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diff --git a/23637.txt b/23637.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..87a85b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/23637.txt @@ -0,0 +1,19962 @@ +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: ASCII + +*** 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.) + + + + + + +[Illustration: THE KINNEYS "Take care of Lily"] + + + + +THE + +Bishop of Cottontown + +A STORY OF THE SOUTHERN +COTTON MILLS + +BY +JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE + +AUTHOR OF +"A Summer Hymnal," "Ole Mistis," "Songs and Stories +from Tennessee," etc. + +ILLUSTRATED BY THE KINNEYS + + + + + "And each in his separate star, + Shall paint the thing as he sees it + For the God of Things As They Are." + + Kipling + + + + +PHILADELPHIA + +THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY + +1906 + +COPYRIGHT, 1906, + +BY JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE + +Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, 1906 + + +_All Rights Reserved_ + + + + +IN MEMORY OF MY MOTHER, + +EMILY BILLINGSLEA MOORE, + +WHO DIED + +DECEMBER 14TH, 1903, + +THE FAITH OF THIS BOOK BEING HERS. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + + +PART FIRST--THE BLOOM. + +PROLOGUE--THE COTTON BLOSSOM 7 + + +PART SECOND--THE BOLL. + + I. COTTON 13 + II. RICHARD TRAVIS 18 + III. JUD CARPENTER 27 + IV. FOOD FOR THE FACTORY 39 + V. THE FLY CATCHER CAUGHT 50 + VI. THE FLINT AND THE COAL 64 + VII. HILLARD WATTS 84 + VIII. WESTMORELAND 92 + IX. A MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING 103 + X. A STAR AND A SATELLITE 108 + XI. A MIDNIGHT BURIAL 117 + XII. JACK BRACKEN 127 + + +PART THIRD--THE GIN. + + I. ALICE WESTMORE 143 + II. THE REAL HEROES 151 + III. FRANKLIN 154 + + +PART FOURTH--THE LINT. + + I. COTTONTOWN 179 + II. BEN BUTLER 187 + III. AN ANSWER TO PRAYER 199 + IV. HOW THE BISHOP FROZE 205 + V. THE FLOCK 209 + VI. A BISHOP MILITANT 213 + VII. MARGARET ADAMS 219 + VIII. HARD-SHELL SUNDAY 226 + IX. THE RETURN 232 + X. THE SWAN SONG OF THE CREPE MYRTLE 239 + XI. THE CASKET AND THE GHOST 248 + XII. A MIDNIGHT GUARD 254 + XIII. THE THEFT OF A CHILDHOOD 258 + XIV. UNCLE DAVE'S WILL 275 + XV. EDWARD CONWAY 287 + XVI. HELEN'S DESPAIR 296 + XVII. THE WHIPPER-IN 305 +XVIII. SAMANTHA CAREWE 312 + XIX. A QUICK CONVERSION 317 + XX. A LIVE FUNERAL 326 + XXI. JACK AND THE LITTLE ONES 336 + XXII. THE BROKEN THREAD 344 +XXIII. GOD WILL PROVIDE 350 + XXIV. BONAPARTE'S WATERLOO 355 + XXV. A BORN NATURALIST 366 + XXVI. BEN BUTLER'S LAST RACE 380 +XXVII. YOU'LL COME BACK A MAN 414 + + +PART FIFTH--THE LOOM. + + I. A NEW MILL GIRL 419 + II. IN THE DEPTHS 431 + III. WORK IN A NEW LIGHT 438 + IV. MAGGIE 443 + V. PAY-DAY 447 + VI. THE PLOT 456 + VII. MRS. WESTMORE TAKES A HAND 464 + VIII. A QUESTION BROUGHT HOME 473 + IX. THE PEDIGREE OF ACHIEVEMENT 487 + X. MARRIED IN GOD'S SIGHT 493 + XI. THE QUEEN IS DEAD 499 + XII. IN THYSELF THERE IS WEAKNESS 508 + XIII. HIMSELF AGAIN 512 + XIV. THE JOY OF THE MORNING 519 + XV. THE TOUCH OF GOD 526 + XVI. MAMMY MARIA 533 + XVII. THE DOUBLE THAT DIED 545 +XVIII. THE DYING LION 552 + XIX. FACE TO FACE WITH DEATH 564 + XX. THE ANGEL WITH THE FLAMING SWORD 572 + XXI. THE GREAT FIRE 581 + XXII. A CONWAY AGAIN 588 +XXIII. DIED FOR THE LAW 596 + XXIV. THE ATONEMENT 611 + XXV. THE SHADOWS AND THE CLOUDS 624 + XXVI. THE MODEL MILL 633 + + +[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.] + + + + +PART FIRST--THE BLOOM + + + + +THE COTTON BLOSSOM + + +The cotton blossom is the only flower that is born in the shuttle of +a sunbeam and dies in a loom. + +It is the most beautiful flower that grows, and needs only to become +rare to be priceless--only to die to be idealized. + +For the world worships that which it hopes to attain, and our ideals +are those things just out of our reach. + +Satiety has ten points and possession is nine of them. + +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. + +A stout-hearted plant,--a tree, dwarfed, but losing not its dignity. + +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 the +miniature arch of daybreak, ere the great eye of the morning star +closes. + +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." + +What other flower among them can thus copy Nature, the great master? + +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. + +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. + +And in that fabric is the world clothed. + +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! + +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. + +Weaving--weaving--weaving them. And the delicately patterned tapestry +of ever-changing clouds forming patterns of a fabric, white as the +snow of the centuries, determined that since it has to make the +garments of men, it will make them unsullied. + +Oh, little plant, poet, painter, master-artisan! + +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. + +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. + +'Tis the silent voice that speaks the loudest. Did Sinai speak louder +than this? Hear it: + +"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." + +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? + + + + +PART SECOND--THE BOLL + + + + +CHAPTER I + +COTTON + + +The 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. + +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. + +There was that crispness in the air which puts one to wondering if, +after all, autumn is not the finest time of the year. + +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. + +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 faltered, and heart-beats that had fluttered, +dumb and discouraged, now rattled like kettle-drums, to the fight of +life. + +It meant change--redemption--prosperity. And more: that the white +blood which had made Alabama, need not now leave her for a home +elsewhere. + +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. + +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. + +The negro race does not live to lay up for a rainy day. + +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. + +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. + +And nothing makes so much for frowsiness in the cotton plant, and in +woman, as to know they are not wanted. + +The gin-houses were yet full, tho' the gin had been 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. + +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. + +Those grew lighter and larger all the time. + +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. + +Around--around--forever around. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +It is linty, furry, tickling, smothering, searing. + +It makes one wonder why, in picturing hell, no priest ever thought of +filling it with cotton-gin dust instead of fire. + +And it clings there from the Lint to the Loom. + +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. + +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. + +There is that in the Saxon race that makes it discontented, even with +success. + +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. + +It was cotton--cotton--cotton. Seed,--ginned,--lint,--baled,--cotton. + +The Gaffs was a fine estate of five thousand acres which had been +handed down for several generations. 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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +RICHARD TRAVIS + + +Strength 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. + +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. + +Richard Travis was secretary and treasurer of the Acme Cotton Mills. + +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 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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Travis stooped and petted the old dog. It was the one thing of his +household he loved most. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +There was a good-night, martial, daring crow, ringing from the +Hoss-apple tree at the dining-room window. Travis smiled and called +out: + +"Lights waked you up, eh, Dick? You're a gay Lothario--go back to +sleep." + +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." + +General Travis had been an expert at heeling a cock; 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. + +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. + +His love for the Union had been that of a brave man who had gone +through battles and shed his blood for his country. + +The Civil War broke his heart. + +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." + +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. + +Travis took no man's dust in the Tennessee Valley. At county fairs he +had a walk-over. + +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. + +One of them had left a son, whom Richard Travis had educated and who +had, but the June before, graduated from the State University. + +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. + +There had been no sympathy between them. There could not be, for they +were too much alike in many ways. + +There can be no sympathy in selfishness. + +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. + +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. + +Usually, friends from town kept the owner company, and The Gaffs' +reputation for hospitality, while generous, was not unnoted for its +hilarity. + +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. + +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 _status-quo_. +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. + +He was good natured, and when she was gone he laughed boyishly. + +Good nature is one of the virtues of impurity. + +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: + +"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." + +In the dining-room Travis sat quiet and thoughtful. 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. + +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: + +"'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. + +"Let Spencer but die! + +"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! + +"It is brains--brains--brains that count--brains 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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +He smiled satisfactorily. He flecked some cotton lint from his coat +sleeve. + +"I have had a hard time in the mill to-day. It's a beastly business +robbing the poor little half-made-up devils." + +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 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. + +"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." + +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." + +Travis laughed: "Well--be sure you don't get that horse brand in +mine." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +JUD CARPENTER + + +An hour afterwards, Travis heard a well-known walk in the hall and +opened the door. + +He stepped back astonished. He released the knob and gazed half +angry, half smiling. + +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. + +The man was large, raw-boned and brindled, and he, also, walked in, +complacently and condescendingly. + +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. + +That was the man all over. Besides he had a small, mean, roguish ear. + +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. + +Jud Carpenter's eastern-eye looked west, and his western-eye looked +east, and the rest of the paragraph above fitted him also. + +The dog's pedigree, as his master had drawlingly proclaimed, was +"p'yart houn', p'yart bull, p'yart cur, p'yart terrier, an' the rest +of him--wal, jes' dog." + +Reverse this and it will be Carpenter's: Just dog, with a sprinkling +of bull, cur, terrier, and hound. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The very cheek of it set Travis to laughing. He closed the door and +said to the man who had followed the dog in: "Carpenter, if I had +the nerve of that raw-boned fiend that follows you around, I'd soon +own the world." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +As a man's eye, so is the tenor of his life. + +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. + +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--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. + +"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." + +He pulled out some mill papers and was about to proceed to discuss +his business when Travis interrupted: + +"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." + +He handed Carpenter a glass and each drank off his cocktail at a +quaff. + +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: + +"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." + +He went to the side-board and brought out a decanter of whiskey, two +goblets and a bowl of loaf sugar. + +He laughed: "Mammy knows nothing about this. Two cocktails are the +limit she sets for me, and so I keep this private bottle." + +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. + +"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." + +"'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." + +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?" + +Carpenter nodded. + +"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." + +"It's lots talked about," said Carpenter--"'specially the big race +an' purse you've got put up." + +Travis grew interested quickly and leaned over excitedly. + +"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." + +Carpenter nodded again. + +"But it's different with Col. Troup's entry. Ever been to Lenox?" he +asked suddenly. + +Carpenter shook his head. + +"Don't know anybody there?" asked Travis. "I thought so--just what I +want." + +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." + +"That'll be easy," said Carpenter. + +"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 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." + +Then he laughed ironically. + +Carpenter looked at him wonderingly. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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."---- + +"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 +thinking I'll not need Sadie B. Never run a risk, even a dead sure +one, till you're obliged to." + +"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." + +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." + +Carpenter again took his straight--his eyes had begun to glitter, his +face to flush, and he felt more like talking. + +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. + +Whiskey is the great leveler of life. Drinking it, all men are, +indeed, equal. + +"When are you going out to get in more hands for the mill?" asked +Travis after a pause. + +"To-morrow----" + +"So soon?" asked Travis. + +"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." + +Travis looked at him and smiled. + +"An' I've got to git in some mo' right away," he went on. "Oh, +there's plenty of 'em in these hills." + +Travis smoked for a few minutes without speaking. + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +"To the attic, you mean," said Travis--"where their old clothes are." + +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." + +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.--" + +"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--" + +"One dollar--you forgit, suh--one dollar's the reg'lar price, sah," +interrupted the Whipper-in. + +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--" + +"To be sho'," said the Whipper-in, meekly--"I did forgit--please +excuse me, sah." + +"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. + +"'N' the commissary," put in Carpenter quietly. "Excuse me, sah, but +there's a mighty good bran' of whiskey there, you know!" + +Travis smiled good humoredly: "Your wits are returning," he said; "I +think you understand." + +"I'll see him to-morrow," said Carpenter, rising to go. + +"Oh, don't be in a hurry," said Travis. + +"Excuse me, sah, but I'm afraid I've bored you stayin' too long." + +"Sit down," said the other, peremptorily--"you will need something to +help you along the road. Shall we take another?" + +So they took yet another drink, and Carpenter went out, calling his +dog. + +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." + +As he turned to go in, he reeled slightly himself, but he did not +notice it. + +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." + +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. + +"How are the horses to-night, Jim?" he asked. + +"Fine, sir--all eatin' well an' feelin' good." + +"And Coquette--the saddle mare?" + +"Like split silk, sir." + +"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?" + +Jim bowed and started out. + +"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." + +He was just dozing off when the front door closed with a bang. + +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, + + "Oh, Johnny, my dear, + Just think of your head, + Just think of your head + In the morning." + +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." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +FOOD FOR THE FACTORY + + +The next morning being Saturday, Carpenter, the Whipper-in, mounted +his Texas pony and started out toward the foothills of the mountains. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +The world knows not--cares not--for its tiny life is but a thread in +the warp of the great Drawing-in Machine. + +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 pain, to take their +places? + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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, Jud took it that Bonaparte had trotted all these +miles just to breakfast on this remnant of hound on the half-shell. + +In a few minutes Bonaparte's terrible, flashing teeth had them flying +in every direction. + +Jud promptly cuffed him back to the gate and bade him wait there. + +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. + +Jud stepped forward and bowed obsequiously. + +"How are you to-day, Majah, sah?" he asked while his puckered and +wrinkled face tried to smile. + +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. + +The man did not take the pipe out of his mouth. He did not even turn +his head. Only his two bleared 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. + +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. + +He was a good marksman even with spittle, and the dog fled, whining. + +Then he answered, with an oath, that he was about as well as the +rheumatism and the beastly weather would permit. + +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. + +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: + +"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 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." + +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. + +The brutality of war lies not alone in death--it is often more fatal, +more degenerating, in the life it leaves behind. + +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. + +Thousands of others found themselves likewise--brave hearts--men they +proved themselves to be--in that they built up their homes out of +wreck and their country out of chaos. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 the two years of +redemption under the Alabama law, but can a drunkard redeem his land +when he can not redeem himself? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"You've got two mighty pyeart gyrls here," at last he ventured. + +"Of course, they are, suh," snapped their father--"they are +Conways." + +"Ever think of it, sah," went on Jud, "that they could make you a +livin' in the mill?" + +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. + +"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." + +The Major drew himself up: "That's a family trait of the Conways, +suh." + +"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'." + +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 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." + +He sat down--he bowed his head in his hands. A glinty look came into +his eyes. + +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." + +"We,"--repeated Conway, and he looked at the man and laughed. + +Jud flushed even through his sallow skin: + +"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--." + +Conway scarcely knew how it happened that he signed--for Jud quickly +changed the subject. + +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: + +"Papa--luncheon is served, and oh, do come on! Mammy and Helen and I +are so hungry." + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE FLY CATCHER CAUGHT + + +As 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? + +In the South social standing is everything. + +To have the mill represented by a first family--even if brought to +poverty through drunkenness--was an entering wedge. + +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. + +"Light an' look at yer saddle"--came from a typical Hillite within, +as Jud stopped. + +Jud promptly complied--alighted and looked at his saddle. + +A cur--which, despite his breeding, is always a keen detective of +character--followed him, barking at his heels. + +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. + +"Won't you set down an' res' yo' hat?" came invitingly from the +doorway. + +Jud sat down and rested his hat. + +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. + +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. + +In all it amounted to sixteen dollars a week. + +"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 we've seed +this year. What do you say to tryin' it, Josiah?" + +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." + +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?" + +Jud looked indignant. It was enough. + +At the end of an hour the family head had signed for a five years' +contract. They would move the next week. + +"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." + +Jud, when he left, had induced their parents to sell five children +into slavery for five years. + +It meant for life. + +And both parents declared when he left that never before had they +"seed sech a nice man." + +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. + +"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 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. + +"Hello!" + +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. + +His pockets were miniature museums of nature. + +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. + +"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." + +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 expressed it, "had mo' fun to the square +inch than ole Barnum's show ever hilt in all its tents." + +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. + +"Hello, yo'se'f"--finally drawled Jud--"whatcher doin' up thar?" + +"Why, I am goin' to see if this is a wood-pecker's nes' or a +fly-ketcher's." + +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!" + +It maddened him, too, to see the supreme indifference with which the +all-conqueror's son treated his presence. + +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." + +"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. + +"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?" + +"Yes," said Archie B., "an' I also know a fly-ketcher will whip a +wood-pecker and take his nes' from him, an' I've come up here to see +if it's so with this one." + +"Oh," said Jud, surprised, "an' what is it?" + +"Jus' as I said--he's whipped the wood-pecker an' tuck his nes'." + +"What's a fly-ketcher, Mister Know-It-All?" said Jud. Then he grinned +derisively. + +Bonaparte, watching his master, ran around the tree again and +squatting on his stump of a tail grinned likewise. + +"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?" + +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. + +"What do you mean, you little imp?--what mill?" + +"Why his stomach," drawled Archie B., "it's a little differunt from a +cotton-mill, but it grinds 'em to death all the same." + +Jud looked up again. He glared at Archie B. + +"How do you know that's a fly-ketcher's nest and not a wood-pecker's, +then?" he asked, to change the subject. + +"That's what I'd like to know, too," said Bonaparte as plainly as his +growls and two mean eyes could say it. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"How did you learn all that?" sneered Jud. + +"Oh, by keepin' out of a cotton mill an' usin' my eye," said Archie +B., winking at Bonaparte. + +Bonaparte glared back. + +"I'd like to git you into the mill," said Jud. "I'd put you to wuck +doin' somethin' that 'ud be worth while." + +"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'." + +"I'm goin' up there now to see yo' folks an' see if I can't git you +into the mill." + +"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. + +"Now, come under here," went on Archie B. persuasively, "and I'll +sho' you they're not pearly white, like a wood-pecker's, but +cream-colored with little purple splotches scratched over 'em--like a +fly-ketcher's." + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +Jud's curses filled the air. + +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. + +Then something happened. Jud could not see, being down on his knees +in the little stream, washing his eyes, 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. + +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. + +Jud could scarcely believe his eyes--Bonaparte--the champion +dog--running--running like that? + +"Whut--whut--whut,"--he stammered, "Whut _did he do_ to Bonaparte?" + +Then he saw Archie B. up the road toward home, rolling in the sand +with shouts of laughter. + +"If I git my hands on you," yelled Jud, shaking his fist at the boy, +"I'll swaller you alive." + +"That's what the fly-ketcher said to the butterfly," shouted back +Archie B. + +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: + +"Whut--whut--whut _did he do_ to Bonaparte?" + +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: + +"Maw," she exclaimed, "I wish you'd look at Archie B. I bet he's done +sump'in." + +There was a parental manner in her way. Her one object in life, +evidently, was to watch Archie B. + +"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." + +Archie B. arose and went down the road whistling. + +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. + +A quarter of a mile down the road he stopped and listened. + +He heard his brother, Ozzie B., sobbing and weeping. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"He's caught my lickin' ag'in," said Archie B., indignantly--"it's a +pity he looks so much like me." + +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. + +"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?" + +"I--I--wanted ter do my duty," sobbed Ozzie B. "Maw tole me ter +drive--drive the cows right up the road--" + +Archie B. surveyed him with fine scorn: + +"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." + +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: +"_Venture pee wee under the bridge! bam--bam--bam!_" + +"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. + +"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." + +"What'll you do?" asked Ozzie B. + +"I'll make that mustang break his neck for the way he treated you, or +my name ain't Archie B. Butts--that's all. _Venture pee wee under +the bridge, bam--bam--bam!_" + +"No--oo--no," began Ozzie B., beginning to cry again--"Don't kill +'im--it'll be cruel." + +"Don't wanter see me go an' git even with the man that's jus' licked +you for nuthin'?" + +"No--oo--no--" sobbed Ozzie B. "Paw says--leave--leave--that for--the +Lord." + +"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." + +With this he kicked Ozzie B. soundly and sent him, still sobbing, up +the road. + +Then he ran across the wood to head off Jud Carpenter, who he knew +had to go around a bend in the road. + +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. + +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. + +Prut--prut--prut--it rang out clear and distinctly. + +"All right,"--he said--"she'll do." + +He had not long to wait. Up the road he soon saw the Whipper-in, +riding leisurely along. + +Archie B. swelled with anger at sight of the complacent and +satisfactory way he rode along. He even thought he saw a smile--a +kind of even-up smile--light his face. + +When opposite his hiding place, Archie B. put his call to his mouth: +_Prut--Prut--P-R-U-T_--it rang out. Then _Prut--prut!_ + +Jud Carpenter stopped his horse instantly. + +"Turkeys goin' to roost."--he muttered. He listened for the +direction. + +_Prut--Prut_--it came out of the bushes on the right--a hundred yards +away under a beech tree. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +It was a quarter of an hour before Jud, thoroughly tired and +disgusted, gave up the useless search and came back. + +Untying the pony, he threw the bridle rein over its head and vaulted +lightly into the saddle. + +Archie B. grabbed the clay-root and stuffed his wool hat into his +mouth just in time. + +"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 +_kersplash!_--an' the pony skeered speechless went off tearin' +to-ards home. Then I hollered out: '_Go it ole, fly-ketcher--you're +as good for tad-poles as you is for bird-eggs_'--an' I lit out +through the wood." + +Ozzie B. burst out crying: "Oh, Archie B., do you reckin the po' man +got hurt?" + +Archie B. replied by kicking him in the ribs until he ceased crying. + +"Say yo' prayers now and go to sleep. I'll kick you m'se'f, but I'll +lick anybody else that does it." + +As Ozzie B. dozed off he heard: + +"_Venture pee-wee under the bridge--bam--bam--bam._ Oh, Lord, you who +made the tar'nal fools of this world, have mussy on 'em!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE FLINT AND THE COAL + + +Love 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. + +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. + +They sigh and are engaged, and there is perfect understanding. + +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 around the earth in +latitudes which grow smaller as they approach the frozen pole. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +From old bureau drawers and cedar chests, stored 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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +Mammy Maria knew things by intuition, and hence her care to see that +Helen looked especially pretty to-day. + +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. + +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. + +She was a type of Southern beauty obtained only after years of gentle +dames and good breeding. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +Her forehead was high--her whole bearing the unconscious one of a +born lady. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +And so she stopped and stood amid it, waist high. + +The very act of her stopping showed the romance of her nature. + +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. + +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. + +Child of the air and the sky and sun; therefore, cotton--and not +corn, which draws its life from the clay and mud and decay which +comes from below. + +She had seen the first cream-white bloom come. + +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. + +Then had she plucked it. + +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. + +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. + +And in the midst of it the girl stood dreaming and wondering. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + + "One, I love--two, I love-- + Three, I love, I say. + Four, I love with all my heart, + And five, I cast away--" + +She stopped short and sighed--"O, pshaw! that was Harry; why did I +name it for him?" + +Again she looked impatiently up the road and then went on: + + "Six, he loves, seven, she loves, + Eight, both love--" + +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. + +She appeared not to notice him, and her piqued face was turned away +petulantly. + +It was a handsome boyish face that looked at her for a moment +mischievously. Then he seized and kissed her despite her struggles. + +For this she boxed his ears soundly and sat off on another rock. + +"Harry Travis, you can't kiss me every time you want to, no matter if +we are engaged." + +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." + +He laughed banteringly. + +"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?" + +She sat down by his side and looked fondly up into his face, flushed +with exercise and smiling half cynically. It was the same smile seen +so often on the face of Richard Travis. + +"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?" + +"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. + +"Well,"--he laughed--"she certainly has a fine back. I stole her out +and galloped right straight here. + +"You ought to own her,"--he went on flippantly--pinching playfully at +the lobe of her ear--"her name is Coquette." + +Then he tried to kiss her again. + +"Harry!" she said, pulling away--"don't now--Mammy Maria said I was +never to--let you kiss me." + +"Oh," he said with some iciness--"Listen to her an' you will die an +old maid. Besides, I am not engaged to Mammy Maria." + +"Do you think I am a coquette?" she asked, sitting down by him again. + +"Worst I ever saw--I said to Nellie just now--I mean--" he stopped +and laughed. + +She looked at him, pained. + +"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." + +He was feigning anger, and tapping his boot with his riding whip: + +"Well--kiss me yourself then--show me that Mammy Maria does not boss +my wife." + +She laughed and kissed him. He received it with indifference and some +haughtiness. + +Then his good nature returned and they sat and talked, watching the +sunset. + +"Don't you think my dress is pretty?" she asked after a while, with a +becoming toss of her head. + +"Why, I hadn't noticed it--stunning--stunning. If there is a queen on +earth it is you,"--he added. + +She flushed under the praise and was silent. + +"Harry,"--she said after a while, "I hate to trouble you now, but I +am so worried about things at home." + +He looked up half frowning. + +"You know I have always told you I could not marry you now. I would +not burden you with Papa." + +"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'--" + +"I understand all that," she said quickly--"but"-- + +"A long engagement will only test our love," he broke in with a show +of dignity. + +"You do not understand," she went on. "Things have got so bad at home +that I must earn something." + +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. + +"And so, Harry--if--if to help papa--and Millwood is sold--and I can +get a good place in the mill--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?" + +He sprang up from his seat and dropped her hand. + +"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?" + +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. + +Now the beams were gone, and it hung white and bloodless. + +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. + +For Nature is the one great metaphor. + +Helen knew that she and the cloud were now one. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +It was narrow and little, but it was all that could come into the +soul of his narrowness. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +There was a laugh on his lips and his foot was already in the +stirrup. "Sorry to be in such a hurry just now, 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." + +He threw her a kiss as he rode off. + +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. + +Nothing like it had ever come into her life before. + +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!" + +She sat on the rock again and looked at the sunset. She was too hurt +now to go home--she wished to be alone. + +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. + +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 buried her face there in the cool moss and cried: "Oh, and +I loved that thing!" + +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. + +In her despair she even plucked another cotton bloom from her bosom +as if trying to force herself to be happy again in saying: + + "One, I love--two, I love, + Three, I love, I say--" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +She sat and watched him and listened to the tap of his hammer half +sadly--half amused. Harry Travis 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. + +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. + +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: + +"You do seem to be very busy, Clay!" + +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. + +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 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. + +He shuffled along and sat down in a big brotherly way by the girl's +side. + +She sat still, looking at him with a half amused smile on her lips. + +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: + +"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--" + +"Of not finding me at all,"--it came queenly, haughtily from her. + +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. + +"You know I have always worshiped you," he said simply and +reverently. + +She moved up in a sisterly way to him and looked into his face. + +"Clay--Clay--but you must not--I have told you--I am engaged." + +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 coal from Walker County--clear through the carboniferous period, +and it is bound to crop out somewhere in this altitude--bound to do +it." + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +"If there's a queen on earth--it's you," he said simply. + +He reddened again, and to divert it felt in his satchel and took out +a rock. Then he looked across at the hills again: + +"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--" + +He looked at her again. He could not say the words. 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. + +"Clay," she said, "you keep forgetting. I say I--I am--was--" She +stopped confused. + +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!" + +"Then you"--he turned and said it fondly--reverently--"you should be +mine by right of--of love." + +She sighed. + +"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. + +"Under the heart of the flinty hill lies the coal," he said simply. + +But she did not understand him. She had looked down and seen Harry's +foot-track on the moss. + +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. + +"It is Mammy Maria," she said--"I must go. No--you must not walk +home with me. I'd rather be alone." + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +HILLARD WATTS + + +It 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. + +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. + +Such a man was Hillard Watts, the Cottontown preacher. + +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. + +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 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'." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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 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! + +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." + +No one ever doubted the honesty of his races. When the Travis horses +ran, the racing world knew they ran for blood. + +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. + +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 twinkle +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. + +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. + +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." + +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." + +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. + +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, but if he ain't got a damage case agin the +preacher that married him, then I'm wrong." + +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." + +Perhaps she was, and but for her the Bishop and his household had +starved long ago. + +"Furagin' is her strong point"--he would always add--"she'd made +Albert Sydney Johnston a great chief of commissary." + +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. + +"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 +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." + +"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!" + +"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." + +"He gits so busy at it an' seems so contented an' happy." + +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. + +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. 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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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 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." + +Hardened by poverty, work, and misfortune, she was the soul of +pessimism. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +WESTMORELAND + + +From The Gaffs to Westmoreland, the home of Alice Westmore, was +barely two miles up the level white pike. + +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. + +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. + +They stood shifting the bits nervously. The night air was cool and +they wanted to go. + +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: + +"Heigh-ho--my honies--go!" + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +Jim was duly penitent. + +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. + +"Sadie B.'s forging again. Didn't I tell you to have the blacksmith +move her hind shoes back a little?" + +"I did, sir," said Jim. + +"You've got no weight on her front feet, then," said Travis +critically. + +"Not to-night, sir--I took off the two ounces thinking you'd not +speed them to-night, sir." + +"You never know when I'm going to speed them. The night is as good as +the day when I want a tonic." + +They had reached the big stone posts which marked 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. + +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. + +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. + +Travis drove through the driveway--then he pulled up the mares very +gently, got out and felt of their flanks. + +"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." + +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." + +At the library he knocked and walked in. + +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. + +"Richard?" she said, rising and taking his hand. + +"Cousin Alethea--I thought you were Alice and I was going to surprise +her." + +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. + +"You will guess, of course, where she is," she said after they were +seated. + +"No?" from Travis. + +"Getting their Sunday School lesson--she, Uncle Bisco, and the +Bishop." + +Travis frowned and gave a nervous twitch of his shoulders as he +turned around to find himself a chair. + +"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." + +A sudden impulse seized Travis: "Let us go and peep in on them. We +shall have a good joke on Her Majesty." + +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. + +A small kerosene lamp sat on a table lighting up a room scrupulously +clean. + +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. + +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, save a patch of short white +chin-whiskers, and his big straight nose had a slight hook of +shrewdness in it. + +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...!" + +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. + +It gave one a feeling of the benediction of twilight. + +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. + +They spake indeed always thus: "Let not your heart be troubled.... +Peace, be still." + +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-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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +To own her--to win her! + +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. + +All the other passions in his face had settled into one cruel cynical +smile around his mouth--a smile of winning or of death. + +For the first time in her life she feared Richard Travis. + +"I must go now," said Alice Westmore to the old men--"but I'll sing +you a verse or two." + +The overseer leaned back in his chair. Uncle Bisco stooped forward, +his chin resting on his hickory staff. + +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. + +There were tears in the old negro's eyes when she had finished. Then +he sobbed like a child. + +Alice Westmore arose to go. + +"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." + +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 phrase of +speech, some word even that might not awaken in Alice Westmore memories +of the past. + +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." + +Then they slipped back into the house. + +Alice Westmore had stopped, smiling back from the doorway. + +"On what, Bishop?" she finally asked. + +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." + +"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." + +Bisco shook his head solemnly. "So have I--so have I. The older I +gits, the mo' I miss Marse Tom." + +"I don't like the way things are goin'--in yonder"--and the preacher +nodded his head toward the house. + +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." + +"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 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." + +"The last day of November--'64--" said Uncle Bisco, "I was thar an' +seed it. It was at the Franklin fight." + +"An' Dick Travis has loved her from his youth," went on the overseer, +"an' he loves her now, an' he's a masterful man." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Bisco--I'm--I'm ashamed--why should I doubt Him--He's told me a +thousand truths an' never a lie." + +"Praise God," replied the old man softly. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING + + +In 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. + +"I have been wanting all day to ask you about the mortgage," she said +to him, finally. + +"Oh," said Travis, indifferently enough--"that's all right. I +arranged it at the bank to-day." + +"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?" + +"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." + +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 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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +And the sacredest memory, at last, of life, lies not in the +handclasp of a coming joy, but in the footfall of a vanishing sorrow. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +From the day she had entered it as a bride, Westmoreland, throughout +the County, had been known as the home of Mrs. Westmore. + +She was proud of it. She loved it with that love which had come down +through a long line of cavaliers loving their castles. + +And now she knew it must go, as well as that, sooner or later, Death +itself must come. + +She knew Richard Travis, and she knew that, if from his life were +snatched the chance of making Alice Westmore his wife he would sell +the place as cold-bloodedly as Shipton would. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +For there is no poverty like the tyranny of that which sits on the +erstwhile throne of plenty. + +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 home, from its shining, polished furniture and old silver to the +oiled floor of oak and ash. + +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." + +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: + +"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." + +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. + +"Oh, how can we ever thank you enough?" + +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. + +"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." + +"Of course not," said Mrs. Westmore. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +A STAR AND A SATELLITE + + +An 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. + +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. + +Like all men who were impure, he made the mistake of thinking that +one day, when he wished, he could be pure. + +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. + +And thus she plods along in life, differing eventually only from his +mistress in that she is the mother of his children. + +In all Richard's longings, too, for Alice Westmore, there was an +unconscious cause. He did not know it because he could not know. + +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. + +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. + +She came over by the fire. Her face was flushed; her beautiful sad +eyes lighted with excitement. + +"Do you remember the first time I ever heard you sing, Alice?" + +His voice was earnest and full of pathos, for him. + +"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?" + +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." + +"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." + +"Tried to kiss you, didn't I?" + +She laughed: "That was ever a chronic endeavor of your youth." + +How pretty she looked. Had it been any other woman he would have +reached over and taken her hand. + +"Overpower her, master her, make her love you by force of arms"--his +inner voice said. + +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. + +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. + +"Do you know Browning's most beautiful poem?" he asked at last. His +voice was tenderly mellow: + + "All that I know of a certain star + Is, it can throw (like the angled spar) + Now a dart of red, now a dart of blue; + Till my friends have said they would fain see, too, + My star that dartles the red and the blue! + Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled: + They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. + What matter to me if their star is a world? + Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it." + +"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." + +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. + +"I know where your thoughts have been," he went on. + +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. + +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. + +"Your mother--you,--perhaps, had not thought of that--your mother +needs the rest and the care we could give her. Our lives are not +always our own," he went on gravely--"oftentimes it belongs partly to +others--for their happiness." + +He felt that he was striking a winning chord. + +"You can love me if you would say so," he said, bending low over her. + +This time, when his hand fell on hers, she did not move. Surprised, +he looked into her eyes. There were tears there. + +Travis knew when he had gone far enough. Reverently he kissed her +hand as he said: + +"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." + +"I'll go now," he said, after a moment. + +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." + +"Oh, no--no"--he broke in quickly--"I did nothing--absolutely +nothing--though I wanted to for your sake." + +"I'm so glad," she said--"we will manage somehow. I am so sensitive +about such things." + +"I'll come to-morrow afternoon and bring your mare." + +She smiled, surprised. + +"Yes, your mare--I happened on her quite unexpectedly in Tennessee. I +have bought her for you--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." + +The trotters were at the door. He took her hand as he said good-bye, +and held it while he added: + +"Maybe you'd better forget all I said to-night--be patient with +me--remember how long I have waited." + +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. + +He turned the horses and drove off. + +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. + +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." + +He tossed the boy a dollar as he drove off. + +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. + +Around it lay Cottontown. + +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 belonging to the mill, stood in the +shadow of the forest. + +Stopping his horses in the shadow, he drew out his watch and pressed +the stem. It struck eleven. + +He drew up the buggy-top and taking the little silver whistle from +his pocket, gave a low whistle. + +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. + +"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." + +She was satisfied to let her head lie on his shoulder. + +"They are beauties"--she said after a while, as the trotters' +thrilling, quick step brought the blood tingling to her veins. + +"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. + +"You do love me," she said at last, looking up into his face, where +her head rested. She could not move because his arm held her girlish +form to him with an overpowering clasp. + +"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: + +"Because, you could not make me so happy if you didn't." + +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. + +"Do you know I have thought lots about what you said last Saturday +night?" + +"Why, what?" he asked. + +She looked pained that he had forgotten. + +"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!" + +Travis said nothing. He had forgotten all about it. + +"One thing I wrote down in my little book when I got back home an' +memorized it--Oh, you can say such beautiful things." + +He seized her and kissed her again. + +"I am so happy with you--always--" she laughed. + +He drove toward the shaded trees down by the river. + +"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 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. + +She looked at him enraptured. It was the tribute which mediocrity +pays to genius. + +Presently they passed by Westmoreland, and from Alice's window a +light shone far out into the golden tinged leaves of the beeches +near. + +Travis glanced up at it. Then at the pretty mill-girl by his side: + +"A star and--a satellite!"--he smiled to himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A MIDNIGHT BURIAL + + +It 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +And so the very shadows of the trees grew uncanny to him as he rode +by them and the slight wind among them mourned _Captain +Tom--Captain Tom_. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Hands up, Hillard Watts!" + +The old man looked quietly into the muzzle of the revolver and said, +with a laugh: + +"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. + +"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' me if it was. In my business I have to be +mighty keerful," he added with a slight laugh. + +He came up to the saddle-skirt and held out his hand, half +hesitatingly, as he spoke. + +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. + +"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?" + +"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'." + +His voice choked--he shook with a suppressed sob. + +The bishop slid off his horse: "What is it, Jack? You hain't kilt +anybody, have you?" + +"No--no"--said the other--"it's little--little Jack--he's dead." + +The Bishop looked at him inquiringly. He had never before heard of +little Jack. + +"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 fine, brave man--an' I've wondered how sech a man's son +could ever do as you've done." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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'." + +"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--" + +He broke down--he could not say it. + +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. + +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 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. + +"Beautiful," he said--"Jack, you cudn't he'p gettin' relig'un here." + +"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." + +"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. + +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: "_Let not your +hearts be troubled...._" + +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 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. + +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. + +"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!" + +"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." + +"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." + +The old Bishop looked at him calmly. + +"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." + +"But I'm a robber--a thief"--began Jack Bracken. + +"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 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: '_Tho' +your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow!_' ... an' then +agin, _shall have life everlasting!_" + +"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. + +"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?" + +The outlaw nodded. + +"Why?" asked the Bishop. + +"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." + +"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." + +"That's mighty hard to believe," said the outlaw grimly. + +"But I've seed it done," said the Bishop. + +"Do you mean it?" asked the other. + +"As I live, I have," said the Bishop. + +"Then it's so," said Jack. + +"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." + +The outlaw sat mute and motionless, and a great light of joy swept +over his face. + +"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. + +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. + +Strong men are always strong--in crime--in sin. When they reform it +is the reformation of strength. Such a change came over Jack Bracken, +the outlaw. + +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." + +"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." + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +JACK BRACKEN + + +Jack 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. + +"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--" + +"A foe," put in Jack quickly. "Bishop, if I cu'd only forgive my +foes--that's been the ruin of me." + +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." + +"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 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." + +"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." + +"It turned our boys agin you, Jack." + +"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." + +The old man softened: "How was it, Jack? I knowed you was driven to +it." + +"They shot my father--waylaid and killed him--some home-made Yankee +bush-whackers that infested these hills--as you know." + +The Bishop nodded. "I know--I know--it was awful. 'But vengeance is +mine--I will repay'--saith the Lord." + +"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." + +"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." + +"My little brother--they might have spared him," went on the +outlaw--"they might have spared him. He tried to defen' his mother +an' sisters an' they shot him down in col' blood." + +"'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord," replied the old man sadly. + +"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." + +"It was awful, Jack--awful--God he'p you." + +"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. + +"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 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." + +"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." + +"I don't blame you," said the old man. "I've never understood it +yet." + +"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." + +He took a turn around the room, picked up one of little Jack's shoes, +and cried over it. + +"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." + +"Jack," said the old man suddenly aroused--"was that you--was it you +been puttin' them twenty dollar gol' pieces in the church +Bible--between the leds, _ever'_ 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?" + +The outlaw smiled: "It come from the rich an' it went to the po'. +Come," he said--"that's somethin' we must settle." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Modest and brave men have looked on low-bosomed women in the glitter +of dissipative lights with the same feeling. + +The old man gazed, silent--doubtless with the same awe which Keats +gave to Cortez, when he first looked on the Pacific and stood + + "Silent, upon a peak in Darien." + +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. + +"How much in all, Jack?" + +"A little the rise of one hundred thousand dollars." + +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." + +"With all our money we can't buy higher than our source, an' when we +go we leave even that behind," he added. + +"The world," said the old man quaintly, "is full of folks who have +got a big pocket-book an' a bac'n pedigree." + +"Do you know who this money belongs to?" he asked the outlaw. + +"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." + +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." + +"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. + +"That sword there"--and he pointed to the wall where it hung. + +The Bishop glanced up, and as he did so he felt a strange thrill of +recognition run through him--"It belongs to Cap'n Tom," said Jack +quietly. + +The old man sprang up and took it reverently, fondly down. + +"Jack--" he began. + +"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." + +"Cap'n Tom," repeated the old man slowly. + +"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?" + +The Bishop nodded. + +"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." + +The Bishop was silent, looking at the sword. + +"Well, at Franklin, when I seed Cap'n Tom dyin' as I tho'rt, shunned +by the Yankees as a traitor----" + +"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?" + +"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 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----" + +"An' whut?" gasped the Bishop. + +"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'----" + +"An' whut?"--asked the old man, grasping the outlaw's +shoulder--"Didn't he die? We've never been able to hear from him." + +Jack shook his head. "It 'ud been better for him if he had"--and he +touched his forehead significantly. + +"Tell me, Jack--quick--tell it all," exclaimed the old man, still +gripping Jack's shoulder. + +"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." + +The old man turned pale and his voice trembled so with excitement he +could hardly say: + +"Where is he, Jack? My God--Cap'n Tom--he's been here all this time +too--an' me awonderin'--" + +"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--" + +"In God's name--quick!--tell me--Jack--" + +"That's the worst of it--Bishop--when he found little Jack was dead +he wandered off--" + +"When?" almost shouted the old man. + +"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." + +"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." + +He fell on his knees and Jack stood awed in the presence of the great +emotion which shook the old man. + +Finally he arose. "Come--Jack--let us go an' hunt for Cap'n Tom." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +That is how, a week later, all the South was stirred 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. + +It ended laconically: + +"_An' maybe you'd better go an' do likewise._" + +The dim starlight was shining faintly through the cracks of the +outlaw's future home when the old man showed him in. + +"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. + +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." + +"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." + +"I remember him," said Jack. + +The great bloodlike horse came up and rubbed his nose on the old +man's shoulder. + +"Hungry, John Paul?" + +"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'--" + +"An' Cap'n Tom will ride him yet," said Jack. + +"Do you believe it, Jack?" asked the old man huskily "God be +praised!" + +That Saturday night was one never to be forgotten by others beside +Jack Bracken and the old preacher of Cottontown. + +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. + +An hour later she sent a boy with a note to The Gaffs to Harry +Travis. + +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. + +"What is it, chile?" she asked as she slipped from her own cot in the +adjoining little room and went in to Helen's. + +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: + +"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." + +"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." + +"But Harry doesn't love me--Oh, he doesn't love me," she wept. "He +would not give me up for anything if he did." + +"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." + +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. + + + + +PART THIRD--THE GIN + + + + +CHAPTER I + +ALICE WESTMORE + + +It 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. + +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. + +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 _arbor vitae_ 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. + +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 a dead love ran through everything Alice Westmore sang. + +And this made her singing divine. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +Both were of a romantic temperament with high ideals, and with keen +and sensitive natures. + +Their love was the poem of their lives. + +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. + +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. + +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 through the shower-cooled leaves +of that summer night, was accompanied by a mocking-bird from his nest +in the tree. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Where a woman's love is first given, that, thereafter, is her heart's +sanctuary. + +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. + +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. + +He went first to her, and the sight of his blue uniform threw Colonel +Westmore into a rage. + +"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." + +"Oh, Tom," said Alice when they were alone--"how--how could you do +it?" + +"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." + +"Your flag," said Alice hotly--"your flag that would overrun our +country and kill our people? It can never be my flag!" + +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. + +"Alice--surely you will not put me to that test. I 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." + +And that is the way it ended--in tears for both. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +"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? + +"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? + +"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." + +The young man wept when he read this--he was 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. + +It was an hour afterwards when the old General called in his +overseer. + +"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." + +He took up a lengthy document and read the last codicil: + +"_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 to me to the end, one-fifth being set aside for my +faithful overseer, Hillard Watts._" + +In the panel of the wall he opened a small secret drawer, zinc-lined, +and put the will in it. + +"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." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE REAL HEROES + + +The 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. + +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. + +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 might go on--faithful to +their trust though its success meant their slavery--faithful and +true. + +O Southland of mine, be gentle, be just to these simple people, for +they also were faithful. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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, 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. + +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. + +The interposition of the great-hearted Lincoln alone saved the young +officer from being shot. + +The yellow military order bearing the words of the martyred President +is preserved to-day in the library of The Gaffs: + +"_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_ + +"A. LINCOLN." + +Afterwards came Franklin and the news that Captain Tom had been +killed. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +FRANKLIN + + +But 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. + +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. + +They were General Jeremiah Travis and his body-servant, Bisco. + +"I have come to fight for my state," said General Travis to the +Confederate General. + +"An' I am gwine to take keer of old marster suh," said Bisco as he +stuck to his saddle girth. + +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. + +Just below them lay the little town in a valley, admirably situated +for defense, surrounded as it was on 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. + +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. + +Strange to say, on the high river bluff beyond the 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." + +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. + + "Just before the battle, Mother, + I am thinking most of thee." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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: + +"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. + +"Just put them on, Captain, if you please," said the rider. "I am +mounted and do not need them as much as you do?" and before the +gallant old Captain could refuse, he rode away for duty--in his +stocking feet! + +And now the battle began in earnest. + +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. + +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. + +Never did men march with cooler courage on more 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. + +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! + +But Hood's brave army never hesitated, never doubted. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +They saved the Union army! + +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 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. + +"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." + +Could Bonaparte's army have planted more on the ramparts of Mount St. +Jean? + +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. + +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! + +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 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. + +"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." + +"No! Sir," shouted back Hood. "Charge them out! charge them out!" + +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! + +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 +intervals along the breastworks, higher and higher where the +batteries were ablaze. + +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." + +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." + +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. 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. + +Ten minutes afterwards General Travis stood before General Hood. + +"General Cleburne is dead, General"--was all he said. Hood did not +turn his head. + +"My compliments to General Adams," he said, "and tell him I ask that +battery at his hands." + +Again the old man wheeled and was gone. Again he rode into the black +night and the blacker smoke of battle. + +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." + +"'Tis the fate of a soldier to die for his country," smiled the dying +soldier. Then he passed away. + +It was a half hour before the old man reached Hood's headquarters +again, his black horse wet with sweat. + +"General Adams lies in front of the breastworks--dead! His horse half +over it--dead"--was all he said. + +Hood turned pale. His eyes flashed with indignant grief. + +"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 +defended 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." + +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. + +"General Gist too, is dead," he said sadly. + +"Tell Granbury, Carter, Strahl--General! Throw them in there and +capture that battery and break that line." + +The old man vanished once more and rode into the shock and shout of +battle. + +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." + +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 Brown fell heavily; he, too, was dead. + +"What shall I do, General?" asked Cunningham. + +"Keep firing," said Strahl. + +Again Cunningham fired. "Pass me another gun, General," said +Cunningham. There was no answer--the general was dead. + +Not a hundred yards away lay General Granbury, dead. He died leading +the brave Texans to the works. + +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. + +"Granbury, Carter, Strahl--all dead, General," he said. "Colonels +command divisions, Captains are commanding brigades." + +"How does Cheatham estimate his loss?" asked the General. + +"At half his command killed and wounded," said the old soldier sadly. + +"My God!--my God!--this awful, awful day!" cried Hood. + +There was a moment's silence and then: "General?" It came from +General Travis. + +The General looked up. + +"May I lead the Tennessee troops in--I have led them often before." + +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! This was +something like the babel that greeted the old soldier's ears as he +rode forward: + +"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!" + +"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. + +"And this is the curse of it," said General Travis, as he rode among +the men. + +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. + +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, 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. + +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. + +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. + +Then the old rider spoke for the first time, and said simply: + +"Men, I have come to lead you in." + +A mighty shout came up. "It's General Lee!--he has come to lead us +in," they shouted. + +"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--" + +"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. + +"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 +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: + +"It's Old Hickory--my General--I have fought a good fight--I come!" + +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. + +"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!" + +"Old Hick'ry! Old Hick'ry, forever!" came back from the lines. + +Again the old sword came to attention, and again a deep hush +followed. + +"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!" + +"Old Hickory! Old Hickory!!" came back in a frenzy of excitement. + +Again the old sword came to attention--again, the silence. Then the +old man fairly stood erect in his 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: + +"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: + +"Fix, pieces!" + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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 or death--behind old Hickory! Either was honor +enough! + +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: + +"Charge, pieces!" + +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: + +"Ready!" + +"Aim!" + +"Fire!" + +And now it was nearly midnight and Schofield, finding the enemy +checked, was withdrawing on Nashville. + +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. + +"Ready!" he shouted as his gunners sprang again to their pieces. + +On came the column--beautifully on. How it thrilled him to see them! +How it hurt to think they were his people! + +"_Aim!_" 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. + +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. + +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:-- + +"The command--the command! Give it to us, Captain," shouted the +gunners. + +"_Cease firing!_" + +The gunners dropped their lanyards with an oath, trained machines +that they were. + +It was a drunken German who brought a heavy sword-hilt down on the +young officer's head with: + +"You damned traitor!" + +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. + +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. + +"O Tom--Tom, I might have known it was you--my gallant, noble boy--my +Irish Gray!" + +He kissed, as he thought, the dead face, and went on with his men. + +It was just midnight. + +"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." + +"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." + +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? + +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: + +"Lead me, Bisco, I'm too weak to guide my horse. Nothing is left now +but the curse of it." + +And O, the curse of it! + +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. + +But here is the tale of a severed link: About two 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. + +"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." + +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: + +"Brother's come home! Brother's come home!" Alas, she meant--gone +home! + +"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." + +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 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." + +The first was a splendid war-horse, dead, but lying face forward, +half over the federal breastworks. It was the horse of General Adams. + +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. + + * * * * * + +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. + + + + +PART FOURTH--THE LINT + + + + +CHAPTER I + +COTTONTOWN + + +Slavery clings to cotton. + +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. + +And they did no unwise thing, as the books of the company from that +time on showed. + +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. + +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. + +The factory was a low, one-story structure of half 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!" + +Around it in the next few years had sprung up Cottontown. + +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. + +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. + +All the rest of it was practical enough: Rows of scurvy three-roomed +cottages, all exactly alike, even to the gardens in the rear, laid +off in equal breadth and running with the same unkept raggedness up +the flinty side of the mountain. + +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. + +And thus Cottontown had stood for several years, a new problem in +Southern life and industry, and a paying one for the Massachusetts +directors. + +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. + +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. + +"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 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." + +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. + +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. + +"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, remember--don't forget yo'se'f and hold up anybody. I'll +expec' you to jine the church nex' Sunday." + +"I ain't been in a church for fifteen years," said the other. + +"High time you are going, then. You've put yo' hands to the +plough--turn not back an' God'll straighten out everything." + +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." + +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'." + +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 mill, never missing a minute and never speaking +a word. + +Nor had he ever looked any one full in the eye in his life. + +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: + +"Howdy do, Bishop?" + +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. + +"Wal, I declar, Bishop," grinned Bud, "kin yo' critter fetch a +caper?" + +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 _plunk_, the +half cup of tobacco juice that had closed up his mouth. + +He stepped back and said very sternly: + +"Whoa, Ben Butler!" + +"Why, he'un's sleep a'ready," grinned Bud. + +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." + +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." + +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 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! + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +BEN BUTLER + + +Bud 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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"Did you ever notice Ben Butler's eyes, Bud?" asked the old man, +knowingly. + +"Blind," said Bud sadly, shaking his head--"too bad--too +bad--great--great hoss!" + +"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." + +"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!" + +Then it broke gradually through on Bud's dull mind. + +He slapped his leg again. "An' him--his namesake--he was cock-eyed, +too--I seed him onct at New 'Leens." + +"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." + +"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. + +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." + +"That's bad," said the Bishop consolingly--"but you ortenter +aggravate her, Bud." + +"That's so--I ortenter--least-wise, not whilst there's any crockery +in the house," said Bud sadly. + +"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 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." + +"Great--great!" said Bud slapping his leg--"didn't I tell you so?" + +"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." + +Bud shook his head. "That's agin nature, Bishop." + +"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." + +"Never heurd o' Cap'n Tom." + +The Bishop looked hurt. "Never mind, Bud, you wouldn't understand. +But maybe you will ketch this, listen now." + +Bud listened intently with his head on one side. + +"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?" + +"One on 'em busted a plate on yo' head?" asked Bud. + +"Jesus Christ was a Jew, an' Cap'n Tom jined the Yankees." + +"Bud," he said cheerily after a pause, "did I ever tell you the story +of this here Ben Butler here?" + +Bud's eyes grew bright and he slapped his leg again. + +"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." + +"Good--great!" said Bud, slapping his leg. + +"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 it's 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." + +"Her daddy, old man Galloway, had a thoroughbred filly that he named +Kathleena for his daughter, an' she 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." + +"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--" + +"Buckled in the traces," cried Bud slapping his leg gleefully, at +this, his first product of brilliancy. + +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." + +"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'.'" + +"Did he say _damn_?" asked Bud aghast--that such a word should ever +come from the Bishop. + +"He sho' did, Bud. I wouldn't lie about the old man, 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. + +"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: + +"'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.' + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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. + +"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' up coupons on the future for tears and +heartaches an', maybe a gallows or two, an' a lot of uncomplimentary +talk of that kind. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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 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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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! + +"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. + +"Oh, I was heart-broke an' silly. + +"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': + +"'_To old man Galloway:_ + +"'_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._' + +"'(Signed) _Hillard Watts._'" + +The old man smiled, and Bud slapped his leg gleefully. + +"Great--great! Oh my, but who'd a thought of it?" he grunted. + +"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 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." + +"Well, it went on for a month, an' I got the old man's note, sent by +the sheriff: + +"_'To Hillard Watts, Wher-Ever Found._ + +"_'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._ + +"'_Jobe Galloway._' + +"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. + +"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." + +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.... + +"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' 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." + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +AN ANSWER TO PRAYER + + +Then 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. + +Ben Butler, unknown to either, had come to a standstill. + +The Bishop broke out in a cheery tone: + +"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. + +Bud grinned: "It muster been, '_Now I lay me down to sleep_.'" + +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." + +"No--Ben Butler is a answer to prayer," he went on. + +"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 +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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"How did he say it?" asked Bud, thoroughly frightened and looking +around for a soft spot to jump and run. + +"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 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! + +"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. + +"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." + +"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 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." + +Bud shook his head dubiously. + +"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. + +"From the very start Ben Butler was a wonder. He came with fire in +his blood an' speed in his heels. + +"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. + +"God gives us the tips of life, but He expects us to make them into +the dead cinches. + +"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. + +"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'. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Great hoss--great!" said Bud, his eyes sparkling,--"allers told you +so! Think I'll get out and hug him." + +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. + +"Now there, Bud," said the Bishop, consolingly. "God has spoken to +you right there." + +"What 'ud He say?" asked Bud, looking scary again. + +"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." + +"Who must you hug then?" asked Bud. + +"Yo' wife, if you can't do no better," said the Bishop quietly. + +"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. + +"Bud," said the old man sternly, "don't say that 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." + +Bud crawled in rather crest-fallen, and they drove on. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +HOW THE BISHOP FROZE + + +The Bishop laughed outright as his mind went back again. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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.' + +"'Will he be fool enough to do it?' he asked, as he looked the old +counterfeit over. + +"'Wait an' see,' I said. + +"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 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. + +"'Oh, Mr. Watts,' he said grinnin', 'how do you like a coal black +stump-sucker?' + +"'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.' + +"'Is that so?' said Jud, changing his tone. + +"'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. + +"'Indeed?' said Jud. + +"'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.' + +"'Do you mean it?' said Jud, solemn-like. + +"'I'll make a bond to that effect,' I said solemnly. + +"Jud went off thoughtful. In a week or so he come back. He hung +aroun' a while an' said: + +"'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.' + +"'Jud,' I said, 'I never did see two hosses look exactly alike. +You're honestly mistaken.' + +"'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.' + +"'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.' + +"'Do you still hold to that offer?' he axed. + +"'I'll make bond with my daddy-in-law on it,' I said. + +"'Nuff said,' an' Jud was gone. The next day he came back leading the +black, slicker an' hence no-counter than ever, if possible. + +"'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'.' + +"I looked the hoss over plum' surprised like. + +"'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 _match_ for the black, an' it peers to +me like you've gone an' bought the black hisse'f an' is 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.' + +"By this time you cu'd have raked Jud's eyes off his face with a +soap-gourd. + +"'What? w-h-a-t? He--why--I bought him of Dr. Sykes.' + +"'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.'" + +Bud slapped his leg an' yelled with delight. + +"Whew," said the Bishop--"not so loud. We're at the church. + +"But remember, Bud, it's good policy allers to freeze. When you're in +doubt--freeze!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE FLOCK + + +The Bishop's flock consisted of two distinct classes: Cottontowners +and Hillites. + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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 living had been laid, ere the frames had +acquired the strength to bear it. + +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. + +"'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." + +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. + +She was painfully frank and suffered from acute earnestness. + +And now, being marriageable, she looked always about her with shy, +quick, expectant glances. + +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: + +"Maw, jus' look at Archie B.!" + +This was a great cross for Archie B., who had been 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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +Instead of a clergyman's frock he wore a faded coat of 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. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A BISHOP MILITANT + + +No 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: + +"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." + +The old man smiled in humorous retrospection as he went on: + +"The first company of Christians I jined was the Hard-shells. I was +young an' a raw recruit an' nachully 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." + +This brought out visible smiles all down the line, from the others at +the Hard-shells and their custom of foot-washing. + +"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': + + "'Billows of mercy, over me roll, + Oceans of Faith an' Hope, come to my soul.' + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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' +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! + +"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! + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"But I jined 'em," went on the old man, "an' I'll tell you why." + +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. + +"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 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. + +"'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.' + +"I have never seed him sence. + +"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." + +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. + +"It was his church an' I jined it. This was his coat, an' so, let us +pray." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MARGARET ADAMS + + +There passed out of the church, after the service, a woman leading a +boy of twelve. + +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. + +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. + +Her's was a sweet face, with dark eyes, and in their depths lay the +shadow of resignation. + +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. + +She sat off by herself. Not one of them in all Cottontown would come +near her. + +"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. + +Mrs. Banks was very severe when the question of 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. + +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. + +The old man smiled, because he of all others knew the past history of +Mrs. Banks, the mistress of the loom. + +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." + +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." + +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. + +"Wood's-colt," sneered the boy in his ear, as he pushed him. + +"No--thoroughbred"--came back, and with it a blow which sent the +intruder backward on the grass. + +Several old men nodded at him approvingly as he walked calmly on by +the side of his mother. + +"Jimmie--Jimmie!" was all she said as she slipped into the church. + +"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. + +The other boy grinned good naturedly and walked off. + +To-day, just outside of the church Ben Butler had been hitched up and +the Bishop sat in the old buggy. + +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!" + +As usual, Ben Butler was asleep. + +"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." + +No other man could have taken Margaret Adams home and had any +standing left, in Cottontown. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"It _was_ Jack, then," she said simply--"tell me about him, please." + +"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. + +Then he told her what had happened, knowing that Jack's secret would +be safe with her. + +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. + +Within, she stopped before a picture which hung over the mantle-piece +and looked at it, through eyes that filled again and again with +tears. It was the picture of a pretty mountain girl with dark eyes +and sensual lip. + +Margaret knelt before it and wept. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +"What a beautiful horse he is riding--it thrills me to see it--I love +it naturally--oh, but to own one! + +"What a handsome man he is--and how like a gentleman he looks! I like +the way he sits his horse. I 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. + +"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--" + +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. + +But he did not notice her, and never before had she seen such a look +on his face as he said calmly: + +"Mother, if you will come to the door I will show you my father." + +Margaret Adams had already seen. She turned white with a hidden shame +as she said: + +"Jimmie--Jimmie--who--who--?" + +"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." + +He was too excited to talk. He walked up and down the little room, +his proud head lifted and his eyes ablaze. + +"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--" + +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. + +"O Jimmie--you would not--" exclaimed the woman rising and reaching +for it. + +"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." + +For a moment Margaret Adams was staggered. She only shook her head. + +He looked at her cynically--then bitterly. A dangerous flash leaped +into his eyes. + +"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--" + +She jumped up and seized him in her arms. + +"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. + +He looked into her eyes and saw all her suffering there. + +The bitterness went out of his. + +"I'll promise, mother," he said simply, and walked back into his +little room. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +HARD-SHELL SUNDAY + + +"This 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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"A hones' dram tuck now an' then, prayerfully, is 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.' + +"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. + +"My father tuck care of me when I was a babe, an' we're all babes in +God's sight. + +"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. + +"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 was nigh me an' I got behin' it. The Gineral +seed me an' he smiled an' sed: + +"'Oh, Bishop,'"--his voice fell to a proud and tender tone--"did you +know it was Gineral Johnston that fust named me the Bishop?" + +"'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.' + +"He laughed, an' the boys hoorawed an' he rid off. + +"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. + +"What is, was goin' to be; an' the things that's got to come to us +has already happened in God's mind. + +"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. + +"Elder Butts will lead in prayer." + +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 gorgeous set of whiskers and a +huge mustache. These now adorned his face. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The Hillites tittered and giggled. + +"Maw," whispered Miss Butts, "look at Archie B." + +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. + +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. + +"Maw," whispered Miss Butts, "Jes' look at Archie B.--he's climbin' +the stove pipe like Zacharias did the sycamo'." + +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. + +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. + +It was Ozzie B. of course, and Archie B. turned cautiously around to +the Hillites behind, after the Elder had gone back to his chapter, +and whispered: + +"_Venture pee-wee under the bridge--bam--bam--bam._" + +Throughout the sermon Archie B. kept the young Hillites in a paroxysm +of smirks. + +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. + +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. + +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--"_ah--ah_." + +When the elder had finished and sat down, Archie B. was sitting +demurely on the platform steps. + +Then the latest Scruggs baby was brought forward to be baptised. +There were already ten in the family. + +The Bishop took the infant tenderly and said: "Sister Scruggs, which +church shall I put him into?" + +"'Piscopal," whispered the good Mrs. Scruggs. + +The Bishop looked the red-headed young candidate over solemnly. There +was a howl of protest from the lusty Scruggs. + +"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. + +"With Baptis' propensities," added the Bishop. "Fetch the baptismal +fount." + +"Please, pap," said little Appomattox Watts from the front bench, +"but Archie B. has drunk up all the baptismal water endurin' the +first prayer." + +"I had to," spoke up Archie B., from the platform steps--"I et dried +mackerel for breakfas'." + +"We'll postpone the baptism' till nex' Sunday," said the Bishop. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE RETURN + + +It 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +He was evidently a demented tramp. + +But at a second look the Bishop started. It was the man's eyes which +startled him. There was in them something so familiar and yet so +unknown that the Bishop had to study a while before he could +remember. + +Then there crept into his face a wave of pitying sorrow as he said to +himself: + +"Cap'n Tom--Cap'n Tom's eyes." + +And from that moment the homeless and demented tramp had a warm place +in the old man's heart. + +The Bishop watched him closely. His tattered cap had fallen off, +showing a shock of heavy, uncut hair, streaked prematurely with gray. + +"What yo' name?" asked the Bishop kindly. + +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. + +"Where are you from?" asked the Bishop again. + +The man shook his head. He pointed to his head and looked meaningly +at the Bishop. + +"Can't you tell me where you're gwine, then?" + +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: + +"A-l-i-c-e"-- + +The old man turned quickly. Then he paled tremblingly to his very +forehead. The word itself--the sound of that voice sent the blood +rushing to his heart. + +"Alice?--and what does he mean? An' his voice an' his eyes--Alice--my +God--it's Cap'n Tom!" + +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. + +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. + +"Cap'n Tom, Cap'n Tom," he whispered--"don't you know me--the +Bishop?" + +The man smiled reassuringly and slipped his hand, as a child might, +into that of the old man. + +"A-l-i-c-e"--he slowly and stutteringly pronounced again, as he +pointed down the road toward Westmoreland. + +"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: + +"_Almighty Father, forgive me! Only this morning I doubted You; and +now, now, You have sent me po' Cap'n Tom!_" + +"You'll go home with me, Cap'n Tom!" he added cheerily. + +The man smiled and nodded. + +"A-l-i-c-e," again he repeated. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +Travis followed at a brisk gait: + +"Hello, Bishop," he said banteringly--"got a new boarder to-day?" + +He glanced at the man as he spoke, and then galloped on without +turning his head. + +"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. + +The Bishop was relieved. + +"We'll go home, Cap'n Tom--you'll want for nothin' whilst I live. An' +who knows--ay, Cap'n Tom, who 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!" + +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." + +"Why, it's Eph," said the Bishop. "Come on to my home, Eph, we'll +take keer of Cap'n Tom." + +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. + +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 as there were a +dozen other tots of her age in the factory, he had been forced to +acquiesce. + +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. + +He put her in bed at last and then slipped into Captain Tom's cabin +before he himself lay down. + +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. + +After that, day after day, he would sit out under the oak tree by his +cabin intently reading the dictionary. + +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. + +"For he's but a child--the same as little Jack was," he would say. + +"Put up yo' novel, Cap'n Tom," said the old man cheerily, when he +went in, "an' let's have prayers." + +The sound of the old man's voice was soothing to Captain Tom. +Quickly the book was closed and down on their knees went the three +men. + +It was a queer trio--the three kneeling in prayer. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE SWAN-SONG OF THE CREPE-MYRTLE + + +It was twilight when Mrs. Westmore heard the clatter of horses' hoofs +up the gravelled roadway, and two riders cantered up. + +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. + +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. + +Alice sprang lightly from her mare at the front steps. + +"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!" + +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 wonderfully correct saddle +gaits, flipping her ungloved hand with the gauntlet she had just +pulled off. + +Travis turned the horses over to Jim and came up. + +"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.'" + +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. + +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." + +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." + +She smiled: "You are too kind, Richard, always thinking of my +pleasure. A ride like this once a week is tonic enough." + +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. + +"I cannot imagine," said Mrs. Westmore apologetically, "what is the +matter with Clay to-day." + +"Why?" asked Travis indifferently enough. + +"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." + +Travis said nothing. At tea Clay was not there. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Was it symbolic to-night,--the swan-song of the romance of Alice +Westmore's life, begun under those very trees so many summers ago? + +They stopped at the gate. Richard Travis lit a cigar before mounting +his horse. He seemed at times to-night restless, yet always +determined. + +She had never seen him so nearly preoccupied as he had been once or +twice to-night. + +"Do you not think?" he asked, after a while as they stood by the +gate, "that I should have a sweet answer soon?" + +Her eyes fell. The death song of the crepe-myrtle, aroused by a south +wind suddenly awakened, smote her painfully. + +"You know--you know how it is, Richard"-- + +"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?" + +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. + +"Richard--Richard--you--I"-- + +"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." + +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. + +It was but a second and more a habit than thought--he who had never +before hesitated to do it. + +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. + +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. + +She let him believe she thought it was, and secured relief from the +incident. + +"Alice--Alice!" he exclaimed. "I love you--love you--I must have you +in my life! Can you not wear this now? See!" + +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. + +She had thrown back her head, and, half turned, was looking toward +the crepe-myrtle tree from which the faint odor came. + +"You had better go, Richard," was all she said. + +"I'll come for my answer--soon?" he asked. + +She was silent. + +"Soon?" he repeated as he rose in the stirrup--"soon--and to claim +you always, Alice." + +He rode off and left her standing with her head still thrown back, +her thoughtful face drinking in the odor of the crepe-myrtle. + +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. + +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. + +But, O mystic odor of the crepe-myrtle--O love which never dies--how +differently it grows and lives and blooms! + +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. + +O love that defies even the breath of death! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +O bloom of the crepe-myrtle! And none but a lover ever smelled +it--none but a lover ever knew! + +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--its very bark. + +She seized a bloom that had fallen and crushed it to her bosom and +her cheek. + +"O Tom--Tom--why--why did you make me love you here and then leave me +forever with only the memory of it?" + +"Twice does it bloom, dear Heart,--can not my love bloom like +it--twice?" + +"A-l-i-c-e!" + +The voice came from out the distant woods nearby. + +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.... + +When she awoke Mrs. Westmore sat by her side and was holding her head +while her brother was rubbing her arms. + +"You must be ill, darling," said her mother gently. "I heard you +scream. What--" + +They helped her to rise. Her heart still fluttered violently--her +head swam. + +"Did you call me before--before"--she was excited and eager. + +"Why, yes"--smiled her mother. "I said, 'Alice--Alice!'" + +"It was not that--no, that was not the way it sounded," she said as +they led her into the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE CASKET AND THE GHOST + + +Richard Travis could not sleep that night--why, he could not tell. + +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. + +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. + +At ten he had taken another toddy to put himself to sleep. + +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. + +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!" + +He arose and dressed. He tried to recite one of his favorite poems, +and it angered him that his tongue seemed thick. + +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. + +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. + +He walked out and down the long hall. + +The ticking of the clock sounded to him so loud that he stopped and +cursed it. + +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. + +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. + +He walked down the hall, rudely snatched the clock door open, and +stopped the big pendulum. Then he laughed sillily. + +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. + +He began to feel uncanny. He was no coward and he cursed himself for +it. + +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-- + +"I love you so--I love _you_ so!" + +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. + +He laughed and it sounded hollow to him and echoed down the hall: + +"How like her it looked!" + +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. + +On his writing desk Travis picked up and read the copy of the note +written to Helen the day before. + +He smiled with elevated eyebrows. Then he laughed ironically: + +"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! +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." + +And yet it was news to him. Wrapped in his own selfish plans, he had +never bothered himself about Harry's affairs. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +At the same instant there swept over him a nervous 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: + +"_Grandfather, forgive. I've come back again._" + +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.... + +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. + +"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." + +He opened the door and let in two setters which fawned upon him and +licked his hand. All his nervousness vanished. + +"No one knows the comfort of a dog's company," he said, "who does not +love a dog?" + +Then he bathed his face and head and went to sleep. + +It was after midnight when Jack Bracken led Captain Tom in and put +him to bed. + +"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." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A MIDNIGHT GUARD + + +Jack Bracken rolled himself in his blanket on the cot, placed in the +room next to Captain Tom, and prepared to sleep again. + +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. + +And so he lay and thought of his past life, and as it passed before +him it shook him with nervous sleeplessness. + +It hurt him. He lay and panted with the strong sorrow of it. + +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. + +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. + +Respected--his heart beat proudly to think of it. + +Respected--how little it means to the man who is, how much to the man +who is not. + +"Why," he said to himself--"perhaps after a while people will stop +and talk to me an' say as they pass my 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. + +"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'." + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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: + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +There is a moral sense within us that is a greater teacher than +either knowledge or wisdom. + +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. + +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. + +"Perhaps, I am near one of them now," he said--and he kissed the +spot. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE THEFT OF A CHILDHOOD + + +The Watts children were up the next morning by four o'clock. + +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. + +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. + +It was merely an appetizer. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +For a moment the little face was thoughtful--wistful--then she added: + +"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, '_Wake up, Pet! Wake up, Pet! +Wake up, Pet!_' An' then hear a little 'un over in another tree say, +'_So-s-l-ee-py--So-s-l-ee-py!_'" + +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." + +She laughed at the thought of it. But the other children, who had +dressed, sat listlessly in their seats, looking at her with +irresponsive eyes, set deep back into tired, lifeless, weazened +faces. + +"I'd ruther a rabbit 'ud wash his face than mine," drawled Bull Run. + +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. + +There was not enough of him alive to feel that he had been imposed +upon. + +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. + +They had scarcely eaten before the shrill scream of the mill-whistle +called them to their work. + +Shiloh, at the sound, stuck her small fingers into her ears and +shuddered. + +Then the others struck out across the yard, and Shiloh followed. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Oh, it can't hurt you, Shiloh," said her sister pulling her along. +"You'll be all right when you get inside." + +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. + +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. + +The companionship, even of fear, is helpful. + +Besides, the roar and clatter drowned everything else. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Early as it was, the children were late, and were soundly rebuffed by +the foreman. + +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. + +The fight between steel, steam and child-flesh was on. + +Shiloh, Appomattox and Atlanta were spinners. + +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. + +All day long and into the night, they must walk up and down, between +these two rows of spinning-frames, amid the whirling spindles, +piecing the broken threads which were forever breaking. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +_Snap--bang! Snap--bang!_ One hundred and twenty +times--_Snap--bang!_ and back again, went the deft little workers +pushing their cart before them. + +Full at last, their cart is whirled away with flying heels to another +machine. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +And in the Beast's body was a heart! + +Ay, and the man was a man--a trained gladiator--and he was nerved by +the cheers of thousands of sympathizing spectators. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Nine o'clock! Oh, she was so tired of it all! + +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? 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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--.... + +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. + +It was a rude punch and it hurt her side and frightened her. With a +snarl and a glare he passed on while Shiloh flew to her bobbin. + +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. + +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. + +God intended us to be happy, else He had never put so strong an +instinct there. + +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. + +Then it purred and paused for breath--purred softer and softer +and--slept at last. + +It was noon. + +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 turned, the +echo of the morning's misery sounded in her ears. + +And now they had forty minutes for noon recess. + +They sat in a circle, these five children--and ate their lunch of cold +soda biscuits and fat bacon. + +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. + +Silently, like wooden things they choked it down and then--O men and +women who love your own little ones--look! + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +_Was it--could it be? In very truth it was--_ + +_Dolls!_ + +_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._ + +_And she--never in her life before had she been so fortunate as to own +one...._ + +A smile lit up her dreaming eyes. _Rows upon rows of dolls.... And not +even Appomattox and Atlanta 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...._ + +_It was too cute--too cunning--! they were dancing and drawing her +in--they were actually singing-- ... humming and chanting a May +song...._ + +_O lovely--lovely dolls!..._ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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-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: "_Suffer the little children +to come unto me._..." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Their heads lay on his shoulders. They were asleep. + +Scarcely had the children eaten their supper of biscuit and bacon, +augmented with dandelion salad, ere they, too, were asleep--all but +Shiloh. + +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 flush on her cheeks and the unusual brightness in her +eyes. + +"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'." + +The old man did not reply--he only sang a low melody and smoothed her +forehead. + +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. + +"What's that, Pap?" asked Shiloh half asleep. + +"That's a cricket, Pet," smiled the old man. + +She listened a while with a half-amused smile on her lips: + +"Well, don't you think his spindles need oilin', Pap?" + +There was little but machinery in her life. + +Another hour found the old man tired, but still holding the sleeping +child in his arms: + +"If I move her she'll wake," he said to himself. "Po' little Shiloh." + +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. + +"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?" + +He bowed his head over the sleeping Shiloh. + +"Oh, God," he prayed--"You, who made the world 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." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +UNCLE DAVE'S WILL + + +The 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. + +"What's the matter, Archie B.?" asked the old man when he came out. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"Is they very pretty?" asked Shiloh, stopping and all ears at once. +"Oh, tell me 'bout 'em! I am jus' hungry to see 'em. I've learned +the names of three birds myself an' I saw a gray squirrel onct." + +"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." + +Shiloh's eyes opened wide: "Why, do they lay eggs, Archie B.? Real +eggs like a hen or a duck?" + +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." + +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." + +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 something was wrong in man's +management of things when little birds were free and little children +must work. + +As she ran off she waved her hand to her grandfather. + +"I'll fetch you another bunch when I come back, Pet," he called. + +"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. + +"The Lord will always provide, Tabitha--he has never failed me yet." + +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. + +"Hillard Watts has mistuck me for the Almighty mighty nigh all his +life. It's about time the blackberries was a gittin' ripe anyway." + +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. + +"Po' Davy is gwine--he's most gone--boo--boo-oo!" sobbed Aunt Sally. + +"Pap--Pap--don't leave us," echoed Tilly from the back porch. + +"Ow--wow--oo--oo," howled the dog. + +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. + +"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. + +The Bishop took in the situation at a glance. Then he broke into a +smile that gradually settled all over his kindly face. + +"Look aheah, Davy, you ain't no mo' dyin' than I am." + +"What--what?" said Uncle Davy between his sobs--"I ain't a dyin', +Hillard? Oh, yes, I be. Sally and Tilly both say so." + +"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." + +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. + +"Come to think of it, Hillard," said Uncle Dave after a while, "but I +believe you are right." + +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." + +"How come you to think you was dyin' anyway?" asked the Bishop. + +"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." + +"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." + +The Bishop laughed. "That warn't death on the back of a horse, +Davy--that was jus' wind on the stomach of an ass." + +This was too much for Uncle Davy--especially when Tilly and Sally +made it unanimous by giggling outright. + +"You et cabbages for supper," said the Bishop. + +Uncle Davy nodded, sheepishly. + +"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 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 +_In-the-Beginning-God-Created-the-Heaven-an'-the-Earth-Kinder_ 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'." + +"Makin' yo' will ain't no sign you're dyin'," said the Bishop. + +"But Tilly an' Aunt Sally both said so," said Uncle Davy, earnestly. + +"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." + +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. + +"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: + +"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?" + +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. + +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: + +"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." + +Then in a deep voice he repeated: + + "'The muffled drum's sad roll has beat + The soldier's last tattoo-- + No more on earth's parade shall meet + That brave and fallen few. + On Fame's eternal camping ground + Their silent tents are spread + And glory guards with solemn sound + The Bivouac of the Dead.'" + +"Now give me yo' will." + +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 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." + +Pitching his voice to organ depths, the Bishop read: + +"_'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--_'" + +Uncle Davy had lain back, his eyes closed, his hands clasped, +drinking it all in. + +"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." + +The Bishop read it again. + +"So happy--so happy--" sobbed Uncle Davy, in which Aunt Sally and +Tilly and the coon dog joined. + +"_'First,'_" read on the Bishop, following closely Tilly's pretty +penmanship; "_'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.'_" + +The Bishop paused. "That's a good idea, Davy--Givin' it back to its +Maker without asking any impert'n'ent questions." + +"_'Second,'_" read the Bishop, "_'I wills to be buried 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._ + +"_'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.'_" + +"David?" put in Aunt Sallie, promptly, wiping her eyes, "I think that +last thing mout be left out." + +"Well, I don't kno'," said Uncle Davy--"you sho'ly ain't got no +notion of marryin' agin, have you, Sally?" + +"No--no--" said Aunt Sallie, thoughtfully, "but there aint no tellin' +what a po' widder mout have to do if pushed to the wall." + +"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." + +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. + +At this point Tilly got up and left the room. + +"_'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--'_" + +The Bishop stopped and looked serious. + +"Davy, ain't you a trifle previous in this?" he asked. + +"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." + +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." + +"He's pow'ful sweet on Tilly," said Aunt Sallie. + +"Has he asked her to marry him?" asked the Bishop astonished. + +"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." + +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." + +"I never seed a man have a wuss'r case," said Aunt 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." + +"An' me?--I'll be the gran'pap of 'em--won't I, Sally?" + +"You forgit, Davy," said Aunt Sally--"this is yo' will--you'll be +dead." + +"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." + +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." + +"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." + +"All I've got to say," said the Bishop, "is jus' to watch yo' +son-in-law. Every son-in-law will stan' watchin' after the ceremony, +but yours will stan' it all the time." + +"_'Lastly,'_" read the Bishop, "_'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.'_" + +The Bishop witnessed it, gave Uncle Davy another toddy, and, after +again cautioning him to watch young Biggers closely, rode away. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +EDWARD CONWAY + + +Across the hill the old man rode to Millwood, and as he rode his head +was bent forward in troubled thought. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Like others, he had a great respect for the Bishop--a 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. + +The old trainer's influence over Edward Conway had always been great. + +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! + +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. + +"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." + +For Ned was always a boy to him. + +Conway was drunker than usual to-day. Things grew worse daily, and he +drank deeper. + +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. + +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." + +"Where are the babies, Ned?" he asked, after he was seated. + +The father called and the two girls came running out. + +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. + +The old man did not wonder at her sadness. + +"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." + +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. + +"She ain't gwineter be a bit prettier than my little Lil, when she +gits grown," said a voice behind them. + +It was Mammy Maria who, as usual, having dressed the little girl as +daintily as she could, stood nearby to see that no harm befell her. + +"Wal, Aunt Maria," drawled the Bishop. "Whar did you come from? I +declar' it looks like ole times to see you agin'." + +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. + +Aunt Maria had always been very religious, and the Bishop arose and +shook her hand gravely. + +"Pow'ful glad to see you," said the old woman. + +"How's religion--Aunt Maria," he asked. + +"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." + +The Bishop smiled. + +"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." + +The Bishop nodded. + +"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 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." + +"Pow'ful bad, pow'ful bad," said the Bishop--"and you three made +Zion." + +"We _wus_," said Aunt Maria, sadly--"but now there ain't but one +lef'. _I'm Zion._ It's t'arrable, but it's true. As it wus in the +days of Lot, so it is to-day in Sodom." + +"Why, how did that happen?" asked the Bishop. + +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." + +"But I mus' go. Come on, Lily," she said to the little girl,--"let +ole Zion fix up yo' curls." + +She took her charge and curtsied out, and the Bishop knew she would +die either for Zion or the little girl. + +The old man sat thinking--Helen had gone in and was practising a love +song. + +"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." + +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?" + +"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--" + +"That you sell your daughters into slavery," said the Bishop quietly. + +"You don't seem to think it hurts your's," said Conway bluntly. + +"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 +General"--he smiled--"she don't understand, she's built different." + +He was silent a while. Then he said: "I am old an' have nothin'." + +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. + +"If I only had my health," said Conway, "but this cursed rheumatism!" + +"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. + +"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." + +"Do you think I've got a show yet?" asked Conway, looking up. + +"Do I? Every man has a chance who trusts God an' 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." + +The old man was excited, indignant, fearless. + +Conway looked at him in wonder akin to fear. Even as the idolaters of +old looked at Jeremiah and Isaiah. + +"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. + +"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'." + +"He has done that already," said Conway bitterly. "He has turned the +back of His hand on me." + +"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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +HELEN'S DESPAIR + + +An 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." + +"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?" + +There was a sob and her head sank lower over the piano. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +An hour afterwards, dressed as only Mammy Maria could dress her, +Helen had walked out again to the rock under the wild grape vine. + +How sweet and peaceful it was, and yet how changed since but a short +time ago she had sat there watching for Harry! + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +"I hate--him--I hate him--and oh--to think--" + +She tore his note into fragments, twisted and rolled them into a ball +and shot it, as a marble, into the gulch below. + +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. + +Still she would read them two or three times and sigh and say: "Poor +Clay--" after every reading. + +"Surely there will be one this afternoon," she thought as she peeped +over. + +But there was not, and it surprised her to know how much she was +disappointed. + +"Even Clay has forgotten me," she said as she arose hastily to go. + +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. + +A cruel, dangerous mood came over her. It enveloped her soul in its +sombre hues and the steel of it struck deep. + +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 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. + +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. + +"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. + +"Why should I not dissipate in the misery of it, since so much of it +has fallen upon me at once? + +"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. + +"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." + +"Now!"--she gulped it down. "Now I am a common mill girl." + +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 with the bloom of youth, Richard +Travis had never before seen. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +He was smiling down into her eyes and repeating half humorously, half +gallantly, and altogether beautifully, she thought, Keats' lines: + + "A thing of beauty is a joy forever; + Its loveliness increases; it will never + Pass into nothingness; but will keep + A bower quiet for us, and a sleep + Full of sweet dreams and health and + Quiet breathing...." + +Even Helen could not tell how it was done nor why she had +consented.... + +"No--no--you are hot and tired and you shall not walk.... I will give +you just a little spin before Mammy Maria calls you to dinner.... +Yes, Lizzette and Sadie B. always do their best when a pretty girl is +behind them." + +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. + +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. + +She reminded him at last that they should go back home. + +No--he would have her at home directly. Yes, he'd have her there +before the old nurse missed her. + +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. + +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: + +"Sweets to the sweet, and good-bye to the three-minute class." + +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. + +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: + + "What thou art we know not. + What is most like thee? + From rainbow clouds there flow not + Drops so bright to see + As from thy presence showers a rain of melody." + +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." + +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." + +She started and looked at him quickly. + +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. + +Fearing he had said too much, he dropped his voice and with a twinkle +in his eye said: + +"For there is Harry--you know." + +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. + +"I hate him." + +"I do not blame you," he said. "I shall be a--father to you if you +will let me." + +He pressed her hand, and raising his hat, was gone. + +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. + +"To own her--such a creature--God--it were worth risking my neck." + +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: + +"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." + +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. + +"I have thought up a fable since I have been at supper, Cousin +Richard. Shall I tell you?" + +"Oh"--with a cynical smile--"do!" + +"Well," began Harry unabashed, and with many 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...." + +"'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." + +The smile was gradually changed on his face to a cruel sneer, and +Harry ceased talking with a suddenness that was marked. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE WHIPPER-IN + + +When the mill opened the next day, there was work for Jud Carpenter. +He came in and approached the superintendent's desk briskly. + +"Well, suh, hu' many to-day?" he asked. + +Kingsley looked over his list of absentees. + +"Four, and two of them spinners. Carpenter, you must go at once and +see about it. They are playing off, I am sure." + +"Lem'me see the list, suh,"--and he ran his eye over the names. + +"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." + +"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." + +Carpenter jerked his slouch hat down over his eyes and went quickly +out. + +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. + +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. + +While Jud dragged him, she carried a stick and prodded Bud in the +rear. Nor was she chary in abuse. + +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. + +But not a word did he utter--not even a grunt did he make. + +They halted as quickly as they entered. Bud's eyes sought the +ceiling, the window, the floor,--anywhere but straight ahead of him. + +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. + +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. + +Bud was really a good-natured favorite of Kingsley and when the +superintendent saw him, scared and panting, his tongue half out, +with Jud Carpenter's hand still in his collar, he motioned to Jud to +turn him loose. + +"Uh--uh--" grunted Jud "--he will bolt sho!" + +Kingsley noticed that Bud's head was bound with a cloth. + +"What's the matter, Bud?" he asked kindly. + +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: + +"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." + +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?" + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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'. + +"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 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." + +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--" + +She gasped--she clinched her fist. Bud dodged an' tried to break +away. + +"Told him I was a--a--heifer!" + +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." + +"But, my dear Madam," said Kingsley, "that was no reason to treat him +so badly." + +"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?" + +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. + +"An' you don't think that was nothin'?" she shrieked. + +"You don't understand me, my dear Madam," said Kingsley quickly. "I +meant that it was no reason why you should continue to treat him so +after he has suffered and is sorry. Of course you have got to control +Bud." + +She softened and went on. + +"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?" + +She shook her finger in his face again. Bud tried to run again. + +"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--_she devil_!" + +"It tuck two plates that time, Mister Kingsley--that's the time Bud +didn't draw no pay fur two weeks. + +"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 +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. + +"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." + +Bud needed no further admonition. He bolted for the door and was soon +silently at work. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +SAMANTHA CAREWE + + +But 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." + +"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." + +The mother looked at him sourly, but barred the doorway with her +form. Jud fixed his hard cunning eyes on her. + +"Cyant see her; I tell you--she's mighty po'ly." + +"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." + +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'." + +The door of the room in which Samantha lay was open, and in plain +view of the hall she lay with a look 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. + +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. + +Jud walked in unceremoniously. + +"What ails you, Samanthy?" he asked, with feigned kindness. + +"Oh, I dunno, Jud, but I've got a powerful hurtin' in my innards." + +"The hurtin' was so bad," said her mother, "that I had to put a hot +rock on her stomach, last night." + +She motioned to a stone lying on the hearth. Jud glanced at it--its +size staggered him. + +"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?" + +"What you been eatin', Samanthy?" he asked suddenly. + +"Nuthin', Jud--I aint got no appetite at all!" + +"No, she aint eat a blessed thing, hardly, to-day," said her +mother--"jes' seemed to have lost her appetite from a to izzard." + +"I wish the store'd keep wild cherry bark and whiskey--somethin' to +make us eat. We cyant work unless we can eat," said Samantha, +woefully. + +"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?" + +"Nothin'--oh, I aint got no appetite at all"--whined Miss Samantha. + +"Well, what did you eat--I wanter find out what ails you?" + +"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." + +"Ur-huh--" said Jud, thoughtfully--"of course you had to drink, too." + +"Yes"--whined Miss Samantha woefully--"two glasses of buttermilk." + +Jud elevated his eyebrows "An' for dinner?" + +"O, Lor'. Jes' cu'dn't eat nothin' fur dinner," she wailed. "If the +Company'd only get some cherry bark an' whiskey"-- + +"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." + +"An' some mo' buttermilk--it kinder cools my stomach," whined Miss +Samantha. "An' hog-jowl, an' corn-bread--anything else Maw?" + +"A raw onion in vinegar," said her mother--"It's 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?" + +"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!" + +They were silent--Miss Samantha making wry faces with her pain. + +"Of course you didn't eat no supper?" he asked. + +"No--we don' eat no supper Sunday night," said Mrs. Carewe. + +"Didn't eat none at all," asked Jud--"not even a little?" + +"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'--" + +"A few apples we had in the cellar," added her mother, "an' a +huckleberry pie, an' buttermilk--" + +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.'" + +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. + +"What's the matter with Willis?" asked Jud after he had come up. + +"Why, nothin'--" drawled the father. "Aint he at the mill?" + +"No--the other four children of your'n is there, but Willis aint." + +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." + +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. + +"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." + +He settled lazily back in his chair, and resumed his smoking. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +A QUICK CONVERSION + + +It 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. + +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. + +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 provisions sold to them at prices that would make a Jew peddler +blush for shame. + +The Bishop found entire families who never saw a piece of money the +year round. + +There are families and families, and some are more shiftless than +others. + +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. + +"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. + +"How old is she?" asked the Bishop, sitting down by the child on the +side of the bed. + +"We put her in the mill two years ago when she was seven," said the +mother. "We was starvin' an' had to 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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Biology teaches that many of the very lowest forms of life eat their +young. Is civilized man merely a case, at last, of reversion to a +primitive type? + +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. + +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. + +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." + +"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." + +"You do yo' washin'--I'll watch her. I'm a pretty good sort of a hoss +doctor myse'f." + +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. + +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 turn. It is the friction of life that moves it. And +movement is the law of life. + +Antipathies--thank God who gave them to us! But for them the shepherd +dog would lie down with the wolf. + +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." + +Carpenter glared insolently at the old man quietly reading his paper, +and asked satirically. "Wal, what ails her, doctor?" + +"Mill-icious fever," remarked the Bishop promptly with becoming +accent on the first syllable, and scarcely raising his eyes from the +paper. + +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. + +"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. + +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!" + +Carpenter smiled: "Wal, she ain't hurt--guess 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. + +"You sho'ly don't mean that, Jud Carpenter?" said the Bishop, with +surprise in his heretofore calm tone. + +"Wal, that's jus' what I do mean, Doctor," remarked Carpenter dryly, +and in an irritated voice. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Strike the other cheek, you coward, as my Master sed you would." + +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. + +"What else kin I do for you at the request of yo' Master?" sneered +Carpenter. + +"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." + +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. + +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: + +"Wal, I reckin you've 'bout converted me this time." + +"Jud Carpenter," said the Bishop, his face white with shame, "for +God's sake don't tell anybody I done that--" + +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." + +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." + +"I do think it 'ud be better, Jud," said the Bishop gently. + +And Jud pulled down his hat and slipped quietly out. + +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. + +It was bed time that night before the child finally whispered it +out: "Maw, did you ever see two men hug each other?" + +"No--why?" + +"Why, the Bishop he hugged Jud Carpenter so hard he fetched the bleed +out of his nose!" + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A LIVE FUNERAL + + +The 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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +Tilly looked reproachfully at Aunt Sally; Aunt Sally looked +reproachfully at Uncle Dave, who passed the reproach on to the dog. + +"There now," said Uncle Dave--"Sally an' Tilly both said so! They +both said I mustn't let him come." + +He gave the dog a punch in the ribs with his huge foot. This hushed +him at once. + +"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." + +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. + +"I'm sorry," said the Bishop, "but I'll have to rise an' put the +chief mourner out." + +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. + +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. + +What he wanted was a dead one. + +"Maw!" said Miss Patsy Butts--"I wish you'd look after Archie B." + +Everybody looked at Archie B., who looked up from a New Testament in +which he was deeply interested, surprised and grieved. + +The organ started up again. + +But it grew irksome to Miss Samantha Carewe seated on the third +bench. + +"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." + +"Let us trust that the Lord will have it so," said her mother +devoutly. + +Amid great solemnity the Bishop had gone into the pulpit and was +preaching: + +"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 we're goin' to do any good to our +feller man, let's do it while he's alive. + +"Kind words to the livin' are more than monuments to the dead. + +"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? + +"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! + +"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. + +"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. + +"An' there we are, right on the same footin' as the heathen an' don't +know it. + +"David Dickey, the subject of this here fun'ral discourse, was born +on the fourth day of July, 1810, of 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"-- + +"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 +_tollerbul_ good boy, _tollerbul_ 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." + +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." + +Then he began again: + +"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 +_tollerbul_ truthful"--went on the Bishop--with a look at Uncle Davy +as if he had profited by previous interruptions. + +"Tell it as it was, Hillard,"--nodded Uncle Dave, from the front +bench--"jes' as it was--no lies at my fun'ral." + +"_Tollerbul_ truthful," went on the Bishop, "on all subjects he +wanted to tell the truth about. An' I'm 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"-- + +"Tell it as it was, Hillard--no--filigree work at my fun'ral--" said +Uncle Dave. + +--"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." + +"Hillard Watts," said Uncle Dave rising hotly--"that's a lie an' you +know it!" + +"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." + +Aunt Sally and Tilly pulled Uncle Dave down while they conversed with +him earnestly. Then he arose and said: + +"Hillard, I beg yo' pardon. You've spoken the truth--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." + +"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--" + +"Hillard," said Uncle Dave rising, "I hate to--" + +"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: + +"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!" + +Uncle Dave very promptly subsided. + +"An' the only child he's had is the present beautiful daughter that +sits beside him." + +Tilly blushed. + +"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." + +"Now Hillard," said Uncle Dave, rising--"do you think it necessary to +bring in all that?" + +"A man's fun'ral," said the Bishop, "ain't intended to do him any +good--it's fur the coming generation. 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' _them molasses_ an' _I +wouldn't choose any_ when you're axed to have somethin' at the table. + +"Dave Dickey done all that. + +"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. + +"Come to think of it, an' that's about the way with the rest of us? + +"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 +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"What then is our little sins of the flesh to the big goodness of the +faith that is in us? + +"For forty years Uncle Dave has been a consistent 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. + +"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!" + +Uncle Dave was weeping: + +"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!" + +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. + +"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." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +JACK AND THE LITTLE ONES + + +No 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +"Come in, my lad," said Jack, laying down his big hammer. "What is +yo' name?" + +"Well, I don't know that that makes any difference," he replied +smiling, "I might ask you what is yours." + +Jack flushed, but he pitied the lad. + +He smiled: "I guess you an' I could easily understan' each other, +lad--what can I do for you?" + +"I wanted you to fix my pistol for me, sir--and--and I haven't +anything to pay you." + +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: + +"Now, son, she's all right, and not a cent do I charge you." + +"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." + +"To shoot rabbits?" smiled Jack. + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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?" + +The boy smiled--interested. + +"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?" + +"Only fairly--can you?" + +"Some has been kind enough to give me that character"--he said +promptly. "Want me to give you a few lessons?" + +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. + +"Good," said the boy smiling, and Jack handed him the pistol with a +boyish flush of pride in his own face. + +"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. + +"Do you suppose I could hit the string?" asked the boy innocently. + +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." + +"Oh, then I'll never hit below my mark. Let me try the string, +please." + +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. + +"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!" + +"Oh," said the boy, "I do nothing but shoot this thing from morning +till night. It was my great grandfather's." + +And from that time the two were one. + +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." + +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. + +"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." + +Jack laughed and said: "The little 'un ca'n't swim as well as he can +shoot, ma'am." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"And how I love you, Jack," she said simply. + +The words went through him with a fierce sweetness that shook him. + +"My God--don't say that--it hurts me so, after--what you've done." + +"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." + +"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'." + +"But," she said sweetly--"suppose it meant another to be despised, +reviled, made infamous." + +"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." + +"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." + +He turned bitterly and walked away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE BROKEN THREAD + + +For 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. + +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: + +"Sum'pins happened to Ben Butler," said Bud at last--and at thought +of such a calamity, he sat down and shed tears. + +His simple heart yearned for pity, and feeling something purring +against him he picked up the cat and coddled it. + +"You seem to be cultivatin' that cat again, Bud Billings," came a +sharp voice from the cabin window. + +Bud dropped the animal quickly and struck out across the mountain for +the Bishop's cabin. + +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 +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. + +"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--'_the thread--the thread is broken!_' +an' that's jes' it, Bud--the thread _is_ broken!" + +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--"_like little Jack--like little Jack_." + +The sun went down--the stars came up--but Bud sat there. He could do +nothing, but he wanted to be there. + +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. + +And still Bud sat outside, with that lump in his throat, that thing +that would not let him speak. + +Late at night another man came up with saddle bags, and hitching his +horse within a few feet of Bud, walked into the cabin. + +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: + +"No use, Bishop--better lay her on the bed--she can't live two +hours." + +Then he busied himself giving her some drops from a vial. + +"When you get through with your remedy and give her up," said the old +man slowly--"I'm gwinter try mine." + +The Doctor looked at the old man sorrowfully, and after a while he +went out and rode home. + +Then the old man sent them all to bed. He alone would watch the +little spark go out. + +And Bud alone in the yard saw it all. He knew he should go +home--that it was now past midnight, but somehow he felt that the +Bishop might need him. + +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: + +"_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 ignorance and the greed of the gold lovers. Save +little Shiloh, for You can._" + +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: + +"_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!'_" + +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." + +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: + +"Pap, sech a sweet dream--an' I went right up to the gate of heaven +an' the angel smiled an' kissed me an' sed: + +"'Go back, little Shiloh--not yet--not yet!'" + +Then Bud slipped off in the dawn of the coming light. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +GOD WILL PROVIDE + + +In 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. + +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. + +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." + +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 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." + +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. + +The problem which confronted the old man was serious. + +"O Jack, Jack," he said one night, "if I jes' had some of that gold +you had!" + +Jack replied by laying ten silver dollars in the old man's hand. + +"I earned it,"--he said simply--"this week--shoeing horses--it's the +sweetest money I ever got." + +"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." + +The old woman came up and took it gingerly. She bit each dollar to +test it, remarking finally: "Why, hit's genuwine!"-- + +Jack laughed. + +"Why, hit's mo' money'n I've seed fur years," she said--"I won't +hafter hunt fur 'sang roots to-morrow." + +"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." + +"How much?" asked Jack. + +"A thousand or two." + +"That's a lot of money," said the outlaw quickly. "A heap fur you to +need." + +"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 _man_, mind you, the _man_ he was +befo'." + +Jack sat up excited. His eyes glittered. + +"Then there's Shiloh," went on the old man--"it'll mean life to her +too--life to git away from the mill. + +"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." + +He felt a touch on his shoulder and looked up. + +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. + +"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." + +He pressed it tenderly. "Jes' you say the word," he whispered, "an' +in a few hours I'll be back here with 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. + +"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." + +Jack sat down, subdued. Then the Bishop pulled out a paper from his +pocket and chuckled. + +"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." + +"What is it?" asked Jack. + +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, _how can I get a little money to send Cap'n +Tom off to the Doctor_--an' also repeatin' to myself--'_The Lord will +provide--He will provide--_' I ran up to this, posted on a tree, an' +kinder starin' me an' darin' me in the face." + +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. + +"Race horse?--Why, Richard Travis wouldn't 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. + +"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: + +"'_Open to anything raised in the Tennessee Valley._' + +"Fine fun an' kinder sarcastic, but, Jack, Ben Butler cu'd make them +blooded trotters look like steers led to slaughter." + +Jack sat looking silently in the fire. + +"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!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +BONAPARTE'S WATERLOO + + +Bonaparte 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. + +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. + +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. + +Each successful raid of Bonaparte brought forth shouts of laughter +from within, in which Billy Buch, the Dutch proprietor, joined. It +always ended in Bonaparte 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: + +"Mine Gott, but dat Ponyparte ees one greet dog!" + +Then Bonaparte would reel around in a half drunken swagger and go +back to watch for other dogs. + +"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!'" + +Billy Buch laughed loudly. + +"Dat ees goot--goot--goot-bye, mine bac'n! I dus remember dat." + +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. + +His hair bristled with indignation. That little thing dividing honors +with him in Cottontown? It was not to be endured for a moment! + +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. + +"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." + +"The pretties' thing I ever seed," said Ozzie B., walking around and +staring delightedly. + +The crowd grew larger. It was a show Cottontown had never seen +before. + +Then two men came out of the bar-room--one, the bar-keeper, fat and +jolly, and the other lank and with malicious eyes. + +This gave Bonaparte his cue and he bristled and growled. + +"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." + +"Monk he noo 'fear'd ze dog," grinned the Italian. "Monk he whup ze +dog." + +"Vot's dat?" exclaimed Billy Buch--"Vot's dat, man, you say? Mine +Gott, I bet ten to one dat Ponyparte eats him oop!" + +To prove it Bonaparte ran at the monkey savagely. But the monkey ran +up on the Italian's shoulder, where he grinned at the dog. + +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: + +"Cover zees, den, py Gar!" + +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. + +The crowd cheered the Italian. + +"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. + +"Ve vill cover eet," said Billy, with ashen face. + +"We will!" barked Bonaparte, recovering his equilibrium and snarling +at the monkey. + +There was a sob and a wail on the outskirts of the crowd. + +"Oh, don't let him kill the monkey--oh, don't!" + +It was Ozzie B. + +Archie B. ran hastily around to him, made a cross mark in the road +with his toe and spat in it. + +"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. _Venture pee-wee +under the bridge--bam--bam--bam!_" + +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." + +Ozzie B. thought this was grand. + +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 asafoetida and a ten-dollar gold piece. The asafoetida 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. + +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. + +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. + +"Put this in for me, mister--an' make 'em put up a hundred mo'. I +want some of that lucre." + +The Italian was touched. He patted Archie B.'s head: + +"Breens," he said, "breens uppa da." + +Again he shook the gold in the face of Jud and Bill. + +"Now bring on ze ten to one, py Gar!" + +The cheers of the crowd nettled Billy and Jud. + +"Jes' wait till we come back," said Jud. "'He laughs bes' who laughs +las'.'" + +They retired for consultation. + +Bonaparte followed. + +Within the bar-room they wiped the cold perspiration from their faces +and looked speechlessly into each other's eyes. Billy spoke first. + +"Mine Gott, but we peek it oop in de road, Jud?" + +"It seems that way to me--a dead cinch." + +Bonaparte was positive--only let him get to the monkey, he said with +his wicked eyes. + +Billy looked at Bonaparte, big, swarthy, sinewy and savage. He +thought of the little monkey. + +"Dees is greet!--dees is too goot!--Jud, we peek it oop in de road, +heh?" + +"I'm kinder afraid we'll wake an' find it a dream, Billy--hurry up. +Get the cash." + +Billy was thoughtful: "Tree hun'd'd dollars--Jud--eef--eef--" he +shook his head. + +"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. "_If_ we lose--it's sorter like +sayin' if the sun don't rise." + +"Dat ees so, Jud, we peek eet oop in de road. But eef we don't peek +eet oop, Billy ees pusted!" + +"Oh," said Jud, "it's all like takin' candy from your own child." + +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. + +They came up and looked sorrowfully at the monkey, 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. + +"So han'sum--so han'sum," said Uncle Billy Caldwell, the squire. "So +bright an' han'sum an' to die so young!" + +"It's nothin' but murder," said another. + +This proved too much for Ozzie B.-- + +"Don't--d-o-n-'t--let him kill the monkey," he cried. + +There was an electric flash of red as Archie B. ran around the tree +and kicked the sobs back into his brother. + +"Just wait, Ozzie B., you fool." + +"For--what?" sobbed Ozzie. + +"For what the monkey does to Bonaparte," he shouted triumphantly. + +The crowd yelled derisively: "_What the monkey does to +Bonaparte--that's too good?_" + +"Boy," said Uncle Billy kindly--"don't you know it's ag'in +nachur--why, the dorg'll eat him up!" + +"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?" + +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 showing it around. A huge dog was shaking a +lifeless monkey and under it was written: + +"What Bonaparte Done To The Monkey!" + +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." + +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. + +"I've seed stranger things than that," remarked Uncle Billy +thoughtfully. "The boy mout be right." + +And now Jud and Billy were seen coming out of the store, with their +hands full of gold. + +"Eet's robbery--eet's stealin'"--winked Billy at the crowd--"eet's +like takin' it from a babe--" + +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. + +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: + +"Don't let him kill the po' little thing!" + +He could go no farther than the gate. There he stood weeping and +looking at the merciless crowd. + +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." + +In the laugh which followed, Jud yielded and Archie B. won the first +blood in the battle of brains. + +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. + +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. + +The crowd scarcely drew its breath as it saw the little animal +slipping across the yard to its death. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The champion dog was running! + +"Sick him, Bonaparte, grab him--turn round an' grab him!" shouted Jud +pale to his eyes, and shaking with shame. + +"Seek heem, Ponyparte--O mine Gott, seek him," shouted Billy. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Jud watched the vanishing cloud of dust going toward the distant +mountains. + +"My God--not Bonaparte--not the champion," he said. + +Billy stood also looking with big Dutch tears in his eyes. He +watched the cloud of dust go over the distant hills. Then he waved +his hand sadly-- + +"Goot-pye, mine bac'n!" + +The monkey came up grinning triumphantly. + +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. + +He was honest in it, but the crowd took it as irony, and amid their +laughter Jud and Billy slipped away. + +Uncle Billy, the stake-holder, in handing the money over to the +Italian, remarked: + +"Wal, it don't look so much ag'in nachur now, after all." + +"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. + +"Come, let's go, Ozzie B.," he said. "They ain't no man livin' can +stand too much heroism." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +A BORN NATURALIST + + +Archie 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. + +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. + +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. + +Ozzie B., pious, and now doubly so at sight of his brother's wealth, +stood looking over his shoulder: + +"It was the good Lord done it," he whispered reverently, as he stood +and looked longingly at the gold. + +"Of course, but I helped at the right time, that's the way the Lord +does everything here." + +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. + +"How--when, oh, Archie B.!" + +"-S-h-h--Ozzie B. It don't pay to show yo' hand 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." + +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." + +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." + +"Of course," said his brother, "but Ozzie B., when you bluff, bluff +bold; when you bet, bet big; when you steal, steal straight." + +Ozzie B. shook his head. Then he looked up at the sun high above the +trees. + +He sprang up from the log, pale and scared. + +"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--" + +He started off trembling. + +"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." + +But Ozzie B. only shook his head. "That's wrong--so wrong. The +Lord--He will not bless us--maw says so. Oh, I can't, Archie B." + +"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." + +"Maw said I was to allers do my duty. Oh, I can't tell him a lie!" + +"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." + +"Oh, I can't," said Ozzie B., trying to pull away. "I must--must go +to school." + +"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." + +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. + +"Oh, you're playin' for martyrdom again!" + +"There was Casabianca, Archie B.--him that stood on the burnin' +deck"--he ventured timidly. + +"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: "_Venture pee-wee under the +bridge--bam--bam--bam._" + +"There was William Tell's son," ventured his brother again. + +"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--" + +"How's that, Archie B.?" + +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." + +"Oh," said Ozzie B., "that's it, is it?" + +"Yes, of course; if a man don't look out for his own hide, whose +goin' to do it for him? Come now, ole man." + +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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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 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. + +"That settles that," he said to himself. "I thought they kept their +nuts in the same hole." + +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. + +"It's the Bishop an' the little mill-mites. I'll bet they've brought +their dinner." + +This was the one thing Archie B. needed to make his day in the woods +complete. + +"Hello," he shouted, coming up to them. + +"Why, it's Archie B.," said Shiloh, delighted. + +"Why, it is," said her grandfather. "What you doin', Archie B.?" + +"Studyin' squirrels right now. What you all doin'?" + +"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?" + +"No," said Shiloh thoughtfully. "Is they like them little jorees that +say _Wake-up, pet! Wake-up, pet?_ Oh, do sho' me the squirrel! +Mattox, ain't this jes' fine, bein' out of the mill?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +It was nearly sun-down when they reached the gate of the little hut +on the mountain. + +"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." + +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 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. + +"Won't you come in, Archie B.?" + +"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. + +"Why, what's the matter, Archie B.?" + +Archie B. rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I'm--I'm--thinkin' of +j'inin' the church, Bishop." + +"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!" + +Archie B. still stood pensive and sobered: + +"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?" + +"Tell me, Archie B., lad--an' I'll try to enlighten you in my po' +way." + +"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--an' the dorg +wus as mean an' bostful as Goliath wus--" + +"Archie B., my son, I'd a been fur the monkey, I sho' would," said +the Bishop impressively. + +Archie B. smiled: "Bishop, you've called my hand--I _wus_ for that +monkey." + +The old man smiled approvingly: "Good--good--Archie B." + +"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." + +"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--" + +"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!" + +"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--" + +"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!" + +"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." + +"An' you won, of course, Archie B., you won in a walk?" said the old +man breathlessly. "God was fur you an' the monkey." + +Archie B. smiled triumphantly and pulled out his handful of gold. The +old man sat down on a log, dazed. + +"Archie B., sho'ly, sho'ly, not all that? An' licked the dorg, an' +that gang, an' cleaned 'em up?" + +Archie B. told him the story with all the quaint histrionic talent of +his exuberant nature. + +The Bishop sat and laughed till the tears came. + +"An' Bonaparte went down the road with the monkey holt his tail--the +champion dorg--an' you won all that?" + +"All fur charity, Bishop, except, you know, part fur keeps as a +kinder nes' egg." + +"Of co-u-r-se--Archie B., of--course, no harm in the +worl'--if--if--my son--_if you carry out your original ideas_, 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. + +Archie B. slipped fifty of his dollars into the old man's hands. + +"Do you know, Archie B., I prayed for this las' night? Now you tell +me God don't answer prayers?" + +He was silent, touched. Seldom before had a prayer of his been +answered so directly. + +"Fur charity, Archie B., fur charity. I'll take it, an' little you +know what this may mean." + +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. + +"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." + +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--" + +"An' why I didn't go to school, helpin' you all in the woods," put in +Archie B. + +"Of course, Archie B., why of course, my son; I'll fix it right." + +And he scribbled a few lines on the fly leaf of his note book for +Archie B. to take home: + +"God bless you, my son, good-night." + +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-- + +"Walk in, Mister Gambler, Mr. Hookey--walk in--paw is waitin' fur +you," she said, smirking. + +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. + +"Pull off yo' coat, Archie B.," said the Deacon, "I'm gwinter lick +you fur gamblin'." + +"Pull off yo' coat, Archie B.," said his mother, "I'm goin' to lick +you fur playin' hookey." + +"Pull it off, Archie B.," said his sister bossily, "I'm goin' to +stan' by an' see." + +Archie B. pulled off his coat deliberately. + +"That's all right," he said, "Many a man has been licked befo' fur +bein' on the Lord's side." + +"You mean to tell me, Archie B. Butts, you bet on a dorg fight sho' +nuff," said his father, nervously handling his hickories. + +"An' played hookey?" chimed in his mother. + +"Tell it, Archie B., tell the truth an' shame the devil," mocked +Patsy. + +"Yes, I done all that--fur charity," he said boldly, and with a +victorious ring in his voice. + +"Did you put up that ten dollars yo' Granny lef' you?" screamed his +mother. + +"Did you dare, Archie B.," said Patsy. + +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." + +Archie B. replied by running his hand deep down into his pocket and +bringing up a handful of gold--five eagles! + +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:-- + +"One--two--three--fo'--five--an' all gold--my gracious, Maw!" + +"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." + +The Deacon read it and rubbed his chin thoughtfully: "That's a +different thing," he said after a while. "Entirely different +proposition, my son." + +"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." + +"Put on yo' coat, my son," said the Deacon gently. + +"Patsy, fetch him in the hot waffles an' syrup--the lad 'pears to be +a leetle tired," said his mother. + +"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." + +"None," said Archie B., as he put his two pieces of gold under his +pillow. + +"I can't see why that was," wailed Ozzie B. "I done nothin' +an'--an'--got all--all--the--lickin'!" + +"You jes' reaped my whirlwind," sneered his brother--"All fools do!" + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +BEN BUTLER'S LAST RACE + + +It was the last afternoon of the fair, and the great race was to come +off at three o'clock. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Five hundred dollars was considered a large purse, but this race was +three thousand! + +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. + +And to-day it was given to see which one, of three rich men, owned +the best horse. + +No wonder that everybody for miles around was there. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The starting-judge clanged his bell, but the drivers, being +gentlemen, were heedless of rules and drove on around still warming +up. + +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. + +As he drove demurely on the track, he lifted quaintly and stiffly his +old hat and smiled. + +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! + +"Bud Billings a swipe!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The old man had not been training him on the sandy stretches of Sand +Mountain for nothing. + +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. + +The starter laughed as he recovered himself, and winking at the +others, asked: + +"What's this for, old man?" + +"Oh, jes' thought I'd j'ine in--" smiling. + +"Why, you can't do it. What's your authority?" + +The Bishop ran his hand in his pocket, while Bud held Ben Butler's +head and kept saying with comical seriousness: "Whoa--whoa, sah!" + +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. + +"Jes' read it," said the old driver, "an' see if I ain't under the +conditions." + +The starting judge read: "_Open to the Tennessee Valley--trot or +pace. Parties entering, other than the match makers, to pay fifty +dollars at the wire._" + +"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. + +The audience took it in and began to shout: "Let him in! Let him in! +It's fair!" + +But others felt outraged and shouted back: "No--put him out! Put him +out!" + +The starting judge clanged his bell again, and the other three +starters came up. + +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. + +"It's preposterous!--it will make the race a farce. We're out for +blood and that purse. This is no comedy," he said. + +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." + +"It's here in black and white, Travis," said the starter, "You made +it yourself." + +"Oh, hell," said Travis hotly, "that was mere form and to satisfy the +Valley. I thought the entrance fee would bar any outsider." + +"But it didn't," said the Judge, "and you know the rules." + +"Let him start, let the Hill-Billy start!" shouted the crowd, and +then there was a tumult of hisses, groans and cat-calls. + +Then it was passed from mouth to mouth that it was the old Cottontown +preacher, and the excitement grew intense. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"If that's so," shouted two young fellows who were listening, and who +were partisans of Flecker of Tennessee, "if that's the way of it, +we'll go over and take a hand in seeing that he has fair play." + +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. + +"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!" + +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?" + +"No," smiled the Bishop--"an' I 'spec you will. Why, the old hoss +ain't raced in ten years." + +"Oh, say, I thought you were going to say twenty," laughed Flecker. + +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. + +It was enough. It was ten minutes before he could lift up his arm at +all; it felt dead. + +"Don't hurt nobody, Jack," whispered the old man, "be keerful." + +The crowd were for the old man. They still shouted--"Fair play, fair +play--let him start," and they came thronging and crowding on the +track. + +"Clear the track," cried the starting-judge to a deputy sheriff in +charge--"I'll let him start." + +This set the crowd in a roar. + +"Square man," they yelled--"Square man!" + +Travis bit his lips and swore. + +"Why, damn him," he said, "we'll lose him the first heat. I'll shut +him out myself." + +"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. + +And now the track was cleared--the grand stand hummed and buzzed with +excitement. + +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-- + +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: + +"Worth ten dollars to see it!" + +"Wouldn't take a hoss for the sight!" + +"If he _did_ happen to beat that trio of sports!" + +"Boss, it's gwinter to be a hoss race from wire to wire!" + +"Oh, pshaw! one heat of fun--they'll shut him out!" + +In heart, the sympathy of the crowd was all with the old preacher. + +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: + +"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--(_Clang--clang--clang_). 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. +(_Clang!--Clang!_) Slow there--heh--heh--Steady--ah-h!" + +_Clang--clang-clang!_ vigorously. The starter was calling them back. + +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! + +The crowd jeered and roared with laughter. + +"He'll never get off!" + +"He's screwed there--fetch a screw driver!" + +"Pad his head, he'll fall on it nex'!" + +"Go back, gentlemen, go back," shouted the starter, "and try again. +The old pacer was on a break"--_Clang--clang--clang!_ and he jerked +his bell vigorously. + +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?" + +"Because I am starting these horses by the rules, Mr. Travis. I know +my business," said the starter hotly. + +Col. Troup was blue in the face with rage. + +Flecker laughed. + +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. + +"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!" + +_Clang--clang--clang!_ + +This time it was Col. Troup's mare. She broke just at the wire. + +"She saved us that time, Ben Butler. We wus two rods behind--" + +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 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. + +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. + +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: "_Shiloh--Cap'n +Tom--Steady, old hoss!_" + +"Go!" + +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. + +"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 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!" + +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. + +The crowd met the old pacer with a yell of delight. He had not been +shut out--marvel of marvels! + +It was getting interesting indeed. + +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. + +"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. + +The old man looked at the summary the judges had hung up. It was: + +_1st Heat:_ _Trumps, 1st_; _Lizzette, 2nd_; _Ben Butler, 3rd_; +_Trombine distanced._ _Time_, 2:17-1/2. + +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: + +"A most unprofessional thing, gentlemen,--damned 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." + +"What!" said Flecker excitedly--"you, Col'nel? Shut out--why, I +thought it was the old pacer." + +"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!" + +"It was me, sah, me! damned unprofessional, sah; my mare throwed a +boot!" + +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!" + +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!" + +And that was how the old man drew first blood and came out in a new +sulky and harness. + +How proud Ben Butler seemed to feel! How much lighter and how +smoothly it ran! + +They got the word at the first score, Trumps and Lizzette going at it +hammer and tongs--Ben Butler, as usual, trailing. + +The old man sat pale and ashy, but driving like the born reinsman +that he was. + +"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!" + +And the grand-stand was cheering again, and as the old man rode up +the judges hung out: + +_2nd Heat:_ _Trumps, 1st_; _Lizzette, 2nd_; _Ben Butler, 3rd._ +_Time_, 2:15-1/2. + +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?" + +His heart beat wildly. For the first time he began to hope. + +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. + +"Trumps is done fur, Ben Butler, but Lizzette--what will Travis +do?--Ah, ole hoss, we're up ag'in it!" + +It was too true, as the next heat proved. Away Trumps and Lizzette +went, forgetful of all else, while the old man trailed behind, +talking to, soothing, coaxing the old horse and driving him as only a +master could. + +"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--" + +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. + +Lizzette had won the heat. The judge hung out: + +_3rd Heat:_ _Lizzette, 1st_; _Ben Butler, 2nd_; _Trumps distanced._ +_Time_, 2:20. + +Lizzette had won, but the crowd had begun to see. + +"The old pacer--the old pacer!"--they yelled. + +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!" + +The Bishop was pale to the roots of his hair when he got out of the +sulky. + +"Great hoss! great! great!" yelled Bud as he trotted along bringing +the blanket. + +The old man bowed his head in the sulky-seat, a moment, amid the +crash of the band and the noise of the crowd: + +"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--" + +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. + +"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." + +"Yes, sah, Flecker is right. Travis is yo' meat, sah," said the +Colonel, solemnly. + +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. + +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. + +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, 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. + +"GO!" + +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. + +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. + +"The flag--now--ole hoss--for Jesus' sake!--" + +He reached out in the old way, lifted his horse by sheer great force +and fairly flung him ahead!-- + +"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! + +"Oh, God bless you, Ben Butler!--" + +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 great crises cause us to see the trifles on which often the +destiny of our life hangs? + +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. + +"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'!" + +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." + +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: + +_4th Heat:_ _Ben Butler, 1st_; _Lizzette, 2nd._ _Time_, 2:19-1/2. + +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. + +Oh, it was glorious--glorious! + +"Oh, by gad, sah," shouted Col. Troup, pompously. "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!" + +Flecker and the Tennesseans took drinks and shouted themselves +hoarse. + +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." + +The Colonel looked at him, puzzled. + +"Why?" + +"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." + +"What's it got to do with the race, sah! There is no bar to age. Have +you any susp--" + +"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--" + +Colonel Troup smiled and walked off. In a short while he sauntered +carelessly back: + +"Fo' sah, she was fo' years old this last spring." + +"Thank ye, Col'nel!" + +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 please, you've earned the privilege. It's yo' walk +over an' yo' money." + +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: + +_5th Heat:_ _Ben Butler, 1st_; _Lizzette, 2nd._ _Time_, 2:24. + +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. + +"Take the full twenty minutes to cool her, Jim." + +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. + +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. + +He was met by a protest of feminine raillery: "Oh, our gloves, our +candy! Oh, Mr. Travis, to get beat that way!" + +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!" + +"Oh--oh," they laughed. "No--no-o! We've seen enough!" + +Travis smiled and walked off. He turned at the gate and threw them +back a bantering kiss. + +"You'll see--" was all he said. + +The old man spent the twenty minutes helping to rub off Ben Butler. + +"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. + +Then he laughed to himself. It vexed him, for it was half hysterical +and he kept saying over to himself: + + "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty-- + All Thy works shall praise Thy name, in earth and sky and sea; + Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty--" + +Some one touched his arm. It was Jack: "Bishop, Bishop, time's up! +We're ready. Do you hear the bell clanging?" + +The Bishop nodded, dazed: + +"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!" + +He had gone to the old man's saddle bags, and brought out his ancient +flask. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +The old man smiled sadly as if he pitied Jack. Then he repeated +slowly: + + "Holy, holy, holy, all the saints adore Thee + Castin' down their golden crowns around the glassy sea; + Cherubim an' Seraphim, fallin' down before Thee + Which wert an' art, an' ever more shall be." + +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!" + + "Castin' down their golden crowns around the glassy sea!" + +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. + +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. + +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 like a red demon flitted always just +before him, a thing with tendons of steel and feet of fire. + +"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!" + +And still before him flew the red thing with wings. + +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-- + +"Steady, Ben Butler, don't--oh--" + +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. + +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. + +A perfect tornado of hisses met Travis at the grand-stand. + +But he had won the heat! What did he care? He could scarcely stop his +mare. She seemed like a bird and as fresh. He pulled her double to +make her turn and come back after winning, and as she came she still +fought the bit. + +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. + +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! + +In an instant he knew--his heart sank, "We're robbed, Cap'n +Tom--Shiloh--my God!" + +Travis drove smilingly back, amid hisses and cheers and the +fluttering of ladies' handkerchiefs in the boxes. + +"How about the gloves and candy now?" he called to them with his cap +in his hand. + +Above the judges had hung out: + +_6th Heat:_ _Lizzette, 1st_; _Ben Butler, 2nd._ _Time_, 2:14. + +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." + +"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"-- + +Flecker groaned: "We're gone, Colonel--one thousand we put up and the +one we hedged with." + +"By gad, sah, but, Flecker, don't you think Lizzette went smoother +that last heat? She had a different stride, a different gait." + +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--" + +The Colonel smiled: "Damn such gentlemen, sah. They're a new breed to +me." + +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. + +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! + +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!" + +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. + +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." + +"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?" + +The Colonel turned red: "What do you mean, sah?" + +"Swear it, swear it, on yo' honor as a gentleman--" + +"On my honor as a gentleman, sah? I swear it." + +"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." + +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. + +"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 dollars at stake, and--and clean sport, sah,--clean sport. +Give me back my word." + +"Sit down," said the old man quietly. + +The Colonel sat down so still that it was painful. He was calm but +the Bishop saw how hard the fight was. + +Then the old man broke out: "I can't--O God, I can't! I can't _make_ +a character, why should I _take_ 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." + +"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." + +"But I ain't gwine to give it back," smiled the old man. + +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!" + +"Cap'n Tom an' Shiloh, too"--winced the old man. "But I forgot--you +don't kno'--yes"--and he 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!" + +Colonel Troup arose disgusted--hot. "What do you mean, old man. Are +you crazy, sah? Give me back my word--" + +"Wait--no--no," said the Bishop. "Col'nel, you're a man of yo' +word--wait!" + +And he arose and was gone. + +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. + +There was no way, and he went off to take a drink. + +Bud, the tears running down his cheeks--was rubbing Ben Butler down, +and saying: "Great hoss--great hoss!" + +Of all, he and the Bishop had not given up. + +"I'm afeard we'll have to give it up, Bishop," said Jack. + +"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." + +Then he thought a moment: "Fetch me some cotton." + +He took it and carefully packed it in the old horse's ears. + +"It was a small trick, that yellin' and frightening the ole hoss," +said Jack. + +"Ben Butler," said the old man, as he stepped back and looked at the +horse, "Ben Butler, I've got you now 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." + +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. + +But Col. Troup had been thinking and he stopped the old man as he +drove out on the track. + +"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." + +The Bishop smiled: "I ain't give up, Col'nel--not yet." + +"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." + +"If that's the way you think--yes," said the old man, +solemnly--"yes--tell it--but God will never stan' in with fraud." + +"We'll see," said the Colonel. "I'll keep my word if--if--you win!" + +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 steady the pacer, for how like a steadied ship +did he fly along! + +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'!" + +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: + + "He leadeth me, O blessed thought, + O word with heavenly comfort fraught, + Whate'er I do, whate'er I be, + Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me." + +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. + +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!" + +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, welting her from withers to rump in a last desperate +chance. + +Gamely she responded and forged ahead--the old pacer was beaten! + +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! + +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. + +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! + +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: "_Great hoss--great hoss!_" + +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 work finished, the crown his! O Bud, who would not +love to go like Ben Butler?" + +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. + +The old man turned with an hysterical sob in his throat that was half +a shout of joy. + +Travis stood by him watching the struggles of the old horse for +breath. + +"Well, I've killed him," he said, laconically. + +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. + +"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." + +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 ... 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...." + +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. + +"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." + +And then he remembered seeing Bud sitting in the old cart driving Ben +Butler home and telling everybody what they now knew: "_Great +hoss--G-r-e-a-t hoss!_" + +And the old horse shuffled and crow-hopped along, and Jack followed +the Bishop carrying the gold. + +And then such a funny thing: Ben Butler, frightened at a mule braying +in his ear, ran away and threw Bud out! + +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?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +YOU'LL COME BACK A MAN + + +It 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. + +Jack Bracken walked in behind the old man carrying a silken sack +which sagged and looked heavy. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +It came out, yellow waves of gold. The light shone on them, and as +the tired eyes of little Shiloh peeped curiously at them, each one +seemed to throw to her a kiss of hope, golden tipped and resplendent. + +The old woman stood dazed, and gazing sillily. Then she took up one +of the coins and bit it gingerly. + +"In God's name, Hillard Watts, what does all this mean? Why, it's +genuwine gold." + +"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--" + +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'--" + +"No, why not, Tabitha? We've got a plenty to--" + +He saw her clutch again at the bed-post and go down in a heap, +saying:-- + +"Lemme die--now, if I can't wuck no mo'." + +They lifted her on the bed and bathed her face. It was ten minutes +before she came around and said feebly: + +"I'm dyin', Hillard, it's kilt me to think I'll not have to wuck any +mo'." + +"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. +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." + +This was most reassuring, and the old woman felt much better. But the +next morning she complained bitterly: + +"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!" + +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: + +"You'll come back a man, Cap'n Tom--thank God! a man ag'in!" + + + + +PART FIFTH.--THE LOOM + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A NEW MILL GIRL + + +The 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. + +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. + +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: _Guggle--guggle--gone! Guggle--guggle--gone!_ It said to +Edward Conway as plainly as if it had a voice. + +"Yes, you've gone--that's the last of you. Everything is gone," he +said. + +He sat down on his favorite chair, propped his feet upon the rotten +balcony's rim and began to smoke. + +Within, he heard Lily sobbing. Helen was trying to comfort her. + +Conway glanced into the room. The oldest sister was 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. + +"'Tain't no use--'tain't no use," sobbed the little one--"My mammy's +gone--gone!" + +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. + +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!" + +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: + +"I want my mammy--I want my mammy," sobbed the little one. + +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. + +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." + +"I want my mammy--oh, I want my mammy," was all Lily could say. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +For with them there are no degrees in degradation--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. + +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! + +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. + +"I shall steal," she repeated--"oh, I know I shall." + +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. + +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. + +What a splendid picture he was, silhouetted in the rising sun against +the pink and purple background of sunbeams! + +It was Clay Westmore, and he waved his hand in his slow, calm +forceful way as he saw her go by. + +It was a little thing, but it comforted her. She remembered it long. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +And so he stood, sillily smiling, until Richard Travis arose from his +desk and came forward to meet her. + +She nodded at him and tried to smile, but Kingsley noticed that it +died away into drawn, hard lines around her pretty mouth. + +"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. + +"She is one of my neighbors, and, by the way, Kingsley, she must have +the best place in the mill." + +Kingsley continued to look sillily at her. He had not heard of +Helen--he did not understand. + +"A place in the mill--ah, let me see," he said thoughtfully. + +"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." + +"I, ah--" began Kingsley--"Er--well, I never heard of a beginner +starting on a drawing-in machine." + +"I have instructed Maggie to teach her," said Travis shortly. Then he +beckoned to Helen: "Come." + +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. + +"The exquisite, grand thing," he muttered. "And I shall--she shall be +mine." + +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: + +"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?" + +He laughed and then he touched boldly her hair which lay splendidly +around her temples. + +She looked at him resignedly, then she flushed to her eyes and +followed him. + +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. + +The work is tedious and requires skill, patience, quickness, and that +nicety of judgment which comes with intellect 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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +Helen was pleased. Her fingers were tapering and beautiful, and she +knew her hands were the hands of many generations of ladies. + +"I have to make a living for myself now," she said with a dash of +bitterness. + +"If I looked like you," said Maggie, slyly and yet frankly, "I'd do +something in keeping with my place. I can't bear to think of anybody +like you bein' here." + +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: + +"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." + +Her pale face flushed and she coughed, as she bent over her work to +show Helen how to draw in the threads. + +"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." + +"Why--what--" began Helen, surprised. + +"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' 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." + +She stopped to cough and to show Helen how to untangle some threads. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +Helen blushed and looked quickly at Maggie, over whose face the +pinched look had come again, but Maggie was busy at her machine. + +"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. + +"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." + +Helen was silent, her own bitterness softened by the story Maggie was +telling, and for a while she forgot herself and her sorrow. + +It is so always. When we would weep we have only to look around and +see others who would wail. + +"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." + +She said it simply, but it touched Helen. + +"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 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." + +She jumped up impulsively and stood before Helen. + +"Mightn't I kiss you once,--you're so pretty an' fresh?" And she +kissed the pretty girl half timidly on the cheek. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"It's Maggie's," she whispered. + +He had not seen Maggie and he stood looking at Helen with such +passionate, patronizing, commanding, masterful eyes, that she shrank +for a moment, sideways. + +Then he laughed: "How beautiful you are! There are queens born and +queens made--I shall call you the queen of the mill, eh?" + +He reached out and tried to take her hand, but she shrank behind the +machine and then-- + +"Oh, Maggie!" she exclaimed--for the girl's face was now white and +she stood with a strained mouth as if ready to sob. + +"Oh, Maggie's a good little girl," said Travis, catching her hand. + +"Oh, please don't--please"--said Maggie. + +Then she walked out, drawing her thin shawl around her. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +IN THE DEPTHS + + +All 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. + +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. + +And one night her father, being more brutal than ever, had called out +as Helen came in: "Come in, my mill-girl!" + +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. + +And worse than all, she knew she did not care. + +There is a depth deeper even than the sin--the depth where the doer +ceases to care. + +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 he hinted she dreamed beautiful, +desperate dreams of the future. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +"Take me now--anywhere--anywhere. Carry me away from here." + +But she heard only the sound of his trotters' feet up the road, and +overcome with the reflective anguish of it all, she had tottered and +dropped beneath the tree upon the grass--dropped to weep. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +She sighed--she looked up at the stars. They always filled her with +great waves of wonder and reverence. + +"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. + +"I will imagine she is there"--she whispered--"in that world--O +mother--mother--will you--cannot you help me?" + +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. + +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. + +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: + +"Well, I must say I never saw anything quite so pretty!" + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +The Conway spirit had come to her--it always did in a critical +moment. She no longer blushed or even feared him. + +"How, how," she said slowly and looking him steadily over, "did I +ever love such a thing as you?" + +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. + +She sprang away from him into the spring branch, standing knee deep +in the water and among the water-cresses. + +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." + +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 able to drop down flat and drown herself there, and +thus end it all. + +He had come to the edge of the rock and stood leering drunkenly down +on her. + +"I love you," he laughed ironically. + +"I hate you," she said, looking up steadily into his eyes and moving +back out of his reach. + +The water had wet her dress, and she stooped and dipped some of it up +and bathed her hot cheeks. + +"I'll kiss you if I have to wade into that spring." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Most unusual," she heard him say, with more calmness it seemed to +Helen than ever: "Quite unusual--insultingly so!" + +Instinctively she held up her arms and he stooped in the saddle and +lifted her up and set her on the stone curbing on the side farthest +from Harry Travis. + +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. + +The driver of the bays stopped as he saw his cousin thrown like a pig +over the pommel and held there kicking and cursing. + +"I was looking for him," said Richard Travis quietly, "but I would +like to know what it all means." + +The big glasses shone in kindly humor. They did not reflect any +excitement in the eyes behind them. + +"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." + +He eased his burden over the saddle and dropped him into the road. + +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." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +WORK IN A NEW LIGHT + + +It 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. + +And now by moonlight he had found it! + +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. + +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. + +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 he could +not, for was he not too poor, and were not his mother and sister +dependent upon him? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Work--and did not he himself love to work? Was it not the noblest +thing of life? + +He would tell her it was. + +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. + +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. + +That kind of a combat did not meet his ideas of chivalry. + +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. + +"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. + +"Now, you look more like yourself," he smiled admiringly, as he +looked down on her white dress and auburn hair, drooping low over her +neck and shoulders. + +"Tell me about yourself and how you like it at the mill," he went on +as he sat down. + +"Oh, you will not be willing to speak to me now--now that I am a +mill-girl," she added. "Do you know? Clay--" + +"I know that, aside from being beautiful, you have just begun to be +truly womanly in my sight." + +"Oh, Clay, do you really think that? It is the first good word that +has been spoken to me since--since my--disgrace." + +He turned quickly: "Your disgrace! Do you call it disgrace to +work--to make an honest living--to be independent and self-reliant?" + +He picked up his bag of samples and she saw that his hands had become +hard and sunburnt from the plow handles. + +"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." + +And he blushed as he said it, and fumbled his samples. + +"Then you do care some for me?" she asked pleadingly. She was +heart-sick for sympathy and did not know just what she said. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +Never before had she seen work in that light--nor love. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MAGGIE + + +It 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. + +Helen had proved to be an apt pupil, and Maggie declared that +thereafter she would be able to run her machine without assistance. + +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. + +"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." + +She turned and brushed away her tears in time to see Travis come +smiling up. + +"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?" + +She flushed and Helen heard her say: "Forget you--ever? Oh, please, +Mr. Travis--" and her voice trembled. + +"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." + +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. + +What a neck and throat she had--what a beautiful queenly manner! + +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?" + +He had forgotten Maggie and stood looking at Helen. And in that look +Maggie saw it all. He heard her sit down suddenly. + +"I would go if I were you, Maggie--you are a good girl and we shall +not forget you." + +"May I stay a little while longer?" she asked. "I won't ever come +back any more, you know." + +Travis turned quickly and walked off. He came back and spoke to +Helen. + +"Remember, I am to take you home to-night. But it will be later than +usual, on account of the pay-roll." + +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." + +Helen stroked her cheek and finally she was quiet. + +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?" + +Helen reddened to her ears. + +"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--" + +Helen looked at her quickly. + +"Why, I don't understand," she said. + +"I mean," she stammered, "he used to notice us common girls--me and +the others--" + +"I don't understand you," said Helen, half indignantly. + +"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. + +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 mother--nobody has ever let me do this befo', +an' I am so happy for it." + +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. + +"How could he he'p it--how could he he'p it," she said +softly--"yes--yes--you are his equal and so beautiful." + +"I don't understand you, Maggie--indeed I do not." + +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!" + +Helen raised her head and kissed her. + +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. + +And Helen never forgot. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +PAY-DAY + + +It was Saturday afternoon and pay-day, and the mill shut down at six +o'clock. + +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. + +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. + +Kingsley personally supervised this store, and his annual report to +the directors was one of the strong financial things of his +administration. + +A crowd of factory hands stood around his desk, and the +Superintendent was busy issuing orders on the store, or striking a +balance for the Secretary and Treasurer to pay in silver. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Yet that day their faces put on a brighter look. + +They stood around the office desk, awaiting their 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. + +"Janette Smith," called out Kingsley. + +She came forward, a bony, stoop-shouldered woman of thirty-five years +who had been a spooler since she was fifteen. + +"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: + +"Oh, you don't owe the store anything, Miss Smith--just eleven +dollars and eighty cents." + +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. + +"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." + +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 advance you two dollars this week--an' that will +be all." + +"I hoped to get some little thing that she could eat--some relish," +she began. + +"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. + +"The way to begin economy is to begin it--Emerson is so helpful to +me--he always comes in at the right time." + +"And it's only to be two dollars," she added. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"You're talkin now--" said Joe hopefully. + +"It useter be," said Jud, looking around at his crowd, "that the +parents spoiled the kids, but now it is the kids spoilin' the +parents." + +His audience met this with smiles and laughter. + +"I never did know before," went on Jud, "what that old sayin' really +meant: 'A fool for luck an' a po' man for chillun.'" + +Another crackling laugh. + +"How much did Joe Hopper's chillun fetch 'im in this week?" + +Joe jingled his silver in his pocket and spat importantly on the +floor. + +"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'.'" + +This was followed by loud laughs, especially from those who were +blessed with children, and they filed up to get their wages. + +Jim Stallings, who had four in the mill, was counted out eleven +dollars. As he pocketed it he looked at Jud and said: + +"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." + +He joined in the laughter which followed. + +In the doorway he cut a pigeon-wing in which his thin, bowed legs +looked comically humorous. + +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. + +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. + +"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, _God +bless our home_? I've put up another one now." + +"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. + +"Why, I've put up," said Jud brutally, "'_Suffer Little Children to +Come Unto Me_.' That's scriptural authority for cotton mills, ain't +it?" + +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: "_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._" + +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. + +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." + +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." + +She looked at him stupidly--in dazed gratitude. Travis came forward: + +"I've ordered Jim to take you home to-night. I cannot leave now." + +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 had ever earned, and thought of Maggie--Maggie, dying and +unselfish. + +Work--it had opened a new life to her. Work--and never before had she +known the sweetness of it. + +"Oh, father," she said when she reached home, "I have made some +money--I can support you and Lily now." + +When Travis returned Jud Carpenter met him at the door. + +"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." + +"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." + +"I'll see you there," said Jud. + +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. + +"I wants some of my money, Paw--I wants to buy a ginger man." + +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. + +"Take that, you sassy meddling up-start--you belong 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. + +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. + +In a short time he had drawn a pocketful of silver, and going out +soon overtook Jud Carpenter. + +"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." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE PLOT + + +A village bar-room is a village hell. + +Jud Carpenter and Joe Hopper were soon there, and the silver their +children had earned at the mill began to go for drinks. + +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. + +And so they drank and sang and danced and played cards and drank +again, and threw dice for more drinks. + +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. + +Only the mill men had any cash. The village loafers drank at their +expense, and on credit. + +"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?" + +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 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. + +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." + +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. + +Her presence threw them into a panic. + +"Mine Gott!" said Billy, turning pale. "Eet es Meeses Billings an' +her crockery." + +Half a dozen jubilants pointed out a long-haired man at a center +table talking proudly of his physical strength and bravery. + +"Cris Ham?" beckoned Mrs. Billings, feeling nervously under her +apron. "Come with me!" + +"I'll be along t'orectly, sis." + +"You will come now," she said, and her hands began to move ominously +beneath her apron. + +"To be sho'," he said as he walked out with her. "I didn't know you +felt that away about it, sis." + +It was after ten o'clock when the quick roll of a buggy came up to +the door, and Richard Travis and Charley Biggers alighted. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +"Come up, gentlemen, and have something at my expense." Then he +walked up to the bar. + +They came. They considered it both a pleasure and an honor, as Jud +Carpenter expressed it, to drink with him. + +"It is a good idea to mingle with them now and then," whispered +Travis to Charley. "It keeps me solid with them--health, gentlemen!" + +Charley Biggers showed his good-natured teeth: + +"Health, gentlemen," he grinned. + +Then he hiccoughed through his weak little nose. + +"Joe Hopper can't rise, gentlemen, Joe is drunk, an'--an' a widderer, +besides," hiccoughed Joe from below. + +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. + +Then Joe burst into tears. + +"What's up, Joe?" asked Jud kindly. + +"Liza's dead," he wailed. + +"Why, she's been dead a year," said Jud. + +"Don't keer, Jud--I'm jes'--jes' beginnin' to feel it now"--and he +wept afresh. + +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. + +"Gentlemen," said Travis solemnly, "let us drink to the health of the +departed Mrs. Hopper. Here's to her!" + +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. + +"Oh, Mister Hopper, shet up," said Jud peremptorily--"close up--I've +arranged for you to marry a grass-widder." + +This cheered him greatly. + +"O Jud--Jud--if I marry a grass-widder whut--whut'll I be then?" + +"Why? a grasshopper, sure," said Travis. + +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. + +"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." + +"Not Miss Kate," said Travis with becoming seriousness. + +"Why not her, Mr. Travis?" asked Jud, winking. + +"Because his children will be Katydids," said Travis. + +This brought on thundering roars of laughter and drinks all around. +Only Joe wept--wept to think his children would be katydids. + +"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. + +"Sure--sure," they all exclaimed. + +"Now, Joe, you mus' dry yo' tears an' become reconciled--we've got a +nice scheme fixed for you." + +"I'll never be reconciled--never," wailed Joe. "Liza's dead an'--I'm +a grasshopper." + +"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." + +"She's a mighty handsome 'oman," said Jud, winking his eye. +"Dear--dear frien's--all--I'm feelin' reconciled already"--said Joe. + +They all joined in the roar. Jud winked. They all winked. Jud went +on: + +"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--" + +"Eighteen dollars a week, clear,"--said Joe proudly. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +They all laughed. + +"Openly--" he went on--"you've j'ined the Mormon church here up in +the mountains." + +"But we don't practise polygamy--now"--said Joe. + +"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." + +"Can I do that--do the marryin' in Utah an' keep sendin' the--the +chilluns down to the mill?" His eyes glittered. + +"Sart'inly"--said Jud--"sure!" + +"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'." + +Joe jumped up. + +"Is she willin'?" + +"Done seen her," said Jud; "she say come on." + +"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." + +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. + +It was nearly midnight. Only Travis, Charley Biggers and Jud remained +sober enough to talk. Charley was telling of Tilly and her wondrous +beauty. + +"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." + +There was a whispered conversation among them, ending in a shout of +applause. + +"What's the matter with you takin' yo' queen at the same time?" asked +Jud of Travis. + +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: + +"Just what I had decided to do--two queens and an ace." + +They all cheered drunkenly. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MRS. WESTMORE TAKES A HAND + + +"What are you playing, Alice?" + +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. + +"It--it is an old song which Tom and I used to love to sing." + +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. + +"You should cease to think of that. Such things are dreams--at +present we are confronted by very disagreeable realities." + +"Dreams--ah, mother mine"--she answered with forced cheeriness--"but +what would life be without them?" + +"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--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." + +"We make the dreams of life, but the realities of it make us," she +added. + +"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." + +"Do you believe Tom is not dead--that he will one day come back?" +asked her mother abruptly. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +She followed her daughter and put her arms impulsively around her. + +"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." + +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 temperament. 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. + +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. + +"Now, here is the legal paper about"-- + +Her voice failed and she did not finish the sentence. + +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 influence of +her husband--of the glory of Westmoreland. + +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. + +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. + +Gone, and The Gaffs remained! + +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 Richard 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. + +To this negro party belonged Richard Travis--and the price of his +infamy had been _Honorable_ before his name. + +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. Having no real heart, how +was it possible for her to know, as Alice could know, the happiness +of love? + +An eyeless fish in the river of Mammoth Cave might as well try to +understand what light meant. + +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. + +And nothing stood between her and the accomplishment of it all but the +foolish romance of her daughter's youth. + +And so she sat building her castles and thinking: + +"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." + +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. + +She sat down by her mother and took up a pet kitten which had come +purring in, begging for sympathy. She stroked it thoughtfully. + +Mrs. Westmore read her daughter's thoughts: + +"So many people," the mother said after a while, "have false ideas of +love and marriage. Like ignorant people when they get religion, they +think a great and sudden change must come over them--changing their +very lives." + +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." + +"Why did you marry father, then?" + +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." + +"Would not the others have done as well?" + +"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." + +Mrs. Westmore was wise. She changed the subject. + +"Have you noticed Uncle Bisco lately, mother?" asked Alice after a +while. + +"Why, yes; I intended to ask you about him." + +"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." + +"Quite Biblical," laughed her mother. "What was it?" + +"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 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." + +"What was Uncle Bisco's dream?" asked Mrs. Westmore. + +"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." + +"If the Bishop were here--" + +"He would sleep in the house with a shotgun, I fear," laughed Alice. + +They were silent at last: "When did you say Richard was coming again, +Alice?" + +"To-morrow night--and--and--I hear Clay in his laboratory. I will go +and talk to him before bed time." + +She stooped and kissed her mother. To her surprise, she found her +mother's arms around her neck and heard her whisper brokenly: + +"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." + +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. + +With moistened eyes she went into her brother's room. + +And Mrs. Westmore wrote a note to Richard Travis. It did not say so +in words but it meant: "_Come and be bold--you have won._" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A QUESTION BROUGHT HOME + + +"I shall go to Boston next week to meet the directors of the mill and +give in my annual report." + +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." + +"But are you altogether pleased with it in all its features?" asked +Alice thoughtfully. + +"Why, what do you mean, Alice?" asked her mother, surprised. + +"Just this, mother, and I have been thinking of talking to Richard +about it for some time." + +Travis took his cigar out of his mouth and looked at her quizzically. + +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 such a fine +opportunity for good there," she added in all her old beautiful +earnestness. + +"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. + +"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--" + +"Except the broader, unwritten law," she added. + +Travis laughed: "You will find that it cuts a small figure with +directors when it comes in conflict with the dividends of a +corporation." + +"But how is it there?" she asked,--"in New England?" + +"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." + +"Why, by the parents of the children falsely swearing to their age." + +Alice looked at him in astonishment. + +"Do you really mean it?" she asked. + +"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." + +"There could be some way found to stop that," she said. + +"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." + +"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." + +"In other words, how many under twelve do we work there?" he asked. + +She nodded. + +He thought a while and then said: "About one hundred and +twenty-five." + +She started: "That is terrible--terrible! Couldn't you--couldn't you +bring the subject up before the directors for--for--" + +"Your sake--yes"--he said, admiringly. + +"Humanity's--God's--Right's--helpless, ignorant, dying children!" + +"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." + +"My enthusiasm has been aroused, of late, on the subject," Alice +went on, "by the talks and preaching of my old friend, Mr. Watts." + +Travis frowned: "The old Bishop of Cottontown," he added +ironically--"and he had better stop it--he will get into trouble +yet." + +"Why?" + +"Because he is doing the mill harm." + +"And I don't suppose one should do a corporation harm," she said +quickly,--"even to do humanity good?" + +"Oh, Alice, let us drop so disagreeable a subject," said her mother. +"Come, Richard and I want some music." + +"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." + +"I don't think it is any of our business at all," spoke up Mrs. +Westmore quickly. + +Alice turned her big, earnest eyes and beautiful face on her mother. + +"Do you remember when I was six years old?" she asked. + +"Of course I do." + +"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"-- + +Mrs. Westmore sprang up with a little shriek and put her hands over +her daughter's mouth. + +Richard Travis shrugged his shoulders: "I had not thought of it that +way myself," he said. "That goes home to one." + +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!" + +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. + +Cold-bloodedly, boldly, and with clear-cut reasoning, all this ran +through his mind as he stood looking at Alice Westmore. + +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. + +Two hours later he was bidding her good-bye. + +"Next Sunday, do you remember--Alice--next Sunday night you are to +tell me--to fix the day, Sweet?" + +"Did mother tell you that?" she asked. "She should let me speak for +myself." + +But somehow he felt that she would. Indeed he knew it as he kissed +her hand and bade her good-night. + +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: + +"Friends, don't shoot." + +"Give the countersign," said Travis with ill-concealed irritation. + +"Union League, sir. I am Silos, sir." + +Travis put his revolver back into his overcoat pocket and quieted his +mare. + +The two men, one a negro and the other a mulatto, came up to his +saddle-skirt and stood waiting respectfully. + +"You should have awaited me at The Gaffs, Silos." + +"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." + +"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." + +The mulatto smiled and apologized. He was a bright fellow and the +barber of the town. + +"We wanted to know, sir, if you were willing for us to do the work +to-night, sir?" + +"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." + +"But you are the commander of the League--we wanted your consent." + +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. + +"Have you representatives from each camp present, Silos?" + +The mulatto turned and came back. + +"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." + +"Of course--why of course," said Travis. "Old 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." + +"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." + +"I heard a good deal of talk among the boys, to-night, sir," said the +mulatto. "They all want you for Congress next time." + +"Well, we'll talk about that, Silos, later. I must hurry on." + +He started, then wheeled suddenly: + +"Oh, say, Silos--" + +The latter came back. + +"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--" + +"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." + +Travis touched his mare with the spur and galloped off. + +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 tree, while +his wife, pleading and begging for her husband's life, was tied to +another tree. + +"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'." + +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. + +"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. + +"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 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." + +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. + +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. + +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 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 behind 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: + + "O we mos' to de home whar we all gwi' res', + Cum, dear Lord, cum soon! + An' take de ole weary ones unto yo' bres', + Cum, dear Lord, cum soon! + Fur we ole an' we tired an' we hungry fur yo' sight, + An' our lim's dey am weary, fur we fou't er good fight, + An' we longin' fur de lan' ob lub an' light-- + Cum, dear Lord, cum soon." + +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 +blacksmith. A negro followed them, mounted on a raw-bone pony, and +carrying his master's Enfield rifle. + +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--" + +He pulled up his horse with a jerk. He heard singing just over to his +left in the wood. Both horsemen sat listening: + + O we mos' to de do' ob our Father's home-- + Lead, dear Lord, lead on! + An' we'll nurver mo' sorrer an' nurver mo' roam-- + Lead, dear Lord, lead on! + An' we'll meet wid de lam's dat's gohn on befo' + An' we lie in de shade ob de good shepherd's do', + An' he'll wipe away all ob our tears as dey flow-- + Lead, dear Lord, lead on! + +"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. + +But the young negro had already plunged two spurs into his pony's +flanks and was galloping toward the cabin. + +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: + +"Praise God--who nurver lies--it's little Ephrum--come home ag'in." + +Then they looked up and the old man raised his hands in a pitiful +tumult of joy and fear and reverence as he said: + +"An' Marse Tom, so help me God--a-ridin' John Paul Jones!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE PEDIGREE OF ACHIEVEMENT + + +Man 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. + +We stop in wonder--balked. Then we see that we cannot breed men--they +are born; not in castles, but in cabins. + +And why in cabins? For therein must be the solution. And the solution +is plain: It is work--work that does it. + +We cannot breed men unless work--achievement--goes with it. + +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 pedigree when he faces the starter, or he goes to the shambles or +the surgeon. + +Why may not man learn this simple lesson--the lesson of work--of +pedigree, but the pedigree of achievement? + +The son who would surpass his father must do more than his father +did. Two generations of idleness will beget nonentities, and three, +degenerates. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: "_I will be a Conway again!_" +He said it over and over. He swore it. + +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. + +"How handsome he must have been when he was once a Conway!" thought +Helen. + +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. + +After breakfast Helen left him, with Lily sitting on her father's +lap, her face bright with the sunshine of it: + +"If papa would always be like this"--and she patted his cheek. + +Conway started. The very intonation of her voice, her gesture, was of +the long dead mother. + +Tears came to his eyes. He kissed her: "Never again, little daughter, +will I take another drop." + +She looked at him seriously: "Say with God's help--" she said simply. +"Mammy Maria said it won't count unless you say that." + +Conway smiled. "I will do it my own self." + +But Lily only shook her head in a motherly, scolding way. + +"With God's help, then," he said. + +Never was an Autumn morning more beautiful to Helen as she walked +across the fields to the mill. She 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. + +All so beautiful, and never had Helen been so happy. + +She was earning a living--she was saving Lily from the mill and her +father from temptation. + +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. + +Then the path ran through a sedge field, white with the tall silvered +panicled-leaves of the life-everlasting. + +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. + +She failed to see a warning on the fence which said: _Keep +out--Danger._ + +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. + +"What a beautiful horse that is in the pasture," she thought, and +then her attention went to a meadow lark 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!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +He was perfectly cool--even haughtily so. He scarcely looked at Helen +nor at Jim, who kept saying nervously: + +"You've killed him--you've killed him--what will Mr. Travis say?" + +The boy laughed an ironical laugh. Then he walked up and examined the +shot he had made. Squarely between 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: + +"A good shot, running--and at twenty paces!" + +Then he stood up proudly, and his blue eyes flashed defiance as he +said: + +"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." + +He came over to Helen gallantly--his blue eyes shining through a +smile which now lurked in them: + +"This is Miss Conway, isn't it? I will see you out of this." + +Then, taking her hand as if she had been his big sister, he led her +along the path to the road and to safety. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +MARRIED IN GOD'S SIGHT + + +Night--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. + +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. + +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. + +She coughed and smiled and lay still, smiling. + +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!" + +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. + +Then a man in an invalid chair, helpless and with a broken spine, +spoke, as if thinking aloud: + +"She's all the mother the little 'uns ever had, Bishop--'pears like +it's cruel for God to take her from them." + +"God's cruelty is our crown," said the old man--"we'll understand it +by and by." + +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. + +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. + +"May I give you some nourishment now, Maggie?" + +The girl shook her head. + +"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." + +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. + +An hour went by--the wind had ceased, and with it the rain. The +children were asleep in bed; the father in his chair. + +A cold sweat had broken out on the dying girl's forehead and she +breathed with a terrible effort. And in it 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: + +"There is only-- ... one thing-- ... one ... thing...." + +"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." + +"That's it!.... Oh, that's it!.... I got it that way-- ... all for +them ... but it's that that hurts now...." + +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." + +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?" + +The old man nodded. Alice soothed her brow. + +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 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. + +"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. + +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--" + +The old man held her tenderly as if she were a child. He smiled calmly, +sweetly, into her eyes as he said: + +"You believed it an' you loved only him, Maggie--poor chile!" + +"Oh, yes--yes--" she smiled, "an' now--even now I love him up--right +up--as you see ... to the door, ... to the shadow, ... to the valley +of the shadow...." + +"And it went for these, for these"--he said looking around at the +room. + +"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?" + +Alice quivered in the beauty of the answer which came back from the old +man's lips: + +"As sure as God lives, you were--there now--sleep and rest; it is all +right, child." + +Then a sweet calmness settled over her face, and with it a smile of +exquisite happiness. + +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?" + +The Bishop nodded, smiling. + +"My husband, ... my husband, ... dear heart, ... Good-bye...." + +She tried to reach under her pillow to draw out something, and then +she smiled and died. + +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. + +Under the dead girl's pillow lay the picture of Richard Travis. + +The next day Alice sent the picture to Richard Travis, and with it a +note. + +"_It is your's_," she wrote calmly, terribly calm--"_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._" + +And Richard Travis, when he read it, turned white to his hard, +bitter, cruel lips, the first time in all his life. + +For he knew that now he had no more chance to recall the living than +he had to recall the dead. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE QUEEN IS DEAD--LONG LIVE THE QUEEN + + +All 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. + +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. + +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. + +"But," said the old Bishop more than once, "God can touch him and he +will thaw like a spring day. There is somethin' great in Richard +Travis if he can only be touched." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Her note to him--"_Never ... never ... again_"--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 ceases to see altogether and becomes an easy victim for +all things with hoofs. + +Then, the poignant reawakening. Now he lay in the mud and above him +still shone the star. + +The star--his star! And how it hurt him! It was the breaking of a +link in the chain of his life. + +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. + +"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-- + +"True love--you know--dear Richard--you must remember the old +saying." + +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." + +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. + +And she pitied him, for never before on any human 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. + +Richard Travis, when he left Westmoreland, knew that he left it +forever. + +"The Queen is dead--long live the Queen," he said bitterly. + +And then there happened what always happens to the thing in the +mud--he sank deeper--desperately deeper. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Anything wrong?" He had reached the point of his moral degradation +when right for Helen meant wrong for him. + +Jud, with a characteristic shrewdness, put his finger quickly on the +spot. + +Edward Conway was sober. Clay saw her daily. + +"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?" + +And he laughed knowingly. With a little more bitterness she would go +to the end of the world with him. + +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. + +The next morning Clay Westmore walked with her to the mill, and +Travis lilted his eyebrows haughtily: + +"If anything of that kind happens," he said to himself, "nothing can +save me." + +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. + +And she saw him and looked up smiling. + +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. + +He came in smiling. "Why are you so much happier than last week?" + +"Would you really like to know?" she said, looking him frankly in the +eyes. + +He touched her hair playfully. She moved her head and shook it +warningly. + +"It is because I am at work and father is trying so hard to reform." + +"I thought maybe it was because you had found out how much I love +you." + +It was his old, stereotyped, brazen way, but she did not know it and +blushed prettily. + +"You are kind, Mr. Travis, but--but that mustn't be thought of. +Please, but I wish you wouldn't talk that way." + +"Why, it is true, my queen--of The Gaffs?" he said smiling. + +She began to work again. + +He came over to her and bent low: + +"You know I am to take you Monday night"-- + +Her hands flew very rapidly--her cheeks mantled into a rich glow. One +of the threads snapped. She stopped, confused. + +Travis glanced around. No one was near. He bent and kissed her hair: + +"My queen," he whispered, "my beautiful queen." + +Then he walked quickly out. He went to his office, 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: + +"I'll make her sorry. She shall bow to that fine thing yet--my +queen." + +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: + +"Am I falling in love with that girl? That will spoil it all." + +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. + +"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." + +Jud laughed: "Say, excuse me, sah--but hanged if you ain't got all +the symptoms, y'self, boss?" + +Travis flushed: + +"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." + +Jud laughed again: "Leave it to me--I'll fix the goggle-eyed fellow." + +That night when the door bell rang at Westmoreland, Jud Carpenter was +ushered into Clay's workshop. He sat down and looked through his +shaggy eyebrows at the lint and dust and specimens of ore. Then he +spat on the floor disgustedly. + +"Sorry to disturb you, but be you a surveyor also?" + +The big bowed glasses looked at him quietly and nodded affirmatively. + +"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?" + +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." + +"An' will you go right away--to-morrow mornin'?" + +Clay nodded. + +"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." + +Clay's face flushed. Never before had he made a hundred dollars in a +week. + +"I'll go at once." + +"To-morrow at daylight?" asked Jud, rising. + +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. + +"You see we must have it quick. All our winter wood to run the mill +is there an' we can't start into cordin' till it's surveyed an' the +deed's passed. Sorry to hurry you"-- + +Clay promised to start at daylight and Jud left. + +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--" + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +IN THYSELF THERE IS WEAKNESS + + +It 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." + +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. + +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: + +"If he keeps this up I'll have it to do all over." + +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. + +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 drunkard was looking wistfully toward the +bar-room of Billy Buch. + +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. + +At the bar door he halted: + +"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." + +Jud watched him as he spoke and saw the fire of expectancy burn in +his despairing eyes. + +"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. + +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. + +"No--no--Carpenter," he kept saying in a dazed, abstracted +way--"no--no--not any more for me. I've promised--I've promised." + +And yet even while saying it his eyes were saying: "For God's +sake--bring it to me--quick--quick." + +Jud arose and went into the bar and whispered to 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. + +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! + +"My treat--an' no charges, gentlemen! Compliments of Billy Buch." + +Conway looked at the tempting glass for a moment in the terrible +agony of indecision. Then remorse, fear, shame, frenzy, seized him: + +"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. + +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. + +"For if he will," she whispered, "all else good will follow." + +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. + +She knelt by his side and wept. Her heart then and there gave up--her +soul quit in the fight she was making. + +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. + +Jud Carpenter reached the mill an hour after dark: He sought out +Richard Travis and chuckled, saying nothing. + +Travis was busy with his books, and when he had finished he turned +and smiled at the man. + +"Tell me what it is?" + +"Oh, I fixed him, that's all." + +Then he laughed: + +"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." + +"Oh," said Travis, knitting his brows thoughtfully. + +"Did you notice how much brighter, an' sech, she's been for a day or +two?" asked Jud. + +"I notice that she has shunned me all day"--said Travis--"as if I +were poison." + +"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. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +HIMSELF AGAIN + + +Never 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. + +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. + +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 +infatuated 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. + +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. + +With this they were happy. + +"And now," added Jack, "we are going to hide with you a week or so, +until Captain Tom can lay his plans." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +Long into the night they talked, the young man asking 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. + +"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." + +He noticed Jack Bracken's cot by his bedside and smiled. + +"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." + +"It's good we came when we did, Jack." + +"You ought to have let me shoot." + +The young Captain shook his head: "O Jack--Jack, I've seen murder +enough--it seems but yesterday since I was at Franklin." + +"Do you know who's at the head of all this?" asked Jack. "It's +Richard Travis." + +"The Bishop told me all, Jack--and about my grandfather's will. But I +shall divide it with him--it is not fair." + +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. + +"What a man you are--what a man you are, Cap'n Tom!" + +"It's good to be one's self again, Jack. How can I ever repay you for +what you have done for me?" + +"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"-- + +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. + +"For you--yes--but not for me"--and he shook his head. + +"Do you remember little Jack, Cap'n Tom--him that died? I seem to +think mo' of him now than ever--" + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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 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." + +He smiled sadly and went out. + +John Paul Jones had been comfortably housed in the little stable +nearby. He nickered affectionately as his master came up and led him +out. + +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. + +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." + +"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!" + +Jack went back into the cabin. + +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. + +"And for her love and her constancy, oh, God, I thank Thee most of +all," he said, looking upward at the stars. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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: + +"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." + +And from the silent stars, as he looked up, there fell on him a +benediction of peace. + +Then he drew himself up proudly and gave each grave a military +salute, mounted and rode away. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE JOY OF THE MORNING + + +All 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. + +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. + +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--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. + +Her mother's entreaties--tears, even--affected her now no more than +the cries of a spoiled child. + +"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." + +"I do not believe it," said Alice with feeling--"I never want to +believe it--I never shall believe it." + +"My darling," said the mother, laying her face against Alice's, "I +have reared you too far from the world." + +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. + +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. + +She devised many plans for herself, but go away she must, perhaps to +teach. + +In the midst of her perplexity there came to her Saturday 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: + +"_And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea +returned to his strength when the morning appeared._" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"You promised to tell me where you had been, Bishop, all these +weeks. It must have made you very, very happy." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"You'll need this to set you off--around yo' neck." + +At sight of it all the color left her cheeks. + +"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. + +"On my journey," said the old man quickly, "I heard somethin' of +Cap'n Tom. You must prepare yo'se'f for good news." + +Her heart jumped and the blood surged back again, 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: + +"Down there," he added, "I'll tell you all. But God is good--God is +good." + +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: + +"God is good--oh, Bishop--tell me--why--why--why--" + +"Because Cap'n Tom is not dead, Miss Alice, he is alive and well." + +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 ... and carried her into the bright +fire-lighted 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: "_Alice, my darling--it is all +well--and I have come back for you, at last!_" + +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: "_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...._" + +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. + +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 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE TOUCH OF GOD + + +The news of Captain Tom's return spread quickly. By noon it was known +throughout the Tennessee Valley. + +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. + +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. + +And never had she appeared more lovely. + +A stillness swept over the crowd when the carriage 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But Travis only yawned from his sleep and said: "I've been expecting +it all the time--go somewhere and go to bed." + +After Carpenter had gone, he arose, stricken with a feeling he could +not describe, but had often seen in 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. + +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. + +In the selfishness of his life, it had ever been all or nothing. + +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. + +Think as he would, he could not think beyond it. His life seemed to +stop there. After it, he was nothing. + +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; 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 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." + +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." + +And the old housekeeper found this strong man, who had never wept in +his life, crying over the old dead setter on the rug. + +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. + +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. + +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 fire--for never had life appeared to him as +it did to-day. + +"_For the hand of God hath touched me--_" he kept repeating over and +over--repeating and then cursing himself for repeating it--for +remembering it. + +And still it stayed there all day--the unbidden ghost-guest of his +soul. + +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? + +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: "_The hand of God hath touched me._" + +Then he laughed at himself for being silly. + +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. + +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. + +He did not guide the saddle mare, she went herself 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!" + +And it soothed him, for he knew that if she were alive he might have +lain his head there--on her breast. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +MAMMY MARIA + + +That 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: + +"_I will come for you Monday night. I will take you away from here. +You shall belong to me forever--My Queen!_" + +These words had rung in her ears all Saturday night, when, after +coming home, she had found her father fallen by the wayside. + +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. + +"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?" + +"Oh, if I only had her, Mammy--negro that she is." + +Lily was asleep with one arm around her sister's neck. + +"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. + +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: + +"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?" + +"By chance--by chance," she repeated, "but if there be great fixed +laws, how can there be any--chance?" + +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." + +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? + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +"I was not going to stop you--this is kind of you. Saturday, I +thought you feared me." + +"Yes," she smiled, "but not now--not when you look like that." + +"Have I changed so much since then?" and he looked at her curiously. + +"There is something in your face I never saw before. It made me +stop." + +"I am glad it was there, then," he said simply, "for I wished you to +stop, though I did not want to say so." + +"Saturday you would have said so," she replied with simple frankness. + +He came closer to her with equal frankness, and yet with a tenderness +which thrilled her he said: + +"Perhaps I was not so sure Saturday of many things that I am positive +of to-day." + +"Of what?" she asked flushing. + +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: + +"To-night, you know, you will be mine!" + +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. + +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! + +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.... + +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." + +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. + +How delightful the odor was! + +He sat up amazed, blinking stupidly. + +"Aunt Maria--in heaven's name--where?" + +"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." + +"What?" he exclaimed--"where?" He looked around--the home was empty. + +"I thort it time to wake you up," she went on, "an' besides I wanter +talk to you about my babies. + +"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. + +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. + +"Mammy," he began as if he were a boy again--"Mammy," and then he +burst into tears. + +"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 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." + +Conway could only bow his head and weep. + +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. + +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. + +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 and showered kisses on her face and +hair. Then, seeing the face, she shouted: + +"It's Mammy Maria--oh, it's my mammy!" and she threw her arms around +the old woman's neck and clung there. + +"Mammy's baby--did you think old Mammy dun run off an' lef' her +baby?" + +But Lily could only sob for joy. + +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. + +In Kingsley's office she stopped to get Lily's bonnet, while the +little girl still clung to her neck, sobbing. + +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. + +He stepped around and around the desk in agitated briskness. + +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. + +"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?" + +The old woman drew herself up proudly and replied with freezing +politeness: + +"I beg yo' pardon, sah--but I was not awares that 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: _Miss Maria Conway, +of Zion!_" + +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: + +"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Conway"-- + +"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." + +"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." + +"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--" + +Kingsley flushed hot, angered: + +"What do you mean, old woman?" + +"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!" + +Kingsley was too dumfounded to speak. In all his life never had his +hypocrisy been knocked to pieces so completely. + +"What does all this mean?" asked Jud Carpenter rushing hastily into +the room. + +"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." + +Jud broke in harshly: "Come, ole 'oman,--you put that child down. +You've got nothin' to support her with." + +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." + +"Put her down, old woman," said Carpenter sternly. "You can't take +her--she's bound to the mill." + +"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. + +Down through a pretty part of the town, away from Cottontown, she led +the little girl, laughing now and chatting by the old woman's side, +a bird freed from a cage. + +"And you'll bring sister Helen, too?" asked Lily. + +"That I will, pet,--she'll be home to-night." + +"Oh, Mammy, it's so good to have you again--so good, and I thought +you never would come." + +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. + +"My little one," he said--"my little one"-- + +"Mammy," asked the little girl as the old woman came out--"how did +you get all this?" + +"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." + +Conway bowed his head. Then he drew Lily to him as he knelt and +said: "Oh, God help me--make me a man, make me a Conway again." + +It was his first prayer in years--the beginning of his reformation. +And every reformation began with a prayer. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE DOUBLE THAT DIED + + +Two 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. + +"He's come for her," said Jud to himself as he walked over to the +superintendent's desk. + +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. + +"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." + +"Home? What home?" asked Travis. + +"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'. 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"-- + +"What did you say to her this morning?" asked Travis. + +"Oh, I cussed her out good--the old black"-- + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +"Oh--and you cursed her!" + +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." + +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!" + +Jud looked at him in open astonishment. + +Travis puffed at his cigar as he said: + +"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!" + +Jud turned and walked to the water bucket, took a drink and squirted +it through his teeth. + +He was working for thinking time: "He's crazy--he's sho' crazy--" he +said to himself. Coming back, he said: + +"Pardon me, Mr. Travis--but the oldes' gyrl--what--what about her, +you know?" + +"She's mine, isn't she? I've won her--outgeneraled the others--by +brains and courage. She should belong 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." + +Jud nodded, looking at him quizzically. + +"Well, what about it?" asked Travis. + +"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." + +Travis smiled. + +"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?" + +"Well?" asked Travis as he smiled calmly. + +"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. + +"I'll take her," at last he said. + +"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." + +He came over and whispered in Travis's ear. + +"That worked out beautifully," said Travis after a while, "but I'll +not trust her to you or to Charley 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!" + +His old bitterness was returning. His face flushed: + +"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?" + +Jud nodded. + +"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!" + +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. + +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 brightened and he +smiled in the old ironical way, a smile of dare-doing, of victory. + +He walked in briskly and with a business-like, forward alertness. She +looked up, paled, then flushed. + +"Oh, I was hoping so you had forgotten," she said tremblingly. + +He smiled kindly: "I never forget." + +She put up one hand to her cheek and rested her head on it a moment +in thought. + +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 _My Queen--my +Queen!_ + +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. + +He bowed low, and there was a ringing sweetness in his voice as he +said: "I have come for you, Helen--if you wish to go." + +"I will go, Richard Travis, for I know now you will do me no harm." + +"Do you think you could learn to love me?" + +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"-- + +"But may it not turn into a stone, an exquisite, pure diamond?" he +asked. + +She looked at him sadly. She shook her head. + +"Diamonds are not made in a day." + +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." + +"If--if--" she said gently--"if you had always been this--if you +would always be this"-- + +"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." + +She put her hand in his. He took it half way to his mouth. + +"Don't," she said--"please--that is the old way." + +He lowered it gently, reverently, and they walked out. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE DYING LION + + +"Lily 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." + +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. + +Perhaps the guilt of the sea for being found on the land. + +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. + +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. + +The wind blew cool. Travis glanced at her dress, her poorly protected +shoulders. + +"I am afraid you will be too cold after coming from a warm mill and +going with the speed we go." + +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. + +He did not speak again until he reached Millwood. + +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: + +"Why, what does all this mean? Oh, has anything happened to them?" + +She clung in pallor to Travis's arm. + +"Be calm," he said, "I will explain. They are all safe. They have +moved. Let us go in, a moment." + +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. + +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: + +"Nothing is here--nothing!" + +Travis caught her hand in the dark and she clung to him. A hound +stepped out from under the steps and 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. + +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. + +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. + +He struck another match. + +"Don't be uneasy, it is nothing but an owl." + +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. + +The owl stared stupidly at them--turning its head solemnly. + +Helen laughed hysterically. + +"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--" + +"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: + +"Oh, I--I--don't you think I am entitled now--to have something end +happily--now--once--in my life?" + +He pitied her and was silent. + +"Tell me," she said after a while, "you have moved father and Lily +to--to--one of the Cottontown cottages?" + +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. + +"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." + +She flushed and smiled. She arose gracefully, and her pretty hands +soon had the lunch spread, Travis helping her awkwardly. + +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. + +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. + +They sat at the old table at last, side by side, and ate the +delightful lunch. Under the influence of the bottle 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. + +Never had he enjoyed a lunch so much. Never had he seen so beautiful +a picture! + +When it was over he lit a cigar, and the fine odor filled the old +room. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +He stroked her hair, her cheek, gently. He felt his lids grow moist +and a tenderness he never had known came over him. + +"I have told you this for a purpose," he whispered in her ear--"I +will take you to them, now." + +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. +I--could--never explain. I will go with you, Richard Travis, to the +end of the world." + +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. + +"To the end of the world," he said--"ah, you have said so much--so +much more than I could ever deserve." + +"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--" + +He winced and was silent. + +"They were nothing," she went on, "but to be forgotten, forsaken +by--by--" + +"Clay?" he helped her say. + +"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." + +She hid her face again. He felt his face grow hot. He sat perfectly +still, listening. At last she said: + +"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." + +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. + +"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--" + +He flushed hot with shame. He put his hand gently over her mouth. + +"Hush--hush--child--my God--you hurt me--shame me--you know not what +you say." + +"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!" + +"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"-- + +She shook her head and put one of her pretty hands over his mouth. + +"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--" + +"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?" + +She hid her face, crimson. + +"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. + +"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. + +He seized her hands and drew her back down by him on the sofa. + +"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?" + +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. + +She dropped on the floor by him and clung again to his knees, her +head in his lap in pity for him. + +"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." + +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: + +"Oh, I could--love--you--you--who are so strong and who +suffer--suffer so"-- + +"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. + +"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 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!" + +They heard the steps of a rider coming up the gravel walk. + +"It is he," said Travis calmly--"Clay." + +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. + +"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?" + +"You must go with him, he loves you. He will make you happy. I am +dying--is not part of me already dead?" + +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. + +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: + +"My lion! Oh, kill me--kill me--let me die with you!" + +"Child--my precious one--my--oh, God, and you--forgive me this. But +let me kiss you once and dream--dream it is she"-- + +She felt his kisses on her hair, her eyes. + +"Good-bye--Alice--Alice--good-bye--forever--" + +He released her, but she clung to him sobbing. Her head lay on his +breast, and she shook in the agony of it all. + +"You will forgive me, some day--when you know--how I loved her," he +gasped, white and with a bitter light in his face. + +She looked up: "I would die," she said simply, "for a love like +that." + +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. + +Travis walked to the door and opened it: + +"Come in, Clay," he said quietly. "I am glad that my man found you. +We have been waiting for you." + +"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. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +FACE TO FACE WITH DEATH + + +He 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. + +"Helen!--why, this is unexpected--quite unusual, I must say." + +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." + +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: + +"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." + +"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--" + +Helen flushed scarlet and looked appealingly at Travis. But he broke +in on Clay without noticing her. + +"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." + +Clay reddened. + +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." + +"Why, I was sent off in a hurry to--" he started. + +"Mr. Travis told me to-night," she interrupted. "I understand now. +But really, it makes no difference to me now. Since--since--" + +"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--" + +"Only our poverty," said Clay thankfully to Travis for breaking the +ice for him. + +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. + +"Don't you think you have queer ideas of love--of winning a woman's +love--in this way? And you"--she said turning to Travis--"Oh you +_know_ better." + +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. + +"Why, really, Helen--I--you know--I have spoken to you--you know, and +but for my--" + +"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,--" + +Travis flushed and looked at her admiringly, while the joyous light +flashed yet deeper in his eyes. + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +"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." + +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: + +"Look--look--there it is!" + +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. + +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 Travis, and her eyes shone brilliantly +and full of proud splendor. + +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." + +"But that is not all," said Travis; "see how the dip runs--see the +vein--this way." He pointed to the left. + +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." + +"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. + +Clay picked up one eagerly. + +"The finest iron ore!--who--who--ever heard of such a freak of +nature?" + +"And the lime rock is all over the valley," said Travis, "and that +means, coal, iron and lime--" + +"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--" + +"Do not tell me anything, Clay--please do not. 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. + +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. + +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: + +"A match, Clay--light the lantern! I have choked him to death." + +Under the light he arose, his clothes torn with tooth and fang of the +gaunt dog, which lay silent. He stood up hot and flushed, and then +turned pallid, and for a moment staggered as he saw the blood +trickling from his left arm. + +Helen stood by him terror-eyed, trembling, crushed,--with a terrible +sickening fear. + +"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." + +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. + +His bare arm came up strong and white. Above the elbow, near the +shoulder, the blood still flowed where the fangs had sunk. + +"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--" + +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: + +"My dying lion--my dying lion!" + +He bent and whispered: "You are risking your own life for me, Helen! +Life for life--death for death!" + +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. + +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?" + +"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." + +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." + +"Child--child"--he whispered sadly--"You know not what you say. I am +dying. I shall be mad--unless--unless what you have done--" + +"Take me," she pleaded--"my lion. I am yours." + +He stooped and kissed her and then walked quickly away. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE ANGEL WITH THE FLAMING SWORD + + +It 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. + +"You are going after Helen," said the little girl, clapping her +hands. + +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." + +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 Mammy Maria was instinctive--a trait her people have. It is +always Nature's substitute when much intellect is wanting. + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +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. + +This was all the old woman had hoped--to be in time for Helen when +the mill closed. + +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? + +So she walked again into the main office, fearless, and with her head +up. For was she not Zion, the Lord's chosen, the sanctified one, and +the powers of hell were naught? + +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. + +"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?" + +The old woman's fighting feathers arose instantly:-- + +"The same that sent 'em to Sodom an' Gomarrer, suh," she replied. + +"Ah," said Jud apologetically, "an' I hope we won't smell any +brimstone to-night." + +"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!" + +"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." + +There was a motive in this lie, as there was in all others Jud +Carpenter told. + +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. + +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. + +They all passed out--one by one--for in them was not even the +instinct of the companionship of misery. + +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. + +Jud Carpenter sat at his desk quietly cutting plug tobacco to fill +his pipe-bowl, and watching the old woman slyly. + +"Oh, she'll be 'long 'torectly--you see the drawer-in bein' in the +far room comes out last." + +The last one passed out. The mill became silent, and yet Helen did +not appear. + +The old nurse arose impatiently: "I reck'n I'll go find her," she +said to Carpenter. + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"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!" + +No word from within. + +"Wanter kno' what I shet you up for, Mother of all 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." + +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. + +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--" + +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. + +She threw herself against the door. It was strong and secure. + +Jud met it with a jeering laugh. + +"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." + +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--" + +"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?" + +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? + +She groaned as she heard Jud laugh and walk off. + +"O my baby, my beautiful baby!" she wept, falling on her knees again. + +The mill grew strangely silent and dark. On a pile of loose cotton +she fell, praying after the manner of her race. + +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. + +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 if it had not had some truth in +it. What?--she did not know--she only knew that harm was coming to +Helen. + +She called aloud for help--for Edward Conway. But the mill was closed +tight--the windows nailed. + +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. + +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. + +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: +_It was a torch of fire!_ + +"_Burn! burn!_" said the angel--"_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._" + +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." + +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!" + +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: + +"Jerusalem shall be inhabited again," she shouted as she ran +breathless toward home. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE GREAT FIRE + + +Edward 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. + +"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. + +But even Lily grew alarmed, and to quiet her he took her into the +house and they ate their supper in silence. + +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!" + +"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." + +And Lily went to sleep in his lap, waiting. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"My God," he thought, "suppose--suppose she has gone back to +Millwood, found none of us there, thinks she had been deserted, +and--and--" + +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. + +But just then the old nurse, frantic, breathless and in a delirium of +religious excitement, came in and fell fainting on the porch. + +He revived her with cold water, and when she could talk she could +only pronounce Helen's name, and say they had run off with her. + +"Who?"--shouted Conway, his heart stopping in the staggering shock of +it. + +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. + +"Take care of Lily"--he said, as he went into his room and came out +with his pistol buckled around his waist. + +Then he mounted his horse and rode swiftly to Millwood. + +He was astonished to find a fire in the hearth, a lamp burning, and +one of Helen's gloves lying on the table. + +By it was another pair. He picked them up and looked closely. Within, +in red ink, were the initials: _R. T._ + +He bit his lips till the blood came. He bowed his head in his hands. + +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. + +"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--" + +He sat down on the old sofa and buried, again, his face in his hands. + +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 _beautiful one_. 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." + +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." + +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. + +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--my beautiful one--not on a Conway woman's chastity--not my +wife's daughter--" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The face before him was begging him to shoot! + +"Why don't you shoot?" said Travis at last, breaking the silence and +in a tone of disappointment. + +"Because you are not guilty," said Conway--"not with that look in +your face." + +"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." + +"Where is my child?" + +"Do you think you have any right to ask--having treated her as you +have?" + +Conway trembled, at first with rage, then in shame: + +"No,"--he said finally. "No, you are right--I haven't." + +"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." + +"I felt it," said Conway, quietly, "for I knew it, Richard Travis, as +soon as I saw your face. But tell me all." + +"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." + +Something sprang into Edward Conway's throat--something kin to a +joyous shout. He could not speak. 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. + +"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." + +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--" + +"And you, Dick--I have heard--I can guess, but why may not you, +to-morrow--" + +"There will be no to-morrow for me," he said sadly. "Things stop +suddenly before me to-night as before an abyss--" + +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. + +Conway saw it at the same instant: + +"It's the mill--the mill's afire," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +A CONWAY AGAIN + + +It 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. + +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. + +Soon among them began the whisper of lynching. As it grew they became +bolder and began to shout it: _Lynch her!_ + +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. + +"Lynch her!" they shouted. "Lead us, Jud Carpenter! We will lynch +her." + +Some wanted to wait until daylight, but "Lynch her--lynch her now," +was the shout. + +The crowd grew denser every moment. + +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. + +And a little viciousness goes a long way. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Why should it be wondered at? Why should the 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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +They gathered around it--the disorderly, the vicious, the lynchers of +the Tennessee Valley. + +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: + +"_Lynch her! Lynch her!_" + +Above, in the still air of the night, yet hung the pall of the black +smoke-cloud, from whose heart had come the torch which had cost capital +its money, and the mill people their living. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Into a wood nearby they took her, the rope was thrown over a limb, the +noose placed around her neck. + +"Pray, you old witch--we will give you five minutes to pray." + +The old woman fell on her knees, but instead of praying for herself, +she prayed for her executioners. + +They jeered--they laughed. One struck her with a stick, but she only +prayed for them the more. + +"String her up," they shouted--"her time's up!" + +"Stand back there!" + +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. + +"_Stand back!_--" and he said it in the old commanding way--the old +way which courage has ever had in the crises of the world. + +"O Marse Ned!--I knowed you'd come!" + +He had cut the rope and the old woman sat on the ground clasping his +feet. + +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. + +They ceased, and a silence fell, so painful that it hurt in its very +uncanniness. + +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." + +They listened for a moment and then burst into jeers, hoots, and +hisses: + +"Hang her, now! That's the way all lawyers talk!" + +And one shouted above the rest: "He's put up a plea of insanity +a-ready. Hang her, now!" + +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. + +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. + +"Better let 'em have her,--it ain't worth the while. You'll hafter +kill, or be killed." + +"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?" + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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 the prisoner to jail. Now the blood be on yo' own heads. +I've sed my say." + +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." + +"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!" + +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!" + +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. + +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: + +"If you kin hold 'em a little longer I'll soon have my buggy here and +we'll beat 'em to the jail." + +But the mob guessed his plans, and the man who had been most +insolent in the front of the mob--a long-haired, narrow-chested +mountaineer--rushed up viciously. + +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: + +"Marse Ned! Oh, an' for po' ole Zion! Don't risk yo' life--let 'em +take me!" + +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!" + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +DIED FOR THE LAW + + +And 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. + +A white man had been killed for a negro--that was enough. + +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. + +They had failed only for lack of a leader. + +But now they had a leader, and a mob with a leader is a dangerous +thing. + +That leader was Richard Travis. + +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--especially Richard +Travis in the terrible mood, the black despair which had come upon +him that night. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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! + +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. + +"Besides--Alice--Alice!" + +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 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! + +Tom Travis--returned and idealized--with him, the joint heir of The +Gaffs. + +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! + +"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-- + +"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!" + +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. + +"Lynch her--lynch the old witch! and hang that devil Conway with +her!" was the shout. + +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. + +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 keep from crying out he gripped +bloodlessly--nervously--the stock of his pistol saying over and over: + +"I am a Conway again--a man again!" + +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. + +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: + + "'I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger, + I can tarry, I can tarry but a night. + Do not detain me, for I am going + To where the streamlets are ever flowing. + I'm a pilgrim--and I'm a stranger + I can tarry--I can tarry but a night.'" + +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. + +Nor would he give the command. He had nothing against Edward +Conway--he did not wish to see him killed. + +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! + +Between life and death "I" is a bridge that means it all. + +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. + +They tried parleying with him, but he would have none of it. + +"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." + +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. + +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: + +"Stop at the gateway--stop at the dead line!" + +Right at it they rushed and crowded into it like cattle--shooting, +cursing, throwing stones. + +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 mobs in the death-pinch, staggered back carrying +the mob with them. + +Safe from the bullets, they became frenzied. + +The town trembled with their fury. + +All order was at an end. + +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: + + "Of that City, to which I journey, + My Redeemer, my Redeemer is the light. + There is no sorrow, nor any sighing, + Nor any tears there, nor any dying..., + I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger, + I can tarry--I can tarry but a night." + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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: + +"_Kill Conway! Kill the man who murdered our people!_" + +In ten minutes they were ready to attack again, but looking up they +saw a strange sight. + +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. + +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. + +And by him in quiet bravery, commanding, directing, stood the tall +figure of the Captain of Artillery. + +When Richard Travis saw him, a cruel smile deepened in his eyes. "I +am dying myself," it said--"why not kill him?" + +Then he shuddered with the hatred of the terrible thing that had come +into his heart--the thing that 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! + +"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!" + +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-- + +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." + +He remembered and repeated: + + "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, + The soul that rises with us, our life's star, + Hath had elsewhere its setting + And cometh from afar--" + +"'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." + +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. + +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. + +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." + +Travis turned to the mob: "Men, when I fire this rifle--it will mean for +you to charge!" + +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. + +"Stay where you are, men," came that same voice they had heard so +plainly before that night. "We are now four and well armed and sworn +to uphold the law and protect the prisoner, and if you cross the dead +line you will die." + +There was a silence, and then that old voice again, the voice that +roused the mob to fury: + + "I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger, + I can tarry--I can tarry but a night--" + +"Lead us on--give the signal, Richard Travis," they shouted. + +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! + +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--" + +"Shoot! Why don't you shoot?" they shouted. "We are waiting to +rush--" + +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. + +And then that same nervous, uncanny chill ran into the very marrow of +Richard Travis and brought his gun down with an oath on his lips as +he said pitifully--"I am poisoned--it is that!" + +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--" + +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." + +"Shoot--Richard Travis--why the devil don't you shoot?" they shouted. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"Stand pat, stand pat, Bishop," he said; "you all know the trade. Let +me who have defied the law so long, 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--" + +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! + +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!" + +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. + +The mob rushed wildly at the jail at the flash of Jack 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. + +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. + +And still the boy stood holding his pistol, stunned, frigid, +numbed--pointing at the stars. + +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." + +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. + +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 beats, a dry sob +choked him, and he sprang forward crying: "My father--oh, God--my +poor father!" + +Richard Travis looked up and smiled at him. + +"You shoot well, my son," he said, "but not quick enough." + +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!" + +Then he lay down again on the ground. It felt sweet to rest. + +The boy saw his blood on the ground and he shouted: "Blood,--my +father--blood is thicker than water." + +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. + +Wheeling, he rushed toward the jail, but met the mob pouring +panic-stricken back with white faces, blanched with fear. + +Jack Bracken stood alone on the barricade, shoving more cartridges +into his pistol chambers. + +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. + +Jack did not see the boy till he felt the ball crush into his side. +Then all the old, desperate, revengeful 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. + +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: + +"Take that--damn you--from a Travis!" + +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: + +"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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE ATONEMENT + + +And 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. + +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. + +Slowly, surely, but with grim deadliness they laid their plans--this +time to run no risk of failure. + +There was a stillness solemn and all-pervading. And from the window +of the jail came again in wailing uncanny notes:-- + + "I'm a pilgrim and I'm a stranger, + I can tarry, I can tarry but a night--" + +It swept over the mob, frenzied now to the stillness of a white heat, +like a challenge to battle, like the flaunt of 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. + +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. + +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. + +It was Jud Carpenter who planned it, and soon oil and saturated paper +and torches were prepared. + +"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." + +He leaped up on his barricade, tall and splendid, and called to them +quietly and with deadly calm: + +"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!" + +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 +guns--just one of my old Parrots that I had last week at Franklin!" + +The old man, praying on his knees behind his barricade, said: + +"Twelve years ago, Cap'n Tom, twelve years. Not last week." + +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. + +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. + +"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!" + +He lay quite still on the soft grass and looked up at the stars. How +comfortable he was! He felt around. + +A boy's overcoat was under him--a little round-about, wadded up, was his +pillow. + +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 her heart with my faithlessness--that she died +and the other is--is her sister." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The torches were ready--the men were aligned in front with deadly +shotguns. + +"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!" + +They answered him with groans, with curses, with shouts of "_Lead us +on, Jud Carpenter!_" + +"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." + +Richard Travis heard it and his heart leaped--but 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. + +It was all well with him. + +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. + +For, as he lay there, he had seen the bell's turret above the jail +and his mind was quick to act. + +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. + +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. + +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.... + +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. + +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.... + +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. + +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. + +Then the old Travis spirit came to him and he smiled: +"_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._" + +Around him was the belfry railing, waist high and sheeted with metal +save four holes, for air, at the base, where he could thrust his +rifle through as he lay flat. + +He was in a bullet proof turret, and he smiled: "I hold the fort!" + +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. + +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. + +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 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._" + +And then came back to him clear and with all sweetness the earnest +words of the old preacher: + +"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!" + +Travis wished to warn the mob, but his voice was nearly gone. He +could only sink down and wait. + +He heard shouts. They had formed in the rear, and now men with +torches came to fire the jail. Their companions in front, hearing +them, shouted back their approval. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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: "_Oh, +mother, now I know what eternity is--it's remembering before and +after!_" + +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. + +And through it all the great uplifting joy, and something which made +him try to shout and say: "The atonement--the atonement--" + +Clear now and things around him seemed miles away. + +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 forward ... for the last +time.... "Oh, God, not yet!... Look!" + +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.... + +And the black wave coming in ... and he did so want to live ... just a +little ... just a while longer.... + +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: "_God, it is--it is Jud Carpenter ... +back--back--black wave!" he cried, "and God have mercy on your soul, Jud +Carpenter...._" + +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 him ... and Alice on one star throwing him a kiss ... and +saying: "_You saved his life, oh, Richard, and I love you for it!_" 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 ... + + "_I'm ... a pilgrim ... I'm a stranger, + I can tarry--I can tarry but a night._" + +In the early dawn, a local company of State troops, called out by the +governor, had the jail safe. + +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. + +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!" + +"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." + +"It is fitten," said Jack, simply; "fitten that I should die for the +law--I who have been so lawless." + +He turned to Margaret Adams: "You are lookin' somethin' you want to +say--I can tell by yo' eyes." + +She faltered, then slowly: "Jack, he was not my son--my poor +sister--I could not see her die disgraced." + +Jack drew her down and kissed her. + +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--" + +Jack's mind was wandering, but a great smile lit up his face as he +said: "_Bishop--Bishop--is--is--it Cap'n Tom, or--or--Jesus Christ?_" +And so he passed out. + +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. + +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." + +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 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." + +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." + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE SHADOWS AND THE CLOUDS + + +When 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. + +"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." + +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. + +"The dog--and that other one?" + +He sat up nervously in bed, trembling with the thought. The old +surgeon guessed and bade him be quiet. + +"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...." + +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. + +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. + +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: + +"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." + +"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." + +He came over and put his hand affectionately on the other's shoulder. +At its touch Richard Travis softened almost to tears. + +"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 land. We have our own and more than +enough. You will do it, Dick?" + +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--" + +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--" + +The other shook his head. It meant a Travis decision, and his cousin +knew it. + +"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--" + +"He shall have the half of it, Dick, and an education, under our +care. We will make a man of him, Alice and I." + +Richard Travis said no more. + +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. + +A new servant ushered Travis in, for the good old nurse had passed +away, the strain of that terrible night being too much, first, for +her reason, and afterwards, her life. + +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. + +He could no more have said them than he could have profanely touched +her. + +When he left she walked with him to the parting of the ways. + +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. + +The wind came down cool from the frost-tinctured 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. + +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. + +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: + + "What thou art we know not, + What is most like thee? + From rainbow clouds there flow not + Drops so bright to see, + As from thy presence showers a rain of melody." + +She turned and held out her hand. + +"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." + +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. + +Never had the Richard Travis of old done such a thing. + +"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--" + +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: + +"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--" + +"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. + +"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. + +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. + +"Helen--Helen," he said at last, strangely shaken in it all,--"if I +could tell you now that I do--that I could love--" + +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." + +It was simply said, and forceful. It was enough. Richard Travis +blushed for very shame. + +"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?" + +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." + +She saddened: "Oh, but you have wished--you have willed--too +often--too differently. It can never be now." + +"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." + +"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." + +She held his hand tightly as if she did not want him to go. + +"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--" + +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. + +"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--" + +"Do you really think so? Oh, and he has loved me so and is so +splendid and true." + +Travis was silent, waiting. + +"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." + +Then she broke impulsively away, and he watched her walk back through +the shadows and under the clouds. + +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. + +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 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." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE MODEL MILL + + +The 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. + +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. + +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: + +"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. + +"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 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. + +"Now the soul of trade is Selfishness, an' Charity never is invited +over her doorway. + +"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. + +"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'. 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! + +"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! + +"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!" + +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." + +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," 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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"There are two things in the worl'," said the Bishop, "that is as +plain as God could write them without tellin' 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. + +"The other is that every man who works is entitled to a home. + +"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." + +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. + +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 coming +on up the line. This made every mill worker a partner in the mill and +spurred them on to do their best. + +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. + +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. + +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 would shut off the rest of the worl' +from a livin'. We're makin' our livin'--let them make theirs." + +The old bishop was proud of the men he selected to carry out his +plans. Captain Tom was manager of the Model Mill. + +"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." + +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. + +He found afterwards there was really small need of his stringent +rule, for under this system of management the temptations of child +labor were removed. + +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. + +To this was afterwards added a Cottontown school for the younger +children, who before had been slaves to the spinner and doffer carts. + +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. + +"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. + +"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 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. + +"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." + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +In a few years, under this rotation, the farm produced all the cotton +necessary to run The Model Mill, besides raising all its vegetables, +fruit, and bread for all the families of Cottontown. + +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. + +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! + + +THE END. + + + + + +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.txt or 23637.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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