SKETCHES OF NORTHERN VILLAGE LIFE AND 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 By AUGUSTA LARNED. 
 
 12ino. $1.75. Sent Post-Paid on Receipt of Price. 
 
 The Churchman says : — " They go beyond even the most accurate sun- 
 pictures in the vividness and delicacy of their coloring. Each character is a 
 portrait ; each scene is a piece of g-enre painting. Each is a prose idyll, 
 worthy to take its place beside any thing of the sort that has been written. 
 Full of pathos, full of quiet humor, a ]Sew England village and its inhabitants 
 in all their mingled simplicity, )iaivete ^nd 'cuteness are depicted with the 
 most loving tenderness and stand out from the canvas in their sterling native 
 worth and beauty." 
 
 The Nation says: — " This particular village is of the rural New England 
 type. Its inhabitants have a familiar look as they come before us in turn. 
 There are the judge, the jack-of-all-trades, the young man of genius without 
 an occupation, the ne'er-do-well, and the good doctor, who belongs to the 
 group in which Holmes delights, and who is drawn with a skill not inferior to 
 his own. There are women of all varieties of weakness and strength of mind; 
 schoolmistresses, old maids, flirts, widows, in an abundance that accurately 
 indicates, one thinks, the surplus of the sex. ... A good many life- 
 histories are related, not as the novelist writes them, but in the way in which 
 they are really known to the people of the town." 
 
 The Boston Transcript says : — " Remarkably well done and deserves far 
 more praise than would a hasty commonplace romance. A book of this kind 
 shows us how much material for novels there is hidden away under the shady 
 elms which shadow our quiet village streets." 
 
 The Independent, N. Y. says: — •' They abound in quiet pictures, such 
 as one meets in ' Cranford,' with plenty of humor, occasionally rising into 
 art, and in a strong home flavor and American coloring which is the proof of 
 the artist, and the charm of her work." 
 
 'J'he Christian Union says: — "The focus is chosen with such judgment 
 and the ' finishing ' done with such care and taste that the portraits are 
 artistic, not crude or faulty in perspective. The papers — to drop the compari- 
 son suggested by the title — well deserve the popularity they have gained. ' 
 
 The Boston Advertiser says: — "Until the present time we have had 
 nothing in American literature that could fairlj' be called a counterpart of 
 ' Our Village.' Since Miss Augusta Earned has written ' Village Photo- 
 graps * this can, however, no longer be asserted. With a discernment 
 eciual to that of the historian of Three Mile Cross, a humor as sparkling and 
 vivacious, albeit of a somewhat different flavor, and with an even keener 
 poetic sense, Miss Earned has in these photographs most admirably portrayed 
 the various phases of life in an American village of to-day. . . . Never 
 unsympathetic, and it is this fact that gives these sketches of hers one of their 
 greatest charms. . . . As a whole, * Village Photographs ' is a noteworthy 
 contribution to the literature of rural life." 
 
 The Philadelphia Bulletin says : — " The contemplative reader, who 
 cares not for the high wrought cheap novels, can find no new book for summer 
 reading better than this beautifully written collection of ' Village Photographs.' " 
 
 The N. Y. Tribune says: — "Pleasant reading; the character pictures 
 are distinct and sometimes striking • the dialogue is natural ; the humor is 
 -entle and unforced, and the style is easy and agreeable. . . . She has a 
 een eye, and she describes village life, if not exactly as she sees it, then with 
 an air of realism which is a triumph of fancy." 
 
 HENRY HOLT & CO., Publishers, N. Y. 
 
 I 
 
SOUTHERN SILHOUETTES 
 
 BY 
 
 JEANNETTE H. WALWORTH 
 
 ifl 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1887 
 
Fa. 10 
 
 1/ 
 
 Copyright, 1887. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY HOLT & CO. 
 
 Press W. L. Mershon & Co., 
 Rahway, N. J. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Perhaps as the old order of things in the South is 
 rapidly passing into the realms of legend and tradition, 
 the time has come when one who was part and parcel 
 of that old order can appropriately put on record the 
 story of a day that is dead. 
 
 The sketches here compiled in book form after 
 running their course in the New York Evening Post, 
 are not the work of imagination, but are accurate out- 
 lines of actual entities, written with the loving desire 
 to do away with some of the misconceptions that have 
 militated against a true appreciation of what is noblest 
 and best in the people of whom they treat. 
 
 To those who demand plot and catastrophe for 
 mental aliment this book is offered with an apology. 
 To those who are avid of the truth, whatever guise it 
 assumes, it is offered with confidence. 
 
 If it serves but to shed the illumination of a taper 
 upon one obscured spot ; if it but rescues the memory 
 of one beautiful life from unmerited oblivion, it will 
 not have been written in vain. 
 
 The Author. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 7^r 
 
 CHAPTER. PAGE. 
 
 I. The Colonel, ...... i 
 
 II. Unreconstructed, .... 15 
 
 III. Captain Tom, . . . , . .29 
 
 IV. Ol' Miss, ...... 42 
 
 V. Poor Miss Mollie, . . . . .56 
 
 The Mayo Boys, ..... 69 
 
 VII. Uncle Lige, ...... 81 
 
 VIII. Mrs. New and the Old Families, . . 94 
 
 IX. Why a New Doctor Went the Rounds, . 105 
 
 X. Jim Bailey's Folks, .... 119 
 
 XI. Mammy, ....... 133 
 
 XII. A Breezy Optimist, . . . .147 
 
 XIII. Lee's Wife, 160 
 
 XIV. 'Mely Jane's Wedding, .... 175 
 XV. Charley Knight's Strategy, . . . 191 
 
 XVI, Colonel Sutton's Governess, . . . 208 
 
 XVII. Cap Sutton's Chance, ..... 223 
 
 XVIII. Miss Fanny and the Gin Burners, . . 237 
 
 XIX. Davenport's, ...... 254 
 
 XX. The Boy and the Bayou, . . . 268 
 
 XXI. A Bone of Contention, .... 284 
 
 XXII. "Old Harvey," .... .298 
 
 XXIII. Tony's White Angel, .... 314 
 
 XXIV. Miss Flo's Harvest, . . . . * 330 
 XXV. An Old Roman, . . . . .348 
 
 XXVI. Blind Jo and the New People, . . 366 
 
SOUTHERN SILHOUETTES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE COLONEL. 
 
 HE was a sort of potentate in his way before the 
 war. He has been a sort of Oracle in his way 
 since. Not that either eminence was of his own seek- 
 ing, nor that he ever shows any offensive conscious- 
 ness of his own exaltation above neighboring and 
 younger planters. His position has been the gradual 
 outcome of circumstances, and he accepts it as he 
 does his gray hairs and his rheumatic leg, simply as 
 something that the years have brought him unsolicited. 
 His grandfather " opened up " the first plantation in 
 the county, the very same that he still cultivates, and 
 the family name is perpetuated in Sims's Bayou, Sims's 
 Landing, Sims's Lake, and Sims's Ferry. It is a 
 comfortable reflection to the Colonel that the name 
 will not be buried with him when they lay him away 
 in one of the brick-oven affairs that have from time 
 to time been erected in that corner of the flower-garden 
 known as the family burying-ground, where several 
 generations of Simses sleep peacefully under the jes- 
 samine and japonica bushes. He has never quite gotten 
 used to regarding himself as the last of the Simses, 
 
2 THE COLONEL. 
 
 for there had been Fred and Albert, who, in the course 
 of nature, should have taken his place at the helm 
 when death relieved him from duty; but one of his boys 
 fell at Manassas and the other at Shiloh, and the 
 Colonel has not even the satisfaction of knowing that 
 they are lying out there in the garden under the star 
 jessamines, waiting for him. Not that he wastes much 
 time in fruitless retrospection. He is too well- 
 balanced for that, and was never gne of those unwise 
 mortals who petulantly refuse to accept the compen- 
 sations time invariably offers us as a salve for our 
 many sores and bruises. 
 
 The Colonel came straight to the plantation from 
 the classic atmosphere of Harvard. He was grad- 
 uated there with high honors in the class of '35. 
 During the time of his college life, if any soaring 
 ambitions or lofty intentions intruded themselves into 
 the plan of his future, he wisely laid them all aside 
 with his Greek and Latin grammars when he settled 
 into the groove to which he had been predestined 
 from birth. If it ever occurred to him that a classic 
 collegiate course was incongruous with the practical 
 duties awaiting him, no one was made the recipient of 
 the reflection, and he ran his course as industriously 
 as if a professorship was the ultimate destiny await- 
 ing him. The practical duties that faced him, when 
 he passed from heirship into actual possession of the 
 " old Sims place " were responsible but not onerous, 
 and, looking back, he believed he could fairly claim 
 to have performed them to the best of his ability. He 
 had always made humanity and a sense of justice prime 
 essentials in his selection of an overseer, and, paying 
 
THE COLONEL. 3 
 
 liberal salaries, secured the very best. Having 
 installed an efficient prime minister at the head of 
 affairs, his sense of personal responsibility was 
 reduced to a minimum. If the Colonel had been 
 light-minded, he might have given his young man- 
 hood up to those allurements that appeal so strongly 
 to the rich and leisurely class. But he never had 
 been light-minded, and quietly shelving his literary 
 and classic proclivities, he applied himself industriously 
 to the task of making his plantation the " brag place " 
 of the county. 
 
 He promptly recognized two absolute needs in the* 
 furtherance of this object — a good wife and a better 
 gin-house. A bachelor establishment on the plan- 
 tation would just fall short of the disreputable, and 
 the old horse-power gin of his father's reign must 
 give place to a steam gin. The selection of a wife 
 and the building of a new gin were occupations 
 enough for any one year in an average man's life. 
 The Colonel accomplished both to his own entire 
 satisfaction and the envy of his neighbors. It was a 
 matter of pride with him that the smoke-stack of his 
 gin should be at least two feet higher than any other 
 gin stack in the county. He revised, and supervised, 
 and pondered the architectural plans for the structure 
 with absorbing interest, taking care to locate it so 
 that whether he was lolling in the big Spanish-leather 
 chair that formed part of the front gallery furniture 
 year in and year out, or swinging in the Mexican 
 hammock out under the mulberry tree, or indus- 
 triously overseeing the reconstruction of his asparagus 
 bed, it should always be visible ; and when the 
 
4 THE COLONEL. 
 
 Stately, sky-piercing shaft stood complete, the Colonel 
 felt that another monument had been reared to the 
 name of Sims, and complacently regarded it as an 
 exponent of his own good taste and progressive views. 
 Not that he was Colonel Sims in those days. He was 
 plain Benny Sims when he married his wife and built 
 his gin. His title was simply another one of those 
 accretions that came with the years and had no 
 especial reference to deeds of valor performed by him 
 at any juncture of his existence. It fitted him well, 
 though, and he became it admirably, for the Colonel 
 was tall and erect and his bearing was marked with a 
 certain rigid punctilio that might well have been 
 acquired in a military camp. No one ever heard the 
 Colonel enter any demurrer against being brevetted 
 Colonel beyond a mild '' Pish ! " or two, which were 
 nullified by his prompt acceptance of the honor. 
 
 As the years go on the Colonel exhibits increasing 
 inclination to draw sharp contrasts between the new 
 and the old order of things, and in his capacity of 
 general adviser to the younger planters about him 
 never fails to make honorable mention of his own life- 
 long habit of doing every thing systematically. 
 
 " You may think, boys " (the Colonel is spokes- 
 man), " that life was all a frolic on the plantation 
 before the war, because we owned the hands and 
 could work 'em to please ourselves. There's where 
 you're out. There used to be lines of work on the 
 place that you don't know any thing about, and hard 
 lines at that. In those days you'd begin working in 
 January, with no prospect of a let-up until Christmas 
 came to give you a breathing-spell." Then, not with- 
 
THE COLONEL. 5 
 
 out pardonable gusto, the Colonel would indulge in a 
 little game of comparison with his auditors, in which 
 the past of his own active days always came out 
 winner. " January meant hard work on the plantation 
 in those days. It meant log-rolling and brush-burn- 
 ing and fence-mending and rail-splitting and road- 
 patching. When a dead tree fell down in a field in 
 those days, niggers didn't plow 'round it year 
 after year until it had time to rot out of sight. No, 
 sirs, log-rolling meant piling up every stump and 
 fallen log and dead limb and making bonfires of *em. 
 And last year's cotton stalks and corn-stubble weren't 
 knocked down and plowed under, in the slap-dash 
 fashion of to-day — no, sirs ; they were raked up, and 
 piled up, and set fire to, and a thousand-acre field, 
 with a blazing bonfire about every ten feet or so, and 
 young darkies feeding the fires like so many sprightly 
 little devils imported for the occasion, wasn't a bad 
 sight of a dark night. It was fun all round. And 
 December ! What does December mean to you boys ? 
 It means a lot of sulky freedmen sitting around in 
 their cabins cussing you and the store-keepers and 
 the commission merchants for their penniless con- 
 dition, while they keep their heels warm with your 
 fence-rails. It used to mean hog-killing time, and by 
 the time eighty or a hundred fat hogs were hanging 
 up in my smoke-house frozen stiff, the whole quarter 
 lot was reveling in crackling bread, and backbones, 
 and chitlings." 
 
 The Colonel never fails to bring his audience back 
 to the present, with the pathetic admission that, 
 *' what was to be was to be, and he supposes it is all 
 
6 THE COLONEL. 
 
 for the best." His ambitions since the war are few 
 and meager. Before the war they were many and 
 laudable, never soaring into the realms of the 
 unattainable. It was a point of honor with him that 
 his " team " should go through the entire hauling 
 season without breaking down. This is no idle boast 
 with the planter. Mammoth cotton bales, weighing 
 each 500 or 600 pounds, are to be hauled, piled top- 
 pling high on strong wagon bodies, to the shipping 
 point, miles away, over roads that become almost 
 impassable during the winter season ; and the eight 
 mules that are selected for this responsible under- 
 taking are pampered and coddled months beforehand. 
 The Colonel will recall for you now the name and 
 pedigree of each one of the nobie beasts of burden 
 which bore this test without flinching, in the days 
 when his crop numbered its thousands of bales. 
 " There are no such teams left in the county now," 
 he will tell you, with another one of his patient sighs, 
 ** because the teamsters and trainers belong to another 
 school." One corner of the Colonel's hall is quite 
 encumbered with guns of all sizes and descriptions. 
 And across the rafters, under the roof of the back 
 gallery, is an accumulation of fishing-rods that date 
 back to the first ones '* Fred " and " Al " ever tried 
 to cope with. Before the war the Colonel asked no 
 better sport than to hunt within the boundaries of his 
 own estate. 
 
 Then, as soon as the crop was picked out and the 
 fields could not be injured, it was his delight to have 
 a lot of good fellows out from town for partridge, 
 snipe, and duck-shooting. The partridges nested all 
 
THE COLONEL. 7 
 
 over his fields, then, and every man came with his own 
 trained setter or pointer. A fair field and no favor. 
 The man who shot a partridge before it was flushed 
 was relegated to the dishonorable ranks of ** pot- 
 hunters " — " on the wing " or not at all. The Colonel 
 had been very proud of his swampy bit of snipe- 
 ground — the best in the whole State — and the guest 
 who would tackle his duck pond and come back to 
 the house without at least ten brace, was scarcely 
 considered worth inviting another season. His room 
 had better be given to a better man. But time has 
 changed all that, and since the Colonel has had to 
 contend for his own game with a multitude of boors 
 who boast the possession of cheap guns and yellow 
 curs, he has ceased inviting " good fellows " out 
 from town to show their prowess on his snipe-ground 
 and duck-pond, and his pleasures in that line are 
 purely reminiscent. 
 
 It is pleasant to hear the Colonel talk of old times 
 with the loquacity of increasing years. His remi- 
 niscences are impersonal and entertaining, and 
 embrace the social, commercial, and political status 
 of the county from the time when he first took charge 
 of his plantation. His most violent dissipation then, 
 as now, was his annual trip to New Orleans, made, 
 generally, promptly on the heels of his first shipment 
 of cotton to his commission merchants. It was a 
 good time to visit one's merchant if the crop was 
 turning out unexpectedly well, for a little bragging 
 would be safe under the circumstances, and would 
 have a mellowing effect on the merchant. It was an 
 equally good time to visit him if the crop threatened 
 
8 THE COLONEL. 
 
 failure, for what ** advances " were to be extracted 
 from him must be secured before the shortage became 
 apparent. If the merchant proves propitious, the 
 Colonel is apt to wax a little reckless in expenditure. 
 He will go to *' the city " with a long list of neces- 
 saries, prepared in solemn family conclave, ranging 
 widely from a new riding horse for self and a Jersey 
 cow for wife, down to a red plaid shawl for 
 " Mammy's " Christmas gift. Mammy's name is 
 never omitted from the list made out in family con- 
 clave. The children are all grown up, and the boys 
 have all *' passed over," but Mammy still holds sine- 
 cure office at the big house. The Colonel always 
 enjoys his three or four days' stay in New Orleans 
 with zest born of long abstinence. His mornings 
 will be consumed in shopping and making arrange- 
 ments for next year with his commission merchant, 
 these arrangements, as a rule, consisting of promises 
 on his part predicated on the uncertain issue of a 
 crop unplanted, and on the merchant's side of reluct- 
 ant concessions to palpable necessities. His after- 
 noons will be spent at the race-course, for the Colonel, 
 like all of his class, is a lover of horseflesh and inter- 
 ested in turf matters. His evenings he will devote to 
 doing the theaters industriously. He will go back to 
 the plantation as fresh as a boy after a holiday, car- 
 rying with him sundry boxes and barrels containing 
 the materialized family list with supplement of his 
 own compiling, together with food for' animated con- 
 verse for weeks, touching what he saw, said, and did 
 while in the city. Events do not crowd so thickly 
 into the Colonel's life as to dwarf this annual pilgrim- 
 
THE COLONEL. 9 
 
 age into a thing of no moment, and every detail of it 
 is deemed worthy of being retailed circumstantially to 
 the small but select audience that composes his home 
 circle. 
 
 Not that he has no sources of entertainment more 
 solid than this imported gossip. All his life he has 
 been a rapid and omnivorous reader. He gets the 
 '' weeklies " from all the large cities, and you will 
 always find on the book-table which stands in the 
 great hall that divides his home into hemispheres, the 
 Philadelphia Times, The Nation, the New Orleans 
 Times^ all of as late date as is possible in his locality, 
 together with the leading magazines of the world. 
 He does not skim them ; he reads them, and is better 
 informed on the tariff and the Eastern question than 
 many of the Congressmen who air their ignorance at 
 the Capitol. The labors of his day close absolutely 
 with the ringing of the six o'clock bell that calls in 
 the field hands, and as public entertainments are not 
 included in his plan of existence, his lamp-lit hours 
 find him obliterating all the cares of the day in silent 
 communion with some magnate of the kingdom of 
 letters. 
 
 In one corner of the big central hall you will find a 
 high, old-fashioned book-case and writing-desk com- 
 bined. In the lower part of it the Colonel stows his 
 "accounts of sales " and his few business letters. He 
 keeps no books ; wouldn't be bothered with them. In 
 the shelves above are the volumes, bound in sober 
 colors, that keep the Colonel's mind fresh and alert 
 in the best sense of the word, even if they do not 
 sharpen his wits for contact with sharpers. 
 
lo THE COLONEL. 
 
 There are certain plantation observances which the 
 Colonel still holds by, although the significance of 
 them has departed forever. One of these observ- 
 ances is the bringing around of his horse Billy, 
 saddled, every morning at precisely the same hour, 
 and the hitching of him to the horse-rack under the 
 Cottonwood tree, just outside the front gate. This 
 performance has been gone through with every morn- 
 ing (unless the Colonel was in the city) since he came 
 into possession of the place. Billy, like the Colonel 
 himself, is gray and old, but the two Imderstand each 
 other very thoroughly, and as neither of them is as 
 fiery as he used to be, they get along together 
 admirably. Billy has an equine sense of the ludi- 
 crousness of the Colonel's thinking this regular morn- 
 ing round can possibly affect the status of the crops 
 being worked by freedmen, but it is a groove he and 
 the Colonel have fallen into, and he's not going to be 
 the one to shirk ; so he stolidly nibbles the top rail of 
 the horse-rack until he sees the Colonel come out of 
 the front door with his slouch hat worn a trifle far 
 back on his gray locks, with his trowsers tucked 
 jauntily into his top-boots, and with his cowhide 
 whip stuck under his arm while he draws on his 
 buckskin gauntlets. The Colonel will have to 
 be more thoroughly reconstructed than he is 
 yet, before he can bring himself to ride around 
 the place bare-handed. The entire white family 
 will stand on the front gallery to watch his de- 
 parture, quite as if he were going on a long journey 
 rather than doing what he has done every morning 
 from time immemorial, and he would feel as if a 
 
THE COLONEL. Ii 
 
 serious slight were being put upon him if he should 
 glance back from Billy's back and see only the 
 weather-beaten front of the house, which, like Billy 
 and himself, is also gray and old. It is a work of 
 supererogation for him to hold the reins over Billy's 
 neck, for the programme of their route is such an 
 ancient and well-established one that any departure 
 from it would astonish the Colonel himself scarcely 
 less than Billy. They will go first through the quarter 
 lot, where the cabins stand in two long rows, and 
 where with the keen inspection of a landlord the 
 Colonel will take in every new sign of decadence about 
 the premises, with a hopeless sigh over his own ina- 
 bility either to stay or to cover up the ravages of time. 
 He will dispense a few words of mild admonition to 
 an irresponsible and thriftless tenantry before riding 
 on, which will serve no other end than transient relief 
 to the Colonel's righteous wrath. They, he and Billy, 
 will pass systematically from squad to squad, watching 
 the operations of plowing, planting, or picking, as 
 the case may be, from which occupation the Colonel 
 will turn away presently with a growing sense of his 
 own insignificance. Time was when the, pleasantest 
 part of the morning's programme was the riding across 
 his own boundary line, marked by the Willow Slough, 
 into " Levison's field" on one side, or *' Old Billy 
 Scott's " on the other, to compare his own crops with 
 those of his nearest neighbors, not in unkindly compe- 
 tition, but with a community of interest. But Levison 
 moved to the city after the war, and there's nobody 
 on his place but a lot of darkies, and Scott, poor old 
 fellow, is dead, and things have changed so on both 
 
12 THE COLONEL. 
 
 places that the Colonel seldom cares to ride beyond 
 the boundaries of his own place nowadays, unless it is 
 mail-day, and then he and Billy will turn off through 
 the chain-gate and ride a mile or two through the 
 woods, where the low-hanging Spanish moss, as gray 
 as his beard, smites him softly on the cheek, and the 
 birds sing carelessly overhead in the trees, just as if 
 this were a world where sorrow and change were quite 
 unknown. If the mail-packet has arrived at the land- 
 ing before him, the Colonel will gather his share and 
 ride promptly back through the sweet-smelling woods, 
 but if it has not, he will hitch old Billy alongside a 
 waiting dozen or so of other horses, and seat himself 
 composedly on one of the whittled wooden benches 
 that support Sheldon's store gallery, and do what the 
 other fellows are doing — wait and gossip. The pleas- 
 ure has gone out of the waiting and the spice has gone 
 out of the gossip of mail-day for the Colonel. His set 
 has pretty much passed away, and the boys that have 
 taken their places seem crude and pert to the Colonel. 
 But to the boy planters he is an object of profoundest 
 esteem and consideration. He knows so much, you 
 know, and has such an affable way of imparting his 
 information. A trifle grandiloquent, perhaps, but 
 then the Colonel belongs to the old school. He is 
 always in demand for the settlement of arguments, 
 and in the matter of precedents he stands unri- 
 valed. 
 
 What was once the Colonel's reproach is now his 
 boast. He was not an original secessionist ; but when 
 the thing was forced upon him he shouldered his share 
 of the pain and responsibility like the hero that he 
 
TitE COLONEL. 13 
 
 Was. Not even when Fred's and Al's names stared at 
 him from the ghastly Hst of the killed, that reached 
 him in a ragged newspaper printed on wall-paper, did 
 he flinch. He had leaned toward gradual emancipa- 
 tion, but witnessed the flight of his entire body of 
 slaves with grim - visaged composure. He lived 
 through the war with stolid endurance, coming to 
 regard coffee and flour as among the superfluous 
 luxuries demanded by an effete civilization, and 
 emerged from the horrors of the carpet-bag era with 
 the dignity of a Roman senator. In politics, it is 
 needless to say that the Colonel is a Democrat, but he 
 is so inured to defeat that his party's repeated discom- 
 fiture does not stir his pulse into higher activity. 
 
 The Colonel feels assured of a few things only in 
 these latter days. Among them is the conviction that 
 his own day is past. He looks backward without 
 shame and forward without trepidation. He spends 
 more time in the Spanish-leather chair on the front 
 gallery than he used to do, and he always faces it 
 toward the gin-stack. The gin-stack is one of the 
 few things that have not changed. He looks forward 
 with composure to the time when another brick vault 
 will be needed in the flower-garden, and has had a 
 certain corner recently cleared of encroaching 
 brambles. 
 
 He likes to advise yet, and expends his most earnest 
 efforts in that line on a young man who has bought 
 the plantation just on the other side of Scott's. He 
 would like this young man to perpetuate the Sims 
 views and the Sims traditions in the county, and likes 
 to think that since no son of his own loins will inherit 
 
14 TiiE coLoMeL 
 
 them, Mamie has selected so sensible a son-in-law for 
 him. It will not be, after all, total annihilation for the 
 Colonel's memory when he shall have joined the great 
 caravan, and fear of that has been his chief cause of 
 sorrow since Fred and Al left him. Pride of place 
 will abide with the Colonel as long as he lingers 
 above ground, and when they lay him under the star- 
 jessamines, another type will have perished from off 
 the earth. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 UNRECONSTRUCTED. 
 
 " T TNRECONSTRUCTED " is what all the nelgh- 
 U bors call her, but that terrible word is gen- 
 erally accompanied by pitying smiles that carry with 
 them full and free condonation for all of pride, stub- 
 bornness, unreasonableness, and ill-blood that can pos- 
 sibly be conveyed in its five syllables. Looking at 
 her from an archaeologist's point of view, one feels 
 quite content that no reconstruction is ever likely to 
 take place, she is such a rare specimen of the high- 
 bred, high-principled, fastidious lady of the old school, 
 the exclusive product of her own times. Even physi- 
 cally, she has the value of an old-time painting, whose 
 lights and shadows have been laid on by a cunning 
 hand, whose every soft curve, fold of drapery, pose, 
 fashion of -bodice, quaint coiffure, all have historic 
 interest to the student of an era already become a 
 thing of memories and traditions. By the aid of such 
 finished specimens of Time's handicraft as the Widow 
 Somers, and the study of her life experience, one is 
 able to reconstruct for himself the social and political 
 period to which she belongs. Locally she is regarded 
 with that sort of pride usually inspired by any tradi- 
 tion or landmark that carries with it a guarantee of 
 respectability, and is cherished with the fostering care 
 
1 6 UNRECONSTRUCTED. 
 
 one bestows on a rare old antique, which it would be 
 impossible to replace. Indeed, with the delicate pink 
 of her soft withered cheeks, where the fine grain cf 
 the skin is still traceable, with the clean-cut lines of 
 her nose, ears, and lips ; with the blue-veined tra- 
 cery of temple and hand, and the sculpturesque folds 
 of her black dress, she is very apt to make one recall 
 a fine old cameo in some art collection. She is one 
 of the few things in her neighborhood that have not 
 undergone radical and pathetic changes since the war, 
 and the muddy current of to-day's events sweeps by 
 her door as unnoticed and uncared-for as if the great 
 old rambling house, that can be seen only by glimpses 
 from the public road through occasional lapses of foli- 
 age in the sheltering trees, were an enchanted palace, 
 holding her, its sleeping princess, locked in oblivion. 
 
 Women are not good at ethical abstractions. 
 Things are either good or bad, as they appeal to their 
 own personality agreeably or otherwise, or as they 
 affect the welfare of dearer objects than self. Neither 
 the social nor political ethics of slavery had ever occu- 
 pied the Widow Somers's mind for half a second. It 
 was as much a matter-of-course that there should be 
 slaves and slave-owners, she took it, as that there 
 should be black men and white men, and as she had 
 herself come of a long line of slave-owners (to doubt 
 whose goodness and wisdom being a species of treach- 
 ery she was utterly incapable of), she frowned down 
 any ante-bellum discussion of this question as an 
 unpardonable impertinence. The slaves, who loved 
 her loyally and served her faithfully, were hers to have 
 and to hold until death did them part, and whosoever 
 
U^RMcdNStRUC7'Ei>. i1 
 
 should undertake to usurp death's prerogative in this 
 matter was an object of her most withering condem- 
 nation. It was Hke usurping the prerogative of Om- 
 nipotence, you see. She and " her people" had be- 
 longed to each other in mutual dependency forever and 
 forever, it seemed to her, and she could conceive of 
 no possibility of comfort for either side under a differ- 
 ent state of affairs. There was Mammy (who still 
 lives, a superannuated cumberer of the earth, sure of 
 her physical comfort so long as " old Miss is 'bove 
 ground"). Why, Mammy had been present at the 
 birth of every one of her children, and together they 
 had mingled their tears over more than one small 
 mound, yonder under the clump of tall dark cedars 
 in the corner of the orchard. Mammy had lived in 
 the best cabin in the quarters for nearly all her life, 
 and had been served with her meals from the family 
 table ; what would become of her, turned loose in her 
 helpless old age, to worry and skirmish over every 
 mouthful of food she ate, and every stick of wood she 
 burned ? No such horrible fate should ever befall 
 Mammy so long as she could fend it off. And there 
 was Puss, who had been about her ever since she 
 could crawl up the front steps on all fours direct 
 from the kitchen, where her mother was making 
 things " hot" for something besides her culinary uten- 
 sils, to take shelter behind '' Miss's" skirts, fleeing 
 from the wrath she was too young to comprehend — 
 Puss, so handy and so hideous, whose cavernous 
 mouth expanded so gratefully when her mistress 
 praised her clear-starching, or her floor-scrubbing, or 
 her increased conscientiousness in the matter of cob- 
 
1 8 UNRECONS TR UCTED. 
 
 webs and dauber-nests. Of course it would be possible 
 for Puss to make a livelihood as a free woman out of 
 the many accomplishments she had herself taught her, 
 but who else (certainly no Northern woman) would 
 consent to have such a physical monstrosity near her 
 on terms of such close intimacy ? For Puss, intensely 
 black, squat of form, flat-nosed and thick-lipped, was 
 to be found of winter evenings crouching close in the 
 chimney-corner of her mistress's sitting-room, gazing 
 into the fire with wide-open eyes, as she dumbly ab- 
 sorbed "w'ite folks' talk." Would she, Mrs. Somers, 
 be the only loser if those intermeddling abolitionists 
 should ever succeed in carrying their wildly chimeri- 
 cal plans into execution ? And John, her dining-room 
 servant, whom she had trained to such a degree of per- 
 fection that her slightest nod conveyed a whole vol- 
 ume of directions. And Adelaide, her seamstress, who 
 was such an adept in fitting and fashioning. Weren't 
 they all just as happy as they could possibly be ? 
 What expense or responsibility rested on them ? And 
 when John and Adelaide had concluded to get mar- 
 ried, didn't she dress Adelaide herself in her own 
 white silk grenadine that she hadn't worn a dozen 
 times, and put the veil and wreath on with her own 
 hands, and have the wedding supper set down stairs 
 in the basement, and ice the wedding cake herself, and 
 have the Rev. Dr. Robinson out from town to see 
 that the knot was tied decently and in order ? Was 
 any one going to take all that trouble for people who 
 did not belong to them, and would not be with them 
 for always ? And there were the medicines and the 
 flannels and the " Christmas gifts." Plainly, in Mrs. 
 
UN RE CONS TR UC TED. 1 9 
 
 Somers's estimation, all that was necessary to convert 
 the most blatant freedom-shrieker to a firm belief in 
 the beneficence of the Institution was that its work- 
 ings should be fully understood and fairly investigated. 
 
 It is possible to keep the gaze fixed. so firmly on 
 one spot that every thing around and about that cen- 
 tral object shall become blurred and obscured. Mrs. 
 Somers had gazed upon the Institution from a pro- 
 slavery point of view so long and so fixedly that 
 the moral atmosphere which surrounded it was dense 
 with confused and confusing mists. But she spent 
 no thought on the mists nor on the menacing cloud 
 into which they slowly but surely resolved themselves. 
 Why should she ? It would be as if one purposely 
 marred the pleasure of smooth and rapid transit over 
 an unobstructed railroad by horrible forebodings of 
 possible smash-ups before the journey's end. The 
 smash-up might come through somebody's blunder, 
 but it was scarcely likely to come in her time, and 
 there was a great deal to be enjoyed meanwhile on her 
 exceedingly smooth-running line. 
 
 Yes, there were countless pleasant ante-bellum activ- 
 ities in the rambling old house that stands behind a 
 grove of gnarled live-oaks and stately pecans, inter- 
 spersed with the white locust, whose pendulous clus- 
 ters of bloom make the air heavy with their sweetness 
 in the spring-time. The house is much too large now. 
 It was scarcely large enough then, especially when all 
 " the children " were at home and impromptu gather- 
 ings kept the mistress, and Mammy and John and 
 Puss and Adelaide and a score or two more of the 
 black folks in a state of delightful excitement over 
 
20 UNRECONSTRUCTED. 
 
 the festivities. The children were all grown up before 
 the war. " All ready for the sacrifice," is the way she 
 words it now. She was very proud of the three stal- 
 wart boys, who were so fond of measuring heights 
 with each other and with their father on the rallying 
 days when they gathered under the home-roof for some 
 family or national anniversary. But whether the boys 
 were at home or not, the hours were never too long 
 for her in those full, sweet days. There were new 
 violet beds to be set out, and cuttings from the beauti- 
 ful Lamarque rose that clambered over the summer- 
 house in the garden to be layered before the old stock 
 should become woody and worthless, and there were 
 the Hovey seedlings to be planted in the land best 
 suited to that daintiest but most capricious of all 
 the berries, and there were fresh vistas to be cut out 
 in the skirt of woods that fills the hill-side between the 
 house and the road. Not that there were any land- 
 scape views of particular beauty to be preserved from 
 encroaching limbs and twigs, but because it was always 
 desirable to see approaching carriages from a distance. 
 And there were the red and white cypress vines to be 
 trained annually over the ugly tree stump near the 
 front gate, and the Madeira vines over the front gallery 
 to be kept from bold usurpation of all the available 
 space ; and there were labels to -put on all the trans- 
 lucent jellies and preserves that came to her in a state 
 of perfection from Mammy's skilled hands. She pitied 
 those of her neighbors who had to " worry " over 
 their own preserves and pickles. She never did. She 
 simply reaped the reward of the instructions she 
 instilled into the receptive minds of her servants. 
 
UNRECONSTRUCTED. 21 
 
 She never meant, when her boys should all be through 
 with college, and come back home to her, that they 
 should be ashamed of their mother, and find in her 
 nothing better than a wrinkled-browed, fretful house- 
 hold drudge. She intended to fight off the inevitable 
 rival of younger and fairer faces as long as possible. 
 For the boys' sake, then, she kept up the music that 
 had been one of the lures " the Judge " had fallen a 
 victim to in his courting days. The piano grew old 
 and asthmatic, and the melodies it sounded grew old- 
 fashioned, and the Judge grew indifferent ; the under- 
 lying purpose alone retained its pristine vigor. There 
 was one of the boys still at college, and one reading 
 law, and the other attending medical lectures in ^' the 
 city." What a brilliant home circle she would have 
 when they were all settled in the old neighborhood, 
 '' pursuing their careers ! " So she forced herself 
 to an abnormal interest in the newspapers, which 
 the Judge devoured voraciously in semi-weekly 
 batches, and kept herself familiar with the literature 
 that was most likely to prove attractive to vigorous 
 young minds " like the boys." " She was a great 
 woman," the Judge would declare, intones that defied 
 contradiction, and whatever indication of unusual 
 brightness scintillated from any one of the boys was 
 accredited to her with self-abnegation unusual among 
 men. So she reigned right royally as wife, mother, 
 mistress, accepting the ease of her lot as a thing of 
 course and immutable. And its soft, smooth conditions, 
 entering into her own moral, mental, and physical 
 mechanism, made of her the very sweet and gracious 
 lady she was. 
 
2 2 UNRECONS TR UC TED. 
 
 But there came the inevitable time when the cloud 
 that had been roUing itself up from the unnoted mists 
 through all those sunlit years, grew black and por- 
 tentous, and burst with a threatening sound over her 
 head. It stunned her at first. It was unprecedented. 
 She could recall a precedent for almost every thing 
 that had ever befallen her before. The sensation of 
 being jolted out of a groove one has run in smoothly 
 for nearly a lifetime is confusing and jarring you know. 
 The smash-up had come, and in her time at that. 
 Confusion and pride and resentment reigned supreme 
 in those first days. Of course, nothing would be 
 easier than to get the machine back on the track ; to 
 which end every shoulder must be put to the wheel. 
 She sent more than her fair quota of shoulders to the 
 task — a father and three sons. Then she put her own 
 to it. She lamented they were only a pair of feeble 
 woman's shoulders and could only afford minor assist- 
 ance, but the amount of that minor assistance that ghe 
 afforded in the way of lint-scraping, and salve-con- 
 cocting, and sock-knitting, and converting of her 
 handsome stuff curtains into clumsy soldier shirts, and 
 the like, was incredible. She worked hard, and late, 
 and early. Her strength was fed by the fires of her 
 indignation and her pride ; and then work was good 
 for her when there was no sound of a boot-heel heard 
 in the big empty rooms all day, no stray hat on chair 
 or table to be decorously remanded to the useless rack 
 in the hall, no sound of boyish whistling, no calling 
 to the hounds, that strained at their leashes in eager 
 anticipation of a run. She could even forgive them 
 the cigar-smoke now, that had been such an abomi- 
 
UNRECONS TR UCTED. 23 
 
 nation in her fastidious nostrils in the days just gone. 
 But tiie good old times would come back again, and 
 when her four heroes returned laurel-crowned they 
 should find what a queen of finance she had proven 
 herself to be. So the violet beds grew tangled and 
 weedy, and the Lamarque cuttings died from neglect, 
 and the strawberry beds were all runners, while the 
 mistress of the old home grappled with graver matters 
 and turned her attention to " running the place." It 
 would be easy enough. Habits of life-long obedience 
 would not be easily cast off at the bidding of a few 
 restless spirits who had caught eagerly at the first far- 
 away whisper of freedom. If defection seized upon 
 every place in the country, she was sure of her people ; 
 they were bound together so indissolubly by ties of 
 kindness that had strengthened the bonds of owner- 
 ship. 
 
 Then came the day when astonishment swallowed 
 up every other emotion and left her finally minus the 
 power to re-resolve any thing. It was the day, when, 
 standing on her front gallery, where the Madeira vines 
 in ripened bloom were scattering their tiny stars in a 
 fragrant shower on her head and shoulders, as she 
 stood staring through the clustering tendrils, she saw 
 a long mounted procession file past the front gate 
 silently and decorously, but unfaltering in its defiant 
 purpose. At the head of the procession were her own 
 carriage and horses. In the driver's seat was her 
 own coachman Maurice. Inside — she could see them 
 all so horribly plainly — were John and Adelaide and 
 Puss ; her John, her Adelaide, her Puss. They had 
 the grace not to look at her as she stood pale, wounded, 
 
24 UNRECONS TR UC TED, 
 
 impotent, but moved on out of her sight forever, with 
 their faces turned steadily away from her and toward 
 freedom. Next in procession came the boys' ponies 
 and the Judge's own riding horse, " Red Ben," that 
 she was always afraid to see him mount. The ponies 
 cantered by as gayly with their bare-foot, hatless, rag- 
 ged riders, as if her own handsome sons were urging 
 them forward. She hated the ponies for their ready 
 transfer of allegiance, but " Red Ben " hung his 
 proud head sullenly, as if conscious that he was being 
 put to very base uses indeed. On they pass, men, 
 women and children, some sending a half-apologetic 
 look back over their shoulders, as if even in the 
 supreme moment of emancipation it was not easy to 
 omit the deference always shown heretofore to the 
 stately lady gazing at them mutely from the vine-clad 
 gallery of the big house. She never remembered how 
 long she had stood looking at the vanishing proces- 
 sion. When the last tardy mule sprang forward under 
 the prick of spur, and disappeared beyond the osage- 
 orange hedging that bordered the plantation, a feel- 
 ing as if she had been left alone to fill all space took 
 possession of her and bowed her momentarily as some 
 stately pine might bend involuntarily before the storm 
 blast. 
 
 And to the day of astonishment succeeded the days 
 of trial, when she gazed out in helpless impatience at 
 the white v/aste of the cotton crop, which there was 
 no one to pick, and saw marauding stock in full posses- 
 sion of the fat corn-fields, and watched the calves chew- 
 ing the bark from the costly fruit trees the Judge had 
 Imported at such expense, and watched over so jeal- 
 
UN RE CONS TR UC TED. 2 5 
 
 OLisly, and knew there was no help for it all, for only 
 a half dozen old people remained in the once populous 
 quarters, and old Mammy and her husband, old Jake, 
 were left in the yard " to do " for the mistress of the 
 big house ; when life seemed to resolve itself into 
 endurance of hardship and indignity and suspense. 
 It was then that the lines began to gather on the firm 
 white forehead and mar its alabaster smoothness ; it 
 was then that she acquired that pathetic trick of pac- 
 ing the long gallery with her arms patiently folded 
 over such a heavy, heavy heart. All her plans of 
 keeping up the place had come to naught, and the 
 days were so horribly long and empty. It was easier 
 pacing the gallery than sitting still in the large rooms 
 waiting for the voices that were so long coming back 
 to fill them with the olden music. She could see the 
 big gate at the end of the pasture from the front gal- 
 lery. Whatever or whoever should come to break this 
 spell of lonely idleness and heart-sickness must come 
 through that gate. The wooden latch was knocked 
 off by two contending steers one night, and the gate 
 sagged badly on its rusty hinges as it swung open, 
 showing the muddy road under the dark trees beyond ; 
 but there was no need of mending the gate, or closing 
 it either ; there was nothing in the fields to protect. 
 Nothing mattered much, anyhow, in those days of 
 waiting. 
 
 There were those who would have had the Judge's 
 wife leave the old homestead, and cast in her lot with 
 others who were bearing a like burden of suspense and 
 anxiety, but she had one answer for them all. She 
 gave it kindly, graciously, gratefully, if you please, 
 
26 UNRECONSTRUCTED. 
 
 but always firmly : '* She could not sleep under any 
 other roof. Mammy and Jake would take care of her 
 well enough, and she must wait for them at home." 
 She never put it into words exactly who she must 
 wait for, for perhaps — only perhaps — some of them 
 might not come back to her. So she stayed all alone 
 in the big empty house until the Madeira vine had 
 shed all its stars, and spent all its sweetness, until the 
 soft purple bloom of the China trees had passed into 
 the hard yellow ugly balls of their seed-time, and the 
 pink clouds of the crape myrtle had been scattered by 
 the pitiless rains and winds that spared no thing of 
 beauty in the large front yard, excepting the sturdy 
 oaks and the towering pecans that were able to defy 
 the bluster of the elements. 
 
 And to the day of trial succeeded the day of despair, 
 when she paced the long gallery at fitful intervals all 
 day until the darkness hid from her strained gaze the 
 sagging gate and the road beyond, lying back under 
 the shadows of the moss-bearded trees, looking for 
 tidings that never came, yearning for forms that 
 could not come, for the river was blockaded and the 
 siege of Vicksburg was raging hotly, and there was 
 nothing to do at home but watch and wait. She 
 could hear the guns at Vicksburg — far away, muffled 
 by distance, but as each shot fell on her strained ear, 
 her wounded heart gave a quick fierce throb. Who 
 knew where that shrapnel had burst? Who knew — 
 who would tell her and shorten the agony of the long 
 silent moments that fell between ? There were lives 
 in that beleaguered city she w^ould gladly have laid 
 down her own for. But there was nothing for her to 
 
UNK E CONS 1 'R UCTED. 27 
 
 do but watch and wait and wonder why the vials of 
 wrath should have been emptied so fully on her head. 
 Women are rarely impersonal — suffering women never 
 are. 
 
 And to the day of despair succeeded the day of 
 lamentation. When the far-off muffled guns of Vicks- 
 burg were silenced ; when the nearer, quicker, louder 
 detonations from the gun-boats in the river told the 
 story of Lee's surrender ; when straggling soldiers, 
 footsore and weary, found their way back in tatters 
 and in defeat to ruined homes ; when the longtime of 
 waiting came to an end, and through the sagged gate 
 which had stood open for three fruitless years, there 
 wandered afoot a man in a worn gray uniform, listless 
 of step, lack-luster of eye, tired of body, tired of heart, 
 tired of soul. A ragged beard fell far down on his 
 breast, he stooped as he walked, and stopped every 
 now and then to cough. He knew he was at home, 
 for whatever else might have happened, the old place 
 could not have moved ; but it all looked strange. 
 The trim hedging was unkept and ragged, and the 
 shutters of the house had a rowdyish, dissipated look, 
 as they flapped dismally to and fro on broken hinges, 
 and the tall insolent coffee weeds in the front yard 
 seemed more at home than he as he parted them with 
 a thin trembling hand to expedite his progress up to 
 the front steps, where a gray-haired woman stood 
 eying him curiously and hesitatingly, not daring to 
 trust to the mother instinct alone in behalf of this 
 poor human wreck. 
 
 That was all that ever came back to her ; a witless 
 paroled prisoner, too much of a mental wreck to grieve 
 
2 8 UNK E CONS TR UC TED. 
 
 with her over the universal devastation. He brought 
 her no news of the others. His three years of service 
 had been spent in a miHtary prison. 
 
 She took up her marred Hfe as best she could. 
 Around the wreck of her one restored child the torn 
 tendrils of mother love have twined themselves death- 
 lessly. No one has ever heard any noisy outburst 
 against the decree of high heaven. She is not con- 
 sciously submissive. She is simply carrying out the 
 practice of a lifetime by bearing the inevitable with 
 dignity. The place has resumed activity on a new 
 basis. Strange faces fill the old cabins, strange names 
 are on her plantation books. She takes no interest in 
 them, nor they in her. She rents them her land and 
 houses for so many pounds of lint-cotton and so many 
 bushels of corn. She is the " Widder Somers " to 
 them, and they are her tenants. They are not " her 
 people," and she is not their " ol' Miss." They 
 stand on a cold business platform, and are mutually 
 watchful. And because she still mourns for those 
 who never came back to her, because she still weeps 
 with those who weep, but refuses to rejoice with those 
 who rejoice ; because she turns away with a sick heart 
 from the bitter mockery of Decoration Day to wonder 
 where her dead are sleeping ; because she is a woman 
 and not a philosopher ; because she is not content 
 that a nation's everlasting weal has been built upon 
 the ruins of her own life and home ; people call her 
 unreconstructed. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 CAPTAIN TOM. 
 
 EVERY man, woman, and child, black and white, 
 living between Vicksburg and New Orleans, 
 along the line of Mississippi River travel, knows of 
 him if they do not know him, this great rugged Captain 
 Tom, with the voice of a lion and the heart of a girl ; 
 and what with his fifty years of going up and down 
 the watery highway that leads right by their door- 
 yards, he must needs have been as unimpressionable 
 as the gay effigy of the Indian chief that is perched 
 aloft on the . pilot-house of his big steamboat, not 
 to have gotten his heart-strings inextricably tan- 
 gled up with those that beat under the various familiar 
 roof-trees he sees from his hurricane deck twice every 
 week, once as he goes up stream under a pressure of 
 steam and rush of hurrying paddle-wheels, scattering 
 a miscellaneous cargo, and again when he travels city- 
 ward more leisurely, stopping to pick up a couple of 
 bales of cotton here, a pile of cottonseed there, now 
 to take on a shivering passenger whose whereabouts 
 have been revealed by the flickering flame of an ex- 
 hausted bonfire, or again landing amiably in response 
 to a fluttering handkerchief held aloft in a girl's small 
 hand. 
 
30 CAPTAIN TOM, 
 
 He belongs properly to the flush period of steam- 
 boating on the Mississippi River, and no one knows 
 better than he does that the glory of it is departed for- 
 ever ; but in spite of intruding railroads and waning 
 river traffic, he still holds the helm stiffly against all 
 adverse currents, and when he shall have pulled the 
 great bell-rope on his hurricane deck for the last time, 
 and silently shall have submitted to the pilotage of 
 the grim ferryman, another type will have been oblit- 
 erated from time's blurred tablets ; for the changed 
 condition of affairs precludes the possibility of another 
 generation of Captain Toms. 
 
 He knows every bend and curve and point on the 
 river between Vicksburg and New Orleans, and can 
 tell you on the darkest night, within a fraction of a 
 mile, where he is and how long it will take him to 
 make the next bend. It is with a solemn sense of the 
 march of the years that he will point you to a barren 
 sandbar here, and tell you of the broad rich acres and 
 the stately ginhouse and the pretty homestead he has 
 seen ingulfed little by little by the merciless waves 
 that now lap the glistening sands of the bar with a 
 murmur as soft as a mother's lullaby. It is with a 
 sense of personal antiquity that he will tell you all 
 about the Raccourci cut off as you shoot through it 
 now standing by his side on the roof of the Texas, 
 which once he had to circumvent by twenty tedious 
 miles. *' He was younger then," he will tell you with 
 a deep-chested sigh, not that he looks old now, or ever 
 will suggest senility any more than the grand oaks, 
 with their widespreading branches that bourgeon afresh 
 every year, for there is a perennial freshness that 
 
CAPTAIN TOM. 3I 
 
 springs from Captain Tom's heart and keeps him young. 
 In the ladies' saloon, over the grand piano, hangs a 
 portrait in an elaborate gilt frame. It is the portrait 
 of a man with a large round head, covered with short, 
 curly, black hair. In the portrait are a pair of keen 
 black eyes, that look out on the world from under 
 shaggy black eyebrows, like awnings. The man in 
 the portrait has an iron jaw and a firm-set mouth that 
 seems made for words of command. There is a merry 
 twinkle in the black eyes, and there are amiable curves 
 in the corners of the firm-set mouth ; but it is not a 
 handsome face, that pictured face of Captain Tom 
 " in his thirties." Out on the decks to-day, in storms 
 that blind or in heat that blisters, buttoned to the chin 
 in his great shaggy *' dreadnaught," or divested of 
 every article of clothing that civilized man can dis- 
 pense with in the dog days, treads the original of the 
 portrait, square shouldered and square-jawed, and 
 upright as of old ; but the curly hair is a grizzled gray, 
 and the keen black eyes look out on the world from 
 under bleached awnings. The elements have dealt 
 kindly with him. He is their own familiar, and they 
 have transmuted some of their subtle forces into his 
 hardy veins by an alchemy known only to themselves. 
 Nor wind, nor rain, nor heat, nor cold hold any terrors 
 for him ; they pay him tribute in rich blood and 
 boundless vigor. 
 
 When Captain Tom leaves port with a full comple- 
 ment of passengers, his sense of responsibility is 
 great, but not overpowering. '' Never missed a trip 
 or lost a steamer," is the eulogy he is proudest to hear 
 passed upon him, and it would quite satisfy him in 
 
32 CAPTAIN TOM. 
 
 the matter of an epitaph. Helmsman, host, politi- 
 cian, pilot, commander and caterer, are all combined 
 in his potent personality. His word is law through- 
 out the length and breadth of the stately craft that 
 is at once the pride of his life and the cause of sleep- 
 less vigilance in him. His intelligent supervision 
 extends from the man at the wheel, into whose keep- 
 ing precious lives are confided, to the steward, whose 
 duty it is to cater to capricious feminine appetites. 
 Nothing that involves the welfare of his passengers, 
 who are for the time being his honored guests, is too 
 onerous or too trivial for his interest. Planters along 
 his route place their wives and daughters under his 
 care for trips to '' the city " with as complete a sense 
 of security as when they intrust their entire crops to 
 him for transmission to the hands of the commission 
 merchants who hold liens on them. Women and 
 children sleep peacefully under the low ceilings of 
 their state-rooms on Captain Tom's boat, satisfied to 
 know that the heavy craunching footfall that sounds 
 sometimes as if it must come through the thin planks 
 over their heads, is an indication that he is " making 
 the rounds," and whether the huge paddle-wheels 
 revolve slowly and cautiously through the thick, white 
 fog, or the steamer crashes recklessly into the drift- 
 piles that impede her progress, or plunges forward 
 through smooth waters with quick, palpitating sighs 
 and fiery breath, there is a cool head and a keen eye 
 on the alert for their welfare, and drowsy blessings fol- 
 low close upon the craunching footfalls. 
 
 Captain Tom is no mere fetcher and carrier. His 
 interest in the dwellers upon the familiar banks 
 
CAPTAIN TOM. 33 
 
 between which his boat plies her busy way up and 
 down, year in and year out, is not simply that of a 
 man who " makes his living out of them." He knows 
 the members of every household whose roof-tree is 
 visible from the hurricane-deck of his steamer. He 
 knew the Evans place, one of the " brag " sugar plan- 
 tations on the coast, when it was nothing but a clear- 
 ing with a few rude shanties scattered about among 
 the tree stumps. He will point you to the stately 
 mansion only partly visible now from behind its shel- 
 tering grove of live-oaks and pecans, and tell you, 
 with a sort of proprietary interest in it, how he 
 brought " every stick of timber in it, down to the 
 doors and sash," up from the city for Evans when he 
 concluded to get married and live on the place him- 
 self, and, as the selection of the wedding-ring and of 
 the parlor furniture was left to Captain Tom, he natur- 
 ally considers that he holds no inconsiderable share of 
 responsibility for Evans's weal or woe. That was a 
 long time ago, however — long enough for the oaks 
 and the pecans that were saplings when he landed 
 with Evans's wedding-cake to grow up into stately 
 shade trees and almost hide the house from the river. 
 When Evans brought his oldest daughter aboard a 
 few trips back, and shipped her to the school of the 
 Sacred Heart, down near the city, under Captain Tom's 
 care, he said it made him feel awfully old. 
 
 He will tell you that he must stop at Black Hawk 
 Point going down, whether there's any cotton on the 
 bank or not, because when he landed coming up, to 
 put off a lot of sugar-house molasses. Colonel Staves 
 sent aboard for a lump of ice and they told him Mrs. 
 
34 CAPTAIN rOM. 
 
 Staves had swamp fever. He's had "a lot of jellies 
 and other sick folks' gim-cracks " made by his pastry 
 cook for her. Money won't buy sick folks' victuals 
 on the plantations. He and Mrs. Staves have been 
 " running " together ever since he's been steamboat- 
 ing, and she shan't want for any thing it's in his power 
 to procure for her. Mrs. Staves will wait a week for 
 Captain Tom's boat or give up her trip to the city 
 altogether, rather than go wMth any one else. She is 
 convinced that if mortal man can put travel by steam 
 beyond the peradventure of death by a " blow-up," 
 Captain Tom is that mortal, and Captain Tom rewards 
 her appreciation by never forgetting to send some- 
 thing good up to the house — a can of oysters, or a 
 red fish, or a big bunch of bananas. Sometimes a 
 return comes immediately in the shape of a bucket of 
 fresh buttermilk (the Captain has bucolic tastes, despite 
 his maritime training) ; on other occasions Mrs. 
 Staves and the girls will go to the end of the front 
 gallery and wave their thanks and^reetings with their 
 handkerchiefs. 
 
 Captain Tom comes as near achieving ubiquity as 
 mortal can. At the first shrill whistle for a landing 
 he appears promptly and conspicuously on deck, 
 where his keen eye follows the slow, swinging motion 
 of the ponderous craft until her pointed bow touches 
 the sandy bank with scarce more force than would be 
 required to crack an egg-shell. If it's only a lot of 
 freight to take on, he will stand ready to pull the bell- 
 rope as the last roustabout trots briskly across the 
 stage plank with box or sack on shoulder, but if any 
 of '' the boys " are on the bank, there are '' howdy- 
 
CAPTAIN TOM. 35 
 
 do's " to be waved with hat and hand, cordial invita- 
 tions to be shouted from his strong lungs to " come 
 aboard and have something." If time permits, the 
 invitation is rarely needed, and seldom^r declined, and 
 Captain Tom will placidly command that ** her nose be 
 held to the bank " until he has ordered a julep or 
 cock-tail mixed at the bar for his visitors, and has 
 sent them ashore with the latest newspaper in their 
 hands and half-a-dozen good cigars in their side- 
 pockets. While the refreshment is being prepared 
 and disposed of he will make himself acquainted with 
 the state of the crops and the probable date of first 
 shipments of all the plantations for miles inland. For 
 he is not afraid of asking questions, and his curiosity 
 is in the legitimate line of business. No one knows 
 when he takes his rest. Up in the Texas (a tier of 
 state-rooms on the upper deck devoted to the officers) 
 IS a little den known as the '' Captain's room," but no 
 one ever catches him napping in it. The boat never 
 '.ands, day or night, that his clear commanding voice is 
 'not heard from the hurricane deck. Between whiles a 
 huge heap of shaggy overcoat and soft hat and grizzled 
 hair and weather-beaten cheeks may be seen for a few 
 seconds at a time in a state of semi-unconsciousness 
 in an arm-chair in the '' Social Hall," as the lower 
 cabin is called, but not for long. There's a lot of 
 ladies back in the cabin he has promised to " look 
 after," and some youngsters who have been begging to 
 be taken up in the pilot house, or a row between the 
 mate and the roustabouts is to be settled, and he must 
 not forget to remind the barber about that preparation 
 for bald heads he promised Colonel Wiggins to put off 
 
36 CAPTAIN TOM. 
 
 the next time they landed at his place, and there's the 
 bridal state-room to be got ready for Ned Benson's 
 daughter. Ned told him the young people were going 
 down with hinf when he came back, and he's going to 
 give them " a regular spread " before they get to the 
 city. 
 
 Nothing disconcerts Captain Tom quicker than a 
 glum-looking crowd of passengers. With a large sense 
 of personal responsibility for their spirits and appetites, 
 as well as their bodies, he caters industriously to the 
 tastes of all. There's a band for the young people to 
 dance by after the supper tables are cleared away, and 
 there's the universal resource for the male travelers, 
 the card tables, down in the Social Hall. He will 
 stand over the players at odd moments and take a 
 lively interest in the game if it is a gentleman's game, 
 played to relieve the tedium of a long, slow Lrip to the 
 city, but if any sharp practice is discovered, or Captain 
 Tom has reason to believe a " blackleg " has found 
 his way into the group about the table, his denuncia- 
 tion of him is open and merciless, and the girl element 
 in the rugged old sea Hon is completely obscured in 
 the roar of his wordy indignation. 
 
 The walls of the clerk's office are hung thick with 
 " testimonials of regard " that have accumulated on 
 Captain Tom's hands in the many years of his public 
 service, and it is pleasant to hear the old man tell the 
 story of each one, with the invariable final clause : 
 " He never could quite see into it. He'd never done 
 any thing special for the donor, but folks always did 
 treat him better than he deserved." 
 
 Captain Tom's life is divided into three epochs. One 
 
CAPTAUV TOM. 37 
 
 dates from the time when he was lying alongside a lot 
 of steamers at the levee in New Orleans, when one of 
 them caught fire, and among the passengers who 
 sprang from the burning deck to his own for safety 
 was a beautiful young lady who afterwards became 
 Mrs. Tom. She has one of the loveliest of homes in 
 the Crescent City, and every week, as soon as his cargo 
 has been safely deposited on the wharf at New Orleans, 
 Captain Tom goes home as fast as hack horses can carry 
 him. The atmosphere he lives in during his two or 
 three days in port is in sharp contrast with his deck 
 life. It is a life of smooth happenings, of luxurious 
 surroundings, of refined influences, and the lion voice 
 is modulated accordingly. He has a great deal to hear 
 in that short period of time, for there are boys and 
 girls passing through the agitating period of school 
 and college days, and there are numerous domestic 
 contingencies to be provided for, all of which is delight- 
 fully entertaining to Captain Tom. But he disports 
 himself in his wife's beautiful parlors somewhat after the 
 manner of an estray walrus, and fragile things fre- 
 quently come to grief during his limited sojourn. He 
 feels vastly uncomfortable in the dress-coat that super- 
 sedes his dreadnaught on shore, and dearly as he 
 loves the whole brood whose nest he has feathered 
 so softly, he breathes a trifle freer when he once more 
 finds himself on his own deck, with the gulf breezes 
 blowing his gray locks about and the forest of masts at 
 the levee growing small in perspective. 
 
 The second epoch takes in the war. Captain Tom 
 was not an original secessionist, but when the thing 
 became inevitable he went into it with the ardor he 
 
3'^ CAPTAIN TOM. 
 
 throws into every thing he does. When the river was 
 blockaded, Hfe became practically aimless to him. 
 There was nothing he could do. He mourned partic- 
 ularly over the fact that he had put a brand-new boat 
 into the trade just before the " racket commenced." 
 Yes, there was one thing he could and did do. He 
 could keep " her "(his boats are his lady-loves) from 
 fallmg into the enemy's hands, to be made into a gun- 
 boat. Her pretty sides should never be punched into 
 port-holes, through which black-mouthed cannon 
 might belch fire and smoke at the boys in gray. Noth- 
 ing was easier than to run her up the Yazoo and let 
 her catch fire accidentally. He stood on the bank 
 and watched her burn, through a mist that obscured 
 the brightness of his keen eyes, but he never wished 
 her back. She was his own, and he had put it out of 
 her power to become a terror to the people who had 
 always greeted her coming with smiles of welcome. 
 That was all. After that he went back to the home 
 in the city and " loafed," extracting what comfort there 
 was to be extracted from the cultivation of cabbages 
 and roses in the daytime, employing every idle moment 
 with plans of the boat he was going to build as soon 
 as the war was over. One of Captain Tom's harm- 
 less hallucinations is that he is an authority on the 
 culture of cabbages and roses, and since the period of 
 his enforced activity in that line he has dispensed 
 volumes of unsolicited advice on the subject with sub- 
 lime conceit. 
 
 The third and most important epoch in his life dates 
 from the '' big race," and as the years glide by and 
 the old sea lion inclines slightly toward garrulity, the 
 
CAPTAIN TOM. 39 
 
 Story of the big race is heard oftener and the details 
 grow fuller, and his own reminiscent joy over the 
 result more keen. To hear Captain Tom tell in tones 
 that vibrate with resuscitated indignation of the taunts 
 that were flung at the new boat by her most puissant 
 rival, and the partisanship that was splitting all the 
 riparian folk into factions, and of his final challenge 
 to a race that should settle forever the supremacy of 
 the best steamer, is to hear him in his most eloquent 
 vein. To follow him through the frenzied zeal of 
 preparation, when he stripped '* her " of every super- 
 fluous pound of weight, even to the sash in the pilot- 
 house and the heavy cabin furniture ; when hogsheads 
 of bacon and barrels of oil were held in reserve as 
 possible fuel ; when would-be passengers were warned 
 off the boat as from a magazine of explosives, is to 
 feel one's pulse begin to thrill with anticipatory excite- 
 ment, and to experience the pangs of incipient parti- 
 sanship. To see his huge chest heave and expand, 
 his bright keen eyes flash under their white pent- 
 houses of brows, his ponderous fist emphasize the 
 rapidity with which " she took Roundout Point," or 
 " leaped like a greyhound around Dennises Bend," 
 or " skimmed the water like a sea-gull, from the Hunt 
 Place to Crooked Bayou," is to see the race yourself, 
 and to participate in all of Captain Tom's tense fluct- 
 uations of fear and hope. Nothing on earth will ever 
 again have power to stir his whole being to frenzied 
 effort as did the big race, and no river contest will 
 ever come up for discussion that will not have to 
 stand the test of comparison with that supreme effort. 
 Captain Tom's boats are no mere things of wood and 
 
40 CAPTAIN TOM. 
 
 iron skillfully combined with a view to running prop- 
 erties. They are Jiving, moving, sentient things to 
 him, and he will recall for you the qualifications of 
 every boat that has called him master with the ten- 
 der, lingering tones of one who mourns some loved 
 and companionable human friend. Praises bestowed 
 upon '-'- her " are as sweet to his ears as are the praises 
 of her first-born babe to a fond young mother. But 
 Captain Tom is not specially partial to his first-born ; it 
 is his last-born, his Benjamin, the winner of the big 
 race, that taxes his powers of eulogy to the utmost. 
 
 No local politician is better posted in the game of 
 chance that puts one man in office and another out, 
 than Captain Tom, and he resents the imputation that 
 because he is afloat he is without the pale of interest. 
 The era of the carpet-bagger filled his honest breast 
 with righteous wrath. He takes mild satisfaction in 
 chaffing his Northern passengers on the mythical 
 terrors of the Kuklux Klan against whom he pledges 
 himself to protect them wnth the last drop of blood 
 in his veins. He knows what all the politicians at 
 Washington are doing and what they are leaving 
 undone, and considers that the bill for the improve- 
 ment of the Mississippi River is the only one of any 
 importance that has been brought before the house 
 for an age. He hasn't much faith in any of the ideas 
 modern marine engineers have brought to bear on 
 that irrepressible stream, and wouldn't give an ounce 
 of practical common-sense for all the scientific theories 
 in the world. He opposes his views, as an experienced 
 and observant river man, boldly against the men of 
 
CAPTAIN TOM. 41 
 
 science, and those who think Captain Tom " is in the 
 right of it " are not hard to find. 
 
 In the holidays, that is, in the week that falls just 
 before Christmas, his boat and himself become the 
 dispensers of a solid stream of comfort that is only 
 exhausted when he reaches the wharf boat and Vicks- 
 burg. Poor and insignificant indeed must that planter 
 be who " ships " by Captain Tom without being remem- 
 bered in his annual distribution of black cake, (made 
 and handsomely iced in the steward's pantry), oranges, 
 oysters, and bananas. If there is something of policy 
 in this, there is more of friendship, and as the seasons 
 come and go, and the boat comes and goes, the bond 
 that binds the old captain to his landed constituency 
 waxes stronger and is held more precious, for the 
 weal of one is the weal of the other — they stand or 
 fall together. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Ol' Miss. 
 
 IN a great rambling old house which travelers on 
 the Fayette Road can not even catch a glimpse of 
 for the jealous guardianship of acres of live-oaks, 
 magnolias, and dogwoods that spread their sheltering 
 arms about it, one perfect specimen of this almost 
 extinct species is still to be found. The first glimpse 
 of the casket that contains this gem of purest ray 
 serene is disappointing, The " casket " is locally 
 known as " Magnolia Hall." Its boundary fence, a 
 dilapidated, worn affair, stretches for several miles 
 alongside the red-clay road that has an incurable 
 propensity for running into gulches and wash-outs. 
 With phenomenal lack of foresight on somebody's 
 part, or malice prepense on the part of inanimate 
 things, one of the most incurable of these gulches is 
 immediately in front of the big gate that leads from 
 the road to the door of the Hall. One of the local 
 problems that time has yet to solve is how to circum- 
 vent the " bad place " at the Magnolia gate in winter. 
 People who are easily discouraged do not try to cir- 
 cumvent it ; they simply avoid it on wheels, which 
 has a tendency to increase the isolation of the big 
 rambling white house behind the sheltering trees ; 
 
OU MISS. 43 
 
 but the current of life flows through it with an 
 independent full sweep of its own. 
 
 Against the inner walls of this old house, which is 
 perched on its crumbling terraces with monumental 
 dignity, hang two oil portraits in gilt frames of such 
 marked difference in style and costliness that they 
 mutely tell the story of financial decay that has been 
 going on steadily at Magnolia Hall for the last 
 quarter of a century. But they tell another and a still 
 more pathetic story of the ravages of time. The 
 oldest portrait, the one with the gorgeously heavy 
 frame (it hangs in the up-stairs bedroom with the 
 dormer window now), is the picture of a very slim 
 young lady sitting preternaturally erect in a stiff- 
 backed chair. Her shining black hair is combed 
 smoothly over the brow, from which it takes a sudden 
 and violent departure in two hemispherical bandeaux 
 of immense circumference ; the head is turned suffi- 
 ciently sidewise to give a view of loop upon loop of 
 broad flat braids hanging low upon the smooth white 
 nape of her neck. One bright red rose rests against 
 them. Above the slim waist, the blue silk belt holds 
 in bondage sweet, a companion rose to the one among 
 the braids, the whole picture, with its soft white throat, 
 its ripe red lips, and large innocent eyes, looking out 
 on an untried world with shy interest, suggests some 
 bright-hued flower springing from a mound of snow ; 
 for below the waist there is an expanse of white 
 drapery whose circularity convicts " ol' Miss " of 
 having worn '' tilters " of the extremest capacity in 
 her youth. Her husband had this picture painted 
 before .the honeymoon had waned, The silver 
 
44 OV MISS. 
 
 filagree bouquet-holder, full of red roses, that hangs 
 in the picture, suspended from the silk belt by a 
 slender chain, and the big white feather fan clasped 
 in her slim hands, were among the wedding presents, 
 or Miss calls it a foolish picture now, and has put it 
 in the least frequented room in the house, but if any- 
 one of unusual discernment insists upon it that they 
 can still see the likeness, a pretty pink flush will mount 
 high in her cheeks, which are no longer round and 
 plump and smooth. 
 
 The other portrait, the one in the cheap frame, 
 hangs over the parlor mantle-shelf. The hair in that 
 one is white and thin. Adown the cheeks, hanging 
 pendent from the widow's cap that crowns them, are 
 gauze ribbon strings, purple and white. For the rest, 
 a clinging black dress supplies the space once filled 
 up by the red roses and the bouquet-holder and the 
 big fan and the clouds of voluminous white drapery. 
 The eyes, in this later picture, seem to look out 
 patiently upon a world which has been tried and 
 found wanting, no longer with shy interest, but with 
 a sort of experienced gravity that gives them a more 
 soulful look, and the hands, brown and worn now, are 
 folded in a restful attitude, as if ^'ol' Miss " were 
 simply waiting for the end. 
 
 Which is exactly what she is not doing. That is ol' 
 Miss on canvas. If portrait-painters can not idealize 
 their subjects, they are practically useless, for we paint 
 portraits for posterity, and posterity objects, or will ob- 
 ject, to crudity of any sort. 01' Miss, the living, busy, 
 loving entity, only folds her hands restfuUy of evenings, 
 when the last key is turned in the last lock (that is the 
 
on MISS. As 
 
 poultry-yard key most likely), and the evening stars are 
 twinkling over her head, as she rocks placidly in the 
 cool darkness of the front gallery if it is summer, or 
 knits mechanically, with her serene eyes following the 
 dancing flames of the wood fire as they leap up the 
 cavernous chimney in her own bedroom, if it is winter. 
 There is a big parlor at Magnolia Hall, and a small 
 library, and a cozy dining-room as good as a parlor, 
 when the leaves are taken out of the extension table 
 and it is converted into a center table, with an em- 
 broidered felt cover on it ; notwithstanding all of 
 which " ol' Miss's " bedroom is the family sitting-room 
 in winter. In summer the sewing-machine and the 
 writing desk and the book table are all located in the 
 big hall, and every body sits there. 01' Miss smiles 
 with triumph as one after one '' the children " gravitate 
 towards her bedroom of evenings. They assign various 
 false reasons for doing so. One of the boys, the one 
 that is studying law, declares the lamps in mother's 
 room always give a better light than his own ; another 
 one of the children, whose six feet of length demands 
 extra space, asserts positively that all the comfortable 
 chairs in the house are in mother's room ; but no one 
 agrees with her that it is her wood fire they are hanker- 
 ing after. 
 
 After the war, when labor was uncertain, the Judge 
 had grates put all over the house, for the wood-pile 
 was more than ever given to unaccountable fluctua- 
 tions, and he hauled coal from town at great expense 
 and trouble ; but when the brick masons who were 
 filling up all the huge fire-places reached ol' Miss's 
 room, she paralyzed them by assuming a tragic 
 
46 Oi: MISS. 
 
 attitude and paraphrasing an old song for their 
 benefit, or rather for the Judge's benefit, who 
 looked at her over their brick-dusted shoulders in 
 comical dismay. She defied them to touch a single 
 brick — declaring that in youth it had warmed her and 
 she'd preserve it then. She abhorred coal fires, and 
 as long as there was a tree standing on the Magnolia 
 place, she would have her wood fire if she had to pick 
 up fagots like the old women in the Black Forest. The 
 vision of ol' Miss picking up the fagot of the future to 
 warm her aging bones was too much for the Judge's 
 equanimity. She carried the da)^, and the chimney 
 still yawns widely in her room and the wood-fire still 
 crackles on the brass andirons, and the slate hearth 
 with green spots in it still interposes its dark smooth 
 surface between the glowing logs and all the feet that 
 are left in the home circle. 
 
 Close up against one of the jambs, by the window 
 that overlooks the dairy and the henyard and the 
 vegetable garden, is ol' Miss's workstand— a little 
 square mahogany affair that is not independent of the 
 support furnished it on two sides by the projection of 
 the chimney and the wall by the window. A big Indian 
 basket, toppling high with cut-out work or disabled 
 wearing apparel, is its principal ornament. A fat little 
 red cushion, bristling with pins and needles, cowers 
 always under the eaves of the big basket, but never so 
 successfully that it can not be found by every vagrant 
 seeker after a pin or needle, who comes straightway 
 to the workstand, sure of making good there every 
 deficiency. Close by the workstand is a low armless 
 rocking-chair, with a home-made cushion covered with 
 
on MISS. 47 
 
 bright calico on the seat. The home-made cushion is 
 a veritable cloak of charity, for underneath it is a net- 
 work of seine twine that ol' Miss has criss-crossed 
 recklessly through and through the failing cane bot- 
 tom. It is an inviting little old chair, but no one ever 
 thinks of occupying it unless the absence of ol' Miss's 
 sun bonnet from the rack in the hall indicates her 
 presence in the garden, the smoke-house, or elsewhere 
 outdoors. Perhaps the gleam of its bright green checks 
 may be traced by the line of the osage-orange hedg- 
 ing, as she meditatively follows in the wake of a turkey- 
 hen who, with stately deliberation and furtive caution, 
 stalks slowly on the other side of the hedging, prospect- 
 ing for a nest. A still more infallible indicator of ol' 
 Miss's whereabouts is her key-basket. Whenever it 
 joins company with the fat red pincushion, or the over- 
 loaded Indian basket on the little brass-mounted stand, 
 then she is at ease in the armless rocking-chair, which 
 is just of the proper height to permit of her seeing if 
 Butler is working that asparagus bed precisely as she 
 directed him, or if Mandy is scrubbing the floor of the 
 dairy with sand, instead of just ''slopping it over," or 
 if Sandy is putting fresh straw in the duck's nest, and 
 not pelting the young ducks with broken egg-shells, a 
 favorite divertissement of vSandy's when he is quite 
 sure ol' Miss's eye is not upon him from the window 
 shaded by the pink crape myrtle. But, as Sandy is 
 never quite sure of any thing in this world, the young 
 ducks suffer no material damage at his hands, and 
 sooner or later the fresh straw will be laid in the nests 
 according to directions ; for, if Sandy may be said to 
 have grappled successfully with a single conclusion in 
 
48 on MISS. 
 
 his reckless young life, it is a conviction of the utter 
 inutility of trying to evade a command of ol' Miss's. 
 
 or Miss will manage to sandwich a good many 
 stitches in between those excursive glances that she 
 sends toward the garden or dairy or poultry-yard. 
 Or, if the work in the Indian basket is not of a very 
 pressing nature, perhaps she will read through the 
 entire editorial page of last week's New Orleans 
 Sunday Times, or one chapter of ' Middlemarch ' 
 before her next excursion. She is like a well-drilled 
 fireman or veteran in camp. The faintest intimation 
 that her presence is needed finds her alert and ready 
 for action ; never at a loss what to do or when to do 
 it ; never seen in action without her side-arms as 
 represented by her key-basket. There were enough 
 keys in that basket to have started a reasonable lock- 
 smith in business. Not one of them, however, could 
 have been dispensed with. According to ol' Miss 
 there was a moral attached to the carrying of so 
 many keys, not apparent to superficial observers. 
 Slack stewardship on her part would be the putting of 
 temptation in the way of those not trained to resist it. 
 " Her people " should never be led into temptation by 
 her own neglect of duty. Her slaves were more than 
 chattels to her, and among the many onerous duties 
 she considered to be in her own peculiar province 
 was the care of the benighted souls that inhabited 
 their well-fed and well-clothed bodies. If there was 
 not much system in ol' Miss's kingdom, there was an 
 immense amount of activity to make up for it, and 
 times and seasons could be correctly connoted b}'- a 
 blind man with an ear attent to her movements. 
 
OV MISS. 49 
 
 When the big smoke-house key, so big that ol' 
 Miss's key-baskets were always purchased with regard 
 to its mammoth proportions, was most frequently in 
 requisition, the armless rocking-chair was almost de- 
 serted and the nucleus of the family gatherings was 
 to be found occupying a kitchen chair, with hot bricks 
 under her feet, out at the smoke-house while she 
 directed and supervised the labors of a score of grin- 
 ning darkeys, reveling in the toothsome perquisites of 
 hog-killing time. Who but herself could so nicely 
 adjust the spice to the quivering mass of ''cold 
 souse " before it went into the molds, or discrimi- 
 nate between half a pinch more or less of powdered 
 sage for the sausage-meat, or see that the sugar- 
 cured hams were not saltpetered beyond redemption ? 
 If you wanted to interview ol' Miss during the period 
 of these rites and ceremonies, you must either bide 
 your time or carry yourself and your petitions to the 
 remote end of the big back yard, where in the clumsy 
 house of heavy logs, which were blackened by the as- 
 cending smoke of untold annual sacrifices to Epi- 
 curus, she was to be found commanding, exhorting, 
 entreating, upbraiding, approving, in that low slow 
 voice of hers which carried with it the power of a des- 
 pot's decree, with none of its harshness. 
 
 In the spring-time, when the plum trees grew white 
 with their dainty sprays of sweet-scented blossoms, 
 and the peach-trees grew pink, and the blackbirds 
 chatted to each other from the tasseling twigs of the 
 pecans, and the dogwood shed its summer snows unno- 
 ticed in untrodden by-paths of the forest, ol' Miss 
 would make the garden her head-quarters, and there, 
 
50 oi: MISS. 
 
 seated on the camp-chair which had such a fatal tend- 
 ency to collapse suddenly under her, with her starched 
 gingham sun-bonnet shutting out all of the world but 
 that portion that came immediately within the radius 
 of the cylindrical opening in front, with her seed-box 
 by her side, and " White's Gardening for the South " 
 opening of itself at "artichokes" on her lap, she 
 reveled in prospective over the peas and radishes 
 and pale-tinted lettuce which were to make their 
 appearance on her table fully a week before Mrs. 
 Westerman had any. She especially gloried in Mrs. 
 Westerman's discomfiture, because Mrs. Westerman 
 always insisted on having a high-priced gardener from 
 New Orleans, while ol' Miss contented herself with 
 Butler, between whom and herself honors were easy 
 on the spring garden. 
 
 When the year was growing mellow and the pink 
 and white of orchard bloom had passed into the time 
 of fruition, it was absolutely vain to look for ol' Miss 
 anywhere but under the apricot-tree near the back 
 door, where she camped out, as it were, and held high 
 carnival among her great porcelain-lined preserving 
 kettles, and her little charcoal furnace, and great 
 baskets of figs, and peaches, and apples, and pears, 
 and mountains of white sugar, which, through slow 
 and laborious processes, were transmuted into quiver- 
 ing jellies and transparent preserves that accumulated 
 on the shelves of the "lock closet," until one did not 
 know which to marvel at most, the possibility of their 
 manufacture on such a large scale, or the probability 
 of their consumption. But ol' Miss had her private 
 standard of the adequate, and no inducement could 
 
on MISS. 51 
 
 be offered to make her stay her Hand in preserving- 
 time until the regulation number of short, fat jars of 
 plum preserves, and long, lean jars of brandy peaches, 
 and tumblers of quince and apple jelly had come up 
 to that standard. 
 
 On the mantelpiece in ol' Miss's bedroom stands a 
 solid mahogany box that opens with little folding 
 doors in the front, and a sliding panel in the back. It 
 is her medicine chest, and every inch of space in it is 
 crowded with little square bottles of many-colored 
 mixtures, some in a liquid condition, others powdered. 
 Certain of these bottles have never had the white kid 
 removed from their stoppers ; others have been 
 replenished over and over and over again. Those 
 that have been replenished oftenest are labeled 
 "Calomel," '* Quinine," '^ Ipecacuanha," and " Epsom 
 Salts." She does not believe that human flesh is 
 heir to any ill that will not yield to these sovereign 
 remedies of hers, provided they are applied with skill 
 and promptness. She is herself both skillful and 
 prompt and that case, either at the " big house " or 
 in the quarters, must be grave indeed if other aid 
 than can be furnished by ol' Miss and her medicine 
 chest be called for. Few are the cabins in the quar- 
 ters that can not furnish some pleasant legend of 
 visits from ol' Miss, made in the small hours of a 
 winter's night or despite the fierce raging of a sum- 
 mer thunder-storm. Fewer still are the cabins in the 
 quarters of Magnolia Hall that have not their humor- 
 ous or regretful story to tell of the times when it was 
 ol' Miss's Sunday morning practice to walk up one 
 side of the quarter street and down the other on a 
 
52 on MISS. 
 
 mute tour of inspection, and the cabin that showed an 
 unswept front, or an untidy interior, or a reckless 
 disregard for that cleanliness which the mistress 
 ranked next to godliness, was in a bad case so far as 
 any favors in the way of " bonny clabber " from the 
 big house dairy, or cabbage plants to set out in their 
 truck patches from Butler's glass beds were to be 
 hoped for. 
 
 When winter put a temporary stop to all her pleas- 
 ant industries and drove her in upon herself ; when 
 the washouts and the guUeys in the red-clay hilly road 
 between her and her neighbors put a period to all 
 sociability, ol' Miss saw the carriage relegated to the 
 carriage-house without a sigh. There is so much to 
 do. All the winter clothes for the quarters to have cut 
 out and made, and then it is a good time to catch up 
 with the new books. They come out so dreadfully 
 fast nowadays. The bishop always stopped at Mag- 
 nolia Hall when he paid his visit to the neighborhood. 
 Whether it was because ol' Miss's father was a minis- 
 ter or because the Magnolia Hall table was celebrated 
 for its baked turtle and its buckwheat cakes, who 
 shall say ? He did not find it hard to prolong his 
 visit. Some of the hollow conventionalities of city 
 life might be missing, but all of life's gentle and 
 genuine refinements were there, and when ol' Miss 
 took her place behind the old family silver tea-set, 
 dressed in her sculpturesque black, with a knot of 
 purple ribbons nestling in the little cap that sur- 
 mounted her soft, wavy white hair, she impressed the 
 bishop, as she did every one else, with the dignity of 
 her aspect and the sweet courtesy of her manners. 
 
OV MISS. 53 
 
 or Miss has done but one inexplicable thing in all 
 her life — inexplicable to the neighbors, that is — but 
 the Recording Angel noted the deed with a smile, and 
 she never regretted the act herself. It was when the 
 war broke out, and she heard that Gus Richardson 
 had gone to the army, and she knew that old Mrs. 
 Richardson was left on the plantation alone. People 
 said that it made no difference to her whether Gus 
 was at home or not. She was quite daft ; had been 
 ever since that unfortunate affair of Walter Richard- 
 son's, her oldest son. Very few people knew the truth 
 of Walter Richardson's sad ending. 01' Miss was one 
 of the few, and that was the reason why she went over 
 to the Richardson place and brought the old lady to 
 Magnolia Hall, and dismissed the acidulous maiden 
 cousin whom Gus had hired to look after his mother. 
 It was a bold experiment, so bold that a woman less 
 stout of heart or pure of purpose than ol' Miss would 
 have hesitated long before making it. People said 
 the daft old lady sometimes grew communicative, and 
 prattled childishly about Walter and his affair. That 
 was the reason ol' Miss thought best to keep her some- 
 what excluded from her own household, while looking 
 after her with the tender solicitude of a daughter. 
 There was feeling almost akin to remorse in her ten- 
 der heart for Walter Richardson's mother ; and yet 
 why ? Was she really the wicked woman that this daft 
 mother was so fond of talking to her about, clutching 
 her sleeve to detain her by her side while she wandered 
 far back into the past, to the days when " Walter came 
 back from college, so strong and so straight, and so 
 handsome, my dear ; and such a good son as he was, 
 
54 OL MISS. 
 
 too, and such a happy mother as I — nowhere, nowhere. 
 That was before he fell in love with that Marianne 
 Holmes, who set all the men by the ears. My dear, I 
 never saw her. I think I could kill her if I did, for 
 she wasn't satisfied till she got my Walter in her toils, 
 too, my dear — got his great warm heart to beating 
 for her alone, until he forgot every thing else — me, 
 his business, his ambitions, and then, when she'd made 
 a fool of him, she laughed at him, and married another 
 man ; and then Walter, my Walter, that came home 
 to me so strong and so straight and true, went to the 
 bad — to the bad — to the bad — all for a girl's false face 
 — and he drank, oh, how he drank — and then — hist — 
 don't whisper it, my dear ; somebody said he shot at a 
 man through a window, the man he hated so badly, 
 just because he had married that false-hearted girl. 
 He didn't kill him — but he'didn't wait to find that out 
 — he — hush — he came home and shot himself — up 
 there in the blue-room. I hear him moaning there yet 
 — moaning for her — the false-hearted girl who made 
 a wreck of him — my Walter — my handsome Walter. 
 Put your ear close and I'll whisper her name. It was 
 — Marianne Holmes." That was the mad mother's 
 version. 
 
 or Miss's maiden name was Marianne Holmes, but 
 all that belonged to the period of the first portrait, 
 where the girl with the blue silk girdle about her waist 
 and the red, red rose in her hair looks out upon an 
 untried world with shy interested eyes. She regarded 
 her ministrations upon Walter Richardson's mother in 
 the light of an atonement, and never wearied in them ; 
 but when the long-strained chord snapped at laM, and 
 
OL MISS. 55 
 
 the end came, it was with a feeling like that of a dis- 
 charged debtor that ol' Miss severed the last link 
 between her and her dead past. 
 
 It was only after the war that they began to call the 
 mistress of Magnolia Hall " ol' Miss," to distinguish 
 her from the bride, her daughter-in-law, in whose favor 
 she frequently talks of abdicating. 01' Miss reigned 
 before the war. Her sway was gentle but undisputed, 
 and the conditions of her life serene and satisfying. 
 Since that event she has pursued the uneven tenor of 
 her way with a growing sense of bewilderment and 
 perplexity. She finds it impossible to reconstruct her 
 views on the subjects of home rule and domestic 
 economy, and equally impossible to work the brand- 
 new social machinery smoothly on the old principles. 
 There is, to her thinking, a universal creaking and 
 jarring and an awful amount of friction in it all. No 
 one can convince her that time will gradually adjust 
 things on a higher plane than she ever could have 
 devised. " The times are out of joint," " a very 
 important screw loose somewhere," and it is when the 
 creaking and the friction become most apparent that 
 ol' Miss repeats her threat of abdication most violently. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 POOR MISS MOLLIE. 
 
 SHE is the Colonel's daughter, and was of an age to 
 "receive attention" when the war broke out, 
 which makes her seem a veritable antique to the girls 
 who have become young ladies since that time. The 
 older members of the community call her an " old- 
 fashioned girl." Since but one fashion of living, look- 
 ing, and thinking has held sway over the Colonel's 
 daughter all these )^ears, no one resents the imputa- 
 tion for her. To the younger people she is "■ poor 
 Miss Mollie," about whom clusters the delightful mys- 
 tery of a war romance. The more romantic fancy they 
 can detect a nimbus encircling the locks that are grow- 
 ing thin and gray about Miss Mollie's temples. The 
 giddier among them would gladly assume her bitter- 
 sweet memories for the sake of being as '^ interesting " 
 as Miss Mollie is, in spite of her fading splendor and 
 accumulating years. 
 
 The Colonel's daughter is rather indifferent to than 
 ignorant of the fact that she has very little in common 
 with the planter's daughters who have matured since 
 the war, and placidly speaks of herself as belonging to 
 the '' old set," but she is very indulgent toward the 
 new set, whose practical activities and reconstructed 
 
POOR MISS MOLLIE. 57 
 
 notions are immense innovations on the old ways of 
 doing things and perpetually evoke expressions of mild 
 surprise from her. The Colonel himself sometimes 
 says regretfully that he " wishes Mollie could have seen 
 a little more of the world in her young days. If she had 
 that congers affair would never have taken such a hold 
 upon her heart and imagination." The nimbus which 
 some of the girls locate above poor Miss Mollie'stuck- 
 ing-comb is the outcome of " that Congers affair." 
 She herself is not conscious that the conditions of her 
 early girlhood had any thing undesirable in them. All 
 the planters' daughters lived the same sort of lives ; 
 indeed, there was no other life for them to lead — busy 
 lives, full of placid industries, pure aims, quaint in- 
 heritances, and simple happenings ; lives that left 
 plenty of room for the play of the imagination, but 
 never furnished noxious aliment for fancy. And since 
 the changed conditions of every thing about her have 
 in a measure forced Miss Mollie down to a more sor- 
 did level, she refers tenderly to those early days as the 
 '■'■ good old times." It is on the border line between 
 those good old times and the new ones that the Con- 
 gers affair " is located, to neither of which does it 
 belong exclusively. 
 
 Miss Mollie's horizon, both social and physical, has 
 been circumscribed in the extreme. She counts it as 
 a source of pride that she has lived all her life in one 
 house ; occupying the same room and sleeping in the 
 same spot in that room. It gives her a sense of immu- 
 tability that is immensely soothing. People who have 
 frittered existence away in several localities just escape 
 the stigma of vagabondage in Miss Mollie's estima- 
 
58 POOR MISS MOLLIE. 
 
 tion. She marvels to hear girls speak of life on the 
 plantation as lonely. To her the woods that crowd 
 close up about the ragged osage-orange hedge that 
 defines her father's proprietary lines ; the quaint old 
 garden, where cabbages and azaleas and turnips and 
 violets contend for supremacy with the most demo- 
 cratic equality of privilege ; the hard-beaten path that 
 leads down to the little boat-house that shelters a fleet 
 of battered and leaky skiffs, are all populous with 
 guests who always come at her beck and never weary 
 her. What if the most of them do dwell in the land of 
 shadows ? They are very real to her, and she has cer- 
 tain spots and seasons for holding audiences with each 
 one of them. They never respond to her invitation 
 with formal " regrets." 
 
 When she looks out of her bedroom window she 
 sees a triangular section of a lake, which is blue as a 
 sapphire or gray as granite, according to the humor of 
 the sky that smiles or frowns above it. She sees a 
 mulberry tree whose trunks has accumulated many a 
 ring since the time when she used to wait so impa- 
 tiently for the ripening of the marrowy fruit that had 
 such a fascination for her immature taste. She sees a 
 crape myrtle tree that has been the undisputed domin- 
 ion of many generations of mocking birds that have 
 waked her up of moon-lit nights with their ecstatic 
 warblings. She was small then, and the room used to 
 be called the *' nursery ; " and Mammy, dear old 
 Mammy, slept there with her on a pallet so close to 
 her trundle-bed that if she got frightened in the night 
 all she had to do was to put her hand out in the dark, 
 sure of its being clasped tenderly by another hand, 
 
POOR MISS MOLLIE. 59 
 
 that was black and horny and faithful. The old trun- 
 dle-bed stands unmoved now under the stately four- 
 poster that Miss Mollie sleeps in, except on the rare 
 occasion of a child guest ; but whenever it is rolled 
 into view Mammy '* materializes," and Miss Mollie 
 goes back through the years to meet her, and looks up 
 again into a face that was never ugly, or wrinkled, or 
 expressionless to her, because it was Mammy's dear 
 old face, and she feels again the hard hands carefully 
 tucking the bed-clothes about her drowsy limbs, and 
 she hears again the beginning of song or story droned 
 out patiently by way of lullaby. She could not give 
 you the "finis" of song or story. She never heard 
 them in those far-away nights, when Mammy hovered 
 about her until her senses were fast locked in slumber. 
 When the mulberries grow black (she could reach 
 them now from the nursery window, the tree has 
 spread and grown so) she sees two little sticky, 
 besmeared boy faces surreptitiously thrust in at that 
 same window, so that Fred and Al might make sure of 
 Mammy's absence before making a plunge for the 
 washstand that stood in the corner. The boys 
 were afraid of Mammy and Mammy was afraid of the 
 mulberries. She prophesied awful things from the 
 eating of them every year. There was nothing dead- 
 lier in her economy of life. She had never heard then 
 of Federal bullets or of Shiloh or Manassas. When 
 the crape myrtle puts on its pink glory now, and the 
 mocking-birds nest in its leafy branches, Miss Mollie 
 peoples the nursery afresh with the boys and with 
 Mammy, and who shall dare say she occupies the old 
 room all alone ? 
 
6o POOR AIISS MOLLIE. 
 
 She never went from home to school. Few plant- 
 ers of means ever sent their daughters to boarding- 
 school, unless, perhaps, to New Orleans for a year's 
 finishing. The family governess was a universal 
 institution and an honored member of the home circle. 
 Fathers and mothers of those times and that locality 
 held that the woman to whom they could be content to 
 intrust the moral and mental training of their children 
 must surely be worthy of the highest consideration 
 from themselves, and as the governess's duties 
 involved the preparation of the boys for college, her 
 acquirements must be varied and solid. In a room 
 up stairs, pierced by a dormer window, a room which 
 has always been superlatively hot in summer and super- 
 latively cold in winter, the dust gathers thick, and 
 rests undisturbed on a high-colored map of the world 
 hung over the long table about which she and 
 " Mademoiselle " and Fred and Al used to gather in 
 school hours. Here, where the ghosts of long-erased 
 sums still gleam chalkily on the little blackboard, that 
 was then her stumbling-block, Miss Mollie holds pleas- 
 ant communion with a gentle wraith that once inhab- 
 ited the body of her governess. The long table has 
 come to base uses since she and the boys wrote their 
 copies on it and distributed the ink impartially between 
 the books, its green baize cover, and their own small 
 fingers. The Colonel's wife uses it now to dry her 
 yeast-cakes on, and the old school-room is still the 
 scene of occasional ferment. The blackboard is hung 
 about with bunches of thyme and sage and strings of 
 red peppers, and has ceased to be an instrument of 
 torture. The room under the roof is a sort of general- 
 
POOR MISS MOLLIE. 6 1 
 
 Utility room now, but Miss Mollie never enters there 
 without a consciousness of spirits entering with her. 
 She was quite certain in those days that Mademoiselle 
 embodied in her own small person all the wisdom 
 of the ages, and she recalls now with infinite' tender- 
 ness how gently she was led along the path of knowl- 
 edge, perhaps at a sauntering gait which never stirred 
 her to any emulous zeal ; but what of that ? Made- 
 moiselle's position became something of a sinecure 
 after she had fitted the boys for college, but she stayed 
 on until the time came for Miss Mollie to have the 
 finishing touches applied in New Orleans ; then she 
 passed out of the realm of actualities into that of 
 memories, where she will abide forevermore. 
 
 It was an idyllic sort of life the Colonel's daughter 
 led on the plantation after the completion of her school- 
 days, with no exciting breaks in it but an annual trip 
 to New Orleans, when her father went to see his com- 
 mission merchants, and her mother to do the shopping, 
 which was all condensed into that one excursion. 
 When one's nearest neighbor is five miles off, one nat- 
 urally becomes self-reliant in the matter of entertain- 
 ment, and to the Colonel's daughter there could be no 
 possible lack of it, so long as her little mare Fanny 
 was at her command, or there remained unread a sin- 
 gle book in the old-fashioned desk case at one end of 
 the big hall, or there was a skiff and a pair of oars to 
 ply among the lily-pads, or her " squab " house har- 
 bored its multitude of *' fan-tails," " pouters," and 
 " tumblers." Beaux were not among the necessities 
 of life, but were regarded rather in the light of agree- 
 able incidents, and on the rare occasions when a young 
 
62 POOR MISS MOLLIS. 
 
 man formed one at the family table or slept in the 
 spare chamber up under the roof, it was not without a 
 maidenly flutter in the region of her heart that Miss 
 Mollie would make the furtive addition of a flower or 
 bright fibbon to her toilet, condemning herself the 
 while for a silly creature. But the maidenly flutter 
 was scarcely more than the startled motion of some 
 shy thing unused to intrusion from the outer world, 
 and the Colonel not unfrequently congratulated him- 
 self that Mollie was too sensible a girl to drop into any 
 fellow's mouth like an over-ripe cherry. 
 
 Then the war came, and the zeal of Miss Mollie's 
 patriotism fairly consumed her. The woolen comfort- 
 ers that she crocheted, the morocco " soldiers' com- 
 panions " that she contrived, the fearfully and wonder- 
 fully knit socks she was responsible for, the shapeless 
 shirts that she made out of her mother's parlor broc- 
 atelle curtains were beyond computation. Her ideas 
 on states' rights and the question of secession may 
 have been slightly befogged, but she was quite clear 
 on the question of her own duty in the premises, and 
 that was to uphold with might and main and needle 
 the side that her father and Fred and Al had espoused. 
 The preparations for war seemed rather an august 
 display of dignity at first, and she was quite sure noth- 
 ing could be more becoming to a man than the Con- 
 federate gray uniform. She really prided herself on 
 the possession of two brothers so well qualified to set 
 it off, and was consumed with regret that she herself 
 was nothing but a useless female. Her patriotism 
 rose to white heat when the Delancy Battery, fresh 
 from New Orleans, encamped in the neighborhood. 
 
POOR MJSS MOLLIS. 6 
 
 o 
 
 and the atmosphere was permeated with uniforms and 
 canteens. If she had ever entertained any doubt of 
 the " sanctity of the cause " her father and brothers 
 had espoused, every doubt vanished forever when she 
 was first brought into close personal contact with the 
 First Lieutenant of the Delancy Battery, whom her 
 father brought home in his buggy from the camp one 
 day quite ill. Those who knew best said that Lieu- 
 tenant Congers had indulged recklessly in green mus- 
 cadines, but the halo of romance the Colonel's daugh- 
 ter promptly cast about the pallid-faced young soldier 
 forbade any such gross conclusions, and no wounded 
 crusader was ever nursed back to health and happiness 
 with tenderer assiduity than was this sick Lieutenant 
 by the Colonel's daughter. Ah ! the happy hours of 
 his convalescence. Oh ! the revelations of the sweet- 
 ness life may hold ! And now, when the Colonel's 
 daughter saunters through the pasture when the wild 
 Cherokee roses are in bloom, or catches the delicate 
 fragrance of the sweet-gum afloat in the air, she is not 
 companionless, for there walks by her side a something 
 that has yet the power to stir her pulses to quicker vi- 
 bration, and it is then that the nimbus glows brightest. 
 The Delancy Battery was called to the front after 
 awhile and its Lieutenant marched away with it, look- 
 ing very handsome and very happy. Wonderful 
 stories came back, perhaps true, perhaps not, but 
 there was no room for doubt in her soul. It was then 
 that she developed into a great newspaper reader. 
 Not that there were many newspapers to read, but 
 occasionally a copy of one printed on wall-paper, or 
 a flimsy specin:en of Confederate manufacture, fur- 
 
64 POOR MISS MOLLIE. 
 
 nished meager details of the doings of the army, and 
 if by chance the name of the Delancy Battery figured 
 in it, then it was very sure to find its way into a cer- 
 tain box in Miss MolUe's top bureau drawer that al- 
 ready contained a Confederate button with the Lou- 
 isiana pelican on it, a torn scrap of gold lace, and a 
 little pencil sketch of herself the Lieutenant had made 
 one evening when she had rowed him aimlessly about 
 among the lily pads. But long lapses of death-like 
 silence would intervene when every thing in life was 
 left to conjecture, when not a crumb of comfort was 
 available from any quarter. It was then that the 
 Colonel's daughter would fling herself fiercely into the 
 work of weaving for the soldiers, knitting for them, 
 and praying for them. The neighbors seemed to come 
 closer together in those days, and every body knew 
 that poor Miss Mollie w^as in a state of chronic anxiety 
 about the Lieutenant, and every body shared her anx- 
 iety in a qualified degree. Conventional secretiveness 
 and society subterfuges concerning '' engagements " 
 counted for nothing in those serious days. 
 
 Then a day came when Miss Mollie herself, flitting 
 from one plantation to the other on the back of her 
 little mare Fariny, told all the girls they must help her 
 to make out a trousseau, as her own wardrobe was re- 
 duced to a pair of Indian moccasins that had been 
 sent her from Saratoga before the war, and had orna- 
 mented the parlor etagere until the exigencies of war 
 times compelled Miss Mollie to wear them, and a 
 basque made of bedticking and ornamented with 
 black braid. Fancy a wedding trousseau manufac- 
 tured with shops and milliners left out ! Such an 
 
POOR MISS MOl.LTE. 65 
 
 overhauling of trunks as was never seen before, such 
 donations of silk stockings and quaint old brocades 
 that had been laid away in rose leaves long before 
 Miss Mollie had come into the world, such a resurrec- 
 tion of kid gloves that had been rolled up in blue 
 starch paper to keep them from spotting, until the 
 days of parties and entertainments should come again. 
 What if the dresses were of antique make and obso- 
 lete pattern ? they were for her wedding outfit, and 
 love made good all deficiencies. 
 
 The day and the hour came ; the Lieutenant did 
 not. There was no telegraphing backward and for- 
 ward in those days, no lifting of loads of anxiety on 
 the pin point of an electric machine ; there was not 
 even a slower-moving letter to tell Miss Mollie that 
 her lover was keeping faith with her, but could not 
 keep tryst. Only an awful silence, a dreary looking 
 for that which never came, a settling into blank des- 
 pair, which came finally as absolute relief from con- 
 vulsions of hope and fear ; and then Miss Mollie took 
 up the old life as well as she could, in hands that had 
 grown heavy and listless. The gathered trousseau 
 was locked away in two great trunks, and the first 
 girl that was married at the close of the war was the 
 recipient. Nothing direct ever came from the Lieu- 
 tenant. Theories and rumors concerning the affair 
 were numerous and varied. No one was ever able to 
 discover which one of them Miss Mollie herself in- 
 clined to. She seemed to have condensed all the ro- 
 mance of her life into that " Congers affair," and no one 
 has ever essayed to stand in the position of acknowl- 
 edged lover to Miss Mollie since then. 
 
66 POOR Miss MOLLIE. 
 
 She never moped visibly or railed at the other sex, 
 after the fashion of disappointed women generally. 
 Her interest in Confederate newspapers continued 
 unabated up to the day of Lee's surrender. She fre- 
 quently amuses visitors of the younger generation 
 now by showing them her collection of Confederate 
 souvenirs. There is the Confederate button that she 
 wore on her left shoulder, to fasten the ribbon stream- 
 ers there, on the day that she stood on the court- 
 house steps with a lot of other girls, listening to a ter- 
 rifically long speech made by the strong-minded 
 woman of the parish by way of presenting the flag 
 they had all worked at so fiercely to finish before the 
 Redtown Rifles left for the seat of war. The sun had 
 blazed down upon their bare heads on that occasion 
 mercilessly, but the inward fires of patriotism had 
 blazed with a nullifying ardor, and she had nothing 
 but pleasant memories associated with that brass but- 
 ton. There was a lot of federal note-paper captured 
 at Shiloh, grown yellow now with age, at the left-hand 
 corner of which were vignettes with all manner of blood- 
 thirsty sentiments and threats of annihilation for the 
 other side. They are very funny now. There is a 
 small fortune in Confederate bills, ranging from deli- 
 cate pink fractional currency up to the bluish-gray 
 twenty-dollar notes, whose only value now lies in the 
 fact of their being curious mementoes ; there are 
 samples of cloth woven by Miss MoUie's own hands 
 on the little clumsy plantation loom that has long since 
 been cut up for firewood, and there is a lock of Gen- 
 eral Lee's hair, and his name on a blank sheet of paper, 
 which he generously forwarded her in response to a 
 
POOR MISS M0T.L7K. 67 
 
 prettily worded petition for them. Miss Mollie rarely 
 opens the envelope that contains these sacred me- 
 mentoes without giving her listeners a graphic descrip- 
 tion of the day when the news of Lee's surrender fell 
 upon their stunned ears. She will go back freely and 
 volubly to the beginning of the war, but always skips 
 the Delancy Battery. 
 
 She knows only theoretically of a busier, more tem- 
 pestuous, more eventful life than her own. She can 
 entertain her father's guests by meeting them intelli- 
 gently in discussion of American or European politics 
 or the state of the crops, as their own mental trend 
 may suggest. She can entertain her mother's guests 
 with an equally intelligent discussion of the respective 
 claims of " Plymouth Rocks "over *' Brahmas." But 
 her own special industry is floriculture. The names 
 of Peter Henderson and Henry Vick mean more to 
 her than any politician's at Washington. She is con- 
 stantly getting packages of cuttiiigs and bulbs and 
 new varieties of annuals. She has become quite an 
 authority on roses, and the Neapolitan violets that 
 grow in thick masses in the border beds of the veg- 
 etable garden excel any ever grown in the forests for 
 sweetness and vigor. She reads the Northern papers 
 as industriously as she used to read Confederate 
 papers. She knows that woman has taken a tremen- 
 dous stride to the front in these latter days, and when 
 she reads of them as doctors and lawyers and lectur- 
 ers and advanced thinkers and talkers, it is with a sort 
 of pitying horror, for, of course they must be horrid 
 to look at or to come in contact with. She marvels 
 at them, but does not envy them. 
 
^^ POOR MISS MOLLIE, 
 
 She rarely projects a plan very far into the 
 future, never further than the end of the year ; then, 
 if the crop turns out well (every thing is predicated 
 on that), she will ask father to fence her in a new 
 flower-garden or buy her a new saddle. She is still 
 a child to the Colonel and his wife, and as the condi- 
 tions of her life grow more fixed every year, she will 
 never be any thing else. She has never outlined a 
 mission for herself, even in the wildest flights of her 
 imagination. Her attitude toward the future is simply 
 one of waiting. If her life has been aimless, it has 
 also been spotless, and when the planter's daughter 
 finally goes the way of all flesh, let some one inscribe 
 for her epitaph: " Blessed are the pure in heart : 
 for they shall see God." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MAYO BOYS. 
 
 PEOPLE prophesied all manner of adverse things 
 when it was known throughout Horseshoe Bend 
 that old Judge Mayo (who lived in splendid style at 
 his town place, up behind the Mississippi Bluffs, on 
 the revenues drawn from the two swamp plantations 
 over in Louisiana) had concluded to put his two boys 
 on the two contiguous places and give them '' full 
 swing." Full swing had such an excessively liberal 
 sound, and plantation life offered such immense scope 
 for all sorts of swings, that it quite curdled the blood 
 in the veins of two dear old maiden ladies, living out 
 at *' the landing," to think of those two Mayo boys 
 coming straight from Harvard and settling down on 
 the plantations as their own masters. " Absolutely no 
 restraint, you know, and with hired overseers and a lot 
 of obsequious slaves to look up to them and make 
 them think they were little tin gods on wheels." 
 
 The Mayo boys were aware of their ultimate desti- 
 nation before leaving home for a four years' course at 
 Harvard. The Judge had thought it best to be open 
 with them, otherwise they might be planning careers 
 for themselves when they got off with a lot of restless 
 young fellows at the North, and as he was getting old, 
 
70 THE MAYO BOYS. 
 
 he would like to see for himself, before he died, what 
 sort of planters the boys would make. He felt pretty 
 sure of Rafe, but Benny caused him many an anxious 
 thought. Not that the boys had displayed any espe- 
 cial hankering after independent careers. In fact, it 
 was rather pleasant than otherwise, when the fellows 
 of their mess would be discussing plans for the mak- 
 ing of future livelihoods with a greater or less degree 
 of anxiety, for them to descant, unboastfully, upon 
 the ready-made establishments that were waiting their 
 occupancy in the far-away swamps of Louisiana. This 
 absence of anxiety on the " living " question did not 
 tend to mental or physical inactivity on the part of the 
 Mayo boys. The spur of ambition is just as keen, 
 oftentimes, as the spur of necessity, and when they 
 finally turned their steps Southward, with their diplo- 
 mas in their trunks, the mess mourned the departure 
 of its first-honor man in Rafe, and the boat-club lost 
 its champion stroke-oar in Benny. 
 
 With a large sense of independence and a small 
 sense of responsibility, the Judge's sons entered upon 
 the practical duties of life as planters in their own 
 names. From a practical point of view it is hard to 
 determine what immediate bearing a collegiate course 
 had upon the duties of a planter. It was not, how- 
 ever, as if they were to have the direct personal super- 
 vision of matters, as in the case of Northern farmers. 
 The overseer was for that ; but the financial and exec- 
 utive ability to control the expenditure of a large 
 plantation and maintain a general supervision of the 
 welfare of several hundred souls must abide in the 
 planter himself. 
 
THE MAYO BOYS. 7 1 
 
 A spirit of pleasant emulation sprang up between 
 the two plantations that were divided from each other 
 simply by a strip of woodland that they held in com- 
 mon as pasture. Rafe, as the oldest son in the family, 
 occupied what had been the family residence before 
 the Judge and the Judge's daughters had outgrown 
 the plantation. It was quite a spacious mansion 
 compared with Benny's four-room cottage, but the 
 instincts of primogeniture were strong enough to 
 make it seem all right to the younger son. Benny was 
 ahead on the housekeeper question, for the Mammy 
 who had rocked them both to sleep in the days of 
 their infancy was at the head of his menage while 
 Rafe had- to satisfy himself with the wife of his head 
 teamster, whose light bread and spiced beef and 
 hogshead cheese could never stand comparison with 
 Mammy's. After the Judge had seen both the boys 
 established in their own houses, had selected good 
 overseers for each, and had crowned his paternal 
 efforts for their success in life by giving each a buggy 
 and a pair of horses, he considered he had done all 
 he was called on to do, and formally emancipated 
 them from leading-strings by informing them that he 
 expected them to use their own judgment in the con- 
 duct of their own affairs, only referring to him in 
 cases of special emergency. " It was the only way to 
 make men of them," the Judge declared in subsequent 
 confidence to his wife. 
 
 The world looked a spacious playground to the 
 Judge's sons. What if their own particular corner of 
 it was a trifle barren of interest or excitement ? There 
 was always the possibility of escape on numerous lit- 
 
72 - THE MAYO BOYS. 
 
 tie '' business trips " to New Orleans, which were 
 pretty sure to occur about the time of the fall or 
 spring races ; a few weeks at the White Sulphur or 
 Old Point Comfort during the heat of summer, and 
 the constant solace of a lot of fellows up from the city 
 during the fishing or the snipe season. Not that they 
 were going to give themselves over to the pursuit of 
 pleasure. Indeed, no ; they were going to '* lay over " 
 the older and slower-moving planters so far with their 
 improved machinery, and their imported stock and 
 what not, that Clifton, Rafe's place, and Hardscrab- 
 ble, Benny's, should be regarded as the model places 
 of the parish. There was an immense sensation 
 involved in these first experimental days. Innovation 
 by youth is always regarded as a species of imperti- 
 nence by experienced old age. The Judge's boys 
 had brought home a lot of new-fangled notions from 
 the North that wouldn't "go down" in their own 
 neighborhood without strenuous opposition. What 
 use did a nigger have for a buggy-plow ? or who wanted 
 his mules and horses stabbed to death on barbed-wire 
 fences ? The Judge's old brindle bull had been good 
 enough, who approved of the putting of as much 
 money into one head of stock as those boys had flung 
 away on that imported short- horn ? " Too much 
 Greek and Latin and too little common-sense over at 
 Clifton and Hardscrabble." The buggy-plow never 
 did '' go down." It finally found rest under a big 
 pecan tree in Rafe's front yard, and never served any 
 nobler purpose than as a plaything for a lot of shining- 
 cheeked little darkeys, who would scamper away 
 incontinently at the sight of Mars' Rafe's horse turn- 
 
THE MAYO BOYS. 73 
 
 ing in at the big gate, or for a roost at night for truant 
 chickens who abhorred the restraint of the padlocked 
 henhouse and absented themselves regularly until 
 after locking-up time. 
 
 The rivalry between the two plantations and the 
 brothers was a thing that permeated every depart- 
 ment of each place, and invaded every spot but their 
 own hearts. There they were at one, and a word or 
 an imputation cast upon either was as fiercely and 
 hotly resented as if self alone had been attacked. If 
 Rafe's mule-team appeared at the landing one week 
 with six mules and twenty bales of cotton, Ben's 
 would appear the next with eight mules and thirty 
 bales. If the Hardscrabble steam press turned out 
 bales weighing 550 pounds, the Clifton engineer 
 would run the risk of " blowing up the whole con- 
 cern " but what his bales should tip the beam at 600. 
 The race as to which place should exhibit the first 
 " bloom, " or send the first bale of cotton from the 
 parish, or get the crop out longest before Christmas, 
 was prolific of good results to both places, and served 
 to render the first years of life on the plantation more 
 endurable to two boys whose active young brains and 
 strong young bodies bounded with all the vigor and 
 ambition of early manhood. 
 
 The industrial emulation that had divided the whole 
 neighborhood into partisans worked differently on the 
 differing organizations of the two Mayo boys in the 
 long-run. The Judge had made the error, so common 
 with parents, of prescribing the samer egimen for en- 
 tirely different constitutions. The spirit of enterprise 
 that had been conceived in jocularity, entered in and 
 
took possession of Rafe Mayo's entire being. People 
 began to say there was a " good deal of come-out in 
 the boy." His buggy and horses were seen less often 
 waiting for him at the steamboat landing. He himself 
 was seen less often whittling a bench on Gravesend's 
 store gallery while he waited for the mail packet to 
 land, so that he could get a Memphis or New Orleans 
 paper. Bachelor parties out at Clifton, during the 
 partridge or the fishing season, were heard of less 
 often. When Rafe did ride into town it would be on 
 a horse saddled with a plain McClellan tree, in- 
 stead of the fancy English saddle, with its stamped- 
 leather" splashers "he had sported so jauntily at first, 
 and instead of the buttoned shoes that had excited 
 such unfavorable comment from the store-gallery crit- 
 ics, his trowsers-legs were stuffed into the tops of an 
 honest pair of mud boots. And when finally a colored 
 percale shirt-bosom was discovered between his cravat 
 and waist-coat, there could no longer be a doubt that 
 Rafe Mayo was settling down to business and was 
 going to prove a credit to his family and to the parish. 
 His name soon began to be mentioned exclusively in 
 connection with short-horns and Berkshires and South- 
 downs, and the dust gathered thicker and thicker on 
 the books on the shelves he had filled with such pride at 
 his installation. Rafe's new departure was immensely 
 funny in Ben's eyes. Of course, it couldn't last. 
 But he wasn't going to turn mole too, because Rafe 
 had. The Mayos always had been high-livers and had 
 kept an open-house. Somebody would have to sus- 
 tain the credit of the family name. What was to 
 hinder ? The total absence of female influence in his 
 
THE MAYO BOYS. 75 
 
 home was one more barrier removed. Not that there 
 were not within three or four miles of him women of 
 the lovehest mental and physical type, but three or 
 four miles is a long distance when the whole distance 
 is one long stretch of bottomless mud ; and his mother 
 and sisters were over there at the town place, glad 
 enough always to see him and Rafe, but not depend- 
 ent on them in any respect for comfort and happiness. 
 Well if they had been. Well for the affluent young 
 slave-owner, with his large independence and limitless 
 authority, if something or some one had been abso- 
 lutely dependent upon him for comfort and support. 
 Well for him if some nobler outlet than Berkshire pigs 
 or Southdown sheep had been at hand for his virile 
 energy and teeming fancy to expend themselves upon. 
 People began to say, '' The wild streak in the Mayo 
 blood was coming out in Ben." His horses and buggy 
 were 'seen far oftener waiting for him at the steam- 
 boat landing. He himself was seen oftener than ever 
 whittling a bench on Gravesend's store gallery, while 
 he waited for the mail-packet to land, so he could run 
 aboard and get one of those inimitable sherry cobblers 
 that were procurable only at its bar. Why not ? 
 There was nothing to do when he went back home but 
 to eat dinner by himself, smoke a lonely cigar, or ride 
 over to Rafe's. He couldn't always procure fellows 
 to help him kill time, and as for Rafe, well, he'd taken 
 to preaching of late, and that was the last feather. 
 He would not\i^ preached at. Perhaps if he had seen 
 any signs of deterioration of his property, it might 
 have served as a wholesome check, but there was none; 
 his overseer's interest in affairs was too well-grounded 
 
7 6 THE MAYO BOYS. 
 
 for that. People said : " It was a pity. Ben Mayo was 
 such a noble fellow, so absolutely incapable of a mean- 
 ness or a lie. Apt to go off at half-cock, but as quick 
 to apologize for a mistake as to resent an injury." 
 Rafe confessed, confidentially to his father, that he 
 feared Ben was getting into a snarl with his commis- 
 sion merchants, but the Judge was a Brutus-like per- 
 sonage, who preferred letting his son sow and reap 
 his crop of wild oats without let or hindrance from 
 him. 
 
 It was when the secession excitement was at white 
 heat, and the spirit of recklessness pervaded the air, 
 that Ben made his last trip to New Orleans. He was 
 a well-known and always a welcome figure on the deck 
 or in the great brilliant saloon where, when the supper 
 tables had been cleared away and the colored cloths 
 were put back on the round tables, cards were in order. 
 The ladies, far back in the luxurious cabin over the 
 stern, might see four heads clustered about a table, 
 but no sound or exclamation floated to them to shock 
 or anger their sense of the proprieties. Nothing but 
 gentlemen-players playing for recreation, as the boat 
 m.ade her deliberate way from landing to landing, pick- 
 ing up a bale of cotton here, a passenger there, a sack 
 or two of seed in another place, leaving her living 
 freight to beguile itself as best it might for three or 
 four days and nights. 
 
 No one ever knew just exactly what happened at the 
 card-table. Ben Mayo made one at it on that trip, but 
 the spirit of recklessness that pervaded the air must 
 have been in his breast to excess, for he was losing, 
 find as tlie code forbids any man to draw out of the 
 
THE MAYO BOYS. 77 
 
 game while he is winning, unless by consent of the 
 loser, he played on and on until every man had dropped 
 away from the table, excepting the one who could not 
 stop and the one who would not ; on and on until the 
 lamps in the long cabin had all been turned down to 
 the lowest notch save those immediately over bistable ; 
 on and on until the spectators dropped away yawning 
 to their stateroom, and there was no one left in 
 sight but a sleepy officer nodding over the big stove 
 at one end of the social hall, and a cabin-boy, alert for 
 orders from the players, who were oblivious of every 
 thing but the mad stake they were playing for. The 
 end came at last. There was no sound to indicate it 
 to the sleepy officer by the stove or to the cabin-boy 
 alert for fees. Only a gleam of triumph in one pair of 
 eyes — only a sort of spasmodic contraction about Ben 
 Mayo's lips. Then he got up, very white in the face 
 but firm of step, went to the clerk's office, wrote a few 
 lines, came back to the table, handed it to his oppo- 
 nent with a silent bow, and went off to his stateroom 
 to sleep off, temporarily, the reflection that Hardscrab- 
 ble was no longer his property, nor had he any more 
 right in any of its appurtenances. It was a trifle hard 
 to be cabined with the new owner of Hardscrabble for 
 another day and night ; but the river was low, and the 
 boat was slow, and — fortunately — they were both gen- 
 tlemen, so no one on board was any the wiser for the 
 transaction. If Ben Mayo suffered for his reckless- 
 ness, he was plucky enough to hide it admirably, and, 
 indeed, spent more time than usual the next day back 
 in the ladies' cabin, where his opponent's wife and 
 daughters were- 
 
7^ THE AfAYO BOYS. 
 
 It wasn't easy to tell Rafe about it when he went 
 back home. But he did it without flinching, and to 
 Rafe's natural question, " What are you going to do ?" 
 he simply answered, " I don't know ; give me time to 
 pull myself together." It wasn't easy to tell his peo- 
 ple that they all belonged to another man and were to 
 pass from under his good-natured sway into untried 
 hands. There were a lot of the family hands on his 
 place, and he knew '' they'd howi " at the idea of call- 
 ing anybody but a Mayo master. He didn't intend to 
 try to tell the Judge until he had pulled himself to- 
 gether. He'd been an awful fool, and there was no 
 getting around that. He didn't try to exculpate 
 himself. 
 
 Just then the thunder of Sumter's guns reverberated 
 throughout the land, and the demand for volunteers was 
 hailed by one of the Mayo boys with a sense of relief. 
 Now he knew what he was going to do. At last he 
 could answer Rafe's question. He went out as a pri- 
 vate in the first company that left the parish, and left 
 the telling of his reckless play to Rafe. Went with an 
 outfit slightly incongruous with his position as a pri- 
 vate in a company of infantry, taking with him Bob, 
 who had been his body-servant since the day of his 
 return from Harvard, and who had been excepted 
 from the calamity that overtook the rest of his people. 
 It never occurred to Bob that Mars' Ben's silver boot- 
 hooks and suspender buckles would be slightly out of 
 place in camp ; nor that his splendid hookah had bet- 
 ter be left behind ; in consequence of all which Bob 
 ignorantly secured for his beloved master the soubri- 
 quet of Fancy Mayo. No one ever called him so when 
 
THE MAYO BOYS. 79 
 
 he could hear it, for there was a dangerous gleam in 
 Private Mayo's eyes that precluded trifling. How he 
 lived down the sneers his silver boot-hooks and other 
 costly accessories involved him in, how he came to be 
 spoken of as '' one of the noblest fellows that ever 
 lived," how he made his mark the first time Company 
 C went into action, used to be told with many varia- 
 tions about many camp-fires. But Bob's story, as he 
 told it simply and tearfully when he went back home 
 alone, is the accepted one in the Mayo family. Bob 
 shall tell it this once more : 
 
 " He needn't a-died at all. Mars' Benny needn't, but 
 it was a choice 'twix' him and de odder one. Our folks 
 was runnin'. Dey was 'bleege' t'run. Dey b'en 
 fightin' and fallin' back all day. Dey was jis' nat'rally 
 gin out. I hed catch a calv'ry horse and brung him to 
 whar' Mars' Benny wuz tryin' to help a wounded sol- 
 dier on to his feet. He were one uv our men, but he 
 did'n' even b'long to our company. I sez, sorter hur- 
 ried like, ' Git in de saddle. Mars' Benny, and we kin 
 bofe git away. I'll ride behin' you.' Stidder that, he 
 look at me sorter commandin' lak an' say, ' Bob, help 
 me to put this man in the saddle, and you hold him on 
 the horse and gallop for dear life,' ' But how 'bout 
 you ? ' I sez. He jes' roar at me — ' Do what I tell 
 you ! ' an' I done it. The hurt soldier was swooned 
 an' did'n' know who was handlin' him. I heard Mars' 
 Benny say under his bref lak, ' He's got a wife and 
 daughter to mourn for him — I have not.' I galloped 
 away wid dat strange man in front o' me, but my heart 
 was achin' for Mars' Benny. I went back nex' day 
 an' foun' him. He looked mighty white an' peaceful 
 
8o THE MA VO BO YS. 
 
 like as if he heerd de angels whisperin' t' him, 'Well 
 done, thou good and faithful servant,' but he never 
 open his han'sum e)^es no more." 
 
 The man whom Benny Mayo had put on the horse 
 in front of Bob was the new owner of Hardscrabble. 
 The deed to the place had not been made out legally 
 before the war put a stop to all business, and his death 
 would have absolved Ben from his debt of honor. But 
 it was not in him to seek escape by such quibbling 
 with life or death. He had his own code. He 
 lived and died by it. If every man really is the 
 result of the sum of his ancestors, plus his own en- 
 vironment, who shall say the result in Ben Mayo's 
 case was — ? 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 UNCLE LIGE. 
 
 IF it is true that in the beginning of his career Uncle 
 Lige had greatness of a superficial sort thrust upon 
 him, it is no less true that in later years he achieved 
 it in that solid form which comes from the unconscious 
 exercise of heroism under circumstances calculated to 
 try the mettle of men of far higher mental and moral 
 culture than he could ever claim. 
 
 In these later years, if it should be put to the vote 
 which could best be dispensed with on the Caruthers 
 place, one of the many brick pillars on which the "big 
 house" is supported, as on stilts, or Uncle Lige, who 
 is, in his way, a very important support too, it would 
 perhaps result in a tie. In point of seniority he ante- 
 dates every member of the white family with whose 
 fortunes his own are inextricably mixed up. He is 
 emphatically " the old man " to them, and they are 
 one and all " children " to him. The tie that binds 
 them together is founded in mutual respect and affec- 
 tion. They have a community of interest in the 
 present, and the pleasant as well as sorrowful memo- 
 ries of the past they hold in common ; whatever of 
 good may be hidden in the future it is safe to predict 
 will be shared impartially. Neither side would will- 
 ingly have it otherwise. 
 
82 UNCLE LICE. 
 
 The date of Uncle Lige's birth is lost in the fogs of 
 remote ages. Even the exigent questioning of the 
 census-taker has never extracted any thing more defi- 
 nite from him than that he '' was here w'en de stars 
 fell." This system of chronology is simple and orig- 
 inal. The earlier events of his life all occurred either 
 before or after the year the stars fell ; later ones, 
 before or after General Jackson died. Whosoever 
 insists upon greater accuracy on Uncle Lige's part is 
 set down by him as being " onreasonable an' exactin'." 
 His stock of superstitions is large and indestructible, 
 and as long as he remains the autocrat he is on the 
 Caruthers place, no cattle will ever be branded on the 
 wane of the moon, or any potatoes be planted on its 
 increase, and Friday will never witness the beginning 
 of an undertaking. 
 
 Uncle Lige's immediate connection with the white 
 family dates from the day of his accidental promotion 
 from the position of head teamster on the plantation 
 to that of family coachman, the most dignified posi- 
 tion attainable by any body in his sphere of life. He 
 never wearies of detailing the circumstances of his 
 promotion, and his sense of morality is nowise shocked 
 that his own rise was in consequence of a fellow-mor- 
 tal's fall. If any casuist draws his attention to this 
 point. Uncle Lige dismisses it with an airy declaration 
 that '' ev'y tub mus' stan' on its own bott'm." The 
 story of his transplanting from the quarters to be 
 " yard folks " he tells with a chuckling prelude that 
 never failed to arouse " French John " (his supplanted 
 rival) to the highest pitch of frenzy. Since death has 
 closed French John's ears, and terminated a long and 
 
UNCLE LIGE. 83 
 
 rancorous feud between him and Uncle Lige, the old 
 man tells the story less often and with less gusto. 
 There are still some of the " chillun " young enough 
 to extract amusement from the oft-told tale, the more 
 especially as it deals with the mystical period when 
 the grandfather, who is only a memory and a portrait 
 now, and the grandmother, who is a delicate, fading 
 reality, were young and romantic. How queer to 
 associate the idea of youth and romance with that 
 slight, feeble form, those faded, sunken eyes, and the 
 delicate, blue-veined temples, about which two pretty 
 little curls of snow-white hair droop, all of which go 
 to make up " Grandma " ! 
 
 Uncle Lige craves one more hearing : 
 
 *' H'it all hap'n befo' Genul Jacksin die. It was 
 'bout de time dat Mars' John 'elude it wor'n' good fur 
 man t' be 'lone, en 'elude to 'bey de Scripture 'junc- 
 shun, en' go down de coas' to fetch him up a wife. 
 But befo' he wen' he sot he's house in order, so to 
 speak. He'd ben livin' to heseff in de log cabin his 
 pa put up w'en he fus' cl'ared de place, but no wife er 
 his'n wor'n gwine to be put down in dat little low-roof 
 log-house 'hind de cotton-wood trees ; so Mars' John, 
 he sends all de way to Cincinnater fur de framework uv 
 dis big house, en sech a sawin' en hammerin', en gar- 
 denin', en puttin' up uv hen-houses, en layin' down of 
 brick walks, en pickin' out of yard folks from de fiel' 
 ban's ! But Lige wor'n 'mongst 'em, no, sirs. Lige 
 hed to Stan' off en' look at h'it allwid his finger in he's 
 mouf. Den de crownin' glory come, in a new ker- 
 ridge en' p'ar from Orleens. I ain' gwine tell no lie 
 'bout it, dis nigger's fingers did fa'rly itch t' git hoi* uv 
 
84 UNCLE LIGE. 
 
 dem spankin' bob-tail mar's. But Mars' John didn' 
 have no use for a flat-noSe, pock-mark, squatty nigger 
 lak me, dt'/i. I wuz good 'nough to drive he's mule 
 team t' de landin', arter a load er freight, or t' haul 
 his cott'n crop t' town, but not t' set up on dat ker- 
 ridge-box en drive he's wife. No, sirs. He done 
 bought a driver same time he bought de kerridge en' 
 de mar's. A gemmun ob color he wuz, he wor'n' no 
 nigger. A black monkey I called him, wi' his ha'r 
 smellin' of grease, en his dandy ways, en all dat. 
 En' I larfe to myself to think er dat boy tryin' to 
 manage dem skittish bob-tails, as dey prance over de 
 bridges and crost de bayers en froo dese woods er 
 ourn. Well, sirs, de da}^ done come w'en Mars' John 
 was t' git home wid he's new wife. French John had 
 he's orders to be at de landin' wid de horses en kerridge, 
 en' I hed mine to be dar wid de mule-team to fotch out 
 de baggidge. Well, sirs, we wuz dar, French John wid 
 de new kerridge en me wid de fo'-mule wagin. I tuk 
 Sam Baker 'long t' help wid de trunks. De boat was 
 late. Boats mos' generally is late w'en you's waitin' 
 fur 'em. Mr. Creole Nigger he strut 'bout dar showin' 
 off in Mars' John's las' winter overcoat en a new hat, 
 a crackin' uv his bran' new kerridge whip lak Fofe uv 
 July firecrackers at fus', but come presen'ly, I sees 
 Mr. Creo' slippin' crost de levee to Mack Williams's 
 sto'. I sez to myseff, go it, nigger ; ef you knowed es 
 much 'bout Mack Williams's whisky as dis nigger 
 does, you'd be mighty shy of techin' it w'en you got 
 t' drive w'ite folks home in de dark wid de mud 'bout 
 axle deep. But it wor'n none er my lookout. I wor'n' 
 put dar t' keep French John straight, and I allers were 
 
UNCLE LIGE. 85 
 
 principled 'gainst meddlin' wid w'at wor'n none er my 
 biziness. ' My brudder ! ' En I should a ben he's 
 keeper ! No, sirs; French John wor'n' none er my 
 brudder. I didn' come from no sech slock, / tell you. 
 Well, de long en de short of it wuz, de boat done 
 come finally, en I see Mars' John a steppin' crost de 
 gang-plank wid he's head high up in de a'r, en a han- 
 gin' to he's arm de purties' sort uv a lady (I tell you 
 ol' Miss were a stunner in her young days), en' French 
 John, yere he come, jus' a cavortin' crost de levee 
 mekin' dem skittish mar's jump ev'y foot uv de way t' 
 de chune of dat crackin' whip. Mars' John he gin 
 'im one black look, den he call out, sorter loud like, 
 ' Is Lige Rankin here ? ' Lige were thar sho'es you is 
 bo'n; en' he say, ' Git up on dat box en tak dem reins.' 
 Lige didn' need no secon' axin'. I was dar, en' I hed 
 dem reins in my hands fo' Mr, Creo' knew wa't hu't 
 him. French John he went home layin' in a heap on 
 top a bale er baggin' in de fo' mule wagin. En Lige 
 Rankin, well, he done hoi' dem reins frum dat day to 
 dis. But w'at de use er goin' so fur back ? All dat 
 happin' fo' Genul Jacksin die." 
 
 The carriage that brought the bride home on that 
 memorable occasion is a wreck and a relic now. It has 
 stood motionless in one corner of the carriage-house 
 while the dust of years accumulated on its cracked and 
 wrinkled curtains. It is the favorite retreat of an 
 ancient Dominick hen, who lays her eggs under the 
 back seat and broods over them periodically in peace- 
 ful immunity from fresh-egg fiends ; but it is a sacred 
 relic in Uncle Lige's estimation, and no vehicle will 
 ever be just the same to him. The bride he brought 
 
86 UNCLE LIGE. 
 
 home in triumph then sits in the easiest chair in the 
 warmest nook by the fireside in winter, or the shadiest 
 spot on the gallery in the summer, and the young men 
 and maidens of the household do reverence to her 
 years and her virtues. To Uncle Lige she is some- 
 thing only a little lower than the angels, for to her 
 gentle sway he owes the many additional accomplish- 
 ments that became his after he was enrolled among 
 the yard-folks. 
 
 01' Miss was the making of him, he candidly admits. 
 As the Caruthers place, with its isolation from its 
 neighbors and its environment of mud, did not offer 
 temptations for the idle luxury of a daily drive, the 
 carriage and horses were kept as conveyances, and in 
 the long intervals of their appearance at the front 
 door, up to which Uncle Lige delighted in driving 
 with as broad a sweep as the front yard would permit 
 of, his duties apart from driving were well defined 
 and numerous. The large garden, where vegetables 
 and flowers flourished amicably side by side, was his 
 to work by day and to guard by night. Set into one 
 side of the tall picket-fence was a tiny cabin of one 
 room and a lean-to that goes by the name of the 
 gardener's house. Within, its walls are hung thick 
 with bags of seeds of the watermelons, cantaloupes, 
 lima beans, and innumerable other esculents of his 
 own preservation, for Uncle Lige has slight faith in 
 " sto' seed." The whitewashed joists are gay with 
 strings of red pepper, garlands of okra pods, and the 
 bright yellow balsam apple, whose curative qualities 
 when steeped in whisky are sure and far-famed. 
 Many a quart of whisky finds its way into Uncle 
 
UNCLE LIGE. 87 
 
 Lige's locker, brought hither by the recipient of cut 
 or burn or bruise, who craves the balsam of which 
 Uncle Lige always has good store in exchange for the 
 fiery liquid the old man craves. The shed in front of 
 the gardener's house is wreathed about with a rich 
 climbing rose that would grace a palace, but it is a 
 thing of small account in the old man's eyes. 01' 
 Miss, in his estimation, wastes much good ground and 
 time, too, in the cultivation of her roses, and jessa- 
 mines, and violets, and lady slippers, and dahlias, and 
 tuberoses. It had much better be put in pindars or 
 rutabagas ; but, though neither the beauty nor the 
 sweetness of the flowers appeals to any of his senses, 
 it is her wish to have them, and it would go hard with 
 Lige before they should suffer neglect at his hands. 
 Seen by the moonlight, or yet more vaguely by the 
 glimmer of the distant stars, the long spacious garden 
 over which Uncle Lige reigns supreme is a peaceful 
 and pretty object, with its neat squares of erect cab- 
 bages, bordered with bright-hued zinnias, its feathery- 
 topped carrot bed, tipped at the edges with glowing 
 gladioli, its green tangled masses of watermelon 
 vines, hiding not only the dark glossy fruit so dear to 
 the universal palate, but deadly spring guns which 
 Uncle Lige has placed judiciously and so arranged by 
 a system of telegraphic strings running into, his cabin 
 floor that the soundest sleep he is capable of falling 
 into will be shattered at the first marauding footfall. 
 None of the white family lay any claim to the garden 
 or its fruitage. It is emphatically Uncle Lige's gar- 
 den, and visitors to the big house must always pay it 
 their meed of admiration under his personal super- 
 
88 UNCLE LIGE. 
 
 vision. He is conscious that it stands unrivaled in 
 all the country-side, and is, not averse to being told so 
 over and over again. Of rainy days the children used 
 to love to scamper from the big house across the wet 
 garden, where the rain-laden jessamines flung their 
 heavy perfume on the air, to Uncle Lige's cabin to 
 " watch him." He was never known to be idle. There 
 was the grindstone under the rose-wreathed shed that 
 some of them might turn while he sharpened his ax, 
 or there was harness-mending going on, or the bright 
 speckled beans to be separated each after its kind, 
 or the hoes to be filed to a fine edge, or the rake 
 to be retoothed, or greatest fun of all, a lesson to be 
 taught Uncle Lige. 
 
 Of all the '' chillun " who were dear to his heart 
 there was one dearer than all. She is a woman now, 
 a tall, stately, serious woman, one who has known 
 grief ; but in those peaceful days long before the war, 
 w^hen the tie between the big house and Uncle Lige's 
 cabin seemed wrought of conditions that could never 
 know change nor weakening, she was a blue-eyed, 
 yellow-haired child, who used to ride over to the 
 Denny place to school every morning behind Uncle 
 Lige on his " calico " pony " Slouch." She can remem- 
 ber to this day how ridgy Slouch's back was in spite 
 of an immense amount of padding, and how completely 
 the familiar landscape was blotted from view by Uncle 
 Lige's broad back and her own protruding sun-bonnet ; 
 but he was the most indulgent of carriers, and many 
 a stoppage would be made between home and the 
 Denny place, when she would be left trembling alone 
 in awful isolation on Slouch's back^ while Uncle Lige 
 
UNCLE LIGE. 89 
 
 dismounted to gather an armful of the sweet-smelling 
 creamy lace tufts of elder-blossom, or a bunch of pale 
 blue-bells from the side of the levee, or the first glossy 
 dewberries that gleamed ripely from under their bridal 
 wreaths of blossoms. That was after the boys went 
 away to school, and she was too tiny to have a gov- 
 erness all to herself. And then, when they rode back 
 through the fields at dinner-time, how conscientiously 
 she gave her faithful carrier at second-hand all the 
 lore she had accumulated through the morning hours. 
 It was she who of rainy days, perched in the best 
 chair in Uncle Lige's cabin, with her " McGuffey " 
 stretched open in her lap to bring it on a level with 
 the old man's wrinkled face, as he sat humbly on the 
 lintel of his own door, with his huge feet resting on 
 the cypress block that answered him for a doorstep, 
 tried so very hard to teach him how to read for him- 
 self, and fastened her big blue eyes on him with such 
 despairing pity when he finally closed the book himself 
 in absolute resignation of the etfort, with the pathetic 
 declaration : " 'Tain't no use, honey. It's hard teachin' 
 ol* dogs new tricks. I'se a ol' dog, en book I'arnin's 
 a mouty hard trick. You jes' read a story oncet-a- 
 w'ile to de ol' man, en I reckon dat'U be 'bout all he 
 kin tek in." And so it had ended ; and what if he 
 did oftener than not fall asleep just as she got to the 
 most exciting part of the story ? He was tired, and 
 sitting still had a soporific effect upon him. So she 
 would close the book softly, and sit looking out at the 
 great raindrops standing on the thick cabbage leaves, 
 or weighting down the crimson salvias, waiting for 
 the old man to start apologetically from his "forty 
 
90 UNCLE LIGE. 
 
 winks," and carry her back across the drenched gar- 
 den to the big house, perched aloft on his honest 
 shoulders. 
 
 It was to Uncle Lige the boys came for instruction 
 in rowing, and riding, and gunning. It was he who 
 taught them the rhythm of the oars and the dexterous 
 art of " feathering " that sent the clear water of the 
 lake rippling away in fairy rings from the shining 
 blades ; it was he who " broke " their ponies for 
 them and plodded patiently at their heads until they 
 grew ashamed of his protection ; it was the prowess 
 of his gun that kept the family table supplied with 
 ducks, and snipe, and partridges, and made the boys 
 his eager pupils and his envious admirers. But the 
 day came when the boys rode away from the big house, 
 leaving behind them their ponies, with other childish 
 things ; when the yellow curls and the blue eyes of 
 the child who tried in vain to inoculate him with buds 
 from the tree of knowledge, were seen less seldom in 
 the cabin in the garden ; for days of anxious watching 
 and tumultuous effort had come to the women of the 
 land, who had sent away from them all who were 
 strong enough of heart and hand to do a patriot's 
 part. It was then that Uncle Lige's executive ability 
 and loyal affection for his " wite folks " had full and 
 vigorous play. 
 
 *' Take care of your mistress and my daughter, old 
 man," the master had said, wringing old Lige's hand, 
 as he too, when the fight waxed hotter and thicker, 
 went off to the front. How proudly the old man's 
 heart swelled within him when the mistress, w^iom he 
 regarded only as a trifle lower than the angels, turned 
 
UNCLE LICE. 91 
 
 to him for advice at almost every juncture. How 
 eagerly he spent himself that the comforts his "w'ite 
 folks " were accustomed to should not fail them 
 through any mismanagement or neglect on his part. 
 And when grim gunboats began to sentinel the river, 
 putting a period to all communication with the master 
 and the boys, and gradually drawing the cordon still 
 closer, until the necessities of life grew few and hard 
 to procure, it was Uncle Lige, who, loading a skiff 
 with sweet potatoes and pecans, and paddling softly 
 out into the river, under cover of thick darkness, came 
 back with a wondrous supply of tea and coffee that his 
 'Sv'ite folks " consumed with a guilty sensation of dis- 
 loyalty, but with a relish born of a nauseous experience 
 of burned okra coffee and sassafras tea. 
 
 Uncle Lige was never absent from the yard about 
 the big house during the entire period of his adminis- 
 tration but once besides this ; then it was for four 
 days and nights. It was a notable journey, and has 
 been embodied among his reminiscent narratives. It 
 was no desertion of the post of duty ; it was, on the 
 contrary, the taking on of a graver responsibility for 
 the sake of the " young miss " who ranked next in his 
 affections to the master's wife, "ol' Miss." 
 
 The blue eyes he had watched from the cradle were 
 growing faded from excessive weeping, the springing 
 step he had found it hard to keep pace with in brighter 
 days was growing heavy and listless. " Missy was 
 pinin'." He knew well what for. There had gone 
 away from her one even dearer than father or brother. 
 Lige knew of the rumors that had floated to the big 
 house concerning him. He was sick. He was in 
 
92 UNCLE LIGE. 
 
 hospital at Vicksburg. The old man conceived an 
 heroic resolve. Perhaps he could get him home. 
 Then the light would come back to his '' dear chile's " 
 eyes and the elasticity to her step. It was hard to go 
 away without telling " ol' Miss," but if he should fail 
 it would be worse than ever. For a little while they 
 must think what they would of him. They did think 
 unspeakable things of him. " Lige had gone over to 
 the enemy ! " Who then could be relied on ? There 
 was no special discomfort entailed by his disappear- 
 ance. He had seen to all that, and a son of his own 
 loins assumed his duties p7'o tern. But no one could 
 supply Lige's place. The mistress marveled and 
 moaned ; the girl for whose sake he was consenting 
 to be cruelly misunderstood for a little while, waxed 
 wordy in her indignation, and said in her haste he was 
 a traitor. How harshly all her hot words came back 
 to her when one evening, as she paced the long gallery 
 of the big house, watching with listless gaze the sun 
 set in a blaze of purple and gold, wondering bitterly in 
 her sore heart why men must fight and women must 
 weep, the wooden latch of the front gate was lifted by 
 a quick hand, and there, coming up the walk, leaning 
 heavily on old Lige's arm, was the one of all others in 
 the wide world she most yearned to see. She was 
 down the steps and by his side in a second, wondering, 
 laughing, crying, the light already back in her eyes 
 and the buoyancy of her heart communicating itself 
 to her step. 
 
 " I fotch him. Missy," was all old Lige said at that 
 moment, but later on he told them how he had traveled 
 by night in his staunch and well-provisioned little 
 
UNCLE LIGE. 93 
 
 skiff, lying by in wooded coves by day, eluding pursuit, 
 laboring untiringly, encouraging the sick and heartsore 
 boy, who lay in the boat on his heap of blankets ; reap- 
 ing his reward beforehand in the reflection that he was 
 carrying peace and joy back to his '' dear chile," and 
 that '' ol' Miss " herself would approve of his course of 
 conduct. 
 
 But all that was since " Genul Jacksin " died, and 
 although Lige's days of active service are well-nigh 
 over, the cabin with the climbing roses is still his own, 
 and if he does not wield the shovel and the hoe as 
 vigorously in the garden beds it overlooks, nor drive 
 the family carriage with as lofty an assumption of dig- 
 nity, his sway is just as autocratic and his worth as 
 highly rated as on the day when he supplanted French 
 John. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MRS. NEW AND THE OLD FAMILIES. 
 
 WHEN Mrs. New looked through her open front 
 door, across the flower-beds that cluster on both 
 sides the raised brick walk that leads from her front 
 gate to her front steps, and saw Major Morris's son 
 helping her daughter Elmira into his handsome new 
 center-board sailboat, with a view to escorting her 
 across the lake to an entertainment to be given by his 
 own mother, Mrs. Major Morris, she was consciously 
 filled with that sort of pride that a conqueror feels at 
 the successful termination of a long and doubtful cam- 
 paign. And when young Morris, with the tiller ropes 
 in one hand, gayly waved her, with the other, the as- 
 surance that Elmira was all right, Mrs. New medita- 
 tively bit off the end of the thread she had been ab- 
 stractedly aiming at the point of her needle for some 
 seconds in a pretense of indifference to their move- 
 ments, said " At last " softly to herself, and went back 
 indoors in an unusually placid frame of mind. Mr- 
 New's pointer, " Mingo," exempt from active duty on 
 the score of old age, was the beneficiary of her over- 
 flowing good-will on this occasion, and with canine 
 astuteness saw with his one purblind eye that it was 
 not necessary for him to vacate the sitting-room hearth- 
 
MRS. NEW AND THE OLD FAMILIES. 95 
 
 rug with his usual precipitancy. Not that Mrs. New 
 does not consider her daughter Elmira handsome 
 enough, and refined enough, and bright enough, to 
 have all the young men and all the center-board sail- 
 boats in the country at her disposal, and she (Mrs. 
 New) is glad that the fact of Major Morris's own son 
 coming for her has not the significance for Elmira that 
 it has for herself. Elmira knows nothing of the silent 
 warfare her mother engaged in long before her birth 
 and sees no special occasion of triumph in the fact of 
 young Morris's gallant attentions. 
 
 The Morrises are the very oldest people in the 
 county. No one can remember when a Morris did not 
 plant the " Shallows " place just across the lake from 
 '' Big a-plenty," the News' place. Local tradition had 
 it that the first Morris employed Indians to pick his 
 cotton seed from the lint, and that two pounds an 
 evening was an adult's task, all of which had an impos- 
 ingly -antique sound, and carried the Morrises way 
 back yonder beyond Whitney's great invention of the 
 cotton gin. No greater proof of respectability could 
 be asked or given ; whereas the News only went back 
 a very little way, and over debatable ground at that. 
 Mr. New's father, Elmira's grandfather, had been an 
 overseer, and only became a landholder through the 
 misfortunes or misdeeds of his own employer ; conse- 
 quently he had always been regarded in the light of a 
 pretender, and it would have taken more than two 
 generations, under normal conditions, to wipe out the 
 stigma of overseer origin from the name of New. The 
 overseer was a sort of middleman between the master 
 and slave, and was regarded rather as a necessary 
 
9^ MNS. NlilV AND THE OLD FAMILIES. 
 
 evil than as a social element. The planter stood to 
 his slaves as a sort of higher tribunal, to which appeal 
 could always be carried from this official, whose decis- 
 ions were oftener guided by expediency than by any 
 sense of abstract justice. Self-reliance, physical 
 strength, and common-sense being the only essentials 
 in the selection of an overseer, one was seldom found 
 in the ranks of the refined or the educated. Socially 
 he was an outcast. If India's test of caste had been 
 applied, the overseer would have been considered a 
 pariah. But fortunately the irrevocability of Brahmin 
 regulations did not hold good, else Mrs. New would 
 never have had the satisfaction of seeing her daughter 
 Elmira handed into a sailboat by Major Morris's son 
 Harry, and he a Yale graduate at that. 
 
 Mrs. New has no harrowing memories of the war, 
 but on the contrary, secretly regards herself as the 
 proverbial beneficiary of an ill-wind. Not having any 
 sons to be killed, there are no vacant chairs or name- 
 less mounds somewhere to counterbalance her satis- 
 faction in the fact that if the war did not lift her to 
 Mrs. Major Morris's level, it brought Mrs. Morris 
 down to hers. Before the war, if Mrs. New got on a 
 steamboat to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, 
 although she might obtain the " pick "of the staterooms 
 and occupy a seat at the Captain's table (which was 
 tantamount to sitting above the salt in feudal days) 
 and be proudly conscious that on the decks under her 
 feet were a hundred bales of cotton that Mr. New had 
 shipped to his merchants, the biggest single shipment 
 made from the county, there was still an aching void 
 to be filled, especially if the Colonel's wife or Mrs. 
 
MRS. NEW AND THE OLD FAMILIES. 97 
 
 Major Morris chanced to be going to Mardi Gras on 
 the same boat. For Mrs. New was too astute an 
 observer not to feel the distinction between the cour- 
 tesy bestowed upon herself by the Captain and the 
 *' lady's clerk," and the fat consequential colored stew- 
 ardess of the boat, and that reserved for the old fami- 
 lies exclusively. Since the war, however, things have 
 changed on the boats as elsewhere, and as the older 
 families themselves have developed more practical or 
 more democratic tendencies, the lines of demarka- 
 tion are not so sharply drawn by those time-serving 
 officials. 
 
 Before the war the fact that Mrs. New " ran a mar- 
 ket-cart" counted among her disqualifications for polite 
 society, although quite legitimate for her (antecedents 
 understood). Not but that in the absence of markets 
 and greenrgrocers in the town, the semi-weekly appear- 
 ance of Mrs. New's ancient blue cart, drawn by its 
 ancient brown mule, harness-scarred and knock-kneed, 
 driven by its ancient black marketman, " Uncle Mer- 
 rick," with his brilliant carpet cap surmounting his 
 gray wool, was a beneficent institution and a refresh- 
 ing sight. For where else were such golden pounds 
 of butter,printed with a big thistle and wrapped in snowy 
 muslin, to be procured? Where else could the freshness 
 of the creamy Bramah and the speckled guinea eggs 
 (delight of epicurean palates) be relied upon so abso- 
 lutely ? Who else ever sent such fat pullets, such 
 crisp celery, such marrowy asparagus, such luscious 
 strawberries, from door to door in a steady supply of 
 creature comfort ? Old Merrick generally marked the 
 stoppage at his regular customer's door with a big 
 
9^ MliS. NEW AND THE OLD FAMILIES, 
 
 bunch of roses or violets sent with " Missis's compli- 
 ments," which was one of Mrs. New's subtle efforts at 
 lifting her market-cart out of a purely mercenary rut. 
 Since the war the Colonel's wife and Mrs. Major Mor- 
 ris also run market-carts, and Mrs. New is quite will- 
 ing to divide the profits for the sake of dividing other 
 things (odium, for instance), and she sends her supple- 
 mentary roses and violets now more as " lagniappe " 
 than as propitiatory offerings. Circumstances alter 
 cases. 
 
 Before the war it had been whispered about that in 
 the busy season, that is, when the cotton crop was 
 ready to be picked out, Mrs. New had given the crown- 
 ing evidence of avarice in turning all her yard force, 
 except her milk-woman, into the fields, and had done 
 all her own work for weeks, claiming for pin-money all 
 the cotton picked by her " house hands," which, ot 
 course, was rather praiseworthy, seeing the cotton 
 would otherwise have been wasted ; but the voluntary 
 surrender of a cook, and a washwoman, and a gar- 
 defier, and a dining-room boy, and a house girl, and a 
 poultry-tender, and a dairy-maid, displayed as much of 
 the mercenary spirit as it did of personal endurance- 
 Some people could do such things profitably. Others 
 would lose more, in a variety of ways, than the accru- 
 ing pin-money would compensate for. Since the war 
 almost any honest measure for keeping the wolf at a 
 distance was not only legitimate, but laudable, and so 
 one more stain was wiped from Mrs. New's 'scutcheon, 
 for inconsistent as humanity is, it does not rail at peo- 
 ple fordoing what it does itself — at least, not always. 
 Not that Mrs. New has ever conspicuously or even 
 
MRS. NEW AND THE OLD FAMILIES. 99 
 
 visibly gloried iii these signs of regeneration on the 
 part of her nei^'hbors ; she has simply been glad, that 
 was all, that her own attitude has become Itss peculiar. 
 Yes, after all, the war did a good deal for Mrs. 
 New ; it showed her the road to some of her neigh- 
 bors' hearts, and she was not slow to follow it. It 
 was then that women, thrown back upon themselves 
 and each other, began to place a truer estimate on 
 some of the frivolities as well as some of the solid 
 things of life. It was when Major Morris had gone 
 off to Richmond, at the head of the Redtown Rifles, 
 leaving Mrs. Morris to run the place as long as there 
 were any hands to run it with, that Mrs. New felt her- 
 self for the first time in a position to pity the oldest 
 family in the county. There is a solid element of 
 comfort in being able to pity people that have always 
 stood on a social ledge above you, and Mrs. New ex- 
 tracted all the comfort possible out of the situation 
 compatible with a real desire to console her neighbor. 
 It was then that Mrs. Morris, for the first time, found 
 herself in a position to admire Mrs. New as a woman 
 of wonderful energy and fertility in invention. There 
 was no use being stiff-necked with your nearest neigh- 
 bor at a time when total annihilation of every thing 
 and every body seemed not only possible, but immi- 
 nent. So when Mrs. New rowed across the lake, but 
 "wouldn't get out," just to send Mrs. Morris a lot of 
 freshly-cured palmetto for hat plaiting, as she had 
 heard palmetto was very scarce in the " Shallows " 
 woods, Mrs. Morris rowed across from her side the 
 very next day to thank Mrs. New for the palmetto, 
 and to tell her she had discovered that pecan bark 
 
loo MRS. NEW AND THE OLD FAMILIES, 
 
 and alum would dye a beautiful bottle-green ; and she 
 did get out, and walked all around Mrs. New's flower- 
 garden, and vegetable-garden, and dairy, and poultry- 
 yard, inspecting things precisely as she and the 
 Colonel's wife, who were just like sisters, always in- 
 spected each other's premises. And that was the 
 beginning of it. There was so much that each could 
 teach the other ; and if during these interviews Mrs. 
 Morris ever thought of ante-bellum barriers at all, it 
 was with an inner reflection that when things returned 
 to ante-bellum conditions, as, of course, they would, 
 they (the barriers) could be re-erected, if necessary, 
 as strong as ever. In the meantime, it was really com- 
 forting to have such a neighbor. While they were 
 all moaning over their deprivation of flour and of 
 coffee, Mrs. New was perfecting all sorts of experi- 
 ments. The coffee she made out of okra seed, and 
 roasted sweet potatoes, actually did taste like coffee, 
 if you drank it very hot and in rapid gulps, and the 
 corn-meal that she bolted through tarletan made al- 
 most as good muffins as real flour. Mrs. New found 
 greatness thrust upon her when she succeeded in mak- 
 ing candle-molds out of cane roots, and light once 
 more issued out of darkness when she sent Mrs. Mor- 
 ris a dozen candles made from the beef and mutton 
 tallow that had been accumulating all the years while 
 Mrs. New's market-cart had been her peripatetic re- 
 proach. " They were just as firm and white as store 
 candles," Mrs. Morris said in an enthusiastic little note 
 of thanks, and Mrs. New felt that she had not lived in 
 vain. 
 
 Moments come into every life that quench egotism 
 
MRS. NEW AND THE OLD FAMILIES. loi 
 
 SO completely that one marvels at its ever again re- 
 suming potency. They came into Mrs. New's life 
 when word came across the lake that Mrs. Morris's 
 two little girls were very ill. Such an awful time to 
 be ill ! No doctors, no drugs, no earthly comfort of 
 any sort, but what one mother heart could pour into 
 another mother heart. Mrs. New forgot then that the 
 " Shallows " people antedated the Whitney invention, 
 and Mrs. Morris forgot that Mr. New's father had 
 been an overseer. There was nothing worth the re- 
 membering but two small hot-handed sufferers that 
 seemed to bind them together. And when the end 
 came, writing the word "■ finis " to two very short 
 chapters of human experience, Mrs. New hesitated 
 only a few minutes as to whether she should send her 
 black velvet circular or her black alpaca dress up to 
 the carpenter's shop where two bare pine coffins were 
 being made for the tiny dead of the richest people in 
 the county. The velvet circular was sent, and the 
 little Morrises were not laid away quite like paupers; 
 And after Mrs. New had herself read the solemn 
 ^* Dust to dust, ashes to ashes," over the two little 
 velvet-covered coffins, for lack of some higher digni- 
 tary to read it, she always felt as if she had a proprie- 
 tary interest in the Morrises, quick and dead. 
 
 After the war there was no household that adjusted 
 itself to the altered conditions quicker than the one 
 Mrs. New presided over. Perhaps that was because 
 it was less encumbered with accumulated traditions 
 and inherited dignity. Mrs. New's life-time motto 
 had been not to cry over spilled milk. She persist- 
 ently set herself to work to make the best of the situa- 
 
I02 MRS. NEW AND THE OLD FAMILIES. 
 
 tion. If the darkies were free and were " bound " to 
 waste their wages on somebody, they might as well 
 waste them on her, so for the first year or two after the 
 war Mrs. New tried to divert many an honest penny 
 from the tills of dishonest shopkeepers, who swarmed 
 at every cross-road, by stocking her own storeroom 
 shelves with sardines, and blue buckets, and brass 
 jewelry, and it was even suspected that she made 
 dresses for the colored ladies on the place, who were 
 notoriously exacting in the manner of " puUbacks " 
 and '^ polynays." Not that Mrs New publicly 
 announced herself as a fashionable dressmaker for 
 the '' Big-a-plenty " quarters, but the colored ladies of 
 that plantation were observed to go to meeting on 
 Sundays with the best fitting and most stylish-looking 
 dresses to be seen in the county. She was rather 
 glad than not that Elmira was away at school in those 
 first years of restoration, when things were so new and 
 rough on the plantations. 
 
 Mrs. New's faith in the recuperative powers of the 
 South is absolute and unshakable. She admits that 
 the Confederates were overpowered b}^ numbers, but 
 she does not think the final result altered the principles 
 involved at all. She is not one of those people, how- 
 ever, who don't know when they were whipped, and 
 she firmly believes that by the time Elmira's children 
 are coming on and growing inquisitive about the war, 
 she will be able to give them information totally devoid 
 of any acrimony, which she is not quite sure she could 
 do just yet. She is a readjuster to a certain extent, 
 and mildly advocates the advisability of educating the 
 nation's wards, but when the nation's wards, as ex- 
 
MRS. NEW AND THE OLD FAMILIES, 103 
 
 emplified in Miranda, her chambermaid, persist in 
 stopping off at ten o'clock to go to a music lesson, Mrs. 
 New is conscious of mental reservations concerning 
 the Blair Educational Bill. The limits of her world 
 have been contracted since the war. She does not 
 go to Mardi Gras every year as she used to ; the 
 money once spent in that way is now saved for Elmira, 
 and she does not ride into town in the buggy with Mr. 
 New when word reaches her that somebody is going 
 to preach at the Court House. The buggy is just 
 naturally worn out, and she does not care to invest 
 in the new vehicle until Elmira comes home from 
 school " finished." If she goes to town at all these 
 days, it is in a chair in the two-mule wagon, which is 
 more safe than elegant, especially if the summons has 
 been so sudden that Merrick hasn't had time to take 
 the cockle-burrs out of the mules' tails and manes. 
 But she is not the only one who will go to church in a 
 mule wagon sitting on a chair, and it is astonishing 
 after all how one can get used to doing without things. 
 The war furnishes her a precedent for almost every 
 happening. She likes to think that Elmira's memory 
 does not go back to those days, and that there is noth- 
 ing in the present social code of the neighborhood to 
 point to any difference between " The Shallow " and 
 ** Big-a-plenty." 
 
 Her days pass very monotonously in a round of 
 domestic duties, and she sometimes wishes she could 
 find as much time to read as Mrs. Morris and the 
 Colonel's wife do. She does not know how they get 
 things attended to, but as for herself, she hardly has 
 breathing-time from the moment she has finished 
 
I04 MRS. NEIV AND THE OLD FAMILIES. 
 
 putting up her mincemeat in December up to August, 
 when she begins the preserving and pickling for the 
 year. 
 
 Mrs. New virtually camps out in preserving and 
 pickling season. She couldn't think of such a thing 
 as doing such hot work in doors. Her tables and 
 kettles and charcoal furnace and baskets of fruits and 
 herself, are to be found through all the day-lit hours 
 out in the back yard under a big pecan tree, and while 
 the syrup boils and bubbles up in soft white puffs, she 
 dexterously peels bushel after bushel of apples and 
 peaches, and Mr. New happens around to taste the 
 finished specimens sunning in big meat-dishes on the 
 table under the tree, and Mingo manages to put him- 
 self in the way of being scalded with hot scum every 
 few seconds. The summer wanes and Mrs. New's 
 pantry shelves gradually accumulate a quantity of 
 preserves, and pickles, and jellies that are the admira- 
 tion and the envy of Mrs. Morris and the Colonel's 
 wife, who always had somebody to look after those 
 things for them before the war. 
 
 Men say that New has just the right sort of a wife for 
 the times, and that if she is training her daughter to be 
 like herself somebody is going to get another good 
 wife some of these days. And when the Major's son 
 comes to see Elmira, as soon as she gets home for 
 vacation, Mrs. New falls to castle-building, and 
 rejoices to think that her daughter will never suffer 
 from the conventional distinctions that marred her 
 own early wifehood. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WHY A NEW DOCTOR WENT THE ROUNDS. 
 
 YOUR city doctor, who responds promptly to your 
 telephonic summons, leaving his tall silk hat and 
 kid gloves on your hall rack for the brief second of 
 time he has to spare for diagnosis, may be the very 
 best local specimen of his genus, but the genus is one 
 that varies immensely, according to soil and climate, 
 and he will be found to possess only a generic like- 
 ness to the physician who does not find his limitations 
 within brick-walled streets. The one is continually 
 being pricked into a brisker gait by the spurs of com- 
 petition and emulation ; the other ambles easily 
 through life at a leisurely pace, conscious of a super- 
 fluity of time and an undisputed territory. The one 
 has no time to train the tendrils of affection around 
 every projection ; with the other, they grow into and 
 all about the hearthstones that are his particular 
 charge. The one prescribes a remedy, the other 
 administers it. 
 
 There was old Dr. Goodman, for instance, in 
 
 Parish, Louisiana (green grow the grass above his 
 grave ! ) why, he was doctor and druggist, and nurse 
 and minister, all in one. Minister, indeed ! his life 
 was one long ministry to the welfare of others. No 
 
io6 A NEW DOCTOR. 
 
 one ever saw him with a ruffled brow or a smooth 
 shirt-front. His shoes were always dusty in summer 
 and muddy in winter. He would have looked like a 
 guy in a tall hat, and nothing but the direst extremity 
 of cold ever led to the imprisonment of his pudgy 
 brown hands in gloves, which, being simply regarded 
 as protectors, were always the very biggest and clum- 
 siest and warmest of their kind, usually huge yellow 
 buckskin affairs of the unyielding variety that would 
 take the impress of the Doctor's ample hands, and 
 retain it so faithfully that they looked no more empty 
 lying on the hall table by the side of his old brown 
 felt hat than they did when in active service. A pair 
 of gauntlets generally lasted the Doctor about two 
 winters — the longer, perhaps, because of a certain 
 tendency on their part to misplace themselves. It 
 was a rare thing for him to know where his gloves 
 were in event of an unexpected call, and, as his hat 
 and his saddle-bags, with little compartments in them 
 for bottles and powders and pills, and a few simple 
 surgical instruments, were the only absolutely essen- 
 tial equipment for a sortie, he seldom wasted precious 
 time hunting for them. Beneath the crumpled shirt- 
 front which nobody liked, but every body condoned, 
 beat a big heart that never grew callous to the cry of 
 distress, and whether the summons came in the early 
 brightness of a fresh spring morning, or in the chill- 
 ing depths of a winter's night, the Doctor, with 
 heroic disregard of his own personal comfort, an- 
 swered as promptly as was compatible with the more 
 phlegmatic temperament of Whitestocking, his old 
 "■ clay-bank " horse, who was his faithful but deliber- 
 
A NEW DOCTOR. 107 
 
 ate coadjutor in good works for nearly a score of 
 years. When one has to send miles over rough country 
 roads for a doctor, fancying, perhaps erroneously, 
 that the need is a mortal one, one is apt to lay more 
 stress upon a ready response to the call than upon 
 boots guiltless of stain or hands fastidiously clothed. 
 The Doctor lived in town — that is there was a little 
 four-roomed cottage, sitting away back in a big 
 barren five-acre front yard at one end of the vil- 
 lage, which was called Dr. Goodman's house, but it 
 was the very last place in the world to look for him 
 in. It was a cozy little affair, latticed in all around 
 the underpinning, with a low, unbalustraded veranda, 
 about the six white pillars of which grew as many 
 different vines in luxuriant rivalry. There was the 
 madeira vine, and the red cypress vine, and the coral 
 honeysuckle, and the white '' Lady's Bank " rose, and 
 the purple wistaria, and the glorious yellow jessamine, 
 each clothing its appointed post with beauty and fra- 
 grance all its own. The house itself was intensely 
 green as to its shutters. Back of it was a sweet old- 
 fashioned flower-garden, where lady-slippers and the 
 hollyhocks ran riot, but the bare front yard was sacred 
 to grass and to Whitestocking. The Doctor would 
 as soon have thought of putting his own legs in the 
 stocks as of stabling Whitestocking. Still back of 
 the riotous flower-garden was a group of ram- 
 shackle out-houses, among which was a doorless shed 
 called grandiloquently Whitestocking's stable, but it 
 was viewed with great disfavor by an animal who was 
 sure of distinguished consideration in every stable in 
 the county ; and Whitestocking never tarried under 
 
lo8 A NE W DOCTOR, 
 
 its lowly roof any longer than was absolutely neces- 
 sary to consume his morning's rations of fodder, or 
 during an unusually severe storm. That was why 
 any body, riding up in quest of the Doctor, felt pretty 
 sure, if Whitestocking was not nibbling the Bermuda 
 grass in the front yard, and the Doctor's saddle and 
 bridle were not in equally full view on the front gal- 
 lery, there was pursuit of him to be gone through 
 with further on. 
 
 In the city you have doctors, in the country they 
 have the doctor, a potent personality, combining all 
 the knowledge that more fortunate localities divide 
 and subdivide among innumerable specialists. And 
 still the wonder grew how one bald head could carry 
 all he knew. The Doctor radiated from the little 
 white and green house in the five-acre yard in all 
 directions for a circuit of twenty miles. People said 
 it was too much for him. Ambitious young medicos 
 would only too gladly have convinced him that he 
 needed a partner. He smiled benignantly on all such 
 suggestions, cordially welcomed new doctors to the 
 field on an independent basis, but waved aside all 
 suggestions of partnerships with a light jest at its 
 being possible for him to '' over-do " himself. 
 '' MoUie'll see that I don't break down," he would 
 say in answer to disinterested insistence, " MoUie's a 
 great help." 
 
 " Mollie " was Mrs. Doctor Goodman, and when- 
 ever the country roads were such that the Doctor 
 could put Whitestocking in the shafts instead of under 
 the saddle, Mollie and he would make the rounds 
 together, oftener than not with a basket carefully held 
 
A NEW DOCTOR. 169 
 
 steady by their four substantial feet in the bottom of 
 the buggy, in which would be such chicken broth, such 
 wine jelly, and such wafers as nobody but the Doctor's 
 wife knew how to make. She was an admirable sup- 
 plement to the Doctor. If the friends of his patient 
 grew worn with watching, or waxed untrustworthy by 
 reason of over-anxiety, he would bring MoUie when 
 he came again ; one night of her nursing would do 
 more good than all the physic in his saddle-bags. If 
 an operation trying to any body's nerves was to be per- 
 formed, he wanted Mollie about. MoUie was as 
 cool as a cucumber ; she stood fire well. If he lost 
 in his hand-to-hand fight with Death, it was Mollie 
 who came softly in his wake, pouring balm into the 
 bruised heart and finding words of spiritual consola- 
 tion for the mourners, which was more in Mollie's 
 line than the physic. That is the reason it was 
 generally regarded as a rather bad omen when the 
 Doctor's wife left the flower-garden and the poultry- 
 yard, which filled up the time so pleasantly for her 
 during his long absences, and appeared by his side in 
 the buggy. His absences would sometimes extend 
 over the night and over the next day, and into the next 
 day perhaps, for it was not the inmates of the "big 
 house" alone to whom her "good man" ministered. 
 It was to the numberless souls in the cabins in the 
 quarter lot, for whose " doctoring " the master was per- 
 sonally responsible, and who depended upon the big 
 house with childlike reliance for professional attention 
 when their ailments got beyond the simpler remedies 
 that the mistress was skilled in. 
 
 There was no more of formality in the Doctor's life 
 
iio A NEW DOCTOR. 
 
 than there was in his dress. The house of each patron 
 was his home for the time being, and his tastes were 
 consulted with as much affectionate consideration, 
 under whatever roof he chanced to find himself at 
 meal-time, as by Mollie herself. The deliberation with 
 which he stayed on at the plantation for which he had 
 set out in such hot haste was comical. Once satisfied 
 that the " case " was such as would yield readily to 
 treatment, and no sybarite could become more sud- 
 denly self-indulgent than he. Whitestocking remanded 
 to the stable, and his saddle-bags reposing on a side 
 table in the sick-room, he would give himself up to 
 enjoyment of the well members of the family, and to 
 kindly inquiry into the status of the entire place, with 
 that singleness of heart and keenness of sympathy 
 which made the whole lot of them his kin pro tern. 
 There was the mother's spleen to be inquired for, and 
 the baby's coming teeth to be voluntarily inspected, 
 with perhaps the lancet brought into use from the 
 saddle-bags in the sick-room. There was the health 
 of the quarters to be discussed and a little gratuitous 
 advice to be given concerning the cleaning out of the 
 cisterns in view of cholera rumors. There was the 
 prospect of war in Europe and of worms in the cotton 
 crops to be reviewed with the master. There was 
 dinner to be eaten and a cigar to be smoked after- 
 ward. There was the projected barn to be talked of 
 and his solicited opinion concerning the site and the 
 size to be given, his interest in the family extending 
 even to the rafters and the girders of the new building. 
 There was the string of fresh fish from the bayou, if 
 it was spring, or the lot of ducks if it was winter, to 
 
A NEW DOCTOR. HI 
 
 be tied to the ring in Whitestocking's saddle, when he 
 started homeward, which he might as well do by way 
 of the quarters, so he could stop at old Dinah's cabin 
 and see if that last prescription of his had routed her 
 asthma ; and all this was to be accomplished with a 
 running interspersion of visits to the sick-room, whose 
 occupant was the prime cause of his presence. No 
 one ever seriously lamented over a slight ailment that 
 was just a good excuse for summoning Dr. Goodman, 
 for as a medium of communication with every part of 
 the parish he stood without a rival, and was an excel- 
 lent substitute for a local newspaper. Friends who 
 were truly friends, without being equal to the exertion 
 of a correspondence, would ply him indefatigably for 
 all the news concerning those whom^ they would rarely 
 hear of or from but for the Doctor. He was a kindly- 
 natured medium who told all the good he knew and 
 discreetly suppressed all the evil. But many a bit of 
 local news would find its way from plantation to plan- 
 tation, retailed deliberately, as the Doctor, with an 
 upturned dinner-plate for a pill tile, would compound 
 a supply of quinine pills for his patient, by the aid of 
 a pinch of flour and a drop of molasses. Capsules 
 were an undreamed-of refinement in his day, and a 
 local druggist would have inspired him with envious 
 disgust. He mixed his own nauseous potions with 
 smiling benignity. 
 
 The world would perhaps have been the wiser and 
 the better for some of the cogitations that occupied 
 the Doctor's active brain in his long and lonely rides 
 from one plantation to the other. Nature had intended 
 him for a student of science. Fate intermeddled and 
 
112 A NEW DOCTOR. 
 
 made a country doctor of him. Nothing could pre- 
 vent, his being an original thinker, and many a novel 
 conception, which, with proper nourishment, might 
 have achieved the dignity of a theory — a beneficent 
 theory, perhaps — had its germ within the cool recesses 
 of the woods, where the gray Spanish moss made a 
 perpetual twilight around him as he rode. 
 
 No system of philosophy or ethics was too complex 
 for him to grapple with, or too simple for him to en- 
 tertain respectfully, without any of that personal van- 
 ity that made the code of morals, manners or medi- 
 cine which he advocated the best in the world, simply 
 because it was his code. He would listen with the 
 earnest simplicity of an untaught child to opinions 
 from any and every source, perhaps sending an igno- 
 rant boor away from his audience, comfortably elated 
 by the conviction that he had taught the Doctor 
 something. Some misapprehensions were due to this 
 admirable mental equipoise, and the fair-mindedness 
 which led to his examining and weighing the evidence 
 for and against every new problem that presented 
 itself. The spiritualist who was stopping over all 
 night at Colonel Benson's, when little Rob Benson 
 was suffering from the accidental discharge of his 
 shot-gun, and who poured his nebulous notions whole- 
 sale into the Doctor's patient ears, as he placidly 
 picked the bird-shot from Rob's wounded foot, went 
 away satisfied that he had left an intelligent and zeal- 
 ous convert behind him, and consequently deluged the 
 Doctor with spiritualistic literature for months subse- 
 quent. The ritualist minister, who held high carnival 
 periodically in the pretty little Gothic church on " the 
 
A NE IV DOCTOR. II3 
 
 square/' felt morally sure that it. would require but 
 the slightest amount of exertion on his part to trans- 
 form the Doctor into a shining light in his Episcopal 
 Church. The Methodist parson was equally sure the 
 Doctor was in the right path, and, if Darwin could 
 have looked upon him with the eye of flesh as he de- 
 voured his theories of evolution, he would have con- 
 gratulated himself on so promising and intelligent a 
 disciple. Not that the Doctor was in any sense of the 
 word a truckler to other men's opinions, but an honest 
 Mohammedan would have met with as respectful a 
 hearing from him as the Dean of St. Paul's. The 
 honesty was all he insisted upon. Its absence in any 
 matter, small or great, was w^hat he could never for- 
 give: 
 
 It was a sort of exaggeration of this virtue, if such 
 a thing is possible, that set the Doctor to " keeping 
 books " during and after the war. Before that time 
 his financial transactions were of the simplest possible 
 sort. There were so many plantations within his beat. 
 The owner of each plantation paid him so many hun- 
 dred dollars for medical attendance. It was a com- 
 fortable arrangement for him, and on the strength of 
 it, the slave and the master, the darkey baby in its 
 clumsy wooden cradle, and the darling of the big 
 house, shared alike in his attentions and his drugs. 
 But it was when the maxim, *' Every man for himself," 
 virtually came in with the new order, that the Doctor 
 began to keep books, and was forced to take a per- 
 sonal and onerous interest in the cotton crops of his 
 parish. 
 
 The Doctor's books are still extant. They are very 
 
114 A NEW DOCTOR. 
 
 curious specimens of the accountant's skill. Debit 
 and credit stand in odd relation to any known legal- 
 tender. One page from his funny day-book would 
 repay perusal. If the Doctor had ever been forced into 
 litigation, it is very doubtful if his books would have 
 been taken in testimony against the most flagrant of- 
 fender. All of the leisure time that used to be spent 
 by him and " MoUie " wandering through the new let- 
 tuce-beds or the radish rows, in the little garden 
 where the hollyhocks and the dahlias flaunted their 
 bright heads abreast of the tall fence-pickets, were con- 
 sumed, in those later days, in frenzied efforts to make 
 his books balance. 
 
 Who could make a balance out of " Henry Giles' 
 Child — one fit — calomel one dose — owes sixty pounds 
 lint cotton " ; " Molly's boy — youngest — congestive 
 chill — chloroform and quinine — twice — one hundred 
 pounds lint " ; " Benson's teamster — mule kick — surg. 
 op. — one bale cotton " ; " The Davis darkeys— chills 
 — one ounce quinine — three bushels sweet potatoes — 
 bottle of Cholagogue — six pullets " ; " Cholera on 
 Pratt's place — darkeys club together — one colt this 
 fall — two bales cotton — etc., etc." 
 
 It was then that the Doctor's crops began to come 
 in, one bale at a time, a pinched-looking bale, per- 
 haps, composed of the sum total of all the scattered 
 pounds of lint cotton owing him on one place, gath- 
 ered conscientiously together by his debtors and 
 pressed into one bale, to be hauled to town with the 
 next shipment and dumped down in the Doctor's big 
 front yard, where it would lie waiting for a rise in the 
 Liverpool market, or for more of its kind, taking its 
 
A NEW DOCTOR. IT5 
 
 chances of wind and weather, an object of fright and 
 scorn to Whitestocking, who eyed it with evident dis- 
 appro\al in the hght of a legal-tender for services in 
 which he had performed no insignificant part. Per- 
 haps, when the crops were all ginned, the Doctor's 
 share would amount to some seven or eight bales, 
 when he would brand it with his own initials and pri- 
 vate mark and ship it, for weeks thereafter taking an 
 unusual interest in the cotton quotations in the New 
 Orleans papers. It was in those days that the Doctor's 
 wife, true helpmate that she was, began to take entire 
 supervision of the dispensary. The Doctor's own benev- 
 olent preference would have been to give away his drugs 
 as freely as he gave of his cistern water to all his improv- 
 ident neighbors" during the drought, but the Doctor's 
 wife, fortunately for him, had a prudent streak with 
 which to oftset his uncalculating generosity, so she re- 
 minded him that " times were not what they used to be," 
 to which he assented with a sigh ; and that " they were 
 both getting old," to which he assented with a smile; 
 and that " his books were as much as he could attend 
 to when not on the road," to which he assented with 
 a groan ; " so the dispensing of the drugs had better 
 be left to her," to which he assented with that abso- 
 lute confidence in Mollie's superior wisdom which was 
 the outcome of many placid years of conjugal life 
 and mutual confidence. By what process of mental 
 arithmetic the Doctor's wife computed how many eggs 
 would purchase a dozen quinine pills, or how many 
 quarts of blackberries would be fair compensation for 
 a porous-plaster, or how many long-necked cashaws 
 would offset a pint of castor oil, was known to herself 
 
Ii6 A NEW DOCTOR. 
 
 alone ; but when the eggs and the pullets and the sweet 
 potatoes and "■ garden truck" accumulated with unusual 
 rapidity during the sickly season, the Doctor would 
 enter his simple protest : " No profit, my dear, no 
 profit. Simply cost of drugs ; remember that." And 
 MoUie remembered that conscientiously. Nobody 
 complained of her as an extortioner. 
 
 But the day came when MoUie dispensed the drugs 
 with mechanical caution and took her odd returns 
 with listless indifference ; when the Doctor's crop 
 accumulated in the front yard, without any one caring 
 to ship it ; when Whitestocking waxed fat and lazy 
 on the grass in the big yard, and would stand for 
 hours with his long head resting on the top board of 
 the front fence, wistfully wondering what this long 
 and unprecedented vacation for himself meant ; when 
 a young and untried physician went the rounds of the 
 plantations with an oppressive sense of intrusion into 
 anotlier man's domain, and was abjectly certain that 
 he was only sent for because the Doctor could not be 
 procured : when the men were divided between words 
 of blame for Doctor Goodman and expressions of pro- 
 found admiration ; when the women were unanimous 
 in their outcry against him for endangering a life so 
 important to them and theirs : when the Memphis 
 papers were waited for eagerly until the rigid quar- 
 antine regulations shut off the final source of infor- 
 mation as to what was befalling the man who was 
 enshrined in the heart of every man, woman, and child 
 within his own parish, but who had recklessly gone 
 away from them at the risk of his precious life. 
 
 Memphis lay palpitating under the scourge of yellow 
 
A NEW DOCTOR. 1 17 
 
 fever. Her cry for help had rung throughout the 
 land. More nurses, more doctors, more skill — that 
 was all her plaint. His great heart responded with a 
 bound to the wail of suffering humanity. For only a 
 few agitated days and nights he debated the course of 
 duty with his own conscience. Once his course de- 
 cided before that high tribunal, no power on earth 
 could sway him a hand's breadth. The greatest good 
 to the greatest number must be the right thing to aim 
 for. It carried him away from his home with the 
 peace of early sunrise resting on its vine-clad gallery 
 like a benediction. The sound of Mollie's sobs and 
 the faint perfume of the " Lady Bank " roses followed 
 him as he rode away on the path conscience pointed 
 out. They abode with him many a long day afterward, 
 as he went to and fro untiringly among the sick and 
 the dying, and the panic-stricken of the pestilence- • 
 swept town clung to him, but, at last, in the very hour 
 of victory, when the silent foe loosed his awful death- 
 grip and was slinking out of sight, he paused for one 
 more rally. Death chose a shining mark in that fatal 
 rally, and the Doctor went down. Strange hands 
 ministered to the man who had come voluntarily to 
 them in the hour of their mortal need ; ministered 
 tenderly, skillfully, unavailingly. No one knew it 
 sooner than he, no one had to announce the inevitable 
 to him. It was he who, looking up into the tearful 
 faces of his new-made friends, said to them : '' Tell 
 Mollie not to blame me for coming. I couldn't help it. 
 I would do it all over again. Poor Mollie ! " Then he 
 fell asleep. 
 
 Grateful hands erected a costly shaft over him and 
 
Il8 A NEIV DOCTOR, 
 
 grateful hearts dictated the epitaph that tells how he 
 came to them and cheerfully gave up his life for them, 
 and he is embalmed among the most sacred local tradi- 
 tions of the people for whom he died. But the void 
 left by his taking-off is not there. It is down in the 
 lowlands, where he had been friend, guide, and healer 
 to more than one generation of loyal adherents ; it is 
 in the little green and white house, behind the flower- 
 wreathed veranda, where a lonely widow dispenses the 
 drugs he left behind him with simple skill learned of 
 him through more than two-score years of loving com- 
 panionship — it is everywhere where the Doctor, with 
 his rumpled shirt-front and his serenely benevolent 
 smile, was a well-beloved and familiar entity whose 
 place can never be filled. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 JIM bailey's folks. 
 
 HIDDEN away in the heart of the somber pine 
 forests that cover with a dense growth some 
 portions of the State of Mississippi, are to be found 
 innumerable small farms that offer sharp points of 
 contrast in every respect to the larger plantations in 
 the rich " bottom lands " of the same State. They 
 are scarcely more than clearings ('' deadenin's," in 
 the local vernacular) in the woods that begirt them 
 with their columnar trunks and dark-green canopies. 
 The resinous, health-giving breath of the pines makes 
 of the dwellers in these poor lands a hardy race, who 
 are, happily, themselves absolutely unconscious of the 
 barrenness of the lives they lead, as seen from the 
 aesthetic point of view. 
 
 Ugly black stumps stand thickly about in the 
 rough furrows, whose stiff clayey clods promise scant 
 crops of corn and scanter yields of *' bumble-bee " 
 cotton (better called " break-back cotton," because to 
 pick it in its dwarfed growth is a sore trial to the 
 spinal column of an adult). The " deadening " is 
 marked by the gaunt specters of dead trees whose 
 stripped trunks gleam with ghostly whiteness in the 
 moonlight, and when they wave their useless limbs in 
 sighing protest against the seasons that come and go, 
 
I20 JIM BAILEY'S FOLKS. 
 
 and leave them still standing in helpless mockery of 
 their former stateliness, a sense of isolation pervades 
 every breast not grown callous to such influences, as, 
 fortunately, the '' piney woods folks " all have. The 
 fencing that defines these roughly-cleared fields 
 against the woods belongs to no particular school of 
 architecture. The only essential point about it is that 
 it must be pig-proof. The barren pine lands offer 
 slight inducements for stock-raising, and the few lean 
 kine that nose about in the brown fragrant needles, 
 with a hopeless sense of wasted time, depend princi- 
 pally upon the stubble left in the ragged corn-fields 
 after fodder-pulling time. They stand in a listless 
 group near by the bars almost constantly. Experience 
 has taught them that the far-away canebrake will 
 scarcely be reached before a barefoot, hatless boy, 
 with a retinue of a half-dozen yelping curs at his 
 heels, will be urging their return with importunity 
 that can not be slighted ; so enterprise ceases to be a 
 bovine virtue, and the cattle learn to be as stolidly 
 enduring as the men and the women to whose comfort 
 they contribute, though meagerly. 
 
 The hill planter h"as what would emphatically be 
 characterized as a " hard time of it " by men brought 
 down to such conditions from a higher social plane, 
 but having been born into it, and only knowing in a 
 dull, theoretical way of any better mode of living, he 
 accepts it as he does the sterility of the red clay he 
 patiently plows^ and hoes and rakes year after year, 
 and plants with cotton and corn and sweet potatoes 
 and sorghum. He knows the " bottoms " are rich, 
 while his own land is poor. But it, is so, and that's 
 
JIM BAILEYS FOLKS. I2I 
 
 all of it. The hill lands are " his'n," the bottoms 
 aren't. No socialist murmurings ever disturb the 
 peace of his baked-clay hearth. No envious sighs are 
 ever wasted upon his neighbor's fat kine and full 
 barns. But he is not conscious of being a philoso- 
 pher. 
 
 He knows and practices many sorts of thrift that 
 would be " picayuuish " in his richer neighbor, who 
 ships his " ties " by the hundreds. There are rows 
 of bee-gums lining the rude picket-fence that shuts 
 the log-house in from the stumpy cornfields. There 
 is a patch of broom corn in one end of the place that 
 will find its way eventually in shape of round brooms 
 into the town, where the hill-planter goes about Christ- 
 mas time with his crop to sell, and a miscellaneous 
 cargo to dispose of that will tax his one yoke of steers 
 to their utmost hauling capacity. Life has never 
 presented itself to him in any of its luxuriant phases. 
 There has been no redundancy of any sort (children 
 excepted) to render him careless of the present or 
 avid of the future. He has no profound repinings or 
 bounding ambitions. He is content to live on the 
 dead level of practicality and common-sense. The 
 philosophy of his existence resolves itself into a for- 
 mula : " Whar's the use er frettin' over what can't be 
 hindered?" The log-cabin to which he brought a 
 bride as practical and as patient as himself seventeen 
 years ago is not a thing of beauty, and if he had 
 thought about it a little longer he would have " faced " 
 it so that the blazing sun should not rise " smack " on 
 the front gallery in the morning, and set equally as 
 smack on the back gallery in the evening, thus giving 
 
122 JIM BAILEY'S FOLKS. 
 
 the hemmed-in little homestead the full but dubious 
 benefit of its glare all day long ; but that's one of the 
 things that can't be hindered now, so he sits on his 
 gallery at resting-time and mops his furrowed brow 
 in patient endurance of the glare and the heat that 
 beat mercilessly down upon him. If he had it to do 
 over again, he wouldn't swap his old mule Sandy off 
 for that brood mare, for she's that broken-winded that 
 he " darsn't " drive her out of a walk, and he's 
 obliged to acknowledge he got badly " tuck in " that 
 time ; but the mule's gone, and the mare's broken- 
 windedness is another thing that can't be hindered, so 
 he accommodates himself to her infirmities and doesn't 
 fret because she is scarcely better than a dead-head 
 on the farm. In moments of prolonged reverie, such 
 as come to him of Sundays, or when he is tramping 
 the woods with his gun on his shoulder, waiting for 
 " Drab," who is trotting at his heels, to tree a coon, 
 or in the early spring, when the one lopsided peach- 
 tree that shades the iron chain-pump at the back door is 
 all aflush with its dainty pink blossoms, and the soft 
 hum of the bees fills his ears as he plows his semi- 
 circular rows around the red-clay sides of the hill that 
 has given his place the name of " Bailey's Knoll," there 
 may come back to him dull echoes from a far-away 
 past, in which there stirred within him a short-lived 
 ambition to '' be something," perhaps — a vague ambi- 
 tion and a still vaguer something. But that was when 
 he went to school in Flaxville for a whole year, and 
 •got a lot of book nonsense in his head. His father 
 soon got him out of that notion when he gave him 
 *' Bailey's Knoll," two mules, a wagon, and a stock of 
 
JIM BAILEY'S FOLKS. 123 
 
 poultry, pigs, and calves, and told him to " root for 
 himself." He has been rooting ever since very 
 patiently. And if the idea stirred up by the book 
 nonsense of his Flaxville days ever intrudes, he puts 
 it down with a strong will. Things are as they are, 
 and it's the worst sort of foolishness to '' fret " 
 over what can't be " hindered." 
 
 The meager conditions of their lot seem to impress 
 themselves upon the anatomy and physiognomy of the 
 piney-woods folks. In spite of the wholesome atmos- 
 phere and the healing breath of the pines, a rosy 
 cheek or a plump form is a rarity. Descriptively, 
 they are sad. In point of fact they are simply stolid. 
 Sadness presupposes disappointment, loss, failure of 
 hope. Disappointment presupposes desire. The 
 desires of these patient toilers of the woods seldom 
 overtop their ability to fulfill them. They desire rea- 
 sonably, hope practically, expect always within 
 bounds of probability. In point of independence and 
 honesty " Jim Bailey's folks," as the neighbors called 
 the Knoll people, could have given many a theoretical 
 and practical point. When Mrs. Bailey rode over to 
 Mrs. Colonel Mason's place on the broken-winded mare 
 to carry home the rag carpet which she had woven for 
 the Colonel's wife on her little hand-loom, she was 
 very proud of the gay product of her own industry, 
 and descanted on its superiority to the worthless 
 '' two-plys " that it was to replace, with intelligent 
 loquacity and no sense of personal inferiority to the 
 fine lady who paid her liberally for the carpet. She 
 " w^ouldn't change places with her for the world, if the 
 Mason house did make forty of her cabin on Bailey's 
 
124 JIM BAILEYS FOLKS. 
 
 Knoll. Mrs. Mason had some spine trouble, poor- 
 creature, and could only take the air in her fine car- 
 riage. No grandeur this world could afford would 
 compensate Mrs. Bailey for the uselessness of her own 
 sturdy homespun clad limbs. Besides * Mason ' was 
 head over ears in debt to his commission merchants, 
 and, thank God, Jim didn't owe any man a red cent." 
 Nothins: could exceed their horror of debt. Mrs. 
 Bailey was not above taking hints from the superior 
 elegance of her neighbors, and if it was any thing that 
 Jim's ingenuity or industry could compass in some 
 cheap form, some of the Mason belongings might be 
 duplicated at Bailey's Knoll. It was with a sense 
 of pardonable exultation that she would repeat the 
 annual story of Mrs. Mason's preserves all ''sourin' " 
 and her pickles all " moldin'." No '' slap-dash nig- 
 ger " ever had the making of Mrs. Bailey's preserves 
 and pickles. If it 'twasn't so *' hard on the old man 
 to ask for so much sugar," there would have been no 
 limit to the jars of quinces and crab-apples and water- 
 melon rinds, cut into wondrous shapes, that would 
 have found their way into the little shed room that 
 Mrs. Bailey called her store-room. But there was no 
 use trying to feed seven mouths on " sweets " every 
 day, so Mrs. Bailey's preserves were forthcoming only 
 at long intervals, and then on occasion of some nota- 
 ble occurrence — a birthday perhaps. Pumpkin 
 stewed in sorghum molasses, or an occasional sweet- 
 potato pie, was luxury enough for Bailey's Knoll, as 
 a usual thing. 
 
 Once a year there are signs of unusual activity at 
 Bailey's Knoll. It occurs annually at about the same 
 
JIM BAILEY'S FOLKS. 1 25 
 
 period, that is, near on towards Christmas, when the 
 two bales of "bumble-bee" cotton have been picked 
 out by the entire family, including the smallest child, 
 whose limited stature and nimble fingers render him 
 peculiarly fit for the office, have been ginned and 
 baled "over at Mason's" for a toll of lint, and have 
 been hauled back home on the ox-cart to await the 
 annual accumulation of truck with which it will be 
 still further loaded on the day when Jim Bailey, 
 perched on one of the opulent looking bales, and Mrs. 
 Bailey, with a splintless sun-bonnet flapping about her 
 sun-burned face, mounted on the wind-broken mare, 
 will pace patiently to town ; for Jim can not be 
 trusted alone with so stupendous an undertaking as 
 this trading expedition, on which the physical comfort 
 of the entire family must depend for so many months. 
 The disposition of the -two bales of cotton for ready 
 cash he can be trusted to attend to ; but, besides that, 
 the ox-cart will have several sacks of "yams" and 
 yellow Spanish sweet potatoes. It will have great 
 strings of tiny-grained popcorn, like many-colored 
 ivory. It will have several gallons of strained honey, 
 baskets of creamy eggs, from which the family have 
 been rigidly excluded for weeks past ; a score or two 
 of squawking pullets tied together by the legs ; a pil- 
 low-slip full of live geese feathers, that Mrs. Bailey 
 has unflinchingly plucked with her own determined 
 hand, in spite of the vociferous protest of the rightful 
 owners thereof, held imprisoned between her unyielding 
 knees. There will be shapely door-mats, made of 
 corn-shucks, which Bailey and the boys have wrought 
 at of evenings by the blazing light of their wood fires. 
 
126 jnr BAILEY'S FOLKS. 
 
 There will be a pile of 'coon skins that have one by 
 one ornamented the outer walls of the white- washed 
 log cabin on the Knoll until duly stretched, and the 
 interstices will be filled up with long-necked cashaws 
 and huge yellow pumpkins. It will be an all-day's 
 absence from home, and the period of tantalizing 
 expectation it wnll inflict on the children left behind 
 will be more than compensated for by a large sense of 
 personal liberty. The dogs will walk boldly into the 
 house to partake of the holiday with their two-legged 
 companions. Martha, the nominal head of the family 
 on the momentous occasion, prefers to tidy up after 
 the boys rather than undertake the hopeless task of 
 keeping them w^ithin bounds. Martha is a gaunt, 
 sad-eyed girl of sixteen, who has had a love affair, 
 and has never recovered from the bilious condition it 
 threw her into. Her mother is of the impression it 
 has '' settled on her liver." • The effects of it are 
 mainly apparent in a certain slow irritability that most 
 frequently finds vent on the boys. 
 
 When Jim Bailey sees the sun sinking behind the 
 wooden steeple of Flaxville Methodist meeting-house, 
 he knows it is time for him to put the yoke on the steers 
 that have been comfortably munching their fodder 
 under the big oak tree in front of " Govey's store," and 
 to load up for home. If he, in the unusual excitement 
 of talking over the crops with a lot of fellows at 
 Govey's, neglects this sign of waning day, Mrs. Bailey 
 will promptly remind him of it by waving her sun- 
 bonnet at him over the palings of *' Miss Brandin's " 
 front yard, to which the broken-winded mare is tethered. 
 She always goes to see Mrs. Brandon when she comes 
 
JIM BAILEY'S FOLKS. 127 
 
 in to Flaxville. In fact she and Jim always take 
 their dinner there, securing a welcome by a lot of 
 dried apples, some cashaws, and a quart or two of the 
 strained honey that formed items of the truck. As 
 the wagon creaks its way homeward through the dark- 
 ening woods, it will have gained in the value of its 
 load what it has lost in bulk. There will be " yellow 
 domestics," " blue cotton checks," and red flannel 
 galore. There will be a pair of new stout shoes for 
 every member of the family, from Jim down to '' little 
 Jim," his latest born and his namesake. There will 
 be huge hanks of blue and white yarn for the knitting 
 of the "best socks"; Mrs. Bailey's own wheel can 
 turn off an article good enough for every-day wear. 
 There will be a lilac-calico and an embroidered muslin 
 collar for " Marthy." " Marthy" is young yet, and if her 
 liver isn't just quite right, she's entitled by reason of 
 her youth and a certain prettiness that is magnified by 
 the maternal lens, to a slight margin in the direction of 
 frivolity. There will be a new slate and half a dozen 
 slate pencils with barber-pole ornamentation on their 
 blunt ends for Ben. Ben's slates are subject to catas- 
 trophes, and are seldom intact longer than a week from 
 date of purchase, but they are regarded as sensible in- 
 vestments, for Ben shows a " turn for figgers," and is 
 regarded as the possible future Rothschild of the con- 
 cern. The stars light them on their homewerd way 
 as they go slowly, not minding the heavy tread of the 
 tired oxen or the asthmatic breathing of the mare, for 
 there is. so much to tell. Jim has picked up no end of 
 news at Govey's store, and what his wife has left un- 
 gleaned from "Miss Brandin's" field of gossip would 
 
128 JIM BAILEY'S FOLKS. 
 
 scarcely repay the efforts of the most inveterate news- 
 monger. There is the price at which the cotton went 
 to be discussed, and the phrases of admiration eUcited 
 by the shuck mats to be repeated. There's the rumor 
 that Mason's about to be ^'foreclosed on a mortgige " 
 to be retailed cautiously ; there's the new " polonay " 
 pattern kindly lent by Mrs. Brandon for the benefit of 
 Martha's new lilac calico, to be described with all the 
 mystifying minutiae of gore and " pin-back," for Jim's 
 utter bewilderment, and there's the good solid piece of 
 commercial luck to be gloated over in the ordering, by 
 no less a personage than Govey himself, of a barrel of 
 her best soft-soap. The ride home under the quiet 
 stars is restful and pleasant to them both after the 
 turbulent activity of a whole day spent in town. 
 
 The lamp is lighted in the " sitting-room," which is 
 also the dining-room,when Jim gives one final resound- 
 ing crack of his long ox-whip, more as a signal for the 
 boys to come out and help unload than with a view to 
 urge the steers to any further exertion, for the block 
 stile is reached, and Mrs. Bailey has already jumped 
 nimbly down into the yard and is fending off the tumul- 
 tuous greetings of all the yard dogs, while she gives 
 directions to the boys as to the disposition of the vari- 
 ous boxes and packages, Jim is rapidly piling up on 
 top of the stile. Her heart does not fail her at sight 
 of the bolt of gray jeans piled on top of the yellow do- 
 mestics and the blue cotton checks, although she 
 knows that the task of transforming them all into wear- 
 ing apparel for " the old man " and the boys will be all 
 her own, without other aid than " Marthy's" slow, un- 
 trained fingers. No sewing-machine has added its 
 
JIM BAILEY'S FOLKS. 129 
 
 brisk clatter to the slow, soft melody of the spinning- 
 wheel,which is the only music that ever stirs the silence 
 of the cabin on the knoll. Fortunately, none of the 
 Bailey folks are over-fastidious, and if Jim's new jeans 
 suitjwhich he will conscientiously forbear putting on 
 before Christmas Day, should turn out to be lacking 
 in length of sleeves or trowsers-legs, if the difficulty in 
 bringing the horn breast-buttons into friendly relations 
 with their complementary button-holes, and a certain 
 inaccessibility of pocket, should betray the 'prentice 
 hand of Mrs. Bailey too pointedly, what matter ? It 
 will be ranked among those things that can't be hin- 
 dered, and are therefore not to be fretted over. 
 
 There are very few things in this world that Jim 
 Bailey does think worth fretting over, and those are all 
 alterable things. One of the sorest trials he has so 
 far been called on to endure is Martha's " mopin'," as 
 he is pleased to call it. It involves a great disap- 
 pointment to him. He and Mrs. Bailey had hit on a 
 cheap plan for the education of the four white-haired, 
 blunt-witted boys who complete their family of five 
 children, and he rather resented any body's having it 
 in his power to interfere with that plan. Marthy was 
 the oldest, and Marthy was " real peert.'' She was put 
 to board at Mrs. Brandon's, and had the advantage of 
 two whole years of schooling. They meant she should 
 have had three, but Mrs. Brandon wrote them word 
 that the school-teacher, who was a young man, was 
 " makin' a fool of Marthy, and nothin' less," which 
 carried Mr. Bailey promptly into town. Finding that 
 there was only too much ground for Mrs. Brandon's 
 friendly note of warning, he wore out a stout cow-hide 
 
T 3 O JIM B A /LEY'S FOL KS. 
 
 whip and the schoolmaster's best black coat at the same 
 time, and took Marthy home behind him on the mare. 
 The schoolmaster left Flaxville that same night, and 
 if the affair made much of a stir, nobody cared to dis- 
 cuss it with Jim Bailey, for under the long, lank, 
 sandy hair that lies in smooth lines beneath his broad- 
 brimmed slouch hat gleams a pair of rather dangerous- 
 looking blue eyes. Marthy has never heard the 
 schoolmaster's name mentioned since she came home ; 
 he has dropped entirely out of her life, but there are 
 times when a wave of recollection sweeps over her, 
 and she recalls all the bright promises he made her, 
 and all the beautiful things he promised she should 
 see, and all the wondrous joy she should know, and 
 then the whitewashed cabin on Bailey's Knoll looks 
 like a prison to her, and the meaningless chatter of 
 the boys jars on her, and she seeks refuge down by the 
 spring, where only the birds and bees come to drink, 
 where the dark shrubs close her in from sight of the 
 fields, and it all feels as if somebody had laid a cool 
 hand on her hot pulses and brought peace with it. 
 She knows they will look darkly on her when she goes 
 back to the house, for her father is always his coldest 
 to her after one of '' Marthy's spells," which is the 
 reason Mrs. Bailey is so insistent about its being her 
 liver. Sentiment in any of its manifestations is some- 
 thing, in Jim's estimation, to bring the blush of shame 
 to every honest cheek, and to have a girl of his 
 " mopin' " about a fellow that '' wasn't worth the pow- 
 der that 'd kill him," was as near being a blot on his 
 'scutcheon as he could stand, without " frettin' " vig- 
 orously and outspokenly. 
 
JIM BA IL E V S FO L KS. 1 3 1 
 
 The building- of castles in the air is not an occupa- 
 tion that consumes much time for ''Bailey's folks." 
 Perhaps Jim himself looks forward to the time when, 
 the boys being all grown, he can take in more land and 
 make more cotton. His wildest flight of imagination 
 carries Ben triumphantly to a high stool at Govey's, 
 which the head bookkeeper always occupies. If Ben 
 shows a " leanin' " toward mercantile life, he shan't 
 cross him. There'll be enough boys left to keep the 
 old place moving, and to make things a little easier on 
 him and "ma" when they shall be '' gettin' on in 
 years." 
 
 What goes on in the world beyond the belt of pine 
 woods that begirts his little clearing is of small con- 
 sequence to him. In a confused fashion he knows of 
 the leading men and most notable public events, but 
 he is no politician. He is the indifferent possessor of 
 an undervalued vote. It never addresses itself to him 
 in the light of a duty that he should go to the polls 
 on election day, which he generally does, however, for 
 the sociability of the thing, without any personal lean- 
 ings for or against either candidate ; and so long as 
 there are no doctor's bills to pay on Bailey's Knoll, or 
 any " lawyer chap sticking an impudent nose " into 
 his private affairs for the benefit of any creditor ; and 
 cotton don't go below 8^^ cents ; and "ma" don't 
 show any signs of failing, just so long will stolid Jim 
 Bailey drink the cold spring water from the sweet big 
 white gourd that hangs over the brass-bound cedar 
 bucket on the back gallery corner shelf, and rid himself 
 of the* sweat of honest toil by the aid of the tin basin 
 and roller-towel that are its near neighbors, with a 
 
132 JIM BAILEY'S FOLIOS. 
 
 placid sense of material well-doing and the firm con- 
 viction that this being the best world he knows any 
 thing about, there's no use " frettin' " about another 
 one if it can possibly be " hindered." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 M A M M Y. 
 
 WHAT a despot she was ! What a gentle, tart, 
 coaxable, domineering old paradox, whom we 
 children loved and feared extravagantly and unrea- 
 sonably. 
 
 From an aesthetic point of view. Mammy was not 
 satisfactory, but then no one ever thought of taking 
 her from an aesthetic point of view. From the apex 
 of her conical turban to the broad soles of her clumsy 
 shoes, however, she was a good and comforting and 
 wholesome thing to have about, although she was not 
 what the old romance writer would have called 
 "comely." She hangs in memory's picture-gallery as 
 a short and shapeless personality, not built according 
 to any known canon of Greek classicism ; with an 
 exceedingly wrinkled black face, illumined by a pair 
 of kindly eyes, and overtopped by a towering ban- 
 danna handkerchief, whose dazzling plaids were among 
 the earliest object lessons our infantile brains coped 
 with. 
 
 There is a certain pattern of blue plaid cotton still 
 turned out of the mills that always evokes the familiar 
 vision of Mammy on week days. (On Sundays she 
 was gorgeous in a purple alpaca, trimmed with black 
 
134 MAMMY. 
 
 braid.) Her favorite plaid was the extremest, in 
 point of size, the fashion would allow, and those plaids 
 never by any accident matched at the seams, which 
 was excessively trying to our sense of exactness. The 
 large white horn buttons that confined the rigidly 
 plain waist of her dress across her honest bosom have 
 many a time left a fleeting impress on the fleshy tab- 
 lets of our young cheeks. There was always a rather 
 exaggerated hiatus between the hem of that cotton 
 dress and the stout blue yarn stockings that clothed 
 her nether limbs, but we children rather approved the 
 conspicuity of those stockings, for we took a sort of 
 proprietary interest in them. 
 
 We had all grown up together, as it were, in the big 
 pleasant bedroom that looked out on the pomegranate 
 bushes in the back yard. There was no more familiar 
 article in that room than the huge ball of homespun 
 yarn, bristling with Mammy's shining knitting-needles, 
 by which were always suspended stockings in every 
 conceivable stage of progress. She knitted only at 
 ''odd times." That meant if she was not smoothing 
 somebody's refractory curls, or mending a tell-tale 
 rent in somebody else's garments, or wiping the 
 tears from a pair of childish eyes, or soothing 
 the pangs of disappointment against her sympathizing 
 bosom, she was plying her needles with a musical 
 click that frequently assumed the proportions of a 
 " buzz." Mammy was a guileful old soul. One of her 
 favorite ruses to prevent our importunities for some- 
 thing to eat between meals was to extract a solemn 
 promise of mute patience from us while she knit so 
 many rounds in the "ribbing," the honesty of the bar- 
 
MAMMY. 135 
 
 gain to be left to our own calculations ; our reward — 
 the coveted refreshment. In the absorbing interest of 
 watching her swift speeding needles and counting the 
 probationary rounds, the pangs of imaginary hunger 
 would be dissipated and Mammy's end gained. Or 
 else some childish peccadillo must be atoned for by 
 the culprit's confinement in a chair close to her side 
 until she turned the heel or narrowed a toe. If the 
 croquet balls were clinking on the lawn beyond the 
 pomegranate bushes, or the pecan trees were being 
 thrashed in the hollow, the turning of that heel or the 
 narrowing of that toe rivaled the bed of Procrustes in 
 power to torture. But it was oftenest at night, when 
 Mammy sat by the shaded lamp in the nursery, the 
 cynosure of half a dozen pairs of sleepless little eyes, 
 whose lids would not down simply because their rebel- 
 lious owners had to go to bed by the clock, that the 
 shining needles flew most uninterruptedly,furnishing a 
 metallic accompaniment to the droning song or the 
 weird story with which she beguiled us into drowsi- 
 ness. It was a remarkable coincidence that Mammy's 
 stories always embodied a prolix description of the 
 especial sort of ill-doing that had overtaken any one 
 of us that day, with a vivid portraiture of the awful 
 catastrophe such evil tendencies must inevitably lead 
 to if persevered in. All this to explain why Mammy's 
 blue-yarn stockings are inextricably mixed up with 
 the tenderest recollections of childhood. 
 
 I do not think it ever occurred to us to speculate 
 on what became of Mammy every night after we went 
 to sleep. I think we had a vague impression that she 
 was wiped out, like a sum on the blackboard, until we 
 
136 MAMMY. 
 
 needed her again next morning. We could no more 
 conceive of her leading an existence separate from 
 ours than we could conceive of ours separated from 
 hers, and that was manifestly impossible. Another 
 one of our unshakable convictions concerning this 
 central object in our5^oung lives was that Mammy was 
 the victim of unappeasable hunger, and no meal of 
 our own was fittingly concluded without the selection 
 of some choice bits to be carried in to her. The pur- 
 veyor of a slice of sweet-potato pie or a buttered hot 
 waffle was generally held by her in special esteem, and 
 became an object of gnawing envy to all the others. 
 
 How inextricably the lines of her life were entangled 
 with those of her " w'ite folks," and will be until death 
 them do part ! Her tears fell as hot and fast as any 
 one's on the baby's little waxen face when she lay on 
 a white-draped table in the parlor, that still summer 
 day, her tiny hands folded peacefully about an un- 
 opened rosebud from the ''bridal" rose-bush under 
 mother's window. And how lost she seemed for so 
 many mornings after that quiet burying in the family 
 graveyard, in one corner of the garden ! It had been 
 her custom to take the baby from the arms of its other 
 mother at earliest peep of dawn and transport her to 
 the nursery, where its preternatural energy in the mat- 
 ter of early rising was used as the text for our con- 
 fusion. And it was around the baby sitting in Mam- 
 my's lap, solemn-eyed but gravely approving, that the 
 rest of us performed that erratic and turbulent cer- 
 emony which we called dressing. We all missed the 
 baby, but long after it had faded into nothing more 
 than a sweet far-away memory to our faithless young 
 
MAJ/A/y. 137 
 
 souls, Mammy still plucked the weeds from among 
 the violets that covered her grave, and kept within 
 bounds the straggHng branches of the tea-rose that 
 shaded it. That special corner of the family burying 
 ground was consecrated in her eyes forever. When the 
 war broke out, how monstrous it seemed to her that any 
 of her w'ite folks should have to go '' soldiering " and 
 leave their comfortable homes to be made food for pow- 
 der. The casus belli was too far removed from her 
 comprehension at first to have any bearing on the mat- 
 ter. Those two boys, Al and Fred, who strutted up and 
 down the long gallery so consequentially on the 
 morning of their departure for Richmond, were her 
 " chillun." She had stood side by side with their 
 own mother in ministering to their welfare from the 
 cradle to that monstrous hour. She had stood be- 
 tween them and parental wrath a countless number of 
 times. She had surreptitiously conveyed nourishment 
 to them through the transom over the door often and 
 often when that " heartless governess " of theirs had 
 locked them up for bad lessons. And when Al had 
 made his first essay in duck-hunting, at the tender 
 age of eleven, who but Mammy had tramped across 
 miles of marshy ground to the duck-pond to make 
 sure that the first discharge of his gun had not bespat- 
 tered the fields with his precious brains, as she solemnly 
 predicted ? And here they were, men ; men with 
 soldiers* caps set jauntily over their bright brown 
 curls, and two rows of shining brass buttons on the 
 breasts of their new gray jackets. They challenged 
 her to a compliment, she gave them instead tearful 
 smiles ; then suddenly turning away from them she 
 
138 MAMMY. 
 
 disappeared within doors to return pretty soon with a 
 black quart bottle, whose cork she was securing 
 tightly by pressing a cap of softened yellow bees' 
 wax all about it. This she extended to Al with an 
 hysterical sob : 
 
 " Take it, son. H'it's balsam apple and whisky. 
 It's mighty good for cuts en bruises, en ef my chillun 
 git hurt, Mammy won' be nigh 'em to ten' 'em lak she 
 wants t' be, but you jes' rub dat balsam apple inter 
 de place right quick en h'it mebbe be de savin' ub yo' 
 libes, son. If you git out'n it, write to Mammy for 
 some mo'." 
 
 It was Mammy's final service to the boys who never 
 came back ! That night she swept the yard fast and 
 furiously. It was a sure sign of deep and uncontrol- 
 lable emotion on her part. In the years of our unrea- 
 soning childhood we had always shrunk from her in 
 temporary distrust after one of these episodes. We 
 had known her to neglect every thing for short inter- 
 vals, while she betook herself to the back yard, where 
 the ground was bare of grass and beaten hard by the 
 constant passage of feet from the outside offices to 
 the big yard, where, with her round broom, made 
 rudely of brushwood tied together, she would sweep 
 and sweep until the dead silence of late night crept 
 over the premises. We could hear the scratching of 
 her brush-broom, and the lights would be put out in 
 the kitchen, and the dogs up in the quarters would 
 bark in that desultory, disjointed fashion that bespeaks 
 slumber disturbed, and the stars would come out and 
 dimly illuminate the tremulous apex of Mammy's agi- 
 tated turban, and we children would finally creep into 
 
MAMMY. 139 
 
 bed, assisted by mother, where we would sobbingly 
 condole with each other over the calamity of Mammy's 
 being a crazy woman, and would be correspondingly 
 surprised next morning on opening our eyes timidly 
 to find her in her normal condition. No one ever re- 
 ferred to these volcanic eruptions. For a day or two, 
 perhaps, Mammy's manner to us would be very meek 
 and slightly tinged with apology, and we were not 
 slow to recognize the fact that temporarily we had the 
 upper hand of her ; but things would promptly read- 
 just themselves on the old basis. In later years we 
 came to understand these periodic " tantrums" as the 
 only vent for a nature naturally impulsive and vehe- 
 ment, which, by circumstances denied the safety-valve 
 of words, took refuge in violent and continuous action 
 that left her physically exhausted and morally be- 
 calmed. 
 
 Before the war the broad tide of life and action on 
 the plantation was, as it were, simply tributary to the 
 narrower and deeper current that had its flow and ebb 
 in the " big house." This made it possible for those 
 who ministered most directly to that deeper current 
 to lead dual lives of entire unlikeness. Even Mammy 
 led her dual life, as we children came to under- 
 stand, when we got older, with a sort of resentful 
 surprise. We had known always that the "Tildy" 
 who was celebrated in the quarters as being the cham- 
 pion shouter at '^ meetin' " and the best cotton-picker 
 on the place was privileged to address our Mammy as 
 *' Marmy," and that Prince, who played the fiddle on 
 Saturday night for the people to dance by, and who 
 excelled in patting an accompaniment to old Sandy's 
 
I40 MAMA/V. 
 
 bones, shared that high privilege with her, but these 
 were grown-up people who rarely came to the yard 
 for any purpose, and our knowledge of them was 
 slight ; and we knew also that when our daily votive 
 offerings of sweet-potato pie, buttered hot waffles, 
 mangoes, or baked turtle increased in embarrassing 
 quantity, Mammy would pile them up on one end of 
 the nursery mantel with the remark that ^' she'd tek 
 'em home, honey, to de ol' man ; " indeed, perhaps 
 our information concerning Mammy's other life in- 
 cluded the knowledge that Uncle Dave, who was so 
 badly crippled with rheumatism that he could only sit 
 in the sun under the sycamore tree that shaded the 
 blacksmith's shop in the quarters, and make huge bas- 
 kets for the cotton-pickers, was Mammy's " ol' man." 
 But beyond marveling at any one's using the posses- 
 sive pronoun to such an uncanny-looking object, our 
 interest in Uncle Dave never extended. What was he 
 to Hecuba or Hecuba to him ? We discovered what, 
 in a startling fashion. Mammy was sitting by the 
 open window when we opened our eyes one morning, 
 not knitting, simply looking out of the window with a 
 far-away gaze, as she smoothed her white, cross-barred 
 apron over her knees with restless hands. All the 
 sweet scents and sounds of spring time in the country 
 came to our awakening senses through the open win- 
 dow behind her. The purple clusters of a Pride of 
 China that grew close up to it were swaying to and 
 fro and tapping the raised sash with their fragrant 
 petals. We could see the orchard from where we lay 
 and the great snowy banks of the plum blossoms. 
 The hens and the ducks and the geese were engaged 
 
MAMA/Y. 14* 
 
 in their matutinal squabble over the tray of clabber 
 that Aunt Lily, the milk woman, placed before them 
 the first thing every morning. We could hear Sam 
 whistling at the wood-pile, where he was cutting wood 
 for the kitchen stove, with those ringing blows of his 
 sharp ax that made the big white ash-wood chips we 
 were so fond of gathering up in our aprons to fill 
 Aunt Rose's chip-box with, in a corner of the kitchen. 
 We could hear the milk falling with a musical tinkle 
 into the tin bucket Aunt Lily always kept for the 
 " strippings " she defrauded the bleating calves of. 
 Every thing was bright, and brisk, and comforting 
 that morning except Mammy, and we marveled at it 
 and wondered uneasily if she was going to sweep the 
 yard that day, and "going crazy" again. 
 
 She turned her eyes on us when she discovered that 
 we were lazily waiting to be ordered up, and said in a 
 plaintive tone altogether new in our experience of 
 her : " Git up, my sweeties, an' let Mammy dress you. 
 Don' pester none dis mawnin', kase Mammy's heart's 
 mouty so'; de han' uv de Lawd ben laid on her heavy 
 sence las' night." Then she wiped her dear old eyes 
 furtively on a corner of the plaid handkerchief, which 
 she wore folded across her bosom, and got up to pour 
 the water into the wash-hand-basin that she always 
 put into a chair for our greater convenience, sighing 
 ponderously the while. 
 
 No cherubs of recent importation from celestial 
 heights could have behaved m.ore perfectly than we 
 did that morning, moving under the shadow of Mam- 
 my's unexplained sorrow. I fancy we thought it 
 rested entirely with ourselves if Mammy should pass 
 
14^ AIAJl/A/V. 
 
 through this mysterious ordeal without recourse to 
 her broom. Not that the mystery was of her making, 
 for as soon as the family breakfast was concluded, 
 and her " w'ite folks " were at leisure to listen to her 
 tale of woe without unseemly interruptions of any 
 sort, she told it all, and I think the tableau we formed 
 about her, as she stood before our mother with her 
 hands folded pathetically over her white apron, would 
 have furnished good material for one of Rogers's 
 groups, to be called '' Bereavement," or, perhaps 
 better still, " Sympathy " — as the sympathy was, in 
 our crude estimation, largely in excess of the bereave- 
 ment. 
 
 " My ol' man done lef me, Miss," she began, drop- 
 ping a courtesy that brought the hem of her short 
 blue plaid dress into contact with the carpet ; " he's 
 gone to Vicksburg. De folks tol' 'im he could git a 
 guv'ment mule en ten acres er groun' by goin' arter 
 it, en he's done gone. My ol' man warn' much 'count, 
 but de cabin's sorter lonesome widout him." 
 
 Here Mammy paused decorously to receive in dig- 
 nified silence the condolences of her w'ite folks, which 
 were rendered without stint, and the youngest mem- 
 ber of our circle, never having yet experienced any 
 affliction that cut sugar could not ameliorate, slipped 
 off to the dining-room to procure a supply of that 
 sort of comfort for our bereaved Mammy. 
 
 " An' dat ain' all," she resumed presently, as if eco- 
 nomically minded in dispensing her bad news. 
 " Prince done gone wid 'im, Miss — Prince, dat triflin' 
 rapscallion er mine dat wouldn' know w'at t' do wid a 
 guv'ment mule w'en he git him. But Prince were a 
 
MAMMY. 143 
 
 handy one wid de fiddle an' de bow, he were. I 'low 
 dere won't be much dancin' er Saterday nights in de 
 quarters now Prince done tuk hisseff off en lef his ol* 
 Mammy — lak Rachel in de Bible was lef." 
 
 Another pause, during which mother poured in all 
 the balm her own tender nature could concoct on 
 such short notice, and more saccharine consolation 
 was thrust into Mammy's apron pocket. 
 
 " But dar's mo' yet," said Mammy, lifting her 
 turbaned head as if she were rising to a sense of the 
 dignity of her position ; " Tildy's gone too. I 'lows 
 she don' wan' no guv'ment mule, ner no ten acres er 
 groun'. I 'lows w'at she do want is a good lambastin', 
 dat w'at she a-pinin' for. But de cabin's mouty lone- 
 some. Miss. It's empty. An' it sorter hurts my 
 feelin's to see de half-finished baskit de ol' man was 
 workin' on w'en dis fool noshon struck him. An' I 
 don' lak to look at Prince's fiddle case nuther, Miss 
 (he tuk his fiddle 'long), and dar's Tildy's hoe layin' 
 jus' whar she drap it w'en she pick up en' went 'way 
 widout even tellin' her po' ol' Mammy good-by. Dey 
 stole 'way yistiday, whiles I was up to de big house, 
 jus' lak a fief in de night. De han' uv de Lawd is laid 
 heavy on me, my sweeties." 
 
 Thus appealed to directly, the fountain of our tears 
 burst forth and flowed in such alarming volume that 
 Mammy became comforter in her turn. But that 
 night she swept the back yard fast and furiously, and 
 the next next — and the night — then she stood 
 once more in the midst of us and discharged a bomb- 
 shell directly into the hearts of the children who loved 
 her. To her credit be it said that the bomb-shell 
 
144 MaMMV. 
 
 plowed as deeply into her own tender soul as Into 
 ours. 
 
 " It cyarn be holped, Mist'ess," she began without 
 preamble ; " I'se 'bleeged t' go too. I'se ben studyin' 
 'bout it tell I done turn ag'in' my vittles ; but I cyarn 
 stay behin' w'en my ol' man en Prince en 'Tildy done 
 gone. De cabin's so lonesome uv nights, Mist'ess, 
 dat de buzzin' uv de 'skeeters soun's as loud as de 
 quarter-bell ringin' fur gittin'-up time. My heart 's 
 jes' tored in two, but I'se 'bleeged to go." 
 
 Nature triumphed, and Mammy went. Her going 
 gave us an opportunity to learn how elastic the human 
 heart is, and how quickly young lives can be read- 
 justed to new conditions. In those eventful days so 
 much happened out of routine that men and women 
 comforted themselves somewhat like surf-bathers, 
 bracing themselves anew for each inevitable billow as 
 it rolled toward them in quick succession and resist- 
 less force. So it was that the grief created by 
 Mammy's going was soon whelmed in greater grief 
 for the cutting short of fresh young lives, and when 
 the billows ceased to roll and the long sullen calm of 
 despair settled over the lives of those she had left 
 behind her, we had grown used to the vacant chair in 
 the nursery and to the absence of her busy ministra- 
 tions, and sorrowed for her in a chastened fashion. 
 
 The war was over, and the heads of our diminished 
 household were busy in the task of reconstruction. 
 
 Not that broad political reconstruction that involved 
 a sudden and violent declaration of universal brother- 
 hood or a cordial acceptance of startling social- 
 equality theories, but the pathetic reconstruction of a 
 
Mammy. m5 
 
 home from the scattered debris of a wreck. The 
 task was a weary one. We younger members felt our 
 own inadequacy in tliose days that called for tactful 
 heads and skillful hands, while we had nothing but 
 willing hearts to offer. 
 
 Through three seasons the China-trees in the back 
 yard had tapped the nursery windows with their 
 swinging purple censers and the plum-trees had shed 
 their fragrant snow upon the brown earth of the 
 orchard since that spring morning when Mammy had 
 told us with tears in her voice that the Lord had laid 
 His hand heavily upon her, when she walked quietly 
 among us again — not bowed with sorrow and torn 
 with conflicting emotions, as when we had last seen 
 her, but with her head proudly erect and a new look 
 in her eyes which we had to learn how to interpret. 
 It was Mammy, and it wasn't Mammy. In place of 
 the familiar blue plaid dress, with its unmatched 
 plaids, she was clad in rusty silk that found no favor 
 in our eyes. The conical turban had been displaced 
 by a bonnet of insignificant proportions which had an 
 incurable propensity to retreat to the nape of her 
 neck. But after all it was only Mammy in a new 
 case. It took her a very short while to convince us 
 that she had brought us back the same unselfish 
 heart and the same pure, wholesome, loyal nature. 
 
 " I'se come home t' live en die, Mist'ess," she said, 
 placidly untying the bonnet-strings that threatened 
 strangulation. '' I done my duty by my ol' man t' de 
 las'. He's safe in glory, en Prince, he's a barbering in 
 Vicksburg. Tildy, she's married ; don't ax me no 
 mo' 'bout her. An', Mist'ess " — here to our intense 
 
146 MAMMY. 
 
 amazement Mammy brought forth a brand-new pocket- 
 book and displayed its crisp contents proudly — 
 " yere's my ol' man's bounty. I hates to 'fess it, but 
 arter he come into freedom 'it seemed t' cure his 
 rheumatiz, en he med a tol'able fightin' sold'er, dey 
 tell me ; leastways dey pay me up his bounty money 
 lak gentlemens ; en, Mist'ess, as soon es I git it, I say 
 to myseff, dar, now, nigger, you kin go home and holp 
 Mist'ess en Marster out 'n a tight place. It's yourn, 
 honey, ef you'll have it. I save mos' all of 'it fer 
 you en de chillun." 
 
 And she does help us out of many a " tight place,'* 
 but not with her " old man's bounty money." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 
 
 NO'THING would have quicker excited a burst of 
 that deep-hmged, infectious laughter from the 
 broad chest of " the General," for which he is famous 
 all over his State, than to hear himself called " a pub- 
 lic benefactor." It is without design on his part, or 
 suspicion of the fact, that he is one. His breezy 
 laughter is itself sufficient to dissipate the megrims 
 from the most melancholy, and one cordial grip of his 
 shapely hand is sufficient to increase a man's bump of 
 self-esteem for an indefinite period of time. His uni- 
 versal cheerfulness and persistent optimism are some- 
 what trying to those of his neighbors who are biliously 
 bent upon considering that the country has gone to 
 the dogs beyond hope of redemption, but they act as 
 buoys to those easily depressed souls who are quite 
 willing to look on the bright side of things if some 
 one will kindly relieve them of the trouble of finding 
 the bright side for themselves. Those who maintain 
 that the liver is the seat of good temper give the 
 General no credit for his broad charity, his open- 
 handed generosity, or his optimistic tendencies. They 
 are the natural and inevitable consequences of a liver 
 in good working order. 
 
14^ A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 
 
 If it is true, as. Emerson says, that *' the true test of 
 civiHzation is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor 
 the crops, but the kind oi man the country turns out," 
 then a high order of civiHzation might be inferred 
 from such a product as the General. Although his 
 voice has been heard in the legislative halls of his 
 State, and he makes his home in cities, nature seems 
 to have stamped her own manufacturer's mark all over 
 his imposing person. The fresh breath of country 
 meadows seems to exhale from his sound lungs, which 
 have never known the defilement of tobacco or strong 
 drink. The elastic vigor of the chamois is in the vig- 
 orous limbs he exercises with contemptuous independ- 
 ence of wind or weather. The clearness of crystal 
 lakes is in his great limpid eyes. The russet of 
 Nature's autumn tints is on his bronzed and ruddy 
 cheeks, and her sunshine floods his heart. No one 
 ever thinks of applying the adjective " handsome " to 
 the General. He is simply big and breezy and healthy, 
 and when you have been with him a little while you 
 feel as one does on raising a window in some heated 
 room to let in a whiff of fresh air. He leaves behind 
 him a sense of physical refreshment, pleasant even if 
 transient. He traces his own physical strength back 
 to the days when he used to ride to mill every Satur- 
 day with a bag of grist beifore him on the saddle, and 
 when he was a sort of amphibious biped, spending 
 about as much time in the water of the pebbly creek 
 that cut his fathe-r's plantation in two as he did on 
 shore. The General is a man of fluctuating fortunes, 
 and has experienced the sensation of " being broke " 
 several times in a long and speculative career. But 
 
A BREEZY OPTIMIST. i49 
 
 looking back, he can date an improved condition of 
 liis affairs from each disaster. There is a good deal 
 of comfort in being an optimist. He was born into 
 the purple — that is (in the vernacular), to a planter's 
 life of ease and security — but his powers of expansion 
 were too great for him to remain in the purple without 
 straining that royal garment badly at the seams. If 
 his lot had been cast in Gotham, instead of in an 
 obscure agricultural region, he would have become a 
 conspicuous figure on Wail Street ; but that vent for 
 speculative genius being denied him, his talents ex- 
 pended themselves in safer channels, with varying 
 results, through the medium of which he has found 
 himself at different periods of his life the richest and 
 the poorest man of his own acquaintence. 
 
 His belief in a glorious future of his own State is 
 not to be shaken by facts or figures. Many a poor 
 tax-burdened owner of wild lands has had cause to 
 rejoice in this sublime faith of the General's. He has 
 the courage of his convictions, and has bought up 
 these wild lands as a speculation, until his tax-list is 
 something stupendous to contemplate. Only an 
 infinitesimal proportion of these lands are tillable or 
 make any returns, but he pays taxes on them all with 
 the comforting conviction that some of these days he 
 will get it all back tenfold. 
 
 It is delightful to hear him demonstrate, with what 
 sounds like irrefragable arguments, the brilliant future 
 that j?nist, in the march* of events, come to that sec- 
 tion of the South. He will convince you (unless you 
 are word-proof) that you will yet see a network of rail- 
 roads where now you only see dense woods in which 
 
150 A BREEZY OF TJ MIST. 
 
 the "razor-back" hogs root for mast and luxuriate 
 on the frost-sweetened persimmon ; that the shabby 
 little river-side town, which now boasts its three shops 
 devoted to miscellaneous stock and its drug store and 
 post-office all in one, within a decade or two, will expand 
 into a mart that shall make St. Louis at one end and 
 New Orleans at the other tremble for their commercial 
 laurels. With the positiveness of a seer he will tell 
 you of the mineral wealth lying imprisoned within the 
 soil of his native State, only awaiting the open sesame 
 of the capitalist to make the fortune of the poorest and 
 meanest among the dwellers over these hidden beds of 
 iron and coal ; and whether or not any of the Gener- 
 al's gorgeous prophecies shall ever be fulfilled, perhaps 
 no one will ever be the worse for thinking that such 
 pleasant and desirable things might befall. 
 
 The General would be invaluable as an immigrant 
 agent for his state, for without doing any violence to 
 his conscience, which is as clean and nice a conscience 
 as ever dwelt in a man's breast, he could and would 
 paint things so glowingly that the restless and dissat- 
 isfied of every clime would flock to his El Dorado of 
 the future in eager swarms. Not tjiat the General is 
 consciously given to word-painting, or that he would 
 lead a lamb astray purposely ; but, seen through the 
 medium of his hopeful disposition and shown by him 
 in that rosy tint with which he invests every possibil- 
 ity his cheerful imagination entertains, nothing but the 
 desirable points in any ventufe acquire prominence. 
 
 No calamity is ever purely a calamity in his estima- 
 tion. If there is a rift in the cloud-racks that shut the 
 sun out from every other eye, he will detect the rift 
 
A BREEZY OPTIMIST, 151 
 
 and be the first one to predict the return of the sun- 
 shine. Overflows, of which he has had repeated ex- 
 perience, are simply blessings in disguise, if only men 
 were wise enough to see it so. The deposit of alluvi- 
 um left by the receding waters is "just what the land 
 needs, and it is never healthier in the county than in 
 over-flow years." He admits that it is rather rough on 
 the stock, and the owners of the stock too, but if men 
 would stop leveeing and making vain and costly experi- 
 ments to keep the river within bounds, which he is posi- 
 tive can not be done, and would put all that dirt and la- 
 bor into the erection of mounds, to save the cattle on in 
 high water, an over flow would be a thing to be encoun- 
 tered with philosophic composure. If the General could 
 have had his way, there never would have been any rup- 
 ture of the Union. Each party would have minded its 
 own business and every body would have gone on being 
 serene and happy, according to the dictates of his own 
 individual conscience, but since the irrepressible con- 
 flict came to a climax and relieved him of the responsi- 
 bility of several scores of slaves, he is convinced that 
 it is the best thing that could possibly have happened 
 for the country, and now she will have an opportunity 
 to show what her resources are, which invariably brings 
 the genial optimist back to the supposed mineral re- 
 sources under his feet. No public enterprise of any 
 description is ever undertaken in his neighborhood 
 without being submitted to his good sound judgment. 
 His optimism does not interfere with the calmness of 
 his views, and his opinion always "carries weight with 
 it, although the recipient may deem it necessary to 
 make some allowances for his sanguine way of look- 
 
152 A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 
 
 ing at things. His name generally heads the list of 
 any and every subscription that -may be started, with- 
 out any undue curiosity on his part as to the worthi- 
 ness of the object. He would rather give relief to an 
 unworthy object than risk overlooking a worthy one. 
 That he is often taken in, needs not to be said. 
 
 The General's home is the exponent of himself. It 
 is big and breezy and solidly comfortable. There are 
 no stiff chairs to be found under its shingled roof, or 
 any formal reception rooms to appall the visitor with a 
 sense of the owner's local importance or his own social 
 inferiority. It laughs with good cheer as the General 
 laughs with good-humor. There are flowers all around 
 it and within it. Individually he prizes a fine aspara- 
 gus bed or a thrifty showing of burr artichoke bushes 
 far above the costly roses and orchids his " women 
 folks " are perpetually experimenting in ; but whatever 
 gives pleasure to the weaker sex has fully vindicated 
 its own worthiness in his eyes. He is a lover of fine 
 horses and a good judge of them. He seldom sub- 
 mits to the confinement of the family coach, but on 
 occasions when he appears in public with his " folks," 
 it is generally in the character of an imposing and well- 
 mounted outrider. His stables are never so full of 
 harness or saddle-horses but that -room can be found 
 for one more in case a '' trader " should stop in 
 town with a fine lot of animals from the blue-grass 
 stock farms of Kentucky. Whether he purchases or 
 not, so long as the horse-trader is within reach, so long 
 may the General be seen in the neighborhood of his 
 stables, either complacently tilted back in a splint- 
 bottomed chair on the outside of the stables, passing 
 
A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 153 
 
 judgment on each animal as it is trotted or paced or 
 walked up and down the dusty road for his inspection, 
 or negotiating a " swap," as much for the sake of nov- 
 elty as for any thing else. The General likes frequent 
 change of style, but the horses must all be big and 
 strong, with good staying powers, for he travels over 
 many miles of rough country road, superintending the 
 interests of several plantations and a cotton-seed oil 
 mill, of which he is one of the owners, and the erection 
 of some cottages on some of his town lots, and dear 
 knows what else. He has a great many irons in the 
 fire. 
 
 Some one has said, '* Tell me what you eat and I will 
 tell you what you are." This would be an unusually 
 difficult undertaking in the General's case. He feeds 
 more in accord with the substantial baronial banquet- 
 ing notions of merrie old England than within pre- 
 scribed modern limits. He has nothing but scoffing 
 laughter and words of scorn for people who are con- 
 scious of their digestive organs. A mere description 
 of one of his breakfasts, especially in the winter sea- 
 son, would throw a dietist into a fit of dyspepsia. No 
 gruelly compounds for him. No oatmeal or cracked 
 wheat — "brain-feeders" — find place on his handsome 
 table damask. At that meal will be the General's 
 wife, sitting behind the big tray on which glistens the 
 old silver coffee service that her mother began house- 
 keeping with. Looming conspicuously among the 
 cups and saucers around her will be one huge cup 
 brilliantly ornamented and protected with a mustache 
 fender. That is the General's own. It holds twice as 
 much as any of the others, and will perhaps be replen- 
 
154 A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 
 
 ished more than once, for it requires a liberal amount 
 of the rich dark fluid that comes in a clear stream 
 from the spout of the old silver coffee-pot to wash 
 down the fried ham, boiled squab, Welsh rabbit, fried 
 corn, hot rolls, and griddle-cakes, submerged in " syro 
 de batterie " which go to form his usual morning 
 rations. Perhaps it is well for the liver, which is pre- 
 sumed to be the fountain- seat of all his geniality, that 
 before he shall have finished breakfast ^' Charlie," his 
 great gray gelding, with the dapples all over his shin- 
 ing flanks, will be brought to the front door saddled 
 for his morning tour of the fields. It never occurs to 
 him that this open-air exercise is of vital importance 
 to him physically. His meals are never wholesome or 
 unwholesome ; they are simply palatable, enjoyable or 
 otherwise. 
 
 He will tell you he has no time for reading, notwith- 
 standing which, if you should happen to call at his 
 house of a pleasant afternoon, you will find him com- 
 fortably dozing in the hammock on his front gallery, 
 while the floor around him will be carpeted with all the 
 weeklies and as many dailies as can be procured 
 before their contents become absolutely flat, stale and 
 unprofitable. He is conversant with the current affairs 
 of all the civilized globe, but as for literature /^r se^ 
 he leaves that to his women folks, and is reprehensibly 
 ignorant on the subject of all the novelists who have 
 risen in his own time and strutted their taper-lighted 
 way into the limbo of the forgotten without attracting 
 a moment's notice from him. '' Life's too short to 
 keep up with them all," he says, with cheerful resig- 
 nation to his own ignorance. 
 
A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 155 
 
 Lest you should fall into the grave error of coming 
 to think of the General as nothing more or better than 
 a well-fed, good-tempered animal, his " affair " must 
 be put on record. No one ever speaks of it in his 
 presence. He is no swaggerer, no boaster, and where 
 a smaller man might take pleasure in telling of his 
 own prowess, he maintains a simple and manly reti- 
 cence. Some one did once undertake to chaff him on 
 his affair, but one look from his blazing eyes shriv- 
 eled the flippant words like burned paper. But his 
 friends like to repeat the story. 
 
 Among the many irons that have at various times 
 kept the General on active duty was a newspaper once, 
 of which he was proprietor, but not editor. As pro- 
 prietor he held himself personally responsible for 
 all that went into its columns. This responsibility 
 has assumed a very grave complexion on more than 
 one occasion, notably in the case which resulted in 
 the affair in question. A braggart of doubtful ante- 
 cedents and more than doubtful record took umbrage 
 at something that appeared in the paper for which the 
 General stood sponsor. A vast volume of fire and 
 smoke (more of the latter, doubtless, than of the 
 former) was kindled by this little matter. The whole 
 concern was threatened with annihilation, and the 
 editor, who was physically rather a meager specimen, 
 trembled in his brown cloth gaiters, or would have 
 done so if the General had not promptly and decisively 
 taken the whole matter on his own broad shoulders. 
 The insulted party breathed forth licry threats of 
 vengeance with such vehemence that the General's 
 friends besought him to be on his guard. He laughed 
 
156 A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 
 
 his cheeriest into their concerned faces, but consented 
 to burden himself with a pistol, which he carried in 
 his capacious hip pocket. He was seen oftener than 
 usual in the places where his antagonist would most 
 likely be found, but without ever encountering him. 
 It was only through report that he could tell whether 
 or not the fires of his wrath showed any signs of burn- 
 ing themselves out. Report told him that outraged 
 virtue was still on the " rampage." So long as that 
 was the case the General's hip-pocket continued to 
 bulge. He had begun to grow bored with the 
 whole affair, when, sauntering by a public-house on 
 one of the main streets, he heard a note of excited 
 warning hurled into his ears from a man on the oppo- 
 site side of the street, simultaneously with the whiz- 
 zing sound of a bullet that passed through the crown 
 of his soft felt hat. With the swiftness of an enraged 
 tiger he faced about in time to see the man who had 
 tried to shoot him in the back leap behind a sheltering 
 tree-box that gave him a temporary advantage. The 
 General's hip-pocket no longer bulged. No one could 
 tell how he managed it, for it was all done before the 
 nearest loafer, running at his greatest speed, could get 
 to the spot. When he did get there, it was to see the 
 swaggerer prone on the sidewalk, where he was pin- 
 ioned by one of the General's substantial knees. His 
 loaded pistol was in his right hand. He had never 
 touched the trigger. Patiently, wordlessly, only show- 
 ing his appreciation of the cowardliness of the attack 
 by his blazing eyes and short, quick breathing, he held 
 his would-be murderer until a crowd had gathered 
 about them ; then he addressed him in a voice that 
 
A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 157 
 
 trembled a little from passion in spite of him : '' I 
 could have killed you, and you know it. You know 
 you deserve it, too, for the earth would be rid of a 
 cowardly scoundrel if I did. I've kept you here to 
 make you beg my pardon before all these people for 
 everything you've said, and for what you tried to do 
 just now. After you've begged my pardon you've got 
 to acknowledge before all these people that the para- 
 graph you've been playing the bully over was true to 
 the minutest particular. After you've done that, you 
 can go." Lifting his conquered foe to his feet by a 
 firm grip on his collar, not without shaking him 
 slightly, very much as he might have shaken a puppy 
 rescued from drowning, he restored his own weapon 
 to his pocket, pulled his waistcoat carefully down 
 over his portly person, and calmly awaited the issue. 
 It was all that the most exacting could demand in 
 shape of an apology, at the close of which the Gen- 
 eral turned from the gaping crowd with a contempt- 
 uous exclamation and then walked rapidly away, 
 anxious to reach his home in advance of any dis- 
 agreeable rumors. On the way he met a little crying 
 child. It was too young to convey any more inform- 
 ation than that it was lost. In his great strong arms 
 he lifted it up, and holding it close to the breast that 
 had just been heaving with the hottest passions that 
 can stir the human pulse, he soothed its terror and 
 told it to point to home. Following the tiny index 
 finger, he presently found himself once more face to 
 face with his foe as he reached a certain gate, 
 through which the dust-begrimed and crestfallen man 
 was hurrying with down-dropped head, and hearing 
 
15S A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 
 
 SO withdrawn from what was passing around him, 
 that the child in the General's arms lisped the name 
 of " father " several times in the eager joy of recog- 
 nition before he raised his sullen face to see his baby- 
 infolded softly in the arms that had just closed with 
 him in a struggle for life and death. It was rather a 
 disagreeable surprise to the General, who, not caring 
 to prolong the discomfort of the situation for the 
 other man, hastily put the child on its wayward little 
 feet and withdrew much more precipitately than he 
 would have done perhaps if the muzzle of a pistol had 
 been again pointed at his back. 
 
 But it is not through the medium of such disagreea- 
 ble occurrences that the General has come to be 
 regarded, locally, as a sort of unlaureled hero. It is 
 because of his universal readiness to fling himself into 
 a breach wherever found, and his absolute self-posses- 
 sion under the most trying emergencies, that men 
 place such implicit confidence in him. What if his 
 tendency to paint things couleur de rose does some- 
 times beguile him from the severe line of rigid verac- 
 ity into the flowery by-paths of hyperbole ? When 
 strong facts are demanded he can furnish his full 
 share of them. 
 
 Where women are concerned the General has abso- 
 lutely no stamina. A lisping girl child can win her 
 way with him as readily as a shrew of advanced years. 
 The weakness of the sex appeals to his strength, their 
 helplessness to his magnanimity, and that is why the 
 General's wife has just cause of complaint concerning 
 piles of useless books and incongruous trifles that are 
 scattered about her handsome parlors, bought by the 
 
A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 159 
 
 General from agents who were " women, poor things," 
 and he could easier face a cannon than say '•'■ no " to 
 woman or child. 
 
 In the leading Episcopal church of his town the 
 General has a pew for which he pays a high rental. 
 The list of names of subscribers to the minister's 
 salary is headed by his. Churches are good things to 
 patronize. They are conservators of the peace. 
 Whatever appeals to him in the interest of good citi- 
 zenship is sure of ready and substantial support, but 
 he has an outspoken horror of creeds and creedsmen. 
 He does not believe that the Almighty Maker of the 
 earth, which he has found such a pleasant abiding- 
 place, can possibly be meditating vengeance against 
 a lot of insignificant worms, who are no more to 
 Him than the motes in a ray of sunshine ; but he does 
 believe that there is mercy and comfort somewhere for 
 whosoever acts well his part here below, bearing in 
 mind that to so act one must go out liberally, help- 
 fully, unselfishly to those who stumble by the way. 
 So far as in him lies he is his brother's keeper, and if 
 the world furnishes thousands of a nobler type of man- 
 hood than the General's, it undoubtedly furnishes 
 tens of thousands of a poorer type. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 lee's wife. 
 
 IF it has ever been your fortune to be traveling down 
 South, through one of those exclusively agricul- 
 tural districts which, in the very order of things, pre- 
 clude the existence of towns, let us say within the 
 limits of Arkansas, and have found yourself on one 
 bank of the swift-running Mississippi River, with no 
 visible means of transportation to the other, and have 
 been moved to inquire of the nearest native how you 
 are to proceed on your way, the native, in nine cases 
 out of ten, will instruct you to " holler across," or, 
 more probably, will affably undertake to do your 
 " hollering " for you. Until then, perhaps, your un- 
 trained eye had discovered nothing on the other 
 side of the river but a dense wall of foliage of grad- 
 uated greens, from the pale tender shade of the 
 foot-high shrubs that stand ankle-deep in the muddy 
 water of the river, on and up through larger growths 
 and darker greens, until the universal cottonwood 
 that clothes the uncultivated shores achieves the dig- 
 nity of the sapling and stands in serried ranks, tall, 
 slim, symmetrical, useless. But closer and more pur- 
 poseful inspection will show you a break in the woods 
 — a sort of three-sided opening, in which are a few acres 
 of roughly cleared land, surrounded by a fence whose 
 
LEFJS WIFE. i6i 
 
 component parts are pleasingly indistinct at that dis- 
 tance, a tiny little cabin, with a chimney of sticks and 
 mud, through which thin blue smoke is escaping 
 heavenward — but no boat. 
 
 If you are by nature opposed to violent exercise, or 
 have had any experience of "hollering across," you 
 will prefer tipping one of the natives to straining your 
 own incompetent lungs. The judicious display ^of a 
 " four-bit " piece or the timely production of a piece 
 of plug tobacco will induce the native to give voice in 
 your behalf for an unlimited length of time. While 
 listening to the melody of a stentorian " Whopee — 
 who-pee, who-o-o-pe-e-e, fetch on yo' boat," launched 
 from a perfect pair of lungs, through a capacious 
 mouth, barricaded by a couple of huge horny black 
 hands to prevent the air-sown sound from being dis- 
 sipated, you will perhaps keep your eyes fixed on the 
 little clearing opposite, in anxious speculation con- 
 cerning the probable whereabouts of the harbor or the 
 possibility of that unearthly yell evoking a boat and a 
 boatman from the leaves and the twigs of the cotton- 
 woods. The *' who-pees " (rising inflection) may have 
 to be multiplied indefinitely to suit wind and weather, 
 but the man on the other side is perhaps far more 
 anxious to ferry you over than you are to be ferried, and 
 when your human telephone cuts a final yell neatly in 
 two, substituting for the last syllable a relieved " dar 
 now," you rashly take it for granted that the period of 
 waiting is almost over. The native will unintention- 
 ally help on this delusion by the cheerful but un- 
 founded assertion : *' You's all right now, boss. He 
 done answer back. I 'lows I'll go back to my plow- 
 
1 62 I.EES WIFE. 
 
 in','' with which he leaves you, after gratefully pocket- 
 ing his hard-earned fee. 
 
 If you take his word for it that you are all right, 
 and keep your gaze fixed steadily on the clearing op- 
 posite, you will presently see what looks like an insig- 
 nificantly small boy saunter leisurely down to the 
 water's edge with a pair of oars on his shoulders at a 
 point where the foliage seems densest. He is a mile 
 distant from you, and therefore has no means of 
 judging of your state of mind. If he knew what a 
 ''staving" hurry you were in, he might possibly con- 
 sent to " hustle up " a little. But the people who 
 " holler across " for him are rarely ever in special 
 haste to get to any given point, and it is impossible 
 for him to divine at that distance, either from the cut 
 of your coat or the savage displeasure of your coun- 
 tenance, that you are not old Squire Rogers, or Colonel 
 Ransom, or any of that lot of the initiated who read 
 their papers, or whittle boats out of the bark of the 
 fallen trees they occupy patiently while waiting, or 
 serenely smoke the musquitoes away during the 
 interim, or amuse themselves otherwise. Amusing 
 yourself is purely optional ; the waiting is not. If 
 you are new to the business, you will find some relief 
 in speculatively watching the deliberate motions of the 
 small boy after he has flung his oars into the boat, 
 which you can outline now against the woody-back- 
 ground. His deliberation is novel in your experience 
 and trying to your equanimity. You had rashly sup- 
 posed that, given a man, a boat, a pair of oars, and 
 the intimation of an expectant traveler on t'other side, 
 some signs of immediate progress might not unreason- 
 
LEE'S WIFE. 163 
 
 ably be looked for. If you are not new to the business, 
 you will understand the groping attitude assumed by 
 your ferryman after he has leisurely dispossessed 
 himself of coat and vest, with neatness but not with 
 dispatch. He is groping for something to " bail her 
 out with." She stands chronically in need of being 
 bailed out. Perhaps there is an empty lobster can or 
 an untrustworthy tin basin under the seats somewhere. 
 The basin is pretty sure to leak, but a rag torn from 
 some part of his own apparel will readily correct that. 
 He would have bailed her out the first thing in the 
 morning if he had been sure of a call, but, in view of 
 the facility with which she fills up again, it would have 
 been time and labor thrown away on the mere chance 
 of a passenger. It is some relief to your overwrought 
 feelings, finally, to hear the clank of a chain, softened 
 by the distance, by token of which you know that the 
 little boat has actually slipped her moorings and is 
 heading for the bank where you are chafing in impotent 
 rage. 
 
 When town calls unto town across the " Big Muddy " 
 the call may be answered by a fussy little ** side- 
 wheeler," which will ply from one side of the river to 
 the other at stated periods, and with great ado over 
 the task, sighing asthmatically, puffing fretfully, at 
 each quick revolution of its small wheels, sending a 
 shrilly querulous whistle ahead of it by a few rods to 
 give notice of its eventful arrival. As a rule, the 
 dingier the craft the more imposing the nomenclature, 
 and if an " Empress " should be debased to transport- 
 ing Texas beeves to market, or " Queen Titania " so 
 fallen from her high estate as to be a fetcher and car- 
 
t64 LEE'S WIFE. 
 
 rier of man and beast, it is to be regarded as an indica- 
 tion of local prosperity. But the exigencies of the 
 traveling public in the rural districts do not warrant 
 so luxurious a medium of transit save occasionally ; 
 hence the necessity for the hollering, the waiting, and 
 all the rest of it. 
 
 If, when the privilege of seating yourself in the 
 long-waited-for boat is finally yours, you are at all dis- 
 concerted by the exceeding wetness of the false floor 
 under your feet, or by a certain sloppy sound beneath 
 it, as the little skiff rolls slightly under the combined 
 agencies of a stiff current and a pair of vigorously 
 wielded oars, one look at the composed face of your 
 ferryman will reassure you completely. Moreover, 
 there is always the tin basin with its damp plug of white 
 domestic. What more would you ? 
 
 Your ferryman (who by the way is no boy at all, 
 but a stalwart young man) will not initiate the talk, 
 but you will find him responsive in his stolid fashion, 
 and if before you separate you do not know as much 
 as he does about the topography, geology, society, and 
 politics of the county to which he is rapidly conveying 
 you, the fault will be yours, not his. He is like a full 
 well whose contents will not be brought to the surface 
 voluntarily, but will promptly respond to the touch on 
 the windjass. You can turn the windlass industriously 
 without impeding the swift progress of the skiff. Your 
 ferryman will talk as he rows, with unconscious 
 strength and directness of aim, but with seeming 
 indifference to the outcome. In return for much val- 
 uable information you may thus obtain gratuitously 
 it will go hard with him if he does not " size you up " 
 
LEE'S WIFE. ' 165 
 
 before he parts with you in front of the little log-cabin 
 he calls home, and satisfy himself without a word of 
 direct inquiry whether you are a real-estate speculator 
 come to look after a plantation that somebody is anx- 
 ious to rid himself of, or a commission merchant 
 alarmed about the prospect of getting back his " ad- 
 vances," or an itinerant preacher engaged to preach in 
 Mackey's empty storehouse next Sunday, or a fellow 
 who professes to have discovered a dead-sure poison 
 for cotton-worms, and is going to make a free experi- 
 ment on somebody's crops. To you, the product of 
 a city, perhaps, he, with his broad shoulders, slouching 
 gait, bronzed face, keen, quick, glancing eye (as is the 
 manner of eyes trained to woodcraft) ; with his slow- 
 coming smile and imperturbable composure, seems but 
 a degree removed mentally from the creatures of the 
 dark woods that crowd so closely up about his 
 unpainted cabin ; to him you, with your bleached 
 skin, and trim apparel, and slender wrists, and rigid 
 neckwear, and buttoned shoes, and general suggestive- 
 ness of dependence upon the conveniences and com- 
 forts of a high order of civilization, seem but a feeble 
 exponent of the strength of body, freedom of action, 
 and absolute independence of custom that constitute 
 his conception of manliness. Perhaps your concep- 
 tion of the higher possibilities his life might contain 
 will lead you to waste much silent pity on him. There 
 is a shrewdness of observation, a conciseness of ex- 
 pression, and an indication of good common-sense 
 about him that leads you into idle speculation as to 
 what he might have been if accident of birth had 
 located him differently. He never wastes time him- 
 
1 66 LEE'S WIFE. 
 
 self in any such absurd fashion. There is too much 
 to be done for that ; and in his own unhurrying way 
 he gets through daily with what he considers momen- 
 tous jobs. 
 
 The little clearing, which grows ruder in effect as 
 you approach it more nearly ; with the stubble of last 
 year's corn-crop still standing in the ragged two-acre 
 field ; with its fence of old rails pieced out here with a 
 fallen tree, there with a lot of refuse from the drift- 
 wood pile ; with the tumble-down chicken-house, and 
 the close proximity of the pig-pen to the one window 
 of the cabin ; with the ornate white front door to the 
 house (fished from the river) contrasting curiously 
 with the cypress boards that environ it : is a home to 
 him in every sense of the word, and about and around 
 the ragged fields and the absurd cabin they inclose, 
 hover the ministering spirits of love and peace, clad 
 in homespun, perhaps, and faring unsumptuously, but 
 very real for all that. If you are a stranger, you will 
 stare curiously at seeing the. ornate front door, with 
 its incongruous silver-plated knob, open briskly when 
 the ferryman flings his oars down with a clatter in the 
 bottom of the boat, and offer to your view a young 
 woman. She is plump and pretty, and looks neat, but 
 not stylish, with that great hideous calico sun-bonnet 
 coming far over her face. She will never outlive her 
 curiosity concerning the people who cross. The sound 
 of the boat's chain being flung round the sapling is 
 sure to bring her to the door, with that good-natured 
 free stare of hers. If you are not a stranger, you will 
 need no one to tell you that the plump young woman 
 in the calico sun-bonnet is '' Lee's wife," only an 
 
LEE'S WIFE. 167 
 
 adjunct, you perceive, of your stalwart ferryman. No 
 one ever calls her anything but Lee's wife, but in that 
 connection Lee's name has had a halo of heroism 
 cast about it which it would never otherwise have 
 obtained. She does not look heroic as she stands 
 there with her sleeves rolled up above her elbows, with 
 a half-pared potato in one hand and a case-knife in 
 the other, staring frankly at you as you toil through 
 the heavy sand of the bank toward the cabin, and she 
 would grow ruddier than it is in the power of her 
 kitchen stove to make her if any one should call her a 
 heroine. She is quite content to be only Lee's wife. 
 " Lee and me " constitute the world in her estimation. 
 If by the time you reach the cabin door you have 
 become convinced of the folly of being in a " staving 
 hurry " about any thing in a part of the country where 
 every thing animate and inanimate opposes a superflu- 
 ous display of energy, you will wisely accept Lee's 
 invitation to '^stop and have a bite," the more readily 
 after learning that you have a three-mile walk through 
 the forest that crowds close up about the little clearing 
 before reaching any other sign of habitation. You 
 need not be deterred from accepting this invitation 
 through gastronomic qualms. The repast which Lee's 
 wife will spread for you on a little table set up against 
 the cabin wall under its one window will be the very 
 best of its kind, and prepared with a religious regard 
 for cleanliness. From the crown of her stiff-starched 
 sun-bonnet down to the shuck mat in front of the 
 door, upon which Lee performs a formal foot-cleans- 
 ing ceremonial before each entrance, she is an apostle 
 of tidiness, but as she is opposed to having " men 
 
1 68 LEE'S WIFE. 
 
 folks loafing 'round " unnecessarily, Lee will invite 
 you to a seat on a cypress block under the spreading 
 arms of a huge sycamore behind the cabin, where is a 
 great litter of cypress splinters and bark, and shingles 
 that he makes in primitive fashion with a draw-knife. 
 If you have grown philosophically indifferent to the 
 engagement wnich it is now utterly impossible for you 
 to keep, you will drowsily enjoy sitting there under 
 the great sycamore, watching the shining blade of the 
 draw-knife in Lee's strong brown hands as it glides 
 into the rough-hewn cypress block (behind which he 
 sits astride of another block) and slices off shingle 
 after shingle of accurately uniform thickness with 
 marvelous celerity. There is something soporific in 
 the intense quietness of your surroundings; nothing 
 more violent than the grunt of content which the pig 
 that Lee's wife is fattening for Christmas, in the pen 
 under the cabin window, sends up in acknowledgment 
 of the potato parings that have fallen like manna at 
 his feet; or the meditative sing-song of a hen leisurely 
 prospecting the premises for a desirable laying-place; 
 or the music of the coffee-mill that Lee's wife is turn- 
 ing with brisk regularity, or the distant sound of pad- 
 dle-wheels churning the river around the bend just 
 below disturbs it. You can see the black column from 
 the steamer's smoke-stack rising above the green heads 
 of the cotton-woods. It's " the packet," Lee will in- 
 form you, and her coming is a semi-weekly event 
 which makes the faintest possible ripple in the placid 
 current of his life, for it may be that Lee has sent to 
 the city for a new saddle for himself, or a pair of 
 rocking-chairs for the cabin, or a '* whole " half-barrel 
 
LEES WIFE. 169 
 
 of sugar, which Lee's wife has pronounced truer 
 economy than buying by '* the small " of the local 
 tradesman. But whether she is to land or not, the 
 draw-knife will come to a stand-still, and Lee's head 
 will be turned lazily over his shoulder to watch the 
 great white palpitating mass glide swiftly in and out 
 of sight, and Lee's wife will come to the door again 
 and follow its graceful movements with brightly inter- 
 ested eyes, and both of them will feel the faintest pos- 
 sible accession of interest in the world to which it 
 links them. 
 
 Unless you are exceptionally unapproachable, it is 
 not likely Lee will lose the golden opportunity of tell- 
 ing the story of his wife's heroism to a new listener. 
 He is very proud of her pluck, and as his egotism takes 
 the shape of singing her praises, it leans to virtue's 
 side and is quite endurable. He will tell it to you plainly 
 and slowly, but veraciously, and it will enhance your in- 
 terest in the little brown-eyed woman who is singing 
 ove rthe biscuit-tray in the cabin yonder. Perhaps, 
 that is if you are very susceptible, it will give a different 
 flavor to the rather conglomerate noon-day meal of 
 fried fish preserves, hot biscuit, coffee, and butter-milk 
 to which she will presently summon you with her 
 friendly unembarrassed smile. 
 
 This is the story Lee, the ferryman, is so fond of 
 telling : 
 
 " It waren't a matter of choice with me that I was 
 outer the way at that pertickular junchoor — it never 
 is of my own choosin' when I stop away all night from 
 the cabin, for it's a lonesome sorter place 'cording to 
 some folks' notions, and women-folks are apt to grow 
 
I70 LEE'S WIFE. 
 
 fanciful when the sun goes clown and the shadows 
 crowd black around every corner until the very ley- 
 hopper by the chimbley .'ill give 'em a start if they 
 happen t' look toward it after dark. Then the owls 
 helps along the shivers some. It ain't cheerful music 
 they make a hootin' at each other in these old woods 
 every night. Blamed if I don't think sometimes that 
 Nannie (nodding proudly toward the cabin) has got 
 the grit of forty wild-cats to stand it 't all. 
 
 '' I had to go prospecting for timber that day. I'd 
 took out a contract to furnish 20,000 boards to cover 
 Squire Moore's new gin house with, and I've cut 'way 
 mos' of the cypress clost to my field — I've turned off 
 a sight of shingles since I settled in this bottom — and 
 that day I laid off to find my trees and blaze 'em and 
 then get home by lamp-light. Nannie didn't look like 
 she relished the prospeck much, but she ain't the 
 sorter woman to make you feel like a crimi;/<?/ ever}'' 
 time you get out of her sight, so she put me up 
 enough col' vittles in a tin bucket to last me a week 
 'stead of for one col' snack and walked part of the 
 v/ay with me, to the blackberry patch down by the gin 
 jlough. Nan's death on blackberry jam. I'll bet you 
 four bits she gives you some for dinner. Blackberries 
 were uncommon fine and plentiful that year. I 
 ushully tuk my gun 'long with me, and I've never 
 been able to 'count for my not doing it on that per- 
 tickuler occasion. Nothing wouldn't have happened 
 as it did if I'd a had my gun with me. But I reckon 
 it was just as well as it was, for otherwise Nannie 'd 
 never had no chence to show her pluck. Well, sir, it 
 ain't often that house of ours has to look out foi 
 
LEE'S WIFE. 171 
 
 itself mos' half a day, but what with the blackberries 
 and Nannie not being overly anxious to get back to 
 her lonesomeness, it did that day. 
 
 " There used to live up on Squire Moore's place a 
 darky named Tim Walker that 'ud far liever steal a 
 thing than have it give him ; and as luck would have 
 it, he come down that morning to go crost to Rober- 
 son's saw-mill. Seeing nobody about, it waren't a 
 very difficult matter for him to h'ist the shutter off its 
 hinges (it was hooked inside and the door was locked 
 with the key in Nannie's josy pocket), git inside, and 
 help himself to my shot-gun that always stands in the 
 corner of the room behind the bed. Nannie says 
 when she got in sight of home and saw that shutter a 
 swinging loose from its hinges she knew Old Nick 
 was to pay, and she run every step of the way, straw- 
 ing the road with blackberries as she run. The first 
 thing she done when she got inside was to spy for my 
 gun ; it was 'bout the most valuable piece of furniture 
 we owned, and when she saw it was gone she just gave 
 one jump out of that door to look for tracks. She 
 found 'em too. Lucky for us it had been raining day 
 before, and the wet ground showed her mighty plain 
 the thief had made tracks for the boat-landing. I 
 had two skifts then, the new one — I fetched you over 
 in that — and the old one ; that's the skeleton of it 
 high and dry ; it answers first-rate to salt the cattle in. 
 The new one was gone when Nannie got to the bank, 
 and as a thick fog was blanketing the river there 
 waren't no means of finding out how much the start of 
 her the thief had got with my gun ; but she didn't waste 
 no time in calkerlatin' that row er figgers. She run 
 
172 LEE'S WIFE. 
 
 back to the house to get somethin' to bail the old 
 boat out with, and for the extra oars I always keeps 
 hung up to the rafters, and out she put across the river 
 on the track of that thief. I've heard her tell time 
 and again of how awful she felt when she got out 
 in that white fog and couldn't see nor hear nor 
 feel any thing but fog. Nannie says it was just 
 like being in the world before there was any thing at 
 all made — just a universal whiteness and stillness and 
 lonesomeness, nothing in existence but her alone a 
 rowing away so feeble like. And after a little she 
 lost her bearings ; she could tell by the current 
 whether she was pullin' up stream or down, but 
 whether she was pullin' for this shore or the opposite 
 one was too much for her to say. But she was cer- 
 tain of one thing, and that was that she had to keep a 
 rowin', and she did. Nanny says once she heard a 
 sound of hammerin', like sledges on hollow iron, and 
 then she remembered Squire Moore's boiler was 
 being patched, so she must be pullin' straight for 
 home (Squire lives just back of us here); so she 
 pulled roun' on one oar and struck out, as well as she 
 could make it, away from the sound. Nanny says, if 
 the fog'd a-raised for a minute, so she could a-seen 
 one shore or t'other, she'd a had more heart, but she 
 pulled for all there was in them plucky little arms er 
 hers, until she heard another noise — this time it was 
 sorter blood-curdling ; it was the packet coming down, 
 snorting and ripping ; fog makes sounds awful loud ; 
 she could hear the big wheels just tearing things wide 
 open ; she could hear 'em shoveling coal into the fur- 
 nace^ and she made u|) her mind to it that her changes 
 
LEE'S IVIEE. 173 
 
 of being walked over out there in that white fog was 
 the best in the world, for as big and as loud as they 
 was to her, she warn't nowheres to them. 
 
 " If the fog would just lift long 'nough for her to 
 see which way that boat was a headin'! Nannie says 
 she begun to think she'd set a sight more store by 
 that gun of mine than it was worth. The fog did 
 lift, just the least little blowin' aside of it, like a 
 woman's veil in the wind ; just long enough to give 
 her one glimpse. Two more strokes of the oars, and 
 she would have been smack under her bow. Nannie 
 says she didn't make them two more strokes. The 
 fog fell again presently, thicker 'n whiter than before, 
 but she didn't mind it so much — she knew when the 
 swell reached her that the packet was well out of the 
 way, and then she began pulling again. Nannie says 
 she got a sorter notion after while that there was 
 another skift out in the fog, and she- just jumped to 
 the conclusion that it might be the man she was after. 
 She says she pulled like a house afire after that, regu- 
 larly racing with that other pair of oars ; it was a 
 queer feeling — following the sound without seeing 
 any thing. All of a sudden the fog lifted again, this 
 time strong and good. She was near the other bank. 
 Roberson's saw-mill was buzzin' away there at a great 
 rate. There was a lot of fellers on the bank loading 
 a flat with weather boarding, and there was — will you 
 believe it, sir ? that darky of Squire Moore's just 
 pullin' up 'longside the flat in my new skift, 'crost the 
 stern seat of which lay my gun. Nannie says she 
 just stood up in the old skift and sent one yell ahead 
 of her — 'Arrest that man ' — and they nabbed him. 
 
174 LEE'S WIFE. 
 
 The rest was easy as fallin' off a log for a mud turtle. 
 I jist told you the story to let you see what a game 
 wife I've got in yonder. Nannie won't let me tell it 
 before her. Come in to dinner." 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 'mely jane's wedding. 
 
 ^1\ /TELY JANE was about to be married ! The man, 
 iVl the day, and the dress were all selected. The 
 fact that the wedding-dress was a second-hand silk 
 belonging to the Miss Amelia whose Christian name, 
 corrupted into " Mely," had been one of the bride- 
 elect's earliest second-hand belongings, did not 
 detract at all from its splendor in 'Mely Jane's 
 estimation, since she had been taking life itself, with 
 all its attendant circumstances, at second-hand, so to 
 speak, from her earliest infancy. 
 
 It was through the instrumentality of a second- 
 hand mother that 'Mely Jane had been transplanted 
 from the quarters to the big house at the tender age 
 of eight years, with a good deal of her native soil 
 clinging to her, it is to be feared. By " second-hand 
 mother " is meant the good-natured soul who rescued 
 her from the cabin, where, by the death of her own 
 mother, she had been relegated to the companionship 
 of the cats and dogs that had full possession of the 
 premises during her father's work hours. If 'Mely 
 Jane had not flourished exactly like a green bay 
 tree at the big house, she had at least shown the 
 expansive powers of a thriving bronze-colored varnish 
 tree. Her official duties and position at the big house 
 
176 'M ELY JANE'S WEDDING. 
 
 had varied with the years and with the changing 
 requirements of its inmates. When first presented as 
 a candidate for office by her second-hand mother, it 
 was as somebody to amuse little Miss AmeUa, and the 
 all-potent Mammy who held sway over the big-house 
 nursery was propitiated with a watermelon beforehand. 
 Mammy's acknowledgment that " dat chile 'Meelie 
 was gettin' too much fur her to foller 'roun' arter, wid 
 two odder babies on her hands," had been the means 
 of opening the gates of Paradise to 'Mely Jane. 'Mely 
 Jane's second-hand mother set forth her eligibility 
 for the office of playmate in glowing terms, so glow- 
 ing that 'Mely Jane was summoned to the big house 
 the next day on probation. Her qualifications, as 
 reported to head-quarters, were that " she was rale 
 peert, mouty quick on her legs, had never been known 
 to steal as much as a lump of white sugar, an' did'n' 
 hev' no low-live corn-fiel' nigger ways 'bout her." 
 
 When 'Mely Jane was brought in triumph to the 
 house by her second-hand mother, who had starched 
 her dress with the most reckless disregard for the 
 quivering flesh it imprisoned, and arranged her head 
 handkerchief in a manner that gave her three or four 
 inches of factitious height, she was informed in the 
 most peremptory manner that she was to " keep little 
 Miss 'Meelie 'mused." 
 
 Little Miss 'Meelie had eyed her askance through 
 the shock of yellow curls that defied Mammy and 
 discipline, but gave no intimation whatever of her 
 willingness to be amused. It was a trying moment to 
 'Mely Jane, but her accredited " peertness " carried 
 her triumphantly through it. 
 
'M ELY JANE'S WEDDINQ. til 
 
 " I'se gwine to play buryin'. I is," she said tentatively, 
 lifting her conical head-gear loftily in air. " I see 
 two chicken heads a layin' des outside de kitchen 
 winder as I come 'long, en' I pick 'm up fo' de dawgs 
 git 'm. I'se gwine to hev a buryin', I is. Yhere dey." 
 She lifted one corner of her clean blue check apron 
 to show her gory prizes, thereby bringing down upon 
 her Mammy's first lecture on the subject of bring- 
 ing " sech truck " into the nursery. But little Miss 
 'Meelie's interest was aroused. It was an inspiration. 
 The long hot summer afternoon was delightfully con- 
 sumed in preparations for the august ceremonial of 
 interment under the crape myrtle tree in the garden, 
 and when 'Mely Jane's voice arose solemnly in the 
 closing hymn, whose words were a curious blending 
 of the pathetic and the comic, little Miss 'Meelie's 
 capture was complete and 'Mely Jane's future was 
 secure. The quarters knew her no more. And from 
 that first night, when she made her pallet of a brand- 
 new calico comfort on the floor of the nursery with a 
 sense of immense material gain, up to the hour when 
 she towered awkwardly above Miss Amelia as she 
 arranged the wedding veil on 'Mely Jane's head with 
 her own delicate hands, the tie formed at the "buryin' " 
 under the myrtle tree had gone on strengthening with 
 the years. 
 
 Every "big house " in the South has its "'Mely 
 Jane," whose duties might be rather undefined, but 
 were, none the less, multifarious. Beginning life as a 
 sort of nursery supplement, the position had its pains 
 and penalties as well as its pleasures and perquisites. 
 It was her province to act as a willing scapegoat for 
 
lyS ' MEL Y JANE'S WEDDING. 
 
 the shortcomings of the nursery charges, or a smiling 
 safety-valve for the surcharge of temper that the head 
 of the nursery could not eject in any other direction 
 with impunity. As a fetcher and carrier she must 
 achieve as near an approximation to ubiquity as is pos- 
 sible to flesh-hampered spirit. Perhaps no more oner- 
 ous task might come into the day than the buttoning 
 of a pair of boots on a restless and impatient little foot, 
 or the unraveling of the string mystery attendant upon 
 tiny petticoats, with all their perplexities of band and 
 strap ; but the 'Mely Janes of the past shared with the 
 children of the master the sense of awful subservience 
 to the mammies of the past. 
 
 It was when little Miss Amelia was finally emanci- 
 pated from the nursery that 'Mely Jane's existence 
 took an additional importance and dignity and grew 
 sweeter in every respect. It was with a protecting 
 sense of physical superiority that she spread her pallet 
 for the first time in the up-stairs bedroom which was 
 from that time forth to be called '' Miss Amelia's 
 room." Nothing could have induced the white child 
 to brave the vague terrors of the night after her exile 
 from the nursery without the blessed assurance that 
 'Mely Jane was curled up on her blankets in front of 
 the fire. What if 'Mely Jane did slumber with a sound- 
 ness that would have rendered a surgical operation 
 necessary to convey an idea into her double-locked 
 senses ? What if she was small and black and seem- 
 ingly helpless? She made up in valorous protestation 
 what she lacked of being truly formidable, and little 
 Miss Amelia was not hypercritical. 
 
 Such wonderful and improving conversations as were 
 
'MELY JANE'S WEDDING. 1 79 
 
 held in that up-stairs bedroom between Httle mistress 
 and little maid ! It was there and then that 'Mely 
 reaped her best harvest of second-hand possessions. 
 All the lessons that the white child absorbed during 
 the day, from printed text-book or the cultured lips of 
 her imported governess, were impressed at second 
 hand orally, and with a greater or less degree of accu- 
 racy, upon the virgin soil of 'Mely Jane's brain, as she 
 stood behind Miss 'Meelie's chair combing, smoothing, 
 and braiding her yellow hair into decorous plaits for 
 the night with a lingering touch, or else toyed affec- 
 tionately with the little pink and white feet in the foot- 
 bath, beside which she squatted in ungraceful aban- 
 donment, with an upward gaze of keen interest, if not 
 always of ready comprehension, in her round black 
 eyes. And the volumes of sage, moral aphorisms that 
 were poured in one unceasing stream from the pure 
 fountain of the white maiden's heart into the coarser 
 receptacle of 'Mely Jane's undisciplined soul ; and the 
 torturing requirements in the cause of good-manners, 
 which she was pathetically adjured not to forget ! In 
 return for all which, the mystic lore of the " Kunger 
 woman," whose blood flowed in 'Mely Jane's shud- 
 dering veins, was retailed in a cheek-blanching mono- 
 tone over the blazing wood fire in the up-stairs bed- 
 room, until white maiden and black maid would turn 
 their fear-distended eyes over their frightened shoul- 
 ders, and start at the grotesque shadows their own 
 crouching bodies cast on the fire-lighted walls. And 
 'Mely Jane would tell gruesome stories of her mammy, 
 who was " daid," but possessed of an unrestful spirit 
 that persisted in revisiting the quarters in the body of 
 
1^0 'MELY JANE'S WEDDING. 
 
 a black cat with one green eye and one gray one ; or 
 else the interim between undressing and retiring would 
 be more prosaically beguiled by 'Mely Jane in roast- 
 ing eggs wrapped up in wet newspapers, for her own 
 midnight consumption, while Miss 'Meelie read aloud 
 edifying but rather tiresome passages from her little 
 Bible, which 'Mely Jane had a very poor opinion of, 
 seeing it had no pictures in it. But it was not always 
 night, and 'Mely Jane was not always acting as body- 
 guard against depredators who never came. Miss 
 'Meelie's room was her special charge. The earliest 
 flowers that grew in the sweet old tangled flower-gar- 
 den, were for the vases on its mantel-piece, and the 
 elder busTies and the dogwood yielded up their first 
 blossoms to 'Mely Jane's insatiable quest. Her flow- 
 ers were all votive offerings laid on the same shrine. 
 
 'Mely Jane's intimate association with *' the quality " 
 made her an object of unquenchable envy to the less 
 fortunate dwellers in the quarter cabins, and when she 
 would appear at meetin', proudly conscious of bearing 
 a remote resemblance to Miss 'Meelie in so far as that 
 resemblance could be perpetuated in frock, mantle or 
 hat, she was the cynosure of all eyes. 'Mely Jane 
 was an oracle in the quarters. No one could settle a 
 vexed point of etiquette more authoritatively than she. 
 Who could dispute a decision backed by the example 
 of w'ite folks? When Aunt Milly wanted to know if 
 it was "manners for Uncle Jake to come to her house 
 of Sunday evenings and set and set till she's 'bleege 
 to ax him in to supper, when he knowed she didn' 
 hev no mo' vittles than 'nough for her ole man en 
 the chilluns," and referred the question to 'Mely Jane, 
 
'MELY JANE'S WEDDING. i8l 
 
 'Mely Jane could find no big-house precedent for such 
 a breach of the laws of hospitality, and sustained 
 Aunt Milly in her threat of ejectment " nex' time." 
 When Sofy Ann was coyly hesitating as to the most 
 elegant formula of acceptance known to polite society, 
 'Mely Jane was conjured to describe how Miss 'Meelie 
 comported herself when her " beaux popped the ques- 
 tion," and, mournful to relate, she was never appealed 
 to in vain. When facts failed 'Mely Jane's fancy came 
 promptly to the rescue, and Miss Amelia was utilized 
 to adorn many a tale and point many a moral she 
 knew not of. 
 
 'Mely Jane extracted much second-hand happiness 
 out of the period of Miss Amelia's belleship. What 
 close propinquity was hers to the fast-beating heart, 
 and the softly blushing cheeks and the bright flashing 
 eyes that told so much the mute lips denied her faith- 
 ful ears ? What need of words to impress 'Mely Jane 
 when the acceptable one was ushered into the big cool 
 parlor down stairs ? Had they, she and Miss 'Meelie, 
 grown up together side by side without learning to 
 read each other's hearts as easily as the white maiden 
 read the wonderful books which 'Mely Jane must 
 always take on hearsay ? Didn't 'Mely Jane know 
 exactly who was expected when Miss Amelia sent her 
 to the garden to bring the tea-rose buds from the bush 
 by the asparagus bed ? Hadn't she learned that that 
 especial rose was consecrated to one purpose ? And 
 didn't she know just as well that Captain Hal Wilson 
 was imminent when Miss Amelia was seized with 
 those violent pains in her face that kept her shut up 
 in the bedroom up stairs until the danger-signal was 
 
1 82 'MELY JANE'S WEDDING. 
 
 lowered by 'Mely Jane's own faithful hand, as soon as 
 the Captain's bob-tailed bays pranced out of sight ? 
 And 'Mely Jane grew subtle too. Where was the use 
 of breathing the aristocratic atmosphere of the big 
 house unless she could possess herself of some second- 
 hand subtleties? 
 
 She did not apply that big word to her own con- 
 duct, either consciously or unconsciously, but she 
 was of the opinion that " w'ite folks " were never in un- 
 genteel haste, about accepting an offer of marriage ; 
 it '' war'n't manners "; in consequence of which that 
 humble and devoted adorer, Pete, who groomed Miss 
 'Meelie's riding horse and courted her maid with 
 equal assiduity and .regularity, got the full benefit of 
 several well-rounded " Noes," while 'Mely Jane was 
 calmly resolved upon an ultimate '' Yes." The aston- 
 ishment Peter evinced at the result of his carefully 
 prepared proposals was precisely the effect 'Mely 
 Jane had aimed at producing, and she reported prog- 
 ress placidly to Miss Amelia every night during 
 those ministrations which still included the combing 
 and brushing and plaiting of the pretty yellow hair, 
 that was worn coronet-wise instead of in the breeze- 
 blown curls that 'Mely Jane had coped with in the 
 first years of her pleasant service. 
 
 'Mely Jane had privately determined on the time 
 when she would substitute a final " Yes " for her oft- 
 repeated '^ No." It would be when she should know 
 positively that Miss Amelia and " Mars Jo's cousin. 
 Mister Fred," for whom, only, the tea roses were 
 ever culled, had had their last tiff and were finally 
 minded to " jine ban's an' lan's," as 'Mely Jane 
 
'MELY JANE'S WEDDING. 183 
 
 phrased it. Then there wouldn't be any use of her 
 holding out any longer. She regarded Miss Amelia's 
 prospective husband as an interloper who would come 
 between her and the dear form she had hovered over 
 protectingly all these years. When Miss 'Meelie got 
 married, then Pete might have his way. Not before. 
 Nevertheless, there was a 'delicious excitement about 
 Miss 'Meelie's " beauin' time " which 'Mely Jane en- 
 joyed estatically at second hand. She would recount 
 with pride for the benefit of an interested circle of 
 quarter listeners how many horses had '' chawed the 
 horse-rack " during the past week, while their gallant 
 riders paid court in the Holland-shaded parlor or on 
 the vine-draped gallery to the prettiest girl in all the 
 country side. 'Mely Jane was humbly convinced that 
 her own flirtations and romances were but cheap imi- 
 tations, scarcely worthy of mention in other tones 
 than of ridicule. That was why, on a certain evening, 
 when she stood behind Miss Amelia's chair carefully 
 disentangling the thorns of the tea roses from their 
 resting-place in her mistress's braids, 'Mely Jane 
 began her confidence with a little contemptuous snort : 
 "Dat nigga Pete ben foolin' 'roun' yhere 'gin, 
 Miss 'Meelie." Among her many second-hand 
 acquirements 'Mely Jane did not include pure English. 
 Her phraseology was as much her own as on the day 
 she buried the chicken-heads under the myrtle tree. 
 Miss Amelia made no comment on the fact that Peter 
 was fooling around again ; she just put up her hand 
 for the liberated rose-buds, and inhaled their dying 
 fragrance, as she stared abstractedly out of the win- 
 dow over the moon-lighted field, and the tangled rose 
 
1 84 'MELY JANE'S WEDDING. 
 
 garden, and all the other familiar objects she had 
 grown up with. 'Mely gave another snort, and 
 resumed : 
 
 " En I tol' 'm de fus' thing he know he would n' 
 know nothin', pesterin' uv my life out. I say, go 
 'way, nigga, you fool 'nough t' think I gwine marry 
 any man 'bove groun' en leff Miss 'Meelie sleep her 
 lone-seff up styars in dat room ? Miss 'Meelie ain' 
 never gwine say 'Mely Jane gone back on her, no 
 surr." 
 
 " Pete's a good boy,' Miss 'Meelie said, absently 
 tearing the drooping rose-bud to pieces, " and, 'Mely 
 Jane, if you want to get married, you can get married 
 the night after I do. Papa's certain to have every- 
 body on earth here, and there'll be enough left from 
 the wedding supper for 3'ou to have a splendid party 
 up in the quarters, so you may as well say, ' Yes ' to 
 Pete next time. We, tlTat is, papa and mamma and 
 Mr. Fred, settled it all to-night." 
 
 And so, after all, 'Mely Jane was to have a second- 
 hand wedding. Nothing could have been more sat- 
 isfactory for her or for Pete or for the quarter folks. 
 Nothing at first-hand could have been half so gor- 
 geous. 'Mely Jane's own approaching nuptials occupied 
 but a limited portion of her thoughts during the week 
 of delicious turmoil attendant upon the wedding at 
 the big house. There w^as bedding to be aired, and 
 ruffled pillow slips to be put on all the beds in all the 
 spare rooms. There were lounges and cots to be cun- 
 ningly devised in out-of-the-way nooks and corners of 
 the old house. There were whole crates full of old and 
 new china to be washed speckless and rubbed '' shiny." 
 
'M ELY JANE'S WEDDING. 185 
 
 There was no end to the ducks and the turkeys and 
 the chickens to be plucked. There were mountains 
 of eggs to be beaten and rivers of cream to be whipped. 
 There were whole boat-loads of imported delicacies 
 from the " city " and " store-made " pyramids of 
 nougat and spun-sugar to be handled carefully and 
 admired enthusiastically. There was the unpacking 
 of Miss 'Meelie's new trousseau from Olympe's, and 
 the lavish selection of 'Mely Jane's second-hand wed- 
 ding outfit from the full supplies in the wardrobes up- 
 stairs. Oh, it was a grand time for every body con- 
 cerned, and the encomiums that were lavished, in good 
 grammar, on Miss Amelia's new dresses from the city 
 were lavished with equal heartiness, in bad grammar, 
 on 'Mely Jane's, as they lay spread out for inspection, 
 in the bridal chamber in Pete's house, whose furnish- 
 ing had been Miss Amelia's own concern. 'Mely Jane 
 shone with the reflected luster of the big house, and if 
 on the night after the one that had seen all the coun- 
 try-side gathered under the big-house roof, the pyra- 
 mids and iced cakes and beflowered fruit stands 
 seemed a trifle out of place in the great open space 
 under the lint-room of the gin, that had been canvased 
 in for the occasion, they excited as much admiration 
 in their semi-demolished condition as in their pristine 
 glory. But 'Mely Jane's wedding feast was furnished 
 more substantially, and if the delicate frost-work of 
 the city cake found itself in too close proximity to 
 the roast pig of Pete's providing, or a pile of hot sweet 
 potatoes aspired to overtop the nougat pyramid, or 
 the colored wax candles were stuck in flat white 
 squashes for candle-sticks, who cared? 'Mely Jane 
 
1 86 ' MEL Y JANE'S WEDDING. 
 
 had a real *' quality " wedding, and every^body was 
 happy except, perhaps, " Brer Ben." 
 
 *' Brer Ben " had soured on the world, so to speak, 
 since becoming " Pa'son Ben." He considered a 
 cheerful countenance or a hearty laugh as tempta- 
 tions of the Evil One, and religiously refrained from 
 indulging in either. Nothing could have induced him 
 to lend his countenance to the sons and daughters of 
 Belial that gathered in the dance-house every Satur- 
 day night, and made night hideous with the fiddle and 
 the bones and patting. The outward and visible 
 signs of Brer Ben's sanctity were many and irrefraga- 
 ble, but there were those malignant enough to hint 
 that it was just as well to count your chickens after 
 he had been seen in the neighborhood of your coop, 
 or to lock your sweet potatoes against him. 
 
 Brer Ben was promptly on hand to join 'Mely Jane 
 and Pete in the bonds of holy wedlock. He regarded 
 the long table, tottering, if not groaning, under its 
 weight of wedding cheer, with furtive approval. The 
 long table was a narrow plank affair on untrustworthy 
 legs, which were nothing more than pointed pickets 
 driven hard down into the beaten soil under the gin 
 shed. Pete had labored industriously over it all that 
 morning. The bolt of new white muslin that 
 answered the purpose of table damask hid all defi- 
 ciencies, but did not prevent a certain undulatory 
 movement in the surface which made Pete quake 
 anxiously at every addition to its contents, as he 
 expressed a devout hope to his best man that " all the 
 vittles would be et up befo' de table colopse." 
 
 'Mely Jane's own appearance extracted an audible 
 
'M ELY JANE'S WEDDING. 187 
 
 groan of disapprobation from Brer Ben's deep chest. 
 She furnished him a text as she stood before him 
 in an attitude copied closely from the one Miss 
 Amelia had posed in so recently, challenging the 
 admiration of the " quality." If 'Mely Jane failed of 
 impressing her public, it was not for lack of conscien- 
 tious study on her part. The effect was slightly 
 marred by Pete himself. 'Mely Jane was of that 
 rich off-color known as '' griff," while Pete rivaled the 
 ebony writing-desk in the library at the big house 
 for color and polish. 'Mely Jane towered above her 
 groom with a giraffe-like extension above the shoul- 
 ders. Pete, in the long black swallow-tail presented 
 by his w'ite folks for the occasion, cowered under her 
 protecting wing, as it were ; but it was a very gor- 
 geous wing on that occasion, and as Pete lifted his 
 eyes reverentially to the wreath of poppies and corn- 
 flowers that supplied the place of 'Mely Jane's famil- 
 iar bandanna handkerchief, his soul swelled within 
 him, and it was without a single mental reservation 
 that he swore valorously among other things to " pro- 
 tect " his towering bride. 
 
 But so much of this world's pomp and vanity 
 was not to be overlooked by Brer Ben. What more 
 fitting illustration of the devil's power as a tempter 
 was he ever likely to find than was furnished by 'Mely 
 Jane in her " changeable " green and gold silk, or in 
 the crowning frivolity of those poppies and corn- 
 flowers ? Brer Ben summoned the candidates for 
 matrimony to take their places before him in his best 
 " meetin'-house " voice. It was sonorous and impos- 
 ing. 'Mely Jane briskly took the lead, with Pete fol- 
 
1 88 'MELY JANE'S WEDDING. 
 
 lowing meekly in iier wake. (They have observed 
 the same order ever since.) Brer Ben's address, 
 delivered prior to the joining of hands, was a happy 
 medium between a funeral sermon and a judge's 
 charge to the jury in a criminal case. 
 
 " Sistern and breddern, we is meet togedder to jine 
 dis man and dis woman in de bonds of holy widlock. 
 Leas'ways I is meet to jine 'm' en you is meet prin- 
 supply, I tek it, outer a hankerin' arter de flesh pots 
 uv Egyp. De flesh pots uv Egyp is ve'y good 
 in der way. I ain' got nothin' to say ag'in 'm 'ceptin' 
 this, de Bible say man shall not live by bread alone. 
 Some folk thinks dat means you's 'bleege to hev turkey 
 en' crenberries ev'y day, but I don' fin' no support for 
 no sech preposition uv carnalniss widin de leds uv de 
 good book. What I does fin' der, sistern and bred- 
 dern" (here Brer Ben's eyes traveled slowly from the 
 hem of 'Mely Jane's changeable silk to the biggest 
 red poppy in her bridal wreath), " is dis, * Vanity of 
 vanity, all is vanity, sayith de preacher.' Now, sistern 
 and breddern, I is de preacher on dis festif 'casion, 
 en w'en I sees a pusson wnd a charge to keep" (eying 
 'Mely Jane severely), *' a prancin' 'round wid her head 
 high up in de a'r, fur all de worl' lak a unbroke colt 
 in a pea fiel', I sez vanity. An' w'en I sees a pusson 
 wid a immortal soul t' save en fit it fur de skeeye, a 
 cavortin' roun' in de gyarments uv sin en selfishness, I 
 sez vanity ! An' w'en I sees de necklisses en' de 
 bracelits" (here 'Mely Jane clutched convulsively at 
 her lava bracelet), " which is but de soundin' cimblins 
 en tinklin' brass uv dis worl', adornin' uv de pusson 
 of a young woman, I sez vanity twicet over. Sistern 
 
'MELY JANE'S WEDDING. 1^9 
 
 en breddern, de Bible sez it is better to be in de 
 house of mo'nin den in de house uv rejoicin'. We is 
 all meet here t' rej'ice over 'Mely Jane Benson's takin' 
 Pete — Pete — whar yo' udder name, nigger ? " (se- 
 verely). " Ransom," escaped timidly from Pete's 
 tremulous lips, to be repeated sonorously by Brer Ben 
 as he resumed : " Ransom, Pete Ransom, t' be her 
 lawful en wedded husbin'. I purnounce you man en 
 wife — s'loot yo' bride." 
 
 Brer Ben's harangue came to an untimely end. 
 Aunt Winny, mistress of the feast, had whispered to 
 him that '' the chicken soup was gittin' col'er den a 
 iern wedge." Brer Ben liked chicken soup, and he 
 did not like iron wedges as an article of diet. He 
 had sown enough good seed by the wayside to keep 
 'Mely Jane from going to perdition, unless she had 
 positively made up her mind that that was the destina- 
 tion she preferred. He could have said a great deal 
 more, but advice is as good cold as hot, and chicken 
 soup is not. Brer Ben's homily was the only first 
 hand thing 'Mely Jane ever had bestowed on her. 
 Her preference is still for second hand things. She 
 waived the ceremony of being saluted by her husband, 
 not being able on the spur of the moment to recall 
 any " quality" precedent for an osculatory finale to 
 the marriage ceremony. Brer Ben turned with alac- 
 rity to the flesh pots of Egypt, and, his example prov- 
 ing infectious, Pete had the satisfaction he craved of 
 seeing all the '' vittles et up, befo' de table colopse." 
 
 The new barn floor resounded to the sound of 
 shuffling feet and rattling bones that night far past 
 the wee hours, though Brer Ben did not countenance 
 
19^ 'MELY JANE'S WEDDING, 
 
 that part of the universal levity. It was a gala night 
 at the quarters, and the memory of it lived long after 
 'Mely Jane's changeable green-and-gold silk was 
 " wore to a frazzle," and her bridal wreath of poppies 
 and cornflowers had perished as the grass of the field 
 perisheth. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 CHARLEY knight's STRATEGY. 
 
 Mx\RINERS know of certain small pests called 
 " barnacles " that have a number of long curled 
 things (in the absence of accurate information as to 
 whether they should be called feet or proboscides, 
 " things " is considered safest\ which they fasten upon 
 and about the wooden hulls of vessels, incrusting them 
 to an incredible extent, until there is nothing for it but 
 to lay by and make war to the knife upon the small 
 but insidious foe. It is said the danger from these 
 pests is greatest in sluggish waters. 
 
 Perhaps the time has not yet come for a true esti- 
 mate to be placed upon the nature of that species of 
 barnacle known as the carpet-bagger, nor upon the 
 peril from them that the Ship of State ran in the early 
 days of reconstruction. When she was tossing and 
 plowing her war-path through stormy and troubled 
 seas, the miserable parasites could gain no hold upon 
 her stanch hull ; but when she finally lay becalmed 
 in the still waters of a hard-won haven of peace, 
 they fastened upon her eagerly, greedily and harm- 
 fully. 
 
 That this species of barnacle properly belonged to 
 the ephemera, is best proven by the frequency with 
 
192* CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 
 
 which one already hears the question asked, '' What 
 was a carpet-bagger ? " Webster, in his supplement 
 (the word finds no place among time-tested defini- 
 tions), gives ; " Carpet-bagger : "A term of contempt 
 applied to a Northern settler in the southern part of the 
 United States, after the close of the civil war, seeking 
 only private gain or political advancement," which is 
 comprehensive if not accurate, but casts the odium 
 of undiscriminating contempt upon the people who 
 applied the term to all Northern settlers ; for the men 
 who settled South for other objects than " private 
 gain or political advancement " must have gone there 
 in a purely benevolent missionary spirit, and deserved 
 better treatment, even at the hands of sore-hearted 
 rebels quivering under recent defeat. 
 
 To drop metaphor, which is in itself fraught with 
 serious peril, only those who have had direct personal 
 experience of that vicious outcome of the civil war, 
 the carpet-bagger, can properly gauge the baleful in- 
 fluence he exercised upon the solemn task of recon- 
 structing the Union. Every town sufficiently large 
 or prosperous to excite cupidity had its one or 
 more specimens of the genus, who, settling among 
 a people lying panting and exhausted from a fierce 
 struggle that left them well-nigh destitute of every 
 thing that makes life worth living, proceeded to put on 
 the thumbscrews and virtually fulminated the new eth- 
 ical code, the greatest good to the smallest number. 
 Impotent to get rid of them, their victims showered 
 inadequate contempt upon them, which was received 
 with stolid outward equanimity, so long as it affected 
 neither their private gain nor their political advance- 
 
CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY, 1 93 
 
 ment disastrously, but, rankling inwardly, was doubt- 
 less the primal cause of many an act of disorder and 
 violence, which has been harshly attributed to the un- 
 exercised spirit of rebellion. 
 
 Before the men of Slaterville had had time fairly 
 to shake the dust of the battle-field from their worn- 
 out shoes, or substitute civilians' clothes for their 
 shabby gray uniforms, they were made aware of a 
 presence in their midst that boded no good to them. 
 A new lawyers' firm was established in town, and on 
 its smart new shingle were two names that nobody had 
 ever heard before. Men smiled grimly at the idea of 
 new lawyers coming to Slaterville, where the old ones 
 had found it hard enough to " grabble " a living before 
 the war, and, of course, it would be ten times as bad 
 now that there was not only nothing left to fight over, 
 but no money to pay the lawyers for the fighting. 
 Plainly those two young men had made a big mistake, 
 and the Slaterville people took a malicious pleasure in 
 leaving them to find it out for themselves. As for 
 them and their households, there was work a-plenty on 
 hand for them, rebuilding and restocking their stores ; 
 learning how to deal in new fashion with the freed- 
 men (an unfamiliarized element of the new order, 
 which they handled awkwardly enough at first, dread- 
 ing always to err on the side of concession); communi- 
 cating with the commission merchants, upon whom 
 they must depend for help before they could turn a 
 wheel ; and, most onerous, most strange of all, learn- 
 ing how to put their own shoulders to the wheel. 
 
 The conspicuous presence of the new lawyers in the 
 little town was a perpetual provocation to recall the 
 
194 CHAKLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 
 
 ante-bellum bar of Slaterville. '' Ah, there had been 
 men of big brains handUng big interests, in those days, 
 and the Court House at Slaterville had echoed to many 
 a burst of eloquence that might have fallen from the 
 lips of a Webster or a Prentiss and done them no dis- 
 credit." Slaterville had been very proud of its bar. 
 There had been Peter Anderson, poor fellow ! A 
 brighter brain and a bigger heart were never united 
 in one personality. He hadn't lived long after putting 
 on the gray ; shot through that big heart of his at 
 Shiloh. And there were the Poindexter brothers ; 
 they made one think of Richard and Saladin contend- 
 ing with ponderous battle ax and polished scimitar 
 when they were pitted against each other in a case ; 
 and then almost in each other's arms as soon as it was 
 decided. And Drake and Gibson — " They were 
 lightning." There wasn't one of them that couldn't 
 crush these new fellows in an argument ; but they were 
 all scattered. The Poindexter boys had gone to 
 Nicaragua, and Drake and Gibson had declined com- 
 ing back to starve ; they had concluded to try their 
 luck in St. Louis. What these new men could expect 
 to make out of the law tJiere was more than Slaterville 
 could divine. But the new men did not seem at all 
 perturbed at the prospect. In fact, they looked as if 
 they could well afford to wait for a practice to grow. 
 They were not unwilling to be friendly and sociable, 
 and at first showed a decided disposition to join the 
 groups of returned soldiers, whose wounded spirits 
 derived a certain amount of balm from telling over the 
 stories of their fights and their escapes and their strate- 
 gic moves perhaps a trifle vaingloriously, perhaps with 
 
CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 1 95 
 
 the modesty of true courage, to the interested listeners 
 who had only sniffed the battle from afar. But they 
 were not made welcome by soldier or citizen, and soon 
 accepted the unspoken fiat of social ostracism, which 
 was an error on the part of the Slaterville people. 
 
 " It would be different, you see," said Charley 
 Knight, turning his flashing eye (the only one he had 
 brought back with him), on the group which had been 
 silently observing one of the new men as he left them 
 and walked rapidly toward the little cottage, which 
 was lodging-house and law-office in one for him and 
 his partner, " if those fellows had ever been soldiers 
 and had stood their chances of hit or miss with the 
 rest of the blue coats, but " (polite literature demands 
 a hiatus) " they've never so much as smelled gun- 
 powder, and have come down here in the wake of the 
 army like a flock of buzzards to pick our bones after 
 the flesh's all gone." Which was so true in every 
 essential particular that no one dissented from Charley 
 Knight's rather hyperbolical way of putting the case. 
 
 The attitude of the white men of the South toward 
 the freedman was at first one of confused uncertainty, 
 somewhat as if a needy artisan were given a tool the 
 nature of which and the manner of using which were 
 totally unfamiliar to him, and were told to make his 
 livelihood by it. A livelihood must be extracted out 
 of the land by the use of these new tools, but they 
 were edged tools and must be handled with discretion. 
 It is easy enough now to smile at the absurdities of 
 then, but it was a '' ticklish experiment," and men 
 resumed their industrial occupations in rather a hap- 
 hazard fashion. They could not command these new 
 
196 CHARLIE kNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 
 
 made citizens, and they could not treat with them as 
 man to man. Another error on the part of the Slater- 
 ville people. Things were all out of kelter. Unsatis- 
 factory as laborers, they could not accept these freed 
 slaves at all as citizens and voters. That was simply 
 a huge joke. Even after, through their own ineligi- 
 bility to office by reason of obstinacy in the matter of 
 taking the oath, all the local offices had been impar- 
 tially distributed between their former teamsters and 
 gardeners and hostlers, they could see only the funny 
 side of this sudden enfranchisement of the darkey. 
 There was no special apprehension concerning it. 
 The new officials comported themselves with an absurd 
 mixture of deference and crude dignity, and Charley 
 Knight was the first man to address his own emanci- 
 pated stock-minder as Justice, with a rollicking laugh 
 which made the new Justice of the Peace show his 
 superb white teeth in an animated responsive grin. It 
 was only when it became apparent that the new county 
 officials were nothing more than so many supple-jacks, 
 manipulated by the new lawyers, that the people of 
 Slaterville began to awaken to a sense of their own 
 mistaken policy. What other outcome was possible ? 
 Ignorant, unlettered, timid, affrighted at the responsi- 
 bility thrust upon their feeble hands, they must be 
 advised, tutored, led ; and a white man must tutor 
 them. The new lawyers did what the old masters would 
 better have done. The tutelage was adverse to the 
 true interests of the country. They awoke with a start 
 when it was too late. Things assumed a serious aspect 
 at the time Justice Sam, as Charley Knight and the 
 rest of them called him, Mr. Baker, as the new men 
 
CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 197 
 
 addressed him, had to sit upon his first case, in which 
 the conflicting interests of the white man versus the 
 black came up for consideration. Before that case 
 came up Justice Sam's administrative abihty had been 
 exercised exclusively upon insignificant squabbles 
 among his own people, but when it was understood 
 that Major Jim Blake had been summoned to appear 
 before Sam to answer to the charge of having "willfully 
 and with malice aforethought shot at and killed a sow 
 belonging to one Benjamin Davis, lessee on said Blake's 
 plantation," public indigntion was aflame. 
 
 It was toward dusk of a chill November day that 
 Major Blake rode into Slaterville, sitting sternly erect 
 on his old war horse, whose visible anatomy had 
 gained him the title of Praise-God-Bare-Bones (the 
 giver of the name presumably considering the posses- 
 sion of any horse in those days occasion for thanks- 
 giving). He was in the custody of his own ex-dining- 
 room boy and his neighbor Rawlings's ox-driver, 
 respectively the sheriff of the county and his deputy. 
 He had come to stand his trial for sow slaughter, 
 and was conveyed directly to the cottage of the new 
 lawyers, where Sam's court of justice was always held. 
 The men of Slaterville ground their teeth in impotent 
 rage as the majestic old soldier, the battle-scarred hero 
 of a dozen engagements rode by their doors between 
 his saffron-hued custodians. As for the major him- 
 self, it was only by the rigid setting of his square 
 under jaw, and a certain pallor about his high cheek 
 bones, that he betrayed any sense of the indignity of 
 it all. 
 
 The decision of the court that Major Blake be com- 
 
198 CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 
 
 pelled to pay costs and twelve dollars to plaintiff, 
 despite the proven fact of frequent warnings, did not 
 pour oil upon the troubled waters of public sentiment. 
 Thereafter the white men of the county rashly conclu- 
 ded that their interests as a community were to be 
 arrayed against the interests of their old slaves, with 
 whom the " shysters " who manipulated them were 
 identified. On the other hand, the new men, accept- 
 ing scorn and obloquy as their inevitable portion, 
 grew more and more bold in reaching out for that 
 political preferment which was the true motive of 
 their temporary acceptance of the taboo laid upon 
 them socially. The whirligig of time would bring in 
 their revenge. The petty local offices, with their lean 
 pickings, the Nation's wards were welcome to, but the 
 larger, fatter, and more dignified positions, that gave 
 control of county affairs, they aspired to themselves. 
 The price Sam Baker and his confreres were expected 
 to pay for their own sudden elevation to the dizzy 
 heights of political power and comparative opulence 
 was the free-will offering of their newly acquired 
 votes. Not that it seemed much of an offering to 
 Sam, that mysterious little ballot whose chief excel- 
 lence consisted in making him feel more like '' w'ite 
 folks," but the new bosses knew, and he was bound by 
 every obligation of gratitude, to cleave unto the men 
 that had made him a '' jestus " of the peace and called 
 him Mr. Baker, and actually invited him to sit down 
 in their presence. True, when he accepted this invi- 
 tation, Sam simply appropriated the minimum of the 
 chair seat, and felt about as uncomfortable as he 
 looked, but that did not lessen the honor. Ah, yes. 
 
CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 199 
 
 those were dark days — infinitely darker than when, 
 amid the smoke of battle, and the shrieking of shell, 
 and the whistling of bullets, the men of Slaterville 
 had stood face to face with the foes who had come out, 
 as they had, to do battle for what they conceived to 
 be right, and dared to die for the maintenance of a 
 principle. There was a grandeur in that that made it 
 easy for them to accord the meed of praise, and per- 
 haps, some of these days, it would be possible for 
 them to love such enemies. But this was different. 
 Here they must consent to match craft with craft, 
 meet guile with guile, or submit to being politically 
 effaced in their own country. It looked darker than 
 ever when the nominations for tax-receiver and district- 
 attorney were announced. The two new men were 
 the candidates. " It would be a walk-over," the men 
 of Slaterville said gloomily, for there wasn't a corpo- 
 ral's guard among them who had taken the iron-clad 
 oath that would give them equal political rights with 
 Sam Baker and the rest of them. A deadly supineness 
 came upon them. Things were in too much of a snarl 
 for them to grapple with, all exhausted and dispirited 
 as they were. The struggle for daily bread was so 
 stern and real that, closely as that matter of tax-receiver 
 and district-attorney touched them, it was with a dull 
 pain they accepted the nominations, and prophesied 
 dreary things yet to befall, rather than with that 
 sharp, keen resentment that leads to redress. 
 
 It was Charlie Knight who was led to do a thing 
 that in his own chafed soul he called a beastly thing 
 to do. " Boys," he said, facing abruptly around on a 
 group of sober-faced men who had been discussing the 
 
200 CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 
 
 political muddle with bitter words and angry ges- 
 tures, " I'm going to that mass meeting to-night. It's 
 a beastly thing to do, but I begin to suspect we've 
 been more nice than wise all along. We've let the 
 shysters have it all their own way." 
 
 '^ How are you going to prevent it ? " a mocking 
 voice asked. 
 
 *' I don't know," said Charlie. His one eye looked 
 perplexedly down on the men who were whittling 
 mercilessly on the store gallery benches. *' That's 
 what I want to find out ; but we've been foot balls for 
 these fellows long enough." 
 
 Three or four voices were raised in protest : 
 " You'll be insulted if you go to Barnes's gin to-night. 
 Better stay away, Charlie. It's a mass meeting of 
 darkies. It's in 'em to do worse than insult you." 
 But it was no mere impulse that had stirred Charlie 
 to this sudden resolve. The men of Slaterville all 
 knew that, once his mind made up, there was no 
 power on earth could make him swerve from the line 
 of conduct he had adopted. His inaction, like that 
 of nearly all the men about him, had been more pre- 
 occupation than any thing else. No one volunteered 
 to go with him. He was glad of it. He was sure of 
 himself, but he could not say as much for any of the 
 rest of the fellows. He didn't want any tinder-boxes 
 along. His own going was the result of serious re- 
 flection. 
 
 Barnes's gin was a huge shingle-roofed affair, with 
 an immense earth-floored space beneath it mto which 
 the cotton bales were ejected from the press above, 
 and where they accumulated to be marked before 
 
CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 201 
 
 shipment. There were no cotton bales there then, 
 nor had there been for several years now. There 
 were little locks of the lint, cobwebbed and dirty, still 
 clinging to the rough-hewn joists and rafters, and a 
 rude litter of iron ties and cotton-weighers, and dis- 
 carded picking baskets filled what space was left by 
 the crowd of dark faces that were massed under its 
 roof. They made a weird picture to Charlie Knight 
 as he quietly joined himself to the crov/d unnoticed. 
 The illumination was poor. At the remo<"e end of 
 the space, mounted on the tongue of an old ox-cart, 
 stood the orator of the occasion. Charlie could see 
 by the dim light of the carriage lantern swung over 
 his head that it was Uncle Isham, his own gardener. 
 " One of the few," he said to himself bitterly, " that 
 he had thought true to the backbone." There was 
 no other light under the gin-shed and there were no 
 seats. They were all standing, stolidly listening, 
 neither approving nor dissenting. There was a strong 
 infusion of tobacco smoke in the atmosphere, and the 
 red glow from a score of short, black pipes punctuated 
 the gloom. Uncle Isham was in full tilt when Charlie, 
 stopping quietly on the outskirts of the dark mass, 
 drew his hat well down over his face and listened. 
 
 " Boys, lis'n t' me. I is ben young en now I is ol' ; 
 thar's no use uv denyin' hard fac's. I is ol', en 
 gettin' older, en mo' no 'count ev'y day I lives ; but, 
 boys, de Bible says, lis'n to de words of destruction 
 on 'spise 'em not. You-alls ack lak you was plum 
 crazy, boys, you cert'n'y does. I is ben sittin' over 
 thar on a bunch uv cotton ties, jes a listenin' to you- 
 alls en a tryin' t' fin' out wa't you is drivin' et enny 
 
202 CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY, 
 
 which-a-way. Does you all know yoseff ? Wat 
 de w'ite folks ever done t' you-alls ennyhow ? Ain' 
 dey done feed you, en clothe you, en look arter you 
 w'en you sick, en help you ev'ry time you want help ? 
 Tell me dat. En ain't you free now ? Tell me dat. 
 Kyarn you pick up en lef one plantashun en go 
 to anudder, ef one plantashun don' suit you en t'udder 
 one does ? Tell me dat. En kyarn you go to 
 meetin' ev'ry Sunday en to pra'r meetin' ev'ry Satur- 
 day night ef you feels. like it en nobody t' hinder you ? 
 Tell me dat. Wat mo' you-alls want ennyhow ? 
 Tell me dat. Boys, I is broke in a heap er colts in 
 my life, powerful skittish ones at dat, but I 'clar' fo' 
 goodness I never see a unbroke colt go on no wuss 
 den some uv you young fellers since you got de bit 
 between yo' teef. I didn' get up yhere to do no 
 great 'mount uv spee.chifyin'. 'Tain in my line. I 
 jes' got up yhere t' say a word or two to yer fer yer 
 own good, boys. If you yhere me, I'd rather enny 
 day see Mars Charlie Knight, my ol' Miss's boy, 
 w'at I ben knowin' ever since he was bawn en ain' 
 never kotch in a lie yit, runnin' for office yhere 
 'mongst his own folks, den er stranger w'at we got t' 
 tek on his own say so ; en, boys — one mo' word, en 
 de ol' man's done. He gwine wash he's ban's uv you 
 arter to-night. Ontel I gets rich 'nough to buy a 
 whole bar'l of po'k en a bar'l of co'n-meal all at oncet, 
 I'se gwine to stick t' de man dat carries de smoke- 
 house keys. Now I'se done. Dat's my las' v/ord." 
 
 A hat went up on the outskirts of the dense crowd, 
 a clear young voice called for three cheers for Uncle 
 Isham, and then Charlie Knight, broad shouldered 
 
CHARLIE KNIGHTS STRATEGY. 203 
 
 and muscular, elbowed his way to the front, and 
 springing lightly to the tongue from which Uncle 
 Isham had just laboriously descended, asked cheerily: 
 '' Boys, may I say a few words to you now ? " They 
 were mute from surprise, but as there were no dis- 
 sentient voices he plunged into what it had occurred 
 to him it would be good for them to hear. 
 
 " Uncle Isham has been giving you some very good 
 advice, boys. I am interested in knowing how many 
 of you will follow it. He gave me some too. He 
 didn't know I was standing there in the dark, listening 
 to him. I'm going to follow it. I'm going to run for 
 tax-receiver myself. It never occurred to me until 
 Uncle Isham suggested it. I'm much obliged to him 
 for doing it. And you know, boys, you can vote for 
 me or you can vote for the other fellow, just as you 
 choose, but I think if I was you I'd follow Uncle 
 Isham's advice and stick to the man who carries the 
 smoke-house keys yet awhile. Later on, perhaps, you 
 will be all carrying smoke-house keys, but not if you 
 spend your time loafing around white men who do 
 their best to make you hate your old friends. You are 
 free now, boys, as free as I am. Whether we ever had 
 any right to own you or not it is too late to talk about, 
 but there's no good reason why we shouldn't all pull 
 together since we're in the same boat, and there's no 
 other boat for any of us to get in, and I think Uncle 
 Isham would make a tip-top stroke oar for us. I've got 
 just this one more word to say, boys. You're better 
 off than I am in one respect ; you've got a vote and I 
 haven't, but I intend to get even with you on that 
 score. I'll take the oath to-morrow, and I'lJ 
 
204 CHARLIE AWIGHT'S STRATEGY. 
 
 come out as an independent candidate. Perhaps your 
 bosses haven't taught you what that is yet. However, 
 I didn't come here canvassing, for I didn't know 1 was 
 going to nominate myself, but I'd like to shake hands 
 with every man here who believes that I am as much 
 his friend now as I ever was, and that if — mind you, 
 boys, I only say if — any of you should vote for me for 
 tax-receiver, it would be because you think I'd make 
 an honest one." 
 
 It was an inspiration ! 
 
 " Hurray fur Marse Charlie Knight," Uncle Isham 
 shouted in a cracked voice, flourishing his old straw 
 hat wildly over his gray wool before flinging it en- 
 tirely away in his frenzied eagerness to be the first 
 man to shake hands with his candidate. They crowded 
 about him laughing, jostling, cheering in childlike, 
 mercurial relief at this sudden change from the oppres- 
 sive solemnity of Uncle Isham's address, that had 
 almost sounded like a prophecy of woe to come, to the 
 chatty pleasantry of the young soldier. They had 
 been trying to think, and the effort tired them. They 
 were not used to thinking for themselves. They were 
 used to being bidden and to obeying the direction of 
 superior wills. This was the first time one of their 
 own " w'ite folks " had condescended to meet them in 
 argument. Charlie did not overestimate the force of 
 this outburst. He had found them in a subdued frame 
 of mind, standing in a darkness not all physical, be- 
 wildered, and groping along an untried path. He had 
 afforded them relief from a present perplexity. That 
 was all. To-morrow the shysters would have their 
 Qars again, and, no doubt, would make them thoroughly 
 
CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 20^ 
 
 ashamed of this sudden spurt of loyalty to an old 
 slave owner. He could only be sure of one thing, and 
 that was that he and the other fellows in Slaterville 
 had been pursuing a suicidal policy all along, and the 
 quicker they changed it the better. 
 
 All the Slaterville men crowded around him the 
 next morning to hear his experience of the night 
 before. He gave it half-laughingly, enumerating ex- 
 aggeratedly the number of unwashed hands that had 
 clasped his in enthusiastic indorsement of all he had 
 said, then, in more serious vein : " And, boys, I've 
 resolved to fight the devil with fire. I'm going to take 
 the oath and get back my vote. It's a piece of furni- 
 ture I can't afford to dispense with. That done, I'm 
 not going to run myself, for those scamps over yonder 
 would be too strong for me. I'm going to run Sandy 
 for tax-receiver. I've changed my mind on that 
 point." 
 
 " Sandy ! Why, he's a blockhead ! " 
 " Yes," Charley assented cheerfully. 
 " And he don't know B from a bull's foot." 
 " Of course not." 
 '' How would he get along then ? " 
 " He'd have to hire a clerk, and I'm going to apply 
 for the situation." 
 
 This was too much for their gravity. The men 'of 
 Slaterville laughed more loudly and more unanimously 
 than they had laughed since the war. It was so sim- 
 ply ridiculous, you know. Charlie Knight, one of the 
 most fastidious fellows in the county (a handsome one 
 he had been, too, before that bayonet thrust had de- 
 prived him of an eye), applying for a position as clerk 
 
2o6 CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 
 
 to the negro boy who had brushed his clothes and 
 blackened his boots every day of his life until he had 
 gone into the army. That would be putting the bot- 
 tom rail on top with a vengeance. But it turned out 
 to be another one of Charley's inspirations. 
 
 He declined the nomination formally tendered him 
 by a small committee headed by Uncle Isham, telling 
 them that on second thoughts he felt quite sure that 
 he could not carry the election, and therefore proposed 
 they should elect one of their own color, who, he was 
 '' sure, would administer the duties of his office faith- 
 fully and honestly." It was a stroke of genius, and 
 one that filled the discomfited carpet-baggers with en- 
 vious admiration of his diplomatic powers. Sandy car- 
 ried the election by a tremendous majority. What if 
 he could neither read the oath of office nor sign his 
 own name to a receipt for taxes ? All the more imper- 
 ative necessity for his having a clerk, and there was an 
 efficient and accommodating one ready to his hand in 
 his own " Marse Charlie." Some of the taxpayers who 
 were brought into personal contact with the new 
 receiver reported that it was " as good as the circus 
 to see Charlie Knight performing his duties as clerk 
 in the tax-office, with Sandy staring at him like a dead 
 .and stuffed monkey." But the business was conducted 
 to every body's satisfaction, and Sandy was happy and 
 Charley was triumphant ; so where's the odds ? 
 
 But all that happened ever and ever so long ago. 
 Slaterville is one of the most flourishing towns in the 
 new South now, and Charlie Knight is no longer San- 
 dy's clerk. He is Congressman for his district. He 
 says he never had any political aspirations before he 
 
CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 207 
 
 delivered his maiden speecli from the tongue of an ox- 
 cart in Barnes's gin-shed, but that having tasted blood 
 he craved more. He is a sort of idol with his Slater- 
 ville constituents, who declare that it was Charlie 
 Knight who broke the backbone of carpet-bag rule in 
 the county, and if it had not been for his activity in 
 electing Sandy to be tax-receiver it would have taken 
 them all longer than it did to get out of the Slough of 
 Despond. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 COLONEL Sutton's governess. 
 
 WHEN one of Colonel Rafe Sutton's girls fell 
 from the ladder that had been planted against 
 the side of the house, by the whitewasher, and 'broke 
 an arm, and the same week one of his boys was fished 
 out of the bayou half drowned, in consequence of 
 trying to cross it in an old dugout that had been 
 stranded ever since the last high water, the people of 
 Black's Bayou said " it was high-time Colonel Sutton 
 was getting a governess to look after his children." In 
 local estimation those Sutton children were "just torn 
 down," and cautious mothers congratulated themselves 
 on the six miles of rough road that intervened between 
 their own superior offspring and such hopeless young 
 ne'er-do-wells. 
 
 Colonel Rafe (there were so many Suttons in the 
 county that they were most readily distinguished by 
 their Christian names) seemed to come to the same 
 conclusion about the same time. He and Mrs. Rafe 
 discussed the matter with true conjugal prolixity, and 
 deciding, perhaps, that one governess would be more 
 inexpensive than several possible funerals, proceeded 
 forwith to procure and install one. 
 
 Of course, he had always looked forward definitely 
 
COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 209 
 
 to the time when a strange young woman must be 
 received into his house as one of the family, but for 
 certain reasons of his own Colonel Rafe had not been 
 inclined to precipitate her advent. He had always 
 intended giving his children a better chance for school- 
 ing than had fallen to his own lot. He hadn't had much 
 of a show in his young days. He had only been wait- 
 ing for Tillie and little Rafe, the two youngest, to 
 come of an age when they too could be ^' put at their 
 books," for as the governess would be on a fixed, and 
 a big, salary, he was economically minded to give her 
 as many pupils as possible. But while he waited for 
 Tillie and little Rafe, Nannie, the oldest girl, had been 
 efflorescing into a first-class tomboy, and Dave, his 
 oldest, son had been recklessly sowing the wind that 
 promised a future whirlwind of trouble for every 
 body. 
 
 Colonel Rafe was conscious of certain deficiencies 
 in himself, and in Mrs. Rafe too, that told against 
 them when circumstances threw them into contact with 
 what he was pleased to call the " old-timers." He 
 was himself, comparatively speaking, a new-timer, 
 having been a planter in his own name only for fifteen 
 years. He intended his young ones to enter into 
 enjoyment of the money he was piling up for them 
 less heavily handicapped than he had been. There 
 " shouldn't none of his boys ever oversee for any 
 man living." He meant Dave should '' law it " for 
 a living, and little Rafe should be a parson or a doctor, 
 whichever one he *' took to readiest " after getting 
 through with his books. As for the girls— ah ! well, 
 he'd see to it that they should have money enough to 
 
2IO COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 
 
 make every body forget that their father had got his 
 start in life as an overseer, whose unpaid salary had 
 been canceled by his employer's turning over to him 
 the small hill place back of Black's Bayou known as 
 the Hardtimes place. 
 
 The Sutton escutcheon did not shine with effulgent 
 radiance in the county where they rallied in such 
 force on election day. Of course they were received 
 in public (that is, the men were) on a footing of out- 
 ward equality, but, nevertheless, there was a line of 
 demarkation sharply drawn between the studied polite- 
 ness extended to them on all occasions and the jovial 
 freedom with which the old-timers and the descendants 
 of the old-timers treated each other. No one ever 
 joked with a Sutton. Couldn't, you know ; there were 
 too many unsubstantiated, or, rather, undenied whispers 
 afloat concerning them. Rafe Sutton ** worked his 
 hands on Sunday, whenever he got in the grass." 
 Dick Sutton '' had been caught cheating at poker the 
 last time the fellows let him into a game in Daven- 
 port's back room." Another one of them had made a 
 dishonest horse-trade, and still another, it was darkly 
 hinted, received toll for grinding his nearest neighbor's 
 corn in his grist-mill. They were not Sabbatarians 
 nor strict constructionists of any sort, those old-timers, 
 but a meanness of any description was an unpardon- 
 able sin, and if not punishable by the written laws of 
 the State, might and must be reached through the 
 unwritten law of local censure. Picayunishness was 
 the indictment brought against the Suttons ; ostracism 
 their sentence. None of the name smarted under this 
 existing state of affairs more sorely than Colonel Rafe, 
 
COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 21 1 
 
 and that was the reason why he was so savagely 
 resolved that Nannie, and Dave, and Tillie, and little 
 Rafe should be equipped to hold their own proudly in 
 the days that were to come. 
 
 Colonel Rafe never did things by halves. Now that 
 the time had come when the presence of a governess 
 was inevitable he was resolved to import the very best 
 that money could procure. He advertised in the New 
 York and Boston papers, and soon found himself 
 involved in a correspondence that taxed his epistolary 
 capacity to its utmost, and resulted in an engagement 
 for a year with an unknown young woman of Boston^ 
 who expressed herself very choicely and very fluently, 
 and signed her name with a flourish that made Colonel 
 Rafe blush with confusion over the sharp contrast his 
 own clumsy signature presented to it. " I guess she'll 
 set us down for Yahoos, ma," he said, sighing resign- 
 edly, as he restored to its envelope the governess's 
 final missive (in which she told him just when he 
 might expect her), '' but if she does the right thing by 
 the chicks, we won't mind that ; " and Mrs. Rafe 
 agreed that they wouldn't in the least mind that. Both 
 of them, in fact, were quite ready to efface themselves 
 utterly for the benefit of their offspring, but neither 
 was willing to put into words the various disturbing 
 reflections connected with the coming of this stranger. 
 Mrs. Rafe loved her ease — she was portly and she was 
 not symmetrical — she groaned inwardly at the reflec- 
 tion that after the arrival of this Boston importation 
 she should have to endure the martyrdom of corsets 
 and linen collars at every meal. She hoped this young 
 woman could eat like other people. She had a vague 
 
2t2 COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 
 
 idea, couldn't have told you for the world how she 
 got it, that Boston intellectuality was exclusively the 
 outcome of Boston baked beans and Boston brown 
 bread. She consulted every cookery-book she could 
 buy or borrow, with a view to preparing those deli- 
 cacies in home-like style for the young exile, and the 
 quantity of cow-peas and sugar-house molasses she 
 consumed in her abortive attempts was beyond com- 
 putation. 
 
 Colonel Rafe suffered under the apprehension that 
 it would no longer be optional whether he wore his 
 jeans coat to the dinner table or left it hanging on 
 the hat-rack in the hall. It was almost a foregone 
 conclusion that he would never dare to smoke his pipe 
 again any nearer than the corn- crib or the cotton-gin.' 
 " Those Yankee women had very strict notions, 
 especially about the management of the male sex." 
 But it would be all right so the young ones got the 
 benefit of her rigidity. The young ones looked for- 
 ward uneasily to the beginning of a general reign of 
 terror, notwithstanding which there was no stint of 
 anxiety to make the bedroom upstairs that was to be 
 hers look as cheerful and homelike as possible. On 
 the mantel-piece, at both ends of it, were big blue 
 jars stuck full of red berries and mistletoe. It was 
 not Christmas time, but the mistletoe was thick on 
 the oaks in the big front yard, and its waxen white 
 berries contrasted prettily with the stiff branches of 
 wild privet that Dave himself went for to the woods. 
 A flat glass dish — Mrs. Rafe'sbest preserve dish indeed 
 — full of zinnias and yellow chrysanthemums, occupied 
 the center of the table that stood between the two 
 
COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 213 
 
 windows of the room. The Colonel and Mrs. Rafe 
 consulted together over the books that should flank 
 the preserve-dish ; as she was from Boston of course 
 she was very profound. Personally they had very 
 little preference in the matter of selection. There 
 were quite a lot of books in the glass book-case in the 
 dining-room. The former owner, Colonel Rafe's 
 employer, had brought them there from time to time 
 when sojourning at Hardtimes. Burton's " Anatomy " 
 and *' Butler's Analogy " had a certain alliterative 
 sonorous sound about them that secured their selec- 
 tion as pieces de resistance. A classical dictionary, a 
 book of familiar poetical quotations, with Ouida and 
 Rhoda Broughton thrown in for iagniappe, satisfied 
 them on the score of mental refreshment for the 
 stranger. All that was done on the day before she 
 was expected to arrive. Colonel Rafe was to go into 
 town for her to-morrow in the buggy. In the mean- 
 time there seemed to be a tacit understanding that 
 this last day of domestic privacy should be enjoyed 
 without restriction. The pains and penalties of un- 
 yielding corsets and rigid linen collars were things of 
 to-morrow, which must take care of themselves with- 
 out any assistance from Mrs. Rafe, who devoted the 
 piece of the afternoon that was left, after giving a few 
 supplementary touches to the stranger's room, to 
 " sorting " her bewildering looking work-basket, big 
 as a bushel measure, toppling high with the accumula- 
 tion of weeks. Colonel Rafe, guiltless of cravat or 
 coat, was engaged in his favorite indoor occupation — 
 rubbing up his Winchester rifle and shot-gun, whose 
 dismembered parts occupied the whole of one side of 
 
2 14 COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 
 
 Mrs. Rafe's bedroom (which was the family sitting- 
 room. The children, mindful of their coming bondage, 
 were holding a farewell banquet to freedom in another 
 corner of the room ; a long-handled corn-popper, 
 whose contents had contributed materially to the feast 
 which was spread on two chairs, reclined against one 
 of the brass andirons that supported the blazing logs 
 of wood. 
 
 Into this scene of unalloyed domestic felicity, with- 
 out a moment's warning, the Boston governess was 
 ushered by Uncle Ottaway with a few explanatory re- 
 marks ; 
 
 " Yhere's little miss. Mars Rafe. She took a up- 
 country boat stidder de packet, an hit Ian' her up to 
 ol' Miss Murray's. She forwarded her in de buggy, 
 en I foun' her at de fron' gate. I tol' her dere warn' 
 no front do' bells nor sich like in dis part er de coun- 
 try, so es she jes' wouldn' walk in widout knockin', I 
 'lowed I hafter fotch her." 
 
 Self-possessed, with her keen vision taking in every 
 phase of this novel home scene, the Boston girl made 
 her position clearer still and was made awkwardly but 
 kindly welcome by her employers. If she was a nov- 
 elty to them — what were they to her? 
 
 That night (she was mercilessly methodical) she 
 made her first entry in her new diary. She was re- 
 solved to note down the impressions made on her cul- 
 tured mind by the every-day events of her new life. 
 This was the entry (it serves to illustrate how general 
 truths are propagated) : '' Southern people are queer, 
 but kind-hearted. The men wear no cravats or coats, 
 and make arsenals of their wives' bedrooms ! The 
 
COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 215 
 
 women are indolent in the extreme, and totally re- 
 gardless of those niceties of the toilet that indicate a 
 refined nature. The children of both sexes satisfy the 
 cravings of nature at the most inopportune times and 
 places." (Had she not seen these things with her 
 own eyes, and was she not warranted, therefore, in 
 placing her impressions on record ? Was not that the 
 true way to enlighten the world concerning this pecu- 
 liar people ?) She was writing on the table where the 
 offering of yellow .chrysanthemums and brilliant zinnias 
 made a bright spot of color in her new room. It was 
 a large room. She had never slept in such a very big 
 room all by herself, and just outside of it was a big 
 hall, with all sorts of boxes and chests that burglars 
 might secrete themselves behind. And these strange 
 people never turned the keys in their front or back 
 doors. Life could hardly be safe in such a disorgan- 
 ized, or rather unorganized, state of society. At 
 least, she could turn the key in her own door if they 
 did tell her down stairs not to lock it, because her fire 
 would be made very early in the morning. She would 
 go without a fire forever before she would risk her 
 life so recklessly. The door that opened into the big 
 hall opened just at this juncture, and a small figure 
 stood irresolutely in the doorway for a second, look- 
 ing at the governess with admiring awe. Then it 
 came forward until it reached the hearth-rug, and 
 stopped again to say timidly and deprecatingly : 
 
 '' I'se 'Mandy. Miss says I'se gwine to be yo' nig- 
 ger." Having thus defined her own social status, 
 'Mandy loosed her clutch on the corner of a dingy 
 calico " comfort " she had dragged in by the ears, as 
 
2i6 COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 
 
 it were, and seemed to wait, for some response from 
 the stranger. But none came immediately. 
 
 The governess's heart at that moment was the seat 
 of many commingled emotions. One of the prime 
 reasons for her answering this far-away call to Black's 
 Bayou was the golden opportunity it would afford for 
 her to sow some good seed in the rocky soil of slave- 
 owners' hearts, and to inform herself correctly as to 
 the status of these down-trodden sisters and brothers 
 about whom the whole country was then growing 
 violently agitated. For the first time in her life she 
 found herself alone in a room with one of these down- 
 trodden sisters, and she was shocked at the character 
 of her own emotions. Such a little harmless-looking 
 sister as it was, too ! with small, bare, ashy-looking 
 ankles coming out of a pair of immense red brogans, 
 only to lose themselves again under the clumsy hem 
 of a red and black plaid linsey skirt, with a thin little 
 neck, tied about with a bright bandanna handkerchief, 
 surmounted by a round good-natured face, in which 
 two black bead-like eyes were stuck, like plums in a 
 batter pudding. Such an innocent little face as 
 'Mandy's was ! She was accustomed not to be dealt 
 with ceremoniously by " w'ite folks," so finding the 
 young lady somewhat unresponsive, she proceeded to 
 spread her comforter in form of a pallet on one side 
 of the fireplace, and dropping upon it in a sitting post- 
 ure, said affably : 
 
 " Miss Maggy says I'se to wait on you. I'se to be 
 yo' nigger, en' nobody elstis." 
 
 "Who is Miss Maggy ? " the governess asked, lay- 
 ing down her pen and coming over to the hearth-rug, 
 
COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS, 217 
 
 where she stood looking down on 'Mandy, who was 
 placidly loosening the stiff leathern strings to her new 
 brogans, preparatory to releasing her feet from dur- 
 ance vile. 
 
 " Miss Maggy 's Miss Suttin, Mars Rafe's wife, 
 Mistess." 'Mandy gave this unpunctuated explana- 
 tion with wonderful rapidity ; '' she say I gwine to be 
 yo' nigger now. I gwine to wait on you." 
 
 " But I don't need any waiting on ; I can wait on 
 myself." 
 
 'Mandy looked up at her in dumb surprise. This 
 was a contingency she was totally unprepared for. It 
 involved perhaps a tremendous disappointment for 
 her. The governess was a new species of white folks. 
 *' You gwine send me back to the quarters ? " she 
 asked, fastening her black beads of eyes on the gov- 
 erness's face. " I'd ruther stay here. I kin comb yo' 
 hyar, ef you'll let me stay here." She sprang up with 
 alacrity and placed a chair so immediately under the 
 governess that sitting down in it was rendered somewhat 
 compulsory. Then she dropped down on the com- 
 fort, and taking off the unyielding brogans, she stood 
 them rigidly side by side against the chimney jamb, 
 eying them with an expression of personal animosity, 
 as she addressed them threateningly : " You des 
 hoi' on. I gwine to grease yo' t'morrer wid a piece 
 er bac'n rine, I is." 
 
 Plainly 'Mandy regarded herself as mistress of the 
 situation, for, once relieved of the torture of her 
 leathery imprisonment, she sprang nimbly to her feet 
 and inaugurated her willing service by turning down 
 the bed-clothes, awkwardly and unsymmetrically, it is 
 
2l8 COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 
 
 true, for she had just that day been imported from the 
 quarters for this special role. With a great slop and 
 splash she poured the water in the foot-bath, then 
 looked about zealously for some other service to ren- 
 der. She was in the habit of hearing w'ite folks tell 
 black folks what to do, but this was the " cu'ousist 
 w'ite folks ever she see." She came back to the fire- 
 place again and dropped despairingly on the comfort. 
 It never once occurred to her that she was the meager 
 embodiment of an awe-inspiring idea in the governess's 
 mind. She proceeded slowly and absently with her 
 own preparations for retiring. Taking the bandanna 
 from about her neck, she brought into view a bar- 
 baric display of glass beads of many sizes and every 
 color. She glanced up to see if such a flash of 
 splendor had not aroused that " cu'ous w'ite 'ooman " 
 to some interest in her personality. Evidently it had 
 not. She yawned cavernously and explained hon- 
 estly : 
 
 " I'se sleepy, I is. Gr'mammy hed me up las' 
 night skeerin' de pigs fum under de house mos' all 
 night." 
 
 " Where is your mother, Amanda ? " the governess 
 asked with irreproachable precision of diction. 
 
 '' My mammy ? " 'Mandy asked, with a puzzled 
 upward glance. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 *' She's daid. My mammy's daid, she is ; dey's 
 gwine t' preach her fun'ul naix Sund'y. My mammy's 
 been daid gwine on fo' years." 'Mandy imparted this 
 bit of family history cheerfully, as she punched the 
 glowing wood fire to see the sparks fly upward, 
 
COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 219 
 
 adding reflectively : " I wonder whar my mammy 
 nowT Plainly here was a benighted soul, and a golden 
 opportunity ! It was worth coming so far outside the 
 pale of civilization to procure such virgin soil for the 
 sowing of her good seed. 'Mandy dropped the tongs 
 with which she had been improvising pyrotechnics as 
 a solemn question fell on her startled ears : 
 
 " Amanda, do you know who made you ? " 
 
 'Manda regarded reflectively the glowing logs 
 before which she was sitting tailor-fashion for a long 
 second before giving her final decision in a tone of 
 absolute conviction : " Nobody didn't mek me, less'n 
 'twere Mammy, en she mus' 'a jes' started me, 'cause 
 I war'n but jes' half made w'en she die. I'se twicet 
 es big es I wuz w'en Mammy die." 
 
 The opportunity was not to be lost : " Did you never 
 hear of God ? Of the God who made you and gave 
 you all that you have ? " 
 
 " Yessum," she assented briskly, *' en I'se heerd of 
 de debbil too. I hear Unk Ishum tell Gr'mammy dat 
 de debbil wuz in ' hill Sam's ' fiddle, en he git inter de 
 folks' heels eva Saterday night. Dat w'at I hyere Unk 
 Ishum say to Gr'mammy." 
 
 'Mandy's benighted condition was beyond question. 
 The marvel was that such profound spiritual ignor- 
 ance could exist alongside of such happy indifference 
 as to her soul's welfare. 'Mandy rose from the position 
 of an humble and willing servitor that night, uncon- 
 sciously, it is true, to that of an interesting subject for 
 a great moral experiment. This young woman, whose 
 own youth had been spent in such a rarified mental 
 atmosphere, would find out for herself if 'Mandy was 
 
2 20 COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 
 
 possessed of the capacity to receive great moral and 
 intellectual truths ; she would read her accustomed 
 portion of Scripture aloud, and she would select such 
 portions as must probe the benighted soul in that 
 small, dark body, if one really abode there. 
 
 As her gentle, cultivated voice rose on the quiet air 
 of the room, 'Mandy clasped her hands reverently and 
 bent her shining black eyes on the flames that were 
 dancing far up the chimney. It always filled her with 
 awe to hear white folks read " out loud." It didn't in 
 the least matter what the words were, much less the 
 sense of them. There was a certain rhythm in it that 
 pleased 'Mandy's musical sensibilities. As the reading 
 progressed her gaze became more intense. The light 
 of a fixed purpose came into her shining eyes. Lean- 
 ing forward, very softly, so as not to disturb the reader, 
 she possessed herself of the shovel and softly raked a 
 clean place among the glowing coals. Then diving 
 suddenly under the comfort, she brought forth two 
 long red sweet potatoes, which she laid noiselessly in 
 the clean place and covered them quickly over with 
 hot ashes, patting the mounds softly and compactly 
 into the semblance of two miniature graves. Then she 
 resumed an upright posture once more and gave her 
 undivided attention to the reading. 
 
 '' Amanda," said her new friend, closing the book at 
 the end of the chapter, " did you hear what I read ? " 
 
 '' Yessum ; kose I hyur yo'," Mandy answered 
 reproachfully. 
 
 '^What did I read?" 
 
 Mandy inserted one ashy hand under her head- 
 handkerchief to scratch her head reflectively : '' You 
 
COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 22 1 
 
 say, fiff 'ronomy, sixteen verse — en de Lawd he driv 
 Adam en Eve outen de gyardin, he did, leastways 
 Unk Ishum tol' de folks dat las' Sund'y." Then with 
 sudden access of interest : " Missy, ef you gits hongry 
 in de middle uv de night, you jes 'call 'Mandy, en 
 she'll give you de hottes' sweet 'tater ever you git in 
 your life." And 'Mandy patted the ashen graves in 
 the fireplace affectionately with the back of the 
 shovel. . , . 
 
 It seemed to the stranger the dead of night when, 
 aroused by what she knew not, sitting bolt upright in 
 the unfamiliar bed, she saw a grotesque sight and 
 heard a plaintive sound. It was 'Mandy, sitting on 
 the floor in front of the fire, whose logs, now reduced 
 to "chunks," she had carefully placed close together 
 and blown into a blaze with her own vigorous lungs. 
 Her head-handkerchief had fallen off, revealing a sort 
 of Medusa-like coiffure of innumerable snake-like 
 plaits wrapped tightly about with twine. The ashen 
 graves had given up their dead. One charred sweet 
 potato lay upon the hearth, the other one was clasped 
 in 'Mandy's left hand, while with the right she cour- 
 ageously attacked its hot cuticle. Rocking, biting, 
 and bemoaning her own wickedness in alternate 
 breaths, she cast quaint shadows on the ceiling of the 
 room as she swayed her small body dolorously to and 
 fro. Now she promised faithful amendment in all her 
 wicked ways, even to the giving up of the cherished 
 glass beads that begemmed her neck ; now she pro- 
 tested against the cu'ous wite 'ooman that had entered 
 so promptly upon the work of proselyting ; now she 
 took a comforting bite of hot sweet potato ; now she 
 
^22 COLO MEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS 
 
 called on the spirit of the mammy who had been 
 " daid " nearly four years to bear witness to the gen- 
 uineness of her conversion ; finally, openly and con- 
 tritely relinquishing a preconceived plan to steal some 
 of white folks' sugar for Gr'mammy the next day, she 
 heaved one deep-drawn sigh from her unburdened 
 conscience, and rolled suddenly over on the pallet, a 
 peacefully snoring convert. 
 
 And the Boston girl composed herself among her 
 pillows satisfied that she had found good soil in which 
 to sow some of the seed she had imported with her. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 CAP Sutton's chance. 
 
 THE exigencies of plantation life, where the slaves 
 outnumbered the slave-holding population as 
 enormously as it did in the " cotton-belt," necessitated 
 the existence of a class of white men in the South 
 before the war whose social position, being altogether 
 anomalous, its responsibilities and duties were rarely 
 ever assumed by men of other than a coarse moral and 
 mental fiber. 
 
 Let him be possessed of all the granite virtues which, 
 indeed, were essential to his success in his chosen 
 sphere of usefulness, let him be never so honest, cour- 
 ageous, fair-minded, and humane, the overseer might 
 never hope to mingle with the planters or their families 
 on terms of social equality. He was a necessary and 
 useful middle-man between the ease-loving planter and 
 his slaves. His qualifications were purchasable, and 
 his virtues had their stipulated price. That many an 
 unrecorded heart-pang, many a stifled ambition, count- 
 less strangled desires, followed naturally in the wake 
 of such a state of affairs, who can doubt ? 
 
 Understanding the practical workings of the machine 
 oftentimes better than the master himself, the overseer 
 was placed at the head of affairs with an unreserved con- 
 
2 24 CAP SUTTON'S CHANCE, 
 
 fidence calculated to test the honesty of a bank presi- 
 dent. Installed as the virtual master of many helpless 
 creatures, and, for the time being autocratic in his con- 
 trol of their destinies, his position fostered a spirit of 
 pride and tyranny wherever their germs naturally 
 existed, and was such as to discourage those milder 
 forms of administration which arise from a sense of 
 accountability to a higher questioning authority. 
 That higher questioning authority undoubtedly existed, 
 and in a large majority of cases was exercised, but 
 rarely with an openness that might weaken the author- 
 ity of the middle-man. The planter who could afford 
 his thousand or twelve-hundred-dollars-a-year over- 
 seer could afford to discharge from his own mind all 
 those sordid details of plantation affairs that detracted 
 so largely from its rural delights, and having domiciled 
 his middle-man in a commodious house (architecturally 
 an exact medium between the big house and the quar- 
 ter cabins), located in as central a position as possible 
 in the quarter lot, he had a right to look for a quid pro 
 quo for his annual checks, in honesty, activity, and that 
 sleepless vigilance which the exigencies of the case 
 demanded. 
 
 It is easy to see why, things being thus, matrimony 
 was hedged about with more than the usual obstacles 
 which beset the unmoneyed wooer in every clime and 
 every age. Few women courted the pains and penal- 
 ties of such a position. The overseer himself might 
 mingle with the planters on the store galleries, or at 
 the wharf -boat, or wherever else a community of busi- 
 ness interest might lead ; might, indeed, if he were 
 exceptionally presentable, be accorded the occasional 
 
CAP SUTTON'S CHANCE. 22$ 
 
 privilege of eating his Sunday's dinner at tiie big house, 
 but while, individually, he might gain consideration on 
 the score of being a social necessity, an overseer's 
 wife had absolutely no raison d'etre. She had better 
 not exist at all. 
 
 Society in those conservative days viewed innovation 
 with distrust. Any change presupposed a flaw in previ- 
 ous conditions. Such a supposition was rank heresy. 
 Men might cease to oversee by dint of frugality and 
 big salaries ; might, indeed, turn themselves into plant- 
 ers by some such occult process as tadpoles mys- 
 teriously go through in order to become frogs ; but the 
 original tadpolish characteristics must always intrude 
 themselves for observation, so that, socially speaking, 
 the latter end of that man was scarcely better than the 
 first. His children's children might hope to be recog- 
 nized as bona-fide ladies and gentlemen, but not 
 himself. 
 
 It was this existing state of affairs, wordlessly 
 pressed in upon the inner consciousness of Colonel 
 Rafe Sutton and his wife, that made them so bent 
 upon giving their offspring a " number one chance." 
 Colonel Rafe plumed himself upon having wooed and 
 won his wife after he had moved out of the quarter 
 lot and into his own house as actual possessor of 
 Hardtimes, and he considered it lucky that old Dr. 
 Robinson's Indiana cousin had come into the neigh- 
 borhood on a visit just about that time. She was 
 poor and had no prejudices, which latter qualification, 
 always a good thing in woman, be she wife or maid, 
 proved especially so in his case. Colonel Rafe often 
 wished that " Cap," his oldest brother's son, might do 
 
2 26 CAP SUTTON'S CHANCE. 
 
 as well as he had done in the matrimonial line. But 
 Cap was such a *' queer fellow." Yes, every body in 
 the neighborhood agreed in calling " Cap " Sutton a 
 queer fellow. His queerness was emphasized va- 
 riously : "A handsome fellow, but dumb as an oyster 
 when the notion takes him." ''As plucky as Julius 
 Caesar, but as stubborn as a mule." There was 
 always a " but" where Cap Sutton was concerned. In 
 his own morbid estimation the disjunctive conjunction 
 had first come into play at his birth. He was born, 
 but it would have been much better for him if he 
 never had been. Family tradition informed him that 
 his father had found a wife on board a trading boat 
 that had lain tied to a stake in front of the Colonel's 
 plantation for weeks, indeed, until its entire stock of 
 ** up-country " produce had found its way into the 
 store-rooms of the various plantations around. The 
 owner of the trading boat had a wife and a sister-in- 
 law aboard. When he went away, he left the sister- 
 in-law behind. Cap Sutton in later years was given 
 to vain and idle speculations as to the possible influ- 
 ence upon his own destinies of that trading boat's 
 never having tied up at the Colonel's landing, or of 
 its owner never having had a sister-in-law. He had 
 acquired a metaphysical turn by going to school with 
 Al and Fred, the Colonel's sons, when they had the 
 theological student there for a little while cramming 
 them for college. It had been quite an accidental 
 thing, his going to school with the boys at the big 
 house. As a man he was given to wondering if it 
 hadn't been one of his father's big mistakes letting 
 him do it at all. 
 
CAP SUTIVN'S CHANCE. 227 
 
 - As he recalled things, he had been a more cheerful 
 and happier boy before that mere sip at the Pierian 
 spring. Then there had been no thought of degrada- 
 tion connected with the whitewashed frame house 
 that stood in the center of the quarter lot, with its 
 broad, open doorless hall cutting it in twain. There 
 had been no suggestion of servitude in the ringing of 
 the bell, as big as a church-bell, mounted on a stout 
 post so close to the front gallery of his father's house 
 that by reaching over he could seize the long rope 
 tied to its clapper. It had been one of his childish 
 joys to ring the big bell at twelve o'clock for the 
 hands to " knock off " for their nooning, and again at 
 one for them to go back to the fields. He had even 
 enjoyed the excitement, in those plebeian days, of 
 mounting the dusty slouching mules as they shuffled 
 into the mule lot with their loosened plow gear 
 jingling noisily about their heels, and riding them off 
 to water. In that unambitious period^of his existence 
 he had held Falstaffian sway over a motley gathering 
 of little darkies, whose departure from the period of 
 their evolution from apes was but slightly marked in 
 the matter of toilet. They were his to command in 
 season and out of season, and, although conscious 
 that loyalty was only to be secured by a liberal and 
 continuous supply of hot biscuits surreptitiously se- 
 cured, white taws, or china alleys, he enjoyed his 
 brief authority without alloy and led his sable forces 
 into deadly conflict with the Jamestown weeds or 
 cockle-burrs that infested the quarter lot, with the 
 proud consciousness that the boys at the big house, 
 gazing enviously at him from the dormer window of 
 
2 28 CAP SUTTON'S CHANCB. 
 
 the up-stairs school-room, or through the garden 
 palings, would gladly exchange their grand exclusive- 
 ness for his bare-footed and glorious liberty. 
 
 But all that had been before the Colonel, in a burst 
 of indiscreet admiration for what he had been pleased 
 to call " Cap's heroism," had insisted upon having 
 him up to the big house to give him a chance. It was 
 impossible ever to forget the day when he went to 
 meet his chance. It all came back to him vividly 
 whenever he fell into one of those somber-hued reveries 
 that consumed so many precious moments of his young 
 manhood. He remembered how vigorously his agi- 
 tated mother had " scrubbed " (that was the only word 
 that would befittingly describe those ablutions) his 
 round freckled face, making sudden and fierce inroads 
 into his ears and the corners of his blinking eyes, as 
 if she would purge him from every defiling stain before 
 sending him forth to be measured by the higher social 
 standard of the big house. And how mercilessly she 
 had tugged at the refractory masses of his brown hair 
 that waved tightly up to its very roots. He could 
 remember experiencing a species of shame for the 
 waviness of his hair, as contrasted with the decorous 
 smoothness of the other boys', and wondering if his 
 obnoxious curls were a sort of mild form of " kink," 
 caught by infection from his close proximity to the 
 quarters. The imprisonment of his feet in the new 
 shoes, for whose coming his advent in the school-room 
 had been deferred several days, was not the least part 
 of the torture of that first day at the big house. His 
 shoes creaked, and the other boys' shoes didn't. It 
 impressed him with a sense of general inferiority that 
 
CAP SUT7'0N'S CHANCE. 229 
 
 was as novel as it was uncomfortable. Up there, in 
 the quarters, he had been an absolute autocrat in his 
 way. In the school-room, with the Colonel's boys 
 regarding him with that undisguised curiosity that the 
 universal boy bestows unblinkingly upon the universal 
 stranger, and with the Colonel's daughter, " little Miss 
 Nellie " (whom he had heretofore looked at admiringly 
 from a distance, as he might have looked at one of 
 the fixed stars) regarding him shyly over the top of 
 McGuffey's Second Reader, he felt inexpressibly far 
 from home. He remembered, in these latter days, all 
 the good advice and maternal admonition with which 
 his mother had loaded him up that morning, as if he 
 were a sort of big gun that might be expected to dis- 
 charge itself effectively at the first pull on the lanyard. 
 But he had no recollection of going off at all effeT:t- 
 ively on that occasion ; he had been too bitterly con- 
 scious of his starchy collar and new shoes and the 
 fresh pocket-handkerchief his mother had stuck, with 
 such a fatal attempt at elegance, conspicuously in his 
 jacket pocket. It had proven nothing but a snare for 
 his further confusion, eluding his grasp whenever it 
 was needed, and finally taking sanctuary immediately 
 under Miss Nellie's chair. He would have died before 
 attempting to recapture it from that sacred spot and 
 yet had to undergo the fierce agony of having it 
 returned to him by her own dainty hand. 
 
 There was no incident of that first day of schooling 
 at the big house that was too trivial for memory to 
 hold in a firm but painful grasp. But had it not been 
 a mistake ; a mistake on the Colonel's part in offering 
 him a chance and on his father's part in accepting it 
 
230 CAP SUTTON'S CHANCE. 
 
 for him ? Before that there had been no basis for the 
 sharp and cruel contrasts he had been drawing ever 
 since with a growing sense of the injustice of certain 
 lines of demarkation that were ineffaceable and inevit- 
 able — lines that, after his days of schooling, left him 
 stranded midway between the things that were his 
 by birthright and the things he had promptly learned 
 how to value above that birthright. He remembered 
 how, when the agony of his first bashfulness wore 
 itself out, and the fascination of learning seized upon 
 him violently, with what pride he had entered the lists 
 against Al and Fred, all heavily handicapped as he 
 was. They were generous-hearted boys, those rich 
 sons of the rich Colonel, and the rivalry between them 
 and the son of their father's overseer was of that 
 generous sort that did good all around. 
 
 He remembered the glow of triumph that came into 
 his mother's sallow cheeks, that Saturday morning 
 when the Colonel stopped his horse by the cistern-shed 
 that belonged to the overseer's house, to utter some 
 words of commendation on his progress to her, as she 
 stood there churning. They were very precious in 
 her ears, coming, as they did, from the austere lips of 
 the highest recognized authority within her ken. He 
 had two unusually large pieces of black-berry pie 
 that day for dessert, the second slice being an unsolic- 
 ited tribute to his mental acquirements. 
 
 But the days had come when Al and Fred went off 
 to college, and the theological student who had been 
 the tutor at the big house for three years was suc- 
 ceeded by a musical young lady, w^ho was fitted to carry 
 the Colonel's daughter triumphantly through the 
 
CAP SUTTON'S CHANCE. 231 
 
 smaller and narrower gate to the temple of learning, 
 better suited to her feminine capacity, and Cap had 
 had his chance, and was prepared now (presumably) 
 to cope with the world on that lower plane in which it 
 had pleased God to place his father and his mother. 
 
 He no longer made daily pilgrimages to the up-stairs 
 room at the big house, whose dormer windows looked 
 out over the hills where the conical cedars grew in 
 native liberality. He could see its white dotted muslin 
 curtains fluttering in the breeze from the gallery of 
 the overseer's house, that seemed small and mean and 
 dirty now, since it had been put in such violent con- 
 trast with the oil-clothed halls and the matted floors 
 of the master's house. They had not thrown him back 
 on himself unprovided for in certain ways. On the 
 day when school broke up and the theological student 
 made them an unnecessarily solemn farewell address 
 that impressed them all with a vague feeling that the 
 day of doom was startlingly near, AI and Fred had 
 loaded him down with their books. They were going 
 away to Yale for four years, they told him, with an 
 irrepressible ring of importance in their young voices, 
 and by the time they got back they would have out- 
 grown the old books. And the Colonel had bestowed 
 a lot of good advice on him and had instanced many 
 great men who had achieved renown with less of a 
 foundation than he had to begin on. And Nellie had 
 given him a very small and very hard pin-cushion made 
 of little octagons of silk, lined with pasteboard, whose 
 edges showed a solid phalanx of pinheads. It was a 
 rigid sort of a cushion, nothing soft or yielding about 
 it, conceived on a purely utilitarian basis and given in 
 
232 CAP SUTTON'S CHANCE. 
 
 a spirit of girlish consideration for some one less 
 '' well off " than herself. 
 
 '' Cap " had taken the books, and the advice, and 
 the pin-cushion, and returned his stolid, unemo- 
 tional thanks without a break in his voice, while all 
 the time he had been making violent efforts to swallow 
 a big lump in his throat, and then he had gone back to 
 the overseer's house and put the books on some shelves 
 he knocked together from the sides of a dry-goods 
 box, and had wrapped the hard little pin-cushion up 
 in a piece of silver foil taken from his father's smoking 
 tobacco. What he did with the Colonel's advice he 
 could never clearly recall. He supposed those fel- 
 lows that had done such big things on such slim 
 foundations had lived where there was something to 
 do, where there was something going on, and he didn't. 
 He had found this much out from his books : the world 
 was not bounded on the east by the Mississippi River, 
 and its commerce was not confined to the loads of 
 cotton-bales that his father shipped every fall to the 
 city on the Colonel's behalf. Yes, he had learned that 
 much. He had learned more. He had learned that 
 there was something stirring within his own active 
 young body that made him dissatisfied and restless 
 and impatient of inactivity. He fancied a callow bird 
 might experience some such sensation at watching the 
 slow growth of its own helpless wings while longing 
 for the coming of the test moment. 
 
 Would his test moment ever come ? How could it ? 
 He saw no avenues of enterprise or effort, opening 
 before him. He saw certain white men around him 
 leading lives of luxurious ease, spending their days 
 
CAP SUTTON'S CHANCE. 233 
 
 and their substance in seeming security of their inex- 
 haustibility. He saw certain other white men spending 
 their days in unintellectual rounds of sordid responsi- 
 binty. The sphere he was predestined to, involved 
 rising before the faintest streak of dawn, hastily con- 
 suming a regular portion of hot cornbread and fried 
 bacon and black coffee, before riding away to a monot- 
 onous supervision of plows that ran the same furrows 
 over the same ground spring after spring, or hoes that 
 must exercise the same painful precision every year in 
 cutting out just so many tender cotton plants and leav- 
 ing just so many others. It involved the coming home 
 to a noon interim devoted to the issuing of so much 
 meal and pork, or the distribution of so many plugs 
 of black tobacco for " extra jobs." It involved the 
 monotonous discussion of all the crops in the neigh- 
 borhood with the other overseers, who would ride over 
 of Sundays, and either dismount and fill the splint- 
 bottom chairs that furnished the galleries or else com- 
 pose themselves comfortably sidewise in their saddles 
 to exhaust the budget of local gossip while their 
 horses contentedly gnawed the projecting planks of 
 the gallery floor into ragged fringes. He could never 
 recall that these animated discussions had ever in- 
 cluded any topics but the crops — who was in the grass, 
 who was out of it, who had " sore shin " cotton and 
 who hadn't— the condition of somebody's fence, and 
 the prospect of every body being eaten up by worms — 
 not the ultimate destiny of sinful mankind after inter- 
 ment, but the swift ruin to which it was liable at the 
 hands, or the voracious mouths rather, of the cotton- 
 worm. 
 
234 CAP SUTTON'S CHANCE. 
 
 Before those days at the big house, where he had 
 sat behind the white muslin curtains that now seemed 
 to shut him out from Paradise, and Hstened to the 
 theological student reading Plutarch's Lives and com- 
 menting on them, these Sunday gatherings at the 
 overseer's house had been social events toward which 
 Cap had always looked forward with pleasurable antici- 
 pation. There was no Sunday-school to go to, and 
 his mother was rigid in excluding him from his reti- 
 nue of little darkies on that sacred day ; it was the 
 one religious rite she performed zealously. The talk 
 of the men from the other plantations then had lent a 
 flavor of variety to the day that had always been 
 acceptable. But things were different now. 
 
 He wondered if it would be possible for him to get 
 away from it and do something. He was not quite cer- 
 tain what. Of course the experiment would take a little 
 money to start with. He would broach the subject. 
 He did. He selected the day and hour disastrously. 
 He sometimes wondered afterwards, if the result 
 would have been different if he had made a happier 
 choice of time. It made him feel like the merest 
 puppet in the hands of fate. He had always stood in 
 unreasonable awe of his father. The role of over- 
 seer did not give much play for the amenities of life, 
 nor for the cultivation of the domestic graces, and he 
 was accustomed to sit at table between a care-worn, 
 anxious-faced woman at one end and a dark-browed, 
 severely taciturn man at the other. He had no means 
 of knowing, on the especial occasion he selected for 
 casting the die so important to himself, that every 
 thing had gone wrong with his father that day ; that 
 
CAP SUTTON'S CHANCE. 235 
 
 the mule team had bogged in the woods with its eight 
 bales of cotton, and the wagon had broken down under 
 the strain, leaving its load in the muddy road instead 
 of on _the wharf-boat ; that the belting that ran the 
 gin-stands had been running off the pulleys in the 
 most incomprehensible manner all day, and, worse 
 than all, that the mules had broken fence the night 
 before, and destroyed an incalculable amount of the 
 standing corn. Fate maliciously decreed that on the 
 heels of these vexations the overseer's son should 
 make the mild request for enough money to leave 
 home and try to make something for himself. His 
 request simply provided a vent. He never repeated 
 it. He ceased looking outward and forward for ave- 
 nues that were unattainable even when he caught a 
 glimpse of them. 
 
 In the after years, when his father died, his mother 
 having gone before, the Colonel offered to make him 
 his successor. He refused the offer with loathing. It 
 was with bitter surprise that he found out how much 
 money had been hoarded up all these years — money 
 that might have unlocked the world to him in his 
 ambitious dciys. He could gratify his desire to do 
 something now if he chose. But the desire was dead. 
 It was too late. He could not be the thing he wanted 
 to be — he would not be what his father had been. 
 
 It was then that he opened up the little place for 
 himself and went to live there alone. He took noth- 
 ing from the old overseer's house but the rough 
 shelves with the books on them that Al and Fred had 
 given him. People said he was a good man to have 
 in the county. He was always willing to do hi§ 
 
2T,() CAP S177'7VjV'S CHANCE, 
 
 share in any thing that was for the public good. But 
 he was "a queer fellow." He accumulated books 
 faster than any thing else, and a traveling minister, 
 who stopped at his house one night and at the Colo- 
 nel's the next, declared emphatically that he was the 
 best read man he'd ever met outside the walls of a 
 college. Whenever strangers speak of Cap Sut- 
 ton enthusiastically, the natives smile indulgently. 
 They begin to value him as a sort of local curiosity 
 that lends a tinge of interest to an otherwise monot- 
 onous landscape. " He is a character," according 
 to them. In his own estimation he is a victim of a 
 chance that was either too much or too little. He 
 scarcely knows whether, if he should see a dug-out 
 capsize with a scared wretch in it again, he would 
 swim out to the rescue or not. He had not meant to 
 be " heroic " when he did it, and he had been very 
 severely punished for his reckless plunge into the 
 cold water. He had been breasting cold waves ever 
 since. 
 
 Once in a great w^hile he rides over to Colonel 
 Rafe's. He is a handsome spectacle on his big black 
 horse. When he rode over the last time, Mrs. Rafe 
 caught the new governess's eyes resting on him ap- 
 provingly. It put an idea into her head. 
 
 Supposing Cap and the governess should make 
 a match of it ! She would make him get down to be 
 introduced next time. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 
 
 ^^ TT was the slave owner's fight, the rich man's war. 
 1 All the questions involved were of vital import 
 to him alone who had something to lose. Why should 
 the man who had never owned a slave or been bur- 
 thened with a superfluous dollar be dragged into it, or 
 go into it voluntarily ? " Men engaged in a hand-to- 
 hand contest with an adverse fate for daily subsis- 
 tence are not the ones who find leisure or inclina- 
 tion for ethical hair-splitting, or for a daring disposi- 
 tion of large issues. The argument just quoted was 
 the argument of idle malcontents. The man who did 
 not own his slaves was without the charmed circle in 
 the agricultural districts of the South unless he be- 
 longed to one of the learned professions, which were 
 the bulwarks and pillars of the social fabric. Of 
 course things were different in the cities. But as 
 the leading social element there, the commission mer- 
 chant, was, after all, but an offshoot of the leading 
 social element in the country, a necessary outcome, as 
 it were, of cotton-planting, the principle held good, 
 and the man who was neither cotton-planter, doctor, 
 lawyer, nor minister was very heavily handicapped, or 
 would have been if the rivalry for social eminence had 
 been as real a thing in that languorous atmosphere as 
 
23^ M/SS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 
 
 it is in colder climes, where a surplus of energy 
 inspires more vigorous desires in that direction. 
 
 The man who had never owned his slave was curi- 
 ously perhaps, at a discount with the negroes them- 
 selves. According to Sambo, he who had to labor 
 with his own hands was a plebeian, unworthy of that 
 ready deference the black man showed by instinct to 
 the white man, upon whom nature had bestowed such 
 visible supremacy. Their process of reasoning, for 
 there was a substratum of reason in their antipathy for 
 " po' w'ite trash," was more subtle than appears at the 
 first glance. To the black man there was but one uni- 
 versal cause for his own physical, moral, and mental 
 inferiority to the dominant class. It lay simply in the 
 difference of color. To him the volumes devoted to 
 arguments for or against his being an inferior sort of 
 biped to the white, even the doubtful possessor of a 
 soul endowed with like needs, were as if they had 
 never been written or read. Sambo regarded this 
 world from the low level of unenlightened material- 
 ism. It was a first-rate world, a sort of sublunary 
 paradise, indeed, to the white man who lived on the 
 fruits of his (Sambo's) labor. It was a jolly sort of 
 world to Sambo himself after work hours, especially 
 of Saturday nights, when the fiddle was scraping in 
 the dance-house, or the pumpkins were ready to be 
 stewed in black molasses, or cold weather revolved 
 again with its matchless delights of spare-ribs and 
 cracklin' bread. His life, if not spent on a flowery 
 bed of ease, was minus that element of responsibility 
 which is the thorn in so many an otherwise flowery 
 bed. He was sure of being taken care of, and his one 
 
MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 239 
 
 concern was to see that his allotted daily task was well 
 and promptly performed. But the man who had 
 neither a master to take care of him, nor slaves to 
 minister to his comfort, was a sort of abnormal creat- 
 ure, without any distinctive social status nor any 
 especial place in the cosmos of Sambo's conceiving. 
 This is why such men as Cap Sutton were the objects 
 of a sort of contemptous pity from him, that was irri- 
 tating though innocuous. Holding, as he (Sambo) 
 did, that the question of superiority was merely a 
 question of white or black, and believing that if he 
 could but slough his dark integument like a cocoon, 
 he too might go through the glorious transfiguration 
 that awaits the chrysalis, how could he feel otherwise 
 than contemptuous towards the man who, given a 
 white skin, remained by free choice a grub ? 
 
 The independence of life led by the man who sat- 
 isfied the crying needs of his body by marketing (by 
 proxy always) the proceeds of his duck hunts, his 
 seine fishing, his deer and bear excursions " back in 
 the woods," did not appeal to any inborn sense of 
 freedom in Sambo's breast. The desire for freedom 
 was not inborn in the negro's breast. He had to be 
 educated into appreciation of it, slowly and laboriously, 
 after many years, and no greater proof of this fact 
 could be given than the tender and unresentful remin- 
 iscences of his days of bondage which the ex-slave will 
 pour into any listening ear. There was no sense of 
 degradation commingled with his period of servitude. 
 When the clarion cry of liberty first rang through the 
 land, he listened to it with the dazed but listless 
 curiosity of some wild creature suddenly aroused from 
 
240 M/SS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 
 
 long and peaceful slumber. That it appealed to him 
 individually, that it was a call to him to arise and 
 gird up his loins for the battle of life, all undisciplined 
 as he was, did not, happily for him, suggest itself. It 
 might have appalled him if he had. Deeds of '' der- 
 ring do " were not in his line. Matters that dealt with 
 guns and swords and pistols and free action on pran- 
 cing horses were strictly within the white man's prov- 
 ince, and Sambo could not conceive of any white 
 man, especially a young and lusty white man, and 
 more especially a young man who " cut such a dash 
 on horseback " as Cap Sutton did, forbearing to don 
 the gray. The earlier stages of the civil contest 
 presented themselves in the light of grand equestrian 
 displays, and it was only after the ranks of the cavalry 
 had been filled to plethora that infantry service 
 received its full meed of attention. 
 
 It was in view of this fact that Cap Sutton's big 
 black horse " Othello " served as a text in the mouth 
 of the only person privileged to preach to him. That 
 was Aunt Ailsy. 
 
 When the overseer's son had made a little clearing 
 in the heart of the tract of woodland which he had 
 bought with his father's hoarded salary, and had built 
 on it the small roughly weather-boarded house which 
 was ample for his solitary occupancy, he had '^knocked 
 up " three still smaller shanties — one for a servant's 
 house, one for a kitchen, and the other (with a " lean- 
 to " for the hens), was Othello's optional retreat from 
 wind and weather. When the time for Cap's removal 
 to his little stumpy field of action came, an unexpected 
 proffer of attendance came from Aunt Ailsy and her 
 
A/IS:^ FANiVIE AMD THE GIJST Bl/J^MEJiS. 24I 
 
 husband, and he accepted it. It was Aunt Ailsy who 
 made the proposition. 
 
 " You see, son, me en old Dave is ben 'bout w'ite 
 folks too long now fur to settle down cumfubble wid 
 de quarter niggers, en dis new overseer dat's comin' 
 is got his own black folks pick out. Me en Dave's 
 too ole t' suit 'im. Yo' ma was a rale good w'ite woman 
 as ever live. She nuss me frew de cholery same lak 
 I b'long t' her, en Dave too. I ben to de big house 
 en tell Mars me en Dave ain' no 'count for fieP work, 
 en we 'lows to go long wid you, en I'll cook en ten* 
 house fur you, en Dave, he'll mek yo' gyardin* en ten' 
 ' Fello ' fur you. En Mars, he says you's mouty out- 
 settin' 'bout fusin' t' tek yo' pa's old place, but ef you 
 keers to hev we, we kin go 'long wid you. Ailsy ain' 
 forgit how yo' ma nuss her frew de cholery yit. So 
 when you leave de old place you got to tek we 'long 
 too." She said this knowing she would lose caste in 
 the quarters, but Aunt Ailsy had an eye to the main 
 chance. 
 
 And gradually, as the years had gone by, in which 
 Cap Sutton had hunted, and fished, and read, and 
 moodily philosophized about the social inequalities 
 of this world, and had made occasional incursions 
 into town for a fresh supply of smoking tobacco 
 or powder or fishing-tackle [maintaining that some- 
 what surly intercourse with the men of the neighbor- 
 hood that sprang from his sense of isolation], riding 
 over still more rarely to Colonel Rafe's on Othello, 
 whose shining black hide was a tribute to Dave's 
 industry ; Dave had cleared the little corn-field 
 more and more from the black stumps, and had 
 
242 MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 
 
 raised wonderful crops of corn and sweet potatoes 
 and pindars on it, and had come to feel quite like a 
 bloated property-holder, so little did Cap interfere 
 with him ; and Aunt Ailsy had 'tended house and 
 washed and mended for its easily pleased owner, and 
 had planted cypress vines and purple beans about 
 the little front gallery, and watched the outgoings and 
 incomings of the overseer's son until her position had 
 assumed the dignity of privy councilor. She was 
 not without tact. Cap had certain moods and tenses 
 which she had learned to read and respect, and, on 
 the other hand, he had learned the signs that be- 
 tokened surcharged emotion on Aunt Ailsy's part. 
 He knew he had given quite a shock to her pride in 
 him when the first regiment of cavalry had left the 
 county without him. She had hovered about the 
 room that night a long time after she had carried 
 away the last of the tea things, and swept the brick 
 hearth until not a fleck of the red dust clung to the 
 brown straws, and had wiped the lamp-chimney with 
 her apron until it shone again, and blown all the dust 
 off his books with her vigorous lungs, and then stood 
 irresolutely looking at him with that pathetic interest 
 which almost always touched the heart of the 
 "Solitary," as one of the romantic young ladies of the 
 neighborhood had called him. 
 
 On that occasion he had laid down his brier- 
 wood pipe and shut up his book to ask, " Well, old 
 lady ? " 
 
 " I see the soljers march to-day, son. 01' mars' 
 boys was wid 'em. Dey look real fine. Der worn' 
 noneuv 'm es good lookin' 'es you, nor Fello nuther" 
 
MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 243 
 
 (Aunt Ailsy could never cope with the Moor's name), 
 " an' I 'lowed you ought to be 'long wid 'em. Ef 
 you's a min' t' go, you needn't bother 'bout de house 
 en yard, me en Dave '11 look arter things fur de little 
 whiles you gone. I hear Mars' Al en' Mars' Freddie 
 say it won't tek but little time to win' up dis foolish- 
 ness. You en Fello would cut a dash, son, dress up 
 dat way." Aunt Ailsy was profoundly ignorant of 
 any political point at issue, trebly so of any moral 
 point of personal concern to herself. Her relation- 
 ship to the overseer's son, at whose birth she had 
 officiated as wise woman, was analogous to Mammy's 
 at the big house, only on a humbler scale. She was 
 not able to grasp the subtleties that set him apart in 
 his lusty young manhood from the youths and 
 maidens of his own age, and resented that so fine an 
 opportunity to show off himself and Othello should be 
 lost through what seemed unnatural supineness on his 
 part. Hence her efforts to stir the sluggish pulses of 
 his patriotism into quicker action. It was a dismal 
 failure. He had looked up at her with a certain 
 narrowing of his large eyes as he said slowly : 
 
 " It's none of my fight, Aunt Ailsy. It's Fred and 
 Al's quarrel. I wish 'em well out of it — that's all 
 there is about it." 
 
 That was all there was about it, except, that as time 
 went on and more and more men went out of the 
 county to help settle the quarrel, and those who re- 
 mained regarded him more and more sourly, resentful 
 that so much of vigor should be retained from the 
 ranks of the fighters, he withdrew more and more 
 bitterly within himself, trying to forget the world that 
 
^44 MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 
 
 was waging its fight of to-day over the issues of 
 to-day in the bygone world and the finished fights and 
 the dead issues that lived again for him between the 
 leaves of his books, his only friends and comforters 
 besides Aunt Ailsy and old Dave. 
 
 '' Sutton's Clearing " was off the main road, and it 
 was only by penetrating to it through a dense bit of 
 woodland that it was reached. Small wonder then, as 
 the distant war in Virginia drained the country of its 
 sparse population, fewer and fewer feet turned aside 
 from the big road attracted by the curling of the 
 smoke from Cap Sutton's chimney or by the sound of 
 Dave's ax-stroke. The links that bound him to this 
 world seemed so few and frail that he wondered at 
 himself in a sort of contemptuous surprise that he had 
 not long ago given himself up as food for powder. 
 True, there was an underlying principle in his staying 
 at home, but no one knew of it, and if they did would 
 have regarded it as just one more stain on his 
 'scutcheon. All that he knew of life he knew 
 theoreticalh^ There was nothing wrong in owning 
 slaves that he could see. Doubtless, if he had been 
 born at the big house, instead of at the overseer's 
 house in the quarter lot, he would have been in hotter 
 haste than Fred or Al had been to spring to the de- 
 fense of his rights. But having nothing at stake, he 
 had been better qualified for looking at the question 
 all around, and in his unaided judgment he had de- 
 cided that the precedent of secession was a bad one. 
 He took no high moral grounds. He was quite sure 
 that the white people of his section were making a 
 mistake, but in his aloofness he often grew so mor- 
 
MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 245 
 
 bidly disgusted with inaction that he was half -tempted 
 to throw himself in'.o the thing on one side or the 
 other, just to end the never-ending discussion over it 
 that his own reason waged against his own beUigerent 
 instincts. He was so absolutely sure that there was 
 not the faintest tinge of cowardice in his soul that he 
 never considered vindication necessary on that 
 
 score. 
 
 Into this scene of moral and physical isolation a 
 small personality was intruded late one afternoon as 
 he paced restlessly up and down the rough planks of 
 his little gallery with his shapely brown hands clutch- 
 ing at the lapels of his jeans coat. It was 'Mandy, 
 'Mandy, who had belonged soul and body to the 
 governess over at Colonel Rafe Sutton's ever since 
 that first night of acquaintanceship that had resulted 
 in a midnight turmoil in ' Mandy 's awakened con- 
 science. Not that what she had insisted upon calling 
 " gitten religion " had had an appreciable effect upon 
 'Mandy outwardly, unless, indeed, in a short-lived 
 resolution not to countenance the Saturday evening's 
 dance at the quarters, or in a lugubrious inclination 
 to groan aloud on subsequent occasions whenever 
 the governess had been reading to her of nights 
 from the Bible ; but 'Mandy, being fully satisfied of 
 her own regeneration, was correspondingly devoted to 
 the agent of that regeneration, and the girl from 
 Boston found herself the virtual possessor of at least 
 one devoted slave. 
 
 On the occasion in question 'Mandy had been in- 
 trusted with a very delicate mission, so delicate that the 
 governess had drilled her ambassadress by word of 
 
246 MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 
 
 mouth, fearful of involving some one else in trouble 
 if she should commit her message to paper. 
 
 Cap stopped in his aimless tread of the respon- 
 sive planks to look amazedly at 'Mandy when she first 
 appeared. She had emerged suddenly from the close 
 ranks of the trees, plunging her ashy bare heels vigo- 
 rously into the left flank of an unhappy-looking mule, 
 who hung his head in dejected [consciousness of his 
 own absurd appearance. 
 
 'Mandy had captured him with some difficulty in the 
 broad open corn-field where the cockle-burrs had dis- 
 puted supremacy with the neglected grain and grown 
 rankly up to the time of their ripening, which was the 
 time of confusion for every thing that split the hoof. 
 'Mandy's mule bristled with masses of the brown cling- 
 ing burrs. Its tail stood rigidly out, in one unyielding 
 mass of them. Across its bare back she had flung an 
 old gunny-sack, and between its unwilling jaws she had 
 thrust the rusty snaffle-bit to her rope bridle. The 
 exertion of urging her steed to its utmost speed had 
 disarranged her draperies somewhat, and her head- 
 handkerchief was prevented from parting company 
 with her head altogether by a vicious grip of its flut- 
 tering ends, which she maintained with her strong 
 white teeth. 
 
 Cap watched her with a grim smile as she clam- 
 bered down over the rail fence, on top of which 
 she dismounted and to whose ^* rider " she attached 
 her burry mule. 'Mandy was affected with no 
 false modesty touching her burr-proof ankles, of 
 which she made unblushing exhibition before she 
 alighted on the ground, and ran nimbly toward the 
 
MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 247 
 
 gallery with a face full of importance, tying her 
 bandanna afresh as she ran. 
 
 ** Miss Fannie say I was to git yhere in a hurry," she 
 said, projecting her eager voice in advance of her 
 scurrying feet, " en she say I was to ax you did you 
 know de gin burners was 'bout ag'in ? " 
 
 " Gin burners ! Fools ! " 
 
 He stopped amazedly. He knew that six months 
 before nearly every gin in the lower part of the county 
 had been burned by order of a man who had gone 
 out in command of one of the earlier companies, and 
 who enunciated the remarkable theory that the 
 sooner every bale of cotton was destroyed the quicker 
 the struggle would end, quite as if the contest were 
 being waged for or against material benefits on either 
 side rather than for a deathless principle. He 
 knew that the hoarded and hidden substance o£ 
 many a man who had lost his all besides, and who 
 was clinging to his hidden cotton as a future 
 resource against actual want, had been discovered 
 and consigned to the flames. He supposed that 
 phase of madness had passed away and the frenzied 
 ebullition of patriotism which had dictated it had 
 long since subsided ; but here was 'Mandy, ragged 
 and barefooted, panting out her startling information 
 of its revival as dictated by the governess with an 
 earnestness which compelled credence. She was 
 elated withal : 
 
 '* Yas, siree, dey is dat, en Miss Fannie tol' me 
 t' tell you she skeered t' write, fear somebody 
 mout tek de letter from me, but I lak t' see de 
 man could tek a letter from me (rising inflection). I 
 
248 MISS FA A' A' IE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 
 
 chaw em up fus'." (Whether the letter, or the inter- 
 meddler was to be "chawed up," 'Mandy did not stop 
 to explain.) " En Miss Fannie, she say, she 'lowed 
 ef you knowed how much trouble de w'ite folks at de 
 big house was in, mebbe you'd try to holp 'em some. 
 En she say as how I was t' tell you she heern de gin 
 burners would be dar dis' ve'y night, en po' Mars 
 Conel he down wid tiphone fever, en Mars Al — he 
 daid, en Miss Nellie she don' do nuthin' but cry, en 
 cry, en cry." 
 
 Yes, he had known it all. But what could he do ? 
 He had felt several times since hearing of Al's death 
 as if it was a sort of pity that it hadn't been himself 
 instead, but somehow or other things never did work 
 quite right in this world. He had been very fond of 
 Al. He was a manly, straightforward fellow, with no 
 rich man's nonsense about him. True he. Cap, re- 
 membered smiling a trifle scornfully when he had 
 heard about the dressing-gown and the darkey valet 
 Al had started out with as part of his soldier's outfit ; 
 but he had died a hero's death for all that, and he 
 knew that the big house that had once been opened to 
 him to give him a chance had been the scene of bitter 
 mourning since. And he knew that, all things being 
 equal, life could have furnished him no sweeter duty 
 than to have comforted Miss Nellie, Al's sister, and to 
 have wiped every tear from her eyes ; but the gulf 
 between him and the people at the big house had been 
 widening every year, until now they seemed to live in 
 another planet, so distant that it seemed presumption 
 even for fancy to penetrate into its rarified atmos- 
 phere. Yes, he knew all about the troubles that had 
 
MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 249 
 
 overtaken the Colonel in his old age. But what could 
 he do ? What did this wide-awake governess over at 
 his cousin Rafe's mean by sending her ragged ambas- 
 sadress to notify him ? 'Mandy stood before him, 
 with her claw-like hands hanging limply down by her 
 side, and her thick lips slightly apart. There was a 
 mild flavor of the immortal Casablanca in her attitude 
 of sturdy patience. Her bead-black eyes scanned his 
 face eagerly. She would not go without some word of 
 response for her darling Miss Fannie. The overseer's 
 son flung it at her presently, and she snapped at it as 
 a patient dog snaps at the long-waited-for morsel in 
 mid-air : 
 
 " Tell her I'll see what I can do." 
 
 ** Yaas, sir." 'Mandy's glittering teeth closed over 
 the words with a snap, and turning about without even 
 the ceremony of a courtesy, she clambered once more 
 over the rail fence, with the agility of a monkey, 
 and was soon again plunging her bare heels into the 
 leathern sides of her mule. 
 
 It was scarcely an hour later when Othello went 
 crashing over the same ground. Cap had only waited 
 long enough to see that the beast had consumed his 
 last ear of corn and had been well-watered. If it 
 were ever a choice between his going hungry and 
 thirsty or Othello's suffering, there would have 
 been no doubt about the choice. While Othello 
 had been consuming his rations with unfeeling 
 deliberation, he had been examining the condition of 
 the big navy revolvers that always hung in their black 
 holsters on the nail behind his bed's head, and putting 
 a fresh charge into the shotgun that stood in the cor- 
 
250 MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 
 
 ner of the room hidden by the armoir. It was dark 
 when he and Othello plunged into the woods, but they 
 needed no sense of sight to guide them over the 
 familiar path. It was darker still when they found 
 themselves in front of the gleaming white fence that 
 outlined the Colonel's handsome yard premises 
 against the rest of the plantation. He could see 
 lights burning dimly in the different rooms of the 
 house as he cantered slowly by. He reined his big 
 black horse into a slower gait when he came in sight 
 of the big house. He must ride past it, through the 
 old quarter lot, by the overseer's house, where he had 
 first seen the light, to reach the threatened gin-house. 
 For one fleeting second nature asserted her supremacy, 
 and he gave himself up to a passion of longing for 
 one glimpse of the sweet girl-face, whose pure patri- 
 cian outlines had dwelt with him vividly all through 
 the lonely years of his useless manhood. It was 
 vouchsafed him : 
 
 A lurid glare ! A tongue of upward-leaping 
 flame, and the big house stood revealed as in the 
 broadest sunlight. He stuck his sharp spurs fiercely 
 into Othello's flanks. The black horse leaped for- 
 ward with a snort of surprise and indignation. His 
 rider cast one upward look at the little room with the 
 dormer window where he had gone to meet his chance. 
 The curtains were drawn aside, and framed in by the 
 dark woodwork was a white startled face, illumined 
 by the dancing flames up yonder beyond the quarter 
 lot. Again and again the sharp rowels were plunged 
 into Othello's smoking flanks, while the flecks of 
 white foam from his bit-tortured mouth flew back on 
 
MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 251 
 
 his glossy sides. Cap Sutton rode like a madman 
 that night. His experienced eye had located the 
 flames at once. It was not the Colonel's gin. It was 
 Marsden's. They would reach the Colonel's next. 
 How he was to save it he could not conceive. These 
 men came armed with the authority of the military. 
 This destruction of private property was condoned 
 under the head of military necessity. But whatsoever 
 one man could do to defy the many, that he proposed 
 to do. 
 
 As he galloped through the quarters he gathered 
 around him once more his motley following. They were 
 freed men now. But they were docile and biddable 
 still. They caught the inspiration of his fiery glance 
 and ringing voice. He paused in their midst long 
 enough to shout : 
 
 " Boys, if you'll stand by me, we'll save the old 
 man's gin for him yet. He's suffered and sacrificed 
 his share already. Think of Al ! " 
 
 Then he plunged forward in the direction of the dark 
 mass of brick and wood brought prominently into view 
 by the flames that were consuming its neighbor. The 
 crops of two years were piled up under its capacious 
 roof. There was no place to ship it to. There was 
 no one to buy it. With the speed of an experienced 
 campaigner, Cap drew a dark cordon about the gin. 
 He had not much faith in his untried forces, but, after 
 all, the whole thing was a desperate chance. Then 
 he faced Othello in the direction the gin burners must 
 come from and waited only a little while. They came 
 galloping briskly presently. Theirs was no act of 
 mere incendiarism. They were doing what they had 
 
252 MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 
 
 been commanded to do : " Theirs not to question 
 why." 
 
 Then Cap Sutton had recourse to the emotional 
 for the first time in his blunt life. He faced 
 them promptly, and reminded them of all the old man, 
 lying sick at the house yonder, had already given up 
 to the cause they too were battling for. He appealed 
 to their own sense of justice to defend the Colonel's 
 property. His right to stop them was sharply chal- 
 lenged. His name was curtly demanded. 
 
 " Sutton " — he gave it sullenly. He knew it carried 
 no prestige with it. 
 
 *' Sutton ! " It was repeated with a brutal laugh of 
 scorn. ^' The overseer's son, that's been skulking in 
 the woods ever since the fight begun ! " 
 
 There were no words known to Cap's vocabulary 
 that could answer this taunt. There was a flash 
 and another and another, then a confused sound of 
 galloping horses' feet, and Othello, riderless, was 
 among them. 
 
 . . . " What a mercy it was," Mrs. Rafe Sutton 
 said to her husband on the night when she had the 
 proud pleasure of receiving the Colonel and his wife 
 under her roof for the first time, '' that Cap had 
 enough breath left in his body that night to tell the 
 folks to bring him here instead of to the Colonel's. 
 If it hadn't been for her nursing him through that 
 time. Cap never would have found out what a good 
 wife Miss Fannie could make, and he'd 'a' lived and 
 died alone in that shanty in the woods. Now look at 
 him." 
 
 ** It was a lucky thing he had that little pin- 
 
MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 253 
 
 cushion in his vest pocket," Colonel Rafe Sutton an- 
 swered meditatively. " The doctor says it was the 
 bullet's hittin' it and glancin' that saved him and sent 
 the ball meant for his heart into his rib. But Cap 
 always was a lucky dog ; and he's got a stunner of a 
 wife." 
 
 It was gratitude for the saving of many thousands 
 of dollars' worth of property and his stately gin-house 
 that brought the Colonel and his soft-voiced wife in 
 person to grace the wedding-feast of Cap Sutton 
 and Miss Fannie. When they went back home to 
 the big house they told the story of the little silk 
 pin-cushion that had been the means of saving his 
 life. The Colonel's daughter flushed faintly at her 
 mother's prolix description of the cushion, which Mrs. 
 Rafe had surreptitiously displayed, no one knew exact- 
 ly why. But Cap always thought the little cushion 
 had wiped out all his scores against the big house. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 DAVENPORT S. 
 
 EVERYBODY knew where Davenport's was, and 
 everybody made pilgrimages to it in the hour of 
 need. No matter whether the need took the form 
 of a spool of sewing silk or iron castings for gin 
 stands — somewhere among Davenport's heteroge- 
 neous stock it was sure to be found. " Davenport's " 
 displayed no sign. It was proudly independent of any 
 such factitious aids to prominence. As well label the 
 county Court House as plaster a sign on Davenport's 
 time-honored front. There was but one court house 
 and but one Davenport's, and honors were easy 
 between them in Slowville. Furthermore (apropos of 
 a sign) human ingenuity would have been staggered 
 to compose any inscription for a sign that would have 
 been even measurably descriptive of the olla podrida 
 on Davenport's shelves. (There was a Davenport, 
 also, but as he is merely incidental to " Daven- 
 port's," he can bide his time for an introduction. 
 Davenport's would have been Davenport's if Daven- 
 port had been completely effaced). 
 
 Considering its intensely utilitarian character, it was 
 not an unpicturesque-looking object, with its gray 
 and moss-grown shingle roof, and its broad plaza in 
 front, shaded by Prides of China whose purple 
 
DA VENPOR T'S. 255 
 
 blossoms scented the air in the spring-time and whose 
 yellow balls tempted the robins to the crime of drunk- 
 enness in the winter time. The Prides of China were 
 all boxed about to protect them from the nibbling 
 propensities of the horses and mules that congregated 
 thickly about Davenport's every Saturday and on 
 mail days ; and when their dark, glossy foliage was at 
 its fullest, and the boxes had received their spring- 
 whitewashing, the long, low gallery that skirted the 
 store on two sides afforded the pleasantest rendezvous 
 in all Slowville. 
 
 In the absence of a local newspaper, Davenport's 
 served as an advertising medium, and its weather- 
 boarded sides were plastered thickly over with written 
 placards of neighborhood interest. By attention to 
 these bulletins the public was made aware that Ben 
 Forest would soon be along with a fresh lot of mules 
 and Texas ponies for sale ; that divine service would 
 be held in the Court House by the Rev. Samuel Patter- 
 son, on the third Sunday in April ; that Colonel Ray- 
 mond's Alderney bull was missing (accompanying the 
 announcement, an accurate and prolix description of 
 the estray) ; that the election for county officers would 
 take place the first week in November, and so on 
 through the entire list of matters pertaining to public 
 interest. Whosoever was behind the times in Slow- 
 ville had only himself to thank for not consulting 
 the exterior of Davenport's. How could a man grow 
 insulated and selfish when he was compelled to absorb 
 matters of common interest in such a sociable fashion ? 
 Your town man, who reads his evening's paper in the 
 luxurious privacy of his own library, possesses him- 
 
256 DA VENPOR T ' S. 
 
 self dumbly of the harrowing details of his nearest 
 neighbor's ruin or disgrace, and when he folds his 
 newspaper up and lays it aside, is likely to fold his 
 sympathy up and lay it aside also ; but the man who 
 could come in contact with anything that touched his 
 neighbor's welfare in the placards at Davenport's 
 must perforce share the information and his views 
 concerning it with the fellow who was reading it over 
 his shoulder, or that other fellow who had just stepped 
 aside in order to give him a chance at it. 
 
 Thus community of interest was engendered, and in 
 the multitude of counsel judicious decisions were 
 approached if not always reached. Davenport him- 
 self was a sort of impartial sphinx, who never gave an 
 opinion on any subject. He was not going to have 
 the peaceful neutral ground of his store-gallery dis- 
 turbed by contending partisans under shelter of any 
 " leanings " he might show. 
 
 If the specialist must, by reason of regarding a 
 single object from his chosen point of view, grow 
 narrow concerning objects outside that restricted 
 visual line, then Davenport, by an inverse proposition, 
 was forced into a broad groove which he may not have 
 originally been designed for. 
 
 As an important personage he ranked next to 
 the doctor. There were lawyers in Slowville, of 
 course, lawyers w^ho lived there and slowly bat- 
 tened on the mild misdeeds of their fellows, but 
 then they were lawyers only. " Davenport " (I 
 give the local argument) " could have beat 'em all 
 hollow if he'd taken to Blackstone instead of merchan- 
 dising." By absorption he had become a sort of com- 
 
DAVENPORT'S. 257 
 
 pendium of common law and statute. He had never 
 missed a trial at the court house in Slowville for 
 twenty years. In minor disputes, when the decision of 
 an umpire was preferred to the fierce wrangle of con- 
 testing attorneys, Davenport was pretty sure to be 
 selected for that onerous but honorable position. It 
 was a rare thing for his decisions to be set aside upon 
 appeal. But amateur " lawyering " was only one of 
 Davenport's phases. " On a pinch, Davenport could 
 preach a pretty good sermon." Not that preaching 
 was in his line ; but he saw more of the visiting min- 
 isters than any man in Slowville did. That was 
 because of his open-handed hospitality. 
 
 Back of the great gray two-story wooden struc- 
 ture, known as '' Davenport's," was a tiny little 
 white house sitting low on the ground behind 
 its great tall rose and pomegranate and spirea 
 bushes, almost as tall as trees, and in the tiny little 
 white house was crowded all of luxury and refine- 
 ment and neatness and cheerfulness that are needed 
 for a perfect home, and over it all presided the 
 prettiest woman in Slowville, and people said that 
 a large part of Davenport's hospitality was the out- 
 come of inordinate pride in his wife. 
 
 He could not endure that any stranger of distinc- 
 tion should pass through Slowville without sharing 
 the hospitality of the little house behind the pome- 
 granates and doing homage to its presiding deity. 
 There were two dainty "spare rooms" under its 
 roof, and one of these had come to seem quite like 
 a home to the Rev. Samuel Patterson during his 
 Slowville ministrations. This is how Davenport be- 
 
258 DAVENPORT'S. 
 
 came the recipient of more than his share of the doc- 
 trine apportioned to his neighborhood by the rever- 
 end gentleman. 
 
 In the evenings, after the store was closed, noth- 
 ing pleased its owner better than to hurry across 
 the ugly store yard, strewn thickly with empty meal 
 barrels and drygoods boxes, through a wicket 
 gate, into that other yard, so unlike it, where the 
 violet beds stretched along both sides of the bright 
 red brick walk straight up to the low gallery, only 
 two steps to mount ; then to make a hurried toilet, 
 and to settle down for what he called a "theo- 
 logical bout with parson," while " the wife " ( Daven- 
 port always designated his wife by the definite article) 
 sat close at hand, divided in attention between the 
 basque she was wrestling with by the aid of a " fashion " 
 journal, and the discussion she only partially compre- 
 hended. It was the gist of these discussions, given at 
 second hand, that won for Davenport such high 
 polemical distinction among those of his customers 
 whose opportunities had been less broad. 
 
 There was a table in the hall of the little white 
 house that was an overloaded receptacle for periodi- 
 cals, and fashion-books, and circulars, etc., etc. The 
 names on the wrappers were as various as their con- 
 tents. In stricter latitudes Mrs. Davenport's opportu- 
 nities for keeping up with the modes and with the 
 current literature of the day would have been sum- 
 marily curtailed by the irate representatives of the 
 names on the wrappers she slipped off and on with 
 dexterity and impunity. As it was, every body knew 
 and nobody cared. The post-office (as represented 
 
^ DAVENPORT'S. 259 
 
 by a square box full of labeled pigeon-holes, sitting 
 on one end of one of the counters) was at Daven- 
 port's, and as he knew to a minute, almost, when the 
 slow-moving messenger on his slow-moving mule 
 from each plantation would make his semi-weekly 
 demand for mail matter, there was no harm in giving 
 Fanny a peep at them while they would be lying in 
 the pigeon-holes. Of course she never cut any 
 leaves. She wouldn't be so dishonorable. 
 
 On mail days, the activity was always great in the 
 region of Davenport's. The long rack under the rain- 
 shed on one side of the plaza would be crowded 
 thick with animals, ranging from the handsome thor- 
 oughbred of the Colonel, with its blue and white 
 check saddle blanket and its costly English saddle, 
 down to the harness-scarred mule, with its rope bridle 
 and its folded gunny-sack intervention between its 
 barefoot rider and its own ridgy spinal column. 
 Within the cool shade of the Prides of China, the 
 spanking buggy bays of Benny Mayo stood side by 
 side with the stolid oxen, whose slowly heaving flanks 
 told of the many miles that intervened between them 
 and their own drinking trough. 
 
 Mail day was Davenport's harvest day, but mat- 
 ters within the store must be pressing indeed to 
 force Davenport himself behind the counter. He 
 looked curiously out of place weighing plug tobacco 
 or drawing a quart of black molasses in pay- 
 ment for a dozen eggs. There was a totally irrec- 
 oncilable incongruity between him and his sur- 
 roundings. He had the build of an athlete, and 
 was one, without any scientific training. His 
 
26o Davenport* s. • 
 
 head, superbly shaped, and set squarely on a colum- 
 nar throat, was covered thickly with a yellow mass of 
 short curls, and his chin with a long, silky beard of 
 the same color. His eyes were blue and bright and 
 penetrating. A pure Saxon type was Davenport, 
 with a general suggestion of great physical strength 
 and deliberate purpose about him. 
 
 If the gray store with its assured income had 
 not come to him by inheritance, doubtless he would 
 have done something with himself in the world. 
 As it was, he shirked the tobacco box and the 
 molasses barrel whenever practicable, and in the 
 long summer days, when there was not much 
 doing, he read Keats and Coleridge with oblivi- 
 ous delight on the long store gallery, fighting flies 
 with one hand all the while. He had never been 
 away from home to school, " couldn't be spared from 
 the store." He had grown up in it, but had never 
 grown into it. Hidden somewhere in that muscular 
 organism of his was a dumb unsatisfied longing for 
 better things to do and to be than fate had so far ac- 
 corded him. 
 
 When the war broke out it was with an envious 
 pang he saw other fellows go off to the field. 
 He would have loved to go with them, but, looking 
 his duty squarely in the face by the best light he had, 
 there seemed to be a stronger call to stay at home. 
 The lines had not fallen to him in heroic places. 
 There was no heroism in staying behind, when every 
 man that could shoulder a musket was hurrying away. 
 Indeed, odium was his portion, and he knew it and 
 accepted it in that mute fashion of his which left so 
 
DA VENPOR T'S. 261 
 
 much to conjecture. When it came to his ears that 
 Randolph Fairfax said, " Davenport was afraid to join 
 the army for fear that yellow beard of his might get 
 powder-scorched," Davenport's blue eyes flashed 
 lightning, and he clutched the yellow beard in ques- 
 tion as if he would have plucked it out and cast it 
 from him, but no words came. 
 
 No one had ever given him credit for state-craft 
 among his many qualifications, or for any particular 
 amount of foresight. He never took any credit to 
 himself in that line, or indeed in any other line, only, 
 it was his serious conviction from the very first that 
 the war was to be no holiday affair. But what right 
 had he, a tame stay-at-home, to entertain or express 
 an opinion on such tremendous issues ? No right at 
 all. The gatherings at Davenport's grew slimmer and 
 slimmer, as one by one the gallery frequenters doffed 
 their broad-brimmed slouch hats for trim gold-laced 
 caps, and their planters' suits of cottonade or jeans, 
 for the gray that covered them with glory as with a 
 mantle, until there was but a sorry showing — only 
 Mr. Munroe, who kept a few drugs and a lot of 
 gilt-edged old-fashioned stationery in a poor little 
 shop at the other end of town ; Mr. Lawless, a Brit- 
 isher, who made his hay while the sun shone on him 
 exclusively, by buying up cotton on speculation ; Dr. 
 Fuller, who was an octogenarian ; and himself, so tall, 
 so stalwart, and so redundantly healthy that he was 
 ashamed to think of what a superior quality of food 
 for powder he was withholding from the cause. 
 Women whose husbands had gone to the army, 
 looked at him loweringly, and indulged freely in per- 
 
262 Z)A VENPOR r ' S. 
 
 feet frenzies of patriotism whenever they found them- 
 selves in the presence of Davenport's wife. Mothers 
 whose sons were languishing in camp, spoke with 
 bitter resentment of their heroism as contrasted with 
 his lack of it. 
 
 He was much given to going about the country on 
 horseback in those early days of the war, and scant 
 courtesy was his portion under many a roof where he 
 stopped for a dinner or a supper in that matter-of- 
 course way which was the custom of the land. No 
 one refused the dinner or the supper or the night's 
 lodging, but it was given with unsmiling civility. 
 
 Rumors got afloat that Davenport was speculating ! 
 Speculating in the hour of his country's peril ! Spec- 
 lating in provisions at that ! A new sort of trade was 
 inaugurated in the gray old store, that stood where 
 the one street of Slowville crossed the long lane that 
 led by a rough corduroy road back into the interior 
 of the country. It was rumored that Davenport was 
 trading in the most peculiar manner — bartering the 
 dry-goods and the crockery and cutlery and glass- 
 ware that made such a fine show on his shelves, for 
 meal and corn and bacon, but refusing to dispose of a 
 pound of any thing eatable on any terms. The old 
 store filled up with provisions, they overflowed into 
 the back-shed rooms that had been kept for hay and 
 oats in ante-bellum days ; they piled up until the 
 second story, that had always been kept sacred as a 
 Masonic Lodge, was invaded by barrels of potatoes 
 and festooned with sides of bacon. And still 
 Davenport careered over the country, securing every 
 thing that could be eaten, and stowing it away in loft 
 
DA VENPOR T'S. 263 
 
 or cellar of the store behind the Prides of China. No 
 one questioned his right to monopolize this produce 
 business. Indeed, there was no one to question it — 
 only a lot of helpless women and children and thrift- 
 less darkies, who wondered idly what he was driving 
 at. He grew into a monster in local estimation. His 
 staying out of the army had secured him the con- 
 tempt of the neighborhood ; his busy, earnest specu- 
 lation excited its disgust and horror. Even in the 
 little house behind the pomegranate bushes there were 
 clouds and distrust. Davenport's wife was no longer 
 proud of him. She hung her head for him, and he 
 knew it — knew it, and winced under it silently, and 
 thought enviously of the men who were off with the 
 army, fighting and being wounded. He would gladly 
 have exchanged his wounds for theirs. 
 
 When the river was blockaded and all the country 
 on both sides of the Mississippi, from Vicksburg to 
 New Orleans, was virtually in a state of siege, people 
 said : " Now Davenport's hour of triumph had come," 
 and those who had been most open in denouncing 
 him recalled their rash words regretfully. What they 
 had said was all true, of course, but it had better have 
 been left unsaid, for in all the country nowhere but at 
 Davenport's were medicines, or sugar, and tea, and 
 meal, and every thing that went to sustain life, to be 
 procured. The grinders ceased grinding and the 
 great mill wheels stood motionless. The ungathered 
 crops remained in the fields, at the mercy of maraud- 
 ing cattle. A universal paralysis seized upon the land. 
 Pallid-faced women asked, what next ? 
 
 Yes, Davenport's hour of triumph had come ! He 
 
264 DA VENPOR r '5. 
 
 did not call it his hour of triumph. He simply said 
 that had befallen which he had known all along must 
 come. Then, judiciously, wisely, patiently, he began 
 his ministrations, meting out comfort of a material 
 sort with the stern impartiality of a judge on the 
 bench, and the patient tenderness of a Joseph yearn- 
 ing over his suffering brethren. 
 
 Nothing that led to the relief of necessity was 
 too remote for his far-reaching grasp, nothing 
 too minute to secure his attention. Without price 
 he gave up his hoarded substance, and long after 
 white sugar became a luxury too costly for consump- 
 tion on the table in the little white cottage, Ran- 
 dolph Fairfax's wife had it on hers. 
 
 There had been no one to help him bear the burden 
 of the obloquy that had been his share, and now, 
 when the women who had so misjudged him crowded 
 about him with wordy recantations, he smiled at them 
 inscrutably, and they were comforted. They said 
 among themselves : " He took it so lightly, he had 
 never cared much." Not much — you see there wasn't 
 the making of a hero in him. All the glory was 
 reserved for the men who had gone away in uniform. 
 
 It was in the third year of the war that Randolph 
 Fairfax came home wounded. Not badly, but he had 
 fought splendidly and was entitled to a short respite. 
 He tried hard to say something handsome and grate- 
 ful to Davenport about the way he had looked after 
 his wife and children during his own absence in the 
 army, and he sincerely hoped those sharp and foolish 
 words of his. about Davenport's beard had died from 
 his memory. They had not — he felt quite sure of it. 
 
DA V EN FOR 7'S. 265 
 
 when Davenport, resting his blue eyes cahnly on him 
 for a moment, turned slowly on his heel and began 
 giving directions about a kit of mackerel that was to 
 be sent to old Mrs. Murray back in the Red Lick set- 
 tlement. Fairfax did not come to the store any more 
 after that, but remained closely at home on the planta- 
 tion — so closely that he did not hear what Davenport 
 heard one morning from the trembling lips of one of 
 Fairfax's own freed slaves. 
 
 What Davenport heard was that a posse of the 
 enemy was going to raid the neighborhood that 
 night to capture Major Fairfax ; he would be a 
 prisoner well worth their efforts. It was with 
 Davenport to warn the Major of his danger. 
 There was no one to whom he could intrust the task. 
 The long lonely gallop through the woods and across 
 the swollen sloughs and over the weed-grown fields 
 must be taken by himself. It was accomplished safely, 
 and at a slower pace he turned his tired horse's head 
 homeward. He would have liked to travel faster, for 
 Fanny would be worrying about his not getting home 
 before dark, but he must have some mercy on the jaded 
 beast under him. Thank God, Fairfax would have 
 plenty of time to escape, if he started right off. It 
 was dark, quite dark, when he passed from the shelter 
 of the trees that marked the boundary line of Fairfax's 
 place out into the big road — so dark that he did not 
 see a motionless group of horsemen drawn across his 
 pathway until his own horse shied violently to one side 
 and the single word '' Halt ! " fell commandingly on his 
 ears. 
 
 " Fairfax's captors ! " He had only time to think it. 
 
266 DA VENPOR T'S. 
 
 when the same commanding voice called question- 
 ingly to him from out the gloom, *' Who goes 
 there ? " 
 
 " Randolph Fairfax," came back clearly, unfalter- 
 ingly, defiantly. A gurgle of laughter, or rather a 
 chorused chuckle of triumph, and then he was com- 
 pletely surrounded as the posse hurried him forward 
 away from Slowville. 
 
 It was not of himself that he was thinking as 
 he galloped through the somber woods with his 
 captors that night. It was of the wife, of Fanny, 
 watching and wondering and weeping through 
 the long hours alone. It was time he was bear- 
 ing his share of hardships. If it was not for her, 
 he wouldn't mind. Perhaps, when light came, they'd 
 give him a chance to write back to her. He couldn't 
 have done differently. Fairfax was crippled and poorly 
 mounted. These fellows were on well-fed army horses. 
 It wouldn't have done to risk the truth. On and on 
 through the night, until, in the gray dawn of the day, 
 camp was reached : a brief respite, and then he found 
 himself on board a transport. It would be easy enough 
 when he got to head-quarters to satisfy the general in 
 command that he was no military man, but a law-abid- 
 ing civilian, staying at home and pursuing his usual 
 avocations. 
 
 When he got to head-quarters and made his state- 
 ment his blue eyes fairly flashed lightning to find it 
 discredited. His interlocutor's skeptical gaze traveled 
 slowly down one of Davenport's shapely legs and up 
 the other. Davenport's own gaze followed wonder- 
 ingly and his brown cheeks turned ashen white. He 
 
DA VENPOR T'S. 26^ 
 
 told all about it after his release from Alton military 
 prison at the close of the war. 
 
 " It was those confounded red stripes down the side 
 of my pants that Fanny was so proud *of. You see, I 
 had been in the saddle and out of reach of buying any 
 new pants until I was about out of 'em. Then Fanny 
 cut up her traveling shawl, and, considered as the 
 work of an amateur, those pants were a success, if I 
 did have to go into a corner and turn round three 
 times before I could get my hand into my pocket ; 
 but she left the bordering of the shawl in for a fancy 
 touch. Poor Fanny ! I suppose she thought she'd 
 make me look like a soldier whether or no, and it did 
 the business for me. It was more than I could do to 
 convince those fellows I wasn't a major-general at the 
 very least, instead of a poor stay-at-home skulk. You 
 know our boys weren't much of dandies after the first 
 year." 
 
 The gallery at Davenport's is once more a crowded 
 rendezvous, and war yarns alternate with crop and 
 polemical discussions ; but whenever the heroes of 
 Slowville begin to blow reminiscent trumpets, Daven- 
 port retires within, for if Randolph Fairfax is about, 
 his (Davenport's) midnight ride with the raiders is 
 sure to come up, and no one knows better than he 
 that he doesn't even deserve honorable mention. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 
 
 ^^ n^HEY didn't believe it was in him." "There 
 1 was more come out in Gus Woodson than in 
 any boy that had ever been raised about Bayou Pierre." 
 (Nothing is ever reared in that locality.) " The war 
 had been the making of him." '' He's grit through 
 and through." 
 
 That is the way they talk about him now. Public 
 opinion, in the neighborhood of Bayou Pierre, has 
 undergone several changes on the subject of Gus 
 Woodson since he came back to the county from that 
 expensive and useless trip to Europe which he took as 
 a sort of educational supplement, of which he could 
 report nothing more interesting than having seen a 
 man ''making jugs." In the earlier stages of his 
 career public opinion had been decidedly at variance 
 with itself about him. From the utilitarian point of 
 view, he seemed so entirely superfluous. It really 
 seemed as if his father had sent him to Europe from 
 college because there was nothing else to do with him. 
 The plantation didn't need him. What with his father 
 and two older brothers at home, and the overseer in 
 the quarters and the foreman in the field, life was of 
 necessity a sinecure to Gus Woodson, 
 
THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 269 
 
 From an aesthetic stand-point he did better. He 
 made pleasing landscape effects, mounted on his mer- 
 tlesome bay (between whom and himself there seemed 
 a perpetual contest for mastery), or else striding act- 
 ively across fields, in his chocolate-colored corduroy 
 hunting suit, with its big silver buttons, his gun swung 
 across his shoulders, and his well-trained hundred- 
 dollar lemon-colored setter trotting decorously at his 
 heels. He was a handsome young fellow. It was 
 with purely amateurish interest that he rode over the 
 growing crops, or halted his restless horse near the 
 gin house, where the whirr of the big leathern bands 
 and the drip, drip of the fuzzy seed from the carrier 
 to the mountain of waste outside bespoke the busy 
 season on the plantation. He was always a trifle im- 
 patient for the last lock of cotton to be picked from 
 the rigid brown stalks, for then he was at liberty to 
 have a lot of fellows up from the city to hunt the par- 
 tridges that confidingly nested and reared their young 
 with impunity under cover of the growing crops. As 
 a general thing it was a trifle slow for him on the 
 place, and he escaped from it as often as was practi- 
 cable. It was oftenest practicable about the time of 
 the fall races on the Metairie course, out beyond the 
 shell-road in New Orleans, or when the crowds of 
 summer idlers grew thickest, at the White Sulphur 
 Springs, in Virginia. He was most partial to home in 
 the spring-time, when the trout and the striped bass 
 and the speckled sun-perch held full conventions 
 under the dark waters of Bayou Pierre, doubtless 
 devising measures of protection against their common 
 enemy, man, or else foolishly betraying themselves by 
 
2 76 THE BOY AKD THE BAVOU. 
 
 lofty tumblings that would carry them clear out of the 
 water with a flash of rainbow tints, only to fall back 
 with a softly-repentant splash. When the fish were 
 " jumping," Gus was in his element. As an organizer 
 of fish fries he was unsurpassed. Your native Bayou 
 Pierrian could not easily be persuaded to eat his first 
 trout or bass of the season in conventional stupidity 
 or stupi-d conventionality, with his legs under his own 
 or any body else's mahogany. It would take all the 
 pleasure out of the sport and all the flavor out of the 
 fish not to catch, cook and consume it without change 
 of location. 
 
 What other use did Bayou Pierre ever serve ? What 
 else was it created for, with its cool, dark, slow-running 
 current, its tree-shaded and vine-tangled banks, its 
 fallen monarchs of the wood spanning its close-lying 
 shores, making natural bridges, that were carpeted 
 with the tenderest green mosses and made desirable 
 points for pretty girls to stand on and pose with long 
 fishing-rods in their hands and the desire for conquest 
 in their hearts ? From the utilitarian point of view 
 Bayou Pierre was quite as superfluous as Gus Wood- 
 son. It was not needed for purposes of irrigation. It 
 was not navigable even for the tiniest canoe, with its 
 picturesque obstructions of mossy logs, whereon 
 myriads of brown turtles sunned themselves on sunny 
 days. It was in itself an impediment to travel, either 
 having to be circumvented tediously and circuitously, 
 or else crossed on untrustworthy bridges that swayed 
 perilously beneath the foot of man or beast, and yet 
 no one in all the country-side about Bayou Pierre 
 would have dispensed with it, or with Gus Woodson 
 
THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 271 
 
 either. Each was to the Bayou Pierre folk what 
 nothing or nobody else could possibly have been. 
 " You knew exactly where to find them both." 
 
 One would have as soon expected a false statement 
 or a mean sentiment to drop from Gus Woodson's Hps 
 as for the Bayou Pierre to yield up a draught of carp 
 in the hand-net that had been dipped into its bosom 
 for minnows or " needles." Both were suspected of 
 latent and unsuspected reserves of power. Both 
 moved placidly forward in the current determined for 
 them by a higher power, until — well. 
 
 The Bayou Pierre flowed sluggishly, sleepily, use- 
 lessly on through the short gray November days, when 
 the vines on its banks grew golden and scarlet and 
 russet, and the rabbits rustled the dead branches of 
 the blackberry bushes noisily as they stole down to 
 the water's brink to slake their thirst ; on, sluggishly, 
 sleepily, uselessly, through the bright spring-days, 
 when the fish leaped with short-lived joy from its 
 depths, and the painted corks bobbed and ducked and 
 danced on its bosom, and the sound of merry voices 
 waked the echoes on its banks ; on, sluggishly, sleepily, 
 uselessly, through the long still summer days, when 
 the elder bushes shed their lace-like petals in a creamy 
 shower on its glassy breast, and the katydids droned 
 drowsily in the tall trees that circled it round about, 
 and the soft hum of myriad insects filled the air ; until 
 — well — the river levees broke one day and the mad 
 waters that had been foaming and tearing and raging 
 at the feeble barrier for so long came leaping and 
 bounding into the quiet little bayou and gave it some- 
 thing to do. Then the Bayou Pierre asserted itself 
 
272 THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 
 
 in a fiercely rebellious fashion, and all the power 
 that had lain dormant so long flashed into existence 
 and carried it forever beyond the narrow banks, and 
 beyond the quiet limitations of its peace-begirt 
 days. 
 
 In like fashion, Gus Woodson, in his peace-begirt 
 days, moved placidly forward in the luxurious groove 
 he found himself appointed to, sleepily, sluggishlv, 
 
 uselessly, until — well . People smiled indulgently 
 
 when they heard how Gus Woodson had gone to the 
 war. He had gone forth at the first call, gayly, joy- 
 ously, luxuriously, a led horse and a valet only a 
 degree less splendid than himself in his new gray suit 
 forming part of his outfit. The point of the valet had 
 given rise to serious discussion in the home circle. 
 Of course Gus went out as a cavalryman, and how- 
 ever was he to get his horse curried unless he took 
 Sandy along with him ? He had a general impression 
 that military discipline was very rigid in the matter 
 of well-cared-for beasts, and irreproachable carbines, 
 and Sandy knew more about currying a horse and 
 cleaning a carbine than he could ever hope to learn 
 [in a lifetime. Plainly Sandy was a military neces- 
 sity, as essential an article of his camp equipage as 
 the musquito bar and the brass-mounted dressing-case, 
 which were included in his list of indispensables, along 
 with a miscellaneous collection of meerschaums. 
 What a day that was at the big house when they were 
 all helping to get him off ! It seemed to be an 
 accepted theory that whatever he was lacking when he 
 left the shelter of home, he must do without for the nat- 
 ural term of his existence. And, you know, he had 
 
THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 273 
 
 never learned how to do without any thing. The excite- 
 ment in the Vicar of Wakefield's house when Moses 
 was about to make his perilous exploration of the 
 outer world was as nothing to it. The old-fashioned 
 saddle-bags that were swung behind Sandy's saddle 
 swelled ever bigger and bigger with contributions of 
 woolen comforters, little morocco *' house-wives" with 
 his initials embroidered on the silk lining in hair ; 
 tobacco bags of silk, lustrous with floss embroidery, 
 socks and mittens galore. Gus Woodson, in his useless 
 days, had contrived to accumulate many and ardent 
 friendships. Very much seemed to be taken out of the 
 neighborhood when he went. Every body liked him, 
 " in spite of his nonsense." It was when rumors 
 began to come back to them of his patient endurance 
 of camp discipline, his readiness to discharge the most 
 perilous duty, and his " dash" as a cavalryman, that 
 public opinion began to veer, and the most contracted 
 utilitarian on Bayou Pierre admitted that in the econ- 
 omy of the ages even the Gus Woodsons of this world 
 may find a place. There were detractors who said, 
 " That was about all he was fit for," and that " to 
 career over the country with a carbine on his shoulder, 
 and his legs astride a good piece of horseflesh, was 
 just in Gus Woodson's line." Nevertheless, local 
 pride in him went up and steadily up ; and then peo- 
 ple began to pity him for what he would have to come 
 back to. For, whichever way things went, Gus Wood- 
 son's home-coming must be a very sad one. The 
 crisis was very imminent when Bayou Pierre began to 
 admit the possibility implied in the expression " which- 
 ever way things went." 
 
^74 THE BOY AND THE BAVOU, 
 
 Things had gone* badly enough at the Woodsons' 
 ever since Gus had been in the army. The old man 
 seemed to lose his grip after the boys went away. 
 There didn't seem to be much left for the old people 
 to live for. The plantation was too far away. The 
 time came when it was hard to get a word from the 
 seat of war. Perhaps if they moved into town, they 
 might hear from the boys oftener. They were no use 
 on the place. Things had all gone to the dogs. Maybe 
 if they were nearer the river, they might the easier 
 catch those floating rumors, which were all the alim.ent 
 afforded so many hungry and aching hearts. The 
 plantation was no longer like home. " Any thing 
 might happen to them there." 
 
 So the big house was deserted and the old 
 folks moved into town for the sake of that com- 
 pany which it is said misery loves. And when 
 the neighbors they had left behind in the planta- 
 tion houses about Bayou Pierre saw their household 
 effects being carried off bodily — caravans of mules 
 laden down with the fleecy blankets and the 
 snowy table damask and the rich brocatelle curtains 
 that had made Mrs. Woodson's parlor the envy of her 
 less fortunate neighbors ; dumping carts groaning 
 under piles of carpets and rich rugs, and bristling 
 with chair legs and sofa legs ; costly plate-glass mir- 
 rors flashing the sun rays into blinking eyes as their 
 grinning appropriators passed defiantly by trundling 
 them along the dusty road on wheelbarrows, in close 
 proximity to the vases from the parlor mantels and 
 the waffle-irons from the kitchen dresser — they called 
 the Woodsons " fools," and, looking on in impotent 
 
The boy and the bayoV, 275 
 
 rage, resolved to cling to their own possessions with a 
 deathless grip. 
 
 One night the sky grew lurid and the sound 
 of fiercely-crackling, blazing timbers arrested every 
 ear within reach of it. It was the Woodson 
 house in flames. People said the freedmen, rioting 
 in a lawless sense of liberty, which first pre- 
 sented itself in the guise of license, had set fire to it 
 in the vain hope of finding the family silver, which 
 must be hidden away somewhere in some of its many 
 nooks and crannies. It existed in great quantities, 
 and the old folks had not taken it away, so there it 
 must be. 
 
 Those were lawless days. Might made right. 
 The might lay in the Woodson quarters just then. 
 The neighbors looked on at the burning in apa- 
 thetic dismay ; there was nothing to do or to say 
 excepting to repeat that "old man Woodson had turned 
 fool." Vulturine hordes hovered industriously about 
 the heaps of ashes, which were all that was left of 
 the handsome house on the Woodson place, raking, 
 sweeping, sifting, poking, excavating for the melted 
 mass of silver and gold that must lie somewhere in 
 the ruins. Every man, woman and child that could 
 find standing-room in the ashy arena was there, except- 
 ing old Merrick, the Woodson carriage-driver, who 
 had nothing to do in those chaotic days. 
 
 He stood aloof with his withered hands folded over 
 the handle of the long carriage-whip that he carried 
 about with him mechanically, and fixed his glittering 
 eyes on the eager silver-hunters with contemptuous 
 scorn. Every now and then his tight-shut lips would 
 
276 THE BOY AND THE BAVOtl. 
 
 open sufficiently to emit a chuckle that had almost a 
 ring of triumph in it ; then they would close again 
 viciously over the words " Car'an crows," which 
 always preceded his sudden departure from the scene 
 of activity. 
 
 People began to say that old Merrick was going 
 crazy. He was seen so often prowling around a cer- 
 tain spot in the Woodson wild lands, just outside the 
 plantation fence, with no earthly object in view, 
 apparently. He was always muttering to himself. The 
 keenest ear could not catch the words he muttered. 
 He gave them a sort of rhythm that produced the 
 effect of an incantation. 
 
 It was not until his course was fully run, and old 
 Merrick, long after the war, was laid to rest under the 
 black-thorn tree in the family burying-ground, that 
 that muttered incantation became matter of history. 
 What he said was meaningless by itself : " Two pan'l 
 souf — turn t'odes syc'mo', two rails east — turn t'odes 
 sweet gum — stop dar ; " but through all his waking 
 hours, making sure no ear was near enough to catch 
 his incantation, old Merrick said the mystic words 
 over and over to himself, sometimes adding, as an 
 explanatory supplement : " Mout forgit, you know, 
 den w'ite folks wouldn' trus' ol' Merrick no 
 mo.' " 
 
 Ashes ! That was what Gus Woodson came home 
 to. The world seemed turned to ashes. The old 
 homestead — ashes. The cause he had fought for — 
 ashes. All the high bounding hopes of his early man- 
 hood — ashes. Even poor Sandy and the led horse 
 had succumbed and were — ashes. He and Burgundy 
 
THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 277 
 
 alone came back up the long drive between the live- 
 oak trees that looked so absurdly pointless now, lead- 
 ing up to nothing but a huge grass-grown shapeless 
 heap, where the blackberry bushes had already taken 
 root and had flung their sprays of white flowers ten- 
 derly about the ruins of a home. Only a little while 
 he and Burgundy stood there motionless with down- 
 dropped heads. Burgundy was tired. He was four 
 years older than when he had last pranced down that 
 long vista between the live-oak trees with the buoyant 
 young cavalryman on his back. His rider was not 
 tired, only sick — sick at heart and weary of life while 
 he stood there indulging himself in this brief mute 
 halt over the grave of his hopes. He, too, was four 
 years older than when last he passed under the green 
 canopy of the over-arching live-oaks that led from the 
 house to the white gate at the end of the lawn, and 
 centuries graver. There was none of the consterna- 
 tion of surprise in his steady downward gaze upon the 
 grassy heap at his feet. It was an old story. There 
 were thousands of just such shapeless, grass-grown, 
 pathetic ruins all over the land he loved. He would 
 build the big house again some of these days, and 
 bring the old folks back from exile. But there was 
 no place for them yet. He and Burgundy must rough 
 it together for a little while longer. He raised his 
 head to see what was left. 
 
 There was the two-room cabin back of the kitchen. 
 Poor Sandy used to live in one of them. It was vacant 
 now. There was more than room enough left for all 
 his earthly possessions. He would have a shed 
 knocked up against the gable end for Burgundy. 
 
278 THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 
 
 Perhaps Burgundy would have to be put in the plow 
 now ; wasn't his own hand already upon it so firmly 
 that there was to be no looking back ? There was no 
 looking back. 
 
 Old Merrick came to him the first night he spent in 
 his new home, in the cabin that had been Sandy's, and 
 stood before him with a pickax and a spade : "I'se 
 ready, son, if you i-s," was all he said, and the two 
 went out together into the dark night, trudging through 
 brier patches along the outer line of the tumble-down 
 fence, until old Merrick called a halt. Gus Woodson 
 was going for his own, but those were disorganized 
 times. There were new and untried people in the old 
 cabins. To-morrow he would start with his big box 
 that held the family silver and the mother's diamonds 
 for New Orleans, to convert them into the green- 
 backs that still held the charm of novelty for him. 
 Old Merrick alone knew the secret of the hiding-place. 
 It was he who had lashed his foaming horses back up 
 the carriage-drive after depositing the old folks in 
 exile, and gathered all the valuables into the big box 
 he had first planted empty in the grave prepared for 
 it; then, laboring to and fro through the long dark 
 night, he had not rested until the box-lid was securely 
 screwed down over the silver and jewelry and the 
 broken ground was sodded over and strewn with un- 
 der-brush, "sorter keerless lak son." With what pride 
 he told his story over to Gus as together they labored 
 to bring the box to the surface by aid of its strong 
 leather straps ! And what a proud glitter came into his 
 dim eyes as the young man held out his strong sun- 
 burned hand to clasp the withered horny one of the 
 
THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 279 
 
 faithful f reedman who had made such royal use of his 
 new-found privilege of independent action ! 
 
 That was how Gus Woodson got his fresh start in 
 life. There were detractors who laughed to scorn the 
 idea of a boy " raised as Gus Woodson had been " 
 supposing he could grapple with the problem of free 
 labor in its infancy and "make it pay." They predicted 
 that he would soon follow the example of his older 
 brothers, who, rather than take the hateful oath of 
 allegiance, had started for Honduras immediately on 
 receiving their paroles. There were those who gave 
 him three months in which to tire of eating off tin plates 
 on a deal table with notable-cloth on it, and of making 
 his own fire in the morning. '^ There never had been 
 a Woodson yet who loved work, and there never would 
 be." No, not that he loved work, but that he was 
 newly enamored of independence, newly resolved not 
 to be on the side of the defeated always. 
 
 It was up-hill work. He knew beforehand it would 
 be. The tools with which he was going to rebuild his 
 shattered fortunes were blunt and clumsy. The ABC 
 of the freedman's education was distrust of his former 
 owner. He called a convention of his constituents on 
 the day when the contract was to be signed for making 
 the first crop on the Woodson place since the war. He 
 had chosen evening so that none of the new people 
 should have an excuse for not hearing its conditions. 
 The light from a single kerosene lamp fell on the long 
 sheet of legal cap that had been carefully drawn up 
 under the supervision of a lawyer for the mutual pro- 
 tection of lessee and lessor. It was a new way of 
 dealing with "black folks," but old things had passed 
 
28o THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 
 
 away forever. The little sitting-room in the cabin was 
 crowded to repletion with towering forms in rags a»d 
 tatters, whose owners looked distrustfully down on the 
 young but serious white face revealed to them by the 
 meager light of the kerosene lamp. It was a solemn 
 occasion. The written contract looked imposing. Not 
 one of them could read. How were they to know what 
 they were binding themselves to ? They had the 
 general understanding that they were going to " crap 
 on sheers," but it didn't need all that paper and ink 
 to tell them that. They were all there, stalwart 
 men with the vacant faces of infancy ; slatternly 
 women making up in noisy demonstration what they 
 lacked of feeling at ease ; open-mouthed boys, with a 
 certain alertness that came of only a limited experience 
 of slavery ; open-eyed girls who were passing through 
 life in a state of bovine placidity. 
 
 Gus read his document slowly and impressively and 
 conscientiously, never skipping one " party of the first 
 part," nor slurring over a single " party of the second 
 part." It was confusing. It was bewildering. It was 
 incomprehensible. A dead silence followed the reading. 
 He dipped his pen tentatively into the inkstand at his 
 elbow, and extended it toward the oldest-looking man 
 present. They were all strangers to him. Besides old 
 Merrick, who stood behind his chair, an idle but 
 interested spectator of a drama in which he had no 
 role to play, these were new people, people who had 
 taken possession of his cabins because the " land lay" 
 to suit them and they had to work somewhere. No 
 one offered to touch the pen. How did they know 
 what electric current of diabolism might pass from the 
 
THE BOY AND THE BA YOU. 281 
 
 tip of the finger which they were requested to place 
 on the end of the pen-handle while the landowner made 
 their mark for them with the nib of the pen, and con- 
 sign them to the powers of darkness, soul and body ? 
 They had taken the first step toward wisdom, they 
 "did n' trus' nobody." A single voice near the outer 
 edge of the crowd finally broke the spell of inaction : 
 
 " Read dat 'bout de sheers 'gin, ef you please, boss." 
 
 Gus patiently found the place wherein it was set 
 forth, with much legal verbosity, that the parties of 
 the second part were to have one-third of all the cotton 
 and the corn raised by them on the land belonging to 
 the party of the first part ; and read it again slowly 
 and distinctly, then held his finger on the place while 
 he sent his patient eyes in search of the seeker after 
 light. 
 
 " Dat '11 do, boss, 'bleege t' you, dat's 'nough fur dis 
 nigger. Any nigger dat's fool 'nough t* work fur one- 
 fird de crap w'en he kin git one-fofe by jus' steppin' t' 
 odder side Bayer Peere 'serves t' starve t' deff. Dem 
 dat wants to cawntrac' wid you is got my permit t' do 
 so. Dis nigger's gwine whar he kin git his full jues." 
 
 In vain Gus endeavored to make him understand 
 the superiority of his own proffered one-third over his 
 neighbor's one-fourth. His fractions only drove them 
 mad. His interlocutor stooped to recover the ragged 
 felt hat he had dropped on the floor in the excitement 
 of protest, and slapping it against his knee by way of 
 restoring its pristine luster, put it on at a defiant angle 
 and turned from the audience chamber. He wasn't 
 going to be " juggled " out of his freedom of action 
 by a volume of words that conveyed no idea to his 
 
252 THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 
 
 densely befogged brain, and that white man didn't live 
 that could make him say three was bigger than four. 
 His lead was followed by the crowd. If Jack Dabney 
 saw cause for dissatisfaction, it must exist, for Jack 
 was the acknowledged possessor of a '' mouty levil 
 headpiece " ; and Gus's cabins were all empty again 
 the next day. 
 
 Ah, yes, it was up-hill work ! There was ignorance 
 to combat, and helplessness to condone, and ineffi- 
 ciency to be borne with ; there were the sly, cruel 
 machinations of the office-seeking carpet-bagger to be 
 met with patience and dignity ; there were countless 
 intrusive ghosts from out the dead past to be remanded 
 determinedly to the realm of oblivion ; there was the 
 bitter consciousness that a cloud of witnesses were 
 ready and alert to catch his slightest breath, his faintest 
 whisper, even his irrepressible sighs for the past that 
 had been so sweet and full, to fan them with the breath 
 of malice into the quick consuming fires of sectional 
 animosity. 
 
 But as the days of toil were- succeeded by the long 
 evenings of rest in the little cabin that had once been 
 Sandy's, and he smoked his brier-wood pipe on the 
 gallery, in the dark, with old Merrick crouching on the 
 steps below him, maundering endlessly on about the 
 old times that would never come again, his past 
 resolved itself into a slowly moving panorama, and he 
 saw it all for the first time from the outside. 
 
 It is not often that his gaze is cast backward. 
 It is thrown ever forward toward that bright beacon- 
 light of hope which only young eyes can see. He is 
 laying the foundations of the old house again. Not 
 
THE BOY AND THE BAYOU, 283 
 
 as they were. Nothing can ever be with him quite as 
 it was. Only broader and deeper and surer, with 
 higher springing arches and breezier outlook and a 
 general betterment. And, as with the foundations of 
 the old home, so with himself. Like some long hiber- 
 nating animal, he has sloughed the garments of sloth 
 and bestirred him to a new life of activity and endeavor. 
 He is laying the foundations of his new life broader 
 and deeper and surer, with higher springing aims and 
 breezier outlooks. Who will not waft him a fraternal 
 God-speed ? 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 A BONE OF CONTENTION. 
 
 IT is only once on record that all the ladies of the 
 Blue Lick neighborhood were ever in perfect 
 accord on any question, and that was before the build- 
 ing of the " Brick Church." 
 
 Strangers approaching Blue Lick from the east come 
 unexpectedly upon a little Gothic affair sitting back 
 from the road and clinging to a low wooded hill. Its 
 red-brick surface ^' composes " well with the various 
 shades of green that form a background to it in sum- 
 mer. Honeysuckles and bright coral cypress vines 
 run riot over its exterior, swaying their perfumed cen- 
 sers through the open windows on the rare occasions 
 of divine service, without aid of acolyte or direction of 
 priest. As a feature of the landscape, the Brick Church 
 has much to commend it. Architecturally, also, it is 
 a decided success, though, perhaps, its spire is open 
 to censure on the score of over-ornamentation, and 
 suggests the harsh criticism that its architect might 
 have started life as a confectioner's apprentice. It 
 springs boldly heavenward at first, but, apparently 
 impressed with the utter futility of trying to overtop 
 the stately young pines that stand proudly erect all 
 round about the little Brick Church, terminates abruptly 
 
A BONE OF CONTENTION. 285 
 
 and looks not unlike a badly sharpened lead-pencil 
 with a gall nut stuck on its point. 
 
 The pines rain their shining needles softly down to 
 hide the barrenness of the ground it stands on. An 
 acre of land has been inclosed in several successive 
 rail fences and called by courtesy the church-yard. 
 Rail fences are not permanent institutions in the 
 neighborhood of Blue Lick, and the man who supplies 
 the material for the church fences rejoices in the pos- 
 session of a perennial job. 
 
 This inclosure was originally intended for a grave- 
 yard. The Blue Lick people used to express them- 
 selves regretfully at having no consecrated ground in 
 which to bury their dead. But no spade has ever yet 
 penetrated the brown carpet of the pine needles to 
 break ground for a grave, and the probabilities are 
 that no Hamlet of even a remote future will ever glean 
 therein material for a homily. People still lay their 
 loved and lost away under their own vines and rose- 
 bushes, in nooks in their own flower-tangled gardens, 
 where no controversial disputes can possibly disturb 
 their slumbers, and where the difficulty of persuading 
 a Presbyterian rose to shed its sweetness over a Metho- 
 dist plot may not be encountered ; nor need any 
 immersionistbe shocked by the presence of a meagerly 
 sprinkled sleeper in Baptist possessions. 
 
 A stile crosses the worm fence in front of the church 
 door, up to which it leads by way of a grass-grown 
 walk. The stile is a permanent institution, but not 
 unfrequently it stands alone, an inconsequent-looking 
 thing, supporting the fiction of an inclosure without 
 the indorsement of a single panel of fencing. When 
 
286 A BOJVE of contention 
 
 things reach this pass, the people of Bkie Lick say : 
 " It is a shame. Somebody ought to wake the trustees 
 up." So somebody does wake the trustees up, and a 
 new fence is ordered. Some of these days they expect 
 to have a settled minister, and then the weeds along 
 the grass-grown walk will not flaunt it quite so inso- 
 lently, and vagrant cows will not be at liberty to take 
 their afternoon siestas on its shady side, and the gall 
 nut on the apex of the spire will vibrate to the ringing 
 of a big bell, and a millennial dawn will whiten the 
 theological horizon of Blue Lick, and the little church 
 will lose its lonely look. 
 
 Whether it will prove to be an Episcopal millennium, 
 or a Baptist, or a Presbyterian one, who shall dare say. 
 At present, while it is conceded that architecturally 
 and aesthetically the Brick Church is satisfying, the 
 question of its efficacy as an evangelizing agency is 
 still an open one. Nevertheless, it is something to 
 remember that once upon a time the ladies all acted 
 in unison, and were agreed upon one point : Blue 
 Lick must have a church. 
 
 It was Miss Margery Banks who first set this idea 
 actively afloat. She was a very popular woman before 
 that spasm of church-building energy seized upon her. 
 She has not fingers enough on both hands, taking in 
 thumbs and all, to count her enemies now. The Blue 
 Lick boys call Miss Margery "a late bloomer," because, 
 after leading the most secluded and innocuous girl- 
 hood, she suddenly effloresced into a determined and 
 merciless woman with a mission, and that mission 
 the building of a church for Blue Lick. 
 
 She planted the seed of this idea with brisk energy 
 
A BONE OF CONTENTION. 287 
 
 in all sorts of soil. She careered wildly all over the 
 country on her little sorrel mare. No vicissitudes of 
 wind or weather damped her ardor. Men declared 
 that it would be vain to flee^even unto the mountains 
 of Hepzidam to escape pursuit. It was fatal to 
 encounter her on the road, at the store, or even in the 
 sacred precincts of one's own home. She was sure to 
 pelt you with one of four words, perhaps with all four 
 at once. Subscription, donation, tableau, fair. 
 
 These were the four keys that were to open the 
 gates of the spiritual world to benighted Blue Lick, 
 and Miss Margery was going to fit them all with 
 locks. The zeal of God's house bade fair to eat her 
 up. That she should have sowed her seed, some on 
 rocky, some on sandy, some on good soil was but to 
 follow in the wake of every sower. 
 
 None of the men ventured to contradict her 
 flatly when she declared that Blue Lick ought to have 
 a church. Some said, " Of course it ought." Others 
 said " They supposed so," and others, again, indulged 
 in a tentative '' Why." 
 
 Blue Lick wasn't much of a place, but it was 
 the county seat, and it was the nucleus of a very 
 wealthy agricultural district, and "it really was just 
 little short of scandalous," the way they kept or didn't 
 keep Sunday. Miss Margery's plea was always for 
 the young people who were growing up, tacitly giving 
 over the elders and her own contemporaries to the 
 powers of darkness. She wanted the children that 
 were " coming on " to have the benefit of a church. 
 She began where every wise revolutionist begins, with 
 the women. 
 
288 A BONE OF COJVTEiVTIOiV. 
 
 There were the Spencers. The Spencers owned 
 three plantations, a town-house in New Orleans, and 
 a cottage for summer use at the Sweet Sulphur Springs 
 in Virginia. People with three different homes really 
 hadn't time to form local attachments, but Mrs. 
 Spencer had growing sons, and Miss Margery 
 approached her with the fearlessness born of confidence 
 in herself and her cause. Mrs. Spencer agreed with 
 her quickly. A church was a very desirable invest- 
 ment. It kept the young men from loafing on the 
 store galleries, and really the Sundays were desperately 
 stupid. One couldn't read and write letters all day 
 long. A church would be an excellent reminder of 
 the respect due the one day out of seven, especially 
 if it (the church, not the day) had a bell. Of course 
 she would do all she could to help on the good 
 work. 
 
 There was the doctor's wife, who had been startled 
 recently into a contemplative frame of mind on this 
 very subject by having her eight-year-old boy mistake 
 the picture of a church spire for a pigeon-house. The 
 poor little heathen had never been inside a sacred 
 edifice. The doctor's wife was one of those naturally 
 devout creatures who would have tried to inoculate 
 her boy with the Thirty-Nine Articles even if she had 
 been turned adrift with him in scorching deserts, as 
 was Hagar of old, handsomely equipped with a bottle 
 of water and a loaf of bread. Miss Margery had no 
 difficulty whatever in enlisting her sympathies, and in 
 view of the receptive frame of mind she found her in 
 she hurled all four of her keys at the doctor's ^vife, 
 leaving her pledged to a donation, a subscription, a 
 
A BONE OF CONTENTION. 289 
 
 part in the tableau of " Blue-beard's Wives," and the 
 furnishing of a fancy-table for the church fair. 
 
 Then there were the Carol girls. She found them 
 a trifle mutinous at first. The Carol girls were 
 advanced thinkers. They had been educated at the 
 North, and considered themselves well in the van of 
 all thought. The Blue Lick neighborhood did not 
 give them a very satifactory area for the display of 
 the profundities, but it was their life-long home. 
 They loved the old plantation home, and they had 
 evolved a plan that had worked admirably so far for 
 distinguishing Sunday from the other six days, and 
 they doubted whether Miss Margery's contemplated 
 innovation would result in improving the manners or 
 the morals of the neighborhood. All the Carol 
 instincts were conservative and aristocratic. A neigh- 
 borhood church must of necessity be awfully demo- 
 cratic. 
 
 They listened to Miss Margery's glowing ar- 
 guments with cool politeness. They preferred " the 
 existing mode of divine worship." " The existing 
 mode of divine worship " consisted of delightful little 
 reunions in somebody's parlor every Sunday for the 
 purpose of singing. The Carol girls would have pre- 
 ferred high-class oratorios and that sort of thing, but 
 Moody and Sankey and the Bliss collection were 
 better adapted to the vocal capacities of the neigh- 
 borhood, and therefore received the preference, and 
 were sung vigorously every Sunday morning to some- 
 body's piano accompaniment. 
 
 The intervals between hymns were devoted to inter- 
 change of neighborhood items. Ill-natured gossip 
 
290 A BONE OF CONTENTION. 
 
 was, of course, tacitly forbidden on these semi-sacred 
 occasions, and if the men showed a tendency toward 
 absorption in crop discussions, all that was necessary 
 was to give out a fresh tune and start the piano. Every 
 body was sure of being invited to go home to dinner 
 by every body else. Altogether, Sunday was the most 
 delightful day in the week. The Spencer boys had 
 splendid voices and they rarely missed " Sankeying," 
 as it was locally termed. 
 
 Miss Margery Banks was a born diplomat. She 
 knew the Sankey Sundays were a great institu- 
 tion ; no one had enjoyed them more than she, real 
 intellectual treats ; but she was thinking of the young 
 people coming on. They might not all be vocally 
 inclined. She had taken it for granted that the Spen- 
 cer boys and the Carol girls would compose the choir 
 of the church when it was built ; there was no one 
 else who could possibly fill the position at all. But it 
 was scarcely worth while going on with the project if 
 she had to leave the Carol girls out of her Beauty of 
 the Harem, Cleopatra and Mark Antony, and Sleeping 
 Beauty tableaux. 
 
 The Carol girls were not left out. They supposed 
 Blue Lick ought to have a church. Yes, they would 
 help with the tableaux. 
 
 There was the Judge's widow, whose boys declared 
 they couldn't see the difference between their going 
 out with their fishing-rods on Sunday and her sitting 
 at home reading Shakespeare, or Washington Irving, or 
 any thing that wasn't a sermon. And how could she 
 show them any difference when there wasn't any 
 church to go to ? Of course, they must have a church. 
 
A BONE OF CONTENTION. 29! 
 
 Not that the people of Blue Lick were in any one par- 
 ticular more unregenerate than the most conservative 
 descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers. They were simply, 
 as Drummond would put it, " in correspondence with 
 their environment," and Miss Margery's laudable de- 
 sire was to make some improvement in the environ- 
 ment. 
 
 The women all enlisted, she turned her batteries 
 on the men. They were almost bomb-proof. It 
 was a spiritual palsy rather than active antagonism 
 she had to combat. The people about Blue Lick 
 were the victims of circumstances. Circumstances 
 had placed miles of rough country roads between the 
 different dwellings. Each plantation was a little prin- 
 cipality in itself. And the dwellers thereon were of 
 necessity so absolutely independent of their nearest 
 neighbors in all that pertained to their welfare in this 
 world that it was small wonder they were slow to per- 
 ceive the necessity for co-operation touching the 
 things that pertained to another world. 
 
 Such isolated lives foster strong individuality. The 
 men scattered about on the big plantations about 
 Blue Lick formed their own opinions about things 
 material and spiritual, assisted or hindered, as 
 the case might be, by such theorists as Darwin, 
 Spencer, Huxley, et ah. They thought out their 
 political status with no narrow bias engendered 
 by the '' leaders " of a local newspaper. Blue 
 Lick had no local newspaper. When business or 
 social instincts brought them together, the staple 
 topics of conversation were the crops or the state of 
 the Liverpool market. They would have regarded 
 
292 A BONE OF COlVTENTIOr^, 
 
 any discussion touching the future prospects of their 
 own or their neighbors' souls as a '' piece of deuced 
 sanctimoniousness," and would have voted the fellow 
 who raised the question a " muff." They held that 
 there was a time and place for every thing ; but as to 
 the correct time and place for polemical discussions 
 they were a trifle befogged. 
 
 They received Miss Margery's first shot variously. 
 What was the matter with Blue Lick ? Didn't they 
 (its citizens) pay their debts and keep their word like 
 gentlemen ? Did they need a preacher to tell them 
 they mustn't lie or cheat ? What if they did rally on 
 the store galleries for an hour's idle chat of Sundays ? 
 It was a sort of harmless exchange. It preserved 
 public spirit alive. It obviated the necessity for a 
 paper. Notwithstanding all which, *' the late bloomer " 
 smiled invincibly, and threw her tendrils (so to speak) 
 about them all, men, women, and children, converting 
 the cold into lukewarm, and the lukewarm into warm, 
 and the warm into fervid, until the whole neighbor- 
 hood was resolved into committees for this, that, and 
 the other thing, and the sluggish tenor of its way was 
 diverted into a swift-rushing torrent of energy, all 
 tending towards one goal — the Blue Lick Church. 
 
 Dutton, who keeps the biggest store in Blue Lick, 
 and who can see the Brick Church from his store gal- 
 lery, says that the church had a " long sight better 
 drawing capacity while it was going up than it has 
 ever had since." Yes, every body watched it going 
 up after the plans were finally decided on. Mrs. 
 Spencer would drive in in her carriage to see how 
 it was getting on. The different men, who had 
 
A BONE OF CONTENTION. 293 
 
 after all given liberally of their substance under the 
 force of public pressure, felt a proprietary interest 
 in fit. All the idlers about town found it an agree- 
 able variation from whittling Button's gallery chairs 
 to watch the joists and rafters of the new church 
 put into place. The boys reveled in the delightful 
 excitement of getting into every body's way, and the 
 Doctor's wife anxiously watched the progress of the 
 building that was to remove the stigma of profound 
 ignorance from her benighted child, wnile Miss Mar- 
 gery beamed patronizingly on them all, from the rich 
 man who had given the ground down to the poor one 
 who mixed the lime and sand into a loblolly, with an 
 admiring fringe of villagers standing close around the 
 edge of his mortar-box. 
 
 And so the Blue Lick Church was built. It could 
 not very well help being built, you know, seeing the 
 entire community had a hand in it. Then the trustees 
 were appointed — three men of unexceptionable rec- 
 ords — men of worth and probity. Miss Margery said 
 privately it was a pity they couldn't have " professors " 
 for trustees, but she " supposed they would have to 
 wait for some of the young ones that were coming on." 
 
 No, the trustees were not professors. But they 
 were honest beyond question and they were the best to 
 be procured under the circumstances. And the church 
 had a bell. You don't see it under the knobby spire, 
 because it never got any further than Button's store. 
 Mrs. Spencer carpeted it — the building — out and 
 out. The Carol girls gave a reed organ, and there 
 wasn't a thing lacking to the little red church on the 
 green hill-side excepting a preacher. 
 
2 94 A BONE OF CONTENTION. 
 
 Of course, the getting of a preacher devolved on 
 the trustees, the best men in the world, but absolutely 
 devoid of any *' leanings." There was Major Spencer, 
 one of the most high-toned gentlemen in the world — 
 a moral man, too, who always timed his visits to New 
 Orleans when the Metairie course was in full blast. 
 There was the Doctor, in whose eyes the preservation 
 of people's bodies was of such stupendous moment 
 that he really never had found time to formulate a 
 creed for himself or adopt a ready-made one. And 
 Button. The selection of Button, the biggest store- 
 keeper in Blue Lick, for the third trustee was regarded 
 by Button himself as the best joke of the season, but 
 the ladies who had the selection of the trustees meant 
 it as a concession to the democratic element that had 
 put its shoulder to the wheel when they were building 
 the church. They supposed they really ought not to 
 be exclusive in church matters. 
 
 When it was impressed upon the three trustees that 
 the church was waiting for a preacher, each one of 
 them did what every wise man does in the hour of his 
 perplexity, went home and consulted his wife. 
 
 " What denomination must he be ? " Mrs. Spencer 
 echoed, making exclamation points of her arched, 
 eyebrows at the Major's absurd question. " Now* 
 Major Spencer, you don't suppose I would help to 
 build any church in the world but a Presbyterian 
 church. Why, I've been in correspondence with 
 young Jeffreys, you know, he's in attendance on 
 General Assembly, ever since the first brick was laid 
 in that church. All you have to do is to invite him 
 here on a visit, and when the time comes he will 
 
A BONE OF CONTENTION. 295 
 
 occupy that pulpit. * What will the Episcopalians who 
 put their money in do?' That question I can't 
 answer. But that is a Presbyterian church, Major 
 Spencer, and I hope you will do your duty as a 
 trustee without flinching." 
 
 The Major did flinch, but he also invited Mr. Jeff- 
 reys to come to Blue Lick on a visit. 
 
 The Doctor's wife was in a state of feverish over- 
 readiness. The Bishop had written her word that in 
 his diocesan rounds he would take in Blue Lick very 
 shortly. He commended the energy displayed by the 
 '■'■ faithful daughters of his diocese," and promised to 
 bring with him a most excellent young man who had 
 been acting as his chaplain, but whom he especially de- 
 sired to see located in a neighborhood whose wealth 
 and refinement would be a guarantee of appreciation. 
 The Doctor's wife was quite used to shouldering the 
 Doctor's responsibilities apart from his drugs and pill- 
 boxes, and was justifiably elated to think how 
 smoothly she was steering matters without the 
 slightest friction for that '' dear, good, busy man.'» 
 
 " But suppose the Methodists and Presbyterians 
 don't want the Bishop and his chaplain ? " the trustee's 
 conscience pricked him into asking. 
 
 " Don't want the Bishop ! Why, Dr. Marvin, don't 
 you know that it is an Episcopal church ? Do you 
 suppose I would ever have done a hand's turn toward 
 building any but an Episcopal church ? Now, don't 
 worry. All you've got to do is to notify the other 
 trustees of the date of the diocesan visit. The 
 Bishop will do the rest when he gets here." 
 
 The Doctor was new to the duties of trusteeship. 
 
296 A BONE OF CONTENTION, 
 
 He was more than willing to leave this complex 
 matter in the hands of his wife and the Bishop, with 
 whom he had been in active correspondence for 
 weeks. So he went back to his patients with a sense 
 of relief and forgot all about notifying his confreres 
 of the Bishop's diocesan visit. 
 
 The Button faction was for arranging matters on 
 the majority plan. The '' folks " that lived on the 
 plantations and shipped their cotton by the hundred 
 bales were not the ones who had to stick to one spot 
 all the year round. It was Button's wife and Mrs. 
 Rogers that " took the lawyers in" (in more senses 
 than one) during court term, and the Sheriff's wife 
 and the Recorder's family, and that set, who would 
 fill the pews in the Brick Church when the Spencers 
 and the Carols and that set were away in '' the city." 
 And for every-day wear give them a good strong 
 shouting Methodist — a man that would stir the blood 
 in your veins and make you feel, every time he got 
 up to preach a sermon, that all the bother they'd had 
 about building that church didn't count for nothing. 
 Mrs. Button knew the very man. And he was her 
 own mother's cousin. Had been " on the circuit " for 
 twenty years. She was expecting him every day to 
 visit mother. He generally did come when the 
 broilers were of a good size, and he'd be on hand 
 when he was wanted. 
 
 Yes, he was on hand when he was wanted. So was 
 Mr. Jeffreys, the young man who had been in attend- 
 ance on General Assembly, but they reached Blue 
 Lick an hour or two after the Bishop. The Bishop 
 talked as one having authority. His presence was 
 
A BONE OF CONTENTION. 297 
 
 majestic, his robes were imposing. Besides he was 
 two to one. He was re-enforced by a chaplain. On 
 the day that he consecrated the new church Mrs. 
 Spencer's young minister preached in the Court-house, 
 and the benches in front of him were occupied by all 
 the good Presbyterians in town, while Mrs. Button's 
 mother's cousin held forth to a goodly constituency in 
 the warehouse behind Button's store, that had been 
 hastily swept and garnished for the purpose. 
 
 The Bishop left the chaplain behind him, but it did 
 not take long for him to find out that the Episco- 
 palian contingency was too small to support a minister 
 alone, on making which discovery he shook the dust 
 of Blue Lick from his highly polished shoes and 
 followed the Bishop. 
 
 His successors, respectively a Presbyterian and a 
 Methodist, were not long in coming to the same con- 
 clusion. It is one of these snarls that time does little 
 towards straightening out, and that is the reason why 
 the grass grows over the walk in front of the little 
 Brick Church, and the cows take their afternoon 
 siestas on its shady side, and the bell does not ring in 
 a harmonious flock of worshipers to sit at the feet of 
 an established minister. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 OLD HARVEY. 
 
 HE is " old Harvey " now to all the men and boys 
 of his locality, ^' irrespective of age, color, or 
 previous condition." Some of the colored people who 
 were young slaves when he was sheriff of the county 
 before the war, and upon whose minds the awe-inspir- 
 ing dignity of that office made such an indelible 
 impression that no one who has once held it can ever 
 again be quite liice other folks, still doff their hats 
 deferentially to '* Boss Harvey," while the women of 
 the county invariably speak of him as " poor old Mr. 
 Harvey " ; but this last is prolix and manifestly 
 inconvenient for colloquial purposes, so that when 
 strangers, taking immediate note of one of the most 
 striking objects in the town, make inquiry concerning it, 
 they are informed concisely that, ''that's old Harvey." 
 But as every body likes him — the older people because 
 they remember what he was and what he has been to 
 the neighborhood, and the younger people becausethey 
 have been reared with a sort of traditional regard for 
 old Harvey — the term comes from the most careless 
 lips divested of all harshness or contempt, with rather 
 a caressing sound, in point of fact. 
 
 He antedates almost all the institutions of the town, 
 
"OLD HARVEY." 299 
 
 for many of which he is largely responsible. He 
 antedates that exceedingly irrelevant-looking new 
 cupola on the old Court-house, which so painfully 
 suggests a shabbily-dressed woman tricked out in a 
 smart new bonnet that only emphasizes her dinginess. 
 He antedates all the trees in the Court-house Square. 
 Those trees, principally broad-branching live-oaks 
 andconically aspiring cottonwoods, which acommodate 
 each other kindly, are majestic in size now, and 
 liberal in the rnatter of shade for teams and the 
 buggies and the riding-horses and the ox-wagons that 
 accumulate in Court-house Square on the '' packet 
 day," but old Harvey remembers when they were all 
 feeble, struggling saplings, watched over by his official 
 eye. 
 
 He selected them every one himself, riding over 
 the woods, back of town, day after day, to consider 
 the respective merits of the different sorts of 
 shade-trees, and then going with the men he had 
 employed for the more arduous undertaking of trans- 
 planting them. And when they actually began to grow, 
 in spite of manifold prophecies to the contrary, and to 
 checker the hoof-beaten ground of the square, with a 
 network of small leaf-shadows, and spread a soft green 
 veil before the weather-beaten face of the old Court- 
 house, the sheriff thriftly built boxes promptly all 
 about them to protect them against equine voracity, 
 and notched the tops of the boxes ornamentally and 
 had them all whitewashed. All of which gave the 
 square such an exceedingly smart look that some of 
 the citizens advocated a public vote of thanks to Mr. 
 Harvey, their " efficient and public-spirited sheriff," 
 
300 "OLD HARVEVr 
 
 He antedates the only church in the place, that pretty 
 little Gothic concern that was secured to the town in 
 such a tumultuous fashion, mainly through the efforts 
 of the young women who doted on church-fairs and 
 raffles. In fact, he remembers when there was nothing 
 to the town but Davenport's store and the tavern 
 where most of the lawyers " put up " when court is in 
 session, the blacksmith's shop under the walnut trees 
 above Davenport's, and the court-house itself. 
 
 The keenest regret of old Harvey's life is, that when 
 the war broke out he in his official capacity ordered 
 the removal of the county records to a place of 
 safety. In consequence of this removal, they were 
 lost entirely, and with his tender conscience he is 
 always fancying that this one or that one of his old 
 constituents has suffered irreparable loss through his 
 mistaken zeal. But he had only meant to guard 
 against the possibility of their falling into the hands 
 of the Marine Brigade. 
 
 The Marine Brigade was a fleet of eight or nine 
 vessels that infested the Mississippi River during the 
 war in a sort of maritime guerrilla capacity. The sol- 
 diers of the brigade wore the uniform of the Federal 
 Army, and the flag of the loyal floated from the mast- 
 head of each of the eight boats. It was a power in its 
 day. It was about the time when the Marine Brigade 
 developed such an abnormal conscience in the interests 
 of Uncle Sam as to carry off all Mrs. Judge Baker's 
 silver in a sheet, that Mr. Harvey thought the county 
 records might next fall victims to this unique rapacity, 
 so had them removed. 
 
 Havinof been the innocent cause of such an 
 
''OLD HAKVEVr 3°I 
 
 irreparable loss to the community, old Harvey has 
 held himself ever since in conscience bound to 
 make it good in every possible way, and the community 
 can furnish no greater tribute of its confidence in his 
 probity than its willingness to substitute his memory 
 for the written records wherever practicable. People 
 say that it was only after the loss of the county records 
 that old Harvey began to show his age at all. He 
 has not reached such an age yet that they are afraid 
 to trust to his memory, and the announcement that 
 old Harvey's deposition is to be taken is sufficient to 
 crowd the Court-house with an audience that fills the 
 young minister of the new Gothic church with bilious 
 discontent. His own Sunday audiences never equal 
 old Harvey's week day ones. 
 
 By tacit consent, the corner of the bench on Daven- 
 port's gallery, where the short winter sunshine comes 
 the earliest and lingers the longest, is respected as old 
 Harvey's seat. One must be very new to the ways of 
 the town, or phenomenally indifferent to old Harvey's 
 comfort, to appropriate it. There is no peradventure 
 about his coming to occupy it. He comes up in the 
 morning to read the New Orleans papers on the 
 gallery. He is very methodical in his habits. As 
 soon as he has had his breakfast — it is one of the local 
 mysteries how old Harvey always makes sure of this 
 desirable beginning to his day — he starts for Daven- 
 port's, and walks deliberately to the back of the store, 
 where there is a barrel turned down upon its side. 
 There is a faucet in the barrel, and there are tumblers 
 on a shelf over it. Old Harvey asks nothing better of 
 Fate than that Davenport's barrel of " Old Bourbon " 
 
3° 2 ''OLD HARVEY r 
 
 shall repeat the miracle of the widow's cruse. He has 
 the freedom of the barrel. But he does not abuse it. 
 He does not need to subscribe for any of the city 
 papers, for he also has the freedom of the post-office. 
 He is at liberty to slip the covers from any body's 
 papers or magazines, with the single proviso that he 
 puts them back in time for the mail-carriers sent in by 
 their respective owners from the different plantations. 
 Sometimes, not often, however, he makes mistakes, 
 and slips things back into the wrong covers which is 
 apt to result in his getting a mild back-biting, as when 
 he mailed the New York Clipper, instead of the Chris- 
 tia?i at Work, to the young minister, and accidentally 
 sent the pamphlet called " How to be beautiful " to 
 Miss Varina Dawson. Miss Varina has never spoken 
 to him since, but, so far as is known, she is the only 
 enemy he has in the world. He tried to explain mat- 
 ters to her, but only made the snarl worse, and gave it 
 up finally. 
 
 Old Harvey has a good deal of time on his hands 
 that he finds it a trifle hard to dispose of. He kills a 
 portion of it wandering about town, somewhat as a 
 ghost might revisit the scene of his former usefulness 
 or happiness. His office became a sinecure during 
 the war, and when it ended — well, the carpet-baggers 
 had the giving of all the offices in the county then, and 
 old Harvey was not eligible — would not take the iron- 
 clad oath. His successor in office, his married sis- 
 ter's old carriage-driver, Walsh, often comes to him for 
 instruction and advice, and he always gives it kindly 
 and conscientiously. No one ever saw any bitterness 
 in his way of dealing with the new order. If it existed 
 
'*OLD HARVEY r 303 
 
 in his heart, old Harvey was wise enough to suppress 
 all outward show of it. His wanderings about town 
 are entirely unofficial, but they have been the means 
 of bringing several cases of genuine destitution to the 
 ears of those who are able to afford relief. In by-gone 
 times old Harvey had a remarkable scent for distress 
 of any kind, and the people who marvel now that he 
 should never have saved up from his big salary for the 
 very rainy day that has overtaken him, will never know 
 how prompt he used to be in succoring the needy. 
 
 Any one happening into Davenport's gallery about 
 the middle of a hot afternoon is likely to see an old 
 gentleman, with his chair tilted back against the 
 weather-boarded sides of the store, his feet (encased 
 in buttoned shoes which generally have several but- 
 tons missing) drawn up on the bottom round of the 
 chair, his head reclining peacefully against the hard 
 boards, a handkerchief spread over it and his face to 
 protect him from the flies. From under this hand- 
 kerchief issue a succession of well-modulated snores. 
 The natives respect old Harvey asleep as well as 
 awake, and pass by him into the store with clumsy 
 efforts .at quietness. He says there isn't another spot 
 in town where he can sleep as well as in that hide- 
 bottomed chair on Davenport's gallery. The river 
 breezes blow on him there, and the old man seems to 
 like to be " where something is going on." 
 
 His face, when he is awake, shows the very mildest 
 type of physiognomy. His eyes are soft and brown, 
 and almost wistful in their tender outlook. His hair, 
 which is unusually thick for a man of his age, is long 
 and white, and curls at the ends in a big wave. He 
 
304 ''OLD liA RVEVr 
 
 wears it combed straight back, and is perpetually put- 
 ting it behind his large ears with an impatient gesture. 
 He has a sensitive mouth that goes incongruously 
 enough with his square under-jaw. He is just such a 
 looking man as you would select from a crowd of men 
 for a preacher with a devoted following of women. 
 
 Perhaps there are not more than half a dozen peo- 
 ple in the neighborhood who can remember how Joel 
 Harvey looked and acted when he was first made 
 sheriff of the county. Mrs. Judge Baker is one of the 
 few, and she still contends that the handsomest sight 
 she ever saw was Harvey, mounted on his big black 
 horse, Beelzebub, who always looked as if he was 
 snorting fire and brimstone from his blazing eyes and 
 wide-stretched nostrils. ^' He had a good deal of the 
 devil in him." Mrs. Baker never located her pronouns 
 with sufficient accuracy for one to decide whether it 
 was Joel Harvey or his big black horse who had that 
 Satanic infusion in his blood. 
 
 The duties performed in old Harvey's young and 
 active years sometimes amounted to exploits, and are 
 frequently recalled by his friends even at this late day 
 for the edification of new-comers who may be inclined 
 to regard the old man as an ordinary specimen of 
 senility and a cumberer of the earth. Before the war 
 his duties were the clearly defined ones appertaining 
 to his office in all climes and ages, perhaps with such 
 slight modifications or variations as local circumstances 
 demanded. That dog business perhaps was one of 
 these variations. Old Harvey tells that story himself. 
 He never tells a story that redounds in the least to his 
 own credit. But in the matter of the dogs he cut such 
 
''OLD HARVEVr 305 
 
 a purely ridiculous figure that he recalls it now as one 
 of his most delightful reminiscences. 
 
 " You see," he would say, pushing his long white 
 hair behind his big ears with such a vindictive gesture 
 that one marveled he did not pluck it out and cast it 
 from him by way of permanent riddance, " things had 
 come to such a pass in this county that there was not 
 any use trying to raise sheep, unless you were philan- 
 thropically minded to feed your neighbors' dogs on 
 Southdown mutton. The county was just clean plum 
 run away with dogs. Every white fellow had his pack 
 of deerhounds and his duck dog and bird dog, and 
 every nigger had his pack of yelpin' yellow or brindle 
 curs that wasn't worth the powder it 'dtake to kill 'em. 
 A little more and it would have taken the whole corn 
 crop to make corn bread for 'em all. Well, the police 
 jury put their heads together to see what could be done 
 for the protection of the sheep-raising interests, and it 
 resulted in high license. The dog license was put up 
 so high that it would take a hundred-dollar-setter or 
 pointer to be able to read its title clear, and life was 
 rendered practically valueless to the rest of -our dog 
 citizens. 
 
 " Of course it fell to me to see the law put into 
 execution. This county was either bound to make her 
 dogs a source of revenue or else get shet of 'em. It 
 was taken for granted a man would only hold on to 
 them that was worth paying a big license for, and that 
 sort ain't the sheep-killer. Well, may be I didn't have 
 a tough job ! I sent my deputies out in every direction, 
 and they reported a regular dog massacre following in 
 their wake. They woke up one tolerably obstinate old 
 
3o6 ''OLD HARVeY." 
 
 'coon, however, and I found it necessary to visit hini 
 in person. He was waitin' for me. It was old Lige 
 Blackman, back yonder in the cypress swamp. He 
 called out to me to get down and 'light, as soon as I 
 pulled Beelzebub up at his gate, but I didn't have much 
 time for fooling with him, so I told him in as few words 
 as possible what I'd come for. I'd never seen Lige so 
 polite and accommodating. He stood on his gallery 
 rubbing his hands one over the other sorter gleeful 
 like, and I sat on Beelzebub's back, while we talked 
 across his front fence. 
 
 " Presently he grinned all over his wrinkled face. 
 ' As I understand it, you want my dogs or my 
 money, do you, Mr, Harvey ? ' he asked as mealy- 
 mouthed as you please. ' Yes, sir,' I said ; but 
 before the words were well out of my mouth he took 
 down a horn that was hanging on a nail against the 
 side of the house and blew a blast that would have 
 make Roderick Dhu howl with envy. And then they 
 came charging around the house corners, loping 
 through the hall, squeezing through the lattice-work 
 under the house, prancing, yelping, barking, jumping, 
 howling, a whole pack of devils, big dogs and little 
 dogs, bloodhounds leashed together with murder in 
 their hearts and in their great red eyeballs and lolling 
 tongues, deer dogs that had got the worst of the fray 
 in a fight, limping along on a broken leg, bulldogs with 
 their ears chawed off, yellow curs with no ears at all 
 and no tails to speak of. 
 
 "Of all the infernal din ever heard outside of 
 Bedlam, those dogs made it, but above it all I could 
 hear old man Lige's bland voice : ' Take 'em, Mr. 
 
''OLD HARVEY." Z^l 
 
 Harvey, take 'em every one. They're entirely 
 at your disposal. I'm a law abiding citizen, Mr. 
 Harvey.' 
 
 "Beelzebub didn't take in the situation at all, 
 and when the whole pack of 'em, twenty, sir, came 
 flying at him over the fence and under the gate 
 and through the pickets, he first of all let fly at 'em 
 with his heels, but all of sudden seemed to conclude 
 they were too many for him, and getting the bit be- 
 tween his teeth wheeled and started back for town like 
 a shot. I couldn't do a thing with him. And we came 
 with a retinue, too, I can tell you. Old Lige always 
 swore he didn't sick 'em on after Beelzebub turned 
 tail ; that he was just laughing a little in his sleeve. 
 I don't know how that may be, but I know I left for 
 town with twenty dogs at my heels. They dropped 
 back one after the other, all but the bloodhounds : 
 but when I pulled Beelzebub up at Davenport's finally, 
 I had to acknowledge that old Lige had come out 
 ahead." 
 
 Old Harvey will tell stories of that kind on himself, 
 but he never reminds any one of the countless ser- 
 vices he rendered to the county or to individual citi- 
 zens in the days of his power and prosperity. But 
 there are many such stories extant. When the war 
 came and the whole social system was shaken to its 
 center, Joel Harvey was put at the head of a vigilance 
 committee. People said he would know best how to 
 act and there would never be any danger of his judg- 
 ment being swept away by passion. No higher trust 
 has ever been reposed in him'than the men of his neigh- 
 borhood reposed when they went away to the army 
 
30^ ''OLD HARVEY!'' 
 
 saying : " Look after my people, Joel." He was one 
 of the men who showed their heroism by not going to 
 the army, though he had no such cruel ordeal to go 
 through with as Davenport had. He was an acknowl- 
 edged authority, so far as any authority was acknowl- 
 edged, and he and Beelzebub were to be seen at any 
 hour of the day, or the night either, if there was a whis- 
 per of danger or disorder on any of the plantations 
 within his reach. 
 
 It was while he was Regulator that Joel Harvey 
 made what he calls his " narrow escape." It was an 
 escape from matrimony. He has encountered almost 
 every sort of peril at one and another time of his life, 
 but he still declares that the Widow Mason came nearer 
 vanquishing him completely than any thing else of 
 earthly mold ever has. 
 
 Although the office of Sheriff was virtually extinct 
 for the time being, he still occupied the room in the 
 ground floor of the Court-house on whose door in gold 
 letters on a panel of black tin were the imposing words 
 *' Sheriff's Office." The court-room proper was imme- 
 diately over his head, but he seldom penetrated there 
 now. It had fallen into the hands of the Ladies' Sew- 
 ing Society, which had taken out a contract, seemingly, 
 to clothe the entire Confederate Army with jackets 
 and trowsers and shirts made out of all sorts of mate- 
 rial, from brocatelle window-curtains down to bed- 
 ticking, and with a violent departure from all the es- 
 tablished canons of tailoring. Box after box of these 
 hastily and patriotically constructed garments Sheriff 
 Harvey had been called upon to ship for them. Ship- 
 ping a thing in those days was fraught with difficulties 
 
'' OLD HARVEY:' 309 
 
 and uncertainties tliat border on the incomprehensible 
 in these days. So, whenever the sheriff was requested 
 to come up-stairs to where all the matrons and maid- 
 ens of the town were sewing, and snipping, and fold- 
 ing, and packing, it was a foregone conclusion that 
 there was another box for him to ship to the victims 
 of all this unskilled labor. 
 
 The Widow Mason was up there on one of these 
 occasions, not sewing, nor cutting, nor folding, nor 
 packing, simply crying quietly in one corner and pour- 
 ing her woes out into the ears of the only woman who 
 seemed to have time to listen to her. This was Mrs. 
 Judge Baker, but she too turned a deaf ear on the 
 little woman when Sheriff Harvey's head loomed above 
 the chattering crowd and hurried forward to give him 
 minute directions about the shipping of the box to the 
 Redfield Rifles in Richmond. Mrs. Baker was the 
 President of the Society. 
 
 *^ Poor child," she said, nodding her head back- 
 wards toward the Widow Mason, " she's in a pucker. 
 So afraid the cotton-burners will find her cotton that's 
 hidden out in the woods. She says she made Demp- 
 sey, her driver, mad this morning ; refused to let him 
 have coffee three times a day, I believe, and he helped 
 hide the cotton, and she is sure he will tell. He's 
 already threatened to show it to them the next time 
 they visit the neighborhood." 
 
 Joel Harvey made no comment, but that night 
 a skiff shot across the river at a point considered 
 quite safe from molestation from the gunboat, and 
 lying in the bottom of it was a man with his hands 
 tied behind him and a bandage over his eyes. He 
 
3IO " OLD HARVEY r 
 
 was untied and turned loose in the woods on the 
 opposite side and advised to go to Vicksburg without 
 delay. The next day Joel drove out to the Widow 
 Mason's, sitting on the front of a wagon. There were 
 two men with him. They had come to move the 
 Widow Mason's cotton to another spot in the dense 
 forest that surrounded her place, so that in case 
 Dempsey concluded to return instead of going to 
 Vicksburg, as he had been advised, his information to 
 the cotton-burners would be worthless. 
 
 The Widow Mason would have gladly rewarded the 
 handsome sheriff for his zeal in her behalf by marry- 
 ing him. Widows have a way of making their inten- 
 tions palpable without detracting from their fascina- 
 tions. Old Harvey is of the opinion to this day that 
 if the Marine Brigade had not raided the town just 
 about that time and carried him off a prisoner, Mrs. 
 Mason would have been Mrs. Harvey, and he would 
 have been nobody. 
 
 He considers that the brigade was an instrument 
 in the hands of Providence for that occasion only. 
 They really did not want him, but to quote old 
 Harvey himself once more, " they had gotten so used 
 to picking up valuables wherever they landed, that, 
 having exhausted the other movables, they took him, 
 meaning to return and get the Court-house next 
 time." But having taken him, and really not know- 
 ing what to do with him, they forwarded him from 
 hand to hand until he found himself at Alton Prison. 
 There were a lot of fellows there that he knew, 
 men who had been captured as scouts on the bat- 
 tlefield, men who had been picked up by the way- 
 
" OLD HARVEVr 31 1 
 
 side sick and worn. They were hungry and gaunt, 
 and woe-worn and heart-sick. Harvey says he hung 
 his head before them for very shame, because he was 
 neither hungry, nor gaunt, nor heart-sick, nor woe- 
 worn. But he did the only thing he could do for 
 them, sold his gold watch, and added materially to 
 their comfort. 
 
 He has never suffered much from that mysterious 
 malady called heart-sickness. Old Harvey has always 
 been an optimist. When the war first broke out, 
 although he was not an original secessionist, he held 
 himself in readiness to do whatever should be assigned 
 him to do. He was quite sure it was all for the best. 
 The conflict was irrepressible, and he rather rejoiced 
 to think it would be over and done with during the 
 years when he could lend most practical service. 
 
 He was a fatalist in his way, and the fatalist has an 
 inward source of serenity that stands him in good 
 stead in disjointed times. When Vicksburg fell, of 
 course Harvey was not glad of it ; but it was really 
 merely a question of time when it must surrender, 
 and just think of the numberless precious lives saved 
 by the cessation of hostilities. When women com- 
 plained in his presence (and there were so few avail- 
 able men to whom they could complain in those days, 
 that the Regulator had to hear a good many wails) of 
 the numberless hardships the war had entailed, lie 
 aroused them to a very ambitious pitch by his absolute 
 rejoicing over the fact that now the resources of the 
 South must be developed, and this war was going to 
 prove in the long end a great blessing to them all. It 
 made not the least difference that the majority of his 
 
312 ''OLD HARVEVr 
 
 cheerful prophecies came to naught. They had a good 
 effect for the time, and Mrs. Judge Baker declares if 
 it had not been for Harvey's remaining at home during 
 the war, the women would all either have gone mad or 
 died of the blues. Old Harvey can never be brought 
 to see himself in the light of a benefactor, past or 
 present. He considers his war record something to 
 be very much ashamed of, and says his special reason 
 for rejoicing in his old bachelorhood is because he 
 will never be called on to define his position during 
 that great crisis to any child of his for his own con- 
 fusion. 
 
 Some few of the men, but none of the women, in 
 the county know what is old Harvey's especial claim to 
 the almost reverential consideration shown him by the 
 older men. When he was Regulator he had a way of 
 finding out things that passed ordinary penetration. 
 It was at the time when the fewest number of white 
 men were left in the county, and the greatest degree 
 of dissatisfaction was^rife among the bewildered creat- 
 ures who had been thrown upon their own resources 
 with a frightful suddenness, that dark whispers of dia- 
 bolical plans for securing to themselves the homes and 
 possessions of the men who were absent fighting to 
 retain them in slavery, came to the Regulator's ears. 
 
 One by one the ringleaders of the plot disappeared 
 with a suddenness and a completeness that filled 
 the minds of their followers with superstitious ter- 
 ror. The most perfect good feeling was soon re- 
 stored between the races, and the whispers died 
 away. When somebody asked him confidentially after 
 the war (for this episode still remains something 
 
" OLD HARVEVr 3I3 
 
 of a secret) how he managed about ''them " while he 
 was a prisoner, he told how Wailes helped him. 
 
 Wailes is as black as ebony. The sheriff bought 
 him, a runaway, from a harsh master, and made him his 
 own body-servant. Wailes alone knew of the subterra- 
 nean prison under the Court-house, where the three 
 ringleaders against the peace of the county were in- 
 carcerated during one year of the war. It was to him 
 the sheriff relinquished the key, and upon him de- 
 volved the care of them when the brigade carried 
 Harvey off. '' I knew I could trust Wailes," he always 
 says, but hedoes not like much to talk about it. Wailes 
 is his devoted slave to this day, and he and old Harvey 
 alone know that the sleek-looking porter in Daven- 
 port's store is one of his incarcerated conspirators, the 
 jolly, well-paid engineer in the Widow Mason's gin- 
 house another, and the janitor of the new law offices, 
 of which the town is so justly proud, a third. Old 
 Harvey has been mainly instrumental in securing them 
 these positions, and they all three adore him. 
 
 No, old Harvey has nothing especial to be proud 
 of. He is very poor now. He is too old to hold office, 
 even if he could be elected to it, and he has led the 
 veriest grasshopper's life, so far as looking out for 
 number one goes ; but he does not seem to be much 
 more concerned about number one now than he did 
 in the days when he and Beelzebub regulated the 
 county, nor will he ever be. Grasshoppers will be 
 gra,^?»hoppers. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 TONY S WHITE ANGEL. 
 
 PERHAPS if Tony had been given any choice in 
 the matter, he would not have chosen to be 
 born free, at a time when the pains and penalties at- 
 taching to that condition so far outweighed its facti- 
 tious advantages. ^' Freedom " is a word of a fine 
 resonant sound, but as Tony was born minus those 
 innate cravings for Uberty that we read so much about,, 
 his personal experience has inclined him to underrate 
 rather than to overrate that abstract good. Lindy and 
 he are much given to drawing unfavorable compari- 
 sons between their own estate and that of the colored 
 folks who inherited owners. 
 
 Were much given, rather, for since the Emanci- 
 pation Proclamation has deprived the objects of their 
 envy of their superior rights and privileges, and they 
 find the boat they are in crowded with those who 
 have to shift for themselves, just as Tony and Lindy 
 have been doing always, they hold their heads more 
 erect and have lost something of that apologetic aspect 
 which made them seem always to be deprecating 
 existence. 
 
 Lindy is Tony's wife, and has periodically added 
 to his sense of the burdensome by increasing his cares 
 
TONY'S WHITE ANGEL. 315 
 
 as a family man until his quiver is o'er full. Which 
 is another boon he does not seem at all grateful for. 
 Lindy has social aspirations which Tony and circum- 
 stances together combined to repress on all occasions. 
 She expends a good deal of time and ingenuity invent- 
 ing excuses for expeditions ^' up to the Co'nel's." 
 Now it is a bucket of soft-soap that she wants to trade 
 off for flour or " 'lasses," again, an exchange of water- 
 melon seeds, of which fruit she claims the very best 
 variety. But the soft-soap trade and the exchange of 
 watermelon seeds are but subterfuges behind which 
 lurks her '' hanker " for a talk with Aunt Betsy about 
 the coming " distracted meetin'," or something of the 
 sort. 
 
 Aunt Betsy is the cook at the Colonel's and all 
 the essences of all the good dinners she has ever 
 cooked seem to have been absorbed into her ample 
 personality, making of her, by some process of alchemy 
 unknown to science, the very round and jolly and 
 comfortable mortal she is. She treats Tony's '' folks," 
 whenever accident brings them into her presence, with 
 a sort of condescension that goes well with her tower- 
 ing turban and imposing figure. Her sympathy not 
 infrequently finds substantial expression in " broken 
 vittles " and in tin cans full of coffee grounds that she 
 has saved up for them. So, when Tony fishes out of 
 the tin pail, where Lindy has put his dinner to keep it 
 from the children and the flies, a wing of turkey or a 
 section of cold mince pie that certainly never origi- 
 nated in his own larder, he knows that his wife has 
 been up to the Colonel's. 
 
 It never occurs to either of them to resent 
 
o 
 
 16 TOA^rS IV 11 17' E ANGEL. 
 
 patronage from such a source as Aunt Betsy. 
 The advantages of life are so manifestly on the 
 side of the Colonel's cook that the palm of per- 
 sonal superiority is meekly accorded her, and Lindy 
 holds herself in readiness to accommodate her potent 
 friend to any extent. She frequently sends little pro- 
 pitiatory, or rather votive, offerings, up to the cabin in 
 the Colonel's quarters, where Aunt Betsy reigns 
 unofficially after dark ; such as a braided mat, for 
 which she has been saving rags for years, or a lot of 
 the balsam apples she raises so successfully. 
 
 Personally Tony is not a striking figure. He is long 
 and lank and loose jointed. He is narrow-chested 
 and has burning black eyes set far back in cavernous 
 sockets. He is a '' griff," which means that he is 
 neither black nor white nor brown. He suggests the 
 idea of having been spoiled in the bleaching. Perhaps 
 this is partially due to lack of nourishment, for Tony 
 and his folks do not live on the fat of the land. The 
 little darkies call him the " Kunger man," and stand in 
 unnecessary awe of him. This is due undoubtedly to 
 the fact that the mystery enveloping Tony's birth has 
 never been solved, and the present generation has 
 absorbed among its traditions the queer stories that 
 got afloat about him long before they saw the light. 
 It was generally understood that he was the son of 
 crazy Margaret, who used to wander about the coun- 
 try bareheaded and barefooted, alike oblivious to heat 
 or cold, rain or drought, until her hair was burned red 
 by exposure and her skin was like tanned leather. 
 Crazy Margaret would come to the cabin windows or 
 doors whenever the pangs of hunger made her seek the 
 
TONY'S WHITE ANGEL. 317 
 
 face of man, and looked wistfully in, like a starved 
 dog. She was an object of superstitious terror to all 
 the negroes in the country. Packages of food and 
 articles of clothing were placed on shelves outside of 
 cabins for her convenience, and that conscience must 
 be seared indeed that would permit any tampering 
 with the supplies meant for crazy Margaret. She was 
 found dead one day in the lint room of the Sellers' 
 gin, and sitting by her side on the floor, crying from 
 fright or from hunger, was a three-year-old boy. That 
 was the first any body ever knew about Tony. 
 
 The manner of his introduction was uncanny, and 
 the effect of it upon the people of his o\n\\ color was 
 characteristic. He had come to them as a sort of 
 undesirable legacy from crazy Margaret, and Death 
 was her executor. They were afraid not, to keep life 
 in the small, pinched body of the child, for fear of 
 vengeance overtaking them through the medium of her 
 disembodied spirit. Tony, entirely unconscious of 
 his own power, had but to raise those solemn eyes of 
 his to the face of man, woman, or child to insure im- 
 mediate attention to his bodily needs. 
 
 The tenacity of the vital spark in bodies for 
 which no one cares is a phenomenon of frequent 
 observation. Tony throve like a stray cur upon 
 the bones and crusts flung at him by indifferent 
 hands. When he got big enough to pick cotton 
 he was promoted from the ranks of the stray curs 
 to that of the beasts of burden, and old clothes 
 were added to the crusts which had previously 
 constituted his chief emolument. No one ever had 
 occasion to imagine that Tony wasted speculation on 
 
3i8 TOA'Y'S WHITE ANGEL. 
 
 the hardships or the pecuHarities of his own condition, 
 but he was of a silent turn, and before he was well out 
 of his 'teens the colored people had settled in their 
 own minds that he was in close communion with Old 
 Nick, whenever one of his dumb spells came over him. 
 
 Some Texas travelers camped out in the woods 
 near town one night, when Tony was about eighteen 
 years old, and he was sent out to the camp by the 
 woman who had a one year's lease of him, with but- 
 ter-milk to sell. That was the last that was seen of 
 him for three years. One day the husband of Tony's 
 defrauded lessee went to town with a load of cotton, 
 and brought back the astonishing information that 
 Tony was living in town and that he had a wife ! 
 His story was received with scoffing incredulity until 
 corroborated by more than half-a-dozen witnesses. 
 One of these testified that crazy Margaret's boy 
 was living in the old cow-shed on the Myers' place, 
 and worked the Myers' garden for house rent. 
 Another, that his wife was a peaked-lookin' critter 
 that went out scrubbin' w'en any body wanted scrub- 
 bin', en' staid at home to help Tony in the Myers' 
 garden when they didn't. Another, that Tony had 
 become a '' brag " fiddler and was " givin' it out " 
 that if the folks wanted him to fiddle for 'em of Sat- 
 urday nights, he would do it for four bits a night. 
 
 Curiosity was rife for a little while as to how Tony 
 and his wife were going to keep soul and body to- 
 gether, but he was a man now, and the owner of a 
 wife and a fiddle. Such an equipment ought to be 
 sufficient to launch any man successfully upon life's 
 troubled waters, so, considering their obligations to 
 
TONYS WHITE ANGEL. 3^9 
 
 the spirit of crazy Margaret canceled by his volun- 
 tary departure from among them, they washed their 
 hands of him. 
 
 The home in which Tony and Lindy began life was 
 not an abode of luxury. Once upon a time Judge 
 Myers, in a moment of bucolic indiscretion, had de- 
 termined " to keep Alderneys," and having imported 
 a fine young heifer, with mild, shy eyes, he luxuriated 
 in imagination, for a brief while, in such cream as had 
 never before blessed the local palate. No one ever 
 thought of such a thing as sheltering cows in that 
 mild climate, but an Alderney was a different thing, 
 and the Judge built a house for the distinguished for- 
 eigner and cooped her up in it, very much as he 
 would have cooped a mammoth canary, rendering life 
 such a burden to the poor thing that she contrived to 
 hang herself with her halter. After that the cow- 
 house was tenantless until Tony applied for it, prom- 
 ising to keep the Judge's garden in order by way 
 of rent. 
 
 The Judge's garden was kept in passable order, 
 but Lindy's turbaned head was seen stooping over the 
 growing lettuce or pease more often than Tony's. 
 Tony's fiddle seemed to get in the way of his useful- 
 ness. And not infrequently the plaintive melodies to 
 which he ga.ve preference when playing for his own 
 solace, floated out upon the air at the hours of the 
 day when most men are presumed to be absorbed in 
 the arduous duty of bread-winning. Tony's habit 
 was to lounge into town of early mornings and place 
 himself where any one in need of a whitewasher 
 might possibly see him and engage him. Or, if he 
 
320 7V.VV'S WHITE ANGEL. 
 
 saw a load of wood freshly dumped down before a 
 door, he would make application for the privilege of 
 Gutting it into handy shape and flinging it into the 
 back yard. Or, if it was midsummer, and the cisterns 
 were all giving out, he could earn a few dimes by beg- 
 ging an empty pork barrel, knocking a rough sled 
 together, borrowing a mule, and hauling water from 
 the Long Pond to the different households. It was a 
 sort of a hand-to-mouth existence, and the hand fre- 
 quently went to the mouth with very slender offer- 
 ings ; but what could a '' free nigger " do ? Even the 
 town people ovv^ned their own servants, and Tony and 
 Lindy were forlorn outsiders. 
 
 Lindy made some pathetic efforts at first to beau- 
 tify the cow-house, but that was before the pickanin- 
 nies began to come so rapidly. She and Tony 
 knocked up some dry-goods boxes and empty barrels, 
 and made what they called " furntcher," and she 
 planted some prince's feather and zinnias on either 
 side of the door, but the pigs of the neighborhood, 
 mindful of the reckless quantity of corn that used to 
 be fed to that ill-fated Alderney, had grown attached 
 to the spot, and persisted in rooting them up, un- 
 til Lindy's aesthetic yearnings were completely 
 crushed. 
 
 Sometimes the people at the tavern would get 
 behindhand when court was in session, and send for 
 her to do chores or help in the kitchen. Those were 
 Tony's white days. He knew she would come back 
 with ample provision for a superior supper, and he 
 could fiddle all day, sitting out under the sweet-gum 
 tree at the back of the cow-house, without any of 
 
TONY'S WHITE ANGEL. 32 1 
 
 those sharp reprimands for his "triflingness " which 
 Lindy flung at him in moments of exasperation. 
 
 Lindy was not the only one who regarded Tony's 
 fiddling propensities with disapprobation. The doc- 
 tor, driving in from the country, hot, and worried, 
 and anxious about his '' case," passing close by the 
 sweet-gum tree, that grew just off the road, would 
 swear mildly as the first plaintive notes of Tony's 
 fiddle reached his ears, pronouncing it a blanked 
 " shame that Myers should shelter that vagrant, in- 
 stead of helping to rid the county of him." The 
 Judge's wife, missing her imported Plymouth Rock 
 cock one day, and a lot of ''broilers" the next, and 
 bitterly conscious of a steady depletion in the ranks 
 of her poultry, declared in tones of conviction that 
 it was " nobody but that fiddling free darkey down 
 there in the hollow, stealing them." But as there was 
 never even a feather discovered in the neighborhood of 
 the cow-house, and Tony and Lindy certainly did not 
 look as if they ate much broiled chicken, there was 
 no ground for action. 
 
 Tony made a dollar and a half once in a single 
 night, and this sudden influx of prosperity had an 
 appreciable effect upon his bearing for a whole week 
 afterward. The occasion was a wedding in high 
 life. The groom himself made application for Tony 
 and his fiddle, or, as Mrs. Tony sarcastically put it, 
 for " de fiddle and Tony." Lindy's outburst of irony 
 on this occasion was caused by her not being included 
 in the invitation to the wedding. Tony was a neces- 
 sity, but she, being in a low condition of society, with- 
 out the open sesame of a fiddle, could not be in- 
 
32 2 7ViVY'S WHITE ANGEL. 
 
 eluded in a list of invitations that recognized the 
 retainers of F. F. V.'s exclusively. The groom-elect 
 found Tony sitting on an inverted mackerel kit in the 
 back door of the cow-house, extracting the most 
 soothing and nerve-quieting strains from his violin 
 for the benefit of Lindy, who was rasping the family 
 wearing apparel over the face of an exceedingly 
 rough washboard. The suds flew from her vigorous 
 fists in great snowy flecks, smiting Tony in the eyes 
 and on the cheeks occasionallv, which necessitated a 
 break in the melody while he applied a very ragged 
 shirt sleeve to the wet spot, but produced no more 
 violent protest. 
 
 '' Fse come to gi'e you a fus'-class job, ol' man." 
 Thus the groom-elect, looking down patronizingly 
 upon the musician on the mackerel kit. 
 
 Tony laid his violin across his knee, and looked 
 up at him. Lindy, catching the word " job," flung the 
 suds from her arms and came forward, wiping her 
 hands on her blue-checked apron. 
 
 '' I'se gwine to be married t'night," the gentleman 
 from the big house continued, thrusting his hands into 
 his trowsers pockets, " en Mars Jimmie, he say he 
 don' wan' no quarter nigger doin's 'bout it " (Mars 
 Jimmie was the Colonel's oldest son, home from 
 Yale only a little while, and this was Lem, his body 
 servant, who drove those spanking grays, and sat in 
 the buggy so patiently while Mars Jimmie was 
 " sparking " the doctor's daughter). " I'se gwine t' be 
 j'ined in de ban's uv holy wedlock to Miss Marfy 
 Ann. She waits on ol' Miss, and Mars Jimmie say he 
 gwine see it done up in style. I come to 'gage you to 
 
TOjVV'S WIIirE ANGEL. 323 
 
 play for us. We gwine to be married in de big house 
 hall." 
 
 Tony stood up respectfully and glanced down at 
 his tatters. Then he looked anxiously toward Lindy. 
 But Lindy was just then wondering if it would have 
 " hurted " Aunt Betsy to send her " a invite " too. 
 Marfy Ann, she knew, was Aunt Betsy's daughter. 
 " I mout 'a' holped some wid de supper," she thought 
 bitterly. 
 
 " I ain' skursely fitt'n to fiddle at de big house, 
 Lem," Tony says finally. " I mout git laughed at by 
 de folks." 
 
 " Is dem de bes' duds you got ? " Lem asks frankly, 
 placidly surveying Tony from head to foot. 
 
 ^'De ve'y bes'." 
 
 " Then I 'lows I'll hafter sen' you some down. 
 You don' hafter go to de big house. We gwine 
 t' dance in de crib, but I don' wan' no sech buzzard 
 fiddlin' at my weddin'. Mars Jimmie say it all got to 
 be firs'-class." 
 
 There was no resentment in Tony's heart at this 
 candid slur upon his personal appearance. Lem was 
 privileged. He belonged to the first white people in 
 the county, and Tony had the misfortune to belong to 
 nobody at all. Lem sent him the promised suit of 
 clothes, and the combined influence of being well 
 dressed and well fed told so happily upon the inner 
 man that he played as no one had ever heard him 
 play, and Mars Jimmie, coming up from the big house 
 with a company of visitors to see how the " break- 
 down" was progressing, himself handed him the dollar 
 and a half to which he dated back lonor afterward. 
 
324 TONrs WHITE ANGEL. 
 
 But it was that summer when the cholera broke out 
 that Tony and Lindy realized the full bitterness 
 of belonging to no one. This fell disease always 
 attacks their race with peculiar virulence. Their 
 habits invite it. The plantations were deserted. 
 Owners, careful of their properly, moved their slaves 
 out by the wagon-loads to the sweet, pure woods, 
 where they formed encampments and lived like 
 nomads in tents, and were fed and cared for, and 
 took no more thought of the morrow than the lilies 
 of the field. Only Tony and Tind}^ stayed on in the 
 old cow-house, with no one to care much what became 
 of them. When it got out that one of Tony's boys 
 was " down," the doctor, going his rounds, stopped 
 his buggy under the sweet-gum, got out, and going in, 
 ministered to the small sufferer, supplying medicines 
 from his leather case, and giving Lind)^ minute direc- 
 tions about the care and diet of the family ; but the 
 doctor was doing the work of ten men just then and 
 could not stay very long. 
 
 Another one of the boys was taken that night, and 
 then Tony, and then Lindy. It was gloomy times at 
 the cow-house. Tony never had made much of an 
 outcry against fate, and he didn't now. The cow-house 
 door stood open day and night. The pigs walked in 
 occasionall}'', stood with their heads raised inquiringly, 
 sniffed at the baby in the cradle, where the flies 
 swarmed thickest, and walked out disgustedly. Tony's 
 fiddle was laid up on the joist over the door. It was 
 very silent about the cabin, and it grew dark down 
 there on the ^^<gQ of the woods very fast. There were 
 long black vistas stretching away from behind the 
 
TONY'S WHITE ANGEL. 325 
 
 svveet-guQi into the thick forests that belonged to the 
 Myers place. It was on the second deiy after Tony 
 and Lindy had both been stricken, and he was lying 
 there wondering dismally who would be " down " next, 
 that he saw an angel coming toward him along this 
 dark woodland path. It moved forward swiftly and 
 quietly until it stood on the threshold of the cow-house. 
 Its raiment was pure white, and its eyes shone with a 
 starry radiance as they tried to pierce the gloom of 
 the cabin. The angel seemed to halt with a very 
 human reluctance, and then it sent a sweet human 
 voice ahead of it to ask : 
 
 " Tony and Lindy, are you in here ? " 
 
 " Yessum," Tony answered almost in a whisper, for 
 it might be the Angel of Death come to take him and 
 Lindy and the little ones to a land where there was 
 neither bond nor free, and he shouldn't like to lose 
 any chance of getting to a better place. But it was 
 only the Angel of Pity, and there, just behind her, 
 was Aunt Betsy. He had not noticed at first any thing 
 but tlirc White Angel coming toward him out of the 
 shadows. Aunt Betsy put down a heavy basket just 
 inside the door, and scratching a match against the 
 side of the cabin, she applied it to a candle she had 
 brought with her. The White Angel uttered a little 
 groan when the feeble illumination showed her the 
 state of affairs, and Aunt Betsy said curtly : 
 
 " I tol' you you couldn' stan' it, Missy," and Tony 
 discovered then that it was " Missy " from the big 
 house. 
 
 Tony and Lindy had never had any grudge against 
 '' w'ite folks." They had never even speculated upon 
 
326 TO.VY'S WHITE ANGEL. 
 
 the injustice of Fate in failing to supply them with 
 w'ite folks of their own ; but now for the first time 
 they tasted the sweets of being cared for and looked 
 after as if they were of some importance in God's 
 great universe, and, ignominious to relate, they would 
 gladly have bartered their birthright of liberty for the 
 messes of pottage brought by Aunt Betsy from the 
 big house, or for the delightful sensation of being 
 ordered about by Missy. 
 
 Of course Tony and Lindy did not die. There was 
 no especial point in keeping them alive, but Missy's 
 sympathies having been enlisted by Aunt Betsy's 
 representations, the people at the cow-house became 
 a sort of hobby with her, and they never lacked a 
 patron saint after that cholera summer. 
 
 Long after Tony had taken up the old fiddling life, 
 with occasional interruptions in the way of jobs, he 
 used to wonder if there wasn't something he could do 
 for " Missy " by way of showing the gratitude that 
 thrilled every fiber of his gaunt frame. But there is 
 so little the worshiping devotee can do for his patron 
 saint. Tony never cut down a bee-tree in the woods 
 but the whitest of the comb was saved for Missy, and 
 when he chanced to kill a blue heron he plucked the 
 soft downy plumes out with infinite care for her 
 adorning ; but all this was inadequate. He longed 
 to do something for Missy that she could remember 
 always, as he must always remember the night when 
 she came toward his cabin from the gloom and dark- 
 ness and shed a radiance all around about his miser- 
 able home. 
 
 After many days Tony's chance came to him. It 
 
TONYS WHITE ANGEL. ' 327 
 
 came to him early in the days when every body was 
 free, and the stigma of " free nigger " was removed 
 from him and Lindy, and other folks had to scramble 
 a good deal as they had always done. There was a 
 certain sort of balm in it all. 
 
 or Miss lay dying. There was no men-folks up at 
 the big house then. The Colonel and Mars' Jimmie 
 were fighting in the neighborhood of Richmond. 
 There were plenty of men in town, but they all wore 
 the blue uniform of the liberators. Tony reaped 
 something of a harvest in those garrison days. The 
 men liked to hear him play, and as he had always 
 been free, they liked to question him. He was not 
 under the bondage of fear that sealed the old slaves' 
 lips. He picked up a good many dimes from them, 
 which helped to make things more comfortable, and 
 he picked up something else. He picked up a secret 
 which he kept to himself dumbly. 
 
 or Miss lay dying, up at the big house, and " Missy" 
 was in sore straits. Aunt Betsy clung to her but 
 nobody else. The men down at the barracks said 
 they were going to search the house for arms, one 
 night, " sick woman or no sick woman." Tony heard 
 it. There was no use hiding things from him. 
 
 The rain began to fall that night in that slow, steady, 
 dismal fashion so trying to the strongest nerves. It 
 fell on the shingle roof of the big house with a sullen 
 patter, it dripped from the mossy eaves to the violet 
 borders around the gallery with a dreary regularity 
 that sounded like stealthy footsteps, it rustled in the 
 leaves of the rose-bushes with ghostly whisperings. 
 There were no lights in the big house, only a faint 
 
o 
 
 28 TOA'V'S WHITE ANGEL, 
 
 glimmer from the lamp sitting on the floor behind the 
 washstand in Ol' Miss's room. Aunt Betsy sat wide 
 awake in a chair by the bed. There was nothing for 
 her to do but to wait. Missy stole from the room 
 out upon the gallery in restless misery. The scent of 
 the damp earth greeted her, mingled with the heavy 
 perfume of cape jessamines and honeysuckles. She 
 heard the soft patter of the rain on the violet beds, 
 and then she heard something else — a slow, steady, 
 stealthy foot-fall. She placed herself behind one of 
 the big pillars and listened with bated breath. It was 
 too dark to see any thing. It came nearer ; it reached 
 the corner of the violet beds ; now it was at the front 
 steps. Whoever it he was, was coming in — no, he had 
 passed on. Presently the foot-fall sounded again, just 
 where she had at first heard it. The clouds parted 
 suddenly to let the full moon shed its light upon a 
 tall form wrapped in a blue overcoat. The same 
 moon-beam revealed Missy, white, wan, and alert with 
 terror. 
 
 " Missy ! " The call came to her softly, but she 
 was afraid to answer. Then the man in the uniform 
 came close to the pillar against which she was leaning 
 for support. It was Tony. 
 
 '' Missy," he said, '' don't be skeered. Tony's got 
 a gun here, and he jis' 'lowed he'd loaf roun' to see 
 nobody didn't pester you t'night. I's gwine to play 
 patterole, honey, so you kin git a good night's res'. 
 You kin trus' Tony, Missy." 
 
 She thanked him with tears in her voice, and went 
 back to the room where Aunt Betsy was watching and 
 or Miss was waiting. 
 
TONY'S WHITE ANGEL. 329 
 
 Nobody ever knew where Tony got that Federal 
 uniform and that gun — stole them most probably. 
 Nobody ever knew that it answered his purpose by 
 '* scaring " away the men who meant to search the 
 big house that night. Nobody ever knew that it was 
 Tony who, representing Missy's case at head-quarters 
 the next morning, secured her against molestation. 
 But he succeeded in doing something she remembered 
 all the days of her life. That was all he asked. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 MISS FLO's HARVEST. 
 
 WHEN Marshall, the hostler on the Colonel's hill 
 place, is seen walking toward the stables of 
 mornings with his head drooped dejectedly and his 
 brawny arms folded across his chest, while his jolly 
 round face is lengthened to its utmost capacity, some- 
 what as if he were following an invisible hearse con- 
 taining the remains of his best friend, and abstractedly 
 grooms the carriage horses with the back of a brush 
 to a hymn in slow meter : when Uncle Reuben lays 
 down the garden-line he has prepared to stretch 
 across the cabbage bed, where he is about to set out 
 the young plants with geometrical precision, for the 
 sole purpose of jumping over the garden-fence to 
 inflict condign punishment upon Sam for whistling 
 '' Captain Jinks " as he drives the calves to water : 
 when breakfast gets a little later every morning, and 
 Aunt Minervy grinds the coffee solemnly to the tune 
 of " Satan's waitin', yes, a-waitin' fur my soul," and 
 displays a disposition to soar above such groveling 
 details as pin-feathers in the broiled chickens, or a 
 reckless quantity of soda in the biscuit : when 'Mandy 
 leaves the scrubbing-mop and her bucket of soft-soap 
 in the middle of the big house hall, while she runs 
 down to the front gate to tell '' Sis Santhy " about 
 
MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 331 
 
 Vance's seeing the devil in his cotton-row yesterday 
 in the shape of a white rabbit, with whom he held fear- 
 less and defiant converse : when Aunt Rosetta tune- 
 fully requests the Angel of Death to come on his 
 milk-white " speed " and take her up to glory, with 
 exalted indifference to the fate of the milk she is dis- 
 tributing impartially between the piggin and the 
 ground it rests on ; then the people at the big 
 house know that protracted meeting is at hand, and 
 Miss Flo's eyes begin to glow with a mild species of 
 acquisitiveness. 
 
 The time of her annual harvest is approaching, and 
 needs must that she should gather it very closely. It 
 is not precisely a harvesting after her own heart ; it 
 is rather the hasty snatching of a few grains of com- 
 pensation from many bushels of discomfort. Miss Flo 
 has learned to appreciate the day of small things ; and 
 when, by token of all the infallible signs here given, 
 she knows that protracted meeting is at hand, and will 
 certainly culminate in a big baptizing in the creek 
 that runs musically and merrily over its pebbly 
 bottom through the place to meet the river, she 
 judiciously casts about in her mind's eye to decide 
 what more she can dispense with from her private 
 wardrobe and to overhaul the fashion-books. 
 
 Miss Flo's feelings at the approach of this solemn fes- 
 tival are by no means unmixed. She has never gotten 
 over that trick of flushing redly whenever one of the 
 ladies from the quarters expresses serious dissatisfac- 
 tion with her method of draping and fitting, and she 
 takes herself roundly to task for objecting to the dis- 
 comfort of having people ride over from other plan- 
 
332 MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 
 
 tations with their purchases of dry goods tied up in 
 bandanna handkerchiefs to inquire if she can make a 
 " coat " within the prescribed limits of their time and 
 purse. She takes herself to task because, having 
 deliberately concluded that this was her only way of 
 escaping dependence, she can't see why she must 
 wince afresh at every bargain she drives. 
 
 Miss Flo is the Colonel's sister, and lives at the hill 
 place with him. Before the war she owned slaves, but 
 no land. The Colonel worked her slaves and paid her 
 hire for them. In those days life was a very pleasant 
 thing, filled up with easy-going, lady-like concerns 
 that involved a leisurely amount of reading and riding 
 and visiting and being visited, and flower culture, and 
 so on. People used to say Miss Flo was indolent. 
 She never could bring herself to do any thing that 
 required decided exertion, whether physical or mental. 
 In the days when she was a slave-owner, and had to 
 take no anxious thought for the morrow, she used to 
 get through with an incredible amount of fancy-work. 
 She had a fixed chair in a fixed corner of the family 
 sitting-room, where she would sit and rock slowly, 
 while she worked on a piece of fine, eye-trying em- 
 broidery for personal decoration or on gorgeous 
 stuffed crewel-work for sofa cushions. Every 
 household in the family connection has a pair of 
 sofa cushions of Miss Flo's embroidering. She was a 
 pleasant and placid fixture in the family circle — one of 
 those admirable organizations that never get out of 
 order, and can be warranted to run (so to speak) with- 
 out needing any regulating for an incredible space of 
 time, 
 
MISS FLO'S HARVEST. VciZ 
 
 That she was still Miss Flo was (or had been at 
 first) a matter of surprise to everybody who knew her. 
 But people had ceased speculating about her long 
 since, for it had been almost an engagement between 
 her and Larry Stacy (whose father's plantation joined 
 the Colonel's) before the war, and every body looked 
 for their marriage when Larry came home, a battle- 
 scarred hero, with only one leg and an ugly red mark 
 across his handsome cheek. But it never came off, 
 and, as time went by, his friends said she had flinched 
 from fulfilling her promise because of that ugly red 
 mark and his wooden leg, and silently pronounced 
 condemnation on her for a '' heartless creature " ; and 
 her friends said Larry Stacy had meant to have stocked 
 the wild lands his father had given him with her 
 negroes, and had no use for her after her riches had 
 taken themselves off, not on the traditional wings that 
 riches are said to be expert in the use of, but on a lot 
 of very sturdy legs ; and they silently pronounced con- 
 demnation on him for a " mercenary wretch " ; and so 
 things had settled themselves on an entirely new 
 basis, Miss Flo becoming more than ever of a fixture 
 in the corner of the family sitting-room, and Larry 
 Stacy gradually becoming absorbed in the manage- 
 ment of the plantation that was his now that his father 
 was dead. 
 
 In the fall of the year, when the frost stripped the 
 leaves from the trees in the pasture land that lay be- 
 tween the two plantations, the two big houses were 
 visible to each other, and often the Colonel and Larry 
 would ride over each other's crops together, or hunt 
 snipe and duck in company, sometimes going back to 
 
334 MISS FL a S HA R VE S T. 
 
 Larry's house to enjoy the fruits of their industry 
 socially ; but it was an understood thing that Larry 
 was never to stop at the Colonel's. Fate had fixed a 
 gulf that time seemed unable to bridge. But very 
 few words had ever been expended on it. 
 
 It was in those early days after the war, when it 
 seemed incumbent upon every one to put his hand to 
 the plow, that Miss Flo began casting about for a 
 plow to put her hand to. She couldn't teach music. 
 There were ten women wanting to teach music for 
 every possible pupil in the country. A school w^as not 
 feasible where miles intervened between every place, 
 and perhaps only one or two children on each planta- 
 tion. The Colonel, in common with all his neighbors, 
 was burdened with debt, and had a large family of his 
 own. She couldn't eat the bread of dependence, even 
 if it was supplied ungrudgingly by a brother's hand. 
 She, who had never earned a cent of money in her life, 
 told herself positively that she '' must earn her own 
 living"; must find her plow. It was during those 
 stringent times that she extracted her first grain of 
 compensation from the bushel of discomfort always 
 entailed by protracted meeting. Aunt Minervy, the 
 Colonel's cook, had unwittingly indicated to Miss Flo 
 the location of her plow ; she had put her hand to it 
 promptly and had never looked back, indeed, had 
 even come to regard the annual return of *' 'stracted 
 meetin' " as a cloud with a very decided silver lining. 
 
 The dress-making and bonnet-trimming business 
 had grown immensely on her hands since that night, 
 when, after she had gone up stairs to her own bed- 
 room, consciously weighed down by the burden of a 
 
MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 335 
 
 fruitless day, there came a tapping at her chamber 
 door, and Aunt Minervy entered, almost filling the 
 dainty little apartment with her huge personality. 
 She looked abashed as she stood before the young 
 lady, twirling the kitchen key a trifle nervously in her 
 shining fingers. Aunt Minervy had been Aunt Min- 
 ervy ever since Miss Flo could remember — capable, 
 kind, black, and jolly. When she had any thing to say 
 to her ''w'ite folks," touching her own concerns, she 
 was given to apologetic prefaces that were apt to prove 
 prolix. On the present occasion it was evident she 
 had an unusual request to prefer, and her preface was 
 proportionately strung out. 
 
 " I'se got frew in de kitchen, honey. Ary yother 
 nigger would 'a jus' slop things over any which-a-way; 
 but Minervy ain' none er dat sort doa dese cert'nly is 
 times uv refreshin' en' I 'lows w'en I wuz scrubbin' off 
 de sheffs t' night dat Br'er Tucker would 'a got frew 
 prayin' fo' I come in sight, but dat make no diffunce 
 to Minervy. I sez, nigger, dirt is dirt, en soap is 
 soap, en Br'er Tucker's pra'r wouldn' set well, honey, 
 ef dem messed up kitchen shelves be'n h'antin' me all 
 frew meetin' ; so den, dat make me say w'at I does 
 say, dese triflin' young ones dat is comin' on ain' 
 wuth de powder it 'ud tek t' blow 'em up wid, 'kase I 
 tol' Milly to scrub dem sheffs whilst I wuz mekin' de 
 col' slaw for you-all's Sunday dinner. I ain't gwine to 
 starve my w'ite folks 'kase 'stracted meetin's gwine 
 on, honey. I 'lowed fo' I step up home to res' my ol' 
 bones some, I'd jus' sorter feel roun' t' see if you kin 
 holp de ol' woman to fix up some fur de baptizin*. 
 Der '11 be a power uv folks yhere nex' Sunday. Dey'll 
 
33^ MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 
 
 jus* swarm lak bees in swarmin' times, en I don' wan' 
 de folks to go back home en say K3^ernil Barker's 
 cook was de Jo Bunkis' critter at de baptizin'. I lef 
 you plenty uv sof gingerbread in de dinin'-room safe, 
 honey. Minervy a'in' forgit w'at her chile like bes'. 
 You see, Miss Flo', folks sorter 'xpects somethin' frum 
 me 'kase my w'ite folks is quality ; en w'en I cuts' a 
 dash, den dey t'inks my w'ite folks is all right, but 
 w'en I 'pears at meetin' lak a w'ip rooster wid he's tail 
 fedders all gone, den dey say folks at xle Kyernil's 
 mus' be runnin' down at de heels. I knows how folks 
 talk, Minervy ain' be'n in dis worl' forty year fur 
 nothin'. You needn' be sparin' wid de light bread 
 t'morrer, honey. I'll set some mo' t' rise in the 
 mornin'." 
 
 A direct inquiry into the nature of Aunt Minervy's 
 immediate wants brought her a little nearer to the un- 
 derlying cause of this visitation. 
 
 *' Well, you see, honey, yo' br'er George, he pays me 
 ten dollars a month fur cookin' fur de w'ite folks. 
 W'at good dat ten dollars do me w'en I twelve mile 
 fum a sto', en nuthin' but a passel uv thievin' young 
 ones t' spen' it fur me ef I don' git ahead uv 'em en 
 spen' it myself ? Den I sez (I wuz thinkin' 'bout it, 
 honey, whilst I was mekin' de floatin'-island fur you t' 
 top off wid t'morrer), why don' you go right-smack up 
 to Miss Flo en tell her ef she'll give you dat black 
 grenadeer coat er hern, wid de gimpure lace on de 
 bas', en her las' summer flat wid de red roses on it, 
 en' a lace scarf t' war roun' yo' neck, en a hoop skyirt, 
 honey, en mebbe a par uv ol' stockin's you don't want 
 ter pester 'bout darnin', dat you'll squar counts dis 
 
MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 337 
 
 month wid Mars George (and sometimes, honey, it do 
 look lak squeezin' blood outen a turnip t' git money 
 out'n our w'ite folks) so I jes' finish fixin' up yo' 
 Sunday's dinner en lock it up in de dinin'-room safe, 
 honey, 'fo' I comes up yhere to ax you would you 
 trade wid me." 
 
 Miss Flo looked at Minervy's generous proportions 
 and thought of the pretty black grenadine she had 
 cherished as one of her most elegant antebellum pos- 
 sessions. The two did not go well together at all. 
 She suggested its insufficient dimensions ; Aunt Min- 
 ervy suggested its possible enlargement. She thought 
 of her brother's perplexed and anxious face whenever 
 pay-day returned, which it seemed to do with cruel 
 frequency, and resolved to " trade." 
 
 And that v/as the beginning of it. Aunt Minerva 
 in the black grenadine had proved a splendid adver- 
 tisement and had been a shining mark for envious ad- 
 miration at the big baptizing, and the colonel had 
 looked so relieved when she told him he didn't need 
 to pay his cook any cash that month, that she felt 
 quite rewarded for the sacrifice of the grenadine with 
 the lace-trimmed basque. 
 
 After that it came to be a tacit understanding that 
 Miss Flo was to be appealed to in all matters of dress 
 and fashion, until, from the original sale of obsolete 
 finery and made-over bonnets, she got to be a dress- 
 maker at first hand, and whenever any body saw a 
 colored lady ambling slowly toward the big house on 
 Pebbly Creek with a well-stuffed bandanna handker- 
 chief swaying from the pommel of her saddle, or filling 
 all the space in front of her, it was safe to predict that 
 
33^ MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 
 
 there was more work on hand for Miss Flo and more 
 gorgeoLisness for the quarters. 
 
 And now " 'stracted meetin' " was again in prog- 
 ress, and another big baptizing was imminent, and the 
 reason Miss Flo's eyes '' glowed with mild acquisitive- 
 ness " was because her exchequer was completely 
 depleted, and she did so very much want to send a 
 flower-list North and get a lot of those wonderful new 
 violets and fuchsias that showed up so marvelously 
 in the cuts in the back of all the periodicals. She had 
 never grown quite accustomed to take orders from 
 her lady patronesses, and a glimpse into her workshop 
 (where bed, and bureau, and table were sometimes 
 piled high with dress goods that frequently suggested 
 the star spangled banner and Dolly Varden all rolled 
 into one), sometimes showed the owner of all this gor- 
 geousness standing in an attitude of deprecating 
 meekness before the statuesque young woman whom 
 fate had assigned her for a mantua-maker. 
 
 The harvest this year promised to be better than on 
 any previous occasion. There had been nothing spe- 
 cial to dampen the hopes of the planters or storekeep- 
 ers ; so credit was easy to obtain and with the reck- 
 less unthrift of the race, the prospect of a year's live- 
 lihood was willingly bartered for the fleeting glory of 
 a barbaric display at the baptizing. It was to take 
 place in Pebbly Creek, so Miss Flo and the Colonel's 
 family must perforce be eye-witnesses of the proceed- 
 ings, as the bridge that spanned the creek just in 
 front of the house made too good- a platform for 
 the exhorters to be overlooked. 
 
 It was on the eve of the momentous day that Miss 
 
MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 339 
 
 Flo was summoned mysteriously from the family circle 
 by a dark upraised hand in the dimly-lighted hall, and a 
 softly uttered " Miss Flo, please, ma'am." She respond- 
 ed promptly, but started slightly as she found her- 
 self face to face with Larry Stacy's body-servant. It 
 was Jeff. She knew him well, for in the old days 
 when Larry used to come over so often in the buggy, 
 sometimes to stay all the evening, at others just to 
 take her for a long, swift, delicious drive through the 
 sweet-scented country roads, Jeff was always on hand, 
 and it had seemed to her then that Jeff's keen black 
 eyes had penetrated the secret that she had much 
 rather had hidden from the eyes of all the world. 
 She seldom saw him now. She had heard that he 
 was true as steel in Larry's time of trouble, and had 
 clung to him as faithfully in his dark days as in his 
 bright ones. Perhaps it was this knowledge that 
 made it easy for her to greet him kindly after that 
 first start of surprise. He retreated before her until 
 he had decoyed her well out of ear-shot of the rest, 
 and then said stammeringly, whirling his old felt hat 
 about nervously the while : 
 
 " Miss Flo, I come to ax a 'commodashun from 
 you. I'se one uv de toters t'morrer at debaptizin', en 
 I 'lowed you could help me to get fixed up. I wants 
 a black coat en a vest, en Mars Larry, you see. Mars 
 Larry's mouty peaked dese days. I kyarn' git into 
 his'n, en' I thought maybe you'd sell me one er de 
 Colonel's, jus' fur ol' time's sake, Miss Flo." 
 
 Miss Flo leaned a trifle heavily on the table in the 
 hall that was littered with the week's accumulation of 
 newspapers and magazines. Her first inclination had 
 
340 MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 
 
 been toward the ludicrous view of Larry Stacy's 
 body-servant coming to her with such a petition. 
 
 The position of "toter" was a time-honored and dig- 
 nified one, decided by lot, only individuals of tried pluck 
 and unquestioned muscle being eligible thereto. 
 'Stracted meetin' and big baptizings were prolific of 
 hysteria. The sisters were much given to shouting 
 themselves into a state of collapse, and the interests 
 of good order demanded that there should always be 
 some four or five muscular " toters " detailed to bear 
 the wriggling, squirming, kicking, moaning mass of 
 humanity into the receiving room prepared for the 
 sufferers. The lot had fallen upon Jeff this time, and 
 he was minded to do himself credit. He and the 
 Colonel were so exactly of one size that it had occurred 
 to him that Miss Flo's intercession in his behalf was 
 all that would be necessary for his fitting adornment. 
 
 But that allusion to Larry Stacy's altered condition 
 and to old times had taken the whole affair out of the 
 realm of the ridiculous for Miss Flo. Jeff had been 
 good to his master all these years, and with a meek- 
 ness of spirit that surprised herself she felt impelled 
 to send him back home happy. Why should she care 
 who knew ? And yet she did. She wondered if 
 Jeff, in the confidence of a life-long attendance on his 
 master, had imparted his intentions in this matter to 
 him. She was relieved when he voluntarily added : 
 
 '' Mars' Larry 'ud skin me ef he knowed I'd pestered 
 you, but de folks tells me you's mighty 'commodatin', 
 Miss Flo, en ef de boss don't 'ject." 
 
 The boss did not object, and Jeff went home the 
 proud possessor of a coat the Colonel had discarded 
 
MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 341 
 
 as soon after the war as he could reopen negotiations 
 with his city tailor. The '' confounded thing " 
 pinched him in the arm-holes, and the Colonel had 
 never yet voluntarily submitted to be pinched by any 
 thing. Miss Flo fretted mildly over the matter, 
 wishing she felt quite sure that she had done the 
 right thing, and finally concluding, with a passionate 
 burst of tears, that she did not ^' care two bits whether 
 Larry Stacy, with the whole of the rest of the world 
 thrown in, knew how she made her living." 
 
 The morning of the big baptizing was perfect for 
 the purpose, and the procession of the pilgrims began 
 to file past the big house early in the morning — so 
 early, in fact, that the Colonel, who was blackening 
 his own shoes on the tool chest on the back gallery, 
 looked up in some surprise at the soft rumble of 
 wheels out in the dusty road. It was a brand-new 
 buggy with a shining top, and the black horse that 
 was in its shafts stepped out briskly, proudly con- 
 scious of his glittering new harness. The man that 
 held the reins had been reared under the Colonel's 
 eye as his own body attendant. He lived on the 
 Sprague place now, fifteen miles further back, and 
 had come early because he had to drive the parson 
 over to Pebbly Creek. The Colonel was portly, and 
 never had blackened his own shoes, save under pro- 
 test. Perhaps it was the stooping over the tool-chest 
 that sent the blood in such a rush to his head as Lem- 
 uel raised his new hat gracefully and waved him a 
 greeting across the yard fence. He returned the 
 greeting with an indifferent " How'ye, boys," before 
 applying himself with savage energy to his left shoe, 
 
342 MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 
 
 but he muttered something between his teeth about 
 *' bottom rails being on top," or something of that 
 sort. The Colonel has not the making of a philoso- 
 pher in him. 
 
 In the absence of other amusement or even dis- 
 traction on that long empty Sunday morning, the 
 folks at the big house, grouped idly on the front gal- 
 lery, watched the " swarming," as Aunt Minerva had 
 appropriately called it. All the early hours of the 
 day saw the innumerable caravan filing by the 
 front gate on foot, on horseback, by wagon loads, in 
 smart buggies, by twos and threes and crowds, laden 
 with hampers of prepared food or thriftlessly depend- 
 ing upon a possible repetition of the miracle of the 
 loaves and fishes. Crying babies and whistling boys, 
 important looking matrons and shame-faced girls who 
 stole sheepish sidewise glances at Miss Flo as she sat 
 on the gallery, pale and dainty and pretty, amused at 
 the proprietary interest she felt in a large proportion 
 of the gorgeous costumes that were flaunted before 
 her eyes on that bright spring morning, and sordidly 
 making a mental calculation of the sum total of this 
 year's '' protracted meeting business." That was 
 what she called it. 
 
 It was not an unpicturesque sight, down there on 
 the side of the creek, where the crowd finally settled 
 after swarming. The pale green slopes of the banks 
 just fairly clothed with spring verdure, with the trees 
 clustering close to the water's edge, furnished a pleas- 
 ant background for the restless mass of dark faces 
 and brilliantly clad forms. A little way back was 
 pitched the white tent, where the exhausted shouters 
 
AIISS FLO'S HARVEST. 343 
 
 were to be ^' toted," dripping from immersion, by Jeff 
 and his coadjutors. Further back still, with Aunt 
 Minerva in command, a busy brigade was spreading 
 the contents of the hampers on the cotton sheets that 
 were spread upon the grass to receive them, but such 
 mundane duties were soon merged in the higher 
 interest of the baptizing. Grouped on the low bridge 
 the preacher and the subjects for immersion made an 
 effective tableau. The people on the gallery could 
 not distinguish words, but they knew from the wild 
 waving of his long arms, and the wilder swaying of 
 the immense throng, and the swelling of the weird 
 wailing of the singers, and the moaning and the 
 groaning, that the exhorter was under full headway, 
 and that the frenzy was upon them. 
 
 Who would dare make it a matter of jest or ridi- 
 cule ? They were under the spell of a terrible earn- 
 estness. For the time being they were worshipers. 
 Ignorantly but zealously they worshiped, in their 
 uncontrolled boisterous fashion. While that frenzy 
 endured the furbelows that had engaged their simple 
 imaginations for weeks beforehand sank suddenly into 
 their proper insignificance. The wrong-doing that 
 was voluntarily and tremblingly confessed out there 
 under the blue of the sky and the tender green of the 
 over-arching trees was the only real and awful thing 
 in life. While the spell of that sonorous voice was 
 upon them, they repented them truly and humbly of 
 all their sins of omission and commission. Perhaps 
 conscience even smote some of them with sharp regret 
 for their ill-gotten contributions to the collation they 
 would placidly help to consume in the calmer after 
 
344 MISS FLO'S HARVEST, 
 
 hours. For the time being repentance was genuine 
 and remorse was keen. What would you of a herd 
 of overgrown, untaught children, blind followers of 
 blind leaders, swayed by their emotions, all uncon- 
 scious of their own possession of any better guide 
 than impulse ? 
 
 But it was neither with such sage moral reflections 
 as these, nor with the swaying, shouting, hysterical 
 crowd down there on the pebbly banks of the creek, 
 that Miss Flo's eyes or mind were long engaged. 
 She alone had seen a buggy driven out of the woods 
 on the other side of the creek, had seen its driver 
 glance down at the impedimenta on the bridge, and 
 then respectfully settle himself to wait for an oppor- 
 tunity to cross it. His attitude was one of absolute 
 patience. It was Larry Stacy ! 
 
 No one ever crossed that bridge who was not com- 
 ing straight up to the house where Miss Flo sat with 
 hands rigidly folded in her lap and her strained eyes 
 gazing across at the buggy on the opposite side. He 
 had turned the horse's head slightly, so as not to 
 seem to be an idle spectator of the excited scene 
 before him. And there he stayed until the last violent 
 splash had been taken in the clear waters of the creek, 
 and the last soaked convert had been " toted" to the 
 tent by Jeff in the Colonel's coat, and the over- 
 wrought crowd had swayed away from the bridge to- 
 wards the white cloths on the grass, where it promptly 
 dissolved into so many hungry, grasping, every-day 
 atoms. Then, with a slight touch of the whip on his 
 horse's flanks, Larry Stacy headed him toward the 
 bridge, and drove straight to the Colonel's front gate. 
 
MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 345 
 
 The family, all but Miss Flo, recognized him with 
 a start of surprise. '^ Larry Stacy ! what's up ? " the 
 Colonel said under his breath before going quickly 
 into the hall for his hat, that he might help his crip- 
 pled neighbor from the buggy at the gate. 
 
 Miss Flo was ''up," and gone too, by the time the 
 two men reached the front steps. She mentally called 
 herself no end of absurd names as she rushed through 
 the hall to gain the shelter of the darkened parlor, 
 but she simply could not sit there with Larry Stacy in 
 front of her, maimed, wounded, and oh ! so much 
 older looking. It was barbarous of him driving there 
 in that fashion. She supposed her selling that coat 
 to Jeff was at the bottom of it. Yes, her selling that 
 to Jeff was at the bottom of it. She heard Larry ask 
 pointedly for her, in such a strange voice. She could 
 have fancied it trembled if there had been any reason 
 in such an idea. 
 
 He walked straight past them all and came there 
 to her, where she sat in the cool dark parlor, trem- 
 bling, she scarcely knew why. She rose to meet him 
 and asked him to be seated with admirable composure, 
 for which she took great credit to herself, but instead 
 he stood up in front of her and held out an open let- 
 ter, such an old, dusty, rumpled-looking letter as it 
 was, too, and said what he had to say in a very few 
 abrupt words. 
 
 " Miss Florence, before I came back to the planta- 
 tion after the war, indeed, when I was in hospital hav- 
 ing this attachment fixed " (touching his wooden leg) 
 " I wrote a letter to you telling you I had always 
 meant to ask you to be my wife, that I loved you, but 
 
346 MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 
 
 felt, in my crippled state, it was worse than audacious 
 to address you as a lover. I asked you in that letter 
 to write to me if you had any thing kind to say to me, 
 but that if you had not, to leave me unanswered and 
 I should know what it meant. I never got any answer 
 to that letter, and I thought I knew what it meant- 
 But last night Jeff brought me this. He told me he 
 found it in the lining of a coat he had — had — gotten 
 over here. Read it, please. It's a little over-due, 
 only about four years, but I would like to know how 
 you would have answered it if you had ever read 
 it. I know you haven't, because the seal is un- 
 broken." 
 
 He held it out to her. You could have heard his 
 heart beat while he stood there waiting for her to read 
 that dusty old letter from beginning to end. How 
 deliberate she was, and how intensely quiet her voice 
 was as she asked : 
 
 " If you could change the date of that letter to 
 to-day, would you write it just the same ? " 
 
 " Just the same," he answered huskily. 
 
 Then two soft cool hands went out to him in the 
 darkened parlor, and with a tender cooing sound he 
 heard himself called " Poor Larry ; poor, dear, lonely 
 Larry," in tones that sent the blood in a glad torrent 
 from his heart to his face, and made the scar on his 
 brave face gleam redly for a second. 
 
 And now when Miss Flo makes her mental calcula- 
 tion anent the profits of that year's protracted meet- 
 ing, the old coat she sold Jeff possessessuch a marvel- 
 ous faculty of outweighing every thing on earth that 
 
MISS FLO'S HARVEST, 347 
 
 she gives the sum up. The only unhappy and remorse- 
 ful person to be found at Pebbly Creek now is the 
 Colonel, whose habitual carelessness was at the bottom 
 of so cruel and prolonged a separation. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 AN OLD ROMAN. 
 
 THE fact that he was called " Judge," and so ad- 
 dressed, and so referred to in the local news- 
 papers, does not indicate that he had ever held any 
 judicial position in his county, or that he had any 
 aspirations toward the bench ; so far from such being 
 the case, he looked upon counselors-at-law, recorders, 
 judges, in short, all of their kind, with a sort of lenient 
 pity as a lot of poor devils who had to trim their sails 
 to accomrmodate every fickle popular breeze and 
 adjust their principles to the exigencies of their 
 cases. 
 
 Such a necessity, or rather his conception of such a 
 necessity alone, would have militated fatally against 
 the Judge's ever adopting the legal profession, 
 for " principle " was the watchword of his life, and it 
 was in his readiness to make any and every sacrifice 
 for it that he resembled the old Roman he has been 
 likened to. His bearing was senatorial, so was his 
 flowing white beard. Given a toga and a fiercer 
 looking nose, and the Judge might have posed pic- 
 turesquely for the noblest Roman of them all ; might 
 still, in fact, though it would be a mutilated Roman, 
 with an armless sleeve. 
 
AN OLD ROMAN, 349 
 
 On a grassy slope in the outskirts of a sleepy little 
 
 town in County, Mississippi, stands a house 
 
 plainly visible to passers-by in the road. Its lawn 
 slopes greenly away from it on three sides, guiltless 
 of parterre or cultivation of any sort. An unpainted 
 picket fence, afflicted with chronic weakness, sur- 
 rounds this immense grassy expanse, into which is 
 let at one corner, in an irrelevant sort of fashion, a 
 heavy gate, which gapes as widely to let a baby 
 through as it does for an express wagon. By which 
 you will perceive the gates around the Judge's 
 demesne are not built on the scientific principles that 
 Newton applied to the holes cut under his door for 
 the accommodation of his cats — a big one for the cat 
 and a little one for the kitten. On the apex of this 
 lawn stands a gray, unpainted frame house, with big 
 windows, and doors that let in no end of light and 
 sunshine in summer and an equally unlimited amount 
 of cold draught in winter. There is a dormer room 
 over the big-pillared front portico, and from time 
 immemorial there has been just one pane of glass out 
 of the sash in that window. In the railing about the 
 portico there has also been just one baluster missing 
 for along time. Neither the absent pane of glass nor 
 the missing baluster affected the peace and comfort 
 of the family to any great extent, until a strolling 
 photographer stopped in front of the lawn, and point- 
 ing his instrument at the old gray house, without a 
 moment's warning, perpetuated these deficiencies, but 
 made such a pretty picture of the old house, with 
 its dark conical cedars peeping around one gable 
 end, and its three grand old oaks outlining the 
 
35° AN OLD ROMAN. 
 
 crumbling back terrace, that, in spite of the dread- 
 ful permanence thus given to the staring vacancy 
 in the dormer window and the toothless rail below, the 
 Judge's famil}'- prize this memento of the old home- 
 stead above every thing. 
 
 If the picture could have taken in the two rose- 
 bushes that have survived the war, one a mam- 
 moth red monthly that claims more territory from 
 the grassy lawn every year, the other a '' sunset " 
 rose that shades its golden and pink petals in a 
 fragant shower in the very earliest spring-time, it 
 would have been prettier. These two roses exemplify 
 the survival of the fittest. Before the war the gray 
 house could not be seen from the road at all. The 
 grassy lawn was then a garden, kept sightly by a 
 Scotch gardener who held sway over it, and over a 
 tiny little vine-wreathed cottage in the vegetable 
 garden below the terraces, where the three ragged- 
 topped oaks now stand. 
 
 Then, when the Judge's family grouped itself 
 about the low, broad stuccoed front steps, they 
 only knew when vehicles were passing by the 
 clouds of dust that rose over the tall heads of the 
 jessamines and azaleas and sweet olives and '' burn- 
 ing bushes " that shut them in, and by the soft 
 rumble of dust-smothered wheels. But there came 
 a day when military necessity sent axes ringing and 
 plows upturning and shovels desecrating the lovely 
 grounds, and ugly earthworks, bristling with black- 
 mouthed cannon, took the places of the sweet olives 
 and the jessamines. The earthworks have been 
 leveled long ago and only a green welt here and 
 
AN OLD ROM AM. 35 1. 
 
 there on the lawn tells where they used to be, show- 
 ing like scars that have rudely healed over ; but it is 
 because the family hold in such tender reverence the 
 old-time glories of the place, and see its sharp con- 
 trasts so plainly, that such isolated defects as that 
 missing pane of glass and lacking baluster fail of due 
 impressiveness. 
 
 This gray house is where the Judge lived, really 
 lived. Over in Louisiana and up in Arkansas 
 there were three plantations and many slaves that 
 called him master, but the slaves and the plantations 
 were all tributary to the home " in the hills " (as Mis- 
 sissippi lands were always called, in contradistinction 
 to Louisiana swamps). 
 
 Lidependently of that great wealth which gives 
 a man prominence in any and every locality, the 
 Judge's position in his own neighborhood was 
 an enviable one. His judgment was beyond ques- 
 tion on the differing grades of cotton or the advisa- 
 bility of mixed crops, and his prophecies con- 
 cerning the probabilities of each season were re- 
 ceived with profound consideration. Young men 
 rather appreciated the privilege of saying, '•' Judge 
 Strong remarked to me the other day," etc.; it was 
 indicative of access, you see, to one of the most 
 potent personalities in the county. As a financier he 
 excelled, and his views, obtained either directly or in- 
 directly, decided the final disposition of many thou- 
 sands of dollars among his own neighbors. Not that he 
 aspired to leadership of any sort. No man ever lived 
 who was more absolutely content to mind his own 
 business ; but he had had prominence thrust upon 
 
352 AN OLD ROMAN. 
 
 him, and he accepted it with the reserved dignity 
 that was characteristic of him in all things. Perhaps 
 the fact that he never had aspired to this prominence, 
 but that it had been a voluntary tribute, stood him in 
 good stead when he was called on to test the fickle- 
 ness of popular opinion, as he was when his state 
 came to secede. It was then that he appreciated 
 popularity at its true worth. 
 
 The chief impetus and momentum of the secession 
 movement was drawn, in its earliest days, from the 
 heated blood of restless young spirits, alert to perceive 
 indignity and resent injury, whether real or imagin- 
 ary. There could be but one course of action open to 
 Southerners of true mettle. He who hesitated was 
 lost. Unfortunately so few hesitated that those who 
 did became the immediate marks for a most undesir- 
 able sort of conspicuity. Whosoever was not for the 
 secession of a State was against the true interest of 
 its people. 
 
 It was in those early turbulent days that people 
 began to consider the Judge's position with inves- 
 tigating curiosity. He had apparently assumed an 
 attitude of aloofness that laid him open to the dark 
 suspicion of being a Union man. Somebody made 
 cautious note of the fact that he was not in attendance 
 at the enthusiastic mass meeting, held in the 
 Methodist church, because it was the biggest building 
 in town, to indorse South Carolina's impetuosity in 
 going out ; somebod)'' else perceived that it was with 
 the lenient indulgence of senility to infancy that he 
 looked on calmly at the frantic industry with which 
 the boys fell to drilling, marching through town at all 
 
AN OLD ROMAN. 353 
 
 hours of the day with their bayonets criss-crossing 
 each other Hke poorly planted pea-sticks ; one well 
 versed in the legislation of the county recalled to mind 
 how the Judge's oldest son, in the legislative halls of 
 the State, had opposed and defeated what was called 
 the " Free Negro Bill," which bore somewhat heavily 
 on the colored population so unfortunate as not to 
 own a master. 
 
 Plainly a strong case was making against the 
 Judge, and people no longer deferred respectfully 
 to his opinion on any subject. Suspicion culminated 
 on the day that Mississippi seceded. There was 
 a tremendous fanfare over it that drew nearly all 
 the town into the vortex of the wildest excite- 
 ment ; but the Judge, sitting at home, shielded from 
 unfriendly observation by the sheltering roses and 
 vines in his shrub-crowded garden, only dropped 
 his head upon his breast until his long white beard 
 touched the watch-fob at his waist and sighed. The 
 next day he stood on the high bluff that overlooked 
 the river, mute, while the surging crowd was clamor- 
 ing over the majestic salutes the great incoming 
 steamers, just up from New Orleans, were making 
 with flags and cannon, curving and circling around 
 there below the little town set on a hill, at a great 
 rate, by way of commending her for following the 
 lead of her sister States, and "going out." 
 
 The Judge's voice was not heard in a single huzza ; 
 his hat remained immovable on his senatorial head, 
 and no blue cockade adorned the lapel of his broad- 
 cloth coat. The flag that was waving gayly out there 
 at the steamer's masthead was a new flag to him. He 
 
354 AN OLD ROMAN. 
 
 would have to learn how to love it. The cannon that 
 was firing those noisy, harmless salutes would soon be 
 belching death and destruction over the land beloved. 
 The land he loved extended from Maine to Florida 
 and stretched from ocean to ocean. 
 
 If he could have prevented this rashness, he would 
 have done so, but his voice had not been asked 
 in the councils that had impetuously legislated his 
 State out of the Union. As he had not been able 
 to raise it in warning, it should not now be heard 
 in condemnation of the inevitable. They knew 
 not what they had done, that excited, eager, rash 
 few who had decided on this tremendous step ! 
 Now, indeed, there was but one course left for them 
 all to pursue. He had never yet shrunk from a 
 cleaVly defined duty ; he would not now. He had 
 been too shrewd an observer of the trend of events 
 not to feel convinced that there was hot and hard 
 work ahead for them all. Of course, the boys, his 
 boys, would go. There'd be no keeping them at 
 home. But a bitter and silent protest was in his heart 
 against the folly of it all. 
 
 Of course the boys went, his boys, both of them. 
 People said that the Judge's mute clinging to the* 
 disrupted Union must be over-looked, since he 
 gave freely of his substance at every demand of 
 the new Government and put no obstacles in the 
 way of his two sons going off as cavalrymen. But 
 he was quite aware that he was viewed with dis- 
 favor in his own town, and as hot blood and rapid 
 resentment were the controlling elements in every dis- 
 cussion that came to the surface in those days, more 
 
AN OLD ROMAN. 355 
 
 and more he withdrew to the seclusion of the sheltered 
 home, too dignified to utter audible lament over the 
 folly of his people, too keen-sighted to rejoice with 
 them in the time of their uncalculating exultation. 
 
 Occupation by its enemies of the little town upon 
 the hill was a mere question of time after the fall of 
 New Orleans. People said (that was as soon as the 
 Federalists got possession of the town) that they sup- 
 posed " now Judge Strong would be happy," and they 
 looked to see him ^' hobnob " with the General in 
 command. His Union sentiments would stand him in 
 good part now. It quite looked as if all the malicious 
 prophecies of the people, who simply did not under- 
 stand him tJieii^ were about to be fulfilled, when the 
 General in command was seen driving to his head- 
 quarters in the Strong carriage, with the Strongs* 
 splendid bays drawing it, and driven by the Strongs' 
 driver. " Of course the Judge must have proffered 
 it." They had yet to learn the nature of a military 
 requisition. 
 
 The last feather was added when it was discov- 
 ered that the Strong mansion was to be head- 
 quarters and the town was to be converted into a 
 military post. The unjust disaffection of his neigh- 
 bors would have melted into remorse quicker than it 
 did if they could have been eye-witnesses to the 
 Judge's reception of this news. It was in a curt note 
 from the Adjutant-General stating that the Strong 
 house offered the best position for head-quarters, and 
 the Judge and his family would please consider them- 
 selves restricted to the second story from date of the 
 succeeding day. 
 
35^ AN OLD ROMAN. 
 
 He looked across the breakfast-table, where they 
 were all sitting when this order came to him, at 
 the wife who had shared his good fortune and his 
 bad fortune, and had been his wise and gentle privy- 
 councilor for nearly forty years. Her hair was al- 
 most as white as his beard ; her spirit quite as daunt- 
 less as his own. She was delicate and dainty, and had 
 never known the rough side of life through all those 
 prosperous years. He looked at the girls — such 
 spirited, outspoken little rebels as they were ! Should 
 they be made prisoners of in their own flower-begirt 
 home ? It was easy enough to dispose of himself, but 
 what of them ? Endurance had reached its limit. 
 He could go into the army. He would not count for 
 much, but better there than biding under the same 
 roof with the foe. The women must go up to one of 
 the plantations. 
 
 Yes, he and his privy-councilor agreed it should be 
 so. They would retire to the upper story just long 
 enough to prepare themselves for the tiresome trip to 
 the dreary plantations. They wished they had left 
 even sooner, when they saw the cruel plows driving 
 deep gashes through the shrubbery out there, and 
 gazed down from their imprisonment, as they called 
 it, on the army of miners and sappers who speedily 
 converted their rose gardens and their myrtle avenues 
 into hideous earthworks, felling their cherished shade- 
 trees with a heartlessness that seemed monstrous to 
 them, all unused as they were to the stern necessity 
 that controls military movements. They could not 
 take an impersonal view of any thing that plowed so 
 deeply into their own souls. 
 
AN OLD ROMAN. 357 
 
 Even the Judge ceased to reason and began 
 to burn with a sense of vindictiveness. Perhaps, 
 after all, the Union wherein such atrocities were 
 possible was as well broken as preserved. Whether 
 it was or not, because he had failed to preserve it 
 intact was no reason why he should submit to be 
 trampled upon like a worm. Thus slowly, but inevit- 
 ably, the Judge was forced to the point where he must 
 fire on the old flag that he had loved loyally and long. 
 He would join the army as a private in an infantry 
 company. " No fol-de-rol " for him. He hated the 
 whole business. But he held a forced hand. (In his 
 younger days the Judge had been known occasionally 
 to take a hand at poker, just to kill time while running 
 down to the city, and its phraseology came handily at 
 times.) The quicker he placed the women in safety 
 on the plantation in Arkansas, the quicker he would 
 be in position to fight off the accumulating choler that 
 threatened him with apoplexy. 
 
 He borrowed his own carriage and horses to convey 
 him and his family to the river-bank, where they would 
 take skiffs. It looked a trifle like a funeral procession 
 as the women, veiled and weeping, filed solemnly down 
 the steps and took their places in the waiting carriage. 
 The Judge followed them in unsmiling dignity. They 
 were going into exile. Their borrowed driver slammed 
 the carriage door upon them and mounted to the box 
 with a solemn '^ Git up " to his horses. Some one halted 
 him from the interior of the house. The hurried step 
 of a spurred boot sounded along the big central hall — 
 and then, standing there with bared head before them, 
 was the young officer upon whose unwilling hands 
 
35 8 AN OLD ROMAN. 
 
 the odium of this ejectment had been thrust. "With a 
 quick military salute to the veiled women, he turned 
 his troubled eyes upon the Judge, sitting sternly erect 
 upon the front seat. He held in one hand a bird's 
 cage, in the other a basket of blooming hyacinths 
 torn up by the roots. He knew they all hated him, 
 and it was hard to say what he wanted just then to 
 say to them. The hot blood mounted high up to the 
 white temples that were in such sharp contrast to his 
 sun-burned cheeks. He stammered out his errand 
 presently, awkwardly enough: *' I brought .these, 
 thinking the ladies might want to set them out some- 
 where else," indicating the hyacinths, "and this " — 
 the bird cage — '^ supposing it had been forgotten." 
 
 " Present them to the General in command with my 
 respects," said the Judge's wife in her most patriotic 
 tones, " and tell him, if there is.any thing more we can 
 surrender for his comfort, we hope he will not be too 
 modest to indicate it." 
 
 "Oh, mamma, that is cruel." A girl's veil was 
 thrown back and a pair of little hands were held out 
 for the hyacinths. " It was good of you to think of 
 this. The bird would be in our way. It's mine. I 
 give it to you. These I will take, thank you." Then 
 they were gone, and he had nothing but a memory 
 left, and a very inconvenient piece of army baggage 
 on hand. But never was bird or beast better cared 
 for than that useless little yellow warbler. 
 
 Rumors came back, after long months, that the 
 Judge was actually in the army ; that he was a foot- 
 soldier, and that nothing angered him more fiercely than 
 to have his officers in command remit any duty because 
 
AN OLD ROMAN. 359 
 
 of his age or position. He would and must share 
 alike with the humblest soldier in the ranks. He went 
 about his camp duties more like an ascetic doing pre- 
 scribed penance than a soldier delighting in the pros- 
 pective fray. Marvelous stories were afloat concern- 
 ing his powers of endurance — how, when his turn 
 came to stand sentinel, neither heat nor cold nor wind 
 nor rain deterred him from it ; how he, who had fared 
 sumptuously and been clothed in fine raiment, ate his 
 inadequate rations of hard-tack and rancid bacon with 
 a degree of fortitude that made him an absolute 
 inspiration to the rest of the camp, and how he, who 
 had been obsequiously tended by fleet-footed slaves, 
 now burnished his own bayonet and cooked his own 
 rations with stoical indifference to the luxurious side 
 of life. 
 
 It was only in the hours of relaxed camp dis- 
 cipline that a vestige of his former self reappeared. 
 Then he withdrew into his shell. There was no prin- 
 ciple involved in being hail-fellow-well-met with his 
 comrades in arms, and it was only when under arms 
 that he recognized any comradeship ; hence '' Old 
 Strong " was not popular. And then public senti- 
 ment veered once more. It is not in war times alone 
 that public sentiment has a good deal in common with 
 the weather cock. It had begun to veer slowly as 
 soon as news had come of the Judge's hardy fortitude 
 in the ranks ; it went around with a swirl when the 
 last and greatest indignity was put upon the beautiful 
 home of the Strongs by its being turned into an asylum 
 for colored orphans. Any thing but that ! 
 
 After all, the hideous fortifications that had plowed 
 
360 AN OLD ROMAN. 
 
 up in a day the artistic work of years had been point- 
 less, for the garrison had been removed, the little town 
 being left to its fate under the surveillance of a provost- 
 marshal and his corps. It was quite all the occasion 
 demanded. And now the neighbors, looking over at 
 the Strong house from their own unmolested premises, 
 could see little darkies swarming over the already 
 grass-grown fortifications, and the stuccoed steps grew 
 dark with them of evenings, and the sound of their 
 boisterous mirth was an offense to the air it floated 
 upon. Truly more than seven devils had entered in 
 and taken possession. 
 
 The news of it got to the Judge somehow, just on 
 the eve of battle. He sat over his camp-fire moodily 
 that night thinking with bitterness of soul over all 
 that had overtaken him. His wife and his daughters 
 — left to the tender mercies of freed slaves — himself 
 denied even the poor solace of communication from a 
 distance. His sons — dead or alive ? Who knew. One 
 in Virginia, the other' in the trans-Mississippi depart- 
 ment. His home — desecrated, defiled, wrecked. Him- 
 self — They say the Judge fought like a tiger the next 
 day, but at its close he lay wounded, exhausted, spent. 
 As a paroled and armless exempt, he found his way 
 back to the plantation in Arkansas and to the sooth- 
 ing ministrations of wife and children. 
 
 People had got accustomed, if not reconciled, to 
 the absence of the Strongs and the presence of the 
 little darkey orphans in their old home by the time the 
 war had been over a year, and there was yet no sign 
 of their return. It was said Mrs. Strong had vowed 
 she would never sleep under her desecrated roof 
 
AN OLD ROMAN. 361 
 
 again ; when suddenly the old house underwent an- 
 other transformation scene. The little darkies filed 
 out and plasterers and painters and carpenters filed 
 in. Such a sweeping and garnishing and purifying 
 as it did undergo. Nothing but the outer walls seemed 
 to remain undisturbed, and the white debris of plaster 
 of Paris flew in clouds from every window in the 
 house. Outside, there on the lawn, another army of 
 men were leveling the earthworks and sodding the 
 scarred yard over as fast as fast could be. People 
 looked on in wonder. Could it be that the Judge had 
 come out of it all with his pockets full of money? 
 The evident signs of prosperity about the old Strong 
 house were in imminent danger of making the neigh- 
 bors forget that armless sleeve up on the plantation 
 in Arkansas and all the Judge's service to his own 
 side, when it transpired that the Strong house was 
 confiscated property and could only be recovered by 
 the Judge's taking the oath. 
 
 So then it was not the Judge's money that was 
 doing all that work of renovation. Public curi- 
 osity rose to the pitch of torture. There was a 
 '^boss" workman there who knew all about it, of 
 course, but he was terribly close-mouthed. Industri- 
 ous research traced all this activity to a quiet gentle- 
 man who had settled in the town as a lawyer almost 
 immediately after the cessation of hostilities, but no 
 one could say authoritatively that it was he. He was 
 very quiet and unobtrusive ; but when pressed with 
 questions, said the climate of the South suited him 
 much better than his own. He made no secret of the 
 fact that he had first come to this little town as the 
 
362 AN OLD ROMAN. 
 
 Adjutant-General to the General in command. He 
 was kind and courteous, and immensely helpful in 
 those darkly bewildering days that followed upon 
 defeat. His little office in town was one of the bright- 
 est spots in it. Some even scoffed at the idea of a 
 man who could keep two rose-bushes flourishing in 
 tubs in the sunny strip of ground behind his office, 
 and a canary bird swaying in a gilt cage, all for his 
 own entertainment, having any thing in him to recom- 
 mend him as a legal adviser. One of the roses was a 
 red monthly and the other a sunset rose with golden 
 and pink petals, and the lawyer cared for them both 
 with tender impartiality. 
 
 AVhy should the Judge not take the oath ? What 
 trespass had he committed in his heart, when, driven 
 into a corner, he had turned at bay and fought for the 
 home that sheltered his offspring as any other animal 
 would have done ? What humiliation was involved in 
 vowing allegiance to the old flag, his first, best love 
 and last love, if not his only one ? Why should he 
 skulk through the remaining days of his life, because 
 by the irrevocable arbitrament of arms he had been 
 proven to have espoused the wrong side ? Why 
 should he shrink from renewing his vows to a gov- 
 ernment whose excellence he had never ques- 
 tioned? 
 
 These were the arguments he advanced very timidly 
 within the sacred precincts of his own family circle, to 
 the wife and the daughters who had gone into exile 
 with him. The boys were still missing. One slept in 
 a nameless grave near Shreveport ; the other had car- 
 ried his hotly-chafed spirit to the cooling atmosphere 
 
AN OLD ROMAN. 363 
 
 of Honduras. The Union was preserved ; but he 
 hated it — then. 
 
 The Judge's determination to take the oath was 
 not received favorably. It was a complete sur- 
 render. That is what a woman can never bring 
 herself to — acknowledging openly that she is van- 
 quished. She may be vanquished, and she may know 
 that she is vanquished, and she may, furthermore, know 
 that you know she knows it, but it is the putting it 
 frankly into words that is gall and wormwood. That was 
 why the Judge knew beforehand pretty much what to 
 expect. He quailed before the indignant protests 
 that were hurled at his defenseless head. It took a 
 great deal to make Judge Strong quail, but it took 
 still more to make him swerve from the course marked 
 out by conscience. 
 
 He took the oath and was duly pardoned and rein- 
 stated in all his forfeited rights of citizenship, after 
 which there was no let nor hindrance to their return- 
 ing to the house in the hills, though, of course, Mrs. 
 Strong declared plaintively it would '' never be like 
 home again." 
 
 The condition in which they found the premises 
 was a matter of more amazement to the Strongs than 
 it had been to their neighbors. There was not one 
 sign left of the enemy's occupation but the grassy 
 welts on the lawn and the free sweep of exposure to 
 the public road, which at first was a sore trial to the 
 nerves of the whole family. The Judge made it his 
 business at once to begin sifting the mystery of this 
 unfathered beneficence to him and his. A little bird 
 gave him the right clew, 
 
364 AN OLD ROMAN. 
 
 They had been settled in the old house but a few 
 days when two enormous tubs, each containing a 
 thrifty rose-bush, and a glittering gilt Chinese pagoda 
 of a bird's cage, containing a useless little yellow war- 
 bler, were added to their effects. These were dumped 
 abruptly down upon the portico with no message of 
 any sort. A tag was fastened to each rose-bush, on 
 which was written : " Survival of the fittest." The 
 bird gave them the clew. 
 
 ''Why did you do all this for me?" the Judge 
 asked, sitting face to face with the new lawyer, whom 
 he had unearthed as his benefactor. 
 
 '' I don't know that I did do it for you," the ex-ad- 
 jutant said, his eyes wandering from force of habit to 
 where the bird's cage had swung, and the rose-trees 
 had bloomed behind the little office. 
 
 " For whom then ? " 
 
 " For your daughter — the one that lifted her veil 
 and remembered to be kind and just to her enemy, 
 even in the sharp hour of her own misery. God 
 does not make such women as that every day, and 
 some time, when the soreness has worn itself 
 out of her heart and yours, I mean to ask her to be 
 my wife. Not yet though. I bide my time." 
 
 It is safe to conclude that the soreness was worn 
 out of every body's heart before the day when that 
 strolling photographer sprung his camera on the old 
 Strong house, when the family were all grouped on 
 the stuccoed steps, for among the blurry forms on the 
 steps is the ex-adjutant's. He is sitting quite close to 
 the Judge's youngest daughter, and if you look at the 
 picture through a magnifying-glass, you can see that 
 
AN OLD ROMAN. 3^5 
 
 her fingers are clasped in his, though the petals of a 
 handful of " sunset " roses almost hide them. The ex- 
 adjutant's only regret connected with the picture is 
 that he allowed the Judge to stay his renovating hand 
 before all the windows were reglazed and all the 
 missing balusters supplied. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 
 
 THE " folks " on the Bendemma plantation could 
 predict blind Jo's movements from day to day 
 in the spring season with as much positiveness as the 
 skilled astronomer brings to bear upon the movements 
 of the celestial bodies. They called him " 01 Reg'lar." 
 
 There was nothing about blind Jo's personality to 
 suggest this line of comparison. He was a terrestrial 
 body of the most pronounced type, of the earth earthy, 
 from the crown of the brimless straw wreck, which 
 (retaining its position on the back of his head in 
 obedience to some unexplained law of cohesion) was a 
 mere sarcastic suggestion of a hat, down to the yawn- 
 ing toes of his huge " stoga " boots, which had trodden 
 a solid pathway in the soft dirt of the road that led 
 from his cabin down to the cool dark waters of the 
 bayou where the " logger-head " and the snapping- 
 turtles sunned them.selves on the mossy logs, and the 
 speckled sun-perch and the striped bass yielded up 
 their happy lives for blind Jo's benefit. 
 
 No king on his throne was happier than blind Jo 
 when the soft south winds began to blow, and the 
 pecans hung out their pale green silk tassels, and the 
 breath of the sweet-gum floated as incense to his nos- 
 
BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 367 
 
 trils. For with the springing of the grass and the 
 bursting of the buds his own hour of emancipation 
 drew on apace, and no enamoured lover of Nature 
 ever awaited her vernal awakening with more eager- 
 ness than did blind Jo, whose eyelids were closed 
 forever to all her witchery of form and color. 
 
 During the winter Jo hibernated in a corner of the 
 fireplace in Melindy's cabin, where his daily dole of 
 pork and corn bread was grudgingly dispensed by 
 Melindy's reluctant hand, and he was made to remem- 
 ber that he was but a cumberer of the earth. When 
 blind Jo emerged from the gloom of Melindy's cabin 
 to the brightness and the lightness of the outside 
 world, the folks knew that the fish were biting and 
 that for some months to come Jo would be an inde- 
 pendent merchant, trading in the fruits of his own 
 industry for the luxuries of tobacco and whisky, that 
 were not included in Melindy's daily dole. This pro- 
 spective independence makes Jo straighten himself up 
 somewhat proudly, as he passes from under the low- 
 browed cabin door and turns his eager steps toward 
 the bayou where the tangled vines of the fox-grapes 
 and the muscadines festoon the banks. 
 
 Jo had a satellite — a small, meager, ebony-hued 
 attendant, whose shabbiness was an intensified repro- 
 duction of Jo's own. It was Isham, the youngest of 
 Melindy's " ten." Circumstances had conspired to 
 limit Isham's choice of a career in life. But he bore 
 circumstances no grudge. He too hibernated in the 
 winter, with occasional interruptions for the purpose 
 of replenishing the wood fire or drawing a bucket of 
 water out of the barrels that stood under the guttered 
 
368 BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 
 
 eaves. He too rejoiced in the coming of the spring, 
 for then he spent the long deliciously thriftless days 
 down on the bayou's bank, baiting blind Jo's hooks, 
 and squatting immovably at his heels to watch for the 
 tremulous moment when the painted cork on blind 
 Jo's line should bob vivaciously enough to warrant a 
 view-halloo. Then Isham's excited " Dar he, gr'daddy; 
 cotch 'm ! " would make the welkin ring, and blind Jo, 
 obedient to the shout, would send his long line 
 whizzing through the air, perhaps with a glittering 
 " catch " reflecting the sun's rays on iridescent scales, 
 perhaps with a ragged remnant of water-bleached red- 
 worm only. 
 
 It would take but a fraction of a second to decide 
 whether Isham should be made a participator in 
 his chief's triumph, or the recipient of a swift 
 back-handed " cuff " in punishment for his misdirected 
 zeal. Practice did not make perfect in Isham's case, 
 and his judgment on the subject of bites is still open 
 to the charge of fallibiHty. 
 
 In the early stages of his existence as a supple- 
 ment to his grandfather, Isham, in the exuberance 
 of youthful spirits, was much given to raising false 
 hopes in the blind fisher's breast, but the pains and 
 penalties of this innocent pastime proving largely in 
 excess of the amount of fun extracted therefrom, he 
 learned how to sit like a hideous little pop-eyed 
 heathen idol, in wooden immobility, with his gaze glued 
 to the spot of color on the dark bosom of the bayou 
 that told where Jo's hook had gone down until the 
 moment for legitimate action arrived. Sometimes 
 Nature would assert herself, and Isham's ebony lids 
 
BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 3^9 
 
 would close tightly over the strained black and white 
 ivory balls that had so little speculation in them, but his 
 slumber was noiseless and blind Jo's patience infinite. 
 
 It was easy to be patient out there, under the 
 broad skies that gave him such a sense of 
 roominess ; with the muscadine vines swaying gently 
 over his head under the weight of a tuneful mocking- 
 bird ; with the drowsy tones of the cicadas punctuating 
 the stillness ; with an occasional splash of a startled 
 turtle dropping from its mossy perch into the ruffled 
 waters ; with the chatter of the blackbirds floating to 
 him from the freshly- plowed fields just across the 
 bayou there ; with the lazy call of the distant plow- 
 man to his lazier team, carrying him back for a fleet 
 while to the time when he, too, had his hand upon the 
 plow — all going to make up such a pleasantly peace- 
 ful contrast to Melindy's sharp tirades, to the yelping 
 curs and the fretting children back there in the cabin 
 he had escaped from. 
 
 Sitting there in the bow of a stranded skiff whose 
 hull still reflects red and green patches of faded splen- 
 dor in the waters that lap its sunken sides, with the 
 gray beards of the Spanish moss drooping about his 
 massive shoulders from the low-growing branches of 
 the water oaks that line the bayou, his bright ban- 
 danna handkerchief knotted loosely about his colum- 
 nar bronze throat, and his patient hands clasped about 
 the long cane pole he had groped for through the 
 brake ; blind Jo attracted the attention of one of the 
 new people of the big house who called himself an 
 artist, and from the isolation of the fishing days, when 
 Isham and the mocking-birds peopled all his world, 
 
370 BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 
 
 he was suddenly exalted to the position of a model 
 and a local hero. 
 
 He was not fond of the new people. It would have 
 been incompatible with his loyalty to his own " w'ite 
 folks " to have cultivated a fondness for them. He 
 was nobody but old blind Jo to the new folks. He 
 had been a personage of importance in the days when 
 " or Mars' " and " 01' Miss " had reigned royally at 
 the big house. Perhaps change of allegiance would 
 have been less difficult if he hadn't known just how 
 the place had passed into the new people's possession. 
 He was glad the ol' folks had been laid away under 
 the jessamine bushes in the garden before " Mars' 
 Ben " had gotten things into such a snarl that the 
 place had passed into the hands of the commission 
 merchants. Yes, the new people were New Orleans 
 folks, and Bendemma, v/ith all its chattels, including 
 blind Jo himself, belonged to the new people. 
 
 He didn't care much for Mars' Ben's downfall — he'd 
 brought it all on himself. But Miss Jinny ! Miss Jinny's 
 fate sat heavily on blind Jo's heart. He didn't even 
 know where the child was. The folks in the quarters 
 told him she was teaching school at the Colonel's. It 
 made blind Jo hate the new people worse than ever 
 to think they could eject Miss Jinny from the house 
 she was born in, and set her to teaching school for a 
 living. 
 
 He never went up to the big house now. He 
 used to go every night. If it was winter time, he 
 would "tote " the cut fire-wood from the wood-pile to 
 the back gallery and pile it up where it would be 
 handy for the house-folks next day before taking his 
 
BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 37 1 
 
 Stand, hat in hand, in the doorway of 01' Miss's bed- 
 room for a few moments of social intercourse. He 
 was the " driver " in those days and acted as a sort of 
 subaltern to the overseer. If it was summer, it was 
 his privilege to sit humbly on the lowest step of the 
 front gallery and imbibe family matters or local items 
 from the group clustered above him on the cool, dark 
 veranda. No one was afraid to talk before Jo. He 
 was of them as well as with them. Their troubles 
 were his troubles, their comforts his. 
 
 " W'ite folks sot a heap a sto' by ol' Jo in dem days." 
 That was blind Jo's proudest boast, and when the fish 
 were biting well, and his good-humor must needs find 
 vocal vent, he generally effervesced in a reminiscent 
 vein, and tried to hand the memory of those happy 
 days down to his grandson as a proud legacy. 
 
 It was chance that first brought blind Jo and the 
 new people into contact. He was of too little worth in 
 those days to be enrolled among the workers, so he 
 was easily lost sight of. He might have been trans- 
 ferred to the realms of art without even time for a pro- 
 test had not Isham suddenly awakened from one of 
 his stolen cat-naps to find a camera pointed directly 
 at blind Jo from the other side of the bayou, and given 
 a yell of warning so full of terror that blind Jo rashly 
 concluded a "painter" was upon them, and tumbled 
 incontinently into the water, preferring death by 
 drowning to the slower process of mastication by a 
 panther. 
 
 Isham fled, ignominously leaving the blind fisher- 
 man to his fate. Jo's fate was to flounder about 
 in the bayou, like a bewildered hippopotamus, until 
 
372 BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 
 
 fished out by the strong right arm of the amateur pho- 
 tographer, who placed him effectively, and, while he 
 was drying, pointed the camera at him again with 
 better success. 
 
 It struck blind Jo as an immense piece of frivolity 
 that one of the new people should be strolling through 
 the woods making pictures. When " 01' Mars' took 
 t' trampin' " it had been to select the proper timber 
 for the saw-mill or for fence rails. '' W'ite folks didn't 
 walk for nuthin' " in the olden times that represented 
 Jo's Paradise Lost. But he liked the new man's voice, 
 and he liked the strong grip of his muscular young 
 hands in his shirt collar, and he liked, best of all, the 
 hearty invitation given him by the photographer to 
 " come up to the big house that night and get a toddy 
 to drive the wetting from his bones." It sounded like 
 old times to be ordered up to the big house on so 
 sociable an errand, and it felt like old times when he 
 dropped his ragged straw hat on the ground by the 
 front steps and seated himself in the old place to sip 
 his toddy luxuriously. It warmed the very cockles of 
 his heart to be there again. 
 
 Those were new faces, up there on the old gallery 
 above him. What mattered that to blind Jo ? Those 
 were strange voices — that did matter. He missed the 
 masterful tones of 01' Mars', and the music of Miss 
 Jinny's voice was silent. (01' Mars' was at rest under 
 the jessamines in the garden, but how about Miss 
 Jinny ?) They were talking about the old plantation 
 up there above him. There was comfort in that for 
 Jo. They had not quite got the hang of the *' gin- 
 slough field," and the ''Burnt Ridge," and "Hard- 
 
BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 373 
 
 scrabble Corner " yet, but those local designations 
 would come in time. These were city folks, and blind 
 Jo felt his own superiority to them intensely. He 
 could tell them, if they would only ask him, that it was 
 a big mistake to put the oats over in Hardscrabble 
 Corner, and to plow up the long field, where the coco 
 pest held sway, but they didn't ask him. '' 01' Mars' " 
 would have done it. " 01' Mars' sot a heap er sto' by 
 his 'pinion." 
 
 He soon found out that there was perplexity and 
 confusion among the new people — confusion about 
 boundary lines, and perplexity about title-deeds. There 
 was discussion about lawyers, who must be called in 
 to make something clearer, or else the big house and 
 the yard premises would ^'revert." There was con- 
 fused allusion to some '' stakes," which nobody had 
 ever seen and nobody could find. 
 
 If they had not been new people they would have 
 known that the motionless creature sitting there with 
 his gray head bent slightly forward, listlessly inert, 
 excepting when he lifted the glass of toddy to his lips, 
 was drinking in every word. Some of them were 
 words that conveyed no meaning to him. " Revert " 
 — what did that mean ? *' Stakes ? " Yes ; he knew 
 what that meant, nobody knew better. Nobody but 
 himself knew at all. 
 
 A window seemed to have been opened in his 
 memory, sending in a flood of light. But that light 
 must not shine on the new people. It must illumine 
 Miss Jinny's path alone. He had nothing to give the 
 new people but humble thanks for the toddy, as he 
 Stood up to place the empty glass on the gallery floor, 
 
374 BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 
 
 and, picking up his ragged straw hat, he groped his 
 way back over the famiUar path from the big house to 
 Melindy's cabin. 
 
 After that tumble into the water, Jo's conduct 
 became so very eccentric that the behef that he had 
 lost his head permanently when losing his balance 
 temporarily rapidly gained currency. He discarded 
 his satellite as a primary movement in the new direc- 
 tion, and availing himself of the team that was going 
 to town for freight one day, he presented himself in 
 person before the first lawyer in Slaterville. He had 
 a sLory to tell — a story which involved issues of such 
 tremendous moment to Miss Jinny that nothing short 
 of the lawyer's solemn oath that they were absolutely 
 alone in the office unsealed his lips. 
 
 Then he told how, sitting one evening on 
 the steps of the big house long ago, with only 
 "Or Mars'" and "01' Miss" above him, he had 
 heard them talking sorrowfully of Mars' Ben's 
 "skittish ways"; of how they "mourned" at the 
 thought of the old house ever passing out of the 
 family ; of how " 01' Miss " had asked if there wasn't 
 some way of " slicing " the yard and the house off from 
 the plantation and putting it in " Miss Jinny's " name ; 
 of how he (not blind Jo then) had gone with " 01' 
 Mars' " the very next day and driven some stakes in 
 the woods " close back " of the garden ; of how he 
 didn't like to say positive, but he sorter felt like there 
 was some writing about it in the flap of 01' Miss's little 
 work-table that Miss Jinny had "took " away with her ; 
 of how he didn't want nothing said about it unless he 
 could find them stakes, for if Mars' Ben had " give up " 
 
BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 375 
 
 the whole place, maybe it wouldn't be nothing but 
 '' pester " for Miss Jinny to stir the matter up ; of how 
 this having all happened so very long ago, when Miss 
 Jinny wasn't any thing but a little " skeery critter " 
 that he had to hold in the saddle when he was teaching 
 her how to ride, he might not be able to find the stakes, 
 but he was going to try for it. 
 
 The folks wondered why blind Jo had developed 
 such a sudden indifference to the bayou and his fishing 
 poles. Such conscience as Isham was possessed of 
 smote him sorely for this change 'in the old man's 
 habits. He haunted the woods now alone, always 
 alone. If he suspected that he was watched, the most 
 savage denunciations fell with withering effect upon 
 his watchers. Whole days he would spend in the 
 woods, groping, walking slowly, feeling his way through 
 them foot by foot, almost inch by inch, coming back 
 to the cabin at night, spent with exhaustion, and ready 
 to eat eagerly of the crumbs that fell from Melindy's 
 table with the dogs. 
 
 He brooked no questions and volunteered no infor- 
 mation. The folks grew tired of speculating about 
 him. The new people at the big house forgot all 
 about him. Only the lawyer in Slaterville, holding 
 himself ready for " a case " if those mythical stakes 
 should ever be located, speculated idly once in a while 
 about the strange old darkey on the Bendemma plan- 
 tation, who might have told him a truth, or might have 
 made the story out of whole cloth. 
 
 But there came a night when blind Jo did not come 
 back to eat of the crumbs which fell from Melindy's 
 table — such a wild, tempestuous night, when the wind 
 
376 BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 
 
 and the lightning and the thunder and the hail con- 
 spired to send terror into the simple hearts of all " the 
 folks." They wondered uneasily where old Jo had 
 stopped. Of course at the " nearest cabin." But the 
 *' nearest cabin " knew him not. 
 
 Out there, in the dense woods that had grown with 
 Miss Jinny's growth and strengthened with her 
 strength, until the feeble sapling had become the 
 mighty oak, they found him the next day, with the 
 sparkling sunshine resting placidly on his wet upturned 
 face, and the birds singing heartlessly to his closed 
 ears. Across his broad chest lay a huge limb rent 
 from a tempest-torn tree. It had stilled the beating 
 of his loyal heart as surely as a bullet. His long right 
 arm was twined about a stake driven firmly into the 
 ground and capped with iron. The sinewy fingers of 
 the old man had closed about this iron cap in a death- 
 grip. He had triumphed with his last breath. And 
 Miss Jinny was the gainer. 
 
 The lawyer in Slaterville had his case. The new 
 people had their defeat. Miss Jinny has her home, and 
 blind Jo has his grave beside 01' Mars' and 01' Miss 
 under the jessamine bushes in the garden of the big 
 house. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 '"''0,^ 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 014 433 837 6