worst. 
 
 "I have nothing to say against her," said the 
 Judge, with a sudden rush of recollection of Lucy 
 Fielding. "I have no doubt she is in one way all 
 you tliink her ; but she is Wilmer Drayton's daugh- 
 ter. You will never win her." 
 200 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 "I will win her," said the young man. 
 
 That night Judge Hampden thought deeply 
 over the matter, and before daylight he had de- 
 spatched a note to Major Drayton making an apol- 
 ogy for the words he had used. 
 
 Both Judge Hampden and his son went into the 
 army immediately on the outbreak of hostilities. 
 
 Major Drayton, who to the last opposed Seces- 
 sion bitterly, did not volunteer until after the State 
 had seceded; but then he, also, went in, and later 
 was desperately wounded. 
 
 A few nights before they went off to the war. 
 Judge Hampden and his son rode over together to 
 Major Drayton's to offer the olive-branch of peace 
 in shape of young Oliver and all that he possessed. 
 
 Judge Hampden did not go all the way, for he 
 had sworn never to put foot again in Major Dray- 
 ton's house so long as he lived, and, moreover, he 
 felt that his son would be the better ambassador 
 alone. Accordingly, he waited in the darkness at 
 the front gate while his son presented himself and 
 laid at Lucy Drayton's feet what the Judge truly 
 201 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 believed was more than had ever been offered to any 
 other woman. He, however, sent the most concilia- 
 tory messages to Major Drayton. 
 
 "Tell him," he said, "that I will take down my 
 fence and he shall run the line to suit himself." He 
 could not have gone further. 
 
 The time that passed appeared unending to the 
 Judge waiting in the darkness ; but in truth it was 
 not long, for the interview was brief. It was with 
 Major Drayton and not with his daughter. 
 
 Major Drayton declined, both on his daughter's 
 part and on his own, the honor which had been pro- 
 posed. 
 
 At this moment the door opened and Lucy herself 
 appeared. She was a vision of loveliness. Her face 
 was white, but her eyes were steady. If she knew 
 what had occurred, she gave no sign of it in words. 
 She walked straight to her father's side and took 
 his hand. 
 
 "Lucy," he said, "Mr. Hampden has done 
 us the honor to ask your hand and I have de- 
 clined it." 
 
 "Yes, papa." Her eyelids fluttered and her 
 bosom heaved, but she did not move, and Lucy was 
 202 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 too much a Drayton to unsay what her father had 
 said, or to undo what he had done. 
 
 Oliver Hampden's eyes did not leave her face. 
 For him the Major had disappeared, and he saw 
 only the girl who stood before him with a face as 
 white as the dress she wore. 
 
 "Lucy, I love you. Will you ever care for me? 
 I am going — going away to-morrow, and I shall 
 not see you any more ; but I would like to know if 
 there is any hope." The young man's voice was 
 strangely calm. 
 
 The girl held out her hand to him. 
 
 "I will never marry anyone else." 
 
 "I will wait for you all my life," said the young 
 man. 
 
 Bending-low, he kissed her hand in the palm, and 
 with a bow to her father, strode from the room. 
 
 The Judge, waiting at the gate in the darkness, 
 heard the far-off, monotonous galloping of Oliver's 
 horse on the hard plantation road. He rode for- 
 ward to meet him. 
 
 "Well.?" 
 
 It was only a word. 
 
 "They declined." 
 
 203 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 The father scarcely knew his son's voice, it was so 
 wretched. 
 
 "What! Who declined? Did you see ?" 
 
 "Both!" 
 
 Out in the darkness Judge Hampden broke forth 
 in such a torrent of rage that his son was afraid 
 for his life and had to devote all his attention to 
 soothing him. He threatened to ride straight to 
 Drayton's house and horsewhip him on the spot. 
 This, however, the young man prevented, and the 
 two rode home together in a silence which was un- 
 broken until they had dismounted at their own gate 
 and given their horses to the waiting servants. As 
 they entered the house. Judge Hampden spoke. 
 
 "I hope you are satisfied," he said, sternly. "I 
 make but one request of you — that from this time 
 forth, you will never mention the name of Drayton 
 to me again as long as you live." 
 
 "I suppose I should hate her," said his son, bit- 
 terly, "but I do not. I love her and I believe she 
 cares for me." 
 
 His father turned in the door-way and faced him. 
 
 "Cares for you ! Not so much as she cares for the 
 204 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 smallest negro on that place. If you ever marry 
 her, I will disinherit you." 
 
 "Disinherit me !" burst out the young man. "Do 
 you think I care for this place .f What has it ever 
 brought to us but unhappiness .P I have seen your 
 life imbittered by a feud with your nearest neigh- 
 bor, and it now wrecks my happiness and robs me 
 of what I would give all the rest of the world for." 
 
 Judge Hampden looked at him curiously. He 
 started to say, "Before I would let her enter this 
 house, I would bum it with my own hands" ; but as 
 he met his son's steadfast gaze there was that in it 
 which made him pause. The Hampden look was in 
 his eyes. The father knew that another word might 
 sever them forever. 
 
 If ever a man tried to court death, young Oliver 
 Hampden did. But Death, that struck many a 
 happier man, passed him by, and he secured instead 
 only a reputation for reckless courage and was pro- 
 moted on the field. 
 
 His father rose to the command of a brigade, 
 and Oliver himself became a captain. 
 205 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 At last the bullet Oliver Hampden had sought 
 found him ; but it spared his life and only incapaci- 
 tated him for service. 
 
 There were no trained nurses during the war, 
 and Lucy Drayton, like so many girls, when the 
 war grew fiercer, went into the hospitals, and by 
 devotion supplied their place. 
 
 Believing that life was ended for her, she had 
 devoted herself wholly to the cause, and self -repres- 
 sion had given to her face the gentleness and conse- 
 cration of a nuB. 
 
 It was said that once as she bent over a wounded 
 common soldier, he returned to consciousness, and 
 after gazing up at her a moment, asked vaguely, 
 "Who are you. Miss?" 
 
 "I am one of the sisters whom our Father has 
 sent to nurse you and help you to get well. But 
 you must not talk." 
 
 The wounded man closed his eyes and then opened 
 them with a faint little smile. 
 
 "All right; just one word. Will you please ask 
 your pa if I may be his son-in-law?" 
 206 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 Into the hospital was brought one day a 
 soldier so broken and bandaged that no one but 
 Lucy Drayton might have recognized Oliver 
 Hampden. 
 
 For a long time his life was despaired of ; but he 
 survived. 
 
 When consciousness returned to him, the first 
 sound he heard was a voice which had often haunted 
 him in his dreams, but which he had never expected 
 to hear again. 
 
 "Who is that?" he asked, feebly. 
 
 "It is I, Oliver— it is Lucy." 
 
 The wounded man moved slightly and the girl 
 bending over him caught the words, whispered 
 brokenly to himself: 
 
 "I am dreaming." 
 
 But he was not dreaming. 
 
 Lucy Drayton's devotion probably brought him 
 back from death and saved his life. 
 
 In the hell of that hospital one man at least found 
 
 the balm for his wounds. When he knew how broken 
 
 he was he offered Lucy her release. Her reply was 
 
 in the words of the English girl to the wounded 
 
 207 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 Napier, "If there is enough of you left to hold your 
 soul, I will marry you." 
 
 As soon as he was sufficiently convalescent, they 
 were married. 
 
 Lucy insisted that General Hampden should be 
 informed, but the young man knew his father's bit- 
 terness, and refused. He relied on securing his con- 
 sent later, and Lucy, fearing for her patient's Hf e, 
 and having secured her own father's consent, 
 yielded. 
 
 It was a mistake. 
 
 Oliver Hampden misjudged the depth of his 
 father's feeling, and General Hampden was mor- 
 tally offended by his having married without in- 
 forming him. 
 
 Oliver adored his father and he sent him a present 
 in token of his desire for forgiveness ; but the Gen- 
 eral had been struck deeply. The present was re- 
 turned. He wrote: "I want obedience; not sacri- 
 fice." 
 
 Confident of his wife's ability to overcome any 
 obstacle, the young man bided his time. His wounds, 
 however, and his breach with his father affected his 
 208 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 health so much that he went with his wife to the far 
 South, where Major Drayton, now a colonel, had a 
 remnant of what had once been a fine property. 
 Here, for a time, amid the live-oaks and magnohas 
 he appeared to improve. But his father's obdurate 
 refusal to forgive his disobedience preyed on his 
 health, and just after the war closed, he died a few 
 months before his son was born. 
 
 In his last days he dwelt much on his father. He 
 made excuses for him, over which his wife simply 
 tightened her lips, while her gray eyes burned with 
 deep resentment. 
 
 "He was brought up that way. He cannot help 
 it. He never had anyone to gainsay him. Do not 
 be hard on him. And if he ever sues for pardon, be 
 merciful to him for my sake." 
 
 His end came too suddenly for his wife to notify 
 his father in advance, even if she would have done 
 so; for he had been fading gradually and at the 
 last the flame had flared up a little. 
 
 Lucy Hampden was too upright a woman not to 
 do what she believed her duty, however contrary to 
 her feelings it might be. So, although it was a 
 209 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 bitter thing to her, she wrote to inform General 
 Hampden of his son's death. 
 
 It happened by one of the malign chances of for- 
 tune that this letter never reached its destination, 
 General Hampden did not learn of Oliver's death 
 until some weeks later, when he heard of it by 
 accident. It was a terrible blow to him, for time was 
 softening the asperity of his temper, and he had 
 just made up his mind to make friends with his son. 
 He attributed the failure to inform him of Oliver's 
 illness and death to the malignity of his wife. 
 
 Thus it happened that when her son was bom, 
 Lucy Hampden made no announcement of his birth 
 to the General, and he remained in ignorance 
 of it. 
 
 IV 
 
 The war closed, and about the only thing that 
 appeared to remain unchanged was the relation be- 
 tween General Hampden and Colonel Drayton. 
 Everything else underwent a change, for war eats 
 up a land. 
 
 210 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 General Hampden, soured and imbittered by his 
 domestic troubles, but stem in his resolve and vig- 
 orous in his intellect, was driven by his loneliness to 
 adapt himself to the new conditions. He applied his 
 unabated energies to building up a new fortune. 
 His decision, his force, and his ability soon placed 
 him at the head of one of the earliest new enterprises 
 in the State — a broken-down railway — which he re- 
 organized and brought to a full measure of success. 
 
 Colonel Drayton, on the other hand, broken in 
 body and in fortunes, found it impossible to adapt 
 himself to the new conditions. He possessed none of 
 the practical qualities of General Hampden. With 
 a mind richly stored with the wisdom of others, he 
 had the temperament of a dreamer and poet and 
 was unable to apply it to any practical end. As 
 shy and reserved as his neighbor was bold and ag- 
 gressive, he lived in his books and had never been 
 what is known as a successful man. Even before 
 the war, he had not been able to hold his own. The 
 exactions of hospitality and of what he deemed his 
 obligations to others had consumed a considerable 
 part of the handsome estate he had inherited, and 
 211 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 his plantation was mortgaged. What had been thus 
 begun, the war had completed. 
 
 When his plantation was sold, his old neighbor 
 and enemy bought it, and the Colonel had the morti- 
 fication of knowing that Drayton Hall was at last 
 in the hands of a Hampden. What he did not know 
 was that General Hampden, true to his vow, never 
 put his foot on the plantation except to ride down 
 the road and see that all his orders for its proper 
 cultivation were carried out. 
 
 Colonel Drayton tried teaching school, but it 
 appeared that everyone else was teaching at that 
 time, and after attempting it for a year or two, he 
 gave it up and confined himself to writing philo- 
 sophical treatises for the press, which were as much 
 out of date as the Latin and Greek names which he 
 signed to them. As these contributions were usually 
 returned, he finally devoted himself to writing agri- 
 cultural essays for an agricultural paper, in which 
 he met with more success than he had done when 
 he was applying his principles himself. 
 
 "If farms were made of paper he'd beat Cincin- 
 natus," said the General. 
 
 212 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 Lucy Hampden, thrown on her own resources, 
 in the town in the South in which her husband had 
 died, had for some time been supporting herself 
 and her child by teaching. She had long urged her 
 father to come to them, but he had always declined, 
 maintaining that a man was himself only in the 
 country, and in town was merely a unit. When, 
 however, the plantation was sold and his daughter 
 wrote for him, he went to her, and the first time 
 that the little boy was put in his arms, both he and 
 she knew that he would never go away again. 
 That evening as they sat together in the fad- 
 ing light on the veranda of the little house 
 which Lucy had taken, amid the clambering 
 roses and jasmine, the old fellow said, "I used 
 to think that I ought to have been killed in 
 battle at the head of my men when I was shot, but 
 perhaps, I may have been saved to bring up this 
 young man." 
 
 His daughter's smile, as she leant over and kissed 
 
 him, showed very clearly what she thought of it, 
 
 and before a week was out, the Colonel felt that he 
 
 was not only still of use, but was, perhaps, the most 
 
 213 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 necessary, and, with one exception, the most impor- 
 tant member of the family. 
 
 Nevertheless, there were hard times before them. 
 The Colonel was too old-fashioned ; too slow for the 
 new movement of life, and just enough behind the 
 times to be always expecting to succeed and always 
 faihng. 
 
 But where the father failed the daughter 
 succeeded. She soon came to be known as one of 
 the efficient women of the community, as her father, 
 who was now spoken of as "the old Colonel," came 
 to be recognized as one of the picturesque figures of 
 that period. He was always thought of in connec- 
 tion with the boy. The two were hardly ever apart, 
 and they were soon known throughout the town — 
 the tall, thin old gentleman who looked out on the 
 world with his mild blue eyes and kindly face, and 
 the chubby, red-cheeked, black-eyed boy, whose 
 tongue was always prattHng, and who looked out 
 with his bright eyes on all the curious things which, 
 commonplace to the world, are so wonderful to a 
 boy. 
 
 The friendship between an old man and a little 
 214 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 child is always touching; they grow nearer to- 
 gether day by day, and the old Colonel and little 
 Oliver soon appeared to understand each other, and 
 to be as dependent on each other as if they had both 
 been of the same age. The child, somewhat reserved 
 with others, was bold enough with his grandfather. 
 They held long discussions together over things 
 that interested the boy; went sight-seeing in com- 
 pany to where the water ran over an old mill-wheel, 
 or where a hen and her chickens lived in a neighbor's 
 yard, or a litter of puppies gamboled under an out- 
 house, or a bird had her nest and little ones in a jas- 
 mine in an old garden, and Colonel Drayton told 
 the boy wonderful stories of the world which was 
 as unknown to him as the present world was to the 
 Colonel. 
 
 So matters went until the Christmas when the 
 boy was seven years old. 
 
 Meantime, General Hampden was facing a new 
 foe. His health had suddenly given way, and he 
 was in danger of becoming blind. His doctor had 
 215 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 given him his orders — orders which possibly he 
 might not have taken had not the spectre of a lonely 
 old man in total darkness begun to haunt him. He 
 had been "working too hard," the doctor told him. 
 
 "Working hard ! Of course, I have been working 
 hard !" snapped the General, fiercely, with his black 
 eyes glowering. "What else have I to do but work.-" 
 I shall always work hard." 
 
 The doctor knew something of the General's 
 trouble. He had been a surgeon in the hospital 
 where young Oliver Hampden had been when Lucy 
 Drayton found him. 
 
 "You must stop," he said, quietly. "You will not 
 last long unless you do." 
 
 "How long?" demanded the General, quite 
 calmly. 
 
 "Oh ! I cannot say that. Perhaps, a year — ^per- 
 haps, less. You have burned your candle too fast." 
 He glanced at the other's unmoved face. "You need 
 change. You ought to go South this winter." 
 
 "I should only change my skies and not my 
 thoughts," said the General, his memory swinging 
 back to the past. 
 
 216 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 The doctor gazed at him curiously. "What is the 
 use of putting out your eyes and working yourself 
 to death when you have everything that money can 
 give ?" 
 
 "I have nothing ! I work to forget that," snarled 
 the General, fiercely. 
 
 The doctor remained silent. 
 
 The General thought over the doctor's advice 
 and finally followed it, though not for the reason 
 the phj'sician supposed. 
 
 Something led him to select the place where his 
 son had gone and where his body lay amid the mag^ 
 nolias. If he was going to die, he would carry out 
 a plan which he had formed in the lonely hours 
 when he lay awake between the strokes of the clock. 
 He would go and see that his son's grave was cared 
 for, and if he could, would bring him back home 
 at last. Doubtless, "that woman's" consent could be 
 bought. She had possibly married again. He hoped 
 she had. 
 
 217 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 Christmas is always the saddest of seasons to a 
 lonely man, and General Hampden, when he landed 
 in that old Southern town on the afternoon of 
 Christmas Eve, would not have been lonelier in a 
 desert. The signs of Christmas preparation and the 
 sounds of Christmas cheer but made him lonelier. 
 For years, flying from the Furies, he had immersed 
 himself in work and so, in part, had forgotten his 
 troubles ; but the removal of this prop let him fall 
 flat to the earth. 
 
 As soon as the old fellow had gotten settled in 
 his room at the hotel he paid a visit to his son's 
 grave, piloted to the cemetery by a friendly and 
 garrulous old negro hackman, who talked much 
 about Christmas and "the hoUdays." 
 
 "Yes, suh, dat he had known Cap'n Ham'n. He 
 used to drive him out long as he could drive out. He 
 had been at his funeral. He knew Mrs. Ham'n, too. 
 She sutney is a fine lady," he wound up in sincere 
 eulogy. 
 
 218 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 The General gave a grunt. 
 
 He was nearer to his son than he had ever been 
 since the day he last saw him in all the pride and 
 beauty of a gallant young soldier. 
 
 The grave, at least, was not neglected. It was 
 marked by a modest cross, on which was the Hamp- 
 den coat-of-arms and the motto, "Loyal," and it 
 was banked in fresh evergreens, and some flowers 
 had been placed on it only that afternoon. It 
 set the General to thinking. 
 
 When he returned to his hotel, he found the lone- 
 liness unbearable. His visit to his son's grave had 
 opened the old wound and awakened all his memo- 
 ries. He knew now that he had ruined his life. The 
 sooner the doctor's forecast came true, the better. 
 He had no care to live longer. He would return to 
 work and die in harness. 
 
 He sent his servant to the office and arranged 
 for his car to be put on the first train next 
 morning. 
 
 Then, to escape from his thoughts, he strolled 
 out in the street where the shopping crowds 
 streamed along, old and young, poor and well-to- 
 219 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 do, their arms full of bundles, their faces eager, 
 and their eyes alight. 
 
 General Hampden seemed to himself to be walk- 
 ing among ghosts. 
 
 As he stalked on, bitter and lonely, he was sud- 
 denly run into by a very little boy, in whose small 
 arms was so big a bundle that he could scarcely see 
 over it. The shock, of the collision knocked the little 
 fellow down, sitting flat on the pavement, still 
 clutching his bundle. But his face after the first 
 shadow of surprise lit up again. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, sir — that was my fault," he 
 said, with so quaint an imitation of an old person 
 that the General could not help smiling. With a 
 cheery laugh, he tried to rise to his feet, but the 
 bundle was too heavy, and he would not let it go. 
 
 The General bent over him and, with an apology, 
 set him on his feet. ^ 
 
 "I beg your pardon, sir. That was my fault. That 
 is a pretty big bundle you have." 
 
 "Yes, sir ; and I tell you, it is pretty heavy, too," 
 the manikin said, proudly. "It's a Christmas gift." 
 He started on, and the General turned with him. 
 220 
 
As he stalked on, bitter and lonely, he was suddenly run into by a little boy, 
 in whose arms was a bundle so big that he could scarcely see over it. 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 "A Christmas gift ! It must be a fine one. Who 
 gave it to you?" demanded the General, with a smile 
 at the httle fellow's confidence. 
 
 "It is a fine one ! Didn't anybody give it to me. 
 We're giving it to somebody." 
 
 "Oh! You are! To whom?" 
 
 "I'll tell you ; but you must promise not to tell." 
 
 "I promise I will not tell a soul. I cross my 
 heart." 
 
 He made a sign as he remembered he used to do in 
 his boyhood. 
 
 The boy looked up at him doubtfully with a 
 shade of disapproval. 
 
 "My grandfather says that you must not cross 
 your heart — 't a gentleman's word is enough," he 
 said, quaintly. 
 
 "Oh, he does? Well, I give my word." 
 
 "Well — " He glanced around to see that no one 
 was listening, and sidling a little nearer, lowered his 
 voice : "It's a great-coat for grandfather !" 
 
 "A great-coat! That's famous!" exclaimed the 
 General. 
 
 "Yes, isn't it ? You see — he's mighty old and he's 
 221 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 got a bad cough — he caught it in the army, and I 
 have to take care of him. Don't you think that's 
 right?" 
 
 "Of course, I do," said the General, envying one 
 grandfather. 
 
 "That's what I tell him. So mamma and I have 
 bought this for him." 
 
 "He must be a proud grandfather," said the 
 General, with envy biting deeper at his heart. 
 
 "I have another grandfather; but I don't like 
 feim," continued the little fellow. 
 
 "I am sorry for that," said the General, sincerely. 
 "Why is that?" 
 
 "He was mean to my father, and he is mean to 
 any mother." His voice conveyed a sudden bitterness. 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 "Mamma says I must like him ; but I do not. I 
 just can't. You would not like a man who was mean 
 to your mother, would you?" 
 
 "I would not," declared the General, truthfully. 
 
 "And I am not going to like him," asserted the 
 boy, with firmness. 
 
 The General suddenly pitied one grandfather. 
 222 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 They had come to a well-lighted comer, and as 
 the boy lifted his face, the light fell on it. Some- 
 thing about the bright, sturdy countenance with its 
 frank, dark eyes and brown hair suddenly sent the 
 General back thirty years to a strip of meadow 
 on which two children were playing: one a dark- 
 eyed boy as sturdy as this one. It was like an arrow 
 in his heart. With a gasp he came back to the pres- 
 ent. His thoughts pursued him even here. 
 
 "What is youi- name.'"' he asked as he was feel- 
 ing in his pocket for a coin. 
 
 "Oliver Drayton Hampden, sir." 
 
 The words were perfectly clear. 
 
 The General's heart stopped beating and then 
 gave a bound. The skies suddenly opened for him 
 and then shut up again. 
 
 His exclamation brought the child to a stop and 
 he glanced up at him in vague wonder. The General 
 stooped and gs|.zed at him searchingly, almost fierce- 
 ly. The next second he had pounced upon him and 
 lifted him in his arms while the bundle fell to the 
 pavement. 
 
 "My boy! I am your grandfather," he cried, 
 223 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 kissing him violently. "I am your grandfather 
 Hampden." 
 
 The child was lost in amazement for a moment, 
 and then, putting his hands against the General's 
 face, he pushed him slowly away. 
 
 "Put me down, please," he said, with that grav- 
 ity which in a child means so much. 
 
 General Hampden set him down on the pavement. 
 The boy looked at him searchingly for a second, 
 and then turned in silence and lifted his bundle. The 
 General's face wore a puzzled look — ^he had solved 
 many problems, but he had never had one more diffi- 
 cult than this. His heart yearned toward the child, 
 and he knew that on his own wisdom at that moment 
 might depend his future happiness. On his next 
 words might hang for him life or death. The ex- 
 pression on the boy's face, and the very set of his 
 little back as he sturdily tugged at his burden, re- 
 called his father, and with it the General recognized 
 the obstinacy which he knew lurked in the Hamp- 
 den blood, which had once been his pride. 
 
 "Oliver," he said, gravely, leaning down over the 
 boy and putting his hand on him gently, "there 
 224. 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 has been a great mistake. I am going home with you 
 to your mother and tell her so. I want to see her and 
 your grandfather, and I think I can explain every- 
 thing." 
 
 The child turned and gazed at him seriously, 
 and then his face relaxed. He recognized his deep 
 sincerity. 
 
 "All right." He turned and walked down the 
 street, bending under his burden. The General of- 
 fered to carry it for him, but he declined. 
 
 "I can carry it," was the only answer he made 
 except once when, as the General rather insisted, 
 he said, firmly, "I want to carry it myself," and 
 tottered on. 
 
 A silence fell on them for a moment. A young 
 man passing them spoke to the child cheerily. 
 
 "Hullo, Oliver! A Christmas present? — That's 
 a great boy," he said, in sheer friendliness to the 
 General, and passed on. The boy was evidently well 
 known. 
 
 Oliver nodded ; then feeling that some civility was 
 due on his part to his companion, he said, briefly, 
 "That's a friend of mine." 
 225 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Evidently." 
 
 The General, even in his perplexity, smiled at the 
 quaint way the child imitated the manners of older 
 men. 
 
 Just then they came to a little gate and the boy's 
 manner changed. 
 
 "If you will wait, I will run around and put my 
 bundle down. I am afraid my grandfather might 
 see it." He lowered his voice for the first time since 
 the General had introduced himself. Then he dis- 
 appeared around the house. 
 
 Oliver, having slipped in at the back door and 
 carefully reconnoitred the premises, tipped up- 
 stairs with his bundle to his mother's room. He was 
 so excited over his present that he failed to observe 
 her confusion at his sudden entrance, or her hasty 
 hiding away of something on which she was work- 
 ing. Colonel Drayton was not the only member of 
 that household that Christmas who was to receive 
 a great-coat. 
 
 When Oliver had untied his bundle, nothing 
 would serve but he must put on the coat to show 
 226 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 his mother how his grandfather would look in it. 
 As even with the sleeves rolled up and with his arms 
 held out to keep it from falling oif him, the tails 
 dragged for some distance on the floor and only 
 the top of his head was visible above the collar, the 
 resemblance was possibly not wholly exact. But it 
 appeared to satisfy the boy. He was showing how 
 his grandfather walked, when he suddenly recalled 
 his new acquaintance. 
 
 "I met my other grandfather, on the street, 
 mamma, and he came home with me." He spoke 
 quite naturally. 
 
 "Met your other grandfather!" Mrs. Hampden 
 looked mystified. 
 
 "He says he is my grandfather, and he looks like 
 papa. I reckon he's my other grandfather. He ran 
 against me in the street and knocked me down, and 
 then came home with me." 
 
 "Came home with you!" repeated Mrs. Hamp- 
 den, still in a maze, and with a vague trouble dawn- 
 ing in her face. 
 
 "Yes'm." 
 
 227 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 Oliver went over the meeting again. 
 
 His mother's face meantime showed the tumult 
 of emotion that was sweeping over her. Why had 
 General Hampden come.-' What had he come for? 
 To try and take her boy from her? 
 
 At the thought her face and form took on some- 
 thing of the lioness that guards her whelp. Then 
 as the little boy repeated what his grandfather had 
 said of his reason for coming home with him, her 
 face softened again. She heard a voice saying, "If 
 he ever sues for pardon, be merciful to him for my 
 sake." She remembered what day it was: the Eve of 
 the day of Peace and Good-will toward all men. 
 He must have come for Peace, and Peace it should 
 be. She would not bring up her boy under the 
 shadow of that feud which had blighted both sides 
 of his race so long. 
 
 "Oliver," she said, "you must go down and let 
 him in. Say I will come down." 
 
 "I will not like him," said the child, his eyes on 
 her face. 
 
 "Oh, yes, you must ; he is your grandfather." 
 
 "You do not love him, and I will not." The sturdy 
 228 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 little figure and the serious face with the chin 
 already firm for such a child, the dark, grave eyes 
 and the determined speech, were so like his father 
 that the widow gave half a cry. 
 
 "You must, my son, and I will try. Your father 
 would wish it." 
 
 The little boy pondered for a second. 
 
 "Very well, mamma ; but he must be good to you." 
 
 As the little fellow left the room, the widow threw 
 herself on her knees. 
 
 VI 
 
 As General Hampden stood and waited in the 
 dusk, he felt that his whole life and future depended 
 on the issue of the next few moments. He determined 
 to take matters in his own hand. Every moment 
 might tell against him and might decide his fate. 
 So, without waiting longer, he rang the bell. A min- 
 ute later he heard steps within, and the door was 
 opened by one who he knew must be Colonel Dray- 
 ton, though had he met him elsewhere he should not 
 have recognized the white hair and the thin, bent 
 form as that of his old friend and enemy. Colonel 
 229 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 Drayton had evidently not seen his grandson yet, 
 for he spoke as to a stranger. 
 
 "Will you not walk in, sir?" he said, cordially. 
 "I was expecting my little grandson who went out 
 a short while ago." He peered up the street. "Did 
 you wish to see my daughter? You will find us in 
 a little confusion — Christmas time is always a busy 
 season with us on account of our young man: 
 my grandson." He lingered with pride over the 
 words. 
 
 The General stepped into the light. 
 
 "Wilmer Drayton! Don't you know me? I am 
 Oliver Hampden, and I have come to apologize to 
 you for all I have done which has offended you, and 
 to ask you to be friends with me." He held out his 
 hand. 
 
 The old Colonel stepped back, and under the 
 shock of surprise paused for a moment. 
 
 "Oliver Hampden !" The next moment he stepped 
 forward and took his hand. 
 
 "Come in, Oliver," he said, gently, and putting 
 his other arm around the General's shoulder, he 
 handed him into the little cosey, fire-lighted room 
 230 
 
THE CHRISTMAS PEACE 
 
 as though nothing had happened since he had done 
 the same the last time fifty years before. 
 
 At this moment the door opened and the little boy 
 entered with mingled mysteriousness and impor- 
 tance. Seeing the two gentlemen standing together, 
 he paused with a mystified look in his wide-open 
 eyes, trying to comprehend the situation. 
 
 "Oliver, come here," said the Colonel, quietly. 
 "This is your other grandfather." 
 
 The boy came forward, and, wheeling, stood close 
 beside the Colonel, facing General Hampden, like a 
 soldier dressing by his file-closer. 
 
 "FoM are my grandfather," he said, glancing up 
 at the Colonel. 
 
 The Colonel's eyes glowed with a soft light, 
 "Yes, my boy ; and so is he. We are friends again, 
 and you must love him — ^just as you do me." 
 
 "I will not love him as much," was the sturdy an- 
 swer. 
 
 It was the General who spoke next. 
 
 "That is right, my boy. All I ask is that you will 
 love me some." He was pleading with this young 
 commissioner. 
 
 231 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "I will, if you are good to my mother." His eyes 
 were fastened on him without a tremor, and the 
 General's deep-set eyes began to glow with hope. 
 
 "That's a bargain," he said, holding out his hand. 
 The boy took it gravely. 
 
 Just then the door opened and Lucy Hampden 
 entered. Her face was calm and her form was 
 straight. Her eyes, deep and burning, showed that 
 she was prepared either for peace or war. It was well 
 for the General that he had chosen peace. Better 
 otherwise had he charged once more the deadliest 
 battle line he had ever faced. For a moment the Gen- 
 eral saw only Lucy Fielding. 
 
 With a woman's instinct the young widow com- 
 prehended at the first glance what had taken place, 
 and although her face was white, her eyes softened 
 as she advanced. The General had turned and faced 
 her. He could not utter a word, but the boy sprang 
 towards her and wheeling, stood by her side. 
 
 Taking his hand, she led him forward. 
 
 "Oliver," she said, gently, "this is your father's 
 father." Then to the General, in a dead silence — 
 "Father, this is your son's son." 
 232 
 
THE CHRISTMAS _PE ACE 
 
 The General clasped them both in his arms. 
 "Forgive me. Forgive me. I have prayed for his 
 forgiveness, for I can never forgive myself." 
 "He forgave you," said the widow, simply. 
 
 VII 
 
 No young king was ever put to bed with more 
 ceremony or more devotion than was that little boy 
 that night. Two old gentlemen were his grooms of 
 the bedchamber and saw him to bed together. 
 
 The talk was all of Christmas, and the General 
 envied the ease with which the other grandfather 
 carried on the conversation. But when the boy, hav- 
 ing kissed his grandfather, said of his own accord, 
 "Now, I must kiss my other grandfather," he en- 
 vied no man on earth. 
 
 The next morning when Oliver Hampden, before 
 the first peep of light, waked in his little bed, which 
 stood at the foot of his grandfather's bed in the 
 tiny room which they occupied together, and stand- 
 ing up, peeped over the foot-board to catch his 
 grandfather "Christmas gift," he was surprised to 
 233 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 find that the bed was empty and undisturbed. Then 
 having tiptoed in and caught his mother, he stole 
 down the stairs and softly opened the sitting-room 
 door where he heard the murmur of voices. The fire 
 was burning dim, and on either side sat the two old 
 gentlemen in their easy chairs, talking amicably and 
 earnestly as they had been talking when he kissed 
 them "good-night." Neither one had made the sug- 
 gestion that it was bedtime; but when at the first 
 break of day the rosy boy in his night-clothes burst 
 in upon them with his shout of "Christmas gift," 
 and his ringing laughter, they both knew that the 
 long feud was at last ended, and peace was estab- 
 lished forever. 
 
 234 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOG 
 NITION 
 
\ 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOG- 
 NITION 
 
 I 
 
 W HEN Cabell Graeme was courting pretty 
 Betty French up at the Chateau place, though he 
 had many rivals and not a few obstacles to over- 
 come, he had the good fortune to secure one valu- 
 able ally, whose friendship stood him in good stead. 
 She was of a rich chocolate tint, with good features, 
 and long hair, possibly inherited from some Arab 
 ancestor, bead-like black eyes, and a voice like a 
 harp, but which on occasion could become a flame. 
 Her figure was short and stocky ; but more dignity 
 was never compressed within the same number of 
 cubic inches. 
 
 Mam' Lyddy had been in the French family all 
 her life, as her mother and grandmother had been 
 before her. She had rocked on her ample bosom 
 the best part of three generations. And when Free- 
 dom came, however much she may have appreciated 
 237 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 being free, she had much too high an estimate of 
 the standing of the Frenches to descend to the 
 level of the class she had always contemned as 
 "free niggers." She was a deep-dyed aristocrat. 
 
 The Frenches were generally esteemed to be 
 among the oldest and best families in the county, 
 and the Chateau plantation, with its wide fields and 
 fine old mansion, was commonly reckoned one of the 
 finest in that section. But no such comparative 
 statement would have satisfied Mam' Lyddy. She 
 firmly believed that the Frenches were the greatest 
 people in the world, and it would have added 
 nothing to her dignity had they been princes, be- 
 cause it could have added nothing to it to be told 
 that she was a member of a royal house. Part 
 mentor, part dependant, part domestic, she knew 
 her position, and within her province her place 
 was as unquestioned as was that of her mistress, 
 and her advice was as carefully considered. 
 
 Caesar, her husband, a tall, ebony lath, with a 
 
 bald head and meek eyes, had come out of another 
 
 family and was treated with condescension. No one 
 
 knew how often he was reminded of his lower estate ; 
 
 238 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION 
 
 but it was often enough, for he was always in a 
 somewhat humble and apologetic attitude. 
 
 The Frenches were known as a "likely" family, 
 but Betty, with her oval face, soft eyes, and skin 
 like a magnolia flower, was so undeniably the 
 beauty that she was called "Pretty Betty." She 
 was equally undeniably the belle. And while the 
 old woman, who idolized her, found far more pleas- 
 ure than even her mother in her belleship, she was 
 as watchful over her as Argus. Every young man 
 of the many who haunted the old French mansion 
 among its oaks and maples, had to meet the scrutiny 
 of those sharp, tack-like eyes. The least slip that 
 one made was enough to prove his downfall. The 
 old woman sifted them as surely as she sifted her 
 meal, and branded them with an infallible instinct 
 akin to that of a keen watchdog. Many a young 
 man who passed the silent figure without a greet- 
 ing, or spoke lightly of some one, unheeding her 
 presence, wondered at his want of success and felt 
 without knowing why that he was pulling against 
 an unseen current. 
 
 "We must drop him — ^he ain't a gent'man," she 
 239 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 said of one. Of another : "Oh ! Oh ! honey, he won't 
 do. He ain't our kind." Or, "Betty, let him go, 
 my Lamb. De Frenches don't pick up dat kine 
 o' stick." 
 
 Happily for Cabell Graeme, he had the old wom- 
 an's approval. In the first place, he was related 
 to the Frenches, and this in her eyes was a patent 
 of gentility. Then, he had always been kind to little 
 Betty and particularly civil to herself. He not only 
 never omitted to ask after her health, but also in- 
 quired as to her pet ailments of "misery in her 
 foot" and "whirlin' in her head," with an interest 
 which flattered her deeply. But it went further 
 back than that. Once, when Betty was a little 
 girl, Cabell, then a well-grown boy of twelve, had 
 found her and her mammy on the wrong side of a 
 muddy road, and wading through, he had carried 
 Betty across, and then wading back, had offered 
 to carry Mam' Lyddy over, too. 
 
 "Go way f'om heah, boy, you can't carry me." 
 "Yes, I can, Mam' Lyddy. You don't know 
 how strong I am." He squared himself for the 
 feat. 
 
 240 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION 
 
 She laughed at him, and with a flash in his gray 
 eyes he suddenly grabbed her. 
 
 "I'll show you." 
 
 There was quite a scuffle. She was too heavy for 
 him, but he won her friendship then and there, 
 and as he grew up straight and sturdy, the friend- 
 ship ripened. That he teased her and laughed at 
 her did not in the least offend her. No one else 
 could have taken such a liberty with her, but Ca- 
 bell's references to old Csesar's declining health, 
 and his inuendoes whenever she was "fixed up" 
 that she was "looking around" in advance only 
 amused her. It made no difference to her that he 
 was poor, while several others of Betty's beaux 
 were rich. He was "a gent'man," and she was an 
 aristocrat. 
 
 At times they had pitched battles, but each knew 
 that the other was an ally. 
 
 Cabell won his final victory by an audacity 
 which few would have dared venture on. Among 
 his rivals was one Mr. Hereford, whom he par- 
 ticularly disliked, partly because he frequently 
 "outsat" him, and partly because he thought Miss 
 241 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 Betty favored his attention too much, and whom 
 Mammy Lyddy detested because he always ignored 
 her. Cabell charged her with deserting his cause 
 and going over to the side of Mr. Hereford, and 
 threatened to carry off the prize in spite of her and 
 her ally. 
 
 "You cyant cyah off nothin'," she said with a 
 sniff of mock disdain. His eyes snapped. Without 
 a word he seized her, and notwithstanding her re- 
 sistance he lifted her, and flinging her over his 
 shoulder, as if she had been a sack of com, stalked 
 up the steps and into the house, where he set her 
 down abashed and vanquished before her aston- 
 ished young mistress. The old woman pretended to 
 be furious, but that day Cabell Graeme carried off 
 more than Mam' Lyddy. 
 
 When Cabell and pretty Betty were married. 
 Mam' Lyddy threw in her lot with "her lamb." 
 
 Through all the evil days of carpet-bag rule, no 
 white, not even Cabell Graeme himself, who was a 
 leader of the young men, had looked with more 
 burning contempt on the new-comers, or shown a 
 sterner front to the miscreants who despoiled the 
 242 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION 
 
 country. And when Negro rule was at its worst, 
 Mam' Lyddy was its most bitter reviler. Cabell 
 Graeme was a captain among the young men who 
 finally put down the evil element that had been run- 
 ning its riotous course. And during the fierce fight 
 that was waged, he was much away from home; 
 but he knew that in Mam' Lyddy he had left as 
 redoubtable a guardian of his wife and babies as 
 ever kept watch on a picket line. 
 
 Among the most obnoxious of the colored leaders 
 was one Amos Brown, a young negro with some 
 education, who to the gift of fluency added enough 
 shrewdness to become a leader. He was while in 
 power one of the most dangerous men in the State, 
 and so long as he had backing enough, he stag- 
 gered at nothing to keep the negroes stirred up. 
 One of his schemes was to get money from the ne- 
 groes with which to pay, as he claimed, ten per 
 cent for the best plantations in the State, after 
 which, according to his account, the Government 
 was to give them the places. This scheme worked well 
 enough till the day of reckoning came, but happily 
 it came. Among those who were duped was old 
 243 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 Caesar, who, unknown to Mam' Lyddy, invested all 
 his little savings in Amos Brown's homestead-plan, 
 and was robbed. Partly in terror of Mam' Lyddy 
 and partly in hopes of saving his money, the old 
 man made a full disclosure of the scheme, and with 
 the proof he furnished, Cabell Graeme and others 
 succeeded in sending the statesman to the peniten- 
 tiary. 
 
 What Cassar possibly had to endure from Mam' 
 Lyddy, only those could imagine who knew her 
 blistering tongue. From that time she took herself 
 not only everything that she made, but every cent 
 that old Caesar made. 
 
 "You keep 'dis for me, Marse Cab. I'm never 
 goin' to trust dat Caesar wid a cent long as I live. 
 A nigger ain't got a bit o' sense about money." 
 
 But though Caesar would gladly have paid all he 
 made to purchase immunity from her revihngs, it 
 is probable that he heard of his error at least three 
 times a day during the rest of his natural hfe. 
 
 244 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION 
 
 II 
 
 As long as the old people lived, the French 
 place was kept up ; but the exactions of hereditary 
 hospitahty ate deeply into what the war had left, 
 and after the death of old Colonel French and Mrs. 
 French and the division of the estate, there was 
 little left but the land, and that was encumbered. 
 
 Happily, Cabell Graeme was sufficiently success- 
 ful as a lawyer, not only to keep his little family 
 in comfort, but to receive an offer of a connection 
 in the North, which made it clearly to his interest 
 to go there. One of the main obstacles in the way 
 of the move was Mam' Lyddy. She would have gone 
 with them, but for the combined influences of Old 
 Csesar and a henhouse full of hens that were sitting. 
 The old man was in his last illness, a slow decline, 
 and the chickens would soon be hatching. Since, 
 however, it was as apparent that old Cassar would 
 soon be gone, as that the chickens would soon be 
 hatched, Graeme having arranged for Caesar's com- 
 fort, took his family with him when he moved. 
 
 He knew that the breaking-up would be a 
 245 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 wrench; but it was worse than he had expected,,,. 
 
 for their roots were deep in the old soil. Old friends, 
 
 when they said good-by, wrung his hand with the:::::::::::::: 
 
 faces men wear when they take their last look at 
 
 a friend's face. The parting with the mammy was 
 especially bitter. It brought the break-up home as 
 few things had done. And when Mr. and Mrs. 
 Graeme reached their new home with its strange 
 surroundings, her absence made it all the stranger. 
 
 The change in the servants marked the change 
 in the life. The family found it hard to reconcile 
 themselves to it. Mrs. Graeme had always been 
 accustomed to the old servants, who were like mem- 
 bers of the family, and to find her domestics regard- 
 ing her as an enemy or as their prey disturbed and 
 distressed her. 
 
 "You are going to try colored servants.?" asked 
 one of her new friends in some surprise. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I am quite used to them." 
 
 "Well. — Perhaps — but I doubt if you are used 
 to these." 
 
 Mrs. Graeme soon discovered her mistake. One 
 after another was tried and discarded. Those who 
 S46 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION 
 
 knew nothing remained only until they had learned 
 enough to be useful and then departed, while those 
 who knew a little thought that they knew every- 
 thing, and brooked no direction. And all tvere inso- 
 lent. With or without notice the dusky procession 
 passed through the house, each outgoer taking with 
 her some memento of her transient stay. 
 
 "I do not know what is the matter," sighed Mrs. 
 Graeme. "I always thought I could get along with 
 colored people; but somehow these are different. 
 Why is it, CabeU?" 
 
 "Spoiled," said her husband, laconically. "The 
 mistake was in the emancipation proclamation. 
 Domestic servants ought to have been excepted." 
 
 His humor, however, did not appeal to his wife. 
 The case was too serious. 
 
 "The last one I had told me, that if I did not Uke 
 what she called coffee — and which I really thought 
 was tea — I'd better cook for myself. And that other 
 maid, after wearing one of my best dresses, walked 
 off with a brand-new waist. I am only standing the 
 present one till Mammy comes. She says she likes 
 to be called 'Miss Johnson.' " 
 247 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "I paid twenty dollars last week for the privilege 
 of chucking a dusky gentleman down the steps; 
 but I did not begrudge it," said her husband, cheer- 
 fully. "The justice who imposed the fine said to me 
 afterward that the only mistake I had made was 
 in not breaking his neck." 
 
 At last, old Caesar was gathered to his dusky 
 fathers, and the chickens having been mainly dis- 
 posed of, Mr. Graeme went down and brought the 
 old mammy on. 
 
 He had written the old woman to come by a cer- 
 tain train to Washington where he would meet her, 
 and true to his appointment he met that train. 
 But in the motley throng that filed through the 
 gate was no Mam' Lyddy, and enquiring of the 
 train men showed that no one answering to her de- 
 scription could have been on the train. 
 
 Just as Graeme was turning away to go to the 
 telegraph desk, one of the gray-clad colored 
 porters, a stout, middle-aged man with a pleasant 
 voice, and the address of a gentleman, approached 
 him. 
 
 248 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION 
 
 "Were you looking for some one, sir?" 
 
 "Yes, for an old colored woman, my wife's old 
 mammy." 
 
 "Well, I think you may find her in the inner 
 waiting-room. There is an old lady in there, who 
 has been waiting there all day. She came in on the 
 morning train, and said she was expecting you. 
 If you will come with me, I will show you." 
 
 "She's been there all day," the porter said, with 
 a laugh, as they walked along. "I asked who she 
 was waiting for ; but she wouldn't tell me. She said 
 it was none of my business." 
 
 "I fancy that's she," said Graeme. 
 
 "Yes, sir, that's she, sure." 
 
 Graeme thanked him. With a chuckle he led the 
 way to where esconced in a corner, surrounded by 
 bundles and baskets and clad in the deepest black, 
 and with a flaming red bow at her throat, sat Mam- 
 my Lyddy. 
 
 "Here's the gentleman you were looking for," 
 said the porter kindly. 
 
 At sight of Graeme she rose so hastily that many 
 of her bundles roUed on the floor. 
 249 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Why, Mammy! Why didn't you come on the 
 train I wrote you to come on?" enquired Graeme. 
 
 "Well, you tole me to come to-day, and I thought 
 I would like to be on time, so I came this morning." 
 
 "Now, if you will let me have your tickets, I will 
 attend to everything for you," said the porter to 
 Graeme. 
 
 The old woman gave him a swift glance, and then 
 seeing Graeme hand him his ticket, she turned her 
 back, and began to fish in some mysterious recess 
 among her garments, and after a long exploration 
 brought out a small bag containing her ticket. 
 
 "Is he one of your servants?" she asked Graeme 
 in an undertone. 
 
 Graeme smiled. "Well, I think he is — He is every- 
 body's servant and friend." 
 
 "I didn't know. He comes roun' inquirin' 'bout 
 my business so officious I thought sure he was one 
 o' dese Gov'ment folks, and I done had 'nough to 
 do wid dat kind." 
 
 "Like Amos Brown, Cassar's friend." 
 
 It was a sore subject with the old woman. 
 
 "Well, I didn't know — I thought he was one o' 
 250 
 
(^^3 
 
 Guiding her as if she had been the first lady in the land 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION 
 
 dese perliss. So I sent him 'long 'bout he own busi- 
 ness. But if you know him it's all right." 
 
 The passengers who streamed through the great 
 station the evening of her arrival, were surprised 
 to see a pudgy old black woman escorted by a 
 gentleman who, loaded down with her bundles and 
 baskets, was guiding her through the throng as 
 respectfully as if she had been the first lady in the 
 land. At the gate a lady and several children were 
 awaiting her, and at sight of her a cry of joy 
 went up. Dropping her bundles, the old woman 
 threw herself into the lady's arms and kissed her 
 again and again, after which she received a multi- 
 tude of kisses from the children. 
 
 "Well, I never saw anything like that," said a 
 stranger to another. 
 
 "She is their mammy," said the other one simply, 
 with a pleasant light in his eyes. 
 
 The old woman's presence seemed to transform 
 the house. She was no sooner installed than she took 
 possession. That very morning she established her 
 position, after a sharp but decisive battle with the 
 airy "colored lady," who for some days had been 
 251 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 dawdling about the house. The mammy had gauged 
 her as soon as her sharp eyes fell on her. 
 
 "What does yo' call yo'self ?" she asked her. 
 
 "What is my name? I am called 'Miss Johnson 
 — Miss Selina Johnson.' " 
 
 The old woman gave a sniff. 
 
 "Yo' is? Well, what does yo' call you'self doin' 
 heah?" 
 
 "You mean what is my employment? I am the 
 help — one of the help." 
 
 "Yo' is!" Mam' Lyddy tightened her apron- 
 strings about her stout waist. "WeU, 'Miss John- 
 son,' you git holt of that mat-trass and help me 
 meek up dis heah bed so it'll be fit for you' mistis 
 to sleep on it." With a jerk she turned up the mat- 
 tress. The maid was so taken aback for a moment 
 that she did not speak. Then she drew herself up. 
 
 "I know I ain' gwine to tetch it. I done made it 
 up onct to-day. An' I ain't got no mistis." 
 
 The mammy turned on her. 
 
 "Umh'm! I thought so! I knows jest yo' kind. 
 Well, de sooner you git out o' dis room de better 
 for you. 'Cause if I lay my han' 'pon you I won't 
 252 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION 
 
 let you go till I'se done what yo' mammy ought to 
 'a' done to you ev'y day o' yo' life." 
 
 She moved toward her with so dangerous a gleam 
 in her sharp little eyes that "Miss Johnson" deemed 
 it safest to beat a hasty retreat, and before bed- 
 time had disappeared from the premises entirely. 
 
 In the kitchen the old woman had been equally 
 strenuous. She had shown the cook in one evening 
 that she knew more about cooking than that 
 well-satisfied person had ever dreamed any one 
 knew. She had taught the other maid that she knew 
 by instinct every lurking place of dirt, however 
 skilfully hidden, and, withal, she had inspired them 
 both with so much dread of her two-edged tongue 
 that they were doing their best to conciliate her 
 by a zeal and civility they had never shown before. 
 
 For the first time the Graemes knew what com- 
 fort was in their new home. 
 
 "Well, this is something like home," said Mrs. 
 Graeme that evening as she sat by the lamp. "Why, 
 I feel like little Ben. He said, to-night, 'Mamma, 
 Mammy brought old times with her.' " 
 
 "May she live forever!" said Graeme. 
 253 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 In time, however, Mrs. Graeme began to feel 
 that the old woman was confining herself too closely 
 to the house. She needed some recreation. She had 
 not even been to church, and Mrs. Graeme knew 
 that this was her chief delight. 
 
 Yes, she would like to go to church, she said, 
 but she did not know "about dese fine chutches." 
 She did not like much to go on the streets. "Dere 
 was too many strange folks around for her. Dey 
 didn't keer nuthin' for her ner she for dem." And 
 it was "de same way, she reckoned, with de chutches. 
 Dey wuz new niggers, and she didn't had no use 
 for dem, nor dey for her." 
 
 Mrs. Graeme, however, was insistent. Not far off, 
 she had learned, was a colored church, "Mount 
 Salem," over which the Reverend Amos Johnson 
 presided with much show of broadcloth and silk 
 hat. He had considerable reputation as a speaker, 
 and from time to time appeared in the newspapers 
 as a rather ranting writer on matters with a polit- 
 ical coloring. Mrs. Graeme explained to the old 
 woman that she need have no more to do with the 
 people than she wished, and the following Sunday 
 254 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION 
 
 she went herself with her to the door of the church. 
 Before leaving her she gave her a half-dollar to 
 put in the plate, and asked a solemn-looking usher 
 to show her a good seat. 
 
 When the old woman returned she was interested, 
 but critical. 
 
 "I'se been used to chutch all my life," she de- 
 clared, "but I never saw no fixin's like dat. Br'er 
 George Wash'n'ton Thomas of Mount Zion was 
 de fancies' one I ever seen; but he couldn't tetch 
 dat man. Why, dey outdoes white folks !" 
 
 "Weren't they nice to you-f"' asked her mistress. 
 
 "Nor'm', none too nice. Dat one what you spoke 
 to for me wuz gwine to give me a seat; but a up- 
 pish young yaUer one stopped him an' made him 
 teck me back and stick me in a comer behind a 
 pillar. But he didn't stick me so fur back 't dey 
 didn't fine me when dey tecked up de money. When 
 I put in dat fif'-cent you gi' me, he jumped like a 
 pin had stick him. I dropped 't in so 'twould soun', 
 I tell you!" 
 
 This gave Mrs. Graeme an idea, and she en- 
 couraged her to go again the following Sunday, 
 255 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 and this time gave her a dollar to put in the 
 plate. 
 
 "Be sure and drop it in so it will sound," she said 
 to her. 
 
 "I'm gwine to." 
 
 "Well, how did you come out to-day.?" she asked 
 her on her return. 
 
 "Right well. Dey didn't stick me quite so fur 
 back, and when I drap de dollar in dey wuz sev- 
 eral on 'em lookin', and when de chutch was over 
 dey come runnin' arter me, an' tell me ef I come 
 next time dey'U have a good seat for me. I'm gwine 
 agin, but fust thing dey know I'm gwine to fool 
 'em. I ain't gwine put a dollar in agin, I know." 
 
 Mrs. Graeme laughed. "Oh! you must pay for 
 being in society. We all do." 
 
 "I know 7 ain't," declared the old woman, "and 
 I don't reckon you gwine to gi' me a dollar ev'y 
 Sunday." 
 
 "I certainly am not. I am only getting you 
 launched." 
 
 The following week Mrs. Graeme said to her 
 husband, "I think Mammy is launched. The 
 256 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION 
 
 preacher came to the front door to-day and asked 
 to see Mrs. Quivers. At first I did not know whom 
 he meant. Then he said it was "a colored lady." You 
 never saw any one so gotten up — silk hat, kid 
 gloves, and ebony cane. And Mammy was quite set 
 up by it. She says the preacher is from home and 
 knew Csesar. She was really airy afterward." 
 
 Mr. Graeme uttered an objugation. "You will 
 ruin that old woman, and with her the best old 
 negro that ever was." 
 
 "Oh, no," said Mrs. Graeme, "there is no danger 
 of that. You couldn't spoil her." 
 
 A few weeks later she said: "Yes, Mammy is 
 launched. She told me to-day she wanted to join 
 the club, and when I asked, what club, she said, 
 'the Colored Ladies Siciety Club.' " 
 
 "I should say she was launched," sniffed Mr. 
 Graeme. "She told me she wanted her money to 
 invest it herself. The old fool! They will rob her 
 of it." 
 
 257 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 III 
 
 The weeks that followed, and Mam' Lyddy's im- 
 mersion in "Siciety" began apparently to justify 
 Mr. Graeme's prophecy. A marked change had 
 taken place in the old woman's dress, and no less 
 a change had taken place in herself. She began to 
 go out a good deal, and her manner was quite new. 
 She was what a few weeks before she would have 
 derided as "citified and airified." At length Mrs. 
 Graeme could not conceal it from herself any 
 longer. 
 
 One evening as her husband on his return 
 from his ofiice threw himself into a chair with the 
 evening paper, she brought up the subject. 
 
 "Cabell, it is true; have you noticed the 
 change.'"' 
 
 "What.? I have no doubt I have." He glanced 
 at his wife to see if she had on a new dress or had 
 changed the mode of wearing her hair, then gazed 
 about him rather uneasily to see if the furniture 
 had been shifted about, or if the pictures had been 
 258 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION 
 
 changed: points on which his wife was inchned to 
 be particular. 
 
 "The change in Mammy? Why, I should never 
 know her for the same person." 
 
 "Of course, I have. I have noticed nothing else. 
 Why, she is dressed as fine as a fiddle. She is 'taking 
 notice.' She'll be giving Old Caesar a successor. 
 Then what will you do? I thought that fat darky 
 I have seen going in at the back gate with a silk 
 hat and a long-tailed coat looked like a preacher. 
 You'd better look out for him. You know she was 
 always stuck on preachers. He is a preacher, 
 sure." 
 
 "He is," observed the small boy on the floor. 
 "That's the Reverend Mr. Johnson. And, oh! He 
 certainly can blow beautiful smoke-rings. He can 
 blow a whole dozen and make 'em go through each 
 other. You just ought to see him, papa." 
 
 His father glanced casually at his cigar box on 
 the table. 
 
 "I think I will some day," said he, half grimly. 
 
 "I never would know her for the same person. 
 Why, she is so changed!" pursued Mrs. Graeme. 
 259 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "She goes out half the time, and this morning she 
 was so cross ! She says she is as good as I am if she 
 is black. She is getting like these others up 
 here." 
 
 Mr. Graeme flung down the paper he was 
 reading. 
 
 "It is these Northern negroes who have upset 
 her, and the fools like the editor of that paper who 
 have upset them." 
 
 Mrs. Graeme looked reflective. 
 
 "That preacher has been coming here a good 
 deal lately. I wonder if that could have anything 
 to do with it?" she said, slowly. 
 
 Her husband sniffed. 
 
 "I will find out." 
 
 At that moment the door opened and in walked 
 Mam' Lyddy and a small boy in all the glory of 
 five years, and all the pride of his first pair of 
 breeches. The old woman's face wore an expres- 
 sion of glumness wholly new to her, and Mr. 
 Graeme's mouth tightened. His wife had only time 
 to whisper: "Now, don't you say a word to her." 
 260 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION 
 
 But she was too late. Mam' Lyddy's expression 
 drove him to disobedience. He gave her a keen 
 glance, and then said, half jocularly: "Old wom- 
 an, what is the matter with you lately ?" 
 
 Mam' Lyddy did not answer immediately. She 
 looked away, then said: "Wid me.'' Ain't nuttin' 
 de matter wid me" 
 
 "Oh, yes, there is. What is it? Do you want to 
 go home?" 
 
 She appeared half startled for an instant, then 
 answered more sharply: "Nor, I don't wan' go 
 home. I ain' got no home to go to." 
 
 "Oh, yes, you have. Well, what is the matter? 
 Out with it. Have you lost any money?" 
 
 "Nor, I ain' lost no money 's 7 knows on." 
 
 "Been playing lottery?" 
 
 "I don' know what dat is." 
 
 "You don't, ah ! Well, you would if you had been 
 in Wall Street lately. Well, what is the matter? 
 You are going around here as glum as a meat-axe. 
 Something's up. What is it?" 
 
 "Ain' nothin' de matter wid me" She glanced 
 261 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 away under her master's half amused, half disdain- 
 ful glance, then added half surlily: "I wants 
 rec'nition." 
 
 "Want recognition? What do you mean?" 
 
 "Dat's what we wants," declared the old woman, 
 acquiring courage. 
 
 Graeme laughed. 
 
 "What is recognition?" 
 
 "I don't know what 'tis edzac'ly, but dat's what 
 we wants. You all's got it and you got to gi' it to 
 us." 
 
 "You mean you want to sit at table with us?" 
 exclaimed Mrs. Graeme. 
 
 Mammy Lyddy turned toward her. "You know 
 I don't mean nuttin' hke dat! I leetle more'n 
 smacked that yaller gal' what you call you' maid 
 over 'bout talkin' dat way 'tother day." 
 
 "Then what do you want?" 
 
 "I want's rec'nition — dat's all I wants." 
 
 "Who told you to say that?" asked Mr. Graeme. 
 
 "Who tol' me to say dat?" She was puzzled. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Ain' nobody tol' me to say it." 
 262 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION 
 
 "Yes, some one has. Who was it? — ^the Reverend 
 Johnson? Didn't he tell you that?" 
 
 She hesitated ; but Mr. Graeme's eye was search- 
 ing. 
 
 "Well, he no mo' 'n others — ^not much mo'. Of 
 co'se, he toV me dat — ^he preaches 'bout it; but 
 didn't nobody have to tell me — I knows 'bout it 
 myself." 
 
 "Of course you did, and you must have it. So 
 shall the Reverend Mr. Johnson," said Mr. Graeme. 
 His tone expressed such sudden amiability that the 
 old woman glanced at him suspiciously, but he was 
 smiling softly and thoughtfully to himself. 
 
 "What did you do with the four hundred and 
 fifty-five dollars you drew out of bank last week? 
 Did you invest it or lend it to Mr. Johnson.'"' It 
 was a bow drawn at a venture, but the arrow hit 
 the mark, as Mr. Graeme saw. 
 
 "I 'vested it." 
 
 "You mean Mr. Johnson invested it for you? By 
 the way, what is his first name?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. His name's de Rev. Amos Johnson." 
 
 "By George! I thought so," said Graeme, half 
 263 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 aloud. "I saw him at the races last week. I knew I 
 had seen him before." His countenance grew sud- 
 denly cheerful. 
 
 "What did he give you to show for it.-"' 
 
 "He didn't gi' me nothin'. He's gwine to draw 
 the intrust for me." 
 
 "Oh ! I thought so. Well, I want to see the Rev. 
 Mr. Johnson when he comes next time. When do 
 you expect him?" 
 
 "I ain't 'spectin' him 't all. He comes sometimes. 
 He was a friend o' Cassar's." 
 
 "Ah! he was? So I thought. Comes to smoke a 
 cigar, I suppose?" 
 
 She looked so uneasy that he went on casually: 
 "Well, it's very well ; always keep in with the cloth. 
 He is a fine preacher, I hear? Keeps quite up with 
 the times — interested in the races in more senses 
 than one." 
 
 "Yes, sir ; he preaches very well." 
 
 "That is all. Well, your friend must have "rec'ni- 
 tion.' " 
 
 The old woman withdrew. 
 
 The following day Graeme went down to a de- 
 ^64i 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION 
 
 tective agency and left a memorandum. A few days 
 later he received a message from the agency : "Yes, 
 he is the same man. He frequents the pool-rooms 
 a good deal. Came from Kentucky. He used to be 
 known as 'Amos Brown.' " 
 
 IV 
 
 Fob some days Mr. Graeme took to coming home 
 earlier than usual, and one evening he was re- 
 warded. Just after his arrival little Ben came in, 
 and, climbing up to his cigar box, took out several 
 cigars, and silently withdrew. As soon as he had 
 disappeared his father stepped to the telephone, 
 and, calling up the detective agency, asked that an 
 officer be sent around to his house immediately. A 
 few minutes later the officer arrived, and after a 
 few words with him Mr. Graeme stationed him at 
 the back gate and strolled back toward the kitchen. 
 As he softly approached the door he heard voices 
 within — one of them his little boy's voice, the other 
 the deep, unctuous tones of a negro man. The child 
 was begging the latter to blow smoke-wreaths, and 
 the man was bartering with him. 
 265 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Well, you must get me more cigars — remember 
 what I told you — six wreaths for one cigar." 
 
 At this moment the mammy evidently came in, 
 for Mr. Graeme heard the man caution the child, 
 and heard her voice for the first time. 
 
 "What dat you telling dat chile.'"' she demanded, 
 suspiciously. 
 
 "Nothing. I was just entertaining him by blow- 
 ing a few of those artistic wreaths he admires so 
 much. My good friends keep me in cigars. It is 
 one of the few consolations in a hard-working pas- 
 tor's life. Well, sister, I called around to tell you 
 your investment promises to be even more remuner- 
 ative than I expected — and to tell you if you have 
 any more, or even can borrow any, to let me place 
 it as you did the other. I can guarantee to double 
 it for you in a short time." 
 
 "I ain' got any more — an' I ain' got nobody to 
 lend me none." 
 
 "Well, ah ! Couldn't you get any from your em- 
 ployer?" He lowered his voice; but Graeme caught 
 the words. "You could raise money on the silver — 
 and they would never know it. Besides, they owe it 
 266 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITIO>f 
 
 to you for all the work you have done without pay- 
 ment. Think how many years you worked for them 
 as a slave without pay." 
 
 "Now, I ain' gwine to do dat!" exclaimed the 
 old woman. 
 
 At this moment Graeme softly opened the door. 
 The mamihy was standing with her back to him, 
 and in one chair, tilted back with his feet in an- 
 other chair, was a large and unctuous-looking 
 negro of middle age, in all the glory of a black 
 broadcloth coat and a white tie. He was engaged 
 at the moment in blowing small wreaths, while 
 little Ben stood by and gazed at him with open- 
 eyed wonder and delight. 
 
 At sight of Mr. Graeme, the preacher with a 
 gulp, which sadly disturbed his last eflFort, rose to 
 his feet. An expression of fear flitted across his 
 face, then gave way to a crafty, half -insolent look. 
 
 "Good evening, sir," he began, with an insinu- 
 ating smile, not wholly free from uneasiness. 
 
 "Good evening, Amos. Mammy, will you kindly 
 go to your mistress. Take the boy with you. Run 
 along, son." 
 
 267 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 The old woman with a half-scared air led the 
 child out, and Mr. Graeme closed the door and 
 turned back to the visitor, who looked much em- 
 barrassed. 
 
 "Take my cigars out of your pocket." 
 
 The preacher's hand went involuntarily to his 
 breast-pocket, and then came down. 
 
 "What.'' Your cigars out of my pocket.'' I have 
 no cigars of yours, sir." He spoke with slightly 
 rising severity, as Mr. Graeme remained so calm. 
 
 "Oh, yes, you have. But no matter for the 
 present. You had just as well leave them there for 
 a moment. What are you doing, coming here all 
 the time?" 
 
 "What am I doing? — Coming here? I am a min- 
 ister of the Gawspel, sir, and I have a member of 
 my congregation here, and I come to look after her 
 welfare." 
 
 "And to see that she gets recognition?" 
 
 "Suh?" — with a wince. 
 
 "And incidentally to rob me of my cigars, and 
 her of her small savings" — ^pursued Mr. Graeme, 
 calmly. 
 
 268 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION 
 
 "Suh? Nor, suh, I has not done dat. I will take 
 my oath to it on the word of Almighty God." 
 
 The veneer of his fine speech had all been 
 dropped, and the Rev. Johnson was talking natur- 
 ally enough now. 
 
 "What did you do with that money you took 
 from her?" 
 
 "What did I do wid— ? What money.?" 
 
 Mr. Graeme showed impatience for the first time. 
 
 "The four hundred and fifty-five dollars you 
 got from her. Was there more than that?" 
 
 At this point Mam' Lyddy opened the door and 
 came in. She looked somewhat mystified and rather 
 disturbed, but she said nothing. She only took her 
 stand, and with arms folded waited silent and ob- 
 servant. 
 
 The negro saw that Mr. Graeme knew of 
 the fact and answered promptly. 
 
 "Oh! You are mistaken, sir. I have taken no 
 money of her. You can ax her. She had a sum of 
 money which I as a favor to her invested for her. 
 You can ask the sister there. I suppose you refer 
 to that?" 
 
 269 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Invested ! In what?" 
 
 "Ah — ur — in — ur — ^the Afro-American Sisters' 
 Loan and Trust Association. I have promised to 
 invest it in that for her." 
 
 He stammered a good deal at the start, but was 
 glib enough when he brought out the name. 
 "Didn't I, sister?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." The old woman was manifestly im- 
 pressed. The preacher's cunning face brightened. 
 
 "You see what she says?" 
 
 "With its chief office at the Race-course out 
 here," said Mr. Graeme, with a toss of his head. 
 "Look here, I want you to get that money." 
 
 The negro shot a glance at Mam' Lyddy and 
 decided that she would stand by him. He suddenly 
 stiffened up and resumed his affected manner. 
 
 "Well, sir, I do not know by what right you in- 
 terfere with my affairs — or this lady's." 
 
 "You don't? Well, that's what I am going to 
 show you now. My right is that she is a member 
 of my family, whom I am going to protect from 
 just such scoundrels and thieves as you, Amos 
 Brown." 
 
 270 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION 
 
 The preacher received the name like a blow. 
 
 At the words the old mammy jumped as if 
 she were shot. She leaned forward, moving up 
 slowly. 
 
 "What's dat?— 'Amos Brown'? What's dat you 
 said, Marse Cabell? 'Amos Brown'?" 
 
 Mr. Graeme nodded. "Yes. This is Amos Brown, 
 'a friend of Cffisar's.' " 
 
 "Indeed, I ain't, suh. I'm de Reverend Amos 
 Johnson — " began the preacher, but his looks be- 
 lied him. Mammy Lyddy took in the truth, and the 
 next second the storm broke. 
 
 " 'Amos Brown' you is? I might 'a' knowed it! 
 You thief! You a friend of Caesar's! Whar's my 
 money.'' — My money you stole from Csesar? You 
 come talkin' to me 'bout rec'nition? I done rec'nize 
 you, you black nigger. Let me get at him, Marse 
 Cabell." 
 
 The old woman swept toward him with so threat- 
 ening an air that Graeme interposed, and the 
 preacher retreated behind him for protection. 
 Even that place of security did not, however, save 
 him from her vitriolic tongue. She poured out on 
 271 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 him the vials of her wrath till Graeme, fearing she 
 might drop down in a faint, stopped her. 
 
 "Stop now. I will settle with him." 
 
 His authoritative air quieted her, but she still 
 stood glowering and muttering her wrath. 
 
 "You will have that money back here by to-mor- 
 row at this hour or I will put you in the peniten- 
 tiary, where you have already been once and ought 
 to be now. And now you will take my cigars out of 
 your pocket, or I will hand you to that policsnan 
 out there at the door. Out with them." 
 
 "Boss, I ain't got no cigars o' yo's. I'll swar to 
 it on de wud o' " 
 
 "Out with them — or — " Mr. Graeme turned to 
 open the door. The negro, after a glance at Mam' 
 Lyddy, slowly took several cigars from his pockets. 
 
 "Dese is all de cigars I has — ^and dey wuz given 
 to me by a friend," he said, surlily. 
 
 "Yes, by my little boy. I know. Lay them there. 
 I will keep them till to-morrow. And now you go 
 and get that money." 
 
 "What money? — I can't git dat money — dat 
 money is invested." 
 
 272 
 
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION 
 
 "Then you bring the securities in which it is 
 invested. I know where that money went. You go 
 and rob some one else — ^but have that money at my 
 office to-morrow before three o'clock or I'll put you 
 in jail to-morrow night. And if you ever put 
 your foot on this place or speak to that old 
 woman again, I'll have you arrested. Do you 
 understand?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Now go." He opened the door. 
 " "Officer, do you recognize this man.'"' 
 
 "Yes, sir, I know him." 
 
 "Well, I am going to let him go for the present." 
 
 The Rev. Amos was already slinking down the 
 street. Mr. Graeme turned to the old woman. 
 
 "You want recognition.'"' 
 
 "Nor, suh, I don't." She gave a whimper. "I 
 wants my money. I wants to git hold of dat black 
 nigger what's done rob' me talkin' 'bout bein' sich 
 a friend o' Cassar's." 
 
 "Do you want to go home?" 
 
 "Dis is my home." She spoke humbly, but firmly. 
 
 Two days afterward Mrs. Graeme said: 
 273 
 
BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 "Cabell, Mammy is converted. It is like old 
 times." 
 
 "I think it will last," said her husband. "She is 
 out four hundred and fifty-five dollars, and the 
 Mount Salem flock is temporarily without a shep- 
 herd. The Rev. Amos Johnson was gathered in this 
 morning for fleecing one of his sheep and signing 
 the wrong name to a check." 
 
 274 
 
By THOMAS NELSON PAGE 
 
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