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diff --git a/23637-h/23637-h.htm b/23637-h/23637-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aac0846 --- /dev/null +++ b/23637-h/23637-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,23313 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Bishop of Cottontown, by John Trotwood Moore. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + text-indent: 1em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } +div.trans-note {border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; background-color: #DEE; color: #000; + margin: 3em 15%; padding: 1em; text-align: center; font-size: 90%;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + +span.ralign { position: absolute; right: 0; top: auto; } + + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 12%; } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 90%; + font-size: 75%; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .first {font-size: 250%;} /* first letter */ + + .blockquot{margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 12%;} + + .totoc {position: absolute; left: 2%; font-size: 75%; text-align: right;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold; font-size: 85%} + + .hover {border-bottom: 1px dotted red;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .poem {margin-left:15%; margin-right:15%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i1 {display: block; margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i14 {display: block; margin-left: 14em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Bishop of Cottontown, by John Trotwood Moore + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Bishop of Cottontown + A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills + +Author: John Trotwood Moore + +Release Date: November 26, 2007 [EBook #23637] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BISHOP OF COTTONTOWN *** + + + + +Produced by Marcia Brooks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 323px;"> +<img src="images/illus001-1.jpg" width="323" height="500" alt="illlus001-1" title="Take care of Lily" /> +<span class="caption">“Take care of Lily”</span></div> + +<h2>THE</h2> +<h1>Bishop of Cottontown</h1> +<h3>A STORY OF THE SOUTHERN COTTON MILLS</h3> + +<h4>BY</h4> +<h2>JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE</h2> + +<h4><span class="smcap">AUTHOR OF</span></h4> +<h5>“A Summer Hymnal,” “Ole Mistis,” “Songs and Stories +from Tennessee,” etc.</h5> + +<h3><span class="smcap">ILLUSTRATED BY THE KINNEYS</span></h3> +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">“And each in his separate star,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shall paint the thing as he sees it<br /></span> +<span class="i4">For the God of Things As They Are.”<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i14">Kipling<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> +<h4>PHILADELPHIA<br /> +THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY<br /> +1906</h4> + +<center><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1906,<br /> +By John Trotwood Moore</span><br /> +Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, 1906<br /><br /> +<i>All Rights Reserved</i></center> +<br /><br /> + +<center><span class="smcap">In Memory Of My Mother,</span><br /> +<br /> +EMILY BILLINGSLEA MOORE,<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Who Died<br /> +<br /> +December 14th, 1903,<br /> +The Faith Of This Book Being Hers.</span></center> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<a name="toc" id="toc"></a> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<h3>PART FIRST—THE BLOOM.</h3> +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TOC1" width="50%"> +<tr><td></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Prologue—the Cotton Blossom</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<h3>PART SECOND—THE BOLL.</h3> +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TOC2" width="50%"> +<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Cotton</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Richard Travis</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Jud Carpenter</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Food for the Factory</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Fly Catcher Caught</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Flint and the Coal</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Hillard Watts</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_84">84</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Westmoreland</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Mutual Understanding</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>X.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Star and a Satellite</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Midnight Burial</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Jack Bracken</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<h3>PART THIRD—THE GIN.</h3> +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TOC3" width="50%"> +<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Alice Westmore</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Real Heroes</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Franklin</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_154">154</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<h3>PART FOURTH—THE LINT.</h3> +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TOC4" width="50%"> +<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Cottontown</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_179">179</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Ben Butler</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_187">187</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">An Answer to Prayer</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">How the Bishop Froze</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Flock</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Bishop Militant</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Margaret Adams</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_219">219</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Hard-shell Sunday</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Return</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_232">232</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>X.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Swan Song of the Crepe Myrtle</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Casket and the Ghost</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_248">248</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Midnight Guard</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Theft of a Childhood</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_258">258</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Uncle Dave's Will</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_275">275</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Edward Conway</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_287">287</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Helen's Despair</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_296">296</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Whipper-in</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_305">305</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Samantha Carewe</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_312">312</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Quick Conversion</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_317">317</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Live Funeral</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_326">326</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Jack and the Little Ones</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_336">336</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Broken Thread</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_344">344</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">God Will Provide</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_350">350</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Bonaparte's Waterloo</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_355">355</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Born Naturalist</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_366">366</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXVI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Ben Butler's Last Race</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_380">380</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXVII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">You'll Come Back a Man</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_414">414</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<h3>PART FIFTH—THE LOOM.</h3> +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TOC5" width="50%"> +<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A New Mill Girl</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_419">419</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">In the Depths</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_431">431</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Work in a New Light</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_438">438</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Maggie</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_443">443</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Pay-day</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_447">447</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Plot</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_456">456</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Mrs. Westmore Takes a Hand</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_464">464</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Question Brought Home</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_473">473</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Pedigree of Achievement</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_487">487</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>X.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Married in God's Sight</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_493">493</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Queen Is Dead</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_499">499</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">In Thyself There Is Weakness</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_508">508</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Himself Again</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_512">512</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Joy of the Morning</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_519">519</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Touch of God</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_526">526</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Mammy Maria</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_533">533</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Double That Died</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_545">545</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Dying Lion</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_552">552</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Face To Face With Death</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_564">564</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Angel With the Flaming Sword</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_572">572</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Great Fire</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_581">581</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Conway Again</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_588">588</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Died for the Law</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_596">596</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Atonement</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_611">611</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Shadows and the Clouds</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_624">624</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXVI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Model Mill</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_633">633</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<div class="trans-note">Transcriber's Note: Obvious printer errors, have been silently corrected. +For clarity, have added new paragraphs with respect to dialogue within paragraphs. +The name Hillard and Hilliard have been uniformly changed to Hillard. Corrected incorrect usages of 'its' and 'it's.' +All other inconsistencies (i. e. The inconsistent spellings—sombre/somber, gray/grey, hyphen/no hyphen) have been left as they were in the original.</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<h2>PART FIRST—THE BLOOM</h2> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE COTTON BLOSSOM</h2> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">T</span>he cotton blossom is the only flower that is born in +the shuttle of a sunbeam and dies in a loom.</p> + +<p>It is the most beautiful flower that grows, and +needs only to become rare to be priceless—only to +die to be idealized.</p> + +<p>For the world worships that which it hopes to attain, +and our ideals are those things just out of our reach.</p> + +<p>Satiety has ten points and possession is nine of them.</p> + +<p>If, in early August, the delicately green leaves of this +most aristocratic of all plants, instead of covering acres +of Southland shimmering under a throbbing sun, peeped +daintily out, from among the well-kept beds of some +noble garden, men would flock to see that plant, which, +of all plants, looks most like a miniature tree.</p> + +<p>A stout-hearted plant,—a tree, dwarfed, but losing +not its dignity.</p> + +<p>Then, one morning, with the earliest sunrise, and born +of it, there emerges from the scalloped sea-shell of the +bough an exquisite, pendulous, cream-white blossom, +clasping in its center a golden yellow star, pinked with +dawn points of light, and, setting high up under its sky +of milk-white petals flanked with yellow stars, it seems +to the little nestling field-wrens born beneath it to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +the miniature arch of daybreak, ere the great eye of +the morning star closes.</p> + +<p>Later, when the sun rises and the sky above grows +pink and purple, it, too, changes its color from pink to +purple, copying the sky from zone to zone, from blue to +deeper blue, until, at late evening the young nestlings +may look up and say, in their bird language: “It is +twilight.”</p> + +<p>What other flower among them can thus copy Nature, +the great master?</p> + +<p>Under every sky is a sphere, and under this sky picture, +when night falls and closes it, a sphere is born. +And in that sphere is all of earth.</p> + +<p>Its oils and its minerals are there, and one day, becoming +too full of richness, it bursts, and throws open a +five-roomed granary, stored with richer fabric than ever +came from the shuttles of Fez and holding globes of oil +such as the olives of Hebron dreamed not of.</p> + +<p>And in that fabric is the world clothed.</p> + +<p>Oh, little loom of the cotton-plant, poet that can show +us the sky, painter that paints it, artisan that reaches +out, and, from the skein of a sunbeam, the loom of the +air and the white of its own soul, weaves the cloth that +clothes the world!</p> + +<p>From dawn and darkness building a loom. From +sunlight and shadow weaving threads of such fineness +that the spider's were ropes of sand and the hoar frost's +but clumsy icicles.</p> + +<p>Weaving—weaving—weaving them. And the delicately +patterned tapestry of ever-changing clouds forming +patterns of a fabric, white as the snow of the cen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>turies, +determined that since it has to make the garments +of men, it will make them unsullied.</p> + +<p>Oh, little plant, poet, painter, master-artisan!</p> + +<p>It is true to Nature to the last. The summer wanes +and the winter comes, and when the cotton sphere bursts, +'tis a ball of snow, but a dazzling white, spidery snow, +which warms and does not chill, brings comfort and +not care, wealth and the rich warm blood, and not the +pinches of poverty.</p> + +<p>There are those who cannot hear God's voice unless +He speaks to them in the thunders of Sinai, nor see Him +unless He flares before them in the bonfires of a burning +bush. They grumble because His Messenger came to a +tribe in the hill countries of Long Ago. They wish to +see the miracle of the dead arising. They see not the +miracle of life around them. Death from Life is more +strange to them than life from death.</p> + +<p>'Tis the silent voice that speaks the loudest. Did +Sinai speak louder than this? Hear it:</p> + +<p>“I am a bloom, and yet I reflect the sky from the +morning's star to the midnight's. I am a flower, yet I +show you the heaven from the dawn of its birth to the +twilight of its death. I am a boll, and yet a miniature +earth stored with silks and satins, oils of the olives, +minerals of all lands. And when I am ripe I throw open +my five-roomed granary, each fitted to the finger and +thumb of the human hand, with a depth between, +equalled only by the palm.”</p> + +<p>O voice of the cotton-plant, do we need to go to +oracles or listen for a diviner voice than yours when thus +you tell us: Pluck?</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<h2>PART SECOND—THE BOLL</h2> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +<h3>COTTON</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">T</span>he frost had touched the gums and maples in the +Tennessee Valley, and the wood, which lined +every hill and mountain side, looked like huge +flaming bouquets—large ones, where the thicker wood +clustered high on the side of Sand Mountain and stood +out in crimson, gold and yellow against the sky,—small +ones, where they clustered around the foot hills.</p> + +<p>Nature is nothing if not sentimental. She will make +bouquets if none be made for her; or, mayhap, she +wishes her children to be, and so makes them bouquets +herself.</p> + +<p>There was that crispness in the air which puts one to +wondering if, after all, autumn is not the finest time +of the year.</p> + +<p>It had been a prosperous year in the Tennessee Valley—that +year of 1874. And it had brought a double +prosperity, in that, under the leadership of George S. +Houston, the white men of the state, after a desperate +struggle, had thrown off the political yoke of the negro +and the carpetbagger, and once more the Saxon ruled in +the land of his birth.</p> + +<p>Then was taken a full, long, wholesome, air-filling +Anglo-Saxon breath, from the Tennessee Valley to the +Gulf. There was a quickening of pulses that had fal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>tered, +and heart-beats that had fluttered, dumb and discouraged, +now rattled like kettle-drums, to the fight of +life.</p> + +<p>It meant change—redemption—prosperity. And +more: that the white blood which had made Alabama, +need not now leave her for a home elsewhere.</p> + +<p>It was a year glorious, and to be remembered. One +which marks an epoch. One wherein there is an end of +the old and a beginning of the new.</p> + +<p>The cotton—the second picking—still whitened +thousands of acres. There were not hands enough to +pick it. The negroes, demoralized for a half score of +years by the brief splendor of elevation, and backed, at +first, by Federal bayonets and afterwards by sheer force +of their own number in elections, had been correspondingly +demoralized and shiftless. True to their instinct +then, as now, they worked only so long as they needed +money. If one day's cotton picking fed a negro for +five, he rested the five.</p> + +<p>The negro race does not live to lay up for a rainy day.</p> + +<p>And so the cotton being neglected, its lengthened and +frowseled locks hung from wide open bolls like the locks +of a tawdry woman in early morning.</p> + +<p>No one wanted it—that is, wanted it bad enough to +pick it. For cotton was cheap that fall—very cheap—and +picking cotton is a back-bending business. +Therefore it hung its frowsy locks from the boll.</p> + +<p>And nothing makes so much for frowsiness in the +cotton plant, and in woman, as to know they are not +wanted.</p> + +<p>The gin-houses were yet full, tho' the gin had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +running day and night. That which poured, like pulverized +snow, from the mouth of the flues into the pick-room—where +the cotton fell before being pressed into +bales—scarcely had time to be tramped down and +packed off in baskets to the tall, mast-like screws which +pressed the bales and bound them with ties, ere the seed +cotton came pouring in again from wagon bed and +basket.</p> + +<p>The gin hummed and sawed and sang and creaked, +but it could not devour the seed cotton fast enough from +the piles of the incoming fleece.</p> + +<p>Those grew lighter and larger all the time.</p> + +<p>The eight Tennessee sugar-mules, big and sinewy, +hitched to the lever underneath the gin-house at The +Gaffs, sweated until they sprinkled in one continual +shower the path which they trod around the pivot-beam +from morning until night.</p> + +<p>Around—around—forever around.</p> + +<p>For the levers turned the pivot-beam, and the pivot-beam +turned the big shaft-wheel which turned the gin-wheel, +and the gin had to go or it seemed as if the valley +would be smothered in cotton.</p> + +<p>Picked once, the fields still looked like a snowfall in +November, if such a thing were possible in a land which +scarcely felt a dozen snowfalls in as many years.</p> + +<p>Dust! There is no dust like that which comes from a +gin-house. It may be tasted in the air. All other dust +is gravel compared to the penetrating fineness of that +diabolical, burning blight which flies out of the lint, +from the thousand teeth of the gin-saws, as diamond +dust flies from the file.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is all penetrating, consumptive-breeding, sickening, +stifling, suffocating. It is hot and has a metallic flavor; +and it flies from the hot steel teeth of the saws, as +pestilence from the hot breath of the swamps.</p> + +<p>It is linty, furry, tickling, smothering, searing.</p> + +<p>It makes one wonder why, in picturing hell, no priest +ever thought of filling it with cotton-gin dust instead of +fire.</p> + +<p>And it clings there from the Lint to the Loom.</p> + +<p>Small wonder that the poor little white slaves, taking +up their serfdom at the loom where the negro left off at +the lint, die like pigs in a cotton-seed pen.</p> + +<p>There was cotton everywhere—in the fields, unpicked; +in the gin-houses, unginned. That in the fields +would be plowed under next spring, presenting the +strange anomaly of plowing under one crop to raise +another of the same kind. But it has been done many +times in the fertile Valley of the Tennessee.</p> + +<p>There is that in the Saxon race that makes it discontented, +even with success.</p> + +<p>There was cotton everywhere; it lay piled up around +the gin-houses and screws and negro-cabins and under +the sheds and even under the trees. All of it, which was +exposed to the weather, was in bales, weighing each a +fourth of a ton and with bulging white spots in +their bellies where the coarse cotton baling failed to +cover their nakedness.</p> + +<p>It was cotton—cotton—cotton. Seed,—ginned,—lint,—baled,—cotton.</p> + +<p>The Gaffs was a fine estate of five thousand acres +which had been handed down for several generations.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +The old home sat in a grove of hickory, oak and elm +trees, on a gentle slope. Ancient sentinels, and they +were there when the first Travis came from North Carolina +to the Tennessee Valley and built his first double-log +cabin under the shelter of their arms.</p> + +<p>From the porch of The Gaffs,—as the old home was +called—the Tennessee River could be seen two miles +away, its brave swift channel glittering like the flash of +a silver arrow in the dark green wood which bordered it.</p> + +<p>Back of the house the mountain ridge rolled; not high +enough to be awful and unapproachable, nor so low as +to breed contempt from a too great familiarity. Not +grand, but the kind one loves to wander over.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<h3>RICHARD TRAVIS</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">S</span>trength was written in the face of Richard +Travis—the owner of The Gaffs—intellectual, +physical, passion-strength, strength of purpose +and of doing. Strength, but not moral strength; and +hence lacking all of being all-conquering.</p> + +<p>He had that kind of strength which made others think +as he thought, and do as he would have them do. He +saw things clearly, strongly, quickly. His assurance +made all things sure. He knew things and was proud +of it. He knew himself and other men. And best of +all, as he thought, he knew women.</p> + +<p>Richard Travis was secretary and treasurer of the +Acme Cotton Mills.</p> + +<p>To-night he was alone in the old-fashioned but elegant +dining-room of the Gaffs. The big log fire of ash and +hickory was pleasant, and the blaze, falling in sombre +color on the old mahogany side-board which sat opposite +the fireplace, on the double ash floor, polished and +shining, added a deeper and richer hue to it. From the +toes of the dragon on which it rested, to the beak of the +hand-carved eagle, spreading his wings over the shield +beneath him, carved in the solid mahogany and surrounded +by thirteen stars, all was elegance and aristocracy. +Even the bold staring eyes of the eagle seemed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +proud of the age of the side-board, for had it not been +built when the stars numbered but thirteen? And was +not the eagle rampant then?</p> + +<p>The big brass andirons were mounted with the +bronzed heads of wood-nymphs, and these looked saucily +up at the eagle. The three-cornered cupboard, in one +corner of the room, was of cherry, with small diamond-shaped +windows in front, showing within rare old sets +of china and cut glass. The handsome square dining +table matched the side-board, only its dragon feet were +larger and stronger, as if intended to stand up under +more weight, at times.</p> + +<p>Everything was ancient and had a pedigree. Even +the Llewellyn setter was old, for he was grizzled around +the muzzle and had deep-set, lusterless eyes, from which +the firelight, as if afraid of their very uncanniness, +darted out as soon as it entered. And he carried his +head to one side when he walked, as old and deaf dogs do.</p> + +<p>He lay on a rug before the fire. He had won this +license, for opposite his name on the kennel books were +more field-trials won than by any other dog in Alabama. +And now he dozed and dreamed of them again, with +many twitchings of feet, and cocked, quivering ears, +and rigid tail, as if once more frozen to the covey in +the tall sedge-grass of the old field, with the smell of +frost-bitten Lespedeza, wet with dew, beneath his feet.</p> + +<p>Travis stooped and petted the old dog. It was the +one thing of his household he loved most.</p> + +<p>“Man or dog—'tis all the same,” he mused as he +watched the dreaming dog—“it is old age's privilege +to dream of what has been done—it is youth's to do.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>He stretched himself in his big mahogany chair and +glanced down his muscular limbs, and drew his arms together +with a snap of quick strength.</p> + +<p>Everything at The Gaffs was an open diary of the +master's life. It is so in all homes—that which we +gather around us, from our books to our bed-clothes, +is what we are.</p> + +<p>And so the setter on the rug meant that Richard +Travis was the best wing-shot in the Tennessee Valley, +and that his kennel of Gladstone setters had won more +field trials than any other kennel in the South. No man +has really hunted who has never shot quail in Alabama +over a well-broken setter. All other hunting is butchery +compared to the scientific sweetness of this sport.</p> + +<p>There was a good-night, martial, daring crow, ringing +from the Hoss-apple tree at the dining-room window. +Travis smiled and called out:</p> + +<p>“Lights waked you up, eh, Dick? You're a gay +Lothario—go back to sleep.”</p> + +<p>Richard Travis had the original stock—the Irish +Greys—which his doughty old grandsire, General +Jeremiah Travis, developed to championship honors, +and in a memorable main with his friend, General +Andrew Jackson, ten years after the New Orleans campaign, +he had cleared up the Tennesseans, cock and +pocket. It was a big main in which Tennessee, Georgia +and Alabama were pitted against each other, and in +which the Travis cocks of the Emerald Isle strain, as +Old Hickory expressed it, “stood the steel like a stuck +she-b'ar, fightin' for her cubs.”</p> + +<p>General Travis had been an expert at heeling a cock;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +and it is said that his skill on that occasion was worth +more than the blood of his Greys; for by a peculiar +turn of the gaffs,—so slight as to escape the notice of +any but an expert—his champion cock had struck the +blow which ended the battle. With the money won, he +had added four thousand acres to his estate, and afterwards +called it The Gaffs.</p> + +<p>And a strong, brave man had been General Jeremiah +Travis,—pioneer, Indian fighter, Colonel in the Creek +war and at New Orleans, and a General in the war with +Mexico.</p> + +<p>His love for the Union had been that of a brave man +who had gone through battles and shed his blood for his +country.</p> + +<p>The Civil War broke his heart.</p> + +<p>In his early days his heart had been in his thoroughbred +horses and his fighting cocks, and when he heard +that his nephew had died with Crockett and Bowie at the +Alamo, he drew himself proudly up and said: “A right +brave boy, by the Eternal, and he died as becomes one +crossed on an Irish Grey cock.”</p> + +<p>That had been years before. Now, a new civilization +had come on the stage, and where the grandsire had +taken to thoroughbreds, Richard Travis, the grandson, +took to trotters. In the stalls where once stood the sons +of Sir Archie, Boston, and imported Glencoe himself, +now were sons of Mambrino Patchin, and George Wilkes +and Harold. And a splendid lot they were—sires,—brood +mares and colts, in the paddocks of The Gaffs.</p> + +<p>Travis took no man's dust in the Tennessee Valley. +At county fairs he had a walk-over.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> + +<p>He had inherited The Gaffs from his grandfather, +for both his parents died in his infancy, and his two +remaining uncles gave their lives in Virginia, early in +the war, following the flag of the Confederacy.</p> + +<p>One of them had left a son, whom Richard Travis +had educated and who had, but the June before, graduated +from the State University.</p> + +<p>Travis saw but little of him, since each did as he +pleased, and it did not please either of them to get into +each other's way.</p> + +<p>There had been no sympathy between them. There +could not be, for they were too much alike in many ways.</p> + +<p>There can be no sympathy in selfishness.</p> + +<p>All through the summer Harry Travis had spent his +time at picnics and dances, and, but for the fact that +his cousin now and then missed one of his best horses +from the stable, or found his favorite gun put away +foul, or his fishing tackle broken, he would not have +known that Harry was on the place.</p> + +<p>Cook-mother Charity kept the house. Bond and free, +she had spent all her life at The Gaffs. Of this she was +prouder than to have been housekeeper at Windsor. +Her word was law; she was the only mortal who bossed, +as she called it, Richard Travis.</p> + +<p>Usually, friends from town kept the owner company, +and The Gaffs' reputation for hospitality, while generous, +was not unnoted for its hilarity.</p> + +<p>To-night Richard Travis was lonely. His supper +tray had not been removed. He lit a cigar and picked +up a book—it was Herbert Spencer, and he was soon +interested.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> + +<p>Ten minutes later an octoroon house-girl, with dark +Creole eyes, and bright ribbons in her hair, came in to +remove the supper dishes. She wore a bright-colored +green gown, cut low. As she reached over the table near +him he winced at the strong smell of musk, which +beauties of her race imagine adds so greatly to their +aesthetic <i>status-quo</i>. She came nearer to him than was +necessary, and there was an attempted familiarity in +the movement that caused him to curve slightly the corner +of his thin, nervous lip, showing beneath his mustache. +She kept a half glance on him always. He +smoked and read on, until the rank smell of her perfume +smote him again through the odor of his cigar, and as +he looked up she had busied around so close to him that +her exposed neck was within two feet of him bent in +seeming innocence over the tray. With a mischievous +laugh he reached over and flipped the hot ashes from his +cigar upon her neck. She screamed affectedly and +danced about shaking off the ashes. Then with feigned +maidenly piquancy and many reproachful glances, she +went out laughing good humoredly.</p> + +<p>He was good natured, and when she was gone he +laughed boyishly.</p> + +<p>Good nature is one of the virtues of impurity.</p> + +<p>Still giggling she set the tray down in the kitchen +and told Cook-mother Charity about it. That worthy +woman gave her a warning look and said:</p> + +<p>“The frisk'ness of this new gen'ration of niggers +makes me tired. Better let Marse Dick alone—he's a +dan'g'us man with women.”</p> + +<p>In the dining-room Travis sat quiet and thoughtful.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +He was a handsome man, turning forty. His face was +strong, clean shaved, except a light mustache, with full +sensual lips and an unusually fine brow. It was the +brow of intellect—all in front. Behind and above +there was no loftiness of ideality or of veneration. His +smile was constant, and though slightly cold, was always +approachable. His manner was decisive, but clever +always, and kind-hearted at times.</p> + +<p>Contrary to his habit, he grew reminiscent. He +despised this kind of a mood, because, as he said, “It is +the weakness of a fool to think about himself.” He +walked to the window and looked out on the broad fields +of The Gaffs in the valley before him. He looked at the +handsomely furnished room and thought of the splendid +old home. Then he deliberately surveyed himself in the +mirror. He smiled:</p> + +<p>“'Survival of the fittest'—yes, Spencer is right—a +great—great mind. He is living now, and the world, +of course, will not admit his greatness until he is dead. +Life, like the bull that would rule the herd, is never +ready to admit that other life is great. A poet is always +a dead rhymester,—a philosopher, a dead dreamer.</p> + +<p>“Let Spencer but die!</p> + +<p>“Tush! Why indulge in weak modesty and fool self-depreciation? +Even instinct tells me—that very lowest +of animal intellectual forces—that I survive because +I am stronger than the dead. Providence—God—whatever +it is, has nothing to do with it except to start +you and let you survive by overcoming. Winds you up +and then—devil take the hindmost!</p> + +<p>“It is brains—brains—brains that count—brains<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> +first and always. This moral stuff is fit only for those +who are too weak to conquer. I have accomplished +everything in life I have ever undertaken—everything—and—by +brains! Not once have I failed—I have +done it by intellect, courage—intuition—the thing in +one that speaks.</p> + +<p>“Now as to things of the heart,”—he stopped suddenly—he +even scowled half humorously. It came +over him—his failure there, as one who, sweeping with +his knights the pawns of an opponent, suddenly finds +himself confronting a queen—and checkmated.</p> + +<p>He walked to the window again and looked toward +the northern end of the valley. There the gables of an +old and somewhat weather-beaten home sat in a group +of beech on a rise among the foothills.</p> + +<p>“Westmoreland”—he said—“how dilapidated it is +getting to be! Something must be done there, and Alice—Alice,”—he +repeated the name softly—reverently—“I +feel—I know it—she—even she shall be mine—after +all these years—she shall come to me yet.”</p> + +<p>He smiled again: “Then I shall have won all around. +Fate? Destiny? Tush! It's living and surviving +weaker things, such for instance as my cousin Tom.”</p> + +<p>He smiled satisfactorily. He flecked some cotton lint +from his coat sleeve.</p> + +<p>“I have had a hard time in the mill to-day. It's a +beastly business robbing the poor little half-made-up +devils.”</p> + +<p>He rang for Aunt Charity. She knew what he +wished, and soon came in bringing him his cocktail—his +night-cap as she always called it,—only of late he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +had required several in an evening,—a thing that set +the old woman to quarreling with him, for she knew the +limit of a gentleman. And, in truth, she was proud of +her cocktails. They were made from a recipe given by +Andrew Jackson. For fifty years Cook-mother Charity +had made one every night and brought it to “old marster” +before he retired. Now she proudly brought it to +his grandson.</p> + +<p>“Oh, say Mammy,” he said as the old woman started +out—“Carpenter will be here directly with his report. +Bring another pair of these in—we will want them.”</p> + +<p>The old woman bristled up. “To be sure, I'll fix +'em, honey. He'll not know the difference. But the +licker he gits in his'n will come outen the bottle we keep +for the hosses when they have the colic. The bran' we +keep for gem'men would stick in his th'oat.”</p> + +<p>Travis laughed: “Well—be sure you don't get +that horse brand in mine.”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +<h3>JUD CARPENTER</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">A</span>n hour afterwards, Travis heard a well-known +walk in the hall and opened the door.</p> + +<p>He stepped back astonished. He released the +knob and gazed half angry, half smiling.</p> + +<p>A large dog, brindled and lean, walked complacently +and condescendingly in, followed by his master. At a +glance, the least imaginative could see that Jud Carpenter, +the Whipper-in of the Acme Cotton Mills, and +Bonaparte, his dog, were well mated.</p> + +<p>The man was large, raw-boned and brindled, and he, +also, walked in, complacently and condescendingly.</p> + +<p>The dog's ears had been cropped to match his tail, +which in his infancy had been reduced to a very few +inches. His under jaw protruded slightly—showing +the trace of bull in his make-up.</p> + +<p>That was the man all over. Besides he had a small, +mean, roguish ear.</p> + +<p>The dog was cross-eyed—“the only cross-eyed purp +in the worl'”—as his master had often proudly proclaimed, +and the expression of his face was uncanny.</p> + +<p>Jud Carpenter's eastern-eye looked west, and his western-eye +looked east, and the rest of the paragraph above +fitted him also.</p> + +<p>The dog's pedigree, as his master had drawlingly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +proclaimed, was “p'yart houn', p'yart bull, p'yart cur, +p'yart terrier, an' the rest of him—wal, jes' dog.”</p> + +<p>Reverse this and it will be Carpenter's: Just dog, +with a sprinkling of bull, cur, terrier, and hound.</p> + +<p>Before Richard Travis could protest, the dog walked +deliberately to the fireplace and sprang savagely on +the helpless old setter dreaming on the rug. The +older dog expostulated with terrific howls, while Travis +turned quickly and kicked off the intruder.</p> + +<p>He stood the kicking as quietly as if it were part of +the programme in the last act of a melodrama in which +he was the villain. He was kicked entirely across the +room and his head was driven violently into the half-open +door of the side-board. Here it came in contact +with one of Cook-mother's freshly baked hams, set aside +for the morrow's lunch. Without even a change of +countenance—for, in truth, it could not change—without +the lifting even of a hair in surprise, the brute +seized the ham and settled right where he was, to lunch. +And he did it as complacently as he had walked in, and +with a satisfied growl which seemed to say that, so far +as the villain was concerned, the last act of the melodrama +was ending to his entire satisfaction.</p> + +<p>Opening a side door, Travis seized him by the stump +of a tail and one hind leg—knowing his mouth was too +full of ham to bite anything—and threw him, still +clutching the ham, bodily into the back yard. Without +changing the attitude he found himself in when he hit +the ground, the brindled dog went on with his luncheon.</p> + +<p>The very cheek of it set Travis to laughing. He +closed the door and said to the man who had followed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +the dog in: “Carpenter, if I had the nerve of that +raw-boned fiend that follows you around, I'd soon own +the world.”</p> + +<p>The man had already taken his seat by the fire as unaffectedly +as had the dog. He had entered as boldly +and as indifferently and his two deep-set, cat-gray +cross-eyes looked around as savagely.</p> + +<p>He was a tall, lank fellow, past middle age, with a +crop of stiff, red-brown hair, beginning midway of his +forehead, so near to an equally shaggy and heavy splotch +of eyebrows as to leave scarce a finger's breadth between +them.</p> + +<p>He was wiry and shrewd-looking, and his two deep-set +eyes seemed always like a leopard's,—walking the +cage of his face, hunting for some crack to slip through. +Furtive, sly, darting, rolling hither and thither, never +still, comprehensive, all-seeing, malicious and deadly +shrewd. These were the eyes of Jud Carpenter, and +they told it all. To this, add again that they looked +in contrary directions.</p> + +<p>As a man's eye, so is the tenor of his life.</p> + +<p>Yet in them, now and then, the twinkle of humor +shone. He had a conciliatory way with those beneath +him, and he considered all the mill hands in that class. +To his superiors he was a frowning, yet daring and even +presumptuous underling.</p> + +<p>Somewhat better dressed than the Hillites from whom +he sprang was this Whipper-in of the Acme Cotton +Mills—somewhat better dressed, and with the air of +one who had arisen above his surroundings. Yet, withal, +the common, low-born, malicious instinct was there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>—the +instinct which makes one of them hate the man +who is better educated, better dressed than he. All told, +it might be summed up and said of Jud Carpenter that +he had all the instincts of a Hillite and all the arrogance +of a manager.</p> + +<p>“Nobody understands that dog, Bonaparte, but me,” +said Carpenter after a while—“he's to dogs what his +namesake was to man. He's the champ'un fighter of +the Tennessee Valley, an' the only cross-eyed purp in the +worl', as I have often said. Like all gen'uses of course, +he's a leetle peculiar—but him and me—we understan's +each other.”</p> + +<p>He pulled out some mill papers and was about to +proceed to discuss his business when Travis interrupted:</p> + +<p>“Hold on,” he said, good humoredly, “after my experience +with that cross-eyed genius of a dog, I'll need +something to brace me up.”</p> + +<p>He handed Carpenter a glass and each drank off his +cocktail at a quaff.</p> + +<p>Travis settled quickly to business. He took out his +mill books, and for an hour the two talked in a low tone +and mechanically. The commissary department of the +mill was taken up and the entire accounts gone over. +Memoranda were made of goods to be ordered. The +accounts of families were run over and inspected. It +was tedious work, but Travis never flagged and his executive +ability was quick and incisive. At last he closed +the book with an impatient gesture:</p> + +<p>“That's all I'll do to-night,” he muttered decisively. +“I've other things to talk to you about. But we'll +need something first.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>He went to the side-board and brought out a decanter +of whiskey, two goblets and a bowl of loaf sugar.</p> + +<p>He laughed: “Mammy knows nothing about this. +Two cocktails are the limit she sets for me, and so I +keep this private bottle.”</p> + +<p>He made a long-toddy for himself, but Carpenter +took his straight. In all of it, his furtive eyes, shining +out of the splotch of eyebrows above, glanced inquiringly +around and obsequiously followed every movement of +his superior.</p> + +<p>“Now, Carpenter,” said the Secretary after he had +settled back in his chair and lit a cigar, handing the box +afterwards to the other—“You know me—you and I—must +understand each other in all things.”</p> + +<p>“'Bleeged to be that way,” drawled the Whipper-in—“we +must wu'ck together. You know me, an' that +Jud Carpenter's motto is, 'mum, an' keep movin'.' +That's me—that's Jud Carpenter.”</p> + +<p>Travis laughed: “O, it's nothing that requires so +much heavy villain work as the tone of your voice would +suggest. We're not in a melodrama. This is the nineteenth +century and we're talking business and going to +win a thing or two by common sense and business ways, +eh?”</p> + +<p>Carpenter nodded.</p> + +<p>“Well, now, the first is quite matter of fact—just +horses. I believe we are going to have the biggest fair +this fall we have ever had.”</p> + +<p>“It's lots talked about,” said Carpenter—“'specially +the big race an' purse you've got put up.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>Travis grew interested quickly and leaned over excitedly.</p> + +<p>“My reputation is at stake—and that of The Gaffs' +stable. You see, Carpenter, it's a three-cornered race +for three-thousand dollars—each of us, Col. Troup, +Flecker and me, have put up a thousand—three heats +out of five—the winner takes the stake. Col. Troup, +of Lenox, has entered a fast mare of his, and Flecker, +of Tennessee, will be there with his gelding. I know +Flecker's horse. I could beat him with Lizette and one +of her legs tied up. I looked him over last week. Contracted +heels and his owner hasn't got horse-sense to +know it. It's horse-sense, Carpenter, that counts for +success in life as in a race.”</p> + +<p>Carpenter nodded again.</p> + +<p>“But it's different with Col. Troup's entry. Ever +been to Lenox?” he asked suddenly.</p> + +<p>Carpenter shook his head.</p> + +<p>“Don't know anybody there?” asked Travis. “I +thought so—just what I want.”</p> + +<p>He went on indifferently, but Carpenter saw that he +was measuring his words and noting their effect upon +himself. “They work out over there Tuesdays and +Fridays—the fair is only a few weeks off—they will +be stepping their best by Friday. Now, go there +and say nothing—but just sit around and see how fast +Col. Troup's mare can trot.”</p> + +<p>“That'll be easy,” said Carpenter.</p> + +<p>“I have no notion of losing my thousand and reputation, +too.” He bent over to Carpenter and laughed. +“All's fair in love and—a horse race. You know it's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +the 2:25 class, and I've entered Lizette, but Sadie B. is +so much like her that no living man who doesn't curry +them every day could tell them apart. Sadie B.'s mark +is 2:15. Now see if Troup can beat 2:25. Maybe he +can't beat 2:15.”</p> + +<p>Then he laughed ironically.</p> + +<p>Carpenter looked at him wonderingly.</p> + +<p>It was all he said, but it was enough for Carpenter. +Fraud's wink to the fraudulent is an open book. Her +nod is the nod of the Painted Thing passing down the +highway.</p> + +<p>Base-born that he was—low by instinct and inheritance, +he had never heard of so brilliant and so gentlemanly +a piece of fraud. The consummate boldness of it +made Carpenter's eyes twinkle—a gentleman and in a +race with gentlemen—who would dare to suspect? It +was the boldness of a fine woman, daring to wear a +necklace of paste-diamonds.</p> + +<p>He sat looking at Travis in silent admiration. Never +before had his employer risen to such heights in the eyes +of the Whipper-in. He sat back in his chair and +chuckled. His furtive eyes danced.</p> + +<p>“Nobody but a born gen'us 'ud ever have tho'rt of +that,” he said—“never seed yo' e'kal—why, the money +is your'n, any way you fix it. You can ring in Lizette +one heat and Sadie B.”——</p> + +<p>“There are things to be thought and not talked of,” +replied Travis quickly. “For a man of your age ar'n't +you learning to talk too much out loud? You go and +find out what I've asked—I'll do the rest. I'm think<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>ing +I'll not need Sadie B. Never run a risk, even a +dead sure one, till you're obliged to.”</p> + +<p>“I'll fetch it next week—trust me for that. But +I hope you will do it—ring in Sadie B. just for the fun +of it. Think of old bay-window Troup trottin' his +mare to death ag'in two fast horses an' never havin' +sense enough to see it.”</p> + +<p>He looked his employer over—from his neatly turned +foot to the cravat, tied in an up-to-date knot. At that, +even, Travis flushed. “Here,” he said—“another +toddy. I'll trust you to bring in your report all right.”</p> + +<p>Carpenter again took his straight—his eyes had begun +to glitter, his face to flush, and he felt more like +talking.</p> + +<p>Travis lit another cigar. He puffed and smoked in +silence for a while. The rings of smoke went up incessantly. +His face had begun to redden, his fingers to +thrill to the tip with pulsing blood. With it went his +final contingency of reserve, and under it he dropped +to the level of the base-born at his side.</p> + +<p>Whiskey is the great leveler of life. Drinking it, +all men are, indeed, equal.</p> + +<p>“When are you going out to get in more hands for +the mill?” asked Travis after a pause.</p> + +<p>“To-morrow——”</p> + +<p>“So soon?” asked Travis.</p> + +<p>“Yes, you see,” said Carpenter, “there's been ha'f a +dozen of the brats died this summer an' fall—scarlet +fever in the mill.”</p> + +<p>Travis looked at him and smiled.</p> + +<p>“An' I've got to git in some mo' right away,” he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> +went on. “Oh, there's plenty of 'em in these hills.”</p> + +<p>Travis smoked for a few minutes without speaking.</p> + +<p>“Carpenter, had you ever thought of Helen Conway—I +mean—of getting Conway's two daughters into +the mill?” He made the correction with a feigned indifference, +but the other quickly noticed it. In an instant +Carpenter knew.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact the Whipper-in had not thought +of it, but it was easy for him to say what he thought +the other wished him to say.</p> + +<p>“Wal, yes,” he replied; “that's jes' what I had been +thinkin' of. They've got to come in—'ristocrats or +no 'ristocrats! When it comes to a question of bread +and meat, pedigree must go to the cellar.”</p> + +<p>“To the attic, you mean,” said Travis—“where their +old clothes are.”</p> + +<p>Carpenter laughed: “That's it—you all'ers say the +k'rect thing. 'N' as I was sayin'”—he went on—“it +is a ground-hog case with 'em. The Major's drunk +all the time. His farm an' home'll be sold soon. He's +'bleeged to put 'em in the mill—or the po'-house.”</p> + +<p>He paused, thinking. Then, “But ain't that Helen +about the pretties' thing you ever seed?” He chuckled. +“You're sly—but I seen you givin' her that airin' +behin' Lizette and Sadie B.—”</p> + +<p>“You've nothing to do with that,” said Travis +gruffly. “You want a new girl for our drawing-in +machine—the best paying and most profitable place +in the mill—off from the others—in a room by herself—no +contact with mill-people—easy job—two +dollars a day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>—”</p> + +<p>“One dollar—you forgit, suh—one dollar's the +reg'lar price, sah,” interrupted the Whipper-in.</p> + +<p>The other turned on him almost fiercely: “Your +memory is as weak as your wits—two dollars, I tell +you, and don't interrupt me again—”</p> + +<p>“To be sho',” said the Whipper-in, meekly—“I +did forgit—please excuse me, sah.”</p> + +<p>“Then, in talking to Conway, you, of course, would +draw his attention to the fact that he is to have a nice +cottage free of rent—that will come in right handy +when he finds himself out in the road—sold out and +nowhere to go,” he said.</p> + +<p>“'N' the commissary,” put in Carpenter quietly. +“Excuse me, sah, but there's a mighty good bran' of +whiskey there, you know!”</p> + +<p>Travis smiled good humoredly: “Your wits are returning,” +he said; “I think you understand.”</p> + +<p>“I'll see him to-morrow,” said Carpenter, rising to +go.</p> + +<p>“Oh, don't be in a hurry,” said Travis.</p> + +<p>“Excuse me, sah, but I'm afraid I've bored you +stayin' too long.”</p> + +<p>“Sit down,” said the other, peremptorily—“you +will need something to help you along the road. Shall +we take another?”</p> + +<p>So they took yet another drink, and Carpenter went +out, calling his dog.</p> + +<p>Travis stood in the doorway and watched them go +down the driveway. They both staggered lazily along. +Travis smiled: “Both drunk—the dog on ham.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>As he turned to go in, he reeled slightly himself, but +he did not notice it.</p> + +<p>When he came back he was restless. He looked at +the clock. “Too early for bed,” he said. “I'd give +a ten if Charley Biggers were here with his little cocktail +laugh to try me a game of poker.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly he went to the window, and taking a small +silver whistle from his pocket he blew it toward the +stables. Soon afterwards a well dressed mulatto boy +entered.</p> + +<p>“How are the horses to-night, Jim?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Fine, sir—all eatin' well an' feelin' good.”</p> + +<p>“And Coquette—the saddle mare?”</p> + +<p>“Like split silk, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Exercise her to-morrow under the saddle, and Sunday +afternoon we will give Miss Alice her first ride on +her—she's to be a present for her on her birth-day, +you know—eh?”</p> + +<p>Jim bowed and started out.</p> + +<p>“You may fix my bath now—think I'll retire. O +Jim!” he called, “see that Antar, the stallion, is securely +stalled. You know how dangerous he is.”</p> + +<p>He was just dozing off when the front door closed +with a bang.</p> + +<p>Then a metal whip handle thumped heavily on the +floor and the jingling of a spur rattled over the hall +floor, as Harry Travis boisterously went down the hall, +singing tipsily,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Oh, Johnny, my dear,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Just think of your head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just think of your head<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In the morning.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>Another door banged so loudly it awakened even the +setter. The old dog came to the side of the bed and +laid his head affectionately in Travis' palm. The master +of The Gaffs stroked his head, saying: “It is +strange that I love this old dog so.”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> +<h3>FOOD FOR THE FACTORY</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">T</span>he next morning being Saturday, Carpenter, the +Whipper-in, mounted his Texas pony and started +out toward the foothills of the mountains.</p> + +<p>Upon the pommel of his saddle lay a long single-barreled +squirrel gun, for the hills were full of squirrels, +and Jud was fond of a tender one, now and then. Behind +him, as usual, trotted Bonaparte, his sullen eyes +looking for an opportunity to jump on any timid country +dog which happened along.</p> + +<p>There are two things for which all mills must be +prepared—the wear and tear of Time on the machinery—the +wear and tear of Death on the frail things +who yearly work out their lives before it.</p> + +<p>In the fight for life between the machine and the +human labor, in the race of life for that which men call +success, who cares for the life of one little mill hand? +And what is one tot of them from another? And if +one die one month and another the next, and another the +next and the next, year in and year out, who remembers +it save some poverty-hardened, stooped and benumbed +creature, surrounded by a scrawny brood calling ever +for bread?</p> + +<p>The world knows not—cares not—for its tiny life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> +is but a thread in the warp of the great Drawing-in +Machine.</p> + +<p>So fearful is the strain upon the nerve and brain +and body of the little things, that every year many +of them pass away—slowly, surely, quietly—so imperceptibly +that the mill people themselves scarcely miss +them. And what does it matter? Are there not hundreds +of others, born of ignorance and poverty and +<span class="hover" title="pair">pain</span>, to take their places?</p> + +<p>And the dead ones—unknown, they simply pass into +a Greater Unknown. Their places are filled with fresh +victims—innocents, whom Passion begets with a caress +and Cupidity buys with a curse. Children they are—tots—and +why should they know that they are trading—life +for death?</p> + +<p>It was a bright fall morning, and Jud Carpenter +rode toward the mountain a few miles away. They are +scarcely mountains—these beautifully wooded hills in +the Tennessee Valley, hooded by blue in the day and +shrouded in somber at night; but it pleases the people +who live within the sweet influence of their shadows to +call them mountains.</p> + +<p>Jud knew where he was going, and he rode leisurely +along, revolving in his mind the plan of his campaign. +He needed the recruits for the Acme Mills, and in all +his past experience as an employment agent he had +never undertaken to bring in a family where as much +tact and diplomacy was required as in this case.</p> + +<p>It was a dilapidated gate at which he drew rein. +There had once been handsome pillars of stone and +brick, but these had fallen and the gate had been swung<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +on a convenient locust tree that had sprung up and +grown with its usual rapidity from its sheltered nook +near the crumbling rock wall. Only one end of the +gate was hung; and it lay diagonally across the entrance +of what had once been a thousand acres of the +finest farm in the Tennessee Valley.</p> + +<p>Dismounting, Jud hitched his horse and set his gun +beside the tree; and as it was easier to climb over the +broken-down fence than to lift the gate around, he +stepped over and then shuffled along in his lazy way +toward the house.</p> + +<p>It was an old farmhouse, now devoid of paint; and +the path to it had once been a well-kept gravel walk, +lined with cedars; but the box-plants, having felt no +pruning shears for years, almost filled, with their fantastically +jagged boughs, the narrow path, while the +cedars tossed about their broken and dead limbs.</p> + +<p>The tall, square pillars in the house, from dado above +to where they rested in the brick base below, showed the +naked wood, untouched so long by paint that it had +grown furzy from rain and snow, and splintery from +sun and heat. Its green shutters hung, some of them, +on one hinge; and those which could be closed, were +shut up close and sombre under the casements.</p> + +<p>A half dozen hounds came baying and barking +around him. As Jud proceeded, others poured out from +under the house. All were ribby, and half starved.</p> + +<p>Without a moment's hesitation they promptly covered +Bonaparte, much to the delight of that genius. Indeed, +from the half-satisfied, half malignant snarl which lit up +his face as they piled rashly and brainlessly on him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> +Jud took it that Bonaparte had trotted all these miles +just to breakfast on this remnant of hound on the half-shell.</p> + +<p>In a few minutes Bonaparte's terrible, flashing teeth +had them flying in every direction.</p> + +<p>Jud promptly cuffed him back to the gate and bade +him wait there.</p> + +<p>On the front portico, his chair half-tilted back, his +trousers in his boot legs, and his feet on the balustrade +rim, the uprights of which were knocked out here and +there, like broken teeth in a comb,—sat a man in a +slouch hat, smoking a cob pipe. He was in his shirt +sleeves. His face was flushed and red; his eyes were +watery, bleared. His head was fine and long—his +nose and chin seemed to meet in a sharp point. His +face showed that form of despair so common in those +whom whiskey has helped to degenerate. He did not +smile—he scowled continuously, and his voice had been +imprecatory so long that it whined in the same falsetto +twang as one of his hounds.</p> + +<p>Jud stepped forward and bowed obsequiously.</p> + +<p>“How are you to-day, Majah, sah?” he asked while +his puckered and wrinkled face tried to smile.</p> + +<p>Jud was chameleon. Long experience had taught +him to drop instinctively into the mannerism—even +the dialect—of those he hoped to cajole. With the +well-bred he could speak glibly, and had airs himself. +With the illiterate and the low-bred, he could out-Caliban +the herd of them.</p> + +<p>The man did not take the pipe out of his mouth. +He did not even turn his head. Only his two bleared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +eyes shot sidewise down to the ground, where ten feet +below him stood the employment agent of the mills, +smiling, smirking, and doing his best to spell out on +the signboard of his unscrupulous face the fact that he +came in peace and good will.</p> + +<p>Major Edward Conway scarcely grunted—it might +have been anything from an oath to an eructation. +Then, taking his pipe-stem from between his teeth, and +shifting his tobacco in his mouth,—for he was both +chewing and smoking—he expectorated squarely into +the eyes of a hound which had followed Jud up the +steps, barking and snarling at his heels.</p> + +<p>He was a good marksman even with spittle, and the +dog fled, whining.</p> + +<p>Then he answered, with an oath, that he was about +as well as the rheumatism and the beastly weather would +permit.</p> + +<p>Jud came up uninvited and sat down. The Major +did not even turn his head. The last of a long line of +gentlemen did not waste his manners on one beneath +him socially.</p> + +<p>Jud was discreetly silent, and soon the Major began +to tell all of his troubles, but in the tone of one who +was talking to his servant and with many oaths and +much bitterness:</p> + +<p>“You see it's this damned rheumatism, Carpenter. +Las' night, suh, I had to drink a quart of whiskey befo' +I cu'd go to sleep at all. It came on me soon aftah +I come out of the wah, an' it growed on me like jim'son +weeds in a hog-pen. My appetite's quit on me—two +pints of whiskey an' wild-cherry bark a day, suh, don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +seem to help it at all, suh. I cyant tell whut the devil's +the matter with my stomach. Nothin' I eat or drink +seems to agree with me but whiskey. If I drink this +malarial water, suh, m'legs an' m'feet begin to swell. +I have to go back to whiskey. Damn me, but I was born +for Kentucky. Why, I've got a forty dollar thirst on +me this very minute. I'm so dry I cu'd kick up a dust +in a hog wallow. Maybe, though, it's this rotten stuff +that cross-roads Jew is sellin' me an' callin' it whiskey. +He's got a mortgage on everything here but the houn's +and the house cat, an' he's tryin' to see if he cyant kill +me with his bug-juice an' save a suit in Chancery. +I'm goin' to sen' off an' see if I cyant git another bran' +of it, suh.”</p> + +<p>Edward Conway was the type of the Southerner +wrecked financially and morally by the war. His father +and grandfather had owned Millwood, and the present +owner had gone into the war a carefully educated, well +reared youth of twenty. He came out of it alive, it is +true, but, like many another fine youth of both North +and South, addicted to drink.</p> + +<p>The brutality of war lies not alone in death—it is +often more fatal, more degenerating, in the life it leaves +behind.</p> + +<p>Coming out of the war, Conway found, as did all +others in the Tennessee Valley who sided with the +South, that his home was a wreck. Not a fence, even, +remained—nothing but the old home—shutterless, +plasterless, its roof rotten, its cellar the abode of hogs.</p> + +<p>Thousands of others found themselves likewise—brave +hearts—men they proved themselves to be—in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> +that they built up their homes out of wreck and their +country out of chaos.</p> + +<p>The man who retrieves his fortune under the protecting +arm of law and order is worthy of great praise; +but he who does it in the surly, snarling teeth of Disorder +itself is worthy of still greater praise.</p> + +<p>And the real soldier is not he with his battles and his +bravery. All animals will fight—it is instinct. But +he who conquers in the great moral battle of peace and +good government, overcoming prejudice, ignorance, +poverty and even injustice, till he rises to the height of +the brave whose deeds do vindicate them—this is the +real soldier.</p> + +<p>Thousands of Southern soldiers did this, but Edward +Conway had not been one of them. For where whiskey +sits he holds a scepter whose staff is the body of the +Upas tree, and there is no room for the oak of thrift or +the wild-flower of sweetness underneath.</p> + +<p>From poverty to worse poverty Edward Conway had +gone, until now, hopelessly mortgaged, hopelessly besotted, +hopelessly soured, he lived the diseased product +of weakness, developed through stimulated inactivity.</p> + +<p>Nature is inexorable, morally, physically, mentally, +and as two generations of atheists will beget a thief, +so will two generations of idle rich beget nonentities.</p> + +<p>On this particular morning that Jud Carpenter came, +things had reached a crisis with Edward Conway. By +a decree of the court, the last hope he had of retaining +a portion of his family estate had been swept away, +and the entire estate was to be advertised for sale, to +satisfy a mortgage and judgment. It is true, he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +the two years of redemption under the Alabama law, +but can a drunkard redeem his land when he can not +redeem himself?</p> + +<p>And so, partly from despair, and partly from that +instinct which makes even the most sensitive of mortals +wish to pour their secret troubles into another's ear, +partly even from drunken recklessness, Edward Conway +sat on his verandah this morning and poured his troubles +into the designing ear of Jud Carpenter. The refrain +of his woe was that luck—luck—remorseless luck +was against him.</p> + +<p>Luck, since the beginning of the world, has been the +cry of him who gambles with destiny. Work is the +watchword of the man who believes in himself.</p> + +<p>This thing went because that man had been against +him, and this went because of the faithlessness of another. +His health—well, that was God's doing.</p> + +<p>Jud was too shrewd to let him know that he thought +whiskey had anything to do with it—and so, very +cautiously did the employment agent proceed.</p> + +<p>A child with sunny hair and bright eyes ran across the +yard. She was followed by an old black mammy, +whose anxiety for fear her charge might get her clothes +soiled was plainly evident; from the parlor came the +notes of an old piano, sadly out of tune, and Jud could +hear the fine voice of another daughter singing a love +ballad.</p> + +<p>“You've got two mighty pyeart gyrls here,” at last +he ventured.</p> + +<p>“Of course, they are, suh,” snapped their father—“they +are Conways.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Ever think of it, sah,” went on Jud, “that they +could make you a livin' in the mill?”</p> + +<p>Conway was silent. In truth, he had thought of +that very thing. To-day, however, he was nerved and +desperate, being more besotted than usual.</p> + +<p>“Now, look aheah—it's this way,” went on Jud—“you're +gettin' along in age and you need res'. You've +been wuckin' too hard. I tell you, Majah, sah, you're +dead game—no other man I know of would have stood +up under the burdens you've had on yo' shoulders.”</p> + +<p>The Major drew himself up: “That's a family trait +of the Conways, suh.”</p> + +<p>“Wal, it's time for you to res' awhile. No use to +drive a willin' hoss to death. I can get a place for both +of the gyrls in the mill, an' aftah the fust month—aftah +they learn the job, they can earn enough to support +you comf't'bly. Now, we'll give you a nice little +cottage—no bother of keepin' up a big run-down +place like this—jes' a neat little cottage. Aunt +Mariah can keep it in nice fix. The gyrls will be employed +and busy an' you can jes' live comf't'bly, an' +res'. An' say,” he added, slyly—“you can get all the +credit at the Company's sto' you want an' I'm thinkin' +you'll find a better brand of licker than that you've +been samplin'.”</p> + +<p>Besotted as he was—hardened and discouraged—the +proposition came over Conway with a wave of +shame. Even through his weakened mind the old instinct +of the gentleman asserted itself, and for a moment +the sweet refined face of a beautiful dead wife, +the delicate beauty of a little daughter, the queenliness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +of an elder one, all the product of good breeding and +rearing, came over him. He sprang to his feet. +“What do you mean, suh? My daughters—grandchildren +of Gen. Leonidas Conway—my daughters +work in the mill by the side of that poor trash from the +mountains? I'll see you damned first.”</p> + +<p>He sat down—he bowed his head in his hands. A +glinty look came into his eyes.</p> + +<p>Jud drew his chair up closer: “But jes' think a +minute—you're sold out—you've got no whur to go, +you've wuck'd yo'self down tryin' to save the farm. +We've all got to wuck these days. The war has changed +all the old order of things. We havn't got any mo' +slaves.”</p> + +<p>“We,”—repeated Conway, and he looked at the +man and laughed.</p> + +<p>Jud flushed even through his sallow skin:</p> + +<p>“Wal, that's all right,” he added. “Listen to me, +now, I'm tryin' to save you from trouble. The war +changed everything. Your folks got to whur they did +by wuckin'. They built up this big estate by economy +an' wuck. Now, you mus' do it. You've got the old +dead-game Conway breedin' in yo' bones an' you've +got the brains, too.” He lowered his voice: “It's only +for a little while—jes' a year or so—it'll give you a +nice little home to live in while you brace up an' pull +out of debt an' redeem yo' farm. Here—it is only +for a year or so—sign this—givin' you a home, an' +start all over in life—sign it right there, only for a +little while—a chance to git on yo' feet—.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>Conway scarcely knew how it happened that he signed—for +Jud quickly changed the subject.</p> + +<p>After a while Jud arose to go. As he did so, Lily, +the little daughter, came out, and putting her arms +around her father's neck, kissed him and said:</p> + +<p>“Papa—luncheon is served, and oh, do come on! +Mammy and Helen and I are so hungry.”</p> + +<p>Mammy Maria had followed her and stood deferentially +behind the chair. And as Jud went away he +thought he saw in the old woman's eyes, as she watched +him, a trace of that fine scorn bred of generations of +gentleness, but which whiskey had destroyed in the +master.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> +<h3>THE FLY CATCHER CAUGHT</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">A</span>s Jud went out of the dilapidated gate at Millwood, +he chuckled to himself. He had, indeed, +accomplished something. He had gained +a decided advance in the labor circles of the mill. +He had broken into the heretofore overpowering prejudice +the better class had against the mill, for he held in +his possession the paper wherein an aristocrat had signed +his two daughters into it. Wouldn't Richard Travis +chuckle with him?</p> + +<p>In the South social standing is everything.</p> + +<p>To have the mill represented by a first family—even +if brought to poverty through drunkenness—was +an entering wedge.</p> + +<p>His next job was easier. A mile farther on, the +poor lands of the mountain side began. Up on the +slope was a cabin, in the poorest and rockiest portion +of it, around the door of which half a dozen cracker +children stared at Jud with unfeigned interest as he +rode up.</p> + +<p>“Light an' look at yer saddle”—came from a typical +Hillite within, as Jud stopped.</p> + +<p>Jud promptly complied—alighted and looked at his +saddle.</p> + +<p>A cur—which, despite his breeding, is always a keen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> +detective of character—followed him, barking at his +heels.</p> + +<p>This one knew Jud as instinctively and as accurately +as he knew a fresh bone from a rank one—by smell. +He was also a judge of other dogs and, catching sight +of Bonaparte, his anger suddenly fled and he with it.</p> + +<p>“Won't you set down an' res' yo' hat?” came invitingly +from the doorway.</p> + +<p>Jud sat down and rested his hat.</p> + +<p>A tall, lank woman, smoking a cob pipe which had +grown black with age and Samsonian in strength, came +from the next room. She merely ducked her long, sharp +nose at Jud and, pretending to be busily engaged around +the room, listened closely to all that was said.</p> + +<p>Jud told the latest news, spoke of the weather and +made many familiar comments as he talked. Then he +began to draw out the man and woman. They were +poor, child-burdened and dissatisfied. Gradually, carefully, +he talked mill and the blessings of it. He drew +glorious pictures of the house he would take them to, +its conveniences—the opportunities of the town for +them all. He took up the case of each of the six +children, running from the tot of six to the girl of +twenty, and showed what they could earn.</p> + +<p>In all it amounted to sixteen dollars a week.</p> + +<p>“You sho'ly don't mean it comes to sixteen dollars +ev'y week,” said the woman, taking the cob pipe out for +the first time, long enough to spit and wipe her mouth +on the back of her hand, “an' all in silver an' all +our'n?” she asked. “Why that thar is mo' money'n<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +we've seed this year. What do you say to tryin' it, +Josiah?”</p> + +<p>Josiah was willing. “You see,” he added, “we +needn't stay thar longer'n a year or so. We'll git the +money an' then come back an' buy a good piece of land.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly he stopped and fired this point blank at +Jud: “But see heah, Mister-man, is thar any niggers +thar? Do we hafter wuck with niggers?”</p> + +<p>Jud looked indignant. It was enough.</p> + +<p>At the end of an hour the family head had signed for +a five years' contract. They would move the next week.</p> + +<p>“Cash—think of it—cash ever' week. An' in silver, +too,” said the woman. “Why, I dunno hardly how +it'll feel. I'm afeared it mou't gin me the eetch.”</p> + +<p>Jud, when he left, had induced their parents to sell +five children into slavery for five years.</p> + +<p>It meant for life.</p> + +<p>And both parents declared when he left that never +before had they “seed sech a nice man.”</p> + +<p>Jud had nearly reached the town when he passed, +high up on the level plateau by which the mountain road +now ran, the comfortable home of Elder Butts. Peach +and apple trees adorned the yard, while bee-hives sat in a +corner under the shade of them behind the cottage. +The tinkle of a sheep bell told of a flock of sheep nearby. +A neatly painted new wagon stood under the shed by +the house, and all around was an air of thrift and +work.</p> + +<p>“Now if I cu'd git that Butts family,” he mused, +“I'd have something to crow about when I got back to +Kingsley to-night. He's got a little farm an' is well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +to do an' is thrifty, an' if I cu'd only git that class +started in the mill an' contented to wuck there, it 'ud +open up a new class of people. There's that Archie B.—confound +him, he cu'd run ten machines at onct and +never know it. I'd like to sweat that bottled mischief +out of him a year or two.</p> + +<p>“Hello!”</p> + +<p>Jud drew his horse up with a jerk. Above him, with +legs locked, high up around the body of a dead willow, +his seat the stump of a broken bough and fully twenty +feet above the employment agent's head, sat Archie B., +a freckled-faced lad, with fiery red hair and a world of +fun in his blue eyes. He was one of the Butts twins and +the very object of the Whipper-in's thoughts. From +his head to his feet he had on but three garments—a +small, battered, all-wool hat, a coarse cotton shirt, wide +open at the neck, and a pair of jeans pants which came +to his knees. But in the pockets of his pants were small +samples of everything of wood and field, from shells of +rare bird eggs to a small supply of Gypsy Juice.</p> + +<p>His pockets were miniature museums of nature.</p> + +<p>No one but a small boy, bent on fun, knows what +Gypsy Juice is. No adult has ever been able to procure +its formula and no small boy in the South cares, so +long as he can get it.</p> + +<p>“The thing that hit does,” Archie B. explained to +his timid and pious twin brother, Ozzie B., “is ter make +anything it touches that wears hair git up and git.”</p> + +<p>Coons, possums, dogs, cats—with now and then a +country horse or mule, hitched to the town rack—with +these, and a small vial of Gypsy Juice, Archie B., as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +expressed it, “had mo' fun to the square inch than ole +Barnum's show ever hilt in all its tents.”</p> + +<p>Jud stood a moment watching the boy. It was easy +to see what Archie B. was after. In the body of the +dead tree a wood-pecker had chiseled out a round hole.</p> + +<p>“Hello, yo'se'f”—finally drawled Jud—“whatcher +doin' up thar?”</p> + +<p>“Why, I am goin' to see if this is a wood-pecker's +nes' or a fly-ketcher's.”</p> + +<p>Bonaparte caught his cue at once and ran to the foot +of the tree barking viciously, daring the tree-climber +to come down. His vicious eyes danced gleefully. He +looked at his master between his snarls as much as to +say: “Well, this is great, to tree the real live son +of the all-conquering man!”</p> + +<p>It maddened him, too, to see the supreme indifference +with which the all-conqueror's son treated his presence.</p> + +<p>Jud grunted. He prided himself on his bird-lore. +Finally he said: “Wal, any fool could tell you—it's +a wood-pecker's nest.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, that's so and jus' exacly what a fool 'ud say,” +came back from the tree. “But it 'ud be because he is +a fool, tho', an' don't see things as they be. It's a +fly-ketcher's nest, for all that—” he added.</p> + +<p>“Teach yo' gran'-mammy how to milk the house cat,” +sneered Jud, while Bonaparte grew furious again with +this added insult. “Don't you know a wood-pecker's +nest when you see it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Archie B., “an' I also know a fly-ketcher +will whip a wood-pecker and take his nes' from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +him, an' I've come up here to see if it's so with this +one.”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said Jud, surprised, “an' what is it?”</p> + +<p>“Jus' as I said—he's whipped the wood-pecker an' +tuck his nes'.”</p> + +<p>“What's a fly-ketcher, Mister Know-It-All?” said +Jud. Then he grinned derisively.</p> + +<p>Bonaparte, watching his master, ran around the tree +again and squatting on his stump of a tail grinned likewise.</p> + +<p>“A fly-ketcher,” said Archie B. calmly, “is a sneaking +sort of a bird, that ketches flies an' little helpless insects +for a—mill, maybe. Do you know any two-legged +fly-ketchers a-doin' that?”</p> + +<p>Jud glared at him, and Bonaparte grew so angry that +he snapped viciously at the bark of the tree as if he +would tear it down.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, you little imp?—what mill?”</p> + +<p>“Why his stomach,” drawled Archie B., “it's a little +differunt from a cotton-mill, but it grinds 'em to death +all the same.”</p> + +<p>Jud looked up again. He glared at Archie B.</p> + +<p>“How do you know that's a fly-ketcher's nest and +not a wood-pecker's, then?” he asked, to change the +subject.</p> + +<p>“That's what I'd like to know, too,” said Bonaparte +as plainly as his growls and two mean eyes could say it.</p> + +<p>“If it's a fly-ketcher's, the nest will be lined with a +snake's-skin,” said Archie B. “That's nachrul, ain't +it,” he added—“the nest of all sech is lined with snake-skins.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>Bonaparte, one of whose chief amusements in life was +killing snakes, seemed to think this a personal thrust at +himself, for he flew around the tree with renewed rage +while Archie B., safe on his high perch, made faces at +him and laughed.</p> + +<p>“I'll bet it ain't that way,” said Jud, rattled and discomfited +and shifting his long squirrel gun across his +saddle. Archie B. replied by carefully thrusting a +brown sunburnt arm into the hole and bringing out a +nest. “Now, a wood-pecker's egg,” he said, carefully +lifting an egg out and then replacing it, “'ud be pearly +white.”</p> + +<p>“How did you learn all that?” sneered Jud.</p> + +<p>“Oh, by keepin' out of a cotton mill an' usin' my +eye,” said Archie B., winking at Bonaparte.</p> + +<p>Bonaparte glared back.</p> + +<p>“I'd like to git you into the mill,” said Jud. “I'd +put you to wuck doin' somethin' that 'ud be worth +while.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, you would for a few years,” sneered back +Archie B. “Then you'd put me under the groun', +where I'd have plenty o' time to res'.”</p> + +<p>“I'm goin' up there now to see yo' folks an' see if I +can't git you into the mill.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you are?—Well, don't be in sech a hurry an' +look heah at yo' snake-skin fust—didn't I tell you it +'ud be lined with a snake-skin?” And he threw down a +last year's snake-skin which Bonaparte proceeded to +rend with great fury.</p> + +<p>“Now, come under here,” went on Archie B. persuasively, +“and I'll sho' you they're not pearly white, like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> +a wood-pecker's, but cream-colored with little purple +splotches scratched over 'em—like a fly-ketcher's.”</p> + +<p>Jud rode under and looked up. As he did so Archie +B. suddenly turned the nest upside down, that Jud +might see the eggs, and as he looked up four eggs shot +out before he could duck his head, and caught him +squarely between his shaggy eyes. Blinded, smeared +with yelk and smarting with his eyes full of fine broken +shell, he scrambled from his horse, with many oaths, and +began feeling for the little branch of water which ran +nearby.</p> + +<p>“I'll cut that tree down, but I'll git you and wring +yo' neck,” he shouted, while Bonaparte endeavored to +tear it down with his teeth.</p> + +<p>But Archie B. did not wait. Slowly he slid down +the tree, while Bonaparte, thunder-struck with joy, +waited at the foot, his eyes glaring, his mouth wide open, +anticipating the feast on fresh boy meat. Can he +be—dare he be—coming down? Right into my jaws, +too? The very thought of it stopped his snarls.</p> + +<p>Jud's curses filled the air.</p> + +<p>Down—down, slid Archie B., both legs locked +around the tree, until some ten feet above the dog, and, +then tantalizingly, just out of reach, he suddenly +tightened his brown brakes of legs, and thrusting his +hand in his pocket, pulled out a small rubber ball. +Reaching over, he squirted half of its contents over the +dog, which still sat snarling, half in fury and half in +wonder.</p> + +<p>Then something happened. Jud could not see, being +down on his knees in the little stream, washing his eyes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> +but he first heard demoniacal barks proceed from Bonaparte, +ending in wailful snorts, howls and whines, beginning +at the foot of the tree and echoing in a fast +vanishing wail toward home.</p> + +<p>Jud got one eye in working order soon enough to see +a cloud of sand and dust rolling down the road, from the +rear of which only the stub of a tail could be seen, +curled spasmodically downward toward the earth.</p> + +<p>Jud could scarcely believe his eyes—Bonaparte—the +champion dog—running—running like that?</p> + +<p>“Whut—whut—whut,”—he stammered, “Whut +<i>did he do</i> to Bonaparte?”</p> + +<p>Then he saw Archie B. up the road toward home, +rolling in the sand with shouts of laughter.</p> + +<p>“If I git my hands on you,” yelled Jud, shaking his +fist at the boy, “I'll swaller you alive.”</p> + +<p>“That's what the fly-ketcher said to the butterfly,” +shouted back Archie B.</p> + +<p>It was a half hour before Jud got all the fine eggshell +out of his eyes. After that he decided to let the +Butts family alone for the present. But as he rode +away he was heard to say again:</p> + +<p>“Whut—whut—whut <i>did he do</i> to Bonaparte?”</p> + +<p>Archie B. was still rolling on the ground, and chuckling +now and then in fits of laughter, when a determined, +motherly looking, fat girl appeared at the doorway of +the family cottage. It was his sister, Patsy Butts:</p> + +<p>“Maw,” she exclaimed, “I wish you'd look at Archie +B. I bet he's done sump'in.”</p> + +<p>There was a parental manner in her way. Her one +object in life, evidently, was to watch Archie B.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<p>“You Archie B.,” yelled his mother, a sallow little +woman of quick nervous movements, “air you havin' a +revulsion down there? What air you been doin' anyway? +Now, you git up from there and go see why +Ozzie B. don't fetch the cows home.”</p> + +<p>Archie B. arose and went down the road whistling.</p> + +<p>A ground squirrel ran into a pile of rocks. Archie +B. turned the rocks about until he found the nest, which +he examined critically and with care. He fingered it +carefully and patted it back into shape. “Nice little +nes',” he said—“that settles it—I thought they lined +it with fur.” Then he replaced the rocks and arose +to go.</p> + +<p>A quarter of a mile down the road he stopped and +listened.</p> + +<p>He heard his brother, Ozzie B., sobbing and weeping.</p> + +<p>Ozzie B. was his twin brother—his “after clap”—as +Archie B. called him. He was timid, uncertain, +pious and given to tears—“bo'hn on a wet Friday”—as +Archie B. had often said. He was always the effect +of Archie B.'s cause, the illustration of his theorem, the +solution of his problem of mischief, the penalty of his +misdemeanors.</p> + +<p>Presently Ozzie B. came in sight, hatless and driving +his cows along, but sobbing in that hiccoughy way which +is the final stage of an acute thrashing.</p> + +<p>No one saw more quickly than Archie B., and he +knew instantly that his brother had met Jud Carpenter, +on his way back to the mill.</p> + +<p>“He's caught my lickin' ag'in,” said Archie B., indignantly—“it's +a pity he looks so much like me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>It was true, and Ozzie B. stood and dug one toe into +the ground, and sobbed and wiped his eyes on his shirt +sleeve, and told how, in spite of his explanations and +beseechings, the Whipper-in had met him down the road +and thrashed him unmercifully.</p> + +<p>“Ozzie B.,” said his brother, “you make me tired all +over and in spots. I hate for as big a fool as you to +look like me. Whyncher run—whyncher dodge him?”</p> + +<p>“I—I—wanted ter do my duty,” sobbed Ozzie B. +“Maw tole me ter drive—drive the cows right up the +road—”</p> + +<p>Archie B. surveyed him with fine scorn:</p> + +<p>“When the Devil's got the road,” said Archie B., +“decent fo'ks had better take to the wood. I'd fixed +him an' his ole dorg, an' now you come along an' spile +it all.”</p> + +<p>He made a cross mark in the road and spat on it. +Then he turned with his back to the cross, threw his hat +over his head and said slowly: “<i>Venture pee wee under +the bridge! bam—bam—bam!</i>”</p> + +<p>“What's that fur?” asked Ozzie B., as he ceased +sobbing. His brother always had something new, and it +was always absorbingly interesting to Ozzie B.</p> + +<p>“That,” said Archie B., solemnly, “I allers say after +meetin' a Jonah in the road. The spell is now broke. +Jus' watch me fix Jud Carpenter agin. Wanter see me +git even with him? Well, come along.”</p> + +<p>“What'll you do?” asked Ozzie B.</p> + +<p>“I'll make that mustang break his neck for the way +he treated you, or my name ain't Archie B. Butts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>—that's +all. <i>Venture pee wee under the bridge, bam—bam—bam!</i>”</p> + +<p>“No—oo—no,” began Ozzie B., beginning to cry +again—“Don't kill 'im—it'll be cruel.”</p> + +<p>“Don't wanter see me go an' git even with the man +that's jus' licked you for nuthin'?”</p> + +<p>“No—oo—no—” sobbed Ozzie B. “Paw says—leave—leave—that +for—the Lord.”</p> + +<p>“Tarnashun!”—said Archie B., spitting on the +ground, disgustedly—, “too much relig'un is a dang'us +thing. You've got all of paw's relig'un an' maw's +brains, an' that's 'nuff said.”</p> + +<p>With this he kicked Ozzie B. soundly and sent him, +still sobbing, up the road.</p> + +<p>Then he ran across the wood to head off Jud Carpenter, +who he knew had to go around a bend in the road.</p> + +<p>There was no bird that Archie B. could not mimic. +He knew every creature of the wood. Every wild thing +of the field and forest was his friend. Slipping into +the underbrush, a hundred yards from the road down +which he knew Jud Carpenter had to ride, he prepared +himself for action.</p> + +<p>Drawing a turkey-call from his pocket, he gave the +call of the wild turkey going to roost, as softly as a +violinist tries his instrument to see if it is in tune.</p> + +<p>Prut—prut—prut—it rang out clear and distinctly.</p> + +<p>“All right,”—he said—“she'll do.”</p> + +<p>He had not long to wait. Up the road he soon saw +the Whipper-in, riding leisurely along.</p> + +<p>Archie B. swelled with anger at sight of the compla<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>cent +and satisfactory way he rode along. He even +thought he saw a smile—a kind of even-up smile—light +his face.</p> + +<p>When opposite his hiding place, Archie B. put his +call to his mouth: <i>Prut—Prut—P-R-U-T</i>—it +rang out. Then <i>Prut—prut</i>!</p> + +<p>Jud Carpenter stopped his horse instantly.</p> + +<p>“Turkeys goin' to roost.”—he muttered. He listened +for the direction.</p> + +<p><i>Prut—Prut</i>—it came out of the bushes on the +right—a hundred yards away under a beech tree.</p> + +<p>Jud listened: “Eatin' beech-mast,”—he said, and +he slipped off his pony, tied him quietly to the limb of +a sweet-gum tree, and cocking his long gun, slipped +into the wood.</p> + +<p>Five minutes later he heard the sound still farther off. +“They're walkin',” muttered Jud—“I mus' head 'em +off.” Then he pushed on rapidly into the forest.</p> + +<p>Archie B. let him go—then, making a short circuit, +slipped like an Indian through the wood, and came up +to the pony hitched on the road side.</p> + +<p>Quietly removing the saddle and blanket, he took two +tough prickly burrs of the sweet-gum and placed one on +each side of the pony's spine, where the saddle would +rest. Then he put the blanket and saddle back, taking +care to place them on very gently and tighten the girth +but lightly.</p> + +<p>He shook all over with suppressed mirth as he went +farther into the wood, and lay down on the mossy bank +behind a clay-root to watch the performance.</p> + +<p>It was a quarter of an hour before Jud, thoroughly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +tired and disgusted, gave up the useless search and came +back.</p> + +<p>Untying the pony, he threw the bridle rein over +its head and vaulted lightly into the saddle.</p> + +<p>Archie B. grabbed the clay-root and stuffed his wool +hat into his mouth just in time.</p> + +<p>“It was worth a dollar,” he told Ozzie B. that night, +after they had retired to their trundle bed. “The pony +squatted fust mighty nigh to the groun'—then he riz +a-buckin'. I seed Jud's coat-tail a-turnin' summersets +through the air, the saddle and blanket a-followin'. I +heard him when he hit the swamp hole on the side of the +road <i>kersplash!</i>—an' the pony skeered speechless went +off tearin' to-ards home. Then I hollered out: '<i>Go +it ole, fly-ketcher—you're as good for tad-poles as you +is for bird-eggs</i>'—an' I lit out through the wood.”</p> + +<p>Ozzie B. burst out crying: “Oh, Archie B., do you +reckin the po' man got hurt?”</p> + +<p>Archie B. replied by kicking him in the ribs until he +ceased crying.</p> + +<p>“Say yo' prayers now and go to sleep. I'll kick +you m'se'f, but I'll lick anybody else that does it.”</p> + +<p>As Ozzie B. dozed off he heard:</p> + +<p>“<i>Venture pee-wee under the bridge—bam—bam—bam.</i> +Oh, Lord, you who made the tar'nal fools of this +world, have mussy on 'em!”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<h3>THE FLINT AND THE COAL</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">L</span>ove is love and there is nothing in all the world +like it. Its romance comes but once, and it is +the perfume that precedes the ripened fruit of +all after life. It is not amenable to any of the laws of +reason; nor subject to any law of logic; nor can it be +explained by the analogy of anything in heaven or +earth. Do not, therefore, try to reason about it. Only +love once—and in youth—and be forever silent.</p> + +<p>One of the mysteries of love to older ones is that +two young people may become engaged and never a +word be spoken. Put the girl in a convent, even, and +let the boy but walk past, and the thing is done. They +look and love, and the understanding is complete. They +see and sigh, and read each other's secret thoughts, past +and present—each other's hopes, fears.</p> + +<p>They sigh and are engaged, and there is perfect understanding.</p> + +<p>Time and Romance travel not together. Time must +hurry on. Romance would loiter by the way. And so +Romance, in her completeness, loves to dwell most where +Time, traveling over the mile-tracks of the tropics, +which belong by heredity to Alabama—stalks slower +than on those strenuous half-mile tracks that spin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +around the earth in latitudes which grow smaller as they +approach the frozen pole.</p> + +<p>The sun had reached, in his day's journey, the bald +knob of Sunset Peak, and there, behind it, seemed to +stop. At least to Helen Conway, born and reared under +the brow of Sand Mountain, he seemed every afternoon, +when he reached the mountain peak, to linger, in a +friendly way, behind it.</p> + +<p>And a bold warrior-looking crest it was, helmeted +with a stratum of sand-stone, jutting out in visor-shaped +fullness about his head, and feathery above with scrub-oak +and cedar.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it had been a fancy which lingered from +childhood; but from the time when Mammy Maria had +first told her that the sun went to bed in the valley +beyond the mountain until now,—her eighteenth year,—Helen +still loved to think it was true, and that behind +the face of Sunset Rock he still lingered to undress; +and, lingering, it made for her the sweetest and most +romantic period of the day.</p> + +<p>True to her antebellum ideas, Mammy Maria dressed +her two girls every afternoon before dinner. It is also +true that she cooked the dinner herself and made their +dresses with her own fingers, and that of late years, in +the poverty of her drunken master, she had little to +dress them with and less to cook.</p> + +<p>But the resources of the old woman seemed wonderful—to +the people round about,—for never were two girls +more gorgeously gowned than Helen and Lily. It was +humorous, it was pathetic—the way it was done.</p> + +<p>From old bureau drawers and cedar chests, stored<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> +away in the attic and unused rooms of Millwood, where +she herself had carefully put them in days long gone—days +of plenty and thrift—she brought forth rich +gowns of another age, and made them over for Helen +and Lily.</p> + +<p>“Now, this gown was Miss Clara's,” she would say +as she took out a bundle of satin and old lace. She +looked at it fondly—often with tears in her honest +black eyes. “Lor', how well I disremember the night +she fust wore it—the night of the ball we give to +Jineral Jackson when he first come to see old Marster. +This flowered silk with pol'naize she wore at the Gov'nor's +ball and the black velvet with cut steel I've seed +her wearin' at many an' many a dinner here in this very +house.”</p> + +<p>And so the old woman would go over all her treasures. +Then, in a few days the gossipy and astounded neighbors +would behold Helen and Lily, dressed, each, in a +gown of white brocaded satin, with a dinner gown of +black velvet, and for Sunday, old point lace, with petticoats +of finest hand-made Irish linen and silk stockings—all +modernized with matchless deft and skill.</p> + +<p>“I guess my gals will shine as long as the old chist +lasts,” she would say, “an' I ain't started on 'em yet. +I'm a-savin' some for their weddin', bless Gord, if I +ever sees a man fitten for 'em.”</p> + +<p>It was an hour yet before dinner, and Aunt Maria had +dressed Helen, this Saturday afternoon, with great care—for +after a little frost, each day and night in Alabama +becomes warmer and warmer until the next frost.</p> + +<p>Mammy Maria knew things by intuition, and hence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> +her care to see that Helen looked especially pretty to-day.</p> + +<p>There was no sun save where he streamed his ribbon +rays from behind Sunset Rock, and threw them in pearl +and ivory fan handles—white and gold and emerald, +across the mackerel sky beyond.</p> + +<p>Helen's silk skirt fitted her well, and one of those +beautiful old ribbons, flowered in broad leaf and blossoms, +wound twice around her slender waist and fell in +broad streamers nearly to the ground. The bodice was +cut V-shaped at the throat—the corsage being taken +from one of her grandmother's made in 1822, and +around her neck was a long chain of pure gold beads.</p> + +<p>She was a type of Southern beauty obtained only +after years of gentle dames and good breeding.</p> + +<p>Her face was pure and fine, rather expressionless at +her age, with a straight nose and rich fine lips. Her +heavy hair was coiled gracefully about her head and +fell in a longer coil, almost to her shoulders. She was +tall with a sloping, angular form, the flat outlines of +which were not yet filled with that fullness that time +would soon add.</p> + +<p>Her waist was well turned, her shoulders broad and +slightly rounded, with that fullness of chest and breast +which Nature, in her hour of generosity, gives only to +the queenly woman. The curves of her sloping neck +were perfect and carried not a wave-line of grossness. +It was as unsensual as a swan's.</p> + +<p>Her gown, low cut, showed slight bony shoulders of +classic turn and whiteness, waiting only for time to +ripen them to perfection; and the long curved lines which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> +ran up to where the deep braid of her rich brown hair +fell over them, together with the big joints of her arms +and the long, fine profile of her face were forerunners of +a beauty that is strong—like that of the thoroughbred +brood mare after a year's run on blue-grass.</p> + +<p>Her eyes were her only weakness. They were deep +and hazel, and given to drooping too readily with that +feigned modesty wherein vanity clothes boldness. Down +in their depths, also, shone that bright, penetrating +spark of a taper by which Folly lights, in woman, the +lamp of ambition.</p> + +<p>Her forehead was high—her whole bearing the unconscious +one of a born lady.</p> + +<p>Romance—girlish, idealized romance—was her's +to-day. A good intentioned, but thoughtless romance—and +therefore a weak one. And worse still, one +which, coupled with ambition, might be led to ruin.</p> + +<p>Down through the tangled box-planted walks she +strolled, swinging her dainty hat of straw and old lace +in her hand; on through the small gate that bound the +first yard, then through the shaded lawn, unkept now +and rank with weeds, but still holding the old trees +which, in other days, looked down over the well kept +lawn of grass beneath. Now gaunt hogs had rooted it +up and the weeds had taken it, and the limbs of the old +trees, falling, had been permitted to lie as they fell.</p> + +<p>The first fence was down. She walked across the road +and took a path leading through a cottonfield, which, +protected on all sides by the wood, and being on the +elevated plateau on which the residence stood, had escaped +the severer frosts.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + +<p>And so she stopped and stood amid it, waist high.</p> + +<p>The very act of her stopping showed the romance +of her nature.</p> + +<p>She had seen the fields of cotton all her life, but she +could never pass through one in bloom and in fruit—the +white and purple blossoms, mingled with the green +of the leaves and all banked over billows of snowy lint,—that +she did not stop, thrilled with the same childhood +feeling that came with the first reading of the +Arabian Nights.</p> + +<p>She had seen the field when it was first plowed, in +the spring, and the small furrows were thrown up by the +little turning shovels. Then, down the entire length +of the ridge the cotton-planter had followed, its two +little wheels straddling the row, while the small bull-tongue +in front opened the shallow furrow for the linty, +furry, white seeds to fall in and be covered immediately +by the mold-board behind. She had seen it spring up +from one end of the ridge to the other, like peas, then +chopped out by the hoe, the plants left standing, each +the width of the hoe apart. Then she had watched it all +summer, growing under the Southern sun, throwing +out limb above limb of beautiful delicate leaves, drawing +their life and sustenance more from the air and sunshine +above than from the dark soil beneath. Drawing it +from the air and sunshine above, and therefore cotton, +silken, snowy cotton—with the warmth of the sun in +the skein of its sheen and the purity of heaven in the +fleece of its fold.</p> + +<p>Child of the air and the sky and sun; therefore,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +cotton—and not corn, which draws its life from the +clay and mud and decay which comes from below.</p> + +<p>She had seen the first cream-white bloom come.</p> + +<p>She had found it one sweet day in July, early in the +morning, on the tip end of the eldest branch of the cotton +stalk nearest the ground. It hung like the flower +of the cream-white, pendulous abutilon, with pollen of +yellow stars beaded in dew and throwing off a rich, delicate, +aromatic odor, smelt nowhere on earth save in a +cottonfield, damp with early dew and warmed by the rays +of the rising sun. Cream-white it was in the morning, +but when she had visited it again at nightfall, it hung +purple in the twilight.</p> + +<p>Then had she plucked it.</p> + +<p>Through the hot month of July she had watched the +boll grow and expand, until in August the lowest and +oldest one next to the ground burst, and shone through +the pale green leaves like the image of a star reflected +in waters of green. And every morning new cream-white +blooms formed to the very top, only to turn purple +by twilight, while beneath, climbing higher and higher +as the days went by and the cool nights came, star above +star of cotton arose and stood twinkling in its sky of +green and purple, above the dank manger where, in +early spring, the little child-seed had lain.</p> + +<p>To-day, touched by the great frost, the last purple +bloom in the very tip-top seemed to look up yearningly +and plead with the sun for one more day of life; that +it, too, might add in time its snowy tribute to the bank +of white which rolled entirely across the field, one big +billow of cotton.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> + +<p>And in the midst of it the girl stood dreaming and +wondering.</p> + +<p>She plucked a purple blossom and pinned it to her +breast. Then, with a deep sigh of saddened longing—that +this should be the last—she walked on, daintily +lifting her gown to avoid the damp stars of cotton, now +fast gathering the night dew.</p> + +<p>Across the field, a vine of wild grape ran over the +top of two small hackberry trees, forming a natural +umbrella-shaped arbor above two big moss-covered +boulders which cropped out of the ground beneath, making +two natural rustic seats. On one of these she sat +down. Above her head glowed the impenetrable leaves +of the grape-vine and the hackberry, and through them +all hung the small purple bunches of wild grapes, waiting +for the frost of affliction to convert into sugar the +acid of their souls.</p> + +<p>She was in plain view of Millwood, not a quarter of a +mile away, and in the glow of the blazing red sunset, +shining through its broken shutters and windows, she +could see Mammy Maria busy about their dinner.</p> + +<p>She looked up the road anxiously—then, with an +impatient gesture she took the cotton bloom from her +bosom and began to pluck the petals apart, one by one, +saying aloud:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“One, I love—two, I love—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Three, I love, I say.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Four, I love with all my heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And five, I cast away—”<br /></span></div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> + +<p>She stopped short and sighed—“O, pshaw! that was +Harry; why did I name it for him?”</p> + +<p>Again she looked impatiently up the road and then +went on:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Six, he loves, seven, she loves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eight, both love—”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>She turned quickly. She heard the gallop of a saddle +horse coming. The rider sprang off, tied his horse +and sat on the rock by her side.</p> + +<p>She appeared not to notice him, and her piqued face +was turned away petulantly.</p> + +<p>It was a handsome boyish face that looked at her for +a moment mischievously. Then he seized and kissed her +despite her struggles.</p> + +<p>For this she boxed his ears soundly and sat off on another +rock.</p> + +<p>“Harry Travis, you can't kiss me every time you +want to, no matter if we are engaged.”</p> + +<p>It was a strong and rather a masculine voice, and it +grated on one slightly, being scarcely expected from so +beautiful a face. In it was power, self-will, ambition—but +no tenderness nor that voice, soft and low, which +“is an excellent thing in woman.”</p> + +<p>He laughed banteringly.</p> + +<p>“Did you ever hear that love is not love if it is a +minute late? Just see how long I have waited here for +you?”</p> + +<p>She sat down by his side and looked fondly up into +his face, flushed with exercise and smiling half cynically.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> +It was the same smile seen so often on the face of Richard +Travis.</p> + +<p>“Oh, say,” he said, dolefully, “but don't start the +hubby-come-to-taw-business on me until we are married. +I was late because I had to steal the Gov'nor's new mare—isn't +she a beauty?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, say,” he went on, “but that is a good one—he +has bought her for somebody he is stuck on—can't +say who—and I heard him tell Jim not to let anybody +get on her back.</p> + +<p>“Well,”—he laughed—“she certainly has a fine +back. I stole her out and galloped right straight +here.</p> + +<p>“You ought to own her,”—he went on flippantly—pinching +playfully at the lobe of her ear—“her name +is Coquette.”</p> + +<p>Then he tried to kiss her again.</p> + +<p>“Harry!” she said, pulling away—“don't now—Mammy +Maria said I was never to—let you kiss me.”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” he said with some iciness—“Listen to her an' +you will die an old maid. Besides, I am not engaged +to Mammy Maria.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think I am a coquette?” she asked, sitting +down by him again.</p> + +<p>“Worst I ever saw—I said to Nellie just now—I +mean—” he stopped and laughed.</p> + +<p>She looked at him, pained.</p> + +<p>“Then you've stopped to see Nellie, and that is why +you are late? I do not care what she says—I am +true to you, Harry—because—because I love you.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>He was feigning anger, and tapping his boot with his +riding whip:</p> + +<p>“Well—kiss me yourself then—show me that +Mammy Maria does not boss my wife.”</p> + +<p>She laughed and kissed him. He received it with indifference +and some haughtiness.</p> + +<p>Then his good nature returned and they sat and +talked, watching the sunset.</p> + +<p>“Don't you think my dress is pretty?” she asked +after a while, with a becoming toss of her head.</p> + +<p>“Why, I hadn't noticed it—stunning—stunning. +If there is a queen on earth it is you,”—he added.</p> + +<p>She flushed under the praise and was silent.</p> + +<p>“Harry,”—she said after a while, “I hate to trouble +you now, but I am so worried about things at home.”</p> + +<p>He looked up half frowning.</p> + +<p>“You know I have always told you I could not marry +you now. I would not burden you with Papa.”</p> + +<p>“Why, yes,” he answered mechanically, “we're both +young and can wait. You see, really, Pet—you know +I am dependent at present on the Gov'nor an'—”</p> + +<p>“I understand all that,” she said quickly—“but”—</p> + +<p>“A long engagement will only test our love,” he +broke in with a show of dignity.</p> + +<p>“You do not understand,” she went on. “Things +have got so bad at home that I must earn something.”</p> + +<p>He frowned and tapped his foot impatiently. She +sat up closer to him and put her hand on his. He did +not move nor even return the pressure.</p> + +<p>“And so, Harry—if—if to help papa—and Millwood +is sold—and I can get a good place in the mill<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>—one +off by myself—what they call drawer-in—at good +wages,—and, if only for a little while I'd work there—to +help out, you know—what would you think?”</p> + +<p>He sprang up from his seat and dropped her hand.</p> + +<p>“Good God, Helen Conway, are you crazy?” he said +brutally—“why, I'd never speak to you again. Me? +A Travis?—and marry a mill girl?”</p> + +<p>The color went out of her face. She looked in her +shame and sorrow toward the sunset, where a cloud, but +ten minutes before, had stood all rosy and purple with +the flush of the sunbeams behind it.</p> + +<p>Now the beams were gone, and it hung white and +bloodless.</p> + +<p>In the crisis of our lives such trifles as these flash over +us. In the greatness of other things—often turning +points in our life—Nature sometimes points it all with +a metaphor.</p> + +<p>For Nature is the one great metaphor.</p> + +<p>Helen knew that she and the cloud were now one.</p> + +<p>But she was not a coward, and with her heart nerved +and looking him calmly in the face, she talked on and +told him of the wretched condition of affairs at Millwood. +And as she talked, the setting sun played over +her own cheeks, touching them with a halo of such exquisite +colors that even the unpoetic soul of Harry +Travis was touched by the beauty of it all.</p> + +<p>And to any one but Harry Travis the proper solution +would have been plain. Not that he said it or even +meant it—for she was too proud a spirit even to have +thought of it—there is much that a man should know +instinctively that a woman should never know at all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> + +<p>Harry surprised himself by the patience with which +he listened to her. In him, as in his cousin—his pattern—ran +a vein of tact when the crisis demanded, +through and between the stratum of bold sensuousness +and selfishness which made up the basis of his character.</p> + +<p>And so as he listened, in the meanness and meagerness +of his soul, he kept thinking, “I will let her down +easy—no need for a scene.”</p> + +<p>It was narrow and little, but it was all that could +come into the soul of his narrowness.</p> + +<p>For we cannot think beyond our fountain head, nor +can we even dream beyond the souls of the two things +who gave us birth. There are men born in this age of +ripeness, born with an alphabet in their mouths and +reared in the regal ways of learning, who can neither +read nor write. And yet had Shakespeare been born +without a language, he would have carved his thoughts +as pictures on the trees.</p> + +<p>Harry Travis was born as so many others are—not +only without a language, but without a soul within him +upon which a picture might be drawn.</p> + +<p>And so it kept running in his mind, quietly, cold-bloodedly, +tactfully down the narrow, crooked, slum-alleys +of his mind: “I will—I will drop her—now!” +She ceased—there were tears in her eyes and her face +was blanched whiter even than the cloud.</p> + +<p>He arose quickly and glanced at the setting sun: +“Oh, say, but I must get the Gov'nor's mare back. Jim +will miss her at feeding time.”</p> + +<p>There was a laugh on his lips and his foot was already +in the stirrup. “Sorry to be in such a hurry just now,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +too—because there is so much I want to say to you on +that subject—awful sorry—but the Gov'nor will raise +Cain if he knows what I've done. I'll just write you a +long letter to-night—and I'll be over, maybe, soon—ta—ta—but +this mare, confound her—see how she +cuts up—so sorry I can't stay longer—but I'll write—to-night.”</p> + +<p>He threw her a kiss as he rode off.</p> + +<p>She sat dazed, numbed, with the shallowness of it +all—the shale of sham which did not even conceal the +base sub-stratum of deceit below.</p> + +<p>Nothing like it had ever come into her life before.</p> + +<p>She dropped down behind the rock, but instead of +tears there came steel. In it all she could only say with +her lips white, a defiant poise of her splendid head, and +with a flash of the eyes which came with the Conway +aroused: “Oh, and I kissed him—and—and—I +loved him!”</p> + +<p>She sat on the rock again and looked at the sunset. +She was too hurt now to go home—she wished to be +alone.</p> + +<p>She was a strong girl—mentally—and with a deep +nature; but she was proud, and so she sat and crushed it +in her pride and strength, though to do it shook her as +the leaves were now being shaken by the breeze which +had sprung up at sunset.</p> + +<p>She thought she could conquer—that she had conquered—then, +as the breeze died away, and the leaves +hung still and limp again, her pride went with the breeze +and she fell again on her knees by the big rock, fell and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +buried her face there in the cool moss and cried: “Oh, +and I loved that thing!”</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later she sat pale and smiling. The +Conway pride had conquered, but it was a dangerous +conquest, for steel and tears had mingled to make it.</p> + +<p>In her despair she even plucked another cotton bloom +from her bosom as if trying to force herself to be happy +again in saying:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“One, I love—two, I love,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Three, I love, I say—”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But this only hurt her, because she remembered that +when she had said it before she had had an idol which +now lay shattered, as the petals of the cotton-blossom +which she had plucked and thrown away.</p> + +<p>Then the breeze sprang up again and with it, borne +on it, came the click—click—click of a hammer tapping +a rock. It was a small gladey valley through +which a gulley ran. Boulders cropped out here and +there, and haws, red and white elms, and sassafras grew +and shaded it.</p> + +<p>Down in the gulch, not a hundred yards from her, she +saw a pair of broad shoulders overtopped by a rusty +summer hat—the worse for a full season's wear. +Around the shoulders was strung a leathern satchel, and +she could see that the person beneath the hat was closely +inspecting the rocks he chipped off and put into the +satchel. Then his hammer rang out again.</p> + +<p>She sat and watched him and listened to the tap of +his hammer half sadly—half amused. Harry Travis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> +had crushed her as she had never been crushed before in +her life, and the pride in a woman which endureth a +fall is not to be trifled with afterwards.</p> + +<p>She grew calmer—even quiet. The old spirit returned. +She knew that she had never been as beautiful +in her life, as now—just now—in the halo of the +sunset shining on her hair and reflected in the rare old +gown she wore.</p> + +<p>The person with the leathern satchel was oblivious +of everything but his work. The old straw hat bobbed +energetically—the big shoulders nodded steadily beneath +it. She watched him silently a few minutes and +then she called out pleasantly:</p> + +<p>“You do seem to be very busy, Clay!”</p> + +<p>He stopped and looked up. Then he took off his hat +and, awkwardly bowing, wiped his brow, broad, calm +and self-reliant, and a deliberate smile spread over his +face. Everything he did was deliberate. The smile +began in the large friendly mouth and spread in kindred +waves upward until it flashed out from his kindly +blue eyes, through the heavy double-lens glasses that +covered them.</p> + +<p>Without a word he picked up the last rock he had +broken off and put it into his satchel. Very deliberate, +too, was his walk up the hill toward the grape arbor, +mopping his brow as he came along—a brow big and +full of cause and effect and of quiet deductions and +deliberate conclusions. His coat was seedy, his trousers +bagged at the knees, his shoes were old, and there were +patches on them, but his collar and linen were white and +very much starched, and his awkward, shambling gait<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> +was honest to the last footfall. A world of depth and +soul was in his strong, fine face, lit up now with an +honest, humble smile, but, at rest, full of quiet dignity.</p> + +<p>He shuffled along and sat down in a big brotherly way +by the girl's side.</p> + +<p>She sat still, looking at him with a half amused smile +on her lips.</p> + +<p>He smiled back at her abstractedly. She could see +that he had not yet really seen her. He was looking +thoughtfully across at the hill beyond:</p> + +<p>“It puzzles me,” he said in a fine, mellow voice, “why +I should find this rotten limestone cropping out here. +Now, in the blue limestone of the Niagara period I was +as sure of finding it as I am—”</p> + +<p>“Of not finding me at all,”—it came queenly, +haughtily from her.</p> + +<p>He turned, and the thick lenses of his glasses were +focused on her—a radiant, superb being. Then there +were swept away all his abstractions and deductions, and +in their place a real smile—a lover's smile of satisfaction +looking on the paradise of his dreams.</p> + +<p>“You know I have always worshiped you,” he said +simply and reverently.</p> + +<p>She moved up in a sisterly way to him and looked into +his face.</p> + +<p>“Clay—Clay—but you must not—I have told +you—I am engaged.”</p> + +<p>He did not appear to hear her. Already his mind +was away off in the hills where his eyes were. He went +on: “Now, over there I struck a stratum of rotten +limestone—it's a curious thing. I traced that vein of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> +coal from Walker County—clear through the carboniferous +period, and it is bound to crop out somewhere in +this altitude—bound to do it.”</p> + +<p>“Now it's just this way,” he said, taking her hand +without being conscious of it and counting off the periods +with her fingers. “Here is the carboniferous, +the sub-carboniferous—” She jerked her hand away +with what would have been an amused laugh except that +in a half conscious way she remembered that Harry had +held her hand but half an hour ago; and it ended in a +frigid shaft feathered with a smile—the arrow which +came from the bow of her pretty mouth.</p> + +<p>He came to himself with a boyish laugh and a blush +that made Helen look at him again and watch it roll +down his cheek and neck, under the fine white skin +there.</p> + +<p>Then he looked at her closely again—the romantic +face, the coil of brown hair, the old gown of rich silk, +the old-fashioned corsage and the rich old gold necklace +around her throat.</p> + +<p>“If there's a queen on earth—it's you,” he said +simply.</p> + +<p>He reddened again, and to divert it felt in his satchel +and took out a rock. Then he looked across at the hills +again:</p> + +<p>“If I do trace up that vein of coal and the iron which +is needed with it—when I do—for I know it is here +as well as Leverrier knew that Neptune was in our +planetary system by the attraction exerted—when I +do—”</p> + +<p>He looked at her again. He could not say the words.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> +Real love has ideas, but never words. It feels, but cannot +speak. That which comes out of the mouth, being +words, is ever a poor substitute for that which comes +from the heart and is spirit.</p> + +<p>“Clay,” she said, “you keep forgetting. I say I—I +am—was—” She stopped confused.</p> + +<p>He looked hurt for a moment and smiled in his frank +way: “I know it is here,” he said holding up a bit of +coal—“here, by the million tons, and it is mine by +right of birth and education and breeding. It is my +heritage to find it. One day Alabama steel will outrank +Pittsburgh's. Oh, to put my name there as the discoverer!”</p> + +<p>“Then you”—he turned and said it fondly—reverently—“you +should be mine by right of—of love.”</p> + +<p>She sighed.</p> + +<p>“Clay—I am sorry for you. I can never love you +that way. You have told me that, since—oh, since I +can remember, and I have always told you—you know +we are cousins, anyway—second cousins.” She shook +her head.</p> + +<p>“Under the heart of the flinty hill lies the coal,” he +said simply.</p> + +<p>But she did not understand him. She had looked +down and seen Harry's foot-track on the moss.</p> + +<p>And so they sat until the first star arose and shimmered +through the blue mist which lay around the far +off purpling hill tops. Then there was the clang of a +dinner bell.</p> + +<p>“It is Mammy Maria,” she said—“I must go. No<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>—you +must not walk home with me. I'd rather be +alone.”</p> + +<p>She did not intend it, but it was brutal to have said it +that way—to the sensitive heart it went to. He looked +hurt for a moment and then tried to smile in a weak +way. Then he raised his hat gallantly, turned and went +off down the gulch.</p> + +<p>Helen stood looking for the last time on the pretty +arbor. Here she had lost her heart—her life. She +fell on the moss again and kissed the stone. Then she +walked home—in tears.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<h3>HILLARD WATTS</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">I</span>t is good for the world now and then to go back +to first principles in religion. It would be better +for it never to get away from them; but, since it +has that way of doing—of breeding away and breaking +away from the innate good—it is well that a man +should be born in any age with the faith of Abraham.</p> + +<p>It matters not from what source such a man may +spring. And he need have no known pedigree at all, +except an honest ancestry behind him.</p> + +<p>Such a man was Hillard Watts, the Cottontown +preacher.</p> + +<p>Sprung from the common people of the South, he +was a most uncommon man, in that he had an absolute +faith in God and His justice, and an absolute belief that +some redeeming goodness lay in every human being, +however depraved he may seem to the world. And so +firm was his faith, so simple his religion—so contrary +to the worldliness of the religion of his day,—that the +very practice of it made him an uncommon man.</p> + +<p>As the overseer of General Jeremiah Travis's large +estate before the war, he proved by his success that even +slaves work better for kindness. Of infinite good sense, +but little education, he had a mind that went to the +heart of things, and years ago the fame of his homely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +but pithy sayings stuck in the community. In connection +with kindness to his negroes one of his sayings was, +“Oh, kindness can't be classified—it takes in the whole +world or nothin'.”</p> + +<p>When General Travis got into dire financial straits +once, he sent for his overseer, and advised with him as +to the expediency of giving up. The overseer, who +knew the world and its ways with all the good judgment +of his nature, dryly remarked: “That'll never do. +Never let the world know you've quit; an' let the undertaker +that buries you be the fust man to find out you're +busted.”</p> + +<p>General Travis laughed, and that season one of his +horses won the Tennessee Valley Futurity, worth thirty-thousand +dollars—and the splendid estate was again +free from debt.</p> + +<p>There was not a negro on the place who did not love +the overseer, not one who did not carry that love to the +extent of doing his best to please him. He had never +been known to punish one, and yet the work done by the +Travis hands was proverbial.</p> + +<p>Among his duties as overseer, the entire charge of the +Westmore stable of thoroughbreds fell to his care. This +was as much from love as choice, for never was a man +born with more innate love of all dumb creatures than +the preacher-overseer.</p> + +<p>“I've allers contended that a man could love God an' +raise horses, too,” he would say; and it was ludicrous +to see him when he went off to the races, filling the +tent trunk with religious tracts, which, after the races, +he would distribute to all who would read them. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> +when night came he would regularly hold prayers in his +tent—prayer-meetings in which his auditors were touts, +stable-boys and gamblers. And woe to the stable-boy +who uttered an oath in his presence or dared to strike +or maltreat any of his horses!</p> + +<p>He preached constantly against gambling on the +races. “That's the Devil's end of it,” he would say—“The +Almighty lets us raise good horses as a benefit +to mankind, an' the best one wins the purse. It was the +Devil's idea that turned 'em into gambling machines.”</p> + +<p>No one ever doubted the honesty of his races. When +the Travis horses ran, the racing world knew they ran +for blood.</p> + +<p>Physically, he had been an athlete—a giant, and +unconscious of his strength. Incidentally, he had taken +to wrestling when a boy, and as a man his fame as a +wrestler was coincident with the Tennessee Valley. It +was a manly sport which gave him great pleasure, just +as would the physical development of one of his race +horses. Had he lived in the early days of Greece, he +would have won in the Olympian wrestling match.</p> + +<p>There was in Hillard Watts a trait which is one of the +most pronounced of his type of folks,—a sturdy, honest +humor. Humor, but of the Cromwell type—and +withal, a kind that went with praying and fighting. +Possessed, naturally, of a strong mind of great good +sense, he had learned to read and write by studying the +Bible—the only book he had ever read through and +through and which he seemed to know by heart. He +was earnest and honest in all things, but in his earnestness +and strong fight for right living there was the twin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>kle +of humor. Life, with him, was a serious fight, but +ever through the smoke of its battle there gleamed the +bright sun of a kindly humor.</p> + +<p>The overseer's home was a double log hut on the side +of the mountain. His plantation, he called it,—for +having been General Travis's overseer, he could not +imagine any farm being less than a plantation.</p> + +<p>It consisted of forty acres of flinty land on the +mountain side—“too po' to sprout cow-peas,” as his +old wife would always add—“but hits pow'ful for +blackberries, an' if we can just live till blackberry time +comes we can take keer ourselves.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Watts had not a lazy bone in her body. Her +religion was work: “Hit's nature's remedy,” she would +add—“wuck and five draps o' turpentine if you're +feelin' po'ly.”</p> + +<p>She despised her husband's ways and thought little +of his religion. Her tongue was frightful—her temper +worse. Her mission on earth—aside from work—work—work—was +to see that too much peace and +good will did not abide long in the same place.</p> + +<p>Elder Butts, the Hard-Shell preacher, used to say: +“She can go to the full of the moon mighty nigh every +month 'thout raisin' a row, if hard pressed for time an' +she thinks everybody else around her is miser'ble. But +if things look too peaceful and happy, she'll raise sand +in the last quarter or bust. The Bishop's a good man, +but if he ever gits to heaven, the bigges' diamon' in his +crown'll be because he's lived with that old 'oman an' +ain't committed murder. I don't believe in law suits,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +but if he ain't got a damage case agin the preacher that +married him, then I'm wrong.”</p> + +<p>But no one ever heard the old man use harsher language +in speaking of her than to remark that she was +“a female Jineral—that's what Tabitha is.”</p> + +<p>Perhaps she was, and but for her the Bishop and his +household had starved long ago.</p> + +<p>“Furagin' is her strong point”—he would always +add—“she'd made Albert Sydney Johnston a great +chief of commissary.”</p> + +<p>And there was not an herb of any value that Mrs. +Watts did not know all about. Any fair day she +might be seen on the mountain side plucking edibles. +Ginseng was her money crop, and every spring she +would daily go into the mountain forests and come back +with enough of its roots to help them out in the winter's +pinch.</p> + +<p>“Now, if anybody'll study Nature,” she would say, +“they'll see she never cal'c'lated to fetch us here 'ithout +makin' 'lowance fur to feed us. The fus' thing that +comes up is dandelions—an' I don't want to stick my +tooth in anything that's better than dandelion greens +biled with hog-jowl. I like a biled dinner any way. +Sas'fras tea comes mighty handy with dandelions in the +spring, an' them two'll carry us through April. Then +comes wild lettice an' tansy-tea—that's fur May. +Blackberries is good fur June an' the jam'll take us +through winter if Bull Run and Appomattox ain' too +healthy. In the summer we can live on garden truck, +an' in the fall there is wild reddishes an' water-cresses +an' spatterdock, an' nuts an' pertatoes come in mighty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +handy fur winter wuck. Why, I was born wuckin'—when +I was a gal I cooked, washed and done house-work +for a family of ten, an' then had time to spin ten hanks +o' yarn a day.”</p> + +<p>“Now there's the old man—he's too lazy to wuck—he's +like all parsons, he'd rather preach aroun' all his +life on a promise of heaven than to wuck on earth for +cash!”</p> + +<p>“How did I ever come to marry Hillard Watts? +Wal, he wa'n't that triflin' when I married him. He +didn't have so much religiun then. But I've allers +noticed a man's heredity for no-countness craps out +after he's married. Lookin' back now I reckin' I married +him jes' to res' myself. When I'm wuckin' an' git +tired, I watches Hillard doin' nothin' awhile an' it hopes +me pow'ful.”</p> + +<p>“He gits so busy at it an' seems so contented an' +happy.”</p> + +<p>Besides his wife there were five grandchildren in his +family—children of the old man's son by his second +wife. “Their father tuck after his stepmother,” he +would explain regretfully, “an' wucked hisself to death +in the cotton factory. The dust an' lint give him consumption. +He was the only man I ever seed that tuck +after his stepmother”—he added sadly.</p> + +<p>An old soldier never gets over the war. It has left a +nervous shock in his make-up—a memory in all his +after life which takes precedence over all other +things. The old man had the naming of the grandchildren, +and he named them after the battles of the +Civil war. Bull Run and Seven Days were the boys.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> +Atlanta, Appomattox and Shiloh were the girls. His +apology for Shiloh was: “You see I thout I'd name +the last one Appomattox. Then came a little one befo' +her mammy died, so weak an' pitiful I named her Shiloh.”</p> + +<p>It was the boast of their grandmother—that these +children—even little Shiloh—aged seven—worked +from ten to twelve hours every day in the cotton factory, +rising before day and working often into the night, with +forty minutes at noon for lunch.</p> + +<p>They had not had a holiday since Christmas, and on +the last anniversary of that day they had worked until +ten o'clock, making up for lost time. Their pay was +twenty-five cents a day—except Shiloh, who received +fifteen.</p> + +<p>“But I'll soon be worth mo', pap,” she would say as +she crawled up into the old man's lap—her usual place +when she had eaten her supper and wanted to rest. +“An you know what I'm gwine do with my other nickel +every day? I'm gwine give it to the po' people of Indy +an' China you preaches about.”</p> + +<p>And thus she would prattle—too young to know +that, through the cupidity of white men, in this—the +land of freedom and progress—she—this blue-eyed, +white-skinned child of the Saxon race, was making the +same wages as the Indian sepoy and the Chinese coolie.</p> + +<p>It was Saturday night and after the old man had put +Shiloh to bed, he mounted his horse and rode across the +mountain to Westmoreland.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said the old lady—“he's gwine over to Miss +Alice's to git his Sunday School less'n. An' I'd like to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> +know what good Sunday school less'ns 'll do any body. +If folks'd git in the habit of wuckin' mo' an' prayin' +less, the worl'ud be better off, an' they'd really have +somethin' to be thankful fur when Sunday comes, 'stid +of livin' frum han' to mouth an' trustin' in some unknown +God to cram feed in you' crops.”</p> + +<p>Hardened by poverty, work, and misfortune, she was +the soul of pessimism.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +<h3>WESTMORELAND</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">F</span>rom The Gaffs to Westmoreland, the home of +Alice Westmore, was barely two miles up the +level white pike.</p> + +<p>Jim sat in the buggy at The Gaffs holding the horses +while Richard Travis, having eaten his supper, was +lighting a cigar and drawing on his overcoat, preparatory +to riding over to Westmoreland.</p> + +<p>The trotters stood at the door tossing their heads and +eager to be off. They were cherry bays and so much +alike that even Jim sometimes got them mixed. They +were clean-limbed and racy looking, with flanks well +drawn up, but with a broad bunch of powerful muscles +which rolled from hip to back, making a sturdy back +for the splendid full tails which almost touched the +ground. In front they stood up straight, deep-chested, +with clean bony heads, large luminous eyes and long +slender ears, tapering into a point as velvety and soft +as the tendril-bud on the tip of a Virginia creeper.</p> + +<p>They stood shifting the bits nervously. The night +air was cool and they wanted to go.</p> + +<p>Travis came out and sprang from the porch to the +buggy seat with the quick, sure footing of an athlete. +Jim sat on the offside and passed him the lines just as +he sang cheerily out:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Heigh-ho—my honies—go!”</p> + +<p>The two mares bounded away so quickly and keenly +that the near mare struck her quarters and jumped up +into the air, running. Her off mate settled to work, +trotting as steadily as a bolting Caribou, but pulling +viciously.</p> + +<p>Travis twisted the near bit with a deft turn of his +left wrist, and as the two mares settled to their strides +there was but one stroke from their shoes, so evenly and +in unison did they trot. Down the level road they flew, +Travis sitting gracefully upright and holding the lines +in that sure, yet careless way which comes to the expert +driver with power in his arms.</p> + +<p>“How many times must I tell you, Jim,” he said at +last rather gruffly—“never to bring them out, even for +the road, without their boots? Didn't you see Lizette +grab her quarters and fly up just now?”</p> + +<p>Jim was duly penitent.</p> + +<p>Travis let them out a link. They flew down a soft, +cool graveled stretch. He drew them in at the sound +of an ominous click. It came from Sadie B.</p> + +<p>“Sadie B.'s forging again. Didn't I tell you to have +the blacksmith move her hind shoes back a little?”</p> + +<p>“I did, sir,” said Jim.</p> + +<p>“You've got no weight on her front feet, then,” said +Travis critically.</p> + +<p>“Not to-night, sir—I took off the two ounces thinking +you'd not speed them to-night, sir.”</p> + +<p>“You never know when I'm going to speed them. +The night is as good as the day when I want a tonic.”</p> + +<p>They had reached the big stone posts which marked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> +the boundary of Westmoreland. A little farther on the +mares wheeled into the gate, for it was open and lay, +half on the ground, hanging by one hinge. It had not +been painted for years. The driveway, too, had been +neglected. The old home, beautiful even in its decay, +sat in a fine beech grove on the slope of a hill. A wide +veranda, with marble flag-stones as a base, ran across +the front. Eight Corinthian pillars sentineled it, resting +on a marble base which seemed to spring up out of +the flag-stones themselves, and towering to the projecting +entablature above.</p> + +<p>On one side an ell could be seen, covered with ivy. +On the other the roof of a hot-house, with the glass +broken out.</p> + +<p>It touched even Richard Travis—this decay. He +had known the place in the days of its glory before its +proprietor, Colonel Theodore Westmore, broken by the +war, in spirit and in pocket, had sent a bullet into his +brain and ended the bitter fight with debt. Since then, +no one but the widow and her daughter knew what the +fight had been, for Clay Westmore, the brother, was but +a boy and in college at the time. He had graduated +only a few months before, and was now at home, +wrapped up, as Richard Travis had heard, in what to +him was a visionary scheme of some sort for discovering +a large area of coal and iron thereabouts. He had +heard, too, that the young man had taken hold of what +had been left, and that often he had been seen following +the plough himself.</p> + +<p>Travis drove through the driveway—then he pulled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> +up the mares very gently, got out and felt of their +flanks.</p> + +<p>“Take them to the barn and rub them off,” he said, +“while you wait. And for a half hour bandage their +hind legs—I don't want any wind puffs from road +work.”</p> + +<p>He started into the house. Then he turned and said: +“Be here at the door, Jim, by ten o'clock, sharp. I +shall make another call after this. Mind you now, ten +o'clock, sharp.”</p> + +<p>At the library he knocked and walked in.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westmore sat by the fire. She was a small, +daintily-made woman, and beautiful even at fifty-five. +She had keen, black eyes and nervous, flighty ways. A +smile, half cynical, half inviting, lit up continuously +her face.</p> + +<p>“Richard?” she said, rising and taking his hand.</p> + +<p>“Cousin Alethea—I thought you were Alice and I +was going to surprise her.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westmore laughed her metallic little laugh. +It was habit. She intended it to be reassuring, but +too much of it made one nervous. It was the laugh +without the soul in it—the eye open and lighted, but +dead. It was a Damascus blade falling from the +stricken arm to the stone pavement and not against the +ringing steel of an opponent.</p> + +<p>“You will guess, of course, where she is,” she said +after they were seated.</p> + +<p>“No?” from Travis.</p> + +<p>“Getting their Sunday School lesson—she, Uncle +Bisco, and the Bishop.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>Travis frowned and gave a nervous twitch of his +shoulders as he turned around to find himself a chair.</p> + +<p>“No one knows just how we feel towards Uncle Bisco +and his wife,” went on Mrs. Westmore in half apology—“she +has been with us so long and is now so old and +helpless since they were freed; their children have all +left them—gone—no one knows where. And so Uncle +Bisco and Aunt Charity are as helpless as babes, and +but for Alice they would suffer greatly.”</p> + +<p>A sudden impulse seized Travis: “Let us go and +peep in on them. We shall have a good joke on Her +Majesty.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westmore laughed, and they slipped quietly out +to Uncle Bisco's cabin. Down a shrubbery-lined walk +they went—then through the woods across a field. It +was a long walk, but the path was firm and good, and +the moon lit it up. They came to the little cabin at +last, in the edge of another wood. Then they slipped +around and peeped in the window.</p> + +<p>A small kerosene lamp sat on a table lighting up a +room scrupulously clean.</p> + +<p>Uncle Bisco was very old. His head was, in truth, +a cotton plant full open. His face was intelligent, +grave—such a face as Howard Weeden only could +draw from memory. He had finished his supper, and +from the remnants left on the plate it was plain that +Alice Westmore had prepared for the old man dainties +which she, herself, could not afford to indulge in.</p> + +<p>By him sat his old wife, and on the other side of the +fireplace was the old overseer, his head also white, his +face strong and thoughtful. He was clean shaven,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> +save a patch of short white chin-whiskers, and his big +straight nose had a slight hook of shrewdness in it.</p> + +<p>Alice Westmore was reading the chapter—her voice +added to it an hundred fold: “Let not your heart be +troubled.... Ye believe in God, believe also in +me.... In my Father's house are many mansions...!”</p> + +<p>The lamplight fell on her hair. It was brown where +the light flashed over it, and lay in rippling waves +around her temples in a splendid coil down the arch of +her neck, and shining in strong contrast through the +gauzy dark sheen of her black gown. But where the +light fell, there was that suspicion of red which the last +faint tendril a dying sunbeam throws out in a parting +clutch at the bosom of a cloud.</p> + +<p>It gave one a feeling of the benediction of twilight.</p> + +<p>And when she looked up, her eyes were the blessings +poured out—luminous, helpful, uplifting, restful,—certain +of life and immortality, full of all that which one +sees not, when awake, but only when in the borderland +of sleep, and memory, unleashed, tracks back on the trail +of sweet days which once were.</p> + +<p>They spake indeed always thus: “Let not your +heart be troubled.... Peace, be still.”</p> + +<p>Her face did not seem to be a separate thing—apart—as +with most women. For there are women whose +hair is one thing and whose face is another. The hair +is beautiful, pure, refined. The face beautiful, merely. +The hair decorous, quiet, unadorned and debauched not +by powder and paint, stands aloof as Desdemona, Ophelia +or Rosalind. The face, brazen, with a sharp-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>tongued, +vulgar queen of a thing in its center, on a +throne, surrounded by perfumed nymphs, under the +sensual glare of two rose-colored lamps, sits and holds a +Du Barry court.</p> + +<p>They are neighbors, but not friends, and they live in +the same sphere, held together only by the law of gravity +which holds to one spot of earth the rose and the ragwort. +And the hair, like the rose, in all the purity of +its own rich sweetness, all the naturalness of its soul, sits +and looks down upon the face as a queen would over the +painted yellow thing thrust by the law of life into her +presence.</p> + +<p>But the face of Alice Westmore was companion to her +hair. The firelight fell on it; and while the glow from +the lamp fell on her hair in sweet twilight shadows of +good night, the rosy, purple beams of the cheerful firelight +lit up her face with the sweet glory of a perpetual +good morning.</p> + +<p>Travis stood looking at her forgetful of all else. His +lips were firmly set, as of a strong mind looking on its +life-dream, the quarry of his hunter-soul all but in his +grasp. Flashes of hope and little twists of fear were +there; then, as he looked again, she raised, half timidly, +her face as a Madonna asking for a blessing; and +around his, crept in the smile which told of hope long +deferred.</p> + +<p>Selfish, impure, ambitious, forceful and masterful as +he was, he stood hopeless and hungry-hearted before +this pure woman. She had been the dream of his life—all +times—always—since he could remember.</p> + +<p>To own her—to win her!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> + +<p>As he looked up, the hardness of his face attracted +even Mrs. Westmore, smiling by his side at the scene +before her. She looked up at Travis, but when she saw +his face the smile went out of hers. It changed to fear.</p> + +<p>All the other passions in his face had settled into one +cruel cynical smile around his mouth—a smile of winning +or of death.</p> + +<p>For the first time in her life she feared Richard +Travis.</p> + +<p>“I must go now,” said Alice Westmore to the old +men—“but I'll sing you a verse or two.”</p> + +<p>The overseer leaned back in his chair. Uncle Bisco +stooped forward, his chin resting on his hickory staff.</p> + +<p>And then like the clear notes of a spring, dripping +drop by drop with a lengthening cadence into the covered +pool of a rock-lined basin, came a simple Sunday +School song the two old men loved so well.</p> + +<p>There were tears in the old negro's eyes when she had +finished. Then he sobbed like a child.</p> + +<p>Alice Westmore arose to go.</p> + +<p>“Now, Bishop—” she smiled at the overseer—“don't +keep Uncle Bisco up all night talking about the +war, and if you don't come by the house and chat with +mamma and me awhile, we'll be jealous.”</p> + +<p>The overseer looked up: “Miss Alice—I'm an ole +man an' we ole men all dream dreams when night comes. +Moods come over us and, look where we will, it all leads +back to the sweet paths of the past. To-day—all day—my +mind has been on”—he stopped, afraid to pronounce +the word and hunting around in the scanty lexicon +of his mind for some <span class="hover" title="phrase">phase</span> of speech, some word<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> +even that might not awaken in Alice Westmore memories +of the past.</p> + +<p>Richard Travis had an intuition of things as naturally +as an eagle has the homing instinct, however +high in air and beyond all earth's boundaries he flies. +In this instance Mrs. Westmore also had it, for she +looked up quickly at the man beside her. All the other +emotions had vanished from his face save the one appealing +look which said: “Come, let us go—we have +heard enough.”</p> + +<p>Then they slipped back into the house.</p> + +<p>Alice Westmore had stopped, smiling back from the +doorway.</p> + +<p>“On what, Bishop?” she finally asked.</p> + +<p>He shook his head. “Jus' the dream of an ole man,” +he said. “Don't bother about us two ole men. I'll be +'long presently.”</p> + +<p>“Bisco,” said the old preacher after a while, “come +mighty nigh makin' a break then—but I've been +thinkin' of Cap'n Tom all day. I can't throw it off.”</p> + +<p>Bisco shook his head solemnly. “So have I—so +have I. The older I gits, the mo' I miss Marse Tom.”</p> + +<p>“I don't like the way things are goin'—in yonder”—and +the preacher nodded his head toward the +house.</p> + +<p>Uncle Bisco looked cautiously around to see that no +one was near: “He's doin' his bes'—the only thing is +whether she can forgit Marse Tom.”</p> + +<p>“Bisco, it ain't human nature for her to stan' up +agin all that's brought to bear on her. Cap'n Tom is +dead. Love is only human at las', an' like all else that's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> +human it mus' fade away if it ain't fed. It's been ten +years an' mo'—sence—Cap'n Tom's light went out.”</p> + +<p>“The last day of November—'64—” said Uncle +Bisco, “I was thar an' seed it. It was at the Franklin +fight.”</p> + +<p>“An' Dick Travis has loved her from his youth,” +went on the overseer, “an' he loves her now, an' he's a +masterful man.”</p> + +<p>“So is the Devil,” whispered Uncle Bisco, “an' didn't +he battle with the angels of the Lord an' mighty nigh +hurled 'em from the crystal battlements.”</p> + +<p>“Bisco, I know him—I've knowed him from youth. +He's a conjurin' man—a man who does things—he'll +win her—he'll marry her yet. She'll not love him as +she did Cap'n Tom. No—she'll never love again. +But life is one thing an' love is another, an' it ain't +often they meet in the same person. Youth mus' live +even if it don't love, an' the law of nature is the law +of life.”</p> + +<p>“I'm afeered so,” said the old negro, shaking his +head, “I'm afeered it'll be that way—but—I'd ruther +see her die to-night.”</p> + +<p>“If God lets it be,” said the preacher, “Bisco, if +God lets it be—” he said excitedly, “if he'll let Cap'n +Tom die an' suffer the martyrdom he suffered for conscience +sake an' be robbed, as he was robbed, of his home, +an' of his love—if God'll do that, then all I can say is, +that after a long life walkin' with God, it'll be the fus' +time I've ever knowed Him to let the wrong win out in +the end. An' that ain't the kind of God I'm lookin' +fur.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Do you say that, Marse Hillyard?” asked the old +negro quickly—his eyes taking on the light of hope as +one who, weak, comes under the influence of a stronger +mind. “Marse Hillyard, do you believe it? Praise +God.”</p> + +<p>“Bisco—I'm—I'm ashamed—why should I doubt +Him—He's told me a thousand truths an' never a lie.”</p> + +<p>“Praise God,” replied the old man softly.</p> + +<p>And so the two old men talked on, and their talk was +of Captain Tom. No wonder when the old preacher +mounted his horse to go back to his little cabin, all of +his thoughts were of Captain Tom. No wonder Uncle +Bisco, who had raised him, went to bed and dreamed of +Captain Tom—dreamed and saw again the bloody +Franklin fight.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<h3>A MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">I</span>n the library, Travis and Mrs. Westmore sat for +some time in silence. Travis, as usual, smoked, +in his thoughtful way watching the firelight which +flickered now and then, half lighting up the room. It +was plain that both were thinking of a subject that +neither wished to be the first to bring up.</p> + +<p>“I have been wanting all day to ask you about the +mortgage,” she said to him, finally.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said Travis, indifferently enough—“that's +all right. I arranged it at the bank to-day.”</p> + +<p>“I am so much obliged to you; it has been so on my +mind,” said his companion. “We women are such poor +financiers, I wonder how you men ever have patience to +bother with us. Did you get Mr. Shipton to carry it at +the bank for another year?”</p> + +<p>“Why—I—you see, Cousin Alethea—Shipton's a +close dog—and the most unaccommodating fellow that +ever lived when it comes to money. And so—er—well—the +truth is—is—I had to act quickly and for +what I thought was your interest.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westmore looked up quickly, and Travis saw +the pained look in her face. “So I bought it in myself,” +he went on, carelessly flecking his cigar ashes into +the fire. “I just had the judgment and sale transferred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> +to me—to accommodate you—Cousin Alethea—you +understand that—entirely for you. I hate to see you +bothered this way—I'll carry it as long as you wish.”</p> + +<p>She thanked him again, more with her eyes than her +voice. Then there crept over her face that look of trouble +and sorrow, unlike any Travis had ever seen there. +Once seen on any human face it is always remembered, +for it is the same, the world over, upon its millions and +millions—that deadened look of trouble which carries +with it the knowledge that the spot called home is lost +forever.</p> + +<p>There are many shifting photographs from the camera +called sorrow, pictured on the delicate plate of the +human soul or focused in the face. There is the crushed +look when Death takes the loved one, the hardened look +when an ideal is shattered, the look of dismay from +wrecked hopes and the cynical look from wrecked happiness—but +none of these is the numbed and dumb look +of despair which confronts humanity when the home is +gone.</p> + +<p>It runs not alone through the man family, but every +other animal as well, from the broken-hearted bird which +sits on the nearby limb, and sees the wreck of her home +by the ravages of a night-prowling marauder, to the +squalidest of human beings, turning their backs forever +on the mud-hut that had once sheltered them.</p> + +<p>To Mrs. Westmore it was a keen grief. Here had she +come as a bride—here had she lived since—here had +been born her two children—here occurred the great +sorrow of her life.</p> + +<p>And the sacredest memory, at last, of life, lies not in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> +the handclasp of a coming joy, but in the footfall of a +vanishing sorrow.</p> + +<p>Westmoreland meant everything to Mrs. Westmore—the +pride of birth, of social standing, the ties of motherhood, +the very altar of her life. And it was her husband's +name and her own family. It meant she was not +of common clay, nor unknown, nor without influence. It +was bound around and woven into her life, and part of +her very existence.</p> + +<p>Home in the South means more than it does anywhere +else on earth; for local self-government—wherever the +principle came from—finds its very altar there. States-right +is nothing but the home idea, stretched over the +state and bounded by certain lines. The peculiar institutions +of the South made every home a castle, a town, +a government, a kingdom in itself, in which the real +ruler is a queen.</p> + +<p>Ask the first negro or child met in the road, whose +home is this, or that, and one would think the entire +Southland was widowed.</p> + +<p>From the day she had entered it as a bride, Westmoreland, +throughout the County, had been known as the +home of Mrs. Westmore.</p> + +<p>She was proud of it. She loved it with that love +which had come down through a long line of cavaliers +loving their castles.</p> + +<p>And now she knew it must go, as well as that, sooner +or later, Death itself must come.</p> + +<p>She knew Richard Travis, and she knew that, if from +his life were snatched the chance of making Alice West<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>more +his wife he would sell the place as cold-bloodedly as +Shipton would.</p> + +<p>Travis sat smoking, but reading her. He spelled her +thoughts as easily as if they had been written on her +forehead, for he was a man who spelled. He smoked +calmly and indifferently, but the one question of his +heart—the winning of Alice,—surged in his breast and +it said: “Now is the time—now—buy her—the +mother. This is the one thing which is her price.”</p> + +<p>He looked at Mrs. Westmore again. He scanned her +closely, from her foot to the dainty head of beautiful, +half-grey hair. He could read her as an open book—her +veneration of all Westmoreland things—her vanity—her +pride of home and name and position; the +overpowering independence of that vanity which made +her hold up her head in company, just as in the former +days, tho' to do it she must work, scrub, pinch, ay, even +go hungry.</p> + +<p>He knew it all and he knew it better than she guessed—that +it had actually come to a question of food with +them; that her son was a geological dreamer, just out +of college, and that Alice's meagre salary at the run-down +female college where she taught music was all +that stood between them and poverty of the bitterest +kind.</p> + +<p>For there is no poverty like the tyranny of that which +sits on the erstwhile throne of plenty.</p> + +<p>He glanced around the room—the hall—the home—in +his mind's eye—and wondered how she did it—how +she managed that poverty should leave no trace of +itself in the home, the well furnished and elegant old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> +home, from its shining, polished furniture and old silver +to the oiled floor of oak and ash.</p> + +<p>Could he buy her—bribe her, win her to work for +him? He started to speak and say: “Cousin Alethea, +may not all this be stopped, this debt and poverty and +make-believe—this suffering of pride, transfixed by the +spears of poverty? Let you and me arrange it, and all +so satisfactorily. I have loved Alice all my life.”</p> + +<p>There is the fool in every one of us. And that is what +the fool in Richard Travis wished him to say. What +he did say was:</p> + +<p>“Oh, it was nothing but purely business on my part—purely +business. I had the money and was looking for +a good investment. I was glad to find it. There are +a hundred acres and the house left. And by the way, +Cousin Alethea, I just added five-hundred dollars more +to the principal,—thought, perhaps, you'd need it, you +know? You'll find it to your credit at Shipton's bank.”</p> + +<p>He smoked on as if he thought it was nothing. As a +business fact he knew the place was already mortgaged +for all it was worth.</p> + +<p>“Oh, how can we ever thank you enough?”</p> + +<p>Travis glanced at her when she spoke. He flushed +when he heard her place a slight accent on the we. She +glanced at him and then looked into the fire. But in +their glances which met, they both saw that the other +knew and understood.</p> + +<p>“And by the way, Cousin Alethea,” said Travis after +a while, “of course it is not necessary to let Alice know +anything of this business. It will only worry her unnecessarily.”</p> + +<p>“Of course not,” said Mrs. Westmore.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> +<h3>A STAR AND A SATELLITE</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">A</span>n hour later Mrs. Westmore had gone to her room +and Alice had been singing his favorite songs. +Her singing always had a peculiar influence +over Richard Travis—a moral influence, which, perhaps, +was the secret of its power; and all influence which +is permanent is moral. There was in it for him an uplifting +force that he never experienced save in her presence +and under the influence of her songs.</p> + +<p>He was a brilliant man and he knew that if he won +Alice Westmore it must be done on a high plane. +Women were his playthings—he had won them by the +score and flung them away when won. But all his life—even +when a boy—he had dreamed of finally winning +Alice Westmore and settling down.</p> + +<p>Like all men who were impure, he made the mistake +of thinking that one day, when he wished, he could be +pure.</p> + +<p>Such a man may marry, but it is a thing of convenience, +a matter in which he selects some woman, who +he knows will not be his mistress, to become his housekeeper.</p> + +<p>And thus she plods along in life, differing eventually +only from his mistress in that she is the mother of his +children.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<p>In all Richard's longings, too, for Alice Westmore, +there was an unconscious cause. He did not know it because +he could not know.</p> + +<p>Sooner or later love, which is loose, surfeits and sours. +It is then that it turns instinctively to the pure, as the +Jews, straying from their true God and meeting the +chastisement of the sword of Babylon, turned in their +anguish to the city of their King.</p> + +<p>Nature is inexorable, and love has its laws as fixed as +those which hold the stars in their course. And woe to +the man or woman who transgresses! He who, ere it is +ripe, deflowers the bud of blossoming love in wantonness +and waste, in after years will watch and wait and water +it with tears, in vain, for that bloom will never come.</p> + +<p>She came over by the fire. Her face was flushed; her +beautiful sad eyes lighted with excitement.</p> + +<p>“Do you remember the first time I ever heard you +sing, Alice?”</p> + +<p>His voice was earnest and full of pathos, for him.</p> + +<p>“Was it not when father dressed me as a gypsy girl +and I rode my pony over to The Gaffs and sang from +horse-back for your grandfather?”</p> + +<p>He nodded: “I thought you were the prettiest thing +I ever saw, and I have thought so ever since. That's +when I fell in love with you.”</p> + +<p>“I remember quite distinctly what you did,” she said. +“You were a big boy and you came up behind my pony +and jumped on, frightening us dreadfully.”</p> + +<p>“Tried to kiss you, didn't I?”</p> + +<p>She laughed: “That was ever a chronic endeavor of +your youth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>How pretty she looked. Had it been any other +woman he would have reached over and taken her hand.</p> + +<p>“Overpower her, master her, make her love you by +force of arms”—his inner voice said.</p> + +<p>He turned to the musing woman beside him and mechanically +reached out his hand. Hers lay on the arm +of her chair. The next instant he would have dropped +his upon it and held it there. But as he made the motion +her eyes looked up into his, so passion-free and +holy that his own arm fell by his side.</p> + +<p>But the little wave of passion in him only stirred him +to his depths. Ere she knew it or could stop him he +was telling her the story of his love for her. Poetry,—romance,—and +with it the strength of saying,—fell +from his lips as naturally as snow from the clouds. He +went into the history of old loves—how, of all loves +they are the greatest—of Jacob who served his fourteen +years for Rachel, of the love of Petrarch, of Dante.</p> + +<p>“Do you know Browning's most beautiful poem?” +he asked at last. His voice was tenderly mellow:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“All that I know of a certain star<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is, it can throw (like the angled spar)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now a dart of red, now a dart of blue;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till my friends have said they would fain see, too,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My star that dartles the red and the blue!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What matter to me if their star is a world?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.”<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>“Alice,” he said, drawing his chair closer to her, “I +know I have no such life to offer as you would bring +to me. The best we men can do is to do the best we can. +We are saved only because there is one woman we can +look to always as our star. There is much of our past +that we all might wish to change, but change, like work, +is the law of life, and we must not always dream.”</p> + +<p>Quietly he had dropped his hand upon hers. Her +own eyes were far off—they were dreaming. So deep +was her dream that she had not noticed it. Passion +practised, as he was, the torch of her hand thrilled him +as with wine; and as with wine was he daring.</p> + +<p>“I know where your thoughts have been,” he went on.</p> + +<p>She looked up with a start and her hand slipped from +under his into her lap. It was a simple movement and +involuntary—like that of the little brown quail when +she slips from the sedge-grass into the tangled depths of +the blossoming wild blackberry bushes at the far off flash +of a sharp-shinned hawk-wing, up in the blue. Nor +could she say whether she saw it, or whether it was merely +a shadow, an instinctive signal from the innocent courts +of the sky to the brood-children of her innocence below.</p> + +<p>But he saw it and said quickly, changing with it the +subject: “At least were—but all that has passed. I +need you, Alice,” he went on passionately—“in my life, +in my work. My home is there, waiting! It has been +waiting all these years for you—its mistress—the only +mistress it shall ever have. Your mother”—Alice +looked at him surprised.</p> + +<p>“Your mother—you,—perhaps, had not thought +of that—your mother needs the rest and the care we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +could give her. Our lives are not always our own,” he +went on gravely—“oftentimes it belongs partly to +others—for their happiness.”</p> + +<p>He felt that he was striking a winning chord.</p> + +<p>“You can love me if you would say so,” he said, +bending low over her.</p> + +<p>This time, when his hand fell on hers, she did not +move. Surprised, he looked into her eyes. There were +tears there.</p> + +<p>Travis knew when he had gone far enough. Reverently +he kissed her hand as he said:</p> + +<p>“Never mind—in your own time, Alice. I can +wait—I have waited long. Twenty years,” he added, +patiently, even sweetly, “and if need be, I'll wait twenty +more.”</p> + +<p>“I'll go now,” he said, after a moment.</p> + +<p>She looked at him gratefully, and arose. “One moment, +Richard,” she said—“but you were speaking of +mother, and knowing your zeal for her I was afraid +you might—might—the mortgage has been troubling +her.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no—no”—he broke in quickly—“I did nothing—absolutely +nothing—though I wanted to for +your sake.”</p> + +<p>“I'm so glad,” she said—“we will manage somehow. +I am so sensitive about such things.”</p> + +<p>“I'll come to-morrow afternoon and bring your +mare.”</p> + +<p>She smiled, surprised.</p> + +<p>“Yes, your mare—I happened on her quite unexpectedly +in Tennessee. I have bought her for you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>—she +is elegant, and I wish you to ride her often. I have +given Jim orders that no one but you shall ride her. If +it is a pretty day to-morrow I shall be around in the +afternoon, and we will ride down to the bluffs five miles +away to see the sunset.”</p> + +<p>The trotters were at the door. He took her hand as +he said good-bye, and held it while he added:</p> + +<p>“Maybe you'd better forget all I said to-night—be +patient with me—remember how long I have waited.”</p> + +<p>He was off and sprang into the buggy, elated. Never +before had she let him hold her hand even for a moment. +He felt, he knew, that he would win her.</p> + +<p>He turned the horses and drove off.</p> + +<p>From Westmoreland Travis drove straight toward +the town. The trotters, keen and full of play, flew +along, tossing their queenly heads in the very exuberance +of life.</p> + +<p>At The Gaffs, he drew rein: “Now, Jim, I'll be back +at midnight. You sleep light until I come in, and have +their bedding dry and blankets ready.”</p> + +<p>He tossed the boy a dollar as he drove off.</p> + +<p>Up the road toward the town he drove, finally slackening +his trotters' speed as he came into the more thickly +settled part of the outskirts. Sand Mountain loomed +high in the faint moonlight, and at its base, in the outposts +of the town, arose the smoke-stack of the cotton +mills.</p> + +<p>Around it lay Cottontown.</p> + +<p>Slowly he brought the nettled trotters down to a walk. +Quietly he turned them into a shaded lane, overhung +with forest trees, near which a cottage, one of the many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> +belonging to the mill, stood in the shadow of the forest.</p> + +<p>Stopping his horses in the shadow, he drew out his +watch and pressed the stem. It struck eleven.</p> + +<p>He drew up the buggy-top and taking the little silver +whistle from his pocket, gave a low whistle.</p> + +<p>It was ten minutes later before the side door of the +cottage opened softly and a girl came noiselessly out. +She slipped out, following the shadow line of the trees +until she came up to the buggy. Then she threw the +shawl from off her face and head and stood smiling up at +Travis. It had been a pretty face, but now it was +pinched by overwork and there was the mingling both +of sadness and gladness in her eyes. But at sight of +Travis she blushed joyfully, and deeper still when he +held out his hand and drew her into the buggy and up to +the seat beside him.</p> + +<p>“Maggie”—was all he whispered. Then he kissed +her passionately on her lips. “I am glad I came,” he +went on, as he put one arm around her and drew her to +him—“you're flushed and the ride will do you good.”</p> + +<p>She was satisfied to let her head lie on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>“They are beauties”—she said after a while, as the +trotters' thrilling, quick step brought the blood tingling +to her veins.</p> + +<p>“Beauties for the beauty,” said Travis, kissing her +again. Her brown hair was in his face and the perfume +of it went through him like the whistling flash of the +first wild doe he had killed in his first boyish hunt and +which he never forgot.</p> + +<p>“You do love me,” she said at last, looking up into +his face, where her head rested. She could not move be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>cause +his arm held her girlish form to him with an overpowering +clasp.</p> + +<p>“Why?” he asked, kissing her again and in sheer +passionate excess holding his lips on hers until she could +not speak, but only look love with her eyes. When she +could, she sighed and said:</p> + +<p>“Because, you could not make me so happy if you +didn't.”</p> + +<p>He relaxed his arm to control the trotters, which were +going too fast down the road. She sat up by his side +and went on.</p> + +<p>“Do you know I have thought lots about what you +said last Saturday night?”</p> + +<p>“Why, what?” he asked.</p> + +<p>She looked pained that he had forgotten.</p> + +<p>“About—about—our bein' married to each other—even—even—if—if—there's +no preacher. You +know—that true love makes marriages, and not a ceremony—and—and—that +the heart is the priest to all +of us, you know!”</p> + +<p>Travis said nothing. He had forgotten all about it.</p> + +<p>“One thing I wrote down in my little book when I got +back home an' memorized it—Oh, you can say such +beautiful things.”</p> + +<p>He seized her and kissed her again.</p> + +<p>“I am so happy with you—always—” she laughed.</p> + +<p>He drove toward the shaded trees down by the river.</p> + +<p>“I want you to see how the setting moonlight looks +on the river,” he said. “There is nothing in all nature +like it. It floats like a crescent above, falling into the +arms of its companion below. All nature is love and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +never fails to paint a love scene in preference to all +others, if permitted. How else can you account for it +making two lover moons fall into each other's arms,” he +laughed.</p> + +<p>She looked at him enraptured. It was the tribute +which mediocrity pays to genius.</p> + +<p>Presently they passed by Westmoreland, and from +Alice's window a light shone far out into the golden +tinged leaves of the beeches near.</p> + +<p>Travis glanced up at it. Then at the pretty mill-girl +by his side:</p> + +<p>“A star and—a satellite!”—he smiled to himself.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<h3>A MIDNIGHT BURIAL</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">I</span>t was growing late when the old preacher left Westmoreland +and rode leisurely back toward the cabin +on Sand Mountain. The horse he was riding—a +dilapidated roan—was old and blind, but fox-trotted +along with the easy assurance of having often travelled +the same road.</p> + +<p>The bridle rested on the pommel of the saddle. The +old man's head was bent in deep thought, and the roan, +his head also down and half dreaming, jogged into the +dark shadows which formed a wooded gulch, leading into +the valley and from thence into the river.</p> + +<p>There is in us an unnameable spiritual quality which, +from lack of a more specific name, we call mental telepathy. +Some day we shall know more about it, just as +some day we shall know what unknown force it is which +draws the needle to the pole.</p> + +<p>It is the border land of the spiritual—a touch of it, +given, to let us know there is more and in great abundance +in the country to which we ultimately shall go,—a +glimpse of the kingdom which is to be.</p> + +<p>To-night, this influence was on the old man. The +theme of his thoughts was, Captain Tom. Somehow he +felt that even then Captain Tom was near him. How—where—why—he +could not tell. He merely felt it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> + +<p>And so the very shadows of the trees grew uncanny +to him as he rode by them and the slight wind among +them mourned <i>Captain Tom</i>—<i>Captain Tom</i>.</p> + +<p>It was a desolate place in the narrow mountain road +and scarcely could the old man see the white sand which +wound in and through it, and then out again on the opposite +side into the clearing beyond the scraggy side of +Sand Mountain. But the horse knew every foot of the +way, and though it was always night with him, instinct +had taught him a sure footing.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the rider was awakened from his reverie by +the old horse stopping so suddenly as almost to unseat +him. With a snort the roan had stopped and had +thrown up his head, quivering with fear, while with his +nose he was trying to smell out the queer thing which +stood in his path.</p> + +<p>The moon broke out from behind a cloud at the same +moment, and there, in the middle of the road, not ten +yards from him, stood a heavily built, rugged, black-bearded +man in a ragged slouched hat and pointing a +heavy revolver at the rider's head.</p> + +<p>“Hands up, Hillard Watts!”</p> + +<p>The old man looked quietly into the muzzle of the revolver +and said, with a laugh:</p> + +<p>“This ain't 'zactly my benediction time, Jack +Bracken, an' I've no notion of h'istin' my arms an' axin' +a blessin' over you an' that old pistol. Put it up an' +tell me what you want,” he said more softly.</p> + +<p>“Well, you do know me,” said the man, coming forward +and thrusting his pistol into its case. “I wa'nt +sho' it was you,” he said, “and I wa'nt sho' you'd kno'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> +me if it was. In my business I have to be mighty keerful,” +he added with a slight laugh.</p> + +<p>He came up to the saddle-skirt and held out his hand, +half hesitatingly, as he spoke.</p> + +<p>The Bishop—as every one knew him—glanced into +the face before him and saw something which touched +him quickly. It was grief-stricken, and sorrow sat in +the fierce eyes, and in the shadows of the dark face. And +through it all, a pleading, beseeching appeal for sympathy +ran as he half doubtingly held out his hand.</p> + +<p>“Why,—yes—, I'll take it, Jack, robber that you +are,” said the old man cheerily. “You may not be as +bad as they say, an' no man is worse than his heart. But +what in the worl' do you want to hold up as po' a man +as me—an' if I do say it, yo' frien' when you was a +boy?”</p> + +<p>“I know,” said the other—“I know. I don't want +yo' money, even if you had it. I want you. You've +come as a God-send. I—I couldn't bury him till you'd +said somethin'.”</p> + +<p>His voice choked—he shook with a suppressed sob.</p> + +<p>The bishop slid off his horse: “What is it, Jack? +You hain't kilt anybody, have you?”</p> + +<p>“No—no”—said the other—“it's little—little +Jack—he's dead.”</p> + +<p>The Bishop looked at him inquiringly. He had never +before heard of little Jack.</p> + +<p>“I—I dunno', Jack,” he said. “You'll have to tell +me all. I hain't seed you sence you started in your robber +career after the war—sence I buried yo' father,” +he added. “An' a fine, brave man he was, Jack—a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +fine, brave man—an' I've wondered how sech a man's +son could ever do as you've done.”</p> + +<p>“Come,” said the other—“I'll tell you. Come, an' +say a prayer over little Jack fust. You must do it”—he +said almost fiercely—“I won't bury him without a +prayer—him that was an angel an' all I had on earth. +Hitch yo' hoss just outer the road, in the thicket, an' +follow me.”</p> + +<p>The Bishop did as he was told, and Jack Bracken led +the way down a rocky gulch under the shaggy sides of +Sand Mountain, furzed with scraggy trees and thick +with underbrush and weeds.</p> + +<p>It was a tortuous path and one in which the old man +himself, knowing, as he thought he did, every foot of +the country around, could easily have been lost. Above, +through the trees, the moon shone dimly, and no path +could be seen under foot. But Jack Bracken slouched +heavily along, in a wabbling, awkward gait, never once +looking back to see if his companion followed.</p> + +<p>For a half mile they went through what the Bishop +had always thought was an almost impenetrable cattle +trail. At last they wound around a curve on the densely +wooded side of the mountain, beyond which lay the broad +river breathing out frosty mist and vapor from its sleeping +bosom.</p> + +<p>Following a dry gulch until it ended abruptly at the +river's bluff, around the mouth of which great loose +rocks lay as they had been washed by the waters of +many centuries, and bushes grew about, the path terminated +abruptly. It overlooked the river romantically, +with a natural rock gallery in front.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> + +<p>Jack Bracken stopped and sat down on one of the +rocks. From underneath he drew forth a lantern and +prepared to light it. “This is my home,” he said laconically.</p> + +<p>The Bishop looked around: “Well, Jack, but this is +part of my own leetle forty-acre farm. Why, thar's +my cabin up yander. We've wound in an' aroun' the +back of my place down by the river! I never seed this +hole befo'.”</p> + +<p>“I knew it was yo's,” said the outlaw quietly. +“That's why I come here. Many a Sunday night I've +slipped up to the little church winder an' heard you +preach—me an' po' little Jack. Oh, he loved to hear +the Bible read an' he never forgot nothin' you ever said. +He knowed all about Joseph an' Moses an' Jesus, an' last +night when he died o' that croup befo' I c'ud get him +help or anything, he wanted you, an' he said he was +goin' to the lan' where you said Jesus was—”</p> + +<p>He broke down—he could not say it.</p> + +<p>Stepping into the mouth of the cave, he struck a +match, when out of sight of the entrance way, and stepping +from stone to stone he guided the Bishop down +some twenty feet, following the channel the water had +cut on its way underground to the river. Here another +opening entered into the dry channel, and into it he +stepped.</p> + +<p>It was a nicely turned cave—a natural room,—arched +above with beautiful white lime-rock, the stalactites +hanging in pointed clusters, their starry points +twinkling above like stars in a winter sky. Underneath, +the soft sand made a clean, warm floor, and the entire<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> +cave was so beautiful that the old man could do nothing +but look and admire, as the light fell on stalagmite and +ghostly columns and white sanded floors.</p> + +<p>“Beautiful,” he said—“Jack, you cudn't he'p gettin' +relig'un here.”</p> + +<p>“Little Jack loved 'em,” said the outlaw. “He'd lay +here ev'y night befo' he'd go to sleep an' look up an' +call it his heaven; an' he said that big column thar was +the great white throne, an' them big things up yander +with wings was angels. He had all them other columns +named for the fellers you preached about—Moses an' +Aaron an' Joseph an' all of 'em, an' that kind o' double +one lookin' like a woman holding her child, he called +Mary an' little Jesus.”</p> + +<p>“He's gone to a prettier heaven than this,” said the +Bishop looking down on the little figure, with face as +pale and white as any of the columns around him, neatly +dressed and wrapped, save his face, in an old oil cloth +and lying on the little bed that sat in a corner.</p> + +<p>The old man sat down very tenderly by the little dead +boy and, pulling out a testament from his pocket, read +to the outlaw, whose whole soul was centered in all he +said, the comforting chapter which Miss Alice had that +night read to the old negro: “<i>Let not your hearts be +troubled....</i>”</p> + +<p>He explained as he read, and told the father how +little Jack was now in one of the many mansions and far +better off than living in a cave, the child of an outlaw, +for the Bishop did not mince his words. He dwelt on +it, that God had taken the little boy for love of him, +and to give him a better home and perhaps as a means<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> +of changing the father, and when he said the last prayer +over the dead child asking for forgiveness for the +father's sins, that he might meet the little one in heaven, +the heart of the outlaw burst with grief and repentance +within him.</p> + +<p>He fell at the old man's feet, on his knees—he laid +his big shaggy head in the Bishop's lap and wept as he +had never wept before.</p> + +<p>“There can't be—you don't mean,” he said—“that +there is forgiveness for me—that I can so live that I'll +see little Jack again!”</p> + +<p>“That's just what I mean, Jack,” said the old man—“here +it all is—here—in a book that never lies, an' +all vouched for by Him who could walk in here to-night +and lay His sweet hands on little Jack an' tell him to rise +an' laugh agin, an' he'd do it. You turn about now +an' see if it ain't so—an' that you'll be better an' happier.”</p> + +<p>“But—my God, man—you don't know—you +don't understan'. I've robbed, I've killed. Men have +gone down befo' my bullets like sheep. They was +shootin' at me, too—but I shot best. I'm a murderer.”</p> + +<p>The old Bishop looked at him calmly.</p> + +<p>“So was Moses and David,” he replied—“men after +God's own heart. An' so was many another that's now +called a saint, from old Hickory Jackson up.”</p> + +<p>“But I'm a robber—a thief”—began Jack +Bracken.</p> + +<p>“We all steal,” said the old man sadly shaking his +head—“it's human nature. There's a thief in every +trade, an' every idle hand is a robber, an' every idle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> +tongue is a thief an' a liar. We all steal. But there's +somethin' of God an' divinity in all of us, an' in spite +of our shortcomin' it'll bring us back at last to our +Father's home if we'll give it a chance. God's Book +can't lie, an' it says: '<i>Tho' your sins be as scarlet +they shall be white as snow!</i>' ... an' then agin, +<i>shall have life everlasting!</i>”</p> + +<p>“Life everlastin',” repeated the outlaw. “Do you +believe that? Oh, if it was only so! To live always up +there an' with little Jack. How do you know it ain't +lyin'?—It's too gran' to be so. How do you know it +ain't lyin', I say? Hillard Watts, are you handin' it +out to me straight about this here Jesus Christ?” he +cried bitterly.</p> + +<p>“Well, it's this way, Jack,” said the old man, “jes' +this away an' plain as the nose on yo' face: Now here's +me, ain' it? Well, you know I won't lie to you. You +believe me, don't you?”</p> + +<p>The outlaw nodded.</p> + +<p>“Why?” asked the Bishop.</p> + +<p>“Because you ain't never lied to me,” said the other. +“You've allers told me the truth about the things I know +to be so.”</p> + +<p>“But now, suppose,” said the old man, “I'd tell you +about somethin' you had never seed—that, for instance, +sence you've been an outcast from society an' a livin' in +this cave, I've seed men talk to each other a hundred +miles apart, with nothin' but a wire betwix' 'em.”</p> + +<p>“That's mighty hard to believe,” said the outlaw +grimly.</p> + +<p>“But I've seed it done,” said the Bishop.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Do you mean it?” asked the other.</p> + +<p>“As I live, I have,” said the Bishop.</p> + +<p>“Then it's so,” said Jack.</p> + +<p>“Now that's faith, Jack—an' common sense, too. +We know what'll be the earthly end of the liar, an' the +thief, an' the murderer, an' him that's impure—because +we see 'em come to thar end all the time. It don't +lie when it tells you the good are happy, an' the hones' +are elevated an' the mem'ry of the just shall not perish, +because them things we see come so. Now, if after +tellin' you all that, that's true, it axes you to believe when +it says there is another life—a spiritual life, which we +can't conceive of, an' there we shall live forever, can't +you believe that, too, sence it ain't never lied about what +you can see, by your own senses? Why ever' star that +shines, an' ever' beam of sunlight fallin' on the earth, +an' ever' beat of yo' own heart by some force that we +know not of, all of them is mo' wonderful than the telegraph, +an' the livin' agin of the spirit ain't any mo' +wonderful than the law that holds the stars in their +places. You'll see little Jack agin as sho' as God lives +an' holds the worl' in His hand.”</p> + +<p>The outlaw sat mute and motionless, and a great light +of joy swept over his face.</p> + +<p>“By God's help I'll do it”—and he bowed his head +in prayer—the first he had uttered since he was a boy.</p> + +<p>It was wonderful to see the happy and reconciled +change when he arose and tenderly lifted the dead child +in his arms. His face was transformed with a peace the +old man had never seen before in any human being.</p> + +<p>Strong men are always strong—in crime—in sin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +When they reform it is the reformation of strength. +Such a change came over Jack Bracken, the outlaw.</p> + +<p>He carried his dead child to the next room: “I've +got his grave already chiseled out of the rocks. I'll +bury him here—right under the columns he called Mary +and little Jesus, that he loved to talk of so much.”</p> + +<p>“It's fitten”—said the old man tenderly—“it's +fitten an' beautiful. The fust burial we know of in the +Bible is where Abraham bought the cave of Machpelah +for to bury Sarah, his wife. And as Abraham bought +it of Ephron, the Hittite, and offered it to Abraham +for to bury his dead out of his sight, so I give this cave +to you, Jack Bracken, forever to be the restin' place of +little Jack.”</p> + +<p>And so, tenderly and with many kisses did they bury +little Jack, sinless and innocent, deep in the pure white +rock, covered as he was with purity and looking ever +upwards toward the statue above, wherein Nature's +chisel had carved out a Madonna and her child.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> +<h3>JACK BRACKEN</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">J</span>ack Bracken was comfortably fixed in his +underground home. There was every comfort +for living. It was warm in winter and cool in +summer, and in another apartment adjoining his living +room was what he called a kitchen in which a spring +of pure water, trickling down from rock to rock, formed +in a natural basin of whitest rock below.</p> + +<p>“Jack,” said the old man, “won't you tell me about +yo'self an' how you ever got down to this? I knowed +you as a boy, up to the time you went into the army, +an' if I do say it to yo' face, you were a brave hon'rble +boy that never forgot a frien' nor—”</p> + +<p>“A foe,” put in Jack quickly. “Bishop, if I cu'd +only forgive my foes—that's been the ruin of me.”</p> + +<p>The old man was thoughtful a while: “Jack, that's +a terrible thing in the human heart—unforgiveness. +It's to life what a drought is to Nature—an' it spiles +mo' people than any other weakness. But that don't +make yo' no wuss than the rest of us, nor does robbery +nor even murder. So there's a chance for you yet, Jack—a +mighty fine chance, too, sence yo' heart is changed.”</p> + +<p>“Many a time, Jack, many a time when the paper +'ud be full of yo' holdin' up a train or shootin' a +shar'ff, or robbin' or killin', I'd tell 'em what a good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> +boy you had been, brave an' game but revengeful when +aroused. I'd tell 'em how you dared the bullets of +our own men, after the battle of Shiloh, to cut down an' +carry off a measley little Yankee they'd hung up as a +spy 'cause he had onct saved yo' father's life. You +shot two of our boys then, Jack.”</p> + +<p>“They was a shootin' me, too,” he said quietly. “I +caught two bullets savin' that Yankee. But he was no +spy; he was caught in a Yankee uniform an'—an' he +saved my father, as you said—that settled it with me.”</p> + +<p>“It turned our boys agin you, Jack.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, an' the Yankees were agin me already—that +made all the worl' agin me, an' it's been agin me ever +since—they made me an outlaw.”</p> + +<p>The old man softened: “How was it, Jack? I +knowed you was driven to it.”</p> + +<p>“They shot my father—waylaid and killed him—some +home-made Yankee bush-whackers that infested +these hills—as you know.”</p> + +<p>The Bishop nodded. “I know—I know—it was +awful. 'But vengeance is mine—I will repay'—saith +the Lord.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I was young, an' my father—you know how +I loved him. Befo' I c'ud get home they had burned +our house, killed my sick mother from exposure and +insulted my sisters.”</p> + +<p>“Jack,” said the old man hotly—“a home-made +Yankee is a 'bomination to the Lord. He's a twin +brother to the Copperhead up north.”</p> + +<p>“My little brother—they might have spared him,” +went on the outlaw—“they might have spared him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> +He tried to defen' his mother an' sisters an' they shot +him down in col' blood.”</p> + +<p>“'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord,” replied the +old man sadly.</p> + +<p>“Well, I acted as His agent that time,”—his eyes +were hot with a bright glitter. “I put on their uniform +an' went after 'em. I j'ined 'em—the devils! An' +they had a nigger sarjent an' ten of their twenty-seven +was niggers, wearin' a Yankee uniform. I j'ined 'em—yes,—for +wasn't I the agent of the Lord?” He +laughed bitterly. “An' didn't He say: 'He that +killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.' +One by one they come up missin', till I had killed all but +seven. These got panicky—followed by an unknown +doom an' they c'udn't see it, for it come like a thief at +midnight an' agin like a pesterlence it wasted 'em at +noonday. They separated—they tried to fly—they +hid—but I followed 'em 'an I got all but one. He fled +to California.”</p> + +<p>“It was awful, Jack—awful—God he'p you.”</p> + +<p>“Then a price was put on my head. I was Jack +Bracken, the spy and the outlaw. I was not to be captured, +but shot and hung. Then I cut down that Yankee +an' you all turned agin me. I was hunted and +hounded. I shot—they shot. I killed an' they tried +to. I was shot down three times. I've got bullets in +me now.</p> + +<p>“After the war I tried to surrender. I wanted to quit +and live a decent life. But no, they put a bigger price +on my head. I came home like other soldiers an' went +to tillin' my farm. They ran me away—they hunted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +an' hounded me. Civilization turned ag'in me. Society +was my foe. I was up ag'in the fust law of Nature. +It is the law of the survival—the wild beast that, +cowered, fights for his life. Society turned on me—I +turned on Society.”</p> + +<p>“But there was one thing that happen'd that put the +steel in me wuss than all. All through them times was +one star I loved and hoped for. I was to marry her +when the war closed. She an' her sister—the pretty +one—they lived up yander on the mountain side. The +pretty one died. But when I lost faith in Margaret +Adams, I lost it in mankind. I'd ruther a seen her +dead. It staggered me—killed the soul in me—to +think that an angel like her could fall an' be false.”</p> + +<p>“I don't blame you,” said the old man. “I've never +understood it yet.”</p> + +<p>“I was to marry Margaret. I love her yet,” he added +simply. “When I found she was false I went out—and—well, +you know the rest.”</p> + +<p>He took a turn around the room, picked up one of +little Jack's shoes, and cried over it.</p> + +<p>“So I married his mother—little Jack's mother, a +mountain lass that hid me and befriended me. She +died when the boy was born. His granny kep' him +while I was on my raids—nobody knowed it was my +son. His granny died two years ago. This has been +our home ever sence, an' not once, sence little Jack has +been with me, have I done a wrong deed. Often an' +often we've slipt up to hear you preach—what you've +said went home to me.”</p> + +<p>“Jack,” said the old man suddenly aroused—“was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +that you—was it you been puttin' them twenty dollar +gol' pieces in the church Bible—between the leds, +<i>ever'</i> month for the las' two years? By it I've kep' up +the po' of Cottontown. I've puzzled an' wonder'd—I've +thought of a dozen fo'ks—but I sed nothin'—was +it you?”</p> + +<p>The outlaw smiled: “It come from the rich an' it +went to the po'. Come,” he said—“that's somethin' +we must settle.”</p> + +<p>He took up the lantern and led the way into the +other room. Under a ledge of rocks, securely hid, sat, +in rows, half a dozen common water buckets, made of +red cedar, with tops fitting securely on them.</p> + +<p>The outlaw spread a blanket on the sand, then knelt +and, taking up a bucket, removed the top and poured out +its contents on the blanket. They chuckled and rolled +and tumbled over each other, the yellow eagles and half +eagles, like thoroughbred colts turned out in the paddocks +for a romp.</p> + +<p>The old man's knees shook under him. He trembled +so that he had to sit down on the blanket. Then he +ran his hand through them—his fingers open, letting +the coins fall through playfully.</p> + +<p>Never before had he seen so much gold. Poor as he +was and had ever been—much and often as he had suffered—he +and his, for the necessities of life, even, +knowing its value and the use he might make of it, it +thrilled him with a strange, nervous longing—a childish +curiosity to handle it and play with it.</p> + +<p>Modest and brave men have looked on low-bosomed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> +women in the glitter of dissipative lights with the same +feeling.</p> + +<p>The old man gazed, silent—doubtless with the same +awe which Keats gave to Cortez, when he first looked +on the Pacific and stood</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Silent, upon a peak in Darien.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The outlaw lifted another bucket and took off the +lid. It also was full. “There are five mo',” he said—“that +last one is silver an' this one—” He lifted the +lid of a small cedar box. In it was a large package, +wrapped in water-proof. Unravelling it, he shoved out +packages of bank bills of such number and denomination +as fairly made the old preacher wonder.</p> + +<p>“How much in all, Jack?”</p> + +<p>“A little the rise of one hundred thousand dollars.”</p> + +<p>He pushed them back and put the buckets under their +ledge of rocks. “I'd give it all just to have little Jack +here agin—an'—an'—start out—a new man. This +has cost me ten years of outlawry an' fo'teen bullets. +Now I've got all this an'—well—a hole in the groun' +an' little Jack in the hole. If you wanter preach a sermon +on the folly of pilin' up money,” he went on half +ironically, “here is yo' tex'. All me an' little Jack +needed or cu'd use, was a few clothes, some bac'n an' +coffee an' flour. Often I'd fill my pockets an' say: +'Well, I'll buy somethin' I want, an' that little Jack will +want.' I'd go to town an' see it all, an' think an' puzzle +an' wonder—then I'd come home with a few toys, maybe, +an' bac'n an' flour an' coffee.”</p> + +<p>“With all our money we can't buy higher than our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> +source, an' when we go we leave even that behind,” he +added.</p> + +<p>“The world,” said the old man quaintly, “is full of +folks who have got a big pocket-book an' a bac'n pedigree.”</p> + +<p>“Do you know who this money belongs to?” he asked +the outlaw.</p> + +<p>“Every dollar of it,” said Jack Bracken. “It come +from railroads, banks and express companies. I didn't +feel squirmish about takin' it, for all o' them are robbers. +The only diff'r'nce betwix' them an' me is that they +rob a little every day, till they get their pile, an' I take +mine from 'em, all at onct.”</p> + +<p>He thought awhile, then he said: “But it must all +go back to 'em, Jack. Let them answer for their own +sins. Leave it here until next week—an' then we will +come an' haul it fifty miles to the next town, where you +can express it to them without bein' known, or havin' +anybody kno' what's in the buckets till you're safe back +here in this town. I'll fix it an' the note you are to +write. They'll not pester you after they get their +money. The crowd you've named never got hot under +a gold collar. A clean shave will change you so nobody +will suspect you, an' there's a good openin' in town for +a blacksmith, an' you can live with me in my cabin.”</p> + +<p>“But there's one thing I've kept back for the las',” +said Jack, after they had gone into the front part of the +room and sat down on the deer skins there.</p> + +<p>“That sword there”—and he pointed to the wall +where it hung.</p> + +<p>The Bishop glanced up, and as he did so he felt a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> +strange thrill of recognition run through him—“It +belongs to Cap'n Tom,” said Jack quietly.</p> + +<p>The old man sprang up and took it reverently, fondly +down.</p> + +<p>“Jack—” he began.</p> + +<p>“I was at Franklin,” went on Jack proudly. “I +charged with old Gen. Travis over the breastworks near +the Carter House. I saw Cap'n Tom when he went +under.”</p> + +<p>“Cap'n Tom,” repeated the old man slowly.</p> + +<p>“Cap'n Tom, yes—he saved my life once, you know. +He cut me down when they were about to hang me for a +spy—you heard about it?”</p> + +<p>The Bishop nodded.</p> + +<p>“It was his Company that caught me an' they was +glad of any excuse to hang me. An' they mighty nigh +done it, but Cap'n Tom came up in time to cut me down +an' he said he'd make it hot for any man that teched me, +that I was a square prisoner of war, an' he sent me to +Johnson Island. Of course it didn't take me long to +get out of that hole—I escaped.”</p> + +<p>The Bishop was silent, looking at the sword.</p> + +<p>“Well, at Franklin, when I seed Cap'n Tom dyin' as +I tho'rt, shunned by the Yankees as a traitor——”</p> + +<p>“As a traitor?” asked the old man hotly—“what, +after Shiloh—after he give up Miss Alice for the flag +he loved an' his old grand sire an' The Gaffs an' all of +us that loved him—you call that a traitor?”</p> + +<p>“You never heard,” said Jack, “how old Gen'l Travis +charged the breastworks at Franklin and hit the line +where Cap'n Tom's battery stood. Nine times they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> +had charged Cap'n Tom's battery that night—nine +times he stood his ground an' they melted away around +it. But when he saw the line led by his own grandsire +the blood in him was thicker than water and——”</p> + +<p>“An' whut?” gasped the Bishop.</p> + +<p>“Well, why they say it was a drunken soldier in his +own battery who struck him with the heavy hilt of a +sword. Any way I found the old Gen'l cryin' over him: +'My Irish Gray—my Irish Gray,' he kept sayin'. +'I might have known it was you,' and the old Gen'l +charged on leaving him for dead. An' so I found him +an' tuck him in my arms an' carried him to my own +cabin up yonder on the mountain—carried him an'——”</p> + +<p>“An' whut?”—asked the old man, grasping the outlaw's +shoulder—“Didn't he die? We've never been +able to hear from him.”</p> + +<p>Jack shook his head. “It 'ud been better for him if +he had”—and he touched his forehead significantly.</p> + +<p>“Tell me, Jack—quick—tell it all,” exclaimed the +old man, still gripping Jack's shoulder.</p> + +<p>“There's nothin' to tell except that I kept him ever +sence—here—right here for two years, with little +Jack an' Ephrum, the young nigger that was his body +servant—he's been our cook an' servant. He never +would leave Cap'n Tom, followed me offen the field of +Franklin. An' mighty fond of each other was all three +of 'em.”</p> + +<p>The old man turned pale and his voice trembled so +with excitement he could hardly say:</p> + +<p>“Where is he, Jack? My God—Cap'n Tom—he's +been here all this time too—an' me awonderin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>—”</p> + +<p>“Right here, Bishop—kind an' quiet and teched in +his head, where the sword-hilt crushed his skull. All +these years I've cared for him—me an' Ephrum, my +two boys as I called 'em—him an' little Jack. An' +right here he staid contented like till little Jack died +last night—then—”</p> + +<p>“In God's name—quick!—tell me—Jack—”</p> + +<p>“That's the worst of it—Bishop—when he found +little Jack was dead he wandered off—”</p> + +<p>“When?” almost shouted the old man.</p> + +<p>“To-day—this even'. I have sent Eph after him—an' +I hope he has found him by now an' tuck him +somewhere. Eph'll never stop till he does.”</p> + +<p>“We must find him, Jack. Cap'n Tom alive—thank +God—alive, even if he is teched in his head. +Oh, God, I might a knowed it—an' only to-day I was +doubtin' You.”</p> + +<p>He fell on his knees and Jack stood awed in the presence +of the great emotion which shook the old man.</p> + +<p>Finally he arose. “Come—Jack—let us go an' +hunt for Cap'n Tom.”</p> + +<p>But though they hunted until the moon went down +they found no trace of him. For miles they walked, or +took turn about in riding the old blind roan.</p> + +<p>“It's no use, Bishop,” said Jack. “We will sleep +a while and begin to-morrow. Besides, Eph is with him. +I feel it—he'll take keer o' him.”</p> + +<p>That is how it came that at midnight, that Saturday +night, the old Bishop brought home a strange man to +live in the little cabin in his yard.</p> + +<p>That is how, a week later, all the South was stirred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> +over the strange return of a fortune to the different +corporations from which it had been taken, accompanied +by a drawling note from Jack Bracken saying he returned +ill-gotten gain to live a better life.</p> + +<p>It ended laconically:</p> + +<p>“<i>An' maybe you'd better go an' do likewise.</i>”</p> + +<p>The dim starlight was shining faintly through the +cracks of the outlaw's future home when the old man +showed him in.</p> + +<p>“Now, Jack,” he said, “it's nearly mornin' an' the +old woman may be wild an' raise sand. But learn to lay +low an' shoe hosses. She was bohn disapp'inted—maybe +because she wa'n't a boy,” he whispered.</p> + +<p>There was a whinny outside, in a small paddock, +where a nearby stable stood: “That's Cap'n Tom's +horse,” said the old man—“I mus' go see if he's hungry.”</p> + +<p>“I've kept his horse these ten years, hopin' maybe +he'd come back agin. It's John Paul Jones—the thoroughbred, +that the old General give him.”</p> + +<p>“I remember him,” said Jack.</p> + +<p>The great bloodlike horse came up and rubbed his +nose on the old man's shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Hungry, John Paul?”</p> + +<p>“It's been a job to get feed fur him, po' as I've been—but—but—he's +Cap'n Tom's. You kno'—”</p> + +<p>“An' Cap'n Tom will ride him yet,” said Jack.</p> + +<p>“Do you believe it, Jack?” asked the old man huskily +“God be praised!”</p> + +<br /> +<p>That Saturday night was one never to be forgotten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> +by others beside Jack Bracken and the old preacher of +Cottontown.</p> + +<p>When Helen Conway, after supper, sought her +drunken father and learned that he really intended to +have Lily and herself go into the cotton mills, she was +crushed for the first time in her life.</p> + +<p>An hour later she sent a boy with a note to The Gaffs +to Harry Travis.</p> + +<p>He brought back an answer that made her pale with +wounded love and grief. Not even Mammy Maria +knew why she had crept off to bed. But in the night +the old woman heard sobs from the young girl's room +where she and her sister slept.</p> + +<p>“What is it, chile?” she asked as she slipped from +her own cot in the adjoining little room and went in to +Helen's.</p> + +<p>The girl had been weeping all night—she had no +mother—no one to whom she could unbosom her heart—no +one but the old woman who had nursed her from +her infancy. This kind old creature sat on the bed and +held the girl's sobbing head on her lap and stroked her +cheek. She knew and understood—she asked no questions:</p> + +<p>“It isn't that I must work in the mill,” she sobbed +to the old woman—“I can do that—anything to help +out—but—but—to think that Harry loves me so +little as to give me up for—for—that.”</p> + +<p>“Don't cry, chile,” said Mammy soothingly—“It +ain't registered that you gwine wuck in that mill yit—I +ain't made my afferdavit yit.”</p> + +<p>“But Harry doesn't love me—Oh, he doesn't love<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> +me,” she wept. “He would not give me up for anything +if he did.”</p> + +<p>“I'm gwine give that Marse Harry a piece of my +mind when I see him—see if I don't. Don't you cry, +chile—hold up yo' haid an' be a Conway. Don't you +ever let him know that yo' heart is bustin' for him an' +fo' the year is out we'll have that same Marse Harry +acrawlin' on his very marrow bones to aix our forgiveness. +See if we won't.”</p> + +<p>It was poor consolation to the romantic spirit of Helen +Conway. Daylight found her still heart-broken and +sobbing in the old woman's lap.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p> +<h2>PART THIRD—THE GIN</h2> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +<h3>ALICE WESTMORE</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">I</span>t is remarkable how small a part of our real life the +world knows—how little our most intimate friends +know of the secret influences which have proven to +be climaxes, at the turning points of our existence.</p> + +<p>There was no more beautiful woman in Alabama than +Alice Westmore; and throughout that state, where the +song birds seem to develop, naturally, along with the +softness of the air, and the gleam of the sunshine, and +the lullaby of the Gulf's soft breeze among the pine +trees, there was no one, they say, who could sing as she +sang.</p> + +<p>And she seemed to have caught it from her native +mocking-birds, so natural was it. Not when they sing +in the daylight, when everything is bright and joyous +and singing is so easy; but when they waken at midnight +amid the <i>arbor vitæ</i> trees, and under the sweet, +sad influence of a winter moon, pour out their half +awakened notes to the star-sprays which fall in mist to +blend and sparkle around the soft neck of the night.</p> + +<p>For like the star-sprays her notes were as clear; and +through them ran a sadness as of a mist of moonlight. +And just as moonbeams, when they mingle with the +mist, make the melancholy of night, so the memory of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> +a dead love ran through everything Alice Westmore +sang.</p> + +<p>And this made her singing divine.</p> + +<p>Why should it be told? What right has a blacksmith +to pry into a grand piano to find out wherein the exquisite +harmony of the instrument lies? Who has the +right to ask the artist how he blended the colors that +crowned his picture with immortality, or the poet to +explain his pain in the birth of a mood which moved the +world?</p> + +<p>Born in the mountains of North Alabama, she grew +up there and developed this rare voice; and when her +father sent her to Italy to complete her musical education, +the depth and clearness of it captured even that +song nation of the world.</p> + +<p>The great of all countries were her friends and princes +sought her favors. She sang at courts and in great +cathedrals, and her genius and beauty were toasts with +society.</p> + +<p>“Still, Mademoiselle will never be a great singer, +perfect as her voice is,”—said her singing master to +her one day—a famous Italian teacher, “until Mademoiselle +has suffered. She is now rich and beautiful +and happy. Go home and suffer if you would be a +great singer,” he said, “for great songs come only with +great suffering.”</p> + +<p>If this were true, Alice Westmore was now, indeed, a +great singer; for now had she suffered. And it was +the death of a life with her when love died. For there +be some with whom love is a separate life, and when love +dies all that is worth living dies with it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<p>From childhood she and Cousin Tom—Captain +Thomas Travis he lived to be—had been sweethearts. +He was the grandson of Colonel Jeremiah Travis of +“The Gaffs,” and Tom and Alice had grown up together. +Their love was one of those earthly loves which +comes now and then that we may not altogether lose our +faith in heaven.</p> + +<p>Both were of a romantic temperament with high ideals, +and with keen and sensitive natures.</p> + +<p>Their love was the poem of their lives.</p> + +<p>And though a toast in society, and courted by the +nobility of the old world, Alice Westmore remembered +only a moon-lighted night when she told Cousin Tom +good-bye. For though they had loved each other all +their lives, they had never spoken of it before that night. +To them it had been a thing too sacred to profane with +ordinary words.</p> + +<p>Thomas Travis had just graduated from West Point, +and he was at home on vacation before being assigned +to duty. To-night he had ridden John Paul Jones—the +pick of his grandfather's stable of thoroughbreds—a +present from the sturdy old horse-racing, fox-hunting +gentleman to his favorite grandson for graduating first +in a class of fifty-six.</p> + +<p>How handsome he looked in his dark blue uniform! +And there was the music of the crepe-myrtle in the air—the +music of it, wet with the night dew—for there +are flowers so delicate in their sweetness that they pass +out of the realm of sight and smell, into the unheard +world of rhythm. Their very existence is the poetry of +perfume. And this music of the crepe-myrtle, pulsing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> +through the shower-cooled leaves of that summer night, +was accompanied by a mocking-bird from his nest in +the tree.</p> + +<p>Never did the memory of that night leave Alice Westmore. +In after years it hurt her, as the dream of childhood's +home with green fields about, and the old spring +in the meadow, hurts the fever-stricken one dying far +away from it all.</p> + +<p>How long they sat on the rustic bench under the +crepe-myrtle they did not know. At parting there was +the light clasp of hands, and Cousin Tom drew her to +him and put his lips reverently to hers. When he had +ridden off there was a slender ring on her finger.</p> + +<p>There was nothing in Italy that could make her forget +that night, though often from her window she +had looked out on Venice, moon-becalmed, while the +nightingale sang from pomegranate trees in the hedgerows.</p> + +<p>Where a woman's love is first given, that, thereafter, +is her heart's sanctuary.</p> + +<p>Alice Westmore landed at home again amid drum +beats. War sweeps even sentiment from the world—sentiment +that is stronger than common sense, and which +moves the world.</p> + +<p>On the retreat of the Southern army from Fort Donelson, +Thomas Travis, now Captain of Artillery, followed, +with Grant's army, to Pittsburgh Landing. And +finding himself within a day's journey of his old home, +he lost no time in slipping through the lines to see Alice, +whom he had not seen since her return.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> + +<p>He went first to her, and the sight of his blue uniform +threw Colonel Westmore into a rage.</p> + +<p>“To march into our land in that thing and claim my +daughter—” he shouted. “To join that John Brown +gang of abolitionists who are trying to overrun our +country! Your father was a Southern gentleman and +the bosom friend of my youth, but I'll see you damned +before you shall ever again come under my roof, unless +you can use your pistols quicker than I can use mine.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Tom,” said Alice when they were alone—“how—how +could you do it?”</p> + +<p>“But it is my side,” he said quietly. “I was born, +reared, educated in the love of the Union. My grandfather +himself taught it to me. He fought with Jackson +at New Orleans. My father died for it in Mexico. +I swore fidelity to it at West Point, and the Union +gave me my military education on the faith of my +oath. Farragut is a Tennessean—Thomas a Virginian—and +there are hundreds of others, men who love +the Union more than they do their State. Alice—Alice—I +do not love you less because I am true to +my oath—my flag.”</p> + +<p>“Your flag,” said Alice hotly—“your flag that +would overrun our country and kill our people? It can +never be my flag!”</p> + +<p>She had never been angry before in all her life, but +now the hot blood of her Southern clime and ancestry +surged in her cheeks. She arose with a dignity she had +never before imagined, even, with Cousin Tom. “You +will choose between us now,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Alice—surely you will not put me to that test. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +will go—” he said, rising. “Some day, if I live, you +can tell me to come back to you without sacrificing my +conscience and my word of honor—my sacred oath—write +me and—and—I will come.”</p> + +<p>And that is the way it ended—in tears for both.</p> + +<p>Thomas Travis had always been his grandsire's favorite. +His other grandson, Richard Travis, was away in +Europe, where he had gone as soon as rumors of the war +began to be heard.</p> + +<p>That night the old man did not even speak to him. +He could not. Alone in his room, he walked the floor +all night in deep sorrow and thought.</p> + +<p>He loved Thomas Travis as he did no other living +being, and when morning came his great nature shook +with contending emotions. It ended in the grandson +receiving this note, a few minutes before he rode away:</p> + +<p>“All my life I taught you to love the Union which +I helped to make, with my blood in war and my brains +in peace. I gave it my beloved boy—your father's life—in +Mexico. We buried him in its flag. I sent you +to West Point and made you swear to defend that flag +with your life. How now can I ask you to repudiate +your oath and turn your back on your rearing?</p> + +<p>“Believing as I do in the right of the State first and +the Union afterwards, I had hoped you might see it +differently. But who, but God, controls the course of +an honest mind?</p> + +<p>“Go, my son—I shall never see you again. But I +know you, my son, and I shall die knowing you did +what you thought was right.”</p> + +<p>The young man wept when he read this—he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> +neither too old nor too hardened for tears—and when +he rode away, from the ridge of the Mountain he +looked down again—the last time, on all that had been +his life's happiness.</p> + +<p>It was an hour afterwards when the old General called +in his overseer.</p> + +<p>“Watts,” he said, “in the accursed war which is about +to wreck the South and which will eventually end in +our going back into the Union as a subdued province +and under the heel of our former slaves, there will be +many changes. I, myself, will not live to see it. I have +two grandsons, as you know, Tom and Richard. Richard +is in Europe; he went there following Alice Westmore, +and is going to stay, till this fight is over. Now, +I have added a codicil to my will and I wish you to +hear it.”</p> + +<p>He took up a lengthy document and read the last +codicil:</p> + +<p>“<i>Since the above will was written and acknowledged, +leaving The Gaffs to be equally divided between my two +grandsons, Thomas and Richard Travis, my country +has been precipitated into the horrors of Civil War. +In view of this I hereby change my will as above and +give and bequeath The Gaffs to that one of my grandsons +who shall fight—it matters not to me on which +side—so that he fights. For The Gaffs shall never go +to a Dominecker. If both fight and survive the war, +it shall be divided equally between them as above expressed. +If one be killed it shall go to the survivor. If +both be killed it shall be sold and the money appropriated +among those of my slaves who have been faithful +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>to me to the end, one-fifth being set aside for my faithful +overseer, Hillard Watts</i>.”</p> + +<p>In the panel of the wall he opened a small secret +drawer, zinc-lined, and put the will in it.</p> + +<p>“It shall remain there unchanged,” he said, “and +only you and I shall know where it is. If I die suddenly, +let it remain until after the war, and then do as +you think best.”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<h3>THE REAL HEROES</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">T</span>he real heroes of the war have not been decorated +yet. They have not even been pensioned, +for many of them lie in forgotten graves, and +those who do not are not the kind to clamor for honors +or emoluments.</p> + +<p>On the last Great Day, what a strange awakening for +decorations there will be, if such be in store for the just +and the brave: Private soldiers, blue and gray, arising +from neglected graves with tattered clothes and unmarked +brows. Scouts who rode, with stolid faces set, +into Death's grim door and died knowing they went out +unremembered. Spies, hung like common thieves at the +end of a rope—hung, though the bravest of the brave.</p> + +<p>Privates, freezing, starving, wounded, dying,—unloved, +unsoothed, unpitied—giving their life with a +last smile in the joy of martyrdom. Women, North, +whose silent tears for husbands who never came back +and sons who died of shell and fever, make a tiara +around the head of our reunited country. Women, +South, glorious Rachels, weeping for children who are +not and with brave hearts working amid desolate homes, +the star and inspiration of a rebuilded land. Slaves, +faithfully guarding and working while their masters +went to the front, filling the granaries that the war<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> +might go on—faithful to their trust though its success +meant their slavery—faithful and true.</p> + +<p>O Southland of mine, be gentle, be just to these simple +people, for they also were faithful.</p> + +<p>Among the heroic things the four years of the American +Civil War brought out, the story of Captain +Thomas Travis deserves to rank with the greatest of +them.</p> + +<p>The love of Thomas Travis for the preacher-overseer +was the result of a life of devotion on the part of the +old man for the boy he had reared. Orphaned as he was +early in life, Thomas Travis looked up to the overseer +of his grandfather's plantation as a model of all that +was great and good.</p> + +<p>Tom and Alice,—on the neighboring plantations—ran +wild over the place and rode their ponies always on +the track of the overseer. He taught them to ride, to +trap the rabbit, to boat on the beautiful river. He +knew the birds and the trees and all the wild things of +Nature, and Tom and Alice were his children.</p> + +<p>As they grew up before him, it became the dream of +the preacher-overseer to see his two pets married. +Imagine his sorrow when the war fell like a thunderbolt +out of a harvest sky and, among the thousand of +other wrecked dreams, went the dream of the overseer.</p> + +<p>The rest is soon told: After the battle of Shiloh, +Hillard Watts, Chief of Johnston's scouts, was captured +and sent to Camp Chase. Scarcely had he arrived before +orders came that twelve prisoners should be shot, +by lot, in retaliation for the same number of Federal +prisoners which had been executed, it was said, unjustly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> +by Confederates. The overseer drew one of the black +balls. Then happened one of those acts of heroism +which now and then occur, perhaps, to redeem war of +the base and bloody.</p> + +<p>On the morning before the execution, at daylight, +Thomas Travis arrived and made arrangements to save +his friend at the risk of his own life and reputation. It +was a desperate chance and he acted quickly. For Hillard +Watts went out a free man dressed in the blue uniform +of the Captain of Artillery.</p> + +<p>The interposition of the great-hearted Lincoln alone +saved the young officer from being shot.</p> + +<p>The yellow military order bearing the words of the +martyred President is preserved to-day in the library of +The Gaffs:</p> + +<p>“<i>I present this young man as a Christmas gift to my +old friend, his grandsire, Colonel Jeremiah Travis. +The man who could fight his guns as he did at Shiloh, +and could offer to die for a friend, is good enough to +receive pardon, for anything he may have done or may +do, from</i></p> + +<center>“<span class="smcap">A. Lincoln</span>.”</center> + +<p>Afterwards came Franklin and the news that Captain +Tom had been killed.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +<h3>FRANKLIN</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">B</span>ut General Jeremiah Travis could not keep out of +the war; for toward the last, when Hood's army +marched into Tennessee the Confederacy called +for everything—even old age.</p> + +<p>And so there rode out of the gates of The Gaffs a +white-haired old man, who sat his superb horse well. +He was followed by a negro on a mule.</p> + +<p>They were General Jeremiah Travis and his body-servant, +Bisco.</p> + +<p>“I have come to fight for my state,” said General +Travis to the Confederate General.</p> + +<p>“An' I am gwine to take keer of old marster suh,” +said Bisco as he stuck to his saddle girth.</p> + +<p>It was the middle of the afternoon of the last day of +November—and also the last day of many a gallant +life—when Hood's tired army marched over the brow +of the high ridge of hills that looked down on the town +of Franklin, in front of which, from railroad to river, +behind a long semicircular breastwork lay Schofield's +determined army. It was a beautiful view, and as plain +as looking down from the gallery into the pit of an +amphitheatre.</p> + +<p>Just below them lay the little town in a valley, admirably +situated for defense, surrounded as it was on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> +three sides by the bend of a small river, the further +banks of which were of solid rocks rising above the town. +On the highest of these bluffs—Roper's Knob—across +and behind the town, directly overlooking it and grimly +facing Hood's army two miles away, was a federal fort +capped with mighty guns, ready to hurl their shells over +the town at the gray lines beyond. From the high ridge +where Hood's army stood the ground gradually rolled +to the river. A railroad ran through a valley in the +ridge to the right of the Confederates, spun along on +the banks of the river past the town and crossed it in +the heart of the bend to the left of the federal fort. +From that railroad on the Confederate right, in front +and clear around the town, past an old gin house which +stood out clear and distinct in the November sunlight—on +past the Carter House, to the extreme left bend of the +river on the left—in short, from river to river again +and entirely inclosing the town and facing the enemy—ran +the newly made and hastily thrown-up breastworks +of the federal army, the men rested and ready for +battle.</p> + +<p>There stands to-day, as it stood then, in front of the +town of Franklin, on the highest point of the ridge, a +large linden tree, now showing the effects of age. It +was half-past three o'clock in the afternoon, when General +Hood rode unattended to that tree, threw the stump +of the leg that was shot off at Chickamauga over the +pommel of his saddle, drew out his field glasses and sat +looking for a long time across the valley at the enemy's +position.</p> + +<p>Strange to say, on the high river bluff beyond the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> +town, amid the guns of the fort, also with field glass in +hand anxiously watching the confederates, stood the federal +general. A sharp-shooter in either line could have +killed the commanding general in the other. And now +that prophesying silence which always seems to precede +a battle was afloat in the air. In the hollow of its stillness +it seemed as if one could hear the ticking of the +death-watch of eternity. But presently it was broken +by the soft strains of music which floated up from the +town below. It was the federal band playing “Just +Before The Battle, Mother.”</p> + +<p>The men in gray on the hill and the men in blue in +the valley listened, and then each one mentally followed +the tune with silent words, and not without a bit of moisture +in their eyes.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Just before the battle, Mother,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am thinking most of thee.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Suddenly Hood closed his glasses with that nervous +jerk which was a habit with him, straightened himself +in the saddle and, riding back to General Stewart, +said simply: “We will make the fight, General Stewart.”</p> + +<p>Stewart pressed his General's hand, wheeled and +formed his corps on the right. Cheatham formed his +on the left. A gun—and but few were used by Hood +in the fight for fear of killing the women and children +in the town—echoed from the ridge. It was the +signal for the battle to begin. The heavy columns +moved down the side of the ridge, the brigades marching +in echelon.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + +<p>At the sound of the gun, the federal army, some of +whom were on duty, but the larger number loitering +around at rest, or engaged in preparing their evening +meal, sprang noiselessly to their places behind the breastworks, +while hurried whispers of command ran down the +line.</p> + +<p>General Travis had been given a place of honor on +General Hood's staff. He insisted on going into the +ranks, but his commander had said: “Stay with me, +I shall need you elsewhere.” And so the old man +sat his horse silently watching the army forming +and marching down. But directly, as a Mississippi +regiment passed by, he noticed at the head of one of +the companies an old man, almost as old as himself, his +clothes torn, and ragged from long marching; shoeless, +his feet tied up in sack-cloth and his old slouch hat aflop +over his ears. But he did not complain, he stood erect, +and gamely led his men into battle. As the company +halted for a moment, General Travis rode up to the old +man whose thin clothes could not keep him from shivering +in the now chill air of late afternoon, for it was then +past four o'clock, saluted him and said:</p> + +<p>“Captain, will you do me the favor to pull off this +boot?” Withdrawing his boot from the stirrup and +thrusting it towards the old man, the latter looked at him +a moment in surprise but sheathed his sword and complied +with the request. “And now the other one?” said +Travis as he turned his horse around. This, too, was +pulled off.</p> + +<p>“Just put them on, Captain, if you please,” said the +rider. “I am mounted and do not need them as much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> +as you do?” and before the gallant old Captain could +refuse, he rode away for duty—in his stocking feet!</p> + +<p>And now the battle began in earnest.</p> + +<p>The confederates came on in splendid form. On the +extreme right, Forrest's cavalry rested on the river; then +Stewart's corps of Loring, Walthall, French, from right +to left in the order named. On the left Cheatham's +corps, of Cleburne, Brown, Bate, and Walker. Behind +Cheatham marched Johnston's and Clayton's brigade +for support, thirty thousand and more of men, in solid +lines, bands playing and flags fluttering in the afternoon +wind.</p> + +<p>Nor had the federals been idle. Behind the breastworks +lay the second and third divisions of the 23rd +Corps, commanded in person by the gallant General J. +D. Cox. From the railroad on the left to the Carter's +Creek pike on the right, the brigades of these divisions +stood as follows: Henderson's, Casement's, Reilly's, +Strickland's, Moore's. And from the right of the Carter's +Creek pike to the river lay Kimball's first division +of the Fourth Corps. In front of the breastworks, +across the Columbia pike, General Wagner, commanding +the second division of the Fourth Corps, had thrown forward +the two brigades of Bradley and Lane to check +the first assault of the confederates, while Opdyck's brigade +of the same division was held in the town as a reserve. +Seven splendid batteries growled along the line +of breastworks, and showed their teeth to the advancing +foe, while three more were caged in the fort above and +beyond the town.</p> + +<p>Never did men march with cooler courage on more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> +formidable lines of defense. Never did men wait an +attack with cooler courage. Breastworks with abatis in +front through which the mouth of cannon gaped; artillery +and infantry on the right to enfilade; siege guns in +the fort high above all, to sweep and annihilate.</p> + +<p>Schofield, born general that he was, simply lay in a +rock-circled, earth-circled, water-circled, iron-and-steel-circled +cage, bayonet and flame tipped, proof against the +armies of the world!</p> + +<p>But Hood's brave army never hesitated, never doubted.</p> + +<p>Even in the matter of where to throw up his breastworks, +Schofield never erred. On a beautiful and seemingly +level plain like this, a less able general might have +thrown them up anywhere, just so that they encircled +the town and ran from river to river.</p> + +<p>But Schofield took no chances. His quick eye detected +that even in apparent level plains there are slight +undulations. And so, following a gentle rise all the +way round, just on its top he threw up his breastworks. +So that, besides the ditch and the abatis, there was a +slight depression in his immediate front, open and clear, +but so situated that on the gentle slope in front, down +which the confederates must charge, the background of +the slope brought them in bold relief—gray targets for +the guns. On that background the hare would loom up +as big as the hound.</p> + +<p>There were really two federal lines, an outer and an +inner one. The outer one consisted of Bradley's and +Lane's brigades which had retired from Spring Hill before +the Confederate army, and had been ordered to halt +in front of the breastworks to check the advance of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> +army. They were instructed to fire and then fall back to +the breastworks, if stubbornly charged by greatly their +superiors in numbers. They fired, but, true to American +ideas, they disliked to retreat. When forced to do so, +they were swept away with the enemy on their very heels +and as they rushed in over the last line at the breastworks +on the Columbia pike the eager boys in gray +rushed over with them, swept away portions of Reilly's +and Strickland's troops, and bayoneted those that remained.</p> + +<p>It was then that Schofield's heart sank as he looked +down from the guns of the fort. But Cox had the +forethought to place Opdyck's two thousand men in +reserve at this very point. These sprang gallantly +forward and restored the line.</p> + +<p>They saved the Union army!</p> + +<p>The battle was now raging all around the line. +There was a succession of yells, a rattle, a shock and +a roar, as brigade after brigade struck the breastworks, +only to be hurled back again or melt and die away in +the trenches amid the abatis. Clear around the line +of breastworks it rolled, at intervals, like a magazine +of powder flashing before it explodes, then the roar +and upheaval, followed anon and anon by another. +The ground was soon shingled with dead men in gray, +while down in the ditches or hugging the bloody sides +of the breastworks right under the guns, thousands, +more fortunate or daring than their comrades, lay, +thrusting and being thrust, shooting and being shot. +And there they staid throughout the fight—not strong +enough to climb over, and yet all the guns of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> +federal army could not drive them away. Many a +gray regiment planted its battle-flag on the breastworks +and then hugged those sides of death in its efforts +to keep it there, as bees cling around the body of their +queen.</p> + +<p>“I have the honor to forward to the War Department +nine stands of colors,” writes General Cox to General +Geo. L. Thomas; “these flags with eleven others +were captured by the Twenty-third Army Corps along +the parapets.”</p> + +<p>Could Bonaparte's army have planted more on the +ramparts of Mount St. Jean?</p> + +<p>The sun had not set; yet the black smoke of battle +had set it before its time. God had ordained otherwise; +but man, in his fury had shut out the light of heaven +against the decree of God, just as, equally against His +decree, he has now busily engaged in blotting out many +a brother's bright life, before the decree of its sunset. +Again and again and again, from four till midnight—eight +butchering hours—the heart of the South was +hurled against those bastions of steel and flame, only to +be pierced with ball and bayonet.</p> + +<p>And for every heart that was pierced there broke a +dozen more in the shade of the southern palmetto, or in +the shadow of the northern pine. After nineteen hundred +years of light and learning, what a scientific nation +of heart-stabbers and brother-murderers we Christians +are!</p> + +<p>It was now that the genius of the confederate cavalry +leader, Forrest, asserted itself. With nearly ten thousand +of his intrepid cavalry-men, born in the saddle, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> +carried rifles and shot as they charged, and whom with +wonderful genius their leader had trained to dismount +at a moment's notice and fight as infantry—he lay on +the extreme right between the river and the railroad. +In a moment he saw his opportunity, and rode furiously +to Hood's headquarters. He found the General sitting +on a flat rock, a smouldering fire by his side, half way +down the valley, at the Winstead House, intently +watching the progress of the battle.</p> + +<p>“Let me go at 'em, General,” shouted Forrest in his +bluff way, “and I'll flank the federal army out of its +position in fifteen minutes.”</p> + +<p>“No! Sir,” shouted back Hood. “Charge them out! +charge them out!”</p> + +<p>Forrest turned and rode back with an oath of disgust. +Years afterwards, Colonel John McGavock, +whose fine plantation lay within the federal lines and +who had ample opportunity for observation, says that +when in the early evening a brigade of Forrest's cavalry +deployed across the river as if opening the way for the +confederate infantry to attack the federal army in flank +and rear, hasty preparations were made by the federal +army for retreat. And thus was Forrest's military wisdom +corroborated. “Let me flank them out,” was military +genius. “No, charge them out,” was dare-devil +blundering!</p> + +<p>The shock, the shout and the roar continued. The +flash from the guns could now plainly be seen as night +descended. So continuous was the play of flame around +the entire breastwork that it looked to the general at +headquarters like a circle of prairie fire, leaping up at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> +intervals along the breastworks, higher and higher +where the batteries were ablaze.</p> + +<p>In a black-locust thicket, just to the right of the Columbia +turnpike and near the Carter House, with abatis +in front, the strongest of the batteries had been placed. +It mowed down everything in front. Seeing it, General +Hood turned to General Travis and said: “General, +my compliments to General Cleburne, and say to him I +desire that battery at his hands.”</p> + +<p>The old man wheeled and was gone. In a moment, +it seemed, the black smoke of battle engulfed him. Cleburne's +command was just in front of the old gin house, +forming for another charge. The dead lay in heaps in +front. They almost filled the ditch around the breastworks. +But the command, terribly cut to pieces, was +forming as coolly as if on dress parade. Above them +floated a peculiar flag, a field of deep blue on which was +a crescent moon and stars. It was Cleburne's battle +flag and well the enemy knew it. They had seen and +felt it at Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Ringgold Gap, Atlanta. +“I tip my hat to that flag,” said General Sherman years +after the war. “Whenever my men saw it they knew +it meant fight.”</p> + +<p>As the old man rode up, the division charged. Carried +away in the excitement he charged with them, guiding +his horse by the flashes of the guns. As they rushed +on the breastworks a gray figure on a chestnut horse +rode diagonally across the front of the moving column +at the enemy's gun. The horse went down within fifty +yards of the breastwork. The rider arose, waved his +sword and led his men on foot to the very ramparts.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> +Then he staggered and fell, pierced with a dozen minie +balls. It was Cleburne, the peerless field-marshal of +confederate brigade commanders; the genius to infantry +as Forrest was to cavalry. His corps was swept back by +the terrible fire, nearly half of them dead or wounded.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes afterwards General Travis stood before +General Hood.</p> + +<p>“General Cleburne is dead, General”—was all he +said. Hood did not turn his head.</p> + +<p>“My compliments to General Adams,” he said, “and +tell him I ask that battery at his hands.”</p> + +<p>Again the old man wheeled and was gone. Again he +rode into the black night and the blacker smoke of battle.</p> + +<p>General Adams's brigade was in Walthall's division. +As the aged courier rode up, Adams was just charging. +Again the old man was swept away with the charge. +They struck the breastworks where Stile's and Casement's +brigades lay on the extreme left of the federal +army. “Their officers showed heroic examples and self-sacrifice,” +wrote General Cox in his official report, “riding +up to our lines in advance of their men, cheering +them on. One officer, Adams, was shot down upon the +parapet itself, his horse falling across the breastworks.” +Casement himself, touched by the splendor of his ride, +had cotton brought from the old gin house and placed +under the dying soldier's head. “You are too brave a +man to die,” said Casement tenderly; “I wish that I +could save you.”</p> + +<p>“'Tis the fate of a soldier to die for his country,” smiled the dying soldier. Then he +passed away.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was a half hour before the old man reached Hood's +headquarters again, his black horse wet with sweat.</p> + +<p>“General Adams lies in front of the breastworks—dead! +His horse half over it—dead”—was all he +said.</p> + +<p>Hood turned pale. His eyes flashed with indignant +grief.</p> + +<p>“Then tell General Gist,” he exclaimed. The old +man vanished again and rode once more into the smoke +and the night. Gist's brigade led the front line of +Brown's division, Cheatham's corps. It was on the left, +fronting Strickland's and Moore's, on the breastworks. +The Twenty-fourth South Carolina Infantry was in +front of the charging lines. “In passing from the left +to the right of the regiment,” writes Colonel Ellison +Capers commanding the South Carolina regiment above +named, “the General (Gist) waved his hat to us, expressed +his pride and confidence in the Twenty-fourth +and rode away in the smoke of battle never more to be +seen by the men he had commanded on so many fields. +His horse was shot, and, dismounting, he was leading the +right of the brigade when he fell, pierced through the +heart. On pressed the charging lines of the brigade, +driving the advance force of the enemy pell-mell into a +locust abatis where many were captured and sent to the +rear; others were wounded by the fire of their own men. +This abatis was a formidable and fearful obstruction. +The entire brigade was arrested by it. But Gist's and +Gordon's brigade charged on and reached the ditch, +mounted the works and met the enemy in close combat. +The colors of the Twenty-fourth were planted and de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>fended +on the parapet, and the enemy retired in our +front some distance, but soon rallied and came back in +turn to charge us. He never succeeded in retaking the +line we held. Torn and exhausted, deprived of every +general officer and nearly every field officer, the division +had only strength enough left to hold its position.”</p> + +<p>The charging became intermittent. Then out of the +night, as Hood sat listening, again came the old man, +his face as white as his long hair, his horse once black, +now white with foam.</p> + +<p>“General Gist too, is dead,” he said sadly.</p> + +<p>“Tell Granbury, Carter, Strahl—General! Throw +them in there and capture that battery and break that +line.”</p> + +<p>The old man vanished once more and rode into the +shock and shout of battle.</p> + +<p>General Strahl was leading his brigade again against +the breastworks. “Strahl's and Carter's brigade came +gallantly to the assistance of Gist's and Gordon's” runs +the confederate report sent to Richmond, “but the +enemy's fire from the houses in the rear of the line and +from guns posted on the far side of the river so as to +enfilade the field, tore their line to pieces before it +reached the locust abatis.”</p> + +<p>General Carter fell mortally wounded before reaching +the breastworks, but General Strahl reached the ditch, +filled with dead and dying men, though his entire staff +had been killed. Here he stood with only two men +around him, Cunningham and Brown. “Keep firing” +said Strahl as he stood on the bodies of the dead and +passed up guns to the two privates. The next instant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> +Brown fell heavily; he, too, was dead.</p> + +<p>“What shall I do, General?” asked Cunningham.</p> + +<p>“Keep firing,” said Strahl.</p> + +<p>Again Cunningham fired. “Pass me another +gun, General,” said Cunningham. There was no +answer—the general was dead.</p> + + +<p>Not a hundred yards away lay General Granbury, +dead. He died leading the brave Texans to the works.</p> + +<p>To the commanding General it seemed an age before +the old man returned. Then he saw him in the darkness +afar off, before he reached the headquarters. The +General thought of death on his pale horse and shivered.</p> + +<p>“Granbury, Carter, Strahl—all dead, General,” he +said. “Colonels command divisions, Captains are commanding +brigades.”</p> + +<p>“How does Cheatham estimate his loss?” asked the +General.</p> + +<p>“At half his command killed and wounded,” said the +old soldier sadly.</p> + +<p>“My God!—my God!—this awful, awful day!” +cried Hood.</p> + +<p>There was a moment's silence and then: “General?” +It came from General Travis.</p> + +<p>The General looked up.</p> + +<p>“May I lead the Tennessee troops in—I have led +them often before.”</p> + +<p>Hood thought a moment, then nodded and the horse +and the rider were gone. It was late—nearly midnight. +The firing on both sides had nearly ceased,—only +a desultory rattling—the boom of a gun now and +then. But O, the agony, the death, the wild confusion!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> +This was something like the babel that greeted the old +soldier's ears as he rode forward:</p> + +<p>“The Fourth Mississippi—where is the Fourth Mississippi?” +“Here is the Fortieth Alabama's standard—rally +men to your standard!” “Where is General +Cleburne, men? Who has seen General Cleburne?” +“Up, boys, and let us at 'em agin! Damn 'em, they've +wounded me an' I want to kill some more!”</p> + +<p>“Water!—water—for God's sake give us water!” +This came from a pile of wounded men just under the +guns on the Columbia pike. It came from a sixteen +year old boy in blue. Four dead comrades lay across +him.</p> + +<p>“And this is the curse of it,” said General Travis, as +he rode among the men.</p> + +<p>But suddenly amid the smoke and confusion, the soldiers +saw what many thought was an apparition—an +old, old warrior, on a horse with black mane and tail and +fiery eyes, but elsewhere covered with white sweat and +pale as the horse of death. The rider's face too, was +deadly white, but his keen eyes blazed with the fire of +many generations of battle-loving ancestors.</p> + +<p>The soldiers flocked round him, half doubting, half +believing. The terrible ordeal of that bloody night's +work; the poignant grief from beholding the death and +wounds of friends and brothers; the weird, uncanny +groans of the dying upon the sulphurous-smelling night +air; the doubt, uncertainty, and yet, through it all, the +bitter realization that all was in vain, had shocked, benumbed, +unsettled the nerves of the stoutest; and many +of them scarcely knew whether they were really alive,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> +confronting in the weird hours of the night ditches of +blood and breastworks of death, or were really dead—dead +from concussion, from shot or shell, and were now +wandering on a spirit battle-field till some soul-leader +should lead them away.</p> + +<p>And so, half dazed and half dreaming, and yet half +alive to its realization, they flocked around the old warrior, +and they would not have been at all surprised had +he told them he came from another world.</p> + +<p>Some thought of Mars. Some thought of death and +his white horse. Some felt of the animal's mane and +touched his streaming flanks and cordy legs to see if it +were really a horse and not an apparition, while “What +is it?” and “Who is he?” was whispered down the +lines.</p> + +<p>Then the old rider spoke for the first time, and said +simply:</p> + +<p>“Men, I have come to lead you in.”</p> + +<p>A mighty shout came up. “It's General Lee!—he +has come to lead us in,” they shouted.</p> + +<p>“No, no, men,”—said the old warrior quickly. “I +am not General Lee. But I have led Southern troops +before. I was at New Orleans. I was—”</p> + +<p>“It's Ole Hick'ry—by the eternal!—Ole Hick'ry—and +he's come back to life to lead us!” shouted a big +fellow as he threw his hat in the air.</p> + +<p>“Ole Hickory! Ole Hickory!” echoed and re-echoed +down the lines, till it reached the ears of the dying soldiers +in the ditch itself, and many a poor, brave fellow, +as his heart strings snapped and the broken chord gurgled +out into the dying moan, saw amid the blaze and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> +light of the new life, the apparition turn into a reality +and a smile of exquisite satisfaction was forever frozen +on his face in the mould of death, as he whispered with +his last breath:</p> + +<p>“It's Old Hickory—my General—I have fought +a good fight—I come!”</p> + +<p>Then the old warrior smiled—a smile of simple +beauty and grandeur, of keen satisfaction that such an +honor should have been paid him, and he tried to speak +to correct them. But they shouted the more, and +drowned out his voice and would not have it otherwise. +Despairing, he rode to the front and drew his long, +heavy, old, revolutionary sword. It flashed in the air. +It came to “attention”—and then a dead silence followed.</p> + +<p>“Men,” he said, “this is the sword of John Sevier, +the rebel that led us up the sides of King's Mountain +when every tyrant gun that belched in our face called +us—rebels!”</p> + +<p>“Old Hick'ry! Old Hick'ry, forever!” came back +from the lines.</p> + +<p>Again the old sword came to attention, and again a +deep hush followed.</p> + +<p>“Men,” he said, drawing a huge rifled barreled pistol—“this +is the pistol of Andrew Jackson, the rebel that +whipped the British at New Orleans when every gun that +thundered in his face, meant death to liberty!”</p> + +<p>“Old Hickory! Old Hickory!!” came back in a +frenzy of excitement.</p> + +<p>Again the old sword came to attention—again, the +silence. Then the old man fairly stood erect in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> +stirrups—he grew six inches taller and straighter and +the black horse reared and rose as if to give emphasis +to his rider's assertion:</p> + +<p>“Men,” he shouted, “rebel is the name that tyranny +gives to patriotism! And now, let us fight, as our fore-fathers +fought, for our state, our homes and our firesides!” +And then clear and distinct there rang out on +the night air, a queer old continental command:</p> + +<p>“Fix, pieces!”</p> + +<p>They did not know what this meant at first. But +some old men in the line happened to remember and +fixed their bayonets. Then there was clatter and clank +down the entire line as others imitated their examples.</p> + +<p>“Poise, fo'k!” rang out again more queerly still. +The old men who remembered brought their guns to the +proper position. “Right shoulder, fo'k!”—followed. +Then, “Forward, March!” came back and they moved +straight at the batteries—now silent—and straight +at the breastworks, more silent still. Proudly, superbly, +they came on, with not a shout or shot—a chained +line with links of steel—a moving mass with one heart—and +that heart,—victory.</p> + +<p>On they came at the breastworks, walking over the +dead who lay so thick they could step from body to body +as they marched. On they came, following the old +cocked hat that had once held bloodier breastworks +against as stubborn foe.</p> + +<p>On—on—they came, expecting every moment to +see a flame of fire run round the breastworks, a furnace +of flame leap up from the batteries, and then—victory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> +or death—behind old Hickory! Either was honor +enough!</p> + +<p>And now they were within fifty feet of the breastworks, +moving as if on dress parade. The guns must +thunder now or never! One step more—then, an electrical +bolt shot through every nerve as the old man +wheeled his horse and again rang out that queer old +continental command, right in the mouth of the enemy's +ditch, right in the teeth of his guns:</p> + +<p>“Charge, pieces!”</p> + +<p>It was Tom Travis who commanded the guns where +the Columbia Pike met the breastworks at the terrible +deadly locust thicket. All night he had stood at his +post and stopped nine desperate charges. All night +in the flash and roar and the strange uncanny smell of +blood and black powder smoke, he had stood among the +dead and dying calling stubbornly, monotonously:</p> + +<p>“Ready!”</p> + +<p>“Aim!”</p> + +<p>“Fire!”</p> + +<p>And now it was nearly midnight and Schofield, finding +the enemy checked, was withdrawing on Nashville.</p> + +<p>Tom Travis thought the battle was over, but in the +glare and flash he looked and saw another column, +ghostly gray in the starlight, moving stubbornly at his +guns.</p> + +<p>“Ready!” he shouted as his gunners sprang again +to their pieces.</p> + +<p>On came the column—beautifully on. How it +thrilled him to see them! How it hurt to think they were +his people!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> + +<p>“<i>Aim!</i>” he thundered again, and then as he looked +through the gray torch made, starlighted night, he +quailed in a cold sickening fear, for the old man who +led them on was his grandsire, the man whom of all +on earth he loved and revered the most.</p> + +<p>Eight guns, with grim muzzles trained on the old +rider and his charging column, waited but for the captain's +word to hurl their double-shotted canisters of +death.</p> + +<p>And Tom Travis, in the agony of it, stood, sword +in hand, stricken in dumbness and doubt. On came the +column, the old warrior leading them—on and:—</p> + +<p>“The command—the command! Give it to us, +Captain,” shouted the gunners.</p> + +<p>“<i>Cease firing!</i>”</p> + +<p>The gunners dropped their lanyards with an oath, +trained machines that they were.</p> + +<p>It was a drunken German who brought a heavy sword-hilt +down on the young officer's head with:</p> + +<p>“You damned traitor!”</p> + +<p>A gleam of gun and bayonet leaped in the misty +light in front, from shoulder to breast—a rock wall, +tipped with steel swept crushingly forward over the +trenches over the breastworks.</p> + +<p>Under the guns, senseless, his skull crushed, an upturned +face stopped the old warrior. Down from his +horse he came with a weak, hysterical sob.</p> + +<p>“O Tom—Tom, I might have known it was you—my +gallant, noble boy—my Irish Gray!”</p> + +<p>He kissed, as he thought, the dead face, and went on +with his men.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was just midnight.</p> + +<p>“At midnight, all being quiet in front, in accordance +with orders from the commanding Generals,” writes General +J. D. Cox in his official report, “I withdrew my +command to the north bank of the river.”</p> + +<p>“The battle closed about twelve o'clock at night,” +wrote General Hood, “when the enemy retreated rapidly +on Nashville, leaving the dead and wounded in our hands. +We captured about a thousand prisoners and several +stands of colors.”</p> + +<p>Was this a coincidence—or as some think—did the +boys in blue retreat before they would fire on an old +Continental and the spirit of '76?</p> + +<p>An hour afterwards a negro was sadly leading a tired +old man on a superb horse back to headquarters, and +as the rider's head sank on his breast he said:</p> + +<p>“Lead me, Bisco, I'm too weak to guide my horse. +Nothing is left now but the curse of it.”</p> + +<p>And O, the curse of it!</p> + +<p>Fifty-seven Union dead beside the wounded, in the little +front yard of the Carter House, alone. And they +lay around the breastworks from river to river, a chain +of dead and dying. In front of the breastworks was +another chain—a wider and thicker one. It also ran +from river to river, but was gray instead of blue. +Chains are made of links, and the full measure of “the +curse of it” may have been seen if one could have looked +over the land that night and have seen where the dead +links lying there were joined to live under the roof trees +of far away homes.</p> + +<p>But here is the tale of a severed link: About two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> +o'clock lights began to flash about over the battle-field—they +were hunting for the dead and wounded. +Among these, three had come out from the Carter House. +A father, son and daughter; each carried a lantern and +as they passed they flashed their lights in the faces of +the dead.</p> + +<p>“May we look for brother?” asked the young girl, +of an officer. “We hope he is not here but fear he is. +He has not been home for two years, being stationed in +another state. But we heard he could not resist the +temptation to come home again and joined General +Bate's brigade. And O, we fear he has been killed for +he would surely have been home before this.”</p> + +<p>They separated, each looking for “brother.” Directly +the father heard the daughter cry out. It was in +the old orchard near the house. On reaching the spot +she was seated on the ground, holding the head of her +dying brother in her lap and sobbing:</p> + +<p>“Brother's come home! Brother's come home!” +Alas, she meant—gone home!</p> + +<p>“Captain Carter, on staff duty with Tyler's brigade,” +writes General Wm. B. Bate in his official report, +“fell mortally wounded near the works of the +enemy and almost at the door of his father's home. His +gallantry I witnessed with much pride, as I had done +on other fields, and here take pleasure in mentioning it +especially.”</p> + +<p>The next morning in the first light of the first day of +that month celebrated as the birth-month of Him who +declared long ago that war should cease, amid the dead +and dying of both armies, stood two objects which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> +should one day be carved in marble—One, to represent +the intrepid bravery of the South, the other, the cool +courage of the North, and both—“the curse of it.”</p> + +<p>The first was a splendid war-horse, dead, but lying +face forward, half over the federal breastworks. It was +the horse of General Adams.</p> + +<p>The other was a Union soldier—the last silent sentinel +of Schofield's army. He stood behind a small +locust tree, just in front of the Carter House gate. He +had drawn his iron ram-rod which rested under his right +arm pit, supporting that side. His gun, with butt on +the ground at his left, rested with muzzle against his +left side, supporting it. A cartridge, half bitten off +was in his mouth. He leaned heavily against the small +tree in front. He was quite dead, a minie ball through +his head; but thus propped he stood, the wonder of +many eyes, the last sentinel of the terrible night battle.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But another severed link cut deepest of all. In the +realization of her love for Thomas Travis, Alice Westmore's +heart died within her. In the years which followed, +if suffering could make her a great singer, now +indeed was she great.</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p> +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<h2>PART FOURTH—THE LINT</h2> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> +<h3>COTTONTOWN</h3> + +<p><span class="first">S</span>lavery clings to cotton.</p> + +<p>When the directors of a cotton mill, in a +Massachusetts village, decided, in the middle +'70's, to move their cotton factory from New England to +Alabama, they had two objects in view—cheaper labor +and cheaper staple.</p> + +<p>And they did no unwise thing, as the books of the +company from that time on showed.</p> + +<p>In the suburbs of a growing North Alabama town, +lying in the Tennessee Valley and flanked on both sides +by low, regularly rolling mountains, the factory had +been built.</p> + +<p>It was a healthful, peaceful spot, and not unpicturesque. +North and south the mountains fell away in an +undulating rhythmical sameness, with no abrupt gorges +to break in and destroy the poetry of their scroll against +the sky. The valley supplemented the effect of the +mountains; for, from the peak of Sunset Rock, high up +on the mountain, it looked not unlike the chopped up +waves of a great river stiffened into land—especially +in winter when the furrowed rows of the vast cotton +fields lay out brown and symmetrically turned under the +hazy sky.</p> + +<p>The factory was a low, one-story structure of half<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> +burnt bricks. Like a vulgar man, cheapness was written +all over its face. One of its companions was a +wooden store house near by, belonging to the company. +The other companion was a squatty low-browed engine +room, decorated with a smoke-stack which did business +every day in the week except Sunday. A black, +soggy exhaust-pipe stuck out of a hole in its side, like +a nicotine-soaked pipe in an Irishman's mouth, and so +natural and matter-of-fact was the entire structure that +at evening, in the uncertain light, when the smoke was +puffing out of its stack, and the dirty water running +from its pipes, and the reflected fire from the engine's +furnace blazed through the sunken eyes of the windows, +begrizzled and begrimed, nothing was wanted but a little +imagination to hear it cough and spit and give one +final puff at its pipe and say: “Lu'd but o'ive wur-rek +hard an' o'im toired to-day!”</p> + +<p>Around it in the next few years had sprung up Cottontown.</p> + +<p>The factory had been built on the edge of an old +cottonfield which ran right up to the town's limit; and +the field, unplowed for several years, had become sodded +with the long stolens of rank Bermuda grass, holding +in its perpetual billows of green the furrows which had +been thrown up for cotton rows and tilled years before.</p> + +<p>This made a beautiful pea-green carpet in summer +and a comfortable straw-colored matting in winter; and +it was the only bit of sentiment that clung to Cottontown.</p> + +<p>All the rest of it was practical enough: Rows of +scurvy three-roomed cottages, all exactly alike, even to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> +the gardens in the rear, laid off in equal breadth and +running with the same unkept raggedness up the flinty +side of the mountain.</p> + +<p>There was not enough originality among the worked-to-death +inhabitants of Cottontown to plant their gardens +differently; for all of them had the same weedy +turnip-patch on one side, straggling tomatoes on another, +and half-dried mullein-stalks sentineling the corners. +For years these cottages had not been painted, +and now each wore the same tinge of sickly yellow paint. +It was not difficult to imagine that they had had a long +siege of malarial fever in which the village doctor had +used abundant plasters of mustard, and the disease had +finally run into “yaller ja'ndice,” as they called it in +Cottontown.</p> + +<p>And thus Cottontown had stood for several years, a +new problem in Southern life and industry, and a paying +one for the Massachusetts directors.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile another building had been put up—a +little cheaply built chapel, of long-leaf yellow pine. +It was known as the Bishop's church, and sat on the +side of the mountain, half way up among the black-jacks, +exposed to the blistering suns of summer and +the winds of winter.</p> + +<p>It had never been painted: “An' it don't need it,” +as the Bishop had said when the question of painting +it had been raised by some of the members.</p> + +<p>“No, it don't need it, for the hot sun has drawed all +the rosin out on its surface, an' pine rosin's as good a +paint as any church needs. Jes' let God be, an' He'll +fix His things like He wants 'em any way. He put the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> +paint in the pine-tree when He made it. Now man is +mighty smart,—he can make paint, but he can't make +a pine tree.”</p> + +<p>It was Sunday morning, and as the Bishop drove +along to church he was still thinking of Jack Bracken +and Captain Tom, and the burial of little Jack. When +he arose that morning Jack was up, clean-shaved and +neatly dressed. As Mrs. Watts, the Bishop's wife, had +become used, as she expressed it, to his “fetchin' any +old thing, frum an old hoss to an old man home, wharever +he finds 'em,”—she did not express any surprise +at having a new addition to the family.</p> + +<p>The outlaw looked nervous and sorrow-stricken. Several +times, when some one came on him unexpectedly, the +Bishop saw him feeling nervously for a Colt's revolver +which had been put away. Now and then, too, he saw +great tears trickling down the rough cheeks, when he +thought no one was noticing him.</p> + +<p>“Now, Jack,” said the Bishop after breakfast, “you +jes' get on John Paul Jones an' hunt for Cap'n Tom. +I know you'll not leave no stone unturned to find him. +Go by the cave and see if him an' Eph ain't gone back. +I'm not af'eard—I know Eph will take care of him, +but we want to fin' him. After meetin' if you haven't +found him I'll join in the hunt myself—for we must +find Cap'n Tom, Jack, befo' the sun goes down. I'd +ruther see him than any livin' man. Cap'n Tom—Cap'n +Tom—him that's been as dead all these years! +Fetch him home when you find him—fetch him home +to me. He shall never want while I live. An', Jack,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> +remember—don't forget yo'se'f and hold up anybody. +I'll expec' you to jine the church nex' Sunday.”</p> + +<p>“I ain't been in a church for fifteen years,” said the +other.</p> + +<p>“High time you are going, then. You've put yo' +hands to the plough—turn not back an' God'll straighten +out everything.”</p> + +<p>Jack was silent. “I'll go by the cave fus' an' jus' +look where little Jack is sleepin'. Po' little feller, he +must ha' been mighty lonesome last night.”</p> + +<p>It was ten o'clock and the Bishop was on his way to +church. He was driving the old roan of the night before. +A parody on a horse, to one who did not look +closely, but to one who knows and who looks beyond the +mere external form for that hidden something in both +man and horse which bespeaks strength and reserve +force, there was seen through the blindness and the ugliness +and the sleepy, ambling, shuffling gait a clean-cut +form, with deep chest and closely ribbed; with well +drawn flanks, a fine, flat steel-turned bone, and a powerful +muscle, above hock and forearms, that clung to the +leg as the Bishop said, “like bees a'swarmin'.”</p> + +<p>At his little cottage gate stood Bud Billings, the best +slubber in the cotton mill. Bud never talked to any one +except the Bishop; and his wife, who was the worst +Xanthippe in Cottontown, declared she had lived with +him six months straight and never heard him come +nearer speaking than a grunt. It was also a saying +of Richard Travis, that Bud had been known to break +all records for silence by drawing a year's wages at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> +mill, never missing a minute and never speaking a +word.</p> + +<p>Nor had he ever looked any one full in the eye in his +life.</p> + +<p>As the Bishop drove shamblingly along down the +road, deeply preoccupied in his forthcoming sermon, +there came from out of a hole, situated somewhere between +the grizzled fringe of hair that marked Bud's +whiskers and the grizzled fringe above that marked his +eyebrows, a piping, apologetic voice that sounded like +the first few rasps of an old rusty saw; but to the +occupant of the buggy it meant, with a drawl:</p> + +<p>“Howdy do, Bishop?”</p> + +<p>A blind horse is quick to observe and take fright at +anything uncanny. He is the natural ghost-finder of +the highways, and that voice was too much for the old +roan. To him it sounded like something that had been +resurrected. It was a ghost-voice, arising after many +years. He shied, sprang forward, half wheeled and +nearly upset the buggy, until brought up with a jerk +by the powerful arms of his driver. The shaft-band +had broken and the buggy had run upon the horse's +rump, and the shafts stuck up almost at right angles +over his back. The roan stood trembling with the half +turned, inquisitive muzzle of the sightless horse—a +paralysis of fear all over his face. But when Bud came +forward and touched his face and stroked it, the fear +vanished, and the old roan bobbed his tail up and down +and wiggled his head reassuringly and apologetically.</p> + +<p>“Wal, I declar, Bishop,” grinned Bud, “kin yo' critter +fetch a caper?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>The Bishop got leisurely out of his buggy, pulled +down the shafts and tied up the girth before he spoke. +Then he gave a puckering hitch to his underlip and +deposited in the sand, with a puddling <i>plunk</i>, the half +cup of tobacco juice that had closed up his mouth.</p> + +<p>He stepped back and said very sternly:</p> + +<p>“Whoa, Ben Butler!”</p> + +<p>“Why, he'un's sleep a'ready,” grinned Bud.</p> + +<p>The Bishop glanced at the bowed head, cocked hind +foot and listless tail: “Sof'nin' of the brain, Bud,” +smiled the Bishop; “they say when old folks begin to +take it they jus' go to sleep while settin' up talkin'. +Now, a horse, Bud,” he said, striking an attitude for a +discussion on his favorite topic, “a horse is like a man—he +must have some meanness or he c'udn't live, an' +some goodness or nobody else c'ud live. But git in, +Bud, and let's go along to meetin'—'pears like it's gettin' +late.”</p> + +<p>This was what Bud had been listening for. This was +the treat of the week for him—to ride to meetin' with +the Bishop. Bud, a slubber-slave—henpecked at home, +brow-beaten and cowed at the mill, timid, scared, “an' +powerful slow-mouthed,” as his spouse termed it, worshipped +the old Bishop and had no greater pleasure in +life, after his hard week's work, than “to ride to meetin' +with the old man an' jes' hear him narrate.”</p> + +<p>The Bishop's great, sympathetic soul went out to the +poor fellow, and though he had rather spend the next +two miles of Ben Butler's slow journey to church in +thinking over his sermon, he never failed, as he termed +it, “to pick up charity even on the roadside,” and it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> +was pretty to see how the old man would turn loose his +crude histrionic talent to amuse the slubber. He knew, +too, that Bud was foolish about horses, and that Ben +Butler was his model!</p> + +<p>They got into the old buggy, and Ben Butler began to +draw it slowly along the sandy road to the little church, +two miles away up the mountain side.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<h3>BEN BUTLER</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">B</span>ud was now in a seventh heaven. He was riding +behind Ben Butler, the greatest horse in the +world, and talking to the Bishop, the only person +who ever heard the sound of his voice, save in deprecatory +and scary grunts.</p> + +<p>It was touching to see how the old man humored the +simple and imposed-upon creature at his side. It was +beautiful to see how, forgetting himself and his sermon, +he prepared to entertain, in his quaint way, this +slave to the slubbing machine.</p> + +<p>Bud looked fondly at the Bishop—then admiringly +at Ben Butler. He drew a long breath of pure air, and +sitting on the edge of the seat, prepared to jump if +necessary; for Bud was mortally afraid of being in a +runaway, and his scared eyes seemed to be looking for +the soft places in the road.</p> + +<p>“Bishop,” he drawled after a while, “huc-cum you +name sech a hoss”—pointing to the old roan—“sech +a grand hoss, for sech a man—sech a man as he was,” +he added humbly.</p> + +<p>“Did you ever notice Ben Butler's eyes, Bud?” +asked the old man, knowingly.</p> + +<p>“Blind,” said Bud sadly, shaking his head—“too +bad—too bad—great—great hoss!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but the leds, Bud—that hoss, Ben Butler +there, holds a world's record—he's the only cock-eyed +hoss in the world.”</p> + +<p>“You don't say so—that critter!—cock-eyed?” +Bud laughed and slapped his leg gleefully. “Didn't +I always tell you so? World's record—great—great!”</p> + +<p>Then it broke gradually through on Bud's dull mind.</p> + +<p>He slapped his leg again. “An' him—his namesake—he +was cock-eyed, too—I seed him onct at New +'Leens.”</p> + +<p>“Don't you never trust a cock-eyed man, Bud. He'll +flicker on you in the home-stretch. I've tried it an' +it never fails. Love him, but don't trust him. The +world is full of folks we oughter love, but not trust.”</p> + +<p>“No—I never will,” said Bud as thoughtfully as he +knew how to be—“nor a cock-eyed 'oman neither. My +wife's cock-eyed,” he added.</p> + +<p>He was silent a moment. Then he showed the old man +a scar on his forehead: “She done that last month—busted +a plate on my head.”</p> + +<p>“That's bad,” said the Bishop consolingly—“but +you ortenter aggravate her, Bud.”</p> + +<p>“That's so—I ortenter—least-wise, not whilst +there's any crockery in the house,” said Bud sadly.</p> + +<p>“There's another thing about this hoss,” went on +the Bishop—“he's always spoony on mules. He ain't +happy if he can't hang over the front gate spoonin' +with every stray mule that comes along. There's old +long-eared Lize that he's dead stuck on—if he c'u'd +write he'd be composin' a sonnet to her ears, like poets<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> +do to their lady love's—callin' them Star Pointers of +a Greater Hope, I reck'n, an' all that. Why, he'd ruther +hold hands by moonlight with some old Maria mule than +to set up by lamplight with a thoroughbred filly.”</p> + +<p>“Great—great!” said Bud slapping his leg—“didn't +I tell you so?”</p> + +<p>“So I named him Ben Butler when he was born. +That was right after the war, an' I hated old Ben so an' +loved hosses so, I thought ef I'd name my colt for old +Ben maybe I'd learn to love him, in time.”</p> + +<p>Bud shook his head. “That's agin nature, Bishop.”</p> + +<p>“But I have, Bud—sho' as you are born I love old +Ben Butler.” He lowered his voice to an earnest +whisper: “I ain't never told you what he done for po' +Cap'n Tom.”</p> + +<p>“Never heurd o' Cap'n Tom.”</p> + +<p>The Bishop looked hurt. “Never mind, Bud, you +wouldn't understand. But maybe you will ketch this, +listen now.”</p> + +<p>Bud listened intently with his head on one side.</p> + +<p>“I ain't never hated a man in my life but what God +has let me live long enough to find out I was in the +wrong—dead wrong. There are Jews and Yankees. +I useter hate 'em worse'n sin—but now what do you +reckon?”</p> + +<p>“One on 'em busted a plate on yo' head?” asked +Bud.</p> + +<p>“Jesus Christ was a Jew, an' Cap'n Tom jined the +Yankees.”</p> + +<p>“Bud,” he said cheerily after a pause, “did I ever +tell you the story of this here Ben Butler here?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>Bud's eyes grew bright and he slapped his leg again.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said the old man, brightening up into one of +his funny moods, “you know my first wife was named +Kathleen—Kathleen Galloway when she was a gal, an' +she was the pretties' gal in the settlement an' could go +all the gaits both saddle an' harness. She was han'som' +as a three-year-old an' cu'd out-dance, out-ride, out-sing +an' out-flirt any other gal that ever come down the +pike. When she got her Sunday harness on an' began +to move, she made all the other gals look like they were +nailed to the roadside. It's true, she needed a little +weight in front to balance her, an' she had a lot of ginger +in her make-up, but she was straight and sound, +didn't wear anything but the harness an' never teched +herself anywhere nor cross-fired nor hit her knees.”</p> + +<p>“Good—great!” said Bud, slapping his leg.</p> + +<p>“O, she was beautiful, Bud, with that silky hair that +'ud make a thoroughbred filly's look coarse as sheep's +wool, an' two mischief-lovin' eyes an' a heart that was +all gold. Bud—Bud”—there was a huskiness in the +old man's voice—“I know I can tell you because it will +never come back to me ag'in, but I love that Kathleen +now as I did then. A man may marry many times, but +he can never love but once. Sometimes it's his fust +wife, sometimes his secon', an' often <span class="hover" title="it's">its</span> the sweetheart +he never got—but he loved only one of 'em the right +way, an' up yander, in some other star, where spirits that +are alike meet in one eternal wedlock, they'll be one there +forever.”</p> + +<p>“Her daddy, old man Galloway, had a thoroughbred +filly that he named Kathleena for his daughter, an' she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> +c'ud do anything that the gal left out. An' one day +when she took the bit in her teeth an' run a quarter in +twenty-five seconds, she sot 'em all wild an' lots of fellers +tried to buy the filly an' get the old man to throw in +the gal for her keep an' board.”</p> + +<p>“I was one of 'em. I was clerkin' for the old man an' +boardin' in the house, an' whenever a young feller begins +to board in a house where there is a thoroughbred gal, +the nex' thing he knows he'll be—”</p> + +<p>“Buckled in the traces,” cried Bud slapping his leg +gleefully, at this, his first product of brilliancy.</p> + +<p>The old man smiled: “'Pon my word, Bud, you're +gittin' so smart. I don't know what I'll be doin' with +you—so 'riginal an' smart. Why, you'll quit keepin' +an old man's company—like me. I won't be able to +entertain you at all. But, as I was sayin', the next thing +he knows, he'll be one of the family.”</p> + +<p>“So me an' Kathleen, we soon got spoony an' wanted +to marry. Lots of 'em wanted to marry her, but I +drawed the pole an' was the only one she'd take as a +runnin' mate. So I went after the old man this a way: +I told him I'd buy the filly if he'd give me Kathleen. I +never will forgit what he said: 'They ain't narry one +of 'em for sale, swap or hire, an' I wish you young fellers +'ud tend to yo' own business an' let my fillies alone. +I'm gwinter bus' the wurl's record wid 'em both—Kathleena +the runnin' record an' Kathleen the gal record, so +be damn to you an' don't pester me no mo'.'”</p> + +<p>“Did he say <i>damn</i>?” asked Bud aghast—that such +a word should ever come from the Bishop.</p> + +<p>“He sho' did, Bud. I wouldn't lie about the old man,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> +now that he's dead. It ain't right to lie about dead +people—even to make 'em say nice an' proper things +they never thought of whilst alive. If we'd stop lyin' +about the ungodly dead an' tell the truth about 'em, +maybe the livin' 'ud stop tryin' to foller after 'em in +that respect. As it is, every one of 'em knows that no +matter how wicked he lives there'll be a lot o' nice lies +told over him after he's gone, an' a monument erected, +maybe, to tell how good he was. An' there's another +lot of half pious folks in the wurl it 'ud help—kind o' +sissy pious folks—that jus' do manage to miss all the +fun in the world an' jus' are mean enough to ketch hell +in the nex'. Get religion, but don't get the sissy kind. +So I am for tellin' it about old man Galloway jus' as +he was.</p> + +<p>“You orter heard him swear, Bud—it was part of +his religion. An' wherever he is to-day in that other +world, he is at it yet, for in that other life, Bud, we're +just ourselves on a bigger scale than we are in this. He +used to cuss the clerks around the store jus' from habit, +an' when I went to work for him he said:</p> + +<p>“'Young man, maybe I'll cuss you out some mornin', +but don't pay no 'tention to it—it's just a habit I've +got into, an' the boys all understand it.'</p> + +<p>“'Glad you told me,' I said, lookin' him square in the +eye—'one confidence deserves another. I've got a nasty +habit of my own, but I hope you won't pay no 'tention +to it, for it's a habit, an' I can't help it. I don't mean +nothin' by it, an' the boys all understand it, but when +a man cusses me I allers knock him down—do it befo' +I think'—I said—'jes' a habit I've got.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Well, he never cussed me all the time I was there. +My stock went up with the old man an' my chances was +good to get the gal, if I hadn't made a fool hoss-trade; +for with old man Galloway a good hoss-trade covered +all the multitude of sins in a man that charity now does +in religion. In them days a man might have all the +learnin' and virtues an' graces, but if he cudn't trade +hosses he was tinklin' brass an' soundin' cymbal in that +community.</p> + +<p>“The man that throwed the silk into me was Jud Carpenter—the +same feller that's now the Whipper-in for +these mills. Now, don't be scared,” said the old man +soothingly as Bud's scary eyes looked about him and he +clutched the buggy as if he would jump out—“he'll +not pester you now—he's kept away from me ever since. +He swapped me a black hoss with a star an' snip, +that looked like the genuine thing, but was about the +neatest turned gold-brick that was ever put on an unsuspectin' +millionaire.</p> + +<p>“Well, in the trade he simply robbed me of a fine +mare I had, that cost me one-an'-a-quarter. Kathleen +an' me was already engaged, but when old man Galloway +heard of it, he told me the jig was up an' no such +double-barrel idiot as I was shu'd ever leave any of my +colts in the Galloway paddock—that when he looked +over his gran'-chillun's pedigree he didn't wanter see all +of 'em crossin' back to the same damned fool! Oh, he +was nasty. He said that my colts was dead sho' to be +luffers with wheels in their heads, an' when pinched +they'd quit, an' when collared they'd lay down. That +there was a yaller streak in me that was already pilin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> +up coupons on the future for tears and heartaches an', +maybe a gallows or two, an' a lot of uncomplimentary +talk of that kind.</p> + +<p>“Well, Kathleen cried, an' I wept, an' I'll never forgit +the night she gave me a little good-bye kiss out +under the big oak tree an' told me we'd hafter part.</p> + +<p>“The old man maybe sized me up all right as bein' a +fool, but he missed it on my bein' a quitter. I had no +notion of being fired an' blistered an' turned out to grass +that early in the game. I wrote her a poem every other +day, an' lied between heats, till the po' gal was nearly +crazy, an' when I finally got it into her head that if it +was a busted blood vessel with the old man, it was a +busted heart with me, she cried a little mo' an' consented +to run off with me an' take the chances of the village +doctor cuppin' the old man at the right time.</p> + +<p>“The old lady was on my side and helped things +along. I had everything fixed even to the moon which +was shinin' jes' bright enough to carry us to the Justice's +without a lantern, some three miles away, an' into +the nex' county.</p> + +<p>“I'll never forgit how the night looked as I rode over +after her, how the wild-flowers smelt, an' the fresh dew +on the leaves. I remember that I even heard a mockin'-bird +wake up about midnight as I tied my hoss to a lim' +in the orchard nearby, an' slipped aroun' to meet Kathleen +at the bars behin' the house. It was a half mile +to the house an' I was slippin' through the sugar-maple +trees along the path we'd both walked so often befo' +when I saw what I thought was Kathleen comin' towards +me. I ran to meet her. It wa'n't Kathleen, but her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> +mother—an' she told me to git in a hurry, that the old +man knew all, had locked Kathleen up in the kitchen, +turned the brindle dog loose in the yard, an' was hidin' +in the woods nigh the barn, with his gun loaded with +bird-shot, an' that if I went any further the chances were +I'd not sit down agin for a year. She had slipped +around through the woods just to warn me.</p> + +<p>“Of course I wanted to fight an' take her anyway—kill +the dog an' the old man, storm the kitchen an' run +off with Kathleen in my arms as they do in novels. But +the old lady said she didn't want the dog hurt—it being +a valuable coon-dog,—and that I was to go away out +of the county an' wait for a better time.</p> + +<p>“It mighty nigh broke me up, but I decided the old +lady was right an' I'd go away. But 'long towards the +shank of the night, after I had put up my hoss, the moon +was still shinin', an' I cudn't sleep for thinkin' of Kathleen. +I stole afoot over to her house just to look at her +window. The house was all quiet an' even the brindle +dog was asleep. I threw kisses at her bed-room window, +but even then I cudn't go away, so I slipped around +to the barn and laid down in the hay to think over my +hard luck. My heart ached an' burned an' I was nigh +dead with love.</p> + +<p>“I wondered if I'd ever get her, if they'd wean her +from me, an' give her to the rich little feller whose fine +farm j'ined the old man's an' who the old man was +wuckin' fur—whether the two wouldn't over-persuade +her whilst I was gone. For I'd made up my mind I'd +go befo' daylight—that there wasn't anything else for +me to do.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I was layin' in the hay, an' boylike, the tears was +rollin' down. If I c'ud only kiss her han' befo' I left—if +I c'ud only see her face at the winder!</p> + +<p>“I must have sobbed out loud, for jus' then I heard +a gentle, sympathetic whinny an' a cold, inquisitive little +muzzle was thrust into my face, as I lay on my back +with my heart nearly busted. It was Kathleena, an' I +rubbed my hot face against her cool cheek—for it +seemed so human of her to come an' try to console me, +an' I put my arms around her neck an' kissed her silky +mane an' imagined it was Kathleen's hair.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I was heart-broke an' silly.</p> + +<p>“Then all at onct a thought came to me, an' I slipped +the bridle an' saddle on her an' led her out at the back +door, an' I scratched this on a slip of paper an' stuck it +on the barn do':</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<center>“<i>'To old man Galloway:</i></center> + +<p>“<i>'You wouldn't let me 'lope with yo' dorter, so I've +'loped with yo' filly, an' you'll never see hair nor hide of +her till you send me word to come back to this house an' +fetch a preacher.'</i></p> + +<p>“'(Signed)'</p> +<p style="text-align: right;">“'<i>Hillard Watts.'</i>”</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>The old man smiled, and Bud slapped his leg gleefully.</p> + +<p>“Great—great! Oh my, but who'd a thought of +it?” he grunted.</p> + +<p>“They say it 'ud done you good to have been there +the nex' mornin' an' heurd the cussin' recurd busted—but +me an' the filly was forty miles away. He got out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> +a warrant for me for hoss-stealin', but the sheriff was +for me, an' though he hunted high an' low he never +could find me.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it went on for a month, an' I got the old +man's note, sent by the sheriff:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<center>“<i>'To Hillard Watts, Wher-Ever Found.</i></center> + +<p>“<i>'Come on home an' fetch yo' preacher. Can't afford +to loose the filly, an' the gal has been off her feed +ever since you left.</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: right;">“'<i>Jobe Galloway</i>.'”</p></div> +<br /> + +<p>“Oh, Bud, I'll never forgit that home-comin' when +she met me at the gate an' kissed me an' laughed a little +an' cried a heap, an' we walked in the little parlor an' +the preacher made us one.</p> + +<p>“Nor of that happy, happy year, when all life seemed +a sweet dream now as I look back, an' even the memory +of it keeps me happy. Memory is a land that never +changes in a world of changes, an' that should show us +our soul is immortal, for memory is only the reflection +of our soul.”</p> + +<p>His voice grew more tender, and low: “Toward the +last of the year I seed her makin' little things slyly an' +hidin' 'em away in the bureau drawer, an' one night she +put away a tiny half-finished little dress with the needle +stickin' in the hem—just as she left it—just as her +beautiful hands made the last stitch they ever made on +earth....</p> + +<p>“O Bud, Bud, out of this blow come the sweetest +thought I ever had, an' I know from that day that this +life ain't all, that we'll live agin as sho' as God lives an'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> +is just—an' no man can doubt that. No—no—Bud, +this life ain't all, because it's God's unvarying law to +finish things. That tree there is finished, an' them birds, +they are finished, an' that flower by the roadside an' +the mountain yonder an' the world an' the stars an' the +sun. An' we're mo' than they be, Bud—even the tinies' +soul, like Kathleen's little one that jes' opened its +eyes an' smiled an' died, when its mammy died. It had +something that the trees an' birds an' mountains didn't +have—a soul—an' don't you kno' He'll finish all such +lives up yonder? He'll pay it back a thousandfold for +what he cuts off here.”</p> + +<p>Bud wept because the tears were running down the +old man's cheeks. He wanted to say something, but he +could not speak. That queer feeling that came over +him at times and made him silent had come again.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +<h3>AN ANSWER TO PRAYER</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">T</span>hen the old man remembered that he was making +Bud suffer with his own sorrow, and when +Bud looked at him again the Bishop had wiped +his eyes on the back of his hand and was smiling.</p> + +<p>Ben Butler, unknown to either, had come to a standstill.</p> + +<p>The Bishop broke out in a cheery tone:</p> + +<p>“My, how far off the subject I got! I started out to +tell you all about Ben Butler, and—and—how he +come in answer to prayer,” said the Bishop solemnly.</p> + +<p>Bud grinned: “It muster been, '<i>Now I lay me down +to sleep.</i>'”</p> + +<p>The Bishop laughed: “Well I'll swun if he ain't +sound asleep sho' 'nuff.” He laughed again: “Bud, +you're gittin' too bright for anything. I jes' don't see +how the old man's gwinter talk to you much longer +'thout he goes to school agin.”</p> + +<p>“No—Ben Butler is a answer to prayer,” he went +on.</p> + +<p>“The trouble with the world is it don't pray enough. +Prayer puts God into us, Bud—we're all a little part +of God, even the worst of us, an' we can make it big or +let it die out accordin' as we pray. If we stop prayin' +God jes' dies out in us. Of course God don't answer any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> +fool prayer, for while we're here we are nothin' but a +bundle of laws, an' the same unknown law that moves the +world around makes yo' heart beat. But God is behind +the law, an' if you get in harmony with God's laws an' +pray, He'll answer them. Christ knowed this, an' there +was some things that even He wouldn't ask for. When +the Devil tempted Him to jump off the top of the mountain. +He drawed the line right there, for He knowed if +God saved Him by stoppin' the law of gravitation it +meant the wreck of the world.”</p> + +<p>“Bud,” he went on earnestly, “I've lived a long +time an' seed a heap o' things, an' the plaines' thing I +ever seed in my life is that two generations of scoffers +will breed a coward, an' three of 'em a thief, an' that the +world moves on only in proportion as it's got faith in +God.</p> + +<p>“I was ruined after the war—broken—busted—ruined! +An' I owed five hundred dollars on the little +home up yander on the mountain. When I come back +home from the army I didn't have nothin' but one old +mare,—a daughter of that Kathleena I told you about. +I knowed I was gone if I lost that little home, an' so one +night I prayed to the Lord about it an' then it come to +me as clear as it come to Moses in the burnin' bush. +God spoke to me as clear as he did to Moses.”</p> + +<p>“How did he say it?” asked Bud, thoroughly frightened +and looking around for a soft spot to jump and +run.</p> + +<p>“Oh, never mind that,” went on the Bishop—“God +don't say things out loud—He jes' brings two an' two +together an' expects you to add 'em an' make fo'. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> +gives you the soil an' the grain an' expects you to plant, +assurin' you of rain an' sunshine to make the crop, if +you'll only wuck. He comes into yo' life with the laws +of life an' death an' takes yo' beloved, an' it's His way +of sayin' to you that this life ain't all. He shows you +the thief an' the liar an' the adulterer all aroun' you, +an' if you feel the shock of it an' the hate of it, it's +His voice tellin' you not to steal an' not to lie an' not to +be impure. You think only of money until you make +a bad break an' loose it all. That's His voice tellin' +you that money ain't everything in life. He puts opportunities +befo' you, an' if you grasp 'em it's His voice +tellin' you to prosper an' grow fat in the land. No, +He don't speak out, but how clearly an' unerringly He +does speak to them that has learned to listen for His +voice!</p> + +<p>“I rode her across the river a hundred miles up in +Marshall County, Tennessee, and mated her to a young +horse named Tom Hal. Every body knows about him +now, but God told me about him fust.</p> + +<p>“Then I knowed jes' as well as I am settin' in this +buggy that that colt was gwinter give me back my little +home an' a chance in life. Of course, I told everybody +'bout it an' they all laughed at me—jes' like they all +laughed at Noah an' Abraham an' Lot an' Moses, an' +if I do say it—Jesus Christ. But thank God it didn't +pester me no more'n it did them.”</p> + +<p>“Well, the colt come ten years ago—an' I named +him Ben Butler—cause I hated old Ben Butler so. He +had my oldest son shot in New Orleans like he did many +other rebel prisoners. But this was God's colt an' God<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> +had told me to love my enemies an' do good to them that +did wrong to me, an' so I prayed over it an' named him +Ben Butler, hopin' that God 'ud let me love my enemy +for the love I bore the colt. An' He has.”</p> + +<p>Bud shook his head dubiously.</p> + +<p>“He showed me I was wrong, Bud, to hate folks, +an' when I tell you of po' Cap'n Tom an' how good Gen. +Butler was to him, you'll say so, too.</p> + +<p>“From the very start Ben Butler was a wonder. He +came with fire in his blood an' speed in his heels.</p> + +<p>“An' I trained him. Yes—from the time I was +Gen. Travis' overseer I had always trained his hosses. +I'm one of them preachers that believes God intended the +world sh'ud have the best hosses, as He intended it sh'ud +have the best men an' women. Take all His works, +in their fitness an' goodness, an' you'll see He never +'lowed for a scrub an' a quitter anywhere. An' so when +He gave me this tip on Ben Butler's speed I done +the rest.</p> + +<p>“God gives us the tips of life, but He expects us to +make them into the dead cinches.</p> + +<p>“Oh, they all laughed at us, of course, an' nicknamed +the colt Mister Isaacs, because, like Sarah's son, he came +in answer to prayer. An' when in his two-year-old form, +I led him out of the stable one cold, icy day, an' he was +full of play an' r'ared an' fell an' knocked down his hip, +they said that 'ud fix Mister Isaacs.</p> + +<p>“But it didn't pester me at all. I knowed God had +done bigger things in this world than fixin' a colt's hip, +an' it didn't shake my faith. I kept on prayin' an' +kept on trainin'.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Well, it soon told. His hip was down, but it didn't +stop him from flyin'. As a three-year-old he paced the +Nashville half mile track in one-one flat, an' though +they offered me then an' there a thousand dollars for +Ben Butler, I told 'em no,—he was God's colt an' I +didn't need but half of that to raise the mortgage, an' +he'd do that the first time he turned round in a race.</p> + +<p>“I drove him that race myself, pulled down the five +hundred dollar purse, refused all their fine offers for +Ben Butler, an' me an' him's been missionaryin' round +here ever since.”</p> + +<p>“Great hoss—great!” said Bud, his eyes sparkling,—“allers +told you so! Think I'll get out and hug +him.”</p> + +<p>This he did while the Bishop sat smiling. But in the +embrace Ben Butler planted a fore foot on Bud's great +toe. Bud came back limping and whimpering with pain.</p> + +<p>“Now there, Bud,” said the Bishop, consolingly. +“God has spoken to you right there.”</p> + +<p>“What 'ud He say?” asked Bud, looking scary +again.</p> + +<p>“Why, he said through Nature's law an' voice that +you mustn't hug a hoss if you don't want yo' toes +tramped on.”</p> + +<p>“Who must you hug then?” asked Bud.</p> + +<p>“Yo' wife, if you can't do no better,” said the Bishop +quietly.</p> + +<p>“My wife's wussern a hoss,” said Bud sadly—“she +bites. I'm sorry you didn't take that thar thousan' dollars +for him,” he said, looking at his bleeding toe.</p> + +<p>“Bud,” said the old man sternly, “don't say that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> +no mo'. It mou't make me think you are one of them +selfish dogs that thinks money'll do anything. Then +I'd hafter watch you, for I'd know you'd do anything +for money.”</p> + +<p>Bud crawled in rather crest-fallen, and they drove on.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<h3>HOW THE BISHOP FROZE</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">T</span>he Bishop laughed outright as his mind went +back again.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he went on reminiscently, “I'll have to +finish my tale an' tell you how I throwed the cold steel +into Jud Carpenter when I got back. I saw I had it to +do, to work back into my daddy-in-law's graces an' save +my reputation.</p> + +<p>“Now, Jud had lied to me an' swindled me terribly, +when he put off that old no-count hoss on me. Of +course, I might have sued him, for a lie is a microbe +which naturally develops into a lawyer's fee. But while +it's a terrible braggart, it's really cowardly an' delicate, +an' will die of lock-jaw if you only pick its thumb.</p> + +<p>“So I breshed up that old black to split-silk fineness, +an' turned him over to Dr. Sykes, a friend of mine +living in the next village. An' I said to the Doctor, +'Now remember he is yo' hoss until Jud Carpenter +comes an' offers you two hundred dollars for him.'</p> + +<p>“'Will he be fool enough to do it?' he asked, as he +looked the old counterfeit over.</p> + +<p>“'Wait an' see,' I said.</p> + +<p>“I said nothin', laid low an' froze an' it wa'n't long +befo' Jud come 'round as I 'lowed he'd do. He expected +me to kick an' howl; but as I took it all so nice he didn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> +understand it. Nine times out of ten the best thing +to do when the other feller has robbed you is to freeze. +The hunter on the plain knows the value of that, an' +that he can freeze an' make a deer walk right up to +him, to find out what he is. Why, a rabbit will do it, +if you jump him quick, an' he gets confused an' don't +know jes' what's up; an' so Jud come as I thort he'd +do. He couldn't stan' it no longer, an' he wanted to +rub it in. He brought his crowd to enjoy the fun.</p> + +<p>“'Oh, Mr. Watts,' he said grinnin', 'how do you like +a coal black stump-sucker?'</p> + +<p>“'Well,' I said indifferent enough—'I've knowed +good judges of hosses to make a hones' mistake now an' +then, an' sell a hoss to a customer with the heaves thinkin' +he's a stump-sucker. But it 'ud turn out to be only +the heaves an' easily cured.'</p> + +<p>“'Is that so?' said Jud, changing his tone.</p> + +<p>“'Yes,' I said, 'an' I've knowed better judges of +hosses to sell a nervous hoss for a balker that had been +balked onct by a rattle head. But in keerful hands I've +seed him git over it,' I said, indifferent like.</p> + +<p>“'Indeed?' said Jud.</p> + +<p>“'Yes, Jud,' said I, 'I've knowed real hones' hoss +traders to make bad breaks of that kind, now and then—honest +intentions an' all that, but bad judgment,'—sez +I—'an' I'll cut it short by sayin' that I'll just +give you two an' a half if you'll match that no-count, +wind broken black as you tho'rt, that you swapped me.'</p> + +<p>“'Do you mean it?' said Jud, solemn-like.</p> + +<p>“'I'll make a bond to that effect,' I said solemnly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Jud went off thoughtful. In a week or so he come +back. He hung aroun' a while an' said:</p> + +<p>“'I was up in the country the other day, an' do you +kno' I saw a dead match for yo' black? Only a little +slicker an' better lookin'—same star an' white hind foot. +As nigh like him as one black-eyed pea looks like another.'</p> + +<p>“'Jud,' I said, 'I never did see two hosses look exactly +alike. You're honestly mistaken.'</p> + +<p>“'They ain't a hair's difference,' he said. 'He's +a little slicker than yours—that's all—better groomed +than the one in yo' barn.'</p> + +<p>“'I reckon he is,' said I, for I knew very well there +wa'n't none in my barn. 'That's strange,' I went on, +'but you kno' what I said.'</p> + +<p>“'Do you still hold to that offer?' he axed.</p> + +<p>“'I'll make bond with my daddy-in-law on it,' I said.</p> + +<p>“'Nuff said,' an' Jud was gone. The next day he +came back leading the black, slicker an' hence no-counter +than ever, if possible.</p> + +<p>“'Look at him,' he said proudly—'a dead match for +yourn. Jes' han' me that two an' a half an' take him. +You now have a team worth a thousan'.'</p> + +<p>“I looked the hoss over plum' surprised like.</p> + +<p>“'Why, Jud,' I said as softly as I cu'd, for I was +nigh to bustin', an' I had a lot of friends come to see the +sho', an' they standin' 'round stickin' their old hats in +their mouths to keep from explodin'—'Why, Jud, my +dear friend,' I said, 'ain't you kind o' mistaken about +this? I said a <i>match</i> for the black, an' it peers to me +like you've gone an' bought the black hisse'f an' is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> +tryin' to put him off on me. No—no—my kind +frien', you'll not fin' anything no-count enuff to be his +match on this terrestrial ball.'</p> + +<p>“By this time you cu'd have raked Jud's eyes off his +face with a soap-gourd.</p> + +<p>“'What? w-h-a-t? He—why—I bought him of +Dr. Sykes.'</p> + +<p>“'Why, that's funny,' I said, 'but it comes in handy +all round. If you'd told me that the other day I might +have told you,' I said—'yes, I might have, but I doubt +it—that I'd loaned him to Dr. Sykes an' told him whenever +you offered him two hundred cash for him to let him +go. Jes' keep him,' sez I, 'till you find his mate, an' +I'll take an oath to buy 'em.'”</p> + +<p>Bud slapped his leg an' yelled with delight.</p> + +<p>“Whew,” said the Bishop—“not so loud. We're at +the church.</p> + +<p>“But remember, Bud, it's good policy allers to freeze. +When you're in doubt—freeze!”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> +<h3>THE FLOCK</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">T</span>he Bishop's flock consisted of two distinct classes: +Cottontowners and Hillites.</p> + +<p>“There's only a fair sprinklin' of Hillites +that lives nigh about here,” said the Bishop, “an' they +come because it suits them better than the high f'lutin' +services in town. When a Christian gits into a church +that's over his head, he is soon food for devil-fish.”</p> + +<p>The line of demarcation, even in the Bishop's small +flock, was easily seen. The Hillites, though lean and +lanky, were swarthy, healthy and full of life. “But +Cottontown,” said the Bishop, as he looked down on his +congregation—“Cottontown jes' naturally feels tired.”</p> + +<p>It was true. Years in the factory had made them +dead, listless, soulless and ambitionless creatures. To +look into their faces was like looking into the cracked +and muddy bottom of a stream which once ran.</p> + +<p>Their children were there also—little tots, many of +them, who worked in the factory because no man nor +woman in all the State cared enough for them to make +a fight for their childhood.</p> + +<p>They were children only in age. Their little forms +were not the forms of children, but of diminutive men +and women, on whose backs the burden of earning their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> +living had been laid, ere the frames had acquired the +strength to bear it.</p> + +<p>Stunted in mind and body, they were little solemn, +pygmy peoples, whom poverty and overwork had canned +up and compressed into concentrated extracts of humanity. +The flavor—the juices of childhood—had been +pressed out.</p> + +<p>“'N no wonder,” thought the Bishop, as he looked +down upon them from his crude platform, “for them +little things works six days every week in the factory +from sun-up till dark, an' often into the night, with +jes' forty minutes at noon to bolt their food. O God,” +he said softly to himself, “You who caused a stream of +water to spring up in the wilderness that the life of an +Ishmaelite might be saved, make a stream of sentiment +to flow from the heart of the world to save these little +folks.”</p> + +<p>Miss Patsy Butts, whose father, Elder Butts of the +Hard-shell faith, owned a fertile little valley farm beyond +the mountain, was organist. She was fat and so +red-faced that at times she seemed to be oiled.</p> + +<p>She was painfully frank and suffered from acute +earnestness.</p> + +<p>And now, being marriageable, she looked always +about her with shy, quick, expectant glances.</p> + +<p>The other object in life, to Patsy, was to watch her +younger brother, Archie B., and see that he kept out +of mischief. And perhaps the commonest remark of her +life was:</p> + +<p>“Maw, jus' look at Archie B.!”</p> + +<p>This was a great cross for Archie B., who had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> +known to say concerning it: “If I ever has any kids, +I'll never let the old'uns nuss the young'uns. They +gits into a bossin' kind of a habit that sticks to 'em all +they lives.”</p> + +<p>To-day Miss Patsy was radiantly shy and happy, +caused by the fact that her fat, honest feet were encased +in a pair of beautiful new shoes, the uppers of which +were clasped so tightly over her ankles as to cause the +fat members to bulge in creases over the tops, as uncomfortable +as two Sancho Panzas in armor.</p> + +<p>“Side-but'ners,” said Mrs. Butts triumphantly to +Mrs. O'Hooligan of Cottontown,—“side-but'ners—I +got 'em for her yistiddy—the fust that this town's ever +seed. La, but it was a job gittin' 'em on Patsy. I +had to soak her legs in cold water nearly all night, an' +then I broke every knittin' needle in the house abut'nin' +them side but'ners.</p> + +<p>“But fashion is fashion, an' when I send my gal out +into society, I'll send her in style. Patsy Butts,” she +whispered so loud that everybody on her side of the +house heard her—“when you starts up that ole wheez-in' +one gallus organ, go slow or you'll bust them side-but'ners +wide open.”</p> + +<p>When the Bishop came forward to preach his sermon, +or talk to his flock, as he called it, his surplice would +have astonished anyone, except those who had seen him +thus attired so often. A stranger might have laughed, +but he would not have laughed long—the old man's +earnestness, sincerity, reverence and devotion were over-shadowing. +Its pathos was too deep for fun.</p> + +<p>Instead of a clergyman's frock he wore a faded coat of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> +blue buttoned up to his neck. It had been the coat of +an officer in the artillery, and had evidently passed +through the Civil War. There was a bullet hole in the +shoulder and a sabre cut in the sleeve.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<h3>A BISHOP MILITANT</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">N</span>o one had ever heard the Bishop explain his curious +surplice but once, and that had been several +years before, when the little chapel, by the aid +of a concert Miss Alice gave, contributions from the Excelsior +Mill headed by Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley, and other +sources had been furnished, and the Bishop came forward +to make his first talk:</p> + +<p>“This is the only church of its kind in the worl', I +reckin',” he said. “I've figured it out an' find we're +made up of Baptis', Metherdis', Presbyterian, 'Piscopalian, +Cam'elites an' Hard-shells. You've 'lected me +Bishop, I reckon, 'cause I've jined all of 'em, an' so +far as I know I am the only man in the worl' who ever +done that an' lived to tell the tale. An' I'm not ashamed +to say it, for I've allers foun' somethin' in each one of +'em that's a little better than somethin' in the other. +An' if there's any other church that'll teach me somethin' +new about Jesus Christ, that puffect Man, I'll jine it. +I've never seed a church that had Him in it that wa'n't +good enough for me.”</p> + +<p>The old man smiled in humorous retrospection as he +went on:</p> + +<p>“The first company of Christians I jined was the +Hard-shells. I was young an' a raw recruit an' nachully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> +fell into the awkward squad. I liked their solar plexus +way of goin' at the Devil, an' I liked the way they'd +allers deal out a good ration of whiskey, after the fight, +to ev'ry true soldier of the Cross—especially if we got +our feet too wet, which we mos' always of'ntimes gen'ally +did.”</p> + +<p>This brought out visible smiles all down the line, from +the others at the Hard-shells and their custom of foot-washing.</p> + +<p>“But somehow,” went on the old man, “I didn't grow +in grace—spent too much time in singin' an' takin' +toddies to keep off the effect of cold from wet feet. Good +company, but I wanted to go higher, so I drapt into the +Baptis' rigiment, brave an' hones', but they spen' too +much time a-campin' in the valley of the still water, an' +when on the march, instid of buildin' bridges to cross +dry-shod over rivers an' cricks, they plunge in with their +guns stropped to their backs, their powder tied up in +their socks in their hats, their shoes tied 'round their +necks an' their butcher-knife in their teeth. After they +lan' they seem to think it's the greates' thing in the +worl' that they've been permitted to wade through water +instead of crossin' on a log, an' they spen' the balance +of their time marchin' 'roun' an' singin':</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“'Billows of mercy, over me roll,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oceans of Faith an' Hope, come to my soul.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>“Don't want to fly to heaven—want to swim there. +An' if they find too much lan' after they get there, +they'll spen' the res' of eternity prayin' for a deluge.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Bes' ole relig'un in the worl', tho,—good fighters, +too, in the Lord's cause. Ole timey, an' a trifle keerless +about their accoutrements, an' too much water nachully +keeps their guns rusty an' their powder damp, but if it +comes to a square-up fight agin the cohorts of sin, an' +the powder in their pans is too damp for flashin', they'd +jes' as soon wade in with the butcher-knife an' the meat +axe. I nachully out-grow'd 'em, for I seed if the Great +Captain 'ud command us all to jine armies an' fight +the worl', the Baptis' 'ud never go in, unless it was a +sea-fight.</p> + +<p>“From them to the Cam'elites was easy, for I seed +they was web-footed, too. The only diff'rence betwix' +them an' the Baptis' is that they are willin' to jine in +with any other rigiment, provided allers that you let +them 'pint the sappers an' miners an' blaze out the way. +Good fellers, tho', an' learned me lots. They beats the +worl' for standin' up for each other an' votin' allers for +fust place. If there's a promotion in camp they want +it; 'n' when they ain't out a-drillin' their companies +they're sho' to be in camp 'sputin' with other rigiments +as to how to do it. Good, hones' fighters, tho', and +tort me how to use my side arms in a tight place. Scatterin' +in some localities, but like the Baptises, whenever +you find a mill-dam there'll be their camp an' plenty o' +corn.</p> + +<p>“Lord, how I did enjoy it when I struck the Methodis' +rigiment! The others had tort me faith an' zeal, but +these tort me discipline. They are the best drilled lot +in the army of the Lord, an' their drill masters run all +the way from wet-nurses to old maids. For furagin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> +an' free love for ev'rything they beats the worl', an' +they pay mo' 'tenshun to their com'sary department +than they do to their ord'nance. They'll march anywhere +you want 'em, swim rivers or build bridges, fight +on ship or sho', strong in camp-meetin's or battle songs, +an' when they go, they go like clockwuck an' carry their +dead with 'em!</p> + +<p>“The only thing they need is an incubator, to keep +up their hennery department an' supply their captains +with the yellow legs of the land. Oh, but I love them +big hearted Methodists!</p> + +<p>“I foun' the Presbyterian phalanx a pow'ful army, +steady, true an' ole-fashioned, their powder strong of +brimstone an' sulphur an' their ordnance antique. +Why, they're usin' the same old mortars John Knox +fired at the Popes, an' the same ole blunderbusses that +scatter wide enough to cover all creation an' is as liable +to kick an' kill anything in the rear as in front. They +won't sleep in tents an' nothin' suits 'em better'n being +caught in a shower on the march. In battle they know +no fear, for they know no ball is goin' to kill you if +you're predistined to be hung. In the fight they know +no stragglers an' fallers from grace.</p> + +<p>“Ay, but they're brave. I jined 'em Sunday night +after the battle of Shiloh, when I saw one of their captains +stan' up amid the dead an' dyin' of that bloody +field, with the shells from the Yankee gun-boats fallin' +aroun' him. Standin' there tellin' of God an' His forgiveness, +until many a po' dyin' soldier, both frien' an' +foe, like the thief on the cross, found peace at the last +hour.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Befo' I jined the 'Piscopal corps I didn't think I +cu'd stan' 'em—too high furlutin' for my raisin'. +They seemed to pay mo' attenshun to their uniforms than +their ordnance, an' their drum-majors outshine any other +churches' major generals. An' drillin'? They can go +through mo' monkey manoeuvers in five minutes than +any other church can in a year. It's drillin'—drillin' +with 'em all the time, an' red-tape an' knee breeches, an' +when they ain't drillin' they're dancin'. They have +signs an' countersigns, worl' without end, ah-men. An' +I've knowed many of them to put all his three months' +pay into a Sunday uniform for dress parade.</p> + +<p>“Weepons? They've got the fines' in the worl' an' +they don't think they can bring down the Devil les' they +shoot at him with a silver bullet. Everything goes by +red-tape with 'em, an' the ban'-wagon goes in front.</p> + +<p>“But I jined 'em,” went on the old man, “an' I'll +tell you why.”</p> + +<p>He paused—his voice trembled, and the good natured, +bubbling humor, which had floated down the smooth +channel of his talk, vanished as bubbles do when they +float out into the deep pool beyond.</p> + +<p>“Here,” he said, lifting his arm, and showing the +coat of the Captain of Artillery—“this is what made +me jine 'em. This is the coat of Cap'n Tom, that saved +my life at the risk of his own an' that was struck down +at Franklin; an' no common man of clay, as I be, ever +befo' had so God-like a man of marble to pattern after. +I saw him in the thick of the fight with his guns parked +an' double-shotted, stop our victorious rush almos' up +to the river bank an' saved Grant's army from defeat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> +an' capture. I was on the other side, an' chief of scouts +for Albert Sidney Johnston, but I see him now in his +blue Yankee coat, fightin' his guns like the hero that +he was. I was foolish an' rushed in. I was captured +an' in a prison pen, I drawed the black ball with 'leven +others that was sentenced to be shot. It was Cap'n Tom +who came to me in the early dawn of the day of the +execution an' said: 'They shall not shoot you, Bishop—put +on my blue coat an' go through the lines. I owe +much to my country—I am giving it all.</p> + +<p>“'I owe something to you. They shall not shoot +you like a dog. I will tell my colonel what I have done +to-morrow. If they think it is treason they may shoot +me instead. I have nothing to live for—you, all. Go.'</p> + +<p>“I have never seed him sence.</p> + +<p>“We are mortals and must think as mortals. If we +conceive of God, we can conceive of Him only as in +human form. An' I love to think that the blessed an' +brave an' sweet Christ looked like Cap'n Tom looked +in the early dawn of that morning when he come an' +offered himself,—captain that he was—to be shot, if +need be, in my place—so gran', so gentle, so brave, +so forgivin', so like a captain—so like God.”</p> + +<p>His voice had dropped lower and lower still. It died +away in a sobbing murmur, as a deep stream purls and +its echo dies in a deeper eddy.</p> + +<p>“It was his church an' I jined it. This was his coat, +an' so, let us pray.”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<h3>MARGARET ADAMS</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">T</span>here passed out of the church, after the service, +a woman leading a boy of twelve.</p> + +<p>He was a handsome lad with a proud and independent +way about him. He carried his head up and +there was that calmness that showed good blood. There +was even a haughtiness which was pathetic, knowing as +the village did the story of his life.</p> + +<p>The woman herself was of middle age, with neat, well-fitting +clothes, which, in the smallest arrangement of +pattern and make-up, bespoke a natural refinement.</p> + +<p>Her's was a sweet face, with dark eyes, and in their +depths lay the shadow of resignation.</p> + +<p>Throughout the sermon she had not taken her eyes +off the old man in the pulpit, and so interested was she, +and so earnestly did she drink in all he said, that any +one noticing could tell that, to her, the plain old man +in the pulpit was more than a pastor.</p> + +<p>She sat off by herself. Not one of them in all Cottontown +would come near her.</p> + +<p>“Our virtue is all we po' fo'ks has got—if we lose +that we ain't got nothin' lef',” Mrs. Banks of grass-widow +fame had once said, and saying it had expressed +Cottontown's opinion.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Banks was very severe when the question of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> +woman's purity was up. She was the fastest woman at +the loom in all Cottontown. She was quick, with a +bright, deep-seeing eye. She had been pretty—but +now at forty-five she was angular and coarse-looking, +with a sharp tongue.</p> + +<p>The Bishop had smiled when he heard her say it, and +then he looked at Margaret Adams sitting in the corner +with her boy. In saying it, Mrs. Banks had elevated +her nose as she looked in the direction where sat +the Magdalene.</p> + +<p>The old man smiled, because he of all others knew +the past history of Mrs. Banks, the mistress of the +loom.</p> + +<p>He replied quietly: “Well, I dun'no—the best +thing that can be said of any of us in general is, that +up to date, it ain't recorded that the Almighty has appinted +any one of us, on account of our supreme purity, +to act as chief stoner of the Universe. Mighty few of +us, even, has any license to throw pebbles.”</p> + +<p>Of all his congregation there was no more devoted +member than Margaret Adams—“an' as far as I kno',” +the old man had often said, “if there is an angel on +earth, it is that same little woman.”</p> + +<p>When she came into church that day, the old man +noticed that even the little Hillites drew away from her. +Often they would point at the little boy by her side and +make faces at him. To-day they had carried it too +far when one of them, just out in the church yard, +pushed him rudely as he walked proudly by the side of +his mother, looking straight before him, in his military +way, and not so much as giving them a glance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Wood's-colt,” sneered the boy in his ear, as he +pushed him.</p> + +<p>“No—thoroughbred”—came back, and with it a +blow which sent the intruder backward on the grass.</p> + +<p>Several old men nodded at him approvingly as he +walked calmly on by the side of his mother.</p> + +<p>“Jimmie—Jimmie!” was all she said as she slipped +into the church.</p> + +<p>“I guess you must be a new-comer,” remarked Archie +B. indifferently to the boy who was wiping the blood +from his face as he arose from the ground and looked +sillily around. “That boy Jim Adams is my pardner +an' I could er tole you what you'd git by meddlin' with +him. He's gone in with his mother now, but him an' +me—we're in alliance—we fights for each other. Feel +like you got enough?”—and Archie B. got up closer +and made motions as if to shed his coat.</p> + +<p>The other boy grinned good naturedly and walked off.</p> + +<br /> +<p>To-day, just outside of the church Ben Butler had +been hitched up and the Bishop sat in the old buggy.</p> + +<p>Bud Billings stood by holding the bit, stroking the +old horse's neck and every now and then striking a fierce +attitude, saying “Whoa—whoa—suh!”</p> + +<p>As usual, Ben Butler was asleep.</p> + +<p>“Turn him loose, Bud,” said the old man humoring +the slubber—“I've got the reins an' he can't run away +now. I can't take you home to-day—I'm gwinter take +Margaret, an' you an' Jimmie can come along together.”</p> + +<p>No other man could have taken Margaret Adams home +and had any standing left, in Cottontown.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p> + +<p>And soon they were jogging along down the mountain +side, toward the cabin where the woman lived and +supported herself and boy by her needle.</p> + +<p>To-day Margaret was agitated and excited—more +than the Bishop had ever known her to be. He knew the +reason, for clean-shaved and neatly dressed, Jack Bracken +passed her on the road to church that morning, and +as they rode along the Bishop told her it was indeed +Jack whom she had seen, “an' he loves you yet, Margaret,” +he said.</p> + +<p>She turned pink under her bonnet. How pretty and +fresh she looked—thought the Bishop—and what +purity in a face to have such a name.</p> + +<p>“It <i>was</i> Jack, then,” she said simply—“tell me about +him, please.”</p> + +<p>“By the grace of God he has reformed,” said the old +man—“and—Margaret—he loves you yet, as I sed. +He is going under the name of Jack Smith, the blacksmith +here, an' he'll lead another life—but he loves you +yet,” he whispered again.</p> + +<p>Then he told her what had happened, knowing that +Jack's secret would be safe with her.</p> + +<p>When he told her how they had buried little Jack, and +of the father's admission that his determination to lead +the life of an outlaw had come when he found that she +had been untrue to him, she was shaken with grief. +She could only sit and weep. Not even at the gate, +when the old man left her, did she say anything.</p> + +<p>Within, she stopped before a picture which hung over +the mantle-piece and looked at it, through eyes that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> +filled again and again with tears. It was the picture of +a pretty mountain girl with dark eyes and sensual lip.</p> + +<p>Margaret knelt before it and wept.</p> + +<br /> +<p>The boy had come and stood moodily at the front gate. +The hot and resentful blood still tinged in his cheek. +He looked at his knuckles—they were cut and swollen +where he had struck the boy who had jeered him. It +hurt him, but he only smiled grimly.</p> + +<p>Never before had any one called him a wood's-colt. +He had never heard the word before, but he knew what it +meant. For the first time in his life, he hated his +mother. He heard her weeping in the little room they +called home. He merely shut his lips tightly and, in +spite of the stoicism that was his by nature, the tears +swelled up in his eyes.</p> + +<p>They were hot tears and he could not shake them off. +For the first time the wonder and the mystery of it all +came over him. For the first time he felt that he was +not as other boys,—that there was a meaning in this +lonely cabin and the shunned woman he called mother, +and the glances, some of pity, some of contempt, which +he had met all of his life.</p> + +<p>As he stood thinking this, Richard Travis rode slowly +down the main road leading from the town to The Gaffs. +And this went through the boy successively—not in +words, scarcely—but in feelings:</p> + +<p>“What a beautiful horse he is riding—it thrills me +to see it—I love it naturally—oh, but to own one!</p> + +<p>“What a handsome man he is—and how like a gentleman +he looks! I like the way he sits his horse. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> +like that way he has of not noticing people. He has +got the same way about him I have got—that I've +always had—that I love—a way that shows me I'm +not afraid, and that I have got nerve and bravery.</p> + +<p>“He sits that horse just as I would sit him—his +head—his face—the way that foot slopes to the stirrup—why +that's me—”</p> + +<p>He stopped—he turned pale—he trembled with +pride and rage. Then he turned and walked into the +room where Margaret Adams sat. She held out her +arms to him pleadingly.</p> + +<p>But he did not notice her, and never before had she +seen such a look on his face as he said calmly:</p> + +<p>“Mother, if you will come to the door I will show +you my father.”</p> + +<p>Margaret Adams had already seen. She turned white +with a hidden shame as she said:</p> + +<p>“Jimmie—Jimmie—who—who—?”</p> + +<p>“No one,” he shouted fiercely—“by God”—she +had never before heard him swear—“I tell you no one—on +my honor as a Travis—no one! It has come to +me of itself—I know it—I feel it.”</p> + +<p>He was too excited to talk. He walked up and down +the little room, his proud head lifted and his eyes ablaze.</p> + +<p>“I know now why I love honesty, why I despise those +common things beneath me—why I am not afraid—why +I struck that boy as I did this morning—why—” +he walked into the little shed room that was his own and +came back with a long single barrel pistol in his hand +and fondled it lovingly—“why all my life I have +been able to shoot this as I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>—”</p> + +<p>He held in his hand a long, single barrel, rifle-bored +duelling pistol—of the type used by gentlemen at the +beginning of the century. Where he had got it she did +not know, but always it had been his plaything.</p> + +<p>“O Jimmie—you would not—” exclaimed the +woman rising and reaching for it.</p> + +<p>“Tush—” he said bitterly—“tush—that's the way +Richard Travis talks, ain't it? Does not my very voice +sound like his? No—but I expect you now, mother”—he +said it softly—“tell me—tell me all about it.”</p> + +<p>For a moment Margaret Adams was staggered. She +only shook her head.</p> + +<p>He looked at her cynically—then bitterly. A dangerous +flash leaped into his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Then, by God,” he cried fiercely, “this moment will +I walk over to his house with this pistol in my hand and +I will ask him. If he fails to tell me—damn him—I +dare him—”</p> + +<p>She jumped up and seized him in her arms.</p> + +<p>“Promise me that if I tell you all—all, Jimmy, when +you are fifteen—promise me—will you be patient now—with +poor mother, who loves you so?” And she +kissed him fondly again and again.</p> + +<p>He looked into her eyes and saw all her suffering +there.</p> + +<p>The bitterness went out of his.</p> + +<p>“I'll promise, mother,” he said simply, and walked +back into his little room.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +<h3>HARD-SHELL SUNDAY</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">“T</span>his bein' Hard-shell Sunday,” said the Bishop +that afternoon when his congregation met, +“cattle of that faith will come up to the front +rack for fodder. Elder Butts will he'p me conduct these +exercises.”</p> + +<p>“It's been so long sence I've been in a Hard-shell +lodge, I may be a little rusty on the grip an' pass word, +but I'm a member in good standin' if I am rusty.”</p> + +<p>There was some laughing at this, from the other members, +and after the Hard-shells had come to the front +the Bishop caught the infection and went on with a sly +wink at the others.</p> + +<p>“The fact is, I've sometimes been mighty sorry I +jined any other lodge; for makin' honorable exception, +the other churches don't know the diff'r'nce betwixt +twenty-year-old Lincoln County an' Michigan pine-top.</p> + +<p>“The Hard-shells was the fust church I jined, as I +sed. I hadn't sampled none of the others”—he whispered +aside—“an' I didn't know there was any better +licker in the jug. But the Baptists is a little riper, the +Presbyterians is much mellower, an' compared to all of +them the 'Piscopalians rises to the excellence of syllabub +an' champagne.</p> + +<p>“A hones' dram tuck now an' then, prayerfully, is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> +a good thing for any religion. I've knowed many a +man to take a dram jes' in time to keep him out of a +divorce court. An' I've never knowed it to do anybody +no harm but old elder Shotts of Clay County. An' ef +he'd a stuck to it straight he'd abeen all right now. But +one of these old-time Virginia gentlemen stopped with +him all night onct, an' tor't the old man how to make +a mint julip; an' when I went down the next year to +hold services his wife told me the good old man had been +gathered to his fathers. 'He was all right' she 'lowed, +'till a little feller from Virginia came along an' tort 'im +ter mix greens in his licker, an' then he jes drunk hisself +to death.'</p> + +<p>“There's another thing I like about two of the +churches I'm in—the Hard-shells an' the Presbyterians—an' +that is special Providence. If I didn't believe +in special Providence I'd lose my faith in God.</p> + +<p>“My father tuck care of me when I was a babe, an' +we're all babes in God's sight.</p> + +<p>“The night befo' the battle of Shiloh, I preached to +some of our po' boys the last sermon that many of 'em +ever heard. An' I told 'em not to dodge the nex' day, +but to stan' up an' 'quit themselves like men, for ever' +shell an' ball would hit where God intended it should +hit.</p> + +<p>“In the battle nex' day I was chaplain no longer, +but chief of scouts, an' on the firin' line where it was +hot enough. In the hottest part of it General Johnston +rid up, an' when he saw our exposed position he told us +to hold the line, but to lay down for shelter. A big tree<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> +was nigh me an' I got behin' it. The Gineral seed me +an' he smiled an' sed:</p> + +<p>“'Oh, Bishop,'”—his voice fell to a proud and tender +tone—“did you know it was Gineral Johnston that +fust named me the Bishop?”</p> + +<p>“'Oh, Bishop,' he said, 'I can see you puttin' a tree +betwixt yo'se'f an' special Providence.' 'Yes, Gineral,' +I sed, 'an' I looks on it as a very special Providence jus' +at this time.'</p> + +<p>“He laughed, an' the boys hoorawed an' he rid off.</p> + +<p>“Our lives an' the destiny of our course is fixed as +firmly as the laws that wheel the planets. Why, I have +knowed men to try to hew out their own destiny an' +they'd make it look like a gum-log hewed out with a +broad axe, until God would run the rip-saw of His +purpose into them, an' square them out an' smooth them +over an' polish them into pillars for His Temple.</p> + +<p>“What is, was goin' to be; an' the things that's got +to come to us has already happened in God's mind.</p> + +<p>“I've knowed poor an' unpretentious, God-fearin' +men an' women to put out their hands to build shanties +for their humble lives, an' God would turn them into +castles of character an' temples of truth for all time.</p> + +<p>“Elder Butts will lead in prayer.”</p> + +<p>It was a long prayer and was proceeding smoothly, +until, in its midst, from the front row, Archie B.'s +head bobbed cautiously up. Keeping one eye on his +father, the praying Elder, he went through a pantomime +for the benefit of the young Hillites around him, who, +like himself, had had enough of prayer. Before coming +to the meeting he had cut from a black sheep's skin a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> +gorgeous set of whiskers and a huge mustache. These +now adorned his face.</p> + +<p>There was a convulsive snicker among the young Hillites +behind him. The Elder opened one eye to see what +it meant. They were natural children, whose childhood +had not been dwarfed in a cotton mill, and it was exceedingly +funny to them.</p> + +<p>But the young Cottontowners laughed not. They +looked on in stoical wonder at the presumption of the +young Hillites who dared to do such a deed.</p> + +<p>Humor had never been known to them. There is no +humor in the all-day buzz of the cotton factory; and +fun and the fight of life for daily bread do not sleep +in the same crib.</p> + +<p>The Hillites tittered and giggled.</p> + +<p>“Maw,” whispered Miss Butts, “look at Archie B.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Butts hastily reached over the bench and yanked +Archie B. down. His whiskers were confiscated and in +a moment he was on his knees and deeply devotional, +while the young Hillites nudged each other, and giggled +and the young Cottontowners stared and wondered, +and looked to see when Archie B. would be hung +up by the thumbs.</p> + +<p>The Bishop was reading the afternoon chapter when +the animal in Archie B. broke out in another spot. The +chapter was where Zacharias climbed into a sycamore +tree to see his passing Lord. There was a rattling of +the stove pipe in one corner.</p> + +<p>“Maw,” whispered Miss Butts, “Jes' look at Archie +B.—he's climbin' the stove pipe like Zacharias did the +sycamo'.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>Horror again swept over Cottontown, while the Hillites +cackled aloud. The Elder settled it by calmly laying +aside his spectacles and starting down the pulpit +steps. But Archie B. guessed his purpose and before +he had reached the last step he was sitting demurely +by the side of his pious brother, intently engaged in +reading the New Testament.</p> + +<p>Without his glasses, the Elder never knew one twin +from the other, but presuming that the studious one +was Ozzie B., he seized the other by the ear, pulled him +to the open window and pitched him out on the grass.</p> + +<p>It was Ozzie B. of course, and Archie B. turned cautiously +around to the Hillites behind, after the Elder had +gone hack to his chapter, and whispered:</p> + +<p>“<i>Venture pee-wee under the bridge—bam—bam—bam.</i>”</p> + +<p>Throughout the sermon Archie B. kept the young +Hillites in a paroxysm of smirks.</p> + +<p>Elder Butts' legs were brackets, or more properly +parentheses, and as he preached and thundered and gesticulated +and whined and sang his sermon, he forgot all +earthly things.</p> + +<p>Knowing this, Archie B. would crawl up behind his +father and thrusting his head in between his legs, where +the brackets were most pronounced, would emphasize all +that was said with wry grimaces and gestures.</p> + +<p>No language can fittingly describe the way Elder +Butts delivered his discourse. The sentences were +whined, howled or sung, ending always in the vocal expletive—“<i>ah—ah</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>When the elder had finished and sat down, Archie B. +was sitting demurely on the platform steps.</p> + +<p>Then the latest Scruggs baby was brought forward to +be baptised. There were already ten in the family.</p> + +<p>The Bishop took the infant tenderly and said: “Sister +Scruggs, which church shall I put him into?”</p> + +<p>“'Piscopal,” whispered the good Mrs. Scruggs.</p> + +<p>The Bishop looked the red-headed young candidate +over solemnly. There was a howl of protest from the +lusty Scruggs.</p> + +<p>“He's a Cam'elite,” said the Bishop dryly—“ready +to dispute a'ready”—here the young Scruggs sent +out a kick which caught the Bishop in the mouth.</p> + +<p>“With Baptis' propensities,” added the Bishop. +“Fetch the baptismal fount.”</p> + +<p>“Please, pap,” said little Appomattox Watts from +the front bench, “but Archie B. has drunk up all the +baptismal water endurin' the first prayer.”</p> + +<p>“I had to,” spoke up Archie B., from the platform +steps—“I et dried mackerel for breakfas'.”</p> + +<p>“We'll postpone the baptism' till nex' Sunday,” said +the Bishop.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<h3>THE RETURN</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">I</span>t was Sunday and Jack Bracken had been out all the +afternoon, hunting for Cap'n Tom—as he had +been in the morning, when not at church. Hitching +up the old horse, the Bishop started out to hunt also.</p> + +<p>He did not go far on the road toward Westmoreland, +for as Ben Butler plodded sleepily along, he almost ran +over a crowd of boys in the public road, teasing what +they took to be a tramp, because of his unkempt beard, +his tattered clothes, and his old army cap.</p> + +<p>They had angered the man and with many gestures he +was endeavoring to expostulate with his tormentors, at +the same time attempting imprecations which could not +be uttered and ended in a low pitiful sound. He shook +his fist at them—he made violent gestures, but from his +mouth came only a guttural sound which had no meaning.</p> + +<p>At a word from the Bishop his tormentors vanished, +and when he pulled up before the uncouth figure he found +him to be a man not yet in his prime, with an open face, +now blank and expressionless, overgrown with a black, +tangled, and untrimmed beard.</p> + +<p>He was evidently a demented tramp.</p> + +<p>But at a second look the Bishop started. It was the +man's eyes which startled him. There was in them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> +something so familiar and yet so unknown that the +Bishop had to study a while before he could remember.</p> + +<p>Then there crept into his face a wave of pitying sorrow +as he said to himself:</p> + +<p>“Cap'n Tom—Cap'n Tom's eyes.”</p> + +<p>And from that moment the homeless and demented +tramp had a warm place in the old man's heart.</p> + +<p>The Bishop watched him closely. His tattered cap +had fallen off, showing a shock of heavy, uncut hair, +streaked prematurely with gray.</p> + +<p>“What yo' name?” asked the Bishop kindly.</p> + +<p>The man, flushed and angered, still gesticulated and +muttered to himself. But at the sound of the Bishop's +voice, for a moment there flashed into his eyes almost +the saneness of returned reason. His anger vanished. +A kindly smile spread over his face. He came toward +the Bishop pleadingly—holding out both hands and +striving to speak. Climbing into the buggy, he sat down +by the old man's side, quite happy and satisfied—and +as a little child.</p> + +<p>“Where are you from?” asked the Bishop again.</p> + +<p>The man shook his head. He pointed to his head +and looked meaningly at the Bishop.</p> + +<p>“Can't you tell me where you're gwine, then?”</p> + +<p>He looked at the Bishop inquisitively, and for a moment, +only, the same look—almost of intelligence—shone +in his eyes. Slowly and with much difficulty—ay, +even as if he were spelling it out, he said:</p> + +<p>“A-l-i-c-e”—</p> + +<p>The old man turned quickly. Then he paled tremblingly +to his very forehead. The word itself—the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> +sound of that voice sent the blood rushing to his heart.</p> + +<p>“Alice?—and what does he mean? An' his voice +an' his eyes—Alice—my God—it's Cap'n Tom!”</p> + +<p>Tenderly, calmly he pulled the cap from off the +strange being's head and felt amid the unkempt locks. +But his hands trembled so he could scarcely control them, +and the sight of the poor, broken, half demented thing +before him—so satisfied and happy that he had found +a voice he knew—this creature, the brave, the chivalrous, +the heroic Captain Tom! He could scarcely see +for the tears which ran down his cheeks.</p> + +<p>But as he felt, in the depth of his shock of hair, his +finger slipped into an ugly scar, sinking into a cup-shaped +hollow fracture which gleamed in his hair.</p> + +<p>“Cap'n Tom, Cap'n Tom,” he whispered—“don't +you know me—the Bishop?”</p> + +<p>The man smiled reassuringly and slipped his hand, as +a child might, into that of the old man.</p> + +<p>“A-l-i-c-e”—he slowly and stutteringly pronounced +again, as he pointed down the road toward Westmoreland.</p> + +<p>“My God,” said the Bishop as he wiped away the tears +on the back of his hand—“my God, but that blow has +spiled God's noblest gentleman.” Then there rushed +over him a wave of self-reproach as he raised his head +heavenward and said:</p> + +<p>“<i>Almighty Father, forgive me! Only this morning +I doubted You; and now, now, You have sent me po' +Cap'n Tom!</i>”</p> + +<p>“You'll go home with me, Cap'n Tom!” he added +cheerily.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p> + +<p>The man smiled and nodded.</p> + +<p>“A-l-i-c-e,” again he repeated.</p> + +<p>There was the sound of some one riding, and as the +Bishop turned Ben Butler around Alice Westmore rode +up, sitting her saddle mare with that natural grace +which comes only when the horse and rider have been +friends long enough to become as one. Richard Travis +rode with her.</p> + +<p>The Bishop paled again: “My God,” he muttered—“but +she mustn't know this is Cap'n Tom! I'd ruther +she'd think he's dead—to remember him only as she +knowed him last.”</p> + +<p>The man's eyes were riveted on her—they seemed to +devour her as she rode up, a picture of grace and beauty, +sitting her cantering mare with the ease of long years +of riding. She smiled and nodded brightly at the +Bishop, as she cantered past, but scarcely glanced at the +man beside him.</p> + +<p>Travis followed at a brisk gait:</p> + +<p>“Hello, Bishop,” he said banteringly—“got a new +boarder to-day?”</p> + +<p>He glanced at the man as he spoke, and then galloped +on without turning his head.</p> + +<p>“Alice!—Alice!”—whispered the man, holding out +his hands pleadingly, in the way he had held them when +he first saw the Bishop. “Alice!”—but she disappeared +behind a turn in the road. She had not noticed +him.</p> + +<p>The Bishop was relieved.</p> + +<p>“We'll go home, Cap'n Tom—you'll want for nothin' +whilst I live. An' who knows—ay, Cap'n Tom, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> +knows but maybe God has sent you here to-day to begin +the unraveling of the only injustice I've ever knowed +Him to let go so long. It 'ud be so easy for Him—He's +done bigger things than jes' to straighten out little +tangles like that. Cap'n Tom! Cap'n Tom!” he +said excitedly—“God'll do it—God'll do it—for He +is just!”</p> + +<p>As he turned to go a negro came up hurriedly: “I +was fetchin' him to you, Marse Hillard—been lookin' +for yo' home all day. I had gone to the spring for +water an' 'lowed I'd be back in a minute.”</p> + +<p>“Why, it's Eph,” said the Bishop. “Come on to my +home, Eph, we'll take keer of Cap'n Tom.”</p> + +<p>It was Sunday night. They had eaten their supper, +and the old man was taking his smoke before going to +bed. Shiloh, as usual, had climbed up into his lap and +lay looking at the distant line of trees that girdled the +mountain side. There was a flush on her cheeks and +a brightness in her eyes which the old man had noticed +for several weeks.</p> + +<p>Shiloh was his pet—his baby. All the affection of +his strong nature found its outlet in this little soul—this +motherless little waif, who likewise found in the old +man that rare comradeship of extremes—the inexplicable +law of the physical world which brings the snow-flower +in winter. The one real serious quarrel the +old man had had with his stubborn and ignorant old wife +had been when Shiloh was sent to the factory. But it +was always starvation times with them; and when +aroused, the temper and tongue of Mrs. Watts was more +than the peaceful old man could stand up against. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> +as there were a dozen other tots of her age in the factory, +he had been forced to acquiesce.</p> + +<p>Long after all others had retired—long after the +evening star had arisen, and now, high overhead, looked +down through the chinks in the roof of the cabin on the +mountain side, saying it was midnight and past, the patient +old man sat with Shiloh on his lap, watching her +quick, restless breathing, and fearing to put her to bed, +lest he might awaken her.</p> + +<p>He put her in bed at last and then slipped into Captain +Tom's cabin before he himself lay down.</p> + +<p>To his surprise he was up and reading an old dictionary—studying +and puzzling over the words. It +was the only book except the Bible the Bishop had in +his cabin, and this book proved to be Captain Tom's +solace.</p> + +<p>After that, day after day, he would sit out under the +oak tree by his cabin intently reading the dictionary.</p> + +<p>Eph, his body servant, slept on the floor by his side, +and Jack Bracken sat near him like a sturdy mastiff +guarding a child. Sympathy, pity—were written in +the outlaw's face, as he looked at the once splendid manhood +shorn of its strength, and from that day Jack +Bracken showered on Captain Tom all the affection of +his generous soul—all that would have gone to little +Jack.</p> + +<p>“For he's but a child—the same as little Jack was,” +he would say.</p> + +<p>“Put up yo' novel, Cap'n Tom,” said the old man +cheerily, when he went in, “an' let's have prayers.”</p> + +<p>The sound of the old man's voice was soothing to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> +Captain Tom. Quickly the book was closed and down +on their knees went the three men.</p> + +<p>It was a queer trio—the three kneeling in prayer.</p> + +<p>“Almighty God,” prayed the old man—“me an' +Cap'n Tom an' Jack Bracken here, we thank You for +bein' so much kinder to us than we deserves. One of +us, lost to his friends, is brought back home; one of us, +lost in wickedness but yestiddy, is redeemed to-day; an' +me that doubted You only yestiddy, to me You have +fotcht Cap'n Tom back, a reproach for my doubts an' +my disbelief, lame in his head, it is true, but You've +fotcht him back where I can keer for him an' nuss him. +An' I hope You'll see fit, Almighty God, You who made +the worl' an' holds it in the hollow of Yo' han', You, who +raised up the dead Christ, to give po' Cap'n Tom back +his reason, that he may fulfill the things in life ordained +by You that he should fulfill since the beginning of +things.</p> + +<p>“An' hold Jack Bracken to the mark, Almighty God,—let +him toe the line an' shoot, hereafter, only for +good. An' guide me, for I need it—me that in spite +of all You've done for me, doubted You but yestiddy. +Amen.”</p> + +<p>It was a simple, homely prayer, but it comforted even +Captain Tom, and when Jack Bracken put him to bed +that night, even the outlaw felt that the morning of a +new era would awaken them.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> +<h3>THE SWAN-SONG OF THE CREPE-MYRTLE</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">I</span>t was twilight when Mrs. Westmore heard the clatter +of horses' hoofs up the gravelled roadway, and two +riders cantered up.</p> + +<p>Richard Travis sat his saddle horse in the slightly +stooping way of the old fox-hunter—not the most +graceful seat, but the most natural and comfortable for +hard riding. Alice galloped ahead—her fine square +shoulders and delicate but graceful bust silhouetted +against the western sky in the fading light.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westmore sat on the veranda and watched them +canter up. She thought how handsome they were, and +how well they would look always together.</p> + +<p>Alice sprang lightly from her mare at the front steps.</p> + +<p>“Did you think we were never coming back? Richard's +new mare rides so delightfully that we rode farther +than we intended. Oh, but she canters beautifully!”</p> + +<p>She sat on the arm of her mother's chair, and bent +over and kissed her cheek. The mother looked up to +see her finely turned profile outlined in a pale pink flush +of western sky which glowed behind her. Her cheeks +were of the same tinge as the sky. They glowed with +the flush of the gallop, and her eyes were bright with +the happiness of it. She sat telling of the new mare's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> +wonderfully correct saddle gaits, flipping her ungloved +hand with the gauntlet she had just pulled off.</p> + +<p>Travis turned the horses over to Jim and came up.</p> + +<p>“Glad to see you, Cousin Alethea,” he said, as she +arose and advanced gracefully to meet him—“no, no—don't +rise,” he added in his half jolly, half commanding +way. “You've met me before and I'm not such a big +man as I seem.” He laughed: “Do you remember +Giant Jim, the big negro Grandfather used to have to +oversee his hands on the lower place? Jim, you know, +in consideration of his elevation, was granted several +privileges not allowed the others. Among them was the +privilege of getting drunk every Saturday night. Then +it was he would stalk and brag among those he ruled +while they looked at him in awe and reverence. But he +had the touch of the philosopher in him and would finally +say: 'Come, touch me, boys; come, look at me; come, +feel me—I'm nothin' but a common man, although I +appear so big.'”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westmore laughed in her mechanical way, but +all the while she was looking at Alice, who was watching +the mare as she was led off.</p> + +<p>Travis caught her eye and winked mischievously as +he added: “Now, Cousin Alethea, you must promise +me to make Alice ride her whenever she needs a tonic—every +day, if necessary. I have bought her for Alice, +and she must get the benefit of her before it grows too +cold.”</p> + +<p>He turned to Alice Westmore: “You have only to +tell me which days—if I am too busy to go with you—Jim +will bring her over.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>She smiled: “You are too kind, Richard, always +thinking of my pleasure. A ride like this once a week +is tonic enough.”</p> + +<p>She went into the house to change her habit. Her +brother Clay, who had been sitting on the far end of +the porch unobserved, arose and, without noticing Travis +as he passed, walked into the house.</p> + +<p>“I cannot imagine,” said Mrs. Westmore apologetically, +“what is the matter with Clay to-day.”</p> + +<p>“Why?” asked Travis indifferently enough.</p> + +<p>“He has neglected his geological specimens all day, +nor has he ever been near his laboratory—he has one +room he calls his laboratory, you know. To-night he is +moody and troubled.”</p> + +<p>Travis said nothing. At tea Clay was not there.</p> + +<p>When Travis left it was still early and Alice walked +with him to the big gate. The moon shone dimly and +the cool, pure light lay over everything like the first mist +of frost in November. Beyond, in the field, where it +struck into the open cotton bolls, it turned them into +December snow-banks.</p> + +<p>Travis led his saddle horse, and as they walked to the +gate, the sweet and scarcely perceptible odor of the crepe-myrtle +floated out on the open air.</p> + +<p>The crepe-myrtle has a way of surprising us now and +then, and often after a wet fall, it gives us the swan-song +of a bloom, ere its delicate blossoms, touched to +death by frost, close forever their scalloped pink eyes, +on the rare summer of a life as spiritual as the sweet soft +gulf winds which brought it to life.</p> + +<p>Was it symbolic to-night,—the swan-song of the ro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>mance +of Alice Westmore's life, begun under those very +trees so many summers ago?</p> + +<p>They stopped at the gate. Richard Travis lit a cigar +before mounting his horse. He seemed at times to-night +restless, yet always determined.</p> + +<p>She had never seen him so nearly preoccupied as he +had been once or twice to-night.</p> + +<p>“Do you not think?” he asked, after a while as they +stood by the gate, “that I should have a sweet answer +soon?”</p> + +<p>Her eyes fell. The death song of the crepe-myrtle, +aroused by a south wind suddenly awakened, smote her +painfully.</p> + +<p>“You know—you know how it is, Richard”—</p> + +<p>“How it was—Alice. But think—life is a practical—a +serious thing. We all have had our romances. +They are the heritage of dreaming youth. We outlive +them—it is best that we should. Our spiritual life follows +the law of all other life, and spiritually we are not +the same this year that we were last. Nor will we be the +next. It is always change—change—even as the body +changes. Environment has more to do with what we +are, what we think and feel—than anything else. If +you will marry me you will soon love me—it is the law +of love to beget love. You will forget all the lesser +loves in the great love of your life. Do you not know it, +feel it, Sweet?”</p> + +<p>She looked at him surprised. Never before had he +used any term of endearment to her. There was a hard, +still and subtle yet determined light in his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Richard—Richard—you—I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>”—</p> + +<p>“See,” he said, taking from his vest pocket a magnificent +ring set in an exquisite old setting—inherited +from his grandmother, and it had been her engagement +ring. “See, Alice, let me put this on to-night.”</p> + +<p>He took her hand—it thrilled him as he had never +been thrilled before. This impure man, who had made +the winning of women a plaything, trembled with the +fear of it as he took in his own the hand so pure that +not even his touch could awaken sensuality in it. The +odor of her beautiful hair floated up to him as he bent +over. A wave of hot passion swept over him—for with +him love was passion—and his reason, for a moment, +was swept from its seat. Then almost beside himself +for love of this woman, so different from any he had ever +known, he opened his arms to fold her in one overpowering, +conquering embrace.</p> + +<p>It was but a second and more a habit than thought—he +who had never before hesitated to do it.</p> + +<p>She stepped back and the hot blood mounted to her +cheek. Her eyes shone like outraged stars, dreaming +earthward on a sleeping past, unwarningly obscured by +a passing cloud, and then flashing out into the night, +more brightly from the contrast.</p> + +<p>She did not speak and he crunched under his feet, +purposely, the turf he was standing on, and so carrying +out, naturally, the gesture of clasping the air, in establishing +his balance—as if it was an accident.</p> + +<p>She let him believe she thought it was, and secured +relief from the incident.</p> + +<p>“Alice—Alice!” he exclaimed. “I love you—love<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> +you—I must have you in my life! Can you not wear +this now? See!”</p> + +<p>He tried to place it on her finger. He held the small +beautiful hand in his own. Then it suddenly withdrew +itself and left him holding his ring and looking wonderingly +at her.</p> + +<p>She had thrown back her head, and, half turned, was +looking toward the crepe-myrtle tree from which the +faint odor came.</p> + +<p>“You had better go, Richard,” was all she said.</p> + +<p>“I'll come for my answer—soon?” he asked.</p> + +<p>She was silent.</p> + +<p>“Soon?” he repeated as he rose in the stirrup—“soon—and +to claim you always, Alice.”</p> + +<p>He rode off and left her standing with her head still +thrown back, her thoughtful face drinking in the odor +of the crepe-myrtle.</p> + +<p>Travis did not understand, for no crepe-myrtle had +ever come into his life. It could not come. With him +all life had been a passion flower, with the rank, strong +odor of the sensuous, wild honeysuckle, which must climb +ever upon something else, in order to open and throw +off the rank, brazen perfume from its yellow and streaked +and variegated blossoms.</p> + +<p>And how common and vulgar and all-surfeiting it is, +loading the air around it with its sickening imitation of +sweetness, so that even the bees stagger as they pass +through it and disdain to stop and shovel, for the mere +asking, its musky and illicit honey.</p> + +<p>But, O mystic odor of the crepe-myrtle—O love<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> +which never dies—how differently it grows and lives +and blooms!</p> + +<p>In color, constant—a deep pink. Not enough of +red to suggest the sensual, nor yet lacking in it when +the full moment of ripeness comes. How delicately pink +it is, and yet how unfadingly it stands the summer's sun, +the hot air, the drought! How quickly it responds to +the Autumn showers, and long after the honeysuckle +has died, and the bees have forgotten its rank memory, +this beautiful creature of love blooms in the very lap of +Winter.</p> + +<p>O love that defies even the breath of death!</p> + +<p>The yellow lips of the honeysuckle are thick and sensual; +but the beautiful petals of this cluster of love-cells, +all so daintily transparent, hanging in pink clusters +of loveliness with scalloped lips of purity, that even +the sunbeam sends a photograph of his heart through +them and every moonbeam writes in it the romance of its +life. And the skies all day long, reflecting in its heart, +tells to the cool green leaves that shadow it the story of +its life, and it catches and holds the sympathy of the +tiniest zephyr, from the way it flutters to the patter of +their little feet.</p> + +<p>All things of Nature love it—the clouds, the winds, +the very stars, and sun, because love—undying love—is +the soul of God, its Maker.</p> + +<p>The rose is red in the rich passion of love, the lily is +pale in the poverty of it; but the crepe-myrtle is pink +in the constancy of it.</p> + +<p>O bloom of the crepe-myrtle! And none but a lover +ever smelled it—none but a lover ever knew!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p> + +<p>She ran up the gentle slope to the old-fashioned garden +and threw herself under the tree from whence the +dying odor came. She fell on her knees—the moonlight +over her in fleckings of purification. She clung +to the scaly weather-beaten stem of the tree as she would +have pressed a sister to her breast. Her arms were +around it—she knew it—<span class="hover" title="it's">it's</span> very bark.</p> + +<p>She seized a bloom that had fallen and crushed it to +her bosom and her cheek.</p> + +<p>“O Tom—Tom—why—why did you make me +love you here and then leave me forever with only the +memory of it?”</p> + +<p>“Twice does it bloom, dear Heart,—can not my love +bloom like it—twice?”</p> + +<p>“A-l-i-c-e!”</p> + +<p>The voice came from out the distant woods nearby.</p> + +<p>The blood leaped and then pricked her like sharp-pointed +icicles, and they all seemed to freeze around and +prick around her heart. She could not breathe.... Her +head reeled.... The crepe-myrtle fell on her +and smothered her....</p> + +<p>When she awoke Mrs. Westmore sat by her side and +was holding her head while her brother was rubbing her +arms.</p> + +<p>“You must be ill, darling,” said her mother gently. +“I heard you scream. What—”</p> + +<p>They helped her to rise. Her heart still fluttered violently—her +head swam.</p> + +<p>“Did you call me before—before”—she was excited +and eager.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Why, yes”—smiled her mother. “I said, 'Alice—Alice!'”</p> + +<p>“It was not that—no, that was not the way it sounded,” +she said as they led her into the house.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<h3>THE CASKET AND THE GHOST</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">R</span>ichard Travis could not sleep that night—why, +he could not tell.</p> + +<p>After he returned from Westmoreland, +Mammy Charity brought him his cocktail, and tidied up +his room, and beat up the feathers in his pillows and bed—for +she believed in the old-fashioned feather-bed and +would have no other kind in the house.</p> + +<p>The old clock in the hall—that had sat there since +long before he, himself, could remember—struck ten, +and then eleven, and then, to his disgust, even twelve.</p> + +<p>At ten he had taken another toddy to put himself to +sleep.</p> + +<p>There is only one excuse for drunkenness, and that is +sleeplessness. If there is a hell for the intellectual it is +not of fire, as for commoner mortals, but of sleeplessness—the +wild staring eyes of an eternity of sleeplessness +following an eon of that midnight mental anguish +which comes with the birth of thoughts.</p> + +<p>But still he slept not, and so at ten he had taken another +toddy—and still another, and as he felt its life +and vigor to the ends of his fingers, he quaffed his fourth +one; then he smiled and said: “And now I don't care +if I never go to sleep!”</p> + +<p>He arose and dressed. He tried to recite one of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> +favorite poems, and it angered him that his tongue +seemed thick.</p> + +<p>His head slightly reeled, but in it there galloped a +thousand beautiful dreams and there were visions of +Alice, and love, and the satisfaction of conquering and +the glory of winning.</p> + +<p>He could feel his heart-throbs at the ends of his +fingers. He could see thoughts—beautiful, grand +thoughts—long before they reached him,—stalking +like armed men, helmeted and vizored, stalking forward +into his mind.</p> + +<p>He walked out and down the long hall.</p> + +<p>The ticking of the clock sounded to him so loud that +he stopped and cursed it.</p> + +<p>Because, somehow, it ticked every time his heart beat; +and he could count his heart-beats in his fingers' ends, +and he didn't want to know every time his heart beat. +It made him nervous.</p> + +<p>It might stop; but it would not stop. And then, +somehow, he imagined that his heart was really out in +the yard, down under the hill, and was pumping the +water—as the ram had done for years—through the +house. It was a queer fancy, and it made him angry because +he could not throw it off.</p> + +<p>He walked down the hall, rudely snatched the clock +door open, and stopped the big pendulum. Then he +laughed sillily.</p> + +<p>The moonbeams came in at the stained glass windows, +and cast red and yellow and pale green fleckings of light +on the smooth polished floor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p> + +<p>He began to feel uncanny. He was no coward and he +cursed himself for it.</p> + +<p>Things began to come to him in a moral way and +mixed in with the uncanniness of it all. He imagined he +saw, off in the big square library across the way, in the +very spot he had seen them lay out his grandfather—Maggie, +and she arose suddenly from out of his grandfather's +casket and beckoned to him with—</p> + +<p>“I love you so—I love <i>you</i> so!”</p> + +<p>It was so real, he walked to the spot and put his hands +on the black mohair Davenport. And the form on it, +sitting bolt upright, was but the pillow he had napped +on that afternoon.</p> + +<p>He laughed and it sounded hollow to him and echoed +down the hall:</p> + +<p>“How like her it looked!”</p> + +<p>He walked into Harry's room and lit the lamp there. +He smiled when he glanced around the walls. There +were hunting scenes and actresses in scant clothing. Tobacco +pipes of all kinds on the tables, and stumps of ill-smelling +cigarettes, and over the mantel was a crayon +picture of Death shaking the dice of life. Two old cutlasses +crossed underneath it.</p> + +<p>On his writing desk Travis picked up and read the +copy of the note written to Helen the day before.</p> + +<p>He smiled with elevated eyebrows. Then he laughed +ironically:</p> + +<p>“The little yellow cur—to lie down and quit—to +throw her over like that! Damn him—he has a yellow +streak in him and I'll take pleasure in pulling down the +purse for him. Why, she was born for me anyway!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> +That kid, and in love with Helen! Not for The Gaffs +would I have him mix up with that drunken set—nor—nor, +well, not for The Gaffs to have him quit like +that.”</p> + +<p>And yet it was news to him. Wrapped in his own +selfish plans, he had never bothered himself about Harry's +affairs.</p> + +<p>But he kept on saying, as if it hurt him: “The little +yellow cur—and he a Travis!” He laughed: “He's +got another one, I'll bet—got her to-night and by now +is securely engaged. So much the better—for my +plans.”</p> + +<p>Again he went into the hall and walked to and fro in +the dim light. But the Davenport and the pillow instantly +formed themselves again into Maggie and the +casket, and he turned in disgust to walk into his own +room.</p> + +<p>Above his head over the doorway in the hall, on a pair +of splendid antlers—his first trophy of the chase,—rested +his deer gun, a clean piece of Damascus steel and +old English walnut, imported years before. The barrels +were forty inches and choked. The small bright +hammers rested on the yellow brass caps deep sunk on +steel nippers. They shone through the hammer slit fresh +and ready for use.</p> + +<p>He felt a cold draught of air blow on him and turned +in surprise to find the hall window, which reached to the +veranda floor, open; and he could see the stars shining +above the dark green foliage of the trees on the lawn +without.</p> + +<p>At the same instant there swept over him a nervous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> +fear, and he reached for his deer gun instinctively. Then +there arose from the Davenport coffin a slouching unkempt +form, the fine bright eyes of which, as the last +rays of the moonlight fell on them, were the eyes of his +dead cousin, Captain Tom, and it held out its hands +pleadingly to him and tenderly and with much effort +said:</p> + +<p>“<i>Grandfather, forgive. I've come back again.</i>”</p> + +<p>Travis's heart seemed to freeze tightly. He tried to +breathe—he only gasped—and the corners of his +mouth tightened and refused to open. He felt the blood +rush up from around his loins, and leave him paralyzed +and weak. In sheer desperation he threw the gun to +his shoulder, and the next instant he would have fired the +load into the face of the thing with its voice of the dead, +had not something burst on his head with a staggering, +overpowering blow, and despite his efforts to stand, his +knees gave way beneath him and it seemed pleasant for +him to lie prone upon the floor....</p> + +<br /> +<p>When he awakened an hour afterwards, he sat up, bewildered. +His gun lay beside him, but the window was +closed securely and bolted. No night air came in. The +Davenport and pillow were there as before. His head +ached and there was a bruised place over his ear. He +walked into his own room and lit the lamp.</p> + +<p>“I may have fallen and struck my head,” he said, +bewildered with the strangeness of it all. “I may have,” +he repeated—“but if I didn't see Tom Travis's ghost +to-night there is no need to believe one's senses.”</p> + +<p>He opened the door and let in two setters which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> +fawned upon him and licked his hand. All his nervousness +vanished.</p> + +<p>“No one knows the comfort of a dog's company,” he +said, “who does not love a dog?”</p> + +<p>Then he bathed his face and head and went to sleep.</p> + +<br /> +<p>It was after midnight when Jack Bracken led Captain +Tom in and put him to bed.</p> + +<p>“A close shave for you, Cap'n Tom,” he said—“I +struck just in time. I'll not leave you another night +with the door unlocked.” Then: “But poor fellow—how +can we blame him for wandering off, after all those +years, and trying to get back again to his boyhood +home.”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> +<h3>A MIDNIGHT GUARD</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">J</span>ack Bracken rolled himself in his blanket on +the cot, placed in the room next to Captain Tom, +and prepared to sleep again.</p> + +<p>But the excitement of the night had been great; his +sudden awakening from sleep, his missing Captain Tom, +and finding him in time to prevent a tragedy, had +aroused him thoroughly, and now sleep was far from his +eyes.</p> + +<p>And so he lay and thought of his past life, and as it +passed before him it shook him with nervous sleeplessness.</p> + +<p>It hurt him. He lay and panted with the strong sorrow +of it.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was that, but with it were thoughts also of +little Jack, and the tears came into the eyes of the big-hearted +outlaw.</p> + +<p>He had his plans all arranged—he and the Bishop—and +now as the village blacksmith he would begin the life +of an honest man.</p> + +<p>Respected—his heart beat proudly to think of it.</p> + +<p>Respected—how little it means to the man who is, +how much to the man who is not.</p> + +<p>“Why,” he said to himself—“perhaps after a while +people will stop and talk to me an' say as they pass my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> +shop: 'Good mornin', neighbor, how are you to-day?' +Little children—sweet an' innocent little children—comin' +from school may stop an' watch the sparks fly +from my anvil, like they did in the poem I onct read, +an' linger aroun' an' talk to me, shy like; maybe, after +awhile I'll get their confidence, so they will learn to love +me, an' call me Uncle Jack—Uncle Jack,” he repeated +softly.</p> + +<p>“An' I won't be suspectin' people any mo' an' none of +'em will be my enemy. I'll not be carryin' pistols an' +havin' buckets of gold an' not a friend in the worl'.”</p> + +<p>His heart beat fast—he could scarcely wait for the +morning to come, so anxious was he to begin the life of +an honest man again. He who had been an outlaw so +long, who had not known what it was to know human +sympathy and human friendship—it thrilled him with +a rich, sweet flood of joy.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly a great wave swept over him—a wave +of such exquisite joy that he fell on his knees and cried +out: “O God, I am a changed man—how happy I +am! jus' to be human agin an' not hounded! How can +I thank You—You who have given me this blessed +Man the Bishop tells us about—this Christ who reaches +out an' takes us by the han' an' lifts us up. O God, +if there is divinity given to man, it is given to that man +who can lift up another, as the po' outlaw knows.”</p> + +<p>He lay silent and thoughtful. All day and night—since +he had first seen Margaret, her eyes had haunted +him. He had not seen her before for many years; but +in all that time there had not been a day when he had +not thought of—loved—her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p> + +<p>Margaret—her loneliness—the sadness of her life, +all haunted him. She lived, he knew, alone, in her cottage—an +outcast from society. He had looked but +once in her eyes and caught the lingering look of appeal +which unconsciously lay there. He knew she loved him +yet—it was there as plain as in his own face was written +the fact that he loved her. He thought of himself—of +her. Then he said:</p> + +<p>“For fifteen years I have robbed—killed—oh, God—killed—how +it hurts me now! All the category of +crime in bitter wickedness I have run. And she—once—and +now an angel—Bishop himself says so.”</p> + +<p>“I am a new man—I am a respectable and honest +man,”—here he arose on his cot and drew himself up—“I +am Jack Smith—Mr. Jack Smith, the blacksmith, +and my word is my bond.”</p> + +<p>He slipped out quietly. Once again in the cool night, +under the stars which he had learned to love as brothers +and whose silent paths across the heavens were to him old +familiar footpaths, he felt at ease, and his nervousness +left him.</p> + +<p>He had not intended to speak to Margaret then—for +he thought she was asleep. He wished only to guard +her cabin, up among the stunted old field pines—while +she slept—to see the room he knew she slept in—the +little window she looked out of every day.</p> + +<p>The little cabin was a hallowed spot to him. Somehow +he knew—he felt that whatever might be said—in +it he knew an angel dwelt. He could not understand—he +only knew.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p> + +<p>There is a moral sense within us that is a greater +teacher than either knowledge or wisdom.</p> + +<p>For an hour he stood with his head uncovered watching +the little cabin where she lived. Everything about +it was sacred, because Margaret lived there. It was +pretty, too, in its neatness and cleanliness, and there were +old-fashioned flowers in the yard and old-fashioned roses +clambered on the rock wall.</p> + +<p>He sat down in the path—the little white sanded path +down which he knew she went every day, and so made +sacred by her footsteps.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps, I am near one of them now,” he said—and +he kissed the spot.</p> + +<p>And that night and many others did the outlaw watch +over the lonely cabin on the mountain side. And she, +the outcast woman, slept within, unconscious that she +was being protected by the man who had loved her all +his life.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> +<h3>THE THEFT OF A CHILDHOOD</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">T</span>he Watts children were up the next morning by +four o'clock.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Watts ate, always, by candle-light. +The sun, she thought, would be dishonored, were he to +find her home in disorder, her breakfast uncooked, her +day's work not ready for her, with his first beams.</p> + +<p>For Mrs. Watts did not consider that arising at four, +and cooking and sweeping and tidying up the cabin, and +quarreling with the Bishop as “a petty old bundle of +botheration”—and storming around at the children—all +by sun-up—this was not work at all.</p> + +<p>It was merely an appetizer.</p> + +<p>The children were aroused by her this morning with +more severity than usual. Half frightened they rolled +stupidly out of their beds—Appomattox, Atlanta, and +Shiloh from one, and the boys from another. Then +they began to put on their clothes in the same listless, +dogged, mechanical way they had learned to do everything—learned +it while working all day between the +whirl of the spindle and the buzz of the bobbin.</p> + +<p>The sun had not yet risen, and a cold gray mist crept +up from the valley, closing high up and around the +wood-girdled brow of the mountain as billows around +a rock in the sea. The faint, far-off crowing of cocks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> +added to the weirdness; for their shrill voices alone broke +through the silence which came down with the mist. +Around the brow of Sand Mountain the vapor made a +faint halo—touched as it was by the splendid flush of +the East.</p> + +<p>It was all grand and beautiful enough without, but +within was the poverty of work, and the two—poverty +and work—had already had their effect on the children, +except, perhaps, Shiloh. She had not yet been in the +mill long enough to be automatonized.</p> + +<p>Looking out of the window she saw the star setting behind +the mountain, and she thought it slept, by day, in +a cavern she knew of there.</p> + +<p>“Wouldn't it be fine, Mattox,” she cried, “if we didn't +have to work at the mill to-day an' cu'd run up on the +mountain an' pick up that star? I seed one fall onct +an' I picked it up.”</p> + +<p>For a moment the little face was thoughtful—wistful—then +she added:</p> + +<p>“I wonder how it would feel to spen' the day in the +woods onct. Archie B. says it's just fine and flowers +grow everywhere. Oh, jes' to be 'quainted with one +Jeree—like Archie B. is—an' have him come to yo' +winder every mornin' an' say, '<i>Wake up, Pet! Wake +up, Pet! Wake up, Pet!</i>' An' then hear a little 'un +over in another tree say, '<i>So-s-l-ee-py—So-s-l-ee-py!</i>'”</p> + +<p>Her chatter ceased again. Then: “Mattox, did you +ever see a rabbit? I seen one onct, a settin' up in a +fence corner an' a spittin' on his han's to wash his face.”</p> + +<p>She laughed at the thought of it. But the other children, +who had dressed, sat listlessly in their seats, looking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> +at her with irresponsive eyes, set deep back into tired, +lifeless, weazened faces.</p> + +<p>“I'd ruther a rabbit 'ud wash his face than mine,” +drawled Bull Run.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Watts came in and jerked the chair from under +him and he sat down sprawling. Then he lazily arose +and deliberately spat, between his teeth, into the fireplace.</p> + +<p>There was not enough of him alive to feel that he had +been imposed upon.</p> + +<p>For breakfast they had big soda biscuits and fried +bacon floating in its own grease. There was enough of +it left for the midday lunch. This was put into a tin +pail with a tight fitting top. The pail, when opened, +smelt of the death and remains of every other soda biscuit +that had ever been laid away within this tightly +closed mausoleum of tin.</p> + +<p>They had scarcely eaten before the shrill scream of +the mill-whistle called them to their work.</p> + +<p>Shiloh, at the sound, stuck her small fingers into her +ears and shuddered.</p> + +<p>Then the others struck out across the yard, and Shiloh +followed.</p> + +<p>To this child of seven, who had already worked six +months in the factory, the scream of the whistle was the +call of a frightful monster, whose black smoke-stack of +a snout, with its blacker breath coming out, and the +flaming eyes of the engine glaring through the smoke, +completed the picture of a wild beast watching her. +Within, the whirr and tremble of shuttle and machinery +were the purr and pulsation of its heart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p> + +<p>She was a nervous, sensitive child, who imagined far +more than she saw; and the very uncanniness of the dark +misty morning, the silence, broken only by the tremble +and roar of the mill, the gaunt shadows of the overtopping +mountain, filled her with childish fears.</p> + +<p>Nature can do no more than she is permitted; and the +terrible strain of twelve hours' work, every day except +Sunday, for the past six months, where every faculty, +from hand and foot to body, eye and brain, must be +alert and alive to watch and piece the never-ceasing +breaking of the threads, had already begun to undermine +the half-formed framework of that little life.</p> + +<p>As she approached the mill she clung to the hand of +Appomattox, and shrinking, kept her sister between herself +and the Big Thing which put the sweet morning +air a-flutter around its lair. As she drew near the door +she almost cried out in affright—her little heart grew +tight, her lips were drawn.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it can't hurt you, Shiloh,” said her sister pulling +her along. “You'll be all right when you get inside.”</p> + +<p>There was a snarling clatter and crescendo tremble, +ending in an all-drowning roar, as the big door was +pushed open for a moment, and Shiloh, quaking, but +brave, was pulled in, giving the tiny spark of her little +life to add to the Big Thing's fire.</p> + +<p>Within, she was reassured; for there was her familiar +spinning frame, with its bobbins ready to be set to spinning +and whirling; and the room was full of people, +many as small as she.</p> + +<p>The companionship, even of fear, is helpful.</p> + +<p>Besides, the roar and clatter drowned everything else.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p> + +<p>Shiloh was too small to see, to know; but had she +looked to the right as she entered, she had seen a sight +which would have caused a stone man to flush with pity. +It was Byrd Boyle, one of the mill hands who ran a +slubbing machine, and he held in his arms (because +they were too young to walk so far) twins, a boy and +a girl. And they looked like half made up dolls left +out on the grass, weather-beaten by summer rains. +They were too small to know where their places were +in the room, and as their father sat them down, in their +proper places, it took the two together to run one side +of a spinner, and the tiny little workers could scarcely +reach to their whirling bobbins.</p> + +<p>To the credit of Richard Travis, this working of children +under twelve years of age in the mills was done +over his protest. Not so with Kingsley and his wife, +who were experienced mill people from New England +and knew the harm of it—morally, physically. Travis +had even made strict regulations on the subject, only to +be overruled by the combined disapproval of Kingsley +and the directors and, strange to say, of the parents of +the children themselves. His determination that only +children of twelve years and over should work in the +mill came to naught, more from the opposition of the +parents themselves than that of Kingsley. These, to +earn a little more for the family, did not hesitate to bring +a child of eight to the mill and swear it was twelve. +This and the ruling of the directors,—and worse than +all, the lack of any state law on the subject,—had +brought about the pitiful condition which prevailed +then as now in Southern cotton mills.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was no talking inside the mill. Only the Big +Thing was permitted to talk. No singing—for songs +come from the happy heart of labor, unshackled. No +noise of childhood, though the children were there. +They were flung into an arena for a long day's fight +against a thing of steel and steam, and there was no time +for anything save work, work, work—walk, walk, walk—watch, +forever watch,—the interminable flying whirl +of spindle and spool.</p> + +<p>Early as it was, the children were late, and were soundly +rebuffed by the foreman.</p> + +<p>The scolding hurt only Shiloh—it made her tremble +and cry. The others were hardened—insensible—and +took it with about the same degree of indifference +with which caged and starved mice look at the man who +pours over their wire traps the hot water which scalds +them to death.</p> + +<p>The fight between steel, steam and child-flesh was on.</p> + +<p>Shiloh, Appomattox and Atlanta were spinners.</p> + +<p>Spinners are small girls who walk up and down an +aisle before a spinning-frame and piece up the threads +which are forever breaking. There were over a hundred +spindles on each side of the frame, each revolving with +the rapidity of an incipient cyclone and snapping every +now and then the delicate white thread that was spun +out like spiders' web from the rollers and the cylinders, +making a balloon-like gown of cotton thread, which +settled continuously around the bobbin.</p> + +<p>All day long and into the night, they must walk up +and down, between these two rows of spinning-frames,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> +amid the whirling spindles, piecing the broken threads +which were forever breaking.</p> + +<p>It did not require strength, but a certain skill, which, +unfortunately, childhood possessed more than the adult. +Not power, but dexterity, watchfulness, quickness and +the ability to walk—as children walk—and watch—as +age should watch.</p> + +<p>No wonder that in a few months the child becomes, not +the flesh and blood of its heredity, but the steel and wood +of its environment.</p> + +<p>Bull Run and Seven Days were doffers, and confined +to the same set of frames. They followed their sisters, +taking off the full bobbins and throwing them into a +cart and thrusting an empty bobbin into its place. This +requires an eye of lightning and a hand with the quickness +of its stroke.</p> + +<p>For it must be done between the pulsings of the Big +Thing's heart—a flash, a snap, a snarl of broken thread—up +in the left hand flies the bobbin from its disentanglement +of thread and skein, and down over the buzzing +point of steel spindles settles the empty bobbin, thrust +over the spindle by the right.</p> + +<p>It is all done with two quick movements—a flash and +a jerk of one hand up, and the other down, the eye +riveted to the nicety of a hair's breadth, the stroke downward +gauged to the cup of a thimble, to settle over the +point of the spindle's end; for the missing of a thread's +breadth would send a spindle blade through the hand, or +tangle and snap a thread which was turning with a thousand +revolutions in a minute.</p> + +<p><i>Snap—bang! Snap—bang!</i> One hundred and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> +twenty times—<i>Snap—bang!</i> and back again, went +the deft little workers pushing their cart before them.</p> + +<p>Full at last, their cart is whirled away with flying +heels to another machine.</p> + +<p>It was a steady, lightning, endless track. Their little +trained fingers betook of their surroundings and worked +like fingers of steel. Their legs seemed made of India +rubber. Their eyes shot out right and left, left and +right, looking for the broken threads on the whirling +bobbins as hawks sweep over the marsh grass looking for +mice, and the steel claws, which swooped down on the +bobbins when they found it, made the simile not +unsuitable.</p> + +<p>Young as she was, Shiloh managed one of these harnessed, +fiery lines of dancing witches, pirouetting on +boards of hardened oak or hickory. Up and down she +walked—up and down, watching these endless whirling +figures, her bare fingers pitted against theirs of brass, +her bare feet against theirs shod with iron, her little head +against theirs insensate and unpitying, her little heart +against theirs of flame which throbbed in the boiler's +bosom and drove its thousand steeds with a whip of fire.</p> + +<p>In the bloodiest and cruelest days of the Roman Empire, +man was matched against wild beasts. But in the +man's hand was the blade of his ancestors and over his +breast the steel ribs which had helped his people to conquer +the world.</p> + +<p>And in the Beast's body was a heart!</p> + +<p>Ay, and the man was a man—a trained gladiator—and +he was nerved by the cheers of thousands of sympathizing +spectators.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p> + +<p>And now, centuries after, and in the age of so-called +kindness, comes this battle to be fought over. And the +fight, now as then, is for bread and life.</p> + +<p>But how cruelly unfair is the fight of to-day, when +the weak and helpless child is made the gladiator, and +the fight is for bread, and the Beast is of steel and +steam, and is soulless and heartless. Steel—that by +which the old gladiator conquered—that is the heart of +the Thing the little one must fight. And the cheers—the +glamour of it is lacking, for the little one cannot +hear even the sound of its own voice—in the roar of +the thousand-throated Thing which drives the Steel +Beast on.</p> + +<p>Seven o'clock—eight o'clock—Shiloh's head swam—her +shoulders ached, her ears quivered with sensitiveness, +and seemed not to catch sounds any more, but sharp +and shooting pains. She was dazed already and weak; +but still the Steam Thing cheered its steel legions on.</p> + +<p>Up and down, up and down she walked, her baby +thoughts coming to her as through the roar of a Niagara, +through pain and sensitiveness, through aches and a dull, +never-ending sameness.</p> + +<p>Nine o'clock! Oh, she was so tired of it all!</p> + +<p>Hark, she thought she heard a bird sing in a far off, +dreamy way, and for a moment she made mud pies in +the back yard of the hut on the mountain, under the +black-oak in the yard, with the glint of soft sunshine +over everything and the murmur of green leaves in the +trees above, as the wind from off the mountain went +through them, and the anemone, and bellworts, and +daisies grew beneath and around. Was it a bluebird?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> +She had never seen but one and it had built its nest in a +hole in a hollow tree, the summer before she went into +the mill to work.</p> + +<p>She listened again—yes, it did sound something like +a bluebird, peeping in a distant far off way, such as she +had heard in the cabin on the mountain before she had +ever heard the voice of the Big Thing at the mill. She +listened, and a wave of disappointment swept over her +baby face; for, listening closely, she found it was an unoiled +separator, that peeped in a bluebird way now and +then, above the staccato of some rusty spindle.</p> + +<p>But in the song of that bluebird and the glory of an +imaginary mud pie, all the disappointment of what she +had missed swept over her.</p> + +<p>Ten o'clock—the little fingers throbbed and burned, +the tiny legs were stiff and tired, the little head seemed +as a block of wood, but still the Steam Thing took no +thought of rest.</p> + +<p>Eleven o'clock—oh, but to rest awhile! To rest under +the trees in the yard, for the sunshine looked so warm +and bright out under the mill-windows, and the memory +of that bluebird's song, though but an imitation, still +echoed in her ear. And those mud pies!—she saw them +all around her and in such lovely bits of old broken +crockery and—....</p> + +<p>She felt a rude punch in the side. It was Jud Carpenter +standing over her and pointing to where a +frowzled broken thread was tangling itself around a separator. +She had dreamed but a minute—half a dozen +threads had broken.</p> + +<p>It was a rude punch and it hurt her side and fright<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>ened +her. With a snarl and a glare he passed on while +Shiloh flew to her bobbin.</p> + +<p>This fright made her work the next hour with less +fatigue. But she could not forget the song of the bluebird, +and once, when Appomattox looked at her, she was +working her mouth in a song,—a Sunday School song +she had picked up at the Bishop's church. Appomattox +could not hear it—no one had a license to hear a song +in the Beast Thing's Den—nothing was ever privileged +to sing but it,—but she knew from the way her mouth +was working that Shiloh was singing.</p> + +<p>Oh, the instinct of happiness in the human heart! To +sing through noises and aches and tired feet and stunned, +blocky heads. To sing with no hope before her and the +theft of her very childhood—ay, her life—going on +by the Beast Thing and his men.</p> + +<p>God intended us to be happy, else He had never put +so strong an instinct there.</p> + +<p>Twelve o'clock. The Steam Beast gave a triumphant +scream heard above the roar of shuttle and steel. It +was a loud, defiant, victorious roar which drowned all +others.</p> + +<p>Then it purred and paused for breath—purred softer +and softer and—slept at last.</p> + +<p>It was noon.</p> + +<p>The silence now was almost as painful to Shiloh as +the noise had been. The sudden stopping of shuttle and +wheel and belt and beam did not stop the noise in her +head. It throbbed and buzzed there in an echoing ache, +as if all the previous sounds had been fire-waves and +these the scorched furrows of its touch. Wherever she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> +turned, the echo of the morning's misery sounded in her +ears.</p> + +<p>And now they had forty minutes for noon recess.</p> + +<p>They sat in a circle, these five children—and ate +their lunch of cold soda biscuits and fat bacon.</p> + +<p>Not a word did they say—not a laugh nor a sound +to show they were children,—not even a sigh to show +they were human.</p> + +<p>Silently, like wooden things they choked it down and +then—O men and women who love your own little ones—look!</p> + +<p>Huddled together on the great, greasy, dirty floor of +this mill, in all the attitudes of tired-out, exhausted +childhood, they slept. Shiloh slept bolt upright, her +little head against the spinning-frame, where all the +morning she had chased the bobbins up and down the +long aisle. Appomattox and Atlanta were grouped +against her. Bull Run slept at her feet and Seven Days +lay, half way over on his bobbin cart, so tired that he +went to sleep as he tried to climb into it.</p> + +<p>In other parts of the mill, other little ones slept and +even large girls and boys, after eating, dozed or chatted. +Spoolers, weavers, slubbers, warpers, nearly grown but +all hard-faced, listless—and many of them slept on +shawls and battings of cotton.</p> + +<p>They were awakened by the big whistle at twenty minutes +to one o'clock. At the same time, Jud Carpenter, +the foreman, passed down the aisles and dashed cold +water in the sleeping faces. Half laughingly he did it, +but the little ones arose instantly, and with stooped +forms, and tired, cowed eyes, in which the Anglo-Saxon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> +spirit of resentment had been killed by the Yankee spirit +of greed, they looked at the foreman, and then began +their long six hours' battle with the bobbins.</p> + +<p>Three o'clock! The warm afternoon's sun poured on +the low flat tin roof of the mill and warmed the interior +to a temperature which was uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>Shiloh grew sleepy—she dragged her stumbling little +feet along, and had she stopped but a moment, she +had paid the debt that childhood owes to fairy-land. +The air was close—stifling. Her shoulders ached—her +head seemed a stuffy thing of wood and wooly lint.</p> + +<p>As it was she nodded as she walked, and again the +song of the bluebird peeped dreamily from out the unoiled +spindle. She tried to sing to keep awake, and +then there came a strange phantasy to mix with it all, +and out of the half-awake world in which she now staggered +along she caught sight of something which made +her open her eyes and laugh outright.</p> + +<p><i>Was it—could it be? In very truth it was—</i></p> + +<p><i>Dolls!</i></p> + +<p><i>And oh, so many! And all in a row dressed in matchless +gowns of snowy white. She would count them up to +ten—as far as she had learned to count.... But +there were ten,—yes, and many more than ten— ... and +just to think of whole rows of them— ... all there— ... and +waiting for her to +reach out and fondle and caress.</i></p> + +<p><i>And she—never in her life before had she been so fortunate +as to own one....</i></p> + +<p>A smile lit up her dreaming eyes. <i>Rows upon rows +of dolls.... And not even Appomattox and At<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>lanta +had ever seen so many before; and now how funny +they acted, dancing around and around and bobbing their +quaint bodies and winking and nodding at her.... +It was Mayday with them and down the long line of spindles +these cotton dolls were dancing around their May +Queen, and beckoning Shiloh to join them....</i></p> + +<p><i>It was too cute—too cunning—! they were dancing +and drawing her in—they were actually singing— ... humming +and chanting a May song....</i></p> + +<p><i>O lovely—lovely dolls!...</i></p> + +<p>Jud Carpenter found her asleep in the greasy aisle, +her head resting on her arm, a smile on her little face—a +hand clasping a rounded well-threaded doll-like bobbin +to her breast.</p> + +<p>It is useless to try to speak in a room in which the +Steam Beast's voice drowns all other voices. It is useless +to try to awaken one by calling. One might as +well stand under Niagara Falls and whistle to the little +fishes. No other voice can be heard while the Steam +Beast speaks.</p> + +<p>Shiloh was awakened by a dash of cold water and a +rough kick from the big boot of that other beast who +called himself the overseer. He did not intend to jostle +her hard, but Shiloh was such a little thing that the +kick she got in the side accompanied by the dash of +water shocked and frightened her instantly to her feet, +and with scared eyes and blanched face she darted down +to the long line of bobbins, mending the threads.</p> + +<p>If, in the great Mystic Unknown,—the Eden of Balance,—there +lies no retributive Cause to right the injustice +of that cruel Effect, let us hope there is no Here-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>after; +that we all die and rot like dogs, who know no +justice; that what little kindness and sweetness and right, +man, through his happier dreams, his hopeful, cheerful +idealism, has tried to establish in the world, may no +longer stand as mockery to the Sweet Philosopher who +long ago said: “<i>Suffer the little children to come unto +me.</i>” ...</p> + +<p>They were more dead than alive when, at seven o'clock, +the Steam Beast uttered the last volcanic howl which said +they might go home.</p> + +<p>Outside the stars were shining and the cool night air +struck into them with a suddenness which made them +shiver. They were children, and so they were thoughtless +and did not know the risk they ran by coming out of +a warm mill, hot and exhausted, into the cool air of an +Autumn night. Shiloh was so tired and sleepy that +Bull Run and Seven Days had to carry her between +them.</p> + +<p>Everybody passed out of the mill—a speechless, haggard, +over-worked procession. Byrd Boyle, with a face +and form which seemed to belong to a slave age, carried +his twins in his arms.</p> + +<p>Their heads lay on his shoulders. They were asleep.</p> + +<p>Scarcely had the children eaten their supper of biscuit +and bacon, augmented with dandelion salad, ere they, +too, were asleep—all but Shiloh.</p> + +<p>She could not sleep—now that she wanted to—and +she lay in her grandfather's lap with flushed face and +hot, over-worked heart. The strain was beginning to +tell, and the old man grew uneasy, as he watched the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> +flush on her cheeks and the unusual brightness in her +eyes.</p> + +<p>“Better give her five draps of tub'bentine an' put her +to bed,” said Mrs. Watts as she came by. “She'll be +fittin' an' good by mornin'.”</p> + +<p>The old man did not reply—he only sang a low melody +and smoothed her forehead.</p> + +<p>It was ten o'clock, and now she lay on the old man's +lap asleep from exhaustion. A cricket began chirping +in the fireplace, under a hearth-brick.</p> + +<p>“What's that, Pap?” asked Shiloh half asleep.</p> + +<p>“That's a cricket, Pet,” smiled the old man.</p> + +<p>She listened a while with a half-amused smile on her +lips:</p> + +<p>“Well, don't you think his spindles need oilin', +Pap?”</p> + +<p>There was little but machinery in her life.</p> + +<p>Another hour found the old man tired, but still holding +the sleeping child in his arms:</p> + +<p>“If I move her she'll wake,” he said to himself. “Po' +little Shiloh.”</p> + +<p>He was silent a while and thoughtful. Then he looked +up at the shadow of Sand Mountain, falling half way +down the valley in the moonlight.</p> + +<p>“The shadow of that mountain across that valley,” +he said, “is like the shadow of the greed of gain across +the world. An' why should it be? What is it worth? +Who is happier for any money more than he needs in +life?”</p> + +<p>He bowed his head over the sleeping Shiloh.</p> + +<p>“Oh, God,” he prayed—“You, who made the world<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> +an' said it might have a childhood—remember what it +means to have it filched away. It's like stealin' the bud +from the rose-bush, the dew from the grass, hope from +the heart of man. Take our manhood—O God—it +is strong enough to stand it—an' it has been took from +many a strong man who has died with a smile on his lips. +Take our old age—O God—for it's jus' a memory of +Has Beens. But let them not steal that from any life +that makes all the res' of it beautiful with dreams of it. +If, by some inscrutable law which we po' things can't see +through, stealin' in traffic an' trade must go on in the +world, O God, let them steal our purses, but not our +childhood. Amen.”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> +<h3>UNCLE DAVE'S WILL</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">T</span>he whistle of the mill had scarcely awakened +Cottontown the next morning before Archie +B., hatless and full of excitement, came over to +the Bishop with a message from his mother. No one +was astir but Mrs. Watts, and she was sweeping vigorously.</p> + +<p>“What's the matter, Archie B.?” asked the old man +when he came out.</p> + +<p>“Uncle Dave Dickey is dyin' an' maw told me to run +over an' tell you to hurry quick if you wanted to see the +old man die.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Uncle Dave is dyin', is he? Well, we'll go, +Archie B., just as soon as Ben Butler can be hooked up. +I've got some more calls to make anyway.”</p> + +<p>Ben Butler was ready by the time the children started +for the mill. Little Shiloh brought up the rear, her tiny +legs bravely following the others. Archie B. looked at +them curiously as the small wage-earners filed past him +for work.</p> + +<p>“Say, you little mill-birds,” he said, “why don't you +chaps come over to see me sometimes an' lem'me show +you things outdoors that's made for boys an' girls?”</p> + +<p>“Is they very pretty?” asked Shiloh, stopping and +all ears at once. “Oh, tell me 'bout 'em! I am jus'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> +hungry to see 'em. I've learned the names of three birds +myself an' I saw a gray squirrel onct.”</p> + +<p>“Three birds—shucks!” said Archie B., “I could +sho' you forty, but I'll tell you what's crackin' good fun +an' it'll test you mor'n knowin' the birds—that's easy. +But the hard thing is to find their nests an' then to tell +by the eggs what bird it is. That's the cracker-jack +trick.”</p> + +<p>Shiloh's eyes opened wide: “Why, do they lay eggs, +Archie B.? Real eggs like a hen or a duck?”</p> + +<p>Archie B. laughed: “Well, I should say so—an' +away up in a tree, an' in the funniest little baskets you +ever saw. An' some of the eggs is white, an' some blue, +and some green, an' some speckled an' oh, so many kind. +But I'll tell you a thing right now that'll help you to +remember—mighty nigh every bird lays a egg that's +mighty nigh like the bird herself. The cat bird's eggs +is sorter blue—an' the wood-pecker's is white, like his +wing, an' the thrasher's is mottled like his breast.”</p> + +<p>Ben Butler was hitched to the old buggy and the +Bishop drove up. He had a bunch of wild flowers for +Shiloh and he gave it with a kiss. “Run along now, +Baby, an' I'll fetch you another when I come back.”</p> + +<p>They saw her run to catch up with the others and +breathlessly tell them of the wonderful things Archie B. +had related. And all through the day, in the dust and +the lint, the thunder and rumble of the Steam Thing's +war, Shiloh saw white and blue and mottled eggs, in tiny +baskets, with homes up in the trees where the winds rocked +the cradles when the little birds came; and young as +she was, into her head there crept a thought that some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>thing +was wrong in man's management of things when +little birds were free and little children must work.</p> + +<p>As she ran off she waved her hand to her grandfather.</p> + +<p>“I'll fetch you another bunch when I come back, +Pet,” he called.</p> + +<p>“You'd better fetch her somethin' to eat, instead of +prayin' aroun' with old fools that's always dyin',” called +Mrs. Watts to him from the kitchen door where she was +scrubbing the cans.</p> + +<p>“The Lord will always provide, Tabitha—he has +never failed me yet.”</p> + +<p>She watched him drive slowly over the hill: “That +means I had better get a move on me an' go to furagin',” +she said to herself.</p> + +<p>“Hillard Watts has mistuck me for the Almighty +mighty nigh all his life. It's about time the blackberries +was a gittin' ripe anyway.”</p> + +<p>The Bishop found the greatest distress at Uncle Dave +Dickey's. Aunt Sally Dickey, his wife, was weeping +on the front porch, while Tilly, Uncle Dave's pretty +grown daughter, her calico dress tucked up for the morning's +work, showing feet and ankles that would grace a +duchess, was lamenting loudly on the back porch. A +coon dog of uncertain lineage and intellectual development, +tuned to the howling pitch, doubtless, by the music +of Tilly's sobs, joined in the chorus.</p> + +<p>“Po' Davy is gwine—he's most gone—boo—boo-oo!” +sobbed Aunt Sally.</p> + +<p>“Pap—Pap—don't leave us,” echoed Tilly from +the back porch.</p> + +<p>“Ow—wow—oo—oo,” howled the dog.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Bishop went in sad and subdued, expecting to +find Uncle Davy breathing his last. Instead, he found +him sitting bolt upright in bed, and sobbing even more +lustily than his wife and daughter. He stretched out +his hands pitiably as his old friend went in.</p> + +<p>“Most gone”—he sobbed—“Hillard—the old +man is most gone. You've come jus' in time to see your +old friend breathe his las' an' to witness his will,” and +he broke out sobbing afresh, in which Aunt Sally and +Tilly and the dog, all of whom had followed the Bishop +in, joined.</p> + +<p>The Bishop took in the situation at a glance. Then +he broke into a smile that gradually settled all over his +kindly face.</p> + +<p>“Look aheah, Davy, you ain't no mo' dyin' than +I am.”</p> + +<p>“What—what?” said Uncle Davy between his sobs—“I +ain't a dyin', Hillard? Oh, yes, I be. Sally and +Tilly both say so.”</p> + +<p>“Now, look aheah, Davy, it ain't so. I've seed hundreds +die—yes, hundreds—strong men, babes—women +and little tots, strong ones, and weak and frail +ones, given to tears, but I've never seed one die yet +sheddin' a single tear, let alone blubberin' like a calf. +It's agin nature. Davy, dyin' men don't weep. It's always +all right with 'em. It's the one moment of all their +lives, often, that everything is all right, seein' as they +do, that all life has been a dream—all back of death +jes' a beginnin' to live, an' so they die contented. No—no, +Davy, if they've lived right they want to smile, not +weep.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>There was an immediate snuffing and drying of tears +all around. Uncle Davy looked sheepishly at Aunt +Sally, she passed the same look on to Tilly, and Tilly +passed it to the coon dog. Here it rested in its birthplace.</p> + +<p>“Come to think of it, Hillard,” said Uncle Dave after +a while, “but I believe you are right.”</p> + +<p>Tilly came back, and she and Aunt Sally nodded their +heads: “Yes, Hillard, you're right,” went on Uncle +Davy, “Tilly and Sally both say so.”</p> + +<p>“How come you to think you was dyin' anyway?” +asked the Bishop.</p> + +<p>“Hillard,—you kno', Hillard—the old man's been +thinkin' he'd go sudden-like a long time.” He raised his +eyes to heaven: “Yes, Lord, thy servant is even ready.”</p> + +<p>“Last night I felt a kind o' flutterin' of my heart an' +I cudn't breathe good. I thought it was death—death,—Hillard, +on the back of his pale horse. Tilly and +Sally both thought so.”</p> + +<p>The Bishop laughed. “That warn't death on the +back of a horse, Davy—that was jus' wind on the stomach +of an ass.”</p> + +<p>This was too much for Uncle Davy—especially when +Tilly and Sally made it unanimous by giggling outright.</p> + +<p>“You et cabbages for supper,” said the Bishop.</p> + +<p>Uncle Davy nodded, sheepishly.</p> + +<p>“Then I sed my will an' Tilly writ it down an', oh, +Hillard, I am so anxious to hear you read it. I wanter +see how it'ull feel fer a man to have his will read after +he is dead—an'—an' how his widder takes it,” he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> +added, glancing at Aunt Sally—“an' his friends. I +wanter heah you read it, Hillard, in that deep organ +way of yours,—like you read the Old Testament. In +that <i>In-the-Beginning-God-Created-the-Heaven-an'-the-Earth-Kinder</i> +voice! Drap your voice low like a organ, +an' let the old man hear it befo' he goes. I fixed it when +I thought I was a-dyin'.”</p> + +<p>“Makin' yo' will ain't no sign you're dyin',” said the +Bishop.</p> + +<p>“But Tilly an' Aunt Sally both said so,” said Uncle +Davy, earnestly.</p> + +<p>“All yo' needs,” said the Bishop going to his saddle +bags, “is a good straight whiskey. I keep a little—a +very, very little bit in my saddle bags, for jes' sech occasions +as these. It's twenty years old,” he said, “an' +genuwine old Lincoln County. I keep it only for folks +that's dyin',” he winked, “an' sometimes, Davy, I feel +mighty like I'm about to pass away myself.”</p> + +<p>He poured out a very small medicine glass of it, shining +and shimmering in the morning light like a big +ruby,—and handed it to Uncle Davy.</p> + +<p>“You say that's twenty years old, Hillard?” asked +Uncle Davy as he wiped his mouth on the back of his +hand and again held the little glass out entreatingly:</p> + +<p>“Hillard, ain't it mighty small for its age—'pears +to me it orter be twins to make it the regulation size. +Don't you think so?”</p> + +<p>The Bishop gave him another and took one himself, +remarking as he did so, “I was pow'ful flustrated when I +heard you was dyin' again, Davy, an' I need it to stiddy +my nerves. Now, fetch out yo' will, Davy,” he added.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p> + +<p>As he took it the Bishop adjusted his big spectacles, +buttoned up his coat, and drew himself up as he did in +the pulpit. He blew his nose to get a clear sonorous +note:</p> + +<p>“I've got a verse of poetry that I allers tunes my +voice up to the occasion with,” he said. “I do it sorter +like a fiddler tunes up his fiddle. It's a great poem an' +I'll put it agin anything in the Queen's English for real +thunder music an' a sentiment that Shakespeare an' Milton +nor none of 'em cud a writ. It stirs me like our park +of artillery at Shiloh, an' it puts me in tune with the +great dead of all eternity. It makes me think of Cap'n +Tom an' Albert Sidney Johnston.”</p> + +<p>Then in a deep voice he repeated:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“'The muffled drum's sad roll has beat<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The soldier's last tattoo—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No more on earth's parade shall meet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That brave and fallen few.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On Fame's eternal camping ground<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Their silent tents are spread<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And glory guards with solemn sound<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The Bivouac of the Dead.'”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>“Now give me yo' will.”</p> + +<p>Uncle Davy sat up solemnly, keenly, expectantly. +Tilly and Aunt Sally sat subdued and sad, with that air +of solemn importance and respect which might be expected +of a dutiful daughter and bereaved widow on +such an occasion. It was too solemn for Uncle Davy. +He began to whimper again: “I didn't think I would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> +ever live to see the day when I'd hear my own will read +after I was dead, an' Hillard a-readin' it around my +own corpse. It's Tilly's handwrite,” he explained, as +he saw the Bishop scrutinizing the testament closely. +“I can't write, as you kno', but I've made my mark at +the end, an' I want you to witness it.”</p> + +<p>Pitching his voice to organ depths, the Bishop read:</p> + +<p>“<i>'In the name of God, amen: I, Davy Dickey, of +the County of ——, and State of Alabama, being +of sound mind and retentive memory, but knowing the +uncertainty of life and the certainty of death, do hereby +make and ordain this—my last will and testamen—'</i>”</p> + +<p>Uncle Davy had lain back, his eyes closed, his hands +clasped, drinking it all in.</p> + +<p>“O, Hillard—Hillard, read it agin—it makes me +so happy! It does me so much good. It sounds like +the first chapter of Genesis, an' Daniel Webster's reply +to Hayne an' the 19th Psalm all put together.”</p> + +<p>The Bishop read it again.</p> + +<p>“So happy—so happy—” sobbed Uncle Davy, in +which Aunt Sally and Tilly and the coon dog joined.</p> + +<p>“<i>'First,'</i>” read on the Bishop, following closely +Tilly's pretty penmanship; “<i>'Concerning that part of +me called the soul or spirit which is immortal, I will it +back again to its Maker, leaving it to Him to do as He +pleases with, without asking any impertinent questions +or making any fool requests.'</i>”</p> + +<p>The Bishop paused. “That's a good idea, Davy—Givin' +it back to its Maker without asking any impert'n'ent +questions.”</p> + +<p>“<i>'Second,'</i>” read the Bishop, “<i>'I wills to be buried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> +alongside of Dan'l Tubbs, on the Chestnut Knob, the +same enclosed with a rock wall, forever set aside for me +an' Dan'l and running west twenty yards to a black +jack, then east to a cedar stump three rods, then south +to a stake twenty yards and thence west back to me an' +Dan'l. I wills the fence to be built horse high, bull +strong and pig tight, so as to keep out the Widow Simmon's +old brindle cow; the said cow having pestered us +nigh to death in life, I don't want her to worry us back +to life after death.</i></p> + +<p>“<i>'Third. All the rest of the place except that occupied +as aforesaid by me an' Dan'l, and consisting of +twenty acres, more or less, I will to go to my dutiful +wife, Sally Ann Dickey, providing, of course, that she +do not marry again.'</i>”</p> + +<p>“David?” put in Aunt Sallie, promptly, wiping her +eyes, “I think that last thing mout be left out.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I don't kno',” said Uncle Davy—“you sho'ly +ain't got no notion of marryin' agin, have you, Sally?”</p> + +<p>“No—no—” said Aunt Sallie, thoughtfully, “but +there aint no tellin' what a po' widder mout have to do if +pushed to the wall.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” sagely remarked Uncle Davy, “we'll jes' let +it stan' as it is. It's like a dose of calomel for disorder +of the stomach—if you need it it'll cure you, an' if you +don't it won't hurt you. This thing of old folks fallin' +in love ain't nothin' but a disorder of the stomach anyhow.”</p> + +<p>Aunt Sally again protested a poor widow was often +pushed to the wall and had to take advantage of circumstances, +but Uncle Davy told the Bishop to read on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p> + +<p>At this point Tilly got up and left the room.</p> + +<p>“<i>'Fourth. I give and bequeath to my devoted +daughter, Tilly, and her husband, Charles C. Biggers, +all my personal property, including the crib up in the +loft, the razor my grandfather left me, the old mare +and her colt, the best bed in the parlor, and—'</i>”</p> + +<p>The Bishop stopped and looked serious.</p> + +<p>“Davy, ain't you a trifle previous in this?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Not for a will,” he said. “You see this is supposed +to happen and be read after you're dead. You +see Charles has been to see her twice and writ a poem on +her eyes.”</p> + +<p>The Bishop frowned: “You'll have to watch that +Biggers boy—he is a wild reckless rake an' not in +Tilly's class in anything.”</p> + +<p>“He's pow'ful sweet on Tilly,” said Aunt Sallie.</p> + +<p>“Has he asked her to marry him?” asked the Bishop +astonished.</p> + +<p>“S-h-h—not yet,” said Uncle Davy, “but he's +comin' to it as fast as a lean hound to a meat block. +He's got the firs' tech now—silly an' poetic. After +a while he'll get silly an' desperate, an' jes' 'fo' he kills +hisse'l Tilly'll fix him all right an' tie him up for life. +The good Lord makes every man crazy when he is ripe +for matrimony, so he can mate him off befo' he comes +to.”</p> + +<p>The Bishop shook his head: “I am glad I came +out here to-day—if for nothin' else to warn you to let +that Biggers boy alone. He don't study nothin' but fast +horses an' devilment.”</p> + +<p>“I never seed a man have a wuss'r case,” said Aunt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> +Sally. “Won't Tilly be proud of herse'f as the daughter +of Old Judge Biggers? An' me—jes' think of me +as the grandmother of Biggerses—the riches' an' fines' +family in the land.”</p> + +<p>“An' me?—I'll be the gran'pap of 'em—won't I, +Sally?”</p> + +<p>“You forgit, Davy,” said Aunt Sally—“this is yo' +will—you'll be dead.”</p> + +<p>“I did forgit,” said Uncle Davy sadly—“but I'd +sho' love to live an' take one of them little Biggerses on +my knees an' think his gran'pap had bred up to this. +Me an' old Judge Biggers—gran'paws of the same +kids! Now, you see, Hillard, he met Tilly at a party +an' he tuck her in to supper. The next day he writ +her a poem, an' I think it's a pretty good start on the +gran'pap business.”</p> + +<p>The Bishop smiled: “It does look like he loves her,” +he added, dryly. “If I was the devil an' wanted to +ketch a woman I'd write a poem to her every day an' lie +between heats. Love lives on lies.”</p> + +<p>“Now, I've ca'culated them things out,” said Uncle +Davy, “an' it'll be this away: Tilly is as pretty as a +peach an' Charlie is gittin' stuck wus'n wus'n every day. +By the time I am dead they will be married good an' +hard. I am almost gone as it is, the ole man he's liable +to drap off any time—yea, Lord, thy servant is ready +to go—but I do hope that the good master will let me +live long enough to hold one of my Biggers grandboys +on my knees.”</p> + +<p>“All I've got to say,” said the Bishop, “is jus' to +watch yo' son-in-law. Every son-in-law will stan'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> +watchin' after the ceremony, but yours will stan' it all +the time.”</p> + +<p>“<i>'Lastly,'</i>” read the Bishop, “<i>'I wills it that things +be left just as they be on the place—no moving around +of nothing, especially the well, it being eighty foot deep, +and with good cool water; and finally I leave anything +else I've got, mostly my good will, to the tender mercies +of the lawyers and courts.'</i>”</p> + +<p>The Bishop witnessed it, gave Uncle Davy another +toddy, and, after again cautioning him to watch young +Biggers closely, rode away.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> +<h3>EDWARD CONWAY</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">A</span>cross the hill the old man rode to Millwood, and +as he rode his head was bent forward in troubled +thought.</p> + +<p>He had heard that Edward Conway had come to the +sorest need—even to where he would place his daughters +in the mill. None knew better than Hillard Watts +what this would mean socially for the granddaughters +of Governor Conway.</p> + +<p>Besides, the old preacher had begun to hate the mill +and its infamous system of child labor with a hatred +born of righteousness. Every month he saw its degradation, +its slavery, its death.</p> + +<p>He preached, he talked against it. He began to be +pointed out as the man who was against the mill. Ominous +rumors had come to his ears, and threats. It was +whispered to him that he had better be silent, and some +of the people he preached to—some of those who had +children in the mill and were supported in their laziness +by the life blood of their little ones—these were his +bitterest enemies.</p> + +<p>To-day, the drunken proprietor of Millwood sat in his +accustomed place on the front balcony, his cob-pipe in +his mouth and ruin all around him.</p> + +<p>Like others, he had a great respect for the Bishop—a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> +man who had been both his own and his father's friend. +Often as a lad he had hunted, fished, and trapped with +the preacher-overseer, who lived near his father's plantation. +He had broken all of the stubborn colts in the +overseer's care; he had ridden them even in some of their +fiercest, hardest races, and he had felt the thrill of victory +at the wire and known the great pride which comes +to one who knows he has the confidence of a brave and +honest man.</p> + +<p>The old trainer's influence over Edward Conway had +always been great.</p> + +<p>To-day, as he saw the Bishop ride up, he thought of +his boyhood days, and of Tom Travis. How often had +they gone with the old man hunting and fishing! How +he reverenced the memory of his gentleness and kindness!</p> + +<p>The greatest desire of Hillard Watts had been to +reform Edward Conway. He had prayed for him, +worked for him. In spite of his drunkenness the old +man believed in him.</p> + +<p>“God'll save him yet,” he would say. “I've prayed +for it an' I kno' it—tho' it may be by the crushing +of him. Some men repent to God's smile, some to His +frown, and some to His fist. I'm afraid it will take a +blow to save Ned, po' boy.”</p> + +<p>For Ned was always a boy to him.</p> + +<p>Conway was drunker than usual to-day. Things +grew worse daily, and he drank deeper.</p> + +<p>It is one of the strangest curses of whiskey that as +it daily drags a man down, deeper and deeper, it makes +him believe he must cling to his Red God the closer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> + +<p>He met the old overseer cordially, in a half drunken +endeavor to be natural. The old man glanced sadly up +at the bloated, boastful face, and thought of the beautiful +one it once had been. He thought of the fine, brilliant +mind and marveled that with ten years of drunkenness +it still retained its strength. And the Bishop remembered +that in spite of his drinking no one had ever +accused Edward Conway of doing a dishonorable thing. +“How strong is that man's character rooted for good,” +he thought, “when even whiskey cannot undermine it.”</p> + +<p>“Where are the babies, Ned?” he asked, after he was +seated.</p> + +<p>The father called and the two girls came running out.</p> + +<p>The old man was struck with the developing beauty of +Helen—he had not seen her for a year. Lily hunted +in his pockets for candy, as she had always done—and +found it—and Helen—though eighteen and grown, +sat thoughtful and sad, on a stool by his side.</p> + +<p>The old man did not wonder at her sadness.</p> + +<p>“Ned,” he said, as he stroked Helen's hand, “this +girl looks mo' like her mother every day, an' you know +she was the handsomest woman that ever was raised in +the Valley.”</p> + +<p>Conway took his pipe out of his mouth. He dropped +his head and looked toward the distant blue hills. What +Memory and Remorse were whispering to him the old +man could only guess. Silently—nodding—he sat +and looked and spoke not.</p> + +<p>“She ain't gwineter be a bit prettier than my little +Lil, when she gits grown,” said a voice behind them.</p> + +<p>It was Mammy Maria who, as usual, having dressed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> +the little girl as daintily as she could, stood nearby to +see that no harm befell her.</p> + +<p>“Wal, Aunt Maria,” drawled the Bishop. “Whar +did you come from? I declar' it looks like ole times to +see you agin'.”</p> + +<p>There is something peculiar in this, that those unlettered, +having once associated closely with negroes, +drop into their dialect when speaking to them. Perhaps +it may be explained by some law of language—some +rule of euphony, now unknown. The Bishop unconsciously +did this; and, from dialect alone, one could not +tell which was white and which was black.</p> + +<p>Aunt Maria had always been very religious, and the +Bishop arose and shook her hand gravely.</p> + +<p>“Pow'ful glad to see you,” said the old woman.</p> + +<p>“How's religion—Aunt Maria,” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Mighty po'ly—mighty po'ly”—she sighed. “It +looks lak the Cedars of Lebanon is dwarfed to the scrub +pine. The old time religin' is passin' away, an' I'm +all that's lef' of Zion.”</p> + +<p>The Bishop smiled.</p> + +<p>“Yes, you see befo' you all that's lef' of Zion. I'se +been longin' to see you an' have a talk with you—thinkin' +maybe you cud he'p me out. You kno' me and +you is Hard-shells.”</p> + +<p>The Bishop nodded.</p> + +<p>“We 'blieves in repentince an' fallin' from grace, an' +backslidin' an' all that,” she went on. “Well, they've +lopped them good ole things off one by one an' they +don't 'bleeve in nothin' now but jes' jin'in'. They think +jes' jin'in' fixes 'em—that it gives 'em a free pass into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> +the pearly gates. So of all ole Zion Church up at the +hill, sah, they've jes' jined an' jined around, fust one +church an' then another, till of all the ole Zion Church +that me an' you loved so much, they ain't none lef' but +Parson Shadrack, the preacher, sister Tilly, an' me—We +wus Zion.”</p> + +<p>“Pow'ful bad, pow'ful bad,” said the Bishop—“and +you three made Zion.”</p> + +<p>“We <i>wus</i>,” said Aunt Maria, sadly—“but now there +ain't but one lef'. <i>I'm Zion.</i> It's t'arrable, but it's +true. As it wus in the days of Lot, so it is to-day in +Sodom.”</p> + +<p>“Why, how did that happen?” asked the Bishop.</p> + +<p>Aunt Maria's eyes kindled: “It's t'arrable, but it's +true—last week Parson Shadrack deserts his own wife +an' runs off with Sis Tilly. It looked lak he mouter +tuck me, too, an' kept the fold together as Abraham did +when he went into the Land of the Philistines. But +thank God, if I am all that's lef', one thing is mighty +consolin'—I can have a meetin' of Zion wherever I is. +If I sets down in a cheer to meditate I sez to myself—'Be +keerful, Maria, for the church is in session.' When +I drink, it is communion—when I bathes, it is baptism, +when I walks, I sez to myself: 'Keep a straight +gait, Maria, you are carryin' the tabbernackle of all +goodness.' Aunt Tilly got the preacher, but thank +God, I got Zion.”</p> + +<p>“But I mus' go. Come on, Lily,” she said to the +little girl,—“let ole Zion fix up yo' curls.”</p> + +<p>She took her charge and curtsied out, and the Bishop +knew she would die either for Zion or the little girl.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p> + +<p>The old man sat thinking—Helen had gone in and +was practising a love song.</p> + +<p>“Ned,” said the Bishop, “I tell you a man ain't +altogether friendless when he's got in his home a creature +as faithful as she is. She'd die for that child. +That one ole faithful 'oman makes me feel like liftin' +my hat to the whole nigger race. I tell you when I get +to heaven an' fail to see ole Mammy settin' around the +River of Life, I'll think somethin' is wrong.”</p> + +<p>The Bishop was silent a while, and then he asked: +“Ned, it can't be true that you are goin' to put them +girls in the factory?”</p> + +<p>“It's all I can do,” said Conway, surlily—“I'll be +turned out of home soon—out in the public road. +Everything I've got has been sold. I've no'where to go, +an' but for Carpenter's offer from the Company of the +cottage, I'd not have even a home for them. The only +condition I could go on was that—”</p> + +<p>“That you sell your daughters into slavery,” said +the Bishop quietly.</p> + +<p>“You don't seem to think it hurts your's,” said Conway +bluntly.</p> + +<p>“If I had my way they'd not work there a day,”—the +old man replied hastily. “But it's different with +me, an' you know it. My people take to it naturally. +I am a po' white, an underling by breedin' an' birth, an' +if my people build, they must build up. But you—you +are tearing down when you do that. Po' as I am, +I'd rather starve than to see little children worked to +death in that trap, but Tabitha sees it different, and +she is the one bein' in the world I don't cross—the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> +General”—he smiled—“she don't understand, she's +built different.”</p> + +<p>He was silent a while. Then he said: “I am old an' +have nothin'.”</p> + +<p>He stopped again. He did not say that what little +he did have went to the poor and the sorrow-stricken of +the neighborhood. He did not add that in his home, +besides its poverty and hardness, he faced daily the +problem of far greater things.</p> + +<p>“If I only had my health,” said Conway, “but this +cursed rheumatism!”</p> + +<p>“Some of us has been so used to benefits,” said the +old man, “that it's only when they've withdrawn that +we miss 'em. We're always ready to blame God for what +we lose, but fail to remember what He gives us. We +kno' what diseases an' misfortunes we have had, we never +know, by God's mercy, what we have escaped. Death +is around us daily—in the very air we breathe—and +yet we live.</p> + +<p>“I'll talk square with you, Ned—though you may +hate me for it. Every misfortune you have, from +rheumatism to loss of property, is due to whiskey. +Let it alone. Be a man. There's greatness in you +yet. You'd have no chance if you was a scrub. But +no man can estimate the value of good blood in man +or hoss—it's the unknown quantity that makes him +ready to come again. For do the best we can, at last +we're in the hands of God an' our pedigree.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think I've got a show yet?” asked Conway, +looking up.</p> + +<p>“Do I? Every man has a chance who trusts God an'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> +prays. You can't down that man. Your people were +men—brave an' honest men. They conquered themselves +first, an' all this fair valley afterwards. They +overcame greater obstacles than you ever had, an' in +bringin' you into the world they gave you, by the very +laws of heredity, the power to overcome, too. Why do +you grasp at the shadow an' shy at the form? You +keep these hound dogs here, because your father rode +to hounds. But he rode for pleasure, in the lap of +plenty, that he had made by hard licks. You ride, +from habit, in poverty. He rode his hobbies—it was +all right. Your hobbies ride you. He fought chickens +for an hour's pastime, in the fullness of the red blood +of life. You fight them for the blood of the thing—as +the bred-out Spaniards fight bulls. He took his +cocktails as a gentleman—you as a drunkard.”</p> + +<p>The old man was excited, indignant, fearless.</p> + +<p>Conway looked at him in wonder akin to fear. Even +as the idolaters of old looked at Jeremiah and Isaiah.</p> + +<p>“Why—why is it”—went on the old man earnestly, +rising and shaking his finger ominously—“that two +generations of cocktails will breed cock-fighters, and two +generations of whiskey will breed a scrub? Do you +know where you'll end? In bein' a scrub? No, no—you +will be dead an' the worms will have et you—but”—he +pointed to the house—“you are fixin' to make +scrubs of them—they will breed back.</p> + +<p>“Go back to the plough—quit this whiskey and be +the man your people was. If you do not,” he said rising +to go—“God will crush you—not kill you, but +mangle you in the killin'.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“He has done that already,” said Conway bitterly. +“He has turned the back of His hand on me.”</p> + +<p>“Not yet”—said the Bishop—“but it will fall and +fall there.” He pointed to Helen, whose queenly head +could be seen in the old parlor as she trummed out a +sad love song.</p> + +<p>Conway blanched and his hand shook. He felt a +nameless fear—never felt before. He looked around, +but the old man was gone. Afterwards, as he remembered +that afternoon, he wondered if, grown as the old +man had in faith, God had not also endowed him with +the gift of prophecy.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> +<h3>HELEN'S DESPAIR</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">A</span>n hour afterward, the old nurse found Helen +at the piano, her head bowed low over the old +yellow keys. “It's gittin' t'wards dinner time, +chile,” she said tenderly, “an' time I was dressin' my +queen gal for dinner an sendin' her out to get roses in +her cheeks.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mammy, don't—don't dress me that way any +more. I am—I am to be—after this—just a mill +girl, you know?”</p> + +<p>There was a sob and her head sank lower over the +piano.</p> + +<p>“You may be for a while, but you'll always be a +Conway”—and the old woman struck an attitude with +her arms akimbo and stood looking at the portraits +which hung on the parlor wall.</p> + +<p>“That—that—makes it worse, Mammy.” She +wiped away her tears and stood up, and her eyes took +on a look Aunt Maria had not seen since the old Governor +had died. She thought of ghosts and grew nervous +before it.</p> + +<p>“If my father sends me to work in that place—if +he does—” she cried with flaming eyes—“I shall feel +that I am disgraced. I cannot hold my head up again. +Then you need not be surprised at anything I do.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“It ain't registered that you're gwine there yet,” +and Mammy Maria stroked her head. “But if you +does—it won't make no difference whar you are nor +what you have to do, you'll always be a Conway an' a +lady.”</p> + +<p>An hour afterwards, dressed as only Mammy Maria +could dress her, Helen had walked out again to the rock +under the wild grape vine.</p> + +<p>How sweet and peaceful it was, and yet how changed +since but a short time ago she had sat there watching +for Harry!</p> + +<p>“Harry”—she pulled out the crumpled, tear-stained +note from her bosom and read it again. And the reading +surprised her. She expected to weep, but instead +when she had finished she sat straight up on the mossy +rock and from her eyes gleamed again the light before +which the political enemies of the old dead Governor +had so often quailed.</p> + +<p>Nor did it change in intensity, when, at the sound of +wheels and the clatter of hoofs, she instinctively dropped +down on the moss behind the rock and saw through the +grape leaves one of Richard Travis's horses, steaming +hot, and stepping,—right up to its limit—a clipping +gait down the road.</p> + +<p>She had dropped instinctively because she guessed it +was Harry. And instinctively, too, she knew the girl +with the loud boisterous laugh beside him was Nellie.</p> + +<p>The buggy was wheeled so rapidly past that she +heard only broken notes of laughter and talk. Then +she sat again upon her rock, with the deep flush in her +eyes, and said:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I hate—him—I hate him—and oh—to think—”</p> + +<p>She tore his note into fragments, twisted and rolled +them into a ball and shot it, as a marble, into the gulch +below.</p> + +<p>Then, suddenly she remembered, and reaching over +she looked into a scarred crevice in the rock. Twice +that summer had Clay Westmore left her a quaint love +note in this little rock-lined post-office. Quaint indeed, +and they made her smile, for they had been queer mixtures +of geology and love. But they were honest—and +they had made her flush despite the fact that she did +not love him.</p> + +<p>Still she would read them two or three times and sigh +and say: “Poor Clay—” after every reading.</p> + +<p>“Surely there will be one this afternoon,” she thought +as she peeped over.</p> + +<p>But there was not, and it surprised her to know how +much she was disappointed.</p> + +<p>“Even Clay has forgotten me,” she said as she arose +hastily to go.</p> + +<p>A big sob sprang up into her throat and the Conway +light of defiance, that had blazed but a few moments +before in her eyes, died in the depths of the cloud of +tears which poured between it and the open.</p> + +<p>A cruel, dangerous mood came over her. It enveloped +her soul in its sombre hues and the steel of it struck +deep.</p> + +<p>She scarcely remembered her dead mother—only +her eyes. But when these moods came upon Helen +Conway—and her life had been one wherein they had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> +fallen often—the memory of her mother's eyes came to +her and stood out in the air before her, and they were +sombre and sad, and full, too, of the bitterness of hopes +unfulfilled.</p> + +<p>All her life she had fought these moods when they +came. But now—now she yielded to the subtle charm +of them—the wild pleasure of their very sinfulness.</p> + +<p>“And why not,” she cried to herself when the consciousness +of it came over her, and like a morphine fiend +carrying the drug to his lips, she knew that she also +was pressing there the solace of her misery.</p> + +<p>“Why should I not dissipate in the misery of it, +since so much of it has fallen upon me at once?</p> + +<p>“Mother?—I never knew one—only the eyes of +one, and they were the eyes of Sorrow. Father?”—she +waved her hand toward the old home—“drunk-wrecked—he +would sell me for a quart of whiskey.</p> + +<p>“Then I loved—loved an image which is—mud—mud”—she +fairly spat it out. “One poor friend I +had—I scorned him, and he has forgotten me, too. +But I did know that I had social standing—that my +name was an honored one until—now.”</p> + +<p>“Now!”—she gulped it down. “Now I am a common +mill girl.”</p> + +<p>She had been walking rapidly down the road toward +the house. So rapidly that she did not know how +flushed and beautiful she had become. She was swinging +her hat impatiently in her hand, her fine hair half +falling and loose behind, shadowing her face as rosy sunset +clouds the temple on Mt. Ida. A face of more +classic beauty, a skin of more exquisite fairness, flushed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> +with the bloom of youth, Richard Travis had never before +seen.</p> + +<p>And so, long before she reached him, he reined in his +trotters and sat silently watching her come. What a +graceful step she had—what a neck and head and hair—half +bent over with eyes on the ground, unconscious +of the beauty and grace of their own loveliness.</p> + +<p>She almost ran into his buggy—she stopped with a +little start of surprise, only to look into his clean-cut +face, smiling half patronizingly, half humorously, and +with a look of command too, and of patronage withal, +of half-gallant heart-undoing.</p> + +<p>It was the look of the sharp-shinned hawk hovering +for an instant, in sheer intellectual abandon and physical +exuberance, above the unconscious oriole bent upon its +morning bath.</p> + +<p>He was smiling down into her eyes and repeating half +humorously, half gallantly, and altogether beautifully, +she thought, Keats' lines:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“A thing of beauty is a joy forever;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its loveliness increases; it will never<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pass into nothingness; but will keep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A bower quiet for us, and a sleep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Full of sweet dreams and health and<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quiet breathing....”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Even Helen could not tell how it was done nor why +she had consented....</p> + +<p>“No—no—you are hot and tired and you shall +not walk.... I will give you just a little spin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> +before Mammy Maria calls you to dinner.... Yes, +Lizzette and Sadie B. always do their best when a +pretty girl is behind them.”</p> + +<p>How refreshing the air—hot and tired as she was. +And such horses—she had never before ridden behind +anything so fine. How quickly he put her at her ease—how +intellectual he was—how much of a gentleman. +And was it not a triumph—a social triumph for her? +A mill girl, in name, to have him notice her? It made +her heart beat quickly to think that Richard Travis +should care enough for her to give her this pleasure and +at a time when—when she always saw her mother's +eyes.</p> + +<p>Timidly she sat by him scarce lifting her eyes to +speak, but conscious all the time that his eyes were +devouring her, from her neck and hair to her slippered +foot, sticking half way out from skirts of old lace-trimmed +linen.</p> + +<p>She reminded him at last that they should go back +home.</p> + +<p>No—he would have her at home directly. Yes, he'd +have her there before the old nurse missed her.</p> + +<p>She knew the trotters were going fast, but she did +not know just how fast, until presently, in a cloud of +whirling dust they flew around a buggy whose horse, +trot as fast as it could, seemed stationary to the speed +the pair showed as they passed.</p> + +<p>It was Harry and Nellie. She glanced coldly at him, +and when he raised his hat she cut him with a smile of +scorn. She saw his jaw drop dejectedly as Richard +Travis sang out banteringly:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Sweets to the sweet, and good-bye to the three-minute +class.”</p> + +<p>It was a good half hour, but it seemed but a few +minutes before he had her back at the home gate, her +cheeks burning with the glory of that burst of speed, +and rush of air.</p> + +<p>He had helped her out and stood holding her hand +as one old enough to be her father. He smiled and, +looking down at her glowing face, and hair, and neck, +repeated:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“What thou art we know not.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What is most like thee?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From rainbow clouds there flow not<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Drops so bright to see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Then he changed as she thanked him, and said: +“When you go into the mill I shall have many pleasant +surprises for you like this.”</p> + +<p>He bent over her and whispered: “I have arranged +for your pay to be double—we are neighbors, you +know—your father and I,—and a pretty girl, like +you, need not work always.”</p> + +<p>She started and looked at him quickly.</p> + +<p>The color went from her cheeks. Then it came again +in a crimson tide, so full and rich, that Richard Travis, +like Titian with his brush, stood spellbound before the +work he had done.</p> + +<p>Fearing he had said too much, he dropped his voice +and with a twinkle in his eye said:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p> + +<p>“For there is Harry—you know.”</p> + +<p>All her timidity vanished—her hanging of the head, +her silence, her blushes. Instead, there leaped into her +eyes that light which Richard Travis had never seen +before—the light of a Conway on mettle.</p> + +<p>“I hate him.”</p> + +<p>“I do not blame you,” he said. “I shall be a—father +to you if you will let me.”</p> + +<p>He pressed her hand, and raising his hat, was gone.</p> + +<p>As he drove away he turned and looked at her slipping +across the lawn in the twilight. In his eyes was +a look of triumphant excitement.</p> + +<p>“To own her—such a creature—God—it were +worth risking my neck.”</p> + +<p>The mention of Harry brought back all her bitter +recklessness to Helen. She was but a child and her +road, indeed, was hard. And as she turned at the old +gate and looked back at the vanishing buggy she said:</p> + +<p>“Had he asked me this evening I'd—yes—I'd go +to the end of the world with him. I'd go—go—go—and +I care not how.”</p> + +<br /> +<p>Richard Travis was in a jolly mood at the supper +table that night, and Harry became jolly also, impertinently +so. He had not said a word about his cousin being +with Helen, but it burned in his breast, and he +awaited his chance to mention it.</p> + +<p>“I have thought up a fable since I have been at +supper, Cousin Richard. Shall I tell you?”</p> + +<p>“Oh”—with a cynical smile—“do!”</p> + +<p>“Well,” began Harry unabashed, and with many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> +sly winks and much histrionic effort, “it is called the +'Fox and the Lion.' Now a fox in the pursuit ran +down a beautiful young doe and was about to devour her +when the lion came up and with a roar and a sweep of +his paw, took her saying ...”</p> + +<p>“'Get out of the way, you whelp,'” said his cousin, +carrying the fable on, “for I perceive you are not even +a fox, but a coyote, since no fox was ever known to run +down a doe.”</p> + +<p>The smile was gradually changed on his face to a +cruel sneer, and Harry ceased talking with a suddenness +that was marked.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> +<h3>THE WHIPPER-IN</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">W</span>hen the mill opened the next day, there was +work for Jud Carpenter. He came in and approached +the superintendent's desk briskly.</p> + +<p>“Well, suh, hu' many to-day?” he asked.</p> + +<p>Kingsley looked over his list of absentees.</p> + +<p>“Four, and two of them spinners. Carpenter, you +must go at once and see about it. They are playing +off, I am sure.”</p> + +<p>“Lem'me see the list, suh,”—and he ran his eye +over the names.</p> + +<p>“Bud Billings—plague his old crotchety head—. +He kno's that machine's got to run, whether no. +Narthin's the matter with him—bet a dollar his wife +licked him last night an' he's mad about it.”</p> + +<p>“That will do us no good,” said Kingsley—“what +he is mad about. That machine must be started at once. +The others you can see afterwards.”</p> + +<p>Carpenter jerked his slouch hat down over his eyes +and went quickly out.</p> + +<p>In half an hour he was back again. His hat was off, +his face was red, his shaggy eyebrows quivered with +angry determination, as, with one hand in the collar of +the frightened Bud, he pulled the slubber into the superintendent's +presence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p> + +<p>Following her husband came Mrs. Billings—a small, +bony, wiry, black-eyed woman, with a firmly set mouth +and a perpetual thunder-cloud on her brow—perhaps +the shadow of her coarse, crow-black hair.</p> + +<p>While Jud dragged him, she carried a stick and prodded +Bud in the rear. Nor was she chary in abuse.</p> + +<p>Jerked into the superintendent's presence, Bud's scared +eyes darted here and there as if looking for a door to +break through, and all the time they were silently protesting. +His hands, too, joined in the protest; one of +them wagged beseechingly behind appealing to his +spouse to desist—the other went through the same motion +in front begging Jud Carpenter for mercy.</p> + +<p>But not a word did he utter—not even a grunt did +he make.</p> + +<p>They halted as quickly as they entered. Bud's eyes +sought the ceiling, the window, the floor,—anywhere +but straight ahead of him.</p> + +<p>His wife walked up to the superintendent's desk—she +was hot and flushed. Her small black eyes, one of which +was cocked cynically, flashed fire, her coarse hair fell +across her forehead, or was plastered to her head with +perspiration.</p> + +<p>It was pathetic to look at Bud, with his deep-set, +scared eyes. Kingsley had never heard him speak a +word, nor had he even been able to catch his eye. But +he was the best slubber in the mill—tireless, pain-staking. +His place could not be filled.</p> + +<p>Bud was really a good-natured favorite of Kingsley +and when the superintendent saw him, scared and pant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>ing, +his tongue half out, with Jud Carpenter's hand still +in his collar, he motioned to Jud to turn him loose.</p> + +<p>“Uh—uh—” grunted Jud “—he will bolt sho!”</p> + +<p>Kingsley noticed that Bud's head was bound with a +cloth.</p> + +<p>“What's the matter, Bud?” he asked kindly.</p> + +<p>The slubber never spoke, but glanced at his wife, who +stood glaring at him. Then she broke out in a thin, +drawling, daring, poor-white voice—a ring of impertinence +and even a challenge in it:</p> + +<p>“I'll tell you'uns what's the matter with Bud. Bud +Billings is got what most men needs when they begin +to raise sand about their vittels for nothin'. I've busted +a plate over his head.”</p> + +<p>She struck an attitude before Kingsley which plainly +indicated that she might break another one. It was +also an attitude which asked: “What are you going +to do about it?”</p> + +<p>Bud nodded emphatically—a nod that spoke more +than words. It was a positive, unanimous assertion on +his part that the plate had been broken there.</p> + +<p>“Ne'ow, Mister Kingsley, you know yo'se'f that Bud +is mighty slow mouthed—he don't talk much an' I have +to do his talkin' fur him. Ne'ow Bud don't intend for +to be so mean”—she added a little softer—“but every +month about the full of the moon, Bud seems to think +somehow that it is about time fur him to make a fool +of hisse'f again. He wouldn't say nothin' fur a month—he +is quiet as a lam' an' works steady as a clock—then +all to once the fool spell 'ud hit him an' then some +crockery 'ud have to be wasted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p> + +<p>“They ain't no reason for it, Mister Kingsley—Bud +cyant sho' the rappin' of yo' finger fur havin' +sech spells along towards the full of the moon. Bud +cyant tell you why, Mister Kingsley, to save his soul—'cept +that he jes' thinks he's got to do it an' put me to +the expense of bustin' crockery.</p> + +<p>“I stood it mighty nigh two years arter Bud and me +was spliced, thinkin' maybe it war ther bed-bugs a-bitin' +Bud, long towards the full of the moon. So I watched +that pint an' killed 'em all long towards the first quarter +with quicksilver an' the white of an egg. Wal, Bud +never sed a word all that month. He never opened his +mouth an' he acted jes' lak a puf'fec' gentleman an' +a dutiful dotin' husband—(Bud wiped away a tear)—until +the time come for the fool spell to hit 'im, +an 'all to once you never seed sech a fool spell hit a +man befo'.</p> + +<p>“What you reckin' Bud done, Mister Kingsley? Bud +Billins thar, what did he do? Got mad about his biscuits—it's +the funny way the fool spell allers hits him, +he never gits mad about anything but his biscuits. +Why I cud feed Bud on dynamite an' he'd take it all +right if he cu'd eat it along with his biscuits. Onct I +put concentrated lye in his coffee by mistake. I'd never +knowed it if the pup hadn't got some of it by mistake +an' rolled over an' died in agony. I rushed to the mill +thinkin' Bud ud' be dead, sho'—but he wa'nt. He +never noticed it. I noticed his whiskers an' eyebrows +was singed off an' questioned 'im 'bout it and he 'lowed +he felt sorter quare arter he drunk his coffee, an' full +like, an' he belched an' it sot his whiskers an' eyebrows<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> +a-fiah, which ther same kinder puzzled him fur a while; +but it must be biscuits to make him raise cain. It happened +at the breakfas' table. Mind you, Mister Kingsley, +Bud didn't say it to my face—no, he never says +anything to my face—but he gits up an' picks up the +cat an' tells ther cat what he thinks of me—his own +spliced an' wedded wife—sland'in' me to the cat.”</p> + +<p>She shook her finger in his face—“You know you did, +Bud Billins—an' what you reckin he told ther cat, +Mister Kingsley—told her I was a—a—”</p> + +<p>She gasped—she clinched her fist. Bud dodged an' +tried to break away.</p> + +<p>“Told him I was a—a—heifer!”</p> + +<p>Bud looked sheepishly around—he tried even to run, +but Jud Carpenter held him fast. She shook her finger +in his face. “I heard you say it, Bud Billins, you +know I did an' I busted a plate over yo' head.”</p> + +<p>“But, my dear Madam,” said Kingsley, “that was no +reason to treat him so badly.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it wa'nt?” she shrieked—“to tattle-tale to +the house-cat about yo' own spliced an' wedded wife? +In her own home an' yard—her that you've sworn to +love an' cherish agin bed an' board—ter call her a +heifer?”</p> + +<p>She slipped her hand under her apron and produced +a deadly looking blue plate of thick cheap ware. Her +eyes blazed, her voice became husky with anger.</p> + +<p>“An' you don't think that was nothin'?” she +shrieked.</p> + +<p>“You don't understand me, my dear Madam,” said +Kingsley quickly. “I meant that it was no reason why<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> +you should continue to treat him so after he has suffered +and is sorry. Of course you have got to control Bud.”</p> + +<p>She softened and went on.</p> + +<p>“Wal it was mighty nigh a year befo' Bud paid any +mo' 'tention to the cat. The full moon quit 'fectin' +him—he even quit eatin' biscuits. Then the spell +commenced to come onct a year an' he cu'dn't pass over +blackberry winter to save his life. Mind you he never +sed anything to me about it, but one day he ups an' +gits choked on a chicken gizzerd an' coughs an' wheezes +an' goes on so like a fool that I ups with the cheer an' +comes down on his head a-thinkin' I'd make him cough +it up. I mout a bin a little riled an' hit harder'n I +orter, but I didn't mean anything by it, an' he did +cough it up on my clean floor, an' I'm willin' to say +agin' I was a little hasty, that's true, in callin' him a +lop-sided son of a pigeon-toed monkey, for Bud riled +me mighty. But what you reckin he done?”</p> + +<p>She shook her finger in his face again. Bud tried to +run again.</p> + +<p>“You kno' you done it, Bud Billins—I followed you +an' listened when you tuck up the cat an' you whispered +in the cat's year that your spliced an' wedded wife was +a—a—<i>she devil</i>!”</p> + +<p>“It tuck two plates that time, Mister Kingsley—that's +the time Bud didn't draw no pay fur two weeks.</p> + +<p>“Wal, that was over a year ago, an' Bud he's been +a behavin' mighty well, untwell this mornin'. It's true +he didn't say much, but he sed 'nuff fur me to see ther +spell was acomin' on an' I'd better bust it up befo' it +got into his blood an' sot 'im to cultivate the company<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> +of the cat. I seed I had to check the disease afore it +got too strong, fur I seed Bud was tryin' honestly to +taper off with them spells an' shake with the cat if he +cu'd, so when he kinder snorted a little this mornin' because +he didn't have but one aig an' then kinder began to +look aroun' as if he was thinkin' of mice, I busted a saucer +over his head an' fotched 'im too, grateful la'k an' +happy, to be hisse'f agin. I think he's nearly c'wored +an' I'm mighty glad you is, Bud Billins, fur it's costin' +a lot of mighty good crockery to c'wore you.</p> + +<p>“Now you all jes' lem'me 'lone, Mister Kingsley—lem'me +manage Bud. He's slo' mouthed as I'm tellin' +you, but he's gittin' over them spells an' I'm gwinter +c'wore him if I hafter go into the queensware bus'ness +on my own hook. Now, Bud Billins, you jes' go in +there now an' go to tendin' to that slubbin' machine, an' +don't you so much as look at a cat twixt now an' next +Christmas.”</p> + +<p>Bud needed no further admonition. He bolted for +the door and was soon silently at work.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> +<h3>SAMANTHA CAREWE</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">B</span>ut Jud Carpenter did not finish his work by starting +the slubbing machine. Samantha Carewe, +one of the main loom women, was absent. Going +over to her cottage, he was told by her mother, a +glinty-eyed, shrewd looking, hard featured woman—that +Samantha was “mighty nigh dead.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, she's mighty nigh dead, is she,” said Jud with +a tinge of sarcasm—“I've heurn of her bein' mighty +nigh dead befo'. Well, I wanter see her.”</p> + +<p>The mother looked at him sourly, but barred the +doorway with her form. Jud fixed his hard cunning +eyes on her.</p> + +<p>“Cyant see her; I tell you—she's mighty po'ly.”</p> + +<p>“Well, cyant you go an' tell her that Mister Jud +Cyarpenter is here an' 'ud like to kno' if he can be of +any sarvice to her in orderin' her burial robe an' coffin, +or takin' her last will an' testerment.”</p> + +<p>With that he pushed himself in the doorway, rudely +brushing the woman aside. “Now lem'me see that gyrl—” +he added sternly—“that loom is got to run or +you will starve, an' if she's sick I want to kno' it. I've +seed her have the toe-ache befo'.”</p> + +<p>The door of the room in which Samantha lay was +open, and in plain view of the hall she lay with a look<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> +of pain, feigned or real, on her face. She was a +woman past forty—a spinster truly—who had been +in the mill since it was first started, and, as she came +from a South Carolina mill to the Acme, had, in fact, +been in a cotton mill, as she said—“all her life.” For +she could not remember when, as a child even, she had +not worked in one.</p> + +<p>Her chest was sunken, her shoulders stooped, her +whole form corded and knotted with the fight against +machinery. Her skin, bronzed and sallow, looked not +unlike the hard, fine wood-work of the loom, oiled with +constant use.</p> + +<p>Jud walked in unceremoniously.</p> + +<p>“What ails you, Samanthy?” he asked, with feigned +kindness.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I dunno, Jud, but I've got a powerful hurtin' +in my innards.”</p> + +<p>“The hurtin' was so bad,” said her mother, “that I +had to put a hot rock on her stomach, last night.”</p> + +<p>She motioned to a stone lying on the hearth. Jud +glanced at it—its size staggered him.</p> + +<p>“Good Lord! an' you say you had that thing on her +stomach? Why didn't you send her up to the mill an' +let us lay a hot steam engine on her?”</p> + +<p>“What you been eatin', Samanthy?” he asked suddenly.</p> + +<p>“Nuthin', Jud—I aint got no appetite at all!”</p> + +<p>“No, she aint eat a blessed thing, hardly, to-day,” +said her mother—“jes' seemed to have lost her appetite +from a to izzard.”</p> + +<p>“I wish the store'd keep wild cherry bark and whiskey<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>—somethin' +to make us eat. We cyant work unless we +can eat,” said Samantha, woefully.</p> + +<p>“Great Scott,” said Jud, “what we want to do is to +keep you folks from eatin' so much. Lem'me see,” he +added after a pause, as if still thinking he'd get to the +source of her trouble—“Yistidday was Sunday—you +didn't have to work—now what did you eat for breakfast?”</p> + +<p>“Nothin'—oh, I aint got no appetite at all”—whined +Miss Samantha.</p> + +<p>“Well, what did you eat—I wanter find out what +ails you?”</p> + +<p>“Well, lem'me see,” said Miss Samantha, counting +on her fingers—“a biled mackrel, some fried bacon, +two pones of corn bread—kinder forced it down.”</p> + +<p>“Ur-huh—” said Jud, thoughtfully—“of course +you had to drink, too.”</p> + +<p>“Yes”—whined Miss Samantha woefully—“two +glasses of buttermilk.”</p> + +<p>Jud elevated his eyebrows “An' for dinner?”</p> + +<p>“O, Lor'. Jes' cu'dn't eat nothin' fur dinner,” she +wailed. “If the Company'd only get some cherry bark +an' whiskey”—</p> + +<p>“At dinner,” said Mrs Carewe, stroking her chin—“we +had some sour-kraut—she eat right pe'rtly of +that—kinder seemed lak a appetizer to her. She +mixed it with biled cabbage an' et right pe'rtly of it.”</p> + +<p>“An' some mo' buttermilk—it kinder cools my +stomach,” whined Miss Samantha. “An' hog-jowl, an' +corn-bread—anything else Maw?”</p> + +<p>“A raw onion in vinegar,” said her mother—“It's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> +the only thing that seems to make you want to eat a +little. An' reddishes—we had some new reddishes fur +dinner—didn't we, Samanthy?”</p> + +<p>“Good Lord,” snapped Jud—“reddishes an' buttermilk—no +wonder you needed that weight on your +stomach—it's all that kept you from floatin' in the +air. Cyant eat—O good Lord!”</p> + +<p>They were silent—Miss Samantha making wry faces +with her pain.</p> + +<p>“Of course you didn't eat no supper?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“No—we don' eat no supper Sunday night,” said +Mrs. Carewe.</p> + +<p>“Didn't eat none at all,” asked Jud—“not even a +little?”</p> + +<p>“Well, 'bout nine o'clock I thought I'd eat a little, +to keep me from gittin' hungry befo' day, so I et a raw +onion, an' some black walnuts, and dried prunes, an'—an'—”</p> + +<p>“A few apples we had in the cellar,” added her +mother, “an' a huckleberry pie, an' buttermilk—”</p> + +<p>Jud jumped up—“Good Lord, I thought you was +a fool when you said you put that stone on her stomach, +but now I know you done the right thing—you might +have anchored her by a chain to the bed post, too, in +case the rock didn't hold her down. Now look here,” +he went on to Mrs. Carewe, “I'll go to the sto' an' send +you a half pound of salts, a bottle of oil an' turbb'ntine. +Give her plenty of it an' have her at the mill by to-morrow, +or I'll cut off all your rations. As it is I +don't see that you need them, anyway, to eat”—he +sneered—“for you 'aint got no appetite at all.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>From the Carewe cottage Jud went to a small yellow +cottage on the farthest side of the valley. It was the +home of John Corbin, and Willis, his ten-year-old son, +was one of the main doffers. The father was lounging +lazily on the little front verandah, smoking his pipe.</p> + +<p>“What's the matter with Willis?” asked Jud after +he had come up.</p> + +<p>“Why, nothin'—” drawled the father. “Aint he at +the mill?”</p> + +<p>“No—the other four children of your'n is there, +but Willis aint.”</p> + +<p>The man arose with more than usual alacrity. “I'll +see that he is there—” he declared—“it's as much as +we can do to live on what they makes, an' I don't want +no dockin' for any sickness if I can he'p it.”</p> + +<p>Willis, a pale over-worked lad, was down with tonsillitis. +Jud heard the father and mother in an angry +dispute. She was trying to persuade him to let the +boy stay at home. In the end hot words were used, +and finally the father came out followed by the pale +and hungry-eyed boy.</p> + +<p>“He'd better die at the mill at work than here at +home,” the father added brutally, as Jud led him off, +“fur then the rest of us will have that much ahead to +live on.”</p> + +<p>He settled lazily back in his chair, and resumed his +smoking.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> +<h3>A QUICK CONVERSION</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">I</span>t happened that morning that the old Bishop was +on his daily round, visiting the sick of Cottontown. +He went every day, from house to house, +helping the sick, cheering the well, and better than all +things else, putting into the hearts of the disheartened +that priceless gift of coming again.</p> + +<p>For of all the gifts the gods do give to men, that +is the greatest—the ability to induce their fallen fellow +man to look up and hope again. The gift to spur +others onward—the gift to make men reach up. His +flock were all mill people, their devotion to him wonderful. +In the rush and struggle of the strenuous world +around them, this humble old man was the only being +to whom they could go for spiritual help.</p> + +<p>To-day in his rounds, one thing impressed him more +sadly than anything else—for he saw it so plainly +when he visited their homes—and that was that with +all their hard work, from the oldest to the youngest, +with all their traffic in human life, stealing the bud +along with the broken and severed stem—as a matter +of fact, the Acme mills paid out to the people but very +little money. Work as they might, they seldom saw +anything but an order on a store, for clothes and pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>visions +sold to them at prices that would make a Jew +peddler blush for shame.</p> + +<p>The Bishop found entire families who never saw a +piece of money the year round.</p> + +<p>There are families and families, and some are more +shiftless than others.</p> + +<p>In one of the cottages the old man found a broken +down little thing of seven, sick. For just such trips +he kept his pockets full of things, and such wonderful +pockets they would have been to a healthful natural +child! Ginger cakes—a regular Noah's Ark, and +apples, red and yellow. Sweet gum, too, which he had +himself gathered from the trees in the woods. And +there were even candy dolls and peppermints.</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, maybe I can help her, po' little thing,” +the Bishop said when the mother conducted him in. But +one look at her was enough—that dead, unmeaning +look, not unconscious, but unmeaning—deadened—a +disease which to a robust child would mean fever and +a few days' sickness—to this one the Bishop knew +it meant atrophy and death. And as the old man +looked at her, he thought it were better that she should +go. For to her life had long since lost its individuality, +and dwarfed her into a nerveless machine—the little +frame was nothing more than one of a thousand monuments +to the cotton mill—a mechanical thing, which +might cease to run at any time.</p> + +<p>“How old is she?” asked the Bishop, sitting down +by the child on the side of the bed.</p> + +<p>“We put her in the mill two years ago when she was +seven,” said the mother. “We was starvin' an' had to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> +do somethin'.” She added this with as much of an +apologetic tone as her nature would permit. “We told +the mill men she was ten,” she added. “We had to do +it. The fust week she got two fingers mashed off.”</p> + +<p>The Bishop was silent, then he said: “It's bes' always +to tell the truth. Liar is a fast horse, but he +never runs but one race.”</p> + +<p>Although there were no laws in Alabama against +child labor, the mill drew the lines then as now, if possible, +on very young children. Not that it cared for the +child—but because it could be brought to the mill +too young for any practical use, unless it was wise +beyond its age.</p> + +<p>He handed the little thing a ginger man. She looked +at it—the first she had ever seen,—and then at the +giver in the way a wild thing would, as if expecting +some trick in the proffered kindness; but when he tried +to caress her and spoke kindly, she shrank under the +cover and hid her head with fear.</p> + +<p>It was not a child, but a little animal—a wild being +of an unknown species in a child's skin—the missing +link, perhaps; the link missing between the natural, +kindly instinct of the wild thing, the brute, the monkey, +the anthropoid ape, which protects its young even at +the expense of its life, and civilized man of to-day, the +speaking creature, the so-called Christian creature, who +sells his young to the director-Devils of mills and machinery +and prolongs his own life by the death of his +offspring.</p> + +<p>Biology teaches that many of the very lowest forms<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> +of life eat their young. Is civilized man merely a case, +at last, of reversion to a primitive type?</p> + +<p>She hid her head and then peeped timidly from under +the cover at the kindly old man. He had seen a fox +driven into its hole by dogs do the same thing.</p> + +<p>She did not know what a smile meant, nor a caress, +nor a proffered gift. Tremblingly she lay, under the +dirty quilt, expecting a kick, a cuff.</p> + +<p>The Bishop sat down by the bedside and took out a +paper. “It'll be an hour or so I can spend,” he said +to the mother—“maybe you'd like to be doin' about +a little.”</p> + +<p>“Come to think of it, I'm pow'ful obleeged to you,” +she said. “I've all my mornin' washin' to do yit, only +I was afraid to leave her alone.”</p> + +<p>“You do yo' washin'—I'll watch her. I'm a pretty +good sort of a hoss doctor myse'f.”</p> + +<p>The child had nodded off to sleep, the Bishop was +reading his paper, when a loud voice was heard in the +hallway and some rough steps that shook the little +flimsily made floor of the cottage, and made it rock with +the tramp of them. The door opened suddenly and Jud +Carpenter, angry, boisterous, and presumptuous, entered. +The child had awakened at the sound of Carpenter's +foot fall, and now, frightened beyond control, +she trembled and wept under the cover.</p> + +<p>There are natural antipathies and they are God-given. +They are the rough cogs in the wheel of things. But +uneven as they are, rough and grating, strike them off +and the wheel would be there still, but it would not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> +turn. It is the friction of life that moves it. And +movement is the law of life.</p> + +<p>Antipathies—thank God who gave them to us! But +for them the shepherd dog would lie down with the wolf.</p> + +<p>The only man in Cottontown who did not like the +Bishop was Jud Carpenter, and the only man in the world +whom the Bishop did not love was Jud Carpenter. And +many a time in his life the old man had prayed: “O +God, teach me to love Jud Carpenter and despise his +ways.”</p> + +<p>Carpenter glared insolently at the old man quietly +reading his paper, and asked satirically. “Wal, what +ails her, doctor?”</p> + +<p>“Mill-icious fever,” remarked the Bishop promptly +with becoming accent on the first syllable, and scarcely +raising his eyes from the paper.</p> + +<p>Carpenter flushed. He had met the Bishop too often +in contests which required courage and brains not to +have discovered by now that he was no match for the +man who could both pray and fight.</p> + +<p>“They aint half as sick as they make out an' I've +come to see about it,” he added. He felt the child's +pulse. “She ain't sick to hurt. That spinner is idle +over yonder an' I guess I'll jes' be carryin' her back. +Wuck—it's the greatest tonic in the worl'—it's the +Hostetter's Bitters of life,” he added, trying to be +funny.</p> + +<p>The Bishop looked up. “Yes, but I've knowed men +to get so drunk on bitters they didn't kno' a mill-dam +from a dam'-mill!”</p> + +<p>Carpenter smiled: “Wal, she ain't hurt—guess<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> +I'll jes' git her cloze on an' take her over”—still feeling +the child's wrist while she shuddered and hid under +the cover. Nothing but her arm was out, and from the +nervous grip of her little claw-like fingers the old man +could only guess her terrible fear.</p> + +<p>“You sho'ly don't mean that, Jud Carpenter?” said +the Bishop, with surprise in his heretofore calm tone.</p> + +<p>“Wal, that's jus' what I do mean, Doctor,” remarked +Carpenter dryly, and in an irritated voice.</p> + +<p>“Jud Carpenter,” said the old man rising—“I am +a man of God—it is my faith an' hope. I'm gettin' +old, but I have been a man in my day, an' I've still got +strength enough left with God's he'p to stop you. You +shan't tech that child.”</p> + +<p>In an instant Carpenter was ablaze—profane, abusive, +insolent—and as the old man stepped between +him and the bed, the Whipper-in's anger overcame all +else.</p> + +<p>The child under the cover heard a resounding whack +and stuck her head out in time to see the hot blood leap +to the old man's cheeks where Carpenter's blow had +fallen. For a moment he paused, and then the child +saw the old overseer's huge fist gripping spasmodically, +and the big muscles of his arms and shoulders rolling +beneath the folds of his coat, as a crouching lion's skin +rolls around beneath his mane before he springs.</p> + +<p>Again and again it gripped, and relaxed—gripped +and relaxed again. Mastering himself with a great +effort, the old man turned to the man who had slapped +him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Strike the other cheek, you coward, as my Master +sed you would.”</p> + +<p>Even the child was surprised when Carpenter, half +wickedly, in rage, half tauntingly slapped the other +cheek with a blow that almost sent the preacher reeling +against the bed. Again the great fist gripped convulsively, +and the big muscles that had once pitched the +Mountain Giant over a rail fence worked—rolled beneath +their covering.</p> + +<p>“What else kin I do for you at the request of yo' +Master?” sneered Carpenter.</p> + +<p>“As He never said anything further on the subject,” +said the old man, in a dry pitched voice that told how +hard he was trying to control himself, “I take it He +intended me to use the same means that He employed +when He run the thieves an' bullies of His day out of +the temple of God.”</p> + +<p>The child thought they were embracing. It was +the old hold and the double hip-thrust, by which the +overseer had conquered so often before in his manhood's +prime. Nor was his old-time strength gone. It came +in a wave of righteous indignation, and like the gust of +a whirlwind striking the spars of a rotting ship. Never +in his life had Carpenter been snapped so nearly in two. +It seemed to him that every bone in his body broke when +he hit the floor.... It was ten minutes before +his head began to know things again. Dazed, he opened +his eyes to see the Bishop sitting calmly by his side bathing +his face with cold water. The blood had been running +from his nose, for the rag and water were colored. +His head ached.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p> + +<p>Jud Carpenter had one redeeming trait—it was an +appreciation of the humorous. No man has ever been +entirely lost or entirely miserable, who has had a touch +of humor in him. As the Bishop put a pillow under +his head and then locked the door to keep any one else +out, the ridiculousness of it all came over him, and he +said sillily:</p> + +<p>“Wal, I reckin you've 'bout converted me this time.”</p> + +<p>“Jud Carpenter,” said the Bishop, his face white +with shame, “for God's sake don't tell anybody I done +that—”</p> + +<p>Jud smiled as he arose and put on his hat. “I can +stan' bein' licked,” he added good naturedly—“because +I remember now that I've run up agin the old champion +of the Tennessee Valley—ain't that what they +useter call you?—but it does hurt me sorter, to think +you'd suppose I'd be such a damned fool as to tell it.”</p> + +<p>He felt the child's wrist again. “'Pears lak she's +got a little fever since all this excitement—guess I'll +jes' let her be to-day.”</p> + +<p>“I do think it 'ud be better, Jud,” said the Bishop +gently.</p> + +<p>And Jud pulled down his hat and slipped quietly +out.</p> + +<p>The mother never did understand from the child just +what happened. When she came in the Bishop had her +so much better that the little thing actually was playing +with his ginger cake dolls, and had eaten one of +them.</p> + +<p>It was bed time that night before the child finally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> +whispered it out: “Maw, did you ever see two men +hug each other?”</p> + +<p>“No—why?”</p> + +<p>“Why, the Bishop he hugged Jud Carpenter so +hard he fetched the bleed out of his nose!”</p> + +<p>It was her first and last sight of a ginger-man. Two +days later she was buried, and few save the old Bishop +knew she had died; for Cottontown did not care.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> +<h3>A LIVE FUNERAL</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">T</span>he next Sunday was an interesting occasion—voted +so by all Cottontown when it was over. +There was a large congregation out, caused by +the announcement of the Bishop the week before.</p> + +<p>“Nex' Sunday I intend to preach Uncle Dave Dickey's +funeral sermon. I've talked to Dave about it an' +he tells me he has got all kinds of heart disease with a +fair sprinklin' of liver an' kidney trouble an' that he +is liable to drap off any day.</p> + +<p>“I am one of them that believes that whatever bouquets +we have for the dead will do 'em mo' good if +given while they can smell; an' whatever pretty things +we've got to say over a coffin had better be said whilst +the deceased is up an' kickin' around an' can hear—an' +so Dave is pow'ful sot to it that I preach his fun'ral +whilst he's alive. An' I do hope that next Sunday +you'll all come an' hear it. An' all the bouquets you +expect to give him when he passes away, please fetch +with you.”</p> + +<p>To-day Uncle Dave was out, dressed in his long-tail +jeans frock suit with high standing collar and big +black stock. His face had been cleanly shaved, and his +hair, coming down to his shoulders, was cut square away +around his neck in the good old-fashioned way. He sat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> +on the front bench and looked very solemn and deeply +impressed. On one side of him sat Aunt Sally, and on +the other, Tilly; and the coon dog, which followed them +everywhere, sat on its tail, well to the front, looking the +very essence of concentrated solemnity.</p> + +<p>But the coon dog had several peculiar idiosyncrasies; +one of them was that he was always very deeply affected +by music—especially any music which sounded +anything like a dinner horn. As this was exactly the +way Miss Patsy Butts' organ music sounded, no sooner +did she strike up the first notes than the coon dog +joined in, with his long dismal howl—much to the +disgust of Uncle Dave and his family.</p> + +<p>This brought things to a standstill, and all the +Hillites to giggling, while Archie B. moved up and took +his seat with the mourners immediately behind the dog.</p> + +<p>Tilly looked reproachfully at Aunt Sally; Aunt Sally +looked reproachfully at Uncle Dave, who passed the reproach +on to the dog.</p> + +<p>“There now,” said Uncle Dave—“Sally an' Tilly +both said so! They both said I mustn't let him come.”</p> + +<p>He gave the dog a punch in the ribs with his huge +foot. This hushed him at once.</p> + +<p>“Be quiet Dave,” said the Bishop, sitting near—“it +strikes me you're pow'ful lively for a corpse. It's +natural for a dog to howl at his master's fun'ral.”</p> + +<p>The coon dog had come out intending to enter fully +into the solemnity of the occasion, and when the organ +started again he promptly joined in.</p> + +<p>“I'm sorry,” said the Bishop, “but I'll have to rise +an' put the chief mourner out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>It was unnecessary, for the chief mourner himself +arose just then, and began running frantically around +the pulpit with snaps, howls and sundry most painful +barks.</p> + +<p>Those who noticed closely observed that a clothes-pin +had been snapped bitingly on the very tip end of his +tail, and as he finally caught his bearing, and went +down the aisle and out of the door with a farewell howl, +they could hear him tearing toward home, quite satisfied +that live funerals weren't the place for him.</p> + +<p>What he wanted was a dead one.</p> + +<p>“Maw!” said Miss Patsy Butts—“I wish you'd +look after Archie B.”</p> + +<p>Everybody looked at Archie B., who looked up from +a New Testament in which he was deeply interested, +surprised and grieved.</p> + +<p>The organ started up again.</p> + +<p>But it grew irksome to Miss Samantha Carewe seated +on the third bench.</p> + +<p>“Ma,” she whispered, “I've heard o' fun'rals in Irelan' +where they passed around refreshments—d'ye +reckin this is goin' to be that kind? I'm gittin' pow'ful +hungry.”</p> + +<p>“Let us trust that the Lord will have it so,” said her +mother devoutly.</p> + +<p>Amid great solemnity the Bishop had gone into the +pulpit and was preaching:</p> + +<p>“It may be a little onusual,” he said, “to preach a +man's fun'ral whilst he's alive, but it will certn'ly do +him mo' good than to preach it after he's dead. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> +we're goin' to do any good to our feller man, let's do +it while he's alive.</p> + +<p>“Kind words to the livin' are more than monuments +to the dead.</p> + +<p>“Come to think about it, but ain't we foolish an' hypocritical +the way we go on over the dead that we have +forgot an' neglected whilst they lived?</p> + +<p>“If we'd reverse the thing how many a po' creature +that had given up the fight, an' shuffled off this mortal +coil fur lack of a helpin' han' would be alive to-day!</p> + +<p>“How many another that had laid down an' quit in +the back stretch of life would be up an' fightin'! Why, +the money spent for flowers an' fun'rals an' monuments +for the pulseless dead of the world would mighty nigh +feed the living dead that are always with us.</p> + +<p>“What fools we mortals be! Why, we're not a bit +better than the heathen Chinee that we love to send +missionaries to and call all kinds of hard names. The +Chinee put sweet cakes an' wine an' sech on the graves +of their departed, an' once one of our missionaries asked +his servant, Ching Lu, who had just lost his brother an' +had put all them things on his grave, when he thought +the corpse 'ud rise up an' eat them; an' Ching Lu told +him he thought the Chinee corpse 'ud rise up an' eat +his sweetmeats about the same time that the Melican +man's corpse 'ud rise up an' smell all the bouquets of +sweet flowers spread over him.</p> + +<p>“An' there we are, right on the same footin' as the +heathen an' don't know it.</p> + +<p>“David Dickey, the subject of this here fun'ral discourse, +was born on the fourth day of July, 1810, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> +pious, godly parents. Dave as a child was always a +good boy, who loved his parents, worked diligently +and never needed a lickin' in his life”—</p> + +<p>“Hold on, Bishop,” said Uncle Davy, rising and +protesting earnestly—“this is my fun'ral an' I ain't +a-goin' to have nothin' told but the exact facts: Jes' +alter that by sayin' I was a <i>tollerbul</i> good boy, <i>tollerbul</i> +diligent, with a big sprinklin' o' meanness an' laziness +in me, an' that my old daddy,—God bless his memory +for it—in them days cleared up mighty nigh a ten +acre lot of guv'ment land cuttin' off the underbrush for +my triflin' hide.”</p> + +<p>Uncle Dave sat down. The Bishop was confused a +moment, but quickly said: “Now bretherin, there's another +good p'int about preachin' a man's fun'ral whilst +he's alive. It gives the corpse a chance to correct any +errors. Why, who'd ever have thought that good old +Uncle Dave Dickey was that triflin' when he was young? +Much obliged, Dave, much obliged, I'll try to tell the +exact facts hereafter.”</p> + +<p>Then he began again:</p> + +<p>“In manner Uncle Dave was approachable an' with +a kind heart for all mankind, an' a kind word an' a +helpin' han' for the needy. He was <i>tollerbul</i> truthful”—went +on the Bishop—with a look at Uncle Davy as +if he had profited by previous interruptions.</p> + +<p>“Tell it as it was, Hillard,”—nodded Uncle Dave, +from the front bench—“jes' as it was—no lies at +my fun'ral.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Tollerbul</i> truthful,” went on the Bishop, “on all +subjects he wanted to tell the truth about. An' I'm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> +proud to say, bretherin, that after fifty odd years of +intermate acquantance with our soon-to-be-deceased +brother, you cu'd rely on him tellin' the truth in all +things except”—</p> + +<p>“Tell it as it was, Hillard—no—filigree work at +my fun'ral—” said Uncle Dave.</p> + +<p>—“Except,” went on the Bishop, “returnin' any +little change he happen'd to borry from you, or swoppin' +horses, or tellin' the size of the fish he happened to +ketch. On them p'ints, my bretherin, the lamented +corpse was pow'ful weak; an' I'm sorry to have to tell +it, but I've been warned, as you all kno', to speak the +exact facts.”</p> + +<p>“Hillard Watts,” said Uncle Dave rising hotly—“that's +a lie an' you know it!”</p> + +<p>“Sit down, Dave,” said the Bishop calmly, “I've +been preachin' fun'rals fur fifty years an' that is the +fus' time I ever was sassed by a corpse. You know +it's so an' besides I left out one thing. You're always +tellin' what kinder weather it's gwinter be to-morrow +an' missin' it. You burnt my socks off forty years ago +on the only hoss-trade I ever had with you. You owe +me five dollars you borrowed ten years ago, an' you +never caught a half pound perch in yo' life that you +didn't tell us the nex' day it was a fo' pound trout. So +set down. Oh, I'm tellin' the truth without any filigree, +Dave.”</p> + +<p>Aunt Sally and Tilly pulled Uncle Dave down while +they conversed with him earnestly. Then he arose and +said:</p> + +<p>“Hillard, I beg yo' pardon. You've spoken the truth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>—Sally +and Tilly both say so. I tell yo', bretherin,” +he said turning to the congregation—“it'd be a good +thing if we c'ud all have our fun'ral sermon now and +then correctly told. There would be so many points +brought out as seen by our neighbors that we never +saw ourselves.”</p> + +<p>“The subject of this sermon”—went on the Bishop—“the +lamented corpse-to-be, was never married but +once—to his present loving widow-to-be, and he never +had any love affair with any other woman—she bein' +his fust an' only love—”</p> + +<p>“Hillard,” said Uncle Dave rising, “I hate to—”</p> + +<p>“Set down, David Dickey,” whispered Aunt Sally, +hotly, as she hastily jerked him back in his seat with a +snap that rattled the teeth in his head:</p> + +<p>“If you get up at this time of life to make any post-mortem +an' dyin' declaration on that subject in my +presence, ye'll be takin' out a corpse sho' 'nuff!”</p> + +<p>Uncle Dave very promptly subsided.</p> + +<p>“An' the only child he's had is the present beautiful +daughter that sits beside him.”</p> + +<p>Tilly blushed.</p> + +<p>“David, I am very sorry to say, had some very +serious personal faults. He always slept with his mouth +open. I've knowed him to snore so loud after dinner +that the folks on the adjoining farm thought it was the +dinner horn.”</p> + +<p>“Now Hillard,” said Uncle Dave, rising—“do you +think it necessary to bring in all that?”</p> + +<p>“A man's fun'ral,” said the Bishop, “ain't intended +to do him any good—it's fur the coming generation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> +Boys and girls, beware of sleepin' with yo' mouth open +an' eatin' with yo' fingers an' drinkin' yo' coffee out of +the saucer, an' sayin' <i>them molasses</i> an' <i>I wouldn't choose +any</i> when you're axed to have somethin' at the table.</p> + +<p>“Dave Dickey done all that.</p> + +<p>“Brother Dave Dickey had his faults as we all have. +He was a sprinklin' of good an' evil, a mixture of diligence +an' laziness, a brave man mostly with a few yaller +crosses in him, truthful nearly always, an' lyin' mostly +fur fun an' from habit; good at times an' bad at others, +spiritual at times when it looked like he cu'd see right +into heaven's gate, an' then again racked with great +passions of the flesh that swept over him in waves of hot +desires, until it seemed that God had forgotten to make +him anything but an animal.</p> + +<p>“Come to think of it, an' that's about the way with +the rest of us?</p> + +<p>“But he aimed to do right, an' he strove constantly +to do right, an' he prayed constantly fur help to do +right, an' that's the main thing. If he fell he riz agin, +fur he had a Hand outstretched in his faith that cu'd +lift him up, an' knew that he could go to a Father that +always forgave—an' that's the main thing. Let us +remember, when we see the faults and vices of others—that +we see only what they've done—as Bobby Burns +says, we don't kno' what they have resisted. Give 'em +credit for that—maybe it over-balances. Balancin'—ah, +my bretherin, that's a gran' thing. It's the thing +on which the whole Universe hangs—the law of balance. +The pendulum every whar swings as fur back +as it did furra'd, an' the very earth hangs in space by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> +this same law. An' it holds in the moral worl' as well as +the t'other one—only man is sech a liar an' so bigoted +he can't see it. But here comes into the worl' a man +or woman filled so full of passion of every sort,—passions +they didn't make themselves either—regular +thunder clouds in the sky of life. Big with the rain, +the snow, the hail—the lightning of passion. A +spark, a touch, a strong wind an' they explode, they fall +from grace, so to speak. But what have they done +that we ain't never heard of? All we've noticed is the +explosion, the fall, the blight. They have stirred the +sky, whilst the little white pale-livered untempted clouds +floated on the zephyrs—they've brought rain that made +the earth glad, they've cleared the air in the very fall +of their lightnin'. The lightnin' came—the fall—but +give 'em credit fur the other. The little namby-pamby, +white livered, zephyr clouds that is so divine +an' useless, might float forever an' not even make a +shadow to hide men from the sun.</p> + +<p>“So credit the fallen man or woman, big with life +an' passion, with the good they've done when you debit +'em with the evil. Many a 'oman so ugly that she +wasn't any temptation even for Sin to mate with her, +has done more harm with her slanderin' tongue an' hypocrisy +than a fallen 'oman has with her whole body.</p> + +<p>“We're mortals an' we can't he'p it—animals, an' +God made us so. But we'll never fall to rise no mo' 'less +we fail to reach up fur he'p.</p> + +<p>“What then is our little sins of the flesh to the big +goodness of the faith that is in us?</p> + +<p>“For forty years Uncle Dave has been a consistent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> +member of the church—some church—it don't matter +which. For forty years he has trod the narrer path, +stumpin' his toe now an' then, but allers gettin' up agin, +for forty years he has he'ped others all he cu'd, been +charitable an' forgivin', as hones' as the temptation +would permit, an' only a natural lie now an' then as to +the weather or the size of a fish, trustin' in God to make +it all right.</p> + +<p>“An' now, in the twilight of life, when his sun is +'most set an' the dews of kindness come with old age, +right gladly will he wake up some mornin' in a better +lan', the scrub in him all bred out, the yaller streak +gone, the sins of the flesh left behind. An' that's +about the way with the most of us,—no better an' maybe +wuss—Amen!”</p> + +<p>Uncle Dave was weeping:</p> + +<p>“Oh, Hillard—Hillard,” he said, “say all that +over agin about the clouds an' the thunder of passion—say +all the last part over agin—it sounds so good!”</p> + +<p>The congregation thronged around him and shook his +hand. They gave him the flowers they had brought; +they told him how much they thought of him, how +sorry they would be to see him dead, how they had always +intended to come to see him, but had been so busy, +and to cheer up that he wasn't dead yet.</p> + +<p>“No”—said Uncle Dave, weeping—“no, an' now +since I see how much you all keer fur me I don't b'lieve—I—I +wanter die at all.”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> +<h3>JACK AND THE LITTLE ONES</h3> + +<p><span class="first">N</span>o one would ever have supposed that the big +blacksmith at the village was Jack Bracken. +All the week he worked at his trade—so full +of his new life that it shone continually in his face—his +face strong and stern, but kindly. With his +leathern apron on, his sleeves rolled up, his hairy breast +bare and shining in the open collar, physically he +looked more like an ancient Roman than a man of +to-day.</p> + +<p>His greatest pleasure was to entice little children to +his shop, talking to them as he worked. To get them +to come, he began by keeping a sack of ginger snaps +in his pockets. And the villagers used to smile at the +sight of the little ones around him, especially after +sunset when his work was finished. Often a half dozen +children would be in his lap or on his knees at once, and +the picture was so beautiful that people would stop and +look, and wonder what the big strong man saw in all +those noisy children to love.</p> + +<p>They did not know that this man had spent his life a +hunted thing; that the strong instinct of home and children +had been smothered in him, that his own little boy +had been taken, and that to him every child was a +saint.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p> + +<p>But they soon learned that the great kind-hearted, +simple man was a tiger when aroused. A small child +from the mill, sickly and timid, was among those who +stopped one morning to get one of his cakes.</p> + +<p>Not knowing it was a mill child on its way to work, +Jack detained it in all the kindness of his heart, and the +little thing was not in a hurry to go. Indeed, it forgot +all about the mill until its father happened along an +hour after it should have been at work. His name was +Joe Hopper, a ne'er-do-well whose children, by working +at the mill, supported him in idleness.</p> + +<p>Catching the child, he berated it and boxed its ears +soundly. Jack was at work, but turning, and seeing +the child chastised, he came at the man with quiet fury. +With one huge hand in Joe Hopper's collar, he boxed +his ears until he begged for mercy. “Now go,” said +Jack, as he released him, “an' know hereafter how it +feels for the strong to beat the weak.”</p> + +<p>Of all things, Jack wanted to talk with Margaret +Adams; but he could never make up his mind to seek +her out, though his love for this woman was the love of +his life. Often at night he would slip away from the +old preacher's cabin and his cot by Captain Tom's bed, +to go out and walk around her little cottage and see +that all was safe.</p> + +<p>James, her boy, peculiarly interested Jack, but it +was some time before he came to know him. He knew +the boy was Richard Travis's son, and that he alone had +stood between him and his happiness. That but for +him—the son of his mother—he would never have +been the outlaw that he was, and even now but for this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> +son he would marry her. But outlaw that he was, +Jack Bracken had no free-booting ideas of love. Never +did man revere purity in woman more than he—that +one thing barred Margaret Adams forever from his life, +though not from his heart.</p> + +<p>He felt that he would hate James Adams; but instead +he took to the lad at once—his fine strange ways, his +dignity, courage, his very aloofness and the sorrow he +saw there, drew him to the strange, silent lad.</p> + +<p>One day while at work in his shop he looked up and +saw the boy standing in the door watching him closely +and with evident admiration.</p> + +<p>“Come in, my lad,” said Jack, laying down his big +hammer. “What is yo' name?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I don't know that that makes any difference,” +he replied smiling, “I might ask you what is yours.”</p> + +<p>Jack flushed, but he pitied the lad.</p> + +<p>He smiled: “I guess you an' I could easily understan' +each other, lad—what can I do for you?”</p> + +<p>“I wanted you to fix my pistol for me, sir—and—and +I haven't anything to pay you.”</p> + +<p>Jack looked it over—the old duelling pistol. He +knew at once it was Colonel Jeremiah Travis's. The +boy had gotten it somehow. The hair-spring trigger +was out of fix. Jack soon repaired it and said:</p> + +<p>“Now, son, she's all right, and not a cent do I charge +you.”</p> + +<p>“I didn't mean that,” said the boy, flushing. “I +have no money, but I want to pay you, for I need this +pistol—need it very badly.”</p> + +<p>“To shoot rabbits?” smiled Jack.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p> + +<p>The boy did not smile. He ran his hand in his +pocket and handed Jack a thin gold ring, worn almost +to a wire; but Jack paled, and his hand shook +when he took it, for he recognized the little ring he +himself had given Margaret Adams years ago.</p> + +<p>“It's my mother's,” said the boy, “and some man +gave it to her once—long ago—for she is foolish +about it. Now, of late, I think I have found out who +that man was, and I hate him as I do hell itself. I am +determined she shall never see it again. So take it, or +I'll give it to somebody else.”</p> + +<p>“If you feel that way about it, little 'un,” said Jack +kindly, “I'll keep it for you,” and he put the precious +relic in his pocket.</p> + +<p>“Now, look here, lad,” he said, changing the subject, +“but do you know you've got an' oncommon ac'rate gun +in this old weepon?”</p> + +<p>The boy smiled—interested.</p> + +<p>“It's the salt of the earth,” said Jack, “an' I'll bet +it's stood 'twixt many a gentleman and death. Can you +shoot true, little 'un?”</p> + +<p>“Only fairly—can you?”</p> + +<p>“Some has been kind enough to give me that character”—he +said promptly. “Want me to give you a +few lessons?”</p> + +<p>The boy warmed to him at once. Jack took him behind +the shop, tied a twine string between two trees +and having loaded the old pistol with cap and powder +and ball, he stepped off thirty paces and shot the string +in twain.</p> + +<p>“Good,” said the boy smiling, and Jack handed him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> +the pistol with a boyish flush of pride in his own face.</p> + +<p>“Now, little 'un, it's this away in shootin' a weepon +like this—it's the aim that counts most. But with +my Colts now—the self-actin' ones—you've got to +cal'c'late chiefly on another thing—a kinder thing that +ain't in the books—the instinct that makes the han' an' +the eye act together an' 'lowin', at the same time, for +the leverage on the trigger.” The lad's face glowed +with excitement. Jack saw it and said: “Now I'll +give you a lesson to-day. Would you like to shoot at +that tree?” he asked kindly.</p> + +<p>“Do you suppose I could hit the string?” asked the +boy innocently.</p> + +<p>Jack had to smile. “In time—little 'un—in time +you might. You're a queer lad,” he said again laughing. +“You aim pretty high.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, then I'll never hit below my mark. Let me try +the string, please.”</p> + +<p>To humor him, Jack tied the string again, and the +boy stepped up to the mark and without taking aim, +but with that instinct which Jack had just mentioned, +that bringing of the hand and eye together unconsciously, +he fired and the string flew apart.</p> + +<p>“You damned little cuss,” shouted Jack enthusiastically, +as he grabbed the boy and hugged him—“to +make a sucker of me that way! To take me in like +that!”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said the boy, “I do nothing but shoot this +thing from morning till night. It was my great grandfather's.”</p> + +<p>And from that time the two were one.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p> + +<p>But another thing happened which cemented the tie +more strongly. One Saturday afternoon Jack took a +crowd of his boy friends down to the river for a plunge. +The afternoon was bright and warm; the frost of the +morning making the water delightful for a short +plunge. It was great sport. They all obeyed him and +swam in certain places he marked off—all except +James Adams. He boldly swam out into the deep current +of the river and came near losing his life. Jack +plunged in in time to reach him, but had to dive to get +him, he having sunk the third time. It required hard +work to revive him on the bank, but the man was strong +and swung the lad about by the heels till he got the +water out of his lungs, and his circulation started again. +James opened his eyes at last, and Jack said, smiling: +“That's all right, little 'un, but I feared onct, you was +gone.”</p> + +<p>He took the boy home, and then it was that for the +first time for fifteen years he saw and talked to the +woman he loved.</p> + +<p>“Mother,” said the boy, “this is the new blacksmith +that I've been telling you about, and he is great guns—just +pulled me out of the bottom of the Tennessee +river.”</p> + +<p>Jack laughed and said: “The little 'un ca'n't swim +as well as he can shoot, ma'am.”</p> + +<p>There was no sign of recognition between them, nothing +to show they had ever seen each other before, but +Jack saw her eyes grow tender at the first word he uttered, +and he knew that Margaret Adams loved him +then, even as she had loved him years ago.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span></p> + +<p>He stayed but a short while, and James Adams never +saw the silent battle that was waged in the eyes of each. +How Jack Bracken devoured her with his eyes,—the +comely figure, the cleanliness and sweetness of the little +cottage—his painful hungry look for this kind of +peace and contentment—the contentment of love.</p> + +<p>And James noticed that his mother was greatly embarrassed, +even to agitation, but he supposed it was because +of his narrow escape from drowning, and it +touched him even to caressing her, a thing he had never +done before.</p> + +<p>It hurt Jack—that caress. Richard Travis's boy—she +would have been his but for him. He felt a terrible +bitterness arising. He turned abruptly to go.</p> + +<p>Margaret had not spoken. Then she thanked him +and bade James change his clothes. As the boy went +in the next room to do this, she followed Jack to the +little gate and stood pale and suffering, but not able to +speak.</p> + +<p>“Good-bye,” he said, giving her his hand—“you +know, Margaret, my life—why I am here, to be near +you,—how I love you, have loved you.”</p> + +<p>“And how I love you, Jack,” she said simply.</p> + +<p>The words went through him with a fierce sweetness +that shook him.</p> + +<p>“My God—don't say that—it hurts me so, after—what +you've done.”</p> + +<p>“Jack,” she whispered sadly—“some day you'll +know—some day you'll understand that there are +things in life greater even than the selfishness of your +own heart's happiness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“They can't be,” said Jack bitterly—“that's what +all life's for—heart happiness—love. Why, hunger +and love, them's the fust things; them's the man an' +the woman; them's the law unto theyselves, the animal, +the instinct, the beast that's in us; the things that +makes God excuse all else we do to get them—we have +to have 'em. He made us so; we have to have 'em—it's +His own doin'.”</p> + +<p>“But,” she said sweetly—“suppose it meant another +to be despised, reviled, made infamous.”</p> + +<p>“They'd have to be,” he said sternly, for he was +thinking of Richard Travis—“they'd have to be, for +he made his own life.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you do not understand,” she cried. “And you +cannot now—but wait—wait, and it will be plain. +Then you'll know all and—that I love you, Jack.”</p> + +<p>He turned bitterly and walked away.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> +<h3>THE BROKEN THREAD</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">F</span>or the first time in years, the next Sunday the +little church on the mountain side was closed, +and all Cottontown wondered. Never before +had the old man missed a Sabbath afternoon since the +church had been built. This was to have been Baptist +day, and that part of his congregation was sorely disappointed.</p> + +<p>For an hour Bud Billings had stood by the little gate +looking down the big stretch of sandy road, expecting +to see the familiar shuffling, blind old roan coming:</p> + +<p>“Sum'pins happened to Ben Butler,” said Bud at +last—and at thought of such a calamity, he sat down +and shed tears.</p> + +<p>His simple heart yearned for pity, and feeling something +purring against him he picked up the cat and +coddled it.</p> + +<p>“You seem to be cultivatin' that cat again, Bud +Billings,” came a sharp voice from the cabin window.</p> + +<p>Bud dropped the animal quickly and struck out across +the mountain for the Bishop's cabin.</p> + +<p>But he was not prepared for the shock that came to +his simple heart: Shiloh was dying—the Bishop himself +told him so—the Bishop with a strange, set, hard +look in his eyes—a look which Bud had never seen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> +there before, for it was sorrow mingled with defiance—in +that a great wrong had been done and done over his +protest. It was culpable sorrow too, somewhat, in that +he had not prevented it, and a heart-hardening sorrow +in that it took the best that he loved.</p> + +<p>“She jes' collapsed, Bud—sudden't like—wilted +like a vi'let that's stepped on, an' the Doctor says she's +got no sho' at all, ther' bein' nothin' to build on. She +don't kno' nothin'—ain't knowed nothin' since last +night, an' she thinks she's in the mill—my God, it's +awful! The little thing keeps reaching out in her delirium +an' tryin' to piece the broken threads, an' then +she falls back pantin' on her pillow an' says, pitful like—'<i>the +thread—the thread is broken!</i>' an' that's jes' +it, Bud—the thread <i>is</i> broken!”</p> + +<p>Tears were running down the old man's cheeks, and +that strange thing which now and then came up in Bud's +throat and stopped him from talking came again. He +walked out and sat under a tree in the yard. He looked +at the other children sitting around stupid—numbed—with +the vague look in their faces which told that a +sorrow had fallen, but without the sensitiveness to know +or care where. He saw a big man, bronzed and hard-featured, +but silent and sorrowful, walking to and fro. +Now and then he would stop and look earnestly through +the window at the little still figure on the bed, and then +Bud would hear him say—“<i>like little Jack—like little +Jack</i>.”</p> + +<p>The sun went down—the stars came up—but Bud +sat there. He could do nothing, but he wanted to be +there.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span></p> + +<p>When the lamp was lighted in the cabin he could see +all within the home and that an old man held on a large +pillow in his lap a little child, and that he carried her +around from window to window for air, and that the +child's eyes were fixed, and she was whiter than the pillow. +He also saw an old woman, lantern-jawed and +ghostly, tidying around and she mumbling and grumbling +because no one would give the child any turpentine.</p> + +<p>And still Bud sat outside, with that lump in his throat, +that thing that would not let him speak.</p> + +<p>Late at night another man came up with saddle bags, +and hitching his horse within a few feet of Bud, walked +into the cabin.</p> + +<p>He was a kindly man, and he stopped in the doorway +and looked at the old man, sitting with the sick child +in his lap. Then he pulled a chair up beside the old +man and took the child's thin wrist in his hand. He +shook his head and said:</p> + +<p>“No use, Bishop—better lay her on the bed—she +can't live two hours.”</p> + +<p>Then he busied himself giving her some drops from +a vial.</p> + +<p>“When you get through with your remedy and give +her up,” said the old man slowly—“I'm gwinter try +mine.”</p> + +<p>The Doctor looked at the old man sorrowfully, and +after a while he went out and rode home.</p> + +<p>Then the old man sent them all to bed. He alone +would watch the little spark go out.</p> + +<p>And Bud alone in the yard saw it all. He knew he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> +should go home—that it was now past midnight, but +somehow he felt that the Bishop might need him.</p> + +<p>He saw the moon go down, and the big constellations +shine out clearer. Now and then he could see the old +nurse reach over and put his ear to the child's mouth +to see if it yet breathed. But Bud thought maybe he +was listening for it to speak, for he could see the old +man's lips moving as he did when he prayed at church. +And Bud could not understand it, but never before in +his life did he feel so uplifted, as he sat and watched the +old man holding the little child and praying. And all +the hours that he sat there, Bud saw that the old man +was praying as he had never prayed before. The intensity +of it increased and began to be heard, and then +Bud crept up to the window and listened, for he dearly +loved to hear the Bishop, and amid the tears that ran +down his own cheek, and the quick breathing which came +quicker and quicker from the little child in the lap, Bud +heard:</p> + +<p>“<i>Save her, oh, God, an' if I've done any little thing +in all my po' an' blunderin' life that's entitled to credit +at Yo' han's, give it now to little Shiloh, for You can +if You will. If there's any credit to my account in the +Book of Heaven, hand it out now to the little one robbed +of her all right up to the door of death. She that is +named Shiloh, which means rest. Do it, oh, God,—take +it from my account if she ain't got none yet herse'f, +an' I swear to You with the faith of Abraham that +henceforth I will live to light a fire-brand in this valley +that will burn out this child slavery, upheld now by ig<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>norance +and the greed of the gold lovers. Save little +Shiloh, for You can.</i>”</p> + +<p>Bud watched through the crisis, the shorter and +shorter breaths, the struggle—the silence when, only by +holding the lighted candle to her mouth, could the old +man tell whether she lived or not. And Bud stood outside +and watched his face, lit up like a saint in the light +of the candle falling on his silvery hair, whiter than +the white sand of Sand Mountain, a stern, strong face +with lips which never ceased moving in prayer, the eyes +riveted on the little fluttering lips. And watching the +stern, solemn lips set, as Bud had often seen the white +stern face of Sunset Rock, when the clouds lowered +around it, suddenly he saw them relax and break silently, +gently, almost imperceptibly into a smile which made +the slubber think the parting sunset had fallen there; +and Bud gripped the window-sill outside, and swallowed +and swallowed at the thing in his throat, and stood tersely +wiggling on his strained tendons, and then almost +shouted when he saw the smile break all over the old +man's face and light up his eyes till the candle's flickering +light looked pale, and saw him bow his head and +heard him say:</p> + +<p>“<i>Lord God Almighty ... My God ... My +own God ... an' You ain't never gone back +on me yet.... 'Bless the Lord all my soul, an' +all that is within me; bless His Holy Name!'</i>”</p> + +<p>Bud could not help it. He laughed out hysterically. +And then the old face, still smiling, looked surprised +at the window and said: “Go home, Bud. God is the +Great Doctor, an' He has told me she shall live.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>Then, as he turned to go, his heart stood still, for he +heard Shiloh say in her little piping child voice, but, oh, +so distinctly, and so sweetly, like a bird in the forest:</p> + +<p>“Pap, sech a sweet dream—an' I went right up to +the gate of heaven an' the angel smiled an' kissed me +an' sed:</p> + +<p>“'Go back, little Shiloh—not yet—not yet!'”</p> + +<p>Then Bud slipped off in the dawn of the coming +light.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> +<h3>GOD WILL PROVIDE</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">I</span>n a few days Shiloh was up, but the mere shadow +of a little waif, following the old man around the +place. She needed rest and good food and clothes; +and Bull Run and Seven Days and Appomattox and +Atlanta needed them, and where to get them was the +problem which confronted the grandfather.</p> + +<p>Shiloh's narrow escape from death had forever settled +the child-labor question with him—he would starve, +“by the Grace of God,” as he expressed it, before one +of them should ever go into the mill again.</p> + +<p>He had a bitter quarrel about it with Mrs. Watts; +but the good old man's fighting blood was up at last—that +hatred of child-slavery, which had been so long +choked by the smoke of want, now burst into a blaze +when the shock of it came in Shiloh's collapse—a blaze +which was indeed destined “to light the valley with a +torch of fire.”</p> + +<p>On the third day Jud Carpenter came out to see +about it; but at sight of him the old man took down +from the rack over the hall door the rifle he had carried +through the war, and with a determined gesture he +stopped the employment agent at the gate: “I am a +man of God, Jud Carpenter,” he said in a strange voice, +rounded with a deadly determination, “but in the name<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> +of God an' humanity, if you come into that gate after +my little 'uns, I'll kill you in yo' tracks, jes' as a bis'n +bull 'ud stamp the life out of a prowlin' coyote.”</p> + +<p>And Jud Carpenter went back to town and spread the +report that the old man was a maniac, that he had lost +his mind since Shiloh came so near dying.</p> + +<p>The problem which confronted the old man was serious.</p> + +<p>“O Jack, Jack,” he said one night, “if I jes' had +some of that gold you had!”</p> + +<p>Jack replied by laying ten silver dollars in the old +man's hand.</p> + +<p>“I earned it,”—he said simply—“this week—shoeing +horses—it's the sweetest money I ever got.”</p> + +<p>“Why, Jack,” said the Bishop—“this will feed us +for a week. Come here, Tabitha,” he called cheerily—“come +an' see what happens to them that cast their +bread upon the waters. We tuck in this outcast an' +now behold our bread come back ag'in.”</p> + +<p>The old woman came up and took it gingerly. She +bit each dollar to test it, remarking finally: “Why, +hit's genuwine!”—</p> + +<p>Jack laughed.</p> + +<p>“Why, hit's mo' money'n I've seed fur years,” she +said—“I won't hafter hunt fur 'sang roots to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“Jack,” said the Bishop, after the others had retired, +and the two men sat in Captain Tom's cabin—“Jack, +I've been thinkin' an' thinkin'—I must make some +money.”</p> + +<p>“How much?” asked Jack.</p> + +<p>“A thousand or two.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“That's a lot of money,” said the outlaw quickly. +“A heap fur you to need.”</p> + +<p>“It's not fur me,” he said—“I don't need it—I +wouldn't have it for myself. It's for him—see!” he +pointed to the sleeping man on the low cot. “Jack, +I've been talkin' to the Doctor—he examined Cap'n +Tom's head, and he says it'd be an easy job—that it's +a shame it ain't been done befo'—that in a city to the +North,—he gave me the name of a surgeon there who +could take that pressure from his head and make him +the man he was befo'—the <i>man</i>, mind you, the <i>man</i> he +was befo'.”</p> + +<p>Jack sat up excited. His eyes glittered.</p> + +<p>“Then there's Shiloh,” went on the old man—“it'll +mean life to her too—life to git away from the mill.</p> + +<p>“Cap'n Tom and Shiloh—I must have it, Jack—I +must have it. God will provide a way. I'd give my +home—I'd give everything—just to save them two—Cap'n +Tom and little Shiloh.”</p> + +<p>He felt a touch on his shoulder and looked up.</p> + +<p>Jack Bracken stood before him, clutching the handle +of his big Colt's revolver, and his hat was pulled low +over his eyes. He was flushed and panting. A glitter +was in his eyes, the glitter of the old desperado spirit +returned.</p> + +<p>“Bishop,” he said, “ever' now and then it comes +over me ag'in, comes over me—the old dare-devil feelin'.” +He held up his pistol: “All week I've missed +somethin'. Last night I fingered it in my sleep.”</p> + +<p>He pressed it tenderly. “Jes' you say the word,” +he whispered, “an' in a few hours I'll be back here with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> +the coin. Shipton's bank is dead easy an' he is a money +devil with a cold heart.” The old man laughed and +took the revolver from him.</p> + +<p>“It's hard, I know, Jack, to give up old ways. I +must have made po' Cap'n Tom's and Shiloh's case out +terrible to tempt you like that. But not even for them—no—no—not +even for them. Set down.”</p> + +<p>Jack sat down, subdued. Then the Bishop pulled +out a paper from his pocket and chuckled.</p> + +<p>“Now, Jack, you're gwinter have the laugh on me, +for the old mood is on me an' I'm yearnin' to do this jes' +like you yearn to hold up the bank ag'in. It's the old +instinct gettin' to wurk. But, Jack, you see—this—mine—ain't +so bad. God sometimes provides in an onexpected +way.”</p> + +<p>“What is it?” asked Jack.</p> + +<p>The old man chuckled again. Then Jack saw his +face turn red—as if half ashamed: “Why should I +blame you, Jack, fur I'm doin' the same thing mighty +nigh—I'm longin' for the flesh pots of Egypt. As I +rode along to-day thinkin'—thinkin'—thinkin'—how +can I save the children an' Cap'n Tom, <i>how can I get a +little money to send Cap'n Tom off to the Doctor</i>—an' +also repeatin' to myself—'<i>The Lord will provide—He +will provide—</i>' I ran up to this, posted on a tree, +an' kinder starin' me an' darin' me in the face.”</p> + +<p>He laughed again: “Jes' scolded you, Jack, but +see here. See how the old feelin' has come over me at +sight of this bragging, blow-hard challenge. It makes +my blood bile.</p> + +<p>“Race horse?—Why, Richard Travis wouldn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> +know a real race horse if he had one by the tail. It's +disgustin'—these silk-hat fellers gettin' up a three-cornered +race, an' then openin' it up to the valley—knowin' +they've put the entrance fee of fifty dollars so high +that no po' devil in the County can get in, even if he +had a horse equal to theirs.</p> + +<p>“Three thousan' dollars!—think of it! An' then +Richard Travis rubs it in. He's havin' fun over it—he +always would do that. Read the last line ag'in—in +them big letters:</p> + +<p>“'<i>Open to anything raised in the Tennessee Valley</i>.'</p> + +<p>“Fine fun an' kinder sarcastic, but, Jack, Ben Butler +cu'd make them blooded trotters look like steers led +to slaughter.”</p> + +<p>Jack sat looking silently in the fire.</p> + +<p>“If I had the entrance fee I'd do it once—jes' once +mo' befo' I die? Once mo' to feel the old thrill of victory! +An' for Cap'n Tom an' Shiloh. God'll provide, +Jack—God'll provide!”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> +<h3>BONAPARTE'S WATERLOO</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">B</span>onaparte lay on the little front porch—the +loafing place which opened into Billy Buch's +bar-room. Apparently, he was asleep and basking +in the warm Autumn sunshine. In reality he was +doing his star trick and one which could have originated +only in the brains of a born genius. Feigning sleep, he +thus enticed within striking distance all the timid country +dogs visiting Cottontown for the first time, and +viewing its wonders with a palpitating heart. Then, +like a bolt from the sky, he would fall on them, appalled +and paralyzed—a demon with flashing teeth and abbreviated +tail.</p> + +<p>When finally released, with lacerated hides and wounded +feelings, they went rapidly homeward, and they told +it in dog language, from Dan to Beersheba, that Cottontown +was full of the terrible and the unexpected.</p> + +<p>And a great morning he had had of it—for already +three humble and unsuspecting curs, following three +humble and unsuspecting countrymen who had walked +in to get their morning's dram, had fallen victims to his +guile.</p> + +<p>Each successful raid of Bonaparte brought forth +shouts of laughter from within, in which Billy Buch, +the Dutch proprietor, joined. It always ended in Bona<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>parte +being invited in and treated to a cuspidor of beer—the +drinking, with the cuspidor as his drinking horn, +being part of his repertoire. After each one Billy +Buch would proudly exclaim:</p> + +<p>“Mine Gott, but dat Ponyparte ees one greet dog!”</p> + +<p>Then Bonaparte would reel around in a half drunken +swagger and go back to watch for other dogs.</p> + +<p>“I tell you, Billy,” said Jud Carpenter—“Jes' +watch that dog. They ain't no dog on earth his e'kal +when it comes to brains. Them country dogs aflyin' up +the road reminds me of old Uncle Billy Alexander who +paid for his shoes in bacon, and paid every spring in +advance for the shoes he was to get in the fall. But +one fall when he rid over after his shoes, the neighbors +said the shoemaker had gone—gone for good—to +Texas to live—gone an' left his creditors behin'. +Uncle Billy looked long an' earnestly t'wards the settin' +sun, raised his han's to heaven an' said: 'Good-bye, +my bacon!'”</p> + +<p>Billy Buch laughed loudly.</p> + +<p>“Dat ees goot—goot—goot-bye, mine bac'n! I +dus remember dat.”</p> + +<p>Bonaparte had partaken of his fourth cuspidor of +beer and was in a delightful state of swagger and fight +when he saw an unusual commotion up the street. What +was it, thought Bonaparte—a crowd of boys and men +surrounding another man with an organ and leading a +little devil of a hairy thing, dressed up like a man.</p> + +<p>His hair bristled with indignation. That little thing +dividing honors with him in Cottontown? It was not +to be endured for a moment!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span></p> + +<p>Bonaparte stood gazing in indignant wonder. He +slowly arose and shambled along half drunkenly to see +what it all meant. A crowd had gathered around the +thing—the insignificant thing which was attracting +more attention in Cottontown than himself, the champion +dog. Among them were some school boys, and one +of them, a red-headed lad, was telling his brother all +about it.</p> + +<p>“Now, Ozzie B., this is a monkey—the furst you've +ever seed. He looks jes' like I told you—sorter like +a man an' sorter like a nigger an' sorter like a groun' +hog.”</p> + +<p>“The pretties' thing I ever seed,” said Ozzie B., +walking around and staring delightedly.</p> + +<p>The crowd grew larger. It was a show Cottontown +had never seen before.</p> + +<p>Then two men came out of the bar-room—one, the +bar-keeper, fat and jolly, and the other lank and with +malicious eyes.</p> + +<p>This gave Bonaparte his cue and he bristled and +growled.</p> + +<p>“Look out, mister,” said the tender-hearted Ozzie B. +to the Italian, “watch this here dog, Bonaparte; he's +terrible 'bout fightin'. He'll eat yo' monkey if he gets +a chance.”</p> + +<p>“Monk he noo 'fear'd ze dog,” grinned the Italian. +“Monk he whup ze dog.”</p> + +<p>“Vot's dat?” exclaimed Billy Buch—“Vot's dat, +man, you say? Mine Gott, I bet ten to one dat Ponyparte +eats him oop!”</p> + +<p>To prove it Bonaparte ran at the monkey savagely.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> +But the monkey ran up on the Italian's shoulder, where +he grinned at the dog.</p> + +<p>The Italian smiled. Then he ran his hand into a +dirty leathern belt which he carried around his waist—and +slowly counted out some gold coins. With a smile +fresh as the skies of Italy, full of all sweetness, gentleness +and suavity:</p> + +<p>“Cover zees, den, py Gar!”</p> + +<p>Billy gasped and grasped Jud around the neck where +he clung, with his Dutch smile frozen on his lips. Jud, +with collapsed under jaw, looked sheepishly around. +Bonaparte tried to stand, but he, too, sat down in a +heap.</p> + +<p>The crowd cheered the Italian.</p> + +<p>“We will do it, suh,” said Jud, who was the first to +recover, and who knew he would get his part of it from +Billy.</p> + +<p>“Ve vill cover eet,” said Billy, with ashen face.</p> + +<p>“We will!” barked Bonaparte, recovering his equilibrium +and snarling at the monkey.</p> + +<p>There was a sob and a wail on the outskirts of the +crowd.</p> + +<p>“Oh, don't let him kill the monkey—oh, don't!”</p> + +<p>It was Ozzie B.</p> + +<p>Archie B. ran hastily around to him, made a cross +mark in the road with his toe and spat in it.</p> + +<p>“You're a fool as usual, Ozzie B.,” he said, shaking +his brother. “Can't you see that Italian knows what +he's about? If he'd risk that twenty, much as he loves +money, he'd risk his soul. <i>Venture pee-wee under the +bridge—bam—bam—bam!</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>Ozzie B. grew quieter. Somehow, what Archie B. +said always made things look differently. Then Archie +B. came up and whispered in his ear: “I'm fur the +monkey—the Lord is on his side.”</p> + +<p>Ozzie B. thought this was grand.</p> + +<p>Then Archie B. hunted for his Barlow pocket knife. +Around his neck, tied with a string, was a small greasy, +dirty bag, containing a piece of gum asafœtida and a +ten-dollar gold piece. The asafœtida was worn to +keep off contagious diseases, and the gold piece, which +represented all his earthly possessions, had been given +him by his grandmother the year she died.</p> + +<p>Archie B. was always ready to “swap sight under +seen.” He played marbles for keeps, checkers for apples, +ran foot-races for stakes, and even learned his +Sunday School lessons for prizes.</p> + +<p>The Italian still stood, smiling, when a small red-headed +boy came up and touched him on the arm. He +put a ten-dollar gold piece into the Italian's hand.</p> + +<p>“Put this in for me, mister—an' make 'em put up +a hundred mo'. I want some of that lucre.”</p> + +<p>The Italian was touched. He patted Archie B.'s +head:</p> + +<p>“Breens,” he said, “breens uppa da.”</p> + +<p>Again he shook the gold in the face of Jud and Bill.</p> + +<p>“Now bring on ze ten to one, py Gar!”</p> + +<p>The cheers of the crowd nettled Billy and Jud.</p> + +<p>“Jes' wait till we come back,” said Jud. “'He +laughs bes' who laughs las'.'”</p> + +<p>They retired for consultation.</p> + +<p>Bonaparte followed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span></p> + +<p>Within the bar-room they wiped the cold perspiration +from their faces and looked speechlessly into each other's +eyes. Billy spoke first.</p> + +<p>“Mine Gott, but we peek it oop in de road, Jud?”</p> + +<p>“It seems that way to me—a dead cinch.”</p> + +<p>Bonaparte was positive—only let him get to the +monkey, he said with his wicked eyes.</p> + +<p>Billy looked at Bonaparte, big, swarthy, sinewy and +savage. He thought of the little monkey.</p> + +<p>“Dees is greet!—dees is too goot!—Jud, we peek +it oop in de road, heh?”</p> + +<p>“I'm kinder afraid we'll wake an' find it a dream, +Billy—hurry up. Get the cash.”</p> + +<p>Billy was thoughtful: “Tree hun'd'd dollars—Jud—eef—eef—” +he shook his head.</p> + +<p>“Now, Billy,” said Jud patronizingly—“that's nonsense. +Bonaparte will eat him alive in two minutes. +Now, he bein' my dorg, jes' you put up the coin an' let +me in on the ground floor. I'll pay it back—if we +lose—” he laughed. “<i>If</i> we lose—it's sorter like sayin' +if the sun don't rise.”</p> + +<p>“Dat ees so, Jud, we peek eet oop in de road. But +eef we don't peek eet oop, Billy ees pusted!”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said Jud, “it's all like takin' candy from your +own child.”</p> + +<p>The news had spread and a crowd had gathered to +see the champion dog of the Tennessee Valley eat up a +monkey. All the loafers and ne'er-do-wells of Cottontown +were there. The village had known no such excitement +since the big mill had been built.</p> + +<p>They came up and looked sorrowfully at the monkey,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> +as they would look in the face of the dead. But, considering +that he had so short a time to live, he returned +the grin with a reverence which was sacrilegious.</p> + +<p>“So han'sum—so han'sum,” said Uncle Billy Caldwell, +the squire. “So bright an' han'sum an' to die so +young!”</p> + +<p>“It's nothin' but murder,” said another.</p> + +<p>This proved too much for Ozzie B.—</p> + +<p>“Don't—d-o-n-'t—let him kill the monkey,” he +cried.</p> + +<p>There was an electric flash of red as Archie B. ran +around the tree and kicked the sobs back into his brother.</p> + +<p>“Just wait, Ozzie B., you fool.”</p> + +<p>“For—what?” sobbed Ozzie.</p> + +<p>“For what the monkey does to Bonaparte,” he shouted +triumphantly.</p> + +<p>The crowd yelled derisively: “<i>What the monkey +does to Bonaparte—that's too good?</i>”</p> + +<p>“Boy,” said Uncle Billy kindly—“don't you know +it's ag'in nachur—why, the dorg'll eat him up!”</p> + +<p>“That's rot,” said Archie B. disdainfully. Then +hotly: “Yes, it wus ag'in nachur when David killed +Goliath—when Sampson slew the lion, and when we +licked the British. Oh, it wus ag'in nachur then, but +it looks mighty nach'ul now, don't it? Jes' you wait +an' see what the monkey does to Bonaparte. I tell you, +Uncle Billy, the Lord's on the monkey's side—can't +you see it?”</p> + +<p>Uncle Billy smiled and shook his head. He was interrupted +by low laughter and cheers. A villager had +drawn a crude picture on a white paste-board and was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> +showing it around. A huge dog was shaking a lifeless +monkey and under it was written:</p> + +<p>“What Bonaparte Done To The Monkey!”</p> + +<p>Archie B. seized it and spat on it derisively: “Oh, +well, that's the way of the worl',” he said. “God makes +one wise man to see befo', an' a million fools to see afterwards.”</p> + +<p>The depths of life's mysteries have never yet been +sounded, and one of the wonders of it all is that one +small voice praying for flowers in a wilderness of thorns +may live to see them blossom at his feet.</p> + +<p>“I've seed stranger things than that,” remarked Uncle +Billy thoughtfully. “The boy mout be right.”</p> + +<p>And now Jud and Billy were seen coming out of the +store, with their hands full of gold.</p> + +<p>“Eet's robbery—eet's stealin'”—winked Billy at +the crowd—“eet's like takin' it from a babe—”</p> + +<p>With one accord the crowd surged toward the back +lot, where Bonaparte, disgusted with the long delay, +had lain down on a pile of newly-blown leaves and slept. +Around the lot was a solid plank fence, with one gate +open, and here in the lot, sound asleep in the sunshine, +lay the champion.</p> + +<p>The Italian brought along the monkey in his arms. +Archie B. calmly and confidently acting as his bodyguard. +Jud walked behind to see that the monkey did +not get away, and behind him came Ozzie B. sobbing in +his hiccoughy way:</p> + +<p>“Don't let him kill the po' little thing!”</p> + +<p>He could go no farther than the gate. There he +stood weeping and looking at the merciless crowd.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span></p> + +<p>Bonaparte was still asleep on his pile of leaves. Jud +would have called and wakened him, but Archie B. said: +“Oh, the monkey will waken him quick enough—let +him alone.”</p> + +<p>In the laugh which followed, Jud yielded and Archie +B. won the first blood in the battle of brains.</p> + +<p>The crowd now stood silent and breathless in one corner +of the lot. Only Ozzie B.'s sobs were heard. In the +far corner lay Bonaparte.</p> + +<p>The Italian stooped, and unlinking the chain of the +monkey's collar, sat him on the ground and, pointing to +the sleeping dog, whispered something in Italian into +his pet's ear.</p> + +<p>The crowd scarcely drew its breath as it saw the little +animal slipping across the yard to its death.</p> + +<p>Within three feet of the dog he stopped, then springing +quickly on Bonaparte, with a screeching, bloodcurdling +yell, grabbed his stump of a tail in both hands, +and as the crowd rushed up, they heard its sharp teeth +close on Bonaparte's most sensitive member with the +deadly click of a steel trap.</p> + +<p>The effect was instantaneous. A battery could not +have brought the champion to his feet quicker. With +him came the monkey—glued there—a continuation +of the dog's tail.</p> + +<p>Around and around went Bonaparte, snarling and +howling and making maddening efforts to reach the +monkey. But owing to the shortness of Bonaparte's +tail, the monkey kept just out of reach, its hind legs +braced against the dog, its teeth and nails glued to the +two inches of tail.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p> + +<p>Around and around whirled Bonaparte, trying to +throw off the things which had dropped on him, seemingly, +from the skies. His growls of defiance turned to +barks, then to bowls of pain and finally, as he ran near +to Archie B., he was heard to break into yelps of fright +as he broke away dashing around the lot in a whirlwind +of leaves and dust.</p> + +<p>The champion dog was running!</p> + +<p>“Sick him, Bonaparte, grab him—turn round an' +grab him!” shouted Jud pale to his eyes, and shaking +with shame.</p> + +<p>“Seek heem, Ponyparte—O mine Gott, seek him,” +shouted Billy.</p> + +<p>Jud rushed and tried to head the dog, but the champion +seemed to have only one idea in his head—to get +away from the misery which brought up his rear.</p> + +<p>Around he went once more, then seeing the gate open, +he rushed out, knocking Ozzie B. over into the dust, and +when the crowd rushed out, nothing could be seen except +a cloud of dust going down the village street, in the hind +most cloud of it a pair of little red coat tails flapping +in the breeze.</p> + +<p>Then the little red coat tails suddenly dropped out of +the cloud of dust and came running back up the road to +meet its master.</p> + +<p>Jud watched the vanishing cloud of dust going toward +the distant mountains.</p> + +<p>“My God—not Bonaparte—not the champion,” +he said.</p> + +<p>Billy stood also looking with big Dutch tears in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> +eyes. He watched the cloud of dust go over the distant +hills. Then he waved his hand sadly—</p> + +<p>“Goot-pye, mine bac'n!”</p> + +<p>The monkey came up grinning triumphantly.</p> + +<p>Thinking he had done something worthy of a penny, +he added to Billy Buch's woe by taking off his comical +cap and passing it around for a collection.</p> + +<p>He was honest in it, but the crowd took it as irony, +and amid their laughter Jud and Billy slipped away.</p> + +<p>Uncle Billy, the stake-holder, in handing the money +over to the Italian, remarked:</p> + +<p>“Wal, it don't look so much ag'in nachur now, after +all.”</p> + +<p>“Breens uppa dar”—smiled the Italian as he put +ten eagles into Archie B.'s hand. All of which made +Archie B. vain, for the crowd now cheered him as they +had jeered before.</p> + +<p>“Come, let's go, Ozzie B.,” he said. “They ain't +no man livin' can stand too much heroism.”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> +<h3>A BORN NATURALIST</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">A</span>rchie B. trotted off, striking a path leading +through the wood. It was a near cut to the +log school house which stood in an old field, +partly grown up in scrub-oaks and bushes.</p> + +<p>Down in the wood, on a clean bar where a mountain +stream had made a bed of white sand, he stopped, pulled +off his coat, counted his gold again with eyes which +scarcely believed it yet, and then turned handsprings +over and over in the white sand.</p> + +<p>This relieved him of much of the suppressed steam +which had been under pressure for two hours. Then +he sat down on a log and counted once more his gold.</p> + +<p>Ozzie B., pious, and now doubly so at sight of his +brother's wealth, stood looking over his shoulder:</p> + +<p>“It was the good Lord done it,” he whispered reverently, +as he stood and looked longingly at the gold.</p> + +<p>“Of course, but I helped at the right time, that's the +way the Lord does everything here.”</p> + +<p>Then Archie B. went down into his coat pocket and +brought out a hollow rubber ball, with a small hole in +one end. Ozzie B. recognized his brother's battery of +Gypsy Juice.</p> + +<p>“How—when, oh, Archie B.!”</p> + +<p>“-S-h-h—Ozzie B. It don't pay to show yo' hand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> +even after you've won—the other feller might remember +it nex' time. 'Taint good business sense. But I +pumped it into Bonaparte at the right time when he +was goin' round an' round an' undecided whether he'd +take holt or git. This settled him—he got. The +Lord was on the monkey's side, of course, but He needed +Gypsy Juice at the right time.”</p> + +<p>Then he showed Ozzie B. how it was done. “So, with +yo' hand in yo' pocket—so! Then here comes Bonaparte +round an' round an' skeered mighty nigh to the +runnin' point. So—then sczit! It wus enough.”</p> + +<p>Ozzie B. shuddered: “You run a terrible risk doin' +that. They'd have killed you if they'd seen it, Jud an' +Billy. An' all yo' money up too.”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said his brother, “but Ozzie B., when +you bluff, bluff bold; when you bet, bet big; when you +steal, steal straight.”</p> + +<p>Ozzie B. shook his head. Then he looked up at the +sun high above the trees.</p> + +<p>He sprang up from the log, pale and scared.</p> + +<p>“Archie B.—Archie B., jes' look at the sun! It +must be 'leven o'clock an—an think what we'll ketch +for bein' late at school. Oh, but I clean forgot—oh—”</p> + +<p>He started off trembling.</p> + +<p>“Hold on, hold on!” said his brother running and +catching Ozzie B. in the coat collar. “Now you sho'ly +ain't goin' to be sech a fool as that? It's too late to go +now; we'll only ketch a whuppin'. We are goin' to +play hookey to-day.”</p> + +<p>But Ozzie B. only shook his head. “That's wrong<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>—so +wrong. The Lord—He will not bless us—maw +says so. Oh, I can't, Archie B.”</p> + +<p>“Now look here, Ozzie B. The Lord don't expec' +nobody but a fool to walk into a tan-hidin'. If you go +to school now, old Triggers will tan yo' hide, see? +Then he'll send word to paw an' when you get home to-night +you'll git another one.”</p> + +<p>“Maw said I was to allers do my duty. Oh, I can't +tell him a lie!”</p> + +<p>“You've got to lie, Ozzie B. They's times when +everybody has got to lie. Afterwards when it's all over +an' understood they can square it up in other ways. +When a man or 'oman is caught and downed it's all +over—they can't tell the truth then an' get straight—an' +there's no come ag'in! But if they lie an' brazen it +out they'll have another chance yet. Then's the time +to stop lyin'—after yo' ain't caught.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I can't,” said Ozzie B., trying to pull away. +“I must—must go to school.”</p> + +<p>“Rats”—shouted Archie B., seizing him with both +hands and shaking him savagely—“here I am argu'in' +with you about a thing that any fool orter see when I +cu'd a bin yonder a huntin' for that squirrel nest I wus +tellin' you about. Now what'll happen if you go to +school? Ole Triggers'll find out where you've been +an' what a-doin'—he'll lick you. Paw'll know all +about it when you git home—he'll lick you.”</p> + +<p>Ozzie B. only shook his head: “It's my duty—hate +to do it, Archie B.—but it's my duty. If the +Lord wills me a lickin' for tellin' the truth, I'll, I'll +hafter take it—” and he looked very resigned.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, you're playin' for martyrdom again!”</p> + +<p>“There was Casabianca, Archie B.—him that stood +on the burnin' deck”—he ventured timidly.</p> + +<p>“Tarnashun!” shouted his brother—“an' I hope he +is still standin' on a burnin' deck in the other worl'—don't +mention that fool to me!—to stay there an' git +blowed up after the ship was afire an' his dad didn't sho' +up.” He spat on a mark: “<i>Venture pee-wee under +the bridge—bam—bam—bam.</i>”</p> + +<p>“There was William Tell's son,” ventured his brother +again.</p> + +<p>“Another gol-darn id'jut, Ozzie B., like his dad that +put him up to it. Why, if the ole man had missed, the +two would'er gone down in history as the champion ass +an' his colt. The risk was too big for the odds. Why, +he didn't have one chance in a hundred. Besides, them +fellers actin' the fool don't hurt nobody but theyselves. +Now you—”</p> + +<p>“How's that, Archie B.?”</p> + +<p>Archie B. lowered his voice to a gentle persuasive +whisper: “Don't do it, ole man—come now—be +reasonable. If we stay here in the woods, Triggers'll +think we're at home. Dad will think we're in school. +They'll never know no better. It's wrong, but we'll +have plenty o' time to make it right—we've got six +months mo' of school this year. Now, if you do go—you'll +be licked twice an'—an', Ozzie B., I'll git licked +when paw hears of it to-night.”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said Ozzie B., “that's it, is it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course; if a man don't look out for his own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> +hide, whose goin' to do it for him? Come now, ole +man.”</p> + +<p>Ozzie B. was silent. His brother saw the narrow +forehead wrinkling in indecision. He knew the different +habits—not principles—of his nature were at +work for mastery. Finally the hypocrite habit prevailed, +when he said piously: “We have sowed the +wind, Archie B.—we'll hafter reap the whirlwind, like +paw says.”</p> + +<p>“Go!” shouted his brother. “Go!” and he helped +him along with a kick—“Go, since I can't save you. +You'll reap the whirlwind, but I won't if my brains can +save me.”</p> + +<p>He sat down on a log and watched his brother go +down the path, sobbing as usual, when he felt that he +was a martyr. He sat long and thought.</p> + +<p>“It's bad,” he sighed—“a man cu'd do so much mo' +in life if he didn't hafter waste so much time arguin' +with fools. Well, I'm here fur the day an' I'll learn +somethin'. Now, I wanter know if one squirrel er two +squirrels stays in the same hole in winter. Then there's +the wild-duck. I wanter kno' when the mallards go +south.”</p> + +<p>In a few minutes he had hid himself behind a tree in +a clump of brush. He was silent for ten minutes, so +silent that only the falling leaves could be heard. Then +very cautiously he imitated the call of the gray squirrel—once, +twice, and still again. He had not long to +wait. In a hole high up in a hickory a little gray head +popped out—then a squirrel came out cautiously—first +its head, then half of its body, and each time it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> +moved looking and listening, with its cunning, bright +eyes, taking in everything. Then it frisked out with +a flirt of its tail, and sat on a limb nearby. It was followed +by another and another. Archie B. watched them +for a half hour, a satisfied smile playing around his lips. +He was studying squirrel. He saw them run into the +hole again and bring out each a nut and sit on a nearby +limb and eat it.</p> + +<p>“That settles that,” he said to himself. “I thought +they kept their nuts in the same hole.”</p> + +<p>There was the sound of voices behind him and the +squirrels vanished. Archie B. stood up and saw an old +man and some children gathering nuts.</p> + +<p>“It's the Bishop an' the little mill-mites. I'll bet +they've brought their dinner.”</p> + +<p>This was the one thing Archie B. needed to make his +day in the woods complete.</p> + +<p>“Hello,” he shouted, coming up to them.</p> + +<p>“Why, it's Archie B.,” said Shiloh, delighted.</p> + +<p>“Why, it is,” said her grandfather. “What you +doin', Archie B.?”</p> + +<p>“Studyin' squirrels right now. What you all doin'?”</p> + +<p>“I've tuck the kids out of the mill an' I'm givin' 'em +their fus' day in the woods. Shiloh, there, has been +mighty sick and is weak yet, so we're goin' slow. Mighty +glad to run upon you, Archie B. Can't you sho' Shiloh +the squirrels? She's never seed one yet, have you, +pet?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Shiloh thoughtfully. “Is they like them +little jorees that say <i>Wake-up, pet! Wake-up, pet?</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> +Oh, do sho' me the squirrel! Mattox, ain't this jes' +fine, bein' out of the mill?”</p> + +<p>Archie B.'s keen glance took in the well-filled lunch +basket. At once he became brilliantly entertaining. +In a few minutes he had Shiloh enraptured at the wood-lore +he told her,—even Bull Run and Seven Days, Atlanta +and Appomattox were listening in amazement, so +interesting becomes nature's story when it finds a reader.</p> + +<p>And so all the morning Archie B. went with them, +and never had they seen so much and enjoyed a day as +they had this one.</p> + +<p>And the lunch—how good it tasted! It was a new +life to them. Shiloh's color came in the healthful exercise, +and even Bull Run began to look out keenly from +his dull eyes.</p> + +<p>After lunch Shiloh went to sleep on a soft carpet of +Bermuda grass with the old man's coat for a blanket, +while the other children waded in the branch, and gathered +nuts till time to go back home.</p> + +<p>It was nearly sun-down when they reached the gate +of the little hut on the mountain.</p> + +<p>“We must do this often, Archie B.,” said the Bishop, +as the children went in, tired and hungry, leaving him +and Archie B. at the gate. “I've never seed the little +'uns have sech a time, an' it mighty nigh made me +young ag'in.”</p> + +<p>All afternoon Archie B. had been thinking. All day +he had felt the lumpy, solid thing in the innermost +depths of his jeans pocket, which told him one hundred +dollars in gold lay there, and that it would need an explanation +when he reached home or he was in for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> +worst whipping he ever had. Knowing this, he had not +been thinking all the afternoon for nothing. The old +man bade him good-night, but still Archie B. lingered, +hesitated, hung around the gate.</p> + +<p>“Won't you come in, Archie B.?”</p> + +<p>“No-o—thank you, Bishop, but I'd—I'd like to, +really tho', jes' to git a little spirt'ul g'idance”—a +phrase he had heard his father use so often.</p> + +<p>“Why, what's the matter, Archie B.?”</p> + +<p>Archie B. rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I'm—I'm—thinkin' +of j'inin' the church, Bishop.”</p> + +<p>“Bless yo' h'art—that's right. I know'd you'd +quit yo' mischeev'us ways an' come in—an' I honor you +fur it, Archie B.—praise the Lord!”</p> + +<p>Archie B. still stood pensive and sobered:</p> + +<p>“But a thing happened to-day, Bishop, an' it's worryin' +me very much. It makes me think, perhaps—I—ain't—ain't +worthy of—the bestowal of—the +grace—you know, the kind I heard you speak of?”</p> + +<p>“Tell me, Archie B., lad—an' I'll try to enlighten +you in my po' way.”</p> + +<p>“Well, now; it's this—jes' suppose you wus goin' +along now—say to school, an' seed a dorg, say his +name was Bonaparte, wantin' to eat up a little monkey; +an' a lot of fellers, say like Jud Carpenter an' +Billy Buch, a-bettin' he cu'd do it in ten minutes an' +a-sickin' him on the po' little monkey—this big savage +dorg. An' suppose now you feel sorry for the monkey +an' somethin'—you can't tell what—but somethin' +mighty plain tells you the Lord wus on the monkey's +side—so plain you cu'd read it—like it told David<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span>—an' +the dorg wus as mean an' bostful as Goliath wus—”</p> + +<p>“Archie B., my son, I'd a been fur the monkey, I sho' +would,” said the Bishop impressively.</p> + +<p>Archie B. smiled: “Bishop, you've called my hand—I +<i>wus</i> for that monkey.”</p> + +<p>The old man smiled approvingly: “Good—good—Archie +B.”</p> + +<p>“Now, what happened? I'm mighty inter'sted—oh, +that is good. I'm bettin' the monkey downed him, +the Lord bein' on his side.”</p> + +<p>“But, s'pose furst,” went on Archie B. argumentatively, +“that you wanted to give some money fur a +little church that you wanted to j'ine—up on the mountain +side, a little po'-fo'k church, that depended on +charity—”</p> + +<p>“I understan's, I understan's, Archie B., that wus +the Lord's doin's,—ten to one on the monkey, Archie—ten +to one!”</p> + +<p>“An' that you had ten dollars in gold around yo' +neck in a little bag, given you by your ole Granny when +she died—an' knowin' how the Lord wus for the monkey, +an' it bein' a dead cinch, an' all that—an' these +fellers blowin' an' offerin' to bet ten to one—an' seein' +you c'ud pick it up in the road—all for the little +church, mind you, Bishop—”</p> + +<p>“Archie B.,” exclaimed the old man excitedly, +“them bein' the facts an' the thing at stake, with that +ole dorg an' Jud Carpenter at the bottom of it, I'd a +put it up on the monkey, son—fur charity, you know, +an' fur the principle of it,—I'd a put it up, Archie B., +if I'd lost ever' cent!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Exactly, Bishop, an' I did—at ten to one—think +of the odds! Ten to one, mighty nigh as great as wus +ag'in David.”</p> + +<p>“An' you won, of course, Archie B., you won in a +walk?” said the old man breathlessly. “God was fur +you an' the monkey.”</p> + +<p>Archie B. smiled triumphantly and pulled out his +handful of gold. The old man sat down on a log, +dazed.</p> + +<p>“Archie B., sho'ly, sho'ly, not all that? An' licked +the dorg, an' that gang, an' cleaned 'em up?”</p> + +<p>Archie B. told him the story with all the quaint histrionic +talent of his exuberant nature.</p> + +<p>The Bishop sat and laughed till the tears came.</p> + +<p>“An' Bonaparte went down the road with the monkey +holt his tail—the champion dorg—an' you won +all that?”</p> + +<p>“All fur charity, Bishop, except, you know, part fur +keeps as a kinder nes' egg.”</p> + +<p>“Of co-u-r-se—Archie B., of—course, no harm in +the worl'—if—if—my son—<i>if you carry out your +original ideas</i>, or promise, ruther; it won't work if you +go back on yo' promise to God. 'God moves in a mysterious +way his wonders to perform,'” added the Bishop +solemnly.</p> + +<p>Archie B. slipped fifty of his dollars into the old +man's hands.</p> + +<p>“Do you know, Archie B., I prayed for this las' +night? Now you tell me God don't answer prayers?”</p> + +<p>He was silent, touched. Seldom before had a prayer +of his been answered so directly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Fur charity, Archie B., fur charity. I'll take it, +an' little you know what this may mean.”</p> + +<p>Archie B. was silent. So far so good, but it was +plain from his still thoughtful looks that he had only +half won out yet. He had heard the old man speak, +and there had been a huskiness about his voice.</p> + +<p>“Now there is paw, Bishop—you know he ain't jes +like you—he don't see so far. He might not understan' +it. Would you mind jes' droppin' him a line, you +know? I'll take it to him—in case he looks at the +thing differently, you know, fur whut you write will go +a long way with him.”</p> + +<p>The old man smiled: “Of course, Archie B.—he +must understan' it. Of course, it 'ud never do to have +him spile as good a thing as that—an' fur charity, all +fur the Lord—”</p> + +<p>“An' why I didn't go to school, helpin' you all in +the woods,” put in Archie B.</p> + +<p>“Of course, Archie B., why of course, my son; I'll +fix it right.”</p> + +<p>And he scribbled a few lines on the fly leaf of his +note book for Archie B. to take home:</p> + +<p>“God bless you, my son, good-night.”</p> + +<p>Archie B. struck out across the fields jingling his +remaining gold and whistling. At home it was as he +expected. Patsy met him at the gate. One look into +her expectant face showed him that she was delighted at +the prospect of his punishment. It was her hope deferred, +now long unfulfilled. He had always gotten +out before, but now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>“Walk in, Mister Gambler, Mr. Hookey—walk in—paw +is waitin' fur you,” she said, smirking.</p> + +<p>The Deacon stood in the door, silent, grim, determined. +In his hand were well-seasoned hickories. By +him stood his wife more silent, more grim, more determined.</p> + +<p>“Pull off yo' coat, Archie B.,” said the Deacon, “I'm +gwinter lick you fur gamblin'.”</p> + +<p>“Pull off yo' coat, Archie B.,” said his mother, “I'm +goin' to lick you fur playin' hookey.”</p> + +<p>“Pull it off, Archie B.,” said his sister bossily, “I'm +goin' to stan' by an' see.”</p> + +<p>Archie B. pulled off his coat deliberately.</p> + +<p>“That's all right,” he said, “Many a man has been +licked befo' fur bein' on the Lord's side.”</p> + +<p>“You mean to tell me, Archie B. Butts, you bet on +a dorg fight sho' nuff,” said his father, nervously handling +his hickories.</p> + +<p>“An' played hookey?” chimed in his mother.</p> + +<p>“Tell it, Archie B., tell the truth an' shame the +devil,” mocked Patsy.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I done all that—fur charity,” he said boldly, +and with a victorious ring in his voice.</p> + +<p>“Did you put up that ten dollars yo' Granny lef' +you?” screamed his mother.</p> + +<p>“Did you dare, Archie B.,” said Patsy.</p> + +<p>His father paled at the thought of it: “An' lost it, +Archie B., lost it, my son. Oh, I mus' teach you how +sinful it is to gamble.”</p> + +<p>Archie B. replied by running his hand deep down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> +into his pocket and bringing up a handful of gold—five +eagles!</p> + +<p>His father dropped the switches and stared. His +mother sat down suddenly in a chair and Patsy reached +out, took it and counted it deliberately:—</p> + +<p>“One—two—three—fo'—five—an' all gold—my +gracious, Maw!”</p> + +<p>“That's jes' ha'f of it,” said Archie B. indifferently. +“I gave the old Bishop five of 'em—fur—charity. +Here's his note.”</p> + +<p>The Deacon read it and rubbed his chin thoughtfully: +“That's a different thing,” he said after a +while. “Entirely different proposition, my son.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it 'pears to be,” said his mother counting the +gold again. “We'll jes' keep three of 'em, Archie B. +They'll come in handy this winter.”</p> + +<p>“Put on yo' coat, my son,” said the Deacon gently.</p> + +<p>“Patsy, fetch him in the hot waffles an' syrup—the +lad 'pears to be a leetle tired,” said his mother.</p> + +<p>“How many whippings did you git, Archie B.?” +whispered his brother as Archie B., after entertaining +the family for an hour, all about the great fight, crawled +into bed: “I got three,” went on Ozzie B. “Triggers +fust, then paw, then maw.”</p> + +<p>“None,” said Archie B., as he put his two pieces of +gold under his pillow.</p> + +<p>“I can't see why that was,” wailed Ozzie B. “I +done nothin' an'—an'—got all—all—the—lickin'!”</p> + +<p>“You jes' reaped my whirlwind,” sneered his brother—“All +fools do!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>But later he felt so sorry for poor Ozzie B. because +he could not lie on his back at all, that he gave him one +of his beautiful coins to go to sleep.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> +<h3>BEN BUTLER'S LAST RACE</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">I</span>t was the last afternoon of the fair, and the great +race was to come off at three o'clock.</p> + +<p>There is nothing so typical as a fair in the Tennessee +Valley. It is the one time in the year when everybody +meets everybody else. Besides being the harvest +time of crops, of friendships, of happy interchange of +thought and feeling, it is also the harvest time of perfected +horseflesh.</p> + +<p>The forenoon had been given to social intercourse, +the display of livestock, the exhibits of deft women +fingers, of housewife skill, of the tradesman, of the +merchant, of cotton—cotton, in every form and shape.</p> + +<p>At noon, under the trees, lunch had been spread—a +bountiful lunch, spreading as it did from the soft grass +of one tree to that of another—as family after family +spread their linen—an almost unbroken line of fried +chicken, flanked with pickles and salad, and all the rich +profusion of the country wife's pantry.</p> + +<p>And now, after lunch, the grand stand had been +quickly filled, for the fame of the great race had spread +up and down the valley, and the valley dearly loved a +horse-race.</p> + +<p>Five hundred dollars was considered a large purse, +but this race was three thousand!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span></p> + +<p>Three thousand! It would buy a farm. It would +buy thirty mules, and twice that many steers. It would +make a family independent for life.</p> + +<p>And to-day it was given to see which one, of three +rich men, owned the best horse.</p> + +<p>No wonder that everybody for miles around was +there.</p> + +<p>Sturdy farmers with fat daughters, jaded wives, and +lusty sons who stepped awkwardly on everything on +the promenade, and in trying to get off stepped on +themselves. They went about, with broad, strong, +stooping shoulders, and short coats that sagged in the +middle, dropping under-jaws, and eyes that were kindly +and shrewd.</p> + +<p>The town people were better dressed and fed than the +country people, and but only half way in fashion between +the city and country, yet knowing it not.</p> + +<p>The infield around the judges' stand, and in front of +the grand-stand, was thronged with surreys and buggies, +and filled with ladies and their beaux. A ripple of excitement +had gone up when Richard Travis drove up +in a tally-ho. It was filled with gay gowns and alive +with merriment and laughter, and though Alice Westmore +was supposed to be on the driver's box with the +owner, she was not there.</p> + +<p>Tennesseans were there in force to back Flecker's gelding—Trumps, +and they played freely and made much +noise. Col. Troup's mare—Trombine—had her partisans +who were also vociferous. But Travis's entry, +Lizzette, was a favorite, and, when he appeared on the +track to warm up, the valley shouted itself hoarse.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then Flecker shot out of the draw-gate and spun +merrily around the track, and Col. Troup joined him +with Trombine, and the audience watched the three trotters +warm up and shouted or applauded each as it spun +past the grand-stand.</p> + +<p>Then the starting-judge held up a silk bag in the +center of the wire. It held three thousand dollars in +gold, and it swung around and then settled, to a shining, +shimmering silken sack, swaying the wire as it flashed +in the sun.</p> + +<p>The starting-judge clanged his bell, but the drivers, +being gentlemen, were heedless of rules and drove on +around still warming up.</p> + +<p>The starting-judge was about to clang again—this +time more positively—when there appeared at the +draw-gate a new comer, the sight of whose horse and +appointments set the grand-stand into a wild roar of +mingled laughter and applause.</p> + +<p>As he drove demurely on the track, he lifted quaintly +and stiffly his old hat and smiled.</p> + +<p>He was followed by the village blacksmith, whose very +looks told that they meant business and were out for +blood. The audience did not like the looks of this blacksmith—he +was too stern for the fun they were having. +But they recognized the shambling creature who followed +him as Bud Billings, and they shouted with laughter +when they saw he had a sponge and bucket!</p> + +<p>“Bud Billings a swipe!”</p> + +<p>Cottontown wanted to laugh, but it was too tired. It +merely grinned and nudged one another. For Travis +had given a half holiday and all Cottontown was there.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span></p> + +<p>The old man's outfit brought out the greatest +laughter. The cart was a big cheap thing, new and +brightly repainted, and it rattled frightfully. The harness +was a combination—the saddle was made of soft +sheep skin, the wool next to the horse, as were also the +head-stall of the bridle, the breast-strap and the breeching. +The rest of it was undressed leather, and the old +man had evidently made it himself.</p> + +<p>But Ben Butler—never had he looked so fine. Blind, +cat-hammed and pacing along,—but his sides were slick +and hard, his quarters rubber.</p> + +<p>The old man had not been training him on the sandy +stretches of Sand Mountain for nothing.</p> + +<p>A man with half an eye could have seen it, but the +funny people in the grand-stand saw only the harness, +and the blind sunken eyes of the old horse. So they +shouted and cat-called and jeered. The outfit ambled +up to the starting judge, and the old driver handed him +fifty dollars.</p> + +<p>The starter laughed as he recovered himself, and winking +at the others, asked:</p> + +<p>“What's this for, old man?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, jes' thought I'd j'ine in—” smiling.</p> + +<p>“Why, you can't do it. What's your authority?”</p> + +<p>The Bishop ran his hand in his pocket, while Bud +held Ben Butler's head and kept saying with comical +seriousness: “Whoa—whoa, sah!”</p> + +<p>Pending it all, and seeing that more talk was coming, +Ben Butler promptly went to sleep. Finally the +old man brought out a faded poster. It was Travis's +challenge and conditions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Jes' read it,” said the old driver, “an' see if I ain't +under the conditions.”</p> + +<p>The starting judge read: “<i>Open to the Tennessee +Valley—trot or pace. Parties entering, other than the +match makers, to pay fifty dollars at the wire.</i>”</p> + +<p>“Phew!” said the starting judge, as he scratched +his head. Then he stroked his chin and re-read the +conditions, looking humorously down over his glasses +at the queer combination before him.</p> + +<p>The audience took it in and began to shout: “Let +him in! Let him in! It's fair!”</p> + +<p>But others felt outraged and shouted back: “No—put +him out! Put him out!”</p> + +<p>The starting judge clanged his bell again, and the +other three starters came up.</p> + +<p>Flecker, good-natured and fat, his horse in a warming-up +foam, laughed till he swayed in the sulky. Col. +Troup, dignified and reserved, said nothing. But Travis +swore.</p> + +<p>“It's preposterous!—it will make the race a farce. +We're out for blood and that purse. This is no comedy,” +he said.</p> + +<p>The old man only smiled and said: “I'm sorry to +spile the sport of gentlemen, but bein' gentlemen, I +know they will stan' by their own rules.”</p> + +<p>“It's here in black and white, Travis,” said the starter, +“You made it yourself.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, hell,” said Travis hotly, “that was mere form +and to satisfy the Valley. I thought the entrance fee +would bar any outsider.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“But it didn't,” said the Judge, “and you know the +rules.”</p> + +<p>“Let him start, let the Hill-Billy start!” shouted +the crowd, and then there was a tumult of hisses, groans +and cat-calls.</p> + +<p>Then it was passed from mouth to mouth that it was +the old Cottontown preacher, and the excitement grew +intense.</p> + +<p>It was the most comical, most splendid joke ever +played in the Valley. Travis was not popular, neither +was the dignified Col. Troup. Up to this time the +crowd had not cared who won the purse; nor had they +cared which of the pretty trotters received the crown. +It meant only a little more swagger and show and money +to throw away.</p> + +<p>But here was something human, pathetic. Here was +a touch of the stuff that made the grand-stand kin to +the old man. The disreputable cart, the lifeless, blind +old pacer, the home-made harness, the seediness of it +all—the pathos.</p> + +<p>Here was the quaint old man, who, all his life, had +given for others, here was the ex-overseer and the ex-trainer +of the Travis stables, trying to win the purse +from gentlemen.</p> + +<p>“Ten to one,” said a prosperous looking man, as he +looked quietly on—“the Bishop wants it for charity +or another church. Like as not he knows of some +poverty-stricken family he's going to feed.”</p> + +<p>“If that's so,” shouted two young fellows who were +listening, and who were partisans of Flecker of Ten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>nessee, +“if that's the way of it, we'll go over and take +a hand in seeing that he has fair play.”</p> + +<p>They arose hastily, each shifting a pistol in his pocket, +and butted through the crowd which was thronged +around the Judge's stand, where the old man sat quietly +smiling from his cart, and Travis and Troup were talking +earnestly.</p> + +<p>“Damned if I let Trombine start against such a +combination as that, sah. I'll drive off the track now, +sah—damned if I don't, sah!”</p> + +<p>But the two young men had spoken to big fat Flecker +of Tennessee, and he arose in his sulky-seat and said: +“Now, gentlemen, clear the track and let us race. We +will let the old man start. Say, old man,” he laughed, +“you won't feel bad if we shut you out the fust heat, +eh?”</p> + +<p>“No,” smiled the Bishop—“an' I 'spec you will. +Why, the old hoss ain't raced in ten years.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, say, I thought you were going to say twenty,” +laughed Flecker.</p> + +<p>Some rowdy had crowded around the old cart and +attempted to unscrew the axle tap. But some one +reached over the head of the crowd and gripped him +where his shoulder and arm met, and pulled him forward +and twirled him around like a top.</p> + +<p>It was enough. It was ten minutes before he could +lift up his arm at all; it felt dead.</p> + +<p>“Don't hurt nobody, Jack,” whispered the old man, +“be keerful.”</p> + +<p>The crowd were for the old man. They still shouted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span>—“Fair +play, fair play—let him start,” and they came +thronging and crowding on the track.</p> + +<p>“Clear the track,” cried the starting-judge to a +deputy sheriff in charge—“I'll let him start.”</p> + +<p>This set the crowd in a roar.</p> + +<p>“Square man,” they yelled—“Square man!”</p> + +<p>Travis bit his lips and swore.</p> + +<p>“Why, damn him,” he said, “we'll lose him the first +heat. I'll shut him out myself.”</p> + +<p>“We will, sah, we will!” said Col. Troup. “But if +that rattling contraption skeers my mare, I'll appeal to +the National Association, sah. I'll appeal—sah,” and +he drove off up the stretch, hotter than his mare.</p> + +<p>And now the track was cleared—the grand stand +hummed and buzzed with excitement.</p> + +<p>It was indeed the greatest joke ever played in the +Tennessee Valley. Not that there was going to be any +change in the race, not that the old preacher had any +chance, driving as he did this bundle of ribs and ugliness, +and hitched to such a cart—but that he dared +try it at all, and against the swells of horsedom. There +would be one heat of desperate fun and then—</p> + +<p>A good-natured, spasmodic gulp of laughter ran clear +through the grand-stand, and along with it, from excited +groups, from the promenade, from the track and +infield and stables, even, came such expressions as these:</p> + +<p>“Worth ten dollars to see it!”</p> + +<p>“Wouldn't take a hoss for the sight!”</p> + +<p>“If he <i>did</i> happen to beat that trio of sports!”</p> + +<p>“Boss, it's gwinter to be a hoss race from wire to +wire!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Oh, pshaw! one heat of fun—they'll shut him +out!”</p> + +<p>In heart, the sympathy of the crowd was all with the +old preacher.</p> + +<p>The old man had a habit when keyed to high pitch, +emotionally, of talking to himself. He seemed to regard +himself as a third person, and this is the way he +told it, heat by heat:</p> + +<p>“Fus' heat, Ben Butler—Now if we can manage +to save our distance an' leave the flag a few yards, we'll +be doin' mighty well. Long time since you stretched +them ole muscles of yo's in a race—long time—an' +they're tied up and sore. Ever' heat'll be a wuck out +to you till you git hot. If I kin only stay in till you git +hot—(<i>Clang—clang—clang</i>). That's the starter's +bell. Yes—we'll score now—the fus' heat'll be our +wuss. They've got it in fur us—they'll set the pace +an' try to shet us out an', likely es not, do it. God he'p +us—Shiloh—Cap'n Tom—it's only for them, Ben +Butler—fur them. (<i>Clang!—Clang!</i>) Slow there—heh—heh—Steady—ah-h!”</p> + +<p><i>Clang—clang-clang!</i> vigorously. The starter was +calling them back.</p> + +<p>They had scored down for the first time, but the hot-heads +had been too fast for the old ambler. In their +desire to shut him out, they rushed away like a whirlwind. +The old pacer followed, rocking and rolling in +his lazy way. He wiggled, shuffled, skipped, and when +the strain told on the sore old muscles, he winced, and +was left at the wire!</p> + +<p>The crowd jeered and roared with laughter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span></p> + +<p>“He'll never get off!”</p> + +<p>“He's screwed there—fetch a screw driver!”</p> + +<p>“Pad his head, he'll fall on it nex'!”</p> + +<p>“Go back, gentlemen, go back,” shouted the starter, +“and try again. The old pacer was on a break”—<i>Clang—clang—clang!</i> +and he jerked his bell vigorously.</p> + +<p>Travis was furious as he drove slowly back. “I had +to pull my mare double to stop her,” he called to the +starter. “We were all aligned but the old pacer—why +didn't you let us go?”</p> + +<p>“Because I am starting these horses by the rules, +Mr. Travis. I know my business,” said the starter +hotly.</p> + +<p>Col. Troup was blue in the face with rage.</p> + +<p>Flecker laughed.</p> + +<p>They all turned again and came down, the numbers +on the drivers' arms showing 1, 2, 3, 4—Travis, Troup, +Flecker, and the old Bishop, respectively.</p> + +<p>“Ben Butler, ole hoss, this ain't no joke—you mus' +go this time. We ain't goin' to meetin'—Stretch them +ole legs as you did!—oh, that's better—ef we could +only score a few more times—look!—ah!”</p> + +<p><i>Clang—clang—clang!</i></p> + +<p>This time it was Col. Troup's mare. She broke just +at the wire.</p> + +<p>“She saved us that time, Ben Butler. We wus two +rods behind—”</p> + +<p>They came down the third time. “Now, thank God, +he's jes' beginnin' to unlimber,” chuckled the old man as +the old pacer, catching on to the game and warming to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> +his work, was only a length behind at the wire, as they +scored the fourth time, when Flecker's mare flew up in +the air and again the bell clanged.</p> + +<p>The crowd grew impatient. The starter warned them +that time was up and that he'd start them the next time +they came down if he had the ghost of a chance.</p> + +<p>Again they aligned and came thundering down. The +old man was pale and silent, and Ben Butler felt the +lines telegraphing nervous messages to his bitted mouth; +but all he heard was: “<i>Shiloh—Cap'n Tom—Steady, +old hoss!</i>”</p> + +<p>“Go!”</p> + +<p>It sounded like a gun-shot in the old man's ears. +There was a whirr of wheels, a patter of feet grappling +with dirt and throwing it all over him—another whirr +and flutter and buzz as of a covey flushed, and the +field was off, leaving him trailing.</p> + +<p>“Whew, Ben Butler, we're in fur it now—the Lord +'a-mussy on our souls! Take the pole—s'artenly,—it's +all yowin, since you're behin'! Steady ole hoss, +there's one consolation,—they're breakin' the wind for +you, an' thank God!—yes Ben Butler, look! they're +after one other,—they're racin' like Tam O'Shanter an' +cookin' each other to a gnat's heel—Oh, Lord what +fools! It'll tell on 'em—if we can only save our distance—this +heat—jes' save our distance—Wh-o-p, +sah! Oh, my Lord, told you so—Troup's mare's up +an' dancin' like a swamp rabbit by moonlight. Who-op, +sah, steady ole hoss—there now we've passed him—Trombine +and Lizette ahead—steady—let 'em go, big +devil, little devil, an' pumpin' each other—Go now, go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> +old hoss, now's the time to save our distance—go old +hoss, step lively now—'tain't no meetin', no Sunday +School—it's life, bread and a chance for Cap'n Tom! +Oh, but you ain't forgot entirely, no-no,—ain't forgot +that you come in answer to prayer, ain't forgot that half +in one-one, ain't forgot yo' pious raisin', yo' pedigree. +Ain't forgot you're racin' for humanity an' a chance, +ain't forgot—there! the flag—my God and safe!”</p> + +<p>He had passed the flag. Lizzette and Trombine were +already at the wire, but poor Troup—his mare had +never been able to settle after her wild break, and she +caught the flag square in the face.</p> + +<p>The crowd met the old pacer with a yell of delight. +He had not been shut out—marvel of marvels!</p> + +<p>It was getting interesting indeed.</p> + +<p>Bud and Jack met him with water and a blanket. +How proud they were! But the heavy old cart had +told on Ben Butler. He panted like a hound, he staggered +and was distressed.</p> + +<p>“He'll get over that,” said the old driver cheerily to +Bud's tearful gaze—“he ain't used to it yet—ten years, +think of it,” and Jack led Ben Butler blanketed away.</p> + +<p>The old man looked at the summary the judges had +hung up. It was:</p> + +<p><i>1st Heat:</i> <i>Trumps, 1st</i>; <i>Lizzette, 2nd</i>; <i>Ben Butler, +3rd</i>; <i>Trombine distanced.</i> <i>Time</i>, 2:17½.</p> + +<p>Then he heard a man swearing elegantly. It was +Col. Troup. He was sitting in his sulky in front of the +grand stand and talking to Travis and the genial +Flecker:</p> + +<p>“A most unprofessional thing, gentlemen,—damned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> +unprofessional, sah, to shut me out. Yes, sah, to shut +out a gentleman, sah, an' the first heat, sah, with his +horse on a break.”</p> + +<p>“What!” said Flecker excitedly—“you, Col'nel? +Shut out—why, I thought it was the old pacer.”</p> + +<p>“I swear I did, too, Colonel,” said Travis apologetically. +“I heard something rattling and galloping +along—I thought it was the old pacer and I drove like +the devil to shut him out!”</p> + +<p>“It was me, sah, me! damned unprofessional, sah; +my mare throwed a boot!”</p> + +<p>He walked around and swore for ten minutes. Then +he quieted down and began to think. He was shut out—his +money was gone. But—“By gad, sah,” he said +cracking his whip—“By gad I'll do it!”</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later as Ben Butler, cooled and calm, +was being led out for the second heat, Col. Troup puffed +boisterously up to the Bishop: “Old man, by gad, +sah, I want you to use my sulky and harness. It's a +hundred pounds lighter than that old ox-cart you've +got. I'm goin' to he'p you, sah, beat that pair of short +dogs that shets out a gentleman with his horse on a +break, sah!”</p> + +<p>And that was how the old man drew first blood and +came out in a new sulky and harness.</p> + +<p>How proud Ben Butler seemed to feel! How much +lighter and how smoothly it ran!</p> + +<p>They got the word at the first score, Trumps and +Lizzette going at it hammer and tongs—Ben Butler, +as usual, trailing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span></p> + +<p>The old man sat pale and ashy, but driving like the +born reinsman that he was.</p> + +<p>“Steady, old hoss, steady agin'—jes' save our distance, +that's all—they've done forgot us—done forgot +us—don't know we're here. They'll burn up each +other an' then, oh, Ben Butler, God he'p us! Cap'n +Tom, Cap'n Tom an' Shiloh! Steady, whoa there!—Lord, +how you're lar'nin'! How the old clip is comin' +agin! Ho—hi—there ole hoss—here we are—what +a bresh of speed he's got—hi—ho!”</p> + +<p>And the grand-stand was cheering again, and as the +old man rode up the judges hung out:</p> + +<p><i>2nd Heat:</i> <i>Trumps, 1st</i>; <i>Lizzette, 2nd</i>; <i>Ben Butler, +3rd.</i> <i>Time</i>, 2:15½.</p> + +<p>The old man looked at it in wonder: “Two fifteen +an' not shet out, Ben Butler? Only five lengths behind? +My God, can we make it—can we make it?”</p> + +<p>His heart beat wildly. For the first time he began to +hope.</p> + +<p>Trumps now had two heats. As the race was best +three out of five, one more heat meant that Flecker of +Tennessee would win the race and the purse. But when +the old man glanced at Trumps, his experienced eye told +him the gallant gelding was all out—he was distressed +greatly—in a paroxyism of thumps. He glanced at +Lizzette. She was breathing freely and was fresh. His +heart fell.</p> + +<p>“Trumps is done fur, Ben Butler, but Lizzette—what +will Travis do?—Ah, ole hoss, we're up ag'in it!”</p> + +<p>It was too true, as the next heat proved. Away +Trumps and Lizzette went, forgetful of all else, while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> +the old man trailed behind, talking to, soothing, coaxing +the old horse and driving him as only a master could.</p> + +<p>“They're at it ag'in—ole hoss, what fools! Whoa—steady +there! Trumps is done fur, an' you'll see—No +sand left in his crops, cooked—watch an' see, oh, +my, Ben Butler—there—he's up now—up an' done +fur—Go now—move some—hi—”</p> + +<p>Trumps and Lizzette had raced it out to the head +of the stretch. But Trumps was not equal to the clip +which Travis had made cyclonic, knowing the horse was +sadly distressed. Trumps stood it as long as flesh and +blood could, and then jumped into the air, in a heart-broken, +tired break. It was then that the old man began +to drive, and moving like well-balanced machinery, the +old pacer caught again the spirit of his youth, as the +old time speed came back, and leaving Trumps behind +he even butted his bull-dog nose into the seat of Lizzette's +sulky, and clung determinedly there, right up to +the wire, beaten only by a length.</p> + +<p>Lizzette had won the heat. The judge hung out:</p> + +<p><i>3rd Heat:</i> <i>Lizzette, 1st</i>; <i>Ben Butler, 2nd</i>; <i>Trumps +distanced.</i> <i>Time</i>, 2:20.</p> + +<p>Lizzette had won, but the crowd had begun to see.</p> + +<p>“The old pacer—the old pacer!”—they yelled.</p> + +<p>Travis bit his lip—“what did it all mean? He had +won the heat. Trumps was shut out, and there they +were yelling for the old pacer!”</p> + +<p>The Bishop was pale to the roots of his hair when +he got out of the sulky.</p> + +<p>“Great hoss! great! great!” yelled Bud as he +trotted along bringing the blanket.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span></p> + +<p>The old man bowed his head in the sulky-seat, a moment, +amid the crash of the band and the noise of the +crowd:</p> + +<p>“Dear God—my Father—I thank Thee. Not for +me—not for Ben Butler—but for life—life—for +Shiloh—and Cap'n Tom. Help us—old and blind—help +us! O God—”</p> + +<p>Col. Troup grasped his hand. The Tennesseans, +followers of Flecker, flocked around him. Flecker, too, +was there—chagrined, maddened—he too had joined +his forces with the old Bishop.</p> + +<p>“Great Scott, old man, how you do drive! We've +hedged on you—me and the Colonel—we've put up +a thousand each that you'll win. We've cooked ourselves +good and hard. Now drive from hell to breakfast +next heat, and Travis is yo' meat! Fools that we were! +We've cut each other to pieces like a pair of cats tied +by the tails. Travis is at your mercy.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sah, Flecker is right. Travis is yo' meat, +sah,” said the Colonel, solemnly.</p> + +<p>The old man walked around with his lips moving silently, +and a great pulsing, bursting, gripping pain in +his heart—a pain which was half a hope and half +despair.</p> + +<p>The crowd was on tip-toe. Never before had such a +race been paced in the Tennessee Valley. Could he take +the next heat from Lizzette? If he could, he had her +at his mercy.</p> + +<p>Grimly they scored down. Travis sullen that he had +to fight the old pacer, but confident of shutting him +out this time. Confident and maddened. The old man,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> +as was his wont in great emergencies, had put a bullet +in his mouth to clinch his teeth on. He had learned it +from Col. Jeremiah Travis, who said Jackson did it +when he killed Dickinson, and at Tallapoosa, and at +New Orleans.</p> + +<p>“GO!”</p> + +<p>And he heard Travis whirl away with a bitter curse +that floated back. Then the old man shot out in the +long, stealing, time-eating stride the old pacer had, and +coming up just behind Lizzette's sulky he hung there in +a death struggle.</p> + +<p>One quarter, half, three-quarters, and still they swung +around—locked—Travis bitter with hot oaths and the +old man pale with prayer. He could see Travis's eyes +flashing lightning hatred across the narrow space between +them—hatred, curses, but the old man prayed on.</p> + +<p>“The flag—now—ole hoss—for Jesus' sake!—”</p> + +<p>He reached out in the old way, lifted his horse by +sheer great force and fairly flung him ahead!—</p> + +<p>“Flu-r-r-r!” it was Lizzette's breath as he went +by her. He shot his eyes quickly sideways as she +flailed the air with her forefeet within a foot of his +head. Her eyes glowed, sunken,—beat—in their +sockets; with mouth wide open, collapsed, frantic, in +heart-broken dismay, she wabbled, staggered and quit!</p> + +<p>“Oh, God bless you, Ben Butler!—”</p> + +<p>But that instant in the air with her mouth wide open +within a foot of the old man's head her lower teeth +exposed, the old driver saw she was only four years old. +Why had he noticed it? What mental telepathy in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> +great crises cause us to see the trifles on which often the +destiny of our life hangs?</p> + +<p>Ben Butler, stubborn, flying, was shaking his game +old head in a bull-dog way as he went under the wire. +It maddened him to be pulled up.</p> + +<p>“So, softly, softly old fellow! We've got 'em licked, +you've got religin' in yo' heels, too. Ain't been goin' +to church for ten years for nothin'!”</p> + +<p>The old man wanted to shout, and yet he was actually +shedding tears, talking hysterically and trembling all +over. He heard in a dazed way the yells and thunder +from the grand-stand. But he was faint and dizzy, and +worst of all, as he laughed to himself and said: “Kinder +sissy an' soft in spots.”</p> + +<p>Jack and Bud had Ben Butler and were gone. No +wonder the grand-stand pulsed with human emotion. +Never before had anything been done like this. The +old, blind pacer,—the quaint old preacher—the thing +they were going to shut out,—the pathos, the splendor +of it all,—shook them as humanity will ever be shaken +when the rejected stone comes up in the beauty of purest +marble. Here it was:</p> + +<p><i>4th Heat:</i> <i>Ben Butler, 1st</i>; <i>Lizzette, 2nd.</i> <i>Time</i>, +2:19½.</p> + +<p>What a record it was for the old pacer! Starting +barely able to save his distance, he had grown in speed +and strength and now had the mare at his mercy—the +two more heats he had yet to win would be a walk around +for him.</p> + +<p>Oh, it was glorious—glorious!</p> + +<p>“Oh, by gad, sah,” shouted Col. Troup, pompously.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> +“I guess I've hedged all right. Travis will pay my +thousand. He'll know how to shet out gentlemen the +nex' time. Oh, by gad, sah!”</p> + +<p>Flecker and the Tennesseans took drinks and shouted +themselves hoarse.</p> + +<p>Then the old preacher did something, but why he +never could explain. It seemed intuition when he +thought of it afterwards. Calling Col. Troup to him +he said: “I'm kinder silly an' groggy, Col'nel, but +I wish you'd go an' look in her mouth an' see how old +Lizzette is.”</p> + +<p>The Colonel looked at him, puzzled.</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I dunno, Col'nel—but when a thing comes on +me that away, maybe it's because I'm so nervous an' +upsot, but somehow I seem to have a second sight when +I git in this fix. I wanted you to tell me.”</p> + +<p>“What's it got to do with the race, sah! There is +no bar to age. Have you any susp—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no—no—Col'nel, it's jes' a warnin', an intuition. +I've had 'em often, it's always from God. I +b'leeve it's Him tellin' me to watch, watch an' pray. I +had it when Ben Butler come, thar, come in answer to +prayer—”</p> + +<p>Colonel Troup smiled and walked off. In a short +while he sauntered carelessly back:</p> + +<p>“Fo' sah, she was fo' years old this last spring.”</p> + +<p>“Thank ye, Col'nel!”</p> + +<p>The Colonel smiled and whispered: “Oh, how cooked +she is! Dead on her feet, dead. Don't drive yo' ole +pacer hard—jes' walk around him, sah. Do as you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> +please, you've earned the privilege. It's yo' walk over +an' yo' money.”</p> + +<p>The fifth heat was almost a repetition of the fourth, +the old pacer beating the tired mare cruelly, pacing her +to a standstill. It was all over with Lizzette, anyone +could see that. The judges hung out:</p> + +<p><i>5th Heat:</i> <i>Ben Butler, 1st</i>; <i>Lizzette, 2nd.</i> <i>Time</i>, +2:24.</p> + +<p>Travis's face was set, set in pain and disappointment +when he went to the stable. He looked away off, he +saw no one. He smoked. He walked over to the stall +where they were cooling Lizzette out.</p> + +<p>“Take the full twenty minutes to cool her, Jim.”</p> + +<p>In the next stall stood Sadie B. She had been driven +around by Jud Carpenter, between heats, to exercise her, +he had said. She was warmed up, and ready for speed.</p> + +<p>Travis stood watching Lizzette cool out. Jud came +up and stood looking searchingly at him. There was +but a glance and a nod, and Travis walked over to the +grand-stand, light-hearted and even jolly, where he +stood in a group of society folks.</p> + +<p>He was met by a protest of feminine raillery: “Oh, +our gloves, our candy! Oh, Mr. Travis, to get beat that +way!”</p> + +<p>He laughed: “I'll pay all you ladies lose. I was +just playing with the old pacer. Bet more gloves and +candy on the next heat!”</p> + +<p>“Oh—oh,” they laughed. “No—no-o! We've +seen enough!”</p> + +<p>Travis smiled and walked off. He turned at the gate +and threw them back a bantering kiss.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span></p> + +<p>“You'll see—” was all he said.</p> + +<p>The old man spent the twenty minutes helping to rub +off Ben Butler.</p> + +<p>“It does me good—kinder unkeys me,” he said to +Bud and Jack. He put his ear to the old horses' flank—it +pulsed strong and true.</p> + +<p>Then he laughed to himself. It vexed him, for it +was half hysterical and he kept saying over to himself:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All Thy works shall praise Thy name, in earth and sky and sea;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty—”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Some one touched his arm. It was Jack: “Bishop, +Bishop, time's up! We're ready. Do you hear the +bell clanging?”</p> + +<p>The Bishop nodded, dazed:</p> + +<p>“Here, you're kinder feeble, weak an', an' sorter +silly. Why, Bishop, you're recitin' poetry—” said +Jack apologetically. “A man's gone when he does that—here!”</p> + +<p>He had gone to the old man's saddle bags, and +brought out his ancient flask.</p> + +<p>“Jes' a swaller or two, Bishop,” he said coaxingly, +as one talking to a child—“Quick, now, you're not +yo'self exactly—you've dropped into poetry.”</p> + +<p>“I guess I am a little teched, Jack, but I don't need +that when I can get poetry, sech poetry as is now in +me. Jack, do you want to hear the gran'est verse ever +writ in poetry?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“No—no, Bishop, don't! Jack Bracken's yo' +friend, he'll freeze to you. You'll be all right soon. +It's jes' a little spell. Brace up an' drop that stuff.”</p> + +<p>The old man smiled sadly as if he pitied Jack. Then +he repeated slowly:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Holy, holy, holy, all the saints adore Thee<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Castin' down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cherubim an' Seraphim, fallin' down before Thee<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which wert an' art, an' ever more shall be.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Feebly he leaned on Jack, the tears ran down his +cheek: “'Tain't weakness, Jack, 'tain't that—it's joy, +it's love of God, Whose done so much for me. It's the +glory, glory of them lines—Oh, God—what a line +of poetry!”</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Castin' down their golden crowns around the glassy sea!”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Ben Butler stood ready, the bell clanged again. Jack +helped him into the sulky; never had he seen the old +man so feeble. Travis was already at the post.</p> + +<p>They got the word immediately, but to the old man's +dismay, Travis's mare shot away like a scared doe, +trotting as frictionless as a glazed emery wheel.</p> + +<p>The old man shook up Ben Butler and wondered why +he seemed to stand so still. The old horse did his best, +he paced as he never had before, but the flying thing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> +like a red demon flitted always just before him, a thing +with tendons of steel and feet of fire.</p> + +<p>“Oh, God, Ben Butler, what is it—what? Have +you quit on me, ole hoss?—you, Ben Butler, you that +come in answer to prayer? My God, Cap'n Tom, +Shiloh!”</p> + +<p>And still before him flew the red thing with wings.</p> + +<p>At the half, at the three-quarters: “Now ole hoss!” +And the old horse responded gamely, grandly. He +thundered like a cyclone bursting through a river-bed. +Foot by foot, inch by inch, he came up to Travis's +mare. Nose to nose they flew along. There was a +savage yell—a loud cracking of Travis' whip in the +blind horse's ears. Never had the sightless old horse +had such a fright! He could not see—he could only +hear the terrible, savage yell. Frightened, he forgot, +he dodged, he wavered—</p> + +<p>“Steady, Ben Butler, don't—oh—”</p> + +<p>It was a small trick of Travis', for though the old +pacer came with a rush that swept everything before it, +the drive had been made too late. Travis had the heat +won already.</p> + +<p>Still there was no rule against it. He could yell and +crack his whip and make all the noise he wished, and if +the other horse was frightened, it was the fault of his +nerves. Everybody who knew anything of racing knew +that.</p> + +<p>A perfect tornado of hisses met Travis at the grand-stand.</p> + +<p>But he had won the heat! What did he care? He +could scarcely stop his mare. She seemed like a bird and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> +as fresh. He pulled her double to make her turn and +come back after winning, and as she came she still fought +the bit.</p> + +<p>As he turned, he almost ran into the old pacer jogging, +broken-hearted behind. The mare's mouth was +wide open, and the Bishop's trained eye fell on the long +tusk-like lower teeth, flashing in the sun.</p> + +<p>Startled, he quivered from head to foot. He would +not believe his own eyes. He looked closely again. +There was no doubt of it—she was eight years old!</p> + +<p>In an instant he knew—his heart sank, “We're +robbed, Cap'n Tom—Shiloh—my God!”</p> + +<p>Travis drove smilingly back, amid hisses and cheers +and the fluttering of ladies' handkerchiefs in the boxes.</p> + +<p>“How about the gloves and candy now?” he called +to them with his cap in his hand.</p> + +<p>Above the judges had hung out:</p> + +<p><i>6th Heat:</i><i> Lizzette, 1st</i>; <i>Ben Butler, 2nd.</i> <i>Time</i>, +2:14.</p> + +<p>When Flecker of Tennessee saw the time hung out, +he jumped from his seat exclaiming: “Six heats and +the last heat the fastest? Who ever heard of a tired +mare cutting ten seconds off that way? By the eternal, +but something's wrong there.”</p> + +<p>“Six heats an' the last one the fastest—By gad, +sah,” said Col. Troup. “It is strange. That mare Lizzette +is a wonder, an' by gad, sah, didn't the old pacer +come? By gad, but if he'd begun that drive jus' fifty +yards sooner—our money”—</p> + +<p>Flecker groaned: “We're gone, Colonel—one +thousand we put up and the one we hedged with.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“By gad, sah, but, Flecker, don't you think Lizzette +went smoother that last heat? She had a different +stride, a different gait.”</p> + +<p>Flecker had not noticed it. “But it was a small +thing,” he said—“to frighten the old horse. No rule +against it, but a gentleman—”</p> + +<p>The Colonel smiled: “Damn such gentlemen, sah. +They're a new breed to me.”</p> + +<p>The old man went slowly back to the stable. He said +nothing. He walked dazed, pale, trembling, heart-broken. +But never before had he thought so keenly.</p> + +<p>Should he expose Travis?—Ruin him, ruin him—here? +Then there passed quickly thoughts of Cap'n +Tom—of Miss Alice. What a chance to straighten +every thing out, right every wrong—to act for Justice, +Justice long betrayed—for God. For God? And +had not, perhaps, God given him this opportunity for +this very purpose? Was not God,—God, the ever +merciful but ever just, behind it all? Was it not He +who caused him to look at the open mouth of the first +mare? Was it not He giving him a chance to right a +wrong so long, so long delayed? If he failed to speak +out would he not be doing every man in the race a +wrong, and Cap'n Tom and Shiloh, and even Miss Alice, +so soon to marry this man—how it went through him!—even +God—even God a wrong!</p> + +<p>He trembled; he could not walk. He sat down; Jack +and Bud had the horse, the outlaw's eyes flashing fire as +he led him away. But Bud, poor Bud, he was following, +broken-hearted, blubbering and still saying between +his sobs: “Great—hoss—he skeered him!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>The grand-stand sat stupefied, charged to the explosive +point with suppressed excitement. Six terrible heats +and no horse had won three. But now Lizzette and Ben +Butler had two each—who would win the next, the +decisive heat. God help the old preacher, for he had no +chance. Not after the speed that mare showed.</p> + +<p>Colonel Troup came up: “By gad, sah, Bishop—don't +give up—you've got one mo' chance. Be as +game as the ole hoss.”</p> + +<p>“We are game, sir—but—but, will you do as I +tell you an' swear to me on yo' honor as a gentleman +never to speak till I say the word? Will you swear to +keep sacred what I show you, until I let you tell?”</p> + +<p>The Colonel turned red: “What do you mean, +sah?”</p> + +<p>“Swear it, swear it, on yo' honor as a gentleman—”</p> + +<p>“On my honor as a gentleman, sah? I swear it.”</p> + +<p>“Go,” said the old man quickly, “an' look in the +mouth of the mare they are jes' bringin' in—the mare +that won that heat. Go, an' remember yo' honor pledged. +Go an' don't excite suspicion.”</p> + +<p>The old man sat down and, as he waited, he thought. +Never before had he thought so hard. Never had such +a burden been put upon him. When he looked up Colonel +Troup stood pale and silent before him—pale with +close-drawn lips and a hot, fierce, fighting gleam in his +eyes.</p> + +<p>“You've explained it, sah—” he said. Then he +fumbled his pistol in his pocket. “Now—now, give +me back my promise, my word. I have two thousand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> +dollars at stake, and—and clean sport, sah,—clean +sport. Give me back my word.”</p> + +<p>“Sit down,” said the old man quietly.</p> + +<p>The Colonel sat down so still that it was painful. +He was calm but the Bishop saw how hard the fight +was.</p> + +<p>Then the old man broke out: “I can't—O God, I +can't! I can't <i>make</i> a character, why should I <i>take</i> +one? It's so easy to take a word—a nod—it is gone! +And if left maybe it 'ud come agin. Richard Travis—it +looks bad—he may be bad—but think what he +may do yet—if God but touch him? No man's so +bad but that God can't touch him—change him. We +may live to see him do grand and noble things—an' +God will touch him,” said the old man hotly, “he will +yet.”</p> + +<p>“If you are through with me,” said Colonel Troup, +coolly, “and will give me back my promise, I'll go and +touch him—yes, damn him, I'll shoot him as he should +be.”</p> + +<p>“But I ain't gwine to give it back,” smiled the old +man.</p> + +<p>Colonel Troup flushed: “What'll you do, then? +Let him rob you an' me, sah? Steal my two thousand, +and Flecker's? Your purse that you've already won—yours—yours, +right this minute? Rob the public +in a fake race, sah? You've won the purse, it is yours, +sah. He forfeited it when he brought out that other +mare. Think what you are doing, sah!”</p> + +<p>“Cap'n Tom an' Shiloh, too”—winced the old man. +“But I forgot—you don't kno'—yes”—and he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> +smiled triumphantly. “Yes, Col'nel, I'll let him do +all that if—if God'll let it be. But God won't let it +be!”</p> + +<p>Colonel Troup arose disgusted—hot. “What do +you mean, old man. Are you crazy, sah? Give me +back my word—”</p> + +<p>“Wait—no—no,” said the Bishop. “Col'nel, +you're a man of yo' word—wait!”</p> + +<p>And he arose and was gone.</p> + +<p>The Colonel swore soundly. He walked around and +damned everything in sight. He fumbled his pistol in +his pocket, and wondered how he could break his word +and yet keep it.</p> + +<p>There was no way, and he went off to take a drink.</p> + +<p>Bud, the tears running down his cheeks—was rubbing +Ben Butler down, and saying: “Great hoss—great +hoss!”</p> + +<p>Of all, he and the Bishop had not given up.</p> + +<p>“I'm afeard we'll have to give it up, Bishop,” said +Jack.</p> + +<p>“Me, me give it up, Jack? Me an' Ben Butler quit +like yeller dogs? Why, we're jes' beginnin' to fight—with +God's help.”</p> + +<p>Then he thought a moment: “Fetch me some cotton.”</p> + +<p>He took it and carefully packed it in the old horse's +ears.</p> + +<p>“It was a small trick, that yellin' and frightening +the ole hoss,” said Jack.</p> + +<p>“Ben Butler,” said the old man, as he stepped back +and looked at the horse, “Ben Butler, I've got you now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> +where God's got me—you can't see an' you can't hear. +You've got to go by faith, by the lines of faith. But +I'll be guidin' 'em, ole hoss, as God guides me—by +faith.”</p> + +<p>The audience sat numbed and nerveless when they +scored for the last heat. The old pacer's gallant fight +had won them all—and now—now after winning two +heats, with only one more to win—now to lose at last. +For he could not win—not over a mare as fresh and +full of speed as that mare now seemed to be. And she, +too, had but one heat to win.</p> + +<p>But Col. Troup had been thinking and he stopped the +old man as he drove out on the track.</p> + +<p>“Been thinkin', parson, 'bout that promise, an' I'll +strike a bargain with you, sah. You say God ain't goin' +to let him win this heat an' race an' so forth, sah.”</p> + +<p>The Bishop smiled: “I ain't give up, Col'nel—not +yet.”</p> + +<p>“Well, sah, if God does let Travis win, I take it from +yo' reasoning, sah, that he's a sorry sort of a God to +stand in with a fraud an' I'll have nothin' to do with +Him. I'll tell all about it.”</p> + +<p>“If that's the way you think—yes,” said the old +man, solemnly—“yes—tell it—but God will never +stan' in with fraud.”</p> + +<p>“We'll see,” said the Colonel. “I'll keep my word +if—if—you win!”</p> + +<p>Off they went as before, the old pacer hugging the +mare's sulky wheels like a demon. Even Travis had +time to notice that the old man had done something to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> +steady the pacer, for how like a steadied ship did he +fly along!</p> + +<p>Driving, driving, driving—they flew—they fought +it out. Not a muscle moved in the old man's body. +Like a marble statue he sat and drove. Only his lips +kept moving as if talking to his horse, so close that +Travis heard him: “It's God's way, Ben Butler, God's +way—faith,—the lines of faith—'He leadeth me—He +leadeth me'!”</p> + +<p>Up—up—came the pacer fearless with frictionless +gait, pacing like a wild mustang-king of the desert, +gleaming in sweat, white covered with dust, rolling like +a cloud of fire. The old man sang soft and low:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“He leadeth me, O blessed thought,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">O word with heavenly comfort fraught,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Whate'er I do, whate'er I be,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Inch by inch he came up. And now the home stretch, +and the old pacer well up, collaring the flying mare and +pacing her neck to neck.</p> + +<p>Travis smiled hard and cruel as he drew out his whip +and circling it around his head, uttered again, amid +fierce crackling, his Indian yell: “Hi—hi—there—ho—ha—ho—hi—hi—e—e!”</p> + +<p>But the old pacer swerved not a line, and Travis, +white and frightened now with a terrible, bitter fear +that tightened around his heart and flashed in his eyes +like the first swift crackle of lightning before the blow +of thunder, brought his whip down on his own mare,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> +welting her from withers to rump in a last desperate +chance.</p> + +<p>Gamely she responded and forged ahead—the old +pacer was beaten!</p> + +<p>They thundered along, Travis whipping his mare at +every stride. She stood it like the standard-bred she +was, and never winced, then she forged ahead farther, +and farther, and held the old pacer anchored at her +wheels, and the wire not fifty feet away!</p> + +<p>There was nothing left for the old man to do—with +tears streaming down his cheeks he shouted—“Ben +Butler, Ben Butler—it's God's way—the chastening +rod—” and his whip fell like a blade of fire on the old +horse's flank.</p> + +<p>It stung him to madness. The Bishop striking him, +the old man he loved, and who never struck! He shook +his great ugly head like a maddened bull and sprang savagely +at the wire, where the silken thing flaunted in his +face in a burst of speed that left all behind. Nor could +the old man stop him after he shot past it, for his flank +fluttered like a cyclone of fire and presently he went down +on his knees—gently, gently, then—he rolled over!</p> + +<p>His driver jumped to the ground. It was all he knew +except he heard Bud weeping as he knelt on the ground +where the old horse lay, and saying: “<i>Great hoss—great +hoss!</i>”</p> + +<p>Then he remembered saying: “Now, Bud, don't cry—if +he does die, won't it be glorious, to die in harness, +giving his life for others—Cap'n Tom—Shiloh? +Think of it, Bud, to die at the wire, his race won, his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> +work finished, the crown his! O Bud, who would not +love to go like Ben Butler?”</p> + +<p>But he could not talk any more, for he saw Jack +Bracken spring forward, and then the gleam of a whiskey +flask gleamed above Ben Butler's fluttering nostrils +and Jack's terrible gruff voice said: “Wait till he's +dead fust. Stand back, give him air,” and his great +hat fluttered like a windmill as he fanned the gasping +nostrils of the struggling horse.</p> + +<p>The old man turned with an hysterical sob in his +throat that was half a shout of joy.</p> + +<p>Travis stood by him watching the struggles of the +old horse for breath.</p> + +<p>“Well, I've killed him,” he said, laconically.</p> + +<p>There was a grip like a vise on his shoulders. He +turned and looked into the eyes of the old man and saw +a tragic light there he had never seen before.</p> + +<p>“Don't—for God's sake don't, Richard Travis, +don't tempt me here, wait till I pray, till this devil goes +out of my heart.”</p> + +<p>And then in his terrible, steel-gripping way, he pulled +Richard Travis, with a sudden jerk up against his own +pulsing heart, as if the owner of The Gaffs had been a +child, burying his great hardened fingers in the man's +arm and fairly hissing in a whisper these words: “If +he dies—Richard Travis—remember he died for you ... it +tuck both yo' mares to kill him—no—no—don't +start—don't turn pale ... you are safe ... I +made Col'nel Troup give me his word ... he'd +not expose you ... if Ben Butler +won an' he saved his money. I knew what it 'ud mean<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> ... that +last heat ... that it 'ud kill him ... but +I drove it to save you ... to keep +Troup from exposin' yo' ... I've got his word. +An' then I was sure ... as I live, I knew that God +will touch you yet ... an' his touch will be as +quickening fire to the dead honor that is in you ... Go! +Richard Travis.... Go ... don't +tempt me agin....”</p> + +<p>He remembered later feeling very queer because he +held so much gold in a bag, and it was his. Then he +became painfully acute to the funny thing that happened, +so funny that he had to sit down and laugh. It +was on seeing Ben Butler rising slowly to his feet and +shaking himself with that long powerful shake he had +seen so often after wallowing. And the funniest thing!—two +balls of cotton flew out of his ears, one hitting +Flecker of Tennessee on the nose, the other Colonel +Troup in the eye.</p> + +<p>“By Gad, sah,” drawled Colonel Troup, “but now, +I see. I thought he cudn't ah been made of flesh an' +blood, sah, why damme he's made of cotton! An' you +saved my money, old man, an' that damned rascal's name +by that trick? Well, you kno' what I said, sah, a gentleman +an' his word—but—but—” he turned quickly +on the old man—excitedly, “ah, here—I'll give you +the thousand dollars I hedged now ... if you'll +give me back my promise—damned if I don't! Won't +do it? No? Well, it's yo' privilege. I admire yo' +charity, it's not of this world.”</p> + +<p>And then he remembered seeing Bud sitting in the +old cart driving Ben Butler home and telling every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span>body +what they now knew: “<i>Great hoss—G-r-e-a-t +hoss!</i>”</p> + +<p>And the old horse shuffled and crow-hopped along, +and Jack followed the Bishop carrying the gold.</p> + +<p>And then such a funny thing: Ben Butler, frightened +at a mule braying in his ear, ran away and threw +Bud out!</p> + +<p>When the old man heard it he sat down and laughed +and cried—to his own disgust—“like a fool, sissy +man,” he said, “a sissy man that ain't got no nerve. +But, Lord, who'd done that but Ben Butler?”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> +<h3>YOU'LL COME BACK A MAN</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">I</span>t was after dark when the old man, pale, and his knees +still shaking with the terrible strain and excitement +of it all, reached his cabin on the mountain. +The cheers of the grand-stand still echoed in his ears, +and, shut his eyes as he would, he still saw Ben Butler, +stretched out on the track struggling for the little +breath that was in him.</p> + +<p>Jack Bracken walked in behind the old man carrying +a silken sack which sagged and looked heavy.</p> + +<p>The grandfather caught up Shiloh first and kissed +her. Then he sat down with the frail form in his arms +and looked earnestly at her with his deep piercing eyes.</p> + +<p>“Where's the ole hoss,” began his wife, her eyes beginning +to snap. “You've traded him off an' I'll bet +you got soaked, Hillard Watts—I can tell it by that +pesky, sheepish look in yo' eyes. You never cu'd trade +horses an' I've allers warned you not to trade the ole +roan.”</p> + +<p>“Wal, yes,” said the Bishop. “I've traded him for +this—” and his voice grew husky with emotion—“for +this, Tabitha, an', Jack, jes' pour it out on the table +there.”</p> + +<p>It came out, yellow waves of gold. The light shone +on them, and as the tired eyes of little Shiloh peeped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> +curiously at them, each one seemed to throw to her a +kiss of hope, golden tipped and resplendent.</p> + +<p>The old woman stood dazed, and gazing sillily. Then +she took up one of the coins and bit it gingerly.</p> + +<p>“In God's name, Hillard Watts, what does all this +mean? Why, it's genuwine gold.”</p> + +<p>“It means,” said the old man cheerily, “that Shiloh +an' the chillun will never go into that mill ag'in—that +old Ben Butler has give 'em back their childhood an' +a chance to live. It means,” he said triumphantly, +“that Cap'n Tom's gwinter have the chance he's been +entitled to all these years—an' that means that God'll +begin to unravel the tangle that man in his meanness has +wound up. It means, Tabitha, that you'll not have to +wuck anymo' yo'self—no mo', as long as you live—”</p> + +<p>The old woman clutched at the bed-post: “Me?—not +wuck anymo'? Not hunt 'sang an' spatterdock an' +clean up an' wash an' scour an' cook an'—”</p> + +<p>“No, why not, Tabitha? We've got a plenty to—”</p> + +<p>He saw her clutch again at the bed-post and go down +in a heap, saying:—</p> + +<p>“Lemme die—now, if I can't wuck no mo'.”</p> + +<p>They lifted her on the bed and bathed her face. It +was ten minutes before she came around and said feebly:</p> + +<p>“I'm dyin', Hillard, it's kilt me to think I'll not +have to wuck any mo'.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, Tabitha, I wouldn't die fur that,” he said +soothingly. “It's terrible suddent like, I kno', an' +hard fur you to stan', but try to bear it, honey, fur our +sakes. It's hard to be stricken suddent like with riches, +an' I've never seed a patient get over it, it is true.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> +You'll be wantin' to change our cabin into an ole Colonial +home, honey, an' have a carriage an' a pair of +roached mules, an' a wantin' me to start a cotton factory +an' jine a whis'-club, whilst you entertain the Cottontown +Pettico't Club with high-noon teas, an' cut up a +lot o' didoes that'll make the res' of the town laugh. +But you mus' fight ag'in it, Tabitha, honey. We'll +jes' try to live as we've allers lived an' not spend our +money so as to have people talk about how we're throwin' +it at the ducks. You can get up befo' day as usual an' +hunt 'sang on the mountain side, and do all the other +things you've l'arnt to do befo' breakfast.”</p> + +<p>This was most reassuring, and the old woman felt +much better. But the next morning she complained +bitterly:</p> + +<p>“I tested ever' one o' them yaller coins las' night, +they mout a put a counterfeit in the lot, an' see heah, +Hillard—” she grinned showing her teeth—“I wore +my teeth to the quick a testin' 'em!”</p> + +<p>The next week, as the train took the Bishop away, he +stood on the rear platform to cry good-bye to Shiloh +and Jack Bracken who were down to see him off. By +his side was a stooped figure and as the old man jingled +some gold in his pocket he said, patting the figure on the +back:</p> + +<p>“You'll come back a man, Cap'n Tom—thank God! +a man ag'in!”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span></p> +<h2>PART FIFTH.—THE LOOM</h2> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +<h3>A NEW MILL GIRL</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">T</span>he autumn had deepened—the cotton had been +picked. The dry stalks, sentinelling the seared +ground, waved their tattered remnants of unpicked +bolls to and fro—summer's battle flags which +had not yet fallen.</p> + +<p>Millwood was astir early that morning—what there +was of it. One by one the lean hounds had arisen from +their beds of dry leaves under the beeches, and, shaking +themselves with that hound-shake which began at their +noses and ended in a circular twist of their skeleton tails, +had begun to hunt for stray eggs and garbage. Yet +their master was already up and astir.</p> + +<p>He came out and took a long drink from the jug behind +the door. He drank from the jug's mouth, and +the gurgling echo sounded down the empty hall: <i>Guggle—guggle—gone! +Guggle—guggle—gone!</i> It +said to Edward Conway as plainly as if it had a voice.</p> + +<p>“Yes, you've gone—that's the last of you. Everything +is gone,” he said.</p> + +<p>He sat down on his favorite chair, propped his feet +upon the rotten balcony's rim and began to smoke.</p> + +<p>Within, he heard Lily sobbing. Helen was trying to +comfort her.</p> + +<p>Conway glanced into the room. The oldest sister was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> +dressed in a plain blue cotton gown—for to-day she +would begin work at the mill. Conway remembered it. +He winced, but smoked on and said nothing.</p> + +<p>“'Tain't no use—'tain't no use,” sobbed the little +one—“My mammy's gone—gone!”</p> + +<p>Such indeed was the fact. Mammy Maria had gone. +All that any of them knew was that only an hour before +another black mammy had come to serve them, and all +she would say was that she had come to take Mammy +Maria's place—gone, and she knew not where.</p> + +<p>Conway winced again and then swore under his breath. +At first he had not believed it, none of them had. But +as the morning went on and Mammy Maria failed to +appear, he accepted it, saying: “Jus' like a niggah—who +ever heard of any of them havin' any gratitude!”</p> + +<p>Helen was too deeply numbed by the thought of the +mill to appreciate fully her new sorrow. All she knew—all +she seemed to feel—was, that go to the mill she +must—go—go—and Lily might cry and the world +might go utterly to ruin—as her own life was going:</p> + +<p>“I want my mammy—I want my mammy,” sobbed +the little one.</p> + +<p>Then the mother instinct of Helen—that latent +motherhood which is in every one of her sex, however +young—however old—asserted itself for the first time.</p> + +<p>She soothed the younger child: “Never mind, Lily, +I am going to the mill only to learn my lesson this week—next +week you shall go with me. We will not be +separated after that.”</p> + +<p>“I want my mammy—oh, I want my mammy,” was +all Lily could say.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span></p> + +<p>Breakfast was soon over and then the hour came—the +hour when Helen Conway would begin her new life. +This thought—and this only—burned into her soul: +To-day her disgrace began. She was no longer a Conway. +The very barriers of her birth, that which had +been thrown around her to distinguish her from the +common people, had been broken down. The foundation +of her faith was shattered with it.</p> + +<p>For the last time, as a Conway, she looked at the fields +of Millwood—at the grim peak of Sunset Rock above—the +shadowed wood below. Until then she did not know +it made such a difference in the way she looked at things. +But now she saw it and with it the ruin, the abandonment +of every hope, every ambition of her life. As she +stood upon the old porch before starting for the mill, +she felt that she was without a creed and without a principle.</p> + +<p>“I would do anything,” she cried bitterly—“I care +for nothing. If I am tempted I shall steal, I know I +shall—I know I shall”—she repeated.</p> + +<p>It is a dangerous thing to change environments for +the worse. It is more dangerous still to break down +the moral barrier, however frail it may be, which our +conscience has built between the good and the evil in us. +Some, reared under laws that are loose, may withstand +this barrier breaking and be no worse for the change; +but in the case of those with whom this barrier of their +moral belief stands securely between conscience and forbidden +paths, let it fall, and all the best of them will +fall with it.</p> + +<p>For with them there are no degrees in degradation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span>—no +caste in the world of sin. Headlong they rush to +moral ruin. And there are those like Helen Conway, +too blinded by the environment of birth to know that +work is not degradation. To them it is the lowering +of every standard of their lives, standards which idleness +has erected. And idleness builds strange standards.</p> + +<p>If it had occurred to Helen Conway—if she had been +reared to know that to work honestly for an honest living +was the noblest thing in life, how different would +it all have been!</p> + +<p>And so at last what is right and what is wrong depend +more upon what has gone before than what follows +after. It is more a question of pedigree and environment +than of trials and temptations.</p> + +<p>“I shall steal,” she repeated—“oh, I know I shall.”</p> + +<p>And yet, as her father drove her in the old shambling +buggy across the hill road to the town, there stood out in +her mind one other picture which lingered there all day +and for many days. She could not forget it nor cast it +from her, and in spite of all her sorrow it uplifted her +as she had been uplifted at times before when, reading +the country newspaper, there had blossomed among its +dry pages the perfume of a stray poem, whose incense +entered into her soul of souls.</p> + +<p>It was a young man in his shirt sleeves, his face +flushed with work, his throat bare, plowing on the slope +of the hillside for the fall sowing of wheat.</p> + +<p>What a splendid picture he was, silhouetted in the rising +sun against the pink and purple background of +sunbeams!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was Clay Westmore, and he waved his hand in his +slow, calm forceful way as he saw her go by.</p> + +<p>It was a little thing, but it comforted her. She remembered +it long.</p> + +<p>The mill had been running several hours when Kingsley +looked up, and saw standing before him at his office +window a girl of such stately beauty that he stood looking +sillily at her, and wondering.</p> + +<p>He did not remember very clearly afterwards anything +except this first impression; that her hair was +plaited in two rich coils upon her head, and that never +before had he seen so much beauty in a gingham dress.</p> + +<p>He remembered, too, that her eyes, which held him +spellbound, wore more an expression of despair and +even desperation than of youthful hope. He could not +understand why they looked that way, forerunners as +they were of such a face and hair.</p> + +<p>And so he stood, sillily smiling, until Richard Travis +arose from his desk and came forward to meet her.</p> + +<p>She nodded at him and tried to smile, but Kingsley +noticed that it died away into drawn, hard lines around +her pretty mouth.</p> + +<p>“It is Miss Conway,” he said to Kingsley, taking her +hand familiarly and holding it until she withdrew it with +a conscious touch of embarrassment.</p> + +<p>“She is one of my neighbors, and, by the way, Kingsley, +she must have the best place in the mill.”</p> + +<p>Kingsley continued to look sillily at her. He had +not heard of Helen—he did not understand.</p> + +<p>“A place in the mill—ah, let me see,” he said +thoughtfully.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I've been thinking it out,” went on Travis, “and +there is a drawing-in machine ready for her. I understand +Maggie is going to quit on account of her health.”</p> + +<p>“I, ah—” began Kingsley—“Er—well, I never +heard of a beginner starting on a drawing-in machine.”</p> + +<p>“I have instructed Maggie to teach her,” said Travis +shortly. Then he beckoned to Helen: “Come.”</p> + +<p>She followed Richard Travis through the mill. He +watched her as she stepped in among the common herd +of people—the way at first in which she threw up her +head in splendid scorn. Never had he seen her so beautiful. +Never had he desired to own her so much as +then.</p> + +<p>“The exquisite, grand thing,” he muttered. “And +I shall—she shall be mine.”</p> + +<p>Then her head sank again with a little crushed smile +of helpless pity and resignation. It touched even +Travis, and he said, consolingly, to her:</p> + +<p>“You are too beautiful to have to do this and you +shall not—for long. You were born to be queen of—well, +The Gaffs, eh?”</p> + +<p>He laughed and then he touched boldly her hair which +lay splendidly around her temples.</p> + +<p>She looked at him resignedly, then she flushed to her +eyes and followed him.</p> + +<p>The drawer-in is to the loom what the architect is to +the building. And more—it is both architect and +foundation, for as the threads are drawn in so must the +cloth be.</p> + +<p>The work is tedious and requires skill, patience, quickness, +and that nicety of judgment which comes with in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span>tellect +of a higher order than is commonly found in +the mill. For that reason the drawer-in is removed +from the noise of the main room—she sits with another +drawer-in in a quiet, little room nearby, and, with +her trained fingers, she draws in through the eyelets the +threads, which set the warp.</p> + +<p>Maggie was busy, but she greeted him with a quaint, +friendly little smile. Helen noticed two things about +her at once: that there was a queer bright light in her +eyes, and that beneath them glowed two bright red spots, +which, when Travis approached, deepened quickly.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I am going to leave the mill,” she said, after +Travis had left them together. “I jus' can't stan' it +any longer. Mother is dead, you know, an' father is an +invalid. I've five little brothers and sisters at home. +I couldn't bear to see them die in here. It's awful on +children, you know. So I've managed to keep 'em +a-goin' until—well—I've saved enough an' with the +help of—a—a—friend—you see—a very near +friend—I've managed to get us a little farm. We're +all goin' to it next week. Oh, yes, of course, I'll be +glad to teach you.”</p> + +<p>She glanced at Helen's hands and smiled: “Yo' +hands don't look like they're used to work. They're so +white and beautiful.”</p> + +<p>Helen was pleased. Her fingers were tapering and +beautiful, and she knew her hands were the hands of +many generations of ladies.</p> + +<p>“I have to make a living for myself now,” she said +with a dash of bitterness.</p> + +<p>“If I looked like you,” said Maggie, slyly and yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span> +frankly, “I'd do something in keeping with my place. +I can't bear to think of anybody like you bein' here.”</p> + +<p>Helen was silent and Maggie saw that the tears were +ready to start. She saw her half sob and she patted +her cheek in a motherly way as she said:</p> + +<p>“Oh, but I didn't mean to hurt you so. Only I do +hate so to see—oh, I am silly, I suppose, because I am +going to get out of this terrible, terrible grind.”</p> + +<p>Her pale face flushed and she coughed, as she bent +over her work to show Helen how to draw in the threads.</p> + +<p>“Now, I'm a good drawer-in, an' he said onct”—she +nodded at the door from which Travis had gone out—“that +I was the best in the worl'; the whole worl'.” +She blushed slightly. “But, well—I've made no fortune +yet—an' somehow, in yo' case now—you see—somehow +I feel sorter 'fraid—about you—like somethin' +awful was goin' to happen to you.”</p> + +<p>“Why—what—” began Helen, surprised.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it ain't nothin',” she said trying to be cheerful—“I'll +soon get over this ... out in the air. I'm +weak now and I think it makes me nervous an' skeery.... I'll +throw it off that quick,” she snapped her +fingers—“out in the open air again—out on the little +farm.” She was silent, as if trying to turn the subject, +but she went back to it again. “You don't know how +I've longed for this—to get away from the mill. It's +day in an' day out here an' shut up like a convict. It +ain't natural—it can't be—it ain't nature. If anybody +thinks it is, let 'em look at them little things over +on the other side,” and she nodded toward the main room. +“Why, them little tots work twelve hours a day an'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> +sometimes mo'. Who ever heard of children workin' at +all befo' these things come into the country? Now, I've +no objection to 'em, only that they ought to work grown +folks an' not children. They may kill me if they can,” +she laughed,—“I am grown, an' can stan' it, but I +can't bear to think of 'em killin' my little brothers an' +sisters—they're entitled to live until they get grown +anyway.”</p> + +<p>She stopped to cough and to show Helen how to untangle +some threads.</p> + +<p>“Oh, but they can't hurt me,” she laughed, as if +ashamed of her cough; “this is bothersome, but it won't +last long after I get out on the little farm.”</p> + +<p>She stopped talking and fell to her work, and for two +hours she showed Helen just how to draw the threads +through, to shift the machine, to untangle the tangled +threads.</p> + +<p>It was nearly time to go home when Travis came to +see how Helen was progressing. He came up behind the +two girls and stood looking at them work. When they +looked up Maggie started and reddened and Helen saw +her tighten her thin lips in a peculiar way while the +blood flew from them, leaving a thin white oval ring in +the red that flushed her face.</p> + +<p>“You are doing finely,” he said to Helen—“you +will make a swift drawer-in.” He stooped over and +whispered: “Such fingers and hands would draw in +anything—even hearts.”</p> + +<p>Helen blushed and looked quickly at Maggie, over +whose face the pinched look had come again, but Maggie +was busy at her machine.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I remember when I came here five years ago,” went +on Maggie after Travis had left, “I was so proud an' +happy. I was healthy an' well an' so happy to think +I cu'd make a livin' for the home-folks—for daddy +an' the little ones. Oh, they would put them in the +mill, but I said no, I'll work my fingers off first. Let +'em play an' grow. Yes, they've lived on what I have +made for five years—daddy down on his back, too, +an' the children jus' growin', an' now they are big +enough and strong enough to he'p me run the little +farm—instead”—she said after a pause—“instead +of bein' dead an' buried, killed in the mill. That was +five years ago—five years”—she coughed and looked +out of the window reflectively.</p> + +<p>“Daddy—poor daddy—he couldn't help the tree +fallin' on his back an' cripplin' him; an' little Buddy, +well, he was born weakly, so I done it all. Oh, I am not +braggin' an' I ain't complainin', I'm so proud to do it.”</p> + +<p>Helen was silent, her own bitterness softened by the +story Maggie was telling, and for a while she forgot herself +and her sorrow.</p> + +<p>It is so always. When we would weep we have only +to look around and see others who would wail.</p> + +<p>“When I come I was as rosy as you,” Maggie went +on; “not so pretty now, mind you—nobody could be +as pretty as you.”</p> + +<p>She said it simply, but it touched Helen.</p> + +<p>“But I'll get my color back on the little farm—I'll +be well again.” She was silent a while. “I kno' you +are wonderin' how I saved and got it.” Helen saw her +face sparkle and the spots deepen. “Mr. Travis has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span> +been so kind to me in—in other ways—but that's a +big secret,” she laughed, “I'm to tell you some day, or +rather you'll see yo'self, an' then, oh—every thing will +be all right an' I'll be ever so much happier than I am +now.”</p> + +<p>She jumped up impulsively and stood before Helen.</p> + +<p>“Mightn't I kiss you once,—you're so pretty an' +fresh?” And she kissed the pretty girl half timidly on +the cheek.</p> + +<p>“It makes me so happy to think of it,” she went on +excitedly, “to think of owning a little farm all by ourselves, +to go out into the air every day whenever you +feel like it and not have to work in the mill, nor ask +anybody if you may, but jus' go out an' see things +grow—an' hear the birds sing and set under the pretty +green trees an' gather wild flowers if you want to. To +keep house an' to clean up an' cook instead of forever +drawin'-in, an' to have a real flower garden of yo' own—yo' +very own.”</p> + +<p>They worked for hours, Maggie talking as a child +who had found at last a sympathetic listener. Twilight +came and then a clang of bells and the shaft above +them began to turn slower and slower. Helen looked +up wondering why it had all stopped so suddenly. She +met the eyes of Travis looking at her.</p> + +<p>“I am to take you home,” he said to her, “the +trotters are at the door. Oh,” as he looked at her work—“why, +you have done first rate for the day.”</p> + +<p>“It's Maggie's,” she whispered.</p> + +<p>He had not seen Maggie and he stood looking at Helen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> +with such passionate, patronizing, commanding, masterful +eyes, that she shrank for a moment, sideways.</p> + +<p>Then he laughed: “How beautiful you are! There +are queens born and queens made—I shall call you the +queen of the mill, eh?”</p> + +<p>He reached out and tried to take her hand, but she +shrank behind the machine and then—</p> + +<p>“Oh, Maggie!” she exclaimed—for the girl's face +was now white and she stood with a strained mouth as if +ready to sob.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Maggie's a good little girl,” said Travis, catching +her hand.</p> + +<p>“Oh, please don't—please”—said Maggie.</p> + +<p>Then she walked out, drawing her thin shawl around +her.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<h3>IN THE DEPTHS</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">A</span>ll the week the two girls worked together at the +mill; a week which was to Helen one long nightmare, +filled, as it was, with the hum and roar of +machinery, the hot breath of the mill, and worst of all, +the seared and deadening thought that she was disgraced.</p> + +<p>In the morning she entered the mill hoping it might +fall on and destroy her. At night she went home to +a drunken father and a little sister who needed, in her +childish sorrow, all the pity and care of the elder one.</p> + +<p>And one night her father, being more brutal than +ever, had called out as Helen came in: “Come in, my +mill-girl!”</p> + +<p>Richard Travis always drove her home, and each night +he became more familiar and more masterful. She felt,—she +knew—that she was falling under his fascinating +influence.</p> + +<p>And worse than all, she knew she did not care.</p> + +<p>There is a depth deeper even than the sin—the depth +where the doer ceases to care.</p> + +<p>Indeed, she was beginning to make herself believe that +she loved him—as he said he wished her to do—and +as he loved her, he said; and with what he said and what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span> +he hinted she dreamed beautiful, desperate dreams of the +future.</p> + +<p>She did not wonder, then, that on one drive she had +permitted him to hold her hand in his. What a strong +hand it was, and how could so weak a hand as her's resist +it? And all the time he had talked so beautifully +and had quoted Browning and Keats. And finally he +had told her that she had only to say the word, and leave +the mill with him forever.</p> + +<p>But where, she did not even care—only to get +away from the mill, from her disgrace, from her drunken +father, from her wretched life.</p> + +<p>And another night, when he had helped her out of +the buggy, and while she was close to him and looking +downward, he had bent over her and kissed her on the +neck, where her hair had been gathered up and had +left it white and fair and unprotected. And it sent a +hot flame of shame to the depths of her brain, but she +could only look up and say—“Oh, please don't—please +don't, Mr. Travis,” and then dart quickly into the +old gate and run to her home.</p> + +<p>But within it was only to meet the taunts and sneers +of her father that brought again the hot Conway blood +in defying anger to her face, and then she had turned +and rushed back to the gate which Travis had just left, +crying:</p> + +<p>“Take me now—anywhere—anywhere. Carry me +away from here.”</p> + +<p>But she heard only the sound of his trotters' feet up +the road, and overcome with the reflective anguish of it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span> +all, she had tottered and dropped beneath the tree upon +the grass—dropped to weep.</p> + +<p>After a while she sat up, and going down the long +path to the old spring, she bathed her face and hands +in its cool depths. Then she sat upon a rock which +jutted out into the water. It calmed her to sit there and +feel the rush of the air from below, upon her hot cheeks +and her swollen eyes.</p> + +<p>The moon shone brightly, lighting up the water, the +rocks which held the spring pool within their fortress of +gray, and the long green path of water-cresses, stretching +away and showing where the spring branch ran to +the pasture.</p> + +<p>Glancing down, she saw her own image in the water, +and she smiled to see how beautiful it was. There was +her hair hanging splendidly down her back, and in the +mirror of water beneath she saw it was tinged with that +divine color which had set the Roman world afire in Cleopatra's +days. But then, there was her dress—her mill +dress.</p> + +<p>She sighed—she looked up at the stars. They always +filled her with great waves of wonder and reverence.</p> + +<p>“Is mother in one of you?” she asked. “Oh, +mother, why were you taken from your two little girls? +and if the dead are immortal, can they forget us of +earth? Can they be indifferent to our fate? How +could they be happy if they knew—” She stopped and +looking up, picked out a single star that shone brighter +than the others, clinging so close to the top of Sunset +Rock as to appear a setting to his crown.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I will imagine she is there”—she whispered—“in +that world—O mother—mother—will you—cannot +you help me?”</p> + +<p>She was weeping and had to bathe her face again. +Then another impulse seized her—an impulse of childhood. +Pulling off her stockings, she dipped her feet in +the cool water and splashed them around in sheer delight.</p> + +<p>The moonbeams falling on them under the water +turned the pink into white, and she smiled to see how like +the pictures of Diana her ankles looked.</p> + +<p>She had forgotten that the old spring was near the +public road and that the rail fence was old and fallen. +Her revery was interrupted by a bantering, half drunken, +jolly laugh:</p> + +<p>“Well, I must say I never saw anything quite so +pretty!”</p> + +<p>She sprang up in shame. Leaning on the old fence, +she saw Harry Travis, a roguish smile on his face. She +thought she would run, then she remembered her bare +feet and she sat down on the grass, covering her ankles +with her skirt. At first she wanted to cry, then she +grew indignant as he came tipsily toward her and sat +down by her side.</p> + +<p>She was used to the smell of whiskey on the breath. +Its slightest odor she knew instantly. To her it was the +smell of death.</p> + +<p>“Got to the Gov'nor's private bottle to-night,” he +said familiarly, “and took a couple of cocktails. Going +over to see Nellie, but couldn't resist such beauties as”—he +pointed to her feet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span></p> + +<p>“It was mean of you to slip upon me as you did,” she +said. Then she turned the scorn of her eyes on him +and coolly looked him over, the weak face, the boyish, +half funny smile, the cynical eyes,—trying to be a man +of the world and too weak to know what it all meant.</p> + +<p>The Conway spirit had come to her—it always did +in a critical moment. She no longer blushed or even +feared him.</p> + +<p>“How, how,” she said slowly and looking him steadily +over, “did I ever love such a thing as you?”</p> + +<p>He moved up closer. “You will have to kiss me for +that,” he said angrily. “I've kissed you so often I +know just how to do it,” and he made an attempt to +throw his arms around her.</p> + +<p>She sprang away from him into the spring branch, +standing knee deep in the water and among the water-cresses.</p> + +<p>He arose hot with insolence: “Oh, you think you +are too good for me now—now that the Gov'nor has +set his heart on you. Damn him—you were mine before +you were his. He may have you, but he will take +you with Cassius' kisses on your lips.”</p> + +<p>He sprang forward, reached over the rock and seized +her by the arm. But she jerked away from him and +sprang back into the deeper water of the spring. She +did not scream, but it seemed that her heart would burst +with shame and anger. She thought of Ophelia, and +as she looked down into the water she wiped away indifferently +and silently the cool drops which had splashed +up into her face, and she wondered if she might not be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span> +able to drop down flat and drown herself there, and thus +end it all.</p> + +<p>He had come to the edge of the rock and stood leering +drunkenly down on her.</p> + +<p>“I love you,” he laughed ironically.</p> + +<p>“I hate you,” she said, looking up steadily into his +eyes and moving back out of his reach.</p> + +<p>The water had wet her dress, and she stooped and +dipped some of it up and bathed her hot cheeks.</p> + +<p>“I'll kiss you if I have to wade into that spring.”</p> + +<p>“If I had a brother,—oh, if I even had a father,” +she said, looking at him with a flash of Conway fire in +her eyes—“and you did—you would not live till +morning—you know you wouldn't.”</p> + +<p>She stood now knee-deep in water. Above her the +half-drunken boy, standing on the rock which projected +into the spring, emboldened with drink and maddened +by the thought that she had so easily given him up, +had reached out and seized her around the neck. He +was rough, and it choked her as he drew her to him.</p> + +<p>She screamed for the first time—for she thought she +heard hoof beats coming down the road; then she heard +a horseman clear the low fence and spur into the spring +branch. The water from the horse's feet splashed over +her. She remembered it only faintly—the big glasses—the +old straw hat,—the leathern bag of samples +around his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“Most unusual,” she heard him say, with more calmness +it seemed to Helen than ever: “Quite unusual—insultingly +so!”</p> + +<p>Instinctively she held up her arms and he stooped in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> +the saddle and lifted her up and set her on the stone +curbing on the side farthest from Harry Travis.</p> + +<p>Then he turned and very deliberately reached over +and seized Harry Travis, who stood on the rock, nearly +on a line with the pommel of the saddle. But the hand +that gripped the back of Harry's neck was anything +but gentle. It closed around the neck at the base of +the brain, burying its fingers in the back muscles with +paralyzing pain and jerked him face downward across +the saddle with a motion so swift that he was there before +he knew it. Then another hand seized him and +rammed his mouth, as he lay across the pommel of the +saddle, into the sweaty shoulders below the horse's +withers, and he felt the horse move out and into the +road and up to the crossing of the ways just as a buggy +and two fast bay mares came around the corner.</p> + +<p>The driver of the bays stopped as he saw his cousin +thrown like a pig over the pommel and held there kicking +and cursing.</p> + +<p>“I was looking for him,” said Richard Travis quietly, +“but I would like to know what it all means.”</p> + +<p>The big glasses shone in kindly humor. They did not +reflect any excitement in the eyes behind them.</p> + +<p>“I am afraid it means that he is drunk. Perhaps he +will tell you about it. Quite unusual, I must say—he +seemed to be trying to drown a young lady in a spring.”</p> + +<p>He eased his burden over the saddle and dropped him +into the road.</p> + +<p>Richard Travis took it in instantly, and as Clay rode +away he heard the cousin say: “You damned yellow +cur—to bear the name of Travis.”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +<h3>WORK IN A NEW LIGHT</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">I</span>t was an hour before Clay Westmore rode back to +Millwood. He had been too busy plowing that +day to get, sooner, a specimen of the rock he had +seen out-cropping on Sand Mountain. At night, after +supper, he had ridden over for it.</p> + +<p>And now by moonlight he had found it!</p> + +<p>He flushed with the strength of it all as he put it in +his satchel—the strength of knowing that not even +poverty, nor work, nor night could keep him from accomplishing +his purpose.</p> + +<p>Then he rode back, stopping at Millwood. For he +thought, too, that he might see Helen, and while he +had resolved not to force himself on her after what she +had said when he last saw her, still he wished very much +to see her now and then.</p> + +<p>For somehow, it never got out of his deductive head +that some day she would learn to love him. Had he +known the temptation, the despair that was hers, he +would not have been so quietly deliberate. But she had +never told him. In fact, he had loved her from a +distance all his life in his quiet way, though now, by +her decree, they were scarcely more than the best of +friends. Some day, after he had earned enough, he +would tell her just how much he loved her. At present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span> +he could not, for was he not too poor, and were not his +mother and sister dependent upon him?</p> + +<p>He knew that Harry Travis loved her in a way—a +love he was certain would not last, and in the fullness +and depths of his sincere nature, he felt as sure of ultimately +winning her, by sheer force of strength, of consistency +and devotion, as he was that every great thing +in life had been done by the same force and would be to +the end of time.</p> + +<p>As sure as that, by this same force, he, himself, would +one day discover the vein of coal which lay somewhere +in the beautiful valley of the Tennessee.</p> + +<p>And so he waited his time with the easy assurance of +the philosopher which he was, and with that firm faith +which minds of his strength always have in themselves +and their ultimate success.</p> + +<p>It surprised him, it is true—hurt him—when he +found to what extent Harry Travis had succeeded in +winning the love of Helen. He was hurt because he expected—hoped—she +would see further into things +than she had. And counting all the poverty and hardships +of his life, the Sunday afternoon when he had left +her in the arbor, after she had told him she was engaged +to Harry Travis, he could not remember when anything +had been so hard for him to bear. Later he had heard +how she had gone to work in the mill, and he knew that +it meant an end of her love affair with Harry.</p> + +<p>To-night something told him it was time to see her +again, not to tell her of his own love, and how it would +never change, whether she was mill girl or the mistress +of Millwood, but to encourage her in the misery of it all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span></p> + +<p>Work—and did not he himself love to work? Was +it not the noblest thing of life?</p> + +<p>He would tell her it was.</p> + +<p>He was surprised when he saw what had just happened; +but all his life he had controlled himself to such a +degree that in critical moments he was coolest; and so +what with another might have been a serious affair, he +had turned into half retributive fun, but the deadliest +punishment, as it afterwards turned out, that he could +have inflicted on a temperament and nature such as +Harry Travis'. For that young man, unable to stand +the gibes of the neighborhood and the sarcasm of his +uncle when it all became known, accepted a position in +another town and never came back again.</p> + +<p>To have been shot or floored in true melodramatic +style by his rival, as he stood on a rock with a helpless +girl in his clutch, would have been more to his liking +than to be picked up bodily, by the nape of his neck, +and taken from the scene of his exploits like a pig across +a saddle.</p> + +<p>That kind of a combat did not meet his ideas of +chivalry.</p> + +<p>Helen was dressed in her prettiest gown when Clay +rode back to Millwood, after securing the samples he +had started for. She knew he was coming and so she +tied a white scarf over her head and went again to her +favorite seat beneath the trees.</p> + +<p>“I don't know how to thank you, Clay,” she said, as +he swung down from his saddle and threw his leathern +bag on the grass.</p> + +<p>“Now, you look more like yourself,” he smiled ad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span>miringly, +as he looked down on her white dress and +auburn hair, drooping low over her neck and shoulders.</p> + +<p>“Tell me about yourself and how you like it at the +mill,” he went on as he sat down.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you will not be willing to speak to me now—now +that I am a mill-girl,” she added. “Do you know? +Clay—”</p> + +<p>“I know that, aside from being beautiful, you have +just begun to be truly womanly in my sight.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Clay, do you really think that? It is the first +good word that has been spoken to me since—since my—disgrace.”</p> + +<p>He turned quickly: “Your disgrace! Do you call +it disgrace to work—to make an honest living—to be +independent and self-reliant?”</p> + +<p>He picked up his bag of samples and she saw that his +hands had become hard and sunburnt from the plow +handles.</p> + +<p>“Helen,” he went on earnestly, “that is one of the +hide-bound tyrannies that must be banished from our +Southland—banished as that other tyranny, slavery, +has been banished—a sin, which, with no fault of our +own, we inherited from the centuries. We shall never +be truly great—as God intended we should be great—until +we learn to work. We have the noblest and sunniest +of lands, with more resources than man now dreams +of, a greater future than we know of if we will only +work—work and develop them. You have set an example +for every girl in the South who has been thrown +upon her own resources. Never before in my life have +I cared—so—much—for you.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>And he blushed as he said it, and fumbled his samples.</p> + +<p>“Then you do care some for me?” she asked pleadingly. +She was heart-sick for sympathy and did not +know just what she said.</p> + +<p>He flushed and started to speak. He looked at her, +and his big glasses quivered with the suppressed emotions +which lay behind them in his eyes.</p> + +<p>But he saw that she did not love him, that she was +begging for sympathy and not for love. Besides, what +right had he to plan to bring another to share his poverty?</p> + +<p>He mounted his horse as one afraid to trust himself +to stay longer. But he touched her hair in his awkward, +funny way, before he swung himself into the +saddle, and Helen, as she went into the desolate home, +felt uplifted as never before.</p> + +<p>Never before had she seen work in that light—nor +love.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<h3>MAGGIE</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">I</span>t was Maggie's last day at the mill, and she had +been unusually thoughtful. Her face was more +pinched, Helen thought, and the sadness in her +eyes had increased.</p> + +<p>Helen had proved to be an apt pupil, and Maggie +declared that thereafter she would be able to run her +machine without assistance.</p> + +<p>It was Saturday noon and Maggie was ready to go, +though the mill did not shut down until six that day. +And so she found herself standing and looking with +tearful eyes at the machine she had learned to love, at +the little room in which she had worked so long, supporting +her invalid father and her little ones—as +she motherly called the children. It had been hard—so +hard, and the years had been long and she +was so weak now, compared to what she had been. How +happy she had thought the moment of her leaving +would be; and yet now that it had come—now—she +was weeping.</p> + +<p>“I didn't think,” she said to Helen—“I didn't think +I'd—I'd care so to leave it—when—when—the time—came.”</p> + +<p>She turned and brushed away her tears in time to see +Travis come smiling up.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Why, Maggie,” he said playfully flipping the tip +of her ear as he passed her. “I thought you left us +yesterday afternoon. You'll not be forgetting us now +that you will not see us again, will you?”</p> + +<p>She flushed and Helen heard her say: “Forget you—ever? +Oh, please, Mr. Travis—” and her voice +trembled.</p> + +<p>“Oh, tut,” he said, frowning quickly—“nothing +like that here. Of course, you will hate to leave the +old mill and the old machine. Come, Maggie, you +needn't wait—you're a good girl—we all know that.”</p> + +<p>He turned to Helen and watched her as she drew in +the threads. Her head was bent over, and her great +coil of hair sat upon it like a queen on a throne.</p> + +<p>What a neck and throat she had—what a beautiful +queenly manner!</p> + +<p>Travis smiled an amused smile when he thought of +it—an ironical sneering smile; but he felt, as he stood +there, that the girl had fascinated him in a strange way, +and now that she was in his power, “now that Fate, or +God has combined to throw her into my arms—almost +unasked for—is it possible that I am beginning to fall +in love with her?”</p> + +<p>He had forgotten Maggie and stood looking at Helen. +And in that look Maggie saw it all. He heard her sit +down suddenly.</p> + +<p>“I would go if I were you, Maggie—you are a +good girl and we shall not forget you.”</p> + +<p>“May I stay a little while longer?” she asked. “I +won't ever come back any more, you know.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>Travis turned quickly and walked off. He came back +and spoke to Helen.</p> + +<p>“Remember, I am to take you home to-night. But +it will be later than usual, on account of the pay-roll.”</p> + +<p>As he shut the door Maggie turned, and her heart +being too full to speak, she came forward and dropped +on her knees, burying her face in Helen's lap. “You +must not notice me,” she said—“don't—don't—oh, +don't look at me.”</p> + +<p>Helen stroked her cheek and finally she was quiet.</p> + +<p>Then she looked into Helen's face. “Do you know—oh, +will you mind if I speak to you—or perhaps I +shouldn't—but—but—don't you see that he loves +you?”</p> + +<p>Helen reddened to her ears.</p> + +<p>“I am foolish—sick—nervous—I know I am silly +an' yet I don't see how he could help it—you are so +queenly—beautiful—so different from any that are +here. He—he—has forgotten me—”</p> + +<p>Helen looked at her quickly.</p> + +<p>“Why, I don't understand,” she said.</p> + +<p>“I mean,” she stammered, “he used to notice us common +girls—me and the others—”</p> + +<p>“I don't understand you,” said Helen, half indignantly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, don't pay no 'tention to me,” she said. “I, I +fear I am sick, you know—sicker than I thought,” and +she coughed violently.</p> + +<p>She lay with her head in Helen's lap. “Please,” she +said timidly, looking up into Helen's face at last—“please +let me stay this way a while. I never knew a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span> +mother—nobody has ever let me do this befo', an' I am +so happy for it.”</p> + +<p>Helen stroked her face and hair anew, and Maggie +kneeled looking up at her eagerly, earnestly, hungrily, +scanning every feature of the prettier girl with worshipping +eyes.</p> + +<p>“How could he he'p it—how could he he'p it,” she +said softly—“yes—yes—you are his equal and so +beautiful.”</p> + +<p>“I don't understand you, Maggie—indeed I do +not.”</p> + +<p>Maggie arose quickly: “Good-bye—let me kiss you +once mo'—I feel like I'll never see you again—an'—an'—I've +learned to love you so!”</p> + +<p>Helen raised her head and kissed her.</p> + +<p>Then Maggie passed quickly out, and with her eyes +only did she look back and utter a farewell which carried +with it both a kiss and a tear. And something else +which was a warning.</p> + +<p>And Helen never forgot.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span></p> +<h3>PAY-DAY</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">I</span>t was Saturday afternoon and pay-day, and the mill +shut down at six o'clock.</p> + +<p>When Helen went in Kingsley sat at the Superintendent's +desk, issuing orders on the Secretary and +Treasurer, Richard Travis, who sat at his desk near by +and paid the wages in silver.</p> + +<p>Connected with the mill was a large commissary or +store—a cheap modern structure which stood in another +part of the town, filled with the necessaries of life +as well as the flimsy gewgaws which delight the heart +of the average mill hand. In establishing this store, +the directors followed the usual custom of cotton-mills +in smaller towns of the South; paying their employees +part in money and part in warrants on the store. It is +needless to add that the prices paid for the goods were, +in most cases, high enough to cut the wages to the +proper margin. If there was any balance at the end +of the month, it was paid in money.</p> + +<p>Kingsley personally supervised this store, and his +annual report to the directors was one of the strong +financial things of his administration.</p> + +<p>A crowd of factory hands stood around his desk, and +the Superintendent was busy issuing orders on the store,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span> +or striking a balance for the Secretary and Treasurer +to pay in silver.</p> + +<p>They stood around tired, wretched, lint- and dust-covered, +but expectant. Few were there compared with +the number employed; for the wages of the minors went +to their parents, and as minors included girls under +eighteen and boys under twenty-one, their parents were +there to receive their wages for them.</p> + +<p>These children belonged to them as mercilessly as if +they had been slaves, and despite the ties of blood, no +master ever more relentlessly collected and appropriated +the wages of his slaves than did the parents the pitiful +wages of their children.</p> + +<p>There are two great whippers-in in the child slavery +of the South—the mills which employ the children and +the parents who permit it—encourage it. Of these two +the parents are often the worse, for, since the late enactment +of child labor laws, they do not hesitate to stultify +themselves by false affidavits as to the child's real age.</p> + +<p>Kingsley had often noticed how promptly and even +proudly the girls, after reaching eighteen, and the boys +twenty-one, had told him hereafter to place their wages +to their own credit, and not to the parent's. They +seemed to take a new lease on life. Decrepit, drawn-faced, +hump-shouldered and dried up before their time, +the few who reached the age when the law made them +their own masters, looked not like men and women who +stand on the threshold of life, but rather like over-worked +middle-aged beings of another period.</p> + +<p>Yet that day their faces put on a brighter look.</p> + +<p>They stood around the office desk, awaiting their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span> +turn. The big engine had ceased to throb and the shuttles +to clatter and whirl. The mill was so quiet that +those who had, year in and year out, listened to its clatter +and hum, seemed to think some overhanging calamity +was about to drop out of the sky of terrible calm.</p> + +<p>“Janette Smith,” called out Kingsley.</p> + +<p>She came forward, a bony, stoop-shouldered woman +of thirty-five years who had been a spooler since she was +fifteen.</p> + +<p>“Seventy-seven hours for the week”—he went on +mechanically, studying the time book, “making six dollars +and sixteen cents. Rent deducted two dollars. +Wood thirty-five cents. Due commissary for goods furnished—here, +Mr. Kidd,” he said to the book-keeper, +“let me see Miss Smith's account.” It was shoved to +him across the desk. Kingsley elevated his glasses. +Then he adjusted them with a peculiar lilt—it was his +way of being ironical:</p> + +<p>“Oh, you don't owe the store anything, Miss Smith—just +eleven dollars and eighty cents.”</p> + +<p>The woman stood stoically—not a muscle moved in +her face, and not even by the change of an eye did she +indicate that such a thing as the ordinary human emotions +of disappointment and fear had a home in the +heart.</p> + +<p>“Mother was sick all last month,” she said at last in a +voice that came out in the same indifferent, unvarying +tone. “I had to overdraw.”</p> + +<p>Kingsley gave his eye-glasses another lilt. They said +as plainly as eye-glasses could: “Well, of course, I +made her sick.” Then he added abruptly: “We will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> +advance you two dollars this week—an' that will be +all.”</p> + +<p>“I hoped to get some little thing that she could eat—some +relish,” she began.</p> + +<p>“Not our business, Miss Smith—sorry—very sorry—but +try to be more economical. Economy is the +great objective haven of life. Emerson says so. And +Browning in a most beautiful line of poetry says the +same thing,” he added.</p> + +<p>“The way to begin economy is to begin it—Emerson +is so helpful to me—he always comes in at the +right time.”</p> + +<p>“And it's only to be two dollars,” she added.</p> + +<p>“That's all,” and he pushed her the order. She took +it, cashed it and went hurriedly out, her poke bonnet +pulled over her face. But there were hot tears and a +sob under her bonnet.</p> + +<p>And so it went on for two hours—some drawing +nothing, but remaining to beg for an order on the store +to keep them running until next week.</p> + +<p>One man with six children in the mill next came forward +and drew eighteen dollars. He smiled complacently +as he drew it and chucked the silver into his +pocket. This gave Jud Carpenter, standing near, a +chance to get in his mill talk.</p> + +<p>“I tell you, Joe Hopper,” he said, slapping the man +on the back, “that mill is a great thing for the mothers +an' fathers of this little settlement. What 'ud we do if +it warn't for our chillun?”</p> + +<p>“You're talkin now—” said Joe hopefully.</p> + +<p>“It useter be,” said Jud, looking around at his crowd,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span> +“that the parents spoiled the kids, but now it is the kids +spoilin' the parents.”</p> + +<p>His audience met this with smiles and laughter.</p> + +<p>“I never did know before,” went on Jud, “what that +old sayin' really meant: 'A fool for luck an' a po' +man for chillun.'”</p> + +<p>Another crackling laugh.</p> + +<p>“How much did Joe Hopper's chillun fetch 'im in +this week?”</p> + +<p>Joe jingled his silver in his pocket and spat importantly +on the floor.</p> + +<p>“I tell you, when I married,” said Jud, “I seed nothin' +but poverty an' the multiplication of my part of the +earth ahead of me—poverty, I tell you, starvation an' +every new chile addin' to it. But since you started this +mill, Mister Kingsley (Kingsley smiled and bowed +across the desk at him), I've turned what everybody said +'ud starve us into ready cash. And now I say to the +young folks: 'Marry an' multiply an' the cash will +be forthcomin'.'”</p> + +<p>This was followed by loud laughs, especially from +those who were blessed with children, and they filed up +to get their wages.</p> + +<p>Jim Stallings, who had four in the mill, was counted +out eleven dollars. As he pocketed it he looked at Jud +and said:</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, Jud; it don't pay to raise chillun. I wish I +had the chance old Sollerman had. I'd soon make old +Vanderbilt look like shin plaster.”</p> + +<p>He joined in the laughter which followed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the doorway he cut a pigeon-wing in which his +thin, bowed legs looked comically humorous.</p> + +<p>Jud Carpenter was a power in the mill, standing as +he did so near to the management. To the poor, ignorant +ones around him he was the mouth-piece of the +mill, and they feared him even more than they did +Kingsley himself, Kingsley with his ironical ways and +lilting eye-glasses. With them Jud's nod alone was +sufficient.</p> + +<p>They were still grouped around the office awaiting +their turn. In the faces of some were shrewdness, cunning, +hypocrisy. Some looked out through dull eyes, +humbled and brow-beaten and unfeeling. But all of +them when they spoke to Jud Carpenter—Jud Carpenter +who stood in with the managers of the mill—became +at once the grinning, fawning framework of a +human being.</p> + +<p>“Yes, boys,” said Jud patronizingly as Stallings went +out, “this here mill is a god-send to us po' folks who've +got chillun to burn. They ain't a day we ortenter git +down on our knees an' thank Mr. Kingsley an' Mister +Travis there. You know I done took down that sign I +useter have hangin' up in my house in the hall—that +sign which said, <i>God bless our home</i>? I've put up another +one now.”</p> + +<p>“What you done put up now, Jud?” grinned a tall +weaver with that blank look of expectancy which settles +over the face of the middle man in a negro minstrel +troupe when he passes the stale question to the end man, +knowing the joke which was coming.</p> + +<p>“Why, I've put up,” said Jud brutally, “'<i>Suffer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span> +Little Children to Come Unto Me.</i>' That's scriptural +authority for cotton mills, ain't it?”</p> + +<p>The paying went on, after the uproarious laughter +had subsided, and down the long row only the clinking +of silver was heard, intermingled now and then with the +shrill voice of some creature disputing with Kingsley +about her account. Generally it ran thus: “<i>It cyant be +thet away. Sixty hours at five cents an hour—wal, +but didn't the chillun wuck no longer than that? I +cyant—I cyant—I jes' cyant live on that little bit.</i>”</p> + +<p>Such it was, and it floated down the line to Helen like +the wail of a lost soul. When her time came Kingsley +met her with a smile. Then he gave her an order and +Travis handed her a bright crisp ten-dollar bill.</p> + +<p>She looked at him in astonishment. “But—but,” +she said. “Surely, I didn't earn all this, did I? Maggie—you +had to pay Maggie for teaching me this +week. It was she who earned it. I cannot take it.”</p> + +<p>Kingsley smiled: “If you must know—though we +promised her we would not tell you,” he said—“no, +Miss Conway, you did not earn but five dollars this week. +The other five is Maggie's gift to you—she left it +here for you.”</p> + +<p>She looked at him stupidly—in dazed gratitude. +Travis came forward:</p> + +<p>“I've ordered Jim to take you home to-night. I cannot +leave now.”</p> + +<p>And he led her out to where the trotters stood. He +lifted her in, pressing her hand as he did so—but she +did not know it—she burned with a strange fullness +in her throat as she clutched her money, the first she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span> +had ever earned, and thought of Maggie—Maggie, +dying and unselfish.</p> + +<p>Work—it had opened a new life to her. Work—and +never before had she known the sweetness of it.</p> + +<p>“Oh, father,” she said when she reached home, “I +have made some money—I can support you and Lily +now.”</p> + +<p>When Travis returned Jud Carpenter met him at the +door.</p> + +<p>“I had a mess o' trouble gittin' that gal into the +mill. Huh! but ain't she a beaut! I guess you 'orter +tip me for throwin' sech a peach as that into yo' arms. +Oh, you're a sly one—” he went on whisperingly—“the +smoothest one with women I ever seed. But you'll +have to thank me for that queen. Guess I'll go down +an' take a dram. I want to git the lint out of my +throat.”</p> + +<p>“I'll be down later,” said Travis as he looked at his +watch. “Charley Biggers and I. It's our night to +have a little fun with the boys.”</p> + +<p>“I'll see you there,” said Jud.</p> + +<p>The clinking of silver, questions, answers, and expostulations +went on. In the midst of it there was the +sudden shrill wail of an angry child.</p> + +<p>“I wants some of my money, Paw—I wants to buy a +ginger man.”</p> + +<p>Then came a cruel slap which was heard all over the +room, and the boy of ten, a wild-eyed and unkempt +thing, staggered and grasped his face where the blow +fell.</p> + +<p>“Take that, you sassy meddling up-start—you be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span>long +to me till you are twenty-one years old. What +'ud you do with a ginger man 'cept to eat it?” He +cuffed the boy through the door and sent him flying +home.</p> + +<p>It was Joe Sykes, the wages of whose children kept +him in active drunkenness and chronic inertia. He was +the champion loafer of the town.</p> + +<p>In a short time he had drawn a pocketful of silver, +and going out soon overtook Jud Carpenter.</p> + +<p>“I tell you, Jud, we mus' hold these kids down—we +heads of the family. I've mighty nigh broke myself +down this week a controllin' mine. Goin' down to take +a drink or two? Same to you.”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span></p> +<h3>THE PLOT</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">A</span> village bar-room is a village hell.</p> + +<p>Jud Carpenter and Joe Hopper were soon +there, and the silver their children had earned +at the mill began to go for drinks.</p> + +<p>The drinks made them feel good. They resolved to +feel better, so they drank again. As they drank the +talk grew louder. They were joined by others from the +town—ne'er-do-wells, who hung around the bar—and +others from the mill.</p> + +<p>And so they drank and sang and danced and played +cards and drank again, and threw dice for more drinks.</p> + +<p>It was nearly nine o'clock before the Bacchanal laugh +began to ring out at intervals—so easily distinguished +from the sober laugh, in that it carries in its closing +tones the queer ring of the maniac's.</p> + +<p>Only the mill men had any cash. The village loafers +drank at their expense, and on credit.</p> + +<p>“And why should we not drink if we wish,” said one +of them. “Our children earned the money and do we +not own the children?”</p> + +<p>Twice only were they interrupted. Once by the wife +of a weaver who came in and pleaded with her husband +for part of their children's money. Her tears touched +the big-hearted Billy Buch, and as her husband was too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span> +drunk to know what he was doing, Billy took what +money he had left and gave it to the wife. She had a +sick child, she told Billy Buch, and what money she had +would not even buy the medicine.</p> + +<p>Billy squinted the corner of one eye and looked solemnly +at the husband: “He ha'f ten drinks in him +ag'in, already. I vill gif you pay for eet all for the +child. An' here ees one dollar mo' from Billy Buch. +Now go, goot voman.”</p> + +<p>The other interruption was the redoubtable Mrs. Billings; +her brother, also a slubber, had arrived early, but +had scarcely taken two delightful, exquisite drinks before +she came on the scene, her eyes flashing, her hair +disheveled, and her hand playing familiarly with something +under her apron.</p> + +<p>Her presence threw them into a panic.</p> + +<p>“Mine Gott!” said Billy, turning pale. “Eet es +Meeses Billings an' her crockery.”</p> + +<p>Half a dozen jubilants pointed out a long-haired man +at a center table talking proudly of his physical strength +and bravery.</p> + +<p>“Cris Ham?” beckoned Mrs. Billings, feeling nervously +under her apron. “Come with me!”</p> + +<p>“I'll be along t'orectly, sis.”</p> + +<p>“You will come now,” she said, and her hands began +to move ominously beneath her apron.</p> + +<p>“To be sho',” he said as he walked out with her. “I +didn't know you felt that away about it, sis.”</p> + +<br /> +<p>It was after ten o'clock when the quick roll of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span> +buggy came up to the door, and Richard Travis and +Charley Biggers alighted.</p> + +<p>They had both been drinking. Slowly, surely, Travis +was going down in the scale of degeneracy. Slowly +the loose life he was leading was lowering him to the +level of the common herd. A few years ago he would +not have thought of drinking with his own mill hands. +To-night he was there, the most reckless of them all. +Analyzed, it was for the most part conceit with him; +the low conceit of the superior intellect which would +mingle in infamy with the lowest to gain its ignorant +homage. For Intellect must have homage if it has to +drag it from the slums.</p> + +<p>Charley Biggers was short and boyish, with a fat, +round face. When he laughed he showed a fine set of +big, sensual teeth. His eyes were jolly, flighty, insincere. +Weakness was written all over him, from a derby +hat sitting back rakishly on his forehead to the small, +effeminate boot that fitted so neatly his small effeminate +foot. He had a small hand and his little sensual face +had not a rough feature on it. It was set off by a +pudgy, half-formed dab of a nose that let his breath +in and out when his mouth happened to be shut. His +eyes were the eyes of one who sees no wrong in anything.</p> + +<p>They came in and pulled off their gloves, daintily. +They threw their overcoats on a chair. Travis glanced +around the circle of the four or five who were left and +said pompously:</p> + +<p>“Come up, gentlemen, and have something at my expense.” +Then he walked up to the bar.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span></p> + +<p>They came. They considered it both a pleasure and +an honor, as Jud Carpenter expressed it, to drink with +him.</p> + +<p>“It is a good idea to mingle with them now and +then,” whispered Travis to Charley. “It keeps me solid +with them—health, gentlemen!”</p> + +<p>Charley Biggers showed his good-natured teeth:</p> + +<p>“Health, gentlemen,” he grinned.</p> + +<p>Then he hiccoughed through his weak little nose.</p> + +<p>“Joe Hopper can't rise, gentlemen, Joe is drunk, an'—an' +a widderer, besides,” hiccoughed Joe from below.</p> + +<p>Joe had been a widower for a year. His wife, after +being the mother of eleven children, who now supported +Joe in his drunkenness, had passed away.</p> + +<p>Then Joe burst into tears.</p> + +<p>“What's up, Joe?” asked Jud kindly.</p> + +<p>“Liza's dead,” he wailed.</p> + +<p>“Why, she's been dead a year,” said Jud.</p> + +<p>“Don't keer, Jud—I'm jes'—jes' beginnin' to feel +it now”—and he wept afresh.</p> + +<p>It was too much for Charley Biggers, and he also +wept. Travis looked fixedly at the ceiling and recited +portions of the Episcopal burial service. Then Jud +wept. They all wept.</p> + +<p>“Gentlemen,” said Travis solemnly, “let us drink to +the health of the departed Mrs. Hopper. Here's to +her!”</p> + +<p>This cheered all except Joe Hopper—he refused to +be comforted. They tried to console him, but he only +wept the more. They went on drinking and left him +out, but this did not tend to diminish his tears.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, Mister Hopper, shet up,” said Jud peremptorily—“close +up—I've arranged for you to marry a +grass-widder.”</p> + +<p>This cheered him greatly.</p> + +<p>“O Jud—Jud—if I marry a grass-widder whut—whut'll +I be then?”</p> + +<p>“Why? a grasshopper, sure,” said Travis.</p> + +<p>They all roared. Then Jud winked at Travis and +Travis winked at the others. Then they sat around a +table, all winking except poor Joe, who continued to +weep at the thought of being a grasshopper. He did +not quite understand how it was, but he knew that in +some way he was to be changed into a grasshopper, +with long green wings and legs to match.</p> + +<p>“Gentlemen,” said Jud seriously—“it is our duty +to help out po' Joe. Now, Joe, we've arranged it for +you to marry Miss Kate Galloway—the grass-widder.”</p> + +<p>“Not Miss Kate,” said Travis with becoming seriousness.</p> + +<p>“Why not her, Mr. Travis?” asked Jud, winking.</p> + +<p>“Because his children will be Katydids,” said Travis.</p> + +<p>This brought on thundering roars of laughter and +drinks all around. Only Joe wept—wept to think his +children would be katydids.</p> + +<p>“Now, Joe, it's this way. I've talked it all over and +arranged it. That's what we've met for to-night—ain't +it, gents?” said Jud.</p> + +<p>“Sure—sure,” they all exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“Now, Joe, you mus' dry yo' tears an' become reconciled—we've +got a nice scheme fixed for you.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“I'll never be reconciled—never,” wailed Joe. +“Liza's dead an'—I'm a grasshopper.”</p> + +<p>“Now, wait till I explain to you—but, dear, devoted +friend, everything is ready. The widder's been seen +an' all you've got to do is to come with us and get her.”</p> + +<p>“She's a mighty handsome 'oman,” said Jud, winking +his eye. “Dear—dear frien's—all—I'm feelin' +reconciled already”—said Joe.</p> + +<p>They all joined in the roar. Jud winked. They all +winked. Jud went on:</p> + +<p>“Joe, dear, dear Joe—we have had thy welfare at +heart, as the books say. We wanted thee to become a +millionaire. Thou hast eleven children to begin with. +They pay you—”</p> + +<p>“Eighteen dollars a week, clear,”—said Joe +proudly.</p> + +<p>“Well, now, Joe—it's all arranged—you marry +the widder an' in the course of time you'll have eleven +mo'. That's another eighteen dollars—or thirty-six +dollars a week clear in the mills.”</p> + +<p>“Now, but I hadn't thought of that,” said Joe enthusiastically—“that's +a fact. When—when did you +say the ceremony'd be performed?”</p> + +<p>“Hold on,” said Jud, “now, we've studied this thing +all out for you. You're a Mormon—the only one of +us that is a Mormon—openly.”</p> + +<p>They all laughed.</p> + +<p>“Openly—” he went on—“you've j'ined the Mormon +church here up in the mountains.”</p> + +<p>“But we don't practise polygamy—now”—said +Joe.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span></p> + +<p>“That's only on account of the Grand Jury and the +law—not yo' religion. You see—you'll marry an' go +to Utah—but—es the kids come you'll sen' 'em all +down here to the mills—every one a kinder livin' +coupon. All any man's got to do in this country to git +rich is to marry enough wives.”</p> + +<p>“Can I do that—do the marryin' in Utah an' keep +sendin' the—the chilluns down to the mill?” His eyes +glittered.</p> + +<p>“Sart'inly”—said Jud—“sure!”</p> + +<p>“Then there's Miss Carewe”—he went on—“you +haf'ter cal'clate on feedin' several wives in one, with +her. But say eleven mo' by her. That's thirty-seven +mo'.”</p> + +<p>Joe jumped up.</p> + +<p>“Is she willin'?”</p> + +<p>“Done seen her,” said Jud; “she say come on.”</p> + +<p>“Hold on,” said Travis with feigned anger. “Hold +on. Joe is fixin' to start a cotton-mill of his own. +That'll interfere with the Acme. No—no—we must +vote it down. We mustn't let Joe do it.”</p> + +<p>Joe had already attempted to rise and start after his +wives. But in the roar of laughter that followed he sat +down and began to weep again for Liza.</p> + +<p>It was nearly midnight. Only Travis, Charley Biggers +and Jud remained sober enough to talk. Charley +was telling of Tilly and her wondrous beauty.</p> + +<p>“Now—it's this way,” he hiccoughed—“I've got +to go off to school—but—but—I've thought of a +plan to marry her first, with a bogus license and +preacher.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>There was a whispered conversation among them, ending +in a shout of applause.</p> + +<p>“What's the matter with you takin' yo' queen at the +same time?” asked Jud of Travis.</p> + +<p>Travis, drunk as he was, winced to think that he +would ever permit Jud Carpenter to suggest what he +had intended should only be known to himself. His +tongue was thick, his brain whirled, and there were gaps +in his thoughts; but through the thickness and heaviness +he thought how low he had fallen. Lower yet when, +despite all his vanishing reserve, all his dignity and exclusiveness, +he laughed sillily and said:</p> + +<p>“Just what I had decided to do—two queens and +an ace.”</p> + +<p>They all cheered drunkenly.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span></p> +<h3>MRS. WESTMORE TAKES A HAND</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">“W</span>hat are you playing, Alice?”</p> + +<p>The daughter arose from the piano and +kissed her mother, holding for a moment the +pretty face, crowned with white hair, between her two +palms.</p> + +<p>“It—it is an old song which Tom and I used to love +to sing.”</p> + +<p>The last of the sentence came so slowly that it sank +almost into silence, as of one beginning a sentence and +becoming so absorbed in the subject as to forget the +speech. Then she turned again to the piano, as if to +hide from her mother the sorrow which had crept into +her face.</p> + +<p>“You should cease to think of that. Such things are +dreams—at present we are confronted by very disagreeable +realities.”</p> + +<p>“Dreams—ah, mother mine”—she answered with +forced cheeriness—“but what would life be without +them?”</p> + +<p>“For one thing, Alice”—and she took the daughter's +place at the piano and began to play snatches of +an old waltz tune—“it would be free from all the morbid +unnaturalness, the silliness, the froth of things. +There is too much hardness in every life—in the world<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span>—in +the very laws of life, for such things ever to have +been part of the original plan. For my part, I think +they are the product of man and wine or women or morphine +or some other narcotic.”</p> + +<p>“We make the dreams of life, but the realities of it +make us,” she added.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, mother. 'Tis the dreams that make the +realities. Not a great established fact exists but it was +once the vision of a dreamer. Our dreams to-day become +the realities of to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“Do you believe Tom is not dead—that he will one +day come back?” asked her mother abruptly.</p> + +<p>It was twilight and the fire flickered, lighting up the +library. But in the flash of it Mrs. Westmore saw +Alice's cheek whiten in a hopeless, helpless, stricken way.</p> + +<p>Then she walked to the window and looked out on the +darkness fast closing in on the lawn, clustering denser +around the evergreens and creeping ghostlike toward the +dim sky line which shone clear in the open.</p> + +<p>The very helplessness of her step, her silence, her +numbed, yearning look across the lawn told Mrs. Westmore +of the death of all hope there.</p> + +<p>She followed her daughter and put her arms impulsively +around her.</p> + +<p>“I should not have hurt you so, Alice. I only wanted +to show you how worse than useless it is ... but +to change the subject, I do wish to speak to you of—our +condition.”</p> + +<p>Alice was used to her mother's ways—her brilliancy—her +pointed manner of going at things—her quick +change of thought—of mood, and even of tempera<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span>ment. +An outsider would have judged Mrs. Westmore +to be fickle with a strong vein of selfishness and even of +egotism. Alice only knew that she was her mother; who +had suffered much; who had been reduced by poverty to +a condition straitened even to hardships. To help her +the daughter knew that she was willing to make any +sacrifice. Unselfish, devoted, clear as noonday in her +own ideas of right and wrong, Alice's one weakness was +her blind devotion to those she loved. A weakness beautiful +and even magnificent, since it might mean a sacrifice +of her heart for another. The woman who gives +her time, her money, her life, even, to another gives +but a small part of her real self. But there is something +truly heroic when she throws in her heart also. +For when a woman has given that she has given all; and +because she has thrown it in cold and dead—a lifeless +thing—matters not; in the poignancy of the giving +it is gone from her forever and she may not recall it +even with the opportunity of bringing it back to life.</p> + +<p>She who gives her all, but keeps her heart, is as a +priest reading mechanically the Sermon on the Mount +from the Bible. But she who gives her heart never to +take it back again gives as the Christ dying on the Cross.</p> + +<p>“Now, here is the legal paper about”—</p> + +<p>Her voice failed and she did not finish the sentence.</p> + +<p>Alice took the paper and glanced at it. She flushed +and thrust it into her pocket. They were silent a while +and Mrs. Westmore sat thinking of the past. Alice +knew it by the great reminiscent light which gleamed in +her eyes. She thought of the time when she had servants, +money, friends unlimited—of the wealth and in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span>fluence +of her husband—of the glory of Westmoreland.</p> + +<p>Every one has some secret ambition kept from the +eyes of every living soul—often even to die in its +keeper's breast. It is oftenest a mean ambition of which +one is ashamed and so hides it from the world. It is +often the one weakness. Alice never knew what was her +mother's. She did not indeed know that she had one, +for this one thing Mrs. Westmore had kept inviolately +secret. But in her heart there had always rankled a +secret jealousy when she thought of The Gaffs. It had +been there since she could remember—a feeling cherished +secretly, too, by her husband: for in everything +their one idea had been that Westmoreland should surpass +The Gaffs,—that it should be handsomer, better +kept, more prosperous, more famous.</p> + +<p>Now, Westmoreland was gone—this meant the last +of it. It would be sold, even the last hundred acres of +it, with the old home on it. Gone—gone—all her +former glory—all her family tradition, her memories, +her very name.</p> + +<p>Gone, and The Gaffs remained!</p> + +<p>Remained in all its intactness—its beauty—its well +equipped barns with all the splendor of its former days. +For so great was the respect of Schofield's army for +the character of Colonel Jeremiah Travis that his home +escaped the torch when it was applied to many others +in the Tennessee Valley. And Richard Travis had been +shrewd enough after the war to hold his own. Joining +the party of the negro after the war, he had been its +political ruler in the county. And the Honorable Rich<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span>ard +Travis had been offered anything he wanted. At +present he was State Senator. He with others called +himself a Republican—one of the great party of Lincoln +to which the negroes after their enfranchisement +united themselves. It was a fearful misnomer. The +Republican party in the South, composed of ninety-nine +ignorant negroes to one renegade white, about as truly +represented the progressive party of Lincoln as a black +vampire the ornithology of all lands. Indeed, since the +war, there has never been in the South either a Republican +or a Democratic party. The party line is not +drawn on belief but on race and color. The white men, +believing everything they please from free trade to protection, +vote a ticket which they call Democratic. The +negroes, and a few whites who allied themselves with +them for the spoils of office, vote the other ticket. Neither +of them represent anything but a race issue.</p> + +<p>To this negro party belonged Richard Travis—and +the price of his infamy had been <i>Honorable</i> before his +name.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Westmore cared nothing for this. She +only knew that he was a leader of men, was handsome, +well reared and educated, and that he owned The Gaffs, +her old rival. And that there it stood, a fortune—a +refuge—a rock—offered to her and her daughter, +offered by a man who, whatever his other faults, was +brave and dashing, sincere in his idolatrous love for her +daughter. That he would make Alice happy she did +not doubt; for Mrs. Westmore's idea of happiness was +in having wealth and position and a splendid name.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span> +Having no real heart, how was it possible for her to +know, as Alice could know, the happiness of love?</p> + +<p>An eyeless fish in the river of Mammoth Cave might +as well try to understand what light meant.</p> + +<p>He would make Alice happy, of course he would; he +would make her happy by devotion, which he was eager +to give her with an unstinted hand. Alice needed it, +she herself needed it. It was common sense to accept +it,—business sense. It was opportunity—fate. It +was the reward of a life—the triumph of it—to have +her old rival—enemy—bound and presented to her.</p> + +<p>And nothing stood between her and the accomplishment +of it all but the foolish romance of her daughter's +youth.</p> + +<p>And so she sat building her castles and thinking:</p> + +<p>“With The Gaffs, with Richard Travis and his money +would come all I wish, both for her and for me. Once +more I would hold the social position I once held: once +more I would be something in the world. And Alice, +of course, she would be happy; for her's is one of those +trusting natures which finds first where her duty points +and then makes her heart follow.”</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Westmore wisely kept silent. She did not +think aloud. She knew too well that Alice's sympathetic, +unselfish, obedient spirit was thinking it over.</p> + +<p>She sat down by her mother and took up a pet kitten +which had come purring in, begging for sympathy. She +stroked it thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westmore read her daughter's thoughts:</p> + +<p>“So many people,” the mother said after a while, +“have false ideas of love and marriage. Like ignorant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span> +people when they get religion, they think a great and +sudden change must come over them—changing their +very lives.”</p> + +<p>She laughed her ringing little laugh: “I told you +of your father's and my love affair. Why, I was engaged +to three other men at the same time—positively +I was. And I would have been just as happy with any +of them.”</p> + +<p>“Why did you marry father, then?”</p> + +<p>Her mother laughed and tapped the toe of her shoe +playfully against the fender: “It was a silly reason; +he swam the Tennessee River on his horse to see me one +day, when the ferry-boat was a wreck. I married him.”</p> + +<p>“Would not the others have done as well?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but I knew your father was brave. You cannot +love a coward—no woman can. But let a man be +brave—no matter what his faults are—the rest is all a +question of time. You would soon learn to love him as +I did your father.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westmore was wise. She changed the subject.</p> + +<p>“Have you noticed Uncle Bisco lately, mother?” +asked Alice after a while.</p> + +<p>“Why, yes; I intended to ask you about him.”</p> + +<p>“He says there are threats against his life—his and +Aunt Charity's. He had a terrible dream last night, +and he would have me to interpret it.”</p> + +<p>“Quite Biblical,” laughed her mother. “What was +it?”</p> + +<p>“They have been very unhappy all day—you know +the negroes have been surly and revengeful since the +election of Governor Houston—they believe they will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span> +be put back into slavery and they know that Uncle Bisco +voted with his white friends. It is folly, of course—but +they beat Captain Roland's old body servant nearly to +death because he voted with his old master. And Uncle +Bisco has heard threats that he and Aunt Charity will be +visited in a like manner. I think it will soon blow over, +though at times I confess I am often worried about +them, living alone so far off from us, in the cabin in the +wood.”</p> + +<p>“What was Uncle Bisco's dream?” asked Mrs. Westmore.</p> + +<p>“Why, he said an angel had brought him water to +drink from a Castellonian Spring. Now, I don't know +what a Castellonian Spring is, but that was the word he +used, and that he was turned into a live-oak tree, old and +moss-grown. Then he stood in the forest surrounded +by scrub-oaks and towering over them and other mean +trees when suddenly they all fell upon him and cut him +down. Now, he says, these scrub-oaks are the radical +negroes who wish to kill him for voting with the whites. +You will laugh at my interpretation,” she went on. “I +told him that the small black oaks were years that still +stood around him, but that finally they would overpower +him and he would sink to sleep beneath them, as +we must all eventually do. I think it reassured him—but, +mamma, I am uneasy about the two old people.”</p> + +<p>“If the Bishop were here—”</p> + +<p>“He would sleep in the house with a shotgun, I fear,” +laughed Alice.</p> + +<p>They were silent at last: “When did you say Richard +was coming again, Alice?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“To-morrow night—and—and—I hear Clay in +his laboratory. I will go and talk to him before bed +time.”</p> + +<p>She stooped and kissed her mother. To her surprise, +she found her mother's arms around her neck and heard +her whisper brokenly:</p> + +<p>“Alice—Alice—you could solve it all if you would. +Think—think—what it would mean to me—to all +of us—oh, I can stand this poverty no longer—this +fight against that which we cannot overcome.”</p> + +<p>She burst into a flood of tears. Never before had +Alice seen her show her emotions over their condition, +and it hurt her, stabbed her to the vital spot of all obedience +and love.</p> + +<p>With moistened eyes she went into her brother's room.</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Westmore wrote a note to Richard Travis. +It did not say so in words but it meant: “<i>Come and +be bold—you have won.</i>”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span></p> +<h3>A QUESTION BROUGHT HOME</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">“I</span> shall go to Boston next week to meet the directors +of the mill and give in my annual report.”</p> + +<p>The three had been sitting in Westmoreland library +this Sunday night—for Richard Travis came regularly +every Sunday night, and he had been talking +about the progress of the mill and the great work it +was doing for the poor whites of the valley. “I imagine,” +he added, “that they will be pleased with the report +this year.”</p> + +<p>“But are you altogether pleased with it in all its +features?” asked Alice thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>“Why, what do you mean, Alice?” asked her mother, +surprised.</p> + +<p>“Just this, mother, and I have been thinking of talking +to Richard about it for some time.”</p> + +<p>Travis took his cigar out of his mouth and looked at +her quizzically.</p> + +<p>She flushed under his gaze and added: “If I wasn't +saying what I am for humanity's sake I would be willing +to admit that it was impertinent on my part. But are +you satisfied with the way you work little children in +that mill, Richard, and are you willing to let it go on +without a protest before your directors? You have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span> +such a fine opportunity for good there,” she added in all +her old beautiful earnestness.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Alice, my dear, that is none of our affair. Now +I should not answer her, Richard,” and Mrs. Westmore +tapped him playfully on the arm.</p> + +<p>“Frankly, I am not,” he said to Alice. “I think it +is a horrible thing. But how are we to remedy it? +There is no law on the subject at all in Alabama—”</p> + +<p>“Except the broader, unwritten law,” she added.</p> + +<p>Travis laughed: “You will find that it cuts a small +figure with directors when it comes in conflict with the +dividends of a corporation.”</p> + +<p>“But how is it there?” she asked,—“in New England?”</p> + +<p>“They have seen the evils of it and they have a law +against child labor. The age is restricted to twelve +years, and every other year they must go to a public +school before they may be taken back into the mill. +But even with all that, the law is openly violated, as it is +in England, where they have been making efforts to +throttle the child-labor problem for nearly a century, +and after whose law the New England law was patterned.”</p> + +<p>“Why, by the parents of the children falsely swearing +to their age.”</p> + +<p>Alice looked at him in astonishment.</p> + +<p>“Do you really mean it?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Why, certainly—and it would be the same here. +If we had a law the lazy parents of many of them would +swear falsely to their children's ages.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“There could be some way found to stop that,” she +said.</p> + +<p>“It has not been found yet,” he added. “What is +to prevent two designing parents swearing that an eight +year old child is twelve—and these little poor whites,” +he added with a laugh, “all look alike from eight to +sixteen—scrawny—hard and half-starved. In many +cases no living man could swear whether they are six +or twelve.”</p> + +<p>“If you really should make it a rule to refuse all +children under twelve,” she added, “tell me how many +would go out of your mill.”</p> + +<p>“In other words, how many under twelve do we work +there?” he asked.</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<p>He thought a while and then said: “About one +hundred and twenty-five.”</p> + +<p>She started: “That is terrible—terrible! Couldn't +you—couldn't you bring the subject up before the +directors for—for—”</p> + +<p>“Your sake—yes”—he said, admiringly.</p> + +<p>“Humanity's—God's—Right's—helpless, ignorant, +dying children!”</p> + +<p>“Do you know,” he added quickly, “how many idle +parents these hundred and twenty-five children support—actually +support? Why, about fifty. Now do +you see? The whole influence of these fifty people +will be to violate the law—to swear the children +are twelve or over. Yes, I am opposed to it—so is +Kingsley—but we are powerless.”</p> + +<p>“My enthusiasm has been aroused, of late, on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span> +subject,” Alice went on, “by the talks and preaching of +my old friend, Mr. Watts.”</p> + +<p>Travis frowned: “The old Bishop of Cottontown,” +he added ironically—“and he had better stop it—he +will get into trouble yet.”</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“Because he is doing the mill harm.”</p> + +<p>“And I don't suppose one should do a corporation +harm,” she said quickly,—“even to do humanity +good?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Alice, let us drop so disagreeable a subject,” +said her mother. “Come, Richard and I want some +music.”</p> + +<p>“Any way,” said Alice, rising, “I do very much hope +you will bring the subject up in your visit to the +directors. It has grown on me under the talks of the +old Bishop and what I have seen myself—it has become +a nightmare to me.”</p> + +<p>“I don't think it is any of our business at all,” +spoke up Mrs. Westmore quickly.</p> + +<p>Alice turned her big, earnest eyes and beautiful face +on her mother.</p> + +<p>“Do you remember when I was six years old?” she +asked.</p> + +<p>“Of course I do.”</p> + +<p>“Suppose—suppose—that our poverty had come +to us then, and you and papa had died and left brother +and me alone and friendless. Then suppose we had +been put into that mill to work fourteen hours a day—we—your +own little ones—brother and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span>”—</p> + +<p>Mrs. Westmore sprang up with a little shriek and +put her hands over her daughter's mouth.</p> + +<p>Richard Travis shrugged his shoulders: “I had +not thought of it that way myself,” he said. “That +goes home to one.”</p> + +<p>Richard Travis was always uplifted in the presence of +Alice. It was wonderful to him what a difference in his +feelings, his behavior, his ideas, her simple presence exerted. +As he looked at her he thought of last night's +debauch—the bar-room—the baseness and vileness of +it all. He thought of his many amours. He saw the +purity and grandeur of her in this contrast—all her +queenliness and beauty and simplicity. He even thought +of Maggie and said to himself: “Suppose Alice should +know all this.... My God! I would have no +more chance of winning her than of plucking a star +from the sky!”</p> + +<p>He thought of Helen and it made him serious. +Helen's was a different problem from Maggie's. Maggie +was a mill girl—poor, with a bed-ridden father. +She was nameless. But Helen—she was of the same +blood and caste of this beautiful woman before him, +whom he fully expected to make his wife. There was +danger in Helen—he must act boldly, but decisively—he +must take her away with him—out of the State, +the South even. Distance would be his protection, and +her pride and shame would prevent her ever letting her +whereabouts or her fate be known.</p> + +<p>Cold-bloodedly, boldly, and with clear-cut reasoning, +all this ran through his mind as he stood looking at +Alice Westmore.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span></p> + +<p>We are strangely made—the best of us. Men have +looked on the Madonna and wondered why the artist +had not put more humanity there—had not given her +a sensual lip, perhaps. And on the Cross, the Christ +was thinking of a thief.</p> + +<p>Two hours later he was bidding her good-bye.</p> + +<p>“Next Sunday, do you remember—Alice—next +Sunday night you are to tell me—to fix the day, +Sweet?”</p> + +<p>“Did mother tell you that?” she asked. “She +should let me speak for myself.”</p> + +<p>But somehow he felt that she would. Indeed he +knew it as he kissed her hand and bade her good-night.</p> + +<p>Richard Travis had ridden over to Westmoreland that +Sunday night, and as he rode back, some two miles away, +and within the shadows of a dense clump of oaks which +bordered the road, he was stopped by two dusky figures. +They stood just on the edge of the forest and came +out so suddenly that the spirited saddle mare stopped +and attempted to wheel and bolt. But Travis, controlling +her with one hand and, suspecting robbers, had +drawn his revolver with the other, when one of them +said:</p> + +<p>“Friends, don't shoot.”</p> + +<p>“Give the countersign,” said Travis with ill-concealed +irritation.</p> + +<p>“Union League, sir. I am Silos, sir.”</p> + +<p>Travis put his revolver back into his overcoat pocket +and quieted his mare.</p> + +<p>The two men, one a negro and the other a mulatto,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span> +came up to his saddle-skirt and stood waiting respectfully.</p> + +<p>“You should have awaited me at The Gaffs, Silos.”</p> + +<p>“We did, sir,” said the mulatto, “but the boys are all +out here in the woods, and we wanted to hold them together. +We didn't know when you would come home.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it's all right,” said Travis pettishly—“only +you came near catching one of my bullets by mistake. I +thought you were Jack Bracken and his gang.”</p> + +<p>The mulatto smiled and apologized. He was a bright +fellow and the barber of the town.</p> + +<p>“We wanted to know, sir, if you were willing for us +to do the work to-night, sir?”</p> + +<p>“Why bother me about it—no need for me to know, +Silos, but one thing I must insist upon. You may whip +them—frighten them, but nothing else, mind you, +nothing else.”</p> + +<p>“But you are the commander of the League—we +wanted your consent.”</p> + +<p>Travis bent low over the saddle and talked earnestly +to the man a while. It was evidently satisfactory to +the other, for he soon beckoned his companion and +started off into the woods.</p> + +<p>“Have you representatives from each camp present, +Silos?”</p> + +<p>The mulatto turned and came back.</p> + +<p>“Yes—but the toughest we could get. I'll not stay +myself to see it. I don't like such work, sir—only +some one has to do it for the cause—the cause of freedom, +sir.”</p> + +<p>“Of course—why of course,” said Travis. “Old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span> +Bisco and his kind are liable to get all you negroes put +back into slavery—if the Democrats succeed again as +they have just done. Give them a good scare.”</p> + +<p>“We'll fix him to-night, boss,” said the black one, +grinning good naturedly. Then he added to himself: +“Yes, I'll whip 'em—to death.”</p> + +<p>“I heard a good deal of talk among the boys, to-night, +sir,” said the mulatto. “They all want you for +Congress next time.”</p> + +<p>“Well, we'll talk about that, Silos, later. I must +hurry on.”</p> + +<p>He started, then wheeled suddenly:</p> + +<p>“Oh, say, Silos—”</p> + +<p>The latter came back.</p> + +<p>“Do your work quietly to-night—Just a good +scare—If you disturb”—he pointed to the roof of +Westmoreland in the distance showing above the beech +tops. “You know how foolish they are about old Bisco +and his wife—”</p> + +<p>“They'll never hear anything.” He walked off, saying +to himself: “A nigger who is a traitor to his race +ought to be shot, but for fear of a noise and disturbin' +the ladies—I'll hang 'em both,—never fear.”</p> + +<p>Travis touched his mare with the spur and galloped +off.</p> + +<br /> +<p>Uncle Bisco and his wife were rudely awakened. It +was nearly midnight when the door of their old cabin +was broken open by a dozen black, ignorant negroes, +who seized and bound the old couple before they could +cry out. Bisco was taken out into the yard under a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span> +tree, while his wife, pleading and begging for her husband's +life, was tied to another tree.</p> + +<p>“Bisco,” said the leader, “we cum heah to pay you +back fur de blood you drawed frum our backs whilst you +hilt de whip ob slabery an' oberseed fur white fo'ks. +An' fur ebry lick you giv' us, we gwi' giv' you er dozen +on your naked back, an' es fur dis ole witch,” said the +brute, pointing to old Aunt Charity, “we got de plain +docyments on her fur witchin' Br'er Moses' little gal—de +same dat she mek hab fits, an' we gwi' hang her to a +lim'.”</p> + +<p>The old man drew himself up. In every respect—intelligence, +physical and moral bravery—he was superior +to the crowd around him. Raised with the best +class of whites, he had absorbed many of their virtues, +while in those around him were many who were but a +few generations removed from the cowardice of darkest +Africa.</p> + +<p>“I nurver hit you a lick you didn't deserve, suh, I +nurver had you whipped but once an' dat wus for stealin' +a horg which you sed yo'se'f you stole. You ken +do wid me es you please,” he went on, “you am menny +an' kin do it, an' I am ole an' weak. But ef you hes got +enny soul, spare de po' ole 'oman who ain't nurver dun +nothin' but kindness all her life. De berry chile you +say she witched hes hed 'leptis fits all its life an' Cheerity +ain't dun nuffin' but take it medicine to kwore it. Don't +hurt de po' ole 'oman,” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“Let 'em do whut dey please wid me, Bisco,” she +said: “Dey can't do nuffin' to dis po' ole body but sen' +de tired soul on dat journey wher de buterful room is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span> +already fix fur it, es you read dis berry night. But +spare de ole man, spare 'im fur de secun' blessin' which +Gord dun promised us, an' which boun' ter cum bekase +Gord can't lie. O Lord,” she said suddenly, “remember +thy po' ole servants dis night.”</p> + +<p>But her appeals were fruitless. Already the “witch +council” of the blacks was being formed to decide their +fate. And it was an uncanny scene that the moon +looked down on that night, under the big trees on the +banks of the Tennessee. They formed in a circle around +the “Witch Finder,” an old negro whose head was as +white as snow, and who was so ignorant he could scarcely +speak even negro dialect.</p> + +<p>Both his father and mother were imported from Africa, +and the former was “Witch Finder” for his tribe +there. The negroes said the African Witch Finder had +imparted his secret only to his son, and that it had thus +been handed down in one family for many generations.</p> + +<p>The old negro now sat upon the ground in the center +of the circle. He was a small, bent up, wiry-looking +black, with a physiognomy closely resembling a dog's, +which he took pains to cultivate by drawing the plaits of +his hair down like the ears of a hound, while he shaped +his few straggling strands of beard into the under jaw of +the same animal. Three big negroes had led him, blind-folded, +into the circle, chanting a peculiar song, the +music of which was weird and uncanny. And now as he +sat on the ground the others regarded him with the +greatest reverence and awe. It was in one of the most +dismal portions of the swamp, a hundred yards or two +from the road that led to the ferry at the river. Here<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span> +the old people had been brought from their homes and +tied to this spot where the witch council was to be held. +Before seating himself the Witch Finder had drawn +three rings within a circle on the ground with the thigh +bone of a dog. Then, unbuttoning his red flannel shirt, +he took from his bosom, suspended around his neck, a +kind of purse, made from the raw-hide of a calf, with +white hair on one side and red on the other, and from +this bag he proceeded to take out things which would +have given Shakespeare ideas for his witch scene in Macbeth. +A little black ring, made of the legs of the black +spider and bound together with black horse hair; a black +thimble-like cup, not much longer than the cup of an +acorn, made of the black switch of a mule containing +the liver of a scorpion. The horny head and neck of +the huge black beetle, commonly known to negroes as +the black Betsy Bug; the rattle and button of a rattlesnake; +the fang-tooth of a cotton-mouth moccasin, the +left hind foot of a frog, seeds of the stinging nettle, +and pods of peculiar plants, all incased in a little sack +made of a mole's hide. These were all given sufficient +charm by a small round cotton yarn, in the center of +which was a drop of human blood. They were placed +on the ground around him, but he held the ball of cotton +yarn in his hand, and ordered that the child be +brought into the ring. The poor thing was frightened +nearly to death at sight of the Witch Finder, and when +he began slowly to unwind his ball of cotton thread +and chant his monotonous funeral song, she screamed +in terror. At a signal from the “Witch Finder,” Aunt +Charity was dragged into the ring, her hands tied be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span>hind +her. The sight of such brutality was too much +for the child, and she promptly had another fit. No +other evidence was needed, and the Witch Finder declared +that Aunt Charity was Queen of Witches. The +council retired, and in a few minutes their decision was +made: Uncle Bisco was to be beaten to death with hickory +flails and his old wife hung to the nearest tree. +Their verdict being made, two stout negroes came forward +to bind the old man to a tree with his arms around +it. At sight of these ruffians the old woman broke out +into triumphant song:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“O we mos' to de home whar we all gwi' res',<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Cum, dear Lord, cum soon!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' take de ole weary ones unto yo' bres',<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Cum, dear Lord, cum soon!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fur we ole an' we tired an' we hungry fur yo' sight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' our lim's dey am weary, fur we fou't er good fight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' we longin' fur de lan' ob lub an' light—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Cum, dear Lord, cum soon.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And it was well that she sang that song, for it stopped +three horsemen just as they forded the creek and turned +their horses' heads into the lane that led to the cabin. +One who was tall and with square shoulders sat his horse +as if born in the saddle. Above, his dark hair was +streaked with white, but the face was calm and sad, +though lit up now with two keen and kindly eyes which +glowed with suppressed excitement. It was the face of +splendid resolve and noble purpose, and the horse he +rode was John Paul Jones. The other was the village<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span> +blacksmith. A negro followed them, mounted on a raw-bone +pony, and carrying his master's Enfield rifle.</p> + +<p>The first horseman was just saying: “Things look +mighty natural at the old place, Eph; I wonder if the +old folks will know us? It seems to me—”</p> + +<p>He pulled up his horse with a jerk. He heard singing +just over to his left in the wood. Both horsemen +sat listening:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O we mos' to de do' ob our Father's home—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lead, dear Lord, lead on!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' we'll nurver mo' sorrer an' nurver mo' roam—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lead, dear Lord, lead on!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' we'll meet wid de lam's dat's gohn on befo'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' we lie in de shade ob de good shepherd's do',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' he'll wipe away all ob our tears as dey flow—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lead, dear Lord, lead on!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>“Do you know that voice, Eph?” cried the man in +front to his body servant. “We must hurry”; and he +touched the splendid horse with the heel of his riding +boot.</p> + +<p>But the young negro had already plunged two spurs +into his pony's flanks and was galloping toward the +cabin.</p> + +<p>It was all over when the white rider came up. Two +brutes had been knocked over with the short heavy barrel +of an Enfield rifle. There was wild scattering +of others through the wood. An old man was clinging +in silent prayer to his son's knees and an old woman was +clinging around his neck, and saying:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Praise God—who nurver lies—it's little Ephrum—come +home ag'in.”</p> + +<p>Then they looked up and the old man raised his hands +in a pitiful tumult of joy and fear and reverence as he +said:</p> + +<p>“An' Marse Tom, so help me God—a-ridin' John +Paul Jones!”</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span></p> +<h3>THE PEDIGREE OF ACHIEVEMENT</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">M</span>an may breed up all animals but himself. Strive +as he may, the laws of heredity are hidden. +“Like produces like or the likeness of an ancestor” +is the unalterable law of the lower animal. Not +so with man—he is a strange anomaly. Breed him +up—up—and then from his high breeding will come +reversion. From pedigrees and plumed hats and ruffled +shirts come not men, but pygmies—things which +in the real fight of life are but mice to the eagles which +have come up from the soil with the grit of it in their +craws and the strength of it in their talons.</p> + +<p>We stop in wonder—balked. Then we see that we +cannot breed men—they are born; not in castles, but +in cabins.</p> + +<p>And why in cabins? For therein must be the solution. +And the solution is plain: It is work—work +that does it.</p> + +<p>We cannot breed men unless work—achievement—goes +with it.</p> + +<p>From the loins of great horses come greater horses; +for the pedigree of work—achievement—is there. +Unlike man, the race-horse is kept from degeneracy by +work. Each colt that comes must add achievement to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span> +pedigree when he faces the starter, or he goes to the +shambles or the surgeon.</p> + +<p>Why may not man learn this simple lesson—the +lesson of work—of pedigree, but the pedigree of +achievement?</p> + +<p>The son who would surpass his father must do more +than his father did. Two generations of idleness will +beget nonentities, and three, degenerates.</p> + +<p>The preacher, the philosopher, the poet, the ruler—it +matters not what his name—he who first solves the +problem of how to keep mankind achieving will solve the +problem of humanity.</p> + +<p>And now to Helen Conway for the first time in her life +this simple thing was happening—she was working—she +was earning—she was supporting herself and Lily +and her father. Not only that, but gradually she was +learning to know what the love of one like Clay meant—unselfish, +devoted, true.</p> + +<p>If to every tempted woman in the world could be +given work, and to work achievement, and to achievement +independence, there would be few fallen ones.</p> + +<p>All the next week Helen went to the mill early—she +wanted to go. She wanted to earn more money and +keep Lily out of the mill. And she went with a +light heart, because for the first time in her life since +she could remember, her father was sober. Helen's +earnings changed even him. There was something so +noble in her efforts that it uplifted even the drunkard. +In mingled shame and pride he thought it out: Supported +by his daughter—in a mill and such a daughter! +He arose from it all white-lipped with resolve:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span> +“<i>I will be a Conway again!</i>” He said it over and over. +He swore it.</p> + +<p>It is true he was not entirely free from that sickening, +sour, accursed smell with which she had associated +him all her life. But that he was himself, that +he was making an earnest effort, she knew by his neatly +brushed clothes, his clean linen, his freshly shaved face, +his whole attire which betokened the former gentleman.</p> + +<p>“How handsome he must have been when he was once +a Conway!” thought Helen.</p> + +<p>He kissed his daughters at the breakfast table. He +chatted with them, and though he said nothing about +it, even Lily knew that he had resolved to reform.</p> + +<p>After breakfast Helen left him, with Lily sitting on +her father's lap, her face bright with the sunshine +of it:</p> + +<p>“If papa would always be like this”—and she patted +his cheek.</p> + +<p>Conway started. The very intonation of her voice, +her gesture, was of the long dead mother.</p> + +<p>Tears came to his eyes. He kissed her: “Never +again, little daughter, will I take another drop.”</p> + +<p>She looked at him seriously: “Say with God's +help—” she said simply. “Mammy Maria said it +won't count unless you say that.”</p> + +<p>Conway smiled. “I will do it my own self.”</p> + +<p>But Lily only shook her head in a motherly, scolding +way.</p> + +<p>“With God's help, then,” he said.</p> + +<p>Never was an Autumn morning more beautiful to +Helen as she walked across the fields to the mill. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span> +had learned a nearer way, one which lay across hill and +field. The path ran through farms, chiefly The Gaffs, +and cut across the hills and meadow land. Through +little dells, amid fragrant groves of sweet gum and maples, +their beautiful many-colored leaves now scattered +in rich profusion around. Then down little hollows +where the brooks sputtered and frothed and foamed +along, the sun all the time darting in and out, as the +waters ran first in sunshine and then in shadow. And +above, the winds were so still, that the jumping of the +squirrel in the hickories made the only noise among the +leaves which still clung to the boughs.</p> + +<p>All so beautiful, and never had Helen been so happy.</p> + +<p>She was earning a living—she was saving Lily from +the mill and her father from temptation.</p> + +<p>Her path wound along an old field and plunged into +scrub cedar and glady rocks. A covey of quail sprang +up before her and she screamed, frightened at the sudden +thunder of their wings.</p> + +<p>Then the path ran through a sedge field, white with +the tall silvered panicled-leaves of the life-everlasting.</p> + +<p>Beyond her she saw the smoke-stack of the mill, and a +short cut through a meadow of The Gaffs would soon +take her there.</p> + +<p>She failed to see a warning on the fence which said: +<i>Keep out—Danger</i>.</p> + +<p>Through the bars she went, intent only on soon reaching +the mill beyond and glorying in the strong rich +smell of autumn in leaf and grass and air.</p> + +<p>“What a beautiful horse that is in the pasture,” she +thought, and then her attention went to a meadow lark<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span> +flushed and exultant. She heard shouts, and now—why +was Jim, the stable boy, running toward her so fast, +carrying a pitchfork in his hands and shouting: “Whoa—there, +Antar—Antar,—you, sir!”</p> + +<p>And the horse! One look was enough. With ears +laid back, and mouth wide open, with eyes blazing with +the fire of fury he was plunging straight at her.</p> + +<p>Helpless, she turned in sickening doubt, to feel that +her limbs were limp in the agony of fear. She heard +the thunder of the man-eating stallion's hoofs just behind +her and she butted blindly, as she sank down, into +some one who held bravely her hand as she fell, and the +next instant she heard a thundering report and smelt +a foul blast of gunpowder. She looked up in time to +see the great horse pitch back on his haunches, rear, +quiver a moment and strike desperately at the air with +his front feet and fall almost upon her.</p> + +<p>When she revived, the stable boy stood near by the +dead stallion, pale with fright and wonder. A half-grown +boy stood by her, holding her hand.</p> + +<p>“You are all right now,” he said quietly as he helped +her to arise. In his right hand he held a pistol and +the foul smoke still oozed up from the nipple where the +exploded cap lay shattered, under the hammer.</p> + +<p>He was perfectly cool—even haughtily so. He +scarcely looked at Helen nor at Jim, who kept saying +nervously:</p> + +<p>“You've killed him—you've killed him—what will +Mr. Travis say?”</p> + +<p>The boy laughed an ironical laugh. Then he walked +up and examined the shot he had made. Squarely be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span>tween +the great eyes the ball had gone, and scarcely had +the glaring, frenzied eye-balls of the man-eater been +fixed in the rigid stare of death. He put his fingers on +it, and turning, said:</p> + +<p>“A good shot, running—and at twenty paces!”</p> + +<p>Then he stood up proudly, and his blue eyes flashed +defiance as he said:</p> + +<p>“And what will Mr. Travis say? Well, tell him first +of all that this man-eating stallion of his caught the +bullet I had intended for his woman-eating master—this +being my birth-day. And tell him, if he asks you +who I am, that last week I was James Adams, but now +I am James Travis. He will understand.”</p> + +<p>He came over to Helen gallantly—his blue eyes shining +through a smile which now lurked in them:</p> + +<p>“This is Miss Conway, isn't it? I will see you out +of this.”</p> + +<p>Then, taking her hand as if she had been his big +sister, he led her along the path to the road and to +safety.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span></p> +<h3>MARRIED IN GOD'S SIGHT</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">N</span>ight—for night and death, are they not one? +A farm cabin in a little valley beyond the +mountain. An Indian Summer night in November, +but a little fire is pleasant, throwing its cheerful +light on a room rough from puncheon floor to axe-hewn +rafters, but cleanly-tidy in its very roughness. +It looked sinewy, strong, honest, good-natured. There +was roughness, but it was the roughness of strength. +Knots of character told of the suffering, struggles and +privations of the sturdy trees in the forest, of seams +twisted by the tempests; rifts from the mountain rocks; +fibre, steel-chilled by the terrible, silent cold of winter +stars.</p> + +<p>And now plank and beam and rafter and roof made +into a home, humble and honest, and giving it all back +again under the warm light of the hearth-stone.</p> + +<p>On a bed, white and beautifully clean, lay a fragile +creature, terribly white herself, save where red live coals +gleamed in her cheeks beneath the bright, blazing, fever-fire +burning in her eyes above.</p> + +<p>She coughed and smiled and lay still, smiling.</p> + +<p>She smiled because a little one—a tiny, sickly little +girl—had come up to the bed and patted her cheek and +said: “Little mother—little mother!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>There were four other children in the room, and they +sat around in all the solemn, awe-stricken sorrow of +death, seen for the first time.</p> + +<p>Then a man in an invalid chair, helpless and with a +broken spine, spoke, as if thinking aloud:</p> + +<p>“She's all the mother the little 'uns ever had, Bishop—'pears +like it's cruel for God to take her from them.”</p> + +<p>“God's cruelty is our crown,” said the old man—“we'll +understand it by and by.”</p> + +<p>Then the beautiful woman who had come over the +mountain arose from the seat by the fireside, and came +to the bed. She took the little one in her arms and +petted and soothed her.</p> + +<p>The child looked at her timidly in childish astonishment. +She was not used to such a beautiful woman +holding her—so proud and fine—from a world that +she knew was not her world.</p> + +<p>“May I give you some nourishment now, Maggie?”</p> + +<p>The girl shook her head.</p> + +<p>“No—no—Miss Alice,” and then she smiled so +brightly and cheerfully that the little one in Alice Westmore's +arms clapped her hands and laughed: “Little +mother—be up, well, to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>Little Mother turned her eyes on the child quickly, +smiled and nodded approval. But there were tears—tears +which the little one did not understand.</p> + +<p>An hour went by—the wind had ceased, and with it +the rain. The children were asleep in bed; the father +in his chair.</p> + +<p>A cold sweat had broken out on the dying girl's forehead +and she breathed with a terrible effort. And in it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span> +all the two watchers beside the bed saw that there was +an agony there but not the fear of death. She kept +trying to bite her nails nervously and saying:</p> + +<p>“There is only— ... one thing— ... one ... thing....”</p> + +<p>“Tell me, Maggie,” said the old man, bending low +and soothing her forehead with his hands, “tell us +what's pesterin' you—maybe it hadn't oughter be. +You mustn't worry now—God'll make everything right—to +them that loves him even to the happy death. +You'll die happy an' be happy with him forever. The +little 'uns an' the father, you know they're fixed here—in +this nice home an' the farm—so don't worry.”</p> + +<p>“That's it!... Oh, that's it!... I got +it that way— ... all for them ... but it's +that that hurts now....”</p> + +<p>He bent down over her: “Tell us, child—me an' +Miss Alice—tell us what's pesterin' you. You mustn't +die this way—you who've got such a right to be +happy.”</p> + +<p>The hectic spark burned to white heat in her cheek. +She bit her nails, she picked at the cover, she looked +toward the bed and asked feebly: “Are they asleep? +Can I talk to you two?”</p> + +<p>The old man nodded. Alice soothed her brow.</p> + +<p>Then she beckoned to the old preacher, who knelt +by her side, and he put his arms around her neck and +raised her on the pillow. And his ear was close to her +lips, for she could scarcely talk, and Alice Westmore +knelt and listened, too. She listened, but with a griping, +strained heartache,—listened to a dying confession<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span> +from the pale lips, and the truth for the first time came +to Alice Westmore, and kneeling, she could not rise, but +bent again her head and heard the pitiful, dying confession. +As she listened to the broken, gasping words, +heard the heart-breaking secret come out of the ruins +of its wrecked home, her love, her temptation, her ignorance +in wondering if she were really married by the +laws of love, and then the great martyrdom of it all—giving +her life, her all, that the others might live—a +terrible tightening gathered around Alice Westmore's +heart, her head fell with the flooding tears and she knelt +sobbing, her bloodless fingers clutching the bed of the +dying girl.</p> + +<p>“Don't cry,” said Maggie. “I should be the one +to weep, ... only I am so happy ... to +think ... I am loved by the noblest, best, of men, ... an' +I love him so, ... only he ain't here; ... but +I wouldn't have him see me die. Now—now ... what +I want to know, Bishop, ...” she +tried to rise. She seemed to be passing away. The +old man caught her and held her in his arms.</p> + +<p>Her eyes opened: “I—is—” she went on, in the +agony of it all with the same breath, “am ... am +I married ... in God's sight ... as +well as his—”</p> + +<p>The old man held her tenderly as if she were a child. +He smiled calmly, sweetly, into her eyes as he said:</p> + +<p>“You believed it an' you loved only him, Maggie—poor +chile!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes—yes—” she smiled, “an' now—even +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span>now I love him up—right up—as you see ... to +the door, ... to the shadow, ... to the +valley of the shadow....”</p> + +<p>“And it went for these, for these”—he said looking +around at the room.</p> + +<p>“For them—my little ones—they had no mother, +you kno'—an' Daddy's back. Oh, I didn't mind the +work, ... the mill that has killed ... +killed me, ... but, ... but was I”—her +voice rose to a shrill cry of agony—“am I married in +God's sight?”</p> + +<p>Alice quivered in the beauty of the answer which came +back from the old man's lips:</p> + +<p>“As sure as God lives, you were—there now—sleep +and rest; it is all right, child.”</p> + +<p>Then a sweet calmness settled over her face, and with +it a smile of exquisite happiness.</p> + +<p>She fell back on her pillow: “In God's sight ... married ... married ... my—Oh, +I have never said it before ... but now, ... can't I?”</p> + +<p>The Bishop nodded, smiling.</p> + +<p>“My husband, ... my husband, ... dear +heart, ... Good-bye....”</p> + +<p>She tried to reach under her pillow to draw out something, +and then she smiled and died.</p> + +<p>When Alice Westmore dressed her for burial an hour +afterwards, her heart was shaken with a bitterness it +had never known before—a bitterness which in a man +would have been a vengeance. For there was the smile +still on the dead face, carried into the presence of God.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span></p> + +<p>Under the dead girl's pillow lay the picture of Richard +Travis.</p> + +<p>The next day Alice sent the picture to Richard Travis, +and with it a note.</p> + +<p>“<i>It is your's</i>,” she wrote calmly, terribly calm—“<i>from +the girl who died believing she was your wife. +I am helping bury her to-day. And you need not come +to Westmoreland to-morrow night, nor next week, nor +ever again.</i>”</p> + +<p>And Richard Travis, when he read it, turned white to +his hard, bitter, cruel lips, the first time in all his life.</p> + +<p>For he knew that now he had no more chance to recall +the living than he had to recall the dead.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span></p> +<h3>THE QUEEN IS DEAD—LONG LIVE THE QUEEN</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">A</span>ll that week at the mill, Richard Travis had +been making preparations for his trip to Boston. +Regularly twice, and often three times a +year, he had made the same journey, where his report +to the directors was received and discussed. After that, +there were always two weeks of theatres, operas, wine-suppers +and dissipations of other kinds—though never +of the grossest sort—for even in sin there is refinement, +and Richard Travis was by instinct and inheritance +refined.</p> + +<p>He was not conscious—and who of his class ever +are?—of the effects of the life he was leading—the +tightening of this chain of immoral habits, the searing +of what conscience he had, the freezing of all that was +generous and good within him.</p> + +<p>Once his nature had been as a lake in midsummer, +its surface shimmering in the sunlight, reflecting something +of the beauty that came to it. Now, cold, sordid, +callous, it lay incased in winter ice and neither could +the sunlight go in nor its reflection go out. It slept +on in coarse opaqueness, covered with an impenetrable +crust which he himself did not understand.</p> + +<p>“But,” said the old Bishop more than once, “God +can touch him and he will thaw like a spring day. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span> +is somethin' great in Richard Travis if he can only be +touched.”</p> + +<p>But vice cannot reason. Immorality cannot deduce. +Only the moral ponders deeply and knows both the premises +and the conclusions, because only the moral thinks.</p> + +<p>Vice, like the poisonous talons of a bird of prey, while +it buries its nails in the flesh of its victim, carries also +the narcotic which soothes as it kills.</p> + +<p>And Richard Travis had arrived at this stage. At +first it had been with him any woman, so there was a +romance—and hence Maggie. But he had tired of +these, and now it was the woman beautiful as Helen, or +the woman pure and lovely as Alice Westmore.</p> + +<p>What a tribute to purity, that impurity worships it the +more as itself sinks lower in the slime of things. It is +the poignancy of the meteorite, which, falling from a +star, hisses out its life in the mud.</p> + +<p>The woman pure—Alice—the very thought of her +sent him farther into the mud, knowing she could not +be his. She alone whom he had wanted to wed all his +life, the goal of his love's ambition, the one woman in +the world he had never doubted would one day be his +wife.</p> + +<p>Her note to him—“<i>Never ... never ... again</i>”—he +kept reading it over, stunned, and pale, +with the truth of it. In his blindness it had never occurred +to him that Alice Westmore and Maggie would +ever meet. In his blindness—for Wrong, daring as a +snake, which, however alert and far-seeing it may be in +the hey-day of its spring, sees less clearly as the Summer +advances, until, in the August of its infamy, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span> +ceases to see altogether and becomes an easy victim for +all things with hoofs.</p> + +<p>Then, the poignant reawakening. Now he lay in the +mud and above him still shone the star.</p> + +<p>The star—his star! And how it hurt him! It was +the breaking of a link in the chain of his life.</p> + +<p>Twice had he written to her. But each time his notes +came back unopened. Twice had he gone to Westmoreland +to see her. Mrs. Westmore met him at the door, +cordial, sympathetic, but with a nervous jerk in the little +metallic laugh. His first glance at her told him she +knew everything—and yet, knew nothing. Alice was +locked in her room and would not see him.</p> + +<p>“But, oh, Richard,” and again she laughed her little +insincere, unstable, society laugh, beginning with +brave frankness in one corner of her mouth and ending +in a hypocritical wave of forgetfulness before it had +time to finish the circle, but fluttering out into a cynical +twitching of a thing which might have been a smile or +a sneer—</p> + +<p>“True love—you know—dear Richard—you +must remember the old saying.”</p> + +<p>She pressed his hand sympathetically. The mouth +said nothing, but the hand said plainly: “Do not +despair—I am working for a home at The Gaffs.”</p> + +<p>He pitied her, for there was misery in her eyes and +in her laugh and in the very touch of her hand. Misery +and insincerity, and that terrible mental state when +weakness is roped up between the two and knows, for +once in its life, that it has no strength at all.</p> + +<p>And she pitied him, for never before on any human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span> +face had she seen the terrible irony of agony. Agony +she had often seen—but not this irony of it—this +agony that saw all its life's happiness blasted and knew +it deserved it.</p> + +<p>Richard Travis, when he left Westmoreland, knew +that he left it forever.</p> + +<p>“The Queen is dead—long live the Queen,” he said +bitterly.</p> + +<p>And then there happened what always happens to the +thing in the mud—he sank deeper—desperately +deeper.</p> + +<p>Now—now he would have Helen Conway. He would +have her and own her, body and soul. He would take +her away—as he had planned, and keep her away. +That was easy, too—too far away for the whisper of it +ever to come back. If he failed in that he would marry +her. She was beautiful—and with a little more age and +education she would grace The Gaffs. So he might +marry her and set her up, a queen over their heads.</p> + +<p>This was his determination when he went to the mill +the first of the week. All the week he watched her, +talked with her, was pleasant, gallant and agreeable. +But he soon saw that Helen was not the same. There +was not the dull wistful resignation in her look, and despair +had given way to a cheerfulness he could not understand. +There was a brightness in her eyes which made +her more beautiful.</p> + +<p>The unconscious grip which the shamelessness of it +all had over him was evidenced in what he did. He confided +his plans to Jud Carpenter, and set him to work +to discover the cause.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span></p> + +<p>“See what's wrong,” he said significantly. “I am +going to take that girl North with me, and away from +here. After that it is no affair of yours.”</p> + +<p>“Anything wrong?” He had reached the point of +his moral degradation when right for Helen meant wrong +for him.</p> + +<p>Jud, with a characteristic shrewdness, put his finger +quickly on the spot.</p> + +<p>Edward Conway was sober. Clay saw her daily.</p> + +<p>“But jes' wait till I see him ag'in—down there. I'll +make him drunk enough. Then you'll see a change in +the Queen—hey?”</p> + +<p>And he laughed knowingly. With a little more bitterness +she would go to the end of the world with him.</p> + +<p>It was that day he held her hands in the old familiar +way, but when he would kiss her at the gate she still fled, +crimson, away.</p> + +<p>The next morning Clay Westmore walked with her to +the mill, and Travis lilted his eyebrows haughtily:</p> + +<p>“If anything of that kind happens,” he said to himself, +“nothing can save me.”</p> + +<p>He watched her closely—how beautiful she looked +that day—how regally beautiful! She had come +wearing the blue silk gown, with the lace and beads +which had been her mother's. In sheer delight Travis +kept slipping to the drawing-in room door to watch her +work. Her posture, beautifully Greek, before the machine, +so natural that it looked not unlike a harp in her +hand; her half-bent head and graceful neck, the flushed +face and eyes, the whole picture was like a Titian, rich +in color and life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span></p> + +<p>And she saw him and looked up smiling.</p> + +<p>It was not the smile of happiness. He did not know +it because, being blind, he could not know. It was the +happiness of work—achievement.</p> + +<p>He came in smiling. “Why are you so much happier +than last week?”</p> + +<p>“Would you really like to know?” she said, looking +him frankly in the eyes.</p> + +<p>He touched her hair playfully. She moved her head +and shook it warningly.</p> + +<p>“It is because I am at work and father is trying so +hard to reform.”</p> + +<p>“I thought maybe it was because you had found out +how much I love you.”</p> + +<p>It was his old, stereotyped, brazen way, but she did +not know it and blushed prettily.</p> + +<p>“You are kind, Mr. Travis, but—but that mustn't +be thought of. Please, but I wish you wouldn't talk +that way.”</p> + +<p>“Why, it is true, my queen—of The Gaffs?” he +said smiling.</p> + +<p>She began to work again.</p> + +<p>He came over to her and bent low:</p> + +<p>“You know I am to take you Monday night”—</p> + +<p>Her hands flew very rapidly—her cheeks mantled +into a rich glow. One of the threads snapped. She +stopped, confused.</p> + +<p>Travis glanced around. No one was near. He bent +and kissed her hair:</p> + +<p>“My queen,” he whispered, “my beautiful queen.”</p> + +<p>Then he walked quickly out. He went to his office,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span> +but he still saw the beautiful picture. It thrilled him +and then there swept up over him another picture, and he +cried savagely to himself:</p> + +<p>“I'll make her sorry. She shall bow to that fine +thing yet—my queen.”</p> + +<p>Nor would it leave him that day, and into the night +he dreamed of her, and it was the same Titian picture +in a background of red sunset. And her machine was +a harp she was playing. He wakened and smiled:</p> + +<p>“Am I falling in love with that girl? That will +spoil it all.”</p> + +<p>He watched her closely the next day, for it puzzled +him to know why she had changed so rapidly in her +manner toward him. He had ridden to Millwood to +bring her to the mill, himself; and he had some exquisite +roses for her—clipped in the hot-house by his own +hands. It was with an unmistakable twitch of jealousy +that he learned that Clay Westmore had already come +by and gone with her.</p> + +<p>“I know what it is now,” he said to Jud Carpenter +at the mill that morning; “she is half in love with that +slow, studious fellow.”</p> + +<p>Jud laughed: “Say, excuse me, sah—but hanged +if you ain't got all the symptoms, y'self, boss?”</p> + +<p>Travis flushed:</p> + +<p>“Oh, when I start out to do a thing I want to do +it—and I'm going to take her with me, or die trying.”</p> + +<p>Jud laughed again: “Leave it to me—I'll fix the +goggle-eyed fellow.”</p> + +<p>That night when the door bell rang at Westmoreland, +Jud Carpenter was ushered into Clay's workshop. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span> +sat down and looked through his shaggy eyebrows at the +lint and dust and specimens of ore. Then he spat on +the floor disgustedly.</p> + +<p>“Sorry to disturb you, but be you a surveyor also?”</p> + +<p>The big bowed glasses looked at him quietly and nodded +affirmatively.</p> + +<p>“Wal, then,” went on Jud, “I come to git you to do +a job of surveying for the mill. It's a lot of timber +land on the other side of the mountain—some twenty +miles off. The Company's bought five thousand acres +of wood and they want it surveyed. What'll you +charge?”</p> + +<p>Clay thought a moment: “Going and coming, on +horse-back—it will take me a week,” said Clay +thoughtfully. “I shall charge a hundred dollars.”</p> + +<p>“An' will you go right away—to-morrow mornin'?”</p> + +<p>Clay nodded.</p> + +<p>“Here's fifty of it,” said Jud—“the Company is +in a hurry. We want the survey by this day week. +Let me see, this is Sat'dy—I'll come next Sat'dy +night.”</p> + +<p>Clay's face flushed. Never before had he made a +hundred dollars in a week.</p> + +<p>“I'll go at once.”</p> + +<p>“To-morrow at daylight?” asked Jud, rising.</p> + +<p>Clay looked at him curiously. There was something +in the tone of the man that struck him as peculiar, but +Jud went on in an easy way.</p> + +<p>“You see we must have it quick. All our winter +wood to run the mill is there an' we can't start into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span> +cordin' till it's surveyed an' the deed's passed. Sorry to +hurry you”—</p> + +<p>Clay promised to start at daylight and Jud left.</p> + +<p>He looked at his watch. It was late. He would like +to tell Helen about it—he said aloud: “Making a +hundred dollars a week. If I could only keep up that—I'd—I'd—”</p> + +<p>He blushed. And then he turned quietly and went +to bed. And that was why Helen wondered the next +day and the next, and all the next week why she did not +see Clay, why he did not come, nor write, nor send her a +message. And wondering the pang of it went into her +hardening heart.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span></p> +<h3>IN THYSELF THERE IS WEAKNESS</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">I</span>t was the middle of Saturday afternoon, and all the +week Edward Conway had fought against the terrible +thirst which was in him. Not since Monday +morning had he touched whiskey at all, and now he +walked the streets of the little town saying over and over +to himself: “I am a Conway again.”</p> + +<p>He had come to town to see Jud Carpenter about the +house which had been promised him—for he could not +expect to hold Millwood much longer. With his soberness +some of his old dignity and manhood returned, and +when Carpenter saw him, the Whipper-in knew instinctively +what had happened.</p> + +<p>He watched Edward Conway closely—the clear eye, +the haughty turn of his head, the quiet, commanding +way of the man sober; and the Whipper-in frowned as +he said to himself:</p> + +<p>“If he keeps this up I'll have it to do all over.”</p> + +<p>And yet, as he looked at him, Jud Carpenter took it +all in—the weakness that was still there, the terrible, +restless thirst which now made him nervous, irritable, and +turned his soul into a very tumult of dissatisfaction.</p> + +<p>Carpenter, even as he talked to him, could see the +fight which was going on; and now and then, in spite +of it and his determination, he saw that the reformed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</a></span> +drunkard was looking wistfully toward the bar-room of +Billy Buch.</p> + +<p>And so, as Jud talked to Edward Conway about the +house, he led him along toward the bar-room. All the +time he was complimenting him on his improved health, +and telling how, with help from the mill, he would soon +be on his feet again.</p> + +<p>At the bar door he halted:</p> + +<p>“Let us set down here an' res', Majah, sah, it's a good +place on this little porch. Have somethin'? Billy's +got a mighty fine bran' of old Tennessee whiskey in +there.”</p> + +<p>Jud watched him as he spoke and saw the fire of expectancy +burn in his despairing eyes.</p> + +<p>“No—no—Carpenter—no—I am obliged to +you—but I have sworn never to touch another drop of +it. I'll just rest here with you.” He threw up his head +and Jud Carpenter saw how eagerly he inhaled the odor +which came out of the door. He saw the quivering lips, +the tense straining of the throat, the wavering eyes +which told how sorely he was tempted.</p> + +<p>It was cool, but the sweat stood in drops on Edward +Conway's temple. He gulped, but swallowed only a +dry lump, which immediately sprang back into his throat +again and burned as a ball of fire.</p> + +<p>“No—no—Carpenter,” he kept saying in a dazed, +abstracted way—“no—no—not any more for me. +I've promised—I've promised.”</p> + +<p>And yet even while saying it his eyes were saying: +“For God's sake—bring it to me—quick—quick.”</p> + +<p>Jud arose and went into the bar and whispered to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</a></span> +Billy Buch. Then he came back and sat down and +talked of other things. But all the time he was watching +Edward Conway—the yearning look—turned +half pleadingly to the bar—the gulpings which swallowed +nothing.</p> + +<p>Presently Jud looked up. He heard the tinkle of +glasses, and Billy Buch stood before them with two long +toddies on a silver waiter. The ice tinkled and glittered +in the deep glasses—the cherries and pineapple +gleamed amid it and the whiskey—the rich red +whiskey!</p> + +<p>“My treat—an' no charges, gentlemen! Compliments +of Billy Buch.”</p> + +<p>Conway looked at the tempting glass for a moment +in the terrible agony of indecision. Then remorse, fear, +shame, frenzy, seized him:</p> + +<p>“No—no—I've sworn off, Billy—I'll swear I +have. My God, but I'm a Conway again”—and before +the words were fairly out of his mouth he had seized +the glass and swallowed the contents.</p> + +<p>It was nearly dark when Helen, quitting the mill immediately +on its closing, slipped out of a side door to +escape Richard Travis and almost ran home across the +fields. Never had she been so full of her life, her plans +for the future, her hopes, her pride to think her father +would be himself again.</p> + +<p>“For if he will,” she whispered, “all else good will +follow.”</p> + +<p>Just at the gate she stopped and almost fell in the +agony of it all. Her father lay on the dry grass by +the roadside, unable to walk.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</a></span></p> + +<p>She knelt by his side and wept. Her heart then and +there gave up—her soul quit in the fight she was making.</p> + +<p>With bitterness which was desperate she went to the +spring and brought water and bathed his face. Then +when he was sufficiently himself to walk, she led him, +staggering, in, and up the steps.</p> + +<p>Jud Carpenter reached the mill an hour after dark: +He sought out Richard Travis and chuckled, saying +nothing.</p> + +<p>Travis was busy with his books, and when he had finished +he turned and smiled at the man.</p> + +<p>“Tell me what it is?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I fixed him, that's all.”</p> + +<p>Then he laughed:</p> + +<p>“He was sober this morning an' was in a fair way to +knock our plans sky high—as to the gal, you kno'. +Reformed this mornin', but you'll find him good and +drunk to-night.”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said Travis, knitting his brows thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>“Did you notice how much brighter, an' sech, she's +been for a day or two?” asked Jud.</p> + +<p>“I notice that she has shunned me all day”—said +Travis—“as if I were poison.”</p> + +<p>“She'll not shun you to-morrow,” laughed Jud. “She +is your's—for a woman desperate is a woman lost—” +and he chuckled again as he went out.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</a></span></p> +<h3>HIMSELF AGAIN</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">N</span>ever had the two old servants been so happy +as they were that night after their rescue. At +first they looked on it as a miracle, in which the +spirits of their young master and his body-servant, their +only son, had come back to earth to rescue them, and for +a while their prayers and exhortations took on the uncanny +tone of superstition. But after they had heard +them talk in the old natural way and seen Captain Tom +walking in the living flesh, they became satisfied that +it was indeed their young master whom they had supposed +to be dead.</p> + +<p>Jack Bracken, with all the tenderness of one speaking +to little children, explained it all to them—how +he had himself carried Captain Tom off the battle-field +of Franklin; how he had cared for him since—even +to the present time; how Ephraim would not desert his +young master, but had stayed with them, as cook and +house boy. And how Captain Tom had now become +well again.</p> + +<p>Jack was careful not to go too much into details—especially +Ephraim having lived for two years within a +few miles of his parents and not making himself known! +The truth was, as Jack knew, Ephraim had become in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</a></span>fatuated +with the free-booting life of Jack Bracken. +He had gone with him on many a raid, and gold came +too easy that way to dig it out of the soil, as in a cotton +field.</p> + +<p>The old people supposed all this happened far away, +and in another country, and that they had all come +home as soon as they could.</p> + +<p>With this they were happy.</p> + +<p>“And now,” added Jack, “we are going to hide with +you a week or so, until Captain Tom can lay his plans.”</p> + +<p>“Thank God—thank God!”—said Uncle Bisco, +and he would feel of his young master and say: “Jes' +lak he allus wus, only his hair is a leetle gray. An' +in the same uniform he rid off in—the same gran' +clothes.”</p> + +<p>Captain Tom laughed: “No, not the same, but like +them. You see, I reported at Washington and explained +it to the Secretary of War, Jack. It seems +that Mr. Lincoln had been kind enough to write a personal +letter about me to my grandfather,—they were +old friends. It was a peculiar scene—my interview +with the Secretary. My grandfather had filed this letter +at the War Department before he died, and my return +to life was a matter of interest and wonder to +them. And so I am still Captain of Artillery,” he +smiled.</p> + +<p>In the little cabin the old servants gave him the best +room, cleanly and sweet with an old-fashioned feather-bed +and counterpane. Jack Bracken had a cot by his +bed, and on the wall was a picture of Miss Alice.</p> + +<p>Long into the night they talked, the young man ask<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</a></span>ing +them many questions and chief of all, of Alice. +They could see that he was thinking of her, and often +he would stop before the picture and look at it and fall +into a reverie.</p> + +<p>“It seems to me but yesterday,” he said, “since I +left her and went off to the war. She is not to know +that I am here—not yet. You must hide me if she +runs in,” he smiled. “I must see her first in my own +way.”</p> + +<p>He noticed Jack Bracken's cot by his bedside and +smiled.</p> + +<p>“You see, I have been takin' keer of you so long,” +said Jack after the old servants had left them to themselves, +“that I can't git out of the habit. I thought +you wus never comin' home.”</p> + +<p>“It's good we came when we did, Jack.”</p> + +<p>“You ought to have let me shoot.”</p> + +<p>The young Captain shook his head: “O Jack—Jack, +I've seen murder enough—it seems but yesterday +since I was at Franklin.”</p> + +<p>“Do you know who's at the head of all this?” asked +Jack. “It's Richard Travis.”</p> + +<p>“The Bishop told me all, Jack—and about my +grandfather's will. But I shall divide it with him—it +is not fair.”</p> + +<p>Jack watched the strong, tall man, as he walked to +and fro in the room, and a proud smile spread over the +outlaw's face.</p> + +<p>“What a man you are—what a man you are, Cap'n +Tom!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[Pg 515]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“It's good to be one's self again, Jack. How can I +ever repay you for what you have done for me?”</p> + +<p>“You've paid it long ago—long ago. Where would +Jack Bracken have been if you hadn't risked yo' life to +cut me down, when the rope”—</p> + +<p>Captain Tom put his hand on Jack's shoulder affectionately: +“We'll forget all those horrible things—and +that war, which was hell, indeed. Jack—Jack—there +is a new life ahead for us both,” he said, smiling +happily.</p> + +<p>“For you—yes—but not for me”—and he shook +his head.</p> + +<p>“Do you remember little Jack, Cap'n Tom—him +that died? I seem to think mo' of him now than +ever—”</p> + +<p>“It is strange, Jack—but I do distinctly; an' our +home in the cave, an' the beautiful room we had, an' +the rock portico overlaid with wild honeysuckle and +Jackson vines overlooking the grand river.”</p> + +<p>“Jack, do you know we must go there this week and +see it again? I have plans to carry out before making +my identity known.”</p> + +<p>An hour afterwards the old servants heard Captain +Tom step out into the yard. It was then past midnight—the +most memorable night of all their lives. +Neither of the old servants could sleep, for hearing +Ephraim talk, and that lusty darkey had sadly mixed +his imagination and his facts.</p> + +<p>The old man went out: “Don't be uneasy,” said +Captain Tom. “I am going to saddle John Paul Jones +and ride over the scenes of my youth. They might see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[Pg 516]</a></span> +me by daylight, and the moonlight is so beautiful to-night. +I long to see The Gaffs, and Westmoreland, +my grandfather's grave,” and then in a tenderer tone—“and +my father's; he lies buried in the flag I love.”</p> + +<p>He smiled sadly and went out.</p> + +<p>John Paul Jones had been comfortably housed in the +little stable nearby. He nickered affectionately as his +master came up and led him out.</p> + +<p>The young officer stood a few moments looking at +the splendid horse, and with the look came a flood of +memories so painful that he bowed his head in the saddle.</p> + +<p>When he looked up Jack Bracken stood by his side: +“I don't much like this, Cap'n Tom. Not to-night, +after all we've done to them. They've got out spies +now—I know them; a lot of negroes calling themselves +Union League, but secretly waylaying, burning and killing +all who differ with them in politics. They've made +the Klu-Klux a necessity. Now, I don't want you to +turn me into a Klu-Klux to-night.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, they would not harm me, Jack, not me, after +all I have suffered. It has all been so hazy,” he went +on, as if trying to recall it all, “so hazy until now. +Now, how clear it all is! Here is the creek, yonder the +mountain, and over beyond that the village. And yonder +is Westmoreland. I remember it all—so distinctly. +And after Franklin, my God, it was so hazy, with something +pressing me down as if I were under a house +which had fallen on me and pinned me to the ground. +But now, O God, I thank Thee that I am a man again!”</p> + +<p>Jack went back into the cabin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[Pg 517]</a></span></p> + +<p>Captain Tom stood drinking it all in—the moonlight, +on the roof of Westmoreland, shining through +the trees. Then he thought of what the old Bishop +had told him of Alice, the great pressure brought to +bear on her to marry Richard Travis, and of her devotion +to the memory of her first love.</p> + +<p>“And for her love and her constancy, oh, God, I +thank Thee most of all,” he said, looking upward at the +stars.</p> + +<p>He mounted his horse and rode slowly out into the +night, a commanding figure, for the horse and rider +were one, and John Paul Jones tossed his head as if to +show his joy, tossed his head proudly and was in for a +gallop.</p> + +<p>Captain Tom's pistols were buckled to his side, for he +had had experience enough in the early part of the +night to show him the unsettled state of affairs still existing +in the country under negro domination.</p> + +<p>There were no lights at Westmoreland, but he knew +which was Alice's room, and in the shadow of a tree he +stopped and looked long at the window. Oh, to tear +down the barriers which separated him from her! To +see her once more—she the beautiful and true—her +hair—her eyes, and to place again the kiss of a new +betrothal on her lips, the memory of which, in all his +sorrows and afflictions, had never left him. And now +they told him she was more beautiful than ever. Twelve +years—twelve years out of his life—years of forgetfulness—and +yet it seemed but a few months since he +had bade Alice good-bye—here—here under the crepe-myrtle +tree where he now stood. He knelt and kissed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[Pg 518]</a></span> +the holy sod. A wave of triumphant happiness came +over him. He arose and threw passionate kisses toward +her window. Then he mounted and rode off.</p> + +<p>At The Gaffs he looked long and earnestly. He +imagined he saw the old Colonel, his grandfather, sitting +in his accustomed place on the front porch, his feet +propped on the balcony, his favorite hound by his side. +Long he gazed, looking at every familiar place of his +youth. He knew now that every foot of it would be +his. He had no bitterness in his heart. Not he, for +in the love and constancy of Alice Westmore all such +things seemed unspeakable insignificance to the glory of +that.</p> + +<p>In the old family cemetery, which lay hid among +the cedars on the hill, he stood bare-headed before the +grave of his grandsire and silently the tears fell:</p> + +<p>“My noble old grandsire,” he murmured, “if the +spirits of the dead look down on the living, tell me I +have not proved unworthy. It was his flag—my +father's, and he lies by you wrapped in it. Tell me I +have not been unworthy the same, for I have suffered.”</p> + +<p>And from the silent stars, as he looked up, there fell +on him a benediction of peace.</p> + +<p>Then he drew himself up proudly and gave each +grave a military salute, mounted and rode away.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[Pg 519]</a></span></p> +<h3>THE JOY OF THE MORNING</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">A</span>ll the week, since the scene at Maggie's deathbed, +Alice Westmore had remained at home, +while strange, bitter feelings, such as she had +never felt before, surged in her heart. Her brother +was away, and this gave her more freedom to do as she +wished—to remain in her room—and her mother's +presence now was not altogether the solace her heart +craved.</p> + +<p>Of the utmost purity of thought herself, Alice Westmore +had never even permitted herself to harbor anything +reflecting on the character of those she trusted; +and in the generosity of her nature, she considered all +her friends trustworthy. Thinking no evil, she knew +none; nor would she permit any idle gossip to be repeated +before her. In her case her unsuspecting nature +was strengthened by her environment, living as she was +with her mother and brother only.</p> + +<p>It is true that she had heard faint rumors of Richard +Travis's life; but the full impurity of it had never +been realized by her until she saw Maggie die. Then +Richard Travis went, not only out of her life, but out +of her very thoughts. She remembered him only as she +did some evil character read of in fiction or history. +Perhaps in this she was more severe than necessary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[Pg 520]</a></span>—since +the pendulum of anger swings always farthest in +the first full stroke of indignation. And then the surprise +of it—the shock of it! Never had she gone +through a week so full of unhappiness, since it had come +to her, years before, that Tom Travis had been killed at +Franklin.</p> + +<p>Her mother's entreaties—tears, even—affected +her now no more than the cries of a spoiled child.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Alice,” she said one night when she had been +explaining and apologizing for Richard Travis—“you +should know now, child, really, you ought to know by +now, that all men may not have been created alike, but +they are all alike.”</p> + +<p>“I do not believe it,” said Alice with feeling—“I +never want to believe it—I never shall believe it.”</p> + +<p>“My darling,” said the mother, laying her face +against Alice's, “I have reared you too far from the +world.”</p> + +<p>But for once in her life Mrs. Westmore knew that her +daughter, who had heretofore been willing to sacrifice +everything for her mother's comfort, now halted before +such a chasm as this, as stubborn and instinctively as a +wild doe in her flight before a precipice.</p> + +<p>Twice Alice knew that Richard Travis had called; and +she went to her room and locked the door. She did not +wish even to think of him; for when she did it was not +Richard Travis she saw, but Maggie dying, with the +picture of him under her pillow.</p> + +<p>She devised many plans for herself, but go away she +must, perhaps to teach.</p> + +<p>In the midst of her perplexity there came to her Sat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</a></span>urday +afternoon a curiously worded note, from the old +Cottontown preacher, telling her not to forget now that +he had returned and that Sunday School lessons at +Uncle Bisco's were in order. He closed with a remark +which, read between the lines, she saw was intended to +warn and prepare her for something unexpected, the +greatest good news, as he said, of her life. Then he +quoted:</p> + +<p>“<i>And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, +and the sea returned to his strength when the morning +appeared.</i>”</p> + +<p>There was but one great good news that Alice Westmore +cared for, and, strange to say, all the week she had +been thinking of it. It came about involuntarily, as +she compared men with one another.</p> + +<p>It came as the tide comes back to the ocean, as the +stars come with the night. She tried to smother it, but +it would not be smothered. At last she resigned herself +to the wretchedness of it—as one when, despairing of +throwing off a mood, gives way to it and lets it eat its +own heart out.</p> + +<p>She could scarcely wait until night. Her heart beat +at intervals, in agitated fierceness, and flushes of red +went through her cheek all the afternoon, at the thought +in her heart that at times choked her.</p> + +<p>Then came the kindly old man himself, his face radiant +with a look she had not seen on a face for many +weeks. After the week she had been through, this itself +was a comfort. She met him with feigned calmness and +a little laugh.</p> + +<p>“You promised to tell me where you had been,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</a></span> +Bishop, all these weeks. It must have made you very, +very happy.”</p> + +<p>“I'll tell you down at the cabin, if you'll dress yo' +very pretties'. There's friends of yo's down there you +ain't seen in a long time—that's mighty anxious to see +you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I do indeed feel ashamed of myself for having +neglected the old servants so long; but you cannot +know what has been on my mind. Yes, I will go with +you directly.”</p> + +<p>The old man looked at her admiringly when she was +ready to go—at the dainty gown of white, the splendid +hair of dark auburn crowning her head, the big wistful +eyes, the refined face. Upon him had devolved the duty +of preparing Alice Westmore for what she would see in +the cabin, and never did he enter more fully into the +sacredness of such an occasion.</p> + +<p>And now, when she was ready and stood before him +in all her superb womanhood, a basket of dainties on +her arm for the old servants, he spoke very solemnly as +he handed her an ambrotype set in a large gold breast-pin.</p> + +<p>“You'll need this to set you off—around yo' neck.”</p> + +<p>At sight of it all the color left her cheeks.</p> + +<p>“Why, it is mine—I gave it to—to—Tom. He +took it to the war with him. Where”—A sob leaped +into her throat and stopped her.</p> + +<p>“On my journey,” said the old man quickly, “I +heard somethin' of Cap'n Tom. You must prepare yo'se'f +for good news.”</p> + +<p>Her heart jumped and the blood surged back again,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</a></span> +and she grew weak, but the old man laughed his cheery +laugh, and, pretending to clap her playfully on the +shoulder, he held her firmly with his great iron hand, as +he saw the blood go out of her cheeks, leaving them as +white as white roses:</p> + +<p>“Down there,” he added, “I'll tell you all. But +God is good—God is good.”</p> + +<p>Bewildered, pale, and with throbbing heart, she let +him take her basket and lead her down the well-beaten +path. She could not speak, for something, somehow, +said to her that Captain Tom Travis was alive and that +she would see him—next week perhaps—next month +or year—it mattered not so that she would see him. +And yet—and yet—O all these years—all these +years! She kept saying over the words of the old +Bishop, as one numbed, and unable to think, keeps repeating +the last thing that enters the mind. Trembling, +white, her knees weak beneath her, she followed +saying:</p> + +<p>“God is good—oh, Bishop—tell me—why—why—why—”</p> + +<p>“Because Cap'n Tom is not dead, Miss Alice, he is +alive and well.”</p> + +<p>They had reached the large oak which shadowed the +little cabin. She stopped suddenly in the agony of +happiness, and the strong old man, who had been watching +her, turned and caught her with a firm grasp, while +the stars danced frantically above her. And half-unconscious +she felt another one come to his aid, one who +took her in his arms and kissed her lips and her eyes<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">... and carried her into the bright fire-lighted</span><br /> +cabin, ... carried her in strength and happiness +that made her lay her cheek against his, ... and +there were tears on it, and somehow she lay as if she +were a child in his arms, ... a child again and +she was happy, ... and there were silence and +sweet dreams and the long-dead smell of the crepe-myrtle.... +She did not remember again until she sat +up on the cot in the clean little cabin, and Tom Travis, +tall and in the splendor of manhood, sat holding her +hands and stroking her hair and whispering: “<i>Alice, +my darling—it is all well—and I have come back for +you, at last!</i>”</p> + +<p>And the old servants stood around smiling and happy, +but so silent and composed that she knew that they had +been schooled to it, and a big man, who seemed to watch +Captain Tom as a big dog would his master, kept +blowing his nose and walking around the room. And +by the fire sat the old Cottontown preacher, his back +turned to them and saying just loud enough to be +heard: “<i>The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. +He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, ... +he restoreth my soul— ... my cup runneth +over....</i>”</p> + +<p>And then sillily, as Alice thought, she threw her arms +around the neck of the man she loved and burst into +the tears which brought the sweetness of assurance, the +calmness of a reality that meant happiness.</p> + +<p>And for an hour she sobbed, her arms there, and he +holding her tight to his breast and talking in the old +way, natural and soothing and reassuring and taking +from her heart all fear and the shock of it, until at last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</a></span> +it all seemed natural and not a dream, ... and +the sweetness of it all was like the light which cometh +with the joy of the morning.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</a></span></p> +<h3>THE TOUCH OF GOD</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">T</span>he news of Captain Tom's return spread quickly. +By noon it was known throughout the Tennessee +Valley.</p> + +<p>The sensational features of it required prompt action +on his and Alice's part, and their decision was quickly +made: they would be married that Sunday afternoon +in the little church on the mountain side and by the old +man who had done so much to make their happiness +possible.</p> + +<p>For once in its history the little church could not hold +the people who came to witness this romantic marriage, +and far down the mountain side they stood to see the +bride and groom pass by. Many remembered the +groom, all had heard of him,—his devotion to his country's +flag; to the memory of his father; his gallantry, +his heroism, his martyrdom, dying (as they supposed) +rather than turn his guns on his brave old grandsire. +And now to come back to life again—to win the woman +he loved and who had loved him all these years! Besides, +there was no one in the Tennessee Valley considered +more beautiful than the bride, and they loved her as if +she had been an angel of light.</p> + +<p>And never had she appeared more lovely.</p> + +<p>A stillness swept over the crowd when the carriage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</a></span> +drove up to the little church, and when the tall, handsome +man in the uniform of a captain of artillery lifted +Alice out with the tenderness of all lovers in his touch +and the strength of a strong lover, with a lily in his +hand, the crowd, knowing his history, could not refrain +from cheering. He lifted his cap and threw back his +iron-gray hair, showing a head proud and tender and +on his face such a smile as lovers only wear. Then he +led her in,—pale and tearful.</p> + +<p>The little church had been prettily decorated that +Sabbath morning, and when the old preacher came forward +and called them to him, he said the simple words +which made them man and wife, and as he blessed them, +praying, a mocking-bird, perched on a limb near the +window, sang a soft low melody as if one singer wished +to compliment another.</p> + +<p>They went out hand in hand, and when they reached +the door, the sun which had been hid burst out as a +benediction upon them.</p> + +<p>Among the guests one man had stepped in unnoticed +and unseen. Why he came he could not tell, for never +before did he have any desire to go to the little church.</p> + +<p>It was midnight when the news came to him that +Tom Travis had returned as from the dead. It was +Jud Carpenter who had awakened him that Saturday +night to whisper at the bedside the startling news.</p> + +<p>But Travis only yawned from his sleep and said: +“I've been expecting it all the time—go somewhere +and go to bed.”</p> + +<p>After Carpenter had gone, he arose, stricken with a +feeling he could not describe, but had often seen in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</a></span> +race horses running desperately until within fifty yards +of the wire, and then suddenly—quitting. He had almost +reached his goal—but now one week had done +all this. Alice—gone, and The Gaffs—he must divide +that with his cousin—for his grandfather had left +no will.</p> + +<p>Divide The Gaffs with Tom Travis?—He would as +soon think of dividing Alice's love with him. In the +soul of Richard Travis there was no such word as division.</p> + +<p>In the selfishness of his life, it had ever been all or +nothing.</p> + +<p>All night he thought, he walked the halls of the old +house, he ran over a hundred solutions of it in his mind. +And still there was no solution that satisfied him, that +seemed natural. It seemed that his mind, which had +heretofore worked so unerringly, deducing things so +naturally, now balked before an abyss that was bridgeless. +Heretofore he had looked into the future with +the bold, true sweep of an eagle peering from its mountain +home above the clouds into the far distance, his +eyes unclouded by the mist, which cut off the vision of +mortals below. But now he was the blindest of the +blind. He seemed to stop as before a wall—a chasm +which ended everything—a chasm, on the opposite wall +of which was printed: Thus far and no farther.</p> + +<p>Think as he would, he could not think beyond it. His +life seemed to stop there. After it, he was nothing.</p> + +<p>Our minds, our souls—are like the sun, which shines +very plainly as it moves across the sky of our life of +things—showing them in all distinctness and clearness;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</a></span> +so that we see things as they happen to us with our eyes +of daylight. But as the sun throws its dim twilight +shadows even beyond our earth, so do the souls of men +of great mind and imagination see, faintly, beyond their +own lives, and into the shadow of things.</p> + +<p>To-night that mysterious sight came to Richard +Travis, as it comes in the great crises of life and death, +to every strong man, and he saw dimly, ghostily, into +the shadow; and the shadow stopped at the terrible +abyss which now barred his ken; and he felt, with the +keen insight of the dying eagle on the peak, that the +thing was death.</p> + +<p>In the first streak of light, he was rudely awakened +to it. For there on the rug, as naturally as if asleep, +lay the only thing he now loved in the world, the old +setter, whose life had passed out in slumber.</p> + +<p>All animals have the dying instinct. Man, the +highest, has it the clearest. And Travis remembered +that the old dog had come to his bed, in the middle of +the night, and laid his large beautiful head on his master's +breast, and in the dim light of the smouldering +fire had said good-bye to Richard Travis as plainly as +ever human being said it. And now on the rug, before +the dead gray ashes of the night, he had found the old +dog forever asleep, naturally and in great peace.</p> + +<p>His heart sank as he thought of the farewell of the +night before, and bitterness came, and sitting down on +the rug by the side of the dead dog he stroked for the +last time the grand old silken head, so calm and poised, +for the little world it had been bred for, and ran his +palm over the long strong nose that had never lied to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</a></span> +the scent of the covey. His lips tightened and he said: +“O God, I am dying myself, and there is not a living +being whom I can crawl up to, and lay my head on its +breast and know it loves and pities me, as I love you, old +friend.”</p> + +<p>The thought gripped his throat, and as he thought of +the sweetness and nobility of this dumb thing, his gentleness, +faithfulness and devotion, the sureness of his life +in filling the mission he came for, he wept tears so +strange to his cheek that they scalded as they flowed, and +he bowed his head and said: “Gladstone, Gladstone, +good-bye—true to your breeding, you were what your +master never was—a gentleman.”</p> + +<p>And the old housekeeper found this strong man, who +had never wept in his life, crying over the old dead +setter on the rug.</p> + +<p>And the same feeling, the second sight—the presentiment—the +terrible balking of his mind that had +always seen so clearly, ever into the future, held him +as in a vise all the morning and moved him in a strange +mysterious way to go to the church and see the woman +he had loved all his life, the being whose very look uplifted +him, and whose smile could make him a hero or a +martyr, married to the man who came home to take her, +and half of his all.</p> + +<p>Numbed, hardened, speechless, and yet with that terrible +presentiment of the abyss before him, he had stood +and seen Alice Westmore made the wife of another.</p> + +<p>He remembered first how quickly he had caught the +text of the old man; indeed, it seemed to him now that +everything he heard struck into him like a brand of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</a></span> +fire—for never had life appeared to him as it did to-day.</p> + +<p>“<i>For the hand of God hath touched me—</i>” he kept +repeating over and over—repeating and then cursing +himself for repeating it—for remembering it.</p> + +<p>And still it stayed there all day—the unbidden +ghost-guest of his soul.</p> + +<p>And everything the old preacher said went searing +into his quivering soul, and all the time he kept looking—looking +at the woman he loved and seeing her giving +her love, her life, with a happy smile, to another. And +all the time he stood wondering why he came to see it, +why he felt as he did, why things hurt him that way, +why he acted so weakly, why his conscience had awakened +at last, why life hurt him so—life that he had played +with as an edged tool—why he could not get away +from himself and his memory, but ran always into it, +and why at last with a shudder, why did nothing seem +to be beyond the wall?</p> + +<p>He saw her go off, the wife of another. He saw their +happiness—unconscious even that he lived, and he +cursed himself and kept saying: “<i>The hand of God +hath touched me.</i>”</p> + +<p>Then he laughed at himself for being silly.</p> + +<p>He rode home, but it was not home. Nothing was +itself—not even he. In the watches of one night his +life had been changed and the light had gone out.</p> + +<p>When night came it was worse. He mounted his +horse and rode—where? And he could no more help +it than he could cease to breathe.</p> + +<p>He did not guide the saddle mare, she went herself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</a></span> +through wood sombre and dark with shadows, through +cedar trees, dwarfed, and making pungent the night air +with aromatic breath; through old sedge fields, garish +in the faint light; up, up the mountain, over it; and at +last the mare stopped and stood silently by a newly +made grave, while Richard Travis, with strained hard +mouth and wet eyes, knelt and, knowing that no hand +in the world cared to feel his repentant face in it, he +buried it in the new made sod as he cried: “Maggie—Maggie—forgive +me, for the hand of God hath +touched me!”</p> + +<p>And it soothed him, for he knew that if she were alive +he might have lain his head there—on her breast.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</a></span></p> +<h3>MAMMY MARIA</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">T</span>hat Monday was a memorable day for Helen +Conway. She went to the mill with less bitterness +than ever before—the sting of it all was +gone—for she felt that she was helpless to the fate that +was hers—that she was powerless in the hands of +Richard Travis:</p> + +<p>“<i>I will come for you Monday night. I will take +you away from here. You shall belong to me forever—My +Queen!</i>”</p> + +<p>These words had rung in her ears all Saturday night, +when, after coming home, she had found her father +fallen by the wayside.</p> + +<p>In the night she had lain awake and wondered. She +did not know where she was going—she did not care. +She did not even blush at the thought of it. She was +hardened, steeled. She knew not whether it meant wife +or mistress. She knew only that, as she supposed, God +had placed upon her more than she could bear.</p> + +<p>“If my life is wrecked,” she said as she lay awake +that Sunday night—“God himself will do it. Who +took my mother before I knew her influence? Who +made me as I am and gave me poverty with this fatal +beauty—poverty and a drunken father and this terrible +temptation?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Oh, if I only had her, Mammy—negro that she +is.”</p> + +<p>Lily was asleep with one arm around her sister's neck.</p> + +<p>“What will become of Lily, in the mill, too?” She +bent and kissed her, and she saw that the little one, +though asleep, had tears in her own eyes.</p> + +<p>Young as she was, Helen's mind was maturer than +might have been supposed. And the problem which +confronted her she saw very clearly, although she was +unable to solve it. The problem was not new, indeed, +it has been Despair's conundrum since the world began: +Whose fault that my life has been as it is? In her +despair, doubting, she cried:</p> + +<p>“Is there really a God, as Mammy Maria told me? +Does He interpose in our lives, or are we rushed along +by the great moral and physical laws, which govern the +universe; and if by chance we fail to harmonize with +them, be crushed for our ignorance—our ignorance +which is not of our own making?”</p> + +<p>“By chance—by chance,” she repeated, “but if +there be great fixed laws, how can there be any—chance?”</p> + +<p>The thought was hopeless. She turned in her despair +and hid her face. And then out of the darkness came +the strong fine face of Clay Westmore—and his words: +“We must all work—it is life's badge of nobility.”</p> + +<p>How clearly and calmly they came to her. And then +her heart fluttered. Suppose Clay loved her—suppose +this was her solution? He had never pressed his love +on her. Did he think a woman could be loved that way—scientifically—as +coal and iron are discovered?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</a></span></p> + +<p>She finally slept, her arms around her little sister. +But the last recollection she had was Clay's fine face +smiling at her through the darkness and saying: “We +must all work—it is life's badge of nobility.”</p> + +<p>It was Monday morning, and she would take Lily with +her to the mill; for the child's work at the spinning +frames was to begin that day. There was no alternative. +Again the great unknown law rushed her along. +Her father had signed them both, and in a few days +their home would be sold.</p> + +<p>They were late at the mill, but the little one, as she +trudged along by the side of her sister, was happier +than she had been since her old nurse had left. It was +great fun for her, this going to the mill with her big +sister.</p> + +<p>The mill had been throbbing and humming long before +they reached it. Helen turned Lily over to the +floor manager, after kissing her good-bye, and bade her +do as she was told. Twice again she kissed her, and +then with a sob hurried away to her own room.</p> + +<p>Travis was awaiting her in the hall. She turned +pale and then crimson when she saw him. And yet, when +she ventured to look at him as she was passing, she was +stopped with the change which lay on his face. It was +a sad smile he gave her, sad but determined. And in +the courtly bow was such a look of tenderness that with +fluttering heart and a strange new feeling of upliftedness—a +confidence in him for the first time, she stopped +and gave him her hand with a grateful smile. It was a +simple act and so pretty that the sadness went from +Travis' face as he said:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I was not going to stop you—this is kind of you. +Saturday, I thought you feared me.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she smiled, “but not now—not when you +look like that.”</p> + +<p>“Have I changed so much since then?” and he +looked at her curiously.</p> + +<p>“There is something in your face I never saw before. +It made me stop.”</p> + +<p>“I am glad it was there, then,” he said simply, “for +I wished you to stop, though I did not want to say so.”</p> + +<p>“Saturday you would have said so,” she replied with +simple frankness.</p> + +<p>He came closer to her with equal frankness, and yet +with a tenderness which thrilled her he said:</p> + +<p>“Perhaps I was not so sure Saturday of many things +that I am positive of to-day.”</p> + +<p>“Of what?” she asked flushing.</p> + +<p>He smiled again, but it was not the old smile which +had set her to trembling with a flurry of doubt and +shame. It was the smile of respect. Then it left him, +and in its stead flashed instantly the old conquering +light when he said:</p> + +<p>“To-night, you know, you will be mine!”</p> + +<p>The change of it all, the shock of it, numbed her. +She tried to smile, but it was the lifeless curl of her lips +instead—and the look she gave him—of resignation, +of acquiescence, of despair—he had seen it once before, +in the beautiful eyes of the first young doe that +fell to his rifle. She was not dead when he bounded +to the spot where she lay—and she gave him that look.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</a></span></p> + +<p>Edward Conway watched his two daughters go out +of the gate on their way to the mill, sitting with his +feet propped up, and drunker than he had been for +weeks. But indistinct as things were, the poignancy of +it went through him, and he groaned. In a dazed sort +of way he knew it was the last of all his dreams of +respectability, that from now on there was nothing for +him and his but degradation and a lower place in life. +To do him justice, he did not care so much for himself; +already he felt that he himself was doomed, that he could +never expect to shake off the terrible habit which had +grown to be part of his life,—unless, he thought, unless, +as the Bishop had said—by the blow of God. He +paled to think what that might mean. God had so +many ways of striking blows unknown to man. But +for his daughters—he loved them, drunkard though he +was. He was proud of their breeding, their beauty, +their name. If he could only go and give them a +chance—if the blow would only fall and take him!</p> + +<p>The sun was warm. He grew sleepy. He remembered +afterwards that he fell out of his chair and that +he could not arise.... It was a nice place to +sleep anyway.... A staggering hound, with +scurviness and sores, came up the steps, then on the +porch, and licked his face....</p> + +<p>When he awoke some one was bathing his face with +cold water from the spring. He was perfectly sober +and he knew it was nearly noon. Then he heard the +person say: “I guess you are all right now, Marse +Ned, an' I'm thinkin' it's the last drink you'll ever take +outen that jug.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[Pg 538]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>His astonishment in recognizing that the voice was the +voice of Mammy Maria did not keep him from looking +up regretfully at sight of the precious broken jug and +the strong odor of whiskey pervading the air.</p> + +<p>How delightful the odor was!</p> + +<p>He sat up amazed, blinking stupidly.</p> + +<p>“Aunt Maria—in heaven's name—where?”</p> + +<p>“Never mind, Marse Ned—jes' you git into the +buggy now an' I'll take you home. You see, I've +moved everything this mohnin' whilst you slept. The +last load is gone to our new home.”</p> + +<p>“What?” he exclaimed—“where?” He looked +around—the home was empty.</p> + +<p>“I thort it time to wake you up,” she went on, “an' +besides I wanter talk to you about my babies.</p> + +<p>“You'll onderstan' all that when you see the home +I've bought for us”—she said simply. “We're gwine +to it now. Git in the buggy”—and she helped him to +arise.</p> + +<p>Then Edward Conway guessed, and he was silent, and +without a word the old woman drove him out of the dilapidated +gate of Millwood toward the town.</p> + +<p>“Mammy,” he began as if he were a boy again—“Mammy,” +and then he burst into tears.</p> + +<p>“Don't cry, chile,” said the old woman—“it's all +behind us now. I saved the money years ago, when we +all wus flush—an' you gave me so much when you had +an' wus so kind to me, Marse Ned. I saved it. We're +gwine to reform now an' quit drinkin'. We'se gwine +to remove to another spot in the garden of the Lord, but +the Lord is gwine with us an' He is the tower of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[Pg 539]</a></span> +strength—the tower of strength to them that trust +Him—Amen. But I must have my babies—that's +part of the barg'in. No mill for them—oh, Marse +Ned, to think that whilst I was off, fixin' our home so +nice to s'prize you all—wuckin' my fingers off to git +the home ready—you let them devils get my babies! +Git up heah”—and she rapped the horse down the +back with the lines. “Hurry up—I'm gwine after +'em es soon es I git home.”</p> + +<p>Conway could only bow his head and weep.</p> + +<p>It was nearly noon when a large coal-black woman, +her head tied up with an immaculately white handkerchief, +with a white apron to match over her new calico +gown, walked into the mill door. She passed through +Kingsley's office, without giving him the courtesy of a +nod, holding her head high and looking straight before +her. A black thunder-cloud of indignation sat upon +her brow, and her large black eyes were lit up with a +sarcastic light.</p> + +<p>Before Kingsley could collect his thoughts she had +passed into the big door of the main room, amid the +whirl and hum of the machinery, and walking straight +to one of the spinning frames, she stooped and gathered +into her arms the beautiful, fair-skinned little girl who +was trying in vain to learn the tiresome lesson of piecing +the ever-breaking threads of the bewildering, whirling +bobbins.</p> + +<p>The child was taken so by surprise that she screamed +in fright—not being able to hear the footfall or the +voice of her who had so suddenly folded her in her arms<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[Pg 540]</a></span> +and showered kisses on her face and hair. Then, seeing +the face, she shouted:</p> + +<p>“It's Mammy Maria—oh, it's my mammy!” and she +threw her arms around the old woman's neck and +clung there.</p> + +<p>“Mammy's baby—did you think old Mammy dun +run off an' lef' her baby?”</p> + +<p>But Lily could only sob for joy.</p> + +<p>Then the floor manager came hurriedly over—for +the entire force of the mill had ceased to work, gazing +at the strange scene. In vain he gesticulated his protests—the +big fat colored woman walked proudly past +him with Lily in her arms.</p> + +<p>In Kingsley's office she stopped to get Lily's bonnet, +while the little girl still clung to her neck, sobbing.</p> + +<p>Kingsley stood taking in the scene in astonishment. +He adjusted his eye glasses several times, lilting them +with the most pronounced sarcastic lilt of which he was +capable.</p> + +<p>He stepped around and around the desk in agitated +briskness.</p> + +<p>He cleared his throat and jerked his pant legs up and +down. And all the time the fat old woman stood looking +at him, with the thunder-cloud on her brow and unexpressed +scorn struggling for speech in her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Ah-hem—ah-ha—Aunt Maria” for Kingsley +had caught on to the better class of Southern ways—“inform +me—ah, what does all this mean?”</p> + +<p>The old woman drew herself up proudly and replied +with freezing politeness:</p> + +<p>“I beg yo' pardon, sah—but I was not awares that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[Pg 541]</a></span> +I had any nephew in the mill, or was related to anybody +in here, sah. I hav'nt my visitin' cyard with me, but +if I had 'em heah you'd find my entitlements, on readin', +was somethin' lak this: <i>Miss Maria Conway, of Zion!</i>”</p> + +<p>Kingsley flushed, rebuked. Then he adjusted his +glasses again with agitated nervous attempts at a lilt. +Then he struck his level and fell back on his natural instinct, +unmixed, with attempts at being what he was +not:</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Conway”—</p> + +<p>“Git my entitlements right, please sah. I'm the only +old maid lady of color you ever seed or ever will see +again. Niggahs, these days, lak birds, all git 'em a +mate some way—but I'm Miss Conway of Zion.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, beg pardon, Miss Conway—Miss Conway of +Zion. And where, pray, is that city, Miss Conway? +I may have to have an officer communicate with you.”</p> + +<p>“With pleasure, sah—It's a pleasure for me to he'p +people find a place dey'd never find without help—no—not +whilst they're a-workin' the life out of innocent +tots an' babes—”</p> + +<p>Kingsley flushed hot, angered:</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, old woman?”</p> + +<p>“The ole woman means,” she said, looking him steadily +in the eye, “that you are dealin' in chile slavery, law +or no law; that you're down heah preachin' one thing for +niggahs an' practisin' another for yo' own race; that +yo' hair frizzles on yo' head at tho'rt of niggah slavery, +whilst all the time you are enslavin' the po' little whites +that's got yo' own blood in their veins. An' now you +wanter know what I come for? I come for my chile!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[Pg 542]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>Kingsley was too dumfounded to speak. In all his +life never had his hypocrisy been knocked to pieces so +completely.</p> + +<p>“What does all this mean?” asked Jud Carpenter +rushing hastily into the room.</p> + +<p>“Come on baby,” said the old woman as she started +toward the door. “I've got a home for us, an' whilst +old mammy can take in washin' you'll not wuck yo' life +out with these people.”</p> + +<p>Jud broke in harshly: “Come, ole 'oman,—you put +that child down. You've got nothin' to support her +with.”</p> + +<p>She turned on him quickly: “I've got mo' silver tied +up in ole socks that the Conways give me in slavery +days when they had it by the bushel, than sech as you +ever seed. Got nothin'? Jus' you come over and see +the little home I've got fixed up for Marse Ned an' the +babies. Got nothin'? See these arms? Do you think +they have forgot how to cook an' wash? Come on, baby—we'll +be gwine home—Miss Helen'll come later.”</p> + +<p>“Put her down, old woman,” said Carpenter sternly. +“You can't take her—she's bound to the mill.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I can't?” said the old woman as she walked out +with Lily—“Can't take her. Well, jes' look at me an' +see. This is what I calls Zion, an' the Lam' an' the +wolves had better stay right where they are,” she remarked +dryly, as she walked off carrying Lily in her +arms.</p> + +<p>Down through a pretty part of the town, away from +Cottontown, she led the little girl, laughing now and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[Pg 543]</a></span> +chatting by the old woman's side, a bird freed from a +cage.</p> + +<p>“And you'll bring sister Helen, too?” asked Lily.</p> + +<p>“That I will, pet,—she'll be home to-night.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mammy, it's so good to have you again—so +good, and I thought you never would come.”</p> + +<p>They walked away from Cottontown and past pretty +houses. In a quiet street, with oaks and elms shading +it, she entered a yard in which stood a pretty and nicely +painted cottage. Lily clapped her hands with laughter +when she found all her old things there—even her pet +dolls to welcome her—all in the cunningest and quaintest +room imaginable. The next room was her father's, +and Mammy's room was next to hers and Helen's. She +ran out only to run into her father's arms. Small as +she was, she saw that he was sober. He took her on his +lap and kissed her.</p> + +<p>“My little one,” he said—“my little one”—</p> + +<p>“Mammy,” asked the little girl as the old woman +came out—“how did you get all this?”</p> + +<p>“Been savin' it all my life, chile—all the money +yo' blessed mother give me an' all I earned sence I was +free. I laid it up for a rainy day an' now, bless God, +it's not only rainin' but sleetin' an' cold an' snowin' besides, +an' so I went to the old socks. It's you all's, an' +all paid fur, an' old mammy to wait on you. I'm gwine +to go after Miss Helen before the mill closes, else she'll +be gwine back to Millwood, knowin' nothin' of all this +surprise for her. No, sah,—nary one of yo' mother's +chillun shall ever wuck in a mill.”</p> + +<p>Conway bowed his head. Then he drew Lily to him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[Pg 544]</a></span> +as he knelt and said: “Oh, God help me—make me +a man, make me a Conway again.”</p> + +<p>It was his first prayer in years—the beginning of his +reformation. And every reformation began with a +prayer.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[Pg 545]</a></span></p> +<h3>THE DOUBLE THAT DIED</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">T</span>wo hours before the mill closed Richard Travis +came hurriedly into the mill office. There had +been business engagements to be attended to in +the town before leaving that night for the North, and +he had been absent from the mill all day. Now everything +was ready even to his packed trunk—all except +Helen.</p> + +<p>“He's come for her,” said Jud to himself as he +walked over to the superintendent's desk.</p> + +<p>Then amid the hum and the roar of the mill he bent +his head and the two whispered low and earnestly together. +As Jud talked in excited whispers, Travis lit a +cigar and listened coolly—to Jud's astonishment—even +cynically.</p> + +<p>“An' what you reckin' she done—the ole 'oman? +Tuck the little gyrl right out of my han's an' kerried her +home—marched off as proud as ole Queen Victory.”</p> + +<p>“Home? What home?” asked Travis.</p> + +<p>“An' that's the mischief of it,” went on Jud. “I +thort she was lyin' about the home, an' I stepped down +there at noon an' I hope I may die to-night if she ain't +got 'em all fixed up as snug as can be, an' the Major +is there as sober es a jedge, an' lookin' like a gentleman +an' actin' like a Conway. Say, but you watch yo' han'.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546">[Pg 546]</a></span> +That's blood that won't stan' monkeyin' with when it's +in its right mind. An' the little home the ole 'oman's +got, she bought it with her own money, been savin' it all +her life an' now”—</p> + +<p>“What did you say to her this morning?” asked +Travis.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I cussed her out good—the old black”—</p> + +<p>A peculiar light flashed in Richard Travis' eyes. +Never before had the Whipper-in seen it. It was as if +he had looked up and seen a halo around the moon.</p> + +<p>“To do grand things—to do grand things—like +that—negro that she is! No—no—of course you +did not understand. Our moral sense is gone—we mill +people. It is atrophied—yours and mine and all of us—the +soul has gone and mine? My God, why did you +give it back to me now—this ghost soul that has come +to me with burning breath?”</p> + +<p>Jud Carpenter listened in amazement and looked at +him suspiciously. He came closer to see if he could +smell whiskey on his breath, but Travis looked at him +calmly as he went on: “Why, yes, of course you cursed +her—how could you understand? How could you +know—you, born soulless, know that you had witnessed +something which, what does the old preacher call him—the +man Jesus Christ—something He would have +stopped and blessed her for. A slave and she saved it +for her master. A negro and she loved little children +where we people of much intellect and a higher civilization +and Christianity—eh, Jud, Christians”—and he +laughed so strangely that Jud took a turn around the +room watching Travis out of the corner of his eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547">[Pg 547]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh—and you cursed her!”</p> + +<p>Jud nodded. “An' to-morrow I'll go an' fetch the +little 'un back. Why she's signed—she's our'n for +five years.”</p> + +<p>Travis turned quickly and Jud dodged under the +same strange light that showed again in his eyes. Then +he laid his hand on Jud's arm and said simply: “No—no—you +will not!”</p> + +<p>Jud looked at him in open astonishment.</p> + +<p>Travis puffed at his cigar as he said:</p> + +<p>“Don't study me too closely. Things have happened—have +happened, I tell you—my God! we are all +double—that is if we are anything—two halves to +us—and my half—my other half, got lost till the +other night and left this aching, pitiful, womanly thing +behind, that bleeds to the touch and has tears. Why, +man, I am either an angel, a devil, or both. Don't you +go there and touch that little child, nor thrust your +damned moral Caliban monstrosity into that sweet isle, +nor break up with your seared conscience the glory of +that unselfish act. If you do I'll kill you, Jud Carpenter—I'll +kill you!”</p> + +<p>Jud turned and walked to the water bucket, took a +drink and squirted it through his teeth.</p> + +<p>He was working for thinking time: “He's crazy—he's +sho' crazy—” he said to himself. Coming back, +he said:</p> + +<p>“Pardon me, Mr. Travis—but the oldes' gyrl—what—what +about her, you know?”</p> + +<p>“She's mine, isn't she? I've won her—outgeneraled +the others—by brains and courage. She should be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548">[Pg 548]</a></span>long +to my harem—to my band—as the stallion of +the plains when he beats off with tooth and hoof and +neck of thunder his rival, and takes his mares.”</p> + +<p>Jud nodded, looking at him quizzically.</p> + +<p>“Well, what about it?” asked Travis.</p> + +<p>“Nothin'—only this”—then he lowered his voice +as he came nearer—“the ole 'oman will be after her in +an hour—an' she'll take her—tell her all. Maybe +you'll see somethin' to remind you of Jesus Christ in +that.”</p> + +<p>Travis smiled.</p> + +<p>“Well,” went on Jud, “you'd better take her now—while +the whole thing has played into yo' hands; but +she—the oldes' gyrl—she don't know the ole 'oman's +come back an' made her a home; that her father is sober +an' there with her little sister, that Clay is away an' +ain't deserted her. She don't know anything, an' when +you set her out in that empty house, deserted, her folks +all deserted her, as she'll think, don't you know she'll +go to the end of the worl' with you?”</p> + +<p>“Well?” asked Travis as he smiled calmly.</p> + +<p>“Well, take her and thank Jud Carpenter for the +Queen of the Valley—eh?” and he laughed and tried +to nudge Travis familiarly, but the latter moved away.</p> + +<p>“I'll take her,” at last he said.</p> + +<p>“She'll go to The Gaffs with you”—went on Jud. +“There she's safe. Then to-night you can drive her +to the train at Lenox, as we told Biggers.”</p> + +<p>He came over and whispered in Travis's ear.</p> + +<p>“That worked out beautifully,” said Travis after +a while, “but I'll not trust her to you or to Charley<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_549" id="Page_549">[Pg 549]</a></span> +Biggers. I'll take her myself—she's mine—Richard +Travis's—mine—mine! I who have been buffeted +and abused by Fate, given all on earth I do not want, +and denied the one thing I'd die for; I'll show them +who they are up against. I'll take her, and they may +talk and rave and shoot and be damned!”</p> + +<p>His old bitterness was returning. His face flushed:</p> + +<p>“That's the way you love to hear me talk, isn't it—to +go on and say I'll take her and do as I please with +her, and if it pleases me to marry her I'll set her up over +them all—heh?”</p> + +<p>Jud nodded.</p> + +<p>“That's one of me,” said Travis—“the old one. +This is the new.” And he opened the back of his watch +where a tiny lock of Alice Westmore's auburn hair lay: +“Oh, if I were only worthy to kiss it!”</p> + +<p>He walked into the mill and down to the little room +where Helen sat. He stood a while at the door and +watched her—the poise of the beautiful head, the +cheeks flushed with the good working blood that now +flowed through them, the hair falling with slight disorder, +a stray lock of it dashed across her forehead and +setting off the rest of it, darker and deeper, as a cloudlet, +inlaid with gold, the sunset of her cheeks.</p> + +<p>His were the eyes of a connoisseur when it came to +women, and as he looked he knew that every line of her +was faultless; the hands slender and beautifully high-born; +the fingers tapering with that artistic slope of the +tips, all so plainly visible now that they were at work. +One foot was thrust out, slender with curved and high +instep. He flushed with pride of her—his eyes bright<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_550" id="Page_550">[Pg 550]</a></span>ened +and he smiled in the old ironical way, a smile of +dare-doing, of victory.</p> + +<p>He walked in briskly and with a business-like, forward +alertness. She looked up, paled, then flushed.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I was hoping so you had forgotten,” she said +tremblingly.</p> + +<p>He smiled kindly: “I never forget.”</p> + +<p>She put up one hand to her cheek and rested her head +on it a moment in thought.</p> + +<p>He came up and stood deferentially by her side, looking +down on her, on her beautiful head. She half +crouched, expecting to hear something banteringly complimentary; +bold, commonplace—to feel even the touch +of his sensual hand on her hair, on her cheek and <i>My +Queen—my Queen</i>!</p> + +<p>After a while she looked up, surprised. The excitement +in her eyes—the half-doubting—half-yielding +fight there, of ambition, and doubt, and the stubborn +wrong of it all, of her hard lot and bitter life, of the +hidden splendor that might lie beyond, and yet the terrible +doubt, the fear that it might end in a living death—these, +fighting there, lit up her eyes as candles at an +altar of love. Then the very difference of his attitude, +as he stood there, struck her,—the beautiful dignity of +his face, his smile. She saw in an instant that sensualism +had vanished—there was something spiritual which +she had never seen before. A wave of trust, in her utter +helplessness, a feeling of respect, of admiration, swept +over her. She arose quickly, wondering at her own decision.</p> + +<p>He bowed low, and there was a ringing sweetness in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_551" id="Page_551">[Pg 551]</a></span> +his voice as he said: “I have come for you, Helen—if +you wish to go.”</p> + +<p>“I will go, Richard Travis, for I know now you will +do me no harm.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think you could learn to love me?”</p> + +<p>She met his eyes steadily, bravely: “That was never +in the bargain. That is another thing. This is barter +and trade—the last ditch rather than starvation, death. +This is the surrender of the earthen fort, the other the +glory of the ladder leading to the skies. Understand +me, you have not asked for that—it is with me and +God, who made me and gave it. Let it stay there and +go back to him. You offer me bread”—</p> + +<p>“But may it not turn into a stone, an exquisite, pure +diamond?” he asked.</p> + +<p>She looked at him sadly. She shook her head.</p> + +<p>“Diamonds are not made in a day.”</p> + +<p>The light Jud Carpenter saw flashed in his eyes: “I +have read of one somewhere who turned water into wine—and +that was as difficult.”</p> + +<p>“If—if—” she said gently—“if you had always +been this—if you would always be this”—</p> + +<p>“A woman knows a man as a rose knows light,” he +said simply—“as a star knows the sun. But we men—being +the sun and the star, we are blinded by our +own light. Come, you may trust me, Sweet Rose.”</p> + +<p>She put her hand in his. He took it half way to his +mouth.</p> + +<p>“Don't,” she said—“please—that is the old way.”</p> + +<p>He lowered it gently, reverently, and they walked out.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_552" id="Page_552">[Pg 552]</a></span></p> +<h3>THE DYING LION</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">“L</span>ily has been taken home,” he said as she +walked out with him. “She is safe and will +be cared for—so will be your father. I will +explain it to you as we drive to Millwood.”</p> + +<p>She wondered, but her cheeks now burned so that all +her thoughts began to flow back upon herself as a tide, +flowing inland, and forgetting the sea of things. Her +heart beat faster—she felt guilty—of what, she could +not say.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the guilt of the sea for being found on the +land.</p> + +<p>The common mill girls—were they not all looking +at her, were they not all wondering, did they not all +despise her, her who by birth and breeding should be +above them? Her lips tightened at the thought—she +who was above them—now—now—they to be above +her—poor-born and common as they were—if—if—he +betrayed her.</p> + +<p>He handed her quietly—reverently even, into the +buggy, and the trotters whirled her away; but not before +she thought she saw the mill girls peeping at her +through the windows, and nodding their heads at each +other, and some of them smiling disdainfully. And yet +when she looked closely there was no one at the windows.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_553" id="Page_553">[Pg 553]</a></span></p> + +<p>The wind blew cool. Travis glanced at her dress, her +poorly protected shoulders.</p> + +<p>“I am afraid you will be too cold after coming from +a warm mill and going with the speed we go.”</p> + +<p>He reached under the seat and drew out a light overcoat. +He threw it gently over her shoulders, driving, +in his masterful way, with the reins in one hand.</p> + +<p>He did not speak again until he reached Millwood.</p> + +<p>The gate was down, bits of strewn paper, straw and +all the debris of things having been moved, were there. +The house was dark and empty, and Helen uttered a surprised +cry:</p> + +<p>“Why, what does all this mean? Oh, has anything +happened to them?”</p> + +<p>She clung in pallor to Travis's arm.</p> + +<p>“Be calm,” he said, “I will explain. They are all +safe. They have moved. Let us go in, a moment.”</p> + +<p>He drew the mares under a shed and hitched them, +throwing blankets over them and unchecking their heads. +Then he lifted her out. How strong he was, and how +like a limp lily she felt in the grasp of his hands.</p> + +<p>The moon flashed out now and then from clouds scurrying +fast, adding a ghostliness to the fading light, in +which the deserted house stood out amid shadowy trees +and weeds tall and dried. The rotten steps and balcony, +even the broken bottles and pieces of crockery +shone bright in the fading light. Tears started to her +eyes:</p> + +<p>“Nothing is here—nothing!”</p> + +<p>Travis caught her hand in the dark and she clung to +him. A hound stepped out from under the steps and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_554" id="Page_554">[Pg 554]</a></span> +licked her other hand. She jumped and gave a little +shriek. Then, when she understood, she stroked the +poor thing's head, its eyes staring hungrily in the dim +light.</p> + +<p>She followed Travis up the steps. Within, he struck +a match, and she saw the emptiness of it all—the +broken plastering and the paper torn off in spots, a +dirty, littered floor, and an old sofa and a few other +things left, too worthless to be moved.</p> + +<p>She held up bravely, but tears were running down her +cheeks. Travis struck another match to light a lamp +which had been forgotten and left on the mantel. He +attempted to light it, but something huge and black +swept by and extinguished it. Helen shrieked again, +and coming up timidly seized his arm in the dark. He +could feel her heart beating excitedly against it.</p> + +<p>He struck another match.</p> + +<p>“Don't be uneasy, it is nothing but an owl.”</p> + +<p>The light was turned up and showed an owl sitting on +the top of an old tester that had formerly been the +canopy of her grandmother's bed.</p> + +<p>The owl stared stupidly at them—turning its head +solemnly.</p> + +<p>Helen laughed hysterically.</p> + +<p>“Now, sit down on the old sofa,” he said. “There +is much to say to you. We are now on the verge of a +tragedy or a farce, or—”</p> + +<p>“Sometimes plays end well, where all are happy, do +they not?” she asked, smiling hysterically and sitting +by him, but looking at the uncanny owl beyond. She +was silent, then:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_555" id="Page_555">[Pg 555]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, I—I—don't you think I am entitled now—to +have something end happily—now—once—in my +life?”</p> + +<p>He pitied her and was silent.</p> + +<p>“Tell me,” she said after a while, “you have moved +father and Lily to—to—one of the Cottontown cottages?”</p> + +<p>He arose: “In a little while I will tell you, but now +we must have something to eat first—you see I had this +lunch fixed for our journey.” He went out, over to his +lap-robe and cushion, and brought a basket and placed +it on an old table.</p> + +<p>“You may begin now and be my housekeeper,” he +smiled. “Isn't it time you were learning? I daresay +I'll not find you a novice, though.”</p> + +<p>She flushed and smiled. She arose gracefully, and +her pretty hands soon had the lunch spread, Travis +helping her awkwardly.</p> + +<p>It was a pretty picture, he thought—her flushed +girlish face, yet matronly ways. He watched her slyly, +with a sad joyousness in his eyes, drinking it in, as one +who had hungered long for contentment and peace, such +as this.</p> + +<p>She had forgotten everything else in the housekeeping. +She even laughed some at his awkwardness and +scolded him playfully, for, man-like, forgetting a knife +and fork. It was growing chilly, and while she set the +lunch he went out and brought in some wood. Soon a +fine oak fire burned in the fireplace.</p> + +<p>They sat at the old table at last, side by side, and ate +the delightful lunch. Under the influence of the bottle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_556" id="Page_556">[Pg 556]</a></span> +of claret, from The Gaffs cellar, her courage came and +her animation was beautiful to him—something that +seemed more of girlhood than womanhood. He drank it +all in—hungry—heart-hungry for comfort and love; +and she saw and understood.</p> + +<p>Never had he enjoyed a lunch so much. Never had +he seen so beautiful a picture!</p> + +<p>When it was over he lit a cigar, and the fine odor +filled the old room.</p> + +<p>Then very quietly he told her the story of Mammy +Maria's return, of the little home she had prepared for +them; of her coming that day to the mill and taking +Lily, and that even now, doubtless, she was there looking +for the elder sister.</p> + +<p>She did not show any surprise—only tears came +slowly: “Do you know that I felt that something of +this kind would happen? Dear Mammy—dear, dear +Mammy Maria! She will care for Lily and father.”</p> + +<p>She could stand it no longer. She burst into childish +tears and, kneeling, she put her beautiful head on +Travis's lap as innocently as if it were her old nurse's, +and she, a child, seeking consolation.</p> + +<p>He stroked her hair, her cheek, gently. He felt his +lids grow moist and a tenderness he never had known +came over him.</p> + +<p>“I have told you this for a purpose,” he whispered +in her ear—“I will take you to them, now.”</p> + +<p>She raised her wet eyes—flushed. He watched her +closely to see signs of any battle there. And then his +heart gave a great leap and surged madly as she said +calmly: “No—no—it is too late—too late—now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_557" id="Page_557">[Pg 557]</a></span> +I—could—never explain. I will go with you, Richard +Travis, to the end of the world.”</p> + +<p>He sat very still and looked at her kneeling there as +a child would, both hands clasped around his knee, and +looking into his eyes with hers, gray-brown and gloriously +bright. They were calm—so calm, and determined +and innocent. They thrilled him with their trust +and the royal beauty of her faith. There came to him +an upliftedness that shook him.</p> + +<p>“To the end of the world,” he said—“ah, you have +said so much—so much more than I could ever deserve.”</p> + +<p>“I have stood it all as long as I could. My father's +drunkenness, I could stand that, and Mammy's forsaking +us, as I thought—that, too. When the glory of +work, of earning my own living opened itself to me,—Oh, +I grasped it and was happy to think that I could +support them! That's why your temptation—why—I—”</p> + +<p>He winced and was silent.</p> + +<p>“They were nothing,” she went on, “but to be forgotten, +forsaken by—by—”</p> + +<p>“Clay?” he helped her say.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” she flushed—“yes,—that was part of it, and +then to see—to see—you so different—with this +strange look on you—something which says so plainly +to me that—that—oh, forgive me, but do you know +I seem to see you dying—dying all the time, and now +you are so changed—indeed—oh please understand +me—I feel differently toward you—as I would toward +one dying for sympathy and love.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_558" id="Page_558">[Pg 558]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>She hid her face again. He felt his face grow hot. +He sat perfectly still, listening. At last she said:</p> + +<p>“When I came here to-night and saw it all—empty—I +thought: 'This means I am deserted by all—he +has brought me here to see it—to know it. What can +I do but go with him? It is all that is left. Did I +make myself? Did I give myself this fatal beauty—for +you say I am beautiful. And did I make you with +your strength—your conquering strength, and—Oh, +could I overcome my environment?' But now—now—it +is different—and if I am lost, Richard Travis—it +will be your fault—yours and God's.”</p> + +<p>He stroked her hair. He was pale and that strange +light which Jud Carpenter had seen in his eyes that +afternoon blazed now with a nervous flash.</p> + +<p>“That is my story,” she cried. “It is now too late +even for God to come and tell me through you—now +since we—you and I—oh, how can I say it—you +have taken me this way—you, so strong and brave and—grand—”</p> + +<p>He flushed hot with shame. He put his hand gently +over her mouth.</p> + +<p>“Hush—hush—child—my God—you hurt me—shame +me—you know not what you say.”</p> + +<p>“I can understand all—but one thing,” she went on +after a while. “Why have you brought me to this—here—at +night alone with you—to tell me this—to +make me—me—oh, change in my feelings—to you? +Oh, must I say it?” she cried—“tell you the truth—that—that—now +since I see you as you are—I—I,—I +am willing to go!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_559" id="Page_559">[Pg 559]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Hush, Helen, my child, my God—don't crush me—don't—listen, +child—listen! I am a villain—a +doubly-dyed, infamous one—when you hear”—</p> + +<p>She shook her head and put one of her pretty hands +over his mouth.</p> + +<p>“Let me tell you all, first. Let me finish. After +all this, why have you brought me here to tell me this, +when all you had to do was to keep silent a few more +hours—take me on to the station, as you said—and—and—”</p> + +<p>“I will tell you,” he said gently. “Yes, you have +asked the question needed to be explained. Now hear +from my own lips my infamy—not all of it, God knows—that +would take the night; but this peculiar part of +it. Do you know why I love to stroke your hair, why +I love to touch it, to touch you, to look into your eyes; +why I should love, next to one thing of all earth, to take +you in my arms and smother you—kill you with kisses—your +hair, your eyes, your mouth?”</p> + +<p>She hid her face, crimson.</p> + +<p>“Did no one tell you, ever tell you—how much you +look like your cousin”—he stopped—he could not say +the word, but she guessed. White with shame, she +sprang up from him, startled, hurt. Her heart tightened +into a painful thing which pricked her.</p> + +<p>“Then—then—it is not I—but my Cousin Alice—oh—I—yes—I +did hear—I should have +known”—it came from her slowly and with a quivering +tremor.</p> + +<p>He seized her hands and drew her back down by him +on the sofa.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_560" id="Page_560">[Pg 560]</a></span></p> + +<p>“When I started into this with you I was dead—dead. +My soul was withered within me. All women +were my playthings—all but one. She was my +Queen—my wife that was to be. I was dead, my +God—how dead I was! I now see with a clearness that +is killing me; a clearness as of one waking from sleep +and feeling, in the first wave of conscience, that inconceivable +tenderness which hurts so—hurts because it is +tender and before the old hard consciousness of material +things come again to toughen. How dead I was, you +may know when I say that all this web now around you—from +your entrance into the mill till now—here +to-night—in my power—body and soul—that it was +all to gratify this dead sea fruit of my soul, this thing +in me I cannot understand, making me conquer women +all my life for—oh, as a lion would, to kill, though not +hungry, and then lie by them, dying, and watch them,—dead! +Then this same God—if any there be—He +who you say put more on you than you could bear—He +struck me, as, well—no—He did not strike—but +ground me, ground me into dust—took her out of my +life and then laid my soul before me so naked that the +very sunlight scorches it. What was it the old preacher +said—that 'touch of God' business? 'Touch—'” +he laughed, “not touch, but blow, I say—a blow that +ground me into star-dust and flung me into space, my +heart a burning comet and my soul the tail of it, dissolving +before my very eyes. What then can I, a lion, +dying, care for the doe that crosses my path? The +beautiful doe, beautiful even as you are. Do you +understand me, child?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_561" id="Page_561">[Pg 561]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>She scarcely knew what she did. She remembered +only the terrible empty room. The owl uncannily turning +its head here and there and staring at her with its +eyes, yellow in the firelight.</p> + +<p>She dropped on the floor by him and clung again to +his knees, her head in his lap in pity for him.</p> + +<p>“That is the story of the dying lion,” he said after +a while. “The lion who worked all his cunning and skill +and courage to get the beautiful doe in his power, only +to find he was dying—dying and could not eat. Could +you love a dying lion, child?” he asked abruptly—“tell +me truly, for as you speak so will I act—would +make you queen of all the desert.”</p> + +<p>She raised her eyes to his. They were wet with tears. +He had touched the pity in them. She saw him as she +had never seen him before. All her fear of him vanished, +and she was held by the cords of a strange fascination. +She knew not what she did. The owl looked +at her queerly, and she almost sobbed it out, hysterically:</p> + +<p>“Oh, I could—love—you—you—who are so +strong and who suffer—suffer so”—</p> + +<p>“You could love me?” he asked. “Then, then I +would marry you to-night—now—if—if—that uncovering—that +touch—had not been put upon me to +do nobler things than to gratify my own passion, had +not shown me the other half which all these years has +been dead—my double.” He was silent.</p> + +<p>“And so I sent to-day,” he began after a while, “for +a friend of yours, one with whom you can be happier +than—the dying lion. He has been out of the county—sent +out—it was part of the plan, part of the snare<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_562" id="Page_562">[Pg 562]</a></span> +of the lion and his whelp. And so I sent for him this +morning, feeling the death blow, you know. I sent him +an urgent message, to meet you here at nine.” He +glanced at his watch. “It is past that now, but he +had far to ride. He will come, I hope—ah, listen!”</p> + +<p>They heard the steps of a rider coming up the gravel +walk.</p> + +<p>“It is he,” said Travis calmly—“Clay.”</p> + +<p>She sprang up quickly, half defiantly. The old Conway +spirit flashed in her eyes and she came to him tall +and splendid and with half a look of protest, half command, +and yet in it begging, pleading, yearning for—she +knew not what.</p> + +<p>“Why—why—did you? Oh, you do not know! +You do not understand—love—love—can it be won +this way—apprenticed, bargained—given away?”</p> + +<p>“You must go with him, he loves you. He will make +you happy. I am dying—is not part of me already +dead?”</p> + +<p>For answer she came to him, closer, and stood by him +as one who in war stands by a comrade shot through +and ready to fall.</p> + +<p>He put his arms around her and drew her to him +closer, and she did not resist—but as a child would, +hers also she wound around his neck and whispered:</p> + +<p>“My lion! Oh, kill me—kill me—let me die with +you!”</p> + +<p>“Child—my precious one—my—oh, God, and +you—forgive me this. But let me kiss you once and +dream—dream it is she”—</p> + +<p>She felt his kisses on her hair, her eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_563" id="Page_563">[Pg 563]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Good-bye—Alice—Alice—good-bye—forever—”</p> + +<p>He released her, but she clung to him sobbing. Her +head lay on his breast, and she shook in the agony of +it all.</p> + +<p>“You will forgive me, some day—when you know—how +I loved her,” he gasped, white and with a bitter +light in his face.</p> + +<p>She looked up: “I would die,” she said simply, +“for a love like that.”</p> + +<p>They heard the steps of a man approaching the house. +She sat down on the old sofa pale, trembling and with +bitterness in her heart.</p> + +<p>Travis walked to the door and opened it:</p> + +<p>“Come in, Clay,” he said quietly. “I am glad that +my man found you. We have been waiting for you.”</p> + +<p>“I finished that survey and came as fast as I could. +Your man rode on to The Gaffs, but I came here as you +wrote me to do,” and Clay came in quietly, speaking +as he walked to the fire.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_564" id="Page_564">[Pg 564]</a></span></p> +<h3>FACE TO FACE WITH DEATH</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">H</span>e came in as naturally as if the house were still +inhabited, though he saw the emptiness of it +all, and guessed the cause. But when he saw +Helen, a flushed surprise beamed through his eyes and he +gave her his hand.</p> + +<p>“Helen!—why, this is unexpected—quite unusual, +I must say.”</p> + +<p>She did not speak, as she gave him her hand, but +smiled sadly. It meant: “Mr. Travis will tell you all. +I know nothing. It is all his planning.”</p> + +<p>Clay sat down in an old chair by the fire and warmed +his hands, looking thoughtfully at the two, now and then, +and wonderingly. He was not surprised when Travis +said:</p> + +<p>“I sent for you hurriedly, as one who I knew was +a friend of Miss Conway. A crisis has arisen in her +affairs to-day in which it is necessary for her friends to +act.”</p> + +<p>“Why, yes, I suppose I can guess,” said Clay +thoughtfully and watching Helen closely all the while +as he glanced around the empty room. “I was only +waiting. Why, you see—”</p> + +<p>Helen flushed scarlet and looked appealingly at +Travis. But he broke in on Clay without noticing her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_565" id="Page_565">[Pg 565]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Yes, I knew you were only waiting. I think I understand +you, but you know the trouble with nearly +every good intention is that it waits too long.”</p> + +<p>Clay reddened.</p> + +<p>Helen arose and, coming over, stood by Travis, her +face pale, her eyes shining. “I beg—I entreat—please, +say no more. Clay,” she said turning on him +with flushed face, “I did not know you were coming. +I did not know where you were. Like all the others, I +supposed you too had—had deserted me.”</p> + +<p>“Why, I was sent off in a hurry to—” he started.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Travis told me to-night,” she interrupted. “I +understand now. But really, it makes no difference to +me now. Since—since—”</p> + +<p>“Now look here,” broke in Travis with feigned lightness,—“I +am not going to let you two lovers misunderstand +each other. I have planned it all out and I want +you both to make me happy by listening to one older, +one who admires you both and sincerely wishes to see you +happy. Things have happened at your house,” he said +addressing Clay—“things which will surprise you when +you reach home—things that affect you and me and +Miss Conway. Now I know that you love her, and have +loved her a long time, and that only—”</p> + +<p>“Only our poverty,” said Clay thankfully to Travis +for breaking the ice for him.</p> + +<p>Helen stood up quickly—a smile on her lips: +“Don't you both think that before this bargain and sale +goes further you had better get the consent of the one +to be sold?” She turned to Clay.</p> + +<p>“Don't you think you have queer ideas of love—of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_566" id="Page_566">[Pg 566]</a></span> +winning a woman's love—in this way? And you”—she +said turning to Travis—“Oh you <i>know</i> better.”</p> + +<p>Travis arose with a smile half joyous, half serious, +and Clay was so embarrassed that he mopped his brow +as if he were plowing in the sun.</p> + +<p>“Why, really, Helen—I—you know—I have +spoken to you—you know, and but for my—”</p> + +<p>“Poverty”—said Helen taking up the word—“And +what were poverty to me, if I loved a man? I'd +love him the more for it. If he were dying broken-hearted, +wrecked—even in disgrace,—”</p> + +<p>Travis flushed and looked at her admiringly, while the +joyous light flashed yet deeper in his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Come,” he said. “I have arranged all. I am not +going to give you young people an excuse to defer your +happiness longer.” He turned to Clay: “I shall show +you something which you have been on the track of for +some time. I have my lantern in the buggy, and we +will have to walk a mile or more. But it is pleasant to-night, +and the walk will do us all good. Come.”</p> + +<p>They both arose wonderingly—Helen came over and +put her hand on his arm: “I will go,” she whispered, +“if there be no more of that talk.”</p> + +<p>He smiled. “You must do as I say. Am I not now +your guardian? Bring your leathern sack with your +hammer and geological tools,” he remarked to Clay.</p> + +<p>Clay arose hastily, and they went out of the old house +and across the fields. Past the boundaries of Millwood +they walked, Travis silently leading, and Clay +following with Helen, who could not speak, so momentous +it all seemed. She saw only Travis's fine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_567" id="Page_567">[Pg 567]</a></span> +square shoulders, and erect, sinewy form, going before +them, into the night of shadows, of trees, of rocks, of +the great peak of the mountain, silent and dark.</p> + +<p>He did not speak. He walked in silent thought. +They passed the boundary line of Millwood, and then +down a slight ravine he led them to the ragged, flinty +hill, on which the old preacher's cabin stood on their +right.</p> + +<p>“Now,” he said stopping—“if I am correct, Clay, +this hill is the old Bishop's,” pointing to his right +where the cabin stood, “and over here is what is left of +Westmoreland. This gulch divides them. This range +really runs into Westmoreland,” he said with a sweep of +his hand toward it. “Get your bearings,” he smiled +to Clay, “for I want you to tell whose fortune this is.”</p> + +<p>He lit his lantern and walking forward struck away +some weeds and vines which partially concealed the +mouth of a small opening in the hillside caused by a +landslide. It was difficult going at first, but as they +went further the opening grew larger, and as the light +flashed on its walls, Clay stopped in admiration and +shouted:</p> + +<p>“Look—look—there it is!”</p> + +<p>Before them running right and left—for the cave +had split it in two, lay the solid vein of coal, shining in +the light, and throwing back splinters of ebony, to Clay +more beautiful than gold.</p> + +<p>Travis watched him with an amused smile as he hastily +took off his satchel and struck a piece off the ledge. +Helen stood wondering, looking not at Clay, but at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_568" id="Page_568">[Pg 568]</a></span> +Travis, and her eyes shone brilliantly and full of proud +splendor.</p> + +<p>Clay forgot that they were there. He measured the +ledge. He chipped off piece after piece and examined +it closely. “I never dreamed it would be here, in this +shape,” he said at last. “Look!—and fully eight +feet, solid. This hill is full of it. The old preacher +will find it hard to spend his wealth.”</p> + +<p>“But that is not all,” said Travis; “see how the +dip runs—see the vein—this way.” He pointed to +the left.</p> + +<p>Clay paled: “That means—it is remarkable—very +remarkable. Why, this vein should not have been +here. It is too low to be in the Carboniferous.” +He suddenly stopped: “But here it is—contrary to +all my data and—and—why really it takes the low +range of the poor land of Westmoreland. It—it—will +make me rich.”</p> + +<p>“You haven't seen all,” said Travis—“look!” +He turned and walked to another part of the small cave, +where the bank had broken, and there gleamed, not the +black, but the red—the earth full of rich ore.</p> + +<p>Clay picked up one eagerly.</p> + +<p>“The finest iron ore!—who—who—ever heard of +such a freak of nature?”</p> + +<p>“And the lime rock is all over the valley,” said +Travis, “and that means, coal, iron and lime—”</p> + +<p>“Furnaces—why, of course—furnaces and wealth. +Helen, I—I—it will make Westmoreland rich. Now, +in all earnestness—in all sincerity I can tell you—”</p> + +<p>“Do not tell me anything, Clay—please do not.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_569" id="Page_569">[Pg 569]</a></span> +You do not understand. You can never understand.” +Her eyes were following Travis, who had walked off +pretending to be examining the cave. Then she gave +a shriek which sounded frightfully intense as it echoed +around.</p> + +<p>Travis turned quickly and saw standing between him +and them a gaunt, savage thing, with froth in its mouth +and saliva-dripping lips. At first he thought it was a +panther, so low it crouched to spring; but almost instantly +he recognized Jud Carpenter's dog. Then it +began to creep uncertainly, staggeringly forward, toward +Clay and Helen, its neck drawn and contracted +in the paroxysms of rabies; its deadly eyes, staring, unearthly +yellow in the lantern light. Within two yards of +Clay, who stood helpless with fear and uncertainty, it +crouched to spring, growling and snapping at its own +sides, and Helen screamed again as she saw Travis's +quick, lithe figure spring forward and, grasping the +dog by the throat from behind, fling himself with crushing +force on the brute, choking it as he fell.</p> + +<p>Total darkness—for in his rush Travis threw aside +his lantern—and it seemed an age to Helen as she heard +the terrible fight for life going on at her feet, the +struggles and howls of the dog, the snapping of the +huge teeth, the stinging sand thrown up into her face. +Then after a while all was still, and then very quietly +from Travis:</p> + +<p>“A match, Clay—light the lantern! I have +choked him to death.”</p> + +<p>Under the light he arose, his clothes torn with tooth +and fang of the gaunt dog, which lay silent. He stood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_570" id="Page_570">[Pg 570]</a></span> +up hot and flushed, and then turned pallid, and for a +moment staggered as he saw the blood trickling from his +left arm.</p> + +<p>Helen stood by him terror-eyed, trembling, crushed,—with +a terrible sickening fear.</p> + +<p>“He was mad,” said Travis gently, “and I fear he +has bitten me, though I managed to jump on him before +he bit you two.”</p> + +<p>He took off his coat—blood was on his shirt sleeve +and had run down his arm. Helen, pale and with a +great sob in her throat, rolled up the sleeve, Travis submitting, +with a strange pallor in his face and the new +light in his eyes.</p> + +<p>His bare arm came up strong and white. Above the +elbow, near the shoulder, the blood still flowed where the +fangs had sunk.</p> + +<p>“There is only one chance to save me,” he said +quietly, “and that, a slim one. It bleeds—if I could +only get my lips to it—”</p> + +<p>He tried to expostulate, to push her off, as he felt +her lips against his naked arm. But she clung there +sucking out the virus. He felt her tears fall on his arm. +He heard her murmur:</p> + +<p>“My dying lion—my dying lion!”</p> + +<p>He bent and whispered: “You are risking your own +life for me, Helen! Life for life—death for death!”</p> + +<p>It was too much even for his great strength, and +when he recovered himself he was sitting on the sand of +the little cave. How long she had clung to his arm he +did not know, but it had ceased to pain him and her own +handkerchief was tied around it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_571" id="Page_571">[Pg 571]</a></span></p> + +<p>He staggered out, a terrible pallor on his face, as he +said: “Not this way—not to go this way. Oh, God, +your blow—I care not for death, but, oh, not this +death?”</p> + +<p>“Clay,” he said after a while—“Take her—take +her to your mother and sister to-night. I must bid +you both good-night, ay, and good-bye. See, you walk +only across the field there—that is Westmoreland.”</p> + +<p>He turned, but he felt some one clinging to his hand, +in the dark. He looked down at her, at the white, drawn +face, beautiful with a terrible pain: “Take me—take +me,” she begged—“with you—to the end of the world—oh, +I love you and I care not who knows.”</p> + +<p>“Child—child”—he whispered sadly—“You +know not what you say. I am dying. I shall be mad—unless—unless +what you have done—”</p> + +<p>“Take me,” she pleaded—“my lion. I am yours.”</p> + +<p>He stooped and kissed her and then walked quickly +away.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_572" id="Page_572">[Pg 572]</a></span></p> +<h3>THE ANGEL WITH THE FLAMING SWORD</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">I</span>t was nearly time for the mill to close when +Mammy Maria, her big honest face beaming with +satisfaction at the surprise she had in store for +Helen, began to wind her red silk bandana around her +head. She had several bandanas, but when Lily saw her +put on the red silk one, the little girl knew she was +going out—“dressin' fur prom'nade”—as the old +lady termed it.</p> + +<p>“You are going after Helen,” said the little girl, +clapping her hands.</p> + +<p>She sat on her father's lap: “And we want you to +hurry up, Mammy Maria,” he said, “I want all my +family here. I am going to work to-morrow. I'll redeem +Millwood before my two years expire or I am not +a Conway again.”</p> + +<p>Mammy Maria was agitated enough. She had been +so busy that she had failed to notice how late it was. +In her efforts to surprise Helen she had forgotten time, +and now she feared the mill might close and Helen, not +knowing they had moved, would go back to Millwood. +This meant a two mile tramp and delay. She had +plenty of time, she knew, before the mill closed; but the +more she thought of the morning's scene at the mill and +of Jud Carpenter, the greater her misgivings. For<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_573" id="Page_573">[Pg 573]</a></span> +Mammy Maria was instinctive—a trait her people +have. It is always Nature's substitute when much intellect +is wanting.</p> + +<p>All afternoon she had chuckled to herself. All afternoon, +the three of them,—for even Major Conway +joined in, and helped work and arrange things—talked +it over as they planned. His face was clear now, and +calm, as in the old days. Even the old servant could +see he had determined to win in the fight.</p> + +<p>“Marse Ned's hisse'f ag'in,” she would say to him +encouragingly—“Marse Ned's hisse'f—an' Zion's by +his side, yea, Lord, the Ark of the Tabbernackle!”</p> + +<p>For the last time she surveyed the little rooms of the +cottage. How clean and fresh it all was, and how the +old mahogany of Millwood set them off! And now all +was ready.</p> + +<p>It was nearly dark when she reached the mill. It +had not yet closed down, and lights began to blaze first +from one window, then another. She could hear the +steam and the coughing of the exhaust pipe.</p> + +<p>This was all the old woman had hoped—to be in time +for Helen when the mill closed.</p> + +<p>But one thing was in her way, or she had taken her +as she did Lily: She did not know where Helen's room +was in the mill. There was no fear in the old nurse's +heart. She had taken Lily, she would take Helen. She +would show the whole tribe of them that she would! +But in which room was the elder sister?</p> + +<p>So she walked again into the main office, fearless, and +with her head up. For was she not Zion, the Lord's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_574" id="Page_574">[Pg 574]</a></span> +chosen, the sanctified one, and the powers of hell were +naught?</p> + +<p>No one was in the office but Jud Carpenter, and to +her surprise he treated her with the utmost courtesy. +Indeed, his courtesy was so intense that any one but +Zion, who, being black, knew little of irony and less +of sarcasm, might have seen that Jud's courtesy was +strongly savored of the two.</p> + +<p>“Be seated, Madam,” he said with a profound bow. +“Be seated, Upholder of Heaven, Chief-cook-an'-bottle-washer +in the Kingdom to come! An' what may have +sent the angel of the Lord to honor us with another +visit?”</p> + +<p>The old woman's fighting feathers arose instantly:—</p> + +<p>“The same that sent 'em to Sodom an' Gomarrer, +suh,” she replied.</p> + +<p>“Ah,” said Jud apologetically, “an' I hope we won't +smell any brimstone to-night.”</p> + +<p>“If you don't smell it to-night, you'll smell it befo' +long. And now look aheah, Mister White Man, no use +for you an' me to set here a-jawin' an' 'spu'tin'. I've +come after my other gyrl an' you know I'm gwine +have her!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, she'll be out 'torectly, Mrs. Zion! Jes' keep +yo' robes on an' hol' yo' throne down a little while. +She'll be out 'torectly.”</p> + +<p>There was a motive in this lie, as there was in all +others Jud Carpenter told.</p> + +<p>It was soon apparent. For scarcely had the old +woman seated herself with a significant toss of her head +when the mill began to cease to hum and roar.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_575" id="Page_575">[Pg 575]</a></span></p> + +<p>She sat watching the door keenly as they came out. +What creatures they were, lint-and-dust-covered to +their very eyes. The yellow, hard, emotionless faces +of the men, the haggard, weary ones of the girls and +women and little children! Never had she seen such +white people before, such hollow eyes, with dark, bloodless +rings beneath them, sunken cheeks, tanned to the +color of oiled hickory, much used. Dazed, listless, they +stumbled out past her with relaxed under-jaws and faces +gloomy, expressionless—so long bent over looms, they +had taken on the very looks of them—the shapes of +them, moving, walking, working, mechanically. Women, +smileless, and so tired and numbed that they had forgotten +the strongest instinct of humanity—the romance +of sex; for many of them wore the dirty, chopped-off +jackets of men, their slouched black hats, their coarse +shoes, and talked even in the vulgar, hard irony of the +male in despair.</p> + +<p>They all passed out—one by one—for in them +was not even the instinct of the companionship of +misery.</p> + +<p>Every moment the old nurse expected Helen to walk +out, to walk out in her queenly way, with her beautiful +face and manners, so different from those around her.</p> + +<p>Jud Carpenter sat at his desk quietly cutting plug +tobacco to fill his pipe-bowl, and watching the old woman +slyly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, she'll be 'long 'torectly—you see the drawer-in +bein' in the far room comes out last.”</p> + +<p>The last one passed out. The mill became silent, and +yet Helen did not appear.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_576" id="Page_576">[Pg 576]</a></span></p> + +<p>The old nurse arose impatiently: “I reck'n I'll go +find her,” she said to Carpenter.</p> + +<p>“I'd better sho' you the way, old 'oman,” he said, +lazily shuffling off the stool he was sitting on pretending +to be reading a paper—“you'll never fin' the room +by yo'self.”</p> + +<p>He led her along through the main room, hot, lint-filled +and evil-smelling. It was quite dark. Then to +the rear, where the mill jutted on the side of a hill, he +stopped in front of a door and said: “This is her +room; she's in there, I reckin—she's gen'ly late.”</p> + +<p>With quickening heart the old woman entered and, +almost immediately, she heard the door behind her shut +and the key turn in the bolt. The room was empty +and she sprang back to the door, only to find it securely +locked, and to hear Jud Carpenter's jeers from without. +She ran to the two small windows. They were +high and looked out over a ravine.</p> + +<p>She did not utter a word. Reared as she had been +among the Conways, she was too well bred to act the +coward, and beg and plead in undignified tones for +relief. At first she thought it was only a cruel joke +of the Whipper-in, but when he spoke, she saw it was +not.</p> + +<p>“Got you where I want you, Mother of Zion,” he +said through the key hole. “I guess you are safe there +till mornin' unless the Angel of the Lord opens the do' +as they say he has a way of doin' for Saints—ha—ha—ha!”</p> + +<p>No word from within.</p> + +<p>“Wanter kno' what I shet you up for, Mother of all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_577" id="Page_577">[Pg 577]</a></span> +Holiness? Well, listen: It's to keep you there till to-morrow—that's +good reason, ain't it? You'll find a +lot of cotton in the fur corner—a mighty good thing +for a bed. Can't you talk? How do you like it? I +guess you ain't so independent now.”</p> + +<p>There was a pause. The old woman sat numbly in +Helen's chair. She saw a bunch of violets in her frame, +and the odor brought back memories of her old home. +A great fear began to creep over her—not for herself, +but for Helen, and she fell on her knees by the +frame and prayed silently.</p> + +<p>Jud's voice came again: “Want to kno' now why +you'll stay there till mornin'? Well, I'll tell you—it'll +make you pass a com'f'table night—you'll never see +Miss Helen ag'in—”</p> + +<p>The old nurse sprang to her feet. She lost control +of herself, for all day she had felt this queer presentiment, +and now was it really true? She blamed herself +for not taking Helen that morning.</p> + +<p>She threw herself against the door. It was strong +and secure.</p> + +<p>Jud met it with a jeering laugh.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you're safe an' you'll never see her agin. I +don't mind tellin' you she has run off with Richard +Travis—they'll go North to-night. You'll find other +folks can walk off with yo' gals—'specially the han'sum +ones—besides yo'se'f.”</p> + +<p>The old nurse was stricken with weakness. Her limbs +shook so she sat down in a heap at the door and said +pleadingly:—“Are you lyin' to me, white man? Will—will +he marry her or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_578" id="Page_578">[Pg 578]</a></span>—”</p> + +<p>“Did you ever hear of him marryin' anybody?” +came back with a laugh. “No, he's only took a deserted +young 'oman in out of the cold—he'll take care +of her, but he ain't the marryin' kind, is he?”</p> + +<p>The reputation of Richard Travis was as well known +to Mammy Maria as it was to anyone. She did not +know whether to believe Jud or not, but one thing she +knew—something—something dreadful was happening +to Helen. The old nurse called to mind instantly +things that had happened before she herself had left +Millwood—things Helen had said—her grief, her despair, +her horror of the mill, her belief that she was +already disgraced. It all came to the old nurse now so +plainly. Tempted as she was, young as she was, deserted +and forsaken as she thought she was, might not +indeed the temptation be too much for her?</p> + +<p>She groaned as she heard Jud laugh and walk off.</p> + +<p>“O my baby, my beautiful baby!” she wept, falling +on her knees again.</p> + +<p>The mill grew strangely silent and dark. On a pile +of loose cotton she fell, praying after the manner of her +race.</p> + +<p>An hour passed. The darkness, the loneliness, the +horror of it all crept into her superstitious soul, and she +became frantic with religious fervor and despair.</p> + +<p>Pacing the room, she sang and prayed in a frenzy of +emotional tumult. But she heard only the echo of her +own voice, and only the wailings of her own songs +came back. Negro that she was, she was intelligent +enough to know that Jud Carpenter spoke the truth—that +not for his life would he have dared to say this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_579" id="Page_579">[Pg 579]</a></span> +if it had not had some truth in it. What?—she did not +know—she only knew that harm was coming to Helen.</p> + +<p>She called aloud for help—for Edward Conway. +But the mill was closed tight—the windows nailed.</p> + +<p>Another hour passed. It began to tell on the old +creature's mind. Negroes are simple, religious, superstitious +folks, easily unbalanced by grief or wrong.</p> + +<p>She began to see visions in this frenzy of religious +excitement, as so many of her race do under the nervous +strain of religious feeling. She fell into a trance.</p> + +<p>It was most real to her. Who that has ever heard +a negro give in his religious experience but recognizes +it? She was carried on the wings of the morning down +to the gates of hell. The Devil himself met her, tempting +her always, conducting her through the region of +darkness and showing her the lakes of fire and threatening +her with all his punishment if she did not cease +to believe. She overcame him only by constant prayer. +She fled from him, he followed her, but could not approach +her while she prayed.... She was rescued +by an angel—an angel from heaven ... an +angel with a flaming sword. Through all the glories of +heaven this angel conducted her, praised her, and bidding +her farewell at the gate, told her to go back to +earth and take this: <i>It was a torch of fire!</i></p> + +<p>“<i>Burn! burn!</i>” said the angel—“<i>for I shall make +the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the +wood, and like a torch of fire on a sheaf. And they +shall devour all the people around about, on the right +hand and the left; and Jerusalem shall be inhabited +again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_580" id="Page_580">[Pg 580]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>She came out of the trance in a glory of religious +fervor: “Jerusalem shall be inhabited ag'in!—the +Angel has told me—told me—Burn—burn,” she +cried. “Oh Lord—you have spoken and Zion has +ears to hear—Amen.”</p> + +<p>Quickly she gathered up the loose cotton and placed +it at the door, piling it up to the very bolt. She struck +a match, swaying and rocking and chanting: “Yea, +Lord, thy servant hath heard—thy servant hath +heard!”</p> + +<p>The flames leaped up quickly enveloping the door. +The room began to fill with smoke, but she retreated to +a far corner and fell on her knees in prayer. The +panels of the door caught first and the flames spreading +upward soon heated the lock around which the +wood blazed and crackled. It burned through. She +sprang up, rushed through the blinding smoke, struck +the door as it blazed, in a broken mass, and rushed out. +Down the long main room she ran to a low window, +burst it, and stepped out on the ground:</p> + +<p>“Jerusalem shall be inhabited again,” she shouted as +she ran breathless toward home.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_581" id="Page_581">[Pg 581]</a></span></p> +<h3>THE GREAT FIRE</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">E</span>dward Conway sat on the little porch till +the stars came out, wondering why the old nurse +did not return. Sober as he was and knew he +would ever be, it seemed that a keen sensitiveness came +with it, and a feeling of impending calamity.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it's the cursed whiskey,” he said to himself—“it +always leaves you keyed up like a fiddle or a woman. +I'll get over it after a while or I'll die trying,” and he +closed his teeth upon each other with a nervous twist +that belied his efforts at calmness.</p> + +<p>But even Lily grew alarmed, and to quiet her he +took her into the house and they ate their supper in +silence.</p> + +<p>Again he came out on the porch and sat with the +little girl in his lap. But Lily gave him no rest, for +she kept saying, as the hours passed: “Where is she, +father—oh, do go and see!”</p> + +<p>“She has gone to Millwood through mistake,” he +kept telling her, “and Mammy Maria has doubtless +gone after her. Mammy will bring her back. We will +wait awhile longer—if I had some one to leave you +with,” he said gently, “I'd go myself. But she will be +home directly.”</p> + +<p>And Lily went to sleep in his lap, waiting.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_582" id="Page_582">[Pg 582]</a></span></p> + +<p>The moon came up, and Conway wrapped Lily in a +shawl, but still held her in his arms. And as he sat +holding her and waiting with a fast-beating heart for +the old nurse, all his wasted life passed before him.</p> + +<p>He saw himself as he had not for years—his life a +failure, his fortune gone. He wondered how he had +escaped as he had, and as he thought of the old Bishop's +words, he wondered why God had been as good to him +as He had, and again he uttered a silent prayer of +thankfulness and for strength. And with it the strength +came, and he knew he could never more be the drunkard +he had been. There was something in him stronger +than himself.</p> + +<p>He was a strong man spiritually—it had been his +inheritance, and the very thought of anything happening +to Helen blanched his cheek. In spite of the faults +of his past, no man loved his children more than he, +when he was himself. Like all keen, sensitive natures, +his was filled to overflowing with paternal love.</p> + +<p>“My God,” he thought, “suppose—suppose she has +gone back to Millwood, found none of us there, thinks +she had been deserted, and—and—”</p> + +<p>The thought was unbearable. He slipped in with +the sleeping Lily in his arms and began to put her in +bed without awakening her, determined to mount his +horse and go for Helen himself.</p> + +<p>But just then the old nurse, frantic, breathless and +in a delirium of religious excitement, came in and fell +fainting on the porch.</p> + +<p>He revived her with cold water, and when she could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_583" id="Page_583">[Pg 583]</a></span> +talk she could only pronounce Helen's name, and say +they had run off with her.</p> + +<p>“Who?”—shouted Conway, his heart stopping in +the staggering shock of it.</p> + +<p>The old woman tried to tell Jud Carpenter's tale, +and Conway heard enough. He did not wait to hear it +all—he did not know the mill was now slowly burning.</p> + +<p>“Take care of Lily”—he said, as he went into his +room and came out with his pistol buckled around his +waist.</p> + +<p>Then he mounted his horse and rode swiftly to Millwood.</p> + +<p>He was astonished to find a fire in the hearth, a lamp +burning, and one of Helen's gloves lying on the table.</p> + +<p>By it was another pair. He picked them up and +looked closely. Within, in red ink, were the initials: +<i>R. T.</i></p> + +<p>He bit his lips till the blood came. He bowed his +head in his hands.</p> + +<p>Sometimes there comes to us that peculiar mental +condition in which we are vaguely conscious that once +before we have been in the same place, amid the same +conditions and surroundings which now confront us. +We seem to be living again a brief moment of our past +life, where Time himself has turned back everything. +It came that instant to Edward Conway.</p> + +<p>“It was here—and what was it? Oh, yes:—'Some +men repent to God's smile, some to His frown, +and some to His fist?'”—He groaned:—“This is His +fist. Never—never before in all the history of the Conway +family has one of its women<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_584" id="Page_584">[Pg 584]</a></span>—”</p> + +<p>He sat down on the old sofa and buried, again, his +face in his hands.</p> + +<p>Edward Conway was sober, but he still had the instincts +of the drunkard—it never occurred to him that +he had done anything to cause it. Drunkenness was +nothing—a weakness—a fault which was now behind +him. But this—this—the first of all the Conway +women—and his daughter—his child—the <i>beautiful +one</i>. He sat still, and then he grew very calm. It was +the calmness of the old Conway spirit returning. +“Richard Travis,” he said to himself, “knows as well +what this act of his means in the South,—in the unwritten +law of our land—as I do. He has taken his +chance of life or death. I'll see that it is death. This +is the last of me and my house. But in the fall I'll +see that this Philistine of Philistines dies under its +ruins.”</p> + +<p>He arose and started out. He saw the lap robe in +the hall, and this put him to investigating. The mares +and buggy he found under the shed. It was all a mystery +to him, but of one thing he was sure: “He will +soon come back for them. I can wait.”</p> + +<p>Choosing a spot in the shadow of a great tree, he sat +down with his pistol across his knees. The moon had +arisen and cast ghostly shadows over everything. It +was a time for repentance, for thoughts of the past with +him, and as he sat there, that terrible hour, with murder +in his heart, bitterness and repentance were his.</p> + +<p>He was a changed man. Never again could he be +the old self. “But the blow—the blow,” he kept saying, +“I thought it would fall on me—not on her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_585" id="Page_585">[Pg 585]</a></span>—my +beautiful one—not on a Conway woman's chastity—not +my wife's daughter—”</p> + +<p>He heard steps coming down the path. His heart +ceased a moment, it seemed to him, and then beat wildly. +He drew a long breath to relieve it—to calm it with +cool oxygen, and then he cocked the five chambered +pistol and waited as full of the joy of killing as if the +man who was now walking down the path was a wolf +or a mad dog—down the path and right into the muzzle +of the pistol, backed by the arm which could kill.</p> + +<p>He saw Richard Travis coming, slowly, painfully, +his left arm tied up, and his step, once so quick and +active, so full of strength and life, now was as if the +blight of old age had come upon it.</p> + +<p>In spite of his bitter determination Conway noticed +the great change, and instinct, which acts even through +anger and hatred and revenge and the maddening fury +of murder,—instinct, the ever present—whispered its +warning to his innermost ear.</p> + +<p>Still, he could not resist. Rising, he threw his pistol +up within a few yards of Richard Travis's breast, his +hand upon the trigger. But he could not fire, although +Travis stood quietly under its muzzle and looked without +surprise into his face.</p> + +<p>Conway glanced along the barrel of his weapon and +into the face of Richard Travis. And then he brought +his pistol down with a quick movement.</p> + +<p>The face before him was begging him to shoot!</p> + +<p>“Why don't you shoot?” said Travis at last, breaking +the silence and in a tone of disappointment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_586" id="Page_586">[Pg 586]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Because you are not guilty,” said Conway—“not +with that look in your face.”</p> + +<p>“I am sorry you saw my face, then,” he smiled +sadly—“for it had been such a happy solution for it +all—if you had only fired.”</p> + +<p>“Where is my child?”</p> + +<p>“Do you think you have any right to ask—having +treated her as you have?”</p> + +<p>Conway trembled, at first with rage, then in shame:</p> + +<p>“No,”—he said finally. “No, you are right—I +haven't.”</p> + +<p>“That is the only reply you could have made me +that would make it obligatory on my part to answer +your question. In that reply I see there is hope for +you. So I will tell you she is safe, unharmed, unhurt.”</p> + +<p>“I felt it,” said Conway, quietly, “for I knew it, +Richard Travis, as soon as I saw your face. But tell +me all.”</p> + +<p>“There is little to tell. I had made up my mind +to run off with her, marry her, perhaps, since she had +neither home nor a father, and was a beautiful young +thing which any man might be proud of. But things +have come up—no, not come up, fallen, fallen and +crushed. It has been a crisis all around—so I sent for +Clay—a fine young fellow and he loves her—I had +him meet me here and—well, he has taken her to +Westmoreland to-night. You know she is safe there. +She will come to you to-morrow as pure as she left, +though God knows you do not deserve it.”</p> + +<p>Something sprang into Edward Conway's throat—something +kin to a joyous shout. He could not speak.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_587" id="Page_587">[Pg 587]</a></span> +He could only look at the strange, calm, sad man before +him in a gratitude that uplifted him. He stared +with eyes that were blinded with tears.</p> + +<p>“Dick—Dick,” he said, “we have been estranged, +since the war. I misjudged you. I see I never knew +you. I came to kill, but here—” He thrust the grip +of his pistol toward Travis—“here, Dick, kill me—shoot +me—I am not fit to live—but, O God, how +clearly I see now; and, Dick—Dick—you shall see—the +world shall see that from now on, with God's help, +as Lily makes me say—Dick, I'll be a Conway again.”</p> + +<p>The other man pressed his hand: “Ned, I believe +it—I believe it. Go back to your little home to-night. +Your daughter is safe. To-morrow you may begin +all over again. To-morrow—”</p> + +<p>“And you, Dick—I have heard—I can guess, but +why may not you, to-morrow—”</p> + +<p>“There will be no to-morrow for me,” he said sadly. +“Things stop suddenly before me to-night as before an +abyss—”</p> + +<p>He turned quickly and looked toward the low lying +range of mountains. A great red flush as of a rising +sun glowed even beyond the rim of them, and then out +of it shot tinges of flame.</p> + +<p>Conway saw it at the same instant:</p> + +<p>“It's the mill—the mill's afire,” he said.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_588" id="Page_588">[Pg 588]</a></span></p> +<h3>A CONWAY AGAIN</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">I</span>t was a great fire the mill made, lighting the +valley for miles. All Cottontown was there to see +it burn, hushed, with set faces, some of anger, some +of fear—but all in stricken numbness, knowing that +their living was gone.</p> + +<p>It was not long before Jud Carpenter was among +them, stirring them with the story of how the old negro +woman had burned it—for he knew it was she. Indeed, +he was soon fully substantiated by others who +heard her when she had run home heaping her maledictions +on the mill.</p> + +<p>Soon among them began the whisper of lynching. +As it grew they became bolder and began to shout it: +<i>Lynch her!</i></p> + +<p>Jud Carpenter, half drunk and wholly reckless, stood +on a stump, and after telling his day's experience with +Mammy Maria, her defiance of the mill's laws, her arrogance, +her burning of the mill, he shouted that he +himself would lead them.</p> + +<p>“Lynch her!” they shouted. “Lead us, Jud Carpenter! +We will lynch her.”</p> + +<p>Some wanted to wait until daylight, but “Lynch her—lynch +her now,” was the shout.</p> + +<p>The crowd grew denser every moment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_589" id="Page_589">[Pg 589]</a></span></p> + +<p>The people of Cottontown, hot and revengeful, now +that their living was burned; hill dwellers who sympathized +with them, and coming in, were eager for any +excitement; the unlawful element which infests every +town—all were there, the idle, the ignorant, the +vicious.</p> + +<p>And a little viciousness goes a long way.</p> + +<p>There had been so many lynchings in the South that +it had ceased to be a crime—for crime, the weed, cultivated—grows +into a flower to those who do the tending.</p> + +<p>Many of the lynchings, it is true, were honest—the +frenzy of outraged humanity to avenge a terrible +crime which the law, in its delay, often had let go +unpunished. The laxity of the law, the unscrupulousness +of its lawyers, their shrewdness in clearing criminals +if the fee was forthcoming, the hundreds of technicalities +thrown around criminals, the narrowness of supreme +courts in reversing on these technicalities. All +these had thrown the law back to its source—the people. +And they had taken it in their own hands. In +violent hands, but deadly sure and retributory.</p> + +<p>If there was ever an excuse for lynching, the South +was entitled to it. For the crime was the result of +the sudden emancipation of ignorant slaves, who, backed +by the bayonets of their liberators, and attributing a +far greater importance to their elevation than was warranted, +perpetuated an unnameable crime as part of their +system of revenge for years of slavery. And the South +arose to the terribleness of the crime and met it with +the rifle, the torch and the rope.</p> + +<p>Why should it be wondered at? Why should the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_590" id="Page_590">[Pg 590]</a></span> +South be singled out for blame? Is it not a fact that +for years in every newly settled western state lynch-law +has been the unchallenged, unanimous verdict for +a horse thief? And is not the honor of a white woman +more than the hide of a broncho?</p> + +<p>But from an honest, well intentioned frenzy of justice +outraged to any pretext is an easy step. From the +quick lynching of the rapist and murderer—to be sure +that the lawyers and courts did not acquit them—was +one step. To hang a half crazy old woman for burning +a mill was another, and the natural consequence of +the first.</p> + +<p>And so these people flocked to the burning—they +who had helped lynch before—the negro-haters, who +had never owned a negro and had no sympathy—no +sentiment for them. It is they who lynch in the South, +who lynch and defy the law.</p> + +<p>The great mill was in ruins—its tall black smokestacks +alone stood amid its smoking, twisted mass of +steel and ashes—a rough, blackened, but fitting monument +of its own infamy.</p> + +<p>They gathered around it—the disorderly, the vicious, +the lynchers of the Tennessee Valley.</p> + +<p>Fitful flashes of flame now and then burst out amid +the ruins, silhouetting the shadows of the lynchers into +fierce giant forms with frenzied faces from which came +first murmurs and finally shouts of:</p> + +<p>“<i>Lynch her! Lynch her!</i>”</p> + +<p>Above, in the still air of the night, yet hung the pall +of the black smoke-cloud, from whose heart had come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_591" id="Page_591">[Pg 591]</a></span> +the torch which had cost capital its money, and the mill +people their living.</p> + +<p>They were not long acting. Mammy Maria had +flown to the little cottage—a crazy, hysterical creature—a +wreck of herself—over-worked in body and mind, +and frenzied between the deed and the promptings of +a blind superstitious religion.</p> + +<p>Lily hung to her neck sobbing, and the old woman +in her pitiful fright was brought back partly to reason +in the great love of her life for the little child. Even +in her feebleness she was soothing her pet.</p> + +<p>There were oaths, curses and trampling of many +feet as they rushed in and seized her. Lily, screaming, +was held by rough arms while they dragged the old +nurse away.</p> + +<p>Into a wood nearby they took her, the rope was thrown +over a limb, the noose placed around her neck.</p> + +<p>“Pray, you old witch—we will give you five minutes +to pray.”</p> + +<p>The old woman fell on her knees, but instead of praying +for herself, she prayed for her executioners.</p> + +<p>They jeered—they laughed. One struck her with +a stick, but she only prayed for them the more.</p> + +<p>“String her up,” they shouted—“her time's up!”</p> + +<p>“Stand back there!”</p> + +<p>The words rang out even above the noise of the +crowd. Then a man, with the long blue deadly barrel +of the Colt forty-four, pushed his way through them—his +face pale, his fine mouth set firm and close, and +the splendid courage of many generations of Conways +shining in his eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_592" id="Page_592">[Pg 592]</a></span></p> + +<p>“<i>Stand back!</i>—” and he said it in the old commanding +way—the old way which courage has ever had +in the crises of the world.</p> + +<p>“O Marse Ned!—I knowed you'd come!”</p> + +<p>He had cut the rope and the old woman sat on the +ground clasping his feet.</p> + +<p>For a moment he stood over her, his pale calm face +showing the splendor of determination in the glory of +his manhood restored. For a moment the very beauty +of it stopped them—this man, this former sot and +drunkard, this old soldier arising from the ashes of his +buried past, a beautiful statue of courage cut out of +the marble of manhood. The moral beauty of it—this +man defending with his life the old negro—struck +even through the swine of them.</p> + +<p>They ceased, and a silence fell, so painful that it +hurt in its very uncanniness.</p> + +<p>Then Edward Conway said very clearly, very slowly, +but with a fitful nervous ring in his voice: “Go back +to your homes! Would you hang this poor old woman +without a trial? Can you not see that she has lost her +mind and is not responsible for her acts? Let the law +decide. Shall not her life of unselfishness and good +deeds be put against this one insane act of her old age? +Go back to your homes! Some of you are my friends, +some my neighbors—I ask you for her but a fair trial +before the law.”</p> + +<p>They listened for a moment and then burst into +jeers, hoots, and hisses:</p> + +<p>“Hang her, now! That's the way all lawyers talk!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_593" id="Page_593">[Pg 593]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>And one shouted above the rest: “He's put up a +plea of insanity a-ready. Hang her, now!”</p> + +<p>Edward Conway flashed hot through his paleness and +he placed himself before the bowed and moaning form +while the crowd in front of him surged and shouted and +called for a rope.</p> + +<p>He felt some one touch his arm and turned to find +the sheriff by his side—one of those disreputables who +infested the South after the war, holding office by the +votes of the negroes.</p> + +<p>“Better let 'em have her,—it ain't worth the while. +You'll hafter kill, or be killed.”</p> + +<p>“You scallawag!” said Conway, now purple with +anger—“is that the way you respect your sworn oath? +And you have been here and seen all this and not raised +your hand?”</p> + +<p>“Do you think I'm fool enuff to tackle that crowd +of hillbillies? They've got the devil in them—fur +they've got a devil leadin' 'em—Jud Carpenter. Better +let 'em have her—they'll kill you. We've got a +good excuse—overpowered—don't you see?”</p> + +<p>“Overpowered? That's the way all cowards talk,” +said Conway. “Do one thing for me,” he said quickly—“tell +them you have appointed me your deputy. If +you do not—I'll fall back on the law of riots and appoint +myself.”</p> + +<p>“Gentlemen,” said the sheriff, turning to the crowd, +and speaking half-shamedly—“Gentlemen, it's better +an' I hopes you all will go home. We don't wanter hurt +nobody. I app'ints Major Conway my deputy to take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_594" id="Page_594">[Pg 594]</a></span> +the prisoner to jail. Now the blood be on yo' own +heads. I've sed my say.”</p> + +<p>A perfect storm of jeers met this. They surged forward +to seize her, while the sheriff half frightened, half +undecided, got behind Conway and said:—“It's up to +you—I've done all I cu'd.”</p> + +<p>“Go back to your homes, men”—shouted Conway—“I +am the sheriff here now, and I swear to you by the +living God it means I am a Conway again, and the man +who lays a hand on this old woman is as good as dead +in his tracks!”</p> + +<p>For an instant they surged around him cursing and +shouting; but he stood up straight and terribly silent; +only his keen grey eyes glanced down to the barrel of +his pistol and he stood nervously fingering the small +blue hammer with his thumb and measuring the distance +between himself and the nearest ruffian who stood +on the outskirts of the mob shaking a pistol in Conway's +face and shouting: “Come on, men, we'll lynch +her anyway!”</p> + +<p>Then Conway acted quickly. He spoke a few words +to the old nurse, and as she backed off into the nearby +wood, he covered the retreat. To his relief he saw that +the sheriff, now thoroughly ashamed, had hold of the +prisoner and was helping her along.</p> + +<p>In the edge of the wood he felt safe—with the +trees at his back. And he took courage as he heard the +sheriff say:</p> + +<p>“If you kin hold 'em a little longer I'll soon have +my buggy here and we'll beat 'em to the jail.”</p> + +<p>But the mob guessed his plans, and the man who had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_595" id="Page_595">[Pg 595]</a></span> +been most insolent in the front of the mob—a long-haired, +narrow-chested mountaineer—rushed up viciously.</p> + +<p>Conway saw the gleam of his pistol as the man aimed +and fired at the prisoner. Instinctively he struck at the +weapon and the ball intended for the prisoner crushed +spitefully into his left shoulder. He reeled and the +grim light of an aroused Conway flashed in his eyes as +he recovered himself, for a moment, shocked, blinded. +Then he heard some one say, as he felt the blood trickling +down his arm and hand:</p> + +<p>“Marse Ned! Oh, an' for po' ole Zion! Don't risk +yo' life—let 'em take me!”</p> + +<p>Dimly he saw the mob rushing up; vaguely it came +to him that it was kill or be killed. Vaguely, too, that +it was the law—his law—and every other man's law—against +lawlessness. Hazily, that he was the law—its +representative, its defender, and then clear as the +blue barrel in his hand,—all the dimness and uncertainty +gone,—it came to him, that thing that made him +say: “I am a Conway again!”</p> + +<p>Then his pistol leaped from the shadow by his side +to the gray light in front, and the man who had fired +and was again taking aim at the old woman died in his +tracks with his mouth twisted forever into the shape of +an unspoken curse.</p> + +<p>It was enough. Stricken, paralyzed, they fell back +before such courage—and Conway found himself +backing off into the woods, covering the retreat of the +prisoner. Then afterward he felt the motion of buggy +wheels, and of a galloping drive, and the jail, and he in +the sheriff's room, the old prisoner safe for the time.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_596" id="Page_596">[Pg 596]</a></span></p> +<h3>DIED FOR THE LAW</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">A</span>nd thus was begun that historical lynching in the +Tennessee Valley—a tragedy which well might +have remained unwritten had it not fallen into +the woof of this story.</p> + +<p>A white man had been killed for a negro—that was +enough.</p> + +<p>It is true the man was attempting to commit murder +in the face of the law of the land; and in attempting it +had shot the representative of the law. It is true, also, +that he had no grievance, being one of several hundred +law-breakers bent on murder. This, too, made no difference; +they neither thought nor cared;—for mobs, +being headless, do not think; and being soulless, do not +suffer.</p> + +<p>They had failed only for lack of a leader.</p> + +<p>But now they had a leader, and a mob with a leader +is a dangerous thing.</p> + +<p>That leader was Richard Travis.</p> + +<p>It was after midnight when he rode up on the scene. +Before he arrived, Jud Carpenter had aroused the mob +to do its first fury, and still held them, now doubly +vengeful and shouting to be led against the jail. But +to storm a jail they needed a braver man than Jud +Carpenter. And they found him in Richard Travis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_597" id="Page_597">[Pg 597]</a></span>—especially +Richard Travis in the terrible mood, the black +despair which had come upon him that night.</p> + +<p>Why did he come? He could not say. In him had +surged two great forces that night—the force of evil +and the force of good. Twice had the good overcome—now +it was the evil's turn, and like one hypnotized, +he was led on.</p> + +<p>He sat his horse among them, pale and calm, but with +a cruel instinct flashing in his eyes. At least, so Jud +Carpenter interpreted the mood which lay upon him; +but no one knew the secret workings of this man's heart, +save God.</p> + +<p>He had come to them haggard and blanched and +with a nameless dread, his arm tied up where the dog's +fang had been buried in his flesh, his heart bitter in the +thought of the death that was his. Already he felt the +deadly virus pulsing through his veins. A hundred +times in the short hour that had passed he suffered death—death +beginning with the gripping throat, the shortened +breath, the foaming mouth, the spasm!</p> + +<p>He jerked in the saddle—that spasmodic chill of +the nerves,—and he grew white and terribly silent at +the thought of it—the death that was his!</p> + +<p>Was his! And then he thought: “No, there shall +be another and quicker way to die. A braver way—like +a Travis—with my boots on—my boots on—and +not like a mad-dog tied to a stake.</p> + +<p>“Besides—Alice—Alice!”</p> + +<p>She had gone out of his life. Could such a thing be +and he live to tell it? Alice—love—ambition—the +future—life! Alice, hazel-eyed and glorious, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_598" id="Page_598">[Pg 598]</a></span> +hair the smell of which filled his soul with perfume as +from the stars. She who alone uplifted him—she +another's, and that other Tom Travis!</p> + +<p>Tom Travis—returned and idealized—with him, +the joint heir of The Gaffs.</p> + +<p>And that mad-dog—that damned mad-dog! And +if perchance he was saved—if that virus was sucked +out of his veins, it was she—Helen!</p> + +<p>“This is the place to die,” he said grimly—“here +with my boots on. To die like a Travis and unravel +this thing called life. Unravel it to the end of the +thread and know if it ends there, is snapped, is broken +or—</p> + +<p>“Or—my God,” he cried aloud, “I never knew what +those two little letters meant before—not till I face +them this way, on the Edge of Things!”</p> + +<p>He gathered the mob together and led them against +the jail—with hoots and shouts and curses; with flaming +torches, and crow-bars, with axes and old guns.</p> + +<p>“Lynch her—lynch the old witch! and hang that +devil Conway with her!” was the shout.</p> + +<p>In front of the jail they stopped, for a man stood at +the door. His left arm was in a sling, but in his right +hand gleamed something that had proved very deadly +before. And he stood there as he had stood in the +edge of the wood, and the bonfires and torches of the +mob lit up more clearly the deadly pale face, set and +more determined than before.</p> + +<p>For as he stood, pale and silent, the shaft of a terrible +pain,—of broken bone and lacerated muscle—twinged +and twitched his arm, and to smother it and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_599" id="Page_599">[Pg 599]</a></span> +keep from crying out he gripped bloodlessly—nervously—the +stock of his pistol saying over and over:</p> + +<p>“I am a Conway again—a man again!”</p> + +<p>And so standing he defied them and they halted, +like sheep at the door of the shambles. The sheriff had +flown, and Conway alone stood between the frenzied +mob and the old woman who had given her all for him.</p> + +<p>He could hear her praying within—an uncanny +mixture of faith and miracle—of faith which saw as +Paul saw, and which expected angels to come and break +down her prison doors. And after praying she would +break out into a song, the words of which nerved the +lone man who stood between her and death:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“'I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I can tarry, I can tarry but a night.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do not detain me, for I am going<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To where the streamlets are ever flowing.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm a pilgrim—and I'm a stranger<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I can tarry—I can tarry but a night.'”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And now the bonfire burned brighter, lighting up +the scene—the shambling stores around the jail on the +public square, the better citizens making appeals in +vain for law and order, the shouting, fool-hardy mob, +waiting for Richard Travis to say the word, and he +sitting among them pale, and terribly silent with something +in his face they had never seen there before.</p> + +<p>Nor would he give the command. He had nothing +against Edward Conway—he did not wish to see him +killed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_600" id="Page_600">[Pg 600]</a></span></p> + +<p>And the mob did not attack, although they cursed +and bluffed, because each one of them knew it meant +death—death to some one of them, and that one might +be—I!</p> + +<p>Between life and death “I” is a bridge that means +it all.</p> + +<p>A stone wall ran around the front of the jail. A +small gate opened into the jail-yard. At the jail door, +covering that opening, stood Edward Conway.</p> + +<p>They tried parleying with him, but he would have +none of it.</p> + +<p>“Go back—” he said, “I am the sheriff here—I +am the law. The man who comes first into that gate +will be the first to die.”</p> + +<p>In ten minutes they made their attack despite the +commands of their leader, who still sat his horse on the +public square, pale and with a bitter conflict raging in +his breast.</p> + +<p>With shouts and curses and a headlong rush they went. +Pistol bullets flew around Conway's head and scattered +brick dust and mortar over him. Torches gleamed +through the dark crowd as stars amid fast flying clouds +in a March night. But through it all every man of +them heard the ringing warning words:</p> + +<p>“Stop at the gateway—stop at the dead line!”</p> + +<p>Right at it they rushed and crowded into it like cattle—shooting, +cursing, throwing stones.</p> + +<p>Then two fell dead, blocking the gateway. Two +more, wounded, with screams of pain which threw the +others into that indescribable panic which comes to all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_601" id="Page_601">[Pg 601]</a></span> +mobs in the death-pinch, staggered back carrying the +mob with them.</p> + +<p>Safe from the bullets, they became frenzied.</p> + +<p>The town trembled with their fury.</p> + +<p>All order was at an end.</p> + +<p>And Edward Conway stood, behind a row of cotton +bales, in the jail-yard, covering still the little gateway, +and the biting pain in his shoulder had a companion pain +in his side, where a pistol ball had ploughed through, +but he forgot it as he slipped fresh cartridges into the +chambers of his pistol and heard again the chant which +came from out the jail window, like a ghost-voice from +the clouds:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Of that City, to which I journey,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My Redeemer, my Redeemer is the light.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There is no sorrow, nor any sighing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor any tears there, nor any dying...,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I can tarry—I can tarry but a night.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>At a long distance they shot at Conway,—they hooted, +jeered, cursed him, but dared not come closer, for +he had breast-worked himself behind some cotton-bales +in the yard, and they knew he could still shoot.</p> + +<p>Then they decided to batter down the stone wall first—to +make an opening they could rush through, and not +be blocked in the deadly gateway.</p> + +<p>An hour passed, and torches gleamed everywhere. +Attacking the wall farther down, they soon had it torn +away. They could now get to him. It was a perilous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_602" id="Page_602">[Pg 602]</a></span> +position, and Conway knew it. Help—he must have it—help +to protect his flank while he shot in front. If +not, he would die soon, and the law with him.</p> + +<p>He looked around him—but there was no solution. +Then he felt that death was near, for the mob now +hated him more than they did the prisoner. They +seemed to have forgotten her, for all their cry now +was:</p> + +<p>“<i>Kill Conway! Kill the man who murdered our +people!</i>”</p> + +<p>In ten minutes they were ready to attack again, but +looking up they saw a strange sight.</p> + +<p>Help had come to Conway. On one side of him stood +the old Cottontown preacher, his white hair reflecting +back the light from the bonfires and torches in front—lighting +up a face which now seemed to have lost all of +its kindly humor in the crisis that was there. He was +unarmed, but he stood calm and with a courage that was +more of sorrow than of anger.</p> + +<p>By him stood the village blacksmith, a man with the +wild light of an old, untamed joy gleaming in his eyes—a +cruel, dangerous light—the eyes of a caged tiger +turned loose at last, and yearning for the blood of the +thing which had caged him.</p> + +<p>And by him in quiet bravery, commanding, directing, +stood the tall figure of the Captain of Artillery.</p> + +<p>When Richard Travis saw him, a cruel smile deepened +in his eyes. “I am dying myself,” it said—“why not +kill him?”</p> + +<p>Then he shuddered with the hatred of the terrible +thing that had come into his heart—the thing that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_603" id="Page_603">[Pg 603]</a></span> +made him do its bidding, as if he were a puppet, and +overthrew all the good he had gathered there, that terrible +night, as the angels were driven from Paradise. +And yet, how it ruled him, how it drove him on!</p> + +<p>“Jim—Jim,” he whispered as he bent over his +horse's neck—“Jim—my repeating rifle over the library +door—quick—it carries true and far!”</p> + +<p>As Jim sped away his master was silent again. He +thought of the nobility of the things he had done that +night—the touch of God that had come over him in +making him save Helen—the beautiful dreams he had +had. He thought of it all—and then—here—now—murdering +the man whose life carried with it the life, +the love of—</p> + +<p>He looked up at the stars, and the old wonder and +doubt came back to him—the old doubt which made +him say to himself: “It is nothing—it is the end. +Dust thou art, and unto dust—dust—dust—dust—” +he bit his tongue to keep from saying it again—“Dust—to +be blown away and mingle with the elements—dust! +And yet, I stand here—now—blood—flesh—a +thinking man—tempted—terribly—cruelly—poignantly—dying—of +a poison in my veins—of +sorrow in my heart—sorrow and death. Who would +not take the dust—gladly take it—the dust and the—forgetting.”</p> + +<p>He remembered and repeated:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The soul that rises with us, our life's star,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_604" id="Page_604">[Pg 604]</a></span><span class="i0">Hath had elsewhere its setting<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And cometh from afar—”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>“'And cometh from afar,'” he whispered—“My +God—suppose it does—and that I am mistaken in it +all?—Dust—and then maybe something after dust.”</p> + +<p>With his rifle in his hand, it all vanished and he began +to train it on the tall figure while the mob prepared to +storm the jail again—and his shot would be the signal—this +time in desperate determination to take it or die.</p> + +<p>In the mob near Richard Travis stood a boy, careless +and cool, and holding in his hand an old pistol. Richard +Travis noticed the boy because he felt that the boy's eyes +were always on him—always. When he looked down +into them he was touched and sighed, and a dream of the +long-ago swept over him—of a mountain cabin and a +maiden fair to look upon. He bit his lip to keep back +the tenderness—bit his lip and rode away—out of +reach of the boy's eyes.</p> + +<p>But the boy, watching him, knew, and he said in his +quiet, revengeful way: “Twice have I failed to kill you—but +to-night—my Honorable father—to-night in +the death that will be here, I shall put this bullet through +your heart.”</p> + +<p>Travis turned to the mob: “Men, when I fire this +rifle—it will mean for you to charge!”</p> + +<p>A hush fell over the crowd as they watched him. He +looked at his rifle closely. He sprang the breech and +threw out a shell or two to see that it worked properly.</p> + +<p>“Stay where you are, men,” came that same voice they +had heard so plainly before that night. “We are now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_605" id="Page_605">[Pg 605]</a></span> +four and well armed and sworn to uphold the law and +protect the prisoner, and if you cross the dead line you +will die.”</p> + +<p>There was a silence, and then that old voice again, the +voice that roused the mob to fury:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I can tarry—I can tarry but a night—”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>“Lead us on—give the signal, Richard Travis,” +they shouted.</p> + +<p>Again the silence fell as Richard Travis raised his rifle +and aimed at the tall figure outlined closely and with +magnified distinctness in the glare of bonfire and torch. +How splendidly cool and brave he looked—that tall +figure standing there, giving orders as calmly as he gave +them at Shiloh and Franklin, and so forgetful of himself +and his own safety!</p> + +<p>Richard Travis brought his rifle down—it shook so—brought +it down saying to himself with a nervous +laugh: “It is not Tom—not Tom Travis I am going +to kill—it's—it's Alice's husband of only two days—her +lover—”</p> + +<p>“Shoot! Why don't you shoot?” they shouted. +“We are waiting to rush—”</p> + +<p>Even where he stood, Richard Travis could see the old +calm, quiet and now triumphant smile lighting up Tom +Travis's face, and he knew he was thinking of Alice—Alice, +his bride.</p> + +<p>And then that same nervous, uncanny chill ran into +the very marrow of Richard Travis and brought his gun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_606" id="Page_606">[Pg 606]</a></span> +down with an oath on his lips as he said pitifully—“I +am poisoned—it is that!”</p> + +<p>The crowd shouted and urged him to shoot, but he sat +shaking to his very soul. And when it passed there came +the old half humorous, half bitter, cynical laugh as he +said: “Alice—Alice a widow—”</p> + +<p>It passed, and again there leaped into his eyes the +great light Jud Carpenter had seen there that morning, +and slipping the cartridges out of the barrel's breech, he +looked up peacefully with the halo of a holy light around +his eyes as he said: “Oh, God, and I thank Thee—for +this—this touch again! Hold the little spark in my +heart—hold it, oh, God, but for a little while till the +temptation is gone, and I shall rest—I shall rest.”</p> + +<p>“Shoot—Richard Travis—why the devil don't you +shoot?” they shouted.</p> + +<p>He raised his rifle again, this time with a flourish +which made some of the mob think he was taking unnecessary +risk to attract the attention of the grim blacksmith +who stood, pistol in hand, his piercing eyes scanning +the crowd. He stood by the side of Tom Travis, +his bodyguard to the last.</p> + +<p>“Jack—Jack—” kept whispering to him the old +preacher, “don't shoot till you're obleeged to,—maybe +God'll open a way, maybe you won't have to spill blood. +'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord.”</p> + +<p>Jack smiled. It was a strange smile—of joy, in the +risking glory of the old life—the glory of blood-letting, +of killing, of death. And sorrow—sorrow in the new.</p> + +<p>“Stand pat, stand pat, Bishop,” he said; “you all +know the trade. Let me who have defied the law so long,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_607" id="Page_607">[Pg 607]</a></span> +let me now stand for it—die for it. It's my atonement—ain't +that the word? Ain't that what you said +about that there Jesus Christ, the man you said +wouldn't flicker even on the Cross, an' wouldn't let us +flicker if we loved Him—Hol' him to His promise, now, +Bishop. It's time for us to stand pat. No—I'll not +shoot unless I see some on 'em makin' a too hasty movement +of gun-arm toward Cap'n—”</p> + +<p>Had Richard Travis looked from his horse down into +the crowd he had seen another sight. Man can think +and do but one thing at a time, but oh, the myrmidons of +God's legions of Cause and Effect!</p> + +<p>Below him stood a boy, his face white in the terrible +tragedy of his determination. And as Richard Travis +threw up his empty rifle, the octagonal barrel of the +pistol in the boy's hand leaped up and came straight to +the line of Richard Travis's heart. But before the boy +could fire Travis saw the hawk-like flutter of the blacksmith's +pistol arm, as it measured the distance with the +old quick training of a bloody experience, and Richard +Travis smiled, as he saw the flash from the outlaw's +pistol and felt that uncanny chill starting in his marrow +again, leap into a white heat to the shock of the ball, and +he pitched limply forward, slipped from his horse and +went down on the ground murmuring, “Tom—Tom—safe, +and Alice—he shot at last—and—thank God +for the touch again!”</p> + +<p>He lay quiet, feeling the life blood go out of him. +But with it came an exhalation he had never felt before—a +glory that, instead of taking, seemed to give him +life.</p> + +<p>The mob rushed wildly at the jail at the flash of Jack<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_608" id="Page_608">[Pg 608]</a></span> +Bracken's pistol, all but one, a boy—whose old dueling +pistol still pointed at the space in the air, where Richard +Travis had sat a moment before—its holder nerveless—rigid—as +if turned into stone.</p> + +<p>He saw Richard Travis pitch forward off his horse +and slide limply to the ground. He saw him totter and +waver and then sit down in a helpless, pitiful way,—then +lie down as if it were sweet to rest.</p> + +<p>And still the boy stood holding his pistol, stunned, +frigid, numbed—pointing at the stars.</p> + +<p>Silently he brought his arm and weapon down. He +heard only shouts of the mob as they rushed against the +jail, and then, high above it, the words of the blacksmith, +whom he loved so well: “Stand back—all; Me—me +alone, shoot—me! I who have so often killed the +law, let me die for it.”</p> + +<p>And then came to the boy's ears the terrible staccato +cough of the two Colts pistols whose very fire he had +learned to know so well. And he knew that the blacksmith +alone was shooting—the blacksmith he loved so—the +marksman he worshipped—the man who had +saved his life—the man who had just shot his father.</p> + +<p>Richard Travis sat up with an effort and looked at the +boy standing by him—looked at him with frank, kindly +eyes,—eyes which begged forgiveness, and the boy saw +himself there—in Richard Travis, and felt a hurtful, +pitying sorrow for him, and then an uncontrolled, hot +anger at the man who had shot him out of the saddle. +His eyes twitched wildly, his heart jumped in smothering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_609" id="Page_609">[Pg 609]</a></span> +beats, a dry sob choked him, and he sprang forward crying: +“My father—oh, God—my poor father!”</p> + +<p>Richard Travis looked up and smiled at him.</p> + +<p>“You shoot well, my son,” he said, “but not quick +enough.”</p> + +<p>The boy, weeping, saw. Shamed,—burning—he +knelt and tried to staunch the wound with a handkerchief. +Travis shook his head: “Let it out, my son—let +it out—it is poison! Let it out!”</p> + +<p>Then he lay down again on the ground. It felt sweet +to rest.</p> + +<p>The boy saw his blood on the ground and he shouted: +“Blood,—my father—blood is thicker than water.”</p> + +<p>Then the hatred that had burned in his heart for his +father, the father who had begot him into the world, disgraced, +forsaken—the father who had ruined and abandoned +his mother, was turned into a blaze of fury against +the blacksmith, the blacksmith whom he had loved.</p> + +<p>Wheeling, he rushed toward the jail, but met the mob +pouring panic-stricken back with white faces, blanched +with fear.</p> + +<p>Jack Bracken stood alone on the barricade, shoving +more cartridges into his pistol chambers.</p> + +<p>The boy, blinded, weeping, hot with a burning revenge, +stumbled and fell twice over dead men lying near +the gateway. Then he crawled along over them under +cover of the fence, and kneeling within twenty feet of the +gate, fired at the great calm figure who had driven the +mob back, and now stood reloading.</p> + +<p>Jack did not see the boy till he felt the ball crush +into his side. Then all the old, desperate, revengeful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_610" id="Page_610">[Pg 610]</a></span> +instinct of the outlaw leaped into his eyes as he quickly +turned his unerring pistol on the object from whence +the flash came. Never had he aimed so accurately, so +carefully, for he felt his own life going out, and this—this +was his last shot—to kill.</p> + +<p>But the object kneeling among the dead arose with a +smile of revengeful triumph and stood up calmly under +the aim of the great pistol, his fair hair flung back, his +face lit up with the bravery of all the Travises as he +shouted:</p> + +<p>“Take that—damn you—from a Travis!”</p> + +<p>And when Jack saw and understood, a smile broke +through his bloodshot, vengeful eyes as starlight falls +on muddy waters, and he turned away his death-seeking +aim, and his mouth trembled as he said:</p> + +<p>“Why—it's—it's the Little 'Un! I cudn't kill +him—” and he clutched at the cotton-bale as he went +down, falling—and Captain Tom grasped him, letting +him down gently.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_611" id="Page_611">[Pg 611]</a></span></p> +<h3>THE ATONEMENT</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">A</span>nd now no one stood between the prisoner and +death but the old preacher and the tall man +in the uniform of a Captain of Artillery. And +death it meant to all of them, defenders as well as +prisoners, for the mob had increased in numbers as in +fury. Friends, kindred, brothers, fathers—even +mothers and sisters of the dead were there, bitter in the +thought that their dead had been murdered—white men, +for one old negress.</p> + +<p>In their fury they did not think it was the law they +themselves were murdering. The very name of the law +was now hateful to them—the law that had killed their +people.</p> + +<p>Slowly, surely, but with grim deadliness they laid their +plans—this time to run no risk of failure.</p> + +<p>There was a stillness solemn and all-pervading. And +from the window of the jail came again in wailing uncanny +notes:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">“I'm a pilgrim and I'm a stranger,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I can tarry, I can tarry but a night—”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It swept over the mob, frenzied now to the stillness of +a white heat, like a challenge to battle, like the flaunt of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_612" id="Page_612">[Pg 612]</a></span> +a red flag. Their dead lay all about the gate of the rock +fence, stark and still. Their wounded were few—for +Jack Bracken did not wound. They saw them all—dead—lying +out there dead—and they were willing to +die themselves for the blood of the old woman—a negro +for whom white men had been killed.</p> + +<p>But their wrath now took another form. It was the +wrath of coolness. They had had enough of the other +kind. To rush again on those bales of cotton doubly +protected behind a rock fence, through one small gate, +commanded by the fire of such marksmen as lay there, +was not to be thought of.</p> + +<p>They would burn the jail over the heads of its defenders +and kill them as they were uncovered. A hundred +men would fire the jail from the rear, a hundred +more with guns would shoot in front.</p> + +<p>It was Jud Carpenter who planned it, and soon oil and +saturated paper and torches were prepared.</p> + +<p>“We are in for it, Bishop,” said Captain Tom, as he +saw the preparation; “this is worse than Franklin, because +there we could protect our rear.”</p> + +<p>He leaped up on his barricade, tall and splendid, and +called to them quietly and with deadly calm:</p> + +<p>“Go to your homes, men—go! But if you will come, +know that I fought for my country's laws from Shiloh +to Franklin, and I can die for them here!”</p> + +<p>Then he took from over his heart a small silken flag, +spangled with stars and the blood-splotches of his father +who fell in Mexico, and he shook it out and flung it +over his barricade, saying cheerily: “I am all right +for a fight now, Bishop. But oh, for just one of my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_613" id="Page_613">[Pg 613]</a></span> +guns—just one of my old Parrots that I had last week +at Franklin!”</p> + +<p>The old man, praying on his knees behind his barricade, +said:</p> + +<p>“Twelve years ago, Cap'n Tom, twelve years. Not +last week.”</p> + +<p>The mob had left Richard Travis for dead, and in the +fury of their defeat had thought no more of him. But +now, the loss of blood, the cool night air revived him. He +sat up, weak, and looked around. Everywhere bonfires +burned. Men were running about. He heard their talk +and he knew all. He was shot through the left lung, so +near to his heart that, as he felt it, he wondered how he +had escaped.</p> + +<p>He knew it by the labored breathing, by the blood +that ran down and half filled his left boot. But his was a +constitution of steel—an athlete, a hunter, a horseman, +a man of the open. The bitterness of it all came back +to him when he found he was not dead as he had hoped—as +he had made Jack Bracken shoot to do.</p> + +<p>“To die in bed at last,” he said, “like a monk with +liver complaint—or worse still—my God, like a mad +dog, unless—unless—her lips—Helen!”</p> + +<p>He lay quite still on the soft grass and looked up at +the stars. How comfortable he was! He felt around.</p> + +<p>A boy's overcoat was under him—a little round-about, +wadded up, was his pillow.</p> + +<p>He smiled—touched: “What a man he will make—the +brave little devil! Oh, if I can live to tell him he is +mine, that I married his mother secretly—that I broke<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_614" id="Page_614">[Pg 614]</a></span> +her heart with my faithlessness—that she died and the +other is—is her sister.”</p> + +<p>He heard the clamor and the talk behind him. The +mob, cool now, were laying their plans only on revenge,—revenge +with the torch and the bullet.</p> + +<p>Jud Carpenter was the leader, and Travis could hear +him giving his orders. How he now loathed the man—for +somehow, as he thought, Jud Carpenter stood for +all the seared, blighted, dead life behind him—all the +old disbelief, all the old infamy, all the old doubt and +shame. But now, dying, he saw things differently. +Yonder above him shone the stars and in his heart the +glory of that touch of God—the thing that made him +wish rather to die than have it leave him again to live +in his old way.</p> + +<p>He heard the mob talking. He heard their plans. He +knew that Jud Carpenter, hating the old preacher as he +did, would rather kill him than any wolf of the forest. +He knew that neither Tom Travis nor the old preacher +could ever hope to come out alive.</p> + +<p>The torches were ready—the men were aligned in +front with deadly shotguns.</p> + +<p>“When the fire gets hot,” he heard Jud Carpenter +say, “they'll hafter come out—then shoot—shoot an' +shoot to kill. See our own dead!”</p> + +<p>They answered him with groans, with curses, with +shouts of “<i>Lead us on, Jud Carpenter!</i>”</p> + +<p>“When the jail is fired from the rear,” shouted Carpenter, +“stay where you are and shoot; they've no +chance at all. It's fire or bullet.”</p> + +<p>Richard Travis heard it and his heart leaped—but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_615" id="Page_615">[Pg 615]</a></span> +only for one tempting moment, when a vision of loveliness +in widow's weeds swept through that soul of his +inner sight, which sees into the future. Then the new +light came back uplifting him with a wave of joyous +strength that was sweetly calm in its destiny—glad that +he had lived, glad that this test had come, glad for the +death that was coming.</p> + +<p>It was all well with him.</p> + +<p>He forgot himself, he forgot his deadly wound, the +bitterness of his life, the dog's bite—all—in the glory +of this feeling, the new feeling which now would go with +him into eternity.</p> + +<p>For, as he lay there, he had seen the bell's turret above +the jail and his mind was quick to act.</p> + +<p>He smiled faintly—a happy smile—the smile of the +old Roman ere he leaped into the chasm before the walls +of Rome—leaped and saved his countrymen. He loved +to do difficult things—to conquer and overcome where +others would quit. This always had been his glory—he +understood that. But this new thing—this wanting to +save men who were doomed behind their barricade—this +wanting to give what was left of his life for them—his +enemies—this was the thing he could not understand. +He only knew it was the call of something within him, +stronger than himself and kin to the stars, which, clear +and sweet above his head, seemed to be all that stood between +him and that clear Sweet Thing out, far out, in +the pale blue Silence of Things.</p> + +<p>He reached out and found his rifle. In his coat pocket +were cartridges. His arms were still strong—he sprang +the magazine and filled it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_616" id="Page_616">[Pg 616]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then slowly, painfully, he began to crawl off toward +the jail, pulling his rifle along. No one saw him but, +God! how it hurt!... that star falling ... scattering +splinters of light everywhere ... so +he lay on his face and slept awhile....</p> + +<p>When he awoke he flushed with the shame of it: +“Fainted—me—like a girl!” And he spat out the +blood that boiled out of his lips.</p> + +<p>Crawling—crawling—and dragging the heavy rifle. +It seemed he would never strike the rock fence. Once—twice, +and yet a third time he had to sink flat on the +grass and spit out the troublesome blood....</p> + +<p>The fence at last, and following it he was soon in the +rear of the jail. He knew where the back stair was and +crawled to it. Slowly, step by step, and every step +splotched with his blood, he went up. At the top he +pushed up the trap-door with his head and, crawling +through, fell fainting.</p> + +<p>But, oh, the glory of that feeling that was his now! +That feeling that now—now he would atone for it all—now +he would be brother to the stars and that Sweeter +Thing out, far out, in the pale blue Silence of Things.</p> + +<p>Then the old Travis spirit came to him and he smiled: +“<i>Dominecker—oh, my old grandsire, will you think I +am a Dominecker now? I found your will—in the old +life—and tore it up. But it's Tom's now—Tom's +anyway—Dominecker! Wipe it out—wipe it out! If +I do not this night honor your blood, strike me from the +roll of Travis.</i>”</p> + +<p>Around him was the belfry railing, waist high and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_617" id="Page_617">[Pg 617]</a></span> +sheeted with metal save four holes, for air, at the base, +where he could thrust his rifle through as he lay flat.</p> + +<p>He was in a bullet proof turret, and he smiled: “I +hold the fort!”</p> + +<p>Slowly he pulled himself up, painfully he stood erect +and looked down. Just below him was the barricade of +cotton bales, its two defenders, grim and silent behind +them—the two wounded ones lying still and so quiet—so +quiet it looked like death, and Richard Travis prayed +that it was not.</p> + +<p>One of them had given him his death wound, but he +held no bitterness for him—only that upliftedness, only +the glory of that feeling within him he knew not what.</p> + +<p>He called gently to them. In astonishment they +looked up. Thirty feet above their heads they saw him +and heard him say painfully, slowly, but oh, so bravely: +“<i>I am Richard Travis, Tom, and I'll back you to the +death.... They are to burn you out ... but +I command the jail, both front and rear. Stay +where you both are ... be careful ... do +not expose yourselves, for while I live you are safe ... and +the law is safe.</i>”</p> + +<p>And then came back to him clear and with all sweetness +the earnest words of the old preacher:</p> + +<p>“God bless you, Richard Travis, for He has sent you +jus' in time. I knew that He would, that He'd touch yo' +heart, that there was greatness in you—all in His own +time, an' His own good way. Praise God!”</p> + +<p>Travis wished to warn the mob, but his voice was +nearly gone. He could only sink down and wait.</p> + +<p>He heard shouts. They had formed in the rear, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_618" id="Page_618">[Pg 618]</a></span> +now men with torches came to fire the jail. Their companions +in front, hearing them, shouted back their approval.</p> + +<p>Richard Travis thrust his rifle barrel through the air +hole and aimed carefully. The torches they carried +made it all so plain and so easy.</p> + +<p>Then two long, spiteful flashes of flame leaped out of +the belfry tower and the arm of the first incendiary, shot +through and through—holding his blazing torch, +leaped like a rabbit in a sack, and the torch went down +and out. The torch of the second one was shot out of +its bearer's hand.</p> + +<p>Panic-stricken, they looked up, saw, and fled. Those +in front also saw and bombarded the belfry with shot and +pistol ball. And then, on their side of the belfry, the +same downward, spiteful flashes leaped out, and two men, +shot through the shoulder and the arm, cried out in dismay, +and they all fell back, stampeded, at the deadliness +of the spiteful thing in the tower, the gun that carried +so true and so far—so much farther than their own +cheap guns.</p> + +<p>They rushed out of its range, gathered in knots and +cursed and wondered who it was. But they dared not +come nearer. Travis lay still. He could not speak now, +for the blood choked him when he opened his mouth, and +the stars which had once been above him now wheeled +and floated below, and around him. And that Sweeter +Thing that had been behind the stars now seemed to surround +him as a halo, a halo of silence which seemed to fit +the silence of his own soul and become part of him forever. +It was all around him, as he had often seen it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_619" id="Page_619">[Pg 619]</a></span> +around the summer moon; only now he felt it where he +only saw it before. And now, too, it was in his heart and +filled it with a sweet sadness, a sadness that hurt, it was +so sweet, and which came with an odor, the smell of the +warm rain falling on the dust of a summer of long ago.</p> + +<p>And all his life passed before him—he lived it again—even +more than he had remembered before—even the +memory of his mother whom he never knew; but now he +knew her and he reached up his arms—for he was in a +cradle and she bent over him—he reached up his arms +and said: “<i>Oh, mother, now I know what eternity is—it's +remembering before and after!</i>”</p> + +<p>Visions, too—and Alice Westmore—Alice, pitying +and smiling approval—smiling,—and then a burning +passionate kiss, and when he would kiss again it was +Helen's lips he met.</p> + +<p>And through it all the great uplifting joy, and something +which made him try to shout and say: “The +atonement—the atonement—”</p> + +<p>Clear now and things around him seemed miles away.</p> + +<p>He knew he was sinking and he kicked one foot savagely +against the turret to feel again the sensation of life +in his limb. Then he struck himself in his breast with his +right fist to feel it there. But in spite of all he saw a +cloud of darkness form beyond the rim of the starlit horizon +and come sweeping over him, coming in black waves +that would rush forward and then stop—forward, and +stop—forward and stop.... And the stops kept +time exactly with his heart, and he knew the last stop of +the wave meant the last beat of his heart—then for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_620" id="Page_620">[Pg 620]</a></span>ward ... for +the last time.... “Oh, God, +not yet!... Look!”</p> + +<p>His heart rallied at the sight and beat faster, making +the black waves pulse, in the flow and ebb of it.... +The thing was below him ... a man ... a +ghostly, vengeful thing, whose face was fierce in hatred ... crawling, +crawling, up to the rock fence—a +snake with the face ... the eyes of Jud Carpenter....</p> + +<p>And the black wave coming in ... and he did +so want to live ... just a little ... just +a while longer....</p> + +<p>He pushed the wave back, as he gripped for the last +time his rifle's stock, and he knew not whether it was only +visions such as he had been seeing ... or Jud Carpenter +really crouching low behind the rock fence, his +double-barrel shotgun aimed ... drawing so fine +a bead on both the unconscious defenders ... going +to shoot, and only twenty paces, and now it rose up, +aiming: “<i>God, it is—it is Jud Carpenter ... back—back—black +wave!” he cried, “and God have +mercy on your soul, Jud Carpenter....</i>”</p> + +<p>And, oh, the nightmare of it!—trying to pull the +trigger that would not be pulled, trying to grip a stock +that had grown so large it was now a tree—a huge tree—flowing +red blood instead of sap, red blood over +things, ... and then at last ... thank God ... the +trigger ... and the flash and report ... the +flash so far off ... and the report +that was like thunder among the stars ... the +stars.... Among the stars ... all around<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_621" id="Page_621">[Pg 621]</a></span> +him ... and Alice on one star throwing him a +kiss ... and saying: “<i>You saved his life, oh, +Richard, and I love you for it!</i>” A kiss and forgiveness ... and +the two walking out with him ... out +into the dim, blue, Sweet Silence of Things, +hand in hand with him, beyond even the black wave, beyond +even the rim of the rainbow that came down over +all ... out—out with music, quaint, sweet, weird +music—that filled his soul so, fitted him ... was +he ...</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“<i>I'm ... a pilgrim ... I'm a stranger,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>I can tarry—I can tarry but a night.</i>”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In the early dawn, a local company of State troops, +called out by the governor, had the jail safe.</p> + +<p>It was a gruesome sight in front of the stone wall +where the deadly fire from Jack Bracken's pistols had +swept. Thirteen dead men lay, and the back-bone of +lynching had been broken forever in Alabama.</p> + +<p>It was the governor himself, bluff and rugged, who +grasped Jack Bracken's hand as he lay dying, wrapped +up, on a bale of cotton, and Margaret Adams, pale, +weeping beside him: “Live for me, Jack—I love you. +I have always loved you!”</p> + +<p>“And for me, Jack,” said the old governor, touched +at the scene—“for the state, to teach mobs how to respect +the law. In the glory of what you've done, I +pardon you for all the past.”</p> + +<p>“It is fitten,” said Jack, simply; “fitten that I should +die for the law—I who have been so lawless.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_622" id="Page_622">[Pg 622]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>He turned to Margaret Adams: “You are lookin' +somethin' you want to say—I can tell by yo' eyes.”</p> + +<p>She faltered, then slowly: “Jack, he was not my son—my +poor sister—I could not see her die disgraced.”</p> + +<p>Jack drew her down and kissed her.</p> + +<p>And as his eyes grew dim, a figure, tall and in military +clothes, stood before him, shaken with grief and saying, +“Jack—Jack, my poor friend—”</p> + +<p>Jack's mind was wandering, but a great smile lit up +his face as he said: “<i>Bishop—Bishop—is—is—it +Cap'n Tom, or—or—Jesus Christ?</i>” And so he +passed out.</p> + +<p>And up above them all in the belfry, lying prone, but +still gripping his rifle's stock which, sweeping the jail +with its deadly protruding barrel, had held back hundreds +of men, they found Richard Travis, a softened +smile on his lips as if he had just entered into the glory +of the great Sweet Silence of Things. And by him sat +the old preacher, where he had sat since Richard Travis's +last shot had saved the jail and the defenders; sat and +bound up his wound and gave him the last of his old +whiskey out of the little flask, and stopped the flow of +blood and saved the life which had nearly bubbled out.</p> + +<p>And as they brought the desperately wounded man +down to the surgeon and to life, the old governor raised +his hat and said: “The Travis blood—the Irish Gray—when +it's wrong it is hell—when it's right it is +heaven.”</p> + +<p>But the old preacher smiled as he helped carry him +tenderly down and said: “He is right, forever right, +now, Gov'nor. God has made him so. See that smile on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_623" id="Page_623">[Pg 623]</a></span> +his lips! He has laughed before—that was from the +body. He is smiling now—that is from the soul. His +soul is born again.”</p> + +<p>The old governor smiled and turned. Edward Conway, +wounded, was sitting up. The governor grasped +his hand: “Ned, my boy, I've appointed you sheriff +of this county in place of that scallawag who deserted his +post. Stand pat, for you're a Conway—no doubt about +that. Stand pat.”</p> + +<p>Under the rock wall, they found a man, dead on his +knees, leaning against the wall; his gun, still cocked and +deadly, was resting against his shoulder and needing +only the movement of a finger to sweep with deadly hail +the cotton-bales. His scraggy hair topped the rock +fence and his staring eyes peeped over, each its own way. +And one of them looked forward into a future which was +Silence, and the other looked backward into a past which +was Sin.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_624" id="Page_624">[Pg 624]</a></span></p> +<h3>THE SHADOWS AND THE CLOUDS</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">W</span>hen Richard Travis came to himself after that +terrible night, they told him that for weeks +he had lain with only a breath between him +and death.</p> + +<p>“It was not my skill that has saved you,” said the +old surgeon who had been through two wars and who +knew wounds as he did maps of battlefields he had fought +on. “No,” he said, shaking his head, “no, it was not +I—it was something beyond me. That you miraculously +live is proof of it.”</p> + +<p>He was in his room at The Gaffs, and everything +looked so natural. It was sweet to live again, for he was +yet young and life now meant so much more than it ever +had. Then his eyes fell on the rug, wearily, and he remembered +the old setter.</p> + +<p>“The dog—and that other one?”</p> + +<p>He sat up nervously in bed, trembling with the +thought. The old surgeon guessed and bade him be +quiet.</p> + +<p>“You need not fear that,” he said, touching his arm. +“The time has passed for fear. You were saved by the +shadow of death and—the blood letting you had—and, +well, a woman's lips, as many a man has been saved +before you. You'd better sleep again now....<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_625" id="Page_625">[Pg 625]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>He slept, but there were visions as there had been all +along. And two persons came in now and then. One +was Tom Travis, serious and quiet and very much in +earnest that the patient might get well.</p> + +<p>Another was Tom's wife, Alice, who arranged the +wounded man's pillows with a gentleness and deftness as +only she could, and who gave quiet orders to the old cook +in a way that made Richard Travis feel that things were +all right, though he could not speak, nor even open his +eyes long enough to see distinctly.</p> + +<p>A month afterward Richard Travis was sitting up. +His strength came very fast. For a week he had sat by +the fire and thought—thought. But no man knew what +was in his mind until one day, after he had been able to +walk over the place, he said:</p> + +<p>“Tom, you and Alice have been kinder to me—far +kinder—than I have deserved. I am going away forever, +next week—to the Northwest—and begin life +over. But there is something I wish to say to you first.”</p> + +<p>“Dick,” said his cousin, and he arose, tall and splendid, +before the firelight—“there is something I wish to +say to you first. Our lives have been far apart and very +different, but blood is blood and you have proved it, else +I had not been here to-night to tell it.”</p> + +<p>He came over and put his hand affectionately on the +other's shoulder. At its touch Richard Travis softened +almost to tears.</p> + +<p>“Dick, we two are the only grandsons that bear his +name, and we divide this between us. Alice and I have +planned it. You are to retain the house and half the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_626" id="Page_626">[Pg 626]</a></span> +land. We have our own and more than enough. You +will do it, Dick?”</p> + +<p>Richard Travis arose, strangely moved. He grasped +his cousin's hand. “No, no, Tom, it is not fair. No +Travis was ever a welcher. It is all yours—you do not +understand—I saw the will—I do not want it. I am +going away forever. My life must lead now in other +paths. But—”</p> + +<p>The other turned quickly and looked deep into Richard +Travis's eyes. “I can see there is no use of my trying +to change your mind, Dick, though I had hoped—”</p> + +<p>The other shook his head. It meant a Travis decision, +and his cousin knew it.</p> + +<p>“But as I started to say, Tom, and there is no need +of my mincing words, if you'll raise that boy of mine—” +he was silent awhile, then smiling: “He is mine and +more of a Travis to-day than his father ever was. If +you can help him and his aunt—”</p> + +<p>“He shall have the half of it, Dick, and an education, +under our care. We will make a man of him, Alice +and I.”</p> + +<p>Richard Travis said no more.</p> + +<p>The week before he left, one beautiful afternoon, he +walked over to Millwood for the last time. For Edward +Conway was now sheriff of the county, and with the assistance +of the old bishop, whose fortune now was secured, +he had redeemed his home and was in a fair way +to pay back every dollar of it.</p> + +<p>A new servant ushered Travis in, for the good old +nurse had passed away, the strain of that terrible night<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_627" id="Page_627">[Pg 627]</a></span> +being too much, first, for her reason, and afterwards, her +life.</p> + +<p>Edward Conway was away, but Helen came in presently, +and greeted him with such a splendid high-born way, +so simple and so unaffected that he marveled at her self-control, +feeling his own heart pulsing strangely at sight +of her. In the few months that had elapsed how changed +she was and how beautiful! This was not the romantic, +yet buffeted, beautiful girl who had come so near being +the tragedy of his old life? How womanly she now was, +and how calm and at her ease! Could independence and +the change from poverty and worry, the strong, free +feeling of being one's self again and in one's sphere, +make so great a difference in so short a while? He wondered +at himself for not seeing farther ahead. He had +come to bid her good-bye and offer again—this time in +all earnestness and sincerity, to take her with him—to +share his life—but the words died in his mouth.</p> + +<p>He could no more have said them than he could have +profanely touched her.</p> + +<p>When he left she walked with him to the parting of +the ways.</p> + +<p>The blue line of tremulous mountain was scrolled +along a horizon that flamed crimson in the setting sun. +A flock of twilight clouds—flamingos of the sky—floated +toward the sunset as if going to roost. Beyond +was the great river, its bosom as wan, where it lay in the +shadow of the mountain, as Richard Travis's own cheek; +but where the sunset fell on it the reflected light turned it +to pink which to him looked like Helen's.</p> + +<p>The wind came down cool from the frost-tinctured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_628" id="Page_628">[Pg 628]</a></span> +mountain side, and the fine sweet odor of life everlasting +floated in it—frost-bitten—and bringing a wave of +youth and rabbit hunts and of a life of dreams and the +sweet unclouded far-off hope of things beautiful and immortal. +And the flow of it hurt Richard Travis—hurt +him with a tenderness that bled.</p> + +<p>The girl stopped and drank in the beauty of it all, and +he stood looking at her, “the picture for the frame”—as +he said to himself.</p> + +<p>It had rained and the clouds were scattered, yet so +full that they caught entirely the sunset rays and held +them as he would that moment have loved to hold her. +Something in her—something about her thrilled him +strangely, as he had often been thrilled when looking +at the great pictures in the galleries of the old world. +He repeated softly to her, as she stood looking forward—to +him—into the future:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“What thou art we know not,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">What is most like thee?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From rainbow clouds there flow not<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Drops so bright to see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>She turned and held out her hand.</p> + +<p>“I must bid you good-bye now and I wish you all +happiness—so much more than you have ever had in +all your life.”</p> + +<p>He took it, but he could not speak. Something shook +him strangely. He knew nothing to say. Had he spoken, +he knew he had stammered and blundered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_629" id="Page_629">[Pg 629]</a></span></p> + +<p>Never had the Richard Travis of old done such a +thing.</p> + +<p>“Helen—Helen—if—if—you know once I asked +you to go with me—once—in the old, awful life. +Now, in the new—the new life which you can make +sweet—”</p> + +<p>She came up close to him. The sun had set and the +valley lay in silence. When he saw her eyes there were +tears in them—tears so full and deep that they hurt +him when she said:</p> + +<p>“It can never—never be—now. You made me love +you when you could not love; and love born of despair +is mateless ever; it would die in its realization. Mine, +for you, was that—” She pointed to the sunset. “It +breathed and burned. I saw it only because of clouds, +of shadow. But were the clouds, the shadows, gone—”</p> + +<p>“There would be no life, no burning, no love,” he said. +“Ah, I think I understand,” and his heart sank with +pain. What—why—he could not say, only he knew +it hurt him, and he began to wonder.</p> + +<p>“You do not blame me,” she said as she still held his +hand and looked up into his eyes in the old way he had +seen, that terrible night at Millwood.</p> + +<p>For reply he held her hand in both of his and then laid +it over his heart. She felt his tears fall on it, tears, which +even death could not bring, had come to Richard Travis +at last, and he wondered. In the old life he never wondered—he +always knew; but in this—this new life—it +was all so strange, so new that he feared even himself. +Like a sailor lost, he could only look up, by day, helplessly +at the sun, and, by night, helplessly at the stars.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_630" id="Page_630">[Pg 630]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Helen—Helen,” he said at last, strangely shaken in +it all,—“if I could tell you now that I do—that I +could love—”</p> + +<p>She put her hand over his mouth in the old playful +way and shook her head, smiling through her tears: +“Do not try to mate my love with a thing that balks.”</p> + +<p>It was simply said, and forceful. It was enough. +Richard Travis blushed for very shame.</p> + +<p>“Do you not see,” she said, “how hopeless it is? Do +you not know that I was terribly tempted—weak—maddened—deserted +that night? That now I know +what Clay's love has been? Oh, why do we not learn +early in life that fire will burn, that death will kill, that +we are the deed of all we think and feel—the wish of +all we will to be?”</p> + +<p>Travis turned quickly: “Is that true? Then let me +wish—as I do, Helen; let me wish that I might love you +as you deserve.”</p> + +<p>She saddened: “Oh, but you have wished—you +have willed—too often—too differently. It can never +be now.”</p> + +<p>“I understand you,” he said. “It is natural—I +should say it is nature—nature, the never-lying. I but +reap my own folly, and now good-bye forever, Helen, +and may God bless you and bring you that happiness +you have deserved.”</p> + +<p>“Do you know,” she said calmly, “that I have +thought of all that, too. There are so many of us in the +world, and so little happiness that like flowers it cannot +go around—some must go without.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_631" id="Page_631">[Pg 631]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>She held his hand tightly as if she did not want him +to go.</p> + +<p>“My child, I must go out of your life—go—and +stay. I see—I see—and I only make you wretched. +And I have no right to. It is ignoble. It is I who should +bear this burden of sorrow—not you. You who have +never sinned, who are so young and so beautiful. In +time you will love a nobler man—Clay—”</p> + +<p>She looked at him, but said nothing. She knew for +the first time the solution of her love's problem. She +was silent, holding his hand.</p> + +<p>“Child,” he said again. “Helen, you must do as I +say. There is happiness for you yet when I am gone—when +I am out of your life and the memory and the pain +of it cease. Then you will marry Clay—”</p> + +<p>“Do you really think so? Oh, and he has loved me so +and is so splendid and true.”</p> + +<p>Travis was silent, waiting.</p> + +<p>“Now let me go,” she said—“let me forget all my +madness and folly in learning to love one whose love was +made for mine. In time I shall love him as he deserves. +Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>Then she broke impulsively away, and he watched her +walk back through the shadows and under the clouds.</p> + +<p>At the turning of the path across the meadow, he saw +another shadow join her. It was Clay, and the two went +through the twilight together.</p> + +<p>Travis turned. “It is right—it is the solution—he +alone deserves her. I must reap my past, reap it and +see my harvest blighted and bound with rotten twine. +But, oh, to know it when it is too late—to know that I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_632" id="Page_632">[Pg 632]</a></span> +might love her and could be happy—then to have to +give it up—now—now—when I need it most. The +Deed,” he said—“we are the deed of all we think and +feel.”</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_633" id="Page_633">[Pg 633]</a></span></p> +<h3>THE MODEL MILL</h3> +<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span> + +<p><span class="first">T</span>he discovery of coal and iron made both the old +Bishop and Westmoreland rich. Captain Tom +sent James Travis to West Point and Archie B. +to Annapolis, and their records were worthy of their +names.</p> + +<p>And now, five years after the great fire, there might +be seen in Cottontown, besides two furnaces, whose blazing +turrets lighted the valley with Prosperity's torch—another +cotton mill, erected by the old Bishop.</p> + +<p>Long and earnestly he thought on the subject before +building the mill. Indeed, he first prayed over it and +then preached on the subject, and this is the sermon he +preached to his people the Sunday before he began the +erection of The Model Cotton Mill:</p> + +<p>“Now, it's this way, my brethren: God made cotton +for a mill. You can't get aroun' that; and the mill is to +give people wuck an' this wuck is to clothe the worl'. +That's all plain an' all good, because it's from God. Man +made the bad of it—child labor, and overwuck and poor +pay and the terrible everlastin' grind and foul air an' +dirt an' squaller an' death.</p> + +<p>“The trouble with the worl' to-day is that it don't +carry God into business. Why should we not be kinder +an' mo' liberal with each other in business matters? We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_634" id="Page_634">[Pg 634]</a></span> +are unselfish in everything but business. All social life +is based on unselfishness. To charity we give of our +tears an' our money. For the welfare of mankind an' +the advancement of humanity you can always count us on +the right side. Even to those whose characters are rotten +an' whose very shadows leave dark places in life, we pass +the courtesies of the hour or the palaverin' compliments +of the day. But let the struggler for the bread of life +come along and ask us to share our profits with him, let +the dollar be the thing involved an' business shrewdness +the principle at stake, an' then all charity is forgotten, +every man for himse'f, an' the chief aim of man seems to +be to get mo' out of the trade than his brother.</p> + +<p>“Now the soul of trade is Selfishness, an' Charity +never is invited over her doorway.</p> + +<p>“I have known men with tears in their eyes to give +to the poor one day an' rob them the nex' in usurious interest +an' rent, as cheerful as they gave the day befo'. I +have known men to open their purses as wide as the gates +of hades for some church charity, an' then close them the +nex' day, in a business transaction, as they called it—with +some helpless debtor or unexperienced widder. The +graveyard is full of unselfish, devoted fathers an' husbands +who worked themselves to death for the comfort +an' support of their own families, yet spendin' their days +on earth tryin' to beat their neighbors in the same game.</p> + +<p>“It's funny how we're livin'. It's amusin', it is—our +ethics of Christianity. We've baptised everything +but business. We give to the church an' rob the poor. +We weep over misfortune an' steal from the unfortunate. +We give a robe to Charity one day and filch it the nex'.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_635" id="Page_635">[Pg 635]</a></span> +We lay gifts at the altar of the Temple of Kindness for +the Virgin therein, but if we caught her out on the highways +of trade an' commerce we'd steal her an' sell her +into slavery. An' after she was dead we'd go deep into +our pockets to put up a monument over her!</p> + +<p>“We weep an' rob, an' smile an' steal, an' laugh an' +knife, an' wring the hand of friendship while we step on +her toes with our brogans of business. Can't we be hones' +without bein' selfish, fair without graspin', make a profit +without wantin' it all? Is it possible that Christ's religion +has gone into every nook an' corner of the worl' +an' yet missed the great highway of business, the everyday +road of dollars an' cents, profit an' loss!</p> + +<p>“So I am goin' to build the mill an' run it like God +intended it should be run, an' I am goin' to put, for +once, the plan of salvation into business, if it busts me +an' the plan too! For if it can't stand a business test it +ought to bust!”</p> + +<p>He planned it all himself, and, aided by Captain Tom, +and Alice, the beautiful structure went up. Strong and +airy and with every comfort for the workers. “For it +strikes me,” said the old man, “that the people who +wuck need mo' comforts than them that don't—at least +the comforts of bein' clean. The fust thing I learned in +geography was that God made three times as much water +on the surface of the earth as he did dirt. But you +wouldn't think so to look at the human race. It takes us +a long time to take a hint.”</p> + +<p>The big mountain spring settled the point, and when +the mill was finished there were hot and cold baths in it +for the tired workers. “For there's nothin' so good,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_636" id="Page_636">[Pg 636]</a></span>” +said the old man, “for a hot man or a hot hoss as a +warm body-wash. It relaxes the muscles an' makes them +come ag'in. An' the man that comes ag'in is the man +the worl' wants.”</p> + +<p>In the homes of the workers, too, he had baths placed, +until it grew to be a saying of the good old man “that +it was easier to take a bath in Cottontown than to take +a drink.”</p> + +<p>The main building was lofty between floor and ceiling, +letting in all the light and air possible, and the floors were +of hard-wood and clean. As the greatest curse of the +cotton lint was dust, atomizers for spraying the air were +invented by Captain Tom. These were attached to the +machinery and could be turned off or on as the operators +desired. It was most comfortable now to work in the +mill, and tired and hot employees, instead of lounging +through their noon, bathed in the cool spring water +which came down from the mountain side and flowed into +the baths, not only in the mill, but through every cottage +owned by the mill. And as the bath is the greatest +civilizer known to man, a marked difference was soon +noticed in every inhabitant of Cottontown. They were +cleanly, and cleanliness begets a long list of other virtues, +beginning with cleaner and better clothes and ending +with ambition and godliness.</p> + +<p>But it was the old Bishop's policy for the wage-earners, +which put the ambition there—a system never +heard of before in the ranks of capital, and first tested +and proved in his Model Cotton Mill.</p> + +<p>“There are two things in the worl',” said the Bishop, +“that is as plain as God could write them without tellin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_637" id="Page_637">[Pg 637]</a></span> +it Himself from the clouds. The first is that the money +of the worl' was intended for all the worl' that reaches +out a hand an' works for it.</p> + +<p>“The other is that every man who works is entitled +to a home.</p> + +<p>“It was never intended for one man, or one corporation +or one trust or one king or one anything else, to own +more than his share of the money of the worl', no +matter how they get it. Every man who piles up mo' +money than he needs—actually needs—in life, robs +every other man or woman or child in the worl' that +pinches and slaves and starves for it in vain. Every man +who makes a big fortune leaves just that many wrecked +homes in his path.”</p> + +<p>In carrying out this idea the old bishop had the mill +incorporated at one hundred thousand dollars, which included +all his fortune, except enough to live on and +educate his grandchildren; for he never changed his +home, and the only luxury he indulged in was a stable +for Ben Butler.</p> + +<p>The stock was divided into shares of ten dollars each, +which could be acquired only by those who worked in the +mill, to be held only during life-time, and earned only in +part payment for labor, given according to proficiency +and work done, and credited on wages. In this way +every employee of the mill became a stockholder—a +partner in the mill, receiving dividends on his stock in +addition to his regular wages, and every year he worked +in the mill added both to his stock and dividends. At +death it reverted again to The Model Cotton Mill Company, +to be obtained again, in turn, by other mill workers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_638" id="Page_638">[Pg 638]</a></span> +coming on up the line. This made every mill worker a +partner in the mill and spurred them on to do their best.</p> + +<p>But the home idea of the bishop was the more original +one, and a far greater boon to the people. Instead of +paying rent to the mill for their homes, as they had before, +every married mill worker was deeded a home in the +beginning, a certain per cent of his wages being appropriated +each month in part payment; in addition, ten +per cent of the stock acquired, as above, by each individual +home owner, went to the payment of the home, and +the whole was so worked out and adjusted that by the +time a faithful worker had arrived at middle age, the +home, as paid for, was absolutely his and his children's, +and when he arrived at old age the dividends of the stock +acquired were sufficient to support him the balance of his +life.</p> + +<p>In this way the mill was virtually resolved into a corporation +or community of interests, running perpetually +for the maintenance and support of those who worked in +it. The only property actually acquired by the individual +was a home, his savings in wages, and the dividends +on his stock acquired by long service and work.</p> + +<p>Some wanted the old man to run a general store on +the same plan of community of interest, the goods and +necessities of life to be bought at first cost and only the +actual expenses of keeping the store added. But he +wisely shook his head, saying: “No, that will not do; +that's forming a trust ag'in the tillers of the earth an' +the workers in every other occupation. That's cuttin' in +on hones' competition, an' if carried out everywhere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_639" id="Page_639">[Pg 639]</a></span> +would shut off the rest of the worl' from a livin'. We're +makin' our livin'—let them make theirs.”</p> + +<p>The old bishop was proud of the men he selected to +carry out his plans. Captain Tom was manager of the +Model Mill.</p> + +<p>“Now,” said the old man, after the mill had run two +years and declared a semi-annual dividend, both years, of +eight per cent each, “now you all see what it means to +run even business by the Golden Rule. Here is this big +fortune that I accidentally stumbled on, as everybody +does who makes one—put out like God intended it +sh'ud, belonging to nobody and standing there, year +after year, makin' a livin' an' a home an' life an' happiness +for over fo' hundred people, year in an' year out, +an' let us pray God, forever. It was not mine to begin +with—it belonged to the worl'. God put the coal and +iron in the ground, not for me, but for everybody. An' +so I've given it to everybody. Because I happened to +own the lan' didn't make the treasure God put there +mine, any mo' than the same land will be mine after I've +passed away. We're only trustees for humanity for all +we make mo' than we need, jus' as we're only tenants of +God while we live on the earth.”</p> + +<p>As for children, the bishop settled that quickly and +effectively. His rule was that no boy or girl under sixteen +should be permitted to work in the mill, and to save +any parents, weakly inclined, from the temptation, he +established a physical standard in weight, height and +health.</p> + +<p>He found afterwards there was really small need of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_640" id="Page_640">[Pg 640]</a></span> +his stringent rule, for under this system of management +the temptations of child labor were removed.</p> + +<p>Among the good features of the mill, established by +Alice Travis, was a library, a pretty little building in +the heart of Cottontown. It was maintained yearly by +the mill, together with donations, and proved to be the +greatest educational and refining influence of the mill. +It was kept, for one week at a time, by each girl in the +mill over twenty, the privilege always being given by +the mill's physician to the girl who seemed most in need +of a week's rest. It came to be a great social feature +also, and any pretty afternoon, and all Saturday afternoon,—for +the mill never ran then—could be seen there +the young girls and boys of Cottontown.</p> + +<p>To this was afterwards added a Cottontown school +for the younger children, who before had been slaves to +the spinner and doffer carts.</p> + +<p>And so it ran on several years, but still the Bishop +could see that something was lacking—that there was +too much sickness, that in spite of only eight hours his +people, year in and year out, grew tired and weak and +disheartened, and with his great good sense he put his +finger on it.</p> + +<p>“Now, it's this away,” he said to his directors, “God +never intended for any people to work all the time between +walls an' floors. Tilling the soil is the natural +work of man, an' there is somethin' in the very touch of +the ground to our feet that puts new life in our bodies.</p> + +<p>“The farmin' instinct is so natural in us that you +can't stop it by flood or drought or failure. Year in an' +year out the farmer will plant an' work his crop in spite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_641" id="Page_641">[Pg 641]</a></span> +of failure, hopin' every year to hit it the nex' time. +Would a merchant or manufacturer or anybody else do +that? No, they'd make an assignment the second year +of failure. But not so with the farmer, and it shows +God intended he shu'd keep at it.</p> + +<p>“Now, I'm goin' to give this mill a chance to raise +its own cotton, besides everything else its people needs to +eat. I figger we can raise cotton cheaper than we can +buy it, an' keep our folks healthy, too.”</p> + +<p>Near Cottontown was an old cotton plantation of four +thousand acres. It had been sadly neglected and run +down. This the bishop purchased for the company for +only ten dollars an acre, and divided it into tracts of +twenty acres each, building a neat cottage, dairy and +barn, and other outhouses on each tract—but all arranged +for a family of four or five, and thus sprang up +in a year a new settlement of two hundred families around +Cottontown. It was no trouble to get them, for the +fame of The Model Mill had spread, and far more applied +yearly for employment than could be accommodated. +This large farm, when equipped fully, represented +fifty thousand dollars more, or an investment of +ninety thousand dollars, and immediately became a valuable +asset of the mill.</p> + +<p>It was divided into four parts, each under the supervision +of a manager, a practical and experienced cotton +farmer of the valley, and the tenants were selected every +year from among all the workers of the mill, preference +always being given to the families who needed the outdoor +work most, and those physically weak from long +work in the mill. It was so arranged that only fifty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_642" id="Page_642">[Pg 642]</a></span> +families, or one-fourth of the mill, went out each year, +staying four years each on the farm. And thus every +four years were two hundred families given the chance +in the open to get in touch with nature, the great physician, +and come again. After four years they went back +to the mill, sunburnt, swarthy, and full of health, and +what is greater than health,—cheerfulness—the cheerfulness +that comes with change.</p> + +<p>On the farm they received the same wages as when in +the mill, and each family was furnished with a mule, a +cow, and poultry, and with a good garden.</p> + +<p>To reclaim this land and build up the soil was now +the chief work of the old man; but having been overseer +on a large cotton plantation, he knew his business, and +set to work at it with all the zeal and good sense of his +nature.</p> + +<p>He knew that cotton was one of the least exhaustive +crops of the world, taking nearly all its sustenance from +the air, and that it was also one of the most easily raised, +requiring none of the complicated and expensive machinery +necessary for wheat and other smaller grains. +He knew, too, that under the thorough preparation of +the soil necessary for cotton, wheat did best after it, +and with clover sown on the wheat, he would soon have +nature's remedy for reclaiming the soil. He also knew +that the most expensive feature of cotton raising was the +picking—the gathering of the crop—and in the children +of Cottontown, he saw at once that he had a quick +solution—one which solved the picking problem and +yet gave to each growing boy and girl three months, in +the cool, delightful fall, of healthful work, with pay more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_643" id="Page_643">[Pg 643]</a></span> +than equal to a year of the old cheap labor behind the +spinners. For,—as it proved, at seventy-five cents per +hundred pounds for the seed cotton picked,—these children +earned from seventy-five cents to a dollar and a half +a day. The first year, only half of the land was put in +cotton, attention being given to reclaiming the other +half. But even this proved a surprise for all, for nearly +one thousand bales of cotton were ginned, at a total cost +to the mill of only four cents per pound, while Cottontown +had been fed during summer with all the vegetables +and melons needed—all raised on the farm.</p> + +<p>That fall, the land, under the clean and constant plowing +necessary to raise the cotton, was ready to sow in +wheat, which in February was followed with clover—nature's +great fertilizer—the clover being sown broadcast +on the wheat, behind a light harrow run over the +wheat. The wheat crop was small, averaging less than +ten bushels to the acre, but it was enough to keep all +Cottontown in bread for a year, or until the next harvest +time, and some, even, to sell. Behind the wheat, after +it was mowed, came the clover, bringing in good dividends. +After two years, it was turned under, and then it +was that the two thousand acres of land produced fifteen +hundred bales of cotton at a total cost of four cents per +pound, or twenty dollars per bale. And this included +everything, even the interest on the money and the paying +of seventy-five cents per hundred pounds to the +Cottontown children for picking and storing the crop.</p> + +<p>In a few years, under this rotation, the farm produced +all the cotton necessary to run The Model Mill, besides<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_644" id="Page_644">[Pg 644]</a></span> +raising all its vegetables, fruit, and bread for all the +families of Cottontown.</p> + +<p>But the most beautiful sight to the old man was to see +the children every fall picking the cotton. Little boys +and girls, who before had worked twelve hours a day in +the old, hot, stifling, ill-smelling mill, now stood out in +the sunshine and in the frosty air of the mornings, each +with sack to side, waist deep in pure white cotton, flooded +in sunshine and health and sweetness.</p> + +<p>They were deft with their fingers—the old mill had +taught many of them that—and their pay, daily, ran +from seventy-five cents to a dollar and a half—as much +as some of them had earned in a week of the old way. +And, oh, the health of it, the glory of air and sky and +sunshine, the smell of dew on the bruised cotton-heads, +the rustle of the mountain breeze cooling the heated +cheeks; the healthy hunger, and the lunches in the shade +by the cool spring; the shadows of evening creeping +down from the mountains, the healthy fatigue—and +the sweet home-going in the twilight, riding beneath the +silent stars on wagons of snowy seed cotton, burrowing +in bed of down and purest white—this snow of a +Southern summer—with the happy laughter of childhood +and the hunger of home-coming, and the glory and +freedom of it all!</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The End.</span></h3> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Bishop of Cottontown, by John Trotwood Moore + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BISHOP OF COTTONTOWN *** + +***** This file should be named 23637-h.htm or 23637-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/6/3/23637/ + +Produced by Marcia Brooks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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